I read this Thomas Merton quote tonight in a post by my campus
chaplain about authenticity and
being who you are, regardless of what the status quo demands of you. Particularly as that relates to clergy. This rest of the post is
here, and I highly recommend you check it out.
Christ was considered a sinner. He was put to death as a blasphemer, as one who at least implicitly denied God, as one who revolted against the holiness of God. Indeed, the great question in the trial and condemnation of Christ was precisely the denial of God and the denial of His holiness. So God Himself was put to death on the cross because He did not measure up to man’s conception of His holiness…he was not holy enough. He was not holy in the right way, He was not holy in the way they had been led to expect….In dying on the Cross, Christ manifested the holiness of God in apparent contradiction with itself. But in reality this manifestation was the complete denial and rejection of all human ideas of holiness and perfection. If, then, we want to seek some way of being holy…we must live by the strength of an apparent emptiness that is always truly empty and yet never fails to support us at every moment.
Amazing.
