For any who struggle to hope,
I offer these thoughts
I found along the way
Grace and peace to you…dw
For those who prefer a list style:
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Do I have the courage?
Thomas Merton writing about discovering God, facing self, and accepting others. More…
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More courage needed
Thomas Merton writing that finding ourselves includes finding the power of God within us. More…
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Happiness leading to sorrow
There is a false and momentary happiness in self-satisfaction, but it always leads to sorrow because it narrows and deadens our spirit. — Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island This follows from last week’s post and reinforces the connection with addiction. It brings to mind the scripture Enter through the narrow gate; for More…
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Sentences on hope
Supernatural hope is the virtue that strips us of all things in order to give us possession of all things. — Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope We’ve had a theme of sorts running for a good bit of this year on Thomas Merton’s reflections on what love is and isn’t. More…
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Hope deprives us
Hope deprives us of everything that is not God, in order that all things may serve their true purpose as means to bring us to God. — Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope What is this hope that dashes all hopes, yet is the only sure remedy for hopelessness? An More…
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Empty hands
Hope empties our hands in order that we may work with them. — Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope God in heaven, fill my heart to empty my hands for you and yours. dw p.s. Here are some related posts: So many coats – Mary Oliver Frederick Buechner – A More…
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Faith without hope
Without hope, our faith gives us only an acquaintance with God. Without love and hope, faith only knows Him as a stranger. For hope casts us into the arms of His mercy and of His providence. If we hope in Him, we will not only come to know that He is merciful but we More…
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It will find us
From Frederick Buechner’s sermon “Message in the Stars” More…
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Possessing God
So the soul that hopes in God already belongs to Him, and to belong to Him is the same as to possess Him, since He gives Himself completely to those who give themselves to Him. — Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope We began this series on Hope with Thomas More…
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A Room called Remember
The name of the room is Remember — the room where with patience, with charity, with quietness of heart, we remember consciously to remember the lives we have lived… So much has happened to us all over the years. So much has happened within us and through us. We are to take time to remember More…
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Loving God
If I believe that He can love me, I must also believe that I can love Him. If I do not believe I can love Him, then I do not believe Him Who gave us the first commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and thy whole mind and More…
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Never confounded
Better than hoping for anything from the Lord, besides His love, let us place all our hope in His love itself. This hope is as sure as God Himself. It can never be confounded. — Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope It doesn’t matter what we do, you and I, More…
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Infallibly fulfilled
All desires but one can fail. The only desire that is infallibly fulfilled is the desire to be loved by God. We cannot desire this efficaciously without at the same time desiring to love Him, and the desire to love Him is a desire that cannot fail. Merely by desiring to love Him, we More…
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Locking ourselves in prison
It would be a sin to place any limit upon our hope in God. We must love Him without measure. All sin is rooted in the failure of love. All sin is a withdrawal of love from God, in order to love something else. Sin sets boundaries to our hope, and locks our love More…
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Perfect freedom
Freedom is perfect when no other love can impede our desire to love God. — Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope From John’s gospel, Chapter 8: 31 Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32 More…
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The liberty of the universe
Upon our hope, therefore, depends the liberty of the whole universe. Because our hope is the pledge of a new heaven and a new earth, in which all things will be what they were meant to be. — Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope If my hope Is the toe More…
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They cannot hope in God
The devil believes in God but he has no God. The Lord is not his God…the damned have confirmed themselves in the belief that they cannot hope in God. — Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope I spent many years believing in God, but not hoping in him. Oh, doctrinally, More…
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I cannot be humble
I cannot be humble unless I first know that I am good, and know that what is good in me is not my own, and know how easy it is for me to substitute an evil of my own choice for the good that is God’s gift to me. — Thomas Merton, No Man More…
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The God of those who can hope
Those who abandon everything in order to seek God know well that He is the God of the poor…the supreme expression of His justice is to forgive those whom no one else would ever have forgiven. That is why He is, above all, the God of those who can hope where there is no More…
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Up to its knees in the past
Then at last we see what hope is and where it comes from, hope as the driving power and outermost edge of faith. Hope stands up to its knees in the past and keeps its eyes on the future…shall is the verb of hope. Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “A More…
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Am I convinced?
Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness. — Thomas More…
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We are the ones
The very essence of hope is freely to expect all the graces necessary for salvation as free gifts from God. — Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope Freely to expect – when was the last time I was free to expect anything at all when some sort of pain or More…
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This is what we pray for
Hope seeks not only God in Himself, not only the means to reach Him, but it seeks, finally and beyond all else, God’s glory revealed in ourselves. This will be the final manifestation of His infinite mercy, and this is what we pray for when we say “Thy Kingdom come.” — Thomas Merton, No More…
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Never really alone
So in the room called Remember it is possible to find peace – the peace that comes from looking back and remembering to remember that though most of the time we failed to see it, we were never really alone. Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “A Room Called Remember” More…
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Hope completes Faith
If I do not hope in His love for me, I will never really know Christ. I hear of Him by faith. But I do not achieve the contact that knows Him, and thereby knows the Father in Him, until my faith in Him is completed by hope and charity: hope that grasps His More…
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A Place
There’s a place where I will stand before my Maker; A place that’s free from all the worries of this world; a place of inner quiet. There I fall down on my knees and lay my burdens down And He takes me by the hand and lifts me to where the eagles fly. There’s a More…
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A Time
There is a time the whole creation’s been waiting for; When all the evil in this sore, sore world will be laid bare and die. And when that time does come we’ll lift a shout of joy For then our home is just around the bend and by His mercy He will take us there. More…
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A Land
There is a land that flows with milk and honey Where there’s no room for any sorrow or crying, only room for joy and laughter; A land where living water flows ever from the throne And the praises sing the glory, the glory of the Three in One. There’s a place There’s a time There’s More…
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Song of Hope – Finale
I believe in God the Father maker of heaven and earth And in Jesus Christ, his only his only son, our Lord; Conceived by the awesome power of the Holy Spirit And born in a lowly stable of the virgin Mary; Suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended to the dead, More…
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Next to Last
By faith we understand, if we are to understand it at all, that the madness and lostness we see all around us and within us are not the last truth about the world but only the next to the last truth. Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “Faith” To have faith More…
becoming flame 