Living the Christian Life

I have been reading a book by a Trappist Monk named Thomas Merton (1915-1968) and want to share some of things he says in this book called New Seeds Of Contemplation.   I do not agree with him on many points.  However, he gets the Gospel.

The beginning of the fight against hatred, the basic Christian answer to hatred, is not the commandment to love, but what must necessarily come before in order to make the commandment bearable and comperhensible.  It is a prior commandment to believe.  The root of Christian love is not the will to love, but the faith that one is loved.  The faith that one is loved by God.   That faith that one is loved by God althougth unworthy–or, rather, irrespective of one’s worth.    p.76-77

For Christianity is not merely a doctrine or a system of beliefs, it is Christ living in us and uniting men to one another in His own Life and unity.  “I in them, and Thou, Father, in Me, that they may be made perfect in One…. And the glory which Thou hast given me I have given them, that they may be One as we also are One.”   In hoc congnoscent omnes quia mei estis discipuli, si dilectionem habueritis ad invicem.  “In this shall all men know that you are my disciples–if you have love for one another.”  “He that loveth not abideth in death.”  p. 78