In "Bread in the Wilderness," Merton looks at the psalms as poetry; in this book he regards them as prayer. Guiding the reader through the more representative psalms, he explains why the Church also considers the psalms as the best way to praise God. According to Merton: "To put it ve...

In "Bread in the Wilderness," Merton looks at the psalms as poetry; in this book he regards them as prayer. Guiding the reader through the more representative psalms, he explains why the Church also considers the psalms as the best way to praise God. According to Merton: "To put it very plainly, the Church loves the Psalms because in them she sings of her experience of God, of her union with the Incarnate Word, of her contemplation of God in the Mystery of Christ....If we really come to know and love the Psalms, we will enter into the Church's own experience of divine things. We will begin to know God as we ought.