Christian contemplation is not merely lost in God.
It also includes in its vision an eschatological understanding of the world redeemed in Christ. It sees the world transformed in the divine light, it sees all things recapitulated in Christ (Eph. 1:10).
It is aware of the victory of Christ and the reality of his Kingdom in the world even now, in all the confusion, the chaos and the risk of this historical and revolutionary time of crisis which we call the atomic age.
From Thomas Merton, “Contemplation in a World of Action” (Emphasis mine.)
Rob Gerhard 