by Sr. Sonia, OSC

How can a cloistered Poor Clare nun be a missionary?  Well, how can a contemplative not be a missionary?  After all, a cloistered Carmelite nun became the patroness of the Missions- St. Therese of Liseux!

There exists an intrinsic bond between contemplation and evangelization.  “Contemplation which does not give life to mission is condemned to frustration and failure… because contemplation engenders evangelization.” (John Paul II, Message to the Catholic Fraternity of Covenant Communities and Fellowships, June 22, 2001).  We pray and contemplate not in a void but in a specific time and space.  We cannot escape from the realities around us.  Contemplation is not escapism.

The contemplation of God leads us to the contemplation of the reality our world, to know it and take interest in the difficulty of the reality that we live: “a reality of living death.”  Therefore our prayer is incarnated; it is and must be a prayer that springs from the reality of the people and from the cry of the needs of the poorest.  True contemplative prayer shows God’s mercy in a way that is alive and convincing.  It is a call to bring life to prayer and prayer to life.  This is evangelization.

Cardinal Rylko, president of the pontifical Council for the Laity indentified three important aspects of contemplation and evangelisati8on in his message, “The charism of an ecclesial movement a resource for evangelization” (31 May, 2003).

First is the principle of the Good Samaritan.  The contemplative is one who offers the greatest gift and fruit of intense prayer’ it is the love of neighbor: Love of God (contemplation) cannot be divorced from love of neighbor (mission).  The contemplative is the one who stops alongside anyone who suffers.  And how much suffering is there in the world today!  Not only physical suffering in illnesses of all sorts, in want, and in material poverty, but also suffering of the mind in all its forms: a suffering caused by deep wounds, the absence of any reference point in life, the loss of meaning of one’s own life, isolation and abandonment, sin and non- love, violence and hatred.

The second principle is the mustard seed.  Like the tiny mustard seed, the Franciscan contemplative must be small, patient and humble.  A life entirely hidden in silence and contemplation will grow and spread its branches out so that birds of the air can rest on it.  Contemplation develops into mission when it draws the weary crowds to find rest in prayer.

The third principle is the grain that dies.  Contemplation is sharing in the Passion of Christ.  Suffering accepted with faith is a powerful instrument of evangelization capable of opening breaches in the most hardened human consciences.  In Christ, it is the mystery of suffering which saves the world: an extraordinary strength hidden in weakness!  The cloistered contemplative suffers with Christ, and by joining in His Passion, extends Christ’s redemptive suffering to a broken and suffering world.  St. Paul speaks of mission and suffering when he writes to the Colossians: “at this time I find my joy in the sufferings I endure for you, and I complete in my flesh what is lacking to the sufferings of Christ for his body, which is the Church” (Col. 1, 24).

So how do we contemplate and evangelize as Franciscans today?  St. Clare in her simple method of contemplation identifies four ways: gaze upon Him; consider Him; contemplate Him; desire to imitate Him.

Gaze upon Him.  In St. Clare’s life she gazed on Christ through the example of St. Francis.  She was able to see the face of God in the very person of Francis.  And as she gazed intently on Christ, she was drawn more intimately to follow Him.  Like the Good Samaritan, we should be able to see Christ in our neighbor; in the simple ordinary things around us.  We experience the “gazing” that led Clare to “love Him totally who gave Himself totally for us.”

Consider Him.  As we move from just “gazing” in our prayer to “considering”, we implore the Holy Spirit, the spouse of souls, to bestow on us the gift of Knowledge.  To know Christ in our hearts is the first step of loving him in our soul.  Knowing Christ so intimately, Clare cannot help but love Him totally.  She answered Love with love.  Clare knew “the God who was place poor in the crib, lived poor in the world, and remained naked on the cross.”  It was the experience of the grain dying.

Contemplate Him.  Having known God on a deeper level moves us to commit ourselves to Him.  Contemplation in Clare’s mind is to be totally absorbed in God.  It is like a drop of water falling into the ocean.  As long as it remains apart from the larger body of water; it is just a drop of water.  But once it falls, it unites, then it becomes the ocean.  It is the experience of the mustard seed which only when joined to the earth, can become a large tree. Contemplation is being aware that God is in us, that “in Him we move and have our being.”

Desire to imitate Him.  “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead” (James 3:26).  Our love can only be whole once it is shared and given.  Clare like Francis has the deep desire for the mission.  As contemplatives, we must imitate Christ the worker.  In this world we are His hands by which He will touch the hearts of the lonely and oppressed, bring healing to the sick; we are His voice to proclaim the Kingdom, to comfort the sorrowful, to give advice to the lost; we are His feet to go to the farthest corners of the world to bring His love, to lead others to the Way, to carry the burdened and dying; we are his eyes to direct the way to others, to help them see the wonders of creation; we are His heart to love, to forgive, to console and give hope to His flock.