“The monastery is neither a museum nor an asylum…

“The monastery is neither a museum nor an asylum. The monk remains in the world from which the monk has fled, and the monk remains a potent, though hidden, force in that world. Beyond all the works which may accidentally attach themselves to the vocation, the monk acts on the world simply by being a monk. The presence of contemplatives is, to the world, what the presence of yeast is to dough … if the monk stands, in some sense, above the divisions of human society, that does not mean the monk has no place in the history of nations. The monk has always been, and always will be, by the vocation, sympathetic to any social and cultural movement that favors the growth of the human spirit.”

—Thomas Merton, “The Silent Life” (via Dr. Calvin Mercer’s Monastic Project)“The monastery is neither a museum nor an asylum. The monk remains in the world from which the monk has fled, and the monk remains a potent, though hidden, force in that world. Beyond all the works which may accidentally attach themselves to the vocation, the monk acts on the world simply by being a monk. The presence of contemplatives is, to the world, what the presence of yeast is to dough … if the monk stands, in some sense, above the divisions of human society, that does not mean the monk has no place in the history of nations. The monk has always been, and always will be, by the vocation, sympathetic to any social and cultural movement that favors the growth of the human spirit.”

—Thomas Merton, “The Silent Life” (via Dr. Calvin Mercer’s Monastic Project)