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.

Musings of a 40 year old grad student

I'm wrapping up the third week of full time graduate studies at CTU.  I've been in grad school part time for the past few years, but I'm realizing that devoting all of your energy to the project is a different animal.  I haven't done this since I graduated from Lewis & Clark College (ahem ... 18 years ago!).  A lot has changed since then, in the world and in my own sense of self.

I was taking Russian language classes when the Soviet Union collapsed. I even had to fill out a State Department questionnaire as to why I was studying Russian.  Many of my international affairs and political science classes explored the subsequent shift in the geo-political landscape, really as it was happening.  Academics were just beginning to explore the meaning of the Islamic state.  Meanwhile, the explosion of the Iraq War (the first George Bush version) gave me my first taste of peace activism.

Flash forward 18 years.  The world has changed even more, but so have I.  Three weeks in, I am grateful to be 40 and embarking on this journey.

I know enough about myself to know when there's no point in pushing myself, and I might as well just take a nap or go for a walk if I want to have any hope of being productive at a later point.

I'm happy to meet new people but I'm also not concerned with popularity or what I'm going to do on Friday night.

I have real world professional and ministerial experience to which I can apply all the theory and abstract thought that I am encountering. This leads to many a ha moments, connections and insights that I never had as a 20 something undergad.

I'm not really at that place of trying to figure out who I'm going to be when I grow up.  I've already been a few things.  I know that I don't really know what lies ahead and for the most part, I'm ok with that.

Sure I wish my memory was as fresh as it used to be, not to mention my eye sight (a visit to the eye doctor will be coming up shortly!).  But as I spend time with many of my classmates who are one or two decades younger, and some my age or older, I'm happy to be my chronical age engaging these issues, thoughts, theories and methods.

Band of Sisters

Last night I went with a band of sisters--a group of young nun friends from Giving Voice who are living in Chicago--to see the new documentary film, Band of Sisters.  The film by Mary Fishman is premiering this week at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, where it's been seen by sold out crowds so far.

Given the recent spotlight on Catholic Sisters due to the two Vatican investigations, and in particular the hierarchy's criticism of the Sisters' collective focus on social justice issues that impact people who are poor rather than other social issues, it's interesting that the filmmaker decided to focus her story line on the Sisters' faithful response to Vatican II and their creative work for social justice. She's spent the past 8 years immersing herself in the world of Catholic Sisters.  Not only is the end result an obvious labor of love, I also recognized the contemporary face of religious life that I committed my life to in the film.

Julie Viera in the film

My friend Sister Julie Viera, and her partner-in-crime Sister Maxine Kollasch of A Nun's Life ministry, start the film off with a decidedly 21st Century flair ... engaged in their live podcast and internet chat. The two of them sit across from each other at laptops, headphones on, talking about religious life with interested folks across the globe.  While the majority of the Sisters profiled in the film are in their 60s, 70s and beyond, I liked the way the filmmaker frames the story in a contemporary context.  Vatican II called women religious to engage with the modern world, and this continues in new and perhaps unexpected ways today with women like Julie who have only known a post-Vatican II world.

Mercy Sisters Pat Murphy
& JoAnn Persch

The main thrust of the story, however,  is the Sisters' response to Vatican II, and so as the filmmaker said in the Q&A afterwards, this influenced decisions about which Sisters would be featured in the film.  The main thread is the story of two Sisters of Mercy from the Chicago area who advocate for the right of immigrants facing detention and deportation to receive pastoral care while incarcerated.  You see them bundling up to pray the rosary outside the detention center on a blustery day.  You see them walking the hallways of the State Capitol, engaging in thoughtful conversation with lawmakers seeking support for the bill.  You see them doggedly follow up with administrators and legislators after the bill has been passed, ensuring that immigrants receive the access to religious services that is their human right.  And you see them reminding activists that it is important not only to see a child of God in the immigrants, but in the sherrif and immigration agent as well.  Their charism of mercy shines through.  I do not know these two Sisters, but reflected in their story I saw many of the Sisters I have worked with and admire most for their tenacity in following Christ to the margins.

There are many familiar-to-me faces in the film.  Sisters Margaret Brennan and Theresa Kane, both past presidents of LCWR, give context and stories from their personal experience that also touch on the collective experience of women religious in the past 50 years. Sisters Nancy Sylvester and Carol Coston tell the story of the beginning of NETWORK, the group that put on the Nuns on the Bus tour this summer.  Sister Miriam Therese MacGillis of Genesis Farm and Sister Elise Garcia of Santuario Sisterfarm introduce viewers to the universe story and the Sisters' ecological ministry with the people of God and all of creation. There are other Sisters too, not known to me, who share their experience as part of this band of Sisters.

In the end, it is one of the best, wholistic depictions of contemporary American religious life that I have seen intended for a general audience.  Our truth is reflected in a respectful and celebratory way. In the Q&A, one audience member commented that the film was inspiring, and the story and witness of the Sisters made him pause and reflect on how he was responding to God's call to make the world a better place.  If the film comes to your City or town, definitely go see it.  The filmmaker is also happy to hear from folks who are interesting in hosting or helping to organize a screening.

Perhaps the best part of the evening from my perspective was the connections that I made at the end.  During the Q&A, one of the audience members, noting that most of the Sisters in the film were near retirement age, wondered what the filmmaker thought about young women entering religious life today. She responded as I mentioned above that the focus of the story is the response to Vatican II, and so therefore that mandated that the women highlighted would be older Sisters who experienced the renewal first hand.  But she did mention that this is why she chose to begin with the "podcast Sisters," to show that this way of life is continuing.  She also gave a pretty decent layperson's analysis that younger women entering today are in smaller numbers in each community, and so they need to be creative about building connections across communities and use the internet and technology to facilitate those connections.  I saw some of my friends in our row of young nuns nodding our head to her assessment.

GV Sisters at Band of Sisters

Then, one of my friends raised her hand and said that there were quite a number of younger Sisters in the audience.  Our row of Giving Voice type Sisters stood up, as well as 3 younger Sisters in habit in the front row and a few other younger Sisters scattered in the theater.  Afterwards, one of the younger Sisters that I did not know came up to us and asked if we were involved with Giving Voice.  A friend had recently told her about our network of younger women religious, and she was excited to meet some of us.  You could see how excited she was to see a large group of us.  That's always a beautiful moment, when you see someone connect to this vibrant network of young women religious committed to God and the future of religious life. We exchanged numbers and hope to hang out soon.

It was a perfect end to my evening on the town with my band of GV Sisters to see Band of Sisters.

Margaret Anna Fridays

Most Fridays I'm going to share a quote from the founder of my religious community, Margaret Anna Cusack, known in religion as Mother Francis Clare. 

There is yet deep in humanity and in the very heart of the most abandoned criminal a desire for virtue even if there is not a desire to practice it.

Conversations on Interculturality

I had a wonderful opportunity this afternoon to connect with some of my CSJP Sisters and Associates.  Each Sister of St. Joseph of Peace and Associate belongs to a small group, which we call CSGs.  These are opportunities to gather for prayer, conversation, celebration, and congregation business.  Given that I am now the only CSJP living in Chicago, I was happy to be welcomed into the "Four Winds" CSG, with members in Latin America and many parts of the US.  We meet virtually of course, tonight by conference call.  It was wonderful to hear the voices of Sisters and Associates I know well, and others that I will love getting to know through our virtual meetings in the coming years. Our topic tonight was a follow up to our Spring Assembly on the topic of interculturality.  It was a wonderful hour of prayer and conversation and helped make me feel connected to my far flung CSJP family.

Interculturality is also part of my daily existence here in Chicago.  I am living with men and women from China, Cameroon, Australia, Zambia, and other places I have not yet discovered.  My classes at CTU also have folks from every corner of the globe.  In one of my classes this week, I had an opportunity to taste what a rich learning experience this is likely to be.

We spent some time in my moral theology class talking in a small group about how we learned morality as a child, both at home and at school.  My group of four had a wonderful conversation with many commonalities and some differences.  We were in the same grouping last week, so we have started to get to know one another.  What made it so rich was that we had 4 continents represented!  One person grew up in the former Soviet Union, another in Korea, another in rural Togo, and myself in the suburban U.S.  You can imagine the depth and breadth of experience that was brought to our little conversation!

Now I need to write a short paper about my own experience growing up, weaving in some of the dynamics that I heard from my partners in our conversation.  That will be the tough part!

Romero on Peace

In the words of Archbishop Oscar Romero:

Peace is not the product of terror or fear.
Peace is not the silence of cemeteries.
Peace is not the silent result of violent oppression.
Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all.
Peace is dynamism.
Peace is generosity.  It is right and it is duty.

Today, on this 11th Anniversary of the September 11th attacks, and everyday, I choose to believe that peace is possible.

Please join me in praying for peace this day.

You might want to pray with the weekly peace prayer from the website of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace and join our Sisters and Associates in prayer from wherever you may be.

Seeking Reconciliation, Building Peace

Tomorrow is the 11th anniversary of the September 11th attacks.  I've written before about the pivotal role that day played in my own life and spiritual journey.  In the days and weeks that followed I discovered my calling to seek peace and reconciliation in the midst of our fractured world.  I became a Catholic peace activist, and eventually my path led me to discover my vocation as a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace as well.

It's fitting then that it is on the eve of the anniversary of 9/11 that I heard the news about a new opportunity I will have to help heal our broken world.  Regular readers of the blog may recall that I was awarded a Bernardin Scholarship from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.  Part of the scholars program involves an internship in one of the programs of the Bernardin Center.  I just learned that I will have the honor and privilege of working with one of the faculty members as an intern in his work on Reconciliation and Peacebuilding.  I know that this will be challenging, but that at the same time it will add a whole extra dimension to my studies and my own research.

And so on this eve of 9/11, I pray for peace, healing and reconciliation.  I keep in mind especially the families of all those who died on that day, those who were killed in the wars that followed, the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, and most especially the children in those countries who have only ever known war.  May they live into a future filled with peace, laughter, and joy.  Amen.

Week One

Well, tomorrow is Friday.  The early highlight of my weekend will be a play date with my 2 year old nephew Ash.  This is sure to put all the rest of the week in perspective!  Hopefully it will also refresh and renew me as I have LOTS to read after just the first week of classes.

It has been a bit of a whirlwind week with lots of information, new names and faces.  I've never been terribly good with names, and many of the names are ones I am not familiar with as there are students from all across the globe.  With time I am sure everyone will become familiar and part of my CTU life.

I've had all four of my classes this week.  I'm taking Introduction to Moral Theology, Reconciliation & Forgiveness, and Spirituality, Liturgy and the Quest for Justice.  Each of these professors is knowledgeable and approachable, and the topics of course are very interesting to me.  I'm excited to focus on my special areas of interest over the next two years!  While I've got lots of reading and a 20-25 page research paper ahead for each of these classes, I'm also a happy social justice/theology geek at the moment.  I'm also taking a prereq Philosophy class which promises to be interesting in its own way.  That's my smallest class so at the very least I'll get to know the other students.  I also managed to line up a Latin tutor today and will be launching back into the joys of latin later next week.  French doesn't start until October.  There's also the little matter of an internship that will be added to the mix, but that hasn't been sorted out yet.  I think I will have plenty to keep me busy!

But first things first, I head North on the bus & L train tomorrow to hang out with my little guy.  Should be fun!

Super Jesus Reprise

Many years ago I wrote a somewhat sacriligious yet written in love blog post about the super hero like qualities of Jesus.  Here's a snippet:

He can walk on water.
He can heal the sick and bring the dead back from life.
He can walk through walls and into locked rooms.
He can bring peace where there is none, and pretty much anything else you can imagine.
'Cause he's Super Jesus.

I even used the create your own South Park character tool to make my own image of Super Jesus. I'll copy him below:

I was reminded about this silly God moment when I spotted the following painting hanging on the wall in the Atrium of the Catholic Theological Union.

Can you see the similarity? Except his super hero symbol, fittingly, has been transformed into the Sacred Heart.  Cool, although perhaps not the desired effect.

Historic View

I love history.  It runs in my family.  My mom and dad took us to more historic type places than I can count as a kid.  My sister is a historian by trade. I minored in history in college.  As much as I look at things from a political framework, that framework is also usually grounded in history.  It's fun, what can I say?


So, knowing that the Catholic Theological Union resident building used to be the Hotel Aragon before it became the home of CTU, I did a little bit of internet sleuthing.  Indeed, the Hotel Aragon was built in 1924. Here is a postcard from the 1950s advertising this apartment hotel.  "Hotel Aragon, Cornell Avenue at 54th Street, Chicago, IL - Located in the beautiful Jackson Park residential section overlooking Lake Michigan, 200 rooms, each with private bath.  Moderately priced coffee shop, dining room. Ten minute service ..."


In 1968, the three founding religious communities of CTU-Franciscans, Passionists and Servites, bought the Hotel Aragon to house their new theological experiment. The building housed it all--rooms for students and offices, lounges turned into classrooms, and the "moderately priced coffee shop" became a cafeteria.  I gather that eventually, the Hotel Aragon-turned-CTU was bursting at the seams and the campus spread out to rent and buy other neighboring buildings for student residences and office space.

New CTU academic building ... you can
see the reflection of the
residence building in the glass

Then, in 2006 classrooms, the library and the majority of the offices moved across the street to a new building which is the center of the school. The old hotel building now has students living on the top three floors, rooms for participants in special programs and guests, as well as a number of Catholic organizations that rent office space.  The cafeteria is still here as well, although I've chosen to cook my own food in the kitchen on the floor rather than be on the meal plan.

CTU is now sponsored by 24 men's religious communities.  There are lay students, women religious, and students from all over the world that are part of the CTU community.  As of this semester, that includes me.  It's good to have a little grounding in the history.

For a little more contemporary history, President Obama and his family own a house not too far away from here, but they used to live in the immediate neighborhood.  CTU was apparently his polling place when he voted in 2004 as documented by this last picture.  Since the photo was taken in 2004 and CTU didn't move across the street until 2006, that means I'm living in the building where he voted.  Just saying.

[Photo Caption: In this Nov. 2, 2004 file photo, then Illinois Democratic Senate candidate Barack Obama leaves with his wife Michelle, daughters Sasha, front left and Malia, after voting at Catholic Theological Union polling place in Chicago.  Nam Y Huh File: Associated Press]

Chicago Connections

Transitions can be tough.  For one thing, you can be distracted and this can lead to interesting situations. A few days before I left Seattle, for example, I took a tumble down the stairs.  No bones were broken, just some bumps and bruises which are now on their way to healing and made the last bit of moving more interesting.  Such things are not unheard of during transitions.

Aside from the physical transition, there's also the opportunity and challenge of making connections in your new city.  Here I have a leg up, so to speak.  My sister and her family live not that far away.  One of my good friends from Giving Voice is also starting at CTU and living on my floor in the residence hall.  And this evening we had a gathering of other younger Sisters from various communities living in Chicago.  I was the old lady of the group I think at 40!  It  was good to reconnect, share, and just have fun.

Last week I had two orientations at CTU where I met some of my new classmates and many of the names of CTU staff that now have faces attached to them.  I've also met some of the people living here in the residence hall, although not everyone is here and we won't have our welcome gathering until next week.

All this to say, while this is still a rather large transition, I'm also feeling like I have enough connections with people to feel not quite at home, but pretty comfortable in this new space.  And that is a very good thing.