Courage Reset and Seeing in a New LightSeptember 28, 2026

Courage Reset and Seeing in a New Light
Thomas Merton and Henry Nouwen

As I navigate the challenges of living today, I continue to reflect daily on these two quotes. They keep helping me return to my heart and let God speak and direct me. I hope they do the same for you.

Some of us need to discover that we will not begin to live more fully until we have the courage to do and taste and experience much less than usual. There are times when in order to keep ourselves in existence at all we simply have to sit back for a while and do nothing. And for the person who has let themselves be drawn completely out of themselves by their activity, nothing is more difficult than to sit and rest, do nothing at all. The very act of resting is the hardest and most courageous act a person can perform. (Thomas Merton)

When Christian Community provides sacred space and times for discernment, we will gradually be lifted up into God's dwelling place and come to see ourselves, our neighbors, and our world in a new light. This “seeing” does not require intellectual knowledge, articulated insight, or a concrete opinion. No, it is a sharing in the in the knowledge of God's heart, a deeper wisdom, a new way of living and loving. (Henry J.M. Nouwen)

For as the Little Prince says: it is only with the heart that we see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.

May we all find the courage to listen to and live from our hearts.

Sister Ann Winters