Thomas Merton Quotes

       Thomas Merton
       1915-1968
      
       Thomas Merton wrote more than 70 books, mostly on spirituality, as well as scores of essays and reviews. Merton was a keen proponent of interfaith understanding.
      
       Interest in his work contributed to a rise in spiritual exploration beginning in the 1960s and 1970s in the US. Merton's letters and diaries, reveal the intensity with which their author focused on social justice issues, including the civil rights movement and proliferation of nuclear arms. He had prohibited their publication for 25 years after his death. Publication raised new interest in Merton's life.

Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ.     Topics: Christ, The Heart, Joy There were only a few shepherds at the first Bethlehem. The ox and the donkey understood more of the first Christmas than the high priests in Jerusalem. And it is the same today.     Topics: Christmas Just remaining quietly in the presence of God, listening to Him, being attentive to Him, requires a lot of courage and know-how.     Topics: Contentment, God I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.     Topics: Fear, God 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.     Topics: God, Truth Our knowledge of God is paradoxically not of him as the object of our scrutiny, but of ourselves as utterly dependent on his saving and merciful knowledge of us. It is in proportion, as we are known to him that we find our real being and identity in Christ. We know him in and through ourselves in so far as his truth is the source of our being and his merciful love is the very heart of our life and existence.     Topics: God, Mercy, Christ To be risen with Christ means not only that one has a choice and that one may live by a higher law - the law of grace and love - but that one must do so. The first obligation of the Christian is to maintain their freedom from all superstitions, all blind taboos and religious formalities, indeed from all empty forms of legalism.     Topics: Grace, Legalism, Choices To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell.     Topics: Hell A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.     Topics: Life Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul.     Topics: Life My life is a mystery which I do not attempt to really understand, as though I were led by the hand in a night where I see nothing, but can fully depend on the love and protection of Him who guides me.     Topics: Life, Love, God The whole Christian life is a life in which the further a person progresses, the more he has to depend directly on God. The more we progress, the less we are self-sufficient. The more we progress, the poorer we get so that the man who has progressed most, is totally poor - he has to depend directly on God. He's got nothing left in himself.     Topics: Life, Grace