Contemplation, action, communion - Part 4

This article continues from the previous three month's series on the spirituality of communion,
a particular gift God gave to Chiara Lubich to benefit the Church and humanity.

Contemplation, action, communion
- Part 4

Three currents have shaped the main eras of spiritual history.
The Focolare’s emphasis on unity expresses the most recent
communitarian developments.

In the life of the church, the universal and prophetic value of life’s communitarian dimension is being rediscovered.

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you,” St. Augustine wrote. Those who had the grace of experiencing the sweetness and energy that emanates from the presence of God — even if only once in a lifetime — understand and make these words their own.

“The desire for God is written into the human heart,” explains the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “because man has been created by God and for God, and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness which he never stops searching for” (# 27).

But where to find God when we are immersed in a whirling life, stimulated by seductive images, subjected to no end of noise?

He is, St. Augustine says, “closer to us than we are to ourselves.” He is within us, in the depth of our soul. It is there that he awaits us and that we can and must find him. But how can we find him when we are not accustomed to being there?

The history of Christian spirituality, and the saints who have written it with their lives, comes to our aid, indicating numerous ways. There are three in particular that in a certain sense have also marked the main periods of this history.

Contemplation
It is not by chance, but through the action of the Holy Spirit, that monastic life was the first way of consecrated life that developed in the Church. Following persecutions inflicted by the Roman emperors on the rising Church, Christians like Anthony, Pachomius, Basil, Augustine, Benedict and many others generated this new way of life, which left its imprint on the first millennium and the beginning of the second.

Attracted by God and hoping to give themselves totally to him, the monks sold what they had and retreated to solitary places. The example of Christ inspired their behavior: Jesus often withdrew to pray and, before beginning his public life, was led into the desert by the Spirit.

The steadfastness of the monks in searching for higher things (see Col 3:1) and their renouncing the world remain for all Christians a constant call to God. They are the fulfillment of the first commandment: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Mt 22:37). Contemplative spirituality emphasized the value of solitude, the necessity of silence and breaking with the concerns of the world in order to find God within oneself.

Those who wish to experience an “I–thou” intimacy with God need to know how to retreat to their room and close the door. Monks continue to bring this to mind.

Action
From 1200 onward, under the influence of Francis and Dominic, spirituality moved beyond the cloisters, where it had been strengthened, and resumed fresh life on the roads of the world. The new sensitivity to the humanity of Jesus contributed to this anthropological development. In subsequent centuries the human person, particularly the poor, sick and orphans, has continually been the object of the attention of those mature Christians, the saints.

Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, numerous works flowered in the Church, spreading multiple forms of concrete love of neighbor. These more active ways repeat the actions of Jesus, who had compassion for the crowds, cured the sick, multiplied bread and blessed the children.

All those who follow lives of active charity can testify that these are ways to reach holiness in life. Many lay people have found them a more fitting course for their state in life and have embraced such active spiritualities, following the example of the many religious saints who opened up those paths, and through them reached the summits of union with God.

Fulfilling the second commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:39), in fact has its effect on inner life: God is manifested to those who love him in their neighbor, and his presence in the depth of the soul becomes more perceptible day by day.

Communion
These last decades the Church has seen a current of spirituality that is bringing about a rediscovery of the communitarian dimension of Christian life. The accent is now placed on the new commandment of Jesus, “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another” (Jn 13:34). It is the distinguishing mark of Christians and the foundation of the life of communion to which they are called.
Chiara Lubich’s spirituality, centered on unity, is an eminent expression of this trend. In it, Jesus in the midst of sisters and brothers united in his name leads everyone to the Father. In fact, reciprocal love bears the presence of the Risen Christ in the community, and it is this presence that enables each of us to find God more easily and more fully in ourselves.

Three ways, yet one
Contemplative life, active life, the life of unity … these three are different, yet complimentary expressions of the Way that is Jesus.
Moreover, if you look at them closely, you quickly realize that each, in its own way, embodies the whole Gospel. Is it not perhaps significant that early monks felt the need to come together in community for help in their search for God? And that monasteries founded far from society were so beneficial to that very society?

It certainly seems logical that St. Benedict has been made patron of Europe and St. Therese of Lisieux of the missions. Authentic life of communion and unity should be rooted in the personal choice of God by each of its members.

Michel Vandeleene is professor of theology at the Teresianum Pontifical Institute in Rome.

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Become holy together
Against every individualist conception of spiritual life, the Second Vatican Council refers to God’s plan, which places the salvation of the individual within the sphere of the community. God wishes … to make men and women a people who would recognize him in truth and faithfully serve him.
Lumen Gentium, 9

An authentic Christian spirituality is, therefore, ecclesial in the sense that it is fulfilled within the Church and through the Church … The words of the Council indicate that everyone should adhere to an essentially Trinitarian spirituality, which constitutes the only holiness to be lived out in any state of life.
Stefano De Fiores, La Nuova Spiritualitá

Communion with God
The root reason for human dignity lies in man’s call to communion with God. From the very circumstance of his origin, man is already invited to converse with God. For man would not exist were he not created by God’s love and constantly preserved by it, and he cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and devotes himself to his Creator.
Gaudium et Spes, 19

I believe there is no man’s heart, still less a woman’s, that has not at least once, especially in youth, felt the attraction of the cloister. It is not the attraction of a cloistered way of life, but of something that seems to be concentrated there, between those four walls, something that makes itself felt, resounding deeply, even from a distance … Though sunken in silence, these houses of brothers or sisters united in God … speak to people’s hearts and utter a voice unknown to the world: a blessedness of union with God that humanity longs for.
Chiara Lubich, Essential Writings

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