Quotes about Presence

As soon as you are really alone you are with God.

For although he is right with us and in and out of us and all through us, we have to go on journeys to find Him.

There must be a time of day when the man who makes plans forgets his plans, and acts as if he had no plans at all.

For the contemplative there is no cogito ("I think") and no ergo ("therefore") but only SUM, I AM. Not in the sense of a futile assertion of our individuality as ultimately real, but in the humble realization of our mysterious being as persons in whom God dwells, with infinite sweetness and inalienable power.

How I pray is breathe.

We do not know we are full of paradise because we are so full of our own noise that we cannot hear God singing us and all things into being.

One bird sits still Watching the work of God:

Nevertheless, every day love corners me somewhere and surrounds me with peace without my having to look very far or very hard or do anything special. God

Mere sitting at home and meditating on the divine presence is not enough for our time. We have to come to the end of a long journey and see that the stranger we meet there is no other than ourselves—which is the same as saying that we find Christ in him. For if the Lord is risen, as He said, He is actually or potentially alive in every man.

As soon as one is conscious of the presence of the Master, one must, in all passivity, abandon the work to Him.

Life is not attained by reasoning and analysis but first of all by living.

The function of a university is to teach a [person] how to drink tea, not because anything is important, but because it is usual to drink tea, or for that matter anything else under the sun. And whatever you do, every act, however small, can teach you everything, provided you see who is acting." ? Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton On Prayer