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The true contemplative is one who has discovered the art of finding leisure even in the midst of his work, by working with such a spirit of detachment and recollection that even his work is a prayer

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
Spirit
Recollection
Art
Leisure
True
Midst
Even
Discovered
Work
Findings
Finding
Prayer
Contemplative
Working
Detachment

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If we are to love sincerely, and with simplicity, we must first of all overcome the fear of not being loved.
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Wheels of fire, cosmic, rich, full-bodied honest victories over desperation.
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To Serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one's neighbor.
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Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true.
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Humility is a virtue, not a neurosis.
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Curiously, the most serious religious people, or the most concerned scholars, those who constantly read the Bible as a matter of professional or pious duty, can often manage to evade a radically involved dialogue with the book they are questioning.
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Humility sets us free to do what is really good, by showing us our illusions and withdrawing our will from what was only an apparent good.
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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.
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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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We do not exist for ourselves.
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God, have mercy on me in the blindness in which I hope I am seeking You!
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How far have I to go to find you in whom I have already arrived.
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Our destiny is to live out what we think, because unless we live what we know, we do not even know it.
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Consequently, the truth of God lives in our souls more by the power of superior moral courage than by the light of an eminent intelligence. Indeed, spiritual intelligence itself depends on the fortitude and patience with which we sacrifice ourselves for the truth, as it is communicated to our lives concretely in the providential will of God
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Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.
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It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them. It is pure affection, and filled with reverance for the solitude of others. Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say.
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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.
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The only right way: to love and serve the man of the modern world, but not simply to succumb, with him, to all his illusions about the world.
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Violence is essentially wordless. and it can begin only where thought and rational communication have broken down.
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I shall lead you through the loneliness, the solitude you will not understand but it is my shortcut to your soul.
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