ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II
TO A CLOISTERED COMMUNITY OF CAMALDOLESE NUNS

Wednesday, 28 February 1979 

I am happy, beloved Sisters in Christ, at this meeting which you so greatly desired. Addressing an affectionate greeting to you, I wish to remind you with what great motherly solicitude the Church looks to your commitment of prayer, contemplation, and sacrifice.

To attend to God is considered by the master's of spiritual life to be the most noble and lofty form of activity of the human being, in that the latter concentrates the whole of himself in worshipping and listening to the Infinite Being, who desires the salvation of all mankind. It is understandable, then, how this prayer of praise is accompanied by prayer of propitiation and supplication in order that the divine will may be accomplished.

And the more innocent and pure the soul that presents the prayer, the more acceptable it is to God. Here, then, is the precious form of collaboration that you, enclosed nuns of eminently contemplative life, offer to the Church for the good of souls.

Not only do I ask you to persevere in your generous resolutions, but I exhort you to advance more and more in friendship with God, to stir up continually the flame of love, as it were, volcanoes covered with snow. In the present time with all its difficulties, may your prayer, nourished by sacrifice in solitude and silence, draw God's merciful goodness upon the earth. And with this wish I invoke divine assistance on the whole Community and I bless you paternally.