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Pope Benedict XVI- Homilies |
Homily at Dominican Cloister
"You Were Consecrated to Jesus to Belong to Him
Exclusively"
St. Mary of the Rosary
Cloister
June 24, 2010
zenit.org
Dear Sisters,
I address to each one of you the words of Psalm 124
(125), which we just prayed: "Do good, O Lord, to
those who are good, and to those who are upright in
their hearts!" (v. 4). I greet you above all with
this wish: the goodness of the Lord be upon you. In
particular, I greet your Mother Prioress and thank
her from my heart for the kind expressions she
addressed to me in the name of the community. With
great joy I accepted the invitation to visit this
convent, to be able to pause with you at the feet of
the image of St. Sixtus' acheropita Virgin, now
protector of the Roman convents of St. Mary in
Tempulo and of St. Sixtus.
Together we have prayed the midday prayer, a small
part of this Liturgical Prayer that, as cloistered,
marks the rhythm of your days and makes you
interpreters of the Church-Bride which unites her,
in a special way, with her Lord. With this choral
prayer, which finds its culmination in the daily
participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, your
consecration to the Lord in silence and seclusion
becomes fecund and full of fruits, not only for the
path of sanctification and purification, but also
for the apostolate of intercession that you carry
out for the whole Church, so that it can appear pure
and holy in the presence of the Lord. You, who know
well the efficacy of prayer, experience every day
the many graces of holiness it can obtain in the
Church.
Dear Sisters, the community you make up is a place
where you can dwell in the Lord; it is for you the
New Jerusalem, to which the tribes of the Lord go up
to praise the name of the Lord (cf. Psalm121:4). Be
grateful to Divine Providence for the sublime and
gratuitous gift of the monastic vocation, to which
the Lord has called you without any merit of yours.
With Isaiah, you can affirm "the Lord formed me from
the womb" (Isaiah 49:5). Even before you were born,
the Lord had kept your heart for himself to be able
to fill it with his love. Through the sacrament of
baptism you received Divine grace in yourselves,
immersed in his Death and Resurrection, you were
consecrated to Jesus, to belong to him exclusively.
The way of contemplative life, which you received
from St. Dominic in the form of cloister, places
you, as living and vital members, in the heart of
the Lord's Mystical Body, which is the Church; and
as the heart makes the blood circulate and maintains
the whole body alive, so your hidden existence with
Christ, interlaced with work and prayer, contributes
to sustain the Church, instrument of salvation for
every man whom the Lord redeemed with his blood.
It is this inexhaustible source that you approach
with prayer, presenting in the presence of the Most
High the spiritual and material needs of so many
brothers in difficulty, the strayed life of all
those who separate themselves from the Lord. How can
one not be moved by compassion for those who seem to
wander aimlessly? How can one not wish that in their
life they will encounter Jesus, the only one who
gives meaning to existence? The holy desire that the
Kingdom of God be established in the heart of every
man, is identified with prayer itself, as St.
Augustine teaches us: Ipsum desiderium tuum, oratio
tua est; et si continuum desiderium, continue oratio
(cf. Ep. 130, 18-20); because of this, as fire that
burns and is never extinguished, the heart remains
alert, it never ceases to desire and it always
raises a hymn of praise to God.
Recognize because of this, Dear Sisters, that in
everything you do, beyond the personal moments of
prayer, your heart continues to be led by the desire
to love God. With the Bishop of Hippo, acknowledge
that the Lord has put his love in your hearts,
desire that dilates the heart, until it makes it
capable of receiving God himself (cf. In. O. Ev. tr.
40, 10). This is the horizon of the earthly
pilgrimage! This is your goal! This is why you have
chosen to live in obscurity and in the renunciation
of earthly goods: to desire above all that good
which has no equal, that precious pearl that merits
the renunciation of any other good to enter into its
possession.
May you be able to pronounce every day your "yes" to
God's designs, with the same humility with which the
Holy Virgin said her "yes." May she, who in silence
received the Word of God, guide you in your daily
virginal consecration, so that you will be able to
experience in obscurity the profound intimacy she
lived with Jesus. Invoking her maternal protection,
together with that of St. Dominic, St. Catherine of
Siena and of the many men and women saints of the
Dominican Order, I impart to you all a special
Apostolic blessing, which I willingly extend to the
persons who entrust themselves to your prayers.
Look
at the One they Pierced!
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary
