Last week, I mentioned what will not be taken from us if we choose what is better:
“Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42).
Here is how Thomas Aquinas puts it in his mediation on the relationship between the Contemplative and Active life:
Sometimes a man is called away from the contemplative life to the works of the active life, on account of some necessity of the present life, yet not so as to be compelled to forsake contemplation altogether. Hence Augustine says …”If no one imposes this burden upon us we must devote ourselves to the research and contemplation of truth, but if it be imposed on us, we must bear it because charity demands it of us. Yet even then we must not altogether forsake the delights of truth, lest we deprive ourselves of its sweetness, and this burden overwhelm us.” Hence it is clear that when a person is called from the contemplative life to the active life, this is done by way not of subtraction but of addition. (ST II-II Q.182.1)
