"Living celibacy and communal life in a radical way. Staying away from the danger of activism. Taking care of the training to find a sapiential theology": these are the three basic features of monastic life, which according to card. Rodé must not be neglected, so as to ensure monks will remain in the life of the Church. "Just because monasticism is not embodied by any «opera», by any «deaconship», but only by the radicalism of following Christ, – he explained in his opening speech at today’s plenary meeting , it must be aware that its form is given, first of all, by living celibacy and the community. The monk, the nun who receive the gift of celibacy and accepts to experience it as the wait for the Coming Christ, as a sign that «passes through the scene of this world», must show the consistency of all that lives and works in this celibate state: it constitutes it, as one of those sentinels glimpsed by Isaiah, «sentinels on the walls of Jerusalem who must not rest nor let the Lord rest until He comes»".
