Saintly Wisdom

For your Lenten Wednesday: a couple of Thomas Merton quotes from The Seven Storey Mountain that have really resonated with me recently:

Souls are like athletes, that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers, and rewarded according to their capacity. And my father was in a fight with this tumor, and none of us understood the battle. We thought he was done for, but it was making him great.

and:

Providence, that is the love of God, is very wise in turning away from the self-will of men, and in having nothing to do with them, and leaving them to their own devices, as long as they are intent on governing themselves, to show them to what depths of futility and sorrow their own helplessness is capable of dragging them.

I recognize myself in these quotes, particularly in these days of ongoing, pinprick difficulties–the kind that are so much harder to weather than the big stuff. Do you?

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