PART I

THE MEANING AND VALUE OF THE ENCLOSURE OF NUNS

In the mystery of the Son in his communion of love with the Father

3. In a specific and radical way, cloistered contemplatives conform to Christ Jesus in prayer on the mountain and to his Paschal Mystery, which is death for the sake of resurrection. (¹⁰)

The ancient spiritual tradition of the Church, taken up by the Second Vatican Council, explicitly connects the contemplative life to the prayer of Jesus “on the mountain”, (¹¹) or solitary place not accessible to all but only to those whom he calls to be with him, apart from the others (cf. Mt 17:1-9; Lk 6:12-13; Mk 6:30-31; 2 Pt 1:16-18).

The Son is always united with the Father (cf. Jn 10:30; 17:11), but during his life there are special moments of solitude and prayer, encounter and communion, when he exults in his divine Sonship. In this way, he shows the loving impulse and ceaseless movement of his being as Son towards the One who begot him from all eternity.

This association of the contemplative life with the prayer of Jesus in a solitary place suggests a unique way of sharing in Christ's relationship with the Father. The Holy Spirit, who led Jesus into the desert (cf. Lk 4:1), invites the nun to share the solitude of Christ Jesus, who “with the eternal Spirit” (Heb 9:14) offered himself to the Father. The solitary cell, the closed cloister, are the place where the nun, bride of the Incarnate Word, lives wholly concentrated with Christ in God. The mystery of this communion is revealed to her to the extent that, docile to the Holy Spirit and enlivened by his gifts, she listens to the Son (cf. Mt 17:5), fixes her gaze upon his face (cf. 2 Cor 3:18), and allows herself to be conformed to his life, to the point of the supreme self-offering to the Father (cf. Phil 2:5 ff.), for the praise of his glory.

The enclosure therefore, even in its physical form, is a special way of being with the Lord, of sharing in “Christ's emptying of himself by means of a radical poverty, expressed in ... renunciation not only of things but also of "space", of contacts, of so many benefits of creation”, (¹²) at one with the fruitful silence of the Word on the Cross. It is clear then that “withdrawal from the world in order to dedicate oneself in solitude to a more intense life of prayer is nothing other than a special way of living and expressing the Paschal Mystery of Christ”. (¹³) It is a true encounter with the Risen Lord, a journey in ceaseless ascent to the Father's house.

In watchful waiting for the Lord's return, the cloister becomes a response to the absolute love of God for his creature and the fulfilment of his eternal desire to welcome the creature into the mystery of intimacy with the Word, who gave himself as Bridegroom in the Eucharist (¹⁴) and remains in the tabernacle as the heart of full communion with him, drawing to himself the entire life of the cloistered nun in order to offer it constantly to the Father (cf. Heb 7:25). To the gift of Christ the Bridegroom, who on the Cross offered his body unreservedly, the nun responds in like terms with the gift of the “body”, offering herself with Jesus Christ to the Father and cooperating with him in the work of redemption. Separation from the world thus gives a Eucharistic quality to the whole of cloistered life, since “besides its elements of sacrifice and expiation, [it assumes] the aspect of thanksgiving to the Father, by sharing in the thanksgiving of the beloved Son”. (¹⁵)