As if saving my soul were nothing more than learning how to live with myself in peace

" The disastrous misunderstanding: When a Christian imagines that “saving his soul” consists simply in getting himself together, avoiding those sins which disrupt his inner unity by shame, and keeping himself in one piece by self-approval. As if saving my soul were nothing more than learning how to live with myself in peace! Why is this disastrous? Because the worst evils may well have no disruptive effect on one’s psyche. One may be able to commit them and live in perfect peace. Society can offer plenty of help, in quieting one’s conscience, in providing full protection against interior disruption! A great deal of psychotherapy consists precisely in this, and nothing more."  Thomas Merton,  Conjectures of A Guilty Bystander.

 

“In our time, faith is under attack not so much by militant atheism as by the belief that it is possible to live out a mediocre and decent life without too much effort or very many tensions”. Rocco Buttiglione, page 242 in “Karol Wojtyla: The Thought of the Man Who Became Pope John Paul II”

 

Two quotes on the same subject--living as a Christian brooks no mediocrity.