The School of Charity: The Letters Of Thomas Merton On Religious Renewal & Spiritual Direction

by Thomas Merton, Patrick Hart (Editor)

Overview

As the third volume in the series including The Hidden Ground of Love (1985) and The Road to Joy (1989), this collection features Thomas Merton's letters to members of religious communities around the world. Merton's questions about the monastic life, sometimes radical and disturbing, either arose from what was happening in his own experience or reflected the extraordinary changes that followed Vatican Council II.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429966375
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	11/14/1990
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	458
File size:	650 KB

About the Author

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) is one of the foremost spiritual thinkers of the twentieth century. Though he lived a mostly solitary existence as a Trappist monk, he had a dynamic impact on world affairs through his writing. An outspoken proponent of the antiwar and civil rights movements, he was both hailed as a prophet and castigated for his social criticism. He was also unique among religious leaders in his embrace of Eastern mysticism, positing it as complementary to the Western sacred tradition. Merton is the author of over forty books of poetry, essays, and religious writing, including Mystics and Zen Masters, and The Seven Story Mountain, for which he is best known. His work continues to be widely read to this day.

Patrick Hart (1925-2019) was a Cistercian monk. As Thomas Merton's last secretary, he became executor of Merton's literary estate, editing many acclaimed collections of the Trappist monk's work and co-founding the International Thomas Merton Society.

Read an Excerpt

The School of Charity

The Letters of Thomas Merton on Religious Renewal and Spiritual Direction

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By Thomas Merton, Patrick Hart

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Copyright © 1990 Merton Legacy Trust
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-6637-5

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CHAPTER 1

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, unless we 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 LycÃ(c)e 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 16Â1/2. 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

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The School of Charity by Thomas Merton, Patrick Hart. Copyright © 1990 Merton Legacy Trust. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
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