Thomas Merton, from A Silent Action: Engagements with Thomas Merton, by Rowan Williams. Fons Vitae 2011.
I can no longer see the ultimate meaning of a man’s life in terms of either “being a poet” or “being contemplative” or even in a certain sense “being a saint,” (although that is the only thing to be). It must be something much more immediate than that. I – and every other person in the world– must say “I have my own special peculiar destiny which no one else has had or ever will have. There exists for me a particular goal, a fulfillment which must be all my own – nobody else’s– and it does not really identify that destiny to put it under some category – “poet,” “monk,” “hermit.” Because my own individual destiny is a meeting, an encounter with God that He has destined for me alone. His glory in me will be to receive from me something which He can never receive from anyone else.
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God will receive something from me which God can never receive from anyone else. This is an invitation and a responsibility to be entirely myself in the way I was created to be. I pray to grow into the encounter with God that is destined for me alone, going beyond all the labels that might hold me back and limit my sense of possibility.
God gives. God receives. Blessed be God.
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