Gracious God, who didst call thy monk Thomas Merton to proclaim thy justice out of silence, and moved him in his contemplative writings to perceive and value Christ at work in the faiths of others: Keep us, like him, steadfast in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ; who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Who wrote this collect? Poor TM, having to put with this stuff.
Thomas Merton was baptized first as an Anglican as a child and then as a Roman Catholic as an adult.
The Nicene Creed states,
“We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.”
It would seem that the Roman Church’s requirement for a second baptism of Thomas Merton and his acceptance of that Roman requirement stands as a negation of/schism in ecumenicism between the Roman and Anglican churches on the matter of baptism.
And I say this as a person who has strongly positive ecumenical feelings toward the Roman part of the Church Catholic.
The practice of rebaptism died after the Second Vatican Council. Episcopalians baptized since then in the name of the Creator Daddy, Redeemer-Clown, and Sustaining Bird will most likely be required to be baptized. I should note that the practice died because not a few theologians and bishops and a pope or two in the Chruch acknowledged it was wrong. Merton’s rebaptism occurred at a time when ecumenism was barely a gleam in Rome’s eyes.
Senior priest raises a very good question: who did write that Collect?
One does, indeed, wonder who writes those collects, which range from the slightly sublime to the mildly ridiculous. Who determines who gets in? Why is George Berkeley still not among them?
Yet, dear #3, I have never heard of such baptismal language in TEC. I admit that my experience is limited, and that I indulge in conjecture when I say that it is almost always in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with water.
Creator Daddy and Sustaining Bird are hip and accurate. Redeemer-Clown may be blasphemy, because it doesn’t cut it as satire or sarcasm, and is a very long way from either wit or verisimilitude. No one who claims to be a Christian has ever thought that.
#4, don’t you remember PB Browning in clown costume as a fool for Christ?
It seems to me Merton is really a stretch for commemoration. Gifted and popular for sure; definitely contributed to a revival of interest in spiritual practice; he could be genuinely original; but he was also conflicted and angry, and often juvenile and counter-dependent all the way to the end. George Weigel wrote an interesting book early in his career criticizing among other things Merton’s forays into politics at the end of his life. Surely we don’t want to take those forays as a model; “justice out of silence” indeed! And, yes, #4, one does wonder. The developing list sounds sort of like a hit parade from seminary reading lists from the sixties on. So, anyone for Spong? How about we all team up and try to write a collect?