Pray
Constantly

Thomas Merton died 40 years ago on December 10th, 1968 in Bangkok, aged 53, while attending a conference of monks from Asia. There have been several celebrations recently of this Cistercian monk who was a prolific writer on many topics but more particularly on prayer. I remember, as a curate in 1953, being confronted by the secretary of the parochial church council with one of his first books on contemplation. She was thrilled with his writing - always readable, interesting and challenging. When you read Thomas Merton on prayer you felt that it was not any old theory about prayer (and he had read most of the classical spiritual writings) but that it actually came out of his own experience. This is what attracted thousands of readers from all backgrounds. The Foreword to the book I quote from below was written by Douglas Steere, leader of the Society of Friends in America and an admirer and friend of Merton. Merton was not everyone's author and perhaps he is not read all that much today. He was of his time. 'Contemplation' was one of the 'in' words of the time. It is not much used now but Merton was on fire with the experience of twenty years in the monastery in Kentucky where he had gone as a convert to Catholicism intending to bury himself in that Cistercian monastery, far from the 'world'. But he reappeared as a prolific and gifted writer on behalf of his monastery - and he was back in the maelstrom of affairs, from the Vietnam war to ecclesiastical controversy, poetry and purely monastic writing on the Fathers and the history of the Cistercian Order, and towards the end of his life with a deep understanding of other religions.

Merton could be very blunt in some of his statements. After his death a book was put together from a draft which he had planned to be called The Climate of Monastic Prayer. It was intended for monks but he addresses the rest of us in no uncertain terms. Here is an extract from the conclusion of the book -

"If the contemplative orientation of prayer is its emptiness, its 'uselessness', its purity, then we can say that prayer tends to lose its true character in so far as it becomes busy, full of ulterior purposes, and committed to programs that are beneath its own level. Now this does not mean that we can never pray for particular goods. We can and must use the prayer of petition, and this is even compatible, in a very simple and pure form, with the spirit of contemplation ... Without the spirit of contemplation in all our worship - that is to say without the adoration and love of God above all, for his own sake, because he is God - the liturgy will not nourish a really Christian apostolate based on Christ's love ... Without true, deep contemplative aspirations, without a total love for God and an uncompromising thirst for his truth, religion tends in the end to become an opiate." (The Climate of Monastic Prayer, Cistercian Publications, 1969, pages 152-154.)

So what is this 'contemplation' Merton is writing about? From Merton's point of view as a monk it is the practical outcome of the statement in the Rule of Benedict for monks -'To prefer nothing to the love of Christ.' But some clarification is needed first of all about how we understand God and Christ. I have often said that to understand what prayer is we must first try and unravel some of the traditional statements that have been made about God and about Jesus. If God is the director of all that happens and that his 'will' must not be compromised then prayer is, in some sense, irrelevant. But if God is one who allows us our own autonomy in life then he is, so to speak, of a much greater stature. He is one who cares for all, shares our anxieties and wounds, lures us into ways of peace and truth and upholds us in all our actions. The same is true of Jesus, the risen Lord. According to the New Testament witnesses he is the transcendent Lord with us at every turn of our lives. This is faith at its most poignant and challenging. It is below our ordinary feelings and experiences and rarely seems to rise to the surface. But it is the faith of one who commits herself to Jesus as Lord and to God as 'Father'.

Beginning again, then, with what prayer is. While prayer is the making known our needs to the Father, as Merton accepts, it is also the desire simply to be with the Lord, with the Father. Then, from the point of view that we need to uphold others in prayer, this quiet communing with the Lord is, in some ways, the only way to do so. The people suffering from the ravages of cholera in Zimbabwe, the families of the victims in Mumbai and countless others who we cannot name. We can support them in this prayer of being with the Father. It is as simple - and as difficult - as that, when once we have begun to know Jesus for who he is and God for what he is really like. So it has been said that prayer is more like breathing - a continuous activity in daily living, except that it is not automatic! But the value of such a 'living prayer' is that it orientates the whole of our life towards Jesus and the Father. Gradually we can feel the need to be open to the divine as part of one's existence and to begin to know the depth of that relationship which is growing within ourselves - contemplation, Merton says.

The quietness, silence and seeming separation from all ordinary living in monastic life is obviously a great help to come to terms with prayer as a relationship, a friendship, with the divine. Yet, humanly speaking, in ordinary society, it is possible to understand what it is like to be at the actual heart of the world - as God is - and to begin to appreciate the reality of prayer as the heartbeat of human living in relationship with the divine. So 'pray constantly' is possible not only in such a place as Salisbury cathedral but also among the commuters on the tube and on the streets of the city. For prayer is never about isolation from daily life but about perceiving the real relationships we all have each day with others, near and far, from the point of view of God and in the Lord who knows them.

It would be interesting to know what Merton's comments about Christian life and discipleship would be if he were alive today. Much of what he said was prophetic of our needs as Christians even if the way in which he couched his arguments belonged more to the 1960s and the days of Honest to God, the God is dead debate and the barricades in Paris! Corporate religious observance in terms of attendance at church services has diminished considerably in the past 40 years. But that does not mean that individuals are less aware of the depth of life as they experience it. It is likely that Merton would say that we as Christians need to lead the way in a deep, personal love for the Lord, and might echo the words of Paul in his letter to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 5:17) -