The Contemplative Life in the World

Extract

There seems to be a special need in our time for new forms of the contemplative life, lived not behind grilles and high walls, cut off from the world as much externally as internally, hut lived in the midst of the world, open to its needs, but not contaminated by its vices. This form of life is nothing new; on the contrary, it is older than other forms, for it is the life lived by our Lord, our Lady and the Apostles as well as by the Christians of the first centuries. All through the history of the Church there have been men and women who, though remaining “in the world’’, have combined a life of intense contemplation with the life of the Apostle who goes out to seek what is lost—we need only think of Saints like. Catherine of Siena, Francis de Sales, Bl. Anna Maria Taigi or the Curé d’Ars.

But, it may be argued, they were saints, souls with a unique vocation specially chosen by God—is it possible for a person less abundantly gifted to live in our distracted paganized world a life that can he truly called contemplative? There are many souls today who, despite their admiration for the life of the Contemplative Orders, yet feel the need and the attraction for this other kind of life. The world seems to cry out for it in its very blindness and indifference, and where there is a need God will not withhold the means of satisfying it. With such a call to a life of contemplation without “leaving the world” in the physical sense, there seems to be no reason to ignore the opportunities. For the contemplative life in this noisy world is so difficult that there need be little fear of illusion.