I must become convinced and penetrated by the realization that without my love for [another] they may perhaps not achieve the things God has willed for them.
My love must be to them the “sacrament” of the mysterious and infinitely selfless love God has for them.
The words I speak to them must be no other than the words of Christ Who deigns to reveal Himself to them in me.
— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
If we are going to love others at all, we must make up our minds to love them well. Otherwise our love is a delusion.
We must first of all purify our love by renouncing the pleasure of loving as an end in itself. As long as pleasure is our end, we will be dishonest with ourselves and with those we love. We will not seek their good, but our own pleasure.
— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
For love must not only seek the truth in the lives of those around us; it must find it there.
— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
It is clear, then, that to love others well we must first love the truth.
The truth we must love in loving our brothers is the concrete destiny and sanctity that are willed for them by the love of God.
The truth I must love in my brother is God Himself, living in him. I must seek the love of the Spirit of God breathing in him.
— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
God himself is never safe from us…He comes in such a way that we can always turn him down…in the hungry people we do not have to feed…in the lonely people we do not have to comfort…in all the desperate human need of people everywhere that we are always free to turn our backs upon.
Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “The Face in the Sky”
becoming flame 