Essentially, prayer is attentiveness to God, and this has various degrees, from weak or faltering to total. This attentive attitude is itself the fruit of love; God's love becomes the dominant commitment of the will. The person has achieved purity of heart and spiritual wholeness. Joy takes hold of the heart, transmuting every moment into the irresistible attraction and power of divine love.
Contemplation is not something that is done alongside or before and after our everyday action. It's the doing itself that is contemplation because you yourself are so united with God that you are simply living the divine life; you are God living and doing you in the world. You are God's manifestation ... a movement of consciousness from God, with God, in God, as God, out in the world, a movement in which the divine conscious and my conscious, flowing together, stream out in love and in creative, healing, beautifying energy to create the world and to make it ever better.