Unity of life

From what I have just written, it follows that the children of God whom he has called to his Work need to have unity of life. This unity of life has two facets at the same time: an interior one that makes us contemplatives, and an apostolic one carried out through our professional work, which is visible and external.

I will tell you again: our life is to work and to pray and, the other way around, to pray and to work. The time comes when we cannot distinguish between these two concepts and these two words: contemplation and action. In our minds and in our inner awareness they end up meaning the same thing.

Look at what St Thomas says: “When the first of two things is the reason for the second, the soul’s attention to the second does not hinder or lessen its attention to the first (…). And since God is recognised by the saints as the reason for everything that they are to do or know, their efforts in perceiving sensible things, or in contemplating or doing anything else, will in no way hinder their contemplation of God, nor the other way round.”⁸