Into this world – Thomas Merton

Today, December 10, is the anniversary of the death of Thomas Merton. Merton has been a leading voice on spirituality, contemplation and our encounter with the world since at least 1948 with the publication of his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain.

Perhaps the following quote from Merton offers something to hear during this season of giving and receiving of gifts, food, and “best wishes.”

Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it, because he is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, his place is with those others for whom there is no room. His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world.

charles

{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}


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