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The married man and the mother of a Christian family, if they are faithful to their obligations, will fulfill a mission that is as great as it is consoling: that of bringing into the world and forming young souls capable of happiness and love, souls capable of sanctification and transformation in Christ.

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
Christ
Faithful
Sanctification
Mother
Obligation
Forming
Young
Souls
Obligations
Soul
Capable
Fulfill
Great
Married
Mission
Men
Happiness
Bringing
Love
Family
Missions
World
Christian
Transformation
Consoling

More quotes by Thomas Merton

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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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For perfect hope is achieved on the brink of despair, when instead of falling over the edge, we find ourselves walking on air.
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Love is our true destiny.
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Humble people can do great things with uncommon perfection because they are no longer concerned about their own interests and their own reputation, and therefore they no longer need to waste their efforts in defending them.
Thomas Merton
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Life reveals itself to us only in so far as well live it.
Thomas Merton
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Grains of error planted innocently in a well-kept greenhouse can become giant poisonous trees.
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Business is not the supreme virtue, and sanctity is not measured by the amount of work we accomplish. Perfection is found in the purity of our love for God, and this pure love is a delicate plant that grows best where there is plenty of time for it to mature
Thomas Merton
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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.
Thomas Merton
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You will never be able to have perfect interior peace and recollection unless you are detached even from the desire of peace and recollection. You will never be able to pray perfectly until you are detached from the pleasures of prayer.
Thomas Merton
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May we all grow in grace and peace and not neglect the silence that is printed in the center of our being. It will not fail us.
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Whose silence are you?
Thomas Merton
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If there was no other proof of the infinite patience of God, a very good one could be found in His toleration of the pictures that are painted of Him.
Thomas Merton
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Our real journey in life is interior.
Thomas Merton
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The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.
Thomas Merton
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The selfishness of an age that has devoted itself to the mere cult of pleasure has tainted the whole human race with an error that makes all our acts more or less lies against God.
Thomas Merton
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The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.
Thomas Merton
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Wheels of fire, cosmic, rich, full-bodied honest victories over desperation.
Thomas Merton
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Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward.
Thomas Merton
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What do you want to want to be, anyway? I don't know I guess what I want to be is a good Catholic. What you should say--he told me--what you should say is that you want to be a saint.
Thomas Merton
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A gentle sense of humor will be alert to detect anything that savors of a pious 'act' on the part of the penitent.
Thomas Merton