t the moment of reception into the Order of Preachers, each one of us was asked the question: "What do you seek?", and we replied: "The mercy of God and your mercy". Finding myself here, this morning, at a General Chapter of the Order, about to speak to you on the subject of contemplation, I am conscious, as almost never before, of my own limitations, and of my great need, therefore, for my brothers' forbearance and compassion. I am still, God knows, a mere novice in the life of prayer and contemplation. And this talk is, I have no doubt, the most difficult I will ever be asked to give. So I ask you straight out, my brothers, to have compassion on me, and on my words, as I begin.

A great fidelity to the life of prayer and contemplation has been a distinguishing mark of many of our best-known Dominican preachers and saints. But, within the Church, at least until recently, the Order has generally been noted more for its intellectual prowess than for its contemplative zeal. Today, however, all that is beginning to change. There are now widely available, for example, more translations than ever before of the writings of people like Johannes Tauler, Catherine of Siena, Henry Suso, and Meister Eckhart. And St Thomas Aquinas, who was always revered as a dogmatic theologian within the Church, is now being regarded also, by many people, as a spiritual master.

So it would seem that, all of a sudden, we have an opportunity to allow the contemplative dimension of our tradition to speak with a profound and impressive authority to a new generation. But our own immediate task, and no doubt the reason for this talk this morning, is to allow that tradition to speak first of all to ourselves, here and now, and to allow it to address not only our hearts and our minds but also the way in which we live our lives as preachers.

Of course, all of us here are indebted to the witness of our own Dominican contemplative sisters. I know I am more indebted than I can say to the community of sisters at Siena Convent in Droheda, Ireland. And some of you, if not all of you, will be aware that a full acknowledgment of the sisters' contemplative witness and support has already been given by Master Timothy in his most recent letter to the Order.

Not all forms of contemplation, it has to be said, have been affirmed by our Dominican forbears. In fact, in the Vitae Fratrum, there has survived a vivid account of one unfortunate friar, who very nearly lost his faith from too much "contemplation"! In similar vein, Humbert of Romans, in his long treatise on preaching, openly complains about those people whose "sole passion is for contemplation". These men seek out, he says, "a hidden life of quiet" or "a retired place for contemplation", and then refuse "to respond to the summons to be useful to others by preaching".

It is worth noting here, in passing, that the word "contemplation", in these early Dominican texts, does not possess the rather esoteric and high mystical character which it would later acquire in the sixteenth century. The word, it is true, can sometimes be linked with the notions of recollection and retirement, but it tends to have a much more plain and down-to-earth connotation. Often it can mean, in fact, little more than a simple act of attention or prayerful study. (In modern times, to add to the confusion, we tend to use the word "contemplation" as a basic synonym for prayer itself.)

Now obviously Humbert of Romans is not intending, in any way, to set up as contraries to one another the life of prayer and the life of preaching. "Since human effort can achieve nothing without the help of God", he writes, "the most important thing of all for a preacher is that he should have recourse to prayer". But the life of prayer and contemplation, which Humbert of Romans and the early Dominicans would recommend, the contemplation which is the focus also of the present paper, is one which would compel us, in Humbert's fine phrase, to "come out into the open", compel us, that is, to set about the task of preaching.

To begin our reflections, I suggest we look first not to one of the most famous texts from our tradition, but to a text by an anonymous French Dominican of the thirteenth century. The passage in question I found hidden away in a large biblical commentary on The Book of Apoclapyse which for centuries had been attributed to Aquinas. The work is now judged, however, to have been composed by a Dominican équipe working at St Jacques in Paris under the general supervision of the Dominican, Hugh of St Cher, between the years 1240 to 1244. Although a major part of the commentary makes for rather dull reading, certain pasages in the work are composed with a clarity and force that remind one at times of the work of the modern French contemplative, Simone Weil. In one such passage our Dominican author notes that among the things "a man ought to see in contemplation", and ought "to write in the book of his heart", are "the needs of his neighbours":

He ought to see in contemplation what he would like to have done for himself, if he were in such need, and how great is the weakness of every human being...Understand from what you know about yourself the condition of your neighbour. ("Intellige ex te ipso quae sunt proximi tui.") And what you see in Christ and in the world and in your neighbour, write that in your heart.

These lines are memorable for the compassionate attention they give to the neighbour in the context of contemplation. But I would like to think as well that their emphasis on true self-knowledge, and their simple openness to Christ, to the neighbour, and to the world, strike a distinctly Dominican note. The passage ends with a simple but impressive reference to the task of preaching. We are exhorted by our author first of all to understand ourselves and be attentive to all that we see in the world around us and in our neighbour, and to reflect deep within our hearts on the things that we have observed. But then we are told to go out and preach: "First see, then write, then send...What is needed first is study, then reflection within the heart, and then preaching."

The remainder of my talk will be divided into three sections:
1. Contemplation: A Vision of Christ
2. Contemplation: A Vision of the World
3. Contemplation: A Vision of the Neighbour

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