Tag Archive for ‘Merton’
Finding God … in service of our brothers.
There is a stage in the spiritual life in which we find God in ourselves – this presence is a created effect of His love. It is a gift of His, to us. It remains in us. All the gifts of God are good. But if we rest in them, rather than in Him, they [...]
Beating their swords into ploughshares?
Augustine, for all his pessimism about human nature, did not foresee the logical results of his thought, and in the original context, his “wars of mercy” to defend civilized order make a certain amount of sense. Always his idea is that the Church and the Christians, whatever they may do, are aiming at ultimate peace. [...]
Silence and Removing Barriers
The silence of the tongue and of the imagination dissolves the barrier between ourselves and the peace of things that exist only for God and not for themselves. But the silence of all inordinate desire dissolves the barrier between ourselves and God. Then we come to live in Him alone. Thomas Merton No Man is [...]
It is the silence of the world that is real
Those who love their own noise are impatient of everything else. They constantly defile the silence of the forests and the mountains and the sea. They bore through silent nature in every direction with their machines, for fear that the calm world might accuse them of their own emptiness. The urgency of their swift movement [...]
To see the value and the beauty in ordinary things
One of the most important – and most neglected – elements in the beginnings of the interior life is the ability to respond to reality to see the value and the beauty in ordinary things to come alive to the splendor that is all around us in the creatures of God. We do not see [...]
Thomas Merton: A Prayer
… Grant us prudence in proportion to our power, Wisdom in proportion to our science, Humaneness in proportion to our wealth and might. And bless our earnest will to help all races and peoples to travel, in friendship with us, Along the road to justice, liberty and lasting peace: But grant us above all to [...]
Be Content You Are Not A Saint
Be content that you are not yet a saint, even though you realize that the only thing worth living for is sanctity. Then you will be satisfied to let God lead you to sanctity by paths that you cannot understand. You will travel in darkness in which you will no longer be concerned with yourself [...]
Turbulence of spirit is a sign of spiritual weakness
The measure of our being is not to be sought in the violence of our experiences. Turbulence of spirit is a sign of spiritual weakness. When delights spring out of our depths like leopards, we have nothing to be proud of: our soul’s life is in danger. For when we are strong, we are always [...]
Thoughts on true Self
The root of personality is to be sought in the “true Self” which is manifested in the basic unification of consciousness in which subject and object are one. Hence the highest good is “the self’s fusion with the highest reality.” Human personality is regarded as the force which effects this fusion. The hopes and desires [...]
Everything depends on the quality of our acts . . .
Our being is not to be enriched merely by activity and experience as such. Everything depends on the quality of our acts and our experiences. A multitude of badly performed actions and of experiences only half-lived exhausts and depletes our being. By doing things badly we make ourselves less real. This growing unreality cannot help [...]
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