Active contemplation is nourished by meditation and reading and, as we shall see, by the sacramental and liturgical life of the Church. But before reading, meditation and worship turn into contemplation, they must merge into a unified and intuitive vision of reality. In reading, for instance, we pass from one thought to another, we follow the development of the author's ideas, and we contribute some ideas of our own if we read well. This activity is discursive. Reading becomes contemplative when, instead of reasoning we abandon the sequence of the author's thoughts in order not only to follow our own thoughts (meditation), but simply to rise above thought and penetrate into the mystery of truth which is experienced intuitively as present and actual ■ Thomas Merton, The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation, William H. Shannon, ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003: 59.