Jean Khoury

Summary: This article traces the reception history of the contemplative-active distinction from Augustine of Hippo through the Carmelite mystical tradition, particularly as developed in the works of Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross. While Augustine established this polarity as a theological and ecclesiological symbolism—Peter representing the Church’s pastoral mission, John representing the Church’s eschatological vocation—later medieval theology progressively reified this distinction into a structural dichotomy of states of life (status vitae). The article argues that Teresa and John of the Cross, followed by Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus, recovered the essential insight that contemplation and action are not separate vocations but successive and simultaneous modalities within a unified participation in divine life. Through careful analysis of their anthropological frameworks and teachings on spiritual growth, the article demonstrates how the modern Carmelite renewal—understood through the image of divine grace as a circulating movement that receives and communicates in an integral dynamism—offers a resolution to the dichotomy that has persisted since the Middle Ages. The distinction between states of life and phases of growth proves decisive for understanding the integration of active and contemplative dimensions at all levels of the spiritual life.

1. Introduction

The distinction between the contemplative and active life stands among the most persistent and productive polarities in Christian theology. Yet it is also one of the most misunderstood. What began in the patristic period as a symbolic and ecclesiological theology—a way of describing different modalities of Christian existence within a unified whole—gradually hardened into a structural division of vocations and states of life. By the medieval period, one could speak of “the active life” and “the contemplative life” as though they were discrete categories to which different persons belonged. By the modern period, the distinction threatened to create not merely different callings but a hierarchy of spiritual achievement, with contemplation figured as a private, interior, enclosed experience and action as a public, external, ministry-oriented engagement. This dichotomy persists into contemporary Catholic spirituality, where contemplative and active forms of religious life are often presented as alternatives rather than as phases or modalities of a single transformative process.

The recovery of this distinction in its proper sense—not as a fixed dichotomy but as a dynamic of grace—constitutes one of the great achievements of Carmelite theology. The three Doctors of Carmel, particularly Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross, understood that the progression from active engagement to receptive contemplation, and ultimately to their integration at higher levels of union, describes not a choice between states but a trajectory of transformation in which the same person undergoes different modes of participation in divine life. Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus, the twentieth-century Carmelite Founder, made this integration explicit in his presentation of Carmelite spirituality to modern consciousness, insisting that contemplation and action are not competitors but expressions of a single circulation of divine grace.

The present article traces this reception history from Augustine through the Carmelite tradition. It argues that the path of recovery lies in distinguishing sharply between states of life (status vitae) and phases of growth (stages of spiritual transformation). This distinction permits one to honour both the real experiential differences Augustine perceived—the difference between active engagement and contemplative union—while refusing the reification of these differences into permanent vocational categories. The image of grace as a circulating movement, receiving from God and communicating to others, proves essential to understanding how the dichotomy can be overcome without denying the real progression through active and contemplative dimensions of the spiritual journey.

2. Augustine’s Theology of Peter and John: Symbolic and Ecclesiological Foundations

Augustine of Hippo returns repeatedly to the relationship between Peter and John, especially in his Tractates on the Gospel of John (In Ioannis Evangelium Tractatus) and a few sermons, where this comparison becomes far more than incidental. For Augustine, the pairing of Peter and John constitutes a theological typology of the Church itself—a way of describing the Church’s nature as constitutively marked by both active pastoral engagement and contemplative abiding love. The symbolism is not arbitrary but draws from the Gospel accounts themselves and from the apostolic legacy as Augustine understood it.

The most sustained treatment appears in Augustine’s commentary on John 21, the post-Resurrection dialogue. In Tractate 123 (on John 21:15–19), Augustine interprets Peter as the figure of the Church in its pastoral and historical mission. As he writes, Peter, by reason of the primacy of his apostleship, ‘bore a general figure of the Church’ (Tractate 123.5). The threefold question of love and the threefold commission to feed the flock are bound together inseparably: ‘Let him feed who loves; and let him who feeds, love.’ (123.5). This formulation makes clear that, for Augustine, pastoral authority is not a function independent of charity but rather rooted in and sustained by love. The Church’s historical mission—its feeding, governing, and shepherding—flows from an interior communion with Christ.

But the explicit and developed comparison with John emerges in Tractate 124 (on John 21:20–23). Here Augustine constructs one of the most important symbolic statements in the tradition. He declares: ‘Peter is the type of the Church as it now is; John, of the Church as it shall be.’ (124.5). This lapidary formulation carries enormous weight. It suggests that Peter and John are not two competing models but rather two dimensions of the Church’s temporal existence—one oriented to the present and the historical, one oriented to the eschatological and ultimate fulfilment.

Augustine elaborates the symbolic opposition with precision. Peter, in his ‘following’ of Christ, signifies the Church’s active engagement in pilgrimage, suffering, and governance: ‘The one follows Christ, the other remains; but both endure in Christ.’ (124.5). This following is not mere external motion but a historical and sacrificial engagement that, in the patristic and medieval understanding, culminates in martyrdom. John, by contrast, in his ‘remaining’—his recumbent posture at the Last Supper, his leaning on the Lord’s breast—signifies a different mode of union. Where Peter is sent on a mission requiring action, John abides in a kind of permanent intimacy.

Augustine then gives a more developed formulation that will become classical: ‘In Peter is signified the active life; in John, the contemplative.’ (124.5). Crucially, Augustine emphasises that this is not a merely psychological or temperamental distinction. It is an ecclesiological and eschatological distinction. The active life belongs to the present age, marked by engagement, pilgrimage, and history. The contemplative life reaches its fulfilment in the life to come, in the direct and unmediated vision of God. Yet even here, Augustine is careful to nuance the distinction.

The key passage reveals Augustine’s refusal of a simplistic opposition: ‘These two lives are commended to the Church, and both are in the Church.’ (124.5). Peter and John are not two competing figures but two inseparable modalities of the one Church. The distinction is real and meaningful, but it does not divide the Church into two classes. Rather, both dimensions belong to the Church’s very nature.

A particularly striking passage clarifies the temporal versus eternal dimension: ‘The active life, signified by Peter, is exercised in the present; the contemplative, signified by John, is deferred till the future.’ (124.5). Yet immediately Augustine nuances this statement by saying that contemplation already begins now, though imperfectly. Contemplation is not wholly deferred; it is rather ‘begun here, but perfected hereafter.’ This proviso is essential. It means that within the present age, even within the Church’s active engagement, contemplation is already germinating.

In addressing the enigmatic saying ‘If I will that he remain till I come…’ (John 21:22), Augustine rejects a literal interpretation. The ‘remaining’ does not mean John would not die. Rather, it is a spiritual statement: John represents what abides beyond the flux of history. As Augustine writes, John ‘should abide till the Lord come, that is, till the end of all things.’ (124.6). John thus becomes the figure of what endures eschatologically.

Outside the Johannine tractates, Augustine touches on the same typology in sermons. In Sermon 169, he again contrasts the two apostles: ‘Peter loved, and therefore he fed; John was loved, and therefore he rested.’ (Sermon 169.13). The formulation is dense with meaning. Peter’s love expresses itself actively in the mission to feed the flock; John’s state is marked by a kind of receptivity, a being-loved rather than an active loving, and this receptivity finds its expression in contemplative repose. The point is not that John does not love, but that the dynamics of love operate differently in each figure.

In Sermon 96, Augustine links Peter with ecclesial authority and John with intimacy. Peter represents the Church in its governance; John represents the Church in its interior union. The sustained pattern across Augustine’s works shows that he is articulating something far more profound than a comparison of personalities. He is setting forth a theology of the Church’s nature: Peter embodies the Church’s historical mission—pastoral, sacrificial, structured, extended in time. John embodies the Church’s ultimate vocation—contemplative union, abiding in love, eschatological fulfillment. Both are necessary. Both belong to the Church’s being. Both are already, mysteriously, united in the Church’s present existence.

3. The Medieval Reception: From Theology to Structure

Despite Augustine’s care to maintain the unity of Peter and John within the Church’s life, the medieval reception of his teaching shows a progressive objectification of the distinction. What Augustine presented as a symbolic and ecclesiological polarity—maintained within fundamental unity—gradually became reified into a structural division of states of life (status vitae). This shift is not a simple distortion but rather a transformation that occurs through the logic of the tradition itself.

Pope St. Gregory the Great – a keen augustinian – gives a formulation that proves enormously influential: ‘The active life is signified by Martha, the contemplative by Mary.’ (Homiliae in Evangelia 14.3). Although Gregory still affirms the unity of the two lives and insists that both are commended to the Church, his formulation introduces a subtle but significant shift. The comparison moves from Peter and John (who represent the Church’s symbolic being) to Martha and Mary (who begin to function as representatives of different ways of life that can be chosen or embodied by different persons). The conceptual shift toward distinct ‘forms of life’ is underway.

Thomas Aquinas will systematise this development further within the rigorous framework of scholastic theology. In the Summa Theologiae (II–II, q. 182, a. 1), Aquinas defines the distinction with precision: ‘The active life is occupied with external works; the contemplative with the consideration of truth.’ and also: ‘the active life is ordered to the contemplative life’ (Summa Theologiae, II–II, q. 182, a. 1) These statements are exact but, by their very logical clarity, lend themselves to structural classification. When combined with the emerging ecclesial structures of religious life (monastic, mendicant, apostolic), the conceptual resources exist for treating ‘the contemplative life’ and ‘the active life’ as two distinct states into which the Church organises itself institutionally.

Yet even Aquinas insists on their integration. He writes: ‘The contemplative life is simply better than the active… but a life composed of both is more perfect than either alone.’ (II–II, q. 182, a. 1, ad 3). This statement is crucial. It preserves hierarchy (the contemplative is ‘better’) while insisting that the integration of both is ‘more perfect.’ The highest form of life, for Aquinas, is not purely contemplative but involves both dimensions. Yet the conceptual space created by Aquinas’s schema leaves room for the understanding that one might choose one life or the other, depending on one’s vocation.

Note: Later on, St. John of the Cross will clearly show that he knows and accepts the three stages of growth in charity articulated by St Thomas Aquinas: the active, the contemplative, and the contemplative–active life.
It is important, however, to note that the Ignatian motto, “contemplatives in action”, does not necessarily reflect or explicitly acknowledge this structured progression.

The difficulty lies less in these authors than in the conceptual sedimentation that follows in their wake. Over time, ‘action’ becomes externalised—understood primarily as external works, ministry, engagement in the world. ‘Contemplation’ becomes institutionalised—understood as the prerogative of cloistered religious life, separated from the world and from ministry. What in Augustine was an eschatological-symbolic polarity—a way of describing dimensions of the Church’s nature—becomes, over time, a sociological and vocational division. Contemplative religious communities embody ‘the contemplative life.’ Active or apostolic religious communities embody ‘the active life.’ Lay persons in the world embody primarily the active life. What was a distinction of modalities within the Church’s unified existence becomes a division of classes, states, and vocations.

The consequences are significant. The contemplative life comes to be seen as higher, as privileged, as the exclusive possession of those in certain enclosed communities. The active life is seen as necessary but lower, the domain of those called to ministry and external works. The possibility that the same person might undergo both active and contemplative phases—that these might not be alternative vocations but successive and ultimately integrated dimensions of a unified spiritual journey—recedes from view. The dichotomy solidifies.

Yet throughout the medieval period, the lived experience of mystics and spiritual teachers suggests that the dichotomy, while conceptually established, does not fully capture the reality of spiritual transformation. The great medieval monastics and mystics describe movements from active engagement to receptive contemplation, from discursive meditation to infused prayer, that seem to traverse both ‘contemplative’ and ‘active’ dimensions. But without an adequate theological framework to understand these movements as phases of growth rather than as fixed states, they are apt to be misunderstood or misdescribed.

4. Teresa of Ávila’s Re-integration: Martha and Mary as Interior Modalities

The turning point comes with Teresa of Ávila. As a cloistered Carmelite nun—one who explicitly does not invite her daughters to leave the monastery for active ministry—Teresa occupies a position that, by medieval logic, would place her squarely within the ‘contemplative life.’ Yet her treatment of the Martha and Mary distinction reveals a fundamentally different theological understanding.

Teresa first touches on this distinction when describing the prayer of union in relation to the prayer of quiet. In the prayer of quiet, she observes, the conscious mind and memory are not taken by God—only the will (what she calls the ‘heart’) is directly united. This means that while one’s heart (she uses “will” instead) is held by God, one’s conscious soul—mind and memory (and will)—remains free. It is free to think, to reflect, to act. Here Teresa is already suggesting something crucial: the union of the deepest self (the will or heart/spirit) with God does not necessitate the obliteration of the other conscious faculties. The heart, or spirit, is above consciousness. Jacques Maritain will use the expression the “supra-conscious”. (Regarding spirit or heart see here) In this sense, if the heart/spirit is taken we have Mary, and since the conscious faculties of the soul are not taken by the grace of God, they remain free, we have Martha! Both are here present in one person! This is truly a revelation. One can be united with God in his spirit, and still have all his faculties free to act.

In the Fourth Mansion of the same work, Teresa had given the anthropological precision that makes this integration possible. ‘The will is occupied in loving, but the understanding and memory are free.’ (Interior Castle, IV.3.6). This observation reveals Teresa’s careful of interior life. The deepest faculty—the will, the center of the person—can be united to God, held in love, while the higher rational faculties (understanding and memory) remain free for other operations. The person is not divided. But neither is the person entirely seized in all faculties simultaneously.

But Teresa’s most decisive move comes in the Seventh Mansion of the Interior Castle, where she explicitly reunites Martha and Mary. She writes: ‘Both Martha and Mary must entertain the Lord, and keep Him with them.’ (Interior Castle, VII.4.12). This is not a mere exhortation to balance. It is a theological statement. At the height of union with God, the person is not simply one or the other—not simply Mary in contemplation, not simply Martha in action. Rather, both dimensions are integrated.

She continues with a formulation that cuts to the heart of the matter: ‘His Majesty is not always to be found in the same place… when He is in the soul, Martha and Mary work together.’ (VII.4.13). The point is radical. When God dwells in the soul (when there is union), both Martha and Mary operate simultaneously. There is no incompatibility between abiding in God and serving others. There is no necessity to choose between contemplation and action. Rather, the person who is united to God becomes both contemplative and active, both receptive and giving.

It is worth noting that it is chiefly in the Seventh Mansion that Teresa explicitly refers to the spirit as distinct from the soul, while also acknowledging how difficult it is to distinguish between the two. As she writes, “it is not easy to understand the difference between the soul and the spirit” (Interior Castle, VII). To clarify this, she offers two concrete images. One of them is that of a king who dwells in his castle while sending out his armies to fight: the spirit remains united to the Lord, while the soul and the body may still undergo suffering. St. John of the Cross, for his part, frequently employs this distinction and insists on it with precision (cf. Ascent of Mount Carmel II, 29; Spiritual Canticle, first and final stanzas). This distinction is fundamental for understanding how Mary and Martha can be seen not merely as two figures, but as two realities present within the same person. This distinction is also foundational for all discernment, as it allows us to understand how the grace of God operates within us. As St John of the Cross explains, the uncreated grace of God is communicated first and essentially to the spirit, while it may produce certain created ‘echoes’ in the soul and even in the body.

This understanding dissolves the external dichotomy without denying the real experiential differences. The person in union is simultaneously ‘taken’ by God at the deepest level and ‘active’ at the level of consciousness, will, and external life. Martha and Mary are not two persons but two dimensions of the same soul, both present at once, and this presence becomes more explicit and integrated as the soul advances toward the fullness of union in the seventh mansion.

What makes Teresa’s treatment a ‘master stroke’ (as it has been called) is that it relocates the entire distinction from the level of vocations and states of life to the level of interior faculties and their differential participation in the divine life. It is not that some persons are called to be contemplative and others to be active. Rather, any person, at any point in their spiritual journey, is at once contemplative and active—contemplative in their deepest centre, active in the faculties and in external life. The proportions change. The intensity changes. But the simultaneity remains.

This reframing is of immense theological consequence. It means that the dichotomy of states of life is not the deepest way of understanding the active and contemplative distinction. The deepest understanding recognises them as modalities operative within the same person, integrated through the hierarchical structure of the soul and its faculties. Teresa, enclosed as she was, and refusing to send her nuns out on external apostolate, nevertheless does not accept the medieval dichotomy that would confine ‘the active life’ to those engaged in external works and ‘the contemplative life’ to cloistered prayer.

Read also:  “Apostolate and Growth of Love” from “I Am A Daughter of the Church” were Blessed Marie Eugene OCD studies the relationship between growth of love in the Interior Castle of St. Teresa of Avila and Apostolate. This is a prophetic masterpiece! Read also: ‘Contemplation And Action: ‘Two Manifestations Of The Same Life’’, by François-Régis Wilhélem.

5. John of the Cross and the Spiritual Transformation

Where Teresa of Ávila re-internalises the distinction through the faculties, John of the Cross radicalises it further by interpreting the active and contemplative dimensions as phases of transformation under the action of God. For John, the issue is not primarily how different faculties participate in divine union, but rather how the soul itself undergoes successive modes of divine action.

In the Spiritual Canticle (B, stanza 29), John addresses the necessity of a transition that occurs in the spiritual life. The soul must pass from an active mode of life to a more receptive, contemplative stillness, in which it can receive God’s subtle communications in abundance, without hindering them through excessive activity (it is not quietism at all). He writes: ‘The soul must remain in loving attention to God, without particular considerations.’ The language is precise. The soul is not ceasing to act or to pray. Rather, it is passing from one mode of acts to another. It is learning to receive, to wait, to abide in simple attention.

This transition is essential to John’s theology of spiritual growth. The soul begins by working, thinking etc. But as charity grows, grace deepens and the soul becomes more sensitive to God’s direct action, the external activity becomes not only unnecessary but actually obstructive. When God begins to act more directly (what John calls ‘infused contemplation’), the soul’s own discursive efforts interfere with the subtlety of the divine operation. It is worth noting that the stage referred to here in St John’s works is not simply the transition from discursive meditation to contemplation, but a more advanced phase in which a subtler and more abundant contemplation is required. It corresponds to what he describes as the state of spiritual betrothal.

The transition is not from charitable activity to passivity understood as inertia; John is explicit on this point. Rather, it is a passage from one manner of acting in love for God to another, in which God himself loves within us. Charity remains central throughout. In the more active phase of its development, the soul is given to external acts of charity, even though supernatural contemplation is already at work within it. In the more advanced phase, however, priority must be given to God’s own action and to his subtle interventions. The delicate movements of the Holy Spirit must not be overlooked. What is required, then, is not a cessation of charity, but a shift of attention and action: from outward activity to a receptive openness to God’s love, allowing him to form within the soul the inner acts of charity.
This does not imply idleness, but rather a deeper cooperation, whereby the soul consents to the direct operation of God, ‘remaining’ in a simple, loving awareness without the addition of particular acts.

John’s critique of spiritual directors becomes particularly severe at this juncture. In the Living Flame of Love (stanza III, verse 3), he castigates those who do not understand this transition: ‘They disturb souls and draw them away from this delicate anointing… making them return to meditation and reasoning.’ (Living Flame III.29–30). The ‘delicate anointing’ is the direct action of God, the infused prayer into which the soul has entered. To insist that the soul return to discursive meditation at this point is to violate the work God is doing. It is to mistake a higher phase of growth for a deficiency requiring correction.

John is fierce in his judgment: ‘They do not understand the ways and properties of the spirit… and they hinder souls from advancing.’ (Living Flame III.31). The error is to interpret a change of mode as a cessation of spiritual life, as a kind of spiritual dryness or failure. But from John’s perspective, it is precisely the intensification of divine action at a deeper level. The soul that ceases to engage in discursive meditation is not lazy or failing; it is responding obediently to a change in how God is operating.

This understanding transforms the classical framework. What appeared in medieval theology as a choice between ‘the active life’ and ‘the contemplative life’—as two alternative vocations—now appears in John as a sequence within the spiritual life of any soul called to advanced prayer. The soul does not choose to be contemplative in the sense of adopting a vocational state. Rather, under the action of God, the soul is led from more active modes of cooperation to more receptive, passive modes. And this progression is not a speciality for monks or nuns; it is a possibility for any soul that advances in prayer.

As mentioned above, the anthropological precision underlying this distinction is crucial. John understands the soul (psyche, anima) as distinct from the spirit (nous, spiritus). The soul comprises the rational faculties—memory, intellect, will as it operates actively with awareness and perception. The spirit is the apex of the soul, the deepest centre where union with God occurs. As the soul progresses, the operation increasingly shifts from the soul’s active conscious level to the spirit’s deeper receptive supra-conscious level. This distinction permits John to say something that resolves the apparent incompatibility: the spirit can be entirely united to God while the soul and body remain free for ordinary activity.

In Teresa, this was expressed through the faculties: the will can be united while the memory and understanding are free. In John, it is expressed through the distinction of spirit and soul: the spirit can be absorbed in union while the soul and body go about their ordinary operations. The formulation differs, but the substance is the same. The person is not divided. But neither is the person entirely seized in a way that makes external functioning impossible.

This means that what Teresa achieved through the image of Martha and Mary working together in the seventh mansion is grounded in John’s analysis of how the different levels of the person participate in the divine life. It is not that the contemplative person and the active person are somehow one; rather, it is that the person who is most deeply united to God in the spirit remains inwardly free and capable of outward activity through the soul and body. The distinction between active and contemplative is not abolished but reinterpreted as a distinction of levels rather than as a dichotomy of vocations.

Note: It is worth noting that, when St. Teresa of Avila was composing the Seventh Mansion, St. John of the Cross was present in Ávila (1572-1677), and it is highly likely that they had frequent exchanges. As Teresa herself acknowledges the difficulty of distinguishing between soul and spirit, “it is not easy to understand the difference between the soul and the spirit” (Interior Castle, VII), one may reasonably consider the context in which this clarification emerges. It seems probable that the precise formulation of this distinction was either clarified for her or further developed in dialogue with St. John of the Cross. He resided in Ávila for five years and exercised a profound influence through his spiritual direction, notably among the nuns of the Incarnation. In this light, it is reasonable to suggest that Teresa benefited from his theological precision and clarity on such an important matter.

6. Blessed Marie-Eugène and the Modern Carmelite Renewal

In the twentieth century, Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus emerged as an important theoretician and spokesman for the renewal of Carmelite spirituality in the modern world. His work is characterised by an effort to articulate the Carmelite tradition (particularly as developed in Teresa and John of the Cross) in terms accessible to modern formation while remaining faithful to the tradition’s deepest insights. His treatment of the relationship between contemplation and action exemplifies this project.

Marie-Eugène’s formulation is remarkably explicit: ‘Contemplation and action must be united; they are two manifestations of the same divine life in the soul.’ This is not a moral exhortation to balance the two aspects of spiritual life. It is a theological statement about the very nature of grace. There is one life, one grace, one movement of God, expressing itself under two modalities. The modalities are real, distinct, and important to recognize. But they are manifestations of a single reality, not two separate realities that need to be artificially joined.

Marie-Eugène insists on the dynamic of reception and communication as intrinsic to grace itself: ‘The grace of contemplation tends of itself to diffuse itself, to radiate.’ This statement draws on the classical theological principle that grace, like charity, is ‘self-diffusive’ (diffusivum sui). Thomas Aquinas expressed it succinctly: ‘Good is self-diffusive’ (bonum est diffusivum sui, Summa Theologiae I, q. 5, a. 4). When applied to grace, this means that what is truly received from God cannot remain enclosed without being distorted or stifled. The reception of grace necessarily tends toward communication. If authentic contemplation does not naturally tend to diffuse itself, then it is not authentic contemplation.

What Marie-Eugène accomplishes is a relocation of the entire question from external classification to interior dynamism. He explicitly warns against reducing contemplation to a state of life: ‘Contemplation is not the privilege of a state; it is a grace offered to souls.’ This statement reverses the medieval assumption that contemplation is the property of those in contemplative vocations, while action is the property of those in active vocations. For Marie-Eugène, contemplation is a grace, a gift, a possibility for any soul. The state of life (monastic, religious, lay) does not determine whether one will experience contemplation. Rather, contemplation comes as a grace from God, and the soul’s openness to this grace depends on its interior disposition, not on its external vocation.

Marie-Eugène’s work had particular relevance in the twentieth century because he was addressing a modern Catholic consciousness in which the action-contemplation dichotomy had become especially problematic. Lay movements, Catholic Action, the apostolic missions of religious communities—all of these had created a renewed sense that the Church needed to be active in the world, engaged with modern problems. But this engagement risked being understood as incompatible with interiority, with prayer, with contemplation. Marie-Eugène sought to recover the classical theological and spiritual truth that contemplation and action, properly understood, are not in tension but in harmony. The person can be fully open to the action of God in prayer, fully receptive in contemplation, and fully engaged in serving others. These are not alternative or competing orientations but expressions of a single circulation of grace.

His imagery of circulation is particularly instructive. Grace flows from the infinite source (God), enters the soul in contemplation, and naturally flows out in service and communication to others. This is not something the soul has to decide or arrange; it is the intrinsic dynamism of grace. Just as blood circulates through the heart (receiving from the heart and giving to the body), so grace circulates in the Christian life (receiving from God in contemplation and giving to others in service). To interrupt this circulation—to receive but not give, to contemplate but not serve—would be to block the natural motion of grace.

Note: One can put it in simpler terms: if contemplation is understood, following St. John of the Cross, as the reception of God—especially in contemplative prayer—then it necessarily implies a corresponding outward movement in charity: to act, to serve our brothers and sisters, to communicate the grace received, and to allow it to bear fruit. One might use a simple image. If water flows from a high mountain towards us, and we are only a part of the river, a section of it, then we must allow that water of God’s grace to continue its course down into the valley, towards those whom we serve and encounter. What is received must not be retained in a closed circuit, but allowed to flow onwards. Another image is that of the circulation of blood around the heart: the heart receives and then sends out; it has both a receptive and a communicative function. In a similar way, the soul receives and must give; it cannot obstruct the movement of grace within it. The point is to move beyond a rigid opposition between contemplation and action, and to recover a more unified vision of the spiritual life. Rather than thinking in terms of fixed states of life, one is invited to consider the stages of growth, as both St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross do. This dynamic belongs to the life of all Christians.

It is important to note that Marie-Eugène is not abolishing the distinction between contemplative and active dimensions. He is preventing this distinction from becoming reified into a structural dichotomy. The distinction remains real, meaningful, and important to recognize. But it is understood dynamically—as a circulation, a rhythm, a succession of modes under the action of God—rather than structurally, as a division of states and vocations.

Moreover, by presenting contemplation as a grace rather than as a state, Marie-Eugène opens the possibility that any Christian—whether lay, married, in active ministry, or in cloistered life—might experience contemplative prayer. The grace is not confined to those in ‘the contemplative state.’ It is possible for all. This shift has profound implications for modern spirituality. It means that the distinction between contemplative and active is not a divide between different classes of Christians but a description of different dimensions of the single Christian calling that all share.

See: The page on Bl. Marie Eugene ;  “Apostolate and Growth of Love” from “I Am A Daughter of the Church” ; ‘Contemplation And Action: ‘Two Manifestations Of The Same Life’’, by François-Régis Wilhélem.

7. Conclusion: Grace as Circulation, Participation as Dynamism

The trajectory from Augustine through Teresa and John of the Cross to Marie-Eugène reveals a consistent theological concern: to prevent the real distinction between active and contemplative dimensions of Christian life from hardening into a structural dichotomy that divides persons and vocations. The path of recovery involves several decisive shifts.

First, one must distinguish sharply between states of life (status vitae) and phases of growth (stages of spiritual transformation). States of life are sociological and institutional realities—the monastic vocation, the married state, the lay apostolate. These are real and important, but they do not determine the person’s interior trajectory of spiritual transformation. Phases of growth, by contrast, describe the successive modes of divine action and human cooperation as the soul advances. These are universal; they characterise any soul that progresses in prayer. Not all souls experience the higher phases, but those called to advanced prayer undergo a movement through active to receptive to finally integrated modes. This progression is not peculiar to monks or nuns; it is a possibility intrinsic to the spiritual life itself.

Second, the integration achieved by Teresa and John of the Cross shows that the dichotomy collapses not through denial of the real differences but through integration at a higher level. What appeared as opposition (receive vs. give, contemplation vs. action, Mary vs. Martha, Peter vs. John) is revealed as a single circulation of divine life. At the height of spiritual maturity, the person is simultaneously most receptive to God (most contemplative) and most free to serve (most active). This is not paradoxical. It flows from the very nature of grace as self-diffusive, as tending toward communication.

The image of circulation that Marie-Eugène employed—and which has been developed here—proves theologically exact. Divine grace comes from the infinite source, enters the human soul in contemplative reception, and naturally flows out toward others in service and communication. To stop the circulation at any point would be to distort grace. The grace that does not flow out stagnates. The service that is not rooted in deep reception becomes works of the flesh rather than fruit of the Spirit. The integration of both directions of flow—receiving and giving, contemplation and action—is not an achievement of the person but the natural expression of how grace operates when unobstructed.

Third, the anthropological frameworks developed by Teresa and John of the Cross—the faculties (Teresa) and the distinction of spirit and soul (John)—provide the structural foundation for understanding how the integration is possible. The deepest centre of the person can be entirely given to God, entirely united in contemplation, while the rational faculties and the bodily existence remain free for ordinary activity, for service, for engagement with others. The person is not divided. But neither is the person entirely seized in all dimensions simultaneously. This graduated participation, this differential engagement of the soul’s levels, is the key to understanding how Martha and Mary work together, how contemplation and action, rather than being alternatives, become the two directions of a single circulation.

Fourth, the shift from classification to discernment marks the modern Carmelite renewal. Instead of asking, ‘Am I called to the contemplative life or the active life? Am I in the active phase of prayer or the contemplative?’—which are questions of classification—the renewed approach asks, ‘How is grace acting now? What is God asking of me at this moment in my spiritual journey? How am I to cooperate, or receive, as the case may be?’ This shift from a static understanding of states and phases to a dynamic understanding of God’s action and the soul’s response rescues the tradition from dichotomy and places it once again at the service of genuine spiritual discernment.

Fifth, the recovery of Augustine’s foundational insight—that Peter and John, action and contemplation, are not competing figures but inseparable modalities of the Church—opens a way to healing the dichotomy at its root. If one begins from the Church’s essential nature as marked by both pastoral engagement and contemplative abiding, then neither dimension can be eliminated or subordinated without impoverishing the Church. But also, neither dimension has to be separated into distinct states or vocations. The Church, and the Christian within it, is called to live both dimensions, in successively integrating ways, as the Spirit leads.

The persistent misunderstanding that contemplation means isolation and that action means external bustle reflects a failure to grasp the deepest Carmelite insight. Contemplation is the presence of the deepest self to God, in receptive love. Action is the outflowing of that presence, the diffusion of grace, the service of others. A person can be most deeply contemplative—most intimately present to God in the center of the spirit—while the faculties and the body are engaged in ordinary, even demanding, activity. Conversely, a person in the most active engagement, if rooted in deep prayer and receptivity, is already contemplative at the deepest level.

The challenge for contemporary spirituality is to recover this integration within a modern context. The Carmelite tradition, as articulated by its Doctors, offers both the theological framework and the anthropological precision necessary for this recovery. By distinguishing between states of life and phases of growth, by understanding grace as circulating reception and communication, by recognising the graduated participation of the soul’s levels in the divine life, and by shifting from classification to discernment, the modern Christian can hope to move beyond the dichotomy without denying the real and important differences between the active and contemplative dimensions of the spiritual journey.

Ultimately, the resolution of the contemplative-active dichotomy in Carmelite theology points to a deeper truth about the Christian life: that it is not a matter of choosing between receiving and giving, between presence to God and service to others, between interiority and engagement. Rather, it is a matter of being increasingly transparent to the one life of grace that moves through the person—received from God, communicated to others—in ever-deepening participation. In this circulation, Martha and Mary become one, Peter and John become one, action and contemplation become one, though in a unity that does not eliminate their real distinction but rather integrates them into the fullness of what it means to be a Christian open to the movement of God’s Spirit.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, II–II, Questions 179–182 (on the spiritual life and the active/contemplative distinction).

Augustine. In Ioannis Evangelium Tractatus (Tractates on the Gospel of John), particularly Tractates 123–124. Edited by R. Willems, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 36 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1954).

Augustine. Sermons 96, 169. Edited in Patrologia Latina vol. 38 (Paris: Migne, 1841).

Bouyer, Louis. Introduction to Spirituality. Translated by M. P. Ryan (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1961).

Gregory the Great. Homiliae in Evangelia (Homilies on the Gospels). Edited in Patrologia Latina vol. 76.

John of the Cross. The Ascent of Mount Carmel. Translated by E. Allison Peers (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1958).

John of the Cross. The Spiritual Canticle (Cántico Espiritual), particularly Stanza 29 with commentary. Translated by E. Allison Peers and K. Kavanaugh (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1991).

John of the Cross. The Living Flame of Love (Llama de Amor Viva), particularly Stanza III, verse 3. Translated by E. Allison Peers (London: Burns & Oates, 1934).

Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus. I Want to See God: A Practical Synthesis of Carmelite Spirituality. Translated by M. Verda (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1989).

Mühlenberg, E. ‘Die Auslegung von Joh 21 bei Augustin,’ Augustinianum 25 (1985): 89–121.

Teresa of Ávila. The Interior Castle (El Castillo Interior), particularly the Fourth and Seventh Mansions. Translated by E. Allison Peers (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1961).

Verda, Mary. Blessed Marie-Eugène and the Mystical Life. Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 2005.