Thomas Merton Quotes

“It can be said, without fear of error, that our meditation is as good as our faith.”
― Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton - Spiritual Direction and Meditation

“A contemplative is not one who takes his prayer seriously, but one who takes God seriously, who is famished for truth, who seeks to live in generous simplicity, in the spirit. An ardent and sincere humility is the best protection for his life of prayer.”
― Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton - Spiritual Direction and Meditation

“True simplicity implies love and trust—it does not expect to be derided and rejected, any more than it expects to be admired and praised.”
― Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton - Spiritual Direction and Meditation

“As a matter of fact, it is often harder to manifest the good that is in us than the evil.”
― Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton - Spiritual Direction and Meditation

“The seventeenth-century Benedictine mystic, Dom Augustine Baker, who fought a determined battle for the interior liberty of contemplative souls in an age ridden by autocratic directors, has the following to say on the subject: “The director is not to teach his own way, nor indeed any determinate way of prayer, but to instruct his disciples how they may themselves find out the way proper for them. . . . In a word, he is only God’s usher, and must lead souls in God’s way, and not his own.”
― Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton - Spiritual Direction and Meditation

“The Mass is a memorial of Christ’s sacrifice, not in the sense of an exterior commemoration, but as a living and supremely efficacious re-presentation of that sacrifice, pouring out into our hearts the redemptive power of the Cross and the grace of the resurrection, which enables us to live in God.”
― Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton - Spiritual Direction and Meditation

“The distinctive characteristic of religious meditation is that it is a search for truth which springs from love and which seeks to possess the truth not only by knowledge but also by love.”
― Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton - Spiritual Direction and Meditation

“It often happens, as a matter of fact, that so called “pious souls” take their “spiritual life” with a wrong kind of seriousness.”
― Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton - Spiritual Direction and Meditation

“But there is always a danger that the priest qualified to seriously direct religious will be overwhelmed by the demand for his services. His first duty, if he wants to be an effective director, is to see to his own interior life and take time for prayer and meditation, since he will never be able to give to others what he does not possess himself.”
― Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton - Spiritual Direction and Meditation

“Discipline is most important, and without it no serious meditation will ever be possible. But it should be one’s own discipline, not a routine mechanically imposed from the outside.”
― Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton - Spiritual Direction and Meditation