Whenever I have traveled to the Trappist Abbey of the Genesee (NY) as I did this past week, God elicits wonderment, deepens curiosity and grows gratitude. It is a place I have regularly visited that makes me stronger. Every time.

Contemplative living as a member of a monastic community is a daring total offering of self as response to God’s Love. I am convinced their prayers are what keeps our broken world held together, however tenuously, by cords of divine mercy.  They remove themselves from the world so to “pray unceasingly.” Their prayers benefit us all in ways few ever will know this side of heaven. Alongside these monk prayer warriors, I savored the delights of plunging into in infinite reservoir of contemplative prayer.

Because God became like us in all things but sin, every person is called to a life of contemplation, not merely monks. Of course, our cultivation of contemplation is quite different living in the world as we do. It actually requires even greater discipline and commitment on our part as we must resist the superficial and profane that continuously bombard our sensibilities.

Intentional disciples develop real contemplative dimensions. In fact, contemplative dimensions in form and shape our activities.

The same holds alarmingly true in the absence of any meaningful regular Christian contemplation.

Only from an on-going encounter with Christ are we truly able to do find our way. Jesus cannot speak more plainly and lovingly: “I am the Way” (John 14:6). Plead daily to draw closer to blessed Lord Jesus!

Contemplation enables us to see our genuine identity as belonging first to God and then coming to discover the peace and joy for which we have been created.

In the life of the Church, however, certain Orders are known as “contemplative” because of the wholehearted self-offering they practice daily, done for love of God and love of neighbor.