Thomas Merton and the Sisters of Loretto

My wife Beth is president of Webster University, which was founded by the Sisters of Loretto in 1915. Loretto College, as it was called, was one of the first Catholic women’s colleges west of the Mississippi.  The school became Webster College in 1924, admitted male students beginning in 1962, and under the presidency of Jacqueline Grennan, the school changed from a church-related school to a private lay board in the 1967. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/nyregion/jacqueline-g-wexler-ex-nun-who-took-on-church-dies-at-85.html)

The order dates from the early 1800s, when the founders---Mary Rhodes, Ann Havern and Christina Stuart----were teachers in Kentucky and decided to begin a religious community.  With the help of Father Charles Nerinckx, the Belgian missionary priest who served in Kentucky---the order began in 1812 as Friends of Mary at the Foot of the Cross. The name was later changed to Sisters of Loretto at the Foot of the Cross.  Those early sisters were dedicated to God as religious women and as educators of poor children of that area.  The website http://www.lorettocommunity.org/ provides a good overview of the order's contemporary work, including global justice and environmental concerns.

Interestingly, the land on which Gethsemane Abbey sits---Thomas Merton’s monastery---was originally owned by the Sisters of Loretto and was purchased in the late 1840s from the sisters by the abbey’s founders.

We've not visited Gethsemane, although I've visited the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University and, at one time, knew the center’s director. Merton (1915-1968) is always an intriguing and inspirational figure. His journey is fascinating as he moved from being a cultured, troubled orphan with many problems and sins, to his entry to the monastery where he lived during the second half of his life.  There, he grew, served, taught, worked, and wrote voluminously on issues of spirituality, monasticism, contemplation, social issues, religious dialogue, and art and music, plus several volumes of poetry, and he was a good photographer, too.

The 1980 biography of Merton by Monica Furlong (1930-2003) was superseded by other books once Merton’s archives were opened.  But the book has a special place in my heart because I purchased it during a time of spiritual struggle. I recall finding it in the now defunct Chapel Square Mall in New Haven, CT, and I was greatly comforted in my struggles by reading of Merton’s feeling of being distressed and overwhelmed and his search for personal and religious authenticity.  I liked Michael Mott’s biography while finding it quirky in places (e.g., his early comparison of Merton with Lawrence of Arabia, which he suggests but never takes up again) as he seeks to correct some of Merton’s own autobiography and to avoid hagiography.  But having written two academic books a third this size---and thus knowing how difficult it can be to juggle many facts and keep the narrative flowing---I applaud Mott’s task and successes.

Recently, Beth visited the Sisters of Loretto Motherhouse in Kentucky. She brought home an interesting book, Hidden in the Same Mystery: Thomas Merton and Loretto, by Bonnie Thurston (general editor) and Sr. Mary Swain, SL (Loretto editor), published by Fons Vitae in 2011.  As stated in the forwards and introduction, Merton traveled the short distance to Loretto several times during the 1960s to give classes and retreats.  The title comes from Merton’s own essay about the 150th anniversity of the founding of the Loretto Community: “We are not only neighbors in a valley that is still lonely, but we are equally the children of exile and of revolution. Perhaps this is a good reason why we are both hidden in the same mystery of Our Lady’s Sorrow and Solitude in the Lord’s Passion” (p. 3).

Anyone, like me, comparatively unfamiliar with Loretto’s story might jump over the forwards (but read those later) and begin with the introduction, where we get the story of Sr. Mary Luke Tobin (1908-2006).  She was superior general of the Sisters of Loretto from 1958 till 1970, an official American woman auditor at Vatican II, and was an “inside source” for Merton about the council as it was taking place.  Among her many activities she was also a social activist, a promoter of Buddhist-Christian dialogue, and a long-time teacher and lecturer. Going back to the book’s forwards, we get a good sense of the friendship and correspondence between Merton and Tobin.  One footnote (p 6) speculates how Tobin’s friendship might have helped Merton when he was struggling with feelings for a young Louisville nurse (by now a well known story, discussed in Mott’s bio), but Tobin was not at the Motherhouse the day Merton sought her out. Mott’s biography (p. 410) confirms that “the atmosphere at the convent delighted him, and he had come to find in Mother Luke a kindred spirit.”

Hidden in the Same Mystery collects Merton’s writings and talks at Loretto, and some of Sr. Tobin’s remarks and writings.  The writings give a good view of Merton’s ideas about prayer, contemplation, and service, plus Tobin’s own view of Merton’s spiritual development and struggles.  Merton’s 1963 talk to novices and postulants detail some of his principles on prayer and cautions how one can be mislead by “impractical ideals” of prayer.  His essay for the 1962 sesquicentennial gives an interesting overview of the order’s history.  Tobin’s two essays about Merton’s ideas of prayer helpfully discusses the way Merton continued to grow and develop in his theology.  The several editorial updates set the talks and essays in context, and the book includes photographs of Loretto and the sisters. I enjoyed a photo of Tobin, demonstrating at a Denver church for equality of women, and holding a sign that reads "I am a woman survivor of the Catholic Church."