| Author Quoted | Bernardus of Clairvaux |
| Title Quoted | Epistolae Opera Omnia |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1950/01/27 |
| Imprint | |
| Quotation | The more I read St. Bernard and the Cistercian Fathers, the more I like them. There was a time when I was tempted not to like St. Bernard at all (when the Sermons in Cantica were read in the refectory, during my novitiate, I was irritated by the breasts of the Spouse.) I think that now, after eight years and more, I am really beginning to discover the depth of St. Bernard. This is because I have realized that the foundation of his whole doctrine, which is expressed as clearly as anywhere in Letter 18, is that God is Truth and Christ is Truth Incarnate and that salvation and sanctity for us means being true to ourselves and true to Christ and true to God. It is only when this emphasis on truth is forgotten that St. Bernard begins to seem sentimental. |
| Quotation Source | Entering the Silence: Becoming a Monk and Writer. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 2, 1941-1952.; Edited by Jonathan Montaldo. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1996, p. 403 |
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| Link to Merton's Copy |
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