The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

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Author QuotedRainer Maria Rilke
Title QuotedNotebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
Date (Year/Month/Day)1949/12/20
Imprint 
QuotationRilke's Notebooks have so much power in them that they make me wonder why no one writes like that in monasteries. Not that there have not been better books written in monasteries, or no books more serene. But monks do not seem to be able to write so well-it is as if our professional spirituality sometimes veiled our contact with the naked realities inside us. It is a common failing of religious to lose themselves in a collective, professional personality to let themselves be cast in a mold.
Quotation SourceEntering 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. 380-81
Letter to 
Notes 
Link to Merton's Copy  

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