Ultimately faith is the only key to the universe. The final meaning of human existence, and the answers to the questions on which all our happiness depends cannot be found in any other way.
Interpretation
Faith is essential for understanding life and finding happiness.
In this quote, Thomas Merton emphasizes the importance of faith as the fundamental element that unlocks the mysteries of existence. He suggests that the ultimate purpose of life and the source of true happiness cannot be discovered through rational thought or material pursuits, but rather through a deep-seated belief that transcends ordinary understanding.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of spirituality in our lives.
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.
Crimes lead into one another. They who are capable of being forgers, are capable of being incendiaries.
We are the prisoners of history. Or are we?
Unless I understand the Cross, I cannot understand why my commitment to what is right must be precedence over what I prefer.
Once you open up the Pandora's box of race and gender... you're never done.
Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
We are the children of our landscape; it dictates behavior and even thought in the measure to which we are responsive to it.
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