Quotation of the Week: Thomas Merton

As I searched the pages of my Quotation Journal this morning, hungering for a word or two that would buoy my flagging spirits on this chilly winter's day, I came across a rather long quotation that I copied into my journal over eighteen months ago.

I have long been intrigued by Thomas Merton and hope to delve into his writings in more depth in the future when homeschooling and work will not be robbing my spare time. My dear friend Linda, who cheerfully enables my addiction to books, presented me with two volumes of Merton's journals a couple of weeks ago, and I do hope to sit down with them and ponder life along with Merton himself.

But for today, this quotation pulled at me, especially with the events of Haiti still unfolding, often violently:

"Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for Him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because He cannot be at home in it, because He is out of place in it, and yet He must be in it, His place is with those others for whom there is no room. His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, excommunicated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world."

-- Thomas Merton

"This demented inn" expresses our sinful, fallen, destroyed world all too well. But Grace has come, "uninvited," to knock at each heart's door, seeking those to worship Him, with no thought as to their station in life. Poor or rich, weak or strong, He extends to each a scarred hand, a palm forever marked with the cruelty of the human race whom He came to save.

To save now as well as then....