Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton, O.C.S.O.was an American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion. In 1949, he was ordained to the priesthood and given the name Father Louis...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth31 January 1915
CityPrades, France
CountryUnited States of America
prayer weather climate
I myself am part of the weather and part of the climate and part of the place … It is certainly part of my life of prayer.
prayer roots depth
It's a risky thing to pray and the danger is that our very prayers get between God and us. The great thing in prayer is not to pray, but to go directly to God. . . . The fact is, though, that if you descend into the depths of your own spirit and arrive somewhere near the center of what you are, you are confronted with the inescapable truth that, at the very root of your existence, you are in constant and immediate contact with the infinite power of God.
evil overcoming triumph
...love triumphs, at least in this life, not by eliminating evil once for all, but by resisting and overcoming it anew every day.
simplicity firsts overcoming
If we are to love sincerely, and with simplicity, we must first of all overcome the fear of not being loved.
perfection his-love unlimited
Our happiness consists in sharing the happiness of God, the perfection of His unlimited freedom, the perfection of His love.
giving perspective silence
Not only does silence give us a chance to understand ourselves better, to get a truer and more balanced perspective on our own lives in relation to the lives of others: silence makes us whole if we let it. Silence helps draw together the scattered and dissipated energies of a fragmented existence.
names numbers giving
Others can give you a name or a number, but they can never tell you who you really are. That is something you yourself can only discover from within.
crucifixion-of-christ joy grace
This is the crucifixion of Christ: in which He dies again and again in the individuals who were made to share the joy and freedom of His grace, and who deny Him.
christian powerful earth
A Christian is committed to the belief that Love and Mercy are the most powerful forces on earth.
wisdom silence solitude
But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question.
hate men solitude
When society is made up of men who know no interior solitude it can no longer be held together by love: and consequently it is held together by a violent and abusive authority. But when men are violently deprived of the solitude and freedom which are their due, then society in which they live becomes putrid, it festers with servility, resentment and hate.
wisdom mean essence
A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying [God]. It “consents,” so to speak, to [God's] creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree
wisdom temptation simple-life
The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.
advertising treats reverence
Advertising treats all products with the reverence and the seriousness due to sacraments.