Sharing with you my piece in
the current issue of the CBCP Monitor. You may check out the column AND THAT'S THE TRUTH on
Page 4 (Editorial Page), by clicking on this link:
By Teresa R. Tunay, OCDS March 12, 2013 marks the 391st
anniversary of the canonization of St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church
and founder of the Order of the Discalced Carmelites who had been hailed by
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI as a model in the Church’s efforts to launch the New
Evangelization.
Flashback to February, 2011,
exactly two years before announcing his resignation, the Holy Father initiated a new
cycle of catecheses on the Doctors of the Church, saying he would “begin with a
saint who represents one of the highest examples of Christian spirituality of
all times, St. Teresa of Avila.” He went on to say that St. Teresa
“stressed how essential prayer is”, prayer for her being a “frequent and
intimate conversation with a friend whom we know loves us very much.”
On July 16, 2012, memorial
of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the Holy Father said, “Today, too, as in the
sixteenth century, in the midst of rapid transformation, it is important that trusting
prayer be the heart of the apostolate, so that the redeeming message of Jesus
Christ may sound out clearly and dynamically.”
He
then reminded the world that
in espousing a “radical return” to a more ascetic life by the Carmelites, St.
Teresa, reformer of the Carmelite Order, sought to “create a form of life which
favored a personal encounter with the Lord.
The ultimate goal of Teresa’s reform and the creation of new monasteries in
a world lacking spiritual values was to protect apostolic work with prayer.”
He quoted the Spanish teacher of prayer who
wrote (to her nuns) of post-Reformation Europe: “The world is on fire. Men try to condemn Christ once
again. They would raze His Church
to the ground. No, my sisters,
this is no time to treat with God for things of little importance.” Then he asked, “Does this luminous and
engaging call, written more than four centuries ago by the mystic saint, not
sound familiar in our own times?”
Fast
forward to February 2013: the Holy Father, in announcing his resignation, said
that he would thereafter “live a life of prayer, hidden to the world.” Non-believers judged it as an act of
cowardice—“deserting his cross”—thinking he had been “shamed” by scandals in the
Church.
But
in ending his papacy, to my mind, the pope was just being pope, and in a very
radical way—leading his people to God, not only by word, but by deed. He was, and is, in effect, heeding a
“luminous call” which should echo and reverberate in the heart of every one who
believes in the timeliness and relevance of the call to the New Evangelization.
By
the simple admission of his powerlessness, the light of a Greater Power shone
through Benedict XVI. By opting
for a monastic—even heremitical—existence as an ordinary priest praying in one
corner of the Vatican, he is showing us what matters most in his ministry; he
is letting “trusting prayer be the
heart of the apostolate so
that the redeeming message of Jesus Christ may sound out clearly and
dynamically.”
In exalting the Spanish
mystic—“who did not have an academic formation” but became a Doctor of the
Church—Benedict XVI said that in the “exhilarating task” of the New
Evangelization, St. Teresa’s example should inspire all Christians because “she
evangelized unhesitatingly, showing tireless ardor, employing methods free from
inertia and using expressions bathed in light. This remains important in the current time when there is a
pressing need for the baptized to renew their hearts through individual prayer
in which, following the guidance of St. Teresa, they also focus on
contemplation of Christ’s blessed humanity as the only way to reach the glory
of God.”
Over 450 years ago, St.
Teresa of Avila began the reform of a religious congregation; today, when we
find ourselves in an environment not much different from hers when she wrote “The
world is on fire. Men try to
condemn Christ once again. They
would raze His Church to the ground…” we are grateful for a pope giving up a
“powerful” throne in order to lead us back to what is most essential in our
faith: not preaching, not projects, but prayer. And that’s the truth.
