4. The Search for Truth

You are nuns of the Order that has Veritas as its motto. Dominicans have always been known for our passion for study. Some nuns have shared with me that this is an element of Dominican life from which they feel distant, either because they have never studied or because they feel incapable of it. And it is tempting to think that it is the brethren who study and the nuns who pray; it is the brethren who talk and the nuns who listen. This is to misunderstand the nature of our commitment to the Truth. It is a way of being in the world truthfully. Each of us is called to this, regardless of whether we have a gift for academic study or not.

Living in the truth

Veritas summons us to be men and women who live truthfully, speak truthfully, and listen attentively. Often communication in religious communities can become deformed. Innuendo, allusion and suspicion may muddy the clarity of our conversations. Fear or a lack of trust may make us resort to hints, nudges, and winks. It belongs to our Dominican life that we dare to speak truthfully, with discretion and sensitivity and respect. This has nothing to do with being a scholar. It is seeking to live with the clarity of Dominic. “He who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God” (Jn 3.21). Seeing clearly means seeing what is central and essential and not being distracted by details.

fr. Simon Tugwell OP wrote that “it is, in fact, most typical of Dominican spirituality to view God, not primarily as the object of our attention, but rather as the essential subject, with whom we are united as co-subjects, co-operators with him (1 Cor. 3.9) in his work of redemption.” That is to say that as God’s friends we do not so much look at God as with him. We are invited to see the world through God’s eyes, and that is to see its goodness. Eckhart writes, “God enjoys himself. His own enjoyment is such that it includes his enjoyment of all creatures.” To see with God’s eyes is to share his pleasure in all that God has made, including our brothers and sisters! Thomas Merton tells of how, after seven years of life in monastery, he went to the dentist and he saw the world differently. “I wondered how I would react at meeting once again, face to face, the wicked world. Perhaps the things I had resented about the world when I left it were defects of my own that I had projected upon it. Now, on the contrary, I found that everything stirred me with a deep and mute sense of compassion…. I went through the city, realising for the first time in my life how good are all the people in the world and how much value they have in the sight of God.” Seeing with God, we come to share God’s love. If we learn that truthful way of being in the world, then we can face anything with joy: our failures, our mortality, the true state of the monastery, our fears and hopes. We can be joyful even in the dark.

The Study of the Word of God

LCM 101§ II says that the nuns are especially to study the Word of God. This is not a dry activity. Jordan tells Diana, “Read over this Word in your heart, turn it over in your mind, let it be as sweet as honey on your lips, ponder it, dwell on it, that it may dwell with you and in you for ever.” If the Word is to touch and change all that we are, then we must bring to it every aspect of our humanity: our intelligence, our emotions, our sense of beauty, our experience, our difficulties and hopes.

Every week in the General Council, we read the Word of God together. Some of us will bring an analysis of the original language, others will share how it touches them or illuminates some recent experience, or provokes them or puzzles them. All these are valid ways of reading the Word, and we need them all. That is why it is good that we ponder it together, and let it transform our communal lives. Each nun may have insights of her own to offer. The Lord says to Catherine, “I could have made all people in such a way that they all had everything, but I preferred to give different gifts to different people, so that they would all need each other” . This is true especially in understanding the Word of God.

The exegetical study of Scripture can be hard at the beginning. We may fear to read what the scholars say, lest our deepest convictions be shaken. When one begins to study, one must pass through the alarming experience of discovering that we never before understood the text. But this is our humility in the face of the Word, which we do not own and which invites us to set out we know not where. We must dare to be like Mary who hears the message of the angel, and who “is greatly troubled in the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be” (Luke 1.29). We must learn to be surprised by the Word, which always means more than we could ever have imagined. That is why it is good that in every community there are nuns who make a serious study of scripture, if possible in the original languages. I confess that my several attempts at learning Hebrew were a disaster!

In every enclosed community, there lurks the dread of boredom, living in the same place, with the same people, listening to the same jokes and eating the same food. But the Word is always new and fresh with God’s eternal youth. Periodically we need to recapture the excitement of the disciples on their way back to Emmaus, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?” (Luke 24.32). The study of the Bible renews our capacity for wonder.

The Study of Theology

During my visits to the monasteries I often ask the nuns about what theology they like to study. Usually there is silence and the subject is quickly changed. Theology is usually seen as academic and incomprehensible. LCM 101§ III exhorts the nuns to study St Thomas, but I suspect that often the Summa gathers dust on the shelves of the library. One might be tempted to think that the friars study theology but the nuns study spirituality. This is a modern opposition that would have been incomprehensible to Dominic and Catherine. Theology is not just an academic discipline. It belongs to our searching for our Lord in the garden, our hunger for meaning, our entry into the mystery of love. Through knowledge we draw near to the one whom St Catherine called la prima dolce verità, the first sweet truth. One of Dominic’s ways of praying was to study a book, and he would argue with it, disagree, nod his head, exclaim. And when Thomas was writing the Summa, he would sometimes send away the secretaries and throw himself on the ground and pray until he received understanding. Theology and spirituality are inseparable.

Much theological writing is profoundly boring, but this may be because it is bad theology. We need to be introduced to the Summa as it is, a contemplative work that tells of our journey to God and to happiness. Its teaching liberates us from the traps that would hold us back from the pilgrimage. So many people are trapped in idolatrous conceptions of God, as a great powerful and invisible person, controlling everything that happens, and keeping us in perpetual immaturity. So much anger in religious communities comes from resentment at this image of God, which is an idol. But Thomas explodes this view in the Prima Pars, opens the door of this spiritual prison, and sets us off towards the mystery of the God who is as the eternal spring of freedom in the centre of our being. So often people are caught in a small vision of holiness as the obedience to rules. But in the Secunda Pars, Thomas shows us that the way to holiness is through growth in the virtues, through which we become strong and share in God’s own freedom. So often people are trapped in a view of religion that is magical. But in the Tertia Pars Thomas shows us how in the Incarnation and the sacraments, God embraces and transforms the whole of our humanity. The test of good theology is that it overflows into praise and worship and happiness and true inner freedom. There is little theology which is that good. Maybe some nuns are called to write it. “In the field of theological, cultural and spiritual studies, much can be expected from the genius of women, not only in relation to specific aspects of feminine consecrated life, but also in understanding the faith in all its expressions” (Vita Consecrata 58).

Formation for Veritas

It follows that an essential part of the formation of a Dominican nun is in the study of scripture and theology. This is not a mere addendum, like learning to sow or to cook. It belongs to growth in love, for “knowledge follows love. And loving, the soul seeks to pursue truth and clothe herself in it.”

The study of theology should be happy. We learn about the great things that God has done for us. Thomas said “Those who devote themselves to the contemplation of truth are the happiest anyone can be in this life” And for him contemplation largely meant study. We learn to love the Word of God, and be “nourished by its charm (dulcedo)” , as Albert said. Like the initiation into all profound happiness, rather than mere entertainment, it will have moments of boredom, when we will feel incapable of remaining in our rooms. We must learn confidence, the confidence to think, to question, to search. For Thomas, the teacher must above all teach the pupil to think for himself, to realise his potential for knowledge. This means that when we learn to study we must not be afraid of making mistakes. The formators must not watch their students fearfully. We must dare to try out ideas, and not worry if we get it wrong at first. Of course, orthodoxy is dear to Dominicans, but if we believe the teaching of the Church that the Holy Spirit has been poured upon us, then we will not easily get stuck in error.

The nuns need the tools to study: a good library, periodicals and time. Many monasteries are poor and to buy books is a real sacrifice. But we can no more starve the nuns of books than we can of food. Internet offers the possibility of following theological formation without ever leaving the monastery. The community needs to build into the rhythm of its life times of study. Chalais in France has an annual calendar that includes times for intense study, for silence, and for recreation. We brethren must also respond to the needs of the sisters for formation. When St Dominic came back to S Sisto, exhausted after a day of preaching, then he would teach the nuns, “because they had no other master to do this.” The flourishing of the Dominican Rhineland monasteries in the fourteenth century was partly because Herman de Minden, the Provincial of Teutonia, sent some of his best theologians to teach the nuns.

The monasteries need sisters who have received a deep theological and biblical formation so that they can teach the young. This is especially so today when many nuns come to us from University. They need a theological formation that will stretch their minds and answer their questions. Ideally each monastery would be able to offer a complete formation, but if this is not so then the collaboration between monasteries, especially when there are federations, is vital. Sometimes there is a fear that if the young study in another monastery, then they may lose their attachment to their original community, and ask for transfiliation. This rarely happens, and it cannot be an excuse for not giving a sister a full and true Dominican formation. If the young are well formed, then the whole community will eventually be renewed. The formation house of the Federation of monasteries in Mexico is a wonderful example of how a federation can help each monastery to grow stronger.

5. The Unity of the Order

You are nuns of the Order of Preachers and are part of Dominic’s large family. Each monastery has life in itself, and yet is in contact with other monasteries, often belonging to a federation. You often are a centre of life for the Dominican Family. You make your vows to the Master of the Order. What does it mean for a monastery to have care of its own life and yet to belong to the Order?

A service of Unity

Dominic wished his Order to be one. The Order has always fought to preserve its unity. When other Orders have split we have clung on to our unity, but sometimes only just! This is because our unity belongs to our preaching of the gospel. We preach the Kingdom of God, in which all humanity will be reconciled in Christ. Our words have authority if we are united ourselves. The Order has an especially important role to play in a Church that is often split between different and competing ideologies. Also political conflict, ethnic tension and even war often divide our countries. We must embody that peace that we preach.

Each monastery embodies this unity in itself but “it transcends the limits of the monastery and attains its fullness in communion with the Order and with the whole Church of Christ” (LCM n2 §1). And so you, as Dominican nuns, have care for the unity of the whole Order. Through your prayers and in all that you say and do, you have a responsibility to promote that unity and peace. Contemplatives should especially be able to do this because closeness to the mystery of God draws us beyond all division, and beyond all the pretensions of any party to claim absolute wisdom and knowledge.

The nature of autonomy

Each monastery is autonomous. This belongs to the nature of your lives, as monastic communities. It is an autonomy that you rightly rejoice in. What does it mean? Literally it means that each community is self-governing, and has a responsibility for its own life. Each monastery has responsibility for building a community that is a sign of the Kingdom, in which there is mutual love and an abiding with the Lord. Autonomy is your free responsibility for your contemplative lives, rather than isolation.

In contemporary Western culture, there is a tendency to see autonomy as meaning separation. An individual is seen as free in so far as he or she is free from interference from the outside. But the Catholic understanding of what it means to be a human being offers another model, which is that it is in communion with each other that we find true freedom and autonomy. Autonomy does not mean being autosufficient. This is why the Church welcomes federations of monasteries, because the mutual support of the federations can help the individual monasteries to “safeguard and promote the values of the contemplative life” (Verbi Sponsa 27). Collaboration can help the monastery to be free and to take responsibility for its own life. I have often visited monasteries where the nuns are overwhelmed with the care of the sick, with cooking, with earning an income, with looking after the building. There is no time for prayer. Such a community may have complete independence but have lost its true autonomy, its freedom and responsibility for its own life. When monasteries help each other in formation, the care of the sick as at Dax in France, or economically, then they do not lose their autonomy, but gain it in a more profound way. Often this mutual help will be costly and a sacrifice. It is the nuns whom a monastery most needs who will be the ones who could offer that help for another community.

A time may come when a monastery must face the prospect of closure . If this happens, then there is no need for the nuns to feel guilt or failure. Maybe the monastery has fulfilled the purpose for which it was founded. As Dominicans it is good if we can face the prospect of closure truthfully. Sometimes I am told that if only one or two vocations were to come, then maybe the monastery could survive. Might it not be possible to look for vocations from another country? The determination to survive can lead to the acceptance of unsuitable vocations. But survival for us, who preach the death and resurrection of Christ, is not an absolute value. If we trust in our Father who raised Jesus from the dead, then we can face death, our own or that of our community, with hope and joy. As Provincial of England, I had to go to Carisbrooke to drive the last four nuns to their new home. The oldest nun, in her nineties, appeared to change her mind at the last minute, but finally we all went. The local people came to wave goodbye, singing and crying. This departure was perhaps the most eloquent preaching of the gospel the nuns had ever made. If the monastery is truly a place where you make home with God, then leaving it does not make you homeless.

In a region or a federation in which there are many monasteries and few vocations, then it is wonderful if the nuns dare to think together about the future. Should all the monasteries seek vocations, or should candidates for the Order be sent to just those who have a good chance of flourishing? This is not to deprive the right of any monastery to take decisions about its own life and to accept vocations. It is rather an invitation, in hard times, to seek what is more important than the survival of any individual monastery, which is the flourishing of Dominican contemplative life in the region.

Visitations are central to our tradition. Sometimes they are regarded with apprehension by monasteries because they can be seen as interference from outside. Blessed Hyacinth Cormier said that the purpose of a visitation is to encourage and encourage and encourage. Its concern is above all with “the internal government of the monastery” (LCM 227 § III cf. 228 § III) and thus to help the monastery to be effectively responsible for its own life and to be free to face its challenges. A visitation should therefore help a monastery to become autonomous in the true sense of the word. The LCM suggest that there should be a visitation “at least every two years” (227 § III).

Some monasteries continue to express a concern about the International Commission of Nuns, established by the General Chapter of Oakland in 1989. This is not a juridical body that has any powers to make decisions or to come between the Master and the monasteries. It is a “think tank” which advises the Master, like the many other Commissions of the Order, for the Intellectual Life, for Justice and Peace, and for the Mission of the Order. It is there to promote monastic life and especially to support the monasteries that are isolated. This it has done well. Its term ends in the next few months, and you are welcome to write to my successor or the General Chapter if you have any suggestions about its future. How might such a Commission help the Master in promoting authentic Dominican life in all its beauty and importance?

Relationships with the brethren

The friars and the nuns share a long history. Our friendship has been at the heart of the Order's life for almost eight hundred years. It has not always been easy. In the early days the brethren often wished to escape from any responsibility for the monasteries, and sometimes still do not take that responsibility seriously. The nuns must surely sometimes have wished to escape from the interference of the brethren! But like an old married couple, who have lived through so much, we can be confident that nothing will destroy the bond. As Dominicans, truthfulness and transparency should mark our relationship. Above all we must be confident in each other, and without suspicion. Jordan wrote to the Provincial of Lombardy that he had been “startled and frightened by a mere rustle of leaves” , when he was disturbed by rumours that the General Chapter had taken decisions against the monastery in Bologna. There are still occasional moments of panic at “mere rustles of leaves”, suspicions about the role of the International Commission, rumours about what the intentions of the General Chapter are. We must have confidence and be without fear. When there is uncertainty, then be without suspicion, give the best interpretation to what you hear, and ask for clarification. With transparency and trust we can build the unity of the Order.

The lives of the monasteries may be complicated by the many men who may claim some authority over you. Some of you have chaplains, assistants, vicars, Provincials, and Bishops; there is the Master of the Order and the Holy See. All of these should be there to strengthen you and not to interfere in your lives and control you. Above all your relationship with the brethren should be mutually strengthening. The service of the brethren must be to support you in your own responsibility for your lives. So many brethren are strengthened by their contact with the monasteries, where we are renewed in that silence from which the preached word springs.

Conclusion

“A city set on a hill top cannot be hidden” (Mt. 5.14). This phrase evokes so many monasteries set on hill tops: Chalais, Orbey, Los Teques near Caracas, Rweza, Drogheda, Vilnius, Perugia, Santorini and others. But whether the monastery is on a mountain or in the plains, in a jungle or a town, if you live your life with joy, then its light cannot be hidden. As Pope John Paul II wrote, this consecrated life exists, “so that this world may never be without a ray of divine beauty to lighten the path of human existence” Be confident in your monastic way of life. It is a gift from God.

For Christmas 1229, Jordan wrote to Diana to celebrate the birth of “a very little word” born for us. He also sends another word, “small and brief, my love”. Alas, this Letter is not small and brief, but it expresses my love and gratitude for your place at the heart of the Order. Pray for the whole Dominican Family, which is entrusted to your care. Pray for fr Viktor Hoffstetter, the previous Promoter of nuns whom so many of you love, and for his successor, fr Manuel Merten, whom you will come to love. Pray for me and for my successor too.

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