•“The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” (Exodus 34:6)
•Blessed are you who look into the depths. (Daniel 3:55)
•The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. (2 Corinthians 13:13)
•God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. (John 3:16)

 

•In your life who has always treated you with kindness and faithfulness?
•If you were able to look past the superficiality that is the world and peer into the depth that is your being what would you find residing in that place?
•What is the only way out of the inherent conflict that is the world? How did you find this way?

When I consent to the will and mercy of God as it comes to me in the events of life appealing to my inner self and awakening my faith, I break through the superficial exterior appearances that forms my routine vision of the world and my own self, and I find myself in the presence of hidden majesty. It may appear to me that this majesty and presence is something objective, “outside myself.”…Yet this is a majesty that we do not see with our eyes and it is within ourselves. It is the mission of the Word and Spirit, from the Father, in the depths of my own being. It is a majesty communicated to us, shared with us, so that our whole being is filled with the gift of glory and responds with adoration.<sup>1



1</sup>Merton, Thomas, New Seeds of Contemplation, New Directions: New York, 1961, p. 41,42.