Father Schneider's comments on our Father Benedict XVI and the prayer of St Clare
Pope Benedict XVI
From the General Audience of 10 August 2011,
On Clare and her sisters:
San Damiano:
Here Clare and her first companions established their community
and lived a life of prayer and simple works.
They were called the "Poor Sisters,"
and their "way of life" was the same as that the Friars Minor:
"To observe the holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rule of St. Clare, I,2),
maintaining the union of mutual charity (cf. ibid., X 7)
and observing in a special way the poverty and humility lived by Jesus
and His most holy Mother (cf. ibid., XII, 13).
The silence and beauty of the place
where the monastic community lives - a simple and an austere beauty -
serve as a reflection of the spiritual harmony
that the community itself seeks to realize.
The world is studded with these spiritual oases,
some very ancient, particularly in Europe, others more recent,
while still others have been restored by new communities.
Looking at things from a spiritual perspective,
these places of the spirit
are a supporting structure for the world!
________________________
Therefore:
1. from above: spiritual harmony is reflected in the community.
2. with us: spiritual oasis/spiritual place in the life of enclosure.
3. towards the outside: supportive structure of the world holds the world together from the inside.
Dear sisters,
Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI has handed us some helpful and pleasing words on the occasion of this year’s celebration of St. Clare. These words offer a stimulus for the Year of Jubilee of the Eighth Centenary of the Foundation of the Order of St. Clare or rather, of the origins of the Order of the Poor Sisters.
Of his words about St. Clare and the life of the Poor Sisters I wish to stress three levels.
1. Spiritual harmony
The sisters live in the silence and beauty of their monastery as an image of San Damiano thus reflecting a spiritual harmony. This spiritual harmony is given beforehand and is already having its effect. It comes from above out of the community that is God Himself and His gift.
The community of sisters relies of course on the good will and effort of each sister but far more on the spiritual, that is, on the divine harmony, to which they open themselves and which reflects itself in them.
This reflection is most important, it is decisive! Sometimes we are inclined to interpret our community only according to human co-ordination. This can result in disappointment or disenchantment if some things do not work out. Then we begin to moralise and grumble.
It is then important, as the Pope points out, for us to move into the ‘silence and the beauty’ of the place which was given by God, and to re-discover our monastery as such a place.
We have the unique vocation for the spiritual harmony which is brought about by God to have an influence on our community. Again and again we are able to return into the intimacy of the spiritual/divine harmony. Not in a moralising mood, but in openness for the silence and perceiving the beauty, not the ugliness, of the place of our community in which we live.
In that way we can remind ourselves constantly of our vocation not so much to bring about our concept of community - however much we have to contribute to that, but to allow space for the divine harmony. Where a community is mindful of this fact, it will continue, and the spiritual energies will be stronger than the tendencies to devalue our communities. Every sister becomes a part of the spiritual structuring of the community, not solely out of her own initiative, but rather she allows God to rebuild the community.
Contemplation is the happening of this reflection of the divine harmony. Did Clare not shine coming back from prayer?
2. Spiritual Oasis
In that way the community becomes in reality a spiritual oasis. An oasis is an identifiable region which differs from the surrounding country. However an oasis is not cut off but alive and inviting.
In his continuing address the Pope points out that people appreciate such oases and search for them. They recognize monastic communities as such oases that is to say as regions where life flows and man can find his inner self.
Oases are favourite places of new life and refreshment; this is experienced as a gift. When the sisters enter the enclosure then, seen from a spiritual perspective, they enter a spiritual oasis: enclosure as oasis. They are not in the enclosure at certain enclosure-days, but constantly, they render the enclosure a spiritual oasis.
Not only the sisters but the surrounding region and also the whole world profit from the existence of such a place because it affirms life itself.
The interior life of the sisters living within the enclosure can deteriorate to a desert, no community is protected against it. This however does not condemn the community to helplessness, it is able to renew itself continuously and take a decision for this to happen. This requires trust and courage. An oasis grows! Therefore a community can gratefully acknowledge every sign of growth and life that can be noticed. Envy or dislike can cause the community to decline; gratitude and benevolence render the oasis a growing and welcoming place where every sister can live.
3. A supporting structure.
The Pope encourages the sisters to pay attention to the fact how much their life-style underpins our world. The many Poor Clare monasteries around the world constitute such a supporting structure for our world.
How does this come about? Not by means of actions and public measures but by means of that which keeps the world together in its innermost being: that is prayer and the deep union of love in Christ. Their life of the poverty and humility of Jesus Christ constitutes the environment in which this mutual love is being lived and preserved. (Rule 10,7 and Test. no. 59) In the unity of mutual love as Clare - according to the statements of our Pope - points out is this new and supporting structure of the world, to be lived.
These few words of our Pope give us joy, They encourage the sisters specially now during this Year of Jubilee of the Eighth Centenary of the Foundation of the Order to appreciate their life-style.
His words contribute towards a spiritual renewal and deepening so that in particular nowadays the vocation of St. Clare may be fruitful for the Church and for the world.
Wishing you a grace-filled jubilee year,
yours devotedly
Fr Herbert Schneider
Vossenack, 22. August 2011
Graphics: Fresco, San Damiano