Summer Articles

Merton’s Journal

My Life A Candle Sacrifice...

Thomas Merton destroyed his early journal written during his novitiate. In one of the fragments remaining, we find him writing on Good Friday, 1942, this prayer:

"I pray to You, my God, with every breath give me grace never to refuse you anything you ask, but to be absolutely lost in Your Will's obscurity..."

What does it mean to be lost in the obscurity of God's Will? He explains
"Not to demand that what I do should immediately show some result that I can appreciate; not to want to esteem anything that I do, or do anything because it will make me think I am something, but to only do things for love, and love alone. This is real obscurity, because the values loved by God's infinite love are absolutely incomprehensible to me... I don't even need to know precisely what I am doing, except that I am acting for the love of God."

Then he burst into prayer again:
"Jesus, I beg you, let me live for this one thing alone: Your love. Your love is Yourself. You are love."

So what does it mean to live for this love?
"If I live for love, I will ask no reward, only more love. Your love is infinite: above my understanding..." Basically, to so love is to do all with the desire and intention of doing God's Will, which is an immense obscurity. If you love me, Jesus said, you would do my will, which is the will of the Father.

All this means, Merton struggles to explain further
"..going by the way you know not, to get what you can't know. For we only go to Him in darkness of self-denial, by the way we do not know."

To strive to live our life in accord with the obscurity of God's will is to love with a love obscure to the senses. To choose to love God's will without understanding. To so love in essence is to give up everything for God. Merton observes:
"Perhaps my whole life will be devoted to nothing more than finding out what those words mean."

The struggle of it all:
"You give up everything and are happy. Then you find your happiness rests partly on something you didn 't give up because you didn 't even know you had it. You give this up and are happy... and so on, through higher and purer kinds of renunciation and happiness, to the purest renunciation, God alone, the purest joy. The interplay of the Active Nights and the Passive Nights: in the dynamite of that experience we discover that God alone can/will set us free from the hunter's snare.

The Candlemas Procession.
To see our life as a candle enlightened by the flame of Christ's sacrifice and so become a sacrifice of praise unto its consumption."

In a poem by that title, The Candlemas Procession, written about the time of these reflections in 1942, Merton compares the gift of self to God to the oblation of a candle, enflamed by Christ for the enlightenment of the world.
"Our lives, like candles, spell this simple symbol. As candles "weep" as they burn, so let my life burn and flow away to "sweeten the world with (my) slow sacrifice. And this shall be my praise: That by my glad expense my Father's will
Burned and consumed me..."

How shall we desire and seek to burn?
“Nor burn we now with brown and smoky flames, but bright until our sacrifice is done, (by which not we, but You, are known). And then returning to our Father one by one / Give back our lives like wise and waxen lights."
Amen.

Sam on Formation

What is Formation?

I would like to suggest that the Period of Formation is to "educate" the Carmelite candidate. I prefer to say, "educate" because to form is not to "create" a Carmelite. My experience is that a person with an authentic Carmelite vocation has what no one can give him --it comes from God. God attracts a person to interior prayer. God interests one in the Saints and spiritual writers of Carmel. God instills the desire for virtue and divine communion.

What we must do is take the Carmelite, already made by God, judge the authenticity of his basic orientation, and then educate him.

That education will build on what the person already is, already has. (Let me say that a crucial area of formation work is the discernment of a Carmelite vocation. You must direct people to stay or to leave and give them reasons why.)

The work of Formation will then attempt to communicate facts and to cultivate certain attitudes and dispositions consistent with the Carmelite spiritual tradition.

Fr. Sam Anthony Morello, OCD

Pride
PRIDE: The Negative Objective
From a "Particular Exam" by Fr. W. Robinson, CSC

Pride is at the root of every sin. It is one of the saddest consequences of original sin. There is no child of God who does not experience the workings of pride in his daily life. There are four kinds of pride and all four are present in each of us. Our problem is to discover which variety is strongest in us. The divisions of pride are not so clear cut that there cannot be cases where a man will be equally motivated by neighboring types of pride. The four types are:

Pride of domination (bossiness)
Pride of complacency (boastfulness)
Pride of sensitiveness (susceptibility to insult)
Pride of timidity (cowardice)

Thus, one man may be both domineering and complacent; or complacent and sensitive, or sensitive and timid; rarely would one be equally domineering and timid.

God has created us and has dominion over us. Pride denies this dominion. It blinds; impedes grace and diminishes merit.

Pride of timidity: The timid person is not humble but shy and fearful of what others will think of his possible failure. Through human respect, that is too great a regard for human opinion, he will omit the good he should do and do the evil he should omit, yet he feels always that he could do great things if he wanted to be the "show-off others are. Lacking the courage to act, he is bitter in his criticism of those who do act; he will not work himself, and discourages effort from others.

(This character has the advantage of a natural tendency to silence, to caution, to obedience and such virtues, which promise success in sanctification, provided the pride is recognized and fought.)

Pride of sensitiveness. The sensitive type is kindly, considerate, emotional, and sentimental; but can be jealous, easily wounded by a lack of response, given to flaming temper, followed by pouting. He is sometimes unstable, given to exaggerated enthusiasms and depressions.
(This character is naturally attracted to charity and to tender devotion. This type in saints often is raised to mystical heights.)

Pride of complacency. This is an exaggerated notion of our own good qualities coupled with a forgetfulness of God's part therein. There is a readiness to excuse failure in oneself and an unkindly readiness to see the shortcomings of rivals. Much time can be lost in daydreaming of future triumphs or in self-congratulation on past successes. Ordinarily, this type is boastful and can have a low opinion of others successes. (This character is optimistic, not too easily whipped by failure, and has a cheerfulness that makes him a good companion. He is not afraid of hard work and has a generous zeal.)

Pride of domination. Here is an overwhelming desire to command. It is argumentative, opinionated, and with a tyrannical opposition toward any lack of submission. Little sensitive itself, it easily and contemptuously wounds the sensibilities of others. Ruthlessly ambitious it is capable of the basest when necessary for advancement.
(This character is brave, unafraid of the price to be paid to reach an objective. Responsibilities and difficulties represent a challenge rather than an obstacle. Once this driving ambition has been submitted to God, you have not only a saint, but a great leader.)

In conclusion, once we discover our predominate form of pride, we should keep this as the objective of our particular Examen.. As long as we remain ourselves, we shall have to struggle to overcome that form of pride in order to move into the counter balancing good qualities that is also a part of our nature.