ROMA-ITALIA
(19-08-2012).- This year we celebrate an anniversary of particular
significance: the 24th of August will see the completion of 450 years
since the foundation of St. Joseph’s in Avila, and therefore too, since
the beginning of Teresa’s reform. The Holy Father himself has expressed
his joy and the joy of the whole Church concerning this anniversary by
sending, on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a message that is
rich in teresian spirituality and doctrine.
At the thought of
our religious family completing 450 years of life, the first sentiment
that fills our hearts is gratitude to the Lord for his fidelity and his
love, together with wonder at the great things that he has done in us.
Truly, if Teresa has given herself to Jesus, Jesus has given much more
to Teresa and continues to give himself to her whole family. Let us
mutually remind ourselves not to forget (“Remember, O Israel!”) how
great a grace he has given in calling us to be part of this history, to
make ourselves capable of being able to witness to it in the present and
making it grow into the future, on a journey of unending foundation,
which, -as Teresa herself has taught us – should never be considered to
have reached an end. None of us could have reached this point, or taken
on this responsibility, were it not gifted to us by God, and if in this,
his merciful love and his gratuitous initiative were not manifested.
Another point for
reflection comes from the consideration of the more recent stage of our
history. In 1962 the Order celebrated the fourth centenary of its
reform, right at the beginning of the Second Vatican Council, which in
turn would have signaled in many ways the beginning of a new epoch in
the history of the Church. These last 50 years are a stage of our
journey which offers itself for our peaceful evaluation and spiritual
discernment. We have changed a lot during these years, but the same call
continues to vibrate in us and the same passion as sons and daughters
of Teresa of Jesus. We are aware that not every change has expressed the
creativity of the charism, nor every desire to preserve has been a
manifestation of authentic fidelity. But we note especially that our
reality, complex and at times contradictory, is today inhabited by new
faces, by new
generations born
during these last fifty years, with new sensibilities and diverse
experiences, coming from different parts of the world, wishing to
express what they are and what they have, fragility and strength,
poverty and richness, clarity and obscurity of vision, the enthusiasm of
youth and the wisdom of mature age.
Teresa was 47
years of age when the first tolls of the bell of St. Joseph’s were
sounding. At an age, which at that time much more so than ours, could be
considered rather advanced, she set out on a completely new adventure,
which foreboded risks and the unknown. We know that two things helped
her overcome every human and reasonable resistance: the power coming
from her experience of God and from the strength of her passion for a
Church and a world in the throes of an upheaval of epochal proportions.
Today too, these are the powers that can animate and recommit us on our
journey, or, open for us a way into a landscape which at times seems
like an empty and trackless desert in which we feel dispersed, or
alternatively, like a dense forest, in which it is impossible to find
any way forward.
Teresa was not
able to rely on the support of many powerful friends or great economic
resources. Her very condition as a woman was a cause of innumerable
difficulties and
limitations.
There were times when the project of a new foundation seemed simply
unrealizable, and she complained to the Lord that he was asking
impossible things of her (cf. Life 33, 11). The story of the first
foundation is a tangle of labors, of doubts, of persecutions and of
every kind of obstacle, but at the same time of consolations, of
providential meetings, of unexpected help and especially of continually
renewed interior certitude. Because of this, the account of it is
transformed from an autobiographical narrative into a confession of
lived faith, into an account of the history of salvation, the memory of
which ought be handed on from generation to generation because we can
continue to draw power and inspiration from it. Teresa gave Fr. García
de Toledo, who was destined to receive the book of her Life, permission
to change everything, except the account of the first foundation:
I beg your
Reverence, for the love of God, if you think it well to tear up
everything else that is written here, to preserve what concerns this
monastery. Then, after my death, it should be given to the sisters here,
for it will be a great encouragement in the service of God to those who
come after us and will prevent this work that has been begun from
falling to the ground and help it to prosper continually when it is seen
what importance His Majesty must have attached to this house since He
founded it through a creature as wicked and as base as I (Life, 36, 29).
It is with this
spirit that we also, after 450 years, return to that founding
experience, from which we are born. If the Lord has done so much for
this work to be accomplished, he will continue to do so in order that it
may not go to ruin, but rather progress ever more. Teresa would like to
underline for us that if all of this has been possible, it is not
because of the instrument that was used, an imperfect and poor woman
such as herself, but by him who wished to use it. Far from being false
humility, Teresa, as usual, speaks about “things which are very true”
(Life 40, 3), especially in relation to something as important as the
reform of Carmel. It is the work of the Lord, to whose service she is
given, but not without doubts, anguish and opposition. But in the end,
his grace is the stronger.
This work willed
by God, this precious jewel with which he wished to adorn Teresa, and in
her the whole Church (I refer to the famous vision narrated in her Life
33, 14), is now placed in our hands. What will we do with it? What will
be our response to the appeal that reaches us from the autobiographical
pages of our Holy Mother? We speak so much today about the crisis of
religious life, about its difficulties – especially in the West – from
the lack of vocations to the ageing of communities, but also and even
more about a general loss of motivation and a crisis of identity. I do
not wish to minimize these problems which we experience daily, and which
those called to the service of authority experience all the more.
Without doubt, the crisis that we are living through is epochal and we
will not be able to come out of it without new insights and profound
changes.
But the question that to me seems essential is this: where can these new insights come
from? Where can
we get the strength to make the changes that the times require? I have
observed during this period of economic crisis that a thought of Albert
Einstein written in the aftermath of the great crisis of 1929 is winning
a lot of followers. It is quoted in an innumerable number of web sites
and blogs; it was also quoted in a letter sent to me by one of our
sisters. Einstein wrote in 1935:
A crisis can be a
real blessing to any person, to any nation, for all crises bring
progress. Creativity is born from anguish, just like the day is born
from the dark night. It’s in crisis that invention is born, as well as
discoveries, and big strategies. Who overcomes crisis, overcomes
himself, without getting overcome. Who blames his failure to a crisis
neglects his own talent, and is more respectful to problems than to
solutions. Incompetence is the true crisis.
The greatest
inconvenience of people and nations is the laziness with which they
attempt to find the solutions to their problems. There’s no challenge
without a crisis. Without challenges, life becomes a routine, a slow
agony. There’s no merit without crisis. It’s in the crisis where we can
show the very best in us. Without crisis, any wind becomes a tender
touch. To speak about a crisis is to promote it. Not to speak about it
is to exalt conformism. Let us work hard instead. Let us stop, once and
for all, the menacing crisis that represents the tragedy of not being
willing to overcome it.
These are
certainly stimulating and hopeful words that invite us to grow and give
of our best, without allowing ourselves to be overcome by fear or
discouragement. It is possible that for the economy and for politics
these words find their mark and indicate the way out of the crisis.
Notwithstanding all of this, it seems to me that we cannot say the same
in regard to the crisis in religious life and in the spiritual life. It
is good to make an appeal to the human will and intelligence, to request
and elaborate efficacious projects and to develop a creativity that
makes us capable of confronting the present challenges, all of which
makes sense and is indisputably reasonable. However, we need to realize
that our own projects are not going to save us. We need to drink from a
fount of living water that wells up from a more profound vein, where the
human person does not make anything happen but allows it to happen,
does not choose but accepts being chosen, where one’s own wisdom and
power are not experienced but rather one’s foolishness and weakness. The
way out is not found in seeking to turn back to the situation that
preceded the crisis, nor in propelling oneself forward, but by entering
deeply into the present crisis, descending to its very roots, to that
level where things can be seen differently, where agitation and fear are
put to rest and the prayer of the poor begins to rise up, more pure,
more humble and more true. From here we can take on again the journey.
This downward way
that Teresa has traveled and continued to travel to the very last day
of her life, the way of the Paschal Mystery, where one can enter only
after experiencing that all the other ways are blind alleys or tracks
that get lost in nothingness. It is a journey that has prayer as a staff
and forgetfulness of self as a knapsack, and thus resembles the journey
of the disciples of Jesus, called to leave everything and follow him in
whom they believe and from whom they hope for everything. It is a
journey in which – as Bl. John Henry Newman wrote in his wonderful poem
“The Pillar of the Cloud” – one does not wish to see the distant scene,
but only that small step which we are called to take every day.
It is perhaps
“the little that depends on us”, that Teresa chose to fulfill at the
time she became aware of the gravity of the situation that the Church
and the world were in and of the mission that the Lord was entrusting to
her. I know that it may truly seem very little, but it is precisely
from the small and the little, not to mention the nothing, that God
creates everything. We have a duty to be witnesses to this, with Teresa
and like Teresa to set out from that far distant, yet very near 24th
August 1562.
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