Merton on Desire for Directed Religion

From the high, gray, expensive tower of the Rockefeller Church, huge bells began to boom. It served very well for the 11:00 mass of the little brick church of Corpus Christi. What a revelation it was, to discover so many ordinary people in one place together, more conscious of God than of one another; not there to show off their hats or their clothes, but to pray, or at least to fulfill a religious obligation, not a human one.

From The Seven Storey Mountain-Thomas Merton