Coming Soon...Pro Orantibus Day
November 21, the Feast of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, will bring us Pro Orantibus Day - the annual day of prayer for "those who pray". Yes, this day is devoted to all consecrated persons who live a hidden life at the heart of Holy Mother Church. We ask your prayers for all contemplative monks, nuns and hermits throughout the world. I'll be posting articles about contemplative life throughout the coming weeks for a greater understanding and appreciation of cloistered-contemplative life.
The mystery of the exclusive union of the Church as Bride with the Lord is expressed in the vocation of cloistered nuns, precisely because their life is entirely dedicated to God, loved above all else, in a ceaseless straining toward the heavenly Jerusalem...Their life is a reminder to all Christian people of the fundamental vocation of everyone to come to God...
By means of the cloister, nuns embody the exodus from the world in order to encounter God in the solitude of 'cloistered desert,' a desert which includes inner solitude, the trials of the spirit, and the daily toil of life in community - all this, as the Bride's sharing in the solitude of Jesus in Gethsemani and in His redemptive suffering on the Cross.
~ From Verbi Sponsa - the Church's recent document on contemplative life