GATINEAU-HULL,
QUEBEC
SEPTEMBER
19, 1984
My
dear Sisters,
"The
Spirit and the Bride say 'Come'...
Come, Lord Jesus" (Ap
22:17, 20). The Church, inspired by the Spirit present in it,
continues
to address this call to the Lord Jesus. She awaits his return.
The
Church awaits him, as a
bride yearning after her beloved husband who is the
right hand of the Father. She has already
"washed her robes" in his redeeming
blood. She hopes "to feed on the tree of life".
She knows that she already shares in his life
in a mysterious and partial way, through faith,
the sacraments, prayer and charity. It is with Him
that she works to renew this world according to his Spirit. But she is
impatient for a complete renewal, for the full vision of her spouse.
For the
moment, her life
is hidden in God.
The
whole Church must live in this expectancy
and bear witness to it. But
consecrated
souls have made "a charismatic choice of Christ as the exclusive
spouse".
This choice already enables one "to be
anxious about the
affairs of
the Lord" but also - when it is made 'for the Kingdom of heaven’
- it brings this
eschatological reign of God closer to the life
of all
people. Consecrated persons bring
into the midst
of this passing world news of the resurrection to come and of eternal life
(cf. my letter Redemptionis
donum,
no. 11).
All
religious men and women have this charism
at the heart of the Church. But it is even more obvious in the case of
cloistered Sisters who give
up
all
activity in the world in order to be
present to the Lord alone. And
in this place it is first
of all to you that I
speak, dear contemplative
sisters. The Church considers your
place in the mystical body
of Christ
essential to the life of the Church, to its full development, and this,
even in
the young Churches whose energy is monopolized by the tasks of
evangelization
(cf. Perfectae caritatis, no. 47,
and Ad gentes no. 40). In fact, the prayer of contemplatives has played
a
considerable role in the deepening of faith in Canada. That was certainly the insight of Father Mangin
and Sister
Marie-Zita de Jésus when they founded here, almost a hundred years ago,
the
Servants of Jesus-Mary. These religious women honour in a special way
the
Sacred Heart of Jesus in the eucharist, the supreme gift of his love,
before
which they keep a continuous
vigil.
Your spiritual apostolate, dear Sisters, is it not to support the ministry of priests and to
collaborate
in the eternal plan of the
covenant
for all believers: "that they might be one!"?
I think also of all the
men and women who have established the
contemplative life in Canada
according
to complementary spiritualities. So, in addition to all the
religious here today, I greet with affection and I encourage all those who lead a monastic life in Canada!"
"The
Kingdom of heaven will be like
this: ten bridesmaids took their their
[sic] lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them
were foolish and five were wise". My Sisters, wait for the
groom as
these wise virgins did. Always
be
ready. Always be open. In your waiting for the Lord, be on watch.
Your
convent life
is organized in such a way as to encourage the experience of God. Your withdrawal
from the world,
with its solitude; your silence, which is a listening silence,
a silence
of love; asceticism, penance, the tasks which lead you to share in the
redemptive work; fraternal
communion which
is always being renewed; the daily eucharistic celebration that unites
your
offering to that of Christ.
May
the weariness, routine and monotony
involved in your convent life not
make you lose your
vigilance, may the occasional impression that God is absent or
temptations or
even the normal trials of growing in mystical union
with Christ not discourage you! May the lamp of your prayer, of
your
love, never stop burning! Keep it well supplied with oil, day and night.
For,
even within a community, your path is
still a personal one. Just as
the wise virgins were
incapable of making up for the carelessness of the
foolish
virgins, no one else
can take your place in welcoming the Trinitarian
life
into the depth of yourself there, where the
love received responds
in
adoration, praise and gratitude to love. It is then that you make
your own the prayer of the psalmist we
were reading a moment ago: "God, you are my God, I am seeking you,
my
soul is thirsting for you my flesh is longing for you, a land
parched,
weary and waterless; I long to gaze
on
you in the Sanctuary and to see your power and glory. Your love is better
than life
itself,...
all
my life
I will
bless you,... I meditate on you
all night long...
I sing for joy in the shadow of your wings.
My soul clings close to you, your right hand supports me" (Ps
63 (62), 2-5, 7-9).
This
ineffable meeting with the personal and
living God can only take place
in
the darkness of faith. The groom stands behind the door while you are
still
outside in the night. It is always in the light of faith that God
gives himself. But the signs of God are
so discrete in the ordinariness
of your everyday life
that you must be vigilant if you are to persevere
and grow in faith in imitation of
Mary. The "treasure" that awaits
you in heaven will
only be the eschatological fulfillment of
what is hidden
in the
inner "treasure" of the heart (cf. Redemptionis donum, no. 5).
Your
lives have a hidden but assured
fruitfulness. "Whoever remains in
me...
bears fruit in plenty" (Jn 15,5). In the solidarity that unites
all
the members of Christ, you are like
the heart, as Saint Theresa of the Child
Jesus put it. Without your love, charity would grow
cold. In
the Church that prays,
suffers and
evangelizes, your part is the link with God. Your offering makes you like Christ, so that he can use your
whole being for the work
of redemption according to the pleasure
of his love. And God hears
the prayer
of praise and intercession that rises up from your hearts and pans out
His
grace, without which there would be neither conversion to the gospel,
growth in
faith nor vocations of apostolic workers in the Church (cf. Decree Ad
gentes, no. 40).
The
Christian community in Hull seems to have
clearly understood your vocation,
as has the neighbouring community of the city of Ottawa. People are
attached to your monastery and support it.
They do not hesitate to entrust
you with their sorrows and their joys, their plans and their prayer intentions.
More
and more people - and among them, many young people - are
seeking places of grace, of
prayer, of
contemplation. They are thirsting for the absolute. Some come to your
monasteries in search of spiritual values. To all these seekers
after
God, show by the truth and the transparency of your persons that belonging to Christ makes
you free and that experience of
God fulfills you. Without
shirking the
requirements of contemplative life, find ways of expressing for
the
culture of our time your radical option for God.
To those who say: "We do not know
how to pray", say again and again by
your existence that dialogue with God is possible for "the
Spirit too comes
to help
us in our weakness" (Rm 8,26). To those who want to do something
great with their life, testify that
the path to holiness is the most
beautiful of adventures. It is not just the work of our efforts, but that
of the infinite tenderness of God in the
vastness of human misery. May
your monasteries allow passers-by to approach the sources of living
water:
"Then let all
who are thirsty come: all
who want it may have the water
of life and have it free" (Ap 22:17)!
My
meditation seemed to be focused on
cloistered nuns. But, all along,
I
have had in mind all the women who have devoted themselves to God in
religious life in Canada. There are almost
forty thousand of them! What
I
said about the spirit of consecrated life is also valid for all the nuns
dedicated to an active or apostolic
life. Circumstances have not permitted a special meeting with them as a
group,
and I regret that. I have
seen many of them at every stage of my visit, with the people of God.
But I was
waiting for this opportunity and now, this evening, I am happy to greet
them all
from
this place of contemplation and to address to them this message.
Dear
Sisters, in the Church, you carry out services that are
precious to Christian
communities and to the
world: among other things, you are involved
in teaching catechism, in education,
in hospital care, in supporting
the elderly and in
parish activities... Happy are the villages and
the cities where Sisters are still present! You exercise a certain
professional
activity, with preference for activity which allows you to express
charity and
to give witness to faith, and that, in a community way.
But
that is not the original mystery of your
life. You freely consecrated
yourself to the Lord
who was
the first to choose you. Your religious
vows are intimately rooted in the consecration of baptism but express
it with greater fullness (cf. Perfectae caritatis,
no. 5). You share in a special and permanent way
in the death on the cross of the redeemer and in his resurrection. The
paschal
nature of your life is evident
in
each of the "evangelical counsels" which you have committed yourselves to practise in a radical
way. At the
same time you become truly free in order better to serve. You
stake your
all, not on "having" but
on the quality of being, the
quality of the
person renewed in Jesus Christ.
More
than ever before, our world needs to discover in your
communities and in your
lifestyle, the value
of a simple and poor life in the service of the poor, the value
of a life freely
committed in celibacy in
order to consecrate itself to
Christ and,
with Him, to love especially those deprived
of love, the value of a life
where obedience and community life
silently
protest the excesses of an independence that is sometimes irresponsible
and barren.
Above
all,
the world
needs witnesses to the free gift of the love of God.
Those who doubt about God or who have the
impression that he is absent,
you show that the
Lord is worth seeking and loving for himself, that
the Kingdom of God, despite its apparent foolishness, is worth devoting
one's life to. Thus, your
lives are a
sign of the indestructible faith
of the
Church. The free giving of your life to Christ and to others is perhaps
the
protest that most urgently needs to be made to a society where profit-making efficiency has
become an idol.
Your choice amazes, questions,
interests or irritates the world, but it never leaves it indifferent.
In any
case, the Gospel is always the sign of contradiction. You will
not be
understood by all. But
never be
afraid to manifest your consecration
to the
Lord. It is your
honour! It is an
honour to the Church! You
have a
special place in the body of Christ where everyone has his or her role
to
assume, his or her own charism.
If,
with the Holy Spirit, you seek the
holiness which corresponds to your
state of life, do not be afraid. He will not abandon you. Vocations will
come to you. And you, you will keep the
youthfulness of your soul, which
has nothing to do with age. Yes, my dear Sisters, live
in hope. Keep
your eyes on Christ and walk
firmly in his steps in joy and in peace.
I
can not develop any further now this
message to all
the Canadian nuns.
On March 25 of this year, I wrote a special letter
to you and to all religious men and women entitled Redemptionis donum.
This
evening, at the end of my long
apostolic journey across Canada, I am
very happy to be, together with Bishop Adolphe Proulx of this
Diocese, the
guest of
the Sisters. As Jesus loved to withdraw to Bethany to the home
of Mary and Martha - the one more contemplative, the other
more active - I have come to your
home in order
to pray with you. As Peter and the other
Apostles withdrew to the Cenacle, together with Mary the Mother of
Jesus, I
come to invoke the Holy Spirit. May he pour out his light and his power
upon
all the inhabitants of this dear country, so that the Church here
might grow
in holiness! Pray with me for all Religious, for all those who are
consecrated, for
the men and women who are members of Secular Institutes. Let us pray for the
priests, who are the ministers of the Eucharist and the guides of
consciences. Let us
pray for those who educate people
in
the faith. Let us pray for those who undergo persecution for their faith.
Here,
close to Ottawa where I shall meet this evening with
political authorities and where tomorrow I shall celebrate the Mass for
Peace,
let us pray for all those who
must
contribute to establishing more justice, more peace and more
fraternity, in
Canada and in the less privileged countries.
Lord
Jesus, may your Kingdom come! Amen.
Conférence
des évêques
catholiques du Canada