Contemplatives in the Body of Christ
Vittorio Carpaccio - Presentation in the Temple
Today, Passionist Nuns around the world are renewing their five holy vows as we celebrate the feast of Our Lady’s Presentation in the Temple. It is also celebrated as Pro Orantibus Day, a day of prayer for all those men and women whom God has called to the consecrated contemplative life. As we thank God for the gift of our vocation and His grace which sustains our fidelity day by day, we reflect on our role within the Church. Mother Catherine Marie, currently in Italy serving as Mother President of our Monastic Congregation, has often shared with us her beautiful meditations on the contemplative life - we pass along some of her wisdom to you today!
Our Place in the Mystical Body of Christ
By Sr. Catherine Marie, CP, November 2007
St. Therese of Lisieux
1) A Heart Beating with Love
One day about 117 years ago, a cloistered nun in France was feeling great desires to serve the Church. Seeing the great needs of her times, perhaps she was wondering if her life was really making a difference. All of you probably know I am talking about St. Therese, the cloistered nun who was proclaimed co-patroness of the missions along with the active missionary, St. Francis Xavier. So, this day, Therese found herself questioning "Just what is my place in the Church?" In prayer, she looked out at the work being done by bishops, priests, missionaries, married people, doctors, martyrs and saw herself in none of these. Therese turned for answers to sacred scripture, and found her answer in I Corinthians. There, the Holy Spirit revealed to her something so simple, yet so profound, that the entire Church reads and reflects on this passage of her autobiography in the green breviary every year, for Oct. 1st.
I am quoting excerpts now from this reading: "When I looked on the mystical body of the Church, I recognized myself in none of the members St. Paul described....I knew that the Church had a heart, and that such a heart appeared to be aflame with love. I knew that one love drove the members of the Church to action, and that if this love were extinguished, the apostles would proclaim the Gospel no longer, the martyrs would shed their blood no more. I saw...that love is everything, embracing every time and place. Then...with supreme joy in my soul, I proclaimed: ‘Jesus, my love, at last I have found my calling: my call is love....In the heart of the Church my mother, I will be love.’" So we are like the heart pumping life-blood throughout the Mystical Body of Christ. If this love is extinguished, if more vocations to contemplative life are not forthcoming, the life of the whole Church will experience immense loss. We are an endangered species today!
In many church documents, we find references to contemplatives as being in the heart of the Church, continually about the work of love. And this love expresses itself in a lifestyle of prayer and sacrifice.
In the human body, the heart is protected by a rib cage–and so too in the heart of mother church, contemplative religious are protected from the noise and distracting images of the world, by cloister that takes various forms according to the particular charism (gift of the Holy Spirit) that each religious institute has received.
So the image of a heart silently beating with love throughout the day and night, sending the energy of the Holy Spirit to all members of the body of Christ, is an easy way to grasp the place of contemplative life in the Church.
To enter a cloister is truly to enter the Heart of Christ, the Heart of the Church, and to carry on the contemplative aspect of the mission of Jesus.
A mountain in Israel (photo by Dave Herring on Unsplash)
2) Moses praying on the mountain
Another way to think about contemplative life in the Church is the image of Moses praying on the mountain while the people of God were doing battle down in the plain. We heard this reading several weeks ago in our Sunday liturgy.
We know the story so well: when Moses kept his hands raised to God in prayer, then God’s people got the better of the fight. But when his hands grew tired and he let them down, then enemies of God’s people began to win. We remember that Aaron and Hur put a rock in place for Moses to sit on, and they supported Moses’ hands, one on one side and one on the other, so his hands remained steady until sunset. As a result Israel won the battle.
This image too, like that of the heart, clearly illustrates the close connection between contemplatives and all of God’s people whose vocation calls them directly into the battle. Among the people whom God calls to help contemplatives keep their hands raised in prayer, are the Serra Club members! We are all in this together. We need one another.
Prayer on the mountain is also characteristic of the whole mission of Jesus. The Gospels tell us that Jesus always withdrew into solitude to pray alone to His Father. His active work flowed out of His intimate union with His Father in prayer.
The Church sets contemplative religious apart in places of solitude–on mountains, as it were. Contemplatives give public witness to the prayer of Christ, and the unceasing prayer of Mother Church all over the world.
Even now, Jesus Himself, scripture says, is at the right hand of His Father, "ever living to make intercession for us." And the Church herself, from the rising of the sun to its setting throughout the world, is unceasingly offering the sacrifice of the Mass, and the sacrifice of the Liturgy of the Hours as she prays for each and every person whom Christ has redeemed. This is our very work in the Church! Contemplative religious are called to give public witness–that means by who we are and by our lifestyle–to this unceasing prayer of Christ and His Church. We are called to be like Jesus praying on a mountain, and like Moses on a mountain keeping his hands raised in prayer as God’s people do battle with the forces of evil.
So, thus far, we have used the image of the heart pulsing life-giving blood to all the members of the body of the Church, and the image of Moses and of Jesus praying on the mountain. Hopefully these images shed light on the necessary place of contemplative life in the Church.