The Roots Of Psychopathy In The Church (Part 1)

A considerable amount of uneasiness and ambivalence in the monastic life today is due perhaps to the fact that although we possess clear conceptual formulas to explain what our contemplative life's all about, and though those formulas may well accord with what we would like to do, it seems they do not help much with what we are actually doing.

Thus, though we may be fairly clear about what we want to do, we are so confused about the way to do it that our ends become almost entirely theoretical, and our energies become involved in a rather different form of life from the one we claim to be living.

- Thomas Merton, Contemplation In A World Of Action