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The Meaning of Enclosure
by the Dominican nuns of Our Lady of Grace Monastery
By withdrawal from the world, in fact and in spirit, the nuns, like prudent virgins waiting for their Lord, are freed from worldly affairs so that they may have leisure to devote themselves wholeheartedly to the kingdom of God. This hidden life should open their minds to the breadth and height and depth of the love of God who sent his Son so that the whole world might be saved through him. Such was the enclosure chosen for the nuns by the most holy Patriarch from the beginning of the Order and faithfully observed until now. (From the Fundamental Constitutions of the Nuns)
In our secularized world some may question the relevance of such a hidden way of life. Yet we believe that our life has value because it is one long response and appeal to the Transcendent, whether or not it makes any evident contributions to the system of this world. It is precisely its hidden nature, the obscurity of it all that can energize it. The Church document entitled Verbi Sponsa says that "Real separation from the world, silence, and solitude express and protect the integrity and identity of the wholly contemplative life." It also says that "The law of enclosure entails a grave obligation of conscience both for the nuns and for outsiders." And, "The granting of permission to enter and to leave the enclosure always requires a just and grave cause, dictated that is, by a genuine need on the part of the individual nun or the monastery: this is required to safeguard the conditions demanded by the wholly contemplative life..." Yes, it is true that a city set on a hill cannot be hidden and we should be a light to the world, but if we are not careful to maintain the integrity of our life we may be visible but we will have nothing to offer.
The twenty first century is offering many challenges. As Anicetus Fernandez says in the letter which prefaces our new Constitutions: the contemplative life has become more difficult today... the great ease in communication... results in our living in a state of perpetual external agitation... drawing us away from the interior life. In the world today there can be little time and space for God. In the cloister, we seek to be free for Him alone and to live in the stillness that is necessary for us really to hear the cries of the world and to offer them back to the Lord ... to be free for Him to find us and draw us into the silence of His own completion ... and all this not simply for our own good but precisely for the sake of the preaching mission of the Order, for the salvation of souls.
The friars, sisters and laity of the [Dominican] Order are "to preach the name of our Lord Jesus Christ throughout the world;" the nuns are to seek, ponder and call upon him in solitude so that the Word proceeding from the mouth of God may not return to Him empty, but may accomplish those things for which it was sent (Is.55:10). (From the Nun's Constitutions)
Thank you to Sister Susan, OP for permission to use this article on enclosure from the Our Lady of Grace Monastery website!
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