THOMAS MERTON
From THE SPIRITUAL NEWSLETTER Vol II, No. 3
By Dr. Richard J. O'Dea
Many conjectures, half-truths and suspicions have been written about my friend Thomas Merton since his death. But since he is dead, it is impossible to refute or verify them. Let me tell you what I knew about Father Thomas as simply as I can. When in Alaska I was having trouble with prayer. He encouraged me to use the Rosary, make the Stations of the Cross, and adoration before the Real Presence. He suggested at least half an hour of silence each day. He did much the same with the nuns, moving them if they were called to contemplation, but never discouraging oral prayer. He was an extraordinary confessor: gentle, understanding, yet never compromising. his mind and heart were the mind and heart of the Church.
The Archbishop of Anchorage, Joseph Ryan, was a very conservative man who approved of everything Merton did, and wanted to keep him in his diocese. The other priests, most of them army chaplains and conservative, were extremely fond of him.
Did Merton approve of the war in Vietnam? Probably not. He was a man of peace, but he never said a word about that war. Was Merton going to become a Buddhist monk? Certainly not! He intended to return to Alaska and to establish a hermitage with another brother near Cordova, where the saintly Spanish Jesuit, Segundo Laurenti, S.J., would act as his confessor and spiritual director. These are the things I know as facts about my friend Father Thomas Merton. I suggest you read The Seven Story Mountain or The Seeds of Contemplation to know the real man.
From ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL, 1/22/94; Page 10, Section B.
"...Thomas Merton - who lived 27 years as Father Louis, a cloistered Trappist monk... - was also a powerful voice for social justice and peace...And before his death on Dec. 10, 1968 at the age of 53, he was increasingly known for his openness to and sympathetic understanding of Eastern religious traditions, including Zen, Taoism, Buddhism and Islam."
From THE RECORD, Louisville, KY 2/17/00
A chance to spread Christianity in Asia By Father Eugene Hemrick
I believe that we're reaching an opportune time for the spread of Christianity in Asia, despite the great challenges that face the church there at the moment.
Today there are more than 1 billion Catholics worldwide. Starting with the Far East, the Philippines have 70 million people, 84 percent of whom -are Catholic.
Interestingly, South Korea has the fastest growing number of conversions in the world. Each year it records approximately 150,000 baptisms. It is also the fourth largest Catholic country in Asia after the Philippines, India and Vietnam.
Although India has a large number of Catholics due to its size, its Catholic population, when compared to other religious populations, constitutes only 1.7 percent of the total.
In other Asian countries Catholics are a very small minority. They represent 0.1 percent of China's population, 2.5 percent of Indonesia's, 0.35 percent of Japan's, 0.66 percent of Pakistan's and 0.18 percent of the population of Bangladesh.
Clearly, Catholicism has a long way to go in Asia. But Pope John Paul II seems convinced that it will be a continent where the Gospel will spread widely in the third millennium. The revered spiritual writer, Trappist Father Thomas Merton, had the same belief.
Just before his death, Father Merton realized the richness of Eastern spirituality and began to work on new ways to benefit as a Christian from the strongest aspects of its mysticism.
In earlier days in the church, others - in a manner like that of Father Merton - envisioned a similar interaction of Slavic and Greek cultures with Christianity and made it happen. This Christian encounter with local cultures is one reason Christianity spread so rapidly during those times.
Just imagine what would happen if the wisdom of Confucius, Buddha, Mohammed and other Eastern spiritual leaders were taken seriously by Christians - if authentic dialogue between Christian spirituality and Eastern spiritualities became ordinary rather than extraordinary.
Today the Internet is rapidly breaking down barriers that would have taken centuries to cross in the past. This is enabling more people from Western cultures to study Eastern cultures, and vice versa.
As the world grows smaller, Asian nations can be expected to exert more and more power and influence in the world. This makes it all the more important that Christianity and, the religions and cultures of Asia be in the closest possible dialogue. It becomes more and more essential that we know each other and that Christian values take deeper root on that continent.
I recommend we watch the statistics on Asia closely in the next few years. If Christianity spreads there as Pope John Paul II believes it will, the world will be a safer place. It is essential and possible to bring the peace and love of the Gospel to every part of the world.
Here are some quotations by and about Thomas Merton, from two books. At the end I have a general comment of my own = Mary Ann Collins
(1) From "Thomas Merton/Monk: A Monastic Tribute" (New Enlarged Edition), edited by Brother Patrick Hart. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1983.
(A) Three quotations from Thomas Merton:
"By grace we are Christ." (p.88)
"I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity. The future of Zen is in the West. I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can." (p. 88)
"You have to experience duality for a long time until you see it's not there. In this respect I am a Hindu. Ramakrishna has the solution." (p. 89)
(B) A quotation about Thomas Merton:
"Like St. Paul, he was convinced that he must ‘become all things to all men' -- that he must become a ‘universal man' in the sense of sharing in some measure the lot of the Jew, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Muslim. He felt especially attracted to Sufism, and spoke often to his community of Sufi poetry and mysticism, although he concentrated on Zen Buddhism in his later writings." (p. 212)
(2) From Randy England, "The Unicorn in the Sanctuary: The Impact of the New Age on the Catholic Church." Rockford, Illinois: TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991.
(A) Randy England gives a statement quoting from Edward Rice, "The Man in the Sycamore Tree: The Good Times and Hard Life of Thomas Merton (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970), p. 139.
"This chapter would not be complete without some comment about the man who has been so influential in transforming a key segment of the Catholic Church -- the contemplative orders. The man is Thomas Merton. He has been described as ‘an Englishman who became a Communist, then a Catholic, later a Trappist monk, and finally a Buddhist, at which point, his life having been fulfilled, he died.'" (p. 75)
(B) A quotation from Randy England about Thomas Merton:
"Merton's pre-occupation was with mystical experience. His over-reaching assumption was that all such experiences were valid and self-authenticating, regardless of their source. To him, the inner journeys of all religions were equally true. Merton wanted to see a synthesis among the religious traditions of the world. Shortly before his death, he wrote an admiring introduction to a new translation of the "Bhagavad Gita," the most important of the Hindu scriptures.
(3) Comment: This lays a foundation for a one-world religion.