Christ Comes Uninvited

While being interviewed by Krista Tippett for the On Being podcast, actor and activist Martin Sheen shared his favorite passage from Trappist monk and author Thomas Merton… words that I’ve not been able to get out of my head since I first listened. I share them with the Daily Theology community so they might serve as a spark for prayer and reflection during this holy season.

Into this world, this demented inn, 

in which there is absolutely no room for Him at all, 

Christ has come uninvited. 

But because He cannot be at home in it, 

because He is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, 

His place is with those others for whom there is no room. 

His place is with those who do not belong, 

who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, 

those who are discredited, 

who are denied the status of persons, tortured, excommunicated. 

With those for whom there is no room, 

Christ is present in this world.

                                        ~ Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable