Love is measured by its activity and its transforming power. Christianity does not teach man to attain an inner ideal of divine tranquility and stoic quiet by abstracting himself from material things. It teaches him to give himself to his brother and to his world in a service of love in which God will manifest his creative power through men on earth.
— Thomas Merton, The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia by William H. Shannon, editor, Christine M. Bochen, editor, Patrick F. O'Connell, editor