Choosing to Love the World

By Jonathan Montaldo Contemplative prayer is not a withdrawal from the world but a close encounter with the facts of our existence in the world. We are contemplative when we surrender in faith that the world of our personal histories was a providentially blessed pilgrimage to the truth that, through the Incarnate Word, the world is beautiful and thus divine, and we are parcel of that divinity. “In contemplative prayer there arises, despite all surface appearance to the contrary, a ‘closeness to the world.’ Contemplatives open themselves to the facts of existence. By ‘facts’ I mean people, events, fate, good and bad fortune. In contemplative prayer we take these things up into ourselves, and without consciously intending it, we become aware of our relationship to them. Contemplatives see a mystery even in the least mysterious. The most ...