Father Matthew Kelty on the Death of Thomas Merton
[A Homily of Fr. Matthew Kelty, OCSO. for the Thomas Merton Memorial Mass at the Louisville Cathedral, Dec. 10th, 1998, (Luke 12:49) ]
Touched By Fire
It was Tuesday, the second week of Advent and we were at dinner, at noon, that is, eating our beans and rice, lettuce salad, preceded by pea soup and followed by an apple for dessert. The reader that week was Father Timothy Kelly, and the book was the life of Teilhard de Chardin. It was the 10th of December. The abbot was Father Flavian Burns. At the end of the meal instead of ringing the bell — so we knew something was up — he went to the reader's desk, signed him to stop, picked up the microphone, and said: "Brothers, I have sad news for you. Fr. Louis died in Bangkok. That is all I know. I'll let you know more when I learn it."
He then said the closing meal prayers and life went on as usual. And forever different. More
posted by Dan Phillips @ 8:00 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
....special day for a special servant of God....."As delicate as a wind chime to any breath of the Spirit"....beautiful words of praise for him who was 'responsive to the Spirit and a blessing to us who follow'......Father Louis, pax.
....a Merton story for today...a novice at chapter of faults, knelt down and confessed that he had broken the rule...He told that he was reading in chapel, a book that was not for 'chapel' reading like the office or the Bible. Fr. Louis (Merton) looked across to Fr. Raymond (also a writer, The Man Who Got Even With God)) and gestured to him "He was reading YOUR book'...like the fault is really yours. The monks have times when they praise God with their gifts of humor and brotherly differences...it is not all austerity....and God must indeed laugh.........
Has anyone returned to reading Fr Raymond's "Man Who Got Even With God" recently. It has not aged well at all. It is so much of another age. I think that Raymond just lost himself in that era of monkery, he didn't find a larger, better self. It was all one-sided self-immolation then. But Merton never suffered from that negative aspect of mocking.
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