Contemplation A term often used synonymously with meditation, although in Christian mysticism contemplation is generally regarded as more elevated than meditation. As Evelyn Underhill puts it in Practical Mysticism: A little book for normal people (1914):
Now meditation is a half-way house between thinking and contemplating: and as a discipline, it derives its chief value from this transitional character (p. 46).
The strength of this definition is that it’s not ‘this or that,’ ‘black or white,’ as so many fundamentalists and conservatives depict the world. Rather, it represents a developmental approach.
Contemplation may be said to emphasize an inner union of the individual with God, which may involve intercession. By way of contrast, the term meditation does not necessarily imply the existence of the individual or God, as in most forms of Buddhism. Some Buddhists, however, use the word contemplation within their own conceptual framework. Whether or not Buddhists entirely escape their cultural and theoretical framework, as many seem to imply, is open to debate.
In Catholicism, contemplation as intercession is recognized as a type of work distinct from more active works, such as teaching. Whether or not Catholics immediately recognize this type of work when present in saintly individuals is another matter. St. Faustina Kowalska, for instance, writes in her Divine Mercy Diary that she encountered skepticism from some of her religious superiors who should have known better.
Perhaps part of the difficulty in recognizing bona fide saints whose contemplative lives comprise the bulk of their work has to do with cultural preconceptions and stereotypes about visible marks of holiness. The average person expects a saint to be flawless and without sin, which is an entirely unreasonable expectation. Also, some psychologically injured and perhaps deceived individuals might claim to be saints when they’re not, as do charlatans and hoaxers. Taken together, these pseudo saints or perhaps saints-in-the-making only complicate the picture.
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