But anyway, one day I woke up to find out that the peace I had known for
six months or more had suddenly gone.
The Eden I had been living in had vanished. I was outside the wall. I did
not know what flaming swords barred my way to the gate whose
rediscovery had become impossible. I was once more out in the cold and
naked and alone.
Then everything began to fall apart, especially my vocation to the
monastery.
Not that it occurred to me to doubt my desire to be a Franciscan, to enter
the cloister, to become a priest. That desire was stronger than ever now that
I was cast out into the darkness of this cold solitude. It was practically the
only thing I had left, the only thing to cover me and keep me warm: and yet
it was small comfort, because the very presence of the desire tortured me by
contrast with the sudden hopelessness that had come storming up out of the
hidden depths of my heart.
My desire to enter the cloister was small comfort indeed: for I had
suddenly been faced with the agonizing doubt, the unanswerable question:
Do I really have that vocation?
I suddenly remembered who I was, who I had been. I was astonished:
since last September I seemed to have forgotten that I had ever sinned.
And now I suddenly realized that none of the men to whom I had talked
about my vocation, neither Dan Walsh nor Father Edmund, knew who I
really was. They knew nothing about my past. They did not know how I
had lived before I entered the Church. They had simply accepted me
because I was superficially presentable, I had a fairly open sort of a face and seemed to be sincere and to have an ordinary amount of sense and good
will. Surely that was not enough.
Now the terrible problem faced me: “I have got to go and let Father
Edmund know about all this. Perhaps it will make a big difference.” After
all, it is not enough merely to desire to enter the monastery.
An attraction to the cloister is not even the most important element in a
religious vocation. You have to have the right moral and physical and
intellectual aptitudes. And you have to be accepted, and accepted on certain
grounds.
When I looked at myself in the light of this doubt, it began to appear
utterly impossible that anyone in his right mind could consider me fit
material for the priesthood.
I immediately packed my bag and started out for New York.
Having existed under a blanket of self-assurance and piety for over half a year, Merton suddenly finds himself back in the trenches of real life--with all of its dirty streets, doubt-filled days, and fragmented dreams. It's dark-night-of-the-soul time for young Merton, and he finds the whole religious life he'd imagined for himself blown away like ashes after a fire.
Here's the thing: Merton simply isn't ready to be a monk yet. He hasn't surrendered himself to God's will without question. Nope. He's created a Godly life for himself, one in which he will be comfortable and secure. Merton is calling the shots, and that really doesn't work. We all think we know what's best for ourselves, and we pursue those visions every waking minute. However, those visions, in the end, have very little to do with God, and everything to do with personal happiness.
I'm not saying that making God happy and having personal happiness are mutually exclusive . On the contrary. The greatest happiness you can find is by doing what God wants you to do, no matter how difficult. Every day is like a pop quiz from God. Sometimes that quiz is easy--true/false or multiple choice. Sometimes that quiz is more challenging--essay. However, pop quizzes are tricky. You can provide an answer that seems totally correct at the moment, and you'll pass. In a day's time--or week's or month's or year's--the true answer will come into focus, and your final grade will be submitted. And you may end up in the same boat as Merton in the above passage. Alone and in despair.
Today in the United States, we celebrate Memorial Day. It's a time to honor those men and women who lost their lives in military service to our country. This day can be misconstrued as patriotism of the worst kind--filled with hate and violence and intolerance and the glorification of war. That's human understanding. A more divine understanding of Memorial Day involves surrender and self-sacrifice. Giving up everything for a greater good.
All of the graves in the cemetery today adorned with tiny flags (my father's included) represent people who walked the path of selfless sacrifice. They lifted their crosses and willingly carried them up the hill, to use a Christian metaphor. They didn't want to die, but they understood the bigger picture. The one where they could make the universe a better place by their actions.
I honor the selfless today. Those who gave up everything for something bigger and greater than themselves. This isn't patriotism talking. It's admiration for bravery, and thankfulness for sacrifice. An understanding that, sometimes, God asks you to do the impossible, and you do it. Without question.
Saint Marty wishes you all a day filled with peace.
And a poem for this Memorial Day . . .
by: Martin Achatz
We gather this Memorial Day after
a long season of wintering out, happy
to see faces, brindled hope wagging
its tail as we again summon soldiers limping
home after Bull Runs, Omaha Beaches, too
tired to even think about cool hands
on shell-shocked temples, wanting only
to find a place in sun to stretch out
limbs, press faces into bowls of blue
sky, close eyes that have seen too much
that begs to be forgotten, find a Flanders
Field to rest, peace that can’t be broken
by cries of bullets or rockets ever again,
that will last until tribulation’s trumpet
blasts open the veil of grave, and we all
climb, stunned and new, from the final
battle of dirt and sod and rock, final
Memorial Day where we’ll stand
shoulder-to-shoulder with those
who, as old men in old uniforms remind
us today, paid the Christ price,
brave wounded souls who will nod
at us, smile with the knowledge of having
been through this before, heard their last
breaths rattle a blood-soaked morn, given
up their ghosts so that we could walk
in a world not haunted by sacrifice.
They stand with us now, on this Memorial
Day after, as they will stand
with us on that last Memorial Day,
when we will all understand what it means
to lay down our lives like place settings
on a dinner table, tuck napkins
under our chins, wait for grace
to be said, a thankfulness for all
gifts we have received, will receive,
and we will part our lips at the end, let
an “amen” rattle the universe’s windows
the way they rattled when we took
those first stumbling steps out of the gates
of Eden, and God’s heart split open
like a mother’s sending her only child
off to war.
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