The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

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Author QuotedSulpicius Severus
Title QuotedDialogues
Date (Year/Month/Day)1963/01/26
Imprint 
QuotationLast day of retreat. Reading Rufinus Historia Monachorum and also Dialogues of Sulpicius Severus. Utterly ashamed and annoyed that I have never read the Hist. Monachorum before. What have I been doing? I have been under a kind of delusion that I was living as a monk all these years-and that I knew what the monastic life was and had read a great deal of the traditional source material. I haven't even scratched the surface, and my heart has not been that of a monk. The story of John of Lycopolis, the urgency of his lessons, the sweetness and simplicity of the style move me very deeply.
Quotation SourceTurning Toward the World: The Pivotal Years. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 4, 1960-1963.; Edited by Victor A. Kramer. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1996, p. 294
Letter to 
Notes 
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