Survival or Prophecy? The Correspondence of Jean Leclercq and Thomas Merton (review)

This is the seventeenth and most recent offering in Cistercian Publications’ exceptional Monastic Wisdom series, which explores Christian monasticism not through theoretical analysis so much as through the highly personal lens of some of its most articulate contemporary practitioners. (See, for example, the slight but shimmering Vol. 11, The Way of Humility, by Andrew Louf.) Here we are privy to a correspondence spanning nearly twenty years (1950–1968) between the two best-known and probably most influential monks of the twentieth century: Jean Leclercq (1911–93), the French Benedictine medievalist whose studies contributed enormously to monastic renewal and the Catholic ressourcement, and Merton (1915–68), the famous Trappist whose writings continue to attract spiritual seekers from around the globe. The letters are historically fascinating, frequently poignant, and surprisingly prescient, especially when framed under the question put by the book’s title, taken from Merton’s last letter to Leclercq, dated July 23, 1968: “The vocation of the monk in the world . . . is not survival but prophecy. We are all too busy saving our skins” (129). The sentiment reminds me not a little of Merton’s final conference in Bangkok, just hours before his death: “From now on, everybody stands on his own feet. . . . The time for relying on structures has disappeared” (The Asian Journal, 338).

Both statements are best understood, of course, in the climate of crisis and revolution sweeping not only through the Catholic Church of 1968 but in the world at large, a global reality to which both of these monks were uncommonly attuned. Depending on one’s view, it was either a time of fragmentation and irreversible decline for the Catholic tradition, or conversely, a period of enormous spiritual transformation and much-needed renewal. From both sides the question still reverberates: Can the center hold? It is clear from these letters that neither Leclercq nor Merton knew the answer. It is also clear that both men were more willing than many Catholic intellectuals, past or present, to plunge themselves into the tension, and from there to live and lead others through it.

From Rome in 1963, Leclercq writes: “It was an exciting Council winter, though I did not go out much. But the Council was everywhere. What a wonderful Church experience” (72). Three years later, he shares with Merton his excitement at the prospect of integrating into monastic spirituality “the new trends in Christology, biblical studies, psychology, [and] metaphysics.” He adds, with typical understatement: “It is not easy, but nevertheless gratifying” (105). Merton, in one of the more revealing letters of the book, thanks Leclercq for defending him publicly, in print, for his own public statements on ecclesial renewal and social justice, positions which branded him a maverick to the Catholic right and a throwback to the far left, some of whom were pressing him to leave Gethsemani for a life of engagement in the “real world.” About these “amiable integrists” critiquing him from the activist left, he confides to Leclercq a flash of bitterness, perhaps even a sense of betrayal. “An ad personam argument is not too difficult under such circumstances. I would, however, like to see them meet me on my own ground. Let them write spiritual journals as frank as mine and see if they will meet the test of publication” (106).

In the midst of such tensions—“God has singled me out for a kind of isolation” (42)—Merton’s plea to Leclercq (no stranger himself to Catholic controversy) typifies the whole spirit of this volume: “Keep me in your good prayers: let us all hope we can manage to be at the same time obedient and free. It is not easy. But God is faithful, and that is my only hope” (109). Leclercq’s response in an earlier exchange is no less emblematic of the character of their relationship, and typically humble: “I think there will be an exciting struggle in the years to come on these topics...