Thomas Merton is one of the most well-known and influential spiritual writers of the twentieth century, especially on the topic of prayer.

His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, is considered one of the finest accounts of conversion and spiritual transformation ever written.

In Merton’s early years, he was very focused on worldly things, especially the pursuit of pleasure.

Then after becoming Catholic, he began to yearn for a deeper union with God. He entered the Gethsemani Monastery in Kentucky, and spent the last 27 years of his life as a monk, poet, and writer.

Learn more about Thomas Merton in this short video:

An excerpt from

173. Naturally, this attitude of listening entails obedience to the Gospel as the ultimate standard, but also to the Magisterium that guards it, as we seek to find in the treasury of the Church whatever is most fruitful for the “today” of salvation. It is not a matter of applying rules or repeating what was done in the past, since the same solutions are not valid in all circumstances and what was useful in one context may not prove so in another. The discernment of spirits liberates us from rigidity, which has no place before the perennial “today” of the risen Lord. The Spirit alone can penetrate what is obscure and hidden in every situation, and grasp its every nuance, so that the newness of the Gospel can emerge in another light.