2.
Meeting Thomas Merton for the First Time Mary Neill, O.P. It is perhaps presumptuous to include Thomas Merton in any roster of saints since he is not canonized, nor likely to be, since he was careful to write in his voluminous journals sufficient material regarding his failings, doubts, and misgivings to cheer the heart of any devil’s advocate. But if a saint is someone who relentlessly searches for God and inspires others to do likewise, then Merton deserves to be included. Monica Furlong writes of him: “Yet for to those who look on, Merton seems one of the very few in the twentieth century who dared to follow in the footsteps of the saints, who revealed some of their love and self-forgetfulness (as if they had found a center outside the ego and were focused on that). He refused to be a ‘dummy’ for our illusions of holiness.”1 13