Thomas Merton, an American Catholic monk, has been described as “arguably the most influential American Catholic author of the twentieth century”.

A quotation attributed to him is, “Truth: know it, love it, live by it.”

This saying has always bothered me.

For all his respect as a mystic and an intellectual, Thomas Merton seems to have got it back to front.

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In real life, surely must seek truth by first living by it — then loving it and, eventually, hopefully, coming to know it.

Who says so?

Jesus Christ himself said so, and he said so more than once.

Gospel of Matthew: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Every one therefore who hears these words of mine and does them, he shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock.”

Gospel of John: “If any man does the will of God; he shall know of the doctrine . . . Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keeps the law?”

Yes he meant the Ten Commandments of Moses: Love God, obey your parents, do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not covet anybody else’s things. And so on.

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The purpose of human life, if it has a purpose, is to love God, and to enter into union with him.

This has to involve giving God one’s will — obeying him, in other words.

That has to come first.

God’s laws are not fashionable at present. They have never been easy.

But there is no other way.