Excerpts used 6/30/13 Spiritual Practices Class

From Thomas Merton Book of Hours edited by Kathleen Deignan.
Read before Centering Prayer
pg 182 Opening Verse
The four roads make off in silence towards the four parts of the starry universe.  Time falls like manna at the corners of the earth.  We have become more humble than the rocks, more wakeful than the patient hills.

Pg 183 Psalm
Here is how I sum it up:
Heaven does nothing: its non-doing is its serenity.  Earth does nothing: its non-doing is its rest.  From the union of these two non-doings all actions proceed, all things are made, how vast, how invisible this coming-to-be!

Read after Centering Prayer

pg 224 from Holy Longing by Ronald Rolheiser

He was hated, but he hated no one; he was met by anger, but he did not respond in anger; and he was killed by jealousy, but he was jealous of and hurt no one.  He was on the receiving end of murderous anger, jealousy, and hatred, but he never passed them on to others.  Instead he carried hatred, anger, jealousy, and wound long enough until he was able to transform them into forgiveness, compassion, and love.