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When men live huddled together without true communication, there seems to be a greater sharing, and a more genuine communion. But this is not communion, only immersion in the general meaninglessness of countless slogans and clichés repeated over and over again so that in the end one listens without hearing and responds without thinking. The constant din of empty words and machine noises, the endless booming of loudspeakers end by making true communication and true communion almost impossible...
Thomas Merton New Seeds of Contemplation
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When men live huddled together without true communication, there seems to be a greater sharing, and a more genuine communion. But this is not communion, only immersion in the general meaninglessness of countless slogans and clichés repeated over and over again so that in the end one listens without hearing and responds without thinking. The constant din of empty words and machine noises, the endless booming of loudspeakers end by making true communication and true communion almost impossible...
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Thomas Merton

New Seeds of Contemplation

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People are always quick to call evil what they do not know. The unknown sprouts fear. It spreads like an infection, burrowing into every facet of their lives. They need a scapegoat, someone to blame. Fingers are pointed, accusations are made, and a target lands on somebody__ back. They grow angry. They turn violent.To history, human nature must be a stubborn and tiring student. No matter how many times history tries to show it the error of its ways, it never learns from its mistakes.

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In the use of force, one simplifies the situation by assuming that the evil to be overcome is clear-cut, definite, and irreversible. Hence there remains but one thing: to eliminate it. Any dialogue with the sinner, any question of the irreversibility of his act, only means faltering and failure. Failure to eliminate evil is itself a defeat. Anything that even remotely risks such defeat is in itself capitulation to evil. The irreversibility of evil then reaches out to contaminate even the tolerant thought of the hesitant crusader who, momentarily, doubts the total evil of the enemy he is about to eliminate. p. 21

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Despite the differences in detail and in emphasis in Wesley's exposition of the two sacraments, there is an underlying unity in his sacramental theology. He regarded both sacraments as means whereby God could confer grace according to His promise, but yet insisted, that in order to prevent the means from being mistaken as ends, it was necessary for there to be an appropriation of the grace held out by the faith of the believer. Grace was not conferred IN SPITE OF MAN, but only with his co-operation. So human response was necessary for the efficacy of the sacraments, although man's actions were never thought of as meritorious works.

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