The Climate of Monastic Prayer

This guide to monastic prayer, written in 1968 and thus turning out to be Thomas Merton’s final testament to us, is now available in a new edition commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of his death. While he wrote it for other monastics, all seekers drawn to explore the full dimensions of prayer will be enriched by his words, especially as they take on added meaning in today’s dizzying world.

The climate in which monastic prayer flowers is that of the desert, where human comfort is absent, where the secure routines of the “earthly city” offer no support, and where prayer must be sustained by God in the purity of faith.

Thomas Merton (1915-1968), Catholic convert, Cistercian monk and hermit, poet, contemplative, social critic, and pioneer of interreligious dialogue, was a seminal figure of twentieth-century American Christianity.