Commentaries on the Constitutions
September 2020
CONSTITUTIONS no. 51
The proclamation of the Good News demands a listening to the Word of God, the origin and foundation of contemplation and of the mission. It opens our intelligence and our hearts to the initiative of God, who reveals in Jesus Christ, the Word of the Father, his alliance of love with mankind.
The Word reveals to us the deep meaning of events, of our own personal and community history, and that of humanity. At the times dedicated to reading, to personal study, to lectio divina, to liturgical celebration and to community sharing, the Word of God nourishes and transforms our whole lives. This is how we are able to proclaim what we have seen and heard, the Word of Life.
After having presented us with the models for our prayer, Jesus, Dominic, Catherine, Mother Gérine, the Constitutions go on to deal with the foundations of our prayer, the first of which is the Word.
The Dominican charism was born from the need to proclaim the Truth, from Dominic’s inspired desire to “proclaim the Good News”; he then aggregated to this the other three indispensable pillars (fraternal life, study, prayer) as means to attain to the objective of the mission. So the number we are studying begins by considering the aim of the charism itself: “The proclamation of the Good News demands a listening to the Word of God, the origin and foundation of contemplation and of the mission”. To proclaim the Good News, to preach with words and with our lives, “listening to the Word of God” is indispensable, necessary and fundamental. The living Word, as we know, is the Word, Jesus himself, become man in the Incarnation, manifesting itself in this way as the revelation which God himself wishes to communicate to the human race.
This Word of God is for us the “the origin and foundation of contemplation and of the mission”. The two words, contemplation and mission, sum up the whole of our lives, according to our motto “Contemplari et contemplata aliis tradere”, that is, “Give to others the fruits of contemplation”. So the Word of God is the principle and foundation of our whole Dominican life. And our Constitutions, dealing with prayer, tell us this straight away, in a manner that is clear and powerful.
Number 51 then tells us what can make the Word we have listened to, meditated on and prayed effective in us:
1. it opens our intelligence and our hearts to the initiative of God, who reveals in Jesus Christ, the Word of the Father, his alliance of love with mankind.
2. the Word reveals to us the deep meaning of events
- of our own personal history,
- of our community history
- of the history of humanity.
The Word, which is, therefore, the Word of the Father, first of all makes us understand, opening our intelligence and our hearts to deep understanding of the initiative and design of the Salvation God has willed for humanity: to make an alliance of love with us, thanks to Jesus Christ, who was sent to reveal this project to us. Reading, listening to and meditating on the Word of God, we welcome ever more and ever better the story of this alliance of love and salvation that God, in Jesus, willed to make with humanity. The Word makes us discover that every human being, each one of us, is the object of God’s great, infinite, wonderful Love. And truly, those who dedicate themselves to listening to the Word of God with intensity know that this is true, because they experience God’s unutterable Love.
As a second consequence, the Word “reveals to us the deep meaning of events”. There could be many ways of reading and understanding what is happening in our own personal lives, in that of the community, in that of humanity; the Word reveals to us their deepest meaning, their truest significance according to God.
The number then gives us the ways that we shall use in our lives to listen to the Word:
“At the times dedicated to reading, to personal study, to lectio divina, to liturgical celebration and to community sharing, the Word of God nourishes and transforms our lives”. The Word of God nourishes, feeds, satisfies our spiritual life, transforms us and converts us, thanks to those precious times we dedicate personally and as a community to listening to it. The Directory, at numbers 21 and 22 reiterates the importance of these times, which we have to live with serious commitment and dedication.
Number 51 concludes with the essential, vital and desired consequence: “This is how we are able to proclaim what we have seen and heard, the Word of Life”.
This paraphrase of the beginning of John’s first Letter is the description of our charism, the explanation of what our charism gives us and asks of us: “That which was from the beginning, that we have heard, that we have seen with our eyes, that we have watched and touched with our own hands, the Word of Life … what we have seen and heard we are declaring to you, so that you too may be in communion with us. Our communion is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ”.
May loving, deep, daily, personal and community listening to the Word of the living Jesus, make us true Dominicans, women who experience the Word of Life and can therefore proclaim it to those with whom they come in contact, with their words and with their lives. Amen!
Sr. M. Elvira Bonacorsi
Prioress general
Letters of the Prioress general
Rome, June 08, 2020
On 10 June thirty years ago, it was the liturgical Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, and the Congregation of the “Dominican Sisters of the Little House of Divine Providence, Genoa” united with the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of St Catherine of Siena – ex-Rome.
This means that on that day the Congregation founded by Mother Teresa Solari entered and became part of ours. But this does not mean that the grace of the charism, the work and the holiness of Mother Teresa was diminished, absolutely not. As the finale of the 2008 Jobel Theatre dramatic production for the centenary of the death of Mother Teresa expressed it so well, she met with Mother Gérine, the two recognised each other in the Spirit, they took each other by the hand and went on their way together.
My dears, this is why we want to remember this day of communion and of grace, praising and thanking the Lord for the life and the truly love-filled work Mother Teresa did for the poor, the orphaned, and abandoned children. We want to praise and thank the Lord for the richness of the love that has strengthened Mother Gérine’s charism in us, unifying these two graces so similar and so attentive to our needy brothers and sisters.
The Cause for the Beatification of Mother Teresa Solari is going forward; it is just a question of time, but Mother Teresa will certainly be proclaimed Blessed. So let us praise and thank the Blessed Trinity for this gift of communion and union that happened 30 years ago.
I remember in a special way and greet with affection the sisters who received from Mother Teresa the grace of the Dominican charism, and who have become together with us followers of the two Mothers who continue to walk hand in hand before us towards the Lord Jesus !
An embrace to you all, in the joy of this marvellous commemoration !
(Sr. M. Elvira Bonacorsi)
Prioress General
Circular Letters
Letters sent by the Prioress General on special occasions, to all the sisters and laity of the Congregation
C.L. 16/2020
Easter 2020
“Jesus said to her: «I am the resurrection and the life;
he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live;
and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? »…
Jesus cried out with a loud voice: «Lazarus, come out! »" (Jn 11: 25 -26, 43)
My dear sisters and Lay Associates,
It is not easy to write to you in this so different, so painful, so tragic Easter time; the news we receive from the mass media each day wrings the heart and hurts us, even if, thanks be to God, there are also many examples of generosity, open-handed giving and heroism.
Many times I have asked myself during these days, to which Word of God I could return to greet you and wish you my usual heartfelt Happy Easter in the midst of all we are living through; I went back, I continually went back, to the memory of the passage about the resurrection of Lazarus, especially since last Sunday, when it was the liturgical text of the Gospel.
This too was a very tragic situation, even if it dealt with the death of only one person; in this story the suffering of Martha, Mary and Jesus is powerfully and repeatedly emphasised by very human demonstrations of weeping, lamenting, entreating, deep emotion and loud cries. In this text too, questions are raised and are expressed in ways that could be very topical in these days of anguish, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died ... if you had been here, Jesus, many people would not have died … where are you, Lord?” “He, Jesus, who opened the eyes of the blind, could he not have prevented his death? …you, Jesus, who performed so many cures when you were on earth, and also after you had gone back to heaven, why do you allow so many not to be cured, but to die?” And there are many questions like these, there could be many others, even more powerful and more heart-breaking.
Lazarus is already dead, has been buried for 4 days when Jesus arrives, and the two sisters reproach him for not coming sooner; if Jesus had been present, they are sure that their brother would not have died. Jesus is repeatedly moved and weeps, so that the Jews present comment, “See how he loved him!”
Jesus responds to Martha with that incredibly profound sentence: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die yet shall he live; and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” And poor Martha, whom we all specially remember for the reproof Jesus gives her when she wants her sister to help her to prepare the meal, “Martha, Martha, you worry yourself about too many things …” the same Martha responds with a profession of faith that is intense and perfect: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the One who is coming into the world!”.
And now we come to ourselves: let us imagine ourselves to be there in front of Jesus, when a person dear to us is very ill, when a relative or a dear friend has died, when all the people who of whom we have news every day are dead, and when we ask, “Why, Lord?” he replies, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die yet shall he live; and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
Jesus is asking of me at this time: do you believe that I am the resurrection and the Life; do you believe that even if a person has died, but believed in me, he will live? Eternal life begins here on earth, but for the one who believes in Jesus it continues after death and is then Life in all its fulness.
This Easter, which arrives in the midst of the corona virus pandemic, obliges us to respond to this question of Jesus: do you believe this? Do you believe that I am the true Life and that I can give everyone eternal life after I defeated death and came living out of the tomb? Do you believe that, even if many people are dying, they can go on living near to me? If you believe in me, who am the Resurrection, Life will triumph over all death, will triumph over your death, over the death of everyone.
So to wish you a Happy Easter this year means to wish you, and wish each other to BELIEVE INTENSELY IN CHRIST, THE RESURECTION AND THE LIFE.
Turning to the Gospel account; Jesus asks where the tomb of Lazarus is: moved and in tears he goes to the place indicated. He asks them to take away the gravestone, even if Martha seems to want to restrain him, and at that moment Jesus cries out! Some commentators on this text say that it is the love of Jesus for Lazarus, expressed in the passage by various words of affection, that makes him return to Judea, where a few days previously they had wanted to kill him, that moves him to tears, that makes him cry out; and again it is love for his friend Lazarus that calls him back from death to life. (cf. Monastery of Bose, Commentary)
“Jesus cried out in a loud voice: Lazarus, come out!”
This powerful cry of Jesus, which disperses the darkness of the tomb, which disperses the suffering of the sisters of Lazarus and those present, which disperses the dismay we are living through in these days, is directed at me. I am Lazarus, and Jesus, in his love for me, cries: “Come out!” So it is important that I understand, and every one of us understands, the tomb we are in. Am I in the tomb of discouragement? Of fear? Of judging my brothers and sisters? In the tomb of not loving? In the tomb of little faith? Of prayer that lacks trust? ... What is the nature of my tomb?
Jesus, this Easter, cries out to me: COME OUT! And I can, I must come out, because I am loved by him, and his Love conquers all death, makes us come out of all tombs.
Easter, this year, can mean for me to welcome Jesus’ cry, COME OUT, accept his call to come out of whatever for me is a tomb.
And so to wish you a Happy Easter this year means to wish you, and wish each other, TO BE OBEDIENT TO JESUS’ CRY OF LOVE: COME OUT!
Lord Jesus, lover of life and victorious over death, we ask you, we entreat you, to have pity on all humanity, loved by you, to have mercy on this humanity for which you died on the cross and rose again; we ask you to make this terrible pandemic stop, so that life in its fullness may return. We also ask you to give us the grace to understand, through this tremendous trial, what we need to change in our daily lives, renewing and deepening our faith in you, the Resurrection and the Life, the grace to comprehend that we have to come out of our tombs in response to your cry of love. Lord Jesus, have pity on us and grant us to live in fulness your Paschal Mystery and ours. Amen!
My dears, in this atmosphere of reflection and of prayer, I send you my heartfelt greetings for a Happy Easter, and may the Lord who died and rose again for us bless us all.
(Sr. M. Elvira Bonacorsi)
Prioress general
C. L. 15/2019
Christmas 2019
“And the Word was made flesh and came to dwell among us” (Jn 1:14)
My dear sisters and my dear lay associates,
“There is a story about the ancient monks of the desert, which runs, “A young monk was lamenting to his spiritual father that he was not managing to make progress along the thorny path of ascesis. The old errors were always springing up afresh. He was not managing to grasp and pull up the weeds. So the old monk told him a story. A father sent his son into the field to cultivate it. But the field was so large and full of weeds that the young man went away and settled down to sleep, because he did not think he was capable of clearing so much brushwood from the land. When the father, after a few days, went to see the field and realised that nothing had been done, he gave his son this advice: “Do a small amount of work in the field every day, doing what your body can manage”. The son did as his father advised, and in a short time the whole field was ready for cultivation.
Beginning is often accompanied by fear. We have the impression that we shall fail. For this reason we always keep putting off the decision to begin a certain work. Or we rule out the possibility of a new beginning ...
At Christmas we celebrate the fact that God begins all over again with us. The past, which has left its imprint on us, loses the power it had over us. We can dream once more of the splendour of the new things that are to come. Everything becomes possible. There is no more need continually to drag the weight of the past behind us. It is given to us to begin a new life ...
The mystery of Christmas wants to say to us: You are no longer prisoners of your past. You can begin again. It is the Divine Child in you who puts you in contact with everything new, who is already intact and pure in your soul. Have confidence in what is new within you”.
(Anselm Grün:
Your Light Gives us Hope, Paraclete Press).
My dears, I could stop here in this (not brief) quotation without adding anything else; but in fact, the message I want to share with you is that once more, this Christmas, we have the marvellous grace of beginning again, of realising in prayer and contemplation before the Child Jesus that, since Baptism, we truly have the newness of divine life within us.
The Word, the Word of God, was made flesh, assumed our body, became one of us, a tiny human creature ... an inexpressible mystery! He came to dwell among us: “dwell” means that he pitched his tent among us, wanted to remain among us and never leave us again. His dwelling among us has continued and will continue to the end of the world: “I am with you all days, even to the end of the world”.
But I love to think that “among us” also means “in the midst of us” within each one of us. He, the absolute Newness, he who has radically changed history, is dwelling within me.
And if Newness is living in me, truly this can change my life, my pathway, my whole way of being. The important thing is simply to realise it, desire it, believe it, trust it, hand all of ourselves over to him.
Perhaps someone might say to me that they are trying to change their life, like that young monk, but things always seem the same ... well, let us read the story from Grün’s book again, with attention and from our hearts. Let us allow ourselves to be convinced, asking the Lord Jesus present within us for the grace to decide what small piece of our field we want to begin to cultivate today.
Yes, today, only today, every “today”, because every day is Christmas, every day brings that true Newness in me, so every day I can start again from the beginning!
And we can truly do this, in the certainty that he will make us able, give us the capacity.
“Tenderness and sweetness are conditions for rebirth. After creating human beings, and leaving them free, God tenderly raised them when they were wounded and falling, restoring their confidence to be able to walk again, to be able to desire again”.
(C. Giaccardi and M. Magatti, “La scommessa cattolica", Il Mulino).
In this confidence, given to us by the Christ who is coming, I wish each of you, from my heart, a HAPPY CHRISTMAS and a peaceful 2020, and ask for everyone the Peace and the blessing of the Child of Bethlehem.
Rome, 15 December 2019, Sunday lll of Advent
(Sr. M. Elvira Bonacorsi)
Prioress general