Episode 4: Unfolding Discernment // Transcript

John Masko:

Sister Maureen, a 54 year old woman from New Jersey is the Novice Director. She leads the group charged with evaluating women hoping to join the community. She was formally a Sister of Mercy, another order of non-cloistered Catholic nuns, but joined the Cistercians at Renthem 25 years ago. Sister Maureen.

Sister Maureen:

Well, the first step was the call when I was 12. It wasn't a call to service. Not that that would be excluded, but it was primarily a call to intimacy with God. And that is the contemplative dimension of every human life. The second step was the Thomas Merton book. That was what he did. He entered the contemplative life. And that is what struck me as my own — And that's what filled me with this, the dread, but also the desire. But I didn't know that there were women... Cistercians or Trappistines. So the sister knew of another contemplative group, the poor Clares and I visited there, but I hated it. The surface of it... Years later I visited the inside and it was very lovely. But my first contact with the outside was... It was awful.

John Masko:

 What is the... Or what are the main differences between the poor Clares and the Cistercians?

Sister Maureen:

Well externally, the thing that turned me off was the... They turn... They didn't meet you at the door. They spoke through a wall and I mean, it was the same in all contemplative groups at that time. And we had the same here. But when I came... When I was 16 and the sister called through the wall, if I wanted to speak to her and I said, "No". And I went home. It was too much for me to take.

John Masko:

You couldn't see her?

Sister Maureen:

No.

John Masko:

All you heard was her voice coming through?

Sister Maureen:

Yes. I would have seen her if I had said yes. I know she would have met me. But anyway, so I was very... I was immature too. And this was something very new. So as I say, the unfolding took a long time and it went through the normal processes of growing up. And I knew that I — Somehow I knew that I wasn't ready and my parents tell me they would never have permitted me anyway, until I came of age, which was 21 then. So...

John Masko:

What were their thoughts about it?

Sister Maureen:

Dread.

John Masko:

Mostly dread?

Sister Maureen:

Yes. They were very good...

John Masko:

What is ‘our dear’ doing?

Sister Maureen:

They were very good Catholics and... But the contemplative vocation is hard for almost any parents to understand. It takes a lot of understanding and that takes time and exposure. So those things were not in place then. But as time went on, I realized that for all the richness of a life, the only thing that would really satisfy the deepest desire in me was a life that was very poor and very empty. And that had an...

John Masko:

Empty? Empty?

Sister Maureen:

Very empty.

John Masko:

Of?

Sister Maureen:

Of everything except God. I... My soul was hungering to have so much of God that his gifts in a way would get in the way. And that's my idea of the contemplative life. It's a very radical poverty, right? Very radical simplicity. In a way, it’s having nothing in the world but God. And then finding what he will give, but not looking for anything else. 

And I just got more and more hungry for that experience so that finally... It finally became very, very clear that it was time. And that I should really seek this way of radical poverty. I guess that's the word I would use. I don't mean it so much in a material sense, but that I would have no other preoccupation but God. Well they're speaking... Whoever says wouldn't sit... Doing for us is speaking from a very utilitarian point of view, but is there anything really more important to society than healthy family life? I think most people would agree with that. 

So a woman who falls in love and is faithful to her husband and creates a beautiful family life. No one would say, "What good does that do for the world?" It's obvious. So a woman who falls in love with God and who lives intimately with him and is faithful to him for all her life and grows through it in humanness and shares that love with her community, which is her family. So that that monastic community lives in a great deal of harmony and peace. It's the same. It's what makes our society healthy. When we have groups like this who are living in fidelity and love to one another. So basically there's not much difference If you're going to look at it from the question of what good does it do? It does tremendous good to have human communities that are living according to Gospel values and in esteem for one another and building one another up and making people happy and giving a witness of healthy community. So I don't think it's too complicated. 

But I do believe that every human being has desires deeper than they know. And I think they know some of them. But like me and many others, it's too hard to talk about these wonderful secret things that have happened. Too hard to put them into words. But sometimes, when they see the contemplative life or hear the contemplative witness, they know that they know it deep down. They know that there's something inside of them too, that is made for the same. It won't be expressed the same way on earth, but there is a call. St. Augustine's famous words that no one ever forgets when they hear them, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you". We all have that restlessness. And a contemplative as a person who's taken it very seriously and starts to be at rest.

I have to listen to that heart to see if this resonating is taking place. And then if it is, I can begin to confirm that vocation and let it grow from the inside. But not everyone has it. You do your best to discern, but you can't. It's not a hundred percent. But what they have is another vocation. And you have to listen very carefully to what's in the heart.

John Masko:

They have something just not this.

Sister Maureen:

They have something. Yes. So when you begin to recognize that, no, it's not here and probably they're recognizing it too. You can't... You must still encourage that person because they're being called to something very beautiful and unique. So... But you have to go in a different direction with them to listen to where they are being called and to make it a very positive mutual discernment. If they're going to leave and find their true star, you know?

So, I'm working with basically people who are called here and people who aren't called here and the discernment process is — it’s not clear at first. I mean, it's an unfolding. And so I am going to have to encourage to follow another path. And some I have to encourage to stay put and grow here. So it's... It takes a lot of listening and discernment and... But encouragement in either case in esteem... In either case...

For a contemplative group, a person does have to have a certain amount of social skills and sense of community to really live a life like this. To be very introverted with not much hope of developing. You really couldn't live a life that... So...

John Masko:

Which is an irony.

Sister Maureen:

It is.

John Masko:

It's actually... I suppose in reality, not. But by the general view that people would have of the contemplative life, which might be expressed in an idea like this. That they have escaped.

Sister Maureen:

Well, that's right. People think that. But...

John Masko:

But it's sort of the opposite.

Sister Maureen:

It is. It is exactly the opposite because if you're really faithful, you're having demands on you constantly of unselfishness. And you can’t escape from the group if you're faithful. You have no place to go. You have no other outlet. It's a closed system. So it demands a total otherness to God and to others in God. And there's no way of escape. So you have to be ready to give and to communicate or otherwise you can become very, very sick mentally. And so that's a red flag too. 

Another sign for me is obedience in the sense of relationship. Obedience is one of our vows but conformity isn't. And the real heart of obedience is this relationship with one's abbess, with one's other superiors but also with the others in the community. That there can be a... This person has the ability to hear what the other person is saying to...

John Masko:

The person who has authority.

Sister Maureen:

Both authority and then the personal authority of others to the... 

The rule of St. Benedict moves from obedience to legitimate authority, to the idea of mutual obedience, which is a Gospel value. And mutual obedience is... It's not something you can put down into law. But it is a spirit of being ready to lay down your own self-interest, to lay down your own way of doing things in order to yield. It's a wonderful spirit of yielding. And it's a beautiful aspect of community life that people can give and take and respect each other's... Just not insist so much on their own way of doing things. And I don't expect a person to have reached perfection in that by the end of the novitiate. But one sign would be that they see obedience as a relationship with persons to whom they can yield for the sake of love. And so I have to see something like that in place.

John Masko:

That's a very interesting idea. I can't say that I've ever thought of obedience that way.

Sister Maureen:

Well, it's a spiritual way. It's really the spiritual way. Obedience for us is not in order to get something done, having someone in command. Obedience for us is the first step in mysticism. It is the yielding of the heart to God through others. 

Well, I spend the early morning hours, which for us are devoted to prayer, very deep in God's presence so that I know that I really am intimate with him. And that he... If I can remain very deep in that sense of his presence and not get caught up in a more superficial consciousness — but can remain in his presence — which wants to express itself through me, which wants to love just as Jesus loved when he was on earth. If I can get deep enough in those early morning hours, then it's very easy to return to that sense during the day. 

And so each person that I meet, I just — in some way, a word or a smile or whatever we have to do, however it will unfold that day, whatever contacts I have — I just want to express in the appropriate way to this person that I respect them, that I'm ready to be approached, I'm ready to listen. That they mean a lot to me. But I don't know who will come in a day. I mean, I know that there will be novices because that's my work. But beyond that, it’s kind of, you don't know what's going to come in a day. But you don't want to get caught up with goals — that I have to get this paper written, or I have to... These things are important but what is much more important in the day is the unpredictable personal encounters.

And while you're doing these other things that you were assigned to do, that you always have this empty space there that doesn't take a human being as an interruption, but as the greatest thing that can happen. That this is a moment for love. And just to try to be ready to do it. And I can only do that through God's grace and power and presence, but it's there. He really... He's ready to do it in me. And I just have to be ready to lean on him and be reflective.

The Cistercians have a very clear anthropology — based very strongly on the idea that the human person is made in the image and likeness of God. And as a result of that, we were created with a capacity for God and our whole being by its very creation tends towards God. And it's not an option. We are created with this desire for God. And so the Cistercian recognizing that God-given drive and believing in it with great optimism based on Christ himself, who gives us both the power and the example of tending towards God, does everything possible to keep the heart and the consciousness in touch with that desire.

And so what might seem like austerity is not austerity for its own sake, but it's to strip away more superficial desires. Too much involvement in external affairs. Too much food or too much talking or whatever. It's not for its own sake but to get down to that — in touch with that deeper desire so you could keep moving with that... Moving towards that tremendous intimacy that God has called each of us to. So one of the...

John Masko:

Removal of the obstacles, and the impediments

Sister Maureen:

Yes, yes. The removal of the more superficial desires to be in touch with the deeper desire. And one of the marks of the Cistercian life is its simplicity. And simplicity in the sense of not having too much in order to have what is really, really fulfilling. And that shows itself in so many ways, even our architecture. It... Our plan of life is just, everything is so simple.

John Masko:

The idea of God coming to you certainly does not mean that God is going to... That some would see it rescue you from pain or difficulty. That despite one's prayers, you may be wandering or pushed into horrible circumstances. So God comes and we have faith that he will for what? Not to spare us the pain.

Sister Maureen:

No. But he does rescue us from meaninglessness and he gives us personhood with himself. It gives us a relationship and that's everything really.