Fr. Louis (thomas Merton) On Discernment As "fate"

[Gabriela]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMY68vNcLT8

[Luigi]

Very interesting. I've intuited this, but I haven't been able to explain it the way Merton does. And I'm not sure that Merton explains it all that clearly, anyway.

 

But the idea/analogy that God has a file folder with your personalized Predetermined Will of God written in it has always seemed wrong to me. We do have free will, which gives us free choice, by which we can choose to collaborate with God in this endeavor or that endeavor or some other endeavor. And God will approve of all/any of them, as long as they are worthy endeavors - not robbing banks or flying airplanes into twin towers. That would be rejecting God's will, although He still lets us do it because we still have our own free will and agency and self-determination.

 

If we didn't have free will and agency and self-determination, we'd be automatons - still instruments of God's will, but not human.

 

So I (the hypothical "I" - any person) can join the Dominicans because I like the study + itineracy, or I can join the Benedictines because I like the study + stability. Or i can get married, love my spouse, raise my kids, work the Lenten fish fry with the Men's Club, and go on retreat every year. Any of these decisions/vocations on my part will be fine with God, because in either case I'm collaborating with God. "God's will for me" is to know, love, and serve the Lord, and His children my brothers & sisters.

 

 

[oremus1]

Very interesting. I've intuited this, but I haven't been able to explain it the way Merton does. And I'm not sure that Merton explains it all that clearly, anyway.

 

But the idea/analogy that God has a file folder with your personalized Predetermined Will of God written in it has always seemed wrong to me. We do have free will, which gives us free choice, by which we can choose to collaborate with God in this endeavor or that endeavor or some other endeavor. And God will approve of all/any of them, as long as they are worthy endeavors - not robbing banks or flying airplanes into twin towers. That would be rejecting God's will, although He still lets us do it because we still have our own free will and agency and self-determination.

 

If we didn't have free will and agency and self-determination, we'd be automatons - still instruments of God's will, but not human.

 

So I (the hypothical "I" - any person) can join the Dominicans because I like the study + itineracy, or I can join the Benedictines because I like the study + stability. Or i can get married, love my spouse, raise my kids, work the Lenten fish fry with the Men's Club, and go on retreat every year. Any of these decisions/vocations on my part will be fine with God, because in either case I'm collaborating with God. "God's will for me" is to know, love, and serve the Lord, and His children my brothers & sisters.

so there is no such thing as being called to a vocation?

[beatitude]

so there is no such thing as being called to a vocation?

 

I don't think that's quite what he means. St Therese felt drawn to a multitude of vocations, many of which seemed polar opposites - to be a missionary, to be a cloistered nun - and in the end, grasping the secret, she exclaimed, "My vocation is Love! In the heart of the Church, my mother, I will be love, and in this way I will be all things."

 

Using the same language as Therese, St Paul urges Christians 'to be all things to all people' - in other words, to be love. Because of the character that God has given me, it feels fitting for me to do this through vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience within a secular institute. But a few years ago I used to be quite torn up about 'missing' my specific vocation as though it were a train. I puzzled over signs and worried about this monastery and that convent. This was stunting my ability to love generously rather than opening it up. Now my perspective has shifted and I no longer think that it's a specific person or community that opens up that ability to love - it is intention and faith. My options are finite and God has placed them before me in infinite love. He can bring good out of whatever choice I make providing I do so in good faith and out of a desire to live as generously as possible, to love Christ and my neighbour.

 

Our attitude to vocational discernment seems to have altered a lot in the age of fairly cheap and easy travel. I've occasionally mentioned on Phatmass a Carmelite nun who decided to try religious life as a young woman and consulted a priest friend on which of two local monasteries she should join, the Carmelites or the Trappists. The priest suggested the Carmelites, as the Trappists seemed more frightening to her mother. And that was that. She went off and she's been a faithful nun in Carmel ever since. She's a very old lady now. Today that is less likely to happen: there would probably be a couple of retreats about which spirituality is the right fit, visits to multiple monasteries (some hundreds of miles away!), maybe some Amazon shopping for books on discernment. I'm not saying this approach is bad, just that it hasn't always been so, and that it's possible to take a much simpler approach to how to discern your path in life.

[maximillion]

It is an invitation....he says.

 

 

Natural inclinations, in co-operation with the action of the Holy Spirit.

 

So yes, there is a call - an invitation, but that invitation will be general rather than specific. That is my understanding.

 

God calls (invites) certain individuals to come close to Him through marriage. This is best for their salvation. He leaves the choosing of the husband/wife team to the natural inclinations of the people involved along with the action of grace.

He calls others to come close in union with Him through RL, He leaves the choosing of the community/charism/spirituality to the inclinations of the person, the discernment of the community they wish to join and to grace.

There is no plan in God's filing casinet that says 'Joe/Jane Bloggs - Trappist/Trappistine'.

 

There is an impulse of love which radiates out from Him into every sphere of each individual, and that love (grace) will invite us to attend to It in ways that are compatible with who we are, our personality, life circumstances and natural inclinations. 

It's a partnership.

I don't see God as the big CEO in heaven who micromanages.

[NotreDame]

As one wise priest once said to me...  In this life we can never know God's will for sure.  Our choices will always be acts of free will and will always require at least a small leap of faith even with the most exhaustive discernment. 

[Pia Jesu]

While hardly a Merton scholar, I've always sensed that love was the benchmark of his writings on vocations and discernment.

During his final year of life, he writes in The Asian Journal that...

 

Our real journey in life is interior,

it is a matter of growth, deepening,

and an ever greater surrender to the creative

action of love and grace in our hearts.

 

I agree with you, Maximillion, that there IS a call.  And while "general," it does, indeed, require that highly individual (without any guarantee of success) Kierkegaardian-type leap of faith.  If this response is genuine, it could hardly be considered temporary or exchangeable.  This raises the question, however, about whether or not a "vocation" can be for a certain period of time.  When I entered an active community of religious women, I thought--like most--that I'd be there forever.  Having left, I now believe that God wanted me there for a period of time (providing a truly wonderful spiritual foundation for the remainder of my life).  Sounds contradictory, but sure is worthy of more reflection...!

[maximillion]

I so agree - we may say our fiat with the most sincere heart. I too believed I was in the cloister for ever, but in His wisdom He had other plans.

[Era Might]

I'm not "necromancing" this thread, I just happened to see it in the activity log and watched the video.

Interesting talk (and first time I've heard Merton's voice). I haven't had much experience with Merton, so I'm open to reading more of his works, but there is something that I don't particularly like about him (and I mean that respectfully, I don't think he would take offense). He was very modern in his approach...meaning, his existential choice was very modern, the problems he faced and the choices he had to make. That was a great strength, he was able to approach modern life with an ancient perspective, and vice versa, but from my limited experience he seems too modern, in the sense that he could not escape his own freedom, his own "self." His spirituality was very self-conscious, which to me seems illuminating but also distracting, a little unnatural (not surprising that he chose the Trappists, where he could isolate his self and discover himself in a unique way, through a tradition of solitude more than a tradition of community).

I've been reading the Gospel of Matthew and came across the story of the Rich Young Man, and then the parable of the talents, and they both seemed to me opposite stories with the same message. The Rich Young Man is NOT selfish, he asks Jesus what he can do with his life, how he can enter everlasting life. He already follows the commandments and lives a good life as a rich man, and Jesus tells him to give up everything, not because he is selfish, but because Jesus is telling him to give up even the desire to do good, and the Rich Young Man can't do it. I don't think he goes away sad because he is selfish for possessions, but because the possessions represent his desire to be himself in the world, to do good as himself, and Jesus is telling him to give himself up and follow Jesus. And then in the parable of the talents, it seems like the opposite story, the man is judged harshly because he was scared and wasn't profitable with his talents. Here I don't think the lesson is about the talents themselves, but about not being open generously to receive the talents and put them to work in his heart. So whereas the Rich Young Man is not able to give up possessions and open up his heart to something new, the unprofitable servant is not able to open up his heart generously with possessions/talents/material things/the world. They seem like opposite, but both are about being open and generous in heart, not about specific "things."

That seems to me something essential about vocation...we find ourselves in a world and in a life that has shaped us and that we have shaped, for good or bad, and it's not so much about choosing "what" to do as choosing to see the world and ourselves with a new heart, one that is open and generous to what is right there in front of us, whether that's a particular way of life, a particular decision, etc. But I don't think the vocation is in the particulars but in the generosity of the discernment...and generosity also assumes sacrifice, being willing to give up the life you wanted or the life you thought you had, in order to take up the life you do actually have. So I guess I'm not substantially disagreeing with Merton, but I think he saw spirituality and vocation as a way to discover one's self...and I think it can be that to a certain extent, but to me that's a very modern way of framing it. I don't see vocation as an "emergence" of a "self" so much as a recognition of one's situation, one's context, one's feelings and desires and problems, etc. I don't think that a person can just choose any community, or be happy with any choice of a spouse, etc. Context matters, and while a person can live a holy life in imperfect contexts, I think vocation is about finding a context that allows you to lose yourself in many senses...not just sacrificially, but lose yourself in wonder, in happiness, etc. It is something bigger than yourself, like an organism in an environment, it is a relationship where one affects the other and depends on the other. To me vocations are not so much discovered as born, if that makes sense, whereas I think Merton would put more emphasis on vocation as a journey of discovery. A person who discovers a vocation has discovered someone new rather than being in search of himself.

Edited October 14, 2015 by Era Might

[RafaelCordero]

In case you are wondering about the Latin beginning at :22:  

Divinum auxilium maneat semper nobiscum (May the divine assistance always remain with us)

Amen

Benedicite (Bless)

Dominus (the Lord)

(I have always thought that it would be more logical to respond Dominum in the accusative but in fact monks respond  by saying Dominus in the nominative).