| Date | Author | Title | Source | Quotation by Merton |
| 1939/10/16 | Aurelius Augustinus | Refutation of the Pernicious Teaching of those who would deter men from entering Religious Life |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 58
| Saint Thomas, in the Opusculum XVII, "Refutation of the Pernicious Teaching of those who would deter men from entereing Religious Life," quotes Saint Gregory, Morals, saying: "When my conscience was urging me to leave the world, many secular cares began to press upon me, as if I were to be detained in the world, not by love of its beauty, but by that which was more serious, viz, anxiety of mind. But at length, escaping eagerly from such cares, I sought the monastery gate." |
| 1940/01/13 | Robert Curzon | Visits to Monasteries in the Levant |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 134
| I have got Curzon's Monasteries of the Levant from the Library and right away I am going to read it. The seven sentences I have read look fine, the pictures look fine. Maybe then I'll read Arabia Deserta, only I don't think so. I think I'll read Duchesne's History of the Early Church, or Gasquet on English Monasticism or more of Gabriella Cunningham Grahame on Saint Theresa. |
| 1940/01/25 | Francis Aidan Gasquet | English Monastic Life |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 146
| Gasquet's English Monastic Life [Note 29: Abbot (Cardinal Francis Aidan) Gasquet's (1848-1929) English Monastic Life, 1904. He was the Abbot of Downside Abbey, Bath, England, and Prefect of Vatican Archives from 1918.] which I am skimming through, though plain and pedestrian in its tone, is a very interesting book-an extremely attractive book because of its material. |
| 1941/04/08 | Bernardus of Clairvaux | De Diligendo Deo |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 337
| S. BERNARDI DE DILIGENDO DEO. Causa diligendi Deum, Deus est; modus, sine modo diligere. Cap. 1. ["The cause of loving God, is God Himself; the way to love Him, is without any limit."] Dignitatem in homine liberum arbitrium dico: in quo ei nimirum datum est ceteris non solum praeeminere, sed et praesidere animantibus. Scientiam, vero, qua eamdem in se dignitatem agnoscat, non a se tamen. Porro virtutem, qua subinde ipsum a quo est, et inquirat non segniter, et teneat fortiter cum invenerit. Cap. 2. ["I call free will the dignity of man: in this he is set above and also rules over all other living things. His knowledge consists in knowing that he has this dignity, but also that it doesn't come from him. His virtue is that by which he immediately seeks eagerly the One from whom he exists and holds on to Him strongly when he has found Him."] |
| 1941/09/30 | Francis Aidan Gasquet | Henri VIII and the English Monasteries |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 417
| And yet I have done altogether too much sleeping with my face in a book-today I went to sleep in Chapter I of Gasquet's Henry VIII and the English Monasteries. |
| 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. 434
| The Ascent of Mount Carmel and Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and the "Book of Job" and the Dark Night of the Soul do not suffice to explain the heroism of this mighty child who is still, with all that, under this appearance of mediocrity which has allowed the memory to be surrounded by statues that revolt anyone who ever knew what taste was, and be desecrated by a commercialism that calls to heaven for vengeance-and yet doesn't! |
| 1947/01/12 | Edmond Martène | Voyage Litteraire de Deux Benedictins de la Congragation de Saint Maure / co-author Ursin Durand |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 36
| I am fascinated by [Edmond] Martène and [Ursin] Durand's Voyage Litteraire de Deux Benedictins [Paris, 1717]. It is the record of their journey around France in the early eighteenth century, collecting material for the Gallia Christiana, in the archives of the old monasteries. And there were hundreds of them. |
| 1947/03/10 | Marie Michel Philipon | Doctrine Spirituelle de Soeur Elisabeth de La Trinite |
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]. |
| 1947/03/10 | Pieter Meer de Walcheren, van der | Paradis Blanc |
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]. |
| 1947/03/20 | John of the Cross | Precautions |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 50
| For the rest of my religious life I want with God's help to dispose myself for His work in me, to which I am now totally consecrated, by learning to put into effect the Cautions and Counsels of St. John of the Cross. There is definitely a life's work there, but it means clearing away a tremendous amount of obstacles. It seems that this is the most effective, detailed, concrete, simple and practical set of rules of procedure I have ever seen. They even go into more fundamental detail than St. Benedict's chapter "De Zelo Bono" [RB 72: "The Good Zeal of Monks"] to which they are a kind of a complement although they may seem cold and negative. |
| 1947/03/30 | Godefroid Belorgey | Pratique de l'oraison mentale. T1: Oraisons ordinaires. T2 Oraisons mystiques |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 54
| There Dom Godefroid [Belorgey]'s Chapters in the morning generally have something in them to keep souls directed to contemplative prayer. This is good. One thing that struck me about Dom Godefroid's book [Pratique de l'oraison mentale (Paris, 1945-46)] of which I read bits of the second volume on mystical prayer was that it seemed rather light and thin. But at least it issomething. |
| 1947/03/30 | John of the Cross | Precautions |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 53
| The visitation is in full swing. If I had kept my resolution about following the Cautions of St. John of the Cross and "not seeing" anything that goes on in the community, I would not have found out by signs which of the monks were closeted with the General for two hours or more and I would not have been tempted to get impatient at the foolishness of human beings. |
| 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 |
| 1947/05/23 | | Meditations Cartusiennes pour tous les jours de l'annee. Three Volumes |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 76
| From Parkminster came three volumes of Meditations Cartusiennes. I did not think I would find anything in them, but I find them very good, along the same lines as our Spiritual Directory. Some good thoughts about the Holy Ghost, the companion of the solitary. |
| 1947/08/04 | Casimir Gaillardin | Les Trappistes, ou, L'ordre de Citeaux au XIX siècle: l'histoire de la Trappe depuis sa fondatione jusque'à nos jours |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 98
| Anselme Dimier's La Sombre Trappe [Paris, 1946] creates the impression it proposes to want to dispel: that the old school Trappists were very macabre. Perhaps that is the idea of the book: they were gloomy. We Cistercians are joyful. But it can be carried too far. There was plenty of the Cistercian spirit at La Trappe: you can get it from the introduction to [Casimir] Gaillardin's history [Les Trappistes. Paris, 1844]. They were not different from us except in accidentals, but some of the accidentals are important for their repercussions on the interior life. |
| 1947/08/14 | Anselm Dimier | La Sombre Trappe. Les legendes et la verite |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 98
| Anselme Dimier's La Sombre Trappe [Paris, 1946] creates the impression it proposes to want to dispel: that the old school Trappists were very macabre. Perhaps that is the idea of the book: they were gloomy. We Cistercians are joyful. But it can be carried too far. There was plenty of the Cistercian spirit at La Trappe: you can get it from the introduction to [Casimir] Gaillardin's history [Les Trappistes. Paris, 1844]. They were not different from us except in accidentals, but some of the accidentals are important for their repercussions on the interior life. |
| 1947/08/31 | William of St. Thierry | Expositio Altera in Cantica |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 104
| I thought for a moment, and with nostalgia, of the old days when I got so much consolation out of the Cistercian Fathers and the history of the Golden Age of the Order-the bright fall days four years ago when I opened Migne [Patrologia Latina] and found St. Ailred [of Rievaulx]. But God has taken all the joy out of what was then a brave new world. However, I am reading now William of St. Thierry's Expositio Altera in Cantica [Second Commentary on the Song of Songs] with profit, but with no special savor of any Cistercianism about it. I mean I don't see the stones of any monastery or see the cloister where he wrote or hear the bells of Signy. |
| 1947/09/07 | Guigo I | Meditations |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 105
| I don't think as much of Guigo I's Meditations as I once thought I might. Very lapidary, but not on an interesting enough level. Why was he apparently writing for seculars? Or was he? I'd better read them some more before I can say. |
| 1948/02/21 | | Exordium Magnum Cisterciensae |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 171
| This week I don't think de Rance was as bad as people sometimes say. Reading the Exordium Magnum, I find those old monks and the Trappists do not differ so much! |
| 1948/02/21 | Bernardus of Clairvaux | De Diligendo Deo |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 170
| The Lenten Book (De Diligendo Deo) is, from the point of view of my own interest and alertness to its value, the best I have had so far. |
| 1948/02/22 | Jean Berthold Mahan | Ordre cistercien et son gouvernement, des origines au milieu du XIIIe siecle (1098-1265) |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 172
| I looked at the new history by Jean Berthold Mahan [L'Ordre cistercien et son gouvernement, des origines au milieu du XIIIe siècle (1098-1265). Paris, 1945], who was killed fighting in Italy in 1944. It is very business like and looks tremendously solid. I felt flattered that this extremely capable historian belonged to my own generation (born in 1911 in Paris). And also it struck me: these people with their minds and their appetite for structure and solidity, they find things that satisfy them in twelfth century Cîteaux. [Etienne] Gilson, too. Henri Pirenne, too. And when I see Cîteaux as they saw it, I begin to find out something else about the way God's love works in the world. |
| 1948/03/04 | William of St. Thierry | Speculum Fidei |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 176
| Nos adoramus quod scimus. [We adore what we know.] I wonder if William of St. Thierry quotes that. He ought to. The passage in his Speculum Fidei [The Mirror of Faith] I just read, about how faith penetrates the sacraments of visible things and seizes the res sacramenti [the matter of the sacrament] by the understanding which is a gift"”an experienc"”sensus amoris illuminatus [the sense illuminated by love]"”all this fits in with that Gospel and could be a commentary on it. |
| 1948/04/25 | Marcel Aubert | Architecture cistercienne en France |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 199
| The two volumes of Marcel Aubert on Cistercian architecture in France finally arrived. Fr. Anselme Dimier got them for us, and it is a wonderful book. |
| 1948/05/17 | Godefroid Belorgey | Humilite Benedictine |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 206-06
| But providentially Dom Godefroid Belorgey's new book, L'Humilite Benedictine [Paris, 1948], came in at that moment. It is on the whole very good. So I started it and with the grace of the Holy Ghost the familiar ideas of Dom Anselme le Bail struck me in a new way and opened up new depths and let some fresh air into my prayer and delivered me from myself, and so, I have a lot to be grateful for: a recollected weekend, peaceful and free! |
| 1948/05/30 | Godefroid Belorgey | Humilite Benedictine |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 209
| In Dom Godefroid's book on humility I find out a lot about the real life and spirit of our Order, the life that breathes richly in our French monasteries and also here to some extent. It is not the sort of thing Papini is condemning either. It is genuine. That is the direction in which I have to tend. Giving up my own will as a hilaris dator [cheerful giver], desiring obedience, and hurrying for the bonum oboedientiae [the good of obedience]: thirst for God's will to be done. |
| 1948/09/07 | David Knowles o.s.b. | Religious Orders in England |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 230
| In Dom David Knowles' new book (Religious Orders in England [volume I of 3, Cambridge, 1948]) I found a few fine sentences on St. Francis and they got me all up in the air about poverty. Still, with the grace of God I might be able to do something about it, because it doesn't seem to be much use in going on as I am now. Today we were cleaning out that room and I got rid of a lot of things I don't really need. |
| 1948/09/20 | Bonaventura | Itinerarium |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 233
| Day and night I think about St. Francis and about poverty as I re-read the seventh chapter of St. Bonaventure's Itinerarium. |
| 1949/01/29 | | Rituel Propre de l'Abaye de Cisteaux |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 273
| I was reading in the Rituel Propre de Cîteaux that at Cîteaux they read nothing but St. Bernard at the reading before Compline for "many centuries""”the reading lasted un demi"”quart d'beure [half a quarter"”hour] and was varied by the Exordium Magnum during the Octave of St. Stephen Harding. Incidentally our Fathers also had an octave for the Purification. |
| 1949/02/10 | F.D. Joret o.p. | Dominican Life |
Ltrs: CforT p. 24
| But in any case, what amused me was that the Father who wrote the article asserted that "the degree of union with God" had "nothing to do with the problem" of differentiating between vocations in the objective sense of state. I opened [Pierre] Joret's book on the Dominican life and found a whole page which said that the life of union with God marks the summit of Dominican life and also that contemplation, far from being even an intermediary end, for a Preacher, is a true end to be sought for its own sake, the highest of all ends and not just a means to the apostolate. |
| 1949/02/20 | Antonin Gilbert Sertillanges | Vie Intellectuelle; son exprit, ses conditions ses methodes |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 283
| More pages in Sertillanges that made me laugh"”the ones about getting up in the middle of the night to scribble down the ideas that come to you. I'd hate to put down any of the notions that occur to me when I wake up in the middle of the night. Sertillanges is definitely not my tempo, and yet he has very good stuff about organizing one's work. Reflecting on my own position"”I have exactly the two hours minimum a day which he calls a minimum. These I have, I mean, for writing. I have other time for reading and prayer. In those two hours I have to take care also of correspondence, duties of charity (reading mss.) or obedience, proofs, contracts, photos for illustrations, talk to the printer on occasion, and order books, and resist the temptation to read catalogs and scraps of magazines"¦ |
| 1949/02/24 | F.D. Joret o.p. | Dominican Life |
Ltrs: RtoJ p. 305
| Talking about the active apostolate: the Thomist got after me for something I said. I felt it was rather flattering, on the whole, for a third year theology student to be refuted by one of the foremost magazines in the country. They got me on a technicality"”it concerns the material included in pp. 414 to 419 of the Mountain. It seems to me that what I was trying to say was obvious enough: first that no matter what state of life you belong to, one can and should lead a life of close union with God, and even be something of a contemplative, and share the fruits of that contemplation one way or another. And I also wanted to say that it seemed to me that since the preaching Orders were engaged in "active works that by their nature flow from the fulness of contemplation" that they were also committed, ipso facto, to contemplation, Nemo dat quod non habet. I find the same thing stated much more strongly than I made it in Joret's Dominican Life (pp. 82, 83). I mention this so that you can tell anyone where to get off if they say I am a heretic. |
| 1949/05/03 | David Knowles o.s.b. | Religious Orders in England |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 306
| I remember also the fragments of information I have heard about Dom David Knowles who is a much subtler and more poignant case. After all, there are passages in those two big books of his which are as good as anything that has been written recently about the religious life. I can see how he felt about so many things-the Carthusians, St. Francis' poverty. Really, here is a man who has perhaps understood and appreciated some of the finest things about monastic and religious life much better than the minds with whom he might have come in conflict. |
| 1949/05/13 | William of St. Thierry | Golden Epistle |
Ltrs: RtoJ p. 192
| I am busy trying to learn how to say Mass. My health is all right, except that I have a vile cold at the moment. That poor book is simply on the shelf until after our centenary. I get many little errands to do. A Benedictine in Belgium now has me checking variants in our manuscript of William of St. Thierry's Golden Epistle. "Do unto others "¦" I cannot refuse these services. Besides, I have the example of your devoted care in sending me copies of so many valuable notes. |
| 1949/07/09 | Jean-Baptiste Porion | Sainte Trinite et la Vie Intereure |
Ltrs: CforT p. 25
| Dom Porion sent me his delightful book on the Holy Trinity and the interior life, and on every page I found echoes of my own deepest interests and preoccupations. It is a beautiful book, especially beautiful in its simplicity. I close with the assurance that I remember you in my Mass, which remains my greatest joy, and I feel that Our Lord is pouring out the love of His Heart upon all my dear friends through this Sacrifice which He has given me the privilege of offering each day for them. |
| 1949/07/10 | Jean-Baptiste Porion | Sainte Trinite et la Vie Intereure |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 333
| Dom Porion sent me a little book he wrote anonymously, La Sainte Trinite et la Vie Interieure [Paris, 1948], and I was charmed by it. It is perfect in its kind. It is really a summary of all dogma, but very simple. It is a contemplative summary and therefore at the extreme opposite to anything that might have been boiled down for students. This is a summary which reveals the simple, allembracing intuition of the contemplative who sees all theology in the light of his mystical taste of reality in its highest causes. |
| 1949/08/04 | Thomas Aquinas | Summa Theologiae |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 344
| The short Prologue of St. Thomas to his Summa Theologiae is a very beautiful paragraph containing a whole discipline of study. His three points are that students (beginners, but it applies to all) are impeded from arriving at truth by: 1) the great number of useless questions, arguments and articles, 2) the lack of order in the way doctrine is presented, 3) repetition which produces confusion and boredom. The Dominicans and Cistercians had this at least in common"”that they wanted to get rid of all non-essentials. |
| 1950/00/00 | John of the Cross | Precautions |
Ltrs: SofC p. 19
| I had been hoping to meditate a little on the Cautions of St. John of the Cross. I have at least glanced through them. I took them as the standard of my religious life at solemn profession and have never really lived up to them. I know they contain the secret of success. Using them I know that I can really make good use of the opportunities God has given me here. I can lead a contemplative life here. It takes some doing, but if I do not insist on having everything exactly my own way, Our Lord will do most of the work. |
| 1950/01/21 | Bernardus of Clairvaux | Sermones de Diversis |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 401
| St. Bernard's Sermon 110, De Diversis, which I stumbled on just now by accident when I set out to look for the Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of November, is an interesting commentary on La Mort de Jean Madec. He laments the poverty of man. We are so indigent, we even need words. (Consequence: the more words we need, the greater our poverty.) We need them not only to communicate with others, but also with ourselves. For we are not ourselves. We are divided, exiled from ourselves. We have to communicate with the self from which we are separated. |
| 1950/01/27 | Bernardus of Clairvaux | Epistolae Opera Omnia |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 403
| The more I read St. Bernard and the Cistercian Fathers, the more I like them. There was a time when I was tempted not to like St. Bernard at all (when the Sermons in Cantica were read in the refectory, during my novitiate, I was irritated by the breasts of the Spouse.) I think that now, after eight years and more, I am really beginning to discover the depth of St. Bernard. This is because I have realized that the foundation of his whole doctrine, which is expressed as clearly as anywhere in Letter 18, is that God is Truth and Christ is Truth Incarnate and that salvation and sanctity for us means being true to ourselves and true to Christ and true to God. It is only when this emphasis on truth is forgotten that St. Bernard begins to seem sentimental. |
| 1950/01/31 | Bernardus of Clairvaux | Sermones de Diversis |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 404-05
| Hesychasm-is that the English word for it?-has been my latest discovery. I came across it in the Etudes Carmelitaines. It is a discipline, a technique to dispose the mind and body for contemplation. It is, or was, practiced by monks in the Orthodox Church. It is something like Yoga, but not so formal or so detailed. And it centers upon the Name of Jesus (as the Yogis concentrate all their powers upon the Mantra or Name of God) or on words of Scripture. What I like about it is that it reflected the spirituality of the Fathers of the Desert (cf. Cassian's conference on the Deus in Ad-jutorium is not really comprehensible, I think, without reference to the kind of interiorization implied by hesychasm) and of the Greek Fathers. But it also throws light on St. Bernard's sermon on the Holy Name. St. Bernard's prayer must have been something like hesychasm. |
| 1950/01/31 | John Cassian | Joannis Cassiani Opera omnia cum amplissimis commentariis Alardi Gazæi in hoc parisiensi editione, contra quam in lipsiensi, textui continenter ad majorem commoditatem lectoris subjacentibus |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 404-05
| Hesychasm-is that the English word for it?-has been my latest discovery. I came across it in the Etudes Carmelitaines. It is a discipline, a technique to dispose the mind and body for contemplation. It is, or was, practiced by monks in the Orthodox Church. It is something like Yoga, but not so formal or so detailed. And it centers upon the Name of Jesus (as the Yogis concentrate all their powers upon the Mantra or Name of God) or on words of Scripture. What I like about it is that it reflected the spirituality of the Fathers of the Desert (cf. Cassian's conference on the Deus in Ad-jutorium is not really comprehensible, I think, without reference to the kind of interiorization implied by hesychasm) and of the Greek Fathers. But it also throws light on St. Bernard's sermon on the Holy Name. St. Bernard's prayer must have been something like hesychasm. |
| 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. |
| 1950/04/22 | Jean Leclercq o.s.b. | St. Bernard mystique |
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 | 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! |
| 1953/05/10 | Joseph Creusen | Religious Men and Women in the Code |
Ltrs: SofC p. 57
| The main thing Dom Louis did was to make clear the fact that the Prior takes care of all the material needs of the scholastics"”looks after their needs when sick, etc. The M.S. [Master of Scholastics] does this only indirectly"”drawing to the attention of the Prior or infirmarian that such and such a student needs care. Prior receives accusations for breach of rule, gives public penances, etc. M.S. has no disciplinary function. Here the Fr. Prior also takes care of the investigation of candidates before ordination, as directed by the instruction of the S.C.R., "Quantum religiones omnes" (see appendix to Creusen, "Religious Men and Women in the Code," pp. 287 ff.). |
| 1953/05/18 | Jean Leclercq o.s.b. | St. Bernard mystique |
Ltrs: SofC p. 59
| I am not doing any work on a book on St. Bernard and there has been no announcement of any such book; hence I don't think it is in competition with your St. Bernard Mystique. If it gets finished"”or started"”before 1955, I will be surprised. The plan still exists, but I have no time to work on it. |
| 1953/11/05 | Jean Leclercq o.s.b. | Alone with God |
Ltrs: SofC p. 70
| It was a satisfaction to me when Father Abbot gave me permission to write the preface for your volume on Paul Giustiniani [Alone With God]. The preface is completed and is on the way to you by surface mail. I was happy to write it, and happy to go over your book again. I feel that it is especially important that the true place of the solitary in the Church should be brought out at this time when there are so many who despise contemplation and when even in the monastic orders there is a tendency to go off the right road precisely because the values for which the solitary exists are not appreciated. If my preface does not suit you, please feel free to alter or cut as you see fit, but let me know. Perhaps I could go over the proofs of this preface. |
| 1954/11/04 | Cuthbert Butler o.s.b. | Benedictine Monachism: Studies in Benedictine Life and Rule |
Ltrs: SofC p. 80
| A few weeks ago, by some miracle, we actually started reading Dom Cuthbert Butler's Benedictine Monachism in the refectory. That has never been done before, and it was not done this time either. We got as far as the third chapter. It would have been interesting to go right through such a book in a Trappist refectory. There might have been riots, etc. Most interesting. Whatever may be the shortcomings of the book, I think he is still one of the best and surest interpreters of the mind of St. Benedict"”yet in the end there is a tremendous difference between his interpretation and St. Benedict. As for me, I have got to the point where I stop interpreting. It is all I can do to wedge in a little solitude here and there, and that is what occupies me more fruitfully, I think, than haggling about the "ideal." For the rest, the students and St. Paul keep me busy, with my various projects "¦ |
| 1956/03/03 | Hilda Graef | Scholar and the Cross: The Life and Work of Edith Stein |
Ltrs: WtoF p. 130
| Shall I add to the immense list of books you ought to read? The February issue [of La Vie Spirituelle] has an excellent article by Regamey on psychoanalysis. Not just saying that analysis is okay for pious folk, but much more, doing a lot of good analytical thinking on Catholic lines. Also if you don't know Gustave Thibon, get to know him real quick. He is excellent. Regamey has other good books"”Poverty is one, The Cross and the Christian is good. Louis Bouyer's Paschal Mystery is good. You might like Hilda Graef's book on Edith Stein"”but oh well, there we go again. Everyone probably forgets that all you do is read books. I don't know how you can possibly stand it. I read actually very little now. Just walk around and think. |
| 1956/09/01 | Helen Waddell | Wandering Scholars |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 77
| The Cistercians of the 12th. century were forbidden to write not only rhyming verse, as Helen Waddell records, but any verse. And then, she has Serlo of Wilton always in a cowl, not only after his conversion, but before. [Note 9: Serlo of Wilton (1110?-1181) was a writer of erotic verse who later entered the monastic life, eventually becoming abbot of the monastery of L'Aumone near Chartres, France.] |
| 1957/09/13 | Dom Alexis Presse | A l'ecole de St. Benoît |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 117
| Dom Alexis Presse-"A l'ecole de St. Benoît" ["In the School of St. Benedict"] has some very nice things-a good sense of balance everywhere. But not in his chapter on the office. Defending the Opus Dei on a kind of aristocratic basis-Opus Dei, in Latin, sung is far above what the base ordinary faithful would ordinarily like. All the rest-sentimentalism etc. |
| 1958/04/04 | Jean Leclercq o.s.b. | Amour des lettres et le desier de Dieu. Initiation aux auteurs monastiques du moyen age |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 188
| I had been reading Dom Leclercq's new book L'Amour des lettres et le Desir de Dieu which is very fine, and I spent most of the time in a meditatio of psalms 85 and 86 saying them over and over by heart in the depths of my being. These were the ones I have recited scores of times before without ever seeing them. How long it takes us to discover some of the psalms. |
| 1958/11/10 | Jean Mabillon o.s.b. | Traite des etudes monastiques |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 229
| Reading Mabillon's wise and delightful book on monastic studies. Among other things-this beautiful quotation from Seneca: "Si te ad studia revocaveris, omne vitae fastidium epurgeris, nec noctem fieri optabis tardis lucis, nec tibi gravis eris, nec aliis superacuris." ["If you will give yourself to study, you will ease every burden of life, you will neither wish for night to come or the light to fail; neither shall you be worried or preoccupied with other things."] |
| 1959/04/15 | Cuthbert Butler | Western Mysticism: The Teaching of SS Augustine Gregory and Bernard on Contemplation and the Contemplative Life |
Ltrs: SofC p. 119
| For the Novice Master"”well, it goes without saying that Bouyer's Meaning of the Monastic Life is fundamental. One doesn't have to agree perfectly with absolutely everything he says. Dom Jean Leclercq on St. Bernard (in French) is also good, and Gilson's Mystical Theology of St. Bernard is a must. Also I would say Dom Cuthbert Butler's Western Mysticism is not bad but controversial. You should know it. I assume you are familiar with the mimeographed material that comes from the Maison Generalice and from Chimay and places like that. The notes put out by Fr. Francis Mayhieu when Novice Master at Chimay are very good. Here are authors I recommend in a general way: Guardini always fine. Bouyer, Danielou, De Lubac (some books), Josef Pieper (Thomist), Von Balthasar (controversial but generally very good). |
| 1959/04/15 | Etienne Gilson | Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard / translation from the French: La theologie mystique de Saint Bernard |
Ltrs: SofC p. 119
| For the Novice Master"”well, it goes without saying that Bouyer's Meaning of the Monastic Life is fundamental. One doesn't have to agree perfectly with absolutely everything he says. Dom Jean Leclercq on St. Bernard (in French) is also good, and Gilson's Mystical Theology of St. Bernard is a must. Also I would say Dom Cuthbert Butler's Western Mysticism is not bad but controversial. You should know it. I assume you are familiar with the mimeographed material that comes from the Maison Generalice and from Chimay and places like that. The notes put out by Fr. Francis Mayhieu when Novice Master at Chimay are very good. Here are authors I recommend in a general way: Guardini always fine. Bouyer, Danielou, De Lubac (some books), Josef Pieper (Thomist), Von Balthasar (controversial but generally very good). |
| 1959/04/15 | Louis Bouyer | Meaning of the Monastic Life |
Ltrs: SofC p. 119
| For the Novice Master"”well, it goes without saying that Bouyer's Meaning of the Monastic Life is fundamental. One doesn't have to agree perfectly with absolutely everything he says. Dom Jean Leclercq on St. Bernard (in French) is also good, and Gilson's Mystical Theology of St. Bernard is a must. Also I would say Dom Cuthbert Butler's Western Mysticism is not bad but controversial. You should know it. I assume you are familiar with the mimeographed material that comes from the Maison Generalice and from Chimay and places like that. The notes put out by Fr. Francis Mayhieu when Novice Master at Chimay are very good. Here are authors I recommend in a general way: Guardini always fine. Bouyer, Danielou, De Lubac (some books), Josef Pieper (Thomist), Von Balthasar (controversial but generally very good). |
| 1959/06/28 | Eckhart | Meister Eckhart / Meister Eckhart ; a modern transl. by Raymond Bernard Blakney |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 298
| Opened a new translation of Eckhart, and immediately hit upon this: "Obedience has no cares, it lacks no blessings. Being obedient, if a man purifies himself, God will come to him in course; for where he has no will of his own, then God will command for what God would command for Himself"¦ When I do not choose for myself, God chooses for me." I am sure now that it has been a temptation, all along, to think that by staying here where I like to pray in the woods I would be cuddling in self-love. |
| 1959/09/26 | | Philokalia |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 332
| A copy of two volumes of the Philokalia sent by B. Rambusch from Athens, arrived the other day. Magnificent. I had been told it was unobtainable. A new edition - it was begun in 1957. I read it slowly and sedulously - much dictionary work. |
| 1959/12/02 | | Apophthegmata Patrum |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 350
| Solitude - witness to Christ - emptiness. Apophthegmata [Sayings of the Desert Fathers] in P[atrologia] G[raeca]. |
| 1959/12/06 | Rene Voillaume | Au coeur des masses. La vie religieuse des Petits Frères du Père de Foucauld |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 353
| Read a bit of Voillaume on the poverty of the Little Brothers. Finished Neal Breman's excellent book The Making of a Moon. |
| 1960/01/15 | Nicholas of Narbonne | Ignea Sagitta (The Flaming Arrow) |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 369
| Getting back read the Ignea Sagitta [The Fiery Arrow] again-in view of article on Carmelite ideal. It is clear to me that I have simply been fooling myself and looking for consolation and recreation in sensual and secular ways which is all very foolish. This document may be extreme, but it is passionately sincere and always moves me to compunction. |
| 1960/09/25 | Joseph Daoust | Dom Martène, un Geant de l'Erudtition benedictine |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 52
| Finished Abinger Harvest, embarrassed a little by the pageant but loved all the rest of it. Finished Isaias. Not finished-Daniel the Stylite. But turned him in anyway. Pussy's life of Dom Martène. [Note 17: Merton may well be referring to the biography of Benedictine Dom Edmond Martène by Joseph Daoust, Dom Martène, Un Geant de l'Erudition benedictine (Fontanelle, 1947) ] I'll keep at it. And I want to read this about Toumliline, too. |
| 1960/10/24 | Joseph Daoust | Dom Martène, un Geant de l'Erudtition benedictine |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 59
| Finishing life of Dom Martène-the curious condition at Saint-Germain-des-Pres at beginning of 18th cent.-something like Gethsemani-analogous to our state-for we are certainly not students. |
| 1960/11/14 | Pierre Teilhard de Chardin | Divine Milieu |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 64
| Dom Gabriel [Sortais, the Abbot General], after consulting a professor in Rome, has refused permission to print an article I wrote on Teilhard de Chardin's Divine Milieu. A book in itself "harmless" they admit. But one must not say anything in favor of T. de C. One must "make the silenc" regarding T. de C. The decision means little to me one way or the other, and I can accept it without difficulty. Less easily the stuffy authoritarianism of Dom Gabriel, who cannot help being an autocrat, even while multiplying protestations of love. I rebel against being treated as a "property," as an "instrument" and as a "thing" by the Superiors of this Order. He definitely insists that I think as he thinks, for to think with him is to "think with the church." To many this would seem quite obvious. Is it not the formula they follow in Moscow? |
| 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. |
| 1960/12/05 | Isaac of Stella | Sermones |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 72
| Magnificent light in the lapidary sentences of Isaac of Stella. Fire struck from stone: but how marvelous! His Easter sermon-deep, deep intuition of faith as a resurrection because it is an act of obedience to God considered as supreme life. What matters is the act of submission to infinite life, to the authority of Creative and Redemptive Life, the Living God. Faith is this submission. The interior surrender of faith cannot have its full meaning except as an act of obedience. I.e. self-commitment in submission to God's truth in its power to give life; and to command one to live. |
| 1961/03/05 | Benet of Canfield | Rule of Perfection |
Ltrs: HGL p. 340
| I am reading Part III of Benet with the very greatest interest. It is true that he has a welter of divisions and subdivisions which I rather regret, but in between there are some marvelous passages. I find him very like Eckhart. We do have to open our hearts and "flow with God" with self-forgetfulness and the renunciation of mental objects, even the highest forms. In this of course we must always be called and led. He makes it clear. We are too rational. We do not permit anything to remain unconscious. Yet all that is best is unconscious or superconscious. Yes, the first and second mean are superb. I am not a professional San Juanist and have no more labels by which to be known. I think The Ascent [to Truth] is my worst book, except for two early ones "¦ |
| 1961/04/22 | Benet of Canfield | Rule of Perfection |
Ltrs: HGL p. 341
| I now have the first two parts of Canfield's Rule, though I have not had a chance to read them. The notes arrived safely some time ago in case I did not thank you already. Now: would you consent to my getting one of my friends to handprint, in a limited edition of not more than 100 copies, some selected passages from Part III, with perhaps a little note of introduction which I would write, Deo volente? This would not, of course, interfere with what they refer to as a "trade edition" of the complete Rule. And I would expand my introduction for that edition. I have at least three friends in mind, all of them great printers and two having a fine reputation among collectors. One of them will surely want to do this. What do you say? All we will "get out of it" (!) will be a few copies of the book, but I feel amply rewarded just in seeing something fine finely printed. For God's glory and for the honor of His saints! "¦ Do you know where I might get hold of the Vansteenberghe life of Canfield? If necessary you could order it from Blackwell's for me and the bill could be sent to my London publisher. Please let me know. |
| 1961/07/28 | Pieter Meer de Walcheren, van der | Paradis Blanc |
Ltrs: SofC p. 139
| It was a joy to receive your book with the very cordial dedication which you inscribed there. I am convinced that you speak the truth, because when I read your pages, a feeling sweeps over me which takes in all of your love for "our spiritual family." I feel an extraordinary affinity with that wonderful brilliance of Leon Bloy. This has been going on for twenty years, ever since the days when I took out all his books from the Columbia University Library. I noticed that Raissa Maritain and I were the only ones who read them. (One can tell this from the library cards which you have to sign: sometimes I preceded her, other times she arrived before me, but we went through all the volumes together without my ever running into her.) The part on Leon Bloy is wonderful. All "my" France comes back to me, with the mystery of my own vocation which my sojourn in France had prepared. The part about Raissa and Christine and Dom Pieterke is very moving: in the case of the latter two, it's my first acquaintance with them. There's no need to tell you that I have known you for a long time, because the Paradis Blanc is one of my favorite books"”especially the beautiful conference (in the style of Cassian) with Dom Porion. Is he well? I have not written him in a long tim"”since the "debacl" of my Carthusian leanings. But looking back, I have to say that my Father Abbot permits me, all the same, a substantial amount of solitude. |
| 1961/07/28 | Pieter Meer de Walcheren, van der | Rencontres: Leon Bloy, Raïssa Maritain, Christine et Pieterke |
Ltrs: SofC p. 139
| It was a joy to receive your book with the very cordial dedication which you inscribed there. I am convinced that you speak the truth, because when I read your pages, a feeling sweeps over me which takes in all of your love for "our spiritual family." I feel an extraordinary affinity with that wonderful brilliance of Leon Bloy. This has been going on for twenty years, ever since the days when I took out all his books from the Columbia University Library. I noticed that Raissa Maritain and I were the only ones who read them. (One can tell this from the library cards which you have to sign: sometimes I preceded her, other times she arrived before me, but we went through all the volumes together without my ever running into her.) The part on Leon Bloy is wonderful. All "my" France comes back to me, with the mystery of my own vocation which my sojourn in France had prepared. The part about Raissa and Christine and Dom Pieterke is very moving: in the case of the latter two, it's my first acquaintance with them. There's no need to tell you that I have known you for a long time, because the Paradis Blanc is one of my favorite books"”especially the beautiful conference (in the style of Cassian) with Dom Porion. Is he well? I have not written him in a long tim"”since the "debacl" of my Carthusian leanings. But looking back, I have to say that my Father Abbot permits me, all the same, a substantial amount of solitude. |
| 1961/09/09 | | Apophthegmata Patrum |
Ltrs: HGL p. 345
| For my own part (witness The Wisdom of the Desert) I purposely edit the material in a way that seems to me to be attractive and interesting. I make it my own and do what I like with it. This is extreme left-wing activity, and one can do it with something that has been done over and over like the Apothegmata. I am fortunately in a position to do this if I want to, and the scholars can, as we say in this country, go and cry in their beer for all I care. This is shockingly independent and un-humble, I am afraid. Perhaps I will feel remorse when I examine my conscience at noon today, but I doubt this very much. Perhaps you had better send an urgent call to the Carmelites to pray for me. |
| 1961/10/03 | Henry Corbin | Imagination creatrice dans le soufisme d'Ibn 'Arabi |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 167
| The Corbin book on Ibn al' Arabi is in ways tremendous. The plays and changes on the theme of the divine compassion, on the "sympathy" of the spirit and God, on God seeking to manifest Himself in the spirit that responds to a "Nam" which it is meant to embody in its life. Compare the medieval Cistercians with their births of Christ in us. Need for compassion and tenderness towards the infinite fragility of the divine life in us which is real and not an idea or an image (as is our conception of God as "object"). This could and should lead me more and more to a new turning, a new attitude, an inner change, a liberation from all futile concerns to let Him emerge in His mystery and compassion within me. Yielding to the inexplicable demand of His presence in weakness. To be very careful and timid now about those innumerable self-affirmations that tend to destroy His weakness and littleness in me-fortunately indestructible. This mustard seed, His kingdom in me. The struggle of the very small to survive and change my self-affirmations. |
| 1961/12/04 | Guigo II | Scala Claustrarum |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 184
| Reading Clement still, and the Scala Claustralium (for the novices) and began today The Causes of World War III by C. Wright Mills. Clear and forthright, one of the best of the good books on peace that are being written, for this country truly has a conscience and I am inspired by the fact. Life of Fr. Joseph Metzger, executed by the Nazis for his peace efforts. It is deeply moving, and suggests many reflections, as I myself may end up that way, and I can think of worse ways of dying. I do not account myself worthy of such a death. |
| 1962/01/21 | Trevor Leggett | first Zen reader |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 196
| Amakuki Sessan in his commentary on Hakuin's "Song of Meditation" (conferences given on the radio in 1934!!) has a beautiful passage on the right use of all things-close to the very heart of Benedict's idea of poverty and also close to Shaker simplicity. Advantageous use (not wasting), loving use, living use, pure use, spiritual use. |
| 1962/02/14 | Nicholas of Narbonne | Ignea Sagitta (The Flaming Arrow) |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 203
| Milarepa's prayer in solitude-austere and beautiful. Something to meditate on-like the Fiery Arrow. |
| 1962/06/07 | Cassiodorus | De Anima |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 225
| The serene, pure music of Cassiodorus's prayer at the end of his De Anima [On the Soul]! What nobility of mind. Christian and classic nobility, simplicity, harmony. And what depth of religion. |
| 1962/06/08 | Cassiodorus | De Anima |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 225
| O Cassiodorus, reading you is like coming home to everything germane to my spirit! The existential acuteness of the De Anima, which, considered superficially, might seem to be only an exercise in fantasy. |
| 1962/06/09 | Cassiodorus | Institutiones Divinarum et Saecularium Litterarum |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 225
| I never thought I would discover in myself a hunger for something like Cassiodorus' Chapters on Rhetoric, or even Grammar. And even for Donatus, to whom he refers. But everything in Cassiodorus is attractive because it is clean and clear. One can appreciate his clarity without attaching an indiscreet importance to the subjects on which he speaks clearly. But perhaps we have forgotten that grammar, rhetoric and the other liberal arts do have an importance. |
| 1962/06/26 | Cassiodorus | De Anima |
Ltrs: Hammer p. 159
| Now I have a little idea for something to print. It is a beatiful prayer of Cassiodorus at the end of his De Anima. Perhaps by the 7th I will have a rough translation finished for you to see. And of course I would write a little introduction. In all, it would probably be almost the same length as Hagia Sophia. In fact I am thinking of doing more work on Cassiodorus. I have been reading a lot of his worik. I wonder if Carlyn has in the library the critical edition of Cassiodorus's "Instituta" (done by R.A.B. Mynors, Oxford 1937). Or if she has anything else on him. All I have is Migne and a couple of Catholic journals that have some articles on him. |
| 1962/07/04 | Dietrich Hildebrand, von | In Defense of Purity |
Ltrs: SofC p. 145
| Transformation in Christ is a difficult book, and I let the novices read it without however pushing them. On the other hand Von Hildebrand's Defense of Purity is, it seems to me, a superbly spiritual treatment of chastity. There is a lot about marriage in it, but I feel the novices ought to appreciate the married state which they are renouncing. What good to renounce it if they do not know its dignity? For a retiro however the needs might be different. |
| 1962/07/04 | Dietrich Hildebrand, von | Transformation in Christ |
Ltrs: SofC p. 145
| Transformation in Christ is a difficult book, and I let the novices read it without however pushing them. On the other hand Von Hildebrand's Defense of Purity is, it seems to me, a superbly spiritual treatment of chastity. There is a lot about marriage in it, but I feel the novices ought to appreciate the married state which they are renouncing. What good to renounce it if they do not know its dignity? For a retiro however the needs might be different. |
| 1962/07/04 | Ida Friederieke Görres | Hidden Face: A Study of St. Therese of Lisieux |
Ltrs: SofC p. 145
| Bouyer on the Meaning of the Monastic Life we regard as standard. In an older context, there is Dom Marmion, always safe and solid. Bouyer's new Introduction to Spirituality is a bit advanced, but I should think you might be able to use it. A perfect biography of St. Therese which is very useful for all religious is the Hidden Face by [Ida] Goerres. We always like Guardini here. To my mind he is one of the most important and articulate Catholic authors of the moment. He has good things on prayer, faith, and so on. Prayer in Practice comes to mind as excellent. Fr. Danielou is liked by the novices and I like him too. Also Hubert Van Zeller. |
| 1962/07/04 | Louis Bouyer | Meaning of the Monastic Life |
Ltrs: SofC p. 145
| Bouyer on the Meaning of the Monastic Life we regard as standard. In an older context, there is Dom Marmion, always safe and solid. Bouyer's new Introduction to Spirituality is a bit advanced, but I should think you might be able to use it. A perfect biography of St. Therese which is very useful for all religious is the Hidden Face by [Ida] Goerres. We always like Guardini here. To my mind he is one of the most important and articulate Catholic authors of the moment. He has good things on prayer, faith, and so on. Prayer in Practice comes to mind as excellent. Fr. Danielou is liked by the novices and I like him too. Also Hubert Van Zeller. |
| 1962/07/04 | Romano Guardini | Prayer in Practice |
Ltrs: SofC p. 145
| Bouyer on the Meaning of the Monastic Life we regard as standard. In an older context, there is Dom Marmion, always safe and solid. Bouyer's new Introduction to Spirituality is a bit advanced, but I should think you might be able to use it. A perfect biography of St. Therese which is very useful for all religious is the Hidden Face by [Ida] Goerres. We always like Guardini here. To my mind he is one of the most important and articulate Catholic authors of the moment. He has good things on prayer, faith, and so on. Prayer in Practice comes to mind as excellent. Fr. Danielou is liked by the novices and I like him too. Also Hubert Van Zeller. |
| 1962/07/14 | | Regula Magistri |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 230-31
| Lately discovered the Regula Magistri [Rule of the Master] and began to take an interest in the whole question about it. Article of Fr. Eugene [Manning] of Rochefort in the Collectanea got me started. Have read a little of the Regula and it is wonderful. |
| 1962/08/11 | Cassiodorus | Introduction to Divine and Human Readings by Cassiodorus Senator / Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Jones Leslie Webber |
Ltrs: Hammer p. 162
| You have already sent me the book from Columbia. It is the edition of Cassiodorus's "Divine and Human Readings" by Jones. In fact you sent two copies, of which I returned one. I am glad to kwow of the two dissertations however, but there is no immediate need for them. I will keep them in mind. Many thanks |
| 1962/10/11 | Joseph Marie Parent | Doctrine de la Creation dans l'Ecole de Chartres. Etude et textes |
Ltrs: SofC p. 148
| For some time I have been very interested in the 12th-century School of Chartres. The more I come to know of these Masters, the better I like them and the more I am convinced that I ought to work on them quite seriously. I have read a great deal of John of Salisbury in Migne, of course, but I am also getting into William of Conches, through the texts in Parent's book, La Doctrine de la Creation "¦ and also in Moralium Dogma (Holberg). I am acquainted with the more accessible sources, like R. L. Poole, Huizinga's "Essay on John of Salisbury," and so on. I can also get Clerval from a nearby Protestant seminary. |
| 1962/11/13 | Adalbert Vogüe, De o.s.b. | La communaute et l'abbe dans la Règle de saint Benoît |
Ltrs: SofC p. 153
| Finally I am reading Dom Adalbert de Vogüe's new book on the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Rule of the Master. I wonder if you would be interested in a brief review article, though the book is in French. I think he makes some important new points, and would be glad to try it if you think it might be worthwhile |
| 1962/11/27 | Adalbert Vogüe, De o.s.b. | La communaute et l'abbe dans la Règle de saint Benoît |
Ltrs: SofC p. 157-58
| The book of Fr. Adalbert [de Vogüe] (La Communaute et l‘Abbe) is exceptionally good. It is one of the best treatments of the cenobitic life I have seen (seriously). It makes you realize the importance of making the cenobitic life what it really ought to be and not just some kind of a chummy picnic-cum-hairshirts. It is neither sentimental nor totalitarian, and it points up the fact that the cenobitic society is unique with a function entirely its own, and unlike any other collectivity. When the cenobium is reduced to the level of any other society, including the community of an active modern religious congregation, it loses its raison d'être and it is normal for people to feel out of place in it. That is, people with monastic vocations. |
| 1963/01/26 | Tyrannius Rufinus | Historia Monachorum in Aegypto |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 294
| Last day of retreat. Reading Rufinus Historia Monachorum and also Dialogues of Sulpicius Severus. Utterly ashamed and annoyed that I have never read the Hist. Monachorum before. What have I been doing? I have been under a kind of delusion that I was living as a monk all these years-and that I knew what the monastic life was and had read a great deal of the traditional source material. I haven't even scratched the surface, and my heart has not been that of a monk. The story of John of Lycopolis, the urgency of his lessons, the sweetness and simplicity of the style move me very deeply. |
| 1963/03/05 | Gregorio Penco | Storia del monachesimo in Italia: Dalle origini alla fine del medio evo |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 301
| For my Lenten book I have [Gregorio] Penco's competent History of Italian Monasticism (in Italian, pleasantly illustrated). |
| 1963/07/19 | Benedict of Nurcia | Rule |
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. |
| 1963/07/19 | David Knowles o.s.b. | Historian and Character and other Essays |
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. |
| 1963/07/19 | 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. |
| 1963/07/19 | P. Ladeuze | Essai sur le cenobitisme pakhômien |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 340
| Diligebat autem anachoresios plurimos, frequenter expetens solitudinem. Et illic dies in oratione persistens dominum supplicabat ut a tantis se fraudibus clementer eriperet. [He loved to go far into the desert, often seeking solitude. And there he spent his days in prayer, asking the Lord that in his mercy he would be delivered from all deception.] Vita S. Pachomii, C. II Charmed by the life of Pachomius-and have found much useful material in Ladenji's "Essai." Too many generalizations have falsified our view of Pachomian Cenobitism. |
| 1963/08/10 | Augustine Baker | Inner Life and the Writings of Dame Gertrude More / dom Benedict Weld-Blundell, ed. |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 6
| Have borrowed [Augustine] Baker's Life of Dame Gertrude More [The Inner Life and the Writings of Dame Gertrude More, 1910] from Stanbrook [Abbey] and like it very much. An important and original book. |
| 1963/08/23 | Augustine Baker | Inner Life and the Writings of Dame Gertrude More / dom Benedict Weld-Blundell, ed. |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 12
| However, I had a good morning (yesterday) working on Baker's life of Dame Gertrude More-a very wise and beautiful book, and strikingly original. A fine, free, courageous spirituality, so unlike the hidebound continental manuals of piety. And really "monastic." |
| 1963/09/10 | Augustine Baker | Inner Life and the Writings of Dame Gertrude More / dom Benedict Weld-Blundell, ed. |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 16
| Spent an hour or more on Baker's Inner Life of Dame Gertrude carefully reading the chapters on "Divine Inspiration" (or part of them). I can see clearly how much I have failed in this attention where my active life is concerned-especially in my eagerness to publish, to make contacts, to spread messages. How wrong I have been! |
| 1963/10/21 | Augustine Baker | Inner Life and the Writings of Dame Gertrude More / dom Benedict Weld-Blundell, ed. |
Ltrs: HGL p. 25
| I have been reading Dame Gertrude More. Will send you a thing about her and also some other mimeographed booklets. Please overlook innumerable mistakes! |
| 1963/11/21 | Dietrich Hildebrand, von | In Defense of Purity |
Ltrs: WtoF p. 309
| By the way, there is a book ostensibly for nuns, etc., but which besides virginity also treats married love quite sensibly: it is Dietrich von Hildebrand's In Defense of Purity. As you would not have picked that in a thousand years, I might as well mention it, as married people would not realize it also concerned them. The great thing in marriage is not an impossible ideal of fulfillment and exaltation but a mature rational Christian acceptance of the responsibilities and risks of human love. There is no harm in discussing all this frankly with your children, with the idea that you might learn on both sides from a frank exchange. Easy for me to suggest this, I suppose. It might be worth trying |
| 1964/01/18 | Petrus Abaelardus | Epistolae |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 63-64
| I wonder if anyone reads the monastic letters, etc. of Abelard. They are full of fine traditional material, in the manner of Jerome, clear, precise, and among the best monastic writings of the twelfth century. I am reading them now for the course on Bernard, in connection with De Conversione. Ought to do an article on them but I don't have time. Unable to buy [Franciscus Salesius] Schmitt's edition of Anselm. We have two volumes on interlibrary loan from West Baden-I have them until Easter and went to work on some of his letters too. A question of order, and of making time. |
| 1964/02/13 | Ammonas | Ammonii Eremitae Epistolae |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 76
| One of the great discoveries and graces of this year has been Abbot Ammonas. A magnificent primitive spirituality, the best of the ancient Egyptians (with Anthony, whom he succeeded as Abbot of Pisgar). We have him in the Patrologia Orientalis, printed in 1913-no one has done anything with it. Ammonas is not even in the dictionaries (except Dictionaire d'histoire et de geographie ecclesiastiques [Paris, 1912-]). Hausherr refers to him frequently, however. He should be translated and I might write an article on him. Grace of Lent. Thinking this morning of the meaning of covenant in my life. Ammonas on striving for the gift of the Spirit. |
| 1964/02/16 | Ammonas | Ammonii Eremitae Epistolae |
Ltrs: HGL p. 365
| Just a brief letter to thank you for the big book Crucible of Love. I have not got into it because I am swamped with books on interlibrary loan that I have to return at definite times, and at the moment I am not too keen on reading Carmelites for some reason. I have had so much of them in the past, and I am discovering new things, for instance Abbot Ammonas, the successor of St. Anthony at Pispir. He is marvelous and so far completely neglected. The best texts have been edited in the Patrologia Orientalis since before the First World War, but no one has done anything with them except Hausherr (who has been doing good stuff on Oriental spirituality) "¦ Also I am reading this great new Dutch Dominican, Schillebeeckx. (Isn't that a mouthful? But it is not as bad as it looks.) |
| 1964/03/14 | C.H. Talbot | Life of Christina of Markyate, a Twelfth Century Recluse |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 90
| Am reading the life of Christina of Markyate (recluse near St. Albans in the twelfth century) and find it marvelous [The Life of Christina of Markyate, a Twelfth Century Recluse, 1959]. |
| 1964/03/15 | François Biot | Rise of Protestant Monasticism |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 90-91
| Two dogs yesterday worrying a dead woodchuck in the fields, disturbed me when I was writing a review (book on Protestant Monasticism) [François Biot, The Rise of Protestant Monasticism, 1963] |
| 1964/04/25 | Martin Thornton | English Spirituality: An Outline of Ascetical Theology according to the English Pastoral Tradition |
Ltrs: HGL p. 26
| Meanwhile I have been getting on with other Anglican reading. Thornton on English Spirituality was of course attractive for its thesis that emphasized Benedictine, Cistercian and Victorine bases for Anglican spirituality. I did not agree with some of his rather oversimplified judgments but liked the book as a whole. I am reading Stranks on Anglican Devotion, which is informative. Also McAdoo on the Moral Theologians. |
| 1964/05/22 | Nora Kershaw Chadwick | Age of the Saints in the Early Celtic Church |
Ltrs: HGL p. 366
| The book I have on my mind and like very much is Nora Chadwick's lectures on the Celtic Church. This is really first-rate, and especially interesting to me as I really intend now to do something on recluses and the Irish started all that, or so it seems, at least in Europe (though the ones Gregory of Tours talks of in Gaul seem to have had an independent origin??). Certainly the recluses of the English Middle Ages were very characteristic of the English Church, and I am getting back to the Ancren Riwle, Aelred's Rule for his sister, and so on. |
| 1964/06/16 | | Teaching of Maelruain |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 114
| Read the Teaching of Maelruain (Rule of Tallaght) and some Irish poems. |
| 1964/07/18 | | Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 128
| The Navigatio S. Brendani came yesterday from Boston College. I began it this morning, studying it as a Tract on the monastic life-the myth of peregrinatio, the quest for the impossible island, the earthly paradise the ultimate ideal. As a myth it is, however, filled with a deep truth of its own. |
| 1964/07/21 | | Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 130
| Finished first reading of the Navigatio Brendani this morning. Interesting monastic vocabulary. The geography-a liturgical mandala? I have to check back on the significance of directions. North is liturgical hell here too, and the Promised Land is West (except that in reference to the Paradise of the Birds it is east (liturgical)). Two traditions perhaps. |
| 1964/07/28 | | Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 131
| Interesting background to the Navigatio Brendani-its connection with the Lotharingian monastic reform in the tenth century. A few fine paragraphs from the life of Bruno, archbishop of Cologne, and his love of learning (Irish and Greek). The Navigatio is using Celtic myth as a hook on which to hang a manifesto of spiritual renewal in the monastic life, both eremitical and cenobitic. |
| 1964/08/12 | David Knowles o.s.b. | Historian and Character and other Essays |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 135
| Last night I dreamed that Dom James suddenly announced that we would have funeral and quasi-military "parades for the dead" along with every office of the dead now... I have a suspicion that this is more than a dream and that we are in for arbitrary measures-more and more as he gets older. For instance, although everyone is now tired of Daniel Rops, having finished one book of his we immediately take up another, and a third is waiting after that! No use asking for anything else. I tried to get some essays from [David] Knowles' Historian and Character read, but no use!! |
| 1964/08/20 | Nicholas of Narbonne | Ignea Sagitta (The Flaming Arrow) |
Ltrs: SofC p. 228
| I love the Carmelite spirit, I mean especially that of the first Carmelites and the Ignea sagitta (a rare but very moving document on the solitary life). |
| 1964/08/21 | George Scott-Moncrieff | Scottish Islands |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 138
| Another nice letter from Nora K. Chadwick yesterday. Her sister was a Carmelite at Waterbeach for sixty years or so. Am finishing two excellent books Nora K. Chadwick recommended. [James Midley] Clark on St. Gall [The Abbey of St. Gall as a Centre of Literature and Art, 1926] and Dudley Simpson on the Celtic Church in Scotland (demythologizing St. Columba's mission-restoring others to importance). Have been reading about the Hebrides (G[eorge] Scott- Moncrieff [The Scottish Islands, 1952])-would like to see them someday. Astonishing number of monastic settlements used to be there-exactly the place for small, eremitical communities! Many especially on Tiree. I wonder why? Will I ever see the place? |
| 1964/08/21 | James Midley Clark | Abbey of St. Gall as a Centre of Literature and Art |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 138
| Another nice letter from Nora K. Chadwick yesterday. Her sister was a Carmelite at Waterbeach for sixty years or so. Am finishing two excellent books Nora K. Chadwick recommended. [James Midley] Clark on St. Gall [The Abbey of St. Gall as a Centre of Literature and Art, 1926] and Dudley Simpson on the Celtic Church in Scotland (demythologizing St. Columba's mission-restoring others to importance). Have been reading about the Hebrides (G[eorge] Scott- Moncrieff [The Scottish Islands, 1952])-would like to see them someday. Astonishing number of monastic settlements used to be there-exactly the place for small, eremitical communities! Many especially on Tiree. I wonder why? Will I ever see the place? |
| 1964/10/22 | Jean Leclercq o.s.b. | Otia Monastica: Etudes sur le vocabulaire de la contemplation au Moyen âge |
Ltrs: SofC p. 247
| Your Otia came yesterday and I began it immediately. It is just what I am looking for. A splendid book. |
| 1964/10/29 | Hans Urs von Balthasar | Word and Revelation. Essays in Theology I |
Ltrs: SofC p. 248
| Yes, there is work being done on a monastic ratio studiorum [program of studies]. There have been copies of documents and projects around here but I have not read them yet. It is all in an initial stage as far as I know. There is of course a lot of work being done on Canon Law and that came up at our meeting here. In fact there is a commission meeting on this at Spencer with the Benedictine periti who are working at the same thing. On monastic theology: Dom Leclercq mentioned lately that he thought Von Balthasar was the one who came closest to a monastic theology in our day. I very much agree. I am reading Von Balthasar's new book, Word and Revelation, which is excellent. |
| 1964/10/31 | Hans Urs von Balthasar | Skitzen zur Theologie |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 160
| An impressive passage in Balthasar's "Verbum Caro"-a deep and poignant essay. I will use part of it perhaps in conferences to novices and juniors on poetry and human experience. But I cannot help seeing it rather in its reference to my own vocation at the hermitage. These nights I have spontaneously been remembering the days when I first came to Gethsemani twenty-three years ago: the stars, the cold, the smell of night, the wonder, the Verlassenheit [abandonment] (which is something else again than despondency) and above all the melody of the Rorate coeli [Drop down dew, heavens]. That entire first Advent bore in it all the stamp of my vocation's peculiar character. The solitude inhabited and pervaded by cold and mystery and woods and Latin liturgy. It is surprising how far we have got from the cold and the woods and the stars since those days. |
| 1964/11/22 | Jean Leclercq o.s.b. | Otia Monastica: Etudes sur le vocabulaire de la contemplation au Moyen âge |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 168-69
| Adam the Carthusian (Scotus) in a fine text on quies claustralis [quiet of the cloister] (published by Leclercq in Otia Monastica) sums it all up, simply and adequately, the need for quies, not bothering with concerns foreign to our life. I want to give up the retreats. Yet already a letter has come from the Baptist Seminary begging me not to stop my talks. I was touched by it. No one could be more sincere and less political than Glenn Hinson, who wrote it. |
| 1965/02/14 | Rene Brunel | monachisme errant dans Vlslam, Sîdi Heddi et les Heddâwa |
Ltrs: SofC p. 265-66
| It is good to know that the "chroniques" on Islam and so on will get printed, even though not monastic. I have Schuon on Islam and the book on Hallaj, both of which I have been waiting to read, not certain whether you would be expecting a "chroniqu" on them. Can we decide more or less definitely one way or the other whether I should produce another chronique on non-Christian spiritualities for this year? If so I will gladly go ahead with it, and I have some interesting material which is close to monasticism even though as the Koran or rather some Hadith asserts: "There is no monasticism in Islam." Actually I think Dom Leclercq has written on this subject. Do you by any chance have his essay? It was published I think at Toumliline. If you like I can write myself because I need another study on the same thing published in Morocco (Brunel, Le Monachisme Errant dans l'Islam, Institut des Hautes Etudes Marocaines, 1955). I could write for both at the same time unless you have them on hand. |
| 1965/04/18 | Lord Walter Northbourne | Religion in the modern world |
Ltrs: WtoF p. 312-13
| I have just finished reading your book Religion in the Modern World. Since I did not want to send you a mere formal note of thanks, but wanted also to share my impressions with you, I have delayed writing about it until now. After a careful reading, spread out over some time (I have read the book a bit at a time), I believe that your book is exceptionally good. Certainly I am most grateful for the opportunity to read it, and needless to say I am very glad that Marco Pallis suggested that you send it to me. Not only is the book interesting, but I have found it quite salutary and helpful in my own case. It has helped me to organize my ideas at a time when we in the Catholic Church, and in the monastic Orders, are being pulled this way and that. Traditions of great importance and vitality are being questioned along with more trivial customs, and I do not think that those who are doing the questioning are always distinguished for their wisdom or even their information. I could not agree more fully with your principles and with your application of them. In particular, I am grateful for your last chapter. For one thing it clears up a doubt that had persisted in my mind, about the thinking of the Schuon-Guenon "school" (if one can use such a term) [an association of Sufi masters with whom Marco Pallis was associated], as well as about the rather slapdash ecumenism that is springing up in some quarters. It is most important first of all to understand deeply and live one's own tradition, not confusing it with what is foreign to it, if one is to seriously appreciate other traditions and distinguish in them what is close to one's own and what is, perhaps, irreconcilable with one's own. |
| 1965/08/10 | Anselmus of Canterbury | De Casu Diaboli |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 278
| (I am frightened by the awful clarity of Anselm's argument in De Casu Diaboli. A view of liberty that is essentially monastic, i.e., framed in the perspective of an entirely personal vocation and grace.) The need to pray-the need for solid theological food, for the Bible, for monastic tradition. Not experimentation or philosophical dilettantism. The need to be entirely defined by a relationship with and orientation to God my Father, i.e., a life of sonship in which all that distracts from this relationship is seen as fatuous and absurd. How real this is! A reality I must constantly measure up to, it cannot be simply taken for granted. It cannot be lost in distraction. Distractedness here is fatal-it brings one inexorably to the abyss. But no concentration is required, only being present. And also working seriously at all that is to be done-the care of the garden of paradise! By reading, meditation, study, psalmody, manual work, including also some fasting, etc. Above all the work of hope, not the stupid, relaxed, self-pity of acedia [sloth]. |
| 1965/11/01 | John (abbot) of Ford | Wulfric of Haselbury |
Ltrs: HGL p. 373
| I am reading the life of an anchorite in Devon, or rather Somerset I think, St. Wulfric of Haselbury. It is written by John of Ford (Cistercian abbey). You must know that area rather well, though it is perhaps a bit far south for you. Could you possibly lend me an ordnance map of that bit of Devon and Somerset? Around Haselbury, Crewkerne, and wherever Ford Abbey is. It is all within fifty miles of Exeter. I just want to borrow the map and get my bearings. I may do a couple of articles on this. |
| 1965/11/03 | Isaac of Stella | Sermones |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 311
| The comet! I heard about it yesterday in the monastery, went out to see it this morning, and went just at the right time. It is magnificent, appearing just at the ineffable point when the first dim foreshadowing light (that is not light yet) makes one suspect the sun will rise. Precisely the point vierge [virgin point]! This great sweep of pure silent light points to the sun that will come-it takes in a good area of sky right out over the valley in front of the hermitage. I walked down the path to see it well. It was splendid. I interrupted reading Isaac of Stella's Fourteenth Sermon on God's light and His joy in His creation. |
| 1965/11/12 | Sacheverell Sitwell | Monks, Nuns and Monasteries |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 315
| Finished [Sacheverell] Sitwell on Monks, Nuns and Monasteries and wrote a review for the Critic. |
| 1966/01/15 | | Rule for Recluses |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 6-7
| A Rule for Recluses edited by Olgin in Antonianum came on interlibrary loan from St. Bona's [St. Bonaventure University]. Though it is rather pedestrian yet it means a great deal. (English Rule of 13th century, or later.) There is no question that documents like this really speak to me and move me. I am completely attuned to them and to that time (Isaac of Stella, for instance). Lately with all the emphasis on being "contemporary" I have perhaps felt a little guilt about my love for the Middle Ages. This a foolish and rather servile feeling, really! "You have been bought with a great price - do not become the slaves of men!" (I Cor. 7:23) Where is my independence? That is the meaning of solitude, to be free from the compulsion of fashion, dead custom etc., and to be really open to the Holy Spirit. I see, once again, how muddled and distracted I am. Not free! |
| 1966/02/07 | Irenee Hausherr | Jean le Solitaire (pseudo Jean de Lycopolis), Dialogue sur l'Ame et les passions des hommes |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 17
| Today I have spent all this time on a discovery. "John the Solitary," a Syrian, whose Dialogue on the Soul and Passions was published by Hauscherr (in French) in 1939. It has remained practically unknown. Yet is extremely interesting. Can use a bit of it in the article I am writing now on Spiritual Direction in the Desert Fathers (for Hermits). |
| 1966/02/12 | Peter Damian | Works. 1853. S. Petri Damiani S.R.E. cardinalis episcopi ostiensis, ordinis s. Benedicti, e congregatione fontis-avellanæ : opera omnia : collecta primum ac argumentis et notationibus illustrat / Saint Peter Damian ; studio ac labore domni Constantini Cajetani |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 360
| Qui autem cellulam perpetuus incolit, ad stabilitatis praeconium de toto corporelinguam facit. [Whoever dwells in his cell for life makes of his whole body one tongue to proclaim the praise of stability.] St. P.[eter] Damian. Opusc[ulum] XV. c 28. In my own case this is complicated by the fact that I have caused literally thousands of people to have, for me, the illusory expectations I have of myself: expectation of something to be manifested in and through me - a deep new truth of some sort, a fundamental hope, a solution. Even though I know enough to tell myself that I will never find "a Solution," yet secretly my nature insists on this project! |
| 1966/07/21 | | Perfectae Caritatis |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 98
| Revising some notes on monastic life - read through the Council Decree Perfectae Caritatis ["Of perfect charity," "Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Lif"]. Deeply impressed by these lines: Through the profession of obedience, religious offer to God a total dedication of their own wills as a sacrifice of themselves; they thereby unite themselves with greater steadiness and security to the saving will of God. Very clear and helpful - and I have been evading this. I need to hear and take it to heart. No doubt my love for M. entails certain obligations to her, but I have been too willing to disobey in order to contact and console her. But I have been ordered to break off contact and sooner or later this will have to be final. I have to take it more seriously perhaps than I have. I am still committed to see her once more before she leaves, but really that should end it. Extremely difficult! |
| 1966/09/02 | | Au coeur même de l'Eglise. Une recherche monastique: les frères de la Vierge des Pauvres |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 120
| Still using P. Erwin's Directory for his Brothers of the Virgin of the Poor - Au coeur même de l'Eglise [At the Very Heart of the Church]. It is very good. I need it. |
| 1966/10/04 | Karl Rahner | The Dynamic Element in the Church (Quaestiones Disputatae) |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 145-46
| "If we had real humility and goodness we would see far more marvels of goodness in the Church. But because we are selfish ourselves we are only ready to see good, good brought about by God where it suits our advantage, our need for esteem, or our view of the Church." Since my retreat I have been reading this very good book on and off. More off than on I am afraid. But this statement, read this morning, clicks with what I have been realizing lately. Sunday afternoon, out walking in the sun and looking at the monastery without its phony and pretentious ancient steeple, and thinking of all that has been going on there, I realized how much good there really is in this community - not only in so many individuals (this I have never doubted or questioned), but in the community itself as it isorganized. I know this is a "good community" and a fortunate place in which to be today. But I count myself lucky to be here. There is really no other place in the Church now where I would rather be. I see so evidently that my hermitage is my true place in the Church. And I owe this to my community. Also, let's face it, to my Abbot, of whom I am so easily critical. |
| 1966/10/28 | Francois Rene Chateaubriand | Vie de Rance |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 152
| Reading Chateaubriand's life of Rance. This too is a fascinating work of art. Beautiful in its aberrations. A kind of harmony and order in its eccentricities. Power of his imagination forming all this into a credible and acceptable world. And I can't help being moved, and remembering the spirit that was here at Gethsemani when I entered. A bit fantastic, manichaean perhaps, yet there was a certain rugged truth about it. Sure, there is another kind of truth here today. |
| 1966/10/29 | Francois Rene Chateaubriand | Vie de Rance |
Ltrs: CforT p. 48
| I am reading Chateaubriand's Vie de Rance for the first time. It is an extraordinary piece of writing, constantly on the edge of surrealist poetry. I wonder if Jean Cocteau had ever read it. He would have been delighted with it. |
| 1966/11/18 | Jean Leclercq o.s.b. | Chances de la spiritualite occidentale |
Ltrs: SofC p. 321
| Yesterday your Chances de la Spiritualite Occidentale arrived and I want to thank you very much for it. Though I have seen most of the articles, in fact all of them, in one form or other, it will be a pleasure to go through them all together. But of course I must above all thank you for pages 28"”31, clearer to me in French than they were in the German version. Thanks for having the courage to defend someone that most people apparently don't know what to make of. That is an element of my solitude, but I do not grudge you bringing me this kind of welcome company. The desert is never absolute, or should not be! Seriously, it is a consolation to find oneself after all part of the Catholic Church and not excommunicated without appeal as Dom Calati and others would apparently want me to be. Many thanks for your charity and, I think, your objectivity too. It helps me to evaluate my own life and my own position in the Church. I am also very grateful to P. Von Balthasar for his generous introduction, or rather postface, to the little selection of my poems. The selection was good, the translations seem to me to be very well done, and I am happy with the whole book. With you and him behind me I can feel a little more confidenc"”not that I have yet made myself notable for a lack of it. Perhaps I have always had too much. |
| 1967/01/07 | Jean Leclercq o.s.b. | Chances de la spiritualite occidentale |
Ltrs: SofC p. 326
| Some useful remarks on your subject have been made by Dom Jean Leclercq, O.S.B., in his book Chances de la Spiritualite Occidentale, pp. 28-31. Also by P. Hans Urs von Balthasar in his postface to his German edition of some selected poems of mine. The book is called Grazias Haus and was published by Joannes Verlag, Einsiedeln, Switzerland, last year. |
| 1967/03/09 | Athanasius | Life of Anthony |
Ltrs: HGL p. 504
| This business of saying, as you do, that the monk is in the same boat with the Manichaean but just refuses, out of a Christian instinct and good sense, to be logical about it, is I think wrong. About early monastic literature, two things have to be observed first of all: 1. There are several different traditional blocks of texts. The Syrian tend to be very negative, gnostic, Manichaean (exception made for Ephrem, who is utterly different). But note for instance the development in the ideas of Chrysostom, for example. Then there is the reaction of Basil and the Cappadocians (blending Syrian with Egyptian-Greek lines). The Greek-Egyptian hermit school, Origenist and Evagrian, less negative than the Syrians, more balanced. Here in the Life of Anthony, a classic source if ever there was one, Athanasius goes to great pains to have Anthony say that all creation is very good and nothing is to be rejected, even the devils are good insofar as they are creatures, etc. etc. |
| 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. |
| 1968/08/20 | Father Raymond Flanagan O.C.S.O. | Relax and Rejoice |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 156
| I regret less some of the recent poetry, and especially Cables and Lograire. I wish I had done more creative work and less of this trivial, sanctimonious editorializing. Easy enough to see that Fr. Raymond's new book [Relax and Rejoice] is a sick joke. (Half the community is laughing at it-he could not even sell it to Bruce and Co., and had to print it privately-but now claims this was due to a "liberal plot" to suppress the "truth" which he alone reveals!) But is my stuff any less ridiculous? I wonder. Of course one has a duty to speak out. But as soon as you attach yourself to a "caus" your perspective gets distorted. |
| 1968/09/03 | Amadee Hallier | Monastic Theology of Aelred of Rievaulx: An Experimental Theology |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 163
| Yesterday I finished the preface to [Amadee] Hallier's Aelred [of Rievaulx]. Today I finished the first draft of the revised of Barthes for the Sewanee. |