Cistercian Abbot: Vocations Decline Because We Became Tasteless Salt

In our time, authority is deeply discredited, both in society and in the Church, whether because of excess or deficiency. This was said by Father Francisco Rivera, 46, on June 14 in an interview with VidaNuevaDigital.com.

He was elected on May 20 as the new abbot of the Cistercian Monastery of Santa María de Huerta in Soria, Spain. It is one of Spain’s great monasteries and one of the most important historic houses of the Cistercian Order.

Father Rivera acknowledged that the number of vocations has declined drastically: “We can blame the world, its values or lack of them, young people, social media, and so on. But I believe consecrated life must also undertake a rigorous examination of conscience. Perhaps we have become a kind of tasteless salt. And we know what the Lord Jesus says in the Gospel about that.”

For the new abbot, the best vocation campaign is “to live, in our case, a serious and coherent monastic life, in fidelity to our monastic commitments and to the Rule of Saint Benedict that we have promised to follow.”

On silence, he said that it is the capacity to encounter oneself: “When everything becomes quiet, both inwardly and outwardly, our inner noise emerges: the things we do not like about ourselves and from which we are accustomed to fleeing.”

Picture: Francisco Rivera, Ocso.org, #newsYtqjhixaot