|
There
are quite a few young girls, mothers, sisters,
aunts and cousins named Colette and you may
wonder how the name originated. No doubt you have
heard of St. Nicholas, Patron of children between
the age of eight and eighty? Well, let this be the
auspicious beginning of our story that begins in
the 14th
century where there lived an elderly couple in a
little town called Corbie, in France. Their greatest
sorrow was that they were childless, so daily prayers
to St. Nicholas were offered in their devout household,
and finally, through the intercession of St. Nicholas,
a baby girl was born, albeit it that the mother
was past the age of 60.
She was immediately baptised Nicola, and called
St. Colette for short.
She was a bright lively child but grievously undersized.
Realizing how anxious her parents were because of
her short stature, St. Colette went on pilgrimage
and asked Our Lady to add some inches to her stature,
and on her return home it was found that she had
become a good average size girl. As one might expect,
not only were her early years unusual, but her whole
life stood under the star of unexpected turns on
her journey to God.
Not only did she make several efforts at religious
life, but she also spent considerable time in a
hermitage, believing that this was where God wanted
her to be. It took a very strong and painful lesson
from God (she became blind) to make her aware that
she had been called to reform
– not only the second order known as the Poor Clares,
but also the first order of the Friars Minor.
After a life of continuous penance, she left to
her daughters a very important document, referred
to as
the TESTAMENT,
which expressed her devotion and clear vision of
God and the things of God.
You can also read her full life at
https://www.marianhouseoftheholyspiritpcc.org/
One of her spiritual daughters , Sister Mary Francis
of the Five Wounds, (Venerable Margaret Sinclair)
was surely a true and faithful follower of the ideals
of St. Colette.
Click here to read the Testament
in its entirety
Meditations on the Testament of St. Colette
Reflection 1
Jesus! Maria! Anna!
Glory, honor, awe, and reverence to
the three Divine Persons in one unity. Amen.
You
may wonder why the
Testament
of St. Colette starts with the invocation,
Jesus, Maria, Anna, rather
than invoking the Blessed Trinity first. For many
centuries, the most frequently quoted gospel was
that of St. Matthew, almost to the exclusion of
the other three.
Well if you open the first page of the Gospel of
St. Matthew, it begins with the Genealogy of Christ.
Here St. Colette employ's a similar device, calling
on Jesus, his Mother Mary, his grandmother Anna,
and having surrounded herself with their much loved
and revered company, then places herself before
the Blessed Trinity, it is a much used device to
surround oneself with friends, on whose assistance
one can confidently rely.
For the medieval man the presence of the Saints
was indispensable, they were part of the family
and quoted lavishly as intercessors for any petition
offered to God. In addressing God but using the
words, Glory, Honor, Awe and Reverence,
St. Colette , as a true child of her age, sees the
Divine as the beatific vision, which is held before
us, not only as the end of our journey, but more
so, as the continuous encouragement of the worthwhile
of the journey.
In Roman society, the word Gloria,
was attributed to the Emperor only, on the festive
occasions when he returned to Rome at the head of
a successful army. Moreover the Greek word doxe,
somehow conveyed that glory was a shining success
which spread itself from the person of the Emperor
to the crowd, surrounding him with their jubilations.
It was easy for the medieval man to transfer on
to God that same jubilant joy , knowing that the
victory over sin and death had been won by Jesus,
and was in effect fruitful to everybody.
So let us begin this series of meditations by invoking
the names of, Jesus! Maria! Anna!
“My
dearly beloved sisters and daughters, in the charity
of our merciful, sweet and loving Redeemer, Jesus,
and of his loyal spouse, our mother Holy Church,
with all humility of heart and devotion, I commend
myself to you, in life and in death. I commend both
my intentions and the burden which I have to carry
before our Lord, that I may render a good account
of it to him on the day of judgment.”
(From the prologue to the Testament of St. Colette)
If,
as a child, you were asked to eat up your dinner,
you were probably also told that there would be
ice-cream to follow, in other words something positive
and nice is held before us to move us on. Mother
Colette begins her Testament by addressing her sisters
as, dearly beloved, again we find, the same solicitude,
to present not only herself but her sisters and
daughters before the throne of the Almighty. Note
also the use of the word, daughter, which by implication
says that she considers herself to be the mother.
In our present climate this is, regrettably, often
an unacceptable term in contemporary religious life
and sometimes in family life! It is indicative of
an attitude that rejects responsibility, which prompts
us not to desire the relationship of mother to daughter.
Which also means that I can claim my life, my freedom,
my enjoyment ...
The minute I am in a relationship of responsibility
the horizon changes, my daughter expects something
of me as I expect something of her, together we
build up a relationship of trust and mutual upbuilding,
and a relationship in the Spirit far surpasses that
of the blood.
Then, Mother Colette calls on Jesus, the merciful,
sweet and loving Redeemer. Here is presented to
us an image of Our Lord which wholly responds to
the Franciscan ideal of Our Lord. It is said of
Francis that he savored the name of Jesus. Not only
Our Lord but his loyal Spouse, Our Mother Holy Church
is called upon, this is again very interesting.
We falsely believe that ours is the only age with
polarization and tension in the Church, the facts
are different. But consider this: in the time of
Our Holy Mother Colette, there were three Popes
vying with each other for supremacy, and the one
who accepted St. Colette's vows was actually an
anti-Pope, and yet St. Colette sees the Church as
the loyal Spouse, as the holy Church.
Why? because in all her frailty, the Church is the
visible sign of the invisible presence of God and
all human fragility cannot change this.
St. Colette commends herself to her sisters with
humility of heart and devotion, there is no room
in her understanding for the imperious Mother Superior,
in fact the word, “superior“ is never used, neither
for that matter, the word “subject“.
Humility of heart is the sober realization that
we are what we are before God, no more, no less,
which in turn enables us to approach God.
Not only does St. Colette entrust her position to
her sisters, but also the office she holds, as a
burden that needs to be carried before Our Lord,
in fact to this day, in Colettine Monasteries, on
having confessed her fault the Abbess will be told
by the Vicaress, that the burden of the office is
penance enough!
And finally St. Colette rounds off her first paragraph
with the reason for turning to her sisters and asking
for support, the reason being to be able to render
a good account of the day of judgment.
The medieval man never lost the awareness that he
was asked to give an account of himself before the
One Who is not only our Judge, but more so, our
Creator.
“My
dearly beloved sisters, chosen out of the valley
of the shadow of death by the uncreated wisdom of
our sovereign Father, to enter into the gospel way
of life of his dearly beloved Son Jesus. To be his
spouses, true daughters of the sovereign King, temples
of the blessed Holy Spirit, heiresses and queens
of the most high realm of Heaven; and for a little
labor to obtain repose, honor, glory, and unending
salvation without limit or measure.
... Therefore, my dearly beloved daughters, be aware
of your call from God to holiness, your great dignity
and high perfection. Ignorance of these things is
damaging, consciousness of them will enable you
to bear much fruit.”
(From the prologue to the Testament of St. Colette)
This
time St. Colette addresses her sisters without mentioning
the word daughter, and it is easy to see why this
should be. All of us , including herself are chosen
by the uncreated wisdom of the Sovereign Father,
in that way establishing a sense of equality as
far as the invitation from the Heavenly Father is
concerned, and the invitation is issued by the Sovereign
Father, not the dear Father, not an Almighty Father,
but by One who is as much a King or a Ruler as he
is a Father.
We are reminded of Our Dear Lord's words, “It is
not you who have chosen me, but I who have chosen
you”.
A timely reminder that a vocation is a gift , once
given cannot be returned, as the French say,
noblesse oblige! (nobility obliges you).
This Father acts not out of whim, but is motivated
by Uncreated Wisdom, and, as Job had to learn, at
great cost, that the Almighty cannot be questioned.
The invitation then is to enter the Gospel way of
life, which stands in contrast to the life led in
the shadow of death, and the reason for this is
that the Gospel way of life is that of his dearly
beloved Son, Jesus. Again, we are reminded of the
Baptism of Our Lord, that the Father declares him
to be his Beloved Son.
And now comes the key sentence, every word of which
is pregnant with meaning. The invitation amounts
to becoming a spouse, a true daughter, an abode
of the blessed Holy Spirit, and heiress, and a queen,
higher than this one cannot aim and the price to
be paid a little labor, the reward repose, honor,
glory, unending salvation, as they say in advertising
circles, “aim high!” – some of it will stick !
And now having put before her sisters and daughters
the essence of their vocation, St. Colette turns
her maternal concern for her dearly beloved daughters
to make them aware of their calling to holiness,
the holiness that results in great dignity and high
perfection, and finally adds a word of warning,
pointing out that ignorance is damaging and consciousness
of this renders each sister fruitful for the kingdom
of God.
We have experienced
in our time the painful truth of this warning; not
only is ignorance damaging, it is destructive.
How many Religious
having become unfaithful to their holy vows ever
reflected on what they have lost by betraying their
holy calling.
It is without question a sad replacement which changed
religious life for the benefit of doing social work,
important as this is, as the blessings for the Church
and suffering mankind are increased and multiplied
by a life of prayer and dedication, simply because
everything is given for the greater glory of God.
“Know,
then, that you have entered on the true way through
the door of divine inspiration and God's loving
call. For as our dear Saviour says, no one can come
to me, unless my Father draw them by his inspiration.”
Having
cleared the ground in her introductory remarks,
Mother Colette comes to the first vital point of
her Testament, saying that we must enter through
the door of divine inspiration and God's loving
call.
Two things are obvious, the first is, the reference
to the door, meaning the gateway, Our Lord himself,
St. John Chapter 10, and secondly the verbatim quote
from the “Form of Life of Mother Clare”, who says,
“If by divine inspiration anyone desiring to accept
this life ...”
It is obvious that Mother Colette draws her inspiration
from St. Clare whose order she was called to reform,
and like St. Clare assures her sisters that a vocation
is a God given gift and not a man made ministerial
service. How many religious need to reflect upon
the reality that their calling is not as such to
serve in a “productive” manner, but to love.
It is in the ontological nature of a vocation to
partake in the Trinitarian life of God, and the
Trinitarian life of God is the life of relationships,
the Father loving the Son, the Son loving the Father,
and the bonding between the two Persons is the Holy
Spirit.
Therefore it is not our “output” that matters but
our willingness to allow God to love in us, and
through us.
This is what St. Colette refers to as God's loving
call.
Furthermore she makes a point that nobody can come
unless invited, and we are reminded of the Parable
of the Wedding Feast, where the father of the household,
greeting the guests, rebukes the one who comes without
the wedding garment, St. Colette seeing that the
wedding garment as divine grace that is essential
to a consecrated life.
“This
gateway into the rich field of the Gospel way of
life is total renunciation of the world, the flesh
and one's own will. For thus says the blessed Son
of the pure Virgin: “If any want to become my followers,
let them deny themselves and take up their cross
and follow me“ by continually repenting of their
sins and failings, so as to keep the grace God gives
whole and alive and avoid future falls. This is
shown in St. John the Baptist, who was sanctified
in his mother's womb. All his life long he carried
the cross of continual penance, not because he had
committed any actual offence but so as to persevere
in grace and give good example. If this is what
the just man does, what ought the sinner do? Whether
here below or in the life to come, every sin will
have its consequences.”
Now St. Colette is ready to confront us with the
definition of what she understands what the gateway
into the Gospel way of life is meant to be.
First. Total renunciation of the world, total renunciation
of the flesh, total renunciation of ones own will.
We have a trio of much misunderstood injunctions.
How can we renounce the world when we live in it
?
How can we renounce the flesh when we are embodied
by it?
How can we renounce our own will as dignified adults?
In the sense of the total renunciation that is required
of every Christian, a renunciation we are reminded
of Easter night when we renew our baptism vows,
renouncing Satan and all his works, and all his
pomp, and renouncing the mastery of sin in our lives.
Practically speaking , the renunciation of a banker
will concern itself with honest dealings, trustworthy
promises and reliable business policies. The prime
aim of business is not earthly gain except inasmuch
as it redounds to maintaining and ameliorating the
individual, the family, and humane society at large
The renunciation of the flesh, requires respect
for relationships, in and outside of marriage; neither
partner is a commodity to be used and disposed of
at will. It is always the need of the other that
is the criterion of a morally sound action.
We renounce our will if our decisions are ruled
by the needs of our neighbor and not by
our own pleasure. Obviously each state of life has
its own unique responsibilities, its impediments
and many broad implications, but the fundamental
truth remains the same.
St. Francis De Sales in his book, “Introduction
to the Devout Life”, has this to say,
“A housewife cannot sustain long hours of prayer,
a carpenter needs to work to support his family,
a priest needs to attend to his people, therefore
their devotions differ in length, but not in intensity,
they all serve the same God.“
For Religious, the basic structure of a consecrated
life is already preparing the individual for his
commitment. All he needs to do is to enter into
it with a willing heart and an open mind, or more
plainly, as St. Teresa of Avila said with tongue
in cheek, 'Eat well and sleep well, the rest we
can teach you'.
But to return to St. Colette, our dear Lord tells
his disciples to take up their cross and follow
Him. Note that Our Lord did not say to take up HIS
cross – but ours – it is the cross
of our own limitations, of our own character flaws,
our own idiosyncrasies, that we need to carry; only
in that way can be prepared to repent and do penance
in joy.
John the Baptist, the precursor of Jesus, when he
preached penance as a preparation for the coming
of the kingdom effectively had this to say:
Repent.....rethink! ... and then act. Why?
because the Kingdom is at hand.
Finally, and for good reason, St. Colette mentions
what every priest in Confession can verify: whether
here below, or in the life to come, every sin will
have its consequence. But the consequence of sin
is not the punishment of God,
Who is willingly forgiving us, but the damage done
that has to be redeemed: if I am an alcoholic, the
damage to my liver may be beyond repair, if I have
committed murder, I may have rendered a family fatherless,
or motherless. In short, as our forebears in their
wisdom ever told us, God need not punish us, even
if He were inclined to (which He is not) – for sin
has its own punishment. It carries its
penalty within itself.
“The
Lord says, follow me. Follow by final perseverance,
keeping completely until death all that you have
promised in accordance with the Holy Gospel, so
as to be found in your last hour only desiring the
fullness of my will; rooted in the perfect love
of God.”
St.
Colette, again quoting the Holy Gospel, invites
her sisters not only to follow the invitation but
to persevere to the end. Underlying this injunction
is, of course, the understanding that the eschatological
view is taken for granted.
As so often, the medieval man saw all things of
present life sub specie aeternitatis, that
is to say, with the end in view. It is both astonishing
and scandalous (and very much a sign of our times)
that at a recent meeting of top theologians, it
was generally held that the vision of eternal life
and the things to come made no difference to our
present lifestyle!
Our Lord himself more than once promised the reward
of Heaven to those who are faithful.
It is virtually impossible to try to be good “because
it is good to be good”, in other words, for the
sake of goodness itself; the widely spread humanistic
liberalism functioning on the false presumption
that we will choose to do the right thing once we
know it to be right, a concept that has taken a
sad but not surprising turn in the wrong direction.
Every teacher, and perhaps more so every policeman,
knows this to be profoundly untrue.
For St. Colette, however, not only are we asked
to keep our promises until death, we are also assured
that this is in accordance with the Holy Gospel.
Only then will we be able – when our last hour has
come – to desire nothing but the holy will
of God. In Franciscan spirituality the holy
will of God and the love of God are exchangeable
terms, God loving and God willing have the same
meaning.
Sadly, for many, the notion of God loving
us is decidedly more palatable than the notion of
God willing us to do things. At this point
in history, it is almost an unacceptable, an intolerable
concept, and yet, when we earnestly reflect that
in the perfect union of love there is a 'oneing'
of two into one, it is nothing less than surprising
that the obvious implication of this truth appears
to remain opaque to our understanding.
It is with this in mind that St. Colette can complete
her reflections on living the gospel by saying that
all our actions are rooted in the perfect love of
God.
Obedience
“... Note well then, my beloved daughters, that
you have been called by grace to perfect obedience,
so as to obey at all times and in all things, save
in sin. Jesus Christ did this even unto death.”
Now St. Colette moves medias in res (right into
the heart of the matter). Obedience.
It is somewhat surprising that the first death mentioned
concerning the Gospel way of life is obedience.
It would have seemed that the theological virtues
of faith, hope, and charity, would have had first
claim, but then we are reminded that the Holy Rule
of Mother Clare defines profession as being received
into obedience. The Canon Law also defines a religious
as someone living in obedience.
The question naturally arises, why is obedience
such a basic issue? Let us look at the Word, which
conveys the notion of eager listening ... to whom?
God !
As Jesus Christ is the Word of God, he is the bridge
between God the Father and us, and as He himself
says, seeing Him, listening to Him, is seeing and
listening to the Father.
St. Paul, in his letter to the Hebrews, tells us
that Christ was made perfect through obedience,
and during Holy Week the recitation of the Divine
Office repeatedly makes reference to Christ's obedient
even unto death, death on the Cross. And therefore
God raised him up!
So we, his disciples, having been invited to follow
Him, embrace a life of obedience so that we too
may be raised up on the last day.
If we look at the people to whom Christ gave his
own obedience, there is not only Mary and Joseph;
there are the Jewish authorities watching him, many
filled with malice, ill disposed, awaiting His downfall.
In no way can we say that His obedience was rendered
to worthy sources; it is only by keeping his eyes
on his Heavenly Father that his obedience became
blessed and fruitful. We must do the same, for the
servant is not greater than the Master.
We see in our Holy Mother Church, continuation here
on earth of the ministry of Christ and we obey.
Our obedience is solely based on the conviction
that our Heavenly Father is honoured by our trust
and our confidence in Him.
More on Obedience
“For it is not sufficient to obey when it suits
you, or in certain limited things only. We should
obey, even unto death, in everything not opposed
to God, or contrary to your own souls, or to the
Holy Rule. Following the example of our merciful
Redeemer, who became obedient for our sakes even
unto death, we in our turn ought to obey, for his
sake, even unto death.”
St. Colette now explains in greater detail the nature
of our obedience, pointing out to us that obedience
is all embracing; it is not confined merely to certain
aspects of our lives in Christ, still less to things
naturally amenable to us or of our own liking. Obedience,
being a form of love, must always be applied. We
do not love God at certain times and under certain
circumstances, but always, as He loves us always
and under all circumstances – because God alone
is always lovable.
However, St. Colette was also aware of the abuse
of authority and makes provision for this as well:
obedience must never be in opposition to God, to
the dictates of our own conscience, or to our form
of life.
This is a very important safeguard which we do well
to take to heart. The obedience of a truly loving
person is enlightened by the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit, always within reason, and not contrary
to God's Holy will.
We are mindful of many examples in totalitarian
regimes where a man presumed that his obedience
held personally unaccountable, and excused him of
the most horrendous crimes. Even in peaceful times,
a well informed conscience is the best safeguard
against wantonly willful actions and desires.
Again taking as an example Our dear Lord, Who became
obedient unto death, we too die – in the form of
lesser deaths: death to our arbitrarily expressed
feelings, to our false expectations, to our exaggerated
desires, so that the new person can be born within
us.
Still More on Obedience
“Let us not to set our own judgments and feelings
above those of our superiors, for the even the true
Wisdom, Jesus Christ, was
submissive to Joseph and obeyed his dear Virgin
Mother.”
St. Colette now points out a very common failure,
rarely repented of, the failure of reason and charity
involved in setting ones own judgment as the norm,
the measure, of all things. Already the Blessed
Francis foreseeing that learning, wrongly used,
could be exercised as a tool for power, warned his
first followers against, not learning of itself,
but the arrogance, even hubris engendered through
learning at the cost of love, of charity .... even
of reason. Although he himself had to admit that
his friars needed teaching in order to preach orthodox
truth remained doubtful and unhappy on this particular
issue.
It took St. Bonaventure to resolve the problem of
training the clerics without loosing simplicity
and humility.
In the same context the word feeling occurs, there
is nothing harder but to reason against somebody's
strongly expressed feelings, and usually it is a
useless endeavour; feelings, if not subordinated
to reason, are often expressed to great detriment,
vexing us, not only in our dealings with our next
door neighbour, but also in a sober assessment of
our assessment of our own situation.
Life must be ruled by reason, and not simply reason
in and of itself, but greater reason still: reason
which is enlightened by faith. To act on reason
that has been christened with faith is the aim of
obedience, and its fruit is peace of mind and an
untroubled conscience.
Quoting the example of our Lord, the source of true
wisdom, St. Colette points out to us that Jesus
Himself, immediately after his Bar Mitzvah, stayed
behind in the temple. It was a lawful and right
decision, for He had been declared a man, subject
to the Torah. However, we must note that while He
was henceforth no longer under a mandate of obedience
to Mary and Joseph, He nevertheless chose to be
subject to them, and would, for the next 18 years
lead a hidden and uneventful life, growing in wisdom
and strength before God.
It is not likely that we can obey the holy will
of God in serious matters if we have not seen the
daily events in the light of obedience. Every daily
act, from sunrise to sunset is God's invitation
to us to listen to Him, to live in obedience to
Him, an obedience freely given and therefore not
of the nature of servitude.
In our daily fidelity to seemingly insignificant
events, our openness to hear the voice of God grows
ever more strongly. Only then can we hope to, are
we able to, accept moments of purification and trial.
It is a dangerous falsehood to believe that maturity
is expressed in self will, nothing could of been
further from the truth. The enlightened will (the
will acting according to reason informed by faith)
does not seek itself; being enlightened, it seeks
something greater than itself. It seeks God – Whose
will, as we saw so clearly in the Garden of Gethsemane,
is not, humanly speaking, always ours. It was the
most enlightened, the most loving human will in
the person of Jesus Christ from whom we take example:
the will expressed itself in that unspeakable act
of abnegation that inaugurate dour redemption, the
redemption of the whole world, the will that uttered,
“non
sicut ego volo, sed sicut tu”
– “Not as I will, but as You will.”)
... and Still More on Obedience
“The
truly obedient person is concerned only with the
work of true obedience, obeying purely for God sake
and as with much reverence as if he had received
his orders from the lips of Jesus. The more humble
the command in human eyes, the more precious is
devout obedience in the eyes of God. The truly obedient
person fears more to be lacking in obedience than
to run the risk of bodily death; after the example
of our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, of whom St.
Bernard wrote, saying: remember, that Jesus Christ
much rather preferred to lose his life through his
bitter Passion, than to fail in obedience to God
his Father.”
Saint St. Colette has still a few
more points to raise, pointing out that the truly
obedient person is concerned only with the work
of true obedience, obeying purely for God's sake
as if the order had come from the lips of Jesus.
A word of explanation is needed here.
It is regrettable that very few people are aware
that every baptized Christian, by the very fact
of his baptism, has chosen to follow Christ. Prior
to his Baptism, knowingly or unknowingly, he had
followed Satan through the stain of Original Sin.
But with Baptism, this stain, this impediment, not
of our own making, has been washed away, and with
it comes the obligation to follow Christ.
Because most of us have been baptized in our infancy,
the promises made by our Godparents, and the awareness
of our commitment to follow Christ is not always,
or even largely, present in our mind, and it must
be stated that those who follow their conscience
will, and can, be saved by their fidelity to the
dictates of conscience.
There is no neutral ground for the baptized person,
he has chosen Christ, so he must follow.
It therefore matters little whether the command
he receives is an important one or insignificant;
with Christ he can say, “my food is to do the will
of my father”. Every action of the day, including
the most ordinary duties, the most trivial choices,
even the necessities of eating and sleeping, can
be sanctified through obedience and so constitute
one of the highest forms of worship.
Pope Leo the Great says, “Christian beware of
your great dignity.” To do the Holy Will of
God imbues us with dignity and worthiness. It is
said of St. Bernard, preaching on the Passion of
Christ, that Christ in order to obey His Father
preferred to loose His life, and his Heavenly Father,
rewarding him for his obedience, raised Him to new
life,
In a great paradox, a divine paradox, it was to
the God by Whom He felt forsaken that Christ surrendered
Himself – and here we enter the mystery of our Redemption.
The disobedience of Adam could not have been remedied
by anything less than the perfect obedience of the
second Adam – Christ – laying down His life as a
ransom.
We may never be called to such an extraordinary
act of obedience; on the other hand, we may. But
we are not wanting in opportunity or practice: even
our daily life offers us many opportunities to abnegate
our will, in small things, hidden things (seen so
clearly by the Father!), seeking, instead, the holy
will of God. We need only look to Margaret Sinclair
for so perfect an example.
“All
evil comes through disobedience. As another St.
said: one prayer of a really obedient person is
worth a hundred thousand of a disobedient one. If
we are obedient to God, and to our Superiors for
God's sake, God himself will obey us in granting
all our good desires.”
Saint
St. Colette
continues her admonition by making what appears
to be a very harsh statement that all evil comes
from disobedience. We must
remember that years of experience as a reformer
had brought her face to face, not only with her
own disobedience, but also that of many religious
and lay people with whom she came in contact.
To start with, she would have much preferred to
stay in her hermitage and pray, and she said so
to God. But God had other plans, and smote her with
blindness. It was only when she agreed to be an
instrument in His hands that the blindness lifted.
The one and only weakness we know of in her life
was her fear that when her eyes pained her, the
blindness would return. It is quite possible that
she suffered from what we now term, migraine, and
it is the only occasion when she was persuaded to
use some ointment to relive the pain. Also, her
encounters with the members of the first order were
not always of a positive nature; strong resistance
was shown to her reform, even the Benedictines in
Corbie made no exception to this. Worse still she
took her Holy Vows in the hands of a Pope who proved
to be an anti-Pope!
Besides this her need for funds to build her monasteries
continuously confronted her with benefactors – some
willing, and some less willing to support her ideas.
It was much later that Henry the Eighth, King of
England in the 16th Century, petitioned the Holy
Father to raise the Virgin St. Colette to the honour
of the altar because of her humility and obedience.
Her life exemplifies the statement that one prayer
of an obedient person is worth a hundred thousand
of a disobedient one, and God will obey us
if we obey Him.
“Rid
yourselves then of all self-will for it is the one
fuel for eternal destruction.”
.... Now follows the reason for
her admonition to obedience. Categorically, she
states that self-will is the fuel for eternal destruction.
These are strong words, uttered not in anger but
with great anguish of heart.
Why should it be that the exercise of self-will
points to such a terrible end?
Simply this has to be said, we are here on earth
to love God. Adam, however, after the Fall, usurped
the place of God and arrogated the throne to worship
of the self, heedless of the very clear fact that
this was contrary to the design of his Divine Maker.
The acquisition of the knowledge of good and evil,
however tempting, could not be acquired in any other
way but through God and for God. Having grasped
for this knowledge because of the whisperings of
the evil one, he is now left with knowledge that
is not beneficial (is the knowledge of
evil – which requires the acquaintance of evil
through the experience of evil,
ever good?).
It took our present age to wean ourselves off our
pride and to discover that the claims of the Enlightenment
– sometimes still vaunted today –were false, that
its foundation was corrupt, and its promises unattainable.
Even if we do know what is right – we do
not choose it! This is not a weakness in man, but
an evil, a perversion, of the will that turns aside
from the good, knowing that its only alternative
is evil.
While we have gained tremendous insights in every
field of science, the human person is still left
in darkness as how to achieve happiness and peace
in any other way other than listening to God.
“Above
all the other virtues I recommend to you holy obedience,
in which the excellence of charity is shown forth,
when in all things we obey the creature for
love of the Creator. In this virtue with Jesus on
the Cross, may we be able to die and obtain life
everlasting! Amen!”
In her final summing up, St. Colette
draws a most astonishing conclusion, pointing out
that if we obey the creature for love of the Creator
we are combining charity and obedience. This is
a truly striking statement, one with which many
religious people would readily disagree, arguing
that in many instances obedience has been a stumbling
block to the exercise of charity – and how many
people have opted to free themselves from obedience
in order to practice charity as they
understand it.
How is one to resolve this dilemma? In the last
sentence of this paragraph, St. Colette points to
Christ on the Cross. Charity is a truly crucified
love. When our false self has been crucified, and
our imaginary expectations have been disowned, when
we have learned to trust that nothing could ever
be asked of us that is damaging to ourselves, then
we might be able to understand that there cannot
be any contradiction between obedience and charity.
God, our loving Father, would not have given us
the example of His Son had He were it not that we
are called to life by obedience, and to true freedom
his divine word.
“....
After
the renunciation of ourselves through complete obedience,
our Savior wishes us to carry our cross daily -
that is, our vow of holy poverty. Poverty is the
heavy cross of not wishing for anything under Heaven,
except him who bore the cross on his shoulders,
and deigned to die for our love on this cross: pierced
with nails, crowned with thorns, spat upon and heaped
with blows; his side pierced by a lance.”
After
her exhortation to Holy Obedience, St. Colette moves
further into the subject on hand, mentioning poverty.
We need to understand that poverty as such is an
evil that could never be justified.
By the Evangelical Counsels a potential evil such
as self-will, however, is turned into a blessing
through obedience, and the evil is replaced with
trust. It is only by looking at poverty
from the viewpoint of trust that we can
understand its meaning and its importance.
God the Father provides! Therefore we can trust.
This trust may be severely tested, but following
the example of Our Lord, Who, hanging on the Cross,
entrusted Himself to a Father Whom He no longer
experienced upholding Him or as being present. It
is to this Father that Christ surrenders Himself
and it is to this same Father that we surrender
our life, our welfare, and our future.
It is this same Father Who provided new life, better
life, for his Son as He raised Him from the dead.
And this same Father will raise us up in many ways,
great and small, if we entrust ourselves to Him.
The suffering of Christ invites us to imitate, in
accordance with our state of life, the life of Our
Lord, carrying our cross the way
Christ carried His.
“O
holy poverty! Finery of our redemption! Precious
jewel and certain sign of salvation!”
Now
St. Colette bursts into a lyrical statement, calling
poverty the finery of redemption!
It seems amazing that privation should be equated
with finery, for finery is the fetching finish to
a pretty dress, turning it into something special.
Blessed is he who can see privation as a precious,
much sought after, finish to a life with God.
Only the person who can see the value of growing
in trust could embrace such a statement. The truly
poor person experiences the riches of Heaven when
divine providence turns from being a phrase into
the reality of knowing that Our Heavenly Father
provides.
One is reminded of one of Grimm's fairy tales, where
a little orphaned girl leaves her home after the
death of her grandmother to seek her fortune in
the wide world. Being inexperienced, she willingly
shares first her provisions, then her garments ,
until by nightfall, clad only in a little shift,
she even hands that over to a beggar child, knowing
that in the darkness, nobody could see her — But
the Heavens open and the stars fall down, dressing
her with starlight.
That is truly the finery of our redemption.
It is truly the precious jewel, but unfortunately
if I at the receiving end, believe myself to have
received merely a red stone, I will not have a ruby
but just that ... a red stone.
And in response to the trust we put in God, it is
through poverty that we discern a certain sign of
salvation.
“It
is to poverty that the King gives possession of
the kingdom of Heaven ,lastingly and without end.
.... And you, daughters of Adam and Eve, 0 why do
you not love this precious jewel, this noble pearl,
whose worth and dignity is that of the kingdom of
Heaven, and so is far more precious than innumerable
worlds?”
In
her next paragraph, St. Colette holds out a treasure
beyond price: the possession of the Kingdom of Heaven.
It is the fulfillment of every Christian's hope
and expectation. We only need to remember Bunyan's
Pilgrim's Progress and become aware of how deep
seated the yearning for Heaven is in the heart of
every Christian — and the price to be paid? Poverty!
Our Lord himself in the first of the Beatitudes
tells his listeners that it is the poor in spirit
who will possess the kingdom. Many are the interpretations
of what the “poor in spirit” denotes and the Blessed
Francis himself taught his disciples that “poor
in spirit” means not to have any claim before God,
we can appropriate to ourselves absolutely everything
, from the chair we are sitting on, to our pet opinions,
idiosyncrasies, and even learning.
St. Francis shrewdly discerned that learning, needful
as it is, can become a weapon for power and hence
a possession.
And so St. Colette following in the footsteps of
St. Francis and St. Clare again compares poverty
with a precious jewel, a noble pearl, buying our
entrance into Heaven, basing it on Our Lord's words,
when he warns his disciples in asking them, “what
use is it to possess all the world ... if you loose
your soul?”
“Alas,
and more than a hundred thousand times, alas! You
could possess poverty more easily and as an incomparably
better bargain than this wretched world, which is
full of wrong choices, traps and snares, lies and
clinging mire; in the midst of which, you can, all
too easily, lose the kingdom of Heaven and saddle
yourself with pain and eternal torments.”
St.
Colette cries out in sadness and frustration, pointing
out to her sisters that the possession of poverty
is more easily obtained than anything in this world.
The meaning of the word “world“ here is to be understood
as St. John uses it in the Gospel: the fallen world
ruled by the prince of evil.
She herself, in her own life, experienced plenty
of hostility, false friends, and setbacks. Albeit
that there is no record to confirm this, we have
reason to believe that Joan of Arc and her troops
lodging in the same monastery (Auxerre) probably
exchanged her own struggles and difficulties with
the Abbess, St. Colette, present in the same house.
It is a wonderful opportunity to imagine the two
women encouraging each other in their warfare with
evil. Therefore St. Colette warns her sisters that
it is all too easy to lose the kingdom of Heaven
and be saddled with eternal torment. This is strong
speech indeed.
St. Alphonus de Ligouri, centuries later, warned
his penitents in one of his sermons saying that
it is better to escape eternal punishment by attrition,
than not to repent at all. In our present climate
we find it difficult to understand that attrition,
that is, the fear of eternal punishment – rather
than our love for God — which motivates us to turn
away from sin, should be considered, if not ideal,
at least permissible. Those who have gone before
us had no such scruples: better to live limping
into Heaven then somersaulting into hell.
By all means have perfect contrition, let the love
for your suffering Savior shine forth, but be mindful
that attrition opens the back door to Heaven.
“....
O
my most beloved sisters, love, love, love most perfectly
this noble and precious and most excellent virtue,
the poverty of the gospel; loved by God and hated
by the world.”
Now St. Colette addresses her sisters in
a most affectionate manner, exhorting them to love
to love, to love most perfectly this noble virtue.
But what does St. Colette mean by loving perfectly?
Does it mean flawlessly? No. Unfortunately, in our
present day understanding the word “perfect”
conveys the concept of one hundred per cent, however,
Our Lord himself, encouraging his followers to become
perfect, certainly did not mean that their conduct
should be flawless (He knew our human weakness only
too well), but rather that they should carry through
to the end in fidelity what they had begun.
Our Heavenly Father knows our many faults and failures,
but just as He supported His Son to the end, we
too must run the full course in order to gain the
victory. The world is full of people – and the Church
is no exception to this – who have begun with great
determination only to fall short of their goal.
As we grow older, this brings us to an unavoidable
confrontation with the truth: we find, to our surprise,
that the last part of our journey to God – insofar
as letting go of so much – is not as easy as it
appeared from the blush of youth. If we have equated
our self-worth with what we do .... rather than
with what we are ... the letting go will be a great
trial filled with much pain, for we will find ourselves
asking, inevitably, what there is left to live for?
How wonderful to see in a mature person the sense
of worth based on being and not on
doing. This is attaining to wisdom.
Surely the practice of material poverty has one,
and only one aim: to assist us in learning to let
go, and to learn to trust. A shroud has no pocket!
“After
the example of Jesus Christ, who had nowhere here
below to lay his head, and the example of our glorious
father, St. Francis, and our mother, Lady St. Clare,
be utterly content with the form of your poor habit
allowed by your Rule, and hold everything else as
suspect, such as books, chaplets, thread, needles,
pins and whatever trivia; kerchiefs, veils and other
things which may be for your own use and on which
you may set your affection.”
St.
Colette now puts before us the example of Our Lord
Who had nowhere to lay His head, we know from the
Gospel account that the poverty of Our Lord and
his disciples lay not in destitution but in the
uncertainty of their daily circumstances. Here comes
a fact, little regarded but of the utmost importance:
even a life of destitution can contain a degree
of certainty, whereas the essence of apostolic poverty
is the insecurity, never able to predict what tomorrow
will bring.
As Our Lord reaches his disciples to pray for the
daily bread, He specifically points out that we
are to pray for the daily bread today and not that
of tomorrow, in other words we are to trust that
tomorrow our Heavenly Father will provide as he
has provided today. It is of the nature of poverty
to learn to trust, as this is at the heart of every
relationship.
How often do we say glibly Our Heavenly Father knows
our needs – and then make sure that we are covered
by every possible insurance. How many of us do seriously
believe that Our Heavenly Father knows our needs
... and provides?
In Poor Clare life there is a simple custom which,
if practiced faithfully, underpins this lesson,
each day at dinnertime, when the meal is being served,
each sister lifts up her bowl, like a begging bowl,
knowing that it will be filled with the necessary
ingredients.
Underlying the custom is the far more important
lesson to learn to trust, that all our needs, physical,
spiritual, psychological are provided for and as
always in love, we conclude from the exterior manifestation
of seeing the food in the bowl and eating it to
the realization that others needs are equally taken
care of. It is a humble lesson, but very essential
for the well being of our inner being.
St Francis and St Clare understood this only too
well. It is possible that even small possessions
can hold our attention, that in the end, the thing
possess us and not we it.
A very needful criterion is to ask oneself, if I
were to lose this would it matter?
“Have
only those things which are truly necessary, and
possess all things in common. .... In this present
life, be content with what is necessary, so as to
attain more easily to the true goods of the celestial
kingdom, to which you already have a claim by reason
of that holy poverty which you have willingly promised
and vowed for the love of God.”
Mother
Colette offers some practical advice on the subject
of material poverty, telling her sisters to have
only what is necessary. Of course this is a vast
subject. Depending on the customary lifestyle the
definition of what is necessary will vary a great
deal, neither is there is anything wrong with this.
The touchstone is this, whatever the average working
class man or old age pensioner has to dispose of
could probably be classed as being materially poor.
The question arises is one prepared to let go, for
somebody in greater need.
The far more difficult issue is that of possessing
things in common.
The interplay of human relationships can be grievously
tested by trying to hold things in common. Some
people are fastidious, others are haphazard, some
people understand the value of a given tool others
are blissfully ignorant of it, and there is no easy
answer. But there is probably no better recipe for
the practice of charity than holding things in common;
it really goes to the core of the matter. One either
learns to become generous, accepting with peaceful
resignation something spoilt in ignorance, looking
beyond the spoiled to the person who is far more
important. Failing this one can live in a perpetual
inner turmoil and become very judgmental.
As St. Colette points out it is so important to
be content, because it is contentment that creates
peace of mind, and it is peace of mind that is part
of the kingdom of Heaven as Our Lord promises,
My peace I give you ...
Moreover St. Colette promises even to have a claim
by reason of this holy poverty that we have promised
and vowed. And again, explaining this, she tells
her sisters that it is done not for the sake of
thriftiness but for the love of God.
Reflection
21
“The
kingdom of God will be ours without fail if we keep
faith with Lady Holy Poverty. .... By this cross
of holy poverty I mean: to live a life of continual
abstinence, not eating meat, fasting daily, going
barefoot and enduring the cold, sleeping on hard
beds, wearing poor clothing, being content with
scanty and coarse food, and bearing the burden of
labor, both manual and spiritual.”
Again,
Mother Colette puts before us the promise of the
Kingdom of Heaven at the end of our journey, knowing
in her wisdom that those who are setting out on
a journey need to be reminded of the end of the
journey that they may not to loose their courage.
After the example of Mother Clare, who also encouraged
her daughter Agnes to look to Heaven – to the end
of the journey – an inspiration that manifestly
came from St. Clare's deep contemplation of the
San Damiano Crucifix, depicting Our Lord standing
in front of his tomb, gazing into the distance,
with the angels awaiting Him, and the outstretched
arms of the Father lifting him into Heaven and into
glory. Respice finem! Look to the end!
However, the vision of Heaven in no way obscures
the reality of the Cross here on earth. Mother Colette
lists various forms of poverty: continual abstinence,
fasting daily, going barefoot; in short, sharing
the fate of the laboring class, who, like her and
her daughters, wished nothing better than to be
counted among God's little ones.
Like the poor who have no choice but to carry the
burden of their poverty if they wish to survive
we, too, must carry the burden of our poverty, although
our burden is, in many ways, of a different nature.
At the conclusion of Vatican II an experiment was
made in Italy among the various Poor Clare Houses.
A sufficient number of volunteers were found to
live as if they were living in the Middle Ages:
the habitation had no drainage, no running water,
no sanitation, very primitive cooking facilities,
no heating, and the experiment lasted for
exactly five years, at the end of which, the police
came and closed it down.
Is there a lesson to be learnt from this? Surely
there is. The poverty of the Middle Ages could not,
and should not, be that of the 20-21st centuries
— however, when we decide that we must not live
in history past we still make an option to live
in continuity with it and with Lady Poverty, to
surrender and to trust — for those who love poverty,
no day will pass without meeting her.
The most precious possession that we have is our
time. Have we ever considered it is as an irrevocably
surrendered reality that we possess; a part of our
being which, once spent, cannot be recalled, recovered,
retrieved. Our availability to God, to others,
is one of the least recognized forms of poverty
in our present day and age, and yet, one can die
to oneself without anyone noticing it by making
the gift of oneself, of one's time, one's love,
available to all. That truly is the burden of this
labor of which St. Colette speaks.
“Whoever
at the hour of death is found possessing anything,
in fact, or in deliberate desire, will be dispossessed
of the kingdom of Heaven. .... Live and die truly
poor, my dearly beloved daughters, just as our sweet
Savior died on the cross for us; for if it seems
that few love him in this way, it is all the more
reason that we should so love him.”
Now
our Mother Colette makes a very daunting statement,
saying that any possession, be it factual or in
deliberate desire, might occasion the loss of eternal
happiness. This is indeed a very frightening proposition,
but then one has to keep in mind the old saying,
a shroud has no pockets! When Sister Death takes
us home, we need to go without luggage.
The luggage can be that of bitterness and resentment,
and what we should have had, and in fact did not
receive, it is a timely reminder.
How many people go through life with the bitter
luggage of resentment never shed, how many people,
even sincere Christians, hold themselves excused
on so many grounds, very often the plea of privation
in early childhood; it is a deadly excuse, in fact,
it is the most serious stumbling block to our effectively
receiving the grace of God within us. It usurps
the seat of mercy, which we, in denying others,
deny to ourselves.
Holy Mother Church teaches that in human failure
God's actual grace can always prevail. It is only
our bitterness that prevents us from experiencing
it. Only our own malice can thwart God's goodness,
a goodness that cannot be forced upon us, but which
must be received, accepted, embraced.
Therefore looking at the first beatitude which encourages
us to have no claims before God, we find that these
claims pertain not only to what is material; much
more importantly, they pertain to love and affection,
to relationships and expectations. nothing to which
we lay claim before God will bring us to the Kingdom
of Heaven. Claim Him ... and you claim the Kingdom.
“After
Lady Holy Obedience in the order, I recommend to
you above all else, Poverty, which is the straight
ladder by means of which, without anxious wobbling,
one mounts easily to that self-same kingdom, thanks
to the complete renunciation of all passing goods
for the love of God, who is so good, and who promises
us his kingdom and does not lie.”
In
her final summing up on the subject of poverty,
St. Colette again points to Heaven as our final
goal.
Depicting poverty as ladder on which we climb to
Heaven, St. Colette points out to us that it is
all the more easily ascended if a minimum of luggage
is essential. And therein lies the problem, in our
determining what is essential and what is not.
Here lies the challenge for continuous reflection
and personal decision. We are reminded of St. Bonaventure
who was once rebuked by the brothers for failing
to live the same mortified life as St Francis had
before him. To which St. Bonaventure replied, “My
dear brothers, our revered father Francis did not
have to preach, or teach, the way his sons now do
in the service of Holy Mother Church, and hence
our mortification will need to differ from his mortification
as we need to carry our cross as he carried his.“
Down the ages, we have suffered from a deficient
understanding on this subject, largely a misunderstanding
altogether. By limiting ourselves to an external
observance which, in many cases, is neither inspired
nor enlightened by the Holy Spirit, we are
creating ingrown, immature, individuals who, far
from being free, continuously suffered from unfulfilled
desires. The problem is not that the desires remain
unfulfilled, it is that the desires have remained;
they have remained without being transformed, translated
into something greater than their selfish motives,
into something more noble than what nature, apart
from grace, is capable of. Without rehabilitation
they remain disordered because they have not become
new creations of themselves through the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit renews totally – not in part. It
leaves nothing of our nature unredeemed,
without being suffused with, and transformed by,
grace. This requires authentic, not
just superficial, spiritual formation. It is not
possible that the era following Vatican II could
have been marked by so dramatic a failure to authentically
update spirituality, rather than furniture and architecture.
Now that the wind of change has taken down all the
dead wood, one can hope that a new interpretation
of Holy Poverty will find its way into our religious
houses and families, bringing a renewal of hearts
and a fervent dedication to Christ.
“Since
our Lord has said follow me, I understand that we
really are to follow Jesus Christ — the spotless
lamb, the virginal Son of a Virgin Mother — through
true purity of heart and body until death. Through
this true vow of angelical chastity, one becomes
a loyal bride of Jesus Christ, in virtue of that
faithfulness promised and given at the time when
we made our vows in the hands of superiors, who
represented God on earth; a pledge made in the presence
of witnesses: the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Francis,
St. Clare, and all the Saints, and before those
other witnesses who were present when we made our
vows at our holy profession; a profession through
which we obtained the remission of all our sins
and the full assurance of eternal life.”
The Vow of Chastity
A
good deal of confusion surrounds the notion of the
vow of chastity. While most people accept without
question that one must learn to be poor and obedient,
it comes as a surprise to some that one equally
must learn to be chaste. What is more, to add to
the confusion, chastity is – in a way that poverty
and obedience are not – a universally governing
precept that applies with equal rigor to the single,
the married, and the Religious state. Does this
surprise you? Several years ago, the Holy Father,
Pope John Paul the II, was taken to task by the
secular press for urging husbands to exercise chastity
in their marriage. “Absurd”,
they cried in protest, being clueless of the concept
of chastity itself, understanding concupiscence
in the most superficial and vulgar terms.
The confusion arises, because we misunderstand the
word itself. It is derived from a Latin word of
which only the past participle is still in usage.
Castus was the word the overseer used when
his slaves had finished scrubbing the marble floors
at the crack of dawn each morning, having reported
to the mistress that the floors had been scrubbed
and hence were clean, the mistress then proceeded
with affairs of the household.
It is important to note that castus not
only denotes the accomplished fact of cleanliness,
but it also denotes that it was a cleanliness achieved
by the process of scrubbing. It is that awareness
of a process, not in itself an end, but aiming toward
an end more important than the act by which the
end is realized, through which it is attained.
Applied to the concept of chastity, it is to be
noted that the process of cleansing is not only
apropos of the end, but necessary to it.
It is a pity that the word chastity has come to
acquire such a shallow connotation limited to abstinence
from sexual activity, for even in the married state
chastity needs to be practiced. Mutual agreement
to intimacy is needful, both partners need to listen
to the wishes of the other. The single state is
the training ground for this discipline as necessary
to Religious life as to marriage. If one cannot
be chaste outside of marriage (natural or mystical)
or Religious life, it is unlikely that one will
be able to be truly faithful in the single state.
To be chaste is to be exclusively one other's —
and not, as it were, the common property of many.
The mystical marriage of a Religious to her Divine
Spouse Jesus, Whose Ring binds her to Him, together
with her vow, is as real as any marriage in the
world. She belongs to Him alone! He has taken her
to Himself and her betrothal to Him excludes all
others. She is called to the chastity of a marriage!
How differently we understand this than the world
does, even as it failed to understand the Holy Father
in his insistence that the married be chaste, that
is considerate to each other.
In both cases the aim of chastity is charity – although
in a Religious it extends to all in a way that is
super-eminent – for a man does not see his wife
in all women, nor a woman her husband in all men
– but the consecrated Nun sees her Divine Spouse
in everyone, and fidelity to Him is her fidelity
to them! It is, to them, the pledge of His love
—for in her, they find Him!
This pure love that expresses itself, pledges itself,
in chastity, is a striking testimony to the reality
that nobody can rightfully be treated as so much
chattel. No! The needs of the other in whatever
form they present themselves, and in whatever state
– and preeminently in the Religious state since
the Spouse is God Himself – are essential to the
practice of chastity in all its venues.
But as we now see, we are all called to be chaste!
“Consecrated
chastity therefore means to follow the lamb through
true purity of heart and body until death.”
It is interesting to note that purity of heart preceded
purity of body. It has always been understood in
the Franciscan family that the vow of chastity,
which promises consecrated chastity, looks forward
and not backwards.
From the moment the realization of invitation shines
on the face of the one invited ... from that moment
onwards ... she must keep her eyes on the Lord,
and leave all for the sake of the Kingdom.
To be a loyal bride, fidelity at all times is required,
but it must be noted, that the term of angelical
chastity can be misleading. We are not angels, nor
are we going to be angels in Heaven. Angels and
men are of entirely different created natures.
Our human body is not only the instrument of sin,
but far more importantly the instrument that leads
chastity to charity. Our vows made into the hands
of the Mother of the Community are therefore made
into the hands of God.
Also present as witness, we call on the Blessed
Virgin Mary, our founders St. Clare and St. Francis,
the Saints and Angels, to remind ourselves that
we call on their help each day of our life. In fact
we renew our holy vows three times everyday, when
we say the Angelus. Together with Our Lady, who
gave her consent, to bring forth the Word
of God, we too , in fruitful chastity we rejoice
in our spiritual motherhood, by bringing forth the
Word of God as we pronounce our holy vows.
Again and again Christ is being born into this world
as we proclaim our holy vows.
“O
noble and most precious virtue of chastity! Loved
by God as his loyal bride, honored by the angels
as spouse of their Lord and King, most highly praised
by the Saints, and so splendidly proclaimed in Sacred
Scripture! .... It is the noble crown you will wear
in the kingdom of Heaven at the true wedding feast
of your true spouse, Jesus.”
Our
Mother Colette praises chastity as the most precious
virtue, perhaps it will be helpful to understand
what the word virtue means in this context. Many
good acts form a habit, the exercise of a habit
creates virtue, in practical application that means
that every act of kindness enables us to grow in
virtue. A habitual practice of kindness leads to
the habit of charity, and chastity and charity become
interchangeable concepts. This explains why St.
Colette calls chastity, the loyal bride of God.
there has been in the past a lot of misunderstanding
.
It has often incorrectly been presumed that marriage,
albeit a Sacrament, is inferior to a life of consecrated
chastity. God who is love is the prime source of
love for everyone. In Heaven, Christ tells us, there
will be no marrying, God is in the centre, but neither
will we be angels. As those older and wiser than
us put it,
marriage is for the stability of society, passion
is for God.
Read the Song of Songs, it is full of it.
It is for this reason that Mother Church is very
reluctant to dissolve a marriage because both partners
need to look beyond to God in their midst. It is
also for this reason that while canon law permits
a separation, should harm befall one of the partners,
a separation is still not a divorce; and while it
is true that a relationship may not work out, God,
our true Lover is always there. It is with this
in mind that St. Colette refers to the true wedding
feast with our Spouse. It is in the plan of God
and therefore not a haphazard choice that some people
are set aside to love the Lord their God without
human intermediary for the sake of the Kingdom.
They are a sign to this world visible and audible
that God lives.
“O
most excellent garden! Full of all the plants that
are truly good! You never let thorns, nettles, or
poisonous weeds grow in you; you do not allow any
profane thing to enter. 0 how good is your strong
surrounding wall! How loyal is the one who keeps
faithful watch at your gates and allows none but
the true messengers of your true spouse and king
to enter! .... Naturally you will find your place
in the imagery of Sacred Scripture as the finest
flowering trees bearing this noble fruit, which
is served to the King of true love in his kingdom!”
Down the ages the Religious life has been compared
to a garden enclosed, drawing on the imagery of
ancient poetry, just as the Creation account suggests
the fullness, beauty, blossoming, and flowering
of life prior to Adamic Sin. In a very similar manner,
life with God is nurtured toward the flowering of
charity and mutual support.
One can sum up all of this in a few words. In an
enclosed garden one learns to forgive and to be
forgiven. Let me explain.
Tragically, this very simple truth has not been
honored, and attempts have been made to build a
life of prayer and of fidelity side by side with
unrepentant uncharity. It does not work. There is
only one cross that we must carry – and it is united
to the cross that each of us carries within us –
and that is the weakness of our next door neighbor,
and through carrying that cross bringing something
truly redemptive out of it, out of the pain, the
weariness, the injury, it brings us.
The strong surrounding wall designed to keep worldliness
out cannot protect the heart should it wander away
from the path of forgiveness and charity; this requires
constant vigilance, continuous effort. In this context
we are reminded of St. Paul's words to the Corinthians,
“do not receive the Lord unworthily.” Unworthiness
of receiving the Blessed Eucharist is, if we remember
Christ's words, always caused by an unrepentant
lack of charity, our being unreconciled to another
in love, which makes us unworthy of Him Who Is in
the Eucharist, for, “what you do to the least of
my brothers you do to me.”
The profane thing that St. Colette is referring
to is actually the lack of Charity. Consider this:
the notion of fruit figures largely in the beginning,
in the book of Genesis, and in the end, in the Book
of the Apocalypse, and in this sense we find a very
revealing metaphor, for the fruit pertains to the
First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, Who
is Jesus Christ, the image of the Father ... Who,
the Apostle John simply tells us ... is Love. The
noble fruit of which St. Colette speaks is love
itself, the beginning and the end of every endeavor
in Christ, the love which we must bear toward each
other, as St. Paul tells us, in bearing with each
other. This is charity. This is the noble fruit
of the enclosed garden that prefigures the true
Garden of Paradise.
The “true messengers of your true spouse”
whom alone, according to St. Colette, we must admit
... of Whom and of what do they speak? Of love!
Each messenger must proclaim the message entrusted
him by the spouse, “Love one another even as I have
loved you.” It is the fruit of union with that Spouse,
the fruit that itself is served to the King of true
love in the banqueting hall of Heaven – and that
must be served to the children of the King also;
those within enclosed garden walls on earth, and
even those beyond them.
If we can re-capture the true meaning of love we
can discover that in our God-given creatureliness
that we carry the source of true life , that is
to say, we are able to love and we are able to receive
love.
“O
worthy and excellent virtue! Your dignity, your
meaning and your worth, and the excellence of your
victory - it is impossible to understand them properly
and to express them! God alone is your reward, whom
you will see in bliss divine! This virtue, coming
next in order and merit in the sight of God, who
loves holy chastity, I commend to you, so that through
her you will have honor and merit on the great day
of judgment. But those who are false to the vows
that they have promised before God, and who have
not made fitting reparation, will suffer the consequences!”
Mother
Colette breaks forth in laudatory terms praising
chastity as a worthy and excellent virtue. Perhaps
it is important to understand the true nature of
the word ‘virtue.’ The original meaning of this
word was to denote the qualities a man must have
to be regarded as estimable. Therefore it included,
courage, uprightness, honesty, to mention a few.
All this applied to the virtue of chastity makes
clear that the acquisition of chastity requires
a persistent struggle against selfishness and self
centeredness. We are far from being angelic, we
are in constant of God's cleansing us and to leading
us to purity of heart. Mother Colette, therefore,
notes the excellence of victory, for there can be
no victory without a battle. Most often, however,
and especially in Religious life, the battle is
without clamor or clarion to which the world's attention
would be called. It is not the clash of great armies
but of great wills ... and in many very real and
very arduous ways.
We are reminded of the silent, but very heroic example
that the scriptures put before us in the person
of St. Joseph, who, silently surrendering to God
all his pre-conceived values and expectations of
life and marriage, agreed to live side by side with
a woman he loved, with no children of his
own, and content to be the protector and, in that
sense, the father of the one and only son he had.
Despite some depictions in art, it is extremely
unlikely that St. Joseph was old. He could scarcely
have traveled to Egypt and provided for his family
the way he did, had he been old, but as scripture
says, he was righteous before God. St. Joseph subdued
himself. His sacrifice was silent, and apart from
Jesus and Mary, unknown.
It is therefore true to say that it is not possible
to understand the notions of enclosure, battle,
and victory with reason alone. By and large we see
no visible battle, know of no victory, see none
of the wounds, and understand little of the sanctity.
More than cloistered walls obscure our vision of
heroic sanctity within. It must be accepted in faith.
And in this faith we can do all things in God who
strengthens us. Ever before us is the faithful held
fast in faith that our reward will be nothing less
than God Himself. It is needful for us to have this
eschatological vision, since it is for Heaven that
we live.
Holy Mother Church for many centuries never dispensed
anyone from the vow of chastity, even if a dispensation
from the vow of poverty and obedience was granted.
The reason for this is that a vow made to God, surrendering
soul and body, could not be negated, annulled, renounced.
Only for grave pastoral reasons had this recently
been attenuated, and only for the care of a potential
spouse and children. We are reminded of Jesus telling
those who argued for divorce on the grounds of the
Mosaic Law that it had been granted them “only for
the hardness of their hearts.” But it was not what
God called them to, nor was it God that granted
it.
One can understand that, as a reformer, St. Colette
had much to say on the subject of chastity. Ultimately,
it is by doing penance — that is, by re-assessing
one's false values and applying the insights given
through grace to one's conduct — that we can grow
in purity of heart on our journey to God the Father.
Reflection 28
An Introduction to Enclosure
The
vow of enclosure must come as a surprise to anybody
not familiar with the spirit of St. Clare. It has
been suggested that the legislation of Canon Law
motivated Mother Clare and succeeding generations
into yielding on this issue, where other contemplative
orders such as the Benedictines or Carmelites, keep
their Enclosure by the implications of their holy
vows.
Not so the Poor Clares.
One also has to keep in mind that at the time of
St. Clare, heretical groups such as the Albingensians
allowed women to roam the countryside side by side
with the brothers that were sent out to preach and
there was no distinction made.
This may lead some to a mistaken assumption that
St. Francis may possibly contemplated such an arrangement
with St. Clare and her sisters, especially since
they belonged to the same order, and would be joining
the brothers in more than spiritual ways. One could
also assume, from the complexion of the Moon, that
it is made of cheese, but it does make it so (as
the Americans proved some years ago).
From the evidence of the holy rule we hold with
absolute certainty that St. Clare very clearly envisaged
a life of authentic enclosure, and in fact we consider
enclosure, together with community and contemplation,
the three pillars of Poor Clare life.
It is easy to understand why St. Clare voluntarily
undertook a life of enclosure with her sisters,
as inspired by St Francis. St. Clare did not envision
her sisters as either coming from, or confined to,
one social class alone. Moving beyond the boundaries
of her own feudal society, she received into her
community all those who desired to embrace a life
of poverty and prayer. There must have been in San
Damiano members of the aristocracy, and we know
of least one sister who was a foundling and reared
in the monastery. To St. Clare everybody led by
divine inspiration was welcome.
In order to create a community out of such diversity,
a life together consisting of prayer, work, and
charity needed to be designed. Unlike Francis ,
who desired his brothers to be itinerant preachers,
St. Clare, calling herself the little plant, appears
to have understood early on that belonging and being
rooted in one place was essential to the building
of a community, for the welfare of the plant consists
in being rooted firmly in the soil and only in being
rooted firmly and remaining in that sacred soil
will it flourish.
At the end of her life St. Clare could say with
certainty that she had created a community of like-minded
sisters. From this we conclude that the concept
of the enclosure was interpreted as the environment
within which a life together, around the table of
the Lord, could be lived, practiced, realized, daily.
It is a great pity and a deep misunderstanding to
interpret enclosure solely in terms of keeping out
the world. Far from it! St. Colette, following the
example of the founders, admonishes her daughters
to carry the joys and the sorrows of the world in
their hearts. Therefore, if possible, Poor Clares
live in urban areas rather that remote country areas
in order that the laity have access to the community.
“...
The
Lord willingly allowed himself to be shut away in
a sepulchre of stone. .... As it pleased him to
be enclosed for forty hours, my dear Sisters, you,
too, must follow him; for after obedience, poverty
and pure chastity, you have your holy enclosure
to support you. In it you may well live forty years,
more or less; and in which you will die. You are
therefore already in your sepulchre of stone; that
is to say, the enclosure which you have owed.”
Mother
Colette point to the highest possible example of
enclosure, which is Our Lord being buried in the
tomb. One must remember that far from being a time
of decay a great, great deal unseen occurred during
those 40 hours, not least of which was His descent
among the dead, to the Limbus Patrum, when
his disciples were grief-stricken, unable to come
to terms with their loss.
The Orthodox Church has a beautiful painting of
Our Lord in the tomb, not depicting him lying down
but sitting upright, peacefully, poised for action.
There is also in the Orthodox Church a most beautiful
liturgy celebrated on Holy Saturday, whereas the
Latin Church keeps a day of quiet mourning.
During those 40 hours, Our Lord visited the underworld,
leading out those of the Old Testament and many
others who have followed the dictates of their conscience,
and again the Orthodox Church depicts Our Lord crossing
over into the Nether world with Adam and Eve and
everybody behind in eager expectation.
There is even a little poem, where an old man approaches
Our Lord and, putting his hand on Our Lords shoulder
says, son , how is your mother?
As we can gather from these statements an enclosed
life, far from being a wasteful life is a life of
intense spiritual activity, those who have vowed
obedience, poverty and consecrated chastity are
certainly aware that enclosure is an essential support
for the practice of these vows. It is all
too easy to love your neighbor in far away country
to which you will never journey, but it is more
realistic, and sometimes a good deal more difficult,
to love your neighbor who is next to you 24 hours
of the day, every day, each day, seven days a week.
Many people in the navy or army, can witness to
the fact that a confined space evokes the best and
the worst among those living there.
“O
how precious is the sepulchre of Jesus; that tomb
visited by so many out of devotion! .... O how precious
is that sepulchre - your enclosure - into which
devout souls enter to obtain their salvation. From
the depths of that tomb, these souls take flight,
with the help of the three vows already mentioned,
soaring to the great celestial palace without difficulty,
or hardly any, and without danger, having carried
out all the works required in accordance with the
call they have received from God, How much comfort,
delight and aid, should these fellow captives feel
when a new bride enters into the noble realm of
the Bridegroom she has loved and desired.”
Many
people visiting the monastery remark on how peaceful
a place it is, and those of us who hear it, smile,
knowing in our heart of hearts that the peace which
rightfully imbues the place and suffuses its surroundings
is God's gift for those who are engaged in spiritual
warfare. Not for nothing does Our dear Lord in the
Beatitudes consider those who make peace as being
Blessed! He does not mention the peace lovers, He
mentions the peace-makers; peace has to be made,
continuously — there is no respite, no let up.
As Mother Colette rightly points out, if we
have carried out all the works that are required
of us in the practice of our holy vows, then we
will indeed soar up to Heaven, albeit the more sober
minded among us might prefer to call it stepping
stones which we climb slowly and gradually.
And it is perfectly true that after a life of fidelity,
Sister Death comes as a welcome friend, taking into
her arms the bride yearning for the Bridegroom.
Every night as a Poor Clare prepares to sleep, she
is aware that the Bridegroom might come — perhaps
this night — so she lives in constant expectation
and joyful hope. Yes, peace is proper to the place
where sanctity dwells. It is the vestibule to Heaven.
“Such
is the abundance and superabundance at the table
of this blissful marriage feast, that when a tiny
part of the great and immeasurable joy and bounty
of the noble King and Spouse falls from it, it cannot
but delight the poor captives, whom sin still keeps
from entering into this noble wedding feast.”
Mother
Colette again calls the gaze of her sisters to Heaven,
placing before them a joyful expectation of their
place at the Heavenly Banquet. Comparing Heaven
with the blissful marriage feast, she tells her
sisters that even here, on earth, small particles
of joy will fall upon them, albeit that
they are still kept on this earth because of sin.
And no point is the virtue of hope meaning, certainty
employed more convincingly. In the Gospel Our Lord
uses a familiar image to invite those who listen
to Him to seek the kingdom of Heaven, unlike his
philosophical contemporaries in the Hellenistic
world, He does not employ abstract idealism, but
tangibly appeals to very basic human instincts.
In all cultures a wedding feast is an outstanding
event; much preparation has to take place, many
sacrifices are being made, and it is not an uncommon
that the family may well be bankrupt afterwards.
The whole emphasis, however, is upon the joy of
the bride and groom being shared, and in that joy,
an enjoyable time being had by all. To that end
much is prepared to induce the guests to coming,
in ways immediately apprehensible to them. It is
not entirely without afterthought that we are also
reminded of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, who
returns to his father's house for no higher motive
than that of the assurance of food and drink.
Here again we see the deep wisdom of Catholic teaching,
meeting human nature at that junction where it can
be appealed to, induced to something greater, holding
out what is most noble without imposing impossible
means to attaining to it. And yet without any doubt
the expectation of the Heavenly banquet has always
been inspired within us through a vision of
the ideal, and through that vision, a fervent dedication
to seek it, attain to it, find our seat among the
guests by remaining on the straight and narrow path
to Heaven. Among Poor Clares, there is often said
in jest — more a desideration than presumption –
that a Poor Clare goes to Heaven without going to
Purgatory. While uttered in jest, it nevertheless
highlights the fact that, however light heartedly
put, it is a desire taken seriously, in great earnest.
Even our elderly mothers in religion do not demur
from penance, trying in small ways to atone for
smaller acts of self-will and lack of charity.
The Bridegroom ever patient, loving, and wise will
know the moment when the bride is perfectly adorned
... and then He will take her, everlastingly, to
that wedding feast ... and to Himself.
“...
O,
happy enclosure, which can remove you from many
vices and occasions of evil and keeps you secluded
securely and worthily in the midst of noble virtues.
... O, noble castle, powerful and strong, of the King of Heaven! It fears
not the assaults of the world, the flesh and the
devil.
... O, impregnable tower, you enclose within yourself all truth's provisions
against the assault of the devil.”
Mother
Colette powerfully points out the great advantage
of seclusion which enables her sisters to enjoy
protection and mutual support. St. Boniface, many
centuries before, refers to the protection of God
as a tower into which one must run, to be safe,
against the assaults of the enemy. In fact the medieval
man had many occasions to take refuge in a fortress,
to shelter the young, the tender, from the ravages
of the enemy. Here, our enemy is threefold: the
world, the flesh, and the devil. St. John isn his
Gospel sometimes refers to the world as evil, implying
that it seduces us away from the Kingdom of Heaven,
and what is more, there is also our fallen nature
to contend with, militating against the sweet yoke
of obedience — and last, not least, the great deceiver
himself.
Although it is true to say that we are the temple
of the Blessed Trinity, temptation can not come
to us in any other way but through our senses. These
must be safeguarded and trained with great carefulness.
Within the environment of the enclosure — the impregnable
tower as St. Colette calls it — all that is needed
to lead a holy life is provided. It is a wall that
God Himself has built, and within it, a Garden which
He Himself waters, so that what grows, is nurtured
within ... blossoms on earth and blooms in
Paradise
“You
have within yourself universal obedience, the
daughter of Holy Humility, which condemns all
self-will, the cause and root of all evil; you
are fully supplied with Lady Holy Poverty, which
has no care about worldly things and who makes
it her entire aim and desire to tend entirely
towards his glorious kingdom, without anxiety
about the untrustworthy things of this passing
world. Against the strong and harmful assaults
of the flesh, our particular enemy here below,
we have its adversary Holy Chastity, continual
prayer, fasting cold and bare feet, close guard
of the senses, holy silence, chapter, correction,
meditation, tears, sighs, regular discipline,
the Divine Office, sacred Scripture, holy Mass,
the sweet partaking of the precious Body of
Jesus Christ, purity of heart, right instruction,
the remembrance of death, the cross, the passion,
the sight of the cemetery, the faithful guardianship
of your good angel, the fidelity loyally promised
to your dear Spouse, the hope of eternal reward
- and the thought of the terrible punishment
of those who will have merited otherwise.”
Mother
Colette enumerates to her sisters the many means
at their disposal to assist them to grow in
holiness.
Not surprisingly she begins her admonition by
pointing out that Obedience is the daughter
of Holy Humility, it is only the humble man
who is prepared to surrender himself, making
his will consonant with the holy will of God,
which in fact is the essence of every true expression
of love — whereas self will is the root
of all evil.
Again, she mentions Holy Poverty, which enables
us to attend to the needs of the kingdom,
even as God is attending to our own
needs on every level. How anxious we often are
and how much we need to renew ourselves in continuous
trust knowing that God will truly provide.
Holy Chastity enables us to experience the love
of God in prayer. Various forms of mortification
and the regular exercises of devotional practices
all create purity of heart.
And, once again, she invokes the eschatological
view, which beyond any doubt promises us life
everlasting, with the bliss of Heaven.
She also adverts to the “terrible punishment
of those who will have merited otherwise.”
Collette does not blench before the truth, nor
hesitate in uttering it, for it comes from the
very mouth of Christ, the Beloved – however
disinclined we may be to hear it. Unfortunately,
it is not “socially correct“ to talk of hell
fire and damnation, and yet, in this sense,
as in so many others, medieval man had no such
inhibitions, and he was that much richer for
it.
In essence, our spiritual warfare confronts
us with powers and principalities, but unlike
any other warfare, the victory is certain, for
it is Christ's.
This explains why the early Franciscans in meditating
upon the Passion of Our Lord always started
with the Resurrection – Christ, victorious over
death and sin, sitting at the right hand of
the Father in glory.
Be
gone then, away with you, foolish and rebellious
flesh, full of distracting promptings and evil inclinations;
you who seek to lure us from the way of perfection,
bringing shameful death and perdition.
.... Be led by Lady Holy Grace as her servant, and
by wise reason, for your profit and, ultimately,
your glory.
.... Sin passes away swiftly and its punishment
is unending; penitence is short, but its ending
will be your eternal glory.”
Mother
Colette breaks forth in strong terms of rejection.
Here one must keep in mind that we are not listening
so much to a mother but to a reformer. A reformer
has a clear vision and strong views on the
right kind of form necessary to what has become
misshapen. It has clearly become the case that a
good deal of reforming is needful.
It can be said with certainty that the neglect of
the vow of poverty, and more so, the neglect of
the vow of enclosure, account for most of the abuses
that had crept into religious life.
It must also be clear that this did not happen over
a short period of time, it is far more likely to
be the result of a continuous and unrepeated negligence,
which in the end becomes the pernicious norm.
Once negligence and injustice have become the norm,
it is virtually impossible to uphold a community
life with mutual charity. And, therefore, Mother
Colette encourages her sisters to be led by grace.
However weak we are, God’s
grace is always stronger. It is important that we
realize with trust and confidence that not only
is God's grace always with us, but that, His presence
is made known to us, particularly in moments of
weakness and stress.
Therefore, wise reason, with which grace always
cooperates, takes us ultimately to our glory. It
nevertheless remains that while sin itself passes
away swiftly, its consequences can be everlasting;
penitence, on the other hand, while short, has consequences
more far reaching still — leading us to eternal
glory.
O
happy enclosure! 0 soul completely enclosed, according
to the will of its superior, which nothing causes
to go straying abroad here and there, but which
rests at all times completely submissive to the
will of its superiors. There is its only rest!
.... O precious and sure enclosure! To be enclosed
by continual remembrance in the precious wounds
of Jesus Christ!
.... O happy captives, soaring above the Heavens
to hear with the ears of the spirit the nine choirs
of angels, whose sweet praise and chanting magnifies
the Holy and Blessed Trinity, one God in three persons.”
Again,
Mother Colette sums up her thoughts in praise of
enclosure. The joys of the garden enclosed are put
before us where the bridegroom walks with the bride.
We are reminded of the book of Genesis, when God
walked in the cool of evening with Adam and Eve.
There is promised to us rest, because our will has
become one with the divine will of God. It is this
expectation of bliss that can be foreshadowed in
the cloistered life, as the Psalmist says, when
I am with you the earth delighted me not.
One must keep in mind that the garden enclosed,
by its very nature encourages those who live there
to raise their eyes to Heaven, to join their voices
with the Heavenly Choirs and to journey through
life, light footed with a song on ones lips. There
is no concern for a career or any advancement of
any kind. Having eliminated so many distractions,
the one and only aim is Heaven itself and the Court
of the King.
“With
all the angels praise God, glorify him - in him
and through him, and through all his creatures in
Heaven and on earth: exalt him above all for his
inestimable favour in creating the human person
in the image of the Creator, and for the sovereign
gift of the sacred Incarnation of our God, who is
so good that, after having created all things for
our sake, he himself became truly man and our loving
Brother, so as to restore all things by his glorious
death and his passion.
O infinite good!
.... O bounty without measure!
.... O ingratitude which forgets so great a gift!
.... Praise him! Exalt him with all your voice for
the great gift received in Holy Baptism, that of
knowing complete innocence and becoming temples
of the blessed Holy Spirit.”
Mother
Colette having concluded her admonitions, breaks
forth into praising God with all the choirs of angels
and with all His creatures here on earth. We are
reminded of the book of Revelation where we find
a continuous choir of voices praising and glorifying!
In fact, throughout the history of monastic life
the laus perennis* was the dominant
occupation of Monks and Nuns.
To praise God is in fact what we have been created
for.
Mother Colette considers this as one of God's greatest
favors that we have been created in the image and
likeness of God. Dun Scotus never ceased comparing
the Incarnation as the final gift of love, which
is to say, that in Jesus Christ, God revealed Himself
in His true being. For Duns Scotus, Christ became
man, yes, for the salvation of mankind — but also
to love the Father with the only love commensurable
to His own: the love of His own and only Consubstantial
Son in His Sacred Humanity which Christ assumed
in the Incarnation, thereby loving the Father in
the fullest possible sense: as both True God and
True Man, wholly submitting himself to the will
of the Father in His Sacred Humanity, which will,
as True God, was equally His own.
As our Brother, He enabled us to become co-lovers
with Him. In the fullest sense of the word, He is
the bridge between Heaven and earth. Therefore,
by his Cross, Passion, and Resurrection He could
bring back to life himself, His brothers and sisters
and all creation that groaned in great turmoil awaiting
the great revelation of God.
Mother Colette praises the infinite good , the bounty
without measure, the priceless gift.
All these gifts are ours: when we receive the gift
of Baptism, the Blessed Trinity begins to dwell
in us and we become the temple of the Holy Spirit.
It comes to some as a surprise that medieval spirituality
was deeply Scripture-based and in fact truly charismatic.
*The “laus perennis”,
or “Perpetual Psalmody”, dates to the early 6th
century A.D., and was carried on, day and night,
by several choirs, or turmae, who succeeded
each other in the recitation of the Divine Office,
so that prayer went on without cessation.
“Give
thanks worthily to the Lord for having borne, so
generously, with your sins and failings. His pity
has recalled us to himself through contrition, confession,
atonement and the resolution to lead a good life.
He has drawn us through our call to the religious
life, to enter into the state of perfection found
in the Form of Life, with a good company which will
not desert us, so as to glorify him at all times
for the holy promise of eternal life, the promise
he has already made to us.”
Mother
Colette admonishes her sisters to be mindful of
their failings but not through succumbing to self-pity,
or worse still, to mere remorse, but by pointing
to the Lord, who has born for us our failings and
renewed us in his grace. One is reminded of prayer
that was recited during the offertory before the
Vatican II reforms eliminated it, which said something
like this, “Oh God, you have created us wonderfully
and recreated us more wonderfully, never must we
see our sinfulness without the awareness of the
merciful love of God.”
Through contrition we are recalled to God Himself;
confession and atonement put us on the path of righteousness.
Perhaps it is of importance to reflect here on the
word atonement. If we analyze its structure,
it falls into two elements, the meaning of which
is that we are at one with God. It is a great pity
that the element of being at one with God
has been neglected in the past, particularly since
the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus revolved
a great deal around the conception of atonement.
To be at one with God means to place all our confidence
in him. There is no room for self- pity or self-accusation;
we are washed clean in Precious Blood of Jesus.
Those of us who have been privileged to be called
to the Religious life know for certain that having
entered the state of perfection does not mean that
we are perfect or ever will be; it only means that
we have the grace to see the job through, that is
to say, to persevere following the Lamb wherever
He leads. Guided by our form of life which is based
on the Gospel, we have all the inspiration we need
to know the holy will of God and do it.
We are also privileged to know that in living the
Gospel life the promise of eternal life is ours.
And ever more, here on earth we have the hundredfold
even with persecution.
Admittedly, our journey to God is more that of a
serpentine road, than a straight line — but our
certainty is the destination, and it is no less
than Heaven itself.
“Praise
him, love him, serve him worthily so you can be
sure of everlasting life - as sure as those who
are already in full possession of it and who see
God in the clear vision of his sweetness and infinite
goodness, in the highest bliss arid perfect surety
of their eternal inheritance.”
It
is of importance to notice the order of phrases
as they follow each other: praising, loving serving.
First and foremost we are asked to praise God, to
acknowledge His majesty and almighty power, He is
the Creator, we are the creatures, that is the most
fundamental premise upon which our relationship
to God is based.
Having acknowledged His majesty, our hearts
response is love. His majesty inspires our
love and by virtue of our loving Him we serve Him.
It is of importance that we understand that our
service is that of a free response freely given
through our awareness of our place in this creation.
The promise of eternal life is then reiterated by
St. Colette. We begin to understand how needful
it is for us to keep before our mind's eye that
Heaven is what we are living for.
Quite emphatically, St. Colette assures her sisters
that Heaven is ours with a certainty no less than
those who have gone before us and who enjoy the
Beatific Vision, the vision of God's infinite sweetness
and goodness.
This is a far cry from the categorical imperative
which obliges us to do our duty because it is our
duty to do our duty. No such sterile and uncompromising
obligation is laid upon us apart from love and what
love of necessity, of certainty, not only engenders
but entails. We can anticipate the highest bliss
and the surety of our eternal inheritance. Our faithfulness
in love is the surest pledge of life everlasting
in God.
Just as children are being rewarded for their efforts,
we the children of God need to be lured by the goodness
of God and not by the stern sense of duty to follow
the path that leads to salvation. That is compulsion,
duress. Love, on the other hand, invincibly moves
to the Beloved, it is preeminently free; love, not
duty, compels the soul to the Beloved Who is its
fulfillment.
We are reminded of St. Stephen who, when being stoned,
cried out aloud, “I see Heaven opened and the Son
of Man standing at the right side of the Father!”
May our vision — and our end — be no less compelling
through our love.
“In
order to be able to attain to this by his grace
and his aid, we must loyally keep the vows that
which we have promised him, and if we commit some
fault through human frailty, we must make haste
every time pick ourselves up, to make ourselves
clean and to make up our losses through holy penance.
And our dear Father, during this life receives us
without delay into his mercy and his sweet reconciliation,
considering that first, holy and good intention,
which he gave us in our holy vocation and in his
loving binding of us to himself, and for the sake
of all his innumerable favors, graces present and
to come.”
St.
Colette now puts before us our eternal inheritance
which we can obtain with God's grace and His aid.
However, we in turn need to be faithful to the vows
we have promised and perhaps this is the place to
say that while the Church dispenses from the obligation
of the vows and enables a Religious to own property
and to make decisions, this does not mean that the
commitment once made to God — providing it was made
freely and without compulsion – has become null
and void.
Vows in religion are based on Baptismal Vows and
are actually only a deepening of these vows, and
they therefore remain valid even if the actual obligation
of each vow can no longer be fulfilled.
Mother Colette also gives some wholesome advice
as to how one repents through Holy Penance: there
is no place for maudling and undue self pity. As
every good confessor will advise, to make an Act
of Contrition suffices and we must just leave it
at that. Considered carefully, we find that it is
full of common sense and much to the point. We are
assured that our Heavenly Father receives us with
open arms and sweet reconciliation.
There is also a very needful explanation provided
by St. Colette that there is a binding
as part of the nature of the holy vow; in fact the
word religion, means just that, a bond
– and having bound ourselves to God we could not
not possibly wish to cut ourselves loose because
there is the inescapable truth that if we are not
bound to God we will be bound to the evil one, there
is no neutrality in things absolute, final, and
eternal. There is no middle way. It was not so with
our Holy Spouse, Jesus Christ. It cannot be so with
us.
“Praise,
praise always, praise everlastingly, and love the
Father, the Son and the blessed Holy Spirit; the
most humble Virgin who bore Jesus Christ, the holy
and sacred soul of our Redeemer, and his precious
body which hung upon the cross for us all; love
the Saints, men and women, and all the angels, and
all the good and just people who serve God day and
night.”
Mother
Colette encouraged her sisters to praise God everlastingly.
First and foremost, we must praise and adore the
Almighty. This is where we belong in the order of
creation. Our Mother Clare admonishes her sisters
to praise God by our lives, and St. Colette, a true
and faithful daughter continues this admonition,
telling her sisters to love the Father, The Son
and the Blessed Holy Spirit.
Often prayer is interpreted as the personal relationship
between myself and Jesus Christ. While
this is true, it is only half true: as a baptized
person I am relating to the Blessed Trinity, three
persons, one God.
This form of prayer, of praise, nourishes the soul,
day and night, and for Poor Clare's the Office of
Matins is the best proof of what our Mother Colette
preached and practiced, for when we arise we sing
the Lords praises – in the middle of the night
we are motivated by our desire to praise the Father
as his daughters, praise the Son as his mothers,
and praise the Holy Spirit to whom we belong in
bridal love. Our soul stretches out its wings in
loving union with all the Saints, past and present,
all the angels gathered around the Tabernacle, and
all the many good people who serve God by their
daily fidelity.
We are mindful that many who do not know God meet
the God of creation by their fidelity to their daily
tasks and commitments to duty.
“....
Set
your minds on living well and dying holily. The
end is approaching; the world not improving: malice
increases; goodness, loyalty and truth decrease;
iniquity abounds, charity grows cold again; devotion
and religion are found in very few hearts. Many
are called, but few are chosen.
.... Alas! The pity of it all! For God, according
to his holy will, wants to save all humankind without
exception! Yet so few of them let themselves be
chosen! All are called, but few consent to come;
and if there are those who start out and go on for
some time, nevertheless there are very few who persevere
to the end in keeping the law of God.”
Mother
Colette sums up her whole teaching in a single sentence,
exhorting her sisters to live well and die holily.
More sound advice could scarcely be imagined. It
leaves us in no doubt and stands in need of no explanation.
St. Colette herself provides the qualification to
this sweeping statement, pointing out to us that
the end is approaching – that malice increases,
charity grows cold.
Concluding this statement with another terse admonition,
Mother Colette admonishes us, as Jesus Christ Himself
did, that
“many are called but few are chosen;”
a warning as apropos of our time as as it was in
the time of St. Colette. In the history of mankind
there are times of exploration and new development
– and there are also times of decline, decadence,
and negligence, St. Colette's time was one of those.
And our own day, in many ways, is not unlike hers.
However St. Colette reassures us yet again that
it is God's wish to save all mankind — if only we
would be ready to be chosen. As she herself says,
while all are called, few consent to come, and what
is worse still, even many of those who do
come do not persevere unto the end.
“There
are many who make solemn vows in religion but alas,
and more than a hundred thousand times alas, there
are all too few today who acquit themselves of them
loyally in the sight of God who misses nothing.
In order to be saved people are obliged to keep
completely, justly and loyally, all that they have
promised and vowed; the punishment for dishonesty
is eternal! Surely it would be better not to promise
anything and so fail in nothing, than to promise
much and then fall abysmally short.
.... The greater the promise, the greater the injury,
and the more awful the fate of the transgressor.
But for the good, the greater the promise, the greater
is the merit and the greater the salvation, which
will be given us as a pure gift by the Father of
all mercy, the Son by his holy Passion, and by the
blessed Holy Spirit, the fountain of peace, of sweetness,
of love and of all consolation.
.... Amen, amen, without recall.”
In
her summary, St. Colette, true to her reforming
spirit, reminds us that there are many who have
taken solemn vows and so few who loyally, faithfully,
embrace their obligations. We need to keep in mind
that St. Colette as a reformer met many Nuns and
Friars who had been attentive to the invitation
– but overcome by the spirit of the world failed
or compromised. The seed that falls upon good soil,
and not among thorns; which takes deep root in deep
love and thrives through perseverance, are sorrowfully
few. Did not our Master tell us as much?
Practical to the end, St. Colette points out to
her daughters that in order to be saved, we need
to keep completely,
justly, and loyally what we have vowed.
It is a necessary, a vital reminder in our present
and increasingly secularized climate, one that should
motivate us to carefully and truthfully examine
our own conscience relative to our understanding
of our own commitment. While it is true that life
is a journey, with many unfamiliar bends on the
road, it is equally true that we must follow it
right to the end of the road if we desire eternal
life. A journey without a clear-cut understanding
of where it ends becomes
meaningless and wasteful.
There is only one life to live, and there is no
trial run for it.
Mother Colette completes her testament with a blessing
that the Son, Who by His holy Passion, and the Holy
Spirit, the fount of peace and sweetness, of love
and all consolation, may always be with us, – it
is the unfailing promise of Christ Himself:
“I am with you always. Even unto the end ...”
We pray that all those who read this commentary
will find a new and beautiful awakening of God's
love in their hearts.
Amen.
Now
that we have completed our reflections on the
Testament of Our Holy Mother St. Colette
it seems appropriate to attempt to evaluate what
these reflections have shown us.
For those who were part of religious life in the
pre-Vatican era, it was taken for granted that we
took the Colettine reform on board: our life was
often austere, and quite often below the bread level.
That is to say, the aspect of penance was stressed
almost to the exclusion of other considerations
in a nun's reflections.
When we were asked by the Council Fathers to return
to our roots and think afresh the heritage we were
honored to carry, many, rather than returning to
their roots, cast their charism aside and reformed
their religious life as they thought best and most
amenable to them — to the point that the original
charism that inflamed their orders were eventually
extinguished or became mere smoldering wicks.
Others steadfastly maintained a no-change attitude.
The resulting polarization was, and still is, very
considerable.
It poses a question well worth pondering: did Mother
Colette anticipate that her reflections would, without
any question, without any change hold good even
in the 21st Century?
It is not likely that she had such a static outlook
on life; being the woman she was, she understood
clearly that a reform needed direct and precise
injunctions to come off the ground, but she also
understood the paradox that for things to remain
the same some aspects always need changing. Not
for the mindless, pointless sake of change, not
gratuitously — but to bring the same witness,
the same evangel, the same hope, in
no way changed in essence ... merely in inflection;
not to the point that the essence is obscured and
no longer recognizable ... but where it speaks the
one and same message, a timeless message of an unchangeable
Gospel, more clearly and more forcefully to an increasingly
confused, disoriented, and disinherited world.
Mother Colette's unmistaken charismatic inspiration
should give us continual food for thought, her emphasis
on praise, her awareness of the dignity and beauty
of the religious life were profound. There is a
letter by no less a man than Henry the Eighth, King
of England in the 16th century, petitioning the
holy Father to canonize this noble virgin St. Colette,
known for her prayer and deep charity.
It is not without reason that she was she the uncrowned
queen of France.
A Poor Clare Colettine Nun
“...
In
the name of the Lord! Amen.
... Among the other gifts that we have received
and do daily receive from our benefactor, the Father
of Mercies, and for which we must express the deepest
thanks to the glorious Father of Christ, there is
our vocation, for which, all the more by way of
its being more perfect and greater, do we owe the
greatest thanks to him. Therefore the Apostle writes:
“Know your vocation”.
The Son of God has been made for us the Way, which
our Blessed Father Francis, his true lover and imitator,
has shown and taught us by word and example. Therefore,
beloved sisters, we must consider the immense gifts
that God has bestowed on us, especially those that
he has seen fit to work in us through his beloved
servant, our blessed father Francis, not only after
our conversion but also while we were still living
among the vanities of the world.”
Should
an amateur consult a professional writer on how
best to start an essay, every experienced writer
would say, “put your punch line first!” Our Holy
Mother Clare, while she had no such mentor to advise
her, did just that. She begins her testament in
the Name of the Lord! With this very short simple
sentence she puts the emphasis where it should be:
on the Lord.
We have to remember that to know the name of a person
is to have to access and influence over this person.
It is an ancient and deeply Semitic concept. Even
in fairy tales we find that knowledge of the name
of the character invests the one who knows with
a certain power over the character.
Mother Clare knew and understood the importance
of a name, and therefore begins her testament calling
on the Name of the Lord! She ends this short exclamation
very emphatically: “Amen”, so be it.
What then follows encapsulates her belief in divine
providence, her outlook on life, its worthwhileness,
its beginning and its ending. She begins by singling
out the one gift among the many other gifts that
we receive and that is the gift of vocation. There
are at the moment two very different views as concerning
the notion of a vocation. The one understands it
as a ministerial occupation, which in plain English
means that it is a job. The other considers a calling
as a direct invitation from God to the religious
life, the married life, the single life.
This latter attitude presupposes that the calling
is a gift, and because it is a gift from our loving
Father, with the gift comes the talent and necessary
attributes to live the call to its fullest. In other
words it is not we who choose, it is Our Father
who points the way and provides us with the means.
She refers to God, therefore, as her greatest benefactor,
the Father of Mercies, the Giver of every good gift.
The One Who gave His very Son, without recall. This
complete confidence in Him Who “gives not as the
world gives”, stands in stark contrast to those
whose understanding of the beneficence of God is
less generous and who subsequently claim to have
lost their vocation. A gift given by God can not
get lost, although it can be neglected, eventually
disdained, and finally thrown away; No! This gift
from God is given for good, and because we cannot
be deprived of it (although we can effectively discard
it) we must express our deepest thanks. The world
gives and takes away. God is not the world. And
certainly the world is not God.
There nevertheless arises the question of what,
precisely, it is that one should be thankful for.
Mother Clare answers this question without hesitation
and in the clearest and most unapologetic terms:
the vocation to Religious life is more perfect and
greater than any other gift that could have been
bestowed upon us. This does not sit well with many
men and women who see God as the great Equalizer,
exercising the magnitude of His favor on all alike
— Cain as well as Abel, Esau as well as Jacob. We
are offended if everyone does not equally enjoy
His favor, His predilection. St. Clare was not.
She grasped through humility what most fail to grasp
through pride.
Quoting St. Paul, she then admonishes her sisters
to know their vocation.
Having acknowledged God as the source of her vocation
she now moves on to the inspiration that comes to
her from the words and in the example of the Blessed
Francis whom she refers to as God's true lover and
imitator.
As in the Gospel where Jesus Christ refers to Himself
as the Way, the Truth and the Life, so here the
Son of God is seen as the Way that points to the
Father. Again she mentions the blessed Francis,
her guide and inspiration, who inspired her mind
and instilled in her the great desire to lead the
Gospel life — not only after her conversion, but
while she was still living in her father's house.
When St. Clare refers to her conversion it leaves
us wondering: “What she was converted from?”, seeing
that even in her father's house, under the guidance
of Ortolana her mother, the women-folk led a life
of dedication and service to the poor and needy.
When St. Clare refers to her conversion, she surely
could not have meant a turning away from a sinful
life, for we know from the extremely careful scrutiny
of the Canonization Process that even in her father's
house, dedicating her time and energy to prayers
and works of charity, she did not live anything
tantamount to a dissolute life!
No, something much more subtle is referred to. When
we look at the word conversion, we understand
a turning away from something in preference
to something better. In the case of St. Clare, it
undoubtedly meant that she came to understand the
values of her parental home to be good, but not
very good, to be honorable, but not necessarily
in keeping with the Gospel. With an astonishing
maturity of spirit she came to confront herself
with her previous upbringing which stressed honor
and respectability, preferring, instead, the littleness
of her mentor, the blessed Francis, who referred
to himself as the little poor man, and so in like
manner, she became the little plant.
It is a seldom recognized, but very serious problem
in community living that the conversion process
which everyone is called to undergo does not always
result in amended previous habits, nor rehabilitate
long-standing and ingrained ideas. It is one of
the most painful sources of disharmony in the life
of a community: very few people of different backgrounds
have identical values, and very often, identical
moral formations, and therefore ones expectations
of what other people do or not do is very much colored
by ones own criteria. For a successful community
striving to authentically live the Gospel within
the unique charism of any Order, conversion, personal
conversion, on the level of the dynamics of human
relationships is, however difficult, essential to
the viability of community life. We are all called
to say with St. Paul, “Nos autem sensum Christi
habemus” ... “But we have the mind of
Christ!”
“In
fact, almost immediately after his conversion, when
he had neither brothers nor companions, while he
was building the church of San Damiano, where he
was totally visited by divine consolation and impelled
to completely abandon the world , through the great
joy and enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, the holy
man made a prophecy about us that the Lord later
fulfilled.
... For at that time , climbing the wall of that
church, he shouted in French to some poor people
who were standing nearby: “Come and help me in the
work of building the monastery of San Damiano, because
ladies are yet to dwell here who will glorify our
Heavenly Father throughout his holy, universal Church
by their celebrated and holy manner of life.”
Having
set the framework, now
Mother Clare begins
to explain the origin of the foundation of the Poor
Clare Order.
Francis, having recently been converted from a sinful
life, occupied himself by re-building dilapidated
churches. It was a time of great inner upheaval
for him, he had failed in his ambition to become
a Knight, he had spent time in prison as a prisoner
of war in Perugia, and all his far flung dreams
had turned to dust and ashes. After his father had
bailed him out, he returned to Assisi, a sick man
in body and soul.
His recovery was slow, and even after he had regained
his strength, his mind was troubled , and the futility
of his life laid heavy upon him.
It was then, as he was trying to find some meaning
for his existence, that he wandered into an empty
church outside the walls to seek he knew not what!
It was in that church that he heard the Crucified
asking him to rebuild the Church!
In his simplicity, he took it to mean that he was
to rebuild that very church, San Damiano, and obediently
set himself to the task. It was not until much later
that he was asked to rebuild the Mystical Body of
Christ. However his ready obedience bore rich fruit.
Not only he, but the Poor Ladies that were to follow
him, found a place and a purpose in life. It was
here that he decided to abandon the world, it was
here that he was overflowing with divine consolation.
It is interesting to note that Mother Clare ascribes
all this to the joy and enlightenment of the Holy
Spirit. In fact, the Spirit of the Lord and his
holy inspiration play a large part in her writing
and in that of the Blessed Francis.
St. Clare then goes on to explain that under divine
inspiration, Francis prophesied to some bystanders
that poor Ladies were to dwell there, glorifying
their Heavenly Father by their celebrated and holy
manner of life. The Holy Manner of life was to be
based on the Gospel life, and it was to be lived
throughout his holy, universal Church. This leaves
us with the question why Mother Clare specifically
mentions the Church in this context? We must keep
in mind that at this point in history the Church
was beset by heresies, in fact, Assisi itself was
divided and it said that heretics numbered more
members than the Church!
It is clearly St. Clare's intent to put herself,
and her daughters, deeply within the bosom of Holy
Mother Church, which stood resolutely against the
heresies encompassing her.
“We
can consider in this, therefore, the abundant kindness
of God to us. Because of his mercy and love, he
saw fit to speak these words through his St. about
our vocation and choice through his St.. And our
most blessed Father prophesied not only for us,
but also for those who would come to this same holy
vocation to which the Lord has called us.”
Mother
Clare again returns to the subject of vocations,
seeing it as the outpouring of abundant kindness
on the part of God. There is no mention made of
sacrificing one's life in a meaningless and dull
routine of duty. On the contrary, it is a sign of
His mercy and love that He offers this invitation
to follow in His Son's footsteps, and again she
points out that He chose Francis and gave him prophetic
words about her vocation, making Francis the channel
of grace through which his invitation flowed.
So it comes about as the Blessed Francis had prophesied,
that here, in San Damiano, ladies would live to
glorify their Heavenly Father – not only St. Clare
and her own sisters but also those who would come
in years to follow to that same holy vocation to
which the Lord had called her.
It is obvious from the way that St. Clare mentions
St. Francis that she always considered him her Father
in Christ, referring to him as our Most Blessed
father, albeit that age-wise she was only 12 years
his junior. There is manifest a deep gratitude on
her part as to the role he played in her life, we
must also recognize that Francis only verbalized
what had laid hidden in her own heart for some very
considerable time.
There is a truth expressed in psychology that one
cannot elicit what is not basically within a person,
however dormant. No person and no circumstance can
evoke anything in any of us that is not already
deeply hidden within. This is a truly daunting thought,
as we are often prone to blame circumstances or
people for our reactions and negativity.
Here we find a truly inspiring example of spiritual
friendship, which is one of the most misunderstood
realties in the spiritual life. St Aelred of Riveaux
once wrote a treatise on spiritual friendship, where
he points out that the God given way to perfection
is best achieved by the mutual inspiration and support
of two journeying together. There holds good the
much neglected axiom from the Book of Genesis, “It
is not good for man to be alone“, and as the country
folk say, there are three in God, there is only
one devil.
The notion of being “alone with God”
is much misunderstood. God is the prime source of
our love and therefore it is in the sharing of this
love and in the response to it that we come to the
full understanding of union with God. The very notion
itself of “union” implies, of necessity, an entering
of at least two into a “being one”. What is more,
did not Our Blessed Lord say, “Where two or more
are gathered, there am I in their midst”? (St. Matthew
18.20)
“We
can consider in this , therefore, the abundant kindness
of God to us. Because of his mercy and love, he
saw fit to speak these words through his St. about
our vocation and choice through his St.. And our
most blessed Father prophesied not only for us,
but also for those who would come to this same holy
vocation to which the Lord has called us.”
Again
St. Clare refers to her vocation as a proof of the
abundant kindness of God. Clare is fully aware that
her vocation is a sign of special favour to which
we need to respond with the deepest gratitude. Why?
Because to be invited is to be privileged, as the
rich young man was in the gospel, to leave the vanities
of the world behind. This assures us, not only a
place in Heaven, but the hundredfold, here on earth
... and with persecutions to boot!
The medieval man clearly understood that however
sinful he might have been, this life on earth is
no more that the prelude to life everlasting with
God and his Saints in Heaven. Not for a moment did
he loose sight of this basic fact. One of the most
besetting problems of our time is not the fact of
sinfulness, but the lack of faith, without which
not only the Ten Commandments, and every aspect
of Christ's teaching becomes incomprehensible, but
as a result the moral law of the Church that is
based upon them. Every medieval cathedral, bears
witness that medieval man upheld and clearly understood
this eschatological view.
In Francis, Mother Clare saw a prophetic outpouring
under the inspiration of God the Almighty. Never
did she doubt for one moment that her vocation was
anything but the treasure in the field, which she
had found, and for which she relinquished everything.
At no point did she attempt a learned treatise on
the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity, but by her
intuitive knowledge she knew, understood, grasped
... lived ... the reality that theology only verges
upon!
Looking into the future she realises that Francis
spoke not only for her and her sisters, there and
then, but for all who were to follow, in the here
and now! As long as the Gospel is being proclaimed
there will also be those who, led by divine inspiration,
will find the passion to follow it.
“With
what eagerness and fervour of mind and body, therefore,
must we keep the commandments of our God and Father,
so that, with the help of the Lord, we may return
to him an increase of his talent!”
Mother
Clare continues to explain that the nature of loving
God consists in keeping the Commandments, and she
is anxious to explain that the commandments must
be kept with eagerness and fervour of mind and body.
Indeed this is a tall order, to keep the commandments
as a duty in order to stay on the right side of
God is easily within our comprehension but to obey
with eagerness presupposes a different interpretation
of our keeping the commandments as a proof of love.
We are reminded of the Shema, in Deuteronomy
6, where we are told that we must love the Lord
our God with all our heart and soul, and our neighbour
as ourselves. The Psalmist tells us that the law
of the Lord is perfect, it refreshes
the soul!
Indeed, how many people would interpret that keeping
the law, rather than being burdensome and onerous,
is refreshing ? This understanding, rooted
in one of the most ancient and fundamental precepts
of living life authentically with God goes a long
way toward explaining the present polarization that
we now painfully experience within the Church.
To those for whom loving God is the sole purpose
of existence there is no doubt that doing the Holy
Will of God is the summit of all happiness. However,
those who seek the things of the world, the fulfillment
of their own will, the satisfaction of their own
desires and happiness here on earth will always
struggle against, find themselves in contention
with, this Divine current that runs deeply through
both Testaments, and whose source is God Himself.
It is unfortunate that this orientation to other-worldliness
has been, wittingly or nor, misinterpreted as denoting
a summary rejection of legitimate values and pleasures.
This skewered assessment of life in God could not
be further from the truth. *Happy* the man who keeps
his eyes on God and believes that the daisies under
his feet were planted there by God, for him to rejoice
in.
Only in this way can we return to the Lord an increase
of His talent. Those of us who have already entered
holy religion may well remember in retrospection
how severely we were rebuked for wasting our talents.
Here, Mother Clare encourages us to use our talent
in the service of God.
What greater, what more benevolent and loving a
Master could we possibly serve with all our strength
of mind and body, than the most sublime of all masters,
Our Loving Father. This service which consists in
loving God for His sake is surely the most fulfilling
form of life that we can conceive. Is there a greater?
The Blessed Francis was asked in a dream by Our
Lord what master he would wish to serve. His answer
was, the highest of all! Whereupon he was made to
understand that there is no higher, no greater service
that that of serving Our Lord and Master, Jesus
Christ.
Download or Print the entire Commentary in a PDF
Format
Totally
Faithful to the Sacred Deposit
of Faith entrusted to the Holy See
in Rome
“Scio
opera tua ... quia modicum habes virtutem,
et servasti verbum Meum, nec non negasti
Nomen Meum”
“I
know your works ... that you have but
little power, and yet you have kept
My word, and have not denied My Name.”
(Apocalypse 3.8)
Copyright
© 2004 - 2024 Boston Catholic Journal.
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise
stated, permission is granted by the
Boston Catholic Journal for the copying
and distribution of the articles and
audio files under the following conditions:
No additions, deletions, or changes
are to be made to the text or audio
files in any way, and the copies may
not be sold for a profit. In the reproduction,
in any format of any image, graphic,
text, or audio file, attribution must
be given to the Boston Catholic Journal.
|
|
