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| Poor
Clares are called "Contemplatives", not because we are
the only ones who practice "contemplation", but because
our whole lifestyle is designed to foster contemplative prayer.
Our silence helps us to listen to God who speaks in our hearts.
Our poverty, simplicity of life and the discipline of self-denial
serve to remove those desires which are obstacles to union with
our true Beloved. The daily schedule, which calls us again and
again to the temple for prayer, does not allow us to forget the
"one thing necessary". Even our religious habit as well
as the sparse décor of the monastic rooms remind us of who we are
as worshipers of God. |
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| Pope
John Paul II says that one draws close to the presence of God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, "above all by letting oneself be
taught an adoring silence. At the culmination of the knowledge and
experience of God, says the Holy Father, is his absolute
transcendence." This is reached, he goes on to say, through
"the prayerful assimilation of Scripture and the
liturgy." This adoring silence is absolutely essential to our
reading of Scripture, absolutely essential to our celebration of
the sacred liturgy, absolutely essential to theology and to
preaching, to our commitments in society and in family, and to the
wholeness and authenticity of our lives as human beings. |
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| This is
the Christian pilgrimage: from the noisy pride of our sinfulness
to the adoring silence of faith, hope and love, and from the
adoring silence of faith, hope, and love to the divinizing glory
of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Most Holy Trinity is the
central mystery of our faith. It is the radiant core of what we
believe as Christians. It is the 'complete truth' into which we
are led by the Holy Spirit, according to the promise of Jesus. The
Holy Spirit teaches us the way of adoring silence, whispering to
us like a gentle breeze, drawing us to the Father, like the Son,
with the Son and through the Son. |
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We
have been baptized into a relationship with the Father through
the Son in the Holy Spirit. The Three Divine Persons dwell within
us. We are inhabited by their glory. We are never left alone, even
in the moments of our greatest solitude. We carry within ourselves
the adorable mystery of the Trinity. God, Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, is present within our hearts, present to us, present for
us. It is we who fail to be present to the Presence within us,
because we are alienated from our deepest selves, afraid to
descend into the depths of our own mystery, ever escaping into
noise and feverish activity, so as to avoid interior silence at
all costs. |
For St.
Clare, contemplation of God begins with the God-man, Christ Jesus.
In a letter to one of her followers, St. Agnes of Prague, she
writes, "As a poor virgin, embrace the poor Christ. Look upon
Him who became contemptible for you, and follow Him, making
yourself contemptible in the world for Him. Your Spouse, though
more beautiful than the children of men became, for your
salvation, the lowest of men, despised, struck, scourged untold
times throughout His whole body, and then died amid the sufferings
of the Cross. O most noble Queen, gaze upon Him, consider Him,
contemplate Him, as you desire to imitate Him." Christian
contemplation, and especially Clarian contemplation, is always
personal, leading to an intimate, loving relationship with the
Divine Persons. After experiencing divine love, the daughter of
Clare must then follow the exhortation of her Mother: "Show
forth in your actions the love which you have
within you". |
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| There
is a way back to our own deepest selves. There is a way back to
the presence of the indwelling Trinity. The way back is the way of
adoring silence. "Be still and know that I am God" (Ps
45:11). |
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