"the simple expedient of building"

"Rules and exhortations do help, but physical means are far more fundamental.  It is hard to see that a church which is cold, hard and uninviting can be [a] space which arouses in a monk a prayer which is fervent and full of feeling.  I have known communities in which the monasticity of daily life has been improved by the simple expedient of building."

     Michael Casey, "The dialectic of solitude and communion in Cistercian communities," Cistercian studies 23, no. 4 (1988): 305-306 (273–309).