What is it about contemplation that defines it? It’s a simple view, above any particular reasoning or imagining, penetrating but perhaps dark, of a deep reality known deep inside us, not superficially. And that’s well and good. But is there a word for it in the Scriptures? The realities of contemplation variously appear in the Scriptures. Is there any place in the Scriptures where we can find a short word for “contemplation”?

Sure. In the time of the Old Covenant, Saint Elijah stood before the face of the living God (1 Kgs 17:1) and in this did his work. The Carmelite Order, which no one will mistake for being anything but a contemplative order, draws its origin in Elijah’s influence in the Church of Heaven and the pilgrim Church here-below. And looking squarely at this holy origin, a Carmelite could say, as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross indeed said,

To stand before the face of the living God – that is our vocation.

To stand – in God’s presence, before his face. That’s the contemplative vocation, in the cloister or on the road and in the mud; for to stand before the face of God in one’s room and in dark faith is contemplation of one sort; while to stand before the face of God in, behind, with, through, and beside our neighbours is contemplation of another sort.