Lady, when on that night I left the Island that was your England,
your love went with me, althought I coul dnot know it and
coul dnot make myself aware of it.
It was your love, your intercession for me, before God,
that was preparing the seas before my ship,
laying open the way for me to another country.

I was not sure where I was going,
I could not see what I would do when I got to New York.
But you saw further and clearer than I.
You opened the seas before my ship,
whose track led me across the waters
to a place I never dreamed of,
which you were even then preparing for me
to be my rescue and my shelter and my home.

And when I thought there was no God and no love and no mercy,
you were leading me all the while into the midst of His love and His mercy,
and taking me, without knowing it,
to the house that would hide me in the secret of His face.

— Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain.

Merton died 40 years this day, December 10, 1968, exactly 27 years to the day after he had entered the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky to become a monk.

May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Amen.