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Thomas Merton Quotes about Joy

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Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to live.

Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to live.

Thomas Merton
Journey, Differences, Joy
Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, New Directions Publishing

To be truly Catholic is not merely to be correct according to an abstractly universal standard of truth, but also and above all to be able to enter into the problems and the joys of all, to understand all, to be all things to all.

Thomas Merton
Joy, Catholic, Able

Ash Wednesday is full of joy...The source of all sorrow is the illusion that of ourselves we are anything but dust.

Thomas Merton
Dust, Joy, Sorrow

You are certainly one of the joys of life for all who have ever come within a mile of you.

Thomas Merton
Joy, Miles, Joy Of Life
Thomas Merton (1989). “The Road to Joy: Letters to New and Old Friends”, p.71, Macmillan

O God, teach me to be satisfied with my own helplessness in the spiritual life. Teach me to be content with Your grace that comes to me in darkness and that works things I cannot see. Teach me to be happy that I can depend on You. To depend on You should be enough for an eternity of joy. To depend on You by itself ought to be infinitely greater than any joy which my own intellectual appetite could desire.

Thomas Merton
Spiritual, Joy, Grace

Even the darkest moments of the liturgy are filled with joy, and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the lenten fast, is a day of happiness, a Christian feast.

Thomas Merton
Christian, Joy, Ashes
Thomas Merton (2010). “Seasons of Celebration”, p.100, Macmillan

This is the crucifixion of Christ: in which He dies again and again in the individuals who were made to share the joy and freedom of His grace, and who deny Him.

Thomas Merton
Crucifixion Of Christ, Joy, Grace
Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.158, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance to a higher life. It is a death for the sake of life, which leaves behind all that we can know or treasure as life, as thought, as experience, as joy, as being.

Thomas Merton
Joy, Intuition, Levels
"Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation".

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