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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Saint Dominic,
 The
mystery of Christmas
illuminates our life in a special way in order to
remember always, each and every day, where we came from
- our origins - and where we are going - our goal. At
times, it might appear that violence is the only manner
with which to express or "to export" ways of living,
thinking or believing... However, faithful to our
vocation, we
celebrate Christ, our Peace. (Eph.
2. 14) For this reason, in the midst of the
miseries of our times, the star of
Bethlehem continues to shine, even in our days.
Having just started the Jubilee Year and, on December
22, when we remember the 790 years since the
confirmation of the Order by Pope Honorius III, our
thoughts and our peregrination are focused on each
monastery of contemplative nuns of the Order. We do this
with the simple joy of a family that gathers to
celebrate.
Like people who are moved by the simplicity of the
manger and the tree adorned for the feast, on reading
our history we could reflect on the different notes or
characteristics with which
Providence has willed to "adorn" the Order in its eight
centuries of life. In fact, there are several essential
elements that continue to show all of Saint Dominic's
sons and daughters the final goal of our life and
mission, even though these elements are there since the
birth of our Order.
The Word made flesh, born in the poverty of the manger,
invites us to contemplate an aspect of our life and
mission on which we should, maybe, meditate a little:
we are
"mendicants". This word may not mean
much today nor is it attractive. Perhaps, it also needs
an adequate historical explanation. Nonetheless, our
human and spiritual frame of mind and the lifestyle we
would like to incarnate are, surprisingly, very much
alive today and spring forth from a foundational charism
that lives in the very heart of the Church, from our
origins as mendicants.
In our Order - even today and in its various branches -
profession is
made in the hands of the person who
receives it. This very old gesture is an eloquent sign
of mutual
trust, fraternity, mobility and itinerancy.
For this reason we can say that in the Order there is no
other stability than that of our obedience inspired by
the image of Christ who, being of divine condition,
emptied himself and assumed the human condition (Phil 2,
7).
Like the magi coming from the East and the shepherds of
Bethlehem, the gospel ideal of mendicancy impels us
always to be "on
the way", and to cultivate a special
docility open to divine providence that manifests itself
in everyday life. To be a mendicant is to be
available,
always ready to go and meet the others because it is
where the mystery of God manifests itself.
As mendicants we would like to live our "not belonging
to the world" in a way that is always new, by living a
regular life
of the "conventual" type characterized
by spaces and times that offer a framework or rhythm
that are proper to our
separatio mundi.
The solitude of our cells and fraternal life in
community; intimacy with the Lord in personal prayer and
community celebration (Liturgy of the Hours and
Eucharist); community meetings; a common table; our
schedules and observances; the necessary silence and the
different spaces reserved in enclosure; all of this, in
a way, puts itself at the service of the word that is
contemplated, studied and is announced outside the
boundaries of the convent, in the immense "cloister of
the world". In fact, the desire to be near people in
order to share their joys and hope, their sorrow and
anguish, impels us to link community life with the
apostolic and missionary ministry.
For this reason, the mystery of Christmas invites us to
emphasize an
incarnate spirituality that is marked in
a special way by love for those that are most weak and
poor. The mendicant is not so much the
monachus
(solitary), but the
frater or
the soror
(with a special emphasis on the community). This is why
we strive especially to incarnate the
evangelical
fraternity which should lead us to live
amongst people in structures that are more simple and
neighbourly. Since the beginning of our 800-year
history, the life of our communities of nuns and friars
of the Order of Preachers extended itself in the
so-called Third Orders (regular and/or secular). This
movement generated a vast and beautiful constellation of
Congregations of religious sisters that are spread on
all the continents, and which are examples of
dedication, creativity and imagination put at the
service of the preaching of the Gospel. New groups of
lay associates and the Dominican Youth Movement were
aggregated to the lay Fraternities.
The proclamation of the Word is still our proposal /
response to a
society in constant
change and mobility. The renaissance of
urban life in the 13th century was marked by
the development of the corporations, guilds, communes,
associations of students and professors, commercial
federations, etc. These new expressions of communion and
participation encouraged the involvement of all their
members in decision making and, in a way, inspired our
fraternal life.
Among other features - which come to us from these
sources - one can highlight our
system of government
characterized by the
election of the prior
or prioress ("primus
inter pares" [first among equals] and not an
abbot or abbess); the
periodicity of the
functions of government (a precise
timeframe for terms of office and responsibilities) and
the
importance of the chapters.
Faithful to the principle "quod
omnes tangit ab omnibus decerni et tractari debet"
(What touches all, must be discerned and
dealt with together), our fraternal life has always
privileged moments of community life so that, in the
light of the Holy Spirit and of our laws, we could
always revise, examine, discern, deal with and define
how to be faithful to our vocation. This
"capitular"
style guarantees our search for
evangelical unanimity
(to have one heart and one soul) through the different
meetings (chapters) in a variety of styles according to
their proper goal: revision of our project for life and
mission, study or ongoing formation, decision making
regarding government and administration; various
elections, etc. The "vote", as a final commitment of
obedience, gives us "voice and vote". That is to say, it
makes us permanently responsible for personal and
community life.
The Order was born at a time of profound changes in
social and economic structures. Such a transformation
allowed the "new
rich" and the "new
poor" to appear, to whom our preaching gave
priority. Analogically, these challenges and priorities
present themselves again in our days. Our evangelical
life would like to be
prophetical,
by denouncing
sin in all its manifestations, the ever-increasing power
of money and of many new "feudal regimes" (Is. 10, 1ss);
by giving
comfort to its many victims (Is. 40,
1ss) and by reviving the spirits of the dejected and of
those who fear and hesitate. (Is 57, 15)
As a response to the system at times based on rents,
benefices and tithes,
mendicant poverty
- both personal and as a community - not only implies a
moral ascesis in order to guarantee the fraternal
sharing of goods, but also becomes an institutional and
personal condition to make present the
Kingdom of God. From this perspective, the celebration
of the mystery of Christmas,
God-with-us,
questions us about our way of living and our way of
relating to things, goods and creation.
Changes also open up the way for
new ways of thinking,
new questions and new cultural concerns.
This is the reason why study is important as well as a
greater presence in universities, from where - in some
way - thought develops.
Mendicant life is, first and above all, a mystical sign
or witness, a visible expression of itinerant preaching
and of the community of brothers and sisters who abandon
themselves to
Providence. This calls us to live spiritually and
profoundly our
dependence on God
and gives us more
freedom to preach the
Good News. It continues to require from
us - in a creative fidelity to the inspiration of St.
Dominic - our laboriosity and our dependence on the
people at whose service we want to put ourselves.
Even today, the star of
Bethlehem continues to shine in the midst of darkness.
It illumines our life so that we could discover more
clearly those things which not only "contribute to the
glory of God and our sanctification, but also bear
directly on the salvation of humankind" (Cfr. LCO 1 §
IV). Such a light also reveals the shadows that could
obscure the beauty, that is always new, of the Dominican
ideal. Mendicants of Truth and itinerant, we will be
purified by being on the way.
During this Jubilee Year, may the monasteries of
contemplative life of the Order - in the joy of the
first love - help us to discover this beauty so as to
feel encouraged to offer it to the others.
Fraternally in Saint Dominic and Saint Catherine
21st November 2006
Memorial of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the
Temple
Pro Orantibus
Day (dedicated to
remembering cloistered religious communities-
translator's note)
Bro Carlos A. Azpiroz Costa op
Master of the Order. |
