Where are the contemplatives like Merton who will begin to see, who will begin to ask at what moral peril we have brought our wealth and our power and our standard of living? . . . When the starving sick lie dying on subway grates, if I am a contemplative, Merton would say, I must become the love that God is.
When the underemployed workers in Detroit lose their homes and their dignity, I must become the love that God is. When the blacks die in Soweto because they are black, and kill one another in the housing projects of Chicago because they are in despair at being black in a white world, I must become the love that God is. When Iraqi children die in American wars, and crack babies languish on our own streets, if I am really a contemplative, I must become the love that God is.
— Joan Chittister, In the Heart of the Temple