Quotes About Contemplation

Christian life is not a life divided between times for action and times for contemplation. No. Real social action is a way of contemplation, and real contemplation is the core of social action.

We have to keep asking ourselves: 'What does it all mean? What is God trying to tell us? How are we called to live in the midst of all this?' Without such questions our lives become numb and flat.

Getting answers to my questions is not the goal of the spiritual life. Living in the presence of God is the greater call.

Just as words lose their power when they are not born out of silence, so openness loses its meaning when there is no ability to be closed.

The great movement of the spiritual life is from a deaf, nonhearing life to a life of listening.

The question that must guide all organizing activity in a parish is not how to keep people busy, but how to keep them from being so busy that they can no longer hear the voice of God who speaks in silence.

The measure of your solitude is the measure of your capacity for communion.

If I were to ask about my seven months at the Abbey, Did it work, did I solve my problems? the simple answer would be, It did not work, it did not solve my problems. And I know that a year, two years, or even a lifetime as a Trappist monk would not have worked either. Because a monastery is not built to solve problems but to praise the Lord in the midst of them.

When we are alone with God, the Spirit prays in us. The challenge is to develop a simple discipline or spiritual practice to embrace some empty time and empty space every day.

Silence is the discipline that helps us to go beyond the entertainment quality of our lives.

Solitude is very different from a 'time-out' from our busy lives. Solitude is the very ground from which community grows. Whenever we pray alone, study, read, write, or simply spend quiet time away from the places where we interact with each other directly, we are potentially opened for a deeper intimacy with each other.

The Bible is primarily a book not of information but of formation, not merely a book to be analyzed, scrutinized, and discussed but a sacred book to nurture us, to unify our hearts and minds, and to serve as a constant source of contemplation

If I have learned anything this week, it is that there is a contemplative way of working that is more important for me than praying, reading, or singing. Most people think that you go to the monastery to pray. Well, I prayed more this week than before but also discovered that I have not learned yet to make the work of my hands into a prayer.

Spiritual reading, therefore, is slow, deliberate, meditative reading in which we allow the words to penetrate our heart and question our spirit.

But in Solitude, we can pay attention to our inner self

The core of all prayer is indeed listening, obediently standing in the presence of God.

Meditation means to let the word descend from our minds into our hearts and thus to become enfleshed.

Active waiting is essential to the spiritual life.

when we listen to the Spirit, we hear a deeper sound, a different beat. ...Living a spiritually mature life requires listening to God's voice within and among us.

vivir la vida espiritual y dejarnos llenar por la presencia de Dios exige orar constantemente;

Without reading the word, silence becomes stale, and without silence, the word loses its re-creative power. The word leads to silence and silence to the word. The word is born in silence, and silence is the deepest response to the word.

Solitude is the furnace of transformation.

Whether in solitude or community, whether alone or with others, we are called to live obedient lives, that is, lives of unceasing prayer — "unceasing" not because of the many prayers we say but because of our alertness to the unceasing prayer of God's Spirit within and among us.

A spiritual life in the midst of our energy-draining society requires us to take conscious steps to safeguard that inner space where we can keep our eyes fixed on the beauty of the Lord.