CONTEMPLATION

ETYMOLOGY OF CONTEMPLATION

“The word comes from templum, contemplation which is, as you know, the Latin word for temple, but also from the Latin word for tempus, they are the same word. The word for temple and the word for time have the same origin, and they both come from the Greek word called temno, the Greek work is temno, which means “to cut.” Saturn, time, with a scythe cuts; the contemplatives are those who cut a space of time and privilege it, or a space in place, and cut it off from the flow of history and the flow of profane place and make it the sort of ground for turning the minds to the consideration of higher things.”
–Professor Giuseppe Mazzota, in Lecture 20 of a 24-lecture series offered by Yale Courses and available for free on YouTube called “Dante in Translation.”

“When Jesus takes you into himself to give you to souls, wherever you go means a life of isolation. We find that apparent contradiction in Christ, a hidden, contemplative soul who ended up giving himself to men, allowing himself to be consumed by them.”
–St. Charles de Foucauld

“Those who give up everything for God have always been the most powerful proof for the truth of Christ as a personal presence. But there is also a corollary to this. In a time when Christianity does not attract so strongly, must it be that souls giving their lives sacrificially to God are far fewer in number or perhaps simply more isolated, less visible, less able to influence? It is love alone in generous self-giving that consistently draws others to the truth of Jesus Christ.”
–Father Donald Haggerty, priest of the Archdiocese of New York, from Conversion: Spiritual Insights into an Essential Encounter with God

“In this time of anxiety and searching, one should write something, shape something. Whatever it might be, it could lead to proposing some kind of sense and order. Any situation can become a starting point. Knowledge of life doesn’t have a specific beginning and an end. It is like the earth: any point on it can become the beginning or the middle.”
–Anna Kamieńska, Polish poet, from “The Notebook,” 1969