In the Renewal of the Church

Our Community was not planned in a systemic way. It was rather given as a self-evident intuition. When we started the Community we were Protestants ; two years later we realized that in all its main directions it matched the teaching of Vatican II and was an attempt to translate the teaching into life.

Every new departure in the Church’s life has its roots in Tradition; the people concerned may or may not have chosen to take that tradition as their foundation ; they may or may not be aware of the role Tradition plays in their decisions. The married couples and single people involved in founding our community rediscovered monastic life, as it always happens at a time of revival in the Church. It may seem very strange for a married couple to separate so that husband and wife can both follow a monastic calling : yet there are a number of historical precedents.

In the fiery days of early Cistercian or Franciscan communities, chroniclers mention that people, overcome by a need for personal conversion, for a response to the call of Christ, would opt for the most radical way of life. We are deeply marked by a call to a radical way of life, while reminding ourselves that we do so as lay people and as a specific spiritual family within the People of God. It was our experience as the Community grew, that we had to put a certain distance between ourselves and the world, if we ever wanted to make some impact on that very world to which we do not belong.

For eight years, we developed a life of prayers and a sense of silence. Influenced by a prophecy of Therese de Lisieux which said : “You must be love within the Church’s heart”, we were striving to identify with the heartbeat of Christ’s mystical Body. By praying during the night, we give spiritual backing to all those men and women who are working out in the world. From our very first prayer vigils, as we looked for the coming of the Lord and his Kingdom, we have been praying that our preaching may be accompanied by the signs promised by Jesus. Our Resurrection vigils (the Saturday night service) are more concerned with prayer for the physical, psychological and spiritual healing of people who call on us. For eight years we prayed as it were “in the night” and it’s only afterwards that charismatic gifts appeared and brought about quite a change in our life.

For the next eight years, our first concern was to proclaim Christ and evangelize as every baptized Christian should do. Several ministries developed : books, magazines, audio and video cassettes ; new houses in the third world, telephone ministries for those in distress and especially women pressured into having an abortion… More than previously, we shared Therese do Lisieux’s thirst to embrace all callings at once. We were running the risk of having a finger into too many pies : but God’s wisdom shows itself in the folly of the Cross ; it is a fire which Jesus wants to see burning over the whole earth. From the start, our liturgical life was shaped by the various Christian traditions and our Jewish roots. We had no doubt whatsoever, that in these days which are the last, our special gift was that of being open to everyone and live the first-fruits if unity in Christ, that unity which is according to His will.

For the past year or so a new phase has started with the opening of the ‘villages for the poor’. Although we welcomed the poor from the outset of the community and we strove with Saint Francis to consider them as our lords, we had not yet integrated this dimension of the Pentecost of Love prophesied by Marthe Robin. She would say of the mentally ill: “they are redeemers!” Inner experience has taught us that there is a real beauty, an incredible spiritual energy in suffering offered up, in the wound transfigured by love. So, after the example of the “Arche” of Jean Vanier and Father Thomas Philippe, Mother Teresa and so many others, we have surrendered to the obvious, that we were consoled and healed by those whom we welcome, that this poverty in the Spirit which Mary accepted and lived out perfectly, remains the inevitable condition for a life according to the Gospel, a life which maintains a certain childlike quality.

Contemplative prayer must be the root and heart of our life. The Virgin Mary, humanly insignificant, poor and hidden from all publicity has been present a all stages of the history of our redemption: she began by being present physically in this world; and now for a long time she has been present to it through her mystical communion with the earthly Church. She helps us live our contemplative prayer with great intensity.

Our community, as it grows, becomes increasingly diversified and takes may forms ; its heart becomes increasingly sensitive and love is increasingly the source of its unity. Love for God is an inner spiritual adventure love for people is something we live as if from within God who loves mankind, as our brothers and sisters of the Eastern Church call him.

Ephraim, founder of the Community of the Beatitudes.

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