Tag: Merton
To Become Real — Affirm Others
The heresy of individualism: thinking oneself a completely self¬sufficient unit and asserting this imaginary “unity” against all others. The affirmation of the self as simply “not the other.” But when you seek to affirm your unity by denying that you have anything to do with anyone else, by negating everyone else in the universe until… Read More ›
The Sacrament (of Advent)
(St.) Bernard sees that the Sacrament (of Advent) is the Presence of Christ in the world as Savior. In his theology Advent does not merely commemorate the Incarnation as a historical event, nor is it a mere devotional preparation for the Feast of Christmas, nor an anticipation of the Last Judgment. It is above all… Read More ›
The cult of pure illusion
One of the most widespread errors of our time is a superficial “personalism” which identifies the “person” with the external self, the empirical ego, and devotes itself solemnly to the cultivation of this ego. But this is the cult of a pure illusion, the illusion of what is popularly imagined to be “personality” or worse… Read More ›
Why the Psalms
(The Church) recommends the Psalms to her priests, her monks, her nuns, and her lay people, in order that they may have “the mind of Christ”, in order that they may develop an interior life which is really the life of the Mother, the Church. It is by singing the psalms, by meditating on them,… Read More ›
How important is TV?
I have watched TV twice in my life. I am frankly not terribly interested in TV anyway. Certainly I do not pretend that by simply refusing to keep up with the latest news I am therefore unaffected by what goes on, or free of it all. Certainly events happen and they affect me as they… Read More ›
Self Fusion and Human Personality
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… Read More ›
Propaganda
The real violence exerted by propaganda is this: by means of apparent truth and apparent reason, it induces us to surrender our freedom and self-possession. It predetermines us to certain conclusions, and does so in such a way that we imagine that we are fully free in reaching them by our own judgment and our… Read More ›
Technology and it’s threat to Society
If technology really represented the rule of reason, there would be much less to regret about our present situation. Actually, technology represents the rule of quantity, not the rule of reason (quality=value=relation of means to authentic human ends). It is by means of technology that man the person, the subject of qualified and perfectible freedom, becomes quantified,… Read More ›
Discover your own inner ground
The way to find the real ‘world’ is not merely to measure and observe what is outside us, but to discover our own inner ground. For that is where the world is, first of all: in my deepest self. This ‘ground,’ this ‘world’ where I am mysteriously present at once to my own self and… Read More ›
Earthly desires are shadows
The earthly desires men cherish are shadows. There is no true happiness in fulfilling them. Why, then, do we continue to pursue joys without substance? Because the pursuit itself has become our only substitute for joy. Unable to rest in anything we achieve, we determine to forget our discontent in a ceaseless quest for new… Read More ›