Evening, rain, silence, joy. I believe that, where the Lord sees the small point of poverty, extenuation, helplessness which is the heart of a monk after very long and very dry celebrations in choir, when He sees the point of indigence to which this one is reduced, He Himself cannot refuse to enter into this anguish, to take flesh in it so to speak, making it instantly a small seed of infinite joy and peace and solitude in the world. There is for me no sense, no truth in anything that elaborately contrives to hide this precious poverty, this seed of tears which is also the seed of true joy. Demonstrations and distractions that try to take one away from this are futile. They can become infidelities if they are eagerly sought. I may speak to others only in so far as I address myself to this same small spark of truth and sorrow in them, to help resolve their doubts, to assuage their anguish, to lighten their grief by helping them to be strong in this same small spark of exhaustion in which the Lord becomes their wisdom and their life forever.

What else do the Psalms talk about but this?

It is in the very nature of our monastic office to bring us to this simplicity and sobriety of heart.

Merton 

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The unending nature of our poverty as human beings is our only innate treasure. We are unlimited indigence since our very self-possession, the integrity and lucidity of our coming-to-Being, spring not from ourselves but from the intangible mystery of God. The ultimate meaning of being human is hidden in God. A human being is the ecstatic appearance of Being, and becoming fully human is an ever growing appropriation of this ectasis of Being. This demands an attentive receptivity and obedient assent to the total claim and inescapable quandary that the mystery of God poses to our human existence. 

Johannes Baptist Metz