The Ascent to Truth

Thomas Merton

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780156027724
• eBook ISBN: 9780547537078
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Mysticism

The author of The Seven Storey Mountain explores the mysticism of Saint John of the Cross.
The only thing that can save the world from complete moral collapse is a spiritual revolution. . . . The desire for unworldliness, detachment, and union with God is the most fundamental expression of this revolutionary spirit.
 
In Ascent to Truth, author and Trappist Monk Thomas Merton makes an impassioned case for the importance of contemplation. Drawing on a range of thinkers—from Carl Jung to Pope Pius XII—Merton defines the nature of contemplative experience and shows how the Christian mysticism of sixteenth-century Spanish Carmelite Saint John of the Cross offers essential answers to our disquieting and troubling times.
 
"For any who have the desire to look into meditation and contemplation . . . this is the book for which they have waited." — New York Herald Tribune Book Review
 
"For those who may be curious about mysticism, and for those who may be called to a life of contemplation, this is an excellent book." — Catholic World

Sources

PROLOGUE

1. C. G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul (New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company), p. 264.

2. Menti Nostrae, Sept. 23, 1950.

3. I Pet. 3:15.

4. John 17:22–23.

5. Sancti Thomae buc omnis theologia spectat ut ad intime vivendum in Deo nos adducat. Pius XI, Studiorum Ducem, June 29, 1927.

6. Apostolic Letter, August 24, 1926, declaring Saint John of the Cross a Doctor of the Universal Church.

I: VISION AND ILLUSION

1. Blaise Pascal, Les Pensées (Paris, Ed. Giraud, 1928), p. 66.

2. Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Commentary on the Psalms, P.G. 44: 464–465. Cf. Daniélou, Platonisme et Théologie Mystique, p. 133.

3. Homily 1 on Ecclesiastes, P.G. 44:628. Cf. Daniélou, op. cit., p. 136.

4. I am not insisting that Pascal had read Saint Gregory of Nyssa. His thoughts on divertissement may have been drawn from a reading of Saint Bernard’s De Gradibus Humilitatis. It is in any case in the full tradition of Saint Augustine’s De Trinitate, Bk. xii (on the fall of Adam).

5. Pascal, op. cit., p. 67.

6. Ibid., n. 171, p. 75.

7. Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Commentary on the Psalms, C. 5. P.G. 44:450–451.

II: PROBLEM OF UNBELIEF

1. Commentarium in Epistolam ad Romanos, cap. 10, lectio ii.

III: ON A DARK NIGHT

1. Saint Gregory of Nyssa, In cantica canticorum, Hom. 11, P.G. 44:999.

2. Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Hom. 7 on Ecclesiastes, P.G. 44:729. Cf. Daniélou, op. cit., p. 139.

3. It is generally forgotten that at the beginning of The Ascent of Mount Carmel (which for convenience I shall hereafter list in references as Ascent), Saint John of the Cross makes this threefold division of his night into a night of sense, night of faith, and night of pure contemplation or mystical union with God. We generally think of a twofold division. In reality, the second and third of the three nights above both belong to the “Night of the Spirit.” See Ascent, i, 1 and ii, 1 and 2. Peers tr., vol. i, pp. 20–21, 66–69.

4. Ascent, Bk. i, c. 13, n. 11. Peers, vol. i, p. 62.

5. Cf. Ascent, Bk. iii, c. 16, n. 5. Peers, vol. i, p. 260.

6. Ascent, Bk. iii, c. 16, n. 1. Peers, vol. i, p. 259.

7. Ascent, Bk. i, c. 13, n. 4. Peers, vol. i, p. 60.

8. Ascent, Bk. i, c. 8, n. 1. Peers, vol. i, p. 41.

9. Ascent, Bk. iii, c. 20, n. 2. Peers, vol. i, pp. 272–273.

IV: FALSE MYSTICISM

1. The statements appeared in front-page article in the official Vatican newspaper, Osservatore Romano, February 3, 1951.

V: KNOWLEDGE—UNKNOWING

1. Ascent, Bk. i, c. 4, n. 5. Peers, vol. i, pp. 26–27.

2. The Dark Night of the Soul, Bk. i, c. 1, n. 1. Peers, vol. i, p. 350.

3. Ascent, Bk. i, c. 4, n. 1. Peers, vol. i, p. 24.

4. John 14:6.

5. Ascent, Bk. ii, c. 7, n. 8. Peers, vol. i, p. 91.

6. Ascent, Bk. ii, c. 7, n. 12. Peers, vol. i, p. 93.

7. Life, 13. Peers, vol. i, p. 81.

8. Life, 13. Peers, vol. i, p. 82.

9. Living Flame of Love, 1st redaction, iii, n. 29. I have translated the passage differently from Professor Peers, who does not bring out with full force Saint John’s contrast between knowledge and discretion, on the one hand, and experience on the other. Cf. Peers, vol. iii, p. 75.

10. Life, 13. Peers, vol. i, p. 78.

11. See, for instance, Ascent, Bk. iii, c. 21, n. 2. “The spiritual man must purge his will . . . bearing in mind that beauty and all other natural gifts are but earth,” etc. Peers, vol. i, p. 275.

12. Ibid., Bk. i, c. 13, n. 3. “First let him have a habitual desire to imitate Christ in everything that he does, conforming himself to His life: upon which he must meditate so that he may know how to imitate it, and to behave in all things as Christ would behave.” Peers, vol. i, p. 60.

13. Ascent, Bk. ii, c. 8, nos. 1 and 7. Peers, vol. i, pp. 94 and 98.

14. Ascent, Bk. ii, c. 15, n. 3. Peers, vol. i, p. 128.

15. Ascent, Bk. ii, c. 11, nos. 2 and 3. Peers, vol. i, pp. 102–103.

16. Ascent, Bk. ii, c. 15. Peers, vol. i, p. 128.

17. Ibid.

VI: CONCEPTS—CONTEMPLATION

1. Summa Theologica, i, 13, a. 5.

2. Summa, loc. cit.

3. Cf. Saint Bernard, De Consideratione, v, 13. Saint Thomas, Summa, i, 13, a. 4.

4. II, Sent. D. 33, a. 2, q. 3.

5. Collatio ii in Hexaemeron, n. 32.

6. See Jacques Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge (New York, 1938), p. 278.

7. De Potentia, vii, 5, ad. 14.

8. In Boetium de Trinitate, i, 2, ad. 2.

VI...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Author’s Note
• Prologue
• The Cloud and the Fire
• Vision and Illusion
• The Problem of Unbelief
• On a Dark Night
• False Mysticism
• Knowledge and Unknowing in Saint John of the Cross
• Concepts and Contemplation
• The Crisis of Dark Knowledge
• Reason and Mysticismin Saint John of the Cross
• The Theological Background
• Faith and Reason
• Reason in the Life of Contemplation
• “Your Reasonable Service”
• Between Instinct and Inspiration
• Reason and Reasoning
• Intelligence in the Prayer of Quiet
• Doctrine and Experience
• The Mirror of Silvered Waters
• A Dark Cloud Enlightening the Night
• The Loving Knowledge of God
• To the Mountain and the Hill
• The Giant Moves in His Sleep
• Biographical Notes
• Sources
• About the Author