Fr. Saverio Cannistra, OCD
Homily at the General Chapter of the Carmelite Order, September 16, 2013
Dear brothers in Carmel,
being the General Superior of a religious family is, as you know, hard work, and in my view, from a human perspective, not worth it. But even a service that brings with it the exercise of asceticism and evangelical self-denial brings joy and comfort, and of these, I would first mention the opportunity to directly and deeply experience the entire beauty and richness of our family. Perhaps no one else but a father entrusted to be its superior can speak with such conviction and understanding about what a grace it is to be brothers and sisters in Carmel, to be a family gathered together with the Virgin Mary around the person of Jesus Christ.
Part of this grace is that you have invited me to participate in your chapter, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the honor and brotherhood you are showing me. I must say that after almost five years of a shared journey with the General Council of your order and the General Definitory of our order, I feel at home among you. Day by day I discover more that Carmel is a house with many rooms, many more rooms than I had thought. I can also say with the grandeur of the prince from the novel Gattopardo,1 that I live in a palace in which I do not yet know all the rooms. But right away – to avoid misunderstanding – I will add that I am ready to make some of them available to those who need them, as Pope Francis suggested to us a few days ago.
The Heart of the Carmelite Mission
The focus of your chapter's reflections is the theme of the mission2 of Carmel in today’s Church and world. The Holy Father in his concise message addressed to you said something that deeply touched me: “The heart of the Carmelite mission for today is found in your Rule (i.e., in the text of the rule).” This is a prompt for us to truly seek what is new in the very heart of our identity, which – although remaining the same – over the centuries absorbs the issues and opportunities, joys and anxieties of each epoch and generation, thus developing and maturing. I believe this is a methodologically precise prompt we should listen to and appreciate.
Often we are afraid to truly change and innovate in today’s changing world and culture. We seek quick solutions to the problems we encounter, and we almost compete with the world in its orientation toward performance. In reality, however, the only true solutions are those that result from a certain process of deepening and maturing ourselves; and such a journey is necessarily rather slow. Before we ask: “What should we do?”, it is better to pose a much more radical question that St. Teresa asks in The Way of Perfection (4, 1): “What should we be?”3 In this sense, I understand why the Pope encourages Carmelites to a path that reaches the mission through contemplation. It is a radical path, a path of denial, distant from the temptations of this world. But precisely because of that, it allows one to listen to God’s word, to internalize its logic, and to share its wisdom.
The entire Carmelite rule is the heart and foundation of our mission, as everything in it is directed toward living “in obedience to Jesus Christ,” that is, in relationship with Him, without reservations, conditions, or limitations. It is a life “captured” by Christ, wounded by Him, as St. John of the Cross says, and therefore alive only in Him and with Him. I hope, dear sons of St. Teresa, you will forgive me these mystical emphases, but I believe that the mission of Carmel truly has this accent, this mystical tone.
Allow me a small historical digression in this context. I find it interesting and not coincidental that the most admired modern depiction of the mystical experience, namely Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Teresa, is located in a place closely associated with the history of missions. As many of you know, our Roman church Santa Maria della Vittoria was originally built for the purpose of hosting a seminary for the missions of our order. And it is precisely on the site where there was a chapel dedicated to St. Paul, the apostle – the missionary par excellence. After the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, the title of the church of St. Paul was changed to Santa Maria della Vittoria. However, the seminary for missions remained here for about fifty years, from 1613 to 1663, when it was moved to the basilica of San Pancrazio. Therefore, when Bernini created the marble sculpture depicting the ecstasy of St. Teresa from 1647 to 1652, he was able to well place it in a church frequented by missionaries who were to give their lives to bring the gospel to regions at that time immensely distant, such as Persia and Goa in Asia, or in Europe, Krakow and Prague. And so the power of love for Christ, depicted by Bernini in the ascending movement of mystical rapture, was placed before young missionaries as a source of inspiration and object of contemplation. Because their calling is to show the urgency of that love in another way – by going to the peripheries of the world to reach even the most distant people and embrace them. In both cases – in the vertical mystical elevation of St. Teresa and in the geographical expansion of Carmelite missionaries – the same phenomenon is contained and attested: the acceptance of God’s love that has manifested itself in Jesus Christ enables breaking through patterns, overcoming limitations, and transcending borders, all with mystical agility.
Continuation in the next issue.
Translated from Italian by Martina Vintrová.
