Vale Br John

Rest in peace, John. 

 "The voice of God is heard in Paradise: “What was vile has become precious.
     What is now precious was never vile. I have always known the vile as
     precious: for what is vile I know not at all. What was cruel has become
     merciful. What is now merciful was never cruel. I have always overshadowed
     Jonas with my mercy and cruelty I know not at all. Have you had sight of Me,
     Jonas, My child? Mercy within mercy within mercy. I have forgiven the universe
     without end, because I have never known sin. What was poor has become
     infinite. What is infinite was never poor. I have always known poverty as
     infinite: riches I love not at all. Prisons within prisons within prisons.
     Do not lay up for yourselves ecstasies upon earth, where time and space
     corrupt, where the minutes break in and steal. No more lay hold on time,
     Jonas, My son, lest the rivers bear you away. What was fragile has become
     powerful. I loved what was most frail. I looked upon what was nothing.
     I touched what was without substance and within what was not I Am."  

- Thomas Merton: The Sign of Jonas, 1952  

Our Bro John of Maryknoll recently died back home in New York .  He had been assigned to Thailand for over 30 years and was very much a part of us of the 10am mass community at Assumption Cathedral.  In the last week, Maryknoll celebrated a funeral mass for him.  It was my privilege to watch it live by YouTube.  I found it a moving tribute to John, being particularly touched by the second reading which came from Thomas Merton, a noted Trappist and contemplative of last century USA. I share the reading here. 

This is an inspired Merton passage, protraying God, who names himself as "Mercy within mercy within mercy", talking personally to Jonas, the reluctant Old testament prophet.  God had called Jonas to deliver a message of mercy to the people of Nineveh, but he was palying hard to get.  From his deep experience of spirituality, Meton hears God's powerful message of reassurance to Jonas, urging him to share the mercy of God with a sinful people.    

This rich reflection is the fruit of Merton's own spiritual quest to find and know God.  This is a human quest, not some endeavour for a spiritual elite.  Merton is showing us a way.  It is a quest that deepens our humanity, for we are so much more than earthly matter.  This search for the sacred puts us in touch with the dvine within ourselves and within our world, revealing that the human and divine are one.  This is both life giving and life sustaining, being ever a response to and a way of approaching a world full of contradictions.  No matter what, we remain on the spiritual quest, unfallen by our world, and this matters.  .