And Our Enclosure is...

It can be awfully strange, for those of us not called to it, to consider a life of full enclosure. But in the analogy of the cloistered heart that we use here, the idea of enclosure is extremely important. There IS an enclosure into which we are invited.  It is a genuine enclosure, one that goes beyond all of our loftiest mental images.

The fact is:  if we’re human beings, we are called to live within the will of God.   

In the analogy of "the cloistered heart," I am invited to live within the boundaries of God's will as a nun would live inside her enclosure.  A potential cloistered nun does not set the boundaries of enclosure for herself, saying that she really prefers other areas, thank you very much.  No, she accepts them as they have already been set up... or she goes elsewhere.

I look around, today, at the boundaries of my enclosure.  I don't have to map them out for myself; they are clearly defined for me in Scripture and in 2,000 years of authentic Church discernment. 

Sometimes we can fear the boundaries of God's will, worrying that they'll sap all joy and pleasure from our lives.  The saints tell us otherwise. 

“Our happiness consists in knowing and doing His holy will.” (St. Jane de Chantal)

“Freed from the heavy burden of my own will, I may breathe freely under the light load of love…”  (St. Bernard of Clairvaux) 

 

"Do you want to be free?  Then free yourself by your own act; have no will but God’s will.”  (La Trappe in England by a Religious of Holy Cross Abbey, 1937)

(This is a re-post from 2011)

Text not in quotes © 2011 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
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Photo on this post in public domain, from Wikimedia