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Reflection for the Week of June 29, 2009

Coming to the monastery has been, for me, exactly the right kind of withdrawal. It has given me perspective. It has taught me how to live. And now I owe everyone else in the world a share of that life. My first duty is to start, for the first time, to live as a member of the human race which is no more (and no less) ridiculous that I am myself. And my first human act is the recognition of how much I owe everybody else.

Thomas Merton. Entering the Silence, Journals Volume 2. Jonathan Montaldo, editor (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997): 451.

Thought for the Day

But the world was made by God and is good, and, unless the world is our mother, we cannot be saints, because we cannot be saints unless we are first of all human.

Entering the Silence: 451.

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