Tag: Thomas Merton

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 will experience His mercy in our own lives.

— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope

Faith without hope
is a dry throat
swallowing hard
to push down the panic
“What if I am wrong?”

Unless it is
seething hatred
at a world
that has no good news.

Mere acquaintance with God is terrifying.

dw

Copyright © 2019, becomingflame.com

p.s.

This post from last year is a prayer I have prayed over the years, asking the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to help me be more than an acquaintance.

Photo by Angela Compagnone on Unsplash

Tags faith without hope, mercy, No Man is an Island, providence, sentences on hope, Thomas Merton

hope

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.

p.s. Here are some related posts:

So many coats – Mary Oliver
Frederick Buechner – A million things

Photo by Claudia van Zyl on Unsplash

Tags empty hands, No Man is an Island, sentences on hope, Thomas Merton, work

hope Other Writings Poetry

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 anchor that holds us, drowns us,
baptizes us clean, clean,
cleaner than we ever wanted to be
(but always wanted to be)
in water that is life itself
if we will only drown ourselves in it,
suck it in knowing it is the death of us,
us as beings with the right to choose,
for our own selves,
what we hope for,
even if what we hope for
would be the death of us.

dw

Copyright © 2018, becomingflame.com

Tags anchor, baptism, death, hope, hopelessness, life, No Man is an Island, Thomas Merton

hope Other Writings

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. We’ll be switching now to the topic of hope. As we’ll see, hope may not be anything like we’d expect it to be, today’s quote being a jarring example. Merton will push us to examine our hearts in ways that maybe we haven’t before:

What do we hope for?
What do we hope in?
What does this mean for our soul?
What does hope that is good for us look like, feel like?
What does it accomplish in us and in God’s kingdom?
Do we have reason to hope for this kind of hope?

I sincerely hope this series is something you can connect with, something that speaks to you where you are and challenges you and gives you maybe a hope that’s been missing for awhile or maybe that you can’t remember ever having before.

Grace and peace…and hope…to you…

p.s. Here’s a page that lists all posts on the topic of Hope: Pages on hope

p.p.s. Here’s a listing of some past posts on the topic of Love:

Photo by Stephen Walker on Unsplash

Tags hope, No Man is an Island, possession, sentences on hope, spiritual hope, Thomas Merton

love Poetry

Love that isn’t

To love another is to will what is really good for him. Such love must be based on truth. A love that sees no distinction between good and evil, but loves blindly merely for the sake of loving, is hatred, rather than love. To love blindly is to love selfishly, because the goal of such love is not the real advantage of the beloved but only the exercise of love in our own souls.

— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island