The active life, to which is attached the exercise of the moral virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, and the outward works of charity prepares for the contemplative life, so far as it regulates the passions that disturb contemplation and so far as it makes us grow in the love of God and of our neighbour. Then comes the contemplation of God, which is proper to the perfect; it is found either in the purely contemplative life, or in the mixed life which fructifies in the apostolate. Contemplation then directs action from above and renders it much more supernatural and fruitful.
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange OP (1877–1964)