Thomas Merton Comment

---- Forwarded Message ----
From: William J ...
To: Donald ...
Sent: Sun, 13 June, 2010 20:07:43
Subject: Thomas Merton - Comment(ary) on Galatians 2:20

Dear Father Donald,

The reading from Galatians today aways haunts me. This evening I have been reading a book on Thomas Merton's Christology, and came upon a disarming 'commentary' - on the very sentence....

To "receive" the word of the Cross means much more than simple assent to the dogmatic proposition that Christ died for our sins. It means to be "nailed to the Cross with Christ", so that the ego-self is no longer the principle of our deepest actions, which now proceed from Christ living in us. "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me".... To receive the word of the Cross means the acceptance of a complete self-emptying in union with the self-emptying of Christ...

In the joy of sharing a moment of illumination,

... in Our Lord,

William

Galatians 2:16, 19-21.

We found out that it is through faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law, that a man is justified. We, like anyone else, had to learn to believe in Jesus Christ, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, not by observance of the law. Observance of the law cannot win acceptance for a single human creature. …
Through the law, my old self has become dead to the law, so that I may live to God; with Christ I hang upon the cross, and yet I am alive; or rather, not I; it is Christ that lives in me. True, I am living, here and now, this mortal life; but my real life is the faith I have in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not spurn the grace of God. If we can be justified through the law, then Christ's death was needless.

Ronald Knox Bible (you’ version)