Monday, May 16, 2016

Thomas Merton - Everything Done as Prayer or it Turns to Ashes

Everything I do, reading, study, writing, etc., simply must be done in such a way that it is prayer and preparation for prayer. That means first of all not doing it to satisfy my voracious appetite to know, to enjoy, to achieve things, to get tangible results and taste the immediate reward of my own efforts because, if that is what leads me, everything turns to ashes as soon as I touch it.


~ Thomas Merton, Entering the Silence: Becoming a Monk and a Writer (The Journals of Thomas Merton Book 2)

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Thomas Merton on Spiritual Direction and the Holy Spirit

Come Holy Spirit.

Today is Pentecost Sunday and what better day to comment on the benefits of spiritual direction. 

In his little book called Spiritual Direction and Meditation, Thomas Merton describes what he means by spiritual direction.

He calls it “a continuous process of formation and guidance, in which Christians are led and encouraged (in all of our special vocations), so that by faithful correspondence to the graces of the Holy Spirit, we may attain to the particular end of our vocation and to union with God.” Spiritual direction is not merely ethical, social or psychological, it is going beyond.

The spiritual director focuses on the life of the whole person, not merely the life of the mind or of the heart. According to Merton, the purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of our lives, to get behind the ‘self’ that we project to the world, and to evoke our interdividuality, our interconnectedness, moving us in the direction of holiness – which is the likeness of Christ in us.

The function of the spiritual director is to create a space for the Holy Spirit to help us discern what is truly spiritual in us. Part of this function is to help us discern the movements of our desires, the spirits swirling around in us, to help us sort out which inspirations come from the spirit of evil and which from the Holy Spirit.

Another part of this function is to enable us to recognize and follow the inspirations of the Holy Spirit in everyday life. A spiritual director creates an informal, trusting atmosphere in which a person can feel known and understood. Spiritual direction is necessarily personal and yet ever linked to the beyond.

How can we best take advantage of spiritual direction? “The first thing that genuine spiritual direction requires in order to work properly is a normal, spontaneous human relationship. We must not suppose that it is somehow ‘not supernatural’ to open ourselves easily to a director and converse with him or her in an atmosphere of pleasant and easy familiarity. This aids the work of grace: another example of grace building on nature.”

We need to bring the director into contact with our energy, with our real desires, as best we can, fearing not that nearly every effort we make to talk about our desires is couched or masked to please rather than to reveal. Being prayerful and open in the session with the director and the Holy Spirit brings us to a relaxed, humble attitude in which we let go of ourselves, and renounce our unconscious efforts to maintain a facade.  Merton explains that “often we ourselves do not know what we ‘really want’.” This gets to the key of what spiritual direction is about: the director is facilitating a space with the Holy Spirit to bring to light our inner spirit, “not as we are in the eyes of men, or even as we are in our own eyes, but as we are in the eyes of God.”  

“Direction will school us in being true to ourselves and true to the grace of God.”

In closing Merton asks how many vocations (religious and other) would be more secure if everyone could navigate the waters of life with the assistance of a good spiritual director.

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Christian Leadership or Rather Building Up Saints

It is not the proper duty of Christianity to form leaders - that is, builders of the temporal - although a legion of Christian leaders is infinitely desirable. Christianity must generate saints - that is, witnesses to the eternal.
The efficacy of the saint is not that of the leader. The saint does not have to bring about great temporal achievements; he [or she] is one who succeeds in giving us at least a glimpse of eternity, despite the thick opacity of time. - Father Henri de Lubac, S.J.*

*pg 102; By Little And By Little: The Selected Writings of Dorothy Day Edited by Robert Ellsberg