If we seek the
essential truth of a contemplative life, it is an interior quality of soul that
makes a life contemplative. In its simplest meaning, this word contemplative is
a descriptive term for a life given fully to God. It involves of course a
committed exercise of daily interior prayer. But a soul becomes contemplative
most of all by giving to God a complete gift of itself. This inevitably entails
a response to quite exacting demands of divine love and, equally, a growing
experience of poverty in self.
Lines by Rev. Donald Haggerty.