xt751c1tj07k https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt751c1tj07k/data/mets.xml Thomas Merton 1959-05-14 This letter is from collection 75m28 Thomas Merton papers. archival material 75m28 English Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Thomas Merton correspondence Letter from Thomas Merton to Victor Hammer, May 14, 1959 text Letter from Thomas Merton to Victor Hammer, May 14, 1959 1959 1959-05-14 2023 true xt751c1tj07k section xt751c1tj07k 4=

OUR LADY OF GETHSEMANI
TRAPPIST,KENTUCKY

May 1,1959

Dear Victor:

I have not rushed to reply to your letter first because I have been
a little busy, and second because it is most difficult to write anything that
really makes sense about this most mysterious reality in the mystery of God -
Hag a Sophia.

The first thing to be said of course is that Hagia Spphia is God Himself.
God is notwm only a Father but a nether. he is both at t e same time, and it
is the "feminire aspect" or ”feminine principle” in the divinity that is the
Hagia Spphia. But of course as soon as you say this the whole thing becores
misleading: a division of an ”abstract” divinity into has two abstract princi—
ples. Nevertheless, to ignore this distinction is to lose touch with the fulness
of God. This is a very ancient intuition of reality which goes back to the’
oliest Oriental thOught (there is something about it in Carolyn‘s wonderful
book Peaks and Lamas, incidentally). For the ”masculine-feminine” relationship
is basic in all reality -- simply because all reality mirrors the reality of
GOdo —

In its most primitive aspect, HcgiiSophia is the dark, nameless Ousia
of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, the incomprehensible, pprimor ia "
darkness which is infinite light. The Three Divine Persons each at the same time
are xndzmawifextx Sophia and age manifestcd'in her. But where the Sophia of your
picture cones in; in is this: the wisdom of God, ”reachi.g from end to end
mightily" is also the Tao, the nameless pivot of all being and nature, the
center and meaning of all, that which is smallest and poorest and most humble in
all: the ”feminine child” playing before God the Creator in H,s universe,
”playing before Him at all times, playing in the world” (Proverbs 8) (This is
the Epistle of the E3 of the Immaculate C nception.) This feminine principle in
the universe is the inexhaustible source of creative realizations of the Pather‘s
glory in the world and is in fact the manifestation of His glory. Pushing it
furhther, Sophia in ourselves is the mercy of God, the tenderness which by
its infinitely mysterious power of pardeﬁ turns the darkness of our sins into
the light of god‘s love.

Hence Sophia is the feminine, dark, yielding, tender counterpart of the
power, justice, creative dynamism of the Father.

Now the Blessed Virgin is the one created being who in herself realizes per-
fectly all that is hidden in Sonhia. She is a kind of persunal manifestation of
Sophia. She crowns the second Person of the Trinity with His human nature (with
what is weak, able to suffer, able to be defeated) and sends Him forth with His
mission of inexpressible mercy, to die for man on the Cross, and this death,
followed by the l““esurrection, is the great expression of the ”manifold wisdom
of God” which unites us all in the mystery of Christ—— the Church. Finally, it
is the Church herself, peOperly understood as the great manifestation of the
mercy of God, who is the revelation of Sophia in the sight of the angels.

The key to the whole thing is of course mercy and love. Th the sense that
God is Love, is mercy, is humility, ﬁis hiddenness, He snows Himself to us
within ourselves as our pwn poverty, our own nothingness (which Christ took upon
Himself, ordained for this by the I carnation in the womb of the Virgin) (the
crowning in your picture) and if we receive the humility of Cod into our hearts,
wea become able to accept and embrace and love this very poverty, which is
Himself and His Sophia. And then the dartness of Wisdom becomes to us inexpressihtt
light. U‘ pass through the center of our own nothingness into the lightof Cod.

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I "rote that 1ir st page without keeping as carbon, but I am getting someone to
cepy it becatlse I am going to want to know what I said. I say these things and
-or~et them, and then somerne refers to them again and I can no longer remehber
what is being talked about. I cannot remember what it was Is aid amen I was
there in Lexington and we were looking at the triptych.

The beauty of all creation is a reflection of SOphia living and hidde
creation. Iut it is only areflection. And the misleading thing about beauty,
create beauty, is that we expect Sophia to es simply a more intense and more
perfect and more brilliant, unspoiled, spiritual revelation of the same beauty.
:hereas to arrive at her beauty we must pas through an.apparent negation of
created beauty, and to reach her light we must reali re that in comparison With
created licht it is ad daL knees. But this is only because created beauty, and

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light, are ub11ness and darkness compared with her. Again the whole thing is

in the question of mercy, 1hich cuts across the di isions and passes oeyond
every p.11lnsnphical and religious ideal. For Sophi1 is not an ideal, not an d)—
surection, but the hig_est reality, and the hirghest 1ealit; must menift st her~
sel; to us not only in power but also in poverty, otherwise we never so e it.
op 1a is the Lady Poverty to whom St Francis was married. And 01 course she
e with the ”seal t Fathers in their solitude, ior it was she w:o hg;i orought
1e1‘ there and she whom they knew there. Itxias with her that they conversed
all the time in their silence.
I 1 had a fuller remembrance of your pictures. I juo t remember the

eneral I TIIe story you tell 01 its growth is very interesting and re ealing
and I am sure Hagia Sophia hersel1 was 5 iding you i. the process, for it is she
rhogidﬁ;aﬂ.mmearHS'w, “nirﬂhMﬁIEr‘herawwmtuno

fhen Reinhardt was here he was disco ussing art too. IIis approach is very
austere and ascetic. It is a kind of exaégerated reticence, a kind of fear of
self expression. All his paintings are very formal and black. I certainly do
not think he is a quack like so many others, on the contrary he is in strong
reactiﬁn against them. I think you andhe would be inﬁmndata fundamental agree—
ment. It is a pity he was not able to r*et over there. He is certa_nly not a
brilliant succes (like so many 01 theothers wio are making fortunes with their
stufi.)

New J. Lau bhlin, whom you know, is coming down in June. He wants very much
to see you, and will write to you about it. My novice who was in the hospital
came out but is going back, and it is possible that perhaps it might be
necessary 10r me to naIce one trip more. I do: iot know what the future will
bring, but until I linow more about it let us wait and ex Vpect the possibility
at any rate. If nothing comes up, then we could plan on you both corling
over here later in June. I could write about that. I think often of the
Desert athers and the work progressing. And how is the broadside? haybe
we could make a little broadshiet on Sophia, with the material be un here????

I ma real‘y enjoying Fears and Lamas, and also the Athos book has been
very fine—— and the Hesiod. ﬁhen:fou have thought daout this material on Sophia
perhaps we could make a further step toward thinking of a title. I am so happy
to be involved in what is clearly a very signiiicant work, Spiritually as well
as artistically.

Thank you 10r the photostats from the _ancyclopedia._ ' looked thez over,
and they just begin to touch on the mysterious doctrine. Caroly should try to
get for the Library a book by Sergius Bangs Boulgakov, called the ”Jisdom of God”
published in London in the thirties. It would cover veryIIell the Sophia theme.

I have notes on it, but the book is very technical in its way.

Is Lerdyaev' s Destiny of hen available at the library yet, I wonder?

All the nest to both of you. I will let you know what cones up. ll‘earud1ile,
God bless you. And especially t’is Uhitsunday, for we are entering into the great
feast of Wisdom and creativity. hey the Holy Spirit be with us and bless us.

ﬁaithfully yours in Christ

I , -
qu Lanna

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