The New Man

by Thomas Merton

Publisher:

Burns and Oates

, 1976

Overview

In The New Man, Thomas Merton addresses the challenge of living a Christian life in a world that is as increasingly out of touch with real humanity as it is out of touch with God. Merton argues that it “is a spiritual disaster for a man to rest content with his exterior identity.” Merton shares that as our true identity is defined in Christ we must find and define ourselves in the divine image. The New Man is both a powerful meditation on Christian renewal and an insightful analysis of the loneliness that lies within the alternatives to God pursued by people today.

Contents

Top Highlights

“LIFE and death are at war within us. As soon as we are born, we begin at the same time to live and die.” (Page 1)

“The Christian hope that is ‘not seen’ is a communion in the agony of Christ. It is the identification of our own agonia with the agonia of the God Who has emptied Himself and become obedient unto death. It is the acceptance of life in the midst of death, not because we have courage, or light, or wisdom to accept, but because by some miracle the God of Life Himself accepts to live, in us, at the very moment when we descend into death.” (Pages 2–3)

“Our love is a need, His a gift. We need to see good in ourselves in order to love ourselves. He does not. He loves us not because we are good, but because He is. But as long as we worship a God who is only a projection of ourselves, we fear a tremendous and insatiable power who needs to see goodness in us and who, for all the infinite clarity of His vision, finds nothing but evil, and therefore insists upon revenge.” (Page 68)

“not passion but the sobriety that sublimates all passion and elevates it to the clear inebriation of mysticism” (Page 5)

“In a certain sense, that is true. To find life we must die to life as we know it” (Page 6)

Product Details

• Title: The New Man
• Author: Thomas Merton
• Publisher: Burns and Oates
• Print Publication Date: 1976
• Logos Release Date: 2015
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Christianity; Spiritual life
• ISBNs: 0860123448, 9780860123446
• Resource ID: LLS:NEWMAN
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-25T20:26:14Z

About Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton, O.C.S.O. (January 31, 1915 – December 10, 1968) was a 20th century Anglo-American Catholic writer. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist and student of comparative religion. In 1949, he was ordained to the priesthood and given the name Father Louis.