Reflections on Thomas Merton on the 25th Anniversary of His Death

It was almost 25 years ago, and I was in graduate school at Columbia University when the news of Thomas Merton's death came. It was December during Advent; I was living on campus, and the event caused me to reflect in a special and particular way. For while I had no direct connection to Merton, the relationship of each of us to Columbia was a significant one. His words in The Seven Storey Mountain about the University which we both appreciated had always struck me as so accurate. "Poor Columbia! It was founded by sincere Protestants as a college predominately religious. The only thing that remains of that is the University motto: In lumine tuo videbimus lumen one of the deepest and most beautiful lines of the psalms: 'In Thy light, we shall see light.' It is, precisely, about grace. It is a line that might serve as the foundation stone of all Christian and Scholastic learning, and which simply has nothing whatever to do with the standards of education at modern Columbia."'