The Cistercians represent the fine flower of medieval monastic spirituality and mysticism. [Theirs was] a Biblical mysticism, centered on the mystery of Christ, a traditional mysticism, centered on the ancient way handed down by Cassian, St. Gregory the Great and the Benedictines, with a generous admixture of all that is best in Augustine and some notable traces of Dionysius. [It was] a school of experience, in which personal experience is not so much analyzed and dissected, as expressed fully and poetically in the traditional images and terms of Scripture. Hence the character of Cistercian mysticism is to relive the Scriptural mysteries in one's own personal life, without undue subjectivism ■ Thomas Merton, An Introduction to Christian Mysticism. Patrick F. O'Connell, editor (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2008): 171.