It's odd that there was no mention of any event in the Pope's schedule on Tuesday, when the Wednesday issue of OR leads off with the Holy Father's Mass and homily Tuesday morning for the resident cloistered nuns at the Vatican....
At the Mater Ecclesiae convent,
the Pope's homily on
'Jesus as God's final Word'
Translated from the 12/15/10 issue of
Jesus is God's final Word to men, who shwed the true face of God to men by giving himself for their salvation. This was the theme for the Holy Father's reflection in his homily Tuesday morning to the seven nuns of the Mater Ecclesiae convent in the Vatican, on the feast of St. John of the Cross, which is also the end of the fourth centenary celebration of the Visitation order.
The Visitation sisters are the current resident contemplative nuns at the Vatican, where a different order serves every five years. They are the second rotation since Benedict XVI became Pope, having been preceded by Benedictine sisters.
[The Mater Ecclesiae convent within the Vatican was started in 1994 by John Paul II, who idea was that a small, international community of contemplative religious women would pray for the Pope, the Roman Curia and the universal Church from the geographical heart of Catholicism.]
In his homily, the Pope commented on some themes in the thought of St. John, the great 16th century Spanish mystic, who has been called the saint of the Paschal mystery.
In fact, the center of the mYstic's life was teh Cross, which he loved intimately. Loving the Cross, said the Pope, the saint understood that it is love, and that the mystery of love is fulfilled in the mystery of the Cross. Benedict XVI said that even as St. John emphasized the Paschal mystery and the identity between the Cross and love, the entire Christian mystery is unique.
He pointed out that God manifested himself in so many forms in the Old Testament to come near his people, through visions and prophetic words. Doubtless, he said, all this was a great expression of the richness of Revelation, in which an aspect of the divine mystery appears.
But there were not so many ways in which God spoke - and it was in Jesus, in the Christ, through whom he ultimately made his Word heard. Developing this idea, the Pontiff underscored how in the New Testament, God said nothing more - since his Word was the Son himself.
Thus, St, John of the Cross explained that God had said and given everything in his Son, in whom mankind could see God's face, the face of the Trinitarian God. And therefore, man's calling is to enter into this totality, to be touched and penetrated interiorly by the richness of the gift of God himself.
Concelebrating with the Pope were his two private secretaries, Monsignors Georg Gaenswein and Alfred Xuereb; Peter Bryan Wells and five other prelates from the Secretariat of State; and Salesian Fr. Valentin Viguera, assistant general of the Order of the Visitation.
After the Mass, Suor Maria Begoña Sancho, superior of the convent, presented the Holy Father, in the name of all the sisters, a silver cross similar to that which the Visitation nuns wear, this one containing relics of the Visitation founders St. Francis de Sales, St. Jeanne Chantal, and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (the visionary of the Sacred Heart was a Visitation sister).
The nuns also presented the Pope with sacred accessories they had made to be donated to poor churches: 400 surplices, 400 stoles, 600 purificators [the cloth that a priest uses to wipe his lips after the Consecration], 500 rosaries, 400 copies in French of the
Introduction to the devout life by St. Francis de Sales, and 2,000 scapulars of the Sacred Heart.
On Monday, Dec. 13, which was the feast of St. Lucia, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, presided at the convent at the Eucharistic concelebration that closed the fourth centenary of the Visitation nuns.
'Dearest Visitation sisters," he said in his homily, "the Holy Father chose you to be near him as witnesses to the nuptial mystery of teh Church. Your presence and your contemplative fervor recall to all consecrated persons the essence of their vocation: the joyous and loving Yes to choosing the love of the Spouse".
The testimony of their two founders, Saints Francis de Sales and St. Jeanne Chantal, Cardinal Ouellet said, "remains very much present in the Church, especially in the interior dimension of love for God, obedience to his will, and the care of the poor who were so numerous in that tragic time of civil and religious wars during which they lived"
"In that difficult time," he said, "they were peacemakers, they sowed love where there was hatred and poverty. They humbly and patiently accepted the ecclesiastical restrictions of their time, which did not allow consecrated life for women outside of the cloister, thus reducing to a minimum their charitable outreach to the poor. But through all this, they showed obedience and spiritual fecundity, two fruits of authentic love".
The Mater Ecclesiae convent in the Vatican Gardens.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/12/2010 02:17]