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
inspirational men mind-your-own-business
One of the first things to learn if you want to be a contemplative is to mind your own business. Nothing is more suspicious, in a man who seems holy, than an impatient desire to reform other men.
spiritual attitude men
The whole purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of a man's life, to get behind the façade of conventional gestures and attitudes which he presents to the world, and to bring out his inner spiritual freedom, his inmost truth, which is what we call the likeness of Christ in his soul.
true-relationship illusion contemplative
Contemplative living is living in true relationship with oneself, God, others and nature, free of the illusions of separateness.
wisdom truth discovery
The first step toward finding God, Who is Truth, is to discover the truth about myself: and if I have been in error, this first step to truth is the discovery of my error.
praise praise-god adore
The great thing, and the only thing, is to adore and praise GOD.
wisdom dwelling light
We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are travelling and in darkness. But we already possess Him by grace, and therefore in that sense we have arrived and are dwelling in the light. But oh! How far have I to go to find You in Whom I have already arrived!
joy intuition treasure
To enter into the realm of contemplation, one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance into a higher life. It is a death for the sake of life, which leaves behind all that we can know or treasure as life, as thought, as experience as joy, as being. [Every form of intuition and experience] die to be born again on a higher level of life.
peace sacrifice demand
Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice.
wisdom world needs
When you expect the world to end at any moment, you know there is no need to hurry. You take your time, you do your work well.
spiritual goal one-day
My spiritual goal is to one day walk into God and disappear.
order world may
Christ is born to us today, in order that he may appear to the whole world through us.
risk
Do not be one of those who, rather than risk failure, never attempts anything.
wisdom real two
We have the choice of two identities: the external mask which seems to be real...and the hidden, inner person who seems to us to be nothing, but who can give himself eternally to the truth in whom he subsists. (295)
peace war sacrifice
Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.