“Habitual self-complacency is almost always a sign of spiritual stagnation. The complacent no longer feel in themselves any real indigence, an urgent need for God. Their meditations are comfortable, reassuring and inconclusive. Their mental prayer quickly degenerates into day-dreaming, distractions or plain undisguised sleep. For this reason trials and temptations can prove to be a real blessing in the life of prayer. It is when we begin to find out our need for God that we first learn how to make a real meditation.”

Thomas Merton, Spiritual Direction and Meditation (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1960), 72-73.