The Active and the Contemplative

I rest on the active in the contemplative and the contemplative in the active. O, this state of melancholy! The rest one gains in this state is one of exhaustion of day and not the release of it. I know not if to figure it to be grace or vice—only that both the active and the contemplative verily exists and are present within this state throughout.

Moving to to the active in the contemplative, is it to be a combustion, an undying fire of devotion? How can the active, that thing which is pent up as bound energy, be expected to remain as full as it was when it was first received and then given as it is meant to be have been now?

How can we not have some loss of this fervor? It must be then with a Eucharistic Heart that we press on in both the contemplative and the active! It must be through a completely thankful heart, a heart full of thanksgiving that we can be both active and contemplative. It is with a heart full of thanksgiving that we can respond to, even stave off, the unpurposed sadness of melancholy and turn it into something more.

What next then? What do we do with this knowledge? We serve. How do we serve? With thanksgiving for His Love, for His Gift—timeless and unrepeatable—yet present in the Eucharist. It is here that the nexus of the active and the contemplative rests. It is the crossing of the two, and it is the stage of our lives. We live out the Eucharist by living out His Love.

And so His Love is this: selfless in its pursuit, relentless in its opportunities, shameless in its multitude of gifts, endless in its joy and fulfillment it brings.

Let us be One with this dynamic love. Let us live out His Love. Let us be One.

Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name give glory because of your mercy and faithfulness.
Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”
Our God is in heaven and does whatever he wills.
...
May you be blessed by the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.
The heavens belong to the Lord, but he has given the earth to the children of Adam.
The dead do not praise the Lord, not all those go down into silence.
It is we who bless the Lord, both now and forever.
Hallelujah! - Psalm 115:1-3, 15-18

Building Upon Grace

Continuing our last conversation on being Rooted in Love...

Within all the clamor of the desire for action and movement of grace is need for the heart to first contemplate it. There one stands amid one's larger journey of faith and of love. One cannot grow disappointed in its timing—the action—if one doesn't first rest in the contemplation of Christ and His love. The remainder outside of this is dross and complete loss if not for the contemplation of Christ.

This clamor becomes a business that is not close to peace if it is not first peace in Christ. So it is with one's daily interaction and with one's daily work. There is no sanctification of the Ordinary without the Extraordinary nor process of growth without first growth and sanctification in Christ.

It is here in this very point that one's work takes meaning and one's work takes concrete shape. Life is worth living precisely because there is distinct purpose. If we are to see beyond the temporal of the here and now, we are to search out for the Truth that is not far away, yet it is that very Truth that remains ever the more in our midst.

This uncommon sense is not all that uncommon; more so, it is sense that is rarely seen for what it is—grace. The promptings of the Spirit fall into this column of distinction, and so it all deserves one's attention and prompt response in kind.

So then all we are left with then to respond to these glorious promptings of grace on Our Lord's part is to do the very thing I have opened upon and thus rested upon—to act with grace and to follow the promptings of the Risen Lord to completion.

It is not the velocity of the movement in response to this grace we should concern ourselves with, but rather it should be the resting on the place in which Our Lord has placed us to act on His love! Deo Gratias!