My cousin, the daughter of a pastor and volunteer human rights worker (and someone I greatly admire) posted these on her Facebook today and I thought they would be interesting to share with all of you.

"One who has meditated on the Passion of Christ but has not meditated on the extermination camps of Dachau and Auschwitz has not yet fully entered into the experience of Christianity in our time."
-Thomas Merton

"Accordingly, there are many actions which people do not approve but which are attested by you to be right; and there are many actions praised by mankind which on your testimony are to be censured. Frequently the overt act has one face, the intention of the person doing it has quite another, and the critical circumstances of the moment cannot be known to us. But when you suddenly issue a command which departs from customary expectation, even though at one time you forbade the doing of any such act, though for a time you conceal the reason for your authoritative verdict, and though it may go against the agreed customs of a given human society, who would hesitate to say that your command is to be kept? A just human society is one which submits to you. But happy are those who know that you are the source of moral precepts. All the acts of your servants are done either to show what present need requires or to prefigure the future."
-St. Augustine

"This last quote is Augustine's defense of (e.g.) Samson's suicide or the sacrifice of Isaac or the fate of Jephthah's daughter is that seemingly unethical acts contain prophecy."-- My cousin