I received an e-mail on this website from someone representing these people:
cloisters.tripod.com/index.html
While it seems like this is a wonderful idea, establishing a group of new religious charisms for the modern world in line with continuity with traditional Catholicism, I can’t help thinking they’ve bitten off more than they can chew with so many projects, many of which seem quite ambitious.
Hi … Obviously you are not drawn and have no attraction to this new charism. Such is the first indication of a possible call. I make my comments with all respect in every way. I too often ‘put my foot in my mouth’ and ‘live in a glass house’ continually to be overly critical of any.
Has anyone had any dealings with them? Anybody discerning towards any of their new charisms? I think it takes a particular kind of person to be a founding member of a religious community, and while religious life does have an appeal to me, I’m not proud enough to believe I could be the first brother to do something totally new.
I am not discerning with them just now, but I certainly have had contact and probably first quite a long time ago and remain very interested in their unfoldings. When I first came across the Cloisters site, quite accidentally, I returned to it quite a few times over and over before making contact and have real interest in the charism and thinking possibly then of discerning … and of course my interest and contact became the very first step in discerning. Nothing is outside of God’s Direct/Permissive Will…nothing! …absolutely nothing. All matters minute and great have God’s Reasons, though we may never be able to discern those reasons in our lifetime.
We cannot put boundaries around what The Lord can and can’t do to my thinking (often faulted indeed). “All things are possible to God”. And not referring to Cloisters, more a general comment…many of our great saints indeed started out in life and indeed lived a big part of their lives as anything but saints…in fact quite the opposite. “The Spirit moves as He may” and indeed chooses whomsoever He Will. If I think myself or anyone else at all deserving of God’s call in some direction or of any of His Gifts, then I am totally wrong.
I think it takes a particular kind of person to be a founding member of a religious community, and while religious life does have an appeal to me, I’m not proud enough to believe I could be the first brother to do something totally new.
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Undoubtedly if The Holy Spirit does call a person to bring into being His Initiative, He will bless them with all the qualities necessary for that particular initiative. To state that a founder/foundress is proud or suffering with pride to become a foundress or founder is a very wild statement indeed and it is judgemental of a person and of one whom one knows nothing about at all. I had to smile when I reread your Post, though, we have an aweful lot of founders and foundresses in our history and many of them saints or on the way to sainthood…I dont think pride was the trigger for their vocations to bring into being a work of The Holy Spirit. But then thought that I had probably read your comment the wrong way…and perhaps have all the way.
Many of our founders and foundresses and saints have met in their own lifetime great opposition and criticism -even false accusations and this is nothing new in our history. Quite a few never lived in their own lifetime to know anything else but opposition and the most harsh of criticisms. One only and an extreme example is St. Joan of Arc who was burnt at the stake. She knew in her life both approval and then disapproval and finally a truly horrific death in cruel and viscious martyrdom. Hundreds of years later and long after her death, proclaimed only then a saint…and hence approval again.
To the Cloisters people, I’m not criticising you, I wish you every blessing in this unique ministry of establishing new communities, I’m just trying to get a broader understanding of others’ reaction to such a ministry, as a stage in discerning God’s voice in all of this, particularly regarding my own calling.
A very good move to make one’s discerning as fully informed as possible. Although at times I remain totally unsure if asking questions on the web even on a Cathoic site such as this one, will always and without fail provide accurate information. In many cases one cannot tell even if a poster is male or female, let alone the source reliability of anything they may state.
If you are not attracted and drawn to a particular charism, and/or feel that you do not have enough information about them, then if it were me I would be striving to get accurate information.
For my part my contact with Cloisters is ongoing, though I am not discerning - at this point. Who can predict The Holy Spirit “My Ways are not your ways, nor My Thoughts, your thoughts” Our God of the Surprise … prolonged contact that at first leaves one unsure can very often and usually does (my experience only) eventually ‘put into the thinking pot’ more information and very often quite reliable source information. Prayerful discerning and pondering is blessed by The Holy Spirit who will not lead us astray ever. Sometimes His Ways are very strange to us indeed however…this is fine to my mind since we have been told this and by The Holy Spirit in Scripture.
I have a lot of time for Cloisters and certainly much respect and a great deal of admiration and this has been gleaned over a relatively long period of contact and I continue to have contact through Groups and now and then an email…and, of course, wish Cloisters God’s every blessing in life and re vocation, charism, and call …and on your own and on all…
http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/23/23_1_9.gif
Blessings and regards…and many blessings too on your own discernings…Peace…Barb
