From Thomas Merton, the 20th century Trappist monk who wrote The Seven Storey Mountain.
The monk does not come to the monastery to ‘get’ something which the ordinary Christian cannot have. On the contrary, he comes there in order realize and to appreciate all that any good Christian already has. He comes to live his Christian life, and thus to appreciate to the full his heritage as a son of God. He comes in order that he might see and understand that he already possesses everything.†
† Thomas Merton in Common Prayer: a Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne, et al. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 61.
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