|
Italian version
Sr. Eliana Pasini, together with Sergio Zavoli and Enrico Garlaschelli,
is the author of a book centred on the personality and spiritual journey
of Sr. Mary Theresa of the Eucharist, a Carmelite nun, who left the
Carmel and founded, at Spello, the community of the Little Sisters of
Mary. The title of the book is “Mother Theresa of the Eucharist”.
Sr. Eliana Pasini, from the diocese of Mantova, has been living since
1976 and still lives in the hermitage of the Transfiguration. It is her
first choice of consecration. She followed Sr. Mary Theresa over all the
phases of her journey, sharing the graces and countless difficulties of
her life. On the night of 17-18, she witnessed the encounter of Mother
M. Theresa with the Lord: the end that Mother Theresa had constantly
being aiming at, and which was her most relevant testimony of faith
starting from the documentary “Cloister”.
In 1990, she drafted the Rule of the Little Sisters of Mary under the
revision and approval of Mother Theresa. She is the responsible person
of the Hermitage of the Transfiguration since 2005. We have asked her
some questions on consecrated life and on the new form of contemplative
life founded by Mother Theresa.
Who was Mother Theresa of the Eucharist and how would you introduce her
to persons who do not know her?
“Mother Theresa was a Carmelite nun who, while living intensely and with
dedication her own monastic life, had intuitions and matured innovative
news in the area of monastic structure, as well as in the way of
locating the contemplative vocation in the mystery and structure of a
Church/communion, according to the Council and in openness to the world.
I
present Mother M. Theresa just as she was, namely, as a Testimony of
God. We can imagine her in every human reality, near every person as an
instrument of God’s presence. Whoever approached her caught the presence
of the Other who lived within and beyond her polyhedral humanity. She
was simply a woman of prayer and a presence of God for the brethren”.
What is the message that Mother Mary
Theresa leaves behind for men of the street?
“She mentioned silence as an indispensable value for all men and
women, with the end of knowing the truth in ourselves and, therefore,
the Truth, namely God: silence with oneself to the end of unveiling God.
In fact, she said, “Our silence must be alive with God”. She pointed at
charity, which makes every person to feel brother or sister always and
before every other identification or evaluation. Charity is the fruit of
true silence….She acted in such a way as everyone might look always
beyond, towards a goal full of hope. She pointed at the present, a very
concrete present; as well as at the future as at a very certain reality
towards which we must constantly tend. In other words, she witnessed to
a present God, to His Love and goal of everything”.
Why have you written this book dedicated
to Mother Mary Theresa?
“The
idea of a book dedicated to her was born at the end of the Congress held
in Piacenza on 23rd February 2008. Sergio Zavoli proposed it
after observing the interest of a vast public for the figure and mission
of Mother Mary Theresa. He felt that the Congress had not exhausted the
presentation of her personality. He spoke about this with the journalist
Enrico Garlaschelli, in the presence of other organisers of the
Congress. I got involved in it”.
Mother Mary Theresa of the Eucharist
brought to life the community of the Little Sisters of Mary in the
Hermitage of Transfiguration. Would you, please, tell us its genesis?
“Mother Theresa founded the community of the Little Sisters of Mary
before realising the Hermitage of Transfiguration. As soon as she
obtained the exlaustration in 1964, another sister, Ida Pinto, joined
her and started the new journey with her. After years of exodus, in
1872, finally, she shifted to the hermitage which, meanwhile, during
1970-1972, she had managed to have fully edified and which she had named
Transfiguration. The charism has specific characteristics, such as
reference to Mary and universal openness. However, its main value is in
its being an arduous way of renewal for the contemplative life in the
Church. It is the matter of a radical innovation in the three directions
mentioned above and in some other sense. For instance, we find precise
well-embanked strands of spirituality in the contemplative life. This
charism, instead, has its precise and solid banks, yet at the same time
it overflows everywhere. I would define it as the contemplative life of
the Church”.
How do you live the contemplative life in relation with the external
world?
“The
concept that the contemplative life requires the cloister indispensably
is so much rooted as we find it difficult to catch the truth of a
totally contemplative life that includes the presence of the “world”.
This
should make us to reflect: in fact, it is clear what Scripture tells us;
what contemplative persons of Holy Scripture witness; what Jesus himself
says about it, for instance, “…neither on this mountain, nor in
Jerusalem you shall adore the Father…but in Spirit and truth, since the
Father seeks this type of adorers”. (John: 4, 21. 23). If we safeguard
the gift of God in the truth, the world cannot disturb or divert it.
Mother Mary Theresa made the important discovery of understanding that
our brothers cannot divert us from our concentration in God. She
discovered that we must guard the gift of God in our intimacy and then
we must offer it to others.
This
is how things go on in our community: in the hermitage, we live a rhythm
of liturgical and personal prayer of adoration. We experience the cell
and the wood in which we live. We exercise manual work and pay attention
to the brothers and sisters who pass by or who sometimes share our life.
Thus, the world comes to the hermitage, that is, it enters its means,
SUCH AS SILENCE, SOLITUDE AND COMMUNITY, through which the Lord normally
speaks. These means help us to enter the truth, to listen to the cry of
the Spirit and His inspirations.
If
then we move outside the hermitage, nothing surprises us and we can live
among the others naturally and simply, without diaphragms. We can
neither hide nor show off the gift of contemplation: it has its own way
of bringing fruit, the fruit wanted by God, “Whoever remains in me, with
me in him, bears fruit in plenty” (John: 15,5) We believe and do not
need to see. If we see, we do not rejoice in it, because our
comprehension will anyhow be imprecise and insecure. We trust: that is
all.
How can you bring the cloister in contact
with the spiritual demands of others?
“I
state beforehand that by the term Cloister we mean (physical) solitude
with God, or attention and docility to Him, even when we are amidst
others, amidst persons with different vocations. We understand that our
openness helps every one of us to orient ourselves to God, by offering
the possibility to accompany us in this orientation.
We
see the contemplative life as a reality that passes from the desert into
the world and the world that enters the desert and the desert that moves
towards the world. In other words, contemplation is a dimension of the
Church that needs its extension and diffusion among all the members, as
the first source of evangelisation.
In
fact, it is faith in the action of God; to witness to God we must leave
out more space for Him so that He may manifest Himself. It is not true
that we must do everything, though for given vocations, like that of the
laity, men and women need more space for autonomous works. However, I
must confess that this new journey knows its difficulties, which
experience teaches us how to overcome. We must say that to live it we
need self-denial, courage in solitude and denial in openness.
We
need a long time of formation to grow in our own contemplative vocation,
to be and stay with others, any other without distinction, in a fruitful
manner. This is what we try to do: Mother Mary Theresa succeeded in it
and we go on in the full awareness of the great need of the World: the
concrete need to encounter and know the Lord through contemplative
persons”.
Is it possible today to live such a
rigorous ascetical journey as that of Mother Mary Theresa?
“I
believe that the ascetical rigour is indispensable for this vocation.
For Mother Mary Theresa the mystical and ascetical experiences were
interwoven: it must be so. However, the way she expressed the ascesis,
which she had learned, was different from the way we must express it
today. What matters is the journey of growth, which must be solid both
at human and contemplative levels. Mother Mary Theresa had achieved an
integral human maturity, not perfect, but surely elevated and favoured
by a positive family experience. Her maturity allowed her to establish a
human relation of intense love with the Lord, in line with the modality
of St. Theresa from Avila, and the theological virtues were well rooted
in her prayer life. I think that our vocation is very much challenging
because very soon it has to face huge trials: spiritual trials, because
the hermitage is a wrestling place; human trials because of the demanded
detachment from all fronts.
However, every vocation aiming at a high goal requires commitment to
achieve and sustain the proposed goal. Of course, the implied goal is
holiness. Today it is very difficult for a mediocre vocational response
to persevere, for which we need an asceticism understood as modality of
constant and serious coherence, adherent to one’s vocation. Thinking of
Mother Mary Theresa, I can say that she expressed rigour in silence,
vigilance, self-dominion and the sacrifice she had to face “whatever its
cost”.
How would you synthesise the spiritual
journey of Mother Mary Theresa of the Eucharist?
“Are
we not living beings, we who follow You closer, o eternal newness? Are
we not responsible persons who have received the call to give a personal
and conscientious response?” (No, I have not jumped over the wall page
136). “Though Yahweh punished me sternly, He has not abandoned me to
death” (Psalm: 117, 18).
Perhaps it is not possible to synthesise the spiritual experience and
the events, which characterise the journey of Mother Mary Theresa. I
have chosen the following two passages: one written by her in the far
off 1956, and the other chosen by her as “leit-motif" of many following
years, when everything seemed to come to an end and the trial of failure
seemed to overhang. Mother Theresa remained “alive” up to the end and I
am not afraid of making a mistake in witnessing that death did not
overtake her, not even at the last moment, and that now she is
absolutely alive”.
To serve Jesus is a daily challenge for a
Woman Religious of contemplative life. Which means do you need in order
to face this daily challenge?
“I
think that there are common means for all women religious, and then
there are those for our personal journey, because the trials are
different for each person, due to the diversity of nature (character,
personal history, etc.), as well as because of the never repeatable
gifts and projects of God.
The
means common to everyone are: faithfulness to prayer, to the Word, the
Sacraments, the Rule etc.
The
personal means are: attention to inspirations, listening to God who
dwells in us and expects a vigilant faith from us; perseverance in
adversities, trustful abandonment when we do not understand… In other
words, they are a personal faithfulness to Love, to the end of realising
God’s project, which is unique for each person also in the
“communitarian missions”.
Which ideals do you draw inspiration from?
“We
do not take ideals into account, but seek God alone, in the Trinitarian
mystery, in the mystery of Incarnation and of Easter, in the mystery of
the Church as Body of Christ, in Humanity as the Object of God’s
passionate love.
Moreover, we say that we feel our contemplative mission also as a
struggle against the invisible evil and all the evils that afflict men.
Our faith and our prayer are very much oriented towards these fights,
which, as Moses witnesses, find us always victorious, since we know how
to keep our arms raised up in prayer perseveringly.
In
the faith, in the listening and docile attitude of Mary, Mother Mary
Theresa saw guidance and a model of this form of contemplative life. A
form that wants to be free from the crystallisation of structures, with
the ability of remaining always and newly oriented to God. Therefore,
the characteristic of this contemplative charism is the availability to
adapt the forms, aiming at expressing what is more appropriate to
witness in a given context. Now we express this way opened by Mother
Mary Theresa in the Hermitage of Transfiguration with a precise
modality, which anyhow will surely undergo diversification elsewhere.
Concluding, we may define the way opened by Mother Mary Theresa as a way
in constant becoming, tending to the search of God’s will, and not of an
ideal”.
|
