Address to Religious Women in Sao Paulo (3 July 1980)

On Thursday, 3 July 1980, the Holy Father addressed the Religious women in São Paulo, to whom he spoke of their prayer life as a “sign of the Absolute of God and of the importance of contemplation,” to prepare them for any ”missionary emergencies."

Dear daughters in Christ.

1. This meeting with you is a source of great joy for me. As women religious, you are the Church's wealth and treasure and, at the same time, a solid basis for evangelization and an important point of reference for the Christian people, encouraged in their faith by the way you live yours. In you I cordially greet all the women religious of Brazil.

My joy grows in contact with your contagious enthusiasm, typical of a nation of young people, and consistent with the characteristics of Brazilian optimism, lively and generous. I am also happy to know that the history of the Church in Brazil is linked by very deep ties to the constant and varied activity of a large number of women religious. As I thank you for your presence here, I invite you to be grateful with me to "God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heaven, in Christ", and who "has chosen us.. to be holy and blameless in his sight” (cf. Eph 1:3-4).

2. My greatest wish is that this meeting with the Pope may constitute for you and for your religious families an incentive and a comfort for your sublime vocation, as well as a commitment to deepen its essential value as a privileged witness of charity in adherence to God and the demands of his kingdom.

It would not be necessary to tell you the great and sincere trust that the Church places in you: in your status as religious, in your presence and in your mission. You know the reasons for this trust: through your prayer life you are the sign of the Absolute of God and of the importance of contemplation; for your always ready availability you are the spearhead for missionary emergencies; and for your life in fraternity you are the affirmation of communion and participation as a call to live the community dimension of the Church in its insertion in time, vital, concrete and adapted, and in its universality.

3. You know that to keep the perception of value in the consecrated life clear, a profound vision of faith is necessary, supporting your generosity and illuminating your continuous improvement in charity. And for this, dialogue with God in prayer is necessary.

Without prayer, religious life loses its meaning and does not attain its objectives. It is always important to pray to give life to God's gift.

As for that, it was the Lord himself who forewarned us. To inculcate this truth well, he used two expressive images: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). And another time, after saying that those who follow him must be "the salt of the earth", he concluded: "Salt is good, but even if salt loses its flavour... it is of no use for the earth or for manure and so they throw it away” (Lk 14:35).

We know that the best of ourselves, the taste of God that we must spread in the sweetness of the witness of charity passes through Christ and is discreetly and continuously reinvigorated in us by the presence and action of the Holy Spirit, solicited and consciously supported in unceasing prayer , in all its forms: individual, community and liturgical. This is very important, because we can be an effective "sign" of God.

4. Given the nature of the body of Christ which is the Church (cf. 1 Cor 12:12), it is appropriate here to focus on the role played in evangelization by women religious consecrated to prayer, silence and hidden sacrifice and to penance. Their life has a marvelous and mysterious power of apostolic fruitfulness (cf. Perfectae Caritatis , 7). I like to repeat to you here today what I said a month ago in the Carmel of Lisieux, in France - and I repeat it thinking of all the contemplative nuns of Brazil -: "Your offer of love is integrated by Christ himself in his work of universal redemption, like the waves that are lost in the depths of the ocean”. Live the missionary dimension of your consecration in the likeness of Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus!

But all forms of religious life have a space for contemplation, necessary so that the members can deeply welcome the calls, needs and difficulties of the brothers, in the genuine charity of Christ.

5. While making the light of the witness of such a charity shine before men, one must not forget that it always takes on a particular character: you are in the world without being of the world; and it is precisely your consecration which, far from impoverishing, characterizes your Christian witness. Your commitment to live according to the evangelical counsels makes you more available for this type of witness. Effectively you are no less free to obey and even less capable of loving because you have chosen consecrated virginity, quite the contrary; and by virtue of the vow of poverty which obliges you to follow the poor Christ you can better understand and share the excruciating tragedies of those who find themselves deprived of everything.

However, it is necessary that poverty is genuinely evangelical in order to be able to recognize Christ in the "little ones"; it is necessary to know how to identify with the brother in need being "poor in spirit" (cf. Mt 5:3); now, all of this requires simplicity and humanity, love of peace, freedom in relation to dispersive commitments or attachments, disposition for a total self-denial that is free and obedient, spontaneous and constant, sweet and strong in the certainties of faith.

6. You live your binding consecration to an institute and to a fraternal community, these very important elements of your religious life in the mystery of the Church, which is always a mystery of communion and participation.

You have chosen "an existence governed by freely accepted standards of life" in a world and in a civilization that tend to distance people from themselves and disperse them to such an extent that their spiritual unity, the condition for their union, is sometimes compromised with God.

God forbid that an excessive desire for malleability and spontaneity leads someone to accuse of obsolete rigidity or - what would be even worse - to abandon that minimum of regularity in customs and fraternal coexistence, normally required by life in community and maturity of people (cf. Paul VI, Evangelica Testificatio , 32: AAS 63 [1971] 514). Fidelity to this minimum gives the measure of personal identification with the consecration for love.

Thus, everyone has the duty to maintain fidelity to community life and contribute to making it a place of fraternal encounter, an environment of mutual help and spiritual comfort, an environment that everyone desires and seeks to make, as a spiritual author said, a "pilgrimage" to one's heart and to restore oneself in God.

Even outside the community, all the activities and contacts of women religious always have a community and public dimension: religious life is always a visible sign of the Church. For this reason I exhort you always and everywhere to be personally visible witnesses of the Church itself and of her Lord in a world which, under the pretext of being modern. it advances more and more towards "desecration": that all people can see in your behavior, in your way of presenting yourself and in your way of dressing, a sign with which God challenges them.

7. At the present time, in this beautiful country, as well as in others, there are many solicitations for women religious to embrace new activities and to launch experiences of new insertions into the life and activities of the Church or even into temporal activities in diversified sectors.

It may happen that the works and activities to which your religious families are traditionally dedicated are neglected. I don't want to pass over in silence a very simple thing that you all know: these works and activities need to be suitably renewed to better correspond to the current reality of Brazil. However, it should never be forgotten either that the schools, hospitals, assistance centers and many other initiatives that have already existed for some time for the service of brothers, especially the poorest, or for the cultural and spiritual development of populations, retain all their timeliness.

What's more: these works and activities, if duly and appropriately renewed with sound criteria, continue to prove to be privileged places for evangelization, witness to authentic charity and human promotion. It is obvious that the fundamental prudential criterion to follow in adapting to new needs is always that of the Gospel: in the light of the "signs of the times", focused in due perspective, knowing how to bring out "old and new things" from the rich treasure of a past made of experiences.

8. However, it is sometimes necessary to abandon works or activities to devote oneself to others, even of a more pastoral nature; and to this end smaller communities are created, which need to adopt new forms of presence in the world of men. I know the care you put into researching and creating these new forms of presence and I have only to express my appreciation for your commitment. Nonetheless, I would like to recall with you some conditions that must always be observed in these new experiences of religious life.

a) Such experiences must always be carried out in an atmosphere of prayer. The soul who lives in habitual contact-presence with God and lets herself be permeated by the warmth of his charity will easily know:

- avoid the temptation of particularisms and oppositions which in themselves carry the risk of leading to painful divisions;

- to interpret, in the light of the Gospel, the option for the poor and for all the victims of human selfishness without giving in to socio-political radicalism which, sooner or later, proves to be inopportune, produces effects contrary to those desired and generates new forms of oppression;

- get close to people and fit into the environment without jeopardizing one's religious identity, without hiding or dissimulating the specific originality of one's vocation: to follow the poor, chaste and obedient Christ.

b) In addition to the atmosphere of prayer in which they must take place, these experiences of new insertions must be prepared by serious study, in intimate collaboration with the responsible superiors and in constant dialogue with the Bishops concerned. Thus it will be possible to find suitable solutions. Furthermore, it is necessary to proceed with the preparation of plans and programs that are well in tune with the choices made, and with the implementation of initiatives, first "calculating" and "examining", as the Lord says, the possibilities of outcome (cf. Lk 14:28ff), and this without fearing risks, as the "parables of the kingdom of heaven" teach us (cf. Mt 13), and always acting in conformity with the most urgent needs and according to the character of the institute.

c) Finally, in all these new foundations it is important to always act in accordance with the norms and guidelines given by the hierarchy, objectively and with balance evaluating the experiences achieved, and applying oneself with humility and courage, when necessary, to correcting, suspending or orient the experiences you are having in a more convenient way.

9. In everything and always in religious life, for sure discernment it is necessary to behave like daughters who love the Church, following her criteria and guidelines, through a generous and faithful adherence to the authentic magisterium. It is here that the guarantee of the fruitfulness of life and activity in the consecration is found. Herein lies an indispensable condition for an adequate interpretation of the "signs of the times". Touching this point I am reminded of what my predecessor Paul VI said: the universal Church must be present in every ecclesial community which always needs a universal breath so as not to die of spiritual asphyxiation. The promise of fidelity to Christ can never be separated from fidelity to the Church: "Whoever hears you hears me" (Lk 10:16).

In this field there is a wide scope for action open to superiors and educators of institutes and communities. Their function will lead them to procure the best means to promote what surely guarantees the union of spirits and hearts. None of this can be done without praying and acting in such a way that all religious find in consecration the highest realization of their condition as a person and as a woman so that institutes and communities overcome any difficulties of growth or perseverance and because the he ideal of the consecrated life has a real attraction for young people.

10. A final word to the dearest religious who consecrate their lives to contemplation and live their religious life in recollection and enclosure. Your way of life, dear daughters, places you at the heart of the mystery of the Church. Your personal life has its center in spousal love for Christ. For this you are modeled by his Spirit, you must give him your whole being, making his feelings, his projects and his mission of charity and salvation your own. Now, all this is not confined within the four walls of monasteries, but is related to the great history of men, where justice is built, where communion and participation in material and spiritual goods are created; where there is an attempt to establish the civilization of love; where, finally, God's salvation must arrive with the good news of the Gospel.

This is why your contemplative life is absolutely vital for the Church and for humanity, despite the incomprehension and even the opposition that sometimes transpires in modern thought, in public opinion and, who knows, perhaps even in certain ill-enlightened fringes of Christianity. With this certainty you live in joy the radical nature of your absolutely original condition: exclusive love for the Lord and, in him, love for all your brothers in humanity. Applying your ability to love in adoration and prayer, your very existence silently cries out the primacy of God, attests to the transcendent dimension of the human person and leads men, women and young people to think and question the meaning of life.

May your monasteries remain places of peace and interiority, without allowing pressure from outside to come and demolish your healthy traditions and nullify your means of cultivating and promoting recollection. And pray, pray much for those who also pray; for those who cannot pray, for those who cannot pray and for those who do not want to pray. And have faith! With these words, the Pope wishes to stimulate the generosity of all the contemplative religious of Brazil, whatever their spiritual family.

11. Dearest sisters: I have many other things in my heart that I would like to tell you, that I would like to communicate to you, if I didn't lack the time. I therefore renew my esteem and trust in all of you. To all I wish that "your charity will be enriched more and more in knowledge and in every kind of discernment, so that you can always distinguish the best and be integral and blameless" (cf. Phil 1:9-10).

This "greater knowledge" that is expected of you has already been indicated by the Holy Spirit in the words of the apostle: "know nothing... except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1Cor 2:2). Only he, Christ, is the stable principle and permanent center of the mission that God has entrusted to you in the world of contrasts: to live and bear witness to his love, immersing yourselves in that mystery of the divine economy which united salvation and grace with the cross ( cf. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis , 11).

As I bless you all from my heart, I bless your religious families, your life of generous immolation, entrusting yourselves to Mary Most Holy, Mother of the Church and model of your consecrated life. Trust in the Pope's prayers. Accompany him too with your prayers especially in these days of his apostolic pilgrimage through your beloved Brazil.

Copyright © Dicastery for Communication - Vatican Publishing House