Living in God’s Grace: From “Thoughts in Solitude” by the Reverend Thomas Merton (vegetarian), Part 2 of 2

“This is not what God has planned for me. It is sufficient to turn away from my darkness to His light. I do not have to run away from myself; it is sufficient that I find myself, not as I have made myself, by my own stupidity, but as He has made me in His wisdom and remade me in His infinite mercy. For it is His will that my body and soul should be the Temple of His Holy Spirit, that my life should reflect the radiance of His love and my whole being repose in His peace. Then will I truly know Him, since I am in Him and He is truly in me.”

“In solitude I have at last discovered that You have desired the love of my heart, O my God, the love of my heart as it is – the love of a human’s heart. I have found and have known, by Your great mercy, that the love of a human’s heart that is abandoned and broken and poor is most pleasing to You and attracts the gaze of Your pity, and that it is Your desire and Your consolation, O my Lord, to be very close to those who love You and call upon You as their Father.”

“Only solitude has taught me that I do not have to be a god or an angel to be pleasing to You, that I do not have to become a pure intelligence without feeling and without human imperfection before You will listen to my voice. You do not wait for me to become great before You will be with me and hear me and answer me. It is my lowliness and my humanness that have drawn You to make me Your equal by condescending to my level and living in me by Your merciful care.”

“And this is the mystery of our vocation: not that we cease to be human in order to become angels or gods, but that the love of my human heart can become God’s love for God and humans, and my human tears can fall from my eyes as the tears of God because they well up from the motion of His Spirit in the heart of His incarnate Son. Hence – the Gift of Piety grows in solitude, nourished by the Psalms. When this is learned, then our love of other humans becomes pure and strong. We can go out to them without vanity and without complacency, loving them with something of the purity and gentleness and hiddenness of God’s love for us.”