Biography
Sr. Joan Chittister, a Benedictine Sister of Erie, Pennsylvania, is a best-selling author and well-known national and international lecturer. She is founder and executive director of Benetvision: A Resource and Research Center for Contemporary Spirituality. Sr. Joan is an active member of the International Peace Council and is widely recognized for her work to promote justice and peace. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"From Contemplation to Justice" 
There is one question that emerges over and over again in the spiritual life. What’s holier: to pray or to work, to be involved in the world with all it its pains and troubles or to withdraw from it to meditate on the next one? The desert monastics of the second century had a very clear and cogent answer to that question:

Once upon a time, they said, “A disciple went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, ‘Abba Joseph, as far as I am able I say my little office, I keep my little fasts, I pray my little prayers, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do to be holy?’ Then Abba Joseph stood up. He stretched his hands toward heaven. His fingers became like ten torches of flame and he said to him, ‘Why not be turned completely into fire?’ ”

The meaning is clear: The danger in the contemplative life is that it may become only one-half of the spiritual life. The danger is that prayer contemplation, will be used to justify distance from the great questions of life. That contemplation will become an excuse to let the world go to rot.

That is a sad definition of the spiritual life, and, at best, a bogus one.

Contemplation is not for its own sake. To live a contemplative life, to be spiritual, does not mean that we spend life in some kind of sacred spa designed to save us from having to deal with the down and dirty parts of life. The contemplative life is not spiritual escapism. Contemplation is immersion in the God who created the world for all of us.

The mystics of every major religious tradition remind us of that always:

“Within the cave of the heart, God dwells,” Hinduism tells us.

“ Buddha is omnipresent, in all places, in all beings, in all things, in all lands,” the Buddhist master says.

“Where can I go to flee from your presence?” the Jewish psalmist prays.

“Withersoever you turn, there is the Face of God,” Islam teaches.

And Christianity reminds us always, “Ever since the creation of the world, God’s invisible nature has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.”

But that’s the point: if all things are of God, then all things demand, deserve justice.

Indeed, the teachings are traditional and the teachings are clear: God is not contained in any one people, in any one tradition. And that’s why the contemplative responds to the Divine in everyone.

God wills the care of the poor as well as the reward of the rich. So, therefore, must the true contemplative. God wills the end of oppressors who stand with a heel in the neck of the weak. So does the real contemplative. God wills the liberation of human beings. So will the true contemplative. God desires the dignity and full development of all human beings. Thus God takes the side of the defenseless. Thus must the genuine contemplative. Otherwise, the contemplation is not real, cannot be real, will never be real because to contemplate the God of Justice is to be committed to justice. The true contemplative, the truly spiritual person, then, must do justice, must speak justice, must insist on justice. And they do.

Thomas Merton spoke out against the Vietnam war. Catherine of Siena walked the streets of the city feeding the poor. Hildegard of Bingen preached the word of justice to emperors and to popes. Charles de Foucauld lived among the poor and accepted the enemy. Benedict of Nursia sheltered strangers and educated peasants. And so must we do whatever justice must be done in our time if we claim to be serious about really sinking into the heart of God. A spiritual path that does not lead to a living commitment to the coming of the will of God everywhere for everyone is no path at all. It is, at best, a pious morass, a dead end on the way to God.

Contemplation is a change in consciousness. It brings us to see beyond boundaries, beyond denominations, beyond doctrines, dogmas and institutional self-interest straight into the face of a mothering God from whom comes all the life that comes.

To claim to be aware of the oneness of life and not to regard all of it as sacred trust is a violation of the very purpose of contemplation, the immersion in the God of life. To talk about the oneness of life and not to know oneness with all of life may be intellectualism but it is not contemplation. Contemplation is not ecstasy unlimited. It is enlightenment unbounded by parochialisms, chauvinisms, classisms and gender.

Transformed from within, the contemplative becomes a new kind of presence in the world, signaling another way of being, seeing with new eyes and speaking with new words the Word of God. The contemplative can never again be a complacent participant in an oppressive system. From contemplation comes not only the consciousness of the universal connectedness of life but the courage to model it, as well.

Those who have no flame in their hearts for justice, no consciousness of responsibility for the reign of God, no raging commitment to human community may indeed be seeking God. But make no mistake, God is still, at best, only an idea to them, not a reality.

Indeed, contemplation is a very dangerous activity. It not only brings us face to face with God. It brings us, as well, face to face with the world, face to face with the self. And then, of course, something must be done. Nothing stays the same once we have found the God within. We become new people and, in the doing, see everything around us newly, too. We become connected to everything, to everyone. We carry the world in our hearts: the oppression of all peoples, the suffering of our friends, the burdens of our enemies, the raping of the Earth, the hunger of the starving, the joy of every laughing child. The zeal for justice consumes us. Then action and prayer are one.

Zeal, defined as “the burning point” in Greek, has to do with caring enough about something to make being born worthwhile. To be contemplative, to be a really spiritual person, we must have Zeal for the God of justice and love. We must be consumed with zeal not only for God but for everything God created. There is no clearer sign of contemplation. And then, and only then, is our own zeal, our desire to do right, to do good, safe to unleash upon the world.

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “What else can I do to become holy?” Then Abba Joseph stood up and stretched his hands toward heaven. His fingers became like ten torches of flame and he said to him, ‘Why not be turned completely into fire?’ ”

What is the relationship between contemplation and action? The same as the relationship between flame and the fire. Clearly, it is to be turned completely into fire.

Interview with Joan Chittister

Delle Chatman: Sr. Joan, I’m asking myself: who is going to be thinking of themselves as a contemplative? Do you know what I mean? Often we think of them in monasteries or convents. But who’s thinking of themselves as a contemplative?

Joan Chittister: Well, frankly, I think we’ve done a great disservice both to contemplation and to a committed religious life. We have made the words “cloister” and “contemplation” synonyms. And so we have built up, brought forward, a notion that the church is divided into holy, holier, holiest and the holy ones are locked up someplace.

Delle Chatman: Exactly.

Joan Chittister: The fact of the matter is that cloister is a vehicle for some people for the face of God. But for other people it is the face of the poor in which they see the face of God. So a cloistered life is a vehicle to contemplation. But so is a life lived in the pursuit of holy justice a vehicle for the pursuit of contemplation, or otherwise Jesus was not a contemplative. The Jesus who walked from Galilee to Jerusalem doing good, raising the dead to life, healing lepers: Who was he then? Where was the key? No. Contemplation is immersion. The contemplative sees the world as God sees the world. It’s immersion in the mind of God, for the good of the world. The Scripture says clearly, “I wish you well, not woe.” That’s the definition.

Daniel Pawlus: I love that you pointed out Thomas Merton and I’m a huge fan of Thomas Merton. One of the things that I struggle with, with him, is this incredible ability that he has in his writing to get past the intellectual understanding of it. It’s so pure at heart. But how do we get past just admiring the amazing writing itself to the heart of what you’re talking about?

Joan Chittister: Well, I’m not sure that we have given people the message that religion, that contemplation, that the pursuit of the holy life is more than regular ritual, more than regularity. I think I have to ask at all times: What of this moment is God for me? What am I doing here? Why aren’t I home in my own monastery? How can I possibly say that this is a contemplative moment in my life? Why is it? Because the Mertons of our world have shown us that when you lock the world out—not people in—but when you lock the world out you have locked out of your life the activity of God because God is at work in the world.

Delle Chatman: And God is in love with the world and God is in love with people. If you are going to say that you are in love with God, you have to be in love with people!

Joan Chittister: That’s exactly right.

Delle Chatman: You must. And then you have to cry out for their woes. You have to stand up for their rights. You have to labor for what’s good for them.

Joan Chittister: That’s right. You must be a voice, if you have voice. And people like you do. Why else are you doing this work? But only because you allow me to be part of the conversation, because you have made this great conversation so that people can hear these programs, for instance, and say to themselves in a contemplative, reflective way: What have I just heard about God that lodged in my own soul that now drives me to a new consciousness, to a new awareness? I’m convinced of that.

Daniel Pawlus: But when you speak of contemplation, though, you speak also of this deeper responsibility, this dangerous openness that it brings us to. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Joan Chittister: It’s not “also,” Dan. It isn’t that I speak “also.”

Daniel Pawlus: Right.

Joan Chittister: I speak that the definition of contemplation is to put on the mind of God, to see the world through the eyes of God as God sees the world. When God sees the world, when God sees the oppressed, Scripture is very clear. Scripture says: “I have heard the call of my people in Egypt and I mean to deliver them.” Then gives you the answer: “Therefore, I am sending you to Pharaoh.” God does not say in that passage, “I’ll meet you in the courthouse tomorrow.” This is how I’m sure I know God is Irish because God has this phenomenal sense of humor: “I have a real mess down there, Dan and Delle. Solve it!”

Delle Chatman: Yes. We are his hands and feet. He doesn’t have any other hands and feet but ours. Why do you think people rush to, “Oh, I’ve got to get myself together, I’ve got to get my relationship with the Lord straight,” and are so quick, in a way, to dismiss themselves from responsibility for their brothers and sisters?

Joan Chittister: Well, I think they are faithful followers of the 19th century. That is a tradition that has been brought forward. Some of it, of course. I would argue this. At least I think it would make a good discussion. It very possibly begins to infect the notion of the spiritual when we have the rise of the religious wars, for instance, in Europe. When we begin to divide up as people and then find ourselves in pluralistic situations. I don’t know about you, but when I was a little kid the first thing I learned is you don’t talk religion and you don’t talk politics outside of the house. I have broken both rules!

Daniel Pawlus: Certainly so.

Delle Chatman: Thank God!

Joan Chittister: But why? Because it’s the God in all of us that can bring us all to care about what’s happening to people around us. Because of us, either because of what we do do or what we don’t do.

Daniel Pawlus: Sr. Joan, I know Delle and I wish we had 30 more good minutes to share with you today.

Delle Chatman: We sure do.

Daniel Pawlus: We thank you so much for being here.

Joan Chittister: Great. Thanks alot!