A Place of Light
A Sense of Place
In the Jubilee Chapter of 2009-2010 we start afresh. We research the dawning glow of God just then and there, 800 years ago, about to make a new thing: a place of light. We honor the starting spark of light. We celebrate the founding event of our origins as an Order of Life, by the grace of God.
Clairlieu contains levels of meaning and mystery that are still unfolding. God neither slumbers nor sleeps, even all along these 800 years. Clarilieu, the mystic quasi-mythic 'place of origin' for the Crosier Charism, retains fire and spirit. The historically particular place called Clairlieu was, historians aver, probably no singular place. The Priory at Huy surely was A Place of Light. But probably too the island mid-stream on the Meuse merited that name. Even the formation center just outside the Chateau Achel was A Place of Light. Nor was the metaphor of "a place of light" restricted to Crosier usage. Cistercians seemed also to like to couple the image of 'light' to a 'place'. In addition to the Cistercian Abbey of Clairlieu, Clairvaux, the valley of light, resonates for Bernard and his companions. There were other place names like Clairmont, Claireau, even Clair de Lune. The geophysical place could point to a sunlit or moonlit spot. But under the influence of the religious metaphor, the place of light was equally a shrine to enlightenment and fresh spiritual insight. A spiritual center for conversion to God.
In addition to the Clairlieu at Huy, other communities in other locations, replicated the foundational experience of living for God and cultivating the
Our own age is not one of uniformity, but pluiformity and inculturated differentiation. Together, however, we celebrate a unity and rootedness in the same grace of God, sparked and poured into a living, organic body, that lasts centuries and takes place anew and afresh, at each founding of one of our fraternities of life. We start afresh when we insist, each generation, on the prime task a community has to embody our Crosier Order's religious foundations in its own policies and collegial manner of regulating day-to-day life. While we honor unity rather than uniformity, nonetheless, there are concrete insistences in our Constitutions that measure us against their standard.
Constitutional Chapter of 1967
The revision of the Constitutions in 1967 was the most revolutionary revision in the history of the Order. Every other recension of the 1248 Constitutions was much more amendment than fundamental restructuring and foundational repair. The entire first part of the Constitutions of 1967 revised the tone and spirit of the Constitutions away from an enumeration of observances and obligations to a declarative statement of religious values and foundational standards we live by. With that revision, Part One could read less like a rule book and more like a nebula of ideals. It is Part Two of the Constitutions, however, and particularly the first chapter on Local Community, that took on the needed task of placing these religious standards and values into concrete reality, at a real place, a place of light. Our Constitutions insist that it is indeed the local community that embodies the spirit and vitality of the Order of the Holy Cross.
The revision of the Constitutions of 1967 made a similar revolution in Part Two. Instead of following the hierarchical model of the received tradition, the 1967 Chapter turned the order of hierarchy on its head and went back to the 1248 Constitution's light and order. Rather than beginning with the General level of the Order, proceed through the provincial, and, finally, end with the conventual, the 1967/1248 Constitutions begin with the priory and soundly settle afresh there. The local convent is the Place of Light. The 1967 Constitutions in Part Two start afresh from that place of light. At the same time, however, the heuristic note beginning the Constitutions assures that the Crosier Constitutions of 1967 do not intend to break with the charismatic patrimony of the past.
These Constitutions should be seen within the history of the Order as a new stage in its constant and ongoing development. In accordance with the desire of Vatican II, they attempt to reflect our history and our contemporary life. They try to set forth in a new way the traditions, which have always defined our community, and to carry this evolution towards ever-newer eras in the history of humanity and the Church. They certainly do not intend a break with the past. On the contrary, they consider continuity with the past of great value as they direct our eyes to the future and serve as a fruitful guide for our lives as "Canons Regular of the Order of the Holy Cross" in our own times. [0.4]
The conscious decision to tradition the heritage of the Crosier Order anew in 1967 and to carry the evolution to our present new stage of life and development reflects and mirrors for us the theme of the General Chapter 2009-2010, Starting Afresh from a Place of Light. Our religious rootedness, ultimately in God, but concretely in a historic tradition, needs ever fresh appropriation and actualization.
Jubilee Chapter 2009-2010
A chapter cannot "concentrate" on everything, every aspect of our religious life. Too much material de-centers and confuses. Concentration in planning entails honing the focus and sharpening the topic for general deliberation. We learned at the 2003 General Chapter that insufficient time was allotted in preparation, broad consultation among the communities, and coordination with the different chapters of the Order. The Jubilee chapter should focus both on the foundational basis of Crosier religious life and the necessary present-day attention to keep our charism fresh and our members committed to our own particular vocation.
To keep our focus concretely attuned to the patrimony and heritage of the Crosier's Eighth Centenary of foundation and our contemporary call to embody
Starting Afresh from A Place of Light, as the grounding theme of the Jubilee Chapter, will give us the opportunity to begin afresh, to start with the religious foundations of our community, and to solidify and place our values in the concrete evangelical commuities that draw forth our fidelity to the Cross of Christ. It is a most particular Crosier way of life.
In every General Chapter since 1967, significant agenda and time has been spent on revising the revised version of the Constitutions. Jubilee is the auspicious and favorable time to set aside the phase of revising texts and cross over to now embody our religious foundations in actual evangelical community life praxis.
We might have begun, it is true, that propitious exercise of renewal and transformation in the 2003 Chapter. But by concentrating discussion on transformational values, it may be said that we left uncared for the further and harder work of setting out and firming up the architectural supports and rhythmic habits our proper religious life needs and necessitates, particularly in local priories.
It can be said that our Order's spiritual architecture has been built on the cornerstone of the fraternal priory as A Place of Light from its inception. It can also be admitted the placement of that light has drifted away from our strong sense of place in priory communities to an accommodated and obscured sense of strength in personal ministries and individualized, even isolated field placement.
Starting afresh from the foundational centrality in our Constitutions , Chapter 7 [on the structural support to our Crosier life as embodied in the local priory] will give concrete, focused attention and renewed order-wide deliberation among our members to our Starting Afresh from A Place of Light.
Lineamenta and Instrumentum Laboris
The lineamenta, instrumentum laboris, and ordered agenda of the Chapter 2009 need to structure world-wide consultations, local chapter assessments and delegate deliberations so as to Start Afresh. Our fraternities need to be those Places of Light we start from, commit to and realize anew.
I suggest that the following content items from our Constitutions [mostly taken from Chapter 7 and Chapter 1] but, of course, needing to be ordered differently, might help frame the substantive content of discussion, assessment, and deliberation for the lineamenta and instrumentum laboris.
a. Since community participation is essential to our religious life, each one of us shall enjoy membership in a community.
b. Living together in a local community is a fundamental aspect of our life.
c. The normative structure of a local community is that of a priory.
d. The community chapter is composed of those professed confreres assigned to the community.
e. The community chapter has the responsibility of determining the policies of the local community – that must, in turn, reflect the principles of Part One of the Constitutions.
f. We freely will to build community.
g. We wish to see our fidelity to the Cross, most especially, in our dedication to fashioning a truly evangelical community.
h. Unity with one another is an inescapable demand for those who are on the way to God.
i. Our membership in a canonical order demands that we be faithful to common liturgical prayer.
j. We recognize and accept human longing for freedom and community.
k. Structures are necessary for community life. They give a community the needed durability and they are absolutely necessary for the full growth of the members.
l. Apostolic activities must find their needed counterweight and stimulus in authentic community life.
m. We hold that we can find personal fulfillment in committing ourselves fully, in fraternal solidarity, to the community.
n. We recognize the necessity of authority in every community.
o. The principle of collegiality means members should enjoy full and effective participation in the life, the responsibility, and the decisions of their communities.
p. The effectiveness of these chapters [provincial / general] depends upon the power of idea and initiative originating in the local community chapters.
q. One of the main responsibilities of the community chapter is insuring the continual realization of our particular religious fellowship.
r. In chapter, members seek to be purified by the desire to be lead by the Spirit of God.
s. Each community comes together regularly to pray. It is our special vocation to foster the liturgy of the Church in this manner.
t. Each community shall take the responsibility, chiefly through its chapter, for creating a truly Christian and humanly effective form of daily life.
u. Living in community is itself a proclamation of the good news.
v. We have been called to serve the Church in and through community.
w. The vitality of the communities – the embodiment of the spirit of our Order – must be safeguarded in the province.
x. A province is composed of local communities with their members.
y. The principal responsibility of the prior provincial is to unify, inspire, and lead his confreres in the pursuit of the Order’s ideals.