To be inside versus Inhabiting (4/05/2006)
 Desert
 Convent
We almost always relate the history from “What we do for her?” We wanted however, to relate the history
from us, not from the daily chores but from what means to inhabit it and to be inside.
All through the life of the first Christian communities, and then later the church in its different historical
stages, this had been the great challenge: to inhabit, to be inside...
The same thing could be said of our lives - in different moments, historical times, different stages of our life
- one feels the need to learn again how to inhabit, to be inside.
The religious life was born in this perspective: a way of being in the history and with the life, in general. Their
style is modeled according to the humanity's features and of the cultures, learning how day after day to be
inside. For that reason, different styles - mystic political were developed. The most significant were those
that evoked the dream of another history, alternative styles.
I consider the movement of the genesis of the religious life, as a progressive expansion of the Christian
experience that has been crystallized within the Empire. The spaces got wider towards the peripheries. It is
not as a simple ascetic option, but as an experience of liberation. The “desert " evoked the essential of the
life, the encounter of the cosmic dimensions of the life and its subtle equilibrium.
Along the history, all reformation was made with the desire of expanding again, not from the quantity, but
from the essential. The essential underlines the criteria of encounter and the criteria of life for everybody.
In the medieval times, the monasteries were expanded: the “conventus” was born. The space located where
most people lived. It was contrary to the isolation of the monasteries.
The space of the convergence of psychologies, ideas, cultures, Cosmo-Visio (cum-venire).
We can say that these spaces are born between nostalgia and political passion; ethical indignation;
nostalgia for something that is not still completed. Community and prophecy, they are a lifestyle. The
community is not the private space, as well as the prophecy doesn't refer only to the public spaces. The two
dimensions, follow the most secret dynamisms of life; the two aspects make part of the same nostalgia for
the life and God : Ps 137: ...if I forget you, Jerusalem... for that reason in the daily life, we build houses, we
take care of life, like we take care of something precious. For this reason we listen the Word of God and
we share it, like one listens and shares his/her significant dream. We study allowing Wisdom to inhabit us
and to teach us to live.
For reflection:
 What does the community mean to me? What does history mean to me?
 How do I consider the community as a mystic-political space?
 How do I consider the history as community space?
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 Humanity and Creation
 Alone and on the road
A Hebrew Legend says that the ethical-mystic learning of those, have only one task in life, and like an only
fatigue: …to study, to learn the plants and the animals... (Cf. Giacoma Limentani. Feltrinelli Editore1995. p.
55) and we add, to learn: how to know the infinite desire of humanity’s search, its supplications and the
hidden struggle for survival and their wisdom.
A biblical text that evokes us is Rm 8: 22-26; a human-cosmic and also divine solidarity; however this text
evokes also what we can call the spaces of Dominican religious life; for that reason Catherine says: in this
history we are with infinite desire...
We cannot reduce these spaces; the problems of the life in communion are the historical problems, of the
humanity and of the creation, the same wailings and the same pangs of childbirth. In this history, we see, we
listen and we hear; the harmony between listening and the vision is much, we move ourselves between
“listen Israel” and the prophetic announcing: lift your eyes and see…."
In this history we move looking for the Wisdom that is embodied in the Wisdom (human and historical
wisdom).
Alone and on the road
Also in this extension of space, lies our itinerant presence; it accompanies us only in our “ interior cell". We
should think of the solitude like a space of prophetic freedom. In the most beautiful Christian tradition, it is
described like an option: THE DESERT....is an expression in front of life, the space where everything rests,
where we give name to the things and people again. God did not give us this possibility as a punishment,
but as a condition to love. I will take you in the desert and... .Hosea 2:16
For reflection:
 Pick up the Wisdom that help us to live
 Leave out what is not wisdom which does not help us to live, ( neither to us nor to our companions
on the way)
 Walk in solitude: what does it mean?
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