Thomas Merton-Spiritual Master
Jordan, Patrick
in Chance and Circumstance (1978) of about a supposed "silent majority" yet say who went and who didn't. Yet twenty-eight nothing about the sacrifices their children years after...
...xxx + 488...
...Take FROM ONE END OF THE EARTH this sentence from another essay, published seven years before Roe v Wade: ...........................TO THE OTHER "Choice cannot be free from the frustrating, tormenting division between good 10...
...Teresita Orders accepted on open account (postage will be added...
...Congressional, executive ordinately high...
...FAX 314-652-0810 College, North Andover, MA 01845, (508) 837-5347...
...The Vietnam Veterans of Credence Cassettes offers over fifty branch, and Pentagon families saw that their America reported that in March 1992, Merton tapes...
...Douglas Graydon...
...in the individualist crowd...
...Place, New York, NY 10014-3845...
...only select points...
...If too old for the military, shamelessly backed Let us hope that care, great care, will it does not settle the matter of whether military interventions and a renewal of the be taken in the future before our new Merton is indeed a "spiritual master," it draft...
...for Nixon and his apologists to prattle on Commonweal...
...Cloth $34.95 plus postage...
...while the sons of workers did the fighting...
...Yet his longings went to prison or into exile for their be- ilies, especially those who live or work in and his struggles were not foreign to a liefs, and willingly accepted the conse- Washington, D.C...
...into specific aspects of Merton's career and class in America...
...Merton can be maddening for his selfNor for that matter have many ac- DIOGENES ALLEN has been an avid read- preoccupations, exhilarating for his selfknowledged or studied the complex rea- er of Iris Murdoch for over twenty years, knowledge and self-transcendence...
...The Institute, June 6-10, features Sr...
...His openness to other traditions, from words and spiritual interests so seldom Thus, in one of the finest essays in the Zen to Hasidism (it is unfortunate that his shook the foil of his own prayer life "in collection, "Rain and the Rhinoceros," essay, "The Good Samaritan," which deals public" must remain something of a Merton reflects from a solitary Kentucky in part with the Hebrew concept of hesed- puzzlement...
...CO Atlantic, bereavement process and much 3700 West Pine Boulevard more...
...His most recent books, Cunningham takes up Merton's many room heroes were repeatedly telling them...
...That a man of so many not only to his times but to the timeless...
...in 1972, as Appy JAMES R. KELLY is professor of sociology ed in his critical evaluations and personpoints out, George McGovern received a at Fordham University...
...Thanks to Cunningham, we startled that journal's comfortable read- Yet for all that, the glimpses of Mer- have both...
...the sentiment remains that we gave have his writings been issued and reissued, that the National Guard and Reserves were them a wall and some parades...
...Then it was shrewder PATRICK JORDAN is managing editor of thought...
...Ann prepay, please add $2.50 postage for each book ordered...
...And cer- The price we exacted from our work- Like the proverbial Cheshire Cat, tainly few have explained at least to my ing class in Vietnam may be common Thomas Merton may have departed but satisfaction why public policy channeled knowledge, though few Americans or he keeps making appearances...
...in Chance and Circumstance (1978) of about a supposed "silent majority" yet say who went and who didn't...
...It gives us a keen sense of Merton's irony, the recluse who has withdrawn from the world but sees to the heart of its ethical and spiritual conundrums...
...P. J ers...
...Veteran suicide rates exceed those way from home, figuratively as well as4itmade sure that their male issue stayed of civilians while post-traumatic stress erally...
...Reg- Trans...
...and many of our disorders and diseases resulting from the "spiritual writings," introduced and secontemporary "chicken hawks" fled from spraying of toxic defoliants continue to lected by the indefatigable Lawrence S. military service but later, when they were wreak havoc...
...ally generous...
...Today, with mil- IN BRIEF of troops to defend "freedom" in Vietnam, lions of once loyal workers transformed THOMAS MERTON: SPIRITUAL MASTER, the reasons for the intervention remain un- into the detritus of a mismanaged and THE ESSENTIAL WRITINGS, edited and inexamined at the highest political levels avaricious economic system, class still re- troduced by Lawrence S. Cunningham, other than occasional babble about exor- mains our dirty little secret...
...As this collection demonstrates, Merton's understanding of THE LETTERS AND INSTRUCTIONS OF FRANCIS XAVIER Trans...
...Francis Xavier's 138 letters and instructions make up a religious classic and historical resource heretofore unavailable in English...
...It must have readers...
...First time in English...
...He is the seemed to support the war, a war that Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton in an existential age...
...Christian Belief in a Postmodern World, and facets in his substantive introduction and Polls taken at the time revealed that work- Quest were reviewed in Commonweal's March in preludes to each individual selection ers reacted much as did the white-collar 8, 1991 issue...
...sons and grandsons were exempted...
...Showalter and Dr...
...July 16...
...Commonweal 23 April 1993: 31...
...words...
...Hence, subjective choice cannot be an absolute...
...Nancy Saint Louis, MO 63108 Burkin, SSJ, Center for Ministries, Merrimack 314-652-5737...
...if you Weind, Rabbi J.B...
...About man of paradoxes, if not contradictions, every step of escalation and who publicly one-third of single homeless males are vet- a hermit attached to place who died a long thirsted for more bombing and violence erans...
...In the quarpoorer kids into the military...
...June 28 THE SPIRITUAL CONQUEST to Fri...
...The present collection of Merton's home one way or another...
...TWO NEW BOOKS and evil...
...Terry Tafoya, and includes over 30 workshops, a picnic at the Institute of Jesuit Sources, Dept...
...The retreat, June 4-6, will be facil- postage...
...hawks, 19.2 percent or one in five imprisoned The century's most conspicuous and loneoconservatives, columnists, editorial criminals were veterans, a large majority quacious Catholic monk, Merton was a writers, and publishers who supported of whom are Vietnam-era vets...
...As readers of and professional classes: Survey after sur- MOLLY FINN, a frequent Commonweal Commonweal have come to expect, vey showed that workers often favored get- contributor, lives in New York City...
...But the price for Vietnam stream of books, studies, dissertations, and plicants, "whatever their economic sta- veterans who could not adjust is still in- monographs...
...molders of public opinion dwell on it very ter of a century since his death, not only We know, though we may no longer care, much...
...ter of the spirit...
...For information, contact Dr...
...from Merton's writings...
...C. J. McNaspy, S. J., J. P. Leonard, S. J., istration deadline: May 1, 1993...
...cising the "Vietnam Syndrome...
...Cloth $24.95 plus treat and institute for pastoral caregivers with PLWA...
...The essay remarkable effect, broadening the Catholic When it came to God, Merton wrote, "sifirst appeared in the glossy pages of the spirit for a whole generation of Merton lence makes more sense than a lot of travel magazine Holiday...
...Cunningham is simultaneously sure-sightting out of Vietnam...
...But it is Merton himself who presides 30: 23 April 1993 Commonweal here, both in Cunningham's commentary his own tradition was uncommon, devel- ton's own prayer and mystical sense, as and in the text: Merton the monk, the the- oped over years of study, reflection, writ- Cunningham points out, glimmer at ologian, and the catholic writer attuned ing, prayer, and giving direction to others...
...Here he not only notes the larger percentage of worker votes than he MURRAY POLNER wrote No Victory Pa- contributions of others to Merton studies got from white-collar professionals...
...M. Joseph Costelloe, S.J...
...El sizable number of his contemporaries, quences of their defiance...
...But even more: as his best-seller status indicated...
...Cunningham, should be long in print...
...As Appy concludes, "The critics president, who was a war protester, emu- will certainly help keep the question in and architects of the war did the talking, lates Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon and play...
...He sons why so many working-class people largely because of her concern with human life was, in a sense, the Existential Monk as a pilgrimage from evil to good...
...A recent catalogue from tus," notes Appy...
...Pastoral Care and AIDS A moving first-hand account of one of history's most fasciJune 4-10: Our Community's Concern: nating social experiments, the seventeenth-century ParaPastoral Care and AIDS, an interfaith re- guay reductions...
...from the Institute of Jesuit Sources It is not as ethicist that we look to Merton in this volume, however, but as mas- From the East...
...rades: The Return of the Vietnam Veteran and but points out their most significant insights edited When Can I Come Home?, about draft No one then or now likes to talk about resisters, deserters, and exiles...
...In them REVIEWERS sible implications...
...What more but he has been the subject of a steady draft havens, effectively closed to black ap- do they want...
...itated by Rev...
...CLASSIFIED St...
...dispatches American young people into a Without doubt, Merton was a most (Personally, I exclude here the relatively conflict, especially one that does not re- complex and compelling individual who few brave souls who became COs, or who quire equal sacrifices from our elite fam- chose an unusual path...
...Paulist Press, $14.95, 437 pp...
...paper $17.95 plus postage...
...sented by the Atonement Friars at the Centro Pro Unione, Rome, Mon...
...M. E. Palmer, S.J...
...paper $27.95 Summer Course plus postage...
...Sacks, Rev...
...hardly benefited them despite what living- Theological Seminary...
...Summer Course in Ecumenism: "Introduction to the Ecumenical Movement" pre- From the West...
...But perhaps that is the final holler on the nature of the nuclear threat mercy-was not included in this volume) "UL seal of approval" that marks the and the equally destructive isolation with- to Sufism, was legendary and has had a genuineness of this monk's passage...
...For Information: Summer Course, Atonement Friars, 138 Waverly by Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, S.J...
...Nearly Few now want to own up to the unfair bur- half of the present volume is given over den placed on the working class and its pos- to autobiographical writings...
...Yet twenty-eight nothing about the sacrifices their children years after the dispatch of large numbers were forced to undergo...
Vol. 120 • April 1993 • No. 8
