On Thomas Merton and Monastic Garb

Dear Sister Laurel, I read the following quotation from Thomas Merton which I thought was terrific. I wondered what you would say about it since you wear both cowl and other monastic garb. Would you mind commenting on it? I guess I also wonder if you agree or disagree with Merton's practice. [[I am deliberately discarding everything that can conjure up the artificial image of the monk in a cowl, dwelling in a medieval cloister. In this way I intend obviously, not to disparage or to reject the monastic institution, but to set aside all its accidentals and externals, so that they will not interfere with my view of what seems to me to be deepest and most essential.]] Thomas Merton, "Notes on a philosophy of solitude," Disputed Questions.
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Thanks for what is indeed a truly terrific question from one of the Merton texts I personally love the best. Let me say I agree completely with Merton's intention or aim in structuring his discussion. I also generally agree with the way he has chosen to illustrate this intention; insofar as this was the way that worked best to allow Merton so explore what is deepest and most essential about the eremitical vocation I agree completely with his choice. It is important to remember that Merton remained a Trappist living on monastic grounds, supported by his Trappist community at Gethsemane. I think this strictly monastic context allows Merton to deal with anything that struck him as artificial or a matter of mere "externals", especially in the portrait of contemporary eremitical life. But more than this, as I recall, the entire discussion including what you have cited is part of a long note introducing the topic of a philosophy of solitude; it was meant to point to the fact that contemporary solitaries need not be monks at all, but might be lay persons.

Thus Merton's comments, when read in this specific context were not contributions to a discussion of whether or not one should wear a habit and/or cowl. Instead Merton wanted to examine the essence of a call to solitude where the individual lives the most basic or essential existential isolation and loneliness common not only to every person but to God as well. More, he wanted to do so in a way which demonstrated its enormous and universal challenge and meaningfulness. To do this he did indeed eschew those things which are "accidentals" or mere externals and which pull the discussion in the direction of monastic life alone so that he might also include folks like Thoreau. Solitude as Merton portrayed it, is a fundamental existential characteristic of human and Divine life. To embrace it as vocation is to serve both God and Mankind in a radically significant way. So Merton stripped his discussion of artificial elements which would only speak to and of a monk in his cowl or a Medieval cloister.

But your question to me broadens the discussion some to include the notion of wearing monastic garb like a habit and/or cowl. Does doing so indicate one is more concerned with accidentals and externals than with those things which are most essential and of greatest import? Depends, of course. My own sense is that this is much more a problem at the beginning of vocations when wearing a habit is a novelty, when one is not really comfortable in it yet (and perhaps not even in one's own skin!), and before one has had the time to take seriously the essentials or that which is deepest. After all it takes time for one to begin living any vocation in a way which plumbs and reveals the depths of that call. Reflecting on what is deepest or essential  demands time and some intellectual formation and focused attention. One needs to become acquainted with the thought and lives of those who have gone before in whatever tradition is involved; additionally one needs to have lived and struggled with this same tradition enough to discover the depths of one's own faith and identity in Christ.

If you notice Merton's own practice you will see that he wore a habit at times and ordinary monastic work clothes at other times. I don't think he rejected monastic garb, nor do I think he was all that concerned with what he wore --- and this would include not eschewing the Trappist habit as something external as much as it might have included embracing it as something which was not merely external. Merton was a Trappist and part of that tradition and life was the Trappist habit. Diocesan hermits today may or may not wear a habit and/or cowl. Those coming to c 603 life from some form of religious (cenobitical) life  will tend to wear a habit  which is a modification of what they already wore.

Those without any history in religious life may or may not wear a habit and if this is a first-time thing they will go through the same "stages" as anyone else: initial novelty and self-consciousness (often with a misplaced pride or sense of specialness), loss of self-consciousness and increasing identification with the tradition represented by the habit (often with an increased internalization of the values which transmute "specialness" into mission), and finally, the gradual or eventual making of the habit truly one's own (which may involve a sense that by the grace of God one's life embodies a special gift or charism to Church and world). Each of these "stages" represents a kind of deepening of one's appreciation of the vocation and the way one lives it. Each represents a shift to greater humility and communion.  The last stage (which is not really last but accompanies the other stages) emphasizes the way one's life imbues the habit with one's own story, while the penultimate stage (again not really a separate stage but a dimension present in each) emphasizes the way one's own story is shaped and sustained by a specific eremitical (or spiritual) tradition.

Eduard Schillebeeckx, a 20th C. Dominican theologian describes this same process in his essay entitled "Dominican Spirituality" in God Among Us.  [[For the most part people live by stories. I myself live by my own story. When I became a Dominican I linked my life story with the family Story of the Dominicans; as a result, my life story took on a new orientation and I picked up the thread of the story of the Order in my own way. So my own life has become part of the Dominican family story: a chapter in it. Through the story of the Order I have attained my own identity. Stories of the Dominican Order keep us together as Dominicans.

Without stories we should lose our memories, fail to find our own place in the present and remain without hope or expectation for the future. Thus as Dominicans we form a group by virtue of being our own storytelling community, which hands down its own traditions within the wider story of the many religious communities, within the all embracing story of the great community of the church, and within the even greater community of humankind. This makes us our own special family, recognizable from all kinds of family characteristics. Some are major, some are minor, but none of them can be hidden. 

In saying this, I have already said something about Dominican spirituality. The story of my life can be my own life story only in so far as it has become a chapter of the Dominican family story. The story of my own life extends and enriches the history of Dominican spirituality, while as a small almost infinitesimally small – almost infinitely small – chapter in it, it is at the same time relativized and criticized by the already older and wider story of the Dominican family. This makes me ask whether I really am not distorting this family story. So I am already others as a norm for Dominican spirituality. Furthermore, thank God, there are still Dominicans alive today. In other words, our story is not yet exhausted, completely told; there is still something to be said.]]

I understand the wearing of (and often, the well-considered choice to relinquish the habit in certain circumstances) is part of this process of making a particular story one's own and assuming responsibility for being a living chapter in that story. It is only a part of the necessary deepening of an ecclesial vocation such as c 603 eremitical life, but in such a process, when lived well it is certainly more than something which is merely an external and superficial element of living out one's call. For the solitary canonical hermit who must live "stricter separation from the world" in the midst of the world, the habit can be an especially challenging as well as indispensable piece of embracing both the mission and charism of her vocation. Those who choose not to wear a habit (and lay hermits who may not do so anyway because they have not been given the right) embrace characteristics like the call's hiddenness differently and  tell the eremitical story in a different way. So long as each hermit is acting in considered and prayerful ways they are an important part of the essence of the call and an expression of the depth such vocations demands.

I hope this helps as a start on this topic of habits.

Treat them as Your Would Gentiles and Tax Collectors

In today's Gospel pericope we hear Jesus telling folks to speak to those who have offended against God one on one and then, if that is ineffective, bring in two more brothers or sisters to talk with the person, and then, if that too is ineffective, to bring matters to the whole community --- again so the offended can be brought back into what we might call "full communion". If even that is ineffective then we are told to treat the person(s) as we treat Gentiles and tax collectors. In every homily I have ever heard about this passage this final dramatic command has been treated as justification for excommunication. Even today our homilist referred to excommunication --- though, significantly, he stressed the medicinal and loving motive for such a dire step. The entire passage is read as a logical, common-sense escalation and intervention: start one on one, try all you can, bring others in as needed, and if that doesn't work (that is, if the person remains recalcitrant) then wash your hands of him or, if stressing the medicinal nature of the act, separate yourselves from him until he comes to his senses and repents! In this reading of the text Matthew is giving us the Scriptural warrant for "tough love."

But I was struck by a very different reading during my hearing of the Gospel this morning. We think of Jesus turning things on their heads so very often in what he says; more we think about how often he turns things on their head by what he does. With this in mind the question which first occurred to me was, "But what would this have meant in Jesus' day for disciples of this man from Nazareth, not what would it have meant for hundreds of years of Catholic Christianity!? Is the logic of this reading different, even antithetical to the logical, commonsense escalation outlined above?" And the answer I "heard" was, "Of course it is different! I am asking you to escalate your attempts to bring this person home, not to wash your hands of her. To do that I am suggesting you treat her as you might someone for whom the Gospel is a foreign word now -- someone who needs to hear it as much or more than you ever did yourself." Later I thought in a kind of jumble, "That means to treat her with even greater gentleness and care, even greater love and a different kind of intimacy. Her offense has effectively put her outside the faith community. Jesus is asking that we let ourselves be the "outsider" who stands with her where she is. He is saying we must try to speak in a language she will truly hear. Make of her a neighbor again; meet her in the far place, learn her truth before we try to teach her "ours". After all, what I and others have said thus far has either not been understood or it was not compelling for her."

While I should not have been surprised, I admit I was startled by my initial thoughts! Of course I knew that Jesus associated with tax collectors and with Gentiles. The reading with the Canaanite women last week or the week before makes it clear that Jesus even changed his mind about his own mission in light of the faith he found among Gentiles. Meanwhile, today's reading is taken from a Gospel attributed to Matthew, an Apostle who is identified as a tax collector! Shouldn't we be holding onto our seats in some anticipation while listening for Jesus – as he always does -- to say something that turns conventional wisdom and our entire ecclesiastical and spiritual world on its head?  Maybe my thoughts were not really so crazy after all and maybe those homilies I have heard for years have NOT had it right! So I looked again at the Gospel lection from today in its Matthean context. It is sandwiched between passages about humbling ourselves as children (those with no status), not being a source of stumbling and estrangement to others, searching for the one sheep that has gone astray even if it means leaving behind the 99 who have not strayed, and Peter asking how often he should forgive his brother to which Jesus says seven times seventy!

I think Jesus is reminding us of the difference between a community which is united in and motivated by Christ's own love (a very messy business sometimes) and one which is united in and mainly concerned with discipline (not so messy, but not so fruitful or inspired either). I think too he is reminding us of a Church which is always a missionary Church, always going out to others, always seeking to reconcile the entire world in the power of the Gospel. It is not a fortress which protects its precious patrimony by shutting itself off from those who do not believe, letting them fend for themselves or simply find their own ways to the baptistry or confessional doors; instead it achieves its mission by extending its love, its Word, and even its Sacraments to those who most need them --- the alien and alienated. It is a Church that really believes we hold things as sacred best when we give them away (which is NOT the same thing as giving them up!). Meanwhile Jesus may also be saying, "If your brother or sister has not and will not hear you, perhaps you have not loved them well or effectively enough; find a new way, even a more costly way. After all, my way (the Way I am!) is not the way of conventional wisdom, it is the scandalous, foolish, and sacrificial way of the Kingdom of God!


I had always thought today's reading a "hard one" because it seemed to sanction the excommunication of brothers and sisters in Christ. But now I think it is a hard one for an entirely different reason. It gives us a Church where no one can truly be at home so long as we are not reaching out to those who have not heard the Gospel we have been entrusted with proclaiming. It is a Church of open doors and open table fellowship (open commensality) because it is a church of open and missionary hearts -- just as God's own heart, God's own essential nature, is missionary. Above all it is a church where those who truly belong are the ones who really do not belong anywhere else! We proclaim a Gospel in which we who belong to Christ through baptism are the last and those outside our communion are first and, at least potentially, the Apostles on which the Church is built.

When we treat people like Gentiles and tax collectors we treat them in exactly this way, namely, as those whose truest home is around the table with us, listening to and celebrating the Word with us, ministering to and with us as at least potential brothers and sisters in Christ! We treat them as Gentiles and tax collectors when we take the time to enter their world so that we can speak to them in a way they can truly hear, when we love them (are brothers and sisters to them) as they truly need, not only as we are comfortable doing in our own cultures and families. Paul, after all, spoke of becoming and being all things to all persons --- just as God became man for us. He was not speaking of indifferentism or saying with our lives that Christ doesn't really matter;  just the opposite in fact. He was telling us we must be Christians in this truly startling way --- persons who can and do proclaim the Gospel of a crucified and risen Christ wherever we go because we let ourselves be at home and among (potential) brothers and sisters wherever we go. We do as God did for us in Christ; we let go of the prerogatives which are ours and travel to the far place in any and all the ways we need to in order to fulfill the mission of our God to truly be all in all.

When the logic, drama, and tension of today's Gospel lection escalate it is to this conclusion, I think, not to a facile justification of excommunication. In this pericope Jesus does not ask us to progressively enlist more people to increase the force with which we strong arm those who have become alienated, much less to support us as we cut them loose if they are unconvinced and unconverted, but to offer them richer, more diverse and extensive chances to be heard and to hear --- increasing opportunities, that is, to be empowered to change their minds and hearts when we, acting alone, have failed them in this way. This is what it means to forgive; it is what it means to be commissioned as an Apostle of Christ. And if that sounds naive, imprudent, impractical, and even impossible, I suspect Jesus' original hearers felt the same about the pericopes which form this lection's immediate context: becoming as children with no status except that given them by God, leaving the 99 to seek the single lost sheep or forgiving what is effectively a countless number of times. Certainly that's how someone writing under the name of a tax collector-turned-Apostle presents the matter.

Be Not Afraid: Coming to Faith in a God who is already Waiting for us

Rarely are we privileged to hear such personal stories about a Pope's coming to or his vision of faith. Francis' experiences are seminal to his understanding of the way we are Church for one another and the way we come to faith ourselves. In some of the most effective catechesis I have ever heard or seen, Francis answers several questions which had been put to him. He speaks simply; he speaks profoundly; he speaks truth to power and to powerlessness, and he does all this from the heart.

Here we begin to see the key to what allows Francis to speak to the hearts of people within the Church and outside it as well. At bottom is an authentic and profound personal relationship with Jesus which leads to true witness. This is so significant for Francis that, following Paul's criticism to the Corinthians' tendency to follow Apollos or Paul, et al, rather than Jesus, in "paternal criticism" (a very gently and lovingly given paternal criticism!)  he asks the crowds to never again shout Francesco, but instead only Jesu! This missionary dynamic of letting God into one's heart and then going out to all stands at the heart of Francis' faith and the vision he has of Church.



One piece of this video which was repeated in a talk to the Italian Bishops is also significant in signaling the kinds of Church reform Francis sees as needed. Just as Israel was called by God to let go of the ritual and legal "fence" that separated her from the nations so that she might really become salt and light for the world in Christ, so Francis talks about being Church in a similar missionary key: [[A Church that does not go out, sooner or later gets sick in the vitiated atmosphere of her enclosure. It is true also that to a Church that goes out something can happen, as it can to any person who goes out to the street: to have an accident. Given this alternative, I wish to say to you frankly that I prefer a thousand times an injured Church than a sick Church. The typical illness of the shut-in Church is self-reference; to look at herself, to be bent over herself like the woman in the Gospel. It is a kind of narcissism that leads us to spiritual worldliness and to sophisticated clericalism, and then it impedes our experiencing “the sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing.”]] HERE is what we are each called to live. HERE is the "new evangelization" meant to mark each Christian's life. Please take time to listen to the whole of this video!

The Silence of Solitude as Essentially Missionary

[[Hi Sister, it seems strange to me to speak of hermits participating in the mission of God to the world. It seems to me that missionary work is active, and though I am sure prayer and union with God is helpful, I can't see where union with God is a form of mission. Perhaps that explains why sometimes I read about hermits who seem completely wrapped up in some sort of union with God and feel no need to be part of the church or her "temporal" affairs.]]

I suspect you are not alone in this. Remember the book I recommended recently on Secularity by Ronald Rolheiser? One of the major underlying elements in this book is that God is missionary and the Church participates in this. Vatican II's Ad Gentes affirms that all mission begins with the Holy Trinity with the sending of Word and Holy Spirit into the World. Mary Maher, SSND, outlines this very well: [[In the early Church, as the theology of the Trinity was developed, and already we see roots of this in the Gospel of John, mission was understood as being derived from the very nature of God. In classical trinitarian language, mission is understood most fundamentally in this way: God the Father sends the Son; the Father and Son send the Spirit; the Father, Son, and Spirit send the Church. Missionary initiative comes not primarily from the command of Jesus to his disciples to go out to the whole world and preach the Gospel. Rather, missionary activity comes even more basically from the very nature of God, a triune communion of love. Mission, therefore, is not primarily an activity of the Church; it is primarily an attribute of God. God is a missionary God.]] (Maher, Mary, "Called and Sent: Reflections on a Theology of Apostolic Religious Life Today" (Seminar: Union of International Superiors General)

Hermits in particular need to be aware of this. As we also know, there is a tendency to see eremitical solitude and its goal of union with God as essentially selfish or all about self and one's own salvation. (Some would-be hermits approach it this way too --- to the detriment and distortion of the vocation!) Similarly, at the opposite end of the spectrum there is a tendency to see the ways in which contemplative union spills over into various forms of limited apostolate as distractions from and something which is not intrinsic to authentic union or contemplative life. While serious discernment is required in determining how and when such spillover is allowed to occur, it becomes easier to understand how "the silence of solitude," which is characteristic of union with God, is the heart of genuine mission resulting in such "spillover" when we understand that the very nature of God is missionary. It also helps us to understand the importance of "the silence of solitude" itself as a leaven empowering mission, and as a gift which can transform the lives of those who feel they have no mission in the Church because they are ordinarily the ones being ministered to (the chronically ill, bereaved, prisoners, frail and isolated elderly, etc).