Yesterday – on dry Wednesday – brother Gregory died. Brother Gregory was a holy man, and in recent years, everything he did took so much effort that it seemed he was completely losing himself in the zealous fulfillment of the Stations of the Cross…
I asked the venerable father what made the brother so holy. I don't know what answer I was expecting. I would have been happy to hear something about the deep and simple spirit of prayer, something about the unforeseen heights of faith, the purity of heart, inner silence, solitude, love for God. Perhaps that he spoke with the birds like Saint Francis.
The venerable father replied very promptly: “The brother always worked,” he said. “The brother didn’t even know what idleness was. When you sent him to watch the cows in the pasture, he still found plenty of things to do. He brought a bucket of blackberries. He didn’t know what idleness was.”
I left the father's room and felt like a man who missed the train.
(Thomas Merton /1915–1968/, diary entry from December 18, 1947)
