The Universal Call to Contemplation

The contemplative life is not limited to nuns and monks.

It is the call God makes to all of us. It is challenging, like every relationship, but it is rewarding, the most rewarding activity that we can experience, for it leads us into the presence of God.

We hope to share with you some thoughts and suggestions that will attract you to prayer and contemplation if you are not already drawn to it.

We also ask you to share with us and with others your own experiences, both encouraging and challenging. Many people feel alone when they try to pray. Hopefully, you will find here that you are not alone. Many people down through the ages into our own time have accepted God’s whispered invitation to “come and see”. We hope that you will be one of them.

—Sr. Gabriela of the Incarnation, O.C.D.

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“Thus it is evident to everyone, that all the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity.”
— Lumen Gen. V, 40
A Carmelite nun sits on a balcony in the cloister as she prays.

Thoughts From God’s Garden

A Weekly Pondering from Sr. Gabriela

You can look through a telescope or a microscope from either end and you will get very different views. Looking through the wrong end shoves the object you are viewing away from you and makes it tiny. Looking through the right end brings it close to you and invites you into its wonder.

We say that something is as dull as ditchwater. G. K. Chesterton said, “Is ditchwater dull? Naturalists with microscopes have told me that it teems with quiet fun.” The naturalists were looking through the right end of the microscope. They were looking at the apparently dull ditchwater in the right way, and they found it fascinating.

God doesn’t need telescopes or microscopes. He always looks at things in the right way because He looks at them with love. He looked at “all that He had made and found it very good.” When we look at things with His vision, we look at them in the right way, and we will find them very good, just as He does. We will even find them fascinating.

“Behold, the Lord invites all. Since He is truth itself, there is no reason to doubt. If this invitation were not a general one, the Lord wouldn’t have called us all, and even if He called all, He wouldn’t have promised, ‘I will give you to drink’.”
— St. Teresa of Jesus