By Devin Watkins
Pope Leo XIV met on Monday with a delegation from the Federation of Capuchin Poor Clare Nuns of Italy.
Reflecting on St Paul’s invitation for Christians to “lead a life worthy” of their calling, the Pope encouraged the nuns to live faithfully through contemplative prayer, poverty, and complete adherence to the Gospel.
He upheld their work to revise their Constitutions, which reaffirm the duty of religious sisters to aspire to “assiduous union with God in prayer.”
Quoting St Clare’s letter to St Agnes of Bohemia, the Pope said they must place their “mind before the mirror of eternity,” looking beyond their cloisters and today’s tragedies to the future with hope.
The decline in religious vocations, he noted, could lead some religious communities to turn inwards. However, he added, vocational challenges can instead offer the Church a chance to rediscover “the quality of what is offered.”
Fewer religious in communities, he said, “should encourage a renewal of your way of life and an even greater commitment to the spiritual accompaniment of those who knock at the doors of convents, helping joyful and vibrant communities to grow, where people can experience intimacy with God, kindness, communion, and authentic relationships.”
God, he said, does not ask us to be flawless but to open ourselves to His grace in humility.
“Vocations are not born from the application of organizational strategies or carefully devised campaigns,” he said, “but from prayer, familiarity with the Gospel, silence, the ability to welcome one another with our imperfections, and a sense of belonging to a whole that creates unity.”
Pope Leo then turned to the initial and ongoing formation of religious sisters, which he said should embrace the Church’s mission in contemplation.
“Form yourselves and others for a cloistered life lived in a spirit of deep communion among yourselves and with the Church; for a silence that, in a society dominated by haste and noise, awakens a need for times and spaces in which to pause and discern, without fear of missing the ‘fleeting moment,’” he said.
As sisters of St Clare, the Poor Clares must live the Gospel by leaving the world behind, “wholly and constantly turning towards the first and only Love of your lives”.
“This entails moderation, detachment from possessions, self-surrender in obedience and transparency, in a life that is simple but also radical and demanding,” he said, “offering a precious sign of faithfulness, especially in a globalized and restless world that seems to have lost the desire and the ability to ‘put down roots.’”
In conclusion, Pope Leo XIV urged the Poor Clares of Italy to embrace St Francis’ call to be “torches, sentinels for the Church and for the world.”
Contemplative sisters, he said, can offer humanity answers to our crisis of meaning through “mutual listening; koinonia, understood as a communion of purpose, to avoid isolation; diakonia, to serve and work together; and martyria, to bear witness to the Gospel.” – Vatican News
