The Treasure which we carry is the Word of God: A talk given by Abbot Paul Stonham at Llantarnam Abbey.

He was a CELIBATE. Celibacy lies at the heart of a religious vocation. It is its very essence: a total commitment to Christ, to the Gospel, to the Church and to her mission. Celibacy gives us total freedom for God and is the first sign of evangelical POVERTY. "I consider everything as so much rubbish when compared to the love of our Lord Jesus Christ." St. Paul was a man passionately in love with God.

Paul was a mystic, a man of PRAYER. Prayer is, like celibacy, the touchstone of religious life. Unless our works are rooted in prayer, unless our discernment processes are carried out with prayer and fasting, then they are nothing. We could just as well be pagans. It was in prayer that Jesus himself revealed his identity as Son of God, in that unique and intimate relationship with the Father in the Holy Spirit.

Paul was a MISSIONARY, a man of the Church, sent by the Church to all nations to proclaim the Good News of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. He lived for this mission. It was what gave coherence to his faith. It was the fruit of his prayer. It was how he practised his poverty. As a celibate he was wedded to his mission, the Church was his spouse and his converts his children.

Paul, in answering Christ's call, was OBEDIENT to God's will, to the authority of the Apostles and the Christian community, to his own conscience. By obedience he was conformed to the person of Christ: "It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me."

There could be objections. St. Paul was a man. As such can he be a role model for women? I do not think that this matters much. "In Christ there is neither male nor female". He was a Christian before he was a male, though following the customs of the day he did say a few unpalatable things about women, and about men too! Was he a priest? I doubt it. It was too early on in the history of the Church. He was a roaming missionary, an evangelist. So where did he stand in the hierarchy? He did not usually baptize and was never the leader of a local church. He helped set up the local church and then moved on. He was not a pastor. So I think we can safely say that in St. Paul we are dealing with someone who was neither clerical nor gender-orientated. In modern jargon he was neither clerically nor sexually challenged!

Now the first recognised religious, the Desert Fathers and Mothers of 3rd Century Egypt, Palestine and Syria, took the early Church as their model and their preferred texts came from the Acts of the Apostles. Although St. Antony is usually called the Father of the religious life, it was actually St. Pachomius who first organised the coenobitic life and wrote a rule for his communities of both men and women.

In 1 Co 1: 10, 12-13 Paul wrote: "Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you but be united in the same mind and the same purpose. What I mean is that each of you is saying, "I belong to Paul or I belong to Apollo or I belong to Cephas or I belong to Christ." Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptised in the name of Paul?" Sobering words these.

I began with St. Paul because all orders and congregations have roots that go deeper than our own short history and our founders. Perfectae charitatis instructed us to go back to our origins and rediscover our charism. In doing this we all discovered two important truths. Firstly, that the religious life goes back not to our founders but to Christ and the Gospel, that it is a way of living fully our baptismal promises of which the vows are but a reflection. Secondly, that religious life exists in and for the Church and is an existential expression of the richness of the Church. We do not exist for ourselves or for our own good, i.e. for the congregation. The true sources of the religious life are Christ and the Church and that is true for ALL of us.

Now in the past we loved to stress the differences between our orders and congregations and that we were different from the diocesan Church. In fact, many congregations came into existence through division and strife, rather like nonconformist sects in Wales! Some of us came about through reforms or the rejection of reforms! Some were the result of the rebirth of the religious life after the Reformation or the French Revolution. Remember when every congregation had its own habit? I wonder whether that was really a sign of detachment and humility. Or was it attachment and pride? And, of course, there was that obsession with our founders. The canonization of the founder and fostering devotion to him or her often seemed as important, if not more so, as the mission.

See how the mighty fall. Today, whatever the reasons, there is a real coming together. We recognise each others' virtues, we are prepared to talk opening and truthfully with one another, to learn from one another and to work together. Until I went to Peru in 1981 I had never worked with religious sisters and, I must say, it was not easy at the start. But there I worked with Notre Dame, St. Joseph of the Apparition, various sorts of Dominican and Franciscan, active Benedictines, Mercy, Canonesses and so on. And, believe it or not, they all had something to teach me, indeed, a great deal: discernment in decision making, inculturization of the liturgy, fundamental option for the poor, catechesis of the family, formation of native vocations, living with great simplicity the essentials of the religious life, the centrality of the Bible in religious spirituality and how to beg for donations!

So here is the first question, or set of questions, we can discuss openly this morning, and please feel free to say whatever you think or have need to say. What is the treasure my congregation and community can share with other religious? What can others give us? Do we give other Catholics an example by sharing our resources and man/womanpower? Could this be a role for religious in the Church?

The problem we all share today is that of aging and shrinking. Many congregations face extinction. Some try to save their skins by importing vocations from developing countries. One consolation is that we have been through all this before, though it is one thing to read about it in history books and quite another to experience it yourself. The English Benedictine Congregation, so we are told, was reduced to just one monk at the beginning of the 17th Century. What do we do? Amalgamate? Die with or without grace or dignity? After all, dying can be a messy business. Do we have the faith and vision to see through and beyond our own congregations, which are incarnated in time and space, to the eternal value of the religious vocation? Are we sowing the seeds of religious life in the Church for tomorrow, or are we obsessed with trying to keep the show on the road, to keep the garden blooming even when it is obvious to everyone else that there is no life left in the dry wood?

I have no doubt that, like the phoenix from the ashes, religious life like the Church herself will flourish again. But it will not be exactly the same. It will be new. It will be different. It might even be better! Look at the flowering of religious life in France after the Revolution and how it spread all over the world. And look at religious life today in Mexico and Guatemala, in Colombia, in India and the Far East, in Russia and in Greece, in many parts of Africa. Who knows, but God, what there will be 20, 50 or 100 years from now? Obsession with the past leads to fear of the future and forgetfulness of the present, yet there is much to learn from the past. Do we glory in the cross of Jesus or in ourselves, our history and our accomplishments? Are we men and women of hope? Are we a sign of hope? I believe that that is what religious have always been in the Church and in the world. I was in Italy recently and heard several people complain that the health service is not the same now that there are no nuns left in public hospitals. One of the most characteristic and memorable things about Latin America is the tone of voice with which all people, both high and low, utter those magic words "las hermanas" (the sisters). When our orders and congregations came to Wales (and Herefordshire) in the 19th Century or at the beginning of the 20th, what hope we gave not only to Catholics but to everyone. Not only the Church but society as a whole has been impoverished by the withdrawal and absence of religious sisters, above all. Still, there could be a real resurrection of the religious life at any moment now. Be prepared! And do not give up hope. Where there is no hope there is no longer religious life. The charism we all share, though it is revealed in different ways, is to live as men and women of hope. Religious life is "living in joyful hope for the coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ".

So my second question is: Are we still a sign of hope? How are we sowing the seeds of religious life for the future? Do we really pray? I ask that because prayer is THE sign of hope.

Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son, Isaac, his only hope for the future, because he placed that hope in God and not in himself. Do we believe that everything is in God's hands? Do we believe that on this mountain God will provide? In 1 Co 1:17 Paul writes: "For Christ did not send me to baptise, but to proclaim the Gospel, and not with elegant wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power." Our vocation today is to continue proclaiming the Gospel not with elegant wisdom, because the power of God lies in the cross of Christ and not in our wisdom or knowledge. It is not so much what we do as who we are. Am I convinced about celibacy and practise poverty? Do I pray with my every breath? Am I obedient to the magisterium of the Church? And as for mission, am I just into the latest jargon or do I really proclaim Christ crucified? As for my vocation, do I still believe that God has called and continues to call me? And whose vocation is it, mine or his?

None of us is blind to a new reality we see in the Church at the beginning of the 21st Century. I am talking about new religious movements. I say new, but many of them go back 50 years or more, ecclesial movements such as Opus Dei, Neocatechumenate, Focolare, Communion and Liberation, Legionaries of Christ, and many, many more. What do we make of these movements and their high profile in official circles?

Paul tells us in 1 Co 1: 23-25 that "the cross is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jew and Greek alike, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God, for God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and God's weakness is stronger than human strength." I would like to take Jews and Gentiles as symbols for religious congregations and the diocesan Church, regulars and seculars as we used to call them.

A few years ago there was a furore in the Church regarding Opus Dei and other movements. Because of their autonomy they were likened to sects, churches within the Church. I must say that I have always felt that we are a bit like that, a bit sectarian. Indeed, some of us, the men at any rate, were exempt from Episcopal authority. Perhaps we still are! We lived for ourselves, often in opposition to the local Church. For example, in the Archdiocese of Milan, the demise of the ancient Ambrosian Rite was almost brought about by the religious orders, who in their large and popular non-parochial churches used their own or the Roman Rite and, of course, things went much further than rites. Often the pastoral plan of a diocese and the decisions of its synods were not put into practise by religious, who thought they knew better. Religious were not always seen to be part of the local Church. Another problem was, and still is, that religious are moved about quite a lot and go from one end of the country to the other and all over the world. We are gyrovagues, to use St. Benedict's word. Although things have changed a lot, I think we are still suffering from the leftovers of that situation. It is a very delicate question and in many places there is still friction.

I think it is true to say, though, that there has been a sort of internal ecumenical movement going on in the Church and today we religious feel much closer to the bishop and the diocesan clergy. Many of us have given up our large, and usually independent, schools or hospitals. Women religious have moved into pastoral and parochial ministry and many have sold their large convents and can be seen living among the people, sharing a semi on a housing estate. So we are experiencing the phenomenon of religious and diocesan personnel coming closer together in both work and lifestyle.

There is another important factor to be considered. 85% of those present today are ladies. I do not think that this is a faithful reflection of religious life in Britain as a whole. So where are the men? Most are priests, so they will be hearing confessions at this hour. After all, it is Saturday. Or it is that the gentlemen are not as keen on meetings as the ladies? Or are we afraid of being swamped by you? Now the desert fathers said that there was only one thing more dangerous than a woman, a bishop! Could it be that the archiepiscopal presence has put them off? Who knows? I couldn't summon up much enthusiasm in my own community, so I had better keep silent on the matter!

Anyway, women are not bishops, nor are they priests or deacons. You may be nuns or sisters or mothers, but you are all women. You are not clerical but lay. You may not be bishops but you are "pontifices", that is bridge makers between the clergy and the people. You form part of the laity. Religious life has its roots and origins in the people of God. St. Pachomius in the 4th Century and St. Benedict in the 6th did not legislate for communities of priests or clerics but of lay people. As a monk I am a layman who happens to be a priest, not a priest who used to be a layman. What I am saying is that in the Church today, religious live closer to the laity than hitherto. So now we find ourselves cast in two important roles, roles that unite the Church by bringing Catholics closer together. We are a link between the clergy and the people, but we are also a model for peaceful coexistence and collaborative ministry by being much closer to the bishop and his clergy than before,

This brings me to my third and final question. Are we a force for unity within the Church? How are our relationships with the laity, on the one hand, and with the bishop and his clergy, on the other? How do we live out our vocation of belonging both to the local, diocesan Church and to the international, universal Church?

Heavens above! Just when you thought I had nothing to say, I have ended up saying far too much. I do rabbit on. We have so much to give, but "what we preach is not ourselves. It is Jesus Christ as Lord, and we are your servants for Jesus' sake," said St. Paul. Whatever we have is not ours. We are no more than earthenware vessels through which the treasure passes to others. That treasure is Christ, the Word of God. Whatever we do, let us do it with humility, with charity and always, always together.