School of Charity
I.
The Early Monastic Years 1941-1959
Our studies and writing should by their very nature contribute to our contemplation at least remotely and contemplation in turn should be able to find expression in channels laid open for it and deepened by familiarity with the Fathers of the Church. This is an age that calls for St. Augustines and Leos, Gregorys and Cyrils!
THOMAS MERTON IN A LETTER TO JEAN LECLERCQ, APRIL 22, 1950
To Abbot Frederic Dunne, O.C.S.O.
Frederic Dunne (1874-1948) was Abbot of Gethsemani when Thomas Merton first made a retreat at the monastery in Holy Week, 1941. Returning to St. Bonaventure College in upstate New York, where he was teaching, Merton wrote Abbot Frederic his first letter, expressing gratitude for the retreat. Frederic Dunne had come from a family of printers and bookbinders in Zanesville, Ohio, near the birthplace coincidentally of Merton's mother, Ruth Jenkins. It was natural enough for Abbot Frederic, who valued the printed word, to encourage the young poet to write and it was also fortunate for Merton, as subsequent events proved.
St. Bonaventure College, New York May 1, 1941
You must undoubtedly have received hundreds of letters like the one which I am about to try to write, from people who have had the privilege of spending a few days in retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani, and returned to the world again deeply moved with gratitude to Almighty God for having been able to see what is there to see. For it can be more truly said of this community than of the most active imaginable, that it is that city which is set upon a hill, and cannot be hid.
I don't think it would be possible for any human being, certainly for any Christian, to set foot inside the Abbey without at once realizing that he is in the palace of the Queen of Heaven, and since I have been there, I cannot deny that I believe that the prayers of your community are among the only things that are keeping the world together in this horrible and dangerous time, when even those of us in the world who try to be sincere Catholics and followers of Christ, are really shot through with the most insidious indifference and complacency and false, facile piety. We outside are yielding, without knowing it, to the proud and self-indulgent standards of the world that is all around us, and never find it out, unlesswe chance upon the rare places, like Gethsemani, where the monks never forget how, in a garden, the apostles slept and the Lord was betrayed.
The work of the monks is not merely that they remain prostrate before the tabernacle while the whole pagan world wanders in the terrible unhappiness of a desert of sin. But it is also that they remain watchful while we, who call ourselves Catholics but are only weak and unprofitable servants, thinking that we watch and pray, are sleeping almost as deeply as everyone else. Truly, if we were good Catholics, the whole world would be different: many would see us and be converted. How much of the punishment that is falling on the world are we responsible for, who are nothing but proud and complacent and lazy and pleasure-loving Catholics, and a scandal to people who are being hunted up and down by their sins, and looking for a place of refuge!
We are asleep, and our prayers are little more than trances. We are inarticulate, we are deaf-mutes: and only you, who have been silenced by a vow, really have your tongues loosed, and can speak, because you are not concerned with arguments and justifications before men, but only with speaking to God and His angels and His saints.
We, with our prayers cluttered with cares for ourselves, for our comfort, and for our safety, and for our success in some project that will get us money and reputation, we think we pray, and we are only talking to ourselves, because we only love ourselves! Where would we be if we did not have you to pray for us!
Then may Almighty God hear your prayers for the rest of us, and awaken us from our selfish sleep, and arm us in this battleground where we have let ourselves at last be surrounded, because we were thinking only of peace in terms of fleshly rest, and had forgotten we were given, on earth, not peace but a sword.
It is not necessary for us to ask that you pray for us, because if you hadn't already prayed for us, we would be lost: and when we have said, in our hearts, that we believe in the Communion of Saints, that is as much as if we had written a hundred letters, asking for your prayers. However, I am enclosing a very small check, and beg you in your charity to have said two masses for my particular intention.
The twenty-six-year-old Tom Merton arrived at Gethsemani on December 10, 1941, and was given a room in the guest house. After three days he was received into the novitiate, and on February 22, 1942, was given the habit of a novice and began his novitiate life. At the suggestion of his Novice Master, the future Abbot Robert McGann (of Holy Spirit Monastery in Georgia, which Gethsemani founded in 1944), Frater Louis penned a letter to Abbot Frederic Dunne explaining his conversion experience, detailing the various places where he had lived and studied until the time of his entry at Gethsemani. It was probably an effort to fulfill the canonical requirement stating the various dioceses in which he had lived for over a year before entering Gethsemani.
[Gethsemani Novitiate] January 2, 1942
At the suggestion of my Father Master, I am writing out for you this outline of the main facts of my life and education, including, in particular, the circumstances of my conversion and vocation.
I was born Jan. 31, 1915, in Prades, France, in the diocese of Perpignan, of Protestant parents. My father was a native of New Zealand, my mother an American. Both are now dead; my mother died when I was six, my father in 1931. I have no knowledge of having received even a Protestant baptism. It is barely possible that I did: but no record exists of it, and no one is left to tell me.
In 1916 my parents brought me to America. I lived here until 1925 when I returned to France with my father. Then I went to the Lycée of Montauban--a public institution of secondary education, for two years. In 1928 I was sent to England, where from 1929 to 1932 I attended Oakham School at Oakham, Rutland, in the Diocese of Nottingham. This was my address from the age of 14 to 16½. After that I came to America and lived most of 1933 with my grandparents at Douglaston, Long Island, in the Diocese of Brooklyn. During the scholastic year 1933-4 I attended Cambridge University, in England, on a scholarship in modern languages. My home address, however, was my grandparents' residence--50 Rushmore Ave., Douglaston, Long Island, N.Y. In fact this was really my home address., although most of the time I was away at school, from 1931 to 1934. But I actually lived there from 1934 to 1939. During that time I attended Columbia University, where I got a B.A. degree, and later I pursued my studies and took an M.A. in English, and even did some work towards the degree of Ph. D. I taught English at Columbia one term.
My next address, 1939-40, was 35 Perry Street, New York City, in the Archdiocese of New York.
After that, from June 1940 to December 1941 my address was St. Bonaventure College, St. Bonaventure, N.Y., in the Diocese of Buffalo. There I was employed as an assistant professor of English.
As to my conversion: I had been brought up without much religious training of any kind. My grandparents gave money to the Episcopal Church, but never attended it. My father was a just, devout and prayerful man, but he did not like the Protestant cenacles in France, and never went to the length of becoming a Catholic. He died a good Anglican. The school I went to in England was Anglican, but I protested against the liberal teaching in religion we received there, and because it seemed to me to have no substance to it, I proudly assumed that this was the case with all religions, and obstinately set my face against all churches. Thus from the time of my leaving Oakham School until 1938, I gradually passed from being anti-clerical and became a complete unbeliever. The consequences of this in my life were disastrous. My only concern was with earthly things; thinking myself passionately devoted to "justice" and "liberty"I began to take an interest in atheistic communism, and, for a while, I held the "doctrines" of radicalism, concerning religious institutions: namely that they were purely the result of social and historical forces and, however well-meaning their adherents, they were nothing more than social groups, which the rich made use of to oppress the poor!!!
Suffice it to say that I could not be happy holding such beliefs; and the earthly life, which promised happiness on a purely natural level, had instead brought me great disappointments and shocks and miseries: and I was making bigger and bigger mistakes and becoming more and more confused. I began to realize that my interpretation of the natural order was very mistaken.
As a result of studies and reading which familiarized me with the works of Etienne Gilson and Jacques Maritain, but particularly as the result of the work of God's grace which now began to move me with the most urgent promptings of desire, I began going to Mass at Corpus Christi Church, West 121st Street, New York. And there, I soon began to take instruction and was happily baptized on November 16, 1938.
After that, with many graces from God and many instances of stupidity and ingratitude on my own part, I began, too slowly, the long-needed amendment of my life. In September 1939, considering that my life was still far short of what I desired, I began to pray for a vocation to the priesthood. At that time I was considering the Order of Friars Minor. I even sent an application for admission to that order, and was accepted: however, before beginning the novitiate, I recalled an incident of my past life, and believing this made me unworthy to be a priest, and supported in this belief by a friend who was a priest, I withdrew my application and did not enter the novitiate. Instead, I went to work at St. Bonaventure College, in order to live as nearly as possible the life I would have led if my hopes had not been disappointed. I then discovered that this life also was too easy-going and worldly and relaxed for me; it was well that I had not gone on and entered the Franciscan novitiate! However, I became a Franciscan Tertiary, and by means of daily Communion and other sources of Divine Grace, attempted to advance in the paths of Christian life.
With the passage of time, I was still much unsatisfied, and having heard of the Trappists from a friend [Dan Walsh], I decided to make a retreat here at Gethsemani, which I did during Holy Week, 1941. From the very first moment of entering the monastery I was overwhelmed with the holiness and sanctified atmosphere that filled it, and by the end of that week I was filled with an intense desire to enter this community. However, I still believed that I had no choice in the matter and that, being "unworthy" of the priesthood, it would be useless for me to ever think of applying to be admitted here. Nevertheless I was praying for a Trappist vocation against all hope. The whole situation made me intensely miserable. I returned to my work, and all the impressions I had brought from Gethsemani remained with me all summer--and grew in strength,with my desire to consecrate myself entirely to God as a monk--or if not as a monk, by some other perfect sacrifice of the world: just what, I did not know: but I thought of going as a permanent worker with Baroness de Hueck, in Harlem, where I did actually spend two weeks.
During this time, I was so much at a loss for an answer to my question, for out of shame at the situation in my past which had created this problem, I dared consult no one about it--I finally resolved on saying some prayers and opening the Bible and seeing what answer I would get in this way. With great amazement and fear I read the first words that my eyes fell upon, and they were "Ecce eris tacens!" [Behold, you will be silent!]--the words of the angel to Zacharias. Even at this surprisingly clear indication of what I was to do, I remained uncertain for some time, and made a retreat early in September at Our Lady of the Valley [Cistercian abbey in Rhode Island].
Finally, this fall I decided to consult another friend, a priest, and one more learned and experienced than my former adviser. This time I was told that the problem I had in mind was no obstacle to my becoming a priest--which turned out to be the case when I submitted it to your consideration through Father Master, on my arrival here.
I came to Gethsemani December 10, and was admitted to the community on the Feast of St. Lucy, December 13; and now with many prayers and thanks to Almighty God I beg Him to make me, the least of all His servants, totally His so that my past life of rebellious sins and ingratitude may be burned clean away in the fire of His infinite love--for which I know I humbly share in the merit of your prayers, my Reverend Father!
Before making temporary profession, Frater Louis made out a will for the period of three years preceding solemn vows. This document throws interesting light on a provision he made in a letter to his godfather, Dr. Tom Bennett. Obviously, there was uncertainty in Merton's mind as to the whereabouts of "the person [he met while at Cambridge University] mentioned to [Dr. Bennett] ... in my letters, if that person can be found." But it does manifest a responsibility for past actions on the part of the young monk.
February 17, 1944
I, Thomas James Merton, in religion frater M. Louis, formerly of St. Bonaventure, State of New York, now of Gethsemani (Trappist Post Office) in the County of Nelson, State of Kentucky, being about to make my simple vows in the religious community known as the Abbey of Gethsemani (a corporation under and by virtue of the laws of said State of Kentucky) of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, make the following dispositions concerning my property.
1. I hereby designate Robert Lax, of the Olean House, Olean, New York, as recipient of the yearly dividends from the stock held by me in the firm of Grosset and Dunlap, Inc., 1170 Broadway, New York,
N.Y. until such time as I shall make a further settlement of my property.
2. I reserve to myself all right, title and interest and all other real and personal property that I may now possess or may acquire during my time of simple profession.
3. I hereby appoint the Right Reverend Frederic M. Dunne, Abbot of the said Abbey of Gethsemani, or his successor in office, executor, administrator and trustee of the entire income of my property, both real and personal, until such time as I make my solemn profession in said religious Order.
4. Should I die during the term of my said simple profession I give and bequeath my property as follows:
a) The shares in my Optional Savings Shares Account No. 101533, held in the Railroad Federal Building and Loan Society, 441 Lexington Ave, New York, N.Y. to be divided equally between my sister-in-law, Mrs. Margaret M. Merton, of 61 Camden Street, Birkenhead, Cheshire, England, and my guardian, T. Izod Bennett Esq., M.D., of 29 Hill Street, Berkeley Square, London, W. 1.--this second half to be paid by him to the person mentioned to him by me in my letters, if that person can be found.
b) All the remainder of my property, both real and personal, to which I may have any right, title or interest at the time of my death, I give and bequeath to the before mentioned Abbey of Gethsemani.
Given under my hand and seal this 17th day of February 1944.
[Signed] Thomas James Merton fr. M. Louis, O.C.S.O. Signed, sealed, published and delivered by the above named frater M. Louis in the presence of us, who at his request and in the presence of each other and in his presence have hereto subscribed our names as witnesses this 17th day of February 1944.
[Signed] M. Robert McGann M. Walter Helmstetter
To Abbot Frederic Dunne
March 6, 1944
As our profession is drawing close, I suppose I ought to have something to say for myself, although really I can't find anything that is not simply trivial. If it is a question of telling you what great progress in virtue I have made--I simply don't know whether I have made any progress or not, and seem to have no way of telling. But over and above that, there is nothing that disgusts me more than trying to analyze myself, and paying attention to my "progress." Regnum Dei non venit cum observatione [The Kingdom of God comes not with observation].
And yet, Our Lord said "Vigilate!" [Watch!]. But that is another thing again: for the vigilance of desire is my whole life. It is all I have to offer Jesus. I have no virtues (nothing striking), and I am full of all the trivial and embarrassing weaknesses that only a fool would be surprised to find in himself. But I do want Jesus to come. And to come quickly, to me and the whole world. "Deus meus, ne tardaveris!" Si moram fecerit, expecta eum ["My God, do not tarry!" If he delays, wait for him].
And thus with my loins girt up and with the lighted lamp of faith in my hand, I sit in the absolute darkness where He has placed me, and hope against hope for the cry "Ecce Sponsus venit, exite obviam ei" [Behold the Spouse is coming, go forth to meet him].
All I am interested in is, not myself, but Him.
And yet my "self" is always clamoring for attention. What of it? If I keep waiting for Jesus in patience, and look only for Him, the clamors will eventually die down.
As for profession: when (and if) I lie prostrate before you on the Feast of St. Joseph, I shall be begging God to deliver me from the bitter burden of all my self-will and own judgment.
That is the only cross that is too hard--the cross that makes every other cross crush us to the ground. If I can only get rid of these, all other crosses will be light and easy.
Therefore I hereby present you with all my will, all my judgment, all my powers of body and soul to do with as you please, according to the Rule and Constitutions and the counsel of our Savior.
And I desire and beg Jesus to accept this holocaust, through you, for three intentions:
1) For His peace on earth--that is, that He may dwell in the hearts of men and end this war.
2) For my brethren in the monastery--for whom I promise that my desire and confidence shall be without limit, that they may become great saints. And I offer up my every act down to my last breath for these, but especially my superiors.
3) For all that I ever knew or had any connection with in the world, that all those with whom I was associated in my sinful life may be saved.
There will be many other intentions, and I know you will help me with your prayers always to please Jesus with the vigilance of loving faith, so that at last I may be able to say "Quae placita sunt ei facio semper" [I do always the things that please him].
To Dom Vital Klinski, O.C.S.O.
Dom Vital Klinski (1886-1966) was born in Poland and entered the Cistercian abbey of Achel in Belgium in 1904; he was elected Abbot of Achel on August 29, 1920, but resigned his office in 1927 and entered Gethsemani on November 19, 1927. Merton's "silver jubilee" greeting and joyful sketch with an abbot's mitrecan be dated on the feast of the beheading of St. John the Baptist, August 29, 1945. Dom Vital, Merton's confessor during these years (which explains the text in part), died at Gethsemani on June 3, 1966.
[August 29, 1945]
I only attempted to draw the mitre, not the jubilarian underneath and in it. On such an occasion as this, that would require a Michelangelo. But anyway all best wishes on this happy day of your silver Jubilee as a Father and Abbot of souls--our "Pastor Bonus" in whom we see only Jesus. All our prayers are for you--especially of course our Holy Communion, Holy Mass and Rosary on this day. And in honor of the decollation of St. John Baptist I present you with my own head--that is, judgement and will, on a silver platter. Ad multos annos! [Many more years!] Vivat! Vivat! Feliciter! [Long may he live! Happily!]
Your devoted son, fr. M. Louis
To Abbot Frederic Dunne
[undated--probably 1946 or 1947]
Dear Rev. Father,
As you will probably have many notes to read tomorrow, I am sending St. Lutgarde [drawing done around the time he was writing What Are These Wounds?] to wish you a happy feast, instead of writing a note. She will tell you all my good wishes and prayers for you on this day. Your devoted child in Jesus,
fr. M. Louis
Abbot Frederic died while traveling to Gethsemani's foundation of Holy Spirit Monastery in Georgia in August 1948. Shortly before leaving, he had placed the first copy of The Seven Storey Mountain in the young monk's hands, and he seemed more pleased than Merton. Abbot James For (1896-1987), who was thesuperior of the group of founders in Georgia, replaced Frederic Dunne as Abbot of Gethsemani. The first of Merton's letters to the new abbot, undated, was doubtless written in the spring of 1949 and apparently refers (as do later letters in the series) to the fame and notoriety which resulted from the publication of The Seven Storey Mountain in October 1948. Abbot James remained Merton's superior for the next twenty years; he resigned his offices in January 1968, the year of Merton's death, and lived a semi-eremitical life until his own death on Good Friday, April 17, 1987.
To Abbot James Fox, O.C.S.O.
[Spring, 1949]
Another protocol from Chop Suey Louie the mad Chinese poet.
It is just to say that I am picturing that immediate goal that Dr. de Quevedo [visiting psychiatrist] wants us all to aim at. What is it? It is this: a very obscure, quiet, unknown, unnoticed monk: a little guy who goes quietly around without attracting any attention for anything whatever, not complaining about anything and not expressing opinions, doing what he is told and being completely docile and blank as far as the exterior goes--except of course for a happy sort of an expression. I want to be as near as possible to nothing and nobody in the community--and everywhere else too--as a monk can possibly be. The reason for my wanting this is that I am altogether sick of myself and I want to do everything I can to cease existing as an ego outside of God.
I do not aim at the heights, I aim at the depths. Not at what is exalted and spectacular but what is humble and unenviable and unattractive and blank. I aspire to become a nonentity and to be forgotten. In the present situation it will take a little deliberate work to get to be that way and I don't see quite how to go about it, but anyway I'll make an honest effort, and ask Jesus to show me the rest of the way. I have got more to get rid of than anybody else in the community.
May God bless you, Rev. Father, and give you grace to guide and lead this great big community. No man can do it. God has got to do the job. But He will. And I will keep seeing Him there, doing the job. And I'll cooperate by disappearing into His will and being whatever He wants me to become which, I hope, is nothing.
May Day of Recollection, 1949
I am glad to be having this day of recollection before ordination, instead of after. My personal ideal in the priesthood is one of complete obscurity and simplicity. I ask Jesus to make me a purely contemplative priest. He has plenty of active workers, missionaries, preachers, spiritual directors, masters of novices, etc. But He has so few who are concerned with Him alone, in simplicity, silence, recollection and constant prayer.I beg Him daily that I may always be one of those few, and that I may live the life of pure union with Him that was led by the forgotten saints.
I want to be a forgotten and unknown saint, hidden in God alone. I feel entirely out of sympathy with all the activity and noise of our day and age. Publicity may be necessary for the Church, but I beg God to spare me from it, and from all the constant movement and action and preaching and talking and business and display which seem to have become part of Christian as well as worldly life. All that is not for me. May God preserve us from it and keep us for Himself alone in silence and prayer--a life of obscure suffering and devotion to Him in the humblest things. I know you are praying for me and be sure I am always praying for you. Please give me a big blessing ...
[Summer 1949]
... You can guess that the two hours between 2 and 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon, when you let me go out into the woods, were two of the happiest hours I have ever spent in my life. When I am alone, Jesus is with me at once. I am "never less alone than when I am alone." When people are around, I find it a little difficult to find Jesus. As soon as I am away from others, Jesus is there and all is at peace.
I think that in those two hours I understood things I had never known before about Gethsemani and about my own vocation. It helps a great deal to see Gethsemani from the outside. Inside we are so close to one another and to our own little interests that things get out of perspective. And we are so much on top of one another that we forget the marvelous solitude that Gethsemani really is, I mean even physically! Few monasteries in the world can beat our situation, as far as isolation is concerned. It only remains for us to take advantage of it. I am not talking about others. God has His plans for each one of us. For me, it remains to take advantage of all the wonderful opportunities the Sacred Heart is putting in my way. It may seem a little funny, it may look funny to others: I mean, I am a little outside the common life. But it is for the common life, Rev. Father, that Jesus draws me apart. He knows that solitude is something that I need in order to make me appreciate the common life and enter into it more fruitfully. If you only knew what it meant to me to be able to go into choir and sing the praises of the Sacred Heart after having been with Him out in the hills!
And out in the woods, too, I was conscious that every step and every movement of my heart which leapt up to the Holy Trinity in perfect unison with the heartbeats of Jesus's Sacred Heart, all this was the continuation and expression of my Mass that morning. Gee, it was perfect. I felt more myself than I have been for years--but the Mass is making me more myself day after day and so is the vault [the rare-book room which was given to Merton for writing].
This is only to say, then, Rev. Father, how much I appreciate yourbroad-mindedness and your help in letting Our Lord form me in His own way. And above all, dear Rev. Father, I want to promise and assure you that I won't be ungrateful. I mean with my whole heart to make use of these dispositions of His will, through obedience, in order to strengthen my vocation and to be a useful member of the Gethsemani community and a true Cistercian monk. I know that if I do these things I will be travelling the right path. Not only you, but Dom Dominique [Abbot General] was so explicit and firm in telling me to take the opportunities offered by this writing job and use them in the interests of contemplation. Everyone says that my true vocation has been marked out by the peculiar circumstances of Gethsemani plus this job. At the same time, it will be my joy to get out to the common work when I can, and I shall do so regularly once a week, or more often if you so desire. I am glad to have the certainty that God wills me to travel to Him not only in community but also with the solitude He has provided for me. How ungrateful I would be to complain when He has gone out of His way to smooth out my path to Him. May Jesus bless you in everything and show you more and more how to lead us all by the ways of contemplation and peace and teach us to rely more and more on Him to guide us through you.
So I renew my vows and promises of obedience and everything else I can renew and a few other things besides, and give myself to the work of paying attention to what goes on in the sanctuary so as to become a worthy priest when the time comes, a humble and obedient and peaceful priest, one who will vanish into Jesus and no longer be seen. Then my whole life can be one of love and contemplation and union with Him. He has been very good to me in keeping me out of all the noise and fanfare that surrounded the centenary, and I hope He will continue to do so.
To Dom Humphrey Pawsey, O. Cart.
Dom Humphrey Pawsey, a Carthusian monk of St. Hugh's Charterhouse in England, which was planning an American foundation, learns from this letter of Merton's how publicity works in America.
June 21, 1949
It is a long time since I have written to you and I cannot remember whether I have acknowledged the two volumes of Denis that finally completed our set, as well as the charming little volume of Meditations on the Sacred Heart.
We have celebrated our centenary here with unavoidable fuss. If you Carthusians ever come to America you will have to be more heroic than you ever were in preserving your purity against the incursions of this incorrigibly curious and enthusiastic "race," if you can call it such.
One reason why I have not written to you is that I have been tooashamed of myself. Perhaps you have heard some rumor of the awful notoriety that has descended upon me as the result of having suddenly become a "best seller" as an author. My Superiors--meaning especially the late dear Dom Frederic, God rest his soul--had me write a book which happened to be my own story. I wrote it, for better or for worse, and it has already sold two hundred thousand copies. An English edition, somewhat chastened by the critical talent of Evelyn Waugh, has now appeared and if you have not seen Elected Silence, I shall have the publisher send you a copy. Over here it was called The Seven Storey Mountain . What is stranger still, a book on contemplation which is strictly ascetic and mystical and in no sense popular [Seeds of Contemplation] is now being devoured by the public of this land, selling especially in Hollywood, of all places. I utterly give up trying to understand what is going on.
Perhaps you can guess, dear Father, that, all joking aside, this situation is extremely painful for me and is the occasion of a deep interior struggle which makes me ask myself if I can possibly continue in an atmosphere of such activity in which, for instance, one is liable to be called up on the telephone by newspaper reporters and in which a house full of retreatants is thirsting for autographs. Please remember me in your prayers, and perhaps your Venerable Father Prior would also pray for me. I cannot be more explicit but he will understand, I am sure. My vocation is contemplative and I simply must fulfill it ...
Our dear Lord has strengthened me against this business by bringing me to the conclusion of my theological studies and so to the priesthood. And without doubt there is nothing that can happen to a man on earth, even American publicity, that cannot find superabundant compensation in the Holy Mass. Be sure that I remember you and all your Order when I am at the altar. Jacques Maritain told me to send a copy of the book to Dom Porion [Carthusian Procurator General], and I did so, receiving a charming letter from him, in return. On the other hand, my Superiors do not want me to have anything more to do, in an active way, with the Carthusian foundation, so here the matter rests, as far as my own poor part in it may be concerned. I did get in a recommendation to one Bishop, however. For the rest, it is in my prayers.
We sent you a big, flamboyant book of pictures of Gethsemani which we put out as a centenary souvenir. It makes Gethsemani look so gorgeous that when I read it I forget my troubles. Don't let it upset you. Remember that paper is patient, and takes anything.
We can still absorb some more volumes of Denis, paying for them or bartering for them as you please, starting with his commentary on the Psalms for our Utah monastery.
To Abbot James Fox
September 10, 1949
Hoping this will not be too late to catch you at Cîteaux [in France], I am enclosing some notes which I wrote out for Fr. Timothy [Vander Vennet] with suggestions for building up our theological course next year. You may have time to meditate on them on a train or somewhere--and perhaps you might see fit to submit them to someone in the know over there and get their reaction. The idea is of course to make Gethsemani, as you said, a sort of West Point or Annapolis for Cistercians. We should really organize our little seminary and make the house a center of really first-class studies in spiritual theology, especially Cistercian Fathers and mystical theology, with stress also on the canon law and other points so necessary for future superiors. This really involves a sort of long-term plan. It should be something settled and definite and in my opinion it would almost merit a small, separate seminary building where there would be plenty of space for classes and study, quiet atmosphere and so on. It is so hard to get away from organ practicing, power lawn-mowers, tractors, etc., and although I am pretty impervious to noise I still feel the strain of working with the traxcavator going. It would be easier on students' nerves, etc. One extremely important element about this plan would be to expand the range of studies without putting an inhuman burden on the students. In many cases the classes would have to be discussion groups in which texts would be read and commented on then and there, with each one offering his own little contribution. This would minimize the danger of boys going off and cramming their heads with facts and cracking their brains with memory work and just generating a whole lot of nervous tension, without any outlet or expression for what is going on inside their heads. I believe that is one of the big sources of nervous trouble in our life.
In any case, I know you agree that the Holy Ghost really seems to want a center of spiritual studies somewhere in the Order in USA and Gethsemani seems the logical place because we have such a good library, although Utah would have the right atmosphere and climate. It would take care of part of the winter problem in Utah.
Another point that might be worthwhile asking our Reverendissimus [Abbot General] about. Suppose we put up a little chapel in the woods behind the lake, about twenty or 25 minutes' walk from the monastery. This would enable a monk to get away once in a while and be a center where one might have little retreats in solitude and silence, especially valuable for those with heavy jobs, guestmasters, cellarers, brother cooks for seculars, priors, abbots even! There they could get away. This plan would allow of several interpretations.
1) A small chapel: one could let a single monk go and spend thewhole day there perhaps. Key to the place in possession of first superior, permission only given by him, of course.
2) Small chapel to which a group of five or six might be allowed to go and spend the day, leaving abbey after Chapter, reciting offices in common out there, but separating at other times to read and pray by themselves in the woods. They could take some food along for a frugal "dinner" and return home for supper. This plan seems to me to be the best; it retains a certain cenobitic element. One might do this two or three days in succession, with a "retreat master" preaching two short conferences, in the case of retreats prescribed for ordinations, solemn professions, etc. Novices would generally not go out there, at least at first. It should be reserved for the mature members of the community.
3) A regular little grange in the woods with a chapel, dormitory, refectory, kitchen and scriptorium, all very small and simple, with a monk permanently in residence (guess who??) and a brother also. These two could take care of the place, and retreatants could come out almost any time, singly or in groups as big as five, not more. I think this would be ideal, myself. The "master of the grange" could be a sort of retreat master as well, but nothing elaborate about the retreats! Leave everything to the Holy Ghost and let individuals find themselves and get back on their feet alone with God in the woods. This grange could be farther away from the abbey and deeper in solitude.
Naturally the strictest silence would always be observed out there and whatever meals would be served, if it were a regular grange, would be very frugal and simple. The grange idea would be something like a Carmelite Desert. I am really deadly in earnest about this. It seems to me we have a wonderful solitude here, as good as can be found anywhere in the Order, but our big crowded, cramped abbey in the middle of it robs most of us of the fruits of the solitude. I am convinced that this project would do an immense amount to help us advance in contemplation and divine union, above all it would break down the rigidity and cramped spirituality that some get into, and I know the younger generation would blossom out and expand mightily with such an opportunity. What do you think, Reverend Father? It will bear thinking and praying over, anyway. I hope the Holy Ghost will work something out for us. I know for my own part that in the last year I have drawn more fruit from my little opportunities to be alone with God, which you have so kindly given me, than I could have got from almost anything else I can think of. Everything is very well under control at Gethsemani. If you were away in spiritual retreat in the woods, instead of on business, it would go just as well, wouldn't it? May our dearest Lady lead us ever into deeper and deeper solitude and silence and into the peace of divine union.
The following letter was written to Dom James Fox while he was making a Visitation at Our Lady of the Valley, a Cistercian monastery in Rhode Island, which later transferred to St. Joseph's Abbey, Spencer, Massachusetts.
October 1, 1949
This is intended to find you safely landed and established at the Valley. First, will you please give the enclosed article, "The White Pebble," to Fr. Gabriel to censor? It is the story for that collection of conversion articles they are getting up at Notre Dame.
Second, here is a revised schedule for that theology plan. I talked it over with Father Timothy. Both he and and Father Prior say they are very anxious to see these changes made and Fr. Timothy told me to draw up this plan after our discussion. He does not feel that two three-quarter-hour classes every day would be possible, and I agree with him. This plan seems to embody all the features of the old one. I am sending it to you so that you may have time to think it over some more, and perhaps consult with the authorities on the subject at the Valley. You will notice that there is an orientation course for newcomers. Fr. Timothy is very strong on this and kept suggesting that it should be adopted. It would require arrangements with Fr. Gerard. There are also intrusions into the schedule of Fr. Lambert and Fr. Andrew. Perhaps if you see fit to go on with this plan we ought to have a meeting of the faculty and Fr. Gerard and talk the whole thing over and reach a final settlement. Meanwhile I have a clean copy of this in case it would be worthwhile showing it to the Archbishop.
In a way I am tempted to envy you having seen various of our houses in Europe but everything has been very beautiful at Gethsemani. By some miracle of grace the Holy Spirit has begun to soften my hard heart and I have broken down so far as to feel a wonderful exultation at being united to such a community of saints as we have here. Rev. Father, I wish I could explain to you what gets into my heart and simply carries me away. The Mass has done it more than anything else. But all of a sudden I have seen what it means to be a member of Christ, and have developed a sense of what we are all made for and heading for, that wonderful union in Him, "that they may be one as Thou Father and I are one, that they may be one in us ... Thou in me and I in them." I have begun to long for the perfection of that union with an anguish that is sometimes almost physical. I feel very small and very cheap when I see the beautiful sanctity and purity of the souls in this house and it would be a pleasure and a great honor for me to kiss the feet of such people. However that does not prevent me from going off to the woods when I can. I need to get away to catch my breath and get my equilibrium and cool off before I burn up altogether.
I have not yet written to our new Father Immediate but I'll send him a copy of The Waters of Siloe anyway. People seem to have approved of it in general, around here, as far as I can see.
I have discovered a poet in the house. Father or rather Frater Thomas, in the novitiate, sent me through the regular channels one or two very nice, tender, sensitive little verses which show a great love for Jesus and a great fraternal charity. He is one of the souls that have mademe suddenly feel so small and so anxious to love my brethren. I guess he prayed for me and that softened me up. Incidentally the Carmel in San Francisco has adopted me as their brother and they say a prayer to St. John of the Cross for me every night after Compline, and maybe that has something to do with the change in me too. Anyway the Holy Ghost has been trying to get in under my hard old shell and purify me a little.
We are all anxious to have you back with us, so don't linger too long with the monks of the Valley. However please give them my love and ask them to pray for me, and above all give my most affectionate regards to dear Dom Edmund [Futterer, Abbot of "The Valley"]. I hope he is well. And please ask him to bless me. I am burning up with curiosity to hear what the Holy Father had to say and all about everything in Europe. Did you hear anything about a meeting that is supposed to be planned, for all those who are working on St. Bernard for 1953? The history Commission is getting it up ... The meeting is to be next year.
The house is now completely bursting. You better get back or there won't be any room for you. I think we have two hundred and three ...
To Dom Damasus Winzen, O.S.B.
Dom Damasus Winzen (1901-1971), a monk of Marialaach in Germany, came to the United States during the Hitler years and founded the monastery of Mount Saviour near Elmira, New York. Merton was especially attracted to this simplified Benedictine monastery.
Holy Week, 1950
Thank you very much indeed for the two sets of "Pathways" and above all for your kindness in sending one as a gift. I look forward to the one on the Psalms, especially as I have just finished a longish study on the Psalter as a means to contemplative prayer. I wish someone would do a good readable translation of St. Augustine's Enarrationes--or of some of the best of them. It would be invaluable. I should be delighted to get Fr. Rembert [Sorg] on "The Theology of Manual Labor." I had not heard of it. Dom Odo Casel we have in French--is there anything of his in English? I can read German but am generally loath to take up a book in that language if it can be found in French or English as I have to plow along slowly with a dictionary. But if Dom Herwegen's commentary cannot be had in any other language I shall tackle it in the original, since it is so extremely important. I have been looking for it for some time.
Things have been rather upset here. We have had a 'flu epidemic, our sanctuary is being torn up and rebuilt and we have had a Master of Chant from Paris trying to improve our singing. When we get back to normal, I am going to try to get some of my best students to dig into theFathers and perhaps in time they may produce something. Is there anything I can send you from here? At any rate I'm mailing a couple of pamphlets ...
To Abbot James Fox
Retreat Notes, 1950
I went through the retreat with the impression of being very much talked at without having proportionate time to think. Most of the retreat was actually condensed, for me, into the time following the last conference, and this morning when, thanks to your kindness and to the mercy of God, we got out of chapter by 6:15!
I had been hoping to meditate a little on the Cautions of St. John of the Cross. I have at least glanced through them. I took them as the standard of my religious life at solemn profession and have never really lived up to them. I know they contain the secret of success. Using them I know that I can really make good use of the opportunities God has given me here. I can lead a contemplative life here. It takes some doing, but if I do not insist on having everything exactly my own way, Our Lord will do most of the work. My biggest obstacle is my own tendency to decide beforehand just how I want to serve Our Lord, instead of letting Him tell me what He wants. However I do think that in the last year I have gone far in getting over this--I am much more indifferent about plans and means. Please pray for me to become more and more simple and detached and ask Our Lord to bring me to that deep interior solitude which He desires of me, thus giving me a real defense against all the apparent movement and activity around about, which I sometimes allow to upset me. I certainly can't complain when I see what you have to suffer.
To Dom Jean Leclercq, O.S.B.
Dom Jean Leclercq, (1911-), a Benedictine monk and scholar of Clervaux, Luxembourg, became one of Merton's regular correspondents. The exchange began with the discovery of an unpublished text of St. Bernard of Clairvaux among the manuscripts at Gethsemani.
April 22, 1950
Another film of the St. Bernard Sermons is now on the way to you. This time I looked it over to see if it was all right and it was legible on our machine. I am sorry the first attempt was not too good: you must forgive our young students who are just trying their hand at this kind of work for the first time. Pray that they may learn, because in the future many demands will be made on their talents--if any.
I might wish that your travels would bring you to this side of the Atlantic and that we might have the pleasure of receiving you at Gethsemani. We have just remodelled the vault where our rare books are kept and have extended its capacities to include a good little library on Scripture and the Fathers and the Liturgy--or at least the nucleus of one. Here I hope to form a group of competent students not merely of history or of texts but rather--in line with the tradition which you so admirably represent--men competent in all-round spiritual theology, as well as scholarship, using their time and talents to develop the seed of the word of God in their souls, not to choke it under an overgrowth of useless research as is the tradition in the universities of this country at the moment. I fervently hope that somehow we shall see in America men who are able to produce something like Dieu Vivant. Cistercians will never be able to do quite that, I suppose, but we can at least give a good example along those lines. Our studies and writing should by their very nature contribute to our contemplation at least remotely and contemplation in turn should be able to find expression in channels laid open for it and deepened by familiarity with the Fathers of the Church. This is an age that calls for St. Augustines and Leos, Gregorys and Cyrils!
That is why I feel that your works are so tremendously helpful, dear Father. Your St. Bernard Mystique is altogether admirable because, while being simple and fluent, it communicates to the reader a real appreciation of St. Bernard's spirituality. You are wrong to consider your treatment of St. Bernard superficial. It is indeed addressed to the general reader but for all that it is profound and all-embracing, and far more valuable than the rather technical study which I undertook for the Collectanea and which, as you will see on reading it, was beyond my capacities as a theologian. The earlier sections especially, in my study, contain many glaring and silly errors--or at least things are often very badly expressed there. If I write a book on the saint I shall try to redeem myself, without entering into the technical discussions that occupy M. Gilson in his rather brilliant study [The Mystical Theology of St. Bernard]. But there again, a book of your type is far more helpful.
Be sure that we are praying for the work you now have in hand, which is so important and which implies such a great responsibility for you. Any other material help we can give will also be a pleasure. Do not bother about any questions of cost for the films. But if you do have a tirage à part [offprint] of one or another article by you, we would greatly appreciate it.
I had heard that you were helping to prepare for the press Dom Wilmart's edition of Aelred's De Institutione Inclusarum [Instruction for Recluses], but perhaps you have put this on the shelf for the time being. Are the Cistercians of the Common Observance editing the works of Ailred? Where are they doing so and when is the work expected to be finished? By the way, about the spelling of Aelred/Ailred: the most prominent English scholars seem to be spelling him with an "i" ...
Rest assured, dear Father, that I am praying for you and that our students are doing the same. Please pray for us too. I have too much activity on my shoulders, teaching and writing. Please pray our Lord to live and work in me in such a way that all I do will nourish His life in my soul. I ask the same favor for you, in your travels and labors for His glory.
To Abbot James Fox
September 27, 1950
May Jesus love you and bless you and bring you home soon. Here is a problem to bother you when you are riding on the train. For the last year, the Orientation course has been a recurrent source of friction between Father Master and myself. I thought at first that this was just the usual, accidental trouble that one might expect in all institutional enterprises (whew! ten-dollar language). But I am beginning to think that it may have something to do with the very essence of the course itself.
In our last engagement, Fr. M. wrote me a note in which he stated that the course, as it is now conducted, is a violation of Canon 561 which entrusts the education of the novices exclusively to the Novice Master. And he closed in a sentence which had a "perhaps" that indicated that he thought the course as such was a violation of the Canon.
I have been praying and studying the matter. Here are some thoughts. Obviously, Fr. M. does not want to shoulder the whole burden of educating the novices. He needs assistants even in the matter of spiritual direction. He needs perhaps someone who can give conferences of the same type I am giving--with reservations. But is the concrete orientation course that I am giving what he needs? That is a big question. It involves the nature of the course and the accident of my own personality and place in the scheme of things.
An orientation course that would be completely subject to the direction of Fr. M. and would, in a sense, purely echo his own teaching, would not violate Canon Law.
An orientation course that had nothing to say about the spiritual life would be useless.
I am giving a course that has much to say about the spiritual life and is on the other hand completely independent from Fr. M. It has absolutely nothing to do with him or he with it. I try with the best will in the world to fit in with what I imagine he must be teaching them and he has done his best to favor me as far as he could. But the fact remains that the orientation course is a completely independent affair. Furthermore, the one who is giving the course happens to be a well-known author--for better or for worse. Some of the novices came here because of his books--strange as it may seem. The orientation course may have helped some of them a lot. Many of them like it. Many of them get excited about it. Butevery one of these things is a point against the orientation course. They all add up to one thing: the orientation class tends to assume the danger that some of the less balanced novices may draw comparisons one way or another--in my favor or his. Their conclusion does not make any difference: the mere fact that they are tempted to compare is in itself noxious. "I am with Paul--I am with Apollo--I am with Cephas ... Is Christ divided?" And that is behind Canon 561.
Up until now I have thought that these difficulties could be met simply by charity and good supernatural intentions. I thought they could be adjusted by sacrificing pet ideas of my own, by efforts at conformity with Fr. M.'s problems, etc. But I am beginning to wonder if the very existence of the course is not somehow a drawback. Whether or not that is true, I am beginning to see that it is Fr. M.'s opinion. He seems to be quite willing to get rid of the orientation class which only furnishes him with a lot of problems and questions to be solved and answered. Perhaps he has already expressed his views to you.
In any case, it is evident that if the Orientation course is to continue at all, for the novices, I must leave the spiritual life almost out of the picture. But if that is the case, I cannot continue the course, as the spiritual life is the only thing I seem to be able to get interested in and I think you will agree that a purely academic course in monastic history, without any reference to monastic ideals, would be for us a waste of time. Yet as soon as I begin to talk about monastic ideals I am liable to come in conflict with Fr. Master and with Canon 561 ...
On the other hand, I still believe that it is extremely important that the Orientation course on monastic life, liturgy, etc., be given in some form in our community. It is desperately needed. It should be given in the novitiate. What is the solution? I don't know.
Possible solutions:
1) Continue to give orientation talks to the young professed, informally.
2) Drop orientation altogether for the time being and devote the time to extra classes in mystical theology which covers somewhat the same territory.
3) Make one last effort to go on with the orientation as it is: but I believe Fr. M. will oppose this. I also believe that no amount of good will on my part or on his will overcome the difficulties I have described, if they are really present.
I got back from the hospital a week ago yesterday. The doctors gave me a good going over and found no ulcers, which was a blessing. However I have various little things wrong with me--colitis, low blood pressure, badly need an operation on the nose for deviated septum, and at the moment they are trying to clear up the colitis by a diet. In fact, I am in the infirm refectory, but for the last few days I haven't been able to do much about it as the smell of food nauseates me. But I am getting better: this was the result of some medicine.
One of the things the doctors said was that I needed more fresh air. I am trying to get out to work three or four times a week. That leaves less time for class preparation et al. But I can fit in enough writing to get along, I think. It certainly is good to get out more and to keep closer to the rule. In fact I came back from the hospital with a much greater love of the rule and the monastic life. It was a grace Jesus gave me there, among others.
Got to close now and get this in the mail. The more I think of it the more I realize I need an obscure and humble life, of toil and poverty and self-denial and silence.
To Dom Jean Leclercq
October 9, 1950
It is a long time since I received your July letter which I read and pondered with deep satisfaction. It is a privilege for which I am deeply grateful, to be able to seek nourishment and inspiration directly from those who keep themselves so close to the sources of monastic spirituality.
Your remarks on St. Bernard's ideas of Scripture are extremely important to me. I have been meditating on your appendix to St. Bernard Mystique, and also I have been talking on this very subject to the students here. I agree with your conclusions about St. Bernard and yet I wonder if it would not be possible to say that he did consider himself in a very definite sense an exegete. My own subjective feeling is that the full seriousness of St. Bernard's attitude to Scripture is not brought out entirely unless we can in some sense treat him as an exegete and as theologian, in his exposition of the Canticle. Naturally he is not either of these things in a purely modern sense. But I think he is acting as a theologian according to the Greek Fathers' conception at least to some extent (see end of Lossky's first chapter: Theol. Myst. de l'Eglise orientale). I think that is essentially what you were saying when you brought out the fact that he was seeking less to nourish his interior life than to exercise it. As if new meanings in his own life and in Scripture spontaneously grew up to confirm each other as soon as Bernard immersed himself in the Sacred Text. Still, there is the evident desire of the saint to penetrate the text with a certain mystical experience of God and His revelation. This positive hunger for "theology" in its very highest sense would be expressed in such a text as Cant. 1xxiii, 1: "Ego ... in profundo sacri eloquii gremio spiritum mihi scrutabor et vitam" [Deep in the bosom of the sacred word I shall search my spirit and my life]. He is seeking "intellectum" and "Spiritus est qui vivificat: dat quippe intellectum. An non vita intellectus" [The Spirit gives life: indeed he gives understanding. And is not understanding life?]. As you have so rightly said (p. 488) "Sa lecture de l'E. Ste prépare et occasionne son experience du divin" [His reading of Scripture prepares and occasions his experience of the divine]. But I wonderif he did not think of Scripture as a kind of cause of that experience, and in the same sense, "servata proportione" [keeping due proportion], as a Sacrament is a cause of grace? Scripture puts him in direct contact with the Holy Spirit who infuses mystical grace, rather than awakening in his soul the awareness that the Holy Spirit has already infused a grace to that spoken of in Scripture. Or am I wrong? In any case, words like "scrutabor" [I shall search] and "intellectus" [understanding] tempt me to say (while agreeing in substance with all your conclusions) that there must have been a sense in which St. Bernard looked upon himself both as an exegete and as a theologian in his exposition of the Canticle. Although I readily admit there can be no question of his attempting as a modern author might to "make the text clear" or to "explain its meaning." That hardly concerned him, as you have shown. But do you not think that in giving the fruit of his own contacts with the Word through Scripture he was in a sense introducing his monks to a certain mystical "attitude" towards the Scriptures--not a method, but an "atmosphere" in which Scripture could become the meeting place of the Soul and the Word, through the action of the Holy Spirit?
Perhaps these are useless subtleties: but you guess that I am simply exercising my own thought in order to confront it with the reactions of an expert and this will be of the greatest service to me in the work that has been planned for me by Providence. I am also very much interested in the question of St. Bernard's attitude toward "learning," and feel that a distinction has not yet been sufficiently clearly made between his explicit reproofs of "scientia" in the sense of philosophia, and his implicit support of scientia in the sense of theologia, in his tracts on Grace, Baptism, and his attacks on Abelard, not to mention (with all due respect to your conclusions) his attitude to the Canticle which makes that commentary also "scientia" [knowledge] as well as "sapientia" [wisdom]. Have you any particular lights on this distinction between science and wisdom in the Cistercians, or do you know of anything published in their regard? It seems to me to be an interesting point, especially to those of us who, like yourself and me, are monks engaged in a sort of "scientia" along with their contemplation! (It is very interesting in William of St. Thierry.)
I wish I could give you some information on St. Bernard in his relation to the Greek Fathers. I have none of my own; the topic interests me but I have barely begun to do anything about it, since I know the Greek Fathers so poorly. However, I can tell you this much: in Danielou's Platonisme et T.M. on pages and 211 there are references to St. Bernard's dependence (?) on St. Gregory of Nyssa. The opening of St. Bernard's series of Sermons obviously reflects the idea of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa that the Canticle of Canticles was for the formation of mystics while Proverbs and Ecclesiastes applied to the beginners and progressives. I find Bernard's echo of this point an interesting piece of evidence that he considered the monastic vocation a remote call to mystical union--if nota proximate one. Then, too, Gregory's homilies on the Canticle of Canticles are full of a tripartite division of souls into slaves, mercenaries and spouses. Gregory's apophatism is not found in St. Bernard, but in his positive treatment of theology Bernard follows Origen. I think Fr. Danielou also told me that Bernard's attitude toward the Incarnate Word is founded on Origen--I mean his thoughts on amor carnalis Christi [carnal love of Christ] in relation to mystical experience. I may be wrong.
A copy of The Spirit of Simplicity was mailed to you but my own contribution to that work is confused and weak, I believe. I refer to the second part.
I agree with what you say about Abbe de Rancé and feel that my own treatment of him in Waters of Siloe had something in it of caricature. It is certainly true that Abbe de l'Estrange was much more austere than Rancé. To my mind the most regrettable thing about both of them was their exaggeration of externals, their ponderous emphasis on "exercises" and things to be done. Nevertheless perhaps that is a sign of my own tepidity. It is true that the monastic life does demand faithful observance of many little exterior points of Rule. These can certainly not be neglected en masse [as a whole] without spiritual harm. But one sometimes feels that for the old Trappists they were absolutely everything.
The Desert Fathers interest me much. They seem to have summed up almost everything that is good and bad in subsequent monastic history (except for the abuses of decadent monasticism)--I mean everything that is good and bad in various monastic ideals.
Your news of the De Institutione Inclusarum which you tell me with such detachment, is sad indeed. Do not think that manuscripts are only lost in Italy. A volume of our poems was printed by a man whose shop was in the country. Goats used to wander in to the press and eat the authors' copy. This fortunately did not happen to our poems. Perhaps the goats were wise. They sensed the possibility of poisoning.
I am extremely eager to get Fr. Bouyer's new book on monasticism, but have not yet been able to do so. I feel that our book dealer sometimes takes orders and then forgets about them--I mean for books to come out later. I liked his Saint Antoine. Still, I wonder if he does not overdo his interest in the fact that in the early ages of the Church people were so clearly aware that the fall had put the devil in charge of material things. Fr. Danielou's Signe du Temple, in its first chapter, gives a good counterpoise to that view--for heaven still shone through creation and God was very familiar with men in Genesis!
The other day we mailed Burch's Steps of Humility to you and it should be in your hands shortly. If you wish to send us something in return we would like to get Wilmart's Pensées du B. Guigue, if this is Guigo the Carthusian. I have never yet gone into him. His lapidary style fascinates me. He is better than Pascal. Yet I love Pascal.
Your page on the eremitical vocation was very welcome. Someonetold me the Carthusians were at last coming to America. I know the Trappist who has gone to Camaldoli. He was with me in the novitiate here. I wonder if he is happy there. His departure surprised me and I think his arrival surprised some of the Camaldolese.
Cistercian monasticism in America is of a genus all its own. Imagine that we now have one hundred and fifty novices at Gethsemani. This is fantastic. Many of them are sleeping in a tent in the préau. The nucleus of seniors is a small, bewildered group of men who remember the iron rule of Dom Edmond Obrecht and have given up trying to comprehend what has happened to Gethsemani. The house has a very vital and enthusiastic (in the good sense) and youthful air, like the camp of an army preparing for an easy and victorious war. Those of us who have been sobered by a few years of the life find ourselves in turns comforted and depressed by the multitude of our young companions of two and three months' standing: comforted by their fervor and joy and simplicity, and depressed by the sheer weight of numbers. The cloister is as crowded as a Paris street.
On the whole, when the house is completely full of men who are happy because they have not yet had a chance to suffer anything (although they believe themselves willing) the effect is a little disquieting. One feels more solidly rooted in God in a community of veterans, even though many of them may be morose. However, I do not waste my time seeking consolation in the community or avoiding its opposite. There is too little time for these accidentals.
I close this long letter thanking you again for yours, which are always so full of interest and profit. I cannot place the reference to a contribution of mine to Rhythmes du Monde, maybe there is some mistake--or my publisher went directly to them. I would be interested in seeing your Soli Deo Vivere! I sent something to Dieu Vivant. I like them. Is the magazine Opus Dei worth the trouble of getting a subscription? I wish we could feel here that Irenikon was essential for us. Can you persuade us that it is? Or that it is important? The thought of reunion with the Greeks is one that haunts me.
Once again, dear Father, thank you for your advice and inspiration. May Jesus bless your great work for His glory and for the vitality of monasticism everywhere. Pray for me in my turn to be more and more a child of St. Benedict--and if it be God's will, that I may some day find a way to be something of an eremitical son of St. Benedict! What of these Benedictines in the mountains of France? Have you more information about them? I am not inquiring in a spirit of restlessness! Their project is something I admire on its own merits.
To Abbot James Fox
Quinquagesima, 1951 Day of Recollection
It seems to me that what Jesus wants of me this Lent is less external activity, more recollection, greater simplicity, humility and quiet. For this end, with your approval, I hope to reduce our writing work to a minimum during Lent as there is already much material on hand for publication. I hope to simply finish off one job promised to Harcourt, Brace for March [The Ascent to Truth]. For the rest I would think Jesus would want me to go more often to the common work--and to take more time for reading and prayerful reflection in view of other work--or just for His sake alone, because there is no greater or more important work than love. Since I cannot observe the full Lenten fast I hope to put myself beneath all my brethren by humble love, and always try to place their interests and convenience in all things before my own. Please bless me, Reverend Father, in Jesus' name.
October 7, 1951 Feast of the Holy Rosary
This is a report on our private retreat from September 29 to October 6. As an act of gratitude for your permission to let me make it, and also because it was something of an experiment, I will try to give you a good picture of how it went off, and also to tell you of the fruits. It has been exceptionally fruitful, I think. I spent every afternoon (except Wednesday--all-out work) outside in the woods. The morning was devoted to quiet work, trying to organize things in the vault, typing up some notes, etc. I would go out each day right after dinner and return in time for Vespers. This usually gave me three and a half hours of solid prayer in solitude. I took a book along but scarcely ever read more than a page of it. Most of the time I just entered into the presence of God and stayed quiet and let the silence sink in. Most of the time it was pretty quiet, but sometimes the traxcavator was making a lot of noise. In any case I got a lot of silent prayer. Saturday you gave me permission to try a day in the woods. I was out from Sext until Vespers (that made about seven hours in complete silence and solitude). The effect of this silence and solitary prayer, especially the last day, has been very great.
First of all, it seems that this solitary prayer has a special power to detach me from things that hold me otherwise. Things that cling to me in community life and in choral prayer, vanish quite easily when I am outside alone. I can spend hours at a time outside without an appreciable distraction. I am not forcibly concentrated on anything; I seem unable to do anything special. When I try to make my faculties act in order to intensify my union with God a sense of anxiety, frustration and discomfortoverpowers me and if I keep on trying I feel spiritually--and even physically--nauseated. But then I simply rest and let Him act.
When I was out there praying alone it came to me that surely in this solitary prayer above all else I was giving myself to God. I have never come so close to the conviction that for once I really belonged completely to Him. This was especially strong at the beginning of the week.
As the week went on, and especially on the last long day in the woods, something else, something deep, began to get a grip on me inside. Whereas in the beginning everything had been simple, restful, peaceful prayer (not sensibly consoled, but quiet and nice) now something began to get hold of me deep down in the roots of my being. I will not call it fear, but it produced a kind of fear--nothing tangible: but I began to feel terrifically empty as if I was all burnt out inside and a chasm was opening out in my soul. I lost all taste for the natural pleasure which accompanied my solitude. On Saturday the woods were most beautiful, and yet I could hardly look at anything. The attitude in my mind can be summed up something like this. I was feeling (and still do a little, the day after) the way someone must feel on his deathbed, when he has to leave everything. What do I care for the beauty of the autumn woods, if my spirit is on the threshold of eternity in which autumn and spring have come to an end and seasons no more mean anything? I sat in the woods for seven hours and felt hollow. For a little while I was terribly lonely, and the more so because I knew that it was a loneliness that nothing visible or tangible could ever satisfy. I can sum up the last day in the woods by saying that I just got smaller and smaller and dwindled down to nothing in the presence of God, and since it was something remotely like dying it was not altogether pleasant and yet it was not unpleasant either. It was a sort of grim neutrality of the spirit in which everything goes dead on you and leaves you feeling more like a husk than a person.
But all this had very great fruits. Established in this solitude I just wasn't able to work up any interest in things that usually draw my mind away from prayer. At the same time, when I returned to choir, the office seemed to become just what it ought to be, my mind was clear and although I drew no special light from the psalms it was a great comfort to be able to sing them to God and to give Him something thereby--something that faith tells me pleases Him. Also the Mass has been better for me than it has ever been before, especially in the last three days. As soon as I go to the altar that feeling of littleness and nothingness, fear of God mixed with confidence and trust, and deep emptiness in my heart, comes over me again just the way it did in the woods. But now with Jesus on the altar, and in my heart as priest, and myself united to Him as priest and victim, there is a great sense of secret strength and of pure love in my heart, and communion comes to soothe everything that was painful about the emptiness within me, without for all that giving me any sensible consolation.
Concrete conclusions:
1) This sense of interior emptiness seems to require, as an exterior expression, the constant efficacious desire to be put in the background, the joyful acceptance of anything that causes others to be preferred to myself, and myself to be passed over and put on one side.
2) It seems that at least for me "the community life" is not the absolute and infallible solution for all problems since seven days of relative solitude have apparently done a great deal to dispose of attachments and problems that the community had in large part created and fostered. On the other hand, I emerge from this retreat with a greater appreciation and respect for community exercises, choir, common work, etc., than I can remember ever having had since my novitiate.
3) It seems that this solitude is the root of my gift of myself to God--but once I have this essence, then I feel ready to serve Him in active ways as much as He wills. I cannot feel that for me, working for God is absolutely the same as giving myself to God, but once I have the recollection and detachment and interior freedom required to attend to Him alone, I feel ready to do what He may ask of me, realizing that whatever it is it will be very little. But when I give in to the illusion that "work" and "generosity" are synonymous, I lose much of my interior union with Him and my work itself becomes sterile, even though I may have the intention of pleasing Him--I seem to remain far from Him. I am ashamed of the excessive writing I did between 1944 and 1949: but perhaps I wasn't fit for anything else. I know that is not what is expected of me now. I will peacefully do the little I can and if I can do nothing now I shall be glad of it, because it is better to serve God in a way that does not attract attention or win the recognition of men.
Please forgive this document--I am ashamed to write it and do not usually do such a thing: but the retreat was exceptional, thanks to you, Reverend Father, so perhaps this report ought to be an exception, too ...
To Dom Gabriel Sortais, O.C.S.O.
Dom Gabriel Sortais (1902-1963), Abbot of Bellefontaine in France, was elected Abbot General of the Cistercian Order in 1951 following the resignation of Dom Dominique Nogues. Thus begins a long correspondence which dealt with Merton's writing, censorship, and his vocational difficulties. They were written for the most part in French, and I am grateful to Fathers Germain Marc'hadour and Henri Gibaud of the Catholic University at Angers, France, for preparing the English translations. Several other letters were discovered later and these were translated by Father Augustine Wulff of Gethsemani and Monsignor William Shannon, General Editor of the Merton Letters.
October 15, 1951
This is a rather embarrassed Cistercian author who writes to you about the "imprimi potest" [the official approval of the Order] that youwere good enough to send us recently, dated October 7. I think I let Dom Dominique know that the book The Ascent to Truth was already in press and as a matter of fact this book came out on September 20. The publisher rushed a little, I admit, and he even had the book out before inserting a few minor corrections (not all that important, fortunately) as suggested by the censor. It was his fault and he finally admitted it (I mean the publisher). He has promised to behave properly next time for I have let him know about this, and so has the censor. So while I am responsible as the author, I beg you to believe that the publisher went ahead without consulting me all that much and that he will not do so again.
Now there remains the fact that the book bears Dom Dominique's "imprimi potest"--which was not given. Not knowing in the least that he was going to resign, and expecting as usual to receive the permission automatically, since the censors had fully approved the book, I had left his name with the publishers. And so now the book bears the name of Dom Dominique. I turn to you now in order to know what is to be done. Do you want me to change the names and put yours, which would be according to the rules, or would it be better to let the thing go, so nothing is noticed?
I would very much like to write a short note to Dom Dominique--is he still addressed as Most Reverend?
Thank you for your short note about me to Father Abbot. I tell you in return that if you are the new Abbot General I will be delighted. Not that I wish you to bear a burden, but all the same I am persuaded you would be most capable of bearing it, and encourage us to advance towards divine union. Anyway, God's holy will be done! I think it will not be altogether fun to be Abbot General at this critical moment.
Remember me a little when you speak to God, Reverend Father. I am currently the "Student[s'] Master" here. I have about thirty of them--including some beautiful souls. In return I promise I'll pray for you often at Holy Mass. Please accept my most devoted sentiments in the Lord.
To Etienne Gilson
Etienne Gilson [1884-1978] was born in France and did his doctoral studies at the Sorbonne. He taught at the universities of Lille, Strasbourg, Paris, Harvard, and finally Toronto. He was the moving spirit behind the foundation of the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto. Toward the end of his life he was elected to the French Academy. Merton acknowledged his indebtedness to Gilson, especially his Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, which he first read while a student at Columbia.
November 12, 1951
Deeply moved by your beautiful letter, I want to do what I should have done long ago--write you a line to assure you of my recognition ofa spiritual debt to you which I too sketchily indicated in the pages of The Seven Storey Mountain, and in a rather badly constructed section of the book at that. To you and to Jacques Maritain, among others, I owe the Catholic faith. That is to say I owe my life. This is no small debt. Can you feel as abandoned as you do when you are handing out to other people as great a gift as is the Kingdom of Heaven? But indeed, it is the privilege of those who bear such spiritual fruit to feel abandoned and miserable and alone, for poverty of spirit is the patrimony of the children of God in this world, and their pledge of glory in the world to come: "for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."
What greater thing can we have than to be empty, to be despoiled, to be orphans and exiles in this world? Your exile is not merely metaphorical. It is something you suffer and offer to God for the France He loves and which nevertheless tends to reject Him and those whom He sends.
Thank you for the kind words you say about The Ascent to Truth. In none of the books that I have written do I feel that I have said what I wanted. I do not know whether or not in this one I have said what needs to be said to any except a few. I have the consciousness of having disappointed many who wanted me to say something to them. Also I have an even greater consciousness that I have nothing to say to anyone except the oaks of our forest. Like St. Bernard, I feel that I can go to them and learn everything. I dare not say that like him I feel like the chimaera of the age, lest it suggest a sort of comparison between an unworthy son and so great a Father--and this is a comparison which I cannot afford to make.
Please pray for me to Our Lord that instead of merely writing something I may be something, and indeed that I may so fully be what I ought to be that there may be no further necessity for me to write, since the mere fact of being what I ought to be would be more eloquent than many books. Do you ever come down this way? Please do not fail to come and see us if you are ever around Chicago or any of the Middle Western cities which are "near" Gethsemani! This Cistercian house--where as Father Master of Scholastics I am eternally grateful to be able to give my spiritual children nourishment from your wonderful book on St. Bernard--will always welcome you. Consider it your home in this part of the world and come whenever you like. Meanwhile, we will meet before the holy altar of God, and I promise to remember you frequently in my Mass.
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
December 11, 1951
This is a short note to tell you of my filial joy over your election. I am very pleased for the Order, although I know that the new burden israther heavy! But God who has chosen you to carry it will not leave you without all the necessary graces and gifts. At any rate, I know that you will know how to do everything to encourage truly contemplative life in our houses. Here, with us, it seems to me that it is in this direction that the Holy Spirit's auster divinus [divine south wind] is breathing. Our business is to turn Gethsemani into a real hortus aromatum [garden of spices] where the delicate souls sent us by God may bloom. There are many of us--too many, in my opinion!--hence a lot of problems. A formidable din due to the endless constructions! But I hope this will not last.
I have just written to Desclee de Brouwer to send you the proofs of the French translation of The Waters of Siloe (our work on the history and the spirit of the Order). I was bold enough to believe, Most Reverend Father, that you would not deny me the favor of a little introductory letter to this work. But I would like it all to be according to the regulations, so perhaps you, or one of the Definitors, would like to peruse it. I will make the necessary corrections. Dom Vincent [Hermans, Procurator General] has justly, no doubt, remarked about my exaggerations in regard to Abbe de Rancé. But anyway, the general meaning of the work is that we must be just as contemplative as any other monastic order, and even more so, since our Fathers of Cîteaux had, as a distinctive note of our vocation, a great love for contemplation and they used to write more willingly on the subject of divine union than on any other. Anyway, I hope you will have a moment to see to this for yourself, and to tell us what should be done with it. I would like the French edition to agree perfectly with the spirit of the Order, so that it can be used, so to speak, with some confidence ...
To Dom Jean-Baptiste Porion, O. Cart.
Dom Jean-Baptiste Porion, a Carthusian monk of La Grande Chartreuse in southern France, and a writer of considerable distinction, later became Procurator General of the Carthusian Order with headquarters in Rome.
February 9, 1952
For my own part, as you know, the betrayal of our deep self that sometimes takes place in our effort to communicate with others exteriorly, has long been a problem. It is not easy for a writer to learn to live, interiorly, without a witness, without a potential reader. But once this intruder is expelled, we truly find ourselves, and find God--and find other men in God. We betray ourselves and one another in the No Man's Land which exists between human beings, and into which they go out to meet one another disguised in words. And yet without words we cannot find ourselves, without communication with men we do not know God:fides ex auditu [faith comes from hearing]. You have justly assessed the balance that must be preserved between the two--so that the word of faith that is passed from one soul to the secrecy of another soul matures in both and grows into understanding: and flowers in God alone.
One of the other things that comforts me about your book is the fact that your "spirituality" is not so much a spirituality as yourself, your identity in God: although of course that identity is not fully expressed, as you say, in what you write. It cannot be. Nevertheless what you speak has something to do with what you are, and the point that I am getting at is: your "spirituality" is "Carthusian" without for all that acquiring a label, or fixing you in some specific category. You are Carthusian precisely because you are yourself: you are a man who loves God, in sympathy with Ruysbroeck and Hadjewich, etc., in a Charterhouse.
For me too this matter of spirituality tries, superficially, to be a problem. Yet I know it can never really be a problem because after all what I love is not spirituality but God. Therefore, when considering my "obligation" to form my scholastics along specifically Cistercian lines, and according to something called "Cistercian spirituality," I can do it with abandonment and objectivity (I hope), and still remain myself. It may sound like heresy, but personally I feel that if I become too meticulously Cistercian (according to some ideal category in the spiritual books), I will only be for my pains less of a Cistercian. Because my solution is yours: for me to be a Cistercian is to be a man who loves God in a Cistercian monastery--in sympathy with St. John of the Cross and Ruysbroeck and a few other people who are not Cistercians, and also with a few others who are. It does not seem to me to be a reserved or even a mortal sin to live in a Cistercian monastery with more actual sympathy for St. John of the Cross than St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Though I by no means refuse to read St. Bernard. I just cannot assert that he nourishes me as much as others do. I cannot assert this and retain my simplicity. For when I read St. Bernard, I am more drawn to study than to contemplation. He does not draw me to rest in silence and darkness: he evokes spontaneous admiration for a rather brilliant theological manner of meditating on the Scriptures which is, for me, something short of prayer. This is what the other Cistercians find in him. I therefore can find what they find. But since it is not what I seek, I cannot pretend to rest there. I have no quarrel with them: they can have their gay garden. I am happy with St. John of the Cross among the rocks. When I find God then I am a Cistercian, because then I reach the end for which He brought me to the monastery. The rest is a waste of time.
The only writing I do now is in the form of maxims--sometimes they seem to be a little like Guigo. I think he is very fine. I like his lapidary quality. I find myself beginning to use these maxims for direction (with the scholastics). I write one out--for instance a word or two of Latin--and slip it to them a day or two before they come to see me. They canthink about the words, enter into them, and give me something of their own in return, so that I hope in time that direction of my best scholastics will become nothing more than a few cries--as of angels hailing one another briefly from cliff to cliff on the walls of the mountain leading to heaven. Here are several of the Latin maxims--for you on your cliff:
Solitudo pauperis quievit in potestate Altissimi!
[The solitude of the poor man rests on the power of God!]
Silentium coelorum sit mihi lex: et vita mea imago luminis.
[Let the silence of heaven be my law: and my life an image of light.]
Nomen meum eructavit caritas ex profundis.
[Charity uttered my name from the depths.]
Fons vitae silentium in corde noctis.
[A fountain of life is silence in the heart of night. ]
It would make a nice monastic book--the first monastic one I shall have done--to produce these, with brief meditations on them in English. Perhaps twenty or thirty maxims, with meditations: not more than a hundred pages in all.
All this is just to say that this afternoon, reading your book under the young cedars, in the silence of our woods, I remembered you in God Who cannot be remembered but can only be discovered.
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
March 13, 1952
Thank you for your good letter from Mariaveen. Forgive me for the cares I have made you feel in regard to our translation. A few weeks after writing you, I learned that the manuscript of the translation was in the hands of our good Father Anselme Dimier at Chimay [in Belgium]. The latter, who was examining it for Desclee, in order to "correct the names of the monasteries," had found much more than that to correct. He is still at it; I have just written him answering his questions. So we shall not have any proofs before the month of June. Perhaps I will be able to put them in your hands when you come over to America.
I also want to thank you for your Circular Letter which has done a lot of good to all hearts. All the young men here have been attracted by the thirst for God. The very intense activity in our large community is becoming, to several, a source of anguish and temptations, and it is good to be reassured by the Most Reverend Father and to know that we do not only have the privilege but above all the obligation to be contemplatives!
Awaiting the joy of welcoming you in our house, I ask your paternal blessing, and assure you once more of my filial devotion in Our Lord and Our Lady.
July 23, 1952
Our publisher, Harcourt, Brace and Company, has just sent you the manuscript of our journal, The Sign of Jonas. At the same time they have set to work to prepare the edition, while awaiting all the changes that your censor will want to suggest to us. Another manuscript is in the hands of one of our American censors. We do believe you will leave intact the essence of this work. To me the essential is this: one must be able to trace the thread of a history, of an interior development unfolding itself in it: the development of a young religious who is moving towards the priesthood, asking himself rather frank questions about his contemplative vocation, about Gethsemani: who sees his questions being solved under the invisible hand of Divine Providence disponens omnia suaviter et fortiter [arranging all things sweetly and mightily], and lastly a series of meditations, of "elevations" if you like, or even sort of hymns in prose
... For the minor details, the censors will be free to judge. Perhaps you will allow us to discuss this gently in case something seems to us very important. But anyway we shall leave it quite willingly, and with all our filial confidence, to your judgment. I do not say I submitted to it--as though it were a thing I did not want to do; on the contrary: vide quoniam mandata tua telexi! [see that I have loved your commands].
You had told me, in the form of advice, without seeming to attach much importance to it, that perhaps I should not go on writing this journal. If this is your will, I shall not write it anymore. But if you see no objection, perhaps I could pursue this very easy work. It is almost the only way to produce something with all my other offices which look like obstacles. The publishers urge me strongly.
And there you are, Most Reverend Father: I am asking a favor from you which is perhaps very indiscreet, since you cannot read for yourself the book in English. And besides, it seems to me that Desclee de Brouwer has disappointed me, and has not sent you the French translation of The Waters of Siloe, to get a letter from your hand. I have been told nothing about it ... and I am very confused over it all. Forgive me. Is it too rash of me to ask you, after this, to give us a brief word for the English edition of the journal? Could the censor inform you sufficiently? Do you think it would be the proper thing, or would it raise a problem for you?
Of course, since the matter at hand is an altogether personal document, it is quite different from The Waters of Siloe. You would like to know why I am asking you for this letter? Beside the honor that it would be to me personally, and the satisfaction of my filial devotion towards you, there is also this: the theme of the book is precisely the thirst for God which should be the very heart of Cistercian life, and at the same time I present it all not in ideal terms but in the concrete ambient of an actual monastery, just as it is, with its faults (though I do not dwell on them) and with all the charm of our Cistercian life into the bargain. A word from you would reassure the readers that the Order itself alwaystries to look at things from a concrete and integrated point of view, that we have never deceived ourselves by pretending to be angels on earth, but that we know that Christian perfection and union with God must be realized in the treadmill of this daily life which is not always the ideal, and that God, in short, allows himself to be found in normal life, provided this life is truly the life of grace and that we endeavor to live it thoroughly, and with no pretense, seeking God and nothing else! I do not say I am more honest than the others. On the contrary, I think this journal is indeed the witness of a perfectly ordinary religious, i.e. ordinarily not perfect! And I think, my Brothers in the Order--at least those who, like me, are not saints--will be able to find themselves in it.
But still I know the question is very delicate for you, and I do not insist at all. I understand very well if you cannot do it.
I'm leaving tomorrow to meet our Reverend Father in the State of Ohio to see an estate offered to us to make a foundation. Of course, there can be no question of a real foundation before two or three years. But it seems we are going to initiate formidable works of renovation at Gethsemani. Perhaps they are going (it has not been decided yet) to gut all of the old building in order to reconstruct it from the inside. The idea seems to me, at least, necessary and reasonable. But fancy the din of the machines! If we could accept an estate, and if, for example, a few went there to prepare a foundation, it would be a sort of refuge for them. If I were the founder, I have a very simple plan to take there half of our students in theology. We could fairly well study and work in peace there as I foresee that the benefactors would assure us the funds to hire seculars to help us in the very simple building of a house which would be ready to welcome the founders in 1954. Do not say a word to Reverend Father. I mention it because I had very strongly opposed both the rebuildings and the foundations during the regular visit, but I have changed my mind for the moment, and anyway it is not certain what is going to be done. He will probably speak about it at the General Chapter.
August 12, 1952
I thank you wholeheartedly for your letter, as kindly as it was long, which speaks to me in such a fatherly way of our poor works. Such a letter could not fall into my hands without exciting, in my heart, the feelings of a deep emotion, supernatural in origin, since faith made me hear in each sentence the love of Jesus himself for my wretchedness. I have accordingly tried to gather all that could help me to serve Him and to abandon myself more and more to Him. I thank you above all for your promise of a little prefatory letter for the Journal in case the latter were not totally unworthy of such a favor from you. The good monk who has taken upon himself to read it will remain the judge on this last point.
I have seen the lovely estate in Ohio. It was really well adapted for a Cistercian foundation. But as I think of other offers from our benefactors,and as I pray, I begin to modify a bit the little plan I was suggesting to you. It is a quite simple plan, which could no doubt work well, given the occasion. But since a millionaire is offering us a magnificent estate in Colorado in the Rocky Mountains, with a ready-made house, I begin to wonder whether Divine Providence does not wish thereby to tell us something a bit out of the ordinary. So I am sending you the sketch of a plan to that effect. I am convinced of the necessity and the timeliness of something of the kind, but I confess I am not seeing clearly all the concrete details.
Most Reverend Father, I have prayed a lot, and I have even tried repeatedly to send flying this idea, which at times seemed a little fantastic. But the more I think of the concrete situation of our students at Gethsemani, the more I see that they need, temporarily, a very special formation that they will never get in the present state of things at Gethsemani. Why not take advantage of this estate in Colorado to send there a whole scholasticate, while bringing very good teachers from our houses in Europe. We have all the rest: library, equipment, etc. We only lack the Superior, apart from perhaps the Father Master--if I am not presumptuous in thinking I could go on filling this job. But we don't have a true superior for such a house. This is what we need most.
Anyway, here are the two questions I am asking you. I do not know whether you would think it expedient to put them before the General Chapter and Definitors:
1) Would it be possible to make such a foundation, ad experimentum, by borrowing teachers and a Superior from Europe?
2) If that is not possible, would we be allowed to do it by ourselves with our own resources? That is to say, would the General Chapter allow in principle the temporary formation of a separate scholasticate that several houses would use in America?
I think that if this foundation were considered as a kind of grange, there would be no difficulty and even no formality--we could just go there and do our thing. But I think this would not be desirable. Such a foundation should proceed from the General Chapter itself. I think Dom James would not want to take the responsibility alone. But if you spoke to him, supposing you yourself approve of the project, he might perhaps see the opportuneness of it. He is not against the project, but neither is he for it.
September 3, 1952
I had forgotten to tell you that Dom James is perfectly informed of my ideas about the scholasticate. We talked it over at length. Since our last letter, Dom James has even seemed to want to give up the plan of the great reconstruction work. But he has said nothing about it to Brother Cellarer, who goes on making plans at full speed to overthrow the whole abbey from one end to the other. At the same time, I have been thinkinga little about all the complications and dangers entailed by my plan. Finally, during Monsignor Larraona's visit, I spoke to him of our problems. He for his part told me that the Congregation [of Religious] was preparing an instruction which would perfectly agree with what I was telling him. He assured me that the monastic orders were being especially thought of in this instruction. He said to Dom James that everything possible should be done in order to secure a quiet milieu for the students, to free them as soon as possible from various services so that the students in the foundations should pursue their studies in a scholasticate where there would be good teachers in a favorable milieu for their studies--for example, in the motherhouse.
With all this in mind, I reduce the whole content of our two other letters to the following questions:
1) If the great constructions are undertaken at Gethsemani, disturbing the whole house, could not the students be sent elsewhere--either to a quiet house, or to a temporary foundation, non-autonomous, which would merely be a grange-scholasticate, with a few laybrothers?
2) Even apart from the question of extraordinary works, should we not think of establishing somewhere a scholasticate, quiet and well provided with teachers and directors, where the students from Gethsemani and its (at least non-autonomous) daughterhouses could receive a good intellectual and spiritual formation in a contemplative milieu?
3) If this special house should not be a foundation proper, by itself, would it be permissible to constitute it some distance away from Gethsemani, like a sort of "grange" or annex--that is to say, a small community complete in itself from the viewpoint of the regular places, with a somewhat special timetable, exclusively for the students and a few brothers?
This much for the students. If we were allowed such a project, I would still like to bring teachers from France ... Dom James receives my ideas in principle, but he does not want in effect to let the students go, first because they work a lot in the community and render us a good many services. And then all fear a radical change in the spirit of the Order. But on the contrary, I find there is more danger for the spirit of the Order if the students are left in a very busy and noisy atmosphere, where they will be formed almost exclusively by teachers from other orders or from the secular clergy.
Dom James is going to speak to you of another, more personal problem. It is whispered in Georgia that if Dom Robert [McGann] happens to die, it is I whom they are going to postulate as abbot. The same idea may occur elsewhere. They do not know me there; they only know the books! ... It would be a complete disaster. I am totally incapable of being an abbot, first because I have no judgment in administration or in temporal affairs and I don't have the gifts of a true leader. Quite the contrary! ... Although I sometimes feel a temptation to want to be an abbot, yet my conscience tells me it is sheer folly. Dom James agrees,and he tells me that God wants something quite different from me. So I am always prepared to refuse any abbatial election, in the conviction that God does not want me to accept such an office. He wants me, not to abandon myself in indifference, but by the signification of His positive will, implicit in my rather special vocation, determined by the effect of our books, etc., He wants me to refuse all superiorship and to stay in the ranks doing the work He has to be mine--or simply to avoid the trap such election would be. I think I could not save my soul in the situation in which Dom James is ... [see the Appendix].
Forgive me, dear Most Reverend Father, for this third letter as long as the others. I pray for you a lot, and am looking forward to your remarks on the journal. I am still bold enough to hope you will give us a little prefatory letter, and I thank you for your solicitude toward the poorest of your sons in America! Please bless me, and ask Jesus to make me a saint ...
To Dom Humphrey Pawsey
Dom Humphrey Pawsey was Superior of the Carthusian foundation at Sky Farm in Vermont by this time.
September 11, 1952
You may have been expecting some sort of letter from me. I have long meant to write you at least a friendly note, if at least I could get the time. This is something more.
Father, I will come straight to the point. I am writing to you as to a friend whose advice I trust as well as to the Superior of the Carthusian foundation. You can give me much help in both capacities.
Our Father Abbot is away at the General Chapter. When he returns, I am going to present him with a formal request to be allowed to embrace the eremitical life in some form or other. That decision is made. The question remains: what form?
I may say first of all that I have been years in making this decision--even in fighting it. I have made every possible effort to believe and obey those who told me I was supposed to be a Cistercian. I have made every possible effort to get enthusiastic about the things that make a Cistercian what he is. My efforts in this regard, sincere as they have been, have not really produced the effect which they produce in those whom I see around me, called to this life in every way. Without being exactly unhappy here, I have in fact been relying on concessions to lead a more solitary life than is the usual lot of the Cistercian. Because I have received many such concessions, my interior life has been fairly fruitful. But I stress the fact that its fruitfulness depends on the exceptions, not on the Rule, although I would be unjust if I tried to deny that I owe much to Gethsemaniin every way. In a word, whatever good has been worked in me here has been largely due to the unusual concessions for a solitary life which have been granted me.
Now, here is the problem. I am beginning to wonder whether I can continue in this way. Everybody here agrees that I am called to more solitude than the average Cistercian. No director denies that this call is supernatural. Most, however, favor continuing the compromise--especially my Superiors, who will certainly raise a terrific opposition to my leaving here. I doubt if I will be able to get their permission. But, Father, I have also consulted a Father we have here who is in some way an expert in questions of vocation and adaptation. He is a former Jesuit, a man of years and wide experience, and we have worked together on some of the difficulties of the scholastics whose Father Master I am. (For instance, Fr. L. who wrote to you last summer who is definitely not a Carthusian prospect.) I have discussed the whole question with this experienced Father, and his judgment is flatly that I do not belong here and that I do belong in a Charterhouse--assuming I can get into one. (The question whether a Charterhouse might want me is something altogether different.) This Father says that I need the solitary life, and that this life is not doing me any good. His judgment confirms what my own conscience is telling me very clearly. I cannot evade the fact that the intense activity which fills this whole house and in which I myself am engaged is actually creating obstacles to my deeper union with God. I feel exactly in the same predicament as a person working in the active ministry in a town or city. The job I have here is just as gruelling as that, in some respects, and the consequent publicity, correspondence, etc., etc., is absolutely obnoxious. I feel that I must leave all that at all costs. As I said above, I mean to make every possible effort to get permission for a truly solitary life, and I mean to take whatever permission I can get. I believe this to be a serious moment of choice in my life, one upon which depends my deliverance from a future of even more heavy and useless activity and perhaps of responsibilities which I am not in any way equipped to shoulder and which my conscience clamors against. I am not referring to the ordinary duties of Cistercian life, but to the fantastic responsibilities which arise in a monastery which has grown out of all proportion to the requirements of a truly contemplative life, which is invaded with tourists and visitors, and so on.
My whole feeling in the presence of this situation is like that of someone who desires to live a life of virginity, but who is left in the world surrounded by people whose horizons are bounded by marriage and family life. To these others no doubt it may seem like "laziness" to evade the responsibilities of the married state. But Our Lord had different ideas. I live surrounded by men who work hard and sacrifice themselves generously, but who are wedded to their jobs and consequently are nourished and built up by the work which only tears me down and gets between me and God and empties my soul.
I am therefore writing to ask you if there is any chance of my being accepted as a Carthusian. My desires go out to the Charterhouse before everything else, first because if I had been able to become a Carthusian instead of a Trappist in 1941, I would certainly have done so. Secondly because I believe the Carthusian life is the safest and best way to find God in solitude--certainly safer than the business of being a hermit on my own, which nevertheless I will try if nothing else is possible. If you do not take me, the Camaldolese will. But frankly I am a little dubious of Camaldoli--because they would probably want to exploit my name and make me write more books. The third reason why I want to be a Carthusian is that I am fairly sure you would discourage me from writing any more, and that is what I want. Finally, the Camaldolese would undoubtedly use me to make an American foundation. With you I would never be a superior. I assure you, Father, that I want to get away from activity and take on the one job that really means something: that of being silent and of serving God in peace and humility, out from under the eyes of men, alone in His presence. I am essentially quite a simple person and to me complications are only a snare. The Charterhouse seems to me to offer the best guarantee of simplicity and humility and solitude and peace. I beg God to guide you in your answer. If it is affirmative, then the real job begins: that of convincing my Abbot that I should go. If it is negative, then please tell me what you would do in my position--give me some good alternatives. Besides Camaldoli I have thought of the following: joining Pere Henrion in Tunisia; looking up some Franciscan hermits in the Balearic Islands; starting out on my own in the Rocky Mountains or somewhere (I'm not tough enough for that).
Incidentally, I know all about your life--or think I do. The only thing that might bother me is the breaking of sleep, but since I lose a lot of sleep here it could scarcely be any worse than the common dormitory, and it is easier to go without sleep in your life than in ours. I have a slight stomach ailment which my advisor believes is simply a functional disorder caused by lack of adjustment and overwork in this community. He says it would clear up in a Charterhouse and I think he is right.
Well, Father: there it is. May God give you light ...
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
September 27, 1952
I no longer know exactly where you are located now, but I send this letter to Rome! The General Chapter ended about ten days ago, I suppose. Dom James has written nothing to me in regard to the imprimi potest [for The Sign of Jonas], but the publisher indicates to me a vague message--it won't be long. I know you are very busy, and I beg your pardon for disturbing you. It is not to demand anything whatsoever. Perhaps the account from your censor has indicated to you--which is true indeed--that this "Journal" is the product of a rather special spirit. That is, that the author is always speaking of solitude, and there is in it really a spirit more eremitic than cenobitic. In this case, maybe you find yourself embarrassed to write a prefatory letter. I foresaw it, and I wanted to inform you about it, but maybe I lacked precision, maybe even frankness. But I assure you this lack was more unconscious than anything else, for it is only these last days that I have realized the question from all its angles. In truth, I have an ideal which is more personal, perhaps, more particularly "mine" than I thought. Unconsciously it happens that by asking you for a prefatory letter, maybe I wanted to show that "my" spirit was truly quite Cistercian. I don't say it was the spirit of the Order, but a spirit that could in a pinch be accepted in the Order. But I begin to wonder if it is really true after all.
If it is not true, I have no right to a letter from you except only from a purely personal point of view. But I should not in conscience ask you to subscribe to my ideal, as head of the whole Order, if you did not really intend to say that this spirit was quite acceptable with us. Now, at the same time, if this spirit is not acceptable, there arises for me another problem of conscience which I spare you for the time being. I only ask you to pray for me and bless me, for I suffer a little in the midst of this problem. I think I must inform you that my "project" for a scholasticate was also, without my knowing it, an unconscious expedient to create a more solitary and more "contemplative" milieu for myself. Now to present this type of project under pretext of doing some good for the Order is to risk changing and even warping the true spirit of Citeaux. I have neither the right nor the desire to do so. In short, it seems to me I must absolutely in conscience determine if my ideal (which I am morally certain is willed by God for me) can be reconciled with the spirit of Citeaux. If not, I must absolutely avoid any step that would turn to its detriment. But at the same time, I must go on following the vocation God has given me without hindering the progress of others or leading them away from their own path.
I beg your pardon, dear Most Reverend Father, for exposing you to endless embarrassments by my lack of foresight. But I assure you in all sincerity that I have not done it intentionally. I was not yet seeing clearly enough to avoid all the pitfalls. I do not know if your letter is already on its way or not. At any rate, I am expecting an answer to this one, as a confirmation to this letter--just tell me by a simple word, either granting or refusing the publication of the letter. The publisher is getting a little impatient, and I would not like to inconvenience him too much. As for Fr. Maurice's objections, which I do not understand very well since his letter went straight to Dom James, but judging from his remarks on the proof sheets and his notes, I see they are questions of style and composition--questions of literary craft and not of censorship proper. I have sent him a mild protest, and am still awaiting his answer. I will make allthe corrections he is asking for, without appeal. I hope he will all the same be good enough to leave me my own style, and to allow the publishers to judge if the public is going to accept my nonsense or not ...
September 30, 1952
Do me the favor of reading this letter before the other, longer one. I have just received your letter from Igny, for which I thank you sincerely and express my deepest respect for your sincerity towards me. I realize for the first time that I have been unjust, when I only tried to be sincere and objective. I have not distrusted enough my own opinions. You are right in saying that this is to be attributed to a spirit more natural than I knew. Above all--I did not think of it while writing--there is in this a great lack of virtue. Maybe when I was writing "Aux Sources du Silence" (The Waters of Siloe], I thought I was a good religious. But now . . maybe I am not religious at all.
Forgive me if I don't rewrite the letter about The Sign of Jonas. I think you ought to know the facts I mention in it to you. But after what you say about "Aux Sources du Silence," I distrust my feelings as regards the journal. Only the situation remains very delicate though--it is partly my fault and partly the publisher's fault.
The wound you give me, dear Most Reverend Father, is salutary and merciful. But it remains a wound. I express my gratitude for it, and I assure you of my contrition. I can see that unwittingly I have hurt Jesus by speaking badly of His saints. I will accuse myself of it at confession tomorrow, and I will try to do penance. I won't multiply words, I already have too many of them on paper.
After reading our second letter, you will judge about The Sign of Jonas as you like. Maybe the title is rather well chosen: I am only good to be thrown to the whale! I am not a saint but I want to be one, in spite of my wretchedness ...
September 30, 1952
Second Letter
(Written before the other. But I ask you to read this one after the other.)
Dom James' letter has informed me--surprising me a tittle--of your decision about the journal, The Sign of Jonas, after the assessment of the manuscript by Dom Albert [Derzelle] and another Cistercian Abbot. I received the news with much joy, and I wish I could have quite simply answered with my peaceful and gracious "fiat" [let it be done]. I am doing so in advance, anyway, if you do not accept the remarks I feel I should make in this letter.
Indeed, Most Reverend Father, if the question was of a manuscript that had never been through the hands of a publisher--and what is more of an American publisher--the affair would be very simple. But now the publisher, as he accepted the manuscript, and knowing that the idea ofa journal would not be, of itself, repugnant to the spirit of our Order, immediately started to make known the forthcoming publication of this work. So that The Sign of Jonas has already been ordered in several hundreds at least by bookshops. Everywhere one sees it announced, by advertisements, etc., and certain book clubs have already guaranteed a considerable sale by making this book their selection for the month of December, I think. I have asked Mr. Robert Giroux, the publisher, to send you the details of the business aspect of the affair.
So there you are, dear Most Reverend Father: if the entire book, as it is, is withdrawn now from the market, there will be universal consternation and scandal. First, it will be said that if the book has been rejected by the censors of the Order, it is because there must be awkward stories about the life of the Trappists, and even something shocking. People will jump on this chance to denigrate us. Even though these suppositions are not made, then the non-Catholic will sneer, seeing one more proof of what they say about censorship in the Church. In short, if The Sign of Jonas does not appear in the form of a journal, there will be very serious embarrassments for the Order and Gethsemani--and for the publisher, naturally.
Now Dom Albert does not reject the substance of the book. It appears that he accepts willingly all that is spiritual in it. He only rejects the trifles, the banal details of the life, etc. Do you not think, Most Reverend Father, Dom Albert's objections could be met by the following steps:
1) Retain the "genre" and the form of the journal. Publish the spiritual substance, with enough "vignettes" and local color and movement to give this book the true character of a journal, lived and lively, though somewhat impressionistic. But then suppress all that would seem over-banal. Dom Albert would only have to send us a) the list of the passages to be totally suppressed, b) the list of the passages to be modified according to his views. The book, thus purged, would substantially remain all that the readers expect from us, and there will be no scandal.
2) In any event, to protect our (i.e. my) miserable "reputation" (!) in Europe, one could, if you demand it, refuse all the translation rights in Europe, and even the rights for a London edition, only retaining the possibility of selling the rights in South America--a thing that would make no impression in Europe.
But still, after saying all this, I must accuse myself of negligence. Had I known that the publisher was already preparing his publicity, and had I guessed you were going to refuse permission to publish all the book, as it is, I could have prevented this embarrassment. Besides, I must accuse myself of disobedience. For while knowing that the publisher wanted to start the printing I only gave him a conditional [O.K.], telling him he could carry on as long as he was ready to make notable changes after the censor's decision. I had thought I could do so because you had told me the idea of a journal was not, in itself, to be rejected. I had notlooked close enough, and I should have absolutely forbidden the printing. The book is not completely printed, but--I don't know the French phrase--it is "set up in type," ready to be printed. Now, this does not change the face of the question, which depends not on the work but on the advertising and the sale of the book, done independently by the publisher before even consulting me and starting the printing.
I assure you, dear Most Reverend Father, that I am infinitely sorry for my negligence and I ask your pardon for having disobeyed you. I beg you to give me a good penance for it, and I promise I will never, after this, let anything whatsoever be done by a publisher before the acceptance of the whole manuscript by all the censors. In fine, I simply expect from you the expression of God's will, and I promise to accept it with joy, remaining more devoted to you than ever. The publisher, who is a former college friend of mine at the University, a good Catholic and a friend of Gethsemani, will do the same. Believe me, my dear Most Reverend Father, that I accept your will with the joy and affection of a true son while expressing my grief and promising to do better henceforth ...
To Dom Albert Derzelle, O.C.S.O.
Dom Albert Derzelle was Prior of Caldey Abbey in Wales at this time, and an English-language censor of the Order.
October 16, 1952
I had delayed for some time in writing to you, since I thought perhaps a letter from you might be on its way about The Sign of Jonas. I am sorry, Reverend Father, that you have had so much trouble with this book which our Reverendissime [Abbot General] gave you to censor for him. It is not difficult for me to see why you objected to the book. Yet I hope you will forgive me if I once more bring up the subject; I have already written to our Reverendissime Pere about it, but the letter is no doubt wandering all over China looking for him. He may in time receive it with a favorable reply. I now write to you at the suggestion of my own Father Abbot, Dom James.
Plainly, the situation is this. Through the over-eagerness of the publisher, which I was not sufficiently zealous and prudent to control, The Sign of Jonas had already been set up in type and widely advertised before you had finished censoring the manuscript. This was a lamentable error for which I have accused myself to our Reverendissime. Nevertheless the fact remains that the book has been accepted by several book clubs and is already ordered in advance by many bookstores, so that the readers in this country are eagerly awaiting its appearance. I thought I ought to point out to the Reverendissime that if, at this juncture, the book does not appear it might cause such suspicion and calumny of theOrder and Gethsemani--they will think it was suppressed because of scandalous facts or something of the sort. In view of this, and in view of the fact that Dom James assures me that you do not object to the spiritual content of the book which, he says, you suggest publishing in some other form, we would like to ask you the following favor.
Since you approve the publication of the spiritual content of the book in some form and since it is very expedient that the book should appear explicitly as a Journal so as not to arouse too much adverse comment and suspicion, we would like to ask if you would not permit as much of the book as you approve to appear as a Journal and to preserve the Journal form and the thread of the story. I have asked the Reverendissime if he would not permit this also. In the case that this is permissible we would then like you, if it is not too much trouble, to indicate to us what passages must be deleted, and what may be kept with slight modification. Naturally we would like to keep as much as possible, but we bow to your superior judgment as censor and leave the final editing in this matter to you.
We have also suggested to the Reverendissime that we would refrain from granting any rights for publication in Europe, if he or you so desired. This would take care of one of your great objections to the book, namely that it would be received with disfavor by European readers. And yet I would like to point out that one of the passages to which I am sure you objected on these precise grounds--and to which one of the American censors also objected--was accepted and printed in Dieu Vivant. This is the incident about the hunters walking on the enclosure wall which has all the triviality and apparent uselessness which, as I understand, forms the basis of your objection to the book.
Dear Reverend Father, I perfectly understand your attitude towards the book, and that of our Reverendissime. I agree with it myself. The book does not have the seriousness and sobriety one would expect of a Benedictine monk. But I feel that this failing can be largely corrected, while still leaving the book some of its character. You see, I was expressly avoiding anything that sounded like a "spiritual journal," since I felt that it would be indecent for a person with as little spirituality as I have to pretend to publish a volume all about his interior (?) life so early in his days, or indeed during his lifetime at all. It was precisely in order to avoid this faux pas that I went to the other extreme and endeavored to make the book light and simple and matter of fact, describing things and events exactly as they are, so that a person outside the cloister might have something of the experience of knowing what life is like--for better or for worse--inside the walls of Gethsemani. Certainly, if you feel that this book is too frank an avowal of my own religious limitations and of those of Gethsemani, we cannot let that impression be communicated to the public. However, I am sure it can be avoided without sacrificing anything that gives the book a living appeal for the average American reader. I think the instinct to which it might appeal is a legitimate curiosity andmight, in spite of everything, lead to good spiritual fruits. At least that is the opinion of our editor, a good Catholic, who is also very much in touch with the taste of the cultivated readers in this country.
In the end, however, I confess that the whole idea of a Journal has always appeared to me as an indecency--although I enjoyed writing it. It remains to be seen what Jesus wills in this matter, and I pray Him to guide you and the Reverendissime if any change is to be made in your decision. I hope you will be able to save the substance of the book; otherwise the editor, my friend, will be in serious difficulties and so will the monastery.
In closing, my Reverend Father, I beg your blessing and your prayers. Please ask Jesus, through the intercession of Our Lady, to begin at last to make a good monk of me, for I am aware of nothing but shame for what I am at present. I say this in deep sincerity, trusting that it will win me your prayers and those of your community. It is a terrible thing when a religious as poor in virtue as I am, and as full of misery as I, is nevertheless regarded as a person worthy of consideration by some people. May God forgive me for this scandalous illusion which, however, it was never my intention to create. Surely The Sign of Jonas will lead people to at least suspect the truth. Is not that a merit?
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
November 4, 1952
The other day, as I came back home from work, I found your good letter, so kindly and paternal. Your kindness renews my feelings of regret for causing you some pain by my imprudence, and I assure you once more that I will not do it again! I have notified the publisher of your decision, telling him to make, as soon as possible, the corrections Dom Albert will indicate to him. Of course, we have already made the corrections asked for by the American censors.
You tell me that both publishers--the one in London [Tom Burns of Burns, Oates] as well as the one in New York [Robert Giroux of Harcourt, Brace]--have raised a campaign of blackmail [Maritain's letter of protest, etc.]. I have not been aware of what has happened, and I did not even know that the English publisher had meddled in this affair. I had only asked our publisher here [Giroux] to communicate to you the details of the publicity which had been done around the book. This publicity had already been begun, without my knowing anything about it, before your visit to Gethsemani. At that time, the manuscript had already been delivered for the most part to the publisher, but they had not yet begun the printing work. [Since it had been passed by Gethsemani censors, it had been set up in galley proofs by the publisher.] I sincerely regret the embarrassment the publishers have caused you by their indiscretion.Really, it is my fault. I understand quite well that, having the book in press, they behave as "money men" since they run the risk of losing quite a lot of money if the book were suppressed. As I read over these sentences, I think I must have made grammatical mistakes. I will content myself with saying once more, from the bottom of my heart, my sincere regret, as much for this affair of The Sign of Jonas as for the errors in "Aux Sources du Silence."
During the month of October, I examined myself many times, and noticed I really lack religious spirit. At the same time, Jesus was kind enough, in the adorable plans of His divine providence, to lead me along a way full of trials. and I very often feel myself in a state of blindness and impotence. I have never had such a feeling of my own wretchedness. No doubt this is salutary for me: but I assure you, my dear Most Reverend Father, that I am scared by the nothingness that opens like an abyss in my soul. Pray to the Blessed Virgin to hold me very near to her, in this darkness. It is certainly not the moment to discuss with Reverend Father the question of a solitary life. However I have unfolded to him what was going on in my soul: but I don't need to take a long journey in order to find the desert: the desert is myself ...
To Dom Humphrey Pawsey
November 18, 1952
It is some time since you kindly wrote and asked me to come up to Vermont to talk things over. This will not be possible, I fear.
As you say, it would be better if things could be arranged in my present circumstances, and I think that all the indications of God's will seem, at present, to point in that direction. I cannot hope to understand or see clearly, but as long as I know what His will is, I am glad to accept it. The chief ambiguity that confronts me is that all who tell me to stay here tell me to do so for the sake of the contemplative life, while staying here seems in fact to involve the sacrifice of the contemplative life. An interesting dilemma which is enough of a source of anguish for me to need many prayers. I hope I can count on yours ...
To Dom Aelred Graham, O.S.B.
Dom Aelred Graham (1907-1984), an English Benedictine monk from Ampleforth Abbey, was at this time headmaster of Portsmouth Priory School in Rhode Island. He had written a rather negative article on Thomas Merton in The Atlantic Monthly [January 1953], one of the first really critical reviews of Merton and his writings. The following letter was the first of a series exchanged between them.
January 15, 1953
This is just a note to thank you for the article you wrote about me in the Atlantic. It reached me in a roundabout way the other day and I feel that I have profited much by reading it. On the whole I think you have treated me with true Christian charity. If there be any misunderstanding of my position, it is probably my fault. I think, at bottom, your objection is basically due to a clash of temperaments more than anything else. For my own part I have always felt that the things I write do not at all represent what I would really like to say.
Above all, I realize that the Spirit of Christ and of His Gospels has not been given the prominence He should have in my writings, if they are to be the writings of a true son of St. Benedict. I beg your prayers that I may grow in true charity and humility and that I may really breathe forth the "good odor of Christ" in every place. From now on I probably will not be writing very much. I have a rather heavy responsibility, however, as spiritual director of our scholastics here. I will value your prayers--and any other points of advice you may see fit to give me. I assure you that I have no desire to be a reformer, that I do not really mean to enlist the whole world in the pursuit of a contemplation that can only be the gift of God, and that I am by no means a second Rancé. Finally, I am as worried as anyone else about the inordinate publicity which is being received by the Trappists and Gethsemani ...
To Abbot James Fox
January 20, 1953
I thought we ought to have a name for the new "refuge" and I chose the name St. Anne's [an old toolshed moved to a wooded hill overlooking the hills to the east], if you approve.
Having been out here almost all day for two days, I find time goes by much too fast, and it is always time to go home much too soon. It is the first time in my life--37 years--that I have had a real conviction of doing what I am really called by God to do. It is the first time I have ever felt that I have "arrived--tike a river that has been running through a deep canyon and now has come out into the plains--and is within sight of the ocean.
Funnily enough, it is out here that I have for the first time discovered the real Benedictine values as they are meant to be. Silence, simplicity, poverty, peace, and above all I seem to be much more able to keep my eye on the will of God. Out here there is no complexity and no confusion--there is no contradiction between work and prayer, everything is in unity and all is truly centered in God.
I am glad Our Lord did not let me die before I could taste something of this: it is the real thing, at least for me, and with a little of this life, Ifeel that I can really prepare for death and for heaven. Thank you again for allowing me this privilege of being so close to Jesus, even if only for a little while.
To Father Barnabas M. Ahern, C.P.
Father Ahern, a Passionist Scripture scholar, was teaching at the Passionist seminary in Louisville at this time, and occasionally gave Scripture lectures to the Gethsemani community, and thus Merton would sometimes call upon Father Ahern for counseling and advice.
January 22, 1953
Many thanks for your kind and solicitous letter. If a cryptic sentence of mine led you to believe that I was contemplating a "radical change," I owe you some clarification. No, I am not changing to another order. I agree with the reasons you give for not doing so, although I think that in some respects you are too absolute: for after all, all transfers are surely not a matter of emotion. My limited experience with the scholastics shows me that a lot of them really do not belong here and that God's will surely seems to be that they try something else. Of course, simple professed are still "under probation" so that is not at all strange. I have seen misfits beyond that stage, and I agree that perhaps they got as far as they did on emotion rather than faith ... On the other hand, there are men here from other Orders who did well to come, and whose presence here is no indication that the time spent elsewhere was wasted. I can also see the possibility of someone quite legitimately leaving here for the Carthusians but I think it would have to be a very rare case, with very strong indications of a special reason willed by God. And I have been told by one director that such indications were found in my own case, but since he also agrees that these indications may lead to a solution nearer home, and since Father Abbot takes that view, and since I feel myself that this is what the Holy Ghost wants: that is the step that is being taken. It will upset no one, because I hope very few people will ever know much about it.
However, I will really value your reactions. In some sense it is a more radical step than the other--that is, if it goes as far as I hope it will, one day.
As you know, the monastic tradition has always allowed for the quite normal development that would take some cenobites into solitude as hermits. St. Benedict recognized this in his Rule. The Camaldolese have adapted St. Benedict for hermits. The Cistercians, while being more intransigently cenobitic even than other Benedictines, commemorate three Cistercian hermits in the Breviary--a good proportion, of our fifteen or so saints! One of them received permission to live as a hermit in the Holy Land from St. Bernard himself. You have probably also seen therecent issue of La Vie Spirituelle, "Bienheureuse Solitude" which takes up the question. Some of the articles are quite interesting. There remains no real question of the rightness and fitness of hermits existing in dependence on established monastic communities.
The question has always been one of practical application to individual cases. Our abbots retain the power to grant these special permissions. If they have not used that power lately, to any great extent, there is no reason why they cannot use it whenever they see fit. We are not planning permissions here that would cover more than one case, at the moment. And so far, Father Abbot, who understands and sympathizes with what appear to be rather special needs, has granted me a permission which allows for a good chunk of the day in solitude, on some days, without any interference with the regular schedule and without creating any scandal in the community.
I have been fretting over this question for some nine years, Father. No matter how hard I have tried to convince myself, I have never really succeeded in quite believing that the ordinary routine of Trappist life is exactly what I am called to. It is just "not it." With me it does not work. That is to say that it produces effects in me which are more or less opposite to what it produces in those who are really called to it. Quite simply: the perpetual motion of exterior exercises, the constant presence of a lot of people and also often of a lot of machines, instead of helping me to pray and liberating me from myself, tends to get me tied up in myself to a point that is really harmful. To be alone, with real silence, real solitude without material responsibilities, and able to really sink into God, straightens everything out. Father Abbot's conclusion: "Solitude, for you, is medicine," and he gladly gives me a good amount of it. In effect, I am a part-time hermit. This began recently and it has cleared up almost everything. It has put the liturgy back on its feet for me, and has helped me to face the job of directing students a little more serenely. Last fall I just about cracked up, under the business of leading what was effectively an "active life" and trying to convince myself that this was what it meant to be a contemplative.
One point remains, and it is important. It is an interior matter, close to the heart of the question. Such a step may possibly be regarded by many as a kind of "defection," a retreat from duty, a concession to self-will and human weakness, an eccentricity. Since I am still putting in a good day's work as director, I feel no special qualms about the "duty" angle. But one of the things that I think I must face and work out, and which requires the integrity I asked you to pray for, is this: it may well be a temptation, but the refusal to face it, the fear of it, has been making a mess of my interior life. It seems to me that what I find in solitude is so much worthwhile, so truly the thing I am really called to and so much the real reason for my existence on earth, that it is worth facing the accusation of defection, of being a bad or eccentric religious, in order toget it. Such accusations are not forthcoming, but they might occur. Let them, then. If my really finding God is to be bought at that price--it is still too cheap! Frankly I don't think there will be any but pharisaic scandal at what I hope to do in the future. Those who know about what I have hoped, already understand it perfectly. I hope, in the future, to be able to live completely as a hermit. How I am going to get there is in the hands of God. But that is what I was asking you to pray for.
In resume: I really believe that Our Lord wants me to follow this course now. It is a course which, in itself, accords with the monastic tradition and can be fitted into the Cistercian life. It is something which some theologians (Dom Anselme Stolz, Dom Jean Leclercq--both Benedictines--and others) feel ought to be brought back into its rightful place in the monastic setting. It is fully approved by my Superiors and not only approved but advised by directors. I am going forward leaving the future development of it all in the hands of God, working through my own Superiors. But there remains the personal anguish of travelling a road on which there is a great danger of illusion and on which I will undoubtedly meet many critics and many obstacles ...
It seems to me that if I give myself to Him in the most complete possible solitude--I mean whatever solitude may be permitted to me in my present circumstances--I will be doing a work more pleasing to Our Lord and more fruitful for the Church than if I wrote more books. In order to do this, my Superiors have gladly taken me off the job of teaching Scripture and have let me cut down on writing. As far as the writing goes, I do not feel that I will ever write anything worthwhile, if I cannot have access to the depths which solitude alone seems able to lay open to me. In other words there is simply no point in my rehashing other people's books, as I am not a true theologian and cannot do so effectively.
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
February 12, 1953
Today we are reading in the refectory your beautiful letter on lectio divina, and it seems to me that you touch here a definitely capital point. Yes, it is true that our love for God easily falls into tepidity and aridity when we do not come unceasingly back to the knowledge of His love for us. In truth, it is His love which is at the same time the cause and the term of our loving knowledge of Him. It is His love that invites us to find Him everywhere, in the Scripture, in nature, in our own hearts, in our duties--and I add my own voice: in solitude!
But I was not intending to compliment you on this fine paternal letter. On the contrary, it reminds me of the painful fact of your illness. I remember how eagerly you left everything aside to write me, from Japan, as soon as you knew I was in a difficult plight. And what have Idone? Already a fortnight or more has passed before I address you a little filial note, in order to assure you of my pain and my prayers for you. But now, it is your circular letter itself that accounts for my apparent lack of virtue. I endeavor all the same to spare a little room for prayer and reading in the somewhat active life I am leading with our forty students. But after all, this work is not really much in itself ...
The day before yesterday a copy of The Sign of Jonas was sent to you. I am ashamed of it, and I would have liked to spare you the sight of this poor work which caused you such pain. It is still not the end of the miseries with this book. The publisher had pictures which had been delivered to him, in which "the monk" was not recognizable--for he is always seen from behind. Unfortunately, without even asking our permission, the publisher has allowed these photos to appear in some newspapers, letting it be known that the monk in question was me. After which, no pictures at all, even those in which the monk's face cannot be seen. I am very sorry, my Most Reverend Father.
Apart from all this, the impression is however that the book will do a little good, to recompense us for all this trouble. 60,000 copies have been sold before publication, and with the second printing we reach 75,000. Very serious persons, writers, critics, etc., seem to think it is the "best" (i.e. the least bad) of our books: this not only from the literary point of view, but also from the point of view of its spiritual influence, given the peculiar circumstances of the U.S.A ... .
March 13, 1953
I was just going to write you a word to tell you how glad I was to hear of you, via our Reverend Father, who visited you during your convalescence in Canada. But here comes your good letter. I hasten to answer you with filial love, as I accept the dispositions you are suggesting to me as a writer.
The question of the journal is very simple. You ask me if this task is not bound to hinder my intimate relations with God. Well, if it were God's will that I do this task, He would Himself see to it how to protect me. As I wrote The Sign of Jonas, I felt clearly I was doing His holy will and, though I had a few distractions, I think my interior life did not suffer too much. But now you are showing your wish to see the journal cease. Since this does not please you, I willingly discard the work, which kept me busy only very little as a matter of fact. It is no longer God's will that I write this journal. Of course my relations with Him would be hindered. There we are. I find the answer is very simple.
How kind of you to take care of this question of solitude which preoccupies me. I find that what embarrasses me most is the duty to direct the students' souls. Since my thoughts are directed to persons concrete and known, and not to the rather hypothetical reader, I find in it more distraction and contention, and I unwittingly lack fidelity to myparticular grace, by endeavoring to adapt myself too much to the tastes of others. There is here, as everywhere, a danger of artificiality, of falseness. But here again God takes care of our inevitable errors. He takes upon Himself even the distractions we undergo out of love for Him, in the duty of guiding the souls towards divine union. I don't lose too much by it as long as this charge does not reach proportions quite unreasonable for a Trappist, and besides, Dom James, who understands the situation very well, gives me the occasion to make good for the intervals and to pray a little and seek for recollection and solitude when possible. I think you too will favor such a step, which is quite necessary.
But there remains something I want to ask you. I don't see very clearly, in your letter, and I wonder whether it forbids me to do any work as a writer.
1) Is it your will that I don't write any more a single book?
2) Or do you want me not to write a book while I am Student Master?
3) Do you allow the eventual publication of the conferences given to the students, and of the main ideas of their formation? All the same I must write them [for the students], and I get them photocopied. So it is a more or less unavoidable work.
4) Or, apart from the journal and every autobiographical and formally "personal" narrative, would you allow a book provided it does not hinder the interior life and does not disagree with our monastic ideal--e.g., meditations, studies on the interior life, lives of saints, studies in Holy Scripture, etc.?
In principle, my Most Reverend Father, any work as a writer should be for us rare and exceptional. If you want to know what I frankly think, before God, in my own case, I will tell you this: what I find most embarrassing is to try to do a scholar's job, to speak as an historian, a dogmatic theologian, etc. I also have more or less given up writing as a poet, but sometimes an idea may come, it gets written, so to speak, of its own accord, and it helps to deepen some insight about God, about the spiritual life, etc. Also fragments of meditations, impersonal and objective, upon the truths of faith, our relations with God. It is these fragments (in the line of Seeds of Contemplation) that seem to me to be our affair, if we write anything at all. But if I must go on working along this line it will remain, for me, as for the others, rare and exceptional!
I ask you these questions with simplicity, precisely to know where I must direct our efforts. A few years ago, with Dom James' approval, I signed a contract with our editor [Robert Giroux] aiming at the publication of four books of which one has been delivered [The Ascent to Truth, 1953]. The others were to be a life of Saint Aelred [not completed], a book on Saint Bernard [The Last of the Fathers, 1954], a book on the Holy Mass [unwritten]. I assure you I have very little taste for these works, all of which seem to demand a little erudition. There remains the fact that I am under an obligation of providing him (the publisher) with three more books.
Besides, I am convinced of the truthfulness of what you say about the dangers of a writer's life. One may think one has very pure intentions, but publicity is an altogether nefarious thing which seduces us in spite of ourselves. Also the preoccupations of success, of the diffusion of the book, etc. I have resisted them with all my strength, but I am sure I have not avoided being wounded many times. .
To Dom Hubert Van Zeller, O.S.B.
Dom Hubert Van Zeller (1905-1984) was a monk of Downside Abbey in England and well known for his many books and articles on the monastic and contemplative life. He wrote to Merton saying not all the English Benedictines agreed with Dom Aelred Graham's rather negative appraisal of Merton and his writings.
[Summer, 1953]
Thank you for your letter which covered me with confusion. I did not mean to enlist you as a reviewer, but I will be a most happy and honored author if you do write about the book. And I feel that the works of Merton occupy too great a proportion in the books assigned to you ad usum. I have three Van Zellers in the somewhat large collection which I call the scholasticate library, in order to save my face and salve my conscience. They are Daniel, Isaias and Moments of Light. The latter is particularly good and has helped one of my students very notably. Your lively approach to Daniel completely entranced another (who needs to be entranced, as he is seriously ill and is having rather a rough time of it). I am wondering if you have some other books on the Scriptures. In fact I know you have, but I have not yet been able to get at them and this letter is to be interpreted as an act of shameless and mercenary begging for one or another of them. In return, if they would be useful, I could send you some mimeographed notes of conferences and such, that form part of the dura et aspera which our scholastics have to suffer in this valley of tears.
The reason why Dom Aelred wrote his article about me [for The Atlantic Monthly] is probably that he feels the Trappists ought to be taken down a peg. We do not mean to give the impression of blowing our own trumpet in this country, but unfortunately that is the impression the "Black" Benedictines seem to be receiving. There is nothing new in this, since St. Bernard had to face the same problem, and the foundation of Citeaux seems to have been surrounded by a certain amount of name-calling which would have been better left alone. However, the best thing we Cistercians can do about it is to pull in our horns and not make too much noise about ourselves. I sympathize with the aspirations you speak of: I think they exist in many monasteries. They exist here too; and one of the chief reasons why I think the Cistercians ought to be a little quieter about themselves is that they (we) do not have as much of the primitiveSt. Benedict as they (we) suppose. If there is a real need for the simple, unadorned Benedictine life, the life provided for in the Rule as it stands, the Holy Spirit will certainly provide for those who seek that life ...
To Abbot Augustine Moore, O.C.S.O.
Fr. Augustine Moore (1911-) entered Gethsemani about the same time as Thomas Merton, but was sent to the foundation of the Holy Spirit in Georgia, and was the American Definitor in Rome at the time of this letter. He was elected Abbot of Holy Spirit Abbey in 1957, following the death of Abbot Robert McGann.
May 10, 1953
I am appending to this letter the notes of a tirade I delivered to the scholastics after the visitation, explaining various points Dom Louis [Abbot of Gethsemani's Motherhouse of Melleray in France] had brought up. Could I have them back, please, when you are finished? You will find in them a reference to the use of the term scholasticate, which Dom Louis does not absolutely reprove. He simply discourages the use of the word in the sense of a separate group within the community. He has in mind Mount Melleray, where the scholastics have their own private scriptorium and where they go out to work separately from the rest of the monks. As long as the word does not lead to or imply such a state of affairs, it is okay. We are avoiding it here.
Functions of the Master of Students: Dom Louis simply ironed out a few details, after repeating that the fundamental duty of the Master is to continue and deepen the monastic formation given in the novitiate, to make sure that no deviations creep in as a result of studies, independent reading, etc., which should continue to be controlled. He does not seem to place much stress on the priestly formation of the scholastics which I think very important, but we do not disagree.
The Master of Students carries out his functions chiefly in conferences and direction. Dom Louis approved the setup we have here, for these things. They might be done differently elsewhere. With thirty-five to forty scholastics, I do not have time to take the solemn professed on a regular direction schedule. I take the first year professed twice a month, the second and third year professed once a month. I also have seven or eight regular penitents who come once a week. The solemn professed can come when they wish, Saturdays are kept open for them. Others too can come in between times if they want to.
As for conferences--I give one a week, Sunday after Benediction. Then when they make retreats I give retreat conferences--one for each minor order, three for each major order or for profession, but these conferences are optional. Usually we make retreats as follows: Go out for the morning work, then take the whole afternoon off for prayer, reading.Conference usually comes half an hour before vespers. It is a lot nicer that way--in the old days we spent most of the time of retreat changing and going to Fr. Amedeus's conferences!!
The main thing Dom Louis did was to make clear the fact that the Prior takes care of all the material needs of the scholastics--looks after their needs when sick, etc. The M.S. does this only indirectly--drawing to the attention of the Prior or infirmarian that such and such a student needs care. Prior receives accusations for breach of rule, gives public penances, etc. M.S. has no disciplinary function. Here the Fr. Prior also takes care of the investigation of candidates before ordination, as directed by the instruction of the S.C.R., "Quantum religiones omnes" (see appendix to Creusen, "Religious Men and Women in the Code," pp. 287 ff.). Note that Cistercians are not obliged to follow this instruction in points that conflict with our private law: these differences flow principally from our "unique" privilege of being able to receive candidates to solemn profession without necessarily intending to advance them to major orders. Hence in n. 14 of QRO (Creusen, p. 294) it is not necessary to require all candidates to make application for advancement to orders before simple profession. In fact, however, Dom James and probably Dom Robert will ordinarily not receive anyone to simple vows in the choir, unless they are fit for ordination and desire to go on to orders. Hence in practice all will make application anyway. In n. 17, which by the way applies before the subdiaconate, we make them take the oath in these terms. Dom Louis thinks the first lines can be changed to suit our privilege: I don't see why they should be. This oath is taken after solemn vows, usually. I wrote up a new form which they sign here before solemn vows, and I'll try to get one from Fr. Prior. This is an "extra."
Before the first minor order and before subdiaconate, we send out a written form requesting all who have known the candidate closely in his formation (novice masters, professors--NOT regular confessor of candidate) to write out their frank opinion of his qualifications. This is kept in the archives. The investigation is repeated before subdiaconate and there follows a vote in the private council. Two candidates for major orders have been rejected this year, in this way. The investigation before minor orders is more of a formality since it comes so soon after simple profession. Nevertheless we have to be very strict about simple profession, especially in regard to their mental balance. In my opinion any tendency to strain is sufficient for rejection, unless it can be corrected entirely in the novitiate.
The Definitors are very anxious to get us to send men to Rome and I hope to be able to do so within a year or two. That will mean brushing up their Latin in a big way, in order that they may not reach the Eternal City as complete rubes. One of the big Trappist sins is accepting candidates for the choir who know little or no Latin. Dom Louis says we must wait until they have completed six years (unless we take them in as oblatesand give them their humanities here). In my opinion Dom Louis does not mean a six-year-in-six-weeks fresh-air course. The professor sneezes and you miss a whole semester.
One of our problems here is nervous trouble which comes from various sources in my opinion.
1) They come in with the jitters in the first place.
2) They come in with a false notion of the monastic life, and do not lose that false notion in the novitiate: cling to the idea that they have to be something exalted and brilliant. They are exceptional people. They get this from some of our propaganda (mea culpa) which tends to give the idea that we are the light of the world. In fact, we are ordinary people.
3) Many run into a conflict between ideals and facts.
4) Many try to force their way to sanctity by sheer strain. No matter how much they may claim to be "above" consolations, their interior life tends to be nourished by emotion. They are constantly turning inward to examine their emotional "tone," and think that union with Jesus can be measured by a "feeling" of peace, relaxation, happiness, etc. If they don't hear the right "tone" inside, they try to produce it by strained recollection, forcing things "out" of the mind. Hence they conceive every sense impression, every memory, every idea, to be an obstacle to prayer. The community, the liturgy, everything becomes a potential distraction. Choir becomes a distraction--often they do another bad thing: become obsessed with the "quality" of the chant, as if the chant had to be materially perfect before you could begin to pray. Chant never perfect, ergo you can never get around to beginning to pray ... etc.
5) All in all, we suffer from the disease of perfectionism, which is the biggest obstacle to true perfection because it dries up the interior spirit, kills real faith, makes us concentrate on ourselves instead of Jesus, puts a "false Jesus" in our hearts instead of the real Jesus Who is a Savior. He is not waiting for us to become angels before He starts to love us. He loves us because we are imperfect, not because we are good but because He is good ... Most of them believe this only in theory. They are obsessed with their own miserable little "perfection" and "imperfection."
This is turning into an Encyclical, and I haven't even time to write a postcard. Please give my love to all the scholastics and ask them to pray for me and my own little gang (some of them are really the best I have ever seen at Gethsemani, which is saying a great deal). Jesus has been very good to us and to them. Some of them actually have a little common sense, which makes their fervor and their spiritual idealism really something staggering, at times.
To Dom Jean Leclercq
May 18, 1953
Forgive me for my delay in answering your good letter. Jonas is already being translated [into French] for Albin Michel, so I regretfully decline your kind offer. It would have been an honor to appear in "Tradition Monastique," in which series I already know your volume and that of Pere Bouyer. By the way, has the promised Casel volume appeared in this series yet? I am anxious to see it. Now for your questions:
1. The XIV Century manuscript of St. Bernard is marked as n. 4 in the list of manuscripts and incunabula contributed by Dom Edmond Obrecht to the studies in St. Bernard et son Temps, Dijon, 1929, vol. ii, p. 133. I send you a photograph of the page with the "I" which, in fact, is of no interest.
2. I am not doing any work on a book on St. Bernard and there has been no announcement of any such book; hence I don't think it is in competition with your St. Bernard Mystique. If it gets finished--or started--before 1955, I will be surprised. The plan still exists, but I have no time to work on it.
3. The remark about the monks of the Common Observance understanding the truth of a statement of Sertillanges on the intellectual life which Trappists are incapable of understanding does not seem to me to be an injustice. The statement of Sertillanges is true, and there is no injustice in saying that someone agrees with the truth. Nor was it intended to be disparaging. However, if it appears so to you, perhaps they will themselves be even more sensitive about it, so I will delete it from the French edition, along with a lot of other things which will be of no interest in France. One of the censors of Jonas (in English) was a European. Then, too, I think the book shows clearly that I do not consider the Trappist life the highest form of contemplative life, because I believe such a theory to be plainly false. The Trappist life is a solidly austere form of the monastic life, which has its limitations, which offers opportunities for a man to become a contemplative, provided the opportunities are not ruined by excessive activity within the monastery. We have something of the spirit of St. Bernard but we have no monopoly on it. From the little I know of Hauterive [Cistercian monastery in Switzerland], I am certain that they are just as good a monastery and just as proper for the contemplative life as Gethsemani--with perhaps certain advantages over Gethsemani. I do not despise the Common Observance at all, nor do I despise the Benedictines (as Dom Aelred Graham seems to think).
The more I reflect on it, the more I realize that all the monastic ways to God are most worthy of praise, and that, in the end, there is no point in asking who has the most perfect interpretation of the Rule of St. Benedict. In the end, however, what I most personally and intimatelyfeel about at least my own place in the framework of things is echoed by the remarkable articles of a certain "S" in La Vie Spirituelle of last October and again more recently. Do you happen to know who this "S" may be [Sainsaulieu], and would there be some chance of finding him and writing him a letter? (See "L'Erémitisme dans la vie spirituelle," V.S., Oct. 1952.) I also by the way enjoyed your article in Rhythmes du Monde, now reproduced in Témoignages. I hope more and more to withdraw from the field of professional writing--or at least to appear in it only as an occasional author of disjointed meditations. But I do earnestly beg your prayers that I may seek God with greater love, and that He may deign to open to us here in America the ways of solitude, within the framework of our monasticism. This, I think, is much more important than any books. I thank you again for your letter which, as you see, was stimulating ...
To Sister A.
Sister A., a young Carmelite, had met Father Louis several times at Gethsemani when she came to visit her brother, a member of the community and one of Merton's students. The friendship continued after her entrance into Carmel.
May 21, 1953
The invitation was not steamed open and there was no evidence of ink eradicator, so I presume you wrote it all over again. On the 8th I included you in a Mass I was able to offer for Sister C. who wrote that she was making her profession on that day. Meanwhile I will try to do the same for you on the 25th. Clare Luce gave me some Masses and stipulated that they were for me but insofar as a theologian can juggle with the intention I will make use of all the probable opinions that permit me to apply the impetratory fruit primarily to you. The propitiatory fruit is much more needed by me than by you anyway.
A., I think your soul is just as it should be. Do not try too hard to see anything special in yourself or in your actions. You must be very simple and value all the little ordinary things of Carmelite life for no other reason than that they are pleasing to Jesus. Soon the life will seem just as ordinary as every other life. Probably does so already. And that will strike you as strange. You will feel as if there were something lacking. Nothing is lacking, if you have the faith to see that there is one big difference--the only difference; you are leading an ordinary life that is entirely consecrated to God. It is not yours, but His. It is unbelievably hard for many religious to convince themselves in practice of this great truth. Everybody knows it in theory, but few ever live by it. They go through life looking for "something else" that isn't there. They are always uneasy, always extending themselves outside and beyond the actual into strange and non-existent possibilities. What is valuable is what is real,here and now. The present reality is the reflection of an eternal reality, and through the present we enter into eternity. That does not mean that everything becomes shadowy. The saints more than anyone else appreciate the reality and value of everyday life and of created things around them. They appreciate them not for themselves but for Jesus--in Whom they all exist.
You have the sense to see that it makes little difference whether you are doing a dull task or going through a consoling ceremony. They are all in a sense "indifferent." But I would suggest, while seeing that indifferent character, that you also see the individual value and reality of each one. In itself it is nothing. Done for Jesus, it is immensely valuable. We have to see not only the nothingness of things and not only their value but their nothingness and their value both at the same time. In that way we avoid a temptation of contemplatives who despise ordinary things not so much because they are nothing in the sight of God but because they are boring to ourselves. Boredom and detachment are two different things. This may seem strange: but sometimes, when prayer is dry, it is good and praiseworthy to look at some real created thing and feel and appreciate its reality--a flower, a tree, the woods (for you, the garden!) or even a person. (But there you had better be careful.) Just let the reality of what is real sink into you, and you find your soul spontaneously begins to pray again, for through real things we can reach Him Who is infinitely real. At the same time, we never forget that their reality is also relatively unreal and that we must not become attached to it.
It is too late to give you advice about general confessions. In such cases if you have little or nothing to say be glad of it! That also applies to direction. Do not feel that you have to pull teeth to manifest your state of soul. That is the way you are ... There are some people who manifest themselves better by keeping quiet. In trying to put themselves into words they falsify themselves--or rather they get away from the real picture without meaning to. I think the reason why you have trouble in talking about your soul is that you are too straight to want to say things about yourself that would not really be you--and that you really have nothing to say. You know that within the silence of your own soul Jesus is present in a way that is too perplexing to be talked about and it would embarrass you extremely to try to analyze it all. That is the other thing you must not do: do not poke around too much down there in your heart, let Him be! Let Him rest. He finds so few hearts in which He can enjoy a little silence. Those Who say they love Him are always pushing and nagging, with their complaints, demanding His attention like spoiled children. How He desires to find a soul that has grown up enough to just be with Him. May He give you a deep and mature soul that can resound to the depth and simplicity of His own presence. That is true spiritual childhood.
I still mean to write about books, but not now. Next time you write,perhaps you could tell me a little about what you have so far found interesting, what has helped you. I'd say by all means read St. John of the Cross but not only him. Mix him up with plenty of variety, and above all get to know the New Testament.
You are at the beginning of a long and beautiful road--beautiful because it is so plain. The only thing you need to remember is not to seek your own pleasure along its way. If you seek pleasure you will never find it. If you seek to please Him, you will please yourself much more. For Jesus takes the greatest pleasure in the soul that has no greater pleasure than to please Him.
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
June 3, 1953
... A very great composer, Paul Hindemith, has written me asking if I could write a poem that he could turn into a cantata for orchestra and choir. I sent him the preliminary notes of a work. He was very pleased with it. He came to see me here. After our conversation I did more work on this project and I have finished a first complete version of it. I am awaiting Mr. Hindemith's reaction. Meanwhile [for censoring] I have sent the text to Fr. Paul [Bourne], in Georgia. He is quite pleased with it, and he tells me he has sent you his thoughts about it. Now I was not asking him for the final nihil obstat: only his reactions. There will be some more work to do. I wanted to be sure that this work would be approved [of], in principle, before I committed myself definitely with Mr. Hindemith. Fr. Paul says he finds nothing to disapprove in this project. The subject is theological: The Tower of Babel--the theme is the "word" in man's life--the word perverted by sinful pride. God's Word that comes into the world to restore the order destroyed by sin, themes of division and unity, etc.
I frankly confess to you that I intend to wait for a change of censors before letting this work fall into the hands of Father M ... . He knows nothing about modern poetry. He has inadmissible prejudices against every work of this kind, to such an extent that he has always said that my efforts in this genre were sheer folly. Maybe he is right, I don't know. But anyway, the critics do not think as he does. For all that, he has never refused a nihil obstat to our poems. If you insist, I'll send the text immediately to Fr. M. Otherwise, I ask your tentative permission to let the project go ahead, in view of the favorable decision of Fr. Paul. After the text has been definitely established, according to the demands of Mr. Hindemith, I will submit it to censorship in the ordinary way, to get the imprimi potest after the two nihil obstats of our censors. I intend to do this after the General Chapter. Meanwhile, Mr. Hindemith will probably have written a good deal of music around the poem. I do not want to lethim go ahead, if the whole project is inadmissible. But it seems to me that Fr. Paul's opinion will serve you as a guarantee of its relative value.
So I ask you, dear Most Reverend Father, to tell me:
1) If I can let Mr. Hindemith go on, and wait for the normal censorship, foreseeing some detail changes, about which they will certainly raise no difficulty.
2) If I must get Fr. M.'s nihil obstat immediately.
3) If the opinion of some other censor would be enough to assure you of the value of the work, while waiting for the normal censure after the completion of the work.
It seems to me that the third possibility is the best. So, if you like, I will send you the text of the poem, and you can give it to whomever you please to see what it is about.
But in short you see that the regulations, however detailed they are, do not take into account the case when the initiative for this or that work comes from outside, and when there might exist relationships between the author and the publisher, or someone else, even before the first censorship. Of course, Father Abbot's permission is always presupposed.
I thank you wholeheartedly for your good letter, which tells me very clearly how to understand the author's task in a Cistercian monastery. I promise to conform to it faithfully. At the same time, I write next to nothing. As you point out to me, I give pride of place to the charge of Father Master of the Scholastics, which is the only thing to do anyway, since we have so many of them.
Dom Louis [Abbot of Melleray] made a good regular visit. His secretary [Merton] had a lot of work! In the course of the visit he saw the poor little woods which is practically the only refuge of those who want a little silence here. He also saw in it a little hut, where one can take refuge when it rains [St. Anne's Hermitage], for we have torrential downpours which last half an hour during all the summer. He did not look very pleased with the hut, but he said nothing. Besides, it is you yourself who fully approved of our woods. This is what gives me room for a bit of interior life. Meanwhile, since last year I have suffered from nervous trouble, more and more acute; I sleep very little, etc. I am very pleased to accept the cross--in the form of continuous noise and din (of the machines) during the office, the work, etc., but in short it gets on one's nerves, even when it is accepted.
I assure you that the vocation problem is to me just as agonizing as ever. But I seek only God's will, and I don't want to cheat in trying to impose my ideas on the Superiors. I am more convinced than ever of the necessity of a truly solitary, truly contemplative life, and I am just as fully convinced I will never achieve it by making complicated projects. I thirst for God even unto death, and I am aware of being at the same time a great sinner and a totally useless chap--and also a fool. So much the better ... I am not seeking any solitude with abjection. In the eyes ofthe world, one might say that my life was hardly "abject." But I am not in the least "the writer Father Merton"--within me, things are different. I do not pretend I have reached the seventh degree of humility: for what I find in myself angers me and discourages me ...
To Dom Hubert Van Zeller
August 3, 1953
You have already forgiven me, I am sure, for my delay in thanking you for the books. I wanted to read them myself before writing, but Father Abbot's secretary had purloined Jeremias and one of my most slow-reading and meditative scholastics took, and still has, Ezechiel. But I have enjoyed Jeremias, the prophet I am reading this summer in any case. I am beginning to find him almost my favorite among the major prophets, and perhaps the reason is that he was involved in that mysterious discovery of the Law in the Temple which always excited me. I am glad you think Helcias was his father.
The scholastics are reading and loving both Moments of Light and Famine. Both help them to like the interior poverty and dryness inseparable from a life which is not one of exaltation.
Our cow barn burned down the other evening, in the middle of the meditation. I became involved in the most active meditation I ever made in my life and came out with the skin burned off a section of one hand. We were very happy that the fire did not spread to everything else in sight, as it might well have done. If you see Fr. Bruno James, please thank him for his last letter. We are harvesting vegetables and I have no time to write at the moment ...
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
August 13, 1953
Our Reverend Father Dom James wants to publish and disseminate in the United States the official translation of the Encyclical [of Pius XII] Doctor Mellifluus. We were planning to edit a little volume including the translation, an introduction that I have written, the dates of our Father Saint Bernard's life and the list of his works. Besides, we have already received a prefatory letter from Cardinal Fumasoni Biondi and, if you agree, we would very much like to ask you for another letter from yourself, to put at the beginning of this volume.
Our New York publisher [Robert Giroux] shows some interest in the project [The Last of the Fathers], which is extraordinary. If the book gets published eventually by this house, it will be disseminated everywhere in America and will reach readers of all classes. The two American censorshave already granted the nihil obstat for our introduction. I think it is not necessary to have the official translation go through their hands.
Now it is about this translation I am writing you, Most Reverend Father. Dom Jean [Leclercq] in Rome informs me about this, that Westmalle has exclusive reproduction rights for translations emanating from the Vatican. Would you kindly intercede on our behalf with the Reverend Father Abbot of Westmalle so that he may, as soon as possible, have the English text of the encyclical sent to us and let us know at the same time the terms under which he would dispose of his rights for the publication in America of this document.
I need not tell you that the Westmalle translation will never succeed in getting disseminated in the United States, above all on a large scale. But if you think it good to allow us to do this edition, the encyclical will be in everyone's hands in this country. I think Rome would be very pleased.
As for the financial side, the affairs with Westmalle can be arranged by our agent. What is most important for us at present is to have in our hands the English text of Doctor Mellifluus.
If our New York publisher eventually did this volume, Westmalle would gain something from it. If we are reduced to do the publication by ourselves, I hope the Abbot of Westmalle will not charge us too much for the rights.
I hope your health is gradually getting better, my dear Most Reverend Father. Do not work too hard--the Order needs you and your example. Do not leave us too soon! Bless me and our students. I now manage to accept God's holy will with a little more generosity, and I ask you to forgive me last year's complaints and moanings. I do see that it is not a question of living according to my own lights or the leanings of the heart, but only according to divine good pleasure. The reading of the encyclical has done me a lot of good, and I want with all my heart to become a son worthy of our Father Saint Bernard. There are moments when I seem to be very near despair, as I see my faults and take note of how far all of us are from this ideal here where one seems to be plunging more and more into materialism. But I see that the question is not to understand but to obey and love. God sees everything, and He can bring everything to a good end. He wants it!
To Dom Jean Leclercq
August 21, 1953
You must think me a very churlish and ungrateful person to leave your letter so long unanswered. We have had a busy summer, with much harvesting and other farm work. In addition to that our cow barn burned down and we have also bought a new farm, so that everyone has beenexceptionally busy and I am two months behind with practically all correspondence.
Our monastery would like very much to order four copies of Cardinal Shuster's Vie Monastique, and we will also be looking forward to Pere Dimier's book on monastic observances. I am presently dipping into a manuscript of his about his war experiences but I do not have time to read it continuously although I find it very interesting.
Above all I want to thank you for your Dottrina del B. P. Giustiniani. I find it most useful and am glad to have it, particularly because it would otherwise be quite impossible for me to make the acquaintance of his personality and ideas. You have given us a valuable source. I hope books will appear on all the great Camaldolese figures. Dom Giabbani sent me some pictures of Camaldoli and it is both beautiful and inspiring to me. I can well believe what you say about their having the true contemplative life at Frascati. I know nothing of that particular eremo. I would be interested in having some pictures of it as I may perhaps do an article on the Camaldolese--by way of exception, since I do not write for magazines anymore. This would be in the hope of helping them make a foundation in this country. They are needed.
I find that in some monastic orders there is a kind of selfish and do-gin-the-manger attitude towards other orders and other forms of the contemplative life. One illusion that is very strong in this country still is the idea that the eremitical life is essentially "dangerous" and "impossible," etc. Some monks who claim to have a high contemplative ideal will actually run down the solitary life, and show a preference for the rather intense activity which is inevitable in a big, busy monastery of cenobites. It is all very well to have a big, busy monastery, but why claim that this is the highest possible ideal of contemplation? The French have a good word for that: fumisterie [practical joke].
I was amused to think that I am supposed to be speaking on the radio. It is a great ordeal simply to speak to the monks in chapter. What would I do if I had to speak on the radio? I have not been out of the monastery for over a year, and then it was only for one day's journey. The only talk I have given outside the monastery was through the grille of the Louisville Carmel. I do not imagine that perfection consists merely in staying inside the enclosure, but the fact remains that I hate to go out and am very glad that I never have to do so. The last thing I would ever desire would be to speak on the radio ...
To Father Charles Dumont, O.C.S.O.
Father Charles Dumont, a monk of Scourmont in Belgium, and editor of Collectanea Cisterciensia, was instrumental in establishing an English-language counterpart called Cistercian Studies. Merton collaborated in providing articles and reviews for both journals.
September 2, 1953
I am about two months late in answering letters, so please excuse me. I shall be sending you the microfilms of Father Sage as soon as possible. I have never had time to work on them and do not know how much help they will be.
Thank you for your kind words about Jonas. It is a problematical book in the Order. Many have not liked it. I did not expect them to. Dom Leclercq thinks it will not be too well liked in Europe either. The Dutch publishers are afraid to bring out a translation. The book, they say, is not phlegmatic enough for Holland. In that case I shall have to resign myself to the loss of Holland, as I am not at all phlegmatic.
Where did the legend arise, that I would be going to Dijon? My journeys are all into the woods here. I have not been to Louisville since I was naturalized. It is true I made a day's journey into Ohio last year when there was some talk about a new foundation, but this came to nothing. But Dijon! ... I would like very much to have any material available on the conference there. And I am glad I did not have to go.
Please tell Father Anselme Dimier that I have his manuscript and find it very interesting and that I am looking forward to his book on monastic observances which Dom Leclercq has announced. Pray for me, Father, and for my scholastics. They are such wonderful monks. They gave some very good conferences on St. Bernard, conferences that belied the hasty note of mine that was published in Temoignages. They do love and understand his spirit.
God be with you, Father. May your work on Aelred bear much fruit ...
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
October 19, 1953
When he came back from the General Chapter, our Reverend Father Dom James spoke to me about the affair of that book published in England with an advertisement that shocked the Reverend Mother Abbess of Stapehill [Merton's endorsement of Lucile Hasley's Reproachfully Yours]. I understand her attitude well. I had never known that this indiscretion on my part had gotten to be known as far away as England. This rather un-monastic remark, which I had made in a private letter to the lady who had written the book, had scandalized nobody in the States. But I do think that in England they find it unpardonable. I am very sorry for it. I do not want to defend myself, but to reassure you a little, Most Reverend Father, I will say that this remark was made by me four years ago. I did not understand then all the repercussion of each of my words, but now I am beginning to become, I hope, a little more prudent. Anyway this affair makes me take again the resolution never to say anything in the way of advertising, not even to write prefaces or magazine articles: nothing,only a few discreet books. I am very sorry to cause you grief again. I will not do it again. Forgive me and pray to the Blessed Virgin that she may obtain for me much more prudence and savoir-faire.
The affair of our foundation is working out very well. I had written our last letter quite unaware of what Dom James intended to do, but also fearing some imprudence. Now I do not oppose his project at all. I would not have protested if our Father Prior had not seemed very uneasy about the foundation, of which he knew nothing either ...
To Dom Gregorio Lemercier, O.S.B.
Dom Gregorio Lemercier was Superior of an experimental Benedictine monastery at Cuernavaca in Mexico at this time.
October 23, 1953
It was a pleasure to get your letter because it was a letter from a monk, for a change. I make no scruple about answering it at once. The problem you mention is close to my heart, and I hope I can help you by my prayers, even if my advice is not much use.
Machinery in the monastic life: this is getting to be one of the most important problems of monasticism. The Cistercian houses in America are deeply involved in it, and in my own opinion what we are doing is less a solution than a capitulation. We say there is nothing to do but involve ourselves in complete mechanization, because this will solve so many other problems that the price is worth paying. It solves, for instance, the problem of making a living, the problem of time, the problem of independence. It makes it possible for us to survive as monks.
I would be inclined, myself, to make a distinction in that last sentence. It makes it possible to survive: concedo. As monks? That is another question. I am not positive as to the answer. Here are a few observations, for what they are worth.
First of all, monks ought to avoid two extremes. On the one hand, we cannot let ourselves simply become a communist collective farm in which the material interests of the community overwhelm all other considerations and in which technology and machinery absorb everything. But on the other hand we cannot isolate ourselves so completely from society that we become a museum or an antique shop, playing with ancient implements as a kind of eccentric protest against the machine as such. The monk is not of this world but he nevertheless is in the world, not as a museum piece but as a living and organic and functional member of the human race in which he makes present the Mystery of Christ.
Therefore it is inevitable that there be some machinery in our monastery, and ordinary farm machinery presents no special problem. However, as soon as one has machines one enters into the technologicalattitude of mind that is eating the heart out of modern life. The more work you do, the more you have to add to it. Machines save labor only in order to make more labor. They bring with them a constant expansion of activity. New works are planned, requiring new machines. When the works are finished, more works have to be devised in order to make further use of the machines that would otherwise lie idle. A monastery that relies heavily on machines will be constantly promising itself a time, supposedly about to come soon, in which the pressure of work will be reduced. "We must push this one big job, and after it is finished everything will be all right. We can rest." This is pure illusion. One big job leads to another bigger job.
The monks become restless and avid for change and new projects: work has to be created to keep them quiet, or rather they create it to keep themselves quiet. And they make a lot of noise doing it. One soon arrives at a pure illusion of the contemplative life, an imaginary desire for contemplation which deludes itself that it is real because it is always "hoping" for a contemplative situation in the near future. Actually such monks, without realizing it, unconsciously create work for themselves in order that they may not be forced to remain in the "idleness" of contemplation. They are tired of God, without realizing it ... It is the story of the builders of Babel, whose tongues are confounded by God Who does not wish to see their city. It is the misery of the children of Israel asking to go and sacrifice in the desert and being told that they must build bricks without straw. We all have in ourselves the tendency to look back to Egypt when the taste of manna becomes insipid.
I have had a chance to verify the effects of machine work on the spiritual life of individuals. They can maintain a rather artificial and strained spirituality--a prayer of ejaculations forced through the clenched teeth of activism. It may seem good, because the work demands a sacrifice, and machinery is noisy, it grates on the nerves, it irritates. But the sacrifice is also deadening. It dulls the sense of spiritual things. A monk who spends his work time constantly with a machine has no taste for silence outside his time of work. He is careless about the way he walks, how he handles things, slams doors, throws books down roughly and so forth. There may be a genuine spirit of sacrifice, but the spirit of prayer becomes coarse and thick-skinned. The delicate sensitivity to the inner motions of the Holy Spirit loses all its keenness, and is replaced by another spirit--tense, hard, complicated, cold.
I am now speaking of the effects of extremism. Whether the machine you mention would produce these effects is not for me to say. The monks could perhaps have enough variety in their work to save them from being completely warped by it--they could take different shifts with the machine. A slightly noisy machine is not bad. We have machinery in our cannery here which makes noise but does not disturb prayer much, and it is not too hard to work with it. Perhaps your project would involvenothing more complicated than our cannery, and therefore I would say it offered little or no danger from the point of view of machinery and noise. (However our brothers work late at night sometimes in the cannery and this is not good.)
I must close, dear Father. Other duties call me. I will only say that I have been glad to speak to you on this subject, and shall be interested to hear of your future developments ...
To Dom Jean Leclercq
November 5, 1953
It was a satisfaction to me when Father Abbot gave me permission to write the preface for your volume on Paul Giustiniani [Alone With God]. The preface is completed and is on the way to you by surface mail. I was happy to write it, and happy to go over your book again. I feel that it is especially important that the true place of the solitary in the Church should be brought out at this time when there are so many who despise contemplation and when even in the monastic orders there is a tendency to go off the right road precisely because the values for which the solitary exists are not appreciated. If my preface does not suit you, please feel free to alter or cut as you see fit, but let me know. Perhaps I could go over the proofs of this preface.
Regarding the material side of the question: may I depend on you to get this preface censored by the two censors of our Order for the French language? I do not know who they are, but Chimay could tell you. All other material questions in regard to what I write are dealt with by an agent and he will be in touch with Plon in due course.
It would indeed be a great pleasure to receive you at Gethsemani and have you preach our retreat. I sincerely hope that Divine Providence will bring you to America and that we will have this satisfaction. I was glad to hear of the theological conferences at Dijon and look forward to seeing them in print.
Returning to Ciustiniani--could the Camaldolese at Frascati perhaps send me a picture or a relic of him? Even some pictures of their eremo. I am still hoping to write a little something on the Camaldolese, to make them known in America. Any information or books they send will be useful to me and to their own cause.
I certainly agree wholeheartedly that the monastic orders have much to learn from one another, and we in America have much to learn from you in Europe. We are very isolated and provincial, I am afraid, and our undue sense of our own importance may perhaps delude us that we are the only monks in the world. It may not be possible for me to satisfy the desires of my own heart, but at least I can continue to have zeal for God's truth and for the monastic ideal.
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
December 9, 1953
I thank you for your kind letter of the 4th,. It was very nice of you to communicate to me the observations of the censors about the French translation of The Ascent to Truth. I had already seen this translation, and without reading it in great depth, I made a few corrections in it and crossed out a few pages (so as) to make it shorter. For the theological side and the French style I asked Fr. Benoit Lavaud, O.P., from Toulouse, to revise it. He has done so, and I thought his corrections would suffice. The censors do not agree with him, so you send the translation back to me.
My dear Most Reverend Father, I thank you for your kindness and your paternal thoughtfulness. But I do not know French well enough to recast this work for publication in France. To redo this work in English would be a waste of time. So, given that this book would not be "truly useful" (I quite agree about this), don't you think that the best would be to cut it off at once and refuse the publication of the book?
True, we have signed a contract with Editions Albin Michel, but if you refuse your imprimi potest they may complain a little, but we don't have to pay attention to it. So there we are, Most Reverend Father: I admit that this work is a useless book, a failure. For my "reputation as a writer" it does not interest me at all. For the honor of the Order--that is different.
Since I cannot redo this work in French myself, and since the translator is incapable of bringing into it the necessary lights and since I do not want to disturb the solitude of one of my Cistercian Brothers in France, let us forget this poor book altogether. I am waiting only for a definitive word from you so as to write the publisher that the imprimi potest is refused to this work.
The arrangements made by the General Chapter in the timetable seem to me very wise. Far from diminishing the fervor of our devotion towards the Blessed Virgin, I find that the suppression of the Little Office [of the Blessed Virgin] on feasts of Mary helps a lot to sing the canonical office with more devotion towards her. I think that the longer intervals will help us to lead a more interior life, provided they are taken advantage of. I promise you to do so myself. I think the Blessed Virgin invites me, during this Marian Year, to a more silent life, more humble, more hidden and more solitary. I will try wholeheartedly to correspond to this loving invitation. I have no greater happiness than that of being alone with Her, and having nothing to say to men ...
To Dom Hubert Van Zeller
January 30, 1954
I was very pleased with your letter about Bread in the Wilderness. It was, I am sure, just the right reaction. It is pretty much my own. I look at the big red book, and think how handsome and expertly printed it is, and I look at the statements on its pages and wish they had been written by somebody else--indeed it seems as if they were. By now I am so used to feeling this way about some of the things I write that it is becoming a habit. But I don't feel quite that way about The Sign of Jonas. Your generosity in the review of that book utterly confused me and put me to shame. However, the Abbot General will not have any more Journals! I have no particular desire to write any more Jonas. His wish does not stand in the way of the sober affirmation that that is the kind of thing I write most naturally. It doesn't really matter what I write. But on the whole, I am glad that I do not have to write another Bread in the Wilderness.
My latest effort is a purely journalistic job on St. Bernard and the encyclical. Meanwhile, Hollis and Carter [in England] will produce Bread, I think, more modestly and with less expense. For my own part, I am busy with St. Paul. The course is very beneficial to the professor. I do not know about the students. I am teaching it in a room which was painted (through my own misjudgment) in a wild flamingo pink, and I think that is the only reason why they are almost always awake. It has been asserted that no one could sleep in such an atmosphere.
Above all I am grateful for Watch and Pray. We are doing a series of conferences on the prophets. I started the thing off with Isaias, and by autumn it will have reached the last minor prophets, some of whom are to be accounted for by our scholastics. So they will have something on Nahum, Aggaeus, Zacharias, and so forth. I like Zacharias very much. The man who is at work on Nahum seized the volume before I had read a few words: but I had time to see that you have plenty of material and I rejoice.
I hope Fr. Bruno James was not offended at my delay in sending him a copy of Bread. The first edition was sold out rapidly and books are hard to come by. Why the first edition was sold out rapidly is something I cannot explain, except that a book club was disposing of it for little over half the price, and large crowds ordered it for the sake of the pictures.
I hope, too, that by this time you have not had any more operations and that things have settled down peacefully. My medical exploits are much more modest than yours. I went to Louisville the other day for an allergy test and found out that I am very sensitive to a lot of things which abound in monasteries--like dust and bacteria, milk and cheese, and so forth. I did not need any tests to tell me this. However I now take somekind of serum. The test was fun, and after it was over I rushed to the library where they have a lot of good records, and played Erik Satie's "Three Pieces in the Form of a Pear." I do not say Satie is the greatest of all musicians, but it seems to me he is the one to whom I respond most simply and most completely. He plays the melodies that I have a tendency to invent when I am wandering about the fields with a shovel. Then, to crown everything, I procured an ancient copy of Leacock's Nonsense Novels to feed the scholastics who are getting too strained. So far I have kept it hidden from them, and have secretly been indulging my taste for sheer insanity. Now all I need is Literary Lapses and they can put me in the straitjacket ...
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
February 17, 1954
I thank you belatedly for your good letter and your decision in regard to the translation of La Montée vers la Vérité [The Ascent to Truth]. I am in contact with good Fr. Bernard of Citeaux. We shall work well together, and things will work out for the best, I am sure.
M. Biemel, of Desclée, informs me that the manuscript of Exile Ends in Glory was sent to Rome a few weeks ago. It is about the latter book I am writing you now, dear Most Reverend Father. You probably know that this book is the biography of our Mother Berchmans, deceased Abbess of Our Lady of the Angels [in Japan] in 1915. I am sure that the "holiness" of this worthy Cistercian has a lot to do with the expansion of the Order in Japan, as far as the religious women are concerned. I also know your concern for the progress and prosperity, both spiritual and material, of our houses in the Far East. I dare, then, to ask you once more for a little prefatory letter for this book, translated from the English, and which appears now in France. It is not only for myself, but for the Trappistines in Japan and for those who love Mother Berchmans that I dare to make this request. I assure you it will be a very great pleasure to think that this poor book will perhaps be worth something more in the eyes of the French readers, due to the presence of a letter from our Father General. I suppose the book will succeed in getting through the censorship. Besides, I think the translation could have been done better, and I will be very glad to allow all the changes to be made, even the greatest which the censors will have suggested.
At the same time, I have been waiting a long time for the reaction of the American censors to our manuscript Viewpoints [later entitled No Man Is an Island]. I had sent the two uncorrected manuscripts so they will have found quite a lot of things that I have already corrected myself. But I will change all they want.
For myself: a lot more peace and interior solitude. Life is becomingmore and more simple, although I am working a lot and meeting a great many obstacles. I am accused of harming the scholastics by my somewhat solitary spirituality. I try the best I can to be very objective in the conferences and not to insist on my own personal ideal, for which, so they say, there would be no room with us. I do everything with the utmost peace and interior liberty. I do not wish to be Master of the Scholastics, but I accept to be so. I would want with all my heart to pass to another Order, an eremitic one, but I agree to stay here if Dom James insists. It is not to please myself that I try to guide the souls entrusted to me, and it is not to please myself that I am at Gethsemani. For the rest, I am sure God wants from me the spirit of interior solitude which gives me peace. But if I am mistaken, and it will not be the first time, I will try to correct myself as far as possible. For if I have peace, it is above all by admitting frankly that I am not a saint at all, not even a good religious. Both I would very much like to be, so as to please God. I will never achieve this by deluding myself. I am what I am and God is God. He loves me, and I try my best--to love Him in return with all my miseries. But in all and above all I try to remain in the truth.
If I speak to you about myself, it is because I know you mainly as a "Father," more than as "General," and I know that my Most Reverend Father is more interested in his sons' souls than in their labors.
April 14, 1954
Thank you very much for your good letter of the 6th, which has done me a lot of good, for I was a little discouraged. It is probably because of my great self-love that I must struggle inwardly in an absurd manner, instead of keeping myself in peace here. But I will make it, I think. I have just spent the best Lent in my twelve years at the monastery--thanks above all to the changes in the timetable. Life is more quiet--at least relatively, for we all bustle about a lot here.
What you tell me about the Carthusians does not surprise me, and I agree altogether. It was while writing The Sign of Jonas that I could see for myself that I was not made to be a Carthusian. I sleep rather badly here: things would not be better with them. And I do think I am resigned to my fate as a writer.
As you say, the attractions that are really true come from God. He wants them. So, He wants for me this tendency towards solitude. But I must make an effort. I must even dare to face up to certain religious who have not enough of this respect for true contemplative solitude. I specify a little: for I see that things have not made themselves too clear.
I would obviously be in the wrong if I wanted to make Cistercians love the Carthusian life. It would be a very great injustice to orientate cenobites towards the hermitage. I assure you, Most Reverend Father, that this I have never done. On the contrary, there is one of the students who wants to change orders, but I am convinced that God wants himhere, and I tell him so. It would be very easy to make him leave, if I did the things I am accused of doing. When I speak of exterior solitude, I endeavor to do it in the sense of Saint Bernard, whom I do not fail to cite. I speak very little of this solitude, as I concentrate my conferences above all on charity, obedience, and the virtues of the common life, etc. Let anyone consult the notes of the last two years.
This is what I am reproached with: 1) Fr. R.--who fancies I try to push all of the students towards solitude and infused contemplation--preaches in chapter that one must not desire infused contemplation, and even aiming at it makes us run the risk of becoming insane ... 2) Others do not seem to understand that the little woods where we walk, and which you have seen and declared "necessary," and which Dom Louis approved of in an explicit manner at the last visit, is as a matter of fact quite proper. That is the "solitude" Fr. P. reproaches me with. 3) Maybe I speak somewhat too much of solitude and contemplation in our writings. This gives the impression that I am a sort of visionary maybe. I am reproached with it. But now, they can reproach me with anything they want to, so long as I am on the right path. Now as you say in your letter: "The religious who wants to (and seeks it, for this presupposes an effort, a constantly fostered tendency) finds solitude ... What a service it is to the Church to make a monastery enter into a more silent (because more solitary) path ..." I was very glad to read these words, for I was beginning to think that such words were never to be heard among us (and all the same it is the true monastic life!).
I feel well in the common life except that the intervals are often taken up by the students (we have more than 30 of them), and during working time I often have to prepare the conferences, and do a bit of reading and meditating. But I think I am as faithful to the common life as the other officers of the monastery, with the exception of a sleeping room (otherwise I hardly sleep at all) and a relief at the refectory due to the fact that I cannot digest milk products.
For the rest, when you return to Gethsemani, you will see everything. Somewhat extraordinary efforts are required in a community like ours, where the noise of the machinery never stops from morning till night.
Most Reverend Father: I have said I spent a good Lent. That is to say I have acquired a little insight into myself, and I see I have exerted myself like the nervous man that I am. It is a transparent fault wanting to blame others for my own miseries. I am a more difficult fellow than I realized, less humble than I thought. Because I lack humility, I enrage at seeing myself so imperfect, so weak, so lazy. I would want to be a saint without doing the work to achieve it. I would want to be canonized without renouncing myself. It is not new. I understand this well in others, but in myself! ... Maybe I dreamed of a happy solitude to dispense myself from becoming a good Trappist. Too bad! Nunc coepi [Now I have begun].I do not renounce solitude, the true solitude that God wants of me, the one that is paid for by relentless efforts. And I will try to do better all my duties as a Cistercian--by accepting the nervousness that has become my cross at present ...
To Dom Jean Leclercq
April 27, 1954
I have just written to the [literary] agent [Naomi Burton Stone]. I suspect that Plon is unjustly penalizing you because the agent sought some kind of material settlement for the [Merton] preface. I had not stopped to think that this might happen. The only reason why I use an agent is quite obvious--it saves me an immense amount of correspondence, contract work and business worries. If I did otherwise, I would never have any time for anything except business. I simply leave all cares to the middleman. This of course has its hard-boiled aspects, since the agency is bent on making a living out of percentages. I do not think it is altogether fair of Plon to retaliate by threatening the future of your series, although in a way I see where that is logical--with the logic of the jungle.
However, if it will help your series at all to publish a book by me, I have a small volume on St. Bernard about to appear. It is very slight, not a formal life, simply a brief introduction to the saint and to the recent Encyclical. It has three parts--a sketch of his life and character, an outline of his works and teaching, and a commentary on the Encyclical--followed by the text of the Papal Document itself. I had not even thought of allowing this book to be published in France. When you see it, you will probably agree that it adds nothing to the number of excellent studies of St. Bernard, including your own. I do not think it will help your series except accidentally. If the appearance of the author's name is of any use to you, I will consent to let this book appear in France--without worrying about what may happen to my reputation. I will send you the book as soon as I can procure a copy. It is not yet off the press.
I can agree with what you say about the Benedictine life. The more I come into indirect contact with the Benedictine houses of Europe, like yours and La Pierre-qui-Vire, the more I appreciate the depth and solidity of the monastic spirit, and profit by contact with it. It is indeed a paradox that you do now in fact have much more real silence and peace than many a Trappist monastery. I never felt any sympathy with Rancé's ideas about erudition, and I am sure that the work done by Benedictines today in this field is perfectly monastic and truly fruitful in the line of monastic spirituality.
The last thing in the world a monk should seek or care about is material success. That which I see in my own labors is as much a surprise to me as it is to anybody else. Nor can I find in myself the power to getvery interested in that success. I do not claim this to be a virtue, because I have never really understood money anyway. I do not know how much our books have acquired. The figures are not communicated to me and, if they were, I would probably not understand them anyway.
Please do not feel yourself obliged to write a review of Bread in the Wilderness. My only way of getting a copy to you was to have the publisher send you a review copy. If however you do write a review I shall feel very pleased and honored ...
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
July 3, 1954
I have just received the letter from Fr. Clement [Abbot General's Secretary] from Citeaux of June 27. I also have written Albin Michel and to our agent so as to stop the French translation of The Sign of Jonas.
Most Reverend Father, you had written me from N. D. des Anges [Our Lady of the Angels] on November 11, 1952, as follows: "I see no objection to your new book (The Sign of Jonas) being translated into any language when it has been corrected." I admit that these words had surprised me a little, but there was no mistaking their signification. Maybe you had meant to say something else or, writing hastily (as you yourself say in the same letter), you had not thought about it properly. After all, it does not matter. I only tell you this to reassure you about my spirit of obedience.
Now I am going to drop a line to Mme. Tadie, the translator. I think I did send Bread in the Wilderness and The Last of the Fathers to Rome. This last book has been accepted by Dom Winandy and Dom Leclercq for the collection "Monastic Tradition." The other has been accepted by Fr. Danielou. A Spanish translation of The Sign of Jonas is being done; and also of The Ascent to Truth. Our poems too are being translated for Editions Casterman ...
To Dom Jean Leclercq
July 28, 1954
Yesterday I heard from our Reverendissime Pere and I hasten to let you know that he raises no objection to the publication of The Last of the Fathers. So you may proceed with it as fast as you like. Also, about the translation, that too is settled. It seems that Albin Michel had already advertised or announced The Sign of Jonas and it was not possible for the work to be stopped altogether. Consequently we have no need of any other work for Marie Tadie. It is therefore to be published, but will be censored and abridged by our Abbot General himself and two censors. Idon't expect that very much will remain after they get through with it--the two covers, the prologue and the epilogue, no doubt: with a few pages in between.
It is true that religious in Europe are not yet used to Journals, but the secular reader in France certainly has begun to acquire a taste for them. Witness the success of the Journals of Gide, [Julian] Green, and Du Bos. I am glad my own Journals will be expurgated, but in the long run it would seem to be not a bad idea that, for once, by way of exception, such a production should come from a monastery. I would give anything for a Journal, even the most trivial, written in 12th century Clairvaux. But then, indeed, they did not keep journals.
There is just one thing about The Last of the Fathers. If I get time in the next ten days I would like to write an extra page or two on the spirit of St. Bernard, perhaps also on his youth and early formation (which ought not to be completely passed over in silence even in a sketch) and perhaps on one other point. Please bear with me for a few days and leave space for the inclusion of these pages. If I have them by the fifteenth of August I will send them. If not, I will let you know by then and you can go on without them.
The thought that the publication of this book in your series will aid the appearance of the Giustiniani volume is one which gives me great satisfaction. I feel much more gratified about being a writer now that I see that I can help other authentic testimonies of the monastic spirit to appear. I shall do everything I can to let you have another book, in order to help your series. Please tell your good Father Abbot that I feel that I am really doing the work of God in collaborating as much as I can with your series, and will feel that my own writing is thereby inserted in a truly monastic context. There is a special satisfaction in collaborating with one's brothers in Christ, and I do not like the idea of an isolated and spectacular apostolate. No doubt I must have the courage to face the enemies that this isolation makes for me--even among priests and religious. But for my own part I prefer to be a member of a team, at least to some extent, than to be a soloist exclusively. However, since God has singled me out for a kind of isolation, I will certainly accept it, together with its consequences. That is certainly nothing new in the Church.
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
August 6, 1954
If I tell you I was after all a little pleased to know that Le Signe de Jonas was going to be published all the same in Paris, it is not because your will was not done as you wished, but because I had some moments of confusion and serious disturbance as I thought of those contracts and of my obligations. But I hope that now everything is arranged for thefuture. There only remain detailed clarifications that will be done later on.
1) As soon as a book appears in an American edition, we shall send it to the Definitory, asking to have it examined from the point of view of opportuneness of the translation. Now normally this question of opportuneness would be decided once and for all in this preliminary examination. But--
2) If there are specifics: e.g., such a book which would be opportune in Chinese but not in German: should not the one who examines it say so at once, or have it examined by another?
For I have just received the contract for the Japanese edition of The Seven Storey Mountain. I think Dom James signed it without consulting you, which appeared altogether in accordance with your will, since this book has already been translated into most European languages.
In short, these questions will be easily decided if the examiner simply says: such a book is approved as translatable into all languages--or such and such language and not the others.
Moreover, I promise you to be careful about all I do along this line, and I have already warned the agent who, naturally, proceeded automatically to negotiate contracts for the translations. As a rule, authors are not involved in these contracts at all, but leave everything in the hands of an agent, which is really very convenient for me. It will not be less convenient if the agent waits for the moment of the approval that we shall request each time from Rome.
I am very sorry to know that I have given you so much work on the eve of the General Chapter, Most Reverend Father. But I know that the cuttings will do this book good, which needs some pruning. I thank you in advance, and I assure you that I deeply appreciate your paternal solicitude towards me ...
To Dom Hubert Van Zeller
November 4, 1954
For a long time I have been getting notes and letters from you and have let them go by without answering. Nor do I even have time for a decent answer now. One thing, however, cannot wait. I think in one of your letters you mentioned coming to America. If you do, of course, I hope you will come to Gethsemani and Father Abbot will give us a chance to talk together. However, the main thing is that he asked whether you would like to preach our retreat. He is thinking of course of the year 1956. We are having our next retreat in January 1955, and that has already been arranged. But if you were here in January the following year, we would very much like to have you if possible. He asked me to take this up with you, and I am eager to hear about it . .
A few weeks ago, by some miracle, we actually started reading Dom Cuthbert Butler's Benedictine Monachism in the refectory. That has never been done before, and it was not done this time either. We got as far as the third chapter. It would have been interesting to go right through such a book in a Trappist refectory. There might have been riots, etc. Most interesting. Whatever may be the shortcomings of the book, I think he is still one of the best and surest interpreters of the mind of St. Benedict--yet in the end there is a tremendous difference between his interpretation and St. Benedict. As for me, I have got to the point where I stop interpreting. It is all I can do to wedge in a little solitude here and there, and that is what occupies me more fruitfully, I think, than haggling about the "ideal." For the rest, the students and St. Paul keep me busy, with my various projects ...
To Abbot James Fox
November 29, 1954
This is a report on our four days' retreat. They were four pretty busy days, and in fact I only had four half-days of retreat after all. Yet there were many graces and I think it was one of the best retreats I ever made, in spite of the numerous obstacles and apparent difficulties.
First--the realization that there are problems that one doesn't have to solve. One only has to live in the midst of them, to stay with them, and find God Himself in the mystery which they engender. That has plenty of consequences--a fuller acceptance of Gethsemani and of God's will, without any lessening of desire for solitude--for the second effect has been a great intensification of the need for prayer and solitude, but for real, immediate, accessible prayer and solitude--the need to reach out and grasp every fragment that can be had right here at hand, and not to lose any of them.
I hope you agree--I think you agree--that once again my business is above all to make as much solitude and prayer for myself as the Cistercian cadre permits and presupposes, and to reach for the silence and aloneness that a monk must have above all.
In any case, the more I see others leaving here, the more I am strengthened in the conviction that I should stay and do what God wants me to do here, even though it may seem like being a square peg in a round hole, and may win me the disfavor of some, plus contradiction and criticism. Provided only that I really do God's will and not my own. I hope you will always tell me frankly when I am not doing what you want, because that is my one big safeguard, on which everything depends.
So--to conclude, I want first to thank you for all the chances you have let me have--to beg your pardon for my failure to use them aswell as I might have--and for perhaps not being always humble about things here, speaking my mind too brutally and without sufficient restraint ...
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
December 13, 1954
Marie Tadie has written me to tell me you had been kind enough to go to her house and patient enough to listen to her. Thank you ... She also tells me that your review of The Sign of Jonas was very merciful. Thank you again.
It is precisely about this poor work that I am writing you today. The question now is about a Dutch translation. Two years ago, Het Spectrum publishers refused this book, telling me that the translation would not be appreciated in the Netherlands. Now another Dutch house is asking us for the translation rights. I think Dom Vincent, or someone else, could well tell us definitively what should be done. Or else, since you yourself know the book, perhaps you could advise us--or give us an indication of your will in the present case.
As you already know, I am in contact with the monks of La Pierre-qui-Vire [French Benedictines]. I send them from time to time some piece for their journal Témoignages. I find them very congenial and I am glad I can help Benedictine monks. As you also know, the unpublished manuscripts that I send them in English go through the French censorship only after being accepted and translated. Dom Claude Jean Nesmy seems to understand well the risk of this procedure, and is willing to take it. So it is understood by all that their acceptance of a piece from me means no limitation of the powers of the Order's censorship. And it would really be too inconvenient to do otherwise. Please tell me if you agree. I have just finished a text of some thirty pages for them--a text which is due to appear in a book of photographs evocative of monastic life and spirit--a truly remarkable book from the photographic point of view. I will soon be sending the text, which they will translate and send to you later on.
Finally, Most Reverend Father, I filially tell you a word about my own affairs. I begin to see that I have struggled too much with the Holy Spirit without knowing it. I resist too much. I do not want to submit, alas. I want, yes ... but what submission! For my "problem" is rather artificial, abstract. Indeed, I cannot doubt in the least that He wants me, so to speak, "solitary": but it is for Him to say to what extent solitary, fool that I am. No. This is definitely not the question. It is not my solitude I seek, but His solitude. And that solitude, I begin to see, is quite incomprehensible. I just have to be myself, to be faithful to His grace, not worry about useless questions, and not want to have a "label" which places me, in the eyes of the world, in any spiritual category whatsoever.
God knows well what He wants of me, and I know too that I must remain a little quiet, and let Him go about it Himself. And if I am tempted to think that I am not in my place, well, it is precisely what He wants. For if one is solitary, one is an "exile" with no place that is really his own. I am sure I would not be happier in the Charterhouse than here. I am certain that anywhere I would write books that would not be books of Cistercian spirituality, nor Carthusian spirituality, nor of the spirituality of any school but simply books by Thomas Merton: which means, no doubt, very unspiritual books.
To finish, Most Reverend Father: you no doubt remember my idea of taking a vow never to accept an election as an abbot. I have made this vow already, but I have always wanted to make it between the hands of the Most Reverend Father General. Would you allow me to make it now?
Because I am not a good monk, and because I am not a true Cistercian, and moreover because I would certainly be a very bad abbot and would do a lot of harm in such a position, I made the vow never to accept any election as an abbot, either at Gethsemani or in any other Cistercian monastery. I make this vow because I sincerely believe it is God's will, and because I have been indiscreetly spoken of as a future abbot in one of our foundations--where they do not know me.
Finally, Most Reverend Father, I wish you all the graces of the Christmas festivities. We are all, really, poor and solitary men and the most miserable are those who believe they are somebody and have something. As for us, we are all the same in the company of the shepherds in the cave of Bethlehem. God be praised for it ...
To Dom Hubert Van Zeller
February 8, 1955
It has been ages since I received your letter and the pages describing your project for a foundation. By now, for all I know, you may have made the foundation--although, as I am aware, monastic foundations move even slower than monastic correspondence.
Your project looks very interesting and I think you ought to keep working on it in this country. I do not know what the reaction of St. Meinrad's has been, but there are plenty of other Benedictine abbots here. Certainly America needs a contemplative Benedictine foundation. Of course, there have been a few, but what are they in such a big country?
In my opinion a contemplative life that is slightly easier than that of the Cistercians is a very urgent need in America. And also a contemplative life that is a little less agitated and noisy than ours at Gethsemani.
It seems to me that if you have a retreat house you will fill another great need, and make bishops very happy. A priest of Gethsemani lefthere to try to found such a house in Ohio but I do not know what kind of success he has had.
In any case if you come to this country I look forward to seeing you at Gethsemani. And I hope you will give us our next retreat!
In your foundation perhaps you might make provision for a hermit or two also. There is nowhere in America where one can find true solitude.
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
March 6, 1955
I am deeply touched by the solicitude you always show about our writings and in particular your last step to help me understand well the situation of La Montée vers la Lumière [The Ascent to Truth], for which I thank you. I have read attentively the evaluation of the reader to whom you handed this translation, and I am very grateful.
For my own part, it would seem to me at first that this work does not deserve being considered, and that we should simply put aside this badly written book.
But on the other hand, there are the interests of Marie Tadie and the publisher--perhaps also those of the apostolate.
I am very glad I can put this work of adaptation in the hands of a religious who is able to do it, and who would accept to do it--but I leave the final decision to your discretion. If you think you can find someone who can do the job, and if you think it is worthwhile, I am willing to let him do it. In the case of the eventual publication of the book thus adapted, my collaborator would get half of the income that the author would normally get for the French edition--this is agreed by Dom James.
I repeat, that for me personally I would really prefer to put this book aside. But I hesitate to make a final decision for some reason of this kind. You see the question more clearly than I do, and I beg you to make the decision yourself as to whether this book should be put on the loom once more. If you say no--I shall be very pleased . .
To Dom Jean Leclercq
April 27, 1955
Our Regular Visitation was finished just a few days ago, during which the Visiting Abbot concentrated his attention on what he called "a hermit mentality" in our monastery. He strongly disapproved of it although recognizing in a private conversation that on my side, I had a particular spirit, that I did not enter into "the pattern," and that he did not really expect to see much change in me. But altogether, we have reached a point at which I think that I cannot, or even should, remain at Gethsemani,or in the Cistercian Order. There is truly no place for me here, and altogether, I am very glad that the Regular Visitation has swept away the little ineffectual compromises which my Father Abbot had thought up in order to "arrange matters."
They are willing to receive me at Camaldoli d'Arezzo. I have a friend who is willing to pay my steamer fare. I have even made a vow myself to pass to a "solitary and contemplative" life (something about which I have thought for a long time). Well, there remains an enormous obstacle: my own Superiors. I believe that my Father Abbot will try to hold me back at all costs. I am going to ask him not only permission to go to Camaldoli (which he will refuse peremptorily). I will tell him again of my intention to write to the Congregation [of Religious] to ask for a transitus [permission from the Holy See to transfer to another order], provided that he does not oppose this in advance so as to block everything. But it really seems to me that because they more or less recognize in the Order that I have an eremitical spirit, it would be unreasonable to insist that I stay here after this spirit has been officially disapproved. I do not know what is going to happen. Only I ask you this: Could you answer the following questions for me:
1. Is it true that they do not truly live a contemplative life at Camaldoli, that "silence is poorly observed," that the Prior entirely disposes of the hermits' vocations, that he can send them back to the cenobium against their will, at his own pleasure? (These are the things they tell me to make me give up my idea of going there.)
2. Can the vow to pass to a more solitary and contemplative life be made by a Benedictine monk, or is this incompatible with our vow of stability?
3. Do you think it would be better to go to Camaldoli or to Frascati? I am thinking of Camaldoli because Dom Giabbani wants soon to make a foundation in America, and I am in touch with him.
4. If I cannot go to Camaldoli or Frascati, could you tell me where I could find an analogous eremitical life, apart from the Charterhouse?
5. If I go to Camaldoli I am a little afraid of being exploited as a celebrity. Do you think that there is a real danger of that? If so, how can I escape it?
6. Is there a way of submitting an application for transfer in such a way that it would be accepted even if the Superior of the house is against it?
In fine, I do all this believing that God wants it of me. I really believe that the time has come for me to have to do something for myself, for nobody here is going to do it for me. It is evident that my Superiors are themselves not going to do anything to smooth the way for me to become a hermit. I am doing everything with a good deal of peace, with the same feelings that accompanied my entry into the Church--with the sensation of having my hand in the hands of God. I do not know where this is going to end, but I ask you above all to pray for me.
I have written this in French so that your dear Rev. Father Abbot [Dom Jacques Winandy] also may read it. He may have a word of advice to give me because he is in favor of eremitical vocations. He doubtless knows how much must be suffered in order to open the way to the desert. I ask him and you also to bless me. Above all, pray. I shall be very happy to receive your advice. If you want to talk this over with Dom Maurizio, I would be pleased. Let them at Frascati also pray for me. I would like to join our ex-brother Brendan there. If one could believe that they will make an American foundation, I would rather go there than to Camaldoli. But having spoken of this to Dom Maurizio, I ask you not to tell any others.
So there, my dear Father. I am glad at having friends who can help me. Here I have a director who is favorable to this change but he is leaving soon to make a foundation ...
June 3, 1955
Many thanks for your letter of May 26. I wish I had received it sooner. Early in May, having consulted the Carthusian Father Dom Verner Moore at Sky Farm, I received from him a very positive encouragement to transfer to Camaldoli and my director here thought I should follow this suggestion, so I applied for a transitus. So far nothing has been heard from Italy however, and Father Abbot is very much opposed to my going to Camaldoli, and I suppose his objections may lead to the refusal of the transitus, although the Abbot General says he feels that if it is the will of God he sees no reason for my not going. Things are still in a fluid state however, and with Father Abbot I am earnestly trying to reach the final solution. One thing is certain, everyone more and more seems to agree that I should not stay in the precise situation in which I find myself at the moment. I honestly believe, and so do my directors, that being a cenobite is no longer the thing I need. However, I have no desire to become a preacher of retreats at Camaldoli either, still less an exploited celebrity, although I do feel that even then I would have far more solitude and silence there than I have here. I may be wrong.
However, Dom James is very interested in the question and he has even proposed to place before higher Superiors the possibility of my becoming a hermit in the forest here. If this permission were ever granted it would solve all my problems, I think. The forest here is very lonely and quiet and covers about a thousand acres, and there is much woodland adjoining it. It is as wild as any country that would be found in the Ardennes or the Vosges, perhaps wilder. I could be a hermit without leaving the land of the monastery. One could begin the project gradually and imperceptibly, for the government is putting up a fire-observation tower on one of our hills and the future hermitage could be in connection with this. One could begin simply by being the watchman on the tower and gradually take up permanent residence there. Unfortunately the higher Superiors, as far as I can see, are absolutely closed to any suchsuggestion and even refuse to permit a monk to work alone on the observation tower. Dom James is placing the matter before the Abbot General.
Apart from this the best suggestion seems to be that I should secretly enter a hermitage of Monte Corona, and live there unknown without writing or publication, as a true solitary. Dom James is not fully in favor of this but he has given me permission to write and inquire about it. I have written to Dom Maurizio. Dom James does not want me to leave the Order, mainly because of the comment that would be excited among souls. I think however that I could leave secretly enough to keep that comment at a minimum. It would never be more than a rumor, and there have been so many rumors before that people would not pay much attention, until it was all forgotten.
I am waiting still to hear from your Father Abbot. I will value his suggestions. Meanwhile, the main purpose of this letter is to ask about the hermit who lives 50 miles from Clairvaux. How does he live? Does he entirely support himself? Does he receive any aid from the monastery? Does he have any contact with seculars? How does he say Mass, if he is a priest? Tentatively we are planning here a life in which food could be brought to me from the monastery in the seasons in which I could not grow enough for myself--bread, rice and so forth. It would not be necessary to go to the bishop, would it, since I would be living on the monastery's land.
I was interested to hear there was a hermit at La Trappe under Rancé.
I value your prayers in this time of mystery and searching. It is more and more evident to me that someone must go through this kind of thing. By the mercy of God, I am one of those who must pass through the cloud and the sea. May I be one of those who also reach the Promised Land. Whatever happens, I shall certainly write much less and I have no desire to become a "literary hermit." I feel that God wills this solitude in American monachism, even if someone has to leave America temporarily to find it ...
To Dom Maurizio Levy-Duplatt, E.C.
Dom Maurizio (Jacques Levy-Duplatt) was born in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1903. He was a member of the Benedictine community of Clervaux in Luxembourg until 1946, when he passed over to the Sacro Eremo Tuscolano at Frascati, Italy. For forty years he held the office of Prior in several of their hermitages. He was Prior at the time of this exchange of letters, when Merton was considering the possibility of a transitus to the Camaldolese hermits.
June 3, 1955
I have just reread two letters I received from you a couple of years ago and am encouraged by your sympathetic understanding to write toyou this important and confidential letter now. It is the result of a recent reply I received from Dom Leclercq.
It is no secret to you that I have had, for more than ten years, the most ardent desire to lead a truly solitary and contemplative life, and that I have found myself increasingly out of place in the framework of a narrow cenobitism in which there is necessarily a great amount of activity and not the desired amount of silence or solitude. In the past months, since the beginning of the year, I have seen this desire warmly encouraged and blessed by several objective and prudent directors, three of them not Trappists and two of them here in the monastery. At the same time, in our latest regular visitation, our Father Visitor took strong action against an incipient "eremitical mentality" in the community. Needless to say, that mentality is thought to emanate from one person, and I readily admit that I have the mentality of a hermit rather than that of a cenobite. I felt that this visitation was the indication that God willed me to take steps to seek a truly solitary life and to break with the cenobium. I consulted a Carthusian director, and he urged me very strongly to seek a transitus. I had been assured by Camaldoli that I would be received there, and I felt that doubtless I ought to make a trial of the solitary life--at Camaldoli.
Meanwhile, my Superiors have mixed feelings about this step. The Abbot General says that while he does not like passages from one Order to another, he will not prevent my leaving to become a Camaldolese hermit if it is the will of God. Dom James is of course very much opposed to my leaving the Order. Since, however, he sees that the case is serious, he has indicated that he would be very willing to try to get a fully official permission for me to live as a hermit in the woods here, which would be the ideal solution. However, knowing the higher Superiors, I feel that this would never be blessed by their approval. I may be wrong.
Meanwhile, of course, the wisdom of going to Camaldoli itself has been called into question, especially by Dom Leclercq. It seems that I would not be able to lead a purely contemplative life there, and that I would only be exploited as a "celebrity" which would make the transitus a farce. There remains another possibility.
Acting on certain indications in the letter of Dom Leclercq, I am turning to you as to a source of hope. Will you tell me first of all if I would be accepted in your Congregation, and secondly, if I could be accepted in such a way that the hidden and contemplative life would be perfectly guaranteed: I mean in the following way. I would leave Gethsemani secretly (of course with the proper permissions) and travel to Italy and enter one of your eremi (probably not Frascati, since it is so close to Rome and since two other Americans are there)--I would enter under an assumed name as an unknown American priest and no one but my Superiors would know my identity. I would not engage in any publication or any contacts with the world, but would simply live as a true hermit. In this way I would certainly be able to give the solitary life a serioustrial, which is what all seem to agree to be necessary for me to do at the moment. Above all, it would not create the noise and comment that a publicly known admission to Camaldoli would cause.
Father Abbot has permitted that I ask this of you although he is not himself firmly convinced that it is the right course as yet. But it will help us to make a decision.
Could you please tell me something of your various hermitages, and if there is one more suited to this plan than the others, let me know. Should I write to the Superior of that hermitage, or could you ask him the answer to the above questions for me? I have never seen a copy of your constitutions. Is it possible to obtain one?
I can speak Spanish better than Italian. My health is in general good except that I have a stomach disorder which makes it impossible for me to eat dairy products (milk and cheese) and at Gethsemani my diet has been supplemented with eggs all the year round. I might have trouble with the divided sleep, but I think Our Lord will take care of these minor difficulties. They do not seem to me to be important. I may add that I am now forty years old, and after over thirteen years at Gethsemani I feel that perhaps I have begun to acquire some of the maturity necessary for the solitary life. One thing is certain, that my directors and I agree that I no longer perfectly fit into the situation in which I find myself and the change is very desirable.
As I said above, the ideal solution would be the permission to lead a hermit life here in the woods, and before further steps are taken we will do what we can to obtain such permission. But my feeling is that if the permission is not granted, then I should perhaps follow the plan I have just outlined for you. I hope you will agree and I will value your suggestions.
I took steps to obtain a transitus to Camaldoli before I received the letter of Dom Leclercq, as the Carthusian Father I consulted was so positive on the point and my director here agreed with him completely. However it is very possible that Dom James' objections will cause the transitus to be refused. If the transitus is granted, would you consider it advisable for me to accept it and go to Camaldoli? It would destroy the efficacy of my plan to keep everything unknown. I will meanwhile ask Camaldoli if they would be prepared to accept me incognito.
For my own part I feel that the Holy Spirit is indeed at work in all this and that He will eventually lead me to the solitude He has prepared for me. The solution of being a hermit here is the most satisfactory but by no means the easiest. Perhaps the surest and most likely to succeed would be the plan to become a hermit of Monte Corona in secret and unknown.
I recommend all my spiritual needs and especially this great problem--or mystery of my vocation. Ask Our Lord to give me the grace to become a true solitary and to be forgotten by men and really live for Himalone. If it is His will that I continue to exercise some kind of apostolate, He will show it. But I feel I should go in the direction that leads to the heart of the desert, if it be possible for me to do so. May God bless you and your novices, and your Eremo of Frascati. I eagerly await your reply and all the advice the Holy Spirit may inspire you to give.
To Dom Jean Leclercq
August 11, 1955
Thank you for your last letter. I am sending this together with a note to your good Reverend Father Abbot to thank him for writing to me about his hermit. He certainly seems to have a very good situation, and I envy him. If I ever manage to become a hermit here the difficulties will be much greater, but that is nothing special. The very idea of the solitary life is to live in direct dependence on God, and in constant awareness of our own poverty and weakness.
I have also received a letter from Frascati in which they say they will be quite willing to receive me to make a trial of their life, incognito. I could remain with them without being a writer, in true obscurity and solitude. My Superiors do not wish to give me permission to make this trial, as far as I can see at the moment, but I should very much like to visit Frascati and other places where the eremitical life is led. Here again I must rest in my poverty and let God provide.
At the moment, it does seem that there is a real chance of my being allowed to live in solitude here. Higher Superiors have softened their rigid opposition to some extent, at least admitting the eremitical solution in theory. But Dom James, my Father Abbot, is showing himself more and more favorable to the idea, and I believe that insofar as it may depend on him, I can hope for this permission. Meanwhile on the material side, the way seems to be preparing itself. The State Forestry Department is erecting a fire-lookout tower on one of our big hills, a steep wooded eminence in our forest, dominating the valley by about 400 feet. I have been put in charge of this work with them, and they are going to erect a small cabin there, in which one might conceivably live. It will be an austere and primitive kind of hermitage, if I ever get to live in it. In any case, I depend on your prayers and those of all who are interested in helping me, that Our Lord may be good to me, and if it be His will that I may live alone in our forest. In the meantime I think I can count on a semi-solitary life for part of the year as the watchman on this fire tower. That will be beautiful--unless it is disapproved by higher Superiors. But they have seemingly permitted it as an experiment. Again, I beg your prayers.
I have stopped writing, and that is a big relief. I intend to renounce it for good, if I can live in solitude. I realize that I have perhaps sufferedmore than I knew from this "writing career." Writing is deep in my nature, and I cannot deceive myself that it will be very easy for me to do without it. At least I can get along without the public and without my reputation! Those are not essentially connected with the writing instinct. But the whole business tends to corrupt the purity of one's spirit of faith. It obscures the clarity of one's view of God and of divine things. It vitiates one's sense of spiritual reality, for as long as one imagines himself to be accomplishing something he tends to become rich in his own eyes. But we must be poor, and live by God alone--whether we write or whatever else we may do. The time has come for me to enter more deeply into that poverty.
The main purpose of this letter is this: I am cleaning out my files. There is one manuscript which I think ought to interest you for your "Tradition Monastique." It is a short, simple collection of meditations on solitude which I wrote two years ago when I had a kind of hermitage near the monastery. I still have it, but it is no longer quiet. Machines are always working near it, and there is a perpetual noise. Nobody uses it very much, except on feast days. But at any rate these pages on solitude are perhaps worth sending to you. They will make a small volume, better I think than Seeds of Contemplation and more unified. Tentatively I am calling it simply Solitude [published as Thoughts in Solitude].
The manuscript is being typed. Let me know if you are interested, and when it is finished I shall be sending it to you.
I look forward with great interest to your study on the eremitical life. I recently reread your pages on the hermits of Cluny, and wonder if you ever published the article on Peter the Venerable and hermits, which you spoke of some time ago. I should like an offprint, if you did.
Finally, I am still hoping to hear some news of the Giustiniani book.
I am glad that Our Lord is slowly and mysteriously opening out a new way before me. I am glad too that you have been in the mystery, and have contributed something to its working out. I trust you will stay with me by your prayers, and on occasion by your good advice.
To Dom Damasus Winzen
August 22, 1955
It is a long time since your last letter. Forgive me for not answering sooner. If you sent anything on Marialaach, it has not reached me. Let me know if you did, and I will try to see that it is not lost, and that it is sent back to you if you need it.
It did not altogether surprise me that Fr. B. found the labor rather hard at Mount Saviour. I foresaw that this would be his main difficulty in a young community, but it does not seem to me that this alone is an indication that he should throw over the whole idea of a monastic vocation. In my opinion--speaking in terms of your letter of a month ago--heshould make every effort to test his monastic vocation and give it a good try, especially if he likes the Mount Saviour idea as such. After all, you will not always be in the foundation stage, and things will settle down later on. I entirely agree that he should follow your advice and regard this as a necessary training in the bios praktikos [the ascetic life]. However, since that time you probably all have new light on the subject.
I am distressed that Dom James does not allow me to receive mail from Fr. B. or write to him. It would have made things a little easier for him, I feel, and I would have liked to help out. However, if my Superior does not wish it there is nothing I can do. He gave me permission to send you these thoughts, at any rate, and I trust the permission includes my best wishes to Fr. B.
What you say about studies and the monastic life would probably not only be not understood but even opposed by many here, but they do not understand the monastic spirit. It certainly seems to me of crucial importance that monks should be first of all monks and that they should get their roots firmly sunk into the monastic life and that the studies for the priesthood and thoughts of the priesthood do, in fact, distract them from this when they are assumed at the wrong time. I have also known students who have had to leave, who might have made good choir monks if they had been left alone after their profession. About this and many other important things, little can be done in the established order of things in a place like Gethsemani. The work is reserved for you. Yes, I know Dom Lemercier too, and admire his little monastery at Cuernavaca. I have heard of the Ashram, in South India, but know nothing much about it.
About the word "contemplative"--it has been much abused in this country--everywhere. I am perhaps partly to blame for its misuse in America. I am gradually beginning to learn a few things about it. The thing that annoys me most is the purely negative sense the word is given by most of the "contemplative orders." It means "not active"--in the sense of not in the apostolate--it means being behind a wall instead of outside one. Result--such contemplatives lead neither the contemplative life they claim to nor the active life (in the ancient sense) on which a truly contemplative life would have to be founded. I can only conclude that it is essential for us to understand what the monastic life really is and to remember that the "contemplative" life is a special gift which all monks should desire and some may receive--in the sense that all should "seek God" truly and desire to know Him not conceptually but as He is.
To Dom Maurizio Levy-Duplatt
September 5, 1955
Thank you for your very kind and complete letter about my problem. Thank you especially for your invitation to come to Frascati and try outyour life incognito. In my opinion this would be a very valuable measure and I wish I could avail myself of your invitation. Perhaps later.
Meanwhile, however, the question of whether or not I may be allowed to live a hermit life here in the woods of Gethsemani will be fully discussed at Citeaux by Dom James with our Father Immediate and our Father General. Will you please pray that a right solution may be reached?
It still seems to me that there is an inordinate hesitation and timidity about the solitary life in the Cistercian Order, due to the fact that so many of the Superiors have an a priori and absolutist insistence on the common life as the universal solution for all problems. That this solution is not always quite realistic, and that it results sometimes in the warping and harming of souls, is sometimes quite evident. I can only pray that what seems to me and to my directors to be a genuine call to solitude in my own life, is not simply steam-rollered in this manner.
However, of one thing I am sure. God has all things in His hands, and we will never comprehend the depth of His inscrutable wisdom. O altitudo sapientiae et scientiae Dei [O the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God] ...
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
October 18, 1955
I thank you for your good letter from Citeaux. I had to wait for Dom James' return and the result of the election at Genesee before answering you, for everything holds together, and before arriving at the final solution of the problem I had to know everything.
First of all, I am now quite convinced that God does not want me to be a Camaldolese. Your advice, along with the advice of the Most Reverend Father Larraona [of the Sacred Congregation of Religious] and even of Monsignor Montini [later Pope Paul VI], give me the most complete assurance that it would be most imprudent for me to leave Gethsemani, or at least the Order, and that there would not be much to gain. So I am quite sure I know God's will on this point, and I accept it willingly with the most complete peace and without regrets. This gives me the opportunity to sacrifice an appeal, a dream, an ideal, to embrace God's will in faith. Forgive me for worrying you, perhaps out of a lack of faith: but I could not tell in conscience before the solution of the question, that it had received its answer--at least the answer that would have had the power of convincing me from the subjective point of view. Now, it is over, and I promise you I will not worry you any more with this business.
Does God want me to be a Cistercian hermit? You advise me not to seek a life of total solitude. But you have told Dom James that I could be allowed to make the trial of the solitary life here. I thought at first that God wanted this trial of me, and I was going to ask to do it, knowingthat Dom James would probably give me permission. Now, at the same time, one of our officers has been elected Abbot of the Genesee [Walter Helmstetter], which is very inconvenient for Dom James, since if I were to leave for the woods, he will have to replace two of his Father Masters at one time. So I thought I must, before God, leave myself entirely in the hands of Dom James, and he has decided to give me the office of Father Master of the Choir Novices to replace Father Walter (the new Abbot of the foundation). You see how poor we are in personnel when it is I, the only one that Dom James can entrust with the novices without having to seek a dispensation.
Perhaps you will say that Dom James is quite imprudent to make this choice. To protect him, and to protect the house and the novices, I have made a vow (it is only the third private vow I have made!) not to say anything to the novices that would diminish their respect for the Cistercian cenobitic life and orientate them towards something else. If I happen to violate this promise, I will have to notify the Father Abbot. I will try to do all that is possible to give them a truly Cistercian life, cenobitical and liturgical. Pray for me. Above all pray that I don't set them a bad example.
So I will have the opportunity to make a second novitiate myself, and to reimmerse myself completely in the true spirit of my vocation. If, after that, the appeal to solitude persists, and if Dom James will allow it, maybe I will ask, after three years, permission to live in the woods. Dom James wants me to be Novice Master for three years to allow a young priest to be trained for this job.
There only remains for me to assure you of my regrets for having afflicted you with my problems, to ask you for your paternal blessing and your advice for my new job. I assure you of all my filial devotion and my entire loyalty in the Lord. Maybe I am not the best of your sons, but I love you all the same as well as those who are holier than I.
To Dom Jean Leclercq
December 3, 1955
You had heard from Dom Gabriel Sortais the issue of the discussions about my vocation. But you had evidently not heard all that eventually came about. It happens that I am now master of novices! In fact I am somewhat more of a cenobite than I expected to be. Strange things can happen in the mystery of one's vocation.
As I am master of novices, Father Abbot desires me to devote my full time to the souls of my charges. He will not allow me to consider your kind invitation to join you in your project on the psalms, although I want to express my gratitude to you for asking me. In any event, I feel that I would not be erudite enough to join you, but my job in the novitiatemakes it entirely out of the question. I shall cease to be a writer at least as long as I am in charge of the novices. The prospect does not trouble me. I care very little what I do now, so long as it is the will of God.
Will He some day bring me after all to perfect solitude? I do not know. One thing is sure, I have made as much effort in that direction as one can make without going beyond the limits of obedience. My only task now is to remain quiet, abandoned, and in the hands of God. I have found a surprising amount of interior solitude among my novices, and even a certain exterior solitude which I had not expected. This is, after all, the quietest and most secluded corner of the monastery. So I am grateful to God for fulfilling many of my desires when seeming to deny them. I know that I am closer to Him, and that all my struggles this year formed part of His plan. I am at peace in His will. Thank you for your part in the affair. If you see Dom Maurizio, will you also thank him for all his kindness and for the invitation which, alas, I was unable to accept?
I am delighted to hear that Giustiniani has finally appeared. I have not yet received a copy, but I am hoping that some will come soon. Did I ask you for a dozen of them? That would be a favor I would appreciate. I would like to be able to give some copies to friends who would be very interested and help to make the book known; please let me have at least this many in "service de presse."
I am very glad that you like the meditations [Thoughts in Solitude]. I do not feel the book is adequate or complete. But since I can do little or nothing to remedy matters now, I will have to leave it as a fragment. I look forward to hearing news of it. I entrust you with the care of getting it approved by Dom Gabriel Sortais.
In conclusion, then, will you please thank Dom Gribomont in my behalf and express my deep regret at not being able to accept the general invitation which he has extended.
Please pray for me and for my novices. Your course on "Grammar and Eschatology" sounds interesting, the only thing in the title that I find difficult is the word "grammar. That, precisely, is the hook. If you publish these lectures in a volume, I hope you will not forget to send me one.
Meanwhile for my part I am happily lecturing on Cassian. What could be better material in my situation? Although I cannot live like Abbot Isaac, Nesteros, or Piamon, I feel that they are my fathers and my friends.
Let us remain united in the Holy Spirit, and wait the coming of the Lord with our lamps burning in the night of this world.
February 6, 1956
It is already a long time since I had the pleasure of receiving your finished and published work on Giustiniani--after all this wait. It is a splendid book, and reading it again in French I do not hesitate to say that it is the one of your books which I most enjoy. I think it is really a landmark in spiritual books of our time, even though Giustiniani is nothimself a figure of towering importance. Nevertheless this statement of the perennial value of the eremitical life is an important one, one which needs to be made, and one which will have a significant effect. I predict that it will be in fact one of the most influential of your books--perhaps not by the number of the souls it influences, but by their quality and by the depth of their reaction. I am very happy to have been able to write the preface and thus appear in the pages of this significant volume.
My new life as master of novices progresses from day to day. It is an unfamiliar existence to which I often have difficulty in adapting myself. I sometimes feel overcome with sheer horror at having to talk so much and appear before others as an example. I believe that God is testing the quality of my desire for solitude, in which perhaps there was an element of escape from responsibility. But nevertheless the desire remains the same, the conflict is there, but there is nothing I can do but ignore it and press forward to accomplish what is evidently the will of God.
Returning to the question of the Giustiniani book--I believe an English translation would be very desirable and you might be able to interest an American publisher in the idea--for instance, the Newman Press, Westminster, Maryland. Or the Mercier Press at Cork in Ireland. In any case I am convinced that the book ought to appear in English. However, I doubt whether I can help you in any way beyond making these suggestions. I have abandoned all writing now and my Superiors wish me to keep free of all contacts with publishers, except of course for those made necessary by the books still waiting to be published ...
To Abbot James Fox
Day of Recollection, February, 1956
Welcome home! Don't work too hard now that you are back.
On this day of recollection--going over the past weeks--I am beginning to realize that I am something of a problem and that I need plenty of grace now. I am coming to a crucial point in my life in which I may make a complete mess of everything--or let Jesus make a complete success of everything. On the whole, my nerves are not too good and I can't rely on my faculties as I used to--they play tricks on me, and I get into nervous depression and weakness. However, I have to react by faith, by love of the Cross, and work especially to give an example of monastic regularity and simplicity. Anyway, I put myself entirely in God's hands. I renounce my desire for anything but His will. I have plenty of peace and trust though everything is really dark. But I hope it is the darkness before dawn.
To Father Charles Dumont
August 19, 1956
Thanks for your kind note written at Caldey. I am pleased and grateful to have you as my translator, in the article on Adam. If you wish to have it multigraphed I would be delighted to have about twenty copies--or is that asking too much? I am afraid we cannot do it here as my novices are busy with many other jobs. I myself give them multigraphing as we are trying to get out a series of lectures on Cassian--just elementary things. I can always send copies over there if they are desired.
As for an American Cistercian magazine, I think the hopes are very poor; it would probably turn into a rather cheap sheet full of news bulletins to seduce rich benefactors. I regret that I can offer no better hope for the time being. England, I should think, would be a better prospect ...
To Father Thomas Aquinas Porter, O.C.S.O.
One of the Cistercian censors from Holy Trinity Abbey, Huntsville, Utah, Father Thomas Aquinas had been rather negative in his criticism of Merton's small brochure Basic Principles of Monastic Spirituality.
August 27, 1956
When I was at Collegeville recently, Dr. [Gregory] Zilboorg, who is a good judge of character, assured me that I was much more aggressive than I realized. This accounts for the fact that my letter to you was probably much more violent than I intended it to be and I deeply regret if I have wounded you. It was certainly not my intention to do so.
Since that time I have heard from our Most Reverend General that you have considered giving up the charge of censor and he lays this at my door. Again, it was certainly not my intention to provoke anything so drastic. Indeed, I do not feel anything you have taken up with our Reverendissime is really my business and I shall refrain from commenting on it. I would only like to point out what I meant by the letter which caused all the trouble.
Father, it seems to me that the difficulty is not so great. Most censors, when there is question of corrections, make a distinction between the corrections upon which they insist and those which they only suggest. An author, certainly a Trappist author, is always eager to comply with the censor, but at the same time, when the correction affects some very minute point and involves perhaps a mere matter of opinion, the author would like a little freedom so as to spare his text from the sort of mutilation involved by the forcible injection of a technical phrase. I certainly felt that by your demanding some of the changes in Basic Principles of MonasticSpirituality, I was being unnecessarily cramped and the effect on the work, if this principle were pushed to its conclusion, would be a bad one.
On the other hand I am certainly grateful for all the care with which you have checked my theological statements in the things censored by you, and I have always done my best to put your desires in effect. In the case of Basic Principles, I felt I was entitled to make representation since the Dominican in Rome supported me on those three points.
But anyway, dear Father, you know there are no hard feelings on my part and I am sure there are none on yours. Authors and censors inevitably tangle once in a while, and if you are thinking of not being a censor I am also thinking of not being an author either. Not because of conflicts, but because of other work.
I regret to inflict some more of my stuff on you. You were, I believe, one of the censors of Tower of Babel. It is appearing with a collection of poems, many of which have been censored by others and have appeared in print over the last eight years. I enclose a few poems for the volume which have not yet been censored [The Strange Islands].
By the way, when I said Basic Principles was with the printer, I did not mean there was a contract one could not get out of. The printer had given us an estimate which, I believe, is perfectly legal and he was waiting to get to work. But of course I was wrong in trying to use that as a motive for hurrying you, because the censor has no need to pay any attention to such things, as we have no business getting the thing printed until he gives the green light. Sorry, Father. Pray for me, and God bless you ...
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
September 1, 1956
When I received the imprimi potest for Basic Principles of Monastic Spirituality, etc., I perused the criticism of the three censors, recognizing at once the scrupulous style of good Fr. Thomas Aquinas in Utah. I also noted that the third censor, the Dominican in Rome, had sided with me on three counts. So I wrote to Father Thomas to ask his permission to omit those three "corrections" that he imposed with all the others. I also told him, without malice, that if a correction was really not necessary, it would be a pity to demand it. In effect, the other censors always make a distinction between the necessary, which is imperative, and the accidental, which is only suggested.
In effect, the censors of [Thoughts in Solitude] seem to me reasonable enough. I can see without difficulty that they have done me a good service, and I will make their corrections as I see quite well that they are imperative. I have no grudge against them; on the contrary, I am very grateful to them.
As for Fr. Thomas Aquinas from Utah, I deeply regret I have hurt him. But I do not think at all I have told him anything whatever unjust. The author certainly has the right to make remarks on these three points, since the third censor had sided with me ...
If Fr. Thomas Aquinas wants to resign, it is not my business. I accept him willingly as censor. But I think all the same I do a service to the Order and to the writers of the Order by saying, gently, that this censor might well take into account the context, which sheds light on the meaning of the author. Many a time he interpreted me in an unfavorable sense and he demanded clarification the context provided in abundance. I am always quite willing to render my text clearer, but when a censor asks me to qualify the phrase "without Christ there is no salvation"--then I insist all the same on saying that this seems to me slightly idiotic. I will make the corrections, as much as he wants, but don't I have the right to tell him what I think of it, provided it is charitable?
But, Most Reverend Father, if you want me henceforth to make no remark, I'll make none. I don't mind. I did not get angry, I simply wanted to express my thought to him. I repeat, I have no complaint about the censorship of [Thoughts in Solitude]. Of course it is annoying to have to redo several pages of the book but in sum it is not bad ... You don't realize, no doubt, the difference between this censorship and the other. It is not the length that matters, but the reasons--or the unreasonableness--of the censor ...
Forgive me this fuss, Most Reverend Father. You think no doubt that I have a lot to do with the censors. But it is about very small texts, or else about things written before. I write next to nothing; I am very pleased and fairly busy with our novices who are all good little novices. I have received many graces since last year, and I can assure you that I would never again begin the attempts for a change of Order. I like very much the new timetable. I find time for prayer and for my own interior life, and besides, I have received the great grace to know a little the causes of my faults. On top of that I also see the means of bringing some correction to them, and I do hope that I am going to make some progress with God's grace. But that will not be easy--nor always pleasant.
I know that God loves me much, and that He has been very patient with me. My life becomes more and more a question of graces and a confession of my wretchedness. I know that I am not a saint, but I am happy because God loves me and draws me towards Him always--He who is the Father of the poor ...
To Abbot James Fox
January 25, 1957
This has been, I believe, a very good retreat for me, one of the best since I entered. In the last year I really think I have grown a little, notin any spectacular exterior way but in depth and in simplicity and, I hope, in honesty with myself. For the first time in fifteen years I can begin to hope that my vocation is getting to be really solid, although I have no illusions yet on that score. But one thing, now I know that I am not just looking for some spiritual kind of self-satisfaction but honestly want to do the will of God, not that I expect it to be always easy. But I really want to give myself simply to His will and seek Him in His good pleasure, and not worry about what becomes of my precious aspirations. I beg Him to give me grace to carry this through in spite of darkness, depression and disgust. I know I yet have to grow very much in the spirit of faith--and need much more hope.
January 26, 1957
This note supersedes yesterday's because I wrote our retreat resolution too soon--the best graces came at the very end, crystallizing everything out. What God wants of me is to abandon myself completely into the hands of Our Lady as a child and stop worrying about anything, but leave everything to her. In that way I don't have to wonder where I am going to get the strength, hope, etc., in fact I won't have to bother my head about the "how" of anything. And that is the answer as far as I am concerned. Alleluia. Ora pro me [Pray for me].
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
February 7, 1957
Since Christmas, I have wanted to take a little time to write to you. The letter I wanted to send you would have been the first for a long time which would have had nothing to say about business, books, worries, but would simply have shown you how happy and content I am to be at peace, in the novitiate, with nothing to write and out of contact with outside affairs. Alas, here I am once again obliged to give you explanations to assure you that I have neither intended nor caused the unfortunate incident that has arisen.
My Most Reverend Father: since I have not been writing, Dom James has completely severed my connections both with my agent and with my publishers. I have not written to the one or the other. I do not know what is going on. I do not understand what is happening most of the time. I did not know that an Italian edition had been published, or by whom, or in what condition. I did not know that this edition had not been passed by the censors. I did not know that it contained photos of Gethsemani (I certainly did not send any) and, finally, I did not know that the text lacked the important chapters about the Benedictines, the Carthusians and the Cistercians.
I know only this:
1) In 1954 the monks of Pierre-qui-Vire asked me for a text for "Silence dans le Ciel." I sent them a text--one already too long, "Silence in Heaven," destined at the same time for Camaldoli--Dom Giabbani had asked me for this. Pierre-qui-Vire sent the original text to Camaldoli. Now this was the one that the American censor decided needed to be changed.
2) In summer of 1955, as you know, I had come to the decision to go to Camaldoli myself. Having heard that I wanted to leave Gethsemani, Dom James forbade me all correspondence not only with Camaldoli but even with any director outside the monastery. In short, a complete iron curtain. If, on the other hand, Dom James had dealt with the situation in a less arbitrary fashion, I think that everything would have been much simpler and much less bothersome for all of us. At any rate, it has been totally impossible for me to communicate with Dom Giabbani about the subject-matter of this book since 1955. I did not write him. I was unable to know what point the publication had reached.
3) In 1955, with the approval of both the censor and the monks of Pierre-qui-Vire, I rewrote the book, now called The Silent Life, with the alternate title: "Living in Silence." I wrote three new chapters about the three Orders mentioned above. Later on I wrote yet another chapter, but it has no bearing on this matter. The whole thing had been censored and accepted. At this point I told my agent to send Dom Giabbani the three chapters on the Benedictines, the Cistercians and the Carthusians. She told me she was going to do so. But at this very moment things became so mixed up that about thirty beautiful photographs were lost either by the agent or by the American publisher. Therefore it is possible that all this confusion caused the mix-up with the Italian translation also. I simply do not know.
4) Pierre-qui-Vire first of all published chapter one of "Silence in Heaven" as the whole text of "Silence dans le Ciel." And later on the second text, a longer one, appeared under the title The Silent Life and the French translation, "La Vie Silencieuse" is under way. The book is unknown in Gethsemani. No one here is allowed to read it, but they do not even suspect that it exists. You can see, therefore, the answer to your question: "Is there another circumstance I can think of that might account for this unfortunate omission?" If these difficulties continue to multiply, it may be because Dom James is trying to settle things himself without understanding them very well. But on the other hand I am glad not to be involved in it myself. When Dom James asked me some questions following your letter of January, I explained everything to him, but very likely he did not understand it clearly. I also told him to explain to you that I had had nothing to do with Camaldoli and that I could not control the Italian edition in any way. Very likely he forgot to tell you that.
As for the error concerning the censors, I was never told who wasthe censor of the book. I believe that Dom James communicated the censor's name directly to the publisher. I learned who it was only after the publication of the book.
Having said all this, Most Reverend Father, I believe that is all I can explain to you. How did these three chapters come to be omitted from the Italian translation? I simply do not know the reason at all. I did my very best to guarantee their inclusion, but what I was able to do was very little indeed.
So as not to make this letter a litany of troubles, I want to tell you, Most Reverend Father, that I am doing fine and that I am truly happy and at peace. There is a serenity in the novitiate. Everything goes well. Silence and solitude exist, at least to a degree. I am trying to be a monk. I am not writing and I do not think of writing anything whatsoever. True, I still have two or three manuscripts that are going to be published, but after that the name of Thomas Merton can be forgotten. So much the better. I continue to seek God through the somewhat strange and solitary path that is mine. More and more I try to pay no attention to myself. I know that I am in God's hands and that I cannot see what He is in the process of doing. Please bless me. I am sorry for all these problems, Most Reverend Father; fortunately it will be all over soon. I remain devotedly and loyally one with you in our Lord.
April 16, 1957
I make quite willingly the corrections you demand in The Silent Life as well as most of those that the censor has suggested. I send you the copy of the page I have just written for Marie Tadie. And I leave it to you to change what does not please you, for I do not think I have succeeded altogether in making these corrections well myself in French.
When I was writing this work, at the moment of a crisis in my religious life, I was not looking at things in an altogether normal way, no doubt, and certain expressions which slipped into it allow a glimpse into this state of mind to someone who looks closely. But at the same time, I do not reproach myself as if it were an infidelity towards the Order, with the fact that I have expressed opinions which most of the Abbots in the Order would not accept. I did not think I was compelled to conform on all points, in this book, to the official doctrine of the Trappists, given that I am not an official spokesman of the Order but a simple individual, and besides everybody knows that I speak according to my own thought, and I don't make it a virtue to repeat mechanically what the others think. I don't think I harmed the Order by acting thus, for the well-informed reader while deploring my errors of judgment (which I deplore myself) could appreciate this somewhat unusual frankness. Know that after all the Protestants are still accusing us of servility and lack of frankness.
I am not saying this to justify myself. After two years in the novitiate I realize the necessity not to muddle up the souls in our monasteries withopinions that may disturb them. So I content myself with conforming exactly to the ideal of the Order not only in the formation of novices but in my own spiritual life. You know that I thought I should renounce the personal ideal which inspired some pages of this book.
Besides, I am quite sensitive to the acuity of your own problems, and I do not want to bring an addition to them. I simply promise you not to say again things which might inspire sinister interpretations in the minds of certain readers ...
April 16, 1957
I wrote you this morning to tell you with how much good will I wanted to obey your demand to make certain alterations in our work, The Silent Life. But thinking of the second paragraph of that letter (which is gone already), I think you might misunderstand me. In effect, when I was saying, in the American way, that I did not regret having spoken my opinion frankly, it is quite possible that you, who are European, may think I am intransigent, not to say stubborn. No, Most Reverend Father, this is not the case. I do not make any claim, I do not ask for the "right" to express myself in my way. I don't have this right the moment my Superiors think I am in error. I accept their decision with my whole heart, and I prefer to obey, I prefer to renounce the expression of my own thought in order to submit to theirs because faith tells me that true liberty is found in obedience through love of Christ.
All that was understood in this morning's letter, but I wanted it all to be completely clear. I love obedience, and out of love of obedience I have also renounced writing. I would not want for anything in the world to give you the impression that I obey you grudgingly, or with bad will, while thinking that I am "right all the same," for I know that even he who would be truly right from the speculative point of view, would no longer be right if he left his opinion to make a dent in his obedience. And moreover, I don't think myself infallible. Anyway, I would never want, even "being right," to express an opinion which would disturb the souls in our Order. I think now that you understand me better, and I repeat to you the assurance of my entire devotion, for Christ's love.
July 5, 1957
Your very kind letter, written from Koningsoord in May, reached me here in July, having re-crossed the Atlantic twice--for it was sent from here to Melleray. Why, I hardly know. There was a transmission error, no doubt.
But anyway I feel an urge to express to you my deep gratitude, given that I have the feeling of being a somewhat difficult monk, for I fear I might push to the limit the good will and benevolence of my Superiors, who are very patient with me for that matter. But you reassure me completely, and I see that we understand each other perfectly, and thatyou trust my intentions: they at least are good. Anyway I try to make them good as far as possible.
Dom James surprised me a little by asking me to write a pamphlet on the monastic life this summer, but it amounts to very little indeed, and I finished it quickly. I tell you this because for my part I really thought I would never write anything as long as I was Father Master.
And now, leaving aside these writer's affairs, I will speak to you a little of our novitiate. For me, it is a quite comforting office, the one of Father Master. I like this work very much, and the novices--and all the same I had always feared such an "activity," thinking that it would eventually ruin my famous "contemplative life." But no such thing has happened. I still have both the taste and the opportunities for prayer and solitude (in the Cistercian sense!) and quite a lot of silence. We can manage, above all, with two sub-masters.
What is most interesting is the number of Ibero-American postulants. Especially priests who want to come from South America. We try to sort out these vocations by making them consult priests who are in contact with us in the different large cities there, and we prolong their postulancy, especially when they scarcely know English. Fortunately, I speak Spanish, for we have already had two of them who had hardly any English at all. In parenthesis, there is going to come in September a Hungarian seminarian, who escaped from the Reds last November, and who seems to be all right. We have at present three priests from South America in the novitiate, and a postulant who as a poet is fairly well-known in Nicaragua [Ernesto Cardenal]. We expect the arrival of an Italian priest who is at present in Chile, and of three more who are priests or seminarians in South America. Lastly, there are two more cases which are being examined, a seminarian from Puerto Rico, and a Canadian missionary who was in Santo Domingo and who speaks Spanish. All those that we have accepted (and we have refused many others), seem to adjust fairly well here, but they are mainly Spaniards, or people of European race who come through South America. We shall see later on what the true South Americans are like when two of them will come to us from Colombia. It appears that this country is one of the best.
Dom James also told me that we had been offered several times estates down there to make a foundation. Of course, he refused, for it is not yet the moment. But it seems that this moment is drawing near quite soon, and that in two or three years we shall be able to go ahead all right. Thus, after praying a lot, and thinking about the situation, I thought it my duty to tell Dom James that I was ready to go on the foundation if he wished me to, especially if he needed a Father Master who knew Spanish.
Of course, I don't know what will come out of all this and I leave it all in God's hands, and for my part I am pleased to live from day to day in the present moment, without worrying about the future. But all thesame, I think it would be a great grace for me if I could offer myself to help make a foundation in South America, if it is God's will. I tell myself from time to time that maybe I don't have the health, etc., and above all that I don't have enough virtue, and that maybe I am deluding myself, but the Holy Spirit may see to it, and He will settle everything if it is God's will. Dom James does not say yes or no, which is quite wise. My confessor approves of my desires. Anyway, it may be that by this sacrifice I can "make up for" all that I may have lost by the sins and the miseries of my monastic life, provided that I am not going to add to it yet more of them.
This is what is perhaps an illusion above all: but I think of the thousands of Indians down there, and of their poverty, and of the good that could be done by a quite poor, quite simple, quite Benedictine monastery, in their midst ... for example in the Andes in Ecuador. The climate of the mountains even on the equator is wholesome and quite propitious to our life. Or again, in Peru, among the descendants of the Incas: but the land is poor down there. One could better make a living in the direction of Bogotá, Colombia. That is perhaps the best in South America. It appears that the Cardinal down there has invited Dom James to make a foundation and offered him lands, but it was at the moment of the foundation in California.
I let my heart speak, for I know that this also interests you very much. If it is a dream, too bad! I leave myself in God's hands, and if others make the foundation, well so much the better. But I think the moment for such a foundation is going to come soon, and I cannot think of it without a very deep emotion. Maybe this is an indication of a grace from God for me. If you have a moment to tell me your thought, I would be delighted to know it. And I think that you will tell me I am not yet a good enough monk to go on a foundation: it is true. Or else that it is an illusion, and maybe this is true, too.
We have at present thirty in the novitiate; that is a dozen more than in the beginning of June. It is enough. A larger novitiate would be too large for the formation of each one. All the same we receive two or three more next month. The others who come from Latin America will be here by the end of the year. In the meantime, some will leave, no doubt ...
To Abbot James Fox
Abbot James Fox was away making Visitations; hence the following letter assessing the possibilities of a foundation in South America.
July 15, 1957
Well, we are really sweating at last. I think the summer has arrived in honor of St. Stephen, so that we may do a little penance. I hope it iscooler where you are--by the time you get this you will probably be at the Genesee [Trappist monastery in upstate New York] ...
I have been reading up a little about South America--I didn't manage to get anything from the library in Louisville when we came to see you off, I forgot it was the 4th of July. But I got some from the U. of Ky. instead. It is an eye-opener. Ignorance is bliss. When you get to know more how things are it sobers you up a bit. Any foundation we may make there in the future will probably be harder than anything so far, but it may also be more fruitful. Here are some considerations.
1) Any tropical country, even though one may be at a high altitude, will provide the community with lots of special sicknesses. In Colombia a big proportion of people die each year from dysentery (!)--there are lots of intestinal parasites.
2) Another drawback of high altitudes is that the ability to work is cut down very considerably. No pep and strength. The natives are not usually very zealous either.
3) A particular drawback of Colombia is the political situation. All S.A. countries are politically unstable, but in Colombia, things are set up for a very bad revolution: and if this comes, the Church, having been totally identified with the conservative political party, will get it in the neck very seriously. There was a prelude in 1948 when convents were burned, priests killed and mutilated, etc. The people are largely illiterate and are subject to intense political propaganda beyond their intellectual level so that they can go berserk very easily. From the point of view of relative safety, it would be better to found in a country that has already gone through its main anti-clerical upheavals and where the Church is to a great extent out of politics. Mexico would be a case in point, but South America is preferable to Central America.
4) Another difficulty in the Andean countries is the lack of communications--one can get around easily enough by air, but there are practically no railroads and roads are very poor. Freight gets through with great difficulty and hazards and one would be cut off from supplies. To found in the Andean countries would mean largely getting along on nothing--without machines, etc., to a great extent. It would be very hard to get parts, supplies, etc., when needed.
5) Colombia is a half-Indian country. Ecuador is mostly Indian, like Bolivia. Venezuela is mixed up Indian and Negro and very tropical, with all attendant drawbacks.
6) Nevertheless, Colombia remains a very attractive prospect with all its drawbacks. The people in general are very good--when they are calmed down. The land is rich, lots of things will grow, there is a good climate. However, at the moment, as far as I can judge, it would seem that everything tends to tip the balance in favor of Argentina and Chile, and maybe Uruguay. Argentina and Uruguay are the only really white countries in S.A. and it might be wiser to start there. Chile is also verygood, in the fertile valley near Santiago--and very accessible. You can get things there.
Well, I just thought I would register a few thoughts. Maybe on this trip you may get a chance to consult someone who really knows a great deal about it all. I hope you do ...
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
December 30, 1957
On December 28 I wrote the letter you wished to Mme. de Hueck Doherty. I also wrote at the same time to the publisher. Today I have just written to the agent. So everyone is informed. I asked Mme. de Hueck Doherty to be kind enough to take into account the wishes of the Order and my Superiors, to which I submitted myself entirely. I am morally certain that she will comply with your will, and that you have nothing to fear about the publication of this early [pre-monastic] work which so much worries the Reverend Father [The Cuban Journal, which was eventually published under the title The Secular Journal].
I do hope that your operation went well and that you are beginning to recover. It is not for me to tell you that maybe you work too hard. The burden of the whole Order is certainly heavy, but still you share it with others, fortunately for you. Anyway, I wish you a good rest, and even a somewhat prolonged convalescence so you may recover completely ...
January 27, 1958
I am pleased to know that you have been operated on with success and that you are at present convalescing. May God restore you to complete health, and to the joy of living for Him.
I have just received a letter from my friend Catherine de Hueck, the one who holds the rights of my Secular Journal (Cuban Journal). She tells me, I foretold you, that she accepts your decision, and that she abandons herself to God's will. I see that it is costing her a lot, but that she does so with entire and altogether admirable generosity. She also tells me, in parenthesis, why this costs her. They could have bought a new car to transport the nurses in the abandoned country where there are poor farmers that she helps; they might also have made a little building for those who come and join their institute; they might even have helped a family in distress. In addition to her, some priests are also grieved by our decision.
When I think that Christians who are destitute must remain so when one could easily help them, I wonder if God does not want me to tell you discreetly: Would it not be possible to suppress in the book those passages which the censor cites? In truth, there are many of them. Onemight perhaps change the expressions here and there, suppress the overly shocking sentences, without damaging the substance of the book which, all the same, does not consist altogether of reprehensible things. I even think that the censors have not really reached the true heart of the book with their criticisms. In sum, would it not be possible to publish the book corrected and pruned, for these extrinsic reasons as one of the censors said?
Mme. de Hueck has not suggested this, but in the situation she describes it seems to me that it is an act of Christian zeal to try to do what is possible for these people who are suffering. Do not think, dear Most Reverend Father, that I suggest this out of stubbornness. I only indicate what she told me, and what seems to me to be correct. You have a better judgment than I; you see things from a higher perspective than I do.
If you think one could adapt the manuscript for publication so as not to put off these good people, nor offend pious ears, you just have to send back the observations of the censors, and I will make all the suggested changes. You will tell me that the book remains an indifferent, worthless book. On this point my agent, who is in no way a credulous or easily deluded person, thinks rather the contrary. The moment it is certain that it will not offend anybody, don't you think that the book could be published? I leave this entirely to your judgment ...
We have just completed a very good retreat preached by Reverend Father Dom Eugene Boylan [Irish Cistercian Abbot], whom I find very friendly. This is really the best retreat we have been given in the time I have been in the monastery ...
To Jaime Andrade
Jaime Andrade is an artist from Quito, Ecuador, to whom Merton was writing in regard to a statue of the Blessed Virgin and Child for the novitiate library.
March 3, 1958
I thank you very much for your letter, and I am going to explain to you my ideas about the work proposed, a statue of the Blessed Virgin for the novitiate library in this abbey.
It is a question of a statue in tropical wood, dark wood, of 1 m. 50 more or less. We already have a base of stone of about 60 to 70 cm. in one end of a room not too large, which has two windows on the south side. The statue will be on the east side, a little in the shade (unless one turns on artificial lighting). Behind the statue there would be a simple white wall, without any decoration.
I ask you to make a drawing for us and tell us how much you generally charge for a work of this type. Later I will try to gather enough moneyto pay you, and in case I am successful, will have the joy of telling you positively and definitively to begin the work. I have available about $400, no more, because I am not rich. We are still among friends in a rich country, only Father Abbot does not yet understand how one could spend a thousand dollars on a statue. Well, let me know, and I will try to persuade him. I can also tell you that I have some friends, artists and writers, who would be very interested in this project and certainly some journals here would publish photos of your statue, etc.
I said I was going to explain my ideas ... For me, this work seems to be of great importance, and that is precisely why I want to give it to you. You are a sculptor; I am a monk and a priest: this means we are both consecrated men, men with a vocation that is more or less prophetic; this means that we should be witnesses to the truth, not only to intellectual truth, but to mystic truth, the integral truth of life, of history, of man--of God. We should be witnesses to the Incarnation, but that does not mean that we should be occupied with the contemplation of a nice, sentimental [Christmas] "Nativity." The Nativity of God in the world develops in the history of man. The Christ lives in the history of the people, not of rich and powerful people, not of powerful peoples, no, but in that of the poor. The advent of God in the world and the judgment of the world takes place in each moment of history.
So, for me, the "Nativity" of God, of the poor and unknown God, of the powerful and majestic God, Savior and Judge, can be contemplated in the Indian of the Andes, and in all the peoples of South America (as in all the peoples of the world). Here we are "contemplatives"--or we should be. So then, the novice who enters this monastery should see, not the sweet and false image of the Holy Virgin, but the reality--the Virgin Mother of the Indians of the Andes, holding in her arms the Christ incarnated in the flesh and blood of the true America, and of the Indians who received us and fed us centuries ago so that we would be Americans like themselves. Here we are, North Americans, and by and large do not think much of the Indians there. This is why it is not a question of producing a shock they would not understand. But at the same time we should learn to see God not only in the old forms, almost dead, of a Europe whose historic mission is coming to an end, but incarnated in the forms of the country whose mission is in the future.
I am persuaded that in this I have the truly Christian and prophetic point of view, and I rely on the fact that all true religious art, be it Christian or pagan, of America is concentrated in the countries of Ibero-America. Alejandinaho of Brazil, I think, had that same vision, in spite of his more European forms: I say the same thing of the great artists of the past, as well as of the present, in Ecuador.
You can see that this work has a highly spiritual meaning, in the true sense of the word "spiritual"--spirit is life, reality, reflection of the transcendent reality of God in its image, man. If I have the mission to formcontemplative monks--above all some Ibero-American vocations--I have the duty to form them not according to a dead formalism, but according to the inspiration of the Spirit of Truth, who speaks not only in words and abstract ideas but above all in the concrete, in the "incarnation" of the Divine Logos in humanity.
I think that none would understand me better than you, dear Jaime Andrade, artist of Ecuador!
To Father Kilian McDonnell, O.S.B.
Father Kilian, a monk of St. John's Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota, was much involved in the ecumenical apostolate. He was also editor of Sponsa Regis (later renamed Sisters Today), to which Merton frequently contributed.
March 14, 1958
I wonder if you can do me a favor. The novices here have their breviaries full of very sad holy cards, and I am secretly planning to descend on them, take away all their favorite trash, and impose on them something good. It is a quixotic scheme, no doubt, for a Father Master to hope to clean his house of all the trash that accumulates in corners and crannies. However, I am inspired to make the attempt.
There are some that I definitely know I want: of these I send you the numbers. Then I beg you to look for some more from the Liturgical Press--of the same character as the Marialaach card which I enclose. I like very much this artist whoever he is. I think he is very fine ...
I want to compliment you all on the sacred art issue of Worship, especially your own article ... I was delighted with the last number of their (clerics) Scriptorium and warmly applaud the translation of Mabillon, also the article on Tillich ...
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
March 27, 1958
Here I am among the censors! I am truly embarrassed in this new and unaccustomed position, in which I predict I shall not be struggling nearly as much as those who were involved with my own manuscripts. I can say, quite calmly, therefore, that I see no problem about the publication of this poem (a single poem) that was sent to me ... I foresee, however, that there is going to be a whole procession of poems, since the Reverend Mother ... seems to believe that I am going to send the nihil obstat by return mail and that the poem will be published the following week. Maybe she also thinks that I am going to supervise the poetic education of this little sister. I am sure she does not understand.
You ask me for my opinion about this poem. To tell the truth, it is a sincere little poem, on the "cute" side and totally feminine--it is like hundreds of poems of the same sort. I see nothing new in it, but I suppose that nobody is now trying to do anything new. It is a poem for a popular review and that is all: nothing more, nothing less. I shall refrain from criticizing it severely. Why should I? It seems to me that Reverend Mother and the sisters ... may be encouraging the poetess, but I must beg you not to let me fall in os leonis [into the mouth of the lion] and become her poetical mentor. Perhaps if she writes more, a group of poems could be sent all together ...
I wish you a very happy feast day, Most Reverend Father, and I promise you my prayers and those of my novices. We are still very happy here in the novitiate and things are going well with our 18 young men and two young professed. We still have quite a number of postulants from Latin America. Some are fine, but others lack the aptitude for the life of silence and contemplation. We shall see ...
I have made all the desired changes in The Secular Journal and in order to bring a little more spiritual interest to the book, I have added a few pages, taken from the original manuscript, that deal with my religious vocation. I shall gladly delete them if the censor does not like them. I say "the," because I am sure that the other censor, who has already seen the manuscript, is happy with the book as it is.
To Father Kilian McDonnell
June 8, 1958
Another SOS. I am putting out a little book on Sacred Art. We are doing the job here, at least in Louisville. I am in need of illustrations.
What I need is first a batch of some very good traditional stuff--icons, Byzantine mosaics, Romanesque sculpture, good architecture. Then some good examples of medieval art, ms. illuminations, sculpture, Angelico, and so on. I would like a small selection of really bad "sacred art"--pseudo-modern, or kitsch, or whatever one can get, including if possible the Cathedral of Barcelona ...
July 21, 1958
This has been my first chance to thank you for your wonderful help in getting such a fine selection of pictures that I could use in the book. I have picked out quite a few to work with, and sent the others back quickly, as I did not want anything to happen to them. I noticed that the boards on which they were mounted warped easily in this clammy Kentucky heat, and so I thought the best thing to do was to get them back as fast as I could. I envy you your Minnesota weather--though this also may be an illusion; often when it is very hot here it turns out to be veryhot everywhere. But I am happy anyway to have received such help from you and I think the book is going to turn out well. Please pray that it may do so. I am just publishing it here and that makes for difficulties--and special satisfactions as I shall have the fun of planning it all myself, which I like to do ...
To Jaime Andrade
July, 1958
... If I were free to do what I thought best myself, or if I could get permission to do it somehow (and perhaps some day it might be possible), this is what I think I would do:
I would like to embark on a new form of monastic life, a very simple kind of life, a small monastery of six or seven very carefully chosen monks with the same aspirations: living for instance in the country near Quito a life fully integrated in the life of the region, and in the soil, yet also fully in contact with the intellectual life of the Capital.
I would not carry on any special "work" or "apostolate" (this is where the mistake is generally made by so many). I would not have any arguments to sell to anybody; I would not try to "catch" people and make them go to confession, etc. Preferably I would not even dress as a priest or as a monk, but as an ordinary person. I would live a life of prayer, of thought, of study, with manual labor, and writing, a life not only in contact with God in contemplation but also fully in contact with all the intellectual, artistic, political movements of the time and place. But I would not intrude into the life of the place as one with a "mission" or a "message"; I would not try to sell anybody anything. My function would be (as it must be in any case) to be a man of God, a man belonging to Christ, in simplicity, to be the friend of all those who are interested in spiritual things, whether of art, or prayer, or anything valid, simply to be their friend, to be someone who could speak to them and to whom they could speak, to encourage one another, etc.
As I conceive it, the usual error of the priest is to barricade himself behind an "apostolate" that separates him from everybody else. The basic assumption of this equivocal position is "You need me, but I do not need you. You need my help to be saved, but I do not need yours," etc. Actually of course it is true that the priest has the sacraments, but otherwise he is a man like every other and it is good that he realize it. Also we are all alike struggling for truth in the world, and the possession of spiritual formulas still does not enable one to see especially clearly in the darkness of the political and intellectual chaos.
So I ask you in all simplicity: what do you think of the idea of a small monastery near Quito, a monastery that would be a retreat of silence as it should be, a place of simplicity and work and study, and also a placewhere ideas and problems could be discussed, or where one could come just for a rest. I would try to make money for it by writing, and there might be a kind of educational project of some kind. But mainly I think just of being there with those who are there, and to be in contact with everybody who would want that kind of contact, and without any arrière pensée [ulterior motive]. (It seems to me that what is traditionally thought to be the "Jesuit" technique--of using a cultural and intellectual approach as "bait"--implies a certain sort of cynicism and a basic disrespect for the values of the spirit. My approach is quite different. I believe that all true spiritual values are bound up together, they all rise and fall together, and that consequently there is no sense whatever in considering one as a decoy for the other. And I am the enemy of all kinds of manipulation in the apostolate, because manipulation ruins all truth and sincerity and is an insult to God.)
The question you might reasonably ask is: why do I not want to try this in North America? I don't know; I believe, on a kind of instinctive basis, that this is not yet needed here. The country is perhaps not yet ripe for it. South America is.
Basically, also, I am a revolutionist--in a broad, non-violent sense of the word. I believe that those who have used violence have betrayed all true revolution, they have changed nothing, they have simply enforced with greater brutality the anti-spiritual and anti-human drives that are destructive of truth and love in man. I believe that the true revolution must come slowly and painfully, not merely from the peasant, etc., but from the true artist and intellectual ... from the thinker and the man of prayer.
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
October 29, 1958
I beg your pardon: this is a very urgent affair.
My friend Boris Pasternak, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, is, as you know, under terrible pressure from the Soviet leaders. He is in very serious danger.
I wrote the enclosed letter to the Union of the Soviet Writers, as a protest. But of course this is not going to achieve a lot. What can help is the open publication of this letter in free countries. I instantly ask your permission to publish this letter in any language, as soon as possible. If, for example, one wanted to put this in some newspaper, like the Osservatore Romano, could somebody take it upon himself?
Be patient with me, dear Most Reverend Father, but it really seems to me that this is an exceptional cause. I know Pasternak from his books, from letters, in which he manifests to me a very great comprehension, a very friendly understanding, and a lot of kindliness towards some of mywritings. I admire him a lot, and we agree with each other very well. I wish I could help him. I would reproach myself bitterly for not having done so. Forgive me, dear Most Reverend Father, and give me permission to let this letter be published at least in English, as soon as possible . . [See letter of January 26, 1959.]
To Jaime Andrade
November 20, 1958
I am grateful to you for your long and interesting letter, and for your thoughtful, sincere answer to my question about the idea of a monastery ...
What you say about the difficulties of a monastic mission in Ecuador seems to me to be very reasonable and just. I had thought much the same things myself. To make the kind of a foundation I had imagined might well bring me in conflict with the more conventional-minded of the clergy, and I know for a fact that I would not be long in the same region as Falangist priests from Spain without a radical separation and deep-seated conflict. This would not help matters, and would tend to defeat the purpose of the foundation. On the other hand, of course, nothing good and nothing new is ever done without opposition, including opposition from other priests.
Ideally speaking, the kind of monastery I imagine would have not only a cultural mission but also a social one. Our aim would be to strive, to some extent, to lift up the Indians physically, morally, spiritually by providing a clinic, encouraging education, cooperatives, art-projects. The monastery would be perhaps the nucleus of a farming community of Indians. What I am saying now, of course, is more a project than a definite plan. The elements I have just enumerated would not fit in with any idea my Superiors might have, and would be outside the scope of a conventional foundation of our Order. Therefore I probably could not get permission to make it. I am just telling you what I would like to do.
Another difficulty to be expected would be opposition from orthodox Communist groups. Lenin said that the worst kind of socialist is a Christian socialist--and he was right in the sense that we are the kind who can do most (ideally speaking) to give people real happiness and therefore to make them more impervious to the appeals of materialism.
The greatest difficulty of such a foundation would, in short, be the greatest difficulty that someone like myself must face everywhere in any case. It is the inevitable difficulty of one who refuses to accept passively a solution proposed by a reactionary group on the one hand or a totalitarian group on the other. It is the great spiritual and physical hardship of going forward without the support of a powerful or influential group, of isolating oneself from those whose thinking is done for them by party lines orauthoritarian decrees, and honestly striving to think in depth and clarity for oneself, under the eyes of God--a life of obedience to the truth which is hard to see and which is not seen by one who does not seek it himself with all the strength of his spiritual and physical being.
Actually, there is no immediate likelihood of my attempting such a project as the one I have described. My Superiors are cold to it, if not actively opposed. As we stand now, they would not permit me to do it or offer me any help. If they made a foundation in South America it would be the kind of thing I would not like to be associated with--a big, mechanized, efficient North American hacienda, very productive, in contact with the established wealthy classes and the higher clergy and out of contact with the Indians. Under such conditions it would be utterly impossible to have the kind of contact which I desire with the people like yourself to whom I believe I must address myself. I could not face you without shame. Hence in practice my own idea is still little more than a dream, and it is not likely that I will be able to do anything about it. Yet one never knows. Things can suddenly change. And because my idea is, I believe, a really good one, I feel I ought to keep thinking of it and examining its possibilities.
I certainly do not think I yet have the strength to face the struggle that would be necessary to carry out my idea under the conditions that exist in Ecuador. In actual fact, to do what I intend to do, I would probably have to live practically on the level of the Indians myself. To try that in a strange country with a climate and conditions which I have never known would be to invite failure, even apart from all the other difficulties.
At present I have my hands full simply thinking my way into the clarity of an unconventional position and standing by it, resisting the powerful appeals of the massive groups and their authoritarian philosophies, and their sinister claims to be right because they are powerful and massive. Yet I know in the depths of my being that this is what we have to resist with every fiber and every nerve and every breath that is in us. The massive, powerful groups are not right. Even the Church is right only insofar as she preserves, behind the façade of power and authority, the humility and poverty of Christ: and this humility and poverty often have very little to do with the façade. Nothing at all. And those who cling to the Church because of her façade sometimes have nothing of her true inner reality.
It follows as a most bitter consequence of this that one must ever run the risk of being thought wrong, of being thought evil and misguided, not only by the powerful community "church" but even of being thought a bad Christian and a rebel by other Christians. I do not say by the Church, because I have no intention of getting myself officially condemned. But I must certainly expect to be attacked and vilified by theologians and by certain of the clergy--as Maritain, for example, has been attacked by the Falangists in unanimous chorus.
This being the case, if I were to arrive in Ecuador with an ill-considered project, I might as you suggest only add to the unhappiness of a country torn by too many conflicts already. This I would certainly not want to do. And I do not intend to do it. But spiritually, yes, I already live among you, and your conflicts are in my own heart. Meanwhile, I have very much to learn and I am only beginning to realize how much.
May your statue of the Virgin and Child be to me a reminder always to seek that truth which is hidden among the poor of this earth and is inaccessible to the mighty. And may it be a reminder to hope in the future of man, when Christ shall rise from among these poor and build a new world.
To Father Kilian McDonnell
January 26, 1959
At long last the permission to use these articles has come through. All our routine censorship is routed through Rome, or rather through the Abbot General, who is always on the move; one never knows where to find him. In addition he has lately been ill. Hence the inordinate delay.
So here are two widow's mites, one of them longish. I mean the one on the "Way of Perfection" which I have divided into two parts, provisionally, as I am sure you will want to run it serially rather than in one issue. Fr. Godfrey [Diekmann, editor of Worship] says he likes to break things up into paragraphs with subtitles. The "Way of Perfection" is more or less like that now. You can do more to it if you like.
Please tell Fr. Godfrey that everything is all right for the Easter articles too, they have been censored and passed.
When these are printed may I please have a dozen copies? And would Worship send me a dozen also? I can always use them to send to friends in foreign parts and what not--it is a help to be able to give something to people who send us books or other things. I would appreciate it.
Perhaps later on in the year I might be able to write two more articles for Sponsa Regis but I do not promise anything as I can never tell what may be coming over the horizon. In this I am no different from anyone else, except that what comes over the horizon is usually enough to keep me quite busy.
I tried to persuade Father Abbot to get Fr. Paschal or someone from Collegeville down to give our retreat in 1960. I hope something comes of it. This year we are awaiting the usual Redemptorist or Jesuit (it is always a secret), and will be on retreat the second week of February, so please pray for us ...
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
January 26, 1959
I have received your permission to publish various articles and also your letter on the subject of the seventh article about Pasternak. I am quite willing to accede to your desires on this matter and I am giving up the project of publishing this article which does not meet with your approval. As a matter of fact, I have several times asked myself if I should publish this article. I was hesitant about doing so. Your letter has solved the problem. It no longer exists. I am grateful to you.
At the same time it seems that I must address myself to a misunderstanding that I find in your kind letter--a misunderstanding that seems to call for some explanations. These I want to make with simplicity, without any desire to excuse myself or to put myself in a more favorable light in your eyes, but simply to do (and I may be wrong in this) what I believe is my duty to the truth.
You have judged my article on Pasternak not after your own personal reading of it nor after a reading done by someone who was acquainted with the subject; instead you follow the opinion of someone who does not know what it is about. No doubt, if the article is judged from a superficial point of view, it may seem amusingly odd for a "monk" to be writing about a "novel." But in judging a moral action, we must not forget the circumstances.
Why did I get interested in Pasternak? Out of sheer curiosity? This is what you seem to believe. On the contrary, it seems to me that there is in Pasternak an element that is deeply spiritual and deeply religious. This is no illusion, everyone acknowledges it. Besides, he has written some religious poems which are among the greatest, the most profound, and the most Christian of the century. Good enough.
While nearly everyone believed that Pasternak's revolt was political or literary, the stance that I chose to take in my article was that his revolt was a-political, anti-political and in truth spiritual. Not only spiritual but Christian. In taking such a position I never for an instant had the feeling that I was betraying my Christian or my contemplative vocation. On the contrary, I believe that my vocation as a contemplative writer demands this kind of testimony of me. (Elsewhere I have told you about my uncertainties in this regard.)
It seemed to me, in effect, that to understand Pasternak's witness as only a political or literary reaction was totally to distort the work of this great man. At the same time one has to prove this. And this is something that I have not done adequately, since this would require a more in-depth study of his work, of his symbolism. This, as I say, I have not done, though I wanted to do it. But clearly it is a task that is beyond the capabilities of a Cistercian. I do not think any more about it.
It does seem to me, I must add, that the voice of a monk might wellbe the one necessary to point out the religious significance of Pasternak's works. It may be that I am wrong. I am quite willing to accept that. But at any rate I assure you that, in writing about the Christ of Pasternak, I found myself face to face with the Christ whom you accuse me of not loving. Of course love is not the same with everyone. Alius sic, alius vero sic [Some in one way, others in another]. And it is very true that Pasternak's novel is not a treatise on ascetical, dogmatic or moral theology.
But it may be that you think that I do not read anything else? Is this possible? It has been a long time since I read this book and a long time since I wrote this article. As a matter of fact, I put this on paper just after the letter to Surkov--at the time when you seemed to be more or less willing to deal with this matter.
The article was sent to the censors in November. It took them three months to read it; hence it is hardly fair to say that, while the whole world had forgotten Pasternak, a Cistercian monk was still thinking about him. Moreover, if it were true that I was in such a situation, I would be very proud of it. This man needs someone to think of him, especially in prayer. I would never want to be one of those who easily forgot him.
Most Reverend Father, I know that you are not well and I do not want to keep boring you with the same things. But I would at least like to give proof of my good will and honesty. I make no pretense, alas, of being a holy monk or a great contemplative. But I assure you that I try to be faithful to the vocation which seems to be mine and will continue to do so with God's help. If mine is not in every way a traditional type of vocation, there is nothing I can do about it.
Yet it is impossible for me not to feel, interiorly, the importance of a great manifestation of the Christian spirit in the climate of Soviet Russia; and it is impossible for me to believe that my contemplative vocation demands of me a complete indifference toward the soul and work of a Pasternak who appears to me to be just as great as a Claudel, but of course not quite so Christian and Catholic.
If you disagree, then I am quite willing to keep my inner convictions to myself and not express them to others. In any case I do not plan to write any other articles about Pasternak or other similar subjects, unless I receive from you a different expression of your point of view. In short, I do not plan to write very much. Just a few little liturgical and spiritual essays growing out of my lectures in the novitiate.
In conclusion, Most Reverend Father, I hope that I did not give you the wrong impression when I said I was in the process of losing my vocation. On the contrary, it was back in 1955, when I was thinking only about my own spiritual life and especially about my personal aspirations toward prayer, that I was in danger of leaving the Cistercian Order ...
March 2, 1959
May I be allowed to ask you to reconsider, for the good of souls, for the good of the Church and for the glory of God, an earlier decision thatyou made? It concerns something very important, very serious, of grave import for justice, freedom, truth and the Kingdom of God.
Boris Pasternak, who has written as a Christian and who has given a witness that is both Christian and spiritual in his writings, has just disappeared. I am certain that his end is not far off. He might even be dead at this very moment. If he has died, he is truly, at least in the broad sense of the term, a martyr. But not everyone would be able to interpret the spiritual and Christian meaning of his witness, especially given the fact that political interpretations would obscure the truth that he stood for.
Since last fall, though I was not able to follow this case in magazines and newspapers (to which obviously I do not have access), I have nonetheless received information of the highest authority through Pasternak's publisher (who is a friend of mine as well as of Pasternak, and who has close ties with a great many people who have seen Pasternak and spoken with him in Russia since he was given the Nobel Prize, and up to the time of his disappearance "on vacation" where he could have had contact with strangers). Hence I have had access to everything that is known, without having to deal with newspapers, etc.
I leave the judgment to you, but it seems to me that I have a very serious duty to complete my article on Pasternak and to put the whole truth on paper. And to publish it. It is a question of giving a Christian explanation of Pasternak's witness which is both heroic and Christian. This affair has moved the hearts of everyone, but most profoundly it has touched those who are writers and intellectuals. It is about an event that has happened in the very midst of the spiritual life of our time. To dissociate myself from involvement with this action which is so extraordinary would be for me a betrayal: a betrayal of my particular vocation, a betrayal of Jesus Christ. At least this is the way I feel.
So as not to involve the Order in this event, I would be quite content to be allowed to publish an article under a pen name. Of course this would deprive the article of a good deal of its power as a Christian witness on Pasternak's behalf. But if you are unwilling to let me publish this article under my own name (and I beg you to let me do so), then at least permit me to publish it incognito. The secret could be very easily kept, since no one would expect such a document from a Trappist. But at the same time, if I published it under my own name, people would hardly be shocked, because it is more or less known that I am a friend of Pasternak.
You know that I submit myself entirely to holy Obedience. I implore you to listen to me, Most Reverend Father; but if you believe that this project is out of the question, I submit myself to your judgment and God will not regard me as a traitor to my conscience. But I beg you on my knees at least to let me publish this report under a pen name ...
To Father Mark Weidner, O.C.S.O.
Father Mark at this time was Novice Master at Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Cistercian abbey in Oregon.
April 15, 1959
Please forgive me for taking so long to reply to your letter. It got buried under the pile, and I have only just got to it.
First I am sending you a reading list which we follow loosely (very loosely) in the novitiate. We revise it every year and I haven't got around to the 1959 edition yet. When I do I will include some books by Conrad Pepler.
For the Novice Master--well, it goes without saying that Bouyer's Meaning of the Monastic Life is fundamental. One doesn't have to agree perfectly with absolutely everything he says. Dom Jean Leclercq on St. Bernard (in French) is also good, and Gilson's Mystical Theology of St. Bernard is a must. Also I would say Dom Cuthbert Butler's Western Mysticism is not bad but controversial. You should know it. I assume you are familiar with the mimeographed material that comes from the Maison Generalice and from Chimay and places like that. The notes put out by Fr. Francis Mayhieu when Novice Master at Chimay are very good.
Here are authors I recommend in a general way: Guardini always fine. Bouyer, Danielou, De Lubac (some books), Josef Pieper (Thomist), Von Balthasar (controversial but generally very good).
I especially recommend the series of conferences on Obedience, Poverty, Chastity, Common Life and other "problems of the religious life" originally put out by the French Dominicans and published here at Newman. They are essential, and you probably know all about them. Then, too, the Etudes Carmelitaines are very good. Some have been done in English (Love and Violence, Conflict and Light); Sheed and Ward does these.
If you have not read Cassian thoroughly you should. Also the Verba Seniorum (Desert Fathers). I am bringing out a translation of this latter (in part) and there is a new book of selections from the Desert Fathers being read in our refectory (by whom?). It is very good.
I suggest that for background you be somewhat acquainted with such odd and disparate subjects as Gandhi (very important, I think), Dorothy Day, psychoanalysis (Karen Horney is a useful author for us), liturgical art, and the spirituality of the Oriental Church (Fedotov's Treasury of Russian Spirituality is fine).
I pass over as obvious the great theological writers who are right up our alley, like Scheeben and Vonier. And of course top priority belongs to our own [Cistercian] Fathers. Guerric is one of the easiest to break into in Latin. And perhaps the most representative. You know of coursethat a publisher called Mobray in England is bringing out brochures of translations of our Fathers and other medieval texts.
Now I have to spring over to see our Father Immediate--so I close in haste better late than never ...
To Dom Gabriel Sortais
May 22, 1959
I talked yesterday with Dom James who advised me to write you this letter about a project which interests him a lot and in which I have a little share, too. There is question of an admirable collection of photographs of the monastery by Mr. Shirley Burden, a very distinguished artist (in this photographic genre), a great friend of the monastery, and a highly respected personality here in the U.S.A. You are going to see the collection; I need not insist on its very obvious qualities.
Mr. Burden wants to publish these photographs in New York by a publishing house, and wants to start negotiations, but he cannot go ahead without knowing if this project can be approved by the Order. Of course, not being a member of the Order, he need not submit to censorship like a religious. But since his topic is photographs of a monastery and some monks, it is obvious that he must think of possible objections on the part of our Most Reverend Father General! Dom James is altogether pleased with the book, and so am I. But one finds in it several pictures which clearly show the faces of certain monks and laybrothers. The difficulty is this: without these faces, the book of photos will completely lack sense for a publisher. With the faces, it is a highly impressive document. The faces one finds in it are truly moving--and there are not many, at the same time.
This is my personal opinion: one might publish this book without mention of the name of the monastery. It is quite simply a Cistercian monastery (rather Trappist, since Dom James always insists that Gethsemani is Trappist first of all--and the word Cistercian has not caught on in America). Of course those who know Gethsemani will have no difficulty in recognizing it. There is really no question of publicity for the house or for those who will appear in the book. It seems to me that to allow these images will be a great good for the believers and for the Order. The book is very true, very sincere, and in very good taste.
Without the faces--the book cannot be published. It would be a great pity: it would really be regrettable. So I join Dom James, pleading for this good Mr. Burden and for his work. I hope you will be kind enough to allow us this exception.
For my part I have written a preface of three pages, which willnaturally have to go through the censorship. I suppose Dom James has taken the necessary steps--or else we can send this preface to the two censors who examine in the usual way the "short articles."
To Dom Jean Leclercq
May 22, 1959
Some time ago questions were asked about the French translation of Thoughts in Solitude, [entitled] Les Chemins de la Joie. You remember that you had this translated by a Benedictine nun and it was to have been published by Les Editions d'histoire et d'art. I remember that I myself complicated matters somewhat when I hesitated about the publication of this book in English or in French. The French ms. was sent to me and I returned it eventually with the consent to its publication.
Nothing more has ever been heard of it. Recently there was a question of offering to some other publisher the French rights for this book. I heard this from my agent, and told them to hold off until we could find out something definite about your translation. Will you please let me know where matters stand? If your publisher does not want this translation you have, perhaps it could go to some other publisher. Let me know please.
Most of the trouble comes from the fact that I have been out of contact with you for so long. It is a pleasure to greet you again, and to ask your prayers. I heard Dom Jacques Winandy is in Martinique. I hope he will pray for me too. I naturally keep a certain desire for solitude in my heart and cannot help but hope that some day it may be realized. But I no longer have any thought or desire of transferring to another Order. I believe that to move from one institution to another is simply futile. I do not believe that there is any institutional solution for me. I can hope however that perhaps I might gain permission to live alone, in the shadow of this monastery, if my Superiors will ever permit it. I do not think that there is any other fully satisfactory way for me to face this, but to seek to live my own life with God. I am not pushing this however, simply praying, hoping and waiting. I hope you will pray for me also ...
To Father Kilian McDonnell
August 22, 1959
After a little delay I am sending you the new version of the "Spiritual Direction" material. It has been considerably lengthened and I think it ought to make a good pamphlet. Perhaps that is something more ambitious than you at first intended--it will not just be a reprint pure and simple.At the same time, however, I felt that additions and clarifications were needed.
You have full permission to use anything you like or can from the "Art and Worship" material for Sponsa Regis. No one else is using any, and Jubilee is the only one who has printed any of it before. Sun never rose, so everything is clear. I agree with you that Sisters hold a key position in this whole battle for sacred art, and I take very seriously any idea that will help them to appreciate and promote good taste and religious quality in art. Often they are a bit passive, though, and think that once they are supposed to be interested in sacred art, they have to promote everything that looks modern, with no regard to its intrinsic merit. Would you want me to write a few paragraphs of earnest exhortation to Sisters, to precede any material of mine on art you may be using? Suggestions as to how to proceed would be appreciated. I do know that what I try to do in the novitiate to make people understand sacred art usually runs up a stone wall in the minds of those who were considered very good boys by the Sisters and were therefore given special attention. I am much happier with the ones the Sisters thought were naughty; they are usually my best subjects. They have open minds and are willing to take in something unconventional.
I do think the whole issue of sacred art has been terribly confused by the stupid fashion for radiator-cap-modern-pious art in which all that one asks is that the Blessed Virgin look like a Bermuda-rigged sailboat taking into the bay. Which reminds me that I still envy you your vacation in the Bahamas, and hope you are feeling better. Everything you say about your new Church sounds exciting. I look forward to the day when I might possibly be able to admire it, finished, and face to face ...
October 3, 1959
Here we are with the note for nuns on sacred art. It turned into a little article on its own. I have inserted a few sentences in my own impossible handwriting but I hope that will not drive the printer out of his mind. You will check and see how the copy looks. I hope it will be sufficiently clear. I also added the last paragraph in single space rather than go over the page for just one line or two. So I hope it will be adequate.
Naturally, any material that you can use from the expanded "Spiritual Direction" article can go into Sponsa Regis. If I remember correctly there was something at the beginning that would make a short article in itself.
I have a few poems of Robert Lax here, and I think you would like some of them. I am presuming his permission to send you one or two, and there are more. He can be reached at Jubilee. I think it would be a good idea to have something of the sort in Sponsa and liven up the magazine. Really it seems to me there is no reason why Sponsa Regis could not be a very rich and vital little magazine, with a few things like this. I'll try to think up some other ideas, too.
One thing that would certainly be easy, and I think there is a crying need for it, would be just to print a page or two, in each issue, of really good spiritual texts, from the Fathers, from the saints, etc. I will try to suggest some as I go along, if I get time. Also unusual liturgical texts from other rites. Your scholastics would be able to dig up things like that all over the place ...
By the way I hope this sacred art piece isn't too rabid for your readers. I don't know how conventional they are, but most of them must be pretty much that way. I hope they aren't shocked. Of course in the printed word the approach is indirect. It will take a few minutes for them to realize what I am defending and what I am attacking. They won't have it jump right out at them like a Kacmarcik Madonna ...
Wasn't it sad to hear that [Dr.] Gregory Zilboorg was dead? I just learned it yesterday. A great and good man, and may God grant him rest and eternal life ...
To Dom Jean Leclercq
November 19, 1959
Here I am again and it is the same subject of Les Chemins de la Joie. My New York agent in Paris is negotiating another translation. I have not written to Wittman, but he has evidently set aside the one made by your nun in Landes, not wanting to publish it. But I like this translation very well and I will help your Sister. I think that the simplest thing will be for you to request the translation from Wittman, and have it published where you like. Besides, it is now the job of you people. But if Hoffman succeeds in getting his business done, all the work will have been useless. On my part, I shall go back to Father Abbot so that he shall not sign any contract with any other publisher chosen by Hoffman. He is a very opinionated fellow. It is understood, is it not, that you (the Abbey of Clervaux) have the rights of the French language for this translation at present. I will take the normal author's rights (10%) for us, and it is up to you to fix things up with the lady translator. But it is quite certain that if Hoffman succeeds with his ploy, then there is nothing left.
There you are. I do not know if it is as simple as all that. I am not a "business man," fortunately.
Now I shall tell you, in confidence, something more interesting and more monastic. I have asked the Congregation of Religious for an exclaustration so as to go to Mexico, and become a hermit near the Benedictine monastery of Cuernavaca. Dom Gregorio will take me on and encourages me very much. This is really what I have been looking for for a long time. I have good hopes of succeeding with the Congregation, but the Superiors are dead set against this move. Dom James is at present in Rome where the Abbot General has summoned him. But though knowingthat this must have something to do with my case, I do not know exactly what may happen. There must be some other matter there, because I do not believe that they have made Father Abbot come to Rome merely in order to block my indult. At present there are some questions which have arisen respecting another monk from here, who has the same problem as I, but with certain canonical complications which are perhaps the fault of the Superiors ... But in spite of that, I still have hope that at the same time they will let me go to make the experiment. I am very happy and I think I shall succeed well with the grace of God. Truly, I am who I am and I always have the writer's temperament, but I am not going down there to write, nor to make myself known, but on the contrary to disappear, to find solitude, obscurity, poverty. To withdraw above all from the collective falsity and injustice of the U.S. which implicate so much the church of this country and our monastery.
I tell you this (and I beg of you not to talk about it) in order to ask your prayers, and also, if you should happen to be in Rome these days, to take my side somewhat with Dom Gabriel, who respects you very much. (To him, yes, you may speak of this.) I even reckon a little on the Procurator of the Benedictines--but this is up to Dom Gabriel, I think. In a word, if you can do anything for me, I beg of you in your charity to do so.
In any case, if the matter fails this time, I will continue. I do not think this is the time to let go whatever it may be. My Benedictine vocation is, I am sure, a solitary vocation, at least relatively, and primitive. It may be that my health cannot withstand the intestinal illnesses in the tropics; in that case I shall recommence the attempt elsewhere, perhaps in Europe or in the regions of the U.S. where there are Indians. If you write a word to me on these matters, I beg of you to address it to me sub secreto--conscience matter ...
Copyright © 1990 by the Merton Legacy Trust
