Open to the Future of God Thoughts of a younger member of the Order Günter Benker, O.Carm. General Congregation 1999, Bamberg A. Introduction Dear Brothers, The General Council invited me to talk to you about the future of our Carmelite Order from the perspective of a younger member. I feel very honoured to speak before such a select audience as the General Congregation which in fact represents the whole Order, world-wide. This also makes me a little bit nervous and I beg your pardon if this comes across. Talking about the future of Carmel could seem to be a very presumptuous undertaking, and under no circumstances do I want to appear as a prophet with definite and irrefutable insights about how we have to live as Carmelites of the 21st century. I would simply like to share with you my vision of a Carmelite lifestyle which I believe is based both on my personal experience of being a Carmelite for 16 years and on a more or less continual preoccupation with our specific Charism and spirituality which I love with all my heart. Neither do I want to bore you or bother you with an unreachable ideal but I d like to reach out to touch your Carmelite heart with some essential elements which are unique to our Charism and which I think we cannot give up but which we are invited to fill with our creativity and life, not in terms of perfection, but with the passion of those who know and have experienced that in their imperfection and weakness they are Gods beloved sons. I m very conscious of the fact that I cannot speak on behalf of the whole younger generation of the Order and also that my perception of the Carmelites and of religious life is mainly that of a Western European point of view. Nevertheless I hope that the brothers from other parts of the world can adapt some of my remarks to their specific cultural situation. First of all allow a few personal remarks about the community where I live at the moment because this experience has a great influence on what I m going to tell you about my vision of being a Carmelite now and in the future. Some eight years ago, together with three other brothers of my province, I had the extraordinary chance to establish a new foundation of our Province in Ohrdruf, a town quite close to Erfurt, the capital city of Thuringia in East Germany, where the communist regime of the German Democratic Republic had just collapsed. The intention of this new, small community was, and is, to live out very consciously and explicitly our Carmelite way of life in an area where more than 80% of the population is no longer Christian and where especially the Catholics are an insignificant minority of only 3% of the population. You can imagine that religious life in this region is only known from movies or history books. We live in a house of the diocese of Erfurt and are in charge of the small diaspora parish. We see our main task in trying to realise our Carmelite Charism in openness to the people around us. So we give great importance to prayer by common celebration of the Eucharist and the liturgy of the hours, Lectio Divina and meditation and to fraternity. We invite people regardless of their belief, denomination and world view to share our life for a few days or weeks and we offer the opportunity for individual retreats, spiritual direction and counselling. For this purpose two of us completed various courses in spirituality and psychology. I did this with a licentiate in Pastoral Psychology at the Jesuit University in Frankfurt which consisted not only of theoretical studies but especially of practical training in self-awareness and pastoral-counselling.
It was in the course of this formation that I learned to better discern my own motivation for entering religious life and especially my attraction to Carmelite spirituality which I am now more aware of being an invaluable source for spiritual and human growth. So this personal information is to make you aware of some of the background to my thoughts. B. There is only a future when we respect our past and accept our present reality as it is It appears to me that two things are necessary if we are to fruitfully think and plan for the future of Carmel: a respectful and creative treatment of the past and a constructive acceptance of our present reality. 1. Our past: the history which created and shaped our identity and Charism The final document of the last General Chapter (1995) points out that we have received a precious legacy which we never want to lose but indeed want to continue and even add to as we go into the future (Analecta XLVI 1995, p. 239). That means that we first of all have to esteem and to study our origins, our roots, the history and traditions of our spirituality to get to know very clearly who we are and how we became what we are. This has to be done not only at the level of experts and commissions but also on the level of each community and every single Carmelite. There is no future if we neglect the past which formed us and which will always have a decisive impact on our identity. The challenge is not to preserve the past but to understand our specific Charism as Carmelites in order to become able to live it in a forward-looking way and to develop it further in creative fidelity to it s unique original and essential message which itself never changes. The forms of expressing the Charism and the ways of living it do have to change in different times. The Charism itself cannot change. Since Vatican II the Order has made tremendous efforts to rediscover our original Charism, to study it and to adapt it to our present reality. In my view the results of this process are very impressive and convincing. We have excellent documents which give a clear and credible view of our specific identity and how we can live it today, above all the New Constitutions and the Ratio Institutionis, also the different documents of the Councils of Provinces and General Congregations. Nevertheless I very often have the impression that there are big problems in adopting these publications at the level of the provinces, communities and individual Carmelites. Although we have these excellent elaborated documents, for various reasons they aren t studied and discussed, sometimes obviously not even read so that you still can hear comments which reveal ignorance of these texts and a misunderstanding of terms clarified in them. For example: contemplation has nothing to do with us but belongs to the cloistered nuns, or: we have been discussing the Charism since I entered and no-one really knows it, or: is there really something specific about being Carmelite? ; or: we don t differ at all from other Orders etc. With regard to this problem I would like to propose this as a possible strategy: to ensure and to check that all the important and essential documents are available in the different languages and really reach the communities and individuals; and then to find appropriate ways of motivating and stimulating the brothers to actually read and discuss the texts on various levels within the communities, provinces and regions. In this way it is possible to establish plans or projects with concrete steps of living out our Carmelite Charism in the respective local situation as well as providing means for reflection and evaluation. I consider that one of the most important present challenges for the future of our community is to initiate, support and evaluate processes of 2
change and growth according to how the Order defines it s mission. This demands a lot of creativity, energy and patience on the part of those involved in this task. This can t be done by the Curia alone. If each Province nominates one or more people to facilitate this process then perhaps there could be an international commission to support them. This way of proceeding would ensure that the majority of the members have to work on the texts and make clear where they are standing with regard to them. This is the necessary basis for any change and progress. I d like to leave this here and later; when I speak about my personal view on the future of Carmel I will go more detailed into the elements of our Charism and their actual challenge for us. 2. The present reality of the younger generation of Carmelites Besides reflecting on our past which created and shaped our identity we secondly have to take seriously our present reality as it is and we must try to read the signs of our times in order to find forward-looking and future-promising ways of realising our Charism. We must clearly face the fact that we only have a right to exist in the future when we embrace our own, unique mission which we time and again receive from God as a gift and a challenge. And when God has called us into Carmel the only way for us to find a fulfilled and meaningful life is to commit ourselves to our specific way of life, no matter how fragmentary our endeavours are - God s measure is not perfection, achievement and success but the daily beginning again to following his call to that true life which corresponds to the deepest longings of our heart. What is the present situation we live in as Carmelites, especially those of the younger generation and particularly in Western Europe - the area of the Order where I have some experience? I would like to define the younger members of my generation as those who joined the Order between around 1975 and 1985. Today most of them are in the age of 35 to 45 years. We truly form a distinguishable generation because we are the ones who joined after the big crisis of religious life in the late sixties and early seventies which resulted from the enormous changes following the Second Vatican Council which was characterised by immense uncertainties regarding the values, life-style and formation of religious life and by the loss of many religious who had left their Orders. When the severest storms caused by the breaking down of the previous structures and the first awkward attempts of renewal were over we entered Carmel as more or less young people totally shaped by the spirit of Vatican II and with the confident enthusiasm to reform religious life and formation according to its insights and visions. In the meantime quite a few of this younger generation have lost their enthusiasm and vision and see themselves in a crisis - some even have left or are about to leave the Order. One of the reasons for that might be that we are inevitably faced with the plain reality of the sometimes frightening age-structure of our provinces: The generation which still carries the main load of our apostolates, tasks and institutions is the generation of those who joined the Order in the fifties and early sixties, those who are now in their sixties. Between this generation and ours there are only a few brothers left, due to the post Vatican II crisis. Added to this there is only a very small number of the generation after us: only a few have joined during the last few years - for example: in our province we had, in the nineties, only one candidate who is still with us; that means: the whole generation of this decade is made up of one single person. At the moment there are no reassuring indications that there will be a fundamental change of this disastrous vocational situation. In other words: our generation is faced with the immense problem that a small number of younger brothers will very soon have to handle the institutional burden and responsibilities at present held by those now in their sixties who will retire from service in the foreseeable future. Then with fewer people we have not only to care for our existing institutions, parishes and apostolates including the very expensive maintenance of our sometimes huge and old buildings - 3
like this one here in Bamberg. We also want and have to care for the well-being of our senior members and a bigger number of brothers who are sick or in need of care. We have to face these realities very clearly before they overtake us and then force us to react to them so suddenly that we lose the ability to organise our way of life constructively in a process of discerning the signs of the times and the will of God for us as Carmelites. It s no solution to overburden the elderly and/or the younger members of the province with more and more work only to ensure that all our present commitments can be carried on as they are. We will end up as functionaries and activists of something which has nothing to do with the Gospel value of bearing fruit for the Kingdom of God and with his call to live in the footsteps of Christ as Carmelites. The final message of the last General Chapter (1995) emphasises that we must fervently search for ways to overcome the gap which exists between the values we profess and the life we live. It is often difficult to harmonise the basic values of our life. We are so taken up with our daily work that we often do not give ourselves sufficient time or space to reflect on who we are. If we did take the time and create the space it would affect our approach to ministry and make us more sensitive to what is specifically Carmelite. We understand that we are called first and foremost to give witness to the fundamental values of our Charism. What we are and what we do give life to each other and cannot be separated. (Analecta XLVI 1995, p. 245) If we haven t already done so it s really high time to initiate processes of discernment at a Province level in which the different generations sincerely try to find out together how God invites us to live our Carmelite identity today so that we eventually come to decisions about what kind of communities, life-style and apostolates are most appropriate to it. This may of course include the both painful and liberating processes of handing over some of our tasks, institutions and buildings to others or even giving them up. It is now, in the present that we have to pay the price for investing into our future - otherwise sooner or later we will be compelled to sudden decisions without having a positive concept! I want to emphasise that closing houses and giving up institutions or apostolates is no solution in itself but can be the necessary consequence of a process in which we discern what kind of life we are called to live today. Personally I m totally convinced that the answer to the situation I have tried to describe is not one solution but rather a permanent ongoing, creative process of beginning again each day to be faithful our own, unique Carmelite Charism of being a contemplative fraternity in the midst of the people. We need to rediscover and accept our deepest identity - not only theoretically as we have done very well in the recent past but very existentially and practically in processes of renewal and restructuring within our provinces and communities - this, of course, involves an openness for God s action in us and the readiness for conversion and transformation through his spirit. In this sense I now would like to reread with you our specific Carmelite Charism in a way which is as concrete as possible so that it may demonstrate it s potential of leading us without fear and pessimism into the third Millennium and into a new century of our existence. 4
C. The future of Carmel: Being a contemplative fraternity in the midst of the people of modern society 1. Contemplation - the heart of our Carmelite identity Already in the sixties Karl Rahner, one of the most important theologians of this century, wrote in his Theology of Spiritual Life the following visionary and often quoted saying which now in the nineties proves to be even more true than ever. He says: The Christian of the future will be a mystic, someone who has got an experience, or he won t exist, because the spirituality of tomorrow will depend on a personal experience and decision and not any longer on an unanimous public conviction and tradition which can be taken for granted. To me this seems even more valid for us as Carmelites with our specific and distinguished spiritual and mystical heritage which demands of us a contemporary actualisation within the cultural context we live in. For this reason I feel tempted to adapt Rahner s word to our situation: The Carmelite of the future will be a mystic, someone who lives out of a vivid experience and relationship with God, or he won t exist. At the beginning of a new millennium we realise - and may be this is one of the most outstanding signs of our time - that innumerable people all over the world are longing for life-giving and meaningful spiritualities. What our modern societies with their strong orientation to materialistic consumption, productivity, efficiency, competition, injustice, activism, psychological and physical stress offer can t satisfy their hunger for a true and meaningful life. Very often people pay high prices - personal and financial - for joining sects or esoteric movements which in most parts of the world flourish as never before. To a large extent the official churches seem to be helpless in facing these spiritual needs of people when they mainly offer doctrinal teachings and moral commandments which are nothing more than the consequences, but not the heart, of the Good News Jesus gave us. Is this not a challenge for us as Carmelites? We are an Order with such an extraordinary rich tradition with a spirituality which has the capacity to reach and touch the innermost centre of the human heart. It is able to do so because in many varied ways it describes the unbelievable love our merciful God has for every man and woman. A God who invites us to enter into an intimate friendship with Him who promised to lead us step by step to the true and everlasting fullness of life up to the mystical union with Himself and with all humankind and all creation. In my opinion God is calling us Carmelites today to embrace anew our spirituality and contemplative identity that it may transform first of all our own lives so that it can thus affect the world around us, not so much by our words and well elaborated theories but by our credible and convincing way of living as contemplative communities in the specific cultural situation we find ourselves in at the beginning of the third millennium. People must see that our spirituality improves the quality of our life - not in the sense of the standards and trends of this world but in the sense of a deep joy which comes from being centred and feeling safe in the loving God. Therefore I strongly believe that our first task is to put quite a bit of our energy, time and personal talents and qualities into this process of a growing relationship with the God of life and love. Our personal human and spiritual growth as well as our future as an Order depend on how much we as individuals and communities yield to and develop this intimate friendship with God so that he can transform us according to the image of Christ, acting through us for the sake of the Church and the world. This certainly includes painful processes, dark nights and desert experiences but at the same time we never must lose sight of God s promise to grant us, in his mercy, the fulfilment of our deepest hunger and thirst for true life. To get involved in such existential life- and faith processes is our way of bearing fruit for the spreading of his Kingdom on earth. It is a truly biblical way which we can easily discover when we look at our patrons 5
Elijah and Mary: through their very personal encounter with God they learnt to become open for his action in and through them. And we can learn it from Jesus himself: his zeal for God and his personal vocation led him to the fundamental experience of being the beloved son of an unlimited loving Abba - this experience gave him the power to commit himself totally to establish on earth the kingdom of his Father by his words and his deeds, by his life and his death. Finally, many of our saints witness that they recognised their true vocation only after a crucial personal experience with the living God which enabled them to follow his will and plan. The Carmelite of the future will be a mystic, someone who lives out of an experience, or he won t exist. Titus Brandsma expressed it this way: It is characteristic to the Carmelites to consider solitude and contemplation as the better part of their spiritual life although they belong to the mendicant Orders living in the midst of the people... The ancient history of the Order shows to us that this specific vocation to the mystical life revealed itself right from the beginning and constituted the permanent ideal of the Order... In spite of the many obstacles the Carmelites held to the priority of the contemplative life... We must never forget that contemplation is the most important - the active life always comes in the second place... And this is the highest school of Carmel: contemplation is to be the foundation and the strength of it s apostolic activity... All Carmelites are set the high goal of reaching mystical union and all are obliged to adapt their lives to this sublime ideal. (The heritage of the prophet, p. 16-20) Our New Constitutions emphasise this same basic approach when they describe Carmel in great detail as a contemplative fraternity. In the first two parts contemplation is very convincingly unfolded as the founding Charism of our Order: it is first of all set down in the Rule, then perfectly demonstrated in the biblical models of Elijah and Mary and finally developed further by the great spiritual teachers and traditions of our religious family throughout the centuries (cf. nr. 14-27). Contemplation as the heart of our identity as Carmelites is understood in the New Constitutions as an attitude of fundamental openness to God whose presence we discover everywhere (nr. 79), so that we may come to see all that happens as if with the eyes of God (nr. 78). Contemplation is therefore a life-long process through which God first accepts us as we are and then transforms our limited and imperfect human ways of thinking, loving and behaving in order to lead us more and more closer towards the unity of love with him and his creation (cf. nr. 17). Contemplation, understood in this way, does not only unify the three inseparable elements of our Charism - prayer, fraternity and service - but also shapes our specific form of interpreting and living out the evangelical counsels of obedience (cf. nr. 46), poverty (cf. nr. 53) and chastity (cf. nr. 61-62). As grateful and happy I am about this excellent approach to contemplation I am equally as worried about whether it really affects the every-day-reality of our provinces, communities and individual friars. Maybe I m wrong but I very often have the impression that there is an immense gap between our theory, it s broad acceptance and finally it s practical realisation. Do we really believe what the Constitutions say, that the practise of contemplation is not only the source of our spiritual life, but also determines the quality of our fraternal life and of our service (cf. nr. 18)? Do we really believe that only through contemplation, which affords a good part of our time and energy every day, we become able to discern God s will from our own will which drives us to engage ourselves in all kinds of activities which may look at first sight very effective and even selfless but are in fact very self-centred and egoistic so that they won t bear fruit in the biblical sense? Doing something by ourselves is obviously easier and sometimes more pleasant than letting God transform us! Do we furthermore really believe in the apostolic and ecclesial value of contemplation itself (cf. nr. 18) that the courageous and whole-hearted commitment to the process of spiritual and human growth has more effect than any activism can have? As John of the Cross puts it in his Spiritual Canticle (cf. 29, 2): A little bit of pure love as the result of the mystical liberating-process of the dark night is of more benefit for the church and the world as all other activities put together - do we really believe that? Yes, do we really believe that what 6
we are is much more meaningful, effective and decisive than what we do and that becoming what we really are and growing in love will always flow into action? Or do we believe more in ourselves instead of trusting God to whom all things are possible? Don t we become very easily Godless in a very subtle way? Mary teaches us to let happen what we can t do by ourselves, and we also know from our saints that they became in the true sense active the more they grew in contemplation and mystical union with God - so we don t need to worry about doing too little then. Together with Thérèse of Lisieux we are called as Carmelites to represent the loving heart of the church by contemplating God s tremendous love for us so that we grow more and more in this love- and true love always is very active and life giving to ourselves and to all we meet and live with. Wouldn t therefore the contemplative fraternity of the Carmelites in it s openness for all men and women be an alternative life-style to that of the modern world? A world which permanently sets people under the unjustified pressures of being effective, productive and competitive, rich, always beautiful and young so that they have to feel inferior if they can t keep up with all the expectations. Or are we ourselves so mixed up with these fatal pressures that we judge and assess each other according to the same criteria so that we can t see the value of a contemplative lifestyle any more which our world so urgently needs? Time and again I hear that Constitutions and other documents of the Order are only abstract and idealistic theories which aren t very helpful and therefore the best is to put them into our bookshelves. Likewise I hear that contemplation only belongs to cloistered nuns and has nothing to do with us - despite the definition of the New Constitutions which doesn t limit contemplation to retreat and solitude alone but opens it up to all dimensions of our life. I have also come to realise that there are quite a number of brothers who - not always expressively but nevertheless basically - don t share this view of our Charism, often due to a poor Carmelite formation, an insufficient vocational discernment or the lack of a clear, mature and personal life-decision. I know, this may sound very hard but we have to face this facet of our reality in order to firstly develop appropriate programs of ongoing formation and secondly create possibilities of bringing together - possibly beyond the borders of provinces - those Carmelites who deeply share the vision of our Charism and who want to commit themselves to realising it in concrete communities and projects - it would be a great pity to see them isolated and may be sometimes frustrated in areas of life and work which hinder or even contradict the Carmelite values they once chose and still want to live. In order to work on a promising future for Carmel here and now in the present we need the courage to draw concrete consequences out of the valuable insights about our contemplative Charism. Only through competent directed processes of evaluation, discernment and conversion on the level of communities, provinces and the entire Order, followed by concrete decisions, can we really gain the specific identity and profile we theoretically believe in. These processes may include painful periods of struggling for the next concrete steps, they require the tolerance of accepting those who don t want to participate in renewal without giving them the power to stop any progress. We need the courage of beginning something new and at the same time letting die what obviously has no future. And we must learn to accept the painful loss of some of those who come to the insight that they don t really accept the genuine Charism of Carmel as their own - this must not frighten us: it s an experience which Jesus himself had when he asked his followers for a clear personal decision. Above all we have to continue to give highest importance to the formation of the candidates and especially to the formation of the formators - not only with regard to intellectual abilities and theoretical knowledge but even more to personal and spiritual maturity. The revised RIVC promises to be of great help and is outlining specific elements of a Carmelite formation. 7
Our contemplative Charism of the mystical life, understood as the priority of an intimate friendship with God which affects all dimensions of our live, is the nucleus of our Carmelite identity and we have to look after it very faithfully so that we don t lose it - especially today, in a time where other, different or even opposite values are determinant. The following Chasidic story can far too easy become true: Rabbi Meir said: If someone becomes a Rabbi he must have all the necessary things like a school-house, rooms, tables and chairs; one of his disciples will be in charge of the administration, another one will be responsible for the maintenance and so on. When all of that is available then the devil comes and tears out the heart. Everything remains as before, the wheel continues to turn, but the heart isn t there any more. And the Rabbi raised his voice: God help us that we don t let it happen! 2. Prayer, Fraternity and service as the three elements of our contemplative Charism We have understood the primacy of contemplation as the heart, the centre of our identity which unifies and shapes the three elements of our Charism and mission as Carmelites. These three elements are prayer, fraternity and service. Faithfully lived in a contemporary contemplative lifestyle they will lead us into a good and fruitful future. Please allow me some remarks on these elements. 2.1. Prayer: growing in friendship with God and learning a contemplative view of life It s relatively easy to consent to the New Constitution s definition of contemplation as a process by which God s love first of all accepts us as we are and then begins to transform us so that we more and more become able to see all the world and all that happens with his eyes (nr. 17, 77-79). It s much more difficult to allow God to guide us through such a process and doing our share of practising and learning a contemplative attitude which can be done best through prayer, the first element of our threefold contemplative Charism. Therefore our Constitutions emphasise in nr. 64: Prayer is the centre of our lives, and authentic community and ministry spring from this source, and in nr. 84: The one indispensable thing is that prayer permeate our lives. Again I feel a very big gap between these claims and our community-realities. Is prayer really the centre of our personal and our community life and where is it visible? Do we really dedicate a generous amount of time to our personal and communitarian prayer and what is the quality of our prayer like? Does it really deepen our friendship with God and our contemplative view of the world or is it merely the compulsory exercise of reciting the office? I believe that our future depends very much on how far we place a true-to-life prayer in the centre of both our individual and fraternal life because it s the only way to grow in a contemplative attitude and to allow God to be really God in our lives (nr. 79). To this end we have to reflect on our individual and community prayer if it really serves our spiritual and human growth. Besides examining and renewing our traditional ways of celebrating the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours we have the freedom to try other forms of prayer which are more helpful to support a contemplative attitude (cf. nr. 77). What can we for example do to introduce Lectio Divina in more provinces and communities for obviously this way of a prayerful sharing our personal experience with the Word of God has proved to be extraordinary suitable for deepening our Carmelite Charism. 8
Even more important seems to me the need to rediscover the value of personal prayer through which we personally experience how God tenderly accepts us as we are and how he calls us to grow into a fuller life. Now and again I get to know something of the lack of a personal relationship with God among religious which has various reasons. I find it for example very helpful for all members of a community to arrange a time of silence every day reserved for personal and individual forms of prayer like silent prayer or meditation. This of course is only an external moment, it is much more crucial to go to the roots of what hinders us from dedicating more time and whole-hearted commitment to prayer, things like false images of God, fears, anxieties, feelings of guilt and inferiority which very often are unconscious and therefore can cause spiritual and psychological damage. Intellectually we all know and preach that God is unconditional love, but emotionally, deep down in our heart we are suspicious and mistrust him, sometimes even without realising and admitting it to ourselves. Pastoral psychology teaches us the reason for this conflict: our conception and image of God is unconsciously shaped by our early experiences as small children with persons to whom we related most closely, especially with our parents. Negative and ambivalent experiences became so deeply grounded in our heart that they have a strong influence on us and on our images of God so that they easily impede our human and spiritual growth. They have the power to pull us away from God, mostly in very subtle ways so that we don t see through it. Therefore we must all place great emphasis on creating the conditions for true prayer and spiritual progress. This includes first of all to grow in a sincere understanding for ourselves and our brothers and secondly to encourage each other to enter adequate processes of self-awareness which help us to reappraise our life-story, our human and spiritual development up to now so that our life-wounds can become conscious and healed and false images of God uncovered. Appropriate and wellestablished means are, among others, spiritual direction, directed retreats, courses on prayer and meditation, spiritual and psychological training and psychotherapy. I m very often surprised how many priests and religious involved in pastoral work, formation and spiritual direction don t make use of such support for themselves. According to my small experience here also lies the most important task for both initial and ongoing formation which we have to face if we want to go into a good future: our brothers are the best capital and the more we foster their psychological and spiritual well-being and their maturity through adequate personal processes the more we invest in our future. Just to sum up this point, in my view the Carmelite Friaries of the future are communities in which prayer really plays the central role. We have to work on that in the present by creating opportunities for the spiritual and human growth of our brothers, by arranging time and space for silent prayer, meditation and Lectio Divina (cf. nr. 80, 82), by reviewing our traditional forms of common prayer and the way we perform it and by introducing new forms in line with our Charism. Then, like Elijah and Mary, we will become able and receptive to experiencing the loving God in our lives and to share our experience with all women and men who are searching along with us for a true and life-giving spirituality and life-style. 2.2. Fraternity: living as brothers in a world of rivalry and egoism If our prayer is really authentic it eventually leads us to a contemplative and loving attitude towards the world around us, first of all towards the brothers we live with every day. Contemplation as the heart of our Charism and as the experience of God s love to us enables us to discover the presence of God in our community and in each of our brothers (cf. nr. 19); on the other hand our commitment to a benevolent relationship with our brothers and to building up a healthy community life-style can be seen as the main criterion for our spiritual life. 9
As Carmelites we are called to really live together as brothers; this is part of our mission God has given to us and a more effective sign of God s kingdom than all our individualistic activities can be. Jesus always formed about community and so our apostolic testimony can only be credible and fruitful if it is a communitarian one. The origins of our Order reveal us the significance of brotherhood: we have not a single founder but a community of brothers whose life-style founded the Charism and identity of our Order. I am convinced that in the present world of war, nationalism and fundamentalism, of growing individualism and egoism, competition and rivalry where people are judging each other increasingly according to their efficiency and usefulness we have no better witness to offer than that of fraternity and brotherhood. Our sometimes very demanding struggle for authentic fraternity is a shining example of how people can learn to respect and accept one another in their diversity, to overcome distinctions and solve conflicts without suppressing individual gifts, to foster unity in plurality, to living together in peace and joy: different generations, young and old, healthy and sick, academics and non-academics. Especially as an international family we have the privileged chance to witness to the possibility and enrichment of living together as people from different cultures, nations, languages and colours, above all by establishing international communities in a world which is growing closer and yet remaining full of division and separation. Again I have some doubt if we really value our fraternity as a real mission. There is a growing individualism - not only in my own Province. It is no longer exceptional to live outside the community. How much time and energy are we dedicating to creating communities that are worth living in? I m sure that to a great extent our future depends on a credible and convincing community life-style which attracts and inspires others to engage themselves in fostering relationships of whatever kind: between couples, family-members, parishioners, groups and even nations. Creating healthy fraternities and developing new and contemporary life-styles in line with our Charism is a big task for us and this is never an end in itself. By their life-style our communities are always called to witness how God relates to us - this requires an openness to all people who want to participate and learn from our life as a contemplative fraternity in all possible ways. At the same time we are learning from our guests who will inspire and challenge us to review our life-style. In my view, therefore, we have to create communities which are really open, inviting and welcoming to others to share our life for a period of time. This means that a community life must really exist and that our houses are not just hotels for bachelors where we only sleep and perhaps get our food but spend the rest of our time and work outside. It makes a difference if we only serve people as individuals through whatever kind of pastoral ministry or if we welcome them as a community where they experience pastoral and spiritual care in the context of a fraternal life-style which includes common meals, prayer, recreation and celebrations as well as mutual exchange and mutual care for our human and spiritual welfare. By working with all our imagination and creativity on a contemporary culture of fraternity we also make a valuable contribution to our modern societies for only community-building elements are of social relevance. So we promote not only our own future but also give some impetus for a future worth-living for the world we live in. I am aware of the many situations where - for whatever reasons - some of our brothers are not capable or sometimes even not willing of contributing to such a quality of fraternity. We can t force them to do so but we must make sure that they don t prevent others from committing themselves in renewing our community-life, sometimes even using the argument, which is as persuasive as it is short-sighted, that we have to put all our energy into pastoral work which is necessary - on the contrary: in order to do justice to our real mission we have to free volunteers from overworking to make it possible for them to build community even if this leads to the closing of some other projects and houses because of lacking personnel - quality is better than quantity. 10
Another aspect of our specific understanding of fraternity seems very important to me: Our constitutions emphasise that our Rule requires us to be essentially brothers... overcoming privileges and distinctions, in a spirit of participation and co-responsibility (nr. 19). In many countries and situations there is still perceptible the difference between the ordained and the nonordained members of our Order - even today the non-ordained aren t always held in the same esteem as the ordained this is in contradiction to St. Paul s teaching of the necessity and equal value of the different Charisms which complement one another. The non-ordained don t have the same rights and possibilities of taking responsibility in their communities and provinces. I know about the limits of Canon Law regarding the legal status of lay religious but that must not prevent us from fighting for both more human and legal equality - at least among ourselves, and this begins in the mind and the heart of every one of us. A true contemplative attitude will open our eyes for our essential equality so that every kind of a hierarchical and clerical attitude disappears. I m sure that the consequent witness of a real brotherhood with equal rights and duties of all it s members would be more in line with the message and attitude of Jesus and therefore a clear and future-orientated example of humanity in our largely clerical and hierarchical church with it s disadvantaging of lay people, especially of women. The last General Chapter encourages us when it postulates in it s final document an equality within our fraternity with no privileges or distinctions between the non-ordained and the ordained. Such an equality is more faithful to our original idea. (Analecta, XLVI 1995, p. 244) Our constitutions remind us in nr. 31 of the value of the shared participation in the Eucharist, through which we become one body, and which is the source and the summit of our lives, and therefore the sacrament of brotherhood. Where does this insight, already mentioned in our Rule, find it s echo in the reality of our communities? Isn t the common celebration of the Eucharist a rare exception to the rule? This, of course, again reveals that perhaps we don t really believe in the value and meaning of our specific Charism. We don t really believe that the conscious celebration of the Eucharist as a community is not only the source for building our fraternity but also bears more fruit for the kingdom of God than our individual celebrations in many places which we of course carry out with the best of intentions. We also have to review if the way we celebrate the Eucharist in community really expresses our specific understanding of fraternity - are we in fact gathered together around the Lord s table as the Constitutions state in nr. 20, so that our unity in diversity becomes visible, or are we divided with the priests up at the altar and the brothers down in the church somewhere? It would be beyond the scope of our talk to go into more details now - these questions should be discussed in another appropriate context. 2.3. Service: sharing our Charism and spirituality with all people With regard to service we first of all have to remind ourselves again that the continuous attempt to live our contemplative Charism in community and openness to all people is not only the source for our various kinds of ministries but is, in itself, the most valuable service we can offer to the world because it is the heart of the mission we have received from God. First of all we are called to live permanently in God s presence and to build a fraternity which is credible and worth living - this is an important service to the world in itself. The Constitutions state in it s chapter about our apostolic mission that we Carmelites must fulfil our mission among the people first and foremost through the richness of our contemplative life (nr. 92). Through our specific Carmelite life-style we are called to remind the church and all people we live with of the primacy of a personal loving relationship with God and of the implicit challenge of building fraternal relationships between all men and women within and outside the church. 11
Isn t it very often the other way round in our practical daily life as Carmelites? Do not our various ministries and apostolates absorb most of our energy and creativity so that our apostolates and our work determine how much time and power is left for our spiritual and fraternal life? Don t we perhaps unconsciously draw our self-affirmation and right to live much more from our ministries than from our being and living as religious, as beloved sons of God? Is this not the heart of the crisis of religious life, at least here in Western Europe? Is it not possible to understand the lack of vocations and the ageing of our communities as a call to re-examine our priorities before the personnel situation eventually forces us to give up houses and commitments? The excessive amount of work which we are sometimes producing by ourselves puts us in danger of a de facto secularisation of religious life without realising it so that we become more and more professional agents of pastoral services and theological theories; whereas the most important criteria of all biblical vocations is to speak and act out of a personal experience and relationship with God. To avoid misunderstandings: I don t want to set up an opposition between spiritual life and pastoral activities, between our mission as Carmelites and our concrete apostolates, but I want to emphasise that we have to pay attention to the priorities: what we are is more important than what we do, our identity as a contemplative brotherhood in the midst of the people is more important than our individual tasks which have to flow out from this identity if they really are to bear fruit. The more we become people who deeply experience how tremendously they are loved by God the more we become able to love and serve others. It doesn t work the other way round. Therefore our service must leave us time and opportunities to work on our spiritual and personal maturity which is the main presupposition for any valuable ministry. Of course, our service will also effect our prayer-life and human growth but without a fervent spiritual and fraternal life in advance we are not able either to discern which kind of service we are called to or to really bear fruit for the kingdom of God, as Jesus says very clearly in John s Gospel, chapter 15: You cannot bear fruit unless you remain in me. And remaining in him like any other relationship requires time and energy also from our part. With regard to this we can learn a lot from our biblical patrons: After his big success in accusing and defeating the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, Elijah had to go through a long and very intense desert experience in which he learnt that he is not the one who can bring something about but rather God alone. The loneliness and the long walk through the desert where God gave him food and strength led him to a new and much deeper experience of God than he ever before made: that Yahweh is not a violent God but as tender as a gentle breeze. Only after this experience he received a new mission. And Mary - she had to learn that for this loving God nothing is impossible if she would only let act him in her life instead of doing everything by her own reason and possibilities. We not only have to acquire our professional pastoral skills but probably even more our openness and receptivity for God s plan with us which could be slightly different from ours. Like Mary we must exercise our contemplative attitude and therefore patiently listen to the Spirit who speaks to us in various forms: in prayer, through the signs of the time, through our brothers and the people we live with. In my time as a member of the Order I have come across two opinions regarding the question as to whether or not we Carmelites are called to a specific kind of ministry: one says that we can do any kind of work or pastoral ministry, the other believes that we must concentrate on specific apostolates in the field of spirituality. Basically I think that we can take on any kind of ministry in so far it doesn t contradict our Charism by not allowing us to live it s three elements. And we also have to estimate and take into account the different gifts, Charisms and abilities of our brothers. Therefore our ministries should be chosen and reviewed within a regular discernmentprocess of the community and the province, as the Constitutions claim in nr. 92: Since not all forms of apostolic work easily fit in with our Charism or with the resources of an individual community,we must always discern among the various options presented in any given situation. 12
Still I think that we as Carmelites with our genuine spiritual tradition have a preferential task within the church, especially today where so many people are searching for authentic spirituality. Therefore I would like to underline what the New Constitutions express in nr. 64: From the beginning, the Carmelite Order has taken on both a life of prayer and an apostolate of prayer. And in nr. 95: Faithful to the spiritual heritage of the Order, we shall therefore channel our diverse works in the goal of promoting the search for God and the life of prayer. In line with these statements I strongly believe that the specific ministry of Carmel and therefore it s image and it s future is to live and to share with others our rich spiritual heritage in contemporary ways and forms. This requires an appropriate initial and ongoing formation especially for candidates and formators, co-operation with other branches of the Carmelite Family and interested Lay- People - and perhaps the decision to give up other ministries in favour of establishing more communities of hospitality and centres of spirituality, retreat, spiritual direction and study where the Spirit of Carmel is alive so that we can serve the spiritual needs of people, especially the poor and marginalised, by sharing with them in a mutual exchange our way of life, our prayer and our spirituality. If we really respect our specific Carmelite Charism and so commit ourselves to become more and more a contemplative fraternity in the midst of the people we will not give way to the temptation of idolising our individual work or making it a compensation for other human needs. Rather we ll become able to assign our ministries to their adequate place within our religious life style. This again will enable us to witness for the true dignity of work - beyond the criteria of efficiency and productivity - and to it s social dimension of co-operation and sharing in a world where so many individuals are overworked and stressed while others remain unemployed and isolated. D. Conclusions and Closing Words It s high time to come to en end. Before I finish please allow me to sum up my thoughts. I m sincerely convinced that our future and the genuine solution to many of our present problems depend on how seriously we take and put into practice our Carmelite Charism and identity which God has entrusted to us both as a gift and as a challenge and which we have rediscovered during the past years. Therefore we now have the task to renew ourselves and our communities according to our contemplative Charism with it s three key elements: prayer, fraternity and service. These elements must be the same and therefore visible everywhere although they will take very different shapes and forms according to the different cultural conditions and the personal charisms of the community members. Such an appeal for renewal is very easily misunderstood as something supernatural we have to achieve by ourselves, as a painful and joyless moral and ascetical exercise. We misinterpret our Charism in the same way when we think of it as an unreachable ideal which is only made for saints and so we hinder our own spiritual growth. On the contrary, our spirituality sets us the beautiful goal of an experiential unity with God and at the same time frees us from the impossible task of reaching this goal by ourselves. Carmelite spirituality in it s various forms throughout the centuries always emphasises the key biblical message that God loves us just as we are: with all our strength and all our weakness, with our bright and our dark sides, with our sins and our virtues, with all our up s and down s. Neither can we deserve God s love by our good deeds nor can we achieve unity with him through moral perfection. Our Carmelite vocation therefore means first of all to accept his unconditional love for us and to engage ourselves faithfully day by day in this intimate and personal friendship he offers to us. We don t need to be 13