Resolve to Live in Christ

On a cold morning in Advent, reading by lamplight in his hermitage, the American monk and writer Thomas Merton absorbed a “word for his salvation” from Symeon the New Theologian’s (Catechism): “Resolve to die rather than abandon this life-giving search.” Merton noted that Symeon had cut to the chase: “A man of burning words indeed. In the comfort of the monastery it is easier to neglect him as an extremist.” Yes an extremist, Symeon shocks a lukewarm heart: “To have no thought of oneself for any earthly end, but to have one’s whole mind centered on Christ.” In an essay “The Good News of the Nativity” Merton preached Advent as a season for repenting indecisiveness as we serve two masters: “The decision to accept Christ as the revelation of God’s plan for the world is an inexorable renunciation of any attempt to live on two levels at once: ...