Friends. This morning, while reading Merton's Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, I came across something that took the wind out of my sails (that’s a good thing). I instantly thought of Jesus' call to be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.
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In the refectory a tendentious book about Communism was being read. Communism is insidious. We should hate all that is insidious, especially this ultimate diabolical insidiousness which is Communism. If we truly hate it with all the power of our being, then we can be sure that we ourselves are, and will remain righteous, free, sincere, honest, open. Today then (we are told) hatred of Communism is the test of a good Christian. The pledge of all truth is political hate. Hate Castro. Khrushchev. Hate Mao. All this in the same breath as "God's merciful love" and "the beatings of the Sacred Heart." There seems to be some other dimension we have not discovered....
Chrysostom has some fine things to say about sheep and wolves in the III Nocturn of St. Barnabas' Day. "As long as we remain sheep, we overcome. Even though we may be surrounded by a thousand wolves, we overcome and are victorious. But as soon as we are wolves, we are beaten: for then we lose the support of the Shepherd, who feeds not wolves, but only sheep."
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From Merton’s Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, pg. 44
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In the refectory a tendentious book about Communism was being read. Communism is insidious. We should hate all that is insidious, especially this ultimate diabolical insidiousness which is Communism. If we truly hate it with all the power of our being, then we can be sure that we ourselves are, and will remain righteous, free, sincere, honest, open. Today then (we are told) hatred of Communism is the test of a good Christian. The pledge of all truth is political hate. Hate Castro. Khrushchev. Hate Mao. All this in the same breath as "God's merciful love" and "the beatings of the Sacred Heart." There seems to be some other dimension we have not discovered....
Chrysostom has some fine things to say about sheep and wolves in the III Nocturn of St. Barnabas' Day. "As long as we remain sheep, we overcome. Even though we may be surrounded by a thousand wolves, we overcome and are victorious. But as soon as we are wolves, we are beaten: for then we lose the support of the Shepherd, who feeds not wolves, but only sheep."
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From Merton’s Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, pg. 44
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