Tag: Merton
The Danger of collaboration with evil
Merely to resist evil with evil by hating those who hate us and seeking to destroy them, is actually no resistance at all. It is active and purposeful collaboration in evil that brings the Christian into direct and intimate contact with the same source of evil and hatred which inspires the acts of his enemy…. Read More ›
Only the man who has had to face despair. . .
Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness. A life that… Read More ›
Excluding God only brings about war
It is only the infinite mercy and love of God that has prevented us from tearing ourselves to pieces and destroying His entire creation long ago. People seem to think that it is in some way a proof that no merciful God exists, if we have so many wars. On the contrary, consider how in… Read More ›
Anglican archbishop suggests contemplation for reaching post-Christian world
Vatican City, Oct 11, 2012 / 02:02 am (CNA).- Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams addressed the synod of Catholic bishops on the New Evangelization about the importance of contemplation for reaching people in a post-Christian world. “To be contemplative as Christ is contemplative is to be open to all the fullness that the Father… Read More ›
An existence that is meaningless and futile
In our society, a society of business rooted in Puritanism, based on a pseudo-ethic of industriousness and thrift to be rewarded by comfort, pleasure, and a good bank account, the myth of work is thought to justify an existence that is essentially meaningless and futile. There is, then, a great deal of busyness as people… Read More ›
Eat your Daily Bread
Whoever you are, the land to which God has brought you is not like the land of Egypt from which you came out. You can no longer live here as you lived there. Your old life and your former ways are crucified now, and you must not seek to live anymore for your own gratification,… Read More ›
Love cannot come of emptiness
I have learned that an age in which politicians talk about peace is an age in which everybody expects war: the great men of the earth would not talk of peace so much if they did not secretly believe it possible, with one more war, to annihilate their enemies forever. Always, “after just one more… Read More ›
Hate itself is the seed of death
The desire to kill is like the desire to attack another with a red hot iron. I have to pick up the incandescent metal and burn my own hand while burning the other person. Hate itself is the seed of death in my own heart while it seeks death of another. Love is the seed… Read More ›
Thank God I am like other men
In Louisville, at the corner of 4th and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the realization that I loved these people, that they were mine and I was theirs, that we could not be alien to one another . . . . It was like waking from a… Read More ›
Fallacy of worldly logic
The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy-the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men. A weird life it is to be living always in somebody else’s imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could become real. Thomas Merton