| Author Quoted | Catherine of Siena |
| Title Quoted | Dialogo breve sulla consumata perfezione / Saint Catherine of Siena ; ed. di Aldo Buonomini |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1965/08/11 |
| Imprint | Rome : Ars-Graf. 1961 |
| Quotation | "When you are serving others you are apt to be a hypocrite; but when you are serving heaven it is difficult to be a hypocrite." This is Suzuki paraphrasing a line of Chuang Tzu. It applies perfectly to the solitary life. However, I have been completing this kind of view with others, the clear, reasonable, logical yet mystical little tract of Catherine of Siena, Dialogo Breve sulla Consumata Perfezione (which actually comes to the same thing-seeking nothing but to do God's will in everything, to please Him alone, to be perfectly united to Him in love by the renunciation of our own will). And Anselm's rectitudo-stare in veritate [standing in the truth]. It all comes to the same, but the approach is different, and I am still strongly devoted to medieval reason and wisdom. |
| Quotation Source | Dancing in the Water of Life: Seeking Peace in the Hermitage. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 5, 1963-1965.; Edited by Robert E. Daggy. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1997, p. 278-79 |
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| Link to Merton's Copy |
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