“When the work of thought leads to an intuition of love and religious awe, then we have ‘active contemplation’.”
Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. NY: HarperOne, 2003. (NOTE: originally written in 1959), p. 60
“Where there is no critical perspective, no detached observation, no time to ask the pertinent questions, how can one avoid being deluded and confused? Someone has to try to keep his head clear of static and preserve the interior solitude and silence that are essential for independent thought.”
Merton, Thomas. “Events and Pseudo-Events Letter to a Southern Churchman.” (1966) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O’Connell. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013, p. 300
“Appetite is rooted in wonder and has intimacy with some creature or ensemble of creatures as its end. Knowledge, in turn, on its Christian construal, is a particular kind of intimacy between one creature and another.”
Griffiths, Paul J. Intellectual Appetite: a Theological Grammar. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009, p. 125.
“In a world so full of not-walking, it feels almost subversive to set out on foot. But the mind seems most keen and able to think its realest thoughts while walking, as though the two acts were tied up in some ancient, well-worn, unspoken routine. And even then it is possible to notice a difference in the texture of one’s thoughts depending on whether you are walking with our against the flow of nearby water, a phenomenon that can likely be replicated in crowded streets of people.”
Sanders, Ella Frances. “Vázzit” in her column ‘Root Catalog’ in Orion, vol 42, no. 1 (Spring 2023), p. 96.
Comment: some people think best while walking. Some people pray best while walking. And in our world, few people walk voluntarily, it seems.
“We live in the time of no room, which is the time of the end. The time when everyone is obsessed with lack of time, lack of space, with saving time, conquering space, projecting into time and space the anguish produced within them by the technological furies of size, volume, quantity, speed, number, price, power, and acceleration. ….
“As the end approaches, there is no room for nature. The cities crowd it off the face of the earth.
“As the end approaches, there is no room for quiet. There is no room for solitude. There is no room for thought. There is no room for attention, for the awareness of our state.
“In the time of the end, there is no room for man.” (pp. 280-281)
Merton, Thomas. “The Time of the End Is the Time of No Room.” (1965) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O’Connell. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013), pages 280-281.
“It is the refusal of alternatives–a compulsive state of mind which one might call the ‘ultimatum complex’–which makes wars in order to force the unconditional acceptance of one oversimplified interpretation of reality. The mission of Christian humility in social life is not merely to edify, but to keep minds open to many alternatives. The rigidity of a certain type of Christian thought has seriously impaired this capacity, which nonviolence may recover.”
Merton, Thomas. “Blessed Are the Meek.” (1966) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O’Connell. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013), page 292.
“Where there is no critical perspective, no detached observation, no time to ask the pertinent questions, how can one avoid being deluded and confused? Someone has to try to keep his head clear of static and preserve the interior solitude and silence that are essential for independent thought.”
Merton, Thomas. “Events and Pseudo-Events Letter to a Southern Churchman.” (1966) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O’Connell. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013), page 300.
“Those with a passionate sense of the divine milieu cannot bear to find things about them obscure, tepid, and empty, things which should be full and vibrant with God. They are paralyzed by the thought of the innumerable spirits which are linked to theirs in the unity of the same world, but are not yet fully kindled by the flame of the divine presence.”
Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. The Divine Milieu. Translated by Siôn Cowell. (Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2012), page 107.
“Ah, if one could work in the heart of nature, one’s window open on a fair landscape, so placed that when one was tired one could enjoy a few minutes in the green country; or, if one’s thought was at a standstill ask a suggestion from the mountains, from the company of trees and clouds, from the passing animals, in stead of painfully enduring one’s dull moods — I am sure that the work produced would be doubled, and that it would be far more attractive, far more human.”
Sertillanges, Antonin G., O.P. The Intellectual Life: its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1987), page 247.
“You, too, can become a mendicant for the Lord. Open your heart and hands to God. Pray in silence and then enter the cloister of the world without expectations and let God provide you with your thoughts, words, and right actions. When you live from your inner hermit, God will fill you with a spiritual abundance beyond anything that you ever dreamed possible.”
Talbot, John Michael. The World is My Cloister: Living From the Hermit Within. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010), pages 80-81.
Pathology: the Study of a Path 