Thomas Merton

His route to faith in Christ was circuitous.  While Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was baptized in the Church of England, he had little religious upbringing.  He lived a wild and reckless life in New York City.  During his early years at Columbia University, he considered himself agnostic.  He read St. Augustine’s Confessions and Thomas a Kempis’ Imitation of Christ at the suggestion of a friend.  He began to pray, took instruction in the Catholic church and was baptized.  He was rejected for candidacy as a Franciscan monk for having fathered a child out of wedlock and eventually joined a strict order of Trappist monks in rural Kentucky.  You can learn about more about his conversion in his autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain.  His book brought him considerable fame and attention, which troubled some of his superiors in the monastic order.  Uncharacteristic for a mystic, he wrote sixty books over his lifetime.  Today’s prayer holds a special place in my life. I came upon it during a time when there were several vexing problems in the church and some people were acting, how shall I say this, like jerks. This prayer was part of a collection of writings and prayers titled Thoughts in Solitude.  He began his prayer with words that resonate with me, “I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me.”  While he expressed doubt about following God’s will, he fell back on the confidence, “I believe that the desire to please you does, in fact, please you.”   He closed with the reassuring words, “You will never leave me to face my perils alone.”  Amen!