If You Yourself Are At Peace, Then

To Those Who Have No Personal Experience Of This Revolutionary Aspect Of Christian Truth, But Who See Only The Outer Crust Of Dead, Human Conservatism That Tends To Form Around The Church The Way Barnacles Gather On The Hull Of A Ship, All This Talk About Dynamism Sounds Foolish.

Our Knowledge Of God Is Perfected By Gratiitude: We Are Thankful And Rejoice In The Experience Of The Truth That He Is Love.

A Daydream Is An Evasion.

The Logic Of Worldly Success Rests On A Fallacy: The Strange Error That Our Perfection Depends On The Thoughts And Opinions And Applause Of Other Men! A Weird Life It Is, Indeed, To Be Living Always In Somebody Else's Imagination, As If That Were The Only Place In Which One Could At Last Become Real!

In General, It Can Be Said That No Contemplative Life Is Possible Without Ascetic Self-discipline. One Must Learn To Survive Without The Habit-forming Luxuries Which Get Such A Hold On Men Today. I Do Not Say That To Be A Contemplative One Absolutely Has To Go Without Smoking Or Without Alcohol, But Certainly One Must Be Able To Use These Things Without Being Dominated By An Uncontrolled Need For Them.