Luces, Maureen

Maureen Luces, a 19-year old from Brooklyn, New York, wrote to Merton asking advice about whether to become a cloistered Carmelite nun or to enter a missionary order. Merton's answer to her letter is the only extant piece of correspondence. According to her daughter, Luces was later prevented from entering a convent based on racial exclusion, but became a Fullbright Scholar in France and attended the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. She later married and became a member of the Third Order Carmelites.