Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Inward Destitution

Thomas Merton New Seeds of Contemplation New Directions Publishing, 1961

One of the greatest sufferings of a contemplative is to feel the terrible, inescapable coarseness and grossness and inadequacy of the highest human modes of love and intellection when they are seen in the light of God, when they reach out toward God and fail. pg 262

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Rotten Luxury

Thomas Merton New Seeds of Contemplation New Directions Publishing, 1961

"Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when man deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone else in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost." pg 180