This critical edition makes available for the first time Thomas Merton's novitiate conferences on liturgy. Though dating from the period just before the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, Merton's commentaries remain pertinent for their insights on his own commitment to this central dimension of Christian life, on his work introducing students to the patterns that would mark their lives as monks, and on the perennial meaning of the key events of the liturgical year. The thoroughly annotated text is preceded by an extensive introduction situating this material in the context of Merton's lifelong writing on liturgy. As Merton's former student Br. Paul Quenon writes in his foreword: "Nowhere in all of Merton's writings can one find such an extended demonstration of the hermeneutical approach he took in commenting on Scripture. This was focused intensely on finding the meaning Scripture had for our life in God . . . These notes . . . take us into one man's lifetime of reflection and seasoned experience of the Church Year."

Thomas Merton (19151968)Catholic convert, Cistercian monk, hermit, poet, contemplative, social critic, and pioneer in interreligious dialoguewas a seminal figure of twentieth-century American Christianity. Among his many books are his best-selling autobiographyThe Seven Storey Mountain and the modern spiritual classicNew Seeds of Contemplation. The present volume is the third and last in the series of his Novitiate Conferences on Scripture and Liturgy.



Patrick F. OConnell, a founding member and former president of the International Thomas Merton Society, edits its quarterly publication,The Merton Seasonal, and is coauthor ofThe Thomas Merton Encyclopedia (2002). He has edited many volumes of Mertons writings, including most recently for Cascade BooksA Monastic Introduction to Sacred Scripture (2020) andNotes on Genesis and Exodus (2021), the two previous volumes in the Novitiate Conferences trilogy.