The actio for an evangelical action
The actio is the Word which becomes word incarnate in a life: “It is no longer I who live, it is Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2:20)
a) Also the Apostolic Exhortation says that contemplatio must not be a vague aspiration, destined to leave emptiness, or even a dangerous alienation, when it says: “Peter, overcome by the light of the Transfiguration, exclaims: ‘Lord, it is good that we are here’ (Mt 17:4), but he is invited to return to the byways of the world in order to continue serving the Kingdom of God: ‘Come down, Peter! You wanted to rest up on the mountain: come down. Preach the word of God, be insistent both when it is timely and when it is not, reprove, exhort, give encouragement using all your forbearance and ability to teach. Work, spend yourself, accept even sufferings and torments, in order that, through the brightness and beauty of good works, you may possess in charity what is symbolized in the Lord’s white garments’” The passage is from Augustine. And Vita Consacrata, which quotes it in n. 75, concludes: “The fact that consecrated persons fix their gaze on the Lord’s countenance does not diminish their commitment on behalf of humanity; on the contrary, it strengthens this commitment, enabling it to have an impact on history, in order to free history from all that disfigures it.”
b) From amazement to action. From the world of God to the world of humanity. From the heights of God’s mystery to the service of sisters and brothers. After the contact with the Word “who was in the beginning and was with God and was God”, there is the contact with the “Word who became flesh and lived among us” and who invites us to come down and live among the brothers and sisters to serve them.
It is the famous “ascend in order to descend” of Augustine, the going up to contemplate, in order then to have the strength to descend, to stoop in service as the Word (Parola), the Divine Word (Verbo), the only-begotten Son did. In order then to resume, day after day, the journey back toward ascent to the heights of contemplation.
We, in fact, descend in service, to have the ability to go up even higher: “descendite ut ascendatis”; we need to descend in service in order to rise to the higher, not illusory understanding of the divine realities.
St. Gregory, in a passage quoted by VC (n. 82) places the ability to “see and understand” the things of God in close relationship to the intensity of service: “when charity lovingly stoops to provide even for the smallest needs of our neighbor, then does it suddenly surge upwards to the highest peaks. And when in great kindness it bends to the most extreme needs, then with much vigor does it resume its soaring to the heights.”
And thus lectio divina and daily life strengthen each other in mutual support, in mutual verification and in mutual immersion in the divine way of being and acting.
Occupations then do not alienate from God, but are steps toward knowing him ever better.
And we become “poets”, that is speakers and fulfillers (“facitori e realizzatori”) of the Word. It is thus that the Word becomes incarnate and grows, continuing its course through the world.
c) The movement from contemplatio to actio, projection toward action and service, can be practiced in two ways; the choice depends on the type of work, the commitments of the day and also on personal temperament:
- either through repetition during the day, of a word or a phrase of the text meditated; that is typical of mystical prayer, which demands enough freedom from occupations, even though someone while quite busy finds the way to insert it. The practice usually is easier when one does manual labor;
- or through an intention or purpose, a decision for a day, as consequence of the preceding moments: this is the preferred method for persons of action, who make programs for themselves to carry out. And it is more according to a certain practice of the recent past.
e) To be added: lectio divina does not help me only to contemplata aliis tradere (to recount what was contemplated) almost as though mission consists only in an action deduced from what I meditated, but it impels me to be contemplativus in actione, to meet God in the human person, in diverse situations seen not as chance happenings, but as requests of God who wishes my filial response. It’s a question of “seeing all things in God and God in all things”, as the typically Ignatian spirituality of action states.
The heart’s glance, made more penetrating, sees the presence of the Lord, understands the profound significance of that which, seen superficially, would remain insignificant, banal or even disconcerting. It is not just a new way of seeing reality, but a new way of being, of placing oneself before reality.
We see here the possibility of harmonizing various great spiritualities of the Christian tradition, spiritualities which find a solid foundation in lectio divina, as, moreover, the initiators of spiritual movements who have always found their basic inspiration from and in the Word.