All Seek for Thee

Gospel Reflection for February 3, 2024 - Mark 1:29-39

And immediately going out of the synagogue they came into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.

And Simon's wife's mother lay in a fit of a fever: and forthwith they tell him of her.

And coming to her, he lifted her up, taking her by the hand; and immediately the fever left her, and she ministered unto them.

And when it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all that were ill and that were possessed with devils.

And all the city was gathered together at the door.

And he healed many that were troubled with divers diseases; and he cast out many devils, and he suffered them not to speak, because they knew him.

And rising very early, going out, he went into a desert place: and there he prayed.

And Simon, and they that were with him, followed after him.

And when they had found him, they said to him: All seek for thee.

And he saith to them: Let us go into the neighbouring towns and cities, that I may preach there also; for to this purpose am I come.

And he was preaching in their synagogues, and in all Galilee, and casting out devils. (Mark 1:29-39 DRA)

In the first half of Catholic history, particularly in the patristic and medieval periods, one of the most important distinctions made by the saints was between the active and the contemplative life. This distinction remains a part of Catholic tradition and is still taught by some, but due to the influence of the Enlightenment it has been diminished, or “deemphasized” to use the modern term. The distinction is rooted in the philosophy of Antiquity and in Scripture; it pertains especially to the interior spiritual disposition of each person and applies to how we order and prioritize our everyday choices.

For the ancients and their successors, the contemplative life is higher than the active life precisely because the human person is distinguished from other animals above all by the intellect. This is part of what Pope St. John Paul II called “original solitude,” the recognition by Adam, even before the creation of Eve, that he was separate and above all the irrational creatures with which he shared the Earth and that this solitude was due to his being made in the image of God. For the Church Fathers and medieval scholastics, the individual person is made in God’s image primarily in the intellect, which is immaterial and shares the immortality and the capacity to know all types of things with the angels.

Through the intellect, we have the ability not only to know all the species of things in Creation, beyond the particularity of the senses, or to know the transcendentals of truth, goodness and beauty – both of which are inaccessible to irrational animals – but above all through our intellect we can know and contemplate God, both as He can be known by natural reason and, through grace, by the truths of revelation. This contemplation is at the heart of prayer, even more than supplications and lamentations which, like Job or the sick in the Gospel, we may voice in our heart, and is a foretaste of Heaven, where in the Beatific Vision we will see the very essence of God and contemplate Him eternally and insatiably.

The active life, on the other hand, pertains to the will, or what St. Thomas Aquinas called the intellectual appetite, the voluntary movement towards what the intellect, in prudence, discerns to be good, to be something which will perfect us and contribute to our happiness. In the active life, we apply the fruits of contemplation to perfect ourselves through virtue and to help others through charity, to herald the Kingdom of God on Earth and make disciples of all nations. (Mt 28:19) If the contemplative life does not inspire suitable activity, it is imperfect; similarly, if the active life is not rooted in contemplation, it will be mere vain benevolence and humanitarianism, even narcissism, without an authentic understanding of the human person as designed by God and the moral laws which that design imparts. This is why St. James wrote, “But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?... For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also faith without works is dead.” (Jas 2:20, 26)

Both contemplation and activity are necessary for true faith and holiness. Christ perfectly demonstrates this in the Gospel: after contemplating God in the synagogue in honor of the Sabbath and teaching the Gospel, (Mk 1:21-22) Jesus began exorcising people possessed by demons and healing the sick. He immediately followed this activity by returning to the fount of the contemplative life, going into the desert to pray in solitude. Then, at the request of His disciples, He returned to the active life. Throughout His ministry, Christ alternated perfectly between contemplation and activity, keeping both in balance and grounding the latter in the former. He also made sure to remind His disciples of this priority: while always emphasizing the importance of charitable works, He also taught, “But thou when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret: and thy Father who seeth in secret will repay thee.” (Mt 6:6) He reminded them of the importance of quiet and solitude, of what St. Bonaventure called the journey of the mind to God by remotion from the senses and focusing the light of the intellect entirely on God, related to the Byzantine practice of Hesychasm.

In today’s world, the priority of the contemplative over the active life has been forgotten, even by most Christians. One will often hear in “conservative” circles that someone who has studied liberal arts in college has a “useless degree.” Whereas Aristotle taught that the good which is pursued for its own sake, rather than merely to be used for some other good, is higher, modern people believe the exact opposite, that only “useful” or “practical” goods are important. Even liberals who claim to love the liberal arts tend only to use them to advance their propaganda with feminism, gender ideology, sexual perversion, etc., not for their own sake and for the happiness and perfection of the person and society which they can cause.

This error has always existed but it became especially popular in the Enlightenment, when the idolatry of science and the worship of technological power predominated, inspiring Napoleon, during his evangelization of Progress through his conquest of Europe, to shut down all monasteries not dedicated to “practical” pursuits like charity work or education, while others like Descartes and Locke despised the “useless” otherworldliness of scholastic learning in universities and sought to replace it with “practical” science and mathematics. The same worldview, supposedly vindicated by the “success” of technology ever since, is shared by people of all political and religious perspectives today.

Our Lord knew better and so should we. The active life is good and necessary, but the contemplation of God and the pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty for His sake must be our highest priorities and should inspire all our activity, both in the Church and in the secular world, to show all people that there is more to life than power and pleasure, that they are above the animals and destined for true union with God in Heaven. Without this, laws lose their moral foundation, charity becomes mere social work and “niceness” replaces the boldness of truth.

The Church is essentially both human and divine, visible but endowed with invisible realities, zealous in action and dedicated to contemplation, present in the world, but as a pilgrim, so constituted that in her the human is directed toward and subordinated to the divine, the visible to the invisible, action to contemplation, and this present world to that city yet to come, the object of our quest. (Sacrosanctum concilium, 2)

(Cover image source: https://thesymbolicworld.com/content/peter-john-martha-mary-the-symbolism-of-the-active-and-the-contemplative)