The Seven Storey Mountain Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B002N329WO | Format: PDF
The Seven Storey Mountain Description
The Seven Storey Mountain is the extraordinary spiritual testament of Thomas Merton (1915-1968), a man who experienced life to its fullest in the world before entering a Trappist monastery. By the end of his life, he had become one of the 20th century's best-known and beloved Christian voices. This autobiography deals...not with what happens to a man, but what happens inside his soul.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 2 hours and 33 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Abridged
- Publisher: Phoenix Books
- Audible.com Release Date: May 1, 2012
- Language: English
- ASIN: B002N329WO
Today I delivered a gift copy of this book to a widow, "Grace" whose husband had been my late father's closest childhood friend. A week earlier, Grace had asked: "Have you ever read Thomas Merton's SEVEN STOREY MOUNTAIN? I read it in 1953; and found it very moving. I'd love to find a copy and read it again."
When I presented her with a new copy of this edition, I asked if I could read aloud my favorite passage (early in the book) concerning Thomas Merton's `little brother' John Paul (five years younger) who, like his older brother was a French-born, American citizen.
Late in the book Thomas Merton tells us how John Paul was compelled early in WWII to join the Royal Canadian Air Force (and trained right here in Manitoba! John Paul Merton had been flying bombing runs over a real sandy desert on the prairie just outside nearby Camp Shilo, where today's Canadian Artillery Officers still train. My late father was flown at Canadian Army expense each year, late in life, to address the graduating officers at that camp: Small world!)
Just before leaving for overseas, John Paul flew to see his older brother Thomas and, not incidentally, be Baptized, and welcomed into the Catholic faith. Then he left for England (and was killed in action the next year, when his RAF bomber went down over the English Channel).
His death provides the moving culmination to this book - bringing the reader `full circle' from the moment (back on page 25) when Thomas Merton introduces us to John Paul. (What follows is the passage that moves me to tears when I read it aloud to a friend.
The Seven Storey Mountain Preview
Link
Please Wait...