A word from the Superior General

Pope Francis insists that the consecrated life is “prophetic”. It is good to try to reflect on this dimension of our life. Tradition links monastic life to Elijah and John the Baptist. St. Bernard speaks of the prophecy of consecrated life, less because of its external aspects than its inner motivations: to seek the face of God, to see further than what is presently seen, to reach that which is unseen and in the future.

After the Vatican II the Magisterium began to speak of the prophecy of consecrated life in the instruction Religious and human growth in 1980. At the synod in 1994 the theme of the prophecy of consecrated life emerged strongly from the Instrumentum Laboris and the debate in the assembly. Remarkable in this respect is the intervention of Cardinal Ratzinger, who emphasises three elements: every authentic prophecy proceeds from an intimate friendship with God; The task of the prophet is twofold: “to make known the will of God” and “to interpret the Word of God in concrete circumstances”; “Every authentic prophetic action reveals Christ and introduces us to his paschal mystery.”Saint John Paul II published in 1996 the apostolic exhortation Vita Consecrata, which abounds the allusions to the prophetic character of this life. Today, when we speak of the prophecy of consecrated life, we refer to the specific relationship to history that characterises this state of life, both in the Church and in the world. The exhortation provides elements for establishing three prophetic models.

First model: by the profession of evangelical counsels. Prophecy consists in testifying to a way of living and acting which is an alternative to that of the world and of contemporary culture. A clear, visible and recognisable sign; The risk to the advocates of this kind of life would be to yield to moralism and to think oneself better than others; As all that comes from the world is not negative, the important thing is not to oppose but to dialogue, to promote a culture of encounter.

Second model: through the relationship of intimate friendship with God. Prophecy consists in the ability to interpret history in the light of the experience of God. It is a question of identifying the calls of the Spirit in the situations of today’s world, in order to “then translate them with courage into coherent choices, both with the original charism and with the demands of the historical situation” (VC 73) It is not said that the consecrated persons, by virtue of their vocation, the formation received and the activities they usually carry out, are the best placed and best able to fulfil this function in the Church.

Third model: the prophecy of the consecrated life is based on its eschatological tension (VC 26-27): virginity understood as anticipation of the world to come and eschatological tension make the Kingdom grow here and now. This model puts at the centre the proper element of the consecrated life, which is at the same time a means of both inner and outer renewal. Eschatology is an essential dimension of the Christian faith. It is a matter of restoring the divine and transcendent origin of faith, and consequently of recognizing the primacy of God’s action in history.

The three models can exert a strong prophetic appeal. The third seems to better account for the originality of consecrated life. The religious is the one who lives, not from a presence, but from an absence, relying less on the visible than on the invisible. There is a “not seeing” and a “not knowing” which constitute the way of being of religious in the world. It is the “already there” and the “not yet” which are expressed by paradox and oxymoron.

In this sense, prophecy is a way of looking ahead, of seeing beyond the terrestrial reality, towards the promised and expected promise. This does not mean disinterest, let alone contempt of reality, but freedom with regard to the patterns of this world: “ let those enjoying the present life act as if they were not enjoying it. For the order of this world is vanishing.”(1 Cor 7,31)

”Let nothing trouble you ... patience obtains everything ... God alone is enough”. Here, patience does not mean resignation, but the acceptance of reality in expectation and hope of divine intervention. This is the meaning of the word hypomoné which means etymologically “to stay under”, to carry the weight of the reality that is ours but in the expectation of a change, a liberation worked by God.

The eschatological tension that marks the consecrated life is a form of radical love of the world and of history. The consecrated person, in the image of Christ and in union with Him, takes people and carries them with Him in the effort and hope of attaining together the purpose of the Kingdom. The consecrated person is thus the bearer of a diversity which should neither to lead to a detachment from the other nor to absorption into the other, but a “taking in charge”, an acceptance of the other as a weight on the shoulders, carried by the love of a good Samaritan or a good pastor.

Rather than courageous decisions, we need a logical coherence, which presupposes more inspired thinking than a bold will. At present we live with a consecrated life that does a little of everything. Such a situation, is neither prophetic nor tenable, and should be extinguished or transformed.

We need to replace conservation strategies with formation strategies that allow consecrated people, at least to the healthiest and most adaptable among them, to question the meaning of their vocation. They must do serious discernment and implement concrete lifestyle choices. The desire to maintain often leads us to neglect the care to grow and mature our identity as consecrated, a condition for a renewal that can transform our living spaces. It is easier to arrange spaces than to set in motion historical processes capable of bearing fruit in season.

This requires “clear and tenacious” convictions because, as Pope Francis said, “time is superior to space”.Consecrated life must first revive its eschatological dimension. We must develop a theology and a spirituality of expectation. We must be able to go further than the works, the priestly ministry, the social function ... and refocus on our being religious as such. Thus we will rediscover the capacity to last in history without escaping, and without losing ourselves thereby, “taking charge” of suffering and unanswered questions. In a world where everything is discontinuous and ruptured, we cannot confine ourselves to a logic of conservation and clerical-institutional continuity. Prophecy passes through this “dark valley” (Ps 23: 4), this exile, this path through the desert that abounds in the promises of God insofar as they do not correspond to purely human projects. We need to pause to reflect, we need to pause, because we have to “reverse and demolish”, “build and plant” (Jr 1,10), even though for the moment we do not know how, where and When to do it. The break is in history: we can choose to let ourselves be led by history or decide to anchor to recalculate the course to follow. There are times when the only possible form of prophecy is to stop and wonder (Is 29,9-12). It is time for patience, time to “stay under” load and wait. And by that, to be radical in the prophecy.

Isaiah 29: The blindness of the people

9 Be irresolute, be stupefied, lose your sight and remain blind! Be drunk but not from wine, stagger but not from beer.
10 For Yahweh has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep; he has shut your eyes - the prophets; he has covered your heads - the seers.
11 The revelation of all this has become for you like the words of a sealed scroll. When someone gives it to another who knows how to read and says, “Read this,” the other one answers, “I cannot; it is sealed.”
12 When the scroll is given to one who doesn’t know how to read,” he answers, “I do not know.”

Gaspar Fernández Pérez scj
Superior General

(1) This reflection is the summary of the conference given by Fr. Saverio Cannistrà ocd, Superior General of the Discalced Carmelites, at the USG assembly in May 2016