Thomas Merton on St. Bernard of Clairveaux

Fr. Thomas Merton (1915-1968) in a lecture on the theology of St. Bernard of Clairveaux to novice monks at the Abbey of Gethsemani, near Bardstown, Kentucky. Merton was 'master' (the title of the monk responsible to educate novice monks) at the Abbey in the early 1960's.

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[Billy Stewart]

I appreciate Merton's honesty. Merton said that the contradictions in his life were evidence of the mercy of God.

[michael gerard]

There is a distinction between love and lust. Lust keeps us in bondage to the material world and love of God liberates. This is why celibacy is a prerequisite to the spiritual life. We have to discriminate between matter and spirit. Matter is temporary(like the body) and spirit is eternal (like the soul). crucify the body to liberate the soul. This means controlling the senses.Either we serve the senses or we serve God, either way we serve because service (love) is the constitution of the soul.

[michael gerard]

Love of God is 1st commandment. By love of God we love all others. The body is a temple of God who is reflected in the heart of everyone. We have to see the Lord is present in the heart of all and love them accordingly. Jesus said what you do unto others you do to me. If we love God we automatically love others. God is not love, love is not God. He is the source of love and the object of love. Love is reposed in God. We have an eternal relationship with God and our objective is to remember God

[chrisman737]

It depends on how we use the word "love." Unfortunately, English has only one word for love. Greek has five words for love. It is quite possible to love wrongly in the English sense of the word, as we use the word "love" for self-sacrificial charity, erotic love, puppy love, and so on. If we take the word "agape" -- the Greek word for true love, the highest form of love, then what you say is correct -- it is impossible to "agape" wrongly, because agape presupposes a right ordering of love.

[bassninjatroy]

Merton also explicitly said that he believed we should learn from Eastern practices, meditation methods, etc, but NOT doctrines. I've read quite a bit of his work, and I have seen nothing unorthodox.

[jezkn]

But Jesus had his favourites (John -the disciple whom he loved) -and displayed extreme emotions (fear, anguish, anger, sensual pleasure, joy, grief, sadness)- the gospels are full of them. He also loved Mary Magdalene in some special way (and her him) we cannot comprehend. And he did a heck of a lot of judging of other humans and his disciples too.There is overlap with other Eastern religions- but also sharp differences too. Going back to Jesus (or Buddhism) doesn't solve Merton's dilemma

[jezkn]

You have fallen into the classic dualism of assuming that Loving God is of a different quality than loving another human being.

Since. for somebody who professes to be in favour of non judgemental love you seem to be making a lot of judgements - please tell me how can you tell if some one is loving wrongly (as you have done with Merton for instance).

And conversly (although it shouldn't be - how you can tell you are loving God rightly?

[jezkn]

In traditional Christian theology (Protestant, Orthodox or Catholic), God's love is highly judgemental. It's about as judgemental as it can get. It condemns some to eternal bliss but the majority to eternal dmanation. It has a massive agenda -one from which many human agendas in history have been derived with cruel consequences (Cistercians persecution of the Cathars is an example) - and incidentally parents punitve agendas towards their children - practised in many christian cuoltures troday.

[jezkn]

But you are contradicting yourself - you ARE judging Merton by suggestinjg his feelings of attraction are not Love. How can YOU possibly know? None of us can.

And to take emotions out of the equation actually dehumanises it. It suggests a Dehumanism. Not being emotionally bound to some one suggests the relationship of a couple of robots. What it indicates is a fear of emotions rather than celebrating them and integrating them into the True Self.

This is at the very root of the monk's dilemma.