ORBIS SENDS US THIS VERY USEFUL SAMPLER BUT GET THE PRIMARY SOURCES

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	• Thomas Merton: Essential Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters Series) Thomas Merton Orbis Books, 2000 - 191 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An Introduction?

For some this book may be an introduction. For others, like myself, it may be more insight on a spiritual journey. Wherever you are, Thomas Merton has no intention of handing out free tickets. He was, and still is a mystic. He offers suggestions, and he teaches. His words are guidance, and they give direction. Some will accept them and understand, others will not. If you pick up this book looking for answers to your questions you may only find more questions. Instead, just contemplate on the words he speaks. All books by and about him offer a glimpse of who he was, and what he was/is trying to convey. You'll get out of this book whatever you put into it, and nothing more. He is my mentor, and he can be yours.

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Powerful! Just what I needed in a period of confusion!

I am a Catholic who returned to my faith via Eastern ideas of a God of all being. At times I have difficulty aligning my beliefs with those of the Catholic faith, although the strongest truths of Catholosism a believe. Merton helps me bridge this gap and helps me to see the I can be Catholic and believe in that deeper, more existential God. This book was invaluable!

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Powerful! Just what I needed in a period of confusion!

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ORBIS SENDS US THIS VERY USEFUL SAMPLER BUT GET THE PRIMARY SOURCES

We must ever be grateful to the long standing Catholic Publisher Orbis Books, an arm of the MAryknoll Missioner Society, for the excellent catalogue it has developed over the decades. What Orbis published in the eighties is without compare in the world of CAtholic printings, yet much is now lost and no longer available, tragically, as long gone as Pope Paul VI's crucial encyclical Populorum Progressio, also no longer available. See instead the NAtional COnference of Catholic Bishop's own Economic Justice for All.

With that opening salute to Orbis Books, please support their excellent work by receiving gratefully this wonderful sampler of Merton's prolific and prophetic writings. But I urge you to use this as springboard into the corpus itself. Amazon may be the only source left of much of his original writings, and the reader is urged heartfully to search this mighty amazon for all of the Merton you can. Or simply one text, perhaps the one concerning War in the Post-Christian world, or the Letter to a Young Activist, or of course New Seeds of Contemplation, or his study of the Zen Masters.

Orbis is correct, as always. We need this sampler, as finding one particular text of Merton is so difficult. If you are stranded on a desert island, better this sampler than a limited Merton Library.

They say the great intellectual and spiritual Pope Paul VI always flew with trunks full of books, just in case. This is one book to take with you on your journey.

Try, please, to study Merton as he prepared his work for publication, and not in bits and pieces. Thomas Harte certainly helped prepare useful texts post-humously after his assassination in 1968. Study also if you are able the wonderful works of the good priest, Father Ernesto Cardenal, who studied under Merton in his Trappist novitiate, writing poems together until forbidden as un-monkly in the military Abbot's limited perception. In particular, Cardenal's Image Book To Live is to Love is excellent food for contemplation, especially and above all for its super-imposed introduction by Merotn himself.

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not the best collection of writings

I wasn't too impressed with this book -- it doesn't flow very well as a whole. Perhaps a good intro to Merton, but I prefer just reading his writings in whole.

reviews: page 1, 2

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