Quote: Thomas Merton

To become attached to the "experience" of peace is to threaten the true and essential and vital union of our soul with God above sense and experience in the darkness of a pure and perfect love.

And so, although this sense of peace may be a sign that we are united to God, it is still only a sign -- an accident. The substance of the union may be had without any such sense, and sometimes when we have no feeling of peace or of God's presence He is more truly present to us than he has ever been before.

If we attach too much attention to these accidentals we will run the risk of losing what is essential, which is the perfect acceptance of God's will, whatever our feelings may happen to be.

But if I think the most important thing in life is a feeling of interior peace, I will be all the more disturbed when I notice that I do not have it. and since I cannot directly produce that feeling in myself whenever I want to, the disturbance will increase with the failure of my efforts. Finally I will lose my patienceby refusing to accept this situation that I cannot control and so I will let go of the one important reality, union with the will of God, without which true peace is impossible.

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation