| Date | Author | Title | Source | Quotation by Merton |
| 1939/05/02 | Aurelius Augustinus | Confessions |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 3
| Saint Augustine's problems are everybody's, except he did not have a war to worry him. The 12th chapter [in other versions chapter 18] of book VII is magnificent. Evil the deficiency of good. Everything that is, is good, by virtue of its mere existence. Corruptibility implies goodness. |
| 1939/09/13 | Aurelius Augustinus | Confessions |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 21
| Because ambitious men are absurd, the same suspiciousness towards ambition literature has fallen upon confession literature. (By ambition literature - not Horatio Alger: Stendal.) That is upon all confession literature indiscriminately. Rousseau as well as Saint Augustine. The Confessions of Rousseau belong with ambition literature: these of Saint Augustine do not. The difference is that Saint Augustine confesses God. Rousseau proclaims himself. |
| 1939/09/13 | Blaise Pascal | Provincial Letters, Pensees, Scientific Treatises. / translated by W.F.Trotter, in Great Books of the Western World |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 21
| A model sentence from Pascal. Maybe everyone who wants to write should, before he even starts, consider this sentence as much for its balance and its construction as for what it says: it is the beginning of all writing: "Il ne faut pas avoir l'ême fort elevee pour comprendere qu'il n'y a point ici de satisfaction veritable et solide, que tous nos plaisirs ne sont que vanite, que nos maux sont infinis, et qu'enfin la mort, qui nous menace à chaque instant, doit infailliblement nous mettre, dans peu d'annees, dans l'horrible necessite d'être eternellement ou aneantis ou Malheureux." ["We do not require a very lofty soul to understand that here is no real and lasting satisfaction; that our pleasures are only vanity; that our evils are infinite; and lastly, that death, which threatens us every moment, must infallibly place us within a few years under the dreadful necessity of being for ever either annihilated or unhappy."] Pensees III. 194. [Note 14: Blaise Pascal, The Provincial Letters, Pensees, Scientific Treatises... p.207] |
| 1939/09/14 | Thomas Aquinas | Summa Theologiae |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 23
| The difference: Pascal considering man in the light of the fall, original sin, redemption, etc. recognizes as "le mal" something easy in the fallen state. It is diverse; it is everywhere. Le bien est unique. cf. Saint Thomas. II-1.2.-Q70-A.4.16 [note 16:] The Summa Theologica, one of the major works of Saint Thomas Aquinas, was read and meditated upon by Merton during this period of his life in New York. He undoubtedly worked easily from the Latin text, as this journal makes clear. |
| 1939/10/00 | Thomas Aquinas | De Ente et Essentia |
Ltrs: RtoJ p. 151
| One of the most extraordinarily difficult things I have ever tried to do is understand St. Thomas' De Ente et Essentia. But it's sure fine when I can manage to make something of it. |
| 1939/10/14 | Aurelius Augustinus | Confessions |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 51
| About prayer... The past and the future, not real. Only the present is real. In eternity "all is present." (Saint Augustine, Confessions. XI. 11) "...my childhood, which is now no more, existeth in the time past, which now is not; but when I remember and recount it, I behold the image thereof in the present time, because that still remaineth in my memory."(XI. 18) "... it might be properly said that there are three times, a present time of things past, a present time of things present, and a present time of things future." (XI. 20) Prayer is a way of bringing man close to God. God is eternal: to him, all things are present. So, in prayer, therre is no past, properly speaking, no future. But in prayer, always present, is a present tense of things past - |
| 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." |
| 1939/11/02 | Thomas Aquinas | De Ente et Essentia |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 84
| The value of the distinction in De Ente et Essentia, cap. II, where Plato's separate forms are attacked and disposed of, I think, conclusively. At any rate it appears that way to me, although I do not follow the whole thing as clearly as I might. Distinction between a metaphysical and a logical definition. First and second intention. The first, metaphysical, deals with things as they are, in fact: the second, logical, treats them as they are, abstractly, in the mind. In other words, a metaphysical definition is stated in terms of act and potency and a logical definition in terms ofgenus and species, which are second intentions. They are the means of understanding things but not the things we understand. |
| 1939/12/08 | Theresa of Avila O.C.D. | Interior Castle |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 97
| Saint Theresa [of Avila] - The Interior Castle-says we must not dwell on selfknowledge alone, but pass on from it at once and go seeking God's love above everything, because every other desire is a traitor and every other knowledge is vain without God. |
| 1939/12/21 | Herbert J.C. Grierson | Methaphysical Lyrics & Poems of the 17th C. |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 121
| I opened up Grierson's Metaphysical Poets and saw on the page Donne's "Nocturnal upon Saint Lucie's Day": today being the winter solstice and the shortest day I thought it must be Saint Lucy's: but looking into my Daily Missal I found Saint Lucy's Day on the 13th and that today is the Feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle. Then this is really my Saint's day. I went to Mass and received [Communion] this morning but didn't know anything about it, and I am sorry. |
| 1940/01/04 | Henry Osborn Taylor | Medieval Mind: A History of the Development of Thought and Emotion in the Middle Ages |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 122
| A New Year-it feels like a New Year: a new decade. In his book about The Medieval Mind [Note 27: Henry Osborn Taylor (1856-1941), The Medieval Mind: A History of the Development of Thought and Emotion in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1911).] which I have been reading, Henry Osborn Taylor can tolerate practically everything in a Christian philosopher except the interest in numbers. Augustine, fascinated by the symbolic meaning of numbers, drives Taylor wild. Alcuin, or someone else, following after him, drivesTaylor crazy again. You could collect book-review blurbs about it: preoccupation over numbers gives us passages which represent, says Taylor, "Augustine at his worst." etc. |
| 1940/05/21 | Francis, Saint | little flowers of St. Francis. The mirror of perfection. The life of St. Francis |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 220
| Most of the time wrote and wrote: a Journal, longhand, in a ledger. A novel that has perplexed three publishers without any result. And also I read. Pascal, The Little Flowers and Rule of Saint Francis; Lorca; Rilke; Imitation of Christ; Saint John of the Cross and also William Saroyan, when I was too tired to read the hard stuff. |
| 1940/05/21 | Ignatius of Loyola | Spiritual Exercises |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 219
| Going through the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. |
| 1940/05/21 | Thomas a Kempis | Imitation of Christ |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 220
| Most of the time wrote and wrote: a Journal, longhand, in a ledger. A novel that has perplexed three publishers without any result. And also I read. Pascal, The Little Flowers and Rule of Saint Francis; Lorca; Rilke; Imitation of Christ; Saint John of the Cross and also William Saroyan, when I was too tired to read the hard stuff. |
| 1940/05/26 | Gregorius the Great | Homiliae in Evangelia |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 222
| "It shall happen to you for a testimony" (Luke, xxi. 13) and Saint Gregory the Great makes the comment that all these tribulations merely point to the Last Judgment and the tribulations in eternity for those who never consent to love God, but willingly cut themselves off from Him. "Ultima tribulatio multis tribulationibus prevenitur; et, per crebra mala quae preveniunt, indicantur mala perpetua quae subsequentur." ["The final tribulation is preceded by many tribulations; and by the frequent evils which go before are shown the perpetual evils which are to follow."] |
| 1940/06/16 | Aurelius Augustinus | City of God |
Ltrs: RtoJ p. 8
| Meanwhile I sit in the sun and look at the trees and wear a white tennis hat and wait for it to be August. I haven't even been reading anything much except a few snatches of The City of God and the Vulgate and Lorca's poetry. But anyway, that reminds me, I did write a couple of poems this month. I send them, along with a couple of others, and along with my best regards to your whole family. |
| 1940/10/21 | Bonaventura | Commentarius in secundum librum Sententiarum Petri Lombardi |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 240-41
| [After several quotations from S.Bonaventura commentaria in librum secuncum sententiarum] Visio beatifica: the two notions are inseparable: Saint Thomas places the emphasis on visio; Saint Bonaventure on beatifica. The creation, exemplarism, and the Word-according to Saint Bonaventure. For Saint Thomas, creation less active than as conceived by Scotus. Creative power inseparable from God's essence: an aspect of it. For Duns Scotus, a free act. For [William] Occam a completely free act, so free it can be misinterpreted as arbitrary. For Saint Bonaventure - the Divine mind contains not so much static Platonic archetypes as activesignificationes of all things. |
| 1940/11/26 | Søren Kierkegaard | Fear and Trembling |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 259
| A week ago today I bought Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling at the Oxford University Press, and have since talked about it so much I feel as if I had been reading Kierkegaard all my life. |
| 1940/11/27 | Søren Kierkegaard | Fear and Trembling |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 262
| I have read more of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. Fr. Philotheus laughed uproariously for happiness when I described Kierkegaard's image of the two dancers illustrating his distinction betweenresignation and faith. He laughed with great happiness when I told him of Lowrie's sentence in his introduction saying Kierkegaard had not yet been read in China because China doesn't take account of anything that is still unknown to America.I think Lowrie's introduction to his Biography is very good-even if he does talk about the man constantly as "S.K.," as if he were the head of a firm. I like Kierkegaard's notions that the greatest saints probably look like the stupidest bourgeois. |
| 1940/12/10 | Bonaventura | Itinerarium |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 275
| For Saint Bonaventure there is no distinction between charity and sanctifying grace. Charity is sanctifying grace considered as oriented from man to God. Grace is charity considered as oriented from God to man. Grace is the beginning; without grace man cannot pray for grace. Justitia [justice] is the directing and making use of charity, working in charity. For Saint Thomas-sanctifying grace an entitative habit of soul and charity is a habit of that distinct faculty the will. Without grace the habit of charity is worthless: but charity does not occupy the whole soul. There is need of grace. [followed by a long quotation from Bonaventura's Itinerarium 1.7] |
| 1941/01/16 | Anselmus of Canterbury | Proslogion |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 291-295
| [Eleven quotations of Saint Anselm Proslogion Cap. I, c. 226-236] d.d. januari 14-16, 1941 |
| 1941/02/11 | Bonaventura | Itineris Mentis in Deum |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 307
| Long quotation of S. Bonaventura Itineris Mentis in Deo. Cap. II.7. |
| 1941/02/11 | Robert Curzon | Visits to Monasteries in the Levant |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 308
| That spring in that front room on Perry Street I read some good books. Hopkins' letters; Bridges' Milton's Prosody; R. Hughes' In Hazard, E. M. Forster's Passage to India; Herodotus; Thucydides; Curzon's Monasteries of the Levant; Saint John of the Cross; maybe some Leon Bloy, I forget. Then the big thing that happened that spring was Finnegans Wake came out, and I remember the fine day it was when that happened. |
| 1941/03/11 | Bonaventura | Itineris Mentis in Deum |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 320-21
| Long quotations from S. Bonaventura Itin. Ment. in Deum. Cap III. |
| 1941/03/26 | Bonaventura | Commentarius in secundum librum Sententiarum Petri Lombardi |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 328
| Saint Bonaventure on the problem of the relation of the intellect, memory and will, to the substance of the soul. Are they three separate substances, of which the soul is made up? Can that be? No. Are they three accidents of one substance as Saint Thomas thinks? No. When he says they are accidents, he has to immediately qualify them as accidents in no ordinary sense, because the substance of the soul cannot be considered apart from them. Hereafter two quotations from I. Sent. 3.2. 1.3. Concl. T-I. p.86. and II. Sent. 21.1.2.1. ad 8th T.II. p.562. |
| 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."] |
| 1941/04/08 | Thomas a Kempis | Imitation of Christ |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 337
| And they must; that is part of His kindness: for if church windows and psalms and hymns always filled us, every time, with the same consolation, the deception, then, would be real and terrible: for then we should mistake them for God, and turn to them from Him, just as we are apt to turn to human love, from His love, and be deceived in that, also. "I would not have any such consolation as robbeth me of compunction; nor do I wish to have such contemplation as leadeth to pride. For all that is high is not holy; nor is every pleasant thing good; nor every desire pure; nor is everything that is dear to us pleasing to God." Imitation of Christ, 2. 70. |
| 1941/04/09 | Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus Boethius | De Consolatione Philosophiae |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 339
| The process may take days-or years. We think we possess some idea; then, by a series of accidents, through a long desert of difficulties, we come upon little scraps of intuition and dialectic with great labor, and all these are only part of the same old idea. But we never begin to understand the idea really well until this arduous and discouraging process also is under way. And in this, we are really living that idea, working it out in our lives, in the manner appropriate to our own sad contingent and temporal state where nothing is possessed but in scraps and pieces, imperfectly, successively. Yet we always long to possess truth as it is eternally in God's Divine Mind-"tota, perfecta, simul" ["complete, perfect, together"] (Boethius), and sometimes He gives us intuitions that, in a flash, resemble heavenly intuitions with a kind of image of completeness. But it is not real completeness. |
| 1941/04/09 | Thomas a Kempis | Imitation of Christ |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 338-39
| "Write My words in thy heart, and think diligently on them; for they will be very necessary in the time of temptation." "What thou understandest not when thou readest thou shalt know in the day of visitation." Imitation of Christ, 3. 3. 5 (It is not a book that is being spoken of here. The reading that is meant is intuition, understanding,-the clarifications of our reason and will, from time to time by God's grace and His truth.) |
| 1941/04/10 | Bernardus of Clairvaux | De Diligendo Deo |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 342-453
| Several quotations from Bernard of Clairvaux. De Diligendo Deo |
| 1941/05/14 | Etienne Gilson | Spirit of Medieval Philosophy |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 366
| An argument I had with Bill Fineran in the Gold Rail Bar, in 1936; I was attacking the Church, and said the existence of God couldn't be proved at all. An extreme position, I took. But I had been reading Gilson's Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, without understanding it very well. I had heard, from that, of Saint Bernard; and mentioned him, but Fineran hadn't heard of him. |
| 1941/06/21 | George Gordon Coulton | From Saint Francis to Dante |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 376
| I just refrained from heaving out the window the only book I've tried to read in weeks except stuff about Dante, Coulton's From Saint Francis to Dante. It contained some fine material, all drowned in Coulton's opinions-argument after argument to vindicate his Victorian optimism, his love of moderate progress, etc. and his belief that asceticism is simply impossible and that saints are really only gentlemen, saints in a nice dull way, not in a mad crazy 13th century way. |
| 1941/06/26 | John of the Cross | Cántico espiritual / Saint John of the Cross ; según el ms. de las Madres carmelitas de Jaen ; ed. y notas de M. Martínez Burgos |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 377
| The other night I read some of Saint John of the Cross' Cantico Espiritual which I understood much better than last spring (1940) in Havana. Also, I realized it is a much better book than I thought then. The opening is wonderful. |
| 1941/07/13 | Etienne Gilson | God and Philosophy |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 379
| "True metaphysics does not culminate in a concept, be it that of thought, of good, of one or of substance. It does not even culminate in an essence, be it that of Being itself. Its last word is not ens but esse; not being, but is. The ultimate effect of metaphysics is to posit an Act by an act, that is, to posit by an act of judging, the supreme Act of existing, whose very essence, because it is to be, passes human understanding. Where a man's metaphysics comes to an end, his religion begins." Etienne Gilson God and Philosophy, p. 143. [Note 11: This quotation is taken from the last paragraph of Etienne Gilson's God and Philosophy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941), which was originally the Powell lectures at Indiana University.] |
| 1941/08/04 | Edward Leen | Progress through Mental Prayer |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 383
| A cleric lends me Leen's Progress through Mental Prayer which is pretty good. |
| 1941/08/21 | Leon Bloy | Invendable. |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 385-86
| I am not as sore at religious as the Baroness [is]-or Leon Bloy. No reason why I should not be except for the Trappists. Charlie-who worked for the Baroness and wore Maritain's cast off overcoat all winter-is going into the Trappists-and is a good, humble guy-but she kidded him a lot, too, probably because he was entering an order. Reading Bloy's L'Invendable it is quite clear to me that what he was doing was a kind of "lay apostolat" (a fancy term I don't like so much), he had a definite vocation to write what he wrote-nobody knows, or can measure, the tremendous value of his writing, as apostolate. If he only converted one man, it would justify his whole life. But he converted Maritain and a pile of others, and was crucified for how many? |
| 1941/09/02 | Thomas a Kempis | Imitation of Christ |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 394-402
| Several quotations of De Imitatio Christi of Thomas a Kempis in Latin with English translation |
| 1941/09/30 | Aurelius Augustinus | De Beata Vita |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 417
| Where did all the rest of the time go-? I taught two classes, corrected some papers, read a few pages of [Christopher] Dawson's Progress and Religion, wrote a letter trying to sell the anthology, wrote four very stinking pages in the typewritten journal, discussed part of Saint Augustine's De Beata Vita which we are beginning to read with Fr. Philotheus-and said various prayers. This has filled up a lot of time and nothing valuable has been done. |
| 1941/09/30 | Christopher Dawson | Progress and Religion. A Historical Inquiry |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 417
| Where did all the rest of the time go-? I taught two classes, corrected some papers, read a few pages of [Christopher] Dawson's Progress and Religion, wrote a letter trying to sell the anthology, wrote four very stinking pages in the typewritten journal, discussed part of Saint Augustine's De Beata Vita which we are beginning to read with Fr. Philotheus-and said various prayers. This has filled up a lot of time and nothing valuable has been done. |
| 1941/11/09 | Charles Baudelaire | Fleurs du mal |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 476
| In all evil, there is something holy perverted. The dialectic between the good that underlies evil and the evil into which this good is perverted is frightful. In every evil act of Baudelaire's life, God was present to remind him of exactly what he was doing, who he was crucifying. That is the greatness and the terror of the Fleurs du mal, and it is proved by the fact that Baudelaire finally admitted it, and gave in to God [whom] he had killed all his life. And anybody who can't see the intimate connection between Baudelaire's love of evil and his return to the love of God, had best leave him strictly alone. What terror is in that book! God, save me! |
| 1941/11/27 | Aldous Huxley | Ends and Means |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 454-55
| I spent maybe the whole afternoon writing a letter to Aldous Huxley and when I was finished I thought "who am I to be telling this guy about mysticism" and now I remember that until I read his Ends and Means just about four years ago, I hadn't known a thing about mysticism, not even the word. The part he played in my conversion, by that book, was quite great. Just how great a part a book can play in a conversion is questionable: several books figured in mine. Gilson's Spirit of Medieval Philosophy was the first and from it more than any other book I learned a healthy respect for Catholicism. Then Ends and Means from which I learned to respect mysticism. Maritain's Art and Scholasticism was another-and Blake's poems; maybe Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism although I read precious little of it. Joyce's Portrait of the Artist got me fascinated in Catholic sermons (!) What horrified him began to appeal to me! It seemed quite sane. Finally, G. F. Lahey's life of G. M. Hopkins. |
| 1941/11/27 | Etienne Gilson | Spirit of Medieval Philosophy |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 455
| I spent maybe the whole afternoon writing a letter to Aldous Huxley and when I was finished I thought "who am I to be telling this guy about mysticism" and now I remember that until I read his Ends and Means just about four years ago, I hadn't known a thing about mysticism, not even the word. The part he played in my conversion, by that book, was quite great. Just how great a part a book can play in a conversion is questionable: several books figured in mine. Gilson's Spirit of Medieval Philosophy was the first and from it more than any other book I learned a healthy respect for Catholicism. Then Ends and Means from which I learned to respect mysticism. Maritain's Art and Scholasticism was another-and Blake's poems; maybe Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism although I read precious little of it. Joyce's Portrait of the Artist got me fascinated in Catholic sermons (!) What horrified him began to appeal to me! It seemed quite sane. Finally, G. F. Lahey's life of G. M. Hopkins. |
| 1941/11/27 | Jacques Maritain | Art and Scholasticism |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 455
| I spent maybe the whole afternoon writing a letter to Aldous Huxley and when I was finished I thought "who am I to be telling this guy about mysticism" and now I remember that until I read his Ends and Means just about four years ago, I hadn't known a thing about mysticism, not even the word. The part he played in my conversion, by that book, was quite great. Just how great a part a book can play in a conversion is questionable: several books figured in mine. Gilson's Spirit of Medieval Philosophy was the first and from it more than any other book I learned a healthy respect for Catholicism. Then Ends and Means from which I learned to respect mysticism. Maritain's Art and Scholasticism was another-and Blake's poems; maybe Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism although I read precious little of it. Joyce's Portrait of the Artist got me fascinated in Catholic sermons (!) What horrified him began to appeal to me! It seemed quite sane. Finally, G. F. Lahey's life of G. M. Hopkins. |
| 1941/11/27 | James Joyce | Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 455
| I spent maybe the whole afternoon writing a letter to Aldous Huxley and when I was finished I thought "who am I to be telling this guy about mysticism" and now I remember that until I read his Ends and Means just about four years ago, I hadn't known a thing about mysticism, not even the word. The part he played in my conversion, by that book, was quite great. Just how great a part a book can play in a conversion is questionable: several books figured in mine. Gilson's Spirit of Medieval Philosophy was the first and from it more than any other book I learned a healthy respect for Catholicism. Then Ends and Means from which I learned to respect mysticism. Maritain's Art and Scholasticism was another-and Blake's poems; maybe Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism although I read precious little of it. Joyce's Portrait of the Artist got me fascinated in Catholic sermons (!) What horrified him began to appeal to me! It seemed quite sane. Finally, G. F. Lahey's life of G. M. Hopkins. |
| 1946/12/10 | Johannes Duns Scotus | Opus Oxoniense |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 31
| I have been reading Duns Scotus's Oxoniense III, distinction 18, on Christ's will and His love. Scotus is really simple once you get through the barricade of distinctions that are so hard to understand. His underlying thought is beautiful, coherent, and he is always working for simplicity, elimination of non-essentials. |
| 1947/03/10 | Johannes Duns Scotus | Opus Oxoniense |
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 | John of the Cross | Living Flame of Love |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 43
| Since being in the monastery I have been hit that way by St. Theresa's Way of Perfection, chapter on distractions, etc. in the prayer of quiet, in the novitiate. [Pierre van der Meer de Walcheren's] Le Paradis Blanc about the Carthusians at La Val Saint"”the middle section called "Un Chartreux parle." Also the article on "Chartreux" in the Dictionnaire de Spiritualite [Tome II. Paris, 1937, 705-76]. Also four years ago on the feast of St. Joseph, in the novitiate-all that part of the third stanza of The Living Flame, where St. John of the Cross talks about the "deep caverns". The same way, in a different mode and degree, with Duns Scotus' 49th Distinction of the 4th Book of the Oxoniense, on beatitude, and parts of St. Bonaventure about desire. Then, too, in my second year in the novitiate, I was very struck by [Marie Michel] Philipon's book on Elizabeth of the Trinity, her prayer [La Doctrine Spirituelle de Soeur Elisabeth de la Trinite, 1947]. |
| 1947/03/10 | 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]. |
| 1947/03/20 | 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 | 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. |
| 1947/05/00 | Saint John of the Cross | complete works of Saint John of the Cross, doctor of the church / Saint John of the Cross ; transl. from the critical edition of P. Silverio de Santa Teresa, and ed. by E. Allison Peers |
Ltrs: RtoJ p. 170
| The autobiography [The Seven Storey Mountain] comes along slow. Haven't seen page proofs. Bob Giroux must be very busy. I was reading T. S. Eliot"”"East Coker," etc. & this time I liked him a lot. I got those books by Ruysbroeck"”in French. He is wonderful. I'd like to do an edition of him for N. Directions. As it is I am going to do John of the Cross' Dark Night for them in English & Spanish with notes"”using Peers' translation & not doing one of my own. Also I am doing a book of more or less disconnected "thoughts" & aphorisms [Seeds of Contemplation] about the interior life also for N. Directions. |
| 1947/05/14 | Bernardus of Clairvaux | 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 |
| 1947/06/19 | John of the Cross | Cántico espiritual / Saint John of the Cross ; según el ms. de las Madres carmelitas de Jaen ; ed. y notas de M. Martínez Burgos |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 85
| However, I see nothing for me to write that is not simply a song about His Love and about contemplation. Everything else bores and fatigues me and dries me up. And this, as a matter of fact, was the subject of the last poem I wrote, one which will not be in Figures for an Apocalypse, but which resembles some of the last ones that are. This conviction came to me quite clearly when I was studying St. John of the Cross' Spiritual Canticle today. |
| 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. |
| 1948/03/25 | Louis Bouyer | Mystère Pascal: meditation sur la liturgie des trois derniers jours de la Semaine Sainte |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 191
| One of the big graces of Holy Week came by surprise yesterday. External graces almost always do come that way, I mean the big ones, by surprise. Three books which I think must have been ordered for us by Dom Marie-Joseph arrived from Editions du Cerf. One by Louis Bouyer, Le Mystère Pascal [Paris, 1945], was precisely what I most needed and I began reading it before Vespers yesterday. |
| 1949/02/09 | Antonin Gilbert Sertillanges | Vie Intellectuelle; son exprit, ses conditions ses methodes |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 279
| Into the middle of all this came [Antonin] Sertillanges' La Vie Intellectuelle [Paris, 1944] which might have what I need to cheer me up and keep me organized. I have glanced at it here and there and it has one me the effect that Dale Carnegie's "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" might have on a despondent salesman. Definitely, I have simply got to make time for this book and get at it and finish it, patiently, and not let myself be eaten up by fan mail or other chores that do not really count... |
| 1949/02/13 | Antonin Gilbert Sertillanges | Vie Intellectuelle; son exprit, ses conditions ses methodes |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 280
| Now"”about La Vie Intellectuelle-it would be a nice feat to prove that it is not diametrically opposed to St. John of the Cross. I bet no one can do it. Maybe Jacques Maritain can see how the two can be reconciled. Yesterday I got to the part where he says that solicitude for one's health is a virtue of the intellectual.... I wonder how the Abbe de Rance would like that book. He and Sertillanges are now capable of discussing it without undue heat in heaven, for Sertillanges died last year on the feast of St. Anne |
| 1949/02/13 | Antonin Gilbert Sertillanges | Vie Intellectuelle; son exprit, ses conditions ses methodes |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 281
| On the other hand there could be a way of being humble and following Sertillanges, and nobody can say whether Mabillon was not a greater saint than de Rance. [Note 38: Jean Mabillon (1632-1707), the great Benedictine Maurist scholar, wrote Traite des etudes monastiques (1691) in response to de Rance's denunciation of monks engaged in scholarship, like Mabillon and his Maurist community.] But I have long since given up the idea that working with the kind of intellectual steam prescribed by Sertillanges for his Dominicans would be any vocation of mine. |
| 1949/03/06 | Thomas a Kempis | Imitation of Christ |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 287
| Yesterday Seeds of Contemplation arrived and it is very handsome. The best job of printing that has ever been done on any book by me. I can hardly keep my hands off it.... Laughlin tells me a book club is taking it and advertising it as a "streamlined Imitation of Christ." God forgive me. It is more like Swift than Thomas à Kempis. The Passion and Precious Blood of Christ are too little in the book"”only hinted at here and there. Therefore the book is cold and cerebral. |
| 1949/04/14 | Johannes Tauler | Sermons de Tauler : traduction sur les plus anciens manuscrits allemands / par les RR. PP. Hugueny, Thery, O. P. et A. L. Corin |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 302
| There are also a lot of good things in [Johannes] Tauler whom I like very much-when he is explained by notes like Fr. Hugeny's [Sermons de Tauler, 3 volumes, Paris, 1927-35]. |
| 1949/08/19 | L.C. Fillion | Study of the Bible |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 357
| [Louis Claude] Fillion, a Scripture scholar whom I am appointed to read, encourages young priests to study Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, Itala, Arabic, Syriac, Assyrian, Ethiopian, Coptic, Armenian, Persian, Slavonic, Gothic, and the three main Egyptian dialects, namely Saledic (spoken at Thebes), Fayonnic (spoken at the oasis of Fayonen), and Memphitic (spoken at Memphis).... From Fillion (The Study of the Bible [Ireland, 1926]): "One day Cardinal Foulon, Archbishop of Lyons, said to me, "Why is the cat, that charming animal, not mentioned in the Bible?" (Is it so charming after all?)-Fillion's comment! I answered, "Your Eminence, it is mentioned in the Book of Baruch, or to be more exact, in the letter of Jeremias at the end of that book. The prophet shows it walking over the heads and bodies of the Babylonian idols." |
| 1949/08/22 | Aurelius Augustinus | Exposition on the Book of Psalms |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 359
| And I was turning over in my mind some sentences from St. Augustine's commentary on the 118th psalm. They concern the line, Bonitatem et disciplinam et scientiam doce me [Teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge (Psalms 118:66)], which he reads as Suavitatem et eruditionem et scientiam doce me [Teach me docility and delight and knowledge]. Suavitatem-the wisdom that comes from delight in virtue. Disciplina-docility-the wisdom that is born of suffering. |
| 1949/08/22 | L.C. Fillion | Study of the Bible |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 360
| My friend, the Abbe Fillion, has written a book that is in some ways strange. However, it is very good-especially for someone like myself-to read, under obedience, a book that I would not otherwise have touched with a ten foot pole. Now, although I still think some of his notions are funny, I have conceived a real affection for Fillion because his book has brought so many graces with it. |
| 1949/08/26 | L.C. Fillion | Study of the Bible |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 362
| My pious Abbe Fillion suggests that, when we are stumped and cannot find out the meaning of a passage of Scripture, we ought to pray to the "sacred author," that is, to whomever it was that served as God's instrument in writing the work. The suggestion appeals to me, for I have a great though confused affection for the writers of the Bible. I feel closer to them than to almost any other writers I know of. Isaias, Job, Moses, David, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are all part of my life. They are always about me. |
| 1949/09/13 | John Chapman | Spiritual Letters |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 367
| I find consoling lines here and there in Dom Chapman's Spiritual Letters [The Spiritual Letters of Dom John Chapman, OSB, London, 1935]. For instance: Humility in oneself is not attractive, though it is attractive in others." I do not know if what is in me is humility. But it is certainly not attractive. Anguish and fear. Nobody likes to be afraid. |
| 1949/11/25 | Gregory of Nyssa | De vita Moysis |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 373
| In the refectory we are reading Exodus and I have discovered St. Gregory of Nyssa's De Vita Moysis [Life of Moses]. I will probably try to talk about it in the Mystical Theology class. Having trouble organizing material. I refuse to follow any known text.-except I will take [Etienne] Gilson on St. Bernard when I get the preliminaries out of the way. I feel much better mapping out my own approach-from Scripture and the Fathers, Mysticism and Dogma togetherblending and culminating in experience. |
| 1949/12/23 | Aurelius Augustinus | City of God |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 384
| St. Augustine, of Adam in Eden: vivebat fruens Deo, ex quo bono erat bonus [He lived in the joy of God, and by the power of this good he was good himself]. It is very quiet now in the vault where I pause in my work on the City of God. I am supposed to be doing a preface for Random House. The work feeds me, strengthens me, knits my powers together in peace and tranquility. The light of God shines to me more serenely through the wide open windows of Augustine than through any other theologian. Augustine is the calmest and clearest light. |
| 1950/01/12 | Brice Parain | Mort de Jean Madec |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 399
| La Mort de Jean Madec is a magnificent tract against angelism. It is a tract on transcendence and immanence. It says that God is above all and yet in all. I thought the theme of purity of heart was in it. Now I find it is indeed the heart of the book. Madec, le seul homme pur,"¦Madec n'aurait pas eu besoin de la guerre pour être malbeureux. Madec n'avait jamais eu besoin de vouloir qu'il y eût la guerre pour ravoir le silence. (280) C'est en lui seul que tout pouvait renaître. ["Madec, the only pure man,"¦Madec never would have needed a war to make him unhappy. Madec never would have needed a war to make him recover silence. (280) It was in him only that everything could come back to life.] |
| 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. |
| 1950/01/21 | Brice Parain | Mort de Jean Madec |
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.b |
| 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. |
| 1950/01/30 | | Didachè |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 404
| "Let grace come and let the world pass away. Hosanna to the Son of David." These words are from the Didache. They come from the thanksgiving after Communion. It also says, "Permit the prophets to make thanksgiving as much as they desire." |
| 1950/01/30 | Brice Parain | Mort de Jean Madec |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 404
| The Greeks say that interior silence is not perfect unless it is centered upon the Name of Jesus. For they do not love silence for its own sake. Silence for its own sake is only death. Love silence for the sake of the Word. There are surprising affinities in the theology of the Oriental Church with the thoughts in Jean Madec. They understand that there is a solitude that is death and a solitude that is life. The solitary who is dead is walled up in his own self. The solitary who lives is eternally delivered from this world and is present to God. |
| 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. |
| 1950/04/08 | Louis Bouyer | Mystère Pascal: meditation sur la liturgie des trois derniers jours de la Semaine Sainte |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 429
| Louis Bouyer has a marvelous chapter on the connection between the Resurrection and the founding of the Church. Now that the Humanity of Christ is fully divinized, a mysterious spiritual gravitation draws all humanity to Him as to its natural center (Myst. Pasch). Then, too, by His risen Humanity, the Savior communicates Himself to all men and feeds them with His Body in order that they might all grow up into the fullness of His Mystical humanity, into a perfect man (Eph. 4:13). Our destiny is to be deified by the vision of the divinity in the Risen Christ. Through His Soul and in His risen Body He reveals and communicates to us the Godhead, Essential Light. The means He has chosen for this is the Sacraments, that we may be transformed from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord. |
| 1952/02/25 | Ronald Knox | Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion with Special Reference to the XVII and XVIII Centuries |
Ltrs: CforT p. 18-19
| Many thanks for your very kind letter and for [Ronald Knox's] Enthusiasm . I entirely agree with your comment on the patchy character of the Ascent [to Truth]... Enthusiasm is fine. I value it highly above all as a reference book, but it is also very good reading. I promise myself to make it an arsenal if I return to writing about quietists. The Procurator General of the Carthusians [Dom Jean-Baptiste Porion] says I am too sharp on quietists and that there really are no quietists anyway. But it is to me a guarantee that the Jesuits will not be too angry with anything I say about contemplation if I drub the quietists for a few pages in every book. Besides, I have the same baleful interest in quietism that a doctor might have in chiropractors or an MFH in people who shoot foxes. |
| 1952/08/18 | Louis Bouyer | Bible et l'Evangile. Le sens de l'Ecriture: du Dieu qui parle au Dieu faite homme |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 10
| Bouyer's book Bible et evangile is brilliant but makes me nervous. Marmion never made anybody nervous but he does not always keep me awake. Where is the happy medium? What book was St. Benedict reading as he sat so calmly at the monastery gate and did not even look up to see the Goth approach, driving the tied peasant? |
| 1953/05/20 | Max Picard | Flight from God |
Ltrs: RtoJ p. 213
| Have you read Max Picard? I like his stuff very much and am currently in the Flight from God which is very pertinent. But that reminds me that I have not yet read the issue of Renascence with your article on Rilke "¦ |
| 1956/03/03 | Pie Raymond Regamey | Cross and the Christian / Translated from the French by Angeline Bouchard |
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. |
| 1956/03/03 | Pie Raymond Regamey | Poverty: An Essential Element in the Christian Life / Translated from the French by Rosemary Sheed |
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. |
| 1956/08/14 | Origenes | Treatise on Prayer. |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 64
| The Treatise on Prayer is the first thing of Origen's that I have really liked except perhaps the Homilies on Exodus and Numbers. It is simple and great. He really is a tremendous mind, although he often looks ordinary or even stuffy. But no, The Treatise on Prayer is great. One of the best things ever written on prayer-by its wholeness, objectivity. It is catholic and clear and close to the Gospel-Christ talks and speaks in it. |
| 1957/09/03 | Julien Hartridge Green | Journals |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 115
| "La religion est mal comprise. Elle rend stupides ceux qui se veulent pieux afin le pouvoir s'admirer dans cet etat. Il faudrait se perdre complètement au Dieu, il faudrait le silence parfait, le silence surnaturel. Les pieux discors ont quelque chose de revoltant." ["Religion is not understood. Those who wish themselves pious, in order to admire themselves in this state, are made stupid by religion. What is needed is to lose ourselves completely in God; what is needed is perfect silence; supernatural silence. Pious talk has something revolting about it."] |
| 1957/09/15 | Saint John of the Cross | complete works of Saint John of the Cross, doctor of the church / Saint John of the Cross ; transl. from the critical edition of P. Silverio de Santa Teresa, and ed. by E. Allison Peers |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 119
| And this is what happens to people with a priori notions of what pleases God or "ought" to please Him. (Eating always displeases Him, fasting always pleases Him etc.) They end up by disobeying in everything or almost everything. The true will of God for us as Christ has taught it to us and St. Paul. Making void the law of God for the traditions of man. St. John of the Cross himself leads readers into this misapprehension. Where he says, "Strive always to choose not that which is easiest but that which is most difficult," he seems to be saying that the difficult is always the most perfect, the most pleasing to God and the easy is always imperfect-always less pleasing to God, always displeasing. The perfect equated with the hard and unpleasant. To say this is sometimes true is correct, To say it is always and necessarily so is FALSE! And that is the trouble. |
| 1957/10/12 | Karl Adam | Christ of Faith |
Ltrs: RtoJ p. 229
| Reading"”I try to do some. A fair amount here and there. I love Karl Adams' new book, The Christ of Faith. And I ran into the poems of St. John Pers"”terrific. Mark Van Doren knows him and likes him. He lives in Washington "¦ |
| 1957/10/22 | Thomas a Kempis | Imitation of Christ |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 126
| Mirum est quod homo potest umquam perfecte in hac vita laetari, qui suum exilium et tam multa pericula animae suae considerat et"¦. [It is a cause of wonder that anyone who thinks about his exile and the dangers to his soul could be happy in this life.] (Imit Xt) [The Imitation of Christ]. |
| 1957/11/12 | Jacques Guillet | Thèmes bibliques. Etudes sur l'expression et le developement de la revelation |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 135
| Necessity of the Bible. More and more of it. A book like Gillet's Thèmes bibliques fantastically rich and useful. Every line has something in it you do not want to miss. Opens up new roads in the Old Testament. Extraordinary richness and delicacy of the varied OT concepts of sin-very existential concepts, not at all mere moralism! For instance sin as a "failur" to contact God. Peccavi tibi. "I have failed Thee-I have failed to reach Thee." And all that follows from that! Importance of reading and thinking and keeping silent. Self-effacement, not in order to be left looking at oneself but to be "found in Christ" and lost to the rest. Yet-not by refusing to take interest in anything vital. Politics vital-even for monks. But in this, due place and with right measure. To live in a monastery as if the world had stopped turning in 1905-a fatal illusion. |
| 1958/03/11 | Gabriel Marcel | Homo viator |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 179
| My day of recollection. Went to confession to Fr. John of the Cross in the vault, as usual. Had to wait a little for him and took down Gabriel Marcel's Homo Viator from the shelf as "spiritual reading"-haven't done much lately (except for my Lenten book, Ramon Lull, whom I find at times impossible, although on the first day I was exhilarated). In Marcel's book came at once upon the Essay on "Obedience and Fidelity." I am sure I had read it before but without too much attention. It clarifies much of my present struggle and confusion. |
| 1958/03/19 | Edward Steichen | family of man : the greatest photographic exhibition of all time : 503 pictures from 68 countries / created by Edward Steichen for the Museum of Modern Art |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 182-83
| Marvellous books for a few pennies-including The Family of Man for 50 cents. All those fabulous pictures. And again, no refinements and no explanations are necessary! How scandalized some men would be if I said that the whole book is to me a picture of Christ and yet that is the Truth. There, there is Christ in my own Kind, my own Kind-"Kind" which means "likeness" and which meanlove" and which means "child." Mankind |
| 1958/03/27 | Piero Bargellini | Unquiet Conscience / Translated from Latin by Thomas Merton |
Ltrs: Hammer p. 44
| I enjoyed the Italian piece [note 34: The Unquiet Conscience by Piero Bargellini, later translated by Thomas Merton (see Merton to Hammer, July 29, 1958).] and have translated it myself. There are only one or two words you might want to polish up and make more sharply accurate, I leave that to you. If you print this, then, I hope that as translator I may merit two copies? One for the noviciate and one to present to a friend. |
| 1958/08/03 | Pie Raymond Regamey O.P. | Non-Violence et conscience chretienne |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 210
| Doing violence to myself to read Regamey's book on non-violence because I need it. A lot of it is arid and plodding but here and there one comes across good stuff. Gives the impression that he is saying more than is necessary in order to make it all "acceptabl" and ends by being diffuse and trite. He would have done it all much more effectively in 50 pages of aphorisms - but who ever heard of a Dominican doing that? |
| 1958/08/20 | Fyodor Dostoyevsky | Possessed / by Fyodor Dostoyevsky ; transl. from the Russian by Constance Garnett ; with a foreww by Avrahm Yarmolinsky and a transl. of the hitherto-suppressed chapter "At Tihon's" |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 214
| Yesterday good day of recollection in the woods. Read the part of The Possessed about the mad Saint Symeon and something clicked - a strange light on Bernard's "fiducia" ["trust"] and one he might perhaps have repudiated, but the root of my problem remains fear of my own solitude-imagined solitude - the fear of rejection, which I nevertheless anticipate - as if it mattered! I should be more bravely real-it is what I need, and no one would be surprised at it in me - I think even my vocation requires it. |
| 1958/09/26 | Søren Kierkegaard | Either/Or |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 218
| Yesterday in Louisville... After that, had a good day in the library. Some C. F. Andrews on Gandhi (the concept of svadharma [personal service] important for me!). A book on Etruscan painting; some Latin American prints (good ones by Portinari). Looked briefly at Kierkegaard's Either/Or. Tatum, St. [an] Getz, etc. on record. New Statesman and Nation-special number on American Lit. with a tender essay by V. S. Pritchett on the Beat Generation, and what seemed to me a very good, or at least readable, poem by Lowell about his father. |
| 1958/10/02 | Origenes | Opera Omnia |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 221
| The charm of Origen-entranced by his commentary on Numbers with its inexhaustible fertility of ideas (which only later became stereotyped in the writings of others, who were so much poorer!). |
| 1958/10/05 | Thomas Verner Moore | Life of Man with God |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 221-22
| Read a little of Dom T. Verner Moore's The Life of Man with God. It has some good things in it but the whole approach is naive and misleading. I remember the questionnaire I filled out for him and came across something like it - but ascribed to a "she." |
| 1959/01/11 | Søren Kierkegaard | Works of love / by Søren Kierkegaard ; transl. from the Danish by David F. Swenson and Lillian Marvin Swenson ; with an introd. by Douglas V. Steere |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 246
| I really think that in almost everything I read I find new food for the spiritual life, new thoughts, new discoveries (for instance the deep spiritual content of Jan Van Eyck's portrait of the Arnolfinis)-a whole new light on my concept of the hieratic (in the good sense) in art. Or the Gregg book on non-violence-some LaFontaine "fables" (The Rêve d'un habitant du Mogra struck me deeply the last time I was in Louisville and I saw it in Gide's anthology). Three or four pieces on "religion" (decadent) in Edmund Wilson's collection of articles about the '30s (American Earthquake)-some things on Mayan civilization-Kierkegaard's "Works of Lov"-Guardini on Dostoevsky. etc. etc. |
| 1959/02/13 | Søren Kierkegaard | Works of love / by Søren Kierkegaard ; transl. from the Danish by David F. Swenson and Lillian Marvin Swenson ; with an introd. by Douglas V. Steere |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 259
| Kierkegaard's marvelous book on the Works of Love. With pages of careful and passionate thought he returns again and again to the task of making the freedom of Christian love impregnable-how? In the obligation laid upon us by God to love our neighbor. A strange paradox and a scandal who think it is a matter of emotional spontaneity. But if that were so Christianity would never transform man or divinize him. |
| 1959/04/04 | Origenes | Opera Omnia |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 271
| Read some Origen on Josue, and Soloviev (Lectures on God Manhood)-some material on Mount Athos-Allport on prejudice. A new book by Jung has come in -The Undiscovered Self - which so far appears to be quite good. |
| 1959/05/05 | Conrad Pepler | English Religious Heritage |
Ltrs: HGL p. 390
| But the important thing for you at the moment is not Zen or I Ching, so please do not let me distract you from what really matters. All that these others have to teach is found in the Church also (and they too are of "the Church" in their own hidden way). There is such a sea of wonderful things for you both to fall into and swim in"”where can you begin? What are you reading, or doing, or thinking? Perhaps I am wrong, but I keep thinking I ought to recommend to you a book by another English Dominican, Conrad Pepler, The English Religious Heritage. It is not perfect, but is full of many fine things and would give you many leads. And Bouyer's life of Newman "¦ Best of all is to go to the sources, the Fathers, the Bible, and I am sure you do "¦ |
| 1959/06/07 | Julien Hartridge Green | Journals |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 286
| Saw Shakertown-the big old dormitories stood among the weeds in desolation. Yet there was still something young about the old buildings, as if their pioneer hopefulness were still in them, as if they could not despair though the Shakers (having refused to have children) were all gone. A strangely touching monument to our ingrained puritanism which is not just silly. It is pathetic and beautiful in its wrongness - J. Green is so sensitive to this in his Journal which deals increasingly with Calvinists and Port Royal. |
| 1959/08/24 | Herbert Butterfield | Christianity and History |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 321
| Having been giving deep attention (as deep as possible when one is half awake before Sext) to Butterfield's book on Christianity and History. Especially the business about the men like Napoleon, Bismarck, and Hitler who wanted to get ahead of history and manage Providence for their own interests. Providence will not be managed. |
| 1959/08/24 | Herbert Butterfield | Christianity and History |
Ltrs: WtoF p. 263
| P. Danielou's book on History, which I have been reading, steered me toward an interesting Englishman called [Herbert] Butterfield. I strongly recommend his Christianity and History [1950], which P. Danielou alludes to in his own book. Perhaps you already know of Butterfield. |
| 1959/08/24 | Paul Tillich | Love, Power and Justice |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 321
| Reading Tillich's Love, Power and Justice and am excited by it; it is very dense and strong. The substrate of depth psychology makes his thought very substantial. I will certainly write to him about it, especially as he signed the copy for me. |
| 1959/09/04 | Paul Tillich | Love, Power and Justice |
Ltrs: HGL p. 576
| For some time I have owed you this letter acknowledging your kind gift of Love Power and Justice with your own words and signature on the flyleaf. At the same time I want to thank you for the other books which Mrs. Leonard sent me. I will have more to say about them later on, when I have studied them more thoroughly. I have not yet finished The Theology of Culture, which in many respects is the most interesting"”but I want at least to give you my impressions of the moment and convey to you something of the gratitude I owe you for the enjoyment derived from the books. Love Power and Justice I found difficult at first. The book did not open up to me until your magnificent chapter on being and power with its, to me, central intuition that "the power of being is its possibility to affirm itself against the non-being in it and against it." From then on the book became an illuminating and exciting experience, and the concept you expressed has helped me to get much out of your other work too. |
| 1959/09/04 | Paul Tillich | Love, Power and Justice |
Ltrs: HGL p. 577
| Finally I want to tell you how happy I am with the earlier chapters of The Theology of Culture, in which I find all my Augustinian and Franciscan instincts vindicated. True, I have been subjected to the Thomist formation, which is de rigueur for every priest, and it has made me a little suspicious of technical ontologism, but what you are after is the Franciscan instinct for immediacy which is to me the supremely important thing in religious thought"”and experience. And the thing so easily frustrated, glossed over and rejected by the doctors of the law. |
| 1959/09/04 | Paul Tillich | Theology of Culture |
Ltrs: HGL p. 576
| For some time I have owed you this letter acknowledging your kind gift of Love Power and Justice with your own words and signature on the flyleaf. At the same time I want to thank you for the other books which Mrs. Leonard sent me. I will have more to say about them later on, when I have studied them more thoroughly. I have not yet finished The Theology of Culture, which in many respects is the most interesting"”but I want at least to give you my impressions of the moment and convey to you something of the gratitude I owe you for the enjoyment derived from the books. Love Power and Justice I found difficult at first. The book did not open up to me until your magnificent chapter on being and power with its, to me, central intuition that "the power of being is its possibility to affirm itself against the non-being in it and against it." From then on the book became an illuminating and exciting experience, and the concept you expressed has helped me to get much out of your other work too. |
| 1959/10/25 | Claude Tresmontant | Doctrine morale des prophètes d'Israel |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 337
| Fr. Tresmontant says "C'est au niveau politique que se posent les problèmes moraux les plus graves." ["The gravest moral problems are found at the political level."] Never was this more true than in our time. Hence the importance of political decisions-and of taking sides in crucial and "prophetic" affairs which are moral touchstones-and in which Xstians are often in large numbers on the side of the unjust and the tyrant. |
| 1959/10/25 | Josef Pieper | Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 336-37
| I have been in St. Anthony's Hospital, Louisville, for the removal of a rectal fistula. Went on the 14th. and got back Friday.... Mostly, it was a very good retreat. I had several quiet days with plenty of time to read and think. (Heschel-Man Is Not Alone, Pieper, on Prudence, The Secret of the Golden Flower, and Villages in the Sun (Chandon)-to get some ideas about everyday life in Mexico.) |
| 1959/11/03 | Denis Rougement | Western Quest: the Principles of Civilization |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 339-40
| Denis de Rougemont: The Western Quest - seeking to resolve the antimony inherent in personal life-an antimony which came into conscious currency after Nicea. No solution in trying to combine individualism and collectivism in equal parts - Seeking refuge in one or other extreme = sabotage. Greek individualism and atomism-or Roman collectivism? Christian faith and vocation rose above both. A Crusoe, says DeR, has no real freedom because the tension, the antinomy is lacking. (But Crusoe is a myth.) Complete absorption in collectivity - also empty of freedom. Mixture of the two tendencies does not create personal tension. This point is important-and new for me. |
| 1959/11/04 | Denis Rougement | Western Quest: the Principles of Civilization |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 340
| "Les camps de concentration, les massacres, les tortures"¦nous rappelent queue est l'essence du paganisme: Le mepris de l'homme que l'on sacrifie sans pitie aux mythes et aux interêts." ["Concentration camps, massacres, tortures"¦reveal to us the essence of paganism: contempt for human beings who are sacrificed without pity for the sake of myths and ideologies."] Tresmontant. p. 125. De Rougemont traces personalism to the Council of Nicea. The concept yes. Tresmontant is right in showing how the Old Testament is in reality the first great charter of human rights-in opposition to all the other religious codes for which the individual does not count. But is this exaggerated? What about Confucius? Aman-enope? |
| 1959/12/10 | Josef Pieper | Leisure, The Basis of Culture |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 356
| I have finally gotten around to reading Pieper's fine little book Leisure, The Basis of Culture. It is very sound and no amount of guilt should make us treat his view of contemplation as "pagan" as if that were to exclude "Christian." One thing is sure-we do not in this monastery have any faith in the basic value of otium sanctum [sacred leisure]. We believe only in the difficult and the unpleasant. That is why we, in practice, hate the contemplative life and destroy it with constant activity. |
| 1959/12/20 | Robert Lax | Circus of the Sun |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 360-61
| Lax's Circus book is a tremendous poem, an Isaias-like prophecy which has a quality you just don't find in poetry today, a completely unique simplicity and purity of love that is not afraid to express itself. The circus as symbol and sacrament, cosmos and church-the mystery of the primitive world, of paradise, in which men have wonderful and happy skills, which they exercise freely, as at play. But also a sacrament of the eschaton, our heavenly Jerusalem. The importance of human love in the circus-for doing things well. It is one of the few poems that has anything whatever to say. And I want to write an article about it. |
| 1960/01/01 | Maurice Merleau-Ponty | Sens et non-sens |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 365
| From Merleau-Ponty on Pseudo-scientific Marxism (Sens et non-sens, p. 223). Most intelligent papers I have yet read on Marxism and religion (225-26) - and the most challenging. Religion a symbolic structure, not mere meaningless verbalism, symbolizing relations between men, communion which it "cannot attain" - and which the revolution can attain. This is the thesis that has to be judged and which is judged by history itself. Existential movement of history - not "scientific" laws or operations but the movement of alienated man "to take possession of himself and of the world." Quotes Marx as saying - one must above all avoid setting up society again as abstraction "face to face with the individual." Moving force of history "l'homme engag" - moteur de la dialectique. ["The engaged man - engine of the dialectic."] |
| 1960/01/24 | Søren Kierkegaard | Journals of Kierkegaard / translated bij Alexander Dru |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 372
| Read a little of Kierkegaard's Journal but the reading was spoiled by the fact that the more intense passages ring in my ears with the urgent and shouting tones of the retreat master! How" O God" rings in his throat; coming right up out of his belly! This has happened before in retreats and that is why I prefer to read natural things, when on retreat. |
| 1960/05/08 | Anscar Vonier | People of God |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 388
| Still reading Barzun. Finished Neumann on Amor and Psyche and returned it to the library. In the cell, here, Vonier's People of God and part of Initiation theologique. |
| 1960/05/25 | Joseph Jean Lanza del Vasto | Pelerinage aux Sources |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 3-4
| Reading [Joseph Jean] Lanza del Vasto, Le Pèlerinage aux Sources [Paris, 1945]. His account of Gandhi and Wardha is impressive. I am still not persuaded that the spinning wheels were so foolish. It is customary in the West to dismiss all that as absurd, and to assume that technological progress is an unqualified good, as excellent as it is inevitable. But it becomes more and more passive, automatic-and the effects on "backward" people more and more terrible. |
| 1960/06/06 | Maurice Villain | Abbe Paul Couturier |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 9
| "Des hommes comme Saint Seraphim, Saint François d'Assise et bien d'autres ont accompli dans leur vie l'union des Eglises." ["Men like St. Seraphim, St. Francis of Assisi and many others brought about the union of the churches in their time."] Metropolitan Eulogius Quoted in [Maurice] Villain, L'Abbe Couturier [Paris, 1957], p 51 This is exactly my ideal and my desire. There were two or three protestants among the Martyrs of Uganda-they were all one in their witness and their sanctity! A great sign. |
| 1960/08/17 | Fyodor Dostoyevsky | House of the Dead |
Ltrs: HGL p. 138
| Yes, I too love Dostoevsky, very much. Staretz Zosima can always make me weep and a lot of the beat people in the books also. I love the little Jew in The House of the Dead (the one with the prayers, the weeping, the joy) "¦ |
| 1960/08/26 | Pierre Teilhard de Chardin | Divine Milieu |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 36-37
| I have finished reading the proofs of the Divine Milieu of P[ère] Teilhard de Chardin which were sent to me by Harpers. Yesterday (my feast day) I half finished an article on it. There is much to say. More than I can say in the article. Certainly the world is to be loved, as he says it. For God loved the world and sent His Son into the world to save it.... His concern is admirable. And his indignation that "Christians no longer expect anything." It is true. Nothing great. But we expect everything trivial. Our indifference to the real values in the world justifies our petty attractiveness to its false values. When we forget the Parousia and the Kingdom of God in the world we can, we think, safely be businessmen and make money. Those who love the world in its wrong sense love it for themselves, exploit it for themselves. |
| 1960/09/02 | Olivier Clement | Transfigurer le temps: notes sur le temps à la lumière de la tradition orthodoxe |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 39
| "Le Temps de l'Eglise culmine donc à la prise de conscience par chaque personne humaine que la Fin est dejà presente, que l'histoire, en Christ, est dès maintenant consommee. Car Parousie signifie non seulement avènement mais attente, non seulement attente mais presence. Le Temps de l'Eglise pour reprendre l'expression de Saint Seraphim, est celui de ‘l'acquisition du Saint Esprit.'" ["The Time of the Church therefore culminates in an awareness for each human person that the End is already present, that history, in Christ, is, from that time on, fulfilled. For Parousia means not only coming but waiting, not only waiting but presence. The Time of the Church, to use the expression of St. Seraphim, is ‘the reception of the Holy Spirit.'"] O Clement, Transfigurer les temps [Neuchâtel, 1959], p 136 This book of O. Clement is really excellent. Only now that I am in the middle do I realize that I have missed much by not reading with very close attention. A book to read twice. Few books deserve two readings! |
| 1960/09/04 | Max Picard | Flight from God |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 42
| The heart of Clement's book-that "fallen Tim" (le temps dechu) has no present. It is only the expression of an absence-the absence of God. Redeemed Time (le temps sauve) is concentrated in a "present moment" and born of the presence of God even in our own misery, in so far as our misery does not despair but falls into the abyss of Time, the Divine love, "une ouverture de l'humilite à la vie ressuscitee du Seigneur" ["an opening of humility to the risen life of the Lord"]. Tremendous content of this. Interesting content with French-somewhat existentialist. Very deep and true of Max Picard's Flight from God [Washington, D.C., 1951] (which is far less deep). Basis-this doctrine founded on remarkable spirituality of Sylvanus of Athos, d. 1938, who was told by Christ, "Hold thy spirit in hell and do not despair, for in condemning himself to hell and in thus destroying all passion, man liberates his heart to receive the divine love." |
| 1960/09/04 | Olivier Clement | Transfigurer le temps: notes sur le temps à la lumière de la tradition orthodoxe |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 42
| The heart of Clement's book-that "fallen Tim" (le temps dechu) has no present. It is only the expression of an absence-the absence of God. Redeemed Time (le temps sauve) is concentrated in a "present moment" and born of the presence of God even in our own misery, in so far as our misery does not despair but falls into the abyss of Time, the Divine love, "une ouverture de l'humilite à la vie ressuscitee du Seigneur" ["an opening of humility to the risen life of the Lord"]. Tremendous content of this. Interesting content with French-somewhat existentialist. Very deep and true of Max Picard's Flight from God [Washington, D.C., 1951] (which is far less deep). Basis-this doctrine founded on remarkable spirituality of Sylvanus of Athos, d. 1938, who was told by Christ, "Hold thy spirit in hell and do not despair, for in condemning himself to hell and in thus destroying all passion, man liberates his heart to receive the divine love." |
| 1960/09/07 | Pierre Teilhard de Chardin | Divine Milieu |
Ltrs: HGL p. 397
| They (well, a publisher) sent me a book by Teilhard de Chardin to review: The Divine Milieu. It is fairly good. I have not yet read the other one. I think I sent you a French orthodox magazine with my article on Mt. Athos in it "¦ |
| 1960/09/16 | Karl Barth | Christmas / translated by Berhard Citron |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 48
| From Karl Barth-Christmas 1931 [translated by Berhard Citron, London, 1959]. (That Christmas I was in Strasbourg, as also in 1930, and on one of these occasions I went to a Lutheran church where all was in German and did not understand.) "Suppose a person living in Germany today had faith, then the comfort and direction he received (from the Christmas light) in all humility, would consist in the permission and command to continue without those fixed ideas which at present he cannot avoid"¦ [Merton's emphasis]. Not only should man be able to live with principles but he must also be able to live without them.... [etc.] |
| 1960/09/16 | Karl Barth | Christmas / translated by Berhard Citron |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 49
| Opposites: Karl Barth and Gemistus Pletho.15 I do not mean to be facetious. Gemistus (who attended the Council of Florence, from Greece) also wanted to revive the Olympian gods-who anticipated the Positivist Pantheon of A[uguste] Comte, who will doubtless be loved by magicians since he sounds like on"¦Pitiful, symptomatic, symbolic figure of the humanist renaissance. But Barth with his earnest, reforming Christianity, and his insistence that the Incarnation makes it impossible to invent even a Christian god-or to reach into "the infinit" to select our own concepts (idols) of them. Two extremes, but Barth is salutary. There is so much truth there, so much of the Gospel. |
| 1960/09/23 | Karl Barth | Against the Stream |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 51
| Moving words of K. Barth preached on Good Friday 1948 in Hungary at Debrecen, the great Calvinist center. "For in His meekness which we remember today, He achieved the mightiest of all deeds ever fulfilled on earth: In His own person He restored and reestablished the violated law of God and the shattered law of man. In this meekness the grace of God appeared in His person, and the obedient man, at peace with God and in whom God has pleasure, was revealed. In this meekness of His, Jesus Christ, nailed to the cross as a criminal, created order in the realm of creation, the order in which man can live eternally as the redeemed, converted child of God." Against the Stream [London, 1954], p 55 |
| 1960/09/29 | Gordon Harland | Thought of Reinhold Niebuhr |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 53
| Politics-at last I think I am beginning to come out of my stupor. Excellent book on [Reinhold] Niebuhr (by G. Harland). A great and lucid mind and profoundly Christian. One of the most hopeful signs in America. I must examine the superficiality of my European prejudices. There is a great deal wrong with my instinctive tendency to think in a French way about America. Certainly it is the easiest way. It gives me the impression of being independent, but it is only another form of passivity. The sentimental, out of date moralism and shallow self-righteousness of most American thought is too self-evident for comment. It is a tragedy of great dimensions. But But for me to reject all American ideas would be another tragedy. We know we need something better. The courageous thing is not to be negative but to seek, like Niebuhr, to build something solid. Even to fail in this would be nobler than a total rejection. |
| 1960/11/07 | Charles Harold Dodd | The Bible Today |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 63
| Read sermons of St. Faustus of Rieg the other day, and liked them. Curious about the monks of Lerins. Reading Heschel, God in Search of Man [New York, 1955] and [C. H.] Dodd (very good), The Bible Today [Cambridge, 1956]. |
| 1960/11/14 | Charles Harold Dodd | The Bible Today |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 65
| C. H. Dodd - in a remarkable book (The Bible Today): "We shall get at the truth of our present situation only by exposing ourselves to the judgement of God in it"¦. I mean (by) an effort to recognize our own behaviour as contributory to the corporate actions and reactions which have brought us to this pass, and to assess it by given moral standards." p 137 |
| 1960/11/14 | Pierre Teilhard de Chardin | Divine Milieu |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 65
| I have nothing but sympathy for his attempt to take a new view of things. I have not read anything but the Divine Milieu, but as far as I am concerned the book is generally healthier and more deeply, genuinely spiritual than anything that has ever emanated from the authoritarian mind of Dom Gabriel. |
| 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 | | Cloud of Unknowing |
Ltrs: HGL p. 45
| Some important books which I recommend to you can be obtained from Harper Brothers "¦ They are publishing an interesting little volume, the Centuries of Thomas Traherne, which you ought to have "¦ They print something of Fenelon, I believe. Also a fine book by John Ruysbroeck, the Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage. You should also get to know the anonymous Cloud of Unknowing. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, one of the early fathers of the Cistercian Order of which I am a monk, has some very important mystical writings. Perhaps the best way to get to know him would be to read the Mystical Theology of St. Bernard by Etienne Gilson. |
| 1960/11/17 | Thomas Trahern | Centuries, Poems and Thanksgivings |
Ltrs: HGL p. 45
| Some important books which I recommend to you can be obtained from Harper Brothers "¦ They are publishing an interesting little volume, the Centuries of Thomas Traherne, which you ought to have "¦ They print something of Fenelon, I believe. Also a fine book by John Ruysbroeck, the Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage. You should also get to know the anonymous Cloud of Unknowing. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, one of the early fathers of the Cistercian Order of which I am a monk, has some very important mystical writings. Perhaps the best way to get to know him would be to read the Mystical Theology of St. Bernard by Etienne Gilson. |
| 1960/12/01 | M.E. Boismard | Du Baptême à Cana |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 71
| Came to St. Mary of Carmel and built a pretty fire in the fireplace and got settled down to read: and opening the book (Boismard-Du Baptême à Cana [Paris, 1956]) picked up where I had left off this morning before Prime. These were the first words I read in the finished house (after a brief introduction to explain why they are quoted). From Proverbs: 9:1-15. "La Sagesse a bâti sa maison, elle a dresse ses sept colonnes, elle a abattu ses bêtes, prepare son vin, elle depêche ses servantes pour proclamer sur les hauteurs de la cite: Venez, manger de mon pain, buvez du vin que j'ai prepare! Quittez la folie et vous vivrez. Marchez dans la voie de la Verite." ["Wisdom has built her house, she has set it up with seven pillars, she has slaughtered her beasts, prepared her wine, she sends her servants to proclaim from the heights of the city: Come eat of my bread, drink of the wine I have prepared. Desist from folly and you will live. Walk in the way of Truth."] |
| 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. |
| 1960/12/05 | Pierre Teilhard de Chardin | Divine Milieu |
Ltrs: RtoJ p. 237
| Did you mention something about Teilhard de Chardin? I have had some trouble there too. Ed [Rice] sent me a remarkable little book of T de C., the Divine Milieu. I liked it very much, and did a review article ["The Universe as Epiphany"] praising it. Of course I wanted to make clear that this was just a review of his book and not a general approbation of all T de C.'s work (and in any case I have not yet read the Phenomenon of Man). The censors of the order were true to form. They went into a panic, and the General took it up. Gave the article to some professor in Rome. The latter said there was really nothing wrong with the article but that Rome wanted Catholic magazines to keep silence about Teilhard de Chardin right now, and that it would be much better if I did not say anything. So it is not being published "¦ |
| 1960/12/12 | Edward Deming Andrews | people called Shakers : a search for the perfect society |
Ltrs: HGL p. 31-32
| It was indeed a pleasure to get your kind letter. I had been thinking of writing to you myself for some time, as I know several of your fine books on the Shakers and indeed have the two most important ones here. (I take it that The People Called Shakers and Shaker Furniture are among your most important studies.) So first of all I want to express my gratitude to you for the fine work you have done and are doing. I shall certainly have to depend very much on you, if I do any work at all in this field, and I am grateful for your offer of assistance. |
| 1960/12/12 | Edward Deming Andrews | Shaker furniture : the craftsmanship of an American communal sect / by Edward Deming Andrews and Faith Andrews ; photos by William F. Winter |
Ltrs: HGL p. 31-32
| It was indeed a pleasure to get your kind letter. I had been thinking of writing to you myself for some time, as I know several of your fine books on the Shakers and indeed have the two most important ones here. (I take it that The People Called Shakers and Shaker Furniture are among your most important studies.) So first of all I want to express my gratitude to you for the fine work you have done and are doing. I shall certainly have to depend very much on you, if I do any work at all in this field, and I am grateful for your offer of assistance. |
| 1961/01/28 | Reinhold Niebuhr | Christian Realism and Political Problems |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 91
| I respect more and more the intelligence and integrity of Reinhold Niebuhr. His is one of the few authentically Christian voices that have something to say that is relevant for our time. And also an American voice, with a clarity, a sobriety, an objectivity, a lack of despair that should be ours. We do not have to speak with sick voices, as France does. "There is so little health in the whole of our modern civilization that one cannot find the island of order from which to proceed against disorder." (Xtian Realism and Polit[ical] Problems [New York, 1953], p 117) |
| 1961/03/28 | Robert McAfee Brown | American Dialogue: A Protestant Looks at Catholicism |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 103
| Deeply impressed by this statement of Robert McAfee Brown: "All of the great movements of reform and renewal in the history of the Church have grown out of a rediscovery of the Bible, and there is every reason to believe that the present [contemporary] rediscovery of the Bible (both by Catholics and Protestants) may create a situation full of possibilities beyond our power to predict." [The American Dialogue: A Protestant Looks at Catholicism (New York, 1960), p 80] |
| 1961/04/02 | Gregory of Nyssa | In canticum canticorum |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 105
| Yesterday-reading bits of Dame Julian of Norwich and today I began Gregory of Nyssa's homilies on the Canticle. |
| 1961/04/07 | Nicolas of Cusa | Vision of God |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 106
| Trying to finish Nicholas of Cusa's Vision of God, but he verbalizes too much. Influence of Augustine. |
| 1961/04/21 | John C.H. Wu | Beyond East and West |
Ltrs: HGL p. 615-16
| I am very glad the Mencius finally arrived and I knew you would like it. I am glad you approved of the "night spirit." It seems to me that Chinese is full of wonderful things that the West does not suspect"”like your observation on the lunar month which deeply touched me in Beyond East and West. There are so many fine things in your book. I especially enjoy the notations from your diary that are being read now. The community was in a state of near riot when you described your marriage. I am in love with your parents. The book is most enjoyable and moving. |
| 1961/05/13 | Titus Burckhardt | An introduction to Sufi doctrine |
Ltrs: HGL p. 49
| After reading Burckhardt, I have glimpsed many interesting relationships and problems. The question of Tawhid is of course central and I think that the closest to Islam among the Christian mystics on this point are the Rhenish and Flemish mystics of the fourteenth century, including Meister Eckhart, who was greatly influenced by Avicenna. The culmination of their mysticism is in the "Godhead" beyond "God" (a distinction which caused trouble to many theologians in the Middle Ages and is not accepted without qualifications) but at any rate it is an ascent to perfect and ultimate unity beyond the triad in unity of the Persons. This is a subtle and difficult theology and I don't venture into it without necessity "¦ One of the chapters I like best in Burckhardt is that on the renewal of creation at each instant, and also that on the dhikr which resembles the techniques of the Greek monks, and I am familiar with its use, for it brings one close to God. |
| 1961/06/10 | J. B. Mahn | Pape Benoit XII et les cisterciens |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 125-26
| Interesting book of J. B. Mahn on Benedict XII and the Cistercians. And the question of studies (The College of St. Bernard was not a cause of the decline or even one of its symptoms). Yet one wonders at all the expense and effort put into this, and for what? Perhaps it contributed to the general stultification of the Order, or perhaps on the contrary it was necessary to hold the Order together in the lean years"¦Two aspects of inertia. From one point of view it can be regarded as stability. Yet it would perhaps be a myth to say the Order was ever really inert. There must have been also a real underlying faithfulness, as in the Benedictines also, witness Knowles' sketch of Thomas de la Mare, abbot of St. Alban's |
| 1961/06/10 | Marguerite Porete | Mirror of Simple Souls |
Ltrs: HGL p. 342
| The Mirror of Simple Souls still interests me and I want to look into it more. I forget where I ran across the suggestion that it could be attributed to Marguerite Porete, but perhaps in the new Histoire de Spiritualite , in which case the suggestion would be due to Dom F. Vandenbroucke. Do let me know if you find anything interesting. We did not begin taking the Downside Review until just recently, and so I have not read the articles on Eckhart. I like him, but now and again he leaves one with a sense of being let down, when he goes beyond all bounds. He is more brilliant than all the other Rhenish mystics and really more interesting. Yet I like Tauler for a more steady diet. Him too I read in French, I must get the German. The Penguin Cloud did not come, but the Orthodox Prayers did and I am very happy with them |
| 1961/07/01 | Walter Hilton | Scale of Perfection |
Ltrs: HGL p. 343
| I like the Penguin edition of the Cloud. It is clear and easy for the contemporary reader. Yet it does lose some of the richness of the older more concrete English. I like the fourteenth-century English mystics more and more. I am reading [Walter Hilton's] The Scale [of Perfection], which has such a great deal in it. And you are of course right about Eckhart. He is more and more wonderful, and when properly interpreted, becomes less "way out" as our beats say. There is more in one sermon of Eckhart than in volumes of other people. There is so much packed in between the lines. |
| 1961/07/04 | Eckhart | Meister Eckhart / Meister Eckhart ; a modern transl. by Raymond Bernard Blakney |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 137
| I am becoming entranced with Eckhart: I have been won by the brevity, the incisiveness of his sermons, his way of piercing straight to the heart of the inner life, the awakened spark, the creative and redeeming word, God born in us. He is a great man who was pulled down by little men who thought they could destroy him. Who thought they could take him to Avignon and have him ruined and indeed he was ruined in 28 propositions which did not altogether resemble his joy and his energy and his freedom, but which could be brought to coincide with words he had uttered. |
| 1961/07/07 | Karl Rahner | Free Speech in the Church |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 138
| What I wrote above, though not quite what I wanted, I still stick to in principle in spite of what K[arl] Rahner says in The Prospect for Christianity. He holds it not only unlikely but impossible for the world as a whole to become irreligious, and states that since "Christianity has no serious rival," it is in effect impossible for the world to cease to be Christian. He assumes that it has been Christian at one time or other, and still is so. Of course he has to preserve a semblance of sanity by admitting we are going through a crisis, but it is just an "adolescent crisis" like that of a boy with a new bicycle who "rides his bicycle rather than going to church on Sunday." Such statements annoy and confound me. I have hitherto respected the wisdom of people like Rahner. I certainly do not deny that it is a matter of faith that the church will not be destroyed by her enemies-but it is quite another thing to assert that the world will always be "Christian." |
| 1961/07/21 | Christopher Dawson | Historic Reality of Christian Culture: A Way to the Renewal of Human Life |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 143
| I agree with these propositions in C[hristopher] Dawson's excellent book, The Historic Reality of Christian Culture [New York, 1960]. "Christians stand to gain more in the long run by accepting their minority position and looking for quality rather than quantity." Importance of religious education, especially Christian university education. For - a) Recovery of the rich Christian cultural inheritance (I would add all religious wisdom). b) Communication of this to a sub-religious or neo-pagan world. That these sub-rational and rational (cultural) levels of social life need to be coordinated and brought to a force in spiritual experience which transcends them both and is lacking in secularist culture (see esp. pp. 92-93). Recovery of spiritual vision is the real task of Xtian education |
| 1961/07/25 | Vladimir Lossky | Theologie negative et connaissance de Dieu chez Maître Eckhart |
Ltrs: HGL p. 344
| Now, above all. Today came the Lossky book on Eckhart. It is fabulously good, and not only that but it is for me personally a book of enormous and providential importance, because I can see right away in the first chapter that I am right in the middle of the most fundamental intuition of unknowing which was the first source of my faith and has ever since been my whole life "¦ I cannot thank you enough. |
| 1961/07/26 | Pieter Meer de Walcheren, van der | Rencontres: Leon Bloy, Raïssa Maritain, Christine et Pieterke |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 145
| Moved deeply and to tears by Pierre van der Meer de Walcheren's book Rencontres, which he kindly sent, saying rightly in the dedication that we are "clos" - and it is certainly true, for I am somehow of the family of Bloy. The section on Bloy is fine and even more moving is the one on Raissa Maritain. |
| 1961/07/27 | Pieter Meer de Walcheren, van der | Rencontres: Leon Bloy, Raïssa Maritain, Christine et Pieterke |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 145
| Lovely poem on Chagall by Raissa Maritain in P. Van der Meer's Rencontres. Like to translate it in Jubilee with a note on her and perhaps some Chagall picture. |
| 1961/08/06 | Eckhart | Meister Eckhart / Meister Eckhart ; a modern transl. by Raymond Bernard Blakney |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 148
| Today I read the wonderful sermon on the divine truth in which Eckhart says that as a person about to be struck by a thunderbolt turns toward it, and all the leaves of a tree about to be struck turn toward it, so one in whom the divine birth is to take place turns, without realizing, completely toward it. |
| 1961/08/07 | Clement of Alexandria | Protreptikos |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 149
| Both Newman and Fenelon loved Clement of Alexandria, which is not at all surprising. To Newman he was "like music." This may look like a cliche but it is profound. For there are people one meets-in books and in life-with whom a deep resonance is at once established. For a long time I had no "resonanc" with Newman (cor ad cor loquitur [heart speaks to heart]). I was suspicious of letting him enter my heart. Clement the same. Now I want all the music of Clement, and am only with difficulty restrained from taking new books on Newman from the library while I have so many other things to read and finish. Resonances: one of the "choirs." Maritain, Van der Meer de Walcheren, Bloy, Green, Chagall, Satie-or a string sextet! Another earlier music: Blake, Eckhart, Tauler (Maritain got in here too), Coomaraswamy"¦etc. Music: the marvelous opening of the Protreptikos [of Clement of Alexandria]- the "new song"-the splendid image of the cricket flying to replace by his song the broken string in the Lyre of Eunomos at Delphi. Though he repudiates the myth he uses it splendidly. Humanity a musical instrument for God. |
| 1961/08/19 | | Theologica Germanica |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 153
| The library has bought a copy of the Theologia Germanica, which I began today. |
| 1961/08/19 | Clement of Alexandria | Paedagogue |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 154
| Having finished the Protreptikos of Clement, began the Pedagogue. He is certainly one of the Fathers I like best, and with whom I feel the closest affinity. |
| 1961/08/19 | Clement of Alexandria | Protreptikos |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 154
| Having finished the Protreptikos of Clement, began the Pedagogue. He is certainly one of the Fathers I like best, and with whom I feel the closest affinity. |
| 1961/08/22 | Chrisopher Dawson | Understanding Europe |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 155
| I finished [Christopher] Dawson's Understanding Europe [New York, 1952]. It is a fine book. He is completely right about the central importance of Christian culture, the danger of the theological dualism à la Barth playing into the hands of secularism. Whether or not he came too late, who can say? In any case I have a clear obligation to participate, as long as I can, and to the extent of my abilities, in every effort to help a spiritual and cultural renewal of our time. This is the task that has been given me, and hitherto I have not been clear about it, in all its aspects and dimensions. To emphasize, clarify the living content of spiritual traditions, especially the Xtian, but also the Oriental, by entering myself deeply into their disciplines and experience, not for myself only but for all my contemporaries who may be interested and inclined to listen. This for the restoration of man's sanity and balance, that he may return to the ways of freedom and of peace, if not in my time, at least some day soon. |
| 1961/08/27 | | Theologica Germanica |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 157
| Theologia Germanica on the heaven and hell we carry about within us, and how it is good to experience within one or the other of these, for there one is in God's hands. But when one has neither a heaven or hell, one is alone in indifference of the lessons of the II Nocturn today (IV Sun. of Aug.) from St. Gregory. |
| 1961/08/27 | Vladimir Lossky | Theologie negative et connaissance de Dieu chez Maître Eckhart |
Ltrs: HGL p. 131
| I have been reading a really remarkable book on Eckhart, by Vladimir Lossky, in French. It is very difficult in parts but it is one of the finest studies on the Meister. I highly recommend it. Published by Vrin. It is unfinished, as Lossky died. He was a great man, wrote a very fine book on the mystical theology of the Oriental Church which you should know. Also I just finished Mircea Eliade's Myths, Dreams and Mysteries. This too is very rich. He refers incidentally to Ananda and in the final pages has some very good things on Maya "¦ |
| 1961/09/09 | | 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. |
| 1961/09/24 | Henry Corbin | Imagination creatrice dans le soufisme d'Ibn 'Arabi |
Ltrs: HGL p. 50
| Henry Corbin is an author in whom I am greatly interested and think that his book on Ibn Arabi is going to be very important for me. I like very much the first pages of it and the approach that he takes. This is an aspect of mysticism that I have not studied so much: that of the intermediate realm of what the Greek Fathers called theoria physike (natural contemplation) which deals with the symbols and images of things and their character as words or manifestations of God the Creator, whose wisdom is in them. I hope sometime to send you a little thing I have written on Wisdom (Sophia). It is being printed in a very limited edition on a hand press by a good friend of mine. It will be very rare. |
| 1961/10/19 | George Ernest Wright | God Who Acts: Biblical Theology as Recital |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 170-71
| Also have been reading more Biblical theology-esp. G. E. Wright, God Who Acts [Chicago, 1952], a book given to me by Eric Rust, the Baptist theologian. And a very fine book too. |
| 1961/10/27 | E.F. Osborn | Philosophy of Clement of Alexandria / and C.H. Dodd |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 174
| Calmed down to some extent this morning in the "sacred silence," reading, at peace. G. Ernest Wright on Biblical Theology. E. F. Osborn on Clement of Alexandria (dry). [Jules] Monchanin"¦ |
| 1961/10/27 | George Ernest Wright | God Who Acts: Biblical Theology as Recital |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 174
| Calmed down to some extent this morning in the "sacred silence," reading, at peace. G. Ernest Wright on Biblical Theology. E. F. Osborn on Clement of Alexandria (dry). [Jules] Monchanin"¦ |
| 1961/10/29 | Paul Tillich | Protestant Era |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 174
| "The key to the interpretation of history is historical activity," says Tillich. One of the statements that reflects a Marxist influence. But I agree. |
| 1961/11/19 | Clement of Alexandria | Stromata. French & Greek. Selections. Stromate II / Clement d'Alexandrie ; introd. et notes de Th. Camelot ; texte grec et trad. de Cl. Mondesert |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 181
| Reading Clement, the Stromateis, with comfort and consolation. I see no problem at all in his "esotericism." Obviously one cannot tell everybody everything, and there are certain truths for which the vast majority are not and never will be prepared. I cannot talk to the novices about the things which are central in my own spiritual life - or not about many of them, and about none of them directly. |
| 1961/11/21 | Jean Danielou | Platonisme et theologie mystique. Essay sur la doctrine spirituelle de Saint Gregoire de Nysse |
Ltrs: HGL p. 347-48
| [I] am trying as best I can to answer your questions about the introductions to Parts I and II of Benet... Now for your two introductions. I think they are unfortunately not really adequate. They do not read very well, because of all the mystifying complexity of the degrees one upon the other. And further I think you ought to go a lot deeper into the various questions raised, in relation to the whole history of spirituality. I think the present treatment is a little superficial, at least as far as situating Benet in the historical context is concerned. This needs badly to be done, and of course it is not going to be very easy "¦ But all this should be considerably developed. I don't mean that you have to lengthen it, but really bring in the meaning of the questions you raise. For instance, the reference to Gregory of Nyssa and epectasis: it would do no harm to use the Greek word, and bring in briefly the material condensed in the DS article on epectasis and the chapter on this in Danielou's Platonisme et Theologie Mystique. The reference to Bonaventure could be filled out with more rich allusions to the spirituality of St. Bonaventure and his relation to Benet situating B. in the Franciscan"” Dionysian tradition of Hugh of Balma and those people. |
| 1961/12/22 | Jean Danielou | From Glory to Glory: Texts from Gregory of Nyssa's Mystical Writings / and Herbert Musurillo |
Ltrs: HGL p. 348
| The new book on Gregory of Nyssa by Danielou and Musurillo has been sent me for review by Scribner's. I wonder if it is published in England. It is excellent as far as I have gone with it. A good clear introduction by Danielou and plenty of the best texts, though unfortunately they are all from the old Migne edition and not from the new critical edition of Werner Jaeger |
| 1961/12/22 | Thomas E. Roberts | Nuclear Weapons and Christian Conscience |
Ltrs: HGL p. 349
| I do think you ought to read something about it. A book put out by the Merlin Press in London, and edited by Walter Stein, a professor at Leeds, is very solid. There is a really good essay by a professor or whatever you call a lady don at Somerville, G. E. M. Anscombe. Do you know her? I think her contribution to this book makes a world of sense. The book is Nuclear Weapons and Christian Conscience. I hope to use all the material in a collection I am editing here. There will be a lot of other things too, by people like Lewis Mumford whom you must have read at one time or other. |
| 1962/01/00 | F.H. Drinkwater | Morals and Missiles |
Ltrs: WtoF p. 27-28
| As I said in the letter to the people of the Merlin Press, I found the book edited by you [Nuclear Weapons and the Christian Conscience, 1961] very impressive. What struck me most was the fact that the level was high, the thinking was energetic and uncompromising, and I was stimulated by the absence of the familiar cliches, or by worn-out mannerisms which have served us all in the evasion of real issues. For example (without applying these criticisms to any other book in particular), I was very struck by the superiority of your book over Morals and Missiles, which nevertheless had some good things in it. But Morals and Missiles had that chatty informality which the Englishman of Chesterton's generation thought he had to adopt as a protection whenever he tried to speak his mind on anything serious. Thank God you have thrown that off, because it emasculates a lot of very good thought. |
| 1962/01/00 | Walter Stein (ed.) | Nuclear Weapons: a Catholic Response |
Ltrs: WtoF p. 27-28
| As I said in the letter to the people of the Merlin Press, I found the book edited by you [Nuclear Weapons and the Christian Conscience, 1961] very impressive. What struck me most was the fact that the level was high, the thinking was energetic and uncompromising, and I was stimulated by the absence of the familiar cliches, or by worn-out mannerisms which have served us all in the evasion of real issues. For example (without applying these criticisms to any other book in particular), I was very struck by the superiority of your book over Morals and Missiles, which nevertheless had some good things in it. But Morals and Missiles had that chatty informality which the Englishman of Chesterton's generation thought he had to adopt as a protection whenever he tried to speak his mind on anything serious. Thank God you have thrown that off, because it emasculates a lot of very good thought. |
| 1962/01/29 | Marguerite Porete | Mirror of Simple Souls |
Ltrs: HGL p. 350
| Eric Colledge in an introduction to an English translation of some sermons of Tauler says that a Dr. Romana Guarnieri has advanced the thesis that The Mirror of Simple Souls was definitely by Marguerite Porete and that the Latin, Italian and French texts are being edited. If you see anything of this, or any articles about it, will you please let me know? |
| 1962/02/00 | Walter Stein (ed.) | Nuclear Weapons and the Christian Conscience |
Ltrs: WtoF p. 34
| I was very happy to hear you had written something about peace. If possible, please send me a copy at once, as I might be able to include it in an anthology of such essays which we are putting out, my publisher and I. We have got a lot of very fine things, and I would like very much to have something of yours. There is a first-class little book that has just come out in England, Nuclear Weapons and the Christian Conscience, edited by Walter Stein, which you may know. |
| 1962/03/04 | Thomas Aquinas | Commentary on Timothy |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 207
| "The secret which is hidden in the heart of the Father, has become Man." -St Thomas Comm[entary] On Tim[othy] That Christ is not a human nature conscious of Himself as (human) subject. To say He is natura humana sui conscia [human nature with self-consciousness] would be saying He was a Human Person (subject). Hence Nestorianism. So some distinguish two consciousnesses, divine and human, but there is only one (divine) subject. What does Buddhism attempt to do with the natura humana sui conscia? What happens to it in mysticism? Implications? Difficulties? |
| 1962/03/18 | Karl Rahner | On the Theology of Death |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 211-12
| Karl Rahner's [On the] Theology of Death [New York, 1961] is a most exciting book. First time I have been completely won over to him. Basic idea: that death by its nature is meant to be an act of fulfillment. That by sin it has become a dissolution-suffered and undergone-a final manifestation of sin. That by grace it becomes once again, though hiddenly, an act of faith and submission, an act done [underlined twice]-while also the body and soul suffer separation. This emphasis on the act [underlined twice] of death in fulfillment and selftranscendence is to me startlingly Buddhist in the highest spiritual sense of Buddhism properly understood. Here is a real point of contact between Buddhism and Xtianity... On p. 53 he appears to include a kind of Buddhist spiritualization under the "sinful act" of autonomous death. In reality this could not be true Buddhism-it would be the spirit's affirmation of itself as intangible. True Buddhism as I understand it is a perfect spiritual humility and a total openness. Properly understood, Buddhist concept of liberation should open me to Xt. Improperly it would close one inexorably! |
| 1962/03/24 | Hans Küng | Council, Reform and Reunion |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 213
| Finishing the Küng book on The Council, Reform and Reunion. Tremendous, clear, outspoken. Will his hopes be realized? He is sane about them, and realistic. A sobering discussion of possibilities which may never be realized. If they are not, it will be a disaster. We cannot afford not to do our best to fulfill great hopes. |
| 1962/03/30 | Marguerite Porete | Mirror of Simple Souls |
Ltrs: HGL p. 351
| "¦ Where did I see, the other day, something about a new edition of The Mirror of Simple Souls, and definitely ascribed to Marguerite Porete? Perhaps it was somewhere in the new Molinari book on Julian of Norwich, which I have only begun and then had to set aside for more urgent matters. If there is a new one out, I will wait to get that instead of borrowing the Orchard edition. But I could also probably get an old copy of that from Tom Burns at Burns Oates. |
| 1962/04/01 | Frederic Meer, van der | Augustine the Bishop |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 215
| Reading the Van der Meer book on Augustine, monumental (also expensive) and vastly interesting. Yet I am no longer able to be enthusiastic about Augustine. |
| 1962/04/26 | Origenes | Contra Celsum / Translated with an introduction & notes by Henry Chadwick |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 216
| Reading Origen, Contra Celsum. |
| 1962/05/01 | Origenes | Opera Omnia |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 217
| Contra Celsum is fascinating though I am tempted to renounce it as "getting nowhere." And yet if one follows allusions (for instance into the city at the end of Ezekiel) and sees it in the light of Mircea Eliade, it is awfully rich. |
| 1962/05/07 | Bernard Piault | What Is the Trinity |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 217-18
| "If India were to hear the word of Christ and be converted, it is possible that she would be hardly capable of considering the divine mystery in the ways traditional to the Christian East and West, full of living inspiration though they are. Young in the faith and proud of her own cultural heritage, she might give us instead a Hindu theology of the Trinity." - Bernard Piault in What Is the Trinity? [New York, 1959], p 118 Especially in getting away from the Augustinian psychological treatment of the mystery. In the theology of the Trinity as we have it in the West we are under the domination of Augustine's introspective and generally non-mystical contemplation that is centered on the self as medium to that which is above the self. Meeting of the logos and the soul in the soul's concept of itself, experience of itself?? Surely not mere reflection on our own experience of ourself and hence to the Trinity by inference. It must be more than that. |
| 1962/05/12 | Tertullianus | De Oratione |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 218-19
| Glorious 4th Chapter of Tertullian's De Oratione [On Prayer]. The Latin, sharp, austere, brilliant and torrid. Underneath the words, the history, the situation: to martyrs. Ut"¦sustineamus ad mortem usque. [That"¦we may endure even unto death.] The reality of God's will as an immense power. And suffering. Saying Fiat voluntas tua, ad sufferentiam nos metipsos praemonemus [Thy will be done, we warn ourselves ahead of time that we will have to suffer]. |
| 1962/06/00 | Gregory of Nyssa | From Glory to Glory, Texts from Gregorius of Nyssa's Mystical Writings / Edited by J. Danielou/H. Musurillo |
Ltrs: WtoF p. 245
| You might find interesting leads in Bouyer's new book Seat of Wisdom. And of course there is always Berdyaev "¦ His "Sense of Creation" (if that is the English title, I read it in French) is full of wild ideas, but a few good ones also. Have you by the way read Traherne's Centuries of Meditations, published recently by Harper's? He has delightful insights on this subject. As to the Scholastics, I would say try St. Bonaventure's Collationes in Haexemeron. (In general all the Patristic treatises on the work of the six days would offer interesting material.) I am on and off reading Clement of Alexandria and will try to keep you in mind if I run across more material. Then there is Gregory of Nyssa. A new collection of texts by Danielou and Musurillo should offer a few possibilities. |
| 1962/06/05 | Tertullianus | Apologeticus adversos gentes pro christianis |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 224
| Wonderful insights in the Apologetic of Tertullian, more subtle than Hannah Arendt, and of the same kind: on the irony and inner contradiction of the forced confessions extorted from the martyrs. |
| 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. |
| 1962/06/10 | Cassiodorus | De Anima |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 226-27
| What more beautiful or more appropriate than these lines of Cassiodorus where he speaks of the soul as a light, in the likeness of the divine light? Then of God: Illud autem quod ineffabile veneramur arcanum Quod ubique totum et invisibiliter praesens est Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus Una essentia et indiscreta majestas Splendor supra omnes fulgores, gloria supra omne praeconium Quod mundissima anima et Deo dedita potest quidem ex aliqua parte sentire sed non idonee explicare. Nam quemadmodum fas est de illo sufficienter dici qui creaturae sensu non potest comprehendi? [But that which we reverence as unspeakable secret which is everywhere totally and invisibly present Father, Son and Holy Spirit One essence and undivided majesty Splendor above all light, glory above all honor Which the purest soul dedicated to God can experience everywhere but not explain. For what can ever be said of this being who cannot be understood by his creatures?] [n.8: Merton will later publish a more refined translation of these lines in Conjecturesof a Guilty Bystander (New York, 1966), pp 208-9] |
| 1962/06/16 | Marguerite Porete | Mirror of Simple Souls |
Ltrs: HGL p. 352
| Many thanks for the good news about The Mirror of Simple Souls. It was very good of you to get in contact with M. Orcibal and I am delighted to hear the printing exists: perhaps if it is only a loan to you, I might find out some way of obtaining a copy myself. This is really interesting. |
| 1962/06/26 | 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. |
| 1962/07/03 | Lactantius | De Opifico Dei |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 229
| Discovery of Lactantius, particularly De Opificis Dei. Because I read and like St. Augustine and St. Gregory in the novitiate, I thought of myself as one who was somewhat familiar with the Fathers. An illusion. I have not even begun. |
| 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 |
| 1962/09/26 | Alfred Delp S.J. | Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 250-51
| Reading the magnificent Prison Meditations of Fr. Delp. In ms. I am to write the preface for Herder and Herder. Superb, powerful material. Totally different from the rather depressing false optimism of our establishment. Here a true optimism of one who really sees through the evil and irreligion of our condition and finds himself in Christ-through poverty, crying out from the abyss, answered and rescued by the Spirit..... Delp says: "Of course the Church still has skillful apologists, clever and compelling preachers, wise leaders; but the simple confidence that senses the right course and proceeds to act on it is just not there." |
| 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. |
| 1962/10/21 | Henry Vaughan | Flores solitudinis |
Ltrs: HGL p. 25
| Vaughan I hav"”one of my favorites. I once thought of bringing out an edition of his translation of Eucherius's De Contemptu Mundi"”but that would be complicated. |
| 1962/10/29 | Marguerite Porete | Mirror of Simple Souls |
Ltrs: HGL p. 355
| Thanks so much for The Mirror of Simple Souls. I am really enjoying it, though I find that I have a hard time getting anywhere for great lengths in such books. A little goes a long way. It is an admirable book, but one which one does not really "read." I hold it in my hand walking about in the woods, as if I were reading. But it is charming and bold and right. I am more and more convinced that if you are in dryness and such, these books only increase the problem (if it is a problem). At the same time I think we make problems for ourselves where there really are none. There is too much conscious "spiritual lif" floating around us, and we are too aware that we are supposed to get somewhere. Well, where? If you reflect, the answer turns out to be a word that is never very close to any kind of manageable reality. If that is the case, perhaps we are already in that where. In which case why do we torment ourselves looking around to verify a fact which we cannot see in any case? We should let go our hold upon our self and our will, and be in the Will in which we are. Contentment is very important, of course I mean what seems to be contentment with despair. And the worst thing of all is false optimism. |
| 1962/11/17 | Ernesto Cardenal | Salmos |
Ltrs: CforT p. 137
| Your Psalms [Salmos] are terrific. Those are the versions we should really be chanting in choir. How few monks think of the real meaning of the Psalms. If priests knew what they were reciting every day. I am sure some of them must realize. Do we have to be in the concentration camp before the truth comes home to us? |
| 1962/11/20 | Ignace Lepp | From Karl Marx to Jesus Christ |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 267
| "The trouble is that communism long ago ceased to be a truly progressive force and has formed the worst type of orthodox ranks. Although the progressive Christians are aware of this they dare not openly proclaim it for fear of appearing reactionary." Ignace Lepp [From Karl Marx to Jesus Christ (New York, 1958)] This is a very significant observation. It ought to be obvious, but is not, because there are so few Christians who are really able to stand on their own feet, and not propped up by reactionaries of the right on one side or those of the left on the other. In this correctly they are almost all on the right. In Europe there is a clearer division. But who is there who can stand in the middle and go his own way as a Christian? Probably there are some, but not as many as claim to be. |
| 1963/05/07 | Marguerite Porete | Mirror of Simple Souls |
Ltrs: HGL p. 583
| Recently I have read The Mirror of Simple Souls, which Etta Gullick lent me. It is a marvelous book, and has some magnificent and original things in it. And is so splendidly written. I understand it is by Marguerite Porete, who was burned at the stake. Dom Porion, translator of Hadewijch of Antwerp, says this. There is no question that the mystics are the ones who have kept Christianity going, if anyone has. The Fenelon-Bossuet business, as an official and in some ways almost definitive victory for officialdom over mysticism, is a critical point in history. That is why it is interesting to see that Fenelon, before he got into mysticism, was already also criticizing the autocratic and unjust war politic of Louis XIV. It all hangs together. |
| 1963/05/08 | Ambrosius | Hexaemeron |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 316-17
| The other day, on the advice of Notker Balbulus, "If you love God's creatures, read Ambrose's Hexaemeron," I began the Hexaemeron of Ambrose. A book of great charm because it is a poem of love, primitive, childlike and erotic joy in creation, and yet with great intelligence and strength. We can well read such books if we do not take them as science, and the scientific view of the evidence will not make sense until it, also, becomes play. Elements of play in space-flight. But the great death play of nuclear war: the awful, stupified, obsessed seriousness of technology, especially war technology. |
| 1963/05/10 | Leslie Dewart | Christianity and Revolution |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 317
| Les[lie] Dewart has sent the ms. of his important book on Cuba. The first thing I have seen that makes sense out of the whole business. But he points out the responsibility of Catholics in creating a situation which led Castro to Communism. And it was led to do this by its ordinariness and mediocrity. Not that there was not great courage and generosity on the part of many who suffered torture under Batista for opposing him: but once Castro was in power, his Catholic supporters could not, says D., conceive of anything but an either/or choice between total repudiation of Communism or total acceptance of it. This, according to D., drove Castro to Communism. |
| 1963/05/11 | Louis Massignon | Parole donnee / Louis Massignon ; introd. de Vincent Monteil |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 319
| "La finalite bistorique doit devenir ‘interieurement' et librement intelligible, car elle concerne la personne qui degage à elle seule le sens de l'epreuve commune (et non l'individu, element differencie dependant du groupe social qui en demeure la ‘fin' naturelle." ["Historical finality ought to become ‘interiorly' and freely understandable because it deals with the person who brings out, all alone, the sense of the common trial (and not the individual, a fundamentally differentiated element, depending on the social group which remains its natural ‘purpose.'"] L Massignon, Parole Donnee, 135. He goes on to say each can find in the religion of his own life "interferences experimentaires [experimental interferences]" between his own inner spiritual time and his time of historical events. |
| 1963/06/11 | Dorothy Day | Loaves and Fishes: The Inspiring Storey of the Catholic Worker Movement |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 330
| Proofs of Dorothy Day's new book came from Harper (with a request for comment). It looks good. |
| 1963/06/18 | R.W. Southern | Life of St. Anselm, Archbisshop of Canterbury |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 334
| I finished my article on St. Anselm and the ontological argument but am still reading the R. W. Southern book, which is excellent, and very interesting with all its material on Canterbury. |
| 1963/06/26 | Anselmus of Canterbury | Proslogion |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 333
| Have read St. Anselm's Proslogion [A Discourse] and having for the first time considered the ontological argument, have come under its peculiar spell. It is certainly much more than a mere illogical confusion of orders, or an illicit transition from the level of words to the level of being. On the contrary, it begins and ends in being. It has extraordinary faults, impossible to define and describe because of the underlying spiritual experience which it suggests. |
| 1963/07/14 | Desiderius Erasmus | Ratio Verae Theologiae |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 337
| We have now the new photocopied edition of Erasmus, and I am reading the Ratio Verae Theologiae. I admit I am charmed by him. He reads so well, speaks with such clarity and sense, and is so full of the light of the Gospel. I am also reading K. Rahner's new little book on Mary [Mary, Mother of the Lord (New York, 1963)] and I am struck by the similarity-the same kind of clarity, simplicity and breadth of view. It is the same mutual climate without the subdued passion and the humor of Erasmus. |
| 1963/07/19 | Aurelius Augustinus | Confessions |
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 | Aurelius Augustinus | De Doctrina Christiana |
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 | Aurelius Augustinus | Exposition on the Book of Psalms |
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 | Desiderius Erasmus | Ratio Verae Theologiae |
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 | Thomas a Kempis | Imitation of Christ |
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. |
| 1963/07/28 | A.M. Allchin | Silent Rebellion: Anglican Religious Communities 1845-1900 |
Ltrs: HGL p. 362
| Talking about Cowley, Fr. A. M. Allchin, of Pusey House (I suppose you must know him), is coming here next week. He has sent his book about the Anglican religious communities [The Silent Rebellion: Anglican Religious Communities 1845-1900] and I find it quite interesting. I am so happy that your friend [Brother Raymond] was ordained: yes, you did tell me that, I think. I shall remember him occasionally in my Mass, and may he rest in peace. |
| 1963/07/29 | A.M. Allchin | Silent Rebellion: Anglican Religious Communities 1845-1900 |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 347
| There are some very stirring quotations on religious life, from Anglicans, in A. M. Allchin's Silent Rebellion, especially R. M. Benson. There is a special quality and excellence in the Anglican view of monasticism, with a very genuine touch of protest, of "witness against" the torpor of the Anglican establishment. Yet how much does it mean? Is it merely a precious indulgence of a very small minority? I am singularly moved and disturbed by this book, and am certainly glad to be a Roman, as emphatically as Newman was. |
| 1963/09/03 | Robert Charles Zaehner | Matter and Spirit: Their Convergence in Eastern Religions, Marx and Teilhard de Chardin |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 15
| [Robert Charles] Zaehner's new book, Matter and Spirit, is an attempted synthesis of Marxist Christianity with the help of Teilhard de Chardin. So far I am not sure I am impressed. |
| 1963/09/05 | Dorothy Day | Loaves and Fishes: The Inspiring Storey of the Catholic Worker Movement |
Ltrs: HGL p. 147
| You know by now how much I enjoyed your book [Loaves and Fishes]. Am reading James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain which I find very moving. |
| 1963/09/20 | Karl Barth | Fides quaerens intellectum : la preuve de l'existence de dieu d'après Anselme de Cantorbery / Karl Barth ; trad. francaise de Jean Carrère |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 17
| I have been able to do a lot of reading. Some on Barth's view of St. Anselm (very penetrating explanation of Anselm's religious sense of God in "the argument"). |
| 1963/09/30 | Karl Barth | Dogmatics in Outline |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 20
| A magnificent line from Karl Barth. "Everyone who has to contend with unbelief should be advised that he ought not to take his own unbelief too seriously. Only faith is to be taken seriously, and if we have faith as a grain of mustard seed, that suffices for the devil to have lost his gam" (Dogmatics in Outline, p. 20). What stupendous implications in that! Always the old trouble, that the devil and our nature try to persuade us that before we can begin to believe we must be perfect in everything. Faith is not important as it is "in us." Our faith is "in God," and with even a very little of it, God is in us. "To believe is the freedom to trust in Him quite alon" (and to be independent of any other reliance) and to rely on Him in everything that concerns us. |
| 1963/10/04 | Frithjof Schuon | Comprendre l'Islam |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 22
| Two minds more different than those of Karl Barth and Frithjof Schuon would be hard to imagine, yet I am reading them both. Barth with his insistence on "God in the highest": completely unattainable by any human tradition and Schuon with his philosophia humanis [humanistic philosophy] (am reading his excellent book on Islam [Comprendre l'Islam, 1961]). True, Barth is a greater mind and there is an austere beauty in his Evangelical absolutism (closer to Islam than one would think!!) but there is another side to him-his love of St. Anselm and of Mozart. Schuon naturally oversimplifies his "contrast" between Islam and Christianity. One has to know what he's really doing! I wrote this morning to Marco Pallis (who sent the Schuon book) about his Way and the Mountain (the other night I dreamed about the way). |
| 1963/10/17 | Zoe Oldenbourg | Massacre at Monsegur: A History of the Albigensian Crusade |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 24
| The last time I was in Louisville to see the Doctor I got two books on the Albigensians by Zoe Oldenbourg [Destiny of Fire and Massacre at Montsegur: A History of the Albigensian Crusade]. I have just finished Massacre at Montsegur-a deeply disturbing and moving book. One could find fault with it, in details, I suppose. But what would be the point? In general it is very honest and convincing and I think serious statement about the Church and the Inquisition, made without rancor, by someone whose real love for the Cathars makes her no doubt a bit partial. Is there any getting away from the fact that the Dominicans invented the methods of the modern police state? The secret trial, with secret evidence, making it profitable for the witness to save his life by accusing as many other people (secretly) as possible-retaining his anonymity, etc. The denunciations that remain anonymous-same complaint today against the Holy Office. |
| 1963/10/17 | Zoe Oldenbourg | Massacre at Monsegur: A History of the Albigensian Crusade |
Ltrs: CforT p. 41
| I have been thinking of Toulouse, as I have come across some rather interesting books about the Albigensians (Zoe Oldenbourg). What a tormented history that country of "min" has, for that is "my" part of France. I love it still, and always shall. I still think of towns like Cordes with the greatest fascination "¦ |
| 1963/10/18 | Zoe Oldenbourg | Massacre at Monsegur: A History of the Albigensian Crusade |
Ltrs: HGL p. 363
| Have you read any of Zoe Oldenbourg's books about the Albigensians? Very moving and disturbing. She is right in many ways, yet you cannot call the Cathars "perfect Christians." I do not hesitate to add that the Inquisition is certainly no more perfectly Christian than the Cathars"”probably a lot less!! |
| 1963/10/26 | Julien Green | Each in His Darkness |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 27
| "One thing still holds, and only this one thing is really serious, that Jesus is the victor. A seriousness that would look back past this, like Lot's wife, is not Christian seriousness. It may be burning behind-and truly it is burning-but we have to look not at it but at the other fact, that we are visited and summoned to take seriously the victory of God's glory in this man Jesus and to be joyful in Him." Karl Barth This is appropriate to what I was thinking about the grim and fearful seriousness with which Julien Green takes evil [in Each in His Darkness, 1961]. The fear that one's obsession with evil may be a sign of not being "of the elect." And Graham Greene too: in him evil is more serious than good. |
| 1963/11/12 | Nicholas of Cusa | Opuscula |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 33
| On the other hand I think that reading Sartre's L'Être et le néant is going to be important for me. (However, I did not read it.) Also, translating some opuscula [short works] of Nicholas of Cusa (if I can keep at it. He gets away from me when he seems too intellectual and dry). I will not abandon translations (hope of translation) of a few letters of Anselm, and maybe the article on Grimlaicus |
| 1963/11/14 | Nicholas of Cusa | Opuscula |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 34
| Nicholas of Cusa: opening up. Magnificent discovery. I have been on to him for a while, but not realizing how much was there! |
| 1963/11/24 | Lancelot Andrewes | Preces Privatae |
Ltrs: HGL p. 363
| Just a word of thanks for the books, Wm. Law, and Lancelot Andrewes. I am so glad to have them both, particularly William Law. I like him very much. I will spend an afternoon in the woods with the Preces Privatae one of these days too. |
| 1963/12/05 | | Pilgrimage of Etheria / translation of Peregrinatio Aetheriae |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 43
| Another Spanish writer-fourth-century Egeria (Etheria, "Sylvia") and her amazing Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Egypt, Sinai and Mesopotamia [Peregrinatio Aetheriae (The Pilgrimage of Etheria), 1919]. I love her. Simplicity, practicality, insatiable curiosity, and tremendous endurance as long as she is riding her mule (laments a little when she has to go "straight up" the side of Sinai-any influence on St. John of the Cross?). All the holy women she meets-they must have been delighted with her and overwhelmed. This is a really marvelous book, one of the greatest monuments of fourth-century literature, and too few know it. Two English translations, the most recent being 1919. I am tempted to do it-but better not! Is she Spanish? Sounds like a Spaniard, with the simplicity, mixture of hope, humor, idealism and endurance. Or maybe some day she will turn out to have been Irish! |
| 1963/12/15 | Werner Georg Kümmel | Man in the New Testament / trans. John J. Vincent |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 45
| Interesting notes on New Testament anthropology in Werner Georg Kümmel [Man in the New Testament, trans. John J. Vincent, 1963]. I don't agree with his general thesis that man by nature has nothing whatever to dispose him for grace and life with God (no "image," "spirit," etc.). However, here and there profound meanings emerge. Especially in meaning of sin and man's "boasting" before God. |
| 1963/12/15 | Werner Georg Kümmel | Man in the New Testament / trans. John J. Vincent |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 45
| Of [Rudolf Karl] Bultmann: "Pauline anthropology is as a statement an act of the new life and not an anthropology in a general or obvious sens" (quoted by Kümmel, p. 71). He will end by rejecting Paul's Areopagus speech and Peter's "natura" as Hellenistic and strange. |
| 1963/12/16 | Werner Georg Kümmel | Man in the New Testament / trans. John J. Vincent |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 46
| The great value of the Kümmel book is its affirmation, conclusively proven, that in the New Testament man's sin has nothing to do with his bodily existence. It is not that bodily life = sinful life and spiritual life or "sane lif" = good life. But that the whole man either accepts or rejects God. |
| 1964/01/11 | Rudolf Bultmann | Form Criticism: Two Essays on New Testament Research |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 59
| Much as I disagree with some of Bultmann's statements on non-Christian religions I cannot help being swayed and moved by his basic argument which is completely convincing-and most salutary. "God's grace is to man grace in such a thoroughgoing sense that it supports the whole of man's existence, and can only be conceived of as grace by those who surrender their whole existence and let themselves fall into the unfathomable, dizzy depths without seeking for something to hold on to" (Essays, p. 136). The great hope of our time is, it seems to me, not that the Church will become once again a world power and a dominant institution, but on the contrary that the power of faith and the Spirit will shake the world when Christians have lost what they held on to and have entered into the eschatological kingdom-where in fact they already are! |
| 1964/01/13 | Karl Jaspers | Plato and Augustine / edited by Hannah Arendt |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 61
| Jaspers talks of the "Augustinian turnabout." At one moment Augustine is saying "let none of us say he has already found the truth. Let us look for it as though we did not yet know it on either sid" and then later he advocates using force against those who do not accept our faith. And apparently without feeling there is any problem. As the greatest of Catholic Doctors he has bequeathed this mentality to the entire Catholic Church-and to the Protestants as well, because he is as much their Father as ours! This is the mind of Western Christendom. |
| 1964/01/17 | Maurice Merleau-Ponty | Signes |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 62-63
| For Merleau-Ponty our body is not an apparatus which, directed by the Spirit, makes use of pre-existing signs to express a meaning which is "there." It is on the contrary a living instrument of its own life, making sense, by all its acts, of the world in which it is. The whole body is art and full of art. Corporeity is style. A deeply (religious) spiritual concept!! Corporiety-a sense and focus of intelligent convergences. "Le propre du geste humain"¦d'inau-gurer un sens." ["It is proper for human signs to make sense."] (Signes, p. 85) All gestures part of a universal syntax-the proportion of monograms and inscapes. History as "horizontal transcendenc" becomes a sacred cow (Signes, 88). That is to say an external power bearing down on us inexorably and demanding the immolation of the present, the recognition of our nothingness in the presence of what "Man" will "one day be." (For as yet he is not.) (Ibid.) He sees more rightly than most Christians that in fact Christianity abolished subordination and revealed a new mystery in relation of man to God that is not vertical only or horizontal only, for "le Christ atteste que Dieu ne serait pas pleinement Dieu sans epouser la condition d'homm" ["Christ gives witness that God would not be completely God without embracing the human condition"] in whom we find God as our other self "qui habite et au-thentifie notre obscurit" ["who lives and verifies our obscurity"]. (Ibid.) The whole mystery of the Ascension is here! |
| 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. |
| 1964/02/02 | Maurice Merleau-Ponty | Sens et non-sens |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 69-70
| One of the worst things I have ever done-the absurd enterprise of writing that text for the Vatican Pavilion. Nothing whatever to do with a movie. I must learn to refuse these baits. Yet how marvelous to really and competently do a movie! Merleau-Ponty's essay on the films-have important implications for the new liturgy. Liturgy on "comportement" [behavior]! Translating language of movies into Liturgy. "(La liturgie) s'addresse à notre pouvoir de dechiffrer tacitement le monde ou les hommes et de coexister avec eux." ["Liturgy addresses itself to our power to decipher tacitly the world or men and coexist with them," Sens et non sens, p. 103.] This is either so right or so utterly wrong as to be blasphemous. But in that cas"¦? Liturgy is to be experienced, and it is a film. Not past thought or willed. Experienced by the presentation of conducts. "Non pas"¦chaque conscience et les autres, mais la conscience jetee dans le monde, soumise au regard des autres et apprenant d'eux ce qu'elle est" ["Not"¦each conscience and the other consciences, but the conscience thrown into the world, submitted to the view of others and learning from others what it is"] (Sens et non sens, pp. 104-105). This needs interpretation (danger of the Fascist application, or the Soviet application of it!) but in the right sense it is "liturgy." Or is it? "Engagement de la conscience dans un corps." ["The engagement of a conscience in a body."] |
| 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.) |
| 1964/02/18 | Ammonas | Ammonii Eremitae Epistolae |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 77
| "Ut apud te mens nostra tuo depiderisfuequat quae si carnis maceratione cangiat." [Merton's loose translation follows.] The desire and need to be clothed in the light of the Spirit when in fact I am clothed in shame (and yet I see the shame itself also as grace!!). The wonderful power of the Letters of Ammonas and his mystical doctrine. It is to me impressive, beyond all the others, beyond John of the Cross and [Meister] Eckhart, not to say the lesser ones. It is the pure doctrine of Christian monastic mysticism. |
| 1964/03/19 | Heinrich Schlier | Eleutheros |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 91
| I am beginning to be glad I learned (barely) to read German in school, and regret that I have let it go for so long, because it is a very rich language. The perfect language for an existential theology. And how much language has to do with expressing a particular facet of reality? Things can be discovered in German, that can be perhaps reproduced afterwards in other languages. Deeply moved for instance by [Heinrich] Schlier's magnificent article "Eleutheria" [Freedom] in Kittel. A superb investigation of the relation of sin, death and works - which explains for one thing my disillusionment and exasperation with the proofs of my new book (The Black Revolution again). I am wrong, and wrong over again to expect some definitive meaning for my life to emerge from my works. All it points to is the end: death. It leads others to deception and hurries them along to their own death, yet even in this I must witness to life. Monastic implications of this fine article. |
| 1964/03/21 | Heinrich Schlier | Eleutheros |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 92
| Today I finished after several days of continuous work, Schlier's splendid article "Eleutheria" in Kittel. Amazing how much Zen there is in these insights which are nevertheless so far beyond anything Buddhist, or passive, or negative. The fullest and most positive concept of freedom from death in our death-forfeited dasein (!!) in which the Flesh slavishly works to attain Lordship over itself. Emphasis on the works of love and freedom, of self-forgetfulness, that show us as free from death because free from concern with self-assertion and selfperpetuation and entirely open to others. |
| 1964/04/04 | Henry Robert McAdoo | Structure of Caroline Moral Theology |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 94
| Have borrowed [Henry Robert] McAdoo on Caroline Moral Theology [The Structure of Caroline Moral Theology, 1949] from Rev. [William K.) Hubbell (Episcopalian) in Lexington. I like it. |
| 1964/04/25 | Henry Robert McAdoo | Structure of Caroline Moral Theology |
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. |
| 1964/04/25 | 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. |
| 1964/05/26 | Louis Gougaud | Celtic Christianity |
Ltrs: SofC p. 217
| I have begun some work on medieval recluses, and am of course very interested in finding out more about the Irish sources of this movement on the continent. I see you quote Marianus Scotus, and there are all sorts of interesting suggestions in your book that seem to lead in the direction which interests me. I have Gougaud's Ermites et Reclus and Celtic Christianity, and have run into the standard works on recluses in England. Can you give me any other good leads for Ireland? I am especially eager to get at the poetic material in Kuno Meyer, which I have never seen before, and probably will find a thing or two there. But I would greatly appreciate if you would give me some good leads for Irish hermits and recluses and their influence on the continent. |
| 1964/05/26 | Louis Gougaud | Ermites et Reclus |
Ltrs: SofC p. 217
| I have begun some work on medieval recluses, and am of course very interested in finding out more about the Irish sources of this movement on the continent. I see you quote Marianus Scotus, and there are all sorts of interesting suggestions in your book that seem to lead in the direction which interests me. I have Gougaud's Ermites et Reclus and Celtic Christianity, and have run into the standard works on recluses in England. Can you give me any other good leads for Ireland? I am especially eager to get at the poetic material in Kuno Meyer, which I have never seen before, and probably will find a thing or two there. But I would greatly appreciate if you would give me some good leads for Irish hermits and recluses and their influence on the continent. |
| 1964/05/26 | Nora Kershaw Chadwick | Age of the Saints in the Early Celtic Church |
Ltrs: SofC p. 217
| Having just read, and greatly enjoyed, your book The Age of Saints in the EarlyCeltic Church, I am emboldened by my friend [Eleanor] S. Duckett to write you a note about it. Speaking as a monk, I can hardly say how much I have responded to your ideas and theses. As I am not enough of a scholar to find reasons why they might not be perfectly correct, I am happy to agree with you throughout. So your book has come along just when I was about to start on Celtic monasticism with my novices and students at this Abbey. I also used your Poetry and Letters in Sixth Century Gaul with them last year and will, no doubt, use it again. One of my students reviewed it also for our little magazine which perhaps you have seen. If not, please let me know and I will have a copy sent to you. The magazine is called Monastic Studies. |
| 1964/05/26 | Nora Kershaw Chadwick | Poetry and Letters in early Christian Gaul |
Ltrs: SofC p. 217
| Having just read, and greatly enjoyed, your book The Age of Saints in the EarlyCeltic Church, I am emboldened by my friend [Eleanor] S. Duckett to write you a note about it. Speaking as a monk, I can hardly say how much I have responded to your ideas and theses. As I am not enough of a scholar to find reasons why they might not be perfectly correct, I am happy to agree with you throughout. So your book has come along just when I was about to start on Celtic monasticism with my novices and students at this Abbey. I also used your Poetry and Letters in Sixth Century Gaul with them last year and will, no doubt, use it again. One of my students reviewed it also for our little magazine which perhaps you have seen. If not, please let me know and I will have a copy sent to you. The magazine is called Monastic Studies. |
| 1964/06/02 | Emmy Arnold | Torches Together: The beginning and Early Years of the Bruderhof Communities |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 108
| Reading the little book on Eberhard Arnold on the Bruderhof [Emmy Arnold, Torches Together: The Beginning and Early Years of the Bruderhof Communities, 1964]. I think this (from his statement on his fiftieth birthday) applies well enough to be almost a word of God to me. "Let us pledge to him that all our own power will remain dismantled and will keep on being dismantled among us. Let us pledge that the only thing that will count among us will be the power and authority of God in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit; that it will never again be us that count but that God above will rule and govern in Christ and the Holy Spirit." |
| 1964/06/16 | | Teaching of Maelruain |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 114
| Read the Teaching of Maelruain (Rule of Tallaght) and some Irish poems. |
| 1964/06/23 | David L. Edwards | "Honest to God" Debate: Some Reactions to the Book Honest to God |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 121
| First real interest in the "Honest to God" question.[Note 1: The "question" was prompted by the publication in 1963 of J. A. T. Robinson's Honest to God and later in 1963 by David L. Edwards's collection of essays, The "Honest to God" Debate: Some Reactions to the Book Honest to God.] Is it really so new? I think the problem is real enough and even one which Christianity has faced since the beginning. But the solution tends to be a debacle?? A complete surrender to nonsense and desperation and confusion. Is it really true that man is now totally and complacently content with modern technological culture as it is? Is there a great distance from Bonhoeffer's acceptance to Eichmann's acquiescence? Certainly! One must not stop at appearances and at a few texts out of context. |
| 1964/06/23 | John A. T. (John Arthur Thomas) Robinson | Honest to God |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 121
| First real interest in the "Honest to God" question.[Note 1: The "question" was prompted by the publication in 1963 of J. A. T. Robinson's Honest to God and later in 1963 by David L. Edwards's collection of essays, The "Honest to God" Debate: Some Reactions to the Book Honest to God.] Is it really so new? I think the problem is real enough and even one which Christianity has faced since the beginning. But the solution tends to be a debacle?? A complete surrender to nonsense and desperation and confusion. Is it really true that man is now totally and complacently content with modern technological culture as it is? Is there a great distance from Bonhoeffer's acceptance to Eichmann's acquiescence? Certainly! One must not stop at appearances and at a few texts out of context. |
| 1964/07/04 | Hutterian Brethren (ed.) | Children in Community |
Ltrs: SofC p. 220
| A special word for the beautiful book Children in Community. This is a very special success, with all the modesty of its production, it is certainly an outstanding picture book, one that is really much more than it appears to be. (So many ambitious and pretentious projects in this line are actually far less than they want to be or claim to be.) Here there is a kind of intangible and indefinable spiritual "plus" that surely comes from the Lord Himself. Such a wonderful quality. The texts are marvelous and the pictures a real joy. I shall never get tired of this book, and the other monks and I will continue to enjoy it as long as we live, I hope. It will remain a deep bond with you. |
| 1964/07/08 | Alan Orr Anderson | Adamnan's Life of Columba / and Marjory Ogilvie Anderson, editors and translators |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 124
| I am reading Adamnan's Life of Columba [1962], one of the great Vitae. Full of a very special character and spirit of its own: not the general aim of Latin hagiography. (For instance the two chapters about the whale, and those about men shouting across the strait for a boat to the Island.) |
| 1964/07/12 | Alan Orr Anderson | Adamnan's Life of Columba / and Marjory Ogilvie Anderson, editors and translators |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 126
| Deeply moved by Adamnan's extraordinary life of St. Columba. A poetic work, full of powerful symbols, indescribably rich. Through the Latin (which is deceptive- and strange too) appears a completely non-Latin genius, and the prophecies and miracles are not signs of authority but signs of life, i.e., not signs of power conferred on a designated representative (juridically)-a "delegated" power from outside of nature, but a sacramental power of a man of God who sees the divine in God's creation. |
| 1964/07/12 | John A. T. (John Arthur Thomas) Robinson | Honest to God |
Ltrs: RtoJ p. 249
| Honest to God is causing a bit of a stir in Protestant circles. He [John A. T. Robinson] gives the impression when he is all over that there is no God left to be honest to. I think that is an exaggeration. He is just catching on to the truth that God cannot be expressed in adequate concepts. He is also strong on the new morality and such things. Good will, sincere, naive I think, earnest about getting through to "the world." The people he rests on are stronger than he is. I am currently reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Protestant executed under Hitler: magnificent. Wasn't the Commonweal Los Angeles issue a smasher? I had a letter a couple of months ago from Fr. [William] DuBay incidentally suggesting that he and I form a priests' union. I pointed out that I was not in a very good position to organize unions. |
| 1964/07/14 | Edward Deming Andrews | Shaker furniture : the craftsmanship of an American communal sect / by Edward Deming Andrews and Faith Andrews ; photos by William F. Winter |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 127
| Must write the preface to E[dward] D[eming] Andrews' new edition of Shaker Furniture. But first a short article for Père Herve Chaigne, O.F.M.-a French Franciscan interested in non-violence. And I still have to proofread the typescript of Seasons of Celebration which has been lying around for several months. The job does not appeal! I have heard a rumor that E. D. Andrews is dead. Am not sure and have not dared to write to his wife [Faith Andrews] to find out. |
| 1964/07/18 | Edward Deming Andrews | Religion in Wood: A Book of Shaker Furniture |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 128
| Yesterday, which is the Feast of Our Lady of Carmel in our Order, I wrote that Shaker preface ["Religion in Wood"]. It still needs to be revised. Perhaps I brought too much of Blake into it. A fine quiet afternoon, with one long intermittent thundershower. |
| 1964/07/20 | Edward Deming Andrews | Religion in Wood: A Book of Shaker Furniture |
Ltrs: HGL p. 40
| You are perhaps wondering what has become of the preface I was asked by him to write for Religion in Wood. I have been delayed, by a variety of tasks and chores. But the preface is now finished and needs only to be retyped. I will get it in the mail to you perhaps this week, perhaps later. But in any event I will be as quick about it as I can. In the preface I have been bold enough to bring in quite a lot about William Blake. I hope you will not think this too venturesome, but I thought it would be worthwhile to write a preface that was an essay in its own right, and I hope it will add to the book. The text which Ted sent is very clear, interesting and even inspiring, as was all that he wrote. I am most eager to see the new material in the illustrations. |
| 1964/07/21 | John A. T. (John Arthur Thomas) Robinson | Honest to God |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 129
| I sent the article on "Honest to God" to the Commonweal yesterday. Really Bonhoeffer is far deeper than Robinson would lead one to think. I am reading Bonhoeffer's prison letters [Letters and Papers from Prison, 1953], which are very "monastic" indeed-in fact I mean to make a collection of some of the "monastic texts" there. His "worldliness" can only be understood in the light of this "monastic" seriousness, which is however not Platonically "inward." It is not a withdrawal, a denial, it is a mode of presence. |
| 1964/11/17 | Louis Massignon | Opera Minora |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 166-67
| Massignon and Foucauld"”both converted to Christianity by the witness of Islam to the one living God. Someone wrote of Foucauld (and his devotion to the dead of Islam): "Mais pour un mystique les ames des morts comptent autant que celles des vivants; et sa vocation particulière etait de sanctifier l'Islam eternel (car ce qui a ete est pour l'eternite) en lui faisant donner un saint au Christianism" ["For a mystic the souls of the dead count as much as those of the living; and his particular vocation was to sanctify the eternal Islam-for that which has been is forever-in helping it to give a saint to Christianity"] (quoted by Massignon, Opera Minora, III, p. 775). "L'ascèse n'est pas un luxe solitaire nous parant pour Dieu mais la plus profonde oeuvre de misericorde: celle, qui guerit les coeurs brises par sa propre brisure et blessur" ["Asceticism is not a solitary luxury preparing us for God but the most profound act of mercy: that which heals broken hearts by its own breaks and wounds"] Massignon, Opera Minora, III, 804. |
| 1964/12/01 | Martin E. Marty | Varieties of Unbelieve |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 172
| Finished the Martin Marty book Varieties of Unbelief I am supposed to be reviewing for the Commonweal. |
| 1964/12/17 | Origenes | Contra Celsum / Translated with an introduction & notes by Henry Chadwick |
Ltrs: SofC p. 255
| In a recent book of mine I have had occasion to use a couple of quotations from Henry Chadwick's translation of the Contra Celsus, published by the Cambridge Press. I am afraid I do not have all my Chadwicks identified and properly placed, but I wonder if I am guessing correctly when I suppose that he is your husband? If he is, then it will be easy for me to make my formal request for permission to use the quotations, amounting to some fifteen or twenty lines, not more "¦ |
| 1964/12/26 | Peter F. Anson | Call of the Desert |
Ltrs: SofC p. 257
| I think that even if a desert is formed (which is unlikely) without this basis of intelligent and open communication, it will not be practical. A desert merely isolated and directed "from abov" by people with narrow and fearful ideas will be stale from the start. It has to be alive and realistic. This requires open perspectives. And study. For a start, I recommend that you get hold of a book called The Call of the Desert by Peter Anson (I forget who publishes it, Helicon perhaps). This book surveys the whole field of the hermit life, and gives references to plenty of books about it. You should be acquainted with the literature, at least to some extent. But be careful not to let it just stir up your imagination and feelings. You have an objective job of studying to do, and you must keep it objective. There are problems to be recognized, historic solutions to be considered, matters of past legislation to be noted down for reference, and so on. Without this knowledge, any project that is drawn up will be merely an essay in imagination. |
| 1964/12/27 | Camille Drevet | Par les routes humaines |
Ltrs: WtoF p. 98
| I must thank you for your new book, Par les routes humaines, which reached me some time ago. I have not yet finished reading it, but it is really a most absorbing and fascinating book, full of all kinds of good things. You have had a rich and fruitful experience and have indeed traveled the ways of men and found Christ in them. I compliment you on the book, which is very fine and I am delighted to have it. I will continue to enjoy it and profit by it at leisure. |
| 1965/04/16 | Lord Walter Northbourne | Religion in the modern world |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 229-30
| Marco Pallis had Lord [Walter] Northbourne send me his really excellent book Religion in the Modern World. Among many fine things he says this about tradition in art, religion, politics, sport, etc. The traditional constraints impose a vital unity, a hierarchical order of like with unlike, so that there is a final universality and wholeness in society and in the expression of man's spirit. Where this traditional principle is discarded, everything becomes individualized. But there has to be a semblance of unity nevertheless. This is sought by collectivization which, however, is not an order of like and unlike elements, but simply a grouping together of like with like. Or a seduction to superficial sameness, uniformity not unity. Within the superficial uniformity, civilization is segmented into "departments" out of contact with each other, but officially "interconnected." |
| 1965/04/17 | Lord Walter Northbourne | Religion in the modern world |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 231
| The last pages of Northbourne's book are remarkably good, and make clear the confusions that had given me trouble with the Schuon-Guinan line of thought. Northbourne is most insistent on not mixing up traditions, on not being syncretistic. On the great danger of pseudo-religious "nothingness" using a melange of Eastern and Western elements-worse still, disciplines. "The effectiveness of any single religion as a means of grace and a way of salvation is impaired or neutralized by its supplementation or dilution with anything that is alien to it" p. 101. He sees clearly that these pseudo-religious, pseudo-mystical movements, while claiming to be a reaction against materialism, are in fact only the last convolution of the profane spiral, and complete the whole work. "Anything that purports to be initiation and spiritual disciplines that have authentic spiritual roots and thus retain some of their power." Case of poor Joel Orent and his guru. Northbourne's last chapter is invaluable. |
| 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. |
| 1965/04/19 | Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus | De Resurectione Carnis |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 232
| "Fiducia Christianorum resurrectio mortuorum-illam credentes hoc sumus." ["The confidence of Christians is in the resurrection of the dead-we are those who believe this to be so."] (Tertullian, De Res, 1.1) (Study of Medieval exegesis-is a way of entering into the Christian experience of that age, an experience most relevant to us, for if we neglect it we neglect part of our own totality in De Lubac, Von Balthasar, etc.). But it must not be studied from the outside. Same idea in Nishida on Japanese culture and the Japanese view of life. I have a real sense this Easter, that my own vocation demands a deepened and experiential study, from within (by connaturality) of the Medieval tradition as well as of, to some extent, Asian tradition and experiences, particularly Japanese, particularly Zen: i.e., in an awareness of a common need and aspiration with these past generations. |
| 1965/04/24 | Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus | De Resurectione Carnis |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 233
| Tertullian. Certainly I am reading in perfect circumstances (viz., chapter 12 De Resurrectione at the time of this spring dawn!!) but I have to admit that his prose is more powerful and more captivating than any other I have ever read. I know no one who has such authority, by the beauty and strength of his language, to command complete attention. Everything becomes delightful, admirable and absorbing, and there is a real excitement in the compression and charge of his syntax, the precision and personal signature of his vocabulary. You feel that here is a man who is fully and expertly working in language making prose! |
| 1965/04/25 | Flannnery O'Connor | Everything That Rises Must Converge |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 233
| I wonder if the singular power of Flannery O'Connor's work, the horror and fascination of it, is not basically religious in a completely tacit way. There is no positive and overt expression of Catholicism (with optimism, hope, etc.) but perhaps a negative, direct, brutal confrontation with God in the terrible, the cruel. (The bull in "Greenleaf" [short story] as the lover and destroyer.) This is an affirmation of what popular Christianity always struggles to avoid: the dark face of God. But now, and above all in the South, it is the dark and terrible face of God that looks at America (the crazy religious characters are to be taken seriously precisely because their religion is inadequate). |
| 1965/05/10 | Henri Lubac, De | Exegèse medieval: les quatre sens de l'Ecriture |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 246
| Already a most beautiful week of May has gone by. For part of it I was ill again, with the same bug that had me in the infirmary at the beginning of Holy Week. It was a good thing, for this time Father Eudes gave me an antibiotic which seems to have cleared it up properly. Last time it really stayed with me (my stomach remained quite upset even though I was "well"). So for a couple of days I lay around in the warm green shade of the end room, with no desire for any food, and read Martin Ling's book which he sent me (Ancient Beliefs and Modern Superstitions), a good chunk of De Lubac's Exegèse medievale (Vol. 1) and the early part of Herbert Read's Green Child. The most exciting for me was De Lubac. |
| 1965/05/10 | Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus | De Resurectione Carnis |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 251
| For Meditation-part of the morning on the Sapiential books (Vulgate) and in the evening some of the time I spend on the Apocalypse in Greek. Have a good little book on Camus for light reading, finished Volume I of De Lubac's Exegèse medievale (and enjoyed it immensely). Still haven't finished Tertullian on the Resurrection |
| 1965/05/22 | Lancelot Andrewes | Preces Privatae |
Ltrs: HGL p. 27
| I "¦ have been using Andrewes Preces [Privatae] at night in the hermitage. |
| 1965/05/25 | Henri Lubac, De | Exegèse medieval: les quatre sens de l'Ecriture |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 251
| For Meditation-part of the morning on the Sapiential books (Vulgate) and in the evening some of the time I spend on the Apocalypse in Greek. Have a good little book on Camus for light reading, finished Volume I of De Lubac's Exegèse medievale (and enjoyed it immensely). Still haven't finished Tertullian on the Resurrection |
| 1965/06/22 | Denys Rutledge | In Search of a Yogi |
Ltrs: HGL p. 338
| Your long and interesting letter puts me, I am afraid, in a rather delicate position. Having written a preface to Dom Denys Rutledge's book, I suppose I ought to consider myself obliged to defend it. I am afraid I do not intend to do this "¦ "¦ I wrote the preface at the request of the editor, who is also my own editor and publisher "¦ Reading the book I was myself quite aware of the author's limitations as an Englishman, as a perhaps conservative Catholic type, etc. I could see that though he was earnestly trying to be open-minded, he was hemmed in by some characteristic prejudices and limitations of perspective. On the other hand "¦ I was willing to accept it for the good it contained. In fact, it seemed to me that for all the shortsightedness and lack of perspective, the author was sincere in his "search for a yogi," and what got through to me (I think I say this in the preface) was that he did find some really authentic people, even though he may not have looked in the best places for them. |
| 1965/06/26 | Karl Stern | Flight from Woman |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 260
| Reading Karl Stern's Flight from Woman. Some fascinating material (loaded word-mater!) especially in the chapter on Descartes. |
| 1965/07/07 | Karl Stern | Flight from Woman |
Ltrs: SofC p. 287
| Have you read Karl Stern's new book, The Flight from Woman? I think it is on the whole very good, and I think you would like it. But you are not the ones who need it "¦ |
| 1965/07/16 | Karl Stern | Flight from Woman |
Ltrs: HGL p. 148
| I was very glad indeed to get your letter. It came at a good time, I had just been reading and enjoying Karl Stern's new book, The Flight from Woman, which is excellent. And I am always very glad to hear from you. I think often of you and pray often for you and the CW. |
| 1965/08/21 | Gustaf Wingren | Man and the Incarnation: A Study in the Biblical Theology of Irenaeus |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 282-83
| The Chapter yesterday was not so bad. The day was a joyful one. A lot of gladness in the community, and most people seem pleased that I am going to live in the woods-for the right reason, I think-namely that it shows an opening up to the Spirit, an awareness of new possibilities and not just the evasion that condemned everyone to uniform and rigid adherence to one set of practices for all, meaningful or not.... What is immediately perceptible is the immense relief, the burden of ambiguity is lifted, and I am without care-no anxiety about being pulled between my job and my vocation"¦I feel as if my whole being were an act of thankfulness- even the gut is relaxed and at peace after good meditation and long study of Irenaeus ( Wingren's book!) [G. Wingren, Man and the Incarnation, 1959]. The woods all around crackle with guerrilla warfare-the hunters are out for squirrel season (as if there were a squirrel left!). Even this idiot ritual does not make me impatient. In their mad way they love the woods too: but I wish their way were less destructive and less of a lie. |
| 1965/08/26 | Irenaeus of Lyon | Adversus Haereses |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 285
| Superb passage from Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses, IV XXXIX.2. col. 1110): "Si ergo opera Dei es.... etc. " ["If you are the work of God wait patiently for the hand of your artist who makes all things at an opportune tim"¦. Give to Him a pure and supple heart and watch over the form which the artist shapes in you"¦lest, in hardness, you lose the traces of his fingers. By guarding this conformity you will ascend to perfection"¦. To do this is proper to the kindness of God; to have it done is becoming to human nature. If, therefore, you hand over to Him what is yours, namely, faith in Him and submission, you will see his skill and be a perfect work of God.] |
| 1965/08/28 | Gustaf Wingren | Man and the Incarnation: A Study in the Biblical Theology of Irenaeus |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 286-87
| Today-finished Wingren's book on Irenaeus, which Brother Cuthbert had passed on to me. Some misleading theological statements in it, but the material from Irenaeus and its interpretation are in general magnificent. This is theology!! |
| 1965/09/06 | Beryl Smalley | Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 291
| I am reading Beryl Smalley's Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages. A very delightful book-in which for the first time I have managed to get a little information on Anselm of Laon. He emerges as a rather attractive scholar type with a very important circle of disciples, and doubtless had a considerable impact on the first Cistercians, his contemporaries. |
| 1965/09/11 | Marguerite Porete | Mirror of Simple Souls |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 294
| "They have a good foundation," saith Love, "and high edification that resteth them of the things. Such creatures they can no more speak of God, no more than they can say where God is. For whatsoever it be that speaketh of God, when he will, and to whom he will, and where he will, he may doubt." The Mirror of Simple Souls, III, 220 |
| 1965/11/03 | 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. |
| 1965/11/07 | Pierre Teilhard de Chardin | Divine Milieu |
Ltrs: HGL p. 61
| There is great enthusiasm everywhere now over Teilhard de Chardin. I would be interested in your impression of him. I have not read him very thoroughly yet myself but his best book is The Divine Milieu, as far as I can see. Would you like me to get this for you, or do you have it already? "¦ |
| 1965/11/29 | Rainer Maria Rilke | Duino Elegies / translated into English by James Blair Leishman and Stephen Spender |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 319
| This morning I really opened the door of the Duino Elegies and walked in (previously I have only peeked in through the windows and read fragments here and there). For one thing I got the sound of the German really going, and got the feel of the First Elegy as a whole. (Did this before to a lesser extent with the Eighth.) I think I needed this hill, this silence, this frost, to really understand this great poem, to live in it-as I have also in Four Quartets. These are the two modern poems, long poems, that really have a great deal of meaning for me. Like Lorca (whom I have not read for years-). Others I simply like and agree with. Auden, Spender to some extent. Dylan Thomas in an entirely different way. But the Duino Elegies and Four Quartets talk about my life itself, my own self, my own destiny, my Christianity, my vocation, my relation to the world of my time, my place in it, etc. Perhaps Neruda's Residence on Earth and of course Vallejo will eventually do this but with Residence I have, once again, only looked through the windows (still I might get with that later and even give talks on it). |
| 1965/12/12 | Karl Stern | Flight from Woman |
Ltrs: WtoF p. 248
| At the moment I am trying not to be an authority on everything, so I am becoming silent on a lot of things I spoke of before and not speaking of new ones. I am getting out of anything that savors of politics, and I don't want to start talking about marriage since in any case I am not married and what I know of sexual love goes back to a rather selfish period of my life when I was thinking of getting and not of giving. I am not qualified to speak on this subject, but I recognize your rightness, especially the excellent point about the imaginary woman replacing the concrete flesh-and-blood ones. This is really the key to the whole thing. Do you by any chance know Karl Stern's latest book, The Flight from Woman? |
| 1966/01/02 | Pierre Teilhard de Chardin | Hymne de l'univers / Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |
Ltrs: HGL p. 62
| "¦ If you have not sent The Phenomenon of Man, please do not send it as we have copies here. I have not read it yet, but I have read another book of Teilhard which I like very much, The Divine Milieu. I will see if I can send you something by or about him. The market is swamped with books of his now. You might like his Hymn of the Universe. I will see about getting a copy for you "¦ |
| 1966/01/02 | Robert Adolfs | Grave of God: Has the Church a Future? |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 3
| Reading E. A. Burtt's book, sent by him from Cornell - and galleys of a good book on the Church trans[lated] from Dutch [The Grave of God: Has the Church a Future? New York, 1967]. The author is an Augustinian, R. Adolfs. Still have Endo Mason's excellent book on [Rainer Maria] Rilke and England. |
| 1966/01/28 | Miguel de Unamuno | Agonia del cristianismo |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 12
| I still read a lot of Rilke and Unamuno - with questions and reservations. They are often unsatisfactory in much the same way. Sometimes their intuitions are brilliant, at others merely irresponsible. Both are utter individualists. This is their weakness and their strength. For Rilke: I have no questions about the value of the Neue Gedichte, or the real beauty of the Elegies and some of the Orpheus Sonnets. But I still do not know about the spiritual world of the Sonnets. For a Christian there is always a natural tendency to read such things in implicitly Christian terms and to ensure, therefore, that he understands. But this is lazy. And where the question is once raised - I wonder if I get anything that he says, really! Except that he praises poetry, in poetry, for being poetry. Which is OK. But if this implies a view of life itself "¦ it raises many questions. Yet Unamuno's Agonia is a fascinating, though sometimes unsatisfactory book. Many excellent points - and above all he has a fine sense of the insufficiency of Christian rationalism, activism etc. "Power Christianity." Is he truly Pauline? Was he unacceptable in Spain because he had protestant insights? Indeed in many ways he is like [Karl] Barth. |
| 1966/01/28 | Rainer Maria Rilke | Neue Gedichte |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 12
| I still read a lot of Rilke and Unamuno - with questions and reservations. They are often unsatisfactory in much the same way. Sometimes their intuitions are brilliant, at others merely irresponsible. Both are utter individualists. This is their weakness and their strength. For Rilke: I have no questions about the value of the Neue Gedichte, or the real beauty of the Elegies and some of the Orpheus Sonnets. But I still do not know about the spiritual world of the Sonnets. For a Christian there is always a natural tendency to read such things in implicitly Christian terms and to ensure, therefore, that he understands. But this is lazy. And where the question is once raised - I wonder if I get anything that he says, really! Except that he praises poetry, in poetry, for being poetry. Which is OK. But if this implies a view of life itself "¦ it raises many questions. Yet Unamuno's Agonia is a fascinating, though sometimes unsatisfactory book. Many excellent points - and above all he has a fine sense of the insufficiency of Christian rationalism, activism etc. "Power Christianity." Is he truly Pauline? Was he unacceptable in Spain because he had protestant insights? Indeed in many ways he is like [Karl] Barth. |
| 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). |
| 1966/02/21 | Romano Guardini | Rilke's 'Duino Elegies': An Interpretation |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 20
| Rilke again. Rereading the II Elegy and [Romano] Guardini about it. It seems to me that Guardini, while right in many judgments about R., takes too seriously R's own "passionat" rejections of Christianity in letters etc. For passionately one should understand emotionally. For subjective reasons beyond his control (his mother) R. simply could not be at peace with conventional Christian language and even with the idea of Christ as Mediator. I do not minimize this - objectively a failure of faith. Yet G. does not see that R. was also struggling with a false religious problem imposed on him by 19thcentury Christianity. The problem of finding wholeness (ultimate truth etc.) in God by denying and excluding the world. The holy is the non-secular. Feeling himself called upon to deny and exclude what he saw to be in reality necessary for "wholeness," "holiness," "openness," he finally refused this denial, and chose his "open world." In a sense he does come up with a cosmology that seems a parody of Christianity - but is it really as G. thinks, a "secularization" in the sense of a degradation? Is he not really reaching for the kind of Pleroma revealed in Colossians? Yes, his choice of angels is in a sense a failure, acc[ording] to Paul - yet was it entirely his fault? Was it forced on him by a manichean type of Christianity? |
| 1966/04/10 | Eckhart | Meister Eckhart / Meister Eckhart ; a modern transl. by Raymond Bernard Blakney |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 38
| The best thing of all was lying reading Eckhart, or sitting up, when I finally could, copying sentences from the sermons that I can use if I write on him. It was this that saved me, and when I got back to the hermitage last evening to say the Easter offices everything else drained off and Eckhart remained as real. The rest was like something I had imagined. |
| 1966/04/22 | Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki | Mysticism : Christian and Buddhist |
Ltrs: Hammer p. 234
| Many thanks for the Pavese books. I am well into one of them and he is a marvelous writer. I returned Suzuki on Mysticism Christian and Buddhist. I am not et finished with Briffault, The Mothers which is marked for August 31. Could I perhaps have it a little longer? I notice that Muir's Autobiography seems to be marked for that date too, and I am still working on it. |
| 1966/06/15 | Søren Kierkegaard | Sickness unto Death |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 84
| "The self is the relationship to oneself," Kierkegaard. But not prescinding to relationship to the other seen as oneself. I need badly to hear from her and know how she feels - I can guess. It is inhumane to forbid even letters. |
| 1966/06/29 | Hans Urs von Balthasar | Gloire et la croix. Vol 1: Apparition |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 91
| I don't read German well enough to read Von Balthasar in the original, and in French he is fogged and confusing (one can't come to grips with it easily). Yet if something looks interesting in French and you go to the original you are likely to get a real flash of light. See the correctness of this: "Der Glaubensakt wesentlich existenzial ist, das heisst die ganze Wirklichkeit des Glaubenders als Gehorsamsopfer einfordert [The act of believing is essentially existential, that is to say, the entire reality of the believer is put forward as a sacrifice of obedience]." Much more real than French, "le don de tout son être [the gift of all his being]" etc. |
| 1966/06/29 | Hans Urs von Balthasar | Herrlichkeit. Eine theologische Ästetik. |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 91
| I don't read German well enough to read Von Balthasar in the original, and in French he is fogged and confusing (one can't come to grips with it easily). Yet if something looks interesting in French and you go to the original you are likely to get a real flash of light. See the correctness of this: "Der Glaubensakt wesentlich existenzial ist, das heisst die ganze Wirklichkeit des Glaubenders als Gehorsamsopfer einfordert [The act of believing is essentially existential, that is to say, the entire reality of the believer is put forward as a sacrifice of obedience]." Much more real than French, "le don de tout son être [the gift of all his being]" etc. |
| 1966/06/30 | Meister Eckhart | Beati pauperes spiritus. English. Meister Eckhart's sermon on Beati pauperes spiritu / (Eckhart von Hochheim) ; transl. by Raymond Bernard Blakney |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 92
| "Blessed are the pure in heart who leave everything to God now as they did before theyever existed." Eckhart [from the tractate Von der Abgeschiedenheit]. This is what I have to get back to. It is coming to the surface again. As Eckhart was my life-raft in the hospital, so now also he seems the best link to restore continuity: my obedience to God begetting His love in me (which has never stopped!). |
| 1966/07/25 | Josef Luk Hromadka | Gospel for Atheists |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 101
| Yesterday my chapter talk was on [Josef Luk] Hromadka's Gospel for Atheists [Geneva, 1965] and today I read an article on [Gabriel] Vahanian which deepened and perfected the same ideas (by Rosemary [Radford] Ruether in the Spring Continuum). Clear admission of a demonic element in the Church institution that is unfaithful to the Gospel (how can an institution be faithful completely to the Gospel) - and yet one must be nevertheless loyal to the church as the center where the word is proclaimed. Yet there seems to be "another eschatological" anti-group group "¦ all apparently ambiguous but underneath it I can hear the authentic voice of this time, in spite of the confusions. A remarkable - and dangerous!! - article. Its implications will work in me for a long time. First time I have seen the real point of this "God-is-dead" theology. |
| 1966/07/28 | William Hamilton | Radical theology and the Death of God |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 103
| [William] Hamilton (God is dead) is less interesting than [Thomas J.J.] Altizer. Pedestrian optimism - Radical theology wants to live in an America where optimism is possible - It is a theology of zest - of enthusiastic participation in the electronic era - |
| 1966/08/05 | William Hamilton | Radical theology and the Death of God |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 109
| This morning I have finally really begun to dig the God is dead set. Wm. Hamilton's essay "Thursday's Child" [in Radical Theology and the Death of God, ed. Thomas J. J. Altizer and William Hamilton, 1966] is so correct, so honest a statement of the complete futility of all our gestures and charades! I know exactly what he means and at this point I find myself with him - though I reserve the right to my own empty and disconcerting experience of faith. But as to the complete alienation and disedifying scandalousness of it, I am with him. This is the real "plac" - I mean it is the ark in the present deluge. I cannot be "in the world" (just as well) but I have a new sense of the meaning of my solitude. This is fraught with consequences and I see they must sink in. |
| 1966/11/01 | Ulrich Mauser | Christ in the Wilderness |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 155
| The wilderness theme in the Bible. Am reading a good book on it by Ulrich Mauser [Christ in the Wilderness (London, 1963)] (in that Protestant series). Terribly fruitful at the moment! I can compare my own life. How evident it becomes now that this whole thing with M. was, in fact, an attempt to escape the demands of my vocation. Not conscious, certainly. But a substitution of human love (and erotic love after all) for a special covenant of loneliness and solitude which is the very heart of my vocation. I did not stand the test at all - but allowed that whole essence to be questioned and tried to change it. And could not see I was doing this. Fortunately God's grace protected me from the worst errors. |
| 1966/11/11 | George H. Williams | Wilderness and the Paradise in Christian Thought |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 158
| This morning began reading a fine book of George Williams (Harvard), Wilderness and Paradise in Christian Thought. Must review it.4 An excellent survey and not without a certain pleasing passion for the wilderness (and for conservation). A fine tying up of Christian sense with modern American problems. |
| 1966/11/16 | George H. Williams | Wilderness and the Paradise in Christian Thought |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 161
| Great richness for me of the Williams book on Wilderness. So many new areas open up.Material on the American paradise mentality. Its great importance still. Moved by his deep sense of importance, spiritually, of conservationism. So many things click. Strongly tempted to write to him. |
| 1967/01/10 | Romano Guardini | Pascal for Our Time |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 184
| Pascal is my kind. The [Romano] Guardini work on him [Pascal for Our Time (New York, 1966)] is fine - one of G.'s best, at least for me. Whole thing so full of ideas they rush in from all sides and I have to stop and walk around. Yes, I know, the world is full of people who will want me to know that my reading of Pascal is vicious - like taking LSD. Fatal pessimism and all that. Jansenism. |
| 1967/01/22 | Romano Guardini | Pascal for Our Time |
Ltrs: RtoJ p. 96
| I have in fact just been reading Romano Guardini's excellent little book on Pascal [Pascal for Our Time]. He analyzes the "demon of combativeness" in Pascal"”a demon which is no prerogative of Jansenists. At times one wonders if a certain combativeness is not endemic in Catholicism: a "compulsion to be always right" and to prove the adversary wrong. A compulsion which easily leads to witch-hunting and which, when turned the wrong way, hunts its witches in the Church herself and finally needs to find them in Rome. There are always human failures which can be exploited for this purpose. Pascal nearly went over the falls completely but he recognized the destructiveness of his own inner demon in time, and knew enough to be silent and to believe. And to love. The story of his death is very moving. |
| 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. |
| 1967/03/20 | Dag Hammarskjöld | Markings |
Ltrs: RtoJ p. 346
| Thanks for your nice letter. I will give you what help I can. First of all, I have read Markings with great interest and sympathy. One of the greatest bonds between myself and Dag H. is a common interest in Meister Eckhart whom he quotes very frequently. I do not quote Eckhart as much but I use others of the same school, like Tauler, and I get the same sort of material from St. John of the Cross. In my latest book, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander which you can probably get from your library, you may find other material similar to his. I would also suggest Seeds of Contemplation and the new edition of same, New Seeds. |
| 1967/03/24 | James W. Douglas | Non-Violent Cross: A Theology of Revolution and Peace |
Ltrs: HGL p. 164
| Ping Ferry sent me what is evidently a chapter of a new book of yours and I just want to say how much I have been stimulated by reading it [Chapter 3 of The Non-Violent Cross, "From Gandhi to Christ"]. Certainly you are now getting into your full stride and this is far and away the best and most important thing you have ever written, or that I have seen of yours. I am glad to see someone make the right qualifications about technology while fully accepting secularity as it must be accepted. The trouble with the "secular" Christianity more or less in fashion now, at least among Catholics, as far as I can judge, is that it is simply bustling to catch up with the status quo: affluence, gimmickry, the Muzak-supermarket complex and all that. The net result of all this is merely that Los Angeles is the New Jerusalem. There has to be an element of furtherlooking protest if the absent God is somehow to be realized as present in the supermarket. You bring this out very well. |
| 1967/06/01 | Ernst Benz | Evolution and Christian hope : man's concept of the future from the early Fathers to Teilhard de Chardin / Ernst Benz ; transl. from the German by Heinz G. Frank |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 242
| I sit here with a wind breaker on. It is dark. As far as I am concerned it was a good day - quiet. Began writing the booklet on Camus'sPlague for Seabury Press. The Plague itself is impressive on second reading. A clearcut job. Reading [Ernst] Benz on Evolution and Hope [Garden City, NY, 1966]. The absurd hope of some nineteenth-century optimists. The future has to be better, man has to become a superman. Article of faith! Every bit as naive as the most naive myths about Adam and Eve. |
| 1967/06/04 | Ernst Benz | Evolution and Christian hope : man's concept of the future from the early Fathers to Teilhard de Chardin / Ernst Benz ; transl. from the German by Heinz G. Frank |
Ltrs: WtoF p. 319
| What really prompted me to write you today: I am reading a curious book called Evolution and Christian Hope by one Ernst Benz. Curious is not the word for parts of it. He has a chapter which justifies technological progress by the Bible and by ideas like God the potter framing his creatures on a potter's wheel. And he finds in Catholic medieval tradition (where the Victorines for instance speak of the "arts" in terms like Marco Pallis) warrant for the idea that "technology is a means of overcoming original sin." I thought that gem of modern thought should be shared with you. Fantastic, isn't it? Really, you are so very right. That is what we are facing now. I do not suggest that you read this book, it would shock you. But that particular chapter is so funny, in its own bizarre way, that you might dip into it there if the book ever comes your way. But I do not suppose it will, and do not encourage you to go looking for it. |
| 1967/06/10 | Henri Lubac, De | Teilhard de Chardin: The Man and His Meaning / transl. R. Hague |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 247
| Still have not read Teilhard de Chardin and really have no intention of doing so - though sometimes I pick up the [Henri] De Lubac book on him [The Religion of Teilhard de Chardin (New York: Desclee, 1967)] and look at it. I have read only The Divine Milieu [New York, 1957] - and my review of it was stopped, though that article is now being published in Brazil I understand. |
| 1967/06/10 | Pierre Teilhard de Chardin | Divine Milieu |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 247
| Still have not read Teilhard de Chardin and really have no intention of doing so - though sometimes I pick up the [Henri] De Lubac book on him [The Religion of Teilhard de Chardin (New York: Desclee, 1967)] and look at it. I have read only The Divine Milieu [New York, 1957] - and my review of it was stopped, though that article is now being published in Brazil I understand. |
| 1967/06/22 | Henri Lubac, De | Teilhard de Chardin: The Man and His Meaning / transl. R. Hague |
Ltrs: HGL p. 636
| Commonweal has sent me the De Lubac book on Teilhard to review. I think it will move Teilhard a few blocks closer to the Chancery Office and get him more established than he already now is. It is good at showing that what the Chancery Office looks for is all right there and everything is cozy. Teilhard really loves the exercises of St. Ignatius, etc. And I can believe that he did. But this is not after all a very inspiring book and it makes Teilhard look quite unrevolutionary. I don't know if that is the best thing for Teilhard or for the Church. |
| 1967/06/25 | Henri Lubac, De | Teilhard de Chardin: The Man and His Meaning / transl. R. Hague |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 254
| I am reading De Lubac's book on Teilhard de C. - Commonweal has asked for a review. Maybe I should not have accepted - I've been doing too many reviews. But it is interesting. And I need to understand T. In many ways I find him "sympathique," but I can't get excited about his mystique, though it has its good points. It strikes me as a bit romantic, and all the queer neologisms - super-Christ, christic center, hominization of the cosmos etc. and the basic activism involved seem to me to give a very tinny kind of a sound when you tap on them to see what they are like. Maybe the book will finally make him quasi-established. He is in fact very much part of a certain kind of establishment thinking. |
| 1967/07/28 | Ernesto Cardenal | Salmos |
Ltrs: CforT p. 160
| Yesterday's copy of the German edition of your Psalms [English translation, The Psalms of Struggle and Liberation, published in 1971] came in, and reminded me that it is a very long time since I wrote to you. The translation seems to me very good and I liked the "Postfac" which I thought was understanding and will do you a lot of good with German readers. I wanted previously to interest Hans Urs von Balthasar in your work, and sent him [Stefan] Baciu's article about you in German, but don't know what he thought about it. |
| 1968/01/10 | Dietrich Bonhoeffer | Letters and Papers from Prison |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 37
| Bonhoeffer says, "It is only when one sees the anger and wrath of God hanging like grim realities over the heads of one's enemies that one can know something of what it means to love and forgive them." This is the key to the dishonesty of Styron's treatment of Nat Turner. Styron "enjoys" wrath as an indulgence which is not seen as having anything serious to do with religion whatever. Religion suddenly appears on the last page as a suggested preposterous reconciliation (in purely sentimental terms). To treat a prophet of wrath while having no idea of the meaning of wrath, and reduce that wrath to the same level as masturbation fantasies! The whole thing is an affront to the Negro"”though it is well-meant, even "sympathetic." It reduced me finally to desperation! How can white people do anything but cheat and delude the Negro, when that is only part of their own crass self-delusion and bad faith! |
| 1968/01/10 | William Clark Styron | Confessions of Nat Turner |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 37
| Bonhoeffer says, "It is only when one sees the anger and wrath of God hanging like grim realities over the heads of one's enemies that one can know something of what it means to love and forgive them." This is the key to the dishonesty of Styron's treatment of Nat Turner. Styron "enjoys" wrath as an indulgence which is not seen as having anything serious to do with religion whatever. Religion suddenly appears on the last page as a suggested preposterous reconciliation (in purely sentimental terms). To treat a prophet of wrath while having no idea of the meaning of wrath, and reduce that wrath to the same level as masturbation fantasies! The whole thing is an affront to the Negro"”though it is well-meant, even "sympathetic." It reduced me finally to desperation! How can white people do anything but cheat and delude the Negro, when that is only part of their own crass self-delusion and bad faith! |
| 1968/01/11 | Dietrich Bonhoeffer | Letters and Papers from Prison |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 39
| Bonhoeffer: "Who stands his ground? Only the man for whom the ultimate criterion is not hisreason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all these things when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and exclusive allegiance to God"”the responsible man seeks to make his whole life a response to the question and call of God. Where are these responsible men?" |
| 1968/01/16 | | Cloud of Unknowing |
Ltrs: HGL p. 66
| For about a year I have been giving conferences on Sufism here to the monks, based largely on books you sent me in the past. I have found Al-Hujwiri especially useful. I know another book of Dr. Nasr, but would be delighted some day to receive Ideals and Realities of Islam. I suppose the Suez problem affects us both, but I have a small paperback edition of the Cloud of Unknowing so I will send that air mail. I hope it reaches you safely soon. |
| 1968/05/00 | Richard S.Y. Chi | Last of the Patriarchs: The Recorded Sayings of Shen-Hui |
Ltrs: RtoJ p. 114
| It may interest some of you to know that I have recently had a chance to write an introduction to an important book on Zen Buddhism [The Last of the Patriarchs: The Recorded Sayings of Shen-Hui, edited by Richard S. Y. Chi], a series of texts of a Chinese Zen Master, Shen Hui, to be published next year by the University of Indiana Press. As you know I am very interested in dialogue between Christianity and Asian religions, especially Buddhism. Also for almost a year I have been lecturing on Sufism, the mystical side of Islam, to the monks here. It is very revealing. For a long time Christians have too readily assumed that other religions had little "depth." This is entirely wrong. I think today we need to be more aware than we are of the real depth of the other major religions and the "mystical" side of their experience. Especially is this true when in some ways it can be said that the Western trend is toward activism and lack of depth. As one who came thirty years ago to the Catholic Church because I sought something deep and substantial which was not evident in ordinary secular and academic life, I can say it is an illusion for Catholics to try to "appeal" to the world of our time by merely reflecting its own attitudes and obsessions"”especially when the reflection is something like the kind you get in a fun-house mirror. The "world," unfortunately, is just not interested in this, in fact less interested than in the image of a Church that is totally "different." The more I see of certain efforts at creating a "new imag" of the Church, the less I am interested. Genuine progress must take place on a much deeper level"”and will doubtless do so. |
| 1968/05/01 | Georges Poulet | Studies in Human Time |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 92
| Three dreams of Descartes are central in his philosophy. They have a religious importance. The God of Descartes is absolute reality, timeless, simple, instantaneous action, breaking through into the conscious like a thunder clap [Note 3: Merton's reference to Descartes comes from Georges Poulet, Studies in Human Time (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1956), 50-72.] |
| 1968/05/01 | Georges Poulet | Studies in Human Time |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 93
| Pascal said, "It is the joy of having found God which is the source of the sorrow of having offended Him." Pascal said, "He is not found except by the ways taught by the Gospel. He is not preserved except by the ways taught in the Gospel." "Thou wouldst not seek Me if thou hadst not already found Me." (cf. St. Bernard, Pascal) Of Pascal, Poulet says, "Lived time is for Pascal as it had been for St. Augustine. The present of an immediate consciousness in which appear and combine themselves with it retrospective and prospective movements which give to that present an amplitude and a boundless temporal density." [Note 5: Blaise Pascal (1623 62) was a child prodigy in mathematics and physics. From 1654 on, residing within the cloister of Port Royal, he concentrated on spiritual pursuits. His most famous literary works are the Pensees and Provincial Letters. The quotes here are from Poulet, Studies in Human Time, 74-95.] |
| 1968/07/01 | Friedrich Heiler | Prayer: A Study in the History and Psychology of Religion |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 136
| Very hot. One of the hottest days I can remember here. Clammy and stuffy"”but with a breez"”even though hot"”in the woods. I spent part of the afternoon there, beginning Heiler's book on Prayer, which I find very moving and true. This is a good time to read it, as I hope to make July at least relatively a time of retreat, silence and prayer |
| 1968/07/03 | Søren Kierkegaard | Attack upon Christendom |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 136
| Today I begin Kierkegaard's Attack upon Christendom. A fascinating and deeply disturbing book. All very well to smile at Bishop Mynster "living out his days to be buried with full music," but what priest is not a Bishop Mynster? The very idea is that we will fulfill an office, in other words be respected members of an establishment and carry out our job. And the implication is that in so doing we automatically witness to the truth"” become links in a chain of witnesses. What could be more false? |
| 1968/07/12 | Friedrich Heiler | Prayer: A Study in the History and Psychology of Religion |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 141
| I am also disappointed in Heiler on Prayer with his black-and-white division of mysticism (bad-quietistic"”world-renouncing-life-denying) and prophecy (good-dynamic "”world"”affirming"”lif"”loving). This is a mere cliche. Has nothing to do with the reality of either mysticism or prophecy"”except I would say both are "life-affirming" in a very strong sens"”but it depends [on] what you mean by "life." |
| 1968/07/29 | Darcy O'Brien | Conscience of James Joyce |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 147
| I am working on my Joyce review article for the Sewanee. Some of the things said in two of the books (Darcy O'Brien and Virginia Moseley) are simply incredible. It was a nice afternoon and I would have liked to spend it over at Linton's reading the Dhammapada. But the work was good too and the house was not too hot. There are some nice things in Giacomo Joyce. But I see the idiocy of the mystique of spiritual seduction. And all the mental nonsense that goes along with such imaginings. |
| 1968/07/29 | Virginia Moseley | Joyce and the Bible |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 147
| I am working on my Joyce review article for the Sewanee. Some of the things said in two of the books (Darcy O'Brien and Virginia Moseley) are simply incredible. It was a nice afternoon and I would have liked to spend it over at Linton's reading the Dhammapada. But the work was good too and the house was not too hot. There are some nice things in Giacomo Joyce. But I see the idiocy of the mystique of spiritual seduction. And all the mental nonsense that goes along with such imaginings. |
| 1968/0705 | Søren Kierkegaard | Attack upon Christendom |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 138
| Attack upon Christendom. How can one laugh and shudder at the same time? The book is so incontrovertibly true. And to find myself a priest. And to find my own life so utterly false and trivial"”in the light of the New Testament. And to look around me everywhere and find people desperately"”or complacently"”going through certain motions to prove that they are Christians. (And far more people not giving a damn and not even paying attention, so that "proving one is a Christian" comes to mean begging for just a little attention from the world"”some grudging admission that a Christian can be an honest man.) |
| 1968/11/02 | Giuseppe Tucci | Theory and Practice of the Mandala |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 240
| I talked to Sonam Kazi about the "child mind," which is recovered after experience. Innocenc"”to experienc"”to innocence. Milarepa, angry, guilty of revenge, murder and black arts, was purified by his master Marpa, the translator, who several times made him build a house many stories high and then tear it down again. After which he was "no longer the slave of his own psyche but its lord." So too, a Desert Father came to freedom by weaving baskets and then, at the end of each year, burning all the baskets he had woven. (Tucci, pp. 83-84). {Many quotes from Tucci on these pages} |