Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice.
Interpretation
Achieving peace requires significant effort and personal sacrifice.
This quote by Thomas Merton emphasizes that the pursuit of peace is not a passive or easy endeavor; rather, it necessitates courageous actions and the willingness to make difficult sacrifices. It underscores the idea that true peace often comes at a cost and demands commitment and hard work from those who seek it.
In practice
In a speech advocating for social justice, one might say, 'As Thomas Merton reminds us, peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice.'
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.
Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny....To work out our identity in God.
Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.
You are made in the image of what you desire.
But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.
I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
Peace is a day-to-day problem, the product of a multitude of events and judgments. Peace is not an 'is,' it is a 'becoming.'
For our part, we shall continue to work for the new dawn when all the Children of Abraham and their descendants are living together in the birthplace of their three great monotheistic religions, a life free from fear, a life free from want - a life in peace.
My colleagues and I have gone in the footsteps of our predecessors since the very first day we were called by our people to care for their future. We went any place, we looked for any avenue, we made any effort to bring about negotiations between Israel and its neighbors, negotiations without which peace remains an abstract desire.
No guns but only brotherhood can resolve the problems.
The Government chose to give peace a chance. The Government chose to do something to achieve it.
Even if my country remains in war with yours. . .remember. . . i am not your enemy.
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