The Many Ways That God Can Call

The following article, written by Sr Laura appeared recently in the March-April edition of ‘Living City’ a magazine  produced bi-monthly by Focolare Media.

The paths around our monastery are strewn with leaves and the air is cold. As I meander around the barren branches of trees all I can hear is the silence of the valley, that particular hooded silence of winter.

This is my third winter in St. Mary’s Abbey, Glencairn—the only female Cistercian community in Ireland. In a few months’ time I will (please God) take my first vows and make my temporary profession in monastic life. As I walk through this winter landscape with its muted and dark colours, I feel a sense of deep wonder at the mystery of it all.

My mind wanders and I recall the first time my heart quickened at the thought of giving myself entirely to God, eleven years ago, as a vivacious twenty-one-year-old, spending a gap year from university in the Scuola Gen 2 at Loppiano, in the ancient hills of Tuscany. (Loppiano was the first of the Focolare “small towns” to be set up and Gen 2 School is a school of formation in the spirituality of the Focolare Movement for young women between the ages of eighteen and thirty.)

I still remember the moment. We were on a day trip to Trent—the birthplace of Chiara Lubich and of the Focolare Movement. At that stage I had only been in Gen School a few months and my Italian was still quite poor. I was able, nonetheless, to grasp the essential fragments of information about the life of Chiara that would serve to influence my destiny. We were brought to the important places of her life: the school where she taught as a young maestra, the majestic Dolomite mountains that encased her early years and powerfully formed her sacramental imagination, and we saw the little capella—the Capuchin Minor Seminary—where, on December 7, 1943, Chiara consecrated herself to God.

It was this story of Chiara’s hidden consecration to God that reached into the longing of my heart. But it would take me many more years to learn to listen.

Chiara was a twenty-three-year-old philosophy student at the time she felt an intimate invitation from God to give herself completely to him, but the only way to do that, back then, was to become an enclosed nun. This, she knew, was not her way.

She spoke to her spiritual director, Fr. Casimiro Bonetti, about this desire of hers and he evidently saw in Chiara a smouldering spark of the Divine—a gifted and luminous soul—and early in the morning he welcomed her into the capella as she knelt before the altar in the pre-dawn light and consecrated her heart to God. Only Chaira, Fr, Casimiro, and God were there.

It is the small details which make this story so lovely and so human. For instance, years later, when writing about it, Chiara described how the night before her consecration she fell asleep while praying before the little crucifix in her bedroom, and how, after her consecration, while walking home she bought three red carnations to place before this little crucifix. Memorably, she described the overwhelming joy she felt at her “secret marriage” to God. It was as though a bridge collapsed behind her. And even though the externals of her life were the same, she was forever changed.

But what moved me most about this story was the hiddenness of it, its intimacy. I admired Chiara’s courage and faith, but most of all I admired her single-minded desire for God and her awareness of his deep desire for her. She knew that few others would understand her decision. And, as all people who consecrate themselves to God in this focused and exclusive way know, there’s a particular loneliness to it; something deep inside that words are not subtle or refined enough to express. Chiara trusted in the call of God above all else.

I remember that evening on our bus journey back to Loppiano, I hoped no one would sit beside me so I could be present to all the thoughts, impressions, and intuitions passing through me. My heart felt so full, so replete with things I did not yet understand. When the Focolarina who was “capa” of our school sat beside me, in my broken Italian I tried describing to her what I was experiencing. Nearly as strong as the experience itself, was the flicker of recognition I saw in her eyes. She understood.

Now I fast forward eleven years to the present, as I’m on the cusp of making my own consecration to God. I’ll make vows of obedience, conversion of life, and stability.

It is the vow of stability which I think has something special to offer to our contemporary world. This involves me promising to remain in this monastery, with these sisters, for the rest of my life and to only leave the monastic enclosure when I have permission to do so. (Until a person makes solemn profession, these vows are temporary and renewed yearly.) In a society as fluid as our own, where it’s normal to regularly change careers, lifestyles, countries of residence and partners, the idea of remaining in one place and not leaving it for the whole of life may seem restrictive.

It is practically considered a pre-requisite now to human flourishing and development, to have travelled the globe and had many different and varied experiences. Very often the spiritual quest is presented in this light too—we must travel to esoteric lands in search of enlightenment.

While this is one way of seeking God, the monastic vow of stability presents a slightly different way. It offers depth rather than breadth; it tells us that the real adventure is within—but in order to open to this adventure we must become more inward, more silent, more still.

Monastic life may appear un-exciting and mundane on the surface; our Cistercian Constitutions even proudly describe our life as “ordinary, obscure and laborious”—not exactly a winning sales pitch! But it is this poverty of means which allows one’s heart to be slowly transformed and to become more capable, over time, of seeing God. While the external horizons may become smaller, the inner horizon becomes limitless.

Our beloved Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh has a line which captures this beautifully: “through a chink too wide comes in no wonder.” God was able to send Chiara out to embrace the whole world because she had first come to the inner stability of knowing “the wonder of her being” in God (Psalm 138). And all true stability, is stability in God.

Let me return to the story of Chiara’s consecration and the part of it that I love the most. When she returned to her home that morning a fellow student named Dori was waiting for her, as Chiara was due to give her a philosophy tutorial. Dori noticed Chiara’s radiant joy and asked her what had happened.

Chiara recounted to Dori what she’d done, or rather, who she’d become. Dori’s heart quickened. She felt a mysterious draw to know more about the joy and freedom that was emanating from her friend. Then Dori too decided to consecrate herself to God— and thus began the Focolare Movement.

It is amazing how one person making herself totally available to God can have such an impact on others. Our Lady is the supreme example of this. No one has made herself more available to the touch of God as she did. And when this happens, the world changes.

When I kneel before my abbess to make my vows in the small oratory of our monastery, I hope to put myself in the way of this timeless flow of grace. I will place my fragile heart in God’s tender hands, doing as countless men and women have done before me, and will do after me, and I will trust that as I humbly and sincerely offer him my life, he’ll do with me as he pleases. Dominus est.