A few weeks ago the head of the Merton group in Louisville drove out here and asked me if I would be willing to speak at their gathering next month. I figured they wouldn’t ask me unless they had no one else, so I said OK. Of course later your generosity comes home to roost, and I said to Br. Paul, “What can I possibly say about Merton that hasn’t been said? They’ve gone over him time and again with a fine comb.” And Br. Paul said, “Well, talk about yourself.” And that is what I am going to do. This a preliminary trial run of the talk.

You may not know it, but Fr. Louis [Thomas Merton] as novice master could be tough. Maybe saying he could be mean would be too much, but it sure came across as mean when it happened.

I came here at 45 from a young, active, aggressive, competitive, male Order where nothing was more fun than conflict, argument, confrontation.²  Today it is no doubt quite different, but that was our style. I suspect now it was a cover-up for affection. But we dared not show affection, and so we did it by strife for the fun of it. As, perhaps, a man and his wife will argue for the fun of it.

The novitiate here in 1960 was about 15, a highly mixed group: priests, brothers, professionals, working men, two just from high school. They were very alive and some of them at least were as good as I at dialog. But in Gethsemani dialog did not exist. It was quiet and the quiet was very quiet. Only in special situations was there speech.

Fr. Louis, though his visits were carefully screened by Dom James,³ had frequent ones and often enough he would have them speak to the novices, sometimes to the community. Professional academics usually, professors, leaders used to stimulating discourse. They would come into this country of peace and serenity and stir us up very quickly. In a few moments they might have us ready for confrontation. Which would happen in the questions at the end. And I, of course, was better at it than most.

Like Iltud Evans, O.P. He was editor of Blackfriars, Welsh Dominican. They wore their habits rather short, with heavy white wool stockings and some sort of pantaloons, not trousers. We found him amusing and odd.

He had been to see the new church of St. John’s in Collegeville and waxed eloquent on it. Most of us didn’t buy it, for we had seen photos. It attracted world-wide attention, done by Brener, noted German architect.

“Well”, we said—or I said—“that banner in concrete out front says little. Inside, the congregation faces a wall of concrete, at the bottom of which is the sanctuary. And the choir is a semi-circle around the altar. How can you have a semi-circular choir?” And they discovered, half-way through, that there was not enough seating, so they built a balcony in front of the hexagonal “honey-comb” window in front, the best part of the structure. And inside you could not even see it. And so on. He went on to describe a circular church at the priory in St. Louis, and another in Connecticut. Round churches for a monastic community struck us as odd. So you get the point? We were enjoying ourselves. Certainly I was. But Fr. Louis was not. We did not know it, but he was seething. We were making fun of his visitor. Well, not really. But he thought so. And he thought I was the worst.

At the end, we asked Iltud Evans what he thought of the shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington? “Oh, my! How sad! The American Catholic Church deserves better than that!” You can imagine the reaction. Most of us, perhaps all of us, thought it beautiful and a perfect expression of the American Catholic spirit. With that the session ended. But it was not over.

When Ping Perry spoke to us—he was from the Pasadena Center that studies democratic institutions—Merton spoke there en route to Bangkok—it was the same. I ran into him in the morning with Merton, and Merton couldn’t help but introduce me. I said, “We have some questions for you tonight.” The alarm went off for Fr. Louis. So at question time he said, “Now let’s hear some good questions from people who know what they’re talking about.” So I, among others, am waving my arm, but he wouldn’t call on me. And I thought then and later: “That’s funny. Why wouldn’t he acknowledge me?”

And there were others. Many. One time he told us novices in conference, “Fr. Matthew doesn’t like my visitors.” I was baffled.

Same thing happened with a distinguished German Lutheran professor. The whole community heard him in the Brothers’ scriptorium, 3rd floor of the library. He thought the Body and Blood, Bread and Wine symbolism weak. Lutherans don’t accept the Mass as sacrifice. “Bread and wine were never together: so why make anything of the separation?” I and others plunged in for the fun. “Bread and wine are a meal,” I said. “Food and drink. Food is not a meal. Nor drink. They must go together.” Fr. Louis dismissed my comment and wouldn’t pass it on to the translator. And so on...

Then Dom James entered the scene. He made it look like it was Fr. Louis’ problem. “Look,” he said, “he’s funny. He’s sensitive. He thinks you’re making fun of his visitors, trying to put them down in some way. Why don’t you cool it for a while and lay off your stimulating comments?”

That woke me up. My alarm system went off. “You can muff this whole thing with your big mouth and your sassy remarks.”

It ended up with my getting rid of my “acquired characteristics,” my persona, my style, my personality. I dropped it all. Became real and myself. It was not easy, but it was survival.

Some months later Fr. Louis in conference with me—every 10 or 12 days—said, “I see you are making progress. I dare say you’ve arrived. I think you’ve caught on. Got the point.”

My conclusion: Fr. Louis was a good master. If he thought you needed it, he could be very pointed, very direct, even hurt you. If he was mean, and sometimes it looked that way, he was a surgeon with a knife seeking to heal.

I’m grateful to him. He would have dismissed me: “We don’t need your type here.”  Thank God.

1. This is a talk Fr. Matthew gave to his community of Gethsemani in their Chapter room, Sunday, November 6, 2005, at the request of the Abbot who was absent at the General Chapter of the Order, and thus not available to give his own usual Sunday Chapter talk to the monks.
2. Fr. Matthew was a missionary in the SVD’s before coming to Gethsemani.
3. Dom James Fox, abbot of Gethsemani at the time of Fr. Matthew’s entrance.