What is contemplation? Is it the same as meditation?
Contemplative prayer moves away from talking, thinking, or analyzing to a wordless kind of prayer—simply loving and being loved. It is the image of Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus. There are times of interior prayer when we are “lost in wonder, love and praise,” in the words of John Wesley’s hymn Love Divine. But there are also times of exterior prayer, when we “lose” ourselves in an act of self-forgetting love for another human being. Both can be contemplation, and both prayer. We meet the Word in silence in order to be open to greet the Word in the world of action. ” Meditation,” a word used over and over in the Psalms, and “contemplation” are like siblings. Meditation is the younger brother, more like an active toddler; and contemplation is like an older sister who has learned to value silence and solitude.
