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Contrasting views on hatred and hell
I came across a post from a Christian nationalist and then a thought from Thomas Merton in New Seeds of Contemplation.
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Week 13: The Affections of Christ and Rising to the Call
“Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man the or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of…
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Keeping calm in chaotic times
We can — we must! — take responsibility for the way we live and work in our homes and neighborhoods, workplaces and public squares. We can refuse to permit the culture to dictate the way we go about our lives. More HERE.
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The cultivated presence of God
This trip back through Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton has been slower. I’ve picked it up to read just a few pages, then put it down for awhile as I pondered something or I went back to reading other material. This past week I was walking through a difficult spiritual battle and picked up Merton again to read just…
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What would happen? What COULD happen?
One of my favorite thoughts from Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain: People have no idea what one saint can do: for sanctity is stronger than the whole of hell. The saints are full of Christ in the plenitude of His Kingly and Divine power: and they are conscious of it, and they give themselves to Him, that He may exercise His…
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The natural and supernatural of human existence
There is a paradox that lies in the very heart of human existence. It must be apprehended before any lasting happiness is possible in the soul of a man. The paradox is this: man’s nature, by itself, can do little or nothing to settle his most important problems. If we allow nothing but our natures, our own philosophies, our own…
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The root of war
“We have only to open our eyes and look about us to see what our sins are doing to the world, and have done. But we cannot see. We are the ones to whom it is said by the prophets of God: ‘Hearing hear, and understand not; and see the vision, and know it not.” Thomas Merton, Seven Storey Mountain…
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“We are all more or less wrong”
An excerpt I read from a letter reflecting on the heartache in the Middle East. The quote is from Thomas Merton:
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Accumulating knowledge or using knowledge?
Renovare Ministries was started by a group led by Richard Foster several decades ago. The focus was to turn the Church back to the joy of spiritual formation and help the Church walk in transformation. This week’s email letter was thought-provoking as I wrote a post about trying to tackle Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. My desire is to slow down…
Tag: Thomas Merton
