The Life of the Vows: Initiation into the Monastic Tradition 6

  • Year 2012
  • Type Treatise
  • Genre spiritual theology
  • Tradition Catholic
  • Original language English

For For readers who want Merton as a teacher of the monastic tradition; lecture notes for novices, thorough but not written for the general public.

Should I read this?

For the general reader
2 of 5 worth a look
For the researcher
3 of 5 worth your time
Difficulty
3 of 5 demanding

His novitiate conferences on the monastic vows, from his teaching notes.

How it proceeds
  • Philosophic 2 of 5
  • Scriptural 2 of 5
  • Experiential 3 of 5
  • Sociological 3 of 5
  • Historical 2 of 5

Independent intensities, 0–5 — what the work is made of, not how good it is.

The Life of the Vows is volume 6 of Initiation into the Monastic Tradition, the edition of Merton's novitiate conferences in the Monastic Wisdom series of Cistercian Publications (distributed by the Liturgical Press), edited by Patrick F. O'Connell and published in 2012. As master of novices at Gethsemani from 1955 to 1965, Merton was responsible for the formation of young men preparing for monastic profession, and he wrote out and taught a broad series of courses on the monastic tradition, which he called an initiation into that tradition. This volume prints his notes for the course on the monastic vows.

Catalog IDW.B75DFB.1

Edition details and descriptions on this page were compiled with the aid of AI research tools. Readers are encouraged to verify specifics (publisher, translator, edition year) against the originating source before purchase or citation.