Merton Continues to Speak...

Gratitude Journal

1. Nurses and CNA's who work in Nursing Homes!
2. The Power of Stories... and the gift of remembrance.
3. First Days of School Each Year!
4. Cool Fall Weather - Signs of Things To Come
5. The Shoulder of Spiritual Giants on Whom We Build of Faith Journey!

In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is Your strength. Isaiah 30:15

Thomas Merton is one of those GIANTS of the faith mentioned above! His words have touched and brought healing and hope during some pretty dark stretches of my own journey.

Recently, listening to the news - famine, financial insecurities, 9-11, health concerns and more - I have been renewed by Merton's words... So today, I share a few of his words in hope and with trust that they might speak to you!

If we forget that the laws and organization of the Church are there only to preserve the inner life of character, we will tend to make the observance of law an end in itself... and this makes genuine holiness impossible, since holiness is the fullness of life, the abundance of charity and the radiation of Holy Spirit hidden within us.

The Holy Spirit does not abolish the Old Law, the exterior command: he makes the same law interior to ourselves, so that doing God's will becomes now no longer a work of fear, but a word of spontaneous love.

But now that Christ has laid down his life and risen from the dead, to take possession of us by his Spirit, the Spirit himself, dwelling in us, should be to us a law.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I follow Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does, in fact, please You. And I hope that I have the desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, You will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.

AMEN