A small group of us were talking to the Byzantine priest after Liturgy today and the name Thomas Merton came up, who, while obviously a far greater soul than I, seemed to have somewhat lost his way in his later years. The padre agreed but ascribed it to the times and to the fact that pioneers, which Merton was to some extent (which he elaborated on), often are seen as off the path only in hindsight. The nature of pioneering is that you're going to provide good things and less good things but that doesn't invalidate the value of theological pioneering. The Church is like the master of the household in Matthew 13:5 who "brings out of his treasure what is old and what is new." As Fr. George Haydock puts it in his scripture notes:
"It is the perfection of Angels never to err; it is a human imperfection to fall into error, but a diabolical crime to so love our error, as to divide the Church by schism, or to leave it by heresy: this love of self is the most dangerous idolatry."And that certainly could not be said of Thomas Merton.
No comments:
Post a Comment