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Merton Monday, the second Monday of every month on Sinden.org, features an excerpt from the writing of Thomas Merton:

Praise is cheap today. Everything is praised. Soap, beer, toothpaste, clothing, mouthwash, movie stars, all the latest gadgets which are supposed to make life more comfortable--everything is contantly being "praised." Praise is now so overdone that everybody is sick of it . . .

Are there no superlatives left for God? They have all been wasted on foods and quack medicines. There is no word left to express our adoration of Him who alone is Holy, who alone is Lord.

So we go to Him and ask help and to get out of being punished, and to mumble that we need a better job, more money, more of the things that are praised by the advertisements. And we wonder why our prayer is so often dead--gaining its only life, borrowing its only urgency from the fact that we need these things so badly.

Merton, Thomas. Praying the Psalms, Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1956.

Labels: praise, prayer, Psalms, Thomas Merton