On the other hand, we cannot recover that general attitude of being recollected unless from time to time we pause in our active life to seek refuge in contemplation—particularly, in religious contemplation. In a formal sense, recollection as a rule precedes contemplation, but it cannot be developed into a full recovery of self except in contemplation. The withdrawal from outward preoccupations, and the rest of what is meant by “recollecting ourselves,” are introductory to contemplation; but again, the latter, putting us in the presence of God and in contact with the world of ultimate reality, prepares the way for our confronting everything—including relevant impending tasks—with God, and thus leading a recollected life.

We may say that a recollected mode of life is only possible if contemplation is given its due place as the focal element of life and its spiritual center of gravity.

Regular religious contemplation helps us grow recollected

Recollection being as decisive for our transformation in Christ as it is, how are we to achieve it?

In the first place, by the practice of religious contemplation. The true Christian must at any cost conquer a place in his life for contemplation. He must firmly refuse to let himself be dragged into a whirlpool of activities in which he is driven incessantly from one task to another, purpose succeeding purpose, without a pause. The present period of perpetual unrest, in which the machine has come to be the model, the causa exemplaris, of well-nigh all things, in which everything is caught in a process of instrumentalization, in which Leistung (“achievement”) with the emphasis on quantity and mere technical perfection, has assumed priority over being in a substantial and meaningful sense—this period of shallow hyperactivity is only too apt to drag us into that whirlpool of outward preoccupations.

All our actions, even those with a religious or moral importance, which therefore essentially appeal to the contemplative attitude, we tend to perform in the manner of discharging a duty or of acquitting ourselves of a task—not to say, of turning out the required output. We live in uninterrupted tension, never ceasing to be concerned about what has next to be settled; and many of us no longer know any alternative to work except recreation and amusement.

Fully aware of the obstacles which, today more than ever, threaten to prevent us from recollecting ourselves and from practicing contemplation, we must endeavor to overcome them by different methods.

To achieve recollection, we must daily spend time in inner prayer

First, we should consecrate every day a certain space of time to inward prayer. There must be such a fraction of the day, in which we drop all our topical or habitual concerns before God, facing Him in complete emptiness, so as to be filled by the holy presence of Christ alone.