2 Thessalonians 3:6-15
6 Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. 7For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, 8and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. 9This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. 10For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. 11For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. 12Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. 13Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.
14 Take note of those who do not obey what we say in this letter; have nothing to do with them, so that they may be ashamed. 15Do not regard them as enemies, but warn them as believers.
From Thomas Merton’s No Man is an Island, Chapter 6: Asceticism and Sacrifice (Part 2, pp. 106ff)
• The real purpose of asceticism is to disclose the difference between the evil use of created things, which is sin, and their good use, which is virtue. We must gain possession of ourselves, by asceticism, in order that we may be able to give ourselves to God.
• The only sacrifice of ourselves that God accepts is the purity of our love. Any renunciation that helps us to love God more is good and useful. In order for us to spiritualize our lives and make them pleasing to God, we must become quiet. Peace of the soul does not depend on physical inactivity – some people are perfectly capable of tasting true spiritual peace in an active life. Our culture does not provide ideal conditions for entering ourselves. Everything in modern life is calculated to KEEP us from entering into ourselves and thinking about spiritual things. The whole mechanism of modern life is geared for a flight from God and from the spirit into the wilderness of neurosis. There is a world of difference between work and agitation. Work occupies mind and body and brings peace to the soul that has a semblance of order and spiritual understanding. Agitation, on the other hand, destroys the spiritual usefulness of work and frustrates its physical and social purpose. Agitation is a fruit of tension in a spirit that is turning dizzily from one stimulus to another and trying to react to 15 different appeals at one time. Work leads to peace (if there is balance). Agitation leads to the death of the interior life.
• Good habits are only developed by repeated acts – we cannot discipline ourselves to be consistent with any degree of intelligence unless we go about it systematically. We must have structure. To desire the spiritual life is to desire discipline.
• Asceticism is utterly useless if it turns us into freaks. The cornerstone of all asceticism is humility, and Christian humility is first of all a matter of supernatural common sense. It teaches us to take ourselves as we are, instead of pretending (as pride would have us imagine) that we are something better than we are. Pride makes us artificial, humility makes us real. In II Thessalonians 3, work and supernatural acceptance of ordinary life are seen by the Apostle as a protection against the restless agitation of false mysticism. We are to work and live in simplicity, with more joy and greater security than others, because we do not look for any special fulfillment in this life. We are to live in peace among transient things. It is supreme humility to see that ordinary life, embraced by perfect faith, can be more saintly and more supernatural than a spectacular ascetical career. Such humility dares to be ordinary, and that is something beyond the reach of spiritual pride. Pride always longs to be unusual. Humility not so. Humility finds all its peace in hope, knowing that Christ must come again to elevate and transfigure ordinary things and fill them with his glory.
• God is more glorified by one who uses the good of things of this life in simplicity and with gratitude than by the nervous asceticism of someone who is agitated about every detail of his self-denial.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Thomas Merton on Ascetism and Sacrifice, Part 1
I'm continuing to post thoughts from Thomas Merton that we are using for our time of spiritual formation at Wesley staff meetings. Tommy always causes deep reflection and a lot of discussion in our time together.
Romans 8:1-10
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit* of life in Christ Jesus has set you* free from the law of sin and of death. 3For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin,* he condemned sin in the flesh, 4so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.* 5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit* set their minds on the things of the Spirit.* 6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit* is life and peace. 7For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, 8and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit,* since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit* is life because of righteousness.
From Thomas Merton’s No Man is an Island, Chapter 6: Asceticism and Sacrifice (Part 1, pp. 96ff)
• The spiritual life is not merely a negation of matter. When the New Testament speaks of the “flesh” as our enemy, it takes the flesh in a special sense. When Christ said, “The flesh profits us nothing,” in John 6:64, he was speaking of flesh without spirit, flesh living for its own ends, not only in sensual but even in spiritual things. As long as we are on the earth, our vocation calls us to life spiritually while still “in the flesh.”
• We cannot become saints merely by trying to run away from material things. To have a spiritual life is to have a life that is spiritual in all its wholeness – a life in which the actions of the body are holy because of the soul, and the soul is holy because of God dwelling and acting in it. When we live such a life the actions of our body are directed to God by God Himself and give Him glory, and at the same time they help to sanctify the soul. The saint, therefore, is sanctified not only by fasting when he/she should fast but also by eating when he/she should eat. He/she is not only sanctified by his prayers in the darkness of the night, but by the sleep that he takes in obedience to God, Who made us what we are. Solitude not only contributes to union with God, but also God’s supernatural love for friends and relatives and those with whom we live and work.
• It gives God great glory and pleasure for a person to live in this world using and appreciating the good things of life without care, without anxiety, and without inordinate passion. In order to know and love God through His gifts, we have to use them as if we used them not – and yet we have to use them. To use things as if we used them not means to use them without selfishness, without fear, without afterthought, and with perfect gratitude and confidence and love of God.
• Self-denial is sterile and absurd if we practice it for the wrong reasons or, worse still, without any valid reason at all. Therefore, although it is true that we must deny ourselves in order to come to a true knowledge of God, we must also have some knowledge of God and our relationship with Him in order to deny ourselves intelligently. First of all, our self-denial must be humble. Otherwise, it is a contradiction in terms. It must also be supernatural – ordered not only for our own perfection or the good of society, but ordered to God.
• Although the grace of the Holy Spirit teaches us to use created things “as if we used them not” – that is to say, with detachment and indifference, it does not makes us indifferent to the value of things in themselves. On the contrary, only when we are detached from things can we really value them as we should. It is only when we are “indifferent” to them that we can really begin to love them. The indifference of which I speak must, therefore, be an indifference not to things themselves but to their effects in our own lives.
Romans 8:1-10
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit* of life in Christ Jesus has set you* free from the law of sin and of death. 3For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin,* he condemned sin in the flesh, 4so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.* 5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit* set their minds on the things of the Spirit.* 6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit* is life and peace. 7For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, 8and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit,* since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit* is life because of righteousness.
From Thomas Merton’s No Man is an Island, Chapter 6: Asceticism and Sacrifice (Part 1, pp. 96ff)
• The spiritual life is not merely a negation of matter. When the New Testament speaks of the “flesh” as our enemy, it takes the flesh in a special sense. When Christ said, “The flesh profits us nothing,” in John 6:64, he was speaking of flesh without spirit, flesh living for its own ends, not only in sensual but even in spiritual things. As long as we are on the earth, our vocation calls us to life spiritually while still “in the flesh.”
• We cannot become saints merely by trying to run away from material things. To have a spiritual life is to have a life that is spiritual in all its wholeness – a life in which the actions of the body are holy because of the soul, and the soul is holy because of God dwelling and acting in it. When we live such a life the actions of our body are directed to God by God Himself and give Him glory, and at the same time they help to sanctify the soul. The saint, therefore, is sanctified not only by fasting when he/she should fast but also by eating when he/she should eat. He/she is not only sanctified by his prayers in the darkness of the night, but by the sleep that he takes in obedience to God, Who made us what we are. Solitude not only contributes to union with God, but also God’s supernatural love for friends and relatives and those with whom we live and work.
• It gives God great glory and pleasure for a person to live in this world using and appreciating the good things of life without care, without anxiety, and without inordinate passion. In order to know and love God through His gifts, we have to use them as if we used them not – and yet we have to use them. To use things as if we used them not means to use them without selfishness, without fear, without afterthought, and with perfect gratitude and confidence and love of God.
• Self-denial is sterile and absurd if we practice it for the wrong reasons or, worse still, without any valid reason at all. Therefore, although it is true that we must deny ourselves in order to come to a true knowledge of God, we must also have some knowledge of God and our relationship with Him in order to deny ourselves intelligently. First of all, our self-denial must be humble. Otherwise, it is a contradiction in terms. It must also be supernatural – ordered not only for our own perfection or the good of society, but ordered to God.
• Although the grace of the Holy Spirit teaches us to use created things “as if we used them not” – that is to say, with detachment and indifference, it does not makes us indifferent to the value of things in themselves. On the contrary, only when we are detached from things can we really value them as we should. It is only when we are “indifferent” to them that we can really begin to love them. The indifference of which I speak must, therefore, be an indifference not to things themselves but to their effects in our own lives.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Reflections on Suffering by Thomas Merton, Part 4
The staff at Wesley is continuing to struggle with the writings of Thomas Merton in our spiritual formation time. Wanted to share some of it with you.
2 Corinthians 12:1-10
It is necessary to boast; nothing is to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. 2I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. 3And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows— 4was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. 5On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. 6But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, 7even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. 8Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, 9but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.
From Thomas Merton’s No Man is an Island, Chapter 5: The Word of the Cross: On Suffering (Part 4)
• When is suffering useless? When it only turns us in upon ourselves, when it makes us only sorry for ourselves, when it changes love into hatred, when it reduces all things to fear. Useless suffering cannot be consecrated to God because it is fruitless and rooted in sin. Sin and useless suffering increase together.
• But the grace of Christ is constantly working to turn useless suffering into something fruitful after all. How? By suddenly stanching the wound of sin. As soon as our life stops bleeding out of us in sin, suffering begins to have creative possibilities.
• The great duty of the religious soul is to suffer in silence. Too many people think they can become holy by talking about their trials. The awful fuss we sometimes make over the little unavoidable tribulations of life robs them of their fruitfulness. It turns them into occasions for self-pity or self-display, and consequently makes them useless. Be careful of talking about what you suffer, for fear that you may sin. Job’s friends sinned by the pious explanations they gave of suffering: and they sinned in giving Job a superficial explanation. The only decent thing is silence – and the sacraments.
• In order to face suffering in peace: Suffer without imposing on others a theory of suffering, without weaving a new philosophy of life from your own material pain, without proclaiming yourself a martyr, without counting out the price of your courage, without disdaining sympathy and without seeking too much of it. We must be sincere in our sufferings as we are in anything else. We must at once recognize our weakness and our pain, but we do not need to advertise them.
• We cannot suffer well unless we see Christ everywhere – both in suffering and in the charity of those who come to the aid of our affliction.
2 Corinthians 12:1-10
It is necessary to boast; nothing is to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. 2I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. 3And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows— 4was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. 5On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. 6But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, 7even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. 8Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, 9but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.
From Thomas Merton’s No Man is an Island, Chapter 5: The Word of the Cross: On Suffering (Part 4)
• When is suffering useless? When it only turns us in upon ourselves, when it makes us only sorry for ourselves, when it changes love into hatred, when it reduces all things to fear. Useless suffering cannot be consecrated to God because it is fruitless and rooted in sin. Sin and useless suffering increase together.
• But the grace of Christ is constantly working to turn useless suffering into something fruitful after all. How? By suddenly stanching the wound of sin. As soon as our life stops bleeding out of us in sin, suffering begins to have creative possibilities.
• The great duty of the religious soul is to suffer in silence. Too many people think they can become holy by talking about their trials. The awful fuss we sometimes make over the little unavoidable tribulations of life robs them of their fruitfulness. It turns them into occasions for self-pity or self-display, and consequently makes them useless. Be careful of talking about what you suffer, for fear that you may sin. Job’s friends sinned by the pious explanations they gave of suffering: and they sinned in giving Job a superficial explanation. The only decent thing is silence – and the sacraments.
• In order to face suffering in peace: Suffer without imposing on others a theory of suffering, without weaving a new philosophy of life from your own material pain, without proclaiming yourself a martyr, without counting out the price of your courage, without disdaining sympathy and without seeking too much of it. We must be sincere in our sufferings as we are in anything else. We must at once recognize our weakness and our pain, but we do not need to advertise them.
• We cannot suffer well unless we see Christ everywhere – both in suffering and in the charity of those who come to the aid of our affliction.
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