"I am out of bed at two-fifteen in the morning, when the night is darkest and most silent...I find myself in the primordial lostness of night, solitude, forest, peace, a mind awake in the dark, looking for a light...A light appears, and in the light an ikon. There is now in the large darkess a small room of radiance with psalms in it. The psalms grow up silently by themselves without effort like plants in this light which is favorable to them. The plants hold themselves up on stems which have a single consistency, that of mercy, or rather great mercy. Magna Misericordia. In the formlessness of night and silence a word then pronounces itself: Mercy."

May we cling to the light of mercy that shows the faces of Christ and the Theotokos until dawn arrives.

-(Day of a Stranger, p.43,45; photo of Ikon from Merton's hermitage, p.42)

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"Teach me to go to this country beyond words and beyond names.

Teach me to pray on this side of the frontier, here where these woods are."

--Thomas Merton

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True contemplation is the locus quietus, “the place of true rest.” This is true contemplation, where God himself is experienced, passively, in rest and in deepest secrecy. It is above all an experience of God’s mercy. This is necessary, in view of what has gone before. If one saw the justice of God and did not experience that mercy overcame justice, one could hardly rest in God. Furthermore it is a place of security, in a mercy which is not fickle and unstable but endures forever. It is an awareness of God’s will, as it were, pressing down on us with his mercy so that we are truly his and cannot doubt of it. Here God is seen in peace and quiet, because he himself brings peace and quiet to our souls. He pours into our hearts peace, confidence, assurance, love. He pacifies all curiosity, all striving of the mind, all strain, all agitation of the interior and exterior senses. “The tranquility of God tranquilizes all about him, and the contemplation of his rest is rest to the soul.” So great is the power of God over the soul here that there are no longer any distractions, no desires, no anxieties, no cares. This then is the cubiculum [bedchamber]—the place of true peace. But unfortunately one does not remain there for long: All too rare that privilege, alas! And all too short-lived!
-A course in Christian mysticism : thirteen sessions with the famous Trappist monk Thomas Merton / edited by Jon M. Sweeney.

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