Lent 2026 Guide-DIGITAL - Flipbook - Page 14
Devotion 3
Inspiration
The race question cannot be settled without a profound change of heart,
a real shake-up and deep reaching metanoia [Greek for repentance or
change of mind] on the part of White America. It is not just question of a
little more good will and generosity: it is a question of waking up to crying
injustices and deep-seated problems which are ingrained in the present
setup and which, instead of getting better, are going to get worse.
The purpose of non-violent protest, in its deepest and most spiritual
dimensions is then to awaken the conscience of the white people to the
awful reality of their injustice and of their sin, so that they will be able
to see that the Negro problem is really a White problem: that the cancer
of injustice and hate which is eating white society and is only partly
manifested in racial segregation with all its consequences, is rooted in the
heart of the white people themselves.
When a system can, without resort to overt force, compel people to live in
conditions of abjection, helplessness, wretchedness ... it is plainly violent.
To make people live on a subhuman level against their will, to constrain
them in such a way that they have no hope of escaping their condition,
is an unjust exercise of force. Those who in some way or other concur in
the oppression – and perhaps profit by it – are exercising violence even
though they may be preaching pacifism. And their supposedly peaceful
laws, which maintain this spurious kind of order, are in fact instruments of
violence and oppression.
Growth, survival and even salvation may depend on the ability to sacrifice
what is fictitious and unauthentic in the construction of one’s moral,
religious or national identity. One must then enter upon a different creative
task of reconstruction and renewal. This task can be carried out only in
the climate of faith, of hope and of love: these three must be present in
some form, even if they amount only to a natural belief in the validity and
significance of human choice, a decision to invest human life with some
shadow of meaning, a willingness to treat other people as other selves.
– Thomas Merton, “Seeds of Destruction”
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