an uncommon path (mini)

"It is as tragic as it is ridiculous to see Christians today giving up this fundamental priority [prayer] - which is witnessed to by the entire Old and New Testament, by Jesus’ life as much as by Paul’s and John’s theology - and seeking instead an immediate encounter with Christ in their neighbor, or even in purely worldly work and technological activity. Engaged in such work, they soon lose the capacity to see any distinction between worldly responsibility and Christian mission. Whoever does not come to know the face of God in contemplation will not recognize it in action, even when it reveals itself to him in the face of the oppressed and humiliated."