Peter’s words, “Lord, it is good for us to be here!” (Mt 17: 4), have a special meaning for all consecrated persons. This is particularly the case for contemplatives. In profound communion with every other vocation of the Christian life – all of which are “like so many rays of the one light of Christ, whose radiance brightens the countenance of the Church” – contemplatives “devote a great part of their day imitating the Mother of God, who diligently pondered the words and deeds of her Son (cf. Lk 2:19.51), and Mary of Bethany, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened attentively to his words (cf. Lk 10:38)”. Their lives, “hidden with Christ in God” (cf. Col 3:3), become an image of the unconditional love of the Lord, himself the first contemplative. They are so centered on Christ that they can say with the Apostle. “For to me, to live is Christ!” (Phil 1:21). In this way, they express the all-encompassing character at the heart of a vocation to the contemplative life. Contemplatives, as men and women immersed in human history and drawn to the splendor of Christ, “the fairest of the sons of men” (Ps 45:3), are set in the heart of the Church and the world. In their unending search for God, they discover the principal sign and criterion of the authenticity of their consecrated life. In a particular way, down the centuries countless consecrated women have devoted, and continue to devote “the whole of their lives and all their activities to the contemplation of God”, as a sign and prophecy of the Church, virgin, spouse and mother. Their lives are a living sign and witness of the fidelity with which God, amid the events of history, continues to sustain his people. In your personal and communitarian prayer, you discover the Lord as the treasure of your life (cf. Lk 12:34), your good, “utter goodness, the supreme good”, your “wealth and sufficiency”. You come to see, with steadfast faith, that “God alone suffices”, and that you have chosen the better part (cf. Lk 10:42). You have surrendered your life and fixed your gaze upon the Lord, retreating into the cell of your heart (cf. Mt 6:5) in the inhabited solitude of the cloister and fraternal life in community. In this way, you have become an image of Christ who seeks to encounter the Father on the heights (cf. Mt 14:23). Separation from the world, necessary for all those who follow Christ in the religious life, is especially evident in your own case, as contemplative sisters, by the cloister, which is the inner sanctum of the Church as spouse: “a sign of the exclusive union of the Church as Bride with her Lord, whom she loves above all things”. |