27 Aug 2014 Fr. Raymond
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| Fr. Raymond - Nunraw Cloister |
VISION OF THE ORDER
The Phenomenon and significance of
PRECARIOUSNESS
I would like to attempt to look at the simple reality of the
precariouness of the monastic life today in the light of the mystery of the
Church as a whole. After all the Monastic Community is, as St Paul describes it,
the Church at Nunraw, the Church at Roscrea, and the Church at Tautra or
wherever.
We might start by recalling how the monastic
community is said to be a powerhouse of prayer in the life of the Church. A
beautiful and very meaningful metaphor that wasn't available to the Doctors and
the Fathers of old. Again the monastic community has been compared to a
Lighthouse, a beacon for the faithful, lighting up the true and safe harbour of
life's voyage for each of them. No doubt you could all bring to mind many other
beautiful images of the place of the monastic life in the life of the Church.
These images put us at the heart of the
Church's life in way that sets us above the common faithful, if we dare use
such an expression. They put us an a pedestal, they put us in the front line of
the Christian warfare. They set us on the battlements of the Church's defences,
and so on. But there is another side to our relationship with the Church at
large. And this only becomes evident in the light of our precariousness.
I mean the fact of our
being born of the local Church. The foundation of the vocation of most of us was
established by the life and vigour of the local Church from which we came. On
the whole no Monastery is stronger than the living faith of its local Church. We
may be Powerhouses of prayer, we may be Lighthouses of Faith, but on the whole,
the foundations of those Powerhouses, the foundations of these Lighthouses are
the strength of the Local Church out of which we are born. When that strength
wanes, and history proves that wane it must, sooner or later, then the
foundations of the monastic life are weakened.
If Church History
proves anything it proves that the history of the Church, including the
Monastic Church, is the history of Israel all over again.
Every Church goes through its great cycles of growth and decay,
rising and falling. Where is the Church of the great St Augustine in North
Africa today? Where is the Christian heritage of Egypt or Asia Minor today?
And this brings us to the final assessment of our
precariousness, an assessment that measures it against the final destiny of the
Church as a whole. The New Catechism of the Church tells us :
"Before Christ's second coming the Church
must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers .
"The Church will enter the glory of the
kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his
death and resurrection. The Kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic
triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's
victory over the final unleashing of evil.. ..... "
The most significant phrases here for our spiritual
understanding of our precariousness are that the Church will "follow the Lord in his death" as
well as his "his Resurrection",
and that the Kingdom will be fulfilled, not
by the historic triumph of a
progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing
of evil., ..... "
Now we are the Church, the Church at Citeaux, and
we are caught up in that great mystery, that Divine foolishness, of victory through being vanquished.
The good of the Order no more consists in the historic triumph
of a progressive ascendancy than does the good of the Church. The success of
the mission of the Order is as much tied to following the Lord in his failure
and death as does the mission of the Church.
The measurement of Life is not a mathematical thing. When the
Order was at its strongest there is every reason to believe it was also at its
weakest. And likewise we may dare to think that when it is at its weakest it
may be at its purest and strongest.
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