Persons are not known by intellect alone, not by principles alone, but only by love. It is when we love the other, the enemy, that we obtain from God the key to an understanding of who he is, and who we are. It is only this realization that can open to us the real nature of our duty, and of right action.
Interpretation
True understanding of ourselves and others comes through love, not just intellect or principles.
In this quote, Thomas Merton emphasizes that love is the essential foundation for understanding both ourselves and others. He argues that intellect and principles alone do not define a person; it is our capacity to love, even those we consider enemies, that reveals our true nature and obligation in life. This love prompts a deeper realization of our purpose and moral action, suggesting that genuine compassion is fundamental to our human experience.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of empathy in conflict resolution.
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.
When two people loved each other they worked together always, two against the world, a little company. Joy was shared; trouble was split. You had an ally.
Nothing is more true, more real, than the primeval magnetic disturbances that two souls may communicate to one another, through the tiny sparks of a moment's glance.
The true liberation of eroticism lies in accepting the fact that there are a million facets to it, a million forms of eroticism, a million objects of it, situations, atmospheres, and variations. We have, first of all, to dispense with guilt concerning its expansion, then remain open to it's surprises, varied expressions, and mingle it with dreams, fantasies, and emotion for it to attain its highest potency.
My wish isn't to mean_x000D_ everything to everyone_x000D_ but something to someone.
his mysterious resources had awakened in her a curiosity that was difficult to resist, but she had never imagined that curiosity was one of the many masks of love.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don't you? You feel the separation from the Beloved. Invite Him to fill you up, embrace the fire.
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