Cardinal Ouellet to the Poor Clares of Assisi: this is the hour of the contemplative life

Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, recently wrote to Mother Agnes, Prioress of the Proto-Monastery of the Poor Clares of Assisi. “The pandemic that confines us at home is your hour, the hour of the contemplative life that brings humanity and the Church back to God, to the essentials of faith, prayer and communion in the Spirit”. Mother Agnes had requested that the cardinal write a few words to the nuns, in these difficult times due to the spread of the coronavirus. Cardinal Ouellet affirms this “is the hour of the contemplative life”. At a time when, “many families are suffering the illness and the death of their loved ones in solitude”, despite the heroism of doctors and health care workers, contemplatives are “at the bedside” of the sick, and the Spirit opens their hearts “to the most hidden frontiers of suffering humanity”. The “discreet and widespread” presence of religious, is “a balm of tenderness and peace on the wounds” of humanity.

Isabella Piro

Read the full text (in Italian) on Vatican News. Image: Maestro della Santa Chiara, Miracle of the loaves