“The vocation to solitude is at the same time a vocation to silence, poverty and emptiness. But the emptiness is for the sake of fullness: the purpose of the solitary life is, if you like, contemplation. But not contemplation in the pagan sense of an intellectual, esoteric enlightenment, achieved by ascetic technique. The contemplation of the Christian solitary is the awareness of the divine mercy transforming and elevating one’s own emptiness and turning it into the presence of perfect love, perfect fullness.” ~Fr. Thomas Merton, OSCO