Merton on Monasticism

Wherever you have [...] a small group attempting to do this thing, attempting to love God and serve him and reach union with him, you are bound to have some kind of monasticism. This kind of monasticism cannot be extinguished. It is imperishable. It represents an instinct of the human heart, and it represents a charism given by God to man [...] and because we believe this, we have given ourselves to the kind of life we have adopted.

I finished reading the book, The Life You Save May Be Your Own last week. It traced the intersection of the lives of Dorothy Day, Walker Percy, Flannery O’Connor, and Thomas Merton. This quote from Merton comes right at the end of his life, when we was speaking at the conference in Asia where he died by electrocution.

As I read these words, I stopped once, and again, and then again. I needed to keep re-reading them because they struck me (male language notwithstanding!) so strongly. The monastic life is gift that God continually gives to the world.

Let us receive it.

Let us walk in the holy presence.