Table of Contents | Words: Alphabetical - Frequency - Inverse - Length - Statistics | Help | IntraText Library
The Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life
Verbi Sponsa

IntraText CT - Text

Previous - Next

Click here to show the links to concordance

In the mission of the Church

7. “The pilgrim Church is by her very nature missionary”; (37) therefore mission is also essential to Institutes of contemplative life. (38) Cloistered nuns fulfil that mission by dwelling at the missionary heart of the Church, by means of constant prayer, the oblation of self and the offering of the sacrifice of praise.

Their life thus becomes a mysterious source of apostolic fruitfulness (39) and blessing for the Christian community and for the whole world.

It is charity, poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom 5:5), which makes nuns co-workers of the truth (cf. 3 Jn v. 8), participants in Christ's work of Redemption (cf. Col 1:24), and through their vital union with the other members of the Mystical Body makes their lives fruitful, wholly directed to the pursuit of charity, for the good of all. (40)

Saint John of the Cross writes that “truly a crumb of pure love is more precious in the Lord's sight and of greater benefit to the Church than all the other works together”. (41) In the wonderment of her splendid intuition, Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus declares: “I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was ablaze with love. I understood that Love alone enabled the Church's members to act . . . Yes, I found my place in the Church . . . at the heart of the Church, my Mother, I will be Love”. (42)

The insight of the Saint of Lisieux is the conviction of the Church, repeatedly voiced by the Magisterium: “The Church is deeply aware and, without hesitation she forcefully proclaims, that there is an intimate connection between prayer and the spreading of the Kingdom of God, between prayer and the conversion of hearts, between prayer and the fruitful reception of the saving and uplifting Gospel message”. (43)

The specific contribution of nuns to evangelization, to ecumenism, to the growth of the Kingdom of God in the different cultures, is eminently spiritual. It is the soul and leaven of apostolic ventures, leaving the practical implementation of them to those whose vocation it is. (44)

And since those who become the absolute property of God become God's gift to all, the life of nuns “is truly a gift set at the heart of the mystery of ecclesial communion, accompanying the apostolic mission of those who exert themselves in proclaiming the Gospel”. (45)

As a reflection and radiation of their contemplative life, nuns offer to the Christian community and to the world of today, more than ever in need of true spiritual values, a silent proclamation of the mystery of God and a humble witness to it, thus keeping prophecy alive in the nuptial heart of the Church. (46)

Their life, given wholly and in full freedom to the service of God's praise (cf. Jn 12:1-8), in itself proclaims and relays the primacy of God and the transcendence of the human person, created in his image and likeness. It is therefore a summons to everyone to “that space in the heart where every person is called to union with the Lord”. (47)

Living in and by the Lord's presence, nuns are a particular foreshadowing of the eschatological Church immutable in its possession and contemplation of God; they “visibly represent the goal towards which the entire community of the Church travels. Eager to act and yet devoted to contemplation", the Church advances down the paths of time with her eyes fixed on the future restoration of all things in Christ”. (48)




37) Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church Ad Gentes, 2.



38) Cf. John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata (25 March 1996), 72; Encyclical Letter Redemptoris Missio (7 December 1990), 23.



39) Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life Perfectae Caritatis, 7; John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata (25 March 1996), 8; 59.



40) Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 953; Saint Clare of Assisi, Third Letter to Agnes of Prague, 8; Writings, SC 325, 102: “And to make my own the words of the Apostle, I esteem you as a fellow-worker of God himself and an upholder of the weak and vacillating members of his ineffable Body”.



41) Spiritual Canticle 29, 2; cf. John Paul II, Homily in the Vatican Basilica (30 November 1997): “I ask the cloistered nuns in particular to set themselves at the very heart of Mission by their constant prayer of adoration and contemplation of the mystery of the Cross and Resurrection”.



42) Manuscript B, 3v.



43) John Paul II, Address to Cloistered Nuns, Nairobi (7 May 1980), 2; cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church Ad Gentes, 40: “Institutes of contemplative life, by their prayer, penance and suffering, have a very great importance in the conversion of souls, because it is God who, when beseeched, sends labourers into his harvest (cf Mt 9:38), opens the souls of non-Christians to hear the Gospel (cf. Acts 16:14), and makes the word of salvation fruitful in their hearts (cf. 1 Cor 3:7)”.



44) Cf. Blessed Jordan of Saxony, Letter IV to Blessed Diana d'Andolò: “What you achieve in your stillness, I achieve by moving from place to place: all this we do for love of him. He is our sole end”.



45) John Paul II, Address to Cloistered Nuns, Loreto (10 September 1995), 4.



46) Cf. Saint Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, 4, 20, 8f.: PG 7, 1037: “It is not only in speaking that prophets prophesied, but also in contemplating and conversing with God and in their every action, accomplishing all that Spirit prompted them to do”.



47) John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata (25 March 1996), 59.



48) Ibid.






Previous - Next

Table of Contents | Words: Alphabetical - Frequency - Inverse - Length - Statistics | Help | IntraText Library

Best viewed with any browser at 800x600 or 768x1024 on Tablet PC
IntraText® (V89) - Some rights reserved by EuloTech SRL - 1996-2007. Content in this page is licensed under a Creative Commons License