Feb 18 2008
Monday Morning with Merton: Inconceivable
I cannot formulate my own inability to formulate anything about God. Today, before the seventh and eighth stations of the Cross, I was terribly conscious that I was only saying words. The Lord permits our indifference before the Stations of the Cross so that we may realize that at best we are still indifferent to His sacrifice, and can’t be anything but indifferent. We cannot suffer His pains, unless He lets us do so in a miracle – we can suffer our own indifference to His pains. To realize that God is dying and that we are indifferent is to stand on the edge of an inconceivable agony. But the agony is caused by our indifference in His Passion. Therefore for us to cry out in agony because He permits us to be indifferent to His Passion is to want to learn what His cry meant: “Eloi, Eloi, Lama sabachtani, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me!”
[From: Run to the Mountain. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume I, 1939-1941]. This passage is from February 19, 1941.
Going to Him with our nothingness…with the ‘empty hands’ of Therese.
Merton’s first sentence says it all so ‘pithily’ !!!!
Thanks for this timely post , Gab.
I understand this passage insofar as one would experience the agony of being indifferent if one really desired to be otherwise, or if one were going through one of the dark nights, but I don’t agree with his statement that we, “can’t be anything but indifferent.” No, I can’t agree with that at all.
I agree that we cannot experience the depth of His agony like Mary certainly did, and to the degree that the stigmatists (exteriorly or interiorly) did and do, but to say carte blanche that we can’t be anything but indifferent, no, I don’t buy that. I do relate to his first sentence, though, as teresa mentioned, but not in a sense that’s restricted to the Passion of Christ.
No, I may find, rather, that I am worried my car won’t start–even if I recall His Passion on my behalf, on my grandmother’s behalf, on my grandson’s behalf.
Besides this, there have been many times I was conscious that I was just saying words. To me, this is why we pray for faith, because faith itself is a gift from Someone other than ourselves.
I can’t get into Wordpress today. All my plans shot to &*%#. That little s-fellow is so laughable, but may I ask for a prayer? I don’t have much time.
But, certainly shall come a prayer for you from me to get into WordPress. Three of them, actually.
(Thus spake PeeWee Herman of mysticism, I fear.)
OK Merton maybe should have replaced we with I, but I think he is just being honest.
There are of course those who have entered into Christ – chosen real on – the – Cross suffering but they have been few and Merton acknowledges this when he refers to it happening in a miracle.
We are Nothing and He gives us every desire for Him. Without His gift, we can be nothing but indifferent to all that is of God.
We experience the indifference and our own emptiness and poverty of spirit because He allows it ….SO WE CAN SEE IT AND COME TO HIM FOR THE VERY DESIRE FOR HIM!!!
Our nothingness.
Merton is just expressing nothing more than poverty of spirit before the Beloved.
FWIW
teresa-anawim
“But I still don’t like the word indifferent,” she mumbled, dragging the linen behind her.
Peace to you this Lent
Marie xoxoox
This is a tough one. It seems that Merton is talking about two different things here–corporate indifference and empathy. I don’t believe he is talking about individuals. I am not sure, but he seems to be saying that we cannot empathize with Jesus’ passion, and hence the indifference. I don’t think we are supposed to be able to do this so Merton is correct in my mind. Otherwise why make an appeal to miracle of suffering if he wasn’t mixing concepts a bit? We can’t empathize enough to be fully engaged.
If we really believed that Christ was truly present in the Eucharist there would be adoration around the clock in every parish on the planet. Not mention standing room and overflow Mass attendance to see the continuation of this sacrifice. In other words, the manifestation of people’s faith would be palpable if we were not indifferent. Our finite minds are not capable of grasping what Passion really meant, and the corporate “we” remains indifferent to Christ’s sufferings. I can agree with that.
On the other hand, the whole passage is contradictory. If we couldn’t help but be indifferent, then Merton never should have converted and we shouldn’t be here right now.
- Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude (New York: FSG, 1958), pp. 12, 13.
Merton must have recognized indifference as part of human nature. It may manifest itself, in spite of oneself, in the face of sudden, unutterable shock or sadness. Or it may even be trained by inundation of misery. To deny possession of it is to deny one’s own humanity.
Abstraction of two thousand years may pose conceptual difficulties. A brief survey of our world and its myriad tragedies will bring home to us the horror of war and poverty and the human condition. We are inundated with cries and pains of people all over the world and are being desensitized gradually. If we do not become indifferent, our protective inner self may whisper to us ever surreptitiously, we can’t go on. We look away, albeit not without a sigh. But do we feel uneasy? Are we agonized, first by the horrible realities of the world and then by our indifference?
Indifference may be permitted, but do we cry out in shame and agony when we recognize it in us? I think that this is where indifference can be either elevated to humility and forgiveness or be hardened and fortified in its own logic and mechanism. In the former case, we may cry, “Eloi, Eloi, Lama sabachtani!” and the transformation may occur. This is why I thought that Merton must have grappled with the great paradox.
If we spent some time in solitude — no books, no telephone, no friends, just us and God — we might be able to know more clearly what Merton might have had in mind. And a broader context may also help illuminate the issue.
And I agree with all the above – he has spoken in one context, and perhaps inferred the “we” as a general (and lamentable!) condition, or maybe even corporately, yes. As Gene and Teresa Anawim and others have called it, I think he was making reference to our inherent poverty of spirit. And I think Jesus Himself addressed that aspect, too, in the Beatitudes as reported in one Gospel as not just the poor, but the poor in spirit (who know they need Him). As Paul said, too, I do what I know I shouldn’t, and don’t do what I know I should. That’s the thorn in our side, if not also his. Poverty of spirit in knowing we can’t even care enough without His infusing that– or so it seems to me.
Gene, the phrase of his that you quoted above says so much, “The Cross does not sanctify us by destroying human feeling. Detachment is not insensibility…. If we are without human feelings we cannot love God in the way in which we are meant to love Him — as men.”
Yes, G, this is fun as in olde Castle days.. I was mighty surprised to see 17 comments here today. Pleasantly so. Holy dialog.. whew.
There are many things in all of your comments that I have been thinking about, and that may work their way into some upcoming posts; for example, Pia’s question about sentimentality, Gene’s question, “Where should we take it to?” as well as his point about desensitization, and JohnT’s statement that our finite minds are not capable of grasping the Passion. I’d like to look at these things in reference to contemplative prayer and union with the Divine.
Marie, I’ll come read your post this weekend.
Cathy, I’m so happy you are able to go on retreat. I hope it will be “brilliant” too!
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oh, how that speaks of who I am and where I stand spiritually…regrettably
Ukok, you’ve had more on your plate lately than many; we have to remember too that there is a rhythm to the spiritual life, isn’t there, and it doesn’t always coincide with the Liturgical Calendar. Will keep you in my prayers this evening; we are having a Divine Mercy Lenten reflection at my parish.
Carol, I remember you talking with longing about your “Molokai” before; it is good, as you say, when the Lord helps us to understand how we might be of service to the “untouchables” in our own day-to-day lives, isn’t it.