Day and Merton: Saints in Utah?

By Michael Patrick O’Brien–

My first Boy Monk blog post, two years ago this week, recalled the September 2015 speech by Pope Francis to Congress. The Pope described how American Catholics like Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton had “shaped fundamental values which will endure forever in the spirit of the American people.” He did not mention that some of that shaping involved an unlikely place—my home state of Utah.

Merton never made it here, but Utah often was on his mind and in his writings. Many of his brother Trappist monks left Kentucky’s Abbey of Gethsemani in 1947 to establish the now-closed Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity in Huntsville, Utah. In his journals (later published as 1941-1952: Entering the Silence – Becoming a Monk & Writer), he described the Utah pioneer monks this way: “Most of the best ones went…so many that were close to me….”

Thus, Merton was keenly interested in the trip, and eagerly absorbed firsthand accounts from his departed brothers. He mentioned many Utah-related activities not just in his journals, but also in his popular autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain. He told a detailed story of the westward odyssey in a 1947 Commonweal magazine article and later in his book The Waters of Siloe.

The magazine article, titled “The Trappists Go to Utah,” includes one of my favorite physical descriptions of the place I call my second boyhood home. Merton wrote, “The monks have settled in a wild, lonely spot. To the east of them is nothing but a wilderness without roads or farms. It is a paradise for hunters who, in the past, made the monks’ ranch their base, and worked eastward from there. Deer come down to drink at one of the two plentiful springs on the Trappists’ ranch, and about the only sound you hear in the valley is the howling of coyotes on the mountain side. At least, that was all you heard until the Cistercians set up their bell and began to ring it for Office and Mass.”

Later, one of Merton’s Trappist editors (they were called censors back then) was my friend Father Thomas Aquinas Porter, a scholar from the Utah monastery. Similar to other editor/writer encounters, it was not always a happy relationship (see: My friend, Merton’s censor).

Merton never met Dorothy Day, but they became friends by exchanging letters. Unlike Merton, Day actually came to Utah, maybe twice at least. She briefly described the visit(s) in the regular column (“On Pilgrimage”) she penned for The Catholic Worker, the newspaper she edited. In the March/April 1970 edition, she reported on a visit to Utah to attend the funeral of Ammon Hennacy.

Like Day, Hennacy belonged to the Catholic Worker movement. Day had sent him to Utah several years before to start and operate a homeless shelter (see: Fifty years ago, a Catholic anarchist tried to help solve homelessness in Salt Lake City. Here’s what happened.) Hennacy was a pacifist, an anarchist, and a devoted advocate for the poor. Once when arrested for civil disobedience protesting war, he quipped, “I wasn’t disturbing the peace, I was disturbing the war.”

Day’s column noted that during her 1970 Utah visit, she “had time to visit the famous Mormon Tabernacle and not only hear the choir on Sunday but also attend one of the symphony concerts.” She was here for 4 days, so she may also have visited the Trappist Monastery in Huntsville then. Later in her same 1970 column, she explained, “I had visited the Trappist monastery at Huntsville, Utah and so could not miss a visit with our Trappist friends at Conyers Georgia.”

Day mentioned the Utah monastery again in a September 1978 newspaper column. She wrote, “Eileen Egan sent out some home-made bread and creamed honey from Holy Trinity Abbey, Huntsville, Utah. She’s been attending a meeting of coworkers of Mother Theresa of India nearby—and the Abbot of Holy Trinity had remembered my visit there. The monks sent promises of prayers. Since our beginnings in the thirties, Trappists have been very close to us, and we depend on their prayers.” Egan had accompanied Mother Teresa during her historic 1972 visit to Utah (see: When Mother Teresa came to Utah 44 years ago, the monks knew she would be a saint).

There are few better jumpstarts to a Catholic sainthood campaign than a good old-fashioned papal namedropping. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York has called Day “a saint for our time,” and opened a “canonical inquiry” on her life, which is the first step towards canonization. The Vatican already has designated her as a “servant of God,” just two steps short of sainthood.

Merton is bit behind Day in that process, although his influence has grown since his death. He is known today as a very important Catholic mystic, writer, and thinker. Although Merton has some critics (Day does too), Franciscan writer Richard Rohr calls him a modern day prophet. Merton himself probably best described his status on the path to sainthood: “I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me…” Yet, he was ever certain of God’s grace, “I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” (from Thoughts in Solitude)

Ultimately, the pope has the final say in declaring Catholic saints. Based on his remarks to Congress four years ago, one might surmise that both Day and Merton have a pretty good shot at it. If and when those momentous canonizations occur, it’s heartwarming to know that Utah played a part, even if just a tiny one, of that wonderful history.

*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is writing a book about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah.