I Needed Prayer

"All I knew was that I wanted grace, and that I needed prayer, and that I was helpless without God, and that I wanted to do everything that people did to keep close to Him."

--Thomas Merton, from his autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain

This entry was posted by Richard Beck. Bookmark the permalink.

3 thoughts on “I Needed Prayer”

  1. Merton was a remarkable child of God. Not only is his conversion to Christ a spell binding story, but his growth until his death is one that should be an example for us all. I have most of his books, and I keep them in the order that he wrote them so I can experience his life journey as I read them. I'll be totally honest, after reading Merton, much of what I read afterward by Evangelicals is, for me, two dimensional. Whereas Merton's complexity made his spirituality, his humility and his growth a wonder to behold. His desire for, and the giving, of grace and compassion consumed his life, and he never rested in his experiences, but continually yearned for them in a higher, heavenly degree.

  2. I agree with all that John says about Merton; he is definitely one of those writers that you read over and over again, and I could only wish to have more of his library close at hand. Not to be missed, along with his poetry, is his correspondence. Look him up on Amazon to see how many collections of his correspondence with particular people have been published, along with the three volumes of his letters that have been collected around general topics. I read the one entitled *The School of Charity* a number of years ago, and found it profoundly rewarding.

  3. I too am a life long reader and companion of Merton. This quote stands out as an "early" Merton quote. It's true in its simplicity and need, and Merton never left that part of himself, but his language changed as he "aged" in his monastic vocation. It became much more nuanced and he was able to express incredibly deep and complex human truths.

Leave a Reply