| Author Quoted | Hans Urs von Balthasar |
| Title Quoted | Skitzen zur Theologie |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1964/10/31 |
| Imprint | [S.l.] : [s.n.]. 1960 |
| Quotation | An impressive passage in Balthasar's "Verbum Caro"-a deep and poignant essay. I will use part of it perhaps in conferences to novices and juniors on poetry and human experience. But I cannot help seeing it rather in its reference to my own vocation at the hermitage. These nights I have spontaneously been remembering the days when I first came to Gethsemani twenty-three years ago: the stars, the cold, the smell of night, the wonder, the Verlassenheit [abandonment] (which is something else again than despondency) and above all the melody of the Rorate coeli [Drop down dew, heavens]. That entire first Advent bore in it all the stamp of my vocation's peculiar character. The solitude inhabited and pervaded by cold and mystery and woods and Latin liturgy. It is surprising how far we have got from the cold and the woods and the stars since those days. |
| 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. 160 |
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| Link to Merton's Copy |
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