Monday, April 16, 2012

A Year With Thomas Merton - April 10


Relax and Live
Quiet, grey afternoon. It is warmer. Birds sing. There will be more rain. Cocks crowing in the afternoon silence, very distant.
A thunderstorm. The first I have sat through in the hermitage. Here you really can watch a storm. White snakes of lightning suddenly stand out in the sky and vanish.
The thunder cracks and beats. Rain comes flooding down from the roof eaves, and grass looks twice as green as before.
Not to be known, not to be seen.
Father Gabriel Sweeney, the little white-haired Passionist who is in the novitiate, who asked to leave before Easter, and was dissuaded by Reverend Father, stand with a piteous expression in the novitiate library reading Relax and Live. Sooner or later they come to that.
The evening sky over the valley. Long lines of clouds traveling in strong cold wind toward the east.
Janua Coeli: the Gate of Heaven. How different prayer is here at the hermitage. Clarity--direction--to Christ the Lord for the great gift--the passage out of this world to the Father, entry into the kingdom. I know what I am here for. May I be faithful to this awareness.
April 15 and 16, 1961, IV.107-8

1 comment:

  1. John 14.27:

    Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

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