σκάνδαλο

Nothing is more disillusioning than persons of limited and mediocre humanity, less than mature, incapable of love for others, narrow, impoverished, lacking in imagination and even in common sense, who have been taught that they are somehow quite extraordinary beings and that their very limitations are signs that they are in the mystical way. Established firmly in complacency and illusion by this error, they remain as a scandal and a portent to those...with real potential for the life of prayer.

- Thomas Merton, Contemplation In A World Of Action (CIWA)