Quotes about Contemplative

Contemplative prayer is a method of exposing and disengaging from the ordinary obstacles to our awareness of God's presence with us. This prayer is not an end, but a beginning. It's easy to give in to the temptation to chase after the enemy every time he shows himself; sometimes it's the right thing to do. There is a better way to defeat him—fix our eyes and our hearts steadfastly on Jesus. His light will drive out the darkness.

Avoid participating in any religious community where the clear truth-claims of Scripture are ignored while contemplative and mystical practices are favored simply for their spiritual experience. Be careful of any church or ministry wherein acts of mercy and environmental stewardship are devoid of a theology of the cross and wind up being little more than the worship of created people and things. And be careful not to worship a good thing as a god thing for that is a bad thing.

One of the first things to learn if you want to be a contemplative is to mind your own business. Nothing is more suspicious, in a man who seems holy, than an impatient desire to reform other men.

The contemplative life not only does not exclude, but requires, the active life.

One of the strange laws of the contemplative life is that in it you do not sit down and solve problems: you bear with them until they somehow solve themselves. Or until life solves them for you.

The Christian life — and especially the contemplative life — is a continual discovery of Christ in new and unexpected places.

His words never rushed but were selected, chewed over, released into the air as if the best choice possible had been made.

Other forms of relating to God that have unique value in connecting us to Him include contemplative prayer and centering prayer.

THE most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. He obeys the attractions of an interior voice but will not listen to other men. He identifies the will of God with anything that makes him feel, within his own heart, a big, warm, sweet interior glow. The sweeter and the warmer the feeling is the more he is convinced of his own infallibility.

Just as certain people are more susceptible to particular diseases, some temperaments —especially those that tend to be melancholy or contemplative — are more vulnerable to questions and doubts.

The Christian life, and especially the contemplative life, is a continual discovery of Christ in new and unexpected places.

One of the strange laws of the contemplative life is that in it you do not sit down and solve problems: you bear with them until they somehow solve themselves.