Tag: Merton
Confidence in God’s Help
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I… Read More ›
Man finds himself with nothing to say…
In technological society, in which the means of communication and signification have become fabulously versatile, and are at the point of an even more prolific development, thanks to the computer with its inexhaustible memory and its capacity for immediate absorption and organization of facts, the very nature and use of communication itself becomes unconsciously symbolic…. Read More ›
Our Civilization is Strictly Servile
The basic inner moral contradiction of our age is that, though we talk and ream about freedom (or say we dream of it, though I sometimes question that!), though we fight wars over it, our civilization is strictly servile. I do not use this term contemptuously, but in its original sense of “pragmatic,” oriented exclusively… Read More ›
Contemplation cannot be taught
The only way to get rid of misconceptions about contemplation is to experience it. One who does not actually know, in his own life, the nature of this breakthrough and this awakening to a new level of reality cannot help being misled by most of the things that are said about it. For contemplation cannot… Read More ›
Seek Peace within Yourself First
All men seek peace first of all with themselves. That is necessary, because we do not naturally find rest even in our own being. We have to learn to commune with ourselves before we can communicate with other men and with God. A man who is not at peace with himself necessarily projects his interior… Read More ›
People who do not know God
People who know nothing of God and whose lives are centered on themselves, imagine that they can only find themselves by asserting their own desires and ambitions and appetites in a struggle with the rest of the world. They try to become real by imposing themselves on other people, by appropriating for themselves some share… Read More ›
Live our Lives
If we want to be spiritual, then, let us first of all live our lives. Let us not fear the responsibilities and the inevitable distractions of the work appointed for us by the will of God. Let us embrace reality and thus find ourselves immersed in the life-giving will and wisdom of God which surrounds… Read More ›
The Secret of My Identity
The secret of my identity is hidden in the love and mercy of God. But whatever is in God is really identical with Him: for His infinite simplicity admits no division and no distinction. Therefore I cannot hope to find myself anywhere except in Him. Ultimately the only way that I can be myself is… Read More ›
Learning Ourselves
Life consists in learning to live on one’s own, spontaneous, freewheeling: to do this one must recognize what is one’s own — be familiar and at home with oneself. This means basically learning who one is, and learning what one has to offer to the contemporary world, and then learning how to make that offering… Read More ›
Making Peace Within Ourselves
It is useless to try to make peace with ourselves by being pleased with everything we have done. In order to settle down in the quiet of our own being we must learn to be detached from the results of our own activity. We must withdraw ourselves, to some extent, from effects that are beyond… Read More ›