There are some bloggers who are thinking of entering the convent (I just read two young girls) wondering whether they should enter an active or contemplative order. Let me clarify a small point regarding the story of Mary and Martha that had always been presented as the two ways of life in the service of Christ, the active and the contemplative life.
The story of Mary and Martha is not two exclusive ways of life. They are two activities in one way of life. Each Christian seeking to serve God must be a Martha and Mary at the same time. And the lesson Christ is advancing is that between the two activities, in one and the same way of life, the life of Mary must take precedence. Let me repeat. The Christian way of life requires we are Marys and Marthas at the same time with emphasis on being a Mary, because “Mary had chosen the better part.” Every active order must have a contemplative in spirit.
Pope Benedict presented St. Benedict of Nurcia as an exemplar for the renewal of the Catholic faith in Europe. St. Benedict’s motto is “Ora et Labora.” Work and pray. That is Martha and Mary. He gave emphasis to praying or contemplation and called it the “work of God.” This, of course is the Divine Office. And they had many activities, “labora,” farming, teaching in monastic schools, inventing farming implements, running hospitals, etc. The principle is that you can, always “Ora” while doing your “Labora” but not vice versa.
Dom Chautard, in his spiritual classic “Soul of the Apostolate” emphasized this principle. He compared contemplation to a fountain of water, the “soul,” while the apostolate as distributing this water with a glass. And he asked: what if you are not a fountain? You will run out of water to distribute in your apostolate. You must first be a inexhaustible fountain through contemplation before you distribute water in the apostolate. If in the apostolate you run out of water due to lack of a contemplative spirit, you would eventually burn out. And this would be a spiritual catastrophe.
In choosing a religious order, therefore, it is good to choose one that is more on the contemplative and less on the active, like St. Therese of the Child Jesus, who was contemplative and yet did more for the church than all the active sisters in her century. In the plan of God, the very active orders were raised by God for some temporary need of the Church. The contemplatives were raised for a permanent need of the Church.