xt74mw28d465 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt74mw28d465/data/mets.xml  Thomas Merton 1967-08-21 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 Father Francisco, August 21, 1967 text Letter from Thomas Merton to Father Francisco, August 21, 1967 1967 1967-08-21 2023 true xt74mw28d465 section xt74mw28d465 ‘7
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Hence what I write here I write only as a sinner to another sinner, and
in no sense do I speak officially for "the monastic Order" with all its
advantages and its prestige and its tradition.

Let us suppose the message of a somcalled contemplative to a sw-called
man of the world to be something like this:

My dear Brother, first of all, I apologize for addressing you when you

have not addressed me and have not really asked me anything. And I apologize
for being behind a high wall which you do not understand. This high wall is
to you a problem, and perhaps it iaxnias also a problem to me, O my brother.
Perhaps you ask me why I stay behind it out of obedience? Perhaps you are no
longer satisfied with the reply that if I stay behind this wall l have quiet,
recollection, tranquillity of heart. Perhaps you ask me what right I have to
all tiis peace and tranquillity when some sociologists have estimated that
within the lifetime of our younger generations a private room will become

an unheard of luxury.l do not hays a satisfactory answer: it is true, as

an Islamic proverb says "the hen does not lay eggs in the market place".

It is true that when I came to this monastery where I am, I came in revolt 3
against the meaningless confusion of a life in which there was so much
actVity, so much movementr so much useless talk, so much superficial and
needless stimulation, that I could not hnxmgssii remember who I was. But

the fact remains that my flight from the world is not a reproach to you who
remain in the world, and I have no right to renudiate the world in a purely
negative fashion, because if E do that my T1‘ 3 will have taken me not to km
truth and to God but to » trivate, though doubtless pirus, illusion.

Can i ‘71? yea the: f to : “o "x a.”wers to the guestions that torment the
man of :1 time? i is flui liea a; fl late found anew rs. When i fir.t became
a monk, /» l to: aL‘J ;u:; if "answers“, But on L gi-w old in the monastic
life and advance * v_h¢1 L‘.u solitude; 1 Eugene aware that l have only begun,
to seek the que= s. fi‘: what are the questions? Ger man make sense out
4? his existsnoo? Chm man honestly give his lite meaning merely by adopting
‘ ’. set of orplanations whirh pretend to tell him why the world began
. , it will end, why there is evil and what is necessary for a good

? My brother, perhaps in my solitude I have become as it were an explorer
for you, a searcher in realms which yet are not able to visit—w e xcspt
perhaps in the company of your psvchiatristg I have been summoned to explore
a desert area of man’s heart in vzlch explanations no longer Suffice, and in
which one learns that only experience countse An arid, rocky, dark land
of the soul, sometimes illuainated by strange fires which men fear and
peopled by spectres which men studiously avoid except in their nightmares.
and in this area I have learzed that one cannot truly known hope unless he
has found out now like despair hope is. The language of Christianity has
said this for centuries in other less naked terms. But the language of Chris-
tianity has been so used and so misused that sometimes you distrust it: you
do not know whether or not behind the word "Cross" there stands the experieno
of mercy and salvation, or only the threat of punishment. If my word means
anything to you, I can say to you that l have experienced the Cross to mean
mercy and not cruelty, truth and not deception: that the news of the truth
and love of Jesus is indeed the true good news, but in our time it speaks out
in strange places. And perhaps it speaks out in you more than it does in me:
perhaps Christ is nearer to you than he is to me: this I say without shame
or guilt because I have learned to rejoice that Jesus is in the world in
people who know Him not, that He is at work in them when they think themselv:
far from Him, and it is my joy to tell you to hope though you think that for
you of all men hOps is impossible. Rape not because you think you can be
good, but becaise God loves us irrespective of our merits and whatever is
good in us comes from His love, not from our own doing. Hone because Jesus
is with those who are poor and outcasts and perhaps despised even by those
who should seek them and care for them most lovingly because they act in
God’s name...No one on earth has reason to despair of Jesus because Jesus
loves man, anxfinxa loves him in his sin, and we too must love man in his sin

 

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