What's the difference?

Well, I took some of my answer from the New Advent Encyclopedia:

Contemplative life is :"A life ordered in view of contemplation; a way of living especially adapted to lead to and facilitate contemplation, while it excludes all other preoccupations and intents. To seek to know and love God more and more is a duty incumbent on every Christian and should be his chief pursuit, and in this wide sense the Christian and the contemplative lives are synonymous. This duty, however, admits of various degrees in its fulfillment. Many give into it only a part of their time and attention, either from lack of piety or because of other duties; others attempt to blend harmoniously the contemplative life with active ministry, i.e. the care of souls, which, undertaken from a motive of supernatural charity, can be made compatible with the inner life."

Monastic life is simply a setting of yourself aside for the Lord, in seclusion from the world, as monks or nuns, etc. Contemplative life is more of a state of being, whereas monastic life is more of a physical thing or ideal of actually living apart from the world.

Hope that helps at least a little.

In Christ,
Denise

in much of today's speak, i think they are the same thing. (Though the differences noted above are well pointed out.)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the monastic way of life refers mainly to cloistered nuns and monks. I know some orders are active-contemplative, as as opposed to just active. They have more of the monastic qualities in their daily life.

Yes, as I said above, monastic is the secluding of one's life from the world, and setting yourself aside for the Lord. Actually, since I used the New Advent encyclopedia for the definition of contemplative life, please allow me to give a more 'official' definition for monasticism: "Monasticism or monachism, literally the act of "dwelling alone" (Greek monos, monazein, monachos), has come to denote the mode of life pertaining to persons living in seclusion from the world, under religious vows and subject to a fixed rule, as monks, friars, nuns, or in general as religious. The basic idea of monasticism in all its varieties is seclusion or withdrawal from the world or society. The object of this is to achieve a life whose ideal is different from and largely at variance with that pursued by the majority of mankind; and the method adopted, no matter what its precise details may be, is always self-abnegation or organized asceticism."

Pax Christ,

D.

Yes, monastic life would be referring to nuns and monks who live within the context of the cloister. Contemplative is a state of being, so to say. Lots of orders list themselves as active-contemplative, which means that they give to the people they serve the fruits of their contemplation, their prayerful union with God. Contemplative is usually used to describe a monastic vocation, but in the end, we're all really called to be contemplatives no matter what our state of life.