Proper ideas on the mixed life.

The rule, which places the summit of the spiritual life in active and passive contemplation, has a concept of the mixed life which differs from that of the Thomistic School. The latter sums up its ideal in this formula -- contemplata alus tradere; to crown the contemplative life with the active life is the highest perfection for St. Thomas and the Dominicans. For Carmel, it would be rather complete dedication to contemplation; it should be interrupted only because of necessity -- when there is need to go to men and speak to them of God. Only charity toward one's neighbor or obedience can be reasons for leaving God for the sake of God. "Deum propter Deum relinquere." As the rule prescribes: "To meditate on the law of the Lord day and night, watching in prayer, unless occupied with other justified tasks." The words of Our Lord about Mary Magdalen, which the Church applies to the Blessed Virgin on the feast of the Assumption, have been applied to Order of Carmel: "Mary has chosen the better part and it shall not be taken from her." For the Carmelite, contemplation is "the better part. This difference in concept is felt very little in practice; the Carmelites took into account the necessity of interrupting their contemplation for the care of souls, and the Popes have called upon them for preaching, missions, and numerous apostolic works. Love of neighbor and submission to the head of the Church have constrained them to undertake the mixed life; also to give to others the fruit of their contemplation, but this ideal has been imposed upon them by circumstances. The Order has always sought to preserve its proper ideal for as many of its sons as possible; it asks them to return with the greatest haste as soon as their exterior duties are accomplished to what is the direct and primary object of their calling. Nicholas the Frenchman, seventh Prior General (1265-1271), who relinquished his office for solitude, characterizes this primitive orientation well: "Conscious of their imperfection, the hermits of Carmel persevered in solitude for a long time. But since they aspired to be of use to their neighbor so as not to be culpable in their regard, they sometimes, although rarely, descended from their hermitage. They went to tread on the threshing floor of preaching and to sow with generous hand what they had reaped with delight in the desert with the sickle of contemplation."