Contemplative Life in the Heart of the Church
(talk given by Mother Catherine Marie, C.P. to
the Owensboro Serra Club, Nov 2007)
 

First of all, I want to thank all of you for making an exception and coming out here to the monastery for your meeting. This was, of course, to the encouragement of John Howard, so special thanks to you, John. Our whole community is so grateful to the Serra Club for your wonderful work of prayer and action in promoting and supporting priestly and religious vocations. For some years, thanks to those among you who are also Passionist Oblates, I have been aware of how much the Holy Spirit is working among you and I just thank you for all the prayers you offer and the works you engage in, and in particular:

• I’m sure you’ve had a lot to do with our increase in Owensboro seminarians

• The Adopt-a-Priest program, as well as the vocation monstrance blessed by John Paul II

• And your many other activities, seen and unseen...

Just know how appreciated and so important these endeavors are for the Church.

So, you’ve come to the monastery today to gain a better understanding of the meaning and value of contemplative religious life. Our Vocation DVD gives a good explanation of our particular Passionist vocation, so this morning I thought I would direct my reflections more to contemplative religious life in general. In the time frame we have, I will try to sum up my reflections under three headings:

1) The place of contemplative life in the Mystical Body of Christ

2) The sign value of contemplative life

3) And very briefly I will touch on what makes Passionists different from every other contemplative order.

One day about 117 years ago, a cloistered nun in France was feeling great desires to serve the Church. Seeing the great needs of her times, perhaps she was wondering if her life was really making a difference. All of you probably know I am talking about St. Therese, the cloistered nun who was proclaimed co-patroness of the missions along with the active missionary, St. Francis Xavier. So, this day, Therese found herself questioning "Just what is my place in the Church?" In prayer, she looked out at the work being done by bishops, priests, missionaries, married people, doctors, martyrs and saw herself in none of these. Therese turned for answers to sacred scripture, and found her answer in I Corinthians. There, the Holy Spirit revealed to her something so simple, yet so profound, that the entire Church reads and reflects on this passage of her autobiography in the green breviary every year, for Oct. 1^st.

I am quoting excerpts now from this reading: "When I looked on the mystical body of the Church, I recognized myself in none of the members St. Paul described....I knew that the Church had a heart, and that such a heart appeared to be aflame with love. I knew that one love drove the members of the Church to action, and that if this love were extinguished, the apostles would proclaim the Gospel no longer, the martyrs would shed their blood no more. I saw...that love is everything, embracing every time and place. Then...with supreme joy in my soul, I proclaimed: ‘Jesus, my love, at last I have found my calling: my call is love....In the heart of the Church my mother, I will be love.’" So we are like the heart pumping life-blood throughout the Mystical Body of Christ. If this love is extinguished, if more vocations to contemplative life are not forthcoming, the life of the whole Church will experience immense loss. We are an endangered species today!

In many church documents, we find references to contemplatives as being in the heart of the Church, continually about the work of love. And this love expresses itself in a lifestyle of prayer and sacrifice.

In the human body, the heart is protected by a rib cage–and so too in the heart of mother church, contemplative religious are protected from the noise and distracting images of the world, by cloister that takes various forms according to the particular charism (gift of the Holy Spirit) that each religious institute has received.

So the image of a heart silently beating with love throughout the day and night, sending the energy of the Holy Spirit to all members of the body of Christ, is an easy way to grasp the place of contemplative life in the Church.

To enter a cloister is truly to enter the Heart of Christ, the Heart of the Church, and to carry on the contemplative aspect of the mission of Jesus.

2) Another way to think about contemplative life in the Church is the image of Moses praying on the mountain while the people of God were doing battle down in the plain. We heard this reading several weeks ago in our Sunday liturgy.

We know the story so well: when Moses kept his hands raised to God in prayer, then God’s people got the better of the fight. But when his hands grew tired and he let them down, then enemies of God’s people began to win. We remember that Aaron and Hur put a rock in place for Moses to sit on, and they supported Moses’ hands, one on one side and one on the other, so his hands remained steady until sunset. As a result Israel won the battle.

This image too, like that of the heart, clearly illustrates the close connection between contemplatives and all of God’s people whose vocation calls them directly into the battle. Among the people whom God calls to help contemplatives keep their hands raised in prayer, are the Serra Club members! We are all in this together. We need one another.

Prayer on the mountain is also characteristic of the whole mission of Jesus. The Gospels tell us that Jesus always withdrew into solitude to pray alone to His Father. His active work flowed out of His intimate union with His Father in prayer.

The Church sets contemplative religious apart in places of solitude–on mountains, as it were. Contemplatives give public witness to the prayer of Christ, and the unceasing prayer of Mother Church all over the world.

Even now, Jesus Himself, scripture says, is at the right hand of His Father, "ever living to make intercession for us." And the Church herself, from the rising of the sun to its setting throughout the world, is unceasingly offering the sacrifice of the Mass, and the sacrifice of the Liturgy of the Hours as she prays for each and every person whom Christ has redeemed. This is our very work in the Church! Contemplative religious are called to give public witness–that means by who we are and by our lifestyle–to this unceasing prayer of Christ and His Church. We are called to be like Jesus praying on a mountain, and like Moses on a mountain keeping his hands raised in prayer as God’s people do battle with the forces of evil.

So, thus far, we have used the image of the heart pulsing life-giving blood to all the members of the body of the Church, and the image of Moses and of Jesus praying on the mountain. Hopefully these images shed light on the necessary place of contemplative life in the Church.

And this brings me to the sign value of our life. Signs are all around us, communicating information and meaning. A monastery too, is a silent sign. I have witnessed over the years an amazing communication of the Holy Spirit that happens in the minds and hearts of people who drive onto this property, this holy ground, and especially as they drive around that curve at the top of the hill in front of the monastery, where the chapel first comes into sight.

I have heard children say: "Peace washed over me." I have heard adults say, "When I came around that bend at the top of the hill and the monastery came into view, I wanted to slow down and just drive very slowly in."

UPS men, elevator inspectors, electricians, and so forth–people who come simply to make a delivery or to do some work on the property, end up asking questions about God and the Church. They often end up saying they wish they could stay because they find peace, or however they might express it.

What is happening here? It is the energy of the Holy Spirit beaming light and peace to human hearts from a SIGN that the Church herself has established, from a monastery that is a dwelling place of God with man, or as Pope Benedict calls it, a place where heaven and earth merge. And we know that our present Pontiff is really promoting the value of monastic life.

I think that when people see a monastery, there truly is a grace offered in their hearts. The Holy Spirit stirs in a person, making them aware of the little monastery, the dwelling place they carry in their own hearts. There is an invitation to come home to their own hearts, and to the God who dwells there.

Monasteries call people back to the one thing necessary: loving God with all our hearts and loving our neighbor as Christ loves him or her. Monasteries call people to a deeper prayer life, to slow down and be still for a while, to take more time for God, and to enter more deeply into that desire for God that is written into every human heart.

The sign value of a monastery is to call people to prayer, to go deeper into their own call to contemplation.

Thanks to the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church of our time, we have a renewed awareness that every member of the Church, and not just priests and religious, every member of Christ’s Body is called to holiness. There is a renewed awareness that the Church herself, and every member of it, is both active and contemplative.

Even those whose vocation places them in the noisy, rushing world of today, yes each one of us, the Church says, is to be both active and contemplative. In our culture, we are pretty good at activity, but what about fostering the contemplative dimension of our Christian lives? Perhaps this aspect of our baptismal call needs to be focused on more seriously in our times. Pope John Paul II laid out a marvelous pastoral plan for this new millennium, and in it he called each member of the Church to learn the art of prayer more deeply.

Not everyone can live in a monastery, but everyone can step apart regularly, as Jesus Himself did, and take time to be alone with God in prayer. Times of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, times of quiet attentiveness to the treasure we bear in our baptized souls–the indwelling of the Most Blessed Trinity–really entering into a deeper relationship with the Trinity, will keep us growing in the art of Christian prayer. It will bring us the peace the world cannot give. It will keep us rooted in God’s faithful presence with us in the turmoil of the day, and in the crosses we are each asked to bear.

Each one of us has a dwelling place of God in our hearts, where God’s love is constantly being poured out into our hearts. Taking time to get in touch with that hidden treasure, will help us develop the art of prayer and be more effective witnesses of Christ to family, friends, parish and to the world we live in.

Monasteries exist as a sign, a reminder of this Christian call to holiness and prayer.

There is so very much more that should be said, but I will end with a brief note about our Passionist charism. Earlier I said that the Church places contemplatives in cloister for the sake of our mission in the Church, but that there are various forms this cloister takes. Among cloistered religious there is a great variety.

In the past 25 years or more, with the Church’s revision of our rule and constitutions, our community has come to a better understanding of the uniqueness of our contemplative calling. We make a special vow to promote devotion to the Passion of Christ–actually to the Paschal Mystery in its entirety–and this distinguishes us from all other contemplative groups. From the beginning, our founder envisioned the possibility of retreatants and also of our Nuns teaching Christian doctrine from within the monastery itself. These are not to be considered as "external works" which would put us in another canonical category of being active religious. On the contrary, these retreats were to be a unique aspect of our Passionist contemplative heritage and tradition.

This is why over what is almost 20 years, our community has felt called by the Holy Spirit to offer hospitality to retreatants who are looking for a deeper encounter with God.

And so it is important for Serra Club members to understand that our Church approved cloister is not like, for instance, what one sees at Mother Angelica’s monastery. We have our own unique vocation, and it is this we offer to the local church, as well as to others from various states who do come to our retreat house.

I mentioned earlier that contemplative religious throughout the world, and particularly in the U.S., are an endangered species. The culture is such that vocations are snuffed out very early on. Those who do feel a religious vocation stirring in their hearts often lack faith support, guidance, skills of discernment, etc. that would enable them to be capable of answering the call of Christ. Our high speed, visual and noisy culture can drown out or challenge the call of Christ. We often find discouragement and confusion being expressed by young people considering religious life.

Then too, since going to college is the thing to do, they sometimes build up a huge debt which will take years to pay off, while in the meantime a vocation is put on the back burner and may never get answered.

Much work needs to be done in teaching young people the art of Christian prayer; in teaching them the Christian virtues, the truth about the Eucharist and the other sacraments and so forth.

But much can be done by persons like yourself, who love the Church and are committed to supporting priestly and religious vocations. Spread the word about the necessity of contemplative life in the Church. Perhaps suggest to an interested girl that she contact us. Pray for her, encourage her. We need all the help we can get.

So, once again–as I end these reflections–I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your work on behalf of priestly and religious vocations, and I do ask your continued prayers.

God bless all of you!

All Rights Reserved.  ©  see Terms of Use and Legal Restrictions