"The Real within all that is real."

(C)ontemplation is . . . awakening, enlightenment, and the amazing intuitive grasp by which love gains certitude of God’s creative and dynamic intervention in our daily life. . . contemplation is a sudden gift of awareness, an awakening to the Real within all that is real. A vivid awareness of infinite Being at the roots of our own limited being. An awareness of our contingent reality as received, as a present from God, as free gift of love.

—Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

New Square Mandala