Tag Archive for ‘Merton’
Know how to meditate
Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Learn how to pray in the streets or in the country. Know how to meditate not only when you have a book in your hand but when you are waiting for a bus or riding [...]
Faith
We too often forget that faith is a matter of questioning and struggle before it becomes one of certitude and peace. You have to doubt and reject everything else in order to believe firmly in Christ, and after you have begun to believe, your faith itself must be tested and purified. Christianity is not merely [...]
A point of pure truth
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our live, which is inaccessable to the fantasies of our own mind or the [...]
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 [...]
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