xt7g1j979r87 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7g1j979r87/data/mets.xml  Thomas Merton 1968 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 Easter Letter from Thomas Merton, 1968 text Easter Letter from Thomas Merton, 1968 1968 1968 2023 true xt7g1j979r87 section xt7g1j979r87 EASTER EETTER 1968
Dear Friends:

As I write this there is snow on the ground from a blizzard we had the
other day, but the sun is bright, the birds are singing. and Easter is
on the way. This letter is early. Mail has continued to pile up.
More and more requests come in for me to go somewhere and talk (all

Of Whicb have to be refused). More and more letters I can't answer
personally.

Some of the recent questions concern the ongoing debate about the
validity of the religious life. Some theologians have frankly stated
that the cloistered life is not and cannot be even "Christian." Ob-
viously, for people who have laid their lives on the line in the sense
that they have sincerely "offered them to God" in monasteries and con-
vents, and have made considerable sacrifices to be true to what they
felt was a serious commitment, it might be a little upsetting to be
told that they have not only wasted their efforts but have even been
dishonest and unchristian, In my opinion, when the argument is pushed
that far it becomes unchristian itself. Simply to condemn and excom—
municate people out of hand, without any sympathy for the fundamentally
generous fidelity they have shown in a demanding situation, is not much
evidence of Christian love? Much of the criticism of religious life
shows not only a justifiable impatience with archaic modes of life but
also an unjustifiable contempt for human beings who have identified
themselves, in good faith, with those modes of life.

I have frankly said, myself, that a completely medieval style of
monastic life is finished. On the other hand, when I wrote The Waters
of Siloe twenty years ago, I was aware of certain basic values in
medieval monasticism. Those values were real, even though they might
not be precisely what we need to renew in the Church of the twentieth
century. It is important not to repudiate them, even though we happen
to be looking for something different ourselves. It would be a real
impoverishment if we were to be completely insensitive to the real
vitality and creativity of twelfth century monasticism. But the im—
pression one gets from critics today is that the entire past has to
be repudiated la all lag aspects. It was all irrelevant: more than
that, it was all "gnostic," "manichean," "Jansenistic" or tainted
with some other heresy. If the argument is pressed to its logical
conclusion we would have to admit that the Church ceased to be
Christian seventeen hundred years ago.

It would be utterly dishonest for me to claim that when I first
came to Gethsemani the place was not for me a "sign of Christ." It
gag, in spite of all the shortcomings I intinctively realized. We
who entered cloistered orders ten, fifteen and twenty-five years ago
were certainly chilled by the sense that there was something warped
and inhuman about it. We were not totally blind and stupid. We knew
that we were getting into something hard, even unreasonably hard. But
we also knew that this counted for very little in comparison with
something else which in our case was decisive. We believed that we
were really called by God to do this, to entrust ourselves to him in
this peculiar form of life, to enter into it believing in his word
and in his promise: that this was one way of being a completely de-
dicated Christian, taking up one's Cross, and living as a disciple
of Christ. It is true that we were told absurd things, made to be-
have with a stupid and artificial formality, and put through routines
that now, as we look back, seem utterly incredible. How did we ever
stomach such atrocious nonsense?

 

 2

It must even be admitted that the climate of Catholic spirituality,
perhaps especially in contemplatiVe orders, has been infected with a
theology that is in some ways pathological, in some ways heretical.
Certainly the cloistered life has proved for many to be unhealthy,
both physically and mentally. We carry deep wounds which will pre—
vent us from ever forgetting it. To this extent, we are all able to
agree fully with the critics. There is something deeply unchristian
about the way in which the monastic life is sometimes interpreted and
"enforced." We have all seen things done which still make us shudder.
Nor are we perhaps entirely through with them!

On the other hand, the injustices, the distortions, the inhumanities
of the secular life are incomparably worse (so we feel) even though
they may to some seem acceptably "painless" (or even enjoyable). Thus
we—-I speak for myself and others like me who haVe stayed put in spite
of the fact that we have seen good reasons not to—-repeated1y renewed
our initial choice. Though we may have shed one illusion after another
and gone deeper and deeper into the radical questioning of our life and
our vocation, we have nevertheless elected to stay with it because we
have continued to believe that this was what God asked of us. We have
simply not seen any alternative that seemed to us better. Admittedly
I would hesitate to write a book extolling the monastic vocation today,
and would be very slow to urge anyone else to enter it as it now is.
What matters to me is not the monastic life but God and the Gospel--
as exemplified by these words of St. Paul from the Easter liturgy:
"Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ, you must
look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is sitting at
God's right hand. Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on
the things that are on earth, because you haVe died and now the life
you have is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ is revealed--
and he is your life--you too will be revealed in glory with him."

According to the critics I have been citing, St. Paul would seem
to be a gnostic, a manichean, a jansenist...f

Enough of that! Another question asked is in what out-of-the-way
periodicals are my writings likely to be found these days? There is
first of all The Catholic Worker (Box 33, Tivoli, New York 12583).
Monastic Studies (Pine City, New York 14871). But then I am likely
to be in one or other of the "little magazines" or other literary
reviews. One such, a new magazine, is the Unicorn Journal (317 East
de la Guerra, Santa Barbara, California 93151). I write also occa-
sionally for better known magazines like Poetry or the Sewanee Review.
The Seabury Press (Episcopalian) recently published a pamphlet com-
mentary of mine on Camus's novel, "The Plague."

May Easter bring you peace and inner strength. The world badly
needs peace-—and may not get it. One gets the feeling that difficult
times are ahead for everyone: certain problems are so great and so
complex that they seem to have no human solution. But the peace of
God "which surpasses all understanding" can be the ground of unexpected
solutions. Let us remain in that peace. or at least let us desire to,
and try to. » -

Cordially yours in Christ,

Thomas Merton

Abbey of Gethsemani
Trappist, Ky. 40073