What is the link between action and contemplation? Since both are founded on the Word (who is God and was with God in the beginning and who also took on humanity in its fullness), why not ask the question about words?

It should be no surprise that, as Saint Francis de Sales puts it,

Our words are a faithful index of the state of our souls…

What comes out is a reflection of what’s inside: “The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure” (Mt 12:35). There is no getting around it. It is the Gospel truth. What is inside – perhaps by sin, perhaps by virtue, perhaps by prayer and contemplation – is the only thing that can come out. The inside will show. If the inside is formed by contemplative prayer and union with the will of God, it will show.

But we can also reverse the question. We asked before, “What happens to the inside?” We can also say, “How can we act on the outside?” The answer runs parallel for Saint Francis:

Try as hard as you like, but, in the end, only the language of the heart can ever reach another heart; while mere words, as they slip from your tongue, do not get past your listener’s ear. The kindling power of our words must not come from outward but from within, not from oratory but straight from the heart.

The simplicity of the heart is what can speak. It is OK, it is good, to be simplified by contemplation. It is, though there is no good measure of such a great good, “effective”. A choice to be “ineffective” in interiority is truly a choice to be “effective” in the things of the heart.