Merton came to embrace the profound relationship that developed between his vocation to the silence of his monastic life and its rich and sacralizing effects on his poetics. Against all expectation and in spite of the persistent efforts of the Catholic Church to silence him in the ’60s, Merton emerged as one of the most prominent and effective social critics in twentieth-century America.

At that moment, he experienced the unshakable conviction that he was the one Self—present in all beings. His natural gift for poetry began to flow unimpeded and from that day forward all his poetical writings were solely an expression of his full realization.