A Human Saint

He was a man who grew up as an orphan with no religion, fathered a child out of wedlock, lived a depraved, drunken, womanizing life, and yet he is considered a modern day saint. He became a beatnik peace activist, an anti-war and civil-rights crusader, and embraced Buddhism and Hinduism because he was interested in what each said about the depth of the human experience, and yet he is one of the most influential Catholic writers of the 20th century. After he became a monk and a hermit, he fell deeply in love with a nursing student half his age who he wrote poems to reflecting on their relationship, and yet he inspires hope in our ability to change. He was accidentally electrocuted in Thailand by a faulty fan as he emerged from a bathtub when he was 53. Thomas Merton would have been 100 on January 31st.

Thomas Merton was a prolific and popular writer whose books inspired millions of people. I remember reading No Man Is An Island as an assignment in college. The book inspired me at the time because it reflected on important aspects of the spiritual life, a subject I was very much interested in as I was discerning for the priesthood. After nearly fifty years of passage, I have to say I did not remember very much else about it so I Googled some passage from the book. It made me want to reread the book since I am at a very different phase in my life. Merton was always noted for his quotable quotes of inspiration and insight. Some of his best from the book are:


“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them”
“The greatest temptations are not those that solicit our consent to obvious sin, but those that offer us great evils masking as the greatest goods.”
“For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God's will, to be what God wants us to be.”
“But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God's love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin to be sincere. His sincerity is based on confidence, not in his own illusions about himself, but in the endless, unfailing mercy of God.
“The Holy Spirit is the most perfect gift of the Father to men, and yet He is the one gift which the Father gives most easily.”
“What every man looks for in life is his own salvation and the salvation of the men he lives with. By salvation I mean first of all the full discovery of who he himself really is.”
“The married man and the mother of a Christian family, if they are faithful to their obligations, will fulfill a mission that is as great as it is consoling: that of bringing into the world and forming young souls capable of happiness and love, souls capable of sanctification and transformation in Christ.”

Some quotes to meditate on and maybe inspire you to read more of Thomas Merton. But my favorite Merton quote comes from Thoughts In Solitude. “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 … But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you … Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.”