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THE BEST OF THIS LIGUORI SERIES OF SEASONAL MEDITATIONS WITH JOURNALLING, SCRIPTURE, AND PASSAGES FROM FATHER MERTON, March 14, 2008
This review is from: Lent and Easter Wisdom from Thomas Merton: Daily Scripture and Prayers, Together with Thomas Merton's Own Words (Paperback)
The Catholic Publishing House Liguori Press has produced several volumes of collections from writers with varying degrees of relation to the Roman Catholic Church including such great Roman Catholic priests and theologians as the Reverend Father Henri Nouwen through its
Lent And Easter Wisdom: Daily Scripture And Prayers Together With Nouwen's Own Words. Liguori also presents further Liturgical Seasons, including
Advent And Christmas Wisdom From Henri J.m. Nouwen: Daily Scripture And Prayers Together With Nouwen's Own Words (Redemptorist Pastoral Publication) and
Advent and Christmas With Thomas Merton (Redemptorist Pastoral Publication).
This present volume gathers generous passages from the well received Trappist monk, priest, hermit and Novice Master the Reverend Father Louis, known best to the world as Thomas Merton. From 1950 through 1964 Father Merton wrote fifteen essays related to the Liturgical Year which were later published as Seasons of Celebration: Meditations on the Cycle of Liturgical Feasts. The Merton Legacy Trust has kindly permitted Liguori to draw from the rich and nourishing well of these essays in order to form this series of meditations for each day of Lent, beginning with Ash Wednesday and continuing through the sacred Triduum of Paschaltide on to the Second Sunday of Easter.
Each day's selection from Father Merton is matched with a relevant Biblical reading, a formal and directed prayer, and a suggestion for your prayer journal, which is a widely accepted form of focusing the process of prayer and conversion which is the essence of the Lenten season.
The editor of this excellent volume, perhaps the best of its series, is the Merton Institute for Contemplative Living's Jonathan Montaldo, who has prepared a number of other similar volumes, including Entering The Silence - Becoming A Monk & Writer - The Journals Of Thomas Merton, Volume Two, 1941-1952. The Merton Legacy Trust requested the passages from Father Merton be presented as written, without "updatings" such as inclusive language, and thus we may trust what we read here, especially as the full Seasons of Celebrations was published with the proper ecclesial permissions and approvals as free from doctrinal and moral error.
There are over four hundred volumes of prayer journals available here upon the amazon, and other works which describe journals as a tool for prayer and contemplation. We may read for instance
Love Affair: A Prayer Journal or
Year of Grace: A Spiritual Journal. This present volume draws us to write our own journal of prayer, to be shared with no one else but our loving and forgiving Lord God within our Lenten process of conversion to God's compassionate Love and Resurrection. Upon the first instance of a prayer journal suggestion, on Ash Wednesday, we find Montaldo's gentle and brief orientation to the process: "However you write in your Lent and Easter journal, be truthful to your own experience. The question proposed for each day is only suggestive. Give your heart and mind free range ( . . .) (p.3)."
This then is the essence of the prayer process for conversion: "Be truthful," be courageous, be honest, be truthful. Thus may you grow in our Faith. Be courageously truthful. Write all that you can, and so you will consistently focus with commitment to conversion upon the theme under consideration, and those troubling your heart and soul upon the Lenten path back to God and the Resurrection to new Life.
On Day 27 of Lent, we read from Father Merton #216 - 217 from the Seasons of Celebration which describe the Communion of Forgiveness. The Scriptural reading comes from Luke 6:37 - 42, which begins: "Do not judge and you will not be judged; do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven; give and it will be given to you, a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give to others will be the measure given to you ( . . .) (p.59)." The prayer thus admits our judgmental nature and condemning others, and asks God to forgive and to "Soften my judging heart, Lord ( . . .) quiet my judging heart." as it asks for the gift of humility. The journal suggestion is "If Lent is the Church's call to forgive and to be forgiven, how are you answering it?"
The following day continues with this theme of forgiveness by quoting Father Merton's #217: "( . . .) the Church is a community of pardon it is an Epiphany of the Divine Love, Agape . . . This love is the key to everything but it cannot be known, discovered or understood by rational investigation alone." The scriptural passage comes of course from the First Letter of Saint John, Chapter 2 verses 7 through 11; the prayer asks God to "Overturn all hate in me and the spirit of divisiveness. Let no one be shut out of my prayers. Teach me to forgive as I wish to be forgiven. I need your love and grace to live as you teach me to live." The journal question asks us: "How difficult is it for you to forgive and pardon others and yourself? Is there still someone you haven't forgiven?"
As the Lenten season progresses of course, the meditations dwell less upon our shortcomings and more upon our openness to the Resurrection and the coming of God's Holy Spirit, as the process of conversion to God's love unfolds within our hearts. Thus as we come to the Saturday of Easter Week, we read that prayer which all monks read each morning, the Benedictus (here entitled properly thus in Latin) from Luke 1:68-79, which concludes with this prophetic promise: "By the tender mercy of our God the dawn form on high will break upon us to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet upon the way of Peace (p.113)."
May this gentle and humble volume therefore guide our feeble and uncertain first footsteps upon the path to God's Peace and total conversion to God's Loving mercy and forgiveness and compassion, and into the fullness of our One, Holy, Catholic and Universal Faith.
Highly recommended for all Catholics in this Lenten and Easter season as the best of this series of books from Liguori. Edifying reading at any time of year. The original from Father Merton, as well as from the Bible, may be overwhelming to us; here Montaldo gently and kindly leads us through it along with prayers and suggestions for our own deepening meditations.
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