....it is of the very essence of Christianity to face suffering and death not because they are good, not because they have meaning, but because the resurrection of Jesus has robbed them of their meaning.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that suffering and death are inherently meaningless, but the resurrection of Jesus gives them a new perspective.
Thomas Merton's quote highlights a fundamental aspect of Christianity, emphasizing that suffering and death, while negative in their own right, lose their inherent significance due to the hope and promise offered by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It presents a transformative view where the reality of resurrection provides believers with a framework to confront the harsh experiences of life and death, ultimately leading to a deeper understanding of existence beyond these trials.
In practice
A pastor might use this quote during a funeral service to provide comfort to grieving families.
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.
God's goodness is the root of all goodness; and our goodness, if we have any, springs out of His goodness.
Every day People straighten up the hair, why not the heart?
He, then, that would really, thoroughly, and acceptably mortify any disquieting lust, let him take care to be equally diligent in all parts of obedience, and know that every lust, every omission of duty, is burdensome to God, though but one is so to him.
Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.
In every human society, there is an effort continually tending to confer on one part the height of power and happiness, and to reduce the other to the extreme of weakness and misery. The intent of good laws is to oppose this effort and to diffuse their influence universally and equally.
The oppressor has always indoctrinated the weak with his interpretation of the crimes of the strong.
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