Thank you all for continuing to read. It makes me feel connected to a greater community. Merton is in his last year at Columbia. Externally he continues to do well but inside he is hitting rock bottom. Both his grandparents die within 14 months of each other. He gets rejected by one particular girl and he fears he is getting an ulcer. He states,
"Here I was, scarcely four years after I had left Oakham [ his high school] and walked out into the world that I thought I was going to ransack and rob of all its pleasures and satisfaction. I had done what I intended, and now I found that it was I who was emptied and robbed and gutted. What a strange thing! In filling myself, I had emptied myself, In grasping things, I had lost everything." Pg 163-164
He is downtown and buys a book he sees in the window, The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy by Etienne Gilson. He finds out the book is Catholic because it has a "Nihil Obstat" in the front and feels tricked. He almost throws it out but reads it and it gives him his first look at actual coherent theology. The next four pages took me back to undergrad as he speaks about the most important terms he learned in the book. I will spare you the philosophy lesson except for one term that I think is important, " sanctifying grace". We have used this term a lot already in 16 days though we normally shorten it to "God's grace" or even "grace".
What is "grace"? It is God's own life, shared by us. God's life is Love. Deus caritas est. By grace we are able to share in the infinitely self-less love of Him Who is such pure actuality that He needs nothing and therefore cannot conceivably exploit anything for selfish ends. pg 169
So I meditated on this. God shares His own life with us daily, wow! If that doesn't make you feel special I don't know what will. Do I let Him ? Do I share my life with Him? I don't know about you but I do, but only to a point. I am afraid if I really, really let Him in He will turn my life upside down and that scares me.
My prayer for today; God, let me say "Yes" to Your grace, let me share my life with you unconditionally as You do with me.
Pax
Joe
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