| Date | Author | Title | Source | Quotation by Merton |
| 1939/12/08 | Theresa of Avila O.C.D. | Interior Castle |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 97
| Saint Theresa [of Avila] - The Interior Castle-says we must not dwell on selfknowledge alone, but pass on from it at once and go seeking God's love above everything, because every other desire is a traitor and every other knowledge is vain without God. |
| 1941/04/10 | Bernardus of Clairvaux | De Diligendo Deo |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 342-453
| Several quotations from Bernard of Clairvaux. De Diligendo Deo |
| 1941/10/08 | Saint John of the Cross | complete works of Saint John of the Cross, doctor of the church / Saint John of the Cross ; transl. from the critical edition of P. Silverio de Santa Teresa, and ed. by E. Allison Peers |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 433
| But in any case, one thing is clear (while it is impossible to grasp the seriousness of her sacrifice of heavenly reward-which was undoubtedly accepted-and see what this means), and that is that in Saint Theresa as in Saint Francis is the complete perfection of Saint John of the Cross's way, the perfect pattern of the Ascent of Mount Carmel more perfect than Saint John of the Cross himself, perhaps, ever conceived possible! |
| 1941/11/27 | Aldous Huxley | Ends and Means |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 454-55
| I spent maybe the whole afternoon writing a letter to Aldous Huxley and when I was finished I thought "who am I to be telling this guy about mysticism" and now I remember that until I read his Ends and Means just about four years ago, I hadn't known a thing about mysticism, not even the word. The part he played in my conversion, by that book, was quite great. Just how great a part a book can play in a conversion is questionable: several books figured in mine. Gilson's Spirit of Medieval Philosophy was the first and from it more than any other book I learned a healthy respect for Catholicism. Then Ends and Means from which I learned to respect mysticism. Maritain's Art and Scholasticism was another-and Blake's poems; maybe Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism although I read precious little of it. Joyce's Portrait of the Artist got me fascinated in Catholic sermons (!) What horrified him began to appeal to me! It seemed quite sane. Finally, G. F. Lahey's life of G. M. Hopkins. |
| 1941/11/27 | Evelyn Underhill | Mysticism. Study in Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 455
| I spent maybe the whole afternoon writing a letter to Aldous Huxley and when I was finished I thought "who am I to be telling this guy about mysticism" and now I remember that until I read his Ends and Means just about four years ago, I hadn't known a thing about mysticism, not even the word. The part he played in my conversion, by that book, was quite great. Just how great a part a book can play in a conversion is questionable: several books figured in mine. Gilson's Spirit of Medieval Philosophy was the first and from it more than any other book I learned a healthy respect for Catholicism. Then Ends and Means from which I learned to respect mysticism. Maritain's Art and Scholasticism was another-and Blake's poems; maybe Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism although I read precious little of it. Joyce's Portrait of the Artist got me fascinated in Catholic sermons (!) What horrified him began to appeal to me! It seemed quite sane. Finally, G. F. Lahey's life of G. M. Hopkins. |
| 1942/11/21 | Teresa of Avila | Autobiography |
Ltrs: RtoJ p. 166
| All these things I read in St. Augustine: the Commentary on the Psalms, the Book on the Sermons on the Mount, etc. Also another wonderful writer is St. John Chrysostom, whom I read not in Greek however. All the Greek Fathers are translated into Latin. So I also read Dionysius the Areopagete, who is very like St. John of the Cross. Then I read St. Teresa of Avila's Autobiography. O boy! This you should read as fast as you can get it! O what a book! Or maybe you already read it? |
| 1945/19/27 | Jan Ruusbroec | Oeuvres de Ruysbroeck l'admirable / Jan van Ruusbroec ; trad. du flamand par les Benedictins de Saint-Paul de Wisques par Ernest Hello |
Ltrs: RtoJ p. 20
| I read much Duns Scotus, who when it comes to psychology, at any rate, fills in certain big gaps that leave you unsatisfied with St. Thomas. You would like very much John Ruysbroeck, "the admirabl""”and if you see any extra copies floating around a bookstore, tell them to send them here, with a bill, and we will give them its weight in gold, as we have practically nothing. |
| 1946/10/00 | Jan Ruusbroec | Oeuvres de Ruysbroeck l'admirable / Jan van Ruusbroec ; trad. du flamand par les Benedictins de Saint-Paul de Wisques par Ernest Hello |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 18
| Father Timothy [Vander Vennet] remarked to us, in the course of a philosophy class, how much Reverend Father seems to enjoy the Lenten reading and indeed he does. At that time he always comes to the Scriptorium and reads with the community; he always seems extremely interested and intent on what he is doing. The last fifteen minutes, as the Usages permit, he devotes to prayer in the Church. He likes Father [Frederick William] Faber: other books I remember him recommending to me are: Pseudo-Dionysius, the Divine Names"”of course all of St. Bernard-Walter (?) on the Psalms (in Sermon) and, when I told him about Ruysbroeck (in the French of E. Hello) he was very interested and got the book, which he liked very much. |
| 1947/03/10 | | Cloud of Unknowing |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 42
| Tomorrow I begin the retreat. Yesterday I read a couple of chapters of The Cloud of Unknowing. Every time I pick up anything like that-including especially St. John of the Cross, I feel like the three wise men when they came out of Jerusalem and once more saw the star. |
| 1947/03/10 | John of the Cross | Living Flame of Love |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 43
| Since being in the monastery I have been hit that way by St. Theresa's Way of Perfection, chapter on distractions, etc. in the prayer of quiet, in the novitiate. [Pierre van der Meer de Walcheren's] Le Paradis Blanc about the Carthusians at La Val Saint"”the middle section called "Un Chartreux parle." Also the article on "Chartreux" in the Dictionnaire de Spiritualite [Tome II. Paris, 1937, 705-76]. Also four years ago on the feast of St. Joseph, in the novitiate-all that part of the third stanza of The Living Flame, where St. John of the Cross talks about the "deep caverns". The same way, in a different mode and degree, with Duns Scotus' 49th Distinction of the 4th Book of the Oxoniense, on beatitude, and parts of St. Bonaventure about desire. Then, too, in my second year in the novitiate, I was very struck by [Marie Michel] Philipon's book on Elizabeth of the Trinity, her prayer [La Doctrine Spirituelle de Soeur Elisabeth de la Trinite, 1947]. |
| 1947/03/13 | John of the Cross | Living Flame of Love |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 46
| St. John of the Cross' Cautions are my food for this retreat and there couldn't be anything better as a preparation for vows. Also, I realize more and more that the great works of St. John of the Cross are not entirely comprehensible unless one also knows the Cautions, Maxims, Letters, and anecdotes about his life. For instance what he says about directors in The Living Flame must be qualified by what he says on Superiors in the Cautions. |
| 1947/03/13 | John of the Cross | Precautions |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 46
| St. John of the Cross' Cautions are my food for this retreat and there couldn't be anything better as a preparation for vows. Also, I realize more and more that the great works of St. John of the Cross are not entirely comprehensible unless one also knows the Cautions, Maxims, Letters, and anecdotes about his life. For instance what he says about directors in The Living Flame must be qualified by what he says on Superiors in the Cautions. |
| 1947/05/00 | Jan Ruusbroec | Oeuvres de Ruysbroeck l'admirable / Jan van Ruusbroec ; trad. du flamand par les Benedictins de Saint-Paul de Wisques par Ernest Hello |
Ltrs: RtoJ p. 170
| The autobiography [The Seven Storey Mountain] comes along slow. Haven't seen page proofs. Bob Giroux must be very busy. I was reading T. S. Eliot"”"East Coker," etc. & this time I liked him a lot. I got those books by Ruysbroeck"”in French. He is wonderful. I'd like to do an edition of him for N. Directions. As it is I am going to do John of the Cross' Dark Night for them in English & Spanish with notes"”using Peers' translation & not doing one of my own. Also I am doing a book of more or less disconnected "thoughts" & aphorisms [Seeds of Contemplation] about the interior life also for N. Directions. |
| 1947/05/00 | Saint John of the Cross | complete works of Saint John of the Cross, doctor of the church / Saint John of the Cross ; transl. from the critical edition of P. Silverio de Santa Teresa, and ed. by E. Allison Peers |
Ltrs: RtoJ p. 170
| The autobiography [The Seven Storey Mountain] comes along slow. Haven't seen page proofs. Bob Giroux must be very busy. I was reading T. S. Eliot"”"East Coker," etc. & this time I liked him a lot. I got those books by Ruysbroeck"”in French. He is wonderful. I'd like to do an edition of him for N. Directions. As it is I am going to do John of the Cross' Dark Night for them in English & Spanish with notes"”using Peers' translation & not doing one of my own. Also I am doing a book of more or less disconnected "thoughts" & aphorisms [Seeds of Contemplation] about the interior life also for N. Directions. |
| 1947/05/14 | Bernardus of Clairvaux | De Diligendo Deo |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 73
| I read some St. Bernard [of Clairvaux] on the Mystical Marriage. The tenth chapter of De Diligendo Deo [On the Love of God] and the last sermons In Cantica [On the Song of Songs] bring St. Bernard and St. John of the Cross into line together. |
| 1947/05/14 | Bernardus of Clairvaux | Sermones in Cantica Canticorum |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 73
| I read some St. Bernard [of Clairvaux] on the Mystical Marriage. The tenth chapter of De Diligendo Deo [On the Love of God] and the last sermons In Cantica [On the Song of Songs] bring St. Bernard and St. John of the Cross into line together. When |
| 1947/10/26 | | Cloud of Unknowing |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 128
| The only thing that gave me any relief today was when I looked in The Cloud of Unknowing for a moment at the chapter on the "lump" theory of the interior life (c. 36?), in other words, vague intuitions left without analysis-"sin"-"God"- all I can do today. |
| 1947/11/30 | Jan Ruusbroec | Oeuvres de Ruysbroeck l'admirable / Jan van Ruusbroec ; trad. du flamand par les Benedictins de Saint-Paul de Wisques par Ernest Hello |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 140
| The day before the retreat began, two volumes of the Wisques translation (French) of Ruysbroeck arrived [Oeuvres de Ruysbroeck l'Admirable, 6 volumes (Brussels and Paris, 1912"”1938)]. Father Kothen in Belgium sent them. I had been trying to get them for more than two years. Everybody said it was impossible. So that is a great grace. Ruysbroeck's feast is the day after tomorrow. So I expect great things from him in this retreat. The important thing"”find out what God really wills for m"”perfect union with His will"”give Him everything without reservations. |
| 1948/02/12 | Jan Ruusbroec | Oeuvres de Ruysbroeck l'admirable / Jan van Ruusbroec ; trad. du flamand par les Benedictins de Saint-Paul de Wisques par Ernest Hello |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 167
| But, on the other hand, I read Ruysbroeck with joy, all about immediate contact with God, "meeting" Him in the unity of our Spirit - our natural and supernatural union with Him - how He wants us to dwell with Him "above all gifts, graces and virtues". The concept has been fascinating me for a year. |
| 1948/03/04 | Vital Lehodey | Saint Abandon |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 175
| Sunday night I got two hours' sleep and Monday I was staggering around in a fog. With trembling hands I took down Dom Vital Lehodey's immortal volume on abandonment, Le Saint Abandon. Also I read the chapter in the Spiritual Directory, or, at least, began the chapter on infirmities. I am too attached to my sleep. |
| 1949/08/05 | Thomas Aquinas | Commentary on the Gospel of St. John |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 345-46
| I find an interesting passage in St. Thomas' commentary on St. John, Chapter I (Lectio XIV), the place where Jesus turns to Andrew and John who have asked Him where He lives and He says, "Come and see." Thomas interprets this mystically as evidence that we can only come to know Jesus dwelling within us by experience. But I take this experimental knowledge of the presence of God in us to be contemplation. He then says there are four ways of arriving at this experimental knowledge. Two are, as one might expect, by interior quiet and rest, and by the taste of the divine sweetness. But the other two are, first, by the performance of good works, and second, per operationem devotionis [by works of devotion]. I don't know precisely what that means but in any case it is an activity. Hence it is easy to see that for St. Thomas there is in practice no contradiction between contemplation and activity. |
| 1949/11/25 | Gregory of Nyssa | De vita Moysis |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 373
| In the refectory we are reading Exodus and I have discovered St. Gregory of Nyssa's De Vita Moysis [Life of Moses]. I will probably try to talk about it in the Mystical Theology class. Having trouble organizing material. I refuse to follow any known text.-except I will take [Etienne] Gilson on St. Bernard when I get the preliminaries out of the way. I feel much better mapping out my own approach-from Scripture and the Fathers, Mysticism and Dogma togetherblending and culminating in experience. |
| 1949/12/06 | John of the Cross | Cántico espiritual / Saint John of the Cross ; según el ms. de las Madres carmelitas de Jaen ; ed. y notas de M. Martínez Burgos |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 375
| There is supposed to be a special group coming to the vault after Benediction on Sundays and Feasts to talk about special points. That means mostly St. John of the Cross, as far as I am concerned. I am going through The Spiritual Canticle again in Spanish out behind the horse barn in a little corner behind the cedars where I can sit among the blackberry bushes out of the wind. It is still warm enough to sit out there even in summer clothes. I feel like learning snatches of St. John's Spanish by heartjust snatches. It is inviting and easy. Phrases cling to you without your making half an effort to grasp them. |
| 1949/12/17 | John of the Cross | Cántico espiritual / Saint John of the Cross ; según el ms. de las Madres carmelitas de Jaen ; ed. y notas de M. Martínez Burgos |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 380
| Walking back from the barns in the warm sun on the muddy road between the orchard and the vegetable garden with The Spiritual Canticle under my arm and saying those wonderful words. I found a wonderful place to read and pray, on the top floor of that barn building where the rabbits used to be. Up under the roof is a place reached by various ladders. |
| 1949/12/30 | | Cloud of Unknowing |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 390
| I like Kenneth Patchen's Dark Kingdom, but it does not do anything beyond interesting the surface of my mind. It does not make a deep impression and it cannot because it is only poetry. The only books that move me deeply are the Bible, St. John of the Cross, The Cloud of Unknowing, and a few others like that: Tauler, St. Augustine-parts of St. Bernard-St. Gregory of Nyssa. |
| 1950/04/22 | Etienne Gilson | Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard / translation from the French: La theologie mystique de Saint Bernard |
Ltrs: SofC p. 20
| That is why I feel that your works are so tremendously helpful, dear Father. Your St. Bernard Mystique is altogether admirable because, while being simple and fluent, it communicates to the reader a real appreciation of St. Bernard's spirituality. You are wrong to consider your treatment of St. Bernard superficial. It is indeed addressed to the general reader but for all that it is profound and all-embracing, and far more valuable than the rather technical study which I undertook for the Collectanea and which, as you will see on reading it, was beyond my capacities as a theologian. The earlier sections especially, in my study, contain many glaring and silly errors"”or at least things are often very badly expressed there. If I write a book on the saint I shall try to redeem myself, without entering into the technical discussions that occupy M. Gilson in his rather brilliant study [The Mystical Theology of St. Bernard]. But there again, a book of your type is far more helpful. |
| 1950/10/09 | Jean Danielou | Platonisme et theologie mystique. Essay sur la doctrine spirituelle de Saint Gregoire de Nysse |
Ltrs: SofC p. 24
| I wish I could give you some information on St. Bernard in his relation to the Greek Fathers. I have none of my own; the topic interests me but I have barely begun to do anything about it, since I know the Greek Fathers so poorly. However, I can tell you this much: in Danielou's Platonisme et T.M. on pages and 211 there are references to St. Bernard's dependence (?) on St. Gregory of Nyssa. The opening of St. Bernard's series of Sermons obviously reflects the idea of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa that the Canticle of Canticles was for the formation of mystics while Proverbs and Ecclesiastes applied to the beginners and progressives. I find Bernard's echo of this point an interesting piece of evidence that he considered the monastic vocation a remote call to mystical union"”if not a proximate one. Then, too, Gregory's homilies on the Canticle of Canticles are full of a tripartite division of souls into slaves, mercenaries and spouses. Gregory's apophatism is not found in St. Bernard, but in his positive treatment of theology Bernard follows Origen. I think Fr. Danielou also told me that Bernard's attitude toward the Incarnate Word is founded on Origen"”I mean his thoughts on amor carnalis Christi [carnal love of Christ] in relation to mystical experience. I may be wrong |
| 1950/10/09 | Louis Bouyer | Vie de saint Antoine par saint Athanase |
Ltrs: SofC p. 25
| I am extremely eager to get Fr. Bouyer's new book on monasticism, but have not yet been able to do so. I feel that our book dealer sometimes takes orders and then forgets about them"”I mean for books to come out later. I liked his Saint Antoine. Still, I wonder if he does not overdo his interest in the fact that in the early ages of the Church people were so clearly aware that the fall had put the devil in charge of material things. Fr. Danielou's Signe du Temple, in its first chapter, gives a good counterpoise to that view"”for heaven still shone through creation and God was very familiar with men in Genesis! |
| 1951/03/04 | Saint John of the Cross | complete works of Saint John of the Cross, doctor of the church / Saint John of the Cross ; transl. from the critical edition of P. Silverio de Santa Teresa, and ed. by E. Allison Peers |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 452
| Shall I re-read the bits in The Ascent of Mount Carmel about the memory? They seem to do me so much good-always. Year after year, returning to them. In what sense do they make a difference in my life? |
| 1952/02/25 | Charles Journet | Dark Knowledge of God / translated from the French by James F. Anderswon |
Ltrs: CforT p. 19
| About apophatic"”although it is not in the OED it does crop up in English, though in translations of French books like Mgr. Journet's Dark Knowledge of God. That word has, however, caused more trouble than almost anything else in the Ascent. |
| 1953/02/24 | Marie-Eugène de l'Enfant Jesus, O.C.D. | Je suis fille d'eglise |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 36
| Yesterday, began our Lenten book, Je suis fille d'eglise [I Am a Daughter of the Church, by P. Marie-Eugène, O.C.D.], about Theresian mysticism. Glad to get it but terribly oppressed by the necessity to read about mystical prayer. Noise of trucks coming through the window. Sunlight in the room. Very happy to be here, and yet feeling tense and ashamed and poor. Pushed ahead with the reading as a pure effort of obedience. And I mean effort. No help, no relief, except to look at the harmless titles of the books on the shelf in front of me, books that I will never have to touch. (Jesus All Good; Methode pour assister les malades, etc.) Gone are the days when "mysticism" was for me a matter of eager and speculative interest. Now, because it is my life, it is torment to think about. |
| 1957/09/15 | Saint John of the Cross | complete works of Saint John of the Cross, doctor of the church / Saint John of the Cross ; transl. from the critical edition of P. Silverio de Santa Teresa, and ed. by E. Allison Peers |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 118
| A Series of sentence fragments from John of the Cross's The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book I, chapter 13, 4-6. |
| 1958/12/19 | Paul Brunton | Hermit in the Himalayas / pen name of Raphael Hurst |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 240
| Today began reading what seems to be a remarkable though poorly written book-Hermit in the Himalayas by Brinton-I picked it up by "chanc" in the Louisville library last week. |
| 1959/01/28 | Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev | Solitude and Society |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 253-54
| From Berdyaev's "Solitude and Society": "Man may feel himself infinitely more alone in the midst of his coreligionists than in the midst of men of totally different beliefs"¦his relation to them may be of a purely objective kind. Such a state of affairs is extremely distancing and tragic"¦An increase of spirituality may only aggravate the sense of solitude for it may be accompanied by a total rupture of man's social relationships"¦But there is no way of avoiding such ruptures once man has embarked on a spiritual plane, only in mystic experience, where all things participate in the Ego and the Ego participates in all things. This path is diametrically opposed to objectification, which effects communication only between extrinsic and abstract things." |
| 1959/05/21 | Nicolai Berdyaev | Meaning of Creation |
Ltrs: CforT p. 61
| Yet I am very taken with Berdyaev. He is certainly too glib. His explanations and intuitions come up with a suspicious readiness, and he is always inexhaustible. But I find much less of the pseudomystic, or rather gnostic, in his later works. As time goes on he seems to me to get more and more solid. The Meaning of Creation, one of his earliest books, is one of the most fruitful, the most dangerous and the least reliable all at the same time. But a late one like Solitude and Society is, I think, almost perfect in its kind. As for Pasternak, of course what you say about Zhivago is true: he floats passively through the backwaters of history. But one does not hold it against him. |
| 1959/05/21 | Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev | Solitude and Society |
Ltrs: CforT p. 61
| Yet I am very taken with Berdyaev. He is certainly too glib. His explanations and intuitions come up with a suspicious readiness, and he is always inexhaustible. But I find much less of the pseudomystic, or rather gnostic, in his later works. As time goes on he seems to me to get more and more solid. The Meaning of Creation, one of his earliest books, is one of the most fruitful, the most dangerous and the least reliable all at the same time. But a late one like Solitude and Society is, I think, almost perfect in its kind. As for Pasternak, of course what you say about Zhivago is true: he floats passively through the backwaters of history. But one does not hold it against him. |
| 1959/12/02 | | Cloud of Unknowing |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 350
| Knowles on the English mystics. How much I love the 14th. century and how truly it is my own century, the one whose spirit is most mine, in many ways, or so I like to think (Rolle-The Cloud of Unknowing-etc.). |
| 1960/04/14 | Gershom Gerhard Scholem | Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 384
| Excellent book by Scholem Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism and Traherne's Centuries, sent by Natasha Spender. Finished Fromm on love. And a little thing by Jungmann, The Sacrifice of the Church. |
| 1960/11/17 | | Cloud of Unknowing |
Ltrs: HGL p. 45
| Some important books which I recommend to you can be obtained from Harper Brothers "¦ They are publishing an interesting little volume, the Centuries of Thomas Traherne, which you ought to have "¦ They print something of Fenelon, I believe. Also a fine book by John Ruysbroeck, the Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage. You should also get to know the anonymous Cloud of Unknowing. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, one of the early fathers of the Cistercian Order of which I am a monk, has some very important mystical writings. Perhaps the best way to get to know him would be to read the Mystical Theology of St. Bernard by Etienne Gilson. |
| 1960/11/17 | Etienne Gilson | Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard / translation from the French: La theologie mystique de Saint Bernard |
Ltrs: HGL p. 45
| Some important books which I recommend to you can be obtained from Harper Brothers "¦ They are publishing an interesting little volume, the Centuries of Thomas Traherne, which you ought to have "¦ They print something of Fenelon, I believe. Also a fine book by John Ruysbroeck, the Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage. You should also get to know the anonymous Cloud of Unknowing. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, one of the early fathers of the Cistercian Order of which I am a monk, has some very important mystical writings. Perhaps the best way to get to know him would be to read the Mystical Theology of St. Bernard by Etienne Gilson. |
| 1960/11/17 | Thomas Trahern | Centuries, Poems and Thanksgivings |
Ltrs: HGL p. 45
| Some important books which I recommend to you can be obtained from Harper Brothers "¦ They are publishing an interesting little volume, the Centuries of Thomas Traherne, which you ought to have "¦ They print something of Fenelon, I believe. Also a fine book by John Ruysbroeck, the Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage. You should also get to know the anonymous Cloud of Unknowing. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, one of the early fathers of the Cistercian Order of which I am a monk, has some very important mystical writings. Perhaps the best way to get to know him would be to read the Mystical Theology of St. Bernard by Etienne Gilson. |
| 1961/03/03 | Benet of Canfield | Rule of Perfection |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 97
| I started the mystical theology class Wednesday (Mar. 1). [Note 5: Merton's lecture notes for this series of classes on ascetical and mystical theology remain unpublished See my article "Patterns in Thomas Merton's ‘Introduction to Ascetical and Mystical Theology,'" Cistercian Studies, Vol 24 (1989), pp 338-54] I continued today A.M. reading the ms. of Benet of Canfield sent by Mrs. [Etta] Gullick, from Oxford, and it has come from God. Essential will. |
| 1961/04/02 | Julian of Norwich | Revelations of Divine Love |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 105
| Yesterday-reading bits of Dame Julian of Norwich and today I began Gregory of Nyssa's homilies on the Canticle. |
| 1961/05/07 | Jean Baptiste Porion | Hadewijch d'Anvers. Ecrits mystiques des Beguines |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 117
| Have finally after five - no, seven, years got down to work on the remarkable little book of Dom [Jean-Baptiste] Porion on Hadewijch. The introduction is full of information and of sagacious remarks. A really new and clear perspective. I am more and more fascinated by the mysticism of the late Middle Ages, with its defects and its qualities. The whole scope of the vast movement going back to the Cistercians, Joachim [de Fiore], St. Francis, the Beguines, the Cathari, the Spirituals, assimilated fully by the Church in the great Rhenish mystics"¦We have not even begun to understand all this, or appreciate its purport. |
| 1961/05/13 | Titus Burckhardt | An introduction to Sufi doctrine |
Ltrs: HGL p. 49
| After reading Burckhardt, I have glimpsed many interesting relationships and problems. The question of Tawhid is of course central and I think that the closest to Islam among the Christian mystics on this point are the Rhenish and Flemish mystics of the fourteenth century, including Meister Eckhart, who was greatly influenced by Avicenna. The culmination of their mysticism is in the "Godhead" beyond "God" (a distinction which caused trouble to many theologians in the Middle Ages and is not accepted without qualifications) but at any rate it is an ascent to perfect and ultimate unity beyond the triad in unity of the Persons. This is a subtle and difficult theology and I don't venture into it without necessity "¦ One of the chapters I like best in Burckhardt is that on the renewal of creation at each instant, and also that on the dhikr which resembles the techniques of the Greek monks, and I am familiar with its use, for it brings one close to God. |
| 1961/05/15 | | Cloud of Unknowing |
Ltrs: HGL p. 341-42
| I have heard of The Mirror of Simple Souls. It is attributed to Marguerite Porete, an unfortunate Beguine who was burned for some very innocent statements. I would like to get to know this book. Which is the new Penguin version of the Cloud? I have read one that was printed in America by a man called Progoff. If this is not the one that has been put out by Penguin, I should be delighted to see it. |
| 1961/06/10 | Marguerite Porete | Mirror of Simple Souls |
Ltrs: HGL p. 342
| The Mirror of Simple Souls still interests me and I want to look into it more. I forget where I ran across the suggestion that it could be attributed to Marguerite Porete, but perhaps in the new Histoire de Spiritualite , in which case the suggestion would be due to Dom F. Vandenbroucke. Do let me know if you find anything interesting. We did not begin taking the Downside Review until just recently, and so I have not read the articles on Eckhart. I like him, but now and again he leaves one with a sense of being let down, when he goes beyond all bounds. He is more brilliant than all the other Rhenish mystics and really more interesting. Yet I like Tauler for a more steady diet. Him too I read in French, I must get the German. The Penguin Cloud did not come, but the Orthodox Prayers did and I am very happy with them |
| 1961/07/01 | | Cloud of Unknowing |
Ltrs: HGL p. 343
| I like the Penguin edition of the Cloud. It is clear and easy for the contemporary reader. Yet it does lose some of the richness of the older more concrete English. I like the fourteenth-century English mystics more and more. I am reading [Walter Hilton's] The Scale [of Perfection], which has such a great deal in it. And you are of course right about Eckhart. He is more and more wonderful, and when properly interpreted, becomes less "way out" as our beats say. There is more in one sermon of Eckhart than in volumes of other people. There is so much packed in between the lines. |
| 1961/07/04 | Eckhart | Meister Eckhart / Meister Eckhart ; a modern transl. by Raymond Bernard Blakney |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 137
| I am becoming entranced with Eckhart: I have been won by the brevity, the incisiveness of his sermons, his way of piercing straight to the heart of the inner life, the awakened spark, the creative and redeeming word, God born in us. He is a great man who was pulled down by little men who thought they could destroy him. Who thought they could take him to Avignon and have him ruined and indeed he was ruined in 28 propositions which did not altogether resemble his joy and his energy and his freedom, but which could be brought to coincide with words he had uttered. |
| 1961/07/25 | Vladimir Lossky | Theologie negative et connaissance de Dieu chez Maître Eckhart |
Ltrs: HGL p. 344
| Now, above all. Today came the Lossky book on Eckhart. It is fabulously good, and not only that but it is for me personally a book of enormous and providential importance, because I can see right away in the first chapter that I am right in the middle of the most fundamental intuition of unknowing which was the first source of my faith and has ever since been my whole life "¦ I cannot thank you enough. |
| 1961/08/06 | Eckhart | Meister Eckhart / Meister Eckhart ; a modern transl. by Raymond Bernard Blakney |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 148
| Today I read the wonderful sermon on the divine truth in which Eckhart says that as a person about to be struck by a thunderbolt turns toward it, and all the leaves of a tree about to be struck turn toward it, so one in whom the divine birth is to take place turns, without realizing, completely toward it. |
| 1961/08/19 | | Theologica Germanica |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 153
| The library has bought a copy of the Theologia Germanica, which I began today. |
| 1961/08/26 | | Cloud of Unknowing |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 156
| Finally, three wonderful chapters in the Cloud of Unknowing on Martha and Mary, ending with this, which is everything: "Therefore you who set out to be a contemplative as Mary was, choose rather to be humbled by the unimaginable greatness and incomparable perfection of God than by your own wretchedness and imperfections. In other words look more to God's worthiness than to your own worthlessness. To the perfectly humble there is nothing lacking, spiritual or physical. For they have God in whom is all abundance and whoever has Him needs nothing else in this life." (ch. 23) |
| 1961/08/27 | | Theologica Germanica |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 157
| Theologia Germanica on the heaven and hell we carry about within us, and how it is good to experience within one or the other of these, for there one is in God's hands. But when one has neither a heaven or hell, one is alone in indifference of the lessons of the II Nocturn today (IV Sun. of Aug.) from St. Gregory. |
| 1961/08/27 | Mircea Eliade | Mythes, rêves et mystères. English. Myths, dreams, and mysteries : the encounter between contemporary faiths and archaic realities / Mircea Eliade ; transl. by Philip Mairet |
Ltrs: HGL p. 131
| I have been reading a really remarkable book on Eckhart, by Vladimir Lossky, in French. It is very difficult in parts but it is one of the finest studies on the Meister. I highly recommend it. Published by Vrin. It is unfinished, as Lossky died. He was a great man, wrote a very fine book on the mystical theology of the Oriental Church which you should know. Also I just finished Mircea Eliade's Myths, Dreams and Mysteries. This too is very rich. He refers incidentally to Ananda and in the final pages has some very good things on Maya "¦ |
| 1961/08/27 | Vladimir Lossky | Theologie negative et connaissance de Dieu chez Maître Eckhart |
Ltrs: HGL p. 131
| I have been reading a really remarkable book on Eckhart, by Vladimir Lossky, in French. It is very difficult in parts but it is one of the finest studies on the Meister. I highly recommend it. Published by Vrin. It is unfinished, as Lossky died. He was a great man, wrote a very fine book on the mystical theology of the Oriental Church which you should know. Also I just finished Mircea Eliade's Myths, Dreams and Mysteries. This too is very rich. He refers incidentally to Ananda and in the final pages has some very good things on Maya "¦ |
| 1961/10/23 | E.I. (Edward Ingram) Watkin | Poets and mystics |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 173
| Etta Gullick-along with wonderful letters from the Adriatic, for she was at Istanbul to see the Patriarch and at Patmos also-sent Watkin's book Poets and Mystics. She wants me to read especially the Essay on [Augustine] Baker. I have begun instead with Julian of Norwich, because all this year I have been more and more attracted to her. Now the immense wonder of her is opening up fully. The doctrine on sin. The parable of the servant. Tremendous! How great a joy and gift! |
| 1961/10/23 | Julian of Norwich | Revelations of Divine Love |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 173
| Etta Gullick-along with wonderful letters from the Adriatic, for she was at Istanbul to see the Patriarch and at Patmos also-sent Watkin's book Poets and Mystics. She wants me to read especially the Essay on [Augustine] Baker. I have begun instead with Julian of Norwich, because all this year I have been more and more attracted to her. Now the immense wonder of her is opening up fully. The doctrine on sin. The parable of the servant. Tremendous! How great a joy and gift! |
| 1961/11/21 | Jean Danielou | Platonisme et theologie mystique. Essay sur la doctrine spirituelle de Saint Gregoire de Nysse |
Ltrs: HGL p. 347-48
| [I] am trying as best I can to answer your questions about the introductions to Parts I and II of Benet... Now for your two introductions. I think they are unfortunately not really adequate. They do not read very well, because of all the mystifying complexity of the degrees one upon the other. And further I think you ought to go a lot deeper into the various questions raised, in relation to the whole history of spirituality. I think the present treatment is a little superficial, at least as far as situating Benet in the historical context is concerned. This needs badly to be done, and of course it is not going to be very easy "¦ But all this should be considerably developed. I don't mean that you have to lengthen it, but really bring in the meaning of the questions you raise. For instance, the reference to Gregory of Nyssa and epectasis: it would do no harm to use the Greek word, and bring in briefly the material condensed in the DS article on epectasis and the chapter on this in Danielou's Platonisme et Theologie Mystique. The reference to Bonaventure could be filled out with more rich allusions to the spirituality of St. Bonaventure and his relation to Benet situating B. in the Franciscan"” Dionysian tradition of Hugh of Balma and those people. |
| 1961/12/27 | Julian of Norwich | Revelations of Divine Love |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 189
| This morning I was praying much for a wise heart, and I think the gift of this Christmas has been the real discovery of Julian of Norwich. I have long been around her, and hovered at her door, and known that she was one of my best friends, and just because I was so sure of her wise friendship I did not make haste to seek what I now find. She seems to me a true theologian, with a greater clarity and organization and depth even than St. Theresa. I mean she really elaborates the content of revelation as deeply experienced. It is first experienced, then thought, and the thought deepens again into life, so that all her life the content of her vision was penetrating her through and through. And one of the central convictions is her eschatological orientation to the central, dynamic secret act "by which all shall be made well" at the last day, our "great deed" [underlined twice] ordained by Our Lord from without beginning. |
| 1962/01/29 | Marguerite Porete | Mirror of Simple Souls |
Ltrs: HGL p. 350
| Eric Colledge in an introduction to an English translation of some sermons of Tauler says that a Dr. Romana Guarnieri has advanced the thesis that The Mirror of Simple Souls was definitely by Marguerite Porete and that the Latin, Italian and French texts are being edited. If you see anything of this, or any articles about it, will you please let me know? |
| 1962/03/00 | Julian of Norwich | Revelations of Divine Love |
Ltrs: WtoF p. 43
| But Julian is without doubt one of the most wonderful of all Christian voices. She gets greater and greater in my eyes as I grow older, and whereas in the old days I used to be crazy about St. John of the Cross, I would not exchange him now for Julian if you gave me the world and the Indies and all the Spanish mystics rolled up in one bundle. I think that Julian of Norwich is, with Newman, the greatest English theologian. She is really that. For she reasons from her experience of the substantial center of the great Christian mystery of Redemption. She gives her experience and her deductions clearly, separating the two. And the experience is of course nothing merely subjective. It is the objective mystery of Christ as apprehended by her, with the mind and formation of a fourteenth-century English woman. And that fourteenth-century England is to me and always has been a world of light, for I have almost lived in it. So many villages and churches of the time are still there practically without change, or were thirty years ago. One can still breathe the same air as Julian, with the admixture of a little smog and fallout, of course "¦ |
| 1962/03/30 | Julian of Norwich | Revelations of Divine Love |
Ltrs: HGL p. 351
| Did you ever get anywhere with Julian of Norwich? Though it might not seem so at first sight, I think there is much in her that is relevant to the Dark Night. At least theologically, if not exactly in the order of the classic experience. But certainly the great thing is passing with Christ through death out of this world to the Father, and one does not reduce this to a "classic experience." It must remain incomprehensible to a great extent. |
| 1962/03/30 | Marguerite Porete | Mirror of Simple Souls |
Ltrs: HGL p. 351
| "¦ Where did I see, the other day, something about a new edition of The Mirror of Simple Souls, and definitely ascribed to Marguerite Porete? Perhaps it was somewhere in the new Molinari book on Julian of Norwich, which I have only begun and then had to set aside for more urgent matters. If there is a new one out, I will wait to get that instead of borrowing the Orchard edition. But I could also probably get an old copy of that from Tom Burns at Burns Oates. |
| 1962/03/30 | Paul Molinari | Julian of Norwich: The Teachings of a Fourteenth Century Mystic |
Ltrs: HGL p. 351
| "¦ Where did I see, the other day, something about a new edition of The Mirror of Simple Souls, and definitely ascribed to Marguerite Porete? Perhaps it was somewhere in the new Molinari book on Julian of Norwich, which I have only begun and then had to set aside for more urgent matters. If there is a new one out, I will wait to get that instead of borrowing the Orchard edition. But I could also probably get an old copy of that from Tom Burns at Burns Oates. |
| 1962/05/19 | | Cloud of Unknowing |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 219
| Rereading The Cloud-working over the essay on the English Mystics. Why? I hardly know. At first I thought it was for the Reader. (Much trouble with the Reader.) "Instead you should sit completely still as though you had fallen asleep, worn out by crying and sunken in your sorrow. This is true sorrow. This is perfect sorrow. To achieve this sorrow is a very great thing." p 161, Cloud of Unknowing |
| 1962/06/10 | Cassiodorus | De Anima |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 226-27
| What more beautiful or more appropriate than these lines of Cassiodorus where he speaks of the soul as a light, in the likeness of the divine light? Then of God: Illud autem quod ineffabile veneramur arcanum Quod ubique totum et invisibiliter praesens est Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus Una essentia et indiscreta majestas Splendor supra omnes fulgores, gloria supra omne praeconium Quod mundissima anima et Deo dedita potest quidem ex aliqua parte sentire sed non idonee explicare. Nam quemadmodum fas est de illo sufficienter dici qui creaturae sensu non potest comprehendi? [But that which we reverence as unspeakable secret which is everywhere totally and invisibly present Father, Son and Holy Spirit One essence and undivided majesty Splendor above all light, glory above all honor Which the purest soul dedicated to God can experience everywhere but not explain. For what can ever be said of this being who cannot be understood by his creatures?] [n.8: Merton will later publish a more refined translation of these lines in Conjecturesof a Guilty Bystander (New York, 1966), pp 208-9] |
| 1962/06/16 | Marguerite Porete | Mirror of Simple Souls |
Ltrs: HGL p. 352
| Many thanks for the good news about The Mirror of Simple Souls. It was very good of you to get in contact with M. Orcibal and I am delighted to hear the printing exists: perhaps if it is only a loan to you, I might find out some way of obtaining a copy myself. This is really interesting. |
| 1962/08/21 | Jacob Boehme | Confessions of Jacob Boehme |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 237-38
| Hot. Yesterday, the dip in the path to the woods beyond the sheep barn was like an oven. The breeze like the breath of a furnace. Cooler in the woods where I read [Jakob] Boehme's Confessions and a bit of Miller's Wisdom of the Heart (a fine book). The Confessions are the only book of Boehme so far I have been able to understand. |
| 1962/10/07 | Marguerite Porete | Mirror of Simple Souls |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 254
| And the Mirror of Simple Souls which Etta Gullick sent. What a charming and wise book! Yet I think it is Marguerite Porete who wrote it, and she was burned. What sad, impossible things have happened in this holy Church! |
| 1962/10/29 | Marguerite Porete | Mirror of Simple Souls |
Ltrs: HGL p. 355
| Thanks so much for The Mirror of Simple Souls. I am really enjoying it, though I find that I have a hard time getting anywhere for great lengths in such books. A little goes a long way. It is an admirable book, but one which one does not really "read." I hold it in my hand walking about in the woods, as if I were reading. But it is charming and bold and right. I am more and more convinced that if you are in dryness and such, these books only increase the problem (if it is a problem). At the same time I think we make problems for ourselves where there really are none. There is too much conscious "spiritual lif" floating around us, and we are too aware that we are supposed to get somewhere. Well, where? If you reflect, the answer turns out to be a word that is never very close to any kind of manageable reality. If that is the case, perhaps we are already in that where. In which case why do we torment ourselves looking around to verify a fact which we cannot see in any case? We should let go our hold upon our self and our will, and be in the Will in which we are. Contentment is very important, of course I mean what seems to be contentment with despair. And the worst thing of all is false optimism. |
| 1962/11/12 | Sergius Bolshakoff | Russian Mystics |
Ltrs: HGL p. 20-21
| I am editing and correcting a manuscript of a Russian Orthodox scholar called Bolshakoff, who is at Oxford but doesn't write very good English. It is about the Russian mystics and full of very interesting material "¦ |
| 1963/01/23 | Jan Ruusbroec | Oeuvres de Ruysbroeck l'admirable / Jan van Ruusbroec ; trad. du flamand par les Benedictins de Saint-Paul de Wisques par Ernest Hello |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 293
| This morning the morning star above in the sky. Read Ruysbroeck's Livre de la plus haute verite [Book of the Highest Truth]. |
| 1963/02/26 | John of the Cross | Obras de San Juan de la Cruz / edit. y anot. por P. Silverio de Santa Teresa |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 299
| Found fine things in the Mirror of Simple Souls [Marguerite Porete] (Dia. IX) today, and am reading the Living Flame [St. John of the Cross] in Spanish. |
| 1963/02/26 | Marguerite Porete | Mirror of Simple Souls |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 299
| Found fine things in the Mirror of Simple Souls [Marguerite Porete] (Dia. IX) today, and am reading the Living Flame [St. John of the Cross] in Spanish. |
| 1963/05/07 | Marguerite Porete | Mirror of Simple Souls |
Ltrs: HGL p. 583
| Recently I have read The Mirror of Simple Souls, which Etta Gullick lent me. It is a marvelous book, and has some magnificent and original things in it. And is so splendidly written. I understand it is by Marguerite Porete, who was burned at the stake. Dom Porion, translator of Hadewijch of Antwerp, says this. There is no question that the mystics are the ones who have kept Christianity going, if anyone has. The Fenelon-Bossuet business, as an official and in some ways almost definitive victory for officialdom over mysticism, is a critical point in history. That is why it is interesting to see that Fenelon, before he got into mysticism, was already also criticizing the autocratic and unjust war politic of Louis XIV. It all hangs together. |
| 1963/06/12 | Frederick Crossfield Happold | Mysticism: A Study and an Anthology |
Ltrs: HGL p. 214
| Thanks for the letter and the packets of things. I was especially glad of the little Pelican on Mysticism [by F. C. Happold]. It looks great, so far "¦ |
| 1963/07/19 | Eckhart | Meister Eckhart / Meister Eckhart ; a modern transl. by Raymond Bernard Blakney |
Ltrs: WtoF p. 166
| The following are the questions, with Merton's answers: 1. Name the last three books you have read. The Platform Scripture of Hui Neng, translated by Wing Tsit Chen The Proslogion by St. Anselm of Canterbury A Different Drummer by William Melvin Kelley 2. Name the books you are reading now. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture by John Huizinga Ratio Verae Theologiae (The Real Meaning of Theology) by Erasmus The Historian and Character by David Knowles 4. Books that have influenced you. Poetic Works of William Blake Plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas Sermons of Meister Eckhart De Doctrina Christiana, Confessions, and Sermons on Psalms of St. Augustine Rule of St. Benedict The Bhagavad-Gita The Imitation of Christ, etc. 5. Why have these books been an influence on you? These books and others like them have helped me to discover the real meaning of my life, and have made it possible for me to get out of the confusion and meaninglessness of an existence completely immersed in the needs and passivities fostered by a culture in which sales are everything. 6. Name a book everyone should read. Besides the Bible (taken for granted and not included above) and such classics as The Imitation of Christ, I would select a contemporary book which I consider to be of vital importance and which I think everyone should read at this time: The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. 7. Why this book? This is the most forceful statement about a crisis that is of immediate importance to every American, and indirectly affects the whole world today. It is something that people have to know about. The Negro has been trying to make himself heard: in this book he succeeds. |
| 1963/11/12 | Nicholas of Cusa | Opuscula |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 33
| On the other hand I think that reading Sartre's L'Être et le néant is going to be important for me. (However, I did not read it.) Also, translating some opuscula [short works] of Nicholas of Cusa (if I can keep at it. He gets away from me when he seems too intellectual and dry). I will not abandon translations (hope of translation) of a few letters of Anselm, and maybe the article on Grimlaicus |
| 1963/11/14 | Nicholas of Cusa | Opuscula |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 34
| Nicholas of Cusa: opening up. Magnificent discovery. I have been on to him for a while, but not realizing how much was there! |
| 1963/12/21 | Bahya ibn Pakuda | Introduction aux devoirs des coeurs / transl. André Chouraqui, 1943 |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 47
| Zwi Werblowsky has sent Bahya [ben Joseph] ibn Pakuda in the remarkable [André] Chouraqui translation. This is a very great book [Introduction aux devoirs des coeurs, trans. André Chouraqui, 1943]. The translation itself is classic. It was made in the time when the Nazis occupied France, and the furnaces of Auschwitz were in operation. Chouraqui was writing in occupied France. His rhythms in translation of the Psalms (the book is full of Biblical quotations) are superb. I think I have never seen such high religious quality in any translation of the Psalms except perhaps the Vulgate. But I think Chouraqui is even better. |
| 1964/01/01 | Bahya ibn Pakuda | Introduction aux devoirs des coeurs / transl. André Chouraqui, 1943 |
Ltrs: HGL p. 586
| First of all I want to thank you for the Introduction aux devoirs des coeurs [by Bahya] which has arrived. I really like it very much indeed. I thank you also for your offprint. I was especially interested in the one about Gilbert Crispin, about which you had told me. It fits with my own ideas about Anselm and his school. I have done two articles on Anselm, in which I agree with Barth that to call him an "apologist" is really absurd. I cannot imagine why Schmitt, the editor of Anselm's works, is so silly as to insist that Anselm is writing apologetics. Your thesis on Crispin seems to me exactly right. |
| 1964/02/18 | Ammonas | Ammonii Eremitae Epistolae |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 77
| "Ut apud te mens nostra tuo depiderisfuequat quae si carnis maceratione cangiat." [Merton's loose translation follows.] The desire and need to be clothed in the light of the Spirit when in fact I am clothed in shame (and yet I see the shame itself also as grace!!). The wonderful power of the Letters of Ammonas and his mystical doctrine. It is to me impressive, beyond all the others, beyond John of the Cross and [Meister] Eckhart, not to say the lesser ones. It is the pure doctrine of Christian monastic mysticism. |
| 1964/05/22 | Sergius Bolshakoff | Russian Mystics |
Ltrs: HGL p. 366
| I have been, I repeat, foolishly and perhaps scandalously busy with a lot of absurd things, not the least of which is a preface to Bolshakoff's book on the Russian mystics. The real job of that was that I had to go through his whole ms. written in longhand and in impossible English, trying to make it readable. The material is good, or at least quite interesting, but otherwise I am now I suppose an honorary Cowley Father by reason of my support of Bolshakoff. |
| 1964/05/29 | William Johnston S.J. | Mysticism of the Cloud of Unknowing |
Ltrs: HGL p. 440
| Thanks for your letter of the 13th. Your project on The Cloud and Zen sounds interesting, and so, though I have made all kinds of resolutions to refuse this kind of thing, I want to make an exception and at least glance at your ms. The rest is up to the Holy Ghost: and time. I will send whatever comment is possible in the circumstances, long or short, and you will have to take your chance on it being either intelligent or idiotic. At present I am reading Fr. Enomiye Lasalle's book in German with very great interest. Naturally I enjoyed Fr. Dumoulin's book as you and he know. I wrote a rather longer and more detailed article published in a more or less unknown new magazine, and I will send it along. I felt that Fr. Dumoulin had been a little unreceptive to Hui Neng, but I think that goes naturally with his instinctive preference for Soto Zen (The Cloud, too, is more like Soto). |
| 1964/06/17 | Auguste Jundt | Amis de Dieu au quatorzième siècle |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 117
| Coming home. Taking off over the Atlantic, clouds over New Jersey, read a bit of [Auguste] Jundt on Les Amis de Dieu [Les Amis de Dieu au quatorzième siècle, 1879] which I had borrowed from the Columbia Library. |
| 1964/06/26 | Auguste Jundt | Amis de Dieu au quatorzième siècle |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 121
| I finished the old Jundt book on Les Amis de Dieu which I borrowed from the Columbia Library. (Will not forget reading the chapter on the book of the mine rocks while flying over the Appalachians.) Must find out more about Rulman Merswin. This afternoon-wrote a note on Kabir [One Hundred Poems of Kabir, 1962] for the Collectanea [Cisterciensia]. |
| 1964/12/08 | | Cloud of Unknowing |
Ltrs: SofC p. 254
| "¦ In such solitude as I have now I have been renewing my contact with Lancelot Andrewes, not as a steady diet, but his precis for the evening are very wholesome and rich, and I am quite drawn to his spirit. But also to the other and more profound spirit in the English tradition, that of Lady Julian, the Cloud, etc. I have an interesting ms. from a Jesuit in Japan treating the Cloud in its relation to Zen. In fact I also met Dr. Suzuki this summer, and this was a helpful contact indeed, because he really understands what interior simplicity is all about and really lives it. That is the important thing, because without contact with living examples, we soon get lost or give out. |
| 1964/12/08 | Julian of Norwich | Revelations of Divine Love |
Ltrs: SofC p. 254
| "¦ In such solitude as I have now I have been renewing my contact with Lancelot Andrewes, not as a steady diet, but his precis for the evening are very wholesome and rich, and I am quite drawn to his spirit. But also to the other and more profound spirit in the English tradition, that of Lady Julian, the Cloud, etc. I have an interesting ms. from a Jesuit in Japan treating the Cloud in its relation to Zen. In fact I also met Dr. Suzuki this summer, and this was a helpful contact indeed, because he really understands what interior simplicity is all about and really lives it. That is the important thing, because without contact with living examples, we soon get lost or give out. |
| 1964/12/09 | Jacob Boehme | Confessions of Jacob Boehme |
Ltrs: HGL p. 60
| Recently I sent you two small books on Boehme, his confessions and another. I like his confessions. Unfortunately his work is so full of abstruse terminology borrowed from alchemy, etc., that I find it hard to follow him. But when I do make contact with his mind, I like his spirit very much indeed. |
| 1965/03/02 | Jacques Cabaud | Simone Weil: A Fellowship in Love |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 212
| I am reading a good biography of Simone Weil, which I have to review for Peace News. [Note 15: Merton reviewed Jacques Cabaud's Simone Weil: A Fellowship in Love (1964) in Peace News, (April 2, 1965): 5, 8.] I am finally getting to know her, and have a great sympathy for her, though I cannot agree with a lot of her attitudes and ideas. Basically-I wonder what disturbs me about her. Something does. In her experience of Christ, for example. "Gnostic" rather than "mystical." But one had to admit, she seems to have seen this herself and she did not cling to it. "The attic" was a place she had to leave behind. Her mystique of action and "the world" is her true climate now familiar-and I think more authentic (though the other was not inauthentic). For a time I think Catholics were running to Simone Weil to learn this but now they have forgotten her and Teilhard de Chardin is the prophet of this cosmic Christianity (and yet what about St. Francis?). |
| 1965/03/26 | Jan Ruusbroec | Oeuvres de Ruysbroeck l'admirable / Jan van Ruusbroec ; trad. du flamand par les Benedictins de Saint-Paul de Wisques par Ernest Hello |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 221
| Decided to take some bread with coffee this morning instead of fasting (on coffee only) until dinner. The rye bread was good, so was the coffee. And I read Ruysbroeck, thinking of him in terms of Zen. His "essential union" is quite like Prajna [wisdom], and "Suchness." Theological differences great-but the phenomenology is close. |
| 1965/06/17 | Frithjof Schuon | Language of the self / Frithjof Schuon ; transl. by Marco Pallis and Macleod Matheson |
Ltrs: HGL p. 470
| I have been wanting to tell you how much I have benefited by your translations of Guenon and Schuon. Not only the material, but also your own translations, which, I think, contribute much clarity to the originals. I meant to write you after Easter when I had finished the Guenon book on Crisis. Now I do so when I am in the middle of Schuon on the Language of the Self. The Guenon book is certainly a classic, and I appreciate Schuon more and more. The essay on Buddhism, for example, is most excellent. I am at one with him in his deep reverence for the spirituality of the North American Indian. Of that, more at some other time. The Indians of this country are a sign of the age, silent and frequently mistreated, at least in their legal rights. One feels that there is still, among some of them, a deep consciousness of their real calling, and a hidden hope. Yet there must also be much real despair among them. I have always had a secret desire to be among them in some way, and of course there is no fulfilling this, and it would tend to be highly ambiguous in any event. |
| 1965/09/11 | Marguerite Porete | Mirror of Simple Souls |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 294
| "They have a good foundation," saith Love, "and high edification that resteth them of the things. Such creatures they can no more speak of God, no more than they can say where God is. For whatsoever it be that speaketh of God, when he will, and to whom he will, and where he will, he may doubt." The Mirror of Simple Souls, III, 220 |
| 1965/10/18 | John Joseph Stoudt | Sunrise to Eternity: A Study in Jacob Boehme's Life and Thought |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 305
| [Jakob] Boehme-[Rainer Maria] Rilke. A new climate. Two people I have met in passing for years and never really talked with. Now I begin first Boehme because I have a book [J. J. Stoudt, Sunrise to Eternity: A Study in J. Boehme's Life and Thought, 1957] that treats of his life and work and gives all the most relevant passages of his work in clear English, so that I finally have some inkling of what he is really saying-and respond to it. How much I respond to it. At the same time I begin also to respond to a quite different quality in |
| 1965/10/30 | John (abbot) of Ford | Wulfric of Haselbury |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 310
| Brother Alberic got (rare) copy of [John of] Ford's life of Wulfric of Haselbury [Wulfric of Haselbury, 1933] from the Library of Congress and, having finished, passed it on to me. I find it very rich indeed. Must work on it. Will get pictures of parts of it. A great theology of mystical life-and solitary life-fine, balanced, optimistic, Biblical. How much I need it! |
| 1965/11/04 | John (abbot) of Ford | Wulfric of Haselbury |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 311-12
| Turned in Wulfric of Haselbury yesterday. There were fine things in it, and I want pictures of some of it. On the other hand this business of skipping through miracles with a suspended judgment and an eye open for historical sidelights is emptying and deadening. And I am not up to a completely devout and credulous acceptance of all in a medieval saint's life on its own terms. The battle over his body (with the Cluniac monks breaking down the walls of his anchorage and tossing out the corpse) is enough indication that this was a different world, and one in which we certainly no longer live (for better or for worse). |
| 1966/01/18 | Ernesto Cardenal | Vida en El Amor |
Ltrs: CforT p. 155
| Who is publishing your Vida en el amor? It is really excellent"”in some ways equal to Teilhard de Chardin even better, since he was only half a poet "¦ |
| 1966/04/06 | Johannes Tauler | Book of the Poor in Spirit |
Ltrs: HGL p. 375
| In the hospital I have read a lot of Eckhart and am more and more convinced of his greatness. Before coming I went back to Kelley's translation of The Book of the Poor in Spirit. This is the kind of thing I am going to stay with now that I am "fre" and do not have to bother with nonsense that does not really interest me (politics). |
| 1966/04/10 | Eckhart | Meister Eckhart / Meister Eckhart ; a modern transl. by Raymond Bernard Blakney |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 38
| The best thing of all was lying reading Eckhart, or sitting up, when I finally could, copying sentences from the sermons that I can use if I write on him. It was this that saved me, and when I got back to the hermitage last evening to say the Easter offices everything else drained off and Eckhart remained as real. The rest was like something I had imagined. |
| 1966/06/02 | Anagarika Brahmacari Govinda | Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism / pseudonym of Ernst Lothar Hoffman |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 75
| Finished [Idries] Shah on Sufism [The Sufis (New York, 1964)] the other day. Parts of its are good. Reading Laura [Anagarika Brahmacari] Govinda on Foundations of] Tibetan Mysticism [New York, 1960]. |
| 1966/06/30 | Meister Eckhart | Beati pauperes spiritus. English. Meister Eckhart's sermon on Beati pauperes spiritu / (Eckhart von Hochheim) ; transl. by Raymond Bernard Blakney |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 92
| "Blessed are the pure in heart who leave everything to God now as they did before theyever existed." Eckhart [from the tractate Von der Abgeschiedenheit]. This is what I have to get back to. It is coming to the surface again. As Eckhart was my life-raft in the hospital, so now also he seems the best link to restore continuity: my obedience to God begetting His love in me (which has never stopped!). |
| 1967/04/15 | Johannes Tauler | Book of the Poor in Spirit |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 218
| On the other hand I know where my roots really are - in the mystical tradition, not in the active and anxious secular city business. Not that I don't have any obligation to society. Etc. But - [am] reading Mircea Eliade and a book on Ibn al Arabi, and the Book of the Poor in Spirit again. |
| 1967/05/12 | William Johnston S.J. | Mysticism of the Cloud of Unknowing |
Ltrs: WtoF p. 332
| I am at present reading a most revealing book by a Japanese scholar, Toshihiko Izutsu, comparing the Sufi mystic Ibn Arabi with Taoists. The first volume only, on Ibn Arabi, is available, I believe. Others will follow which will show the resemblances. This is very important. If you do not know it already I recommend it to you, and it is easily accessible to you, being published by Keio University. Now, you may have received my new book, Mystics and Zen Masters. It is very sketchy and imperfect, but it may perhaps have some useful material in it. If you do not know the treatise on the "Cloud of Unknowing" I think the remarks in my book will indicate that it would interest you. A friend of mine [William Johnston] has written a study of it with some reference to Zen [The Mysticism of the Cloud of Unknowing, 1967]. It ought to appear soon. I wrote a preface to it. I will send you a copy of the book if and when I get one. |
| 1967/05/14 | Hieronymus | Vita Sancti Pauli Eremitatae |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 235
| As I have been asked to do a piece on Paul the Hermit,13 I reread Jerome's Vita today. A work of art, really. With plenty of monastic theology in its symbolism. A beautiful piece of writing, with deep mystical and psychological implications - so that whether or not it is "historical" is irrelevant. It awakens a kind of inner awareness of psychic possibilities which one so easily forgets and neglects. The return to unity, to the ground, the paradisial inner sacred space where the archetypal man dwells in peace and in God. The journey to that space, through a realm of aridity, dualism, dryness, death. The need of courage and of desire. Above all faith, praise, obedience to the inner voice of the Spirit, refusal to give up or to compromise. |
| 1968/01/16 | | Cloud of Unknowing |
Ltrs: HGL p. 66
| For about a year I have been giving conferences on Sufism here to the monks, based largely on books you sent me in the past. I have found Al-Hujwiri especially useful. I know another book of Dr. Nasr, but would be delighted some day to receive Ideals and Realities of Islam. I suppose the Suez problem affects us both, but I have a small paperback edition of the Cloud of Unknowing so I will send that air mail. I hope it reaches you safely soon. |
| 1968/05/21 | Andre Ravier S.J. | Mystique et les mystiques |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 118
| Reading first part of a book on Sartre which I abandoned, and then bits of [Andre] Ravier La Mystique et les mystiques, some of which not bad, much of which useless. |
| 1968/07/12 | Friedrich Heiler | Prayer: A Study in the History and Psychology of Religion |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 141
| I am also disappointed in Heiler on Prayer with his black-and-white division of mysticism (bad-quietistic"”world-renouncing-life-denying) and prophecy (good-dynamic "”world"”affirming"”lif"”loving). This is a mere cliche. Has nothing to do with the reality of either mysticism or prophecy"”except I would say both are "life-affirming" in a very strong sens"”but it depends [on] what you mean by "life." |
| 1968/11/24 | Jules Monchanin | De l'esthetique à la mystique |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 295-96
| In his preface to a book by the Abbe [Jules] Monchanin, a Frenchman who became a hermit on the banks of the sacred river Cauvery in South India, Pierre Emmanuel writes of vocation: "Qu'est-ce qu'une vocation? Un appel, et une reponse. Cette definition ne nous tient pas quitte.... [Note 74: From Pierre Emmanuel's "La. Loi d'exode," preface to De l'esthetique à la mystique by Jules Monchanin (Paris: Casterman, 1967), 7-8.] I wanted to copy a few more lines from Pierre Emmanuel in the Kurseong scholasticate but some people came in to see me and I was occupied until 8:15, when I went down to the front door to get in the jeep and go down to the main road. |
| 1968/11/28 | Arthur Koestler | Lotus and the Robot |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 304
| Dr. Raghavan had had quite a bit to say about his guru, Sankaracharya of Kanchi, whom I have not met"”he is traveling in the villages. I forgot I had read about him in Koestler's (bad) book The Lotus and the Robot. Rereading an excerpt"”I find Sankaracharya saying: "Adaptations have no place in the standards of spiritual discipline." Against shortening or changing the ancient rituals. No concessions to be made. One who cannot fulfill his obligations can somehow substitute by regret and repentance, but the obligations are not to be slackened. Koestler was bothered by this "unyielding attitude." Sankaracharya's views, he thought, "bore no relation to contemporaneity." |