The Unquiet City
I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world… I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world… They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. —Jesus (The Gospel of John, chapter 17)
Tonight I was reading Thomas Merton. I never read Merton without profit. He is undoubtedly the greatest of the modern Christian mystics. He is one of the wise ones. We should listen to him.
Anyway…
While reading from New Seeds of Contemplation I came across this little gem in the chapter entitled “A Body of Broken Bones”…
What is the “world” that Christ would not pray for, and of which He said that His disciples were in it but not of it? The world is the unquiet city of those who live for themselves and are therefore divided against one another in a struggle that cannot end, for it will go on eternally in hell. It is the city of those who are fighting for possession of limited things and for the monopoly of goods and pleasures that cannot be shared by all. There is only one true flight from the world; it is not an escape from conflict, anguish and suffering, but the flight from disunity and separation, to unity and peace in the love of other men.
I don’t know about you, but I still need to be saved.
I need to be saved from the unquiet city.
Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.
BZ
(The artwork is Holiness by Linda Nardelli.)