The Franciscan Heart of Thomas Merton Quotes

“One of the things rooted in our nature which constitutes us in God’s image, is our innate liberty. God is infinitely free, because He is infinitely powerful and beyond any other determination except that of His own love; and love is, of its essence, free. The freedom that is in our nature is our ability to love something, someone besides ourselves, and for the sake, not of ourselves, but of the one we love. There is in the human will an innate tendency, an inborn capacity for disinterested love. This power to love another for his own sake is one of the things that makes us like God, because this power is the one thing in us that is free from all determination. It is a power which transcends and escapes the inevitability of self-love.”
― Daniel P. Horan, The Franciscan Heart of Thomas Merton: A New Look at the Spiritual Inspiration of His Life, Thought, and Writing