Around the year 2015, almost 40 people from our Catholic Church left early on the Greyhound bus to visit Abbey of Gethsemani, Louisville, state of Kentucky, U.S., led by Father Anselmo Park who studied The University of Toronto to upgrade his study which is about Thomas Melton, a Trappist monk.

The abbey is a Roman Catholic Monastery in the order of Cistercians of the strict observance.

Liturgy is open to the public. Thomas Melton Center is the official repository 

which includes over thirteen hundred photographs of Merton's artistic estate and nine hundred drawings in addition to his writing. He espoused between East and West, peace, and social justice. 

In addition, I never visited the State of Kentucky, only heard, or read about coal mines, the Kentucky Derby.

The state has such high mountain which brings fuel energy as coal and lush greenery pasture make them hold Kentucky Derby, now coal energy downgraded as polluting air, still is a fascinating state to visit for me.

Our group had only visited the Abbey of Gethsemani attended Gregorian-style Mass and walked around the valley which surrounded the Abbey and visited a gift shop where we bought postcards, books, and looked around a library.

Of course, we took a lot of photographs, yet, we did not visit the graveyard where he was buried.

Thomas Merton was born in 1915 and became a Cistercian Trappist "monk of Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey in 1941.

 He was a monk for 27 years until his untimely accidental death on December 10, 1968, while traveling in Asia at Bangkok. His writings include his autobiography, The Seven-Story Mountain which became a best-seller for post-World War 2 readers seeking spiritual insights to re-orient their lives and to awaken their hope.

He wrote about 100 books that included poetry, personal journals, and so on.

Merton lived hermitage in the woods not far from the monastery, the reason is he was really on meditation, writing, and reading and did not want to be disturbed by all his duties as a monk, so he was granted by the monastery.

The Trappists used physical work to save their soul, most things used in the monastery were produced by monks.

Thomas Merton's writings were his works for God.

"The Merton Collection" initiative has continuously served an international cadre of scholars and students engaged in research, giving access to the world's largest collection of Merton's writings and the mammoth secondary literature about his work.

His most popular autobiography The Seven-Story Mountain, I like one of his poems,

"And when I thought there was no God and no love and no mercy,

you were leading me all the while into the midst of His love and His mercy, and taking me,

without my knowing it, to the house that would hide me in the secret of His Face".

He lost his parents early age but his grandparents supported him and he loved them very much, when he smelled the sweet perfume that reminded him of his grandparents.

He graduated from Columbia University in New York and even when he was a young age, his writing was excelled.

Writing became Thomas Merton's second nature. To write is to think and to live -even to pray, life lived itself through him written in his book.

One of his books, The Intimate Merton, "Since I belong to God and my life belongs to Him and my book is His and He is managing them all for His glory, I only have to take what comes and do the small part that will be allotted to me".

Instead of myself and my Christ and my love and my prayer, there is the might of a prayer stronger than thunder and milder than the flight of doves rising up from the Priest Who is the center of the soul of every priest, shaking the foundations of the universe and lifting up -- me, Host, altar, sanctuary, people, church, abbey, forest, cities, and worlds to God and plunging everything into Him.

"In the presence of this huge power, my own thoughts, words, and affections cannot seem to mean anything!

Not that they have no value whatever, but now they are lost and sublimated in a far greater and simpler prayer that is beyond my comprehension".

The end, not his books, that his vocation is PRAYER----and that makes him happy.

All of us can make our life what we want it to be. There are various ways of being happy. God gives us the freedom to create our own lives, according to His will.

Now, I am really grateful to Father Anselmo who gave us such extraordinary opportunities to visit the Abbey of Gethsemani and make us know better Thomas Merton and have a chance to read more of his books and know him better.

Third week of November,

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