Theology Quotes: Merton

Last year I wrote a paper on Merton's ecological spirituality in dialogue with his spirituality of peace. I've had reason to re-read the paper of late, and I continue to be struck with his understanding of our spiritual and moral crisis. We are so very busy. We are so out of touch, both with what matters and the devastating impacts of our actions. We do not understand. Imagine what he would say today!

Merton on Peace: Spirituality & Practice of Nonviolence

Facing our spiritual and moral crisis, Thomas Merton sought authentic spiritual roots for a Christian spirituality of nonviolence.  He found them in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's Gospel:

“The chief place in which this new mode of life is set forth in detail is the Sermon on the Mount." (Blessed are the Meek: the Christian Roots of Nonviolence)

“The Beatitudes indeed convey a profound existential understanding of the dynamic of the Kingdom of God—a dynamic made clear in the parables of the mustard seed and the yeast.  This is the dynamism of patient and secret growth, in belief that out of the smallest, weakest, and most insignificant seed the greatest tree will come. This is not merely a matter of blind and arbitrary faith. The early history of the Church, the record of the apostles and martyrs remains to testify to this inherent and mysterious dynamism of the ecclesial ‘event’ in the world of history and time  Christian nonviolence is rooted in this consciousness of faith.”  (Blessed are the Meet: the Christian Roots of Nonviolence).                                

He was profoundly challenged by some acts of resistance to the Vietnam war which he felt went too far in the wrong direction away from this alternative vision of the Beatitudes.  In particular he was shaken when Roger Laporte, a former Cistertian novice, poured gasoline to burn himself in front of the US mission to the UN.  No doubt this led to some deep prayer and soul searching.  What resulted were 7 conditions that Merton felt were required for honesty in the practice of Christian Nonviolence:

1. “Nonviolence must be aimed above all at the transformation of the present state of the world . . .”
2. For Christians in powerful nations, nonviolent resistance “will have to be clearly not for [themselves] but for others, that is the poor and underprivileged.”
3. Given the threat of nuclear war, “above all nonviolence must avoid a facile and fanatical self-righteousness and refrain from being satisfied with dramatic self-justifying gestures.”
4. “[T]he Christian humility of nonviolent action must establish itself in the minds and memories of [the] modern [human person] not only as conceivable and possible, but as a desirable alternative.”
5. “The absolute refusal of evil or suspect means is a necessary element in the witness of nonviolence.”
6. “This mission of Christian humility in social life is not merely to edify, but to keep minds open to many alternatives.”
7. “Christian hope and Christian humility are inseparable.  The quality of nonviolence is decided largely by the purity of the Christian hope behind it.”
   (Blessed are the Meek: The Christian Roots of Nonviolence)

[This is the fourth post in a series.  Click on these links for the first, second and third posts.]

Merton on Peace: Roots of Nonviolence

Recognizing that we were in a spiritual and moral crisis, Merton dug deep into his faith in Christ and the Christian community to discern an appropriate response.  One way he did this was through the formation of a virtual community of folks who were doing likewise.  He had hundreds of correspondents, including Dorothy Day, Erich Fromm and Ethel Kennedy.  He also became a chaplain of sorts to the peace movement, corresponding with people like Dan and Phil Berrigan and meeting with them when they came to visit (that's who he's sitting in circle with in the photo).

In fact, in 1964 he led a retreat on the "Spiritual Roots of Protest." As Gordon Zahn said in his introduction to Thomas Merton in Peace, it must have been a powerful retreat.  At least 5 of the attendees were later arrested for their "crimes" of resistance to the Vietnam War. But in his notes for the retreat, he makes clear that their time together was not intended to develop strategies of protest but to discern the call to resist within God's call.

“We are hoping to reflect together during these days on our common grounds for religious dissent and commitment in the face of the injustice and disorder of a world in which total war seems at times inevitable, in which few seek any but violent solutions to economic and social problems more critical and more vast than [the human person] has ever known before. 

"What we are seeking is not the formulation of a program, but a deepening of roots.  Roots in the ‘ground’ of all being, in God, through His word.  Standing in the presence of His word knowing that we are judged by it.  Bringing our inner motives into line with this judgement.” (Retreat, 1964, Spiritual Roots of Protest)

Merton also spent much time in prayer and contemplation on this question.  We are blessed to have the fruits in his writings.  Given the state of near total war that seemed to be overtaking the world, Merton saw this responsibility:  "The task of the Christian is to make the thought of peace once again seriously possible" (Breakthrough to Peace).  This task, ultimately, comes from Christ.

“Christ our Lord did not come to bring peace to the world as a kind of spiritual tranquilizer.  He brought to His disciples a vocation and a task, to struggle in the world of violence to establish His peace not only in their own hearts but in society itself.” (Peace: A Religious Responsibility)

He cautioned against a merely "spiritual witness." The call to the Christian in the face of such violence is active engagement, collaboration, and commitment in, with and for the world.

“A purely ‘spiritual’ witness is not enough.  . . . We must certainly bring the world to repentance, but we must engage with the rest of [humankind] in a collaborative work of social renewal, reconciliation, in a serious effort to bring about a peaceful world situation, in which [people] can work together to solve the enormous social problems posed by the technological and economic revolution of our time.”  (Christianity and Defense in the Nuclear Age)

He saw the need for loving action and sought a Christian path.

“There must be a new force, the power of love, the power of understanding and human compassion, the strength of selflessness and cooperation, and the creative dynamism of the will to live and to build, and the will to forgive.  The will for reconciliation.” (Preface to Vietnamese Translation of No Man is an Island)

“[I]t is necessary to go back to the sources and try to recover the true Christian meaning of the first and all-embracing commandment to love all men including our enemies.”  (Saint Maximus the Confessor on Nonviolence)

In the end, he articulates this loving and active Christian response to the spiritual and moral crisis as nonviolence.

“The religious basis of Christian nonviolence is then faith in Christ the Redeemer and obedience to his demand to love and manifest himself in us by a certain manner of acting in the world and in relation to other [people].”  (Blessed are the Meek: The Christian Roots of Nonviolence)

[This is the third post in a series.  Click on these links for the first and second posts.]

Merton on Peace - Moral & Spiritual Crisis

Thomas Merton entered the Monastery of Gesthemani in 1941.  Think of your history and I'm sure you'll remember what happened that December ... Pearl Harbor and the US entry into World War II. The entire world was basically at war.  This must have even made an impact in the Monastery.

Then in August 1945 the US dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese Cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Civilians were the target. In Hiroshima-a city of 350,000 people at the time of the bombing--166,000 people were killed either by the initial firestorm or radiation. In Nagasaki, 80,000 people were killed.

In the context of the cold war which followed the end of WWII, Merton contemplated this new nuclear reality from the monastery.  He observed that the world and society now faced both possible and probable destruction.  This gave his reflections on peace a sense of urgency through an apocalyptic lens.

“In a word, the end of the world is quite really and quite literally up to us and to our immediate descendents, if any.  And this, I might venture to suggest, is more ‘apocalyptic’ than anything our fathers discovered in the Revelations of Saint John.”  (Peace: Christian Duties and Perspectives)

His writings also reflect a growing sense of  personal and communal responsibility.

“We have war-markers, war-criminals indeed.  But we ourselves in our very best efforts for peace, find ourselves maneuvered unconsciously into positions where we too can act as criminals.  For there can be no doubt that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, though not fully deliberate crimes, nevertheless crimes.  And who was responsible? No one.  Or ‘history.’ We cannot go on playing with nuclear fire and shrugging off the results of ‘history.’ We are the ones concerned. We are the ones responsible.” (Peace: Christian Duties and Perspectives)

Ultimately, he saw the world thrown into a spiritual and moral crisis the likes of which we had never seen before. 

"Our problem is a moral and spiritual problem." (Breakthrough to Peace)

“As Christians first of all, in a crisis where the very existence of [humanity] and the continuity of life itself are at stake, our duty to God the Creator becomes a duty to strive in every way to preserve and protect [God’s] creation . . .”  (Christianity and Defense in the Nuclear Age)

“The present world crisis is not merely a political and economic conflict.  It goes deeper than ideologies. It is a crisis of [the human] spirit.  It is a great religious and moral upheaval of the human race . . .” (Christian Action in World Crisis)

Given his sense of urgency, it is no surprise that he felt called to the careful study and attention on the problem in search of an appropriate response.

“Even if it should happen to be no longer possible to prevent the disaster, (which God forbid) there is still a greater evil that can and must be prevented. It must be possible for every free [person] to refuse [their] consent and deny [their] cooperation to this greatest of crimes. . . . How does one ‘resist’? . . . I do not know.  I am merely saying that this is an urgent problem that we have to consider and study with all our attention.” (Peace: Christian Duties and Perspectives)

[This is part two of a series.  Click here to see the introduction.]

Merton on Peace - Introduction

One of my classes here at CTU is called "Spirituality, Liturgy and the Quest for Justice."  Essentially we are reading the writings of different folks with a particular lens on how spirituality and/or liturgy converge with the quest for social justice.  Today's session was focused on Thomas Merton.  I had the opportunity to read Thomas Merton on Peace, a collection of his speeches, articles, book chapters, and other various pieces of writing on peace and nonviolence edited by Gordon Zahn.  Not only did I have the opportunity to read the book, I had the honor of synthesizing what I read and give a presentation for my classmates.

This was especially meaningful to me given the charism and spirituality of peace of my own religious community, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, and our Chapter Act to grow in nonviolence.  Part of our Chapter commitment, in fact, is to study the history and people of nonviolence.  Lovely how my coursework and community life is converging!

Given the popularity and resonance people have with Merton, I thought I'd share a few bits of Merton's thoughts on peace and nonviolence over the next few days.

I'd like to start with this quote by Gordon Zahn from the Introduction:

The important point, of course, is not that he was, as we so often like to put it, ‘ahead of his time.’ Rather, it is that he, so much more than others, was so truly in tune with his time, so alert to what was wrong at the precise moment, and what had to be done then to correct that wrong  if we were to escape the price for failing to do so.  Nowhere is this perception of the hour and its urgent needs more impressive than his writings on war and peace.

From the monastery of Gesthamani, Merton had contemplative eyes on the world.  In the words of his acceptance of the Pax Medal in 1963:

A monastery is not a snail’s shell, nor is religious faith a kind of spiritual fallout shelter into which one can plunge to escape the criminal realities of an apocalyptic age.