Contemplation 

   No one can tell or explain to another how to contemplate.  It is a personal experience with God.  Meditation is not contemplation though they are related.  Reading cannot make us contemplative, but consideration of what we’ve read can.

   Contemplation is putting the bible aside after reading only one verse and spending the next thirty minutes considering what that verse means to you, today, in this moment.  It can be reliving the events of Christ’s life in our mind, imagining we are there with Him as they occur.  We too receive the loafs on the mountain with thousands of others; we are there when the water becomes wine in Cana.  We stand at the foot of the cross with the Blessed Mother as Christ hangs dying.

   Christianity without contemplation has room to grow and develop.  If we aren’t quietly, prayerfully considering what our faith means in our life, it’s likely that faith needs to grow.  Faith, like contemplation, is not something we can achieve on our own; it is a gift from God.  We need to nurture that gift and help it to grow.  Contemplation and prayer are the water and sunlight that faith needs to increase.

   With certainty I can say that spending a few minutes each day in contemplation and solitude with our Lord can do more to bring you nearer to Him than most anything else we may do.  Go to Mass and receive the Holy Eucharist (daily if possible), confess your sins frequently, read scripture and spiritually enlightening books, pray always.  Then take the time to sit quietly with the Lord and let Him lead the conversation, listen to what He’s saying to you and asking of you.  The journey will lead you home.