Death of the Ego...
I just came across this quote from Thomas Merton (one of my favorite deceased authors? I don't think I like to read anything written by a live person!) and I just thought I would post it.
"In order not to attract attention, and to avoid drawing crowds of visitors and postulants, the Carthusians have insisted on keeping their monasteries small and obscure. They have an uncommon distaste for all publicity, and if they are proclaimed as the most perfect of all the Orders in the Church, the proclaiming of the fact is not done by the Carthusians themselves but by others.
The Carthusians have never paid much attention to the apparent sanctity of their members. They have always thought, it more important to be saints than to be called saints - another point in which they agree with St Benedict. The Carthusians have an adage, "Non sanctos patefacere sed multos sanctos facere." "To make saints, not to publicize them." And St. Benedict tells the monk "not to desire to be called a saint, but to be one."
Therefore the Carthusians have never taken any steps to procure the canonization of their saints. They do not even have a Menologium, or private catalogue of the holiest men of the Order. When a monk of exceptional virtue dies, the highest public honor he receives in the Order is a laconic comment: laudabiliter vixit. In good American we would translate this as: "He did all right." Finally, the Carthusian does not even have the personal distinction of a grave marked with his own name. He is laid away in the cemetery under a plain unmarked cross, and vanishes into anonymity."
(Thomas Merton, The Silent Life)
I just thought the statement about the death of the Carthusian monk is so profound, that I cannot put my thoughts about this lack of concern with one's own ego into words.
Would to God, we could let go of our vile egos to the point of anonymity, for it is only then that Christ is seen within us!
"In order not to attract attention, and to avoid drawing crowds of visitors and postulants, the Carthusians have insisted on keeping their monasteries small and obscure. They have an uncommon distaste for all publicity, and if they are proclaimed as the most perfect of all the Orders in the Church, the proclaiming of the fact is not done by the Carthusians themselves but by others.
The Carthusians have never paid much attention to the apparent sanctity of their members. They have always thought, it more important to be saints than to be called saints - another point in which they agree with St Benedict. The Carthusians have an adage, "Non sanctos patefacere sed multos sanctos facere." "To make saints, not to publicize them." And St. Benedict tells the monk "not to desire to be called a saint, but to be one."
Therefore the Carthusians have never taken any steps to procure the canonization of their saints. They do not even have a Menologium, or private catalogue of the holiest men of the Order. When a monk of exceptional virtue dies, the highest public honor he receives in the Order is a laconic comment: laudabiliter vixit. In good American we would translate this as: "He did all right." Finally, the Carthusian does not even have the personal distinction of a grave marked with his own name. He is laid away in the cemetery under a plain unmarked cross, and vanishes into anonymity."
(Thomas Merton, The Silent Life)
I just thought the statement about the death of the Carthusian monk is so profound, that I cannot put my thoughts about this lack of concern with one's own ego into words.
Would to God, we could let go of our vile egos to the point of anonymity, for it is only then that Christ is seen within us!