ANNUNCIATE - Francese 16 Settembre 2016 − 2ª BOZZA

CONTEMPLATE – Inglese 12 Gennaio 2016 − 2ª BOZZA

Prima edizione Settembre 2014Prima ristampa Ottobre 2014

Translated by CHRISTINE COOLEY

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« True loveis always contemplative ».

Pope FRANCIS


Dear brothers and sisters,

1. The Year of Consecrated Life – preciousand blessed journey – has crossed its Zenith,while the voices of consecrated men and womenfrom around the world express the joy of theirvocation and the faithfulness to their identitywithin the Church, at times testified to the pointof martyrdom.

The two letters Rejoice! and Keep Watch!have launched a journey of choral, serious andmeaningful reflection that has posed existentialquestions to our personal lives and to that of theInstitute. It is now time to continue our reflec-tion together, fixing our gaze on the heart of ourlife of sequela.

Bringing our gaze into the depths of ourlife, looking for meaning in our pilgrimage toseek God, and questioning the contemplativedimension of our times to recognize the mysteryof grace that sustains, impassions and transfig-ures us.

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Pope Francis urges us to turn our gaze to-wards Jesus, but also to let ourselves be lookedupon by him so we can “realize ever anew thatwe have been entrusted with a treasure whichmakes us more human and helps us to lead anew life”.1 He invites us to train our heart’s gazebecause “true love is always contemplative”.2

The consecrated person’s theological relation-ship with the Lord (confessio Trinitatis), frater-nal communion with those who are called toexperience the same charism (signum fraternita-tis), and mission as the epiphany of God’s mer-ciful love in the human community (servitiumcaritatis) all refer to the unending search for theface of God and to the obedient listening to hisWord in order to reach contemplation of thetrue and living God.

The various forms of consecrated life – er-emitic and of virgins, monastic and canonical,cloistered and apostolic, secular and new fra-ternities – drink from the wellspring of contem-plation and are therein restored and givenstrength. There they encounter the mystery thatlives in them and find fullness to live the evan-

1 FRANCIS, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium(November 24, 2013), 264.

2 Ivi, 200.

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gelical aspect of consecration, communion andmission.

This letter – in line with the InstructionThe Contemplative Dimension of Religious Life(1980), the post-synodal Apostolic ExhortationVita consecrata (1996), the Apostolic LetterNovo millennio ineunte (2001), and the Instruc-tions Starting Afresh from Christ (2002) and Fa-ciem tuam, Domine, requiram (2008) – comes toyou as a disclosed invitation on the mystery ofGod, foundation of our entire life. It is an invi-tation that opens a horizon which is neverreached or totally experienced: our relationshipwith the secret of the living God, the primacy ofa life in the Spirit, and the communion of lovewith Jesus, the center of life and continualsource of every initiative,3 a living experiencethat wants to be shared.4 The desire resonates:Set me as a seal upon your heart (Sg 8:6).

May the Holy Spirit, who alone knows andmoves our innermost self, intimior intimo meo,5

accompany us through the trials, formation and

3 Cf. CONGREGATION FOR INSTITUTES OF CONSECRATED LIFE

AND SOCIETIES OF APOSTOLIC LIFE, Instruction Starting Afreshfrom Christ. A Renewed Commitment to Consecrated Life inthe Third Millennium (May 19, 2002), 22.

4 Cf. JOHN PAUL II, Post-Synodal Apostolic ExhortationVita consecrata (March 25, 1996), 16.

5 Cf. St. AUGUSTINE, Confessions III, 6, 11.

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transformation of our lives, to be the embraceand the rejoicing of a Presence that lives withinus, desired and beloved, true confessio Trinitatisin the Church and in human cities: “The greaterthe faith we believe with, the steadfastness wehope with, and the ardor we desire with, thegreater our capacity to prepare ourselves to re-ceive it”.6

The mystical cry that recognizes the Be-loved, You are the fairest of the children of men(Ps 45:3), as power of love enriches the Churchand reconstructs the lost fragments of Beauty inthe human city.

6 ID, Ep. 130, 8, 17.

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PROLOGUE


In the streets and the squares;I will seek him whom my heart loves.

Song of Songs 3:2


Listening

2. He who loves is pervaded with dynamism,experiences the paschal character of life, acceptsthe risk of going outside of himself to reach theother – not only in an external space, but also inhis inner being – and he discovers that living inthe other and embracing the other in himself isgood. Love looks upon the other with a newgaze, one of special intimacy, and for this, theother does not belong to the plane of ideas,nor remains at the threshold, but instead entersthe microcosm of feeling of the one who lovesto become him whom my heart loves (Sg 3:2),the “one I seek”.

This is the dynamism found throughout theSong of Songs (in Hebrew sîr hassîrîm), a bookso superlative as to be defined the “saint ofsaints” of the Old Testament. It is the first offive scrolls (meghillôt) of special liturgical rel-evance to the Jewish people; it is read duringPassover celebrations. This sublime song cel-ebrates the beauty and attractive force of thelove between a man and a woman that emergesin a story of desire, searching and encounter.It is a love that leads to exodus crossing streets

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and squares (Sg 3:2) and that ignites the flameof love of God in the world. If human love ispresented in the book as flames of the divine(Sg 8:6: salhebetyâ), flames of Yah, it is becauseit is the the way that is better than any of them(1Co 12:31). It is the reality without which manis nothing at all (1Co 13:2). It is that which,more than all else, brings the creature closer toGod. Love is resonance and fruit of God’s samenature. The creature who loves humanizes, but,at the same time, experiences the beginningof a process of deification because God is love(1Jn 4:10.16). The creature who loves tendstowards fullness and peace, towards salom,which is the haven for communion, as with thelovers of the Song who carry salom in theirnames; his name is Selomoh, hers Sûlammît.

The Song has been interpreted in a literalway, as a celebration of the power of humanlove between a woman and a man, but, also,in an allegorical way, as in Jewish and Chris-tian traditions to tell of the relationships be-tween God and Israel, Christ and the Church.The book, however, finds its cornerstone in thespousal dynamics of love and – like a parablethat helps move us to another place where theliving language of lovers, one that cures of lone-liness, retreat, and selfishness, is spoken – bringsus back to our present, suggesting to us that is it

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not the imposition of commands or constric-tions that moves life forward, nor is life movedforward by rules, but rather, by an ecstasy, anenchantment, a rapture that leads us outside ofthe self, that starts us on a journey and thatinterprets history in a way that is relational,communal and agapic.

This love of spousal nature that captures thesenses and inspires the steps along the journeycan be felt by the human creature, not only foranother human being, but also for God. This iswhat happens to him who is consecrated to Godin the sapiential horizon and in the fruitful at-mosphere of the Gospel’s teachings, intended toproclaim the primacy of the relationship withhim. For this, the Song is a beacon that illumi-nates the consecrated.

The Song, defined as a chant of unitive mys-ticism, can also be read as an itinerary leadingthe heart to God, as an existential pilgrimagetowards encounter with the God incarnate wholoves in a spousal way. It can be read as asymphony of spousal love that includes therestlessness in searching for the beloved (dôd),the encounter that satisfies the heart, and thesavoring of the election and mutual belonging.

In light of the Song, the consecrated life ap-pears as a vocation to love that is thirsty forthe living God (Ps 42:3; 63:2), that ignites

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in the world the search for the hidden God(1Co 16:11; Ps 105:4; Is 55:6; Am 5:6; Zp 2:3)and that encounters him in the faces of brothersand sisters (Mt 25:40). It is there that God findsroom to put his tent (Rv 21:3); in prayer or inthe depths of the heart where God loves to live(Ga 2:20). Consecrated men and women movetowards Christ to encounter his words that arespirit and life (Jn 6:63), intent on finding him insacred places, but also in the streets and squares(Sg 3:2), and designated to turn their personalencounter with his love into a passion that inter-cedes in history.

Consecrated life, statio orante in the heartof history

3. In his Apostolic Letter to consecrated menand women, Pope Francis writes, “I expect thateach form of consecrated life will question whatit is that God and people today are asking ofthem. Only by such concern for the needs of theworld, and by docility to the prompting of theSpirit, will this Year of Consecrated Life be-come an authentic kairòs, a time rich in God’sgrace, a time of transformation”.1

1 FRANCIS, Apostolic Letter To All Consecrated People, onthe occasion of the Year of Consecrated Life (November 21,2014), II, 5.

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It is a question which resonates in each of us.The Pope offers us an initial answer: “To knowand show that God is able to fill our hearts tothe brim with happiness; that we need not seekour happiness elsewhere”.2

People yearning for fullness and seeking hap-piness, who are impassioned and never satiatedby joy, this restlessness bonds us.

We look for true joy (cf. Jn 15:11) in “a timein which forgetfulness of God has become ha-bitual; a time in which the fundamental act ofthe human person, tends to pronounce in favorof his own absolute autonomy, in emancipationfrom every transcendent law; a time, moreover,in which the soul of man has plumbed thedepths of irrationality and desolation; a time,finally, which is characterized by upheavals anda hitherto unknown decline even in the greatworld religions”.3

These are the words Blessed Paul VI ad-dressed to the world during the Last GeneralMeeting of the Second Vatican Council. Ourtime – even more than in the days followingCouncil session – is characterized by the para-

2 Ibidem, II, 1.3 PAUL VI, Allocution on the occasion of the last public

session of the Second Vatican Council, Vatican City (Decem-ber 7, 1965).

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digmatic centrality of change and has as distinc-tive features speed, relativity, and complexity.Everything changes more quickly than in thepast and this causes disorientation and restless-ness in those who remain anchored to old cer-tainties and old elements of the interpretation ofreality. This acceleration makes the present vola-tile: the present is a place of emotions, encoun-ters, and provisional choices, when what is re-quired is stability and fixed points of referenceto be valued and lived.

In the overabundance of events, communica-tion, and experiences, it is difficult to make asummary and discern, hence, many people arenot able to experience a search for meaning asto turn the present into a workshop of compre-hension, communion, and sharing.

Present-day culture, especially that of theWest which is aimed predominately towardspraxis and concentrated on doing and produc-ing, generates – as a repercussion – the uncon-scious need for silence, listening, and contem-plative breath. These two opposing tenden-cies, however, risk causing greater superficiality.Always being active and some ways of experi-encing contemplation, can both represent akind of escape from oneself or from reality, aneurotic wandering which generates hurriedand wasted lives.

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It is in this context “often in a confused way,a unique and growing demand for spiritualityand for the supernatural does not fail to re-emerge. This is a sign of anxiety which dwells inthe hearts of people who are not open to thetranscendent horizon of God. Unfortunately, itis God himself who is excluded from the hori-zon of so many people; and when the topic ofGod does not meet with indifference, closure orrejection, people wish in any case to relegate itto the subjective context, reducing it to an inti-mate and private factor, marginalized from pub-lic awareness”.4

4. The consecrated life, characterized by theconstant search for God and the constant re-visitation of his identity, breathes the demandsand the cultural climate of this world which,having lost consciousness of God and his effec-tive presence throughout history, runs the riskof no longer recognizing itself. This is a time ofnot only dis-enchantment, dis-agreement and in-difference, but also non-sense. For many, it is atime of confusion, they let themselves be over-whelmed by the search for the meaning ofthings, true spiritual castaways.

4 BENEDICT XVI, Address to the General Assembly of theItalian Episcopal Conference, Vatican City (May 24, 2012).

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In this time, the Church – and the life conse-crated in her – is called to bear witness that“God is – and more, He is real, He lives, apersonal, provident God, infinitely good; andnot only good in Himself, but also immeasur-ably good to us. He will be recognized as OurCreator, our truth, our happiness; so much sothat the effort to look on Him, and to center ourheart in Him which we call contemplation, is thehighest, the most perfect act of the spirit, the actwhich even today can and must be at the apex ofall human activity”.5

This is the task of the consecrated life: tobear witness – in this our time – that God ishappiness. Fixing our gaze and our hearts onHim allows us to live in fullness.

In everyday language, the word contemplateis used with the meaning of to think deeply, toattentively observe something that provokesamazement or admiration: the sight of nature,the starry sky, a painting, a monument, a beau-tiful view. This gaze, by grasping and savoringbeauty, is able to go beyond what it is contem-plating and to drive the search for the beauty’screator (cf. Wis 13:1-9; Rom 1:20). It is a gaze

5 PAUL VI, Allocution on the occasion of the last publicsession of the Second Vatican Council, Vatican City (Decem-ber 7, 1965).

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that contains in itself something which goesbeyond the eyes: a mother who gazes at herchild sleeping in her arms, or the gaze of two oldlovers who, after a lifetime spent together, lingerin love. It is a gaze that communicates intensely,that expresses a relationship and that tells whatone person means to the other.

If it is true that the origin of the word con-templation is Greek (theorein/theoria) – andthat it indicates the intuition of reason that,from the multiplicity of what it seen, arrives atthe one, and so, grasps the whole through thefragment and the intimate nature of things in thephenomenon –, it is truer still that biblical manhas an animus which is essentially contempla-tive. Aware of receiving his existence from theunrestrained and free act of God, he finds in hisamazement as a creature a haven for all of hisheart’s restlessness. The Psalms are pervaded bythis attitude of gratitude and wonder towardsman and things.

5. The biblical man is aware of the lovinginitiative and generosity of God, even in anotherdomain: the gift of the Word. The initiative ofGod towards his creature opens a dialogue withit and engages it in a personal relationship ofreciprocity, which is the covenant: I for youand you for me. It is not a “given” to which you

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can become accustomed; it is a surprising rev-elation to simply “be” before, in receptivity andgratitude.

The Prophets are qualified witnesses of thisattitude. The ten words which seal the covenant(cf. Ex 34:28), are introduced as hear, O Israel(Dt 6:4). The first sin, or better yet, the root ofall sins of Israel, is the omission of the Word:like in the beginning, with the declaration ofautonomy from God (cf. Gn 3:3-6), like Mosesand the prophets declared to the people of Is-rael the abandoning of the covenant. “The wordof God also inevitably reveals the tragic possi-bility that human freedom can withdraw fromthis covenant dialogue with God for which wewere created. The divine word also discloses thesin that lurks in the human heart”.6

In the fullness of time the initiative of Godcomes to fulfillment: the Word is condensed, tothe point of becoming flesh and living among us.It is abbreviated, becoming silent in the decisiveEaster hour. Creation gives way to redemption,which is new creation.

6 BENEDICT XVI, Post-Synodal Apostolic ExhortationVerbum Domini (September 30, 2010), 26. Among the Bib-lical texts to cite: for example Dt 28:1-2.15.45; 32:1; amongthe prophets cf. Jr 7:22-28; Ezk 2:8; 3:10; 6:3; 13:2; up to thelast: cf. Ze 3:8. For Saint Paul cf. Rom 10:14-18; 1Th 2:13.

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The term contemplation is found only once inthe New Testament. The only scripture that con-tains the terminology of contemplation uses it inreference to the human gaze and heart fixed onJesus Christ crucified, He who narrated God toman (cf. Jn 1:18). It is used the moment imme-diately following the death of Jesus with theexclamation of the centurion who, from belowthe Cross, proclaims: This man was innocent!(Lk 23:47). Luke notes: When all the people whohad gathered for this spectacle (Greek: theoría;Latin: spectaculum) saw what had happened, theyreturned home beating their breasts (Lk 23:48).This passage from the Book of Luke speaks ofunity between interiority and exteriority, gazeand repentance. The act of seeing and beatingthe breast demonstrates a profound unity of theperson; unity that is created mysteriously beforeChrist. The term theoría (contemplation) definesthe “concrete spectacle... of Jesus of Nazareth‘King of the Jews’ crucified”: 7 at the center ofChristian contemplation is Christ crucified.

Contemplation, therefore, is “a gaze of faith,fixed on Jesus”,8 in the simple words of a peas-

7 G. DOSSETTI, “L’esperienza religiosa. Testimonianza diun monaco”, in AA.VV., L’esperienza religiosa oggi, Vita ePensiero, Milan 1986, 223.

8 Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2715.

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ant of Ars to his holy Curé: “I look at him andhe looks at me”.9 Saint Teresa of Jesus, similarly,explains: “Just so, in this life, two persons ofreasonable intelligence, who love each otherdearly, seem able to understand each other with-out making any signs, merely by their looks.This must be so here, for, without seeing eachother, we look at each other face to face as thesetwo lovers do: the Spouse in the Songs, I be-lieve, says this to the Bride: I have been told thatit occurs there”.10

Contemplation, therefore, is man’s gaze onGod and the work of His fingers (cf. Ps 8:4).Returning to the words of Blessed Paul VI, it is“the effort to look on Him, and to center ourheart in Him, […] the highest, the most perfectact of the spirit”.11

6. Consecrated men and women are called– possibly now more than ever – to be prophets,mystics, and contemplatives, to discover thesigns of God’s presence in everyday life, and tobecome wise representatives who know howto recognize the questions that God and human-

9 Ivi.10 St. TERESA OF AVILA, The Book of My Life, 27, 10.11 PAUL VI, Allocution on the occasion of the last public

session of the Second Vatican Council, Vatican City (Decem-ber 7, 1965).

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ity ask throughout history. The greatest chal-lenge is the ability to “continue to ‘see’ Godwith the eyes of faith in a world which ignoreshis presence”.12

Life, as it stands, is called to be the place ofour contemplation. The cultivation of inner lifedoes not need to produce an existence that issituated between heaven and earth, in ecstasyand illumination, but rather a life which, inhumble closeness to God and with sincere em-pathy towards neighbors, creates and realizes apurified and transformed existence in history.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer uses the image of cantusfirmus 13 to explain how an encounter with Godallows the believer to contemplate the world,men, and everyday tasks to be performed with acontemplative attitude, and that it is this atti-tude which allows him to see, live, and savor themysterious presence of God-Trinity in all things.

The contemplative unites, gradually andthrough a long process, work for God and thegood sense to recognize him. He perceives thesound of God’s footsteps in life’s daily happen-ings and he becomes an expert of the light, silent

12 JOHN PAUL II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vitaconsecrata (March 25, 1996), 68.

13 D. BONHOEFFER, Lettera a Renata ed Eberhard Bethge,in Opere di Dietrich Bonhoeffer, v. 8: Resistenza e resa,Queriniana, Brescia 2002, 412.

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sound (1K 19:12) of everyday life where theLord makes himself present.

In the Church, the contemplative and activedimensions intertwine and are inseparable.The Constitution Sacrosanctum concilium under-lines the theandric nature of the Church whichis “both human and divine, visible and yet invis-ibly equipped, eager to act and yet intent oncontemplation, present in this world and yetnot at home in it; and she is all these things insuch wise that in her the human is directed andsubordinated to the divine, the visible likewiseto the invisible, action to contemplation, andthis present world to that city yet to come,which we seek”.14

Let us return to the origin and foundation ofour lives: the relationship with the Mystery ofthe living God, the primacy of a life in the Spirit,and the communion of love with Jesus, “thecentre of life and the continual source of everyinitiative”,15 an experience called to be shared.16

14 SECOND ECUMENICAL VATICAN COUNCIL, Constitutionon the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosantum Concilium, 2.

15 CONGREGATION FOR INSTITUTES OF CONSECRATED LIFE

AND SOCIETIES OF APOSTOLIC LIFE, Instruction Starting Afreshfrom Christ. A Renewed Commitment to Consecrated Life inthe Third Millennium (May 19, 2002), 22.

16 JOHN PAUL II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation VitaConsecrata (March 25, 1996), 16.

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As consecrated men and women, it is impor-tant for us to remember that no ecclesial actionis evangelically productive unless we remainintimately united with Christ who is the vine(cf. Jn 15:1-11): Without me you can do nothing(Jn 15:5). He who does not remain in Christwill be unable to give anything to the world andwill be unable to do anything to transform thestructures of sin. He will labor over manythings, things which might be important but notessential (cf. Lk 10:38-42), at the risk of workingin vain.

Pope Francis encourages us: “Jesus wantsevangelizers who proclaim the good news notonly with words, but above all by a life transfig-ured by God’s presence. […] Spirit-filled evang-elizers are evangelizers who pray and work. […]What is needed is the ability to cultivate an in-terior space which can give a Christian meaningto commitment and activity. Without prolongedmoments of adoration, of prayerful encounterwith the word, of sincere conversation with theLord, our work easily becomes meaningless; welose energy as a result of weariness and difficul-ties, and our fervour dies out. The Church ur-gently needs the deep breath of prayer”.17

17 FRANCIS, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium(November 24, 2013), 259; 262.

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7. In the Church, as cantus firmus, exclu-sively contemplative brothers and sisters are“a sign of the exclusive union of the Church asBride with her Lord, whom she loves above allthings”,18 but this letter is not dedicated to themalone. Let us examine together the contempla-tive dimension in the heart of the world, thefoundation of every consecrated life and truesource of ecclesial productivity. Contemplationrequires the consecrated person to proceed withnew spiritual methods.

– A new way of relating with God, withthemselves, with others, with creation, that thatbears his likeness.19 The contemplative personovercomes all obstacles to arrive at the source, atGod; he opens the eyes of his heart in order toobserve, consider, and contemplate the presenceof God in people, in history and in events.

– A personal encounter with God, whothrough his Son became flesh and made hisdwelling among us (cf. Jn 1:14), and who makeshimself present in the life of every person, indaily happenings and in the admirable work ofcreation. The contemplative person does not see


19 St. FRANCIS OF ASSISI, Canticle of Creatures, 4.

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life as an obstacle, but rather as a mirror whichmystically reflects the Mirror.20

– An experience of faith greater than thevocal declaration of the creed, allowing thetruths contained within to become a life prac-tice. The contemplative person is, before all else,a believer, a person of faith, faith incarnate andnot a lab faith.21

– Friendly relation, a tratar de amistad,22 asaffirmed by the first female Doctor of theChurch, Saint Teresa of Jesus; a gift from a Godwho wishes to communicate deeply with man, asa true friend (cf. Jn 15:15). To contemplate is totake pleasure in the friendship of the Lord, inthe intimacy of a Friend.

– An immersion in the passionate search fora God who lives with us and who makes Himselfsought-after on the path of men. The contem-plative person understands that it is the personal“I” which marks the distance between oneselfand God and for this, never ceases to be abeggar of the Beloved, but rather looks for it in

20 Cf. St. CLARE, Letters to Agnes of Prague, 4, in FF,2901-2903.

21 A. SPADARO, Interview with Pope Francis, in: La CiviltàCattolica, 164 (2013/III), 474.

22 St. TERESA OF AVILA, The Book of My Life, 8, 5.

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the right place, in the depths of himself, in thesanctuary where God resides.

– An opening to the revelation and the com-munion of the living God through Christ in theHoly Spirit.23 The contemplative person letshimself be filled by the revelation and trans-formed by the communion, he becomes a lumi-nous icon of the Trinity and makes the “attrac-tion of divine beauty” 24 felt in the fragility ofhumanity. This happens in life’s silence, wherewords fall silent to let the gaze, full of child-likewonder, the open hands of a mother that don’texpect anything in return, and the feet of theone bringing good news (Is 52:7), capable ofcrossing borders for the message of the Gospel,speak.

Contemplation, therefore, does not justify amediocre, repetitive, and bored life. “Only Godis enough” for those who follow Jesus: it is theintrinsic and indispensable aspect of this choice.With “heart towards the Lord” 25 is how the


AND SOCIETIES OF APOSTOLIC LIFE, The Contemplative Dimen-sion of Religious Life (Plenary, March 1980), 1.


25 Cf. St. FRANCIS OF ASSISI, Earlier Rule, 19.25.

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contemplatives and mystics of the history ofChristianity have walked. For consecrated per-sons the sequela of Christ is always a contempla-tive sequela and contemplation is fullness of asequela that transfigures.

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SEEKING


Have you seen him whommy heart loves?

Song of Songs 3:3


Listening

8. To love means being ready for the dailyapprenticeship of the search. The dynamic ofthe search attests that nobody can make itthrough life on their own, and it requires em-barking on an exodus inside ourselves, attractedby “the sacred ground of the other”,1 to cometogether in communion. However, the other ismystery, the other is always beyond our de-sires and expectations, it is not predictable.The other does not require possession butrather care, safekeeping, and room for theirfreedom to grow. If this is true for human crea-tures, it is even more true for God – mystery ofhighest freedom, of dynamic relation, of a full-ness which exceeds us and whose weakness, asmanifested through the Cross, disarms us.

Love in the Song is struggle and effort, as isdeath (mawet, Sg 8:6). It is not idealized butrather sung in the awareness of its crises andlosses. The search involves effort; it requires

1 Cf. FRANCIS, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium(November 24, 2013), 169.

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getting up and going, it requires taking on thedarkness of the “night”. The night is absence,detachment and estrangement from the onewhom the heart loves, and the bride’s roomtransforms from a place of rest and dreams intoa prison and a place of nightmares and torture(cf. Sg 3:1). The bride, the protagonist of thedrama, seeks her beloved but He is absent.She must search for him, go through the streetsand squares (Sg 3:2). Facing the dangers of thenight and consumed by the desire to embracehim again, the brides asks the eternal question:Have you seen him whom my heart loves?(Sg 3:3). It is the question, cried out in the heartof the night, that elicits joy at the thought of himand that renews the wound of his unbearabledistance. The bride is sleepless.

The night is the protagonist in chapter 5 ofthe Song: the young woman is in her room, herlover knocks at the door and asks to come in,but she temporizes, and he leaves (Sg 5:2-6).Is it misunderstanding between the two loversor a dream turned into a nightmare? The textcontinues with a new search of great trial; trialwhich is not only emotional and affective butalso physical because the bride who faces thenight alone is beaten by the guards, wounded,and robbed of her robe (Sg 5:7). Love challengesthe night and its dangers; it is greater than any

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fear: In love there can be no fear, but fear isdriven out by perfect love (1Jn 4:18).

The woman in search of her bridegroomworks for personal knowledge of her feelings.She searches her heart and finds herself sickwith love (Sg 2:5; 5:8). This sickness shows the“alteration” of her condition; the fact that, byvirtue of the encounter with her lover, she feelsirreversibly changed, “altered”. She has become“other”, dedicated, consecrated to the otherwho gives her life meaning. Such is the condi-tion of those who truly love.

Only those who overcome the distress of thenight with the name of their beloved on theirlips and his face impressed on their hearts, cer-tain of the bond which unites them, can savorthe spirited joy of the encounter. The fire of loveputs in all-consuming relation the two loverswho, having escaped the winter of solitude, sa-vor the spring of the communion, competingbetween them to celebrate the beauty of theother with passion and poetry.

The daily apprenticeship of the search

9. “Faciem tuam, Domine, requiram: yourface, O Lord, I seek (Ps 26:8). A pilgrim seekingthe meaning of life, enwrapped in the greatmystery that surrounds him, the human person,

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even if unconsciously, does, in fact, seek the faceof the Lord. Your ways, O Lord, make known tome, teach me your paths (Ps 25:4): no one canever take away from the heart of the humanperson the search for him of whom the Biblesays He is all (Si 43:27) and for the ways ofreaching him”.2

The search for God unites all men of goodwill; even those who profess to be non-believersconfess to this deep yearning of their hearts.

Pope Francis, on many different occasions,showed the contemplative dimension of life as away to enter the mystery. “Contemplation ismind, heart, knees”.3 It is the “ability to wonder;the ability to listen to the silence and to hear thetiny whisper amid great silence by which Godspeaks to us. To enter into the mystery demandsthat we not be afraid of reality: that we not belocked into ourselves, that we not flee from whatwe fail to understand, that we not close our eyesto problems or deny them, that we not dismiss


AND SOCIETIES OF APOSTOLIC LIFE, Instruction The Service ofAuthority and Obedience. Faciem tuam, Domine, requiram(May 11, 2008), 1.

3 FRANCIS, Contemplation, Closeness, Abundance, morn-ing Meditation in the Chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae,Tuesday, October 22, 2013, in L’Osservatore Romano, dailyedition, Year CLIII, n. 243, Rome (October 23, 2013).

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our questions […], going beyond our own com-fort zone, beyond the laziness and indifferencewhich hold us back, and going out in search oftruth, beauty and love. It is seeking a deepermeaning, an answer, and not an easy one, to thequestions which challenge our faith, our fidelityand our very existence”.4

10. Entering the mystery requires a con-tinual search, the need to go beyond, to notclose our eyes and to seek answers. The humanbeing continually tends towards an improve-ment; he is continually on a journey, seeking.And there is the risk of living with eternaldissatisfaction, numbed by strong emotions.For this, our time is one of shipwreck, downfall,indifference and loss of enthusiasm. It is essen-tial to be aware of this consuming uneasiness, tointercept the sounds of the post-modern soul,and, in this fragility, to reawaken the vigor of theroots in order to remind the world of the pro-phetic vitality of the Gospel.

Christian life “requires and entails a transfor-mation, a purification, a moral and spiritualelevation of man. It requires a search andeffort towards a personal condition; an interior

4 FRANCIS, Homily Easter Vigil on the Holy Night, Vati-can Basilica (Saturday, April 4, 2015).

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state of feelings, thoughts, mentality, and anexterior state of conduct, and a richness of graceand gifts that we call perfection”.5 Racing to-wards destinations of opportunity, consump-tion, trends, powers, and desires, and pushed bya compulsion to repeat, we are in search of newpleasures which are never satisfied. In thesetimes of ours, men and women, in this search forthe illusive, come to taste the desperation thatcloses life in and extinguishes it.

Saint Augustine made a diagnosis, observingthat men are not always able to make the leapin quality that pushes them to go beyond, tosearch for the infinite, because “they fall uponthat which they can, and are content therewith;because, what they are not able to do, they donot will so strongly as would suffice to makethem able”.6

In this haze of the conscience and of affec-tions, the sometimes tragic experience of todayawakens the need for the liberating encounterwith the living God; we are called to be wise andpatient interlocutors of these pleas that couldnever be put into words (cf. Rom 8:26-27) be-

5 PAUL VI, General Audience, Vatican City (August 7,1968).

6 St. AUGUSTINE, Confessions X, XXIII, 33.

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cause the longing for God, glowing under theash of indifference, does not extinguish.

In view of this reemergence of the search forthe sacred, it cannot be ignored how, evenamong those who profess to be Christians, faithseems reduced to brief religious parentheseskept completely separate from everyday prob-lems. Faith becomes irrelevant to life. God isnot necessary and is not as much a part of life asare family, friends, prized possessions, work, thehouse and the economy. This extraneousnesscan even touch our consecrated life.

Pilgrims deep within

11. “If man is essentially a voyager, thismeans that he is on a journey towards a destina-tion of which we can say, at the same time andcontradictorily, that he sees and does not see it.But restlessness is just like the inner spring ofthis progression” 7 even in the time of techni-cal power and its ideals “man cannot lose thisspur without becoming immobile and withoutdying”.8

It is God alone who reawakens restlessnessand the power of the question, the insomnia that

7 G. MARCEL, Homo viator. Prolégomènes à une métaphy-sique de l’espérance, Aubier, Paris 1944, 26

8 Ibidem.

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is at the origin of the awakening and the depar-ture. He is the driving force of the journey.The restlessness in front of the questions raisedby life pushes man into the pilgrimage of thesearch.

At the root of the life of every Christian,there is the fundamental movement of faith:the walk towards Jesus Christ to center life onHim. An exodus that leads to knowing God andhis Love. A pilgrimage that knows the destina-tion. A radical change that turns wanderers intopilgrims. Being a pilgrim requires movement,activity and effort. The path to be taken involvesrisk, insecurity, and being open to new thingsand unexpected encounters.

A pilgrim is not one who simply moves fromone place to another. He does not delegate thesearch for the destination. He knows where hewants to go and has a finish-line that draws hisheart and tenaciously urges him on. He doesnot harbor a vague search for happiness butrather focuses on a specific point, a point thathe knows, or at least imagines, a point that hehas knowledge of and that has led him to hisdeparture. The destination of every Christianis God.

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Quaerere Deum

12. Saint Benedict, the tenacious seeker ofGod, affirms that a monk is not one who hasfound God; he is one who seeks God for alifetime. In Rule he calls for the examination ofthe young monk’s motivations in order to know,first of all, if “si revera Deum quaerit”, if heactually seeks God.9

This is the paradigm of the life of everyChristian and of every consecrated person:the search for God, si revera Deum quaerit.The Latin word quaerere not only means to seek,to go in search of something, to work hard toobtain, but even to ask, to pose a question. It isthe human being who continuously asks andseeks. Seeking God, therefore, means to nevertire of asking, like the bride in the Song: Haveyou seen him whom my heart loves? (Sg 3:3).

The common thread throughout this storyfrom the Song is represented by the theme of theloving search, of the savored presence after thebitterness of absence, of the dawn welcomedafter the night, and of the oblivion of self expe-rienced as a condition for finding the Other.

The first degree of love is love that seeks. Thesense of longing and the search are the domi-

9 St. BENEDICT, Rule, 58, 7.

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nant experiences, and the other is perceived asthe absent Presence. The lovers in the Song arebeggars of love, ardent seekers of the beloved.

Seeking God means being in relation withHim and allowing his Presence to question ourhumanity. This means never being satisfied withwhat we have reached. God constantly asks us:Where are you? (Gn 3:9). The search for Godrequires humility: our truth is revealed by thelight of the Spirit and in it we recognize that it isGod who seeks us first.

“The restless heart is the heart that is ulti-mately satisfied with nothing less than God, andin this way becomes a loving heart. […] But notonly are we restless for God: God’s heart isrestless for us. God is waiting for us. He islooking for us. He knows no rest either, until hefinds us. God is restless for us, he looks out forpeople willing to “catch” his unrest, his passionfor us, people who carry within them the search-ing of their own hearts and at the same timeopen themselves to be touched by God’s searchfor us”.10

The reason for our search take us back to theLove that sought and touched us first, while it

10 BENEDICT XVI, Homily on the occasion of the Solemnityof the Epiphany of the Lord, Vatican Basilica (January 6,2012).

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recognizes its seal. It can happen that renounc-ing the search silences the inner voice whichcalls us to fulfillment. It can happen that we stopto relish in splendors that blind us, being con-tended with the bread that satisfies hunger forone day, repeating the initial choice of the lostson (cf. Lk 15:11-32).

It can happen that the horizon narrows whilethe heart non longer waits for he who comes.But God always comes until the primacy ofLove is established in our lives. The dynamicsof the Song return, the game of the search:we cannot think to find God once and for all.

The search in the night

13. On my bed, at night, I sought him whommy heart loves. I sought him but did not find him(Sg 3:1). The reading of the Song envelops us inthe idyll of a dream-like love while introducingthe living and constant suffering of the enam-ored soul. Love, the experience that transformsand not a brief and fleeting encounter, calls tolive with the possibility of the absence of thebeloved and at times exile, brokenness, andseparation. From this possibility comes the waitand the reciprocal and constant search. The cryof a soul that is never content. The Song puts usin front of a time of crisis and confrontation, a

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moment in which we recognize and accept eachother after the passion and fire of the begin-nings. It is the time to love in a different way.Distance becomes the search, while the longingthat pines and hurts becomes necessary nourish-ment for love.

Desire

14. Love for God must maintain this dy-namic of desire. God is invisible, he is alwaysbeyond everything, our search for him is neverfulfilled, and his presence is elusive. “God is Hewho seeks us and, at the same time, He whomakes himself sought-after. It is he who revealshimself and, at the same time, he who hideshimself. It is for him that these words of thepsalm It is your face, O Lord, that I seek (Ps 26:8)are for, and many other words of the Bible,like those of the bride in the Song: On mybed, at night, I sought him whom my heart loves.I sought but did not find him. So I will rise and gothrough the City; in the streets and the squaresI will seek him whom my heart loves... I soughtbut did not find him (3:1-2). […] Urged by thewords of the Song – I sought but did not findhim –, we pose to ourselves the problem ofatheism or better yet, ignorance about God.None of us are far from such an experience:

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there is a potential atheist in us that shouts andwhispers its difficulty in believing every day”.11

“Si comprehendis, non est Deus”,12 writes Au-gustine: that is, “if you understood him, it wouldnot be God”. This category of search preservesthe distance between the creature who seeksand the Creator; an essential distance becausethe One who is sought-after is not an object buthe, too, is a subject, the true subject, as he is theone who first sought, called, and loved us, pro-voking our heart’s desire.

Our search is a call to humility because werecognize “potential atheists” in ourselves. Weexperience the difficulty in believing, and werecognize in ourselves that self-sufficient, andsometimes arrogant, pride which separates usfrom others and condemns us. Seeking Godrequires crossing through the night and evenstaying there for some time. It requires discov-ering the strength and the beauty of a walk offaith that knows how to stop in front of thedarkness of doubt without the pretension ofhaving to offer solutions. Faith that is lived willalso allow us to bear witness to Christ with the

11 C.M. MARTINI, La tentazione dell’ateismo, in Il Corrieredella Sera, November 16, 2007.

12 ST. AUGUSTINE, Sermon 52, 16.

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humble language of one who has learned toinhabit the night and to endure its questions.

In Scripture, the night is the time of distress,interior struggle, and spiritual warfare, as wesee happen to Jacob at the Jabbok (Gn 32:25).It is night when Nicodemus goes to see Jesus,hidden out of fear of the Jews (Jn 3:2); it is nightwhen Judah becomes lost and leaves the vitalfriendship with Christ by leaving the cenacle(Jn 13:30); still it is night when Mary Magdalenegoes to the tomb (Jn 20:1) and is able to recog-nize the voice of her Beloved (cf. Jn 20:11-18),just like the bride in the Song (Sg 2:8). The nightis a time of desire that transforms into encounteronly if it is crossed without doubting love.

Humble faith accepts that the dark passagetowards dawn does not signify the passing fromthe search to possession, but instead, leads fromthe fragmentation that scatters the spirit to theunifying experience of the Risen One. Life ac-quires direction and sense as, day after day,prayer after prayer, trial after trial, the pilgrim-age continues towards the definitive answer, to-wards rest and stillness, towards peace of soul.

In our time, a time marked by fragility anduncertainties, contemplation could be soughtwithout being rooted in faith, solely as a “place”of stillness or rest, as emotional space, as satis-faction for one’s search for self, that avoids ef-

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fort and suffering. The Word of God and thereading of some experiences of holiness thatencountered pain or the “night of faith” help usavoid the temptation to run away from the dif-ficulties of the human journey.

Hope

15. The night, a dark and grim symbol, be-comes an image full of hope within Biblical andChristian spirituality. The story of the Spirit isprepared in the night that readies the radiantand splendid day, the day of light. The journeythrough the dark night is marked by the crum-bling of certainties in order to be born anew.Light is reached through darkness, life throughdeath and day through night. This is what a lifeof faith requires: a time in which the person isinvited to dwell in God. It is the moment inwhich those who seeking are invited to passfrom the experience of being loved by God tothat of loving God simply because he is God.

Saint John of the Cross defined the darknight as the spiritual experience in which loss,aridity, impotence, pain and desperation alter-nate; a night of the Spirit and of the senses, apassage towards the perfect union of love withGod. Teresa of Avila, at the height of her in-volvement with the reform of Carmel, wrote in

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her book The Book of My Life, “I would forgetall the favours that the Lord had bestowed uponme: nothing would remain with me but the mererecollection of them, like the memory of adream, and this was a great distress to me. For,when a person is in this condition, the under-standing becomes stupid; and so I was tor-mented by a thousand doubts and suspicions.I thought that I had not understood it properly,and that it might have been my fancy, and that itwas bad enough for me to be deluded myself,without deluding good men as well. I felt I wasso evil that I began to think that all the evils andheresies that had arisen were due to my sins”.13

From Francis of Assisi to Teresa of Lisieux,from Gemma Galgani to Bernadette Soubi-rous, from Padre Pio to Teresa of Calcutta thereare numerous examples of people who write:“There is so much contradiction in my soul,such deep longing for God, so deep that it ispainful, a suffering continual and yet not wantedby God repulsed empty, no faith, no love, nozeal. Heaven means nothing to me. To me itlooks like an empty place”.14 The night be-comes the place where love is tried and the

13 St. TERESA OF AVILA, The Book of My Life, 30, 8.14 Blessed TERESA OF CALCUTTA, Vieni e sii la mia luce,

edited by B. Kolodiejchuk, BUR, Milan 2009.

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place of faithfulness and the mysterious close-ness of God.

O vere beata nox, “O truly blessed night” 15

we sing on Easter night, announcing the resur-rection and the victory. The night becomes timeand path for the coming of the Bridegroom whounites with and, in the embrace, transforms thesoul as the Spanish mystic sings:

“Oh, night that guided me,oh night more lovely than the dawn,oh, night that joinedBeloved with lover,lover transformed in the Beloved!”.16

15 ROMAN MISSAL, Easter Proclamation.16 St. JOHN OF THE CROSS, Poems, V, The Dark Night, 5-8.

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DWELLING


My Beloved is mine and I am his.

Song of Songs 2:16


Listening

16. The Song follows a storyline of searchand finding in a harmonious epiphany of en-counter and mutual contemplation within a veryprecise linguistic register: that of praise. Praiseinvolves the entire body, the tangible place ofrelation with the other: lips, teeth, cheeks, neck,hair, breasts, hands, legs and particularly, theeyes which send signals of love as to be equatedto doves (Sg 1:15; 4:1; 5:12).

Fullness of the heart is expressed through thecelebratory language of bodies. The praise ofbeauty of the body is interpreted through thelanguage of nature, constructions, goldworking,and emotions. The universe flows into in thebody of the one who is loved and the belovedappears present in the universe. The word con-secrates itself to love and the lexicon of com-munion appears. Love becomes a lively andcontinuous dialogue that grasps and celebratesbeauty. The Bridegroom’s praise: How beauti-ful you are, my love, how beautiful you are!(Sg 1:15), is followed by the bride’s: How beau-

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tiful you are, my Beloved, and how delightful!(Sg 1:16). These “blessed words” heal thewounds inflicted by the language of blame, evi-dent in the relationship between man andwoman ever since original sin (cf. Gn 3:12),and allow for the restoration of equality, reci-procity and mutual belonging: My Beloved ismine and I am his (Sg 2:16), I am my Beloved’s,and my Beloved is mine (Sg 6:3), I and myBeloved’s, and his desire is for me (Sg 7:11),expression which seems to put an end to thedivine punishment expressed in Genesis (3:16).The language of praise and compliments pro-cures a relational harmony that is also mirroredin creation, which is never separated from hu-man vicissitudes (cf. Rom 8:22-23), and syn-tonizes with the human heart in celebrationthrough a jubilation of colors, perfumes, flavorsand sounds.

Even God, fascinated by his creature, show-ers it with compliments, as he does with Marywhen he greets her as full of grace (kecharito-méne, Lk 1:28), proclaiming her, with thesewords, a masterpiece of beauty. The creatureanswers with Magnificat (Lk 1:46-55), insertinginto the story the power of praise that dilates thehuman heart and introduces it into an authenticrelationship with God.

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17. The word that blossoms to liberate lovetends towards contact, towards union. The Songopens with the request that blooms on the lipsof the bride, main protagonist of the drama, andexpresses the desire for contact with her loverwho is physically absent but present in her heartand thoughts. Her lover’s mouth becomes awellspring she can draw from to quench herthirst and become intoxicated. Let him kiss mewith the kisses of his mouth. Your love is moredelightful than wine; delicate is the fragrance ofyour perfume, your name is am oil poured out;and that is why the maidens love you (Sg 1:2-3).The kisses and tenderness of the Bridegroom(dodîm) are qualified as tôbîm, “good”, andso, exhibit the fundamental quality of all thathas come from the hands of the Creator(cf. Gn 1:4) in accordance to the original divineplan. They represent a liturgy of communion,access to the other’s breath, and a joy greaterthan the intoxication from the wine: You will beour joy and our gladness. We shall praise yourlove above wine (Sg 1:4). The beloved cannot beresisted because love is a reality so strong andinescapable that it can only be compared todeath (Sg 8:6). It is a reality of incredible attrac-tive force which brings the two to become one.

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18. This is true for both married life (cf. Gn2:24) and consecrated life which experiences, ina similar way, the dynamism of Christ’s spousallove (cf. 1Co 6:17). It in fact flourishes withinlove, a love that fascinates, that intercepts thedeepest desires, that touches the sources, andthat provokes the longing for the gift. It arises asan answer of love to a God who gives himselfwithout reservations, an answer to a gratuitouslove that is not possessed but received. “Thislove embraces the whole person, soul and body,whether man or woman, in that person’s uniqueand unrepeatable personal ‘I’. The One who,given eternally to the Father, ‘gives’ Himself inthe mystery of the Redemption, has now calledman in order that he in his turn should givehimself entirely to the work of the Redemptionthrough membership in a community of broth-ers or sisters, recognized and approved by theChurch”.1

This dynamic of search and of coming to-gether is a journey that is never completed in itsentirety. The path to conversion and prayer inwhich to dwell opens to the person who iscalled. On this path longing becomes transfor-mation and purification, praise and form in the

1 JOHN PAUL II, Apostolic Exhortation Redemptionisdonum (March 25, 1984), 3.

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Beauty that attracts and unites, the mystery inwhich to dwell. “This intimate and profoundknowledge of Christ is actuated and growsdeeper day by day through the life of personal,community and liturgical prayer”.2

In the form of Beauty

19. At the heart of Christian identity is theforce that shapes it: the revelation of God ascreation and salvation and the glory manifestedonce and for all in Christ and in his Easter.Through the Son and his earthly life, God ful-filled his intention to make himself known andto reveal the creature to itself: “We were thensealed with the Spirit by God. For as we die inChrist, in order to be born again, so, too, we aresealed with the Spirit, that we may possess Hisbrightness and image and grace”.3 The mutualrecognition of the origins resonates. God ex-presses his satisfaction to the human creature:God saw all that He had made, and indeed it wasvery good (Gn 1:31). He connects it to himselfwith a love that as it recognizes, it returns tobeauty: How beautiful you are, my love, howbeautiful you are (Sg 1:15); absolute and inextin-

2 Ivi, 8.3 St. AMBROSE, On the Holy Spirit, I, 6, 79.

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guishable love: I am my Beloved’s and his desireis for me (Sg 7:11).

Let us fix our contemplative gaze on themystery of the Beauty we are a form of. Westernand Eastern traditions introduce us to and en-lighten us on the Christian form of Beauty, itsuniqueness, and its ultimate meaning. “Belat-edly I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and sonew”.4 In this heartfelt exclamation from Con-fessions we find the cry of the human soul of alltime. The necessity for a journey resounds, ajourney that leads from beauty to Beauty, fromthe penultimate to the Ultimate, to rediscoverthe meaning and the nature of all that exists atthe base of every beauty: “For see, thou wastwithin and I was without, and I sought thee outthere. Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly among thelovely things thou hast made. […] Thou didstcall and cry aloud, and didst force open mydeafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and didstchase away my blindness”.5

20. In the Vespers chant of the Lenten sea-son and Holy week, the Church introducesPsalm 44 with two Scripture passages that seemto contrast to each other. The first interpretive

4 St. AUGUSTINE, Confessions, X, 27, 38.5 Ibidem.

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key recognizes Christ as the most handsomeamong men: You are the fairest of the childrenof men and graciousness is poured upon your lips(Ps 44). The grace poured upon his lips revealsthe inner beauty of his word, the glory of theTruth, and the beauty of God who draws us tohim and provokes the wound of Love. In theChurch as Bride, it moves us towards the Lovethat has impressed its form in us. We live inthe form of beauty, not as aesthetic longing,but as the main reference to the truth that livesin us: Your God will be your splendour (Is 60:19;cf. Wis 8:2).

The second passage from the Scripture in-vites us to read the same psalm with a differentinterpretive key, referring to Isaiah: Withoutbeauty, without majesty (we saw him), no looksto attract our eyes (Is 53:2). How is this recon-ciled? Is the fairest of men so miserable in ap-pearance that we do not want to look at him?Pilate presents him to the crowd by saying:Ecce homo (Jn 19:5), so as to create pity for thebeaten and disfigured Man. The faceless man.

21. “An uncomely and deformed Jesus? AJesus who is comely and beauteous in lovelinesssurpassing the sons of men? Yes, two flutesseem to make discordant sounds: howbeit oneSpirit breathes into both. The first trumpet says,

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Beauteous in loveliness surpassing the sons ofmen; and the second, with Isaiah, says, We sawhim: and he had no form nor comeliness... Turnnot away thine ears, listen to both and applyunderstanding”.6 Saint Augustine settles thecomparisons – not contradictions – by showingthe glory of the true Beauty, the same Truth.Whoever believes in the God who manifestedhimself as love, precisely to the end (Jn 13:1)in the battered body of Christ crucified, knowthat beauty is truth and truth beauty. In thesuffering Christ, he also learns that the beauty oftruth also embraces offense, pain, and even thedark mystery of death. It is in accepting pain,not in ignoring it, that our encounter withBeauty can occur, even when weak eyes or aheart wounded by evil are unable to grasp themysterious and fruitful plan.7

22. The incarnate Word is the way to theultimate Beauty: “Our very Life came down toearth and bore our death, and slew it with thevery abundance of his own life. And he departedfrom our sight that we might return to our

6 St. AUGUSTINE, Homilies on the First Epistle of John,9, 9.

7 Cf. J. RATZINGER, La corrispondenza del cuore nell’incon-tro con la Bellezza, in 30 Giorni, n. 9, September 2002, 87.

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hearts and find him there”.8 The Word Jesusleads us to the source of beauty, it draws us withbinds of love: How beautiful you are, my Be-loved, and how delightful! (Sg 1:16). The beautymoves for a second time: love in response.It moves to encounter, to contemplate; it em-barks on a journey, attracted by the love whichcame to us as grace and freedom.

We are invited to the journey towards en-counter and to dwell in it, while God returns usto the beautiful identity: When Moses camedown from mountain of Sinai... he did not knowthat the skin of his face was radiant after speakingwith the Lord (Ex 34:29).

23. Mystic tradition preserves beauty in si-lence; it does not intend to violate it. The way ofbeauty requires exile, withdrawal and tensionthat unifies. It is what connects monastic theol-ogy to the flourishing of mysticism betweenthe late Middle Ages and the dawn of the Mod-ern Age.

The voice of Dionysius the pseudo Areopag-ite echoes: “But Divine Love is ecstatic, notpermitting (any) to be lovers of themselves, butof those beloved... Wherefore also, Paul theGreat, when possessed by the Divine Love, and

8 St. AUGUSTINE, Confessions, IV, 12, 19.

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participating in its ecstatic power, says with in-spired lips, ‘I live no longer, but Christ lives inme.’ As a true lover, and beside himself, as hesays, to Almighty God, and not living the life ofhimself, but the life of the Beloved, as a lifeexcessively esteemed”.9 Divinization begins onearth; the creature is transfigured and the King-dom of God is inaugurated. The splendor ofGod in the ecclesial form of ordo amoris burnsin man as existence and new way of life. The lifeI now live in this body I live in faith: faith in theSon of God who loved me and who sacrificedhimself for my sake (Ga 2:20).

24. Beauty is ecstatic. It can be reached onlyby those who lose themselves, who accept toembark on an interior journey that, paradoxi-cally, leads one out of the self in the move-ment of love. My beloved is mine and I am his(Sg 2:16); I am my Beloved’s, and my Beloved ismine (Sg 6:3). The experience that relates uswith the Lord, an experience which is desiredand sought-after, becomes a theological place inwhich the soul recognizes itself and finds dwell-ing: “My God, I contemplate you in the heavensof my soul and I immerse myself you”.10 In this

9 DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE, De divinis nominibus, 4, 13.10 Blessed ELIA OF ST. CLEMENT, Scritti, OCD, Rome

2006, 431.

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abyss, where everything is resolved in unity andpeace, mysterious and silent lives God, the un-speakable, the Other: “God from which all thatis beautiful is beautiful and without which noth-ing can be beautiful”.11

Saint Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi, tells of themystical experience in which she discovers theglory of God and of the creature seen in God:the soul united with the Word passus et glorio-sus, understands the graft of the human in thedivine, absorbed in the Trinitarian life givenover to the order of love.12

The Beauty that wounds

25. Beauty calls to ecstasy, while its act oflove opens in us the possibility of awareness,of a journey, of a known and embraced vulner-ability.

Beauty strikes the human person, it woundshim and, precisely in that way, gives him wingsand raises him up with a longing so powerful itdesires more than what is opportune for man todesire: “It is the Bridegroom who has smittenthem with this longing. It is he who has sent a

11 Cf. ACHARD OF SAINT VICTOR, De unitate Dei et plurali-tate creaturarum, 1, 6.

12 St. MARY MAGDALENE DE’ PAZZI, I colloqui, part II, inTutte le opere, v. 3, CIL, Florence 1963, 226.

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ray of his beauty into their eyes. The greatness ofthe wound already shows the arrow which hasstruck home, the longing indicates who hasinflicted the wound”.13 This is how NicolasKabasilas refers to the beauty that wounds andin it recognizes Christ’s presence and the vulnusthat cries within us as a longing for fulfillness.A wound that calls us to our ultimate destinyand our mission. Pope Francis reminds us:“Whoever wants to preach must be the first tolet the Word of God move him deeply andbecome incarnate in his daily life […]; we needto let ourselves be wounded by that word whichwill also wound others”.14

26. In the journey that conforms us to to theSon, we are asked to become aware of the pos-sible deformation of the original image that livesin us and of the vocation to be born anew fromabove. Such awareness must be experienced inour daily lives by accepting the risk of an exact-ing gaze that cannot be satisfied with a narrowedvision but trains itself to see and demonstratethe gracefulness of the Christian form. We are

13 N. CABASILAS, La vita in Cristo, Città Nuova, Rome1994, in J. RATZINGER, La corrispondenza del cuore nell’incon-tro con la Bellezza, in 30 Giorni, n. 9, September 2002, 89.


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asked to train our gaze, to make it simple, puri-fied and penetrating. It is a daily search to dwellin the encounter and to recognize the habits thatcan distort it; the indolence that can deafen us:I hear my Beloved knocking. “Open to me, mysister, my love...” (Sg 5:2).

The light of the Spirit touches us in infiniteways and its visit opens in us a wound, puttingus in a state of passage. It urges us to makethe needs and the ways of our Beloved our own.It shatters our certainties. It is not easy to dwellamong the rubble of that which grace has de-molished; temptation pushes us to rebuild, towork. We consecrated men and women some-times find in missionary work the ointmentthat soothes the wound created in us by grace.We glimpse the steps to take, but we fear them:I have taken off my tunic, am I to put it on again?I have washed my feet, am I to dirty them again?(Sg 5:3). We must experience the wound anddwell in the conversion.

27. The Spirit puts us in a state of conver-sion (metanoeìn = shub); it turns us around.The term metanoeìn underlines our change ofdirection and shows how it is the noùs, thespiritual background, the deepest heart, withinus that gets unsettled. Dwelling in conversion iscontemplative attitude, a surprise that is re-

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newed each day and which knows no end inJesus Christ.

If we are strangers to conversion we becomestrangers to love. As consecrated men andwomen we are invited to humility that recog-nizes that alone we could not dwell in conver-sion. It is not the fruit of good intentions, it isthe first step of love: I hear my Beloved! (Sg 2:8).

It may happen that as we get caught up inthe flow of action we stop invoking (Lm 5:21;cf. Jr 31:18) and stop listening to the voicewho invites us: Come then, my love, my lovelyone, come (Sg 2:10). Our reference paradigms– our thoughts, times of oration, decisions, ac-tions – no longer have a sense of waiting, long-ing or listening. Different references and neces-sities take place in us, ones that do not referto Christ and the conformity to Him. The epi-sode of Zebedee’s son, narrated in Matthew(Mt 20:17-28), is emblematic. Is shows the twodisciples covered by a subtle hint of pettiness,while wanting to stay close to Jesus. They werefollowing the Teacher, as do we, but their heartswere hardened. Through a slow process, whichsometimes goes unnoticed, the heart hardensand is unable to interpret in a sapiential way.It stabilizes and wrinkles, losing the gaze thatcontemplates. This hardness of heart is not thesame as that of an atheist but rather that of the

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apostles whose hearts, as Mark observes, areoften reprimanded by Jesus: Do you not yetunderstand? Have you no perception? Are yourminds closed? Have you eyes that do not see, earsthat do not hear? (Mk 8:17-18).

Even those of us who follow Jesus accordingto the Gospel are subject to this progressivehardening of the heart. Although formally be-lievers, worldly interests, reasonings, and judg-ments reemerge in us. Contemplation extin-guishes and beauty turns gray.

28. Pope Francis continually denounces theattitudes of life that He defines as worldliness:“Strip away every kind of worldly spirit, whichis a temptation for everyone; strip away everyaction that is not for God, that is not fromGod... strip away the seeming assurance struc-tures give, which, though certainly necessaryand important, should never obscure the onetrue strength it carries within: God. He is ourstrength! To strip away what is not essential,because our reference is Christ”.15 In Evangeliigaudium he warns: “Spiritual worldliness, whichhides behind the appearance of piety and evenlove for the Church, consists in seeking not the

15 FRANCIS, Meeting with the poor assisted by Caritas,Assisi (October 4, 2013).

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Lord’s glory but human glory and personal well-being. It is what the Lord reprimanded thePharisees for: How can you believe, who receiveglory from one another and do not seek the glorythat comes from the only God? (Jn 5:44). It is asubtle way of seeking one’s own interests, notthose of Jesus Christ (Phil 2:21)”.16

29. The spiritual path knows no progressunless it is open to the actions of the Spirit ofGod through the effort of asceticism and, inparticular, of spiritual warfare. “He then saysthat the way is narrow – that is to say, the way ofperfection – in order to make it clear that, totravel upon the way of perfection, the soul hasnot only to enter by the strait gate, emptyingitself of things of sense, but has also to straitenitself, freeing and disencumbering itself com-pletely in that which pertains to the spirit.[…] And, as this is a matter wherein we mustseek after and attain to God alone, God alonemust be the object of our search and attain-ment”.17 It is necessary to open the door andgo out, ask to find, without fear of beatings:I sought him but I did not find him, I called tohim but he did not answer... they beat me, they

16 FRANCIS, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium(November 24, 2013), 93; cf. 93-97.

17 St. JOHN OF THE CROSS, Ascent of Mount Carmel, 2, 7, 3.

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wounded me, they took away my cloak, they whoguard the ramparts (Sg 5:6-7).

The constant call resounds: “In fact the vo-cation of consecrated persons to seek first theKingdom of God is first and foremost a call tocomplete conversion, in self-renunciation, in or-der to live fully for the Lord, so that God maybe all in all. Called to contemplate and bearwitness to the transfigured face of Christ, conse-crated men and women are also called to a‘transfigured’ existence”.18 The heart knows thewound and lives it, while the Spirit deep withinus opens us to contemplative oration.

Beauty that recreates

30. Prayer is situated between our weaknessand the Spirit. It gushes out of the depths of oursouls, as if from a wound given by grace. It is ayearning, a search, practice, a journey. Like awellspring of living water, it transports, pushes,digs and flows (cf. Jn 4:10); it makes flourish.Prayer is an inner birth: we become aware of alife present within us, one that sprouts andgrows in silence. For mystics, praying meansperceiving our deepest truth, the point in whichwe join with God, where God touches us while


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he recreates us: the sacred place of the encoun-ter. The place of the new life: For see, winter ispast... the flowers appear on the earth... The figtree is forming its first figs and the blossomingvines give out their fragrance (Sg 2:11a.12a.13a).We must direct ourselves to this place with thewill and faithfulness of one who loves: Tell methen, you whom my heart loves: Where willyou lead your flock to graze, where will you rest itat noon? That I may no longer wander like avagabond beside the flocks of your companions(Sg 1:7). In the fresco The Creation of Adam,which we admire in the Sistine Chapel, Mich-elangelo Buonarroti makes us contemplate thefinger of the Father that nearly touches the fin-ger of Adam, suggesting a mystery. The com-munion which began will have no end.

31. Prayerful contemplation is the seal of theBeloved: pure grace within us. The only behav-ior is waiting as a cry. Biblical language and thatof the Fathers used the verb hypoménein and thenoun hypomoné: to be below, to crouch downand be still, waiting for something to happen.The invocation of help, Out of the depths I cry toyou, O Lord! (Ps 129:1), dares to express beforethe face of God my desperation, my longing tocontemplate his Face with a cry. Monks beganto use the name of Jesus as supplication: “Jesus,

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help me! Jesus, save me! Jesus, have mercy!”.The soul puts up the tent and lives in the Name.It dwells in love. It contemplates.

32. Prayer brings us back to the center ofour being, it gives us over to Jesus, while it healsour self and restores our unity: “The divineMaster is in the bottom our our soul as in thebottom of Peter’s boat... At times, it seems asthough he sleeps but he is always there; ready tosave us, ready to answer our request”.19

Saint John of the Cross sings: “What more doyou want, O soul! And what else do you searchfor outside, when within yourself you possessyour riches, delights, satisfaction, fullness, andkingdom - your Beloved whom you desire andseek? Be joyful and gladdened in your interiorrecollection with him, for you have him so closeto you. Desire him there, adore him there.Do not go in pursuit of him outside yourself.You will only become distracted and weariedthereby, and you shall not find him, or enjoyhim more securely, or sooner, or more inti-mately than by seeking him within you”.20 Byz-antine tradition uses a figurative expression: themind (noûs) descends into the heart. Intellect

19 Blessed CHARLES DE FOUCAULD, Opere spirituali, SanPaolo Edizioni, Rome 1997, 144.

20 St. JOHN OF THE CROSS, Spiritual Canticle B, verse I, 8.

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abandons its musings and unites with the heartthat invokes: Set me like a seal on your heart, likea seal on your arm. For love is strong as Death,jealously relentless as Sheol. The flash of it is aflash of fire, a flame of the Lord himself (Sg 8:6).The whole being enters into the life of God, it ishealed, it is integrated into the action of theSpirit: Love returns beauty to him. Contempla-tion becomes the wound of the Beloved whorecreates us, the presence that lives within us.

“O living flame of lovethat tenderly woundsmy soul in its deepest center!Since now you are not oppressive,now consummate! if it be your will:tear through the veilof this sweet encounter”.21

In the exercise of truth

33. Ancient philosophy taken from Thomasaffirms that beauty is ‘the splendor of the truth’and ‘the flowering and exercise of the being’,better yet, it is the manifestation of the realityof life that each of us carries within: the truth.The mystery of the being presents itself to ourawareness as beauty that creates amazement and

21 ID., The Living Flame of Love B, Prologue, 4.

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wonder. It is not what we grasp that strikes us,but rather, that which lies beyond our grasp; notthe quantitative aspect of nature, but its quality;not what is beyond the range of time and space,but the true meaning, the source and end ofbeing, in other words, the ineffable.22 It is the lifethat shines, that reveals itself, that overflows de-spite the veils that hide and protect it. To graspthe ineffable and understand its essence, ourheart must dwell in the mystery and, at the sametime, dwell in history in a contemplative way.

We call our life “consecrated”, and we askourselves whether or not this adjective has lostthe living brilliance of the mystery that abides init and that manifests itself in it daily. Our con-secrated life indeed signifies a style, a way ofliving in the world; and it has an task that is bothheuristic (it finds, discovers, makes visible) andhermeneutic (it interprets, explains, makes un-derstand).

The holiness that embraces

34. Christian tradition is aware of its particu-larity – of its style, of its form – by discoveringits capacity to assume the conditions imposed byhistory and cultures, in the intelligence of the

22 Cf. A.J. HESCHEL, L’uomo alla ricerca di Dio, EdizioniQiqajon, Bose Monastic Community 1995.

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faith from which it originates. The unity be-tween the mission of Christ and his life, is em-bodied in the Christian style and form through-out history.

Let us contemplate the way of Christ. It ex-presses Jesus’ unique capacity to dwell in theFather in the charity of the Spirit, while learn-ing from every individual and every situation(cf. Mk 1:40 s.; 5:30; 7:27-29). This attitudeis not a sign of weakness, but of authority,strength, and holiness. He is luminous becausein him prayer, thoughts, words, and actionscome together and show the simplicity and unityof his being. His splendor as the Son of theFather does not blind, but approaches us dis-creetly, it sets itself aside for the advantage of all.He makes space of freedom around himself bycommunicating with just his benevolent pres-ence and closeness. In this encounter, peopleare put in the condition to discover their owndeepest identity. They recognize their owntruth; the mystery of being sons and daughtersof God.

Christ’s way shows that he watches with theeyes of love God. Those who have encounteredJesus can continue the journey because thatwhich is essential to their life has been revealedand therefore, known. The man Jesus of Naza-reth told of God and it is in him that the fullness

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of divinity (Col 2:9) lives. It is the man Jesus ofNazareth that consecrated people are called tofollow in a personal and community life thatbefore all else is human and humanized.

Christ teaches us that... we must be self-restrained and live good and religious lives herein this present world (Ti 2:12). In this way, ourhumanity, purified and enlivened by the needfor contemplation, is liberated every day fromfalsehood in order to become a human and holyplace that embraces the echo and narration ofJesus’ life, in the limit and the perfection. Let uslearn the style that the Didaché calls “the ways ofthe Lord”.23 Pope Francis reminds us that thesequela Christi finds the model for its own hu-manity in Christ’s holy humanity to bear witnessto how He “lived on this earth”.24

Listening that sees

35. We learn Christ’s way, first, by listening.We are invited to take on a contemplative way inwhich the Word shines in our lives as men andwomen: in our thoughts, in prayerful silence, inour fraternities, in our encounters and deacon-

23 Didaché, 11, 8.24 A. SPADARO, “Wake up the world!”. Conversation of

Pope Francis with the Union of Superiors General, in La Ci-viltà Cattolica, 165 (2014/I), 7.

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ries, in the places where we live and in which weannounce the grace of mercy, in our choices, inour decisions, and in the formative paths pur-sued in a constant and worthwhile way.

In listening to the Word of God, the conse-crated person finds a place to be under the gazeof the Lord and to learn from Him how to lookat himself, others, and the world. The letter tothe Hebrews (4:13) demonstrates this intersec-tion of gazes very well: Before the Word of God(lógos toû theoû) no created thing can hide; ev-erything is uncovered and open to the eyes of theone to whom we must give account of ourselves(ho lógos). The Word sees us, it watches us, itregards us, it calls us, and it engages us, his eyeswere flames of fire (cf. Rv 19:12).

Christian contemplation begins and growswith the exercise of obedient (ob-audire), unin-terrupted listening. If it is God who is speaking,the believer is a person called to listen and thecontemplative person is the one listening con-stantly. We see through our hearing, in a rela-tionship of covenant, fulfillment, and joy. Activeexercise and the love of and longing for thetruth: Listen to my voice, then I will be your Godand you shall be my people. Follow right to theend the way that I mark out for you, and you willprosper (Jr 7:23).

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36. This synthesis between hearing and see-ing “becomes possible through the person ofChrist himself, who can be seen and heard […]Saint Thomas Aquinas speaks of the Apostles’oculata fides – a faith which sees! – in the pres-ence of the body of the Risen Lord. With theirown eyes they saw the risen Jesus and theybelieved; in a word, they were able to peer intothe depths of what they were seeing and toconfess their faith in the Son of God, seated atthe right hand of the Father. […] Only when weare configured to Jesus do we receive the eyesneeded to see him.25 Called to listen, we cultivatea heart to understand (1K 3:9), and we ask forwisdom and shrewdness (cf. 1K 3:12) to discernthat which comes from God and that whichgoes against God.

The listening of the Word requires vigilan-ce (cf. Hab 2:1-3), attention to what is beingheard (cf. Mk 4:24), awareness of who one islistening to (cf. Jr 23:16) and of how one listens(cf. Lk 8:18). Teresa of Avila reminds: “If aperson neither considers to Whom he is ad-dressing himself, what he asks, nor what heis who ventures to speak to God, although his

25 FRANCIS, Encyclical Letter Lumen fidei (June 29, 2013),30-31.

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lips may utter many words, I do not call itprayer”.26

This exercise allows us to illuminate thechaos of the self by receiving the merciful andcompassionate, although at times exacting, gazeof Christ the Lord that leads the consecratedperson to a realistic vision of self: “Set thine eyeson Him alone […] if thou set thine eyes uponHim, thou shalt find the whole”.27

37. In the Rule, Benedict made the tax col-lector from the parable in the Book of Luke(cf. Lk 18:9-14) the model for monks to follow,the exemplum.28 He does not want monks whosegazes are raised to heaven but rather whose eyesare lowered to earth. A monk does not proclaimhis closeness to the Lord but recognizes hisdistance; he does not articulate a magniloquentprayer but confesses his sin: God, be merciful tome, a sinner.29 Isaac of Nineveh writes: “He whohas been able to see himself has accomplishedmore than one who has seen the angels […]

26 St. TERESA OF AVILA, Interior Castle, The First Man-sions, I, 7.

27 St. JOHN OF THE CROSS, Ascent of Mount Carmel, II, 22.28 Cf. St. BENEDICT, Rule, VII, 62-66.29 The tax collector’s short prayer has been defined as

“the perfect and perpetual prayer”: A. LOUF, À l’école de lacontemplation, Lethielleux, Paris 2004, 22.

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One who apprehends his sin is better than onewho through his prayers raises the dead”.30

With acute realism, Pope Francis affirms:“He who does not sin is not human. We allmake mistakes and we need to recognize ourweakness. A religious who recognizes himself asweak and a sinner does not negate the witnessthat he is called to give, rather he reinforces it,and this is good for everyone”.31

Quies, requies, otium

38. To dwell in the relationship with God, inthe power of the Spirit, it is necessary to giveoneself time and space, going against the cur-rent. Today’s culture does not believe in life’sprocesses and changes even if it systematicallymakes them the foundation of its vision. Value isgiven to things that happen quickly, begin im-mediately, and move rapidly. Outcomes are notconsidered; every dynamic shines and is con-sumed is in the present moment.

Time in the Christian way is not a commoditybut a sign that God reveals to us here and now.

30 ISAAC OF NINEVEH, Un’umile speranza. Antologia, editedby S. Chialà, Edizioni Qiqajon, Bose Monastic Community1999, 73.

31 A. SPADARO, “Wake up the world!”. Conversation ofPope Francis with the Union of Superiors General, in La Ci-viltà Cattolica, 165 (2014/I), 5.

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Adequate time and space are necessary, as areplaces to live without having to hurry.

To indicate the contemplative life, Westernmonastic tradition has often used words thatindicate interior activity, the time dedicated onlyto God, vacare Deo; finding quiet time in God,quies, requies; abstaining from work activities inorder to work on one’s soul, otium negotiosum.The words speak of rest and quiet when, inreality, they require hard work and interiorstruggle: “Idleness hurts everything […] butnone so much as the soul”.32

Interior life demands the asceticism of timeand the body. It requires silence as a dimensionto dwell in. It invokes solitude as an essentialmoment of purification and personal integra-tion. It calls for hidden prayer to encounter theLord who lives in the secret, and to make ofthe heart the interior cell (cf. Mt 6:6), the verypersonal and sacred place in which to worship(cf. 1P 3:15): Let my Beloved come into hisgarden, let him taste its rarest fruits (Sg 4:16).

39. We often prefer to live outside of our-selves, outside of the interior castle, men andwomen living on the surface, because the ad-

32 St. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, Homilies on the Acts of theApostles, 35, 3.

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venture of the depths and the truth is scary.We prefer reassuring notions, even if they arelimited, to the challenge that throws us beyondwhat we have glimpsed: “It is unspeakably morefoolish to care to learn nothing of our natureexcept that we possess bodies, and only to real-ize vaguely that we have souls, because peoplesay so and it is a doctrine of faith. Rarely do wereflect upon what gifts our souls may possess,Who dwells within them, or how extremely pre-cious they are. Therefore we do little to preservetheir beauty”.33

Sometimes we cannot find the stubborncourage that knows how to embark on theinner journey which leads us through theshadows of the limit and sin to the ultimatetruth that lives in us: “I thought of the soulas resembling a castle, formed of a single dia-mond or a very transparent crystal, and con-taining many rooms, just as in heaven thereare many mansions […] the soul of a man isbut a paradise, in which, God tells us, he ta-kes his delight. What, do you imagine mustthat dwelling be in which a King so mighty,so wise, and so pure, containing in Himself

33 St. TERESA OF AVILA, Interior Castle, The First Man-sions, I, 3.

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all good, can delight to rest? Nothing can becompared to the great beauty and capabilities ofa soul...”.34

The ineffable memory

40. The way of the Word is the first road theLord himself meets us on, “he gathers us for theholy supper; as he did to the disciples at Em-maus, he reveals the meaning of the Scripturesto us and breaks break for us”.35 Word, Gospel:an open treasure chest, the sublime treasure, thestory of God.36 An encounter with someone al-ways comes through a word that, by making usparticipants in his life, reveals to us somethingabout ourselves.

Here is Jesus, Agnus Dei. The invisible faceof Christ, the Son of God, reveals himself in themost simple and, at the same time, most inef-fable way; it manifests in the mystery of his Bodyand of his Blood. To fulfill the longing of menthroughout time who ask to see Jesus (Jn 12:21),the Church repeats the gesture that the Lordhimself made: she breaks bread and offers thechalice of wine. “Here is the Christ in a bit of

34 Ibidem, I, 2.35 ROMAN MISSAL, Eucharistic Prayer V.36 Cf. FRANCIS, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium

(November 24, 2013), 174-175.

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bread: in a crumb of created material, here is theUncreated; here is the Invisible in an instant ofvisible”.37

Here, the eyes of he who seeks Him with asincere heart open. In the Eucharist, the heart’sgaze recognizes Jesus.38 Saint John Paul II re-minds us: “To contemplate Christ involves beingable to recognize him wherever he manifestshimself, in his many forms of presence, butabove all in the living sacrament of his body andhis blood. The Church draws her life from Christin the Eucharist; by him she is fed and by himshe is enlightened. The Eucharist is both a mys-tery of faith and a ‘mystery of light’. Wheneverthe Church celebrates the Eucharist, the faithfulcan in some way relive the experience of the twodisciples on the road to Emmaus: their eyes wereopened and they recognized him (Lk 24:31)”.39

Every day, the Eucharist introduces us tothe mystery of love, “the spousal love of God:As the Redeemer of the world, Christ is theBridegroom of the Church. The Eucharist is the

37 P. MAZZOLARI, Il segno dei chiodi, Dehoniane, Bologna2012, 73-78.

38 Cf. JOHN PAUL II, Homily on the occasion of the Solem-nity of Corpus Christi, Saint John Lateran Basilica (June 14,2001).

39 JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharestia(April 17, 2003), 6.

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Sacrament of our Redemption. It is the Sacra-ment of the Bridegroom and of the Bride”.40

It tells our heart that God is Love.

41. To experience the contemplative capac-ity of consecrated life is to live eucharistically, inthe way of the Son given for us. The Eucharistnourishes the Jesu dulcis memoria, invitation forus consecrated men and women to let thememory of Jesus dwell in our soul, thoughts, anddesires, through the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 14:26),as contemplation that transfigures our lives andstrengthens our joy. “Since then I learnt Thee,Thou residest in my memory; and there do I findThee, when I call Thee to remembrance, anddelight in Thee”,41 affirms Saint Augustine,while the Greek Fathers show the continualmemory of Jesus as spiritual fruit of the Eucha-rist. In this constant memory of Christ, thoughtsof docility and benevolence flourish, while Godtakes up dwelling in the soul and makes it histhough the work of the Holy Spirit.

42. Every day, invocation and prayer, listen-ing to the word of God, spiritual warfare, andthe celebration of the sacraments renew our

40 JOHN PAUL II, Apostolic Letter Mulieris dignitatem(August 15, 1988), 26.

41 St. AUGUSTINE, Confessions, X, 8-24.

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openness to the gift of the Holy Spirit: “Prayer,fasting, vigil and all other Christian activities,however good they may be in themselves, donot constitute the aim of our Christian life, al-though they serve as the indispensable means ofreaching this end. The true aim of our Christianlife consists in the acquisition of the Holy Spiritof God”.42

Benedict XVI expressed the inseparable pre-ciousness of communion and contemplation:“Communion and contemplation cannot beseparated, they go hand in hand. If I am truly tocommunicate with another person I must knowhim, I must be able to be in silence close tohim, to listen to him and look at him lovingly.True love and true friendship are always nour-ished by the reciprocity of looks, of intense,eloquent silences full of respect and veneration,so that the encounter may be lived profoundlyand personally rather than superficially. And,unfortunately, if this dimension is lacking, sac-ramental communion itself may become a super-ficial gesture on our part. Instead, in true com-munion, prepared for by the conversation ofprayer and of life, we can address words ofconfidence to the Lord, such as those which

42 I. GORAINOFF, Serafino di Sarov: vita, colloquio con Mo-tovilov, scritti spirituali, Gribaudi, Torino 20066, 156.

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rang out just now in the Responsorial Psalm:O Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant,the son of your handmaid. You have loosedmy bonds. I will offer to you the sacrifice ofthanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord(Ps 115:16-17)”.43

43 BENEDICT XVI, Homily on the occasion of the Solemnityof Corpus Christi, Saint John Lateran Basilica (June 7, 2012).

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FORMING


Set me like a seal on your heart.

Song of Songs 8:6


Listening

43. The word of the Song of Songs narratesthe story of a love oriented towards an interper-sonal, decentralized relationship, intent on con-templating the beloved face and hearing itsvoice (cf. Sg 2:14): “He who loves must conse-quently cross the barriers that confined himwithin his limitations. For this reason it is saidthat love melts the heart: that which is melted isno longer confined within its boundaries”.1

Overcoming one’s limits and boundariesleads into the dynamism of contemplationwhere only beauty and the power of love speak.Contemplation prevents union from becomingan indistinct and vague fusion by preservingalterity and making the gift possible. It is theecstasy in front of “the sacred ground of theother”,2 it is the being in the space of receptionand sharing that the other offers to recognizehim in his unicity: but my dove is unique, mine,

1 St. THOMAS OF AQUINAS, Commentary on the Sentencesof Peter Lombard III XXV, I, I, 4 m.


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unique and perfect (Sg 6:9) or even: My Belovedis... to be known among ten thousand (Sg 5:10).To remain in such epiphany one must train eyesand heart to experience beauty as mystery thatenvelops and engages.

44. One of the adjectives found throughoutthe Song is yapâ, the female adjective for “beau-tiful”, and yafeh, the male adjective for “beauti-ful”. In the Bible, beautiful describes the voiceof a person (Ezk 33:32), a woman (Sarah, wifeof Abram in Gn 12:11), the tree in Edenthat is beautiful to see and therefore, desirable(Gn 3:6); the sandals of Judith ravish the eyesof Holofernes and her beauty conquers his heart(Jdt 16:9), beautiful is the stonework of thetemple (Lk 21:5). Biblical beauty does not focusonly on physical beauty but also inner beauty:beautiful is the wine that Jesus gave in Cana(Jn 2:10), beautiful is the shepherd who laysdown his life for his sheep (Jn 10:11.14), beau-tiful is the gesture made by the woman whoanoints Jesus and receives his praise that ensuresher eternal remembrance (Mt 26:10).

Beauty in the Bible, therefore, appears as the“signature” of divine and human gratuitousnessand, in the Song, this is presented as the over-coming of solitude, as an experience of unity.The two who love each other feel united even

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before they are, and, after the union, they longfor it to last. The two lovers do not want atemporary emotion, but rather to savor thetaste of eternity through a mark, a seal (hôtâm)on their hearts and flesh (Sg 8:6), which putseverything in the perspective of forever of God.This sign on the flesh is a wound that creates theeverlasting longing for love, it is a fire that notorrents can drown (Sg 8:7): “You, oh eternalTrinity, are a deep Sea, into which the deeperI enter, the more I find, and the more I find, themore I seek; the soul cannot be satiated in Yourabyss, for she continually hungers after You, theeternal Trinity, desiring to see You with light inYour light”.3

When we mature in our relationship withGod, we allow him to purify us and teach us tosee in the way He sees, to love in the way Heloves. Certainly, this new way to see and loveis burdensome – it means acquiring what Bene-dict XVI calls: “A heart which sees” 4 – becauseit requires a radical transformation of the heart,that which the Fathers called puritas cordis, aformative journey.

3 St. CATHERINE OF SIENA, Il Dialogo della Divina Provvi-denza, Cantagalli, Siena 2006, 402-403.

4 BENEDICT XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus caritas est (De-cember 25, 2005), 31.

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In the way of beauty

45. Today, in the variety of cultural situa-tions and lifestyles, the consecrated life requiresattention and confidence in the processes ofpersonal and community formation, and in thedynamics of the Institute in particular, to intro-duce, accompany, and maintain the contempla-tive attitude and capacity. The need arises topose questions about our way of life and tolook at the formative ethos as: “The ability toestablish a method characterized by spiritualand pedagogical wisdom, which will graduallylead those wishing to consecrate themselves toput on the mind of Christ the Lord. Formationis a dynamic process by means of which indi-viduals are converted to the Word of God in thedepths of their being”.5 Perhaps we need torediscover, through continuous formation, thebreath of the mystery that lives within us andthat transcends us: “As a tree torn from thesoil, as a river separated from its source, thehuman soul wanes when detached from what isgreater than itself. Without holiness, good turnschaotic; without good, beauty becomes acciden-


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tal. Good and Beauty shine however with justone voice”.6

46. How can the consecrated life be ex-pressed in an immediate and simple way in ev-eryday life? Apart from the hermeneutics ofdoctrine, magisterial support, Rules and tradi-tions, what do consecrated men and womenrecount in the Church and in the human city?Are they truly a parable of Gospel wisdom and aprophetic and symbolic prod for a “different”world? Let us encourage a focused and truth-ful evaluation of our daily ways, so that thewinnowing-fan of wisdom separates the strawfrom the grain of wheat (cf. Mt 3:12), so that thetruth of our life and the call to the Beauty thattransfigures can be seen.

These are some causes for reflection which,integrated into our plans and our approach toformation, can accompany the vital process thatleads from the superficial to our deepest feel-ings, where the love of Christ touches the rootof our being.7

6 A.J. HESCHEL, L’uomo alla ricerca di Dio, Edizioni Qiqa-jon, Bose Monastic Community 1995, 141.


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Mystagogical pedagogy

47. We have indicated the Word of God– first source of all Christian spirituality thatnurtures a personal relationship with the livingGod and with his saving and sanctifying will 8 –,and the Eucharist that contains Christ himself,our Easter and living Bread, heart of ecclesialand consecrated life,9 as places in which to dwellwith humility of spirit in order to be formed andsanctified. We invite you to accompany to thegrace of these mysteries with attentive peda-gogy. The Fathers loved mystagogical communi-cation through which, in the light of the Scrip-ture, the life-blood of the truth expressed in thecelebrated mystery was revealed and internal-ized in life. This is how – as the Greek wordmystagoghía says – the homiletic act and liturgywere able to initiate, guide, and lead to themystery. Mystagogical communication can in-troduce new members of our Institutes fruitfullyand can accompany the formation of conse-crated men and women in a constant way, espe-cially in liturgical life.

Liturgy itself is mystagogy – as it is commu-nication through words, actions, signs and sym-bols of biblical origin – that introduces to the

8 Cf. ibidem, 94.9 Cf. ibidem, 95.

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vital fruition of the mystérion. The kind of trans-figuration that consecrated life it refers to can beat the heart of the mystagogical process. It mustknow how to evoke the Paschal mystery, ourdestination to resurrection, in our lives as believ-ers.10 The ultimate mistagogue, as Gregory ofNazianzus reminds us, is Christ himself and ev-erything in the liturgy has him, the Kyrios, risenand present, as the subject.

48. Mystagogical communication is an emi-nently Christological act seeing as the Chris-tian’s wisdom or the rites and liturgical actsalone are not enough to participate fruitfullyand to make the mystery understood. AuthenticChristian liturgy cannot exist without mysta-gogy. If there is no mystagogical language in theliturgy, what Origen says happened to the Lev-ites, who were assigned the task of carrying theark of the covenant covered up in coverings andveils, could occur. It can also happen to usconsecrated men and women; we can carry themystery of God on our shoulders as a weight

10 Cf. BENEDICT XVI, Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentumcaritatis (February 22, 2007), 64: “The best catechesis on theEucharist is the Eucharist itself, celebrated well. By its na-ture, the liturgy can be pedagogically effective in helping thefaithful to enter more deeply into the mystery being cel-ebrated”.

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without knowing what it is and so, not benefit-ing from it.11

We are called to make a real evaluation of ourcommunity celebrations – the Liturgy of theHours, daily and Sunday Eucharist, and acts ofmercy –, by asking ourselves if these celebrationsare living and vitalizing encounters with Christ,“source of renewed self-giving”.12 An invitationto think responsibly about a mystagogical peda-gogy for our paths of continual formation.

Paschal pedagogy

49. The mystical walk at the foundation ofour Christian life of sequela Christi goes throughthe passion, death, and resurrection of the Lord.It requires constant and special care in the per-sonal life to embrace “the chance to be trans-formed by the Paschal experience, being config-ured to the Crucified Christ who fulfills theFather’s will in all things”,13 and equal care tounderstand its worth and power in the fraternaland missionary life. The contemplative attitudeis nourished by the veiled beauty of the Cross.

11 Cf. ORIGEN, Homilies on Numbers, 5, 1.12 FRANCIS, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium

(November 24, 2013), 24.13 JOHN PAUL II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita

consecrata (March 25, 1996), 70.

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The Word that was with God, hung on treebranches, to tie the heavens and the earth, be-comes the ultimate scandal before which we veilour face. Today, other victims of violence hanghumiliated from the crosses of the world as thesun darkens, the sea becomes bitter, and thefruits of the earth, ripened for the hunger of all,are distributed for the avidity of few. The callechoes to purify our gaze in order to contem-plate the Paschal enigma of salvation which isliving and working in the world and in our dailycontexts.

Today, in the fraternities and communitiesthat live immersed in contemporary cultures– often characterized by the ephemeral – evenour gaze as consecrated men and women canlose its ability to recognize the beauty of thePaschal mystery: the disarmed and defenselesscomposure outlined in the faces of brothers andsisters that we know, like on the faces of thechrists rejected by history that we meet in ourdeaconries of charity. Faces without beauty,without majesty, no looks to attract our eyes(cf. Is 53:2).

50. Every day the spectacle of human suffer-ing is seen in all of its crudeness. It is such thatno redemption can be sought and understoodwithout facing the scandal of pain. This mystery

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crosses human history like an enormous waveand invites us to reflection. Few have graspedthe truest question that dominates the humanheart like Dostoevsky: pain, redemption fromevil, victorious salvation over death. He com-pared the relevance of beauty with the mysteryof pain, asking “why”. The young Ippolit, neardeath, poses the decisive and terrible questionto Prince Myskin, the protagonist of The Idiotand an enigmatic figure of Christ, the InnocentOne who suffers for the sake of all: “Is it true,prince, that you once declared that ‘beautywould save the world’? What beauty saves theworld?”.14

The question of evil emerges every day in theminds, in the hearts, and on the lips of many ofour brothers and sisters. Only if God makes theinfinite suffering of the world abandoned to evilHis, only if He enters the deepest darkness ofhuman misery, is pain redeemed and death over-come. This happened on the Cross of the Son.Christ’s suffering explains the tragedy of hu-manity by extending it to the divinity. In Christwho suffers, we find the only possible answer tothe question of suffering. Contemplation andknowledge of the Beauty that lives within us and

14 F. DOSTOEVSKIJ, L’idiota: II, 2, in E. LO GATTO (ed.),Romanzi e taccuini, vol. II, Sansoni, Florence 1961, 470.

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transcends us is not reached except through theCross; life is not accessed except by passingthrough death.

51. For us consecrated persons, entering inthe paschal wisdom and training ourselves tosee, here and now, the transfigured face of theRisen One in all that is disfigured and crucifiedis a real aspect of faith. The contemplative jour-ney is a paschal journey. The pasch of Christ,the reason for our hope, challenges our frater-nity and our mission which are sometimesblurred by superficial relationships, by hopelessroutine, by Christian service that is merely func-tional, and by eyes which have grown lazy andare no longer able to recognize the mystery.In our communities, Beauty remains veiled!We are foolish and slow to believe (cf. Lk 24:25)in living the paschal pedagogy. We can forgetthat sharing in the Trinitarian communion canchange human relationships, that the reconcil-ing power of grace overcomes the divisive ten-dencies present in the human heart and in soci-ety, and that, in this way, we can show to peopleboth the beauty of fraternal communion and theways that actually lead to it.15


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Pedagogy of beauty

52. Throughout the centuries, the conse-crated life has unceasingly sought after beauty.It has been a vigilant and fruitful watchman ofbeauty’s sacredness by elaborating on the visionand creating works that have expressed faithand the mysticism of the light through architec-ture, arts of intellect and science, and throughvisual, literary, and musical arts, in search ofnew epiphanies of Beauty.16

Contemporary reflection, which often hoversbetween the spiritualization of nature and theaestheticization of feeling, has resulted in thedisregard for the cognitive and formative valueof beauty and its meaning of truth, by confiningit to an ambiguous gray area or relegating itto the ephemeral. We must mend the vital con-nection to the old and ever new meaning ofbeauty as the visible and tangible place of theinfinite mystery of the Invisible. Inhabiting thisdistant place is how to tap into the source ofbeauty. If our existence does not take part inthis mystery in some way, beauty remains unat-tainable and it gets lost in the emptiness of non-sense and in the emptiness of every meaning.17

16 Cf. JOHN PAUL II, Letter to the Artists (April 4, 1999).17 Cf. N. BERDJAEV, Il senso della creazione, Jaca Book,

Milan 1994, 300ss.

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But more painfully, we remain without. In hisbook La bellezza educherà il mondo [Beauty WillEducate the World],18 Pope Francis, at the time aCardinal in Buenos Aires, suggests the pedagogyof beauty, the formative request in which thehuman person is looked upon as the bearer ofthe eternal called to a life process that flourishesin respect and listening, in the integration ofthought, emotion and feelings called to be inte-grated in maturity.

The need arises for a dual approach to forma-tion of the human ethos: “True knowledge isbeing struck by the arrow of Beauty that woundsman, moved by reality, by the personal presenceof Christ himself, as he says. Being struck andovercome by the beauty of Christ is a more real,more profound knowledge than mere rationaldeduction. We must foster the human person’sencounter with the beauty of faith. The encoun-ter with the beautiful can become the wound ofthe arrow that strikes the heart and in this wayopens our eyes, so that later, from this experi-ence, we can take the criteria for judgment andcan correctly evaluate the arguments”.19

18 J.M. BERGOGLIO - FRANCIS, La bellezza educherà ilmondo, EMI, Bologna 2014.

19 J. RATZINGER, La corrispondenza del cuore nell’incontrocon la Bellezza, in 30 Giorni, n. 9, September 2002, 87.

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True and eternal beauty reaches inner manthrough what we can call the spiritual “senses”which Augustine in analogy with the senses ofthe body: “What is it that I love in loving thee?[…] It is true that I love a certain kind of lightand sound and fragrance and food and embracein loving my God, who is the light and soundand fragrance and food and embracement of myinner man – where that light shines into my soulwhich no place can contain, where time doesnot snatch away the lovely sound, where nobreeze disperses the sweet fragrance, where noeating diminishes the food there provided, andwhere there is an embrace that no satiety comesto sunder. This is what I love when I love myGod”.20

53. In our journey Christians and conse-crated persons, we need to recognize the tracesof Beauty, a path towards the Transcendent,towards the ultimate Mystery, towards God,precisely because it opens and widens the ho-rizons of human consciousness, makes it gobeyond the self, and makes it face the abyss ofthe Infinite. We are called to follow the viapulchritudinis, which is an artistic and aesthetic

20 St. AUGUSTINE, Confessions, X, 6, 8.

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journey, a journey of faith and theological en-quiry.21

Benedict XVI often commented on concertshe attended, expressing how he could hear atheological truth and a response of faith in greatmusic: “Anyone who has heard this, knowsthat the faith is true”.22 The beauty expressedthrough musical genius was interpreted as pro-paedeutic to faith: “The music had such anextraordinary force of reality that we realized,no longer by deduction, but by the impact onour hearts, that it could not have originatedfrom nothingness, but could only have come tobe through the power of the Truth that becamereal in the composer’s inspiration”.23 This couldbe why the great mystics, as poetic and musicalliterature confirms, loved composing poemsand canticles, to express something of the divinethat they had access to, in secret meetings ofthe soul.

Along with music, poetic, narrative, and figu-rative art are all paths that can be propaedeuticto contemplation: from the literary pages toicons and miniatures, from frescoes to paintings

21 Cf. BENEDICT XVI, Address to artists in the SistineChapel, Vatican City (November 21, 2009).

22 J. RATZINGER, La corrispondenza del cuore nell’incontrocon la Bellezza, in 30 Giorni, n. 9, September 2002, 89.

23 Ivi.

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and sculptures. All “on an inner way, a way ofovercoming ourselves; thus in this purificationof vision that is a purification of the heart, itreveals the beautiful to us, or at least a ray of it.In this way we are brought into contact with thepower of the truth”.24

In Evangelii gaudium, Pope Francis under-lines the bond between truth, goodness andbeauty: it is necessary to “renew esteem forbeauty as a means of touching the human heartand enabling the truth and goodness of theRisen Christ”.25

54. We are, therefore, invited on a harmoni-ous journey that can unite the true, the good,and the beautiful, where it sometimes appearsthat duty, as misunderstood ethics, prevails.

The new digital culture and new communica-tion resources pose another challenge by em-phasizing the language of images in a continu-ous flow without the opportunity for medita-tion, without an aim, and often without ahierarchy of values. Cultivating a present, reflec-tive gaze that goes beyond what is seen and thebulimia of immaterial contact, is an urgent chal-

24 Ivi.25 FRANCIS, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium

(November 24, 2013), 167.

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lenge that can introduce us to the Mystery andto bearing its witness. We are invited to takeformative journeys that strengthen us to readinto things. We are invited to follow the path ofthe soul along which the return from the formsof penultimate beauty to the harmony of thesupreme Beauty is achieved. This is how we willrealize the “hidden art which is the love story ofeach one with the living God and with his breth-ren, in the joy and effort of following JesusChrist in the daily routine of life”.26

Pedagogy of thought

55. Forming, therefore, the depths and theinner journey cannot be disregarded. Formationis a demanding and fruitful journey that neverends; a necessity that extinguishes with death.

Consecrated persons are called to practice“open thought”. Interaction with the culturesand values we are messengers to conditions ourlife to embrace the differences, and to see inthem the signs of God. The intelligent and lov-ing wisdom of contemplation trains for a visionthat knows how to evaluate, accommodate, andrelate everything to Love.

26 BENEDICT XVI, Address to the participants of the Pon-tifical Council for culture, Vatican City (June 15, 2007).

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In his encyclical Caritas in veritate, Bene-dict XVI writes: “Paul VI had seen clearly thatamong the causes of underdevelopment there isa lack of wisdom and reflection, a lack of think-ing capable of formulating a guiding synthesis,for which ‘a clear vision of all economic, social,cultural and spiritual aspects’ is required”.27

And remarks: “Love in truth – caritas in veritate– is a great challenge for the Church in a worldthat is becoming progressively and pervasivelyglobalized. The risk for our time is that thede facto interdependence of people and nationsis not matched by ethical interaction of con-sciences and minds”.28 Pope Francis comes backto this vital necessity in his conversation with theUnion of Superiors General of religious men onNovember 29, 2013 referring to the challengethat complexity poses to the consecrated life:“To understand we ought to move around, tosee reality from various viewpoints. We ought toget used to thinking”.29

Constant attention is needed when creatingan everyday fraternal and community environ-

27 BENEDICT XVI, Encyclical Letter Caritas in veritate(June 29, 2009), 31.

28 Ivi, 9.29 A. SPADARO, “Wake up the world!”. Conversation of

Pope Francis with the Union of Superiors General, in La Ci-viltà Cattolica, 165 (2014/I), 6.

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ment, the first place of formation in which thedevelopment of a pedagogy of thought is pro-moted.

56. The service of authority plays a crucialrole in this process. Constant formation requiresthose in the institutes and communities to directtheir attention, first of all, to the consecratedperson in order to direct him towards a lifeattitude of wisdom, to coach him in the humanculture that is to be led to Christian fullness, toallow him to practice reflecting on values, tohelp him protect the sacredness of being so thathe may not dedicate himself excessively to fol-lowing the values of efficiency and utility, and tokeep Christian wisdom from transforming into aconstellation of services and technical compe-tencies. He who serves in authority encouragesand accompanies the consecrated person on hissearch for the metaphysical foundations of thehuman condition – where the Word lets itsLight shine –, so that: “Under the action of theSpirit, they resolutely keep times for prayer,silence and solitude, and they never cease to askthe Almighty for the gift of wisdom in thestruggles of everyday life (cf. Wis 9:10)”.30


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To solicit and facilitate this formative dy-namic, sporadic gestures and some operativedecisions or choices, are not enough. A perma-nent dynamic that has a relationship with andeffect on the entire community and personal lifemust be created and sustained. For this reason,it is necessary to focus on and adopt a lifestylethat gives shape to an environment whose ha-bitual climate facilitates a wise, attentive, andloving attitude towards life and people. An atti-tude focused on discovering and experienc-ing the opportunities for human and spiritualgrowth, one that inspires the creation of newthought, useful programs, and focused pedago-gies. It becomes necessary to allow and facilitatethe interpretation of introspection made up ofself-reflection and existential discussion.

57. Soliciting a contemplative gaze meansalso encouraging the consecrated person so thatwith appropriate reflection he can take posses-sion of his deep identity, reading and recount-ing his existence as a ‘good’ story, as positivethinking, as a relationship of salvation, as hu-man experience recapitulated in Jesus Christ:“The self is perceptible by the interpretation ofthe traces it leaves in the world”.31

31 P. RICOEUR, Il tempo raccontato, Jaca Book, Milan 1998,376.

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Our personal stories united with the storiesof those who walk with us in fraternity andthe seeds of the Word dwelling in the worldtoday are traces of God to reread together; graceto be aware of, seed to make grow as newthought from the Spirit for us, to continue alongthe journey. Pope Francis, speaking to the com-munity of writers of La Civiltà Cattolica, invitedus to rediscover this pedagogy: “It is your dutyto gather and express the expectations, aspira-tions, joys and dramas of our time and to indi-cate ways to read reality in the light of theGospel. Today the important spiritual questionsare more pressing than ever, but someone mustinterpret and understand them. With humbleand open intelligence, ‘seek and find God in allthings’, as St. Ignatius wrote. God is at work inthe life of every person and in culture: the Spiritblows where he wills. Endeavour to find outwhat God has brought about and how tocontinue his action. […] And seeking Godin all things, in all the fields of knowledge,of art, of science, of political and social life andof economics requires study, sensitivity and ex-perience.32

32 FRANCIS, Address to the Community of Writers of “La Ci-viltà Cattolica”, Vatican City (June 14, 2013).

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Cultivating thought, forming judgment, train-ing for wisdom of the gaze and refinement offeelings, in the style of Christ (Gal 4:19), arepaths that are propaedeutic to the mission.33

In the closeness of mercy

58. A fruitful path to take in the exercise ofcontemplation is one that leads to closeness. It isin the journey of the encounter that faces seekand recognize each other. Every human face isdistinct and unique. The extraordinary unique-ness of our face makes us easily recognizable inthe complex social environment in which welive, and it facilitates the recognition and identi-fication of the other.

If the quality of collective coexistence “startswith you”,34 with giving value to the face of theother and to the relationship of closeness, Chris-tianity proves to be the religion of the face, thatis, the religion of nearness and closeness. “In aculture paradoxically suffering from anonymityand at the same time obsessed with the details ofother people’s lives, shamelessly given over to


34 Cf. E. LÉVINAS, Etica e infinito. Il volto dell’altro comealterità etica e traccia dell’infinito, Città Nuova, Rome 1988.

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morbid curiosity, the Church must look moreclosely and sympathetically at others whenevernecessary”.35

God heals our nearsightedness and keeps ourgaze from stopping on the surface where medi-ocrity, superficiality, and diversity find theirhome: God “cleanses, adorns, enriches, and en-lightens the soul, as the sun, when it shines,dries, warms, beautifies, and brightens”.36

The contemplative person trains himself tolook with the eyes of God upon humanityand creation until they see the invisible (cf.He 11:27), that is, the work and presence ofGod which remains ineffable and visible onlythrough faith. Pope Francis invites us take partin the spiritual intelligence and the sapientiacordis which identifies the true contemplativeChristian as the one who knows how to be eyesto the blind, feet to the lame, speech to themute, father to the orphan, and neighbor to thelonely, recognizing in them the image of God.37

Christians “are, first of all, mystics with openeyes. Their mysticism is not a natural faceless


36 St. JOHN OF THE CROSS, Canticle of the Soul B, 32, 1.37 Cf. FRANCIS, Sapientia cordis. “I was eyes to the blind,

and feet to the lame” (Gb 29:15), Message for the XXIIIWorld Day of the Sick, Vatican City (December 3, 2014).

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mysticism. It is rather a mysticism that looks fora face, that leads to encounters with those whosuffer, encounters with the face of unhappypeople and victims. Open and vigilant eyes plota revolt within us against the absurdity of inno-cent and unjust suffering; they arouse in us thehunger and thirst for justice, great justice for all,and they keep us from orienting ourselves exclu-sively within the minuscule criteria of our worldof mere needs”.38

59. Only love can see that which is hidden:we are invited to this wisdom of the heart thatnever separates love of God from the love to-wards others, particularly towards the poor, thelast, “flesh of Christ”,39 face of the CrucifiedLord. The coherent Christian experiences theencounter with attention of the heart and forthis reason, along with professional competenceand planning, the formation of the heart is nec-essary; so that faith becomes active throughlove (cf. Ga 5:6): “The Christian’s programme

38 J.B. METZ, Mistica dagli occhi aperti. Per una spiritualitàconcreta e responsabile, Queriniana, Brescia 2011, 65.

39 For example cf. FRANCIS, Address on the occasion of theVigil of Pentecost with the Ecclesial Movements, new Com-munities, and Associations (May 18, 2013); IDEM, Homily onthe occasion of the canonization of the Martyrs of Otrantoand of two blessed Latin-American women (May 12, 2013);IDEM, Angelus (January 11, 2015).

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– the programme of the Good Samaritan, theprogramme of Jesus – is ‘a heart which sees’.This heart sees where love is needed and actsaccordingly. Obviously, when charitable activityis carried out by the Church as a communitarianinitiative, the spontaneity of individuals must becombined with planning, foresight and coopera-tion with other similar institutions”.40

This attitude gives value to our living to-gether, especially where new vulnerabilities ariseand ask to be accompanied at a “steady andreassuring [pace], reflecting our closeness”.41

“For just as some people want a purely spi-ritual Christ, without flesh and without thecross, they also want their interpersonal rela-tionships provided by sophisticated equipment,by screens and systems which can be turned onand off on command. Meanwhile, the Gospeltells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physicalpresence which challenges us, with their painand their pleas, with their joy which infects us inour close and continuous interaction. True faithin the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from

40 BENEDICT XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus caritas est (De-cember 25, 2005), 31.


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self-giving, from membership in the community,from service, from reconciliation with others.The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summonedus to the revolution of tenderness”.42

The face of the Father, in the Son, is the Faceof mercy: “Jesus of Nazareth, by his words, hisactions, and his entire person reveals the mercyof God”.43 Every consecrated man and woman iscalled to contemplate and bear witness to theface of God as He who understands our weak-nesses (cf. Ps 102), and to apply the ointment ofnearness on the wounds of man by contrastingthe cynicism of indifference.

“Let us open our eyes and see the misery ofthe world, the wounds of our brothers and sis-ters who are denied their dignity, and let usrecognize that we are compelled to heed theircry for help! May we reach out to them andsupport them so they can feel the warmth of ourpresence, our friendship, and our fraternity!May their cry become our own, and togethermay we break down the barriers of indifferencethat too often reign supreme and mask our hy-


43 FRANCIS, Misericordiae vultus, Bull of Indiction of theExtraordinary Jubilee of Mercy (April 11, 2015), 1.

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pocrisy and egoism”.44 Contemplation of divinemercy transforms our human sensitivity andholds it in the embrace of a heart which sees.

In the dance of creation

60. “Be praised, my Lord, through all Yourcreatures”.45 This canticle by Francis of Assisicontinues to resonate at the beginning of thetwenty-first century with a voice that knowsno fatigue, calls to wonder, and recognizesthe original beauty that marks us as creatures.In Francis of Assisi we find the perfect human-ity of Christ in whom were created all things(Col 1:16); the glory of God shines, and theimmense is seen in the infinitely small.

The Lord plays in the garden of His creation.We can catch echoes of that game when we arealone on a starlit night; when we see childrenin a moment when they are really children;when we know love in our own hearts; at suchtimes the awakening, the “newness”, the empti-ness and the purity of vision that make them-selves evident provide a glimpse of the cosmic

44 Ivi, 15.45 St. FRANCIS OF ASSISI, Cantcile of Creatures, 1.

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dance to the rhythm of silence, the music of awedding feast.46

We are participants in this dance of creationin the humble way of singers and guardians.Singers: called to revive our identity as crea-tures, we give praise in the immense symphonyof the universe. Guardians: called to watch overthe beauty and harmony of creation like senti-nels waiting for dawn. Pope Francis asks us toremember that we are not masters of the uni-verse, he asks us to reshape our anthropologicalvision according to the vision of He who movesthe sun and other stars,47 respecting our uniquedignity as human beings, creatures of this worldwho have the right to life and happiness.48

Modern anthropocentrism has ended upprizing technical thought over reality, compro-mising the intrinsic dignity of the world, in thecomplementarity of its order and all creatures.Human beings, Pope Francis continues, citingRomano Guardini: “See nature as an insensateorder, as a cold body of facts, as a mere ‘given’,as an object of utility, as raw material to behammered into useful shape; it views the cosmos

46 Cf. T. MERTON, Semi di contemplazione, Garzanti, Milan1953.

47 D. ALIGHIERI, Divine Commedy. Paradise, XXXIII, 145.48 Cf. FRANCIS, Encyclical Letter Laudato si’ (June 18,

2015), 43.

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similarly as a mere ‘space’ into which objects canbe thrown with complete indifference”.49 We areexperiencing an anthropocentric excess.

61. A new relationship with nature is notpossible without a new heart, one that can rec-ognize the beauty in every creature, the uniquedignity of man, the need for relation, and open-ness to a you in which everyone recognizes thesame origin, the divine You. As consecratedpersons, we hear the call to relational circularity,to a heart capable of laudatory prayer as anexpression of ascesis that calls to conversion, tothe passage from self-referentiality which makesus proud and closed off – while humiliatingpeople and nature – to the hospitable holiness ofChrist in whom all is embraced, healed, andreturned to its own dignity as humans andcreatures.

We hear, by virtue of what the intelligentwisdom of the heart suggests to us, the call tomake concrete choices and actions for the per-son, communities, and Institutes that manifest areasonable and just lifestyle.50 We are invitedwith all brothers and sisters of humanity to takeon the “great cultural, spiritual, and educational

49 Ivi, 115.50 Cf. ivi, 203-208.

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challenge [that] stands before us, and [that] willdemand that we set out on the long path ofrenewal”.51

A Philokalia tale

62. The necessity still resounds for continu-ous formative action – a Philokalia tale – thatopens, substantiates, and activates the contem-plative habitus in us consecrated men andwomen: “By learning to see and appreciatebeauty, we learn to reject self-interested prag-matism. If someone has not learned to stop andadmire something beautiful, we should not besurprised if he or she treats everything as anobject to be used and abused without scruple”.52

Pope Francis calls us to the passion for educa-tional commitment according to an ecologicalspirituality “grounded in the convictions of ourfaith, since the teachings of the Gospel havedirect consequences for our way of thinking,feeling, and living”.53

A spirituality that calls to conversion and,therefore, to an ascesis in which, recognizingour ways of life as sometimes unbalanced byroutine, we apply ourselves to exercises of inner

51 Ivi, 202.52 Ivi, 215.53 Ivi, 216.

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transformation: “The external deserts in theworld are growing, because the internal desertshave become so vast”.54 In order to enrich thedesert, we plant in our interior, fraternal, andmissionary lives the seeds of care, tenderness,gratitude, gratuitousness, and joy that takespleasure in the small and simple things, thepleasure of encounter and of service, “in devel-oping their gifts, in music and art, in contactwith nature, in prayer”.55

In the time of creation there was a seventhday on which God created rest. We do not seemto know the pleasure of rest. We work withcommendable dedication, but this often be-comes the model we follow in our consecratedlife. The invitation resounds to rediscover theday of the Risen One in our lives and our com-munities. It is the day we arrive at and the dayfrom which we leave again, but above all, it isthe day in which we linger in the savoring of theglory of the beloved Presence.

63. Set me like a seal on your heart (Sg 8:6)asks the bride of the Song, as if to secure love ina bond of faithfulness. The care needed to ac-

54 BENEDICT XVI, Homily on the occasion of the beginningof the Petrine Ministry, Vatican City (April 24, 2005).

55 Cf. FRANCIS, Encyclical Letter Laudato si’ (June 18,2015), 223.

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company our faithfulness to the sequela Christiin our special consecration is made evident in atime when it is often weakened by the fragility ofour life in the Spirit (cf. 1Th 5:17.19). The con-templative dimension of the consecrated lifewill mature if formative spaces are opened.Paths that are chosen, intentional, and followed.

Hence, we feel called to account for our Ratioformationis, the formative practices and experi-ences, and for our formative habitat in the vari-ety of forms of consecrated life. We must ques-tion our personal way of daily and fraternal life:how to pray, meditate, and study, how to live inrelation and in the apostolic life, and how to rest.The contemplative attitude questions our sur-roundings and everyday dynamics: our prefer-ences, moral agendas, oversights, ways and hab-its, plurality of choices and decisions, and cul-tures. Everything is scrutinized in discernmentand illuminated by the beauty of the Mysterythat lives within us. Such Light must be broughtto humanity and through humanity: the conse-crated as “a city on a hill, which testifies to thetruth and the power of Jesus’ words”.56

56 FRANCIS, Apostolic Letter To all consecrated people, onthe occasion of the Year of Consecrated Life (November 21,2014), II, 2.

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EPILOGUE


Come, my Beloved!

Song of Songs 7:12


Listening

64. Love is an occurrence that transfigurestime, instilling an energy that, as it is spent,regenerates. It is characteristic of love to endurewaiting, to learn how to wait. This is the case forJacob who was in love with Rachel: Jacob hadfallen in love with Rachel. So his answer [to La-ban] was, “I will work for you seven years to winyou younger daughter Rachel”... To win Rachel,therefore, Jacob worked seven years, and theyseemed to him like a few days because he lovedher so much (Gn 29:18.20). Jacob’s love for thiswoman becomes his reason for living, and so,hard work and time become secondary. In theSong time seems to disappear. Love removesman from the tyranny of time and things andsubstitutes the space-time coordinates, or betteryet, oxygenates them in the atmosphere of afreedom that gives primacy not to doing, but todwelling, contemplating, and embracing.

He who loves is anxious to see the face of hisbeloved again and knows that the joy of theencounter will be followed by an endless long-ing. With the invitation to the beloved to escape

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over the spicy mountains (Sg 8:14), the dynamicsof longing and seeking are reignited. It is anopen canto that celebrates the beloved beautythat will never be possessed unless its alterity,with the body as its symbol, is recognized.The search starts again so the two lovers cancontinue to call to one another ceaselessly,letting out the cry of the most incisive plea:Come! It is a call of mutual desire (Sg 2:10.13,4:8; 7:12), a call aimed at overcoming their soli-tude, an invitation to communion.

In the spousal dynamics of the consecratedlife, this impulse of the soul is transformed intoconstant prayer. The Beloved is invoked as anactive presence in the world, fragrance of resur-rection that comforts, heals, and opens to hope(Jr 29:11). We make the invocation that closesthe Biblical revelation: The Spirit and the Bridesay, ‘Come’. Let everyone who listens answer,‘Come’ (Rv 22:17).

On the mountain in the sign of fulfillment

65. “Come, let us go up to the mountain ofthe Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob thathe may teach us his ways (Is 2:3). Attentions,intentions, will, thoughts, feelings, emotions, allof you that are in my heart, come: let us climb

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the mountain, the place where the Lord sees andis seen”.1

If the call to contemplation, the call to climbthe mountain of the Lord, is the same vocationas that of the Church and if all other activitiesare ordained in it and subordinate to it,2 it ac-quires meaning and a permanent importance formonastic communities, prayerful communitiesintegrally dedicated to contemplation, accord-ing to the specific charism of each religiousfamily.

Monastic life is the original form of commu-nities of consecrated life and still today signifiesthe presence of men and women who love God,who live in search of his Face, and who findand contemplate God in the heart of the world.The presence of communities placed like citieson a hill-top and lamps in the lamp-stand(cf. Mt 5:14-15), even in the simplicity of life,visibly represent the destination of the entireecclesial community that “advances down thepaths of time with her eyes fixed on the futurerestoration of all things in Christ”.3

1 WILLIAM OF SAINT-THIERRY, The Contemplation of God,Prologue, 1.

2 Cf. SECOND ECUMENICAL VATICAN COUNCIL, Constitu-tion on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosantum Concilium, 2.


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What can the women and men who chooseto live their lives on the mountain of intercessionrepresent for the Church and for the world?What meaning can a community that dedicatesitself essentially to prayer and contemplationhave in a context of evangelical koinonia andlaboriousness?

66. The life of contemplative persons pre-sents itself as an image of love, men and womenwho live hidden with Christ in God (cf. Col 3:3).They inhabit the furrows of human history, and,situated in the heart of the Church and theworld,4 they stand “before God for all”.5

Praying communities do not propose a moreperfect fulfillment of the Gospel but rather askfor discernment at the service of the entireChurch. It is a sign that indicates a path, re-minding all People of God of the sense of whatit lives.6 Consecrated in the fruitful intimacy of

4 SECOND ECUMENICAL VATICAN COUNCIL, Dogmatic Con-stitution on the Church Lumen gentium, 44; JOHN PAUL II,Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita consecrata (March25, 1996), 3.29.

5 E. STEIN, Letter to Fritz Kaufmann, in M. PAOLINELLI,“Stare davanti a Dio per tutti”. Il Carmelo di Edith Stein,OCD, Rome 2013.

6 Cf. SECOND ECUMENICAL VATICAN COUNCIL, Decree onthe Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life Perfectae cari-tatis, 5.

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intercession, communities of contemplative menand women are an image of the longing forHeaven, of God’s tomorrow, ardent expectationof the bride in the Song, “sign of the exclusiveunion of the Church as Bride with her Lord,whom she loves above all things”.7 Contempla-tive communities are called to live the categoriesof a present that is already given 8 as a mission,aware that present and eternity no longer comeone after the other, but are intimately con-nected.

“The monastic vocation”, as Pope Francissaid, “is a tension between being hidden andbeing visible: tension in the fundamental sense,the tension of fidelity. Your vocation is goingonto the battlefield, it is fighting, it is knockingat the heart of the Lord”.9

The monastic stabilitas, leaves room for Godand announces the certainty of his presence inthe vicissitudes of human life, wherever it is tobe found: where man lives is where God hascome to live, in his Son, Jesus Christ. Commu-nities of contemplative men and women are


8 BENEDICT XVI, Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi (November30, 2007), 9.

9 FRANCIS, Address to consecrated men and women of theDiocese of Rome, Vatican City (May 16, 2015).

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places inhabited by those who do not pass by,as the Levite or the priest from the parable;they are inhabited by those who know how todwell in a stable way, allowing themselves toencounter man and his needs, to welcome thewounded humanity into their personal relation-ship with God.

Expressing love to God and telling men aparable of the Kingdom of Heaven: this is theintegral contemplative life. For monks andnuns, the world is the horizon of their prayers:its sounds and the silence of its desolation;its joy, treasure, hopes and stresses; its deserts ofsolitude and its anonymous crowds.

This is the path of pilgrims seeking the trueGod, it is the story of every contemplative per-son who stays vigilant, while accepting in him-self the sequela Christi as configuration toChrist. The stabilitas, reveals itself to be a path,the chance to go out beyond the boundaries oftime and space, to become the outpost of hu-manity: “Let us go for our people” Edith Steinwill say to her sister Rosa when she is arrested atthe monastery in Echt and taken to Auschwitzin holocaust.10

10 Last words of Edith Stein - St. Benedicta of the Cross,to her sister Rose at the Echt Monastery.

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67. The monastic life, in large part that ofwomen, is rooted in a silence that is generative.“Understanding one another today as women inprayer is a great challenge”, nuns declare, it is tolive a creative vital status.

Female monastic life becomes the heart ofintercession, the narration of true relationships,of care, and of healing: it is the protector of alltraces of life and, through empathy, it can senseharmonies even when they are hidden and tena-cious. Nuns know how to be and are able to bethe voice of gratuitousness and of fruitful ques-tions, without any preconceived idealizations,while letting themselves be shaped by the powerof the Gospel. Unification of the heart, the dy-namism of monastic life, urgently requires thatmonastic life be re-proposed as empathy, as alaboratory of narrations of salvation, as con-scious disposition towards dialogue within theculture of fragmentation, complexity, and un-certainty, shying away from the fascination ofimaginary peace.

All of this requires a demanding formation inthe life of faith, matured as docility to the Spirit.It also requires active listening to the signs of thetimes in a real relationship with history and withthe Church in her unique realities, and not onethat is made up of only information and abstract

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relations. It requires intercession that impas-sions and engages life, the place in which proph-ecy comes to be.

68. From this human frontier, contemplativecommunities are able to see beyond, to see theBeyond. Eschatology is not home to those whopass over what is human but to those who, whilespending their entire lives seeking God, attendhistoric events to discern the signs of the pres-ence of God and to serve his plans. The wallsthat outline the space are there to serve thesearch, the listening, the prayers; they do notrepresent a phobic separation or the attenuationof care or acceptance: they express our essentialheartbeat of intense love for the Church and ourcharity towards our brothers.

Integral contemplative life recounts the har-mony between time and eschatology. Time isabbreviated. Sequela and waiting walk together.Jesus’ command to his disciples to follow mecannot be fulfilled without the parousia that isproclaimed in the choral prayer of the Church;hope that prays, Come, Lord Jesus (Rv 22:20).The Church as the Bride is enriched by thetestimony of this “beyond” because the eschato-logical dimension corresponds with the exi-gency of Christian hope.

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The contemplative community placed on asolitary mountain or within chaotic and noisyurban centers resembles the living relationshipbetween time and the eternal. The communitythat contemplates reminds us that we do nothave infinite time at our disposal, an eternalreturn, a homogeneous continuum devoid ofshocks, and it bears witness to a new epiphanicpossibility of time. Our days are not an emptyeternity, shattered and liquid in which every-thing can happen except for something essen-tial. May the eternal enter time and let thingsrun their course. The dimension of time filled bythe eternal is experienced. Christian eschatologyis no longer experienced as an inert fragment inour brief time but as continuous and luminousevolution.11 Contemplatives do not experiencetime as something that is irritated by waiting,but as the continuous flow of the Eternal in dailytime. It is a prophecy of life that constantlyreminds us of the essential link between thesequela and waiting. We cannot eliminate onecomponent without seriously compromising theother, we cannot live without the breath of theinfinite, without waiting, without eschatology.

11 Cf. J.B. METZ, Tempo di religiosi? Mistica e politica dellasequela, Queriniana, Brescia 1978.

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69. This evangelical culture, so dear to mon-asteries, has demonstrated throughout the cen-turies that the Christian hope experienced inwaiting takes the shape of opus Dei which doesnot lead to historical and social detachment butgenerates responsibility and sets the conditionsfor healthy humanism. In a culture that hasgenerated the dark eschatology of boredom, timewithout time, a culture that avoids facing tran-scendence, the time of contemplative personscan and must be ignited; the time of those whohave something else to say. Through a sober andjoyous life, a prophetic life, and by evading ma-nipulations and compromises, they attest to theuncertainty and the ephemeral character of ev-ery present culture that limits life.

Contemplative communities, in which menand women live the search for the Face and thelistening of the quotidie Word, knowing thatGod remains an unknowable infinite, are im-mersed in a dialectic of already and not yet.Logic that concerns not only the relationshipbetween time and eternity, but also, the rela-tionship between the experience of the livingGod and the awareness of his mysterious tran-scendence. It all plays out in their own lives,in the difficulty of things, in the flow of daysand events.

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Vigilant humanity, sentinels on the moun-tain who watch out for the early signs of dawn(cf. Is 21:12) and announce the adventus of theGod who saves.

In the streets to protect God

70. “Seeking the face of God in everything,everyone, all the time, and his hand in everyhappening; This is what it means to be contem-plative in the heart of the world”,12 wroteBlessed Teresa of Calcutta.

If communities integrally dedicated to con-templation light and guide the way, then theentire life of special consecration is called to bethe place of embrace and the place where wherethe company of God is given.

Authentic Christian contemplation cannotexclude a movement towards the outside, a gazethat, from the mystery of God, turns towardsthe world and becomes active compassion.No one has ever seen God (Jn 1:18), but Jesusmade himself the exegete, the one who is thevisible Face of the invisible Father. Only byletting ourselves be engaged by Christ and by

12 J.L. GONZÁLEZ BALADO (edited by), I fioretti di MadreTeresa di Calcutta. Vedere, amare, servire Cristo nei poveri,San Paolo, Cinisello Balsamo (MI) 1992, 62.

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his choices will it be possible to contemplate.He who wants to contemplate God accepts liv-ing in a way that allows the men and women ofhis time to recognize Him. To those who livebearing witness to the God of Jesus Christ inthe world, he reveals himself as a guest andcommensal.

We are called to savor the mystery of themerciful and compassionate God, slow to anger,rich in kindness and faithfulness (Ex 34:6), of theGod who is love (1Jn 4:16) and protect him inthe human streets, and even in the sign of thefraternity.

Pope Francis invited Korean consecratedpersons: “You are challenged to become ‘ex-perts’ in divine mercy precisely through your lifein community. From experience I know thatcommunity life is not always easy, but it is aprovidential training ground for the heart. It isunrealistic not to expect conflicts; misunder-standings will arise and they must be faced.Despite such difficulties, it is in community lifethat we are called to grow in mercy, forbearanceand perfect charity”.13 It is in such vision thatour fraternal life is evaluated: a place of mercy

13 FRANCIS, Address to the religious communities of Korea,Seoul (August 16, 2014).

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and reconciliation, or an inefficient space andrelationships where mistrust and judgmentabound to the point of condemnation.

71. Contemplation can occur at any timeand in any place, on the solitary mountain just ason the paths of the peripheries of the inhuman.And it is redeeming. Communities of conse-crated men and women who act as watchmen incities and on the borders between nations arewhere sisters and brothers ensure for themselvesand for everyone else the space to give attentionto God. An invitation to be prayerful communi-ties in which God is present; a call to be vigilantin the organization of time so that it is not filledwith things, activities and words. Through con-tinued contact and dialogue with cultures, theapostolic communities, fraternities, and indi-vidual consecrated persons in various formsprotect God’s time in the world and the reasonsand way of the Gospel: “Places of hope and ofthe discovery of the Beatitudes, a place wherelove, drawing strength from prayer, the well-spring of communion, is called to become apattern of life and source of joy”.14 It is the sign


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of He who always comes to encounter us as theLiving One.

In a time of bitter global conflict (1943) andin a place (Auschwitz) in which everything pro-claimed, or rather cried out, the death of Godand man, Etty Hillesum, a young Jewish woman,senses with contemplative intuition the intimatebond between the fates of one and those of theother, and rediscovers within herself the humantruth as a place for relationships of compassionin which the presence of God survives. She givesherself a task: to protect and preserve, not justher physical life, but more importantly, herdeepest inner nucleus. This is the mystical expe-rience that prayerful people have: “Dear God,these are anxious times. Tonight for the firsttime I lay in the dark with burning eyes as sceneafter scene of human suffering passed beforeme. […] But one thing is becoming increasinglyclear to me: […] we must help You and defendYour dwelling place inside us to the last. Thereare, it is true, some who, even at this late stage,are putting their vacuum cleaners and silverforks and spoons in safekeeping instead ofguarding You, dear God. […] You have mademe so rich, oh God, please let me share outYour beauty with open hands. My life has be-

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come an uninterrupted dialogue with You, ohGod, one great dialogue”.15

When the spirit understands, sees, and savorsthe richness that is God himself, it disseminatesit as salvation and joy in the world. Isaiah’spromise comes to be: The Lord will always guideyou, giving you relief in desert places. He willgive strength to your bones and you shall be like awatered garden, like a spring of water whosewaters never run dry (Is 58:11-12).

72. Contemplation, faithful and coherent infulfillment of the mission, has called consecratedmen and women to the extreme of ecstasy:“The shedding of their blood, being perfectlyconfigured to the Crucified Lord”.16 This is theecstasy foretold by Father Christian de Chergé,Prior of the Monastery in Tibhirine, who wasdecapitated along with six brothers in the AtlasMountains in Algeria, in May of 1996. Sevenmonks who chose to bear witness to the God oflife in silence and solitude, in the daily embracewith people.

“Obviously, my death will appear to confirmthose who hastily judged me naive or idealistic:

15 E. HILLESUM, Diario 1941-1943, Adelphi, Milan 1996,20th edition, 169-170; 682.


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‘Let him tell us now what he thinks of his ide-als!’. But these persons should know that finallymy most avid curiosity will be set free. This iswhat I shall be able to do, God willing: immersemy gaze in that of the Father to contemplatewith him His children of Islam just as He seesthem, all shining with the glory of Christ, thefruit of His Passion, filled with the Gift of theSpirit whose secret joy will always be to establishcommunion and restore the likeness, playingwith the differences. For this life lost, totallymine and totally theirs, I thank God, who seemsto have willed it entirely for the sake of that joyin everything and in spite of everything”.17

Life becomes a hymn of praise, while con-templative prayer flows as a blessing. It healsand restores, and opens to unity – going beyondethnic groups, religions, and cultures – while itintroduces to future fulfillment.

“My body is for the earth,but, please,no walls between her and me.

My heart is for life,but, please,no affectation between her and me.

17 C. DE CHERGÉ, Testamento spirituale, in C. DE CHERGÉ

and the other monks of Tibhirine, Più forti dell’odio, EdizioniQiqajon, Bose Monastic Community 2006, 219-220.

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My arms are for work,they will be crossed very simply.

As for my face:may it remain bareas to not hinder the kiss,and the gaze, let it see”.18

The eschaton is already present in history, aseed to bring to fulfillment in the hymn of lifethat contemplates and makes hope real.

18 Ivi.

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FOR REFLECTION


73. Provocations from Pope Francis

• We too can consider: how does Jesus gazeat me today? How does Jesus look at me?With a call? With forgiveness? With a mission?[…] On the path that He made, we all are underJesus’ gaze: He always looks at us with love, asksus for something, forgives us for something andgives us a mission.1

• There are many problems that you en-counter every day. These problems compel youto immerse yourselves with fervour and gener-osity in apostolic work. And yet, we know thatby ourselves we can do nothing. […] The con-templative dimension of our lives becomes in-dispensable even in the midst of the most urgentand difficult tasks we encounter. The more ourmission calls us to go out into the peripheries oflife, the more our hearts feel the intimate need

1 FRANCIS, Morning meditation in the chapel of the DomusSanctae Marthae, Vatican City (May 22, 2015).

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to be united to the heart of Christ, which is fullof mercy and love.2

• May you continue on the journey of re-newal that you have begun and, to a great ex-tent, accomplished in these 50 years, examiningevery novelty in the light of the Word of Godand listening to the needs of the Church and ofthe contemporary world, and using all themeans and wisdom that the Church has madeavailable to advance on the journey of yourpersonal and community holiness. And amongthese means, the most important is prayer, evenspontaneous prayer, prayer of praise and adora-tion. We consecrated men and women are con-secrated to serve the Lord and to serve otherswith the the Word of the Lord, are we not?Say to new members, please, say that praying isnot a waste of time, adoring God is not a wasteof time.3

• Life is a journey toward the fullness ofJesus Christ, when the second coming occurs.It is a journey toward Jesus, who will come again

2 FRANCIS, Address for the Celebration of Vespers withpriests, men and women religious, seminarians and variouslay movements, Tirana (September 21, 2014).

3 FRANCIS, Address to participants at the Meeting of theCongregation for Institutes of consecrated life and the Soci-eties of apostolic life, Vatican City (November 27, 2014).

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in glory, as the angels said to the Apostles on theday of the Ascension. […] Am I attached to mythings, to my ideas, closed? Or am I open to theGod of surprises? […] Am I a stationary personor a person on a journey? […] Do I believe inJesus Christ and in what he has done?, that is, hedied, rose again... do I believe that the journeygoes forth toward maturity, toward the manifes-tation of the glory of the Lord? Am I capable ofunderstanding the signs of the times and ofbeing faithful to the voice of the Lord that ismanifest in them? 4

• Often times we make mistakes, for we areall sinners, however, we recognize we werewrong, we ask forgiveness and give forgiveness.And this does good for the Church: it makes thelymph of fraternity circulate in the body of theChurch. And it also does good for the whole ofsociety. This fraternity presupposes the pater-nity of God, and the maternity of the Churchand of the Mother, the Virgin Mary. We mustreestablish ourselves in this relationship everyday, and we can do so with prayer, with theEucharist, with adoration, with the Rosary.We thus renew our “being” with Christ and inChrist every day, and in this way place ourselves

4 FRANCIS, Morning meditation in the chapel of the DomusSanctae Marthae, Vatican City (October 13, 2014).

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in an authentic relationship with our HeavenlyFather and with Mother Church, our Hierarchi-cal Holy Mother Church, and Mother Mary.If our life always renews these fundamental re-lationships, then we are also able to achieveauthentic fraternity, a testimonial brotherhood,which attracts.5

• God works. He continues to work and wecan ask ourselves how we should respond to thiscreation of God, which was born from lovebecause He works through love. […] To the‘first creation’ we must respond with the respon-sibility the Lord gives us: “The earth is yours,foster it; make it grow!”. […] We too have theresponsibility to make the earth flourish, tomake creation flourish, to safeguard it and makeit flourish according to its laws: we are lords ofcreation, not masters.6

• Every day you live the life of a person inthe world, and, at the same time, retain contem-plation. This contemplative dimension with theLord and in relation to the world, to contem-plate reality, to contemplate the beauty of the

5 FRANCIS, Address to participants in the National Assem-bly of the Italian Conference of Major Superiors (CISM),Vatican City (November 7, 2014).

6 FRANCIS, Morning meditation in the chapel of the DomusSanctae Marthae, Vatican City (February 9, 2015).

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word as well as the great sins of society, itsdeviations, all these things, and always in spiri-tual tension... This is why your vocation is sofascinating, because it is a vocation which is spoton, where the salvation not only of people but ofthe institutions are at stake.7

• And to the work that the Holy Spirit doeswithin us, of reminding us of Jesus’ word, ofexplaining to us, of making us understand whatJesus said: how do we respond? […] God isperson: He is the person of Father, the person ofSon, the person of the Holy Spirit... our re-sponse to all three is to safeguard creation andmake it flourish, to let ourselves reconcile withJesus, with God in Jesus, in Christ, each day,and to not grieve the Holy Spirit, to not pushHim away: He is the guest in our heart, the Onewho accompanies us, who makes us grow.8

7 FRANCIS, Address to participants in the General Assem-bly of the Italian Conference of Secular Institutes, VaticanCity (May 10, 2014).

8 FRANCIS, Morning meditation in the chapel of the DomusSanctae Marthae, Vatican City (February 9, 2015).

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Hail, Woman clothed with the sun

74. Our thoughts turn to Mary, the Ark ofGod. Beside her Child, flesh of her flesh andorigin that comes from Above, Mary is united tothe Mystery. Indescribable happiness and un-fathomable enigma. She becomes a temple ofsilence without which the seed of the Worddoes not grow and the amazement before Godand his wonders does not flourish; a place wherethe vibrations of the Word and the voice of theSpirit can be heard like a soft breeze. Marybecomes the bride in the enchantment thatadores. The divine event admirably fulfilled inher is received in the nuptial bed of her life as awoman:

Adorna thalamum tuum, Sion,Virgo post partum, quem genuit adoravit.1

1 Liturgia Horarum. Celebration of the presentation ofJesus to the Temple, Office of Letters, 1st responsory.

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Mary becomes a treasure trove of memor-ies of the Child, facts and words matchingthe predictions of the prophets (cf. Lk 2:19)and pondered, with the Scripture, deep withinher heart: she jealously protects all that she isnot able to understand, waiting for the Mysteryto be revealed. The story of Jesus’ infancy astold by Luke is a liber cordis, written on theMother’s heart before being written on parch-ments. In this place of depth, each of Mary’swords, of joy, hope, and pain, has become thememory of God for assiduous contemplativerumination.

Throughout the centuries, the Church hasprogressively comprehended the exemplaryvalue of the contemplation of Mary. Seeingthe Mother as an icon of contemplation hasbeen the work of centuries. Denis the Car-thusian defines her as summa contemplatrixbecause as “it was conceded that in a singu-lar way by her and through her, the mysteri-es of human salvation would be realized, soshe was given in an eminent and deeper way tocontemplate them”.2 From the Annunciation to

2 S. DE FIORES, Elogio della contemplazione, in S.M. PA-SINI (ed.), Maria modello di contemplazione del mistero diCristo, Ed. Monfortane, Rome 2000, 21-22.

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the Resurrection, through the stabat iuxta cru-cem, where mater dolorosa et lacrimosa acqui-res the wisdom of pain and tears, Mary weavesthe contemplation of the Mystery that liveswithin her.

In Mary, we glimpse the mystical journey ofthe consecrated person, set in the humble wis-dom that savors the mystery of ultimate fulfill-ment. A Woman dressed with the sun appearsas a magnificent sign in heaven: A great signappeared in heaven: a woman, adorned with thesun, standing on the moon, and with the twelvestars on her head for a crown (Rv 12:1). She, NewEve married under the cross, woman of the Songcomes up from the desert leaning on her Be-loved (Sg 8:5) and in the world and time offragment and weakness gives birth to the Son,fruit of universal salvation, joy of the Gospelthat saves:

You will go, as we pray to you...You will fly from spire to spirearound the cupolas,you will enter from the ogives of the churchesand behind the forest of skyscrapers,in the heart of the palace,in the middle of the steppe:you will emigrate, pilgrim, and now

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and wherever you will give birth to your Sonjoy and unity of things,O, eternal Mother.3

Vatican City, 15 October 2015Memory of St. Teresa of Avila,virgin and doctor of the Church

João Braz Card. de AvizPrefect

✠ José Rodríguez Carballo, O.F.M.Archbishop Secretary

3 D.M. TUROLDO, O sensi miei... Poesie 1948-1988, Riz-zoli, Milan 1990, 256.

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IN D E X

Dear brothers and sisters . . . . . . . . 7

Prologue . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Listening . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Consecrated life, statio orante in the heart ofhistory . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Seeking . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Listening . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

The daily apprenticeship of the search . . . 41Pilgrims deep within . . . . . . . . 45Quaerere Deum . . . . . . . . . 47

The search in the night . . . . . . . . 49Desire . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Hope . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Dwelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Listening . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

In the form of Beauty . . . . . . . . 65The Beauty that wounds . . . . . . . 71Beauty that recreates . . . . . . . . 77

In the exercise of truth . . . . . . . . 80The holiness that embraces . . . . . . 81Listening that sees . . . . . . . . . 83Quies, requies, otium . . . . . . . . 87The ineffable memory . . . . . . . . 90

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Forming . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Listening . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

In the way of beauty . . . . . . . . . 102Mystagogical pedagogy . . . . . . . 104Paschal pedagogy . . . . . . . . . 106Pedagogy of beauty . . . . . . . . 110Pedagogy of thought . . . . . . . . 115

In the closeness of mercy . . . . . . . 120

In the dance of creation . . . . . . . 125A Philokalia tale . . . . . . . . . 128

Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Listening . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

On the mountain in the sign of fulfillment . . 136

In the streets to protect God . . . . . . 145

For reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Provocations from Pope Francis . . . . . 155

Hail, Woman clothed with the sun . . . . . 161

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

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ANNUNCIATE - Francese 16 Settembre 2016 − 2ª BOZZA · CONTEMPLATE – Inglese 12 Gennaio 2016...

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Transcript of ANNUNCIATE - Francese 16 Settembre 2016 − 2ª BOZZA · CONTEMPLATE – Inglese 12 Gennaio 2016...