The Contemplative vs the Active Life

Contemplation and Action: Both Oriented Towards the Service of God
According to the exposition of Gregory on action (represented by Martha) and contemplation (represented by Mary), monks and nuns with regard to their vocation, are united in Christ by their respective approaches to the Lord. Christ Himself engaged in both methods—the active and the contemplative—during His visible/public life. He spent nights in prayer and he also spent many days healing the sick, teaching those who would listen, and visiting many throughout the land. His example corresponds with the dual example set by the two sisters, Mary and Martha. Martha engaged in the active service of serving the followers of Christ, while Mary engaged in the contemplative service of hanging on Christ’s every look and word. Both are essential to the life of the Church, as each performs a specific and necessary function in the Mystical Body. The Mystical Body is there to assist us in fulfilling the two basic commands described by Christ as the most important for a person to obey: 1) Love God, and 2) Love your neighbor. In order to love God, one must be willing to spend time alone in prayer with God (and Mary represents this activity), and to love one’s neighbor one must be willing to devote time to him or her (Martha represents this activity).
As Gregory well understood, some people are called to engage in these activities to varying degrees: so some nuns or monks will lean more towards Martha and others more towards Mary. Their vocations are based on this calling and while Gregory saw no need to institutionalize one over the other, he did recognize the merits of allowing the religious to exercise their callings as God preferred. Thus some monks or nuns or would be more contemplative than others and some would be more active than others.
When Gregory wrote his exposition, he was explaining the nature of the religious life and breaking it down into its two basic component parts and describing how both were vital to the life of the Church and to the fulfillment of the interior life and the vocation of the religious.[footnoteRef:1] He was also validating the existence of the monastery in human society and showing that it had a specific and precise spiritual place in the world. His exposition justified the roles of both vocational aspects of the religious community: those who were ordered towards contemplation were just as important and vital as those who were ordered towards action. They complemented one another: the prayer life helped yield graces from heaven for the active life, and the active life helped turn souls towards the prayer life. Though they appeared mutually exclusive, they were in actuality more united than one might think. [1: C. H. Lawrence. Medieval Monasticism. 4th edition. Routledge, 201.]

Thus, Gregory’s exposition paved the way for a religious renaissance so to speak, as it promoted the religious life by extolling the virtues of both contemplative and active nuns and monks. It showed that there was a place and need for each in the world, and that Christ Himself appreciated both. Gregory saw that for Christians in the Middle Ages to truly reach their fullest potential they too should recognize the merits of both vocations and try to determine which way their calling oriented them. As Gregory showed, God instills in all hearts and minds a disposition that is reflected in the way that we extend ourselves. Some will have a disposition that is geared more towards contemplation and appreciating the beauty and wisdom that is the Divine Life, and others will have a disposition that is geared more towards the service of the Church in an active manner. Without both, however, the Church cannot function, for each supports the overall injunctions of Christ—that we should love God and love our neighbors.
Bibliography
Lawrence, C. H. Medieval Monasticism, 4th Ed. Routledge.