Active Contemplation—Wait, What?

I’ve sometimes thought that Dominican contemplation is very active contemplation, because Dominicans are active contemplatives.

Religious orders are often described as being “active,” working in the world, or “contemplative”, praying behind walls. Dominicans, by contrast, are said to be “active contemplatives”, embracing the activity of preaching, where preaching flows from contemplation. Somewhere (I cannot find it at the moment) I read that St. Thomas Aquinas looked at the merits of the active and contemplative lives and concluded that being an active contemplative was the best of all.

All of this is complicated by the varying meanings of the word “contemplation,” which in modern books of Catholic spirituality usually refers to a Carmelite notion of “infused” contemplation, a kind of prayer written about by Saints John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila. In St. Thomas’ day, though, “contemplation” had its older meaning, which is also its more usual day-to-day meaning: time spent thinking about something.

In The New Wine of Dominican Spirituality, Fr. Paul Murray OP describes Dominican contemplation as being precisely thinking about things—but to to think about them, as best we can, from God’s point of view. This leads to what I’ve heard called “the sacramental view of nature”, and it is precisely what I had in mind when I poetically referred to the world around as as “the crystallized love of God.”

For my part, I find that my contemplation is very active indeed: because I do my best contemplating when I’m doing something else: walking, driving, or simply taking a shower. Something about the physical activity allows my mind to wander, and to wonder, and to ponder things deeply. It’s at times like this that I often feel closest to God, not that I was thinking about Him, necessarily, but more as though He comes along for the ride. (Alas, He can’t be held responsible for the quality of the results!)

And sometimes, when I think of this, I feel closer to my father Dominic and my brother Thomas, who travelled all over Europe on foot, and who doubtless had much time to wonder as they wandered.

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