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Prayer and love are really learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and your heart turns to stone.

Thomas Merton

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Thomas Merton
Age: 53 †
Born: 1915
Born: January 15
Died: 1968
Died: December 10
Autobiographer
Catholic Priest
Essayist
Journalist
Peace Activist
Poet
Theologian
Trappist Cistercian Monk
Writer
Thomas Feverel Merton
Father Louis
Prayer
Wisdom
Hours
Stone
Turns
Stones
Heart
Hour
Really
Becomes
Love
Learned
Impossible

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People have no idea what one saint can do: for sanctity is stronger than the whole of hell.
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He who hopes in God trusts God, Whom he never sees, to bring him to the possession of things that are beyond imagination.
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A man searching for enlightenment is like a man sitting on an Ass in search of an Ass
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Christ is born to us today, in order that he may appear to the whole world through us.
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Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.
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For if I am to love truly and freely, I must be able to give something that is truly my own to another. If my heart does not first belong to me, how can I give it to another?
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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.
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The very contradictions in my life are in some ways signs of God's mercy to me.
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The closer we are to God, the closer we are to those who are close to him.
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... but any fool knows that you don't need money to get enjoyment out of life.
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Even the darkest moments of the liturgy are filled with joy, and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the lenten fast, is a day of happiness, a Christian feast.
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To be ordinary is not a choice: It is the usual freedom of men without visions.
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Happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found.
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In an age where there is much talk about being yourself, I reserve to myself the right to forget about being myself, since in any case there is very little chance of my being anybody else.
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The real hope is not in something we think we can do, but in God, who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see.
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We are not perfectly free until we live in pure hope. For when our hope is pure, it no longer trusts exclusively in human and visible means, nor rests in any visible end. He who hopes in God trusts God, Whom he never sees, to bring him to the possession of things that are beyond imagination.
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One of the strange laws of the contemplative life is that in it you do not sit down and solve problems: you bear with them until they somehow solve themselves. Or until life solves them for you.
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True happiness is not found in any other reward than that of being united with God. If I seek some other reward besides God Himself, I may get my reward but I cannot be happy.
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It is easy enough to tell the poor to accept their poverty as Gods will when you yourself have warm clothes and plenty of food and medical care and a roof over your head and no worry about the rent. But if you want them to believe youtry to share some of their poverty and see if you can accept it as Gods will yourself!
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