I hear from Bryan and Dan that it's old Louis' birthday. He would've been 91 today - about the same as Fr. Matthew at Gethsemani, who used to be his confessor. Dying at 53 is not what you call a full life. He certainly was used by God to bring us a good lot of wisdom while he was here though. Dan encouraged us to share our favorite Merton quote as a birthday present to him of sorts. I'll do that before it gets too late here. I pray it encourages you in some way as it has me. Pray for us St. Thomas Merton that we may see in as unfiltered a way as you did.
Then we discover what the spiritual life really is. It is not a matter of doing one good thing rather than another, of praying in one way rather than in another. It is not a matter of any special psychological effect in our own soul. It is the silence of our whole being in compunction and adoration before God, in the habitual realization that He is everything and we are nothing, that He is the Center to which all things tend, and to Whom all our actions must be directed. That our life and strength proceed from Him, that both in life and in death we depend entirely on Him, that the whole course of our life is foreknown by Him and falls into the plan of His wise and merciful Providence; that it is absurd to live as though without Him, for ourselves, by ourselves; that all our plans and spiritual ambitions are useless unless they come from Him and that, in the end, the only thing that matters is His glory. from Thoughts In Solitude; Part One, Chapter 11
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I hear from Bryan and Dan that it's old Louis' birthday. He would've been 91 today - about the same as Fr. Matthew at Gethsemani, who used to be his confessor. Dying at 53 is not what you call a full life. He certainly was used by God to bring us a good lot of wisdom while he was here though. Dan encouraged us to share our favorite Merton quote as a birthday present to him of sorts. I'll do that before it gets too late here. I pray it encourages you in some way as it has me. Pray for us St. Thomas Merton that we may see in as unfiltered a way as you did.
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