Word: merton
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...your Feb. 2 article "Benedictine v. Trappist" I was very much impressed by the criticism of Thomas Merton by Dom Aelred Graham. I do not imagine that Father Graham has read Ascent to Truth by Merton; if he has, let him notice Chapter 14. Here are some excerpts: "He pours out His joy upon the whole world through the chosen," and "they all recognize in practice that infused contemplation is a gift of God and the best way for a man to dispose himself for this gift is renunciation and humility." This hardly seems to mean advocating ascetic monasticism...
...seems to me Benedictine Graham has entirely missed the point of Thomas Merton's teaching where lay people are concerned. Far from advocating that we turn our backs on the world, "letting it go to the devil in its own way," Father Louis shows us how to reach greater faith, serenity and courage to live in the world of today...
...Thomas Merton's language is that of paradox; his readers are trusted to look beyond the symbols to that which has been symbolized. It would seem that Dom Aelred Graham fails to read more than the letter which represents the Word . . . Trappists separate themselves from the world, but their days are filled with fervent prayers for it. Graham seems to mistake this act of love for a sign of suicidal despair; he seems to understand only one side of the Trappist paradox of suffering and joy. If Graham interprets Merton's advice as Cistercian propaganda for a Marxist...
...Monk in the World. The result of all this, according to Critic Graham, is a dangerous oversimplification. He disapprovingly quotes some of Merton's advice to his readers-"Do everything you can to avoid the amusements and the noise and the business of men ... do not read their newspapers ... do not bother with their unearthly songs." In short-Graham summarizes-"become a Trappist-Cistercian monk while living in the world...
...parting advice to Merton: "Mysticism is not for the masses but for an elite. To lose sight of this is to divert Christians from what may well be, for the majority of them, their most urgent business. Their call is not to take flight from society but to revivify it ... For this undertaking prayer will be the inspiration; but prayer, as St. Thomas Aquinas pointed out at length, is no substitute for energies employed in direct relation to the needs of the hour. In our present predicament no religious propaganda could be more in harmony with the Marxist book than...