Rougemont

 

 

Conclusion

 

 

 

It is time to conclude this session, but since it is only a stage in the exodus lived by your communities we shall not speak of a conclusion; instead we shall open up new perspectives based on the sharing you experienced during these days, in the name of Christ.

 

Time will not permit any detailed discussion of ideas that caught your attention. I shall then skim over the sectors currently conducive to personal and community growth, in order to consider especially the points revealing a greater dynamism, mobilizing new hopes, or eventually calling for a more generous conversion.

To respect the differences in your three groups, we shall first consider the contribution of the sisters called - for lack of a better name - the others; then the contribution of the community coordinators, and finally that of the formation directors.

 

 

THE CONTRIBUTION OF 'THE OTHERS'

 

Concerning their situation in the community

 

It was noted that the integration of the young professed takes place in satisfactory fashion. Not so smoothly, however, when they enter a bit older, after having enjoyed greater life freedom in the world.

Concerning the young sisters in formation the community had positive things to say; the sisters are aware and clear-sighted in the face of these young persons they meet and see in their daily tasks and during community recreations. Another positive element also noted: a tacit understanding between the elderly sisters and the very young ones which helps resolve superficial conflicts for the greater benefit of the whole community.

 

Concerning their opportunities for responsibility and creativity

 

The sisters feel they are being listened to when they express their needs, and are respected in their legitimate work choices.

They are aware that the community needs their vitality, that the young are influenced more by their witnessing than by their words. By an attentive ongoing evaluation the sisters weigh the authenticity of their answer to God's call, so that the community's general lifestyle may fully correspond to the young sisters' aspirations.

The community sisters take seriously to heart the discernment required during the admission balloting. More or less frequently some will ask the formation director to submit a situation report of the novitiate.

Or again, several days before a commitment ceremony, the community sisters will invite a young aspirant to come share with them her motives and then answer friendly, freely-asked questions.

When evaluating an aspirant's progress several communities also hold a parallel evaluation of the community's responsibilities, precisely on those points subject to reproach.

In general, when the community is obliged to refuse admittance to a young aspirant, kind and respectful efforts are made to give full reasons for the refusal.

 

Concerning the important factors of their life stability

 

It has been said, "An individual must be able to stand on his/her own two feet in order to live community".

The sisters' chief preoccupation, over and above the lack of time for personal formation, is often a work overload, especially when sisters are few, or several are elderly, or the needs of the poor exceed the actual possibilities or vital forces of the community.

What should be eliminated ? That is another question often asked in communities. But on the whole, dialoguing with the coordinator has a liberating effect in regards to these areas where balance is hard to find.

 

Finally, sisters find help in their search for spiritual stability through a kind of evangelical realism which reveals itself in words such as these:

- "Through my present sufferings God is opening a door to spiritual growth for me".

- "I must bridge the gap between self-illusion and God's own way of looking at me and others".

- "I must change my attitude from the 'community for me' to 'me for the community".

 

Several hopeful experiences for the future

 

- Many communities are seeking a new fraternal correction formula. They have experimented with various approaches: for example, asking forgiveness at designated times and in the community's presence.

- New methods increasingly lead towards fraternal stimulation - rather than fraternal correction - by firmly rejecting the formal and guilt-provoking aspects of former practices.

- Also noted: a certain sharing of tasks or charitable initiatives with lay volunteers.

- Again: confiding the community meeting animation to young perpetually professed sisters, for example: meetings on the spirituality of the institute or the founder's charism.

- Finally: to balance an increasing workload some communities live a desert day; certain others will alternate an absorbing occupation with a relaxing one such as substituting as receptionist, or in some other undemanding task.

 

For this first group a program: to conscientize.

 

 

THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE COMMUNITY COORDINATORS

 

 

Concerning the method used for community animation

 

- As often said, the community's foremost animator is the Holy Spirit but still the sisters expect much from the coordinator's personal commitment, even when, and especially when, she sees herself as poor. The sisters have high expectations; they want to hear words that will liberate, clarify, guide, in harmony with the Word of God.

 

The coordinator is a source of growth for the whole community,

 

. when she informs and disseminates information to the whole community: for example, among those who have responsibilities, because all then become aware of role and task complexities;

. when she uses sounding board techniques to pick up reactions to some given information, or to hear about concrete community problems;

. when she shows confidence in the sisters entrusted with responsibilities;

. when she varies community goals to achieve a fresh departure;

. when she restores community communication lines;

. finally, when her concern is to cooperate with the formation director, to share with her on a regular basis, to support her, and bolster the community's esteem for her work.

 

The coordinator can foster individual growth in the following ways:

 

- by showing the sisters how the Spirit sometimes manifests himself unexpectedly in daily life;

- by helping one or another sister find, or find anew her personal interest centres when she is tempted to give up; by helping another one use her God-given gifts to serve others;

- by preparing sisters for future responsibilities;

- by her initiatives in the ongoing formation field, for even though religious life is itself a formation, it has to be sustained, enriched and diversified; in particular, when community fervor diminishes, a revitalization needs, more than ever before, a high-quality intellectual and spiritual nourishment;

- by her availability for individual personal dialogue; availability for all, which implies a carefully planned time schedule for the purpose of dialoguing; also implying that sisters will cooperate by not being too demanding;

- by coordinating the entire community efforts to help the sick and the elderly, in order to prevent, as much as possible, a depersonalization through idleness or abnormal rapid regressions.

 

In return the coordinator is enriched by contacts with the sisters, especially when she listens to them in a spiritual accompaniment context, for this listening is often a personal in-depth challenge for her.

 

For this second group the program is: to revitalize.

 

 

THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE FORMATION DIRECTORS

 

Concerning their function and their work

 

- As never before the formation director's work is considered the key to the future.

- To avoid the frequent isolation of formators, several communities have set up a large or small formation team; or at least they have designated a sister to act as assistant director. This collaboration between formation director and formation team or assistant director is often beneficial to the young sisters, but requires a clear description of responsibilities.

- It has also been noted that the dialogue quality between the community coordinator and the formation director strongly conditions the task of vocation discernment, the future sister's personality development, and her successful community integration.

 

Concerning the means at their disposal

 

- Efforts made to upgrade the formation of the formators are now bearing a few first fruits. But, in general, there is a felt need to move on to a more active and ambitious phase.

- Sisters are astonished at the great difference between the religious life formation given to men and that given to women and yet they live the same type of monastic life.

- Many formation directors are questioning themselves

 . on the postulate, novitiate, and post-novitiate kind of formation programs needed;

. on the content and the pedagogy offered to young aspirants at different formation stages;

. on the way a young aspirant can, and must, make herself personally known before reaching the decision to enter religious life.

 

Concerning their situation and their personal progress

 

- The great opportunities for ongoing growth and conversion given the formator by her role were pointed out.

- A formator acts according to what she is; she listens according to what she lives, and her own personal itinerary has repercussions on her formation work.

- A formator never presents herself as a model to the young people she guides, and yet in reality she is their first human point of reference in the community.

- The formation director who listens attentively must keep her word if she wishes her listening to be formative as well as helpful.

- The formation director, who journeys with young aspirants to initiate them to true freedom, feels herself 'beset by weakness', as Paul says in his letter to the Hebrews (5:2).

- In spite of her obligation to respect normal time frames, the formation director must still respect the young sisters' slow development and await the hour they will, without any fear, choose to embark on this faith adventure; or again she may let them weigh for some time longer the cost of a transcendent sacrifice they alone can make.

- In spite of her desire to be totally available, the formation director must admit with a poor and humble heart her own limitations: and when she must admit being too exhausted, too preoccupied to truly listen, it is her own humility that becomes the formator. Likewise, when she must unwillingly postpone a dialogue.

- Finally, during these past few days we have often expressed the need for the coordinator to support and understand the formation director, in a deeply respectful spirit for each other's respective functions: the counselling role is one thing, authority is another.

 

The program for this third group: to liberate.

 

                                                                   *

 

Among the important subjects broached in these three groups several are seen as being future concerns of the U.C.R.C. (Union canadienne des religieuses contemplatives). And it is at the U.C.R.C. level that initiatives can be taken. For example:

 

. formation of formation directors, felt as the most urgent need;

. information sharing on programs and formation means for young aspirants;

. with the help of reliable experts, initiating a reflection process on problems of elderly care and means of coping with them;

. an effective collaboration with the vocation ministry team;

. improving the media image of contemplative life.

 

This is a brief summary of a few concrete workshop results. Others are invisible for the moment but they will slowly emerge in the silence of the heart and the cloister, and in step with the Spirit.

 

                                                                   *

 

Let our minds and hearts be wide open to what the Spirit is saying to today's Church and monasteries. Let us venture into deep waters. And when it is time for concrete decisions, time for future orientations, let us trust the wisdom which the Spirit, the Paraclete, gives generously to all coordinators who seek it with a poor and humble heart.

 

Confronted with so few vocations to contemplative life, with a future we cannot control, we find ourselves saying: "'How can this be ?" God gave the answer to Mary, our Mother, through the angel's words: "The power of the Most High will overshadow you". Let us fearlessly place ourselves under the Spirit's shadow where the wonders of our God flourish; and may our theological hope, springing from the soil of our poverty, be like a flower of our contemplative love at this stage of our exodus.

 

From the midst of our poverty let us say : "Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth as his sons and daughters, by raising Jesus Christ from the dead, so that we may have a sure hope", so that we may have the life we hope for, and a life of hope. Because Jesus Christ is risen we know the promise of an inheritance is being kept for us in the heavens, "an inheritance our weaknesses can never again diminish, our miseries never again dishonour, and our discouragement never again tarnish" (cf. 1 P 1:3-9).

 

Hope, my sisters, hope together with all your sisters,

and hope for them when they have no strength to do so.

 

Hope: "You are guarded for the salvation

which has been prepared, is revealed at the end of time" (1 P 1:5).

 

Hope in God: what he grants is always a royal gift; but he will do so in his own good time.

For a short time, for the duration of one or two mandates, you have seen yourselves "afflicted by all sorts of troubles"; God has placed you and your sisters in the crucible, so that the gold of your faith will be refined and separated from all dross of sadness.

 

Hope for tomorrow.

 

Hope also "just for today". Since you feel your hands are empty, hold them out: Jesus our Lord will fill them, for "although you have never seen him you love him, and without seeing you now believe in him", - him, whom you serve by accepting the Exodus (1 P 1:8).

 

Ask the Mother of God to tell you what is truly the hope of the poor; and since you are poor, clothed with the dignity of the poor belonging to Jesus, rejoice now, today, for this Joy that no words can express, because it is already part of the glory of God.

 

  

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