With the interior life, active works become a means of sanctification, but without the interior life, they become a menace to salvation.
Alvarez de Paz said, “A man who devotes himself to works of charity must not imagine that they will close the door of contemplation in his face, nor make him any less capable of practicing it. On the contrary, he must hold it as certain that they will even serve as an excellent preparation for it.”
Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard wrote: “Sanctity, as a matter of fact, consists above all in charity, and any apostolic work that is worthy of the name is simply charity in action.”
Active life lacking the interior life is full of danger. Father Lallemant described the first cause of the problem: “There are many apostolic workers who never do anything purely for God. In all things, they seek themselves, and they are always secretly mingling their own interests with the glory of God in the best of their work. And so they spend their life in this intermingling of nature and grace. Finally death comes along, and then alone do they open their eyes, behold their deception, and tremble at the approach of the formidable judgment of God.”
Dom Chautard wrote: “The worker for God, carried away by the pleasure of giving free rein to his natural energy, had let the divine life fade out, and thus lost the supernatural heat which had been stored up in him to make his apostolate effective and which would have helped his soul to resist the encroachments of the numbing ice of natural motives.”
St. Bernard warned Pope Bl. Eugenius III: “I fear, lest in the midst of your occupations without number, you may lose hope of ever getting through with them, and allow your heart to harden. It would be very prudent of you to withdraw from such occupations, even if it be only for a little while, rather than let them get the better of you, and, little by little, lead you where you do not want to go. And where, you will ask, is that? To indifference. Such is the end to which these accursed tasks will lead you; that is, if you keep on as you have begun, giving yourself entirely to them, keeping nothing of yourself, for yourself.”
Dom Chautard exclaimed: “Is there anything more lofty and more sacred than the government of the Church? Is there anything more useful for the glory of God and for the good of souls? And yet ‘accursed task,’ St. Bernard calls them, if they are going to stand in the way of the interior life of the one who gives himself to them.”
The active worker who is lacking the interior life inevitably slides into tepidity. Dom Chautard pointed out that a person who is willfully tepid resigns himself to consent habitually to levity and neglect and has come to terms with deliberate venial sin.
The first stage of the slackening of the interior life is progressively losing the clarity of convictions about the interior life. Dom Chautard described: “The soul seeks itself more than it seeks God. The foreground is completely taken up by reputation, glory, and personal interests.”
The second stage is the lack of the spirit of faith in governing the use of time. The lack of discipline in the usage of time often leads to the shortening or abandoning of mental prayer. Dom Chautard wrote, “The experience of priests and religious vowed to active works is enough to establish that an apostolic worker who, under pretext of being too busy or too tired, or else out of repugnance, or laziness, or some illusion, is too easily brought to cut down his meditation to ten or fifteen minutes instead of binding himself to half an hour’s serious mental prayer from which he might draw plenty of energy and drive for his day’s work, will inevitably fall into tepidity of the will.”
This tepidity of the will easily led to the neglect of the liturgical prayers and the lack of fervor in the reception and administration of the sacraments.
缺乏內在生命導致冷淡
有內修生活下，積極的工作變成聖化的工具，但沒有內修生活，它們變成救恩的威脅。
阿爾瓦雷斯·德巴斯說：『一位奉獻於愛德工作的人—，不應幻想他們為他可以關閉默觀的門，或讓自己不多可能去作實行默觀。相反，他應該肯定它們甚至為默觀奉上一個優秀的準備。』若翰肖塔爾院牧寫道：『聖德實際上首先在於愛德，任何配稱為宗徒事工的都是愛德的行動。』
一個活躍的生命，缺乏了內修生活是充滿危險的。拉勒芒神父形容這問題的首個原因：『有很多從事宗徒業務的人，他們永不純粹為天主而工作。在所有的事情上，他們尋找自己，他們時常把自己的利益與天主的光榮混淆起來。所以他們把他們的生命花在本性與聖寵的相互混淆中。最後死亡到來的時候，他們獨自打開他們的眼睛，看見他們的虛偽，在走近天主艱巨的審判時震抖。』
肖塔爾院牧寫道：『天主的工作者，因著他放任於本性能量所帶來的快感而忘形，讓他的聖性生命退色，由此失去作宗徒業務而得獲的超性熱量，這熱量本來可以幫他的靈魂抗拒本性動機麻木冰層的侵蝕。』
聖伯爾納鐸告誡教宗安日納三世說：『我恐怕，為免在你無數的事務中，你會因時常不能應付它們而失望，並容許你的心變硬。你要很謹慎在這些事務中退出來，甚至這只是一少段時間，但總比讓它們控制你為佳，這會一步一步驅使你到你不願到的地方。在那裡，你會問，就是這樣？莫不關心。這就是那可咒罵的事務帶領你結局；就是，如果隨你所開始的，繼續下去，把你自己全部給了它們，自己不作保留。』
肖塔爾院牧解釋道：『可有什麼比教會的管制更高的，更神聖的？可有什麼比天主的光榮和靈魂的好處更為有用？可是「可咒罵的事務」聖伯爾納鐸這樣稱它們，如果它們阻擋著從事它們者的內修生活。』
活躍的工作者，缺乏內修生活無可避免地滑入冷淡中。肖塔爾院牧指出一個人，若是故意的冷淡，會認同習慣性的輕率和忽略，並妥協於故意的小罪。
內修生活首階段的鬆懈是漸進地失卻對超性理念的清晰和信賴。肖塔爾院牧形容說：『靈魂更多於尋找他自己，對比於尋找天主。最前面的，全被名譽，光榮和個人的利益所佔有。』
第二階段是缺乏信德的精神來掌控利用時間。缺乏利用時間的紀律經常導致心禱的不足或放棄。肖塔爾院牧寫道：『司鐸們和獻身於活躍工作的會士們的經驗足以肯定: 一位使徒工作者若借口太忙，太累，厭惡，懶惰或一些幻覺而把心禱從應該決意認真地作的半小時減短到十分鐘或十五分鐘；這心禱本來他可以能夠得到大量的能量去驅動他一天的工作，就這樣，無法避免地，墜入了意志上的冷淡。』
意志上的冷淡很容易引領人的忽略禮儀禱文和在領受和施放聖事時缺乏熱情。
