| Author Quoted | Adalbert Vogüe, De o.s.b. |
| Title Quoted | La communaute et l'abbe dans la Règle de saint Benoît |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1962/11/27 |
| Imprint | Paris : Desclee de Brouwer. 1961 |
| Quotation | The book of Fr. Adalbert [de Vogüe] (La Communaute et l‘Abbe) is exceptionally good. It is one of the best treatments of the cenobitic life I have seen (seriously). It makes you realize the importance of making the cenobitic life what it really ought to be and not just some kind of a chummy picnic-cum-hairshirts. It is neither sentimental nor totalitarian, and it points up the fact that the cenobitic society is unique with a function entirely its own, and unlike any other collectivity. When the cenobium is reduced to the level of any other society, including the community of an active modern religious congregation, it loses its raison d'être and it is normal for people to feel out of place in it. That is, people with monastic vocations. |
| Quotation Source | The School of Charity: The Letters of Thomas Merton on Religious Renewal and Spiritual Direction.; Selected and edited by Brother Patrick Hart. / New York : Farrar Straus Giroux. 1990, p. 157-58 |
| Letter to | Father Tarcisius (James) Connor, o.c.s.o. |
| Notes | |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
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