Thomas Merton Quotes About Mercy

Quotes about: Mercy

• For language to have meaning, there must be intervals of silence somewhere, to divide word from word and utterance from utterance. He who retires into silence does not necessarily hate language. Perhaps it is love and respect for language which imposes silence upon him. For the mercy of God is not heard in words unless it is heard, both before and after the words are spoken, in silence.

  Thomas Merton

  Hate, Mercy Of God, Silence

  Thomas Merton (1976). “The Power and Meaning of Love”

• 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. A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Men, Risk

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.21, Shambhala Publications

• To desire Him to be merciful to us is to acknowledge Him as God. To seek His pity when we deserve no pity is to ask Him to be just with a justice so holy that it knows no evil and shows mercy to everyone who does not fly from Him in despair.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Acknowledge Him, Evil

  Thomas Merton (2002). “No Man Is an Island”, p.234, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• A Christian is committed to the belief that Love and Mercy are the most powerful forces on earth.

  Thomas Merton

  Christian, Powerful, Earth

  Thomas Merton (2010). “The Nonviolent Alternative”, p.105, Macmillan

• The very contradictions in my life are in some ways signs of God's mercy to me.

  Thomas Merton

  Way, Mercy, Contradiction

  Thomas Merton (2015). “Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation”, p.148, Sounds True

• But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God's love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin to be sincere. His sincerity is based on confidence, not in his own illusions about himself, but in the endless, unfailing mercy of God.

  Thomas Merton

  Men, Mercy Of God, May

  Thomas Merton (2002). “No Man Is an Island”, p.228, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Nevertheless, the liturgy of Ash Wednesday is not focussed on the sinfulness of the penitent but on the mercy of God. The question of sinfulness is raised precisely because this is a day of mercy, and the just do not need a savior.

  Thomas Merton

  Mercy Of God, Needs, Ashes

  Thomas Merton (1976). “Meditations on liturgy”

• His justice is the love that gives to each one of His creatures the gifts that His mercy has previously decreed. And His mercy is His love, doing justice to its own exigencies, and renewing the gift which we had failed to accept.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Giving, Justice

  Thomas Merton (2002). “No Man Is an Island”, p.237, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• God has left sin in the world in order that there may be forgiveness: not only the secret forgiveness by which He Himself cleanses our souls, but the manifest forgiveness by which we have mercy on one another and so give expression to the fact that He is living, by His mercy, in our own hearts.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Heart, Expression

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.220, Shambhala Publications

• God, have mercy on me in the blindness in which I hope I am seeking You!

  Thomas Merton

  Mercy, Blindness, Seeking

  Thomas Merton, Lawrence Cunningham (1996). “A search for solitude: pursuing the monk's true life”, Harper San Francisco

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