Tag: Trappist

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True Solitude

I will give you what you desire. I will lead you into solitude…Everything that touches you shall burn you, and you will draw your hand in pain, until you have withdrawn yourself from all things…Do not ask when it will be or where it will be or how it will be: On a mountain or in a prison, in a desert or in a concentration camp, or in a hospital or at Gethsemani. It does not matter. So do not ask me, because I am not going to tell you. You will not know until you are in it.  But you shall taste the true solitude of my anguish and my poverty and I shall lead you into the high places of my joy and you shall die in Me and find all things in My Mercy which has created you for this end…That you may become the brother of God and learn to know the Christ of the burnt men.–Thomas Merton, Seven Storey Mountain

These words mean more to me today than they did when I first read them twenty-nine years ago. In a few days on the Feast of the Epiphany I will mark an anniversary of another sort. It was the time of my first visit to Piffard, New York and the Abbey of the Genesee. Often I have pondered these words and over the years their meaning has changed, but they continue to animate my life and I’m grateful to Thomas Merton, the Trappist monks of Genesee Abbey and the breath that leads me forward.

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The new man

For the “new man” everything is new. Even the old is transfigured in the Holy Spirit and is always new. There is nothing to cling to, there is nothing to be hoped for in what is already past-it is nothing. The new man is he who can find reality where it cannot be seen by the eyes of the flesh-where it is not yet- where it comes into being the moment he sees it. And would not be (at least for him) if he did not see it. The new man lives in a world that is always being created and renewed. He lives in this realm of renewal and creation. He lives in Life.

Thomas Merton. “A Search for Solitude.” Journals, Volume 3. Lawrence S. Cunningham, editor. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997: 269

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Beautiful Solitude

Today my usual was interrupted by mother nature. We awoke to a blanket of five inches of snow and then freezing rain on top of that. I was to travel to Mt. Irenaeus for Mass and then a meeting our Secular Franciscan fraternity. I called Fr. Lou and then a couple of our members and decided it best to call off the meeting. Mt. Irenaeus is located at the top of 2200 foot hill in rural Allegany County. It sits astride a dirt road that can be treacherous with a coating of ice. Continue reading “Beautiful Solitude”

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Happy is the man

I had the day off for Veterans Day. I drove some country roads I hadn’t been on in years. Eventually my driving brought me to a familiar stop. I arrived at Abbey of the Genesee and the first person to greet me was the familiar, Brother Christian. He said, “you haven’t been here in a while.” I said, “yes, it’s been a month or more since my last visit.” Continue reading “Happy is the man”

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Merton and morality

It sometimes happens that the men who preach most vehemently about evil and the punishment of evil, so that they seem to have practically nothing else on their minds except sin, are really unconcious haters of other men. They think the world does not appreciate them, and this is their way of getting even.–Thomas Merton, Seeds of Contemplation.

This quote struck me once again tonight as I pondered the ramifications of the U.S. Senate’s recent vote to pass the Kyl-Lieberman amendment Continue reading “Merton and morality”