Connecting with God: From “Thoughts in Solitude” by the Reverend Thomas Merton (vegetarian), Part 2 of 2

Let us continue with selections from Thomas Merton’s book, “Thoughts in Solitude,” where the wise Reverend expounds on gratitude for God’s Love and Care.

The Love of Solitude Chapter 12 “The solitary, being a man of prayer, will come to know God by knowing that his prayer is always answered. From there, he can go on, if God wills, to contemplation. Gratitude is therefore the heart of the solitary life, as it is the heart of the Christian life.”

Chapter 13 “It seems to me that the solitary contemplative life is an imitation and fulfilment in ourselves of these words of Jesus: ‘The Son can do nothing of Himself, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever He does, this the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all that He Himself does’

The solitary life then is the life of one drawn by the Father into the wilderness there to be nourished by no other spiritual food than Jesus. For in Jesus the Father gives Himself to us and nourishes us with His own inexhaustible life. The life of solitude, therefore, must be a continual communion and thanksgiving in which we behold by faith all that goes on in the depths of God, and lose our taste for any other life or any other spiritual food.

The solitary life is a life in which we cast our care upon the Lord and delight only in the help that comes from Him. Whatever He does is our joy. We reproduce His goodness in us by our gratitude.

I must not go into solitude to immobilize my life, to reduce all things to a frozen concentration upon some inner experience. When solitude alternates with common living, it can take on this character of a halt, of a moment of stillness, an interval of concentration. Where solitude is not an interval but a continuous whole, we may well renounce altogether the sense of concentration and the feeling of spiritual stillness. Our whole life may flow out to meet the being and the silence of the days in which we are immersed, and we can work out our salvation by quiet, continued action.”