Vultum Dei quaerere. In Pope Francis’ Constitution the contemplatives are donated winds to fly high

So great was the anticipation, so great the hopes for indications on the incarnated path to which the contemplatives devote their life. Their only life. Why strip it of purpose? Why shouldn’t they respond to what humanity and the whole Church expect from those who felt the calling to follow the Lord, abiding to a specifically structured form? 

 

 “Consecrated persons, by virtue of their consecration, ‘follow the Lord in a special way, in a prophetic way.’ They are called to recognise the signs of God’s presence in daily life and wisely to discern the questions posed to us by God and the men and women of our time.

The first impulse when reading Pope Francis’ Apostolic Constitution Vultum Dei quaerere on women’s contemplative life, is heartfelt gratitude arising at every turn of the page.

There are no imposed dispositions, rigorous observance, a Procrustean bed where our limbs are reduced to segments until they fit within the proposed scheme.

They have been given to us as wings to fly

Without being afraid to fall, for the winds that sustains them is Ruach, the Spirit that ascends over the waters of the Creation just as the mother bird soars into the air to reach the nest and protect her little ones. That Spirit ushers us to the doors of the monastery, helping us cross its threshold, with a sole motivation 
 “drawn by God’s Holy Face and by the ‘sacred ground of the other.’” 
”God’s Holy Face” in the space and time of the monastery is Light illuminating the way. Sometimes it may be a dazzling light, making its way through the night and teaching us to open our eyes to the Gift we have received, until we finally exclaim: “For to me, to live is Christ!” (Phil 1:21), thereby expressing “the all-encompassing character at the heart of a vocation to the contemplative life.”

Far from being an abstraction, or an intellectual survey, it’s a veritable studium amoris for “the consecrated life is a history of passionate love for the Lord and for humanity. In the contemplative life, this history unfolds day after day in a passionate quest to see the face of God in intimate relationship with Him.”

Assuming this form requires time and fatigue, both at personal and community level. This challenge requires a steadfast commitment that is impossible when left to our sole forces. The supreme model, filled with true female authoritativeness, and not only with external tokens of rebellion to male chauvinist power, is the focal point of our life: “Following Mary’s example, the contemplative is a person centred in God and for whom God is the unum necessarium (cf. Luke 10:42), in comparison with which all else is seen from a different perspective, because seen through new eyes.”

New eyes given as a gift, but which should also be conquered, incarnated in persevering oblation translated into an ever-present tide that passes across the whole world and touches every person:

“You pray and intercede for our many brothers and sisters who are prisoners, migrants, refugees and victims of persecution. Your prayers of intercession embrace the many families experiencing difficulties, the unemployed, the poor, the sick, and those struggling with addiction, to mention just a few of the more urgent situations.”

Rooted in the rediscovery of the “centrality of the word of God” that irradiates and spreads like lifeblood, giving nourishment “to life, prayer, contemplation, and daily life”, only then can it be founded as the “principle of communion” for our communities.

A spirituality, a life in the Spirit, thus takes shape, as stated in the Constitution: “A spirituality grounded in the word of God, the power of the sacramental life, the teachings of the Church’s Magisterium and the writings of your founders and foundresses, a spirituality that enables you to become daughters of heaven and daughters of the earth, disciples and missionaries, according to your proper way of life.”

Wings that are not pinioned by legalese dispositions. They are sustained wings to fly high.