Signs of Peace

The Interfaith Letters of Thomas Merton

William Apel

Orbis Books

2006

This gem of a book invites the reader to study at length the ecumenical perspective of perhaps the most celebrated Christian monk of modern times, Thomas Merton. The author has the inherent good sense to unpack much of the correspondence of the last decade of Merton’s life, a mine of immense worth, and discover that much of Merton’s spiritual growth in these years was closely connected with his increasing interest in promoting interfaith dialogue. In Merton’s own words, it was “a readiness to enter into dialogue with all that is pure, wise, profound and human.” In an uncanny way, Merton anticipated Vatican Council II’s Nostra Aetate as he became in these years what his confrere Patrick Hart called “the ecumenical monk.”

What I found particularly impressive about this book was the manner in which it took seriously the letter-writing apostolate of Merton and joined it to the Trappist monk’s contemplative spirit and his increasingly urgent desire to have all the world religions take greater responsibility for resisting violence and war. There is little question but that by the 1960s Merton’s religious horizon was far beyond what most of his fellow Catholics experienced. More arresting still, his array of correspondents constituted a roster of interfaith virtuosos that few of his peers in the public square could match and one that can serve as a model of how interfaith dialogue should be conducted today.

For further reading: http://www.monasticdialog.com/a.php?id=803