Serenity

That word "serenity" looked like an impossible goal when I first saw the prayer. In fact, if serenity meant apathy, bitter resignation, or stolid endurance, then I didn't even want to aim at it. But I found that serenity meant no such thing. . . Serenity is like a gyroscope that lets me keep my balance no matter what turbulence swirls around me. And that is a state of mind worth aiming for. Serenity isn't freedom from the storm; it is peace within the storm.

A Virtuous Life

St. Thomas says [I-II, Q.34,a.4) that a man is good when his will takes joy in what is good, evil when his will takes joy in what is evil.
He is virtuous when he finds happiness in a virtuous life, sinful when he takes pleasure in a sinful life.
Hence the things that we love tell us what we are.
A man is known, then, by his end.
He is also known by his beginning.
And if you wish to know him as he is at any given moment, find how far he is from his beginning and how near to his end.
-- Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

The good man comes from God and returns to Him.
He starts with the gift of being and with the capacities God has given him.
He reaches the age of reason and begins to make choices.
-- Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude