Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance
CCCCC
General
Chapters of Abbots and Abbesses
5th
Mixed General Meeting
Synthesis
Presentation
For the fifth time the two Chapter of the abbots
and abbesses have assembled at the same time and in the same place so that the
exchanges and discussion could take place in common, even if most of the votes
were taken separately. 170 persons had the right to vote in one or other
Chapter as superiors, and about 25 others were invited as delegates of the
communities, observers from other Cistercian Orders or Congregations, or
experts. If the interpreters, translators, secretaries and other service people
are included, the total number for this occasion is 228 persons. The place
chosen for this year was the Cité Saint-Pierre of the Catholic Relief
Service at Lourdes. Not only did it answer the material needs, with a
sufficient number of places for plenary sessions, the meetings of some 15
commissions and the necessary number of bedrooms, but the reception was truly
warm and cordial. Above all the proximity of the Grotto of Massabielle, like
the general atmosphere of all sanctuaries, lent its spiritual climate of prayer
to the meeting, which was very sustaining. We had the opportunity to
participate in common celebrations with the Bishops of France who held their
meeting during our stay, as well as with some of the young priests who had been
invited to it. On All Saints Day our Eucharist was celebrated at the Grotto and
we renewed, at the threshold of the third millennium, the Consecration of
the Order to the Virgin Mary, in the very place where the Virgin manifested
herself to Bernadette as the Immaculate Conception.
Collaboration between Abbots and Abbesses
This year another step was taken in the direction
of a closer collaboration between monks and nuns. In 1996 it was decided that
the Father Immediate of a community of nuns who should, every six years, delegate
another person to make the Regular Visitation, could delegate this to an
abbess. It was also decided that he could be accompanied by an abbess, even in
his visitations to the monasteries of monks. This time B this was the
most important decision of these Chapters B we agreed by
an overwhelming majority (90.5% of the abbots and 95.5% of the abbesses) that
the Council of the Abbot General would be mixed, with two monks and two nuns
elected in common by the two Chapters and a fifth member selected by the Abbot
General and the other elected members, to allow for a balance in representing
cultures within the Council. The newly elected Council is composed of a
Japanese member, M. Cecilia Aoki, a French member, M. Danièle Levrard, an
American, Dom Augustine Roberts, and another Frenchman, Dom François de Place.
The fifth member, who has not yet been designated, will probably be Spanish.
Our legislation, although canonically distinct, is
practically the same for the monks and the nuns. It is developing in a parallel
way and our experience is that, at the end of discussions in common, the
decisions taken by each Chapter are nearly always in agreement, with very
similar percentages on each side. This phenomenon, which emerged at the common
meeting in 1987 when the text of the Constitutions was decided upon, underlines
the great unity of spirit that exists between monks and nuns. It is becoming
less and less conceivable that the Chapters would meet separately. Only
canonical details keep us from having a mixed Chapter.
Monastic Enclosure
One of the points in our present legislation which
is different concerns enclosure. This, however, is not because of dissent
between monks and nuns. On the contrary, we do not see why monks and nuns
should have a different enclosure. It is not at all a question of emancipating
the nuns by freeing them from the restrctions of APapal
Enclosure@ : Cistercian monks and nuns profess a certain
separation from the world which seems essential to them because it is linked to
the monastic endeavor defined in their Constitutions. Even the Synod on
Religious Life recognized that the enclosure of nuns who belong to the ancient
monastic tradition could be understood in terms different from the norms linked
to the cultural context of 16th century Spain. Can it be that nuns
today are more in danger than the monks ? Why would it be necessary to
install grills or other material barriers for nuns when these are not deemed
necessary in the monasteries of monks ? In this context the directives in
the recent instruction Verbi Sponsa, even while mentioning separately
the enclosure of nuns of the ancient monastic tradion, retains for them the
norms of APapal Enclosure@ which do not
seem appropriate for them. Whatever the case, the Instruction is too recent for
the varieties of its application to the Order to be decided at this Mixed
General Meeting. We simply made a statement affirming, on one hand, that the Instruction stimulates us to deepen our way
of living the monastic enclosure in our Cistercian spirituality, for both monks
and nuns, and on the other hand that our practice of enclosure and separation
from the world remains as it has been up to now, according to our
Constitutions, until a more thorough study of our situation in relation to the
Instruction is accomplished. This study
was entrusted to the Law Commission to which, for this subject, two nuns were
added: M. Geneviève-Marie Fontaine, Abbess of Échourgnac, and M. Blanca Lopez,
of Carrizo. The Law Commission, we note in passing, is made up of Dom
Marie-Gérard Dubois, Abbot of La Trappe, M. Danièle Levrard, of Les Gardes, Fr.
Emmanuel Noguchi of Phare, Sr. Augusta Tescari of Vitorchiano, and Dom Armand
Veilleux, Abbot of Scourmont.
Pastoral Exchanges on the Reports of the
Communities
We know that the primary purpose of the General
Chapters is to exercise their pastoral responsibity toward the communities. To this
end the reports on the life of each community are presented. This year these
reports, of one page each, were drawn up by the communities in the light of a
general theme: conformity to Christ. We deeply appreciated the pastoral
exchanges which followed the reading of these reports in the mixed commissions,
whether with the superior of the house concerned, or among the members of the
commission. These mixed commissions are made up of a dozen abbots and abbesses,
each commission studying around eleven reports. The commission reports read in
plenary session extracted the themes surfacing most frequently in the house
reports, but this year we were not inclined to retain for the future any
special theme for further study, even for the next Chapter. When special
difficulties had arisen in a community, its situation was looked at more
carefully and perhaps studied by the APastoral
Commissions@, which were functioning together this year.
Solutions to such situations were sought and proposed so that, if possible, some
concrete help could be given.
New Foundations and Aging of Communities
Among the topics more frequently turning up is the
aging of certain communities which are experiencing recruitment difficulties.
These are mainly in Europe and North America, with three communites
getting special attention. On the other hand, other communities are making
foundations in Latin America, Africa or Asia. This is not always easy, nor
without problems at the level of forming the younger generation and for the
unity of the communities, to say nothing of the dangerous political situation
in which they sometimes find themselves in countries like Angola, Algeria or
the Democratic Republic of Congo. These difficulties, however, do not
exclusively belong to foundations, as exemplified by the tiny remnant of the
community at Banja Luka, in Bosnia. Its superior, Dom Nivard, was loudly
applauded and two abbots C Dom Armand Veilleux and Dom
Chris Thewissen C were named to help the Fr.
Immediate look for solutions to aid this community.
The number of monks and nuns is slowly decreasing,
though less rapidly for nuns: there are 1,863 nuns whereas there were 1,876 in
1990. During that same period the monks went from 2,797 to 2,512. Nevertheless,
foundations keep being undertaken : 30 in 25 years. At these Chapters we
approved foundations in the Czech Republic by Sept-Fons, in Ecuador by San
Isidoro, and in Norway: Tautra, founded by Mississippi. The foundations of Los
Andes in Venezuela and Esmeraldas in Ecuador were declared APriories@, and four
other houses were raised to a higher rank, acknowledging their good progress:
Novo Mundo, Gedono, Armenteira and, soon, Matutum.
Unity in a Diversity of Cultures
Foundations are multiplying across diverse cultures
and yet the chapter votes are always in agreement between abbots and abbesses.
The majorities obtained in one and the other are very strong, which shows the
unity of spirit between monks and nuns and that the diversity of cultures does
not threaten the convergence of opinions and decisions. That is because the
Cistercian charism, as noted during the discussions, is Atranscultural@, even though diversified according to the culture it is in.
The essential element is based on the Rule of St. Benedict and fundamentally on
the Gospel, of which the Rule is simply an application. Our charism is one and transcends diverse cultures, even
if, at its beginning, it grew by passing though a Latin, western culture. The
fact is that all of us are confronted by cultures which are not readily
receptive of our charism, nor of the Gospel. This is the case in both the Far
East and in the West with their very secularized societies. The challenge of
the culture into which our communities enter is undoubtedly different from one
end of the world to the other C the Order exists now in 44 countries, C but it is important
everywhere.
Formation
The culture of the world we live in has
repercussions within our communities at the level of formation. We took a
moment to discuss this: the situation of the young monastics during the years
right after their final commitment and, more precisely, their integration into
the community. Experience shows that some special difficulties exist at this
time, difficulties that previous generations did not have. The
discussion, which was very fruitful in the commissions, could not be gone into
deeply in the plenary sessions, where more than 190 persons were present.
Nonetheless some constants were observed, such as the importance of good
vocational discernment, the role of spiritual guidance, the necessity for an Aintegral@ formation,
that is, one not content with the necessary professorial courses but also
attentive to the maturing of the human personality. The formation of the
newcomers, like ongoing formation of the community as a whole, is an important
condition for living our life well. Meetings were often mentioned and several
initiatives have been taken at the level of the Regions, as well as for the
whole Order, such as the Exordium program for the ninth centenary of the
founding of Cîteaux. Formation of the young professed is an area in which the
communities ought to help one another. This is the role of the Asecretaries of formation@ at the
regional and central levels. In fact it was the Central Secretary of Formation,
Sr. Marie-Pascale Dran, of Chambarand, who gave us a report of her activities.
Priesthood and the Superior
Another topic was that of abbots elected when they
are not priests. We know that the monastic vocation does not necessarily
include the priesthood, which implies a pastoral ministry belonging to another
vocation. Certainly there must be priests in the community for service to the
brothers, the guest retreatants and the communities of nuns. There is no
incompatibility for a monk between his vocation and this well-defined pastoral
task, but not everyone feels called to it. In the present law for a monk who is
elected abbot to be confirmed in his office, he must agree to become a priest
if he is not already one. Is that really necessary? That is the question that
some have asked, especially in the case of an abbot elected for a limited
mandate of six years, as is possible in our legislation.
The communities were consulted on this point, which
the Synod of Bishops for the Consecrated Life had discussed in 1995. Studies
were published about the existence or not of a link between superiorship and
priesthood. This can be looked at from the historical, canonical or doctrinal
perspective, but, concretely, it is the pastoral situation which must be taken
into account, a situation which varies greatly according to mentalities and
cultures. In Africa, for example, it is inconceivable that the superior not be
a priest, whereas the question takes on a different shape in North America. In
any case, as long as the Holy See has made no pronouncement on the matter
nothing can be decided in opposition to existing legislation, so we did not
spend a lot of time on this subject. Nonetheless the capitulants were
encouraged to pursue their reflections, both in the monasteries of nuns and in
those of the monks. This will help to broaden the way the priesthood is
perceived and lived in our communities.
Temporal Administration
Our Constitutions were in need of completion in the
area of administrating the goods of the communities. For several years a team
has been working at drawing up a document which would provide well-thought out
advice in this area and point out the more important cases which require the
consent of the community or even special permissions from higher authorities.
This task, which had already been the occasion for decisions at previous
Chapters, was brough to a happy conclusion at the present meeting. A special AStatute@ was voted
on, article by article, with strong majorities apart from one or two details.
The points which called for most reflection concerned the description of the
role of the Cellarer and the level where intervention should occur when
deciding acts which go beyond the powers of the ordinary administrators. Should
the General Chapters themselves indicate certain limits, besides what the
Constitutions already say, which would
decide the financial or general importance of an act? Or should this decision
be left to the Regions, or to each monastery? The problem arises from the fact
that the economies of the monasteries are different and what is important for
one house is not so important for another. In this case how do we establish
general norms? The text we approved leaves the intiative to each community,
under the control of the Father Immediate, but the Regional Conferences could
also furnish schemas for evaluating the different factors.
Cistercian Grace Today: Conformity to Christ
It was in the light of this overriding principle
that the communities were invited to draw up their report. A set of gospel
phrases had been proposed which could direct the reflection of the members of
the community.That was done differently in different monasteries, but this
preparation for the General Chapter has clearly borne fruit in many places.
During the Chapter four testimonies were given C by M. Paule
Smets, abbess of Soleilmont, Dom Patrick Olive, abbot of Sept-Fons, Dom Joseph
Boyle, abbot of Snowmass and Sr. Lilly Scullion, nun of Glencairn C on the way this pursuit of conformity to Christ could be
lived in the abbatial service or in one=s own
personal spiritual journey. It is a gift, more than the result of one=s own effort. These conferences were followed by
discussions. They punctuated the flow of the Chapters by bringing to them an
element of more personal reflection which brought us back to what is essential.
On another
no less spiritual note, the Abbot General, Dom Bernardo, in two long
interventions, gave us his own appreciation and prospects for the Order on the
threshold of the third millenium. These conferences were the topic for
discussions in the commissions and in full assembly. They bore upon the
development of the Order, the lessons we can learn from it, especially from the
foundations which have been made, the shifts which are taking place from Europe
and North America to Africa, Latin America and Asia, the challenges which we
increasingly confront and also the inculturated spiritual renewal which must be
pursued. He challenged us to avoid confusions or equivocations about deeper
spiritual attitudes and to be aware of the kind of presence in society and
Church which we display by our attitudes, perhaps unbeknownst to ourselves. One
fundamental condition lies in humor as an expression of Cistercian joy. It lets
us avoid absolutising what is relative and relativising what is the essential
absolute.
The Cistercian Family
The Strict Observance (nicknamed ATrappist@) is not the
whole Cistercian Order. We could not forget it after the ninth centenary of the
founding of Cîteaux and the big celebration there on the 21st of
March which brought together 700 monks and nuns of the Cistercian Family. An
official declaration was adopted by virtual unanimity, encouraging us to favor
and develop the links of charity and collaboration among all the communities by
reciprocal invitations to celebrations or sessions that might be organized. In
this area the role and responsibility of the community of Cîteaux, Athe mother of us all@, was
stressed.
Conclusion: Message to the Communities and Dynamics
of a Chapter
Other lesser matters were taken care of during the
Chapters and at the end of the Meeting a short message was drawn up with the
communities in mind. After highlighting some signs of new life which have
marked these General Chapters held in such a special spiritual place as
Lourdes, the text spells out three main questions: AHow can we
respond with both generosity and prudence to the Church=s continuing
appeal for a cenobitic contemplative presence, even in non-Christian regions of
the world? How can we, on the various levels of the Order, furnish aging
communities with the resources required to carry on dynamically their
Cistercian witness to Christ? How can we develop into more strongly integrating
communities, clear in our identity, so as to enable those in formation to
embrace the fullness of the Paschal Mystery B self-gift
leading to resurrection B in a total, lifetime
commitment?A
The Gospel on the last day of the Chapters spoke of
Jesus= journey towards Jerusalem to live out his Paschal
Mystery. Dom Bernardo commented that a General Chapter is also an entry into
the Paschal Mystery. He thus brought out the meaning of the three weeks which
we had just spent together. During the first days we began from a completely
human situation and were earnest in following our programs and regulations. But
then came the heavy waters when we risked being thrown off balance, when
certain difficult situations surfaced, the behavior of this or that person
could be more or less called into question and no one is protected from
feelings of self-love, disagreement, jealousy, impatience or despair. But the Holy Spirit is stronger still and is manifest in the
fruits of the third week. Thanks to prayer and to the Eucharist bringing the
capitulants together each morning, thanks to hearing the Word of God and
listening to one another, solutions emerged, humor won the day, the horizon
cleared and brothers and sisters recognized themselves as such in a common
Father. And the Abbot General concluded: AWe have lived
through not only one more Chapter, but something more than a Chapter.@
By mandate of the General Chapters,
Fr Marie-Gérard Dubois, Abbot of la Trappe