Be A Contemplative
The world doesn’t need louder Christians. It needs deeper ones.
We rush from task to task, convinced we’re living God’s kingdom. Yet so often, we lose touch with the King. We give our energy, our opinions, and our plans. But how much of Christ Himself do we give?
“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4-5)
“The apostles returned to Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.” (Mark 6:30-32)
Jesus sent His disciples to preach, to heal, and to serve. But often commanded them to return and rest in Him. Notice what’s happening in Mark’s account: the apostles had poured themselves out in ministry, surrounded by crowds so demanding “they had no leisure even to eat.” Jesus didn’t urge them to push harder. Instead, He called them away. The work would continue, but not before they took time for renewal.
The Christian life isn’t one of constant motion but continual abiding: the habitual turning inward to the indwelling Christ. Our culture prizes output, results, and visibility. Yet the Lord teaches that fruitfulness is not born of our effort alone; it flows from union with Him.
What Does It Mean to Be Contemplative?
We have an abundant supply of activists and agendas. What the world is sorely lacking are contemplatives in the ordinary daily life: men and women whose actions are steeped in prayer, whose work moves from a heart rooted in God’s presence.
To be contemplative, in the Catholic understanding, is not to withdraw from reality but to participate in it more deeply. It means cultivating a steady awareness of God that runs deeper than distraction, a loving attention that perceives His presence within all things. The contemplative soul meets the world’s demands from an interior stillness where Christ already dwells.
This is the abiding Christ spoke of. It’s a life that draws its strength from union with Him and gives that life back to the world.
Only those who remain in Christ can carry His presence into the messiness of daily life.
Doing Without Being
If something is urgent, we assume it must also be important. If it’s esteemed, we assume it’s valuable. Even in our work for the Church, we hurry to organize, to produce, to speak, often before we have stopped to connect and listen.
The danger is not activity itself but activity detached from interior life. Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard saw this temptation more than a century ago and named it for what it is: spiritual barrenness disguised as zeal. He warned,
“The interior life, that is, a life of prayer and sacrifice, is the soul of every apostolate, and without it, the apostolate is a mere phantom.”
A phantom looks alive but has no substance. So do our good works when they no longer draw strength from communion with Christ. The meetings, ministries, and metrics rage on, but the fire that gives them life fades.
Without the hidden root of prayer, even apostolic labor becomes self-referential. We end up offering others what we have made instead of what God has given. We draw from our limited resources instead of His inexhaustible grace.
The first task of every disciple is therefore not to do something for God, but to be someone through whom God can act.
Prayer and Work United
Dom Chautard shows the danger of activism without interior life. Brother Lawrence shows the beauty of prayer and work moving as one.
He lived in a busy monastery kitchen, surrounded by noise and interruption. Yet in that ordinary labor he found a stillness more profound than silence itself.
He wrote,
“We should establish ourselves in a sense of God’s presence, by continually conversing with Him.”
That single line reveals an entire way of life. For Brother Lawrence, the presence of God was not reserved for the chapel; it could fill the scent of baking bread, the clatter of dishes, the natural hum of the day. He once said he found God in the kitchen “as well as upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament.”
This is the harmony of ora et labora, prayer and work. He didn’t divide the day between holy hours and worldly ones; he carried the same conversation with God through both. Each labor of the day became an act of love because his heart stayed turned toward the One he loved.
When prayer permeates action, work becomes worship; when the heart abides, even the office becomes a cloister.
Contemplatives in Action
The invitation that shaped monks and mystics was never meant for cloisters alone. This vision found powerful expression in the early writings of Thomas Merton (before his engagement with Eastern spirituality). Merton taught that the contemplative vocation extends to every baptized person, and the world itself can become the place where we meet God. The false choice between prayer and action, between cloister and city, is not real. What the world needs are souls so rooted in God that they carry His peace into the chaos.
Every baptized soul is called to bring God’s presence into the world it inhabits. The teacher at her desk, the parent in the car line, and the nurse at a bedside all can live the same rhythm that sustained Brother Lawrence in the kitchen and Dom Chautard in the abbey.
Consider the teacher who begins her morning not by reviewing lesson plans but by offering the day to Christ. Throughout the day, between classes or during a chaotic passing period, she returns to Him with a whispered prayer: “For You, Lord.”
When a struggling student lingers after class, anxious about a test, she doesn’t just offer study tips. She listens, fully present, unhurried despite the stack of papers waiting to be graded.
In that moment, something within the student comes alive. He can’t name it, but he senses he’s been seen, truly seen, perhaps for the first time all week. What mattered in that moment wasn’t her classroom management skills; it was that she brought the stillness of God into the hallway’s noise.
Or take the nurse working the late shift in an understaffed emergency room. The pace is relentless, the needs overwhelming, suffering in every face. Yet she has learned to meet chaos from a place of interior peace.
Between patients, she whispers the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy.” At a bedside, holding the hand of a frightened patient, she can be fully present to him because she has practiced being fully present to God.
Her attention is undivided. In her touch, the patient encounters a tenderness that doesn’t come from her but through her. She carries the silence of God into the throes of human suffering.
The Church’s deepest renewal will never begin with more committees or louder voices but with souls who live from the inside out, where Christ already dwells.
The world is waiting not for what Christians can accomplish but for what Christ can accomplish through Christians who abide in Him.
Living Contemplative Life
The contemplative life is a continual return to God within. In the ordinary course of work and rest, every place can become a meeting place with Him. Here is how you can begin living as a contemplative in your own life.
1. Begin the day in recollection.
Before the day begins to pull at you, pause for a morning prayer. Offer the day to God with a few honest words of trust or gratitude. Let the first voice you seek be His.
2. Let prayer accompany work.
Carry a few simple prayers and repeat them often through the day—Jesus, I trust in You, My God, I love You, or Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Such brief acts of love keep the heart turned toward God in the midst of our work.
3. Return often and without shame.
When you forget, don’t despair. Simply start up again. Brother Lawrence said each return is an act of love and strengthens perseverance; failure is only another chance to turn back.
4. Close the day with gratitude.
At day’s end, take a few quiet moments with God. Recall where He was present and thank Him for those graces. Look also at the places you stumbled, not to dwell on them, but to offer them to Him in love. Say simply, “Lord, thank You for being with me today. Help me to be better tomorrow.”
So be the contemplative the world so desperately needs. When your soul rests in God, His peace will move through you, filling every corner of your life and lifting every soul you meet.
Sources referenced:
Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, The Soul of the Apostolate
Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation