Until We Love God Perfectly: A Commentary

Until we love God perfectly, everything in the world will be able to hurt us. – Thomas Merton





I never knew Thomas Merton until a few months ago, but when I opened Silence, Joy he instantly became one of my favorite writers. Silence, Joy is a collection of small essays and poems that deal with reflecting on our relationship with God. Merton wants us to stop what we’re doing and look at what God’s doing in the same way that a son would stop to watch his father in order to understand a task. For him, God encompasses everything and our relationships with objects and people ultimately reflect our relationship with God.



In Silence, Joy I was struck by this one line of Merton’s because of how much it applies to me.

“Until we love God perfectly, everything in the world will be able to hurt us”.

My first thought was that wholeheartedly would have been a better word than perfectly. My second thought, and the next fifty after that were scenes from times I had allowed my self to be hurt in my own life. I, along with countless others throughout history, have contributed to a grave misconception about the function of hurt and, beyond that, the function of justice. Almost every time I’ve been hurt in my life my mind immediately seeks after justice without taking the time to understand what justice is, particularly in a Godly sense. The crucifixion of Jesus sums up what the function of justice should be for the Christian person…