This year the Plenary Assembly of your Congregation has focused on a topic particularly dear to me: monasticism, a forma vitae that has always been inspired by the nascent Church which was brought into being at Pentecost (Acts 2: 42-47; 4: 32-35). From the conclusions of your work that has focused especially on female monastic life useful indications can be drawn to those monks and nuns who "seek God", carrying out their vocation for the good of the whole Church. Recently too (cf. Address to the world of culture, Paris, 12 September 2008), I desired to highlight the exemplarity of monastic life in history, stressing that its aim is at the same time both simple and essential: quaerere Deum, to seek God and to seek him through Jesus Christ who has revealed him (cf. Jn 1: 18), to seek him by fixing one's gaze on the invisible realities that are eternal (cf. 2 Cor 4: 18), in the expectation of our Saviour's appearing in glory (cf. Ti 2: 13).
The form of life known as monasticism takes its inspiration from the newborn Church birthed at Pentecost. The aim of this life is seeking God through Jesus. The next paragraph from his address is my main focus; it follows here:
Christo omnino nihil praeponere [prefer nothing to Christ] (cf. Rule of Benedict 72, 11; Augustine, Enarr. in Ps 29: 9; Cyprian, Ad Fort 4). These words which the Rule of St Benedict takes from the previous tradition, clearly express the precious treasure of monastic life lived still today in both the Christian West and East. It is a pressing invitation to mould monastic life to the point of making it an evangelical memorial of the Church and, when it is authentically lived, "a reference point for all the baptized" (cf. John Paul II, Orientale lumen, n. 9). By virtue of the absolute primacy reserved for Christ, monasteries are called to be places in which room is made for the celebration of God's glory, where the mysterious but real divine presence in the world is adored and praised, where one seeks to live the new commandment of love and mutual service, thus preparing for the final "revelation of the sons of God" (Rm 8: 19). When monks live the Gospel radically, when they dedicate themselves to integral contemplative life in profound spousal union with Christ, on whom this Congregation's Instruction Verbi Sponsa (13 May 1999) extensively reflected, monasticism can constitute for all the forms of religious life and consecrated life a remembrance of what is essential and has primacy in the life of every baptized person: to seek Christ and put nothing before his love.
The precious treasure of monastic life is preferring nothing to Christ. “When monks live the Gospel radically, when they dedicate themselves to integral contemplative life in profound spousal union with Christ…monasticism can constitute… a remembrance of what is essential and has primacy in the life of every baptized person: to seek Christ and put nothing before his love.”
When men and women religious have a contemplative prayer life as a spouse of Christ, they are a witness and a reminder to all Christians of what is most important: seeking Christ and loving Him above all else. The point the pope is making here is the main point of all that I am saying in this blog: all of us are called to an intimate spousal union with Christ.
The Holy Father’s next paragraph is here:
The path pointed out by God for this quest and for this love is his Word itself, who in the books of the Sacred Scriptures, offers himself abundantly, for the reflection of men and women. The desire for God and love of his Word are therefore reciprocally nourished and bring forth in monastic life the unsupressable need for the opus Dei, the studium orationis and lectio divina, which is listening to the Word of God, accompanied by the great voices of the tradition of the Fathers and Saints, and also prayer, guided and sustained by this Word. The recent General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, celebrated in Rome last month on the theme: The Word of God in the life and mission of the Church, renewing the appeal to all Christians to root their life in listening to the Word of God contained in Sacred Scripture has especially invited religious communities to make the Word of God their daily food, in particular through the practice of lectio divina (cf. Elenchus praepositionum, n. 4).
The path to a deep, intimate union with Christ is through the Word of God. Our hunger for God grows and is satisfied through immersion into His Word, and we love His Word the more we desire God. We are to make the Word of God our daily food by listening to Him together with His friends, the Fathers and Saints, and through our conversation with Him.
The pope next paragraph is his concluding one. Here is a portion of it:
Let us invoke Mary, Mother of the Lord, the "woman of listening", who put nothing before love for the Son of God, born of her, so that she may help communities of consecrated life and, especially, monastic communities to be faithful to their vocation and mission. May monasteries always be oases of ascetic life, where fascination for the spousal union with Christ is sensed, and where the choice of the Absolute of God is enveloped in a constant atmosphere of silence and contemplation.
Here the Holy Father prays that the “woman of listening” who sacrificed all for the love of her Son may help monks and nuns, “in a constant atmosphere of silence and contempation,” forsake all else for the choice of God and the relationship of Christ as their spouse.
All of what I am saying goes back to this foundation and wellspring: that each person is made to be a spouse of Christ. This is the teaching of the Church as evidenced by this short address by our Holy Father.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
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