 rscj, France
I Setting:
Holy Thursday at the Spiritan seminary in Enugu, Nigeria. Holy hour in the evening. I look forward to quiet prayer. No, it’s constant vocal prayer: Rosary, litanies, etc. Hour upon hour. Later, I spend a few days with some Nigerian sisters. By 6:00 in the morning, we are on our knees in the chapel reciting morning prayer, Rosary, etc., etc. before Mass. I’m definitely the outsider here in my expectations of prayer.
These are examples of obvious cultural differences, communality over against Western individualism and solitariness. And maybe more? Sophie wanted to be a Carmelite. Carmelites will tell you that they are hermits who live together, as contrasted, for example, with Cistercians, who have a strong ethic of doing everything together as a community. What effect has this had on our living of her charism?
How were we trained, those of us who did novitiate before 1967? That prayer was solitary. That our morning meditation and afternoon adoration were real prayer. There was of course Mass, the common offering, but we retreated behind our veils even for that. Then there were Office and night prayer. Office was sort of an inconvenience that very few found nourishing, though some did find life in it, for whom it was a sacrifice when it ended.
Office has a long history: the singing of psalms in the Jerusalem Temple, Pliny’s report in the early second century that Christians meet before dawn “to sing songs to Christ as if to a god.” By the third century, all Christians were expected to pray three times a day: morning, evening, and midnight; Hippolytus directs that if your spouse if not a believer, you should rise in the night and go to another room to pray, so as not to wake your spouse. When in the late fourth century Jerome gives directions for the raising of a virtuous girl intended for the monastic life, he says that she should pray the psalms morning and evening, during the night, and also at the third, sixth, and ninth hours of the day. This rhythm of recitation of the Psalms developed into the Divine Office, originally intended for all Christians, but it got so elaborate that eventually only monastics had time to do it. Thus the beginning of the liturgical impoverishment of the West, when we gave up general use of the daily rhythm of prayer in favor of concentration on Eucharist.
What we in the Society said was the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a form that arose in the 7-8th cents. as an extra devotion for monastics, at Mt. Cassino, etc. At Cluny in the 11th c. it was prescribed for sick monks who couldn’t follow the regular Office, which at Cluny took as long as eight to nine hours a day! Diocesan clergy were also obligated to say a form of Office, but as private prayer.
Most female religious never got into this. Male religious even now mostly do Morning and Evening Prayer from the Prayer of Christians, rather than less structured community prayer, maybe under the influence of the expectation of clergy to do this. In my experience, few women’s congregations do this.
II : A (very) Short History of Community Prayer in the Society
In the Constitutions of 1815, the Office of Our Lady is said in common. “It is a tribute of praise and gratitude” to be offered to Mary.
In 1967, we were scrambling to catch up with liturgical renewal. So in the Special Chapter documents of 1967, it is “Eucharistic celebration which builds community,” while Divine Office is “the prolongation of the Eucharistic Liturgy, the prayer of Christ through His Church praising the Father and interceding for the world.” Lauds and Vespers or Compline were to be said in the vernacular. Then the breaking point: “Ad experimentum: variety in the way of saying Office and of making adaptations; to be determined on the provincial level.” (p. 42) That was the implicit permission to change the forms, and throughout the document of this Chapter, adaptations are to be made at the provincial and local levels.
Immediately after comes the call to “deepen our personal life of prayer,” and to “strengthen the climate of prayer” in community by, among other things, “Encouragement of fraternal sharing and exchange.” (p. 43) It is not clear what that means. Community prayer as we now understand it may have originated in France or in Latin America, but not in North America (Mary Beth Tobin).
The liturgical renewal of Vatican II didn’t help. It focused on Eucharist and sacraments, and ignored other forms of common liturgical prayer. This insight came for me in 1981 when I was leading a large group for a semester in Israel. In the group were four Benedictines, men and women, from three different monasteries. When we put together the procedures for our daily life together, they really didn’t care if we had Eucharist every day or not, but they wanted Morning and Evening Prayer all the time. For them, that was real liturgy.
The Chapter of 1970 produced the radical shift toward the option for the poor and attention to justice issues in the world rather than to our lifestyle. Consequently, little is said about specifics of our life. However, the opening challenge contains these words:
“…either we live our fellowship authentically, in the spirit of the Beatitudes, or our life ceases to have meaning.” To do that, we were called to “build fraternal communities centered in Jesus Christ.” (p. 7) Among fundamental elements of this life, “a contemplative outlook on the world, which presupposes times of deep prayer, both solitary and shared.” (p. 14) Community prayer is seen as a way to build communion for mission.
The Constitutions of 1982 continues the expectation. “The community takes to heart the need to create a climate which favours experience of God, sharing among ourselves and with others. Each day our life together is strengthened by community prayer. We share the Word of God…and adopt forms of prayer which help us to grow in faith, hope and love.” In the middle, where the dots are, CRIS had inserted that we say Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church unless dispensed by competent authority—but that was not in the original, and never taken seriously. (#26, p. 173).
Finally, the document on formation of 1992, “The fate of the Society is in our hands,” says of community “Daily interaction among ourselves, growth in our ability to listen, prayer together, mutual support, can contribute to personal growth as well as create a climate and attitude of openness that is welcoming to others and to new members who join us.” (p. 8)
In all these statements, there seems to be the expectation that community prayer builds community and nourishes personal spirituality.
III: What is happening today?
Last year, before the Assembly, Mary Frohlich sent around a questionnaire to communities, as part of an Improvement Team project, asking three questions:
- “Please briefly describe any ways in which your local community prays together. Include time, frequency, format, and any other information you consider relevant.”
- “Do any members of your local community participate in other RSCJ-sponsored forms of prayer with other RSCJ and/or with others? If so, please describe.”
- “If your local community experiences any regular or occasional obstacles to praying together, please identify them.”
There were 43 responses, mostly from different communities, though in a few cases, from more than one person in a community.
Mary’s reflection on them: there is quite a bit of praying together going on, perhaps more than we know.
Answers to question 1.
43 responses. The most common format is 10-20 minutes either in the morning or before or after supper, one to five times a week. It usually includes readings and/or music, and petitions.
A second format is a longer time, ½ to 2 hours, once a week, once a month, or occasionally. Some communities have both forms.
Then of course, there are the special times: birthdays, feast days, community and area meetings, etc., when special effort is put into preparation.
Answers to question 2.
43 responses. Quite a few Areas have shared Eucharist, reflection days, or centering prayer, often with Associates. “From reading all this, one gets a sense that communal prayer (beyond the local community) is a strong value for a significant number of RSCJ. However, commitment to RSCJ sponsorship of such prayer is more spotty and appears to be left to the initiative of individuals or groups.” (Mary Frohlich)
Answers to question 3.
39 responses. Main obstacles are finding a good time and format, fatigue, and mutual trust. The most frequently mentioned is finding the right time, in the midst of busy and diverse schedules. (Jane Maltby told me that the U.S. province is unique in the diversity of work schedules we keep, which greatly inhibits time together.)
The second most frequent obstacle is finding a format and shape that is satisfactory for all. People have different styles and expectations; some want intimate sharing while others are uncomfortable with this kind of prayer.
The numbers factor: the larger the group, the easier to have a quorum but also the greater difficulty to find a common time.
IV: Contemplative Prayer Together
We in the Society feel called to contemplative prayer; that is St. Madeleine Sophie’s charism showing. We also have difficulty thinking of common prayer as contemplative.
One of the obstacles is that all classical treatises on contemplative prayer consider vocal prayer as the lowest, beginner form of prayer. Community prayer necessarily includes some vocal prayer. Is this part of the resistance?
Rites and ceremonies. A helpful anthropological distinction.
Rites celebrate passage: vow ceremony, Associate commitment, funeral, even Sacrament of Reconciliation. And in the rest of life, baptisms, weddings, ordinations, first communions, etc.
Ceremonies celebrate identity and being: jubilee, anniversary, community belonging. Eucharist is a prime ceremony, communal prayer (even though in the liturgical renewal, many had to be dragged kicking and screaming to “participate”; one of my cousins attends Mass Saturday morning instead of Sunday because it’s quieter.) In the liturgical renewal of Vatican II, somehow other ceremonies than Eucharist got pushed out, continuing the liturgical impoverishment of the West. In the new lingo, Mass was replaced with the word “Liturgy”—as if that were the only kind of liturgy.
The 1994 Chapter document on Eucharist:
“Our life in community calls us to Eucharist as the root and source of all our relationships. We are sent back to our communities impelled by a love which makes sisters around the common table, more able to acknowledge our hurts and capable of forgiving and being forgiven, giving space to each one thus becoming a sign of unity in our diversity.” (p. 27) Are we sisters around the common table only in Eucharist?
Can communal prayer be contemplative? Let’s try thinking of it not as a rite, that makes us grow, but as a ceremony that celebrates who we are, and makes us who we are.
Back to the statement about Office in the 1815 Constitutions: “a tribute of praise and gratitude.” That’s quite doable in community prayer. Have we neglected prayer of praise and gratitude? The sheer act of praise and gratitude is about as contemplative as we can get. It celebrates our total dependence on God. Are we expecting more? Is that not enough?
Suggested contents.
3 essential elements:
1. Praise and gratitude (Wow!) Psalms? Music? Poetry? Common Lectio Divina?
2. Remembrance of who we are (Called nonetheless) Scripture? Society reading? Video clip of an RSCJ unpacking something contemplatively?
3. Petition (What have you done for us lately?)
And certainly silent listening.
The wheel doesn’t have to be reinvented each time. Does community prayer get boring? Then we haven’t understood what praise really is. In true praise and thanksgiving, we never tire of telling God the same things, because they are the things that make us who we are and who God is.
Carolyn Osiek rscj
Province of the United States
Talk given at the
Gathering of RSCJ and Associates on the Spirituality of the Society
Kenwood, Albany, New York, July 2005
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