“The path of contemplation is inherently a path of love,” that “makes us witnesses of the love we have received,” Pope Francis observed when welcoming superiors and delegates of Discalced Car-melites in the Vatican on 18 April.
Serving “as a ladder that raises us up to God,” contempla-tion, the Pope said, is not about separating one from the world, but grounding us more deeply in it.
Recognizing that the religious are in the process of revising their Constitutions, the Holy Father acknowledged this ”is a signifi-cant undertaking.” Not only does it respond “to a natural human need and the contingencies of community life,” he said, it also marks “an occasion” to devote themselves to prayer and discern-ment.
By “remaining inwardly open to the working of the Holy Spi-rit,” the Pope continued, “you are challenged to discover new lan-guage, new ways, and new means to give greater impetus to the contemplative life that the Lord has called you to embrace.” In this way, the Holy Father said, they enable the charism of Carmel “to attract many hearts, for the glory of God and the good of the Church.”
As the Pope called their his-tory and past “a source of rich-ness,” he likewise encouraged the nuns to “remain open to the pro-mptings of the Spirit,” “to the perennial newness of the Gospel,” and “to the signs that the Lord shows us through the experiences of life and the challenges of history.”
As cloistered women, the Holy Father acknowledged they live a certain “tension” between separation from the world and immersion in it, clarifying that their reality is “far from seeking refuge in interior spiritual conso-lations or a prayer [that is] divo-rced from reality.”
Rather, Pope Francis marvelled, the Carmeli-tes allow themselves “to be caught up by the love of Christ and union with Him, so that His love can pervade your entire existence and find expression in all that you say and do.”
The Pope said that the light they need to revise their Constitutions and address the many concrete problems of monasteries and of community life is “none other than the hope offered by the Gospel,” which, he said, differs from illusions based on human calculations. This, the Pope said, “entails surrendering ourselves to God, learning to read the signs He gives us to discern the future.”
“May your complete immersion in His presence,” the Holy Father said, “always fill you with the joy of sisterhood and mutual love.”