Respect the Seniors, Love the Juniors

Dom Jean-Pierre Longeat, OSB

President of AIM

Respect the Seniors, Love the Juniors

RB 4,70.71 ; 63,10

As a starting-point we should listen to what St Benedict says on our theme. St Benedict is especially concerned with a good balance within the community between the contribution of the young and the older brothers and sisters. In chapter 4 on the instruments of the spiritual art he gives his instruction, ‘Respect the seniors, love the juniors’ (4.71-72). It is a matter of placing the relationships of the ones and the others within a mutual attentiveness.

From the beginning of his Rule the monk is considered as a son listening to his father. This is, of course, a reference to the Book of Proverbs (1.8), but even more is it a gospel emphasis. Jesus places himself in a relationship of sonship to his Father who is also our Father, and from the very fact invites us also to be like beloved children of this Father who loves us. Whatever the age of a monk or a nun, of a disciple of Christ, it is always a relationship of a son or daughter, who listens to him from whom everything is received.

Chapter 7 on humility returns to the same question. It defines the monk as a child who rests in confidence in the embrace of a mother, just as the disciple listens to God (cf. Psalm 130). If one listens to it carefully, this is an astonishing definition of a monk. The whole secret therefore is to rest in God as a child, a little child, rests in its mother’s arms without any pride or ambition or pursuit of independent, self-confident aims. In such an attitude of confidence, of faith, a maturity is gradually acquired and, as the twelfth step of humility says, ‘the monk will soon come to that love of God which is perfect and casts out fear’ (7.67). This is the journey of the whole of monastic life.

The school which St Benedict is aiming to found for all those who put themselves in this position must aim at a running in the way of the commandments: ‘In so far as a monk progresses in the religious life and in faith, he runs with an expansive heart [ever younger], full of the unbelievable sweetness of love’ (Prologue 49). It is not guaranteed that this occurs always and with everyone, but at least this is the perspective opened by St Benedict. In any case, no one can judge from outside what is going on in the intimacy of each person’s heart; only God knows that.

In line with this proposal, St Benedict presents cenobites as beginners (Rule 1 and 73), enlisting them in the ranks of a fraternal army. They detach themselves progressively from the simple fervour of beginners, to enter upon trials and combat against interior forces of adversity, becoming more autonomous with age. Some can even eventually lay claim to an eremitical lifestyle. In fact we experience in our monasteries that most of the seniors end their days in this kind of solitude, either in the infirmary or even in their current style of life. The seniors, even if they remain in community life, acquire a certain distance from passing events, and help the whole community, especially the young, to take a step backwards with regard to the quarrels, confrontations and discussions which are a necessary but transitory part of daily life.

St Benedict is well aware of the contribution made by each group to community life, and this is why he insists that everyone should be consulted when there is important business to be transacted in the monastery (Rule 3.1-3). He notes, ‘This leads us to say that all the brothers should be consulted, since God often reveals to the younger the better course of action.’ How good it is to hear this from someone as experienced as Benedict! Far from holding the fact of considering oneself as a child of God as a reason for irresponsible dependency, the author of the Rule insists that being young in a community is a call to play the part that is appropriate to this age. How far this is from the infantilising customs which we see only too often in our holy institutions! It happened in our communities – especially in the northern hemisphere – that even after reaching the age of fifty a person is still treated as a little child who has no right to give an independent opinion. This is mere childishness and must be vigorously opposed, especially since these ‘young’ in our communities may be adults of thirty, forty years or more, matured by a wide experience of life.

Once he has given his spiritual teaching in the early chapters of the Rule, Benedict deals with practical questions in which he unpacks the major principles which he has laid down at the start. So in chapter 22 St Benedict underlines the importance of mixing generations even when he is speaking of sleeping arrangements in the dormitories: ‘the younger brothers should have their beds mixed among those of the seniors.’ In concrete terms it is important to avoid ambiguities of relationships among the young brothers, to make use of the encouragement of hardened warriors for the young, but also to strengthen the elders to retain the vitality of youth. Such measures may seem very out-of-date in a world more fearful of abuse of the young by their elders. But should such a fear dominate everything? Encouragement between generations also has its part to play, even though it brings with it the danger of abuse. In the case of monasteries, quite apart from those involved in education, such abuse can issue in homosexual behaviour. Certainly there is a place for vigilance and correction, but these should not impede an exchange of richnesses within a community.

St Benedict’s monastery included also children entrusted to the monks by their families to receive a good education (Rule 59). They were treated in the same way as the monks if they made mistakes or faults. Their first penalty was temporary exclusion, and if they failed to understand the gravity of their offence they were subject to rougher punishments. St Benedict wanted to believe in the capacity of spiritual perception in these young people who filled the monasteries even though they were not always easy to accompany (Rule 20). Chapter 68 on the way of receiving a new member is without doubt the best lesson to teach us St Benedict’s wishes for young monks. To begin with, entry into the community is not made easy: ‘their spirits must be tested to see that they are from God’ (Rule 68.2). This clashes with the attitude so often found of granting young people an easy entry into monastic life. Hard experience demands testing to discover the real issues.

At the time of St Benedict if someone knocked on the door there was first a stay in the guest-quarters, then, if the candidate perseveres he is taken to the place where the novices live. There they are truly apart, sleeping and eating and having different spiritual exercises. An experienced senior, ‘skilled in winning souls’, will be designated to accompany them. Three criteria are given for this accompaniment: examine the young man to see if he really seeks God, if he is fervent for the divine office, if he can live out obedience and difficulties which will not be lacking.

It is possible, therefore, to see both that the young are not treated like royalty in St Benedict’s monastery, and at the same time that their specific needs are taken into account. That is why they are formed separately under the guidance of a senior. There is a progressive entry into the community with particular attention to the interior journey. This clashes with our current feeling which attempts to integrate newcomers as soon as possible into the life of the whole community by appreciating their specific talents. Clearly there must be a balance between these two positions. There is a lot at stake for the monastic life of today. Not enough notice is taken of the difference between generations in the contemporary world, a difference which is rapidly increasing. It demands a structured approach to make possible a healthy dialogue between people of different ages and often of different cultures, mediated by the same Rule.

This progressive integration is all the more important today, when the value of commitment is relativized. It is not rare these days to see monks or sisters even after solemn profession raise questions, without any scruples, about the value of their solemn promise. They can even leave the monastery wholly without warning, a practice which could never occur in professional circumstances. But monastic commitment is more of a personal matter, according to the example of what occurs in the context of a family which in these days can come together and break up ever more easily.

St Benedict lays down the order to be observed in the community (Rule 63), laying down that this depends on the order of entry into the monastery, not on age and certainly not on social standing. Thus ‘one who enters the monastery at the second hour of the day must recognise that whatever his age or dignity he is junior to one who entered at the first hour’ (63.8). Similarly, St Benedict recalls that ‘in no way is there to be advantage or prejudice simply by age in the order to be kept, since Samuel and Daniel judged the elders when they were still children (63.5-6). In the same chapter, in addition to its mention in chapter 4, St Benedict repeats that juniors honour the seniors and seniors have affection for the juniors. To do this he recalls certain rules of fraternal conduct which affect daily life: for example, calling the younger members ‘brother’ or ‘sister’, and the seniors ‘nonnus’ and ‘nonna’. From this derives the noun ‘nun’ and in Italian it still means ‘grandfather’ or ‘grandmother’. The first term marks a recognition on the part of the senior that the junior is a brother in Christ, without any paternal or maternal superiority. The second term denotes at the same time respect and a certain familiarity. It could be interpreted as ‘little father’, ‘little mother’. That is probably not a good expression to use today, but it would be worthwhile to find an equivalent.

St Benedict mentions also some matters of elementary good manners, as for example to give a passing greeting, in which the junior takes the initiative. In the Rule this takes the form of asking a blessing through the senior. In the same way, St Benedict mentions that the junior should rise and offer the senior who passes a place to sit. All these little gestures of respect are signs of a broader respect, each striving to surpass the other in honour.

In western society, where the elders are often brought together in specialised houses, the example of monasteries where different generations live side by side can bear a strong witness, provided that the elders, who form a majority in some western communities, must be careful to avoid the temptation of treating the few remaining juniors – there may be only one! – as their servants. This is even more the case if they are young monks or nuns who have been brought surreptitiously from abroad for this very purpose. Furthermore, St Benedict is very insistent that two members of the same family (of which one is often younger) must not defend each other because of the unbalanced scandals that this may cause within the group. He requires also that the youngest and the elders – because of their greater fragility – should not be made use of on any occasion in a disorderly fashion, such as to let off steam.

In the last analysis the Benedictine Rule was, according to its author, written for beginners, as we have already said. So in the monastery all must be careful to keep the heart of a child, eager to advance on the path of the commandment of love, so that with mutual encouragement the heart of each one may expand, and all may run with joy towards the goal which is none other than union to God. This aim guarantees for each individual the dynamism of living out the novelty and creativity of God. In this age plays an extraordinarily small part.

Lectio divina

Mother Escolástica Ottoni de Mattos, OSB

Abbess of Santa Maria, São Paulo (Brazil)

The rich young man (Matthew 19.16-26)

A Key Question

16 And now a man came to him and asked, ‘Teacher, what good deed must I do to possess eternal life?’ 17Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is one alone who is good. But if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’ 18He said, ‘Which ones?’ Jesus replied, ‘You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false witness. 19Honour your father and your mother. You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ 20The young man said to him, ‘I have kept all these. What do I still lack?’ 21Jesus said, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go and sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’ 22But when the young man heard these words he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

23Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Amen I say to you, it is hard for someone rich to enter the kingdom of Heaven. 24I tell you again, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone rich to enter the kingdom of Heaven.’ 25When the disciples heard this they were much astonished, saying, ‘Who can be saved, then?’ 26Jesus gazed at them and said to them, ‘By human resources it is impossible; for God everything is possible.’

As we read this passage let us stop at the first words, ‘Now a man came to him’. Let us consider the variety of people who come to Jesus in the gospel of Matthew and their different motives. Let us put ourselves too inside this movement of approaching Jesus; let us approach him.

4.3The Tempter approaches Jesus to test him.

4.11 Angels approach him to serve him.

8.2 A leper approaches him to be cleansed.

8.19-20 A scribe approaches him and offers to follow him wherever he goes.

13.36 The disciples approach to ask the meaning of a parable.

17.14 A man approaches to ask his pity on his possessed son.

26.7 A woman approaches with an alabaster flask to anoint Jesus’ head.

26.49 Judas approaches to give Jesus the kiss of death.

Here, in 19.16, a man approaches him and asks, ‘What good deed must I do to possess eternal life?’ The person who approaches in this passage is called ‘someone’ (eis in Greek). This could be any of us. Nevertheless, he addresses Jesus as ‘Master’.

- He is seeking eternal life

- He is a young man

- He keeps the commandments

- He does not go in for half-measures, since he goes off sad because he finds it impossible to accept the one thing he lacks

- To have nothing, only ‘treasure in heaven’, is the final lesson.

Let us look carefully at the passage. It is composed of two distinct highly structured scenes:

I. Dialogue of a man with Jesus

a) Approach to Jesus (v. 16a)

            b) Question to Jesus (v. 16b)

                        c) Answer of Jesus (v. 18b-19)

            b’) Question to Jesus (v. 20)

                        c’) Answer of Jesus (v. 21)

            b’’) interroger Jésus (v. 20)

                        c’’) recevoir une réponse de Jésus (v. 21)

a’) Departure from Jesus (v. 22)

This dialogue is framed by a conflict which is all the sharper in that it concerns a commitment of the whole life, and even of the after-life.

As for ‘everything’, the demand is for everything:

v. 16 approach is balanced by departure (v. 22)

v. 16 ‘to have eternal life’ is opposed ‘to have many possessions’ (v. 22)

In the course of the exchange (v. 21) there are many antitheses: go><come, sell><possess, give to the poor><have a treasure. These antithetical parallelisms contrast with the wholly stable promise of Jesus: enter into life, enter into the kingdom of heaven, enter into the kingdom of God (v. 17,23,24).

The young man is preoccupied with HAVING; being rich and accustomed to having, he wants, with all good and logical intention, to have eternal life. Jesus presents him with another reality, ‘be perfect…follow me’ and so have nothing. It is a matter of total dispossession in view of the Absolute which is calling him. As Romano Guardini underlines, ‘Possessing anything is already to be rich… What matters is possession itself.’[1] St Benedict reminds us in the chapter on good works, ‘to prefer nothing to Christ’ (Rule 4.21). And again at the end of his Rule, as a witness who has taken the Christian and monastic life seriously, he says, ‘To prefer absolutely nothing to Christ, and may he bring us all together to eternal life’ (Rule 72.11-12).

The commandments of the Law, expressed in negative form, already show the presence of a need which represents a void, a void needing to be filled, a dispossession of the instinct to kill, to commit adultery, to steal, to bear false witness. Paul Beauchamp attests, ‘The prohibitions of the dialogue create a void in front of a space where God asks nothing’[2] The whole Law is represented by the commandments quoted.

Next ‘What do I still lack’ and ‘If you wish to be perfect’ (v. 20-21). The adjective teleios signifies a completed action, brought to maturity. In addition this is evoked by the word translated ‘commandment’ entole, en teleios in view of completion. This young man has not yet reached maturity even though he observes the commandments. He is caught in a coming-and-going between selling and possessing, giving to the poor or keeping for himself; he is at the beginning of the road. The founder of Hassidism, Baal-Shem-Tov, a seventeenth century rabbi, gives us this pearl from the Jewish tradition:

These are the words which Moses spoke to all the sons of Israel beyond the Jordan in the desert (Dt 1.1). More than one person thinks he has found God and is entirely wrong. More than one person thinks that he is longing for God at a distance when God is within him. For yourself, always think that you are finding yourself on the bank of the Jordan although you have not yet entered the land. And if you have already kept several of the commandments, be aware that you have done nothing.[3]

In all his approaches and departures, his coming and going, the young man clings to his possessions. He cannot accept the void which is the place of Christ within himself.

II – Dialogue of Jesus with his disciples

a) Saying of Jesus

            1. Difficult for a rich man to enter (v. 23)

            2. Easier for a camel to pass through (v. 24)

                        b) Question of the disciples to Jesus: ‘then who can be saved?’(v. 25)

a’) Saying of Jesus

            1. Impossible for men (v. 26)

            2. Possible for God (v. 26).

At the heart of this sharp antithesis (‘difficult…easy’) the disciples’ question arises dramatically; it concerns salvation. ‘Being saved’ is a reality which occurs often in the gospel of Matthew from the very beginning as we can see:

– It is linked to the very name of Jesus: ‘You will call him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins (Matthew 1.1).

– It can also be linked to danger: ‘Lord, save us, we are sinking’ (Matthew 8.25)

– To an illness: ‘If I can only touch his tunic I shall be saved’ (Matthew 9.21-22).

The objective of our pericope is expressed in this verse, ‘Whoever holds firm till the end (eis telos) will be saved (sothesetai)’ (Matthew 10.22). Again the perspective of achievement. Nothing can happen outside this perspective, but for Jesus holding firm to the end means the cross, the doorway by which life is entered. The question is so serious that Jesus leaves it to be understood that such a task is possible only for God. By this he shows us the necessary dependence of salvation on God. Jesus himself is not saved alone. It is to this that he is invited on the cross, ‘If you are the Son of God save yourself and come down from the cross’ (Matthew 27.40). And again, ‘He saved others and he cannot save himself’ (Matthew 27.42).

Jesus, God and man, did not wish to exempt himself from this need. As St Paul puts it to the Philippians 2.6-8, ‘Who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be grasped. But he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, born in human likeness, and found in human shape; he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, death on a cross.’ To save oneself is not going to the limits of dispossessing oneself, it is coming down from the cross, having no need of it. Nevertheless, this is what gives us the key to dispossession.

Conclusion

As the Letter to the Hebrews tell us, Moses ‘considered that the humiliations offered to the Anointed were more precious than the treasures of Egypt, because he had his eyes fixed on the reward’ (Hebrews 11.26). The Jewish tradition tells us that Moses entered upon life through the kiss of the divine.[4] Even if we live for 120 years in dialogue with God, we must have the courage to free ourselves as he did in order to get rid of our too formal certainties and our illusions. We must be on the road ‘from one beginning to another’ following Christ over the fascinating abyss and the unquenchable novelty of this question, ‘What do I still lack?’

[1] Romano Guardini, ‘The Lord’, vol 1 (Paris, ed. Alsatia (1945), p. 322).

[2] Paul Beauchamp, ‘D’une montagne à l’autre, la Loi de Dieu’, (Paris, ed. du Seuil (1999), p. 33).

[3] Martin Buber, ‘Vivre en bonne entente avec Dieu selon le Baal-Shem-Tov’ (ed. du Rocher, 1990, p. 106).

[4] Ovadiah Camhy, ‘Paroles du Talmud’, ed. Stock (1951), p. 79. Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, ‘Life of Moses’, 1.

Testimonies

Dom Alex Echeandía, OSB

Prior of the community of Lurín (Peru)

The experience of a monk

in a young community in Peru

The word ‘experienced’ for a person usually refers to older people, a man or woman who has lived enough within a vast tradition of habits, customs and a way of life. In this sense, Peruvian monastic tradition is fairly new, in fact as new as the first Benedictine monastery founded here in the 1960s. ‘Monasticism’ is not a word the Church in Peru knew when the mendicant orders arrived. In fact, monks were not allowed to come by the Spanish Crown because the New Indies were considered mission territory. History tells us that on Christopher Columbus´ second journey to America there were already Franciscan friars. Their main purpose was to evangelize the New World. Evangelization required catechesis and also the removal of any kind of idolatry.

The strange thing is that evangelization was carried out by monks long before the mendicant orders existed in the Church. In the history of the Early Church there were well-known missionary monks like St Columba, St Augustine of Canterbury, St Boniface of Fulda and many other monks who evangelized Europe and the Middle East. The fact that the mendicant orders already existed at the end of the fifteenth century was crucial to the Spanish decision to send mainly Franciscans and Dominicans to evangelize America. It was also because monastic life in Spain was experiencing a reform. The crown did not ask monks to join the new wind of evangelization. There were only nuns of the same orders, who were supporting the missions with their prayers and way of life. In Peruvian history very few monks arrived from Spain. It is well-known that the Jeronimites and monks from Monserrat came only as a token presence in Peru.

The big surprise is that there was a Cistercian monastery in sixteenth century Lima called Monasterio de la Santísima Trinidad founded by mother and daughter: Lucrecia de Sanzoles and Mencia de Vargas. The foundation was established by St Toribio de Mogrovejo with Papal approval. The monastery in Lima existed from the sixteenth century until its suppression in 1960s. The Cistercian nuns of Las Huelgas, Spain, arrived in 1992 to refound the Cistercian monastery in the southern outskirts of Lima and so brought back to life the history of the monastery. They returned to Spain in 2017 for lack of vocations and asked us to take over the monastery of Lurin, where the remains of the founders and the Cistercian nuns are now buried. In fact, we were asked by them to transfer our community to their monastery, so we are living in a place that holds history, tradition and especially the prayer of a monastic community in place for the Peruvian Church. Certainly, historical facts show that God works in unexpected ways.

I mention these historical facts because, after four failed attempts from different countries and Benedictine congregations, we have survived so far by the grace of God. It is the first Benedictine community in Peru living the monastic life entirely with Peruvian monks. Monasticism for men in Peru is almost unknown. However, the Lord inspires men to live a way of life that existed from the early Church and within a rich monastic tradition.

I personally did not know much about monastic life, since there was not much information in the Peruvian Church about monasticism. The first Orders to arrive were the well-known ones. However, the Lord calls men and women to search for God in a dynamic movement of prayer and work, Divine Office, lectio and study, hospitality and spiritual direction within the cloister and for the whole Church.

I joined the monastery when I was 20 years old. I met a small monastic community which was founded in 1981 by Belmont Abbey in England, just two years after I was born. I was invited to visit it without knowing the immense happiness it would produce by the first Hour I prayed, Compline. It captured me and touched the deepest place of my being. Something strange and new happened. It was by experience that I got to know what monastic life was about. Praying the Psalms was an act of encounter with God in my religious life. I did not know much about monastic life in theory. Progressively I learned more about its history, meaning, richness and aim. There was an encounter with the Lord in a mysterious way. The Lord really made me experience his call and my answer in the context of monastic life.

As I said, there is not much history of monastic life in South America. Unlike Brazil, which was Portuguese, the other countries of South America received the first monastic foundations only at the end of the nineteenth century. Interestingly, even if monastic life is the starting point of religious life in the Church, it is also apparently new to religious life in Latin America.

The Lord has called me to live the monastic life in a particular time and space and has invited me and my brethren to follow Christ by living according to the Rule of St Benedict. Thus monastic life has been established in our land so that in all things God may be glorified.

Testimonies

Sister Maria Terezinha Bezerra dos Santos, OSB

Encontro, Brazil

Self-Discovery in the monastery

I have been asked to give a testimony about my experience of monastic life, but I would prefer to call this a sharing in what the consecrated monastic life means in my human journey, both Christian and spiritual. I am a Benedictine nun of the monastery of Encontro at Mandirituba in the State of Parana in Brazil. I was born at Palmeira dos Indios, Alagoas. I have had fifteen years of monastic life, nine since solemn profession. We know that the Christian life is marked out by words of movement; even if it is lived in a monastery it is a continuous search.[1] As we know, in the Rule of St Benedict the first criterion of discernment of a monastic vocation is to seek God in the divine Office (Rule 58.7). Our first service is to seek God in the divine Office, and on this the whole organisation of our life depends. In discovering this I realised that my work would not be seen or appreciated by many people, that it would not merit any eulogies or praises. At first, I must confess, this was not easy, but in the course of time I came to understand that my service, our service, in the monastery of Encontro, even if it was not as recognised as one might hope, is a grace received. I know that our life of prayer, of intercession for the whole Church and the world, brings fruits, but that it is the Lord who harvests them.

I must in all sincerity say that I never thought of becoming a religious, still less a nun. But God guided my life in such a way that it was impossible to refuse his call. I knew nothing of monastic life, but I had a friend who was a Benedictine monk, and I had been to his monastery at Santa Rosa, on the Rio Grande do Sul, to make a retreat in preparation for entry into a congregation of the apostolic life. When I participated in Vespers with the monks for the first time I don’t know what happened, but it became clear to me that God was calling me to such a life. By the time I left I had decided to enter a monastery, but I did not know where. My friend had given me the addresses of several monasteries, among them Encontro. When I arrived here my first desire was to run away immediately. I thought that there was no place for me here, but nevertheless I stayed for the eight days which had been arranged. At the end of the stay I asked to try it for three months. And I am still here fifteen years later. My acceptance has passed and continues to pass through many purifications. Thanks be to God!

When I entered I thought that in religious life holiness was automatic. I was very turned in on myself, and thought that in the monastery I could life tranquilly in my corner. I must admit that it was not easy for me to accept that monastic life was not just praying and living in my own world. Little by little I discovered that monastic life was just the contrary: continually coming out of myself, meeting with others, whether in prayer or community life or in welcoming those who came to the monastery. The name of the monastery says it all, the Monastery of the Meeting, especially when one considers that Pope Francis insists strongly on the culture of meeting. I can say that I have experienced this several times and in different ways, but I must underline three experiences which I have had and continue to have in living out this mystery of Meeting.

The first was with myself. From the beginning I discovered a Sister Terezinha whom I did not know. This does not mean that she did not exist, but I remained hidden from her under different appearances. I had always lived my feelings and my relationships very superficially, being afraid to expose my weaknesses. I was also afraid that people would be able to discover a Terenzinha capable of shameful thoughts. I did not want anyone to touch my anger, my jealousies, and I did not want to face a Terenzinha who had human and spiritual limitations. In fact I came to face up to my humanity. This meeting was indispensable in my journey of self-acceptance and reconciliation with my own history of salvation. In the monastery I had the experience of finding myself loved for what I discovered myself to be, but without any need to show myself differently. I was able to be myself, with my qualities and my limitations, and this gave me courage to continue my way of conversion.

I experienced the patience of my sisters, even in silence, discovering that they believed in me. That was the second meeting, the meeting with my community. The experience of being accepted and welcomed by my community enabled me to discover how much I needed others who dared to stand up to me and helped me emerge from my comfort-zone. At the same time I discovered in myself gifts that I had not recognised and which I was able to develop. My experience in the community has been a re-birth. Every day I feel that the Lord is creating me anew from the matrix which is my community. He teaches me to begin again. He heals my wounds and shows me his love by people whom I would never have expected to meet. I must learn to create relationships with different people who do not always agree with my views, nor I with theirs, and I must respect them for what they are. This is not an easy road, but the process teaches me to seek the true sense of life and remain in the monastery. With community life I learn more and more that I cannot walk alone and that I need real relationships to live out my consecration as the Lord demands of me. When I realised that I could not live out my consecration within the reserves of my own private world and that I needed to walk with my sisters, often slaying my own will, I discovered what is meant by being consecrated for the Kingdom of heaven, to build up the Kingdom here and now. In living, walking and serving the community I am truly responding to the desire to be faithful to the Lord alone.

The third experience of meeting is with those who come to the monastery. St Benedict says that those who come to the monastery must be welcomed as Christ (Rule 53.1). In practice day by day it is not as easy as that. At first I did not understand why I must welcome those who arrived at inappropriate times. I did not understand why I should leave my work of prayer to go and meet those who came. Little by little I have come to understand that those who came were seeking peace. They wanted to be welcomed, listened to, feel loved and valued as persons. Many of the people who come have everything the world and money can give, but lack the essential. Then I realised that those who come are seeking Him who can satisfy their hunger and fill their void. These people are looking for God, and my way of welcoming them can help towards this encounter. Today I know that every time I welcome someone I can be an instrument of God for that person. God can use us and make use of others, our brothers and sisters, to show his grace and his presence in our lives.

I cannot end this sharing without thanking the whole team of the AIM who, since the beginning of my monastic life, have been present with their help for my initial formation, and have helped by enabling me to share in the school of formators, and most recently in the course for Cistercian monastic formation in Rome. The Lord acts in us by his grace, and I know full well that I must open myself to everything that he offers. So many thanks to the AIM for its devotion in furthering our formation, giving us not only the means but also the tools for living monastic life fruitfully.

[1] Ano da vida consagrada, Alegrai-vos: Carta circular aos consagrados e às consagradas do magistério do Papa Francisco, São Paulo, Ed. Paulinas, p. 23. 2.

Testimonies

Brother Edmond Amos Zongo, OSB

Koubri, Burkina Faso

An experience of interior Freedom

for union with God

In this short presentation I would like to try to say what religious life in the Church represents and, in consequence, what monastic life represents for me. To many young Christians in these days monastic life appears to be a way of religious life which belongs to a former age because for them a monk does not have a direct apostolate. I shall not attempt to justify myself, since for me monastic life has its source in the gospel, the living Word, present today. This is what gives monastic life its usefulness. It is easy to assess monastic life positively or negatively from outside, but to speak of a personal experience is both more difficult and more useful. I am young and practically lacking in experience to speak of the life that I am living. Only true monks, that is, those who have at least thirty years of religious life, could do this. All the same, I will say the little that I feel.

My name is Brother Edmond Amos Zongo. I experienced the call to the religious life, like many others, when I was very young. I spoke about it to the priest in charge of vocations in my parish. At first he directed me towards the minor seminary so that I should become a diocesan priest. But I told him that I felt called to a contemplative more than an active life. However, as I did not know any monastery in Africa, this seemed difficult. He told me that there was a Benedictine monastery in the diocese of Ouagadougou, and undertook to make an approach for me. God be praised!

The first contact with the monastery occurred in August 1995. After various stays I definitively entered in October 1997. At the end of the noviciate I made my temporary profession on 18th October, 2001, and solemn profession on the 10th February, 2007.

Monastic life is a religious life like other forms of religious life, with the commitment to follow the evangelical counsels which history has summed up in the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. For monks who follow the Rule of St Benedict there are the vows of obedience, stability and conversion of life, which includes poverty, chastity and other dimensions of the religious life. Monasticism is much more ancient than the other forms of the religious life. For me its particularity is that it is more focused on prayer than on work. Our Order has the motto ‘Ora et labora’. Deliberately ‘Ora’ comes first. Tradition puts it in first place because St Benedict did not want work to dominate prayer: the natural human tendency is to put work in first place. A proverb among shopkeepers is ‘the client passes away but God remains stable’. In the same way, work passes, but you can always pray at any time you like. By the same motto ‘Ora et labora’ St Paul forcefully points out to Christians, ‘someone who does not work should not eat either’ (2 Thessalonians 3.10). God has put humans on the earth for the continuation of his work, ‘You shall work by the sweat of your brow’ (Genesis 3.17-19). Nevertheless, one of St Benedict’s glories is to have rehabilitated the love of work, ‘Idleness is the enemy of the soul’ (Rule 48). In the monastic vows everyone has his own importance and plays a part complementary to others. However, the monk must pray constantly, even when fulfilling the charge of work.

As for poverty, first of all a clear distinction must be made between the poverty of which Jesus speaks and a certain poverty which is misery. In misery it is impossible to seek God. A proverb puts it well, ‘Someone gnawed by hunger is deaf to any word’. Evangelical poverty is a poverty freely chosen to reach the goal proposed by Jesus in the Beatitudes, ‘Blessed are the poor, for the Kingdom of heaven is theirs’. As a disciple of Jesus I have chosen this form of poverty to be free of all attachment in order to serve freely. It is only in Christian and religious life that poverty is seen as a virtue. Our world has a horror of this word, for everyone, young or old, wants to be free, while poverty forces a person to be dependent on another.

Chastity equally helps religious to consecrate themselves wholly to the service of the Church to be brother or sister to all without exception of race or tribe. Not having spouse or children we seek to love all people with the same love as Christ himself, ‘Love one another as I have loved you’. Without this vow of chastity I think it would be difficult or impossible for me to consecrate myself wholly to the service of the universal Church. I am well aware that this is the most difficult and the most complicated of the vows. At the present time one of the weaknesses of the Catholic Church is the result of this vow, which makes difficulties for men and women consecrated to the service of the Church. For me, only community life can help me to live this vow fully. It is very demanding and can sometimes make us very uneasy.

From this vow I pass on to the vow of obedience. St Benedict speaks of obedience in more than three chapters, 5, 68, 71 (for me 72 is complementary to 71). For me as a Mossi (one of the tribes of Burkina) obedience is not very difficult, for in our culture the child is constrained to obey older people. But is this the same obedience as that of which St Benedict speaks? I would say it is not, for St Benedict speaks of two sorts of obedience. In chapter 5 of the Rule it is obedience to superiors, whereas in chapter 71 it is a question of mutual obedience. That is where obedience requires discernment: it is difficult to obey an inferior. For this to become easy the monk must be truly impregnated with monastic life. He is obeying not a human being but an order from God, transmitted by his neighbour. Someone who reaches such a degree of spiritual perception no longer suffers from obedience.

Stability, a vow specific to monks, attaches the monk to a particular place. There, where the monk has committed himself, the community becomes a new family for him, more than an adoptive family; the community becomes for him a personal possession. The vow of stability helps us and even obliges us to cultivate a climate of peace, for we are thenceforth condemned to see the same faces, the same people every day. With the vow of stability we strip ourselves completely, for we can say that we know an individual because we have lived with him for fifteen years, forty years or more in the same monastery. Monastic life is characterised by this phenomenon. Stability is a value to be cultivated.

Why do monks withdraw from the world to live separately? The more the soul is disengaged, the more it is free and more apt to reach its Creator and disposed to welcome God’s grace. Jesus himself shows us the importance of withdrawal for a time to be face to face with God. When Jesus withdrew it was not to go and relax, but to go and beseech the one whom he called Father. Monks did not invent prayer and withdrawal in order to unite themselves with God. Every time Jesus had something important to do or to decide he withdrew onto high mountains. For me these heights symbolise the desert of which the ancients speak. Every religion has its prayer: it is the special place of silence which makes it possible to enter into contact with God above all. Every day the monk cultivates this climate of silence in himself and around himself. It is the love of silence that pushes the contemplative to take a step backwards and retire into the desert. This silence allows him to be alone with the Alone. By withdrawing from the world I have more time to praise God and at the same time to implore the divine goodness for all humanity. What pleases me most in monastic life is community life, prayer with its dimension of silence, and work. Life is made to be shared. The cenobite is never alone. God is with him, and he is attached to a community. In community life I live with the brothers; we lean on each other to try to go forward step by step together, following the rhythm of each individual, day after day, towards perfection. This genuine support and sharing touches every domain: service given, mutual linkage, and especially the love which we have for one another. In this community life I find the type of family which I have left behind. It is in prayer that the community draws the strength for fraternal life. A community which does not pray cannot be a true religious community; at best it is an association for a particular purpose.

It is by work that the community of brothers makes its living, for our father St Benedict wished that ‘the brothers should live by the work of their hands’ (Rule 48.8). For me monastic life is for the universal Church what breath is for the human body. Without a life consecrated entirely to prayer for oneself and for others our world would be in the grip of the Evil One. I am very glad to be a monk because I am convinced of the usefulness of monastic life; even if my ministry is invisible, it is vital and irreplaceable. My own ministry is to pray for the whole of humanity, and only God knows whom and how my prayer can help. God shares in my small efforts of every day. Even if the Church no longer keeps schools for the instruction of children, every country can and must take up this responsibility, even if this is not the case for prayer. Even in religious countries the state cannot impose prayer on everyone. Prayer belongs to monastic life: in monastic life we give to God our life, our faith, our whole being. It becomes our security, our strength and simply our source of life. I can be betrayed by my neighbour, but never by God. My faith and my confidence rest upon the Son of God, dead and risen to save humanity, beginning with myself. What could be more normal than for me to show him my gratitude? God is merciful and this divine mercy makes itself strongly felt in monastic life because every day I count on him. I make bold to say that the originality of our life consists in showing that agape (love) is concretised, or should be concretised when we love ourselves as God commands us. Above all when I sing Psalm 132 (How good and sweet it is for brothers to live together in unity) I see the joy of the monastic ideal which is so difficult to fulfil. In prayer I meet God and can chat with him as my Master and Saviour. I was created to live in the continual presence of God: that is how I respond to my title of religious. The religious is someone linked to the supreme Being, who wishes us to discover him more and more. In this form of life how can a human enter into contact with God except by prayer? In my prayer of each day I always think of those who put their confidence in God and I implore the mercy of God for those who need such a prayer. Monastic life should bring us closer to perfection every day. My great happiness is to know God and love God.

Now I would like to mention another point in the prayer which is so special for monks, lectio divina. The concept of lectio divina needs precision, for this term may mean study or reading a spiritual book. In fact its true meaning touches the reading of the holy scripture. Other religious traditions know meditation, but lectio divina is a reading which opens out onto meditation. Digestion comes after eating. Meditation is the appropriation of something in the memory. Lectio divina opens onto meditation, transforming it into prayer or contemplation. Meditation on the scriptures is like chewing food. This ‘chewing’ of the text consists of reading the text and allowing oneself to be transformed by it. From this enlightenment of the text springs its spiritual sense, the gift of Christ. Every monk should be a specialist in this reading, for each day he does his lectio. It is an art which must be learned. It is not the sort of reading which comes merely from deciphering the alphabet. In lectio one already knows the profit.

Since I have been in monastic life I am normally wholly at ease, though every form of life has its problems and difficulties. The proverb says that no country is better than any other; you just need to know how to live and fit in. When I entered religious life I took on a project which I still have, to seek perfection. To live without an objective leads only to discouragement. If you have an objective you can conquer discouragement.

Dear brothers and sisters, to end this work I ask your benevolence, for it is the experience of a young monk, not of anyone experienced. I know that some people will find this account edifying and others will not. What can a novice bring to people who have devoured the writings of great spiritual authors like St Benedict, St Anselm, St Dominic and many others? A sincere ‘Thank you’ to any who have found interest in this reading.

Testimonies

Fr Nichodemus Ohanebo, OSB

Ewu, Nigeria

Monastic Life in St Benedict’s Monastery, Ewu – A Personal view

In one of the fine pages of his book, “Letters from the Desert”, Carlo Caretto wrote, ‘God builds his Church out of weak stones such as we are’ – this is the living and continuous story and truth of my monastery. The solidity of such a house of God and of such a small part of the Body of Christ is not in the individual strength of virtue or weakness of sin but in the love of the God who deems it fit, as a divine expression, to create such a community, to make a bond of such a body in the larger Body of Christ. In other words, the weak stones do not give the Church its stability, rather it is the condescending love of God in the stones that does this.

Employing, then, the simple courtesy of introducing my community, I will first explain that St. Benedict Monastery, usually called ‘Ewu Monastery’ due to its location on the simple hill of the Ewu-Esan community, a village in the southern part of Nigeria, is a monastic community of brothers living the cenobitic life under the Rule of St. Benedict of Nursia (480AD – 547AD), in the Roman Catholic Church’s Benedictine Congregation of the Annunciation. Our daily activities range from prayer to work, from work to being of service to others, and from our service to the essential sharing of the community life. But what is life in Ewu monastery like?

Without any trouble to my head and saving myself so much thinking about what life in Ewu monastery is like, I must confess that we are here, in this community, a group of staunch humans without any mitigation whatsoever in the raw ways of very normal (and maybe sometimes abnormal) human expressions. It is in being concrete humans that we become aware of the true relevance of the life of conversion in every moment of our being monks or ascetics – our gross human existence must hear the Word of God and give heed to it. Just as there are numerous green plants in almost every nook and cranny of the community, so also one finds in the Ewu monks – each in his own special endowment – the flowers of humane human existence. Understanding the Ewu brothers sometimes is like writing the few lines of a simple poem just as the inspiration comes, while life’s events are happening in every moment, since such understanding is reached only by the radical facing of a natural and realistic human existence. The brothers here are both conscious and spontaneous at different levels. Our community here is happening, just as it unfolds.

Life in Ewu is, for me, a living out of the common and, at the same time, uncommon expression of the Christian life, in a fine blend of divers human experiences and expressions. The life here consists of a practical discovery and rediscovery of the self beneath the spheres of what is seen. While in Ewu we take prayer, work, and various kinds of studies seriously, we also look out for the original person in each brother – that original person to be redeemed, the person with imperfections, and the person with a keen understanding of how to be himself, how to be me. For example, it happened that a witty novice once sat a little closer to the Prior at table, due to the absence of some of the senior brothers. After the meal, he was asked by another brother how he, a novice, felt sitting so close to the Prior at table, and he replied loudly, ‘I felt like I became almost the Sub-prior’, and everyone burst out laughing. Perhaps, if a novice had said that in another community, the laughter would have been rather a summoning of him to leave, since he was not humble enough to have a vocation. But this is the kind of thing one finds amongst the Ewu brothers. This does not rule out the fact that we check excesses and extremes, but points to the fact that our community life here is scarcely perfect. The brothers are seeking the place where the middle chord of God’s harp binds us tunefully into the mystical musical core of a simple and pure life.

Here in Ewu, we quarrel and we settle; we misunderstand and argue ourselves into a common view where our differences disappear after all; we make many mistakes and while some are corrected, others are left as scars on the face of the community, a face where, like a mirror, we look and find the effect of our wrong choices even as a community. Looking through my own frail eyes, one would say that life in Ewu reveals the individual brother and some (if not most) of his failings, even though within him is both an actual and a potential saint. Due to our way of living, I sometimes know that we need help, just as sometimes I know that we must be of help, and this help includes the spiritual as well as the material, the psychological as well as the medical, the emotional as well as the sexual, the experiential as well as the unknown, and the obvious as well as the mystical.

Anyone who takes time to be less of himself or herself is three steps from finding true and pure transformation. And because we are a community of imperfect persons in Ewu monastery, from my own religious perception, we want to be in touch first with our imperfections, find our black spots, identify them by name, if possible, and manifest them in offering them to God by the kind of life we live. We are seeking God, the Father of Jesus Christ, and that is clear to me. This will tell anyone, in my opinion, that if you are seeking to find an already perfect community of monastics, do not come to Ewu monastery; however, you do stand a chance of meeting some saints here.

Finally, I do not say this because I am one of the brothers here, but because I have observed it: the community of the Ewu brothers is moving towards the middle or core or centre of the pure life in God. No doubt, however, that the community may still experience certain crises, as is expected of normal growth in human society, but if it maintains its natural flow of life and experiences it in complete simplicity and conscious spontaneity, it will strike the exact chord of the pitch that God the Absolute is singing in regards to it being as a body in the larger Body of Christ. The goal of our prayer is that Christ may be glorified in all things; and ‘may he bring us all together to everlasting life’ (Rule of St. Benedict 72.12).

Testimonies

Sister Antoinette Ndubane OSB

Elukwatini, South Africa

In South Africa,

The challenges and joys

of monastic life

Introduction

There are several questions or subtopics to look at when one thinks of the experience of monastic life in South Africa. These questions and headings include the understanding of a monastery or monastics in a South African perspective:

• is monastic life a reality in South Africa?

• How does it feel to be a monastic/religious in South Africa?

• and the challenges and joys of monastic life in this region. In my opinion, these questions are vital, and they need to be explored.

The understanding of monastic life

When I joined the Benedictines in 2002, I did not know I was joining monastic life. I thought Benedictines were just like any other religious congregation I knew. It took me time to understand that there is a difference between apostolic institutes and us monastics. However, the confusion may still occur, due to maybe a general question of lack of identity of the congregations. I have come to understand that living in a monastery does not just mean to live inside the walls of the church premises; it means to belong to it with my whole being. I now understand a monastery as a university or a school, where one studies life as it is; and there is a choice of what one wants to learn. For example, one may choose to learn negative things, to learn good things in a positive way or even to learn both at the same time. How is this possible? Sometimes I hear people saying, ‘When I entered this life, I did not know how to respond impolitely when confronted, but now I do know’. So, it is possible that one can choose to learn negative things; however, there are lots of good things to be cultivated: manual work, prayer, way of life, how to become a better and serious Christian and so forth. A monastery is a house of prayer, where consecrated people live. I also look at it as a house where God dwells; therefore most, if not all, monasteries are well maintained. According to what I have seen so far, a monastery is a home or a fountain, where one draws out what to give to those who stay outside this life; for example, there is time to pray and to meditate, so that one can know what to offer to those who are in need of God’s inspiration and graces. Therefore, silence is very important in the monastic life; it is when I am silent that I will hear God’s voice.

Is monastic life a reality in South Africa?

Monastic life in this part of the world seems to have both YES and NO when it comes to its actuality. It becomes a reality because there are monasteries in South Africa, and there are people living there; however, we cannot ignore the fact that there are very few indigenous monastics and very few monasteries. One may also raise the question of whether those who live in the monastery understand who they are or not. It does happen that even those who live in the monasteries do not really understand their vocation, regardless of age or duration of their stay in this life. The demands of the outside world give rise to a question of whether monastic life is a reality in this part of Africa or not. The challenge of today’s life may also give us a question: is it possible to live monastic life in its fullness today in 2019? Well, it should be entirely possible, but then the question would be, ‘How’? One may ask oneself this question over and over again, and this would help to deepen the vitality of one’s vocation in order to live it better and in the way one is called to live. Somehow monastic life must be both foreign and at home. In a way, at times it looks as though this life came to us like a ship, it was brought to us by particular people; therefore even some of the expectations of it may seem strange to the local church/people; however, some aspects of monastic life seem to be very much in harmony with the indigenous way of life in southern Africa, e.g. respect and hospitality, and a few other effects.

How does it feel to be a religious/monastic in the Southern Africa?

I think it is normal to sometimes feel as though you are missing out something outside there. Nevertheless, such thoughts do not last, especially when one feels the sense of belonging to a monastic family. One of the most essential things in the monastic or religious life in general is formation, both initial and ongoing formation. In this southern part of Africa, the Benedictines include the issues of formation whenever they meet at the conferences known as BECOSA. This fact contributes so much in the lives of the monks and sisters living in this area. Almost every time there is a meeting, there is a topic which the members are sure to bring up, ongoing and initial formation for the members of our communities. This helps to deepen our knowledge of who we are and how we should conduct our lives as monastics. I believe that the annual meetings of BECOSA and the workshops which we sometimes have play a very important role in our lives, especially concerning formation and the sense of belonging to a bigger family. BECOSA is a source of support in both individual and communal ways. Each time one attends a BECOSA meeting or workshop, one feels nourished. There is always a longing to have more of BECOSA workshops, especially for those of us who are still in need of more nourishment, the formators and those who are in initial formation.

Challenges and joys

Monastic life is a most fulfilling life. It has all I need as a person who strives for a better Christian life. Being a young South African living a monastic life, I find it challenging in both ways, negative and positive. Most of my contemporaries are responsible people in different fields of life; they have families, own properties and so forth. They seem to enjoy having those valuables. Here I am, it looks as though I have nothing of my own, but then, is that true? I am called to live a possible happy life. It feels good, and sometimes it is expected that when a child of a particular family grows up, he/she will help the family in one way or another. So, in my case I may not be able to visibly help my people at home, but I am there as an intercessor for them. However, to come to this conviction, it does not occur overnight. In fact, I think I help them even more, because I bring them to Jesus Christ who is my everything. I pray not only for my family, but for friends and all who need my care.

Another obvious challenge, especially these days, is communication through social media. Almost every young person in South Africa has a smart phone. One needs self-discipline when it comes to social media. I cannot deny the fact that we do use them, they exist, but how to put a measure on them? This is no joke. However, it is very important that I ask myself each time I pick up my phone whether, it is necessary. Is it for the good of my religious life? Is it helping me or destroying me? How do I set the boundaries? When I joined religious life 17 years ago, when we wanted to send a letter, the superior had to read that letter before you could send it. The same with receiving, it had to be read before coming to the owner’s hands. Today most of us use emails and whatsapp, who is there to exercise control? No one; only myself and my conscience.

There is another fact when it comes to religious life or monastic life as such, opportunities. Different people feel differently about the opportunities offered by religious life. They may include studies, discoveries, freedom and so forth. Looking from far, one may be tempted to think that people who live in monasteries have very limited chances, and yet, at the same time when you look deeper, we seem to be the most exploring people; of course depending on the mission or field where one is.

Silence is one of the most essential elements of a monastic life. However, though it is so important, it is not easy to be quiet. If one does not say a word, it does not necessarily mean that there is silence; it may only mean that no one is talking to us at that particular time, but inside a person is busy making noise, which may even disturb them more. A monastery is capable of providing a quiet atmosphere, which is meant to help those who dwell there and those who visit to be able to meet God. However, one needs to create one’s own kind of silence, to be ready to listen to God. There are a lot of things which may distract our inner silence, but still one has to make it a personal priority, because it is important to hear God’s voice. Challenging as it is to keep silence, it is very much rewarding. There is joy in conversing with God. We live in a noisy world, but I have found silence in the monastery, though not always, as at times one may be disturbed by outside noises around.

There are other stepping stones in the lives of the monastics; the community prayers which we pray several times a day, daily Eucharist, Lectio Divina, the community life itself, annual retreats, spiritual direction and so forth; these are some of the things which sustain us in this precious life. Even though life may be somehow challenging in the monastery, I have come to realize that if one takes seriously the opportunities offered, then life becomes possible. I often have believed and still do believe that Christ is among us; though at times some circumstances may blind us so that we think that he is far away, or to try to convince ourselves that this life is not of inestimable value. But one has to really believe in the divine presence and in his calling; and this has sustained my life till today. True joy and consolation comes from the Lord himself.

Conclusion

Being a ‘young’ South African living in this 21st century, it may seem to be very much questionable to live in a monastery. However, I believe it is a special calling from God, which may not be for everybody, but only for those who are chosen to live it. One has to embrace this precious life as a valuable treasure from above, and it has been given to us out of love. I am very much aware that God calls people where he sees that they will find him and serve him better. However, one often hears that not all people in the choir are gifted in singing, some voices accompany others, and this may force us either to appreciate the facts and live with them harmoniously, or to be bothered every time. A monastery, being a school, has a possibility of including all kinds of students. But the question is: what kind of a student am I? Another question may be: how do I cope with the rest of the students studying with me in that school? These could be the questions for daily reflection.

Testimonies

Sister Rosa Ciin, OSB

Shanti Nilayam, India

First steps in monastic life

First of all I would like to begin with how I heard the Lord’s voice while I was enjoying myself with friends and engaged in worldly things. One day I was walking to the parish church and saw a scrap of paper on the road. I picked it up and read it. It was about the Benedictine nuns and I liked it. From that time onwards I had the desire to enter the monastery.

I started thinking of the real meaning of life. I felt it was a sign from God. So I decided to follow the Lord in the monastic way of life. I felt a great desire to be closer to God. In the world there were many distractions which distanced me from the Lord. Finally I entered the monastery, though my parents were not too happy about it. It was not so easy for me to leave my parents, brothers and sisters and friends. As soon as I entered the monastery I felt at home.

The sisters were very welcoming and made me feel at home. The monastery is like the early Christian community, sharing everything, living in unity despite different background, culture and language. My heart was full of joy, as I found a strong family spirit in the community. This experience made me forget the pleasures of modern technology, social media, mobile phone, etc. The use of these things gave temporary joy, but in the community I gain real joy from loving the Lord and the community members. Once I experienced the warmth of the community members I forgot the pleasures of the world. Now I can appreciate the world and all it offers in a different way. Everything is good if we use it for the good of all.

 Though initially everything was fine, there were times when I faced problems and difficulties. Human nature always longs for pleasure and ease. Every form of life has its own problems and difficulties, but in the monastic life I experience deep inner joy. In the monastery everything is held in common, and we use the mobile phone and internet etc. only for absolute necessities. To live with people of different background and culture was not very easy. But as I enter more deeply into community life I have felt very peaceful and joyous in spite of difficulties and problems. The silent and calm atmosphere of the monastery helps us to hear the cry of the poor and the helpless in the world, and to help them by our prayers and small sacrifices.

Community life helps us to live in harmony with one other and to serve one other. This helps me to come out of myself and share the feelings of others and appreciate their problems and difficulties. So I have become less selfish and more oriented towards others. I have also felt very much at home with St. Benedict’s Rule of life, especially hospitality and love of the poor. As a young religious I don’t have much contact with the outside world but I embrace the whole world by my prayer and sacrifice. Communion in the community and fraternal love is a sign to the world that we can live and love others in spite of the differences.

I appreciate and love the monastic life more and more as I advance in years. St Benedict says in the Prologue that as we advance in religious life and in faith, our hearts expand and we run the way of God’s commandments with unspeakable sweetness of love. In all this I have learned that monastic life is easy and joyful if I take every situation of life to the Lord. I can live this life only with the help of God and with God. His yoke is easy and burden light when I cast all troubles and problems onto him.

People often don’t understand monastic life, but I love and appreciate it more and more each day. My earnest prayer is that many will answer the call of the Lord to follow him more closely in religious life.

Economy and Monastic Life

Dr Katrin Langewiesche

Institute for Ethnology and Africa Studies,

University of Mainz (Germany)

Cooperation and Conflict

Contributions of the monastery

of Bafor to local development

A résumé of the dissertation for the degree of Master in Sociology of Nonna Anne Dah at the Catholic University of Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina Faso, under the guidance of Professor Amandé Badini and Dr Jacques Thiamobiga: ‘The Integration of the Cistercians of Notre-Dame of Bafor in the surrounding villages’. This dissertation analyses the social and economic changes brought about by the monastery of these sisters at Bafor in Burkina Faso.

The results of the research are surely interesting for the sociology of development, the discipline to which Anne Dah belongs, as much as for the sociology of monasticism. Set up at Bafor in 2005, the Cistercian Sisters of the Bernardines of Esquermes live a contemplative life. Despite their withdrawal from the world, their actions have inevitably had an effect on the society into which they have been grafted, bringing environmental and social changes which the author catalogues. The first part of the study concentrates on the social perception of the monastery and its members by the local population. How do the neighbours view the nuns? The second part analyses the interaction between the monastery and its environment and the contribution of the monastery.

The author envisages the development as a process of change linked to the environmental and social conditions, a sort of change brought about by voluntary work which often brings unexpected results. The village of Bafor is situated in the south-west of Burkina Faso, fifteen kilometres south of Dano, capital of the province of Ioba. Belonging to the diocese of Diébougou, it has welcomed the project of the erection of a monastery since 2000. At the invitation of Mgr Jean-Baptiste Somé the first five sisters of the Cistercian Bernardines of Esquermes came from Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo on 19th November, 2005, after the blessing of the new monastery, Notre-Dame of Bafor. Bafor is a Dagara village, most of whose population is attached to the ancestral cults. If the population has welcomed the monastery, this does not mean that it has bought into its religion or into the way of life of the nuns.

‘If you go there you must ring the bell’

Social conditions surrounding the monastery

In the Dagara milieu the place of a woman is in the home, and the destiny of a girl is marriage and procreation. She has no right to her earnings. It is difficult for this society to conceive the life of a woman beyond these conventions. Consequently contemplatives seem in the eyes of the population to be radically different. Their way of life is tolerated because they are foreigners, but they are nevertheless suspect because they show the Dagara girls that a life other than marriage and child-care is possible. In the eyes of the population to become an active religious is already a curiosity which has finally come to be tolerated, while nuns are seen as quite marginal: no husbands, no children, no fathers or mothers. Without making any judgment on their way of life, the inhabitants of Bafor accept seeing the nuns evolve according to their vision of the world, accommodating themselves to some of their practices: ‘ring the bell to make contact with them’. They allow the children to go to the monastery and to take part in the Masses and prayers. Sometimes the parents accompany their little children for big feasts such as Christmas and Easter. The sisters are few in number, varying between five and seven members. They seldom come out of the monastery, to the astonishment of the locals. A stall-holder was amazed, ‘I once met one of them who told me that she had been here for twelve years but had never been to the centre of the village. Her limit was the asphalt road.’ The image given to the society is ‘women of prayer’, shut in and self-contained. To this contribute the limitation of entry, the silence of the place and the regular call to prayer: ‘For me, they are women of prayer. When I go there I rarely see them. They do not come out. Just prayer.’ The neighbours of the monastery seem to have latched onto one of the essential principles of feminine monasticism, prayer and enclosure. By contrast the work needed to feed the community and the help given to the poor are not mentioned as essential traits of the life of the sisters of Bafor. Of course the representations of the monastery of Bafor evolve among a few of them, as does their relationship with natural environment. In fact the nuns do not communicate frequently with the local population because of the restrictions imposed by enclosure, ignorance of the Dagara language, the isolation of the site and the wish to limit interaction to avoid being invaded by myriad requests from the population.

A cohabitation between co-operation and conflict

The living together of the nuns and the host population oscillates between reciprocated non-comprehension, co-operation and conflict around access to the land and exploitation of the natural resources. The two sides have different points of view on these questions. For some the sisters have had good relationships of conviviality and confidence with the local population since they arrived because of their tact and disponibility: ‘the manner of contact with people, knowing how to treat them, friendliness and understanding, all these count for a lot’, explains the bursar. For others it is especially their capacity to transform the area which draws sympathy. The sisters have many activities such as planting trees, gardening and keeping livestock. They export their yogurt throughout the region of the south-west where their skill is much appreciated. More than this, their charitable activity of the monastery (education) and the commodities it is bringing (pasturage, electricity) place the monastery high on the list of institutions with which the locals are keen to maintain relationships: ‘There used to be only two families next to the monastery; now there are three or four more buildings because there is water there which the women can draw.’ A new movement of population is occurring around the monastery, which brings with it new social demands. Having received access to water, the families are now asking for access to electricity. Thus certain improvements worked by the nuns for their own needs have brought advantage to the surrounding population and encouraged the arrival of new inhabitants. Good relationships with the neighbours can change to conflict as soon as the land and their resources become objects of jealousy.

The installation of the monastery at Bafor and its need of cultivable land has brought tensions between the local church and village society. At the time of the installation a good deal of space was needed for the nuns to grow their crops. Part of the present site of the monastery belonged to the Sisters of the Annunciation of Bobo (SAB), who gave it to the Bernardines. Other land was added, giving them a territory of 30 hectares. Some farmers near the site had to give up land to enlarge that of the monastery. This was not free of difficulties. As everywhere, access to land becomes competitive under the joint pressure of intense interregional migration, the insertion of peasant economy in the market, the instability of customary law and the weakening of traditional power, but also the pressure of other interest-groups, as at Bafor, the Catholic Church. When negotiators say, ‘That was not easy’, this alludes to the fact that the social role of the village headman as administrator of the land is still in operation. In fact the basic situation around the monastery has come up against customary law, as is often the case in such deep-seated conflicts, also involving ecclesiastical agents who are aware that possession of land is a means of security and a guarantee of the stability of their enterprise. The nuns are well aware of the stakes and know that certain peasants are afraid of losing the land they farm. Consequently some farmers are radically opposed to giving up their land. It is ‘not at all easy’ to convince them. Here as elsewhere conflicts around the basic question are linked to social position and the interests of different parties: the headman, the farmer, the diocese. The stakes are land and power: the major producer of the locality wants to preserve his land and economic power, the headman wants to retain his position of authority in the community, the diocese wants to retain its private property. These disputes have led to death-threats, and the various protagonists have found themselves summoned before the police.

Nevertheless, recourse to public administration and its institutions has had little success in resolving these conflicts. It is the Dagara customary-law of ‘mock-parentage’ (loluoru) that has played a principal role in resolving the conflict. This is a system of mediation fundamental for Dagara society and many other West African societies, a sort of non-aggression pact which unites patriarchal groups based on paternal lineage.[1] The ‘mock-parent’ is the tapelu-sob, which literally means ‘man of ash’, since ash is seen as an element of reconciliation and pacification. The intervention of this ‘mock-parent’ facilitates peace and harmony, agreement and joy. This system has played an important role in the regulation of conflict around the monastery, thanks to the intervention of the bursar, who at the same time has functioned as ‘mock-parent’. The intervention of this mediator, recognised both by the nuns and by the Dagara land-owners has made possible a lasting reconciliation. After the intervention of justice, mediators and the ‘mock-parent’ a compromise was found between the different protagonists. After this conflicted installation, what has been the impact on Bafor of the presence of the monastery?

The contribution of the monastery to the development of Bafor

Thanks to the Dreyer foundation at Dano, which attracts tourists by its situation overhanging the dam and its architecture, the position of the monastery just a few kilometres from Dano is a place of retreat and an important place in the south-west to visit. The monastery certainly contributes to the architectural and touristic attractions of the area.

Although the local population definitely appreciates its aesthetic contribution to the area – ‘They have humanised the site; it is does one good to walk in the monastery’ – the monastery benefits the populace more directly by several opportunities of employment offered to young people, to workers and women on the area as casual workers or salaried employees. Besides a regular wage the employees and their families benefit from an apprenticeship to new methods of work and saving. The nuns motivate their workers to join in agriculture, to avoid chemical fertilizers and pesticides, to avoid bush-fires and to put money aside. The skills acquired have a clear effect on their families, as one employee explained, ‘We have bought sheep with the nuns to begin breeding them ourselves. At the present moment I may say that I have sixteen sheep, and I can use the manure to put on the fields. That is a real help.’

The change of customs is also linked to the example the sisters give of protecting the environment. At first hesitant and even opposed, in the course of time their Dagara neighbours take up the initiatives of the sisters. Notably the use of fire-breaks to avoid bush-fires has been gradually taken up by the local population. ‘I even believe that some neighbours are beginning to regret burning their land. The sisters plant a lot and look after the natural vegetation which is already there.’ The Bernardines have an educative attitude which translates itself into the construction of schools and welcoming centres wherever they go. The monastery of Bafor makes an exception at the heart of the Order which is linked to the request of the bishop to create uniquely a place of prayer and reflection. At Bafor, even though the monastery has not yet constructed a school, the Bernardines contribute actively to the education of children. Their presence influences the children, who come running to the monastery and to whom the sisters give catechism courses. At the present time the sisters are reflecting how they can translate their charism of teaching at Bafor by finding an adaptation in the local context in the framework of rural teaching.

Implanted not long ago in a rather hesitant environment and after initial conflict, the tasks which the Bernardines fulfil daily show their longer-lasting influence on the environment and society. Their hidden life has in fact been a seed of social change. The construction of monasteries goes hand in hand with conflicts, ruptures, resistance and negotiations with authorities. Monastic research is full of such conflicts, and often produces more clashes than solutions. The dissertation of Anne Dah has the merit of opening the theme of the contribution of the monastery of Bafor to the local development in positive terms, as well as the limits of change and interaction.

[1] This ‘mock-parent’ arrangement allows and indeed sometimes obliges members of the same family or tribe or inhabitants of the same region of territory to mock each other without consequences. These verbal insults are interpreted by anthropologists as a means of unwinding or social reconciliation, more or less a sacred practice. It is a unique practice which allows any language without annoyance, and certainly not bloodshed. It resolves social crises because you don’t get angry with a ‘mock-parent’ when a family or clan is in conflict. The ‘mock-parent’ is a catalyst of conciliation, who often achieves a change of mind.

Liturgy 

Sister Thérèse-Marie Dupagne, OSB

Prioress of the Monastery of Hurtebise (Belgium)

Poetry and monastic Life[1]

(liturgy, lectio, fraternal life)

For my part, when someone speaks of poetry I envisage something of the order of evocation rather than definition. A word which veils as much as it reveals, a word which gives a sign, which beckons to something beyond itself, something which it refuses to grasp, something beyond, which it touches and which touches it. A word which opens communication without imposing itself. A word which suggests a relationship woven from liberty, desire, thirst, a word which treads a land unknown, which explores, a word which envisages a fourth dimension.

I meet that poetic word in the LITURGY.

The liturgy is clock of the monk, his rhythm, the air he breathes. The liturgy is the work of God, the action of God, an invitation. It is also the response of the human community, chant and silence, listening and desire. From its constitution the liturgy is a tissue of poetic words, words given to us. If we are granted to compose a hymn, a bidding prayer, any prayer, then a good part of the poetry of the liturgy has been granted to us. It has been granted to us to welcome it, to allow it to reach us, whether it enchants us or not, whether it speaks to us or not, whether it moves us or not. In a welcome to the liturgy there is a call to consent, which is not necessarily without a struggle.

Entry into liturgical poetry supposes entry into words which are not our own, without wishing that they should be entirely our own, something beyond ourselves. Liturgical poetry opens us up, tears us apart, opens us to a relationship which cannot be obliterated. Thus liturgy points to communion.

Poetry such as the psalms, these ancient prayers, sung and chanted: praise, lamentation, exultation, memory of the past, the murmuring of a law. The psalms are given to us, they resist us, they come to us from another world, the ancient murmur of an intimate friend of God, as Chouraqui[2] calls him.

You can’t put your hand on a psalm. The psalm is entrusted to us, much as a piece of music is entrusted to a flute-player; they wait for our breath to pass before us, struggle with us and sometimes enchant us. They detach us from ourselves, draw us into another world of a people, a community, beyond time and space. We send the psalm backwards and forwards, one choir to the other, inexhaustibly. We speak it, sing it, listen to it, always old and always new.

The liturgy is a HYMN. The hymn throws itself towards the Other, the Other who is at our side, whom we know only at a distance, feeling our way. By the hymn we are asking to meet him on a road we do not know. The hymn rises up or digs deep. It thrills, traces a path. Like a psalm, it is a sculpture of the poet’s life; it goes beyond this life, makes it deeper or hollows it out, hollows out the singer of the psalm.

The psalm, the hymn grazes, broaches, opens up. It touches the heart and knows the heart, but who can grasp it fully? The hymn touches and provokes, unless it withers before losing its voice and fleeing away. The hymn creates the magic of silence which follows it.

By its long LITANIES liturgy is poetry. It asks, it asks again, always asks. It is the call of a heart unsatisfied, or of a heart so satisfied that it asks for more. It wakens the young heart as it plays the words.

The experience of the liturgy is the experience of this poetry which evokes, invokes and is never grasped. Poetry teaches a dancing step which comes close only to separate. If you try to unpack poetry it slips between your fingers, like snow in the hand of a child who wants to hold it captive.

Liturgical poetry is a DIALOGUE between two subjects, it puts us… face to face? At the heart? Who knows? It speaks to us of the Other – and otherwise. In making me an intimate of God it teaches me to stay at the apex of my humanity, facing the irreducible ‘Thou’; it calls me to say ‘I’. Poetry finds its source: I think, in the Spirit of this dance between Father and Son, this Breath which makes them one while keeping them irresistibly two. So two are they that they are three. Poetry is like the SPACE I feel between them, like an opening, definitive, a hollow which allows my heart to discover our God, not God but a space, a hollow, an emptiness which opens to the other, to others. The poetry which sings in silence of the Three which takes me to the heart of God, not God but the space of the chant, calling beyond. At the heart of God there is this space of infinite silence which can be touched, openness to the other. Like the hymn of Brother Pierre-Yves Emery which sings of ‘The intimacy with God, endlessly open – what wonder – to human beings, his creatures.’

The poetry in the liturgy is DOXOLOGY, glory to Father, Son and Holy Spirit… and in this doxology Benedict invites us to get up. Rise up and bow profoundly. Stand up, array yourself in your humanity, you have a price, you have a meaning. Breathe, inspire, aspire. Bow… to him who meets your eye, your life, your love, bow to the imperceptible, the unspoken, of whom you have never yet spoken as you were laid low in silence.[3] Bow low, sigh, smile at being finally freed from yourself,

The poetry of the liturgy invites me to a respectful contemplation of the Other, the Source, without touching, it writes a word which is a full chalice, a look which is all welcome. This liturgical poetry is poetry for a people, it is not mine, it is ours, it goes beyond us.

There follows in the liturgy, grafted on, the opening of the READING. This prayerful reading of the Bible to which we are invited from day to day. A time to read the Scripture, study it, meditate it, chew it, and at the moment when you think you have made it your own a new universe opens up beyond and escapes. Read, study, meditate, contemplate. Receive the Holy Scripture not as a theorem, a demonstration, a definition, but as poetry, an evocation.

You may say, Yes, but in the Scripture is written the Law, and what poetry can there be in Law? The Law of Israel begins with a call, a voice, ‘Listen’. Then an invitation, ‘Choose’. Finally a conclusion, ‘You will live.’ It is a path not a prison. The Law, two banks of a river which give life in a flood rather than stagnating in a marsh.

The Law, banks of a stream which flows beyond. The Law turns beyond itself. There is the prophecy in the Scripture, a cry, which tears up daily life to allow the Other to break in.

There is Wisdom, a space, a share in the experience of the past, which offers a path, weaves a new road. Lectio is a time of welcome, and opening, completed in hushed silence. This silence is surely the most beautiful expression of the dialogue.

This experience opens the way to FRATERNAL LIFE. How to live with the other, my brother, my sister, here and elsewhere?

Fraternal life day by day is not at first easy to see in poetry. But it is a share in the space of life, a space of singing, the construction of a web of relationships. What helps it along? What is its basis? At first it is not the experience of the liturgy: the discovery of this void at the heart of God, of this space offered to the heart of our God, is offered to me as a way for fraternal life. Respect for difference, respect and more than respect, encouragement, that the other should become himself, herself, and always more different – this is what makes a community an image and likeness. To welcome the other and wish the other to be other, to welcome a different faith, a different path, and choose to walk together.

In our relationships when words are hard and cutting the relationship dies. When the exchange is a welcome, an invitation, a space opens before us to raise a shared song which encourages, fosters and enchants life.

Poetry opens a space between us which expands us, opens us. It calls for communion between us and well beyond.

I yearn to throw down the walls of violence

No more exclusion, rejection

Launch a poem of hope

Open a space for communion

Pronounce a word which is all invitation

Away with all imprisonment.

Poetry is an opportunity offered to humanity to share life, respectful of each individual, glad of each individual.

[1] Written for the weekend of monastic poets, October 2014.

[2] Nathan André Chouraqui (1917-2007) was a lawyer, writer, thinker and Israeli politician, known for his translation of the Bible. Among other things he was co-founder of the association ‘Brotherhood of Abraham’ which promotes interreligious dialogue, permanent delegate of the Universal Israeli Alliance.

[3] Compare Number 24.4, the oracle of Balaam, which speaks of a glance which opens when he bows low.

Monks and nuns, witnesses for our times

Hieromonk Serapion

Monastery of Simon Peter (Mount Athos, Greece)

Geronda Aimilianos

‘You have shown me the path of life’

(Psalm 15.11)

The Archimandrite and Geronda Aimilianos, in the world Alexandre Vafidis, higoumen of the monastery Simonos Petra from 1973 to 2000 was born at Nicaea in the Piraeus. In 1906 his family moved to Simandra in Cappadocia, then after the disaster of Asia Minor and the exchange of populations, arrived in Greece. Although they were married, the parents of little Alexandre lived like monks, giving themselves to night vigils and prayer. When they were widowed, both his grandmother and his mother became nuns. Alexandre completed his secondary studies and then entered the University of Athens, first in the Faculty of Law for two years, then in the Faculty of Theology at his own wish. At the university, with several friends, he made remarkable efforts for the development of the faith and the Christian life. He was thinking of becoming a priest and even a missionary, but he thought it better to prepare by a monastic formation. The Bishop of Trikala noticed him and in 1960 the young Alexandre entrusted himself to the bishop. In the end he became a monk with the name of Aimilianos, for the monastery of St Vissarion of Doussiko. He was soon ordained deacon by the bishop, who sent him to different monasteries of Meteora until his ordination as a priest.

After this he lived in the monastery of St Vissarion for some time. He devoted himself to solitude and to the search for interior peace. He cherished a deep desire for the renewal of monasticism. Some time later he was chosen to be higoumen of the Monastery of the Transfiguration of the Great Meteora. At first almost on his own, he lived an ascetic life of vigils, prayer and progressive integration of the elements of the monastic tradition. In view of this serious way of life the bishop gave him a pastoral charge, and he received more and more of the faithful who wished to put themselves under his care. Many young people searched him out as their confessor, and he became the spiritual father of a large number of them. Among these young people several were thinking of monastic life and in time constituted the first nucleus of the Monastery of Meteora, though others turned to the clergy or to family life. All of them, whatever their manner of life, formed the one extended spiritual family, centred on the monastery. It was at this time that Father Aimilianos began to visit the Holy Mountain in order to gather there the riches of its spiritual heritage. He got to know Father Paissios and Papa Ephrem of Katounakia, with whom he enjoyed a great spiritual friendship. In 1972 he accompanied the foundation of a feminine community at Meteora.

In 1973 he was elected higoumen of the monastery Simonos Petra by the brothers there. The fathers of the Holy Mountain greeted the community of Meteora in Mount Athos with great hope. In fact other communities followed in their turn and the monks of Athos found their number growing considerably. Even while living his monastic life with great vigilance, celebrating the divine liturgy and fulfilling other duties, Father Aimilanos devoted himself to reorganising the internal life of the new community. With respect and love he knew how to graft the experience of the ancients onto the young people’s enthusiasm, the devotion and zeal of the younger monks, which also increased the numbers of the community. His good general administration and his fatherly care allowed him to restore authority and to bring out the full value of the age-old tradition of this holy monastery. Once he had settled the community on the Holy Mountain, Father Aimilanos took over the care of the women’s monastery of Ormylia, which gathered on 5th July 1974 at the ancient dependent house (metochion) of Vatopedi, ‘the Annunciation to the Mother of God’, which was acquired by the monastery Simonos Petra with the approval of the local bishop and the help of the Holy Community. The sisters established themselves there and from then on lived as a metochion of the monastery Simonos Petra. This was not accomplished without difficulty and hard work. Geronda Aimilianos accepted a certain number of foreigners who became monks under his direction. Notable among them were Fathers Placid Deseille and Elias Ragot, who came from France with some others. Between 1979 and 1984 three dependent houses were founded in France, St Anthony the Great for monks and the Protection of the Mother of God (Solan) and the Transfiguration of the Saviour (Terrasson) for nuns, frequently visited by Father Aimilianos. He was invited for conferences and spiritual guidance, accepting everything as blessings from God. In his mid-90s his health declined irremediably, and Father Aimilianos was obliged progressively to give up his office of higoumen. In the year 2000 he re-joined the monastery of Ormylia where he was to pass the last almost twenty years of his life in the deprivations and patience of suffering.

The sisters of Ormylia have assembled his spiritual teaching in several volumes, some of which have been translated from Greek into French: The True Seal (1998), Under the Wings of the Dove (2000), Let us Rejoice in the Lord (2002), The Divine Liturgy (2004), From the Fall to Eternity (2007), Ascetical Discourses of Abba Isaiah (2015), The Royal Road – St Nilus of Calabria (2017). In the words of his successor, Geronda Eliseus,

‘The leaderships of the Geronda at the Holy Monastery Simonos Petra marked an important turning point in the recent history of the monastery. It was a blessed period in which the monastery enjoyed a great influence, a period which coincided with the increase of the number of monks on the whole of the Holy Mountain, thanks to the active protection of the holy Mother of God.’ Nevertheless, as the Geronda himself formulated it in the monastic Rule of Ormylia (1.9):

‘The monastic community of the Coenobium, living by its own rhythm, lives substantially in the Church and for the Church, as the heart or any other member of the body. It is appreciated not for the development of any activity but chiefly for the loving search for God. In this way the nuns become perfect images of God, drawing others to the divine life.’

After long years passed in silence on his bed of suffering the Geronda Aimilianos gently joined his heavenly home on 9th May, 2019. May his memory endure for ever!

Archimandrite Basile (Prohigoumen)

Monastery of Iviron

Homily at the funeral of Geronda Aimilianos

27 April/10 May 2019, Ormylia

Today by the grace of God the Geronda Aimilianos has gathered us together for this paschal synaxis. I have known him for years, ever since our time of studies together. We were in the catechetical group of the current Archbishop of Albania, Gianoulatos. Years passed and he left for Meteora. The fact that he had made spiritual progress, the fact that he had gathered young people and that he had founded the community which later settled on Mount Athos, and after this the community of sisters, show that he was working with the blessing of God. The other remark-able fact was that he remained for twenty to twenty-five years like an unburied dead man. This is another witness to faith, for Father Aimilianos had worked not only as higoumen but also as preacher by saying nothing. But in saying nothing he gave us the ineffable words of eternal life. As he understood nothing, he was already with the angels. I think today we understand all this. Father Aemilianos has gone, but he has left us these instructions, that is, he worked much, he founded two communities, and afterwards for twenty-five years he spoke to us without words. The Holy Women had received from the angel the order to announce the event of the Resurrection by ‘withdrawing; they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid’. They were afraid, and they did not want to harm the inexpressible by speaking. In the same way, I think that Father Aimilianos was speaking to us. I must confess to you that he conquered us. He conquered me too. What a Cross for so many years! I used to go right up to his door, and from that I derived strength. Now, I think that those who did not understand the reason for his silence can today understand it, hearing such vigorous singing in the magnificent church at the heart of this community. Father Aimilianos has left us, but the grace of God remains. I think what he has left behind is this great event.

Today we are present at the abolition of death, and we speak not to a few people who speak the same language, but to all people. By its silence the Church speaks to all who hurt Christ and the Mother of God. These are the people who need help. The event we are living today shows that what we need is a Father Aemilianos who rests in Christ, who speaks to us by his silence, who goes away but leaves this living community. And what will the community do? It will live and continue this tradition. Following this path one can suddenly ask oneself, ‘What am I doing?’ It is precisely when I am doing nothing that He is present who ‘offers and is offered, who receives and is distributed.’ So let us give thanks to Christ, to his Mother and to all the saints for the gift of Father Aimilianos, for he has spoken to us by his life, by his actions and by his silence. Let us ask Christ and the Mother of God that Father Aemilianos continue to pray from the place where he now is in company with all the angels. As for us, we must be patient, in the hope of attaining the marvellous treasures of the kingdom of heaven which God has prepared for us and for all people.

[1] ‘Geronda’ is a title of the monastic Greek Church. It is roughly equivalent to ‘Elder’.

News

Dom Jean-Pierre Longeat OSB

Préesident of AIM

A journey in Mainland China[1]

As a sequel to the international meeting of the BEAO at Taipei (Taiwan) Dom Mark Butlin and I had the chance to visit various aspects of mainland China and some monastic sites in that country. It is not possible to reconstruct in detail the journey we made and the numerous experiences we had. However, it is useful to give an outline of this impressive foray into the Empire of the Centre.

The day after our arrival in Beijing we began with a marvellous visit to the Great Wall of China – a test of our physical fitness! In the afternoon we visited one of the great churches in the north of Pekin, known as the Cathedral of the Holy Saviour, where we met the parish priest and had a long conversation with him. The church has recently been completely restored, and the alley leading to the church is bordered by angels blowing the trumpet. It was already Christmas there! First Vespers opened the season of Advent.

It is important to remember that in September 2018 a treaty was signed between the Holy See (which has recognised seven bishops of the patriotic Church) and China, who will no longer appoint bishops without the consent of the Vatican. There are at present between ten and fifteen million Catholics in the People’s Republic of China. The Association of the Catholic Patriotic Church of China counts ninety-seven official dioceses, but the Catholic Church itself numbers as many as 138, with a number of empty sees. For the First Sunday of Advent we celebrated Mass at the actual cathedral of Beijing, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, in the south of the city.

After the Mass, a well attended and finely executed liturgy, we visited the remaining buildings of the University Fu Jen. This fine institution was established in 1933 by monks of St Vincent of Latrobe in Pennsylvania. Next we went to the seminary of Beijing, whose Rector received his theological training at St Vincent’s. We met the fifty seminarians and inspected the spacious and well-organised halls. The library which has just been built is well adapted. The church is vast and functions also as the parish church, in which a certain number of seminarians are doing their pastoral service.

On 3rd December, the feast of St Francis Xavier, we left in the early morning for Manchuria, where we were to meet the community of the Holy Cross a couple of hours from the town of Changchun. We were near Songhur, some 60km from Jilin. The priory is the fruit of a long history. In fact the monks of St Ottilien (Germany) had founded a monastery at Yenki, which later became a Vicariate Apostolic. But between 1946 and 1952 the monks were persecuted and controlled by the civil authorities. Some returned to Germany, some fled to South Korea where they established a monastery which would provide roots for the monastery of Waegwan which still exists. In 2001, after half a century of absence from China, the Congregation of St Ottilien returned to found a monastery in the region of Jilin, at first in a parish, but now in the house where we were located. The leading spirit in this initiative was a Chinese priest who had been formed in St Ottilien and had returned after making his solemn profession.

The monks live the Rule of St Benedict. A house for senior citizens is linked to the monastery as well as a resource-centre for the priests of neighbouring dioceses. The monks also administer the parish where they were first planted.

The next day we left for Jilin, where we were to see primarily the cathedral which has been recently renovated. Then we went to the diocesan seminary where we were received by the Rector and the Bursar. We shared a meal with the seminarians, about seventy of them, for a score of dioceses. The establishment has a very good reputation. The Rector did some of his theological studies in Rome; he has an open spirit and welcomes new ideas. Then we returned and stayed at the church which the monks still hold and serve since they were first established. At supper we gave a full account of our journey.

On Wednesday 5th December we flew from Changchun to Beijing, where we visited the imperial city: mind-blowing! The next day we flew to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, to visit the town of Xishan and visit the old monastery founded by Dom Jehan Joliet and the monks of St André at Bruges. The monastery is not far from the town, reached by a small road which leads to the foot of a mountain whose summit holds the Christian cemetery. The monastic buildings remained unchanged. They were built in the 1930s and are now the residence of the Bishop of Nanchong, and include a residence for senior citizens. A sanctuary has been built there, with a huge Way of the Cross which leads to the tombs of the first two priors, some monks, some sisters and other Christians.

We had a long conversation with the bishop and made a full visit of the places, chapter-house, cells, refectory. Then we took the Way of the Cross to the tombs of the founders. In accord with the Chinese custom they had been cremated and put in niches with an inscription commemorating their wisdom. The first founder was Jehan Joliet. He was born in France at Dijon in 1870. After his naval studies with the Jesuits he became a naval officer and visited China in the course of his duties. He was fascinated by the richness and depths of culture in the country. He was shocked by the lack of esteem which the missionaries then had for the culture and began to reflect on the possibilities of evangelisation with respect for the local mentality. In 1894 he entered the Abbey of Solesmes (which was then in exile on the Isle of Wight in England), with the hope of one day making a foundation in China. Later he came in contact with Dom Theodore Nève, abbot of St André in Bruges. Finally he left with a monk of St André for China with the mission of making a foundation. This took place in 1929 in the Province of Sichuan at a place called Xishan. However, after a few years, a difference of opinion about inculturation induced Dom Joliet to give up his office and become a hermit. He died in 1937, leaving a body of original ideas, far ahead of his time.

After lunch we returned to Chengdu where we were to meet the bishop that evening; he has been in office for two years and spoke to us of his ministry. The next day we flew to Shanghai, where we met up with a French Jesuit, now at Shanghai after many years at Taipei; we spent a couple of hours with him and promised to meet again in France. Next we went to the cathedral of Shanghai, founded by the Jesuits. We arrived at the end of a Mass celebrated in Chinese, The church was full to overflowing. It has been wholly renovated in recent years. After Mass the parish priest of the cathedral and a priest friend showed us round the diocesan house, where a number of priests live, and we walked along the river to the mythical quarter of the Bund, The same evening we flew to Hong Kong.

The next day the Abbot of Lantao, Dom Paul Kao, came to meet us to take us to his monastery on the island of Lantao. The foundation of the monastery goes back to 1946 and it owe its origin to two groups of monks who had fled from mainland China as a result of Communist persecution. A community of some fifteen monks, including one who had a formation as an architect, built this monastery in a deserted spot where the transport of stone and road-building was a real challenge. The buildings consist of a rectangle formed by two wings which contain the conventual items, cells and two corridors joined on at the end. Beyond that is situated the church in the form of the prow of a ship above the sea, with its stone bell-tower in the form of a mast. The infirmary is a new building, Lower down the spacious guest-house welcomes numerous retreatants in its sixteen bedrooms, meeting-rooms and refectory.

We met the community for the office and lunch and the afternoon was soon gone. In the evening Dom Mark made a presentation to the community on the work of the AIM. The next day he went off to Macao to meet the new foundation of Trappistines of Vitorchiano, while I set off for Paris, where I set foot on French soil after a journey of sixteen hours.

[1] A continuation of the journey on the occasion of the meeting of the Benedictine Association of East Asia and Oceania (BEAO) contained in Bulletin 116, pp. 62-67.

News

Sister Christine Conrath OSB

Secretary of the AIM

A journey to Chad,

June-July 2019

In the context of journeys of the international team of the AIM I was invited to spend some days in Chad at the community of St Agatha of Lolo, the first and only monastery of our Benedictine family in Chad. For some time the community has been feeling very isolated in the country and has wanted a fraternal visit. Ever since its foundation the AIM has done much to support projects presented by the monastery, and the time has come to show even more concretely our fraternal presence among these courageous sisters.

I flew with Royal Air Maroc, plunging into the Arab world already in Paris, with an increase at Casablanca, a splendid international airport. One must reckon, apart from the flight Paris-N’Djamena, ten hours in a bus to cover the 475 km from N’Djamena to Moundou, then 11km on to Lolo. It is reckoned not in kilometres but in hours of travel, given the state of the road (good around the capital of Chad, very good in the surroundings of Moundou - the second city of the country – and atrocious in some places in between). The interest of the bus-journey has many sides: a plunge into the local population and a visit to the country. The seats are comfortable and allow one to rest, and one can watch a good variety on the shared screen, in French or Arabic (the second official language of Chad) and even sub-titled Chinese films. The plane landed at N’Djamena on time, but one of my cases was missing, which involved luggage-negotiation as well as the formalities for entry into the country. During this process I kept thinking of Sister Denise who had to wait at the airport for more than two hours.

The monastery of St Agatha was founded in 2004 by the Congolese sisters of Lubumbashi (Congregation Queen of Apostles). Everything is young, and I had a lot to learn. A wonderful book in the library of the sisters guided me, Origins of the Catholic Church in Chad, diocese of Moundou, Diary of a Missionary, by Marie-André Pont, a Capuchin. The Church in Chad is not yet a hundred years old. The eight dioceses of the country are served by 131 diocesan priests and 111 religious priests and 375 religious sisters. St Agatha is the pride of the Diocese of Moundou, as a diocesan priest in the town told me.

Before I left, Dom Jean-Pierre and I had been able to meet in Paris a missionary, P. Michel Guimbaud, a French Capuchin who had arrived in Chad in 1957, three years before its independence. He shared with us his missionary zeal and his pride in the people of Chad. The Capuchins celebrate the Eucharist at St Agatha three times a week and help the sisters in many ways, notably serving as postmen for mail and various information for the sisters. During my bus journey I had noticed some trucks full of containers coming from Douala and Yaoundé, bound for the Cameroons. The country is enclosed, with no access to the sea, with a surface area two-and-a-half times that of France. The northern part is a desert. In addition to the climactic conditions the countryside is politically conflictual: the areas controlled by Boko Haram are not far away. Studying the recent history of Chad, especially during the dictatorship of Hissène Habré (1982-1990) the people suffered a great deal. On 30th May 2016 this dictator was condemned to prison for life for crimes against humanity, torture and war-crimes. The occurrence of the trial, twenty-five years after his fall and flight to Senegal, was due entirely to the tenacity and perseverance of his victims.

As my case had been lost, I experienced an evangelical arrival, as in Luke 10, “Take no purse with you, no bag, no sandals. In whatever house you enter, say, ‘Peace be to this house! Remain there, eating and drinking whatever they give you.’” The sisters put me in a lovely cell, with everything necessary for a night and the whole week. The mosquitoes were kind, and the mosquito-net was enough to keep them away – my aerosol had of course been in my case.

The monastery is well built and spacious. The fine church had been dedicated on 29th June 2018. The agreeable and well-ventilated kitchen serves also as a dining-room. The sisters have just built ten extra rooms to enlarge the capacity of their guest-house, and indeed many people come to recharge there. They appreciate the surroundings and the community. During my stay a group of religious was on retreat, animated by a priest from Central Africa.

I was touched by the seriousness of the religious life of these sisters in conditions of considerable discomfort. They are hard-pressed for time: Vigils at 04.30, Compline at 20.00, a short siesta after lunch. Sister Denise the superior, Sister Giselle the guestmistress, Sister Myriam the director of the school are Congolese from Lubumbashi. The first Chad professed sister, Sister Priscilla, is currently at Lubumbashi for formation. The active members of the community will soon be complemented by Sisters Eulalie and Philomena. The community is welcoming, and a sister from Babété in the nearby Congo is there for several weeks of rest. I had the pleasure of meeting Sister Myriam again, having met her three years ago at a session of formators. She has done the Ananias Course for French-speaking formators and profited from it enormously. She is going to study the Bible at Yaoundé for three years, which is a great sacrifice for the community, generously given.

Accompanying Sister Denise in the cultivated land of the monastery I learnt that three weedings are needed before the groundnut-harvest. Unfortunately the plantation is bare over some of its area, either because there was not enough rain after planting or because a herd of cattle had broken down the fence and helped themselves. In any case, herds of 180 head of cattle come down from the North after the harvest, they clean and manure the land for the convenience of the farmers. In this case they had come down too early, and the consequences for the cultivation were disastrous.

Among the workers on the farm of the sisters the choir-members of the neighbouring parish should be mentioned, who want to buy instruments and an amplifier. Their pay is put aside so that one day they may fulfil their dreams. I noticed also women with very young children on their backs or walking bravely beside their mother. The sisters help the villagers financially, for instance, by giving them seed on credit. This year, in addition to sesame, groundnuts, millet and yams, Sister Denise is planning to plant cotton. She has done some agronomic research and the soil is sandy, easy to crumble, but a strong rain can uproot the plants. The State has launched a re-forestation programme: it is forbidden to cut down trees, but charcoal is needed for the cooking. The monastery has a machine for crushing groundnuts. During my stay three workers kept it turning for a whole day and the next morning we took the cans of oil to a client in Moundou.

The rhythm of monastic life is provided by the movements of the neighbours: out into the fields in the morning, before noon the workers are given tea, in late afternoon they come for food (flour mixed with millet and maize, gumbo-sauce, a bit of fish). Work stops at 17.00, so that everyone is at home by nightfall at 18.00.

The sisters have a small school. At first they provided all the teaching; now they have teachers, paid a standard wage. But the villagers have difficulty paying the fees and the children are withdrawn from school early. The public school also requires payment. Money is short. The water-pump put at the disposition of the villagers is waiting for its third repair, which the sisters are asking the users to pay for. The primary school has to close at the end of May, for at the beginning of June the parents withdraw their children to work in the fields. The hangar where the school takes place has been partly financed by the students of the school at Lubumbashi, a fine example of sharing.

The sisters face difficulties with a courage that compels admiration. They still have not been able to enclose their boundaries to protect their crops, or been able to count on a more trustworthy source of electricity, especially to supply their refrigerator. Access to the internet also seems complicated. The monastery is in a hollow, and it is necessary to get in a car and drive 1.5km to get a signal. The problem seems insoluble. Throughout my stay I found that grace is everything. I thank the community of St Agatha for its welcome and for opening my eyes to a new reality. To finish I would like to put on record that both the local bishop and the sisters and Capuchin brothers ardently long for the establishment of a monastery of men in the vicinity. Land is available. This appeal is thrown out to any who could respond!

News

Sister Agnès Brugère, OCSO

Prioress of Ampibanjinana

Meeting of contemplative Communities of Madagascar

and the Indian Ocean

Our assembly took place from 7th to 14th May, hosted by the Cistercian sisters of Ampibanjinana, Fianarantsoa. The theme of the session, animated by Fr Louis-Martin Rakotoarilala, Assumptionist and Doctor in Canon Law, was ‘Study of Vultum Dei Quaerere and Cor Orans, with a view to the elaboration of our statutes for presentation for the approval of the Holy See’.

Present were

- Sister Agnes, prioress of the Cistercian sisters of Ampibanjinana, President

- Fr Jean-Chrysostome, prior of the Cistercians of Maromby, Father Assistant

- Fr Luc-Ange, prior of the Benedictines of Mahitsy, 2nd Assistant

- Sr Victoria, prioress of the Carmel of Fianarantsoa, counsellor

- Sr Marie-Goretti, prioress of the Clarisses of Ihosy, counsellor

- Sr Martine, prioress of the Clarisses of Ampasipotsy

- Sr Jeanne, prioress of the Benedictine Sisters of Ambositra

- Sr Marie-Berthe, prioress of the Benedictine Sisters of Mananjary

- Sr Marie-Jeanne, prioress of the Benedictine Sisters of Joffreville

- Sr Mireille, delegate of Sr Magdalena, prioress of the Carmel of Tana

- Sr Odette, prioress of the Carmel of Morondava

- Sr Carmela, prioress of the Carmel of Moramanga

- Sr Elisabeth, prioress of the Carmel of Tulear

- Sr Ange-Daniella, delegate of Sr Myriam, abbess of the Clarisses of Antsirabe.

Some communities, including those of Reunion and Mauritius, were unable to come this year.

I- Formation

On 8th May, 10th afternoon, 11th and 12th May we listened to Fr Louis-Martin explaining to us and commenting various passages of the Apostolic Constitution Vultum Dei Quaerere and especially its Instruction for application, Cor Orans, on feminine contemplative life, published 1st April, 2018. He clarified a number of canonical terms, helping us to understand the document which has the force of law for our contemplative monasteries. We read all the numbers of Cor Orans which define the different structures of communion between monasteries (federation, association, congregation and conference) which Cor Orans puts forward, following Vultum Dei Quaerere. We took note that our inter-monastic association has existed at Madagascar since 2008, and is provided for in the document no. 9 under the heading ‘Conference of monasteries’.

II- Elaboration of our Statutes

Before passing to the reading and amendment of the sketch of statutes edited by the Office, we re-read the whole of the letter of the Apostolic Nuncio, His Eminence Augustin Kasujja, dated 12th June, 2008, which encourages us to form this ‘Union of feminine monasteries with a religious assistant elected by the members’ and indicates to us the documents to send to the Congregation for Institutes of the Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life to set up such a Union, notably the deliberations of the chapters of the monasteries wishing to become part of the Union, and a copy of the statutes of the Union. At the end of the session a revised version of the provisional statutes was distributed to all the participants and to the Assistants of our association, now under the name ‘Conference of monasteries of the Indian Ocean’. These statutes must be submitted to the conventual chapters of each of our monasteries, and their acceptance must be the object of a vote of each chapter.

The result of these votes must be sent to the President so that they should reach the Holy See with the statutes for approval. The examination of these statutes by the communities will perhaps raise requests for amendments. In that case we will study them at our next meeting in 2020. The statutes will not be sent to the Holy See until all the communities have given their opinion. The elaboration and amendments of the statutes raise numerous questions: we attempted to determine which monasteries could keep to them, and the rights and obligations which this would entail. We were attentive to the question of leaving the enclosure, multiplied by the demands of Cor Orans, which provoked some hesitations on the part of some of us, with the underlying question: will our Conference of monasteries of the Indian Ocean lose its relevance the moment we put in place the federations for which Cor Orans is asking?

Articles 1, 2, 4 and 7 are intended to answer these questions: the purpose of our Conference is to enhance the contemplative life among the monasteries of the region and to favour collaboration between us. Contemplative life is rich in different charisms, and the formation which we receive together helps us to remain faithful to our call and to our mutual support. We are not numerous in a vast area of young Churches. Most of our communities are still young, and as prioresses we feel strongly the need of formation and mutual help. Our belonging to the Conference is also a witness to our unity in the Church. Article 2 details the services which the Conference gives to its monastic members.

In Article 7 we underline the need for the constituent communitiesto take part in the meeting of the superiors, at least by sending a delegate if the superior herself cannot attend, in order to preserve a living link with the Conference. However we are aware that the monasteries of the islands of the Indian Ocean, given the distance which separates them from Madagascar and the financial impossibility of the Madagascan communities travelling to the islands, will not have the possibility of attending all the meetings and formation. This is why, in Article 7, we open the possibility of delegating a nun resident in Madagascar to represent them if they cannot attend.

It seems to us wise not to fix in the statutes (Article 7) the frequency of our meetings of superiors. At present we have a rhythm of annual meetings, but we can envisage meeting every two years in the future. In this case the frequency of our meetings will be fixed by interior regulation in function of the choice of members of the Conference.

In the exchanges on the rights and duties of members of the Conference it seemed to us important that the assembly of superiors should lay down the participation of communities in the other activities proposed by the Conference. The formations proposed to communities are facultative, but the presence (or participation) of all the members at the assembly is absolutely necessary for the effective working of the Conference.

At Article 22 we mentioned the Father Assistants of the Conference as being the right of superiors of the Benedictines of Mahitsy and the Cistercians of Maromby, which have accompanied our association from its very first meetings. Being themselves contemplative monks, it seems to us that they are the most apt to fulfil this function.

We would like to express our thanks to Fr Louis-Martin, who has put his skill as a canonist at the service of our Conference to complete this work of revision of the statutes.

III- Exchanges on different subjects and prospects for future years

We shared our hopes for the formation of superiors in the coming years. It seems to us important to continue the work on Cor Orans, since many of the points had not been discussed, namely foundations, canonical erection, formation and means of communication. We asked Fr Louis-Martin to come back next year to continue to read with us Cor Orans and also to help us in the editing of regulations interior to our Conference (the Office will edit a sketch to be amended at the assembly). In addition, if the communities propose other amendments to the statutes we will discuss them together.

Our next meeting will occur from 27th April till Monday 4th May, 2020. We shall again be at Fianarantsoa, to facilitate the attendance of Fr Louis-Martin.

For the sake of strengthening the communion between us, between the assemblies, here are some proposals:

– At the end of the year, for example at the renewal of vows, each community could communicate to Sister Agnes the sessions or conferences they have had during the year, preferably with the names of the speakers, in order to give ideas to the others. In January Sister Agnes will pass on the information to all the communities.

– In the same way, when a community experiences an important event, good or bad, it should communicate this to Sister Agnes, who will pass it on to each of the communities.

– There are sometimes talents in our communities which could be shared. Could we envisage an exchange on any subject, such as the chant? This would mean one of our sisters spending a few days in another community.

– We could envisage a formation for our young solemnly professed in 2021 or 2022. Several themes were suggested: consecration, perseverance, dealing with crises, liberty and discernment in the use of our means of communication, the importance of the interior life.

– Mother Marie-Jeanne of Joffreville proposed envisaging a session for superiors or for the young at Joffreville. This would also be an occasion for organising a day of witness with the Christians of the diocese about the contemplative life, which is not well understood in this barely Christianised part of the North. Mother Odette, of the Carmel of Morondava, indicated that her situation is similar; she would like to invite us also. We realise the usefulness of supporting communities by our presence, but the distance and the travel costs must also be considered. We realise that Mother Marie-Jeanne and Mother Odette cover great distances to join us each year.

All the participants warmly expressed their thanks to the AIM which helps us to cover the costs of this assembly and also that of the formation-session which will be held at Maromby 19-26 September with Sister Marie-Florence, PFM, on the theme of accompaniment (19-22 Sept) then Fr Georges, SJ, on the theme of discernment (23-26 Sept). About 40 people have already signed up.

4. Invitation to a meeting of contemplatives with Pope Francis

on 7th September

We had much discussion during the assembly on how to respond to the invitation of the Bishops’ Conference of Madagascar for a meeting with the Holy Father at the Carmel of Ampasanimalo at Tananarive in the morning of 7th September.

We think that there will be 130 nuns and 7 postulants who could come, if they could manage to be with us. The meeting would include a welcome by Mother Maddalena, prioress of the Carmel, an exhortation by the Pope and the office of midday prayer with the Holy Father. The liturgy has already been prepared and approved by the Holy See; we will arrive earlier in the morning and practise together. The offering of a present is against protocol, but nevertheless we have made a charge of 7,000ar for each community and have asked our sisters of the Carmel of Tuléar to make an embroidery (a map of Madagascar with the names of each community). The sisters of Ambositra will prepare a bamboo card which we will all sign on the spot. We can certainly give this present to the Holy Father’s Secretary.

Thanks to all and each for their active participation at this meeting of formation.

News

Dom Alex Echeandía, OSB

Prior of Lurín (Peru)

Report on the Monastic Formators’ Programme of ABECCA

held in Guatemala, 14-23 July 2019

ABBECA, initiated in 1978, assembles communities from 17 countries and 53 communities in the region. Regularly, Benedictines and Cistercians gather every four years to interact and share experiences accompanied by conferences in different countries within the region. It is a time when communities can gather despite the difficulties of long distances and low numbers of people to send from each community.

The last assembly of ABECCA took place in Bogotá in July 2017. As a result of that meeting, the participants expressed the need to help both the formators and those in formation, because they are an important part for the future of the monastic life in Latin America and the Caribbean. There were some who asked for ABECCA to organize a course for juniors and novices, but others thought it would be better at that stage to help the formators to execute their role, so it affects also those who are being formed and the whole community in something relevant to continuous formation.

In October 2018, the council of ABECCA met in Guatemala to sort out dates, themes and speakers for the first Monastic Formators’ Course which ABECCA organizes. The idea was to find a topic which could form the solid base for future courses and that may help the communities in formation. Thus, after a thoughtful deliberation, it was decided to touch a theme related to the problem of lack of maturity in the process of formation, before and after profession.

Attention focused first of all on the grounds of Monastic Tradition in order to be aware how to pass on from the seniors to the juniors, from a Mother House to a daughter house, from the formators to those in formation. It is intrinsic to monastic life to be aware of the Monastic Fathers, the Rule of St Benedict and the application of this tradition to the present life. The second branch to grasp was attention on the human person, how affection and emotions are relevant in the process of formation to help candidates to mature in monastic life and as a Christian. The human side involves, of course, those in formation, formators and the whole community. Humanity touches the depth of each member of any community. Finally, the attention was focused on the spiritual side, coming from the first two grounds, monastic tradition and human behaviour, in order to allow the Spirit to act in God’s call to live a mature monastic life.

From 14-23 July, monks and nuns, brothers and sisters, gathered at Guatemala to participate in the first Monastic Formators’ Course organized by ABECCA. There were 26 participants from different countries from Mexico to Peru, from north, centre and South America and the Caribbean Islands. Some of the participants had years of experience as formators, others had recently been appointed to accompany newcomers. We were fortunate also to have well-known speakers: Abbot Paul Stonham, OSB, from Belmont Abbey, conducted the first three days on the acknowledgement of the monastic Fathers, and pointed out how monastic tradition from early Christianity was relevant to the present life in Latin American Church. Sr Marta Inés Restrepo, a psychoanalyst and licensed in Spiritual Accompaniment, led two days of conferences on human behaviour and the dignity of the human person. Finally Abbot Bernardo Olivera, OCSO, the well-known former Abbot General of the Cistercians, led three days of conferences on the Spiritual journey, using Tradition and human behaviour in order to point out the real aim in monastic life, using practical examples of how to live a monastic life maturely. I can say that the three speakers were excellent in their contributions to the group.

For their part, the participants were able to share their experiences, doubts and richness in their role as formators. They gathered twice a day, after two conferences given in the mornings. At the end of the day we had a plenary where everybody was able to speak and to share what they had discussed in the group. In fact, by the assistance of others, the participants were encouraged and supported to face the challenges of the situation of their own communities.

The common vision of living a monastic life in the plurality of work allowed the first monastic course for formators to be fruitful. The shared culture made it possible, and also the need to grow as instruments of God’s grace in one’s community. However, it may be said that in ABECCA there are also countries in which there is only one male or female monastery. An isolated community finds it difficult to relate to other monastic formators and so to share the burdens and challenges which society presents. The need to promote such meetings seems obvious, but especially to use it for something productive and valuable. By organizing courses like this, ABECCA seems to be finding a way forward to letting communities grow at home. Consequently this the first Monastic Formators’ Course was felt to be an answer to God’s will for the benefit of each community in the region.

News

Brother Moïse Ilboudo, OSB

Koubri - Burkina Faso

Reflections on the Ananias Course

The Ananias Course is the French language equivalent of the English language course which for many years has taken place annually in Rome and Assisi under the leadership of Dom Mark Butlin and Dom Brendan Thomas. These comments may be useful also for others who did not participate in the course.

I am very glad to have participated in the Ananias Course for three months with its well-planned programme. Like all the other participants, I have yet to appreciate it fully. The moves from one monastery to another seemed to me like the journey of the Three Magi (Matthew 2.1-12) at the sight of the star which was guiding them, and like the Virgin Mary leaping over the mountains to visit her cousin Elizabeth.

The session took me again into the depths of my choice, monastic life in the depths of its graces and benefits. I came to realise that the experience of forming novices for monastic life begins by allowing oneself to be transformed, and that giving involves also receiving, as the booklet, Petite reflexion sur Ananias (Short reflection on Ananias) told us. Ananias, the disciple of Christ who initiated Paul into life in Christ, must be the model, an icon for me in any task. As our Christian religion is a transmission, a live faith which is realised in the Word celebrated and prayed, the three first weeks of our stay at La-Pierre-qui-Vire plunged us into the mysteries of Christ, Passion – Death – Resurrection. These teachings led us right through the session.

In his contributions Pastor Pierre-Yves Brandt kindled a little flame in me which I managed to protect right through the session. It needed to be protected so that it could grow, for it was like a grain sown in the ground. It must develop and yield its fruit in season, in my monastic everyday life so that others, too, should be able to eat its fruit. There is no rose without thorns, and monastic life is full of beauty formed by a gathering of individuals in which every person has a proper character which must be brought face to face with others: that is fraternal life! Pierre-Yves taught me, thanks to his practical exercises, how to find a solution in such and such a situation. How should I face them? By reading and re-reading my own life, returning into myself, taking myself at each moment in order to pass on what I have received. By referring always to the Holy Scripture, to the Rule of St Benedict, to the Constitutions and the Customary, practical tools. I need to take into account the actual situation in which I find myself. I need to be responsible for myself in such and such a situation, put myself in the place of another to behave better rather than to justify myself. There are always a thousand solutions, a thousand ways of handling a situation and of listening to the Holy Spirit.

It is in lectio divina that the monk hears the Holy Spirit, the Word of God. Lectio divina is an apprenticeship to reading the scriptures, to listen more closely to the word which will allow me to read my life and to decipher it. Tradition is a treasure from which we draw the new and the old, a dynamic of life which trains us to meet God. Dom Armand Veilleux said to us the handing on the tradition is handing on the experience of monastic life. Formation is a process. We were formed in the image of Christ, deformed by sin and re-formed by the grace of Christ. The role of the formator is to integrate formation, to help someone who comes to the monastery to be transformed, integrated into the welcoming community.