“One might compare the journey of the soul to mystical union, by way of pure faith, to the journey of a car on a dark highway.”
Source: The Ascent to Truth (1951), Ch. X : Reason in the Life of Contemplation, p. 114.
Context: One might compare the journey of the soul to mystical union, by way of pure faith, to the journey of a car on a dark highway. The only way the driver can keep to the road is by using his headlights. So in the mystical life, reason has its function. The way of faith is necessarily obscure. We drive by night. Nevertheless our reason penetrates the darkness enough to show us a little of the road ahead. It is by the light of reason that we interpret the signposts and make out the landmarks along our way.
Those who misunderstand Saint John of the Cross imagine that the way of nada is like driving by night, without any headlights whatever. This is a dangerous misunderstanding of the saint's doctrine.
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Thomas Merton 92
Priest and author 1915–1968Related quotes
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"On Going on a Journey"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)
A Tree Telling of Orpheus (1968)
Context: He told of journeys,
of where sun and moon go while we stand in dark,
of an earth-journey he dreamed he would take some day
deeper than roots...
He told of the dreams of man, wars, passions, griefs,
and I, a tree, understood words – ah, it seemed
my thick bark would split like a sapling's that
grew too fast in the spring
when a late frost wounds it.
[The mysteries within: a surgeon explores myth, medicine, and the human body, Simon & Schuster, 2001, 18, https://books.google.com/books?id=uSBaTVMTYvIC&pg=18]
The Mysteries Within (2000)