Thomas Merton on Contemplation

Thomas Merton on Contemplation…

In his book, ‘The Climate of Monastic Prayer’. Merton defined contemplation as ‘essentially a listening in silence’ and an ‘expectancy’.

‘The true contemplate is not one who prepares his mind for a particular message that he wants or expects to hear, but is one who remains empty because he knows that he can never expect to anticipate the words that will transform his darkness into light. He does not even anticipate a special kind of transformation. He does not demand light instead of darkness. He waits on the Word of God in silence, and, when he is ‘answered’, it is not so much by a word that bursts into his silence.  It is by his silence itself, suddenly, inexplicably revealing itself to him as a word of great power, full of the voice of God.”  (pp.122-123)

Merton had learned early to keep vigil in silence with his heart’s eye on the horizon of the next moment.  The next moment could reveal in light or in shadow the presence of the Beloved he awaited.  He kept his mind’s eye open for the unexpected epiphany.  Waiting without projecting his own needs into the next moment became a dark form of hope.  Merton’s gift to his readers was his honesty in communicating the darkness that was  his ‘rite of passage’ into God’s presence.

(Note: I have been assigned since a year ago as Spiritual Director of the OMI Postulants.  I simply listen and journey with our postulants and also college seminarians as their SD… Part of the self-imposed regimen is to read and read spiritual authors like Thomas Merton and combined them with my own experiences of struggle, darkness,  and even the absence of God yet believing and hoping that God reveals himself even in his absence…)