We are -- all of us -- contemplatives in the root and ground of our being. For at the root of our being, we are one with God, one with one another, one with the world in which we live. Spending time in prayer is not a means of achieving oneness, but of recognizing that it is there. Prayer does not make us contemplatives; rather it can make us aware that we truly are contemplatives, but at a level of perception we do not often achieve. Prayer, silence and solitude are moments of grace that can awaken us to the contemplative side of our being.
Exiled on earth as we are, unless we are able to content ourselves with that shadow of Paradise that is Virgin Nature, we must create for ourselves surroundings which, by their truth and their beauty recall our heavenly origin and thereby also awaken our hope.
Beauty bears within itself every element of happiness, whence its character of peace, plenitude, satisfaction; now beauty is in our very being, we live by its substance. It is the calm, simple and generous stillness of the pool which mirrors the depth of the sky with all its serenity; it is the beauty of the water-lily, of the lotus opening to the light of the sun. It is repose in the center, resignation to Providence, quietude in God.
