Active and contemplative

I have friends who tell me that they have long had an urge to enter monastic life but circumstances have not allowed it to be fulfilled. I confess that I have never had such a desire myself, and part of me even now finds the desire for a complete enclosure hard to comprehend. But I can see today in the story of Martha and Mary (Luke 10, 40-42: it is the Feast of St Martha today) that Our Lord points to the importance of sitting at His feet - which is what those completely devoted to the contemplative life commit to do. The life of the Secular Carmelite ideally suits me because it encourages and forms my contemplative side while allowing me to function in the world: like so many others, I find that I have within me both a strong urge to action and a strong urge to contemplation. The great thing about my membership of the Seculars is that it holds me in a community that is devoted to a calling combining contemplation and action.