Reflections

Jesus, as I kneel at the foot of your Cross you teach me my role as a nun of the Order of Preachers.

Those feet which walked the roads of Galilee, those hands which touched and healed the multitude, are now held fast by the nails. And then you hear the mocking shout – “If you are the Chosen One, come down, save yourself.”

How you must have been tempted to show your power.

I too am tempted when friends and those whom I love and respect, suggest that I’m wasting my life and my talents by choosing to live within the enclosure of a monastery…..should I not be out among the poor and needy!

I’m also tempted by the desires within my own heart urging me to bring your Word of love to all peoples, but as I gaze on you, Jesus, in your immobile position on the cross, my faith is strengthened.

It is not the nails which are holding you fast -rather it is the love within your heart, that boundless love for your Father’s glory and for our salvation.

I begin to understand that this loving surrender of yourself is the source of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, who at Pentecost, empowers your disciples to go out and preach to all nations.

And now Jesus, you invite me to abide in that love – “the one who abides in you with you in her, bears fruit in plenty.”

ABIDE IN MY LOVE

Help me to understand that you are not asking anything extraordinary – I have only to believe in your loving Presence in all the circumstances of my life – to recognise your hidden Presence in all the disappointments, the hurts, the frustrations and misunderstandings, as well as in the moments of happiness, love and friendship.In all the pain and joy of daily life, your love is at work seeking to transform my heart till I can in truth say – it is no longer I who live, but you, Jesus, who live and love in me.

Because I am a sinner I often resist and even rebel against your love, but you are always faithful. You even use my sins and failures to accomplish your plan. In my own struggles and temptations and in times of doubt and darkness, I am one with all of humanity in experiencing pain and anguish, despair and helplessness. And when I say “Jesus, have mercy on me, O Lord, what will become of sinners?”- I’m confident that from your heart there flows healing and strength for us all.

Jesus, lift me up and draw me into your own relationship with your Father, and with me, all those I carry in my heart. In you I’m one with the praise and adoration, thanksgiving and intercession which you are ceaselessly offering to your Father through the hearts and lives of countless hidden and unknown people.

Help me, Jesus, to realise that rather than confining me, my vocation opens me to the breadth and height and depth of your love- that love which is celebrated with so much joy in the Liturgy of the Church – that same love which transforms the poverty and apparent uselessness of my life and makes it bear fruit in the preaching of my brothers and sisters throughout the world.

We are all familiar with the story Dominic related to blessed Cecilia as recounted in The Lives of the Brethren:

“One night as Dominic stood praying; he glanced at the other end of the dormitory and saw three women enter. He noticed that the one in the middle was a venerable lady of greater beauty and dignity than the other two. One of the other two was carrying a beautiful shining vessel and the other a holy water sprinkler which she handed to the lady in the centre. This lady sprinkled the brethren and blessed them. She said to Saint Dominic “I am the one you call upon each evening. When you say ‘turn then most gracious advocate,’ I prostrate myself before my son and ask him to preserve this Order”.

From its foundation, the Order has not hesitated to acknowledge the Patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to continuously experience it and to commend it to the hearts of the brothers and sisters, so that encouraged by this maternal solicitude we might adhere more closely to Jesus as we labour to carry out our mission of salvation in the world. Mary the mother of Jesus “is our own special mother, bringing us forth, advancing and defending the Order whose purpose it is to praise bless and to preach her Son.” We are told in the Legenda that after the vision in which Mary showed Dominic the Order hidden within the folds of her cloak, Dominic assembled the brethren and gave them a long and beautiful talk, exhorting them to love and pay reverence to the Blessed Virgin whose unfailing intercession has kept us faithful.

Examples of the brothers’ and sisters’ love for Mary and her solicitude for them abound in the lives of Dominican Saints all through the ages and the great veneration in which we hold the Rosary, her special gift to us, exemplifies this love. The Rosary has been for so many of us our way of doing Lectio. In the company of her who pondered all the events of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and treasured them in her heart, we too have learned to listen and with her to respond “behold the servant of the Lord be it done unto me according to your word.”

The ‘fiat‘ of Mary is the gate through which the Saviour enters our world. The gate closed by Eve is again opened in a new way through Mary’s ‘yes’. She is the gate though which grace becomes incarnate in flesh and blood, the only Son of God become man. In Mary was the Word made flesh, the Word we receive and contemplate, the Word we praise and preach, the Word by which we live and which transforms our lives, the Word who is Jesus in whom we become the adopted children of God. While meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, we contemplate with Mary the face of Christ and she who ‘mothers each new grace which does now reach our race’, brings us to birth in Him, until Christ is fully formed in us.

Dominic had a passionate appetite for God’s word in Sacred Scripture. This was the deepest source of his inspiration. His eagerness to imbibe the streams of Holy Scripture was so intense and unrelenting that he spent whole nights without sleep. Dominic’s reading fed not just his mind but his relationship with God. This was the wellspring from which his preaching emerged. Indeed we are told that he sent out his brethren simply in the strength of the Gospel. Dominic spent long hours before the shrine of Mary, and I think we may assume that it was in her company that He learned to love her Son and to make the Word his home. Perhaps it is because he was formed in the school of Mary – Jesus first and most perfect disciple – that his likeness to Jesus is so striking.

When reflecting on Dominic I seem to be more aware of Jesus than of Dominic. Like Mary he directs our gaze to Jesus. This grace-filled preacher and gospel man of prayer seems to draw my attention away from himself and turn me towards Jesus. All he did was to live the Gospel and preach it in word and deed. His life is all about Jesus. And it is this central focus that is the heart of our Dominican way of life. With Dominic there is nothing to side track us from coming face to face with the challenge of the Gospel – the call to be in name and in fact disciples of Jesus.

As I understand it, what binds us as Dominicans, what indeed makes us Dominicans, is the fact that we are all looking in the same direction – toward Jesus – that in Him, with Him and through Him we may be turned towards the Father and towards the world. I remember being told that contemplation was the ability to see clearly, to see things as they are and then to share with others what we have seen. “Jesus looked at him and loved him”- This is what Dominic and each of us see and experience when we gaze on Jesus and it is this good news, this awe inspiring, stupendous reality that we are called to share.

Mary mother of the Word Incarnate explain and reveal Him to us.

In the Libellus, Bl Jordan tells us that Dominic, while studying theology in preparation for the priesthood ” began to develop a passionate appetite for God’s words, finding them (as the psalm says) sweeter than honey to the mouth”. These words ‘ a passionate appetite for God’s words’ gives us an insight into Dominic’s character and spirituality. Dominic gave himself totally, wholeheartedly, with a singlemindedness of purpose and an undivided heart to the mission of the Order, for Jordan says later on in that same book that: ‘Dominic thought he would only really be a member of Christ’s Body when he could spend himself utterly with all his strength in the winning of souls, just as the Lord Jesus, the Saviour of us all, gave himself up entirely for our salvation’.

Dominic gave his ‘all ‘ – there were no half measures with him – he was passionate about the things that really mattered. His spirituality was deeply rooted in the word of God, in Sacred Scripture – the deepest source of his inspiration was his love of The Word, Jesus Christ. This passionate appetite for God’s word led Dominic to study and ponder the sacred scriptures so deeply, becoming so familiar with them, that it was said of him that he knew the Gospel of Matthew and the letters of St. Paul almost by heart.

This indeed suggests long hours of reading, pondering and study. We are told in the words of Jordan that : ‘Dominic’s eagerness to imbibe the streams of holy scripture was so intense and so unremitting that he spent whole nights almost without sleep, so untiring was his great desire to study’ and he goes on to say ‘that the truth which he received he stored away in the deepest recesses of his mind and guarded in his retentive memory’-and what a memory he had!

In the early days of the Order there was not a clear distinction, as there is today, between study, lectio divina and prayer. They were all combined in a single activity, were very much intermingled and the words used interchangeably. Dominic imparted to his followers this love of scripture, always encouraging them to be “eager students of the word of God.”

Dominic believed in the power of God’s word and this is evidenced by the fact that he sent his friars out to preach, some of whom were only novices,’ – “simply in the strength of the Gospel itself”. Dominic believed in the power of God’s word to save. Paul describes it in Romans as: “the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith”( Rom1:16)

• It is not only truth; it is power.
• It not only teaches; it is at work in us.
• It not only shows us models to imitate; it causes us to act.

As the letter to the Hebrews says: ” The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow”(4:12)

As nuns of the Order of Preachers the Word of God is of vital importance in our lives too. Our Constitutions state that: by allowing the seed which is the word of God to grow in our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit we are interiorly renewed and more closely conformed to Christ .( Const. No. 99) While our brothers and sisters preach the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ throughout the world, we, the Nuns seek, ponder and call upon him in solitude, – ” we seek mainly through study, ” we ponder through lectio divina and ” we call through prayer – so that, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, the word proceeding from the mouth of God as preached by our brothers and sisters will not return to him empty but may accomplish those things for which it was sent, – which is ultimately the salvation of all people.

The following is a quotation from the Libellus on the Beginnings of the Order of Preachers, written by Blessed Jordan of Saxony who knew Dominic personally and who became Master of the Order after Dominic’s death. Here he describes Dominic as a man rich in human qualities, madly in love with God and neighbour, wholly dedicated to preaching the Gospel.

“Far more impressive and spendid than all his miracles, were the exceptional integrity of Dominic’s character and the extraordinary energy of divine zeal which carried him along; these proved beyond all doubt that he was a vessel of honour and grace. His mind was always steady and calm, except when he was stirred by a feeling of compassion and mercy; and since a happy heart makes for a cheerful face, the tranquil composure of the inner man was revealed outwardly by the kindliness and cheerfulness of his expression. He never allowed himself to become angry. In every reasonable purpose which his mind conceived in accordance with God’s will, he maintained such constancy that he hardly ever consented to change any plan which he had formulated with due deliberation. By his cheerfulness he easily won the love of everybody. Without difficulty he found his way into people’s hearts as soon as they saw him.

Wherever he went he always overflowed with inspiring words. He had an abundant supply of edifying stories, with which he directed people’s minds to the love of Christ. Everywhere in word and in deed he showed himself to be a man of the Gospel.

During the day nobody was more sociable and happy with his companions but at night nobody was more thoroughly dedicated to keeping vigil and to prayers. The day he gave to his neighbours, the night he gave to God. It was his frequent habit to spend the whole night in church, so that he hardly ever seemed to have any fixed bed of his own to sleep in – he used to pray and keep vigil at night to the very limit of what he could force his frail body to endure.

Everyone was enfolded in the wide embrace of his charity and since he loved everyone, everyone loved him. He was full of affection and gave himself utterly to caring for his neighbours and to showing sympathy for the unfortunate.

Another thing which made him so attractive to everybody was his straightforwardness; there was never a hint of guile or duplicity in anything he said or did.”Jordan concludes his account by encouraging us all to imitate the example of Dominic: “Let us follow in our father’s footsteps to the best of our ability, and also let us give thanks to our Redeemer, who has granted to his servants such a remarkable man to lead us along the path we are walking, giving us new birth through him into the clear light of this way of life. Let us entreat the Father of mercies that we may be directed by the Spirit who leads God’s children, so that, following the path marked out by our fathers, we may attain to that same goal of eteranl happiness and everlasing bliss to which he has already happily come and that we may never trun aside from the right way.”

(taken from Jordan of Saxony: on the beginnings of the Order of Preachers; edited and translated by Simon Tugwell OP, Dominican Publications, 1982.- nos 103-109)

Talk given at a gathering of the Dominican Family Day 30th June 2007

The Nuns Today, 800 years after the first foundation in Prouilhe, have not changed greatly with regard to the essence of our life – which is a life of prayer and penance as our Constitutions say:

‘ These women free for God alone, Dominic associated with his ” holy preaching” by their prayer and penance.'( LCM 1. 1).

This is the same today. Our Constitutions give a further description of our way of life while describing that of the other branches also. I quote:

‘The friars, sisters and laity of the Order (all of whom are represented here today) are ” to preach the name of our Lord Jesus Christ throughout the world: the nuns are to seek, ponder and call upon him in solitude so that the word proceeding from the mouth of God, may not return to him empty, but may accomplish those things for which it was sent.” ( Is. 55:10) ( LCM 1.11)

We, the nuns, are called to seek, ponder and call upon Jesus in silence and solitude so that the word of God as preached by you, our brothers and sisters will bear fruit. This is our particular place and role in the Order and we are very happy to share our life with those who wish to come to our monastery for private retreats. I would like to extend again an invitation to our sisters to come inside the enclosure for some retreat days. The friars and laity are also welcome to avail of our guestroom and Retreat House. Presently we are at the stage of submitting plans for an Extension to our Retreat House in order to make it more attractive to would-be retreatants for we are very glad to have members of the various branches join us for the celebration of the liturgy and share with them our life of prayer in this particular way.

It is interesting to note in recent chapters of the Order, that the friars ask us, the nuns, to challenge their activism but perhaps we ourselves need to re-assess our own vocation because we too are influenced by the culture in which we live. We are called to be counter- cultural in all aspects of our life. As we strive and struggle to be faithful to our particular vocation in the Order we need to keep our eyes on the goal, on the ideal as expressed in our Constitutions, in the letters of recent Masters of the Order and in Church documents.

In particular it is the vocation of the nuns to bear witness to the contemplative dimension of our tradition- keeping in mind that all members of the Order are called to be contemplatives. We do this primarily through the celebration of the liturgy, private prayer and lectio divina on Sacred Scripture. Although the whole of our life is ordered to the continual remembrance of God, I would like to focus in this presentation on two central aspects of our life: the celebration of the liturgy and private prayer.

The solemn celebration of the liturgy is the heart of our whole life and the chief source of its unity – so it is written in our Constitutions.( LCM 75)

In learning about the liturgy as a Novice I will never forget the following lines which were drummed into me!: They are: In the celebration of the Liturgy, the glorification of God and the sanctification of humanity takes place. I doubt I will ever forget those two lines to my dying day!

The real significance of the Liturgy as Romano Guardini so powerfully says is salvation – which is being achieved as the celebration takes place, in that particular moment – in the ‘now’ of time. But I wonder if we understand this at its deepest level at all? I certainly don’t. Perhaps that is why the late Pope John Paul II and our present Pope Benedict continue to write about the Liturgy and the Eucharist in particular, in an effort to help us to understand the depth of this great and profound mystery. Can we ever grasp it fully at all, I wonder?

This is what the present Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, in his most recent post-synodal apostolic exhortation’ Sacramentum Caritatis’, has to say regarding the celebration of the liturgy, particularly the Eucharist and the Divine Office and I find it a very beautiful text and well worth taking time to ponder over:

‘The liturgy is a radiant expression of the paschal mystery, in which Christ draws us to himself and calls us to communion. As Saint Bonaventure would say, in Jesus we contemplate beauty and splendour at their source. This is no mere aestheticism, but the concrete way in which the truth of God’s love in Christ encounters us, attracts us and delights us, enabling us to emerge from ourselves and drawing us towards our true vocation, which is love. ……… The truest beauty is the love of God, who definitively revealed himself to us in the paschal mystery- in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.'( No. 35)

As we celebrate the liturgy in the monastery, singing, chanting, listening to and pondering the word of God in the psalms and readings, and interceding for the needs of all people – in and through all this we are united with the prayer of Christ Jesus, who continues to give praise, thanksgiving and glory to God the Father while interceding for the sanctification and salvation of the whole world. It is always good for us to be aware of this ecclesial and universal dimension of our life, coming to realise that our vocation is not for ourselves alone but that in the midst of the Church our growth in charity is mysteriously fruitful for the growth of the whole people of God.( LCM 1. V )

Recently I discovered an article on the Liturgy in a publication by our Dominican Nuns in the USA, Dominican Monastic Search, which sums up in a few sentences some profound aspects of the Liturgy. I quote:

‘Thus the liturgy is not of our making. It comes to us from God and brings us back to God. It is salvation and redemption in action in the present moment – in the ‘now’ of the celebration. It is forgiveness and mystical union. It is deliverance and friendship. It is communion and service. It is prayer and the ecstasy of love. It is the meeting of heaven and earth.’ ( Heaven & Earth Embrace- G. O’Donnell)

Aware as St. Dominic was that the celebration of the liturgy nourishes private prayer and vice versa, both being complementary and mutually interdependent, the latest document on the Contemplative Life, Verbi Sponsa (1) ( 1999), has the following to say to all of us, with regard to private prayer:

‘ Nuns in living the whole of their life as ” hidden with Christ in God” ( Col.3:3) realise in a supreme way the contemplative vocation of the entire Christian people, for there has rightly been a rediscovery of the contemplative nature of the Church herself and of the call addressed to every Christian to enter a grace-filled encounter with God in prayer.’

‘ Their life is a reminder to all Christian people of the fundamental vocation of everyone to come to God.’ ( No. 4)

‘As contemplatives we are called to fulfil to the highest degree the First Commandment of the Lord: ” You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind” ( Lk. 10:27), making it the full meaning of our lives and loving in God all our brothers and sisters. ‘( No 5)

We are encouraged, as are all people, never to lose sight of this, the greatest and first commandment- to love God with our whole being and secondly, to love our neighbour as ourselves.

What this document says about our place in the Church can be applied in particular to our place in the Order. Dominic himself gives us a great example of being a man of prayer. Before he founded the Order he had been a priest, a Canon Regular of St. Augustine and as such, lived a very contemplative life. We are given an insight into his person and how deeply prayerful he was, by Jordan of Saxony, his successor as Master of the Order. Jordan tells us that: ‘Dominic haunted the church by day and by night, devoting himself ceaselessly to prayer. God had given him a special grace to weep for sinners and for the afflicted and oppressed; he bore their distress in the inmost shrine of his compassion and the warm sympathy he felt for them in his heart spilled over in the tears which flowed from his eyes.’

Also in Jordan’s words we have what could well be the heart of Dominic’s charism: ‘Dominic had a special prayer which he often made to God, that God would grant him true charity, which would be effective in caring for and winning the salvation of all people. He thought he would only really be a member of Christ’s Body when he could spend himself utterly with all his strength in the winning of souls, just as the Lord Jesus Christ, the saviour of us all, gave himself up entirely for our salvation.’

And the historian Vicaire asserts that : ‘ the deepest source of Dominic’s inspiration was his love of Jesus Christ.’ This love, I believe, could only be Dominic’s response to his own awareness and realisation of God’s love for him: ‘ This is the love I mean, not our love for God but God’s love for us when he sent his son to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away’ (1 John 4: 10)

All we have to do is receive this love and Ruth Burrows, a contemplative Carmelite nun, in her latest book, Essence of Prayer, verifies this as she writes that: ‘ …….. the mystical life is the human person becoming more and more receptive to the inflowing of divine love, which as it enters, of necessity, purifies and transforms.’ ( pg.200)

This is her observation and conviction after a lifetime of prayer – she must be in her 80s now-and what she says is for everyone and not just religious. She emphasises that it is not so much in our ‘doing’ as in our ‘being’ that is of most importance- especially our being open to receive all that God in his great love wishes and longs to give us. St John Chrysostom in the 4th Century teaches likewise in the following text:

‘ For not by labouring and sweating, not by fatigue and suffering but merely as being beloved of God we received what we have received.’

In prayer the emphasis is on us receiving- being the receptors – like Mary: ‘ Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to Thy Word.’

Prayer is a gift that we receive, that is given to us and it seems that it is at the time of private prayer when, as the psalmist instructs, we are trying to:

‘Be still and know that I am God’ –

when our bodies become still and our minds become silent,- through whatever means is helpful to us – that God can achieve in us the greatest purification and transformation through the inflowing of divine love. In allowing ourselves just to ‘be’ there for God – not doing anything, not ‘saying prayers’ or making petitions( good as this is but not at this particular prayer time)- just being aware of God’s presence and allowing Him to heal and love us – receiving this love passively and surrendering our whole being to this powerful, silent, hidden, secret action of God – this type of prayer is of vital importance in our lives. Fidelity to it and persevering in it is our greatest contribution to the Order and the Church.

St John of the Cross verifies this when he says: ‘ In contemplation the activity of the senses and of discursive reflection terminates and God alone is the agent who then speaks secretly to the solitary and silent soul. Even though the soul is not then doing anything, God is doing something in it.’

How reassuring this is for us all as we struggle daily to be faithful to prayer. True prayer means wanting God, not self.

It would seem that the more we pray, the more time and commitment we give to being with God the more we are purified within and this inevitably is painful. Ruth Burrows again shares this insight:

‘Direct contact with divine love is deeply disturbing. The love of God, all self-giving, confronts our terrified self-protecting, would-be self-reliant, autonomous self and this produces deep pain’.

Accepting and surrendering to this pain, this process of purification, by staying with God in prayer, is a tremendous challenge and a great grace. It would be all too easy to avoid this painful encounter by distracting ourselves by doing things, becoming involved in works that are good in themselves but to do that in our life, to avoid this stark encounter with God during this particular time of prayer, would be a form of escape, – that is how I see it.

Difficult as this would seem to us we are greatly encouraged by our own Meister Eckhart, when he says: ‘ Do not waver from your emptiness’ and Ruth Burrows encourages us even more by saying that this ‘ emptiness is a holy void that Divine Love is filling.’ These words of consolation and hope are certainly needed and appreciated by us all. They encourage us to deepen our personal relationship with Jesus through prayer.

The inflowing of God into our secret depths of its very nature must remain secret as John of the Cross tirelessly insists: ‘ ….it happens secretly in darkness, hidden from the faculties….. so hidden that the soul cannot speak of it’. But its effect on our life as a whole will be marked – chiefly by growth in selflessness and love.’

It is helpful for all of us to remember that prayer takes place at the deepest level of our person and escapes direct cognition ( knowledge) and indeed is beyond our understanding; therefore we can make no judgement about it. Where it takes place, in our deepest self is God’s holy domain and we have to trust it utterly to Him. This is one of the principal ways in which we surrender control.

We know that at the very core of St. Dominic’s life, there was a profound contemplative love of God – that first and last. But reading through the very early accounts of Dominic’s prayer- life, what also immediately impresses, is the place that is accorded to others- to the afflicted and oppressed- as I quoted earlier.

Paul Murray O.P. in his address, Preachers at Prayer, given to the General Chapter in Providence in 2001, has a lovely reflection on this special grace given to Dominic. He says: ‘The wound of knowledge that opens up Dominic’s mind and heart in contemplation, allowing him with an awesome unprotectedness to experience his neighbour’s need, cannot be accounted for simply by certain crowding memories of pain observed or by his own natural sympathy. The apostolic wound Dominic receives, which enables him to act and to preach, is a contemplative wound.

Remembering that Dominic haunted the church by day and by night, was ceaseless in prayer and was known to be always speaking either with God in prayer or about God in preaching, it is reasonable to ascertain that he received this contemplative wound while he was at prayer and from this flowed the effectiveness of his mission.

May we today, his sons and daughters, members of all the branches of the Dominican Family, be open to and receptive of, this special grace, this contemplative wound, offered to each and all in the intimacy of a personal encounter with God in prayer and which will make us, after the example of St. Dominic, truly effective in caring for and winning the salvation of all people – the mission of Our Order.

Nuns at the Heart of the Preaching

by Sr. Claire Marie de Jesus Rolf OP

(In this presentation given at Prague to a gathering of Dominican nuns Sr Claire captures the essence of the life the Dominican nun. It is used here with Sr Claire’s permission. Sr Claire has spent many years on the international commission of the nuns of the Order and served as prioress in the monasteries of Langeac and Prouilhe, France).

We are enjoying trying to communicate in different languages, so I would like to begin with a little French lesson. The English word “Preacher” is “Precheur” in French. My mother language is English and when I first met Dominicans, while visiting France, I was just starting to learn French. When I first heard the name of the Order I understood it to be “the Order of ‘pecheurs’” My English ear could not yet hear that French “r”. Pecheurs means “sinners” – so I had understood that this was the “Order of Sinners”. I was quick to realise my mistake and laugh at it but I’ve always thought that there was a great deal of truth to it. I find it wonderful to be a part of an Order of Sinners who have personally discovered – and therefore preach – God’s mercy!

With time, I learned that the “Order of ‘Pecheurs’ (Sinners)” had a special veneration for Mary Magdalen, this woman of desire, who anointed the feet of Jesus with precious perfume: “Her sins were forgiven for she loved much.” Even if there is some controversy among Scripture scholars about the identity of this woman in the various gospels, this woman, whoever she was, if she is anything like me, was, indeed, a sinner and knew the mercy of God. This was another reason for me to feel at home. The figure of Mary Magdalen has always touched me and awakened my contemplative heart. I sensed that I was being called as a Dominican nun “to sit like Mary Magdalen at the feet of Jesus and listen to His words.” (Constitutions of Dominican nuns;LCM§III).

I was curious to discover how those who “make of their house, and especially of their heart, a place of silence” (LCM 46§2), could call themselves Preachers.

Where I came from, in day to day life the word “preach” had negative connotations. To preach at someone was to take a position of superiority and tell others what to think, what to believe or how to act. In church circles it meant to stand up at the pulpit and give a sermon.

How could I call myself a Preacher? I am not naturally a person of many words… in fact, as a child I suffered a disability that made expressing myself difficult. Talking in front of people was not my strength, (but “here I am Lord” for the love of my sisters and of our Order).

When my missionary heart learned that St. Thérèse of Lisieux was called the patron of missionaries, I was confirmed in my belief that there was a mysterious link between prayer and effective preaching. It dawned on me that a life of contemplative prayer could possibly be the most effective way that I had to be useful to a world that I so loved. For me this mysterious link is about “communion”. As the cry in the desert of the preacher, John the Baptist was preceded by the silence of Zachary, so my silence and prayer can mysteriously precede and accompany the preaching of others. Prayer is a work of mercy. It is apostolic. It is a labour of love with the intention of being effective “for the salvation of souls” (F.C.O §II).

Yes, I believe that the nuns have a vital and mysterious place in the heart of the Order. This place can be compared to the mystery of Mary who is at the origin and in the heart of the church. What was the place of Mary? She didn’t say much but what would the life of Jesus or the Church, be without her? She was present, receiving, believing, interceding, and holding in her heart all that she witnessed. She contemplated. She questioned. She tried to fathom the mystery of the incarnation. Mary was present, lovingly present, from the crèche to the cross. She was also there in the upper room with the disciples at Pentecost attracting the Holy Spirit upon the disciples. Dominican contemplative nuns are this loving presence at the heart of the Order of Preachers. Their faithful abiding in love contributes to the fruitfulness of the Dominican preaching mission. As St. Therese of Lisieux said: “in the heart of the church we shall be love”. Our place in the heart of the Preaching Family is really a question of love, crazy love.

We have to admit that, to “the world” (and to some Dominicans), the contemplative nuns’ vocation appears to be a bit crazy. It could be compared to the folly of St. Mary Magdalen wasting all that expensive perfume. Our lives, which are far more precious than perfume, are poured out in gratuitous love. Our lives provoke questions; they are a sign … a preaching. If God does not exist then it is complete folly, but, if you believe that God exists and if you believe in the power of prayer, then there is wisdom, (“what is folly to men is wisdom for God” 1Cor 1:25). Our lives not only preach to the world the existence of God, but they say that God can sustain a human heart. He can be our source. He is enough. He is that priceless treasure for which we sell all. He is the essential. He is not only our destiny in heaven but also our joy in this present life. As our sister Catherine of Siena says, “All the way to heaven is heaven because He is the way.”

Yes we are preachers by our very lives.

In 1989 our dear brother Damian Byrne wrote a document on The Ministry of Preaching. In this document, brother Damian did not limit the understanding of the word preaching to that of giving a homily during the Eucharist. He began by saying that “the key to Dominic’s success as a preacher was his manner of life… it is not so much what we say that wins people, as what we are”. He reminded us that “our Lord converted sinners like Matthew with a word, Peter with a single glance, He ate with sinners… in action and in word, Jesus proclaimed the compassionate love of God.”

As it was for Jesus and for Dominic, so it was for Damian. Those who had the grace to meet and know Damian can witness to the fact that he preached as much by his manner of life as by his words. Whenever I hear someone speak of Damian they talk of his humility, his evangelical poverty and his deep compassion. Brother Damian’s life was a preaching. Damian said in this document that “words are empty unless they are supported by the witness of life both individually and as a community. The common life is inextricably linked with the preaching mission. Mission and communio are two sides of the same coin both in the Church and in the Order. We cannot separate them. And then Damian goes on to say “it is precisely here, through the witness of their lives that our contemplative sisters are at the heart of our preaching family.”

Did Dominic not have this in mind when, 800 years ago, he called the first community of women the Holy Preaching of Prouilhe? He could have picked a safer place to plant that community, but no, they were founded right in the middle of a spiritual wasteland, on a “line of fracture” (P. Claverie OP). They were completely surrounded by Cathars, people who had had enough of those who did not practice what they preached. The lives of the heretics who were speaking errors were more credible that the words of those who were trying to preach truth without integrating it into their lifestyle. Words were not enough so Dominic and Diego then did something very heroic, if you ask me. They abandoned their horses. They decided to go by foot (sometimes bare footed) and preach in “act and in word”. Like St. Francis they wanted to “preach everywhere and always and, if necessary, even with words.” It was important to be seen and not only just heard as followers of Jesus. I think that when Dominic gathered the women together to form the Holy Preaching of Prouilhe he wanted the community to be a light shining in spiritual darkness, a visible, incarnate example of evangelical values, a community that emanated the living presence of Jesus. Prouilhe was to be a silent yet powerful preaching.

In a world where people are saying, like the disciple Philip, “we would like to see Jesus” and seekers, like the apostle Andrew are asking “where do you dwell?” our monasteries should be places where people can “come and see”. I’m always a bit amazed when I hear people outside of the community make remarks like: “What a radiant community! There is such a spirit of gentle joy here! The love of God is almost tangible in the love that you have for one another!” It is usually just when I’m not feeling very radiant, loving, gentle or joyful. Yet, it is true! Even when it is not always our experience as individuals, this is what the community is emanating! The Holy Trinity dwells amongst us and shines through! A Dominican community, when it is healthy, radiates joy and the presence of God. Those who are in contact with the community sense that God dwells there and He touches them… He is the one who preaches directly to their hearts.

So, we see that when we reflect together about preaching it would be unfortunate to limit our understanding of the word to that of giving the homily at Eucharistic celebrations. There are countless ways of preaching.

It was quite moving to listen to the different members of the International Commission at a meeting in Rome as they reported the responses they had received from the monasteries in their regions on a questionnaire on how we see ourselves as ‘preachers’. Much thought and energy had been put into the reflection and one could sense that the nuns around the world are of one heart and mind on the matter. They do not have an identity problem: we are preachers…but…. in our specific way. If preaching is not part of our spirituality our spirituality would not be Dominican. Here are some of the statements made about preaching. There are lots of opportunities to preach:

• Our way of living together is a way of preaching.
• The Word proclaimed and celebrated in the Liturgy of the Hours is a preaching.
• A beautiful liturgy or the sacred space of our church is a form of preaching.
• The welcome we give in our guesthouses and parlours is a form of preaching
• Preaching starts with silence and listening – to whom do we listen?
• We preach to one another in our common life
• Intercessions: spontaneous and prepared intercessions at the offices and Eucharist are a particular preaching forum.
• Books and articles written by nuns
• Talks or conferences given by sisters
• Work well done, Handicrafts or Artistic works
• Wearing our habits is a form of preaching
• The monastery itself gives a prophetic message
• Praying the Rosary together
• Speaking the truth in daily life, the respect we have for one another is visible and preachers
• Sharing our insights from our reading of Scriptures
• The monasteries are schools of prayer, promote prayer
• Living in silence is a preaching

Dominic’s prayer was a preaching. His Nine Ways of Prayer he preached in an incarnate way, the Word Incarnate.

Brother Damian said that Dominicans “are a reminder to the whole church of the importance of preaching.” Brother Carlos has said that the nuns remind the Order of the importance of contemplation in the lives of all preachers. All preaching, if it is to be a Holy Preaching or bear fruit for the Kingdom, is born of contemplation. A truly life-giving word finds its source in the silence of listening (to the Word and to the world) and is verified or becomes credible through the witness of our manner of living. If Dominicans do not live a vital relationship with Jesus in prayer we risk becoming like a club doing social work or intellectual research, or even theology. The Oakland Chapter said “we have not always been aware enough of the contemplative dimension of our Dominican life … and the effectiveness of our preaching has suffered the consequences” (n̊147§4). Yes, the nuns have a role to play as a sign of that contemplative dimension in the life of the whole Order and of the Church.

In conclusion, I would like to come back to that great contemplative, Saint Mary Magdalen. We can sense that it was love that moved her to anoint the feet of Jesus in the house of Simon and wash them with her tears. It was love that motivated her to sit at His feet listening to His words in Bethany. Love, too, pushed her to be present at foot of the cross and then to tearfully search for Him in the garden. She was there obstinately present in her loving despair. In response to this great love, Jesus came to her, called her by her name and revealed Himself to her. She heard Jesus with her own ears. She saw Him with her own eyes. She was a true witness. Only then did she receive her mission to go and announce the life-giving presence of our risen and beloved Lord. This was how a crazy contemplative woman became a preacher, to the point of being called “the apostle of the apostles”, and a patron of the Order of Preachers.

May our love and our lives also be a Holy Preaching for “the Salvation of souls”.

The following is a presentation by one of our sisters at a recent Dominican Family Day.

Our preaching story both differs from, and incorporates the preaching stories of the other branches of the Order. “As the friars, sisters and laity are called to preach the name of our Lord Jesus Christ throughout the world; the nuns are to seek, ponder and call upon Jesus in solitude so that the word – (the saving- word, the grace-filled word) proceeding from the mouth of God (and preached by you our brothers and sisters)may not return to him empty, but may accomplish those things for which it was sent.” (Is 55:10)

Our Constitutions tell us that St. Dominic in founding the Nuns wanted us “to be free for God alone” and he associated us with his “holy preaching” specifically through our prayer and penance. They also tell us that we are ‘commissioned by God primarily for prayer’. The Constitutions of the Friars, LCO 142, states that “St. Dominic intended the nuns of the Order to dedicate themselves wholly, in the contemplative religious life, to that communion with God, which nourishes the apostolic life of the brothers and of the other branches of the Dominican Family, the nuns providing a witness of prayer, silence and penance.” Three weeks ago on the 31st May 2010, Sr. Niamh made solemn profession and I would like to quote a little part of this ceremony as it is very beautiful and emphasises our place in the preaching mission of the Order:

By this solemn profession you have given yourself to God and to His will: God Himself, therefore, has consecrated you to Himself through the ministry of the Church, to be associated, through a life of prayer and penance, with the ‘holy preaching’ of St. Dominic, so that you may be His own heritage and that He may be your heritage forever.

And the prayer with the blessing of the veil reads:

Lord, bless this veil which Sr. Niamh Muireann wears for love of you and your blessed Mother Mary, ever Virgin, as a sign of her consecration to you. Through your help and protection may she always preserve the purity of heart it mystically signifies. In wearing it may she be recognised as a house of prayer and a temple of intercession for all people. Clothe with your grace her entire being, so that she may love you with all her heart. May she always live in this love and be introduced one day to the joy of your kingdom, through Christ our Lord.

‘A house of prayer and a temple of intercession for all people.’ Prayer really is our life and is always intimately and essentially connected with love – God’s love for us and our response in love – however fragile that response may be. “In the midst of the Church our growth in love, is mysteriously fruitful for the whole people of God,” – which means that our vocation in not for ourselves alone but transcends the limits of the monastery and is of benefit to the Order, the Church and the whole world.

Due to limited time I will focus only on personal prayer.

Prayer is a gift of God that we receive. It is fundamentally not what we do but what God does in us, how God loves us, addresses us, looks at us, enlightens us, forgives us, heals us, purifies us and eventually transforms us – if we let Him! We are on the receiving end. In prayer God gives us Himself in love and God’s love is total and unconditional:

‘I have loved you with an everlasting love and so I am constant in my affection for you’(Jer 31:3)

and

‘You are precious in my eyes and I love you’ ( Is. 43:4)

Words cannot express the Reality of God or the lived experience of praying – of communing with God in the silence of our hearts. God will always remain the great Mystery, Awesome, Transcendent, and Incomprehensible – beyond words, ideas and images. Yet, thankfully we have Jesus, the revelation of the Father and through baptism it is in him that we ‘live and move and have our being’(Acts 17:28). Union with God is not something we have to acquire; God is already the ground of our being. ‘God is your being and what you are you are in God’ – as the author of the Book of Privy Counselling assures us. It is more a question of realising this in our lives and living out of the truth of this realisation.

For many years now I have been very taken with, and influenced by Ruth Burrow’s understanding of prayer and the mystical life. (she is a contemplative Carmelite nun and writer) In her book, Essence of Prayer, she says:

‘The mystical life is the human person becoming more and more receptive to the inflowing of divine love, which as it enters, of necessity, purifies and transforms.’

– but the mystical life is not basically other than the Christian life, says our own Fr. Marie-Dominque Chenu OP. 

In prayer, this emphasis on our participation through ‘ receiving’ leads to my own conviction that it is at the time of personal prayer when, as the psalmist instructs, we must try to: 

‘ Be still and know that I am God’

When our bodies become still and our minds become silent, through whatever means is helpful to us, -that God can achieve in us the greatest purification and transformation that is so necessary through the inflowing of divine love – as I quoted earlier ’the human person becoming more and more receptive to the inflowing of divine love which, as it enters, of necessity purifies and transforms’. In allowing ourselves just to ‘be’ there for God, – not doing anything, not ‘saying’ prayers or making petitions (good as this is but not at this particular time) – just being silently aware of God’s presence and allowing Him to heal us and love us – receiving this love passively and surrendering our whole being to this powerful, silent, hidden, secret action of God – this type of prayer, I firmly believe, is of vital importance in all our lives. Fidelity to it and persevering in it is, as contemplatives, our greatest contribution to the preaching mission of the Order, the Church and the world.

True prayer means wanting God not self. Our own documents on the Contemplative Life affirms this when it says:

“withdrawal from the world for the sake of leading a more intense life of prayer in solitude is nothing other than a very particular way of living and expressing the paschal mystery of Christ, which is death ordained towards resurrection”(Venite Seorsum 1)

The more we pray, the more time and commitment we give to being with God, the more we are purified within and this inevitably is painful. Direct contact with divine love is deeply disturbing. The love of God, all self-giving, confronts our terrified self-protecting, would-be self-reliant, autonomous self and this produces deep pain. Accepting and surrendering to this pain, this process of purification, by staying with God in prayer, is a tremendous challenge and a great grace. It would be all too easy to avoid this painful encounter by distracting ourselves by doing things, becoming involved in projects that are good in themselves, multiplying contacts, etc but to do that in our life, to avoid this stark encounter with God during this particular time of prayer, would be a form of escape, – that is how I see it.

Meister Eckhart encourages us:

‘Do not waver from your emptiness’

Yes, prayer requires great poverty of spirit. It is helpful to remember that prayer takes place at the deepest level of our person and escapes direct knowledge and indeed is beyond our understanding; therefore we can make no judgement about it. Where it takes place, in our deepest self is God’s holy domain and we have to trust it utterly to Him. This is one of the principal ways in which we surrender control.

We must be ready to believe that ‘nothingness’ is the presence of divine Reality; emptiness is a holy void that Divine Love is filling. We must give up wanting assurances either from within or without. The inflowing of God into our secret depths of its very nature must remain secret as John of the Cross tirelessly insists: ‘…. it happens secretly in darkness, hidden from the faculties….so hidden that the soul cannot speak of it.’ But its effect on our life as a whole will be marked – chiefly by growth in love and selflessness.

On this subject of love Fr Anselm Moynihan OP has written:

‘The contemplative life is truly par excellence the vocation of love, that which gives the highest expression to our love for God and at the same time provides the greatest stimulus to the increase of that love. That is why it is so vital to the Church, for it nourishes the very heart of the Church, the life-spring of all its work of bearing witness to God’s glory and the saving of souls.’

In nourishing the heart of the Church it nourishes the preaching heart of the Order and indeed the heart of the world. In Pope Benedict’s Pastoral letter to the Catholics of Ireland (no. 14) he asks that monasteries organise periods of Eucharistic Adoration so that:

“through intense prayer before the Real Presence of the Lord, you can make reparation for the sins of abuse that have done so much harm, at the same time imploring the grace of renewed strength and a deeper sense of mission on the part of all bishops, priests, religious and lay faithful. I am confident that this programme will lead to a rebirth of the Church in Ireland in the fullness of God’s own truth, for it is the truth that sets us free.”

In response to this request by Pope Benedict, we have one hour each Friday, 4:45pm – 5:45pm of silent Eucharistic Adoration for this intention, when all the community are present and as many of the faithful as possible. The invitation is open to all.

I would just like to finish with a quote from letter IV of Blessed Jordan to Blessed Diana, which helps to explain how our preaching stories complement one another: Jordan writes to Diana:

“What you achieve in your stillness, I achieve by moving from place to place: all this we do for love of Him. He is our sole end.”

Indeed no matter what branch of the Order we belong to, we, like St. Dominic, whose deepest source of inspiration was his love of Jesus Christ, do all for love of Him. Love of Jesus is the source and goal of our lives.