Thursday, June 23, 2011

A Year With Thomas Merton - June 23


Why Is My Head So Full of Things?

Another of the beautiful cool days we have been having all year. WE did not work this afternoon. Plenty of time to pray. Recollected, I am myself for a while, and I consider the weekdays when I am full of business and when I am not myself or my own. Why must I make my head so full of things?

It is the vigil of my great patron and friend and protector St. John the Baptist. “He shall drink no wine nor strong drink” (Luke 1:15): taste none of the pleasures that flatter and intoxicate nature, our own will, our own vanity, our own desires.

I am tired of being my own Providence, of wanting and seeking things for myself, of making decisions for myself, and yet, quite apart from my own will, I am in this complex of things that seem to stand between me and God.

All I want, Jesus, is more and more to abandon everything to You. The more I go on, the more I realize I don’t know where I am going. Lead me and take complete control of me.

“Teach me to do thy will, for thou are my God” (Psalm 142).

June 24, 1947, II.86-87

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