No one can find God without having first been found by Him. A monk is a man who seeks God because he has been found by God.

Thomas Merton
No one can find God without having first been found...
No one can find God without having first been found...
No one can find God without having first been found...
No one can find God without having first been found...
About This Quote

A monk is a man who seeks God because he has been found by God. This line is taken from the opening chapter of the Gospel of Luke and it is part of a short narrative describing the ministry of Jesus. The story begins with a meeting between Jesus and a Pharisee named Zaccheus, which ends with the man falling at Jesus’ feet in worship. The story then continues with Zaccheus making a promise to give half of his possessions to the poor if only he could see Jesus before he dies.

At this point, some people might think that Zaccheus had become a believer and that he had found God, but that is not what the passage means. Instead, it is what Christ meant. He said that Zaccheus was found by God and led to become a Buddhist monk — you know — the kind of monk we often hear about today but don’t really know much about.

He is someone who gives up all worldly things and takes up monastic life as a way to seek god. That’s all this passage means. It does not say that Zaccheus became Christian or ever would become Christian; rather, it says he became a Buddhist monk.

That’s all that can be inferred from this passage.

Source: The Silent Life

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