STRUGGLE WITH THE TRANSCEDENT
McCarthy, Abigail
STRUGGLE WITH THE TRANSCENDENT He was very soul-weary-that priest in the Antipodes-and angry, too. He hadn't really liked coming to meet an American, even one with fairly good credentials in the...
...Among the persons most convincingly committed to peace, justice and the alleviation of misery, among those who have lived among us willingly laying down their lives for others in one way or another, have been* persons committed to prayer and action...
...In the presence of trials and difficulties-those of people at large, or those of the Church, or of our own-each of us has the choice of two ways...
...He spoke movingly of the misery and starvation he had seen and vehemently of the corruption which prevented foreign relief from reaching the people...
...But, underlying every word, one sensed- the drag of that affliction of middle life which spiritual writers used to call acedia...
...Perhaps with the true and disciplined wedding of the transcendent and of compassion, "everything would become possible once more"-even liberation...
...By every test," writes Walter Ong, "it would seem that, in the dialogue between the secular and the religious, it is the latter which speaks with the more personal voice, at least in the Hebraic-Christian tradition...
...Or else, and for the Christian this is the only way, our hurt and sadness can change gradually into a serene joy, into praise of love-the love of Christ...
...You see, the risen Christ comes to quicken a festival in the innermost heart of man...
...The evil and-indifference to be overcome are simply too great...
...Our God speaks with the voice of a Person...
...On the last morning of his life Thomas Merton, monk of the civil rights and peace movement, and of human liberation-and a contemplative to the end-had this to say: "The monk belongs to the world, but the world belongs to him insofar as he has dedicated himself totally to liberation from it in order to liberate it...
...kind of joy, but a joy of communion...
...Then everything becomes possible once more in the quest to become women and men in communion...
...We found some' common ground in our opposition to French nuclear testing in the South Pacific, but he was quick to add that the United States was up to the same kind of thing: pouring money into the Marianas to subvert the people so that they would vote to join us, and give us a base for atomic missiles...
...We are to see him in other persons...
...Hammarskjold put it this way: The explanation of how man should live a life of active social service in full harmony with himself as a member of the community of the spirit, I found in the writings of those great medieval mystics for whom 'self-surrender' had been the way of self-realization, and who in 'singleness of mind' and 'inwardness' had found strength to say Yes to every demand which the needs of their neighbors made them face, and to say Yes also to every fate life had in store for them...
...The monks of the ecumenical monastery of Taize' in France have come very slowly and gradually into the world of Christian activism...
...As far as one can glimpse the struggle of another, I think the weary priest contended with the Zeitgeist, as we all must do at times...
...To quote from a paper prepared at the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural studies: "Our culture is characterized by the strong influence of those in philosophy, the theater, poetry and the novel who-with penetration and insight-look into life and find nothing...
...I pleaded ignorance of what was going on in the Marianas, and the talk drifted to his recent visit to Bangladesh...
...If you want to pull a drowning man from the water you have to have some support yourself...
...It is a Person who is to us the way, the truth, and the life...
...Pain and -anguish can be turned against ourselves in bitterness...
...That "being present" was very much Abigail McCarthy like the mute but speaking presence of Charles de Foucauld among the Bedouins...
...The great interest in the charismatic movement, in the eastern religions, bespeaks a need we cannot ignore-a need at the very heart of man...
...It occurs to me that those who see the preoccupation with the transcendent, or to be more concrete and explicit, . with the science of prayer as an escape, or an effort to avoid the struggle for justice, are not reading the signs aright...
...And so he looked, unable to share, but with wonder and appreciation at the fruit of a different way, the way of Taize...
...He brightened only once-when he spoke of the peace and happiness he had found with the brothers of Taize in one of the most wretched quarters in which they made their home...
...Merton looked forward to the day when the combination of the natural techniques of prayer in Asia and the "Christian liberty of the gospel should bring us all at last to that full and transcendent liberty which is beyond mere cultural differences...
...They want to know the theological implications of an action," the priest said, "If they cannot see one, they will not take part...
...Secondly, he contended, I think, with the bone-weariness which overtakes the faithful man or woman who puts his or her whole effort into active service...
...The nothingness is overcome there...
...Abigail McCarthy (Cont...
...Prior Roger Schuetze, founder and present leader of the monastery had addressed himself to the subject only the month before: "There is a call rising from the depths of God's people, asking us to bring joy where the Church is discouraged...
...He subscribed, I think, quite uncritically to the picture of the United States, current in world church circles, as "Amerika," imperialistic harbor of oppressive institutions, of devout capitalists who deliberately exploit the Third World-a picture half-right, half-wrong, but it would have been useless to protest the caricature...
...Action alone leads to weariness and despair...
...To them, there is no ultimate reality beyond life, no God, and to them life, if taken seriously enough, ends in nothing . . . [the nothingness] once the private preserve of mystics has become in our culture the experience of every thinking person...
...Not any...
...Could any activist ask more of a man...
...It may be that we suffer today from having stifled mysticism in our tradition, and from the weird notion, to which we all subscribed, that there could be a division of spiritual labor...
...But, little by little, constrained by the love of Christ, they have turned to participation in the "community of righteousness and mercy" as it was called in the recent Boston Affirmations...
...But a limited participation...
...At first they went out from Taize, where they practiced contemplation and celebration, in two's and three's to other communities so that they could be present searching for communion...
...The present ecumenical and theological controversy in this country called attention to, first by the Hartford Appeal, and then this month by the Boston Affirmations, centers on this problem of transcendence and its relationship to Christian action, especially the political action we call liberation...
...He hadn't really liked coming to meet an American, even one with fairly good credentials in the anti' war movement and ecumenism...
...There is nothing to be gained by simply jumping in the water and drowning with him...
...Think of Dag Hammarskjold, Thomas Mer-ton, Bonhoeffer, and, outside our tradition, Gandhi...
...And then everything is lost...
Vol. 103 • February 1976 • No. 5
