Reading Journals

"That God should have time for you, you seem to take as much for granted as that you cannot have time for God." -- Dag Hammarskjold, Markings.

Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk and famed spiritual author, filled 70 "reading journals" with notes and commentaries on the books he read throughout his life time, as careful a reader as he was a writer. (The Intimate Merton: His Life from His Journals)

Though I have only two such reading journals, one very fat and one very thin, they continue to nourish my spiritual life as I daily find, and add to, some quote to ponder.

I came across the above quotation from Dag Hammarskjold this evening while preparing to meditate and felt as if I'd been dealt a hammer blow. I'd copied that quote years ago, and though it impressed me then, tonight's reading propelled me to my knees.

What immense, divine humility that God -- the "I AM" of all creation -- should be always at our disposal while we, filled with insane hubris, spend but a few moments of our day, if at all, with this ineffable presence in return.

Photo of the Holy House of Loretto at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Washington New Jersey.