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Quotes About Grace

Why should anyone be shattered by the thought of hell? It is not compulsory for anyone to go there. Those who do, do so by their own choice, and against the will of God, and they can only get into hell by defying and resisting all the work of Providence and grace. It is their own will that takes them there, not God's.
~ Thomas Merton
It is only when we have lost all love of our selves for our own sakes that our past sins cease to give us any cause for suffering or for the anguish of shame. For the saints, when they remember their sins, do not remember the sins but the mercy of God, and therefore even past evil is turned by them into a present cause of joy and serves to glorify God.
~ Thomas Merton
Once you have grace, I said to him, you are free. Without it, you cannot help doing the things you know you should not do, and that you know you don't really want to do.
~ Thomas Merton
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows, not by clarity and substance but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.
~ Thomas Merton
We have found Him, He has found us. We are in Him, He is in us. There is nothing further to look for except for the deepening of this life we already possess. Be content.
~ Thomas Merton
I am seen by You under the sky, and my offenses have been forgotten by You--but I have not forgotten them.
~ Thomas Merton
look for Him unless we have already found Him, and we cannot find Him unless he has first found us. We cannot begin to seek Him without a special gift of His grace, yet if we wait for grace to move us, before beginning to seek Him will probably never begin.
~ Thomas Merton
To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us—and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace
~ Thomas Merton
Self-will…is not identical to the will of the new creation—to the will which one finds in renouncing oneself, in the unity of the Body of Christ, wherein the canons of the Church make us recognize a common and individual will. Not the properties of an individual nature, but the unique relationship of each being with God—a relationship by the Holy Spirit and realized in grace—is what constitutes the uniqueness of a human person."8
~ Thomas Merton
It takes heroic charity and humility to let others sustain us when we are absolutely incapable of sustaining ourselves.
~ Thomas Merton
Less and less conscious of themselves, they finally cease to be aware of themselves doing things, and gradually God begins to do all that they do, in them and for them, at least in the sense that the habit of His love has become second nature to them and informs all that they do with His likeness.
~ Thomas Merton
God does not give us graces or talents or virtues for ourselves alone. We are members one of another and everything that is given to one member is given for the whole body. I do not wash my feet to make them more beautiful than my face.
~ Thomas Merton
He is most glorified by those in whom His mercy has produced the greatest love.
~ Thomas Merton
instead of becoming a strong and ardent and generous Catholic, I simply slipped into the ranks of the millions of tepid and dull and sluggish and indifferent Christians who live a life that is still half animal, and who barely put up a struggle to keep the breath of grace alive in their souls.
~ Thomas Merton
We do not really know how to forgive until we know what it is to be forgiven. Therefore we should be glad that we can be forgiven by our brothers. It is our forgiveness of one another that makes the love of Jesus for us manifest in our lives, for in forgiving one another we act towards one another as He has acted towards us.
~ Thomas Merton
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten qSon, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
~ Thomas Nelson Publishers
They lived for different futures, but they were each other's unrecognized halves, and what fascination between them did come to pass was lit up, beyond question, with grace.
~ Thomas Pynchon
Pluto is in my sign now, held tight in its claws. It moves so slowly and so far away...but it will burst out. It is the grim phoenix which creates its own holocaust...deliberate resurrection. Staged. Under control. No grace, no interventions by God.
~ Thomas Pynchon
They fly toward grace.
~ Thomas Pynchon
Yes, madam, it was all left to me. Oh, she did look sweet. I did her hair, soft-like, round her forehead, all in dainty
~ Katherine Mansfield
For learning to live happily even after, finding a way to forgive the unforgivable, and to move forward in life graciously with hope in our hearts and goodwill in our gestures and in our words, may very well be the essence of what it is to truly love each other.
~ Katherine Woodward Thomas
I believe this son represents those of us who are "Pharisees" in our hearts. We keep all the rules, we do everything required of us, and we are faithful and loyal believers. But we lack what our Father cares about most: love, compassion, mercy, grace, and forgiveness.
~ Kathie Lee Gifford
When we live in grace, it becomes clear that every life is precious and deserving of our protection, our love, and our relationship.
~ KATHLEEN A. BREHONY
When we open our hearts to each other we allow grace to enter. It is as simple as that. And suffering--events that break open the heart--can become the refiner's fire that leaves us fully open to the truth about love and compassion.
~ KATHLEEN A. BREHONY