Quotes from James Martin

Joy is often an outgrowth not simply of following our vocation in life, but of helping those in need and of loving one another. So joy is not a selfish thing to seek, but a selfless thing to find.

These paradoxes, these Whitmanesque multitudes, helped make Thomas Merton one of the protean figures of twentieth-century Catholicism. His open and honest 1948 memoir, The Seven Storey Mountain, which details his journey to the Trappist monastery, was a publishing phenomenon that even the savvy Merton was unable to foresee. It introduced contemplative prayer to millions of readers and heralded a postwar renewal in monastic life in the United States.

Pay attention to physical feelings as well. Recently, I chatted with Matt, a young Jesuit in training, who had just directed a retreat for a group of young adults and spoke with them about how to listen to God. In addition to feelings of peace and comfort, and even inexplicable and incommunicable feelings, Matt added bodily feelings, another indication of God's presence.

Here was a man, roughly my own age, who had struggled with the same things I did: pride, disappointment, confusion, doubt, sadness, loneliness.

For a rational, modern mind, talk of the supernatural can be disturbing—an embarrassment.

Humor can help churches humble. It puts the community in touch with its inevitable limitations as a human organization, and its fundamental reliance to God. That leads us to God through the gateway of humility.

Jesus must make decisions on his own, choices that probably seem confusing, and, in this case, offensive to those around him. This is often true of all of us when we make truly free decisions.

I got the idea that Merton was bright, funny, holy, and altogether unique. But there was something else about the show that drew me.

So, when I entered the Jesuits, at age twenty-seven, I did so with only an eleven-year-old's knowledge about the faith.

though I was by that point rather fond of Saint Jude, I was afraid of what my friends might say if they saw a strange plastic statue standing on my dresser. So Saint Jude was stuffed inside my sock drawer, and was brought out of the drawer only on special occasions.

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope."27

One day she accidentally ran over my rosary beads with the vacuum cleaner. When she pulled it out, it had lost three beads. When I came home from school I spied it on my bedpost and said, "Hey look what happened to my rosary beads!" Hoping to make me feel better, she said, "Well, look on the bright side. Now it won't take you so long to pray it!

specifically The Seven Storey Mountain and No Man Is An Island that led me to where I am today and helped me become the person I was meant to be.

As the African American theologian James Cone notes, "Far from being songs of passive resignation, the spirituals are black freedom songs which emphasize black liberation as consistent with divine revelation.

after the birth of her first child. It read: "Full of unexplainable love. And exhausted to the bone." Some things are difficult to describe, even for the most articulate, and sometimes the descriptions seem contradictory. It's hard to put big experiences into words.

Merton said many times that when it comes to spirituality, experience is the place to start.

Some of the best advice from Jesuits on human relationships comes in earthy ways. When John O'Malley was a Jesuit novice, an older priest told him three things to remember when living in community: First, you're not God. Second, this isn't heaven. Third, don't be an ass. Had I followed those guidelines earlier, I could have saved myself years of self-induced heartache.

His whole life was a quest for freedom—the freedom to be open to the wonderful reality that God has made, to God himself, to what is!

People are more than the worst thing they've ever done in their lives.

Desire is a primary way that God leads people to discover who they are and what they are meant to do.

In fact, respect, compassion, and sensitivity are undervalued gifts for dealing with conflict and disagreement in general, gifts that can be shared with the wider culture.

As David Lonsdale writes, we feel peace about a particular decision when it is "coherent with" God's desires for our happiness. Ignatius understood that God works through our deepest desires. When we are following that path to God, things seem right. Things feel in synch because they are in synch.

birth of her first child. It read: "Full of unexplainable love. And exhausted to the bone." Some things are difficult to describe, even for the most articulate, and sometimes the descriptions seem contradictory. It's hard to put big experiences into words.

Just because you've discerned doesn't mean that you shouldn't look to reality for some real-life confirmation. As one Jesuit said, "Trust your heart but use your head, too.