Quotes about Contemplation

To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance into a higher life. It is a death for the sake of life, which leaves behind all that we can know or treasure as life, as thought, as experience, as joy, as being.

The function of a university is to teach a [person] how to drink tea, not because anything is important, but because it is usual to drink tea, or for that matter anything else under the sun. And whatever you do, every act, however small, can teach you everything, provided you see who is acting." ? Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton On Prayer

Let there always be quiet, dark churches in which men can take refuge.

Even the desire of contemplation can be impure, when we forget that true contemplation means the complete destruction of all selfishness—the most pure poverty and cleanness of heart.

Gerçek anlamda derin düÅŸünme; psikolojik bir hile deÄŸil, teolojik bir lütuftur.

The very first step to a correct understanding of the Christian theology of contemplation is to grasp clearly the unity of God and man in Christ, which of course presupposes the equally crucial unity of man in himself.

your eyes must turn, again and again, to the House that hides the Sacramental Christ!

Contemplation does not arrive at reality after a process of deduction, but by an intuitive awakening in which our free and personal reality becomes fully alive to its own existential depths, which open out into the mystery of God. For

Meditation for them consisted in making the words of the Bible their own by memorizing them and repeating them, with deep and simple concentration, "from the heart." Therefore the "heart" comes to play a central role in this primitive form of monastic prayer.

it is much better to desire God without being able to think clearly of Him, than to have marvelous thoughts about Him without desiring to enter into union with His will.

In Silence, God ceases to be an object and becomes an experience.

The Christian solitary does not seek solitude merely as an atmosphere or as a setting for a special and exalted spirituality. Not doesn't he seek solitude as a favorable means for obtaining something he wants--contemplation. He seeks solitude as an expression of his total gift of himself to God.