Sunrise is an event that calls forth solemn music in the very depths of man's nature, as if one's whole being had to attune itself to the cosmos and praise God for the new day, praise Him in the name of the all the creatures that ever were or ever will be.
I look at the rising sun and feel that now upon me falls the responsibility of seeing what my ancestors have seen, in the Stone Age and even before it, praising God before me. Whether or not they praised Him them, for themselves, they must praise Him now in me. When the sun rises each one of us is summoned by the living and the dead to praise God.
— Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours by Thomas Merton, Kathleen Deignan, editor