The year 1943 began and the weeks rushed towards Lent. Lent, among other things, means the end of letters – monks neither receive mail nor write. The last message I received before Ash Wednesday was about how my brother was planning a wedding at the end of February. I had to wait until Easter to see if he really went through with it.
On Easter Monday, I read that he got married and he and his wife were going to the English lakes for a week. Then he was transferred to another base, which meant deployment into battle. He had bombed something somewhere about twice, but from what he wrote, that he didn’t want to talk about it, it was clear it was a horrible experience.
I sat down to write him back and encourage him a bit about how things were going. I finished the letter and it was Easter Tuesday when we were in the choir for the conventual mass when Father Novicemaster walked in and signaled me “Abbot.” I went to the room of the venerable father. It wasn’t hard to guess what it was about. As I passed the pietà in the corner of the cloister, I buried my will and my natural feelings and everything else in the wounded side of the dead Christ. The venerable father turned on the light for me to enter, and I knelt at his table, received his blessing, and kissed his ring. Then he read me a telegram that Sergeant J. P. Merton, my brother, did not return from action on April 17.
It was like this: on the night of Friday the sixteenth, which was the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, he and his crew were flying in a bomber to Mannheim as a target. I never found out if they crashed going there or back, but the plane ended up in the North Sea. John Paul was seriously injured at the crash, but he managed to stay afloat and even tried to support the pilot, who was already dead. His companions launched a rubber boat and pulled him in. He had severe injuries, probably a broken neck. He lay at the bottom of the boat in delirium. He suffered terrible thirst. He kept begging for water. But they had none. The tank broke during the crash and all the water spilled out. It didn’t last long. He endured it for three hours, then he died. Something of Christ's three-hour suffering, who loved him and died for him many centuries ago, was being offered again that day at many altars. His companions had to endure more, but eventually, they were saved and taken to safety. That was about five days later. On the fourth day, they buried John Paul at sea.
My dear brother, whenever I do not go to sleep,
my eyes are flowers on your grave.
And when I cannot eat bread,
my fasting lives like the willows where you died.
When in the heat I have no water for my thirst,
it springs forth like a fountain for you, poor pilgrim.
Where, in what forsaken, smoke-filled land,
lies your unfortunate body, lost and dead?
And in what land of horrors
has your sorrowful spirit strayed?
Come, find rest in my struggle,
comfort your head in my anguish,
or take my life and my blood
and buy yourself a better bed –
take my breath and my death
and buy yourself a better resting place.
As all the men of war fall dead
and flags lower to dust,
your cross, and mine, will announce to all,
that on it Christ died, for both of us.
In the ruins of your April lies the dead Christ,
and Christ weeps in the ruins of my spring:
he will imprint the ransom of your tears
into your weak, lonely palm –
he will buy back your land.
And the silence of his tears
falls like a bell upon your strange grave.
Hear them and come: they beckon you home.
(Thomas Merton /1915–1968/, The Seven Storey Mountain)
