May

11

The Fruits of Our Solitude; Comunion

May 11, 2008 |

Dear Brothers and Sister

I am writing this in the evening of Pentecost Day. Each one of us will be in our places of prayer and solitude. Like those Disciples behind closed doors.

The Disciples were behind their doors in fear. The Spirit of God has led us to our places we are in this night. Jesus had told them ” In my Fathers House are many rooms.” All of us have been through various rooms on our quest to fulfil our vocations. Rooms in various churches and orders .In the evening of our lives we will look back and come to realise this was all indeed the work of Gods hands. Often despite ourselves we have been led to our Church and Religious Order.

Our stability in the monastic sense means we must now live our days out in these rooms which are for us the House of God.

” The grass is greener on the over side of the fence” so the saying goes. And that is a trick of the Devil to disturb our peace and make us leave our chosen path.

The truth is every Diocese and every Order has its mixture of people. We have the characters, the preachers, good pastors and so on. Occasionally we will find the very holy men and woman. The truth of our stability this night is there is nowhere else for us to go if we are to be obedient to the Spirits leading.

There is nowhere else we can stand. For us we have now reached the House of God, the Gate of Heaven.”

” You may come from you will in the world,
even from its holiest shrines, but once arrived
at the House of God and Gate Of Heaven, you
must become a saint, or you will never be one.”

Tonight I have spent a very long time looking at the flame of the sanctuary lamp and meditating upon it. A tiny fragile flame, sometimes still and sometimes blown around. For some hours surrounded by the darkness of the night. Always however giving way to the light of a new day. In the dark hours giving light and drawing all in to the light, and Eucharistic presence of Christ it witnesses to.

The above paragraph could well sum up the vocation and role of the contemplative communities within our church.

Some could point to the apparent poverty of our situation :
A small number of people in different countries yet claiming to be a community. Some will see we have crossed boundaries of jurisdictions to achieve this and wonder about our situation and what we are attempting to do.

Our response would be in the same manner of our father Saint Francis ” Poverty our only riches.” And flowing from this apparent poverty of a situation a deep communion can evolve.

The rest will evolve as we continue to be led by the Holy Spirit.
We must continualy surrender ourselves to the unexpected designs and plans of God .We must stay focused on the goal of our Religious Profession.

It is precisely because we have crossed boundaries and remain in our own places that we can continualy be open Gods Spirit and that we are so rich.

We bring the concerns of our different countries and Diocese together in our communion of prayer and fellowship.

It is in the very poverty of our communion that we must stay focused on God in our individually places of prayer and solitude .It is good this way and a blessing as less of the ” I” that is within us is focused on and we have to turn to God Alone to build our house. Let us never forget the warning of scripture;

” Unless the Lord builds the house …”

The more we can allow less of personal motive and ambition to come in to our lives the more we will be focused on God and open to the Holy Spirits prompting and leadings.

The fruits of this solitude are that souls will be touched by our prayer and hidden lives and so Gods presence will be revealed in the most unexpected ways to the most unexpected people.

We will be caught up in the mission of the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep and goes in search of the one lost sheep.

Such lost sheep are people who are humanly and spiritually poverty stricken, people who are broken and insignificant, who are truly on the margins of the world, church and God. These people who are seemingly lost and abandoned will quietly be drawn in to Gods presence through our prayer and living out of our vocation as Poor Clare .

Many will point to us and say we are on the edges of the church. Our message to the church and the world is that to live on the edge is sometimes actually to be at the heart of the church and very centre of Gods heart.

Picture our poverty another way. We have become individual orders in our Diocese. We have grown to have many numbers. There are numerous Poor Clare Communities and hermitages.
People are knocking on our doors 24 hours a day for spiritual support.

When the ” numbers” grow and thrive, as proof of Gods blessing human nature often tends to intrude in to the purity of beginnings and the original vision. Personalities, organizational / jurisdictional complications, the desire for status, the growing need for money to maintain the establishment, the problems of administration, the pressure of other peoples ideas about us, will all begin to entangle one another like an octopus!

When the numbers come they will arrive with all sorts of different motives than our own. Some would come simply to use us and abuse our good will. Often we will be confronted with people who bring a life time of anti social behaviours that we will find difficult to manage .We will have said our sanctuaries are open to all without exception and yet we will struggle with such people.

At the end of all this those very people, the unexpected ones of God who through a prayer and times of ministry are responding tenuously to Gods call may well feel unable to come to such thriving places of prayer and hospitality .It is just the nature of things. The extremely poor and abandoned, mentally ill, and marginalized, will for the most part remain marginalized from any establishment that is bustling. But some lives ofcause will be transformed.

The purity of the poverty of our current situation is ofcause due to God. The purity of our mission and role in the church is currently protected by that poverty that some would question.

We are not in a situation where we have to write up and present detailed reports or accounts. When people led by the Spirit and not sought out by us suddenly, and unexpectedly come knocking on our doors they have been sent by God that we will simply listen and pray with them, no more and no less. Our time with them in person or through spiritual directions by letter, or email is Gods time for them.

For us Poor Clare’s there is a great freedom in this current situation .It is a freedom that simply leads to our daily availability to God, and openness to be used by Him for His hidden purposes and plans.

Another aspect of our communion is within the church itself. There can be no true religious life outside the church. Even if one of us eventually becomes a Hermit we will remain part of the church.

Each Poor Clare must show due respect to the Bishop of their jurisdiction and participate in Diocesan events and meetings .I feel this is very important that we come together and share fellowship with our Brothers and Sisters in each Diocese.

When we are questioned we must patiently explain and keep explaining how we see and live out our vocation. In reality the witness of our lives will be the best explanation.

What we all often forget is that it is just as important how we respond to those within the church especially if there is a difference of opinion on an issue.

We all to quickly can become frustrated and come to seeing a “me.” and “them” situation. This must never be our way. In the unity of The Spirit we are one. We must never forget there are many paths to God but one
destination.

On these paths people are at different points and different understandings. It would be a mistake for anyone to try and force issues. It is better to talk, and then pray and wait on the Spirit until we can come to a common mind. If we reverence the presence of Christ in each other we will be open to the truth God will speak through whomever it comes.

My dear Brothers and Sister on this holy day I want to conclude by putting before you a few simply ways we can reverence the presence of Christ in each other and continue to build our communion as a witness to the rest of the church and world.

As a sign of our communion I would suggest that each week we communicate with each other and share four simple things.
A passage of writing or thought that has spoken to us in the week, something that has made us happy, something that has made us sad and something we would like prayed for. If we faithfully completed this exercise we would over the months come to know each other well and a deep communion would evolve.

Following from this and as a consequence I want to draw your attention to an aspect of the early church. They held all things in common .We could hold our lives together in common.

We could decide that we will openly share with each other more deeply the joys and struggles of our lives.

We could not presume to take on a new project or work without first discussing it with the community and receiving the superiors and communities blessing and support. Indeed this is an aspect of the vow of obedience that all of us need to reflect upon more deeply. In the end we can witness through living these things and become a true community and communion. God forbid that on judgement day I as Guardian or each of us collectively as Poor Clare should stand before God and be asked why we wore the same habit but did not live the meaning of our vows and become more deeply united.

This Pentecost may The Spirit breath on us with life anew and through our dear lady poverty our only riches may we become a witness that God is alive and lives in His church. The church rebuilt that our dear Francis dreamed about and set about making a reality.

Brother Richard - Bruno O.F.C -Poor Clare Guardain.

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