Beguines - III (Spirituality)

Having examined some of the historical and societal aspects of the Beguines, I would like to turn to the spirituality this week. I think it' important to remember that this movement had deep spiritual underpinnings and contributed to the mystical flowering of the middle ages.
One writer that comes out of this tradition is Beatrice of Nazareth. To be honest, she was a Cistercian Nun, but she was educated by the Beguines before joining the Cistercians, and for some time it was believed that her Seven Manners of Holy Love written by a Beguine. It has been seen as a good example of Beguine Spirituality.
Beatrice points to seven ways of loving God, alternating between the intense experience of the presence of God and the profound experience of a felt absence of God. I quote some passages below, and then give a link to the whole brief text. It is a lovely way to begin Advent.
From the highest come seven ways of love which work back to the highest. 
This is the first way of love. The first is a desire actively originating from love. Long has this desire to rule in the heart before she can dispel every resistance thoroughly, and she cannot but work with strenght and intelligence, and courageously grow in this.
The second way of love: Now and then the soul has another way of love. Then she serves the Lord for nothing, only from love, without any why and without any reward of mercy or of bliss.
The third way of love: Sometimes the good soul has another way of love connected to much pain and misery. ...She knows all right that this desire is only to fulfil far above her power and above human reason and above every notion ; yet she cannot moderate this desire, or conquer, or quiet. She does everything she can ; she thanks and praises love, she works and drudges because of love, she sighing desires love, she gives herself completely to love. And all that does not give her peace.
The fourth way of love. It happens that love is sweetly been awakened in the soul and happily raises, and that she moves in the heart, without any help of human effort. And so the heart is been tenderly touched by love, and so full of strong desire been pulled inside love, and so hearty seized by love, and so strongly dominated by love, and so lovely contained by love, that she is completely conquered by love.
The fifth way of love. She desires to rest in the sweet embraces of love, in the desirable beatitude and in the satisfaction of what she has from Him. Her heart and her senses seriously look for it and ardently desire for it. In this state she is so powerful of mind, very undertaking of heart and strong of body, so fast in working and busy inside and outside, that it seems to her as if everything that has to do with her works and is busy, even if she is so calm from the outside.
The sixth love: When the bride of our Lord has made progress and has climbed up to greater salvation, she experiences yet another way of love, closely connected and with higher knowledge. She feels that love has conquered all resistance in her, and that she has recovered all shortcomings and has brought her into her power. Without resistance she has mastered herself, so that she knows her heart is safe and she can use it in peace and she can freely lay herself out.
The seventh way of love: ... There, the soul is with her Groom and she becomes totally one spirit with Him, in inseparable loyalty and in mutual love for ever. The soul that, in times of mercy, wanted to do everything for Him shall enjoy Him in eternal glory, where one shall do nothing else but praise and love. May God bring us all to that.
Read the whole text here: Seven Manners of Holy Love
This deep spiritual experience of immersion in the God of Love was at the heart of the spirituality of the Beguines which Beatrice learned as a child when she was educated by the Beguines. Next week, we'll look further into this fascinating movement.
Peace,
Amy

Vulnerability....

Thanks for this from Juliet Mousseau:

In the past months, the theme that keeps finding me is vulnerability—but not necessarily as a bad thing.  How can that possibly be?  It first found me when I read an article by the English theologian Sarah Coakley, who spoke of prayer as vulnerability.  She explains that she herself was transformed by her prayer.  Her silent prayer allowed God’s word to work in her, to transform her understanding (as it so often does, if we only let it)
Vulnerability requires us to relinquish control.  We risk losing what we have and facing something completely unknown.  We want God in our lives, but in a way that allows us to do the planning, to control the relationship so it suits our desires.  It doesn’t always work like that, though God certainly wants us to be our best unique selves and to be happy.  In our relationship with God, we are not in control.
But, really, we do not control any of our relationships.  Each one of them must be a place of vulnerability, where we open ourselves to be known and changed by another person.  We do that daily with the women in our communities by sharing our lives with one another.  We love our sisters, and in loving them, we allow ourselves to be shaped and transformed by them in unexpected ways.  
Whether we like it or not, religious life is in a vulnerable state right now.  It’s not specifically about aging populations or that horrible word, “diminishment.”  Instead, our vulnerability now lies in our uncertainty about the future and our lack of control over what will happen.  When we can fully embrace that, when we can be fully open to our places of vulnerability, then God can work freely in us.  God can and will transform religious life in ways that we are incapable of imagining.
In this month of November, we take time to give thanks for all the ways that God has touched our lives and provided what we need.  We remember the gifts we have been given – the food on our table, the love of our families, the companionship of our sisters, our good health and moments of healing.  These are our memories of God’s fidelity to us, a way for us to strengthen the faith it takes to become vulnerable again and again, to God and to the people we care about.  
May we allow God to work in our vulnerability, creating anew religious life for a glorious future.

Beguines - II

The Beguine movement began with medieval women who devoted themselves to prayer and good works at a time when many men were lost in wars and in the Crusades. This left many single women and widows. Some entered convents, however, each convent had to be under the supervision of men's monasteries, and some men's communities refused to take on these responsibilities. And some women might not have been drawn to the strict cloister; some families might not have been able to afford the doweries required at the time.
Women began to take up a life of prayer and service independently. The movement was an attractive option in the particular historical context. The women lived alone or in small groups, and as more gathered, they formed villages of beguines with loose organization.
The brick and mortar evidence of the movement are these villages, called Beguinage in French or Begijnhof in Dutch, which are more or less extensive villages of small houses where the beguines lived. The homes are surrounded by a wall with an entrance gate. No men were allowed in the Beguinage which was organized and governed by women. Most of the Beguinages had their church, some had several churches. Some also had a school house or a house to take care of the sick, or the elderly, though not a hospital in the modern sense. Rows of houses lined narrow streets of their medieval villages.
The movement began in the 11th century and spread rapidly throughout the Low Countries and eventually reached across northern Europe. Some of the villages had nearly a thousand women living in them.
The women did not profess vows and they had no unifying rule. Instead each Beguinage developed its own style of life and of government. For example, some Beguinages welcomed only women from the higher classes, others were open to women of the lower classes. These local rules were characterized by moderation and pragmatism. The literature from the time indicates that the beguines practiced voluntary poverty in which they avoided riches, but also avoided destitution. Their witness was a striking contrast to the riches of monastic foundations of their day and to the pomp of ecclesiastical lifestyles. The implicit critique of their lifestyle along with eclecticism of some beguines provoked the ire of clerics of the day.
Beguines also developed a characteristic spirituality which I will examine in succeeding posts.

Beguines - I

Then and Now...

Simple lives: a new beginning for the Beguines?

I ran across this article from Commonweal from 2009. I missed the original publication, but I would like to respond now.

 While I was studying theology and canon law, I had the opportunity to live in Belgium for a few years, It was a great opportunity on many levels and I really appreciate my time there.

One of the great privileges of that time was the opportunity to become more familiar with the Beguine movement in its native region in the Low Countries. In the area where I lived each town had its town square, church, city hall and beguinage (begijnhof). The images here are from the Grote Begijnhof in Leuven where I lived. They are the brick and mortar remnants of a movement that lasted nearly 1000 years, spread through much of northern Europe and influenced life and spirituality at the time. Writings of Beguines continue to influence spirituality today.

The essence of the life of the beguines was women who devote their lives to good works, quiet contemplation and living out their spiritual values. They found that a loose community structure enabled them to support each other in an era where single women were quite vulnerable.

With this post, I begin a series on the beguines, their historical reality, the current resurgence of the movement and what this all may have to contribute to the conversation on the future of religious life.

Anyone who would like to contribute to this series, let me know and I can put your post into the conversation.

Peace, Amy

Nuns Not On The Bus

Sisternews passed on the link to this story from Religion and Politics:

Nuns Not On The Bus

For the Dominicans, Catholicism functions as a boat, one with high walls that protects and carries you, while for the Sisters of St. Joseph, the church is a life jacket, something that travels easily and lets you look around. But although they use their religion in different ways, the nuns were all among the best people I had met in a long time. They were smart, cheerful, and authentic, not vain.

And brave. Sisters in both congregations told me their parents were shocked by their decisions—even those who became nuns back in 1960, when all good Catholics were supposed to want to give a daughter or a son to the church. At least for a middle-class girl from a proper New England town, whether Sister Jane or Sister Anna, it was always unusual to commit so much to the church. It was never an ordinary calling. Even those nuns who eschew left-wing politics are radicals indeed, for in our age it has always been a bit radical to be a nun.... Read the whole article.

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I found the article to be refreshingly balanced and insightful. The author visited two groups of sisters, one main-stream group: the Sisters of St. Joseph in Holyoke, MA, and one habited: the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia. Both groups have found a way to live the Gospel in a radical way. I would like to explore a story that is hinted at in Mr. Oppenheimer's piece, but is not followed up: "each wing of American sisterhood counts about 500 women in the multi-year process of becoming nuns."

So where are these 500 new women in the "wing of American sisterhood" represented in the article by the Sisters of St. Joseph? They are here, they are living the gospel in a very conscious and deliberate way. They are living in communities where the median age is nearing 80. Those of us who have entered our communities in the last 25 years are beginning to find our distinctive voice and to explore our future together. I think this is the group to watch as we enter into dialogue about the future of religious life and radical gospel living.

Giving Voice represents the younger part of this cohort. The older part of the cohort has yet to find its own place, although this blog is an attempt to do that.

--Amy

Forming Intentional Community

The Fellowship of Intentional Communities is a loose network at the service of intentional communities of various types that are established or just forming. Many of the communities share common characteristics including a commitment to justice and sustainability. Individual communities are invited to post about their community and to give some basic information about location, community description, governance, economics, etc.
I posted a listing on the group's website, giving some basic parameters for forming a community with other sisters from my own or other religious communities. I would hope to take the first steps in this project in 2013 with a few others who interested, and ready and able to commit to beginning such a project.
There are several communities already established in the St. Louis area which are listed on the site and they could be great places to collaborate in building up similar communities. In addition we have a group of Catholic Worker houses in the area, and they have great energy for building sustainable faith-based communities.

What would you say?

Trust that God is leading you through your deepest desires. There's still a bit of confusion these days about what it means to have a "vocation." People expect to have a vision, or hear voices, or to know with 100 percent certitude where to go. But often it's a simple attraction to a way of life. So if there is an order that someone feels called to, check it out, talk to the vocation director, go on a retreat, visit the house and get to know its members. It's not as if you're in this alone: God is leading you... Read more...

Nones on the Rise

SOJOUNERS: The Pew Forum recently released a new study, “Nones on the Rise.” This was not about my friends called the “Nuns On The Bus,” who just did a tour around the country focusing on social justice. Rather, It details the concerning trend of those in our country who have given up on religion altogether. 

Social scientists tell us that adults, especially young adults, are increasingly disconnected from our established religious traditions. “Nones,” the Pew forum calls them, have grown from 15 percent of U.S. adults to 20 percent in only five years. One-in-three adults under 30 check the religious affiliation box, “None of the above” or “Unaffiliated.” Despite the fact that 68 percent of nones believe in God, only 5 percent of them attend church once or more a week, and 22 percent attend monthly/yearly. Read more....

MY RESPONSE: Jim, Thanks for the article highlighting the Pew data and the compelling analysis of their numbers and its meaning for those of us who are religiously affiliated. The "Nones" remind me of a phrase that I'm sure I'll misquote from John Paul I: Atheists don't so much reject God, as they reject the false idea of God that they receive from believers. These numbers encourage me to live an authentic Christian life. But not a life that acknowledges uncomfortable truths and then settles for living a comfortable life. This is more about always striving to live more justly, more sustainably, more from a stance of personal contemplation and conversion. It is about speaking the truth to power only when I've first struggled to live that truth myself, acknowledging my own complicity in the wrongs I try to right. That doesn't mean I quit talking, but that I speak more softly, more humbly, inviting others to walk the path of conversion with me. I'm thinking of another Pope quote: "People today listen more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if we do listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses."
In religious communities and other faith-based intentional communities, we can commit ourselves to living the Gospel deliberately and conscientiously. Banding together with others affords us mutual support in the commitment, and it gives encouragement when we are weaker and challenge when we are tempted to compromise.
--Amy