Religious Life: Where is it Heading?

“The mystical state is the highest level of religious experience and the goal of all religious life. It is also the goal of all human development, both on the individual level and in term of human evolution.” This is the opening statement of the first chapter of the book of Willingis Jäger entitled Contemplation, a Christian path. I find it also fitting to start my reflection with this statement because I find it true that indeed, religious have all something to look up why they dedicated themselves to a life less traveled. This is not only for us Catholics but also undeniably for other religious beliefs. They too, if not for the mystical experience, have also some goal for them to attain, may it be in another description fitted to their own context.
What is then a mystic? I’ve learned from Fr. Martin, a carmelite priest, in one of our discussions in Prophets that a mystic is someone who had the experience of God. This experience of God is of the experience of Love because God is Love and this must be put it into practice. “This (mystics/mysticism) is from the Greek verb mou (closing one’s eyes or mouth) and mueo (initiating to mystery)…This would entail a connection with the mystery initiated upon …” You are then in the mystical state when you yourself is experiencing God in a special way. On this aspect, we can’t deny that all of us are aspiring, whether or not you are a religious, to be in this state of life. We don’t have however, a claim over this. Others too have this longing for the Divine. This are universal phenomena and other beliefs long way before us have had a great experience of their Divine. We all know that even before Christianity, in early Mesopotamia, along the Tigris and Euphrates River; in Egypt, along the Nile River and the early civilizations in China and in India, they have already been indulge to this consciousness on the spiritual dimension that shaped their identity even in our contemporary time. The three major monotheistic Religion, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, for instance, have gone through this path of looking God in the very lives of the people. Karen Armstrong, a British journalist and a former nun, elaborated this further in her famous book “A History of God.” She gave a very systematic portray of how people, in the course of the years, experienced their Divine.
The early centuries were then promising as individuals during that time took a radical way of following Jesus. From the early Christians, to St. Cyprian and Origen, to St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Polycarp, down to Paul of Thebes, St. Pachomus and St. Anthony, the founder of Christian Monasticism, laid the foundation of a religious life. Then on, Monasticism, whom St. Benedict did a great contribution, flowed smoothly with its peak during the early centuries down to the middle ages. This brought development not only in the church but also in the whole of the history of Europe and of the world. Mendicant Orders came into being as the new alternative to the way of life during the medieval times. These four mendicant orders, Franciscan, Dominican, Augustinian and Carmelites did a great impact to the History of the Church. Came next to it in the history was the renaissance and the rise of different schools. This brought a new concept and thinking of humanity. This made a great contribution in the development of the Protestantism and later then, the reformation, not only within the Catholic Church but also outside of it. The Society of Jesus, founded by Ignatius of Loyola is a very important figure during these times. There were reformations also within the congregations like that of the Carmelites. The reformation gave rise to the different congregations, societies that answer the needs of the time. Women congregations then were also becoming visible these times and missions were everywhere. Specificity of missions of each congregation was becoming evident. The different responses of these congregations did answers the call of the times and they find themselves of great help to the people, as this “…specific charisms of religious life is to explicate the experience of God in Jesus Christ, lived in fellowship, expressed by public consecration, introduce into the world as a prophetic sign of the future of the world.”
Today we can’t deny the strong presence of the religious in the society and all of these religious institutions have only one in common, and that is the life centered in Christ. If we take this away from the religious, there is no way the consecrated life to prosper. This encountering with Christ awakens us from the long nights of sleep. As what John of the Cross would tell us in his poem, The Living Flame of Love “…our awakening is an awakening of God and our rising is God’s rising.” This awakening is what we look for and this is what we work for. Religious life had gone through times of ups and downs and God is a witness to that. It never was a smooth flow in the line of history. Gone are those days though it molds the way what religious life offers to us at present. History was part of it. History shapes the overall life-line of religious life. Gods’ hand is working in that history. Religious life really grew and this growth did a great impact in the lives of the people.
Nonetheless, question was already asked about how this religious congregation have sprout like mushrooms everywhere. It is said to be that the reason for this is the clash between the ideals and the reality, and it is very evident. Indeed it’s a question of how we view life as it is experience. Why do splits and reformations in the orders are so apparent? While religious are inside the monastery, people outside are struggling for survival. Religious have all the security they want, people outside on the other hand are full of insecurities. Is prayer enough to answer the common questions of life or it is the other way around? We forget prayers in our apostolate to the people. There is an emerging need to response to this kind of situation where sometimes religious are confronted as to whether or not adaptation to the reality in fulfilling the mission is a must while affecting the existing form of mission they have. We cannot hold the trend as much we cannot hold the clamoring of the people who are continuously asking help to the different problems they have. I guess the new congregations are not born out of nowhere. There must be something that moves then to found another congregation to respond to the needs of the people.
But where all these development will go? I guess there is a new trend here. There is this new face and form of mission. It is not anymore a monastery-like living out of vocations but of the empathetic work/respond to the call. What I see here is the very evident presence of listening. They must have heard the people’s plea. And they responded to it. Monastery before was covered by big walls and so they only see the walls and contemplate on it. Today, in the very new environment, things have change and so our way of looking into vocation, it must change also without compromising the very essence of religious life and the spirit of the founder/foundres. I would say the prophetic dimension of religious life was given a flavor. Not only that the people could now easily see religious brothers and sisters walking around the streets or joining the march but more so on the way the religious people think, reflect and act to the current issues of the society. Thomas Merton when ask about the dichotomy of talking about social change and being a monk, said “…we are not going to solve social problems or the problems of the community unless we solve them in universal terms…the task of the solitary person and the hermit is to realize within himself, in a very special way, a universal consciousness and to contribute this, to feed this back in so far as he can, into the communal consciousness…” We see, even the typical medieval way of living out religious life, the monk or even perhaps the contemplative nuns, are aware and trying to be “in the world” on their consciousness, through bringing it inside their community.
What important here is how are we going to materialized the mystical experience we have with our God. Our experience of God should not only be kept by us but must be work out and acted upon. The word love is never a love if it remains a word. It should be put into action. The church is developing because we are now going to the people not going to monastery. Of course it should be holistic and not a one sided shot. Prayer and action must come together and I guess more and more religious people are doing and professing it along with their own charisms and spirituality. We have gone a long way and this way is a never ending journey towards God. The good thing here along the course of the history of consecrated life is that we did not remain at one phase and become stagnant. We moved on and we sided to the people whom we promised to give service. This is not anymore the question in terms of numbers of congregations we have now but this is now a question of the number of people we help because we believe that God is in the people. This is our goal, to be in the mystical stage, to be with God. Furthermore, if ask where are we heading? We are heading to the people – we are heading to God.

Refrerences:

Boff, Leonardo O.F.M. God’s Witnesses in the Heart of the World. Robert Fath, C.M.T., trans. and ed., Chicago, Illinois: Claret Center for Resources in Spirituality, 1981.

Capps Walter ed. Thomas Merton: A Preview of the Asian Journey. New York:
Crossroads, 1991.

Gerlock, Ed., ed. Lecture Series on Spirituality. Quezon City: Institute of Spirituality in
Asia, 2003.

Willigis Jäger. Contemplation: A Christian Path. Ligouri, Missouri: Triumph Books,
1989.

Notes on Vita Consecrata II


-melskiens-