The number one trusted online resource for Catholic values
Menu
A+ A A-

Thy Will Be Done

  • THOMAS MERTON

The essential form of prayer is: "Thy will be done." 


monkfieldBy prayer we share in the will divine, but also, as Riviere profoundly notes, the will divine weds ours.  It comes home to us with its light and its efficacy.  We leave off being a resistance to become a collaboration. 

There is a point in Creation where God is freely, willingly, and consciously accepted.  We conclude an agreement with what is best and consequently with what is best for us as well.  By desiring good, we allow him on this point to realize the best.  We benefit by all the benign cooperations which our appeal to God, our direct movement towards God, permits us to fix around us and to canalize. 

We constitute the mighty kernel of a harmony: "as the Creator, so the Conductor" (Saint Gregory); "as it were, the great Symphony of an Ineffable Composer" (Saint Augustine).  Prayer is the sovereign unfolding of our liberty.

This is Meaghen Gonzalez, Editor of CERC. I hope you appreciated this piece. We curate these articles especially for believers like you.

Please show your appreciation by making a $3 donation. CERC is entirely reader supported.

dividertop

Acknowledgement

merton Father Thomas Merton "Thy Will Be Done."  from New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1961).

Copyright 1961 by The Abbey of Gethsemani, Inc. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

The Author

merton merton1Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was a Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky. He is the author of over 70 books including The Seven Storey Mountain, New Seeds of Contemplation, and Wisdom of the Desert.  

Copyright © 1961 The Abbey of Gethsemani, Inc.