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Issue 44.6 of the Review for Religious, November/December 1985. ; Expectations of CommUnity Inculturation A Theology of Death and Grief The Discernment of Ministry: a Process Volume 44 Number 6 Nov./Dec., 1985 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. REVIEW FOR RELIG|OUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1985 by R EVlEW FOR R ELtqtOUS~ Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A. $10.00 a year: $19.00 for two years. Other countries: add $2.00 per year (postage). For subscription orders or change of address, write R EV1EW FOR RELIGtOUg P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editor Nov./Dec., 1985 Volume 44 Number 6 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW t-'on RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Richard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Current Conceptions of Religious Formation: An Analysis Martin O'Reilly, C E C. This article by Brother O'Reilly, Formation Director for his community in Liberia and Sierra Leone was originally prepared as a position paper undertaken in connection ,with the development of a novitiate program for West Africans seeking to join his community. Brothe,r may be addressed care of the Christian Brothers; P.O. Box 297; Monrovia, Liberia. It is difficult to name what'is a~tually done in religious formation. Although the enterprise has a recognizable history dating back at least to the time of St. Benedict, when we raise the question: What are we doing when we form others to be religious? there is little consensus about the nature of the activity. A more abstract question, .such as: What is Religious IJfe? might be more easily answered. But religious formation is not an ahistorical abstraction. - It is a practical activity. Men and women enter religious communities, and other men and women are "sent" to form them. Formation, as such, does not exist, there is only what people do, and want to do, in its name. This article will consist of a brief survey.of the principle approaches to religious formation current today, anda proposed tentative defintion of formation that gives equal weight to the past, present and future dimensions of a religious community. Although theory will not provide simplistic answers to such questions as: "When do we give the habit?" it does provide a basis for ascertaining whether one's practices are consistent with one's beliefs and for understanding how new insights and differing circumstances may modify existing practices. Perennialist Conception of Religious Formation The ."perennialist" position, exemplified by much of pre-Vatican II 1101 1~02 / Review for Religious, November-Dec.ember, 1985 religious formation, is based mainly on the authoritative position of the "formator" as the person entrusted with the task of instructing others in the perennial truths of religious life. The relationship of formator and those being "formed" is in the context of master and pupils. The person who is responsible for formation is very conscious of the expectations of those in higher authority that, certain permanent truths are being taught in a didac-tic manner. The principal model of instruction is that best described as "teaching." The starting point is usually the prescribed constitutions, the life of the founder or foundress, and the history of the congregation. The theoretical motivation for both formator and those being formed is in essence the same: he or she is to teach, and the novices are to learn. Of course, it is presumed that there are other factors operating, so that the novices' personal understanding of being religious is complemented by their actual life in community. The duties of a good religious are empha-sized in various ways: by being reminded of their personal responsibility for coming to know and accept their call from God through frequent conferences; by being encouraged to be loyal to their formation group, and to be obedient at all times to those in authority. Besides regular prayer and Mass, numerous devotional exercises and retreat days ensure that a sense of piety is being fostered. It is quite natural that such an'approach to formation tends to emphasize the descriptive rather than the prescriptive elements of religious life. The value of much of its style and method is in its precision in indicating what has to be learned and understood about becoming a religious. But by the same token it is all too easy to produce a hothouse variety of religious who, vocation-wise, wither in the more temperate zones of regular and imperfect community life. Such an approach can fail to distinguish sufficiently between the precepts of the religious life and the vocational growth and development of those in formation, with the result that conformity is substituted for free response. This is not to say that the perennialist approach is altogether unsatisfac-tory. Many outstanding religious have come through such an initiation into religious life. For those who have come from devout Christian homes, such a formation style undoubtedly offers a security and an initial certainty that religious life is for them. But however beneficial such a model of formation may be for some, it can only be unrealistic in relation to those coming from a secularized background,,or who live in a situation where the Church herself is still very young. Essentialist Conception of Religious Formation The essentialist position, as represented by ReneCarpentier, holds that Current Conceptions of Religious Formation: An Analysis / 1103 the .religious life is "above all things a life, a Christian life, a life based on the Gospel and one with the Church."1 Carpentier's work in Belgiumin the 1950s convinced him that the obligations of religious life seemed to be treated as ends in themselves. There was very little Good News about the religious life~ He therefore advocated a return to the sources of religious life, viz. Christ, the Church, and the Scriptures. The biggest challenge offered by Carpentier to religious formators was for them to underpin their work with a genuine theology of religious life: ~It is not enough to show them the religious state as a life apart, closed in oh itself and "withdrawn from the world." It is to the religious life, within the Church, that our Lord's words may be applied: "You are the light of the world." We must show its relationships with .the Church and the world, and with salvation and sanctificati6n of all men. We must have recourse to a "theol6gy" of~ the religious life,2 Advocates of the essentialist approach to formation work concentrate on imparting an understanding of religious life as a living out of the ¯ "essential" Christian ideals. The emphasis placed upon providing a gcriptu-ral and theological rationale for religious life gives an intellectual flavor to formation, and casts the formator in a "lecturer" role as opposed to the perennialist "master-pupil" approach. Because essentialist formators share the belief that religious formation is largely a matter of intellectual training, the interests and needs of those in formation are of limited value for determining the nature and content of the foniiation program. While essentialism gives a needed, firm intellectual underpinning to religious formation, it is largely an adult concept, which in turn requires a certain adult ability to view reality in a holistic fashion. Many in such a formation program, however, fail to see the relevance to their own lives of courses in Scripture, theology, church history and liturgy.' The problem with this approach, as with the perennialist pathway, is that it is character-~ ized by what can be called a "pedagogy of. object" i.e., the models of learning it relies upon are almost exclusively concerned with handing on the.charism of religious life, which itself is taken as an unchanging and universally understood aim. Admittedly, the essentialist approach looks more towards the dynamic nature of the Christian life to provide the context for ~understanding the nature of the religiouS vocation, but it underplays the aspects of the "present" and "future" of society, the Church, religious life, and the persons themselves who are preparing for religious profession. Existential Conception of Religious Formation The keynote of the existential approach is basically its concern with the 804 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 subject io be formed in his or her actual life situation. The words which characterize this approach are sincerity, dynamic', commitment; relevance, authenticity, choice,freedom, and experience. For those who look at for-mation. in this way, the key to .human and Christian living is the continuing choice of an "authentic" way of life. lnauthenticity means taking shelter behind the routines, the trivialities and the morally undemanding patterns of everyday life. ,To be authentic means to acknowledge basic moral chal-lenges, to be open to the ambiguities and contradictions of life, and to respond to them by committing oneself afresh to the values one perceives to be at the heart of a meaningful existence. Religious life, in the existentialist sense, is viewed and understood asan expression of the life of faith, and so must find its verification in real life. If it is not to be a dead faith, it must be acted out in deeds. For the existential-ist, it is the motivation, not the forms, of religious life that differentiates the religious vocation from that of others. In practice a formator schooled .in existentialist thinking will give prom-inence to discussion methods as the way of learning, and will emphasize the importance of the differences in the life situation of each candidate in his or her personal response to the call of religious life. A greater measure of freedom will be extended in various ways to those being formed, and the view will be encouraged that both formator and those in formation are engaged in a common enterprise of discerning the personal and social significance of the vowed life. Constitutions and histories of the congrega-tion will have only a limited role in an approach such as this. They may serve as reference or guideline, but hardly as a starting point. Emphasis therefore will tend to be much more on a diversity of sources--literature, films, music and newspapers--indeed all the sources of. information encountered in ordinary.living. There will be a fundamental sense in which it is important not to be specific about particular means of being a religious, because what is being described arises from the life-situations of those concerned. Without doubt the existen.tiai approach makes being involved in reli-gious formation a very creative and personally satisfying experience. Con-cern for the giftedness and insights of those entering religious life had rarely been present in the previous history of religious formation. Sadly these insights had been largely subordinated to the immediate needs and interests of the congregation, and formation was more often than not more a training or domesticating than a forming. The existential pathway, on the contrary, asks the formator to believe that he or she is living and praying with people who are alread3; under the influence of the Holy Spirit. The chief problem ~vith this approach to formation arises from the fact Current Conceptions of Religious Formation: An Analysis / 805 that the breadth of it provides no clue as to the kinds of experiences that properly should be provided by a formation community. The implication is that., since each candidate's experience of life is unique, each one must have his or her own formation program. Faith and well-meaning, however, are insufficient to fill the vacuum created by the abandonment of a well-de-fined initiation process. It was Dewey who said that when personal fulfill-ment is severed from intellectual activity, "freedom of self-expression turns into something that might better be called 'self-exposure'.''3 Furthermore, when too much emphasis is placed on the "inner search for meaning" of those in formation, the past heritage of a religious congregation can easily be forgotten, and responsibility for 'the future ignored; hence the shared vision that binds a group together can also become lost. ° Socialization Conception of Religious Formation The title of this approach may seem odd, for there has always been a strong community basis to formation in the sense that those being formed have lived, worked and played together in preparation for the time when they would join the wider community of the congregation. Indeed one of the important prerequisites for profession was "suitability for community life." But here the .term "socialization" is being used in a special sense, that of a planned, intensive~group experience involving both professed and nonprofessed members. The rationale behind,this approach is that "what-ever happens to the individual happens to the whole group, and whatever happens to the whole group happens to the individual." Quite simply a novice or one in formation can only say "I am a religious" because we are a :religious family. Ira founding charism is most present in the lived reality of a religious community, then'it is within a community that formation must happen. "Community-centered formation" is not .the same as ''formation within a community." The former consists of a group of professed religious and prospective members open to the challenge of living and growing together; the latter is more often thannot a convenient arrangement for housing those in formation within a regular community, with perhaps one or two helping the formator in'his ministry. The difference between the two con-cepts is that with the first one the formation of new members is a community "event," whereas With the other, formation is a "territory" clearly demar-cated from the ordinary life of the community. The core group of the formative community is made up of religious who are prepared to share their own personal and collective story of faith; to witness in an open way, to the meaning of their congregation's charism; to support those in initial formation in a bro.therly manner and to pray 1106 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 with and for them. The neophytes in turn are invited to "come and see" the charism and mission of the group by sharing in the common life, prayer and work of the community. This "shared praxis" approach supposes less of the presence o1: the person responsible for formation as the sole authority, and more of his presence as guide~in a fraternal network of relations~ This role of the formator means that often the work of formation will remain open-ended, ¯ that is, it is not pushed through to a predetermined conclusion for the sake of a conclusion. Whilst the main emphasis, as with the existential approach, i~ experiential rather than instructional in any formal sense, the open-community situation makes it more likely that the whole aspect .of religious life is approached in a multidimensional way. Close living, with professed religious aff?rds opportunities for the experiencing of the living charism of a congregation that no "single-parent" type. of situation consisting of one formator and the formation group can possibly provide. Conversely, having new members live with professed religious can add life and vitality to the local community, and can challenge the older brethren to look anew at the values that underpin their lives. Such an approach to formation may be successful with mature candi-dates, but it can be a wholly different story with the younger or more immature types. When formation is expected to arise from the dynamic interaction of a community, things can go badly wrong if a good number of the group are incapable, either because of upbringing or inclination, of accepting their responsibility for and accountability to others~ Not to believe that there, will be a need for "tough love" at .times, and a good d~al of personal coachingof members in the art of living together as a religious family, is to assume too romantic a view of human nature. Finally, when everyone is theoretically responsible for the formation of new members, it can quickly become the practice that no one is responsible, and people are left to hope that the newer members "get the hang of religious life" in time--a sort of formation by osmosis! 12on¢lusion Whether religious formators choose to define formation as the handing on of the perennial truths of their congregations" story or.as a radical ,living of the Christian life, as an inner search for ,meaning or as an intensive group experience, they are providing only a partial description of the term "formation.'2 Conversely, if we conceive of formation as all those growth experiences, under the auspices of a religious congregation, that ~contribute to the deepening awareness of what it means to be a religious, the definition is so broad that it fails to indicate how a planned formation program Current Conceptions of Religious Formation: An Analysis / 1~07 differs from an informal spontaneous arrangement where prospective. members learn directly from living in a religious community. If a definition of initial religious formation is to convey the full meaning of the term, it should be comprehensive while, at the same time, be sufficiently specific so that its key interacting elements are clearly conveyed. Taking these considerations into account, the following tentative defini-tion of religious formation is proposed: The planned and guided learning experience of religious life with intended learning outcomes, formulated through the systematic reconstruction of knowledge and experience, under the auspices of personnel suited to the task of aiding and evaluating a candidate's continuous growth in personal, social and spiritual competence. This definition regards religious life, and the ways of becoming a reli-gious, as dynamic. The formation process must account not only for the known dimensigns of a founding charism, but also for emergent under-standings. Consequently, religious formation is not concerned merely with transmitting the cumulative tradition of a religious congregation but also with the present dimension of a religious charism in relation to the life' experience of those seeking membership. Moreover, this definition recog-nizes that the future possibilities for the development of a charismatic religious community resides with those in formation today. NOTES ~l_zfe in the Oty of God. London: Burng & Oates, 1959, p. xi. 21bid, p. xii. 3John Dewey, How We Think, rev~ ed~, Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath & Company, 1933, 'p, 278. Even Discipline Has Its Season: Thomas Merton and Formation Today Thomas M. King; S.J. Father King has done extensive study and writing on Thomas Merlon. He is an Associate Professor of Theology at Georgetown University where he resides. The mailing address is: Jesuit Community; Georgetown University; Washington. DC 20057. Before he entered the Trappist Monastery of Gethsemani, Thomas Mer-ton wrote part of a novel that concerned a young man considering the priesthood. Like Merton himself, the young man played amateur jazz and had been leading a somewhat dissipated life. He saw his present life as remote "from the kind of discipline and perfection for a priest." As the young man thought about the priesthood, it was the word discipline that occurred again and again. Discipline appealed to him. At the same time as he worked on the novel, Merton wrote an unpublished essay that compared the lay and the priestly life. The priests were considered the lucky ones: "For them, from now on, everything is definite, is settled for them." In writing The Seven Storey Mountain he told of thi.nking about the monastery before he entered it: it was seen as a place of "much discomfort and no pleasures . I used to love books and study, but God will want me to die to all of that." He told of pursuing his novitiate with such enthusiasm that he made a nuisance out of himself by urging his novice director to reduce his portion of butter and cheese to be the same as the other monks', and he wanted permission to attend all the sessions of monastic prayer. By these permissions he wanted to lose himself in common life. He wrote a vivid statement of the Cistercian life that appealed to him: When a man becomes a Cistercian, he is stripped not only of his clothes, or 808 Thomas Merton and Formation Today / 1109 part of his skin, but of his whole body and most of his spirit as well. And it is not finished ~hat first day: far from it! The whole Cistercian life is an evisceration, a gutting and a scouring of the human soul. Merton had felt drawn to the monastery when he had visited there eight months before he had entered. Then he had seen a postulant take his ~place among the novices and he observed: "The waters had closed over his head and he was submer~ged in the community." The postulant was dressed like the other monks and was lost in the "anonymity" of the choir. Merton claimed that those who stayed in the monastery were those who simply followed the Common Rule, a Rule wherein each monk was "absolutely lost, ignored." This was the ideal he was seeking in the monastic life. Merton wanted to live a life of self-sacrifice. For years he had lived according to the urgings of his appetites only to find he was a confused victim of his own "self-contradictory hungers." The nature of these hungers were evident to him in many ways; for example, he was compulsively attending movies. Yet he would no sooner be in the theater than he .would despise the stupidity of the film; but soon he would again be at the movies. In deciding which religious group he would join, he told of wanting "a Rule that was almost entirely aimed at detaching me from the world." He was pleased to describe his entry into Gethsemani as "nothing less than a civil and moral death." He soon esteemed the other monks around him, for they had abandoned "all preoccupation with themselves and their own ideas and judgments and opinions and desires," they .had put their "whole life in the hands of another" through obedience: "The greatest of the vows is obedience." The .monk was said to be significant not because of what he does. but because of what he is: a monk: The religious habit itself was said to have the grace of a sacramental. Merton exalted in his community life and saw most people outside of monasteries as hopelessly confused. When he looked at the luggage he had brought with him, he reflected that he could no longer believe in himself as a layman. These .general themes are familiar to readers of The Seven Storey Mountain, though some of the passages remain unpublished (they can be seen at the Merton Study Center in Bellarmine College, Louisville, Ky.). The picture he gave of monastic life was demanding and severe, yet the surprising thing was the number of people who found what he described had a fascinating appeal. In the ten-year period after the publication of The Seven Storey Mountain, Gethsemani received approximately two thou-sand postulants! The number seems to say something about what people were looking for in joining "religious life." Many, of course, did not stay. With the passage,of time Merton's monastic euphoria underwent 1110 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 considerable change. He came to fight against the anonymity he had desired. He spoke'of monks "left with a husk of outward forms and no inner vocation." Though he had idealized entering the monastery as a form of death, he would come to ask, "Does our monastic life become so artificial and contrived that itis no longer really a life?" He had judged obedience to be the great monastic virtue; but later he would object that "doing what you are told., substitutes for life itself." He was no longer enthralled by the anonymity of the choir: "The choir is the scene of much depersonaliza-tion andanguish." He protested that monastic life should not be a "total abdication .of all human worth and identity." He even claimed that the whole concept of discipline in the life of prayer did not arise until the fifteenth century! He wrote an amusing caricature of monks who believe they are better than those in the world; the world was no longer seen as simply a place of error and sin. In his early writing he had affirmed that a monk's worth was in "being a monk." But he later said that he himself did not "comfortably wear the label of monk?' He wanted to be "a non-monk even, a non-layman, a non-categorized man, a plain simple man." "My hermit life is expressly a lay life." He told of a personal policy of"not appearing as a monk, a priest, a cleric," and said with some satisfaction, "I am a tramp." His biographer, Monica Furlong, explains, "It was as if he had abandoned all interest in the persona of the monk." The change in Merton reflected a change that was general in religious life. Religious discipline generally became less evident and many religious tried to.avoid a special identity in either manners or dress. Novices were often integrated directly into communities of formed religious, and obe-dience was no longer seen as a way of inner liberation--it was just a matter of convenience or greater efficiency of organization. Most religious would say the changes had been for the better. But recently while writing several articles on Merton, I came to believe that the more relaxed monastic life that is generally found today would in no way satisfy the Merton who entered "the monastery in 1941. At the time he entered he had different needs, needs which did not last indefinitely. Yet the general relaxation was a change that he had helped bring about. Like many others who entered the religious life in the fifties, I had been inspired by Merton's enthusiastic account of religious life. I had. been less dissipated, but I felt a similar need "to get hold of myself" and work through my "self-contradictory hungers." I entered a Jesuit novitiate where discipline was strict. Devotions, times~ to sleep, to eat and to recreate were regulated by a bell with little room for individual inclinations. Clothing, haircuts, readings and friendships were allowed little opportunity to develop accord- Thomas Merton and Formation Today ing to one's own taste~ Religious life was a way of freeing one from one's own tastes. One could wonder if that is still seen as a value--yet that was a major" reason that the noviceship took so long. In those days other Jesuits were not even to visit the novitiate "lest they disedify the novices." We believed that we were following "the more perfect way." 1 think that way of living would be frustrating for me now--but that does not mean it was not what I needed then. It was. There are seasons in one's life. Recently I was assigned to spend two years working with Jesuit novices. Meals remain scheduled, but the daily order was mostly gone. Dress is casual, betamax movies are regularly shown, beer is generally available and groups go out for:pizza. It is a more ordinary kind of life than I had known as a novice--and appears much like the life of those "in the world" or the life of longtime Jesuits. But should it be so? In working with the novices I decided much of the happiness of my own novitiate was not. present, My happiness .was perhaps naive--not unlike the happiness Merton had found among the Trappists.Like Merton I, too, had to resolve some contradictory hungers and deal with a confu-sion of undigested ideas. The exterior discipline provided support for my own efforts io control immediate appetites. I would not agree today with ma.ny of the ideals that made up the "more perfect way," but it gave me a clear look at myself and something to strive for. And in striving for a difficult goal I knew satisfaction--by being unconcerned with satisfaction. I knew better my appetite for God byignoring my other appetites. .I have visited other novitiates and talked with others in formation and I do not know if what had been valuable for me is still available. In recently doing some serious study with the texts of Merton, I came to understand something about, myself. Merton had become severe in judging the struc-tures of religious life that once he had found necessary and supportive. In the 60s I and other religious went through the samechange. But now I have come to argue there are seasons in one's life. There is a time when discipline is needed and a time when it should be relaxed. And this difference gives rise to a significant difficulty when novices early in formation are integrated into communities of formed religious. Perhaps the difference of seasons can be seen in the two sets of Rules for Discernment of Spirits offered by St. Ignatius. One set is for the First Week and the other is for the Second Week. Thus, they are put in terms of a temporal sequence, in terms of seasons. In the Rules for the First Week-- and Ignatius seems to believe that many people do not pass beyond this week--one judges one's interior movements (spirits) by a somewhat demanding objective standard. One is to shape one's life according to the commandments and the Gospel ideal and, therefore, it is according to these I~1~ / Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 Rules that one accepts the interior movements that ~support the defined ideal and.rejects the movements that do not. At the .end of the First Week (inthe kingdom meditation) one makes a radical dedication of oneself to God. In this meditation one is expected to make a deliberate choice to willingly bear all poverty~ trials and humiliations for the Lord's sake. It is a frightening expectation; but it is only after one has made such a prayer, that one is to use the Rules for the Second Week. To contrast the difference between the two sets of Rules:~ in the first set one conforms oneself to an objective standard; one tries to overcome one's feelings (movements) by judging objectiVely which feelings are appropriate. Then, in the Rules for the Second Week, one listens to one's feelings (one's consolations and desolations) in 6rder to learn from them what one is to do. One learns from the feelings only after distancing oneselffrom them and only after instructing them. Thus, at different times during the Exercises, very different norms are appropriate for dealing with "feelings." Having given hundreds of directed retreats, I have sensed that Rules for the First Week are often given only brief consideration or ignored. Much of the reason is that there is considerable ambiguity about the ethical questions that once had been so clear. Yet if one has not been through a considerable discipline of moods and appetites and begins using the Rules of the Second Week, one begins taking disordered moods and trivial appetites as messages from heaven. Thereby one becomes hopelessly confused--most people "in the world" know better than to do this. Ignatius took his own moods seriously and proposed a method of listening to consolations and desola-tions- but he would use this method only after he had disciplined them. 1 have done a fair amount of spiritual direction, and with it 1 have come to believe that many directees--by no means all--need less "spiritual life" and more objective conformity to demands of the Gospel. Any professional identity (doctor, athlete, musician, and so forth) requires an extended season wherein one conforms to an objective discipline. Senior doctors can follow their "hunches," while young interns generally should not. Mozart has recently become known as a highly spontaneous composer. There is some truth in this understanding, but Mozart became that way only after following a disciplined training that was brutal in its drmands.,l do not recommend brutal training for either musicians or religious. (Though from Mozart to Merton it has .produced some good results.) But, on the other hand, it does not make sense to believe one can be agood religious simply by being one's spontaneous self from the novitiate onwards. If that were the case there would be no need for a novitiate, other than a brief period in which to school the novices in the constitutions, charism, history, and so forth. When religious are simply integrated into Thomas Merton and Formation Today / 813 regular community life, they would seem to "have it made" more readily than is possible in any other profession. And this should lead one to suspect that something is missing in whathad been known as a demanding profes-sion- one that had appealed to the desire of the young, not to have it made, but to sacrifice one's self for a cause. Because of a current and much needed emphasis on personalism and because of smaller numbers entering religious life, many religious groups now "tailor the program for individual needs." But the present article would claim that such tailoring is not simply the better thing. There is also an advantage in. having a more or less uniform program according to which the novice should be tailored to fit a new way of life. Merton felt he needed considerable tailoring. If his novice director had tailored the life according to Merton's unique personality, would his director have left him in the chaos of his hungers and even more ill-adjusted~than he was to Trappist life? I suspect Merton would have been a better monk if he had not received a special assignment to "literary" work shortly after he had entered the community. Merton wanted to be lost in anonymity, the.ano-nymity of common life. In this age of personalism is there still something that can be said .for anonymity? There are advantages in losing oneself in "common life," especially ~when it is part of formation. One identifies with a group only if one has actively striven to become part of it. Such is the only way that a sports team can develop an esprit de corps.The members do not develop a common spirit unless they have been together in a common and demanding training. Members of such a team have tailored themselves to fit together in spite of their differences--and that is the power in their bond. It is only by striving to live by something more important than personal preferences, that one can discover the power of a community bond, a bond that is not at all the same as the friendship bond. The latter is based on personal choice--it is a matter of taste; while the community bond develops when different types of people (who otherwise iriight not be drawn to one another) submit themselves to a common discipline and thereby realize they are together in something more important than their personal tastes and bigger than any of them. When Jesus was told that his family was seeking him, he respgnded that his family was composed of those who "heard the Word of God and did it." (They could be said to be following the Rules of the First Week by conforming themselves to the gi{,en Word, to an objective discipline.) They were not together simply as'a m~itter of preference or as a group of congenial people with a common interest. Can we even imagine--a tax collector and a zealot in one group! The disciples were bonded by a common discipline 1114/ Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 that united them in spite of their differences. One might also allow that within this group some friendship bonds were allowed to develop. In this age of personalism I confess that I still understand what Thomas Merton was seeking as a young monk, and I believe I was seeking some-thing similar. In short, I did not want to dedicate myself to the triviality of my own'preferences, l still know the advantage of losing oneself in an impersonal discipline and losing oneself in the anonymity of a group.And in arguing for tl~is anonymity I find support in the words of Jesus to the effect that we must first lose our self in order to find our self. This command would suggest that first there must be a season of losing, and only after that a season of finding. And the season that comes first should say something about religious formation. Sometimes conservative religious communities tell only o.f the importance of losing oneself--while liberal religious com-munities tell only of the importance of finding oneself. But the present article would argue that each has its season. Christ the Center of Our Vowed Life by Boniface Ramsey, O.P. Father Ramsey's three article's on the vows of religion are available as a single reprint: i - The Center of Religious Poverty ii - Christocentric Celibacy iii - Cruciform Obedience Price: $1.75 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Expectations of Community Along Life's Journey Kristen Wenzel, O.S.U: Sister Kristen teaches Sociology and Women's Studies at the College of New Rochelle. She als9 does work for religious congregations as a research consultant. Her previous article in our pages was "Toward a So~iology'of Ministry in the United States~ (July/August, 1982). She resides in the Ursuline Community at 596 Minneford Avenue; City Island; New York 10464. here is no question but that our experience of community is a very important aspect of our lives. God has so,made us that we all need to feel we belong. This is also true sociologically speaking. It is true regardless of age, family upbringing, ethnic heritage, ministry or the group with whom we live. Looking back over our experiences of community is like going on a journey. When we go on a journey, what accompanies us--things or people? When we venture out, do we pref~er to go alone or with others? When we want to rest along the way, do we seek. out friends or a quiet grove alone? When we are unsure of our direction do we follow our hunches or do we ask for help? Let me ask you, where .have you experienced community along the myriad pathways of your life--at the fork in the road, at the intersection or along "the road less traveled'~ Let me explain. When I think of "the fork in the road," I think of the times when community forces me to choose between it and my ministry or between it and my preferred friendships or family. When I picture an intersection, 1 am thinking of all these important groups in my life converging and merg-ing in one place. Sometimes experiences of community seem to be taking me, a pilgrim, on a road less traveled, a road littered with obstacles. The 1t16 / Review for Religious,. November-December, 1985 road is uneven and progress is slow. Along the pathways we have walked, what have been our experiences of community? More directly, what person(s), group, or, perhaps, minis-try or activity is carrying me through life? What is community for me? Now, let us take a more analytical look at the word "community." Understanding the Word "Community" There are a variety of understandings of the term community. If you were to ask those with whom you live how they define community, one person might share with you an experience she has had of community, for example, a special liturgy with everyone in the house present; a jubilee celebration; extended time spent together over a meal; coming together with others from several configurations in similar work where talking and sharing are done in a concerned way and meaningful context. Another person might speak of the feelings that the word community evokes: for her, community is affi.rming, challenging, frustrat!ng, supportive, alienating, gratifying. Others might tell you what they wish community would be and what it has not been for them. Yet another might come back to you with the question, "What do you mean by the community? Everyone living under the same roof?. Our cluster community? The people with whom I do ministry? The diocese or province? My friends? My family? My parish?"~ This variety of responses indicates the many different ways we define community, describe our community experiences and/or set our goals regarding community life. How we define, describe or prescribe directions for community living is the foundation for building models of community. Generally, sociologists agree on three characteristics as essential to community. They are: locale, common ties and social interaction. When we speak of "the community" this concept encompasses locale or place as the basic component. Whereas, "community," as distinguished from "the community," emphasizes the common ties and social-interaction compo-nents of the definition? In this sense community is viewed ;not so much in terms'of locale or where we live, but in terms of there being "a high degree of personal intimacy, emotional depth, moral commitment, social cohesion, and continuity in time.''3 When we religious are asked about our experience of community, what most frequently comes to mind--the geographical locale, the level of social interaction present,~ or the common bond of a shared ministry, vision, commitment? The common bond or common ties component of community refers to an organizing factor which is neither a locale.nor an emotional tie but a common intellectual or professional bond4 or, in terms of our status as Expectations of Community / 1117 religious, a common religious understanding or spiritual bond. It is this common-bond element that is referred to in the "Community Life" section of the constitutions of many religious congregations, for example: -The love that unites us finds its source in the intimate union of Father,' Son and Spirit who dwell within us. -Christ calls us to form, as did the first Christians, a community having "one mind and one heart" (Ac 4:32) and experiencing the joy of his presence. -In Christ we are one body nourished by the Eucharist and strengthened by the Word of God. What about the social inter'action component of community? Here sociologists distinguish between the rural village and urban industrial society to present the dramatic changes that have occurred in the level of social interaction between people. What the sociologists have to say, I believe, gives us insight into how community life has evolved here in the United States. In a village society most people held common values, norms and traditions. The survival and welfare of the whole village was a concern shared by all. Social bonds developed among.people from the many activi-ties and functions. Geographic mobility was limited and personal contacts were long-term. A distinctive characteristic of the village community was that each .member had a position in the social order, a position usual)y assigned at birth. Expressions of individuality such as distinctive clothing, work aspira-tions, leisure activities and friendship circles were strongly circumscri.bed by the rights and obligations of other village members. Consrquently, the self-identity of the individual often fused with the individual's identification with the village. . On the other hand, in urban industrial society life is much more diverse and fragmented. We do not have regular, continuous face-tr-face interaction with just 'any one group over a number of years. Many of the people with whom wedo come in contact we deal with in impeCsonal, functional ways. Those we live with may come from social classes and ethnic backgrounds very different 'from ours. Personal histories are heterogeneous. Conse-quently, we don't necessarily share with our companions common tradi-tions,' values, aspirations or ,goals. Unlike people in rural villages who~ spend their entire lives in the same community, we are highly mobile, not only gebgraphically but socially as well. More often than not, we enjoy a 10osely-linked network of friends across several groups rather than a close-knit network within one community. In religious life increasingly, specialized ministries also are a product of this urban industrial and technological society. I~111 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 Locale--common bond--social interaction. How important is locale in my experience'of community? Am I living in the particular community where I am because it is convenient for my work . . . because of my background experience or trifining for a particular ministry., because I can be close to aging parents or a sick relative., or because for me it is a real faith community to which I choose to belong?. Is a common bond, such as staffing a hospital, a love of one's foundress, serving the poor, or simplicity of life, with relatively little emphasis on locale and social interac-tion sufficient for community to exist in my estimation? Or is social interac-tion the essential element and, if so, what level of such interaction must be operative to make community for me? The relative importance we give to locale, common bond and/or social interaction indicates the model of community with which we most closely identify. Moreover, these are some of the basic elements that today's candidate for religious life will be looking at before choosingtomorrow's community. How each of us experiences community today ~s good and growth-produc-ing also influences the criteria we use in choosing the type of religious with whom we wo~ld like to live. This choice may only be able to exist in our mind. Nevertheless, the choice is real and affects the reality of community living. There is current tangible evidence that among us religious we differ in the sociological factors we emphasize in measuring the quality of commu-nity life. There is current tangible evidence that among us religious we differ in the sociological factors we emphasize in measuring the quality of commu-nity life. Current Trends Shaping Our Expectations of Community To define ~ommunity is one of the tasks to be done in developing models of community. Another very important task is to become aware of and sensitive to the current trends shaping expectations of community. Recent trends in theology and ecclesiology have had a significant impact on the spirituhlity as well as the experience of community life for apostolic religious in the United States. Among all the developments that have occurred in. the understanding of spirituality over the past twenty years, there are two that are fundamental. The first .concerns the way we view the world. Here we have moved from an assumption that reality is essentially static and unchanging to an awareness of a world that is dynamic and changing. As human persons within this world, not only are we subject to the process of continual change but'we are ourselves the very agents of that ~hange.5 It is in the acknowledgment, of being such agents that we are Expectations of Community / a19 evolving a new style of religious life. A second development, equally influential, focuses on how we view God. We have moved from an understanding of God as trangcendent and historical to the discovery of God as immanent in-our experience. We believe that human existence in its natural condition is radically oriented towards God.6 In the context of this understanding we have come to trust our experience of existence in the here-and-nowas the locus of the revela-tion of God. Consequently, e~eryday historical life and religious life are not separated. Experience takes on new meaning and becomes an integral part of our spirituality. These two broad developments in our worm view and God view make up the integrated secular and sacred climate in which community is being experienced, lived, and named among us today. The view of religious life as a mystery and a gift given to the Church in a particular moment of history has led to a search for new forms of com-munity; which will support the challenge of ministry in a new age and in a specific culture. An evolutionary perspective, which sees the life of faith as a journey and conversion as an ongoing process, has encouraged a more open and fluid approach to community.7 According to this trend community life is viewed primarily as a basic support for the mission of the religious congregation and for the ministry of the individual religious: Apostolic community life is a living out of the baptismal call to witness to the message of Jesus through ministry and service to the world. Consequently, community life is not lived apart from the world but rather within and for the world to which we belong, Our decision to live together out of shared Gospel values, and to give witness to these in society, is the foundation of community. It is such values underly-ing this decision which influence prayer, mutual support, presence, rela-tionships, lifestyle, finances, and all other aspects of community living. While community life is a living critique of the prevailing values of society,s it is also somewhat influenced and shaped.by societal trends. What are some of these secular trends challenging and giving rise to various models of community life?. John Naisbitt, in his popular book, Megatrends, deals with ten specific trends. I would like to single out three of these trends as those which I think we need to study and reflect upon in our .analysis of models of community life. Trend I. There is a persistent mbvement in society toward participatory democracy because there is a deepening conviction that people whose lives are affected by a decision must be part of the process of arriving at that decision. There is pressure On the Church, corporations, universities, local 1~20 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 parishes, agencies and hospitals to become more open and accountable. There is the new shareholder activism, worker participation, demand for greater employee rights and the consumer movement.9 There is no question that this trend toward participatory democracy is affecting religious and their current expectations of community. It is. an important element to be considered in building a model of community life. This growing movement toward participatory democracy is viewed by a significant number of reli- ¯ gious as an essential element if commumty for them is to be a credible and viable way of life. Trend 2. This decade is a decade of diversity, with multiple options in lifestyle, education, religion, housing, transportation, leisure activities, music and the ~.rts. The term "family".is being expanded to include a number of important relationships between people not related by blood or marriage. The country no longer holds on to the myth of the melting pot as ethnic and racial groups in growing numbers celebrate their diversity. Mul-tiple options have en';erged for women in the workplace, in personal life-styles, in choice of education, in elective sur~gery. Likewise, ~options for church membership are multiplying.~0 These trends are shaping current expectations for tomorrow's community. "Multiple Options" is becoming an evermore critical element to be considered in developing a model of community life. Cor~sider, for example~ multiple options for belonging to groups. This reality can enhance the quality of community life for contem-porary religious if we are willing not only to acknowledge this trend but to have leadership acknowledge it. Trend3. A world of interdependent communities.is being forced upon us by circumstances. Unless we recognize this we will not survive~ To achieve needed technologies we as a nation will have to work cooperatively with other nations. We will need to forge a 0ew relationship with the Third World as equal partners in an interdependent world.~ Perhaps the most significant areas of interdependence are those relating to the nuclear power issues and the growing global economy. Interdependence as expre,ssed in intercongregational-supported minis-tries, formation programs, and intercommunity living is a growing reality for contemporary religious. Interdependence for tomorrow's community means these developments will be more the reality than the exception. They will not only be accepted but embraced as integral to building a model of community life. These ~current trends do not comprise an exhaustive list. However, they are trends--religious as well as secular--that are having an impact on what we expect of community life. For example, if we bblieve that human experience is a locus for the revelation of God then, for us, God is expe- Expectations of Community rienced in interpersonal relationships, in ministry to and with others, in struggles for justice, in communal and liturgical prayer as well as in the give~and-take of daily community life. It is important that we get in touch with those patterns and trends in the Church as well as in society that are influencing our preferences for holding on to or restructuring our experi-ences of community. What are the trends you believe shape your own expectations of com-munity? It is here, I believe, that we find a clue to the reason why we may identify with one particular model of community' rather than another. Also, it is h~ere we gain insight into why, when we speak of tomorrow's community, we are speaking of multiple models that will grow in credibility and acceptancewithin a single congregation. Expectations as Expressions of Models of Community What do we mean by model? Our own experiences attest to the fact that community is a complex reality. We cannot take all dimensions of community and integrate them into a single vision of community. That would not be doing justice to its various elements. Rather, we keep them separate, highlighting different dimensions at different times. The use of models exemplifies a typological approach tothe study of community. The number of types or models is unlimited. However, I have chosen to limit the number of models lowill present to four. Each of theseomodels could .be broken down into several subtypes, but 1 will not attempt to do that. By approaching the study of community from the perspective of model, ultimately, I. am suggesting that this method offers us a multidimensional and not an uriidimensional understanding. The method of models or types can be invaluable in helping us to get begond the parochialism of our own outlook and t6 enter into fruitful dialogue with other members having a fundamentally different perspective. This particular approach should en-able us to encourage the kind of pluralism that heals and unifies ~ather than that which frustrates and divides. The use Of different models in our discussions of community evokes different viewpoints on issues and differ-ent suggestions for living out community. Sociologically, the. presentation of types or models: suggests what already is, not necessarily what Should be. Where'we live community life is determined more by circumstances, preferences and opportunities than by our trying to conform to some idealized concept in an idealized reality. Sociologically, idealized conditions do not exist--for better or for worse. The Institutional Model Here the concept of "locale" is impo~ant. The place one is assigned or II~fft / Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 sent to, the geographical locale, is believed to constitute community. It is the community for the individual in the sense that this is where one's attentiveness and availability are directed. The principal needs of the indi-viduals are satisfied by their participation in communal prayer, shared meals and recreation together. Informal contacts outside the community are infrequent and do not contribute in a major way to the individual's life. Here, to live the common life is to live community. This is the goal, the basic conviction, shared by members who live this model of, community. The structured life is formally organized with a horarium and recognized levels of authority.Ordinarily, there is a single apostolate raiher than a diversity of ministries. Decisions are made based on the common good which, with stability, is highly valued. The members' needs and expecta-tions are met, for the most part, by the community. In the context of this model, individuals experience a strong sense of belonging to the gro~ with whom they have invested so much of their energies. To a large extent they are known .by the group and usually feel comfortable in group activities. They experience support from their communal living. This sense of pur-pose and direction is strengthened because it is shared by the group. Because so much time is given to the group, less time is available to follow personal interests or become involved in Outside activities. Exposure to lifestyles markedly different from the members' own is limited: Understand-ably, these types of boundaries as well as the relative homogeneity of the community tend to reduce overt conflictual situations. Preference for this model, would be shown by such felt needs as: -Praying together: office, Eucharist, shared prayer, retreat, communal prayer service; -Arranging gatherings on provincial and local levels: summer renewal, conferenc~es, chapters, workshops, jubilees, professions, funerals, big feast days; -Sacrificing personal interests for the common goo.d;, -Playing together: shared hours of relaxation, recreation, fun times, togetherness in enjoyment of TV programs of special interest, vaca-tion, cultural outings; -Feeling a sense of belonging and ~of being "at home" with one another; -Holding community meetings frequently, where members arrange schedules in order to be there. The Individual Identity Model In this model the emphasis in community is on social interaction rather than locale. An emphasis on the community member as person replaces Expectations of Community emphasis on community as place. Value for the human in self and others, respect for the dignity of the human person and the responsible freedom of every member are the basic convictions in this model. Consequently, it is the nurturing and growth of the individual that is of primary concern. Prayer in common is seen as a support and as a challenge, helping the individual to grow by helping to develop her or his insights and gifts. Diversity in rriinistry becomes inevitable with the emphasis placed on the d~velopment of each individual's talents. Community members are learning to recognize the dignity of the human person who has both rights and responsibilities in relationship to self, to others and to the world. The value of community flows from who we are rather th~n from what we do. There is a struggle with how to blend individual rights and responsibilities with those of .the group and how to hold both in healthy creative tension. There is a deep concernwith how to empower one another to be active participants in the creation of a Church, a nation and a world that reverence'the human~dignity of all. In a special way members of this~ type of community, if it is a commu-nity of women religious, recognize that the Women's Movement in the United States has deeply influenced many who share the determination to "use our power collaboratively and collegially in non-violent ways" to bring about the creation of a world that'respects all that is human. These members are coming tb a new understandifig of what it means to be woman: "The glory of God is woman fully alive," They are experiencing a new sense of solidarity with other women. They wish to bring about an awareness of women's unique gifts to be used in the creation of a more human, loving and just world.~2 This movement has heightened among religious the need for personal and communal discernment as 'they come to (erms with change as a continuous reality in their lives. It has also led them to create participative and collegial structures within community. There is dialogue and interaction on the journey so that they might discern and respond to the Spirit leading .them into the future. Prefereiace for this model Would be exemplifieod by such statements and elements as: -Challenged and called to grow beyond myself; giving most generously of myself; -Accepting responsibility for community; owhing community decisions; having a sense of building together; enabling the community to articu-late expectations of the group and individuals; -'Desiring growth in ideniity and cha'racter as individuals and as community;, -Appreciating each member for her or his contribution; considering ~124 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 members as individual persons not to be overloaded with work; -Recognizing the talents and gifts unique to each person and -Affirming ministry. The Ministry Model Here community life is viewed primarily as a-basic support for the mission of the religious congregation and the ministry of the individual religious. Community exists to facilitate the individual member's availability to minister to the needs of society-at-large. The active apostolate is of primary importance in this model. This is the common bond for living together in community. Locale and social interaction are of secondary importance. It is ministering to the needs of the People of God rather than to the members of one's own congregation that is the major expectation. Religious vows in response to vocation are a consecration for mission and are viewed not as ends in themselves but rather as supports for minis-try. Personal prayer demands a contemplative stance toward all of life and leads to contemplation in the midst of action. God is experienced in minis-try to and with others.13 Consequently, prayer in common is scheduled around the demands of the apostolate. It will occur less frequently, and at times without all members present. Times for private prayer would be more common. The major consideration in decision-making would be, "How will this decision provide greater availability and effectiveness in the apostolate"?. There may or may not be a diversity of apostolate works represented among the community members. Within the context of this model, for .example, new ministries are emerging for the, semi-retired that take them outside of the community: to share at centers for senior citizens, to tutor adults or chil-dren, to do parish.visiting or home nursing. Changes occurring in the society-at-large are affecting many of the types of changes experienced in the local community. In addition, membership in other groups and com-munities is acceptable as a means to apostolic service. It is quite common for some members to find these outside groups to be their primary com-munity. All-in-all the dimensions of community life are shaped by the values, goals and expectations of those whose primary focus is the apostolate. For some religious, the value of witnessing to community in the larger society becomes the apostolate. The community exists for the sake of its witness value. The expectation here is that the group will. live community in such a way that those outside community will see among them God's action in the world. Inviting butsiders to join the community for commu-nal prayer is an important dimension. In fact, hospitality in general would be considered essential to this type of apostolic community life. ¯ Expectations of Community as~ Preference for this model would be exemplified by such manifestations -There is interest in and suppori of one's ministry; united in service of others; involved in a common apostolate, being on an Ursuline faculty, giving help to the needy and the poor; -Small group living offers unique ways to use personal gifts, in the service of, others; -Hospitality is shown to guests, whether members of one's congrega-tion, one's family or friends and -Sharing work. The Communion Model~4 In the context of this model, the members of the community share the conviction that the concept of communion unveils an ever-deeper under-standing of community. Because we are all united in Jesus Christ and form one'Body of which he is the head, we are united to each other as members of one body. The diversity of gifts, talents, personalities serves the richness and well-being of the Body of Christ which is the Church. This is the common bond that unites members in community. They share the expecta-tion, the conviction, that religious life is a microcosm of the Church, a witness to the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and therefore, it must be a com-munion. Our life together must reflect the kind of fellowship with Christ and his members that is described in the New Testament. The source of our sisterhood or brotherhood is not human compatibility but rather a com-munion rooted in faith, in baptism and in life in Jesos Christ. Communal prayer, faith sharing and Eucharist would be the essence of community in uniting each religious to Jesus Christ, Likewise, there is a strong emphasis on attentiveness to the Spirit as a source of unity. Our oneness in Christ and his Spirit becomes the underlying rationale for the types' of decisions made regarding authority, leadership, provincial gatherings, living the vows, apostolates, and efforts to continue the updating and renewal of religious life. Likewisr, this communion directs us to attend to the needs of society and to issues of social justice. Communion is unity amidst diversity and is the essence of community life. Preference for this model would be exemplified by such evidences as: -Experiencing joy in living with people dedicated to the Lord; inspired by the fidelity and prayerfulness of one's sisters; -Sharing at depth level; articulating shared values; faith, vision; -Sharing times of crisis and -Assembling for the' good of the Church. To summarize--in these four models which I have just presented, we 1196 / Review for Religious, Nove.mber-December, 1985 do not find an exhaustive study but rather a continuing exploration of various, possibilities. From a sociological perspective, we see that different models place different emphases on Iocale,~ social interaction or common bond as the foundation for developing the model. These three elements are present in varying degrees whenever we describe community or living group. No actual community identifies totally with any single model. However, every community will probably find that it has an affinity with one model more than with another. Furthermore, it is important to acknowledge that each model raises a number of issues regarding commu-nity life that need to be addressed by members. Sociological Factors Influencing Our Expectations of Community What shapes .our expectations of community? Why do we find our-selves more attracted to one model rather than to another? Why do we recognize the description of one type better than another? Why do we haxie the preferences that we do for a particular model rather than for another? Or, on the other hand, are our expectations unclear or conflictual? Do we find more than one model appealing or, simply, none at all? Will tomorrow's communities really be that much more .different from today's? The variations that exist among us regarding expectations of commu-nity can be explained, in large part, by our respective personal ~ back-grounds such as the size of the family we grew up in; whether our ethnic heritage is Latin, Irish, Germanic or whatever; the type and number of years of education we had and whether we spent our childhood and early adult years in a rural or urban environment. Our age also affects our needs regarding community, and those needs change as we move from our 20s into our 30s, our 50s, our 70s. Likewise, our social-class background will have some bearing on how we view community. And there are other sociological factors which are influential. The task before us is for each of us to identify and name those that we believe have the strongest impact on our own respective expe.ctations and preferences. At times there is a tendency to call for unity in community while downplaying diversity of sociological background; for example, to challenge one another to a simplicity of life that will unite us, regardless of back-ground, social levels, experience or education. We are not united regardless of these factors. We can only be united in a real way when we have regard for them. This does not mean.we are defined in a static way by our personal history. But, we do need to remember that personal history is God-given, and the starting point for any of our journeys. Appreciating differences and allowing ourselves to be influenced by them can add a great deal of enrichment to community life. At the least, an awareness and Expectations of Community sensitivity to one another's background can explain why there exist among us so many and varied experiences and approaches to community. Briefly, I would like to mention another set of factors affecting prefer- 6nces. I will not ela ~borate on them but I would like t6 refer to them because they are critical elements to be dealt with in working out the practical details of community models. They are what we call structural elements; for example~ (1)the building lived in, (2) size of group, (3) geographical location, (4) age distribution, (5) daily schedule, (6) length of time of stable group membership, (7) procedure for incorporating new members, (8) mix of personality types and (9) number of ministries represented. There is a great deal more I could say about sociological factors and how they influence our expectations with regard to communal living. However, I believe I have given at least an indication of how to explore and apply them in gaining insight into how our preferences shape our attraction to one model over another. Conclusion In conclusion, I would like to say that the journey mentality embodied in this paper is different from the "trip mentality" so often present in our society today. When we go on a trip our focus is on arriving. Our attention is toward the future with relatively little preoccupation on the present. We are driving sixty'five miles-an-hour to get there and what we are passing on the road is unnoticed. On the other hand, the journey, mentality is attentive and respectful of the process. It is attentive to the here and now. It is a creating.and c~reative e~xperience~ It is the p!ace to be because this is the place God is. The fact that we do not have it all together, the fact that we are searching, the fact that we are moving slowly, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes with conviction, are all positive signs and reflective of the way God's people have acted throUghout history. This is reflective of every social movement whether religious, political, economic or communal. This is reflective of what we are about in all of our deliberations about commu-nity- along our life's journey. NOTES ~Similar questions are addressed by Barbara Glendon, O.S.U., in her article, "Models of Community," REVIEW FOR RELI~,IOtJS, Vol. 38, No. 2 (January/February, 1979), 206-216. 2Jessie Bernard, The Sociology ofCommuhity (Glenview, Illinois: Scott Foresman and Company, 1973), pp. I-2. 828/ Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 3Robert A. Nisbet, The Sociological Tradition (New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publish-ers, 1967), p. 47. aBernard, pp. 4-5. SMaureen O'Keefe, L.S.A.', "Reflections on Spirituality and Religious Life," unpub-lished paper written for an all-day program on "Reflection on Apostolic Religious Life in the Archdiocese of New York" held on April 29, 1984 at Mount St. Vincent, Bronx, N.Y. ~Ibid. 7Corita Clark, R.D.C., "Communal Dimensions," unpublished paper on the interpretations of data gathered from women religious of the Archdiocese of New York who attended a program entitled, "The Experience of Religious Life in the United States" on February 4; 1984, p. 8. 81bid. 9John Naisbitt, Megatrends (New York: Warner Books, Inc. 1982), pp. 159-188. ~°Ibid, pp. 231-247. ~qbid, pp. 55-77. ~2Here 1 would recommend Carol Gilligan's book, In a Different Voice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, .1982) where she presents the thesis that women's experience of relationship and care must be included in theories of human development which traditionally have stressed men's experience of individuation and autonomy. ~3Clark, p. 8. ~4Ernest R. Folardeau, S.S.S., "Religious Life is a Communion," REVIEW FOR REI,I-G~ OtJS (January-February, 1984), pp. 65-68. The basic ideas for this section are taken from this article. From Tablet to Heart: Internalizing New Constitutions I and II by Patricia Spillane, M.S. C. Price: $1.25 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Llndell Blvd. St. Louis, Mlssoud 63108 Eucharistic Community of Disciples William E Hogan, C.S.C. Father Hogan's last article, "A Sense of Consecration," appeared in the issue of November/December, 1983. He continues to reside at the generalate of the Christian Brothers: Fratelli Cristiani; Via della M~glianella, 375; 00166 Roma, Italy. Since Vatican II it has beeri commonplace to say that the Eucharist is the highpoint of the day, the summit, the center. This is the manner of expres-sion one encounters in constitutions, conferences, formation instructions, and so forth. Yet many of us on the individual and community level could very well ask ourselves if in fact the Eucharist is the central point of our-day, if we do approach it. with the spirit and outlook that enables it to be our real focal point. In actuality we may well,discover that our vision of Eucharist is narrow, and that we "do"~Eucharist because it is expected of us. It is not too distant in the past that big gatherings were marked with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, for that was an accustomed way of noting special occasions. Now whena group of religious come 'together for a meeting or solemnity, the expectation is that the occasion will call for a community Mass. This is all well and good, but we may be missing its impact on the community and our individual persons unless our eucharistic horizons are broad; for it should not simply be an occasion for celebrating with song and ceremony. Indeed, it is also a moment for healing, for proclamation, and for recommissioning in service. Our times have seen a wonderful explosion of renewed insights into Eucharist as a result of theological and scriptural reflectionJ There has been a return to many of the aspects of eucharistic awareness prevalent in the early Christian community, but progressively neglected with the.pas-sage of time, especially when the vision of so many was primarily restricted 829 I1~1~ / Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 to Eucharistic Adoration. These insights should not be left in the intellectual domain; if carried over .and integrate.d into our daily vision, they can greatly enrich one's appreciation of Eucharist and help toward a realization of the Eucharist as the center of the day and of the community. As a means of helping people to make the Eucharist central, spiritual writers often enough used to speak of spending half of the day in thanksgiving for the Eucharist that had been celebrated and the other half in preparation for the next Eucharist. Surely many individuals found this approach helpful, but even more could be gained from incorporating into our lives the fruit of the present eucharistic renewal. At the outset, though, let us not be tempted to reject the wealth of spirituality that has come to us over the centuries from this emphasis on Eucharistic Adoration. For time spent in the Eucharistic Presence can serve as a powerful source of growth and strength in one's relationship to the Lord and to others, especially in terms of fostering an awareness of the many other presences of God 'in one's daily living. Through a lived awareness of the community, service and prophetic dimensions of Eucharist, individuals and communities may discover that Eucharist can be an integrating factor of daily life, and lead them to become a "eucharistic community of disciples,;' as the Lord Jesus intended. When we gather as a community to hear God's word and offer ourselves in union with Christ to .the Father, we assemble as a people of brokenness in need of healing and forgiveness for .our failures to carry out the Lord's command of love for, and service to, our sisters and brothers.° We bear all the weaknesses with which our personal and community qives~are laden~ and ~with the multiple failures ofour unfulfilled resolves to be more open to the Lord individually and together. We come in need of individual and community healing. The initial rite of the Eucharist introduces us to its forgiving and healing aspect as we sincere.ly acknowledge our need. It opens us up to rediscover the presence of Christ in our midst--not just the presence of Christ in his word, in the consecrated bread and wine, in the minister, ~,but in~ the very group of people with whom we have come together to worship. Jesus is there in the midst of the human weakness, the~ tensions, the variety of personality types, the physical sizes and shapes. He is there because we are gathered in his name. And he calls us forth from ourselves to discern his presence at the time in the community of worship. ,~ It is not enough that we discern his other presence~ in the eucharistic celebration. Our eucharist does not deserve the name in the full sense if we are unaware of his presence in the assembly, since Eucharist involves the interrelationship of a series or network of modes of Christ's presences. It is, as it were, a way in which Christ concretizes the connection between love Eucharistic Community of Disciples for God and love for people. It is an extension of the Emmaus incident in which the two travelers could recbgnize Christ in the breaking of the bread because they had shown hospitality toa fellow journeyman, inviting him to stay with them. Thecommunity aspect of Eucharist is not just a matter o.f song, gestures and prayer together, important as these ~re; for they can fast descend to the level of the empty ritual against which Jesus spoke. Rather this facet of Eucharist centers on a faith conviction that Jesus is in ~the midst of his people, a Risen Brother among sisters and brothers, leading them in wor-ship of the Father by the power of the. Spirit. And the perception of this manner of Jesus' presence is related to the breadth of our view of the Jesus whom we receive in communion: We receive the Risen Lord Jesus who is inseparable from the people whom he redeemed; so that our communion with him mysteriously engages us in communion with others, Long ago St. Augustine wrote: "We receive what we are; we are what we receive, the Body of Christ." And also, "We say Amen to what we are, the B~dy of Christ." In receiving Christ we somehow receive others into ourselves; we are put in touch with them on a profound level. " The context of the Seder meal in which Jesus instituted the Eucharist was, and still is, an experience of celebration and communion, for" those participating, in the various presences of Yahweh. The gestures and' rites expressed solidarity; the history proclaimed was a family history of ~the people, extending into the very time of celeb~:ation, wherein Yahweh was present in their midst, Jesus took the richness of that meal and transformed it; he took the whole community dimension 'that was essential to it and gave it an even deeper m~aning with his promise to be with those gathered in his name. But he challenges his disciples to awareness of this presence of his; for it does not happen automatically in one's life and a community can easily miss the Jesus in whose name they are gathered. It is not enough to focus on the word, the altar, the minister. Jesus' washing the feet of his disciples reveals another facet of Eucharist: the service dimension in which the liturgy of the altar flows forth into the liturgy of life: Jesus' act of washing the feet of the apostles was an integral part of Eucharist and not an isolated event,~ It summed up the self-empty-ing that had been going on all through ,his life and which would ~find its ultimate expression in the total giving of self on Calvary. When he told his disciples "Do this in memory of me," Jesus would have referred to more than the institution of his Body and Blood. His charge to the apostles would have encompassed what led up to the actual words of institution and the whole spirit of gelf-emptying that underlied them. His command to "wash one another's feet" is closely related to "Do this in memory of me"; 1~.2 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 for without the spirit of mutual se.rvice expressed in washing one another's feet, we will 'not in fact be celebrating in memory of him even though perform the ritual of Eucharist. Eucharist necessitates that those who par-ticipate in it break the bread of their own lives with others and pour forth their blood for others in service. Christ made it clear that it was by love for others that people would recognize his disciples, and love finds its expression in servibe of others. We have only to reflect on the parable of the last judgment in the twenty-fifth chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew to see the connection Jesus made between service of others in a communion of love with them and being his disciple. Or consider the words of Jesus when his disciples wanted him to disperse the crowds when it was getting late: "Give them something to eat yourselves" (Mt 14:16; Lk 9:13). The eucharistic tone.of the gospel narrations of the incident, is reminiscent of the eucharistic call to serve others, as Jesus himself goes on to serve the crowd--and the people in the crowd also go on to share their goods and serve one another. Every time a community gathers to celebrate Eucharist, it receives a renewed challenge to go forth and serve others and share with others, to wash the feet of those whom we meet--and to let our feet be washed by others, inasmuch as a spirit of service and communion with those whom we serve requir,es an ability to receive as well as to give. All the moments and actions of ministry during each day, and the daily demands and opportunities for creating community are rooted in the liturgy celebrated at the altar, and constitute a large part of the liturgy of daily life in which we are freed from self for others and for the Father. "Do thisAn memory of me" should not be words heard only after the consecration; they should echo in our hearts all day long in all we do and tr), to live. And when our human frailty holds us back from all the self-emptying demanded of a .disciple, we bring our weakness and human failings to the next Eucharist to find therein the healing and strengthening we need to face the future .challenges of service to which that Eucharist sends us forth. Eucharist involyes not simply celebration but proclamation. "When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes" (I Co 11:26). How often those words are said or sung as an acclamation without their meaning being grasped! "The death of the Lord" speaks the love of Christ, the love that is at the heart of mission. Eucharist celebrates that love and calls the disciple to continue that love in his/her own life and proclaim it by action. The Eucharist charges individuals and commun!ties not to live for self, but to reach out to others in love and compassion, prolonging the mission of Christ right into the present. It ¯ demands that we be Christ in our day in our love for the Father and our Eucharistic Community of Disciples / 1133 sisters and brothers, laying aside untlue concern for self for the sake of others. Eucharist is not really celebrated if the proclamation of love in action is absent from the lives of those who assemble at the Eotd's table. St. Pa.ul .made this very clear in his reprimands of the Corinthian community who violated the fundamental meaning of the symbol of the Christian agape. We, too, fall into contradiction if we live in indifference to others after drinldng;~he cup of the Lord's Blood and thereby asserting'a r~Com-mitmbht to follow Jesus in the selflessness of discipleship.2 Christ queries us ifi eac~ Eucharist, as he asked James and John, whether we can drink the cup of freedom from self for others in love. When we view Eucharist as proclamation, there are implications for how we regard others, and whether our vision corr.esponds to that of Jesus. The Jesus of the Gospels shows reverence for the unique dignity of each individual; He treats others as sisters and brothers and shows special con-cern for those mistreated or rejected by society. He reaches out to others and does not live closed in on himself. The Eucharist we celebrate declares that this is the manner of acting for t.he Christian community. The procla-mation of "the death of the Lord until he comes" speaks loudly against injustice and lack of peace, but we can be deaf to the message when we are unaware of Eucharist as a challenging proclamation. It.is not enough to view Eucharist as a celebration of what we.have come to be as Christians and of the gifts we have received. While there is place for focusing on the pasL there must also,be a look to the future and to .the present with the calls to share, to serve and to proclaim that Christ's love is very much alive today. To be eucharistic means more than, to be a people of thanksgiving living in a spirit of gratitude, for Eucharist embraces calls for living discipleship and continuing to enter more deeply into it. To be a eucharistic person or community is to live a life .integrated around Eucharist in its different dimensions of community, prgclamation and ,service as well as the tradi-tional aspects of adoration, .praise, thanksgiving and reparation. The more we ponder over the facets of Eucharist, the more our day will be centered around it and be affected by it. We will perceive our day as being one in which we are missioned at the Eucharist to go forth and live and do what we proclaim at the altar; and we will come back to the Lord's table conscious of the ways we have not fully lived Eucharist because self has gotten in the way. And we will come together as community to be healed, freed and strengthened to go forih again in eucharistic mission. ~ / Review for Religious, Novembei'-December, 1985 NOTES lOne of the most valual~le sources for renewed eucharistic spirituality is the magazine Emma~uel published by the Blessed Sacrament Fathers, 194 East 76th St., N.Y., N.Y. 10021. In recent years a number of articles have appeared that afford very rich insights. Among others that could be cited: James Feeley, "TheologieS of'Eucharist" in April and May issues, 1981; James Feeley, "Eucharist as Compelling Service'r in June, 1981; Paul Bernier~ "Changing Eucharistic Perspectives" in,July/Aug., !1981; Paul Bernier, "A Century of Congresses" in Sept., 1981; :Eugene LaVerdiere, "Proclaiming the Death of the Lord" in Oct., 198 i; Joseph Hart, "The Splendor of the Eucharist" in April, 1982; Eugene LaVerdiere and John Gartner~ "Eucharist as Proclamation" in April, 1982; John Gartner and Eugene LaVerdiere, "Eucharist as Liberatiofi" in May, 1982; and 'Eugene. L~iVerdiere and John Gartner, "Eucharist and CommuniOn" in June and Sept., 1982. ' ~See Eugene LaVerdiere, "Can You Drink the Cup?" in Emmanuel, vol. 89, no: 10, Nov. 1983, pp. 490-495. The Good News ' Good news is oven-fresh and warm like bread in morning nostrils It's felt in channels of the blood ~like anticipated supper, down highway,~ rides. It's news read under lighled lamps ~ warm with the glow of chaliced wine Down all the streets and byways of our twisted years. Good news is sharing of the Word, fresh and warm communion Not yesterday's news from vacant lots or jammed in sealed-up windows, ' , Good news lets in a radiant light washed clean in morning deE, Good news is news that will not stand still. See it rise in serene suspense as each sun rises toward each day Not in cyclic repetitions but spiraling bell-tongued from towers Calling all things to itself in its tremendous inward and upward thrust Good news is news that will not stand still. Marcella M. Holloway, C.S.J. 6321 Clemens Ave. St. Louis, MO 63130 Inculturation, Community, and Conversion Gerald A. Arbuckle, S:M. Father Arbucl~le is well known t0our readers fo.r the insightful articles from his pen which have graced our pages in recent years. He has agfeed to Offer ihe fourth anrual Spring Lecture, jointly sponsored by REVIEW FQR RELIGIOUS and St. Louis University's Department of.Theological Studies, next March. Father Arbuckle may be addressed at his congregation'~ generalate: Padri Maristi; Via Alessandro Poerio 63; 00152 Roma, Italy. In language that is remarkably radical, Paul VI ten years ago identified the scope of evangelization with the transformation of cultures. ~What matters," he wrote, "is to evangelize hlJman culture and ~:ultures, not merely in a purely decorative way, as it were by applying a thin veneer, but in a vital way, in depth, and right to their very roots." l For the pope e~,a,ngeliza-tion must come alive to the people in and throughthe symbols that have meaning for them? But he is no cultural romantic, no cultural i'elativist. In the light of the Gospel some, culturally a~cept~ble symbols or customs may have to b6 rejected, others encouraged to develop. In other words, thee pope is speaking of what we now call inculturation, that is, "the dynamic relation between the Christian message and culture or cultures; an insertion of the Christian life into a culture; an ongoing process of reciprocal and critical interaction and assimilation between them."3 Religious are ,evangdizers. But to evangelize, they must first be evange-lized themselves.4 Put in another way, if they are to be agents of inculiura-tion for others,, they must first undergo inculturation themselves~ They must first submit, and keep on submitting, their own lives, their own religious life culture, to the critical evaluation of the Gospel. They must see 835 Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 to what extent their community life, their lifestyles, are negatively or posi-tively influenced by the culture to which they belong, An objective evaluation of one's culture is far from simple. It is so easy to be deceived. Some time ago I heard a European missionary working in a South-East Asian country make the following comment: I have just visited a very large formation house for religious clerical students. The quality of community life is just so perfect, so Christian. There is gentleness, humility among the candidates. No one steps out of line. No one is ever alone. There is so much harmony here. Just so different from the individualism of the western world. Contrast this with a comment of another religious priest, this time within a Western country: The community where our few students are being trained is so mature. Each student is challenged to stand on his own feet. None of this together-ness emphasis. They rarely come together; this shows their maturity, their lack 6fneed, for emotional props.° I feel this is real community. How are these comments to be evaluated? Both commentators assert that the communiiies they refer to are deeply Christian. But in fact are they so perfect? Both commentators stress opposite values: th~ value of being tightly integrated in the group and the value of standing alone. According to Gospel orientations, can both emphases be correct? How far are the reactions of the participants in ihe houses influenced by.their cultures so that the consciofis effort at building realChristian co~mianity is minimized? These are complex, but urge~nt, ~uestions. Religious may be helped to answer them with the aid of anthrbpoi~gical insights. After a'lL in~:ulturation is the evangelization' of culture and cultural anthrop~ology specializes in the systematic .study of culture. In ~ttiis article, therefore, I will seek to: -define wh~it is meant by community; ~-define culture, and describ~ Variou~ cultural ~xpr~ssions of community; -r~flect ori incuituratioh, conversion a~d~community in religious life; ' -suggest some practical formation implications of the analysis. '~ Reflections on the Nature of Community Despite the ease with which the word community is used, it is not so easy to define what it means. After reviewing ninety four definitions of community, one author concluded that "beyond thd conceptthat people are involved in commu.nity, there is no complete agreement as to the nature of community.~5 Despite this difficulty, for thepurpose of this article we might accept the distinction made by Raymond Plant: Commu.nity, he says, should be considered eithdr as a fact or as a value? Community as a' Inculturation, Community, and Conversion /837 ~fact is something sociologically definable. As a fact, community is "essen-tially a sentiment which people have about themselves; a sentiment expressed in action and behavior but still basically a feeling."7 According to David Clark, two essential feelings for the existenc~ of community are a sense, of significance and a sense of solidarity. Individuals feel they have an accepted position in the group. This gives them a feeling of significance. They feel bonds with one another; thi~ gives them a sense of solidarity. How significance and how solidarity are to be expressed in fact are most often determined by the cultui'e, or belief systems, of the people who.make up the.community. Some cultures heavily stress significance, others solidar-ity; others seek to balance the two feelings. When we speak of community as value we move away from the socio-logical area into the .ethical, .(he philosrphical or theological areas. How one defines what a community shouM be will depend on one's values.8 If one believes that the .bonds between, members of a community should be ~arkedly strong, then individuals may be forced to weaken their own feeling of personal significance. If the latter is. given top priority, then solidarity itself may weaken: For the Christian, community as a value takes its foundation from the Trinity: "May they all be one. Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you" (Jn 17:21). We struggle, with the grace of God, to give visible expression 'to the presence of the Trinity-- a sharing in love and in openness, but without the loss of personal unique-ness~ There is emphasis on other-centeredness; that is, concern for the welfare of the other, .but without loss at the same time of one's responsibility for oneself. There is allowance .for "both autonomy and mutuality.-9 There is to be the unity of heart and mind. Unity--which is not necessarily tl~e .same as uniformity--is to be achieved in and through healthy interaction, dialogue and charity,t0 It is a unity born out of freedom in Christ. Cultural Expressions of Community .,"Community" emphasizes the peoplb who feel .personal significance and/or solidarity; "culture" emphasizes the way people express this feeling in practice, The values and biases of our family, neighborhood, and com-munity to which we belong have in so many ways been shaping our feelings; emotions, and way~ of responding. Our ways of relating to other people; to those in authority, are "never simply spontaneous, but are care-fully--- if often unconsciously--learned from life around us." ~ Anthropol-ogists remain divided on how to define culture in a comprehensive way. Some would stress the importance of what people do rather than believe. More commor~ly today, however, culture is used to refer to the organized system of knowledge, of belief, whereby a people structure their experience I~1t / Review f.or Religious; November-December, 1985 and perceptions, formulate acts, and choose, between alternatives. This sense of culture refers to the realm of ideas that influences (not determines) behavior, As Ward Goodenough says, ideas "provide standards for deciding what is., what can be., how one feels about it . what to do about it . how to go about doing it."~2 Understood in this sense, culture has a deep, often unconscious, influence on behavior.: Culture gives us meanings about, the things_that we see to be important; culture gives us a sense of direction. Culture tells, us what the people we live and work with consider good or bad. Culture tells us what sanctions, if any, we will suffer if we do not accept what others do or want in.the community to which we belong. Anthropologist Mary Douglas, a leading contemporary commentator on ritual and society, in an effort to articulate how individuals can be pressured by culture to respond in certain ways, uses two basic variables: group and grid.~3 The group is the experience of belonging to a social unit, the 'feeling that "I belong to this group of people and not that group 'of people." Put in another way, group means "the outside boundary that people~have erected between themselves and the outside world."~a The grid is the set of rules, the (tangible or intangible) structures or systems that relate one person to others on an ego-centered basis. Or it connotes, asshe herself writes, "all the~other social distinctions and delegations of authority that [are used] to limit how people,behave to one another."tS~ From these two variables she creates four models of culture. I will .restrict the analysis here only to two rather important, polar-opposite models: "strong group and strong grid culture" and "weak group and weak grid culture.'~ Community will be expressed in two different ways in these cultures. ~ ,ln the ~explanation that follows, I will give more emphasis to the first model for two reasons. Firstly, information on this model is not so easily available to the general reader, unlike the material relating to the second model. Secondly, whereas the number of candidates fog the religious life is severely decreased in Western ~hurches (except in Poland and Ireland), Africa, Asia~and Oceania are seeing a true explosion of religious vocations. There is also a similar pattern relating to the recruitment of priest candi-dates.~ 6 The cultures,of these, countries tend to approximate more to the first model than the second. Diocesan authorities, religious superiors and formators, then; may very specially need to appreciate the formation and inculturation implications of this model. On the other hand, considerable literature is available on the second model, a model that has application in many parts of the Western. world. Before proceeding with the analysis, however, two clarifications are necessary. I will be describing two sociological models or frames of refer- lnculturation, Community, and Conversion / 1139 ence. A model is not a perfect abstraction from reality. Rather a model is very much a construct used to facilitaie a better understanding of very complex situations. A model reflects, reality to the extent that it highlights certain emphases or trends. A particular cultui'e can then be researched to discover just how far it conforms or diverges from the model. Secondly, though the first model is particularly common throughout Africa;~Asia, Oceaniaand South America, this does not mean it is not also operative within Western countries, It is just less dominant in these coun-tries, Similarly when I refer to the second model, weak group.and weak grid, as particularly characterizing Western countries, it does not mean it does not have application at times also in parts of the Third World lands. Strong Group and Strong Grid Culture . Inthis model the strong grid involves moral and normative prohibitions that limit or highly structure interaction. The stress on group identity gives security to,individuals, but at the same time confines them to close relations only with people within the boundaries of the group. The feeling of solidar-ity, not personal significance, characterizes this culture and thus is the dominant expression of community living: Within the community, behavior is highly traditional; what was done in the past becomes the measure of what should bedone now and in the future, Frequently, the position of each individual within tt]e community is clearly-- and even rigidly--defined, even before birth, by the rules of kinship, Kin-ship (the extended family system) is the articulating principle of all social and economic organization. For example, all members of one's tribe or clan may be named "grandfather," "grandmother," "father" or "mother," "brother" or "sister," "son" or "daughter" depending on the ages of those concerned, e.g. all males belonging to my father's generation are called ~ather." The titles denote what behavior is expected of the people with whom one comes into contact. The effective principle ,that binds people together in such c~ultures and communities is reciprocity. Often kinship rules dictate precisely who receives what, how much and from whom. Within cultures of this type there is a vigorous ideology that gives priority, to group cohesiveness, togetherness, interdependence and group harmony. Often this ideology is summarized in one word or in a brief expression. For example, among Maoris in New Zealand there is the term aroha. The root meaning of aroha is "love of kin," and it implies not only affectionate feelings but also the issue of these feelings in action. Since kinship is now not so'important to Maoris, aroha is applied to friends also, but still in the event of conflict the sense of obligation to kin is likely to prove the stronger.~7 ~ / Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 In Papua New Guinea, where there are five :hundred languages and at least one thousand dialects for 3',000,000 .people, the commonly heard expression is wantok ("one-talk" or.same language).~8 In Japan the word wa is Used; the word connotes the priority that must be given to unity, cohesiveness, team spirit, the:cultivation of good feelings among members of the same firm or family,t9 In the Philippines ~faithfulness to the group, called, bayanihan, is emphasized.2° A particularly key expression in Philippines~culture is paki-kisama; this underlies virtually the entire structure of social relationships~ Priority is given to smooth interpersonal relationships at all times and pakikisama is a primary way of achieving such smoothness. It' means "giving in," "following the lead or suggestion of another"; in a word, "concession," even when one knows that the coffcession is objectively wrong.2~ Pakikisama, as a value, favors avoidance of direct confrontaiion that could lead to open and violent aggressive behaviors, The desire for' frictionless relationships can result in extensive use of euphemism in con-versation, and the speech is loaded with metaphors that convey a message with minimum risk of offense3 There are few concepts, as deeply rooted in the Western mind as the concept of self. Westerners generally are apt to see (hemselves as distinct beings, "separate from all others in most important respects, with separable beliefs, talents, and experiences. 23 In contrast to this approach, Japanese see themselves or define themselves as part of a larger group. One's separate "identity" is not separated "out as the primary sign of personal development; maturity for them usually means merging with the collective whole. The Western interpretation of~ maturity lies precisely in the autonomy of .the individual. Japanese, in brief, derive their identities in part from those nearest to them. There is a partial merging of identities so that the identity of the group is apt to be the dominant force: As in Japanese culture, so in these other cultures which resemble the strong group and strong grid model. Collectivism, or the feeling of solidarity, with stress upon harmony and consensus, generates pressure .for conformity to group norms, pressure to ~'be like everyone else." Conspicuous idiosyncracy and dissension are avoided or suppressed, and acquiescence is upheld as main mechanismsfor maintaining consensus. There are many subtle but effective ways to ensure conformity to the group and to behavior expectations of the group (grid). There is the fear of being gossiped about, of being made the object of ridicule. if norms are broken. ~ ¯ The Japanese sociologist, Chie Nakane, in explaining the stress on the group as the foundation for community, says that people adhere to the group "not by religion or philosophy but by a very human morality. The Inculturation, Community, and Conversion / 041 yardstick of this morality is always determined by contemporary trends. The feeling that '.I must do this because A and B also do it' or 'They will laugh at me unless I do such-and-such' rules the life of the individual with greater force ~han any other consideration, and thus has a deep effect on decision,making."24 The fear of being shamed if one does something differ-ent ~from the group holds the individual in check. The adoption of Western ambitions for personal freedom is almost incomprehensible to persons with traditional Japanese assumptions about group loyalty. As in Japan, so also in other cultures which approximate to our model of strong group and strong grid. One famous Fijian leader commented on the vital quality of liberality as an expression of solidarity within the group: "Liberality is the law of tradition, and to give evidence of thrift or arouse suspicions of miserliness is to sin against the law."25 Of Tahitians, B. Finney writes: "Stinginess is not admired., and anyone judged stingy is often pejoratively referred to as Popa's (European)."26 The concept of hiya in the Philippines has been described as shame, but the English word does not adequately convey the .term's meaning. It is a form of self-deprecation, involving embarrassment, inferiority, and shyness all arising from having behaved improperly in relating to the group. The fear of being shamed is one of the more powerful sanctions operating to maintain the overall system of social and group relationships?7 The fear of being cast out of the group, ostracism, either by being physically removed or verbally ignored or snubbed, is a most powerful sanction against individual non-conformity to group and grid demands. In Genesis Cain is not to be executed for murdering Abel. His punishment is to be yet worse: ". 'You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer over the earth.' Then Cain said to Yahweh, 'My punishment is greater than I can bear'" (4:1 2-13). In ~'strong group and strong grid" cultures people may attempt to break away from the group demands, but few can take the ostracism for very long.28 Finally, there is the ever-present fear in many communities that if the norms of group and grid are not followed, there will be supernatural sanctions imposed: the spirits, ancestors, witches, sorcerers, or even God himself will impose punishment on wrongdoers. Punishment may be immediate or long delayed, e.g~ a person, becomes sick and then remembers :a group norm was broken sometime in the past. Sometimes the wrong-doing can be comPensated for, e.g. by girl giving, or sometimes people feel that nothing can be done, and death or suffering must be accepted in a spirit of fatalism.29 Weak Group and Weak Grid In this model both group and grid or social networks have little grip on 1t42 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 individuals. The emphasis is on individualism, on individual decision-mak-ing and initiative. As Ferdinand Tonnies put it: '~'Here everyone is by himself and isolated, and there exists a condition of tension against all others. Their spheres of activity and power are sharply separated, so that everybody' refuses to everyone else contacts with and admittance to his sphere, i~e. intrusions are regarded as hostile acts."30 Interpersonal relation-ships are basically competitive. People compete with each other to gain personal advantage, status. There is no deep mutual sentiment that can generate trust and reciprocal concern. Inter:relationShips are governed by formal contracts; people are ever ready'legally,to sue one another for suspected violation of personal rights in all kinds of spheres. Douglas describes the model in this way: "Instead of accepting their allotted station in a given scheme of things, as where grid is strong, each family is involved, for its very survival, in the effort for advantageous alliance--marital, de-fensive, or financial.''3~ We still refer to this type of interrelationship as community, not just because personal significance is stressed but because in some very vague, but real, way people feel some sentiment' of solidarity, even if it is paradoxi-cally conflictual. They may fe~l some sense of common, belonging, ever so faint, because they live in the same house br work in the same building or firm. But it is a sense of belonging that is so weak that it cannot be depended on for much support, if any, when one is in difficulty. In this model personal significance is vigorously emphasized. Hence, the stress on individualism and the struggle to establish a sense of personal acceptance in community through competitive work and through material symbols of achievement. But the struggle .for .status in such a competitive world is a never-ending battle, with success at best very fleeting. In this culture model, the cult of self-fulfillment is strong~ how can I best improve myself through my own efforts, my own self-discipline, my own efforts at manipulation of others for my advantage?32 Recently social-economist Amitai Etzione severely criticized the United States for uncriti-cally adopting this model of culture and community: "[We] have experienced a hollowing of America in which community was whittled down. Greater reliance on government has been accompanied by promotion of a particular brand of individualism best labeled egotism, sometimes referred to as 'me-ism' or hedonism, and . . . built into antisocial interpretations of the psychology of self-actualization."3~ Some claim that people like Locke, Hobbes and Adam Smith contrib-uted to the emergence of the weak group and grid culture in America, because these authors stressed the primacy of the individual and the wisdom of a society built on self-sufficiency.34 But America is not alone in stressing lnculturation, Community, and Conversion / 1143 the significance of the individual to the detriment of solidarity. Within the Australian ,popular folklore, for example, there is also the cult of the rugged individualist. As one writer said "the Australian way of life" was "something much deeper than words can depict," that it embodied some "inner principle'~' which, although difficult to define, was related to "the freedom, the security, the justice and the individualism of life in this sun-burned, muscular continent."35 Evaluation of the Two Culture/Community Models E. Aronson.points out that the human person can respond to social/ cultural influence in three possible ways: by compliance, identification or internalizationP6 Compliance connotes the reaction of a person who behaves in a certain way to gain ~reward 9r to avoid punishment. If the group pressure to act is sufficiently strong, .then the person who~complies will go along with the group to acquire praise or avoid difficulties, Decisions as to what to do or not do: are taken, without his involvement or responsibility. When identification takes place a person acts in a certain way in imita-tion of the person who is influencing him. The action is done not to ga!n a reward or avoid punishment, but simply to be like the influencer. The internalization .of a value or belief is by far the. most permanent, most deeply rooted, response to outside influence. The reason to internalize a particular belief is the desire ,to be right. The reward for the~ belief, is intrinsic. A personal conversion is required to achieve internalization in" order to withstand the pressures for compliance and in order to avoid the fickleness of identification. ln~.the two culture/community models described above, are there., influences that foster or hinder the internalization of Gospel community values? Are there~factors within these models that are conducive to Gospel ."a.utonomy and mutuality"~. I will take each model in turn and attempt to respond to these questions. Evaluation of the Strong Group and Strong Grid Culture A researcher who studied seventy years of parliamentary ~debates in New Zealand reflected on the consequences of what was then an example of strong group and strong grid culture emphases: "Here in a small and culturally homogeneous milieu is the spectacle of a majority rule producing some of the consequences. : the dulling effect of the mass mind, the dominance of conventional opinion, the despotism of custom, the intoler-ance of unorthodoxy, the sacrifice of talent to the worship of averages, a world made safe for mediocrity."37 In the strong group ~and grid culture, 844 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 uniformity in behavior becomes almost synonymous with patriotism. The pressure to conform to the group, and to the established, detailed, rules of life, can be so strong .that the individual's capacity to make independent judgments and to take autonomous action in light of Gospel values is severely restricted. The culture provides, therefore, little or no opportuni-ties for significant independent and responsible personal action. The sense of individual identity is anchored in group belongingness and is thus sustained by going along with peers. This goes with the desirability of being accepted by peers, the anxiety connected with being left out, and a competitive urge for always being in. One economist, reflecting on the causes of povery within the Pacific Islands, pointed to the traditional dominance of the group over the individual as one major obstacle to the removal, of poverty: Generous giving has been elevated to a very high place in traditional standards . Taking advantage of a general acceptance of this customary attitude, proceedsfrom the sale of crops, wages orany accumulated prop-erty are subject to demands from all sides.; the proportionate scale and nature of these demands being such that it is difficult for any individual tO retain funds or .useful property and the earner or producer after successive distributions is usually discouraged from making further effort.38 Given pressures of this kind, it is very difficult for the individual to come into contact with his or her real self, with the reality of loneliness. One becomes imprisoned by group pressures, isolated from one's inner self. "The stress on togetherness," write Eric and Mary Josephson, "is a particu-larly pernicious pulsation that may acquire a pathological character. While togetherness may lessen the feeling of being lonely, it is really only an exchange of isolation for an unrealistic'imprisonment of brotherhood'?'39 Not only does the pressure to conform to the group result in hiding One's own loneliness, but the pressure to appear happy and one with others can cover over real tensions, aggressive feelings and'~ anger which remain unresolved. Westerners, who may come from cultures that overstress ruthless and competitive individualism, when they come into contact with strong group and grid cultures--in which harmony and.external conformity are stressed-- are tempted !o fall victim.to the pernicious disease of cultural romanticism. They fail to see that individuals can be culturally oppressed. This is the case in the comments by the first observer to whom I referred in the introduction of this article. The observer assumed that the cheerfulness he saw was inspired by .Gospel values. I, for my part, cannot be so sweeping in my praise. The observer noted that "no one is ever alone." The particular culture on which the observer was commenting was of the strong group Inculturation, Community, and Conversion/.1145 and grid type, in which a person regularly spending lengthy periods of time . alone in reflection and study was considered definitely odd, even a traitor tothe group's idea of Gospel community.~ In this culture individuals lacked the space, freedom, challenge and support, to be themselves, to be auto-nomous. The same community covered over very real interpersonal ten-sions. If such tensions were ever to come out into the open, to be resolved in a Christian manner, it was thought, such revelations would destroy "the God-given, culture-supported harmony." In brief, in answer to the above questions about internalization, the strong group and grid culture is not necessarily conducive to the internali-zation of Gospel community based on thevalues of autonomy and mutual-ity. Rather, individuals are subjected to strong cultural forces or biases that are conducive to compliance or external acceptance of the group's ~values. Evangelization is apt to remain a thin veneer, something "purely decora-tive.'' 4° If.individuals are suddenl~ removed from such a culture, not infre-quently the fa~ilure to internalize the objective values of Christian autonomy -and mutuality shows up only too dramatically and painfully. For example, migrants who, within their countries of origin, have been living a form of cultural Catholicism are not likely to continue to practice their faith in the land of their adoption--unless there is a conversion and an internalization of Catholic values.4~ To the unsuspecting observer, therefore, the pleasantness that so often pervades the strong group and grid cultures may come across as thoroughly Christian and growth-oriented. But the reality, at times can be very different. "Sin,,' for example, can be conceived prima.rily as "individual failure in group obligations." "Sin" in this sense can. be "removed" not necessarily through a reconversion requiring deep interior change, but through a ritual of"face-saving" actions, e.g. the handing over of a certain amount of goods to the one or to the group offended:42 Evangelization of cultures, then, requires sensitivity both to their positive and negative features. "The Gos-pel," writes Paul VI, "[is] certainly not identical with culture."43 "Evaluation of the Weak Group and Weak Grid Culture There are some rather trenchant critiques of cultures that approximate to the weak group and grid culture model. In Australia, claims Ronald Conway, the vigo'rous cultural s.upport for individualism and the competi-tive pursuit of material happiness has left many an Australian "blank-souled," "a starved captive in a dungeon created by generations of either not caring or dreading to show care.''44 He speaks of "fragile foundations of impoverished interpersonal communication."45 In America, social critic John Kavanaugh believes that "Christianity at 1~6 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 rock bottom radically conflicts with American culture, even subverts its';46 He believes that individualism, the ruthless, competitive pursuit of material happiness and achievement all conflict with Gospel values. Historian David Potter's insights would support this view. He argues that the search for personal freedom, coupled with the rejection of any society-ascribed statuses, has gone so far within the American ethos that people have become involved in a never-ending search through work for improved, personally achieved statuses. The loneliness, isolation, insecurity and ten-sions, he states, that result within individuals who are caught up in this '~status rat race" are enormous and overpowering for many individuals.47 Christopher Lasch claims that in. America "the culture of competitive indi-vidualism., in its decadence has carried the logic of individualism to the extreme of a war of all against all, the pursuit of happiness to the end of a narcissistic .preoccupation with the self."48 Joseph Tetlow claims that American culture so stresses the value of good health and .the value of .being young that "This conviction stamps our religious experience in a very notable way and gives concrete shape to our spirituality. For Americans do not easily believe that Grd loves someone and has forgiven that person's sins as long as that person suffers in any way."~9 We need comment no further. So forceful can the weak group and grid culture be in exalting the powers and worth of the individual that terms'like "human interdependence," "mutuality," "social justice" and "compassion for the marginal" sound almost sinful! Compassion; social justice, Charity, mutuality--are atthe very heart of the Christian message. If culture vigor-ously supports the contrary values--as does the weak group and grid culture then individuals are under strong pressure at least to comply with such forces. Not to comply is to be considered odd, a dropout, one who does not believe in the importance of status-seeking. ' Given these comments, readers will now be rather suspicious of the second comment, regarding a religious community of students; which was given in the introduction to this article. The words "[th6 students] rarely come together: this shows their maturity" rather reflect the wider cultural stress on "rugged individualism" in the sense pictured above. Members of that religious formation house may well find the following description highly congenial to their cultural tastes: "Commt:nity is seen as a necessary encumbrance, for the paying of bills, for security, or just for convenience . Use of the car and enough money for each member to become independent becomes the major issues."5° Recently Eugene Kennedy, summarizing social criticism of America (and by implication, similar cultures), noted the "elevation of the individual and his or her own world to a dizzying centrality in life. A new Inculturation, Community, and Conversion / 1147 authoritarianism resides in the unattached person, a tyranny is exercisedby a person who counts on nobody, affiliates loyally with no one,.and finds the beginning and end of gratification in the self .This leads to a muted ethical sense."~ These weak group and grid characteristics have no place within religious communities. But Philip Slater, another perceptive critic, while agreeing with Kennedy and others about the excessive individualism, believes also that there is a desire--however weak--for community, for the opportunity to share with others in a spirit of trust and cooperation.52 Evangelization needs to relate to this aspiration. Inculturation and Conversion We return to a deeper understanding of inculturation. It is the dynamic and critical interaction between the Gospel message and each culture. This is a radically different process from that of acculturation. The latter is a process of culture change in which ~ore or less continuous contact between two ormore culturally distinct groups results in one group taking over elements of the culture of the other group or groups. For example, when, in the course of the last century, Christianity came to Samoa in the South, Pacific, it took deep roots in the local society. But at least at one key level Christidnity became acculturated to the existing system of traditional government. The traditional, chiefly rank system became sanctioned and supported by Jehovah himself, according to local interpretations of biblical history. When chiefs punished, Jehovah punished. The status quo became utterly frozen, supported now with supernatural sanctions. Little wonder if Christian ministers themselves became equivalently chiefs, wielding consid-erable power and°authority--all in the name of Jehovah. Christianity lost its freedom at a crucial level; it became trapped in the traditional authority system .53 John Futrell points out a more contemporaryexample of acculturation. When reflecting on what happened to religious life following Vatican If, he wrote on how religious acculturated values and customs of the consumer culture into their own lifestyle: "Along with th& affirmation of the world came a rapid a~similation of the lifestyle of the social subject being served . Religious began more and more" to live the way of upper-middle-class families and unconsciously fell prey to a creeping consumerism.TM How then can such acculturation be avoided? How in fact does incultu-ration take place, so that religious communities can reflect Gospel values? Who does the inculturation? John Paul II offers the answers to these questions, lnculturation, he says, must be the fruit of maturity~'in faith; it requires ',a great deal of 8411 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1985 theologicai lucidity, spiritual discernment, wisdom and prudence, and also time . [and] there is always a conversion to be effected., to the person of Christ,"5.SElsewhere, he insists that inculturation "presupposes a long and courageous process., in order that the Gospel may penetrate the soul of living cultures.''56 Then there will be "the liberation, the purification, the transfiguration" desired by Jesus Christ.57' There is no shortcut to inculturation, no room for gimmicks, It requires, following John Paul II: -a lucid vision of religious life; -a critical reflection on cultures in light of this vision; -personal and community ongoing conversion. 1. Vision of Religious Life Religious accept, as the basic orientation of their lives, that all Christians "of whatever rank or status are called to. the fullness of the Christian life. and the perfection of charity."58 Religious without res

Issue 34.4 of the Review for Religious, 1975. ; Review ]or Religious is edited by faculty members of the School of Divinity of St. Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building: 539 North Grand Boulevard: St. Lot, is, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copy-right @ 1975 by Review [or Religious. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A; Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.75. Sub-scription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year; $11.00 for two years; other countries, $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to Review ]or Religious in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent Review ]or Religious. Change of address requests should include former address. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor July 1975 Volume 34 Number 4 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to Review for Religious; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts and books for review should be sent to Review for Religious; 612 Humbuldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. Women Priests and the Episcopal Church Leonel L. Mitchell Leonel L. Mitchell, whose most. recent publication is: Liturgical Change: How Much Do We Need? (Crossroad Books, 1975), is an Episcopal priest and Assistant Professor, Department of Theology; University of Notre Dame; Notre Dame, IN 46556. It is the intention of this paper to treat the topic of the ordination of women quite narrowly. It will not deal with the general question of the biblical, historical, and theological considerations involved in the ordination of women to the priesthood, but will attempt the more modest task of reporting the con-temporary debate as it exists in the Episcopal Church. This debate has two related but distinct foci: (1) the desirability of amending the canon law of the Episcopal Church so as to permit the ordination of women to the priesthood, and (2) the "ordination" last year of 11 women to the priesthood by three bishops without diocesan jurisdiction in violation of the presently existing canons. There are many in the Episcopal Church who strongly favor the or-dination of women, but condemn the action th~it was taken in Philadelphia on July 29, 1974. ". The 1973 Canterbury Statement of the Anglican-Roman Catholic Inter-naiional Commission ( A R CI C ) entitled "Ministry and Ordination" detailed in 16 headings a common statement of Anglica.n and Roman Catholic understand-ing of the meaning of "ordination in the apostolic succession." A few quotations from this statement should make clear what ministry it is to which women seek ordination in the Episcopal Church, and why this debate is of con-cern to Roman Catholics: Despite the fact that in the New Testament minisiers are never called 'priests' (hiereis), Christians came to see the priestly role of Christ reflected in these ministers and used priestly terms in describing them . Not only do [Christian ministers] share through baptism in the priesthood of the people of God, but they are--particularly in presiding at 51~. / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/4 the Eucharist--representative of the whole Church in the fulfillment of its priestly voca-tion of self-offering to God as a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1) Nevertheless their ministry is not an extension of the common Christian priesthood but belongs to another realm of the gifts of the Spirit. (Par. 13) Ordination denotes entry into this apostolic and God-given ministry, which serves and signifies the unity of the local churches in themselves and with one another. Every in-dividual act of ordination is therefore an expression of the continuing apostolicity and catholicity of the whole Church. (Par. 14) What is involved, then, in the Anglican discussion is not whether women are full members of the Body of Christ and share in the priesthood of the Church, nor is the question one of their suitability to serve as Christian ministers. Women can and do serve in non-sacerdotal ministries in the Episcopal Church. The question is solely whether women can (not should) be ordained to the ministerial priesthood and serve as presidents of the Eucharistic assembly. I do not believe that arguments based on the inexpediency of ordaining women deserve serious consideration. It will always be inexpedient to do something we do not wish to see done. If women can be priests, then what but masculine prejudice prevents them from being so ordained? The question then turns on the hinge of "Are women proper subjects for the sacrament of priestly ordination?" Anglicans do not usually formulate the question in this way, but it is what they mean. Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church permits the or-dination of women to the diaconate. In 1862 the Bishop of London revived the order of deaconess in the Church of England by ordaining a woman by "im-position of hands." In 1885 the first such ordination was performed in the United States by the Bishop of Alabama, and in 1889 the American Episcopal Church regulated what it called the "setting apart" of deaconesses by ap-propriate canons. By setting up separate regulations for deacons and deaconesses, however, the canons raised the question of whether deaconesses were deacons, or ministers of some other sort. They did not wear stoles, nor assist in ministering Communion. In remote mission areas without a priest, deaconesses often led prayer ser~iices, officiated at Matins and Evensong, and conducted baptisms and funerals, but in ordinary parishes they served as sacristans, parish visitors, and directors of Christian education. They were, in fact, considered by many priests to be, as it were, "secular nuns" who could do useful things around the church. The fact that the diaconate itself was not well understood did not help to clarify the role of the deaconess. The apostolicity of the order of deacon has been continuously asserted by the Anglican Church, but in fact, deacons who are not fledgling priests have been almost totally unknown since the 16th cen-tury. The.revival of the "perpetual diaconate" for men in the period following World War II has produced a revival of interest in the diaconal ministry, and a beginning of the study of the diaconate as a ministry in its own right, not as a rung on the ladder of ecclesiastical preferment. Women Priests and the Episcopal Church In the Episcopal Church the question of the status of deaconesses was forcefully raised by the late Bishop James A. Pike, who (whatever his failings) was never afraid of a good fight. In 1965 he declared on his own authority as Bishop of California that deaconesses were women deacons, and proceeded to act on that assumption by recognizing Deaconess Phyllis Edwards of his diocese as a deacon. In a ceremony at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco~ he in-vested her with the deacon's stole and presented her with the New Testament from which she read the eucharistic gospel. She also assisted in the ministra-tion of communion in the manner usual for Anglican deacons, by ad-ministering the chalice. The lawyer-bishop was careful to explain that the ser-vice was not an ordination, since, in his view, Deaconess Edwards had already been ordained a deacon when she was "set apart" as a deaconess. Since most Episcopalians had never given any thought to the subject of the ordination of deacons of either sex, they were horrified. The bishops reacted (as Anglican bishops frequently do) by appointing a study commission to report on "The Proper Place of Women in the Ministry of the Church." At about the same time in England a similar report, entitled "Women in Holy Orders," was presented to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. In 1968 the Lambeth Conference, the decennial meeting of Anglican bishops from all over the world, accepted the principle that deaconesses were "within the diaconate" and referred the question of the ordination of women to the priesthood to the various national churches or provinces, for further study. In 1969 the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, meeting at the University of Notre Dame, amended its canons to permit women for the first time to be licensed as lay readers and to administer the chalice. The 1970 Convention formally endorsed the position that deaconesses were women deacons and amended the canons to that effect. From 1970 on, therefore, men and women have been ordaindd to the diaconate in the Episcopal Church under the same set of regulations, by the same rite, and clearly to the same office. There was, of course, one important difference. Male deacons were either candidates for the priesthood, or they intended to combine service as a "perpetual" deacon with another occupation from which they expected to derive their income. The women, on the other hand, were go-ing into full-time professional ministry, like most of the men with whom they had graduated from seminary. Few of them saw their vocation as being to the "perpetual" diaconate, but the possibility of ordination to the priesthood was denied them. In 1971 the Bishop of Hong Kong and Macao, acting after consultation with his diocese and the Bishops of South East Asia, ordained two women to the priesthood. The previous bishop had pe~'formed a similar ordination in 1944, during World War II, but the Archbishop of Canterbury had formally refused to recognize the ordination, and the woman ordained, ki Tim Oi, renounced her orders for the peace of the ChurCh. This time the Anglican Con-sultative Council (which is a secretariat rather than a decision-making synod) interpreted the resolutions of Lambeth 1968 to permit him to act: ~i14 / Review for Religious, l~olume 34, 1975/4 This Council advises the Bishop of Hong Kong, acting with the approval of his Synod, and any other bishop of the Anglican Communion acting.with the approval of his Province, that, if he decides to ordain women to the priesthood, his action will be accept-able to this Council. (Resolution 28, Anglican Consultative Council, Limuru, Kenya, 23 February-5 March 1971) The resolution carried the Council 24-22, and it was on the strength of this ap-proval that Bishop Baker p~:oceeded with the ordinations. In that same year the American bishops were asked to endorse the princi-ple of the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate, and to prepare legislation for that purpose. The resolution was presented by the Bishops' Committee on Ministry. The House of Bishops (in customary fashion) appointed a study committee of seven bishops. This was the second study commission of the American bishops on the ministry of women in l0 years. The complaint of women that the question has been sufficiently studied would seem to be justified. The report was presented to the bishops in 1972. A straw vote was then taken on the question of the ordination of women to the priesthood. This was a simple expi'ession of personal opinion, not a legislative vote. The bishops voted 74-61 in favor of admitting women to the priesthood. This is the approval of the bishops so often mentioned in the debate since. The report itself exhibits an internal schizophrenia, including two different versions of a section on "Scripture, Tradition, and Images," one favoring the ordination of women, the other opposing it. It was distributed, not only to the bishops but to all priests and other interested persons, in mimeographed form, and was later printed in the 1973 Convention Journal. It begins with the assertion that the Church admits both men and women to the diaconate, and cites New Testament precedents (Romans 16:i, Acts 9:36, I Tim 3:8-13) and the opinion of C. H. Dodd: We may fairly suppose that the order of deacons which emerged in the second century. had its origin in Paul's own time; and that it included women as well as men. (Dodd, C. H., The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, p. 235) The report describes the contemporary understanding of the diaconate as ':murky and confused" and calls for a fresh statement of the meaning of the diaconal ministry. It is interesting that the acceptance of women as deacons is not considered controversial by the bishops, but is the assumed starting ground for further discussion. Certainly no such consensus could have been obtained in 1965. Turning from the diaconate to the priesthood, the report describes the or-dained priest as "called of God and authorized by the body" to act for both the Lord and his Church "in ways far beyond our understanding." It asserts: His priesthood is not derived from the Church nor has anyone a right to claim priesthood; the priest is called to receive a gift in ordination, which comes from the Father. But his call and the gift are alike recognized and ratified by the Church; he acts for them in exer-cising the gift. Thus the authority and accountability conferred in ordination have a dou-ble reference. No man exercises priesthood in a vacuum. Women Priests and the Episcopal Church / 515 When it considers the possibility of the ordination of women to the episcopate, the report confronts the question directly: In the case of episcopacy, as in that of priesthood, the suggestion of a duality of repre-sentative roles raised in some of our minds the question as to the significance of male-hess as a necessary attribute or characteristic of the Bishop. Perhaps even more than the priest, the episcopal Father-in-God imagery is that of a male figure and none of us doubts the extraordinary tensions and problems which would confront the Church were women to be chosen to be bishops. But the question remains, in some of our minds, whether it can be said that female-ness is a diriment impediment to their consecration as bishops. I believe that this puts the question in proper terms. It is not a matter of whether one thinks a specific woman would or would not make a good priest. That is a pastoral question to be answered by those specifically charged with approving candidates for ordination. Some women, like some men, would make unbelievably bad priests. If this is true of some of the 11 women or-dained in Philadelphia in July 1974, it is demonstrably true of many of the already ordained male priests in the Episcopal Church, and, 1 assume, in other churches as well. The report then proceedes to two sections upon which the committee was divided. In the first it presents arguments again~st the ordination of women, and in the second it presents arguments for it. Most of the debate on the sub-ject in the Episcopal Church has been simple and straightforward. Opponents of the ordination of women have said that there is no support for it in Scripture or Tradition, that the Church has never ordained women, and to do so now would be stark novelty, and therefore both uncatholic and heretical, its ad-vocates have countered that there is nothing in Scriiature to forbid it, that there is no a priori theological reason for not doing it, and that the mere fact that it has never been done is no argument at all. They point out that to argue simply on the basis of contrary practice is to commit the Church to the view that change is either impossible or wrong--a doctrine which all admit has been widely believed, but which deserves to be relegated to oblivion--and which is demonstrably untrue in such cases as the Church's attitude toward slavery. A great deal of the literature which supports the ordination of women has argued with undeniable truthfulness that much of the opposition of male priests to the ordination of women stems from the men's insecurity in their own sexual and ministerial roles. Itis undoubtedly also true that at least some of the women seeking ordinat.ion have comparable problems, but neither point seems worthy of serious consideration, and the bishops' report does not raise it. It is, of course, theoretically possible to argue that although all of the people actually opposing the ordination of women are doing so from unworthy motives, the position itself is true. It is likewise possible to argue that although none of the candidates actually presenting themselves should be ordained, it is proper to ordain women. More concretely, it is hardly reasonable of the Church for it to set up a system in which all but the most stout-hearted will become discouraged long before they are actually accepted as candidates for ordination, and then complain about the lack of humility and modesty of the 511~ / Review for Religious, l/olurne 34, 1975/4 survivors. The principle of abusus non tollit usum needs to be applied with great rigidity here. The section of the bishops' report which opposes the ordination of women to the priesthood may be taken as representative of the best argumentation on this side in the Episcopal Church. The "prominent and honored place" of women in the ministry of the New Testament and the Early Church is freely admitted. Phoebe is recognized as a deacon, Dorcas as a "disciple," the daughters of Philip as prophets, and others as teachers and evangelists. It further affirms that women have an honored place in the ministry today, but that place is not in the presbyterate. It permits, even urges, the ordination of women to the diaconate, and condemns the failure of the contemporary Church, including that of many priests and bishops, to understand the meaning of the diaconate as ari order separate from, but not subordinate to the presbyterate. It makes a sharp distinction between the priesthood which is shared by all Christians, men and women alike, as full members of the community, and ad-mission to the cultic ministry: To belong to the cultic ministry is no part of the perfection of Christian membership in Christ. That the Church has acted as if it were, and as if lay-people were second class Christians is only too true. It is only too true that lay women have been excluded from the decision making processes of the Church; this is one of the causes of their present anger and frustration. But we cannot right this wrong by committing another. The actual arguments raised against the ordination of women to the priesthood appear to be two, one symbolic and one historical. The symbolic argument is summed up in the conclusion: The ordained Christian priest must act officially in the person of Christ, and male-ness is therefore required for a priest to act in this way. A woman priest, it is claimed "must lack the full symbolic meaning of Chris-tian priesthood, and to that extent must be defective." Masculinity and male-ness are seen as symbolizing the initiating creative and recreative act of God toward mankind, an act transcending nature, and constitutive of the Church. The historical argument is that, although women exercised a multitude of ministries in the early Church, there were no women presbyters or bishops. On the evidence, to admit women as Bish'ops and Priests is to overturn the practice of the New Testament Church, and the Catholic Church ever since. It considers that some evidence of an unmistakeable intervention of the Holy Spirit "such as we find in Acts" would be necessary for so momentous a change, and rejects the idea that the fact that some women genuinely believe themselves called to the priesthood is evidence of such an intervention. It has always been the duty of the Church to tell a man whether or not he has a true voca-tion to the priesthood, and the Church has this task today. If the Church says no to these aspirants, it would seem proper to assume that their question has been answered by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Women Priests and the Episcopal Church This section of the report concludes: This momentous step must not be taken by a small branch of a particular Catholic Church on its own initiative, without reference to the remainder of catholic Christendom, and, 1 am sure, against the convictions and sentiments of a majority of its members. The appeal to the consensus fidelium of the Catholic Church of the ages strikes strong responsive chords in most Anglican hearts, and their concern for the effect of any unilateral action on the Anglican-Roman Catholic or the Anglican-Orthodox dialogue is genuine. The section of the report defending the ordination of women compares it with the adoption of the Canon of Holy Scripture or the development of the threefold ministry as "legitimate developments of what was implicit in the revelation of Christ from the beginning." It makes extensive use of the article "Biblical Anthropology and the Par-ticipation of Women in the Ministry of the Church" by Professor Andr6 Dumas of the Protestant Faculty of Theology in Paris, which was published in 1964 in Concerning the Ordination of Women. a report of the World Council of Churches. This article contrasts the Jahwist account of the creation and fall in Genesis 2:4-3;24 with the Priestly account in Genesis 1, in which man and woman are both made in the image of God and given joint authority over crea-tion. According to Dumas, the only theologically significant reason for the ex-clusion of women from the Old Testament priesthood was the belief that woman's true vocation was to be a mother in order to perpetuate Israel until the coming of the Messiah. This, he says, Christianity specifically rejected as anti-Messianic. There is, he points out, nothing in the New Testament about motherhood as a sacred vocation, since that vocation has been fulfilled by the motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The report admits the power of the male imagery applied to priests, but comments: Its power is derived from deep springs in the human spirit and from important forces in our culture and his.tory. Insofar as it reflects truths about masculinity and femininity it can be a significant instrument in our grappling with reality. Its limitations lie, of course, in the fact that there is no analogy in Deity to such imagery, no way t6 identify in Deity the anguish and the beauty inescapably part of the man-woman differentiation in humanity. The overwhelming tradition of the Church against the ordination of women is freely admitted, but declared to be irrelevant. The profound changes in the roles of men and women in society, it feels, ~eans that any decision in-volves change: The problem for Christians is not how to get back to what was, but to bear witness in the midst of what is; and even the choice to stay where we are, if we make it, will be the choice of a new position which has got to be mai:le in the presence of real people, not ghostly memories. The report notes that thep0sition of other Churches is also changing, and the effect of permitting the ordination of women on the ecumenical scene may 51~! / Review for Religious, I/olume 34, 1975/4 as easily be positive as negative. It also points out that popular opinion, and the spirit of "women's lib" are not valid considerations, but the Church must deal solely with the question "Is God now calling women to Priesthood?" If the answer is yes, the Church must respond, whatever the cost, and if it is no, the Church must also take the consequences of that decision. The final section of the report raises a number of questions, on the answers to which the committee was presumably divided: Is it not true that Christ's priesthood is too comprehensive to be contained by the sym-bolism of one sex, that in fact its variety and d.epth call for full sacramental feminine ex-pression in order to represent a God who sustains both masculinity and femininity? If this is true, might we not be on the threshold of a new dimension and awareness of the un-searchable riches of Christ? Far from confusing sexual roles or affirming "unwise" values, might not the ordination of women assure the enrichment of our understanding of humanity in Christ by guaranteeing the presence of both its components visibly present in the offering of the Oblation which is Christ's and ours? Like many discussions of synods of bishops, the report ends with no recommendations, except to "meet the issue head on." The bishops concluded their discussion with the straw vote already mentioned. When the Anglican Consultative Council met in Dublin in July 1973, they reaffirmed their position that individual national or regional churches might proceed to ordain women, if they so decided according to their synodical processes. The vote in favor was 50-3, compared with the 24-22 vote in 1971. The next significant step in the process occurred when the General Conven-tion of the Episcopal Church met in Louisville in September-October 1973. Legislation. to change the canons to permit the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate was introduced into the House of Deputies, and was there debated at length. The final vote fell short of the needed majority. Since this vote has been the subject of much subsequent controversy, it re-quires further elaboration. The General Convention is the legislative body of the Episcopal Church. It consists of bishops and clerical and lay deputies. The deputies are elected by diocesan synods, four priests and four lay persons from each diocese, regardless of size. On substantive matters the deputies vote by dioceses and orders and a majority is required in both orders for passage. The vote on the ordination of women was clericalmYes 50, No 43, Divided 20; Lay--Yes 49, No 37, Divided 26. The divided delegations were split 2-2 and therefore unable to vote either for or against the resolution. The result was that although the proposal had a plurality of votes, it did not receive the absolute majority re-quired. This situation is not a "fluke." The rule, like that requiring the ratification of amendments to the U.S. Constitution by three-quarters of the States, was written into the Constitution of the Episcopal Church to make it difficult to change basic items of Church structure, and to make it impossible for a bare majority to do so. The question of whether the majority of clergy and laity of the Episcopal Church actually favor the ordination of women to the priesthood is difficult to answer. Certainly many have made it abundantly clear that they will "leave Women Priests and the Episcopal Church / 519 the Church" if such action is taken. On the other hand, at least one bishop has promised to resign if the ordination of women is not permitted, and some women have indicated that they will withdraw from the Church if the ordina-tion of women is finally defeated. Since the resolution did not pass the House of Deputies in Louisville, it was neither debated nor voted upon by the bishops. "A Statement of Conviction concerning Ordination of Women'~ signed by 60 bishops was inserted into the minutes, on a point of personal privilege by the Bishop of Indianapolis. This was intended to encourage the women deacons, whose genuine disappointment in the failure of the Convention to authorize their ordination to the priesthood was recognized by all. I share the opinion of many of those present at the Louisville Convention that a number of those who voted against the ordination of women did so in the firm belief that the Church was not prepared for this step at that time. Their opposition was not absolute, but conditioned by the need to prepare the "folks back home" for such a radical change in practice. As the Anglican Con-sultative Council had phrased it in 1971: Anglicans have genuine difficulty in entertaining the idea that there might be women priests, and, lacking experience, they cannot forsee the consequences if any were to be or-dained. In the days following the defeat of the resolution by the Deputies, rumors spread through the Convention that some bishops intended to go ahead without authority and ordain one or more women. The House of Bishops, wishing to squelch these rumors, passed a resolution of collegiality and loyalty, pointing out that the Deputies had rejected the principle of the ordina-tion of women, and that the Presiding Bishop was appointing a "competent committee" to study the matter in depth. The resolution affirmed the adherence of the Bishops "to the principles of collegiality and mutual loyalty, as well as respect for due constitutional and canonical process." It was clearly the failure of four bishops to abide by this decision which caused the House of Bishops to react as it did to the July ordination in Philadelphia. They looked for a full discussion and decision in 1976 at the next General Convention. But the situation was not to remain static till then. On July 10, 1974, four bishops, all retired or otherwise without jurisdiction, met in Philadelphia, at the urging of a group of lay and clerical leaders, to con-sider the possibility of proceeding to ordain women to the priesthood. Bishop Charles Hall, retired of New Hampshire, withdrew after this first meeting. On July 20, the Rt. Rev. Lyman Ogilby, Bishop of Pennsylvania, in whose diocese the service was actually held, refused both his consent and his approval to the ordination. On July 25 the Most Rev. John Allin, the new Presiding Bishop, telegraphed the eleven women and three bishops, asking them to reconsider their decision. At this same time Bishop Ogilby notified his diocese that clergy who par-ticipated in the proposed ordination would be "conducting themselves in viola- 520 / Review for Religious, P'olume 34, 1975/4 tion of the Constitution and Canons of the Church," and would thereby be subjecting themselves tO possible discipline. He and the Diocesan Standing Committee also met personally with the Rt. Rev. Robert DeWitt, the former bishop of that diocese, and asked him to withdraw from the proposed ordina-tion. On July 29 the ordination took place. The ordaining bishops were the Rt. Rev. Robert DeWitt, formerly of Pennsylvania, the Rt. Rev. Edward Wells, Retired Bishop of West Missouri, and the Rt. Rev. Daniel Corrigan, formerly director of domestic mission work for the Episcopal Church and later dean of Bexley Hall Divinity School in Roches~ter, New York. The Bishop of Costa Rica, the Rt. Rev. Antonio Ramos, was present but did not participate in the ordainiiag. He was the only diocesan bishop in the group. On July 31 the Presiding Bishop called the House of Bishops into special session August 14-15 in Chicago to consider the situation. In the meanwhile, formal charges were filed against the participating bishops by the Bishop of Western New York. They were later withdrawn, then reinstated, and at the present writing are still pending. 146 bishops voted at tha~ meeting. They adopted this resolution by a vote of 129-9 with 8 abstentions: The House of Bishops in no way seeks to minimize the genuine anguish that so many in the Church feel at the refusal to date of the Church to grant authority for women to be considered as candidates for ordination to the priesthood and episcopacy. Each of us in his own way shares in that anguish. Neither do we question the sincerity of the motives of the four bishops and 11 deacons.who acted as they did in Philadelphia. Yet in God's work, ends and means must be consistent with one another. Furthermore, the wrong means to reach a desired end may expose the Church to serious consequences unforseen and undesired by anyone . Resolved, that the House of Bishops, having heard from Bishops Corrigan, DeWitt, Welles, and Ramos the reasons for their actions, express our disagreement with their decision and action. We believe they are wrong; we decry their acting in violation of the collegiality of the House of Bishops as well as the legislative processes of the whole Church. Further, we express our conviction that the necessary conditions for valid ordination to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church were not fulfilled on the occasion in question; since we are convinced that a bishop's authority to ordain can be effectively exercised only in and for a community which has authorized him to act for them, and as a member of the episcopal college; and since there was a failure to act in fulfillment of constitutional and canonical requirements for ordination. The resolution went on to call for the 1976 General Convention to recon-sider the issue of the ordinationof women, and for all involved to wait for that reconsideration. Apparently this is not going to happen. There have been several occasions on which various of the women have functioned as priests. The most publicized events were the celebration of the Eucharist at Riverside Church, and the ap-pointment of two of the women priests to the faculty of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., with the provision that they will function as priests in the seminary chapel. There are at least two cases being prosecuted Women Priests and the Episcopal Church / 521 against male priests, for allowing one or more of the women to celebrate or con-celebrate the Eucharist in their parishes. The truly important aspect of the Bishops' August statement is not their disapproval of the ordination. No one seriously expected them to approve the flaunting of canon law and their own resolution of collegiality. It is the ap-parent acceptance of Bishop Arthur Vogei's theological analysis of the ordina-tion, and the bishops' refusal to accept the "validity," not simply the "regularity" of the ordination. It is freely admitted on all sides that the ordina-tion was in violation of the actual canon law of the Episcopal Church on several counts: 1. There is no provision for ordaining women to the priesthood. 2. The women were ordained neither by their own ordinaries, nor with their consent. 3. The required canonical consent of the Diocesan Standing Committees was not obtained. Two of the candidates did attempt to obtain this consent, but it was refused. One diocese (Central New York) has granted it post fac-turn. (The Standing Committee is an invention of the American Episcopal Church in the 18th century which sought successfully to limit the arbitrary power of bishops by requiring the formal consent of a Standing Committee of priests and lay persons to all ordinations, sales of church property, and certain other acts.) Prior to voting on the motion, the Bishops received the report of their Committee on Theology, delivered by the Rt. Rev. Donald J. Parsons, Bishop of Quincy, and formerly Dean and Professor of New Testament at Nashotah House Seminary, and the Rt. Rev. Arthur Vogel, Bishop of West Missouri, a member of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission and formerly Professor of Systematic Theology at Nashotah. The resolution adopted quotes verbatim from their reports. Bishop Vogel's view, expressed in his report, is that validity means "juridical recognition of a ministry by the Church." In this view to call a ministry "invalid" does not mean that it is not true, efficacious, or genuine, but simply that it is not juridically recognized. It is apparently this recognition which the House of Bishops denied the ordination of the women. My personal interest in this decision is that it shifts the ground of "accepted" Anglican theology from the old mhnual theology which calls sacraments valid if the criteria of proper matter, form, intention, minister and recipient are present, to a newer concept. There can be no doubt, in the old terms, that the ordaining bishops intended to ordain the women to the priesthood. They went out of their way to use the "right form," by using the official 1928 version of the ordination rite, rather than the commonly used provisional form of 1970. There has never been any dispute about the right of retired bishops to continue to exercise episcopal functions, and, in fact, many retired bishops have been the principal consecrators of their successors. The stand is taken by Bishop Vogel, and the House, instead, on the nature of the Church as a Eucharistic community, under the presidency of the Bishop. 522 / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/4 The Holy Eucharist is offered by the whole community; the bishop unifies the action of the community by his presidency of the assembly. The bishop at one time, in a sacramen-tal manner, (1) represents the Son to the assembly, (2) represents the people of God, (3) represents the Church to itself. His actions in ordaining, then, are actions within the Community. He ordains "not as an individual but as the head of the eucharistic community." Bishop Vogel quotes the Orthodox theologian Dr. J. D. Zizoulas in saying, "There is no ministry in the Catholic Church that can exist in absoluto," and again, "there is no apostolic succession which does not go through the concrete com-munity." He comments: Within a diocese the bishop and presbyters form a college among themselves; the bishop and deacons constitute another community. The important point is that ordination, ac-cordingly, is entrance into a new community--the ministerial community--rather than the bare bestowal of a power. In ordination bishops do not pass on a power which they possess as individuals to other individuals who do not have it. That would be a baton-passing theory of ordination; the community would count for no more than the crowd watching a relay race. Here we find sacramental theology and theology of ministry tied solidly into ecclesiology, so that they are not left to wander in absoluto, causing endless problems for sacramental theologians. Ministry is within the eucharistic community of the Church. This is a primitive, and patristic view, often associated with the name of St. Cyprian of Carthage, and is, in the best sense of the word, "Episcopal" ecclesiology. Bishop Vogel concludes: The intention must originate in the community and be sacramentally personified by the community's bishop or his delegate within the episcopal college. Such authorization is necessary, or the people and bishop are not acting as a community--as one with the Church. Where there is no such authorization, where the jurisdiction of one bishop and com-munity is usurped by a bishop (or bishops) without jurisdiction, community and collegiality are broken . The ingredients of an ordination simply were not present. The bishops' conclusion that the group assembled in P, hiladelphia was not a real eucharistic community can, of course, be debated. On the other hand, the bishops, priests, deacons, and lay people who gathered in the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia on July 29, 1974 did not claim to be a local con-gregation gathered around their bishops, nor did they claim to be the "rem-nant" of the True Church, separating themselves from a false institution. They claimed to be acting in and for the Episcopal Church, of which they were all members. But, the bishops object, they were not only unauthorized to act for the Episcopal Church in ordaining these women, the ordaining bishops were specifically bound by an undertaking with their brother bishops not to act in this way. The inevitable result is that the Church does not recognize their act. At this point, some people cry "Foul!" They object that they have meticulously followed the rule~ of the manuals to make sure that their acts would be recognized as valid, but the bishops have changed the rules, moving from a Medieval scholastic conce.pt of validity to a Cyprianic and Eastern one. Women Priests and the Episcopal Church / 523 The protest certainly has point, but it is paradoxical that most of the usual supporters of the kind of manual theology which the bishops rejected in Chicago are opposed to the ordination of women, while those most vocally concerned with the communal nature of the Church support their ordination. The idea, however, is not novel in Anglican theology, and fits well, in fact better, into traditional Anglican teaching than does manual theology. Both William Temple and Michael Ramsey spoke of the bish@ in ordination as not acting apart from the Church. This presentation, of its nature, cannot end with conclusions, but only with an observation, and a number of questions, which I believe to be those that presently face the Episcopal Church. They will, 1 believe, illuminate the dis-cussion of related issues in other Churches. The observation is that the Bishops of the Episcopal Church appear united in their belief that women have been given too small a share of the decision-making processes of the Church, and, whether or not the ordination of women to the priesthood is authorized in 1976, it seems clear that women will get more important positions in the "power structure." The questions are these: 1) Is female gender a diriment impediment to ordination to the priesthood? In this context the remarks of Robert F. Capon are exceptionally apt: If women are human, we can no longer go on talking about them as if they were some of our best friends. They are us. Any doctrine of the ministry, therefore, which effectively says that they are anything less must be abandoned. ("The Ordination of Women: A Non-Book," in Anglican Theological Review, SS 2 [Sel~t. 1973] p. 77) There are, nevertheless, a few Anglican theologians, and several bishops who would respond to our question with a solid yes. 2) If it is granted that women can be ordained, should a Church as numerically insignificant as ~he American Episcopal Church, even with the support of the worldwide Anglican Communion, alter 1900 years of contrary custom and proceed to do so? Many Anglicans would answer with the Orthodox that such things must await the summoning of the 8th Ecumenical Council. Anglicans are com-mitted to the view that they are only a part of the Catholic Church, and are reluctant to go out on a limb alone. Ordaining women will certainly cause the Episcopal Church problems in its dialogue with both Roman Catholics and Orthodox, but if it is right, then fear of unjust excommunication has never been an acceptable defense for failure to act. 3) Granted that it is possible, is it necessary for the Episcopal Church to ordain women, even at the cost of splitting our own Church? Certainly, if we do ordain women, we must be aware of the'havoc we shall raise with thestatus quo. There is already a shortage of"payingjobs" for priests in the Church and ordaining women will compound the problem. The women themselves are also likely to wind up underpaid and overworked in parishes that men have turned down. These dangers must be honestly faced. 524 / Review for Religious, lZolume 34, 1975/4 4) Finally, there are the large questions of the meaning of ordination. Can bishops, simply by virtue of their orders, and without the authority of the com-munity whose bishops they are, confer orders? Traditional Western sacramental theology has said yes, but that it is wrong for bishops to act in this way. Traditional Eastern sacramental theology has said no, that they act only in and for the Church. This is the position which the American House of Bishops took in Chicago. It is a position which seems to hold promise for a sacramental theology based upon the doctrine of the Church as the Body of Christ, and Christ Himself as the true minister of the sacraments. Reprints from the Review "The Confessions of Religious Women" by Sister M. Denis, S.O.S. (25 cents) "Institutional Business Administration and Religious" by John J. Flanagan, S.J., and James I. O'Connor, S.J. (20 cents) "Authority and Religious Life" by J. M. R. Tillard, O.P. (20 cents) "The Death of Atheism" by Rene H. Chabot, MoS. (20 cents) "The Four Moments of Prayer" by John R. Sheets, S.J. (25 cents) "Instruction on the Renewal of Religious Formation" by the Congregation for Religious (35 cents) "Meditative Description of the Gospel Counsels" (20 cents) "A Method for Eliminating Method in Prayer" by Herbert Francis Smith, S.J. (25 cents) "Religious Life in the Mystery of the Church" by J. M. R. Tillard, O.P. (30 cents) "Profile of the Spirit: A Theology of Discernment of Spirits" by John R. Sheets, S.J. (30 cents) "Consciousness Examen" by George A. Aschenbrenner, S.J. (20 cents) "Retirement or Vigil?" by Benedict Ashley, O.P. (25 cents) "Celibacy and Contemplation" by Denis Dennehy, S.J. (20 cents) "The Nature and Value of a Directed Retreat" by Herbert F. Smith, S.J. (20 cents) "The Healing of Memories" by Francis Martin (20 cents) Orders for the above should be sent to: Review for Religious 612 Humboldt Building 539 North Grand Boulevard St. Louis, Missouri 63103 Revision of the ConstitiJtions: Meaning, Criteria and Problems Juan Manuel Lozano, C.M.F. Father Juan Manuel Lozano was Visiting Professor of Spirituality in the Divinity School of St. Louis University during the past semester. He is on the faculty of Lateran University and of his Institute's seminary: Claretianum; Via Aurelia 619 15, 00144 Rome, Italy. Religious communities are at present engaged in the final stage of the revision of their Constitutions in the aftermath of Vatican Council 11. Most of them, indeed, have already celebrated their first General Chapter after the Special Chapter of Renewal; and, according to the norms in force they must send the resulting text to the Holy See after the last touches are made by the next General Chapter. Institutes are still bustling especially because all the members of the various communities have been called to participate in the review of what had been their basic codes. Perhaps it will be helpful to set forth some personal ideas and experiences on the meaning of the present work of revision and on the problems which have been created by it. 1. The Starting Point The revision of their Constitutions by all religious institutes had been made obligatory by Vatican II in its decree, Perfectae Caritatis (par. 3). From the text of the decree itself, it is evident that the center of gravity of this paragraph was not the revision of documents, but rather the spiritual renewal and adapta-tion to the times of religious life in all its various aspects: the manner of living, praying and working, and the government of the various institutes. The revi-sion of the Constitutions emerges as a consequence of this in the second part of the paragraph cited: "Therefore let constitutions, directories., be suitably revised and, obsolete laws having been suppressed, be adapted to the decrees of this sacred synod." 525 526 / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/4 The principle for the revision of the Constitutions, basic documents that are intended to inspire and rule the life of a religious community, is, therefore, to be drawn from the preceding paragraph of Perfectae Caritatis (no. 2) where both renewal and adaptation have been defined. In fact, even if in the text, probably because of Latin usage which prefers to join adjective to a substan-tive rather than two substantives, has the form: accommodata renovatio, in-stead of renovatio et accommodatio, the rest of the paragraph makes it clear that the council is referrit~g to two different realities by the term: a movement of spiritual renewal in fidelity towards the Gospel and towards the spirit of the founder, and another movement of fidelity to the real, historical condition of man: "renewal" and "adaptation." In speaking of the first movement, the council uses a biblical term: to go back, to return (sh~b) with God as its object is an expression commonly used in the Bible to designate conversion.~ A constant return to the sources of Christian Life and to the founder means, therefore, that a permanent move-ment of conversion must characterize religious communities. Religious life has always to return to being the privileged expression of Christian and authentic religious sentiment. Since this privileged expression was formulated in the past, in those historical periods in which the Church and the religious com-munity were founded, this conversion implies a return to the past, a pilgrimage back to the sources. Yet this return to the past happens only on the surface, since neither Christ nor the gifts of the Spirit that were granted to the founder belong!to the past; they are always alive. From this perspective, renewal might better be termed "a going inside" rather than "a going back." For its part, adaptation also should mean "a going inside"--an entering into actual, living humanity. And thus, religious life, following the logic of the Incarnation, must embrace both the Spirit that comes from God and the needs that come from society. Both renewal and adaptation, then, are two different expressions of a constant search for authenticity. This means that there are two basic facts, subsumed by the council in its recommendation of renewal and adaptation, that will influence the revision of the constitutions: human fallibility, and human historicity. In terms of these realities, religious life is constantly exposed to a series of trends that originate both from within (the community itself) and from without (society). And so religious life must constantly return to its double source of inspiration. As a matter of fact, human fallibility seems to have more effect on the daily life of the religious than it does on his Constitutions. For, even if the charism of infallibility does not extend to the spiritual doctrine that is ex-pressed in the Constitutions (they remain, after all, a purely human comment on the Gospel), it is nevertheless true that very often they have been written by one who was a faithful disciple of Christ, and that they have always received the approval of the Church. And this approval of the Church guarantees that the Constitutions are at least a sufficient guide by which to lead a life that is ICf. Jer 3,22; 4,1. Hos 6,1; Joel 2,12 . . . Revision of the Constitutions: Meaning, Criteria and Problems / 527 committed to divine service. On the other hand, the approval of the Church does not assure us that the text of a given Constitution will keep its value per-manently, or that it is the best possible expression of spiritual doctrine, etc. This reality, of course, is connected rather with human historicity than with human fallibility. Nor does it seem to me that the approval of the Holy See guarantees fidelity on the part of the community to what had been the idea of the founder. The Church, to be sure, gives canonical approval to those ideas that the com-munity believes best expresses its spirit. And in so doing, the Church recognizes that the community in pursuing its project has a right to exist within the People of God without interference in regard to the more technical problem of the fidelity of some later changes to the idea of the founder. There are some communities which have obtained from Rome approval for a change in the formulation of their ministries which research has demonstrated were not truly faithful to the idea of the founder; they are now going back to the older formulation. On this level of being faithful to the original idea of the founder, Constitutions are subject to human fallibility, just as is religious life itself; and a revision may thus be necessary. Historicity touches the Constitutions more deeply, In certain instances, even when they were actually written by the founder, Constitutions appear too strictly conditioned by the limits of a mindset that was common at a certain time and in a certain society. Founders were, thank God, real, living men; they were not only the recipients of a charism, but they were also the products of a particular ambience. Some Constitutions, composed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, i.e., in a time when spiritual theology was in decadence, show an approach to some features of Christian religiosity that may hardly be kept as permanent, classical formulations: for example, a purely negative ap-proach to consecrated chastity, a negative way of expressing mortification, a passive doctrine of obedience. Now, can we honestly think that a text which spoke of chastity only to forbid any kind of sexual acts expressed the basic value of consecrated chastity? Or that a text which expressed a very austere image of self-denial without enlightening it by the glory of the Resurrection could be the direct reflection of the Gospel? Or, on the contrary, were these the fruit of the spiritual attitude of a particular culture the natural causes of which can be uncovered by historians? We have to come to the conclusion that in the area of spiritual theology there are obsolete expressions just as there are ob-solete juridical or disciplinary norms. Not only Canon Law, but theology, too, is a product of history. Other, more recently written Constitutions have a purely juridical-disciplinary character in that they reproduce with few variations the Normae secundum quas, a document that was elaborated by the Congregation for Bishops and Regulars at the end of the last, and beginning of this century.2 2Published, e.g., by L. R. Ravasi C. P. in De Regulis et Constitutionibus Religiosorum. Rome 1958, pp 187-226. 52~1 / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/4 Now the Normae expressly exclude from the Constitutions every kind of text dealing with theology and spirituality.3 This was quite understandable as a reaction against the simple exhortatory booklets that had been sent to the Holy See by most of the founders during the last century. It was also the result of the juridical optimism which had engulfed the Church in years in which Congregations of simple vows received their first official acknowledgement as religious institutes, receiving for the first time definite norms concerning their status in the Church, and years in which the entire Latin Church became in-volved in the creation of its first Code of Canon Law. What we have is the product of a certain mentality, one which belongs neither to the basic evangelical values of religious life nor to the charism of particular founders. This mentality is connected with a certain historical situa-tion. And, of course, it is impossible for any text to be in complete abstraction from its own times. Even the Rules of St. Augustine, St. Benedict and St. Francis are historical monuments, the reflection of a particular period of human history, as well as source documents of profound spirituality. In calling for renewal, th~n, th6 Church is clearly not asking that religious remove their Constitutions from every historical context, since, in any case, this would be quite impossible. But there are different ways of being related to history. A classic text, even if it keeps the flavor of the times in which it was composed, can give a balanced formulation of values that are permanent, and for this reason it will appeal to many generations. Other texts, however, re-main more on the surface, and tend to be influenced more strongly by the limitations of the culture in which they were written. This should neither sur-prise nor disappoint us. It takes time, after all, to develop a classical master-piece! Immediately after the promulgation of the decree, Perfectae Caritatis on October 25, 1965, two tendencies began to emerge among religious. One tendency, the more conservative, tried to limit the revision of the Constitutions to the suppression of obsolete norms and to adaptation to the new decrees. Revision, understood thus, followed the criteria which had inspired the earlier re-edition of Constitutions that had been necessary after the promulgation of the Code of Canon Law in 1917. The other tendency, more liberal and aware of cultural conditioning, pres-ent in many texts, affirmed the need to adapt the entire text of the Constitutions to the "spirit of the Council," i.e., to the theological and spiritual vision which had been growing in the Church during recent decades but which has burgeoned enormously in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council. Since the decree, Perfectae Caritatis, speaking in a very general way, could not fix precisely the extension of the revision it called for, the problem remained aNormae I, IV n 33: Ravasi p 183. The prohibition was practically abolished in the new Normae issued in 1921. Cf Ravasi p 231. But at that time most .of the Constitutions of the modern Congregations had already received their last form. Revision of the Constitutions: Meaning, Criteria and Problems / 529 unsolved until the motu proprio, Ecclesiae Sanctae, was promulgated, in which Paul VI fixed criteria for the revision that was to take place. Prior to this, it had been possible to suppose that the depth of any revision would de-pend in every case on the quality of the original basic text. But this was precisely what was at issue in the discussion between both tendencies within the various communities. 2. Criteria for Revision On August 6, 1966, Pope Paul VI published his motu proprio, Ecclesiae Sanctae, which looked to the implementation of four decrees of the Council, the second of which was Perfectae Caritatis. In this portion of the document, one section is dedicated to the laying down of criteria for the revision of Constitutions: Ecclesiae Sanctae II, 12-14. The motu proprio, in dealing with principles for the revision of Constitutions, showed genuine development. Not only did it fix some points firmly, but it traced the general pattern that all Constitutions must follow. The criteria he gave can be summarized as follows: A. Constitutions, as religious life itself, must have a twofold aspect: doc-trinal and canonical. "Doctrine" here embraces two different facets: 1) the common elements that are essential for religious life in its union with the Church; 2) the par-ticular charism of the institute, expressed by the original idea of the founder and developed by an authentic living tradition. The "canonical elements" are to define the character, purpose and means of the institute. Character refers to an Order with autonomous monasteries or with centralized government, a Congregation of simple vows, an Apostolic Society, a Secular Institute, etc. Purpose embraces the general goal of religious life, and the particular charism of the individual community. Some communities have special ministries. Others are oriented in general towards evangelization in all its forms. The universal or particular character of their mission in the Church should be clearly expressed. In the Normae secundum quas that is followed by most of the modern Congregations, the general and particular goals were separated in two different paragraphs? These two paragraphs can be blended into one rich formulation that reflects the living unity in which they are associated in reality. Means are all the particulars that further community life, the profession of the evangelical life and the special ministry of the community. Therefore, they include spiritual and canonical 4No~'mae 1901 il, I, 1 nn 42-46, Ravasi p 195. cf also p 234. In the Normae the two purposes were called primary and secondary, using a terminology which sounds at least strange when applied to institutes whose founders had been first moved by the idea of responding with an apostolic ministry to certain concrete needs of the Church. The apostolic purpose (sometimes expressed through a fourth vow, or an equivalent commitment) has been the core around which the religious life has developed in many Institutes, from the Knights of Malta, to the Dominicans, Jesuits, Lasalle Brothers, Claretians . This is the reason why the praxis of calling both purposes general and specific has prevailed. ~i30 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/4 norms, basicstructures of government, requirements of formation and incor-poration, and the works of the apostolate. The introduction of this first principle in the motu proprio, i.e., that both doctrinal and canonical elements are required in any proposed revision, con-stitutes a fortunate change of direction in the policy that had formerly been followed by the Church. We have seen that the Normae secundum iluas ex-cluded every kind of doctrinal expression. And even if the idea was later tempered, in actual fact Constitutions remained mostly juridical codes. Now, if this might have been acceptable for Constitutions of the Regular Orders which also have a "Spiritual Rule" as part of their basic documents, in all in-stitutes founded after the Mendicant Orderg, the Constitutions are their only basic code. Therefore they have need of a doctrinal definition of the vocation and spirit of their respective communities. B. Constitutions are to be a text of essentials. The motu proprio emphasizes this characteristic. Constitutions must con-tain "the principles of religious life/and/the necessary juridical norms" (no. 12). For this reason, all elements that are not related to the basic features of the kind of religious life professed by the particular institute should not be in-cluded in its Constitutions. This recommendation of the Pope offers a very rich idea of what Constitutions ought to be. Constitutions should be a "charter" of charity, of communion,5 in which all the members of the institute, though they belong to different times and cultures, are able to recognize their own vocation and spirit. This implies that only the really essential features, of that vocation and spirit should be defined in the Constitutions, leaving the res~ to the initiative of the Holy Spirit and to the inescapable pluralism that varying circumstances demand. St. Benedict had well expressed this idea when, in explaining why he is opposed to setting down many norms about food and abstinence, he states in his Rule: "Everyone has received from God his own gift, one in one way, another in a different way. So it is with some hesitation that we fix/any/ measures for others.''6 From this point of view, Constitutions should express a minimum--the essential minimum. C. The motu proprio explicitly excludes from Constitutions all elements which are subject to change, which are now obsolete, or which correspond to local usages. Behind this criterion lies the idea 'that Constitutions should, as far as possi-ble, retain a permanent value.A community cannot change its Constitutions frequently without jeopardizing the peace and stability of the community. Therefore Constitutions should now tend to be what the "Rule" was for the Orders: a permanent and undiscussed source of inspiration. D. Regarding the form of Constitutions, the motu proprio recommends concision and precision. SThis was the. title given by the Cistercians to their most ancient constitutional text. Cf PL 166,1377-1384. 8Regula 40,1-2. Revision of the Constitutions: Meaning, Criteria and Problems / 531 Concision: "necessary norms., not excessively multiplied" (no. 12, b). Precision: "in suitable and clear words" (no. 12, a); "in an adequate manner" (no. 12, b). 3. Conclusions and Problems The first criterion, viz., that Constitutions should contain both doctrine and laws, often de facto means the redaction of a new text. As we have already mentioned, many modern Constitutions had only a juridical-disciplinary character. This is probably the main reason why the Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes, in a statement published on July 12, 1968, declared that the revision of the Constitutions could be understood as the writing of a new text. The only condition is that the individual community must remain within the limits set by the nature, aims and spirit of the institute. Another reason that recommended the composition of a new text was the great difficulty experienced by many communities when they began to in-troduce partial emendations such as new paragraphs on obedience, celibacy, community, liturgy. There were deep differences between two approaches to spirituality: the one being largely individualistic and ascetic, the other being communitarian, liturgical and ecclesial, and these began to appear more strongly. Some communities which had begun to modify the old text finally arrived at the decision to write a new text. Other communities had decided from the beginning to write a new one. In my own experience with different in-stitutes, this decision to rewrite has been a wise one. The application of the criteria laid down by the Ecclesiae Sanctae has given a new shape to Constitutions. This fact has provoked a certain uneasiness among many religious. At first, they did not know what to do with the new doctrinal style. They missed the old disciplinary norms. And we cannot blame them for this. They had been accustomed for years to another kind of legisla-tion. Some of them even expressed their suspicion that the suppression of prac-tical norms was of[en the fruit of a certain relaxation. This attitude seems to result from a twofold misunderstanding: First of all, the new texts do not really make concessions in the direction of relaxation. Certainly they show a more positive approach to the basic features of Christian life and, therefore, the negative vocabulary~ that had been cherished by the Christian spirituality of the last two or three centuries tends to disappear. But if emphasis is placed on the positive and central elements of Christianity, this does not dissipate the negative consequences. Even if new Constitutions focus on following Jesus, they do not forget that in order to follow Him, we have to leave everything for Him. We cannot forget that this is the precise perspective of Christian spirituality as it is presented in the Gospels. On the other hand, there are doctrinal statements which are much more exigent than practical rules prescribing certain austerities. The invitation to be "a sign of contradiction" found in a new text is much more exigent than the rule requiring permission every time a sister leaves the house. The second misunderstanding concerns the value of the doctrinal section. 532 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/4 Religious are commonly agreed that the new doctrinal texts express in most cases a very rich spirituality. But some of them do not seem to appreciate the exact value of these statements which seem to them to be less binding than the old, disciplinary texts. This is a mistake. The doctrinal texts of the Constitutions do not contain a mere theological reflection. They express the idea that the community itself has of its own vocation and spirit in the Church. And therefore, they bind all the members as long as they desire to remain in the community. Far from being a merely theoretical explanation, they contain what might be called a "constitutional doctrine." Religious who are uneasy with the new style of Constitutions should recall that a text which traces the basic features of a vocation and spirit, a text which describes a mode of existence instead of prescribing a set of practices, a text which prefers the indicative to the imperative is actually more in line with the evangelical idea of Law. The deep difference between the Old Law and the Sermon on the Mount is that Jesus proposes a vocation to men who are no longer servants but friends.7 And who will argue that the Beatitudes are less binding than the Decalogue, even though they move on a different level? The commandments of not killing, of not committing adultery, of not stealing re-quire a material observance, because they express a minimum. The beatitudes on peacemakers, on purity of heart and on poverty on the other hand require a growing fidelity to the Spirit. They express the basic features of Christian ex-istence. If, from one point of view, as has been mentioned, the Constitutions should be the definition of an essential minimum, at the same time the principle that states they should contain the doctrinal formulation of the vocation and spirit of the community makes them also to be the expression of an ideal maximum. They propose a calling which is never completely fulfilled; they show a path on which no one should stop; they set forth the means by which religious can grow in the Spirit. This, also, is the exact meaning of the Beatitudes. We are never completely "poor in spirit," but the poorer we are, the more blessed we are. "You came here to be one heart," writes St. Augustine at the beginning of his Rule for the Servants of God? But he knows that on this earth we are never completely "one heart.''a St. Benedict, too, is well aware of this fact, when he finishes his Rule with the invitation to grow and to grow yet more.~° Constitutions are supposed to reflect the dynamic tendency of Christian ex-istence. Consequently, their observance implies a double fidelity: fidelity to the letter of the essential common laws, and, more profoundly, a dynamic, grow-ing fidelity to the Spirit. 4. Constitutions and Complementary Norms The reduction of the Constitutions to an essential "basic rule" implies as a 7Saint Ambrose, De l~iduis 12,72-73, PL 16,256-257. aRegula ad Servos Dei I, PL 32,1378. Epistola 211,5 PL 33,960. aDe bono coniug. 18,21 PL 40,387-388. ~°Regula 73. Revision of the Constitutions." Meaning, Criteria and Problems / ~i33 consequence the need for a complementary code that should contain more detailed norms. The idea of this complementary "Directory" was suggested by the Pope in Ecclesiae Sanctae. Such a code formerly existed in many Congregations: called in French institutes the Directoire, in the Roman canonical tradition of other Congregations it has been called the Codex luris Addititii (the code of complementary laws.) This Directory is supposed to contain the norms that are ordained to im-plement the Constitutions in all the aspects of the life of the community; prayer, particular traditions, formation, government. All norms which can easily be subject to change should be inserted into this complementary text rather than into the Constitutions. The Directory remains under the exclusive responsibility of the General Chapter while the Constitutions, after their ap-proval by the Holy See, can no longer be modified by the community without approval from Rome. There is today an even greater need for a complete legislation in each in-stitute, for, if the criteria followed in the provisional draft of Canon Law in regard to religious becomes definitive, many norms which were before fixed by common law will be left to the initiative of the individual institute. Since such a "complete legislation" will be made up of two texts, the Constitutions and the Directory, the institutes which have postponed the composition of the second text should now begin to work towards the formulation of their Directory. In suggesting this, we are aware of the heavy burden that such a procedure places on the religious especially of smaller communities. On the other hand, it is worth cautioning against an attempt to fix rapidly an abundance of such com-plementary norms just for the sake of having a "complete legislation." However, at least the most important norms, such as those concerning elec-tions, requirements for certain offices, incorporation into the institute, re-quirements for formation, etc., should be fixed, and the decisions made by the General Chapter should be listed clearly and in order (following the same order as the Constitutions). Furthermore, the Directory should be provisional. Since it will remain within the competency of the institute, the General Chapter will be able to improve upon it in progressive fashion. 5. Definitive Approval of the Constitutions and the New Canon Law The announcement that a new draft of Canon Law in regard to religious is now under study seems to have introduced a new factor of uncertainty in the process that leads to the fixing of a definitive text of the Constitutions. And we can surmise that definitive approval for revised Constitutions will not be granted by the Holy See until the promulgation of the new Canor~ Law. Cer-tainly, since both the new Canon Law and the Constitutions of each com-munity will contain fewer details, there will be less possibility that some points of the Constitutions will be in contradiction to the new code. But there will be many points in which it would be better if the Constitutions used the ter-minology adopted by the code. Will this mean that the period during which the Constitutions will remain under the responsibility of the individual institutes 534 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/4 will be prolonged by the Holy See? Since religious seem now to have overcome in large part the insecurity which had accompanied the change of their con-stitutional norms, it is possible that the Holy See will study the possibility of giving more time to the maturation of both the Constitutions and the Direc-tory. But it is also possible that the Sacred Congregation for Religious will prefer to open a period of dialogue with individual communities in which the Constitutions will be subjected to examination from both sides, even if they will no longer be under the exclusive responsibility of the individual institute. Surely in either case Roman sagezza will find a way of avoiding the repetition of what happened in the first decades of this century when many Constitutions approved in the first fifteen years of the century had to go back to Rome ten years later to be adapted to the then new Code of Canon Law. Back Issues of the Review The following is a list of the back issues of Review for Religious that are presently available: The first twenty-five volumes (1942-1966) inclusive of the Review have been reprinted in twenty-five clothbound volumes. Volumes 1 to 20 (1942- 1961) sell at $6.50 the volume; volumes 2l to 25 (1962-1966) sell at $7.50 the volume. 1967: All issues 1968: All issues 1969: All issues 1970: All issues 1971: All issues 1972: All issues 1973: All issues 1974: All issues 1975: All issues (except January) (except January) Some of these issues are available only in small numbers. The issues cost $1.75 (plus postage) each and should be ordered from: Review for Religious 612 Humboldt Building 539 North Grand Boulevard St. Louis, Missouri 63103 Affirmation: Healing in Community Sister Gabrielle L. Jean House of Affirmation, Inc., is an international therapeutic center for clergy and religious, located at 120 Hill Street; Whitinsville, MA 01588. Sister Gabrielle L. Jean, Ph.D., is Director of the Worcester Consulting Center; 201 Salisbury Street; Worcester, MA 01609. Founding of the House of Affirmation The House of Affirmation is an outgrowth of the Worcester Consulting Center for Clergy and Religious which was established in 1970 in response to the expressed needs of the religious professionals of the diocese. The impact of Vatican II had been strongly felt by the clergy and religious who had to meet increased pressures from the demands of decentralization and responsible in-volvement in social and ecclesial issues. The services of the Consulting Center provided a religious professional the opportunity for self-discovery through the contemporary approaches of psychiatry and psychology in ongoing dialogue with theological developments. The Vicar for Priests and Religious, Diocese of Worcester, when ap-proached by the members of the Interim Senate for Religious, was informed of the fact that a sister-psychiatrist was working at the Worcester State Hospital; it was suggested she would probably help in the organization of mental health services for the religious and clergy of the area. The sister, Anna Polcino, a Medical Missionary physician-surgeon who had returned from West Pakistan a few years earlier, was invited to membership on the planning committee which had been brought together to think through the logistics of the enter-prise. She then became the first director of what was to become the Worcester Consulting Center. A young diocesan priest, Thomas A. Kane, was then com-pleting his doctoral work in clinical psychology and he became co-director of the Consulting Center. 535 636 / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/4 The overriding goal of the Consulting Center was to help the clients become fully human, consistently free persons within the context of their ecclesial calling and social insertion. Sister Anna and Father Kane undertook to meet this goal through a threefold program of service, education and research. Since its opening, the services and programs of the Consulting Center have included individual consultation, group consultation, group process communication labs, personal growth groups, candidate assessment, lectures and workshops. After two full years of operation, however, it became apparent to Sr. Anna that the outpatient facilities were not sufficient for some religious and clergy who had come to the Consulting Center; there was definite need for an inten-sive residential treatment program. Thus was the House of Affirmation con-ceived. It became a reality in October, 1973, when the doors were opened to its first residents in Whitinsville, Massachusetts. Dr. Anna Polcino assumed the responsibility of psychiatric director of therapy and Dr. Thomas A. Kane became its executive director. The residential center pursues the same goals as the Consulting Center; namely, service, education and research. Philosophy of the House of Affirmation The philosophy underlying the House of Affirmation's existence and operation can be succinctly stated as: treatment of the whole person in a wholly therapeutic environment. Mental health professionals adhering to this basic philosophy meet a real challenge when their clientele is constituted by other professionals whose religious values are central to their vocational choice and identity. Religious men and women have chosen a celibate way of life which jars with the usual Freudian model of therapy. And so an alternative had to evolve to meet the needs of this relatively important and clearly delineated sociological group of celibate religious professionals seeking psy-chological help. A group situation provides a favorable environment for the social relearn-ing that constitutes therapy. Modern psychology emphasizes the tremendous power of the environment on human development and behavior; our sur-roundings exert a molding influence on our behavior. In "milieu therapy," the expectancies and attitudes of the treatment staff are central to bringing about social rehabilitation but the "psychotheoiogical community" concept of the House of Affirmation goes beyond this milieu therapy with its inherent psy-choanalytic orientation and reductionism. There is an existential concern with rediscovering the living person amid the compartmentalization and dehumanization of modern culture. Interest centers on reality as immediately experienced by the person witl~ the accent on the inner-personal character of the client's experience. The therapeutic community supplies the type of accept-ing or impartial reactions from others that favor social learning. Besides, the therapeutic environment prevents further disorganization in the client's behavior by reducing his intense anxieties. Affirmation, Healing in Community / ~i37 Psychotheological Therapeutic Community The House of Affirmation has developed a unique model in its psy-chotheological therapeutic community. The expression "psychotheological community" implies a quest for communion with God and with man. It is an accepted fact that personhood can only be realized in community, and this phenomenological aspect of man's human predicament aligns the model with the existential therapeutic movement.-It seeks to analyze the structure of the religious professional's human existence in view of understanding the reality underlying his being-in-crisis. It is concerned with the profound dimensions of the emotional and spiritual temper of contemporary man. The importance of community looms large in the current psychological literature. Stern and Marino state that "religion and psychotherapy encourage community engagement with life; both can be distorted to emphasize a kind of pulling back in order to ensure personal safety. Insofar as they foster openness, they become true protectors of the role that love can play in cement-ing human relationships, and consequently, the reconciliation of society. The establishment of relationships is the first step in establishing the community. As a stranger becomes familiar, we are in a better position to reach out to him, to join our lives more closely. Our differences will never disappear and we will find it necessary to sacrifice a degree of autonomy.''1 Each person in the community remains a unique individual. He may grow and change in the community but he will retain his identity. Personal union of community members serves to bring out and enrich what is uniquely true of each individual. "Growth in community will be effected by all those active and passive elements that created favorable conditions for the growth of unity and charity: openness, receptivity, sharing, giving, receiving. Community connotes oneness without loss of identity, a sharing in the interiority of another without the sacrifice of personal integrity.''~ The adaptations recommended and wrought by the Second Vatican Coun-cil have changed the pattern of environmental demands on Christians at large, but it has wrought this change even more on formally professed religious men and women. Some have adjusted quickly and almost with eagerness to these changes wliile others have been.floundering in the insecurity of a slow and painful assimilation of change. The poignant experience of confusion, doubt and sense of loss has taxed the coping ability of many who, cut off from safe moorings, question their identity and authenticity in what they consider an un-charted land. The post-Vatican period demands maturity and balance on the part of those chosen to minister to the people of God especially because much risk is involved. ~E. Mark Stern and Bert G. Marino, Psychotheology (Paramus, N.Y.: Newman Press, 1970), p. 66. ~Sister Daniel Turner, "The American Sister Today," in The Changing Sister (Notre-Dame, Ind.: Fides, 1965), pp. 309-310. Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/4 The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, emphasized the aspect of community when it spoke of the Church as a "sign and sacrament of man's union with God and of the unity of the whole human race" (LG, 1). The religious community as such cannot form the person although it should provide a setting in which the individual human being can emerge as a fully functioning adult. For too long, religious communities of men and women as well as priests in rectories have had. a task-oriented rather than person-oriented environment. Yet personal development is a basic prerequisite to a meaningful life in society at large and in the local community where the celibate lives. This follows logically from the principle that love of self precedes love of others. However, I can only know myself if another reveals me to myself just as I can only come to a real love of self when I come to the realization that I am loved by another. Likewise does man find his meaning and sense of identity in and through others. The person-oriented group helps man realize his personhood when, through the truth and goodness'of his con-freres, man's own powers of knowing and loving are released. In the therapeutic community of the House of Affirmation, the resident can formulate his own reactions, share them in social communication and thus become aware of the commonness of his own anxieties. By sharing his reac-tions with peers, he is practicing the very techniques of social interaction in which he has typically remained unskilled. In the reactions of his peers with whom he shares his daily activities, the resident finds the acceptance, support, protection, challenge and competition which enable him to develop more valid self-reactions. In addition, the therapeutic milieu provides the opportunity for social interaction among residents and staff. The House of Affirmation is neither a place of confinement nor a haven for "rest and recreation"; rather, it is a miniature social-religious community planned and controlled to facilitate the social learning of its residents. The professional staff members have accepted as the general goal of psychotherapy to help the "unfree," childishly dependent person become a genuine adult capable of "responding affirmatively to life, people and society.''3 The focus is on self-understanding and insight-building of an immediate and current nature in view of helping the individual to grasp the meaning of his existence in its historical totality. Ultimately, the mentally healthy client will attain freedom to choose, maturity in outlook and responsible independence. The life of the celibate can be viewed as an ongoing process of interaction with the religious, social and natural forces that make up his environment. The meaning that life assumes for a celibate depends on his personal response to these forces. The celibate community constitutes a union of persons who par-ticipate in a common love-response to the call of Christ.4 The key to a proper 3John Dalrymple, Christian Affirmation (Denville, N.J.: Dimension Books, Inc., 1971), p. 10. 'Sister Helen Marie Beha, OSF, Living Community (Milwaukee, Wis.: Bruce Publishing Co., 1967), p. 21. Affirmation, Healing in Community understanding of community lies in participation which becomes a unifying force which, at the same time, allows for individual differences. Is not willingness to receive from him one of the dearest gifts one can give to another? Participation characterizes the relationship of individuals united by love in community. All encounters assume meaning in that context; they become avenues to change. The difference his presence makes in the overall community process gives meaning to the celibate's life. Being human really means coming to grips, in a creative way, with the concrete situation in which we find ourselves. The ex-perience of here-and-now is crucial, for life is today--not yesterday or tomorrow. The same applies in the therapeutic situation be it individual or group: the ongoing, immediate experience of residents and therapists as they interact becomes the phenomenological focus in therapy. The total phenomena ex-perienced at any moment in time is what describes man's existential situation; the experienced event is what is brought to therapy. Listening to others as per-sons, looking into their eyes, mind and heart with deep sympathy, feeling that this person is suffering, is appealing to us as a person--is this not affirmative response to Christ's summons: "Love one another as I have loved you" (.In 13:34)? The call to Christian life is ideally expressed in the experience of the Eucharist which is the community experience par excellence. The Eucharist builds up a community of faith, and so it stands at the very center of the psy-chotheoiogical community that is the House of Affirmation; it reveals the solidarity of all members in Christ. It is the same solidarity that is expressed in the opening words of the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes: "The joys and hopes, the sorrows and worries of the men of our time are ours" (GS, 1). The House of Affirmation has thus accepted the challenge of the Fathers of Vatican II who urged, in the same document that we make appropriate use "not only of theological principles, but also of the findings of the secular sciences, especially of psychology and sociology" (GSo 62) to help the faithful live their faith in a more thorough and mature way. In its Decree on the Ap-propriate Renewal of the Religious Life, Perfectae Caritatis, the Council Fathers pursued the same line of thought: "The manner of living, praying, and working should be suitably adapted to the physical and psychological con-ditions of today's religious., to the needs of the apostolate, the requirements of a given culture, and to the social and economic circumstances" (PC, 3). In the article pertaining to chastity, religious are urged to "take advantage of those natural helps which favor mental and bodily health . Everyone should remember that chastity has stronger safeguards in a community when true fraternal love thrives among its members" (PC, 12). Celibate religious professionals who are trained in psychiatry and psychology can bring to bear their own experience in coming to a better understanding of the emotional problems of religious and priestly life today. Such is the case in both of our outpatient Consulting Centers and the residential treatment center of the House of Affirmation. ~i40 / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/4 For too long, celibates have been frustrated when seeking professional help since they were limited to psychiatrists and psychologists who had little un-derstanding of their religious commitment; the misconceptions that could arise often deterred religious and priests from seeking psychiatric-psychological help. Our residential treatment center has been set up to minimize the threat and the possible alienation attendant on presenting oneself to a professional-type establishment. A home-like atmosphere has been developed which has proved most therapeutic and which prepares the individual to respond to therapyin a very positive manner, and that contrasts with the resistance that is frequently found when working with the laity. At present, there are twenty residents at the House of Affirmation of which thirteen are men. An attempt is being made to establish a better men/women ratio but the fact is that more men than women are referred for residential treatment. The professional staff presently includes one psychiatrist, six psy-chologists, two pastoral counselors and one registered nurse. The basic com-ponents of the therapeutic program are: Mode of therapy Time per session Weekly Individual 1 hour twice Group (same therapist) 1 1/2 hours twice Intercommunication lab I 1/2 hours once Psychodrama 1 1/2 hours once Residents' group (no therapist present) 1 hour once Group design I hour once Ancillary therapies: Photography I 1/2 hours once Movement therapy 2 hours once Physical therapy 1 hour once Alcoholics Anonymous 1 hour once Ceramics 2 hours once Yoga 1 hour once Art therapy 3 hours once Lectures; Psychology/psychiatry 1 hour once Psychotheological reflections I hour once Spirituality 1 hour once An individual priest, sister or brother may be referred to the House of Af-firmation for the purpose of coming to a better understanding of his emotional problems and/or to resolve them. However, the client is always informed that unless he comes of his own free will, therapy will be of little avail to him. No resident is accepted for treatment on the mere recommendation of his religious superiors; the applicant must indicate willingness to come for therapy. The principle of confidentiality is crucial to the operation of the House of Affirma-tion; privacy is maintained at all times. This has produced a sense of security Affirmation, Healing in Community / 541 and trust and the clientele has grown geometrically. Since its inception, it has been stressed that the purpose of the House of Affirmation is not so much keeping the celibate in the religious or priestly life as helping him become truly human and consistently free. Through therapy, he can come to his own deci-sion about his future. In the course of therapy, the client comes to view his experience in wider perspective and he gains a better future orientation. Self-growth demands that the individual have something to aim for, a goal which can be brought into reality through committed action. The individual's task will then be to ac-tualize this possibility, to make it a reality. As a person begins to respond to his feelings, he sees possibilities in his future and makes attempts to achieve these; by so doing, responsible independence increases in his life-style. Many of the problems that have been presented at the consulting centers and at the residential center have been classified as deprivation syndromes and as what Freud has described as repressive neurosis. In the first case, lack of love and acceptance (lack of affirmation) has crippled the psychological func-tioning of individuals; in the latter case, one encounters priests and religious who have made excessive use of the defense mechanism known as intellec-tualization. Many of these individuals are not aware of their emotions and have even repressed anger in their life as celibates. The repression in this in-stance often came about by faulty training which presented the emotion of anger as "unvirtuous," an emotion not to be expressed at any time. Yet Christ found it appropriate to express His emotions: "The angry man who picked up a cord to drive the buyers and sellers out of the temple, who wept in sadness over Jerusalem, who was bathed in sweat before His arrest was not a stoical, emotionless man.''s Through therapy, individual clients become aware of their emotions, are informed that their emotions are basically good and are encouraged to express them in a healthy way within the context of a celibate life. Individual therapy is supported by group therapy where anger-feelings may be expressed and accepted as such. The re-educative process is somewhat long and painful but it "pays off" in a more personally satisfying and productive life. Having been af-firmed by a significant other in the course of individual therapy and, in turn, affirming others, the healed resident knows and feels who he is. He finds that he is different from others but that he is acceptable, that he belongs in com-munity, that he is contributing to it and changing it. He has come to realize that there is a unique place for him in society, that he has a unique contribu-tion to make to it, that he can choose freely to do and to love.6 The effectiveness of this model has already been substantiated by in-house research. It is very likely that it will find still further support for its claims with the passage of time. 5Dalrymple, op. cir. p. 111. nThomas A. Kane, Who Controls Me? (Hicksville, N.Y.: Exposition Press, 1974), pp. 75-76. Prayer: A Thematic Bibliography Compiled by David Ricken Mr. David Ricken is a seminarian of the Diocese of Dodge City, Kansas. His current address: 1501 Belleview--Apt. //3; La Junta, CO 81050. The purpose of this bibliography is to present some of the best authors and books on prayer to a variety of people who are in(erested in prayer for a variety of reasons. This bibliography is divided into several themes so that the reader may easily select that book which is best suited to his interest and purpose. Of course, division brings limitation, and the placement of each work into one particular theme is, on occasion, arbitrary and personal. Attempt has been made, however, to classify each work according to that theme which appears to be central to the book. Obviously, there are many more books on prayer which have not been listed here. However, better to have read one book and to pray than to have read many books and to not pray. l--Prayer: Introductions: Bloom, Archbishop Anthony. Beginning to Pray. Paramus: Paulist. This book is an experience in prayer and contains helpful suggestions and en-couragements to begin one's quest of love for God. Chapman, Dom John. The Spiritual Letters of Dora John Chapman. London: Sheed & Ward, 1935. This work is a compilation of letters, and does not pretend to be a survey or summa of the spiritual life; );et it has become a classic, mostly because of its sound advice on spiritual life in general and mysticism in particular. Guardini, Romano. Prayer in Practice. New York: Pantheon, 1957. 542 Prayer." A Thematic Bibliography / 543 Written by an excellent theologian of several years ago, Prayer in Practice is a thorough, highly intelligible introduction to prayer. The scope of the book is broad, and the author delicately intertwines and balances theory and practice. Jarrett, Bede, O.P. Meditations for Lay-Folk. St. Louis: B. Herder This book is a series of well-thought-out essays on every aspect of Catholic thought and living, but the few sections on prayer are especially fine. Father Jarrett shows prayer to be, in one sense, the "pondered love of God," the lifting of the mind through the heart, and the gradual taking on of God's point of view. It also tries to relate prayer to every possible circumstance of life, thus broadening the base of prayer, making it something more than a narrowly spiritual activity. Father Jarrett shows that there is a totality to prayer, as there should be a totality to man's life with God. He also shows that prayer is normal, since God is interested in every human being and every human being is called to a deep and intimate life with Him. For Father Jarrett, prayer is eminently the "'voice of faith," the living embodiment in one's life of what one believes. It is the natural blossom-ing of the knowledge of the Faith in one's life. It is the voice and nourishment of a per-sonal seeking of God. Maritain, Jacques and Raissa. Prayer and Intelligence. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1943. Comprising less than fifty pages, it is a study of prayer based on St. Thomas and St. John of the Cross. It is not written in philosophical or theological language, but sets forth in very simple language the path of prayer for Christians and is applicable not only to the learned theologian and religious teacher, but also to the ordinary housewife who is a child of God and called to a life of prayer. McNabb, Vincent, O.P. The Path of Prayer. Springfield, 111.: Templegate. This small book is written in the form of a "diary of Sir Lawrence Shipley," and in it Father McNabb embodies some of the fundamental principles of prayer, based on the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. Prayer is shown to be the habit of leaning on God and the total ordering of one's life to God. It also shows that prayer does anything but produce passive men. Rather it opens up every human possibility and the use of every human gift in God's service. It is a careful reflection on the principles and implications of the life of prayer, enabling one to begin building a personal "pragmatic" of prayer. Rahner, Karl, S.J. On Prayer. Paramus, N.J.: Paulist. With that bold insight and careful respect for the truth so characteristic of him, Rahner has given us the fruit of his search for God. It is clearly discernible that for this eminent theologian, there is hardly.a distinction between theology and prayer. In a style which is easy to understand, he articulates his vision of prayer, one which is truly authentic and truly beneficial. ll--Prayer: Reflections: Caretto, Carlo. Letters From The Desert. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1972. This is prayer incarnate. Prayer as passion, as compassion, as the life and breath of a virile and contemplative mind in a passionate search for the core of his being. Prayer drove Carlo Caretto into the desert, where he could listen to the voice of God in silence and solitude. There is a freshness and primitive innocence to his words as God begins to take hold of his whole being. This is the chronicle of one man's desert experience. Caretto, Carlo. The God Who Comes. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1974. ~i44 / Review for Relibious, Volume 34, 1975/4 This is another presentation of Brgther Carlo's thoughts and reflections from his solitude in the Sahara desert. Written in a simple and direct style, the main thrust of his writing deals with man's hope for "the God Who comes." The book treats ofthe Church as an in-stitution of men and women and as a divine reality which through its renewal and change will evermore make known the gratuity of God. In parts, Brother Carlo speaks of his own life in solitude, his prayer, his contempla-tion and his own dialogue with Jesus. Farrell, Rev. Edward J. Prayer is a Hunger. Denville: Dimension, 1972. Father Farrell writes of prayer as a hunger to be intensely experienced and as a journey to be creatively undertaken. These reflections in solitude encourage the reader to keep a "journal" as an enticement to prayer. The book itself exemplifies this "'journal" ap-proach and helps one to begin to see what prayer is all about. Nouwen, Henri J.M. With Open Hands. Notre Dame: Ave Maria, 1972. With gentleness and authenticity, Nouwen has here developed an artistry which is at once rare and most welcome. With Open Hands is a prayer, for it helps the one who enters into it to allow the walls which he has built around himself to crumble. The author truly teaches the reader to open his hands. Turro, James. Reflections--Path To Prayer. Paramus, N.J.: Paulist, 1972. The beautiful blend of captivating color photographs and a profound text has produced a masterpiece which can lead to prayer with ease. Ill--Prayer: The Presence of God. Abhishiktananda (Henri Le Saux, O.S.B.) Prayer. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972. To be Christian is to be contemplative. To be Christian is to live in awareness of the presence of God. Contemplation is not the private possession of monks and nuns, priests and religious. It is a gift of God to every man to be exploited and enjoyed. Born in the West, this monk has completely immersed himself in the spiritual heritage of the East. He is one of those phenomenal men who has not lost the roots of his own tradition, but is himself a bridge between East and West. Brother Lawrence. The Practice of the Presence of God. Springfield, I11.: Templegate, 1963 (3rd Edition). This little classic is Franciscan in its primitive simplicity, almost like a page out of a diary of St. Francis. The sheer beauty of God has captivated the heart of Lawrence, and the glimpses that he gets of God in the world around him and in God's Word shatters his heart, developing a spirituality that destroys every last ounce of the fear and diffidence that once motivated him. The introduction by Dorothy Day puts the times of Brother Lawrence into focus and the trans.lation by Donald.Attwater is limpid and clear. This is an account of growth in genuine prayer and the gradual opening of one man's mind and heart to the loveliness of God. It is a paradigm of prayer of great depth and beauty. IV--Prayer: Hesychasm or Prayer of the Heart: Anonymous. The Way of the Pilgrim, and The Pilgrim Continues His Way. (translated from the Russian by R. M. French) New York: Seabury Press, 1965. Prayer." A Thematic Bibliography / 545 After hearing in an Epistle the exhortation of St. Paul "to pray without ceasing," a pilgrim sets out on a journey to do exactly that--to pray ceaselessly. In inspiring narratives, the author instructs the reader about continual interior prayer. This is an ex-cellent introduction to the "Jesus Prayer." Chariton, Igumen (compiler). The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology. London: Faber & Faber, 1966. Dove Publications. This great anthology is concerned chiefly with one particular prayer, the "Jesus Prayer." This simple prayer has become the edifice upon which many Orthodox have built their spiritual life and through which many have penetrated to truth. This compilation of texts from spiritual men of many ages demonstrates the depth and riches of such a simple prayer.*** Kadloubovsky, E., and Palmer, G. E. H., translators. Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart. London: Faber & Faber, 1951. "Philokalia" means "'love of the beautiful" and it was the purpose of the Fathers of the Eastern Church to instill a sense of the beautiful and the sacred in their disciples. Concerned with hesychasm or prayer of the heart of which the "Jesus Prayer" is the prime example, these writings instruct and exhort the Christian in the way of the prayer of the heart.*** Maloney, George, S.J. The Jesus Prayer. Pecos: Dove Publications, 1974. George Maloney is steeped in the Russian hesychasm tradition, and this little booklet is an invaluable introduction to this form of prayer. A Monk of the Eastern Church. On the Invocation of the Name of Jesus. Ox-ford: S.L.G. Press, 1970. Nearly every sentence of this little book is loaded with power. To really appreciate it one must live with it, almost devour it. The author proceeds very logically from an explana-tion of the form of the "Jesus Prayer" to the explication of the theological implications and nuances contained in the "Jesus Prayer." A Monk of the Eastern Church. The Prayer of Jesus. New York: Desclee, 1965. This is considered the ciassic guide to, and explanation of, the "'Jesus Prayer." V--Prayer: The Scriptural Approach: The Psalms by God and man. Von Balthasar, Hans Urs. Prayer. Paramus, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1961. Father Hans Urs Von Balthasar has divided prayer into three main sections: "The Art of Contemplation," "The Object of Contemplation," "Polarities in Contemplation." He approaches the subject in a very masterly fashion, applying copiously many texts drawn from Sacred Scripture. He re-orientates prayer by re-orientating man, reminding him that he is redeemed, a son of God. Bro, Bernard. Learning to Pray. Staten Island: Alba House, 1966. 546 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/4 Despite his many assertions of generous disposition and openness to God, man always seems to find an excuse not to pray. Expanding on the texts, "Lord, teach us how to pray," and "could you not watch one hour with Me?" Bro sets out to show that prayer is a very necessary and vital part of faith. Johnston, William. "The Mystical Reading of the Scriptures--Some Suggestions from Buddhism." Cistercian Studies, #1, 1971. Johnston maintains that while Scriptural exegesis has "boomed ahead with great 61an," the understanding of Scripture at a deeper level than scholarship has made little progress. He suggests that Christians can learn from Buddhism ways of understanding Scripture at a deeper level--primarily through the use of the Koan and mantras taken from Scripture. Worden, T. The Psalms are Christian Prayers. London: Chapman, 1962. The purpose of this book is to re-orient andto change the reader's outlook on the ideas of the Old Testament. It attempts, and succeeds in creating a new mentality in the reader, one which assents to the truth that the Psalms are Christian prayers. VI--Prayer: Mental: Lehodey, Dom Vitalis, O.C.S.O. The Ways of Mental Prayer. Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, 1955. Noted for its simplicity and clarity of style, Lehodey has succeeded in writing an excellent guide for mental prayer. The accomplishment of Lehodey in this work should not be dis-missed or overlooked because of what appears to be, in recent decades,, a declining in-terest in mental prayer. Rohrbach, Peter Thomas. Conversation with Christ: An Introduction to Men-tal Prayer. 3rd Ed. Denville: Dimension, 1965. Modeled after the prayer of St. Theresa of Avila, Conversation With Christ makes one point: mental prayer is "conversation with Christ." The style is simple and lucid. This makes an excellent introduction to this form of prayer. VII--Prayer: The Oriental Approach: Johnston, William. Christian Zen. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Almost entirely practical in nature, this little book tries to make sense of Zen for the Christian by explaining some of the methods which can lead to "enlightenment." (cf. The Still Point, a book by this author which gives a psychological explanation of Zen and a discussion of the meeting point of Christian mysticism and Zen.) (cf. Silent Music, another book by this author which treats of the science of meditation. He writes of the similarities of the deep states of consciousness in various religious traditions. A good scientific evaluation.) Stevens, Edward. Oriental Mysticism. New York: Paulist, 1973. This is an integrated treatment of mysticism which combines experience, theory, and practice. Treading Buddhism, Zen, Hinduism, Taoism, the author discusses the necessity of meditation and the need of Western man to develop this ancient art. Temple, Sebastion. How To Meditate~ Chicago: Radial Press, 1971. Prayer." A iThematic Bibliography / 547 The author, a former Hindu monk, provides here n.ot only a "'complete guide to yoga techniques," but also an excellent resource book foi" meditation. VIII--Prayer: Contemplative and Mystical: ' Anonymous. The Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Counseling. (ed. William Johnston) Garden City: Doubleday, 11973. This is the classic Western exposition of the Byzan~tine tradition of mysticism which found its richest form in the writings of the "Pseudo-Dionysius." Recognizing that God is beyond all our concepts, that the Lord of Heaven add Earth is clothed in Mystery, the "Cloud," formulates a pragmatic of prayer based upon this profound insight into the transcendence of God. The unknown author recognizes that the vitality of prayer must be maintained and that the very obscurity of faith can deter from prayer. Prayer here is not understood as a static act, however, and that is where the author recognizes that he may be misunderstood: it is an attitude of mind, a "looking towards God," a life-style and a modality of thinking and acting. The Introduction by William Johnston is scholarly and thorough, linking the Cloud with other prayer traditions. The Cloud itself is a tightly reasoned book and is meant rather as an encouragement to those who find themselves quite alone in their searching and pursuit of God. This aloneness, this "forgetting," this "unknowing" is part of the pursuit, and the profound advice of the author of the Cloud leads to a number of important convictions in the whole business of prayer.*** Borst, J.M.H.M. "A Method of Contemplative Prayer." Review for Religious 33:4 (July, 1974), 790-816. The author makes an orderly recommendation of different "phases" of contemplative prayer and strongly urges that if one wants to be contemplative, he must practice con-templative prayer regularly. Catherine of Sienna. The Dialogues of St. Catherine of Sienna. Westminster: Newman Press, 1950. St. Catherine's dialogues are a lucid commentary on a living relationship with God and in them she mediates and articulates the full implications of theology regarding man's relationship with God. She lays down the conditions for growth in a vibrant and vital relationship and by the use of stirring and striking imagery communicates something of the scope and texture of true holiness. What is especially significant is the positive view of human things and the role of personal initiative and responsibility. From the theological point of view, she articulates the reality of a "personal providence," the intimate care and concern that God has for each one per-sonally and the tension and dynamics of this personal Providence. The end result is the strengthening of the spirit in a profound and personal hope in God and the growing ability to read the living signs of this hope in one's own life. This is "mysticism" at its best, but a mysticism completely devoid of subjectivity, opening up the mind to the rich possibilities of a personal encounter with God. Unfortunately, the translation is a bit archaic, but the living thought of St. Catherine still comes through.*** Higgins, John J., S.J. Merton's Theology of Prayer. Spencer, Mass.: Cistercian Publications, 1971. 54B / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/4 This study of Thomas Merton's theology of prayer shows the total consecration to com-panionship with God which was Merton's legacy. It shows the unity of Merton's thought and development, the spiritual passion that characterized his early years and the develop-ment of that passion to something close to spiritual genius. Merton's ability to nourish his prayer-life from hundreds of different sources, and the blossoming of that prayer-life in his varied writings reveals the depth and dimensions of this remarkable spiritual per-sonality. Prayer, in all its richness and beauty, is shown to be the result of normal faith and normal intelligence--but as fully exploited in a personal pursuit of God. This is different than is to be found in some other studies of prayer, in that it shows the embodi-ment of a prayer tradition in the life of one man, a man for whom God and prayer were the totality of life. Merton, Thomas. The Ascent.to Truth. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956. The finest introduction in any language to the mystical theology of St. John of the Cross. A lucid and clear exposition of the whys of prayer in the Juan de la Cruz tradition, with distinctions and clarifications which make it a very valuable theological work. Perhaps the finest of Merton's early works in which he shows himself to be a superb and masterly theologian. Merton, Thomas. Contemplative Prayer. New York: Herder & Herder, 1969. In Merton's solid "educated English," he traces the steps to an "educated awareness of God," the cultivation.of which is the finest fruit of faith. His thought ranges from the lim-pid simplicity of the early monks to the most brilliant insights of contemporary theology. This is adult spirituality at its best, with the Merton mind showing the full human and personal implications of a life of prayer. In this book, Merton becomes the guru, the prayer-tutor, sharing his own convictions and prayer-life with a wider audience. Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. N.Y.: New Directions. in this book, Merton covers all the elements of the interior life building up to a solid con-templative life of prayer. This is a very good psychological description of the experience of contemplative prayer. It is a revision of one of Merton's early works, perhaps the most enduring of the early writings. Morales, Jose L. (editor) Contemplative Prayer according to the Writings of St. Theresa of Jesus and St. John of the Cross, Doctors of the Church. An excellent compilation of texts about contemplative prayer by two great con-templatives.*** Underhill, Evelyn. Practical Mysticism. New York: Dutton, 1960. This highly competent and well-known author in the area of mysticism has here succeeded in clearing up the nebulous, ethereal thinking that is often characteristic of things dealing with the mystical. Voillaume, Rene. The Need of Contemplation. London: Darton, 1971. Contemplation is ndcessary for man's very survival, and it is time for man to begin to cultivate a contemplative attitude by proceeding to the heart of things. Love will overflow from the reservoirs of each individual's living contact with Christ. Love begets love; love begets contemplatives. Whalen, Joseph, S.J. Benjamin: Essays in Prayer. New York: Newman, 1972. An initiation into the world of wonder is an appropriate description of Benjamin. Whalen perceives the contemporary human situation and introduces the reader to the con-templative act--to wonder. Prayer." A Thematic Bibliography / 549 IX--Prayer: The Holy Spirit: Bennet, Dennis & Rita. The Holy Spirit and You: A Study-Guide to the Spirit- Filled Life. Plainfield, N.J.: Logos Int, 1971. This is an especially thorough and helpful explanation of that facet of the experience of God which is often called "the Spirit experience." Well done. John of St. Thomas. The Gifts of the Holy Ghost. (tr. by Dominic Hughes, O.P.) New York: Sheed & Ward, 1951. This classic work, using the framework of the traditional teaching on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, focuses on the action of God leading a person to freedom, to openness to God and to a deep life of prayer. The book shows how the gifts and action of the Spirit prepare a man for his encounter with God, giving him clarity of vision, flexibility and resilience, making fertile his freedom, and leading him to explore the wonder and magnitude of God. The book is difficult reading in places, but the implications of the teaching are critical to any real life of prayer. John of St. Thomas shows that the gifts are purification, education, insight and are the full blossoming of faith and a vibrant love of God. By the gifts, the seeker of God begins to share, in some small degree, in the abundance and plenitude of God. In the words of St. Thomas, the gifts are the deep interior currents of a life of prayer, giving to a man a certain kinship, a connaturality with Divine Things. They make a man a lover of God, the~, bring about a state of intimacy with God and Divine Things, and give a foretaste of beatitude. By tl~e gifts, a man exchanges a human standard for a Divine one, and begins to measure his life and his expectations by a Divine yardstick. They open wide the horizons of loving God, enabling a man to "'dream the im-possible dream." Sherrili, John. They Speak With Other Tongues. N.Y.: Pyramid, 1964. A very skeptical journalist relates his contact with and eventual experience of the gift of tongues. This is a valuable explanation of the not-too-long-ago unusual phenomenon which has become wide-spread and highly significant. X--Prayer: Best Sellers: Carothers, Merlon R. Prison to Praise. Plainfield, Logos, Int., 1970. Praise and thank God for all things, even for bad situations and circumstances. This is the basic tenet of a series of books on praise, written by this author. Carothers uses l Thess 5:16-17 as the basis for this form of prayer which has proven itself a powerful aid in revolutionizing people's lives. Parker, Dr. William F. and St. Johns, Elaine. Prayer Can Change Your Life. New York: Pocket Books, 1957. This best seller discusses "prayer therapy," a psychological experiment in prayer which helped forty-five people to grow to greater emotional wholeness and to gain peace of mind. For a good understanding of the nature of Western Mysticism, see "The Nature of Mysticism" by David Knowles in the Twentieth Century En-cyclopedia of Catholicism. ***It is to one's advantage to bring to this book some experience in prayer and especially an understanding of the spiritual, theological and philosophical milieu of the age in which the author wrote, in order to appreciate the full impact of the work. it is also to one's advantage to read this book under the guidance of a spiritual advisor. Models of Poverty Gerald R. Grosh, S.J. Gerald R. Grosh, in addition to teaching theology at Xavier University in Cincinnati, is a member of the staff of the Jesuit Renewal Center; P.O. Box 289; Milford, OH 45150. In his latest book, Models of the Church,~ Avery Dulles elucidates five models2 of the Church which he finds operative "in the minds of the faithful. He analyzes each one in terms of the advantages and disadvantages that each model has in aiding Christian living. Ultimately, Dulles says that the Church is a mystery and that no one model can adequately encompass a mystery. Rather, he states that the models are mutually complementary like the ¯ different shades and colors that blend together to create a total picture. The book is very freeing since it allows for various models and opens up other dimensions of the Church--especially for those persons who are locked into one framework. The aim of this article is to do for our notion of poverty what Dulles has done for our notion of the Church. In our time religious generally are uneasy about their practice of poverty. Often it seems that specific features of our practice of poverty can be amply justified if they are taken one by one. But the features taken all together, the total picture, clearly leave much to be desired. What is wrong? Where do we fail? Perhaps the failure in poverty, if indeed it is failure, results from a too exclusive concentration on one model of poverty, from our failure to let our own dominant model of poverty be balanced ade-quately by other models. It is the belief of this author that a clarification of the 1Avery Dulles, Models of the Church (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, inc., 1974). 2A model is an attitude of mind or a mental framework. It is a way of looking at and understand-ing a particular phenomenon, it points more to a structure of the mind than to a particular con-tent. 550 Models of Poverty / 551 models involved would facilitate the discussion as well as the choices that are made. I shall delineate seven models which 1 see operative in our discussions of poverty. I shall briefly describe each model, indicate the spiritual value which it strives to encompass, indicate its advantages and disadvantages, and list some practical suggestions which might be in accord with a given model. 1. Pnverty as Cnmmunitarian Sharing The call to religious life is a call to living the vows in community. Religious life witnesses to the experience of community as we share our lives together and work toward the common goal of preaching the good news of Jesus Christ. The vow of poverty, then, calls us to share not only our living together and working together but also our material goods. This is rooted in the experience of the early Church: "The whole group of believers was united, heart and soul; no one claimed for his own use anything that he had, as everything they owned was held in common" (Acts 4:32). This model of poverty as communitarian sharing points to the fundamental unity which we have as religious--namely, a unity of heart. We are all believers. We share a common vision of faith and hope. We are united in love. Each person's value is not what he owns or has, but who he is. So deep is our oneness that we live in community and share our possessions. The goal is the underlying unity of mind and heart. One of the advantages of this model is that it aims at eliminating differences between "rich and poor" and focuses on the equality of all. It at-tacks the roots of ownership which can so easily foster vanity and greed. Thus whatever is given to one is given to the whole community and goes to "the common barrel." The spiritual foundation for this mutual sharing of goods is the mutual care that the members of a given community have for one another. The disadvantage of this model is that it becomes more difficult to live as life becomes more complex. We know that we need certain things for apostolic use. How, then, does one regulate the quality and quantity of goods that are needed? How does one maintain the equality of all and the non-ownership of all? The traditional response t6 this dilemma has been to link the acquisition and use of goods with receiving permission for them from the superior. The underlying purpose of asking permission has been to aid our acting as non- . owners and to help free us from the power that is present in ownership. But it has been difficult for individuals not to compare what they have with what others have and therefore to justify their own acquisition of the same thing or of something else. It has been difficult for a superior to say "no" to one where he has said "yes" to another. Furthermore, critics of the system have pointed out that an adult makes his own decisions and that this practice has often seemed infantile. Also, as superiors so readily grant permission, the require-ment has come to be seen by many as a formality to be gone through or even ignored. It has also been difficult to draw a fine line between what one needs and what one wants. 552 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/4 In the judgment of this author, in so far as poverty has been linked to ask-ing permission for goods, it has failed--whether one blames the notion itself or the persons who have failed to live it. However, the model of poverty as com-munitarian living does have something to offer us today. The essence of the model is the mutual sharing of material goods in community. It would seem to preclude the private appropriation of goods (personal TVs, personal cars, etc.). It would also seem to preclude the free disposition of one's salary, e.g., the buying of books or equipment, travel, relaxation, or even almsgiving. 2. Poverty as Simplicity of Life- The second model of poverty is that of the frugal life-style or "simplicity of life." This model focuses clearly on poverty as a fact, i.e., material poverty. The spiritual foundation of simplicity of life is that it aids to singularity of pur-pose and locus--namely on the Lord and His work. Nothing else matters that much. This model of poverty is easily linked with the model of poverty as un-ion with the poor. Stated simply, this model of simplicity of life points to the fact that a poor man does not have a lot of material possessions or the free dis-position of a lot of money. The advantage of this model is that it can act as a deterrent or as a negative norm for how we spend our money. Does a poor person have a color TV or is he able to jet across the country, or have a stereo set? How often can the poor person or family afford steak? Lavish spending is seen as an insult to the poor who struggle for their food and their meagre existence. Such spending is also seen to imply contempt for human w~rk and the dignity of man involved in working hard for a day's pay. Also, as with the model of poverty as com-munitarian sharing, this model takes away the sense of power that is involved in the possession of goods and in the lavish disposition of one's finances. The advantage, then, of this model of poverty is that it keeps one mindful of his union with the poor Christ and honest in terms of what he spends. Its primary disadvantage is that it can cause one to be so absorbed in bookkeep-ing and penny-pinching that he loses the perspective of apostolic service. However, there are also other possible disadvantages that can accompany this model. Too great an emphasis on material things can lead to a pharisaism which overlooks the more important poverty of spirit. It can also result in divisiveness and criticism within communities as some will need more things than others to carry out their apostolic work. The particular way of living according to this model would call a person to be continually mindful of how his or her standard of life compares with' the poor. Such things as careful personal and community budgets, economical automobiles, buying articles on s.ale, adjusting budgets to meet emergencies, are evidences of the

Issue 56.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1997. ; for relig i ou s Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1997 ¯ VOLUME 56 ¯ NUMBER 1 lived experience of all who find that the church's rich heritages of spirituality support their personal and apostolic Christian lives. The articles in the joumml are meant to be informative, practical, or inspirational, written from a theological or spiritual or sometimes canonical point of view. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Lonis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: I:OPI~ EMA@SLUVCA.SI~U. E DU Manuscripts, books for review, aud correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. 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Such permission will o,aly be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisoty Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Jean Read James and Joan Felling Iris Ann Ledden SSND Joel Rippinger OSB Edmundo Rodriguez SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC Christian Heritages.and Contemporary Living JA~NUARY-FEBRUARY 1997 ¯ VOLUME 56 ¯ NUMBER 1 contents living the consecrated life ~ 6 The Ambiguity of Religious Life: Does It Evolve? Nadine Foley OP highlights the living tradition of consecrated life evidenced in the phrase "consecration for mission" and its development in Vita consecrata. The Vatican II Generation and Religious Life Brian J. Pierce oP comments on his post-Vatican II experience of contemplative spirituality, community living and sharing, and ministry among the poor. Of Those Who Leave Us: A Typology Edward van Merrienboer OP describes five types of members seeking permission to leave and the behaviors that led to their petitions. growing as christians 37 Four Seasons for Christian Group Sharing Hilary Ot~ensmeyer OSB proposes a dynamic based on the framework of the four seasons for Christian groups to reach new levels of sharing. Inner Work with You~ Anger 'Paul Duckro, Marjorie Kukor, and Jean Meier CSJ present the potential of a contemplative or meditational encounter with anger, so linking the psychological and spiritual aspects of healing. On Letting Go Denise M. Callaghan SSND reflects on the pervasiveness of a "letting go" in the continuing call of God to us as individuals and as a community. Review for Religious 59 loving as celibates Nuptial Love and Discerning Celibacy's Call Daniel J. Trapp examines the specific call to celibacy as a spousal response to Christ's love. Consecrated Celibacy as Means, Peril, and Delight Melannie Svoboda SND describes a few aspects of the religious experience of consecrated celibacy which is rooted in the unfathomable mystery of God's radical-mad love. 72 finding God Mystical Moments in Daily Life Matthias Neuman OSB calls attention to the mystical moments that reveal a transcendent mysteriousness and often a holy . presence which are a part of our ordinary faith experience. Silence Donald Macdonald SMM points the ways in which silence helps us perceive the priceless gift of a Spirit-filled world. Jesus, Power, and the ONE Edmundo Rodriguez SJ presents a way of understanding how action on behalf of justice is sanctioned by the life and teaching of Jesus. departments Prisms ~.,~ /~o ~ ~-,~, ~-Jf~o,o- Canonical Counsel: Diocesan Institutes and Pontifical Institutes Book Reviews January-February 1997 prisms Jesus is the focus of this year's celebra-tions preparatory to the coming third millennium. In John Paul's apostolic letter "As the Third Millennium Draws Near," the thematic structure of the three-year period 1997- 1999 is Trinitarian. Since the distinctly Christological char-acter of the jubilee is a primary emphasis, the first year, 1997, is devoted to "reflection on Christ, the Word of God, made man by the power of the Holy Spirit" (40). National conferences of bishops, local dioceses and individual parishes, religious congregational provinces, and other church organizations have proposed various ways of entering into this reflection on Christ: Some helpful study aids, reflection guides, and discussion outlines are available. Programs and conferences, gatherings among various Christian churches, and especially prayer services are planned throughout .the year. We all are called to become a part of this movement-- like a three-year-long Advent preparation--to celebrate our Christian jubilee. The challenge for each of us is accept-ing our responsibility "to know Christ Jesus" and acting on it. Knowing Jesus was a constant theme of St. Paul's writ-ings to the young churches. It is the theme reemphasized in our preparation for celebrating the millennium. How do we come to know Jesus? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each give us a way of knowing Jesus. Every Gospel account became a composite reflection of the stories told about Jesus within an evange-list's particular community. Details and settings of the same stories differ from Gospel account to Gospel account, and it does not matter. Each way of telling the story is true in its Review for Religious ability to give us an entrance into knowing Jesus. At one moment in our lives, through the Gospel of Mark we may find ourselves impressed by the immediate sense of Jesus' activism, the uncluttered quality of his speech, the directness of his affective response. At another time we appreciate the Jesus of Luke's Gospel, who appears so much the person of prayer, compassion, and lively joy. Sometimes the longer wisdom stories of John's Gospel and the image-identity language of being bread, life, light, vine, shepherd, gate, or para-clete call us to pe~r deep into our well of meditation. Over and over as we move through the Gospels, we find ourselves always com-ing to know Jesus~ Perhaps, taking our cue from St. Paul, we might discover anew the insight especially applicable to our millennium preparation. Necessary and helpful as the Gospel accounts are for our knowing Jesus, only in entering into our own experience will we find the Jesus who calls us by name, knocks at the door of our heart, and persists in bringing about the fullness of the reign ofGod. St. Paul was marked forever by his experience of One saying to him, "It is Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting." For Paul there was no confusion of James and Joseph and Julia and Claudia with Jesus. But Paul realized that, in his dealings with James and Joseph and Julia and Claudia, he was also dealing with Jesus and coming to know him more, Paul came to know Jesus the more he preached and the. more he worked with all the people in his churches and the more he prayed. What Paul focuses for each of us is the Jesus in front of us, the Jesus whose coming we await by the way we live and minis-ter now. Jesus in his total gift of living and dying and Jesus in his sure promise of coming is always being made present to us in the Eucharist and so in his Body, the church. We experience Jesus. Experiencing Jesus is more than studying Christology or gospel reading. Experiencing Jesus is more than serving a, soup line or demonstrating for peace. Experiencing Jesus is knowing Jesus in the way that Paul exhorts his churches to know Jesus and to let themselves be seen as models of imitation because of that knowl-edge. The demand for people who know Jesus in this way has never been so clearly expressed as it is in the pope's apostolic letter. In John's Gospel, the story is told of some Greeks who came forward to Philip, making the request "We want to see Jesus." How will we, with the question coming both from within us and from with-out, respond this year to that request? David L. Fleming SJ ~anuary-FebtwaO, 1997 living the consecrated life NADINE FOLEY The Ambiguity of Religious Life: Does It Evolve? A number of years ago, in one of those seemingly endless discussions about the character of religious life that flour-ished among women religious after Vatican Council II, I remember making a reference to the evolution of reli-gious life. Within my hearing a canonist vehemently snapped out an objection. "Her response startled me; I could not see a reason for her agitated insistence. Was it the word evolution? The word seemed appropriate to me as a member of a religious congregation of women whose founders, responding to needs of the mid-1800s, emerged from their cloistered life in Regensburg, Germany, and ,.met the challenges of ministry in their new home in America. The move was not merely geographical. It entailed considerable adaptation of their lifestyle, their sense of mission, and ultimately their self-identity as a religious congregation of women. Their revered daily reg-imen of discipline and prayer as Second Order Dominican nuns was not immediately adaptable to what they were to undertake in a new and strange world. In due time they made the wrenching decision to become conventual Third Order Dominicans, an available alternative within Dominican structures. Was this development some kind of evolution? Nadine Foley OP, a former president of the Leadership Council of Women Religious (LCWR), is professor of religious studies at Siena Heights College and is historian for the Adrian Dominican Sisters. She can be addressed at 1257 East Siena Heights Drive; Adrian, Michigan 49221. Review for Religious Other institutes of women religious, founded directly for active apostolic or ministerial life, came sooner or later to share much similarity with active institutes such as mine that have their ¯ historical roots in the cloistered contemplative life. For both of these groups, there were expectations of meeting the obligations that had pertained to contemplative life: separation from the world, limited contact with the laity, conformity in dress and often in demeanor, a set horarium of prayer and liturgical observance, and disciplinary practices of silence, self-abnegation, and obedi-ence. Many of these were unique to women religious and not shared by their male counterparts. But changes were occurring in women's religious life without the appropriate "infrastructure" to support it. Modifications were made--dropping night vigils and prayers, from the daily horarium, omitting face veils from the prescribed dress, and the like--but tensions often existed, whether acknowledged or not. The model for the religious life of women remained that of the enclosure. The 1917 Code of Canon Law, welcome in many respects, more or :less fixed the ambiguity canonically in the sense that its architects--and, no doubt, members of religious institutes as well--did not have a clear perception that something new was emerging in religious life and might require a new look at the canonical legislation. In the 1930s and 1940s religious congrega-tions hastened .to write new constitutions in conformity with the Code while at the same time many made formal application for the status of pontifical institute. The all-consuming preoccupation for women religious (and many men religious as well) was with developing the entire spectrum of Catholic education and health-care to meet the needs of a burgeoning Catholic population. The effort required education of the members in all of the relevant fields of specialization to meet the standards of accrediting agen-cies. Meanwhile, imperceptible to the outside observer and even to many within religious life, a ferment of dissatisfaction and dis-affection was gradually spreading. The competencies developed by religious in the many secular fields required for their professional ministries had the additional effect of providing them with criti-cal tools of analysis that they began to apply to their own per-sonal development and their social organization as religious institutes. Then came Vatican Council II. By this time the institutes of women's religious life were ready for the directives from Rome ffanuary-Febrttaty 1997 that followed it: Hold a general chapter of renewal within three years, consult all the members in preparation, and enter into a period of experimentation where it seems advisable. A further communication, directing the institutes to write new constitu-tions and statutes, called for a thorough review of the original inspirations of the founders. No one could have predicted the impact of what followed, particularly when the institutes devel-oped internal processes for consulting all the members. Their reflections and consultations brought to the fore a wealth of expe-rience that hitherto had not been factored into general-chapter decisions about the congregations' agendas. The questions and the solutions were wide ranging and radical in the very good sense of reaching to the roots of religious life and its very identity. Reexamining origins and reflection upon a century and a half of experience in ministry were critical in formulating new con-stitutions. The documents produced were perhaps the first to reflect the character of women's active, or ministerial, ~eligious life. Mining the rich tradition~ in the original inspirations of reli-gious institutes led to a breadth in understanding ministry, not so much as specific works, but as response to the needs of people in our times. 'But a parallel effort was in progress at the same time: the reform of the Code of Canon Law. While religious worldwide submitted data for the section on religious life, their work on constitutions proceeded without benefit of knowing how the canonical revisions were progressing. In the final analysis, while some strides were made, religious were unable to find in the revised canons support for some of the new approaches--to traditional values of governance, community, ministry, the vows-- that had already been duly incorporated into their constitutions and statutes. As one who participated in the process of gaining approval of new constitutions through conversations with members of the Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL, a recent name change that requires its own exegesis), I had a privileged vantage point from which to examine the notion that religious life does not evolve. While processes had been devised whereby entire congregations participated in developing new constitutions (documents that for the first time accurately reflect our sense of identity as ministerial congregations of women religious), it became quite clear that we were expected ,to fit into a Procrustean bed of fixed categories. Review for Religious The suggestion, once heard, that we could save ourselves a lot of trouble if we just settled upon calling ourselves "secular insti-tutes" epitomized the problem. We did not fit many canonical expectations of "consecrated life," but at the same time we found no comfort in being labeled secular institutes. ("Institutes of apos-tolic life," founded specifically for traditional "missionary" activ-ity in "foreign" lands, continues to be a unique category.) It is against this background that I read the postsynodal apos-tolic exhortation Vita consecrata. Many things can be said about this document, some positive and some nega-tive. (I will not dwell here on the persis-tence of noninclusive language.) But I take encouragement in the inference I draw from it that there is basis here for the idea that religious life can in fact evolve--or at leastodevelop, if that is a more acceptable word. I draw this conclusion as I move from chapter 2 to chapter 3 and find a distinct theological shift from a transcendent view of religioils life to what I will call an incar-national one. The shift is particularly evi-dent in the treatment of consecration, no longer wholly identified with the vows, but associated with mission in the phrase "con-secration for mission." While the theological reorientation is not consistent throughout, the theme is pervasive enough to be noted as a significant change. Two themes that are present throughout 'the exhortation are consecration and eschatology. The manner of their treatment illus-trates, the shifting theology. In chapter 1 the organizing biblical text is Matthew's account of the transfiguration, described as "a decisive moment in the ministry of Jesus" (§ 15, italics in the original here and elsewhere). While the document presents this experi-ence of Peter, James, and John as constantly relived by the whole church, a people on its way to the eschatological encounter with its Lord, it has particular meaning for those called to the conse-crated life. For, we read, Peter's words "Lord, how good it is to be here! . eloquently express the radical nature of the vocation to the consecrated life." The. ecstasy and the mystery of the trans-figuration lead to the evangelical counsels as "a specific acceptance of the mystery of Christ, lived within the Church" (§16). Thus reli- Reexamining origins and reflection upon a century and a half of experience in ministry were critical in formulating new constitutions. Januaty-February 1997 gious consecration is linked to the eschatological realization of the reign of God to come. Applying this interpretation to the three basic vocations within the church, the text reads: "The laity, by virtue of the secular character of their vocation, reflect the mystery of the Incarnate Word particularly insofar as he is the Alpha and the Omega of the world, the foundation and measure of the value of all created things. Sacred ministers, for their part, are 'living images of Christ the Head and Shepherd who guides his people during this time of 'already and not yet,' as they await his coming in glory. It is the duty of the consecrated life to show that the Incarnate Son of God is the eschatological goal towards which all things tend, the splendor before which every other light pales, and the infinite beauty which alone can fully satisfy the human heart" (§16). The three vocations here do not reflect the division of the church into episcopacy, clergy, and laity found in Vatican II's Lumen gentium, an outline that, by including nonclerical religious only invisibly among the laity, seems to drop them from the church (see LG §§31 and 43). While harking back to the "objective superiority of the conse-crated life" (§§18 and 32), a notion seemingly abandoned after Vatican II, chapter 1 acknowledges that religious life, in addition to its eschatological witness, is also "a particularly profound and fruitful way of sharing in Christ's mission, in imitation of the exam-ple of Mary of Nazareth, the first disciple" (§18). The "sacred bond of chastity for the sake of the kingdom of God" is singled out as the first and essential evangelical counsel. A further expansion to all the church's members' manifesting the one mystery of Christ is contained in the statement (here retranslated from the Latin) that, "as their specific but not exclusive characteristics, the lay faithful have activity in the world, the clergy have ministry, and consecrated men and women have special conformity to Christ chaste, poor, and obedient.''l This assertion occurs in the discus-sion of baptism and confirmation's conferral of a consecration that is common to all members of the people of God (§31). Erroneously but understandably, "ministry" in the official English translation of this sentence is sometimes taken to be the exclusive responsibility of the clergy, and special conformity to Christ in chastity, poverty, and obedience an exclusive character-istic of consecrated men and women. The qualifier "but not exclu-sively" seems to be attached only to the specific characteristic of the laity ("activity in the world") when in fact it pertains to the Review for Religious specific characteristics of the other two groups as well. Just as the laity and the clergy are not to repudiate the importance of their own "conformity to Christ chaste, poor, and obedient," neither priests nor (at least during the last several hundred years) women and men religious have been excluded from activity "in the world" along.with the laity. This is "missionary" activity, understood in the fundamental sense of their having been baptized into mission. It is just possible that collectively reli-gious have been quite as involved in ministry in the world as the laity have been, and no doubt proportionately more so until the recent past. Further reflection upon these three distinct-- but also overlapping (officially in this document and manifestly in historical praxis)--categories of baptized people seems to suggest that such separation of roles among the people of God no longer serves, If all the people of God are baptized into mission, and bear a responsibility for it, saving the term ministry exclusively for bishops and priests would scarcely be helpful. The term is today widely applied to many kinds of ser-vice as forms of diakonia, an essential component of mission, along with kerygma and koinonia--preaching and community. Perhaps in this connection we could profit from an expanded exploration of the meaning of the priesthood of all of the faithful. In various ways it is being exercised, but without the kind of theological reflec~ tion that would help us understand who we are as a total priestly people of God addressing the many aberrations in faith and morals that surround us in our global society today~ For many of us the subhead "Consecrated for mission" that appears at the beginning of chapter 3 leaps off the page as a sign of theological breakthrough. It encapsulates the case that I tried to"make for this concept in.my 1989. LCWR presidential address (see Origins 19, no. 13 [31 August 1989]: 209-214). At that time the idea abroad here and there that some r.eligious had opted for consecration and others for mission seemed dangerously divisive. The dichotomy became a defining issue for reflecting upon who and what women religious uniquely had become. We were and If all the people of God are baptized into mission, and bear a responsibility for it, saving the term ministry exclusively for bishops and priests would scarcely be helpful. Janltary-Febrvtmy 1997 are present in the world not merely as a kind of ethereal escha-tological "sign" of the kingdom to come--by reason of the vows we profess, that particular consecration of ours. Rather, we were and are present also as ministerial workers actively advancing the good of people and, thereby, the reign of justice and peace. In this way, too, we are a striking sign of the reign of God--by rea-son of our dedication to the mission of Jesus, consecration in that sense as well. Indeed, as the exhortation at this point says, "The task of devoting themselves wholly to 'mission' is ~,. included in their call . A sense of mission is essential to .every institute, not only those dedicated to the active apostolic life, but also those dedicated to the contemplative life" (§72). In support of this, Luke 4:16~ 19 is cited to emphasize that the Spirit has consecrated Jesus to bring good news to the poor, to captives, to the blind (§82). Consecration for mission places the vows in a new context and suggests that they testify to the evangelical counsels' "profound anthropological significance" (§87). Chastity is presented as a response to "a hedonistic culture which separates sexuality from all objective moral norms, often treating it as a mere diversion and a consumer good and, with the complicity of the means of social communication, justifying a kind of idolatry of the sexual instinct" (§88). Poverty is related to "a materialism which craves possessions, heedless of the needs and sufferings of the weakest, and lacking any concern for the balance of natural resources" (§89). And obe, dience is a response to "those notions of freedom which separate this fundamental human good from its essential relationship to the truth and to moral norms. In effect, the promotion of freedom is a genuine value, closely connected with respect for the human person, But who does not see the aberrant consequences of injus-tice and even violence, in th( life of individuals and of peoples, to which the distorted use of freedom leads?" (§91). These ideas on the vows, incarnational in my view, are more compatible with our experience than the idealized and "transcendental" notions pre-sented in the earlier sections of the document. They are consonant with the serious study we have done on Gaudium et spes and with the implications we have drawn for our identity in mission and the ministries we have undertaken to further the reign of God. These interpretations are welcome in expressing a realistic understand-ing of the vows, one with which we can identify. Whether or not~ religious life evolves is in the end not that sig-nificant a question. What really is at issue is whether or not the Review for Religious church--and the religious life within it--has a living tradition, one that adapts and grows and grafts new things into its old self, for the sake of gospel mission. The experience of women reli-gious over the years reveals that there is a dynamic interior prin-ciple among us that challenges, motivates, energizes, and adapts in our ongoing history. The traditional values of religious life are not cast aside; they are evaluated in new contexts, reinterpreted and reformulated for our mission in the contemporary world. Our communal discernment in these recent years convinces us that this interior principle is the Holy Spirit, to whom we must be faithful. Thus, Vita conseo'ata, Pope John Paul's postsynodal exhor-tation "on the consecrated life and its mission," strikes us as an affirmation of a movement of the Spirit of God that we have rec-ognized in our experience and articulated in our theological reflec-tion. We are happy to find this movement acknowledged in this exhortation. Note i "Licet varia haec genera unum Christi mysterium demonstrent, pro-prietatem peculiarem quamvis non unicam laici prae se ferunt, saecular-itatem nempe, pastores ministeriorum curationem, homines consecrati peculiarem cum Christo virgine paupere oboediente conformationem" (AAS 88, no. 5 [13 May 1996]: 405, §31). Our Lady of the Gifts Bewildered by the gifts: they bring Her son--such treasurest. and still listening For more nightsongs strange spirits sing, Her human love thrusts these apart As not fully human; let him start With just one gift; pressed to her breast For all she has to give: her human heart. Nancy G. Westerfield Janua~y-Februmy 1997 BRIAN PIERCE The Vatican II Generation and Religious Life lhad just celebrated my second birthday when John XXIII _~-went over to a dusty, closed window, threw it open with a smile, and invited the windy spirit of Vatican Council II in to freshen things up a bit. Needless to say, I do not recall the excite-ment of that time. Nor do I remember where I was when the news broke that John F. Kennedy had been shot. Only three at the time, I was probably building a fort in a sandbox somewhere-- totally oblivious to the tears and shock that swept the nation and the world, sending my mother into early labor. I do not even remember my little brother's birth the next morning. My preparation for first Communion was with a group of guitar-playing sisters who taught us a revised version of the Act of Contrition (I never did learn the "0 my God, I am heartily sorry" version that my older brother learned). They taught us, too, thaf it was okay to chew the Communion host before swal-lowing it, something my brother had distinctly been told not to do. To top it all off, none of my philosophy or theology classes as a Dominican were in Latin, and so, every time an older Dominican tosses out a Latin phrase during a dinner conversation, We younger men just roll our eyes and pretend to know what he is saying. Coming from that background, I can honestly say that I love the church and am committed to continue the journey as a Brian J. Pierce oP is a member of a Dominican community whose activ-ity includes lay ministry formation, university ministry, and pastoral accompaniment of persons with AIDS. His address is Frailes Dominicos; Apartado 2608, San Pedro Sula; Honduras, Central America. Review for Religious believer, a disciple of Jesus, and a preacher in the family of St. Dominic. I often get the feeling, though, that some of those who grew up in the pre-Vatican church look at us of the postconciliar generation as second-class Catholics: "Nobody can call himself a real Catholic if he's never attended a forty-hours' devotion," said one of those faithful daily-Mass folks to me one morning. I swallowed and smiled, not daring to confess to him that the young priest who had just "said Holy Mass" was one of those question-able "pseudo-Catholics." A sense of humor and some patient understanding help in those situations in which the distances between the generations seem irreconcilable. Religious Life and Spiritual Development In his recent book Further along the Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck, noted psychiatrist and spiritual guide, has capsulized in simple language the stages of spiritual development that James Fowler and others had mapped out earlier. Peck speaks of four stages: (1) chaotic-antisocial, (2) formal-institutional, (3) skeptic-individual, and (4) mystical-communal. My intention here is not to give an overview of the stages, but instead to comment on my own experience as a religious withi'n the post-Vatican church in light of Peck's categories. I realize that to make sweeping generalizations about faith development, especially on an institutional level, is both preten-tious and dangerous. I do so only as a way of situating us within the present moment so that we can more readily hear the Spirit calling us to growth. All ages of church history have had persons and communities representing each of the four stages. I think, though, that i( is safe to say that the pre-Vatidan church and reli-gious life had become somewhat bogged down in the legalistic uniformity of Peck's stage 2 (formal-institutional). Vatican II opened up the windows and doors of dialogue, both within the church and with the world. This dialogue marked the social and ecclesial environment in which my generation of religious grew up. In our childhood years Catholic liturgy was being transformed (causing its share of confusion, I later learned), and we began singing such hits as "Sons of God, hear his holy word" (inclusive language being still in an embryonic stagg). Renewal brought many new apostolic groups and movements, and there was an Janua~y-Febm,ary 1997 Pierce ¯ The Vatican H Generation and Religious Life overall air of dialogue and experimentation, especially in religious life. Uniformity was out, and modified habits and consensus deci-sion making were coming in. Vatican II's fresh breeze opened up the possibility for many persons and religious communities to move into skeptic-individ-ual faith development, Peck's stage 3. Peck says that, even though this stage is outwardly less "religious," it is in fact more "spiritual.". It is the stage of healthy questioning, conscientious dissent, and the blending of psychology and spirituality. In many ways those first years manifested themselves as an overreaction to the for-malities and legalisms of years past. In a positive sense it was a time of much dialogue and growth. My generation was still too young to be involved in 'the dialogue, but our early religious edu-cation took place in that environment. I remember the lay couple who taught our confirmation class in the early 1970s stressing that for us to be mature Christians we had to learn to make moral decisions with gospel responsibility. A far cry from the Baltimore Catechism of our parents' generation! Now we are in the 1990s and rapidly approaching the new millennium. Again, recognizing the frailty of making any kind of generalization, I think it safe to say that most of us raised in the postconciliar generation and most of the religious communities that went through renewal are still in Peck's stage 3. I do not mean that we have stopped growing or have become stagnant. Quite the contrary. In the American church in general and also among religious, a strong spirit of creative searching, is still preva-lent. At the same time, though, I think that very few religious communities have moved to what Scott Peck calls the mystical-community level. This may be quite natural, given the fact that Vatican II happened only thirty years ago, but my hope is that our generation may have something to offer here. Those of us who were formed in stage-3 parishes and reli-gious communities, complete with guitar Masses and face-to-face "celebrations of reconciliation," never went through the painful birthing process that gave way to the renewal of Vatican II. We are grateful to those who have gifted us with this rich inheritance-- a more mature and liberating life of faith within the community of believers. In many ways we had it easy, and perhaps it is now our .turn to lead the way through the desert. Many of my friends (ages twenty to forty) have left the church for a variety of reasons. Some have gone back to stage-2 Review for Religious Catholicism (usually lured there by disgruntled elders) or have found security in fundamentalist Christian groups. Reactionary Catholic religious congregations and movements and Bible-thumping evangelical churches (sometimes even with a shiny, high-tech faFade) are on the rise. Others of my friends--some of whom experimented with drugs--are trying to get to stage 4 by New Age pseudomysticism. Many young people today have a thirst for religious and mystical experience, and not all of them seek just a quick fix. The large num-ber of young adults (many ex-Catholics) adhering to the rigorous disciplines of Eastern meditation practices is an impor-tant phenomenon of our day. Our gener-ation is willing to sacrifice if we believe it is worthwhile (that is, no blind obedience, please). What, then, is this new journey that calls out to us today? If Our religious com-munities are not opening up the path to a deeper mystical and communal level of faith (Peck's stage 4), how can we respond in creative ways to bring about the needed growth? I am no expert on either faith development or postcon-ciliar religious renewal, nor do I propose to speak on behalf of all the Vatican II'generation. I simply speak out of my fourteen years of experience, prayerful struggle, and reflection as a Dominican. We have been hearing for several years now that religious life is in crisis, and I basically agree with that reading of the signs of the times. Crisis, however, does not have to mean something bad, a negative experience. Crisis can mean growth, a time for matur-ing, Just as past generations of Catholic religious strove to pro-duce new forms of religious life, so must we do today. This is no time to give up or go backward. We have received a generous and precious inheritance indeed, but the "not yet" of God's reign still burns within us: Now it is our generation's time and task to carry the torch. I am aware that much is being written about the renewal and refounding of religious life these days, and in no way do I intend a comprehensive overview of the issues at'stake. I will look at three main topics (contemplative spirituality, community living and sharing, and ministry among the poor) while attempting to We have received a generous and precious inheritance indeed, but "not yet" of God's reign still burns within us. I7- Januao,-Feb~waO, 1997 Pierce * The Vatican H Generation and Religious Life reflect on them from the perspective of us who were raised beneath the cool shade of Vatican II. Contemplative, Prayerful Living My mother, whbm I consider to be a fairly open and renewed Catholic, still pulls a tattered Stations of the Cross prayer book out of her purse to reflect on before Mass or after Communion. In other words, she still holds on to and receives life from the meditative and devotional practices common before Vatican II. That kind of prayer-book piety does not fill my spiritual needs, but neither does the "my ministry is my prayer" pastoral workaholism that apparently has taken its place, especially among us younger religious. It seems to me that we went from saying prayers (Peck's stage 2) to not saying prayers (stage.3 skepticism) and somewhere along the way began to lose sight of the plain, simple art of just praying. For many of us, the charismatic renewal, with its focus on prayer rather than saying prayers, offered a stepping-stone in our spiritual development, but the emotionalism and fundamental:- ism in the movement caused many to look elsewhere. I am con, vinced now more than ever, after five years of living among the destitute poor of Central America, that being a follower of Jesus necessitates a deep commitment to prayer--and prayer requires time, energy, and creativity. Without a very intentional spiritual life, we run the risk of doing many good things on an ego~ trip rather than out of gospel-based selfless love. As I grow in prayer-ful communion with God, I discover that my loving others is freer, less needy, more liberating. In the past several years, there has been a growing interest in contemplative and centering prayer throughout the country. This is a wonderfully hopeful sign, and in many places it is the laity who are taking the lead in this kind of prayer. It saddens me that I have lived in or visited religious communities where com-mon prayer is either nonexistent (stage-3 individualism, at best) or simply "reciting the breviary" (stage-2 formalism). In order to grow into a communal, stage-4 level of faith, we must learn once again what it means to really pray together. I occasionally spend my annual retreat with a small commu-nity of Benedictine women in Oklahoma. These women gather three times a day for contemplative, sitting meditation, a blend of Review for gelig4ous Catholic contemplative prayer and Eastern meditation practices. The shared silence has been a gift beyond measure for me. In my years of formation, we were enc.ouraged to give time each day to personal or "private" prayer--can Christian prayer ever be "pri-vate"?-- but because of the previous generations' experience of having to spend a half hour together each morning in the chapel for "meditation," we rarely shared silence as a form of prayer. It seems to me that in our day and age, with all its diversity and respect of the individual, we could profit immensely from a kind of shared prayer of silence. Silence binds together and bridges gaps in ways that words sometimes cannot. The liturgical reforms brought in by Vatican II .helped to bring our com-mon prayer back into the real world, but I believe that in many ways our common prayer has become just one more task to complete in the day's busy schedule and thus something that many find uninteresting. Introducing some shared silence into our common prayer can be a way of celebrating sacred time together in a "non-doing" manner. Prayer as a,task to be completed increases the workaholism of the many religious and lay Christians brought up on "do good to your neighbor" faith renewal after Vatican II. Not that we should reverse the renewal, for the recovery of the social-justice dimen-sion of our faith has been one of Vatican II's greatest gifts to the church; but are we perhaps only following our culture's insatiable drive for success and efficiency when we burn ourselves out as gospel do-gooders? A deep spirituality.that combines contem-plative prayer and Sabbath rest not only promotes gospel values, but challenges our consumerist society as well. The renewal of the contemplative dimension of our religious life consequently brings into question the professionalization of our ministerial commitments. I think that the emphasis on solid formation in theology, Scripture, and the social sciences that has come as a result of Vatican II is to be highly lauded, especially for women religious, for whom such opportunities were rare in the preconciliar years. To my mind, this move toward professional- In our day and age, with all its diversity and respect of the individual, we cof~Id profit immensely from a kind of shared prayer of silence. ~anua~y-February 1997 Pierce * The Vatican II G, eneration and Rdi~_ous Life ization, though, has taken away much of the evangelical freedom that marked the early years of our foundations. As professionals we have had to buy into the world of competitive salaries, con-trolled work schedules, tenure-track professorships, and the over-all efficiency mind-set that characterizes the corporate and professional marketplace. Can we honestly cultivate the deeply contemplative prayer life that we entered religious life desiring while yielding too much to that system? Without losing sight of the need to be justly compensated for our ministry, have we not given up some of the freedom to "be with and for God" by trad-ing in our vow of poverty for the corporate model of church life? Have we fallen into'a minimalisrunderstanding of Sabbath (noth-ing more than Sunday Mass) because of the demands of ministry? At a recent day-long conference on Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton--given by Jim Forrest, who knew them both--someone asked what his strongest memory of Dorothy Day was. Jim answered quickly and with no hesitation: "When I think of Dorothy, I think of her on her knees praying. She spent a lot of time in prayer." Imagine that! This dedicated social-justice apos-tle of the United States is remembered as a woman on her knees praying, and for long periods at a time. Stage 4's mystical dimen-sion cannot be integrated into our lives if prayer is just another point on the "things to do" list for the day (after clocking out from work at the social-service agency, of course). Our commu-nal and contemplative prayer must be leaven in the dough of our daily lives. For, when our prayer truly becomes prayer, then our ministry and our lives as a whole will also become prayer. Real Community vs. Corporate Individualism We know it. We say it. We preach it. We write books about it. But do we live it? Do we live real community? The early Christian communities were not sacramental fast-food outlets, nor were they the early predecessor to Motel 6 (key, clean bed, cable TV,, free breakfast, cheap rates). They were brothers and sisters who had made a commitment to each other and to fol-lowing in the footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth. They lived, shared their goods, worshiped, and died with and for one another and the gospel. The beatitudes were their daily bread, and they knew that being a disciple of J.esus was to be their everything, their cross and their deep joy. Jesus was the way, the path by which the com- Review for Religious munity of believers would walk together towards the promised reign of God. Does this sound a bit idealistic? Well, the picture which the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles paint for us probably is a somewhat idealized version of reality. But let us not forget that these pictures appear in our Scriptures precisely because they were the goal towards which the early communities strove. Many ist-century Christians gave their lives to make this dream of com-munal gospel testimony a lived reality. Today we have the same struggles, difficulties, and weaknesses as the early Christians. But can we also claim to share the same goal of offering the world a living witness of the Body of Christ? I think that women and men religious provide coundess exam-ples of Christian witness, but I also think that the communal dimension of gospel living--and consequently of religious life-- has suffered great setbacks since Vatican II. We give ourselves to excellent and creative ministries, but more and more we do them alone. Everyone in the community has a project, and all the pro-jects are nicely organized under a fancy mission statement. We have all made use of the Myers-Briggs and the enneagram to facil-itate our once-a-month interface gatherings (which used to be called community meetings!), but does the world feel the force of our communal witness to the gospel of Christ? In my own Dominican tradition, the example of the first fri-ars in the Americas stands out strongly: a small band of Spaniards on the island of Hispaniola in the early 16th century. Needing to make a response to the atrocities of the conquest and oppression of the island's native inhabitants, and convinced that the atrocities were not the will of God, the community broke with the dominant theology of the day and preached that the Spanish conquerors were living in mortal sin because of their unjust treatment of the Indians. They all signed the community's homily that was preached by Antonio de Montesino, and, as expected, their words brought upon themselves a tidal wave of reactions, one of which was a harsh reprimand from their provincial back in Spain. Listening to the homily that day was young Bartolom~ de las Casas, who years later became the continent's most important defender of the cause of Indian rights. The question that blaringly stands out is whether or not the same words from a single Dominican friar on the island would have had the same dynamic effect on the history of Latin America that the community witness had. I think not. .']anuaty-FebruaD, 1997 Pierce ¯ The Vatican H Generation and Religious Life Today's church has become so individualistic in its focus that one wonders if there is still room for a prophetic witness in com-mon. The "something for everyone" mentality has worked its way into every part of chursh life in our country. Many of our parishes look more like the food malls where thirty or so minirestaurants are squeezed in between J.C. Penney's and Florsheim Shoes. We have become pastoral experts in creating a program for every-one, in itself not a bad outreach mentality; but the lack of focus is something we have to look at seriously. What is the message we are giving about the gospel? How can we celebrate the gains brought on by the council, with its renewal of lay participation in church life, without dispersing our witness in so many directions? I believe we need to step back and ask ourselves the tough ques-tion: Is corporate individualism the same as community? The question becomes even more urgent when we ask it from the point of view of publicly vowed religious life. Are we mir-roring the communal striving of the early Christian communi-ties or the strategic planning model of IBM? Brother David Steindl-Rast~OSB, in his book Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer, uses a wonderful image to describe community living. He com-pares the old model of pre-Vatican corporate uniformity (Peck's formal-institutional) to sardines all lined up in a can--nice and orderly, but all dead. Real community, he says, is more like a school of fish swimming together gracefully'(Peck's mystical-com-munal). I think that we threw away the sardine can in the 1960s and then, liberated and full of life, all swam off in different direc-tions (Peck's skeptic-individual). How can we get back to swim-ming together gracefully in a school without destroying our creativity or drowning our witness in watered-down corporatism? There certainly are no easy answers, but we know deep down the hunger for such a life. Young people want community. Many of the people my age and younger are tired of the broken fami-lies, broken relationships, and lonely apartment living that have characterized our generation. The thousands of young people who flock to Taiz~ each year in postmodern, de-Christianized Europe must be telling us something. The human heart longs for communion, and the world denies the fulfillment of that longing to more and more people everyday. Many religious women and men are choosing to live alone and work .in their own ministries, often identifying themselves professionally with a group that is not their religious community. Review for Religious We have come to accept this reality as quite normal, but will it continue to attract young people to a life of public, gospel-cen-tered, and vowed living? Real community is an urgent need for us who long to channel our creative energies in healthy ways in a world that sees little value in the commitment of celibate living. Will we find that companionship if we come home to an answer-ing machine full of messages or a "com-munity" room full of brothers or sisters inert before the TV set like the pillars at Stonehenge? Could Acts 2:42-47 give us some hints as to where to continue journeying along the path? References there to the teaching of the apostles, the common life, the breaking of the bread, and prayer point to a community that spent a lot of quality time together. Today we have many meetings run with corporate efficiency, but do we really spend time together (sharing the day's stories during a leisurely evening meal, faith sharing, studying the day's or the week's liturgy texts together, recreating or even taking a day off together--away from the phone and TV-)? The early Christian community's life had a tremendous impact on the local people (2:43). Does ours? Have we ever considered a ministry in which the whole community works as a team (for example, a series of lay formation workshops, time each week in a soup kitchen, regular visits to the AIDS wing of a hospital), giving witness to the value of community through our example? The passage goes on (2:44-45) to the difficult point of sim-ple living and common sharing of goods. It is an area of great challenge for us today. We have adopted the "have credit card, will travel" mentality of mainstream America, some of which, per-haps,, is inevitable. But are we taking these steps with sufficient reflection and caution? Are we willing to defend the truth even when it may not be a popular stance among some of our generous benefactors? Do we tithe from our salaries and communal accounts?.Where does our province or religious congregation invest its money? Do those investments promote social, economic, and ecological justice? Are we content with generic brands of food Many of the people my age and younger are tired of the broken families, broken relationships, and lonely apartment living that have characterized our generation. ffanuaty-February 1997 Pierce ¯ The Vatican H Generation and Religious Life and a simple wardrobe? Do we have a common library, or do we all keep adding personal bookshelves? There are many questions to struggle with, but gospel witness is well worth the struggle. The last two verses of the passage (2:46-47) speak of enthu-siasm, joy, and simple sharing. We glimpse an early community that freely praised God while giving a clear witness to an alter-native, counterculrural way of living. Freedom to be for God and for others was their common ground. They risked martyrdom in order to keep giving their communal witness to the gospel. Theirs is not an easy act to follow, but it sure beats a sardine-can existence or lonely nights at Motel 6. Acompafiamiento, a Way of Walking with the Poor A great gift of Vatican II and these past thirty years has been the church's openness to continuing the dialogue with the world that the council's document on the church, Lumen gentium, high-lighted. The Latin American Church followed up with the prophetic stances taken during the Medellin and Puebla confer-ences of bishops (1968 and 1979). In the United States the pastoral letters on peace and economic justice have been lights .on the path of relating gospel faith to pertinent issues in our world today. We must not underestimate the steps that have been taken since Vatican II. Having said all this, I wish to comment on where I see a weak-ness in our post-Vatican II model of engagement with the world's poor. Not that what is being done is wrong or contrary to the gospel, but in many instances there is, I think, a need to move to a deeper level. Archbishop Oscar Romero, the martyred prophet of El Salvador, popularized during his years as archbishop the term acompa~amiento (accompaniment), a form of walking with the poor that is different from just working with the poor. Acompa~amiento is a way of living more than a way of doing (though, of course, this division in itself is dualistic). Several years ago I heard the noted liberation theologian Gustavo Guti~rrez say that we often reduce the option for the poor to going to the poor neighborhoods and barrios, to the social-service centers and the inner-city schools to work during the day, only to return to our comfortable homes and convents at night. To truly opt for the poor, Guti~rrez said, means to spend the nights withthem as well. In other words, we are called not only Review for Religiotts to do good things for the poor, but to be with them, to walk with them, to live with them, and, if necessary, to die with them. Romero's acompa~amiento could be translated as "sharing bread along the journey." It is different from giving bread to the poor; it is a sharing of life that dissolves the distances that separate us from them. To opt for the poor through acompa~amiento moves beyond all dualisms to make more real the concepts of global commu-nity and people of God. The hospice movement, Habitat for Humanity, L'Arche, and Christian base communities are expres-sions of this new way of being church and community. Each model portrays a community of equals, living and working together for a new world. There is very little corporate mentality present in them. This was the power of Archbishop Romero's witness--an erasing of the distances: the sheep and the shepherd together risk-ing their lives for the kingdom. How can our communities continue to make the transition to more of an acompa~amiento model over the traditional "charity" model (I do not favor the impoverishment of the word charity in contexts like this). I believe that, first of all, we have to set aside the obsession with efficiency and success that our world impresses upon us and complement our doing with an equal emphasis on being with. It is not an easy step. Rather than sending money, clothes, and food to the poor, can we pray, eat, study, recreate, and even live with them? The challenge is at the heart of the Catholic Worker Movement founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin decades ago, and it is the call heralded by St. Paul when he proclaimed that our baptism erases all the divisions between persons, making possible a true community of equals (Ga 3:28). Finally, and perhaps this takes us back to the start, I believe that to truly love the poor as .sisters and brothers requires a con-templative (mystical) heart. To develop the capacity to stand in silence alongside the poo~r and accept the ambiguities of life is to grow into the mystical dimension of our faith. We really are not separate from "the others," but only a contemplative heart can begin to grasp the interconnectedness that holds us all together. If we grow in such contemplativeness, our being with becomes less a heroic act of giving life to .somebody in need and more a happy fulfilling of our potential as children of God: we are uninhibitedly glad of the opportunity to see the kingdom that .Jesus preached radiating from our simple act of "sharing bread along the journey." Januao,-FeblvlaO, 1997 Pierce * The Vatican H Generation and Religious Life I recently learned this lesson anew. A group of university stu-dents and I were scheduled to visit the inmates at the local prison. The students, among whom was Diana, a young crippled woman, met at our house, about ten blocks from the prison. I quietly asked if one of the students would go with her on the bus while the rest of us walked to the prison. Overhearing my request, Diana told me politely that she preferred to walk. I would not hear of it. Angry that no one offered to go with her on the bus, I decided to do it myself. By that point Diana, perceiving herself a burden to ¯ the group, had grabbed her crutches and begun walking home. When she finally had the courage to return to the group two months later, she told me I had made her feel terribly uncom-fortable that day. I had wanted to do something~r Diana. She simply wanted to be part of the group. I had seen her as a problem rather than as a person. Without a heart made flesh by prayerful silence and careful listening, we run the risk--as we go about doing good works to save the world of forgetting that we too are just part of this world already saved by God's love. To step back, to see and lis-ten to God speaking to us through poor people, is not always the quickest, most efficient way to bring about change in the world, but it is God's way. Stepping back, we discover anew each day that we are all part of one body--crippled, broken, healed, and set free. Community and Grace Thirty years after Vatican II, we all still have much to learn. The gospel is new each day and in every generation. However much progress we may have made since, the council, we need some self-critique as we continue the journey. Many people my age are not attracted to a church that differs little from the trap-pings of their everyday job, and the skeptic individualism in reli-gious life does not stand out as an exciting alternative. They can live that way and get paid a pretty good salary for it! Religious life' among the Vatican II generation must continue to offer some kind of critique of the dominant culture if it is to be viable for our times. Some cultural criticism, however, neglects important parts of Jesus' teaching. The post-Vatican II generation of Catholics is nov looking for more moralistic condemnations of modernity. They want a life with deep meaning, a simple life Review for Religious they can share with real people (and not just through their Internet modems!), a life that can help to make our world a bet-ter place without making themselves workaholic basket cases in the process. I believe it is still possible to swim gracefully through the waters of our times, guided not by the uniformity of the past nor the runaway individualism of the present, but by the Spirit of Jesus given to us and quietly moving in us with transforming new-ness and amazing grace. Awakening Golden leaves rustle and swirl Beneath the silver birch tree As sunlight from crisp blue skies Comes to rest on the forest floor. And nature poised on winter's brink Does not die but falls asleep Until it one bright spring morn Awakens to song of birds and brook. How like our lonely restless souls When in their final slumber lie Until aroused one glorious dawn By sweet sounds of an angel's horn. Eva Marie Ippolito Janua~y-Fd.-uaty 1997 F EDWARD VAN MERRIENBOER Of Those Who Leave Us: A Typology Tpe contemporary leader of a religious community is ected to be a person of prayer, with a vision, who can manage finance and who knows the legal aspects of public cor-porate life. Although few people ever fulfill all of these expecta-tions, most leaders do very well at some of them while in office. Many leadership tasks give one a sense of joyful accomplishment; of those that fail to do so, none is more painful, in my experi-ence, than participating in the departure of a member. I was a member of my province's council from 1973 to 1983 and then, until 1992, a member of our general council in Rome. In both the provincial and international contexts, the pain was ever present when a petition for dispensation came in. Impressed by the unique story that each of the many petitions revealed, I began to ask myself what I could learn from them personally and corporately about departure. During my nine years on our general council, I kept a brief list of people's reasons for leaving. My purpose was to learn from these experiences how to help those in leadership. I wanted espe-cially to help the men working in our initial formation programs so that they in turn could help our candidates avoid such painful experiences for themselves and their communities in the future. I share these reflections in that spirit. Edward van Merrienboer OP chairs the Department of Theology and Philosophy at Barry University. From 1983 to 1992 he was assistant gen-eral for the apostolic life of the Dominican order. He has written on reli-gious life, social justice, and spirituality. He can be addressed at Barry University; 11300 Northeast Second Avenue; Miami Shores, Florida 33161. Review for Religious Collating the many stories, I found that about eighty percent of those who left our community from 1983 to 1992 could be gathered into five groups, no matter what part of the world they lived in. My findings, of course, are not scientific conclusions of the sort one expects from an empirical study using a sociological method. Rather, they are reflections made after reading petition after petition regarding departure decisions that had been arrived at by individuals and/or the provincial leadership. I did not speak with the men petitioning for dispensation, nor did I interview their provincial leadership for additional data. My typology is based on what they and their provincial superiors wrote in the petitions. Typologies are models that seldom fit reality perfectly: there is always some overlap among the types. But still the general pat-terns proved helpful when I was making visits to our provinces. These types, from what I have learned from previous members of our general council, represent a change. During the time of Pope Paul VI, most members departed°to enter marriage. Today this is still a reason, but other reason~ have become more dominant. I have shared my findings with members of other general councils. They have found my insights to be valid in their communities and have encouraged me to share them more widely. What follows is a brief description of the five types of mem-bers seeking permission to leave and of the behaviors that led to their petition: the free agents, the must-have-its, the new founders, the loss-of-hopes, and the I'm-better-nows. The Free Agents Most free-agent petitions came from those who entered at the time of the Second Vaticah Council or within ten years after it. My religious community, like most religious communities of that time, was emerging from an era of strict legalism and con-formity. While we never had a fixed mold to force people into, informal ideas of what religious were supposed to be and to do defined almost every aspect of our lives. Perfection would be achieved by going through a "narrow gate," the perfect mechanism for making sure that, of the many called, few would be chosen. After the council, all the rules of our life were examined and revised. Now a wide embrace would replace the narrow way that was so well defined. Pluralism was encouraged in ministry and in 29 January-Feblwal.'~ 1997 Merrienboer * Of Those Who Leave Us local community life. Everyone was encouraged to participate in shaping our life and mission.For most of us this new freedom was a blessing because it allowed us to be ourselves and be faith-ful to our community at the same time. While limits were less defined, most religious knew that there were limits because of our vowed life. This was not the case with the members whom I am calling free agents. They enjoyed the new freedom and saw no limits. For some of them the freedom involved embracing works that were hard to locate within the mission of the institute or within the vowed life. Commonly they found ways to spend community funds while being little concerned about bringing in any money themselves or about the consequences of their expenditures on their community. Because finance is so concrete, much of the ten-sion between free agents and their community is about money. In extreme cases they establish private bank accounts or have funds that are not accountable to the community. Sizable funding is essential to them because it provides the means to express their freedom. Money provides the physical necessities they need to be free from the community's demand for responsible account-ability. Another area of conflict between free agents and their com-munity is their approach to relationships within and outside the community. Some of these relationships become exclusive com-mitments that involve genital expression. Self-direction in ministry becomes essential as part of their freedom agenda. Most are happy with the spirit of freedom that the council mandated; but, when "oppressive" superiors or members begin to challenge their lim-itless freedom, they became unhappy and start to question their vocation. They often say that they woul.d never have come to the point of seeking dispensation from their vows if it had not been for narrow-minded, or legalistic leaders. They do not see the problem of living a lifestyle that is contrary to their public commitment. Long and painful dialogues with their superiors do not enable them to see the points of conflict. Some express their anger at the community for trying to restrict the freedom given to them by the council. Many view the challenges coming to them from their community as statements of distrust. The decision to leave the community is a result of having to choose concretely between their agenda of freedom and certain Review for Relig~ous behaviors their community identifies as essential. It is tragic that often these members leave us without ever understanding that every life option imposes certain limits upon people, that in this regard religious life is no different than any other vocation. The Must-Have-Its Departing members of the second type seek dispensation within a very short time--usually three years or less--after their final profession or ordination. Judging from externals, one won-ders whether these members have really given religious life a fair chance. A common concern expressed by leadership is that these members may be acting in haste. The problems the mem-bers are experiencing could be rooted in the normal adjustment period from initial forma-tion to the wider life of the community. Because of the short time that these mem-bers have been in the community, unless there have been major difficulties previously, most religious superiors give only a very qualified support to their petitions for dispensation. This is understandable from an administrative per-spective, but I think there is an aspect of these members' personality that is perhaps being over-looked. It is this: They cannot come to a decision to leave the religious life or the priesthood until they actually possess these realities. Part of their personality demands that they prove to themselves that they can be a religious before they can decide that they do not want to be one. Some of this feeling is rooted in a need to be clear that they are rejecting the community and not being sent away. Very often I noted that, when during their initial formation they were asked as candidates to question their decision to be a religious, they responded by devoting themselves to becoming a better religious. Even when their simple vow period was extended so that they could look at their vocation, they never questioned their call to religious life. Some indicate that, almost from the day of their final pro-fession or ordination, they began to question if this was for them. They felt that before final profession they really .had not known While limits were less defined, most religious knew that there were limits because of our vowed life. Janua~y-Feb~vla~y 1997 Merrienboer ¯ Of Those Who Leave Us what it would be like; now they knew fully and were not happy. Others fully expected that after final commitment their experience of the life and ministry would change radically. It did not; in some ,cases it even became worse. They were given less attention and were expected to be fully contributing members of the commu-nity- which beEame a major source of frustration. Even in situations where a mentor was assigned to assist them in their adjustment to the postformation community life, there was little the community could do to change the attitude that, "now that I have what I set out to achieve, I noolonger want it." My reading of their autobiographies comes up with a pattern throughout their life of obtaining something, then setting it aside. Before entering the community, a high number of petitioners had obtained graduate degrees in unrelated fields and then never used this knowledge and experience. At the core of persons of this type is their inability to project their hopes into the future and make an assessment of their fitness for that vocation. Their experiences of initial formation do not enable them to make an educated guess about their ability to live religious life in the future. They only know what is present to them, and now that they have the life in its fullness they no longer want it for themselves. The New Founders Some people enter a religious community with the idea of reshaping it according to their own vision of religious life. Such an idea is in strange contrast to a community's centuries-long acceptance of its charism, but it is a fact that some people feel that their own image of religious life today takes priority over all that has come before it. One area into which such new-foundation efforts are brought is the community's mission. New founders would define this mis-sion as movement for social change or promotion of a different theological perspective. In countries where there has been a his-tory of repression in society, they see religious community as a resistance movement that offers its members prophetic opportu-nities. When the new founders promote involvement in social action, they become disappointed that not all the members feel called to participate. In more industrial countries the meaning of religious life, Review for Religious according to some new founders, is to protnote the women's movement or the gay movement. For others it is to become pro-tectors of traditional understandings of the faith. A common focal point for new founders is the community's liturgy. It becomes the platform for their view of religious life. Whether traditional or progressive, they see community prayer as a way to form the other members into a new identity. Most new founders are critical of programs for new members and of the actions of the community's leaders. They believe that, if their own vision of things prev~lils, the community will be refounded with new vitality. They blame the community's short-age of vocations on its resistance to their newcomers' vision of community renewal. The tone of their petitions for dispensation often indicates that they consider themselves to be ahead of or even better than most of the institute's members. They predict dire consequences for the community after their departure, Convinced that their own vision is important and urgent, they feel they must leave and find a place to implement it immedi-ately. Such refounding attitudes seem to stem from an assumption that the community is joining them on their journey, not that they are joining a group that already has a reasonably defined identity as it proceeds on its journey. In my experience, formation programs that encourage self-expression without enough regard for the community's corporate identity only encourage new founders in convictions that will prove problematic. The Loss-of-Hopes I have thus far described three types of departing members. I believe that the responsibility for their departure from religious life rests primarily with them and not the community. The com-munity has failed them in many ways, but the motivation of these individuals has been essentially flawed, often from their very early years in religious life. The fourth type of persons leaving reli-gious life today are different. Here the primary responsibility for the departure lies with the community, with its lack of faithfulness to its charism. These tragic petitions come from persons who have given their best effort to be faithful to the religious life and have not found much support from other members. Some have found it JanuaTy-Febtvtaty 1997 Merrienboer * Of Those Who Leave Us nearly impossible to find within their community a supportive environment for prayer and the vowed life. If they have shared their frustrations with other members, they often have received kind words but not active support. Sometimes this, alienation from the community has been caused by other members' general lack of interest in things spir-itual. These other members see themselves as professionals and have little feeling for the idea of a vocation. Considering the meaning of the vows to be very personal, they avoid discussing their own viewpoint with others for fear of seeming to impose it on them. I believe that the departure decisions of members of this type are rooted in their experience of hopelessness about the direc-tion in which the community seems to be moving. Often they feel that they do not even speak a common language about reli-gious life with the other members. They feel that the commu-nity has settled for the lowest common denominator for reasons of avoiding the tensions associated with serious conversion efforts. From my distant vantage point, there appear to be real signs of death in places where these departing members have been living their religious life; regrettably, suggestions to try another place are too late by the time the petition for dispensation reaches the major superior. It falls on leaders to learn from these tragic stories and to address the perceived failures as part of their leadeiship task. In my experience, it is almost impossible to restore hope to members who have become disillusioned; but leadership should make dis-tinct efforts to change situations in which, in the future, even more members would be likely to lose their hope. The I'm-Better-Nows Persons of the fifth and final type of men leaving religious life during my term of office were those who through most of their lives suffered from spiritual or emotional problems. Often their motive for entering religious life was the hope of having their problems resolved by the vowed life. Some of these problems were rooted in their early childhood experiences. Religiou~ life appeared to be a safe place to escape the pain of their family sit-uation. Their low self-esteem was a primary reason for entering community. Their hope, however, that religious life would con- Revie'a, for Religious fer a new value on them and make them better people had not been fulfilled. In some cases the reality of verbal or physical abuse made them fearful of any close relationship. They perceived the vow of chastity as protecting them from such trials, but as the years passed they experienced an inability to relate in a healthy manner with other members of the community. Their lives were marked by a crisis event, such as substance abuse, which made their superiors suggest or even require them to get professional help. Their petitions for depar-ture were often set in the context of the ther-apy in which their suffering was addressed. As they became spiritually and emotionally more integrated, their reasons for being a religious seemed to them less cogent. If they now were capable of healthy relationships, they wanted marriage or the freedom to find deeper mean-ing outside religious community. While it might seem strange, their main reason for wanting to leave community was that they were now happy and did not need the community anymore, Their needs for protection and status had been resolved in a positive manner. Most of these petitioners expressed gratitude to the community for their loving support through their many trials, and they knew true sorrow as they left. I have spoken with a number of healthcare givers about mem-bers of this type, and all have suggested that departure may be the best option for them. They also suggest that religious should examine within their communities the dynamics that allow peo-ple to hide from their problems until they reach the crisis stage. One healthcare professional once told me he thought that reli-gious practice "false mercy" in not addressing the problems of disturbed members until there is a major crisis. As they became spiritually and emotionally more integrated, their reasons for being a religious seemed to them less cogent. Reflections for the Future No matter how perfect our formation programs become, there will always be some members who make the decision to leave us after many years of association. This is to acknowledge frankly Janttaty-Febtvtat3, 1997 Merrienboer * Of Those Who Leave Us the human dimension of religious life, but we can learn from our experiences. It is for the sake of such learning that I have shared my insights as a general-council member who has returned to his province and seen these patterns continuing in religious com-munities. Can we learn from those who have left us? Can we speak hon-estly with our present members when we see behaviors that have led others to leave us? I believe that, if we have the courage to say yes to these two questions, the pain of occasionally having some members choose to leave us and our life together would be much more bearable. In the Temple Year followed year the two had come to this place, old man, old woman, wearing persistence like a skin. Here, perhaps, familiar shadows sharpened the eye's observance. What ¯ better place to find the light, and by it be found, than in the dark? Leonard Cochran OP Review for Religious HILARY OTTENSMEYER Four Seasons for Christian Group Sharing From time to time a gathering of like-minded Christians-- whether it be a spiritual-direction group, an Emmaus group, a Bible-sharing group, or a prayer group--expresses a desire to "go deeper." This desire, perhaps only vaguely defined, generally means that the members want to be more self-revealing, more honest in discussing areas of faith, doubts about the church, glossed-over conflicts within the group, and fears that the meetings have become perfunctory, even boring. In such a case the introduction of some simple group dynamic into the meetings may allow the group to reach a new and more comfortable, if challenging, level of sharing. A dynamic based on the four seasons seems well suited to that task.~ The first time the dynamic is used, an outside facilita-tor can be helpful, one whom the group has chosen for being able and trustworthy. Later, on its own, the group could well devote at least one session to each of the seasons. Nature's seasons are an experience with which we are all familiar. The seasons can function for a group in poetic, dynamic ways, that is, ways in which the clearest and most labored prose cannot. Such metaphors break through the limits of human speech and help us become aware of thoughts and feelings that are otherwise inaccessible. The "I am" statements of John's Gospel demonstrate this beau-tifully. Each believer brings a different set of meanings Hilary Ottensmeyer OSB wrote "The Problem with Problems" for our September-October 1995 issue. His address remains 1414 Southern Avenue; Beech Grove, Indiana 46107. Ottensmeyer ¯ Four Seasons for Christian Group Sharing on hearing Jesus describe himself as the Good Shepherd or the Bread of Life. The seasons function in a similarly evocative way. People instinctively realize that we grow only when we hon-estly share the burdens and problems of our minds and hearts. Time and again we witness this in the pages of the Gospels. The healed leper, the demoniac rescued from among the tombs, the blind Bartimaeus lifted from his roadside isolation, the breath-less disciples returning to Jerusalem from the road to Emmaus, all these Jesus restores to community where they can pour out their hearts in sharing their "stories." Some Cautions Sharing in a group must be neither .intrusive nor abusive. Certain agreed-upon boundaries need to be set to protect the sanctuary of the individual conscience and the dignity of personal free will. There can be no forced entry into the heart. Even God will not force that door, but, like a true lover, quietly tells us, ,Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me" (Rv 3:20). The ultimate dream: table companionship with God! As a minimum, the following rules apply: 1. Members should make only."I" statements, never "you" statements, that is, "I think." and not "You are . " We cannot know the full reality of other people's minds and hearts until we ask them from a respectful distance. 2. Anyone should feel free to call a halt at any time to a line of inquiry directed towards herself or himself: "I'd really rather not discuss that at this time." This allows group members to claim the reverence which is their due. 3. Members should accept responsibility for the unfolding of their lives, avoiding the chronic "victim mentality" that is pervasive in our culture. Blaming others or "life" is most often an evasion.~ As one friend expresses' it, there are four doors into the neurotic. Each door is a belief in one of the following statements: (1) I can make you happy; (2) I can make you sad; (3) you can make me happy; (4) you can make me sad. Reluctant though we are to acknowledge it, each one of us is responsible for his or her own life. Only catastro-phes that overwhelm us exempt us from facing this honestly. 4. We help each other through honest and clear feedback, painful though that may sometimes be. Simple feedback, that Review for Religious is, a brief statement about how another's thoughts or actions come up in one's own life, proves most helpful: "When I am drawn to act that way, I find ."Advice giving is to be care-fully avoided. Other cautions come to mind, but these seem basic. We do not have a direct perception of ourselves. So burdened are our thought processes, so fixed into routine are our actions, that we need the kind mirror of another's perceptions held up before us. We seem at times so suffocated by our prejudices, by our closely guarded denials and chosen ignorances, that we experience a real joy when someone gently opens the window to let in the fresh air of new ideas and new possibilities. Indeed, our deepest prej-udices are those we hold against ourselves. This is the saddest discovery of all. What a joy when someone helps us stand up and claim our own worth! Fall: Season of Fruition Easing into the sharing process is most gently done by choos-ing as a beginning the symbol of fall. Most mellow of seasons, fall is the time of harvest, when good things are gathered up and fes-tivals begin. The rewards of hard work and steady determination lie before us. We have a need to celebrate at this time of year. At this point, what are the fruits of the group's loyalties? There are stored memories of joy shared, of times when a mem-ber has been lifted up and celebrated. The group has had insights that can be recalled, times when it realized that Jesus was there in their midst and hearts burned with awareness of his presence. The Lord was walking with the group as it went along the way. Ours is a faith community devoted to the joys of remembrance, as every Eucharist proclaims. One way of beginning: Inventory the gifts each individual brings to the group. What do I bring to the group which, because of my background, education, talents, and so forth, constitutes a special gift? Follow this by a question put to the entire group: What do we think this one member contributes that is most enriching? Move on then to a consideration of how the group has changed over time, pointing out new levels of support and understanding. Where has a sense of continuity been discerned? What new and unexpected biessings have been slowly revealed in each individual? ffanuao,-Febrttaty 1997 Ottensmeyer ¯ Four Seasons for Christian Group Sharing An important benefit of a sharing group is the contact that members have between sessions. We all struggle to keep alive a "circle of friends." A support group affords an excellent opportu-nity to widen that circle beyond relatives and school-day chums. Do the members of the group reach out to each other between meet-ings? Has acquiring and sustaining friends--those essential inter-personal skills--been nurtured by the activities of the support group? What new skills have been acquired? "If you want a friend, be a friend" is a truth that needs to be lived out day by day. Living in community is of itself no assurance of having friends, but only company. Have I worked at being a friend to members of the group? Winter: Season of Perseverance Winter is the season of hoping and of endurance. For most of us in these northern climes, except for the occasional bright win-ter day, the skies are covered and a chill hangs over the land. Winds bite. Snow and ice impede travel. One has to draw on deep inner resources of strength, and hold on to memories of warmer days. There are winter seasons for a support group, too. These times have to be confronted and admitted. There is a time for breaking open the soil before spring planting. We are reluctant to put a hand to this kind of work, but it is the necessary condition for future growth. A "winter" discussion is the most difficult kind the group will have, and requires patience and loyalty. Questions needing examination fall easily into three cate-gories: 1. Where have we silently established "off limits" areas of discussion: subtly agreed-upon restrictions and withhold-ings? When and how does sharing break down in the group? What expectations did we bring when we joined the group, and how have these been disappointed because of these unspoken conventions? Was I honest with my hopes when I joined? Certainly, every group has the right to mark the boundaries of its sharing. But were these boundaries hon-estly agreed on when the group was formed? Were we too idealistic, too superficial, or too demanding? Were there angers in the group that were glossed over? ¯ 2. What does the group need to work on with determina-tion, for example, admitting and establishing boundaries, facing avoidances; or surfacing denials? Review for Religious 3. Very importantly, what healings need to take place? Does any member feel wounded or rejected in any way? How would this healing best come about? One makes a wonderful discovery in crossing this difficult winter terrain. Secrets can poison people's lives. When we have the courage and trust needed to reveal those tender areas of the heart, we find that others too have suffered in the same way. Walls crum-ble. The Jesus who draws us together out of our loneliness and fears is there, in the eyes and voices of others, to strengthen the fragile bonds that hold together a faith community. Spring: Season of Hope Renewed We all love spring with its beginnings of new life, with early crocuses, hyacinths, and tulips. Winter seems sometimes to linger stubbornly, but spring finally triumphs and spirits soar. Melting snows turn into sparkling rivulets. Sap rises in the trees, and ten-der greens appear along the limbs of trees. A support group too brings forward its hopes for renewal, for new life. It is helpful to go back and test the roots for their vital-ity. This can be done when the members share where their indi-vidual faith stories began. People are always eager to tell their stories. The vast professional therapeutic industry has risen because people are hungry to recount their stories. If the listen-ers are skilled, they can help the storyteller understand better the meaning of the tale. Within the faith story, certain elements are important. Who taught you to pray? Who were your role mod-els of faith? What were some of the significant moments on your faith journey? What was your image of God in childhood years, and how has it evolved over the years? How do you pray at this time in your life? What more do you wish for in your relationship with God? What is your answer when Jesus asks, "What do you want meto do for you?" (Mk 10:51). Not only do roots need to be inspected, but growth too needs to be looked for. What hungers are you aware of in your faith today? How could this support group help you? What aspects of your faith do you want to bring into the lives of those you love or those with whom you work? I have noticed that groups experience a surge of interest when "spring" sessions take place. A renewed commitment, a deeper investment is made in the group, and mem-bers reach a deeper trust level very easily. Januao,-FebrttaO, 1997 Ottensmeyer ¯ Four Seasons for Christian Group Sharing Summer: Season of Sustained Growth The summer months fill us with a sense of achievement. The harsh days of winter are over. The stimulating work of spring has been accomplished. Now is the time to relax and enjoy the warm days and long, quiet evenings. In fields and in flower beds around the house, buds are gathering to maturity; grains are swelling in the fields and fruits filling out to ripeness in the orchards. This is the season of contentment, when gentle rains come to nature's aid. Now people have time for visits, vacations, and concerts in the park. Indeed, the "lazy, hazy days of summer" clothe us like a comfortable garment, and we are grateful. Groups, too, can benefit from at least one "summer" session, counting the blessings the members have seen coming to fruition among themselves. What was the heritage the individual members received from their mother and father? Looking back on the ten-der years of childhood, each person recognizes a "gift" from his or her parents, a "breath of life" that only parents could breathe into the heart of a child. Influenced deeply by our family roots, we make decisions about our place, our possibilities, in the world. What was the special legacy, outlook on life, stance before the future that the members received-from their mother and father? And how has this gift been nurtured and cherished? How did the hands of your father and mother feel at your back as they sup-ported your first steps and as you still, to this da~,, feel their hands steadying your walk through life? Or, and this too must be faced, did their hands grasp you and hold you back? When did you first feel the hand of God at your back, reach-ing with help and love into your life? Perhaps you experienced God as a hand drawing you forward through difficult days and years, pointing the way prophetically towards promise. Which times were times of contentment, when your journey reached a plateau and you rested quietly for a while? Seasoned Years Our lives seem to take the shape of repeated cycles. The pri-mordial journey of Abraham comes to mind here. A call comes to move forward when we are asked to entrust our future to God in faith. Then follows a transition period presenting obstacles to overcome, anxieties and failures to accept, flesh commitments courageously to be made to our beckoning God. Finally comes a Review for Religious sense of arrival, a time to rest and gather strength for the next call, time to sing a canticle of gratitude. Such a pattern applies to a support group. How has the group experienced these calls, these trials, and these periods of rest? Does the group know how to celebrate its members, choosing activities that will express its joy? One priest group I know takes a three-day trip each summer. All eight pile into a rented van, set out for a not-too-distant point of interest, and simply enjoy them-selves. They are gathering shared happy experiences to live on through the months to come. Nothing has been said on the impor-tant topics of how a group is set up, how members select themselves into a group (or are allowed to join it), and how an individual might bring closure when leav-ing. Indeed, perhaps the group decides it no longer serves its original purposes and goes out of existence. No mention has been made of how a group defines its orig-inal goals or modifies them. Without that vital process, the prospects for a successful investment of time and energy are rather dim. These are all con-siderations for another article, one that indeed has been written many times and was not our purpose here. Group renewal is our purpose. Every group, no matter how well put together at its inception or how generous and serious the will of its members, needs to be renewed in its commitment from time to time. The four seasons of the year can help in that necessary task. When did you first feel the hand of God at your back, reaching with help and love into your life? Note ~ The seminal idea for this article was suggested to me by Donna Fyffe; CommunityWorks; 101 West Ohio Street, Suite 1776; Indianapolis, Indiana 46204. Januar),-FebJvlat3, 1997 PAUL DUCKRO, MARJORIE KUKOR, AND JEAN MEIER Inner Work with Your Anger Anger is an emotion much maligned. It is often referred to as a "negative" emotion. Many persons are not comfort-able feeling anger and seek to suppress it in the interest of har-mony and accommodation. Paradoxically, by such efforts people increase their likelihood of expressing anger dysfunctionally. When people suppress anger, or even repress it, it does not disappear; it is left to work its way indirectly, like a force under-ground. It may express itself in very rationalized statements, rec-ognized only in the impossible and recurring problems that follow in their wake. There may be episodic outbursts of anger followed by gre~t anxiety and remorse, forming a cycle of conflict. Other persons may use anger much more overtly, as a domi-nating force. In them anger is a trademark, emerging frequently with few inhibitions. It may even become crystallized in ways of viewing the world--as evil, inconvenient, incompetent, and so forth. Either extreme--expressing anger frequently or habitually suppressing it--may lead to the development of a clinically sig-nificant syndrome for which professional therapy is indicated. Along with such destructive potential, anger has many posi-tive aspects that we shall point out. Moreover, there are proactive ways to deal constructively with deleterious anger in everyday life. Behavioral therapies have been demonstrated to be very effec- Paul Duckro PhD, Dr. Marjorie Kukor, and Jean Meier CSJ, PsyD, can be written to at St. Louis Behavioral Institute; 1129 Macldind Avenue; St. Louis, Missouri 63110. Review for Religious tive. For example, cognitive behavior therapy is effective in cases of uncontrolled anger, suppressed anger, simmering resentment, or cycles of angry outburst and fearful restraint. Typically it com-bines development of new skills, modification of dysfunctional beliefs, and exploration of past experiences that have shaped a person's thoughts and behaviors. More experiential approaches are effective too. In clinical practice these have been shown to improve the recognition, acknowledgment, and expression of anger, whether or not there is the opportunity to work through the anger interpersonally. Experiential therapies take many forms. Art, movement, and fan-tasy are common ways to explore and express anger. Painting and sculpturing are evocative media through which the source of someone's anger can be revealed. Color and form can often rep-resent anger that lies too deep for words. This therapy has long been used with children, but it is no less effective with adults who feel trapped in their own anger. Exercise and movement can express and diffuse angry feelings. Emotional energy is "con-verted" into physical energy rather than being "trapped" in psy-chological or physical symptoms. Fantasy allows people to express and then explore their powerful emotions in a safe way, even toward absent or deceased persons or toward the unseen God. The persons "work through" angry feelings, moving toward a new level of integration and wholeness. Experiential therapies are important when the anger is not even recognized, much less processed, as emotion. It is not unusual for anger to be experienced and expressed--and masked-- in intellectualized forms such as opinions and logical judgments. In such cases, working in a tactually receptive form of experien-tial therapy can release emotions otherwise effectively disguised as thoughts and verbalizations. For persons of faith, contemplative or meditational encounter with the anger has great potential, linking the psychological and spiritual aspects of healing. It is on this approach to anger man-agement that we focus here. For our purposes we will refer to it as inner work. Inner work is the interior correspondent of con, flict resolution. The essence of both is movement, as opposed to remaining stuck in resentment, bitterness, or cynicism. From the exterior perspective, the time given to inner work appears to be "doing nothing." In fact, this doing nothing is true only superficially. Inner work is an active and engaging process of Janua~y-Feb~'ualy 1997 Duckro, Kukor, and Meier ¯ Inner Work with Your Anger coming to terms with both the immediate stimulus for the anger and its deeper sources within. Synergistic with the more obvious activity of conflict resolution, engaging in inner work may provide the time needed for cooling off. Beyond such a practical benefit, this doing nothing is also the space in which one can reflect and make associations and thus prepare to move forward in relation-ships. It helps individuals to insure that they are not pinning their own issues onto someone else or substituting one-sided judgment for dialogue. Stages of Inner Work Inner work with anger involves several stages. The first appears so simple that it is often overlooked: the recognition that you are angry. This step requires regular self-examination, knowl-edge of the ways you may experience anger physically and psy-chologically, and alertness to how you customarily try to mask your anger. That regular self-examination is necessary only restates the obvious: if one does not look, one will not see. Knowing the variety of ways that people experience anger increases the odds that you will recognize it. Anger is, of course, an emotion that people experience directly, but it can also be uncovered in behaviors, thoughts, verbalizations, and bodily reac-tions. Individuals will have characteristic ways in which their anger is masked, expressed indirectly, or expressed passively. Becoming aware of these patterns of human response, you will more likely recognize your own anger under such guises as logi-cal argument, social withdrawal, passive resistance, depressed mood, and spiritualization. If you do not recognize your anger, it cannot be channeled or transformed. Anger that is not experienced or expressed directly is not easily unmasked. Gruff exteriors can hide from the indi-viduals themselves an anger that is obvious to everyone else; so can a smile, and so can solicitousness. For you to relate to such a "shy" anger within yourself may be compared to relating to some-one who is reluctant to come forward. The unmasking must not be done forcefully, or hurtfully. Imagineextending your hand to the anger within, with reassurance that there is no need to hide. In this invitation the anger is reassured that it is seen as a legiti-mate emotion with a reason for being which is important for you to understand. Review fi~r Religious The simple power of recognizing your anger (we might call it awareness) lies in the fact that merely paying it attention changes the anger at once. This phenomenon, the power of simple obser-vation to transform what it observes, is well recognized, not only in behavioral but even in physical science. It can be found in var-ious forms also in our spiritual tradition. From earlier teachers we know the concept that to hold the true name of anything or any-one is to have power over it. We learn that the desert fathers and mothers taught their spiritual children first to name their demons.St. Teresa of Avila taught us that, if anything is embraced in love, it already begins to be transformed. To be true to this way of proceeding, we must remind ourselves that the power does not lie in trying to manipulate or control the anger. In each case, as in the example of dealing with "shy" anger, there is an encounter with the anger. Encounter implies relationship, interaction, and the potential for mutual change: the anger also has something to say. The second stage of inner work with anger may be described as bringing the anger inside yourself. Unpacking that metaphor is not easy; not all of its meaning will be captured in any one exposition. It is already evident that the first and second stages are diametrically opposed to what is often a reflexive response to strong, unwanted anger--trying to get rid of it. We turn to a familiar fairy tale to shed more light on the power of bringing the anger inside. Recall the story of "The Three Little Pigs." Imagine being one of the little pigs barricaded in the last house, the one made of brick. Anger at first may seem like,the big bad wolf howling menacingly outside the door. You shake within, behind the barred door and locked windows. To be exposed to such a monster would be certain death. If matters continue in this way, there can be no happy end-ing-- at best there is stalemate. You know the pigs' solution, and in a way it is related to what we will suggest. But let us modify it in the interest of love and mutual growth. In a feat reserved for imagery, imagine yourself inviting that wolf in. Already, simply to enter the house, the big wolf must become small, at least small Inner work is an active and engaging process of coming to terms with both the immediate stimulus for the anger and its deeper sources within. JanuaJ3,-FebJvtal3, 1997 D_.~ckro~ Kukor~ and Meier * Inner Work with Your Anger enough to fit through the very same door which you use. From that time the wolf already becomes more your equal; the bad wolf becomes your guest. Your fear calms down to prudent caution. Anger, upon being brought inside, begins the dialogue, furthers mutual understanding, and allows you to listen to the message-- which apparently some part of you thought was important enough to arouse such a furor. The third stage consists of continuing your association with the anger. This is the dialogue, and the very heart of inner work with anger. Although associating with your anger must of neces-sity be a free-flowing process, with content unique to yourself, it is useful to consider the general material you might encounter. The material of association might be divided into old and current issues. Old issues are the recurrent themes that come up again and again in anyone's life. Much of the message of any intense "negative" emotion has to do with these recurring themes. A popular way of conceptualizing this idea has been called the 90/10 rule. It suggests that, in understanding the message of strong feeling, very little (10 percent) has to do with what seems to be obvious, the matter on which you are focused. The greater part (90 percent) arises from old issues that have been reawak-ened by the current circumstances. Imagine a detonator: a small and harmless charge sets off a much larger and destructive explo-sion, a cache of dynamite for example. Obviously, the great positive potential in associating with the anger is in learning to listen for the old issues which come up in the process. These old issues influence your perception as perva-sively as a pair of colored glasses affects your view of the world around. They color your interpretations and lead to a type of conditioned reality. You actually see what you expect to see. Unrecognized old issues lead to compulsive or addictive cycles of behavior. You perceive each new situation through lenses that transform it into an old familiar one. In turn, you bring up and apply old familiar responses to these new situations. Outcomes become more and more predictable. Imagine a traveling theater troupe picking up extra actors in each town. The players are dif-ferent, but the plots are always the same. With anger, bitterness, or resentment, there is a kind of cold comfort in having been right about the advent of unpleasant realities (while you conve-niently forget that often it is you who make them unpleasant). Such victories are P))rrhic, Finding the results familiar becomes Review for Religious for you (however unconsciously) more desirable than finding--or trying to make--the current reality pleasant. The rigid shape of such compulsive behavior is evident. To emphasize the importance of old issues is not to say that current issues are unimportant. On the contrary, as you recog-nize the anger, calm the anxiety, and listen for old issues, the cur-rent issues become more distinguishable and more manageable. The solutions that present themselves are likely to be effective for being rooted in your actual current situation instead of being autonomous repetitions of previous experiences. When you see current issues clearly, you under-stand them in terms of relationship rather than as someone else's problem affecting you. You see a problem as relational, a matter between or among the several concerned parties rather than in one or another person. Common sources of anger in the present include threats to self-esteem, feeling vulnerable, being cheated, receiv~ ing dishonest or indirect communication. When these problems are freed from the heavy bag-gage of the old, recurring themes, their substance remains but they become much lighter to carry. Consider, for example, a threat to self-esteem. A colleague is given attention for her successes. It seems to you that some of her ideas carrie from' conversations in which you played a part. There is resentment that she is in the spotlight and fear that no one will look to you for ideas in the future. The most power-ful factors in your emotional response to the situation lie in your previous experiences. If you have felt unappreciated, if you have been afraid to speak before others, if you have learned to feel that others do not take you seriously, if you have learned to deeply doubt your own value or your ability to succeed, you will feel burning anger at your dubiously accurate perception of a threat to your livelihood and reputation. If you are not good at pro-cessing and expressing anger, you will carry it as a tortuous con-flict within you, eating at body and mind, blocking the flow of spirit. On the other hand, if you can recognize the old issues for what they are, can avoid disparaging yourself for holding them, and then begin dealing with them directly, you will find within The great positive potential in associating with the anger is in learning to listen for the old issues which come up in the process. dO dTtttltta13,-Febrtttlty 1997 Duckro, Kukor, and Meier ¯ Inner Work with Your Anger yourself the energy for doing so. You will assess more clearly how serious the immediate threat is. From that assessment you can gauge the strength of the confrontation and discussion you must have with your colleague. If you are not.skilled at assertive expres-sion, you may determine a course of action to improve such skills. The problem is resolvable. The actual method of associating with your anger requires some elaboration. An essential component is to calm yourself down. The failure to calm down, especially to calm down your cognitive activity, heightens the risk of repeating a version of the old issues that tend to inflate your angry response. Physiological calming facilitates cognitive calming, and both allow the pro-duction of fresh associations. It is important to distinguish this type of calming from sup-pressing the anger or avoiding the current issues. The idea is not to become suddenly and inexplicably blissful. The aim is simply to be present to the anger--bringing it in, seeing it for what it is, and sorting out the old issues that are inflaming it. The most effective way to calm down is simply to become aware of your breathing and then to breathe gradually more slowly and deeply, and from the diaphragm. No particular rate or pro-portion of breathing is necessary, but it is often helpful to allow each exhalation to proceed slowly, like a slow leak from a tire. With each long exhalation your heart rate will be slower, and you will feel more and more relaxed. Let yourself move as necessary to remain physically comfortable, and do not be afraid to take a big ungainly breath if you get out of rhythm; just come back to the slow, diaphragmatic breathing as soon as possible thereafter. The overall goal is a sense of effortlessness in the breathing, letting the tension and the struggle to control melt away, but feeling all the sensations of the body with even greater awareness. Focus then on the parts of the body that seem most active. You will find in these places the physical correlates of your anger, As you interact in this way with your physical sensations, move to the emotion underlying them. Remaining relaxed, let yourself feel the anger more fully, either directly as emotion or in its phys-ical manifestations. Now that it is allowed to enter within your relaxed self, it will no longer be overpowering as you contemplate it. Call it by name with your inner voice, softly and repeatedly. As you do so, remain calmly aware and allow your mind to produce the next thought, feeling, image, or memory. Accept that next Review for Religious association without judgment, and then focus on it. Continue the process in just this way until you reach an association that seems new and striking a.nd that requires more time. Stay with it for a 16nger time, just holding it in mind. Other thoughts and feelings will weave themselves around it. If you find yourself excessively dis-tracted, try writing.down your thoughts, feelings, or sensations, associating further with each one as you write. In this process of free association, you are opening doors within you. Areas which have been blocked off by shame or will-fulness may become accessible. Some of these areas may be unpleasant, exposing feelings that are painful. These you must bring to spiritual direction, prayer, intimate friends, or psy-chotherapy for support in working through them to new life. In the course of such work, you move toward oneness within; this is the essence of the integrity you seek. You see yourself more hon-estly and clearly, and you see also what is being touched within you. What you must do becomes more clear. The last stage is taking the anger to relationships.° Although our focus in this essay has been on inner work, this inner work leads to interpersonal interaction. It is in the movement from intrapersonal exploration to the interpersonal resolution of anger that we avoid individualism and act for justice and peace in our personal worlds. These personal worlds, in any particular life or set of circumstances, may range from the grand scale of interna-tional diplomacy to the intimate relationship of two persons. This inner work, then, is not an alternative to external work, but is the basis from which to move toward others. In inner work we take time to explore thoroughly .the nature of our own anger, with-holding action until we have taken the beam from our own eye. Upon so doing, when we do act we are much less likely to return evil for evil. We are more likely to be able to collaborate with God in turning all things to the good, for ourselves and others. Relational Responses In discussing this stage in which we take the anger to rela-tionship, it is useful to highlight the basic choices with which we are faced. Our choices determine whether and how much our response will further a relationship. In coming to terms with any strong "negative" emotion, we are faced with such choices, lead-ing to greater or lesser connection with others. Januaty-Febtvlaty 1997 Duckro, Kukor, and Meier ¯ Inner Work with Your Anger The mutuality required for integration rests ultimately on dialogue, people expressing their own feelings and desires and listening to one another. Y2 At its worst, anger polarizes. The participants separate into factions whose interests seem mutually opposed. Anger so expe-rienced leads to stronger or longer-lasting feelings of hatred and resentment, and to behaviors aimed at the injury or destruction bf the other parties. We easily see such hot or cold wars on the broad and somewhat anonymous levels of local, national, and interna-tional politics; they occur just as often, however, on the smaller stages of our personal and professional lives. Somewhat more benign, but still only minimally relational, is what we might call parallel play. In this live-and-let-live stance, there is no intention to hurt the other parties, but neither is there much sense of the common or universal good, and there is no intimate interaction. Farther along the continuum, we can indicate a point of compromise. This term is unfortunately not held in high esteem. What some people see as a reasonable compromise, many others see as "giving in," collaborating with evil; in fact, they see the compromiser as "compromised"-- or, at best, wishy-washy. However, com-promise (literally: putting forth, together) can be actually a high-level response with the potential for build-ing a better relationship out of previous anger and conflict. The partners in conflict become sensitive to each other's agendas and to opportunities for their mutual benefit in a common good. The arrangement might be unsteady, but continued dialogue in this spirit leads to change, however slow it might seem to those who prefer war, personal or otherwise, as a means of change. On any given day, compromise may be all the relationality we can muster. Nevertheless, its regular practice can move us along toward the point of integration. It is in the honest integra-tion of apparent opposites that we most fully participate in ongo-ing creation. Both compromise and integration must be and remain, opposed to syncretism, in which each side is reduced to being a lesser entity than it was. Integration requires the full pres-ence of both parties, each maintaining--and even realizing more fully--its own identity, but also coming together to form, from an Review Jbr Religious appreciation of their essential unifies and commonalities of inter-est, a new whole never before experienced. To accomplish such a union requires freshness of experience: two persons seeing each other as if for the first time. Obviously, the ideal is challenging and not easily reached. It is best to consider it a process that incor-porates the letting-go of egoism, that sense of self which empha-sizes self-protection and personal rights at the expense of openness and intimacy. It is analogous to the process of inculturation in evangelization presented by Pope John Paul II and articulated eloquently in the documents of General Congregation 34 of the Society of Jesus. The mutuality required for integration rests ulti-mately on dialogue, people expressing their own feelings and desires and listening to one another. Words are a poor medium to express such matters, but they are often the best means we have. In love, they are enough. At this level of relationship, anger has been transformed. It is now not merely a difficult emotion to be managed, but an impetus to new creation. Of such dialogue--two or more persons allowing their center of focus to be between or among themselves rather than within any one of them--it may truly be said that the reign of God is there. Forgiveness and reconciliation are experienced in a fresh way. Old hurts are not forgotten, but now are embodied in the new whole. They are used to create a new way of understanding which, rather than suppressing them, coopts them for the good. Taking care of oneself is redefined, as self has been redefined, beyond the limits of the corporeal body and one's personal psy-chological history. The well-being of any other person comes grad-ually to be seen as vitally important to one's own self. The Contemplative Stance This coming together in integration is certainly not without much pain and difficulty. More often than not, it seems that the creation of a new whole from disparate positions is impossible. Nevertheless, it is this apparent impossibility that in fact calls us to a new something. There is a tradition, among shamans of so-called primitive religions, that iust such apparently impossible situations signal, often in a sacred dream, the opportunity to advance to a new level of spiritual understanding. In our Christian tradition we may understand this new creation as furthering cor-poral realization of the mystical body of Christ. .~mlttaly-Febrttal3, 1997 Duckro, Kukor, and Meier o" Inner Work with Your Anger A contemplative stance in life facilitates the recognition and acceptance of opportunities' for integration as we work through strong feelings of anger. Such a contemplative stance does not imply or require a cloistered vocation; it is simply a willingness to become ever more aware of what is happening within us and around us. It is furthered by the practice of certain disciplines such as frequent self-examination, centering prayer, and medita-tive relaxation. An image passed on by Suzanne Zuercher OSB expresses the nature of being contemplative very well. Imagine holding a bird in your cupped hands. Hold it too tightly and the bird will be crushed; too loosely and the bird flies away. So it is to be present to ourselves and others. In such contemplation God, divine Mystery, is found truly in all things. All the events of life, without exception, are material for the spiritual journey. There is no need to avoid or suppress dis-tractions or strong emotions; there is only the call to work with them honestly. An ideal, of course, is a distant marker. As with ship and lighthouse, we hope not so much to find ourselves there as to be guided by its light. In the end the stuff of our growth is not found in our perfection, but in our flaws. Stumbling blocks become stepping stones, fissures become our footholds. Honest reflecting on the disruptive emotions that rise unbidden in us, and on our failures in handling them for the good, keep us rooted humbly in the truth of our lives. This truth, however unlovely it may seem, is the sure and only foundation for realizing the power of God working in us, From there we move closer to joy and compassion, holy indiffer-ence and equanimity, and become people for others. We find love. Review for Religious DENISE M. CALLAGHAN On Letting Go l~aan still see you sitting across the room from me, the light of e lamp highlighting your silver hair, your blue eyes still filled with life. You talked of how they were "putting you out," try-ing to get you to come to the motherhouse infirmary. And the best reason they could give you? They were worried about you because you seemed to be forgetful. You were not buying that, you told me. You kept insisting that you knew what you were doing, that you were not forgetful or careless about little matters of safety. I tried to suggest that there could be episodes you were not aware of. If you had been aware, there would be no prob-lem- but not being aware that you were not aware could be seri-ous. I was not just playing with words. I tried to give you examples. I tried to ease your dread of being uprooted. I hope I helped just a little, anyway. I thought of you often after you left. I found myself praying that you would be able to let go. So much of life is a matter of let-ting go. None of us does it lightly or easily. We are clingers by nature, I think. Even as infants we fasten our fingers around lit-tle baubles and hold on with surprising strength. Paul talks about that in some of his Epistles. "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child . . ." (1 Co 13:11). I think (can we really remember it all now?) that it was not always easy to put aside the things of the child and become the responsible adult. Somehow, however awk-wardly, we did it. Sometimes it is not all pain--if the letting go of the old, famil-iar some thing, or some place, or some one means the reaching out Denise M. Callaghan SSND writes to us from 6401 North Charles Street; Baltimore, Maryland 21212. 1997 Callagban ¯ On Letting Go What a beautiful gift we offer one another when we truly listen! Y6 to some one new, or some place new, or some thing new that sat-isfies and delights us. But there are those letting go's that are just that: all pain. There is no exchange; there is an emptying out, a hollowing out, a hurt, a loneliness, a void. Some of us literally break under the strain of it. Some of us do not break, but we become bitter and withdrawn. Some of us bluff our way through or somehow just bury the ache. Some of us, quietly and with great wisdom, simply let go--and then go on. What a great grace! No matter who we are, no matter how well we do what we do, we will all need from time to time to be able to let go: ¯ the older for the younger, ¯ the familiar for the new and the different, ¯ the surety of the tried and the true for the promise of the untried and the possible, ¯ the mellowed for the freshly cured, ¯ the wisdom of experience for the vision and the dream of the not-yet-chanced. It cannot be done lightly, nor should it be. Wisdom cautions weighing and measuring, reflectively letting go, effectively hold-ing on. We need to pray that the Spirit of wis-dom will inform us. We need to be attentive listeners to the movement of the Spirit in our own hearts and to trust that message. We also need to pray to be good listeners one to another. No one of us is so informed that our own judgment is always best. So we listen and weigh our view again, in light of someone else's wisdom and insight, There is a courtesy we owe one another, and a respect, and an esteem. We listen to each other, not dismissing the line of rea-soning, but attentively pondering it. What a beautiful gift we offer one another when we truly lis-ten! It is rare that we really do this. It can be singularly painful to someone when we do not do it, as when one who over a span of years has been looked up to as wise and judicious, insightful and intuitive, now senses that her views are being suddenly and sum-marily dismissed by younger members of the community. The real pain here is the feeling she has, upon seeing her remarks mentally brushed aside or not even fairly listened to, that she her-self is being discarded. This kind of not listening can go the other way, too. Someone Review for Religious young and presumably inexperienced touches deftly and wisely the very core of the issue and is merely smiled at as though youth's inexperience cannot possibly know anything that is truly perti-nent and helpful. All of us, of course, are painfully aware that most wisdom seems to come only by hindsight. Wisely did St. Augustine pray often for the grace of a "listening heart." We do indeed have to try our best to speak truth as we perceive it. Beyond that, we need the grace to be able to let go and try to pick up the truth in the words of others. Sometimes the need to let go can concern only myself: ¯ the death of a loved'one when I cannot even imagine living my life apart from that person, ¯ the loss of a friend in some painful misunderstanding that somehow cannot seem to be remedied, ¯ the diminishment and inability brought on by serious illness or aging, ¯ the hurt when politics decides who gets the promotion or the credit or the acclaim. One other demand on us individually from time to time will be the letting go of memories. We need never let go of the very heartening memories that enrich us and that are among our most precious treasures. We thank God over and over for those times, those persons, those events that set our hearts to singing at their every recall. But we do need to let go, with God's help, when the memory is painful and the whole episode shouts of injustice or rash judgments or false accusations or just plain dislike. It is right to try to remedy the wrong, particularly if it is done to someone else. Jesus asks each of us to be a speaker of truth. But when every effort fails and every avenue of remedy is sealed off, we need sim-ply to let go and to go on. It is not easy. Yet holding on and nurs-ing the grudge can be utterly destructive. We give the victory to the demon of darkness and we hurt God's cause. Ther

Issue 53.3 of the Review for Religious, May/June 1994. ; ChriStian Heritages and Contempora~ Living MAY-J~ !994 ¯ VOIdUME 531 ¯ NUMBER3 Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University. by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048 ¯ Fax: 314-535-0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ° St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ P.O. Box 29260 ° Washington, DC 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ° Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©1994 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific libraw clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. review for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Joann Wolski Conn PhD Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ Sefin Sammon FMS Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living MAY-JUNE 1994 " VOLUME53 ¯ NUMBER3 contents 326 feature Leadership a New Way: Women, Power, and Authority Janet K. Ruffing RSM explores the Christian concepts of power and the developmental stages which lead to sharing power and to healing the wounds of authority we all bear. 34O 352 life in flux Transition's Holy or Unholy Dark Jane Ferdon OP and George Murphy SJ draw from their experience of spiritual direction to shed light upon some of the darkness experienced by women and men religious. Merging Provinces Gerald A. Arbuckle SM brings insights from cultural anthropology to the process of merging congregational provinces. 364 One Voice from the Middle Place Judith Ann Eby RSM speaks out as part of a new generation which interprets religious life differently from those whose background includes the lived experience of Tridentine Catholicism. 375 life in service Religious, the Laity, and the Future of Catholic Institutions Catherine Harmer MMS suggests that for the good of Catholic institutions it is time for religious to let go of some things and for lay people to take them on so that both groups can act at their best. 386 Being and Acting Holy for Ministry's Sake Clyde A. Bonar proposes some practical ways of being about our one ministry: to be holy. 397 Missionary by Nature William F. Hogan CSC focuses attention upon the essential missionary aspect of every Christian and religious vocation. 322 Review for Rellg~ous life of witness 402 How to Read the Lives of Saints of Old 415 Frederick G. McLeod SJ gives some helps for our understanding and appreciating the richness of meaning found in the lives of saints of old. Prayer Francis J. Ring SJ offers his personal history of praying as a support for all pilgrims in their prayer life. reflective life 420 Even at the Grave We Make Our Song Margaret Bullitt-Jonas explores how three symbols--the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus Christ-- came to life as she prayed over her infant daughter's death. 436 A Letter to Dead Parents about Today's Life Eileen O'Hea CSJ writes about her present-day experience of religious life. 440 452 46O religious life in perspective Journeying to God Together Susan Beaudry PM and Edwin L. Keel SM suggest that what religious have to offer the people of God is the experience of the spiritual journey, with its wisdom and skills. Charism as Sonnet: Developmental Considerations S. Suzanne Mayer IHM offers various perspectives on living the charisms of religious life for the dynamic of personal growth. Hispanic Faith and Culture--and U.S.A. Religious Gloria In~s Loya PBVM explains the pillars, of ministry, community, and spirituality .which support religious life in a Mexican-American setting. departments 324 Prisms 467 Canonical Counsel: Directives for the Relationship between Bishops and Religious: Mutuae Relationes 473 Book Reviews May-.lWune 1994 323 prisms E those of us living in the midwestern part of the United States, the spring and early summer seasons bless us with a burst of flowering trees and shrubs and a continuing array of nature's living vari-ety. Obviously all these signs of life are not created out of nothing each year. In fact, the changing seasons remind us of how much life remains hidden from our daily human perspective. Seeds look to be so dry and lifeless. Even in planting them in lawn or garden, we can only wonder about and wait for the activities of life still hidden from our sight. Oceans appear to our eyes as only a huge volume of water, but oceans teem with life--mostly hidden beneath the sur-face- which marine biologists endlessly discover and observe and marvel at. If we buy into the impressions promoted by contem-porary advertising, we find ourselves acting as if what we see is what life is all about. Life as sold by secular culture seems to bankrupt itself in surface impressions. Just how limited such a vision of life is quicHy becomes apparent when we deal with moral and religious issues of human living. Abortion only becomes an option if people keep human life out of sight. Arguments for abortion deal with choices and rights, with nary a thought about the hid-denness of human life. "Ethnic cleansing," whether it be in E~rope, Africa, Asia, or America, is a cosmetic phrase to disguise the deadly idea that some peoples are more deserving of life than others. Put into practice, this deadly idea joins the age-old slave trading, the Nazi concentra-tion camps, and futuristic scientific cloning as another 324 Reviezv for Religious sadly and horrendously narrow human mishandling of human life. For all the words about environment and ecology and quality of human life, we seem unable to reverence the mystery of life-- visible life and hidden life--with which our world abounds. For the young Christian community at Colossae, St. Paul used the pregnant phrase that "our life is hidden now with Christ in God." Perhaps we need to reflect more on the hiddenness of our faith life and thereby come to an appreciation and reverence for the hiddenness of life in general. The fledgling Christian com-munity at Colossae realized that in everyday life they looked pretty much the same as everyone else. They ate, they drank, they sometimes went hungry, they married and had families, they got sick, they died; they had joys and sorrows. They gathered, of course, for Eucharist, and their concern and care for one another and anyone in need did give them some mark of distinctiveness. But overall they lived with a new reverence for life--from the very young to the very old. Why? Because the risen Christ in whom they all were baptized had brought them into a new rela-tionship to God and to one another--a relationship subtle as the Spirit but as real as the risen Christ himself. As Saul (now Paul the writer) experienced and many other persecutors have learned since his day, a voice insists that it is Jesus whom they persecute. We Christians hear Jesus insisting, "If you do it to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you are doing it to me." We touch here the source of the hidden life we all live in Christ. But Jesus does more than affect the hiddenness of human relationships--whatever tribe or nationality, religious affiliation or secular lifestyle. Because Jesus has taken on the darkness and hid-denness of suffering and death and by his rising joined it into a new fullness of life, the physical world in which we live is not the same as it was. Suffering and death are not just problems to be solved and if possible eliminated; suffering and death, now seen in a wholly new relationship to life in the risen Christ, must also be met with reverence. In the midst of all our necessary human efforts to relieve the suffering in our world, we believers stand with reverence before suffering, lfor we know. with the sureness of faith that because of Christ life lies hidden even in suffering, sometimes especially in suffering. Therein, deep down, like life in winter, lives Christian joy and the root of Christian reverence for life. David L. Fleming SJ May-ffvtne 1994 325 feature JANET K. RUFFING Leadership a New Way: Women, Power, and Authority The FORUS study in its general conclusions identified authority as "perhaps the most pressing question for reli-gious to resolve."' Underneath the question of authority, I find at least two foundational themes which need to be explored--the meaning of leadership in religious congre-gations in light of differing interpretations of power and authority and the specifically religious qualities of lead-ership. As I study the current research on religious life, I continue to uncover the deep ground of grace out of which religious life grows and flourishes. I remain convinced that we cannot hope to understand the reality of contem-porary religious life without probing this depth level of religious experience. The present theological, interdisci-plinary, experiential reflections address such questions as: Leadership for what? VChat obstacles impede our ability to collaborate? Part II addresses questions about religious leadership: How do leaders support the ongoing conver-sion implied as we discover new dimensions of the Christ mystery in our lives and ministries? What ultimately sus-tains us in our calling? "Authority in many U.S. institutions, including reli-gious life, has.undergone deconstruction. Variable under- Janet Ruffing RSM is associate professor in spirituality and spir-itual direction in the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education at Fordham University. Her address is GSRRE, Fordham University; 441 E. Fordham Road; Bronx, New York 10458-5169. The second part of her article, "If Christ Is Growing in U~," will appear in our July-August 1994 issue. 326 Review for Religious standings of consensus, subsidiarity, discernment, and leadership have diffused understandings of authority. The abuse of author-ity in the past makes individuals reluctant to endorse authority in any way.''2 It is clear from the FORUS study that these differ-ing views of authority and the corresponding understandings of obedience exist within single institutes as well as across insti-tutes. As a result, leadership is sometimes severely impaired in its ability to lead; while in other instances leadership is experi-enced as empowering and free-ing for mission. Authority functions and is understood differently when charism is taken seriously and when governance takes adult discipleship into account. Women religious particularly have been redefining the mean-ing of obedience and authority in ways particularly suited to their awareness of their needs and desires as women. The FORUS study reports that vision groups "view authority as power that is shared among commu-nities of equals,''3 These changes in understandings of authority are related to how such a vision of power and authority and the impli-cations for redefining a vow of obedience appear, to many women to be more compatible with gospel values than does the post- Tridentine version of authority. Women religious as a group, espe-cially at the level of leadership, are pressing for a more enabling exercise of power among themselves. Although religious desire to maintain an ecclesial identity, the FORUS study reports a "lowered respect for the magisterial authority of the church and the U.S. hierarchy in general.''4 According to this study, women are acutely aware of their exclu-sion from leadership by the clerical church. Women religious are looking at church in new ways; they have embraced a clear com-mitment to changing this church. Clerical resistance to this change will further diminish the capacity of women's communities to Apostolic religious women will not fully stabilize nor be able to attract and retain new vocations until ecclesial conflicts about the church's mission and the contribution of religious within it are resolved. NIay-j~ne 1994 327 Ruffing * Leadership a New Way attract the very women who are looking for a public context in society and church that is meaningful for their dedication and service. In my opinion, apostolic religious women will not fully sta-bilize nor be able to attract and retain new vocations until eccle-sial conflicts about the church's mission and the contribution of religious within it are resolved. This includes not only resolving the role of women in the church but also arriving at an operative consensus of the role of the church in the modern world. Religious are in a real sense church people whose mission and identity lie at the heart of the ~hurch's own. The Brooldand Commission Study reported that 94 percent of their respondents named the self-understanding of the church developed in the wake of Vatican II to be a source in forming their ideas about what is essential to religious life.s To the extent that the larger church is ambiEalent about the directions set by the council, religious life will con-tinue to be at risk. In the context of these recent studies which indicate both sig-nificant change and continuing confusion, I will describe the psy-choanalytic roots of our attitudes toward authority, explore several concepts of power disclosed in the New Testament, and reflect on women and power. I will end with the Whiteheads' descriptions of both the developmental stages which lead to sharing power in Christian communities and the necessary task of healing the wounds of authority which we all bear. Formative Experiences with Authority One's basic stance toward authority, those whom I perceive to be "in charge" or more powerful than I, is usually determined by my early experiences with my mother and father and then with institutional authorities such as teachers and other authority fig-ures. This experience forms how I relate to God as an ultimate authority, how I relate to situations of injustice, how I relate to my own authority, and. how I relate to ambiguous authority. (Ambiguous authority refers to that exercise of authority which is usually benign but which is occasionally overbearing or oppres-sive.) If my experience has been one in which authority was exer-cised with genuine love and for my good, I will tend to respect and trust authority. I will creatively participate with authority, and I 328 Review for Religious will feel comfortable being critical of this authority. These responses are based on a sense that persons in authority have benign motives and are both fallible and rational. In other words, were I to present information missing from a decision, that new information would be taken into account and I would not be pun-ished for making a suggestion. Authority exercised with love is neither physically nor verbally abusive, but consistently treats me with respect. On the other hand, if my experience has been one in which authority was not so exercised, fear will be my dominant emo-tional response. I will either conform to the wishes of authority to avoid notice or abuse or I will rebel against it. Neither rebel-lion nor conformity are particularly healthy responses because both are rooted in a feeling of alienation and powerlessness. Authority functions against me and I feel powerless to do much about it. If I rebel, I choose noncooperation. I do not help to change the situation; instead, I may create a separate peace by withdrawing or opposing. If I conform, I do so because I feel powerless. I do not tell the truth but tell them only what they want to hear to avoid conflict. Since I perceive authority to be unloving and irrational, rational discourse cannot achieve any-thing fruitful, so I do not even try. Of course, no one is a pure type, and all usually have had some experience of both forms of authority. But most of the time I inhabit one attitude more than the other. I either offer myself to the process of authority-mak-ing or I withdraw in fear from participation. If my early experience is primarily loving and rational, I will experience God's authority to be for my good; I will recognize and" act against situations of injustice; I will experience my own inner authority and act out of it in nondefensive ways; and I will be able to be critical. I can tell the truth in the face of ambiguous experiences of authority. I can afford to see that a given person in authority has room to grow in the way he or she exercises that authority. New Testament Concepts of Power The New Testament presents two concepts of power. It addresses the way authority exercises power through the behav-ior and teaching of Jesus, and it begins to redefine power as the activity of God in our midst. "Power in the kingdom of God will May-June 1994 329 Ruffing ¯ Leadership a New Way be totally different from power as it is exercised in the kingdom of Satan (the world). The power of Satan is the power of domi-nation and oppression, the power of God is the power of service and freedom." 6 All the kingdoms and nations of this present world are governed by the power of domination and force. The struc-ture of the kingdom of God will be determined by the power of spontaneous loving service which people render to one another. In Mark, Jesus puts it this way: "You know that among the pagans their so-called rulers lord it over them, and their great men make their authority felt. This is not to happen among you. No; any-one who wants to become great among you must be your servant (diakonos), and anyone who wants to be first among you must be a slave (doulos) to all. For the son of man himself did not come to serve but to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mk 10:42-45, Mk 9:35). This teaching occurs in all three synoptics and is par-alleled by the footwashing pericope in John's gospel. "You call me teacher and lord, rightly so--if I your teacher and Lord have washed your feet--so also ought you to wash one another" (Jn 13:14). This is an example of the way power is to be exercised among the disciples--placing ourselves at the service of one another's freedom, calling forth from one another by our exam-ple "kingdom qualities," and releasing the power of the commu-nity in mission. Jesus is very clear about the difference between domination and service. As Albert Nolan says, "The power of this new soci-ety is not a power which has to be served, a power before which a person must bow down and cringe. It is the power which has an enormous influence in the lives of people by being of service to them." 7 Also relevant to this discussion is Jesus' attitude to the law, the power which enabled religious rulers to dominate and oppress. Jesus consistently attacked this abuse of the law. He rejected any interpretation which was used against people. The law was meant to serve genuine human needs and interests. Unfortunately, many fear the responsibility of freedom. We seek the security of a law which gives us prestige and allows us to dominate, or we let others make decisions for us, hiding behind rules, relying on the letter rather than on the spirit of the law. In so doing we enslave ourselves by our fear of freedom, and we deny freedom to others as well. Jesus does not abolish the law, but relativizes it so that we will take responsibility for the sys-tems we create and use them to serve the needs of humanity. The 330 Review for Religious exercise of power and authority in God's kingdom is to be func-tional. It should embody the arrangements that are necessary if we are to serve one another willingly and effectively. Every type of domination and servitude is to be abolished, including religious forms of these abuses. The New Testament also speaks about another kind of power--the power that comes from on high over Mary, the Holy Spirit, who also comes upon the community gathered in Jesus' name after the resurrec-tion. Jesus' ministry is characterized by a release of God's power as he expels demons and heals those who believe. The woman with the issue of blood touches Jesus, and power goes out from him. In Luke, all try to touch Jesus in order to be healed because power emanates from him. When Jesus sends out the disciples to preach, he confers power on them, not to rule but to heal and to cast out demons. Jesus releases in our midst freedom from all that binds us. He heals and forgives sin and invites us to share in this power for good which is the Spirit's action in us. We, as apostolic women, are empowered by that same Spirit. We are called to develop ways of making decisions, organizing our lives, and harmonizing our gifts so that this holy power for mission is released in each of us and in the group as a whole. The disciples had trouble understanding this; they kept mixing up these two kinds of power, wanting to rule and lord it over others rather than releasing the God life to its own ends. Jesus is very clear about the difference between domination and service. Women and Power As women we can often remain confused about these texts and themes. We have been trained in our tradition to be power-less-- to be the servants. Kathleen Fischer puts it this way: "Rhetoric about servanthood has often been used against women, trapping us in subservient roles. As suffering servant Jesus exer-cises power in the service of rglationships,.affirming the dignity and worth of each individual. He empowered others, unlocking their deepest desires and enabling them to use their best gifts."s Women's role in the church has been designated as the subordi-nate one (servants) while others have assumed the positions of May-June 1994 331 Ruffing * Leadership a New Way If we do exercise power unconsciously, we will probably do to others exactly what has been done to us. authority, taking charge, lording it over, and engaging in ritual footwashings while not holding power lightly. As a result, women find themselves oppressed by religious authority and in a posi-tion of permanent subordination. Since power has been a bad word among Christian women, we perceive it as a negative and dangerous reality. Because it is something none of us is to have or exercise, we are therefore often mysti-fied by the use of power in the church and in religious congregations. We do not want anything to do with power, and we may be afraid to exercise it. If we want power, we must be bad. Exercising power in our own interest can leave us feeling selfish, self-destruc-five, or threatened in our relationships. This ambivalence about power and our social conditioning in patriarchal sys-tems create a situation in which we often exercise our power indirectly or unconsciously. Or we may become con-fused and anxious when conflict or struggle comes out into the open. If we do exercise power unconsciously, we will probably do to others exactly what has been done to us. So as not to oppress anyone else as we have been oppressed, we need to understand power differently. We need to see power as a strength and understand how to participate in the healthy use of power. Jean Baker Miller redefines power simply as the "capacity to implement.''9 Expressing power does not need to be coercive or oppressive. Women, however, do not exercise power any better than men unless we become conscious and critical of how and when we express power. The Whiteheads on Power In the American church many men and women, clergy and laity, struggle to reflect critically on their experience of power in ecclesial contexts and to change how that power is expressed. Recent writings by Evelyn and James Whitehead have supported this struggle by exploring gospel understandings of power in the 332 Review for Religious light of the contemporary social sciences. In their work with hun-dreds of teams and in workshops across the country, they found that the single greatest obstacle to collaboration is a mystifica-tion about power along with the inability of many people in authority to share power. The Whiteheads define power and authority this way:l° Authority is the right to command or exercise power in relationship to the goals and values of the group. It is vested in persons (elected leaders) or in offices (specific roles/func-tions). Who or how the "vesting" occurs may be formal (appointment, election, consensus) or informal. But the social group recognizes the function of authority and the process of transferring it from one person to another. Power is the achievement or control of effects. Often it is the ability to produce a change. It may or may not coincide with authority. The Whiteheads continue: It is always present in interpersonal relationships. It is every way of exercising influence over another. One person is always subject to the power of another and no one is com-pletely without power. Power refers to the interactions among us. Finally, they say "power is best. perceived as those interac-tions that both create and threaten human community." According to the FORUS study, it is this definition of power as a resource to be shared that emerges as the dominant view of power among visionary people in religious life. The question remains: How operative is this understanding of power in religious life? In The Promise of Partnership, the Whiteheads consider that one of the primary tasks of religious leadership is to foster the transformation of our experience of power. If religious leaders genuinely exercise power in a manner consonant with the New Testament's understanding, they will use their power to welcome the power of others. They will use their role as leaders to enable those they lead to experience their shared strength in the group. As we mature in personal strength, we experience different modes of power. Early experiences and cultural influences can delay or impede our being comfortable with more mature expres-sions of power. Relying 0n David McClelland's work, the Whiteheads describe four basic orientations toward personal power--receiving power, achieving autonomy, expressing power, and sharing power. ~ May-j~une 1994 333 Ruling * Leadership a New Way Faces of Power Childhood is our basic experience of feeling strong because we are cared for and supported in our growing by our parents. When we are nurtured well, we learn to feel safe in the presence of oth-ers' power. We are empowered by this protection. Feeling empow-ered by others in this way continues into adulthood when we are strengthened by friendship, teamwork, or collaboration. I can feel comfortable receiving care and competence from others, and ][ do not have to rely entirely or only on myself. If I grew up in an unsafe environment, I learned not to trust or I remember depen-dence as demeaning and shameful. Adult experiences can also dis-appoint us and cause us to withdraw, but they are often overcome when we fall in love again or open ourselves again to a new rela-tionship. Autonomy is the strength we have on our own. In achieving autonomy we celebrate our self-reliance and self-sufficiency. Acting on nay own behalf expands my sense of power. Having developed some skills and competencies, I become an agent in my own life. Collaboration depends on my having some basic confidence in my own resources. If I lack autonomy, I will under-mine any partnership through my dependency. However, if I do not learn how to move beyond self-sufficiency, collaboration and openness to outside influence will feel like weakness, for it will imply that my own resources are deficient. Women often have difficulty in achieving autonomy unless the culture in which they function values their self-sufficiency and personal agency. Some religious communities have impeded this development in their members while others have fostered it but have not yet been able to direct this self-reliant energy back into communal projects. Expressing power turns us outward, as we begin to influence others and have an impact on our world. At this stage we feel strong when we influence the world beyond ourselves. A new sense of power stirs when we express our ideas, make demands of others, assume responsibility, take charge, and when others respond favorably. McClelland found that this orientation was prominent among management, supervisors, lawyers, and people in the helping professions. Success in all these fields depends on being able to influence the attitudes and behaviors of others. Personal assertion and social influence are the two particular resources of this power. However, these resources can be dis-played differently. Some express power exclusively in a combative 334 Review for Religious stance of competition with a need to dominate. A leader who feels strong only in this way easily becomes authoritarian. This kind of leader may function effectively in a military unit, but not as well in a helping role or in organizational leadership. !n these roles it is more appropriate to feel power-ful when motivating others, offering assistance, coordinating resources, and helping a group move toward its goals. The shadow side of this abil-ity to influence is dominance and control. Maturity lures us toward still another face of power--feeling strong in sharing power. People at this stage feel themselves to be per-sonally strong and also involved with something larger than themselves. Something beyond self-interest--the will of God, or commitment to a vision--prompts their action. They feel both powerful and empowered, strong both in autonomy and in col-laboration. These people welcome interdependence, the ability to enjoy mutual influence and mutual empowerment. When we work together the power we share increases and enhances my strength. The outcome that emerges from this interplay of interdepen-dence is less mine, yet I feel stronger because something better has resulted. Genuine interdependence is possible only if a significant num-ber of the members of religious communities mature to this fourth level of power. The hierarchical church, in its current exercise of power, shares power minimally. One group is authorized to express power and another group, namely the laity, receives it. If actual partnership is to flourish in the ecclesial community, we need an abundance of religious leaders who value sharing power and who are not threatened by widening the sources of influence. Much of the governance journey in religious life for women has been toward this mode of sharing power. The old way of lead-ership is not capable of fostering the full religious'maturity of its members. A single charismatic leader can function in level three If actual partnership is to flourish in the ecclesial community, we need an abundance of religious leaders who value sharing power and who are not threatened by widening the sources of influence. May-June 1994 335 Ruffing ¯ Leadership a New Way of this schema, but that requires the entire group to submit to that individual charism. I believe the gifts of grace and discern-ment are distributed both more broadly and more abundantly than that. If we truly believe that our charisms live in all of us, that God's spirit releases an outpouring of energy and power, then sharing power is the only style of religious leadership that has the flexibility and openness to engage in the discernment of these movements. Healing the Wounds of Authority The FORUS study critiques dysfunctional religious leader-ship in many religious communities. I understand that much of this dysfunction is a manifestation of incomplete adult ddvelop-ment. For authentic interdependence and collaboration to be pos-sible, those in leadership must be committed to continuing their own development and to fostering the development of their mem-bers. Healing the wounds of authority is often an integral part of the process.12 The Whiteheads describe a continuum of growth in our per-spective about authority. It moves from the perception that power and authority are completely external to ourselves to the percep-tion that we confer authority in partnership with others for com-mon goals. Women in religious life stand all along the continuum. The way authority used to be exercised was coercive. A large part of our individual and corporate journey through renewal has involved deconstructing coercive authority and either avoiding the question of authority altogether (hence not a few resistant women in our midst) or constructing an entirely new way of exer-cising it. Briefly, the Whiteheads portray the function of authority as expanding life, making power more abundant, and calling others to collaborative partnership. However, many of us find ourselves unable to respond to this adult invitation to share power. We per-sist in viewing authority as external to ourselves, with those in authority holding on to power as a permanent and privileged pos-session to be used as they see fit. This kind of authority makes us feel like either children or victims, vulnerable and liable to be hurt when we interact with authority. We project onto our lead-ers impossible expectations, [equiring them to be all things to all people. We treat them as different from us, more knowledgeable, 336 Review for Religious more wise, more talented. Such projection masks our irresponsi-bility and delays our process of maturing. A more mature approach to authority views leaders very much as we view ourselves. We hope they are competent, but we under-stand that they have no special access to wisdom. They, too, are limited, fallible, susceptible to bias and error. No longer something leaders do to us, authority becomes relativized and results in a sense of partnership. Rather than benefi-ciaries, victims, or observers, we become participants with leaders in shaping the best decisions. How do we heal the wounds of authority? Transformation begins, according to the Whiteheads, whenever a crisis causes us to examine behavior that no longer works, whether it he avoidirig authority, fighting it, or trying to win its approval. The process moves through the successive stages of withdrawal, disbelief, self-scrutiny, and authority-making. In withdrawal I recognize that I have put authority outside myself and retreat to an inner place. My external behavior may not change much, hut basically I ignore authority and its claims on me. In the stage of disbelief, I realize that I am more than what authority thinks of me. My sense of self and self-worth no longer depends on external authority. This stage may begin as rebel-lion--" Who says this is the way things are?" I question how things are and think about how things could or should be. I recognize that how things are is often merely the way those in power have decided they should be, sometimes benefiting the leaders more than anyone else. The risk of disbelief is that it can harden into skepticism that rejects all exercise of authority. I can be preoc-cupied with exposing the faults and failings of those in authority when I do not yet see myself as an equal. The stage of self-scrutiny allows me to recognize how I have participated in maintaining coercive authority all along, whether by elevating those in authority, attacking them, or blaming them for things for which I am also responsible. I become able to ask We project onto our leaders impossible expectations, requiring them to be all things to all people. Such projection masks our irresponsibility and delays our process of maturing. May-June 1994 337 Ruling ¯ Leadership a New Way the critical question: When is the influence of external authority-- a leader, a value system, a set of laws--legitimate in my life? A cer-tain level of intellectual and emotional maturity is required in order to respond freely, neither compulsed to negate these demands nor anxious to satisfy a hidden motive. I understand that, as I have contributed to my own oppression, I can participate in my own empowerment. When I can exercise my personal power in response to author-ity both by taking initiative and obeying, I have reached the stage of authority-making. At this stage, I am able to face conflict if nec-essary in the pursuit of a common purpose. This is possible only after I have recognized my prior negative contribution through fear, apathy, or magical thinking. The Whiteheads caution that one cannot wait until this stage is completed; even conscious of wounds and the continuing process of healing, I need to be engaged as a partner in authority.13 The unhealed wounds of authority are frequently the unac-knowledged agenda when leaders and members experience tension between individualism and the common good. Authority will be interpreted and experienced differently depending on the level of healing and the vision of exercising power espoused by each religious. If leaders can encourage communities to begin to heal the wounds of authority and if the majority of the members can endure the pain of growth in this developmental process to become capable of sharing power, our communities will be very different. Both leaders and members will be partners in codis-cernment, as both respond to the ever changing call to be shaped by and to express in life and ministry their shared charism and discipleship of Jesus. According to the FORUS study, outstanding women leaders were extremely active in securing the commitment of the group to appropriate actions or decisions. They used their positional and personal power to influence outcomes, but not at the cost of diminishing the sharing of power in the group. Further they tended "to encourage participation of those they lead, share power and information with them, and enhance their self-worth and energize them." ~4This style of leadership has been pioneered largely by women in a variety of settings as well as in religious life. Clearly, one of the gifts religious women can offer the church is the healing of our wounds of authority and our growth in sharing power, thereby releasing the power of God's spirit in our midst. 338 Review for Religious Notes ~ David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis, "Research Executive Summary: Future of Religious Orders in the United States," Origins 22 (24 September 1992): 271. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid, p. 268. 4 Ibid, p. 271. 5 Katarina Schuth, "The Intellectual Life as a Value for Women Religious in the United States," Appendix: Survey, Brookland Commission paper, 16-18 October 1992, 10. 6 Albert Nolan, Jesus before Christianity (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1976 and 1992), p. 84. v Ibid, p. 85. 8 Kathleen Fischer, VVomen at the Well: Feminist Perspectives on Spi~qtual Direction (Mahwah: Paulist, 1988), p. 140. 9 See Jean Baker Miller, Toward a New P~chology of FVomen (Boston: Beacon, 1976 and 1986), for a full discussion of the topic women and power. ~0 Evelyn and James. Whitehead, Emerging Laity: Retm~zing Leadership to the Community of Faith (New York: Image, 1988), p. 36. ~ The description which follows is dependent on Evelyn and James Whitehead, The Promise of Partnership: Leadership and Minist~7 in an Adult Church (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1991), pp. 115-127. ~2 See "Healing the Wounds of Authority," in Promise, pp. 27-36, for the full description of this schema. ~3 It should be apparent that only in these latter two stages of self-scrutiny and authority-making is discernment possible. 14 David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis, "Religious Leadership Competencies," Review for Religious 52, no. 3 (May-June 1993): 413. May-June 1994 339 JANE FERDON AND GEORGE MURPHY Transition's Holy or Unholy Dark life flux ¯ he renewal of religious life over the past thirty years has generated a series of expected and unexpected results. One of the most puzzling is the persistence of darkness. Despite massive and heroic efforts to update and achieve renewal, many groups and individuals are continually deal-ing with a darkness that nothing seems to dispel. As men and women religious and bishops prepare for the Roman Synod on religious life, people will inevitably both review the transitional years since Vatican II and envision the future. They will gather and analyze data from many different perspectives. We would like to offer the perspective of spiritual direction and our experience of working as spiritual directors with men and women reli-gious.~ Theological, sociological, psychological, economic, political, and cultural perspectives all help in the under-standing of religious life. From spiritual direction we can see how people's experience of God has renewed them and how their experience of darkness, the apparent or real absence of God, has purified or stultified them. People's experiences of God in moments of light, energy, joy, and enthusiasm have received refined attention Jane Ferdon oP and George Murphy SJ are adjunct faculty at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, where they have been directing a practicum in spiritual direction. Their address is Jesuit School of Theology; 1735 LeRoy Avenue; Berkeley, California 94709-1193. 340 Review for Religious and have been deservedly relished. There are encouraging signs of new vitality in religious life: a growing freedom in people, more laughter, a refusal to be victimized, an ability to love and receive affection, a desire to know God more and share with oth-ers how God is present among us. People are taking apostolic risks and are praying regularly and contemplatively. Many are concerned with the poor and with unjust structures. People strive for integrity, some even risking their lives to protest war and nuclear arms. Others give their lives as martyrs, witnesses of God's concern for God's peo-ple. Some are willing boldly to confront evil both within the church and outside it. There are many reasons to hope. It is precisely in this context that we need to interpret dark-ness, both individually and col-lectively, to ponder its impact and to move toward light. The subject of darkness is not attrac-tive. By its very nature it can evoke self-criticism and blame. We intend neither. Our purpose is to portray people's experience and to raise some serious questions for reflection and considera-tion. We are convinced that only by scrutinizing the darkness can we be more free to enjoy the new life and energy in our midst. Then, with courage, we can pass on what we have learned to the next generation of women and men religious. Admittedly, some-times we have neither the strength nor the disposition to deal with darkness. As painful as it might be, we believe that God is calling women and men religious and the church not only to look at the light but also to discern the darkness. Experiences of darkness are only beginning to be probed and 'mined.z Our thesis is that sometimes darkness is holy; God is present and waiting in the darkness. This is the dark night of There are encouraging signs of new vitality in religious life: a growing freedom in people, more laughter, a refusal to be victimized, an ability to love and receive affection, a desire to know God more and share with others how God is present among us. May-.~ne 1994 341 Ferdon and Murphy * Transition's Holy or Unholy Dark senses or of spirit that Teresa and John of the Cross perceptively explored for their times and now needs contemporary examina-tion. 3 Another darkness, however, is unholy because God is not present in the abyss. This darkness is destructive rather than cre-ative. It is the realm of the prince of darkness, a darkness that needs to be named and avoided or robbed of its hold. In prayer as in life many women and men religious have expe-rienced both forms of darkness; but how do we discern the dif-ference? Are some of the more stubborn blocks to the renewal of religious life examples of the power of the unholy dark? Is the future of religious life to be found only in the holy dark? Some women and men religious feel trapped in a dark place, clawing interiorly to be set free, wanting to find a way out of dreary con-trolled maintenance, making work their escape and ministry a substitute for a vital relationship with God. For more than a few, religious life as it is does not satisfy; church life as it is does not satisfy. The experience is one of darkness. One woman religious who had served many years in admin-istration described her experience of darkness this way: There is no doubt that religious life is in transition. Many men and women religious feel something is missing in reli-gious life. We sometimes sense it in liturgies, at meetings, in group assemblies, in discussions. We go away hungry. Something deep within is left unsatisfied. So we try harder, photocopy more papers, quote more authors, add more meetings, review statistics, hire consultants. We multiply information, yet increasingly remain dissatisfied and weary. Deep within we sense something is missing still. We assume it is the times, the culture, the lack of leadership or the apa-thy of membership. Vocations continue to decline. The membership's vitality is diminishing. It is a telling situa-tion. How do we read its message? A male religious who is a college psychologist described his experience: There are signs that religious life is dying or at least seri-ously sick. There are too many unhappy persons, unhappy communities, and unhappy work situations in religious life today. One needn't look far to find depression, codepen-dence, anesthetized feelings, controlled conversations. While one sees many people who work hard, often to the point of burnout, their work has a joylessness about it. No matter how much one does, it seems never to be enough. One sees too many men and women religious who do not 342 Review for Religious have much joy in living. Some clothe their depression with false piety and pious clichds. Others become TV addicts. Some have become drug addicts. They misuse prescriptive medication or alcohol. Many practice massive denial. They think everything is fine or would be if we prayed more or were more cheerful. Few people are entering; some are still leaving or staying because it is too late in life to begin again. Those who stay in religious life are aging. Even our efforts at renewal seem short lived, using bandages and patent medicine. A devil chased out, the house left empty, new devils take up housekeeping.4 If we liken this period of transition in religious life to wan-dering in the wilderness (a "desert experience"), some dynamics become clear. It can be an exodus from what oppresses to what frees, or it can be an endless exile in the wilderness. We must dis-tinguish whether there is movement forward or paralysis. Are we simply wandering in circles? Many in religious life feel an oppres-sion of spirit. What used to work no longer fits the present real-ity. It is a time of letting go, yet there is a fear of losing precious valuables,s We know we cannot go back, yet we have grave diffi-culty moving forward. Perhaps our renewal has not reached the depth of genuine conversion. We may be stuck in a desert place, tired of the journey, helpless in finding direction, and discour-aged about our future. In this desert experience of transition, it becomes critical to notice the difference between honest disenchantment and crip-pling disillusionment. Many forget that disenchantment can be the beginning of a positive experience. "The point is that disen-chantment, whether it is a minor disappointment or major shock, is the signal that things are moving into transition. At such times we need to consider whether the old view or belief may not have been an enchantment cast on us in the past to keep us from see-ing deeper into ourselves and others than we were ready to. For the whole idea of disenchantment is that reality has many layers, each appropriate to a phase of intellectual and spiritual develop-ment. The disenchantment experience is the signal that the time has come to look below the surface of what has been thought to be so.''6 Are we unknowingly prolonging our transition because we fear being disloyal to the past by recognizing some of its limits? Would we rather prolong the exile than move to a deeper level of honesty or confront the darkness? "The disenchanted person recognizes the old view as suffi- May-June 1994 343 Ferdon and Murphy * Transition's Holy or Unholy Dark cient in its time, but insufficient now.''7 The disillusioned person simply rejects the earlier view. While the disenchanted person moves on, the disillusioned person stops and goes through the same play or pattern again. Many in religious life remain disillu-sioned rather than disenchanted. There is no real movement from ending to beginnings. So patterns are repeated. One changes one's ministry, school, or parish and never goe~ through the interior process of ending to begin. There are no good-byes. There is no letting go. A priest takes the "geographical cure" and moves to another university or parish only to be hounded by the same issues and behavior, but with a different cast of characters. A sister switches ministry. She leaves grade school teaching, tries pastoral care, goes away for a renewal program, begins a theology degree, and lands in a parish facing the same internal dynamics only in a different set of circumstances. Disillusionment grows. A sense of failure increases. There are many reasons to be afraid. Our fears can be para-lyzing. The crucial discernment is whether God is inviting us into the dark. If so, what are the indications of God's invitation? The danger is that we just presume either that darkness is a reality or that God is welcoming us into the darkness when neither is true. When God asks us to look at the dark, God will be present with us. God's presence may not make the dark less dark, but God's presence assures us that we are not alone. In the unholy dark, God is not present. We often get preoccupied with negative voices. An accusatory voice convinces us that we must save our-selves, and we know that is hopeless. Evil asserts its fascination. We step into the darkness alone and meet chaos. Frequently this same dynamic asserts itself in prayer. For instance, one fears the God who will ask too much, the God who demands great suffering from those who are faithful. Thus, the focus of one's reflections becomes the possible forms of suffer-ing rather than dialogue with God. The accompanying affect is naturally negative: fear, anxiety, worry, stress. Often there is guilt and a loss of self-esteem: "Why is it I cannot do what God wants?" Notice what is really happening: the person is preoccupied with the anticipated suffering, not with God. Has God asked for suf-fering, or is it what we assume God wants? Moreover, does one then avoid the God who asks too much by evading prayer? Instead there may be a dangerous substitute for prayer: reflection on self and what one is unable to do rather than asking God what God Review for Religious wants or telling God of one's fears and worries. Prayer becomes unattractive, Unfortunately, so does God. In place of evoking the presence of God and feeling the security of an abiding presence, prayer becomes a reflection on one's fears. What spirit led us to this quagmire? As fears multiply and resentments fester, even the desire for prayer fades. Sadly, this desolation can go on for years as one comes to resent the God whom we think of as asking the impossible. Perhaps the question we must ask ourselves both individually and collectively is: Have we lost some-thing of a sacred focus? What if it is a divine focus that is missing? Men and women religious frequently claim that rarely does our conversa-tion reach the level of the holy: the moments when a reverent silence fills us, the sense that God is near, not because of a timeless theological assumption, but because of a present shared experience. Is it this elo-quence of the holy that is missing? Is it this level of engagement we can-not seem to reach? The disciples and our spiritual ancestors bonded and dreamed; they boldly proclaimed God's word because they talked among themselves of their encounters with and memories of the holy. Do we? Are we fear-ful, anxious or embarrassed? What if there is no real experience of God? What if others ridicule what is deepest within? What if one has to admit it has been a long, long time since God and I really communicated, not just through rote prayer or disciplined meditation, but by genuine, engaging talk---listening, speaking, feeling, discerning--earthy God-talk. We assume that something is God's will. Rarely do we wres-tle long enough with God's word to know what God really wants. Often we are unable to identify and face our own deepest desires. It is a frightening business to feel underneath the feelings, to ponder something long enough to get to the root emotion. The irony is that sometimes it is easier to acknowledge the depth of feeling than to endure the tiring mechanisms of avoidance. It is no Often we are unable to identify and face our own deepest desires. It is a frightening business to feel underneath the feelings, to ponder something long enough to get to the root emotion. May-.l~une 1994 345 Ferdon and Murphy ¯ Transition's Holy or Unholy Dark wonder we have lost a genuine spiritual fluency. Perhaps it is a clue to why we wander in circles rather than move forward. Thus we prolong the transition. Moreover, in our frustration we can make another or others the enemy rather than going more deeply into a conscious examination of our primary relationship, our indi-vidual relationship with God. How much time, attention, thought, affect, dialogue, and development does this relationship get in my day, week, month? Is it really primary? If it is not, what is primary and why? Did something get lost? Can it be found, renewed, enlivened? Who got distracted? To borrow again from the exodus experience: Have we lost sight of the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night (Ex 13:21- 22)? As a result, do we turn inward with murmuring, grumbling, and accusation (Ex 14:11-12)? Do we feel the disillusionment and strain? As many older men and women religious explain, "This is not the community I entered." We want to tui'n back, not in con-version but out of reluctance. Perhaps we cannot see what is ahead because our backward look prevents us. A woman therapist who sees many men and women religious observed: "Many religious are desperate: body work, crystals, cen-tering prayer, dance, Eastern philosophy, psychotherapy, twelve-step programs, dream work, even hypnosis and psychics have been tried as means to greater peace. The tragedy is that often the means becomes the primary focus. The divine gets lost in the search; searching becomes an end." We become the doers, for-getting that another is there with us, the one to wtiom we are committed by vows. Then we begin consciously or unconsciously to accomplish our own redemption. The Redeemer is forgotten, not deliberately, not consciously, not entirely, but somehow God becomes a distant figure or shadowy image, definitely out of focus, perhaps a memory. Yet, without this presence and this power, there can be no real vision. No wonder we sense something is missing. Someone might be missing, One without whom we can-not move forward. Individual experiences become the dynamic of the group. Often at community or congregational meetings and assemblies there is a clearly defined role for facilitators so that the group process is efficient and the stated objectives are met. Seldom is the same authority given to the spiritual dynamics operative in any group process where men and women religious gather. At times, the belief that God is everywhere becomes an unconscious cover- 346 Review for Religious up for a lack of the divine perspective or an abdication of spiritual responsibility. It can be a form of resistance too. Is there more fear or more freedom in the group? Are there indications of a holy or unholy spirit? Are these named and identified? Which gets more developed. Why have the spiritual dynamics operative in any religious group not been given equal emphasis? One does not wish to propose false piety: the "God will provide" rationale for avoidance. However, we must be wary of an administrative, eco-nomic, or psychological reduc-tionism. Who watches, identifies, articulates the movements or countermovements of the spirit in general chapters? Is it a con-cern? How much time, discus-sion, reflection, or debate is this crucial factor given? Do we assume that all we do is blessed and good, making discernment unnecessary? Are our governing bodies more task- or discern-ment- oriented? If the former, is this one reason we seem so often to repeat patterns? Do we scrutinize the spiritual implications as carefully as we do the financial ones? Do we endure less freedom by letting outside influences rather than spiritual profundities dictate most of our decisions? Do we leave room for the spirit to speak, or do we simply presume or even pretend that we are all speaking in the same tongue? Do we then consider those who disagree misfits? It is worth remembering that, whenever there is no dialogue, there is a breach of freedom. Of course, one can agree to dis-agree, provided one has been heard--but in many congregations many voices are silent. This silence speaks. Can we listen to the silence? Sometimes we are afraid. Besides, the tasks need to get done. Our social analysis must move on to the next phase. The danger is that the tasks do get done, but not always satisfactorily. The initial peace or relief that the job was accomplished does not bear fruit. Too frequently the very same issues come back to haunt us. That experience demands a refined discernment of spirits, not At times, the belief that God is everywhere becomes an unconscious cover-up for a lack of the divine perspective or an abdication of spiritual responsibility. May-June 1994 347 Ferdon and Murphy ¯ Transition's Holy or Unholy Dark just reworded policies. If we were collectively to allow the deeper issues to emerge from a time of discernment, we might face very different topics in our chapters and assemblies and our spiritual governance. Do we tend to look at what we can control? Often the Spirit will introduce us to what is beyond our control. This can be cause for delight or cause for fear, which can of itself be a grace-filled revelation. In this desert experience of transition, we must check where have we built our altars: what are we worshiping? On the exodus journey there were two collections in the desert. In one God asks the people for gold to build a sanctuary that God might dwell in their midst (Ex 25:1-9). The other occurred because of a long delay. The Israelites became impa-tient with Moses, and so they contributed their valuables towards the making of a golden calf. Where are our valuables going? To discern a group's focus and leadership is not a luxury; it is a mat-ter of life and death. To choose life is to have God dwelling among us. This choice comes out of freedom. To choose death is to cre-ate our own god, to guarantee our own future. This choice comes out of impatience and disillusionment. The first heralds a sacred beginning; the second repeats a sinful ending not much different from the pyramid building that was supposedly abandoned, an apt example of disillusionment's repetition of patterns. God bids "a collection from the heart" (Ex 25:1). Where are our hearts calling us? Can we let go of old ways to begin anew? It is imperative to explore the darkness. If it is holy, then there is a presence in the darkness. We are in a safe place, and there is a reason we have been beckoned there. Perhaps a vision will emerge. If it is unholy dark, then we must flee the desola-tion. The dark mood that many men and women religious expe-rience can be a developing spirituality. It is time to go deeper; even if we must first address fear or reluctance. Nonetheless, there is an attraction or longing. Reluctance can be a form of darkness. Depression can sometimes be a side effect. Whether the darkness is a form of the dark night or a stubborn paralysis of spirit needs thoughtful attention as well as careful delineation. To explore the darkness is not an optional task; it is a spiritual mandate. However much good therapy has done for many men and women religious, it can still become a substitute for intimacy, for community, and even for God. It is a contemporary irony that authority is sometimes given to therapists that would never be given to religious superiors or confessors. If the darkness is pri- 348 Review for Religious marily psychological, then one must use therapeutic tools. But what if the darkness is primarily spiritual and the depression a side effect? Is this issue being sufficiently addressed? There is no doubt about the spiritual side effects of depression, but what about the possibility that the current mood among many women and men religious is a form of spiritual desolation or even a form of consolation that goes unrecognized because of the awful sense of empti-ness? The helps for relieving depression might be quite different from the remedy for desolation. Certainly one wants to pursue ther-apy if the darkness in prayer results from psychological blocks or bio-chemical factors. If this darkness is spiritual desolation, however, then an active spiritual response and practical spiritual directives are called for. If the darkness is an exodus leading to something more, then it is consoling. If it amounts to going around in circles, it is frustrating, purposeless, and diminishing. Moreover, fidelity to it is a sham. Discerning the darkness is not only an individual task, but also a collective one. Depression or darkness of spirit can lead to self-absorption or self-transcendence. To know the difference affects the individual, the religious group, and the church. Therefore, one must figure out the source of the dark mood, the imp behind the affect. To mistakenly endure an unholy dark as a dark night of the senses or spirit is abusive and destructive, not purgative. Darkness's fruits also deserve attention. Sometimes what is most obvious is overlooked. For instance, do we leave congrega-tional meetings or gatherings feeling empty, down, or frustrated? Do we feel marginalized or disengaged? Or is our experience joy-ful and revitalizing? Do we feel closer to God and so awed by the Spirit that our prayer is renewed and our ministry energized? Do most of the members feel the same? Again, do we pause and reflect about and then discuss which spirit seems to be dominating the group? If we are on holy ground, we leave one another's com-pany enriched. Or is something lacking? Despite contact with To mistakenly endure an unholy dark as a dark night of the senses or spirit is abusive and destructive, not purgative. May-June 1994 349 Ferdon and Murphy ¯ Transition's Holy or Unholy Dark friends, and gratitude for companionship and laughter with them, is smnething of the sacred absent? It is essential to name that absence lest we bless what is not holy. Religious life as we have known it may be ending, but what about the beginning? If we have failed to negotiate our own indi-vidual transitions, how can we begin to face the group transition? Do we feel heavily burdened? What must we let go of? In-betweenness does not have to last forever. Prolonging the pain only adds to the interior paralysis or feeling of numbness that all-too-many women and men religious experience. Endings are not without sequels, but unless interior conversion takes place no beginnings occur, only *eactions to endings, whether denial, avoid-ance, defensiveness, escape, or repression. How do we begin again? Do we want to do so? We have to acknowledge our pain and voice it to God. We must feel its hold and then move beyond its control to where we can join in a gathering to celebrate survival and new life. We should not let our moaning and grumbling get misplaced and do harm. Transition is the time to ask hard questions, not only of ourselves but also of God. Have we voiced our pain in prayer? Is God with us? What is God communicating? Is God the focus of our gatherings? Are we more lost than we realized? Are we in relationship with God and also in dialogue? What is God saying to us? Is there something we must let go of?. Transition teaches us to get along with less. It removes distractions. Until we discern the darkness, it has a coercive and discour-aging hold. Like a small cancer it can grow undetected until it is too late to cure. Then surgery will not help. What "cancer" might underlie a perhaps subtle but still debilitating lethargy? Our great-est danger is to become numbly resigned to the someday inevitable death of religious life and then stabilize our fear, misplace our anger, distract our anxiety, and live in denial. Religious life is not meant to be endured; it exists for the sake of celebration now and eternally. Unless religious are free enough to name darkness, can-didly, low-grade despair and frenetic avoidance are bound to grow. People close their eyes and shut down to survive. Involvement, activity, ministry become the substitute for contemplation, not the result of contemplation nor food for it. What is really hap-pening is rarely talked about, and thus power is given to the secret. And those who dare to bring up the subject of darkness are quickly judged to be either critical of leadership or disloyal to member- 350 Review for Religious ship and then marginalized by other people's pattern of denial. When denial dictates, dialogue dies. The prince of darkness is empowered, and a divine focus is missed again. The issue is about neither leadership nor criticism; the issue is about neither membership nor loyalty. The issue is that the divine play of light is being overshadowed. In naming the darkness, we allow the light to play, the ligh~ that would illumine all we do, the light that would lighten our lives and allow us even in darkness to be con-fident because the gentle Presence of Mystery reveals that we are indeed on holy ground. Notes ~ We acknowledge our debt to William Barry and William Connolly, The Practice of Spiritual Direction (New York: Seabury, 1982), and to the people at the Center for Religious Developinent; they have had a major impact on our practice of spiritual direction. 2 For a succinct treatment of how darkness appears in directed retreats, see William J. Connolly sJ, "Experiences of Darkness in Directed Retreats," Review For Religious 33, no. 4 (July-August 1974): 609-615. Reprinted in Notes on the Spiritual Exercises, ed. David L. Fleming SJ, (St. Louis: Review for Religious, 1981), pp. 108-114. 3 See Constance FitzGerald's "Impasse and Dark Night" in Living with Apocalypse, ed. Tilden Edwards (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), pp. 94ff. Sandra Schneiders IHM also develops this theme in "Contemporary Religious Life: Death or Transformation," a paper given in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1992 and presented at a faculty colloquium at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley in 1993. 4 For the viewpoint of another psychologist on some unhealthy dynam-ics in religious communities, see Charles Shelton, "Reflections on the Mental Health of Jesuits," in Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 23, no. 4 (September 1991), and a companion article by the same author, "Toward Healthy Jesuit Community," in Studies 24, no. 4 (September 1992). s It is worth while to review Gerald A. Arbuckle's thesis "that a major reason for the reluctance or hesitation of religious congregations, parishes, and dioceses to attempt renewal is their failure to mourn or ritually detach themselves from that which is lost or no longer apostolically relevant. Energy that should be directed toward creating the future is instead spent on efforts to restore or retain that which is lost or dying." See "Organizations Must Ritually Grieve," in Human Development 12 (spring 1991): 22. 6 William Bridges, Transitions (Reading, Mass.: AddisonWesley, 1980), p. 101. 7 Ibid. May-June 1994 351 GERALD A. ARBUCKLE Merging Provinces "May they be so perfected in unity that the world will recognize that it was you who sent me." --John 17:23 Tdre is a trend within the church today for both institutions apostolates to merge: congregations and provinces of congregations, schools and hospitals. Various pragmatic and inspi-rational reasons are given, such as using personnel and finances more effectively for mission. Yet the actual merging commonly fails to meet expectations because people do not appreciate that mergers demand far more than a rearrangement of administra-tions. The contemporary struggle to unite East and West Germany aptly illustrates the point. When institutions seek to combine, they interact as cultures, and the resulting change is not a bloodless abstraction, but a high order of human drama. This introductory article views, from a cultural anthropologi-cal perspective, the merging of congregational provinces--though the theory applies to any organization. Case studies illustrate the theory, and then I suggest some guidelines for use in practice. First we examine what management studies have learned about the mergers of business corporations. Though religious commu-nities are not businesses, they are nonetheless human organiza-tions or cultures. They can learn from the experience of other human organizations that amalgamate,t Gerald A. Arbuckle SM continues to write, lecture, and conduct work-shops on the refounding of religious life. His address is Refounding and Pastoral Development Unit; 1 Mary Street; Hunters Hill; Sydney, N.S.W. 21 I0; Australia. 352 Review for Religious Lessons from the Marketplace The literature on business amalgamations is filled with dreary warnings about the negative effects of mergers. Management con-sultant Tom Peters concludes that "most studies suggest that, in general, [business] mergers do not pan out.''2 Rather than increased profitability, mergers have come to be associated with lowered morale, job dissatisfaction, unpro-ductive behavior, sabotage, petty theft, absenteeism, and increased labor-turnover, strike, and accident rates.3 Management consultant Stuart Slatter advises that the merger of firms "rarely brings increased effi-ciencies, unless accompanied by sound post-merger management. In fact, inefficiencies may actually increase as . divisive splits develop within the new top-management team as each manager retains loyalties to his of change. former business.''4 James O'Toole speaks of the contemporary stress on business amal-gamations as "merger-mania." He says that "the desire of large industrial bodies to merge is insatiable" and that the purpose and strategies for such actions are rarely thought through.5 Charles Handy warns that organizations contemplating merger are "to some extent stuck with their past., their traditions. These things take years if not decades to change.''6 Some authors wonder if the drive for merg-ers comes from authoritarian, patriarchal values dominant in Western society. These values, they claim, blind organizations to feminine values of creativity, of openness to other ways of coop-eration than formal mergers.7 Overall, most commentators conclude that mergers fail because leaders insufficiently consider the human or cultural dimensions of change. In addition to sensitive leadership there must be, authors claim, a cultural compatibility (or what is termed "culture fit") between organizations that seek to merge. If there is insufficient culture fit, then cultural collisions will destroy efforts to merge organizations.8 Anthropologists agree with these conclusions. But they com-plain that, when management writers (with the exception of peo-ple like Edgar Schein) use the term culture, they fail to grasp the complexity of its meaning. They think culture is what people vis- Mergers fail because leaders insufficiently consider the human or cultural dimensions May-3~ne 1994 353 Arbuckle ¯ Merging Provinces ibly do,9 and they fail to consider what they feel about what they do. People may act in the same way, yet differ radically in their cultures, simply because they do not feel the same about what they do. Feelings (expressed in symbols and myths) are at the very heart of cultures, but are far more difficult to name and control than visible actions. A good many authors--for example, Gerard Egan--see culture as but one of many variables in organizations;1° Peter Senge does not refer to it at all.11 Culture is not one facet of life nor merely what people visi-bly do; rather, it is the complete set of feelings affecting, most often unconsciously, all of a specific behavior pattern of individ-uals and groups. Examples are an organization's interiorized system of authority, its modes of communication, its understanding of mis-sion and stratdgies?z Leaders ignore culture at their peril. People may change with relative ease what they visibly do, especially under external pressure; not so their feelings!13 Anthropology Applied Anyone concerned about mergers of institutional cultures must be awai'e of four fundamental insights of applied cultural anthropology. First, cultures have lives of their own, just as indi-vidual~ do. So we rightly say, for example, that cultures grieve or are depressed, are open or closed to creative ideas. Certainly, individuals influence the life of a culture, but the reverse is also true. Sdcond, any cultural change, even for the noblest of rea-sons, is stressful for the people involved. A culture provides peo-ple with a much needed sense of order or security; it is a defense against the anxiety that disorder or the fear of chaos evokes. When cultures interact this felt sense of security is threatened or under-mined; people feel uprooted, losE, disillusioned, angry, sad. Fears and prejudices about the culture with which they must now inter-act come to the surface. Third, people are likely to resist change for one of two rea-sons: the loss of the known and tried, or concern over the impli-cfitions of personal and group loss. Cultural interaction inevitably calls people to new ways of acting; the familiar must be left behind. Hence, any effort to merge cultures leads to varying degrees of overt or underground resistance. Reactions to cultural change in individuals can build up and then explode in ways that appear totally out of proportion to the provocation of the moment. 354 Review for Religious The resistance has merely been deferred and stockpiled; people finally reach a breaking point and express it dramatically. Fourth, the effort to merge cultures is a highly complex and risky pro-cess demanding the leadership of humanly and culturally sensitive and skilled change agents. Without such help people will so resist the change process that mergers falter or fail. The following axioms sum-marize the practical implica-tions of these four points for leaders of would-be mergers: 1. Appreciate the Complexity of Cultures I explain elsewhere in some depth the nature of culture.~4 For our purposes here, how-ever, culture is a pattern of shared values enshrined in a network of symbols, myths, and rituals and created or devel-oped by a particular group as it copes with life's challenges, instructing its members about what it considers the correct way to feel, think, and behave25 Rituals (that is, visible behavior) are the concrete expression of symbols and myths; symbols are experienced or felt meanings. A myth, a set of narrative symbols, is a story or tradition that claims to reveal to people, in an imaginative way, a fundamental truth about the world and themselves. This truth is considered author-itative by those who accept it. In short, myths inspiringly or feel-ingly tell people who they are, what is good and bad, and how they are to organize themselves and maintain their feeling of unique identity in the world. The most powerful myth in every culture is its creation myth, since it provides people with their primary source of identity as a distinct group.~6 Vv~hen the creation myth's existence is threat-ened-- for example, when major cOltural change is being planned or underway--people experience degrees of anxiety, anger, numb-ness, sadness. Various kinds of creation myths affect people in different times and ways. Three of the kinds can be termed the public, the operative, and the residual myths: Myths inspiringly or feelingly tell people who they are, what is good and bad, and how they are to organize themselves and maintain their feeling of unique identity in the world. May-ff-une 1994 355 Arbuckle * Merging Provinces ¯ The public myth is a set of stated ideals that people openly claim binds them together (like the values inherent in the charism of a congregation); in practice these ideals may have little if any cohesive force. ¯ The operative myth, however, is what actually at this point gives people their felt cohesive identity; the operative myth can and often does differ dramatically from the public myth. ¯ The residual myth normally has little or no daily impact on a group's life, but at times can become a powerful operative myth. For example, a former colonial nation will commonly have a resid-ual myth reminding the people of their former dependency on, or oppression by, a dominant European power. If a member of the former country inter'acts with someone from the latter nation, he or she may experience bitter memories of past colonial relation-ships. Then the painful residual myth becomes the operative myth, creating a climate of suspicion and antagonism. The case studies below illustrate the relevance of the above theoretical clarifications, because .proposed amalgamations of provinces inevitably demand changes in existing creation myths. 2. Encourage "Multicultural" Mergers Mergers are not synonymous with takeovers, that is, the total assimilation of other cultures by dominant cultures. True merg-ers recognize the need for dialogue between equals, so that the best of all cultures is preserved in the new emerging organiza-tional culture. 17 3. Arrange for Rituals of Grieving Change causes loss, and all loss evokes a wide range of human emotions: anger, sadness, guilt. These emotions must be ritually expressed and let go of; otherwise they remain repressed and obstruct change. Since individuals and cultures grieve over loss, these rituals must be personal- and culture-oriented.18 4. Seek Culturally Transformative Leadership Leaders must have skills for guiding people through the uncertainties, anxieties, and risks of cultural change.19 Without these rare people, cultural change of a positive kind is impossible. Case Studies: Merging Provinces Case Study 1: An Overefficient General Administration A general administration decided that three provinces should be amalgamated into one province. No problems were anticipated because 356 Review for Religious the administration believed that the reasons for the amalgamation were obvious to all and that the commitment to the congregational charism was greater than to provincial boundaries. The administration explained to the assembled provincials the major reason for the decision: a better use of human and financial resources for mission. On returning to their respective provinces, however, the provincials, who had been convinced by the arguments given them, were surprised to receive immediate neg-ative reactions from their provinces. The provincial administrations then procrastinated for so long that the general administration finally withdrew its decision, blaming the provincials for their lack of courageous leadership. Comment: The general adminstration's decision may have been theoretically correct, but the process of decision making took no account of the provinces as cultures. The decision to merge, taken without adequate consultation, evoked group and individual anx-iety and resistance because people felt that the operative myths of their provinces, giving them felt predictability, were jeopardized. The general administration wrongly assumed that the congrega-tional charism was simultaneously the public and operative myth. On the contrary, the majority of the religious felt closer bonds to their respective provinces than to the congregational charism. Case Study 2: From Euphoria to Provincial "Nationalisms" Three provincial administrations decided to explore the possibility of merging their provinces. An assembly, attended by as many members of all three provinces as possible, enthusiastically endorsed the idea in a vision statement that highlighted the common charism as the unifying force. Thereupon the provincial administrations quickly planned the formal merger. But to their surprise they later received so little cooper-ation from members of the provinces that they finally dropped the entire idea. Comment: An investigation showed that while the religious were together the public myth (that is the congregational charism-based myth) became the operative myth; they enjoyed being together socially as members of one congregation. However, they avoided the pain of looking closely at what they would have to let go of once the merger occurred; they felt the common con-gregational vision would carry them through. On return to their home provinces, the religious recognized what the merger would cost them, and the support for amalgamation rapidly declined; their respective provincial operative myths were revitalized. Quotations from the founder originally assented to in support of May-June 1994 357 Arbuckle * Merging Provinces the merger were now contradicted by other quotations from the same source. Case Study 3: Fearsof Colonialism Revived An administration of a province in the first world explored the pos-sibility of merging with a province in a third-world nation. It argued that the amalgamation would be beneficial to both provinces. The rich province could supply much-needed money to the third-world province; the latter, having a surplus of vocations, could "export" religious to the former. The proposal was immediately and angrily resisted by the poorer province--to the surprise and annoyance of its richer counterpart. Comment: This case study illustrates that a province's iden-tity or mythology can be influenced powerfully by forces beyond a congregation's internal history. The third-world nation had for over a century been a colony of the first-world country. Members of the third-world province sensed an arrogance in the adminis-trators of the rich province reminding them of the oppressive-ness of the colonial era. They did not want their newfound sense of national self-worth undermined by their receiving financial handouts from the richer province. They also feared that they would be administratively dominated after the merger by people from their former colonial power. In this incident the residual myth of the third-world nation became the operative myth of the province; the latter was prepared to remain extremely poor, but in control of its own destiny. Case Study 4: Fears of "Congregational Colonialism" Revived A superior general encouraged two provincial administrations to investigate the advisability of merging their provinces. The investiga-tion showed that for missionary efficiency the merger made perfect sense. However, the reactions to the proposal were so negative in one province, which had been founded several decades earlier by the other, that the plan was dropped. Comment: This case study is similar to the previous one in that the founding province is equivalently remembered as an arro-gant, congregational colonial power. That memory is the residual myth. The thought of a merger makes the residual myth the oper-ative force for identity and effectively prevents any further seri-ous discussion about merging the provinces. Case Study 5: Ethnic Differences Obstructing Amalgamation A general administration encouraged three provinces in a first-world nation to amalgamate, claiming that three separate administra-tions were a luxury the congregation could no longer afford. However, 358 Review for Religious the provincial administration disagreed, claiming that one adminis-tration could never adequately serve the large geographical area involved. Nonetheless, the merger did administratively take place, but the new administration was confronted with previously unforeseen personnel problems. For example, religious resisted requests to move to apostolates across the former provincial boundaries. Comment: The merger was failing, not for geographical rea-sons, but because the provinces were historically formed along ethnic-migrant lines: Polish, Italian, Irish. The cultural preju-dices of last century surfaced once the provinces were adminis-tratively united; that is, the residual myths became the operative myths for a significant number of religious descendants of the original migrants. If people had been involved in the develop-ment and follow-up of the merging, this critical issue would have emerged and been positively worked through. Case Study 6: Merger Plans Successful Three provincial administrations agreed with an outside consul-tant that from a mission perspective it. was essential for their provinces to amalgamate. They consulted all re.embers of their provinces, and most favored the merger. Once the merger decision was finally taken, the provincial administrations sought professional advice on how to pro-ceed. The merger was done in stages over a seven-year period, accord-ing to frequently evaluated strategies. As part of the merging process, all apostolates were assessed for their pastoral relevance and effectiveness in light of clearly stated criteria. Because all members were invited to be part of the merging and evaluating processes, negative reactions were minimal and the ownership of the changes was at a high level. Comment: In this case study the following actions guaranteed success: culturally s6nsitive leadership, aware that in-depth culture change is a slow process; professional assistance in clarifying the vision of the merger and in developing appropriate strategies; the maximum involvement of members of the provinces in all stages of the merging. Advice to Congregational Leaders The following advice is offered to congregational leaders in view of the above theory and the analysis of the case studies: 1. Clarify the Vision and the Strategies for Mergers. The primary aim of any merger of provinces must be to make the religious congregation better able to serve the needs of the May-.~une 1994 359 Arbuckle ¯ MergingProvinces kingdom of God. Thus, congregational leaders must ask ques-tions such as the following: Is the merger apostolically justified, or is it just a way to maintain existing apostolates without evalu-ating them for their apostolic relevance and effectiveness? Are there better ways, than through amalgamation, to achieve the desired effects of a merger? 2. Involve Members throughout the Process. Organizational amalgamations demand cultural change. Any cultural change, to be effective, is slow and risky, requiring as wide an involvement of members as is possible before, during, and after the formal merger. In order to own the new identity people must feel they are realistically contributing to its development. Congregational leaders, therefore, must ask themselves questions like: What structures will best encourage the maximum involve-ment of members? Are the most-skilled cultural-change agents being used to facilitate the process? 3. Foster Group and Personal Conversion-Grieving. Liminality is the cultural betwixt-and-between position which develops when a previous founding myth and its structural or political expressions have terminated, but a new creation myth has yet to be clarified and owned. It is a painfully dangerous stage of grieving because people feeling intense loss are sometimes tempted to retreat back to the old, comfortably secure ways of doing things. The journeying of the Israelites in the desert, with all its temptations to retreat to Egypt and to blame Moses for their miseries, is an archetypal experience of liminality. Moses, confronted by the Israelites' bickering, pettiness, and anger, rec-ognized that, for the people's grieving to be positive, they must have the space to name their anger and sadness in order to let these feelings go in faith and hope. Only then would the Israelites, freed from their attachments to the past, be open to receive the new creation stoW that Yahweh had for them.2° When provinces decide to merge, religious are invited to enter into the liminality of the desert journey. The old provincial creation mythologies must be let go of to allow the creation myth of a new province to emerge and be confidently owned. Congregational leaders, like Moses, must do two things: (1) encourage the religious to share the stories of their provinces with one another, together with their feelings of grief (anger, numbness) over the loss of the predictability that membership in their respective provinces had given them, and (2) call the religious 360 Review for Religious to help shape in hope the vision or founding myth of the new province. It is a call to an ongoing process of personal and cor-porate conversion. Conversion cannot be hurried, but without it .the merging of provinces will fail. 4. Utilize Cultural Change Agents and Consultants. Change agents assume the responsibility for managing the merging process. They are transformational leaders who under-stand objectively the tensions involved in the process, have acquired personal skills to cope constructively with personal and cultural change in their own lives, and are able to foster with empathy a positive approach in others to changes. In the merging of provinces, such people are needed at all levels: as congregational lead-ers, ritual-grief directors, creators of new and relevant provincial structures for mission, and so forth. Because culture change is so complex, it is advisable for con-gregational leaders to seek the advice of consultants at key points in the merging process. The con-sultant's task is to collaborate with those entrusted with the merger in developing "an understanding of the way things are, thinking about the way they might be, and then working with [them] to consider what, how, and whether to change.''2~ The consultant cannot be effective unless he or she has well-developed cross-cul-tural skills.22 The human person is a striver who yearns for progress and is theoretically open to change. But the human person also has basic needs for order, stability, and predictability. The human person is achievement oriented, a striver who yearns for progress and is therefore theoretically open to change. But the human person also has basic needs for order, stability, and predictability. Applied cultural anthropology highlights the fact that, though people may in theory accept change, in prac-tice they commonly opt for the familiar and secure status quo. May-~:une 1994 361 Arbuckle ¯ Merging Provinces This has important consequences for congregations when provinces are encouraged to merge. In the face of declining numbers and the aging of religious, we must not see the mergers of provinces as the automatic panacea to our problems. We need to be: (a) as certain as possible that the merger will improve the congregation's apostolic effective-ness in accordance with its founding vision; (b) aware that merg-ers require, besides mere managerial action at the top, ongoing personal and cultural conversion, or else, like the Israelites of old, religiou~ will resist the changes and hanker after the security of former, apostolically irrelevant provincial structures; and (c) aware that in mergers one province does not take over other provinces, but all are equal partners in establishing a new province to serve the Lord better. Ultimately, without skilled leadership there can be no positive merging of provinces. Edgar Schein warns: "What the leader most needs is insight into the ways in which culture can aid or hinder the fulfillment of the organization's mission and the intervention skills to make desired changes happen . Leadership and ~ulture management are so central to understanding organizations and making them effective that we cannot afford to be complacent about either of them.''z3 Provinces, like all cultures, are unwise to attempt the process of amalgamation, if they lack the necessary leadership. Notes ~ See C. Handy, Understanding Voluntary Organizations (London: Penguin, 1988), pp. 2-23. 2 Thriving on Chaos (New York: Mfred A. Knopf, 1987), p. 7. See also the evaluation of European mergers in The Economist (London), 20 November 1993, pp. 16f. 3 See G. Meeks, Disappointing Marriage: A Study of the Gains from Mergers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); S. Cartwright and C.L. Cooper, "The Psychological Impact of Merger and Acquisition on the Individual," Human Relations 46, no. 3 (1993): 327-329. 4 Corporate Recovery (London: Penguin, 1984), p. 245. s Vanguard Management (New York: Berkley, 1987), pp. 258, 250. 6 Handy, Understanding, p. 95. 7 See G. Morgan, Images of Organization (London: Sage, 1986), pp. 210-212. 362 Review for Religious s See S. Cartwright and C.L. Cooper, "The Role of Culture Compatibility in Successful Organizational Marriage," Academy of Management Executive 7, no. 2 (1993): 57-70. 9 For example, see T. Deal and A. Kennedy, Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison- Wesley, 1982), p. 4. 10 See his Change Agent Skills in Helping and Human Service Setting (Monterey: Brooks/Cole, 1985), pp. 277-287. 11 See his Fifth Dimension: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (New York: Doubleday, 1990). 12 See E.H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987), p. 314. ,3 See S.A. Sackman, Cultural Knowledge in Organizations: Exploring the Collective Mind (London: Sage, 1991), pp. 16-23; J. Hunt, "How People Get Overlooked in Takeovers," Personnel Management (July 1987): 24- 26, and "Managing the Successful Acquisition: A People Question," London Business School Journal (summer 1988): 215. ,4 See G. Arbuclde, Earthing the Gospek An Inculturation Handbook for the Pastoral Worker (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1990), pp. 26-78, 167-186. ,s I have modified the definition by E.H. Schein in his Organizational Culture, p. 9. ,6 See G. Arbuckle, "Mythology, Revitalization and the Refounding of Religious Life," Review for Religious 46, no. 1 (January-February 1987): 14-43. 17 See A.E Buono and J. Bowditch, The Human Side of Mergers and Acquisitions, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989), pp. 134-163. ,8 See P. Marris, Loss and Change (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974), passim; G. Arbuckle, Change, Grief and Renewal in the Church: A Spirituality for a New Era (Westminster, Maryland: Christian Classics, 1991), pp. 151-156, and "Organizations Must Ritually Grieve," Human Development 12, no. 1 (1991): 22-27; D.M. Noer, "Leadership in an Age of Layoffs," Issues and Observations 13, no. 3 (1993): 1-5. 19 For a fuller explanation of the leadership needed, see G. Arbuckle, Refounding the Church: Dissent for Leadership, (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1993), pp. 98-127. 20 See G. Arbuckle, Change, pp. 151-156. 21 E. Miller, quoted by R. McLennan in Journal of Enterprise Management, no. 3 (1981), p. 251. 22 See Arbuckle, Refounding, pp. 213f, 217. 23 E.H. Schein, Organizational Culture, pp. 320, 327. May-d~une 1994 363 JUDITH ANN EBY One Voice from the Middle Place In the matter of human existence the grave and sensible advice of the King of Hearts--"Begin at the beginning" -- cannot be heeded. We have no choice but to begin where we are; and where we are is the middle. It is not given to us to stand on the far side of human time and then, with all delib-eration and grace, to enter . Our first awareness is that we are swimming. We wake in the water. Our beginnings are not wholly our own. Our endings will most likely be beyond our control. We are middle people.~ MmY reflection upon my own journey in religious life draws e to this quotation from John Shea. My entrance into religious life in 1976 was certainly a beginning. I was twenty-one, full of energy and enthusiasm as i entered this new world. Several years later, though, one event was to etch into the core of my being the awareness that I had really entered into a "middle place," a transitional moment in the life of religious communities. After final vows I attended a large assembly of my regional community where the question was asked, "Shall we plan for our future?" A resounding yes echoed immediately, logically, and enthusiastically in my being. Simultaneously an unusually intense session of debate, frustration, and dialogue began in the larger group. After what seemed to be an eternity, the group came to unanimous agreement to plan for the future and spontaneously sang the song of our foundress. Clearly, something significant Judith Ann Eby RSM is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University. Her address is 4133 Hartford St.; St. Louis, Missouri 63116. 364 Review for Religious had taken place. I also understood for the first time that there was a dimension of the community's corporate journey of which I had no understanding. No matter how much I could intellectu-ally grasp their journey, I would never experientially be able to understand part of their lives. Although not the first of such events, it was certainly the clearest one to signal that, at some moment in time, the commu-nity had stepped into an obviously challenging world and world-view different from a former one. I now shared their new world with them. However, there seemed an almost invisible boundary which prevented me from understanding this former world that still played itself out in their collective consciousness. This invis-ible boundary seemed to be not only the actual experience of Vatican Council II, but the experience of pre-Vatican II religious life. Boundaries which mark the end of one period and the begin-ning of a new one in the life of any community or individual can be arbitrary and theoretical. While it is true that many such boundaries could be named, one moment or event often stands out as a clear crossing over from one world into another. For those within religious life at the time of the council and for those who entered near that time, Vatican II was a watershed experience. For better or for worse, life was never again the same. Joan Chittister comments on this reality: For most communities, updating has been the project and process of religious life for 25 years. Clothing has been con-temporized; schedules have been adjusted to compensate for the invention of the light bulb; internal structures have been brought into sync with the best in organizational plan-ning; individual development has been tested by the most recent and most credible of psychological theorems; theol-ogy programs have progressed far beyond the thinking of the medievalists or the Scholastics; community customs books have been amended to meet the nature of contem-porary life. Every dimension of religious life has been scru-tinized and updated. Most of religious life is definitely not in a time warp any more, at least not if relevance is mea-sured by life styles and learnings.2 The renewal after Vatican II was a crystallizing experience which united a number of different age groups around a new interpretation of religious life.3 This focal experience, it must be emphasized, embraces the formative influence and memory of May-~'une 1994 365 Eby ¯ One l~oice from tbe Middle Place pre-Vatican II religious life as interpreted in light of the council. For more than twenty-five years, changes from the council shook the church and religious communities to their roots. Ways of thinking, ways of being, and ways of acting, an entire collective consciousness of a group, were evaluated and reshaped. It is a subdued statement, indeed, to say that such a vast alteration from one world into another has profoundly affected and continues to affect those who were part of religious life at or near the time of the council. A good number of members still form opinions, beliefs, and attitudes in response to the crystallizing experience of Vatican II. Often this leaves them less likely to understand and sympathize with the ideas and beliefs of those who came well after the council and for whom Vatican II is not a watershed expe-rience. This is not necessarily due to a lack of goodwill, yet there is a tendency for one group to judge the worldview of later age groups as misguided or immature. All worldviews are necessarily limited and contain blind spots not easily recognized by those who hold those views. One question slowly emerges from pondering such a vast alteration and its effects on those in religious life: What of those who entered religious communities years after Vatican II? What has been the experience of such members? Much has been writ-ten about the experience of those who entered religious life before and during the time of the council. Other than some articles on formation, little has been written about the experience and from the perspective of those members who remember Vatican II vaguely or not at all. Some members know only the transitional time of religious communities. My hope is to raise a single voice from this middle place so that it may be heard and contemplated and allow the reader, for just a moment, to stand in the shoes of one who has known only the period of transition and to glimpse religious life from a van-tage point relatively rare within communities. The limitation of this essay is that it is a single voice only. Its strength is that it describes a particularized experience that can be known and touched on a human level. There are several assumptions upon which this essay is based. The first is that arbitrary categories of age and experience are not meant to be divisive or to cultivate a we-they attitude. The realization is deep: we are one, many though we are. The focus on newer or younger members and their perspective is not to deny 366 R~view for Religious or diminish the legitimate experience of others. Categories do not have to be mutually exclusive. What is always of uppermost importance is the vitality of the whole group, not of any age group or of any individual. The main issue is not whether we are grow-ing older, fewer, and poorer as a total community, but whether we are growing in wisdom and clar-ity, conversion and gratitude. The second assumption is that congregations as a whole are often unaware or forgetful of the reality that a minority voice is being lost: the voice of the newer or younger members. Newer or younger members, while known individually and usually well-integrated into the larger community, are corpo-rately invisible and often unheard. They do not necessar-ily possess the same opinions, beliefs, or worldviews because great diversity often exists in terms of age and experience. Generalizations about any age group or category are simplistic at their best and crude at their worst. Many who have known Vatican II have moved to new and cre-ative developments very much in line with the renewal of the council while the thinking, beliefs, and actions of many newer or younger members is stale, noncreative, and full of fear. What is suggested here is that the experience and renewal of religious life resulting fro.m Vatican II continues to exert a formative influence upon a significant number of members while the richness and diversity of an exceptionally small population is being lost. Yet in this group are those who will be the leaders well into the 21st century. Middle places imply an ending and a beginning as well as a continuity with what went before. The human experience of end-ings and beginnings will often be bittersweet and both dark and light. Such has been my journey within my own community. It is these experiences of darkness and light, characteristic of tran-sitional moments, as well as the continuity that I want to articu-late. Congregations as a whole are often unaware or forgetful of the reality that a minority voice is being lost: the voice of the newer or younger members. May-.t~une 1994 367 Eby ¯ One Voice from the Middle Place The church and world I knew while growing up was one of constant change. Everything was in flux: the saints, liturgy, sacra-ments, music, religion class, celebrations of church feasts, parish customs, and more. Change was experienced as normal, expected, and part of what it meant to be church. The religious life I entered was in a time of transition and experimentation. It was a world defined more often by the past than by any communal vision of the future. By the time I entered, the initial hope and enthusiasm surrounding renewal in the con-gregation was beginning to give way to fear, anger, agonizing searching, split factions of liberal and conservative groups, and a cancerous doubt. Mary Jo Le.ddy ~peaks of this middle place: At this point in the history of religious life, we are in an in-between moment, a "dark night," when the former mod-els of religious life are disintegrating and a future model has yet to become clear . As the memory and vitality of this conservative model begin to fade, some of the energy and legitimation of the liberal model begin to wane. Those who have a vivid memory of the traditional model of church and religious life seem more clear about the value and sig-nificance of the liberal model of religious life. But does the liberal model make sense in itself, that is, without refer-ence to the more traditi'onal model? There are those who, like myself, never knew the traditional model or never knew it for very long. We know the liberal model was launched from the base of traditional religious life, but we are begin-ning to wonder whether there is enough fuel in the liberal model itself to take it very far. To use another metaphor, we are beginning to feel that driving a liberal model of reli-gious !ife is like driving into the future through a rear-view mirror.4 My inner experience of enthusiasm and belief in religious life often came up against contradictory elements in the community. A few of the major examples focused on the expressions of doubt, grief, and anger in the community. Doubt can be a creative ele-ment. Indeed, it is often a necessary companion on any mature journey of faith. However, the doubt I encountered was often a cancerous doubt that could eat into the core of one's being. It was often disheartening to come up against, time and time again, such cancerous doubt within many members. Grief, usually unresolved grief, was also a major issue for many in the community. It was not unusual for me to become an object of unresolved grief and anger over some former aspect of 368 Review for Religious religious life that had not been sufficiently mourned by the other. As a newer member I stood as a symbol of all that had passed away, of all that was new and unsettling. Grief, doubt, and anger intermingled in various degrees to produce within some people what I experienced as death-dealing statements. Such statements are expressed as a sigh of grief, of loss, of anxious uncertainty toward the future on the part of countless members. They are uttered in the midst of the hus-tle and bustle of life, at com-munity meetings, at times of election and moments of deci-sion, moments of reflection. The private and public acknowledgment of personal experience can be necessary for overall health. Yet it must be remembered that, for those who come at times of transition and do not share the same under-standing or knowledge of a community's history, verbal expressions can take on a particular significance. Language can shape our reality, tell us who we are and who we want to be, can uplift or demolish. A word, once it is spoken, can take on a life of its own; it can have the power to bring about that of which it speaks. At the middle places, when doubt reaches crisis proportions, language is of tremendous significance. Language, in this instance, reflected both lack of vision and lack of credible vision among the members. For older members can often communicate mixed signals to enthusiastic newer or younger members and cause a frequent cri-sis of meaning for them. It is odd but not unusual that entry into any group will always involve the unconscious or conscious assimilation of the larger group's attitudes about some things. Declining numbers was one crisis with which I had to deal. There is a basic difference between the exodus I experienced and the exodus others experienced in the 1960s. When I look ahead of me, I see lots of numbers. When I look around me, I see a handful, and we are the younger mem-bers. Around the time of final vows, I had to come to terms with Grief, doubt, and anger intermingled in various degrees to produce within some people what I experienced as death-dealing statementsl May-j~une 1994 369 Eby ¯ One Voice from the Middle Place this unconscious assimilation of the crisis of numbers. Even today, though, at moments of weakness, fatigue, and real honesty, fear can reach into the core of my being, and I begin to wonder if I will be the last one through the door. Other times, often at commu-nity gatherings, I look around the room and wonder, figuratively speaking, what it will feel like (other things being equal, which they will not be) to bury all those older than I. Numbers can still overwhelm me. Middle places, by their very nature as endings and begin-nings, possess not only elements of darkness, but elements of light as well. As a newer or younger member, I received the best of all that the community had to offer--which was possible because of all that had gone before me. Many of the community's resources of time, finances, personnel, and talents were shared with me. The best of the community's continually growing self-awareness in terms of charism, history, and spirituality encircled me. It would merely be redundant to enumerate these many experiences, work-shops, and activities, since the majority of members are already familiar with them and have themselves participated in many of them. Perhaps I had greater freedom in personal choices and deci-sions than the majority of members had upon their entrance and for a good por.tion of their religious lives. I had greater flexibil-ity in forming relationships with people both outside community and inside. I experienced great exposure to different areas, groups, cultures, and ministries in my regional community. Barbara Fiand SNDdeN, in her book Living the Vision (New York: Crossroad, 1990), discusses the dark side of this high mobility and the exces-sive amount of stress related to it. As one who lived this experi-ence and whose number of moves around my regional community exceeds the example Barbara Fiand gives on page 148, I can well attest to what she says. She does not connect to this mobility the reality that newer or younger members would be more easily exposed to the cancerous doubt of which I spoke earlier. Today I and others who have stayed in religious life perceive our com-munity as larger than the local area in which we live. We are usu-ally well-integrated into the larger community in terms of knowledge, experience, and relationships. Throughout my years in religious life, it has not been uncom-mon for other members to say to me that they do not understand why "we" stay. I suspect these are comments of frustration, despair, 370 Rewiew for Religious lack of hope, or just plain bewilderment. They are comments indicative of middle places where lack of clarity, direction, and insight plague us all. Middle places, besides containing elements of darkness and light, are also by their very nature places of continuity. The con-tinuity is in the interiority. At the time I entered my community, differences were everywhere in terms of clothes, experiences, and theologies of the vows and reli-gious life, in spite of the renewal of Vatican II. The time of forma-tion for me involved excessive mobility and excessive exposure to all of this. After a long process of ¯ sorting through the externals, I found connection and identifica-tion through the interior. This exposure brought me to the real-ization that times were different, details were different, but the essence of the story was the same. Grace had invited me into the deeper myth of religious life. I can speak for no one but myself when I say that the deepest connection I was able to encounter and perceive in others was the experience of religious life as the deepening of one's greatest life and freedom in a journey with the Divine. I would suspect that all newer or younger members who have been in religious life for several years can appreciate, if not marvel at, the journey of those who have been here before us. I have found numerous women whose journey through pre- and post-Vatican II times has demanded much of them. The journey of these women reveals a depth of discipleship and commitment that mine could never rival. These women are part of my congregation and of other congre-gations; some have long been part of my journey and some are recently a part. Some were part of my journey for a time, a sig-nificant time. Some are with me in a new way beyond the bound-aries of space and time. Growth and transformation are profoundly connected to courageous, faith-filled women who show that "a journey with God is the only real source of satisfaction there is, All newer or younger members who have been in religious life for several years can appreciate, if not marvel at, the journey of those who have been here before us. May-June 1994 371 Eby ¯ One Voice from the Middle Place and a life of freedom, no matter how demanding, the only life worth living." s My view is necessarily limited. I merely offer a glimpse of a few of the experiences which could be characteristic of one who has known only this middle place in religious life. And this mid-dle place, too, is necessarily limited. Sandra Schneiders, in her critique of Mary Jo Leddy's book Reweaving Religious Life: Beyond the Liberal Model, gives a good description of the general experi-ence of members who were a part of religious life before Vatican II and those who entered just as the council closed:6 Leddy vividly describes the symbolic malaise, lack of cor-porate vision, tenuous sense of belonging, identity confu-sion, and ministerial disarray that is obviously the experience of some religious, notably those in Leddy's own genera-tional cohort. These religious, now in their forties, entered religious life just as Vatican II closed. Religious congrega-tions, with the permission of the council, began a period of wide-ranging experimentation which left formation pro-grams suspended in mid-air between the collectivist identity that was being repudiated and a new identity that had not yet emerged. The corporate resources of religious life enjoyed by their older sisters were not transmitted to these new members, nor did they have the experiential realiza-tion of the dysfunctionality of much of the older system of religious life which fueled the renewal zeal of professed members. Thus, they could not rely on the deep roots of shared history, symbolic cohesion, and corporate identity as everything began to change simultaneously. Nor could they invest with passion in reforming a life they had never lived. Schneiders goes on to state that part of the significance of Leddy's book lies in the dialogue initiated "between those who lived religious life before the council and those whose experience of this life is almost totally postconciliar." This dialogue is impor-tant since a new generation has emerged today which interprets religious life very differently from those whose background embraces the lived experience of Tridentine Catholicism. My hope is that such a dialogue may be initiated. Newer or younger members are often isolated geographically from one another and lack opportunities to connect with one another. They can easily have a different perception and interpretation of reli-gious life because of differences in culture, generation, and a host of other experiences. Such connection could allow shared dis- 372 Review for Religious cussion of situations and concerns that are unique to newer or younger members. Energy could be channeled into discussion of a vision for the future. Congregations need to become aware of the importance of encouraging and providing financial assistance for structures that facilitate connection, reflection, and analysis among the very members who will carry into the 21st century the depth and dynamic of religious life. There is a tremendous significance in encourag-ing and supporting opportunities of this nature for newer or younger members whose dialogue among themselves can then lead to greater creativity when in dialogue with the larger congregation. This type of connection is not, in and of itself, exclusive. It does, how-ever, allow analysis and reflection which can never go on in larger com-munity gatherings simply because newer or younger members tend to be overwhelmed by the concerns and issues and by the sheer numbers of other members. Congregations as a whole rarely can articulate the dreams, hopes, stories, and experiences relative to newer or younger members. It is a simple fact that newer or younger members often constitutes a minute percentage of any congregation. The newer or younger members' analysis and reflection pre-cede the synthesis with the larger group that they hope ultimately to accomplish. To arrive at a communal vision that will animate and give energy for the future is a primary effort of many religious congregations at this time. Such a communal vision will come with a mixture of risk, wisdom, courage, insight, and pain. Many communities like my own have embraced a new creation, a new moment in their history. Most assuredly, we will be held account-able for choices made, choices not made, choices which will affect not just religious life but the church itself in years to come. Even so, we are invited, individually and corporately, to the awareness that "our own carefully laid plans and world orders should never be regarded as more reliable than the unsystematic reality of God's presence and grace."7 Congregations as a whole rarely can articulate the dreams, hopes, stories, and experiences relative to newer or younger members. May-June 1994 373 Eby ¯ One Voice from the Middle Place Notes ~John Shea, Stories of God (Chicago: Thomas More Press, 1978), p. 11. 2 Joan Chittister OSB, "Religious Life and the Need for Salt," Religious Life Review 30 (November/December 1991): 284. 3 See Patricia \¥ittberg SC "The Problem of Generations in Religious Life," Review for Religious 47, no. 6 (November-December 1988): 906, 907,908. 4 Mary Jo Leddy, "Beyond the Liberal Model," Way Supplement 65 (summer 1989): 47. s John A. Sanford, The Man Who 12Vrestled with God (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), p. 100. 6 Sandra Schneiders, review of Mary Jo Leddy's Reweaving Religious Life: Beyond the Liberal Model in Spirituality Today 42 (winter 1990): 368, 369. 7 Letter of Administrative Team of the Sisters of Mercy of the Union on 19 May 1991 to membership. Paradox Blosso~n-t~othered branches Of whitethorn trees Showing no wood And so full of the hum Of honey-heavy bees Seem to say to me That I should not Register such emptiness In the presence of such plenty Leaning fragrantly down to me In the final days of May. And I say: There is no should! I am a tree Made wood by my winter; Seasons that oppose Are two opposing goods Where envy may not enter To destroy the gift Of paradox. Bernadette McCarrick RSM 374 Review for Religious CATHERINE M. HARMER Religious, the Laity, and the Future of Catholic Institutions Many Catholics have grown up with the assumption that Catholic institutions, especially schools and hospi-tals, are a normal and permanent part of the landscape. Whether or not their children attend either parish or pri-vate Catholic schools, whether or not ~hey ever use the local Catholic hospital, it takes only the hint that these will be closed to cause a great stir. A second common assumption is that the religious congregations who founded and maintained these institutions will continue to do so in the future. Yet these institutions are more at risk now than ever before. Most of the Catholic institutions in this country had their origin in the last century. The parochial school sys-tem developed out of the concern of 19th-century bishops to maintain the faith for the immigrant populations from Catholic European countries. What has become the largest private health system in the country started very simply with religious sisters caring for the sick .and the poor in their homes. The hospitals built and run by their con-gregations were a response to a need to provide profes-sional healthcare in a Catholic setting. For the most part the organizers, builders, and managers of Catholic insti- Catherine M. Harmer MMS has worked as a psychologist in consultation with religious congregations and health systems in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the United States. Her address is Medical Mission Sisters; 300 W. Wellens Street; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19120. life in service May-June 1994 375 Harmer ¯ Religious, the Laity, and the Future tutions for educationl health, and social services were religious sisters, brothers, and priests. Even in the parochial school sys-tems, the bishops depended on the ~isters and brothers to provide the teachers and administrators, and to do so at little cost to parish or diocese. This work of founding and developing the major Catholic institutions, private, parochial, and diocesan, was an immense gift of religious to the church in the United States. Initially they served the immigrant Catholic population. As the years went on, the Catholic contribution was recognized beyond the boundaries of the church, especially in the field of healthcare. Given the social and political status of lay Catholics in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it is doubtful if they could have provided either the impetus or the skill to build these institutions, though their finan-cial contributions were the base for all of them. There is no ques-tion that establishing the institutions was a good thing for religious to do. The question today is whether they can or should continue t.o put as much into them now and in the future as they formerly did. Over the last twenty-five years, there has been a steady decline in the numbers of sisters and brothers, and a steady rise in their median age. During the same period, out of necessity rather than choice, the number of lay people in Catholic institutions has also risen. The cost of maintaining the institutions has increased, par-tially because of salary and benefit increases for the lay staff. In healthcare the potential decline of Catholic-sponsored hospitals was delayed, first by the Hill-Burton funds made available for building and then by the increased availability of third-party insur-ance, Medicare, and Medicaid. The decline of Catholic schools started earlier because there was little financial aid for them except occasional foundation grants. Efforts to acquire tuition credits or direct state support for Catholic schools continue to fail. In many dioceses the future of Catholic schools, even the parochial ones, depends on the ability of the parishes to maintain them independently of the diocese. Thus, only in the wealthier parishes can Catholic schools con-tinue to exist. Even these will last only if the priests and parish-ioners are willing to see fairly large proportions of their income go to the school and if parents are willing to pay increasingly higher tuition. There is the clear possibility that the Catholic school system will gradually disappear through attrition, with 376 Review for Religious only a few schools remaining for those who can afford private education. Creative efforts have been made by congregations. They have involved greater numbers of lay people in their institutions, main-taining sponsorship of the institutions and control over their mis-sion so as not to lose the congregation's charism and values. Particularly in healthcare there have been mergers of different types, from full takeover of one system by another to the collabo-ration of two or more systems forming a new system. Still, while the presence of religious in the institutions continues to decline, the number of lay women and men at high levels of management and in board positions grows. Lay members of the institutions find themselves attracted

Issue 70.1 of the Review for Religious, 2011. ; Determining Change Making the: Spiritual Exercises ,Growing Spiritually Exploring Religious Life QUARTERLY 70.1 2 0 i 1 Review for Religious fosters dialogue with God, dialogue with ourselves, and dialogue with one another about the holiness we try to live according to charisms of Catholic religious life. As Pope Paul vI said, our way of being church is today the way of dialogue. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-633-4610 ¯ Fax: 314-633-4611 E-Maih reviewrfr@gmail.com ¯\Veb site: ~-w.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2011 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 1{)8 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribution, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. ~ gournal of Ca~hohc ~piri~uah~ Celebrating 70 Years Editor Book Review Editor Scripture Scope Editorial Staff Advisory Board Michael G. Harter sJ Rosemary Jermann Eugene Hensell OSB Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Paul Coutinho SJ Martir~ Erspamer OSB Margaret Guider OSF Kathleen Hughes RSCJ Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD QUARTERLY 70.1 2011 contents prisms 4 Prisms 6 17 determining change Agents of Change: Six Models Louis M. Savary shares and explains six models of being a change agent that were created by a long ago deceased Jesuit, Joseph Grau. Christ-like Empathy in Those Who Govern John H. Zupez SJ draws on Mark's gospel to encourage religious superiors and anyone exercising authority to learn from the empathy of Jesus shown towards others. 25 44 making the spiritual exercises The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: A Path to Virtue James Menkhaus explores the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, using the language of virtue ethics and emphasizing a new understanding of the virtues of friendship and presence. Reflecting on Readiness to Make the Spiritual Exercises Myree Harris RSJ offers some possible questions and reflections for a better assessment of retreatants' readiness to enter into the full 30oday Spiritual Exercises experience. Review for Religious 59 growing spiritually Looking at Death from a Christian Perspective Julius D. Leloczky OCist reflects on the contemporary obsession with death and recalls how our Christian faith gives us a life-perspective. Spiritual Direction 101 J. Thomas Hamel SJ reflects on the practice of spiritual direction understood as a dual ministry with the roles of giving and receiving by the director and the directee. 73 84 exploring religious life Looking for Nuns, Finding Women Deacons Phyllis Zagano suggests that in light of the Apostolic Visitation of U.S. women religious the monastic framework proposed applies to the minority of institutes and religious vocations, whereas the larger body of institutes and new vocations are moving to other ways of ministering, presaging the church's return to the ancient vocation of the diaconate for women. Revisiting Obedience William P. Clark OMI reviews the challenges that contemporary culture has presented to the understanding and practice of religious obedience. departments 95 Scripture Scope: Jeremiah: A Messenger of God Caught between a Rockand a Hard Place 100 Book Reviews 3 70.1 2011 prisms 4 I t seems strange to me to be writing my own farewell as editor. In the 68.4 issue of the 2009 journal, I had written in this space that I had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and knew only that I had as long to live here as God wanted. As I write this, my death is not imminent, but I did want to see an orderly transition of my editor's responsibilities. I have completed 22 years as editor, and it has been for me a privilege to publish so many authors, a call to a continuing learning experience, and an occa-sion of the deepening of my own religious life. I hope and pray that our readers can also identify a learning and deepening for their religious lives as their experience of this journal. As the title page indicates, Father Michael G. Harter SJ is the new editor, beginning with this current volume. Father Harter brings his own rich life experience to this job. He has been involved in religious formation both as assistant novice director and as novice director and director of Ministry Training Services in Denver, Colorado. He has been managing editor of the Jesuit maga-zine America. He has been called to religious leadership as a community superior and as the provincial executive assistant. He has served on the board of Praesidium, the accrediting agency in abuse risk management. He has traveled exten-sively and knows church and religious life from Europe to Africa to India to Australia. In fact, he served as associate editor of Review for Religious for two years before he became novice director Review for Religious for the Jesuit St. Paul novitiate and wrote the single Prisms not under my name. At the same time, I would also like to introduce Rosemary Jermann as our new book editor. Rosemary Jermann also brings a rich experience in editing; she has been a co-editor of Theology Digest up to its last publica-tion in June 2010. Because Theology Digest was sponsored by the Department of Theological Studies at Saint Louis Unversity, Jermann also had the opportunity to teach within the department. She will also contribute her edito-rial skills to the final product of each issue. Any editor is only as good as the staff and board that monitor and support him. I have been extremely fortunate in having a devoted staff identified in Mary Ann Foppe, Judy Sharp, Tracy Gramm, and Jean Read (t), and asso-ciate editors as Iris Ann Ledden SSND, Regina Siegfried ASC, Clare Boehmer ASC, Philip Fischer SJ (t), Michael Harter SJ, Canon Law editors Richard Hill SJ (~') and Elizabeth McDonough OP, and Scripture Scope editor Eugene Hensell OSB. We as editors and staff have received invaluable help from our past and present advisory board members since 1990: David J. Hassel SJ (~), Mary Margaret Johanning SSND (~'), Iris Ann Ledden SSND, Sean Sammon FMS, Wendy Wright, Suzanne Zuercher OSB, Edmundo Rodriguez SJ, Joanne Wolski Conn, David Werthmann CSSR, Joel Rippinger OSB, Patricia Wittberg SC, Jim and Joan Felling, Kathryn Richards FSp, Bishop Carlos Sevilla SJ, Adrian Gaudin SC (?), Raymond Marie Gerard FSP, Eugene Hensell OSB, Miriam Ukeritis csJ, Lou and Angela Menard, Martin Erspamer OSB, Kathleen Hughes RSCJ, Bishop Terry Steib SVD, Margaret Guider OSF, and Paul 5" Coutinho SJ. My thanks to everyone. Remember me in your prayers. David L. Fleming SJ 70.1 2011 LOUIS M. SAVARY Agents of Change: Six Models determining change We are all called to be agents of change. It is a human calling as well as a Christian call-ing. However, we are not all called to be the same kind of change agent. A dear friend of mine, long ago deceased, Joseph Grau, a Jesuit priest for many years, created a simplified way of identifying the different kinds of change agent styles available. His naming and defining of these six models is a genuine contribution to contemporary spiritual practice, and his insights deserve to be re-presented. I share this article as a tribute to him. The Three Players in Making a Change According to Dr. Grau, there are six mod-els of change agency, each of which has three major players: (I) the People, (2) the Structure, (3) the Change Agent. Louis M. Savary PhD, STD, may be addressed at 3404 Ellenwood Lane; Tampa, Florida 33618. Review for Religious The term "People" refers to the set of persons who want or need change. Included in "People" are the individu-als and groups experiencing treatment that is unfair, unjust, unsafe, abusive, prejudicial, or cruel but who cannot effectively defend or protect themselves from the harmful situation or who cannot change and correct the unwelcome situation by themselves. Certain groups may be enduring racial prejudice, unsafe working conditions, unfair employer demands, denial of human rights, political oppression, gender discrimination, rejection by a church, or unequal treat-ment by institutions such as insurance companies, credit card companies, banks, educational institutions, or law enforcement. Individuals who want or need change might include children who are physically or sexually abused by family members, students being bullied at school, employees being harassed at the workplace, or those in neighbor-hoods that are unsafe because of gang warfare. "People" may also be extended to include animals and other forms in nature, since animals (that is, endan-gered species) and nature (that is, forests, the ozone layer) are often helpless by themselves to change an unsafe or destructive environment caused by humans. The term "Structure" refers to the unjust societal or institutional structure that is in need of change. "Structure" is the generalized term used here .for any existing politi-cal, social, cultural, ecclesiastical, or familial situation or system that allows, promotes, or condones practices that are unjust, unfair, illegal, uncaring, biased, abu-sive, or cruel to individuals or groups who usually can-not defend or protect themselves from such situations. These harmful situations may have been caused or cre-ated by unfair or unjust laws, lack of awareness, corrupt 70.1 2011 Savary ¯ Agents of Change If you choose to be a Change Agent in an unfair situation, you can play at least six different roles-- in helping to effect the needed change. 8 political organizations, racially biased societal norms, prejudicial cultural prac6ces, religious bigotry, oppres-sive government, inadequate social services, or abusive family behavior. The "Change Agent" (CA) is one who chooses to try to change an unsafe, unjust, or unfair Structure in favor of the affected People. The "Change Agent" is usu-ally viewed as an individual but could be a small group of people. If you choose to be a Change Agent in an unfair situation, you can act in at least six different ways--or play at least six different roles--in helping to effect the needed change. 1. The Advocate Agent of Change ~ The most common model of change agent is'the advocate (CA) who personally confronts the Structure on behalf of the People. The Advocate Agent is often inde-pendent of and outside the group of people for whom he or she is advocating. For example, in a class action suit against, say, a pharmaceutical company (the Structure), a lawyer (CA) personally advocates in court on behalf of the consumers who have been treated unfairly or unjustly (the People). Thus, on behalf of the People, the Change Agent tries to affect or influence the Structure: People--> CA--> Structure Lawyers are not the only Advocates. A teacher (CA) can approach the school administration (Structure) to Review for Relig4ous advocate on behalf of students (People) who need spe-cialized care or tutoring. A parent (CA) can approach the local police (Structure) and advocate for protection of children (People) who are being bullied on neighborhood streets. A therapist (CA) can write letters to Medicaid (Structure), advocating for certain patients (People) to receive disability payments. A teacher (CA) can write let-ters of recommendation to colleges (Structure), advocat-ing for certain students (People) to receive scholarships or financial aid. A physician (CA) can contact hospice (Structure) to advocate on behalf of dying patients (People). Pastoral ministers (CA) can approach the prison system (Structure), requesting religious training and other forms of spirituality for inmates (People). 2. The Empowerment Agent of Change In this second model, the Change Agent organizes and empowers the People, who then directly confront the Structure. There is a big difference between the first two models. In the Advocacy model, the CA deals directly with the Structure; in this second model the CA deals directly with the People wanting change, and not with the Structure. In this model, the CA teaches the People how to approach the Structure directly and advocate for themselves. The most obvious example of Empowerment is the community organizer. Empowerment Agents may or may not belong to the community they are empowering, but they obviously have charisma and organizing skills that most others don't possess. The Empowerment CA teaches people how to get organized, how to formulate and present their request, how to approach the people who representthe Structure; what their legal rights are, what to do in the face of resistance, how to develop a Plan B. 9 70.1 2011 Savary ¯ Agents of Change The Empowerment Agent works directly on the People, organizing and training them, so that the People are prepared to approach the Structure directly. Thus, CA--> People --> Structure In one of the social ministries at our parish, a min-istering couple (CA) trains unemployed people (People) in how to get jobs in the business world (Structure) by teaching them how to write effective resumes, how to answer questions in a job interview, how to dress prop-erly, how to network with other job seekers, and other skills useful in landing a job. Some professionals (CA) teach groups of unfairly treated workers (People) how to form labor unions in their workplaces (Structure) or how to demand safer working conditions. The Empowerment Agent knows how to generate "people pressure" to change a situation on behalf of cer-tain groups. Some years ago in Washington, DC, when natural childbirth procedures were becoming popular among mothers but not among doctors and hospitals, workshop leaders (CA) told expectant mothers (People) that they had a legal right to demand natural childbirth in a hospital (Structure). Although obstetricians pre-ferred to deliver babies through chemically-induced childbirth, the mothers' repeated demands for natural childbirth practices in hospitals prevailed. 3. The Lifestyle Agent of Change Grau's third model of change agency is the Lifestyle Agent. Here, the CA is one of the People and acts as one of them. Thus, the CA belongs to the very group of those seeking their rights or some concession they believe to be rightfully theirs. A common example is a group of college students (People) protesting some policy of the college (Structure) that they wish to change. Each of the protesting students is a CA. Or, to put it another way, Review for Religious the group of students as an entity (the People) is the CA. Although you or I as specific students in that group seem to be merely one of the protesting students, nevertheless, you and I are legitimately called CAs. In this scenario, People (CA) People --> Structure The most common forms of Lifestyle Agents include the protest march, the worker strike, the sit-in, the let-ter- writing campaign, and the political campaign. In each case, groups of people (who are both People and Change Agents) coordinate, organize, and mobilize their time, money, and efforts to change an unjust situation (Structure). During the 1960s, there was much resistance to racial integration of African Americans into white public institutions such as schools, churches, restaurants, and clubs. Two white couples in a Southern state desired to live a non-racially-prejudiced lifestyle. To an exclu-sive private school their own children were attending (Structure), they (CA) gave scholarships for a number of academically qualified African American children (People), whose applications the school could not reject. The same two couples invited African American cou-ples (People) to dine with them (CA) at their favorite exclusive "white" restaurant (Structure). The restaurant owner could either welcome the African Americans or lose the business of two wealthy white families who were regular and generous customers. The owner chose to keep earning money. 4. The Direct Service Agent of Change In some cases, the Structure (that is, the local gov-ernment) is incapable of meeting the needs of a group of People, such as the poor, the hungry, the homeless, or immigrants, because of a lack of funds or personnel. So, someone must step up and directly meet those needs. 70.1 2011 Savary ¯ Agents of Cl~ange 12 The Saint Vincent de Paul Society in church parishes is a Direct Service Agent, as are people who work in soup kitchens, who deliver food to shut-ins, or who tutor children who wouldn't otherwise ever learn to read. What is interesting about this model is its inde-pendence of the Structure. The Structure may refuse to meet the needs of such People, may be ignorant of those needs, or may even enact laws that outlaw such help. In this case, the Direct Service Agent provides direct service to the People in need, whether or not the Structure approves. Thus, CA--> People Structure Although the schema shows no arrow going from the People to the Structure, there is inevitably an effect produced on the Structure. Sometimes, the Structure is relieved and very grateful for the Direct Service CA, as was India (Structure) in the case of Mother Teresa (CA) and her service of the poorest and lowest classes (People). In other cases, as when those in church min-istry (CA) care for the needs of illegal immigrants (People), the CA may be acting in opposition to a civil ordinance (Structure). 5. The Ideological Agent of Change Most parents, teachers, counselors, and health pro-fessionals exemplify the Ideological Agents of change. Ideological Agents are shaping the minds and souls of the People in their care. Such CAs are working at a much more fundamental level than the Empowerment Agents are. Empowerment Agents typically organize and train a group of people to encounter the Structure on a specific issue, such as better treatment of gays in the community or requesting representation or a voice at a university's Board of Directors meetings. By contrast, the Ideological Agent is shaping the minds of people at a more general level. For example, Review for Religious religious teachers train students to think rationally and ethically, no matter what issue may arise in the future. Parents may instruct their children in proper social behavior--how to show gratitude, how to ask for things, how to play cooperatively. An English teacher may instruct students in how to communicate effectively through the written word and how to appreciate good writing. A history - - teacher may show students how to learn and grow wise from the study of history and the successes and failures of great men and women. A math teacher equips students for dealing with the financial and scientific dimensions of life. The counselor and health profes-sional help people deal with their basic emotional and physical issues so that they can be productive members of society. Financial advisors teach people how to man-age their money. Workshop leaders can teach people how to create the lives they desire. The work of the Ideological CA is, above all, foun-dational in nature. The CA is preparing persons (People) not only to live in society or in the church (Structures), but also to become intelligent and contributing members of such groups. In effect, the work of the Ideological CA is to prepare people to become effective agents of change themselves. Symbolically, CA--> People --> Structure In one sense, the effects the Ideological Agent has on the Structures of society or the church are mostly The effects the Ideological Agent has on the Structures of society or the church are mostly indirect, ~b~ut yet very powerful. 13 70.1 2011 Savary ¯ Agents of Change 14 indirect, but yet very powerful. Persons who have not learned to think for themselves, or who have little or no control over their emotions or instincts are not likely to become the best agents of change in society. The role of the Ideological Agent is therefore crucial for the development of society and of the church. Also not to be forgotten among the Ideological Agents are editors of newspapers and newsletters and writers of books, professional articles, and how-to pam-phlets. Many people today have websites or blogs that provide inspiration, give helpful hints, or steer people in the right direction. 6. The Institutional Agent of Change The sixth and final model is called Institutional. In this approach, the Institutional Agent (CA) is part of the Structure. Thus, in the church (Structure), a priest or bishop who is a part of that Structure can be an Institutional Agent (CA) if he works to change the Structure so that it benefits the People by meeting their need(s). A truly Institutional CA is always con-sciously thinking of the People and how he or she can make things better for the them. Structure (CA) --> Structure --> People Institutional CAs would also include elected politi-cal representatives, school officials, academic adminis-trators, mayors, governors, civil officials, ranking law enforcement officers, members of boards of directors, business managers, hospital supervisors, and officers of professional organizations. More Than One Style Most people use more than one style of change agency in their life and work. Some get to use all six. In the life of Jesus, we can find examples of most styles. Review for Religious He was certainly an Advocate (1) for the People when he spoke to the scribes, Pharisees, and priests. He was an Ideological CA (5) in the ways he taught people to live their lives. He used Direct Service (4) in healing the sick. As an Empowerment Agent (2), he trained his apostles and disciples on how to go among the people to preach and heal. Since he was neither a scribe nor a priest, he could not use the Institutional model. Members of Alcoholics Anonymous combine Lifestyle Agency, Direct Service Agency, and Ideological Agency in their various ways of working. They are affecting many layers of social and religious Structures, since they (and others in related twelve-step groups) are turning individuals, who were burdens on society and their families, into productive, income-producing, tax-paying citizens, good parents, and upstanding church members. What Are Your Preferred Styles of Change Agency? Dr. Joseph Grau, a student of the writings of French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, wrote his doctoral dissertation (as yet unpublished) on the ethics of Teilhard. In much of traditional Christian spirituality, Grau wrote, we are seen as independent persons, each seeking our own individual salvation by avoiding serious sin. In contrast, for Teilhard, as for St. Paul, all humanity (and the rest of creation) is living in the Cosmic Christ, who is daily growing, changing, and evolving toward his ultimate completion. In this perspective, Christians are not primarily isolated individuals, each independently seeking to save their own souls, but we are all inextricably interconnected in this great God Project. In St. Paul's words, we are the hands and feet, the eyes and ears of Christ on earth today, helping bring this Cosmic Christ to 70.1 2011 Savary * Agents of Change his fulfillment as destined by the Creator. Thus, we see the need for all to become effective change agents. Therefore, our spirituality today cannot be focused simply on avoiding sin. Rather we must be focused on consciously choosing actions that are designed to make a positive difference in the world. For Teilhard, we are all called to be Agents of Change in helping the Structures of our world become more just, kind, and caring for all those in need (People). We consciously choose to become Agents of Change so that Christ may be all in all. To accomplish this will require a lot of change and improvement in our world. What part will you play in the great God Project? Personal Reflection / Group Discussion Savary raises the question for our reflections: What are my preferred styles of change agency? Why are these my preferred styles? How is it helpful to reflect on the different models of change agency? Review for Religious JOHN H. ZUPEZ Christ-like Empathy in Those Who Govern One might address this topic through a study of "Paternal/Maternal Governance as an Ideal in Religious Communities." But that could get us into arguments over whether it is overstating the type of governance called for by our constitutions, or whether such governance is realistically possible. So I choose to focus on Jesus' way of dealing with people as an ideal and as inspiration for all followers of Christ, whether they be in a religious congregation or not. In religious congregations new challenges have arisen to experiencing empathy from those who gov-ern. Such empathy has suffered on several fronts in our times: the sophistication of relationships with those out-side our immediate circle of friends; the administrative burden of major superiors which puts more burden on the local superior; the diminishing pool of prospects for appointment as superior. You can probably think John H. Zupez SJ wrote for us on prayer in 1992 and 2009. He is currently pastor of Corpus Christi Church; 1005 N.E. 15th Street; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73117. 17 70.1 2011 Zupez * Christ-like Empathy in those Who Govern of other reasons why relations between religious and their superiors become strained. Empathy in superiors is most important since their community has no choice but to relate to them. These reflections may also help in keeping relations among community members from becoming strained. Empathy Wikipedia on the Internet has a long article on empa-thy that begins with the following description, involv-ing various aspects. It seems suitable to our purposes. Empathy is a "feeling of concern for other people that creates a desire to help them, experiencing emotions that match another person's emotions, knowing what the other person is thinking or feeling." This is a good description of Jesus' approach to people. Even if his keen intelligence and sensitivity bordered on the mirac-ulous at times, his dealings show his desire to get inside the mind and heart of those he addressed, to experi-ence and know from their perspective before trying to help them, at times with reproof. It didn't rule out an ever-sharpening critique of some religious attitudes he wanted to correct. But one never gets the idea that he missed the point, that he judged too harshly or without sufficient empathy for what others thought and felt. His empathetic way of understanding how people thought and felt typically led to his sympathetic and caring way of ministering to them. Reflecting on ways Jesus exhib-ited empathy in the gospel accounts can help us follow him more closely in this regard. Not all instances are equally illustrative, but together they show Jesus' great sensitivity as a model for his followers. References will be to Mark's Gospel. Even if some of Jesus' sayings here originated in the early church, Review for Religious they reflect a consistent personality trait of Jesus that was well-remembered by his followers. In Mark's Gospel ¯ In Mark's Gospel only Jesus hears his vocation call at the Jordan, after which he immediately goes "on retreat" and doesn't begin his ministry until John's arrest (1:10- 14). If we attribute greater historicity to this account than to the other Gospels, it shows great sensi-tivity on the part of Jesus to the feelings of the Baptist and -- complete appreciation for John's ministry, even though this would contribute to the survival of the Baptist move-ment alongside Christianity. ¯ Jesus calls James and John to follow him, leaving their father Zebedee alone with the hired hands (1:20). Scholars point to this as one of many signs that Jesus saw the end-time as imminent, for otherwise he would have shown more sympathy for the father who was left without his sons' help. ¯ Many times in the Gospels Jesus attributes ill behavior not to the free choice of persons but to unclean spirits that have taken possession of the persons (1:25). Can we see this as a case of empathy, of Jesus' most merciful judgment? ¯ When his disciples disturb his morning prayer, he doesn't reproach them but agrees with them that they rightly understand his mission (1:35-38). Again and again Jesus attributes his cures to the patent faith he perceived in those to whom he ministered. 19 70.1 2011 Zupez ¯ Christ-like Empathy in those Who Govern ¯ Jesus healed the leper and fed crowds that were hungry and "without a shepherd," being "moved with pity" or compassion (1:41, 6:34, 8:2), knowing how they felt. He also began his ministry showing great sensitivity toward the temple priests, allowing them to profit from the effect of his cures (1:44). ¯ Again and again Jesus attributes his cures to the patent faith he perceived in those to whom he minis-tered (2:5), and he "perceived in his spirit" the lack of faith in those who "questioned in their hearts" (2:6, 8). ¯ Jesus' only mention of fasting in Mark's Gospel came in order to defend the Baptist who required his disciples to fast (2:18-20). ¯ Jesus gave an opportunity for Jewish leaders to defend their traditions, feeling "anger" when they "were silent" and refused to communicate with him (3:4, 5). ¯ When Mark says that Jesus appointed 12 apostles not just to proclaim his message but "to be with him," he shows the intimate community that would help them to see deeply into one another (3:14). ¯ Many of Jesus' parables were addressed to the Jewish leaders whom he so much wanted to bring on board his movement. He carefully fashions suasive argu-ments to move these intelligent adversaries, and only after rejection by them does he conclude that they have simply closed their hearts to God's Spirit (3:23-29). ¯ When his family thinks him "out of his mind," he gives an inclusive description of who his family is, knowing that they also "do the will of God" (3:21, 35). ¯ He shows himself a careful observer of nature and of human behavior, distinguishing between ways his word goes unheeded in people. The faith of some is rootless, in some it is destroyed by others, in some it is choked out by the cares of this world (4:15-19). Review for Religious ¯ He commends those who are translucent, who let the light within them shine out clearly for all to see: "nothing is hidden but will be disclosed" (4:21-22). ¯ He intuits the concern of his listeners over the smallness and hiddenness of the kingdom in his ministry and responds with the parables of hidden growth and of the mustard seed (4:26-32). ¯ Sympathy for Jairus leads Jesus to put up with the ridicule of the crowd, and when he had cured Jairus' daughter he mentions the hunger of the girl: "give her something to eat" (5:43). This last touch must have struck Mark as typical of Jesus' thoughtfulness of oth-ers, and so merited inclusion in his Gospel. ¯ When Jesus is rejected by the people of his own hometown, he makes up a good excuse for them, rather than blaming them; "Prophets are not without honor except in their hometown" (6:4). Then he anticipates how people would feel if his apostles went house-hop-ping, looking perhaps for a nicer place to stay. He advises them to stay with whoever first welcomes them (6:10). Jesus also perceives the fatigue of the work for his apostles and invites them to "come aside and rest awhile" (6:31). Then, respecting their close feeling for him, he "goes up the mountain to pray" only "after say-ing farewell to them" (6:46). ¯ When the Jewish leaders criticize his disciples for not washing their hands before eating, Jesus doesn't dis-miss their objection lightly but defends the disciples by quoting at length Jewish. traditions (7:5-15). He can also quickly correct his response to a person when he perceives a need for self-correction, as in his change from rejecting to commending the Syrophoenician woman (7:2 7-2 9). ¯ Jesus took the deaf man with a speech impediment "away from the crowd, in private," perhaps to compen- 70.1 2011 Zupez ¯ Christ-like Empathy in those Who Govern From all who wish to enter the kingdom, Jesus demands childlike curiosity and openness to new ideas sate for the crowd's ridicule of the man, becoming close and personal with him (7:33). ¯ Though his disciples fail to see, hear, or remem-ber in spite of the powers he had demonstrated, Jesus continues to work with them patiently, conclud-ing only with the gentle rebuke "Do you not yet understand?" (8:18,21). When admonished by Peter for predicting his suffering, Jesus' response focuses not on himself but on the good of Peter, who has set his mind "not on divine things but on human things" (8:33). Instead of further chiding Peter, he calls together "the crowd with his disciples" and explains the centrality of the cross in the Christian life (8:34-38). ¯ When Jesus sees that "a crowd came running together" he expedites his cure of the possessed young man, saving him further embarrassment (9:25). ¯ Jesus says that our dealings with others should not be from a sense of superiority ("whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all") but with the warmth that we show to a very loveable child (9:35-37). Jesus crowns this with a breadth of appreciation that extends to even our "giving a cup of water to drink" for which we will receive his reward (9:41). (Since Jesus did not refer to himself as Christ or Messiah, that seems here an addition of the early church.) Jesus' love for his dis-ciples doesn't stop short of "scaring the hell out of them" lest they stray from the right path (9:42-48). He goes on Review for Religious to encourage his disciples to vigorously pursue their own gifts while respecting others' differences (9:50). ¯ From all who wish to enter the kingdom, Jesus demands childlike curiosity and openness to new ideas, traits sorely lacking in the Jewish leaders who never gave him a fair hearing (10:15). ¯ Jesus' appreciation for all the goodness in others is revealed in his love for the young man who had kept the commandments from his y~)uth (10:20-21). He further points out that God can overlook our deficiencies and make up for them (10:27); God doesn't demand more than we can give. ¯ When James and John come forward with incred-ible hubris and pushiness, Jesus gently admonishes them that "you do not know what you are asking" (10:38). He then throws the focus away from James and John to advise the twelve together that Christian leadership is gauged enti!~qly in t.~rms of humble service (10:41-44). ¯ Jesus' empathy for people's differences, everyone believing in themselves, is reflected in what is arguably the most distinctive Christian virtue, ready forgiveness of others (11:25). ¯ In the question of giving tribute to Caesar, Jesus leaves off criticizing his adversaries for their flattery and feigned praise and keeps loving, keeps saying what could awaken them to their own hypocrisy and be their salva-tion, leaving them "amazed" (12:13-17). ¯ When a woman anoints Jesus with oil worth more than a year's wages, Jesus may have been taken aback by the extravagance but instead thinks of an even more extravagant way to compliment her: her deed will always be preached as a part of the Gospel (14:5, 9). ¯ When his closest disciples fall asleep during his agony in the garden, he doesn't blame them but thinks 70.1 2011 Zupez ¯ Christ-like Empathy in those grbo Govern of an excuse for them: "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" (14:38). And so also throughout his Passion he shows forgiveness on all sides and attributes his fate rather to the fulfillment of Scripture (14:27, 49). Conclusion We see here an ideal to strive for even if we can never reach it. Superiors may have little wiggle room to change their decisions. But if they exercise author-ity in a spirit of open dialogue and sincere empathy, then those under them will respond more as if to Christ himself. February Snow Snow fresh fallen and still spilling subdues the trees out your windows and muffles the world. You watch it blow, all of winter in your eye. Suddenly a wingedflame pierces the scene and swoops to the feeder. Red as a tulip, it's Isaiah of the seasons prophesying the return of color to this bleached-out world. If not tomorrow, then soon. Soon. Patricia Schnapp RSM Review for Religious JAMES MENKHAUS The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: A Path To Virtue The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius is a clas-sic work of Christian spirituality. Ignatius created the Exercises by reflecting on the expe-rience of God working in his life. In a memo-rable excerpt from his autobiography, Ignatius recalls, "God treated him [Ignatius] at this time just as aoschoolmaster treats a child he is teach-ing.''~ Ignatius's insight reflects his belief that God not only loves God's creatures, but slowly reveals God's will to them. Just as a child grows and slowly uncovers knowledge with the help of a teacher, so do human beings, with the help of God, slowly uncover God's call. Hoping to impart his insights, Ignatius created a series of meditations and reflections to help others discern their own call from God. In the final making the spiritual exercises James Menkhaus is currently involved in h~s doctoral work in Systematic Theology at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and teaches part-time at John Carroll Universi~ in Cleveland, Ohio. His address is 2965 Hampshire Road; University Heights, Oh{o 44118. 70.1 2011 Menkbaus * The Spiritual Exercises of St. IKnatius years of his life, Ignatius crystallized his reflections by finalizing the Spiritual Exercises. While it is true that the Spiritual Exercises can help an individual discern God's call, another potential ben-efit from undergoing the retreat experience can be described by using the language of virtue ethics. Virtue ethics is an approach in normative ethics that emphasizes the moral significance of an agent's character. Instead of focusing on the question "what action should I take?" virtue ethics asks people to reflect on "what sort of per-son should I be?''2 This reflection, which then leads to action, is exemplified in the Ignatian retreat process. In this essay I will apply the language of virtue ethics to the experience of undergoing the Spiritual Exercises, examining the roles of narrative, friendship, presence, and renewed friendship. Using virtue ethics to describe the transformative effect of the Spiritual Exercises dem-onstrates that the experience is not only a tool for the discernment of God's will, but a method for the devel-opment of character. Narrative Foundation in Week One In the First Week of the Spiritual Exercises, using the exercitant's narrative as a starting point lays the founda-tion for the subsequent weeks. Ignatius instructs, "The First Point is the court-record of my sins. I will call to memory all the sins of my life, looking at them year by year or period by period.''3 Ignatius hopes the exerci-rant will take the time to reflect on how sinful a person can be and, in reflecting on one's past narrative, will acknowledge those times of turning away from God's offer of love. Exercitants are often offered the cl~ance for confession during this time as they uncover aspects of their narrative that they have either forgotten or tried to Review for Relig4ous deny to themselves. Ignadus' own experiences of sin and the way one can become ensnared by sinfulness, influ-enced his decision to give the chance to consider one's sins and bring them before God. The reflection on sin could be damaging if Ignatius did not ask the exercitant to concurrently recall God's forgiveness. Another meditation [23] is titled "The Principle and Foundation." The foun-dational principle for Ignatius is that God loves creation and never with-draws the offer of love. Ignatius hopes that during the First Week the exerci-tant will be able to balance these two concepts--the Creator's unlimited offer of love and one's own sinfulness. Both are important. Without God's love, the focus on one's sins could lead the exercitant to a sense of despair. Awareness of one's own sinfulness, however, is also key because God's love is a gift, not something earned. Because the Exercises rely so heavily on narrative, nar-rative is an important concept to unpack. Some virtue ethicists, such as Nancey Murphy and Stanley Hauerwas use narrative as a starting point for ethical reflection. "The acquired characteristics needed for participation in practices," writes Murphy, "are merely candidates for vir-tue until we see how they contribute to the whole human life from birth to death."4 To consider virtues divorced from the living experiences of human beings deprives them of life. The narrative, or human experience, gives an arena for virtue to be explored, developed, and fos- Without God's love, the focus on one's sins could lead the exercitant to a sense of despair. 70.1 2011 Menkbaus ¯ The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius tered. It is through human experience and development that virtues are acquired. Therefore, any discussion of virtue must begin by looking at narrative. In A Community of Character, Hauerwas relates a story from his own narrative about the time and effort his father put into making a gun for him as a gift. Instead of responding with love and thankfulness for the gift, Hauerwas replied that guns would one day be taken away from "you people." The love of the father in the formation of the gift was rejected by the son who thought it was more important to prove a point about social policy. The son sought to form his own narra-tive by rejecting his father's world, his father's narrative. Hauerwas reflects, "But in fact what I did was deeply dishonest, as it revealed a lack of self, the absence of a sustaining narrative sufficient to bind my past with my future.''5 Forming one's own narrative is about respect-ing the tradition that comes before, while taking the responsibility of creating the future. Hauerwas's personal example fits very well with the First Week of the Exercises. The relationship of children and parents often involves struggle, and the revelation that love was not returned from child to parent, or par-ent to child, is a common difficulty. Someone facing a narrative like Hauerwas's would likely be drawn to focus on the guilt of rejecting the offer of love from father to son. Such guilt, if carried through life without being faced and worked through, could have damaging effects on a person's identity. More often than one might think, these feelings are buried deep within, and only through taking time in prayer and reflection can one realize that they have played a formative role in one's development. Once one uncovers these feelings, the guide would likely suggest a meditation or prayer that focuses on Revie~v for Religious forgiveness--for example, the story of the prodigal son (Lk 15:11-32). In this parable Jesus tells of a son who squandered all that the father had given him. When the son was at his lowest point, he thought the father might take him on as hired hand. Indeed, as the son returned to the father, "While he was still a long way off, his father caught . sight of him, and was filled with compas-sion. He ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him" (Lk 15:20). It is often pointed out that the father saw him from a long way off, indi-cating that he had been watching for his son, hoping that he would return. This parable encapsulates the duality of the First Week because it involves the sinful son, or human being, and the loving and forgiving father, or God. Again, it is nar-rative that communicates the key elements. In this case, narrative in the form of story symbolizes God's love for and willingness to forgive humanity. The First Week experience is impossible without one's reflection on one's own narrative and experience. Because of the individuality and uniqueness of each exercitant's experience, it is the personal narrative that sets the stage for the rest of the retreat. The subsequent Weeks are also heavily dependent upon narrative, but in a different context. The Weeks that follow advance through the narrative of Jesus' life as the exercitant is asked to enter into that life at different stages of Christ's mission. It is through entering into Christ's narrative The First Week experience is impossible without one ,s reflection on one's own narrative and experience. 29 70.1 2011 Menkhaus ¯ The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius that the virtues of friendship and presence can be devel-oped in the exercitant. Narrative is, in many ways, foun-dational to the Spiritual Exercises. Developing Friendship in Week Two Once exercitants come to terms with their own sin-fulness in the light of God's offer of love, at least to some extent, the retreat moves to Week Two. During the Second Week, the focus shifts to meditations on the life of Christ up to the passion. Exercitants read passages from the Bible and place themselves into the scenes. Ignatius hoped that the experience of allowing the Spirit to move the narrative forward would help communicate God's will to the individual. For example, an exercitant who continually feels drawn to healing others during these meditations might consider if God is calling to some sort of healing vocation or work in medicine. The exercitant who is constantly drawn to Christ the teacher might reflect more deeply if there is a call to a profes-sion in education. No matter what vocation one is called to, however, the experience of being with Christ during this time will likely lead to a cultivation of the virtue of friendship. Through the narrative reflection on Christ's life, friendship is both developed with Christ and learned as a virtue to cultivate in other relationships. Ignatius describes the grace to be prayed for in the Second Week: "Here it will be to ask for an interior knowledge of our Lord, who became human for me, that I may love him more intensely and follow him more closely.''6 In order to foster this interior knowledge and love, Ignatius begins the gospel contemplations with scenes from the nativity. The desire to follow Christ should begin at the start of his humanity. Ronald Modras elaborates the method: "Ignatius asks retreatants to con- Review for Religious template ("look at") the birth of Christ, using all their senses. One is to imagine the road, feel the wind, listen in on the conversation between Mary and Joseph, gaze at the newborn infant--all activities intended to arouse the affections.''7 The use of all the senses during the meditation can lead the exercitant to be truly moved by the experience. It is during the early stages of Week Two that the virtue of friendship begins to be explored in the narrative formed between the exercitant and Christ. Hauerwas and Charles Pinches in Christians among the Virtues provide key insights about friendship as a virtue. They write, "We learn virtue, which is necessary for happiness, not alone but in communities of friends.''8 No one would ever desire to live without friends, and these friendships help form communities. Later they explain, agreeing with Aristotle, "It is like watching ourselves, only bet-ter, for we see the activity that is ours--both the friends' and our own--all the more clearly.''9 Those people we surround ourselves with are those whose actions mirror our own. Likewise, when our friends do virtuous acts, it encourages us to behave similarly. Friendship is valuable for helping people learn virtue. Hauerwas and Pinches also state that true friendship is not simply an unachievable ideal. "Rather, friend-ship itself is an activity by which we acquire the kind of steadfastness necessary for our being true friends. True friendship is . . . a growing relation which, as it ¯ increases, makes possible our becoming virtuous in a manner that transforms ourselves and our friendship."1° A good friendship helps a. person learn what it means to be a good friend because, friendship grows through shared experience. Transformation and change are nec-essary because friendship never remains static. Friends 31 70.1 2011 Menkbaus ¯ The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius One does not become a follower of Christ without effort and prayer and an honest attempt to follow him. learn virtue together as both realize what it means to have a good friendship. It is certainly possible to have a bad or dishonest friendship, but the insights we are offering on growth of virtue in friendship assume that both friends are trying in good faith to respect and love each other. The insights of Hauerwas and Pinches on friendship help unpack how the Second Week can lead to a deepen-ing desire to follow Christ. Learning through these medi-ations to love and follow Christ and to become friends with the human Jesus should lead us to behave more like our new friend. As we see Christ do miracles of heal-ing, accepting the outcast, and giving life to the hope-less, we are inspired, as his friends, to do the same. As Hauerwas . and Pinches pointed out, the virtuous actions of our friends inspire us to behave accordingly. The insight that friendship is developed through a process of transformation is impor-tant as well. One does not become a follower of Christ without effort and prayer and an honest attempt to fol-low him. An exercitant might be asked to contemplate the story of the paralytic (Lk 5:17-26), which highlights the virtue of friendship from a variety of angles. The primary focus of this story is that Jesus tells a man to get up and walk and that his sins are forgiven. The Pharisees are enraged that Jesus thinks he can tell a man Review for Religio~ts his sins are forgiven because, for them, God alone could forgive sins. However, a subplot to the story involves the friendship of the men who brought the paralytic to Jesus: "But not finding a way to bring him. in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on the stretcher through the tiles into the middle in front of Jesus"(5:19). Because the group thought that Jesus might be able to help their friend, they did every-thing they could to get him to Jesus. When their first attempt failed, they turned to extraordinary means to accomplish their' goal--going so far as to lower their friend through the root~ The first example of friendship is the desire of the friends to get the paralytic to Jesus, even when their first attempt failed. The friends were willing to take extraor-dinary measures to help someone they loved. The second example is Jesus' willingness to heal the paralytic. Jesus' action invites the exercitant to imitate that healing by healing others. The exercitant could contemplate that as Jesus heals those he cares for, in what way can he/she heal others? As the exercitant becomes friends with Jesus, Jesus' actions should be mirrored in the exercitant. The virtuous actions of one's friends should encourage a rep-lication of those actions beyond the retreat experience. Another vital aspect of the Second Week, the elec-tion, occurs as the Week comes to a close, when the exercitant has come to be Christ's friend and must decide to follow him. It would be rar~ for a non-Christian to undergo the Exercises, so Ignatius did not see this as a matter of full conversion from one religion to another. Indeed, many people, during the time of the election, reaffirm what they held before they began the retreat. However, for some, the experience of coming to know Christ could lead to a different sort of election, perhaps 70.1 2011 Menkbaus ¯ The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius 34 the desire to enter religious life or to change one's life-style to include more time for prayer, works of mercy, or being with one's loved ones. It is important to consider the election in light of virtue because the friendship that has begun to grow reaches its first point of verification. If it is not a true friendship, the exercitant will not choose to follow Christ. A much greater challenge awaits in the Third Week, but for now the exercitant must decide if the meditations from infancy throughout the life of Christ have cultivated a sense of love and a knowledge of the human Jesus. Jesuit Howard Gray reflects, "The elec-tion that comes at the climax of the Second Week is then less a decision than a surrender to the specific and intimate ways the Spirit of Christ leads me through my humanity to union with his humanity.''11 This union that Gray describes is one aspect of a friendship. Friends come together to form a union of care and respect for each other, a union in which each challenges and sup-ports the other. This support is put to the test through the suffering of Christ during the Third Week. Suffering Presence in Week Three The meditations of the Third Week begin with Christ's sending of two disciples from Bethany to Jerusalem to prepare for the last supper; they conclude with the death of Jesus. While feelings of sadness are often associated with the exercitant's experience, the third week is not a recapitulation of the First Week's turmoil. The desolation experienced in reflecting on the sufferings of Christ is different from the desolation caused by reflecting on one's own sins. The Exercises are developmental; the experiences of the weeks build upon each other. Michael Ivens, a scholar of the Review for Religious Spiritual Exercises, explains, "Thus the exercitant comes to pray the Passion in the Third Week having in the First Week contemplated the cross as a sign of both sin and mercy.''~2 A consideration of the virtues in the Exercises reveals a similar pattern because the virtues are also developmental. The friendship developed in Week Two will now be put to the test and, if successful, strengthened through the exercitant's presence with the suffering Christ. Ignatius writes that the grace of the Third Week to pray for is "heartfelt sorrow and confusion, because the Lord is going to his Passion for my sins.''13 Ignatius instructs the exercitant to become aware of the betrayal, brutality, and abandonment that Christ undergoes and, during meditations on these, to pray for the grace to suffer with Christ during his ordeal--the betrayal when Judas handed Christ over to be arrested, the brutality Christ underwent through the beatings and the cruci-fixion, and the abandonment he felt when his disciples fled and even Peter denied that he knew Christ. These three related elements, betrayal, brutality, and abandon-ment, all exemplify the experiences of Christ during the passion and are a powerful reminder for the exercitant of all that Christ underwent for humanity. In Week Two the exercitant was instructed simply to enter the scene, but Week Three calls for prayer to experience Christ's suffering. This does not mean the exercitant should seek pain for trivial purposes, such as purposely making daily life harder and deceiving oneself into thinking it is for Christ. Rather, it means being willing to put Christ first. One should be willing to leave behind whatever keeps one from putting Christ first. Jesuit Peter Fennessy explains, "The reality of the situation is that compassion is a deep love of Christ that 70.1 2011 Menkhaus * The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius 36 unites us [to Christ] in his suffering and in doing so brings us to renounce our own selves.''14 It is certainly possible that God could call one to physical suffering, such as serving the poor in a dangerous location or put-ting one's life at risk. However, this is not the case for all exercitants. For most, the suffering that Ignatius chal-lenges them to undergo is to detach themselves from attachments that disorder their lives. On choosing which disorder to remove, Fennessy states, "We will not choose too much below our ability, since that would be insin-cere; nor too much beyond our ability since that would invite, even intend, failure.''s However, the exercitant must be willing to die to any inordinate desires that pre-vent union with Christ. This detachment, in many cases, will involve an aspect of suffering. Another way of understanding the grace of the Third Week is through the virtue of presence. Hauerwas's Suffering Presence offers insights about what it means to be present to another's suffering and how this presence can have an impact. He again uses narrative to describe a time when he was a suffering presence to his friend Bob. Hauerwas and Bob spent a lot of time together as they grew up and were very close friends. One morning he went to see Bob and found him weeping uncontrol-lably. Bob's mother had committed suicide earlier that morning. He embraced Bob, and they spent the rest of the day together. He describes that time: "We never talked about his mother or what had happened. We did what we always did. We talked girls, football, cars, mov-ies, and anything else that was inconsequential enough to distract our attention from this horrible event . All I could do was be present.''16 The transformation of character that occurs by undergoing the Third Week of the Exercises is the cre- Review for Religious ation of a person who understands what it means to be present to the suffering, dying, and abandoned people in society. Just as exercitants learn to be present with the befriended Christ, so should they be transformed into a greater capacity of being present with their friends. However, this presence should be extended to others, beyond their friends, just as Christ taught. The seeds planted in Week Two, when one meditates on how Christ ate with sinners and tax collectors and approached those in society that were considered out-casts, continue to grow in Week Three. Often those who suffer the most in society are not those who are friends with the exercitant, but those who have no friends at all. The poor and oppressed are the ones that Christ ministered to and who are often the examples of suffering in society. These are the people who need the presence that Hauerwas (and Christ) describe. Joy and New Friendship in Week Four If the Gospel ended with Christ's death, the Christian faith would be empty. Similarly, if the Exercises ended with Week Three, there would be no hope to move the exercitant beyond the suffering of Christ. However, the resurrection accounts in the Gospel and Week Four of the Exercises provide hope. Ignatius writes, "Consider how the divinity, which hid itself during the Passion, now appears and manifests itself so miraculously in this holy Resurrection, through its true and most holy effects.''17 The Fourth Week meditations revolve around how the divinity manifests itself during the appearance narratives in the Gospel, and these narratives lead to a glimpse of understanding what it means to act as the divine. Appearance stories that the exercitant can be asked to reflect upon are those of the disciples on the road to 70.1 2011 Menkhaus * The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Emmaus (Lk 24:13-35) and of Jesus on the shore (Jn 21:1-14). In each case, Jesus appears to the disciples who were lost and afraid and who feared that their hope in Jesus had been misplaced. When he appears to his friends on the road to Emmaus, even though they did not recognize him at first, he walked with them. He then broke bread with them and opened the scriptures. Reflecting after he disappeared from their sight, the dis-ciples asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us when he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?" (Lk 24:32). In John's account, Jesus also takes time to eat with the disciples as they share a meal on the shore. In both accounts, Jesus appears to console his suffering friends, offering his own example of being a suffering presence. These appearances lead to a new friendship between the disciples and the risen Lord, just as the Fourth Week meditations lead to a new friendship between the exercitant and Christ. The same kind of new friendship emerged after Hauerwas spent time with Bob. Once one has been there for the other in a time of extreme trial, the friendship is never the same. In some cases it may be awkward or dif-ficult, but it is never unchanged. For Christ and the disci-ples, however, the friendship was not awkward, but led the disciples to be willing to give their lives to spread Christ's message. Jesus instructs them to "Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature" (Mk 16:16). It is because of their belief in Christ, developed by their friend-ship with him and tested through his passion, that the dis-ciples take up this task of proclamation. What is hoped for is that the exercitant, while medi-tating on the resurrection at the end of the retreat, will experience joy. Gray explain~ that joy for Ignatius is not simply being happy, but is a "participation in the joy Review for Religious of the risen Christ. Ignatian joy is the psycho-religious energy that desires to bring others happiness, harmony of heart, insight, peace, reconciliation . -18 This joy drives the exercitant to want to be joy in the lives of others after the retreat. It is the joy experienced by the disciples when they realized that Christ had risen and their hopes had not been misplaced. Servais Pinckaers describes joy from the perspec-tive of virtue ethics in Morality: The Catholic View. He writes, "Joy is lasting, like the excellence, the virtues, that engender it. Joy is communicable; it grows by being shared and repays sacrifices freely embraced . Joy belongs to the purity and generosity of love.''19 For Pinckaers, joy helps order pleasure so pleasure does not take control of one's life. Joy lies in the inner depths of our being and is experienced when we align ourselves with the love of God. Joy cannot be separated from truth and the struggle towards the good. Pinckaers believes that joy unites the virtues which are "like the arteries that carry strength and disperse joy through the entire organism of the moral life.''z° Pinckaers's view of joy as a culmination of the virtues connects well with Gray's assertion that the experience of Ignatian joy is the culmination of the Spiritual Exercises. Living the Virtues in the World The new friendship between Christ and the exerci-tant is formed by the transformation of being a suffer-ing presence. But the fruit from the retreat must keep growing after the retreat. The exercitant's friendship with the risen Christ should one move to action. Just as virtue ethics begins with the agent but leads to action, so should the Spiritual Exercises. The movement into the world, of the ideals enshrined in the virtues is one way 70.1 2011 Menkbaus ¯ The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius A virtue ethics pei'spective of the Exercises calls one to apply these virtues in the future. 4O to counteract claims that the Exercises are an individual experience. Without the drive to live out these newly acquired virtues and change the world, transformation is never complete. Just as Ignatius would have said the exercitant should apply what is learned about God's will for the individual, a virtue ethics perspective of the Exercises calls one to apply these virtues in the future. Another way to describe the experience of undergoing the Exercises is as moral formation or moral development that pushes one to action. Pinckaers describes this forma-tion as "the interior revolution that the grace of Christ works within us. It teaches us to employ institutions and exercise authority in a spirit of service . . . imitating the service of Christ.''2' Moral formation can develop or . -- refine the virtues of friendship or pres-ence, and once these begin to grow, they are seen to imply a call to action, an emulation of Christ. They make one sen- - -' sitive to those who have no friends and need friendship or those who have no comforter and need presence. Pinckaers describes this movement, writing, "Just as we appreciate health bet-ter when we are sick, so too we become sensitive to our inclinafon to the good when we are confronted with evil and suffering.''22 In this way, the Exercises help form a more moral individual who is called to action. The kinds of action that an exercitant should engage in are, simply put, virtuous actions. By emulating the actions that Christ carried out both before his death and during the appearance narratives, one can become Review for Religious a more virtuous person. Albert Nolan, in Jesus Before Christianity, challenges Christians to look to Christ to see how God wants human beings to act: We have seen what Jesus is like. If we now wish to treat him as our God, we would have to conclude that our God does not want to be served by us, but wants to serve us; God does not want to be given the highest possible rank in society, but wants to take the lowest place and to be without any rank and sta-tus; God does not want to be feared and obeyed, but wants to be recognized in the sufferings of the poor and the weak.23 Nolan challenges followers of Christ to reflect on who Jesus was during his lifetime. Those who have undergone the Spiritual Exercises have encountered Christ through meditation and contemplation. The encountered Christ has likely been one who fits Nolan's description. A Jesus who wants to serve, who takes the lowest place in society, and who wants to be recognized in the sufferings of the poor is the Jesus who has been encoun-tered in prayer. If Nolan is correct, Jesus has given humanity a glimpse into how God wants creatures to live, and the Spiritual Exercises help us come to this awareness as we move through the retreat. The Spiritual Exercises are a tool for the discern-ment of God's will, but the retreat is also an experience that can form a more virtuous person. By examining one's narrative during the First Week, areas of sinful-ness and growth can be discerned in light of God's love. The Second Week helps the exercitant know what it means to be a friend and to learn from Christ how to emulate his actions. The Third Week tests the virtue of presence, challenging people to be present to those in need, especially those who have no one else. Finally, 41 70.1 2011 Menkbaus * The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius the Fourth Week teaches the joy associated with the resurrection and a new friendship tested by suffering. The exercitant who takes to heart the experience of the Spiritual Exercises should leave the retreat a more virtu-ous person, seeking to emulate the actions of Christ in a world broken by sin and needing redemption. Notes ' Ignatius of Loyola, "The Autobiography," in Ignatius of Loyola: The Spiritual Exercises and Selected Works, ed. George E. Ganss SJ (New York: Paulist Press, 1991), p. 79. z Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 17. 3 Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises [56]. 4 Nancey Murphy, "Using MacIntyre's Method in Christian Ethics," in Virtue and Practices in the Christian Tradition, ed. Nancey Murphy, Brad J. Kallenberg, and Mark Thiessen Nation (Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 2003), p. 41. ~ Hauerwas, A Community of Character, p. 146. 6 Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises [104]. 7 Ronald Modras, Ignatian Humanism (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2004), p. 47. 8 Stanley Hauerwas and Charles Pinches, Christians among the Virtues (Notre Dame: University of Norte Dame Press, 1997), p. 33. 9 Hauerwas and Pinches, Christians among the Virtues, p. 33. 10 Hauerwas and Pinches, Christians among the Virtues, p. 38. 11 Howard Gray SJ, "Joy and Friendship in the Fourth Week," The Way Supplement: Resurrection and Beyon& The Fourth Week 99 (2000): p. 18. ~2 Michael Ivens SJ, Understanding the Spiritual Exercises (Trowbridge: Cromwell Press, 1998), p. 147. '3 Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises [I 93]. 14 Peter Fennessy SJ, "Praying the Passion: The Dynamics of Dying with Christ," A New Introduction to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, ed. John E. Dister SJ (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1993), p. 77. is Fennessy, "Praying the Passion," p. 83. 16 Stanley Hauerwas, Suffering Presence (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), p. 64. Review for Religious 17 Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises [223]. is Gray, "Joy and Friendship," p. 20. ,9 Servais Pinckaers OP, Morality: The Catholic View (South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine's Press, 2001), p. 78. 20 Pinckaers, Morality: The Catholic View, p. 80. 2, Pinckaers, Morality: The Catholic View, p. 94. 22 Pinckaers, Morality: The Catholic View, 102. 23 Albert Nolan, Jesus Before Christianity (New York: Orbis Books, 1976), p. 167. Tremblement de Terre (Earthquake) Sun, wind blizzards, Raging waters, cyclones Have pommelled Me and my house, Struck sideways as if it were __ at eye-level. But on the day The Earth beneath my feet Failed me Nor I nor anyone could save me, Only God __ That day guaran teed When my time comes I shall recognize The approach of death When things fall apart. Mary Alban CSJ 43 70.1 2011 MYREE HARRIS Reflecting on Readiness To Make the Spiritual Exercises 44 The concept of readiness for developmental change is an idea that has interested me for many years. From 1981 to 1989 I worked in Staff and Executive Development at the Catholic Education Office, Sydney. Back then, the Sydney Archdiocese and the Catholic Education Office covered the whole of Sydney, with a population of around four million. Our team designed and ran a diverse range of adult education courses for school leaders, with an emphasis on management skills and small group participation. We were also called in to do long-term organizational development in schools. Each program began with a full day collaborative prob-lem identification process followed by facilitation of an elected staff group to work on the action plan. We met with these groups weekly for a period of years. Readiness for Developmental Change In the course of these activities, we encountered individuals and school groups who were not ready for Myree Harris RSJ may be addressed at Gethsemane Community; 3 Oxford Street; Petersham NSW, 2049; Australia. Revie~ for Religious such a process. We started to read literature on the topic1 and to draw up our own criteria for readiness or unreadiness for participation in the process. In the case of those who arrived late for sessions or who lacked motivation, interest, or willingness to participate, there was often one obvious reason. They did not want to be there. They had been sent by a school principal who thought it might do them good or "fix them up." We contacted principals and asked them not to send unwill-ing participants, as it spoiled the experience for those who were motivated. Anytime we identified disgrunded participants, we offered them the opportunity to have the day off, assuring them that we would not report them to the school authorities. Readiness for Organizational Change In the case of schools that asked us to come in and work with them, we asked a few questions. First, whose idea was it to call us in? If it were just the principal's bright idea, the process would go nowhere. Second, was the school going through a lot of growth or change at that time, or, conversely, was it dying? Neither state would foster developmental change. The first step in the problem identification process was an anonymous strengths/weaknesses survey. Any downright nastiness or personal attacks in the survey were an alarm signal. We would report back on the survey to the staff, stating we would not allow personal attacks made on leaders who had no chance to respond. We undertook to carry out the day's problem-identification process, but warned that, in some cases, it might be counterproductive to go further. In one school, as the survey results were being shown, I noticed the staff reading, crocheting, doing crossword puzzles, yawning, and generally looking unin- 70.1 2011 Harris ¯ Readiness for Spiritual Exercises terested. I alerted my colleague, who was also finding in the survey results an abdication of responsibility for discipline on the part of the staff and a blaming of the senior executive. We reflected back our perception of their lack of interest and closed the proceedings. Readiness for the Spiritual Exercises: Twentiethth Annotation In 2003, I was at a retreat center in Canada, participat-ing in Internship training to direct the Spiritual Exercises. One of our tasks was to do a major study or project. I decided to follow up on my long interest in readi-ness. 46 Methodology: A. Indicators of Readiness A set of twelve questions (see Appendix) was devel-oped and given to staff members with the request that they agree to a thirty- to sixty-minute audio taped inter-view. Interviews were carried out and the tapes tran-scribed under the question headings. The responses showed some consensus about indica-tors of readiness. These have been grouped under gen-eral headings: 1. Personal qualities: ¯ a moderately strong sense of self and ego strength ¯ a basic personal stability and mental/emotional health ¯ a lot of basic healing already done ¯ not too tired ¯ able to reflect on and to articulate inner experience ¯ a capacity to be in silence and solitude Review for Religious 2. Desire: ¯ openness and willingness and generosity ¯ a sense of quiet that can be developed and a contemplative attitude ¯ a habit of prayer with a desire to go deeper ¯ a degree of spiritual freedom ¯ a desire to experience the Exercises ¯ a ministerial goal 3. ~ln adequate theological base: ¯ grounding in the Faith ¯ belief in the divinity and humanity of Christ ¯ an image of a loving God ¯ the ability to ask for a grace 4. Experience and skills: ¯ experience of at least one eight-day, silent, individually directed retreat using Ignatian methodology ¯ experience of ongoing spiritual direction ¯ experience in using imagination in prayer, in reflecting on the experience of prayer, and the capacity to articulate that experience to a director ¯ capacity to pray for forty-five to sixty minutes at a time B. Indicators of Lack of Readiness 1. Personal qualities: ¯ major psychological issues ¯ insufficient ego strength to tolerate desolation ¯ major issues that need healing ¯ blockage by overwhelming effects from trauma ¯ wrong timing ¯ inability to tolerate silence and solitude 2. Lack of desire: ¯ lack of a desire to be open to God 70.1 2011 Harris ¯ Readiness for Spiritual Exercises 48 ¯ sent by a bishop or major superior ¯ coming as part of a group with no personal decision to make the Exercises ¯ coming as part of a sabbatical, but mainly wanting a rest or a nice prayer time ¯ no outward apostolic focus 3. Inappropriate or unhelpful theological base: ¯ an image of God as distant, disinterested, and punitive ¯ lack of a belief in the divinity of Christ ¯ problems with the church that cannot be dealt with 4. Lack of experience and skills: ¯ no capacity to pray for any length of time or to articulate experience ¯ no experience of an eight-day directed retreat ¯ no experience of using the Ignatian "tools" such as the use of imagination in prayer or repetition ¯ no awareness of interior movements, of how to do a review of prayer, or of how to articulate the experience of prayer Eliciting Our Better Practices 1. How effective are the disposition days in assisting readi-ness? (The Preparation days involve directed prayer on themes such as one's faith history. They also introduce Ignatian "tools" such as gospel contemplation, review of prayer, repetition, use of the examen.) (Each bullet point indicates an individual response.) ¯ In general, they provide enough time for a person to be ready to begin the Exercises. Segments on graced and unredeemed history lay the ground for the First Week. Seeds are sown. If a person "bites" in this early material, it is a good indicator that the individual will "bite" all the way Review for Religious through. It helps the director get a sense of who the per-son is, what is really drawing the retreatant. It helps people get in touch with their own history. They may come to see where the blockages are, the need for healing. Sometimes people get in touch with that material and find out there is a lot more stuff than they had realized. If the director does a lot of faithful listening, the desire surfaces. ¯ Coming to the end of the disposition days, the question is "Where is the focus? Is the person ready for the First Week?" ¯ What you are testing for in the disposition days is willingness versus willfulness. A skilled director can spot the generosity and can fan those flames, can keep the person in that gener-osity. ¯ You don't pre-pare people for the Exercises, God does. God gives the desire. ¯ A Very, very poor self image might indicate it could be harmful to go into the Exercises. Some directors will hold a person back for a few days. Some will go forward because they know it is not going to hurt the person. If it will be hurtful, you don't go forward. If I'm not quite sure, I would give the Exercises the benefit of the doubt. 2. What is the place of the Exercises in healing mode? (The healing mode refers to an adaptation to assist people who are dealing with the effects of trauma or deep hurt.) Ignatius does not have any healing texts in his selection of gospel contemplations. In fact, he does not seem interested in healing, but rather in evangelical What you are testing for in the disposition days is willingness versus willfulness. 70.1 2011 Harris ¯ Readiness for Spiritual Exercises witness. However, often people present or come to the Exercises for healing. ¯ If healing is an issue, no amount of time may be sufficient. There may be sexual abuse or some very painful experience. The initial focus needs to be on the love of God. ¯ Healing mode may start with the graced his-tory and move all the way through the Exercises. Even though it is not in the literature, I would maintain that this approach still gives an experience of the Exercises. The graces received are roughly the same. You are just coming to the experience in a very different way.I don't know how universal an acceptance this would have. ¯ In healing mode, the First Week has the emphasis on having been sinned against, rather than sinning. The Second Week becomes growing up with Jesus, or the Inner Child healing of memories with Jesus, as Jesus grows up. It doesn't take away from the content but just shifts it so that healing can take place. It is still a matter of getting to know Jesus. The Exercises are more directed towards the person than towards discipleship, because sometimes it is too soon to focus on disciple-ship. Sometimes the two things can go on together, and sometimes the biggest emphasis is on healing. The meditations of the Second Week are geared to deci-sion- making. They don't fit here, but as soon as I hear the content of decision-making being spoken, I move to that, giving the meditations or appropriate scripture. 3. What if the person were still "flooded" by recent or past trauma? (In such cases, the person may not be able to focus on any other issue.) ¯ One avenue is to take the person out of the Exercises and work around the traumas, moving into the healing mode. Perhaps go through all the Weeks in Review for Religious this mode. The trauma becomes the focus of the graces of the Weeks. Usually, those who are flooded by trauma are reacting to more than the recent trauma. The recent event has just dragged up all kinds of other traumas in the person's history. The First Week exercises for healing (in the healing mode) could be very helpful for such a person. Rather than a block to the Exercises, the trauma could be the source of a major grace. ¯ It may indicate they should not go on with the Exercises but deal with the issue, and the thirty-day process may not be the place for that. What I would listen for is whether the hurt is purely psychological or if it can be brought to prayer. Tremendous healing can take place through the Exercises. ¯ I directed a person over five consecutive years for eight-day retreats, and it was all healing. I wouldn't allow her to make the Exercises. When she did eventu-ally make them, from day one the orientation was apos-tolic. ¯ This kind of situation is coming up more and more. ¯ Hopefully you can make referrals for when they go home. The grace of the retreat may be to realize how deeply they need psychological assistance. ¯ The director has to make a judgment as to whether the person is stable enough to stay and if there is enough psychic strength to take the next step. Then the director has to ask, "Am I the best director for this person?" It's up to the director to get as much help as possible from the team in terms of the healing of memories prayer, Inner Child work, continuing to walk with the person, following God's lead, and doing what is necessary. Then, the question is whether the retreatant is willing and able to do this. The team has to find a 51 70.1 2011 Harris ¯ Readiness for Spiritual Exercises A person could pray for thirty days, without actually doing the Exercises: Y2 way to ensure that the person is with a director who can work with this issue. 4. What ira person were not yet ready for the Exercises? ¯ When one person came, we already felt she might not be ready and that she was not staying for the appropriate days. Disposition days were fine. After that, the material used was fairly typi-cal, but we didn't pretend it was the Exercises. I just fol-lowed where she was. I used some Exercises material, went into the life of Christ, and just went wherever I felt the Lord was calling her. ¯ A person could pray for thirty days, without actu-ally doing the Exercises. There would be enough healing and growth that it would be very helpful. ¯ Most people who get through the screening pro-cess would be candidates for praying through the prayer pattern of the Exercises, whether or not they are capable of making the full Exercises from the decision-making mode. Y. What if there is resistance to the process of the Exercises? (For example, there may be reluctance or refusal to try different forms of prayer or particular themes, to main-tain timed prayer periods, or to do a review.) ¯ With someone who hates process, I would tackle it head on: "Are you willing to go along with it, for now?" The same for someone who hates structured prayer periods: "The Exercises are structured. Face the resistance." "It's not forever; it's just for now. Take it to Review for Religious the Lord." The key is intentionality. Are they willing to make the Exercises as they are? ¯ For the retreatant it can raise the issue "How do I respond in the face of something that doesn't fit me perfectly or that I might not like?" Then it becomes retreat material. Once knowledge of the reluctance comes to awareness, God works in it. It can burrow away underneath until it comes to consciousness. Once it's out, God deals with it. ¯ If you have a resistance in which the person wants something to happen in the Exercises that isn't happening and the person resists the pattern of the Exercises, then you have to bring that out clearly and say "What do you suggest you do next?" You could also lay out your options, saying "I don't think, given the way this pattern is devel-oping, that I am the right person to be directing you, or that this is the right place." It's not just their choice, it is also your choice. ¯ Using the imagination can provoke resistance, or it may mean the person is praying in another mode. If there is resisting, I let it continue until the person says "This isn't working, and I have to do something differ-ent." So I say, "Well, what would you like to do?" ¯ There is a huge scope about how to pray that is permissible in the Exercises. The director needs to be flexible and to understand that, for Ignatius, it isn't the Exercises as such, but it is encountering God that is important. That's why the questions are "Where's the consolation? Where's the desolation?" If there is reluc-tance to talk about one's inner life at that level, that's one issue. If there is a whole different sign language, making it difficult to draw out what is happening in prayer, that's a problem of communication, not resis-tance. If you can enter into that sign language, then the 70.1 2011 Harris ¯ Readiness for Spiritual Exercises Sometimes the grace can be given, but not opened for years. process works. If you can't, it's fairly clear there isn't a path of communication and you can't direct. ¯ For me, a good way to handle resistance, if it is in the long retreat, is to let it develop to the point where retreatants have to deal with it, rather than trying to force them to do what they don't want to do. All you can do is just be with a person as the resis-tance develops. It is important for the director to be comfortable with this and not try to truncate the pro-cess, because God is using that situation in some way. That can be hard on the director. That's why you need a team and supervi-sion. You need to be enabled just to allow the resistance to develop. ¯ Someone says that she is uncomfortable with Ignatian spirituality, that her background is Franciscan. It's true that your background affects you, but it doesn't determine you. The Exercises are Ignatian. There are huge Franciscan elements in Ignatian spirituality: the sense of witness, the sense of joy, the sense of poverty. If generosity is there, the Exercises will work. ¯ Coming to an Ignatian retreat and then resisting the process because you prefer a different spirituality is like going to a Chinese restaurant and ordering steak. 6. Is it better for a person to experience the Exercises, even in a limited way, than not to experience them at all? ¯ Sometimes the grace can be given, but not opened for years. ¯ If a person has not been able to enter into the Review for Religious experience and is not able to absorb it, the whole thing could be destructive. ¯ It depends on the person. A person may have an opportunity now to do a thirty-day retreat but may not have that opportunity later, when she is really ready to do the Exercises. ¯ It can be better for a person to make a 30-day retreat, as contrasted to the Exercises, than not to. One person came to the retreat to make a decision but was unable to do so. At the end she realized she needed to have psychological counseling. ¯ To a person who experienced the Exercises in the healing mode, it could be suggested that at some later time in life it might be worth doing them again from a new perspective and that it could be a different experience. ¯ Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? 7. Are the current application and referee forms effective in screening out people who are not ready for the Exercises? ¯ People lie on the application forms or leave things out. Some people do better in writing their stories; oth-ers can be more open in answering the questions. The question may be whether or not the story is complete. It's what's not there that we can do nothing about. It may not be deliberate. It may be an oversight that becomes critical and makes a huge difference that may not be realized by the person. ¯ I have found that people use codes. One code is that if you think the applicant is a problem, at the end of the reference you put "And if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to call me.' ¯ If we get any indication at all that the person is being sent, that's when the referees would be called to check it out. 70.1 2011 Harris ¯ Readiness for Spiritual Exercises ¯ The way they write the letter is important. What we are looking for is humility, not pride. Applicants may not talk about their lives at all. It may be more like a job application. In the letter, there may be no sense of where a person is, no sense of history. On the other hand, some people are very honest. 8. What could be done to improve the screening process? ¯ You could provide a description of the Spiritual Exercises, showing the challenges to a person's physical, emotional, and spiritual capacities. ¯ It may be helpful to provide referees with a profile of a "ready" person and ask them to comment on any aspect of concern. ¯ Check that the major superiors who write the ref-erences understand the Exercises. Require that at least one of the referees have made the Exercises. Ask the referee to indicate any knowledge and experience of the Exercises. ¯ Even if the referee did not know the Exercises, the description of the process should alert the person as to the qualities necessary. There should be an indication of the need for an ability to tolerate solitude, the ability to pray, and psychological and emotional stability. 9. What is the process of assessment of applicants at this center? Four individuals read each application and make comments. There is a draft approval form on which three people make assessments in terms of preparation, health, maturity, balance, motivation, timing, spon-sors (any reservations), expectations, helpfulness of the experience, and a proposal of the most suitable director available. The Director of the Center would make the final decision. Review for Religious Overall Reflection on This Process Since 2003, I have directed thirteen men and women in the Nineteenth Annotation Spiritual Exercises (often called the Retreat in Everyday Life). They come here to Gethsemane Community, a community house for a small group of men and women who have mental ill-ness. Entering this environment each week and getting to know the residents as individuals does a great deal to break down stigma and open directees to one aspect of social justice. In some instances this environment has enhanced their experience of the Exercises and led to some involvement in social justice. In reflecting with applicants wishing to make the Nineteenth Annotation, I have found it helpful to keep in mind some of the issues raised in the Readiness project. Appendix: Readiness for the Spiritual Exercises We offer for reflection some questions which may form the basis for an interview with retreat house team members. 1. In your experience as a director of the Spiritual Exercises, what would you look for as indicators that a directee was ready to move into an experience of the Exercises? 2. What would indicate that a directee may not be ready? 3. Given the limitations of time, specifically the time allocated for the disposition days, what would you do to help the directee come to a state of readiness? 4. What is the place of the Exercises in healing mode? 5. What would you do if you decided the directee may not be ready for the Exercises as such or for the full Exercises? 70.1 2011 Harris ¯ Readiness for Spiritual Exercises 6. If you encountered a resistance to the process of the Exercises or to Ignatian spirituality, how would you assist the directee? 7. What would you do if you found that the directee was still emotionally "flooded" by recent trauma which blocked openness to experiencing the Exercises? 8. What would you do if you found that, without real understanding of what would be involved, someone had come as part of a sabbatical and just wanted a nice prayer experience? 9. Do you consider that the current application and referee forms are effective in screening out people not yet ready for the experience of the Exercises? If you have any concerns or uncertainties, have you any sug-gestions as to how the forms could be improved? 10. If you judged from someone's application and referee forms that the person was not ready for the Exercises, what alternatives or further preparation would you suggest? 11. How could referees (e.g., major superiors, bish-ops) without any personal experience of the Exercises, be better informed so they could act more judiciously as referees? 12. Is it better to experience the Exercises, even in a limited way, if constrained by degrees of readiness, than not to experience them at all? 13. What other questions should I have asked? Have you any other comments? Note ~ Beckard, Richard, Organization Development: Strategy and Models, (Reading, Massachusetts. Addison-Wesley, 1969). J. William Pfeiffer and John E. Jones, The 1978 Annual Handbook for Group Facilitators (University Associates). Review for Religqous JULIUS D. LELOCZKY Looking at Death from a Christian Perspective The last enemy to be destroyed is death (1 Co 15:26) Our secularized age is obsessed with the idea of death. Some thirty to forty years ago it was fashionable to talk about the death of God, a shocking phrase borrowed from Friedrich Nietzsche. There was a "death of God" theol-ogy, and there were "death of God" theolo-gians who produced a whole library of books on the topic. Today, some thinkers seem to be ready to declare death itself as god. While the Christian churches and numerous other religious groups, in general, emphasize the preeminence of life on their scale of values, a large percentage of our contemporary society is obsessed with the idea of death. It is true that the thought of our unavoidable mortality is a main human concern in any time period, Julius D. Leloczky OCist writes from Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Dallas; 3550 Cistercian Road; Irving, Texas 75039. growing spiritually 70.1 2011 Leloczky ¯ Looking at Death from a Christian Perspective but today, it seems, for many people, death dominates their entire existence and is the ultimate governing principle of their lives. A few weeks ago I noticed in a recent issue of The New York Times Book Review that in the best seller list of paperback fiction, six of the twenty listed books had in their titles the word "dead." A shocking expression of this macabre existential mood is the image painted by John Dominic Crossan: There is no lighthouse keeper. There is no light-house. There is no dry land. There are only people living on rafts made from their own imaginations. And there is the sea.l In this image the guard in the lighthouse represents the traditional image of God, and the ocean that besieges non-stop and finally breaks to pieces these fictitious rafts holding up the people stands for death itself. What is suggested by the image is that, ultimately, death rules. Yet we can understand that, without faith in God, with-out revelation and redemption, surrounded by the expe-riences of the coundess horrors of our age, the human mind almost unavoidably ends up with such a chilling worldview. 6o] Absurdity Yes, indeed, no one can deny it; death is the greatest absurdity. A beloved person, with an entire treasury of knowledge and skills, of kindness and loveliness, vibrancy of intellect, sense of humor, familiar play of a smile, the whole spectrum of various talents and skills, an entire lifetime of memories--all the wealth of a unique per-sonality-- is just gone from one moment to the next, without any possibility of return. Such a senseless and shocking end to human life makes life itself look absurd and tragic, just as a divorce or a failed friendship may Review for Religious make bitter many years of beautiful memories. Why should we work, struggle, dream, suffer if one day we have to leave everyone and everything? Why should we see, hear, experience beauty and goodness and happiness if all of that is only a transitory moment like a pleasant passing breeze and we cannot enjoy it forever? If we cannot live and love forever, why live and love at all? Forever Forever. This is the key word of our life. Whatever we like and whomever we love, we wish to possess for-ever. It is written in our genes, in our blood, in our instincts that we want to live for-ever. We feel in our bones that we have been created for eternity. That is why the pharaohs built their pyra-mids, why the painter paints his pictures, why the poet writes his poems, and why parents want to have children and grandchildren--all these in order to leave some-thing, some part of themselves, behind in this world after they die. We know that we have been created for eternity because we know from the Bible that we have been created in the image of God. That is why we want to live forever, why we find death an absurdity. We ask God defiantly, "If you created us to share in your hap-piness, why did you not create us immortal?" If we cannot live and love forever, why live and love at all? Freedom and Obedience Well, man and woman had originally been created immortal, but also free, just as God is free. In giving 70.1 2011 Leloczky ¯ Looking at Deatb from a Christian Perspective human beings freedom, God gambled--took a tremen-dously great risk---and lost, because man and woman miserably misused their freedom. God lost, and when God lost, we all lost; we lost our immortality, and there-fore we all have to die. Absurdity entered our world. But God is a stubborn God who did not give up but continued to gamble and took an even greater risk by sending the Son on earth as a man. This Son, unlike Adam, was obedient, and he was sent to restore what Adam had squandered by disobedience. But God lost again. When this Son of God was made human in Jesus of Nazareth, his fellow human beings rejected him, condemned him to death, and killed him. The Son was obedient unto death, and being obedient he shared the plight of human life to its very depths: he suffered torture and died on the cross. The worst case scenario became a reality: evil, rebellion, and disobedience tri-umphed over God's goodness, and God's loving plan was seemingly frustrated for good. But enter God's wisdom and almighty power, which out of the worst can make the best. Jesus solemnly declared to Martha just before he raised Lazarus, her brother, from the dead: "I am the resurrection and the life" (Jn 11:25). This Son, the man Jesus Christ, was Life itself, with God's own eternal Life that death could never overpower or defeat dwell-ing within him. This Life proved to be stronger than death and thus ultimately defeated death: on the third day Jesus rose from the dead; he won over death, and his resurrection became the death of death itself. The result of this victory was that the death and resurrection of the one who is Life changed the character and mean-ing of death forever. What used to be the sign of final annihilation became for the friends of Jesus the sign of a new, eternal life: the sign of resurrection. Review for Religious One Life When a person receives Christ's risen life through faith and baptism, as far as that person is concerned, order returns in the world, absurdity is expelled, and death takes on a positive meaning. Formerly, death was a tragic end; now it is the source of new life. Jesus is the seed of this new life, and the seed of new life is planted into us by baptism. We carry the new, eternal life hidden in our fragile bodies. We still have to die. However death no longer means the end of life but the breaking out of eternal life (till now hidden in us by the limitations of our mortal bodies) into eternal dimensions. In an ancient prayer the church is expressing what happens when we die: "Lord, for your faithful people life is changed, not ended." In death we just leave behind all weakness and sickness, all imperfection and decay, and we look forward to a glori-ous, jubilant, eternal life in which all tears will be wiped away. A glory is waiting for us that eye has not seen, ear has not heard, and no mind is able to imagine. Life is one and indivisible; it cannot be separated into a life here on earth and another life after death. Human life, as redeemed by Jesus Christ, is like a tree that keeps growing and growing, and when it cannot grow any further on earth, it breaks through the sky, grows into heaven, and continues growing there. Death is no longer a horrifying enemy or a stumbling block but our ally, a stepping stone toward God, or, as St. Francis of Assisi joyfully called it, "Sister Death." Life is one and indivisible; it cannot be separated into a life here on earth and another life after death. 70.1 2011 Leloczky ¯ Looking at Death from a Christian Perspective One Love Not only is life one and indivisible; so also is love. We read in the Song of Songs that "Love is strong as death" (8:6). Saint Paul writes to the Corinthians, "Love never ends . Faith, hope, and love remain, these three, but the greatest of these is love" (1 Co 13:8-13). Just as the soul is immortal, just as the body, at the end of time, will rise to eternal life, so also the love which a person had in earthly life will live on and continue to grow even after death. Our departed loved ones take their love, with all the other beauty and wealth of their personalities, with them into eternity. I think our risen bodies, with all their skills and talents, will look and act as they looked and acted at the peak of our lives--but without any brokenness--at the point when they reached the epitome of life, before they started the decline into old age. In addition, they will become more beautiful and more precious than they ever were in earthly life because they will be freed from all traces of selfishness. As we think of our friends and relatives who died, we should think of them with the awareness that this wealth of their personalities is with them even now, and if it is with them it is also with us. As long as we are alive on earth, our lives are "unfinished symphonies." When we die, our lives become completed masterpieces on which God puts the divine finishing touch. We should value greatly as our own treasure--hidden for eternity in heaven--the masterpieces of those we love who have gone before us. Preparing for Death We should look also at our own lives from the per-spective of death, and we should ask ourselves from time to time, Am I really working on the masterpiece I am Review for Religious supposed to become? Am I living my days in such a way that my words and deeds and thoughts keep building up in me that temple of the Holy Trinity that God meant me to become? Yes, we realize that most of the work is being done by God, but we should not forget that our cooperation is essential. With a simple metaphor we might say that God provides the building blocks for this temple but our free decisions are the mortar that holds the structure together. It is said that we will die in the way we live. Are my actions, my words, and my thoughts such that they are preparing for me a peace-ful death? In keeping with the above image of life as a tree, is my life growing toward heaven or in a different direction--or, maybe, not growing at all? A Question I frequently hold this question in mind: is there any reason why we could not communicate with our loved ones who have died? I don't think so; if we can ask any of the saints for their intercession, we should be able to be in touch also with our deceased friends and loved ones. I am sure that our loving ghoughts passing from here to there can reach them, more reliably than our call can reach someone through the telephone. Those in heaven and on earth are connected in a loving union by the grace of God, by the presence of God's trinitarian life in all of us. Our departed loved ones are not living light years away from us: they are near us, with us, right next to us. Only hell, the condition of total frozen isola-tion and loneliness, is separated from us. Outside of that state all people are united, in union with each other in God in love, just as the Abbess reflects in the last few words of Thornton Wilder's novel The Bridge of San Luis Re),: "There is a land of the living and a land of the dead 70.1 2011 Leloczky ¯ Looking at Death from a Christian Perspective and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only mean-ing." Or, as St. Paul puts it even more succinctly, "Love never ends" (1 Co 13:8). Note ' John Dominic Crossan, The Dark Interval: Towards a Theology of Sto~y (Polebridge Press, 1988), p. 28. Ask the Birds (Job 12:7) A flock of sparrows speckles the blue-gray sky swooping as one over the November park, slate silhouettes navigating the air with precision. Nuns used to look like this: dark habited, veils streaming in the wind, clustered freely within invisible enclosures. Some inner rule draws the birds to the barren branches of the tallest tree in the straight rank of elms waving to the lake. Despite their gentle bones, the birds' combined weight slows the sway. Stillness. They come each day for prayer or discernment, perched like transient blossoms crowning the tree's skyward arteries. This daily practice suggests permanence, yet I marvel that multiple revisions cast shadows on their family tree: life-sustaining changes in size, shape, speed, and song. I watch their aura of stability and belonging knowing from experience they'll soon be gone. For a few moments, though, their presence comforts me. Then, self-dismissed, the group leaves as it came, a compact community ascending gracefully into unknown and unfeared futures. Terri MacKenzie SHCJ Review for Religious j. THOMAS HAMEL Spiritual Direction 101 ~Ehxerecnis Iegs naantdi,u fso rw eaxsa mcopmlep, goasvine gin tshtreu Sctpioirnist utoal Consider the office of consoling which Christ Our Lord bears and to compare how friends are accus-tomed to console friends (224),~ is it possible that he was still experiencing that kind of consolation? Every now and then, if I should jot down a note in my diary, I can still feel the experience as I record it. The very same re-experiencing, I believe, takes place in speaking as it does in writing, and that fact has led to the ministry of spiritual direction. Thus the prayer experience of a directee is not necessarily wholly taken in until spoken to the sl~iritual director. At this point, the conversation 'takes. on. the complexion of praying. I should add, however, that in all my years of giving direction I have never begun a meeting with formal prayer. My principal reason for this is the fear of presenting myself as an authority figure. Instead, the Father J. Thomas Hamel sJ wrote for us in 2010 in our 69.1 issue. His address remains College of the Holy Cross; 1 College Street; Worcester, Massachusetts 01610. 70.1 2011 Hamel ¯ Spiritual Direction I01 68 simple courtesies of welcome and personal concern are not only appropriate but also serve to prepare the way for contemplative exchange. Ignatius speaks of the one who gives the Exercises and the one who receives the Exercises (Annotation 1). The same roles are present in the ministry of spiritual direction, except that the giving and receiving become a dual ministry. Over time, a directee actually begins to minister to the director by the Way she presents her narrative. Sharing the experience of God is a gift to the director, whose own ministry of giving invited the directee to explore her experience in the first place. In desiring to see what the directee sees, to hear what the directee hears, and to notice what the directee notices, a contemplative director is being a good teacher. By contrast, when not contemplating, a director is merely gathering information, which often results in the direc-tor's primary focus being on the directee rather than on what God is doing. The seed scattered on the ground and beginning to sprout, while no one knows exactly how (Mt 4:27), is an apt metaphor for spiritual direction as it gets underway. The image of the sprouting seed captures what God is doing in both the director and directee. In this spiritual climate, choices begin to blossom. Witnessing a directee coming to reflect in a new way is like being with God in slow motion. A director, not wanting to rush ahead, might nevertheless, if nudged by God, say something he has never said before--and say it with confidence. In a direction session, things do happen for the first time, both for the one giving and for the one receiving direc-tion. For example, the directee may say, Last week in prayer I said to God "I love you." The words just came out of me from my toes to the top Review for Religious of my head. I am fifty years old. This is the first time in all my fifty years I could say that to God. It just poured out of me. I can scarcely believe I said it, but I did, and I meant every word. A first-time experience is wrapped in wonder, creat-ing new inner space. In saying to God "I love you," the directee was newly finding himself lovable. That may account for wanting to share the experience with the spiritual director. When a directee finds a home in Scripture, the door of the imagination opens wide to the director. The sim-ple key to remaining in a gospel scene is to get involved as if we were present -- (114). That involvement is part of being contem-plative. Moreover, just imagine what a directee is feeling when taking time to think of what to say to the Blessed Trinity or to the Eternal Word Incarnate or to our - - Mother and Lady (109). Imagine what a director is feeling when the deepening relationship with Jesus more and more becomes the major narrative of the directee or when moments of silence become moments of prayer. It is normal for a director to refer to an experience of God brought to a previous meeting with the directee. The Prayer of Rememberance These silent interludes are capable of suggesting a particular form of prayer. For example, it is normal for a director to refer to an experience of God brought to a previous meeting with the directee. In addition, the memory of what happened six months ago may be brought into the present conversation. Looking back 70.1 2011 Hamel ¯ Spiritual Direction I01 on the retreat made last year could affect the outcome of moments of quiet during direction. Such memories turn into a prayer of remembrance, especially when the relationship with Christ, his personal attraction, and his challenge are the focal point of the dialogue. Gathering up the leftovers of the past which feed the present is one way we carry out Jesus' everlasting desire that we "do this in remembrance of me" (Lk 22:19). The prayer of remembrance is to have the mind and heart of Christ by taking up the cup and eating the bread of ongoing prayer, of daily life itself, and the cup and bread of spiritual direc-tion. Essential to this prayer is the flexibility to adapt, to be open to what comes up in a spiritual direction session, so that the seed of a new moment may not fall by the wayside without taking root but may be brought to good soil that touches the soul and sprouts afresh. The operative word, of course, is contemplation as in contemplatio--Contemplatio ad amorem--the Contemplation to Keep on Loving (230). This prayer of morning, noon, and evening in everyday life brings to memory the ben-efits received--of my creation, redemption, and partic-ular gifts (234). One might easily name as among the benefits the particular gifts that come in the process of spiritual direction itself: trust, supervision, discernment, spiritual insight, self-knowledge, and the sense of security generated by the clear boundaries between director and directee. Each gift is like a parable that reveals a par-ticular place where God dwells. "See how God dwells in creatures likewise making a temple of me, being created to the image and likeness of His Divine Majesty" (235). The temple is no longer a place, but a person to be con-templated. In the ministry of giving spiritual direction, the spiritual director may grow aware of imitating Jesus, who has truly been contemplating the directee. This Review for Religious might be a new experience for the director as well as for the one receiving direction¯ Being looked at is one thing; being contemplated is noticeably different and reassur-ing. How much the deed of love is shown in contemplat-ing the other! At one time that love expresses itself as an exuberance of joy and gladness, while on other occa-sions it shows itself -- as the urge to labor and work: "consider how God works and labors for me ¯ . ." (236). It is no wonder that spiri-tual direction takes on a life of its own outside of meetings and in the psalms of everyday life. - . That life outside of spiritual direction may be as modest as noticing people reading the Bible on a sub-way and feeling connected with them. It may be coming across God's beauty at the sight of children feeding the swans and their cygnets in a local pond. The crowded streets of the city may bring to mind the picture of Jesus, who was surrounded by crowds of people but never lost sight of the poor among them. Conversations at home and at work may take on a kind of fragrance associ-ated with the conversations in spiritual direction. To put a gloss on St. Paul's "our citizenship is in heaven" (Ph 3:20), our eternal citizenship begins with our feet planted on the earth. That is the test of good spiritual direction. With both feet planted on the earth, Jesus covered a lot of territory in the towns, villages, and synagogues In the ministry of giving spiritual direction, the spiritual director may grow aware of imitating Jesus, who has truly been contemplating the directee. 71 70.1 2011 Hamel * Spiritual Direction I01 of Palestine. Ordinary people would hang on his every word as he spoke in the Temple area. Theologians like Nicodemus would seek his counsel at night. Children would run to him. He loved to tell stories, host picnics, do some fishing in all kinds of weather. Throughout his travels he gave new hope to the poor and marginal-ized. In all his comings and goings, Jesus was a light to old and young, enabling them to contemplate their own goodness, mercy, and faithfulness, thereby elicit-ing from them a response radiant with gratitude to the "bright morning star arising in their hearts" (2 P 1:19). In the light that was Jesus, new sights and sounds came to birth. A spoken word of his echoes Isaiah: And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it" (Is 30:21). An interior word, voiceless, reaches the heart. Like the dawn from on high, luminous as the sun and the brightness of rushing waters, the ministry of spiritual direction is a journey into the light of contemplative giving and receiving. Note I David L. Fleming, Draw Me Into Your Friendship: The Spiritual Exercises. A Literal Translation and a Contentporary Reading (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996), p. 168, n. 224. Hereafter I will refer to the Exercises by giving the paragraph number in parentheses 72 Review for Religious PHYLLIS ZAGANO Looking for Nuns, Finding Women Deacons The twin events of the Apostolic Visitation of Women Religious in the United States and the doctrinal investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious present an opportunity to revisit and reconsider the tra-dition of women deacons. While the Apostolic Visitation appears to be primarily involved with lifestyle and ministry, and the doctrinal investigation of LCWR is more inquisitorial in style, each in its own way points toward a reflexive institutional recognition of the place of women in diaconal ministry. The Apostolic Visitation, which moved from initial and unscripted general inquiry, through a detailed three-part questionnaire, to on-site visitations of approximately 25% of U.S. institutes of women religious, is widely Phyllis Zagano is a well-known authority on women in ministry and senior research associate-in-residence at Hofstra University; 104 Heger Hall; 115 Hofstra University; Hempstead, New York 11549. exploring religious life 73 70.1 2011 Zagano ¯ Looking for Nuns, Finding Women Deacons viewed as a corporate insult to the 59,000 or so U.S. women religious under scrutiny and to the local bishops responsible for overseeing them. The doctrinal investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious ballooned from a request for position statements on the matter of women priests, homosexuality, and the primacy of Christ in interreligious dialogue to a full review of publications and positions, directed by American Cardinal William J. Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Read positively, the subtext of the combined events can provide information about the re-evolution of wom-en's ministry, now through apostolic religious life for women, to the restored permanent diaconate, which is both historically and contemporaneously properly understood as a ministry of prayer and service. Understanding the Diaconate Deacons are ordained to a ministry of service, spe-cifically to the word, the liturgy, and charity. They are not "mini-priests," but clerics with a specific vocation to diaconal ministry. Their distinction from priests is clear in The Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 875: From [Christ], bishops and priests receive the mis-sion and faculty ("the sacred power") to act in per-sona Christi Capitis; deacons receive the strength to serve the people of God in the diaconia of the liturgy, word and charity, in communion with the bishop and his presbyterate. On 26 October 2009, Pope Benedict XVI issued a Motu proprio entitled Omnium in mentem, which codifies the distinction between priesthood and the diaconate as the distinction is articulated in the Catechism. As stipu- Review for Religious lated in the Motu proprio and now entered into law, dea-cons serve the people of God through the diaconia of the liturgy, the word, and charity. The clear distinction between the priest (who acts in the person of Christ, head of the church) and the deacon (who serves the people of God) both reflects arguments against the ordina-tion of women to the priesthood and deflects arguments against the ordination of women to the diaconate. The essential points raised against women priests are (1) the argument from authority--Jesus chose male apostles and (2) the iconic argu-ment- one must phys-ically represent Jesus. Of course, neither of these applies to the diaconate for several reasons. First, the Apostles, not Christ, are gener-ally understood to have created the diaconate (Ac 6:1-6). Second, the only person in Scripture specifically called "deacon" is Phoebe (Rm 16:1). Third, the deacon is ordained "not to the priesthood, but to the ministry." It is important to recognize both that the diaconate is not the priesthood and that diaconal service is a legitimate vocation for women. Apostolic Religious Life and the Diaconate It is important to recognize both that the diacon-ate is not the priesthood and that diaconal service is a legitimate vocation for women. Without entering into a determinative debate about the immediate possibility of restoring the female diaconate in the Western Church, we can review the twin investigations of women reli- 70.1 2011 Zagano ¯ Looking for Nuns, Finding Women Deacons 76 gious in light of the possibility of an increasingly evident vocation of women to apostolic ministry as deacons. The evolution of what has come to be termed "min-isterial religious life''1 in the United States has moved sufficient numbers of women away from monastery and cloister practices toward ministerial life inserted into the lives of the people, a way of life supported by com-mon life and sometimes,.but not always, lived in com-mon ministry. This ministerial life has many similarities to the ministerial life of the ordained deacon. The Apostolic Visitation's questionnaire is divided into several sections: Identity, Governance, Membership, Spiritual Life, Common Life, Mission & Ministry, and Finances. If each section is considered in the light of apostolic women religious doing the diaconal work of the church--now as unordained lay ministers--we can easily intuit the divergent directions taken by the Visitation and a given institute guided by the Spirit to address the needs of the times. If there indeed is an emerging femi-nine vocation to the diaconate, then perhaps some apos-tolic women religious are demonstrating it. Vatican documents provided by the Visitation team present an investigation into what has come to be under-stood as traditional apostolic religious life, and the over-all attitude of the event itself seems to call for a return to common habit, horaria, mission, and ministry. Indeed, recent statistics gathered by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate demonstrate that the larger numbers of new vocations to religious life are to insti-tutes that demonstrate such commonality.2 The com-mon- if unstated--criticism of other institutes (those not living according to more traditional expectations) is that they would have more new vocations if they would return to a traditional religious life. But those new voca- Review for Religion, s tions would then be looking for a religious life that is more monastic or cloistered. They would not fit among the evolving charisms of the institutes without common horaria or habit, whose members have moved toward independent and/or less traditional ministries while retaining the public identity of their mem-bership in an institute of consecrated life. The choice appears to be between an institute adopting or retaining common habit, horaria, mission, and ministry, or dying out. Such presents a classic either-or fallacy. The criti-cism ignores the possibility of new life and rebirth into something new. That is, the choice is not between tradi-tional religious life and nothing but between traditional religious life and a new thing. There is no dearth of young women who wish to ded-icate their lives to ministry. Religious life is not identical to lay ecclesial ministry, and such criticism overlooks the fact of increasing numbers of lay ecclesial ministers (some statistics point to 35,000 in the United States today) and, especially, the large number of young women entering lay ecclesial ministry. Neither is religious life the diacon-ate, but such criticism also overlooks the large number of ordained deacons (approximately 36,000 worldwide, with more than 16,000 in the United States). Is it possible that the vocations to apostolic religious life are being overtaken by newer vocations, specifically, to lay ecclesial ministry (being lived out by those married, single, and in religious life) as well as by the vocation to the ordained There is no dearth of young women who wish to dedicate their lives to ministry. 77 70.1 2011 Zagano * Looking for Nuns, Finding Women Deacons diaconate (now being lived out by those married, and by both secular and religious celibates)? Is it possible that the young women who once might have entered many of the now fading institutes of religious life are choos-ing lives more akin to those of secular--or religious--lay ecclesial ministers or deacons? Apostolic Religious and the Diaconal Ministry To assess the possible findings of Rome's twin investigations, it is well to look at the severest critics of contemporary U.S. women's religious life, including journalist Ann Carey, whose 1997 Our Sunday Visitor book, Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of VVomen's Religious Communities, connects abandonment of the habit with what she terms "the deconstruction of min-istry." Carey presents at least one modern case study that pits a religious community of women against the local hierarchy. That case study, the story of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in California, is remi-niscent of medieval tugs-of-war between bishops and abbesses over control, not only of the conventual living arrangements of the women, but of their properties and very status as well. The eleventh century saw the initia-tion of the Gregorian Reform, which eventuated in the elevation of the clergy and concurrent diminution of women, including and especially women religious. That thousand-year split between what can be viewed, at least in retrospect, as the "men's church" and the "women's church" echoes throughout Carey's book, which at every turn criticizes the move of women religious away from common habit, horaria, mission, and ministry. Carey's book, however, speaks only to what she per-ceives as a movement away from, without any consider-ation of what the institutes of women religious moved Review for Religious toward as they modernized habits and horaria. Neither she, nor others of the deepest critics of contemporary apostolic religious life for women in the United States, note that the changes were and are specifically in the service of mission and ministry. Granted, missions may have been redefined and broadened, along with minis-tries, but

Issue 70.4 of the Review for Religious, 2011. ; Unique Approaches Building Community Focus on Joseph Potpourri quarterly 70.4 2011 Review for Religious fosters dialogue with God, dialogue with ourselves, and dialogue with one another about the holiness we try to live according to charisms of Catholic religious life. As Pope Paul Vl said, our way of being church is today the way of dialogue. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 PHONE: 314-633o4610 ¯ FAX: 314-633-4611 EMAIL: reviewrfr@gmail.com ¯WEBSITE: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious o P.O. Box 6070 ° Duluth, MN 55806. PHONE: 877-467-8687 ¯ FAX: 218-740-6437 ¯ EMAIL: fulfill@superfill.co~n Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. ©2011 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal 6r internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribution, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. ~ gournal of Catholic Spirirualit)j Celebrating 70 Years Editor Associate Editor Book Review Editor Scripture Scope Editorial Staff Michael G. Harter SJ Garth L. Hallett SJ RosemaryJermann Eugene Hensell OSB Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm .Judy Sharp Advisory Board Paul Coutinho SJ Martin Erspamer OSB Margaret Guider OSF Kathleen Hughes RSCJ Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD QUARTERLY 70.4 2011 contents 340 prisms Prisms 342 364 .377 unique approaches A Tale of Two Scandals: Cornelia Connelly as Nouvelle H~loi'se Barbara Newman tells the remarkably similar stories of two married women who lived six centuries apart, became nuns and then abbesses only through the instigation of their husbands, suffered considerably, and faced numerous canonical difficulties in the founding of their orders. building community The Hum of Being: " Spirituality for Leadership Beatrice M. Eichten OSF describes the ministry of community leadership as a pilgrimage and explores the various spiritual realizations that flow from it--such as the openness to Spirit that comes through moments of emptiness and detachment, and the gifts of loving and being loved. Architecture and Religious Life Thomas A. Krosnicki SVD discusses the impact that the architectural design of buildings--in particular community residences--can have to the benefit of religious life and those they touch by their life and ministry. Review for Religious 386 404 408 .422 426 focus on Joseph Be Saints: Pathway to a Holy Life Joel Giallanza CSC gathers wisdom from St. Andr~ Bessette, whose name is forever linked to that of St. Joseph because of their obvious similarities. Both were simple laborers through whom God chose to do extraordinary things; both knew poverty and suffering; both experienced exile. Above all, both point out a pathway to holiness because they remained faithful to whatever God asked of them. St. Joseph in Focus: Husband of Mary and Guardian of Jesus John M. Samaha SM reminds us why we honor St. Joseph by giving us a simple portrait of the quiet, often overlooked member of the Holy Family. potpourri Lighting Our Modern Spirit: Pope John Paul II's Luminous Mysteries Carey Ellen Walsh explores the theology and the spiritual gift of John Paul II's meditation on the rosary in his apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae. She focuses on how one of John Paul II's most intimate reflections tends to the hunger in our souls. Multiple Sclerosis: A Gift Marian D. Frantz IHM reflects on how she has coped with multiple sclerosis and, in spite of the physical challenges and fears that accompany it, has come to understand it as a gift. Cremation: A Path to Protect Mother Earth Brian Jordan OFM calls us to rethink our attitudes and practices about how we remember our loved ones through burial or cremation and to develop an attitude of reverence for "Holy Mother Earth" in the process. departments 433 Scripture Scope: The Bible and the Liturgy 438 Book Reviews 444 Indexes 70.4 2011 prisms Erone intense week at the end of the summer, the population of Madrid swelled by more than one million souls. Crowds of young men and women came with the devotion of pil-grims; they participated in workshops and service projects; they baked in the heat, endured a rain-soaked and windswept prayer vigil, and coped with the chaos resulting from poor organization. They sang and prayed together, and blogged about their experiences all over the Internet. Such enthusiasm. Such energy. It all brought back memories of an earlier World Youth Day when I accompanied a group of Jesuit novices to Toronto in 2002. We, too, gath-ered with hopes and dreams, coped with crowds and long waits for something to eat. We, too, spent a restless night on the hard ground soaked through by a cold rain waiting for the final Mass celebrated by the pope. Drenched to the bone, I kept asking myself "What am I doing here?" But the enthusiastic singing of the young people drowned out the question. But I must be realistic. M}- perspective is not that of a young pilgrim. I just sent out invitations for a celebration of my golden Jubilee as a Jesuit. My novitiate classmates and others celebrating Review for Religious anniversaries of entrance and ordination (25, 50, 60, and 70 years of presence and service) are planning on celebrat-ing because we have much to celebrate. We have worked and taught, and borne the heat of the day in many different contexts. But as I look back on 50 years of religious life, I must admit that I have asked more than once "What am I doing here?" Sometimes the question arises because I feel too insignificant to make a difference. More often the ques-tion arises from a sense of wonder and awe about the ways God has chosen to work through me. My choice to enter religious life was well intentioned, but made with total naivet& The ministry for which I pre-pared myself (teaching high school) never materialized. The skills I learned in the process, however, equipped me to serve as an administrator, a forinator, and an editor. Through the years and with much prayer, I have tried to make myself available to be sent where I can best be used. I am privileged once again to live with our young men in formation. Their energy can wear me out, but their enthusiasm is contagious. They show that the church is ever young, ever new, always ready to grow in experience and wisdom. The seeds of faith are sprouting anew in many places. And in other pl~ces fields that have been harvested any number of times still produce with God's grace. The young pilgrims have now returned home from Madrid and are back in school or settling into their regular routines. But the memories and graces they carry with them will make their lives anything but routine. And as those of us further along the age continuum continue our trust walk with the One who has always accompanied us, we take to heart the prayer with which Benedict sent forth the young people from Madrid: "May no adversity paralyze you. Be afraid neither of the world, nor of the future, nor of your weakness." 341 Michael G. Harter SJ 70.4 2011 BARBARA NEWMAN A Tale of Two Scandals: Cornelia Connelly as Nouvelle Hdlo~se unique approaches 342 This is a tale of two scandals. It is a story of two women who courageously defied con-vention, yet submitted tragically and without reserve to the men they loved. It is a story of two ambitious and charismatic men, whose meteoric rise in the church was surpassed only by the suddenness of their fall. It is a story of two priests married to nuns--and not only nuns, but the founders of congregations-- who remained indelibly married in the public eye. From Romanesque France to Victorian England, so much had changed yet so much remained the same, especially where female subordination was concerned. So, finally, this is a story about the longue durde in Catholic attitudes to marriage, gender, and women's religious life. Barbara Newman is professor of English, Religion, and Classics at Northwestern University. Her address is Northwestern University; University Hall 215; 1897 Sheridan Rd.; Evanston, IL 60208. Reviev2 for Religious My first, more familiar narrative concerns a Frenchwoman born around 1100. Heloise, of high though illegitimate birth, received a superb educa-tion at the convent of Argenteuil. Raised by her uncle Fulbert, she was granted the rare privilege of private lessons with a famous philosopher, Peter Abelard, who was teaching in Paris. We all know what happened next: Abelard and his pupil fell in love. Their steamy affair ended in Heloise's pregnancy, Fulbert's horrified rage, a clandestine marriage, Heloise's rash denial of the union, and Abelard's castration at the hands of Fulbert's hit men. Given the fame of both lovers, the end of their :affair was a cause cglkbre. Finding the pity of his stu-dents even harder to bear than the scorn of his ene-mies, Abelard became a monk at Saint-Denis, though not before compelling a reluctant but obedient Heloise to take the veil at Argenteuil. Their son Astralabe was left with Abelard's sister on a farm in Brittany.~ But the lovers' conversion to religious life fueled more scandals. Abelard, who did not suffer fools gladly, had a gift for making enemies. At Saint-Denis, his 'historical research threatened to deconstruct the monks' patron saint, who also happened to be the patron of the French monarchy. This controversy led to cries of treason and landed Abelard in such trouble that he had to flee by night. Next he ~tried the vocation of hermit, :for which he was totally ufisuited, and soon wound up teaching again at a new foundation he called the Paraclete. Here too he got in trouble, partly because his ever-vigilant enemies objected to his oratory's dedication. In .the meantime, Abelard was charged with heresy at the Council of Soissons and forced in 1121 to burn his book on the Trinity with his own hands. Eventually he managed to be named abbot of the backwater monastery of Saint- 70.4 2011 Newman ¯ A Tale of Two Scandals 344 Gildas, in his native Brittany, but fared no better there. By his own account, his monks tried to kill him with a poisoned chalice. Heloise too was dogged by scandal. Despite her past, she was elected prioress of Argenteuil. But in 1129 the powerful Suger--abbot of Saint-Denis and no friend to Abelard--had Heloise and her nuns evicted on charges of immorality. These charges may or may not have car-ried a grain of truth. It is possible that Heloise's regime was lax, though it is certain that Suger had his eye on the nuns' property; and he mobilized the king, the bish-ops, and the papal legate to enforce his takeover.2 At this juncture Abelard reentered the picture, offering the nuns his now-vacant oratory of the Paraclete. Gossip contin-ued to buzz: if Abelard visited, detractors claimed that he could not live without his mistress, while if he stayed away, they charged that he had abandoned his wife. A few years later, when he published his autobiography, Heloise responded with impassioned fury, lambasting his neglect at the same time that she avowed her undimin-ished desire. But despite the stormy beginning of their correspondence, the two eventually made peace. Abelard endorsed Heloise's teaching role and warmly praised her learning. At her request he wrote numerous works for her nuns.3 Not least, he authored a rule for the Paraclete, although it seems not to have been observed and signifi-cantly contradicts Heloise's own rule--a point' to which I shall return. When Abelard was again condemned for heresy in 1140, by an even more blatantly rigged council, it was Heloise who secured proof of his absolution and arranged for his burial, soon afterward, at the Paraclete. Surviving him by twenty years, she was.buried at his side. My second narrative belongs to the nineteenth cen-tury. Cornelia Peacock, born to an elite Philadelphia family in 1809, lost her parents in childhood.4 Raised by an aunt who gave her a superb private education, at 22 she married a clergyman, Pierce Connelly. The Connellys moved in 1831 to Natchez, Mississippi, where Pierce had been named rector of an Episcopal parish. At the birth of their son Mercer, his godfather gave Cornelia a slave as a christening present.5 Though Pierce was well-liked in his parish, the honeymoon did not last. Caught up in a wave of anti-Catholic senti-ment sweeping the nation, he decided to resist it and better inform himself, with the surprising result that he felt called to convert. Cornelia, though shocked at first, loyally followed. As she wrote to her sister, "against my prejudices and in spite of the horrors which I have always nurtured for the Catholic faith, I am ready at once to submit to whatever my loved husband believes to be the path of duty.''6 In fact, after Pierce resigned his parish and delivered his farewell sermon, Cornelia was the first to be received as a Roman Catholic. Pierce waited to make his abjuration in Rome itself, on Palm Sunday 1836, with pomp and ceremony. The Connellys soon became the darlings of the British recusant aris-tocracy in Rome, where they remained until a finan-cial crisis forced them to return home and look for work. Pierce found a teaching post at a Jesuit school in Louisiana; Cornelia joined him as a music teacher. By now the couple had four children, but one daughter died in infancy and their two-year-old son met with a tragic accident. Fearing that her happiness was too great, the devout Cornelia had asked God to demand some sacrifice of her. Only a day later the little boy, playing with the dog, tumbled into a vat of boiling syrup.7 After two days and nights of agony, he died in his mother's arms. 70.4 2011 Newman ¯ A Tale of Two Scandals But this was only the first of Cornelia's sorrows. Soon afterward, while she was pregnant with their fifth and last child, Pierce announced that he had discerned a call to the Catholic priesthood. This time Cornelia did resist, but as soon as she realized how serious her husband was, she released him, which entailed her own consent to a monastic vocation. Returning to Rome, the couple had a private audience with Pope Gregory xvI, and Pierce was ordained with surprising speed in 1845. As for Cornelia, she became a postulant at the Sacred Heart convent of Trinit~ dei Monti, bringing her two youngest children with her. But she was not destined to take vows there. In 1846 Bishop Nicholas Wiseman, soon to become Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, called Cornelia to England, where he wished her to found an order of nuns to educate English Catholic girls. Thus, before the end of her novitiate, the 3 7-year-old Cornelia Connelly, American wife and mother of three, became--not of her own accord, but by the deci-sions of her husband and her bishop--the first English monastic foundress in two hundred years. At this point the Connelly saga becomes so tumultu-ous that I can give only the barest summary. Cornelia's Society of the Holy Child Jesus (SHCJ) suffered more than its share of growing pains--lack of resources, litigation over property, internal discord, hostile chap-lains, and increasing strain between Cornelia and her superior, Cardinal Wiseman. These troubles were compounded by the "no Popery" agitation of a ,public deeply-fearful of Catholic emancipation. Mat Cornelia had least expected, however, was Pierce's rapid disil-lusionment with his new faith. Unsuccessftil in his bids for advancement in the church, ihe missed his wife and resented Wiseman's ban :on conjugal visits. So the frus- Review for Religious trated Pierce made two hostile, if contradictory, moves in quick succession. First, he wrote a spurious rule for Cornelia's order, which he circulated in Rome without her knowledge. Second, he pulled the children out of their schools and took 'them to Italy as hostages, with a new demand that Cornelia renounce her vows and return to him. Heartbroken but determined, she refused. The apostate Pierce thereupon sued his former wife in the Court of Arches for restitu-tion of his conjugal rights.8 The case of Connelly v. Connelly dragged on from 1849 to 1851, much to the glee of journalists.9 In 1850 a judge ruled in Pierce's favor, declaring that a papal~decree of separation had no force in England and leaving Cornelia to face imprisonment or a . forced return to her husband. While appealing to the Privy Council, she kept a suit of secular clothes in her cell at all times in case she had to flee the realm. Pierce meanwhile scandalized British Catholics with his apos-tasy, even seeking refuge for a time with the fanati-cally anti-Catholic Henry Drummond, a wealthy peer who led an apocalyptic sect. Eventually he returned to Italy, where he spent the rest of his life writing anti- Catholic tracts and serving as an Episcopal minister in Florence. Cornelia won her appeal on a technicality, but she never saw her eldest son again, for Mercer died at twenty of yellow fever. The younger children, Before~ the end of her novitiate, Cornelia Connelly, American wife and mother of three, became the first English monastic foundress in two hundred years. 347 70.4 2011 Newman ¯ A Tale of Two Scandal~ Adeline and Frank, remained with their father in Italy. He managed to estrange them permanently from their mother, returning her letters unopened. But in spite of all this, the Society of the Holy Child Jesus flour-ished. At Cornelia's death in 1879 it had six convents and schools in England, three in America, and one in France.~° Amazingly, Cornelia Connelly's case for saint-hood was opened in 1959, and in 1992 she was declared Venerable--the first step toward canonization. The Positio or formal presentation of her case is the first in history to be written by a woman.~ Since no one has ever proposed Heloise for saint-hood, except in the cult of romantic love, why do I call Cornelia Connelly a nouvelle Hgloi'se? I suggest this com-parison to probe more deeply into the case of a woman who filled the roles of wife, mother, nun, and abbess, not in succession but in conflict. Legions of women have become religiously active in widowhood, but few if any have faced down so public a scandal caused by living husbands, while simultaneously trying to establish their monastic authority. In the rest of this article, I will compare Cornelia's struggles with Heloise's apropos of three issues: sexuality, motherhood, and the authority of an abbess. In the France of the trouvOres, one could speak of sex more freely than in Queen Victoria's Britain, but Heloise would have been scandalous in any age. To dis-suade Abelard from their ill-starred marriage, she made a case for free love, claiming that .she would rather be called his mistress'(arnica) than his wife--and even if Augustus, ruler of the world, had asked her to be his empress, she would prefer to be Abelard's whore (scortum)--a word she chose deliberately for its shock value.~2 In Heloise's eyes, the true prostitute was the Review for Religious respectable wife who married not for love, but for security and money. As if these ideas were not scandal-ous enough, after ten years as a nun she confessed that she still felt sexual yearnings, even during Mass, and declared that she could never forgive God for Abelard's castration.13 This was no mere private avowal, but a rhe-torical performance before an imagined if not actual public. Medieval letters were never truly "private," and contemporary documents show that Heloise's arguments were well known in French clerical circles.14 Romantics (including my younger self) have often been dismayed with Abelard for refusing to respond in kind.15 But how could he? Neither his castration nor the couple's vows were reversible, so Heloise had either to find a way of coping or face a lifetime of misery, ending in her damnation. Abelard thus faced the.unenviable task of cajoling her to love Christ, her new Bridegroom, in his stead. If his tactics seem ham-fisted to our age, in his own they were supremely pragmatic. When Heloise said that she would gladly follow Abelard to hell; that her "heart was never my own, but was always with you"; that in every decision she had sought to please him, rather than God--it was not from marital duty that she spoke.16 A self-consciously clas-sical lover, she even took the nun's veil with the cry of a pagan heroine on her lips.17 In Cornelia Connelly we see nothing of the. sort. If she too ended by trans-gressing her culture's cherished feminine ideals, it was not by her choice. Yet in displaying obedience to her beloved, she vied with Heloise. To please Pierce, she braved her family's disapproval; left home for the dis-tant, culturally alien South; abjured her Protestant faith (a drastic step in the 1830s); accepted a life of exile; and finally made the supreme sacrifice of her marriage itself, 349 70.4 2011 Newman ¯ A Tale of Two Scandals Where Heloise saw ,oppositiOn-; Cornelia saw con]'un ction:, L, vowing perpetual chastity so that Pierce could be ordained. But where Heloise saw opposition--she could obey either God's will or Abelard's, but not both-- Cornelia saw conjunction. As a dutiful Victorian wife, she followed the principle of Milton's Eve: "he for God only, she for God in him." In the end, Cornelia became a far more committed Catholic than the vain and shallow Pierce. Yet she would never have become one at all with, out the conviction that God was guiding her through her husband's will. As she wrote to her sister at the time, Pierce was "all that is estimable and far above what your sister ever deserved or looked for in her husband. It is not for me to praise him, but daily do I thank God for having so blessed me.''18 In entering religious life, both women faced the extraordinary challenge of renouncing their husbands' love at their husbands' bidding. When Heloise pro-claimed her immortal longing, Abelard commanded her to desire him no more, but rather the God who had castrated him. Cornelia confronted the same demand, except that Pierce's self-castration in will alone did not last. So in the end, having fallen genuinely in love with Christ, she had to fight her ex-husband in court to preserve a separation she had never wanted in the first place. Interestingly, it was Heloise who fared better in the court of public opinion. Abelard's friends and even some of his enemies sympathized with her, while later humanists like Jean de Meun and Petrarch admired her eloquence and uncompromising idealism29 Review for Religious Cornelia, on the other hand, fell afoul of both Catholic and Protestant sentiment. The English Catholic hier-archy, impoverished and terribly vulnerable, resented the scandal and expense of "Connelly v. Connelly." As for the Protestant majority, it eagerly believed Pierce's lies and blamed Cornelia for destroying her family. Caught between two patriarchies, faced with incompat-ible demands from husband and bishop, she could win neither public vindication nor private comfort. Her anguish is clearest--and the historical distance greatest--with respect to motherhood. We do not know what it cost Heloise to leave the infant Astralabe in Brittany, but upper-class women of her day often had their children fostered elsewhere, and it was not unusual for widowed mothers to enter monasteries. Moreover, we have good evidence that Heloise never envisaged moth-erhood as a career path. Before her marriage, she had even proposed a novel, feminist version of the old argu-ment that a philosopher should not wed. As she put it, "what husband could ever concentrate on philosophy or scripture and still put up with babies howling. ? What wife could stand the endless mess of children?''2° Later, in her letters of complaint, she never mentions her son's absence among her sorrows. Her only reference to him comes in a letter written after Abelard's death, asking the abbot of Cluny to find the young man a prebend.21 We do not know for certain what became of Astralabe,22 nor did contemporaries care, for motherhood in the twelfth century was not an admired vocation. St. Jerome, often quoted by Abelard and Heloise, had zealously praised mothers who steeled themselves against their children's cries to "become virile" and serve God alone:23 Seven centuries later, wives were no less subordinate to husbands, but the ideal of motherhood had changed 70.4 2011 Newman ¯ A Tale of Two Scandals utterly. Hence nothing hurt Cornelia's reputation more than the belief, fostered by Pierce, that she had willfully abandoned her children. An anti-Catholic pamphlet in 1853 put it this way: "When Rome once depraves the heart, or bows the will, . . . the fountain of all natural affection has been, by priestly art, so dried up within her--as that she can forget her children whom she has borne, as well as the husband whom she has sworn, before God, to obey.''24 But Cornelia had never con-sented to Pierce's abduction of their children. As soon as she realized that he was using them to blackmail her, however, she swore a solemn vow: "In union with my crucified Lord and by His most precious blood, in ado-ration satisfaction thanksgiving and petition, I, Cornelia, vow to have no future intercourse with my children and their Father beyond what is for the greater Glory of God and His manifest will, known through my direc-tor.'' 2s A few letters to relatives reveal the agony this cost her. In 1854 she wrote to her brother that, initially, "my dear children were as much under my eyes as if I had not left the world till their father broke his word and his promises and stole them away from me. may God forgive him.''26 Four years later she lamented, "Poor dar-lings! I little thought of their having to suffer in this way, while I can do nothing to help them except by prayer."27 Under English law the children belonged to their father, so there was literally nothing Cornelia could do. In any case the church, in stark contrast with secular norms, still preserved its medieval legacy of valuing marital renunciation as the high road to perfection?8 The motif of the "maternal martyr" occurs so often in medieval hagiography that, if anyone had suggested sainthood for Heloise, her separation from Astralabe might actually have bolstered the case.29 Today, how- Review for Religious ever, the fate of the Connelly children poses a major obstacle to Cornelia's cause. It does not help that all three apostasized, though her daughter returned to the Catholic fold after both parents died. Cornelia's pro-moters., must therefore show that she bore the loss of her children as a cross, but--this is the key point--not a cho-sen cross.3° The postulator of her cause did try to revive the maternal martyr topos, citing Jeanne de Chantal as an exemplary saint who demonstrated "heroic virtue" by stepping over her son's protesting body as she departed for the cloister.3~ But most of Cornelia's advocates have shied away from this theme. Her biographers instead link her devotions to the Holy Child Jesus and to Mary, Mother of Sorrows, with her son's tragic death. This dimension of her spiritual life was incomparably deep-ened by the loss of her other children, though her work as a pioneer in girls' education compensated in some degree for the sadness of her own motherhood.32 Finally, I turn to the less sensational domain of reli-gious rules, which define a nun's mission and daily life, because both foundresses had to cope with problem-atic rules composed for them by their former husbands. Heloise had explicitly asked Abelard to create a rule, writing deferentially that "you, through God, are the planter of our congregation, and you, with God, should be the guide of our religious life.''33 Abelard complied, though the lengthy document he produced is an eclectic farrago of the Benedictine Rule, the desert fathers, pas-sages from Jerome, Augustine, and .Gregory the Great, and a few provisions specific to Heloise.34 Differences between this text and her own, more practical rule prolonged an old controversy over the authenticity of Heloise's letters.35 Some of the discrepancies concern fairly small matters, but the most important involve 70.4 2011 Newman * A Tale of Two Scandals lines of authority. On this subject the two rules cannot be reconciled.36 Abelard was profoundly conflicted about gender. Like every cleric of his age, he could toss off slight-ing remarks about the "weaker sex" and denounce abbesses who presumed to govern their nuns--or even monks--without male superiors. Yet in his treatise on the dignity of nuns, he pro-duced the most significant "pro-feminine" tract of the era.37 Some scholars have discerned a gradual con-version to feminism where others see only unresolved tension, but in any case, "~ Abelard's rule for Heloise is so ambivalent as to be unworkable.38 One reason is that he envisages a double community of monks and nuns, an arrangement that was common elsewhere but never established at the Paraclete. On the one hand, the whole community should have a male head or pro-vost, but on the other, both monks and nuns should profess obedience to the female head. Abelard calls her not "abbess" but "deaconess," an exotic early Christian term. He compares the deaconess to a queen and the provost to her steward, who fulfills his lady's will in all things--save that he "declines in what may do her harm.''39 It is hard to see how such an arrangement could have worked in practice. As for Heloise, she might have been happy enough with Abelard himself as her superior. But Abelard was still the abbot of Saint-Gildas, and if he should pre-decease her--which he did--the authority could revert Abelard's rule for Helbis e: is so ambivalent as to ,- be unworkable,, Reviww for Religious to her old enemy Suger.4° So in fact, the Paraclete had no provost. Heloise styled herself abbess, a more pres-tigious title than "deaconess," and exercised the nor-mal authority of that role. Given Abelard's peripatetic life, his reputation for heresy, and his disastrous failure at Saint-Gildas, the Paraclete undoubtedly flourished under her leadership as it could never have done under his. In fact, despite her unwilling entrance into religious life, Heloise proved highly successful as both monastic reformer and administrator. Before her death in 1163, six daughter houses had been founded or attached to the Paraclete, and its property holdings were vast.41 In addi-tion to glowing letters of praise from contemporaries, the popularity of the name "Heloise" in the next gen-eration testifies to the esteem in which she was held.42 Despite the troubles Abelard and Heloise faced in reinventing their relationship, both had a deep integ-rity. Abelard could be intransigent, but he did not lie, and Heloise's gift for placating superiors equaled his for antagonizing them. Thus she was able to attain the sup-port she needed from popes, bishops, lay patrons, and powerful abbots. Cornelia, to her cost, lacked these advantages. On the one hand, she had to endure Pierce's outright treachery, and on the other, a long series of conflicts marred her relations with hierarchs. Less than two years after she founded the first Holy Child convent at Derby, Pierce circulated a rule of his own composi-tion in Rome, prefaced by a claim that "the good Lord had long inspired in [him] the desire to found a little Congregation, with the help of a holy person well known to me and quite obedient (bien docile) to me.''43 But this was far from the case. When she learned of his act several months later, she sent off an indignant protest disavowing any changes he had made to her rule. Nevertheless, the 70.4 2011 Newman ¯ A Tale of Two Scandals spurious text created so much confusion that at Cornelia's death, her own rule was still not approved. A year later, Pierce was claiming that the Derby convent was "worse than . . . a brothel," hence his first duty was "to rescue my blessed wife from the hands of devils.''44 With a lethal combination of lawsuits, apostasy, anti-Catholic propa-ganda, and his fraudulent rule, Pierce had made it nearly impossible for Cornelia to succeed in the vocation to which his own choice had driven her. It did not help that she and Cardinal Wiseman had a falling-out. Concerned that the Connelly scandal was making the church a laughingstock, Wiseman felt a need for rest and proposed that one wing of Cornelia's new convent in Sussex be converted to a seaside residence for his own use. Fearful of yet more scandal, Cornelia said no, infuriating her old ally. Hence Wiseman refused to support her pleas in Rome, where the authorities stud-ied both Cornelia's and Pierce's rules for years without action, still not realizing why they differed. The English bishops meanwhile dragged their feet, refusing to let the Holy Child nuns hold a general chapter to elect superi-ors. Wiseman insisted that the subsidiary houses should be canonically separate, rather than subject to the mother house4S--a disempowering move that Heloise, in her day, had managed to resist. The final blow came in 1874 when Bishop Danell of Southwark, Cornelia's immediate supe-rior, presented the nuns with a third rule that he himself had written, imposing a hopelessly complex system of governance. Without warning, he insisted that they set their rule aside and observe his for a "trial period" of three years.46 At the end of this time they begged Danell to restore their old rule--beginning with the youngest nun, who declared, "My Lord, it seems to me that the new Rule has been drawn up to correct abuses which Review for Religious never existed, and it does not lead us to love and obey our Superiors.''47 All agreed except Cornelia, who remained stonily silent in humility--or despair. But Danell refused their plea and imposed another three-year trial period, at the end of which the foundress died, her life and work in a shambles. It was not until Pierce's death four years later that Cornelia's rule could again be considered in Rome. Ten years after that, in 1893, it was approved in its original, unaltered form.4s To conclude, then--was Cornelia Connelly a nouvelle Hdloise? The real Heloise, who so vividly imagined her-self as a tragic heroine, turns out to have led a less tragic life than Cornelia. Successful abbess though she was, no churchman could call Heloise a saint. Not only did she defend illicit love and confess to religious hypocrisy, but by the standards that count, she didn't suffer enough-- or at least, not for the right reasons. Though she por-trayed herself as a martyr of love, she recovered from a devastating crisis to be reconciled with her beloved, win the esteem and admiration of her peers, and leave a lasting monastic legacy. But Cornelia--or should I say, the Venerable Cornelia--attained martyrdom on three fronts. As I have shown, she perfecdy fulfilled the medieval type of the maternal martyr, suffering the loss of five children through no fault of her own--three to premature death and three to her husband's perfidy, if we count Mercer twice. We can also call her a "mar-tyr of marriage," like other medieval saints who suf-fered at the hands of brutish husbands. The Connellys might have lived happily ever after if they had remained Protestant--but Pierce's short-lived infatuation with the Catholic Church decreed otherwise. Having first prod-ded his wife toward conversion, he would soon become her relentless persecutor, goading her toward sainthood. 70.4 2011 Newman * A Tale of Two Scandals Finally, Cornelia can be seen as a martyr of the church itself, having suffered nearly as much at the hands of bishops as of her husband. Admittedly, I have had to sim-plify her long, complicated tale. A full and fair account would not gloss over the abrasive side of her character-- or the odd moments of silence where resistance might have been more apt. It would also dwell on the unique difficulties attending the restoration of Catholic reli-gious life in Protestant England.49 Nonetheless, it seems strange that the defiant Heloise won more clerical favor in the twelfth century than the submissive Cornelia in the nineteenth. For twenty-five years after her death, her name remained under a cloud even among her nuns, who felt that the Society's goals were best served by silenc-ing their founder's scandalous memory,s° Returning to the longue durge, however, persecution has shadowed the church's most celebrated reformers; I need only mention Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and Ignatius Loyola. If not a sine qua non for sainthood, it certainly helps. After all, Cornelia's long-suffering precursor in the sev-enteenth century, the Yorkshire foundress Mary Ward, was declared Venerable only a year ago. In each case, it remains to be seen if time, perseverance, and changing attitudes toward women will finally smooth the path from scandal to sanctity. Notes ~ These events are known to us from Abelard's autobiogra-phy, Historia calamitatum, and his subsequent exchange of let-ters with Heloise. I have cited these from the new translation by William Levitan, Abelard and Heloise: The Letters and Other Writings (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2007). ~ M.T. Clanchy, Abelard: A Medieval Life (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p. 152. 3 The treatise on the dignity of nuns is Abelard's "Sixth Letter" Review for Religious , in Levitan, pp. 127-69. For his hymns see Joseph Sz6v~rffy, ed., Peter Abelard's Hymnarius Paraclitensis, 2 vols. (Albany, NY: Classical Folia Editions, 1975); a few are translated in Levitan. The Problemata Heloissae (Heloise's questions on Scripture, with Abelard's replies) can be found in J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologia.Latina 178: 677-730, and his Expositio in Hexaemeron (a Genesis commentary) in PL 178: 731-84. For the sermons see Paola De Santis, ed., I sermoni di Abelardo per le monache del Paracleto (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002). 4 There are now eight biographies of Cornelia Connelly, all but one by members of her Society. I have used the only account by a laywoman: Juliana Wadham, The Case of Cornelia Connelly (New York: Pantheon, 1'957), and Radegunde Flaxman SHCJ, A Woman Styled Bold: The Life of Cornelia Connelly, 1809-1879 (London: Darton, Longrnan and Todd, 1991). I have also consulted an excellent biog-raphy of her husband by D. G. Paz, The Priesthoods and Apostasies of Pierce Connelly: A Study of Victorian Conversion and Anticatholicism (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1986). For a novelistic account see Sheila Kaye-Smith, Quartet in Heaven (New York: Harper & Bros., 1952), pp. 57-122. s Flaxman, A Woman Styled Bold, p. 18. 6 Cornelia Connelly to Adeline Duval, letter of 17 Oct. 1835, cited in Mother Ursula Blake et al., Positio: Documentary Study for the Canonization Process of the Servant of God Cornelia Connelly (nge Peacock), 1809-1879, 3 vols. (Rome: Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints, 1983), I: 79. 7 Flaxman, A Woman Styled BoM, pp. 72-73. 8 This was an ecclesiastical court that, until 1857, ruled on mat-rimonial cases under English canon law. Divorces granted by this court did not permit remarriage. Otherwise, the only way to obtain a divorce was by private Act of Parliament. Positio I: 330. 9 Brendan Larnen's play about the trial, Connelly vs. Connelly (New York: Blackfriars' Guild, 1961), was staged in New York and Los Angeles fifty years ago. See Kenneth L. Woodward, Making Saints: How the Catholic Church Determines Who Becomes a Saint, Who Doesn't, and Why (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), p. 267. 1o The Life of Cornelia Connelly, 1809-1879, Foundress of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, by A Religious of the Society [Mary Catherine Gompertz] (London: Longrnans, Green & Co., 1930), p. 257. As of 1952, at the height of the Catholic educational system, the Society had established four additional schools and convents in England (including Oxford and Harrogate), three in Ireland, one in Switzerland, one in Rome, six in Africa, and twenty-two in the 70.4 2011 Newman ¯ A Tale of Two Scandals U.S. Kaye-Smith, Quartet in Heaven, p. 118. Many of these are now closed, but the Society has further expanded into Germany and Latin America. See the SHCJ website, http://shcj.org/today_ministries.html ii Woodward, Making Saints, p. 253. The author is Sister Elizabeth Mary Strub, former superior general of the SHCJ. ~2 As recalled by Abelard in Historia calamitatum ("The Calamities of Peter Abelard"), trans. Levitan, p. 17; Heloise, First Letter, in Levitan, pp. 55-56. 13 Third Letter (in the collection, i.e, the second from Heloise), Levitan, pp. 78-79. 14 Giles Consta~ble, Letters and Letter-Collections, Typologie des sources du Moyen Age occidental, p. 17 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1976); Peter Dronke, Abelard and Heloise in Medieval Testimonies (Glasgow: University of Glasgow Press, 1976). 15 Barbara Newman, "Authority, Authenticity, and the Repression of Heloise," in Front Virile Woman to WomanChrist: Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), pp. 46-75 (pp. 73-74). 16 Heloise, First Letter, p. 61; Third Letter, p. 81 17 According to Abelard, Heloise tearfully declaimed the lament of Cornelia, the wife of Pompey, from Lucan's Pharsalia--"and with these words, she rushed to the altar, snatched up the veil which the bishop had just blessed, and bound herself to the convent in the pres-ence'of all." Historia calamitatum, in Levitan, p. 20. 18 Cornelia Connelly to Adeline Dural, letter of 17 Oct. 1835, in Positio, I: 81. ¯ 19 The letters of Abelard and Heloise were popularized by the poet Jean de Meun, who translated them into French: Eric Hicks, ed., La vie et les epistres Pierres Abaelart et Heloys sa fame: Traduction du XIIIe siOcle attribude i~ Jean de Meun (Paris: Champion, 1991). More famously, he incorporated the lovers' tale into his bestrselling Roman de la Rose, which remained by far the best-known version until mod-ern times. z0 Abelard, Historia calamitamm, in Levitan, p. 15. Abelard cites Heloise in direct speech; she was in turn paraphrasing Jerome's trea-tise Adversus Jovinianum (393), and Jerome was citing a lost anti-matrimonial tract by the pagan Theophrastus, sometimes called "The Golden Book on Marriage." Theophrastus, Jerome, and their numerous medieval heirs all argued that a wise man should not marry; only Heloise extended this counsel to women, as I first noted in "Authority, Authenticity," p. 67. This grammatical nuance was Review for Religious overlooked in the classic translation by Betty Radice, The Letters of Abelard and Heloise (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974; rev. ed. 2003), p. 14; Levitan corrects the error. 2, Heloise, letter to Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, ca. 1144-49, in Levitan, p. 273. 2z He probably became a cathedral canon in Nantes, and may later have been a Cistercian abbot at Hauterive: Levitan, Abelard and Hgloi'se, p. 13, n. 26. Abelard wrote a lengthy didactic poem for him, the Carmen ad Astralabium, ed. Jos~ Rubingh-Bosscher (Groningen, 1987). 23 Barbara Newman, "'Crueel Corage': Child Sacrifice and the Maternal Martyr in Hagiography and Romance," in From Virile Woman to WomanChrist, pp. 76-107 (p. 81). 24 Thomas Hatchard, Case of the Rev. Pierce Connelly, 2nd ed. (London, 1853), cited in Judith Lancaster SHCJ, Cornelia Connelly and Her Interpreters (Oxford: Way Books, 2004), p. 250. 25 Notebook of Cornelia Connelly, 21 January 1848, in Positio I: 298. 26 Cornelia Connelly to Ralph Peacock, letter of 1854, in Lancaster, Cornelia Connelly, p. 274. 27 Cornelia Connelly to Ralph Peacock, letter of 18 November 1858, in Lancaster, Cornelia Connelly, p. 274. For a moving treatment of Cornelia's feelings about this loss, see Dorothy Bryant, '!Keeping Vows: Cornelia Connelly (1809-1879)," in Last Words: Imaginary Letters from Real People (2010). Online at http://www.dorothybryant. com/LastWords.html 2s Caritas McCarthy SHCJ, The Spirituality of Cornelia Connelly: In God, For God, With God (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1986), pp. 73-80. For the history of this idea see Dyan Elliott, Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). 29 See Newman, "'Crueel Corage': Child Sacrifice and the Maternal Martyr." 3o Woodward, Making Saints, pp. 268-70. 3~ Woodward, Making Saints, p. 271. 32 McCarthy, Spirituality; Roseanne McDougall SHCJ, Cornelia Connelly's Innovations in Female Education, 1846-1864: Revolutionizing the School Curriculum for Girls (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2008). 33 Heloise, Fifth Letter, in Levitan, p. 126. 34 Abelard, Seventh Letter, in Levitan, pp. 170-255. 361 70.4 201 ! Newman ¯ A Tale of Two Scandals 3s For Heloise's rule see Chrysogonus Waddell, ed., The Paraclete Statutes, Institutiones Nostrae: Introduction, Edition, Commentary (Trappist, KY: Gethsemani Abbey, 1987). On the discrepan-cies see John E Benton, "Fraud, Fiction and Borrowing in the Correspondence of Abelard and Heloise," in Pierre Ab(lard--Pierre le Vgngrable: Les courants philosophiques, littgraires, et artistiques en Occident au milieu du XIIe sikcle, ed. Ren~ Louis and Jean Jolivet (Paris: l~.ditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1975), pp. 469-506 (p. 474). In 1980 Benton retracted his arguments for the inauthenticity of the letters. 36 For discussion see Enid McLeod, H?loi'se: A Biography, 2nd ed. (London: Chatto & Windus, 1971), pp. 219-24; Clanchy, Abelard, pp. 251-60. Heloise's biographer states that she "worked entirely in har-mony with Abailard's wishes" (p. 222), though not slavishly. Abelard's more skeptical biographer says she "ignored" his rule (p. 258). 37 Mary Martin McLaughlin, "Peter Abelard and the Dignity of Women: Twelfth Century 'Feminism' in Theory and Practice," in Pierre Ab3lard--Pierre le V3n3rable, pp. 287-333; Mcuin Blamires, The Case for Women in Medieval Culture (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), pp. 199-207. 38 See my "Flaws in the Golden Bowl: Gender and Spiritual Formation in the Twelfth Century," in From Virile Woman to WomanCbrist, pp. 19-45 (p. 27). 39 Abelard, Seventh Letter, in Levitan, p. 198. ~0 Clanchy, Abelard, p. 258. 41 McLeod, Hiloi'se, pp. 210-219. 42 Penelope D. Johnson, Equal in Monastic Profession: Religious VVomen in Medieval France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 234. 43 "Memorial of the Rev. Pierce Connelly to the S. Cong. de Propaganda Fide," 10 February 1848, in Positio 1:299. The original is in French; English translation mine. 44 Pierce Connelly to the Earl of Shrewsbury, letter of 28 Dec. 1848, in Positio I: 307. 45 Wadham, Case of Cornelia Connelly, p. 226. 46 Not only did Danell style himself "Bishop Superior of the Institute"; he also sent his rule to the order's American houses with no explanation. Left in the dark, the U.S. sisters assumed that the new rule was Cornelia's high-handed innovation and refused to obey it, provoking a schism. Review for Religious 47 Gompertz, Life of Cornelia Connelly, p. 235. 48 Gompertz, Life of Cornelia Connelly, pp. 248-250. 49 Susan O'Brien, "Terra Incognita: The Nun in Nineteenth- Century England," Past dr Present, 121 (November 1988), pp. 110-140. so Lancaster, Cornelia Connelly and Her Interpreters, pp. 51-55. Palimpsest Recycling isn't new. When writing was serious, words were costly, vellum was scrubbed, papyrus washed, reused. Sometimes earlier uncials appear in ghostly outline. A Syriac text of Chrysostom reveals a Latin grammar: amo, amas, amat. What comes to articulation has layers beneath the surface deeper than words, runic letters in languages we don't quite understand. Bonnie Thurston 363 70.4 2011 building community BEATRICE M. EICHTEN The Hum of Being: Spirituality for Leadership At the beginning of his ministry, after hear-ing the heady proclamation that he is God's beloved Son, Jesus is plunged into a desert experience. He is tempted by the devil, who invites him to have his physical needs met, to exercise power through the worldly skills of division and manipulation rather than forgive-ness and reconciliation, and to be safe from all unpleasant, negative experiences. Jesus is able to withstand these temptations because he knows who he is. In his baptism and prayer, the truth of Jesus' identity is revealed to him: he is the beloved of God, one in whom God takes pleasure. Knowing who he is, Jesus is able to face the tension between being loved and being hungry/needy, between being loved and being socially powerless, and between being loved and being safe from all negative experiences. 1 Beatrice M. Eichten OSF is community minister/presi-dent of the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls, Minnesota. Her address is 116 8th Ave. SE; Little Falls, Minnesota 56345-3597. Review for Religiotts When we are elected to leadership in our religious community, we are called forth to fulfill a special role as both spiritual and organizational leader. Such a call is empowering as well as humbling. It is a moment of being loved, of being affirmed for our strengths, a moment of special promise. However, this moment gives way to many other moments, and we quickly learn, as we take on this new role, that we do not give up our vulnerability or foibles. We do not cease wanting to control and "manage" others "for their own good." Nor can we avoid criticism, negativity, or unpopularity because of decisions we must make. We come face-to-face with ourselves as we encounter new challenges in the ministry of leadership. Where do we in leadership go when we face chal-lenges, temptations, and limitations? We can adopt the mindset of working hard to live up to the idealized expectations of our culture and community, or we can trust our authentic selves--the truth that we are beloved daughters or sons who give pleasure to God in carrying out a leadership function. We can discover a spirituality of leadership by examining our ongoing response to the challenges, temptations, and limitations we encounter. When we come to our spiritual identity, when we know who we are, says John Shea, then our spiritual work begins. As it was for Jesus, coming to this knowl-edge is a co-working with God that engages the full-ness of the human person. Foundational to the process is metanoia, conversion, the change of mind and heart that occurs~when we come to know ourselves as open to Spirit. Conversion leads us to make ourselves accessible to God. We move beyond our sinfulness and limita-tions to knowing that we, like Jesus, bring pleasure to God. This is a fruit of prayer. We open ourselves "to 70.4 2011 Eicbten * The Hum of Being 366 receive what the Divine Source is waiting to give" (p. 99). Openness makes us ready to receive. God as God. Such openness comes in prayer, in the troubled sister, in vexing financial and administrative details, in the elderly and the sick, in the gifted ministry of so many of our members, in our team of ministry colleagues, in cre-ation, and on and on. Spirit enters into this world; we do not break into Spirit's world. God is always present; we are the ones invited to open ourselves to receive and to act from our deepest identity as beloved of and precious to God. Shea goes on to say that, though the origins and destiny of Spirit are mysterious, you are filled by the sound of it. It is the burn of being--present, vibrant, alive, now. You live by a spirit that is not you. Being born of this spirit is not an event "done and over." It is the "always-already- now" of life. It is the power of God liv-ing in you. Touch that ever so slightly in yourself and you will open to the teacher sent from God, and he will whisper things hidden since the foun-dation of the world, the things he has heard from his Father, the things he is yearning to tell you. He will entrust himself to you. (p. 86, emphasis added) This "hum of being" is "the vibration of pure exis-tence. It blows where it will because it is not produced by people . its origin and destiny cannot be traced, but we bear the sound of it. We know it because it is car-rying us away" (p. 94). Opening to Spirit The core of leadership ministry is spiritual leader-ship-- a way of being present to ourselves and to our God that informs and guides our organizational lead-ership. Spiritual leadership requires an openness and readiness to receive Spirit as she comes to us each day. Review for Religious "Spirit is shy," says Shea. "It does not want to compete with other allegiances. It wants open space, vacancies that it can move into without conflict. When we are detached, we wait in readiness . . . [with] hands empty and open" (p. 38). This calls for an emp-tiness with which we are often not comfort-able. It calls us to back away consciously from being overly busy, important, needed, in control, and responsi-ble. Shea suggests that it means being con-scious of our human dependence and vul- -°- - nerability, of the alienation that characterizes sin, and of the uncomfortable conversion that leads us to redemp-tion rather than isolation (pp. 141-42). Being attentive to our inner reality requires time to be engaged with our inner selves and with God. Wayne Muller says that "without stillness, without being pres-ent, we will miss the simple, quiet opportunities., to hear more accurately. We will miss the opening, the readiness, that place of grace waiting to be born.''2 Being quiet and present is a critical discipline and necessary attitude as we deal with the siren lure of daily demands and issues inherent in congregational leadership. Different personalities will attend to inner realities and find a life focus in different ways. One person's way of being open and attentive to God can, for another, be a "grit-your-teeth" effort. Joan Chittister OSB reminds us that even age does not have to be an "impediment Being quiet and present is a ~ri~tical discipline as we deal with the siren lure of daily demands and issues inherent in congregational leadership. 367 70.4 2011 Eicbten ¯ The Hum of Being 368 to the magnet for life in us.''3 When we discover what is the magnet of life for us, we will also discover clues to where we find the source of energy for our journey through life. Those clues can be particularly helpful for those in a leadership position. By knowing and trust-ing our way of being present to God, we will come to know the truth that "There are as many ways to pray as there are moments in life . In all these moments, [we] gradually make [our] lives more a prayer and . . . open [our] hands to be led by God even to where [we] would rather not go.''4 Inherent Call to Conversion Spiritual and communal leadership is an ongoing call to conversion. We begin with any of a wide range of attitudes: "It's my turn." "I am finally feeling ready." "Oh God, please not me!" "I am willing to serve and to offer my best." "If this is what God and the community want of me ." "This is how I will do leadership" . "This is what I will do to help community grow" . "This is what I will do to 'fix' the community . " Regardless of how we begin, we soon learn that this ministry is about entering into a way of life where, as an elected leader, we turn from the perspective of a mem-ber to a perspective that encompasses the whole com-munity. The position brings new responsibilities and a fresh awareness both of the community and of the local and global church. Community members express their varied expectations of leaders in titles that range from "Mother General" to "Servant Leader," but whatever the expectations, leadership is a way of life that calls for detachment and self-emptying? for becoming a channel for Spirit in the life and activities of the whole community. Review for Religious Leadership requires letting go of attachments, fre-quently of a beloved ministry. A move to a new location, may mean distance from family, friends, and colleagues. We often discover, painfully, that being called to lead-ership changes how friends and companions relate to us. We need to move from roles and responsibilities with which we have identified into those that may not be of our personal choice. How many of us have said, "Finances are not my thing"? Yet now we must carry major responsibility for financial stewardship of the congregation. We learn that even though we are vested with power in the community, we do not have full control over our schedule, our members, our decisions. I remember hear-ing a speaker say to a roomful of new leaders that they had control of their schedules and could schedule days off. Having been in leadership before, I almost laughed out loud, knowing how many days off or team plan-ning days had been cut short by a death or a commu-nity crisis. While congregations talk about "part-time" leadership, the fact is, once elected, we are never not an elected leader. Leadership ministry is full-time, is exercised whenever and however it is called for, and is a ministry around which we wrap part-time responsibili-ties as chaplain or pastoral minister or whatever. The position calls for detachment from personal and minis-try commitments in order to carry out leadership minis-try. It also calls for circumspection as we come to realize that everything we say and do reflects on "leadership"; personal opinions become "Leadership believes . " Response to the Call to Conversion We can fight against the inevitable demands for detachments or we can allow them to be invitations to 70.4 2011 Eicbten ¯ The Hum of Being go within, to come to deeper self-knowledge, to get in touch with our spiritual center. I remember fearing that leadership would move me into falsity and role-playing. Then I heard Angeles Arrien, a cultural anthropolo-gist, speak about the necessity for leaders to exercise "response-ability"--not responsibility as duty or obli-gation ("I have to . . ."), but as the ability to respond from one's authentic self ("I choose to . . ."). Such an understanding invites a freely given choice. Richard Nahman OSA, in a reflection on gospel spirituality,5 points out that the word "authority" comes from the same root as "author" and "authenticity." He poses some probing questions: "How authentic am I? . . . do I challenge myself, asking, 'Am I "selling" a heart-rending "product," or is the Word of God alive in me?'" His questions encourage us to ask our own: When is my action more about me than about service to my sis-ters and our mission in the church? In facing the daily challenges of leadership, do I aim to win or do I enter into the call to conversion? Am I reacting to a particular sister because of some past experience with her? Or am I able to step back and consider how I would respond to that same request or situation if it involved someone else? Do I need to control, or can I open myself to living with ambiguity and other ways of thinking? How am I dealing with stress? Am I numbing myself by eating or drinking too much? What am I avoiding? To whom am I accountable? Questions like these help keep us honest, invite us to face the challenges we encounter with open-ness to our personal blindness and need for conversion, and move us to prayer and reflection. Acting from Gift or Obligation? If we are serious about conversion, in leadership we Revie~v for Religious will come face to face with our inner self and our bodily reality--our truth in all its beauty and messiness--and will be invited to make a choice to live and minister out of a gift economy rather than an obligation economy. God is gifting me with this opportunity. Can I offer my ministry out of a generous abundance, or do I move into resentment because I "have to do it"? Can I own the reality that leadership does involve some "have tos" and do them graciously rather than grudgingly? How approach a situation shapes how I enter into it and how others experience me in it. None of us is perfect; nor is anyone the perfect leader. But a leader is invited to go beyond duty or obligation and make a choice for life, a choice to love and to serve the com-munity members out of love. This, I believe, is a choice for conversion, a "turning away from one's past [and] entrust-ing oneself to the unex-pected, uncharted way into the incalculable future in which God comes to us.''6 Conversion is not just giving up and letting go, adapting our lives to the necessities of the ministry, but is a life-long project of committing one's whole life to God. And leadership ministry offers abundant opportunities to move toward that commitment. Gradually, if we are open to conver-sion, God becomes that "hum of being" that accompa-nies us whether or not we are aware of it. We need to choose intentionally to open ourselves to conversion, knowing that we do not control when or how it will happen. God has a way of unsettling our Conversion is a life-long project of committing one's whole life to God. 371 70.4 2011 Eicbten ¯ Tbe Hum of Being carefully controlled world and "tipping" it sideways. VChen we least expect it, God will find ways to unsettle us and invite us to make "soul" decisions in which we recommit our hearts and lives to the sacred journey-- inward, outward, and forward--the "always-already-now" of life that Shea speaks of. It is a journey wherein we are called to be witnesses to the gospel and to be changed by God's abundant love into true disciples. As leaders, we are sustained in this conversion pro-cess by our own prayer, by the love and prayer of our leadership team, by friends and companions, by the liturgy, by the beauty of creation, and by the grace of office itself---"the quiet, sudden infusion of some power beyond [one]self. the unbidden, unsought, unexpected emergence in the soul of a capacity hitherto unacknowledged" (Spoto, pp. 59-60). Leadership as Loving Relationship When Jesus came to proclaim the Good News, some were gleeful that the Messiah had come and things would be good for the downtrodden Jews. However, Jesus in his preaching and ministry taught that the peo-ple of Israel should not presume privilege. He began his ministry not from a place of power but from a realiza-tion that he was loved and that his mission was to draw others into God's love. Whatever he did, he did out of his identity as the loved one. When we are elected to leadership positions, we must realize that we are elected for mission and not for our own prestige. Shea suggests that when we realize we are loved, we are energized, and it is then that we begin, even if we continue work we have been doing for years (p. 113). We can draw on personal skills and abilities and become good administrators in our communities, but Review for Religious spiritual leadership is about knowing ourselves as loved; about loving and receiving love in our sister-to-sister, brother-to-brother relationships; and about speaking truth in love. George Wilson says that we are "held irre-vocably by a profound sense of charity." A deep love for God and for one another enables us to face the uncom-fortable and often contradictory movements in our lives and in the lives of our sisters and brothers. "The Gospel mandate of love--not a romanticized abstraction but an interpersonal engagement with a challenging flesh-and-blood sister or brother--will always remain the ultimate touchstone for truth.''7 The mandate of love moves us to relationships characterized by dialogue, forgiveness, and reconciliation. As leaders, we are called to create deeper understanding among our members, to uncover a base of shared meaning that helps us coordinate and align our actions with our values. We enter into a pro-found dialogue when we relate from a deep well of love, even in what may seem simple and ordinary. It is not just words that we share; it is a relationship8 that finds its source in our relationship with God. Our sisters and brothers may or may not remember a major project that was completed or that it was accomplished during the term of leadership. What they will remember is our relationship with them--whether we loved them. Leadership as Pilgrimage Spiritual leadership is not static but is a process that draws us into a vital and life-changing relationship with God and with our community. We can think of that process as a pilgrimage. Doris Donnelley identifies five characteristics that distinguish pilgrims from tourists.9 Perhaps we can appropriate these as we strive to become pilgrim leaders: 70.4 2011 Eichten ¯ The Hum of Being ¯ Valuing the internal. Pilgrim leaders are motivated by a hope for something to happen within, something that alters their attitudes and ways of looking at life. ¯ Valuing self-investment. Pilgrim leaders invest themselves and surrender to the experience. They sur-render all that clutters their lives so that God takes cen-ter stage. ¯ Valuing transformation. Pilgrim leaders are awak-ened to new dimensions of life, community, and church. Such awakening requires listening at a deep level--at the level of Spirit and the "hum of being"--to avoid falling into disillusionment and cynicism as they learn more about the human failings and limitations of their community members and their church--and perhaps of themselves. ¯ Valuing the journey as well as the arrival. Pilgrim leaders prepare both before and all through their term of office by "taking time seriously and elegantly--the right here-and-now time of [their] lives" (Muller, p. 167). At the end of their leadership ministry, they "go home" and allow the internal dimension of their journey to continue to unfold. Those who allow this to hap-pen are changed, and the rest of their life's pilgrimage begins in new ways. ¯ Valuing community. Pilgrim leaders know that they are on a particular journey at a particular time and with a particular group for a reason. As the journey unfolds, the connections they make and the experiences they share with the group help them to understand that they are part of something much bigger than their own per-sonal growth and decisions. All of us, both leaders and members, are on a pilgrimage. We are a community within the larger community of our church, both the pastoral and the Review for Religious hierarchical church. We allow ourselves to realize that we are about witnessing to our loving God, not about building the perfect community. Parker Palmer1° speaks about the necessity of "de-illusionment," that is, moving from the "illusion of salvation by interaction" (having an idealized community of love, understanding, and true dialogue, having lots of new vocations, etc.), to under-standing that we are people in search of God, that God is always present, and that salvation is pure gift of God. I conclude with words for all who are called to com-munity leadership: trust your pilgrimage of leadership. Open yourself to God's love so freely given. Surrender yourself to God and listen to the hum of your being as God guides your community into the future and guides you daily in your leadership service to your sisters and brothers. Your authenticity is a source of Spirit. You are strengthened and supported when you are able to be open to Spirit, when you can allow enough emptiness and detachment to make room for Spirit, and when you can trust God enough to enter into the call to con-version. When you know yourself as beloved and pre-cious to God, that love will overflow into those around you; and, if you allow it, you will experience the return of love in abundance. Returning to the words of John Shea: "You are filled with the sound [of Spirit] . . . the hum of being . . . present, vibrant, alive, now. Being born of this spirit is not an event 'done and over.' It is the 'always-already-now' of life. It is the power of God living in you." In these days, when there are no clear answers or directions for our communities, we are invited to enter into the pilgrimage of religious communal life and min-istry with trust, courage, hope, and gratitude. As lead- 70.4 2011 Eicbten ¯ The Hum of Being ers, let us journey together with our sisters and brothers and with our God into a future filled with hope. Notes ' John Shea, Gospel Light: Jesus Stories for Spiritual Consciousness (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1998). This theme is developed more fully in Chapter 4, pp. 97-116. 2 Wayne Muller, Sabbath, Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives (New York: Bantam Book, 2000), p. 167. 3 Joan Chittister, Gi~ of Years. (New York: BlueBridge, 2008), p. vii. 4 Henri Nouwen, With Open Hands (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1972), p. 158. s Richard M. Nahman OSA, "My Gospel Spirituality," Review for Religious (2009): 41-48. 6 Donald Spoto, Reluctant Saint, The Life of Francis of Assisi (New York: The Penguin Group, 2003), p. 48. 7 George Wilson, "Something Tells Me. ," Human Development (2008): 13. 8 William Isaacs, Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together (New York: Doubleday, 1999), p. 19. He notes that the ancient meaning of the word logos suggests "an intimate awareness of the relationships among things in the natural world," making "relationship" the best English translation for logos. "In that sense, logos may be best rendered in English as 'relationship.' The Book of John in the New Testament begins: 'In the beginning was the Word (logos).' We could now hear this as 'In the beginning was the Relationship.' " 9 Doris Donnelly, "Pilgrims and Tourists: Conflicting Metaphors for the Christian Journey to God," Spirituality Today 44:1 (1992): 20-36. www.spiritualitytoday.org/spir2day/9243.1donnelly.html l0 Dr. Parker J. Palmer, "Borne Again: The Monastic Way to Church Renewal," Weavings: A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life (1986), p. 12. 376 Review for Religious THOMAS A. KROSNICKI Architecture and Religious Life ~ ver the years, Review for Religious has covered a wide range of diverse topics that touch religious life. The indices of the preceding 69 volumes of the periodical attest to a rich and significant contribution. Yet it seems to me that one topic is conspicuous by its absence. There seem to be no articles dealing with the relationship architecture has with the life of religious communities in general or about the impact buildings have on the members of those communities. In this brief presentation, I intend to raise several salient points for reflection and possible discussion by religious men and women about the impact of architecture--the houses we live in--on religious life. Your House Is a Self-Portrait Granting that the statement "Your house is a self-portrait" holds a measure of truth, one might rightly Thomas A. Krosnicki SVD is a former Director of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy. He may be addressed at Divine Word House, 832 Varnum Street NE, Washington, DC 20017-2143. 70.4 2011 Krosnicki ¯ Architecture and Religious Life 378 ask: What is the identity that a religious community intends to project by its buildings? It could be worth-while, therefore, for community members to step back and take a good look at their present living quarters, particularly if they are contemplating renovations or the construction of a new building in the future. What com-posite self-portrait do the present buildings or plans for future ones project to members and non-members alike? There should normally be a correlation between the edifice and the self-definition of the religious community that it houses. Ideally, building and self-definition posi-tively reinforce each other. As there is no set design for th~ shape of a religious house, no one can convincingly claim that "this is how a house for religious should look." During the 1950s and 1960s, when religious com-munities were expanding in the United States, archi-tects designed new houses for religious communities that today remain clearly identifiable as from that era. Basically, many look very much alike--pejoratively described as "1960 Penal." They ended up strikingly similar in both design and material. I can, for example, point to the two houses across from my residence in metropolitan Washington DC and say unequivocally, "Clearly, from their appearance, both were built dur-ing the unprecedented growth phenomena of Catholic religious life of the 1960s." Unfortunately, in the States such buildings were generally designedto last for 75 to 100 years; they will be standing for another 25 or more years, even though their primary purpose may have morphed into something else, given the decline of voca-tions and dwindled need for large residential buildings. How did that kind of building style come about? Financial constraints? The pressure of urgent need for expansion? A lack of creative imagination? Government Review for Religious restrictions? Regardless of the reason, the basic princi-ple "Every house is a self-portrait" seems to have been unwittingly overlooked. One hopes that we religious have better images of ourselves than these buildings project. But, a corporate self-image is not always easy to come by. How might it be achieved? Rule and charism, as well as the function and ministry of the particular religious community are central to the large equation that feeds into an architectural design. Therefore, in plan-ning or renovating a house, a religious community must col-laborate with a care-fully selected architect in a process of "defin- ~, ing" the building so it truly fits with and looks like the community and not just shows off the architect's latest ideas. As qualified and inspired as the architect or builder might be, they still may not truly understand religious life and must watch the bottom line of overall cost and materials. In short, the community must school the architect, as well as itself, in its unique religious ethos, its particular rule, and its designated ministry so that the completed proj-ect images or reflects the community at its very best. Thus, a rural Trappist monastery should not have the appearance or design of an inner city residence for the Missionaries of Charity of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. One hopes that we religious have better images of ourselves than these buildings project. Form Follows Function The architectural principle of Louis Sullivan (~'1896) that "form follows function" remains both valid and in 379 70.4 2011 Krosnicki ¯ Architecture and Religious Life 380 vogue today. Unfortunately, one can still find designs that have proven to be decidedly dysfunctional in spite of that basic principle. Frank Lloyd Wright ('c1959), the renowned American assistant to Sullivan, accepted the axiom in principle but moved beyond it to "organic architecture" promoted by the "Prairie School" move-ment. Recent attention has focused on the organic archi-tecture of the Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona, designed by Antoni Gaudi (t1927). Nature was Gaudi's inspiration. He saw that plant forms clearly stem from their organic function, and he incorporated those forms into the functionality of his imaginative edifice. Function does not necessarily dictate that the end product be prosaic, sterile, or crassly utilitarian. Paradoxically perhaps, structural forms can be functional without being deprived of the truly creative, void of the artistically challenging, or stripped of the esthetically appealing contributions of architecture. Religious residences are generally built in view of their multiple and unique functions. So, the first chal-lenge is to attempt to define the multifunctionality of a religious building that is to be something more than a warehouse for people or a residence for transient day-laborers, not unlike a Motel 6 or Holiday Inn. The bui~ldings are residences for women or men dedicated to a life in community (mensa communis remains an apt term) and bound together by common religious life and ideals, expressed in vows, vocation, and ministerial commitment. A first consideration, when looking at form-func-tion, is the physical arrangement or basic design of the building. What structural units are judged major-- i.e., the central, common spaces of the community? The community chapel, gathering room, library, and Review for Religious dining facility--characterized by their size, location, and accessibility--are generally considered primary. A well thought out floor plan needs to facilitate patterns of movement to these central community areas. Secondary structural units are necessary community service areas and the rooms for individual members, which provide commodious but not ostentatious living. I recall that some artist--perhaps Michelangelo-- stated that "small rooms beget small ideas." Although the personal rooms of the members remain secondary in terms of designed structural units, they are not unimportant for the general well-being of the commu-nity. Each community has its own approach and its own reasons for making its deci sions. One religious community that initially provided private rooms for members in initial formation decided to redesign the space into areas that could be occupied by several persons because they felt that during the ini-tial formation stage private accommodations fostered too much individualism, egocentrism, and even narcis-sism-- a concern that the 'T' might loom larger than the "we." Such questions remain open to serious reflection and debate based on various issues that come into play --e.g., culture, maturity, and background of the indi-viduals concerned. Ultimately, what must be considered in any situa-tion is the basic interrelationship of major and secondary structural units and their impact on the daily life and well-being of the community. Consciously or unconsciously, Some artist stated that "small rooms beget small ideas." 381 70.4 2011 Krosnicki ¯ Architecture and Religious Life decisions about their size and placement will identify and underscore community priorities and emphases. The physical environment does influence the persons who occupy the building, 382' The Building Shapes the Community We must accept the fact that the physical environ-ment does influence the persons who occupy the building. In a process that is subde and for the most part uncon-scious, the edifice can take hold and mold the minds and hearts of the occupants for good or ill. A house at architectural peace with itself can pro-mote harmonious peace for the inhabitants. A house bereft of structural harmony and beauty can, unfortunately, exacerbate division and conflict. That alone is a good reason for "getting it right" on the draw-ing board from the very beginning. Buildings, even for religious men and women, need to support and enhance the individual emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. Consideration must be given to how the psychological and spiritual well-being of the community members can be fostered by the house they inhabit. Is there an appropriate balance between community and individuality? What about the tension between the need for private and for public spaces? Areas of silence and communication? Flexibility and stability? Buildings architecturally designed like rabbit burrows or mazes, where one can easily hide away from others, do not facilitate communication (and therefore community itself) any more than open ended "glass houses" neces-sarily foster or encourage healthy solitude and needed Review for Religious silence. Other problems can be compounded by poor physical layout. Anger, for example, can be triggered by a person's assigned living space within the commu-nity (e.g., "We built the rooms too close to--or too far from--the elevators"). Inadequate light might contribute to depression--e.g., "It's too dark here. I need the sun. I'm depressed." Community and interpersonal tensions can arise when the building itself does not reinforce per-sonal identity, enhance self-worth, or affirm self-esteem. [Editor's Note: One, however, must admit that while some difficulties can be remedied by a change of rooms or by the purchase of adequate lamps, even the best architec-tural planning can go only so far in addressing deeply engrained attitudes and longstanding difficulties.] Serious interpersonal conflicts might be symptomatic of a systemic error in the very environmental package in which one "lives and moves and has his or her being." "You act the way you dress" is a maxim that might be buttressed with another: "You live the way you're housed." Physical, emotional, psychological wholeness and well-being along with spiritual growth are nourished by an environment of beauty and are enhanced by tran-quility begotten of right order. Go Green A new, but significant, consideration in the design and use of religious buildings is the "green" movement. Care for the earth and its natural resources is not only an environmental issue but a theological one as well. In the design and construction of new buildings by reli-gious communities, attending to this "green" factor can stimulate new thinking, practical cost-saving, and aware-ness of environmental issues. There are already positive examples in this regard. 3,83 70.4 2011 Krosnicki * Architecture and Religious Life The Holy Wisdom Monastery of Benedictine Sisters in Middleton, Wisconsin, (www.benedictinewomen.org) that opened in August 2009 addressed "green" issues such as geothermal heating and cooling, solar panels, rain and roof gardens, tankless water heaters, optimum use of natural light, restored natural prairie habitats, and use of regional building materials. The goals are clear: an environmentally sound structure, respect for the environment, use of energy-saving programs, affordable housing, and the manifestation of a spirituality aligned with a care for the earth and all creation. One resource for any religious community consider-ing the construction of a new building or the retrofit-ting of an old one would be the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), a program developed by USGBC, "provides building owner and operators a concise frame-work for identifying and implementing practical and mea-surable ~green building design, construction, operations, and maintenance solutions" (see www.LEED.org). The LEED program can be applied to all buildings regardless of where they are in their life cycle (old, renovated, new). Impact beyond the Community It is my contention that, with few exceptions, reli-gious women and men have not given enough attention to the architectural impact their buildings--in particular their residences--have on their membership. In addition to all that has been said above, it would be important to know what impression our buildings have on those who are shopping around for a religious community. Could it be that the building that clothes the community is of far more significance--more, even, than the religious habit--than heretofore granted? Certainly, in the pro- Review for Religious cess of designing new structures or retrofitting old ones, the psychological, spiritual, and physical well-being of the individual, and therefore of the community, must be carefully weighed. In all these areas, there is ample reflection material for the community, the architect, and the construction company. The fruit of that reflec-tion would benefit religious life and those that religious touch by their life and ministry. Approaching Fall As the drone of locusts saws through evening silence, summer quietly collapses. No encore of merry gardens, rains trelsy of wrens, aroma of cut grass. I gird my soul as I view the spent zucchini plants fiat and pallid. No sly submarines left. And so goodbyet. My God, pull back these fingers reaching for what's gone. Teach them to renounce for the needed span all blush and bloom, all sun-nursed freshness. Stiffen my spine for sterner days, arthritic stalks in dying fields, the grief of trees soon to weep their leaves. Let me trust the grace all losses offer. Patricia Schnapp RSM 70.4 2011 focus on JOEL GIALLANZA Be Saints: Pathway to a Holy Life Joseph On 17 October 2010, Pope Benedict XVI can-onized Brother Andr4 Bessette CSC, the first member of the Congregation of Holy Cross to be so honored. His canonization did not really surprise anyone who knows anything about his life and work and, of course, about the Oratory of Saint Joseph in Montreal. Even before Andr4's beatification in 1982 and now his canonization, it was easy to think of him as a saint. He was considered such even during his lifetime. And, in the interim period of forty-five years between his death and his beatification, it was generally assumed that one day he would be officially recognized as a saint by the church. It was easy to think of him as a saint because of the many healings and Joel Giallanza CSC is the administrative assis-tant to the provincial of the South West Province of the Holy Cross Brothers. He can be addressed at 1101 St. Edward's Drive, Austin, Texas 78704. Revi~ for Religious other miracles associated with him. Though not often mentioned, those other miracles included bi-location and the gift of insight through which he could read (or "see," as he said) people's souls. These types of miracles came to light during the testimony of witnesses in the processes for his beatification and canonization. Brother Andre's frequent exhortation to others was simple and direct, "Be saints." His life and work set before us a way to holiness, a way to "be saints." A Life and A Work Alfred Bessette was born on 9 August 1845, in Saint Gr~goire d'Iberville, Qudbec, Canada. He was the eighth of twelve children. By the time he was twelve years old, both his parents had died; he and his siblings were separated and sent to live with various relatives. Alfred did not receive much education; he learned to sign his name and to read a little. His health was always weak and it was difficult for him to keep a regular job. As a young man, he worked for various factories and mills in Canada and the northeastern United States. In 1870, when he was twenty-five years old, he applied for admission to the Congregation of Holy Cross, a community of brothers, priests, and sisters founded in France thirty-five years earlier by Blessed Basil Moreau CSC, a diocesan priest of Le Mans. Alfred was accepted, and took the name Brother Andre. Because of his poor health, his approval for profession of vows was delayed. After his initial formation, he was assigned to Notre Dame College in Montreal, a secondary boarding school sponsored by the Congregation of Holy Cross. He served as doorkeeper, infirmarian, barber, and jani-tor. In 1872, he was approved to profess his vows as a 387 70.4 2011 Giallanza ¯ Be Saints Brother of Holy Cross. Though he was not involved in the school extensively, he was particularly sensitive to students who were ill. When an epidemic of smallpox broke out in another school in Montreal, Andr~ rec-ommended a procession with a statue of Saint Joseph through the school. The epidemic diminished imme-diately. Increasingly, the sick began to visit Brother Andr~ and ask for his prayer and advice. His usual recom-mendation was that they pray to Saint Joseph to ask for his intercession. In the early 1870s, the first heal-ings began to occur. Brother Andr~ always insisted that Saint Joseph accomplished all these things. His typi-cal "response when people requested his own prayer was simple: "Ask Saint Joseph to bring your petition to God." Because the sick were coming to the school to see him, parents and community members objected that the students were being exposed to various sicknesses and diseases. It became difficult for Andr~ to meet with those who came to him for prayer. In 1896, the Congregation of Holy Cross purchased a piece of property across the street from the school, near a trolley stop, where the sick could meet with Brother Andr& A small chapel was built in 1904, and in 1909 he was assigned full-time to be in charge of this place of prayer. In 1915 construction began on a larger chapel, the crypt church of the present Oratory of Saint Joseph, to accommodate more people. The number of pilgrims seeking Brother Andre's counsel and Saint Joseph's intercession steadily increased. After comple-tion of the crypt, construction continued and the upper church began to take shape. When funds fell short and the work was suspended prior to the placement of the roof, Brother Andr~ said, "If Saint Joseph wants a roof Review for Religious over his head, he will take care of it." Saint Joseph even-tually did take care of it, but Andr~ was not alive to see it. Over the years Brother Andre's health never improved. Two days after Christmas, 1936, he had a severe attack of indigestion, and a few days later he was admitted to the hospital. In the days that followed, his pain increased; during that time he was constantly pray-ing and asking that God's will be done. On January 4 he went into a coma. Brother Andr6 died at 12:50 AM on 6 January 1937. His body was brought to the Oratory. During the next seven days more than one million people waited in line, in the bitter cold, to pass his body, to touch their rosaries and other objects to it, and to pray. Many extraordinary cures were reported during those days. Saint Andr~ did not live to see the completion of Saint Joseph Oratory as it is today; however, he is buried in the crypt church he knew so well. The Oratory contin-ues to be a place of prayer and pilgrimage. Andre's name is forever linked to that of Saint Joseph because of the obvious similarities between these two saints. Both were simple laborers through whom God chose to do extraordinary things; both knew pov-erty and suffering; both experienced exile. Above all, both remained faithful to whatever God asked of them; both point out to us a pathway to holiness. A Way to Holiness Though Andre's life was filled with miracles and other extraordinary phenomena, our faith teaches us that such things do not de facto constitute a person's holiness. Holiness is not about singular actions within a person's life, regardless of how impressive those may be. Holiness 70.4 2011 True holiness is enduring 390 is reflected through the person's entire life, the complete example that is given to others. Further, the standard for such holiness is not arbitrary; it is nothing less than God's own person. Jesus taught, "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5:48). Another transla-tion says, "Be holy, as God in heaven is holy." With the Incarnation, Jesus becomes the standard. Holiness is simply to live as Jesus lived, to love as Jesus loved, to do what Jesus did; we do it in our own lives, in our daily relationships and responsibilities. Each and accessible, time Jesus confronts those . who would sum up the law in terms of what they do or what they have accom-plished, he counters it by referring to the priority of mercy, detachment, compassion, forgiveness, charity-- in brief, following him and his way. We look to people we consider holy for encourage-ment and guidance, for insight about how to follow Jesus. Brother Andre's entire life and example speak to us of following Jesus, of being holy. His is an endur-ing holiness that reaches beyond the historical period in which he lived. His life also reflects an accessible holiness; a way of life that is possible, even though we may never do exactly what Andr~ did. His instruction to us is simple, "Be saints." True holiness is enduring and accessible; temporary holiness is counterfeit and conceited. In our own way, in our own life, we can be holy. Brother Andr4 shows us a pathway to a holy life. What are the recommendations for the way to holiness that Andre's life and example place before us? These reflections will focus on four recommendations. Review for Religious Believe First, believe. Andrd used to say, "God never forgets us." "Never" is a strong word and leaves no room for variation. And yet, that is what our faith teaches us. God is always with us. God always loves us--always, without exception. Do we believe that, without exception? This is the faith to which we are called. The challenge for us emerges when our faith is confronted by experiences that do not speak to us of God, or by events that seem to be in direct contradic-tion to what we hold to be true of a loving God, a good God. Then we are tempted to think that God possibly has forgotten us or is looking the other way for the moment. Yet, faith teaches us that such are God's ways, such is the way that Providence works. We are called to trust Providence, to believe Providence, even when things point in directions that, to all appearances, have nothing to do with God. This was true in Andre's life. The fact that he was admitted to the Congregation of Holy Cross is evidence that God was at work when the normal pointed in the opposite direction. He was not educated, he learned to read very little, and could barely write much beyond his name. His health was always precarious. From a voca-tion perspective, it was uncertain if he would ever have the capability or stamina for any kind of ministry. These facts provided more than sufficient reasons for the com-munity to think that it would be too much of a risk to accept him. Still, Andr~ remained faithful to the work that had been assigned to him and hoped he would be accepted. As he said, "If you do not believe in God, you will get nothing." Andr~ believed; and though his formal acceptance and profession of vows were delayed, he was admitted to Holy Cross. 391 70.4 2011 Giallanza ¯ Be Saints Similarly, the fact that the Oratory came into exis-tence is a testimony to Andre's faith that God, through Saint Joseph, would complete what Andr~ believed God was calling him to do. Even after permission was received from the community to proceed with the con-struction, there were financial setbacks. Each step along the way required the conviction that God and Saint Joseph would provide. Brother Andr~ continued his work as if God and Joseph were already in the process of providing. As con-struction work was well underway, when asked how he had succeeded, Andr6's reply was simple, "I have always left the work of the Oratory in the hands of the good God." In late 1936 and early 1937, when it became evi-dent that Brother Andr~ would die before the comple-tion of the upper basilica, his own perspective never varied: "The good God has no need of me to complete this work. Saint Joseph will see to it." The foundation for our own spiritual life is faith, the conviction that God does not and will not forget us or abandon us. In reality the questions before us are not about God's side of the relationship; rather they arise about our side of the relationship. VChen are the times that I tend to forget God? What experiences or events distract me from God's constant presence to me? What can I do to maintain a conviction about the constancy of God's presence? Pray A second recommendation for the way to holiness that Andr~ teaches us: pray. Andr~ used to encourage others by telling them, "When we pray, God's ear is pressed to our lips." It is an intriguing image for at least two reasons. Review for Religious First, there is an intimacy about the image, illustrat-ing God's desire to be as close to us as possible. There are obviously times when we do not sense or perceive that proximity as a reality. Andr~ assumed it. He believed that God would be near when we prayed regardless of whether we experienced that nearness. Such an insight builds upon the faith that was mentioned as the first rec-ommendation for a way to holiness. There is no incen-tive to pray if we think that the words and thoughts and desires that we bring to prayer simply disappear into a vacuum. To pray at all, we must believe that God is near to us. The Book of Deuteronomy teaches us: This commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?" Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?" No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe (30:11-14). Such is God's closeness to us when we pray. Second, it is interesting that in this perspective on prayer Brother Andr~ saw God as quite active. He had the firm conviction that God was listening and listening closely. It is God who presses an ear to our lips. God is interested in our prayer and wants to hear what we have to say. It was said by witnesses that Andr~ prayed as if he was speaking to someone from whom he expected an answer. We must be willing to bring the happenings of our daily life into our prayer, honestly and directly. Andr~ used to say, "In prayer, one speaks to God as one speaks to a friend." We can speak to God in this way because there is an intimacy about prayer and because God draws close to us when we pray. 393 70.4 2011 Giallanza * Be Saints Prayer may not be so much about changing the world around us as it is about changing our perspective on that world. 394 Brother Andr4 prayed about what was going on in his life and his ministry. He brought his concerns to God, very explicitly. Whether it was his concern about the continuing development of the Oratory or about the condition of a particular person who had asked for his prayer, he believed that prayer could and would have a real impact in the world. He says in his customary sim-plicity, "If we prayed more, things would go better in the world." Given the complexities of the world in which we live, it would be too easy to dismiss this as naive. And yet, prayer may not be so much about changing the world around us as it is about chang-ing our perspective on that world, enabling us to make a difference, enabling us to see ways in which God is present and active. Genuine prayer always urges us to action; prayer apart from action is no prayer at all. When it came to Saint Joseph, we know that Andr4 had a special relationship with him. For Andr4 it was sim-ply a matter of presenting to Joseph whatever needed to be done and then trusting that it would get done. He said, "If people knew how to pray better, they would obtain everything from Saint Joseph." The challenge is two-fold: first, to be clear regarding what we are praying about; and second, to refer everything to God's will. What we envi-sion as a response to our prayer may or may not be what God has in mind. Praying "better," as Andr4 understood it, required attentiveness to whatever God has in mind. Review for Religious Prayer builds upon the foundation of faith and is necessary for our continued progress and growth in our faith life. Our approach to prayer and our fidelity to prayer say more about its quality than does the actual content and method of our prayer. What is my method of prayer and am I faithful to it? Do I bring to prayer the reality of my everyday life: my hopes, struggles, fears, expectations, aspirations? Is my prayer more a demand or a desire, a litany or a longing, a performance or a passion? Ser~e A third recommendation for the way to holiness: serve. Brother Andrt's sense of service direcdy echoes the gospel; he said, "We cannot love God without lov-ing our neighbor." Service must flow from our prayer. As prayer expresses our love-relationship with God, so service expresses our love for others. Brother Andr6 used to say, "The door of heaven is the heart of Jesus and the key to that door is prayer and love." These two--prayer and love practiced in service--flow into and out of one another. They form a dynamic cycle of our relationship to God and our apostolic relationships with others. Andr~ does not speak about service as much as he speaks about loving others, caring for them, and respond-ing to their needs. Clearly he understood loving others in very practical, immediate terms. Serving others, loving others, in some way engages us with them. Andr6 often said that it was not sufficient to give money in respond-ing to needs; it was also necessary to give compassion from the heart. Money could assure that there would be a distance maintained between ourselves and the reality to which we are responding; compassion demands that we 70.4 2011 Giallanza ¯ Be Saints 396 know about and be touched by the actual circumstances of others. It is clear in studying Brother Andre's example that he was willing to be very engaged in the lives of oth-ers. Witnesses testified that even brief encounters with him left them with the impression that they had been lis-tened to and even known by him much more profoundly than they had anticipated. Brother Andr~ often said that the Lord was our big brother and that we, as little brothers and sisters, have the responsibility to love one another as members of the same family. This is a key theme in the spirituality of the Congregation of Holy Cross. Still, it is especially interesting that Andr~ would use the family as a refer-ence for loving others. His own experience of family, that is, his biological family, was quite disjointed as he was growing up. In fact, his experience of family could have left him bitter or with a feeling of being deserted, due to the death of his parents and the separation from his siblings. Yet he overcame that potentially debilitat-ing reality to grow into a person who genuinely cared for others and responded to their needs. Rather than going through life with a bitterness because he had no natural-family identity, he chose to center his sense of family around the Lord Jesus. And that center was espe-cially necessary because there were times when even his Holy Cross religious family was not very supportive. Brother Andrd is known for his very close relation-ship with Saint Joseph. His mother introduced him. to practices of praying to Saint Joseph and, over time, he developed a strong and intimate relationship with this great saint. However, it is clear that the priority in his life was his love-relationship with Jesus, and he lived that relationship through his service to others. He served simply because that is what Jesus did; as Jesus Review for Religious cared for the people, so too Andrd cared for the people; as Jesus healed, so too he healed. For Andrd this was a very straightforward reality: do what Jesus did and so become like Jesus. Service, in whichever form it takes, demonstrates the reality of our spiritual life. Service--the giving of ourselves, our talents and gifts--is a necessary part of the Christian life. The alterative is that our spiritual life becomes narcissistic and self-enclosed. Neither the type nor the extent of the service that we render to oth-ers is as significant as that we build some form of ser-vice into our life as a way of continuing the mission of Jesus. Our service must be consistent with our gifts and respectful of our priority commitments in life. How do I serve others? In which ways do I continue the mission of Jesus? How has the service that I offer been a source of spiritual growth for me? Trust The fourth recommendation for the way to holi-ness: trust. Trust, in terms of the spiritual life, involves the recognition and acceptance of the abilities we have and the efforts we make to do what our relationship with God and our spiritual life require of us. Trust also involves the conviction that God will support us in those abilities and efforts. Brother Andr6 teaches us, "God does not ask the impossible. God asks that we offer our good intentions, and accept the inconveniences that come with each day, and offer our daily work." Such simplicity reflects Andr6's basic approach to the spiritual life: we do what we can with what we have. But this simplicity should not be equated with ease. Sometimes when we are con-fronted with daily inconveniences and the work that is 397 70.4 2011 Giallanza * Be Saints before us, the good intentions of which Andr~ speaks may not be so evident. Even though God does not ask the impossible, that does not mean that what each day brings to us does not feel impossible or at least over-whelming at times. Trust is to be convinced that God will remain faith-ful, that God will provide the grace we need to be good Christians, even when we encounter difficulties or experience setbacks. If we do not believe that God will remain faithful, we will gradually move toward discour-agement and, in the worst case, despair. Andr6's recom-mendation is explicit: "We must pray that God does not abandon us in our trials and pray to accept with confi-dence the trials that the good God judges appropriate for us to carry." Trust is especially necessary when confronting the cross, of whatever kind. We know that Andr~ most certainly had his share of crosses, both from the Holy Cross community and from those outside Holy Cross. Brother Andr6 speaks about the cross and about trusting God in the midst of experiencing the cross. However the cross comes, it is yet another expression of God's love for us; it is part of our transformation into the liv-ing likeness of Jesus; it is part of resurrection. This is why. Andr~ refers to trials that "the good God judges appropriate for us to carry." He saw the cross in our life as part of God's will even as it was in Jesus' own life. He said to someone who did not see any improvement in a bothersome physical condition, "If it is God's will that you be sick, why would you refuse to accomplish God's will?" The appropriateness of the crosses we carry is based upon what we need for our transformation. It also reflects our capacity to carry a particular cross and our openness to the grace necessary for carrying that cross. Review for Religious Brother Andre's name is tightly linked with that of Saint Joseph, and yet it is said by those who knew him well that his principal devotion was to the Passion of Christ. They said he spoke of the Passion as if he had lived it. This makes perfect sense for one who expe-rienced many obstacles along the pathways that he believed God was calling him to follow. And, beyond that, it makes perfect sense for one who shares in the heritage that Father Moreau, as founder, passed on to the Congregation of Holy Cross. Accepting the Passion of Christ as a model for our life requires trust, the con-viction that what we experience will truly lead to our transformation into the living likeness of Jesus, that it will guide us to resurrection. Andr6 is a saint, but if we distance him from us, then we make it impossible to use his example as a support for our own life. Each of us has ~he potential to be a saint. To realize that potential we must trust that God will give us the graces we need. The alternative to trust is self-reli-ance; it is to assume that we are self-contained in terms of the resources we need to be holy. Trust is practiced by fixing our attention on God, accomplishing our everyday responsibilities, and placing our gifts at the service of oth-ers. Do I trust that God will give me the graces I need to be a good Christian? When have I experienced trust as essential for my continued spiritual growth? Which crosses have been the most transformative in my life? "I Have Asked to be Always in God's Presence" When asked about his own prayer and spiritual life and what he was called to do, Brother Andr~ said, "I have asked to be always in God's presence." Whatever images we may have of him, his work and his miracles, it is interesting that his desire was simply to be in God's 399 70.4 2011 Giallanza ¯ Be Saints 400] presence, to do what he did in cooperation with God. At another point he said, "We must not be attached to earthly things, otherwise we cannot be attached to God." To be one with God, to be attached to God - this was his deepest longing. And that constitutes Andre's holiness more than any of the extraordinary accomplish-ments that occurred during his life or since his death. For him, this union with God, this being in God's presence, was essentially an act of love. He frequently recommended, "Pray to obtain a true love for God." A true love for God would be reflected in the desire to be ever close to God, to complete God's will, to live those qualities of life that are reflected in the gospel: humility, faith, compassion, generosity, patience, etc. It is interesting that, in commenting on his ministry, Andr~ once said, "It is su.rprising that people often ask me for healings, but rarely for humility, for the spirit of faith." While a particular healing might be important in response to what a person was suffering, he believed the priorities for the spiritual life were more closely related to humility and faith than to any healing. Before Brother Andr6 died, his last words were, "This is the seed.;' Though it is an allusion to several gospel texts, he did not expand on his statement; so we can reflect on this self-description from several perspec-tives. All of them can give us some insight into the way to holiness that Andr6 points out to us. In Matthew's Gospel, in the parable of the sower, Jesus says, "As for the seed that was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hun-dredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty" (13:23). The seed in this case is God's word that is meant to bear fruit. It is evident that Andrd's life has produced fruit Review for Religious far beyond what he may have imagined. Responding to God's word was for him a simple act of love. As he often recommended, "Love Jesus as he has loved us, effectively and openly." This is what it means to receive the word and have it grow within our life. In Luke's Gospel, while teaching the crowds, Jesus says, "What is the kingdom of God like? And to what should I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches" (13:18-19). The seed in this case is a very small, even minuscule, real-ity that becomes ~ large enough to welcome and sustain life. As Brother Andr~ said on more than one occasion, "The Oratory is the work of the good God." Andr~ sowed a small seed, even in the midst of opposition and criticism; today it is clear how extensive the influence of the Oratory is. It continues to be a place where people find comfort and healing for their life, refreshment and encouragement for their faith. Also in Luke's Gospel, when the apostles ask for an increase in faith, Jesus responds, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you" (17:5-6). In this instance the seed is faith that accomplishes what needs to be done. The amount of faith is not of significance to Jesus; some mustard grains are almost like powder. It is the conviction and confidence underlying faith that make the difference. If we could be The priorities for the spiritual life were more closely related to humility and faith than to any healing. 401 70.4 2011 Giallanza ¯ Be Saints 402 one with God's will, our faith would have the same effec-tiveness as Jesus' own. What Andr~ did, he did in faith, confident that God and Saint Joseph would respond. He used to say, "You must submit yourself to God's will; it is the teacher of everything." Andr~ had learned well God's will; in his work for the development of the Oratory and in his healing ministry, the confidence and strength that came from that learning are clearly evident. In John's Gospel, Jesus teaches, "Truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (12:24). In this case the seed is the death that leads to new life. This may very well be the seed with which Brother Andrd identified himself. His perspec-tive, not only on the Oratory, but on everything he did, was that God and Saint Joseph were doing what needed to be done. His own task was to remain close to God and to accept whatever came. He had learned that close-ness to God came at a price. He said, "The closer one is to God, the more one suffers." There was dying to do as the Oratory developed; more than once plans did not go exactly as Andr6 had hoped or envisioned they would. But he remained faithful because he knew that God had called him to do this. " Brother Andr~ could say "This is the seed" near the end of his life precisely because that is what he had been throughout his whole life. Regardless of the gospel lens through which we reflect on his words, Brother Andrd has become a seed. His life has become an example of living God's word; of believing that the smallest efforts, if sincere, can produce enormous results; of bringing faith to all that we do; and of dying to self so that new life may emerge. Review for Religious "Be Saints" Brother Andr6's exhortation is simple: "Be saints." The assumption in this, of course, is that we can be saints. The truth is, we can. We do have the potential for a holy life, within our own life. As Andr6's example has been and continues to be a seed of encouragement for countless people, so too we are called to be a seed for others. The soil necessary for that seed to flourish requires that we believe and pray, serve and trust. These will provide the fertile ground that is the foundation for the pathway to a holy life. Reference Quotations of Brother Andr~ are taken from Frbre Andrd disait souvent. (Saint Joseph Oratory; Montreal: Editions Fides, 2010). Translation provided by the author. Imagining the Journey Retracing the route from the San Salvador airport taken by the four North American churchwomen on 2 December 1980 What did they do, I wonder, when the road turned toward death ? Gaze at the sleeping corn, longing to taste harvest? Pass by the gnarled ginger root tree, with hope for the next day's shade? Did they sense the holy ones gathered around them, arms outstretched in welcome? Did they reach for the hand of another who also trembled, finding courage and comfort in her clasp? Did they, I wonder, hold the shining beauty of this world for one last fleeting moment? Chris Koellhoffer IHM 403 70.4 2011 JOHN M. SAMAHA St. Joseph in Focus: Husband of Mary and Guardian of Jesus 404 Hw)w much do we know about the man who as the husband of the Mother of Jesus and the guardian of our Redeemer? St. Joseph is the often-overlooked member of the Holy Family. Scripture says little of him. We seem to give him scant attention. Yet devotion to St. Joseph has deep roots in Christian tradi-tion. Just how do we honor and appreciate him? Do you remember when, as children in Catholic school, we wrote "J.M.J." at the top of our papers? We did so to remind ourselves to have the same intentions that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph had in life. Husband of Mary We must remember that Mary and Joseph are a couple. And Jesus is their child. We picture the mem-bers of the Holy Family side by side. They belong Brother Jolm M. Samaha SM writes from Marianist Center; 22683 Alcalde Road; Cupertino, California 95014. Review for Relig$ous together. When separated, their significance in God's plan of salvation is clouded, because their importance lies in their relationship to each other. While honor-ing the perpetual virginity of Mary, we cannot disre-gard Joseph's privilege and happiness of being Mary's husband. Artwork has often depicted Joseph as an old man--possibly so that he would seem to be less of a threat to Mary's virginity. Such depictions tended to undervalue the loving relationship of Mary and Joseph as husband and wife. St. Teresa of Avila, for one, always insisted that Joseph was a young man when he married Mary. The special preface for Joseph the Husband of Mary in the Eucharistic Liturgy reinforces this positive approach: "With a husband's love he cherished Mary, the Virgin Mother of God." Foster Father of Jesus Since Joseph is the husband of Mary, he is also father to Jesus. While we know that Joseph was not the physical father of Jesus, Luke, in the gospel account about Jesus being lost in the temple, has Mary say to Jesus: "Son, your father and I have been searching for you in sorrow." And the preface cited above goes on to testify: "With fatherly care he watched over Jesus Christ your son, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit." If one were to think that Joseph's fatherhood was diminished because he did not physically procreate Jesus, let that person speak with adoptive parents-- especially the ones who have conceived a child of their own and adopted others. They will let you know how real Joseph's fatherhood is. Head of the Holy Family Joseph played an important role as Jesus "grew in 405 70.4 2011 Samaba * St. ~osepb in Focus 406 wisdom, age, and grace before God and men." In the Jewish tradition children were in the special care and tutelage of their mothers until they reached the age of five. Beyond that age children came under the special guidance of their fathers. Joseph was the rabbi of the Holy Family and it was his duty and privilege to teach Jesus the Jewish faith and practices. Joseph would have led his family in worship in their home at Nazareth. At meal times both Mary and Jesus looked to Joseph at the head of the table to offer the prayer of blessing. Each year when the Passover was celebrated, the youngster Jesus played his role and addressed the ritual question to Joseph: "Father, why is this night different from every other night?" Then he listened with his mother to Joseph's narration of the glorious events of the Exodus and the explanation of the meaning of the paschal lamb. He could easily have recalled Joseph's explanation years later when he heard John the Baptizer proclaim him the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. When Jesus was of age, Joseph introduced him to syn-agogue worship and the rituals to which Jesus remained faithful throughout his life. Joseph also taught Jesus the skills of a carpenter. By practicing this trade Jesus sup-ported himself and his mother after Joseph's death. Jesus' human experience of fatherhood was drawn from his relationship with Joseph. When Jesus said, "What father would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf, or a poisonous snake when he asks for a fish," surely he had in mind Joseph's gentle kindness to him as he was growing up. When Jesus told the parable of the prodigal son, Joseph could easily have been the model of the loving father in the story. As Jesus described how the father Review for Religious embraced and welcomed the son who had been lost, might he have been recalling how Joseph hugged and kissed him after he had been lost in the temple for three days? When Jesus taught us how to pray, he began with the same loving tide, abba, with which he had addressed Joseph all his life. His deep affection for Joseph is evident in scene after scene throughout the Gospels. Joseph obviously made a profound impression on Jesus. St. Joseph's Relation to Us Has Joseph made an impression on us? How do we think of St. Joseph? How do we honor him and pray to him? Do we appreciate the special place he has in Christian spirituality and in our own heritage? Let us wholeheartedly revere the husband of Mary, the foster father of Jesus, the patron of the universal Church. He is, after all, the man who is closest to Christ. Surprise Visit We much preferred Him At a distance. He could not be bought. He would not be made Into a code, A ritual Or a system. Our minds simply Could not contain Him. We wanted a distant Diety. How were we to know He would come close enough To wear our wounds ? Teresa Burleson 407 70.4 2011 potpourri CAREY ELLEN WALSH Lighting Our Modern Spirit: Pope John Paul II's Luminous Mysteries Pope John Paul II was unmistakably a Marian pope, as shown by his encyclical Redemptoris Mater, his visits to prominent sites of Marian apparitions, and his papal motto, Totus Tuus ("Totally Yours") addressed to Mary--all this in an age when Marian devotion had gone into public decline. The Catholic faithful seemed either to love this about their pope or to for-give it as the pious by-product of his hav-ing grown up under Nazi, then Communist, oppression and having lost his mother at the tender age of eight.1 Both reactions missed the theological aspect of John Paul II's pastoral leadership of the church. Mary, for John Paul II, is not relegated to private devotion, but is the "school" for a 408 Carey Ellen Walsh, an associate professor of theology, is a Benedictine Oblate of St. Meinrad's and teaches theology at Villanova University. Her research inter-ests include biblical theology and Catholic spiritualities. Review for Religious new evangelization in the modern world. She invites us to communal study, deepens our understanding of the gospel, and so eases our isolation. As pastor of the universal church, the pope was drawing on an image of the familiar and universal--a mother's love for her child--as a means for spiritual nourishment. Yet because he used the ancient devotion of the rosary, the spiritual contribution of his example in learning from Mary has not received sufficient attention. It is the intent of this essay to demonstrate the spiritual gift of John Paul II's meditation on the rosary. For a pope's foremost role is that of pastor, with "supreme, full, immediate, and uni-versal power in the care of souls.''2 My focus therefore is precisely on how John Paul II's Marian reflections tend to the hunger in our souls. Given his devotion to Mary, it was no surprise when John Paul II recommended anew the rosary as a devotion and declared October 2002-October 2003 as the Year of the Rosary (Rosarium Virginis Mariae). He wrote lovingly of Mary in the gospels, shared the influence the rosary had had on his own life, and suggested that the rosary was a "school of Mary''3 for learning about Christ. It was, indeed, one of his most intimate reflections. What did occasion surprise, however, was that the pope added a new set of mysteries, the luminous, to the long established joyous, sorrowful, and glorious myster-ies- something no one had done for eight centuries, although many popes had written on the rosary.4 In fact, from the start the rosary had been pre-eminently a prayer of the laity, not of the hierarchy. It had first arisen as a popular practice in tandem with the monastic recitation of the Psalter. The 150 Hail Marys recited in the people's prayer, the rosary, corresponded to the 150 psalms, chanted by the monkss and gave a way for 409 70.4 2011 Walsh ¯ Lighting Our Modern Spirit Theology was no abstraction with this pope~ He used it to electrify~ and empower his hearers. 41:0 the laity to contemplate scenes from the gospel. This is how the rosary long functioned in the prayer life of Chris6ans who were largely illiterate. After considering why John Paul II thought it neces-sary for the papal office to enhance this lay devotional prayer, I will assess the theological reason for his having done so. While the pope could easily have been accused of authoritarian interven-tion in the private devo-tions of the faithful, or have been dismissed as a retrograde pope clinging to a pre-Vatican II tradi-tionalism, his Rosarium Virginis Mariae honors the lay contribution to tra-dition and was in accord with the Second Vatican Council's definition of the church as the "People of God," in which the laity plays an important participatory role. One consequence of the council's definition of the church as the people of God, rather than primarily as a clerical institution, was the erosion of the line between popular piety and theology. From the start, this pope's audience was the church as People of God, not the curia. This was evident in his use of the media, his international appearances, his World Youth Days, the popularity of his international best-seller Crossing the Threshold of Hope, and in the response of lay workers under Communist Poland who, heed-ing their pope's conviction on the dignity of all human beings, brought down the Iron Curtain. Theology was no abstraction with this pope. He used it to electrify and empower his hearers. In an age that saw the aban- Review for Religious donment of churches in Europe and the United States, he nourished the church spiritually by returning to the foundations of the faith. When John Paul wrote on the rosary, he did not segregate the professional theologians from believers in the pew, but embodied the Second Vatican C

Issue 60.5 of the Review for Religious, 2001. ; A Discerning Way Personal Wi~tne,ss Consecrated Life Religious Vows SEPTEMBER' OCTOBER 2001 VOLUME 60 NUMBER 5 Review for Religious helps people respond and be faithful to God's universal call-to ,holiness , by making available to them 'the spiritual legacies that flow from the charism~ of catholic consecratea life~ Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ° Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ° V~reb site: "~wcw.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP Mount St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2001 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. 0 religious LIVING OUR CATHOUC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp James and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Henseli OSB Bishop CaHos A. Sevilla SJ Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2001 VOLUME 60 NUMBER 5 contents 454 466 474 a discerning way Exercising Power and Discerning Spirits Janet K. Ruffing RSM alerts us to the ways we are called to be attentive to both subtle and profound movements of the Spirit of God in our midst and attentive to our need for ongoing conversion in our use of power personally and communally. Personal and Social: Shared Experience Can Renew Us Dennis J. Billy CSSR examines the interplay between the individual and the community which releases creative energies to help the community remain faithful to its tradition while adapting to the challenges and needs of the present. Examining My Conscience: Do I Have an Attitude? Brendan Kneale FSC proposes a refinement of our examination of conscience that deals with acquired attitudes or mindsets or preconceptions over which we have some supervision. personal witness 479 Mother Teresa's Charism 494 J. Neuner SJ, using some of Mother Teresa's writings, sketches the charism of the Missionaries of Charity, the loving appropriation of the crucified Jesus' "I thirst." Mother Teresa: Joy in the Night Albert Huart SJ shows--from letters which are part of the beatification process for Mother Teresa--that spiritual darkness was a constant companion of this joy-giving woman of our day. Review for Religious 503 507 Multicultural at Our Very Heart: The Little Sisters of Jesus Cathy Wright LSJ shares some of the story of the Little Sisters of Jesus, founded by Magdeleine Hutin, as an example of multicultural religious living. Millennial Stirrings in Religious A. Paul Dominic SJ reads the signs of the times to picture the healthy stirrings of growth in religious life. 52O 536 re~Ogious vows Poverty as Charity: The Search for a Lifestyle Norm Garth Hallett SJ presents a resolution to the confused practice of religious poverty by a more definite norm, one more surely grounded in the New Testament. Untying the Nots: Vowed Commitment Today Philip Armstrong CSC traces his own transition in understanding the vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity with the three key identifying words of onptiness, openness, and ftTziq%lness. departments 452 Prisms 543 Canonical Counsel: Exclusion from Profession at the Expiration of Temporary Profession 548 Book Reviews September-October 2001 prisms Hospitality has become a popular theme recently in the commentaries of scrip-ture scholars and in the books of current spiritual writers. Perhaps the popularity is a reactive response to the individualism prevalent in contemporary cul-ture, to the isolating security measures in the face of crime, and to the anonymity of suburbia or apart-ment living. But stressing hospitality is not a con-temporary creation. Hospitality as a theme runs through both Old and New Testament writings. Hospitality describes succinctly the double com-mandment of love of God and love of neighbor. Hospitality has two aspects: being at home one-self and making another feel at home. There is an old saying: Home is were the heart is. Home may be connected with certain physical surroundings, but location is not the focus of being "at home." Any place can become home for us when our heart finds its rest there. When we make others feel at home, we have welcomed them in such a way that, by being with us, they find rest at their heart's center. Welcoming the other, welcoming the stranger, may often seem to put the focus only on the object of hos-pitality. But welcoming involves relationship. It takes two--the one being hospitable and the one receiv-ing hospitality--and it is for both to experience that "home" is being shared because the hearts of both parties are involved. Review.for Religious The incident of Jesus' enjoying the hospitality of Mart_ha and Mary in Luke's Gospel (10:38-42) has traditionally led to an interpretation of personality types labeled as Marthas or Marys or to an interpretation of the alternative religious ori-entations of active and contemplative life. Perhaps greater insight into our Christian and Catholic living will be gained if we view both Martha and Mary under the lens of hospitality. Martha is certainly esteemed by biblical tradition for being busy about the efforts of making another feel at home. Mary, for her part, is praised by Jesus in the provocative expression of "choosing the better part" for making him feel so much at home. Together Martha and Mary represent the essentials of hospitality. Mary, listening to Jesus and sitting at his feet, symbolizes the stance of every disciple. She finds her home in God, and her heart is at rest. She has the more essential quality (the "better part"), because she is at home in the deepest part of herself with God. Knowing her true home, she is empowered to offer hospitality to others. Martha represents the other essential quality of hospitality--the work of seeking out and actively inviting others to find a home. Hospitality is the prac-tice which images our living the one commandment of love of God and neighbor. The exercise of hospitality in our personal interaction with friends and strangers, in our religious community, and in our parish life provides us today in our times and cultures with the sign similar to the one distinguishing the first Christians: "See how they love one another." In the midst of the contentious-ness that we often find in our dealings with people who differ with us or who are different from us, we are called to live a hospitality that remains true to our biblical tradition and to the best that is in human hearts. Hospitality becomes the expression on the faces of people seeing Christ in one another. David L. Fleming SJ September-October 2001 JANET K. RUFFING .Exercising Power and Discerning Spirits a discerning way A critical relationship to our exercise of power is a spiritual task for all Christians. This is true, then, for all the sisters who participate in congregational assem-blies or chapters, and not just for those elected to lead-ership. There are many sources of power: wealth, education, ethnic origin, family status, professional role, elective and appointive offices, reputation, organiza-tional skill, control of information, and personal gifts. In a number of situations, we fail to take into consider-ation the presence of these various powers among us. As Christians we are responsible for our exercise of power on behalf of the human community and of indi-vidual persons within our spheres of power. We are called to live our lives in the service of the kingdom of God and the values of the gospel regardless of our par-ticular settings and regardless of how others may exer-cise power around us. Choices about our exercise of power may be difficult if we have not had helpful role models. Nevertheless, it is through the critical exercise of power that we inhabit more fully our humanity, empower others, respond to the power of Jesus' spirit Janet K. Ruffing RSM, professor of spirituality in Fordham's Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education, last wrote for us in July-August 1997. Her address remains GSRRE, Fordham University; 441 East Fordham Road; Bronx, New York 10458. Review for Religious within the community, and effect change in the world. Our response to God's Spirit in us is such an exercise of power. The New Testament speaks about a kind of power that is based neither on domination nor position. It is the power that comes from on high over Mary: the Holy Spirit, who effects her con-ception of Jesus and who comes upon the community gathered in his name after the resurrection. Jesus' ministry is characterized by a release of God's power as he expels demons and heals those who believe. The woman with the issue of blood touches Jesus, and power goes out from him. In Luke, all try to touch Jesus in order to be healed because power emanates from him. When Jesus sends out his disci-ples to preach, he confers power on them, not to rule but to heal and to cast out demons. Jesus brings into our midst freedom from all that binds us. He heals and forgives sin, and through the Spirit he shares this power for good with us. We share in this healing and reconciling power. The Spirit is poured forth on the entire gathered community after the resurrection, and our gathered communities continue to share in that outpouring. We, as apostolic women, are empowered by that same Spirit. We are called to develop ways of making decisions, organizing our lives, and harmonizing our gifts so that this holy power is released in each of us and in the group as a whole for mission. The disci-ples had trouble understanding this, too, for they kept mixing up these two kinds of power--wanting to rule and lord it over others rather than releasing the God life to its own ends. Religious communities are meant to be places where this power of God's Spirit is manifest in concrete and particular ways. It is part of our witness to the world. Many of us have worked long and hard to change the way we relate to one another through our shared exercise of power so that the life of God filling us with desire might be released in God's people. In She Who Is, Elizabeth Johnson describes what the experience of the Spirit is like at the level of institutions: Religious communities are meant to be places where this power of God's Spirit is manifest in concrete and particular ways. September-October 2001 Ruffing ¯ Exercising Power and Discernin~ Spirits On the le,bel of the macro systems that structure human beings as groups, profoundly affecting consciousness and patterns of relationship, experience of the Spirit is also medi-ated. Whenever a human community resists its own destruc-tion or works for its own renewal; when structural change serves the liberation of oppressed peoples; when law sub-verts sexism, racism, poverty, and militarism; when swords are beaten into ploughshares or bombs into food for the starving; when the sores of old injustices are healed; when enemies are reconciled once violence and domination have ceased; whenever the lies and the raping and the killing stop; wherever diversity is sustained in koinonia; wherever justice and peace and freedom gain a transformative foothold-- there the living presence of powerful, blessing mystery amid the brokenness of the world is mediated. And it is known not in the open, so to speak, but as the ground of the praxis of freedom that survives and sometimes even prevails against massive violence; as the ground, in Peter Hodgson's telling words, of those partial, fragmentary, disconnected, transient, tiny, yet transforming rebirths that enable history to go on at all in the midst of vast discontinuities and meaninglessness. So universal in scope is the compassionate, liberating power of Spirit, so broad the outreach of what Scripture calls the finger of God and early Christian theologians call the hand of God, that there is virtually no nook or cranny of reality potentially untouched. The Spirit's presence through the praxis of freedom is mediated amid profound ambigu-ity, often apprehended more in darkness than in light. It is thwarted and violated by human antagonism and systems of collective evil. Still, "Everywhere that life breaks forth and comes into being, everywhere that new life as it were seethes and bubbles, and even, in the form of hope, everywhere that life is violently devastated, throttled, gagged, and slain-- wherever true life exists, there the Spirit of God is at work." This is not to say that every person who reflects on the world would arrive at this same conclusion. But, within the Jewish and Christian faith, the Spirit's saving presence in the con-flietual world is recognized to be everywhere, somehow, always drawing near and passing by, shaping fresh starts of vitality and freedom.' We are often privileged to witness the vitality of freedom in these fresh starts and often fragmentary rebirths around us. Yet, I believe, all of us still have much to learn about our exercise of power. This task requires us to be attentive to both subtle and profound movements of the Spirit of God in our midst and atten-tive to our need for ongoing conversion in our use of power per- Review for Religious sonally and communally. Where God's Spirit is authentically at work, individuals experience an increase in energy, creativity, and humanization. Challenge and Conflict Because we live in times of unprecedented cultural change, leadership in women's communities i~ increasingly charged with tasks of"nonroutine" or adaptive work, to use the vocabulary of Ron Heifetz. Leadership in such times is charged not only with routine administration, but also with guiding a community through adaptive challenges. We have commonly used the vocabu-lary of transformational leadership for this function. Adaptive or transformational change requires changes in values, beliefs, and behaviors. It requires much more of both leaders and members than simple modification; it will not occur unless leaders identify con-flict and work with it rather than avoid it. Groups themselves rarely, if ever, correctly identify the deep-level challenges to which they need to respond. The work is simply too hard, and the ordinary members are frequently lacking the "big picture" or the specific informa-tion that would impel them ko initiate change. Members are usually so thoroughly immersed in their own ministries that these eclipse the bigger picture even if they have access to it. Leaders often work with this bigger picture every day. This is one reason why leaders have a responsibility to share infor-mation and to articulate their perceptions to the group engaged in deep change. For communities to flourish at the present time, they need skillful administrators who effectively direct the tech-nical or routine details of the group's life and mission, and they need leaders who can distinguish among these tasks while attend-ing to the transformational change process and orchestrating it. Change at this level can result only from a collective and con-templative process. Religious communities are now at risk of stow extinction if their leaders think their only task is to implement the consensual decisions of the group. Septentber-October 2001 Ruffing ¯ Exercising Power and Discerning Spirits Religious communities are now at risk of slow extinction if their leaders think their only task is to implement the consen-sual decisions of the group. Although this function is necessary, the process is slow 'and cannot keep up with the pace of change. Leaders need to anticipate and help the group keep moving toward the next change. Yes, women leaders do tend to use their collaborative skills to achieve consensus instead of imposing their solutions on the group, but a group can come to consensus on only so many issues, values, decisions. The energy and skill used in developing consensus, if not focused on really important choices, may drain energy from hard adaptive work that remains to be done. In religious life today, leaders often need to initiate change by correctly identifying unavoidable challenges and helping the group see that some of these challenges must be resolved by a deep level of change, and not merely by technical solutions or skill. For this task, leaders need all of their motiva-tional skills to keep the group engaged in the process, and they need to create a safe enough space for fearful and distressed members to do what they would just as soon avoid doing. Tranformational change is the occasion for a considerable amount of distress. Leaders need to anticipate this distress, which often manifests itself as resistance, and endeavor to alle-viate enough of it so the group can do the work required. From leaders this requires all of the qualities the FORUS study in the early 1990s identified in authentically spiritual leaders. Leaders must demonstrate, on the bne hand, a radical and genuine trust in God and in the future into which God invites us and, on the other hand, must not minimize the distress in the group. Leaders need to hbsorb a great deal of the distress and not pass it on, but also to get the group to confront the change. This graced abil-ity to remain unflappable under pressure is difficult. Leaders need to have acquired considerable spiritual, psychological, and emotional resources to do this without damage to themselves. Leaders need not convince members to resolve challenges exactly as they would prefer. What they must do is continue giving the task of finding creative solutions back to the group-- or to one or more committees if that seems more practical. Effective responses can and do emerge out of careful handling of conflicting points of view. Frequently the resolution is not going to be what the leaders envisioned. This is why nominees, when asked what they would do in a particular situation, can Review for Religious rarely answer convincingly. They simply do not know what the emerging issues are or will be. Only as new issues arise can lead-ership identify them and focus attention on them. To ignore these late-rising issues would be to ignore the rest of the work to be done. Leadership serves the group by continually trying to think ahead of it and be ready to help the group respond to emerging issues. For the prophetic or dissenting voices to have any impact in the group at all, leaders will need to make room for both the novel and the differing until they get enough hearing to enable the group to shift. Whenever the novel emerges, the group needs time to welcome the possibilities it offers and to negotiate the many subtle interior shifts that such a change might require. It is difficult for people to receive the novel if its herald is not one of the more acceptable and respected members of the group. Yet the proposed newness may be exacdy what is needed. This deeper level of change can never happen in a group unless the positional leaders, the women elected to leadership and bearing the right to exercise authority in the name of the group, use that power skill-fully until the tensions can be resolved.2 Some of the studies on women in leadership show that women leaders tend to rely more on their personal power than on their official authority. If those of you who are leaders in a specific situation are wondering if you have authority or not, it may be because you are not making enough use of it as you invite, cajole, encourage, inspire, and entice the group to do what it needs to do. Some of you may avoid using your posi-tional authority in order not to evoke old transferences to authority. Women leaders and their communities need to see authority as a resource to be used for the sake of the group. Most members want to be challenged to be their best selves, even though everyone is aware that conversion and growth cannot be coerced. In facing the particular challenges of transformational change, we as women let our historical wounds regarding authority heal. We develop the skills of being leaders and mem-bers in partnership, in mutuality. We focus our energies in harmony with the divine energies for the sake of mission. I want now to reflect more at length on the exercise of power in a discernment mode--in the context of choosing leaders and gath-ering together in assembly or chapter. Septentber-October 2001 Ru~n~ ¯ Exerdsin~ Power and Discernin~ S~irits Discernment of Spirits My reflections draw on some themes from Catherine of Siena's teaching on discernment of spirits and also on the skills and wisdom of the Quaker tradition of communal discernment. Although Catherine of Siena does reflect incidentally on various interior movements in the course of her Dialogue, she emphasizes discernment. For her, discernment has more to do with right relationships and living in harmony with God, whom she often calls Truth. Because discernment is rooted in supreme Truth, "it rightly sets conditions and priorities of love where other people .are concerned. The light of discernment, which is born of charity, gives order to your love for your neighbors . The pri-orities set by holy discernment direct all the soul's powers to serving Me courageously and conscientiously.''3 Discernment is born of charity. This implies that an open, unselfish, loving heart fosters discernment by the ordering activity of love. Discernment is a virtue that puts everything in perspective and shows us what we owe to each person and situation. Catherine insists it grows and develops as we do in the life of God; it enlarges our capacity for love expressed in ministry. As we grow in our love for God, so do we grow in our discernment. Catherine has three stages to the spiritual life, to growth in charity, and to discernment which she calls the first, second, and third lights. Discernment is the light which" dissolves all darkness, dissi-pates ignorance, and seasons every virtue and virtuous deed. It has a prudence that cannot be deceived, a strength that is invincible, a constancy right up to the end, reaching as it does from heaven to earth, that is, from the knowledge of Me to the knowledge of oneself, from love of Me to love of one's neighbors. By this glorious light the soul sees and rightly despite her own weakness.4 There are, I believe, several implications that we might draw from this teaching. As a community gathers for decision making in a discernment mode, no two people in the group are able to participate in" exactly the same way. As we assemble, we are all in different places. The more each of us knows and loves God, the more we understand ourselves. The more we know and love our neighbors, the more we love God. Catherine recognizes that dis-cernment as a virtue grows and develops over the course of our graced history and in proportion to the intensity of our love for God and for others. This growth reveals to us our particular weak- Review for Religious nesses, blind spots, cowardice, and resistances and our reactions under stress--all of which, sowing confusion and doubt, may keep us from making costly decisions. This self-knowledge is extremely important. If we do not know our characteristic ways of responding to stress or distress, our blindness may increase the confusion and doubt of the gathered community. Some members may be skilled in this discernment, and others, for various reasons, may not have the same clear perception of a situation or the same capacity to accept God's invitation to move forward. This incapacity may come from current cir-cumstances: a recent bereavement, phys-ical illness, or recent ministry challenges that have left them benumbed. The best preparation before we gather for communal discernment is to increase our prayer, to seek self-knowl-edge in the present moment, and to heal and reconcile anything we can with other members. Intensifying our connection to God, gaining self-knowledge, and recon-ciliation efforts can remove potential blocks within the group. If any member speaks the truth about an issue, situation, or challenge that the group needs to face, every other member must receive it and "test" its possibilities for herself and for the group. If this truth is spoken by a member whose opinions people frequently perceive to be "off the mark" or whom they tend to dismiss because of past performance, the others may fail to respond with openness to conversion, that is, with willingness to change their minds. Individuals and the group need to allow enough time for such a potential shift to occur among themselves. This is a quite different process from the response those readily receive who--by reason of their education, their election, or their previous performance--are customarily taken seriously. In Catherine of Siena's system, those who practice discern-ment according to the third "light" are those who have "clothed" themselves in God's will. They are attuned to God and God's desire. This harmony with God's will is not necessarily about specific issues; it is a matter of practical insight into the Mystery If we do not know our characteristic ways of responding to stress or distress, our blindness may increase the confusion and doubt of the gathered community. Septentber-October 2001 Ruffing * Exercising Power and Discerning Spirits of Jesus' total self-giving love for us in the paschal mystery. The touchstone is not seeing a single issue clearly, but living constantly within the Christ mystery. Such "seeing" elicits desire to imitate Jesus' self-giving love without counting the cost to self. In Catherine's words, such a person "loves me sincerely without any other concern than the glory and praise of my name. She does not serve me for her own pleasure, or her neighbors for her own profit, but only for love." Such persons are alive with the charism of their community. Full of apostolic zeal, they basically love in un-self-serving ways. Such persons are not prevented from choosing God's will because of their own selfishness, nor does suffering or antic-ipated difficulty prevent them from choosing what is best for God, others, and self. What is sought is God's will, which Catherine assumes leads us to what is best for everyone. Communities today face many pressing issues. What is best for one community may not be best for another. What God may be calling one community to at a particular juncture is not the same as another. With who we are, where we are geographically, and where we are in our communal and personal histories, what is best for our mission, our selves, and those with whom we minister? From the rich Quaker tradition of discernment, I will discuss only three themes: unity, peace, and clarity. Quakers, like other Christians, draw on the "fruits of the spirit" as sketched by Paul in Galatians 5:23 as a touchstone for discernment. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, trust, gentleness, and self-control." This cluster of outcomes or fruits resulting from behaviors, attitudes, spiritual practices, and interactions with others reveals lives authentically lived in the Spirit. These fruits are all interrelated. For the Society of Friends, privileged unity in God's love was an important result in commu-nity life of various impulses or "leadings" of the Spirit in individuals. At certain times of corporate "waiting on the Lord," they experienced their unity, their being gathered in God, as a palpable mystical experience. This unity bore fruit in love of neigh-bor. For them kindness and gentleness were dimensions of the fruit of love. Traditionally they came to ask whether a particular course of "action would produce more or less love, greater or less unity, more or less joy.''s They valued Truth as well, assuming that, once the community Review for Religious was deeply "gathered in unity," an individual under divine guidance would be consistent with the perceptions of others who were also attuned to divine guidance. So the quality of love which could gather the community in unity also led to discerning the truth. As Patricia Loring describes it, the unity sought is not simple agreement, not consensus, compromise, or an irreducible minimum of views. What is sought is a sense of deep interior unity which would be a sign that the members are consciously gathered together in God and may therefore trust their corporate guidance: The felt gathering in God tends to illuminate and clarify motives, to dissolve or harmonize differences-or allow them to stand side by side in the tenderness accompanying gath-ering in the spirit of God. Unity may enable a way forward to be found even if members continue to hold differing views. Divisiveness, disruption, or simple lack of unity indicate that one, all, or some members of the group are not fully under guidance.6 Peace is yet another important touchstone of the gathered community. The unity of the gathered community brings about peace by harmonizing disparate elements within the community and within the self. Quakers discovered that "the reconciliation of disparate parts of one's self or of one's experience in a new, sometimes unexpected direction or action can issue in a deep interior sense of peace . Living close to the Spirit has the effect of such harmonizing and reconciling both within and between persons." For Quakers, peace as a touchstone in communal discernment is "the feeling of being at peace with a decision or an outcome, even if it is not what one sought or hoped for, even if it calls for considerable hardship or change.''7 Often a new burden or task disturbs one's peace initially. Peace or ease is restored only when one accepts the burden or fulfills the task. In leadership selection processes, frequently those being considered experience considerable lack of peace. Sometimes, when a nominee is graced to accept a potential call to leadership, a flood of peace results. When or if this deep peace makes itself felt, a leader may confidently trust the election and will often return to this initial grace of leadership in difficult times. Lack of peace is as important as peace. When peace is disturbed, some action is called for. Sometimes the action or resolution is neither simple nor obvious. At times individuals and groups suffer a prolonged period of living with disquiet before the fitting response becomes clear. September-October 2001 Ruffing ¯ Exercising Power and Discerning Spirits Quakers often used the word "clear" as in "getting clear" to describe an outcome of discernment. Sometimes it had the con-notation of being released from a burden. At other times it involved acting on a "leading" (that is, a matter discerned) and faithfully carrying it out. In this early form, getting clear was closer to how we might describe feeling free. Quakers now use the term clarity or clearness in the sense of coming to intellectual clarity about what they are to do or what a "leading" might be about, and much of their individual discernment is aided by convoking a clearness committee. The membdrs of such a group are invited on the basis of their spiritual sensitivity and typically only ask questions which might help the individual discerners clarify their inner truth. They help them clarify their situation, motives, and "leadings": they do not offer advice. As Patricia Loring describes such a gathering, it first of all opens itself to divine guidance. For Quakers this is not a per-functory moment of silence, but a much deeper recollection: "for an intentional return to the Center, to give over one's own firm views, to place the outcome in the hands of God, to ask for a mind and heart as truly sensitive to accepting of nuanced intimations of God's will as of overwhelming evidences of it.''s This is an attitude of receptivity to subtle hints of God's will as well as to unmistakable clarity. Discernment is, then, a habit of the heart. From my perspec-tive it is intimately linked with our spiritual development. When we exercise power in any context, but especially when it is time for major decision making in community or when we are in offi-cial positions of authority, we need discernment to ensure that we are exercising our power in service of the reign of God and not for self-serving benefits of any kind. When we or our communities are thus "gathered" in God, an incredible amount of energy is released for the sake of others and of ourselves. When we enter into this discernment in partnership with God, whose Spirit impels us toward goodnes{, toward love, toward peace, and toward patience, the results are energy, enthusiasm, gentleness, and joy. Notes l Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1993), pp. 126-127. 2 Katherine Clarke, "Leadership When It's Time for Adaptation," Human Development 18 (Fall 1997): 5-11. Review for Religious 3 Catherine of Siena: The Dialogue, ed. and trans. Suzanne Noffke (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1980), §11, p. 44. 4 Dialogue, § 11, p. 44. s Patricia Loring, Spiritual Discernment: The Context and Goal of Clearness Committees, Pendle Hill Pamphlet 305 (Wallingford, Penn.: Pendle Hill Publications, 1992), p. 7. 6 Loring, p. 8. 7 Loring, p. 9. s Loring, p. 24. The Woman Arusha, Tanzania So short the bridge on the main road in the city few notice the deep stream, nor see, among the bustling feet, a woman, in rags, on the dusty pavement, leaning against the stone parapet, clutching a begging cup. One sprawling leg wears a tattered shoe, the other a soiled bandage lying loosely where a foot should be. I walk grimly on, and on, and on. Troubled, I turn, walk back two blocks and share my conscience with a leper. Hugh Sharpe CFC September-October 2001 DENNIS J. BILLY Personal and Social: Shared Experience Can Renew Us Religious live in community and profess the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience. These common features make religious into countercultural and eschatological signs of radical discipleship. Living together under a rule dedicated to the spread of gospel values, they remind others and themselves of the presence of the kingdom of God within them, in their midst, and still to come. Religious do this through the individual and communal expression they give to the vows. In this essay I will look at the reciprocal relationship between the personal and social, giving special attention to discrepancies between vision and practice and to the value of interpersonal sharing of experience for the community's renewal. A Circular Relationship I begin with a hypothesis: A relationship of circularity exists between people's personal expression of the vows and the gospel culture promoted by their community. This link between the personal and the communal comes from the vows themselves. They embrace all of human existence: the physical, the emotional, the intellectual, the spiritual, and the social. ~ Human existence is constituted by individual consciousness, which itself is shaped, at least in part, by social ties (parents, family, schools, churches, social clubs, charitable organizations, athletic Dennis J. Billy CSSR continues to write from Accademia Alfonsiana; C.P. 2458; 00100 Roma, Italy. Revie~v fbr Religious teams, and so forth). From birth, infants interact with this social environment; gradually maturing, they have a greater impact on it. This creative interplay contributes to the values people adopt and affects the choices they make in life. The formation of religious in discipleship roughly parallels this human growth and development. By their very nature the evangelical counsels are derived from, fostered by, and oriented toward life in community. This social dimension of the vows has its origin in the reality Paul found in the body of Christ, and it appears on various levels within the religious community itself, in the community of the church, and in the world at large.2 In this circular relationship, the individual and the communal presuppose and cannot do without each other. Every religious community comprises a variety of members who bring their unique potentials, gifts, and perspectives to the living out of their congregation's charism. Each individual has an impact on the evangelical life of the community. Although this impact may be greater for some than for others, no contribution may be regarded as insignificant. Each individual, moreover, is supported by and lives out his or her vows through life in community. Although group will vary from group in external expression, the purpose of each community is a life of discipleship within a common evangelical witness. A community helps to shape individuals' understanding of the evangelical life in many and varied ways (initial and ongoing formation, community structures, common devotional practices). That understanding, that vision, gives meaning and relevance to their individual lives and, in turn, has an effect on the community's self-understanding. This, again, further refines the individuals' experience of religious life. This circular interplay between the individual and the community releases creative energies to help the community remain faithful to its tradition while adapting to the challenges and exigencies of the present. When this adaptation occurs, the community has struck a healthy balance between the individual and the communal expression of the vows. When it does not, something has gone awry that, if not checked, can do serious harm to all involved. " Finding Discrepancies The question arises: What happens when this circular relationship Septentber-October 2001 Billy s Personal and Social is interfered with or in. some way broken up? A number of things can happen. Individual religious may distance themselves psychologically from the community and gradually lose touch with its motivating gospel principles. The community, moreover, may be too rigid (or too flexible) in the way it adapts to the cultural milieu of the day. The lack of vocations and a steady flow of people leaving the community may seriously affect its morale and self-confidence. Secularizing trends in society may also tear away at the fabric of community life and eventually leave little or nothing for members to share. Any of these factors could affect the reciprocal relationship between the individual and communal expression of the VOWS. Added to these possibilities is the gap that can grow between the community's officially stated vision of itself and its actual lifestyle. If the inconsistencies become too numerous, the community may be unable to attract new members and those already within it may become disillusioned or, worse yet, numb to their need for change. To some extent, every community experiences a discrepancy between its ideals and the way it practices them. Any attempt by sinful human beings to embrace the high ideals of radical discipleship falls short in some respect. If the discrepancy is too large, however, community members need to reexamine its structures and processes. The question to ask is whether the gap between their stated ideals and their lifestyle is decreasing or increasing. If decreasing, they need strategies to continue the trend and, if possible, even accelerate it. If the gap is increasing, they need to find ways of reversing the process so that the community can once again "live with itself." If they fail to do so, the circular relationship between the personal and communal expression of the vows will continue to break down, and the community will in time become a loose collection of individuals united only by externals (such as name, shelter, and finances). If this occurs~ it will be difficult, if not impossible, to decrease the gap between their ideals and their lived experience. One way of estimating the discrepancy between vision and practice in a religious community is to keep in mind the various levels of spirituality commonly accepted by scholars: the experiential (level one), the doctrinal (level two), and the academic (level three).3 Since the Second Vatican Council, religious communities have spent much time and effort rewriting their rules and statutes (level two) and studying the history of their founders Re~ie~ for Religious and the nature of their founding charism (level three). At this time they need to put equal effort into level one, the actual living of the vows in the context of community and their founding charism. Since religious communities need a strong, positive continuity between all three levels of spirituality, now is the time to raise level one, the experiential dimension, up to the other two. An Experiential Turn For this shift in emphasis to occur, a retrieval process is needed: Communities need to get back in touch with the circular relationship between the personal and the communal in their expression of the vows and the common life. They could begin by forming small dialogue groups to share their experience of religious life with one another. From there, they could comb their tradition for hints of bold initiatives they might undertake in the life of discipleship. They could ask communities with a similar charism what they have been doing to make their vision of religious life relevant to people's needs. Most importantly, they could rediscover the value of certain forms of prayer in common and choose to make practical daily use of the best of them for uniting the personal and the communal. The question is whether they have the courage to do so and are willing to pay the price that such a decision might entail. To speak of an "experiential turn" in religious life today means that community members need to step back from the swirl of their activities and take stock of their lives on every level: the anthropological, the physical, the emotional, the intellectual, the spiritual, and the social. Once they have done so, they will more easily ponder the ideals they profess and discover if they are living up to them. This means taking steps individually and together and naming what they are 'going through, evaluating their experience against specific criteria, and responding to the evaluation in a responsible, practical way. Another way of making this experiential turn is for religious to seek a proper balance between action and contemplation. Such a balance requires time and effort. Once achieved, however, it helps Every community experiences a discrepancy between its ideals and the way it practices them. September-October 2001 Billy ¯ Personal and Social religious to put petty differences aside and to unite around matters of common concern. Such balance helps community members to recognize the discrepancy between their ideals and their lifestyle, to be disturbed by it, and to do something about it. They become motivated to overcome their past indifference, and they take steps toward personal conversion and the renewal of their institutes. By concentrating on both the personal and the communal aspects of their experience, community members are well on their way toward reintegrating the two and bringing steady incremental change for the better into their individual lives and their communal life. Observations At this point, a number of remarks are in order concerning the effect of this "experiential turn" on religious life and on a community's wimess. 1. Living the vowed life in common contains experiential components that affect religious both as individuals and as a group. Religious should be aware of these components. In this light, chastity is not a mere solitary concern, but a gift to be nourished in a vibrant, caring community. Poverty, in turn, takes both personal and communal forms in the daily life of a religious community, and obedience makes little sense except in terms of an individual's free and loving response to the needs of the common good. Even community life itself must take into account both an individual's and the group's experience of its general regimen. In their response to the call to radical discipleship, religious must keep in touch with their personal and communal experience for their reciprocal interaction to be helpful and creative. 2. When a community gives adequate attention to the personal and communal dimensions of its lived experience, a noticeable change takes place in the quality of its witness to the life of discipleship. This change normally occurs in a gradual, incremental manner. It comes about because members of the community are no longer relating to each other as isolated individuals, but as members of a family with stories to tell, experiences to share, and suggestions to offer. Once individuals have been given the opportunity to share the wide range of their life experiences as religious, there occurs a growing tendency within the community to treat each other with gentleness and respect. The sharing of these experiences gives community .members the impetus to make appropriate changes in Review for Religious the structures of community life so that the gap between their ideals and lifestyle may be reduced. When this happens, community members begin to feel that they have more say in the day-to-day activities of the community. They begin to take ownership of their community and are willing to invest more of their time and energy in its success. 3. To say that the quality of a community's witness to the life of discipleship will rise as a result of its paying close attention to the personal and communal components of its members' lived experience does not mean that the road to renewal will be without problems. On the contrary, buried memories and pent-up frustrations may give way to heated displays of anger. These outbursts should be expected and even wel-comed. When they occur, those venting their anger should be carefully listened to so that the issues behind their raw emotions can be understood. When anger is expressed, the com-munity should not run away from it or feel threatened or intimidated by it, but should confront it, letting the under-lying needs come to the surface and seeking appropriate ways of dealing with them. Some may be so angry at the community that they can see no other alternative than to leave. Others will stay, but may have strong issues to deal with in their personal relationship with the community, even as that community tries hard to change. Still others may wish that the community had never begun to make changes in the first place. Focusing on lived experience elicits different responses from community members. They should all be listened to with care and dealt with sensibly. The community should be aware that its numbers may have to decrease before the quality of its witness begins to rise. 4. After giving its attention to the members' personal and communal experiences, the community needs to weigh matters carefully in the light of its charism and the church's teaching on religious life. As for the charism, the community should examine its The sharing of experiences gives community members the impetus to make appropriate changes in the structures of community life so that the gap between their ideals and lifestyle may be reduced. Septentber-October 2001 Billy ¯ Personal and Social constitutions and statutes to see where the experiences that have surfaced fit into its stated self-understanding. As for the church's teaching, the community should give its attention to the Vatican II documents, the Code of Canon Law, and Pope John Paul's recent apostolic letter Vita consecrata (1996). The goal here would be to strengthen the continuity between the experiential and the doctrinal levels in Christian spirituality, that is, the community's lived experience and official teaching about itself. By comparing the personal and communal experiences of the community (level one) with the pertinent ecclesial (level two) and congregational (level three) documents, the community can gauge which experiences are part of the call to radical discipleship and which are not. Then the members can discuss what elements of their constitutions and statutes need to be adjusted or perhaps even changed. The very rereading of these documents in the light of their experience can be inspiriting. 5. Diminishing the gap between a community's vision and its lived experience is a thorough process. A single attempt, however intensive or prolonged, will do little. Practical arrangements are needed whereby members can examine their personal and communal experiences and then make reasonable proposals for change. These arrangements should not be imposed, but should evolve from within the community. Whatever they may be (weekly or monthly reviews of life, common retreat days, group spiritual direction, dialogue groups with a facilitator, and so forth), they need to be evaluated regularly to ensure that they continue to be perceived as vital to the community. Their purpose is not to turn the community in upon itself in an unhealthy, introverted way, but to enable it to see its shortcomings and take steps to get beyond them. These arrangements should provide continuing support for members' personal lives and their communal life. A Final Observation Healthy communities are always seeking practical ways of narrowing the gap between ideal and practice, in the hope that the gap will one day disappear entirely. An awareness of the circular relationship between the individual and the communal experience can do much toward this goal. Such awareness may include wading through powerful streams of emotion to get to where unmet needs can be understood, acknowledged, and addressed. Review for Religious Religious are called to be signs of hope to the hopeless. To do this, they must be aware of what they themselves are called to become and take positive steps to attain it. Only by confronting first the discrepancy between vision and lifestyle in their own lives will they be able to help others to do the same. Religious cannot remove this discrepancy through their own efforts. They must cooperate with the Spirit in their following of Christ. They need to put complete trust in the Lord's love and concern for them. His Spirit alone will shape them and sustain them. His Spirit alone will carry them into intimate fi'iendship with God. His Spirit alone will reveal to them, and to those whose lives they touch, the kingdom that is within them, in their midst, and still to come. Notes ~ See Dennis J. Billy, "~'ta Consecrata and the Anthropology of the Vows," Review for Religious 58, no. 4 (July-August 1999): 384-392. 2 See ~ta consecrata, §51. 3 See Walter H. Principe CSB, "Toward Defining Spirituality," Studies in Religion / Sciences religieuses 12 (1983): 135-136. There is something made known each autumn in the voices of leaves, red, orange, yellow clear choral anthems conducted by the wind which sends me into the chilled morning my breath a white wraith staring back, touching my face. I open my eyes to thankfulness singing and waving, carelessly brushing away my own apparition too briefly present before I could ask, dear child, who are you. ? C.J. Renz September-October 2001 BRENDAN KNEALE Examining My Conscience: Do I Have an Attitude? ~wehen we first were trained to examine our conscience, probably confined ourselves to matters of stealing, lying, swearing, disobedience, bad thoughts, and fighting. As we grew older and had new responsibilities, we enlarged our scope beyond the commandments of God to the "the commandments of the church"--attendance at Mass and similar requirements. Later, perhaps, we looked beyond action to habit, that is, to. the virtues and the vices--our faith, our humility, our temperance, as well as our anger, gluttony, sloth, and so forth. If we became members of the consecrated life, we added concern about the vows connected to the evangelical counsels. What may lead us to refine our examination of conscience even further is the experience of recidivism, our repeated lapses into the same sins and failings. We suspect a root cause, some factor or factors below the surface that lead us to fall again and again into the same culpable behavior. Another occasion for deeper search might be a friend's calling our attention to some failing of which we were unaware. And we may occasionally sur-prise ourselves by an act of sudden anger or other fault and then wonder, "Where did that come from?" As Isaiah says, "The heart is more devious than any other thing, perverse too." A tendency at this juncture is to claim that we are victims. We may feel that we fall repeatedly or unexpectedly into certain faults Brendan Kneale FSC, a previous contributor (1988), writes from 4403 Redwood Road; Napa, California 94558. Review for Religious because of forces beyond our control. For example, traumas early in life may later induce us to behave neurotically and compul-sively. However, as one prominent non-Catholic psychologist has written, a great value of the Catholic practice of confession (and its attendant examination of conscience) is that it gets us to take personal responsibility for our bad conduct, and not to claim victimhood when it is not justified. Notice that the implication here is that we are dealing with "conscience," not the subconscious. We are not urging personal psychoanalysis, however valuable that may be. Rather, the ques-tion here is about morality, a domain that deals only with actions and omis-sions in which there is at least some degree of improper behavior (or omission), sufficient awareness, and some consent of the will. For exam-ple, it does not take a person addicted to swearing (and currently more or less unmindful of his habitual behavior) much effort to realize that he has set up the habit himself by per- Without a correction of attitude, recidivism and recurring "surprise" behaviors can be expected. sonal choices made long before. He was not, and is not, an unblamable victim. It is only right that he be responsible for the consequences of those choices, that he examine himself on the personal sources and the moral responsibility involved. Our Attitudes The kind of probing advocated here, and requiring a refine-ment of examination, has to do with ~cquired attitudes or mind-sets or preconceptions over which we have supervision. Do we approach situations with an "attitude"? For example, persons brought up in an atmosphere of racial prejudice may need to examine more than their overt actions or even their more or less conscious behavior patterns, and take a close look at their basic attitudes. Repeated lapses into offensive words or deeds may require not only regret but also examination of deep-seated causes, basic attitudes that perhaps were acquired nonsinfully. Otherwise, without a correction of attitude, recidivism and recur-ring "surprise" behaviors can be expected. Of course, there may be other causes for our repeated sins--the three concupiscences-- Septentber-October 2001 Kneale ¯ Examining My Conscience What are our preconceptions about the homeless, the panhandler, the handicapped, the addict, the "great unwashed"? but here we are looking at an .operative cause that may precede (or follow) such passions and that we can bring into examination when we try to analyze our moral behavior. Are we rightly accused of being "judgmental"? Are we saddled with attitudes that damage our relations with God, our neighbor, and our own self?. Is it a false estimate of our present stance--whether we are in youth, maturity, old age--that is the source of our sassiness, bossiness, crotcheti-ness? Does our ironic view of things lead to hurtful sarcasm? Does our cynicism lead to real contempt? Insofar as our culture shapes our attitudes or outlooks on such matters as promiscuity, illness, consumerism, status, race, authority, work, time, privilege, food, fun, humor, recreation, comfort, entitle-ments, adventure, celebrity, revenge, violence, death, and so forth, we should search to see if these attitudes need revision as part of our effort to turn away from gen-uinely culpable thoughts or actions that we notice in ourselves. Typical questions for ourselves might be: Has my culturally induced attitude toward illness led to hypochondria or to an objectionable fussiness? Does an attitude toward entitlements make me an unpleasant person or a seeker of unjust privilege? Do people find my attitude threatening? To be sure, our culture induces many good attitudes--about democracy, equality, service, private property, education, nonex-ploitation, rewarding merit, conservation, and so forth. We should look at these good attitudes, too, in order to check whether we have blocked some of the good ones along with the bad. A recommended test of our attitudes is to ask what our out-look is on cultural icons, TV heroes, and popular fictional char-acters. Do we find ourselves adopting the mentality of, say, the headline-hunting celebrity, the compromised politician, the self-indulgent artist, the know-it-all intellectual, the snobbish sophisticate, the ruthless tycoon, the swaggering athlete, the gos-sipy columnist,~ the rash liberal, the entrenched traditionalist? If we are quick to praise one of these, why 'is that? Do we almost unconsciously try to shape our self-image to be like them? On the Review for Religious other hand, of course, we need to look at our inner view of those whom our culture tends to despise. What are our preconceptions about (and our resultant behaviors toward) the homeless, the panhandler, the handicapped, the addict, the "great unwashed"? Motivating Ourselves It is probably not easy to refine our examination of conscience to these levels--and surely not to levels beyond them. Why make the effort? Such an examination is one way to get closer to a state of "justice beyond that of the scribes and phar-isees," that is, to grow in the justification talked about by St. Paul. When I think of "justification," I think of what carpenters and mechanics mean by the word, namely, a fitting together and good lining up of items in their handiwork. If these items are all squared away, then they are fully "justified." The Pauline usage seems analogous. He sees God giving us the grace to be squared away, to be right with God, to be righteous, in perfect relation with Him. This justification or righteousness is initially and rad-ically conferred in baptism and is capable of growing and being perfected. In the process, the basic need is for us to adjust our attitudes to those of Christ, to "put on the mind of Christ" (to accomplish literally a metanoia, a change of mind for the better) and thereby get closer to a final justification or righteousness. In the case of Mary Immaculate, of course, such perfection was unimpeded. Since she was conceived without darkness of intellect, weakness of will, or disorder among her passions, it fol-lowed that her attitudes needed no further rectification, and so her growth in holiness and her ability to overcome temptation were rapid. In our case, we need the special help of fasting, prayers, and sacraments. The sacraments help us to pursue a perfection like hers. And a penetrating examination of conscience helps us profit more from those sacraments. The purpose here is not to induce scrupulosity (which is gen-erally a sign of pride), but to get at factors behind or beyond the routine examination lists of commandments, virtues, and vices-- important and revealing though they are. Surely the capital sins of pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth deserve scrutiny vis-~l-vis ourselves. But, if we fail often in their regard, we may need to look further into our unexamined lives, into those attitudes that we adopt as normative and that stoke September-October 2001 Kneale ¯ Examining ~Iy Conscience the fires of our behavior. The basic question: Is my attitude that of Christ? Attitudes lead to priorities in our values, values lead to our choices, choices to our actions, actions to habits, habits to deeds of consequence. Each element of this sequence can be conducive to something Christian or to something not Christian; each deserves inspection. Confession to Sumac Anonymous before the frost, the sumac, frozen, blooms resplendent on the freeway grade, innocent of motives, yet sensuous, seductive. Red, orange, or scarlet - blood, a Rothko, Rauschenberg. What it is and must be one, with no apologies. Review for Religqous The beauty of the trees accuses me. My greater gifts I squander by my sins; in dying autumn color they proclaim obedience unto death. Rebellious, though, I languish in the dark. Ed Block J. NEUNER Mother Teresa's Charism On 26 July 1999 the cause for the beatification of Mother Teresa was officially opened in Calcutta. Pope John Paul II had granted an exception to the general regulation that such proceedings can be taken up only five years after the death of the Servant of God. Mother Teresa had died only on 5 September 1997. The early inauguration of the proceedings was granted on account of the worldwide request to have her officially recognized by the church as a model of compassionate love reaching out to all strata of society, especially to the rejected and exploited. For the proceedings in Calcutta, all the documents connected with her life and work had to be collected.1 They opened insights not only into the incredible complexity of her work spread over all continents during a short time but also into her personal life, which had remained hidden from the public and, to a great extent, even from her own community. They reveal many details of the development of the Missionaries of Charity (MC), but also the hidden sources of Mother Teresa's untiring work and inspiring personality, which fascinated people of all strata of society and of all religions. These few pages are an attempt to present this inner sphere, God's work in her heart, which bore so much fruit in her life and work. J. Neuner SJ, who knew Mother Teresa, writes from Sanjeevan Ashram; 38 Sassoon Road; Pune 411 001; India. September~ October 2001 Neuner ¯ Mother Teresa's Charism "I Thirst" Among the Missionaries 10 September 1946 is celebrated as the birthday of the congregation. Mother Teresa had come to India as a novice of the Loreto Sisters. She was very happy in her community and as a teacher in Loreto, Entally (Calcutta). A totally unexpected experience came to her on that day in the litde train climbing up from Siliguri to Darjeeling: the thirst of Jesus and a call to give her life in service to the poor and rejected in the slums. She was deeply disturbed: it might have been a temptation of the devil. But her confessor was convinced of the divine inspiration and told her to communicate it to Archbishop E Perrier of Calcutta. The archbishop hesitated more than a year and kept her waiting--a painful time--but finally supported her application to Rome to leave the Loreto Sisters and start her own congregation. According to her constitutions, it is the aim of the congregation "to quench the infinite thirst of Jesus on the cross for love of souls by the profession of the evangelical counsels and the wholehearted and free service of the poorest of the poor" (Const 3).z This twofold aim is the ever recurring topic of her instructions. But only towards the end of her life does she speak more explicitly about her transforming experience. On 25 March 1993 she writes to all the sisters, brothers, and priests of the Missionaries a letter that is "very personal" and "comes from Mother's heart." She is deeply concerned for her society not to lose our early love, especially in the future after Mother leaves you . The time has come for me to speak openly on the gift God gave me on Sept. 10th, to explain as fully as I can what means to me the thirst of Jesus. For me the thirst of Jesus is something so intimate, so I have felt shy until now to speak to you about September 10th . Everything in MC exists only to satiate Jesus. His words on the wall of every MC chapel are not from the past only, but alive here and now, spoken to you . Jesus Himself must be the one to say to you "I thirst." Hear your own name, not just once, every day. ¯. "I thirst" is something much deeper than Jesus just saying "I love you." Unless you know deeply inside that Jesus thirsts for you, you cannot begin to know what He wants to be for you and what He wants you to be for Him. This personal union with Jesus must become fruitful in the service of the poor--the Missionaries' fourth vow: The heart and soul of MC is only this: the thirst of Jesus' " heart hidden in the poor. This is the source of every part of Review for Religious MC life. : satiating the living Jesus in our midst is our Society's only purpose. The two dimensions of M. Teresa's charism, the intimate union with Jesus and the' work for the poor, can never be separated: "I thirst" and "you did it to me," remember always to connect the two . Do not underestimate our practical means, the work for the poor, no matter how small and humble; they make our life something beautiful for God. The poor are the medium through which we touch Jesus: They are God's most precious gift to our Society--Jesus' hidden presence so near, so able to touch. (Srs 25.3.93) Mother Teresa sees her vocation, the life and work of her sisters, as part of the mission of the church, to participate in the saving passion of Jesus. The Epistle to the Colossians understands the trials of the Apostle as the continuation of Jesus' saving passion: "I am rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's affliction for the sake of his body which is the church" (Col 1:24). This participation in Christ's redemptive passion is realized in the mission of her sisters: Try to increase your knowledge of the mystery of redemption. This knowledge will lead you to love, and love will make you share through your sacrifice in the passion of Christ. My dear children, without suffering our work would just be social work very good and helpful, but it would not be the work of Jesus Christ, not part of the redemption. Jesus wanted to help us by sharing our life, our loneliness, our agony and death. All that He has taken upon Himself and has carried it in the darkest night. Only by being one with us has He redeemed us. We are able to do the same. All the desolation of the poor people, not only their material poverty but their spiritual destitution, must be redeemed, and we must have our share in it. Pray thus when you find it hard: I wish to live in this world which is so far from God, which has turned so much from the light of Jesus, to help them--to take upon myself something.of their suffering. Yes, my dear children, let us share the sufferings of the poor, for only by being one with them can we redeem them; that is bringing God into their lives and bringing them to God. (Srs Ist Friday, July 61) She herself had to experience the pain of poverty in a very personal manner. We have a diary of the early months of her new life when she was struggling to find a place for her small group and had to experience the trials of helplessness. Mostly the notes of the September~ October 2001 Neuner ¯ Mother Teresa's Charism booklet are factual, the daily happenings. Once they have a very personal ring: Today I learned a good lesson: the poverty of the poor must often be very hard for them. When I went rounding, looking for a home, I walked and walked till my legs and my arms ached. I thought how they must also ache in body and soul looking for home, food, help. Then the temptation grew strong: the buildings of Loreto came rushing into my mind, all the beautiful things and comforts, the people they mix with, in a word, everything. "You have only to say one word and all this will be yours again," the tempter kept on saying. Of free choice, my God, and out of love for you I desire to remain and do whatever be your Holy Will in my regard. I did not allow a single tear to come. Even if I suffer more than now, I still want to do your Holy Will. This is the dark night of the birth of the Society. My God, give me courage now, this moment, to persevere in following your call. (Notebook 16.2.49) It was her charism not only to work for the poor, but to share in their pain and so to have her part in Jesus' redemptive work. But, even more, she was also called to share in the pain of his thirst. How Mother Teresa Lived Her Charism Thirst is painful longing. Mother Teresa saw it in Jesus on the cross, and her life was devoted to satiate it. It became her most personal vocation to share in it through the lasting darkness that enwrapped her life. Some experience of darkness is part of every spiritual life. She knew it also in her earlier years. At the time of preparing for her final vows, she wrote to her spiritual guide that her life was "not strewed with roses . Rather I have more the darkness as my fellow friend . I simply offer myself to Jesus" (Early letters 8.2.3 7). These were passing experiences. But, with the beginning of her new life in the service of the poor, darkness came on her with oppressive power. In the diary of those early months mentioned above, we have another very personal entry: Today, my God, what torture of loneliness. I wonder how long my heart can suffer this . Tears rolled and rolled. Everyone sees my weakness. My God, give me courage to fight self and the tempter. (Notebook 28.2.49) Father C. Van Exem was her spiritual guide at the time. She had told him to destroy all letters--so we have no letters to him Review for Religious from that time. However, he had asked her to turn to the archbishop, who in the early years--before her own constitutions were approved and she could take vows in her new congregation-- was actually the superior of the young community. She turned to him in growing confidence: I want to say to you something that I do not know to express. I am longing--with painful longing--to be all for God, to be holy in such a way that Jesus can live His life to the full in me. The more I want Him, the less I am wanted. I want to love Him as He has not been loved--and yet there is that separation, that terrible emptiness, that feeling of absence of God. For more than four years I find no help . I am not writing you as His Grace--but as the Father of my soul, for to you and from you I have not hidden anything. Tell me what I should do~I want to obey at any cost. (AP 8.2.56) And again: There is so much contradiction in my soul, such deep longing for God, so deep that it is painful, a suffering continual--yet not wanted by God, repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal . Heaven means nothing to me, it looks like an empty Place. yet the torturing longing for God. (AP 28.2.57) One day, wfien the archbishop celebrated the requiem Mass for Pope Pius XII in the cathedral, she asked for a sign: There and then disappeared that long darkness, that pain of loss, of loneliness, of that strange suffering of ten years. Today my soul is filled with love, with joy untold, with an unbroken union of love. (AP 17.10.58) Still, soon she has to write: Our Lord thought it better for me to be in the tunnel--so He is gone again, leaving me alone. I am grateful to Him for the month of love He gaye me. (AP 16.11.58) She received new life through Father T. Picachy, at the time rector of St Xavier's College, later archbishop of Calcutta and cardinal. Besides personal letters to him, we have also two documents written at his request (undated, but probably written in 1959 or 1960), in which she presents her state of mind in a coherent manner) In prayer form she writes of her closeness to Jesus in earlier years, yet now, Jesus, I go the wrong way. They say people in hell suffer eternal pain because of the loss of God . In my soul I feel just this terrible pain of. loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing. Jesus, please September-October 2001 Neuner ¯ Mother Teresa's Charism forgive the blasphemy--I have been told to write everything--that darkness that surrounds me on all sides¯ I can't lift my soul to God: No light, no inspiration enters my souk And yet, though there is no faith, no love, no trust, there is so much pain, the pain of longing, the pain of not being wanted. I want God with all the powers of my soul, and yet there is that terrible separation . I no longer pray, my soul is not with you, and yet, when alone in the streets--I talk to you for hours of my longing for you. This darkness, however, does not hinder her work: [Though] the dark holds no joys, no attention, no zeal . . . I do my best, I spend myself. I am more convinced that the work is not mine. I do not doubt that it was you who called me with such great love and force. It was you . . . it is you even now--but I have no faith. In spite of the lasting pain, she is ready to accept the darkness as her special way to satiate Jesus' thirst: If my pain and suffering, my darkness and separation give you a drop of consolation, my own Jesus, do with me as you wish. ¯. I am your own. Imprint on my soul and life the suffering of your heart . If my separation from you brings others to you and in their love and company you find joy, my Jesus, I am willing with all my heart to suffer all that I suffer . Your happiness is all that I want . I want to satiate your thirst with every single drop of blood that you can find in me . Please do not take the trouble to return soon. I am ready to wait for you for all eternity. (Pi, undated) Experiences of darkness are found in the lives of many mystics, but it may be difficult to find a parallel to the lifelong night that enwrapped Mother Teresa. It must be seen in the context of her particular mission. It came to her at the time when she embarked on her new life in the service of the abandoned. From the beginning she had to experience not only their material poverty and helplessness, but also their abandonment. This same darkness, however, was for her also the special way in which she shared in Jesus' saving passion. It was the redeeming experience of her life when she realized that the night of her heart was the special share she had in Jesus' passion: I have begun to love my darkness for I believe now that it is a part, a very small part, of Jesus' darkness and pain on earth. Review for Religious It is the spiritual side of her work: Today I really feel a deep joy that Jesus can't go any more through the agony but that He wants to go through it in me. More than ever I surrender myself to Him, more than ever I will be at His disposal. (undated) Thus we see that the darkness was actually the mysterious link that united her to Jesus. It is the contact of intimate longing for God. Nothing else can fill her mind. Such longing is possible only through God's own hidden presence. We cannot long for something that is not intimately close to us. Thirst is more than absence of water. It is not experienced by stones, but only by living beings that depend on water. Who knows more about living water, the person who opens the water tap daily without much thinking, or the thirst-tortured traveler in the desert in search for a spring? The darkness and the painful longing for the Jove of God became also her safeguard in a danger that could have harmed her mission: her ever growing popularity, the admiration she received all over the world, the numerous rewards bestowed on her. They could not touch her heart, which was absorbed in an unfulfilled longing for God. When she had to go to Manila to receive the Magsaysay award, she wrote: "I had to go to Manila . It was one big sacrifice. Why does He give me all these but not Himself?. I want Him, not His gift or creatures" (10.9.62). The eyes of the whole world were focused on her when she received the Nobel prize. She thinks only of the poor: "Hundreds of letters still keep coming. The reward has helped many people to find the way to the poor" (9.1.80). And later: "The year offered many opportunities to satisfy the thirst of Jesus for love of souls. It has been a year filled with the passion of Christ. I do not know which thirst is greater, His, or mine for Him" (15.12.80). Mother Teresa's charism comprises both the contemplative and active dimensions of Christian life. Contemplative and Active Mother Teresa's charism comprises both the contemplative and active dimensions of Christian life. The congregation aims at September-October 2001 Neuner *Motber Teresa's Charism quenching Jesus' thirst by the union with him in "the profession of the evangelical counsels and wholehearted and free service of the poorest of the poor" (Const 3). From the beginning she insisted on their inseparable complementarity. Both dimensions must be realized by every member of the congregation. Though in later years she established contemplative branches for sisters (1976) and brothers (1979), she insisted on the oneness of the society: ONE Society, bound by ONE Constitution, with the SAME vows and spirit, with ONE Superior General" (Const i1). "We are consecrated to Him. Jesus has chosen us for Himself. What joy is ours that we can at all times be in close contact with Christ in His distressing disguise" (Srs 1 st Friday, June 61). This mutual penetration of personal union with Christ and actual service of the poor is rooted in the gospel. Jesus himself was united with the Father in a unique manner and made this union fruitful in his daily care for the people. In his message the love of God, whom we cannot see, is tested in the love of neighbor, whom we see. Also the council has emphasized that the union of the self-gift of God and of apostolic concern for the neighbor are part of all religious life: it includes listening to God's word and engaging in his work. "The members of each community should combine contemplation with apostolic love. By the former they adhere to God in mind and heart, by the latter they strive to associate themselves with the work of redemption and to spread the Kingdom of God" (PC 5). Thus Mother Teresa does not accept the frequent division of religious communities as active or contemplative. Of the contemplative sisters she demands, along with their duties of "eucharistic adoration, contemplation, silence, solitude, fasting, penance," also "going out to the spiritually poorest of the poor for two or three hours a day and proclaiming the word of God by our presence and spiritual works of mercy" (Const 5). For the contemplative sisters, "going out" is not meant as a relaxation of the severe seclusion: "Never miss it--for you it is a temptation, for this is our fourth vow" (ContS 20.10.82). Contemplation does not consist in seclusion from the world but closeness to God in every sphere of life. According to the "Spiritual Directory," which contains the guidelines of her spirituality, "a contemplative is a person who lives twenty-four hours with Jesus. and all she does is to Jesus through Mary and Joseph" (Intro. to Section B). Review for Religious She also considers her active sisters contemplatives because their entire life and work consist in beirlg close to Jesus, whom they meet in the poor: "you did it for me." She wanted her whole work to be understood in this perspective even by outsiders. When she received the Nobel prize she said it before the whole world: We are not really social workers--we may be doing social work in the eyes of the people, but we are really contemplatives in the heart of the world, for we are touching the body of Christ 24 hours. We live 24 hours in His presence. All are invited to do the same by truly loving each other, beginning at home: How much we do does not matter., but how much love we put in that action, how much we do to Him in the person we are serving. (Oslo 11.12.79) This is the spirituality she tries to communicate to her sisters in countless instructions. She never proposes a systematic method--in her own dark night it would have been of no help. She tries to lead them to total surrender to Jesus. Four features seem particularly prominent in this spirituality. It begins with a firm decision to free ourselves from all clinging to our own needs, our ambitions: The first step is to will it . My progress in holiness depends on God and myself--on God's grace and my will . Into this "I will" I must put all my energy. A saint is "a resolute soul . The resolution to be a saint costs much. I will despoil myself of all that is not God; I will strip my heart and empty it of all created things." (Srs 1st Friday, Oct. 60) The readiness to renounce self opens the heart to a life of loving service. Mother Teresa finds the inspiring example of loving, humble service in Mary, who holds a central place in her spirituality. Her life overflows with God's generous gifts, yet it is totally empty of any form of conceit. She conceives Jesus, who is her child, but she knows that he belongs to the world. Her entire life is drawn into the mystery of God's love giving Jesus, his Son, to the world. Her closeness to Jesus "engenders in her zeal and charity, zeal to give Jesus through works of charity. . The fruit of this union was service of love for the neighbor . She only thought how to serve." So she becomes the model for the Missionaries of Charity: "This life of Mary is so much like ours."' The sisters, too, are united to Jesus: Septentber-October 2001 Neuner ¯ Mother Teresa's Charism Now that Jesus and I are one, has Jesus in me given me that zeal and charity as the fruitof this union? . . . Do I really go to the poor as the handmaid of the Lord, filled with Jesus, to give only Jesus to the poor I serve? Is my service to the poor devoted, tender, intimate? Do I [do] to them what Mary did to Elisabeth? (31 Oct. 66) We may still ask how she could teach her sisters to pray, for she confesses frequently that in her darkness she was unable to pray. She never taught a method, but wishes her sisters to learn the simplicity of personal union with Jesus: "A Missionary This cleaving of Charity who is not united heart and soul with Christ will not be able to live the spirit of total to each other, surrender, loving trust, and cheerfulness." The mere recital of prayers has no meaning: "To pray the prayer Jesus and I, means to be completely united to Jesus in such a way is prayer, as to allow Him to pray in us, with us, for us. This cleaving to each other, Jesus and I, is prayer." This union with Jesus is realized equally in the silence of the chapel and in daily work: "Learn to pray the work as Jesus did in Nazareth for 30 years . Learn from Jesus to pray and allow Him to pray in you, and put the fruit of prayer into living action of love in loving one another as Jesus loved each one of you" (Srs 27.7.83). We only need a humble and pure heart: "We could see God in our Sisters and the poor we serve. Is it not wonderful that we could be real contemplatives 24 hours if only our hearts were humble and pure?" (Srs Aug. 84). Finally the life and work of a Missionary of Charity must be filled with joy. Such was Jesus' desire: "He wants to share His joy with the Apostles: that my joy may be in you." Joy is not a matter of temperament, it does not consist in comfort: "The service of God and of souls is always hard." But true love brings joy: "A joyful heart is the result of a heart burning with love." Joy not only enriches our life but is "a net of love by which you can catch many souls." It is vital in the life of the sisters: "A cheerful disposition is one of the main virtues required in a Missionary of Charity" (Srs Easter, Apr. 64). The Four Vows The concrete form in which Missionaries of Charity live their union with Jesus are the four vows. In their profession they "bind themselves by the four vows to Jesus Christ Review for Religious with undivided love in chastity through freedom in poverty in total surrender in obedience in wholehearted and free service to Him in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor. (Const 36) In the early constitutions of 1954, Mother Teresa still followed the traditional order of the three evangelical counsels beginning with poverty. But the core of her charism is the total union with Christ expressed in the vow of chastity. She explains the coherence of the four vows: The vow of chastity makes us cleave to Christ, and the fruit of our union with Christ is the vow of charity (4th vow). We must love to be pure, we must use every means to keep ourselves pure, body and soul; Jesus must be able to use us fully. To enable the vow of charity to grow we make the vows of poverty and obedience; just as a lamp cannot burn without oil, so the vow of charity cannot live without the vows of poverty and obedience; and all three vows are because of chastity. So live the vow of chastity. (Srs 27.6.65) Poverty is needed in the total self-gift to Jesus: "To be able to be all for Jesus, to love Him with undivided love, we need a pure heart purified by the freedom of poverty." Poverty is not primarily economic want but an attitude of sharing, self-giving. Mother Teresa liked the paradox: "The less we have [for ourselves] the more we can give [of ourselves]. In possessing Jesus we possess everything. That is why we can give more, because we can give Jesus" (Srs 23.1.82). "Jesus saved us through His poverty: He made Himself poor for your sake so that through His poverty you may become rich (2 Co 8:9): We too must become poor for love of Jesus and the poor we serve. For to be able to.understand the poor, to be able to proclaim the Good News to the poor, you must know what poverty is." After enumerating the legal implications of poverty, she continues: "Our poverty should be true Gospel poverty--gentle, tender, glad, open-hearted, always ready to give an expression of love. Poverty is love before it is renunciation" (Srs 23.1.82). Similarly obedience is part of our self-gift to Jesus: "We have to belong to Jesus fully, in total surrender without any reservation, for He alone is worthy of our love. If we really fully belong to Him we must be at His disposal that He may be free to use us and to do with us whenever and whatever He wants--through our Superiors, whoever they may be" (Srs 8.7.76). Obedience is the most beautiful September-October 2001 Neuner ¯ Mother Teresa's Charism --490- offering to God because our will is the only gift of God which is our own and which God will never take by force. He will accept it only when we surrender it" (Srs 2.1.87). This is a sublime vision of religious life. We are, however, not surprised that Mother Teresa had to experience disappointments. The life of the sisters is hard, the work in the slums is dangerous. Day after day the sisters have to work together with people of all strata of society. Each time she received the news that a sister left the community, she felt deep pain. Poverty also caused many problems. Most sisters came from simple surroundings and had never handled large amounts of money. Most disturbing were reports about the disunity among sisters, about young superiors who were not sensitive to the feelings of the sisters, about jealousies, offensive language, hurting, humiliating. In a letter from the hospital she wrote: "You do not know what terrible pain these words cause to my heart . I have to take five different medicines for my physical heart, but I long for the best medicine, your love for one another" (Srs 27.10.67). All such texts in her letters must be read against the background of Mother Teresa's joy and appreciation of her sisters, of their spiritual growth and their faithful work, of which her letters are full. Still, they point at some limitations in the development of her Society. There is first her own traditional background. She received her own religious formation in the firm disciplinary frame to which young religious had to conform, under the authority of the superiors. It became a great help for her: discipline and firm authority were absolutely necessary for the fast-spreading communities. But community life and the work for the slum people also demanded initiative, creativity, and much personal responsibility. More training in community relations and in dealing with difficult situations was needed. Mother Teresa was very much concerned with the formation of the young sisters. But with the growing number of novices--there were over a hundred in the crowded house in Calcutta--it became ever more difficult. In the chapter of 1997, in which she laid down her responsibility as superior general, it was admitted that more ongoing formation was needed for the sisters, mostly for superiors. Connected with the training is also the almost exclusive spiritual motivation of her sisters for their personal and community life and for their work. The love of Jesus Christ surely remains the firm basis of the entire life of the Missionaries of Charity. But God's Review for Religious grace becomes operative within the frame of human life, personal and social. Formation must include the entire person and the concrete social conditions. The emphasis on authority resulted also in a centralization that created difficulties in the growing complexity of administration and work. This obviously is not the place to discuss these tensions in detail. They lead us, however, to the underlying problem: How can a charismatic vision be realized in a concrete organization? The problem became even more acute with regard to the co-workers. The Co-Workers The work of the sisters in the slums naturally demanded much collaboration with many people, men and women of different strata of society, including Hindus and Muslims. It gradually developed into the organized group of Co-Workers. In the introduction to the constitutions we read: From the early days of the Society, the Missionaries of Charity attracted lay people in every part of the world who wished to have some part in the work of loving service to God in the person of the needy. Out of this group grew the international association of the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, whose Constitutions were blessed by His Holiness, Pope Paul VI, on 29th March 1969. Mother Teresa never considered the Co-Workers as an organized extension of her work. She saw in them the spreading of her community into all strata of society. The important thing was not merely their work but that they shared in the spirit. In one of her letters to them she wrote: I can give you "no better message than copy of one of the rules which applies to each one of us." Then she quotes from the (old) constitution, no. 92: As each one of this Society is to become a Co-Worker with Christ in the slums, each ought to understand what God and the Society expects of her. Let Christ radiate and live His life in her and through her in the slums. Let the poor, seeing her, be drawn to Christ and invite Him to enter their homes and their lives. Let the sick and suffering find in her a real angel of comfort and consolation. Let the little ones in the streets cling to her because she reminds them of Him, the friend of the little ones. (CoW 20 Apr. 66) From Co-Workers she expects the same attitude as from sisters: September-October 2001 Neuner ¯ Motber Teresa's Charism to know the poor, to love the poor, to serve the poor (see CoW 4.10.74). With the growth of the Society, the association of the Co- Workers also spread. It was inevitable that it developed into a full-fledged organization on the pattern of modern enterprises¯ Was this the spirit of her congregation? She felt the need to take a firm step: As we depend on Divine Providence for our needs and those of the poor, I feel that fund-raising and regular monthly contributions are against our spirit. Therefore we do not give any person or organization permission to have fund-raising or collection of contributions for our work. (CoW 27.9.81) An even more radical decision seemed necessary: "We do not need the Co-Workers to function as an organization" with governing body and officers, links and bank accounts. I do not want money to be spent for Newsletters and travel of Co-Workers . If you see anyone raising money in my name, please stop them . Let us remain united in the heart of Jesus through Mary as one spiritual family. My gift to you is to allow you to share with us in God's work, to be carriers of God's love in a spirit of prayer and sacrifice. (CoW 30.8¯93) Shordy before her death, after she handed over the government of the Society to her successor, she was once more disturbed. Was her drastic decision right? ,Once more she writes to the Co- Workers: "Do you feel the need to have an international link through a Newsletter? Do you like to have a national link as well? . ¯ . I would like to hear from you" (CoW Easter 97). Again the problem: How can a charism be organized? Charism and Institution We have tried to trace the main features of Mother Teresa's charism. She had to make it live in her Society. Can a charismatic vision be institutionalized? We know of the phenomenal development of the Missionaries of Charity during fifty and more years, spreading over the world, established in more than a hundred countries, animated by the same spirit. We have seen also, very briefly, the problems of living this life personally, in communities, in daily work and monotony, in the complexity of modern society. The charism must always remain a deeply personal commitment to Jesus Christ, but it must unfold in personal growth and in Review for Religious community and must be lived in the modern world, to bear fruit in our society. It needs planning and organization. Is this possible? The problem is common to all religious communities. One thinks of the ideas of poverty so deeply understood and radically lived by St. Francis--how difficult it was for these ideas to be institutionalized in different forms in the church of the Middle Ages! We may ask even more radically: How did Jesus himself succeed in institutionalizing his vision of a redeemed humanity in God's kingdom, of a new society comprising all people in solidarity and love, with God as the center and supporting power? Vatican Council II tells us that the church "received the mission of proclaiming and establishing the kingdom of Christ and of God among all nations." It could, however, not identify the church with the kingdom, but had to add the humble statement that "she is the seed and beginning of this kingdom on earth" (LG §5). The growth of God's kingdom on earth remains the task of Jesus' followers in all new generations, in ever new situations. This is also the legacy of Mother Teresa to her congregation: persistently to strive for the realization of her charism and make it fruitful for our society. Notes 1 Most of the documents, and the copyright ©, belong to the Missionaries of Charity; some documents belong to the archbishop of Calcutta and to St. Xavier's College, Calcutta. 2 Abbreviations: AP-Letters to Archbishop Perrier. Const-Consdtutions of the Missionaries of Charity. ContS-Letters to the Contemplative Sisters. CoW-Letters to the Co-Workers. LG-Lumen gentium, Constitution on the Church. PC-Perfeaae caritatis, Decree on the Renewal of the Religious Life. H-Letters to Father T. Picachy SJ. Srs-Letters to the Sisters. 3 Some of the texts in which Mother Teresa reveals her darkness to Father T. Picachy, at the time rector of St. Xavier's College, have been presented by A. Huart SJ in Vidyajyofi: Journal of Theological Reflection (VJTR) 64 (September 2000): 654-659, and also below in this issue of Review for Religious. September-Oaober 2001 ALBERT HUART Mother Teresa: Joy in the Night The lasting impression that Mother Teresa, Missionary of arity, left with those who met her was one of radiant joy-fulness. Who has not observed, at least in photos, her homely face all wrinkled up in smiles as she fondles a baby orphan, greets a girl in rags, or comforts a dying beggar? How, people wondered, can a person daily immersed in the depths of human misery keep going with such unflagging joy-giving vitality? Yet very few, even among her close associates, knew that for many years Mother radi-ated this joy from a heart plunged in excruciating darkness. The priests who were her close spiritual confidants have almost all departed from this world. I cannot claim to have been one of them. Yet, during a retreat that I directed for her sisters and for herself, she confided to me the pain and bewilderment that enveloped her. I was at the time a young priest with little experience. During my theological studies, I had gone through the writings of John of the Cross. Persuaded as I was that she was a true woman of God, I surmised that I was in the presence of the Dark Night of the Spirit that this great doctor of the mystical life so powerfully describes. I was confirmed in this impression when Mother added (I quote from memory): "The strange thing is: when I speak to my sisters and other people about God, Jesus, the presence of Jesus Albert Huart SJ published a different version of thisarticle in Vidyajyoti, New Delhi. He is assistant to the provincial of his Calcutta province, and his address is Xavier Sadan; 9/3 Middleton Row; Calcutta 700 071; India. Review for Religious in the poor, I cannot fail to realize that the message passes and evokes a deep response in them. But, within my own heart, it is all darkness." As I listened to her, the image that emerged in my mind was that of a chalet basking in warm bright sunshine, surrounded by lush vegetation and flowers, yet, within, all dark and cold. What I surmised in this brief encounter was confirmed many years later, after her death. I then had the opportunity of going though the letters addressed by Mother to Father Lawrence Trevor Picachy, a Jesuit priest then residing in St. Xavier's College, Calcutta, subsequently bishop of Jamshedpur, archbishop of Calcutta, and a cardinal. A folder containing these letters was found among the cardinal's papers after his death. It remained unopened until the beginning of Mother's beatification process. These letters are the one written source on which this article is based. All the signposts mentioned by John of the Cross for ascer-taining the Night are strikingly in evidence. As he describes it, when a person generously responds to grace in her spiritual pilgrimage, a time comes when she is led by the Spirit through a desert--often in two stages (which may be consecutive or overlapping). The first one--the Night of the Senses--generally follows an initial period of easy and joyful prayer. It is felt mostly at the level of the emotions and feelings. These gradually go dry and numb, at times becoming distressingly painful. The second--the Night of the Spirit--goes deeper, even to the deepest point of the human spirit. Not many are led through this (though perhaps more than we might think). The persons suffer greatly, mostly from an acute sense that God is absent or has actually abandoned them even though they have an ever growing painful longing for God. Initially they may be tempted to give in to discouragement, attributing their condition to their own sinfulness and unfaithfulness. God may send a soul friend to give them courage and hope and to help them recognize God at work within this darkness--as for some years Father Picachy did in Mother Teresa's case. According to John of the Cross, the chief signs for distin-guishing this Night of the Spirit from psychological depression or spiritual sluggishness are: (1) Most importantly: the person is unremitting in her commitment to duty and to her mission, even if she encounters trials and failures in these. (2) Although the per- Septentber-October 2001 Huart * Mother Teresa son experiences prayer as dark, painful, and fruitless, she yet feels drawn to prayer¯ (3) Gradually, underneath the darkness that weighs on her, she discovers a quiet and growing spring of peace¯ (4) Later, when she ultimately emerges from this dark trial (which may take years), she looks back on it as a most blessed and life-giving period of her life. John of the Cross sings: "Oh Night that was my guide, / fairer by far than dawn when stars grow dim! / Night that has unified / the Lover and the Bride, / transforming the beloved into Him." The extracts from Mother's letters quoted below may give the impression of a litany of gloom¯ In fact, such cries of distress only come up in flashes among a great deal of no-nonsense disposal of business at hand and joyful accounts of God's grace and help in the work for the poor. .~.:.:. ¯ "In the darkness . . . Lord, my God, who am I that you should forsake me? The child of your love - and now become as the most hated one. The one - You have thrown away as unwanted - unloved. I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to answer. ¯ Where I try to raise my thoughts to heaven, there is such con-victing emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul. Love - the word - it brings nothing. I am told God lives in me - and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul . "The whole time smiling - Sisters and people pass such remarks - they think my faith, trust, and love are filling my very being & that the intimacy with God and union to His will must be absorbing my heart - Could they but know - and how my cheer-fulness is the cloak by which I cover the emptiness and misery. In spite of all, this darkness and emptiness is not as painful as the longing for God . "When You asked to imprint Your Passion on my heart, is this the answer? If this brings You glory, if You get a drop of joy from this, if souls are brought to You, - if my suffering satiates Your thirst - there I am, Lord. With joy I accept all to the end of life. I will smile at your Hidden Face always" (undated). ¯ "If you knew.what I am going through - He is destroying everything in me - but I hold no claim in myself- He is free to do anything. Pray that I keep smiling at Him" (26 January 1957). ¯ "You must have prayed much for me - I have found real Review for Religious happiness in suffering - but the pain is sometimes unbearable - You don't know how miserable and nothing I am. Pray that I may love God with a love - with which he has never been loved before. What a foolish desire" (28 June 1958). ¯ "I did not know that love could make one suffer so much - that was suffering of loss - this is of longing - of pain human but caused by the divine. Pray for me" (6 November 1958). ¯ "I want God with all the power of my soul - and yet between us there is terrible separation. I don't pray any longer. I utter words of Community prayers . . . and yet when alone in the streets - I talk to You for hours - How intimate are those words - and yet so empty for they leave me far from You" (3 September 1959). ¯ "Pray for me - that 1 may not refuse God - It comes to the breaking point - then it does not break - I wish I could tell or write what I long to tell - but I find no words" (25 October 1959). ¯ "Pray for me, Father. Inside of me there is so much of suffering - pray for me that I may not refuse God in this hour - I don't want to do it, but I am afraid I may do it. Pray for me" (13 December 1959). ¯ "Keep my soul with all its darkness & loneliness, its longing and its torturing pain close to the altar - Pray for me - much and often - for now it seems He has cut off one more human help and left me alone - to walk alone in darkness. Pray for me - that I may keep up the smile, of giving without reserve - pray that I may find courage to walk bravely and with a smile. Ask Jesus not to allow me to refuse Him anything however small - I rather die. To ask you to come - I think that I will not do but if Jesus asks you to come - Please come I will be grateful" (4 April 1960). ¯ "I have been on the verge of saying - No. It has been so very hard - that terrible longing keeps growing - & I feel as if something will break in me one day - and then that darkness, that loneliness, that feeling of terrible aloneness. Heaven from every side is closed. Even the souls that drew me from Home from Loreto as if they don't exist - gone is the love for anything and any-body - and yet - I long for God. I long to love Him with every drop of life in me. I want to love Him with a deep personal love - I can't say I am distracted - my mind and heart is habitually with This darkness and emptiness is not as painful as the longing for God. Septentber-October 2001 Huart ¯ Mother Teresa God - How this thing must sound foolish to you because of its contradiction. "For my meditation I am using the Passion of Jesus - I am afraid I make no meditation - but only look at Jesus suffer - and keep repeating - 'Let me share with you this pain!' "When you go to Jesus - make one fervent act of love for me - since I can't make it myself" (20 October 1960). ¯ "He want to make sure to drain out of me every drop of self - Those weekly helps He has taken also so that darkness is so dark and the pain so great but in spite of it all - my retreat resolution was the same a hearty 'Yes' to God, a big 'Smile' to all. and it seems that these two words are the only thing that keeps me going" (15 June 1961). ¯ "As for me - thank God we have been told to follow Christ - as I have not to go ahead of Him even in the darkness the path is sure. "When some daysare above the average - I just stand like a very small child and await patiently for the storm to subside" (1 September 1961). ¯ "Often I wonder what does really God get from me in this state - no faith, no love - not even in feelings. The other day I can't tell you how bad I felt - there was a moment when I nearly refused to accept - deliberately I took the Rosary and very slowly without even meditating or thinking - I said it slowly and calmly - the moment passed - but the darkness is so dark, and the pain is so painful - but I accept whatever he gives and I give whatever He takes - People say they are drawn close to God - seeing my strong faith. Is this not deceiving people? Every time I have wanted to tell the truth - 'that I have no faith' - the words just do not come - my mouth remains closed - and yet I still keep on smiling at God and all" (21 September 1962). ¯ "I must have been so very full of self all this year - Since God is taking so long to empty me - I hope one day when I am fully empty He comes. Pray for me" (13 February 1963). ¯ "In my soul - I can't tell you how dark it is, how painful, how terrible. I feel like 'refusing God' and yet the biggest and the hardest to bear is the terrible longing for God - Pray for me that I may not turn a Judas to Jesus in this painful darkness. I was looking forward to speaking to you v I just long to speak - and this too He seems to have taken the power from me. I will not complain - I accept His Holy Will as it comes to me. If you have Review for Religious the time please write & do not mind my inability to speak to you - for I wanted to speak - but I could not" (9 January 1964). ¯ "I want to want it as He wants it. Only pray that I may keep up joy exteriorly. I deceive people with this weapon - even my Sisters" (undated). Even in her darkest moments, one thing always remained with Mother: the unshakable conviction that the mission entrusted to her and to her sisters among the poorest of the poor was God's, his entirely: ¯ "I know that I want with my whole heart what He wants, as He wants, as long as He wants. Yes Father - this 'aloneness' is hard. The only thing that remains is the deep and strong conviction that the work is His" (18 May 1962). It is no doubt from her own experience of the night that she could reach out to those who were journeying along a similar road. In a page of breathtaking beauty she wrote to a priest: ¯ "You have said 'yes' to Jesus and He has taken you at your word. The Word of God became Jesus the poor one. And so this terrible emptiness you experience. God cannot fill what is full. He can only fill emptiness - deep poverty - and your 'yes' is the beginning of being or becoming empty. It is not how much we really 'have' to give - but how empty we are - so that we can receive fully in our life and let Him live His life in us. In you today - He wants to relive His complete submission to His Father - allow Him to do so. It does not matter what you feel but what He feels in you. Take away your eyes from yourself and rejoice that you have nothing - that you are nothing - that you can do nothing. Give Jesus a big smile each time your nothingness frightens you. This is the poverty of Jesus. You and I must let Him live in us and through us in the world [.] Cling to Our Lady for she too - before she could become full of grace - full of Jesus - had to go through that darkness" (7 February 1974). At times God provided an oasis of peace: ¯ "You must have prayed very fervently for me because it is now about a month that there is in my heart a very deep union with the Will of God. I accept not in my feelings - but with my will, the Will of God. I accept this Will - not only for time but for eternity" (9 January 1964). Yet, in 1970, she still could write: ¯ "I can't tell you how bad I feel - but this too I have to accept. The devil must be mad September-October 2001 Huart * Mother Teresa with the good the Sisters are doing- & so the revenge" (16 September 1970). Most of these letters are from the mid 1950s to the mid 1960s. In later years, in her letters to Bishop and then Cardinal Picachy, she seldom comes back to this protracted trial. Does this mean that the darkness has by this time been lifted and that she now dwells in light and peace? When Father Picachy was appointed bishop of Jamshedpur and left Calcutta in 1962, she wrote to congratulate him and told him that, as he would be busy with weightier affairs, she felt she should not burden him any more with her own troubles. Is this why her spiritual confidences to him became gradually much less frequent? Or had she come to recognize that this darkness was God's way for her, along which she could be one with the poor and abandoned, and with the Sitio (the "I thirst") of Jesus on the cross? In the chapels of the Missionaries of Charity, next to a large crucifix, you will always find the words "I thirst" prominently displayed. Whatever happened afterwards, I hold it from reli-able witnesses that, in the period immediately before her death, she was in great and agonizing spiritual darkness. Further docu-ments and witnesses are likely to throw light on this, but per-haps fewer than we might hope. Mother always enjoyed speaking about God, Jesus, and the poor, but she was very reserved about her own inner life, except in those moments of night when she could not suppress a cry of pain. To Cardinal Picachy she confided how painful it was for her to open about it even to him. After meeting him she more than once wrote: ¯ "I wanted so much to speak to you, but something kept me back." In fact Mother tried persistently to get at confiding letters to destroy them. Many got lost in this way: ¯ "Please. destroy my letters or anything I have written - God wants me to open my heart to you - I have not refused. I am not trying to find the reason - only I beg you destroy everything" (26 April 1959). Cardinal Picachy did not comply, but kept all these letters-- presumably because he foresaw what would happen after her death. Her fear was that, if divulged, the letters might draw attention to her. She was convinced that the work she had been entrusted with was entirely God's, not hers. She was--as she repeatedly said-- only the small pencil stub that God used in writing his poem. She would add: ¯ "If God could have found a person smaller and more worthless than me, He would have chosen her instead." Review for Religious :" Would Mother, now that she is no longer with us on earth, still object to these letters having been preserved by Cardinal Picachy and now, after her and his death, brought into the open? By now she no doubt has understood that she belongs to the church. It is traditional teaching that the mystical charism of God's close friends is meant not primarily for themselves but for the good of the whole church. Many people who go through similar trials may gain courage and hope from these letters. There are probably many more such persons than we think---though in various degrees of intensity. About the Nights anyone can read in the writings of great mystics. Yet is it not encouraging to real-ize that darkness has been daily bread for a most joy-giving little woman of our days? At first sight Mother Teresa might stand in sharp contrast to little TMr~se of Lisieux. The latter lived within the routine of a contemplative convent, the for-mer was fully immersed in the world of the poor and later trav-eled incessantly around the world to visit her sisters. There may, however, have been a great closeness of spirit between the two. When Mother was asked whether she took her name from the great Teresa of Jesus, she answered: "Oh no, nothing so grand for me! For me it is the little one." She often fondly spoke of her. Just before dying she wrote a letter to her sisters, making special mention of her little life-friend. We mentioned above Mother's small parable comparing herself to the useless little pencil stub in the hand of God, Does this image not remind us of Thtr~se of Lisieux's Little Way? Would their similai'ities not come in large measure from their pilgrim-age through the same Night? It is well known that Th~r~se of Lisieux, for years before her death--and increasingly as she approached death--lived in a deep darkness of the spirit. This she bore heroically in union with the many in her age who were over-whelmed by the spirit of unbelief. Mother lived it in union with the vast world of those who live in misery, loneliness, and rejection. This article does not attempt to give a balanced account of Mother Teresa's spirituality. It is very one-sided, emphasizing In the period immediately before her death, she was in great and agonizing spiritual darkness. September-October 2001 Huart * Mother Teresa Mother's Night pilgrimage, a dimension of her life that is little known. There is any amount of documentation focusing on her immense compassion for the poor, her organizing dynamism, her spirit of faith and joy-giving. It seems good now to bring out the dark mystical dimension, which might place her along with the great contemplative apostles of the world. Some trends nowadays would claim that a Christian is called to be carried on an ever flowing stream of spiritual joy. Here there would be no darkness of spirit that a good mix of psychotherapy and spirituality could not do away with. I remember Cardinal Picachy, the recipient of the letters we have been quoting above, asking in gentle bewilderment after listening to a talk on such lines: "What on earth has become of the Night?" He may have been thinking of what his friend had gone through, and of the joy-giving fruit it has borne for many. Leaves Dried, dead leaves, brown, brittle, broken, scraping the concrete, whisked by the wind. Fodder for fire, fun for squirrels and birds, who walk, scamper, and squawk in the midst of them. Pounded by nature, they melt, mushy, into the ground, giving nourishment, substance, peat to a new generation. I am not unlike the leaf. Michael J. Lydon Review for Religious CATHY WRIGHT Multicultural at Our Very Heart: The Little Sisters of Jesus There is a lot of research and talk today about multi-culturalism in religious life. My reading about it has been limited, but I think that my community, the Little Sisters of Jesus, has a certain experience of it that might be interesting to simply share. We were founded in 1939 by Magdeleine Hutin, who started in Algeria among nomadic tribes of the Sahara, intending to be a simple presence of friendship and God's love. By that very presence in love and respect, she sought to break down barriers of prejudice. While not monastic, we are called to be contemplatives, to seek the face of God in a life that is lived amid ordi-nary people who have suffered from poverty or exclusion of one kind or another. Magdeleine never expected her community to be more than a small group fitting into the desert's nomadic Muslim population. But a strange thing happened. After World War II many women, especially in her native France, became captivated by this way of "presence." As the numbers increased, some began asking to go to other countries, and in 1947 Magdaleine understood that this "vocation of Bethlehem and Nazareth" could be lived Cathy Wright LSJ lives in Chicago. More information and resources about the Little Sisters are available on their Website: www.rc.net/org/littlesisters. September- October 2001 Wright ¯ Multicultural at Our Very Heart anywhere. With the audacity of all our founders, she got herself a ticket to travel around the world. Wherever she found a willing bishop--and there were many who refused her--she would leave a few young sisters behind to "do it." With many adventures they did. Some of those places were the industrialized urban centers, where the sisters worked in fac-tories. Some of those places were deep in the Amazon or in remote villages of Alaska or Australia. And some were in areas torn by the violence of hatred and war. She would go almost anywhere, but particularly where the church was not present or where people suffered from discrimination, violence, division, or poverty. Foundations on every continent resulted in women from those countries asking to join. Magdeleine saw in this a wonderful way of being a living sign of unity. She was not a woman of theories, but one of dreams, seemingly undaunted by the inconveniences of what she was undertaking. She was not naive about the demands of the lifestyle, but was convinced that the power of love could continue working miracles in our day. If anything, Magdeleine erred on the side of multicultural-ism. As soon as women from a country were professed (and some-times even before), she gave them leadership roles in the congregation. She encouraged sisters from different countries, races, and cultures to live together as visible witnesses and signs that love can overcome the divisions created by prejudices. She quickly had sisters from different countries and races taking their place on the general council. Ag a way of further encouraging this intermingling, forma-tion sessions and theology studies were organized first in Algeria and later in Rome so that all could have the experience of living together for a significant length of time. When people from around the world spend a year or two together deepening their faith and their common vocation, friendships are created that sustain us when we return to our own little corners of the world. As I said, Magdeleine was not a woman of theory. She just went on and dreamed wonders into being. She knew how to celebrate and rejoice in the diversity of cultures. Besides the personal letters exchanged by friends now living all over the world, we have a system of circular letters, very con-crete sharings gathered from those faraway places. We know about land-reform issues in the Amazon through our sisters who have lived among the Tapirape people for fifty years, and the genocide Review for Religious in Rwanda had a personal face to it--sisters and their families and friends. I have lived with sisters from many countries and partic-ipated in their celebrations. We have eaten each other's food, sometimes with delight and sometimes just trying to get it down. We learn to laugh and cry together, both by sharing about what goes on back home and by the inevitable joys and pains of learn-ing to live together. Being part of such a community has its challenges. It is not always simple to bring such diversity together, especially from peoples that may have a long his-tory of conflict and misunderstand-ing. These can be painful situations, and trying to find a way together can only be done through the heart of the Crucified One. But finding a way is a gospel imperative. In my own experience, the cul-tural differences are not the hard-est. We expect them to be there even if sometimes we are surprised by them and trip. The differences of personality and temperament-- realities that are present in each cul-ture- are much harder to deal with on a daily basis. On one occasion I spent the better part of a year in a group of eighteen of us. Within that group there were two sisters each from Nigeria, Japan, Germany, India, and Ethiopia. In each instance the personalities and temperaments of the two from the same country were so different as to wonderfully break down any national stereotypes that we might have had of each other. And, rather than trying simplistically to think that all national cultures are much the same, is it not better to notice the many variations on a theme? It seems to me that the most important element of any cross-cultural community project is the attitude with which we approach it. Do I believe that each culture is good even if I will always be more at home within my own? Am I comfortable enough within my own culture so as not to be threatened by another's? As obvi-ous as it may seem, I found myself realizing one day that each cul- When people from around the world spend a year or two together deepening their faith and their common vocation, friendships are created that sustain us when we return to our own little corners of the world. ¯ September-October 2001 Wright ¯ Multicultural at Our Very Heart ture, including my own, is in need of evangelization in the deep-est and best sense. There is no need to idealize away our sins and shortcomings. We are all in need of redemption. In crossing our cultural boundaries, it is important to be not only willing, but eager, to learn from each other--and to be convinced that others have something to reveal to me not only about themselves but also about myself and God. I have learned much by simply being part of a diverse com-munity. I have especially learned that my way of seeing the world is very relative. I have been privileged to visit or live in other countries and cultures, and this has fashioned the way I see the world. At present my community numbers about 1300 women from 67 nationalities living in 72 countries. There are only 25 of us in the United States. Of that number about half have been born in the U.S. 9f European or Mexican ancestry. The rest come from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, and Sri Lanka. Little sis-ter Magdeleine dreamed us into existence through the grace of God and her audacity to believe that what was deemed folly in the eyes of many was really the wisdom of God. She just went on and did it, believing that "Jesus is the Master of the Impossible." None of us will ever do it perfectly. We have made plenty of mis-takes, and will find new mistakes down the road. In a global world, I am grateful for Magdeleine's vision. For her the differences of culture, race, religion, temperament, and age were cause for celebration and mutual enrichment. She believed that embracing these differences is a sign of the reign of God. It is a response to Jesus' call to be one, to build a world where we are all sisters and brothers to one another. Review for Religious A. PAUL DOMINIC Millennial Stirrings in Religious Life ~/ n~w spiritual awakening is occurring in human culture, an awakening brought about by a critical mass of indi-viduals who experience their lives as a spiritual unfolding, a jour-ney in which we are led by mysterious coincidences.'" No matter who wrote those words--though in fact they are by James Redfield, author of the bestselling Celestine Prophecy--they are likely to evoke a pleasant, hopeful response in many a reader around the world. I asked myself whether such an awakening is occurring in religious life. I answered yes at once. But, as I wanted to share my convic-tion with others, I began wondering how to express it in a way that would be both familiar and striking. No ideas came, and, without a library at hand, I laid aside my little project and devoted some time to prayer. Afterwards I was about to do something else when I felt urged to pick up at random one of a little collec

Issue 46.5 of the Review for Religious, September/October 1987. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Deparlment of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO. 63108-3393. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. ©1987 by REWEW FOR RELtG~OtJS. Single copies $2.50. Subscriptions: U.S.A. $11.00 a year; $20.00 for two years. Other countries: add $4.00 per year (surface mail); airmail (Book Rate): $18.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write: REVIEW FOR RELI(;IOUS: P.O. Box 6070; D~luth, MN 55806. Daniel F.X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read M. Anne Maskey, O.S.F. Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editors September/October, 1987 Volume 46 Number 5 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to Rt:wEw voR Rt:Lmu)us; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Richard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave., Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW t'OR REI.I(:IOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, M1 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visu-ally impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. What Do the Laity Expect of Religious Life Guzm6n Carriquiry This article was prepared for the USIG (International Union of Superiors General) and originally appeared in the USIG Bulletin (no. 73, 1987). It is reprinted here with permission. Dr. Carriquiry, a native of Uruguay, is married and father of four. He is head of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and a professor at the Pontifical University Urbaniana. Two Remarks and a Propitious Occasion '~(ou have proposed and requested a very difficult task. Probably I accepted it with a considerable lack of awareness. Preparing for this meeting, I was able to realize the predicament in which I had placed myself. I am not a theologian by profession and even less an expert on the theology of religious life. I have had to read and reflect a good deal on the theme, but even so, I feel very inadequate in facing such a delicate question. I will limit myself, therefore, t.o giving some impressions, reflections and challenges, without any pretense at having a profound penetration into the "mystery" of the religious life. I would like to make a second remark., through a concern for hon-esty. "What do the laity expect. ?" is the question. When we speak of "laity," however, we are referring to many different people. It is good to suspect, or at times to smile at, those who with an excessive fa-cility and pretension claim to be "representatives" of the laity (or of youth, or of the poor, or of women . . .). We are tempted to dress our-selves in plumed clothing in order to hide our nakedness and to give our-selves a better or stronger "image." I am going to answer the question-- What do the laity expect. ? knowing that there will be much that is 641 1542 / fleview for Religious, September-October, 1987 personal to this individual layman, to this poor Christian, as a result of his own journey, experience and convictions. The fact of working in the Pontifical Council for the Laity for many years, however, has placed me in a privileged situation because if one wishes to serve the participation of the laity in the life and mission of the Church effectively--which is the competency of this Dicastery--then it is necessary to listen to and follow with special attention the sensitivities, demands, needs and ex-periences which are part of this multifaceted lay world. I hope to be able to transmit some of this rich experience to you. If, however, there are two evident limitations to this contribution, there is no doubt that it comes at an opportune and propitious moment in the life of the Church. We are in the time between the recent past extraordinary Synod--a commemoration, verification and actualization of Vatican Council II twenty years after its conclusion--and the next ordinary Synod of 1987, which will have as its theme "The vocation and mission of the laity in the Church and in society." The relations between laity and religious are adequately clarified by the knowledge the Church has at present of its mystery of communion and of the demands of i(s mission. And all, bish-ops, priests, deacons, religious and laity--as is stated in the final mes-sage of the extraordinary Synod--are invited to participate in the work of preparation for the next Synod, which "should constitute a decisive step so that all Catholics might receive the grace of Vatican II." From an Ecclesiology of Communion We can begin from an obvious daily experience. Many walls of sepa-ration- material, cultural, ecclesiastical--have been torn down, and to-day a close, simple, fraternal experience of collaboration between the la-ity and religious is lived and shared. This occurs within the most diverse Christian communities, in the most varied works of the Church, in asso-ciations and movements, in structures of "communion and participa-tion" of the combined pastoral team of the local Churches . It is like an immediate, accessible, verified evidence of fraternal collaboration and of common participation. No one can deny it. It can be stated that this is like a reflection and a fruit, a sign and a realization of the "ecclesiology of communion" of Vatican Council II. This I give here as something taken for granted. I find it interesting to point out a double movement, indivisible, in the carrying out of this con-ciliar ecclesioiogy. On one hand, we have gradually gone beyond a cor-porate or governmental division between clergy, religious and laity, com-partmentalized and sometimes in tension or in struggle for the division Expectations of Religious Life / 643 of "power" in the Church. What is anterior and interior to any dis-tinction has been affirmed and accented in this developing movement; that is, what is more essential, common to all, more original and radical in all Christian life. We are members of the great family of the "Chris-tian faithful," incorporated into Christ by baptism, participants in his priesthood, called to holiness, with equal dignity in the eyes of God, all co-responsible for the communion and the mission of the Church. But all "in their own way" because, at the same time, we experience that we are distinct, that this unity of all does not reduce us to uniformity and impoverish us by it, but that it develops fruitfully in the diversity of vo-cations, ministries and charisms which express and enrich the commun-ion and mission of the Church. It is with this ecclesiological basis and in intense ecclesial experience that we pose the question of what the laity expect of religious life . The Laity Expect "Something More" In the first place, I believe that many lay people would be surprised and somewhat disconcerted with the question, unable to respond in a con-scious and well-planned way. However, I think that, instinctively, in-tuitively, their response would be that of expecting "something more" of religious. Yes, they expect something more! Something more radical, more total, more definitive, more profound, more demanding and chal-lenging, in the relationship with God. They expect something more of holiness. In giving this spontaneous response, I pictured the alert, concerned, astonished reaction of the sister who says: "but, Dr . are not the laity also called to sanctity? . . ." And she says something obviously true if considered in the light of present ecclesial self-knowledge, but not so obvious in the understanding of all Christians. That conventional and arbitrary prejudice which seems to reserve holiness to the religious state, judging it in some way the monopoly of the following of Christ or of the evangelical counsels--has been gradually abandoned, and yet, at the same time, the lay condition was often considered a second-class Chris-tian life, a concession to human weaknesses. Ai times, the ideal of holi-ness was seen as a heroic and somewhat "aristocratic" option of per-fection, attained through the initiative of superior men and women. But, be at peace; good sister, because in ever greater numbers, the laity are becoming conscious of this universal vocation to holiness to which Chapter 15 of Lumen Gentium refers in a clear and distinct man-ner. 644 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 This being accepted, perhaps you still remain disturbed that the laity continue expecting from religious a greater radicality of commitment and donation to God (the three vows are like dimensions of a unique vow--I read this some days ago--of the vow of one's whole self, the gift of the entire person, offering oneself to God with all one's energies.); they expect a greater, more immediate and more total liberty and availability in order to follow-imitate-serve Christ; they expect a more direct and tan-gible referenceto the presence of the mystery of God in human life. They are very sure of what they expect even though they cannot always ex-press it well. For this reason, the ordinary lay person is much more exi-gent in observing and in judging the witness given by religious than that given by lay people. In general, this is so. It is surprising that this ex-pectation- which rises up from the "sensum fidei," from this "super-natural instinct" of simple Christians--corresponds perfectly to what the Church considers the radical originality of the religious life: to give wit-ness to and "impulse" in the area of the growth of life, of sanctity. Con-sciously or intuitively, the laity expect that religious will keep as a high priority the primacy, the radicality of the witness to sanctity, not as .a,pat-rimony or goal exclusively their own, but as a call and warning, a chal-lenge and attraction for all the members of the people of God toward this vocation and program of life. It is right that religious should be a bit disturbed when they feel them-selves burdened with such expectations because they feel that it is not. a question of a privilege but of a grave responsibility. In other words, there is a preferential love of God for each one of you--it was he who chose you first and who put his "aspiration" in you, and not you your-selves who decided to be more holy--which burdens you with responsi-bility in the response to God in the Church, I would say before the most "insignificant" of the baptized . . . and even before the most "care-less" of human beings. And it is not sufficient to p~ut on the habit~t~) say, "Lord, Lord." This vocation must be carried out effectively as the will of the Father. Saints or Reformers? In the long history of the Church one can find strong confirmation of what the laity today expect of the religious life. They expect what the Church has always expected, an assurance that they will never be de-prived of this "special gift" which is the religious life. Almost two mil-lennia of life teach that the crucial periods or phases of renewal of the Church--in its communion and in its mission--were brought about and' carried out through the great and liberated energies of holiness, and that Expectations of Religious Life / 645 in the "vanguard" of these holy and reforming energies the numerous and diverse charisms of the religious life proved powerful and fruitful. Let us have a bird's eye view of all this. - When the Church lived under the tension of the seducing powers of "worldliness" on the one hand and of vigorous heretical movements on the other, during the Roman-Christian Empire, the tradition of con-secrated life, of which the first witnesses are already met within the New Testament writings, flowered in the monastic experience, raising up a new spiritual "oxygenation," a passion for unity and a lively responsi-bility for the truth. - Shortly,afterwards, when Ambrose saw "the end of the world" in the total destruction of the Roman Empire of the West and before the invasion of the "barbarians," there came the charism of a Benedict-- as well as of Cyril and Methodius--whose cloistered disciples and fol-lowers would be nothing less than the evangelizers of the new peoples and the principal protagonists of the construction of a new civilization, medieval Christianity. - When the liberty of the Church was being strangled in the suffo-cating and corrupting embrace of feudal chains, currents of sanctity ra-diating from Cluny and Cister made possible the Gregorian reform and a sort of "second evangelization" of medieval Christianity. - And before the upheaval of the urban-mercantile-university revo-lution of the later medieval period--when the sectarian phenomena were swarming like so many devious responses to new sensitivities and cul-tural demands which went beyond the limits of the feudal "order"-- God enriched the communion and mission of the Church with the men-dicant orders for the most incisive and suitable evangelization of the new world and the new culture in process of being born. - And how is it possible to speak of the "Catholic reform" at the moment of the Council of Trent in face of the drama and challenge of the "Protestant reform" and the new missionary needs created by the European expansion at the dawn of modem times without considering the holy charisms of Ignatius, Teresa of Avila, Philip Neri, Angela Merici, Francis de Sales, Vincent de Paul. ? - In the second half of the nineteenth century, the intellectual, spiri-tual and missionary revival of the Church, harassed by the impetus of the secularizing and anti-clerical modernism, had its strong point in the multiplication of religious orders, masculine and feminine, which it would take too long to mention . 646 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 This is a mere schematic outline, certainly, but substantially true in what I wish to demonstrate. Speaking to Superiors General, after hav-ing mentioned the names of great and holy founders, John Paul II con-cluded: All these names testify that the paths of holiness, to which the members of the people of God are called, passed and continue to pass in great part through religious life. And there is no need to marvel at that, given the fact that religious life was founded on the most precise "prescription" for holiness, constituted by love lived according to the evangelical coun-sels. Also, mentioning two essential criteria for the renewal of religious life, the Pope said during his trip to Brazil: The first criterion is that religious life (and concretely every religious community) is not seriously renewed if the objective of the renewal is, in fact, the seeking of the greatest ease and convenience, but only if this objective is the seeking of what is most authentic in religious life and most harmonious with it. The second criterion is that religious life is re-newed by being ever more a road of sanctity. This is nothing else than what is stated by the conciliar decree Per-fectae Caritatis in Number 21. All this brings to mind a marvelous reminder of John Paul II to the laity, when he celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the conciliar de-cree Apostolicam Actuositatem in November, 1985: The Church needs great currents, movements and testimonies of holi-ness among the Christian faithful because it is from holiness that all authentic renewal of the Church is born, all enrichment of the intelli-gence of faith and of the following of Christ, a vital and fruitful re-actualization of Christianity in meeting with human needs, renewed forms of presence in the heart of human existence and in the culture of the nations. More than "reformers," the Church needs saints--frequently re-peats the Pope because saints are the best reformers. And this is the same point stressed by all the participants in the recent extraordinary Synod. Twenty years after the end of Vatican Council II the "univer-sal vocation to sanctity" must have the primacy. Between Crises and Hopes Well. twenty years after the end of Vatican Council II, that great gift of God to the Church of our times, in this crucial phase of renewal of the Church. how does it appear to you? Are religious in the van- Expectations of Religious Life / 647 guard, as first and primary witnesses of those energies and currents of sanctity which effectively renew the Church and the world? A lay per-son responds with fear and trembling: it does not seem to me to be so. Certainly there are not lacking admirable personal and communitarian tes-timonies in religious life--we have them present here--which have an impact far beyond the visible limits of the Church. Thanks be to God! But, in general, there are also the weighty results of the convulsive cri-sis which occurred during the first phase of the "post-conciliar times." The great yon Balthasar says that the strong crisis felt by the Church in the immediate post-conciliar time, and which was partially a crisis of secularization and partially a crisis of comprehension of authority in the Church, affected the priesthood and the religious state in the very depths of its theology and in a manner in-comparably stronger than for the laity who had no great reason to re-flect on its identity and to question itself. What a painful distance there was between the great conciliar hopes of an "adequate renewal of religious life" and the heavy price of un-certainty and instability, of disquiet and disoriented nervousness, of secu-larization and crisis which followed it: so heavy a price that some are still suffering from the results of it and many were ruined by it. A heavy price which indicates, on the one hand, how fossilized and anachronis-tic were some forms inherited from the past--already hatching a crisis under a rather sclerotic shell--and which signals, on the other hand, de-vious and unilateral interpretations and actions in the realization of the renewal desired by Council;, in which there tended to predominate worldly criteria rather than an authentic and rigorous discernment "of the spirit." And this is not the result of expert examinations. The ordinary laity witnessed this crisis when, for example, sending their children to Catho-lic schools, they realized that many religious were leaving their commu-nities, that there were very few novices, that those who remained were usually the oldest . But where do vocations come from? From the grace of God which is never lacking, and from the response of lay men and women who wish to live their baptism more radically. These have not been lacking in these twenty post-conciliar years either. So? We tend to take refuge in a detailed and often rather intellectual enumeration of all the obstacles which are found on the road of total commitment: secu-larism, consumerism, pansexualism, and so forth. Who can deny this? But the "worldly" difficultie~ ought to make even more evident the chal-lenging vigor in the sign, the witness, thecalling. Perhaps the most se- Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 rious,reply with regard to the "crisis" is that, in these last decades, re-ligious life has failed to be radical enough in its following of Christ, suf-ficiently rooted in the full certainties of life, passionate enough as an ex-pression of the mystery of communion, challenging enough for con-version, vigorous enough in its apostolate, transparent enough in its wit-ness to awaken amazement, fascination, admiration, imitation among the many laity made aware of the requirements of baptism and of their Chris-tian responsibility. Today the "uneasy time" has passed. Serenity has been regained. There are promising signs of an increase of vocations. From the at-tempted experimentations there have come more criteria to consolidate the positive and reject the negative. There is a different atmosphere. Re-ligious life is beginning to reflect the new ecclesiai climate. But the Church expects much more from it. It should be strengthened in the Lord. A crisis is fully overcome when the reasons which caused it are discerned in depth: crisis of spiritual discipline, crisis of authority, obe-dience, crisis of communion . It is necessary to "refound" relig-ious life, said Don Egidio Viganb a few years ago. And the great con-necting threads for this new phase of the carrying out of the Council, which gave direction to this refoundation, seem clear: radicality on the road of holiness, passion for the truth, solidity and fidelity to com-munion, missionary impetus of a new evangelization. New Forms of Consecrated Life If there has been a crisis of religious institutes--also states Balthasar--it cannot be said that there has been a crisis of consecrated life because, in addition to the traditional forms of religious life, there have been developing lately new forms of consecration, new forms of "monastic" experiences in the world. In the vigorous "ecclesial move-ments" at the present time--such as the Focolarini, Communion and Lib-eration, Charismatic Renewal in the Spirit--and also in very many other communitarian experiences on local levels, there have been maturing per-sons and groups of persons who have decided, privately, to assume as a radical commitment the practice of the evangelical counsels in life com-munities. These types of vocations have abounded and a great number of new vocations, especially to the contemplative religious life, come from these movements. To be sure, history teaches that different impulses of renewal of re-ligious life are generated from strong charismatic and communitarian ex-periments which do not fit easily into existing forms and which were gen-erating--- or were heading toward--new roads of sanctity. But those more Expectations of Religious Life / 649 and more numerous lay vocations to live the evangelical counsels in a radical form, in forms that are different from the traditional forms of "consecration," should constitute a questioning and challenging sign for religious institutes. Why do they not have a similar attraction? On the other hand, the institutes have a precious patrimony of traditions and of spiritual wisdom which, revitalized and clarified, could be of primary im-portance in facing and directing the new forms which are arising. In the Return of the Sacred Not a few attentive observers at the present time note the emerging signs of a complete process of cultural transition, as if we were in mo-ments of maximum realization and, at the same time, of exhaustion 'from the process of secularization stirred up by the secularist and materialis-tic ideologies: a nihilistic phase, the indifferent absence of great motives and ideals of life, spiritual emptiness and lethargy, the predominance of the miserable idols of money, pleasure, power. At the same time there are emerging everywhere, at times with surprising or ambiguous mani-festations, new sensitive, new "significant" dem~inds, new "religious" expectations. Do we, perhal~s, 'see this under such varied signs as the re-vitalization of the cultural-religious substratum of some nations-- Poland, the Philippines, Haiti;--the resistance to secularizing modern-ism: the renewal of Islam; the accelerated and dangerous expansion of sects and of "mysterious" and "esoteric" cults; the sensitive "relig-ious" antennae of the new generations of youth; the increase of priestly and religious vocations; the great number of places in which individuals and whole peoples claim at the present time to have enjoyed apparitions of the Virgin; the enormous popular repercussions of the apostolic trips of the Holy Father; the growing flood of pilgrims going to the sanctuar-ies of their country? And in so many other and varied ways . "In s.pite of secular-ism," says the final message of the extraordinary Synod, "there exist also signs of a return to the sacred . . , of a new hunger and thirst for the transcendent and the divine . We should open the way to the di-mension of the 'divine' or of the 'mystery.' " This resurgence of the sacred--states a synodal father--will be more vigorous yet in the perspective of the end of the second millennium, but care must be taken so that the response and satisfaction of this new sen-sitivity and need is not given through devious channels and forms, frus-trating in the end because it will appear that the Catholic Church does not itself refer sufficiently to the sacred. 650 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 The whole Church is challenged, but I ask if there is not a special warning call to religious life. Instead of pursuing a retarded and submis-sive adaptation to a secularist culture in process of disintegration, the signs of an emerging culture can be fed on and deciphered only by the signs of the Absolute of God, by the radical testimony of the Mystery of God in human life. In the Agitation of the Secular Life Now let us be more specific. Let us look more carefully at the con-crete and daily experience of lay people. It is their specific work to or-der the world according to the designs of God, to live their Christian vo-cation in the ordinary conditions of family, work, and social life, in the logic and even dullness of created things. This is the road-~diversified in an enormous multiplicity of ways---of their sanctification. Yes, in-deed! I believe that there are many silent, hidden, daily witnesses to sanc-tity among lay people. At times, however, it is truly wearying to have to endure a certain "idealism" or a great deal of ecclesiastical rhetoric when reference is made to the lay state, to the "adult lay person". One gets the im-pression that often it is an abstraction of the real rhythm and weight of the normal day of an ordinary lay person. It is necessary to sanctify and to sanctify oneself in the family, professional and social life. But, how avoid being "pulled about," absorbed by a permanent agitation of the rhythm of life in order to obtain those material and spiritual times nec-essary to give "breath," "feeling" and an orientation to one's own life? Generally, in order to find these moments, as, for example, to as-sist at Mass, to pray in the family, to speak of God with one's children, to grow spiritually as a couple, to be silent., it is necessary to strug-gle and even more, to acquire a "discipline" and to respect it and to put it into practice. Most often one is pulled along by the bustle of the activities, preoccupations, responsibilities and the immediate anxieties of daily life to such a point that life becomes opaque, gray, is impover-ished of spiritual content, goes on marginalizing "the religious" to de-termined ritual moments which become ever more infrequent. And yet more . The laity are asked to assume ecclesiai and secu-lar responsibilities which are on a large scale and require time and la-bor. They are asked to be "militant." And that i~ fine. But what does it mean concretely? That the hours dedicated as catechist in the parish or in teams of service, or to meetings of movements or apostolic groups to which they belong, or absorbed by union responsibilities or participa-tion in the political party--and in this type of commitment the demands Expectations of Religious Life / 651 always seem to multiply if one wishes things to go along better continu-ally-. those hours of "militancy" have to be taken or "stolen" from the domestic and family life at the end of a day's work. For this reason, lay militants are always unstable minorities, threat-ened with discontinuity, doubly sacrificed, in abnegation and dedication. This is not to be regretted; it is their normal habitual condition. Great institutions are not built nor great works done with "extra" hours. Two remarks seem important for service of religious life in face of these situations of the laity. The first is to realize the need that the lay people have--today more than ever---of time, signs and specific spaces of prayer, of being filled with the perspective of the kingdom, savoring the things of God, becoming impregnated with the spirit of the beatitudes which can provide specific nourishment for their family, professional or political life. Many lay people look at and are seeking the contemplative life of religious communities so as to enter into contact with their spiri-tual radiation. You know how difficult it is to be contemplatives in the secular life, since many of your communities are dedicated to works of the apostolate. You can imagine how much more difficult it is for the laity . The second remark refers to the availability of religious for the serv-ice of the Gospel when compared to the obligations of lay people. When I end my day's work, I return home, not in order to rest but to help my wife who is carrying out her duties for the children, to bathe the little ones, to attend to a thousand little domestic needs . I would like to read so many things that could help me grow--and my wife also, natu-rally- but I do not have the time. I would like to visit friends in diffi-culty, to participate in ecclesial or cultural meetings which seem impor-tant to me, to get to know important persons or experiences. But I can-not sacrifice more than a minimum of family time. It is in my marriage and in my family that I see my first and most important responsibilities as a Christian. I am a happy man, but at times I admire and envy the "full time" workers for the Gospel, the "professional revolutionaries" of the Church, those who consecrate themselves exclusively and totally to the Lord. They should show a liberty and availability of tremendous energies for the most varied services for the Christian people. Does it perhaps happen that where there is more time to dispose of, there is more time to waste? On Political Participation If the chief witness of the laity is the Christian presence in the con-duct of the economy of creation, this does not mean that this is a field 659 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 exclusively reserved to them. The witness of lay people challenges re-ligious to go beyond caricatures of flight from the world and to consider their own consecration to God a radical commitment in the service of hu-man beings and of society. The great contributions of the religious life in social construction and progress can be found throughout history; but it is a fact that since the Council they have been going beyond the nar-row horizons, the so-called exclusivity or spiritual incompetence in the name of which religious life degenerated into forms of insensitivity in the face of situations and conditions of injustice and oppressiori suffered by persons, social groups, entire peoples. If the struggle for justice is a constitutive dimension of evangeliza-tion; if the defense and promotion of the dignity, rights and liberties of all human beings are a necessary part of the mission of the Church; if the kingdom of God--kingdom of peace and of justice, of truth and of love--is growing mysteriously in human, history--no religious can con-sider extraneous to her own peculiar vocation these commitments and tasks. It also falls to the religious "to evangelize the political' '--as says the Puebla document--in the sense of values of the Gospel and in con-formity with them. Up to this point, everything is clear. But there are cases in which, in the face of flagrant situations of injustice, misery and violence, when a vigorous and incisive commitment on the part of lay people is lacking, religious feel called to a more direct, surer, more incisive social and po-litical action. No one can be "neutral" in face of such situations. Even in these cases, however, it is necessary, on the one hand, to control the "immediate reaction" which ends up by absorbing and weakening the original vocation of the religious, and on th~ other, to prevent their ac-tions ending up in a well-determined political praxis, in a militant, dis-ciplined commitment, organized in a political party or strategy, with a basic reference to power. In taking this road, the premises for "secularization" are created. In addition, there is the "clerical" temptation of using prestige, social weight and the cultural representativity of ecclesiastics--above all, in Christian environments--as a basis to affirm definite political options worthwhile and free in themselves, and left then to the prudence of each Christian. In cases in which this "political praxis" of religious exists, many of the laity are conscious of a great lack of preparation of an "idealis-tic" voluntarism which substitute forms of "moral indignation" for the complex calculation of political .analysis. Expectations of Religious Life The categorical imperative "it is necessary to become committed" is identified, by some religious, in a mech'anical or simplistic manner with a "plunging into" the agitation of political matters without discern-ment. And this "plunging," with their lack of technical and political preparation, with their "ecclesiastical" condition of life far from the re-alistic stability of family and professional life and responsibility, with their lack of respect for the "weightiness" of the daily life of ordinary mortals, and with their counting on the particular protection of the Church--all this ends up by creating a particular type of untrustworthy political person and confused religious. The ease and simplicity with which some religious pass from traditional forms of life to political radi-calizations and moralistic ideologies is incredible. They are easily ma-nipulated and absorbed into a horizon which gradually becomes a prior-ity and then into a respect which becomes a substitute for ecclesial communion. Truly the Pope is right in insisting that it is not the proper role for religious to be converted into political or union leaders, and even less into state functionaries! Various Methods of Service to Humanity In these experiences of specific political participation, there is, on the part of religious, even if not consciously, a certain devaluation of their particular vocation and, consequently, an inferiority complex which makes one want to excel in the typically lay manner of service to human-ity. This service seems identified with social and political militancy if it is to be truly efficacious. Anything else seems like alienation, indif-ference and even the complicity of religious with injustice and oppres-sion. With this attitude as a basis, there comes a loss of confidence in the specificity of the religious consecration as a fundamental manner of serv-ice to humanity. The council was already warning about this when it said: Let no one think that, by their consecration, religious have become strang-ers to their feliowmen or useless citizens of this earthly city. But, even though in some instances they do not directly mingle with their contem-poraries, yet in a more profound sense, these religious are united with them in the heart of Christ and cooperate with them spiritually. In this way the work of building up the earthly city can always have its foun-dation in the Lord and can tend toward him. Otherwise, those who build this city will perhaps have labored in vain (LG n. 46). Does not the witness of St. Th6r~se of Lisieux teach us the incom- 654 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 parable value of prayer for all human service? Those who take on as a priority the construction of the world through matrimony, the administra-tion of goods and power--such are the laity--greatly need those who ac-company them with prayer as a priority, who remind them that we are in the world but not of the world and that we cannot conform ourselves to the present time; that we must safeguard and strengthen our Christian liberty in face of the seductions of the idols of money, power and pleas-ure; that the "logic" of the beatitudes is authentically revolutionary; that Christ is the cornerstone of all social construction which is to be truly human; that it is worth the trouble to struggle and sacrifice in order to continue creating conditions and experiences of greater justice, solidar-ity and peace so that nothing will be forgotten and all will be redeemed when God grants us "new heavens and a new earth". The best and most radical service to humanity is the testimony of a life which manifests the total supremacy of the love of God. For this rea-son, the special road of service to humanity for religious life consists, today more than ever, in being centered in one's "consecration," in a special care and cultivation of its religious dimension, of its discipline of life and spiritual growth. Living and Manifesting a Specific Charism This life according to the Spirit is diversified and deepened in the fol-lowing of the "charism of the founders." The apostolic exhortation Evangelica Testificatio and the decree Mutuae Relationes emphasized this in a special way. For the majority of lay people, however, I believe that this statement would not be well understood because there is the dan-ger of considering religious life generically, with little variations, with more or less uniform ways, barely differentiated into families with dif-ferent names and habits. It is necessary to ask if the various religious com-munities witness effectively to the gift they have received, to their own original spiritual richness, their particular contribution to the Christian enrichment of all the people of God. If fidelity to one's own charism is a form of obedience to the grace of Christ, if it characterizes the origi-nality of an evangelical project for the following of Christ and encour-ages the discovery of new lights and new dimensions of the totality of Christian life, if it is a specific way of sanctification, the greatest contri-bution of a religious community to the life of the Church and of each Christian is to keep'very much alive the fidelity to this charism, to live it with the same radicality as the founder lived it, to regenerate and radi-ate its relevancy before the needs of the Church and the people, I believe that thus the whole of the people of God would feel more "encouraged" Expectations of Religious Life / 655 and "worked upon" by the powerful ferment of renewal of Christian life. The laity who have contact with religious communities, directly or through schools, clinics, and so forth, would be much more "struck" by these radical charisms. All of that is contained in the generic term-- the Sisters. In this sense, we find much to the point the words of John Paul II in Brazil when, after having emphasized the great pastoral and apostolic service accomplished by religious, he stated: It is not because it is useful to the pastoral work that religious life occu-pies a very definite place in the Church and has an indispensable value. The contrary is true: religious life lends an efficacious service to the pas-toral work because it is and keeps itself firmly faithful to the position it occupies in the Church and to the charisms which characterize this po-sition. In addition, I ask myself if religious communities should not put more emphasis on the witness of the sanctity of their founders or spiri-tual teachers. Many times witness is of more value than words and Chris-tians need "models," fathers and teachers on the road of faith. Life Communities in the Church Permanent life communities which fully involve the person are found in the life of the Church only in religious communities and in Christian families. The differences between these two are obvious. The famil~ is a "natural" community, whose matrimonial nucleusbin the loving and fruitful union of the man and woman--is "sacramentalized" by the Church. The religious community does not have a "natural" base and those who participate in it freely sacrifice precious goods--such as the whole field of conjugal love, the free disposal of material goods, indi-vidual autonomy for the great decisions of life--for a Good, for a Love which is much greater. ~But in both cases we see, in different forms, the mystery of commun-ion which there is in the human origin and destiny and which becomes a daily miracle. In societies which are ever more disunited and frag-mented, where the powerful and uniforming tides of massification break up social bonds in the social fabric--much has been written about th'is-- these very forms of community life acquire even more importance and a great "impact." There is an intense desire for personal recognition, friendship, solidarity, authentic reconciliation, deeper and fuller human encounters and relationships so that people are very sensitive to the hu-man witness and acceptance of these life communities. 656 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 There are beautiful analogies which could be made between religious communities and. family communities. Do not the various aspects of hu-man love which are found ,in family life and which reflect the insepara-ble dimensions of divine love exist in their own manner and even more fully in the religious community as signs, glimpses, first-fruits of the king-dom? Both communities are based on the indestructible and fruitful foun-dation of a spousal love. While in the person-to-person encounter of the man and his wife, their passionate experience of love truly reflects the covenant of Christ with his Church, the religious lets herself be grasped directly and tota~lly by the limitless love of Christ, in the immediilcy of the covenant between Spouse and spouse, with the totality and sublima-tion of a commitment to which all human love is called. Cohsecrated vir-ginity- lived in its serene and mysterious fullness~is the sign of p~ssi-bility and of example to order and encourage the "chastity" of married life in this vital, delicate and fragile complex between the spi,ritual sway and instinctive impulses. There is a complete education to lib~rty, to do-minion over selfl which 'is a ~:ondition of authentic love--so important and urgent today on the level of tlae' new generations, determined and marked by a hedonist mentality and an atmosphere of flagrant eroticism-- which shines through a healthy religious life. ~ ~ The family, although implicitly, also requires a "rule" for i!s com-munity life, and authority is the prinqiple and guarantee of communion. In the rule of rules--that of St. Benedict--the "superior".of the com-mu~ nity is called "father"--abbot. It is good that the superior is recog-nized as "mother" and all are "sisters." Without paternity (maternity) we would remain orphans, community would disintegrate because it would be without a source and point of reference. This is the value of "authority" as derived from "augere," that which helps to increase, to grow in life, which permits the human to grow in persons. It i~ always a reflection on the paternity (maternity) of God, who giyes us life, makes. it grow in faith, brings it to plentitude. There is a spiritual fruitfulness which~.engenders abundant fruits of Christian life. Lay people often observe with special attention the life of r~eligious communities so as to see if they discover, if they perceive that "some-thin~ more" which they expect. For this reason, excessive formalism, minor quarrels, divisions, absence of human warmth, and more dull the communitarian witness. It is as if community were more an obligatory formality than a radiation of liberty and life. The laity must be able to see in the life of religious communities the carrying out in a small way of this reconciliation in depth, of this fraternity and solidarity,, of this Expectations of Religious Life / 657 peace and happiness in communion for which all human beings yearn in their heart, a strong sign of "reconciled humanity" in the interior of the mystery of communion of the Church, a model of "the new society" in which can be found united liberty and solidarity, where authority is exercised as paternity (maternity), where there is a different attitude to-wards riches, in which human relations are brought to their fullness by liberty and do not degenerate into domination, and which brings all its members to an ordered participation;'and "above all," as says a beauti-ful text bf the Puebia document: where it is unequivocally manifested that, without a radical communion with, God in Jesus Christ, any form of purely human communion re-mains in the long run incapable of being sustained and ends totally in tu'rning against the human person. In other words, nothing less than a corner of heaven! Some Priority Areas Lay people are very sensitive to the way religious life witnesses to poverty, and they are also very demanding, at times too demanding, with religious and little, indeed, with themselves. It is good, howev.er, to be challenged by this exigency. More than an "area" of work or of commitment, poverty is a radi-cal dimension of "cbnsecration" insofar as it is detachment from mate-rial goods and affirmation of the liberty which recognizes God as its only good. These are admirable witnesses. On too many occasions, however, the laity do not succeed in seeing how this vow of poverty is manifested concretely as detachment and liberty. Even more, many times, with no malice, they notice that religious liv~e rather conveniently~---even comfort- ~ably--x~ith all material problems settled in the present and in the future, and that in environments which show nothing of "poverty." It'is not a question of their asking for "romantic" gestures nor of exaggerat)ng criticism. But, at least a greater austerity and severity of life is required, a more generous availability in the sharing of material and spiritual goods, the elimination of all that is superfluous . This exigency is even more challenging since it is within a Church which is ever more conscious of and determined concerning the so-called "preferential option for the poor." "This preferential option for the poor," says Don Egidio Viganb in a very expressive synthesis which we cannot examine in detail now, questions religious very concretely, especially the institutes of active life. It demands a review of the specific mission in light of those receiv- Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 ing it. It requires a study and replanning of the presence of the religious. It deepens the sacramental meaning of the vow of poverty, places in dia-logue the great values of evangelical poverty with the pressing obliga-tions of social misery, proclaims with ever greater clarity that the pov-erty of the beatitudes is a challenge to materialism and opens doors to solutions which are alternatives to those of the consumer society. Religious should also take to heart the criteria mentioned by the magis-terium of the Church as to the evangelical authenticity of this "option": it is not exclusive nor excluding because the message of salvation is di-rected to all; it is animated by an intention which is primarily religious and not political; it does not let itself be entrapped by nor reduced to a class dialectic; it takes into consideration the existence of various forms of poverty in situations of 'hunger and misery, of unemployment and marginalization, of deprivation of liberty, of physical or mental health or other material and/or moral privations. In this preferential love for the poor as derived from the love of Christ for all is found in great measure the witness of religious life today. A special attention to the young also seems to be a basic and urgent requirement for religious communities of our times. There is a long and impressive religious tradition of the education of youth which shou!d not be abandoned but should be renewed and deepened. The point is clear; an individual becomes social and is educated, from the most tender age, fundamentally through the family and the school. These are the two ba-sic "channels" to lead youth to reality. But could it be that the States, political parties, ideological strategists would take a strong interest in the school in order to "penetrate" into the world of youth and direct it ac-cording to their various criteria and interests, while the Church-- especially religious communities--would underestimate its educational tradition and its educational institutions and responsibilities? In times of crisis of credibility and of search for "ideologies," when the most no-ble energies and concerns remain dissatisfied with the suffocating mate-rialism of the consumer society, it is more important than ever to offer to the young great and vigorous proposals, ideal certainties of life as signs and guides for their own education. Christian lay people, parents of families, need to count on the help of the Catholic school because the first responsibility for education falls on the parents, and the family is the basic place for growth in the faith of its members. Nevertheless, there is a considerable amount of catecheti-cal instruction, of Christian attitudes, of fruitful joining of faith with cul-ture which is acquired in. the environment and activity of the school. The Expectations of Religious Life I 659 most fruitful means is that of an active and co-responsible educational collaboration between the family and the Catholic school. I am sure that it is not without concern to the laity that educational religious communi-ties are abandoning the field of the school. On the contrary, they should intensify their commitment involving the collaboration of the laity, es-pecially of the parents, and should go beyond the "administrative" and routine activities in the running of the school, transforming it ever more into a vigorous, radiant, highly educational environment and seek means to make their services always more accessible and fruitful. Here there is much to rethink, to plan and to carry out along the line of a scholastic pastoral which meets all these demands. I think also of other milieux and human activities which have been converted into new frontiers of the ecclesial mission, in which the pres-ence of the Church cannot be limited to some free-lance laity. There surely is no lack of religious charisms for the apostolic work among in-tellectuals, artists, professionals of social communication, factory work-ers . According to the Measure of the Gift of Christ One last remark. The Council says that while profession of the evangelical counsels involves the renunciation of goods which undoubtedly deserve to be highly valued, it does not con-stitute an obstacle to the true development of the human person, but by its nature is supremely beneficial to that development (LG 46). Thus the renunciation should not diminish the human but rather help to develop the human stature according to the measure of the gift of Christ. This "something more," this "much more," of holiness, which the laity expect of religious finds its response in the witness of new men, of new women, penetrated with the Absolute of God, radically incorpo-rated into Christ, totally dedicated to the service of others. If Christ re-veals to human persons the 'fullness of their being and their destiny, all radical following of Christ can be only a path of integral fulfillment for humanity. It is necessary to show that what one abandons in order to fol-low Christ will be recovered even now, multiplied, as more human riches more full of humanity. Lay people hope to meet in religious well-balanced Christian person-alities because they are centered in God and, therefore, persons having an effective equilibrium and emotional serenity (how many "argu-ments" reveal psychological immaturity !) of ever more solid intellectual formation (why in the past did one so rarely meet religious on this 660 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 level?), with 'a great liberty because a great obedience radiates a richness of life from their "interior castle." They expect them to be attentive and generous in dedication and service, spreading a happiness and a joy which come from within, persons of whom one can speak and think of as models for women of hidden but full life, in the image of Mary, first and greatest disciple of Christ. Words, Words, Words How glibly do we toss them off, precious self-wrought jewels, precious beyond diamond, sapphire or pearl: Mined from quickened breath, warmed by channeled blood, carried live on currents of air they glow to foul or fair. Let us then nourish them ~with care, knowing their fire can rage uncontrolled to devastating No or curved to simple Yes, can make a world of bleak distress spin in giddy joy, and bring a God to birth while angels sing! Marcella M. Holloway, C.S.J. 6321 Clemens Avenue, Saint Louis, Missouri 63130 The Public and Witness Religious Life Dimension of David F. O'Connor, S.T. Father O'_Connor, past president of the Canon Law Society of America, is chairman of the Department of Church Law at the Washington Theological Union. He resides at the Holy Trinity Mission Seminary; 9001 New Hampshire Avenue; Silver Spring, Maryland 20903. Religious life has a public dimension to it which is intended by the Church. Religious, both in their personal and their corporate lifestyles, are meant to be identifiable as Church-people and to witness Gospel val-ues. They engage in' forms of the apostolate and in ministry always in the name of the Church and under the authority of their respective relig-ious SUl~eriors and local bishops. All of this manifests their distinctive character, their place in the Church and their canonical status. An awareness of this--and it is not always viewed by everyone as an unambigtious biessing~--helps us better understand some of the events occurring on the contemporary scene; for example, the reaction of the hierarchy to religious who are seeking public office or those who sign published statements which a.ppear to be contrary to Church positions. The following article is iritended to elaborate somewhat on this pub-lic dimension of the religious life and some of its implications for relig-ious. The Institutionalizing of a Charismatic Fbrm Since Vatican II, we have a renewed awareness of the religious life as a charismatic vocation, a gift of the Spirit to the Church.2 This has helped deepen our understanding and appreciation of its place and role in the Church. For the Holy Spirit is not only the source of the inspira- 661 662 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 tion of the founders, but also of those who have followed after them down through the succeeding generations. These charisms have contrib-uted in a significant and special way to the very holiness of the Church and to its ability to fulfill its mission in this world.3 A religious commu-nity is obliged to hand on an awareness of its charism to new members so that these gifts of the Spirit may be lived, safeguarded, deepened and constantly developed.4 Charisms are given within the Church for the building up of the Church community. Whenever a claim is made by a group of the faith-ful that it is living a radical form of the Gospel life, such a claim cannot be ignored by the wider Church, especially by the bishops who are the pastors and guardians of the faith.5 The assertion that one is being led by the Spirit, now as in the past, needs to be examined and authenticated by the wider Church community before it can be given credence and ac-ceptance. Historically, ecclesial recognition was given informally and im-plicitly for the first few centuries. But, beginning in the fourth century, bishops of the local churches, aware of certain abuses and of the disrup-tiveness of some wandering monks, required monastic groups to have of-ficial and explicit approval before establishing a foundation. Indeed, the canons of the Council of Chalcedon (45 I) established the norms Which regulated the relationship of bishops and monasteries up until the Mid-dle Ages. Then, because of the development of large and centralized re-ligious orders in the thirteenth century, official recognition was fre-quently reserved to Rome. It is a fact, then, that ecclesial recognition and authentication of charis-matic groups existed in some form from the beginning of the devel-opment of religious life. It was necessary in order to determine whether or not a particular group or rule truly was presenting a viable form of Gospel life. Ecclesial or canonical approbation had the added benefit of helping to preserve the original charism of the founder and the first mem-bers by institutionalizing it within the visible community of faith. Ca-nonical authentication of a particular style of Gospel life has helped it to be passed on to succeeding generations of men and women, and this has redounded to the benefit of the wider Church. The religious life, as we know it today, is canonically established only through the official recognition of the Church's pastors, the hierar-chy. This has helped safeguard the faithful from. being led astray by ab-errant forms of Christianity which, in the past, frequently ended up in fanaticism, schism or heresy. The Church possesses within itself the charism of discerning spirits, and this is exercised by the bishops as part Witness of Religious Life / 663 of their pastoral office. As Karl Rahner has stated: " . . . the official Church is also the guardian and guide of the charismatic element--she herself possesses the gift of the discernment of spirits."6 Canonical Approval of a Religious Institute The Church, through the pastoral office of its bishops, is forced at various times and places to state what it considers to be compatible or incompatible with the Gospel because the Church does sponsor groups, institutions and agencies which publicly and officially represent it. These public institutions have to be supervised lest they present a distorted pic-ture of the gospel values which the Church incarnates. Religious insti-tutes are one such form. Both the institutes as such and its members rep-resent the Church. Once canonical or ecclesiastical recognition is granted to a religious community, that community no longer exists as a private and independ-ent group of the faithful, nor does the institute exist in isolation from par-ties external to it, even though it does enjoy some canonical autonomy.7 For, once having sought and been granted official recognition and ap-proval, the religious institute takes upon itself an added identity--it be-comes an ecclesial institute and is linked to the hierarchy in a special man-ner. 8 Official Church recognition identifies the institute as a Church in-stitution, and it identifies its members, women or men religious, as Church-people, involved in a life of public dedication and service in the name of the Catholic Church.9 Membership in a canonically approved form of consecrated life, which requires the profession of public vows, involves an ecclesial form of commitment that distinguishes religious from other members of the faithful, even those who may be in secular institutes. The latter do not represent the Church in its public life, but live somewhat anonymously, maintain their secular vocation, and qui-etly work to Christianize their milieu. ~0 A Personal Witness That Is Public Religious, as publicly consecrated members of the faithful, are ex-pected, as is every Christian, to witness a personal commitment to Christ. But because they are called by their vocation to an ecclesiai form of public consecration, they are expected tO bear a visible witness to a deep, personal experience of Christ and to share the faith, hope and love which it inspires. ~ For religious, above all, are consecrated to the Lord. Their development in holiness of life is more important than the good works they perform. As John Paul II has remarked: "What counts most 664/Review for Religious~ September-October, 1987 is not what religious do, but what they are as persons consecrated to the Lord." ~2 The canons of the Code of Canon Law reassert some of these essen-tial personal obligations. Canon 662 states that religious are to have as their highest rule of life the ['ollowing of Christ as it is proposed in the Gospel and in their constitutions. The constitutions of each institute help specify and make the Gospel particular for their religious, how it is to be lived in service to others in the name of Christ and of his Church. Re, ligious are to bemen and women of prayer. Their first and foremost duty is the contemplation of divine things, and assiduous union with God in prayer. ~3 They are expected to use the traditional forms ,of, worship and devotion: daily participation in the eucharistic sacrifice, the prayerful read-ing of Sacred Scripture, mental prayer, devotion to Our Lady, and the Liturgy of the Hours. ~'~ .Religious, as individuals,.are ,to engage, in the asceticism required for personal conversion of heart through a daily ex-amination o~ conscience and by frequently receiving the sacrament of pen-ance. 15 These devotional obligations are assumed personally by every relig-ious who takes his or her spiritual life seriously. The cultivation of the interior life is an absolute necessity if the public consecration of a relig-ious is not to become a charade. Without a deep, personal spiritual life, perseverance in a public form of consecrated life becomes tenuous and the fulfillment of the vows turns int~) a heavy burden. " Th~ faithful have a right to expect that those who have publicly ded-icated their lives to Christ by religious profession will be living exam-ples of a GoSpel life. The Church presents religious to the world as pub-lic witnesses of evangelibal values. Holiness of life and a generous, un-selfish service of the People of God are a'rightful expect, ation from each religious. A Corporate Witness That Is Public Religious life is characterized by a communitarian lifestyle. All reli-gious are expected to live in some form of common life which is proper to the specific institute to which they belong. 16 Because of the centrality of the enclosure for monastic religious and some form of active service for apostolic religious, the styles of their common life will be radically different. Indeed, monastic institutes which are totally ordered to the con-templative life are prohibited from engaging in any form of pastoral min-istry outside the monastery,. ~7 However, all religious are expected to live in a house of their own institute with their.brothers or sisters. ~8 Their life together is intended to be a microcosm of the Church, idealized in the Witness of Religious Life / 665 Jerusalem community described in the Acts of the Apostles (2:44): "The faithful all lived together and owned everything in common; they sold their goods and possessions and shared among themselves according to what each one needed." Religious community life is to be filled with pray-erfuines~ and with Christian service and love. Religious life is actually lived on the local level, in a pa.rticular house with specific women or men. The locai community takes on certain char-acteristics, principally because of the individual religious who live to-gether, and secondarily because of the apostolates in which they are en-gaged. The image or witness which they project will depend upon many factors, especially the expectations and experience of the people with whom the religious interact. If the religious are perceived as prayerful, charitable, joyful and generous in their community life together, their cor-porate or collective witness will evidence the Gospel ideal and they will be what the Church intends--living witnesses of Christian love. It may be well to recall the fact that a group is frequently able to wit-ness better than individual persons. An individual can be--all too easily-- simply dismissed as just an eccentric. However, a community of Chris-tian men or women, living a similarly dedicated lifestyle, cannot be so perfunctorily ignored or written-off. Moreover, the members of a relig-ious community can offer support to one another by their companionship and prayerfulness, especially when the Gospel values they embody are countercultural. Living witnesses are a powerful sign. Reflective people will be forced to examine the faith dimension and Gospel values which are the foundation of their own religious lifestyle. Those who do not share our Christian values may be led to a greater appreciation of them by the wit-ness of a vibrant, faith-filled religious community. In fact, it was just such an experience which led the famous~ agnostic, British commenta-tor, Malcolm Muggeridge, to become a Christian-- and later a Catholic-- after his experience in Calcutta with Mother Teresa and her Missionar-ies of Charity. Few people can remain totally indifferent to a corporate Christian wit-ness. Either they will reject it or accept it. That is why the Church pre-sents religious as living witnesses of Christ, as Lumen Gentium, 46, states: Let religious see well to it that the Church truly show forth Christ through them with ever increasing clarity to believers and unbelievers alike --- Christ in contemplation on the mountain, or proclaiming the king-dom of God to the multitudes, or healing the sick and maimed and con- 666 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 verting sinners to a good life, or blessing children and doing good to all people, always in obedience to the will of the Father who sent him. The Witness of Public Vows Religious profess the evangelical counsels as public vows in the con-text of their community lifestyle. Their vows cannot be properly under-stood or appreciated apart from the context of their common life. The Witness of Consecrated Poverty The public vow of poverty, as professed in religious institutes, would be better appreciated and offer a better public witness if it were presented as a vow of common life and goods. Too often the term "poverty" is judged by socio-economic criteria and religious are misjudged as lack-ing because they are not "poor" in that ordinary meaning of the term. Those of us who are educated or who live in comfortable houses, drive automobiles, eat three meals a day, and so forth, (and that is the vast majority of American religious) are sometimes even thought to be vio-lating our commitment. We are judged as hypocritical for professing a "vow of poverty," when it is obvious that we are not "poor." There certainly is a socio-economic dimension to how we are to live our religious life. Our lifestyle must be adapted to the particular cultural and economic situation in which we live, so that we do not give the appearance of being wealthy. Also, there are ascetical demands made upon us, personally and corporately, to live simply and avoid the dele-terious influences of the larger consumer society. Nevertheless, we are not, in fact, invited by our vow to embrace a debilitating, crushing, in-humane form of economic poverty as the ideal of our commitment. That is not religious poverty. That is not the purpose of our vow. Religious poverty can only be valued and offer edification if it is recognized as an essential aspect of community life and, where applica-ble, a dimension of an apostolate. Thus everything a religious acquires as a member of the institute is acquired for the institute. 19 The religious community, in turn, provides for the needs of its members so that they can fulfill the purpose of their vocation in that specific religious family.2° Ascetically, religious are urged to forego standards of comfort and conven-ience which may be legitimate for others and to exercise a certain re-straint in the forms of relaxation and entertainment they choose.2~ All of this is intended to promote the spiritual life of the religious and to help free us from the desire to accumulate things and, positively, to liberate our hearts for the things of God. Witness of Religious Life / 667 When religious undertake apostolates among the socio-economically and culturally deprived, they are required to adapt their style of living to the demands of their apostolate. This will often involve a style of life approximating that of the people among whom they live and work. Life on the missions is not like life at home. Life among the poor in the rural areas of Appalachia or in the inner-city of our large urban centers will bring with it many restrictions and the call for a special asceticism. Those religious can well be viewed as living "poorly" in the more ordinary sense of the word. Generally, if religious are seen as lix;ing a rather simple lifestyle, per-sonally and communally, this will be a source of great edification, espe-cially if they are serving others generously and unselfishly. The Gospel ideal of poverty and simplicity can be beautifully manifested by such a public witness. The faithful are reminded that superfluous goods are not necessary for happiness and contentment. The unencumbered life of reli-gious can help people to look beyond the present world. It can support the credibility of the Gospel° message which religious are to preach by their lifestyle. Religious poverty can be a reminder to every member of the faithful that we are all called to rely upon the Lord, and to manifest a loving concern for our neighbor, especially the needy and the .deprived, whoever they may be. The Witness of Consecrated Chastity If there is anything that is truly countercultural in our modern soci-ety, it is the value of Christian chastity and marital fidelity. A life of dedi-cated chastity and celibacy runs directly contrary to the pleasure princi-ple which is so dominant in our post-Christian western world. Our contem-poraries cannot ignore the witness of thousands of men and women who profess to live chastely and celibately out of love for God and in the serv-ice of others. Those who share our common faith and values, especially those who are themselves without spouses because of circumstances be-yond their control, find great support and consolation in the awareness that many of their sisters and brothers in the Lord live happy and fulfill-ing lives as celibate religious. The community lifestyle of religious provides them with their princi-ple support group.22 Their life shared in common with their religious brothers or sisters is a Christian and humane lifestyle that offers an ideal context for their vowed life. Apostolic religious especially benefit from a communal dimension to their dedication to mission. While their pri-mary orientation may be to serving others, their religious community set-ting on the local level should be the base to which they return for spiri- 668 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 tual ,and fraternal/sisterly refreshment. Again, the fact that a group can offer a better witness than individuals is an important consideration when it involves a chaste and celibate Christian lifestyle. Individuals find their commitment under assault or too heavy a burden if they live alone and apart. Living celibately in a communal setting can witness that religious do not live lonely and eccentric single lives, but live in a Christian faith community and in hope of complete fulfillment in the eschaton. The Witness of Consecrated Obedience Religious have willingly accepte~d,a pattern of life that is largely laid down for them.23 They follow a,rule or constitution and live in residence under the authority of those who have been elected or appointed as reli-gious superiors.24 Their vow of obedience has limited their freedom and their options so that they might pursue the cor~mon good and the corpo-rate mission of their particular religious institute. Ultimately, they seek, as women and men of faith, to discern the will of God in the commands they are given in holy obedience. This enalSles their institute to under-take corporate commitments and helps galvanize the personal investmeni of time and talent into a commhnity endeavor. ' The life of religious obedience requires a great sense of faith. The generosity that this clemands can help foster the spiritual maturity of re-ligious as they strive humbly to imitate the obedience and love of Jesus who sought only.to do the will of his Father. Certainly, jn a society and culture that exaggerates the importance of individual freedom, Christian obedience is truly countercultural. The obedience of religious is fre-quently denigrated as a "blind obedience" by those who do not share our faith values. However, our brothers and sisters in the faith often find it a rather Christ-like response and are disedified when they perceive the opposite in the lives of religious. All Christians are obliged to seek the will of the Lord. Thus the hum-ble example of obedient religious can only help to build up the Body of Christ. Canonical Consequences of the Public Dimension Appropriate Attire Since religious life has a public dimension to it, it seems reasonable, all things considered, that a distinctive style of garb might have some advantages, especially in many apostolates, and in our commitment to a simple lifestyle. It is quite common to find that people in "service" roles, even professional ones, are recognizable .by their uniform or pro- Witness of Religious Life / 669 fessional'attire. We tend to expect that these people will be readily iden-tifiable when we need their services. 'Indeed, the sign or witness dimension is referred to in the canon which concerns the garb of religious.25 While a religious "habit," in the strict sense of the term, is more appropriately a monastic garment, custom and tradition among many apostolic institutes has provided them with a style of dress which identified them as pertaining to a particular religious family. Often enough it was a form of dress suitable to another age or culture. Frequently, too, apostolic groups adopted the contempo-rary clerical dress, if they were men religious. While not adopting a habit, as such, they did choose a style of dress that gradually became a traditional garb that went unchanged and unadapted to times and circum-stances. It was for the most part a post-Vatican II phenomenon that, in-stead of guitably adapting the dress, as was expected, it was often dis-carded entirely in part because of the difficulty of deciding on something acceptable to all the members. Another purpose for wearing a religious garb is that it is intended to be a sign of simplicity of lifestyle and religious poverty. It is appropri-ate that a public witness to the Gospel should evidence a certain degree of Christian detachment and modesty. Experience has shown that it is difficult to,dress attractively and appropriately for every occasion with-out having to invest in a.rather extensive wardrobe. A simple garb which is modest, becoming and dignified solves this problem. However, the rules and regulations of each institute, the expectations of the local Church, the demands of the apostolate and the requirements of the particular culture and clime all have to be considered when it comes to deciding in concrete situations how one ought to be dressed. There is no requirement in Canon Law that the habit or religious garb be worn on every occasion, nor at all times, nor in all places. Indeed, the Apostolic~ See itself has stated that a secular style of dress, without any recognizable sign or symbol, can be permitted when a habit would be an impediment to the everyday exercise of activities which should be undertaken by the relig'ious.26 Mission in the Name,.of the Church All forms of apostolic activity are to be undertaken by men and women religious only in the name of the Church and in communion with it.27 The exercise of the apostolate by religious is never entirely a pri-vate and personal ministry. It is always, in some sense, a public and cor-porate one.28 The Vatican Council stated that one of the essential ele-ments of the Christian apostolate is that it be conducted in union with 670 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 those whom the Holy Spirit has assigned pastorally to govern the Church.29 It is the duty of the local bishop to coordinate all forms of the apostolate among his portion of the People of God.3° Religious are' al-ways to be subject to their own superiors and to the local bishop in the exercise of all forms of the external apostolate.3~ Unbecoming Activities Church law has always recognized that the public nature of the cleri-cal ministry and the religious life places certain restrictions on the ac-tivities in which clerics or religious may engage. However, what may be inappropriate at one time and place may not be so in another. Times change and so do the circumstances. As a result, the 1983 Code of Canon Law is both different and simi-lar to the 1917 Code. It is different insofar as some of the activi, ties which were considered unbecoming for clerics and religious, such as the prac-tice of medicine, especially surgery, are no longer prohibited by the re-vised code. It is the same in that a number of activities which were proscribed by the old code appear again in the new one-~especially the general prohibition that forbids religious and clerics to engage in any ac-tivity which is foreign to their way of life.32 No specific unbecoming are enumerated here. Such determination is be left to the good judgment and prudence of mature women and men religious as they con-sider the demands of the apostolate in their .particular culture, time and place. Of course, specific directives can be given by the proper religious superiors and by the local bishops. These would have to be observed. Public or Political Office The new code continues the prohibition of the old one that religious are not to assume a public office to which is attached the exercise of civil authority, such as the office of mayor, attorney general, governor, or sim-ilar offices.33 The reason seems self-evident--persons holding such of-rices confuse Church ministry with a civil role, and inhibit a Gospel and prophetic stance. Religious are meant to be°at the service of people as heralds of the Gospel in the name of the Church. Similarly, they are not to take an active role in partisan political par-ties nor in the management of labor unions, unless they have the permis-sion of their ecclesiastical superiors.34 Again, the reason for this general proscription is that the public image and identity of a religious is that of a representative of the Church community. When publicly dedicated Church-people become too closely identified with a specific ideology, any Gospel witness is blunted, and the situation often distracts people Witness of Religious Life / 671 from the various social justice and public stands which the Church may want to make through its pastors.35 Finally, religious are supposed to be agents of reconciliation, not division. They should foster peace and jus-tice as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.36 Secular Financial Responsibilities , Another general area which religious are wisely urged to avoid, un-less good reasons indicate otherwise--in which cases permission can be granted--is the acceptance of secular financial responsibilities or involve-ment in business and trade activities. The canons prohibit religious, gen-erally, from undertaking the management of property owned by the la-ity and from assuming any secular office which require financial accountability.37 However, today it is easy to envision situations in which a religious might be expected to do so. For example, the demands of a certain apostolate may require that, at least for the time being, a re-ligious administer the finances of an organization, especially when no one else is in a position to do so. Likewise, a religious may find himself or herself having to take care of the financial affairs of an incapacitated relative or friend. Charity and common sense may simply demand this. However, the general prohibition is a wise one and should force a relig-ious to consider alternatives. And having to explain a request to do so to the religious superior can help prevent an imprudent decision. The same type of consideration should be given to the matter of a religious becoming involved in business or trade, personally or on be-half of others.38 The present code is more lenient than the 1917 one and expressly indicates that permission to do so can be granted, presumably for good reasons. Again, it is not difficult to imagine situations where this may be necessary or beneficial, at least for a reasonable period of time. If, for example, a religious is an only child and inherits a small family business with which he or she had been most familiar before en-tering religion, the most prudent decision could be for the religious tem-porarily to oversee the business until other provisions can be made. The above prohibitions are, in general, completely consonant with the nature of the religious life. Yet it is eminently reasonable that excep-tions be permitted. The dangers present for religious, in becoming too hastily and imprudently involved in financial matters that have nothing to do with their community, are all too evident. It is especially fitting that religious not be burdened with financial involvements when they have responded to a vocation which requires them to develop an asceti- 679 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 cism of detachment and a life of simplicity. Military Service and Civil Exemptions Finally, since religious are followers of the Prince of Peace, it is par-ticularly incongruous that they volunteer to bear arms in times of con-flict, unless they are legally bound to do so. Therefore, the canons state that religious are not to volunteer for military service and they should take advantage of civil exemptions, if they exist, to avoid this and any other public or civic duty which is foreign to religious life.39 Certainly this prohibition does not apply to service as military chaplains or any simi-lar type of ministry. The prohibition would seem to apply to accepting jury duty in criminal cases also, especially if they are capital offenses, when an exemption is possible. It seems most inappropriate that a relig-ious be in a position of determining the guilt of citizens and playing part in their incarceration or execution. Again, canon law recognizes that there can be exceptional cases in which the proper religious superior and ecclesiastical authority can grant permission to a religious to act contrary to the general canonical norm that the above activities are to be avoided. Conclusion Ecclesial authentication of charismatic forms of the Gospel life ex-isted from the beginning. At first, ,such approbation was given unoffi-cially and implicitly. Later, it became an official and explicit necessity. The religious life is a charismatic and an ecclesial form of public conse-cration. Religious institutes are public agencies of the Church which pre-sents the members as public witnesses of Gospel values. The personal and corporate lifestyles of religious, as well as their apostolic activities, are at the service of the Church and are supervised by their superiors and the bishops. Since religious are iri apublic form of consecrated life, they are expected, all things considered, to be recognizable, and to avoid those activities which muddle or confuse their ecclesiai image. Above all, religious are expected to be living examples of evangelical values: chastity for the sake of the kingdom; Gospel simplicity in lifestyle; hum-ble~ and Christ-like obedience; and complete dedication to a loving serv-ice of people in the name of the Church. The counterculturai witness of religious is meant to speak eloquently of a deep faith conviction that Je-sus is the way, and the truth and the life. NOTES See Carolyn Osiek in Vatican H and Its Documents: An American Reappraisal, ed., Witness of Religious Life / 6"/3 Timothy E. O'Connell0(Michael Glazier, Inc., Wilmington, Delware, 1986), pp. 86- 87. 2 Perfectae caritatis, 1; canon 575. 3 Lumen Gentium, 39. '~ Mutual Relations, II (Henceforth MR). 5 See Raymond Hostie, The Life and Death of Refigious Orders (CARA, Washing-ton, D.C., 1983), p. 21. 6 See The Dynamic Element in The Church (Herder, New "fork, 1964) p. 62; Lumen Gentium, 43; canon 573, §1 and §2. 7 Canon 586, §1. 8 Canons 573, §2, 575-579. 9 Canon 675, 93. l0 Canons 710-730. I~ Essential Elements, 33. (Henceforth EE). ~z Papal Message to the Plenary Assembly of CRIS, March 1980; EE, 33. ~3 Canon 663, 91. ~4 Canon 663, §2, §4. ~5 Canon 664. 16 Canons 607, 92 and 665. ~7 Canon 674. 18 Canon 665, 91. ~9 Canon 668, §3. 20Canon 679; see David F. O'Connor, "Two Forms of Consecrated Life; Religious and Secular Institutes," REvmw voR Rv.~.m~ous, 46, n. 2 (1986) pp. 205-219. z~ Christus Dominus, 33-35. ~ Canons 599, 602 and 607, §2. 23EE, 34. 24Canons 601,608 and 665. 25Canon 669. 26See Canon Law Digest, 7 (1975) pp. 534-535. 27Canon 675, §3. 28EE, I 0. 29Apostolicam actuositatem, 23; MR, 9 (a). 30Canons 394, 91 and 680; MR, Chapt. II. 3~ Canon 678. 32Canons 285 and 672. 33Canons 285, §3 and 672. 34 Canons 287 and 672. 35 See George Aschenbrenner, "Currents in Spirituality," Rv.w~w voR R~L~o~ous, 42, n. 2 (I 983), pp. 183-186. 36 CRIS, "Religi6us and Human Promotion," Canon Law Digest, 9 (1983), pp. 379-410; David F. O'Connor, "Religious in Politics," R~wEw ~oa R~L~6~ous, 41, n. 6 (1982), pp. 834-848. 37 Canons 285, §4 and 672. 38 Canons 286 and 672. 39 Canons 289 and 672. The Religious as "Sentry": A Reflection on the Prophet Ezekiel James Fitz, S.M. Father Fitz is a member of the Provincial Administration of his congregation's Cin-cinnati Province. An earlier article, "Religious Life as Acted Prophecy," appeared in the issue of November/December, 1982. Father Fitz may be addressed at the Mari-anist Provincialate; 4435 East Patterson Road; Dayton, Ohio 45430-1095. [~uring my twenty-one years as a religious, I have attended many vow cer-emonies in support of brothers and sisters saying "yes" to their call from the Lord. At these liturgies the first reading has often come from the Old Testament prophets--the call of Isaiah or Jeremiah, for exam-pie-- to indicate that those making profession identify with the call Of these prophets. But, I have yet to attend a ceremony where the call of Ezekiel is the Old Testament reading. In fact, it is not even one of the optional readings in the Lectionary for the Mass of Religious Profession. Yet, I believe the call of Ezekiel as sentry is an apt model and image for religious life today. The Value of an Image In recent years, theologians and spiritual writers have used images and models to describe the mysteries of our Christian faith. In so doing they have imitated Jesus himself, ~who often used images to evoke understanding: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field.; the kingdom of heaven is like the yeast a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour.; the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.; the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.; the kingdom of heaven is like a drag- 674 The Religious as Sentry / 675 net. " These images helped Jesus' hearers enter into the mystery of faith. The Second Vatican Council used images when it described the mys-tery of the Church in its Dogmatic Constitution, Lumen Gentium. Im-ages like "the People of God," "a sheepfold," "the edifice of God," "our Mother," "the body of Christ," "a pilgrim in a foreign land," "a kind of sacrament" help elucidate the mystery of the Church. Avery Dulles' book, Models of the Church,~ uses images and mod-els in a similar way. Images and models, then, can be helpful ways to penetrate the richness of a mystery of our faith, to evoke an understand-ing of some complex reality of our tradition. Images and models have been helpful also in the understanding of religious life. The authors of Shaping the Coming Age of Religious Life,2 for example, have imagined religious in the different eras of religious life as ascetics, monks, mendicants, soldiers and apostolic servants. These images help elucidate the predominant understanding of religious life during the various eras of Church history. This article will explore the image of the prophet Ezekiel as sentry in the belief that it helps elucidate our contemporary understanding of religious life. The Call of Ezekiel In the third chapter of Ezekiel, we hear: "Child of the earth, I have appointed you as a sentry to the House of Israel. When you hear a word from my mouth, you shall warn them for me" (3:16). The third chapter continues to expand on this call. If God says to wicked people, "You shall surely die" (3:18), and Ezekiel does not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their wicked conduct, the wicked people will die for their sins but God will hold Ezekiel responsible for their death. If Ezekiel speaks out and the people do not change, then Ezekiel is not held responsible. Not only is Ezekiel to challenge the wicked but he is also to be a prophet to the virtuous. If virtuous people turn away from virtue and Ezekiel does not warn them, then God will hold him responsible for their death. However, if Ezekiel does warn them, then the virtuous will surely live and Ezekiel will also save his life (3:16-21). This same de-scription of the prophet's role is repeated in Chapter 33:1-9. In explor-ing the image of prophet as sentry as appropriate for the role of the re-ligious in the world today, this article will first examine the role of the sentry, and then how this role might illuminate the role of religious in 676 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 the Church today. The Role of the Sentry The role of the sentry has four characteristics which I believe help explicate the mystery of the call to religious life. Call to See. The sentry's first responsibility is to see, to be watch-ful. This seeing is twofold: to announce the signs of good news and to warn of coming danger. The sentry is to be watchful for the signs of good news. For exam-ple, the sentry on a ship watches for the sign of land; the sentry at the gate of a medieval city watches for the signs of the coming of a beloved monarch in order to prepare the people for this great event; or the sentry watches for the runner returning from battle to share the news of victory. The sentry also needs to be watchful of signs of danger. The sentry on the ship needs to be conscious of the signs of bad weather so that the crew can be prepared to respond; the sentry at the gate needs to be con-scious of the signs of an approaching enemy. Call to Discern. A second responsibility of a sentry is to discern signs. Is the approaching rider friend or foe? Is the moving wind the sign of an approaching storm or the advent of good weather? Is it land that is seen or a mirage, a trick of the imagination? This discernment is an important responsibility. If a sentry is fearful or shallow, then he or she will proclaim good news that does not come to pass, or give false warn-ings of events that fail to materialize. People will no longer take seri-ously any message of the sentry. Responsibility to Proclaim. Once the se~lt.r.y has discerned the signs, the next responsibility is to announce the good news or the approach of danger to the people. When he or she has completed this proclamation, the responsibility for action is no longer just the sentry's but the respon-sibility of the entire community--as we have seen in the call of Ezekiel. In fact, the role of the sentry may now become secondary to the role of others who move the community to ,action. One Role Among Many. A sentry is often on the margins of society, outof synchronization with the rest of society, even while interdepend-ent with them.~As the sentry is watching, others are busy about other activ-ities.~ To have a sense of security, the people have need of the sentry. However, the sentry cannot survive without the people who are doing other activities (e.g., producing food, clothing and the other necessities of life), The sentry is, then, one role among many---different, but nei- The Religious as Sentry / 67'7 ther more nor less important than the other roles in society. The Religious as Sentry How does the role of the sentry, and more specifically, the call of Ezekiel, help us to understand religious life in the Church today? I be-lieve that the four characteristics just described can help illuminate the mystery of religious life. Call to See. Religious are called to be attentive, to be watchful. They do this first and foremost as people of prayer. Prayer, of course, is not ¯ the occupation of religious alone--all Christians are called to pray. How-ever, one cannot be a good religious without prayer, without attentive-ness to the religious dimension of life. Contemplation (to see clearly) has traditionally been part of religious life, whether one speaks of the con-templative life as manifested in the monastic movement or contemplation-in- action as manifested in service-oriented religious orders. I believe this responsibility of being attentive and watchful is very important to relig-ious today. Clearly we need people to read the signs of the times. Prayer-ful religious can contribute this gift to the Church. Call to Discern. For the religious to see clearly, there needs to be discernment. The first step in this discernment is honesty with oneself in order not to project danger where there is none or to characterize as hopeful movements that are contrary to the Gospel. A sentry who is fear-ful or shallow will give false warnings and proclamations. Eventually peo-ple will cease to take his or her word seriously. The practice of self-knowledge (achieved through prayer, examen, spiritual direction, and similar helps) will be essential to the religious who hopes to see clearly and proclaim what is seen in a way that will truly build up the commu-nity of the Church and the world. Discernment is not an easy task. What is heralded as good news by some is seen as danger by others. We witness this, for example, in the various responses to the development of new technology. Some see in this advancement the liberation of humankind; others feel we are being enslaved and controlled by these same technological advances. Discern-ment is an important task in the Church today, a task in which religious clearly have a role. Responsibility to Proclaim. Once the signs have been seen and dis-cerned, the religious has the responsibility of proclaiming the message, that is, the word of the Lord. If religious are good sentries, they will be able to proclaim the good news (the signs of the reign of God) and warn of danger (signs of the counterspirit). Ezekiel is a good model for relig-ious in this proclamation. Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 First of all, Ezekiel, like all the prophets, denounces and announces; he afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted. His book not only contains oracles that are warnings of danger to the Chosen People (4- 24), the nations (25-32), and the shepherds of Israel (34), but powerful statements of hope such as the vision of dry bones (37) and the raising of a good shepherd for Israel (34). Secondly, Ezekiel is a good model for religious because he proclaims the word of God in both words and symbolic action. His signs are par-ables in action. For example, Ezekiel performs acts symbolic of siege and exile (4-5); prepares his baggage and digs a hole in the wall of the city as an act symbolic of exile (12); groans bitterly to symbolize the city's coming fall(12); neglects the normal mourning customs at the death of his wife as symbolic of the fact that Israel will not be able to mourn when the city of Jerusalem is besieged (24); and, finally, joins two sticks as a symbolic prophecy of the new covenant people (37). These actions raise questions among the people which allow the prophet to proclaim the word of the Lord: "Will you not tell us what all these things that you are doing mean for us?" (24:19; 39:18). This proclamation of God's word by prophetic action is a valuable way of viewing our living of the vowed life. The vows are symbolic ac-tions that often open to religious the possibility of proclaiming a word of the Lord. Religious life is acted prophecy.3 The lived vows can warn of danger and proclaim good news. For example, the vow of poverty can warn of the dangers of consumerism and can challenge the prevailing be-lief that more is better. It can also proclaim good news. The sharing of common goods lived by religious, for example, can proclaim that shar-ing is a life-giving alternative to greed and exclusive possess!on. The sym-bolic action of living the vows will hopefully lead others to ask questions: "Why do you do this? . What does this mean?" Thus re-ligious will have an opportunity to further proclaim the word of the Lord. As I mentioned earlier, once the sentry has proclaimed what has b~en seen, it is no longer solely his or her responsibility to act. This is clear in the call of Ezekiel. The role of Ezekiel is to be the sentry, the watcher and proclaimer. The responsibility to act is the responsibility of the en-tire people. The important thing for the religious is to proclaim clearly the message of the Lord in our world today, even though religious can-not ¯ control the response to the proclamation. As Ezekiel is told: "And whether they heed or resist--for they are a rebellious house--they shall know that a prophet has been among them" (2:5). The call to religious, then, is to stand for certain values and to speak those values in word, The Religious as Sentry / 679 and especially in deed, so that people will know that a word of the Lord has been spoken in their midst. Would it not have a tremendous impact on our modern world if people would know that a prophet has been among them? One Role Among Many. Another characteristic of the sentry is to have a uniquely different role, a role that can be out of synchronization with the rest of society. The vowed life of religious often places them out of synchronization with others. In the past this uniqueness has been explained as a form of life superior to other Christian lifestyles. The im-age of the sentry helps us image the complementarity of different life-styles. To say that religious have a unique role in the Church and society is not to say that it is better or more important than the roles of others. By their gifts, religious contribute to the world, but they are at the same time dependent on the gifts and lifestyles of others. All contribute to the common good. In the past, to be a sentry often meant to live on the margins of soci-ety. Religious, too, have often moved to the margins of society. Relig-ious houses were set up on the fringes of the city or separated from the city in the desert or countryside. There is a need for this type of sentry today. But signs of good news and omens of danger are also in the midst of society. In our day, when we read about terrorist attacks almost daily, we know that the greatest danger may come from within the city gates themselves. Those who can harm us live in our midst. Therefore, there will be need for religious immersed in society to read the signs of God's reign, that is, the movement of the Spirit in the midst of the world. At the same time, they will need to read the signs of peril and danger, that is, of the counterspirit in the midst of the world. Conclusion I believe that reflection upon Ezekiel and his call as sentry can en-rich the vision of the prophetic role of religious in our day, can be for religious a new way of imagining their role. Many religious will ask whether they are worthy or capable of such a call. Most honest religious will feel unworthy, as did Ezekiel, who fell upon his face when he was called (I :28). To take up the challenge can only be in response to God's call. "Child of the earth. Stand up! I wish to speak to you" (2: I). The call of the religious will be a response to the Spirit moving within. This will be the source of the authentic voca-tion to be a sentry for God's people and for the world. Finally, since the call to be a sentry will be a call from the Lord, he will be with the relig-ious on the journey. "Fear them not," (3:10) the Lord tells Ezekiel. The 680 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 Lord tells religious today the same: He will be with the sentry today, as he was with Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah and the other prophets. "I am with you always, yes, even to the end of time" (Mt 28:20). NOTES ~Avery Dulles, S.J., Mddels of the Church (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1974). 2Lawrence Cada, S.M. et al., Shaping the Coming Age of Religious Life (New York: The Seabury Press, 1979), pp. I 1-50~ 3See my article "Religious Life as Acted Prophecy" REvmw ~OR REt.mIOUS 41, n. 6, November/December, 1982, pp. 923-927. ,From Tablet to Heart: Internalizing New Constitutions I and II by Patricia Spillane, M.S.C. Address: Price: $1.25 per copy, plus postage. Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 The Fathers in the Office of Readings: St. Cyprian of Carthage Anthony Daly, S.J. Father Anthony Duly has been a member of the faculty of the Languages Depart-ment of Saint Louis University. He has published several of these descriptive and brief biographies of Fathers of the Church who have been used in the Office of Read-ings of the Liturgy of the Hours. His last contribution appeared in the issue of Sep-tember/ October 1983. He may be addressed at Jesuit Hall; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. The third-century writings of St. Cyprian, bishop and martyr, are impor-tant today because they furnish otherwise unknown details of the life of both the Christians and pagans of his day and because they provide an illustration, hard to interpret though it is, of third-century African epis-copal attitudes toward the Roman papacy, a topic, however, which is not treated here. More directly, the writings reveal the character of St. Cyprian him-self, an interesting man with qualities people of any era can admire and imitate and who has many things to say which will never go out of date. What follows is first a brief overall sketch of St. Cyprian's life and then a more detailed account of certain matters which seemed likely to be of interest to readers of the Liturgy of the Hours. Well educated in the secular tradition of his times, Cyprian was a man who actively and thoroughly integrated his knowledge and experi-ence within a completely Christian ideology. He appears as an effective rhetorician, a competent bishop and administrator, a practical leader who knows how to make the best of a difficult situation, and a man of great personal charm, courage, and compassion. But perhaps his most strik-ing characteristic is his ability to face martyrdom, that of others and then 681 61~9 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 finally his own, not only with equanimity but even with joy and satis-faction. ~ The selections from his writings in the Liturgy of the Hours com-municate a spirit of firm religiosity which is rendered more attractive by human charm and more realistic by a moderate cast of mind. His mar-tyrdom adds to his words the weight of tested sincerity and makes more telling his exhortations to hope, courage, and joy. Thascius Caecilianus Cyprianus (c.205-258) was an African, born per-haps at Carthage, of wealthy pagan parents. He lived at Carthage where he was an orator and prominent citizen, and, like the more famous St. Augustine who for a time, but more than a century later, also lived in that North African city, Cyprian was a teacher of rhetoric. In midlife he took stock of his own character and of the repugnant pagan society in which he lived. This led him in the year 246 to become a Christian. He gave his money to the poor, took a vow of chastity, was ordained a priest, and in 248-49 he was consecrated bishop of Carthage. The ideal of personal integrity seems to have been what first attracted Cyprian to Christianity, an ideal which he found fulfilled for him there as a gift from God. He seems never to have lost it again, and secure in it, he began to devote himself to helping others. This was especially true as he performed his episcopal tasks of encouraging the faithful, teach-ing sound doctrine, and governing well, always seeking to preserve and foster the unity of the Church. But his desire to help others seems to have accompanied his conversion itself, for one of the first things he did as a Christian was write To Donatus, the purpose of which was to convert to Christianity his friend Donatus and others. Cyprian's election as bishop was unusual in that it occurred not very long after his conversion to Christianity. That the choice fell upon him seems to have been due to his obvious sincerity, his high standing in the local community, his eminent personal qualifications, and the fact that he had already published at least one and perhaps as many as three of his Christian writings.2 Although the exact process of his election is not known, it is clear that it involved the agreement of a majority of the clergy, of the neighboring bishops who assembled to ordain him, and of the laity who were his strongest supporters. Confidence in Adversity His episcopal career was stormy right from the time of his election as bishop. There were some who opposed selecting him, and among them were a certain Novatus and some other elderly presbyters at St. Cyprian of Carthage [ 683 Carthage, who, although they may have had other motives as well, prob-ably were jealous of Cyprian. Soon, in 250, the Roman emperor Decius instituted the first truly sys-tematic and universal persecution of Christians. Commissions were set up throughout the empire which were to witness certain acts of worship of the pagan gods which were to be performed by everyone as a relig-ious test. Some of the Ch?istians complied; others were able to secure official certificates of compliance (libelli) even though they had not in fact worshiped; still others refused to comply and were subject to impris-onment, torture, or even death. Cyprian was among yet a fourth class of Christians who avoided the confrontation by going into hiding. He was criticized for this, but, as he explained it, when the edict against Christians was promulgated, the pagan populace at Carthage called for him to be brought forward. He fled not so much for his own safety, he explained, but in order to avoid a public uprising which he feared would endanger his flock. He further explained that despite his physical sepa-ration he kept in close touch with his people by letter.3 Some of these communications are included in the collection of his extant letters. In this, in other episcopal decisions, and in the general conduct of his personal life, St. Cyprian displays remarkable self-confidence. In this episode, he gives his reasons for withdrawing from Carthage, expects them to be accepted, and does not seem at all embarrassed to return, show his face, and even to admonish in certain matters those who had suffered or were still in prison for the faith, the confessors. Cyprian found it necessary to warn the confessors not to try to usurp the role of the bishop in granting ecclesiastical pardon to those who had given in to the authorities, the lapsed. Not altogether unreasonably, the custom was gaining ground according to which some of the lapsed were securing from the confessors requests for full and immediate reinstate-ment in the Church, and these requests, either written or oral, were gen-erally being honored, thus gaining quasi-hierarchical authority. In addi-tion to cautioning the confessors in this matter, Cyprian also admonished them not to give in to softness and vice once their trials had ended. Cyprian'.s is an attractive self-confidence, not haughty, a self-confidence based on truth and courageous love. One wonders if it en-tailed an inner struggle for Cyprian; if so, it is part of his private life and is not reflected in his writings. The Novatian Schism Probably because the severity of the persecution was unpopular with most pagans, and because the courage of the martyrs was probably at- Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 tracting enough converts to make the persecution self-defeating, it was ended early in 251. At that point Cyprian was faced with a controversy over how the bishops and clergy themselves should treat the lapsed, both those who had obeyed the edict and sacrificed to idols, and those who had obtained fraudulent certificates, or libelli. Cyprian, who adopted moderate and individualized attitude toward those who had lapsed in these ways, was able to make his view prevail'. His guiding principle was that those guilty of serious sin should be given an opportunity to achieve genuine repentance, a state of soul which he thought a sinner could ex-perience only through undergoing a suitable period of penance. But at the same time he insisted that sin can in fact be forgiven and that no re-pentant person should be deprived of hope, that each should be readmit-ted to the Church at the appropriate time. Against Cyprian were both those who wanted everyone readmitted to the Church without further com-plication and those who advised that reconciliation with the Church be forever withheld from those who had fallen. Chief among the proponents of this last course of action were the No-vatianists, so called because they were followers of Novatian, a rigorist Roman bishop who claimed the papal throne. Because his claim was re-jected by the Church at large and because of his rigorism, he and his fol-lowers became schismatic, and their rival church, widespread through-out the empire, was not entirely reconciled with Catholics until the end of the seventh century. Baptism by Heretics Under the Emperor Gallus (25 ! -53) a second persecution took place which was itself followed, in the years 255-57, by another major con-troversy, this time over the validity of baptism administered by heretics, chiefly the Novatianists. The difficulty arose over whether those origi-nally baptized by Novatianists and others not in communion with the Church should be rebaptized when they were accepted into the Catholic communion. Cyprian championed the losing cause, maintaining that the baptisms administered by heretics had no value. He appears still to have been of this opinion when, under the Emperor Valerian (253-60), a third persecution cost him his life. Although the Church later determined that baptism administered by non-Catholics is valid provided certain elements are present, on the un-derstanding that it is Christ himself who truly baptizes rather than the in-dividual who happens to be administering the rites, the whole matter was not yet worked out in Cyprian's day. Clearly he too would attribute the effects of the sacraments to Christ, but in his mind heresy and schism, St. Cyprian of Carthage / 685 since they involve separation from the Church, are tantamount to reject-ing Christ. How, he reasoned, could someone who rejects Christ bap-tize in his name? By the same token, such a person "shall not come to the rewards of Christ," even if he suffers martyrdom.4 His position on the matter underscores the importance he placed on unity in the Church. In the year 258 Cyprian ended his life in stirring fashion, boldly em-bracing his martyrdom. The account of his death forms the alternate sec-ond reading of the Office of Readings on his feast day. It is celebrated on September 16, along with that of Pope Cornelius whom Cyprian sup-ported against the rival claimant to the papacy mentioned above, Nova-tian. Writings Cyprian's treatise On the Lord's Prayer furnishes the largest single group of selections from his writings in the Liturgy of the Hours. These are nearly matched in volume by extracts from his Letters, and the ma-terial is rounded out by single samples from several works: On the D?ess of Virgins, On the Value of Patience, On Man's Mortality, and the Ex-hortation to Martyrdom, Addressed to Fortunatus. Finally there is the description of his martyrdom by an unknown author, taken from The Pro-consular Acts. There are eight other works by Cyprian not included in the Liturgy. Of these, To Demetrianus is a work similar to the longer, more famous City of God by St. Augustine. Both works deny that Christians are to be held responsible for wars and natural disasters, and attribute them instead to the vices of the pagans. Another title of Cyprian's often likened to a writing of St. Augustine, in this instance the Confessions, is To Donatus, mentioned earlier, which describes Cyprian's conversion to Christianity from paganism. Here Cyp-rian rejoices in his new life which he attributes to the cleansing of sav-ing water and the effects of "a quickening act of divin~ grace." Through power given by God he has been enabled to abandon lavish banquets, expensive clothing, and public honors in favor of a private life, simple clothes, and thrift. Although he once thought he could never be rid of his sins which he had come to indulge as "proper and belonging to" him, he had left hard drinking behind, together with exaggerated self-importance, anger, covetousness, cruelty, ambition and lust. He empha-sizes that his new way of life is not to be attributed to himself, but to God.5 As has been mentioned, because it recounts Cyprian's conversion from sin through the power of God, and because he wrote it to help oth- 61~6 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 ers experience a similar conversion, To Donatus has been compared to the Confessions of St. Augustine. Nevertheless, there are three sharp dif-ferences between the two works. Most obvious is their difference in length, Cyprian's work being much shorter. Second, Augustine is spe-cific in recounting his sins and the steps by which he became a Chris-tian, whereas Cyprian summarizes his experiences in general terms. Third, Augustine addresses God directly in the Confessions and always emphasizes his personal love for God. Cyprian addresses his friend Do-natus; he attributes to God his newfound mastery over himself, but he does not dwell on his relationship with God. Instead, his attention cen-ters on treasuring his newly purified way of life and on contrasting it with the wickedness of the pagan society which he has left behind. Cyprian pities the world and gives thanks to God for having escaped from it with its robbers, pirates, wars, and gladiatorial contests.6 He be-lieves the themes of the tragedies presented in the theater corrupt private morals: parricide, incest, and adultery which "is learned as it is seen"; and these things are all the worse because they are presented with the approval of public authority. Men make themselves effeminate on stage, and Venus, Mars, and Jupiter are depicted as unchaste, Jupiter even ad-vancing to "the raping of young boys . Ask now whether he who looks upon this can be healthy-minded or chaste. One imitates the gods whom he venerates. For these poor wretches sins become even religious acts. ' ' 7 Further evils in society include homosexuality, prostitution, litigious-ness, bribery and collusion, fraud, forgery, perjury, and the falsification of charges. In court the wicked fare better than the innocent. To secure a place of prominence in society, men become sycophants, spendthrifts on public spectacles, or they build up estates, dispossessing the poor, and must live in fear of thieves and lawsuits.8 Cyprian recounts all of this in order to show the goodness of God who saves us from becoming wicked or vain.9 The Christian way to live in such a world is to raise one's eyes from earth to heaven, to be next to God in mind, to ignore what is seemingly sublime and great in human affairs, and to be greater than the world, for a religiously oriented way of life is a greater prize than anything the world has to offer. Five other works not included in the Liturgy of the Hours have fairly self-explanatory titles: The Lapsed, The Unity of the Church, Works and Almsgiving, Jealousy and Envy, and That the Idols Are Not Gods, a work sometimes considered spurious.~° A final work not used in the Liturgy is To Quirinus: Three Books of Testimonies. This treatise, which seems St. Cyprian of Carthage actually to represent two separate works by Cyprian which were com-bined later, perhaps by someone else, lists scriptural passages designed to show that the Christians h~ve inherited the promises made to the Jews, texts which illustrate the mysteries of Christ, and passages designed to show how to live the Christian life. Interpreting Cyprian Three aspects of the life of St. Cyprian seem particularly significant for interpreting and appreciating his writings: first, he was a rhetorician; second, he became a bishop; and then finally, he died a martyr. As a rheto-rician he knows how to use words to achieve the result he wants; but he uses them in a less literal sense than does a philosopher or a speculative theologian, and he gives more weight to various ideas and attitudes than would a disinterested writer who is unaffected by the press of circum-stances. Thus it is often necessary to consider carefully the context in which he is writing, and to subordinate the literal meaning of what he says to the effect he seems to be trying to achieve,, A bishop's preoccupation with his duty to guide, instruct, protect, and correct his people permeates the writings of Cyprian. In this office, it is obvious that he is motivated first and last by his love of Christ and the Church, and that he views everything else from a Christian perspec-tive. Constantly he shows good common sense and a sane grasp of the limits and potential of human nature. Finally, the atmosphere of hostility to the faith in which Cyprian ex-ercised his episcopacy'and which finally resulted in his death shaped and sharpened his vision of the world and how it is to be approached; this may well be the most important factor influencing his strong emphasis on eternal life. He quotes the Scriptures, both Old Testament and New, with a natu-ral ease which indicates true familiarity; having made a thorough study of them at the time of his conversion to Christianity, he seems to have continued this study throughout his career as a bishop. Quotations are always at hand to reinforce and embellish the points he wants to make. Among his works are the To Quirinus described above, and another col-lection of Scripture texts briefly mentioned as a work quoted in the Lit-urgy of the Hours, the Exhortation to Martyrdom, Addressed to Fortu-natus. Here, under twelve headings, are texts bearing generally on mar-tyrdom which a preacher or writer could use to encourage Christians liv-ing under the threat of persecution. Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 Literary Style Cyprian's style is clear, orderly, and often ornate, marked by a lib-eral but tasteful use of rhetorical figures such as parallel clauses whose grammatical structures are similar, phrases ending in the same sound, and the strategic repetition of words. His love of metaphors, some of which are quite engaging, is not obscured by translation into English. Vir-gins, for instance, are termed blossoms;~ like the emperor or one of his generals, God watches us doing battle with evil;~2 "the commands of the Gospel. are the rudder for keeping us on the right course";~3 and the Christian victorious over "earth's torment and suffering" is com-pared to a soldier returning home in triumph after defeating the enemy. ~4 On the Lord's Prayer This treatise, more than a third of,which has been included in the Lit-urgy ofothe Hours, has been praised throughout history as a fine com-mentary, certainly among the best non-technical ones ever written. Three points from the material in the Liturgy seem especially note-worthy. The first is Cyprian's insistence that prayer should have a social dimension: "We do not say 'My Father, who art in heaven,' nor 'Give me this day my daily bread'. Rather, we pray., not for one in-dividual but for all. For the people of God are all one." ~5 Second, there is Cyprian's sober awareness that we all sin every day and stand in con-stant need of sanctification. 16 A third point is Cyprian's stirring expres-sion of Christian steadfastness. When he speaks of accepting suffering and even death with Christ who suffered for us, we are reminded of the terrible hostility which confronted him and his fellow Christians.~7 Portions of the work not quoted in the Liturgy show that Cyprian's caution about the world is remarkably well balanced. This is especially true if the pagan culture in which he lived is fully taken into account. For instance, despite superficial similarity between pagan Stoicism and his remarks about rising above the world, Cyprian clearly shows that he does not underestimate the value of material creation; on the contrary, he advises us to pray that by the help of God we experience a harmony between the flesh an°d the spirit, the earthly and' the heavenly; and he un-derstands that Christ renews and preserves humanity. ~8 ~;imilarly, in his warning about the entangling effect of riches, Cyprian may have been more emphatic than he would otherwise have been because he realized that the thought of losing property kept many from confessin~ Christ dur-ing the persecution. 19 Off the negative side, the work includes an embar-rassingly strong and wholesale condemnation of the Jews; Cyprian goes so far as to say that they can no longer call God their Father, since they St. Cyprian of Carthage / 689 rejected and killed Christ.2° On the Dress of Virgins The final work to be considered here is On the Dress of Virgins, ex-cerpts from which make up the second reading in the Common of Vir-gins. (There is an alternate second reading taken from the Decree on the Renewal of Religious Life of the Second Vatican Council.) In the excerpts (chs. 3-4, 22, 23) St. Cyprian describes virgins adorned with right conduct as beautiful, as "the image of God that re-flects the holiness of the Lord," and as "the most illustrious members of Christ's flock." He interprets the virginal life as beginning to be "now what we shall all be in the future," in the kingdom of heaven, he means, where there is no marriage. As a matter of fact, Cyprian's thought goes even further. He sees virginity as a part of the image of the heavenly man, Christ, to whom we are encouraged to conform ourselves. Virgins are "equal to God's angels." ~ Humbled by the thought of them, and not, he says, in a spirit of cen-sure or even of authority, but out of concern for them, he exhorts them to "persevere in chastity and virginity." Having renounced the pleas-ures of the flesh, "they should not strive to adorn themselves or give pleasure to anyone but the Lord." In this way, having passed "through this world without the world's infection," they "will receive a glorious prize" for their virtue.2~ The passages from this treatise which are included in the Liturgy of the Hours express sound and encouraging attitudes good for all time; some of the material not included sounds strange to modern ears. This material, because it is historically conditioned on the one hand or rheto-rically condemnatory on the other, is harder to understand. . Although the excerpts seem to concern women rather than men, else-where in the treatise Cyprian states that he intends .his general remarks for "men as well as women, boys as well as girls, every sex and every age."22 This does not mean, however, that he viewed men and women as equal in every respect, or even that he disagreed with the traditional Roman view of women as the weaker sex. For instance, regarding mar-tyrs in The Lapsed, he says, "Joining.~the victory of their men, come the women too, triumphing over the world and over their sex alike."23 So too, he uses as an. argumeht on behalf of virginity that it frees a woman not.only from the pains of childbirth but also from the dominion of a husband.24 On the warrant of Scripture Cyprian insists that physical adornments should be rejected by virgins, who should strive to please God rather than 690 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 men.25 Furthermore, women are to avoid being an occasion of sin for men.26 Even if a woman has wealth, it is false to argue that she should make use of it to improve her physical appearance; rather, things "that have been acquired in the world and will remain here with the world, should be despised (contemni) just as the world itself is despised."27 In-deed, virgins should be like martyrs in that they should avoid the "wide and broad roads" in favor of the "hard and steep path which ascends to glory," for the devil uses allurements and pleasures "that he may kill.' ,28 Today many would consider the judicious and modest use of makeup simply a part of formal dress. From this point of view Cyprian's invec-tive against necklaces, earrings, makeup, and red articles of clothing seems overdrawn. But for Cyprian such things are not innocent. Not only for virgins but for all women makeup and earrings are, to his mind, in-ventions of the devil: "the work of God and his creature and image should in no way be falsified;., everything that comes into existence is the work of God. whatever is changed, is the work of the devil."29 The difference between today's view and his seems to stem neither from licentiousness in us nor from prudishness in him, but from Cyprian's an-cient cultur

JUNE, J899 ooTlhe, Qettysbur ercury CONTENTS. Our College Home 117 The 1900 Spectrum 119 Tick-tack-to 120 A Hero's Reward 123 An Art Fad 125 Retrieved 128 Editor's Desk, 131 Hypnotism 131 " The Influence of Christianity on Roman Jurisprudence ". 134 The Conflict of the Ag-es 139 The Philomathaean Society 144 Monotony of Life 147 Athletics 149 YMMUM FAVOR THOSE WHO FAVOR US. wmomrn For Fine Printing GO TO The J. E. WIBLE .Printing Rouee Carlisle Street, GETTYSBURG, PA. C. B. Kitzmiller, Dealer in Hats, Caps, Boots and . Douglas Shoes GETTYSBURG, PA. J. H. Myers, Fashionable Tailor, Clothier and Gents' Furnisher. The best place in town to have your Cloth-ing made to order. All workmanship and Trimmings guaranteed. No charge for re-pairs and pressing for one year. Dyeing and Repairing a specialty. Ready-made Clothing the largest stock in town. Up-to-date styles. Bicycle Suits and Breeches Headquarters. 11 Baltimore St., Gettysburg, Pa. R. A. WONDERS, Corner Cigar Parlors. A full line of Cigars, Tobacco, Pipes, Etc. Scott's Corner, Opp. Eagle Hotel. GETTYSBURG, A. Have you an assured livelihood? "Would you try for a government posi-tion, if you knew just how to apply, and the kinds of positions from which you can choose, and what to do to insure your getting on the list after you have applied! The Government of the United States is the best of employers. Fair compen-sation, regularity of payment, reason-ably Bure tenure, tasks not too difficult, | ana hours not too I ong, offer strong at-tractions to young persons of both sexes whohavenosettledinuome. Manyenter Government employ, spend their spare i hours in studying law or medicine, or finance, and save enough from their salaries to start in a professional or business career. We have just published a book from whichanj/candidate maylearnjustwhat is necesaary and what unnecessary in brushing up his studies for an examina-tion ; and what his chances are, all things considered, for making bis way into the Civil Service, and staying there. The title of this book is " How to Prepnre for a Civil Service Examination; With Recent Questions and An-swers." It contains all Information which any candidate would require to firepare for any competitive office under ' he Government, and includes a "Ten Weeks' Course of 8tudy,"ln the form of questions actually asked at recent ex-aminations, with the correct answers to i them. Besides the technical require- ' mentSjitalso covers all the elementary branches, like arithmetic, spelling, pen- , manship, geography, letter writing, civil government, etc., etc., so that one who masters this course of study would not only pass well an examination for a gov- , ernment position, but would be sure of I preferment over other applicants for a clerkship in a business house. CLOTH—$2.00 Postpaid—560 PAGES Anotherbookfree(Quickat Figures)if you mention this paper when ordering. HINDS A NOBLE, Publishers 4-5-13-14 Cooper Institute, N. Y. City Schoolbooks ofallpublishers at one store .THE. GETTYSBURG MERCURY Entered at the Postoffice at Gettysburg as second-class matter. Voi,. VIII. GETTYSBURG, PA., JUNE, 1899. No. 4 Editor-in- Chief. J. FRANK EEILMAN, '00. Alumni Editor. REV. F. D. GARLAND. Assistant Editors. LUTHER A. WEIGLE, '00. S. A. VAN ORMER, '01. Business Manager. Assistant Business Manager. JOHN K. HAMACHER, '00. CLARENCE MOORE, '02. Advisory Board. PROF. J. A. HIMES, L,IT. D. PROF. G. D. STAHLEY, M. D. PROF. J. W. RICHARD, D. D. Published monthly by the students of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. Subscription price One Dollar a year in advance, single copies Fifteen Cents. Students, Professors and Alumni are cordially invited to contribute. All subscriptions and business matter should be addressed to the Business Manager. Articles for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY, GETTYSBURG, PA. OUR COLLEGE HOME. Oh bright for us the sunbeams rest On tower and town with rosier glow, On sentry Round Top's rugged crest And on the immortal Ridge below, Where marble Victory's fadeless bays The patriot soldier crown, And History graves for future days The deeds of his renown. CHORUS—Then ring we clear a loyal cheer, Wnere'er we rest or roam, For Gettysburg, for Gettysburg, Our famous College home,— Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah ! O fair for us the moonlight falls, To brighten with its silver flame At once the stately College halls wmm 118 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. And the memorials of fame That peer from every grove and grange, And in their silence tell That here heroic spirits range O'er meads of asphodel. CHORUS—Then ring we clear a loyal cheer, Where'er we rest or roam, For Gettysburg, for Gettysburg, Our honored College home,— Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah ! O soft for us the shadows play Among the Campus elms, and woo To merry converse and delay From tasks we busily pursue. Ah Youth and Friendship, how ye charm In Learning's calm abode,— True Graces, twining arm in arm On sweet Arcadian sod ! CHORUS—Then ring we clear a loyal cheer, Where'er we rest or roam, For Gettysburg, for Gettysburg, Our glorious College home,— Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! At morn the duty-call of bells Rings clear and urgent, near and far, At eve a gentler music swells From gleeful viol or guitar. O jolly is the life we lead In study, song or games ! O fortunate the fate indeed That here inscribes our names ! CHORUS—Then ring- we clear a loyal cheer, . Where'er we rest or roam, For Gettysburg, for Gettysburg, Our dear old College home,— Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah ! Energy will do anything that can be done in this world; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities will make a two-legged animal a man without it. —Goethe. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 119 THE J900 SPECTRUM. THE most recent claimant, in our midst, to literary and ar-tistic honors, is the class of 1900. Its Spectrum, just is-sued, challenges our admiration from start to finish, and we heartily accord to it equal rank with the best of our college annuals, thus far issued. The form of the book, and the general arrangement of its con-tents, show a pleasing appreciation of responsibility in the plac-ing of details to secure good effects. There has been an evident purpose on the part of the printers, publishers, managers, artists and editors, to produce a work which should be alike creditable to themselves, as well as to the college which this publication represents. The volume is fittingly dedicated to Prof. Klinger, who is justly characterized as "both teacher and fellow student." The various classes and associations are given due recogni-tion by verbal statement, cut, pencil and photograph. The latter are unusually good throughout and constitute an attractive fea-ture. The sketches, are, as a rule, very clearly executed, and are amusing without being either vulgar or rude. The "Literary Record of Gettysburg Alumni," is an import-ant feature and will add permanency to the value of this publication. It will be interesting and profitable for our alumni and friends to have a record of this sort for handy reference. The "Spanish War Record" is not less interesting and valu-able. It is something for us to be proud of, that when our coun-try needed men to prosecute a war in the interests of humanity, against a cruel oppressor, that twenty-eight men, from our grad-uate and undergraduate ranks, cheerfully enlisted and did honor-able service. The humorous thoughts and aspects of college life, receive literary embodiment in the concluding pages of the volume. These show a commendable degree of appreciation of humor, in both possible and impossible, but easily imagined situations. It is a pity that so much of this kind of literature, must necessarily go unappreciated, for it requires an acquaintance with the dramatis personae and the conditions under which described events happen, in order to extract all the flavor of humor which makes them en-joyable. ■MMtimp mum. 120 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. This volume is certainly deserving of hearty recognition, and it is hoped that many of our alumni and friends of the college, will show their appreciation of the arduous labors of the class by acquiring a copy. Reader,—it will add permanent value to your library. Send for a copy at once. —G. D. S. TICK-TACK-TO. THERE is scarcely a conversation indulged in with a greater relish, by persons of a maturer age, than that relating to bygone games and pastimes. The children love to linger by the hearth and will listen with rapt attention, as their father relates to them the strange and antiquated games of his boyhood days. There are, perhaps, few things that brighten the eyes of our sires more readily than mere mention of puerile games. They love to cast away the titles of Rev., Dr., or Mr. and think of the time " when you were Bill and I was Joe " and, if one is in their presence when they are exchanging reminiscences he may be both instructed and agreeably entertained. Nor is the relish for this peculiar sort of conversation peculiar to those who have already passed the meridian of life and can no more win for themselves the eclat of the beholding multitude, or the more modest commendation of a few admiring friends, or even the laudatory look of defeated opponents. It belongs also to us. What conversation can be introduced into our college boudoirs that will be more highly appreciated and rejuvenate happier reminiscences than that relating to the games we used to play. The occasional rehearsing of them forms a condiment whose pungency quickens our appetites for more solid and substantial forms of mental food. As such, however, they tend only to excite pleasure and enter-tain, and are evanescent in their effects. If, on the other hand, we view them in a more serious manner and forget them as prolific of. an almost boundless store of sport and hilarity, we may not only become instructed but learn, to our amazement perhaps, that we are playing the same old games to-day. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 121 To demonstrate this we might choose almost any one of the limited number of juvenile games as an example. Since they all bring forth some phase of life and all contain some suggestion for reflection. Blind-man's-buff for instance, teaches us how gro-tesquely we often grope after the fleeing prizes of life. Leap-frog portrays to us the use to which we are sometimes put by men of ulterior motives and the humility connected therewith, but there are some, however, whose peculiarities stand out in bolder relief than in others ; some whose lessons are more drastic than others, and in few is this more obvious than in the triplicate game of tick-tack-to. It is very simple and probably the most universally known game of childhood. As a palladium against the captiousness of the nursery its charm is talismanic. In point of economy there are few games that excel it: a pencil, a slate or a small slip of paper with two parallel lines drawn perpendicularly upon it and two similar ones crossing them horizontally constitute all that there is of a material outlay. A series of three marks occupying three successive spaces in any direction brings to a proper conclusion the course of the game and suggests to us now, what in childhood's happy hours were arcanums unraveled. One of them is contained in the nature of the game. Unlike many other of our juvenile pastimes tick-tack-to is not a game of luck nor chance but a game of skill and intelligence. Were it a game of luck we would be at a loss to derive any lessons from it and could certainly not compare it to life; since those who have attained to the highest success in life cherish little hope for the man who depends on luck. One of our beloved martyred Presidents, the lamented Jas. A. Garfield, once said, "Luck is an ignis fatuus. It leads to ruin but never to success." The idea that certain men are rich, or prosperous, or popular, because they were born under such circumstances under which it would be impossible for them to be otherwise, finds little credence among successful men. It is not the man who is born at a certain time, in a certain place and under certain environments who attains to success but he who works; he who is active; he who is alive to every oppor-tunity; he whose every mark is prompted by an intelligent judgment. 122 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Another deduction that we can 333ke from the game and apply to life is the mode of procedure. "We used to play7 it under dif-ficulties. Our advance was retarded by opposition. This of course is a common condition to all games and would not distinguish this particular one from any other; but the unique-ness of it lies in the fact that the opposition is created by one op-ponent and only one. Thus in the game of life we proceed against hindrances and against hindrances of but one opponent. Who is that opponent? Who is he, or what is it, that barricades our onward march every time we take a stride toward success ? Who is he who with rude hand dashes a cross before our line of progress every time our success is partially and almost entirely accomplished ? Is he to be found in the personality of some one other than ourselves ? May we detect him among the multitudes that pass before us from day to day ? May we discover him among those with whom we are continually associated ? No, prospection will never reveal him, introspection may. We have but one opponent to contend with, and that oppo-nent is self, the lower self; the material as opposed to the spiritual self. We sometimes suppose that our embarrassments in life, are traceable to external circumstances, to some person or company of persons, or to some combination of circumstances. But they are only the marks used by ourselves against our-selves. They form the media through which our lower nature reacts upon the higher and thus continues the dualisdc game of life. St. Bernard appreciating this fact once said "Nothing can do me damage but myself," and if we wish to reject authority can we not by a little self-examination verify this statement within the scope of our own experience ? Does not the soul in becoming cognizant of the virtue of a certain act urge us to do it ? Does it not in the language of the game place its mark in one of the spaces ? What follows ? The body shrinks from the performance of the act. It opposes the impulse of the soul. It places its mark directly before the one already made. No sooner has this taken place than the conscience comes into prominence. Not willing to acquiesce with one repulse it incites us to a redoubled effort. It places its mark before the THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 123 original one in another direction. This being done up swell the passions and endeavor with vehemence to thwart the noble im-pulse and crush all that is holy and pure in man. So the game proceeds with vacillating fortunes until the lower or the higher na-ture is conqueror. A contest it is trying and severe, unheard by mortal ear, un-seen by mortal eye. Revealed only to Him under whose dispen-sation it is possible and under whose guidance only, success is at-tainable. —MARKS. A HERO'S REWARD. IN the spring of 1825, Mr. Perry decided to sell his plantation, very reluctantly however, for it was here that he was born, and then with his family, which consisted of his wife, a son, Philip, and a daughter, Mabel, to go North. It was at Mr. Hall's suggestion that he located in a small town in the northern part of New Jersey and went into business with him. These two families had known each other for years and naturally at once there sprung up a friendship between Philip Perry and Mr. Hall's only son and child, Tom; but from the start Tom seemed to have an especial regard for Mabel, which grew into an affection as they grew in years. The Perrys belonged to one of the old, aristocratic, south-ern families, and were, as most such families were, wealthy. The Halls were also quite independent, though not in such affluent circumstances. The two boys were sent to a small military academy near New York and graduated in the same class. A short time after this Mr. Hall was taken ill and died very suddenly, and a year later Mrs. Hall died through grief for her dead husband. Mr. Perry was also affected by his partner's death and having closed out the business, moved South and located in Richmond, Va. He in-sisted that Tom should go along and make his home with them, and Tom, with a little persuasion from Mabel, did so. The boys went to a southern college, where they stood high both in their class and in the esteem of their fellow students, for they were good, jolly boys. During this time the affection be-tween Mabel and Tom ripened into love and Tom often wished in-wardly that some day he might win Mabel for his wife. y—^——™—™——— miyiiyi 124 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. After their college days both young men had entered Mr. Perry's employ and held positions of trust and responsibility in his cotton mill. So well, indeed, did they manage their work, that Mr. Perry was about to entrust the entire management to them when that dreadful war, which so nearly resulted in the division of our Union, was declared. Recognizing his duty, Philip Perry at once left home and enlisted in the 9th Virginia Regiment. Tom Hall hesitated. He was undecided as to what to do. He knew full well that his duty was to go North and join a Northern regiment, and yet—if he went, it meant, as Mabel had said, that all would end between them, for Mabel was a Southern girl. What was he to do ? On the one side he could hear the call to duty, on the other Mabel wanted him, if he went at all, to go with "Phil." At last his love for his country conquered even his love for Mabel and as a true patriot he secretly made his way north and enlisted in the 1st New Jersey, which was mustered in at his old home. It is needless to follow these two soldiers through the entire campaign, but suffice it to say that they soon rose to high positions in their respective regiments on account of their bravery. On the evening of July 2, 1863, General Dee, who was in command of the Confederate forces at Gettysburg, realizing his perilous position and possibly expecting defeat, decided to make one final, desperate attempt to break through the Union line. That evening he had been reinforced by Stuart's Cavalry and was therefore hopeful of success. His plan was to pierce the Union line at a point now called the "High Water Mark," for that was the turning point of the greatest battle of the Civil War. Everyone has heard of Pickett's famous charge and how the men of the two armies fought hand to hand over the old stone wall. The 9th Virginia belonged to Armistead's brigade, which was almost annihilated in this charge; yet many were not killed outright, but after suffering untold agony, gave up their lives for the cause they thought right. During this battle, a number of regiments were held in reserve and among this number was the 1st New Jersey. On the evening of July 3d, the news of the famous charge of Pickett's Division and the successful repulse was reported among the various Union regiments, and of course reached the 1st New Jersey. \THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 125 Colonel Tom Hall recalled the fact that Philip Perry had en-listed in the 9th Virginia, and he imagined he heard some one say that he was dying on the field. Before dawn he had mounted his faithful horse and galloped off in the direction of the "clump of trees." For some time he searched, but all in vain, and he was about to leave when he heard a terrible groan a short dis-tance beyond the wall on the Union side. It startled him and he drew up his horse, dismounted and stooped over the half-dead body of a Confederate officer. Imagine his surprise to find his old friend, Philip Perry! He gently bound up his wounds and raising him, placed him on his horse and rode slowly back to his regiment. Major Perry remained in a semi-conscious state for several days and when he came to, he found himself in Colonel Hall's tent and over him was stooping his dear sister, washing off the blood stains and dressing his wounds. As soon as Major Perry was strong enough to be moved, Colonel Hall had him exchanged for a Northern officer, who was confined in one of the Southern prisons. However, before Major Perry was taken to his home in Rich-mond, the old love between Mabel and Colonel Hall had over-come all difficulties between them and under a tree not far from where Major Perry had fallen, he witnessed a short ceremony, performed by the Chaplain of the 1st New Jersey, in which Colo-nel Hall received "A Hero's Reward," the long desired hand of Mabel in marriage. —W. G. L. '01. «**£> AN ART FAD. IN these days when fads in almost every line of trade and pro-fession are so prominent, one is not surprised to find that there is such a thing as a fad in art also. The particular one selected for the subject of this essay is that style so prominent at this time in the art. of painting—the poster. The poster occu-pies the same place in the art of painting as do dialect stories in literature or syncopated rhythm, i. e. the so-called "rag-time" in music. Not any of these is a recent creation but rather a recent craze. For instance, considered from a scientific standpoint, "rag-time" has been co-eval with the history of music. 126 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Beethoven and Mozart wrote it and even in the incomparable fugures of Bach we encounter it. And in literature, dialect did certainly not originate with James Whitcomb Riley. The possibilities of the colored poster were first made known to English and French artists when the great flaming advertise-ments of Barnum were first placed upon the exposed places of London and Paris. The influence of these American advertising posters became prominent and at once both England and France began to contribute colored products in poster art, which, while far more artistic than the pictures of Wild West performers, were not after all so widely different in outline, color and other quali-ties. Between that day when vivid and crude design was pre-dominant, and to-day when the artistic poster is so much in evi-dence, there is a considerable advance apparent. Simultaneous with the growth of the poster and practically very beneficial was the adoption of it by the up-to-date theatre for advertising purposes. And it lends itself admirably for this pur-pose. It has also been a favorite mode of advertising in the com-mercial world, but one sees less of its use in this manner now than formerly. In the literary advertising department, the poster still is very prominent and is the usual way of calling the attention of the public to the merits of some special edition of a publication. With the rise of the poster came collectors of posters ; in America alone, there are said to be over 6000 persons who devote themselves to this pursuit. Poster literature and expositions too have come into existence. Of the different nations and in point of art, France, as usual, leads. The "father of the modern poster," as he has been called, M. Cheret, however, says that he owes his first inspiration to the Barnum lithographs. America is greatly indebted to France in this line of art. One of the foremost poster artists who, before he studied in Paris, used to draw the gorgeous theatre lithographs, came back to America and completely transformed the coarse ex-aggerated travesties. For this reason Matt. Morgan stands high among the American poster artists. Of the English school, Aubrey Beardsley is probably the best known. He is said to be always "scholarly" and while "char-acteristic," yet he never loses sight of the fundamental principles of the art in his work. The purchase of a celebrated art-poster called "Bubbles" by the proprietors of a certain soap, seemed to THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 127 give a new impetus to the poster art in England, and many artists no longer hesitated to enter the ranks of poster painters. In Germany, the poster has not developed very rapidly or sat-isfactorily. German artists in every line of art work seem to ad-here strongly to allegorical symbols and types. This is evident in the tonal art as well as in painting. Probably the best known of the German school is Heine, who creates posters for several humorous periodicals. Austria seems to have paid little or no attention to the art; one can find no mention of Austrians who won a reputation for them-selves except in the line of music. All other arts seem to be con-sidered unworthy any attention. There is a poster art school in Belgium which has won a prominent position in this line of art. Though it requires a considerable amount of education on cer-tain lines to enable one to understand correctly any art—such a training, for instance as a good art-critic possesses—yet it is pos-sible for almost any one to appreciate, to some extent, at least, the art of poster painting. Tolstoi .says, "When I call up an emotion which I have ex-perienced, arid by signs, words, colors, sounds, transfer this emo-tion to another, that is art." Bearing this definition in mind and using it as a test, attention is called to a few examples of posters, each peculiarly distinctive in one manner or other. Probably one of the most striking and unique of the products of American artists was the poster announcing a special issue of the New York Sun. A woman with a trailing purple mantle walks through a green meadow, one hand uplifted with a warning ges-ture as if to command silence. The graceful though striking de-sign indicates a fertile imagination as the originator of it. That the creator—~L,. I. Rhead—is not only highly imaginative and fanciful but even verging upon the eccentric is evidenced by others of his productions, in one of which he has painted a woman with a cloak of dark green, outlined boldly against an orange back-ground. Among the posters published by Harpers Bros., was one en-titled "The Letter Box," which, though simple in ideas yet proved very effective. A little Cupid standing on tip-toe, drops a valentine in the slot of the corner letter-box. The entire pic-ture is not at all pretentious, but entirely characteristic and well adapted. ■pJMfiM 128 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Another poster published by the same firm in 1892 is worthy of noting because of the manner in which the lettering is incor-porated in the picture. "The Wooly Horse" representing Napoleon I. on horseback overlooking the battlefield,—with a fiery sky for background, was a very successful poster published by the Century Co. A famous American artist in this line is W. H. Bradley, whose work resem-bles somewhat that of Aubrey Beardsley. His posters seem to have a peculiar melancholy in their expression. Among the prominent advertisements of merchandise, that of Pears' Soap—a humorous sketch of a ragged tramp—is, with its forcible inscription, one of the most prominent. An original idea was brought out by an English artist in the use of the "Silhouette"—a black figure outlined in white stand-ing out against a black background. The manufacturers of a certain blueing, first used this style of poster for an advertise-ment. An advance in poster drawing was made after the several ex-positions of posters which have been held lately. One of these, held in Belgium in 1894, served to propagate extensively the new ideas of the French and the Belgian schools. How long this fad will last, is difficult to predict. It is highly probable, however, that the art will advance with such strides in some particular direction that the new development will com-pletely swallow up the present popular poster style,—a style, which has been characterized as a "phantasy most horrid and de-testable." —W. W. F. '00. RETRIEVED. JIM HAL,Iy, an inhabitant of the village of Alberton, had the reputation of being the most cowardly man to be found in ten counties. He was known to sleep at night with his room door double-barred and the windows tightly fastened, for fear of being killed in his bed by some wandering burglar. He believed in ghosts and witches ; and the small boys often took advantage of this superstitious fear and belief by placing a white sheet over a stick and when Jim came along, waving it wildly. Jim ran like THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 129 a deer for home and next day was made the butt of innumerable jokes. This fear of Jim's was to be accounted for only by the fact that from his birth his mother had shielded him from all dan-ger and taught him to look to her as his natural protector. So when he had come to manhood he had not learned to rely upon himself. He often tried to overcome his cowardice but could not do so when the critical moment came. Affairs were in this state up to the year 1862 when the report was circulated in Alberton that Jim Hall had disappeared from the village. No one had seen him go away, so all the villagers could do was to make suppositions as to his whereabouts. Some thought he had run away for fear of being drafted into the service. A large number of the able-bodied men of the village had already joined as volunteers and now it was reported that additional men were needed and that these would be taken by drafting through-out the whole North. Just the day before Jim Hall's disappear-ance the report was brought that the drafting of Alberton men would take place in four days. So there were some grounds for the common belief that Jim had run away to escape the war. One can easily imagine their surprise when the next day they heard that he had gone to the camp of the Army of the Potomac and had been enlisted as a private soldier. The people treated it as a great joke and many were the jests at poor Jim's expense about his long legs standing him in good stead when a time of great danger should come. However Jim had realty joined the army and was by a lucky chance placed in the same company with the other Alberton men who had gone out long before as volunteers. And as another piece of good fortune the man who was now captain of the com-pany— the former captain having been killed shortly before—had been the only man in the village of Alberton who had not jeered and laughed at his cowardice. This gentleman, a Mr. Leonard, had been a friend of both of Jim's parents and when Jim's father died had been appointed guardian to Jim. He now encouraged Jim to make a man of himself and was the instrument of Jim's doing so. Soon under their gallant leaders they were fighting the rebels with varying success about the swamps and morasses of the Chickahominy. In the battle of Chancellorsville, lost though dearly sold, our hero was in the thick of the fight. At the first mmmw 130 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. shock, however, he turned as if to flee, but at the word of his commander he turned and fought so bravely and so well that he was commended by his captain. Nearly two months later he found himself marching north-ward with his companions to try to check the invasion which the victorious Lee was making upon the North. On July 1st they found themselves on the peaceful fields of Gettysburg so soon to be turned into a veritable slaughter pen. In the first day's fight their regiment was stationed at Seminary Ridge with several other regiments to check the advance of the so far victorious rebels until further reinforcements should come up. Soon the overwhelming numbers of the Confederates forced the greater part to fall back and one lone battered and torn regi-ment was left to face the storm. It was too late to retreat now and almost useless to fight longer, but the blood of the Halls who had fought in the Revolution suddenly came coursing through the veins of Jim, and seizing the colors from the color bearer who had just been shot down Jim waved them aloft and shouted, "Come on boys, don't run, only cowards run." As he uttered the words a volley from the enemy, who had now almost sur-rounded the gallant man and his little band, laid poor Jim low and silenced forever the heart which had just learned that it still had brave blood to force through a manly body. Now indeed had Jim retrieved his name from the most disgraceful blot which can be put on any man's name. The rest of the command were captured and taken prisoners. Several years after they were ex-changed and when those Alberton men who had come safely through the war had returned home, they never tired of telling how nobly Jim Hall had proven that he no longer was the coward whom they had once despised. —V. FREY, '01. c®P June falls asleep upon her bier of flowers; In vain are dew drops sprinkled o'er her, In vain would fond winds fan her back to life Her hours are numbered on the floral dial. * * * June is dead, Dead, without dread or pain, her gayest "Wreaths twined with her own hands for her funeral. —Lucy Larcotn. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. EDITOR'S DESK. 131 THE '00 Spectrum is ample proof that the catalogue of special features has not been exhausted. As it is customary for the Junior class in publishing a Spectrum to make a special feature, '00 has chosen the "Literary Record of Gettysburg Alumni.'' This feature alone would make thepresent Spectrttm val-uable, as well as interesting. Few besides those who have worked upon such a feature can form any idea of the toil and care re-quired to carry it to a successful issue. Certainly it is but justice that the college paper, in the name of the students of Gettys-burg, congratulates the editor and assistant editor, by whom the "Literary Record" has been compiled and arranged, upon their useful, hard work. But not only may the individuals, on whom rested the responsibility for such a task, be congratulated; Gettys-burg may congratulate herself upon the present annual, which un-doubtedly will be regarded for years as a model of neat, original work. Articles by our alumni relating to Gettysburg, would be re-ceived eagerly by the MERCURY. Stories about college life as it was some years ago, the difference between Gettysbtirg of to-day and Gettysburg of the past, or almost any article of like kind, would find space in our pages. The MERCURY would be glad to print poems by the alumni, as well as prose. HYPNOTISM. HYPNOTISM, as best defined, is a nervous artificial sleep. The same thing was formerly called animal magnetism. Hypnotism applies to a definite nervous state and is brought about mostly in persons having a delicate nervous system. The first true inquirer into hypnotism was Dr. Baird. He saw some experiments performed by a professional maguetizer and at once decided that they were merely an arrangement to deceive the people, but after careful observation and study into the methods of producing a state of hypnotism, he decided that it was genuine. After careful study and experiment, he decided that there was no such a thing as a magnetic fluid flowing from the mind of the operator to that of the subject; but that the true cause of hypno- ■mmtnm 132 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. tism lay in the fact that the nerves of one of the senses become deadened by over exertion or constant concentration on a point, and on this account become powerless to act and the person goes into a deep sleep or lethargy. In this, his followers disagree with the other school, headed chiefly by I,afosataine. He asserted that hypnotism was produced by a fluid, known as the magnetic fluid, which passed from one person to another and by its attraction could cause a person of strong will to have complete control of a person of weaker will power, being able to compel him to do anything commanded. Baird was led to his theory by the fact that his subject, while under the influence of this power, was unable to open the eyes. He at once came to the conclusion that excessive fatigue was the only thing that could cause this strange phenomenon as he made no attempt at personal magnetism in producing the sleep. His experiment was performed in the following way. He asked his subject to sit and look steadily at the neck of a wine bottle and allow his mind to wander. The bottle was placed at such an elevation as to cause considerable fatigue to the eyes. After three minutes the subject's eyes were filled with tears, then his eyelids closed and a little later he was in a sound sleep. This experiment proved beyond doubt that a person can be hypnotized without the presence of a second person or operator; but can do it himself by an experiment made under similar circumstances as mentioned above. Baird pursued his discoveries and with the aid of numerous other experiments tried hard to have hypnotism recognized as a science. They were not successful, however, and to-day it is re-garded mostly as something for a show, or to interest the people, without much regard to its cause and the scientific qualities. The most familiar form of producing the state of hypnotism is the following : the operator directs the subject to have no par-ticular thought on his mind, but to let it wander, and gaze steadily into his eyes. After that he generally makes a few passes with the hands, gently rubbing the eyelids, etc., until his subject is in a sound sleep. In explanation of this method I would say that the gazing into the eyes of the operator for some time, is exactly the same as looking at a brilliant object, both have the same effect of fatiguing the nerves of the eye and producing sleep. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 133 This is strikingly illustrated in an experiment with a frog. If a frog is taken in the hand, having the thumb resting on the stomach, and the back gently rubbed ; the animal will go to sleep at once and can be stretched into all sorts of shapes. Another way, as has been stated before, is that of looking steadily at some object. It has also been discovered that the other senses have the same power as that of sight. Thus if you produce monotony in music sleep is produced. Sharp suspense or fright has the same effect of transfixing some people and this has been decided by students of the science ( as it is called by the disciples of hypnotism) to be hypnotism. After careful study it has been proven that the senses of taste and of smell have the same strange effect. As regards the uses of hypnotism little of importance can be said. It is used mostly by professional showmen who call up subjects from their audience or may have them with them. They compel them to do anything they command. One of the common-est ways and also the best to show the entire oblivion of the subject, is the experiment with the letter. The subject is handed a letter and told it is an orange, he immediately eats it with great relish, then if told it is sour at once spits it out with an expres-sion of disgust on his face, showing the subject believes every-thing the operator tells him and is entirely at his command. This, however, was never intended for the chief use of hypno-tism. The experimenters tried to use it in surgery, etc., but it has been found that while some people are easily influenced others give much trouble, so that it would be impracticable to use it in a case of amputation when ether or chloroform serves the same purpose more quickly and better. It has been settled, however, that strong habits can be changed. Persons who have been accus-tomed to strong habits all their lives have been entirely changed and new habits formed. Thus, while very little has been definitely decided about this strange phenomenon, there is every indication that some day in the near future, it will be taken up by experimenters and philoso-phers, thoroughly sifted, and then be proven to be of great value in many respects. It is now in its infancy. —C. J. D. '00. wmm 134 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. "THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE." CHRISTIANITY and civilization in its highest degree of ex-cellence are synonomous, hand in hand like two insepara-bles we find them enthroned upon a majestic seat, ruling, guiding, influencing, and may we say carving the destiny of every great nation. If a country is civilized and christianized we need no other proof to be convinced of her pre-eminence and suprem-acy. A glance will show us also that such countries have the most admirable and thoroughly developed codes of jurisprudence. The influences, whose marks upon "Roman Law" are par-ticularly indelible and prominent, may be divided into three classes: conventional morality and usage, natural reason and justice, and Christianity. These fundamental principles in turn clearly mark off three distinct epochs in the development of Ro-man Law. According to the law of the first nearly all power was vested in the individual and that individual was the "Pater familias." The idea of a State right has scarcely begun to dawn upon the Roman mind. At the beginning of the second epoch, Rome is no longer a col-lection of separate communities : Italy, Greece, Spain, Africa, in short the whole world is in her power. Law based on such a no-tion as practically unlimited power of the pater cannot regulate such an empire. No longer is Rome divided into families, tribes and clans, each separate and distinct, but everything concentrates upon and emanates from one person—the Emperor. Something broader, something more general is demanded and, in response, came the principles of the stoic philosophy. Roman Law can-not stand still while the State is enlarging; it too must broaden, and natural equity, justice and reason furnish the soil for its spreading roots. But one link yet is necessary, one step yet is lacking ere the ultimate degree ofperfection is reached. For Christianity it remains to weld the chain and fill the gap which is to make "Roman Law" such a body of principles as to be applicable at all times and among all nations. In such principles as—"honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, suum cinque tribuere," the dawn of Christian-ity can already be seen, only time is needed until its genial rays shall burst forth with increasing intensity. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 135 Christianity had been now the established religion of the Ro-man Empire for more than two centuries; and the influence of its principles was making an untold effect upon the spirit, if not so much upon the letter, of Roman law. The complete moral, social, and political revolution, through Christianity, created a necessity for new laws adapted to the present order of things. Under it a new order of men of a peculiar character, with special privileges has grown up; churches and monasteries had been formed; certain offenses in the penal code were now looked on with a milder or more severe aspect, and vices, which formerly had been tolerated, became crimes against the new social order. It might be shown that Christianity as a system of doctrine, is peculiarity adapted to meet the secular as well as the spiritual wants of men and would naturally work its way into their codes of jurisprudence. But a direct proof is unnecessary, for after hav-ing shown its influence upon the various elements in "Roman L,aw," we can reason backward and reach the same conclusion. Roman Law may be conveniently divided into three classes:— that of Persons, Property and Crime. From time immemorial, slavery had been customary among all nations. Aristotle reasoned "that nature intended barbarians to be slaves, and among the natural and honorable means of ac-quiring wealth, he classes, making war in order to reduce to slavery such of mankind as are intended by nature for it." As an institution of custom, then, slavery received its sanction at Rome. Christianity had exalted a slave to spiritual equality and this religious elevation could not be without influence on their tem-poral and social position. They were no longer to be regarded as brute beasts and inanimate things, nor could they be destroyed by their masters with as much impunity as his other property. Our respect must here be paid the heathen sovereign, Antoniuns, who declared that the master who killed his slave without cause, was liable to the same penalty as if he had killed the slave of another. Justinian writes, "In these times, and under our Em-pire, no one must be permitted to exercise unlawful cruelty against a slave.'' Prohibition of marriage to slaves had been a deep-rooted prejudice for centuries, yet this too melted before the rays of its benign influence. The stricter forms of manumission—the vin-dicta freeing by census or testament were relieved by easier and ■VAMHtfi 136 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. more liberal ones,—for example, per epistolam, inter amicos, in ecclesiis; and whatever of legal impediments yet existed were re-moved by Justinian. Along with this the distinctions formerly made between freedmen, whereby a slave owing to certain kinds of misconduct, when manumitted, could not receive full citizen-ship, were likewise abolished so that after Justinian all libertine were cives Romani. The ancient laws regarding marriage and the legal status of women each crystallized itself in conformity with the new order of things. Marriage was no longer a civil contract but a religious sacrament and the penalties fixed upon celibacy and childlessness were removed. Divorce had been one of the greatest plagues at work in dis-solving the unity of the Roman family. Since the establishment of the XII tables, in 450 B. C, it had been legally recognized. Seneca says of Naecauss, probably satirically, that he changed his wives as he changed his dress. And it is the same writer who says '' that the noble women of Rome calculated the year not by the consuls, but by their husbands." Juvenal, in the bitterness of his satire, could not find words adequate to express his intense indignation of this evil. It is said that the sixth century of Roman greatness had begun ere the evils of a primitive conception that the wife was the property of her husband and might be dismissed at his pleasure were revealed and public feeling shocked by the re-pudiation of a virtuous but barren wife by Spurius Carvilius Ruga. Had Christianity performed no greater good for human society than the removal of this corruption, its influence would not have been in vain or useless. The rights of women over their property were made sub-stantially equal to men's as was the right of guardianship over their children. Parental power, though in theory absolute, had long fallen into disuse and was almost a theoretical nothing long before the ad-vent of Christianity, but whatever of severity yet remained was abolished. Constantine openly declared that the father, who killed his son, should be held for murder, nor was the father allowed to ex-pose his children or sell them into slavery, except in the rarest cases. The proprietary rights of the son, too, were extended from the peculium castreuse to the peculmm quasi castreuse and still later to the peculium adventitium. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 137 Milman says '' Christianity made no change in the tenure or succession to property.'' '' Seeking inheritances by undue means was prohibited and restrained by law as an ecclesiastical evil." Church property was regarded sacred and inviolate and as Milman says was "the sole proprietor, whom forfeiture or confis-cation could never reach; whose title was never antiquated and before whose hallowed boundaries violence stood rebuked." Gifts to temples could now be sold or pledged for the redemp-tion of captives, a purpose which the old Roman law would have disdained to contemplate. In the penal laws of the Roman empire, the influence of Chris-tianity was but moderately exerted. The abolition of the distinc-tions drawn between freedmen and slaves have already been re-ferred to. Crucifixion as a means of punishment was removed by Constantine, rather as an act of religious reverence than of humanity. But in the suppression of gaming and the prohibition of women being forced on the stage, traces of its influence can be seen. As is natural from the subject material under discussion, the law respecting persons has undergone the greatest change. But all these changes, whether in the penal code or in the law of proprietary rights and obligations, were but a means, which made the Roman system adapted to the regulation of all peoples and at all times. When we see that the very barbarians who conquered Rome were in turn conquered by her system of jurisprudence, we are not a little filled with surprise; but when we find it not only influenc-ing and forming the basis of, but being incorporated in the legal codes of almost all nations, we come in contact with an effect that requires an adequate and efficient cause. After paying all due re-spect to that peculiar, innate faculty of administration in the Ro-man mind, without detracting one iota from the excellent opinions of the juristconsuls or limiting in the slightest degeee the wonder-ful influence of stoicism, as a system of philosophy, we are com-pelled to admit that none of these were individually or collectively efficient to produce such an effect. To Christianity must be as-cribed the credit of basing Roman law upon principles, so univer-sal and so humane, as to be applicable not only among the Roman state but among all nations of all times. If this statement seems rather large in its exposition and sweeping in its results, a few illustrations may be necessary to establish its validity. r \UIUW 138 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Can a law, which considers certain classes of men as mere brutes or inanimate things be reconciled to our conception that by nature all men are horn equal ? Or who can reconcile the idea that a woman is but the property of her husband, capable of being dismissed at his bidding, with our conception of human society ? What place could the principle of "patri potesias have in the legal status of a nation, all the citizens of which have equal rights be-fore its laws—yet in the wisdom of the juristconsuls and in the records they have left us, these principles and many others similar to them are found embodied. Stoic philosophy left to Roman law the principles of equity and humanity, but the basis of natural law upon which they rested and by which they were judged and applied, was subjected to a complete change ere they were capable of incorporation into modern jurisprudence. Christianity recognized these same principles of equity and humanity, but substituted truth instead of natural law as their criterion. Based on this principle and judged by this standard the conceptions of equity and humanity lose their limi-tations and assert themselves with the force of universality. It is only under these conditions that we find Roman law incorpo-rated in the laws of every great nation, and only in Christianity do we find a cause adequate to such an effect. Among legal historians there is a vast diversity of opinions with regard to the influence of Christianity upon Roman legisla-tion. This variance, Morey rightly attributes to their failure to distinguish Christianity as an ethical system from the church as a corporate institution.'' It must be remembered that the church, like all institutions, even though divine in their origin, is never-theless subject to the frailties of humanity by which it is regu-lated and too often fails to cancel the limitations between the ideal and the real. The family and the matrimonial ceremony are regarded as divine in their origin and sanction, but do they ever conform to the high standard by which they should be regulated? Perfection is an attribute not of this world, and if the church as a corporate institution has failed to attain the high plane established by the principles it recognizes and enunciates we can condemn the prin-ciples with no more justice than we can reason that a college edu-cation is of no advantage because some particular individual, who has taken a college course, has made a miserable failure in life. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 139 However intolerant the church may have been against pagans, jews, and heretics, the principles of Christianity as an ethical sys-tem remain unsullied and untainted, notwithstanding the injus-tice of their application. Morey has admirably summarized the whole matter: "In spite of the fact that the church in some cases set its face against civil equity, and the fact that Roman law had already received a liberal temper from the influence of Greek philosophy, it cannot be doubted that the progress of the law, in general, kept pace with the unfolding of ethical ideas in the Roman mind; and that so far as Christianity furnished a system of ethics more just, liberal and humane than that of stoicism, it brought to bear upon the Roman law a moral power superior to that which had previously been exerted upon it through the writings of the philosophical jurists." Who then can doubt that in Christianity, Roman law reaches the summit of its greatness and the beginning of its uni-versal application ! —W. E. B. '99. M THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES. AN is a progressive being. Contentment is foreign to his very nature. He is continuously looking to something beyond, to a condition higher and better. As his intellect broadens and quickens, he invariably becomes desirous of greater freedom. This love of liberty is connate with his physical and mental constitution. But there is also another desire deeply implanted within his breast, a desire which is destructive of the liberty of others. It is the love of power, the inherent desire of man to rule over his fellow:man, an ambition, the natural outcome of which is despot-ism. These two desires tend toward opposite directions. Between them is an irrepressible conflict. This conflict is as old as society and as persistent as humanity. From the earliest times its vary-ing phases have determined the condition of the race. The history of civilization is largely the story of this conflict, the story of human liberty struggling against human despotism. The outcome of this struggle has varied in different countries. ; 140 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. As a result their states of society have been vastly different. Just in proportion as liberty has triumphed over despotism so civiliza-tion has advanced beyond barbarism. Among the nations of an-tiquity despotism prevailed everywhere. As a consequence their civilization never advanced beyond a certain point. They were marked in every case either by iunobility or by slight advances and retrogressions. In the countries of Northern Europe arose a people whose chief characteristic was their love of freedom. Here liberty found a soil peculiarly fitted for her growth and develop-ment. What has been the result? Have these people an}' ele-ments of civilization not enjoyed by the nations of antiquity? Read the story of their steady progress through the Middle Ages. L,ook upon the unequalled state of civilization among them to-day and question not the advantages of liberty over despotism. Con-trast the despotic nature of ancient Assyria with the liberal char-acter of modern England and wonder not that the latter stands to-day the first empire of the world, while the former exists only upon the pages of history. During the dark ages humanity struggled against the most terrible despotism man had ever known,—the despotism of igno-rance and superstition. The human mind neglected, uncultivated and depressed sank into the deepest ignorance. So prolonged and intense was the gloom enveloping Europe that her people seemed incapable of advancement, society seemed destined to end-less barbarism. Gradually, however, knowledge became more diffused, inventions and discoveries awakened the human intellect from its long sleep, and man began to learn the truth about him-self and the world. This truth has made him free. Freedom of intellect naturally led to a desire for religious freedom. Ecclesiastical tyranny was incompatible with intellect-ual liberty. Enlightened minds refused to submit any longer to the authority of the Pope. Contentment gave place to unrest, un-rest to action, and action to liberty. The Reformation was more than a contest between Protestant-ism and Catholicism. It was an insurrection of the human mind against pure ecclesiastical monarchy. Do you wonder that the movement was crowned with the most glowing success ? Papal authority in Northern Europe was destroyed forever. This religi-ous liberty will eventually spread over the entire world. The religions of the world are becoming more and more imbued with THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 141 the sentiment of liberality. Sectarian differences are gradually disappearing before the growing light of intelligence. Creed and dogma will be re-adjusted more and more under the light of ad-vancing truth. Formal religion is being supplanted by true Christianity—that "divine keystone in the arch of universal his-tory." With an ever increasing radiance the light of Christianity is slowly but surely penetrating the darkness of heathenism, and hastening the approach of the time when the people of all the earth, regardless of race, sect or nationality, shall bow in worship before the one true God. Turning from the religious to the political world, we behold a revolution no less wonderful, a mighty struggle between despotic and liberal principles of government. This struggle shook Europe from Scandanavia to Italy, and snatched a new world from the threatened grasp of tyranny; a revolution of which the Reign of Terror was but an incident. The ideas engendered by the Reformation inaugurated a mighty epoch of political regeneration. The great sovereigns of Europe, one after another, have been deprived of their prerogatives until to-day the last one sits trembling upou a tottering throne that threatens to fall at any instant. The day is not far distant when even the "Autocrat of all the Russias" shall see his sceptre depart into the hands of his subjects. Thus we have seen during the last three epochs three great stages of the onward march of civilization; three mighty victories for the cause of struggling humanity; victories which include in-tellectual, religious and political freedom. To-day the world has entered upon another epoch; an epoch which brings with it questions far more complicated than those of the past, and far more momentous than those that have convulsed Europe with centuries of revolution. The great struggles of the past have been, in the main, suc-cessful, and the echoes of the mighty battles for civil and religious freedom are growing fainter and fainter. But the cause of freedom is not yet won. The hosts of oppression have been driven from the fields of church and state only to return with renewed vigor to attack freedom in the field of industry. The scene of conflict has extended from the old world to the new. Society has entered upon an industrial age. Modern civilization is marked by ma-terial progress unprecedented in the history of mankind. Great 142 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. inventions have revolutionized travel, commerce and manufacture. Ocean steamers, railroads and telegraphs have practically annihi-lated time and space. By constant and easy intercourse with the world, man's views have been enlarged, his energies stimulated, and his rate of progress quickened. Yet with all this unparalleled progress in the industrial power of society, there has come no proportionate improvement in the condition of the masses. While the great industrial development of the present age has brought many blessings for mankind, the tyranny of selfish men has monopolized these blessings for the few. Capital gets the lion's share of the world's wealth, while Labor is reduced to a condition of servitude. A few monopolists amass colossal fortunes and revel in Croe-cian luxury, while thousands of wage earners, becoming more and more pauperized, sink into intellectual and moral degradation. Millions are wasted in feasting while gaunt starvation stalks the streets. Society has become a vast machine which turns out at one end milliouaries, and at the other tramps, paupers and anarch-ists. The enormous inequalities of existing conditions are creating a discontent in the minds of the laboring classes; a discontent that foreshadows an impending revolution. Profound discontent preceded the great religious upheaval in the sixteenth century. Great unrest ushered in the awful convul-sions of the French revolution. With the reappearance of the same conditions to-day, revolution is as inevitable as the laws of the universe. Human nature will not tolerate abuse forever. Labor will not always submit to the tyranny of capital. Even now the cohorts of freedom are gathering for a mighty effort. There is every indication that we are on the eve of a momen-tous struggle. The discontent of the masses is '' no longer the fretting of the waves;" it is "the roar of the rushing tide." It is to be a contest for the supremacy of wealth on the one hand or the freedom of opportunity on the other ;—a conflict that will decide whether the combined money power of the world is to per-petuate its tyranny of greed and avarice, or whether the toiling millions are at last to enjoy unmolested the products of their own labor. History teaches that there can be but one outcome to this struggle. Despotism again will fall. The indomitable forces of THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. freedom will win another victory. Economic despotism is simply fighting the same hopeless battle that was fought and lost by spiritual and political despotism in the ages that have passed. Civilization will never rest until this great barrier is removed. There are only two ways in which this can be accomplished; by the peaceful methods of education and religion, or through the instrumentalities of war. Should the latter method prevail, and should the masses be led by designing demagogues, or by reason-ing anarchists inspired only by a sense of injustice, and revenge, the innocent will perish with the guilty in the most dreadful social catastrophe that has ever darkened the pages of history. Do the conditions indicate that such will be the result ? Are we to sup-pose that the increased intelligence and morality of the present age will permit such a solution of our great sociological problem ? Have we read history in vain or profited nothing by the great lessons of the past, that we must see re-enacted on the stage of modem history the bloody scenes of the sixteenth century? Is the nineteenth century civilization so little advanced that it is about to behold a social convulsion compared with which the aw-ful horrors of the French Revolution shall sink into insignificance ? A million Christian hearts answer, "No." A million earnest workers for the triumph of right over might, filled with the belief that the signs of the times point upward, and inspired with the hope that social and economic freedom shall come as the product of better hearts and better souls, respond with a mighty " NO." The wrongs of our present industrial system shall not be righted among scenes of violence and confusion. The ceaseless unrest of the multitudes, that are to mould the destinies of the future, is the sign of an advancing civilization. It means that they are acquiring more brain force, more manhood, the raw ma-terials out of which God will shape a better future for humanity The dawn of a better day is breaking the deep clouds of sin. The heart of the world is beating more truly than ever before. Men are beginning to realize that the prosperity of society depends upon the well-being of the whole people. They are coming to see that a divine fatherhood implies an universal brotherhood. The world is moving onward toward the realization of the ideal life of human happiness; a life where manhood shall count for more than gold, where character shall outweigh the dollar ; a life free from selfishness and tyranny, abounding injustice, liberty and equality. i44 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. In this life shall the Conflict of the Ages cease and man find his highest place as he ministers to the good of all. "Then the common sense of most Shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, Lapt in universal law. And the war drum throb no longer, And the battle flags be furled In the parliament of man, The Federation of the world." —W. R. E., '99. THE PHILOMATHAEAN SOCIETY. BY PROF. L. H. CROIX. [From the Pennsylvania College Book, 1832.] MORE than a year before the charter of Pennsylvania Col-lege was granted by the legislature of the State, the Philomathaean Society had its organization, in the "Gettysburg Gymnasium," on the corner of Washington and High streets, Gettysburg, Pa. The students of the institution assembled in the west room of the second story, on the 4th of February, A. D., 1831, to form literary societies whose generous rivalry would stimulate the members to mutual, intellectual and moral improvement. It was agreed to divide the whole number of students into two equal parts, in the order in which their names stood enrolled, each division then withdrew to the "East Room," second story, becoming the founders of the Philomathaean So-ciety, with Prof. M. Jacobs as chairman. With the permission of the Professor of Theology, the meeting continued to be held in the rooms devoted to theological instruction, the corner-stone of the Theological Seminary not being laid until the following- May. A Constitution and a name were adopted, but the latter was not at first settled in its orthography, for the different secretaries give "Philomathian," "Philomathean," "Philomatheon" as the name before the present Philomathaean became confirmed. The signification of the names, "lovers of learning," implies the object of the organization, "to create and cherish a taste for learning, and to promote sentiments of mutual regard and friend- THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 145 ship;" or, as afterwards modified, "to cultivate and diffuse among its members liberal principles, and to promote the great objects of social, moral, and intellectual improvements." The constitution provides for the election of all officers, for the admission and the dismissal of members, for fines and penalties, for meetings and work, for the formation and use of a library; and it emphasizes the requirement of each member to hold inviolate his duty to preserve a proper secrecy of the affairs of the society. One of the first peculiarities was the appointment of a "Room-keeper," taken in alphabetical order, to make all the arrangements necessary for holding the next meeting. He seems to have been keeper of the door, introducing any new or honorary member, but, in connection with his more dignified work, he was also "hewer of wood and drawer of water,'' polisher of lamps and factotum in general. This office was abandoned in the new college building, when a janitor become necessary on account of the increased work in hall, library and reading-rooms, and when the funds of the society allowed a consideration for services required. The meetings were first held on Friday evening, and as lamps were a necessity, with the order for their purchase was joined that of a "jug," or "bottle" for the use of the society. Now this bot-tle is evidently not the decanter held in bad repute, nor is the jug the famous "little brown jug," celebrated by the students in their later years in their rollicking glee; for the society was strongly in favor of total abstinence, as the votes on all temperance debates proved. As an illustration of the small beginnings of a society, there is an account of the purchase of a "suitable desk, or covert, for the use of the Secretary, library, lamps, etc." Some later Secretary has changed the v of covert to b, making it "cobert," having doubtless in mind the old family cupboard at home. From the day when a single desk or closet would accommodate not only the library, but the articles of the Secretary and the Janitor be-sides, to the present, when even the present library room has be-come too cramped to display all the volumes to advantage, an earnest of what may be expected in another half century is exhib-ited. Another illustration of small beginnings was the original initiation fee of fifty cents, which rose to two dollars and a half when the college obtained its charter, and not long afterwards to five dollars, at which figure it has since remained. 146 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. The first original declamation, by one of the still surviving founders (1882), by permission of the society, was in the German language. From the first the debate took high rank, and seemed to claim the highest interest of the members. The subjects chosen often bore directly upon their personal relations, and the first was upon their call or right to existence as a society. Then the ques-tion of social visiting, the granting of diplomas for partial or special courses of study, and other like topics, were discussed, as well as the questions of public interest in their day. The first anniversary celebration was held February 17, 1832, and the speeches were made by two of the founders. At first these exercises were held in the Gymnasium building, and invita-tions were sent to such persons as were supposed to appreciate literary entertainment. It may seem somewhat primitive at the present day to learn that '' a few verses '' were sung between the speeches, instead of the classical instrumental music furnished at later entertainments. Another novelty was the '' privilege given to those present of making any remarks to the society that might be thought proper. Afterward the exercises were held in the German church, until 1835, when they were transferred to the Presbyterian church, in consequence of obligations being made to the introduction of in-strumental music into the church. After 1836 the public exer-cises were held in Christ (college) church, then completed. In connection with the spring examinations, by request of the Professors, each society appointed an essayist, an orator, and a debater as performers at the closing exercises of the session. The exercises were to be original, and each society was to "chal-lenge" the other alternately to select the subject of debate. Thus originated the annual "contests," which grew in interest from year to year until 1849, when a dispute with the church officers brought all public exercises ofthe societies to a close forseveral years. The customary fees for the sexton and other incidents were asked for in advance, by a regulation of the church officers, in conse-quence of the difficulty of collecting them after the interest of the occasion had passed and the officers of the societies had been changed. This action being misapprehended as a charge for the use of the church, which was free to exercise under the direction of the faculty, or as a reflection upon the integrity of the socie-ties was resisted. Not satisfied with the explanation that the THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 147 sum assessed merely covered the expenses incident to the opening of the church, the societies memorialized the Board of Trustees on the question, who replied that the demand was not unreason-able; and thus ended the dispute and the contests at the same time. At the time of the earlier anniversaries, an honorary member was elected to deliver an address. From 1836 to 1853 an address was delivered each year before the societies jointly. From this time there have been annual and biennial addresses, the societies usually alternating in the choice. As a matter of history, between 1852 and 1855, with an organ-ization or union of the different literary societies of various col-leges, bearing the prae-nomen of Philo, and known as the "Philo Union," must not be omitted. It originated at Shelby College, Kentucky, and enrolled Philo Societies of more than a score of colleges, extending from New England to the West. Member-ship in any one of these societies secured admission to all the others, and a general plan of simultaneous anniversaries was pro-posed. The fraternal relations of the brotherhood were to be cul-tivated and the general interest to be promoted by a periodical es-tablished at some central institution; but the difficulties of practi-cal co-operation and the excessive labor of correspondence made the union of short duration, and a second generation of students scarcely learned of its existence. MONOTONY OF LIFE. THAT one could complain of the monotony of life, living in an age and in a nation like ours, certainly seems strange to a wide-awake person with an active mind. One certainly cannot get such an idea from nature in her ever changing forms, if one observes her. She assumes in turn every color known to us, the tender green of spring, the bounteous variety of blossoms and flowers, the splendor of the autumn foliage, the white mantles of snow and the brilliant sunsets. Instead of monotony to the observer it seems all unrest and change with hardly any continua-tion in the same line or place. There is variety in the life all around us, from the tiniest insect up to man ; there is continual change in the life of even the humblest individual. Great changes mmim 148 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. occur in all nations. Thought on different subjects changes, pub-lic opinion changes and is a mighty power worthy of a care-ful consideration. In fact everything changes with the pro-gress of civilization. Truly it is only the inactive mind and un-observant eye and the sluggish spirit that can for a moment imag-ine life to be monotonous. If we look closely we will notice certain principles running through life's changes. We see a union between the old and the new. It is the same old earth, it matters not under how many changes. The same trees are white with blossoms in the spring, green with foliage in the summer and brown and bare in the autumn. So with ourselves, a change of occupation or of resi-dence, a change in our financial circumstances, a marriage, a death, a journey, each brings a new experience for our old selves and forms a fresh union between our past and our present condi-tion. These things may bring happiness or sorrow for the time being, but they all have the power of enriching, enlarging and improving our characters and lives by making good additions to our stock of old experiences. Of course if we do not want it so, we can make it otherwise to a certain extent. We can be dull and inactive and cling to the old, see nothing in all the changing world about us, make no new friends, cling to old ideas, discuss no new methods, hold the same opinions and pride ourselves upon what we might call con-sistency, but which is really only thestubbornness of a mind which thinks that the world is becoming worse with new ideas, new methods and new experiences. We can plainly see that to lead a life like that is to cross our Maker's purpose, for his purpose was without doubt that we should grow into the full richness and value of manhood by cherishing our past experiences and learning well the lessons taught by them while we step forward into new and untried paths with vigor and hope. —R. Z. I., '00. 'Twas an evening of beauty ; the air was perfume, The earth was all greenness, the trees were all bloom And softly the delicate viol was heard, Like the murmur of love or the notes of a bird. —Whittier. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 149 ATHLETICS. BASEBALL, this year is not as successful in some senses as usual, but in others we can pride ourselves upon our team. In the beginning of the season they encountered six hard games in succession, five being away from home, and were greatly hindered by lack of sufficient practice. But in the later games they seem to have rounded well into form, and are playing pretty good ball. The greatest surprise of the year has been Roehner's pitching, he having developed wonderfully, and doing work which, with better support, would have won a number of the games which were lost. The season was opened 011 April 15th, with Franklin and Mar-shall on their grounds at Lancaster, and was won by Gettysburg by a score of 6 to 4. The game was very pretty, both sides play-ing good ball, except in one inning, when the F. and M. boys did their only scoring. The feature of the game was Lantz's home run over left field fence with two men on bases. The trip to the central part of the state was opened at Susque-hanna April 20th, when we were beaten 12 to 6, by a comedy of errors in the first three innings which netted the home team eight runs. After that the boys settled down and played well, but Sus-quehanna's lead was too great. On April 21st we beat Bucknell by a score of 12 to 7, through hard batting coupled with the best fielding of the season. The game throughout was highly interesting and exciting, being marked by a number of pretty plays. Roehner pitched a fine game, allowing Bucknell but six hits, to Gettysburg's eleven. State defeated us April 22d, by the score of 7 to 6 in a game that was very close and exciting, though marked by bad errors on both sides. Ketterman pitched a good game, receiving poor sup-port, while Farr was knocked out of the box, and Morgan sub-stituted. At Bloomsburg, March 24th, we were defeated by the Normal School by the score of 14 to 4. The Normal boys have a good team, but it is only right to say that they would not have beaten us so badly if it had not been for the umpire. The first home game was with Dickinson on April 27th, when we were beaten by a score of 15 to 6. The game was poorly played on both sides, but tight until the sixth inning, when it THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. was tied, after which our boys went to pieces, and Dickinson brought in nine more runs. We were beaten for the second time by Susquehanna Univer-sity on Nixon Field, May 5th, the score being 6 to 5. Our team did far better work in every way than the visitors, but their only two errors were costly, bringing in four runs, aud^poor judgment in base-running at a couple critical points lost a game by what can be termed nothing but hard luck. Games scheduled with the Indians and Dickinson at Carlisle were unavoidably canceled and prevented by rain respectively, and the next game was on Nixon Field with Franklin and Mar-shall, who were beaten in a very pretty game by the same score as in first game, 6-4. They were shut out until the eighth, and secured but four hits in all off Roehner. The Preps have manifested a good college spirit this year by getting up a team that is doing good work in its class. They were beaten by Dickinson Prep at Carlisle, 13-4, and returned the compliment on Nixon Field by the score of 13-9. They also played against '01's team, by whom they were beaten in a one-sided game by a score of 15-0. At the relay carnival at the University of Pennsylvania, April 29th, we were classed with Dickinson, Bucknell, Franklin and Marshall, and Ursinus, and came in fourth in one of the speediest races of the day. Dickinson won, having a clear lead, and Buck-nell, F. & M., and Gettysburg came in in the order named, bunched very close together, with Ursinus trailing some distance in the rear. Probably the most interesting and significant event in athletics of recent years was the dual meet with Dickinson held on Nixon Field, May 17. We were defeated, the score of points being 60 to 28, but can feel that the meet was a success as far as we are concerned, for it has given track athletics the impetus which it has needed so long. Dickinson won all the first places except the high hurdle, captured by Koller, '00, and the high jump a tie between Albers, '99, and Brown, of Dickinson. Our men showed however, that they could have done far better work with proper training, and we believe that they have caught the spirit now, and we can turn out a winning team next year. —W. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Flowery June, When brooks send up a cheerful tune, And groves a joyful sound. JX 151 —Bryant. And what is so rare as a day in June ? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then heaven tries the earth if it be in time, And over it softly her warm ear lays. -Lowell. And so beside the silent sea I wait the muffled oar; No harm from Him can come to me On ocean or on shore. I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air ; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care. — Whittier. The last bird I ever fired at was an eaglet on the shore of the Gulf of Ir\DT Successor to W. J7. VAJLAJKl, Simon J. Codori Dealer in Beef, Pork, Lamb, Veal, Sausage. Special rates to Clubs. York St., GETTYSBURG. Davib Croxel, Dealer trt ^ine groceries anb ttottons «-x4}ork Street. .GO TO. CHAS. E. BARBEHENN, Barber, In the Eagle Hotel, Cor. Main and Washington Sts. YOHN BROS. Agents for the Keystone State, Waldo, Washburn, Groupner & Meyer. Highest Grade Mandolins, Guitars, Banjos, Mandollas and Mandocellos. Headquarters for Phonographs, G-raphophones and supplies. Trimmings of every description. All sheet music one-half off. Large discounts on Books and studies. 326 Market St., Harrisburg, Pa. FAVOR THOSE WHO FAVOR US. Baseball v>tipptie& .Spaloing's league JSall, /Iftits, jflftaelie, Etc. Managers should send for samples and special rates. Every requisite for aennf0, ©olf, Grtcftet, Gracft ano fftelo, ©Ktnnastum Equipments anD ©utfite Complete Catalogue Spring and Summer Sports Free. The Name the Guar-antee." a. ©. SpalOing SL JBros. New York .". Philadelphia Chicago ROWE, .Your Grocer. Carries Full Line of Groceries, Canned Goods, Etc, Best Coal Oil and Brooms at most Reasonable Prices. OPPOSITE COLLEGE CAMPUS. S. /. CODORI, Jr. t* Druggists Dealer in Drugs, Medicines, Toilet Articles, J> Stationery, Blank Books, Amateur Pho-tographic Supplies, Etc., Etc. .Baltimore Street. R. H. Culp, PAPER HANGER, Second Square, York St. COLLEGE EMBLEMS. EMIL ZOTHE, ENGRAVER, DESIGNER AND MANUFACTURING JEWELER. 19 S. NINTH ST. PHILADELPHIA. PA. SPECIALTIES: Masonic Marks, Society Badges, College Buttons, Pins, Scarf Pins, Stick Pins and Athletic Prizes. All Goods ordered through C. H. Tilp. Gotrell & Leonard, 472-474 Broadway, Albany, N. Y. makers of CAPS, GOWNS and. HOODS To the leading- American Colleges. Illus-trated Manual, etc., upon application. Meneely Bell Co. TROY, N. Y. MANUFACTURERS OF SUPERIOR BELLS The 2000 pound bell now ringing in the tower of Pennsylvania Col-lege was manufactured at this foundry. r . nmmwmmiiMMMmwimmmmmm PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. You can't expect to create the im-pression that you are well dressed unless your clothes are MADE FOR YOU. Equivocate as you may, the fact remains that ready-made garments lack that air of exclusiveness which custom work possesses. J. D. LIPPY, Merchant Tailor 39 Chambersburg St., Gettysburg, Pa. G. E. SPANGLER, ^ Dealer in Pianos, Organs, Music, Musical Instruments, Strings, Etc. YORK STREET, 1ST SQUARE. GETTYSBURG. L. D. Miller, Grocer, Confectioner and Fruiterer. Ice Cream and Oysters in Season . . . \0) lUaxn St., ©ettusburg. City Hotel, Main St. Gettysburg. Free 'Bus to and from all Trains Thirty seconds' walk from either depot Dinner with drive over field with four or more, $1.35 Rates $1.50 to $2.00 per day. John E. Hughes, Prop. WlLLlHSURE^OUR^ lfiiilnl'iil¥rii;TJH w&receipt ot SI0-0 A6AINST ILLNESS., PHYSICIANS'* PLUMBERS- ' BILLS.DUETO IMPURE AIR, ^ FROM CLOGGEDjJ^'HS flew York, Bosfo/i. P/>//dde//i/>/fr<}/7c/sco. lo/?

JUNE, J899 ooTlhe, Qettysbur ercury CONTENTS. Our College Home 117 The 1900 Spectrum 119 Tick-tack-to 120 A Hero's Reward 123 An Art Fad 125 Retrieved 128 Editor's Desk, 131 Hypnotism 131 " The Influence of Christianity on Roman Jurisprudence ". 134 The Conflict of the Ag-es 139 The Philomathaean Society 144 Monotony of Life 147 Athletics 149 YMMUM FAVOR THOSE WHO FAVOR US. wmomrn For Fine Printing GO TO The J. E. WIBLE .Printing Rouee Carlisle Street, GETTYSBURG, PA. C. B. Kitzmiller, Dealer in Hats, Caps, Boots and . Douglas Shoes GETTYSBURG, PA. J. H. Myers, Fashionable Tailor, Clothier and Gents' Furnisher. The best place in town to have your Cloth-ing made to order. All workmanship and Trimmings guaranteed. No charge for re-pairs and pressing for one year. Dyeing and Repairing a specialty. Ready-made Clothing the largest stock in town. Up-to-date styles. Bicycle Suits and Breeches Headquarters. 11 Baltimore St., Gettysburg, Pa. R. A. WONDERS, Corner Cigar Parlors. A full line of Cigars, Tobacco, Pipes, Etc. Scott's Corner, Opp. Eagle Hotel. GETTYSBURG, A. Have you an assured livelihood? "Would you try for a government posi-tion, if you knew just how to apply, and the kinds of positions from which you can choose, and what to do to insure your getting on the list after you have applied! The Government of the United States is the best of employers. Fair compen-sation, regularity of payment, reason-ably Bure tenure, tasks not too difficult, | ana hours not too I ong, offer strong at-tractions to young persons of both sexes whohavenosettledinuome. Manyenter Government employ, spend their spare i hours in studying law or medicine, or finance, and save enough from their salaries to start in a professional or business career. We have just published a book from whichanj/candidate maylearnjustwhat is necesaary and what unnecessary in brushing up his studies for an examina-tion ; and what his chances are, all things considered, for making bis way into the Civil Service, and staying there. The title of this book is " How to Prepnre for a Civil Service Examination; With Recent Questions and An-swers." It contains all Information which any candidate would require to firepare for any competitive office under ' he Government, and includes a "Ten Weeks' Course of 8tudy,"ln the form of questions actually asked at recent ex-aminations, with the correct answers to i them. Besides the technical require- ' mentSjitalso covers all the elementary branches, like arithmetic, spelling, pen- , manship, geography, letter writing, civil government, etc., etc., so that one who masters this course of study would not only pass well an examination for a gov- , ernment position, but would be sure of I preferment over other applicants for a clerkship in a business house. CLOTH—$2.00 Postpaid—560 PAGES Anotherbookfree(Quickat Figures)if you mention this paper when ordering. HINDS A NOBLE, Publishers 4-5-13-14 Cooper Institute, N. Y. City Schoolbooks ofallpublishers at one store .THE. GETTYSBURG MERCURY Entered at the Postoffice at Gettysburg as second-class matter. Voi,. VIII. GETTYSBURG, PA., JUNE, 1899. No. 4 Editor-in- Chief. J. FRANK EEILMAN, '00. Alumni Editor. REV. F. D. GARLAND. Assistant Editors. LUTHER A. WEIGLE, '00. S. A. VAN ORMER, '01. Business Manager. Assistant Business Manager. JOHN K. HAMACHER, '00. CLARENCE MOORE, '02. Advisory Board. PROF. J. A. HIMES, L,IT. D. PROF. G. D. STAHLEY, M. D. PROF. J. W. RICHARD, D. D. Published monthly by the students of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. Subscription price One Dollar a year in advance, single copies Fifteen Cents. Students, Professors and Alumni are cordially invited to contribute. All subscriptions and business matter should be addressed to the Business Manager. Articles for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY, GETTYSBURG, PA. OUR COLLEGE HOME. Oh bright for us the sunbeams rest On tower and town with rosier glow, On sentry Round Top's rugged crest And on the immortal Ridge below, Where marble Victory's fadeless bays The patriot soldier crown, And History graves for future days The deeds of his renown. CHORUS—Then ring we clear a loyal cheer, Wnere'er we rest or roam, For Gettysburg, for Gettysburg, Our famous College home,— Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah ! O fair for us the moonlight falls, To brighten with its silver flame At once the stately College halls wmm 118 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. And the memorials of fame That peer from every grove and grange, And in their silence tell That here heroic spirits range O'er meads of asphodel. CHORUS—Then ring we clear a loyal cheer, Where'er we rest or roam, For Gettysburg, for Gettysburg, Our honored College home,— Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah ! O soft for us the shadows play Among the Campus elms, and woo To merry converse and delay From tasks we busily pursue. Ah Youth and Friendship, how ye charm In Learning's calm abode,— True Graces, twining arm in arm On sweet Arcadian sod ! CHORUS—Then ring we clear a loyal cheer, Where'er we rest or roam, For Gettysburg, for Gettysburg, Our glorious College home,— Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! At morn the duty-call of bells Rings clear and urgent, near and far, At eve a gentler music swells From gleeful viol or guitar. O jolly is the life we lead In study, song or games ! O fortunate the fate indeed That here inscribes our names ! CHORUS—Then ring- we clear a loyal cheer, . Where'er we rest or roam, For Gettysburg, for Gettysburg, Our dear old College home,— Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah ! Energy will do anything that can be done in this world; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities will make a two-legged animal a man without it. —Goethe. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 119 THE J900 SPECTRUM. THE most recent claimant, in our midst, to literary and ar-tistic honors, is the class of 1900. Its Spectrum, just is-sued, challenges our admiration from start to finish, and we heartily accord to it equal rank with the best of our college annuals, thus far issued. The form of the book, and the general arrangement of its con-tents, show a pleasing appreciation of responsibility in the plac-ing of details to secure good effects. There has been an evident purpose on the part of the printers, publishers, managers, artists and editors, to produce a work which should be alike creditable to themselves, as well as to the college which this publication represents. The volume is fittingly dedicated to Prof. Klinger, who is justly characterized as "both teacher and fellow student." The various classes and associations are given due recogni-tion by verbal statement, cut, pencil and photograph. The latter are unusually good throughout and constitute an attractive fea-ture. The sketches, are, as a rule, very clearly executed, and are amusing without being either vulgar or rude. The "Literary Record of Gettysburg Alumni," is an import-ant feature and will add permanency to the value of this publication. It will be interesting and profitable for our alumni and friends to have a record of this sort for handy reference. The "Spanish War Record" is not less interesting and valu-able. It is something for us to be proud of, that when our coun-try needed men to prosecute a war in the interests of humanity, against a cruel oppressor, that twenty-eight men, from our grad-uate and undergraduate ranks, cheerfully enlisted and did honor-able service. The humorous thoughts and aspects of college life, receive literary embodiment in the concluding pages of the volume. These show a commendable degree of appreciation of humor, in both possible and impossible, but easily imagined situations. It is a pity that so much of this kind of literature, must necessarily go unappreciated, for it requires an acquaintance with the dramatis personae and the conditions under which described events happen, in order to extract all the flavor of humor which makes them en-joyable. ■MMtimp mum. 120 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. This volume is certainly deserving of hearty recognition, and it is hoped that many of our alumni and friends of the college, will show their appreciation of the arduous labors of the class by acquiring a copy. Reader,—it will add permanent value to your library. Send for a copy at once. —G. D. S. TICK-TACK-TO. THERE is scarcely a conversation indulged in with a greater relish, by persons of a maturer age, than that relating to bygone games and pastimes. The children love to linger by the hearth and will listen with rapt attention, as their father relates to them the strange and antiquated games of his boyhood days. There are, perhaps, few things that brighten the eyes of our sires more readily than mere mention of puerile games. They love to cast away the titles of Rev., Dr., or Mr. and think of the time " when you were Bill and I was Joe " and, if one is in their presence when they are exchanging reminiscences he may be both instructed and agreeably entertained. Nor is the relish for this peculiar sort of conversation peculiar to those who have already passed the meridian of life and can no more win for themselves the eclat of the beholding multitude, or the more modest commendation of a few admiring friends, or even the laudatory look of defeated opponents. It belongs also to us. What conversation can be introduced into our college boudoirs that will be more highly appreciated and rejuvenate happier reminiscences than that relating to the games we used to play. The occasional rehearsing of them forms a condiment whose pungency quickens our appetites for more solid and substantial forms of mental food. As such, however, they tend only to excite pleasure and enter-tain, and are evanescent in their effects. If, on the other hand, we view them in a more serious manner and forget them as prolific of. an almost boundless store of sport and hilarity, we may not only become instructed but learn, to our amazement perhaps, that we are playing the same old games to-day. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 121 To demonstrate this we might choose almost any one of the limited number of juvenile games as an example. Since they all bring forth some phase of life and all contain some suggestion for reflection. Blind-man's-buff for instance, teaches us how gro-tesquely we often grope after the fleeing prizes of life. Leap-frog portrays to us the use to which we are sometimes put by men of ulterior motives and the humility connected therewith, but there are some, however, whose peculiarities stand out in bolder relief than in others ; some whose lessons are more drastic than others, and in few is this more obvious than in the triplicate game of tick-tack-to. It is very simple and probably the most universally known game of childhood. As a palladium against the captiousness of the nursery its charm is talismanic. In point of economy there are few games that excel it: a pencil, a slate or a small slip of paper with two parallel lines drawn perpendicularly upon it and two similar ones crossing them horizontally constitute all that there is of a material outlay. A series of three marks occupying three successive spaces in any direction brings to a proper conclusion the course of the game and suggests to us now, what in childhood's happy hours were arcanums unraveled. One of them is contained in the nature of the game. Unlike many other of our juvenile pastimes tick-tack-to is not a game of luck nor chance but a game of skill and intelligence. Were it a game of luck we would be at a loss to derive any lessons from it and could certainly not compare it to life; since those who have attained to the highest success in life cherish little hope for the man who depends on luck. One of our beloved martyred Presidents, the lamented Jas. A. Garfield, once said, "Luck is an ignis fatuus. It leads to ruin but never to success." The idea that certain men are rich, or prosperous, or popular, because they were born under such circumstances under which it would be impossible for them to be otherwise, finds little credence among successful men. It is not the man who is born at a certain time, in a certain place and under certain environments who attains to success but he who works; he who is active; he who is alive to every oppor-tunity; he whose every mark is prompted by an intelligent judgment. 122 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Another deduction that we can 333ke from the game and apply to life is the mode of procedure. "We used to play7 it under dif-ficulties. Our advance was retarded by opposition. This of course is a common condition to all games and would not distinguish this particular one from any other; but the unique-ness of it lies in the fact that the opposition is created by one op-ponent and only one. Thus in the game of life we proceed against hindrances and against hindrances of but one opponent. Who is that opponent? Who is he, or what is it, that barricades our onward march every time we take a stride toward success ? Who is he who with rude hand dashes a cross before our line of progress every time our success is partially and almost entirely accomplished ? Is he to be found in the personality of some one other than ourselves ? May we detect him among the multitudes that pass before us from day to day ? May we discover him among those with whom we are continually associated ? No, prospection will never reveal him, introspection may. We have but one opponent to contend with, and that oppo-nent is self, the lower self; the material as opposed to the spiritual self. We sometimes suppose that our embarrassments in life, are traceable to external circumstances, to some person or company of persons, or to some combination of circumstances. But they are only the marks used by ourselves against our-selves. They form the media through which our lower nature reacts upon the higher and thus continues the dualisdc game of life. St. Bernard appreciating this fact once said "Nothing can do me damage but myself," and if we wish to reject authority can we not by a little self-examination verify this statement within the scope of our own experience ? Does not the soul in becoming cognizant of the virtue of a certain act urge us to do it ? Does it not in the language of the game place its mark in one of the spaces ? What follows ? The body shrinks from the performance of the act. It opposes the impulse of the soul. It places its mark directly before the one already made. No sooner has this taken place than the conscience comes into prominence. Not willing to acquiesce with one repulse it incites us to a redoubled effort. It places its mark before the THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 123 original one in another direction. This being done up swell the passions and endeavor with vehemence to thwart the noble im-pulse and crush all that is holy and pure in man. So the game proceeds with vacillating fortunes until the lower or the higher na-ture is conqueror. A contest it is trying and severe, unheard by mortal ear, un-seen by mortal eye. Revealed only to Him under whose dispen-sation it is possible and under whose guidance only, success is at-tainable. —MARKS. A HERO'S REWARD. IN the spring of 1825, Mr. Perry decided to sell his plantation, very reluctantly however, for it was here that he was born, and then with his family, which consisted of his wife, a son, Philip, and a daughter, Mabel, to go North. It was at Mr. Hall's suggestion that he located in a small town in the northern part of New Jersey and went into business with him. These two families had known each other for years and naturally at once there sprung up a friendship between Philip Perry and Mr. Hall's only son and child, Tom; but from the start Tom seemed to have an especial regard for Mabel, which grew into an affection as they grew in years. The Perrys belonged to one of the old, aristocratic, south-ern families, and were, as most such families were, wealthy. The Halls were also quite independent, though not in such affluent circumstances. The two boys were sent to a small military academy near New York and graduated in the same class. A short time after this Mr. Hall was taken ill and died very suddenly, and a year later Mrs. Hall died through grief for her dead husband. Mr. Perry was also affected by his partner's death and having closed out the business, moved South and located in Richmond, Va. He in-sisted that Tom should go along and make his home with them, and Tom, with a little persuasion from Mabel, did so. The boys went to a southern college, where they stood high both in their class and in the esteem of their fellow students, for they were good, jolly boys. During this time the affection be-tween Mabel and Tom ripened into love and Tom often wished in-wardly that some day he might win Mabel for his wife. y—^——™—™——— miyiiyi 124 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. After their college days both young men had entered Mr. Perry's employ and held positions of trust and responsibility in his cotton mill. So well, indeed, did they manage their work, that Mr. Perry was about to entrust the entire management to them when that dreadful war, which so nearly resulted in the division of our Union, was declared. Recognizing his duty, Philip Perry at once left home and enlisted in the 9th Virginia Regiment. Tom Hall hesitated. He was undecided as to what to do. He knew full well that his duty was to go North and join a Northern regiment, and yet—if he went, it meant, as Mabel had said, that all would end between them, for Mabel was a Southern girl. What was he to do ? On the one side he could hear the call to duty, on the other Mabel wanted him, if he went at all, to go with "Phil." At last his love for his country conquered even his love for Mabel and as a true patriot he secretly made his way north and enlisted in the 1st New Jersey, which was mustered in at his old home. It is needless to follow these two soldiers through the entire campaign, but suffice it to say that they soon rose to high positions in their respective regiments on account of their bravery. On the evening of July 2, 1863, General Dee, who was in command of the Confederate forces at Gettysburg, realizing his perilous position and possibly expecting defeat, decided to make one final, desperate attempt to break through the Union line. That evening he had been reinforced by Stuart's Cavalry and was therefore hopeful of success. His plan was to pierce the Union line at a point now called the "High Water Mark," for that was the turning point of the greatest battle of the Civil War. Everyone has heard of Pickett's famous charge and how the men of the two armies fought hand to hand over the old stone wall. The 9th Virginia belonged to Armistead's brigade, which was almost annihilated in this charge; yet many were not killed outright, but after suffering untold agony, gave up their lives for the cause they thought right. During this battle, a number of regiments were held in reserve and among this number was the 1st New Jersey. On the evening of July 3d, the news of the famous charge of Pickett's Division and the successful repulse was reported among the various Union regiments, and of course reached the 1st New Jersey. \THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 125 Colonel Tom Hall recalled the fact that Philip Perry had en-listed in the 9th Virginia, and he imagined he heard some one say that he was dying on the field. Before dawn he had mounted his faithful horse and galloped off in the direction of the "clump of trees." For some time he searched, but all in vain, and he was about to leave when he heard a terrible groan a short dis-tance beyond the wall on the Union side. It startled him and he drew up his horse, dismounted and stooped over the half-dead body of a Confederate officer. Imagine his surprise to find his old friend, Philip Perry! He gently bound up his wounds and raising him, placed him on his horse and rode slowly back to his regiment. Major Perry remained in a semi-conscious state for several days and when he came to, he found himself in Colonel Hall's tent and over him was stooping his dear sister, washing off the blood stains and dressing his wounds. As soon as Major Perry was strong enough to be moved, Colonel Hall had him exchanged for a Northern officer, who was confined in one of the Southern prisons. However, before Major Perry was taken to his home in Rich-mond, the old love between Mabel and Colonel Hall had over-come all difficulties between them and under a tree not far from where Major Perry had fallen, he witnessed a short ceremony, performed by the Chaplain of the 1st New Jersey, in which Colo-nel Hall received "A Hero's Reward," the long desired hand of Mabel in marriage. —W. G. L. '01. «**£> AN ART FAD. IN these days when fads in almost every line of trade and pro-fession are so prominent, one is not surprised to find that there is such a thing as a fad in art also. The particular one selected for the subject of this essay is that style so prominent at this time in the art. of painting—the poster. The poster occu-pies the same place in the art of painting as do dialect stories in literature or syncopated rhythm, i. e. the so-called "rag-time" in music. Not any of these is a recent creation but rather a recent craze. For instance, considered from a scientific standpoint, "rag-time" has been co-eval with the history of music. 126 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Beethoven and Mozart wrote it and even in the incomparable fugures of Bach we encounter it. And in literature, dialect did certainly not originate with James Whitcomb Riley. The possibilities of the colored poster were first made known to English and French artists when the great flaming advertise-ments of Barnum were first placed upon the exposed places of London and Paris. The influence of these American advertising posters became prominent and at once both England and France began to contribute colored products in poster art, which, while far more artistic than the pictures of Wild West performers, were not after all so widely different in outline, color and other quali-ties. Between that day when vivid and crude design was pre-dominant, and to-day when the artistic poster is so much in evi-dence, there is a considerable advance apparent. Simultaneous with the growth of the poster and practically very beneficial was the adoption of it by the up-to-date theatre for advertising purposes. And it lends itself admirably for this pur-pose. It has also been a favorite mode of advertising in the com-mercial world, but one sees less of its use in this manner now than formerly. In the literary advertising department, the poster still is very prominent and is the usual way of calling the attention of the public to the merits of some special edition of a publication. With the rise of the poster came collectors of posters ; in America alone, there are said to be over 6000 persons who devote themselves to this pursuit. Poster literature and expositions too have come into existence. Of the different nations and in point of art, France, as usual, leads. The "father of the modern poster," as he has been called, M. Cheret, however, says that he owes his first inspiration to the Barnum lithographs. America is greatly indebted to France in this line of art. One of the foremost poster artists who, before he studied in Paris, used to draw the gorgeous theatre lithographs, came back to America and completely transformed the coarse ex-aggerated travesties. For this reason Matt. Morgan stands high among the American poster artists. Of the English school, Aubrey Beardsley is probably the best known. He is said to be always "scholarly" and while "char-acteristic," yet he never loses sight of the fundamental principles of the art in his work. The purchase of a celebrated art-poster called "Bubbles" by the proprietors of a certain soap, seemed to THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 127 give a new impetus to the poster art in England, and many artists no longer hesitated to enter the ranks of poster painters. In Germany, the poster has not developed very rapidly or sat-isfactorily. German artists in every line of art work seem to ad-here strongly to allegorical symbols and types. This is evident in the tonal art as well as in painting. Probably the best known of the German school is Heine, who creates posters for several humorous periodicals. Austria seems to have paid little or no attention to the art; one can find no mention of Austrians who won a reputation for them-selves except in the line of music. All other arts seem to be con-sidered unworthy any attention. There is a poster art school in Belgium which has won a prominent position in this line of art. Though it requires a considerable amount of education on cer-tain lines to enable one to understand correctly any art—such a training, for instance as a good art-critic possesses—yet it is pos-sible for almost any one to appreciate, to some extent, at least, the art of poster painting. Tolstoi .says, "When I call up an emotion which I have ex-perienced, arid by signs, words, colors, sounds, transfer this emo-tion to another, that is art." Bearing this definition in mind and using it as a test, attention is called to a few examples of posters, each peculiarly distinctive in one manner or other. Probably one of the most striking and unique of the products of American artists was the poster announcing a special issue of the New York Sun. A woman with a trailing purple mantle walks through a green meadow, one hand uplifted with a warning ges-ture as if to command silence. The graceful though striking de-sign indicates a fertile imagination as the originator of it. That the creator—~L,. I. Rhead—is not only highly imaginative and fanciful but even verging upon the eccentric is evidenced by others of his productions, in one of which he has painted a woman with a cloak of dark green, outlined boldly against an orange back-ground. Among the posters published by Harpers Bros., was one en-titled "The Letter Box," which, though simple in ideas yet proved very effective. A little Cupid standing on tip-toe, drops a valentine in the slot of the corner letter-box. The entire pic-ture is not at all pretentious, but entirely characteristic and well adapted. ■pJMfiM 128 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Another poster published by the same firm in 1892 is worthy of noting because of the manner in which the lettering is incor-porated in the picture. "The Wooly Horse" representing Napoleon I. on horseback overlooking the battlefield,—with a fiery sky for background, was a very successful poster published by the Century Co. A famous American artist in this line is W. H. Bradley, whose work resem-bles somewhat that of Aubrey Beardsley. His posters seem to have a peculiar melancholy in their expression. Among the prominent advertisements of merchandise, that of Pears' Soap—a humorous sketch of a ragged tramp—is, with its forcible inscription, one of the most prominent. An original idea was brought out by an English artist in the use of the "Silhouette"—a black figure outlined in white stand-ing out against a black background. The manufacturers of a certain blueing, first used this style of poster for an advertise-ment. An advance in poster drawing was made after the several ex-positions of posters which have been held lately. One of these, held in Belgium in 1894, served to propagate extensively the new ideas of the French and the Belgian schools. How long this fad will last, is difficult to predict. It is highly probable, however, that the art will advance with such strides in some particular direction that the new development will com-pletely swallow up the present popular poster style,—a style, which has been characterized as a "phantasy most horrid and de-testable." —W. W. F. '00. RETRIEVED. JIM HAL,Iy, an inhabitant of the village of Alberton, had the reputation of being the most cowardly man to be found in ten counties. He was known to sleep at night with his room door double-barred and the windows tightly fastened, for fear of being killed in his bed by some wandering burglar. He believed in ghosts and witches ; and the small boys often took advantage of this superstitious fear and belief by placing a white sheet over a stick and when Jim came along, waving it wildly. Jim ran like THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 129 a deer for home and next day was made the butt of innumerable jokes. This fear of Jim's was to be accounted for only by the fact that from his birth his mother had shielded him from all dan-ger and taught him to look to her as his natural protector. So when he had come to manhood he had not learned to rely upon himself. He often tried to overcome his cowardice but could not do so when the critical moment came. Affairs were in this state up to the year 1862 when the report was circulated in Alberton that Jim Hall had disappeared from the village. No one had seen him go away, so all the villagers could do was to make suppositions as to his whereabouts. Some thought he had run away for fear of being drafted into the service. A large number of the able-bodied men of the village had already joined as volunteers and now it was reported that additional men were needed and that these would be taken by drafting through-out the whole North. Just the day before Jim Hall's disappear-ance the report was brought that the drafting of Alberton men would take place in four days. So there were some grounds for the common belief that Jim had run away to escape the war. One can easily imagine their surprise when the next day they heard that he had gone to the camp of the Army of the Potomac and had been enlisted as a private soldier. The people treated it as a great joke and many were the jests at poor Jim's expense about his long legs standing him in good stead when a time of great danger should come. However Jim had realty joined the army and was by a lucky chance placed in the same company with the other Alberton men who had gone out long before as volunteers. And as another piece of good fortune the man who was now captain of the com-pany— the former captain having been killed shortly before—had been the only man in the village of Alberton who had not jeered and laughed at his cowardice. This gentleman, a Mr. Leonard, had been a friend of both of Jim's parents and when Jim's father died had been appointed guardian to Jim. He now encouraged Jim to make a man of himself and was the instrument of Jim's doing so. Soon under their gallant leaders they were fighting the rebels with varying success about the swamps and morasses of the Chickahominy. In the battle of Chancellorsville, lost though dearly sold, our hero was in the thick of the fight. At the first mmmw 130 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. shock, however, he turned as if to flee, but at the word of his commander he turned and fought so bravely and so well that he was commended by his captain. Nearly two months later he found himself marching north-ward with his companions to try to check the invasion which the victorious Lee was making upon the North. On July 1st they found themselves on the peaceful fields of Gettysburg so soon to be turned into a veritable slaughter pen. In the first day's fight their regiment was stationed at Seminary Ridge with several other regiments to check the advance of the so far victorious rebels until further reinforcements should come up. Soon the overwhelming numbers of the Confederates forced the greater part to fall back and one lone battered and torn regi-ment was left to face the storm. It was too late to retreat now and almost useless to fight longer, but the blood of the Halls who had fought in the Revolution suddenly came coursing through the veins of Jim, and seizing the colors from the color bearer who had just been shot down Jim waved them aloft and shouted, "Come on boys, don't run, only cowards run." As he uttered the words a volley from the enemy, who had now almost sur-rounded the gallant man and his little band, laid poor Jim low and silenced forever the heart which had just learned that it still had brave blood to force through a manly body. Now indeed had Jim retrieved his name from the most disgraceful blot which can be put on any man's name. The rest of the command were captured and taken prisoners. Several years after they were ex-changed and when those Alberton men who had come safely through the war had returned home, they never tired of telling how nobly Jim Hall had proven that he no longer was the coward whom they had once despised. —V. FREY, '01. c®P June falls asleep upon her bier of flowers; In vain are dew drops sprinkled o'er her, In vain would fond winds fan her back to life Her hours are numbered on the floral dial. * * * June is dead, Dead, without dread or pain, her gayest "Wreaths twined with her own hands for her funeral. —Lucy Larcotn. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. EDITOR'S DESK. 131 THE '00 Spectrum is ample proof that the catalogue of special features has not been exhausted. As it is customary for the Junior class in publishing a Spectrum to make a special feature, '00 has chosen the "Literary Record of Gettysburg Alumni.'' This feature alone would make thepresent Spectrttm val-uable, as well as interesting. Few besides those who have worked upon such a feature can form any idea of the toil and care re-quired to carry it to a successful issue. Certainly it is but justice that the college paper, in the name of the students of Gettys-burg, congratulates the editor and assistant editor, by whom the "Literary Record" has been compiled and arranged, upon their useful, hard work. But not only may the individuals, on whom rested the responsibility for such a task, be congratulated; Gettys-burg may congratulate herself upon the present annual, which un-doubtedly will be regarded for years as a model of neat, original work. Articles by our alumni relating to Gettysburg, would be re-ceived eagerly by the MERCURY. Stories about college life as it was some years ago, the difference between Gettysbtirg of to-day and Gettysburg of the past, or almost any article of like kind, would find space in our pages. The MERCURY would be glad to print poems by the alumni, as well as prose. HYPNOTISM. HYPNOTISM, as best defined, is a nervous artificial sleep. The same thing was formerly called animal magnetism. Hypnotism applies to a definite nervous state and is brought about mostly in persons having a delicate nervous system. The first true inquirer into hypnotism was Dr. Baird. He saw some experiments performed by a professional maguetizer and at once decided that they were merely an arrangement to deceive the people, but after careful observation and study into the methods of producing a state of hypnotism, he decided that it was genuine. After careful study and experiment, he decided that there was no such a thing as a magnetic fluid flowing from the mind of the operator to that of the subject; but that the true cause of hypno- ■mmtnm 132 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. tism lay in the fact that the nerves of one of the senses become deadened by over exertion or constant concentration on a point, and on this account become powerless to act and the person goes into a deep sleep or lethargy. In this, his followers disagree with the other school, headed chiefly by I,afosataine. He asserted that hypnotism was produced by a fluid, known as the magnetic fluid, which passed from one person to another and by its attraction could cause a person of strong will to have complete control of a person of weaker will power, being able to compel him to do anything commanded. Baird was led to his theory by the fact that his subject, while under the influence of this power, was unable to open the eyes. He at once came to the conclusion that excessive fatigue was the only thing that could cause this strange phenomenon as he made no attempt at personal magnetism in producing the sleep. His experiment was performed in the following way. He asked his subject to sit and look steadily at the neck of a wine bottle and allow his mind to wander. The bottle was placed at such an elevation as to cause considerable fatigue to the eyes. After three minutes the subject's eyes were filled with tears, then his eyelids closed and a little later he was in a sound sleep. This experiment proved beyond doubt that a person can be hypnotized without the presence of a second person or operator; but can do it himself by an experiment made under similar circumstances as mentioned above. Baird pursued his discoveries and with the aid of numerous other experiments tried hard to have hypnotism recognized as a science. They were not successful, however, and to-day it is re-garded mostly as something for a show, or to interest the people, without much regard to its cause and the scientific qualities. The most familiar form of producing the state of hypnotism is the following : the operator directs the subject to have no par-ticular thought on his mind, but to let it wander, and gaze steadily into his eyes. After that he generally makes a few passes with the hands, gently rubbing the eyelids, etc., until his subject is in a sound sleep. In explanation of this method I would say that the gazing into the eyes of the operator for some time, is exactly the same as looking at a brilliant object, both have the same effect of fatiguing the nerves of the eye and producing sleep. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 133 This is strikingly illustrated in an experiment with a frog. If a frog is taken in the hand, having the thumb resting on the stomach, and the back gently rubbed ; the animal will go to sleep at once and can be stretched into all sorts of shapes. Another way, as has been stated before, is that of looking steadily at some object. It has also been discovered that the other senses have the same power as that of sight. Thus if you produce monotony in music sleep is produced. Sharp suspense or fright has the same effect of transfixing some people and this has been decided by students of the science ( as it is called by the disciples of hypnotism) to be hypnotism. After careful study it has been proven that the senses of taste and of smell have the same strange effect. As regards the uses of hypnotism little of importance can be said. It is used mostly by professional showmen who call up subjects from their audience or may have them with them. They compel them to do anything they command. One of the common-est ways and also the best to show the entire oblivion of the subject, is the experiment with the letter. The subject is handed a letter and told it is an orange, he immediately eats it with great relish, then if told it is sour at once spits it out with an expres-sion of disgust on his face, showing the subject believes every-thing the operator tells him and is entirely at his command. This, however, was never intended for the chief use of hypno-tism. The experimenters tried to use it in surgery, etc., but it has been found that while some people are easily influenced others give much trouble, so that it would be impracticable to use it in a case of amputation when ether or chloroform serves the same purpose more quickly and better. It has been settled, however, that strong habits can be changed. Persons who have been accus-tomed to strong habits all their lives have been entirely changed and new habits formed. Thus, while very little has been definitely decided about this strange phenomenon, there is every indication that some day in the near future, it will be taken up by experimenters and philoso-phers, thoroughly sifted, and then be proven to be of great value in many respects. It is now in its infancy. —C. J. D. '00. wmm 134 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. "THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE." CHRISTIANITY and civilization in its highest degree of ex-cellence are synonomous, hand in hand like two insepara-bles we find them enthroned upon a majestic seat, ruling, guiding, influencing, and may we say carving the destiny of every great nation. If a country is civilized and christianized we need no other proof to be convinced of her pre-eminence and suprem-acy. A glance will show us also that such countries have the most admirable and thoroughly developed codes of jurisprudence. The influences, whose marks upon "Roman Law" are par-ticularly indelible and prominent, may be divided into three classes: conventional morality and usage, natural reason and justice, and Christianity. These fundamental principles in turn clearly mark off three distinct epochs in the development of Ro-man Law. According to the law of the first nearly all power was vested in the individual and that individual was the "Pater familias." The idea of a State right has scarcely begun to dawn upon the Roman mind. At the beginning of the second epoch, Rome is no longer a col-lection of separate communities : Italy, Greece, Spain, Africa, in short the whole world is in her power. Law based on such a no-tion as practically unlimited power of the pater cannot regulate such an empire. No longer is Rome divided into families, tribes and clans, each separate and distinct, but everything concentrates upon and emanates from one person—the Emperor. Something broader, something more general is demanded and, in response, came the principles of the stoic philosophy. Roman Law can-not stand still while the State is enlarging; it too must broaden, and natural equity, justice and reason furnish the soil for its spreading roots. But one link yet is necessary, one step yet is lacking ere the ultimate degree ofperfection is reached. For Christianity it remains to weld the chain and fill the gap which is to make "Roman Law" such a body of principles as to be applicable at all times and among all nations. In such principles as—"honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, suum cinque tribuere," the dawn of Christian-ity can already be seen, only time is needed until its genial rays shall burst forth with increasing intensity. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 135 Christianity had been now the established religion of the Ro-man Empire for more than two centuries; and the influence of its principles was making an untold effect upon the spirit, if not so much upon the letter, of Roman law. The complete moral, social, and political revolution, through Christianity, created a necessity for new laws adapted to the present order of things. Under it a new order of men of a peculiar character, with special privileges has grown up; churches and monasteries had been formed; certain offenses in the penal code were now looked on with a milder or more severe aspect, and vices, which formerly had been tolerated, became crimes against the new social order. It might be shown that Christianity as a system of doctrine, is peculiarity adapted to meet the secular as well as the spiritual wants of men and would naturally work its way into their codes of jurisprudence. But a direct proof is unnecessary, for after hav-ing shown its influence upon the various elements in "Roman L,aw," we can reason backward and reach the same conclusion. Roman Law may be conveniently divided into three classes:— that of Persons, Property and Crime. From time immemorial, slavery had been customary among all nations. Aristotle reasoned "that nature intended barbarians to be slaves, and among the natural and honorable means of ac-quiring wealth, he classes, making war in order to reduce to slavery such of mankind as are intended by nature for it." As an institution of custom, then, slavery received its sanction at Rome. Christianity had exalted a slave to spiritual equality and this religious elevation could not be without influence on their tem-poral and social position. They were no longer to be regarded as brute beasts and inanimate things, nor could they be destroyed by their masters with as much impunity as his other property. Our respect must here be paid the heathen sovereign, Antoniuns, who declared that the master who killed his slave without cause, was liable to the same penalty as if he had killed the slave of another. Justinian writes, "In these times, and under our Em-pire, no one must be permitted to exercise unlawful cruelty against a slave.'' Prohibition of marriage to slaves had been a deep-rooted prejudice for centuries, yet this too melted before the rays of its benign influence. The stricter forms of manumission—the vin-dicta freeing by census or testament were relieved by easier and ■VAMHtfi 136 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. more liberal ones,—for example, per epistolam, inter amicos, in ecclesiis; and whatever of legal impediments yet existed were re-moved by Justinian. Along with this the distinctions formerly made between freedmen, whereby a slave owing to certain kinds of misconduct, when manumitted, could not receive full citizen-ship, were likewise abolished so that after Justinian all libertine were cives Romani. The ancient laws regarding marriage and the legal status of women each crystallized itself in conformity with the new order of things. Marriage was no longer a civil contract but a religious sacrament and the penalties fixed upon celibacy and childlessness were removed. Divorce had been one of the greatest plagues at work in dis-solving the unity of the Roman family. Since the establishment of the XII tables, in 450 B. C, it had been legally recognized. Seneca says of Naecauss, probably satirically, that he changed his wives as he changed his dress. And it is the same writer who says '' that the noble women of Rome calculated the year not by the consuls, but by their husbands." Juvenal, in the bitterness of his satire, could not find words adequate to express his intense indignation of this evil. It is said that the sixth century of Roman greatness had begun ere the evils of a primitive conception that the wife was the property of her husband and might be dismissed at his pleasure were revealed and public feeling shocked by the re-pudiation of a virtuous but barren wife by Spurius Carvilius Ruga. Had Christianity performed no greater good for human society than the removal of this corruption, its influence would not have been in vain or useless. The rights of women over their property were made sub-stantially equal to men's as was the right of guardianship over their children. Parental power, though in theory absolute, had long fallen into disuse and was almost a theoretical nothing long before the ad-vent of Christianity, but whatever of severity yet remained was abolished. Constantine openly declared that the father, who killed his son, should be held for murder, nor was the father allowed to ex-pose his children or sell them into slavery, except in the rarest cases. The proprietary rights of the son, too, were extended from the peculium castreuse to the peculmm quasi castreuse and still later to the peculium adventitium. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 137 Milman says '' Christianity made no change in the tenure or succession to property.'' '' Seeking inheritances by undue means was prohibited and restrained by law as an ecclesiastical evil." Church property was regarded sacred and inviolate and as Milman says was "the sole proprietor, whom forfeiture or confis-cation could never reach; whose title was never antiquated and before whose hallowed boundaries violence stood rebuked." Gifts to temples could now be sold or pledged for the redemp-tion of captives, a purpose which the old Roman law would have disdained to contemplate. In the penal laws of the Roman empire, the influence of Chris-tianity was but moderately exerted. The abolition of the distinc-tions drawn between freedmen and slaves have already been re-ferred to. Crucifixion as a means of punishment was removed by Constantine, rather as an act of religious reverence than of humanity. But in the suppression of gaming and the prohibition of women being forced on the stage, traces of its influence can be seen. As is natural from the subject material under discussion, the law respecting persons has undergone the greatest change. But all these changes, whether in the penal code or in the law of proprietary rights and obligations, were but a means, which made the Roman system adapted to the regulation of all peoples and at all times. When we see that the very barbarians who conquered Rome were in turn conquered by her system of jurisprudence, we are not a little filled with surprise; but when we find it not only influenc-ing and forming the basis of, but being incorporated in the legal codes of almost all nations, we come in contact with an effect that requires an adequate and efficient cause. After paying all due re-spect to that peculiar, innate faculty of administration in the Ro-man mind, without detracting one iota from the excellent opinions of the juristconsuls or limiting in the slightest degeee the wonder-ful influence of stoicism, as a system of philosophy, we are com-pelled to admit that none of these were individually or collectively efficient to produce such an effect. To Christianity must be as-cribed the credit of basing Roman law upon principles, so univer-sal and so humane, as to be applicable not only among the Roman state but among all nations of all times. If this statement seems rather large in its exposition and sweeping in its results, a few illustrations may be necessary to establish its validity. r \UIUW 138 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Can a law, which considers certain classes of men as mere brutes or inanimate things be reconciled to our conception that by nature all men are horn equal ? Or who can reconcile the idea that a woman is but the property of her husband, capable of being dismissed at his bidding, with our conception of human society ? What place could the principle of "patri potesias have in the legal status of a nation, all the citizens of which have equal rights be-fore its laws—yet in the wisdom of the juristconsuls and in the records they have left us, these principles and many others similar to them are found embodied. Stoic philosophy left to Roman law the principles of equity and humanity, but the basis of natural law upon which they rested and by which they were judged and applied, was subjected to a complete change ere they were capable of incorporation into modern jurisprudence. Christianity recognized these same principles of equity and humanity, but substituted truth instead of natural law as their criterion. Based on this principle and judged by this standard the conceptions of equity and humanity lose their limi-tations and assert themselves with the force of universality. It is only under these conditions that we find Roman law incorpo-rated in the laws of every great nation, and only in Christianity do we find a cause adequate to such an effect. Among legal historians there is a vast diversity of opinions with regard to the influence of Christianity upon Roman legisla-tion. This variance, Morey rightly attributes to their failure to distinguish Christianity as an ethical system from the church as a corporate institution.'' It must be remembered that the church, like all institutions, even though divine in their origin, is never-theless subject to the frailties of humanity by which it is regu-lated and too often fails to cancel the limitations between the ideal and the real. The family and the matrimonial ceremony are regarded as divine in their origin and sanction, but do they ever conform to the high standard by which they should be regulated? Perfection is an attribute not of this world, and if the church as a corporate institution has failed to attain the high plane established by the principles it recognizes and enunciates we can condemn the prin-ciples with no more justice than we can reason that a college edu-cation is of no advantage because some particular individual, who has taken a college course, has made a miserable failure in life. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 139 However intolerant the church may have been against pagans, jews, and heretics, the principles of Christianity as an ethical sys-tem remain unsullied and untainted, notwithstanding the injus-tice of their application. Morey has admirably summarized the whole matter: "In spite of the fact that the church in some cases set its face against civil equity, and the fact that Roman law had already received a liberal temper from the influence of Greek philosophy, it cannot be doubted that the progress of the law, in general, kept pace with the unfolding of ethical ideas in the Roman mind; and that so far as Christianity furnished a system of ethics more just, liberal and humane than that of stoicism, it brought to bear upon the Roman law a moral power superior to that which had previously been exerted upon it through the writings of the philosophical jurists." Who then can doubt that in Christianity, Roman law reaches the summit of its greatness and the beginning of its uni-versal application ! —W. E. B. '99. M THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES. AN is a progressive being. Contentment is foreign to his very nature. He is continuously looking to something beyond, to a condition higher and better. As his intellect broadens and quickens, he invariably becomes desirous of greater freedom. This love of liberty is connate with his physical and mental constitution. But there is also another desire deeply implanted within his breast, a desire which is destructive of the liberty of others. It is the love of power, the inherent desire of man to rule over his fellow:man, an ambition, the natural outcome of which is despot-ism. These two desires tend toward opposite directions. Between them is an irrepressible conflict. This conflict is as old as society and as persistent as humanity. From the earliest times its vary-ing phases have determined the condition of the race. The history of civilization is largely the story of this conflict, the story of human liberty struggling against human despotism. The outcome of this struggle has varied in different countries. ; 140 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. As a result their states of society have been vastly different. Just in proportion as liberty has triumphed over despotism so civiliza-tion has advanced beyond barbarism. Among the nations of an-tiquity despotism prevailed everywhere. As a consequence their civilization never advanced beyond a certain point. They were marked in every case either by iunobility or by slight advances and retrogressions. In the countries of Northern Europe arose a people whose chief characteristic was their love of freedom. Here liberty found a soil peculiarly fitted for her growth and develop-ment. What has been the result? Have these people an}' ele-ments of civilization not enjoyed by the nations of antiquity? Read the story of their steady progress through the Middle Ages. L,ook upon the unequalled state of civilization among them to-day and question not the advantages of liberty over despotism. Con-trast the despotic nature of ancient Assyria with the liberal char-acter of modern England and wonder not that the latter stands to-day the first empire of the world, while the former exists only upon the pages of history. During the dark ages humanity struggled against the most terrible despotism man had ever known,—the despotism of igno-rance and superstition. The human mind neglected, uncultivated and depressed sank into the deepest ignorance. So prolonged and intense was the gloom enveloping Europe that her people seemed incapable of advancement, society seemed destined to end-less barbarism. Gradually, however, knowledge became more diffused, inventions and discoveries awakened the human intellect from its long sleep, and man began to learn the truth about him-self and the world. This truth has made him free. Freedom of intellect naturally led to a desire for religious freedom. Ecclesiastical tyranny was incompatible with intellect-ual liberty. Enlightened minds refused to submit any longer to the authority of the Pope. Contentment gave place to unrest, un-rest to action, and action to liberty. The Reformation was more than a contest between Protestant-ism and Catholicism. It was an insurrection of the human mind against pure ecclesiastical monarchy. Do you wonder that the movement was crowned with the most glowing success ? Papal authority in Northern Europe was destroyed forever. This religi-ous liberty will eventually spread over the entire world. The religions of the world are becoming more and more imbued with THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 141 the sentiment of liberality. Sectarian differences are gradually disappearing before the growing light of intelligence. Creed and dogma will be re-adjusted more and more under the light of ad-vancing truth. Formal religion is being supplanted by true Christianity—that "divine keystone in the arch of universal his-tory." With an ever increasing radiance the light of Christianity is slowly but surely penetrating the darkness of heathenism, and hastening the approach of the time when the people of all the earth, regardless of race, sect or nationality, shall bow in worship before the one true God. Turning from the religious to the political world, we behold a revolution no less wonderful, a mighty struggle between despotic and liberal principles of government. This struggle shook Europe from Scandanavia to Italy, and snatched a new world from the threatened grasp of tyranny; a revolution of which the Reign of Terror was but an incident. The ideas engendered by the Reformation inaugurated a mighty epoch of political regeneration. The great sovereigns of Europe, one after another, have been deprived of their prerogatives until to-day the last one sits trembling upou a tottering throne that threatens to fall at any instant. The day is not far distant when even the "Autocrat of all the Russias" shall see his sceptre depart into the hands of his subjects. Thus we have seen during the last three epochs three great stages of the onward march of civilization; three mighty victories for the cause of struggling humanity; victories which include in-tellectual, religious and political freedom. To-day the world has entered upon another epoch; an epoch which brings with it questions far more complicated than those of the past, and far more momentous than those that have convulsed Europe with centuries of revolution. The great struggles of the past have been, in the main, suc-cessful, and the echoes of the mighty battles for civil and religious freedom are growing fainter and fainter. But the cause of freedom is not yet won. The hosts of oppression have been driven from the fields of church and state only to return with renewed vigor to attack freedom in the field of industry. The scene of conflict has extended from the old world to the new. Society has entered upon an industrial age. Modern civilization is marked by ma-terial progress unprecedented in the history of mankind. Great 142 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. inventions have revolutionized travel, commerce and manufacture. Ocean steamers, railroads and telegraphs have practically annihi-lated time and space. By constant and easy intercourse with the world, man's views have been enlarged, his energies stimulated, and his rate of progress quickened. Yet with all this unparalleled progress in the industrial power of society, there has come no proportionate improvement in the condition of the masses. While the great industrial development of the present age has brought many blessings for mankind, the tyranny of selfish men has monopolized these blessings for the few. Capital gets the lion's share of the world's wealth, while Labor is reduced to a condition of servitude. A few monopolists amass colossal fortunes and revel in Croe-cian luxury, while thousands of wage earners, becoming more and more pauperized, sink into intellectual and moral degradation. Millions are wasted in feasting while gaunt starvation stalks the streets. Society has become a vast machine which turns out at one end milliouaries, and at the other tramps, paupers and anarch-ists. The enormous inequalities of existing conditions are creating a discontent in the minds of the laboring classes; a discontent that foreshadows an impending revolution. Profound discontent preceded the great religious upheaval in the sixteenth century. Great unrest ushered in the awful convul-sions of the French revolution. With the reappearance of the same conditions to-day, revolution is as inevitable as the laws of the universe. Human nature will not tolerate abuse forever. Labor will not always submit to the tyranny of capital. Even now the cohorts of freedom are gathering for a mighty effort. There is every indication that we are on the eve of a momen-tous struggle. The discontent of the masses is '' no longer the fretting of the waves;" it is "the roar of the rushing tide." It is to be a contest for the supremacy of wealth on the one hand or the freedom of opportunity on the other ;—a conflict that will decide whether the combined money power of the world is to per-petuate its tyranny of greed and avarice, or whether the toiling millions are at last to enjoy unmolested the products of their own labor. History teaches that there can be but one outcome to this struggle. Despotism again will fall. The indomitable forces of THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. freedom will win another victory. Economic despotism is simply fighting the same hopeless battle that was fought and lost by spiritual and political despotism in the ages that have passed. Civilization will never rest until this great barrier is removed. There are only two ways in which this can be accomplished; by the peaceful methods of education and religion, or through the instrumentalities of war. Should the latter method prevail, and should the masses be led by designing demagogues, or by reason-ing anarchists inspired only by a sense of injustice, and revenge, the innocent will perish with the guilty in the most dreadful social catastrophe that has ever darkened the pages of history. Do the conditions indicate that such will be the result ? Are we to sup-pose that the increased intelligence and morality of the present age will permit such a solution of our great sociological problem ? Have we read history in vain or profited nothing by the great lessons of the past, that we must see re-enacted on the stage of modem history the bloody scenes of the sixteenth century? Is the nineteenth century civilization so little advanced that it is about to behold a social convulsion compared with which the aw-ful horrors of the French Revolution shall sink into insignificance ? A million Christian hearts answer, "No." A million earnest workers for the triumph of right over might, filled with the belief that the signs of the times point upward, and inspired with the hope that social and economic freedom shall come as the product of better hearts and better souls, respond with a mighty " NO." The wrongs of our present industrial system shall not be righted among scenes of violence and confusion. The ceaseless unrest of the multitudes, that are to mould the destinies of the future, is the sign of an advancing civilization. It means that they are acquiring more brain force, more manhood, the raw ma-terials out of which God will shape a better future for humanity The dawn of a better day is breaking the deep clouds of sin. The heart of the world is beating more truly than ever before. Men are beginning to realize that the prosperity of society depends upon the well-being of the whole people. They are coming to see that a divine fatherhood implies an universal brotherhood. The world is moving onward toward the realization of the ideal life of human happiness; a life where manhood shall count for more than gold, where character shall outweigh the dollar ; a life free from selfishness and tyranny, abounding injustice, liberty and equality. i44 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. In this life shall the Conflict of the Ages cease and man find his highest place as he ministers to the good of all. "Then the common sense of most Shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, Lapt in universal law. And the war drum throb no longer, And the battle flags be furled In the parliament of man, The Federation of the world." —W. R. E., '99. THE PHILOMATHAEAN SOCIETY. BY PROF. L. H. CROIX. [From the Pennsylvania College Book, 1832.] MORE than a year before the charter of Pennsylvania Col-lege was granted by the legislature of the State, the Philomathaean Society had its organization, in the "Gettysburg Gymnasium," on the corner of Washington and High streets, Gettysburg, Pa. The students of the institution assembled in the west room of the second story, on the 4th of February, A. D., 1831, to form literary societies whose generous rivalry would stimulate the members to mutual, intellectual and moral improvement. It was agreed to divide the whole number of students into two equal parts, in the order in which their names stood enrolled, each division then withdrew to the "East Room," second story, becoming the founders of the Philomathaean So-ciety, with Prof. M. Jacobs as chairman. With the permission of the Professor of Theology, the meeting continued to be held in the rooms devoted to theological instruction, the corner-stone of the Theological Seminary not being laid until the following- May. A Constitution and a name were adopted, but the latter was not at first settled in its orthography, for the different secretaries give "Philomathian," "Philomathean," "Philomatheon" as the name before the present Philomathaean became confirmed. The signification of the names, "lovers of learning," implies the object of the organization, "to create and cherish a taste for learning, and to promote sentiments of mutual regard and friend- THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 145 ship;" or, as afterwards modified, "to cultivate and diffuse among its members liberal principles, and to promote the great objects of social, moral, and intellectual improvements." The constitution provides for the election of all officers, for the admission and the dismissal of members, for fines and penalties, for meetings and work, for the formation and use of a library; and it emphasizes the requirement of each member to hold inviolate his duty to preserve a proper secrecy of the affairs of the society. One of the first peculiarities was the appointment of a "Room-keeper," taken in alphabetical order, to make all the arrangements necessary for holding the next meeting. He seems to have been keeper of the door, introducing any new or honorary member, but, in connection with his more dignified work, he was also "hewer of wood and drawer of water,'' polisher of lamps and factotum in general. This office was abandoned in the new college building, when a janitor become necessary on account of the increased work in hall, library and reading-rooms, and when the funds of the society allowed a consideration for services required. The meetings were first held on Friday evening, and as lamps were a necessity, with the order for their purchase was joined that of a "jug," or "bottle" for the use of the society. Now this bot-tle is evidently not the decanter held in bad repute, nor is the jug the famous "little brown jug," celebrated by the students in their later years in their rollicking glee; for the society was strongly in favor of total abstinence, as the votes on all temperance debates proved. As an illustration of the small beginnings of a society, there is an account of the purchase of a "suitable desk, or covert, for the use of the Secretary, library, lamps, etc." Some later Secretary has changed the v of covert to b, making it "cobert," having doubtless in mind the old family cupboard at home. From the day when a single desk or closet would accommodate not only the library, but the articles of the Secretary and the Janitor be-sides, to the present, when even the present library room has be-come too cramped to display all the volumes to advantage, an earnest of what may be expected in another half century is exhib-ited. Another illustration of small beginnings was the original initiation fee of fifty cents, which rose to two dollars and a half when the college obtained its charter, and not long afterwards to five dollars, at which figure it has since remained. 146 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. The first original declamation, by one of the still surviving founders (1882), by permission of the society, was in the German language. From the first the debate took high rank, and seemed to claim the highest interest of the members. The subjects chosen often bore directly upon their personal relations, and the first was upon their call or right to existence as a society. Then the ques-tion of social visiting, the granting of diplomas for partial or special courses of study, and other like topics, were discussed, as well as the questions of public interest in their day. The first anniversary celebration was held February 17, 1832, and the speeches were made by two of the founders. At first these exercises were held in the Gymnasium building, and invita-tions were sent to such persons as were supposed to appreciate literary entertainment. It may seem somewhat primitive at the present day to learn that '' a few verses '' were sung between the speeches, instead of the classical instrumental music furnished at later entertainments. Another novelty was the '' privilege given to those present of making any remarks to the society that might be thought proper. Afterward the exercises were held in the German church, until 1835, when they were transferred to the Presbyterian church, in consequence of obligations being made to the introduction of in-strumental music into the church. After 1836 the public exer-cises were held in Christ (college) church, then completed. In connection with the spring examinations, by request of the Professors, each society appointed an essayist, an orator, and a debater as performers at the closing exercises of the session. The exercises were to be original, and each society was to "chal-lenge" the other alternately to select the subject of debate. Thus originated the annual "contests," which grew in interest from year to year until 1849, when a dispute with the church officers brought all public exercises ofthe societies to a close forseveral years. The customary fees for the sexton and other incidents were asked for in advance, by a regulation of the church officers, in conse-quence of the difficulty of collecting them after the interest of the occasion had passed and the officers of the societies had been changed. This action being misapprehended as a charge for the use of the church, which was free to exercise under the direction of the faculty, or as a reflection upon the integrity of the socie-ties was resisted. Not satisfied with the explanation that the THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 147 sum assessed merely covered the expenses incident to the opening of the church, the societies memorialized the Board of Trustees on the question, who replied that the demand was not unreason-able; and thus ended the dispute and the contests at the same time. At the time of the earlier anniversaries, an honorary member was elected to deliver an address. From 1836 to 1853 an address was delivered each year before the societies jointly. From this time there have been annual and biennial addresses, the societies usually alternating in the choice. As a matter of history, between 1852 and 1855, with an organ-ization or union of the different literary societies of various col-leges, bearing the prae-nomen of Philo, and known as the "Philo Union," must not be omitted. It originated at Shelby College, Kentucky, and enrolled Philo Societies of more than a score of colleges, extending from New England to the West. Member-ship in any one of these societies secured admission to all the others, and a general plan of simultaneous anniversaries was pro-posed. The fraternal relations of the brotherhood were to be cul-tivated and the general interest to be promoted by a periodical es-tablished at some central institution; but the difficulties of practi-cal co-operation and the excessive labor of correspondence made the union of short duration, and a second generation of students scarcely learned of its existence. MONOTONY OF LIFE. THAT one could complain of the monotony of life, living in an age and in a nation like ours, certainly seems strange to a wide-awake person with an active mind. One certainly cannot get such an idea from nature in her ever changing forms, if one observes her. She assumes in turn every color known to us, the tender green of spring, the bounteous variety of blossoms and flowers, the splendor of the autumn foliage, the white mantles of snow and the brilliant sunsets. Instead of monotony to the observer it seems all unrest and change with hardly any continua-tion in the same line or place. There is variety in the life all around us, from the tiniest insect up to man ; there is continual change in the life of even the humblest individual. Great changes mmim 148 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. occur in all nations. Thought on different subjects changes, pub-lic opinion changes and is a mighty power worthy of a care-ful consideration. In fact everything changes with the pro-gress of civilization. Truly it is only the inactive mind and un-observant eye and the sluggish spirit that can for a moment imag-ine life to be monotonous. If we look closely we will notice certain principles running through life's changes. We see a union between the old and the new. It is the same old earth, it matters not under how many changes. The same trees are white with blossoms in the spring, green with foliage in the summer and brown and bare in the autumn. So with ourselves, a change of occupation or of resi-dence, a change in our financial circumstances, a marriage, a death, a journey, each brings a new experience for our old selves and forms a fresh union between our past and our present condi-tion. These things may bring happiness or sorrow for the time being, but they all have the power of enriching, enlarging and improving our characters and lives by making good additions to our stock of old experiences. Of course if we do not want it so, we can make it otherwise to a certain extent. We can be dull and inactive and cling to the old, see nothing in all the changing world about us, make no new friends, cling to old ideas, discuss no new methods, hold the same opinions and pride ourselves upon what we might call con-sistency, but which is really only thestubbornness of a mind which thinks that the world is becoming worse with new ideas, new methods and new experiences. We can plainly see that to lead a life like that is to cross our Maker's purpose, for his purpose was without doubt that we should grow into the full richness and value of manhood by cherishing our past experiences and learning well the lessons taught by them while we step forward into new and untried paths with vigor and hope. —R. Z. I., '00. 'Twas an evening of beauty ; the air was perfume, The earth was all greenness, the trees were all bloom And softly the delicate viol was heard, Like the murmur of love or the notes of a bird. —Whittier. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 149 ATHLETICS. BASEBALL, this year is not as successful in some senses as usual, but in others we can pride ourselves upon our team. In the beginning of the season they encountered six hard games in succession, five being away from home, and were greatly hindered by lack of sufficient practice. But in the later games they seem to have rounded well into form, and are playing pretty good ball. The greatest surprise of the year has been Roehner's pitching, he having developed wonderfully, and doing work which, with better support, would have won a number of the games which were lost. The season was opened 011 April 15th, with Franklin and Mar-shall on their grounds at Lancaster, and was won by Gettysburg by a score of 6 to 4. The game was very pretty, both sides play-ing good ball, except in one inning, when the F. and M. boys did their only scoring. The feature of the game was Lantz's home run over left field fence with two men on bases. The trip to the central part of the state was opened at Susque-hanna April 20th, when we were beaten 12 to 6, by a comedy of errors in the first three innings which netted the home team eight runs. After that the boys settled down and played well, but Sus-quehanna's lead was too great. On April 21st we beat Bucknell by a score of 12 to 7, through hard batting coupled with the best fielding of the season. The game throughout was highly interesting and exciting, being marked by a number of pretty plays. Roehner pitched a fine game, allowing Bucknell but six hits, to Gettysburg's eleven. State defeated us April 22d, by the score of 7 to 6 in a game that was very close and exciting, though marked by bad errors on both sides. Ketterman pitched a good game, receiving poor sup-port, while Farr was knocked out of the box, and Morgan sub-stituted. At Bloomsburg, March 24th, we were defeated by the Normal School by the score of 14 to 4. The Normal boys have a good team, but it is only right to say that they would not have beaten us so badly if it had not been for the umpire. The first home game was with Dickinson on April 27th, when we were beaten by a score of 15 to 6. The game was poorly played on both sides, but tight until the sixth inning, when it THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. was tied, after which our boys went to pieces, and Dickinson brought in nine more runs. We were beaten for the second time by Susquehanna Univer-sity on Nixon Field, May 5th, the score being 6 to 5. Our team did far better work in every way than the visitors, but their only two errors were costly, bringing in four runs, aud^poor judgment in base-running at a couple critical points lost a game by what can be termed nothing but hard luck. Games scheduled with the Indians and Dickinson at Carlisle were unavoidably canceled and prevented by rain respectively, and the next game was on Nixon Field with Franklin and Mar-shall, who were beaten in a very pretty game by the same score as in first game, 6-4. They were shut out until the eighth, and secured but four hits in all off Roehner. The Preps have manifested a good college spirit this year by getting up a team that is doing good work in its class. They were beaten by Dickinson Prep at Carlisle, 13-4, and returned the compliment on Nixon Field by the score of 13-9. They also played against '01's team, by whom they were beaten in a one-sided game by a score of 15-0. At the relay carnival at the University of Pennsylvania, April 29th, we were classed with Dickinson, Bucknell, Franklin and Marshall, and Ursinus, and came in fourth in one of the speediest races of the day. Dickinson won, having a clear lead, and Buck-nell, F. & M., and Gettysburg came in in the order named, bunched very close together, with Ursinus trailing some distance in the rear. Probably the most interesting and significant event in athletics of recent years was the dual meet with Dickinson held on Nixon Field, May 17. We were defeated, the score of points being 60 to 28, but can feel that the meet was a success as far as we are concerned, for it has given track athletics the impetus which it has needed so long. Dickinson won all the first places except the high hurdle, captured by Koller, '00, and the high jump a tie between Albers, '99, and Brown, of Dickinson. Our men showed however, that they could have done far better work with proper training, and we believe that they have caught the spirit now, and we can turn out a winning team next year. —W. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Flowery June, When brooks send up a cheerful tune, And groves a joyful sound. JX 151 —Bryant. And what is so rare as a day in June ? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then heaven tries the earth if it be in time, And over it softly her warm ear lays. -Lowell. And so beside the silent sea I wait the muffled oar; No harm from Him can come to me On ocean or on shore. I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air ; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care. — Whittier. The last bird I ever fired at was an eaglet on the shore of the Gulf of Ir\DT Successor to W. J7. VAJLAJKl, Simon J. Codori Dealer in Beef, Pork, Lamb, Veal, Sausage. Special rates to Clubs. York St., GETTYSBURG. Davib Croxel, Dealer trt ^ine groceries anb ttottons «-x4}ork Street. .GO TO. CHAS. E. BARBEHENN, Barber, In the Eagle Hotel, Cor. Main and Washington Sts. YOHN BROS. Agents for the Keystone State, Waldo, Washburn, Groupner & Meyer. Highest Grade Mandolins, Guitars, Banjos, Mandollas and Mandocellos. Headquarters for Phonographs, G-raphophones and supplies. Trimmings of every description. All sheet music one-half off. Large discounts on Books and studies. 326 Market St., Harrisburg, Pa. FAVOR THOSE WHO FAVOR US. Baseball v>tipptie& .Spaloing's league JSall, /Iftits, jflftaelie, Etc. Managers should send for samples and special rates. Every requisite for aennf0, ©olf, Grtcftet, Gracft ano fftelo, ©Ktnnastum Equipments anD ©utfite Complete Catalogue Spring and Summer Sports Free. The Name the Guar-antee." a. ©. SpalOing SL JBros. New York .". Philadelphia Chicago ROWE, .Your Grocer. Carries Full Line of Groceries, Canned Goods, Etc, Best Coal Oil and Brooms at most Reasonable Prices. OPPOSITE COLLEGE CAMPUS. S. /. CODORI, Jr. t* Druggists Dealer in Drugs, Medicines, Toilet Articles, J> Stationery, Blank Books, Amateur Pho-tographic Supplies, Etc., Etc. .Baltimore Street. R. H. Culp, PAPER HANGER, Second Square, York St. COLLEGE EMBLEMS. EMIL ZOTHE, ENGRAVER, DESIGNER AND MANUFACTURING JEWELER. 19 S. NINTH ST. PHILADELPHIA. PA. SPECIALTIES: Masonic Marks, Society Badges, College Buttons, Pins, Scarf Pins, Stick Pins and Athletic Prizes. All Goods ordered through C. H. Tilp. Gotrell & Leonard, 472-474 Broadway, Albany, N. Y. makers of CAPS, GOWNS and. HOODS To the leading- American Colleges. Illus-trated Manual, etc., upon application. Meneely Bell Co. TROY, N. Y. MANUFACTURERS OF SUPERIOR BELLS The 2000 pound bell now ringing in the tower of Pennsylvania Col-lege was manufactured at this foundry. r . nmmwmmiiMMMmwimmmmmm PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. You can't expect to create the im-pression that you are well dressed unless your clothes are MADE FOR YOU. Equivocate as you may, the fact remains that ready-made garments lack that air of exclusiveness which custom work possesses. J. D. LIPPY, Merchant Tailor 39 Chambersburg St., Gettysburg, Pa. G. E. SPANGLER, ^ Dealer in Pianos, Organs, Music, Musical Instruments, Strings, Etc. YORK STREET, 1ST SQUARE. GETTYSBURG. L. D. Miller, Grocer, Confectioner and Fruiterer. Ice Cream and Oysters in Season . . . \0) lUaxn St., ©ettusburg. City Hotel, Main St. Gettysburg. Free 'Bus to and from all Trains Thirty seconds' walk from either depot Dinner with drive over field with four or more, $1.35 Rates $1.50 to $2.00 per day. John E. Hughes, Prop. WlLLlHSURE^OUR^ lfiiilnl'iil¥rii;TJH w&receipt ot SI0-0 A6AINST ILLNESS., PHYSICIANS'* PLUMBERS- ' BILLS.DUETO IMPURE AIR, ^ FROM CLOGGEDjJ^'HS flew York, Bosfo/i. P/>//dde//i/>/fr<}/7c/sco. lo/?

Issue 1.4 of the Review for Religious, 1942. ; A. M. D. G. Review for Religious JULY 15o 1942 Direction by the Confess0r" ~ " " ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ The Editors Self-Knowledge . Patrick Perfection and the Relicjious . Augustine Klaas Mqral Beauty in Our Duties to God "~" Gera~d Kelly The General Chapter of Affairs ~ Adam C. Ellis The Precious Blood . Malachl J. Donnelly The Rural Life Apostolate . John, L. Thomas St. Boniface and Giff-Excl~anges . ~., Gerald Ellard Book Reviews Questions Answered Decisions of the Holy See VOLUME I NUMBER 4 FOR RI:::LIGIOUS VOLUME I JULY -15, 1942 NUMBER 4 CONTENTS SPIRITUAL DIRECTION BY THE ORDINARY CONFESSOR The Editors . ,218 BOOKS RECEIVED . 222 SELF-KNOWLEDGE--Patrick M. Regan, S.J .:. . . 223' FRANCISCAN ,STUDIES . 232 PERFECTION AND THE REIAGIOUS--Augustine K]aas, S.J. 233 MORAL BEAUTY IN OUR DUTIES TOWARDS GOD Gerald Kelly, S.J . 244 PAMPHLET REVIEWS . '. . " . 252 THE GENERAL CHAPTER OF AFFAIRS IN A RELIGIOUS CON° GREGATION--Adam C. Ellis, S.J" . . 253 THE PLACE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE Malachi J. Donnelly, S.J . 259 THE CATHOLIC RURAL LIFE APOSTOLATE---John L. Thomas, S.J2.63 GIFT-EXCHANGES IN THE CORRESPONDENCE OF ST. BONIFACE Gerald Ellard, S.J . 271 BOOK REVIEWS : MARCH INTO TOMORROW. By the Reverend John J. Considine, M.M. 281 WATCI21 AND PRAY. By the Reverend J. E. Moffat, S.J .281 IN THE SHADOV~ OF OUR LADY OF THE CENACLE. By Helen M. Lynch, R.C . " 282 I PRAY THE MASS. By the Reverend HugoH. Hoever, S.O. Cist. 283 MODICUM. By the Reverend Athanasius Bierbaum, O.F.M. ". 284 HOMILETIC HINTS. By the Reverend Albert H. Dolan, O. Carm. '. 284 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: 24. Indulgence on Day of Investiture or Profession . 285 25. Obligation to Perform Penance for Violating Rule .285 26. Community. Prayers when Chaplain Opens Tabernacle . 286 27. Vows when in Danger of Death . 286 DECISIONS OF THE HOLY SEE OF INTEREST TO RELIGIOUS287 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, July, 1942. Vol. I, No. 4. Published bi-monthly: January, March, May, July, September, and November, at The College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kausas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.J., G. Augustine Ellard, S.J., Gerald.Kelly, 8.3. Copyright, i942, by Adam C. Ellis. Permission is hereby granted for quotations of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 2 dollars a year. Printed in U. S. A. Spiri!:ual Direction by !:he Ordinary Con~:essor THE EDITORS 448 ' UR confessor never say, s a word to us. He just gives absolution, and lets us go. He seems to have no time for us." Thus goes a complaint which, though not exactly common,, is frequent enough to indi-cate a problem that calls for a solution. The problemm a very important one in the religious lifemmay be clearly stated in two brief questions: Does the Church wish ordi-nary ~onfessors to give spiritual guidance? If so, why is this office at times neglected? There seems to be no valid reason for. hesitancy con-cerning the answer to the first question. The Church does wish that, in general, the ordinary confessors should give spiritual direction. The law that these confessors be care-fully selected indicates that they should be able and willing to give direction; the law limiting their number indicates the desirability of uniformity of direction. This does not mean that the ordinary confessor must give spiritual direction to each of his penitents every week. But surely it means that at times during the course of a Yea'r all religious will have the opportunity of benefiting by his counsel. Otherwise large numbers of religious will find their opportunities for direction limited almost exclusively to the time of their annual retreat. Such once-a-year direc-tion was never the ideal; and in these days of large retreats it is even less desirable than formerly. The second question is not so readily answered. We know that some rellgi0us, disappointed over. the fact that the confessional has not proved to be the source of guidance 218 "DIRECTION BY THE CONFESSOR they had expected, are in~lined to. answer: "The confessor isn't able to give direction. He's not sufficiently interested in.us to give ~us his time~". Reasons such .as these may be valid for some cases--though certainly it is not for us to pass judgment on any individual case. It is possible for a priest to be incapable of fulfilling an office to which he has been ai0pointed, and it is possible that capable priests will neglect their duty. Such. failures will never be wholly elim-inated so long as God chooses to carry on His work by means of human instruments. If inability or negle.ct of duty were the only possible explanations for deficiency in regard to spiritual direction, there would be no good reason for the present editorial. But we. are convinced that in many cases there is an entirely different explanation. We think that a situation may fre-quently arise in which the confessor is both able and will-ing to give direction and the community is eager ~o receive it, yet no direction results. Consider, for instance, a case like the following: Father A is a zealous and capable priest. Any of his intimate friends would consider him well-equipped for the office of ordinary confessor of religious. He knows how to direct souls in the practice of virtue, how to encourage the downhearted, how to help those in occasions of sin, and so forth. He has a great esteem for .religious; he knows that the Church wishes them to receive direction and that of all people they are perhaps the most deserving and apprecia-, tire of any spiritual help a priest might give them. He has resolved that, if ever he is made an ordinary confessor, he will do all he can to live up to the Church's ideal. To this end, he has at times made a particular study of the prob-lems that might be peculiar to religious: for example, dif-ficulties with obedience and common life, temptations 219 THE EDITORS against vocation, discou.ragement over lack of'progress in general and over "failure in prayer" in particular. The time comes when Father A is appointed an ordi-nary confessor." Full of zeal, he takes his place in the con-fessional for the first time. One after another the penitents come, and, almost before he realizes it, .Father /~ hears a voice say, "I'm the last one, Father." As he leaves the con-fessional, he notes that he has heard about twenty confes-sions in twenty-five minutes. The speed of this first experience is not lost on Father A. He is chagrine.d at the thought that he seems to have fallen into the one fault that he was always Warned to avoid: he had given little more than absolution--scarcely a word. of counsel or encouragement. He consoles himself, however, with the reflection that this wasonly the first time and that in future .there will be more opportunity to help. Yet week follows week; and there never seems to be any "opportunity to help." Alarmed by his repeated failures to give direction, Father A pauses for self-examination. All his fine ideals seem to have been merd theory. No one asks for direction; no one seems to need encouragement or special :guidance. Perhaps he should take the initiative and give some hdvice, even though none is requested? He has read about this often, yet he finds that now When he faces a practical situ-ation h~ is puzzled. What should he say? In the average confession there are a fewsmall things that might be termed ordinary human failings, even of the saints. None of these things seems to be an apt starting point for any kind of per-sonal advice; yet Father A wishes his counsel to have some kind of personal bearing. He does not wish to impose his own ideals on other souls. He would feel very "artificial" in giving general advice that he feels sure the penitent knows already. 220 DIRECTION BY THE CONFESSOR The self-examination proves of no help. Father A de-cides to wait a little longer. But in the meantime the delay is having its effect on the community. Almost without their realizing it, the members begin to .think of their confessor as "an absolving machine.'~ Those Who have real problems take them to an occasionalconfessor or simply save them for the annual retreat. We have outlined one way in which it can happen that, though a community wants direction and the confessor wants to give it, nothing comes, of it. The community and the confessor are like two friends who have had a quarrel and then go for months without speaking, though each one would be delighted to renew the friendship. ¯ There may be many other ex~planati0ns for lack of direction by the ordinary confessor; yet we believe that cases like that of Father A are not uncommon. In other words, we think that often the only reason why direction is not given is that the community and the confessor fail to ';get together." The confessor does not know how to make the approach: the community does not make it for him. Such a situation is deplorable; there should be many ways of avoiding it. Surely this is a problem, a problem of sufficient importance for sincere and wholesome discus-sion. We think that our REVIEW offers an apt medium for such discussion; hence, now that we have at least par-tially outlined the problem, we turn to our readers and ask for suggestions. We are willing to allow some space in subsequent issues of the REVIEW for communications on this subject, and we hope that our readers are sufficien.tly interested in the matter to discuss it among themselves and to send us any suggestion they deem helpful. This is not a contest. It is a cooperative movement for progress in the use of an important means to peace of soul and self-sanctification. Concerning the communications THE EDITORS sent to us, we wish to make the folloWing observations: :1) Letters will be welcomed from anyone: priests, in-dividual religious, or religious communities. 2.) We seek positive suggestions, not mere negative criticism. By positive suggestions we mean anything that may throw light on the problem outlined and make for a better understanding between confessors and religious. 3) The subject of the confessional is always a delicate one; hence we wish it clearly understood that we are con-fining this discussion only to the gendra! point of spiritual direction, methods of giving it, of profiting by it, and so. forth. 4) Communications, will be printed without names and without reference to places. 5) The communications should be as brief as the sub-ject- ma~ter will permit. We may find it necessary to edit them a bit, even to digest them. But the substance will al-ways be given. 6) Address communications directly to The Editors of REVFEW FOR RELIGIOUS, St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas. BOOKS RECEIVED (To be reviewed later.) OUR MODELS IN RELIGION. Marist Brothers. Poughkeepsie, N. Y. THE DIALOG MASS. By Gerald Ellard, S.J. Longmans, Green ~ Company. New York. THE SOLUTION IS EASY. By Mark Schm~d, O.S.B. Frederick Pustet. New York. 222 Selt:-Knowledge Patrick M. Regan, S.J. ALL Religious realize the importance of self-knowl-. edge in the spiritual life. Though one can make some progress toward perfection .without adeep fund of self-knowledge, still it is safe to say that a comprehensive knowledge of one's personal talents or lack of them can be a powerful foice for advancing the soul in sanctity. We are filled with admiration of Christ in all His words and works, but we must remember that one of the secrets of His influ-ence over the hearts of men is His absolute, unerring cer-tainty about Himself, His mission, the prophecies concern-ing Him. This looms large in the narrative of His life, help-ing to explain at every step the reason for His perfect man-ner of acting. A boy of twelve, His explanation of the tragic sorrow He had brought Mary and Joseph, the simple declaration that it was His Father's business, cannot but convey the strong impression that He was so infallibly sure of Himself that neither sorrow, tragedy, nor any calamity could be allowed to interfere. In His dying hour, "all is consummated" is the public avowal for all men of all time that He knew to perfection every step of the way, that nothing unforeseen had ever happen.ed in His life. But Christ is not only to be admired, He is also to be imitated as far as possible; hence with His grace our kn0wledge of self will contribute its share to our success in the work of life. ' On the other hand the .New Testament is careful to re-cord not a few of the tragedies that followed on the lack of self-knowledge. Even after all Christ's training, .Peker had so little Understanding of himself and his weakness that not even a divine revelation of his impending fall gave him 223 PATRICK M. REGAN pause. Had he just a glimmer of self-knowledge, the warn-ing ofChrist would have struck home. How well Judas might have profited in acquiring an insight of his own char-acter, had he but heeded the loving instructions and friend-ly warnings of the most perfect of all spiritual directors. Numerous other examples might be cited to show how our Divine Lord esteemed self-knowledge and the importance He attached to it. And justly so, since it is a fundamental necessity of the spiritual life, without which perfection be-comes so difficult as to be practically unattainable. It is se!f one must pilot alone to the shores of eternity, and to do it securely and with a degree of success, one must make cer-tain he knows that self quite thoroughly. Even from a purely natural sta.ndpoint and on its own merits, this science of our own personality is most desir-able. One can hardly pick up a modern magazine or book without finding references to its need and desirability; hence the numerous plans for developing personality, and charts for rating it. Again,.to cite but one example: in a large city a very capable psychologist of reputation and experi-ence has a large clientele of business men who seek her aid in getting an insight into their characters. One of them, echoing the opinions of the rest, declared: "I know my business, Father, she has the stuff; it is not a racket, for-tune- telling, or anything of the sort; the vision she gave me of myself was i~asily worth the twenty-five dollars she charged, for it was worth thousands to me in my business." Advantages t:or the Religious. It is a great advantage to know yourself,, even in a par-tial, elementary way. Though to a religious it may not be worth much money, still it can save, much valuable time, pre.vent tragic mistakes, relieve one of.much worry and anxiety. How many ~eligious pursue a will-o'-the-wisp 224 SELF- KNOWLEDGE for many a year, which they fancied a necessary virtue or accomplishment. How precious.little, after all, is needed' to sanctify yourself, provided you are certain of what tab ents you possess and make efficient use of them. In this connection the recollection of St. Joseph of Cupertino im-, mediately flashes to mind. His biographers tell us his utter lack of human,knowledge kept him out of one religious order and caused his dismissal from another; yet he built his sanctity on this very defect. One talent--he realized his .great deficiency; b.ut with that one talent he reached the heights. It is not how many talents one has received, but how skillfully and efficiently he uses them that sanctifies. Religious are always eager and zealous to acquire self-knbwledge, t14ough not always so eager and zealous for the work entailed. An instruction or exhortation on the sub-ject so deeply interests them that they will almost certainly seek a special conference with the director for further per-sonal instruction. Regtettably, however, far too man~ labor under the delusion that the director can furnish a perfect insight into self for the asking, that out of the abundance of his genius.and experience he will unfold their whole souls before them to impart comprehensive enlight~ enment on their own mysterious selves. Would the task were so easy! Such an attitude betrays a misunderstanding of spiritual direction, shows a leaning toward excessive passivity and lack of initiative in the spiritual life; every-one should expect to shoulder himself a good. portion of the burden of his own spiritual direction. Yet this very ¯ defect brings out another advantage of self-knowledge. One who has made progress along that line will be able to cooperate intelligently with helpful advice imparted, ia fact will be more capable of enlightened reception of direc-tion offered. Countless persons would quickly reach heights of perfection, if mere passive, receptivity of spiritual guid-. 225. PA'~VRICK M. REGAN ante were sufficient; they are expert at doing just what they are told, provided they do not have to think for themselves in the process or take the initiative. If Providence would furnish tl~em direction requiring nothing more than .that they follow it blindly, they would soon be perfect. But God ordinarily demands that we do some of the leading,, some of the guiding ourselves. The more perfectly one knows his soul, the more perfect will be his performance ~in guiding it and being guided on the. path of sanctity. How necess.ary is self-knowledge for a religious appears from another angle .to which atter~tion is called by Rev-erend Mother Stewart, R.S.C.~I.: "In general, books for spiritual training direct their treatment against strongly-marked and outspoken faults, and take for granted that severe treatment and explicit methods will deal with them. But a whole class of subtle faults that grow up in the shade are not taken into account. Now, in books for spiritual training, it is quite possible to break down a nature of less resistance, by guiding it along lines destined for one of stronger make, and leaving it without knowledge of prin-ciples for its own guidance. It may remain ignorant of its own faults and defects, because they have not come within the scheme that was drawn up for others." (Tbe.Societ~ of tt2e Sacred Heart, p. 82.) Since we cannot demand Pen-tecostal miracles from the Holy Spirit constantly, we must conform to the ordinary way of Divine Providence, and temper and adapt the general doctrine according to our own needs and 'capabilities. This requires a knowledge of our own individual selves. Still another advantage is that when one knows himself, not perfectly it may be: but sufficiently for forming a work-ing hypothesis at least, he will not dissipate his energies, pursuing what may be impossible for him, or quite un- 226 SELF-KNoWLEDGE necessary in his particular vocation. He will also have a strong in~entive to strive .hard to, advance, his goodquali-ties encouraging him tO make sacrifice, his defects urging him forward to strengthen the weakness of character. What is more, he will get at the root 6f the trouble, instead of spending much time and effort on surface symptoms only; it will be pride, envy, sloth, or some other fundamental tendency that he will effectually check, and with each con-quest many surface manifestations such as uncharitable-ness, impatience, intellectual dishonesty, and the like will vanish. Finally, this understanding of self will help very much to understand others, to grasp their problems, sympathize in their troubles, and thus promote the spirit of charity in the soul. One cannot understand the heart of another who does not first understand hisown. There are few religious who do not, at some time or other, have to make some con-tribution to. helping other souls by means of direction. The long, trying novitiate of learning to dirett ond's own soul is the very best preparation for aiding others to advance in God's service. It is the best antidote to a shallow, super.- ficial view of lif~ and of those who share life with us, since it widens and deepens our outlook on everyone and every-thing we meet along the way. Nature ot: SelF-Knowledge. Precisely what is this self-knowledge of which we hear so much? Fundamental as it is, a starting point in our spir-itual life, we should aim at clear ideas of what it is and wl~at it involves. It is the understanding of a particular person, my.self, whom I know through my virtues and defects, my natural and sup~rnatura! talents, my likes and dislikes, m~r own personal life history. We may expand these ideas further. It is' tl~e understanding 6f my own per- 227 PATRICK M. REG~q sonality, especially in the light of the fact that there is ab-so! utely no possibility of there ever being another person-ality exactly like mine anywhere in the whole of cidation. Since my personality is such a unique thing, so different from every other, so isolated from all others, I am the only one, except Almighty God, who can hope ever to acquire a very intimate knowledge of myself. From another point of view, self-knowledge may be said'to be an understand-ing of my life, but not just that; it is seeing my life with a particular pattern or design running through it, my own personality. Hence it is much more than knowing what is found {n spiritual books about the principles and practice .of. asceticism. These stop short at the threshold; I alone can enter in to apply the knowledge to self, observing the effect on all that lies hidden within. Moreover it is much more than knowing faults, defects, sins, virtues, successes; it is the understanding of the person who has these defects and achieves these successes, and the intimate personal explana-tion of them. Many are prejudiced against self-knowledge, even fear to undertake the task of acquiring it; they. misunderstand it. It is not to be confused with morbid introspection-- that avid, uncontrolled interest in self which excludes all else and can be so harmful. No; the. acquiring of self-knowl-edge postulates not only looking inward, but also consid-erable looking outward to God, to our neighbor, and to our models, the saints. Nor does ~he study of self neces-sarily mean constant, cold analysisof selfl for the Very reason that it can also be accomplished by noting the vir-tues of others that impress us and reveal how much we fall short of perfect design in our own lives. Self-analysi~ can be a considerable aid to self-knowledge but it does not lead to it infallibly. Some are expert at analyzing themselves, 228 SEL~-KNOWLEDGE but their self-knowledge is mediocre; while others have a deep knowledge of self, with very little power of self-analysis. Difficutt~/ Perhaps for the majority of people the greatest prejudice against self:knowledge is founded on the difficulty of ac-quiring it. Studying self is something like studying a great painting or other work of art: no matter how expert your. judgment, as long as you are dose to it, you see only the details, hence are incapable of appreciating the whole. His-. tory furnishes the same phenomenon: we are too close to present e~cents to fo~m a true estimate of them in their his-torical perspective. That is e~actly the problem in the pres-ent case: to get far enough way from self to admire the beauty or observe the blemishes in that work of art, A valuable suggestion comes from our Lord Himself in His admonition: "First cast out the beam from .thy own eye, and then thou wilt see clearly, to cast out the speck from thy brother's eye." It is also possible to withdrawfrom self.in several waysto observe self through the eyes of oth-ers; these we leave to a more specific treatmen~ of methods of learning self. Christ's admonition calls attention to a basic difficult~ in the labor of gaining knowledge of self: very likely for years we have been nourishing a flattering opinion of self without even suspecting how dark the picture.°is, so that it is far from easy to face the unpleasant reality. Self-love jealously guards its own achievements, by demanding repression of what is painful, and by enlisting self-deception to hide the reality from us. What chance, then; has self-kriowledge, the truth that disregards praise or blame, the essence of humility that unmasks self for what it really is? Finally, proficiency in this science requires such perse- 22'9 PATRICK M. REGAN vering effort that the tedious task is.ultimately either aban-doned altogether, or only half-heartedly performed. The effort is wearing, too, in that we must observe not only sins and defects which are mentioned in confession, but also other things--talents, likes, dislikes--which not only are not matter for confession but have been ignored so long that they have become part of us; perhaps even, we have never adverted to them. When we are on our guard, how well behaved we are, how humble, how meek, how retiring our evil tendencies, pride for instance, But when. the will is off guard, the mind not intent on self and motives (which is about ninety per cent of the time), how unconscious we are whether it is pride, sloth, or perhaps even a virtue pro-pelling the stream of our thoughts. In a word, it all seems so difficult and complicated, we want to .give up before we ever get started. Simplification. But the difficulty and complexity must not be overrated. After all, weknew eno.ugh of our own intellectual, moral, and physical endowments when we entered religion to make a decision without qualification or condition; affecting the whole of our natural life. Moreover, to acquire a knowl-edge of self sufficient for all practical purposes is far from an impossible assignment. We should expect that; surely God would make such a valuable asset in the spiritual life quite accessible to all.earnest seekers after perfection. As a matter of fact, the whole pro.cess can be considerably sim-plified. For instance there is a remarkable unity in the spiritual life, on which fact we may base our plan for sim-plification. Withthe virtues, for instance, the acquiring of one in its perfection will involve the acquisition of nu-merous others. Thus St. Paul, writing on charity (I Corin-thians 1.3 ), speaks of it as being patient, kind, not envious, 230 . SELF-KNOWLEDGE not .pretentious, humble, not ambitious, not .self-seeking, not provoked, thinking no evil, not rejoicing over wicked-ness, rejoicing with the truth, bearing with all things, be-lieving all things, hoping all things, enduring all thingi. Surely Paul must mean that genuine charity brings in its train all these other virtues. And anyone who has taken St. James to heart on the control of the tongue; will have more than a theoretical knowledge that "if anyone does not offend in word, he is a perfect man" (James 3:3). It is well also to keep in mind with regard to our faults that their number is not infinite, nor even legion; in fact, all are aware-that they can be reduced to the seven capital sins, as they are called. Some of us may be prejudiced or even frightened by such terms as "capital sin," or "ruling passion." In this case, let us dispense with such terms and choose something like "predominant tendency." Surely none will find it beyond him to admit that one result Of original sin has been that we have strong tendencies toward evil, no matter how far we have advanced in perfection. However, we are not so .badly off that all seven of these tendencies strive together and constantly, like an insuper-able force, to drag us to the lowest depths Of every sin and degradation. Many spiritual writers maintain thereis one evil ten-dency that predominates, .one at the root of most of our defects and imperfections; that, if we work diligently at controlling this one, we need scarcely expend any time or energy on the rest. Thus the:Directory of the .Spiritual Ex~rcises of.St.Ignatius (d -13). bid.~ ~he retreat-roadster: '-'. give l~im.[the retreatant] also the particular, ex-amination; explaining tb hima.t, the Same time that in every man there is Usu.a!iysome .one fault 0ilsin @hich is th~ chief one, and is the cause and root ofmany others. And although 231 PA'~RICK M. REGAN in some persons there may be several chief sins, yet it is best to choose some one, and bend all our efforts to rooting it out." Thus the task of planning our spiritual campaign is greatly simplified: it hinges on determining what ten-dency to. evil dominates us in the various-acts of daily life. This should not be too hard to determine. Surely it is at least the "beam th'at is in your own eye." Yet to some it may still appear too hard a task to be.described as simple. More specific methods of determining the predominant ten-dency would be a great help, and these will be furnished in a future article. Meanwhile, taking a.lead from St. Thomas, who traces a!1 seven capital sins back to pride, no one will be far wrong who decides that pride is his predominant ten-dency. Studying and observing .self with God's grace and 'understanding, wisdom and other gifts of the Holy Spirit, he is due for a revelation how much pride really does domi-nate his whole character. He will be astonished at the amount of self-deception that has crept into his life, moti-vating his actions. If he alternates this observation of the depths of pride in his makeup with several weeks of the practice of humility, he. will perceive himself actually mak-ing unexpected prggressi as he draws toward the goal of honesty with self. Once he is honest with himself, he is ready to undertake in earnest the acquirement of a deep knowledge of self. Franciscan Studies Franciscan Studies is a quarterly review of the sacred and secu-lar sciences that serves as the official organ of the Franciscan Educa-tional COnference. Publication of the Studies began in 1920, but it was only recently that they were converted into a quarterly review. The review, is characterized by thorough scholarship. The annual subscriptign price is 5 dollars. Further information may be obtained from The Secretary, Franciscan Studies, S~t. B0naventur¢ College, St. .Bonaventure P.O., N.Y. 232 Pert:ect:ion and !:he. Religious Augustine Klaas; S.3. THE ultimate goal of.life is our maximum union with / God in the Beatific Vision. Since sanctifying grace is the measure of this divine union in heaven, it must be our ceaseless endeavor on earth to augment it as much as possible in our souls, by the worthy, reception of the sacra-ments and by meritorious activity. Hence, our spiritual perfection may be said to consist in a firmly rooted disposi-tion t~o do the-maximum supernatural good of which we are capable, both the good that is of precept and, what is more difficult, the good that is of counsel.This maximum good, however, we are to accomplish, not in a wholly indi-vidualistic way, but normally as corporate members of Christ's Mystical Body, the Catholic Church. At first sight, the effort to do the maximum good would seem to be impracticable. A successful modern play exhibits the havoc wrought in one family by a teen-age youngster who sets to work with determination to do as ¯ much good as possible on every occasion. The results of this youthful resolve are indeed neive-wracking for the other members of the family and highly humorous for the audience, since teen-age youth is not noted particularly for prudence and good judgment. The effective performance of the. greatest possible good requireS the balanced exercise of the virtues, above all, the supernatural ones, both theo-logical and moral. The theological virtues--faith, hope and charity--and the moral virtues clustering about the 1This is the second of a series of three articles on Perfection. The firs~article, which dealt with Perfection in General, appeared' in the March issue. The present article treats of the Essence of Perfection. Though a part of a series, the article is complete in itself.--ED. 233 AUGUSTIN~ KLAAS cardinal ones of prudence, temperance, justice and forti-tude, all perfected and. directed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit,omake up our spiritual perfection. Do we not judge of a person's perfection mainly by his exercise of the vir.- tues? The Church estimates the heroic perfection of one she wishes to raise to the honors of the altar by thoroughly investigating his practice of the virtues, according to the procedure drawn up by Pope Benedict XIV. The saintly Contardo Ferrini, to mention only one example~ notes down with customary perspicacity his "continuous approximation to infinite perfection," by means of "growth in virtue: vigor of faith, joy of hope, fervor of charity, profound humility, angelic purity." Spiritual perfection and a permanent disposition to exercise the vir-tues to the utmost are one and the same thing, for it is by the strenuous practice ~of these varied virtues that we do all the good of which we are capable, and thus achieve the greatest possible increase of sanctifying grace, the measure of our eternal bliss in heaven. Among all the virtues that grace the soul, is there one more important than the rest, one that embodies the very marrow of perfection, one which, if practised faithfully. will bring in its train all the others? What virtue contains the essence of perfection? III. Ped, ection, Its EssencemFalse Notions Before we select the virtue containing the true essence of perfection, we must consider some errors. We shall not. dwell upon the opinions of those pseudo:scientists and philosophers who consider all virtue, but especially that found in the saints of the Catholic Church, as just so much hypocrisy, abnor.mality, or perversion. Their ignorance, prejudice, and lack of scientific method are appalling. Nor shall we delay to discuss the errors of those who contemn 234 PERFECTION AND "THE RELIGIOUS ~the characteristically. Christian virtues .because theii mis~ taken ideologies have led them .to place what they call perfection in the wrong virtues or .in pseudo-virtues. Such are, for example, in our own. day, the Communists and the Nazis. " The virtues lauded by these ideologists are those~of pagan materialism. Some err i.n overemphasizing the pas-sive virtues, and then we have Quietism; while others stress unduly the active ones, and ther; we have what. Leo XIII called Americanism. Both these extremes have. met with positive disapproval, by the Church, because fundamentally they disturb the delicate balance between divine grace and human nature. We shall not delay on these. " What we are chiefly interested in are the ordinary mis-taken notions of the essence of perfection found among Catholics and even sometimes among .religious, at least in practice: They. are generally a matter'of, misplaced empha-sis, In the case.of religious, these errors are occasionally the result of faulty information imparted, to them in their earlier years, or ~more often, I am inclined to believe, they are due to a wrong interpretation, of ideas and practices found in the biographies of the saints. Although there has been great improvement in recent years,~ still many of these lives of the saints leave much to be desired from the point of view of accuracy and perspecti.ve., To secure interest and dramatic effect, things wholly accidental are played up undu!y, to the obscuring of essentials; certain particular means, espe.cially of a heroic kind, are over-stressed to the minimizing and.~even obliterating of the saint's all-important purpose. Thus, the striking and extraordinary tend to throw the spiritual .life of the saint completely out of f0c_us and hence it is .no. wonder-that ~the essence of per-fection is often, misconstrued by the uncritical reader. ~ Wha~e~cer the cause may be, i.tis a fact that some think that perfec.tion consists in long pr.ayers, particularly, ificon- 235 AUGUSTINE KLAAS templation, with accompanying ecstasies, revelations, and other charismatic gifts. Or again, some consider perfection as essentially a matter of penances and mortifications, with emphasis on the heroic ones and still more emphasis on what they like to call "the folly of the cross." It is true that heroic penances and extraordinary gifts of contem-plation are intimately connected with spiritual perfection and that they abound in the lives of the saints, but they do not essentially constitute perfection. They~ are effective means to perfection, but, after all, only means. The stead-fast use of them may indicate a high degree of perfection already achieved, but definitely they are not the essence of perfection. Others are inclined to place the essence of perfection in spiritual or even sensible consolations and. consider the presence of these as indicative of spiritual perfection attained. The greater the consolation, the greater the per-fection, so they think, forgetting that one can be perfect without great consolation. At least, perfection is entirely independent of the fluctuations of spiritual and sensible consolation. Then, there are those who, like the Pharisees of old. place perfection in the meticulous outward observance of the letter of the law--a certain kind of extreme formalism. Our Lord has expressed in no uncertain terms His estimate .of this type of pseudo-perfection (Matthew 23:23-28). Neither is the observance of the three evangelical vows of poverty, chastity and obedience the essence of perfection. These vows are a most important means to perfection, and centuries of religious life bear witness to their efficacy; but they are not the only means, for there are numerous saints in heaven who never took these vows. And I dare'say that there are peopl~ in the world who, without the. vows, are living lives of greater perfection than many religious do 236 j~,. PERFECTION AND THE RELIGIOUS with them. Nor does. spiritual perfection consist in works of zeal, the intense exercise of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, This restless apostolic activity may :be motivated by great interior perfection, but it does not con-stitute perfection essentially. Nor is perfection a kind of liturgical estheticism. These liturgical "thrills'.' are not necessary, though the right, intelligent use of the liturgy is a means to spiritual perfection sanctioned and often praised by the Church. Finally, we come to the good people who seem to equate perfection with the gaining of the maximum number of indulgences, or with the joining of as many religious societies and sodalities as POssible, or with making a record number of novenas, or with the greatest and most varied accumulation of medals, prayer-books, rosaries and holy¯ pictures. They forget ~hat there were thousands of saints in the Catholic Church before most of these things came intouse. St. Francis de Sales, in a famous passage often quoted, pillories the common inclination to judge of perfection according to one's own Pa[ticular character and tempera-. ment. He shows clearly that overstressing the wrong virtue as the essence of perfection frequently has Unfortunate reac-tions in the practice of the other virtues. The passage appears in the first chapter of his Introductior~ to the Devout Life. I cite it, asking thereader to remember that for St. Francis the words "devout" and "devotion" are the equivalent of "perfect" and "perfection." "Aurelius was wont to paint all the faces in his pic-tures to the air and resemblance of the women whom he loved, and so each one paints devotion according to his own passion and fancy. He that is given to fas.ting holds him-self for .very devout, if he do but fast, though his heart be full of rancour: and though he dare not moisten his tongue in wine or even in water for fear of transgressing s'obriety, AUGUSTI'NE KLAAS yet he scruples not to plunge it in the blood of his neighbor, by detraction and calumny. Another will account himself devout for reciting a great multitude of prayers every day, although afterwards he gives his tongue full liberty to utter peevish, arrogant, and injurious words among his famil-iars and neighbors. Another will readily draw an alms out of his purse to give it to the poor, but he cannot draw any gentleness out of his heart to forgive his enemies. Another will forgive his enemies, but will not make satisfaction to his ~reditors, unless forced by the law to do so. And yet all these persons are, in the common est.imation, held to be devout, though .they are by no means so. The servants of Saul sought for David in his house; but Michol having laid a statue in his bed, and having covered it with David's apparel, made them believe that it was David himself sick and sleeping (I Kings 19:11-16): even so do many per-sons cover themselves with certain external actions belong-ing to holy devotion, and the world believes them to be truly devout and spiritual; whereas in reality they are but statues and phantoms of devotion." The various opinions cited above err by overstressing things good in themselves and highly commendable when used prudently and wisely. These practices have their place in the quest for perfection, but their place is that of means to an end. True perfection consists essentially in none of them. IV. Perfection, Its True Essence The true essence of Christian perfection is charity-- the supernatural love of God for Himself and of all else for His sake. But this charity, containing the very marrow of perfectign, is not a low degree of charity, but maximum charity. A great sinner newly converted to a better life has the .charity that necessarily accompanies the state of sancti- 238 PERFECTION AND THE RELIGIOUS lying grace, but no one would say that he is very perfect. This minimum degree of charity is not sufficient, nor indeed is that charity enough which coexists with a habit of delib-erate venial sin and unmortified passions, it is maximum charity which constitutes the essence 0f.spiritual. perfection. St. Paul eloquently stresses the primacy of charity in the spiritual life. He calls it the. "bond of perfection" (Colossians 3:14) and the "fulfillment of the law" (Romans 13~10). Without it, he declares other virtues, even though heroic, to be as nought: "And I point out to ¯ you a yet more excellent~way~ If. I should speak with the tongues of men and of angel~, but do not have charity, I have become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymb~E And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and "all knowledge; arid if I have all faith so as to move mountains, yet do not .have charity, I am nothing. And if I, distrilsute all my goods to f~ed the poor, and if I deliver~my body to be burlied, yet do not have charity, it profits me nothing . So there abide faith;hope and charity, .these three,; but the greatest of these is charity" (I Corinthians 13). St. ,lohn, too, sings a paean in praise of charity in his Epistles: "God is love, and he who abides inlove abides in God, and God in him" (I ,lohn 4:16). But it is from the lips of Our Lord Himself that we have in clear and unmistakeable language the doctrine of maximum charity as'the essence of perfection. I cite the text from the Gospel of St. Matthew (22:34-40) : "But the Pharisees,-hearing thfit he had silenced the Sadducees,' gathered together. And one of them,-a doctor of the Law, putting .him to the test,, asked him, 'Master, which is .the great commandment in the Law?; desus said to him: 239 AUGUSTINE KLAA$ "Thou shalt love the Lord thg God "with thg whole heart, and with thg whole soul, and with thg whole mind. This is the~greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like it, . Thou shalt love tl~g neighbor as tbg. self. On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.' " The Fathers of the Church. have many passages con-firming and elucidating the same doctrine of charity. Let us hear St. Augustine, who says in his treatise On Nature and Grace: "Incipient charity is incipient justice; advanced charity is advanced justice; great charity is great justice; perfect charity is perfect justice.'" St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theotogica (II-II, Q 184, Art 3) notes that "primarily and essentially the perfection of Christian life consists in charity, principally as to the love of God, secondarily as to the love of our neighbor." And in his treatise on the Perfection of Spir-itual Life (Chapter I) he states that "the spiritual life con-sists principally in charity . . . He is simply perfect in the spiritual life who is perfect in charity." Suarez likewise teaches this (The Religious State, Chapter I, Section 3) : "The perfection of a thing consists in its union with its last end. Our last end is God, Who is manifested to us by faith. Our perfection therefore consists in union with God: and it is charity which unites us with God. The essence of sanctity and perfection,, and the perfection of Christian life, consists therefore in .charity and the perfec-tion of charity." Of the more modern theologians we may cite Tanquery (The Spiritual Life, p. 158): "But what degree of charity is required for perfection? . Charity so 240 PERFECTION AND TIIE RELIGIOUS well established in the soul as to make us strive earnestly and constantly to avoid even the smallest sin and to do God's holy will in all things out of love for Him." ¯ - It is now clear that. the essence of spiritual perfection is charity, the maximum charity of which we are capable according to our particular capacities of n~iture and of grace. What does this maximum charity include? It includes, .of course, the infused virtue of charity, but this alone is not sufficient: A newly-baptized child has the. infused virtue of charity, but it cannot be said to have attained to the perfection we are considering. Neither does a.high degree of infused charity suffice. A religious, for example,: may l~ad a very fervent life for many years and then unfor-tunately fall .into a state of tepidity and laxity in which he may commit many imperfections and venial, sins. If he does ¯ .not sin mortally, he will be possessed :of a great amount of sanctifying .grace and concomitantly a high degree "of infused charity, but no one would say that such a religious is leading a life of.perfection. Charity as an infused virtue is required but is not sufficient to constitute the. essence, of perfection. ¯ In addition to the highest degree of infused charity of which we are capable, there .is required also the maximum activity/of charity. There must be in the s0ul a permanent disposition to perform as many acts of supernatural charity as we can and, in fact, do govern all our actions by the vir-tue of charity. Charity must rule our actions as intensively and as extensively as possible. Does this mean that acts of the other virtues, such as faith, hope, humility, penance and the rest, are to be excluded? By no means. A priest in a Certain widely-read modern novel is likely to convey a wrong impression when he says: "If we have the funda-mentals, love of God and love of our neighbor, ,surely we're 241 AUGUSTINE. KLA/t$ all right." As though the possession of the true faith, for .example, were of minor.importance! No--faith, hope and the other virtues cannot be left out; they must be prac-tised, but they should be practised as much as possible from the motive of charity. As Suarez so cogently remarks: "The perfection of Christian life includes not only the per-fection of charity, but the perfection of the other virtues; charity being their end and crown, .or complement of per-fection . Other virtues contribute towards perfection as they are the instruments of charity; and to charity, as it is essential perfection; they add an accidental perfection." That is why St. Paul says (I Corinthians. 13:4-7): "Charity is patient, is kind; charity does not envy, is not pretentious, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, is not self-seeking, is not provoked; thinks no evil, doesnot rejoice over wickedness, but rejoices ~vith the truth; bears with all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." In a word, the other virtues may be said to belong to the integrit~t of perfection. Charity at a maxi-mum is its essence and charity must rule all the other vir-tues like a queen. If charity abounds in our souls as an infused virtue, if charity .governs our actions as intensively'and as exten-sively as possible, then indeed we shall be perfect. Then we shall be doing the maximum good. Observe a child who. loves its mother with all its heart. Doesit not strive ear-nestly to avoid whatever will displease her, and does it not do positively all it can to please her, out of love for her? So shall we avoid the slightest sin and imperfection and do all the supernatural good we can, if we love God with our whole heart and soul and mind. Love is the keystone of perfection. He is perfect who isperfect in charity. St. Francis de Sales neatly sums UP our doctrine on the 242 PERFECTION AND THE RELIGIOUS relation of charity to perfection, which he .calls dev0.t!o.n; "True and living devotion presupposes the love. of God; nay rather it is no other" thing .than: a true love of God; yet not any kind of love; for, in so far as divine love beautifies our souls, and makes us pleasing to his divine ¯ Majesty, it is called grace; in so far. as it gi~ces us strength to do good it is'called charity; but when it.reaches such a degree of perfection that it makes us not only do good, but do so carefully, frequently, and readily, then it is called devotion . And since devotion consists in a certain excelling degree of charity, .it not only. makes us ready, active and diligent in ~observing the commandments of God; but it also prompts us .to do readily and heartily as many good works as we can, even though they be not in any sort commanded, but only counseled or inspired .,. In fine, charity and devotion differ no more, the one from the other, than the flame from the fire;, inasmuch as charity, being a spiritual fire, when it breaks out into flame, is called devotion: so that devotion adds-nothing to the fire of charity, sav~ the flame which makes charity ready, active, and diligent, not only in observing the commandments of God, but in practising the heavenly counsels and inspira-tions" (It~troductior~ to the Deoout Life, .Chapter I). So far we have considered perfection in general and in its all important essential element, charity: In a con-cluding article we shall apply these thoughts to the reli-gious state. How is the religious to do the maximum good and practise the maximum charity? 243 Moral Beaub/ in our Duties toward God Gerald Kelly, S.3. IN HIS TREATISE on the Blessed Eucharist, St. Albertus Magnus offers this humble apology for the limitations of his work: "Even though we do the best we can, yet in treating of God and the mysteries of God we but babble like babes." In this respect, anyone who tries to work out a scheme for the positive and insp.irational treatment of the Commandments that enunciate our duties toward G0dwill very likely feel a certain kinship to the great Dominican scholar. These Commandments touch on sublime truths, "on-God and the mysteries of God," and it is difficult to speak or write of these truths in words that offer more than a glimmer ofsatisfaction. Because of the difficulty of treating the, subject ade-quately, I prefer to consider the present article merely a series of "notes" on our duties to God. The ideas are not fully developed; but they do, I hope, offer some material for that prayerful study of the Decalogue which, according to The Roman Catechism, is so desirable. Perhaps too, the general plan given here will be of service to teachers who desire material for presenting the positive background of .the various Commandments before explaining the prec.epts. and prohibitions contained therein. Reason and Faith Our duties toward God are epitomized in the first three . Commandments of the Decalogue. These Command-ments, in turn, are summed up and perfected in the first of the two Great Commandments. In terms of the virtues, these Commandments refer principally to acts of Faith, 244 MORAL BEAUTY IN DUTIES TO GOD Hope, Charity, and Religion. The following notes will show, in a somewhat sketchy fashibn, how the practice of thes~ virtues.is associated with the Commandments, .and will indicate, at least imperfectly, their power for contrib-utifig to the moral beauty of the universe. Our duties toward God flow from definite relation-ships that exist between.ourselves and God. The first step in the appreciation and observance of such duties must be a knowledge of these relationships. This knowledge is obtained through reason, and especially through Faith. Even .reason alone can tell us much about God and our-selves; from the visible things of this world, as St. Paul declared, it can penetrate to the invisible things of God. Reason can discover the existence of God and can paint a very sublime portrait of His perfections. Nevertheless, much more important than mere reason, is the knowledge that is ours through F~aith, In the first place, though reason can (perhaps I should say could). attain to a vast fund of knowledge about God, yet it is a simple matter of fact that the difficulties are so great that unaided reason falls into many and grievous errors in its search for God. The knowledge of Faith is free from these errors. Furthermore, even the most highly developed human reason, working under the most favorable natural circumstances, is held within decided limits in its quest for the truths about God. It cannot penetrate the veil of mystery; it cannot even suspect the reality of the inner life of God or know of the divine scheme which actually pre-vails in the universe and which is expressed in the mysteries of the Supernatural Life, of the 'Incarnation, and of the -Redemption. These truths are known only through revelation, and they become our own personal knowledge only when we accept God's revelation by making an ac't of Faith. 245 GERALD KELLY 'Faith, then, is the first step in the appreciation and .intelligent observance of our duties toward God. By Faith we know what God really is and what we are. It is scarcely necessary to enumerate here the sublime truths of Faith. They are contained substantially in the Apostles' Creed; they are unfolded in word and gesture and song in the liturgical ceremonies by which the Church teaches her chil-dren. But it should be mentioned here that any growth in Faith, any progress in the knowledge of God and' His perfections which comes through reading or study or prayer is not only a fine practice of the Commandments but isalso a most excellent preparation, for .living in the spirit of the Commandments. And as for .teaching, we teach the Commandments best when we ourselves know God inti-mately and when we impart this knowledge to our pupils before telling them that they must do this, they must not do that, and so forth. Through Faith we are made aware of a vast number of relationships that exist between ourselves and God. He is our Creator, our Helper, our sovereign Lord, our Redeemer, our Best Friend, our Father, our Goal; and so on. Yet, if we carefully examine these relationships, we shall find that, roughly speaking, they can be grouped under two heads: some emphasize our union with and similaritg to :'God, others emphasize the distinction and distance between ourselves and God. Suppose we consider first the relationships of distance~ and distinction. These present a grand picture of God as the Being of supreme excellence and absolute dominion and ourselves as creatures who d.epend utterly upon Him. This is a true picture; it is decidedly appropriate that we ~recognize it and lead our lives according to it. Down to the very core of our being we are creatures; and any act of 246 MORAL BEAUTY IN DUTIES TO GOD Ours which expresses this relationship to God is in perfect harmony With our natures.¯ : ¯ ¯ .Creqturely .Acts Among these creat.urehj acts, the simplest and most ¯ fundamental is that of adoration. The essential charac-teristic of adoration is perfect homage, the homage due to God alone. It is the acknowledgement of God's supreme excellence and-our absolute dependence on Him. It may be expressed internally by a simple act of the will, or it may be externalized by various gestures, such as the genuflec: tion; or it may seek outlet in the other forms of worship known as the prayer of praise, the prayer of petition, the taking of vows and oaths. Basically, these various acts are but modifications of the one fundamental act of worship. The prayer Of praise is adoration with emphasis on the acknoxvledgement of God's excellence; the prayer of peti-tion is adoration with insistence on our dependence. A vow ~is adoration expressed by partial or total consecration of oneself to God;an oath is adoration in that it pays tribute to one aspect of divine excellence, God's infinite truthful-ness. The worship of God must be not only personal and individual, but social as well, for we depend on God not merely as individuals but also as a community. And social worship demands a fixed time for its exercise and. definite forms for its manifestation. Hence the propriety of days set aside as God's days, days on which acts of reli-gion and rest from 'merely. secular occupations play the principal part. Hence too the need of that chief of all social actsof worship, sacrifice, a commonact of adoration by.which the.whole community, through its legitimate .ministers, makes an offering to God as an agknowledgement ¯ of His :supreme,dominion over the community"and of 247 GERALD KELLY the complete dependence, of the community .on, God. Social worship, from the very fact that it is external and common, must be regulated; and what norm is more appropriate than that which Almighty God Himself has established in giving us the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and in founding the Church with power to regulate this act of worship and to establish minor forms? Adoration in all its forms is reserved to God alone. But it is natural enough that in the sphere of religion we should find a condition similar to that which exists in practically all secular governments and which, if history, tells us rightly, is well-nigh as old as government itself. Earthly rulers have their ministers, and it is an accepted custom among men to pay honor to these ministers according to their dignity. In much the same way, God has communi-cated His excellence to creatures in varying degrees-~-a fact Which forms the basis for the special acts of veneration that we pay to Mary and the saints. This seems so reasonably in accord with human practice in other matters that one is apt to wonder why people at times strongly object to it. We honor Mary and the .saints because they reflect the divine excellence in a special way; we direct petitions to them because we know that God, Whose special friends they are, wishes to honor them by granting His favors through their intercession. God, the saints of God--and now a brief word about reverence for the things of God. As we pay Him supreme worship, it is surely the appropriate thing to show a special reverence to all the things connected with that worship: for the house of God,~. for the Sacred vessels, for the persons consecrated to Him, for the Word of God, and of course for the~Holy Name of God. All these things represent God, and in honoring them we honor Him. :The acts of virtue thus far enumerated are more fully 248 MORAL BEAUTY IN DUTIES TO! GOD explained in any theological treatise on thevirtue of reli-gionI. These acts, like the virtue of justiceamong human b~ings, all emphasize the distinction between ourselves and God. As such, they are distinctively creatttrety acts. Love and Hope Yet, though we are distinct from God, we are not wholly different from Him; though an infinite distance separates us from Him, yet in a true sense we are one with Him. Even reason tells us of ~ similarity to God that is ours in the possession of intellect and free will, and of a special yearning for God which is a property of our Spiritual and immortal souls. But Faith, in giving us.a knowledge of the supernatural order, tells us of a similarity to God and of an ultimate assimilation to God which reason could not so much as suspect. We are children of God, share~s in His own Divine nature, members of the Divine Family, with the destiny of sharing His own happiness in the Vision Beatific. The distance of creatureship is bridged by the inti.m.acy of friendship; and, though submissive worship is never to be neglected, yet in the present order it yields the primacy to filial love in our dealings with God. Since God has chosen to deal with us on' terms of loving friendship, it is most appropriate that we live according to this relationship. To do so is to live a life of Charity. This expresses itself in various ways: it rejoices in the perfections of God; it labors for the fulfillment of God's designs; it accepts God's gift of Himself and gives self in return to God. It flees from sin, strives for closer union with God and for perfect conformity to the will of God. Especially does it contemplate God-made-man and strive, as all true love 1For a splendid treatment of the virtues, confer The Fullness of Life by Walter Far-rell, O.P. Confer also The Catechism of the Council of Trent (The Roman Cate-chism). 249 GERALD KELLY does, for perfect imitation of Him and for~,the growth of His kingdom in the hearts of men . : Though our union with God has already begun, it is still imperfect and breakable. ~ To preserve it and increase it unto the perfection of heaven is difficult; without the help of God, it is impossible. But God in His fatherly goodness has promised not only this help but a reward as well for our cooperation. Since we know His goodness and His power and His unwavering fidelity to His promises, it is fitting that we trust Him, that always in perfect confidence we stretch out our hands to Him as a child reaches but for ¯ his parents. Such is the worship of Hope. Devotioia All the acts thus far enumerated are in perfect accord with the Commandments that contain our duties to God. To perform such acts, to cultivate such virtues, is to live in the spirit of these Commandments. This is not a dry, mechanical process; these acts do not issue from a sterile soul. They presuppose inthe soul a certain disposition that theologians call deootion. Perhaps it is well for us, particularly if we be educators, to realize that many people have.a false idea of religious devotion. They look upon it as something sentimental, something highly emotional, something they might want to experience only when their friends-are not present. That is a silly notion. In all Other affairs deootiorl has a lofty signification. Men speak with respect and awe of the soldier who is deooted to his country, of a husband devoted to his wife, of parents devoted to their children, of a doctor devoted to his duty, and so forth. In all these uses, devotiorl means something solid---a spirit of self-sacrifice and of true heroism. Yet, in the religious sphere the word has a "fluffy" 250 MOR~L BEAUTY IN DUflES TO GOD ~onn0tati0n;the mere accidentals are ffequently mist'aken for. the isubstance. ~ )kS a matter of~ plain .fact, religious ~devotioriis ~he highest of all forms Of :devoti0n. It is a. ready will to wor-ship God, toserve and love Him as. He deseives. It is the most appropriate and the h0blest form of hero-worship. Itis God-worshipmthe perfect willingnes~ to acknowledge God for what He is and ourselves for what we are. It is the first fruit of a lively Faith; and the very Soul of all the other acts of virtue, enumerated here. A life lived, according to the pattern sketched in this article is a beautiful life. The .greater the number of men who lead such lives, the more does moral beauty shine resplendent in the universe. To labor for this in ourselves. a.nd others is our apostolate. The Church and Moral Beauty 0n¢ concluding word: Nothing so strikingly illustrates the true beauty of worship as the living Church herself. It sometimes impresses and consoles our people when we show them that through membership in the Church they help to conserve this beauty in the world and are thus contributors to a spiritual achievement of almost unbelievable gran-deur. Thoughout the world they have built magnificent churches where the one true Sacrifice, as well as other forms :of worship, is offered. This worship is onduct~ed wi.th exquisite pageantry and with the finest of this world's goods. Daily and hourly in the. name of the Church, there ascends to God the most reverent of all prayers, the Divine Office. Our Catholic people have a wealth of reli-gious festivals in honor of God and His Mysteries; they venerate Mary, the Mother of God, and the angels and saints, His special friends; they cherish the written word of .God and reverence the living teaching authority that He 251 GERALD KELLY established. They have doctrines and a Moral Code of -tranScendent b~auty. They have a priesthood dedicated 'wholly to ,priestly work. Thousands of their men and women are consecrated to Goal by vow. In toil and sacri-rice, they have built countless schools to safeguard the reli-gious education of youth; and there is no work of mercy e~cluded from the~stupendous program of ~harity that~the Church is ever conducting. All those things blend together to form the sweet incense of worship that is constantly being offered to God through the Holy. Catholic Church. It is a living, expres-sion of the first table of the Decalogue and of the Great Commandment of Love. PAMPHLET REVIEWS Martyrdom of Slovenia, by dohn LaFarge, S.d., is a p.amphlet .re-print of three articles from America. It gives a graphic picture of Catholic Slovenia, peaceful and progressive before the German inva-sion but now subjected to terrorizing persecution. Proceeds go to the general relief of Slovenia. The pamphlet may be ordered from American '.Slovene Parish Relief, 62 St. Mark's Place, New York City, N. Y. Price: 5 cents each. Meditorials, by Paschal Boland, O.S.B., is a small booklet of brief, well,expressed thoughts for 'prayerful .reflection. It may be obtained from The Grail, St. Meinrad, Indiana, 10 cents a copy. ,252 The h,p!:er o[ At:t: irs in a Religious Congregation Adam C. Ellis, S.3. ~i A_ FTER kh~ cl~apter of elections, is finished, it is c~s. ]-~ tomary to hold a chapter of affairs (business l~apte.r) under the presidency of the newly .elected superior general. In this chapter the more important matters con-cerning the welfare of the institute as a whole are consid-ered. Agenda ~t: the Chapter.of Affairs ~ We may conveniently divide the subject-matter of this, business chapter into three classes:. 1 ) affairs which require the permission or approval of the Holy-See; 2) other important matters pertaining to the general welfare of the institute as a whole; 3) propositions ,~ubmitted to the general chapter by individual houses and subjects. I. Affairs which require, the permission of the Holy See: Such are, for example: the division of a congregation into provinces; the revision of the boundaries of provinces already established, as well as the establishment of new provinces (canon 494) ; the establishment of houses in mis-sion territories subject to the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith (canon 497, § 1) ; the erectibn of new novitiates, or the transfe~ of .an existing novitiate to another house (canon 544); the assumption of a debt, or the sale or mortgage or property, when the amount exceeds 6,000 gold dollars (canon 534). 2.-Other important affairs: Under this head would come. questions of finance, of discipline, and of good works. A word about each. Questions of Enance. Under the old law the Holy See ~253 ADAM C. ELLIS 0r,.the ~Bishop determined the amount of the dowry, the amg.unt:eadh :houie was to.contribute to the support of the general curia an~d of lnembers'in trai.riing, and so forth. The present policy of the Sacred Congregation of Religious is to allow~the general chapter of a congregation approved by the Holy See tO determine these amounts, thus avoiding the n~cessity, ofrecuiring to. the HolySee for dislSenshtions required b~r .the changing financial status of an~ institute. He'nce the gener.al chapter will determine the following points: the amount of the dowry to be required of postu-lants; the amount of money each house is to contribute to the motherhouse for the support of the superior general and his officials, and for the support of novices, religious who ~ire studying, and so forth; the amount of money the supe-rior general may spend with the consent of his council, as well as the amount he may sper~d without such consent: similarly the amount which provincial superiors may spend with and without the consent of their respective councils: the amount for which local superiors must obtain permis-sion of the superior general for extraordinary expenses as ¯ well as to contract a debt. Matters of discipline will deal with the observance of the constitutions and customs, the development of the ¯ spirit of poverty, obedience, and the like, as well as the suppression of abuses which may ~have crept in. ~ ¯ Good works embrace the particular end for which the congregation was established: teaching, the care .of the sick, and the like. Hence the general chapter may discuss the work-that is being done, new works to be undertaken within the limits of the purpose of the institute, changes, which may be~desirable,~new methods to be adopted. 3. Propositions of individuals: Every ,member of the institute, as well as the individual houses~with their mem-bers, has a right to, submit propdsitions for the" considera- 254 CHAPTER OF AFFAIR8 tion of the general chapter. Individual communities and their members will submit their propositions through the delegates who represent them. These propositions should contain suggestions for the betterment of the congregation as a whole, and should not be devoted to the private affairs of. individuals. All propositions submitted should be caref~ly collated, and submitted to the general chapter in the manner described below. Pretiminarg Work o~: Committees ~ In order to save time and to dispatchthe business of the chapter of affairs in a competent manner, it is desirable that one or more committees be appointed either by th~ chapter itself or by the superior general and his council. In a small congregation one committee will suffice; a larger ~ongrega-tion, especially one divided into provinces, will find it helpful to appoint several committees: for- instance, one .for finance, a second for discipline, a third for propositions, another for good works. These committees will hold pre-liminary meetings in which they will discuss the matters submitl~ed to them, word them in a brief but clear state-ment, giving reasons for and against their acceptance. The committee on.propositions will consider all the propositions sent in and collate them, p.utting a~ide for the time being. those of minor, importance or of a personal nature. A list of even these latter propositions should be read to the chal~- ter at some time or another before its close. The chapter will then decide whether or not it wishes to consider any of them. Some of the propositions will have been included in the matter of other committees and may be omitted. Discussion ot: Proposals The superior general will read aloud the proposals formulated by the committees, together with the reasons 255 ADAM C. ELLIS - ¯ for andagainst them, one question, at a time. Discussion is now in order. Every meinber of the chapter has the right to speak on the proposition if he wishes to do so. Usually the capitulars are asked in order of seniority to express their opinion: They should address their remarks to the president of the chapter. After all who so desire have expressed their minds in turn, the president may call for final remarks before the proposition is put to a vote. Each speaker should first obtain permission from the pre-siding officerl then state his opinion calmly, objectively, and briefly. The president will then sum up the arguments, pro and con, arid put the proposition to the chapter. Manner of Voting in Chapter of Affairs All ques.tions are decided bya majority vote, that is, by one more than half the number of capitulars present. AI.1 matters of greater importance should be decided by secret ballot. Though any individual capitular is not obliged to vote, he should at least turn in a blank ballot. In minor matters, or when it is evident from the dis-cussion that there is little or no opposition to a proposal, the vote may be taken by holding up hands or rising to express an affirmative vote. Any member of the chapter, however, may demand a secret ballot on any proposition. When this occurs, the president will put the matter to a vote, and if the majority of the chapter vote for a secret ballot, it must be taken, otherwise a standing vote will be sufficient. I~ case of a tie vote on any proposition, the president of the chapter may decide the matter if he wishes to do so: It may be well to remark here that it is not necessary for the general chapter .to pass on all the proposition.s sub-" mitted to it. Instead, it may vote to allow the superior general and his council to decide the matter ,in question. 256 CHA~TER OF AFFAIRS This will be the case especially when~ further information.,is:. needed upon a certain subject, or when future: circhmstances may alter the state of the question proposed. :. Changes in the. Constitutions The general chapter has no power to change the con- ", stitutions or to inteFpret them.~ Hence, if it seems desirable. for the general welfare of the institute that such a change should be made, or if some point in the constitutions is not clear, the chapter'of a pontifical institute may vote to ask the Holy See to change the constitutions which it has .approved, or to interpret such constitutions. In the case of a diocesan congregation, such a pet)ition should be addressed to the Bishop of the diocese. But if the congregation has houses in more than one diocese, the Bishop of the diocese in which the motherhouse is situated will have to obtain the consent of all the other ,Bishops in whose territory the con-gregation has houses before he can make any change in the constitutions (canon 495, § 2). Ordinances oF the General Chapter While thi~ general chapter of a religious congregation has no Idgislative power, and cannot, therefore, make laws in the strict sense of the term, it has dominative power over all the members of the institute (canon 501, § 1), and may issue ordinances which are binding upon all, provided such ordinances are not contrary to any laws of the Church or fo the constitutions. Such ordinances should be few in num-ber and really necessary for the spiritual well-being of the institute. They. remain in force until the following general chapter, and are binding upon all the members of the insti-tute as soon as they are promulgated by the superior gen-eral. No legislation imposes a time limit .upon the general 257 ADAM C. ELLIS : dhapter of, affairs., But underI normal, conditions, ,especially ¯ for.a congregation whose constitutions have been approved by the Ho. ly See, this chapter should be completed in.three or four days. Rarely would all the subjects mentioned in this article be discussed in the same chapter: in fact, it may even h'appen that theosubjects proposed for discussion are so few that the chapter can finish its business in one or two .sessions, A majority vote of the chapter members is suf-ficient for adjournment. When the chapter of affairs has concluded its business, a short special session should be held for the signing of the minutes. Every member of the chapter should be present in order to ~ffixehis signature thereto, and these minutes should be carefully preserved in the general archives. The members of the chapter should remember that they are bound by secrecy regarding the matters discussed in.chapter until the promulgatibn of the results of the chapter are made by the superior general. Even after such promulga-tion they should observe secrecy as to details regarding names and matters discussed or voted upon in chapter. Confirmation of Acts of Chapter of Affairs In the case of a pontifical congregation, the acts of the chapter of affairs need not be submitted to the Holy See unless the constitutions require suclq confirmation. In the case of a diocesan congregation, the local Ordinary may reserve to himself the right to confirm tl~e acts of the chap-ter of affairs. If he has not done so, there is no obligation .to submit the acts of the chapter to him for approval. In .both cases, however, as was stated above, individual propo-sitions implying a change in the constitutions or an inter-pretation of them must be submitted to the Holy See or to the Bishop, as the case may be. 258 The Place ot: :he Precious Blood in I:he Spiritual Lit:e Malachi J. Donnelly, S.J. IT IS A COMMONPLACE that the frequently occurring cloys the~ inquiring mind. The infrequent rainbow will stir the s6ul to its depths, the ever-recurring sunrise leave it cold and unaroused. But, who will say that the bow in the skies outshines the brilliance of the early dawn! Even so in the spiritual life, it is often enough the unusual rather than the solid doctrine that attracts our moth-like, unstable souls. The sure cure for this human weakness is frequent meditation on the fundamentals of our Faith. The many facets of the Catholic jewel must be examined up-close. Our goal must be not knowledge, but realization. As the author of the Spiritual Exercises puts it: "it is not an abun-dance of knowledge that fill~ and satisfies the soul, but to feel and taste things internally." The purpose of this essay is to set forth a few doctrinal observations concerning the Precious Blood, in the hope that frequent meditation on them may enkindle within our hearts a great devotion tb that red stream of divine love which wrought our salvation. It is a dogma of our Faith (hat the Son of God assumed as His very own a complete human nature. This is a fun-damental principle in considering the Precious Blood. Scientists tell us that the blood-stream is devoid of life. Hence, did we not have the defined truth that the Word possessed a complete and integral human body, we might wonder concerning the union that exists between the Pre-cious Blood and the Son of God become Man. But our 25.9~ ~ALACHI J. DONNELLY Faith teaches that the Word assumed not only flesh and soul, but also the human blood-~treaml ~' Scripture speaks of the flesh and blood of our Lord in the same terms: "Therefore because children have blood and flesh in common, so he .in like manner has shared in these; that through death he might destroy him who had the empire of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver them, who throughout their life were kept in servitude by the fear of death" (Hebrews 2: 14-15). Again we read: " . . . . the Church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood" (Acts 20:28). St. Peter writes: "You know that you were redeemed from the vain manner of life handed down from your fathers, not with perishable things, with silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" .(I Peter 1:18-19). Scripture, then, is too explicit to allow any doubt about the intimate union between the Precious Blood and the Person of the Word. Wk have it,therefore, on the word of God that our sal, vation was accomplished by the Blood of the Lamb. To this Blood is ascribed an infinite value, for the notion of redemption and satisfaction as effec~ed by 3esus Christ is inseparably linked with infinite value. Now, if to the Blood in itseff is attributed the infinite price of our redemp-tion, this is possible only if the Blood is hypostatically, or .personally, united to the Person of the Son of God. From the words of several General Councils defining that our Lord had a corriplete and integral human body, from the testimony of Scripture which attributes our kal-vation to the Precious Blood (the Scriptural testimony was repeated by Clement VI in his Jubilee Bull of 1349), we may conclude that to the Precious Blood may be accorded the same worship that is Offered to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. For both were personally united to the Son of God. 260 THE PRECIOUS BLOOD IN THE~ SPIRITUAL LIFE Let us turn to the Mass. When the priest at the altar says those memorable words, "for this is the chalice of my blood" and so forth, what ieally happens? To answei this we must go back to the. Last Supper, for what ,Jesus did at the Supper the.priest does at the Mass. When, on that most solemn evening, 'jesus took the ctip of wine into His holy and venerable hands and said: "All of you drink of this: for this is mybloodof the new covenant, which is being shed for many unto, the forgiveness.of sins" (Luke 26:2), what really.took place? Now, 'jesus, as the Son of God, can tell naught but the truth. When, itherefore,. He said, "this is-my. blood," a gieat and Wonderful change took place, th~ one and only event of its kind in the history of the world up to that time. What He held in His hands; after these words, was no longer: wine. No, it was a cup that con-tainedHis, most Precious Blood. Beneath the'appearances of wine was contained, as the Council of Trent teaches,~ Christ's own.Blood--and with the Blood, His Body,. Soul, and Divinity. At the Supper the Blood was shed mystically or sym-bolically by the separate consecration of the wine and biead. By this the bloody death of the morrow was symbolized. At the Mass the same holds true, for the Mass reenacts what Christ did at the Supper. The Mass and the Supper are, after the rite of Melchisedech, an unbloody sacrifice: the-sacrifice of the Cross is according to the rite of Aaron, a bloody sacrifice. After the Supper, 'jesus continued to offer Himself to His eternal Father. The bloody sweat in the Garden, the scourging, the crowning with thorns--all were outlets for that great sacrificial .stream of love in the red current ~of which the sins of the world were swept away" as driftwood in a swollen river.' 7Fhen on Calvary, in asublime finale of divine love, the Sacred Heart was emptied~of that most 261~ MAI~ACHI! 3. DONNELLY precious burden, the cleansing Blood of the immaculate ¯ Lamb of God.In this bloody consummation: of the Savior's .sacrifice our.redemption was achieved. It but required the extrinsic a~ceptance on the part of God, that the sacrifice be fordver complete . By the Resurrection the Precious Blood was again united to the Sacred Body and in the Ascension ,lesus was taken-into Heaven, where, as '.'the ¯ Lamb that was slain," He forever pleads our cause. In the Mass, as the Council of Trent teaches, we have the same sacrificial Victim as was immolated on Golgotha: and the same One now offers by the ministry of priests, Who then offered Himself on the Cross, the sole difference being in the. manner of offering. No longer is the Precious Blood drained from the Sacred Heart, but forever will that red current flow through the living Body of 3esus. In the Mass, as at theSupper, there is the mystical, or symbolical, shedding of the Blood in the separate consecration of wine. The species of wine, in its sacramental signification, more directly signifies the Precious Blood; although, of course, we must ho!d that the whole Christ is (equally) present under the sacramental veil of either species. In our spiritual life, then, it is dear what an important role devotion to the Precious Blood should play. The spir-itual life is possible only through Grace. Grace, however, is had only through tapping tl~e great reservoir of the merits of Christ. And the merits of Christ have been won by the ¯ shedding of His Precious Blood on the altar of the Cross. ¯ From His pierced Sacred Heart poured forth the scarlet laver that satisfied for our sins, reddemed all men, merited grace by which we are justified. Indeed, we have been redeemed at a great price. Would. that we could all "feel and taste internally" those words of St. Peter: "You know that you Were redeemed . notwith perishable things, with silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ." 262 The Catholic Rural Life Apostolate John L., Thomas, S.J. THERE are at least two reasons why religiousshouldbe ¯ well-informed regarding the Catholic Rural Life Apos-tolate. First, it is an apostolate, one of the very impor-tant forms of Catholic Action being conducted in this country today. Secondly, many religious, particularly those teaching in the rural schools, are actually engaged in the work of the apostolate and are in a position to accomplish great good in its behalf. For these reasons, a brief exposition of the Rural Life Apostolate seems appropriate here. Since the best expres-sion of the apostolate in our country is found in the work of the Catholic Rural Life Conference, I feel there is no better way to present the position of the Church in the rural crisis than by explaining the organization and aims of the Conference. The Catholic Rural Life Conference Tile Conference started in 1923 as a voluntary asso- Ciation to cooperate with the Rural Life Bureau of~the National Catholic Welfare Council. Six Bishops and sixty delegates, from eighteen dioceses met at St. Louis to discuss plans for the future. Since then thi~ conference has ignr othwen" ctoou bnetr yo.ne of the outstanding Catholic organizations What are the problems it attempts to solve? They can be put under three heads. First--pastoral and missionary. Eighty per,cent of our Catholic population live in the large cities. This means that the remai.ning twenty per cent are spread throughout the rural sections. Or for. every 263 ,JOHN L. -THOMAS 800,000 Catholics in the cities there are only 200,000 in the country. Hence, facilities for a Catholic education are frequently lacking. Perhaps we can realize the problem better this way. There are about 18,150 parishes in the United States. Only 8,000 of these have parochial schools. This.means 10,000 groups without schools. Furthermore, of the 2,952 counties in the United Sta.tes, 1,022 have no resident priest; 500 more bare none in their rural sections. The Conference is striving to remedy the disastrous effects of these conditions--that is, it is making the Church more effective by building up parochial schools, when this can-. not b~ done it promotes vacation schools .where e~ch year ¯ over one quarter of a million children are given, a religious training. Study clubs and correspondenc,e courses are used to instruct those who can be reached in no other way. It should be noted here that the Conference is the only agency under the huspices of the Church thathas specifically inter-ested itself in the rural Catholic.school. Advantages to Church The second task of the' Conference is to demonstrate the advantages rural welfare brings to the Church. Since the Catholic population in the United States is eighty per cent urban and Since the larger cities fail to reproduce themselves by thirty per~cent, ~it is clear that the continued existence and prosperity of the rural parishes are necessary for the physical existence of the Church in this country. Whether we like it or not our large cities are the grave-yards of the race. Even at the present birth rate, for every 10 adults in the city there will be only 7 in the next genera-tion, 5 in the third, and 3 ~ in the fourth, a decline of two-thirds in a century. For the country the rate runs: 10, .13, 17,, 22, giving an increase of one hundred percent in a cen- 264 THE RURAl. L~FE APOSTOLATE tur~y. And the Catholic Church is s.trong in the cities! Her strength is her weakness. Of course, there are individuals .with ostrich_-like instincts who refuse to look at these facts. Others contend these figures are not true for Catholics. Hard, cold facts, however, prove there is little or no distinction between the drop in the urban Catholic birth rate and that of others. As a prominent weekly somewhat cynically remarked: "Despite the Catholic drive for big families and no birth control, United States' Catholics are not fully reproducing themselves except in the country parishes--and more than eighty per cent of the Catholics of the United States live in cities." Leclercq, in his excellent Work, Marriage and the Family, clearly points out the seriousness of this prob-lem for the West in general: "The second half of the 20th century Will witness the population battle. On its out-come, more than on any other factor, will depend the future of civilization." Bishop O'Hara, treating this same subject, says: "The misfortune of the Catholic Church in America is that it is not strong in the country, that it is not at the natural source of population. The result" is that it is not the bene-ficiary of that natural process but has to fight its way against the decadent influences of the city in building up a people to the Lord. The most shortsighted should see how its influence would be multiplied if, instead of having .roots in merely a few hundred strong country parishes, it could possess several thousand such sources of population-." Monsignor John "Ryan has said in this regard: "To the extent that the Catholics migrate to the city more rapidly than non-Catholics they render inevitable a decline in the Catholic population and its influence upon American life." Besides being the source of population the rural parish is the milieu where the Catholic religious ideal of the family JOHN L. THOMAS finds perhaps its strongest support. This is the contention of the many Bishops and religious leadei~ in. the field today. As Father LaFarge has stated, the strength Of ~he rural, life mbvement is its stubborn insistence on the one fundamental point at issue in ,the world today: "How can best condi-tions be provided fo:r the religious salvation of the indi~ vidual family?" Bishop Vincent Ryan expresses the same general idea: "Essential for the preserVation of our civilization are the sound principles of rural living advocated by the Confer-ence." And Bishop Muench: "True civilization is rooted in' family culture. Without it civilization cannot endure; without it civilization will decay and .die. Alive to th~s great truth the Conference bends all its activities towaid the preservation arid promotion of family culture." Monsignor Ligutti, writing on the work of the Con2 ference echoes the same sentiment: "The Conference con-tends that for the full development of the human person-ality .and the greater good of the family, rural living with its WholesOmeness, integrity, ~ and responsibility is the most desirable mode of life. The Conference contends that the welfare bf the Church and the maintenance of a democracy depend on a balancebetween people in cities and people on theland--a 50-50 ratio rather than the 80-20 ratio of today." ¯ ~Bishop O'Hara has well summed up this point: "The Conference aims to build up in ti~e United States 10,000 strong country parishes and to anchor on the land a larger percentage of the strong, vigorous and intelligent boys and girls, who were born there." He goes on to say that the Church'sinterest in.agriculture arises from the altogether unique relationship ~which exists universally between the agri~cultural occupation and the central institution of Christianity, nay, of all civilization, namely, the family. 266 THE RURAL LIFE APOSTOLATE Now since the learning and experience of these Cath-o! ic leaders enables them to speak with authority, it must be evident to all that a primary source and ideal of Cath-olic parish life is the rural parish. And the aim of the Conference to convince leaders among the clergy and lay-men of this truth and to build up a rural youth convinced of the dignity of their calling, is a noble apostolate indeed. Catholic Agrarianism The third task of the Conference is Catholic agrarian-ism-- that is, to work not'merely to prove the value and dignity of rural life, but actually to conserve and promote rural life. Here the question is not what rural life can do for the Church but what the Cl~urch can do for rural life. As Father LaFarge.has pointed out: "There is a real threat of revolt among rural groups today.Communism can penetrate and demoralize rural America." Pius XI has indicated this danger on a general scale: "The greatest care must be exercised in behalf of the humble classes, especially the farmers and laborers. The Church is concerned at the great dangers by which their souls are increasingly men-ace&" The cause of the danger in this country--its primary source--is farm tenancy. Vanishing ownership is the menace stalking through rural America today. In the last 55 years tenancy has increased from twenty-five to forty-two percent.of all farmers. It is still on the increase. In other words nearly half of the farmers do not own the land that they work. We have only to reflect how simple it' would be for these tenants to become tenants of the govern-ment rather than of some insurance company or. bank, to .realize how easily the change could be made to the Soviet plan viewed with so much favor by many leaders today. That these conditions are contrary to the social 267 JOHN L. THOM,~S teaching of the Church is.clear from what~ Leo XIII has written: "Our first and most fundamental principle, wl~en we undertake to alleviate the conditions of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property. The law should favor ownership and its policy should be to induce as many people as possible to become owners." Pius XI, after speaking of "the immense army of hired rural laborers, whose condition is depressed in the extreme, and who have no hope of ever obtaining a share in the land,", says: "Unless serious attempts be made, with all energy and without delay, to put them [principles leading to wage: earner ownership] into practice, let nobody persuade him- . self that the peace and tranquillity of human society Can be effectively defended against the forces of revolution!" He has given the reason .for the seriousness of the agrarian problem eisewhere, saying: "Land is a nation's primary wealth andagriculture its most natural, vital, and impor-tant industry." Consequently, trouble in this field means a disruption of the very foundations of society. His Holiness, Plus XII, says of land and the family: "Of all the good~ that can be the object of private ownership none is more conf6rmable to nature . . . than the land, on the holding of which the family lives and from the products of which it draws all or patt of its subsistence . As a rule only that stability ¯ which is rooted in one's own.holding makes of the family the most vital and perfect and fecund ~ell of society . If today the concept of vital spaces is at the center of social and political aims, should not one, before all else, think of the vital space of the family and free it from the fetters of conditions which do not permit even to formulate the idea of a homestead of one's own?" , Therefore, Catholid agrarianism in the United States has a twofold job: To promote the ideal Catholic rural 268 THE RURAL LIFE APOSTOLATE community, and to propagandize for those essential norms of social morality which govern rural welfare wherever found, and which can be subscribed to by all persons whose minds have not been corrupted by atheism and materialism. These two aims interlock. Since the Catholic rural com-munity cannot function in a vacuum it must unite with other upright rural forces which are working for the com-mon end of social justice. It does this by organizing cooperatives,credit unions, study clubs, and by promoting a spirit of brotherhood and neighborliness. It maintains friendly relations with other rural life associations and endorses and sponsors all projects looking to the true uplift of the rural population. This leads to frequent contact with non-Catholics and opens up .an immense field for true conversions. Several Bishops have stated that they consider no field more fruitful in con: versions than this apostolate. Conclusion These, therefore, are the main rural life problems the Church must face: 1) pastoral and missionary; 2) edu-cating to values of the rural parish as the source of Catholic population and ideal family culture: 3) Catholic agra-rianism working for ownership of the family-sized farm. The efforts being made to meet these problems are clear from the four working aims of the Conference: 1) to care for the underprivileged Catholics living on the land; 2) to keep on the land Catholics who are now there; 3) to settle more Catholics on the land; 4) to convert the non-Catholics nowon the land. This is the rural life apostolate. These are its prob-lems and its aims. Itis an apostolate to save the Christian family, to .work for conditions which render the existence of the Christian family possible, and to reeducate people to 269 JOHN L. THOMAS ~the true values in life, that is, a reaffirmation of the impor- .tance and primacy of the human person threatened on all sides. .~ It is an aposto!ate that demands work. and study. Pius xi, pleading for more social action in generaLhas written: ,"No easy task is here imposed on the clergy, wherefore, all candidates for the sacred priesthood must be ,adequately prepared to meet it by intense study of social matters.'[' What is said here of candidates to the priest-hood must be applied to all teachers in Our Catholic schools for they tbo must be prepared to instruct Christian youth 'in the true principles ofCatholic action as outlined by the Church. Since the rural life movement is one form of this Catholid social action strongly urged by-the hier-archy today, it too must be studied and promoted by all Catholics. ~ It must be obvious to everyone that much can be accomplished for this apostolate iri our schools. Not, necessarily, by the introduction of new courses, and new textbooks, however. Rather, a sympathetic and intelli-gent understanding .of the importance and seriousness of the problem will enable the capable teacher to reorientate existing courses. At any rate, efficient teachers,~and we have many of them--will find some way to achieve the aims desired. Pius. XI, in regard to the whole social question of which this apostolate necessarily forms a part, has written these stern words: "No stone, then, must be left.unturned to avert these grave misfortunes from society. Towards this one aim must tend all our efforts and endeavors, sup-porte. d by assiduotis and fervent prayers to God."'"And he adds a thought that must be uppermost in the mind of each 6f us: "For with the assistance of Divine Grace, the destiny, 9f~ the human family lies in our ~hands." 270 Git:!:-I::xchanges in t:he Correspondence of $t:. Boniface GERALD ELLARD, S.J. NO OTHER literary likeness, they say, ~can compare with a collected correspondence for providing a realistic .portrait of their writer; equally true, i.t.~). would seem, that not even thebest of letters can dispense with gift-giving in some fashion as a natural expression of ~,. friendship. "Love consists in mutual exchange on either side," as tl~e whole world knows. How this tendency of nature is to be supernaturalized is a page of the science of the saints that all engaged in the pursuit of perfection must carefully study. Happy those in whom this "supernatu-ralization process" is effected as completely and as grace-fully as in the case of St. Francis Borgia, of whom it is recorded to his credit that he "retained through life the most tender and active affection for his children. A packet of their letters to him from 1566 to 1569 has been found, full of minute detail . Presents go to and fro. The General sends his son a map, and a watch . His daughters, in the charming and unchanging manner of nuns, send him jam.s and sweets and syrup of orange-flowers and corpobals and beg 'one little Hail Mary' . . . This article proposes to select from the extant corre-spondence of the great Saint Boniface, Apostle of Germany, passages in which his genius for human friendship is illus-trated by the exchange of gifts. For antiquarians, of course, these letters have a many-sided and engrossing interest; but for putting Boniface before us in his best human light, for making him a living and loving friend among friends high and low, this little store of gifts cancels out the differences 1C. C. Martindale, Captains o[ Christ (London: Washbourne, 1917), 44, 45. 271 GERALD ELLARD of twelve hundred years; we see him twin of any twentieth century noble friend. Bishop Daniel of Winchester, who had once been Boniface's "beloved master," in his old age addressed him as "my hundred-fold dearest friend"; in fact, ohe might say that the entire Boniface correspondence glows with the ardor of the love he'evoked. Still, the great-est monument of his lovableness is, I think, the fact that in " a correspondence extending ovei thirty-five years, roughly half of the personal letters:speak of the receipt or despatch Of some "gift, small indeed in itself, but token of a great affection," as the Bishop of LeiceSter once phrased it. Let us see Boniface in the midst of'his gifts; no picture of him is better! Desire/:or Books . There are gifts and gifts, but those Boniface received most gratefully were books. The r.e~luests he made most frequently were for more and more books, the latest books, the best books, in "all the branches that bore upon his sacred ministry. His letters show how he came by them. In one of the very first letters of the corrd'spondence, an English nun by the name of Bugga writes to Boniface, or Winfled, to congratulate him that the death of King Rathbod (719) opened the door of the Gospel in Frisia. She continues: "Know also'that the Sufferings o/: the Mart~trs which you asked me to send you I have not been able to get, but as-soon as I can I shall send it. And you, my best beloved, comfort my insignificance by sending me, as you promised in your dear letter, ~ some collection of the Sacred Writings. "I am sending ygu by" this same messenger fifty solidi and an altar-cloth, the best I can possibly do. Little as it is, it is sent~with great affection:''-°~ ~Epist VII: the letters are quoted, unless otherwise stated, as translated in The Let-ters of Saint Boniface° XXXI, Records of Chrilization, (New York: Columbia University, 1940). In the remainder of this article, these letters will be referred to by Roman nu~merals placed .after each quotation: ~ . , 272 ST. BONIFACE AND GIFT-EXCHANGES Another .life-.long friend of Boniface was the English Abbess Eadburga; to whom he wrote, about the time he became archbishop: "May He who rewards all righteous acts cause my dearest sister to rejoice in the choir of angels. above because she has consoled with spiritual light by the gift of Sacred Books an exile in Germany" (XXII). 2ustly famous in the annals of his mission is the request of Boni-face that this same Eadburga prepare for him a copy of the Epistt~s ot: St. Peter in letters of gold: "I pray to Almighty God, the rewarder of all good works, that He may repay you in the .Heavenly mansions and eternal tabernacles and in the choir of the blessed angels for all the kindnesses you have shown me, the solace of books and the comfort of the vestmentss with which you have relieved my distress. "And I beg you further to add to whatyou have done already by making a copy written in gold of the Epistles of my master, St. Peter the Apostle, to impress honor and rev= erence for the Sacred Scriptures visibly upon the ca.rnally-minded to whom I preach. I desire to ha~e ever present be-fore me the words of him who is my guide upon this road. I am sending by the priest Eoban the materials for your writing" (XXVI). ¯ Saint Peter's Epistles. in gold lettering on the finest parchment were doubtless very imposing, but Boniface felt very keenly the lack of a ~handy code of canon law to appiy the lessons of Holy Writ according to the mind of the Church. Not a few of his requests touch upon his uncer: tainty concerning marriage within the forbidden degrees of kinship. TtJis i~ reflected,, for instancd, in an urgent request of Archbishop Nothelm of Canterbury for a papal docu-ment he had already sought fruitlessly, at Rome: a"Vestimenta'" in the original, usually rendered as we have given it, but ~ometimes translated as "garments." Here I depart from the Columbia University rendering. 273 GERALD ELLARD "I beg that you will procure for me a copy of the letter containing, it is said, the questions Of Augustine, the first prelate and preacher of ~he English, .and the replies of the sainted Pope Gregory [the First]. In this writing, it is stated, among other things, that marriages between Chris-tians related in the .third. degree are lawful. Now will you cause an inquiry to be made with the most scrupulous care whether or not that document has been proved to be by the aforementioned father, Saint Gregory. For the registrars say that it is not to be found in the archives of the Roman church among the other documents of the aforesaid Pope" (XXIV). Reverence for Bede Among the writings attributed to Boniface are fifteen sermons, but their genuinity is.questioned because-they "contain no quotations, from Holy Scripture . and the books for .which he asked, such as the Spiritual commen-taries of St.Bede, would seem to-point to a different man-ner of preachi"ng. "* The critics are sceptical if these ser.- mons¯coutd be by Boniface in view of such passages as this, written to a~former pupil of his, now an abbot (we know not where), Dudd by name: ¯ "Try to support me by pouring out your prayers to God and help me with the Sacred Writings and the inspired treatises of the Holy Fathers.- Since a spiritual tract is well known to be a teacher for those, who read the Holy Scrip-tures, I beg you. to procure for me, as an aid in sacred learn-ing, apart bf a treat{seupon the Apostle Paul, which I lack. I have-tracts upon two. Epistles, one upon Romans, the other upon First Corint.hia,ns, Further, whatever you may findih your church library which you think would be useful to me and Which I may not be aware of or may not .4Day-Bet~en, .$a_int Boniface (MilwaUkee: Bruce, 193~), 166. . : 274 ST. BONIFACE AND GIFT-EXCHANGES. have in written form, pray let me know about it, as a loving son might do for an ignorant father, and send me also any notes of your own" (XXV). Then there was his epistolary campaign, so to speaL to get something of the writings of Bede, of whom the more he heaid the more eager he became to read. First he mentioned the matter somewhat casually in a long and very weighty letter to Egbert, Archbishop of York, near which city Bede had recently died. The letter opens with a grace-ful acknowledgment: "When I received your gifts and books I lifted my hands and gave thanks to Almighty God who ha.s given me such afriend in my long wanderings " and then passes,to its serious business. At the end. comes the reference to the "lector Bede": "I beg you also to have copied and sent to me some of the treatises of the lector Bede whom, as we learn, divine grace has endowed with spiritual intelligence and permitted to shine forth in your country, so that we too may profit by the light of that torch which the. Lord has granted unto you. "Meanwhile, as a token of fraternal love, I am sending you a copy of some letters of Saiht Grdgory which I have obtained from the archives of the Roman church, and which, as far as I know, have not yet reached Britain. "If you so order, I will send more, for I have received many of them. I am sending also a cloak and a towel for drying after washing the feet of the servants of God" [as the ceremonies of Maundy Thursday prescribe] (LIX). Archbishop Egbert sent on "gifts and books," but fresh canonical problems having cropped up meanwhile, Boni-face appeals for fresh guidance "to his friend in the embrace of 1Qving arms, his brother in the bonds of spiritual broth-erhood"-- and then reverts once more to "Bede, the in-spired priest": "Now we exhort you with eager desire to comfort our ¯ ° 275 GERALD ELLARD sorrow, as you have done before, by sending us some spark from that light of the Church which the Holy Spirit has kindled in your land: namely, that you will be so kind as to send-us some portion of the treatises which Bede, that inspired priest and student of the Sacred Scriptures, has put forth in his writings. Most especially, if possible, his.Lec-tior~ ar~l t:or the Year, which would form a convenient and useful, manual for us in our preaching, and the Prooerbs Solomon. We hear that he has written commentaries on this book" (LXXV). This letter from Boniface, a life-long abstainer, closes with the note: "We are sending you, by the bearer of this letter, two small casks of ~ine, asking you, in token of our mutual.affecti0n, to use it for a merry day with the breth-ren." The.next request was addressed directly to the Abbot of Bede's beloved Wearmouth: /" "Meanwhile we beg of you to.be so kind as to copy and send us some of the treatises of that. keenest investigator of the Scriptures, the monk Bede, who, we.have learned, shone forth among you of late as a lantern of the Church, by his Scriptural scholarship . . . "As a token of our deep affection we are sending you a coverlet, as they call them. here, made of goats' hair, and beg you to accept it,-trifle though it is, as a reminder of me" (.LX). When advancing age had dimmed the apostolic Arch-bishop's sight, he was stillbeset with countless ecclesiasti- . cal problems--and an insatiable desire of sacred learning. In a long letter of inquiries to the patriarchal Bishop Daniel of Winchester, Boniface's pen touched the old man's heart with this passage: "There is one solace in m~i mission I should like, if I may be so bold, tO ask of yOur fatherly kindness, namely, 276 ST. BONIFACE AND GIFT-EXCHANGES that you send me the book of the Prophets which Abbot Winbert of reverend memory, my former teacher, left when he passed from this life to the Lord, and in which the six Prophets are contained in one volume in dear letters writ-ten in full. If God shall incline your heart to do this, you could not give me a greater comfort in my old age nor bring yourself greater assurance of reward. I cannot procure in this country such a book of the Prophets as I need, and with my fading sight I cannot read well writing which is small and filled with abbreviations. I am asking for this book be-cause it is copied clearly, withall letters distinctly writteri out. "Meanwhile I send you by the priest Forthe~)e a letter and a little gift as a token of my sincere affection, a bath towel,° not of pure silk, but mixed with rough goats' hair, to dry your feet" (LI). Correspondence with Rome Boniface was on truly filial terms with several Popes, especially with Gregory III and Zachary. When the last-named was raised to the supreme pontificate in 742, Boni-face's felicitations were supported by: "some trifling gifts, not as being worthy of your Paternity, but as a token of our affection and devoted obedience, a warm rug and a little silver and .gold" (XL). In the face of Boniface's silence in the matter we might add that he also sent some couplets. proof that the schoolmaster of old had not lost his delight in versification. Did Boniface ask for books at Rome? Quite frequently, it would seem, but not always with immediate success. Pope Zachary sent him, ,on request, a carefully-marked copy of the Canon of the Mass, so that Boniface's "Holi-ness would know where the. signs of the Cross should be made during the recitation of the holy Canon" (LXXI). 277 GERALD ELLARD Such a request was not,hard to fulfill, as every altar had its Missal, but when Boniface asked Zachary's Cardinal-Dea-con Gemmulus for a copy of the Registrum (Correspond-ence) of Pope Gregory I, a vast collection of documents, that official pleaded ill-health for delay in complying with the request, sending .some exquisite incense meanwhile: "We are sending by youraforesaid priest some cozum-bet of a marvelous fragrant odor, which you may offer as incense to God at Matins or Vespers or at the celebration of the Mass" (XLIII). By and by came many letters of St. Gregory I to Boniface, as we have seen above. Before continuing our theme, we might recall in pass-ing that the earliest lives of St. Boniface reflect about as much concern, at the time of his martyrdom, for the recov-ery of his numerous books, as for the honor of hi~ sacred body. Whatever may have happened in the Hitlerian up.- heavals, several of Boniface's own books have been pre-se) ved at Fulda through all the intervening centuries! His influence has gone out through those books to the endless glory of Christian culture. To return now. to our gifts of fragrant spices: The same Cardinal-De,icon mentioned above, in giving Boni-face an account of the Roman Synod of 745, in which some of his most vexatious problems were handled, speaks with joy of having been visited by English nuns "with introduc-tions to us from you," and then adds that note without which these letters would be incomplete: "We have received also the gift you sent us--a.silver cup and a piece of cloth, a gift doubly precious to us as coming from so honored a father. Though we cannot repay you in kind, still we send in exchange" of loving remembrance four ounces of cinna- " mon, four ounces of costmary, two pounds of pepper, and one pound.of cozumber'" (L). Sweet ~as these spices ,were, the letters accompanying 278 ST. ~36~qIFAeE AND GIFT-EXCHANGE8 them were of the plainest garden variety, so to speak, in comparison with those sent Boniface by a later archdeaconl the Greek Theophylact, whose flowery epistles are the de-spair of translators. One wades through a good deal of high-water rhetoric before landing on this bit of welcome simplicity: "A little gift of blessing as a souvenir of our friendship: cinnamon, spice, pepper, and incense in a sealed packet" (LXVIII). But the "ambrosial goodness" makes for sticky going in the letter that concludes with this Hel-lenic honey: "With these preliminaries we greet your most holy, nectar-sweet divine fatherliness and pray that with God's favor you may receive your eternal reward and may win the desired verdict as your welfare may require. We are sending you a little gift of. spices, cinnamon, and storax, as largesse from the Blessed Apostle Peter and. beg you gra-ciously to accept it" (LXIX). If the "duration" of today lasts very long, perhaps we shall revive thi~ custom, among our very dearest friends, of sending a little packet, well-sealed, of spices and pepper. A letter from some of Boniface's priests to his friend, Abbess Cuniburg, says most respectfully: "Some little gifts accompany this letter: frankincense, pepper and cinnamonma very small present, but given out of heartfelt affection" (XXXIX). To a Cardinal-Bishop of Italy Boniface once sent "a bath towel, a face towel, and a little frankincense." Again: having a ,request as urgent as it was delicate to make of a priest named Herefridmnamely, that he personally read to his royal master, King Ethelbald of Mercia, a scathing re-buke of his vices--he ends his appeal with this gift-offer-ing: "We are sending you, as a token of sincere affection and of our blessing, a napkin with a little incense" (LVI!I). And we may. well bring thislitany of gifts to 279' GERALD ELLARD a close by recording that on another occasion Boniface him-self dispatched to this same King Ethelbald: "as a token.of true affection and devoted friendship., a hawk andtwo falcons, two shields and two lances;~ and we beg you to accept these trifling gifts for the sake of our affection towards you" (LV). "Your generous gifts, and affectionate letter," "this little gift, unworthy of you,'" "these little tokens of affec-tion," "that I may have you always with me," this was the language of those holy human friendships in Christ cher-ished by St. Boniface, Apostle of Germany, with such pon-tiffs as St. Gregory II, St. Gregory III, and St. Zachary; with such prelates as St. Egbert of York, St. Nothelm of Canterbury, .and St. Cuthbert of the sameSee; with such missionary-bishops as St. Lul, St. Eoban, St. Witta, St. Burchard; such abbots as St. Wigbert, St. Sturm, and St. Wunibald;. such nuns as St. Eadburga, St. Thecla, St. Wal-burga, and the dearest of them all, his kinswoman, St. Lioba, whom Boniface wished to have buried even in his own grave at Fulda. Saint Boniface, befriend us, and forget not the-land of your labors! 280 MARCH INTO TOMORROW. By the Reverend John J. Consldlne, M.M. Pp. 87. The Field Af-~r Press,. New YorE, 194.2. $2.00. With the daily press and current books, so filled with the marches and exploits of death-dealing armies, it is pleasure unbounded to read the history of a corps of gallant soldiers whose campaign is designed to bring lasting peace and life eternal to as many peoples as it can conquer. "March into Tomorrow" is the Maryknoll odyssey from the meeting of Fathers James Walsh and Thomas Price in Montreal in 1910, to the present day when over four hundred men and women, in the midst of total war, are being all things to all men of the Far East, sacrificing all and counting as gain only the benighted souls they can save for Christ. It is a personal introduction to the Maryknoll battalion of Christ's far-flung army of heroes, their hardships, their methods, their small victories. Enriched as it is with interesting pic-tures and enlivening episodes from the lives of the missionaries, it is a book to be read and kept as a priceless document of Catholicism,s progress today, and as a record of a completely American endeavor in the spreading of Christian culture and civilization.--W. M. GENG-LER, S.J. WATC~H AND PRAY. By the Reverend J. E. Moffat, S.J. The Bruce Pub-lishing Company, Milwaukee, 1942. $1.2S. " " This little work was conceived and planned as a help to religlou~ in making their monthly recollections. The general theme running through the whole of it is death, its significance for religious, and the preparation that they should make foi'it. Corresponding to the months of the year, there are twelve chapters. Each of these could be used for spiritual reading at the time of the monthly recollection, and at the end of each there is a brief outline of the reflections arranged in the form of points for meditation. In keeping with the gravity of the general theme, death, a very serious and earnest tone characterizes the thought and feeling of the work. One Who ~makes use of these readings or meditations will be readingor meditating, to quote a phrase that recurs in them, "in the light of the candle of death." Most of the subjects are suitable for any month, but there is a 281 BOOK REVIEWS certain amount of adaptation in them to the time of the year. Thus, for January, the chapter is entitled "Thoughts for the NewYear"; for December, "Sursum Corda," reflections on the eternal reward that religious may look forward to; for November, "Have Pity on Me, at Least You, My Friends," on purgatory, or on being delayed in one's journey toward life everlasting. Naturally enough, death sug-gests the divine judgment that follows, and this is handled in the chapter for October, "What Did You Treat of in the Way?" Perhaps the most concrete and the most highly encouraging of the subjects treated is that for September, "I Will Spend My Heaven Doing Good upon Earth." Vividly to visualize the death-scene of St. Therese of Lisieux and to realize the significance of that celebrated program for life after death should be a great consolation for any fervent religious and a most potent incentive toward becoming more fervent and.holy and supernaturally effective. Religious who make their monthly recollections in accordance with "Watch and Pray," and take its clear and practical lessons to heart, may feel sure of a peaceful and fruitful life, a happy death, and a very rich eternity. ¯ G. A. ELLARD, S.J. IN THE SHADOW OF OUR LADY OF THE CENACLE. By Helen M. Lynch, Religious of the Cenacle. Pp. x;i; -I- 249. The Paulis÷ Press, New YorK, 1941. $2.00. The seal upon the cover of this well-written book contains some adapted words of Scripture which epitomize the work of the Reli-gious of the Cenacle throughout the world, but more particularly in America during their first fifty years just completed: "They continued with one mind steadfastly in prayer with Mary" (Acts 1:14). Under the saintly guidance of Father John Peter Terme, the Vener-able Mother Th~r~se Couderc, a truly humble woman, valiantly founded the new society amid many difficulties and contradictions. The first Cenacle, St. Regis House, opened its doors at La Louvesc, France, in 1826. The work soon became international. In 1892, Mother Christine de Grimaldi, with three companions, arrived in New York, .there to establish the first Cenacle in America, another St. Regis House, with many a hardship and privation. Thence the society spread, until today there are no less than seven busy Cenacles in the East and Middle-West. The Religious of the Cenacle can be 282 BOOK REVIEWS justly.proud of this concrete result of fifty years of determination, steadfastness, and prayer in the shadow of Our Lady of the Cenacle. What is the work of the Cenacle religiofis? In the words of the author, they "devote themselves to spiritual works of.mercy, through Retreats for Women and the teaching of Christian Doctrine to adults and children." Their women's retreats have made them pioneers and 'leaders in the retreat movement and in Catholic Action in Ameri-ca. Pius XI, himself the director of the Milan Cenacle for thirty-two years, once addressed these words to Mother General Marie Majoux in a public audience: "You will have realized that in preparation of that encyclical (Mens Nostra-~on retreats) We had the Cenacle in mind. It was there ~ indeed that We learned by experience the great good which" is effected by the Spiritual Exercises." The harvest of good reaped by the Cenacle Retreats is indeed great. Thousands of women have been led by them to lives of greater perfection. The Cenacles have been the nurseries of hundreds of vocations, some to almost every religious congregation. Hence, all religious will join in congratulating the Cenacle for what is narrated in this modest but splendid anniversary book. Eileen Duggan, the New Zealand poet, writes of Mother Th~r~se Couderc: "She whom they called the silent Mother, the woman in the corner, has withthe faggots of her humility, made a fire that will last and whose burning brands will start strange wood in countries she was not destined to see." The strange wood of America has caught definitely that fire and its flame will spread still more mightily as the,years march on to the century.-~A. KLAAS, S.J. I PRAY THE MASS. A Sunday Missal arranged by ÷he Reverend Hugo H. Hoes, er, S.O.Cist., Ph.D. Pp. 447. Catholic Book Publishing Com-pany, New York, 1942. $.35 to $3.50. This new missal contains the Masses for all the Sundays and principal feastdays of the year, as well as the Nuptial Mass and the Mass for tl~e Dead. The Introduction contains a brief explanation of the meaning of the Mass and a description of the vestments and sacred vessels. It also includes a liturgical calendar good for ten years.: In the supplement are morn.ing and evening prayers, and good sug-gestions and prayers for Confession, Communion, the Way of the Cross, First Friday, and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The headingl in the book are printed in red; the translations of 283 BOOK REVIEWS the New Testament are taken from the Revised English E~dition. Before each Mass is a brief, well-chosen "Thought for Today"; after the Mass, a "Thought for th~ Week." This missal offers everything that could be desired in a small book of this kind. As indicated above, the prices .range from $.35 to $3.50. The volume sent us for review is bound in black imitation leather and is priced at $1.10. It would be appropriate for anyone who is not inclined to extravagance. MODICUM. By the Reverend Athanasius Bierbaum, O.F.M. American Edition by the Reverend Bruno Hagspiel, S.V.D. Pp. ix + 204. St. Anthony Guild Press, Paterson, New Jersey, 1941. $1.00. This small book contains twelve monthly recollections for priests. The author has made a fine choice of subjects fundamental to priestly life, and has developed each subject in a complete, orderly, and interesting fashion. His choice of Scripture texts and other quo-tations is apt, and his applications are thoroughly practical. With Modicum, we might mention another small book for priests by Fathers Bierbaum and Hagspid, Seekinq Onlg God. This latter work, published in 1938, is an excellent little treatise on the interior life for priests. Modicum is clothbound: Seeking' Onl~t God is paperbound. Both books should be helpful to priests seeking aid for self-sanctification. They may be obtained from the publisher or from The Mission Procurator, Techny, Illinois. HOMILETIC HINTS. By the Reverend Albert H. Dohn, O. Carm. Pp. 71. Carmelite Press, Encjlewood, N. J. 50 cents. Priests and seminarians interested in a scientific study of preach-ing will find this booklet helpful. As the author states ifi the Intro-duction, the book contains all that his experience tells him it is "'nec-essar~ for the student to know abou

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PLEASE REMEMBER That by sending your orders to us you help build up and devel-op one of the church institutions with pecuniary advantage to yourself. Address H. S. BONER, Supt. 1 The CClevQUpy. The Literary Journal of Gettysburg College. Vol. XIII. GETTYSBURG, PA., FEBRUARY, 1905. No. 8 CONTENTS 'WHERE PROVIDENCE PREVAILED," , . . 246 BY MISS HARRIET MCGILL, '06. THE NOVEL OF SENTIMENT,* 25.0 "IMBEM." THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE, . . . 259 BY H. F. SMITH, '07. RELIGION AND SOLITUDE, . 265 BY SAMUEL E. SMITH, '07. THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF A MILLIONAIRE,*' . . 268 "NOMEN." EDITORIALS, . • . 274 EXCHANGES, ". .276 ♦Contributed for Pea and Sword Prijze Essay Conteat. LiUlMUflMfti i \| 246 THE MERCURY. WHERE PROVIDENCE PREVAILED. Bv Miss HARRIET MCGIU., '06. THE woman waited; as in the lulls of the moaning, De-cember night wind, she heard the sound of sleigh bells mingled with the laughter of happy lovers, who sped swiftly by, she smiled, then gave a little sob, and smiled straight away again. "For what," she said, " if the waiting is long, one has always the past as a companion." Yes, "as a companion" and as such, Time had been kind to the woman. True, he had streaked the black hair with grey, and hardened the strong large hands with marks of toiling, but these things mattered little, for had he not left the great dark eyes undimmed? Just as twenty years ago, when they had look-ed frankly up into the face of the man whom their mistress call-ed ''husband," and smiling through their tears, spoke more plain-ly than any language the great word "courage," even so had they looked ever since into the face of Old Father Time, and looking smiled; no wonder then that he could not dim them. And the man : he also was waiting; the woman waited in a room bare and cheerless, the room of a servant in a great city, that of the man was equally bare and cheerless, it was the pris-on cell of one whom the world called "criminal." Now comes the strange part of our prelude, in the fact that neither of these people knew, how that for which they waited would come to them. Those who had placed the man in his present position, knew well how to make arrangements, by which his wife should not be permitted to see him. He was "in for life," and it was granted, even by the faithful few who remained true to the conviction of his innocence, that his case was hopeless. Yet throughout the twenty years, firmly, as upon the day of their parting, had these two believed in the hope of deliverance, and trusted, as it is the lot of few to trust. The night wind also sighed and moaned around a rude log cabin, that lay a tiny speck upon the broad stretches of the great western prairie. Lonely, sequestered, isolated, truly might ^HHHH THE MERCURY. 247 * * this humble home have been called the " Lodge of some vast wilderness," so far was it removed from the haunts of men, so little did its inhabitants know about the lives of their fellows, in the great outside world. ■ Here, upon this winter night of which we W rite, the good wife of the house, a plain, simple, country woman, who had, up to this time, lived her even, uneventful life, in a spirit of honest contentment, lay down to rest, worn with the day's work. This woman knew nothing of our convict or his wife, the story of the crime whose tragic consequences had involved him in ruin, and blasted the life of the girl whose eyes said "courage," had never even reached these humble prairie dwellers, and when Marie Cor-douy closed her eyes that night, she expected nothing but the "sleep of the just," the usual reward of her hard labor. Instead —well let us hear the story of her dream; she says, "I was there, and yet not there; for somehow I know that the girl I saw was alone, after she bade her sister good-bye, saying that she would go through the wood to the farm of a neighbor who lived about two miles away. I can see her now as she walked along, she was a pretty girl, with hair like gold, and eyes like the "bluets,". which grew all around her in the forest, as she walked among them barefoot, her shoes in her hand, for she took them off to save them, when she came to the wood. So she walked on for sometime until she came to a large rock that stood out on the bank of a stream, and here she sat down to rest, for the day was warm, and she tired. Suddenly two men crept out from the trees behind the girl. One was tall with a scar 0.11 bis face, he seem-ed to be middle aged, the other was smaller, and from his looks could have been a son of the first. Just as she sat there, with-out any thought of harm, those men rushed on the girl, and throttled her, then they carried the poor tiling, into the bed of the stream, and foully murdered her there, while the water washed away the signs of their bloody work. When it was done, they went back to the rock and tried to move it. At last they got space enough to dig a kind of a grave underneath, where they buried the girl, her shoes beside her, and the knives with which ■^^■HnuAfl-fi 248 THE MERCURY. they had stabbed her. When I saw them sneak away, through the trees, the horror of the thing awakened me." So great was this horror, that Marie awoke her husband, and told him of the dream, but, saying that it was nothing, told her to try to sleep once more. Yet again came the dream, as viv-idly as before, and then again, three times, did she have it be-fore morning came to deliver her. Still John Cordouy said that it contained no portent, and advised her to forget it, this how-ever was easier said than done, and from that nig*ht Marie was a changed woman. The dream never seemed to leave her mind, its weight oppressed her, and finding no sympathy in John, she yet persisted in telling her gruesome tale, not only to him, but to any chance traveller whom she could persuade to listen.— Finally, for the world is a small place, after all, the news of the dream reached the ears of the woman who waited. Teresa Jardain, wife of the supposed murderer, whose life imprisonment instead of death because of inability to find the body of the girl, had been secured by the man who accused him ; a man high in power, a tall man, with a scar on his face. .This man's son had once loved the dark eyed beauty of Teresa, who had refused his offer of marriage, and had afterwards been spurned by the girl, whose strange disappearance had so affect-ed the life of the Jardains, the neighbors, to whose farm she was last seen starting out. Now into Teresa's life, since her brave fight against the world began, had entered much wisdom ; it was as the " wisdom of the serpent," and with it she determined to save her husband, and see his face once more. As has been said, there were some few friends remaining who believed him innocent; to these men Teresa went, with the strange story of the dream, implor-ing their aid. At last this plan was agreed upon. Two of these men, who were fortunately wealthy and influential, went secretly to the prairie home of Cordouy, disguised as travellers. As usual Marie, eager for listeners, related the story of her dream, she seemed to find relief in telling it as often as possible. They then took Cordouy into their confidence, and proposed to him a trip through the East to the place where the tragedy occurred. BBlnflftFi THE MERCURY. 249 Marie would of course accompany them, and should she recog-nize the surroundings, identify the men, and find the body of the girl, the murderers might be forced into a revelation of the truth. In the meantime the story was to be kept secret so that they might be taken off their guard. Their plans were strangely successful, when Marie, in the course of their journey, reached the neighborhood where the murder took place, she seemed to grow more and more excited, at last she could stand it no longer, and told the others that this was the place of her dreams. Eagerly leading them into the wood, (a. strange place remember, where she had never been before,) she hurried on until she reached the rock by the streamlet, and began in her haste to dig away the earth beneath it, with her own hands. She was however persuaded to give place to work-men, who arrived with suitable tools, and soon dug from their resting place of twenty years or more, the skeleton of the girl, the knives and even the remainder of the shoes, which lay by themselves, near her head, showing that she had worn them. The story now spread far and wide, and the real murderers, fail-ing in an attempt to flee the country, confessed their guilt, and met the punishment which had been for so long a time delayed. The night winds no longer moaned around the prairie cabin, with a story of duty left undone, its sound bears rather comfort to the woman within, her mission is fulfilled, Marie Cordouy is satisfied. No longer does a captive, Paul Jardain, stretch im-ploring hands, behind his prison bars and implore it to bear the message of his innocence to the world. The weary watch of Teresa, the woman who waited, is over, for Providence worked a miracle with the passing of the night wind. [D1^B^HHHHHEthere are many novel readers who might express the bitterness -of their experience in the lines of Thompson— " Ah from real happiness we stray, By vice bewildered, vice which always leads However fair at first to wilds woe." Every man has a model for his life, an ideal, and how much -does a man's welfare depend on the ideal which is enshrined in ihis heart of hearts ! Any force which has the power of chang-ing ideals should be (both) helped and hindered in its opera-tion, aided that it may effect the greatest good and hindered Jest it accomplish the most of evil. Fiction has shaped ideals and it is moulding ideals today and in many cases this is being ■done with great injury to humanity. Too many of our novelists picture woman as an angel or a fiend. At one time they por-tray woman, as the flatterer, the seducer, the destroyer, and as-sociate her with such deadening villianies that she appears as .a veritable Medusa petrifying all that is noble in the nature of man; while at another time, under the spell of their pens she ■■■■■■■^■■■■H ■: , ' '\U- U --- v - -^ 256 THE MERCURY. stands forth as semi-divine a creature too wondrous for daily contact with the world. From a social standpoint, it is truly alarming to observe the opinions which are held by thousands-of the male sex concerning women, and not a few of these de-praved ideas can be traced to the popular novel. While wo-man can fall lower and can also attain greater heights than* man, yet the vast majority of women occupy a middle plane where virtue is a companion and the ordinary duties of life keep the angelic qualities in the background. It can safely be said that the average work of fiction is too radical in depicting the characters of women. Somewhat allied to the above topic is the illusive idea so-prominent in current fiction that it is an absolute fault to be commonplace. All real life is commonplace. It is a round of duty and service and only once in a great length of time does a man spring forth who rises above his fellows. Anything that derides the homely toil of the private citizen or makes men* dissatisfied with their station in life by infatuating them with visions of power selfishly attained, must be characterized as-pernicious, because it places false ideals before the eyes of men. There is also an influence at work today of the same nature,, that makes the securing of wealth the one thing for which men should strive, and many novels of the twentieth century are strongly imbued with this spirit. After an examination of many popular books, it is found in numerous instances that wealth is regarded as the greatest thing in the world. This is-not done in a direct way, but is brought by a hint here and a* suggestion there, benumbing reason and calling into action all that is sordid in the soul of man. Thus there are novels which speak of millions with an air of studied carelessness, while others recount the struggles of a hero who begins life as a poor boy and finally becomes the possessor of hundreds of thousands and even millions. Such ideas held out before the young peo-ple of today are most harmful. While wealth is- desirable, it is of secondary importance. It does not bring character nor happiness to its possessor, and is often a hindrance to noble endeavor. How refreshing it is when some novelist deigns to> m WIUHMWJIlllWi THE MERCURY. 257 give to the public a story of the poor, of people in ordinary-circumstances, showing to mankind that riches are not the passport to happiness. Let our writers take Thackeray for their pattern. That the ideals in our current literature may be truer and nobler, let our talented authors acknowledge Dickens their patron saint and tell to humanity the strange story of the toil-ing world. When the character of the novel of sentiment has been re-viewed, the mind naturally becomes alert to observe the effects of reading popular fiction. The results are only obvious when, after the reading of books, an investigation is made among one's friends, and every man looks into his own soul, with a view of discerning their exact measure ot influence. Many surprises await one making such an investigation, but probably the most astonishing is the fact that the opinion of many people can be known if one is familiar with the last book which they have read. In other words, too many men and women accept the statements of books without applying the test of common sense and reason. Thus, through the frailty of humanity, the novel of sentiment is efficacious for much of good and evil. The greatest fault, perhaps, of the twentieth century novel is the depraved condition of the mind which it produces. By its stimulating power the novel gives an unnatural tone to the mind and brings it into such a condition that there can be no true appreciation for the more noble works of literature. The public libraries and the ones in many colleges testify to the pre-vailing order of affairs, since it is stated on good authority that nine-tenths of all the books which are taken from their shelves are fiction. A doctor of divinity of the Presbyterian Church confessed not long ago, that while he was visiting a neighbor-ing minister and helping to conduct evangelistic services, he found a set of historical novels in the library of his friend, and having become interested, he did not rest until he had read the entire series. " During that week," he said, " I read three of those novels and I had such a feverish interest in them that I purchased the entire set as soon as I returned home." In- 258 THE MERCURY. stances of such fascination are numerous among all classes, and they are destructive to true mental development. Again, the novel of sentiment, within whose pages vice and unnatural affections are so vividly portrayed, debases ten while it is helpful to one. By many it is argued that the immoral book is the most severely moral because it shows to the reader the blackness of evil. This is a fallacy which has always been urged concerning sin; it is the siren voice of the tempter. Such arguments have destroyed the virtues of a multitude. How shall their falsity be shown ? The philosophy of the poet in the lines so frequently quoted reveals the truth— " Vice is a monster of such frightful mien, As to be hated, needs but to be seen ; But seen too oft—familiar grows her face, We first endure; then pity ; then embrace." Throughout the body of this essay a spirit of criticism has been manifested toward the novel of of the last twenty years. In view of the facts such criticism is needed. But praise should be given to authors like Ralph Connor, who has written books with a definite purpose. However, it is very difficult to select really good novels from the great mass of fiction. An inquiry, with the purpose of obtaining a basis for the discrimination be-tween the good and bad in fiction, makes a most fitting con-clusion to our observations on this subject. Under what cir-cumstances is the novel of sentiment a safe agent ? Only when some noble purpose fires the writer; only when the author has some real message for humanity in his book. Sentiment con-nected with the fickle things of life becomes a demoralizing power. The average novel is dangerous from its lack of prin-ciple and purpose. Thus it must be said that this lack of prin-ciple in most of our sentimental novels characterizes them as unfit for a place in our libraries. THE MERCURY. 259 THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. BY. H. F. SMITH, '07. ■** their greatness to the long struggle between France and England," says Thiers in his History of the Consulate and Empire, in speaking of the sale of Louisiana by Bonaparte to the United States. This statement contains two views in them-selves somewhat debatable: First, Whether the United States is indebted for its birth to France. Some think in all proba-bility we would have gained our independence without the aid of France. This could be so and yet the indebtedness not be lessened, for France did help us by the revival of spirits and by material means in the battle of Yorktown. Second, that we are indebted for our greatness to the long struggle between France and England, and not so much to ourselves, we shall en-deavor to establish. In so doing let us look at matters from the French side instead of the American side, and it is proper to do this, since it came to us through French statesmanship with little agency of our own. ' Except the Floridas, the thirteen original colonies with their western claims extended to the Mississippi. Colonization was for France a question of life or death. The French were es-pecially active in this line. As colonizers they far exceeded the English in brilliancy. They were more energetic, persis-tent and courageous; but when an eminent Frenchman had achieved anything great, he was so v?in or ambitious as to wish no other Frenchman to share his glory and would even in some cases war against a rival; furthermore he was not sus-tained by the home government. But the primary cause of lack of results was internal dissention, a constant warring among themselves. Had the energy which they directed toward one another been applied to the obstacles to be overcome, " they would have been consumed as a pathway through the Alps was eaten by the vinegar of Hannibal." The noble Champlain, the indefatigable La Salle, Cartier, Jberville, and Bienville, all figured in the establishment of set- 26o THE MERCURY. tlements in Louisiana. Men were kidnapped and sent over by the thousands. Women became so scarce that cargoes of marriageable girls, filles a la cassette, so-called from the little trunks in which each prospective bride carried the trosseau pro-vided for her by the government, were sent over and on arrival at the levee, were speedily and happily mated. But in a series of wars culminating in the defeat of Montcalm by Pitt and Wolfe combined, all of what were before known as the Colonies Western Claims, were lost and France had only New Orleans and the unexplored area west of the Mississippi. On account of these misfortunes France thought it best to-give up her scheme of colonization and develop home interests. So, desiring an ally in her weakness, she secretly ceded Louis-iana to Spain. This treaty was long kept secret and was much lamented. When the news was broken to the Creoles, the con-sternation was similar to that of the Acadians when they were entrapped. This stripping of France of her American posses-sions created a craving for revenge which was fully satisfied when she helped to tear the thirteen colonies from England, The Louisiana subjects remained true to the French in their hearts, although Spain ruled them generously. Napoleon now became almost absolute ruler with the title of First Consul. He had marvelous schemes of colonization and immediately set about to regain Louisiana. Godoy, who was the power behind the throne in Spain, fearing a probable attack by England, negotiated a treaty very advantageous to us, satis-factorily establishing boundaries, and the " right of deposit " at New Orleans. But when Spain became hopelessly dependent on France, Godoy resigned in despair. A treaty was then negotiated with Berthier, Bonaparte's agent, by which France was to have Louisiana and also the two Floridas while Spain was to have a kingdom of at least one million subjects taken from the French conquests in the northern half of Italy, over which was to be set the Duke of Parma, husband of the infanta, the daughter of Carlos IV. This treaty was negotiated Oct. I, 1800, and was considered by Mr. Adams the source of our title to Louisiana. The king of Spain did ■■nCMBlnMIMrlBwHtHMHMMIIl THE MERCURY. 26 r not as yet sign the treaty. All subsequent treaties were but modifications of this. After some time Napoleon sent his brother Lucien to Madrid to finish the treaty, but he did not succeed in obtaining the king's signature because Godoy who was recalled to power suc-ceeded in bribing him and thus baffling Napoleon. France then prepared to take Louisiana by force and would probably have succeeded if the San Domingo Revolution had not occur-red and blocked all the schemes. But on Oct. 15, 1802, Na-poleon through his agent secured the king's signature but only under most exacting conditions. The United States now comes upon the scene. A new Presi-dent, Jefferson, sat in the presidential chair. " Peace is our passion," was one of his favorite sayings. When it became known that France was dealing secretly with Spain for the retrocession of Louisiana, the West and South, who hated the Spaniards, became wild lest the French getting New Orleans would close the lower Mississippi to commerce and thus ruin them. Accordingly a new minister,' Robert R. Livingston, was sent by us in August, 1801. He was set against the supercilious, deceitful, and arch dissimulator, Talleyrand, who denied every-thing, with some truth, for as yet the king of Spain had not given his signature. But we received definite information from our minister in England. Jefferson thought that trouble was imminent. In 1802 Morales, the civil officer of New Orleans, abrogated the right of deposit, closing absolutely the Mississippi to the United States. This right had been enjoyed since the treaty of 1795. By that treaty it was to last for three years; but at the end of that time, the right was suffered to continue. Now that the right was taken away, the alarm in the West made war seem inevitable. But matters were somewhat calmed by the Spanish minister at Washington and the Governor of Louisiana disclaiming the action of Morales. Jefferson now hit upon a scheme to allay the turbulent ill-humor of the settlers; but in this plan he 262 THE MERCURY. builded far wiser than he knew. He sent a special envoyv James Monroe, to buy outright New Orleans and Florida, with #2,000,000 in hand. The French envoy at this point used his influence to get Napoleon to do away with the interdict of Morales. Monroe had definite instructions : I. He was to purchase, if possible, New Orleans and the Floridas, and he might expend up to #10,000,000 rather than lose the chance. 2. Should France refuse to sell even the site for a town, the old right of deposit as granted in 1795 was to be tried for. Should that fail, further instructions were to be awaited. Jefferson was de-termined to have peace, and showed great moral courage and strength of character in maintaining so steadfastly, in that war-like age, his noble attitude. But if Napoleon would not have wanted to sell Louisiana, no statesmanship or money on our part could have bought it. After they had first sold it to Spain, there was nothing but re-gret, which was not satisfied until negotiations for its retroces-sion were begun. We have seen with what zeal these were pushed. Now that it was in his grasp again could anything tear it from him ? We have said that Napoleon had marvellous schemes of col-onization. The building of a New France in Louisiana was one of them. But his plans were doomed to failure. His own campaign in Egypt and the project for the great invasion of India by Massena had first come to naught; now his schemes in the Occident were meeting with disaster. In San Domingo,, general and army had perished under the weapons of the blacks and the stroke of pestilence. The gloom of a mighty European struggle was ominously looming up on the national horizon. At this time occurred the incident in the drawing room of Josephine, when Napoleon, without any ceremony,, went up to the British ambassador and after an insulting con-versation said that he would have Malta or war. Joseph, Napoleon's other brother, first became apprised of Napoleon's intentions and then informed Lucien. Their cha-grin and astonishment were unequaled. Napoleon had deter- ' Pe.2±fj:#uvaiatf#IHwlBIMR^KHAB[lafl THE MERCURY. 263 mined to get funds to carry on his war with England, to dis-pose of the whole of Louisiana, quite independently of any de-sires or wishes on our part. We see now, as we said in the beginning, our acquisition of Louisiana, and hence our great-ness, depends on the- long struggle between England and France. Napoleon had determined to do this without in the least consulting the Chambers or people of France. In so doing he was risking exile or even his life. His brothers, therefore, were greatly concerned and determined to prevent him from doing this. They formed a plan by which Lucien was to see Napoleon first, and if possible break the ice or lead the conver-sation to Louisiana, and then Joseph was to appear; in this way Napoleon would not suspect their collusion. Lucien found Napoleon in his perfumed bath. He tried to broach the Loui-siana topic, but Napoleon always talked about something else. Finally it was time for Napoleon to leave his bath and they had not reached the Louisiana subject. At this point Joseph knocked for admittance. Napoleon said he would stay in his bath a quarter of an hour longer and had him admitted. Lu-cien whispered to him that he had not yet broached the sub-ject. A stormy interview followed, only Napoleon's shaggy locks and gleaming eyes were above water. Their tones reached a very excited pitch and Joseph rushed at Napoleon. And here occurred the wonderful bath-room incident. Napoleon was so angered that he raised himself from the water and then suddenly fell back, giving Joseph a good ducking. Lucien then followed with a quotation from the Aeneid, which drew the electricity from the cloud and discharged it harmlessly. Then when Joseph had withdrawn, followed an almost equally stormy interview with Lucien. But this only hastened the matter, Na-poleon being anxious to commence his war with England. Words cannot describe the labor and extent oi the work which Livingston accomplished. He won the admiration and respect of Napoleon and Talleyrand. One of his duties was to obtain payment of the spoiliation claims. He wrote a series of papers elaborately setting forth the expediency for France to 264 THE MERCURY. dispose of New Orleans and the Floridas to us. These, per-haps, won him the respect of Napoleon. Far in advance of other statesmen he even showed that it would be best for France to sell us that part of Louisiana north of the Arkansas River, which turned out to be the best part of the bargain, in order to separate Canada or the British'from her province. Then, too, he had to deal with Napoleon, who would accept no counsel, and the wily Talleyrand. Furthermore, he did not have very definite instructions. But, as said in the beginning, we would never have gotten Louisiana by any efforts of Livingston or anybody else, had not Napoleon desired to dispose of it. Now when Livingston had all but accomplished his task, Napoleon offered the whole of Louisiana, and Monroe came in over Livingston. Napoleon had another object in selling Louisiana. If he should retain it, England might, through her all-powerful navy, wrest it from him ; while .in selling it to America, he would make a power which one day would humble England. Marbois, the French agent, and Livingston and Monroe were on very friendly terms, which greatly facilitated matters. Of course our commissioners never dreamed of the whole of Lou-isiana, but Livingston agreed to take it, and three treaties were made: 1. As to the cession; 2. As to the price, and 3. As to the spoiliation claims. It cost us #1 5,000,000, minus the spoli-ation claims. As Jefferson was a strict constructionist, he really overstepped his power in his own opinion. A storm of opposition arose which was gradually overcome. We have not time to discuss this opposition or the results, but will merely state a few of the results: (l) it secured to us the port of New Orleans, the entire control of the Mississippi, and it doubled the area of the United States ; (2) it strengthened the bond of Union in the Southwest; (3) it gave new force to arguments for internal improvements; (4) finally, it weakened strict con-struction and encouraged the interpretation of the Constitution according to the spirit and not the letter. - THE MERCURV. 265 RELIGION AND SOLITUDE. SAMUBI. E. SMITH, '07. WHEN these terms are considered in the sense in which they are ordinarily used, there seems to be a certain impropriety in using them together. The average man thinks of religion as something tangible. Not infrequently is the re-mark made concerning someone that he has very little religion; •which statement would point to the fact that religion is often considered as a kind of veneer, which can be placed over the lives of men for the instruction and helping of those about them. How then can solitude, which implies a separation from men have any relation to religion ? The preceding idea of religion is a very superficial one, although it is widely accepted. Religion has a deeper significance ; it is as its root meaning implies "a thinking again;" it is potential rather than kinetic •energy; it is z;«planted and never /m«jplanted into an indi-vidual. Such is the quality that is to be considered in connec-tion with solitude. All religions have had their origin in solitude. Ab'ram was sent by God into the eastern wilderness ; Moses was alone with Jehovah on Sinai; David had much time for reflection while tending his flock; the prophets were children of the desert; John Baptist was a son of the wilderness; and the Saviour of the world had his forty days, and very often during his active ministry he felt the loneliness of the midnight hour. Thus, in •solitude, there sprang forth from the souls of these men the principles which are the foundation stones of Christianity. Mohammedanism had its beginning in a cave a few miles from Mecca. Mohammed left the busy city and retired to that lonely spot for days at a time. He said that it was there the angel Gabriel appeared to him and told him of heavenly things which he should make known to his fellow-men. The new faith spread over many a mile of sea and land until it reached the rock of Gibraltar, and the Moslem hordes were dreaded in the great cities of Europe. Such was the power of the religion which was conceived of in the lonely cave near Mecca. As 266 THE MERCURY. the beginnings of great religions are studied it is found that all burst forth in solitude. Solitude has been the conserving force of every religion. The lonely vigil, the contemplations on divine things, has done more than the preacher and sword in keeping alive the great religions of the world. The monk in his gloomy cell, who-spent almost countless hours in meditation and fervent devotion,, gave the impetus which made the Roman Church the mighty agent which it has been. Even the savage races of mankinJ can be called upon to furnish examples. Without a doubt the crude religion of the American Indian was kept up by the in-fluence of solitude. In his solitary journey through the forest he saw his religions in the rocks and trees and streams. Where the Indians were deprived of their solitude by the advent of the white man, almost immediately they lost their faith in the Great Spirit. Christianity, today, shows the relation between" religion and solitude. The greatest preachers are those who-spend the most time apart from the rush of the world; the most truly religious are those who have spent many an hour in solitude. When the lives of the great ministers of our country-are considered, it is found that nearly all of them were brought up in the country, where the youth is compelled to spend a great portion of his time with nothing to keep him company but the voices of nature. Indeed, it can be said that every re-ligion enjoins its devotees to spend a part of each day in soli-tude. -Thus religion and solitude are very closely'related, and one is inclined to speculate as to the grounds on which this relation) exists. There must be solitude before religion can manifest itself. To understand how this can be true it is imperative that religion should be defined with the greatest precision. Al-ready it has been shown that it is not a tangible thing. But the definition must not stop with this statement. Religion is intuitive; it is a divine essence rising up in the sub-conscious-mind ; it is a spark which shows unmistakably that man is in-deed a son of the Infinite. Thus the religious impulse of the lowest savage is just as strong as is the desire of the civilized 1.1,. ,11. THE MERCURY. 267 man to worship a supreme being. Religion, lying as it does in the sub-conscious mind of man, how can it manifest itself unless there is solitude during which it can lise up? But this spark of the Infinite, religion, which abides in the darkest chamber of the soul, is a peculiar thing. If it is continually-forced back by the authority of the conscious mind, it at length goes out forever, and man is left destitute of the greatest power of his existence. Such a state of affairs does not often come to pass, but it can happen. But how can one conceive of this infinite spark as perishing? It is merely a small part of the great Infinity, which may have a million finite parts lost, as it were by atrophy, and yet remain the same. If, on the other hand, the divine spark is allowed to rise into the conscious mind, it fires the imagination and intensifies every purpose of the man. In the light of this reasoning one can easily see that solitude is of vital importance to religion. Thus, as religion is considered in its true nature, it is seen that religion and solitude are supplementary to each other. Re-ligions have sprung forth in solitude and have been kept alive through its influence. To those accepting the superficial view of religion, many ot the inner workings are inexplicable. For example, they cannot account for the fact that many a man turns to religion on a sick bed, or when he is suddenly removed from the walks of men into the solitude of a wilderness. But those who appreciate its hidden meaning understand that such conduct is due to the divine element which has sprung up dur-ing the solitary hours. Such is the relation of these two terms made plain, which seem at the first glance to be so foreign to each other. 268 THE MERCURY. THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF A MILLIONAIRE. [Contributed for the Pen and Sword Ptize Essay contest.'] WHEN Columbus discovered this new world, he little knew that he was opening to the known world the greatest discovery of that or any other age. When three centur-ies later George Washington fought for the freedom of the colonies and, having succeeded in that, helped organize and guide the thirteen colonies on the road of progress, even he with his almost prophetic insight could not foresee what a won-derful future was in store for them. Now this lusty young giant stands with his feet firmly planted on the Isthmus of Panama, his bulk reaching from Ocean to Ocean, from Canada to the Gulf, a hand reached eastward in the Philippines, another extending into the frozen north, Alaska. Covered with farms and forests, factories and cities, honeycombed with mines, bound in the bonds of fraternal friendship by almost two hundred thousand miles of railroad, inhabited by a people the most pro-gressive and civilized of any living; is it any wonder that with all these advantages, natural and artificial, he has rapidly forged to the front in riches also. The natural advantages sur-pass those of all Europe. Now in the midst of this amazing national growth there has been a wonderful growth in private riches. When the country was young and poor the people were also poor. With the rapid settling of the West, the opening of coal and iron mines, the invention of the locomotive and the steamboat, the wealth of individuals rapidly increased. Yet up until the Civil War huge private fortunes might be counted on the fingers of one hand. But after the Civil War begins the period of inventive and industrial advancement, the age of the millionaire. Now a millionaire is a man who by inheritance, in-dustry and economy or by other means too numerous to men-tion, has become possessed of a million dollars or its equivalent. He may have come by this sum honestly or dishonestly but it is the responsibility which comes with this sum of money of which we will take notice. iPIMMIfBm^MW THE MERCURY. 269 Let us take the millionaire from boyhood. He is probably no brighter, no different in outside appearance than the average run of boys, yet by saving a dollar where the other man spends two, by judicious investment where money will the most surely and rapidly increase, these by the time he has reached manhood have made him a comparatively wealthy man. Of course no matter what his morals, his ability to earn money has been held up as a model to other struggling youths, his past has been re-hearsed by the Oldest Inhabitant, boyhood chums are proud to call him by name, so by his example many are willing to jise or fall. Here his responsibility as a moral factor begins. All the while his fortune is increasing until some day when he "takes stock" he finds he is a millionaire. If he is not vastly different from the majority of us, he begins to get a little more exclusive and distant. His old acquaintances gradually fall away and he seeks new friendships among men of his own business standing. If he is selfmade there are no doubt a few rough corners to be smoothed down and polished up in order that he may not appear at a disadvantage among his fellows. This process is usually one of marriage. All this time he is looming larger and larger in the public eye and more and more do newspapers devote space to his goings and comings. Indeed he has no privacy, his every act is under the scrutiny of a lynx eyed public. Now let us glance at a few calamities for which the million-aires of this country may be justly held responsible. There was a time when ability was the measure of success. The time also was when thrift was considered a virtue. Once our poli-tics were pure and uncorrupted. Equality between men as spoken of in the Constitution was not a joke. Honesty in business was a maxim. Human life was regarded as precious not many decades since. Divorce was synonymous with dis-grace. In a word the American people have seen the day when virtue, not money, was the goal of every honest man's ambition. Now all this is changed. Why ? Who are respon-sible for the change? When men like Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Seward, Lincoln, , I : , 27o THE MERCURY. Douglass and others thundered in our legislative halls, there was no thought of their money. The taste of the people had not been debauched by a bribed press, which by skillfully ad-vertising the merits of their customer and belittling the ability of his opponent render it almost impossible for a poor man to secure high office. For example look at our Senate. No men of tremendous personality and ability sit in seats made famous by their predecessors. No orators arise and hold their hearers spellbound by the power of their oratory. No indeed. Instead there sit in our once glorious Senate a body of men whose money has been the open sesame to halls to which their brains would have been found an insurmountable barrier. This ignoble condition is laid at the doors of the millionaires. Again, what has changed a people from a race thrifty and economical, always striving (and usually succeeding) to live within their income, into a people rushing, with a frenzy that amounts to madness almost, in pursuit of the Almighty Dollar? Isn't it the extravagance of the rich from whom the people model their deportment? Million-dollar homes, yachts, autos, balls, operas and the like have such an irresistible attraction for the majority ot people that it is only a man of the most in-flexible will power who can live his life undisturbed by the glitter of much gold. So overwhelming is the desire to possess the fixtures enumerated above that men throw all virtues and vices aside, in order-to secure them. Robbery, embezzlement, fraud and even murder are the agents used in extreme cases. The ostentation of the millionaire is responsible for this. In the magazines of the past year there have been a number of articles pro and con as to whether we have an American Aristocracy. Our Constitution says all men are created free and equal and for almost one hundred years this doctrine was held sacred and we prospered. But with the coming of the millionaire all that was changed. Believing that because they owned more valuable real estate and more gilt-edged bonds than their poor neighbor, they were of superior clay, our mil-lionaires began to ape the degenerate though genteel aristo-cracy of Europe. And those who have occasion and oppor- THE MERCURY. 271 tunity to observe say that they have aped not too wisely but too well. Forgetting that a cad is not a gentleman, that cul-ture, education and brains, not money, give grace and elegance in speech and deportment, some of our would be Aristocrats pose and strut with an affectation of superiority that would be insufferable, were it not so ridiculous. So many owners of >much money gladly take the responsibility for opening the breach of class between man and man. Joseph Folk, swept into the Governor's Chair by a tidal wave ■of reform votes, reached his position by the conviction of bood-lers in the city of St. Louis. When Folk began his now famous •investigation, whom did he find were the bribers, lawbreakers and corruptors of public morality ? They were rich men, the ■financial backbone of St. Louis. It is the same everywhere. The wealthy, the millionaires, have bought outright whole ■city councils, legislatures, judges and have even carried their infamous designs into the nation's lawmakers themselves. In-deed the venal character of our judges have caused the poor to give up all hope of justice when combatted by a man of wealth. And in business men eminently respectable, men above re-proach, lend their names and influence to schemes which, if attempted by an ordinary gold-brick speculator or bunco steerer, would result in that worthy rusticating behind the bars of some penal institution. But because there are millions in it, it is considered high finance to unload Lake Superior, U. S. Ship-building, Amalgamated Copper and Bay State Gas, on a public dazzled by the prospect of sure dividends which never come; and rendered trustful by an eminently respectable directorate. Year by year the man of the monster death has been feeding thousands of victims through the negligence and greed of corpor-ations. This number has increased so rapidly that the President thought it worthy of mention in his last message to Congress. It was high time; men in mills have been burned, maimed, crushed, torn and mutilated; either because the price of their work was so low that they had to constantly work under the •shadow of violent death, or because the owner, squeezing every last cent, refused to place safeguards around death-traps. So : 272 THE MERCURY. long as a mill, railroad or factory pays dividends, what matters it how many poor wretches are ground to fragments, providing: their death does not entail any extra expense on the firm P This criminal disregard of human life does not confine itself to-a purely impersonal matter like a mill or factory. It takes a form of amusement when reckless men crazed with the mad-ness of much money hurl giant automobiles through crowded city streets, at express-train speed. The desire to make a dol-lar was never better illustrated than in the case of a Western) railroad which, by removing a switch-light to save the oilr caused a wreck which hurled scores of human beings into eter-nity. Last but not least, look at the responsibility which million-aires bear to the gravest danger which threatens us at the pres-ent day. We will consider divorce, because the divorce evil1 had its inception among the moneyed class in this country. The home is the bulwark of all lands and all peoples. Where the home is sacred there courage, fidelity and all kindred vir-tues flourish. There also are found the brightest ideals. Ir* this country in the last ten years there has been a flood of divorces so overwhelming that almost all churches have taken* steps to check the evil. On the most trifling charges the bondr which should bind men and women for life, has been rudely snapped asunder, and all over the land we see the distressing; sight of homes desolated and families scattered. Beyond any doubt the millionaires must be held accountable for this. In> New York the so called Four Hundred has more divorces to-the square inch than any similar body of people in this country. Since New York sets the fashions and the rest of the country sheepishly follows, this fashion soon became the reigning fad" in Smart (?) Sets. Other States anxious to keep in the proces-sion enacted lax divorce laws until South Dakota made six-months residence equivalent to divorce. This is the greatest responsibility which rests on the shoulders of our millionaires. Now for a summing up of the misdeeds for which our moneyed men must some day suffer. Overlooking the fact that in our belief no man is fit for heaven who selfishly spends- .MM _ . THE MERCURV. 273 forty thousand dollars a year on himself, what have millionaires individually and collectively done ? They have corrupted our politics, made bare money the criterion of success, destroyed the desire for thrift and economy by lavish expenditure, en-couraged dishonesty directly and indirectly, made a joke of equality between man and man, have made divorce so common that it excites almost no comment, have encouraged race sui-cide and have by gifts of money, dishonestly earned, pauperized ■a portion of our people. They have lowered the ideals which made this republic possible. In a word, if the people have not degenerated under the paralyzing influence of huge fortunes, it is because the heart of the people beats time, in spite of all inducements to the contrary. If they have degenerated it is because of the examples cited above. And weighing all these facts, taking into consideration the good done by much money, we are led to believe, half unwillingly, that it would have been better to have held fast to the conservative principles which ruled in the days of our grand-fathers. A more contented, happy people we should certainly be in place of a nation of vulgar money-grabbers. We would not, of course, have been a world power, with a navy to sweep the seas; but we would have been more respected and feared than we are now. And last and most important, we would have been consistent to the high ideals of which we gave promise in our National Youth. But it is done, our course is changed, time alone can tell what the future has in store for us. As a body our millionaires have much to answer for. Yet setting our faces to the right, let us all in a simple, unassuming way do what destiny has marked for us and all will yet be well with the grandest republic on «arth. ■■■■■■Hi THE MERCURY Entered at the Postoffice at Gettysburg as second-class Matter VOL. XIII GETTYSBURG, PA., FEBRUARY, 1905 No. 8 Editor-in-chief C. EDWIN BUTLER, '05 Exchange Editor CHARLES GAUGER, '05 Business Manager A. L. DILLENBECK, '05 Asst. Business Manager JOHN M. VAN DOREN, '06 Associate Editors H. C. BRILLHART, '06 ALBERT BILLHEIMER, '06 H. BRUA CAMPBELL, '06 Advisory Board PROF. J. A. HIMES, LITT.D. PROF. G. D. STAHLEY, M.D. PROF. J. W. RICHARD, D.D. Published each month, from October to June inclusive, by the joint literary societies of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. Subscription price, one dollar a year in advance; single copies 15 cents. Notice to discontinue sending the MERCURY to any address must be accompanied by all arrearages. Students, Professors and Alumni are cordially invited to contribute. All subscriptions and business matter should be addressed to the Busi-ness Manager. Articles for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address THE MERCURY, GETTYSBURG, PA. EDITORIALS. How swiftly the months pass ! One after another in endless succession they come and go, yea even with this issue the MERCURY adds another year to its history and closes forever the pages of another volume. If it has been any improvement over its predecessor, if it records with any reasonable precision the literary attainments of the student body, and if it is worthy of preservation in the archives of the College, then our labor has not been bought without a price and the high mark, to which we have been endeavoring to approach, has not been entirely missed. As the last line and the last word is written and the time for our departure is come, we go, but not until our faithful contri-butors, our patrons and loyal friends, than which there are none more loyal, are assured of our sincere gratitude and apprecia-tion. THE MERCURY. I 275 Without you our existence would have been impossible, with you the most happy relation has been enjoyed. If we have merited commendation the glory is to you, if censure, we are the chief offenders, and by the much importunity we invite all criticism to be placed to our credit. We bequeath not un-willingly to the associate and assistant staff a very generous portion of this rich legacy—if it may not improperly be so termed. That the termination of the close relation as a staff and as friends of the staff has inevitably come we regret but at the same time remember the sweet incense which the memory of the past year will send so often floating through our minds. This alone is reward enough and for our efforts a princely re-compense. Not even the trained minds of philosophers would be able to divine the origination of the .mysterious ideas and current rumors which are frequently promulgated without authority or xredence. For the benefit of those who may not know it, we announce that a few philosophic prodigies have been secured and are really matriculated with the student body, though the MERCURY has been unfortunate enough not to have had the honor to publish any of their esoteric cogitations, and even they would not perhaps venture a solution. The hypothesis nevertheless is agitated and really believed by some that the MERCURY will cease to be the organ of the College Literary Societies ; will cease to be a medium for the publication of the Literature of merit in the College; will cease to print the different prize essays and preserve them for future reference; in fine will cease to exist after this issue. We have said, just where such incongruous fancies first originated seems to be somewhat of a mystery. The claims are unfounded from the start but from some inexplicable cause they have seized many of the students. As our college publica-tions, unfortunately, are wholly student papers their existence of course depends on the pleasure of said body. The position we presume to maintain with regard to the continuance, dis-continuance or uniting with our weekly we will not define here 276 THE MERCURY. for obvious reasons. The decision of such a grave problem should receive the careful, thoughtful and deliberate attention of the members of our literary societies. In any event the staff deems it advisible to lay down here the present status of affairs for the benefit of those who are in-tensely interested and not now of the student body. Financially the Journal is by no means embarrassed. If there be an en-cumbrance at all, it will be insignificant. Generally a surplus over and above current expenses has been handed down from manager to manager, if this indicates anything. Relerring to the numbers of the magazine now on file, this volume is not believed to be inferior to its antecedents, yet we are not pre-sumptuous enough to flatter ourselves with its superiority. Who have "fought and bled" for it in the years past have writ-ten us very encouraging letters which have been voluntary contributions on their part. Generally speaking, we do know the students of the College have not supported the magazine by liberal literary contribu-tions but we believe since many other interests which formerly slumbered are now throbbing with life and activity, the MER-CURY will also within a comparatively short time receive its due apportionment of interest and enthusiasm. EXCHANGES. With this issue of THE MERCURY the "Ex-man's" qurll will be handed down to his successor. 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Issue 65.1 of the Review for Religious, 2006. ; Inspiration The Spirit QUARTERLY ~ 2006 Review for Religious fosters dialogue with God, dialogue with ourselves, and dialogue with one another about tb~ holiness we try to live according to charisms of Catholic religious life. As Pope Paul vl said, our way of being church is today the way of dialogue. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis Universit3£ by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-633-4610 ¯ Fax: 314-633-4611 E-Mail: review@slu.edu .° \¥eh site: *~,w.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ° Pontifical College Josephinuln 7625 North High Street ¯ Columbus, Ohio 43235 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2006 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific lihrarv clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. view for religious Editor Associate Editor Canonical Counsel Scripture Scope Editorial Staff VVebmaster Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Eugene Hensell OSB Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Clare Boehmer ASC Stephen Erspamer OSB Kathleen Hughes RSCJ Louis and A~. gela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ QUARTERLY 65.1 2006 contents prisms 4 Prisms context American Catholicism's Chaos-- and Its Future Richard Gribble CSC reviews the present situation of the post-Vatican II era of American Catholicism through an analysis of contemporary authors while providing hope for the future. 21 23 3O challenges 0 Religious Life in the Third World-- a Shangri-La? Anthony Malaviaratchi CSSR paints a rather sobering picture of the difficulties involved in discerning a vocation for third-world candidates and in superiors' exercise of leadership. Personal Reflection Questions and Group Discussion Propositions Challenges for Communities' New Members Guire Cleary SSF sets out some of the challenges experi-enced by new members of religious communities, drawing on his own experiences and observations and on personal histories from other new religious. Review for Religious inspiration 43 A Spirituality of Surrender--A Jesuit's Story Rosemary Stets OSF shares with us the making of a prayer of surrender from her conversation with and the living example of the Jesuit Walter J. Ciszek. 48 57 Two Mysteries in One: Implications for Ministry Giovanni Zevola OMI delves into the meaning of the Annunciation and the Visitation to find there the richness of theology and pastoral care, encountering each other in pastoral experience. Truth: Religious Simplicity Revisited Robert P. Maloney CM focuses on Vincent de Paul's choice of simplicity as "being in the truth" with God, with oneself, with others, and with the created universe; He then discusses some of the dilemmas involved in combining the simplicity of the dove with the prudence of the serpent. Prayer Reflection and Group Discussion 7O Sharing God the Ignatian Way David L. Fleming SJ indicates how Ignatian spirituality affects the ways we understand and relate to God. Personal Reflection and Group Discussion 76 the spirit Led by the Spirit: St. Patrick Andrew Ryder SCJ views the working of the Holy Spirit in the life and missionary activity of St. Patrick from his own witness given in his Confession. departments 92 Scripture Scope: The suffering of Jesus ~ 96 Canonical Counsel: Chapters and Other Meetings 102 Book Reviews 65.1 2006 4 ~hen was the last time that we felt that we were making a flesh start? Maybe it was a flesh start in our getting regular exercise. Perhaps it was a fresh start that we needed in establishing a better relationship with a co-worker or a relative. Or it might be the flesh start we need in working on our spiritual or church life. We hear and are well aware of the bromides like "That's the way it has always been done" or "We always do it that way." It seems that there is nothing more deadening than a routine life, a life of frozen patterns. Yet it is normal, even necessary, that we estab-lish patterns in our everyday living. For exam-ple, for good health we are encouraged to keep to a pattern of sleeping hours. It is usually helpful for us to establish patterns for our personal prayer, or else we begin to find ourselves too busy to take time to pray. We as a church are always calling ourselves to start afresh. That is a purpose of church sea-sons. We have recently finished the Christmas season. We are entering Ordinary Time, which we will shortly interrupt for the Lenten and Easter seasons. Each time the liturgy, through these seasonal emphases, calls us to a fresh assess-ment of how we are relating to God and how we are living our Christian life. What does it mean for us "to start afresh"? It does not mean that we reject everything that we have been doing. It does not call for us to break totally with our past and act as if we have Review for Religious no personal history. Each one of us is only one person, from birth to death and into resurrection. We are the ones that God loves into creation and identifies with, as sons and daughters in the redemptive action of Jesus. We must always work with our God-given gifts and limitations. But, accepting and living with the mystery of our own person, we receive God's call to start afresh, always to be growing, which means change and development. The foods that we liked as children should not keep us from foods we could well like as adults. When was the last time we tried something new to eat? Maybe we are very comfortable attending Eucharistic holy hours, but have we ever taken time to visit people in a nursing home or in a hospital? Perhaps we keep our weekends to our-selves, but are we open to volunteering for our parish's special pantry preparation and delivery for poor people in our neighborhood? Every Eucharist we celebrate invites us to start afresh with Christ. The risen Jesus, in his everlasting stance of offering himself anew totally to God and totally to us, extends his arms to embrace us in his offering as we enter into Eucharist. And so each Mass, with its own ritual pat-tern, is God's invitation to us to start anew. In the simple practice of the daily examination of conscience--once again a helpful pattern in our Christian lives--we find ourselves always being alerted to the surprising ways that God has entered into our lives this day and perhaps, to our sorrow, we have not responded. In a paradoxical way, by our looking back over our day in the examen, we find ourselves starting afresh in our relationship with God. "Starting afresh with Christ"--is this the "routine call" we hear every day? We may find that this call freshens the whole of our everyday way of living. David L. Fleming SJ 6Y.I 2006 RICHARD GRIBBLE American Catholicism's Chaos--and Its Future context In his recent book The Catholic Revolution: New Wine, Old Wineskins, and the Second Vatican Council, the priest sociologist Andrew Greeley uses new wine in old wineskins to describe con-temporary American Catholicism's chaotic state. He contends that, while appearing strong, Roman Catholicism's structures were fragile, for they had not been adequately adapted to chang-ing times. Thus, when the progressive teach-ings of Vatican II came all at once, the structures were not ready for them and chaos ensued.l Can this chaotic situation be a turning point to a stronger church in the future? Using the work of several prominent American Catholic intellectuals, this essay continues the discussion and seeks to increase hopes for the contempo-rary church. Richard Gribble CSC is an associate professor of religious studies at Stonehill College; 480 Washington Street; North Easton, Massachusetts 02356. His current email address is rgribble@stonehill.edu Review for Religious The American Church Today American Catholics today can be divided into two groups. The "spirit of Vatican II" Catholics, the majority of American Catholics, view John xxIII's aggiornamento as a move toward solidarity with the present age. Following the opening words of Sacrosanctum concilium, "The sacred council has set out., to adapt more closely to the needs of our age those institutions which are sub-ject to change," these more liberal Catholics see Vatican II as a starting point for adaptation. Greeley says, "Catholics [today] believe that the church can change and that they can disregard the pope when it comes to making decisions, especially about sex and gender.''2 Some refer to those in this category as "cafeteria Catholics," who feel free to pick and choose what teach-ings they accept and reject. George Weigel, senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., calls such an understanding of the faith "Catholic lite," perceiving this "watered down" Catholicism as the root of the recent sexual-abuse crisis and, by extension, the general malaise in American Catholicism.3 Greeley characterizes the lassitude in the church as "beige Catholicism," with the Catholic imagination, once a source of unity, now replaced by a colorless Catholic life that has little enthusiasm.4 The other group, those labeled "conservatives" in the literature, accepts Vatican II at face value, but goes no further. These Catholics accept and promote what the council taught, but, unlike the more progressive element, do not believe that the council licensed the generation of multiple theologies. They reject the idea that the "spirit of Vatican II" should govern the church. In the eyes of this group, an overemphasis on aggiornamento created the disunities of "Catholic lite" and "beige Catholicism." James Hitchcock, professor of history at St. Louis 6Y. 1 2006 Gribble ¯ dmerican Catbolicism's Cbaos Despite Vatican II's emphasis on the active role of the laity, the hierarchical church is slow to relinquish power and authority. University, is a standard bearer for this position. He writes, "Liberal religion treats secular culture as pos-sessing a superior wisdom and restricts religious beliefs to what the culture allows, including endorsing every movement deemed to be progressive." He suggests fur-ther that liberals have no sense "that modernity itself, in the full sense oi: the term, is simply antireligious, that rejection of belief is essential to its self-understanding." s Given these divisions in American Catholicism, what are the dominant issues? The Catholic editor and writer Peter Steinfels, in his popular book A People Adrift, says the church must nego-tiate (1) the passage from one generation to the next and (2) the pas-sage of power from the clergy to the laity.6 The first passage is compli-cated: those formed religiously after Vatican II ask questions without sufficient background. v_ _ As for the second pas-sage, despite Vatican II's emphasis on the active role of the laity, the hierarchical church is slow to relinquish power and authority. Steinfels concludes: "Today the Roman Catholic Church in the United States is on the verge of either an irreversible decline or a thoroughgo-ing transformation." 7 For Catholicism worldwide and here in the United States, the ideas Catholics had about Pope John Paul II had a strong influence. Almost universally he was well respected for his worldwide crusade for social justice and his influence in the fall of Communism. More conser-vative critics such as George Weigel saw the pope's lead- Review for Religious ership in church affairs, one based on past traditions, to be precisely what was needed to curb uncertainty and dissent. Clearly John Paul saw Vatican II as a point of arrival, not one of departure for church development. Strong authority is needed, Weigel suggests, "to ensure Christians do not settle for mediocrity." 8 In similar sup-port, James Hitchcock claims that John Paul made "a broad and ambitious attempt to relate the Catholic faith to everything positive in modern culture.''9 On the other hand, the columnist David Gibson has written, "For all of John Paul's unparalleled accomplishments, his popu-larity came with a hidden cost to the church.''1° Similarly, the French journalist Alain Woodrow well summarizes how many American Catholics viewed John Paul: "John Paul is self-assured, convinced of his 'divine mission,' and determined to drag the church--kicking and scream-ing if need be--into his own vision of the 21st century, a vision shaped by his Polish ecclesiology and sustained by his theological certainties. No soul searching or admission of doubt here, but a ringing cry: 'Be not afraid'; I am the pope and I know best!''1~ The Church Today: Specific Ideas Vatican II's emphasis on the church as the people of God brought attention to the important role of the laity. In their outstanding study of the Catholic laity today, William D'Antonio and his colleagues have compared the theology and tendencies of three groups of Catholics: (1) those formed before Vatican II, (2) those who matured during Vatican II, and (3) those raised in a post-Vatican II church. All three generations studied seem to want a more democratic church. A positive view of lay partici-pation in the church increases with a generation's prox-imity to Vatican II. Yet participation as measured by Mass attendance and knowledge of church teaching declines 65.1 2006 Gribble * American Catholicism's Chaos 1_ol from the pre- to post-Vatican II church. 12 While lacking an accurate gauge, the study suggested that, because of less religious formation, post-Vatican II Catholics are less committed than their predecessors.~3 The rapid and significant growth of lay ministry, while a blessing ~o the church, has also caused a few problems. The 1999 "Study of Lay Parish Ministry" found that the theology and church policies necessary to govern this explosion of lay involvement have not kept pace with the advance. Additionally, some have raised concerns that the laity's movement into more tradition-ally priestly or religious roles may eclipse the primary role of the laity in the church and/or lead to a clerical-izing of the laity. Some also fear that careerism rather than a desire to serve, a problem called clericalism when noted in the clergy, may invade the ranks of the laity.14 Another concern raised with the post-Vatican II rise of the laity is an evolving mutual distrust and conflict between the clergy and the laity. David Gibson suggests that the rise in lay ministry has created a backlash and retrenchment on the part of priests. The clergy is flex-ing its muscle and standing aloof from the laity.~s Priests find themselves caught between two forces, the laity, with whom they generally agree theologically but dis-trust, and the institutional church, which they trust but do not agree with. Priests generally support the laity's more positive view of sexuality, have a greater sensitiv-ity to women, and possess respect for the laity's freedom to make decisions, especially on moral matters. 16 Yet cler-icalism and poor homilies, among other things, have cre-ated a gap between priests and their flocks. Rather than assigning any blame to themselves for this situation, the clergy generally point to family breakdown, divorce, and apathy as reasons for the divide.~7 In addition to the gap between the laity and the lower Review for Religious clergy, a division exists between the laity and the hier-archy. During the last several years, accentuated greatly by the 2002 sex-abuse crisis, bishops have lost much credibility with priests and the laity. At the June 2002 meeting of the U.S. Catholic bishops in Dallas, Scott Appleby, the church historian and former director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, summarized the problem while proffering a solution: The crisis confronting the church today cannot be understood and thus not adequately addressed apart from its setting in a wider range of problems that have been growing over the last 34 years. At the heart of these problems is the alienation of the hierarchy and, to a lesser degree, many of the clergy, from ordinary laywomen and laymen . To be faithful to the church envisioned by the council fathers of Vatican II, bishops and priests must trust the laity, appropriately share authority with them, and open their financial, legal, [and] administrative practices and decisions to full visibility. 18 Unfortunately, Appleby's call for transparency has not been heeded sufficiently. In many ways the separation between the hierarchy and the laity has widened on account of the bishops' poor reception of the Voice of the Faithful, the laity's effort to seek accountability while supporting the institutional church. The laity's status in the church and its conflicts with the clergy are highlighted by the ongoing struggle for women to gain proper recognition and equality. How paradoxical that, while women are more active in church ministries, they are mostly relegated to the fringes in authority and privilege. The moral theologian Christine Gudorf has stated that, despite church social teaching on the equality of women, papal teaching on the nature and role of women still accentuates the theme of motherhood. Not only does the pope view motherhood as an element 6Y. 1 2006 Gribble ¯ American Catholicism's Chaos 12 of being female; he views it as a definition of woman-hood. 9 The Benedictine nun, lecturer, and writer Joan Chittister, believes that to design doctrines on marriage, family, and sexuality--all of which deeply and directly impinge on women--without their input is to adopt "posi-tions that are incomplete as well as arrogant." 20 Views opposed ~0 the rise of feminism are also pre-sent. In a strong statement James Hitchcock has written: The rise of militant feminism has been one of the most serious crises in the history of orthodox religion, because women have always tended to be more pious than men and the churches are thus alienated from some of their hitherto most faithful communicants, and because militant feminism logically rejects not only a male savior but the very idea of monotheism.21 The crisis experienced by the laity in today's church is present as well in the priesthood, although manifested differently. Before Vatican II the priesthood in general sustained a vertical.rather than a horizontal faith. The priest was symbolic and functional and was character-ized by the concept of alter Christus (another Christ). The popular 1950s television show "Father Knows Best" could have been easily applied to the priest, who stood as a symbol of the institutional church and functioned to serve God's people in every way. Life for the priest and his people was centered in the parish. While some clergy became prominent as social activists or in other specific roles, the operative model was the all-purpose priest-hood. With rectories and seminaries full and the gener-ally high respect afforded priests, as typified by Father O'Malley in the box-office favorites "Going My Way" and "The Bells of Saint Mary's," priesthood in the American church was .strong. Vatican II's emphasis on the priesthood of the laity and on the church as the people of God "demanded a Review for Religious formal and full reconsideration of the role and identity of the priest in the new church.''22 The tumultuous 1960s, the increased pressure on priests to serve as the-ological and spiritual leaders, and the increasing numbers of men leaving the priesthood transformed the remain-ing priests from "all-purpose" to "orchestra leaders." The priest was now called to identify and foster the unique gifts in each parishioner for service to the church. Empowerment of the laity to fulfill its man-date from Vatican II became an integral part of the priesthood. Yet this demand was not negotiated well by many, leading some to suffer an identity crisis and loss of purpose . With many of the faithful serving as ministers of the Eucharist, ministers of the word, ministers to the sick, and similar functions, what was distinctive about the ordained ministry?z3 Father Donald Cozzens, in his Changing Face of the Priesthood, has described 1980 to 2000 as the "priest-hood's dark night." He writes, "The postconciliar years have tested the mettle of priests--crisis after crisis 'shak-ing the foundations' and turning their lives inside out and upside down." 24 He says that the fallout from Vatican II, most notably the rise in dissent, has eaten away at the priest's moral authority and curtailed the cleric's ability to offer pastoral guidance. Yet, despite these conditions, Cozzens believes the priesthood's present dark night has led to a deepening of spirit and a purification of soul and thus a grace and blessing. The dark night was necessary to bring about the conversion of mind and heart that the Empowerment of the laity to fulf!lt its mandate from Vatican Il became an integral part of the priesthood. 6Y.1 2006 Gribble ¯ American Catholicism's Chaos priesthood needed to serve the people of God in a post-conciliar world.2s The priesthood faces additional challenges that must be addressed in the 2 lst-century church. Some more progressive commentators, like Andrew Greeley, suggest that clericalism allows the clergy to hide behind a veil of secrecy and keeps priests from accepting responsibil-ity for their actions. The natural and important cama-raderie that exists in the clergy has too often been used as an excuse to cover up information and actions that might be seen as prejudicial against the institutional church. One need look no further than the recent sex-abuse controversy to find clear evidence of this. Members of a fraternity will not speak ill of each other. In the same light the priesthood's traditional hierarchical posi-tion above the laity gives license for some to dominate God's people or disregard their opinions.26 More con-servative writers lay much of the blame for lassitude in the church at the feet of the clergy. James Hitchcock has written: The spread of secular attitudes in Catholic cultures has not been primarily the work of professors and journalists, but of priests. Laymen who would be disposed to resist secularization, especially as they see it emanating from hostile sources outside the churches, abandon their resistance at the parent bidding of their spiritual leaders.27 Polarization of theology is another contemporary phenomenon in the priesthood. The researcher Dean Hoge in his First Five Years of the .Priesthood provides a convincing argument that younger priests are more con-servative in their theology and align themselves more strictly along the views of Pope John Paul II.28 Andrew Greeley agrees with Hoge's analysis, especially noting the views of young clergy toward optional celibacy and Review for Religious women priests. He suggests three reasons for their views: (1) These priests do not understand Vatican II, (2) they want the security of a clerical state, and (3) they reject uncertainty.29 More positively, Greeley debunks the myth that priests are unhappy men, especially as a result of the celibacy requirement. Greeley's analysis shows that, while priests may not be paragons of maturity and personal well-being, they are similar to married men with com-mensurate educational backgrounds. His data demon-strates that only two percent of active priests see celibacy as a problem and only sixteen percent of clerics who resign do so because of celibacy. Rather, priests leave because they do not like the work. Celibacy becomes a problem only when ministry is not satisfying.3° What is needed for the American Catholic priest of the 2 1st century? Peter Steinfels presents three signifi-cant qualities of future priests. First, they must possess the theological capacity to celebrate the sacraments, preach the word of God, and make contemporary life meaningful. Second, they must have the ability to ani-mate and guide others. Third, they must be account-able. 3~ John Boissonneau, auxiliary bishop of Toronto, provides a different but consistent list of attributes. Successful priests must view their role as countercultural and not be afraid to take risks. Future clergy must place a premium on authenticity in their personal lives and ministry. And, lastly, successful future priests must avoid isolation, drawing their life from the people they serve.32 The Church Tomorrow To speak intelligently about the needs of the future church, one should know what has proved successful in the past. Andrew Greeley's call for a return to what he terms "the Catholic imagination" deserves some review. 65.1 2006 Gribble * ~qmerican Catbolicis~z's Chaos Catholicism must recover the things of beauty that were summarily swept aside in the wake of the spirit of Vatican II, For Greeley the glue that held worldwide Catholicism was the many metaphors that stressed the immanence of God. Rather than perceiving God as transcendent (the general theological perspective of Protestants), Catholics have always been attracted by multiple sense images of God's presence. The smell of incense, the sight of Eucharistic adoration, processions, and statues, and the words of novenas, parish missions, and the rosary have long served as a glue for Catholics. These were practices to which all could relate; all Catholics were on the same page. Scratch one Catholic and the whole church bled. Greeley does not suggest a return to the 1940s or 1950s, but the "beige Catholicism" that predominates today is not the answer either. He believes that Catholicism must recover the things of beauty that were summarily swept aside in the wake of the spirit of Vatican II. Greeley says the church needs chant, statues, and patron saints; we need metaphors for God.3.3 David Gibson agrees, but goes further. He believes that subsidiarity, a principle of Catholic social teaching, must become operative in the church universal. For Gibson, loyalty to Catholicism is rooted in the local parish. Rather than from the top down, he suggests that governing be from the bottom up, giving voice and authority to the laity. He says that what is important for the church is unity, not uniformity.34 Where must the church move in the 21st century in order to be the viable and healthy institution that will Review for Religious well serve the people of God? Peter Steinfels laments that Cardinal Joseph Bernardin's dynamic Common Ground initiative was summarily cast aside and a reasser-tion of papal authority put in its place. He suggests that the Catholic leadership of the future must break out from trench warfare that has constricted discussion in the American Church since Vatican II. He believes that a balance must be struck between theology and pastoral reality and that the lack of dialogue has been harmful, and so he sees Bernardin's plan as the optimum.35 On a similar track the journalist David Gibson sees the future church in the hands of the hierarchy. There are two routes to follow. Of the two, the more conser-vative one would want Rome to reassert its power and its claim on Catholics' loyalty. The other one would admit problems and seek systemic change. Gibson opts for the second, with the belief that bishops must become more vocal politically and seek avenues whereby those ele-ments of the faith that can be adapted to the uniqueness of the American environment are changed.36 The present crisis in .the church must be a point of renewal that affords growth and a brighter future.36a Clearly it is impossible to return to the pre-Vatican II Church, even if one should desire such a move. The ben-efits that Vatican II brought must be fostered, yet the initial postconciliar "throwing the baby out with the bath" must be avoided. The council called for greater inclusivity as manifest in opportunities for laity and open-ness to other people of faith. Recent developments, as expressed in church documents on various levels, have been seen by many as a regression from Vatican II. In August 2000 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith proclaimed concerning Protestants: "If it is true that the followers of other religions can receive grace, it is also certain that objectively speaking [emphasis in the 65.1 2006 Gribble ¯ American Catholicism's Chaos document] they are in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who; in the church, have the full-ness of the means of salvation.''37 This regression of Vatican II's more open position toward Protestants does not bode well for the future. The church must reinvig-orate the spirit expressed in Nostra aetate: "Ever aware of her duty to foster unity and charity among individuals, and even among nations, she [the church] reflects at the outset on what men have in common and what tends to promote fellowship among them.''38 Additionally, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has alien-ated many of the faithful laity by stating: "If extraordi-nary ministers of Holy Communion are required by pastoral need, they should not approach the altar before the priest has received communion.''39 In an effort to return to more reverence for the Eucharist, the bishops have effectively placed on ice the council's call for active lay participation on all levels. The council called for a pastoral approach to the lived faith and for a greater sense of dialogue with the world in order to harness the advancement of human knowledge for the betterment of God's people. While the church must continue to oppose secularism and be a countercultural light to the contemporary fascinations of power, wealth, and prestige, she cannot do so effec-tively through a dogmatic and defensive stance. John Paul II reannounced this unyielding position, casting aside dialogue on key issues when he proclaimed in 1994: "I declare that the church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judg-ment is to be definitely held by all the church's faith-ful.'' 4° The church must be open to dialogue, within its own ranks and with other people of faith. The sensz~s fidelium must be addressed by listening to God's people and having the courage to admit error and to effect Review for Religious change. The church cannot stand aloof from the world, but must engage society on all levels. American Catholicism today is at a moment of crisis, even in chaos, but the church need not panic nor be downcast or without hope. Even a cursory review of church history, both universally and in the United States, demonstrates that there have been many crises in the past, but all were negotiated as moments of change, not despair. Such is the case with the contemporary situa-tion. The fate of the church is in our hands; we are, as Lumen gentium states, the people of God. We must not wring our hands or lament with loud cries; rather, as individuals and community, we must use the present cri-sis as a springboard for action. We might not produce systemic change tomorrow, but we need to think globally and act locally. Margaret O'Brien Steinfels has aptly placed the challenge before us: "We can no longer indulge the slothful habit of postponing the church that we need until the next papacy, until the seminaries are full, until the controversies are resolved, until some faith-ful remnant rules the church. We need to bring the new life into the project of church renewal that we have neglected too long.''4~ Are we listening to the church's contemporary voice and willing to act? Only we can answer. Notes ~ Andrew Greeley, The Catholic Revolution: New Wine, Old Wineskins, and the Second Vatican Council (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), pp. 1-4. z Greeley, Catholic Revolution, p. 58. 3 George Weigel, The Courage to Be Catholic: Crisis, Refor~n, and the Future of the Church (New York: Basic Books, 2002), pp. 219-232. 4 Greeley, Catholic Revolution, pp. 81-89. Drawing from David Tracy's Analogical Imagination, Greeley suggests that the glue to Catholic life has always been its "Catholic Imagination," e.g., a metaphor for ritual, 6Y.I 2006 Gribble ¯ American Catholicism's Chaos devotion, and music. While Catholics today find themselves across the board on many issues, religious and secular, the Catholic imagination has kept unity. Today's understanding and practice of Catholicism threat-ens this cohesion. See Andrew Greeley, Catholic Imagination. s James Hitchcock, "Interpreting Vatican II: Version One, A Continuum in the Great Tradition," Commonweal 128, no. 5 (9 March 2001): 19, 18. 6 Peter Steinfels, A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), pp. 1-14. 7 p. Steinfels, People Adrift, p. 1. s George Weigel, "Liberal Church? Conservative Church?" Crisis 19, no. 10 (November 2001): 32. 9 Hitchcock, "Interpreting Vatican II," 19. 10 David Gibson, The Coming Church: How the Faitbful Are Shaping a New American Catholicism (San Francisco: Harper, 2003), p. 327. 1, Alain Woodrow, "Superstar or Servant?" in The Papacy and the People of God, ed. Gary MacEoin (Maryknoll: Orbis Press), p. 83. lz William V. D'Antonio et al., Laity American and Catholic: Transforming the Church (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1996), pp. 65-66, 73-79. Interesting statistical figures compare the three generations of American Catholics. For pre-Vatican I! Catholics, Vatican II Catholics, and post-Vatican Catholics respectively, the figures were 63 percent, 45 percent, and 23 percent as regards "active perticipation" (Mass atten-dance etc.). For daily prayer the figures were 90 percent, 67 percent, and 56 percent. When asked if Mass attendance is necessary to "be a good Catholic," 60 percent, 74 percent, and 80 percent said no. This lat-ter statistic, while consistent with the decline in participation over the generations, shows pre-Vatican Catholics not feeling as strong an obli-gation to attend Sunday Mass as they formerly did. 's D'Antonio, Laity, pp. 84-99. 14 "A Study of Parish Lay Ministry," Origins 29, no. 7 (1 July 1999): 103-104, 107. is Gibson, Coming Church, pp. 35-62. ~6 Greeley, Catholic Revolution, pp. 120-127. 17 Andrew Greeley, Priests: A Calling in Crisis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), pp. 86-99. 18 R. Scott Appleby, "What Is at Stake in the Present Crisis?" Origins 32, no. 7 (27 June 2002): 116. 19 Christine E. Gudorf, "Encountering the Other: The Modern Papacy on Women," in Change in Official Catholic Moral Teachings, ed. Charles Curran (New York: Paulist Press, 2003), p. 273. Review for Religious ~o Joan Chittister OSB, "Women in the Church: A New Pentecost in Process," in MacEoin, Papacy and the People 0fGod, pp. 11, 6. Chittister has said, "We need a papacy that can see the oppression of women by the church itself and is willing to model their inclusion at the highest levels of Vatican planning." See "Women in the Church," p. 10. 2~ James Hitchcock, "The Guilty Secret of Liberal Christianity," New Oxford Review 63 (October 1996): 12-13. 22 R. Scott Appleby, "Historical Overview Priests in America, 1930- 2002," Origins 33, no. 4 (5 June 2003): 55. 23 Weigel, Courage, pp. 9-34. 24 Donald Cozzens, The Changing Face of the Priesthood: A Reflection on the Priests' Crisis 0fSoul (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2000), p. 130. 2s Cozzens, Changing, p. 137. See also Cozzens, "Priesthood Emerges from a Dark Night," America 180, no. 9 (20 March 1999): 24. 26 Greeley, Priests, pp. 100-113. :7 Hitchcock, "Guilty Secret," p. 15. z8 Dean Hoge, The First Five Years of the Priesthood: A Study of Newly Ordained Catholic Priests (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2000), pp. 3-4. 29 Greeley, Priests, pp. 73-85. 3o Greeley, Priests, pp. 33-35, 48-72; Greeley, Catholic Revolution, pp. 120-127. 3t Steinfels, People Adrift, pp. 307-351. ~2 Bishop John Boissonneau, "Future Effective Priests," Origins 32, no. I0 (1 August 2002): 174. 3~ This is the theme of Greeley's Catholic hnagination. See also Greeley, Catholic Revolution, pp. 131-149. 34 Gibson, Coming Church, pp. 82-108. ~s Steinfels, People Adrift, pp. 352-360. In April 1996 Bernardin sug-gested that the dissension in American Catholicism could be transformed by seeking common ground amongst the various viewpoints. Bernardin's idea was severely criticized by Cardinals Bernard Law of Boston and John O'Connor of New York. ~6 Gibson, Coming Church, pp. 293-317,336. ~6~ Editorial note. Along with some brief quo.tations, these conclud-ing paragraphs contain some ideas that are current in the church in the United States and are often assumed to express Vatican II's spirit and to be its crystallized mandates. They have not always been argued care-fully. They deserve our careful consideration. The hopes we all have call all of us to this care. 37 Dominns Jesus (On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus 65.1 2006 Gribble * American Catholicism's Chaos Christ and the Church), August 2000, §22. 38 Nostra aetate, §1. 39 "Norms for the Distribution and Reception of Holy Communion under Both Kinds in the Dioceses of the United States of America," 14 June 2001, §38. ~o Ordinatio sacerdotalis, §4. See Origins 24, no. 4 (9 June 1994): 51. 41 Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, "The Crisis through the Laity's Lens," Origins 32, no. 7 (27 June 2002): 112-113. Rope Bridge At Ava, once, I crossed the ravine on a lattice of slats knotted into rope; undulant, it bucked at every step. That bridge rode its own law at war with gravity and my bulk. I never breathed as my feet swayed above the pines. I'd pry loose one hand from the guide rope thinned to spider silk to cling an inch farther along. And once on solid land, the terror rose: there was no other way to return. But midway back, I learned the sway, could look down at leaves, guess at bird names, not Jear the hawk's arc. I took a breath, and another, and held less tightly. M. Doretta Cornell RDC Review for Religious ANTHONY MALAVIARATCHI Religious Life in the Third Worldma Shangri-La? The attraction to get into the first world is irre-sistible to many of the people in the third world. As everyone knows, thousands knock on the doors of the first world's embassies. Arrangements and rearrangements are made to accommodate them, and of course many more find their way into their chosen Shangri-Las illegally. Throughout its history, religious life and the church itself have often been microcosms of their own social milieu. Religious life has felt the currents and undercurrents of the world around it. However much religious life .chooses to insert itself into its milieu, in no way is it called to succumb to the social trends of its place and time. This, however, is all too likely to happen, even when we think we are relying deeply on Jesus' words "Do not be afraid, I have overcome the world." Anthony Malaviaratchi CSSR is at present involved in mis-sion and retreat work. His address is Santa Maria; George Silva Mawatha; Kandy, Sri Lanka. challenges 65.1 2006 Malaviaratchi * Religious Life in the Third 14form The founding fathers of the church in the third world were members of religious orders who came in the com-pany of world-conquering colonial powers. Religious life did not sprout in the soil of the third world. Rather, like Western democracy, it was brought there and planted there by zealous missionaries. It is natural, then, that it bears the features of the first world's status and security. Religious life and priesthood in the third world offer to those who join its ranks the status and security that third-world people seek in the first world, and so it is no sur-prise that young people in poor countries join religious life by the hundreds. Two factors are at work in this phenomenon. The first is the poverty of the third world. Since the arrival of television, the "attraction of the eye" has motivated peo-ple to go after the goodies of the developed world. What they see with their eyes literally empowers them to go after those material goods. Second, the competition in the job market frightens many. They sense that, if they have neither great talent nor academic qualifications, they will end up as dropouts in the race. A "vocation" is an attractive alternative, a way of escaping such social pressure and yet attaining a position of prestige. Historically, many have embraced religious life and the priesthood for a variety of such ulterior motives. Vocational Discernment In this situation, vocational discernment has become next to impossible. Whether they are aware of all their motives or not, those seeking religious formation from mixed motives know how to play the game, what to say and do and whom they need to impress, bishops, provin-cials, councilors, formators, and so forth. Even honest per-sons' motivations may come to the surface only after final vows or ordination. Then they may be seen in the lifestyle Review for Religious adopted, which may include having a vehicle of one's own, a personal computer, and a cell phone and being head of an institute that provides plenty of money and freedom for foreign trips, for higher studies in the first world, and so forth. Even those who develop crises soon after ordina-tion are offered the opportunity of settling down in the first world in or outside of religious life. Some congrega-tions do not mind offering these perquisites, these "perks," as a cost of their institutional survival even though it is a blatant compromise of the meaning of religious life. For how long? History will answer this interesting question in the not so distant future. Given these circumstances, then, vocation discern-ment is possible only after final vows or ordination! Discernment can take place only over what is humanly discernible and not over motivations that remain largely hidden from all concerned. Some formation programs have begun to take the first steps in countering this situation by insisting that those in formation live and be employed like any other young person for a considerable period of time. This is probably the vocation discernment exercise best suited for the situation. But many congregations and superiors still seem to prefer numbers. As long as there is poverty and unemployment, they will surely have "vocations." The money poured in by the congregations' first-world units positively encourages this situation. In non-Christian monasteries and hermitages, voca-tion discernment is a lifelong process. When a monk or hermit does not live the life that he embraced, he is asked to leave. So it is in any human organization. When mem-bers of a football club want to play ice hockey, they leave. It is not so in religious life. Members remain in the foot-ball club playing not only ice hockey but polo as well. This situation attracts more "vocations." Not only are 65.1 2006 Malaviaratchi ¯ Religious Life in the Third Worm prestige, status, and security offered but permissiveness as well. Remarkably, the situation we are looking at is found largely in the Latin (Western) form of religious life. Eastern and non-Christian "religious" have protected themselves with the help of authority, laws, traditions, and, in some instances, fundamentalism. Religious life of the Western tradition is flooded with evils that sur-round it: secularism, horizontalism, individualism, and permissiveness. Religious life is thus being suffocated by the very evils from which it is supposed to save not only itself but the world as well. 26 Present Leadership Style In the face of these forces, leadership in religious life has largely failed to fulfill its prophetic and pastoral roles by making only innocuous statements, after which it is "business as usual" in the ranks. Absolutely nothing fol-lows till the next innocuous pronouncement. Thus, many third-world religious, who are culturally much more authority-dependent than their Western counterparts, now have to try to be faithful in an authority vacuum. Leadership paralysis is aggravated by the fact that the modern superior is often an elected one. The ballot directly or indirectly produces leadership according to the voters and their expectations. As seen above, too many voters joined religious life for status and security. Today there are as many private agendas as there are voters. These voters will ensure that the superiors will be past masters at compromise, who will accommodate every private interest. The superiors elected thus will on no account insist on group fidelity to the spirit of the con-gregation nor demand the self-forgetfulness that the nature of religious life requires. Superiors who do will not be reelected. Hence superiors avoid this public Review for Religious humiliation by putting up buildings and expanding apos-tolic commitments. They are glad to be blissfully unaware of what is happening at the roots. It is known today that many third-world nations are culturally unable to handle Western democracy. In spite of that, religious in the third world are expected to rise above cultural barriers and vote for their superior. Western democracy is not the only way in which humans involve themselves and make group decisions for their common good. Superiors now belong to a generation which follows the path of least resistance, namely, the path of conve-nience, the first step of which is the avoidance of all that is unpleasant. Confrontation and correction of individ-ual members is unpleasant, ~ . embarrassing, and painful and is therefore carefully avoided. Also superiors are aware that frequently their correction will be ignored and erring individuals will refuse to change. The~e, however, are situations foreseen in the Gospels ~. and church law, and mea-sures to be taken are prescribed. In the situation we are looking at, the superiors may not themselves believe in those measures. People all around choose "the broad highway to hell" rather than "the narrow path" of growth in fidelity. L~adership paralysis is aggravated by the fact that the modern superior is often an elected one. A Trend and Subsidiarity Aiding and abetting today's leadership style is the widespread trend of looking and speaking only about what is positive. Thus, all negatives (such as, in religious 65.1 2006 Malaviaratcbi ¯ Religious Life in the Third World 28 life, unfaithfulness) are evaded at various evaluations. For any human group that wishes to survive, what ulti-mately matters is not what is positive or negative, but rather what accomplishes or prevents the attainment of its goals. Superiors who take precautions to avoid what is negative seem to imitate monkeys who "see no nega-tives, hear no negatives, and speak no negatives." Thus they fail to keep before them the Leader whose repre-sentatives they are and who did not hesitate to speak of "this evil and adulterous generation." Leaders who reli-giously avoid facing what is negative among their members are likely to be the first to attend to the negatives when their laptop fails, their cell phone needs recharging, or their dog needs worming. In this situation the valuable principle of subsidiarity is much abused in our day. The principle means that the lower levels of authority are encouraged and facilitated to perform to the maximum within their ambit. The principle itself, however, demands that higher levels of authority readily step in when lower levels fail in their one and only duty, namely, ensuring faithfulness to the way of life of the particular congregation. Usually only the first half of the principle is followed today, which amounts to passing the buck. Even when it comes to items vital to religious life, the general chap-ter leaves it to the superior general and his council, the superior general to the provincial, the provincial to the local superior, and the local superior to the individual. The result usually is that the matter is thrown over-board--" leaving it to the individual" being a euphemism today for "forget about it." No structure of religious life--nor religious life itself will survive if it does not learn to evaluate all things with the measure given by the Lord: "By their fruits you will know them." Despite all the above, religious life is not without Review for Religious hope. As a radical way of faith, religious life is called at this juncture to be also a community of radical hope, with its only hope in God and in what he will do. Personal Reflection Questions 1. Have I found that my motivations for my religius voca-tion have changed or been purified over the years since entrance? 2. How do I try to be a help in clarifying another's vocation decision? Group Discussion Propositions 1. In an affluent country, we expect that vocations to reli-gious life will be small in number. 2. In developing countries, vocations to priesthool and reli-gious life have a prestige and security factor that clouds the motivation of candidates and makes discernment more diffi-cult. 65.1 2006 GUIRE CLEARY Challenges for Communities' New Members TRAnglican Church in Aotearoa/New Zealand held eligious Life Conference for religious commu-nities in New Zealand, Australia, and Fiji. Some fifty religious from more than twelve communities gathered at the Tainui Endowed College in H0puhopu 17-21 February 2005. Principal speakers included a Roman Catholic Cistercian and a Sister of Mercy. The location itself was significant. Hopuhopu is the center for the Tainui people, the Aotearoan tribe from which the Maori sovereign is selected. Most of the meetings were held in the tribal debating chamber as a show of solidarity with a people recovering their dignity and strength. One of the workshops was titled Issues of Anger in Religious Communities, presented by an experienced priest and spiritual director, the Rev. Pamela Warnes. Her workshop was a brilliant combination of articulating Guire Cleary SSF, an Anglican Franciscan friar whose "novitiate was a trial for everybody," has worked in New Zealand for social justice and currently is stationed in Hawaii: 2463 Kuhio Avenue, apt. 905; Honolulu, Hawaii 96815. He would welcome comments or questions at guirejohncleary@aol.com. Review for Religious issues and discussing solutions, all conducted in a context of prayer and concluded With a healing ceremony. One paper was my own, setting out some of my experiences as a new religious and my observations of the experi-ences of other new religious. Participants said they had experienced almost everything I mentioned and added a few of their own. At the conclusion of the workshop, one asked me, "Have you been a fly on our wall?" I said I was probably more of a mosquito. The challenges set out below are challenges to most communities, not just religious communities. The largest challenge is getting past the frustration and anger of these experiences to the heart space that allows healing and mature development in the community. To be a new member in any organization or group is always a challenge. The process of incorporation and mutual learning is not easy, and only the experience of service, community, and love make it worthwhile or even tolerable. Incorporation can run the gamut from hazing and emotional abuse to a joyous mutual discovery. Often new members experience anger and shock when the real costs of community life become apparent, and religious communities are in difficult transitions to new models of life. Different types of persons are entering and try-ing their vocation. Having left the novitiate eighteen years earlier, I was just a few days short of my forty-sixth birthday when I was re-received as a postulant in my community in the United States. The age restriction was waived because of my prior connection with the com-munity. Since I joined in 1997, four more men have tried their vocation. All but one were even older than I was. Some of these challenges are peculiar to the mindset of liberal Americans or unique to my own emotional makeup and quirks. New members in conservative com-munities or communities of the third world might expe- 65.1 2006 Clearg/ ¯ Challenges for Communities' New Members 32, rience only a few of these, or not in the same way. Interestingly, communities following a conservative rule and communities of the third world are attracting the most new members. ¯ Age Disparities: Although today's novices may be older than the novices of earlier generations, they are still entering communities where most members are at least twenty-five years older than the new members. ¯ Work Experience: New members have generally had one or more careers and generally outside the religious world. A community may have members who have never had paid employment or have never paid into any pen-sion plans, private or public. This may result in con-flicting valuations of the new members' worth and contribution. ¯ Nationality/Culture: A religious house may consist of members from many nations and cultures. New mem-bers may find that they are minorities in houses within their own native country and may encounter members who lack understanding of the language and culture of the very nation where they are living. In other words, new members may find themselves aliens inside the com-munity and natives only when they are on the other side of the front door. ¯ Relationship Experience: New members generally have had emotional relationships or been married or in partnership before joining the community. Older mem-bers have seldom had such experiences and so may approach communication and relationships differently. Members who have not had mature adult relationships before entering the community may have a tendency to adolescent humor and may be unable to "fight fairly and cleanly." ¯ Big Fish in Little Ponds: Some new members may have had executive careers or may have exercised signif- Review for Religious icant power in education, health, law, politics, or com-merce. Such people may not understand how a long-term member of a religious community can be so incensed over someone putting dishes in the "wrong" place and why that would matter so much. A sister who before joining the community has been responsible for millions of dollars may find it difficult to sit through a lecture on conserving toilet paper. Sometimes the failure of new religious to respond to concerns that seem insignificant leads to a misunderstanding of their motives. One reli-gious told of having said nothing because of hav-ing no opinion about a small matter and then being accused of "holding out for the main chance" by a senior member. In reality the younger religious was unlikely ever to hold an opinion on "the use of antiphons." You may hear in this an echo of Winston Churchill's observation that academic politics is so vicious because the stakes are so low. ¯ Multiculturalism and Multifaitb Experience: Newer members generally have a broader experience of other cultures and faiths and often incorporate elements from them into their own spirituality. Older members usually have begun and continued on a path of traditional Euro- American Christianity. They may disparage or discount the religious experiences or practices of new members, who often have exercised great discipline in their spiri-tual lives for years before joining the community. ¯ Neocolonialism: Much of the growth of religious Somet!mes the failure qf new retigious to respond ,to concerns t~at seem insignificant leads: ~io a misunderstanding of their ,mot, ives. 6Y. 1 2006 Clear)/ ¯ Challenges for Communities' New Members communities with which I am familiar has taken place in countries of the third world. As often as not, how-ever, leadership and finances are in the hands of members of the first world. One of the most peculiar anecdotes of neocolonialism occurred in America. English mem-bers who had been transferred to the United States sub-jected a new religious of American citizenship and Irish descent to ethnic slurs and disrespect. Ironically, when this religious spent time in another country, he received abuse from a fellow religious in his host country for being an American. You do not have to live in the third world to experience tribalism. ¯ Diminisbment of Citizenship: One religious observed that, when on assignment out of her native country, she had to ask permission to return to her home country. The irony is that the decision making was shared by for-eign residents who had never acquired citizenship in the country to which they were not permitting the native-born citizen to return. ¯ Disempowerment: No matter how communities pre-sent and sugarcoat the need for the probation and test-ing of new members, the fact is that new members are disempowered for a number of years. Voting rights might not be earned or granted until years after entrance into the community. Conversely, some communities allow full voting rights tO life-members for their lifetime, no matter their debility or their being out of touch. ¯ Prior Debts: Some new members enter communities with unpaid education debts that have to be paid even-tually. How doe~ the community approach this issue? One community allowed new members to live in'a com-munity house rent-free before being received as postu-lants so that they could continue in employment and thereby manage to pay their debts. Other communities have simply told their aspirants to postpone their voca- Review for Religious tions until all debts were paid. These communities rarely saw those aspirants again. ¯ Preexisting Families: The spirit of the times no longer holds that religious are dead to family and friends. Some new members may still have obligations to aging parents or to children or grandchildren. I chuckle at the recollection of a mother superior exclaiming after a string of widows applied for entrance into her community, "Aren't there any virgins left in America?" One com-munity in the United States had a creative approach to assisting new members who still had some family obli-gations. All new members were given educational loans that did not have to be repaid if the member were life-professed for a certain number of years. In one situation a new member was allowed to use the loan for court-ordered child support. ¯ Financial Identity: Most vocations do not survive into life profession. New members would be severely handicapped if they were to reenter the world with an impaired credit rating. Can the community tolerate the new member's keeping a credit card? The vow of poverty might have to be applied differently among community members. Perhaps differing applications of poverty within the same community are not such a new idea at all. ¯ Decay of Professional Qualifications: Some new mem-bers enter community with outstanding professional qualifications that require continuing education. Recent new members of one community have included a physi-cian, chiropractor, attorney, andparalegal. Failure to maintain those professional qualifications means that new members might lose that qualification o.r, if they leave community, find it difficult to return to their prior career or to their prior salary level. ¯ Health: Newer members are not only younger than the majority of the community, but are generally in much 65.1 2006 Cleary ¯ Challenges for Communities' New Menzbers 36 better health. Frequently that better health is due to memberships in gyms or health clubs. What is the com-munity's commitment to the new members' health reg-imen, especially if they are going to be looked to for doing a large share of physical work? ¯ Secret Customaries: Often it appears that there is a "secret customary" that is not available to new members. Sometimes it is merely poor communication. Other times it is simply a way of older members' maintaining power by asserting that a certain way of doing things is house or community custom. This is a form of manipulation by esoteric knowledge. ¯ The Rule: One novice guardian opined to me that older members usually oppressed the new members on those sections of the Rule of which the older members were least observant. On the other hand, older members have felt harried by new members who took on the role of Brother "Living Rule." As the old saying goes in reli-gious communities, "Wherever you have saints you will have martyrs." ¯ Survivors: Many of the older members of commu-nities are survivors of religious and cultural wars. New members, too, have fought the battles of inclusivity, litur-gical reform, gender, sexual orientation, hierarchy, and so forth, but not in the same way as the older members, and so the new members might not bear the same scars or have the same invested positions. The new members might not be aware of the cost the community has paid for a position. The older members may not realize that the struggle has moved to new fronts or past previously adopted positions. ¯ Loss of Disposable Time and Personal Space: New members frequently have to give up the freedom of dis-posable time and larger accommodations. Often new members have lived alone in housing that they did not Review for Religious share with anyone. Living in close quarters is a major adjustment for new members. I had to get used to using headphones with my CD player. ¯ Peers: New members, with few peers in the novi-tiate, lack the mutual support which they and their lay friends once had and which older religious had as novices. My noviceship was a particularly lonesome time. ¯ Wages and Support: With more of the community entering retirement, there is greater pressure for the new members to support the older members financially. New members are sometimes annoyed at being pressured to find full-time employment and encouraged to find sec-ular employment if the pay is better while some older members are working part-time or only started to con-tribute much money to the community when they began receiving pensions. There is further annoyance that members may bring in a vital salary but have no vote on how the money is used. It has happened that a current bad financial situation was caused by the incompetence or negligence of a prior generation, and then new mem-bers bringing in salaries were expected to assist in the bailout. ¯ Full-time Employment: Many religious, especially younger religious, now have to hold full-time jobs. The community still expects them to participate in commu-nity functions, retreats, and chapters. The only time available might be their vacation time. Physical and spir-itual exhaustion are common results. Sometimes the only compensated employment open to new members is sec-ular employment. They might wonder why they sacri-ficed so much only to find that religious ministry is not available or will not fill the .community's income needs or expectations. ¯ Lost Vocation and Still in Community: Perhaps the saddest members of religious communities are those 65.1 2006 Cleary ¯ Challenges for Comntunities' New Members The religious life is a voluntary choice, but still there is a loss of family, friends, status, and autonomy. 38 members who have essentially lost their vocation. They would like to leave their community, but economic con-venience, advancing age, and fears of adapting to a changed world while losing their vocational self-esteem make them choose to stay. Their bitter or sullen presence disheartens everyone. These members are often a terror to new members arriving with belief, motivation, and fresh ideas. The new members represent what the sullen members have lost and thus become objects of spite. ¯ Pecking Order: New members have the least power. For senior members who process their anger or frustra-tion by petty acts of spite, the new members are the nat-ural prey. Then there is enough pain to go around for everybody. ¯ Isolating the Complainers: It is destructive when severely damaged members of the community are allowed to create environ-ments that are emotionally and sometimes physically unsafe. This behavior may go on for years without challenge because the other members are paralyzed with fear. Newer members who challenge the behavior are sometimes told that they are the ones with emotional problems and need to be "more community minded and charitable." I have seen three communities where former superiors were severely oppressed by dam-aged members. In one case, a former superior simply left the local community rather than raise the issue. What caused them to collude in their own oppression? ¯ Grief, Loss, and Anger: All new members are going through a period of grief and loss and possibly anger at Review for Religious their changed situations. The religious life is a voluntary choice, but still there is a loss of family, friends, status, and autonomy. What are the tools to process the transi-tion? How can new members communicate the extent of their loss to members who may never have had the same degree of freedom or experience in their lay life? * Legal Rights: Religious communities are expected to adhere to the civil and criminal statutes of the nations in which they live and work. Often this means certain expectations regarding privacy and protection that were not present in an earlier era. Violations could result in civil penalties or even in lawsuits from disgruntled for-mer members. Some courts in the United States are look-ing at the relationship between members and their communities in the light of employment law with all the obligations that entails. ¯ Conflicting Ethics: Before entering my community, I had been employed as a paralegal with a specialization in tax law. I was sometimes astonished by financial shenanigans I witnessed in churches and religious com-munities. It seemed that some religious or church author-ities believed they were not subject to the same ethical and legal obligations of other nonprofit corporations. If anything, the secular world showed a higher standard of ethics. Communities or institutions that were finally caught by government or church authorities have some-times received an expensive lesson in the ethics from which they thought themselves exempt. No number, however, can be put on people's loss of trust in religious bodies to which they had looked for a higher level of ethics and honor than they expect from the secular world. ¯ Minefields: New members cannot be aware of exist-ing interpersonal dynamics of the community. Some have reported stumbling into personality conflicts that had been going on for decades. Others have reported that 65.1 2006 Clear)/ ¯ Cballenges for Communities' New Members 4O differences of opinion among older members about for-mation methods resulted in new members' bearing the animosity of the losing side. ¯ Infantilization: When you are put in the position of having to ask for permission, of having your future decided by others, of having to please others at some level in order to be accepted, and of giving up much of your personal power, you have to a degree been infan-tilized. A formation director told me he believes that some infantilization of new members helps to surface immature elements of their personalities that can then be worked on. I was left with the impression that this was wishful thinking. A topic came up in the workshop that was not part of my original paper. People agreed that they had all expe-rienced instances of anger and depression due to the sit-uations described above. Many said they were conflicted because they felt their anger was somehow wrong, even though probably justified on a number of levels. Guilt haunted and paralyzed them. What could they do about these feelings of guilt? Unfortunately, this could not be dealt with in a ninety-minute workshop that was already rich in content. One Of my teachers, a Buddhist, once told me that he frequently contrasted the views of anger held by two religious leaders of great experience and deep insight. Pope John Paul II is said to have written, "I try not to get angry." The Dalai Lama is quoted as saying, "I try not to stay angry." These two approaches are perhaps valuable in tandem. On a personal note, a friend of mine once observed that, when it comes to anger, I may be unlucky in being of Irish and German descent. He said, "Irish and German: burn fast and burn long!" I try to bring that thought to mind when humor seems a remedy. Communities can be hard on their new members. The reverse is also true. A life-professed member of my Review for Religious community once said of a newly arrived postulant, "Ah! Another brother sent by God to test my vocation!" While serving as the curator of one of California's historic mis-sions, I was shown a document describing brothers not speaking to each other, undermining each other's min-istry, taking sides, complaining to religious and secular authorities, and showing every sign of advanced dys-functionality. Recent situation in one's own house? But this description pertained to the Franciscan mission in San Francisco in the 1790s. The more things change, the more they remain the same. One of my more insight-ful Jesuit teachers once asked a brother what gospel med-itation came to mind when he thought about community. He responded with apparent pain, "The agony in the garden of Gethsemane." Thomas Merton had his own difficult experiences with his abbot. St. John of the Cross was imprisoned by his community. We have all been there--usually the imprisonment is emotional. Where and what is the key to freedom? What miracle will bring healing and resurrection? We have a duty to speak the truth to our communities and work for the maturing of us all in Christ, even though we might not see any change in the behaviors that sadden, oppress, or anger us. A wise priest was counseling a young religious who was having a frightening time with his community and was trying to make the community see things from his perspective. After listening patiently and acknowledging the brother's wounds, he said, "Brother, you have assumed that the brothers you are struggling with are suddenly going to smack their foreheads and say, 'Oh my goodness! I never realized that! You are sooo right, and we are going to change our wicked ways.' Brother, you have assumed a level of health that is not in them. What are you doing to grow your own spiritual and emo-tional maturity?" Sometimes a person just has to outlive 65.1 2006 Cleary ¯ Challenges for Communities' New Members a situation. My bishop once told me that there is a say-ing in New Zealand among the Maori people: "Question: How do you get even with your komatua [tribal elder] ? Answer: Outlive him!" It reminds me of a Southern proverb in the United States, "Change comes by funer-als." I wanted to conclude this essay with some pithy wis-dom that would have universal application and solve all ills. Unfortunately, or fortunately, we Anglicans are bet-ter at the questions than the answers. As I was thinking out this section, I was on a long walk on a late summer day in New Zealand. The Maori name for this country is Aotearoa, land of the long white cloud. Our sky was true to its namesake with billowing white clouds in a flawless blue sky. My ears were full of the soaring con-clusion to Rachmaninov's Second Symphony coming from my CD player. My problems with my community, my community's problems, and my problems are still in place. But there is something greater at work that is soar-ing and unfolding within me. I pray that it is my faith, my hope, and hopefully my love that are growing and mak-ing community possible and actual both for me and those who have agreed to let me join my life to theirs. Review for Religious ROSEMARY STETS A Spirituality of Surrender A Jesuit's Story In 1964 Walter J. Ciszek, a Jesuit priest who had been ordained almost thirty years earlier to be a missionary in Russia, returned to the United States with an unbelievable story of faith and deliverance. In 1939 World War II began in Eastern Europe, and in 1941 Father Ciszek's mis-sion was cut short when Russian police arrested him and kept him in Lubianka Prison for five years, mostly in solitary confinement. Accused of being a Vatican spy, he was interrogated, beaten, forced to sign a false confession, and sen-tenced to fifteen years at hard labor. Sent to labor camps in Siberia, he secretly began a priestly ministry to fellow prisoners, men and women near despair in the inhumane conditions. During these years he lost all contaEt with his family and the Society of Jesus, but he never lost hope or faith in God's providence and protection. In a Rosemary Stets OSF is vice president for mission and ~nin-istry at Alvernia College; 400 Saint Bernardine Street; Reading, Pennsylvania 19607. inspiration 6Y.I 2006 Stets ¯ A Spirituality of Surrender A Jesuit's Story Father Walter could see all life's ~circumstances not just at eye level, but from a higher plane-- a position ofgrace and surrender. kind of miracle, through the efforts of his family and fel-low Jesuits working with the U.S. government, he was finally released from Russia and arrived in New York as a free man, a hero, beginning a mission in his homeland. When Father Ciszek returned to the United States, he was in relatively good health, considering all the hard-ship and suffering he had endured during his long years of captivity in Siberia. He was almost sixty years old, but still an active and fit man, writing books, giving retreats, travel-ing to parishes across the country, and meet-ing groups who invited him to speak about his life and his spirituality. He had always been a strong man, and he embraced his new life with energy and excite-ment. His correspon-dence was voluminous, and the phone calls were endless. Since Father Ciszek had two sisters in my congregation, he often visited our convents, sharing his personal spiritual journey with us and inviting many of us to continue the conversations. That was the beginning of my personal friendship with him, which lasted until his death in 1984. Shortly after his return, along with the ever increas-ing demands on his time for talks and retreats, Father Walter began writing his autobiography With God in Russia. A few years later he wrote another book, He Leadetb Me, this one emphasizing the spiritual struggles of his journey, In just a few years he had more commit-ments than he could manage, but kept working. A decade Review for Religious later he suffered two major heart attacks and his health began to fail. . During the last decade of his life he had to modify his schedule and pace at a time when, because of his books and his media appearances, he was probably in greater demand than ever. These restrictions frustrated him because of his deep compassion for others and his gen-erosity toward all who sought his advice and spiritual counsel. But ultimately the changes required by his declining health led him to the spirituality of surrender. Change, it seems, is something most of us greet with reluctance, especially if we are comfortable or content with the way things are in the present. We like to feel that we are "in control" and that things are going well, or going the way we want them to go. And so we are jarred and unnerved when our world turns upside down, overwhelms us, makes us feel helpless. One day, as his health became worse and his sched-ule was accordingly being reduced, Father Walter shared with me during a telephone conversation some of his spiritual response at this difficult time. This was not unusual, for Father Walter moved easily from the natu-ral to the supernatural, and he could see all life's cir-cumstances not just at eye level, but from a higher plane--a position of grace and surrender. As he spoke, I was suddenly inspired to make some notes on the conversation, writing down his words and phrases, listening intently and trying to capture the essence of what he was saying. Afterwards I took the lit-tle scrap of paper with the words I had written and put it in my daily prayer book. As I read the words over and over, I realized they were like prayers themselves, but something more. Whenever I felt overcome by the frus-trations of life, by anger, by annoyance with others, or by sudden dark moods like a summer storm on a lake, I 6Y.I 2006 Stets ¯ A Spirituality of Surrender--A Jesuit's Story ,46] would turn to those words for.comfort and strength. A profound peace would return after I entered fully into the spirit of what I was reading. It seemed that chains fell away from my heart. It was as if a door opened, a prison door that had kept me confined and helpless. I felt joy return. My heart felt light again. It was not just a mental understanding, not just a letting go in my mind, but a sense of surrender which lifted my spirit out of the darkness and into a place of spiritual light. As I surren-dered to God in this prayer, I would sense that I was united with Jesus in his abandonment in the garden. I believe I was united.with God's will in those nanosec-onds. A "yes" to the Father was a leap of faith to a new place. It would give me strength to begin a new task, a natural and spontaneous freedom to let go and move on. It would amaze me: the peace was palpable. Many years ago I shared this story with a friend who was going through a difficult struggle, and she was so moved by the simplicity and peace of the words I had jot-ted down that she asked for a copy. I typed it on a small card, calling it the Prayer of Surrender. We soon were mak-ing more copies and giving them to other friends, who also grew to love and value this prayer, Several years later, after the cause for Father Walter Ciszek's canonization had been opened, I sent my notes, letters, and writings about Father Walter to the Prayer League charged with organizing the materials for his cause. The postulator found the Prayer of Surrender in my notes and decided to distribute it through the Prayer League. This is the prayer that has become my daily bread, the prayer I offer to everyone who is desperate for God's help, going under, barely hanging on. It is a prayer filled with wisdom. It does not remove our suffering, but rather it gives us the courage to accept it without anger or fear. Saying the prayer .during times of intense suffering can Review for Religious be difficult, almost heroic, but each time it enables me to emerge whole, strong, and at peace. Father Walter expe-rienced great suffering in his life, in his long sojourn in Russia and in many trying moments that circled his life like a crown of thorns--and like the pains, humiliations, loneliness, and losses that afflict us all. But suffering was also his banner of glory, uniting him to Jesus, who endured everything for us out of love, the love that saved the world. The Prayer of Surrender is Father Waiter's gift to all of us, a moment of grace remembered and passed on to those who love him, cherish his memory, and seek to understand with him that surrender to God's provi-dence is the way to sublime joy, the grand freedom of finding God in all things. Prayer of Surrender Lord, Jesus Christ, I ask the grace to accept the sad-ness in my heart as your will for me, in this moment. I offer it up, in union with your sufferings, for those who are in deepest need of your redeeming grace. I surrender myself to your Father's will, and I ask you to help me to move on to the next task that you have set for me. Spirit of Christ, help me to enter into a deeper union with you. Lead me away from dwelling on the hurt I feel, to thoughts of charity for those who need my love, to thoughts of compassion for those who need my care, and to thoughts of giving yo those who need my help. As I give myself to you, help me to provide for the salvation of those who come to me in need. May I find my healing in this giving. May I always accept God's will. May I find my true self by living for others in a spirit of sacrifice and suffering. May I die more fully to myself, and live more fully in you. As I seek to surrender to the Father's will, may I come to trust that he will do everything for me. Amen. 6Y.1 2006 GIOVANNI ZEVOLA Two Mysteries in One: Implications for Ministry 48 All who are involved in ministry would say that the Bible is a source of strength for their own spirituality and for their pastoral ministry. Biblical themes support our dedication, our zeal, our commitment to people and situations demanding attention and care. In this article I will show that the Bible is not only a source of texts to use in particular circumstances of the ministry,~ but also a pure and continuous fount of spiritual life especially for the those in pastoral ministry. Biblical themes and figures of the Old and New Testament are familiar to pastoral caregivers, and we all may have heartfelt favorites in our own spiritual life. For the various situations that may occur in pastoral care, some biblical figures and themes have special pertinence. For example, the Exodus experience, Samuel's vocation, the social concerns in the prophetic literature, Zacchaeus's desire to see Jesus, and the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary can be signs "of certain hope and comfort to the pilgrim people of God" (Lumen gentium, §68). Giovanni Zevola OMI continues doing apostolic work in South Korea. His address is 196-51 Yuhyun Dong; Kang Nam Ku; Seoul 135-210; South Korea. Review for Religious Mary can be considered from different points of view, and the few passages of the New Testament where she is mentioned can be sources for understanding our role as disciples and cooperators in the economy of salvation. One meaningful passage is the Visitation recorded in Luke 1:39-56. The verse "During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah" motivated my vocation many years ago. I joined a missionary congregation to dedicate myself to a life of service, and that verse still inspires my life and commitment to the poor. Through the years Mary's attitude of service has informed my spirit, and new insights have helped me grow spiritually and as a human being. The words "she went as quickly as she could" caught my attention and fostered my desire to share with others my sense of the presence of God in my life. I was convinced that, like Mary, we should not keep our own Annunciation for ourselves, but should share it with others through what we do--and doing what we do without delay, "in haste." Mary is the perfect disciple who shares her Master's concerns, values, and attitudes. In Mark's Gospel, Jesus is presented on the scene right away, being baptized by John and proclaiming "The time (kairos) has come," there has to be no delay. Jesus is shown to be in a constant hurry, particularly in chapter one, where it is interesting to note the Greek word euthus. Immediately the Spirit descends on him (1:10) at the baptism. Immediately the Spirit drives him out into the desert (1:12). Simon and Andrew leave their nets at once and follow him (1:18). Immediately he calls James and John (1:20). As soon as the Sabbath comes, he goes to the synagogue to teach, and just then performs a miracle (1:23). His reputation rapidly spreads everywhere (1:28), and he goes straight to cure Peter's mother-in-law (1:29). 6Y.1 2006 Zevola ¯ Two Mysteries in One the force of God's grace : brought to: her in the Annuncia ion,,qnd she becomes a messenger " ff good new.s. In the Visitation, Mary shares Christ's attitude. There is an urgency in proclaiming the good news she has just received through the angel. In Luke 1:26-38 she is presented as the recipient of God's grace, and she becomes the active subject who cannot contain what she has received. She goes to ' -~'~ share it. (Recall here Paul is surfing by . saying "The love of ~. Christ impels us," 2 Co 5:14.) In Mary we see how a disciple is called to announce that "the time has come": the divine project that God has prepared is coming to its maturation and is being made known, and so there is no more delay. Paul expresses the same idea in Galatians 4:4-5: "Vv'hen the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption." Perhaps I can express all of this in an image. Think of a surfer waiting for a big wave to come in. When the right time comes, he rides it and enjoys the surfing--a combination of ability (human effort) and force of the wave (grace). In Luke 1:39 Mary is surfing by the force of God's grace brought to her in the Annunciation, and she becomes a messenger of good news. "During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah." The wave made by the wind of God's Spirit is for everyone. Every disciple of every age has to surf that wave; in doing so we are blessed. See Romans 10:15: "How beautiful are the feet of those who announce good news," how welcome the Review for Religious sound! The personal relationship we have with God is not something we can keep for ourselves; it is a gift to be shared. God invites us to the communion (koinonia) of those called by his grace. The personal relationships in the life of the Trinity should be reflected in our human relationships. For a pastoral caregiver, contemplation and action go together. The vertical relationship of us with God is connected with our horizontal relationships with one another. We are called to do "contempl-action." At the very beginning of the church, in the upper room where Mary and the other disciples are gathered, this doubleness is already present. They receive the Spirit and share the mission of Jesus to proclaim the Good News. Perhaps we can imagine Mary showing the eleven how to ride this new wave of the Spirit and thereby fulfill Jesus' promise: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be my witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judea and Samaria, and indeed to the ends of the earth,' (Ac 1:9). Mary belongs indissolubly to the mystery of Christ, and she belongs also to the mystery of the church from the beginning, from the day of the church's birth. At the basis of what the church has been from the beginning, and of what she must continually become from generation to generation, in the midst of all the nations of the earth, we find the one "who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord" (Lk 1:45).~It is precisely Mary's faith which marks the beginning of the new and eternal covenant of God with man in Jesus Christ; this heroic faith of hers "precedes" the apostolic witness of the church, and ever remains in the church's heart hidden like a special heritage of God's revelation. All those who from generation to generation accept the apostolic witness of the church share in that mysterious inheritance, and in a sense share in Mary's faith. (Redemptoris Mater, §27) 65.1 2006 Zevola ¯ Two Mysteries in One With the inner conviction that Annunciation (experience of God) precedes any Visitation (our apostolate or any form of pastoral care), some years ago I was sent to the Philippines for a missionary experience. What I had received (experience of God through the years of seminary formation) I was ready to share with people in my ministry, and there, through a crisis, God's grace brought a deeper understanding. I could not expect my past experience of God to provide me with enough of what people needed from me. I had to be always open to new Annunciations because we can share only what we have at the moment. My personal contact with the poor (Visitation) was a deeper way for me to experience God. The poor were giving me occasions to take notice of God's Annunciations to me and to receive deeper understandings of them. It was like Mary visiting Elizabeth and, during her time with her, coming to further understanding of the meaning of the Annuciation. She was, in the words of her older cousin, blessed for being mother of the Lord and particularly for her faith in the promise. At this moment the Spirit evokes Mary's Magnificat. Everything was already present at the Annunciation, but comes to light at the Visitation like a seed expressing its vitality gradually. Through my experiences in the Philippines, I came to understand that Annunciation and Visitation are not two separate moments, but only one mystery: the Spirit introducing us into the mystery of Christ. In pastoral care we do not go to others with something already cooked. We might already have the necessary ingredients, but it is the interaction that makes it complete. William Barry says something similar when he considers Jesus interacting with his disciples at Caesarea Philippi (Mt 16:13-20), where Jesus seems to come to a better understanding of his identity: "Could it not be that Jesus needs the disciples' response in order to clarify his Review for Religious own sense of his identity and destiny? . . . Jesus, like any human being, could not establish his identity without the help of others. Looked at in this way, this scene shows that Jesus needs Peter's response to 'confirm' his own sense of mission.''2 Elizabeth does this for Mary, and it is similar for any disciple following in Jesus' footsteps. The Annunciation and Visitation considered as but one mystery show that faith is a journey on which we increasingly come to understand and live the fullness of our vocation. Particularly in Luke, Mary is presented as a woman of reflection upon her life experiences (see Lk 1:29, 2:19, 2:33, and 2:51). In so doing she progresses in faith, like Abraham: Mary's faith can also be compared to that of Abraham, whom St. Paul calls "our father in faith" (see Rm 4:12). In the salvific economy of God's revelation, Abraham's faith constitutes the beginning of the Old Covenant; Mary's faith at the Annunciation inaugurates the New Covenant . Certainly the Annunciation is the culminating moment of Mary's faith in her awaiting of Christ, but it is also the point of departure from which her whole "journey towards God" begins, her whole pilgrimage of faith. (Redemptoris Mater, § 14) This insight invites me to review my tmderstanding of pastoral care and particularly the relationship I establish with the people whom I am called to serve. They are not only the recipients of my attention and commitment, but also my companions on the journey. It is this dimension of faith that gives and renews the strength necessary to be witnesses in caregiving situations and ultimately frees us of the idea that we are the ones fixing problems, that we are the saviors. In fact, our caregiving becomes a kind of school, a place where we learn more about ourselves, other people, and God, who in this school fosters a more intimate relationship with us. The caregiver is also a visitor and guest. The whole history of salvation reads 65.1 2006 Zevola * Two Mysteries in One like a series of moments when God visits his people. Jesus himself was always on the go: "Let us go elsewhere to the neighboring towns." Without any fixed abode, he lives a life of continual visiting. And no sooner is Mary visited from on high than she makes all possible haste to .visit her cousin Elizabeth. She, the visited one, becomes the visitor. There is a missionary dynamic here, for us as well as for Mary. As visitors and guests among those we minister to, we listen differendy, more attentively; we dialogue and tell our stories differently; we become present to others in new ways, ways that make dialogue, shared existence, and even revelation possible. In short, we come empty-handed like Jesus, the vulnerable visitor from heaven, and this can perhaps serve as the reason for our hope. Recently, while working in South Korea (another Visitation), I recognized anew that people are agents of the Spirit inviting me to understand more deeply the message that I would Announce to them. Late in the evening we were driving back to the office after a day visiting the company where Mohamed had had an accident while operating a pressing machine. After a long discussion with the manager, the possibility for this Bangladeshi worker to get insurance was now more concrete. Mohamed and one of his friends invited me to supper in a small restaurant. Suddenly he asked me something that surprised me: "Father, why are you doing this for us?" At first I did not know what to say, because my motivation for the ministry with the foreign workers was something I had not talked about. Finally I said, "My experience of God is at the core of this or any other ministry." I was surprised when Mohamed seemed to agree and reinforce my answer. Mohamed's question had forced me to reconnect theology and ministry as the source and goal of any Review for Religious apostolate. Through reflecting upon our pastoral experience, we learn anew that God's call is the source of our commitment within the church. This led me (Mk 8:14-21) to Jesus, in the boat with his disciples, subtly referring them to his recent feeding of two large crowds and then asking, "Do you still not see or comprehend?. Do you still not understand?" It is theology and ministry together that enable people's faith to recognize God's presence right before their eyes. If ministers focus only on their ministerial activities, they are likely to end up implementing nothing but their own plans and projects. The theological reflection has a double movement, namely, (1) our going to the experience for reflection and (2) coming back for a serene and more objective evaluation. A particular pastoral experience be-comes the stuff for reflecting upon the min-istry that we are involved in. We make a point of noticing that God was present in the experience and how God was present. !t is !heology and ministry together that enable people's faith to recognize, God's presence fright before their eyes. It is in this movement, in the connecting of theology with the experience, that we can "interpret" and "name" the experience lived in faith. The experience thus interpreted and clarified tells more than we originally expected: our experience enriches our theology. Theology and pastoral care, encountering each other in the pastoral experience, are reciprocally enriched.3 Theology enables us to understand God's presence as continuing through time, like the continuing mystery of the incarnation. Pastoral care gives us the here and now in which we can readily find the divine presence revealing itself. 6Y. 1 2006 Zevola ¯ Two Mysteries in One The theological reflection adds depth to the richness of the experience, which otherwise might be quickly forgotten. On the other hand, pastoral care gives theological reflection something very real and concrete from which to get a lively idea of God working, working along with us in the human experience. Mary has been for me a model and now is more of a companion in my pilgrimage of faith, reminding me that Annunciation and Visitation are parts of one wonderful mystery. In everything, like Mary, we can give only what we have received. On this truth Henri Nouwen is very explicit: "To help, to serve, to care, to guide, to heal, these words . . . express a reaching out toward our neighbor whereby we perceive life as a gift not to possess but to share." 4 Notes ~ See D. Capps, Pastoral Use and Interpretations of the Bible, in Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling, ed. R. Hunter (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), pp. 82-85. 2 See W. Barry, God's Passionate Desire and Our Response (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1993), p. 101. 3 See R. Kinast, Pastoral Theology, Roman Catholic, in Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling, pp. 873-874. 4 H. Nouwen, Reaching Out (New York: Doubleday Image Books, 1986), p. 109. Review for Religious ROBERT P. MALONEY Truth: Religious Simplicity Revisited E veryone needs a guiding star, but the stars in the ky are countless. Saints have chosen different ones. Jerome focused on the Scriptures: "Love the Holy Scriptures, and wisdom will love you." Francis of Assisi fixed on God's love in the gifts of creation and the cru-cified Lord, praising God in Brother Sun and Sister Moon and uniting himself with suffering humanity. Vincent de Paul, especially as he grew older, chose sim-plicity, or truthfulness, as the star to guide him to know what to say and do. "It is the virtue I love most," he wrote to a priest-friend, Franqois de Coudray. "It is my gospel," he told the Daughters of Charity, the commu-nity he founded with Louise de Marillac. There are many conte~nporary ways of describing simplicity: authenticity, integrity, genuineness, realness, passion for the truth. In the two sections that follow, I Robert P. Maloney CM, having served for-two terms as superior gen-eral of the Congregation of the Mission, works as project administra-tor for D.R.E.A.M., a joint project of the Community of Sant'Egidio and the Daughters of Charity for combating aids in Africa. His address is Theological College; 401 Michigan Avenue N.E.; Washington, D.C. 20017. 6~. 1 2006 Maloney * Truth: Religious Simplicity Revisited will focus first on simplicity as "being in the truth" with God, with oneself; with others, and with the created uni-verse surrounding us. Then I will discuss combining the simplicity of the dove with the prudence of the serpent. Simplicity as "Being in the Truth" There is a wonderful freedom in those who live sim-ply. They project joy and peaceful confidence. One of the most popular hymns in the English-speaking world, Joseph Brackett's "Simple Gifts," began proclaiming in 1848: "'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free." Simplicity involves making God our ultimate concern, identifying our will with what God is asking. Vincent de Paul remarked rather wryly to Louise de Marillac: "How easy it is to become a saint. The only thing necessary is to do the will of God in everything." For simple persons the kingdom of God becomes the focal point of their life, the ideal that integrates all that they are and do. Of course, growth in single-minded-ness before God, in purity of intention, is a lifelong pro-cess. Our sinfulness continually interrupts our unity with God's purposes. Limited objectives like self-promotion easily distract us from our single-minded pursuit of God's kingdom; even worse, they may substitute for it. In our sinful condition, we are never able to pull our lives together into a perfect opus, finished once and for all. Even those who seem to have done so fall often, some-times badly. Our final integrity comes only from God's forgiving, healing love. It is a gift. In commenting on the simplicity and purity of inten-tion that he had witnessed in the Shaker tradition, Thomas Merton once wrote, "The peculiar grace of a Shaker chair is due to the fact that it was made by some-one capable of believing that an ~ngel might come and sit on it." That sentence is surely worth meditating on. In Review for Religious religious life, many helps have been offered for being in the truth with God: the daily Eucharist, daily mental prayer, and daily examination of conscience are among the most prominent. Human beings are social beings. Human relation-ships are not just an add-on. They make us who we are, forming us gradually. Having friends, falling in love, building a family, joining a community, being part of a nation, an institution, a movement--all these forms of union with others are possible only if there is truth-filled communication. In fact, the English word truth is related etymologi-cally to trust, faithfulness, covenant. Older English-speaking readers may recall the now archaic marriage o tr thfut-reiationships ' with others; implicity - ;:, :haS,its:most: obvious meaning: hoheStg: promise: "I plight unto thee my troth,", which we might translate today as: "I pledge to you my truth (my word, my trust, my commitment)." In fact, we still speak of a promise to marry as "betrothal." In truthful relationships with others, simplicity has its most obvioias meaning: honesty. Trust in the word of another is the condition for life together, for friendship, marriage, community, business ventures, and all sorts of other relationships. Lies bring about the disintegration of communities, the fracture of marriages, the downfall of governments. Lies are not just verbal; they may be present in actions. Marriages collapse through infidelity. Families break down through covert, competing interests. Friendships unravel through secret betrayal. Being in the truth keeps people together; falsehood tears us apart. To put it tersely, simplicity unites; duplicity divides. 6Y.I 2006 Maloney ¯ Truth: Religious Simplicity Revisited 6O Necessary as it is, speaking the truth with consis-tency in religious life is difficult. We are tempted to blur the truth for our own convenience or to avoid being embarrassed. It is difficult to be enduringly true to our word when circumstances change. In the present our statements are true or false right then and there, but, when we make a commitment for the future, it is true only if we keep it true. Truth is fidelity. It is especially in this sense that Jesus is true to us. He promises to be, and is, with us always, even to the end. We too are called to be true in this way--to vows, to friendships, and to our commitments to serve. Thomas Merton once wrote: "We make ourselves real by telling the truth." The truth at the core of each human person strives to emerge. When we express the truth, we construct and reveal our true self. When we distort the truth, we damage not just our relationship with others, but the center of our own being too. Being in the truth with our own self is, of course, vitally related to being in the truth with God and being in the truth with others. BUt our own truth is nevertheless distinctive. There is a distinctive giftedness, a personal vocation from God, that we may not renounce, but must treasure. Simplicity calls us to integrity, authenticity. But, as we journey in quest of personal wholeness, most of us expe-rience our own fracturedness. We sense inner contra-dictions, a broken center, cracks in our personality; sometimes we fall apart. Philosophy, psychology, and sociology have described polarities that people sense within themselves: body/mind, feeling/thinking, heart/ head, unconscious/conscious. Being true to oneself is not as easy as it might seem. Accurate self-knowledge is rare, as Robert Burns elo-quently noted: "O wad some Power the giftie gie us / To see oursels as ithers see us! / It wad frae mony a blun- Review for Religious der free us, / An' foolish notion: / What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, / An' ev'n devotion!" Knowing oneself accurately is essential in life. The philosopher Wittgenstein observed: "You cannot write anything about yourself that is more truthful than you yourself are. That is the difference between writing about yourself and writing about external objects. You write about yourself from your own height. You don't stand on stilts or on a ladder but on your bare feet." Regular confession and the relationship we call "spir-itual direction" are very important means toward self-knowledge. A perceptive confessor or spiritual guide can be a mirror, reflecting back to us what we are not able to see on our own. Speaking the truth is especially impor-tant in such relationships. We choose a "soul friend" so that, with his or her help, we may grow in the Lord's life and in discerning those things which promote God's kingdom. It is imperative, therefore, that this relationship be characterized by free self-disclosure and by the avoid-ance of "hidden corners" in our lives. We need others to echo back to us what is happening or not happening on our journey toward the Lord. The quality of spiri-tual guidance will depend largely upon the simplicity with which we disclose ourselves. Philosophers and theologians have recognized from the earliest times that human existence is inseparable from matter. We are not pure spirit, but have bodies. The philosopher Merleau-Ponty reminds us: "I am my body." We are also related to and dependent on the earth. In a certain sense, as Genesis suggests in the creation story, we come from the earth. Food, water, air, sunshine, and other elements are nutrients of our human existence. Consequendy, if we are to be in truth with God as the Creator, with ourselves as incomplete beings, and with others, we must also be in truth with the created uni- 65.1 2006 Maloney * Truth: Religious Simplicity Revisited verse that is our home. In other words, being fully human involves caring for the earth. In broader terms it means caring for the surrounding universe, whose proportions are staggering and even incomprehensible to us. We do not yet have a comprehensive ecological the-ology, but some of its foundation stones are quite visible and have been set for centuries in Christian tradition: ¯ the presence of God in all creation; ¯ the goodness of all that God has made; ¯ God's providence in accompa-nying history and ongoing creation; ¯ the gratitude, won-der, contemplation, and care for God's gifts that people have as a response to God's gifts. Those who live close to the land often see its impor-tance more vividly than others. When in 1851 the pres-ident of the United States, Franklin Pierce, proposed to buy two million acres of land from the Indian tribes around Puget Sound in the present state of Washington, Chief Seattle (after whom the state's principal city is named) reacted. His famous reflections from the 1850s, about which some historians raise doubts, are neverthe-less a most eloquent environmental statement: Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist on the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experiences of my people . We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony and man--all belong to the same family. We will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us. This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you the land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is ~acred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my peo-l~ eview for Religious pie. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father . You must teach your children that the rivers are our brothers and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother. These words were prophetic. Polluted rivers, con-taminated air, and depleted forests rank high among the problems of modern society. In this matter, as in many others, immediate gratification often wins out over long-range goals. But when the environment is neglected, society pays a heavy price, with the poor suffering most. In many places where religious missionaries serve, eco-logical deterioration adds to the crushing burdens of the neediest of the needy. The Simplicity of the Dove and the Prudence of the Serpent Even for those with a bright guiding star, Christian living is filled with paradoxes: initiative/obedience, flex-ibility/ stability, listening/advising, animating/directing, creativity/humility, trusting/planning, serving/govern-ing, simplicity/prtidence. Matthew's Gospel recognizes that the simplicity of the dove must cohabit, in the same person, with the prudence of the serpent. And in life people's common sense and prudence quickly teach them that they cannot simply speak the unabashed truth at all times. Experience teaches us that virtues like truthful-ness, charity, and respect for the privacy and good name of others at times "compete" with one another. In moments of apparent conflict, prudence enables us to balance and blend such competing virtues. Over the centuries moral theologians have written volumes on the dilemmas that arise in the context of truth-telling. Below I simply offer a few reflections on three of the most common moral dilemmas that reli-gious and all those committed to truth-telling face. 6L 1 2006 Maloney * Truth: Religioux Simplicity Revisited Growing in love involves penetrating to the ddep truth of the beloved, Truth derives from God. It is related to beauty. But the expression of "truths" can sometimes be ugly, cold, arro-gant, and angry. Declarations like "I'm just telling you the truth!" can be a facile excuse for harsh words or an escape valve for pent-up rage. In the Christian tradition truth and love are inseparable. Growing in love involves penetrating to the deep truth of the beloved, coming to understand others not just on the surface but deep down. Likewise, growing in truth involves moving toward deeper communion, overcoming dif-ferences, "looking for the larger truth that embraces my little truth and that of the other," as Timothy Radcliffe reminds us. There is a delicate interplay between mind and heart in the search for truth. For those with a highly intellectual formation, Pascal's corrective can be helpful: "The heart has its rea-sons, which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things." Antoine de Saint-Exup~ry in The Little Prince expresses the same conviction: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." The problem is that we sometimes use "the truth" to massacre others. Under the pretext of being sincere, we destroy truth with "the truth." In a striking essay, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was himself a martyr for the truth, wrote as follows: If it is detached from life and from its reference to the concrete other person, if "the truth is told" with-out taking into account to whom it is addressed, then this truth has only the appearance of truth, but it lacks its essential character. Review for Religious It is only the cynic who claims "to speak the truth" at all times and in all places to all people in the same way, but who, in fact, displays nothing but a lifeless image of the truth. He dons the halo of the fanatical devotee of truth who can make no allowance for human weaknesses; but, in fact, he is destroying the living truth between persons. He wounds shame, des-ecrates mystery, breaks confidence, betrays the com-munity in which he lives, and laughs arrogantly at the devastation he has wrought and at the human weakness which "cannot bear the truth." We must learn to speak the truth while taking other truths into account: the dignity of other persons, their human weakness and ours as well, the love that must characterize all Christian relationships. Our statement of a truth must blend with these other truths. Speaking the truth is therefore.a delicate art rather than a blunt instrument. Very early in life we learn that it is sometimes harm-ful to tell the truth. Our parents teach us as children that some personal and family matters are private; others have no right to know about them. As we grow up, friends begin to entrust secrets to us. As problems arise in our own lives, we ourselves sense the need to talk with some-one, but only on the condition that what we say is kept utterly confidential. These universal human experiences have given rise to a whole body of ethical and legal liter-ature concerning truth-telling, secrecy, and confidential-ity. Confessors and spiritual directors, doctors and nurses, psychiatrists and counselors, lawyers, secretaries, jour-nalists, and many others are bound, in varying circum-stances and within various limits, to professional secrecy. Paradoxically, we have a moral obligation to tell the truth, but we sometimes have a moral obligation not to tell the truth. This is often the case in religious life, where others frequently entrust us with matters of con- 6Y.1 2006 MMoney ¯ Truth: Religious Simplicity Revisited ,66 science and where there are also many "family matters" that are private and should remain within the community. So how does one protect private, even "sacred" truths? Silence, of course, is often the most effective method. In some cases, in the face of inappropriate inquiries, we may be able to communicate, with a combination of gen-tleness and firmness, the delicacy of our situation: "I am sorry, I am not really free to talk about that. I hope you understand." Sometimes, too, with a little bit of inge-nuity, we may say something that some or all recognize as good.humoredly evasive. But for centuries philosophers and theologians have pointed out that there are situations where silence or evasion simply make matters worse and where the right course seems to be to dissemble the truth. To resolve such moral dilemmas, Thomists, defining moral truth as correspondence between what we think and what we say, used the "broad mental reservation." Others, defining truth in relational terms (communication of what is in one's mind to someone who has a right to know), per-mitted "false speech" when utterly necessary to put off those who have no right to know. Neither theory is ideal. Each, in fact, has notable weaknesses. But both recognize that at times there is a moral obligation to "protect" the truth and to put off importunate, inappropriate inquiries, even by misleading the inquirer. In the end, strange though it may seem, one must "learn" to tell the truth. Each word has its own place, its own time, its own audience. Much depends on who is calling me to speak and what entitles me to speak. One of the most poignant, and wise, lines in American liter-ature is what Hester Prynne says to her daughter, Pearl, in The Scarlet Letter (chapter 22): "Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl. We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest." Review for Religious Statements involve a relationship with the person being addressed and at times also with third parties. The truth-teller respects those relationships and maintains them. The nosey inquirer seeks to violate truth and intrude on relationships that truth fosters carefully. It is important to learn how to put such inquirers off, and to put them off well. Truths not only have their time, their place, and their proper audience; they have their own particular peda-gogy. Certain truths have their "moment" in history. Victor Hugo once pointed out that, when an idea's time has come, not even armies can resist it. But, until that time, "new" truths enter most minds and hearts slowly. As mothers and fathers instinctively know, the wise teacher must often wait for the right moment and the right place. I once gave a rather pacifist-sounding con-ference to a group of college students, who loved it. A few days later I gave the same conference to a parish group, which hated it. The time and place were almost the same, but I learned rather painfully that a new audi-ence often requires a new pedagogy. How to present the truth is the key question. This question becomes all the more important as we grow in consciousness that our goal in speaking is not merely the transmission of data but communication and commu-nion in the truth. From that perspective pedagogy is not just a clever means of packaging a "truth" well; rather, it is an integral part of communicating a truth to the other. Emily Dickinson puts it this way: "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant. The Truth must dazzle gradually." This lesson is especially important for teachers who think they have done their job when they have lectured for an hour, citing all the facts and uttering all the "truths." But they must ask themselves whether they have communicated truth or simply uttered it in front 65.1 2006 Malone)/ ¯ Truth: Religious Simplicity Revisited of an inattentive audience. Method is important. Teachers must often reflect not only on the content they wish to communicate, but also on the m~ans for communicat-ing it. The same is true of parents, friends, counselors, and others who must sometimes communicate truths which they know hearers will find it hard to accept. The Greek ~ord for truth, al~theia, means "uncov-ering." Speaking the truth opens us out. What lies within us comes forth. In speaking truthfully we disclose what otherwise remains hidden in our depths. In Greek mythology the goddess of truth puts two pathways before Parmenides: one of uncovering and one of hiding. It is only by "uncovering" that one's true self emerges. The New Testament states this very clearly: "Put on a new self, created in God's image, whose justice and holiness is born of truth" (Ep 4:21). Prayer Reflection Ponder the words of the hymn (perhaps sing it to yourself): Simple Gifts Shaker Hymn Written by Shaker Elder Joseph Brackett, Jr., in 1848 'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free, 'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, And when we find ourselves in the place just right, "Twill be in the valley of love and delight. When true simplicity is gain'd, To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd. Review for Religious To turn, turn will be our delight, Till by turning, turning we come round right. Group Discussion Share situations where you have found that you are com-promised in telling the truth. What kind qf principles did you use in the situation for your way of acting? The Not-So-Holy Grail The commonest cup may serve. As chalice for the King. Even now he pours the wine Until the heart can hold no more. See the crimson And taste the death That is our life. Teresa Burleson 65.1 2006 DAVID L. FLEMING Sharing God the Ignatian Way I n speaking about God, we each have our own way of rying to express our experience. Christian, non- Christian, Eastern, Western approaches differ and yet often point in directions that move in similar ways towards the same goal--a union or an identifying with God. In this reflection, we are trying to share among our-selves the richness of our experience of God as we have received help from Ignatius Loyola, particularly guided by the experiences of the Spiritual Exercises. There is no doubt that Ignatius has been able to enter us into an experience of God that has some specific characteristics that mark what is now identified as Ignatian spirituality. We need to remember that no Christian spirituality is so unique in its characteristics that we do not find it rooted in the Gospels. But characteristics special to a particular spirituality such as Ignatian include the kind of emphasis given to certain aspects or areas, the intercon-nections of elements, and the vision and imagery that David L. Fleming sJ is editor of this journal. He may be addressed at 3601 Lindell Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. Review for Religious become the vehicle moving this particular spirituality. Let us review some of these characteristics of Ignatian spirituality from our experience. We experience a God of gifts. The Ignatian Principle and Foundation is not presenting just a picturing of a creator God. Ignatius provides a fuller picture. In creat-ing, God has chosen us and gifts us that we might choose God through the means of the gifts that are meant to help us to know and to love God. This God has created a human world of gifts-- all provided for us that we might come to know and love God the better. Of course, with so many gifts provided, we find it necessary to make choices, even in terms of developing and using the personal gifts of talents and abilities that God has given to each one of us. Ignatius brings home to us that life is choice, and our choosing is always directed towards God. What does it mean for us to choose God in return? Do we share the God that gifts us with this responsibility? We experience that God is always trying to speak, to communicate with us, through his gifts. As a lover, God does not just speak words to us, even in Scripture. God acts, and his deeds are his expressions of love for us. Ignatius helps us to make the world transparent so that God and God's love shines through the whole of cre-ation. God is not a silent God. For Ignatius, God is always a God in conversation. Are we people who are attentive to God's communicating with us? Do we share with others our experience of this kind of an intimate God? "For'Ignat the. seven days of creation are all vart of God's .,:presence to,us. .71 65.1 2006 Fleming ¯ Sharing God the Ignatian Way 72] We experience God as One who is active and involved with his world--a busy God. Ignatius does not literally understand the six days of creation with God being very active on each of six days and then on the seventh day resting. So that, for many people, God stayed that way--restingmever since! No, for Ignatius, the seven days of creation are all part of God's presence to us. It is all part of God's Now. When Jesus says, ."My Father works, and I work," Ignatius believes him. The dynamic of creation continues and God works. This God, ever active and working with us and with his world--is this the God we share? We experience God in Jesus inviting us to be with him in his work identified as the coming of the kingdom or the reign of God~ In the Pauline mysterious image of the pleroma we know that God intends a certain fullness or completion to his creation, and we human beings---~e ones he loves--are called to play our part within this movement. Does our praying "Thy kingdom come" inspire us in our response to God's invitation to work with God so that the kingdom shines out through our dealings and activities in our ordinary world? Is our working with God in the vineyard of the kingdom the God we share? We experience a God who waits upon our response to this invitation. Just as God waits upon Mary for her response to God's invitation to allow herself to be his mother, so God waits upon each one of us in a similar way to allow ourselves to bring God's life to the world in which we live. Like Mary, we are to have a growing inti-macy with Jesus, and because of his risen life Jesus desires an intimacy that knows no boundaries. Do we share a God who is patient, long-suffering, who waits, for our hesitant and often waffling response? Do we share a God who delights in intimacy with us? Review for Reli~ous We experience our living and working with God. Working does not take us away from our God since God is a busy God, and, being busy, we are right alongside him. Praying, too, flows naturally in a relationship with .a God who converses in so many ways, if we but learn to listen--as when we take time to pray. And so Ignatius shares with us a union with God in the contemplative action of praying and working. There is a wholeness--a unity--in our life that does not take us away from God. Do we live, like Jesus, as contemplatives in action? Is this the God we share? If, in Ignatian spirituality, these are some of the ways we experience God and are moved to share God with others, we need to observe next how this experience flows into how we act. For Ignatian spirituality is above all caught up in a "way of proceeding." Some spiritual-ities identify themselves with a certain horarium--a daily order of set prayers at certain time, such as the Liturgy of the .Hours, one practice that marks a monastic approach to life. Some spiritualities revolve around cer-tain devotional practices, whether so many rosaries prayed within a day, so many set prayers read or recited, perhaps so many hours spent before the Blessed Sacrament. A "way of proceeding" in Ignatian spirituality does not demand any of these devotional obligations, but it does leave a person free to observe any one of them or any combination of them. Just as the text of the Spiritual Exercises remains free of particular devo-tional practices, so Ignatian spirituality imposes no arti-ficial boundaries: prayer times, prayer styles, amount of prayer, particular devotional practices, certain life styles, or specific jobs or responsibilities. Ignatian spirituality is an adaptable "way of proceeding" in our developing a relationship with God, with others, and with our world. From his experience of God, Ignatius wrote the texts 6Y.I 2006 Fleming ¯ Sharing God the Ignatian Way of both the Spiritual Exercises and the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. We find that both these texts are "to be used"; they provide us with a way of proceeding. They are written for the purpose of the practice they generate. Both are written, not just as a rule of life or just a description of a good life, but as an invitation to experi-ence what Ignatius calls in the Two Standards prayer exercise "the true life." Jesus re

Issue 62.1 of the Review for Religious, 2003. ; Life Together Ignatian Heritage Spiritual Fiber Personal Witness QUARTERLY 62.1 2003 Review for Religious helps people respond and be faithful to God's universal call to holiness by making available to them the spiritual legacies that flow from the cbarisms of Catholic consecrated life. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP Mount St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2002 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tk? n, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. 0 L~VING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Adv#ory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp James and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hensell OSB Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla sJ Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ QUARTERLY 62.1 2003 Building a Healthy Community Ecosystem Robert P. Maloney CM speaks of the critical need in religious life today for superiors who are real animators of their communities, and presents five moments that are essential for healthy local communities. 17 The Spirituality of CICLSAL's "Starting Afresh" Charles M. Mangan reviews a recent document from the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Starting .qfresb front Christ, which treats the primacy of the spiritual life for all consecrated persons. 27 38 Dialectic in the Spiritual Exercises William P. O'Brien SJ presents a model of the inner dynamic in people making the thirty-day retreat as a progression of dialectical shifts, and he shows how the text of the Ignatian Exercises follows this progression. Ignatian Women Past and Future Joan L. Roccasalvo CSJ writes about women who participated in the early apostolic works of the Society of Jesus. She then looks at four groups of women religious with an Ignatian spirituality and offers suggestions for renewal in the face of today's religious-life issues. Review for Religious 63 Learning from Jesus, the Son of Man A. Paul Dominic SJ explores the phrase "Son of man," used by Jesus to refer to himself, and sees implications for us Christians. 72 Perseverance: The Courage to Persist Dennis J. Billy CSSR describes perseverance in religious life as a daily activity requiring both a personal and communal commitment to the vows and community life. 83 When One Flower Blooms It is Spring Everywhere Catherine M. Hennessy MSC discovers in the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease a summons to grow in faith, trusting one's entire self to God, a journey without a timeline. 90 Solidarity with Afridan Women Religious Annmarie Sanders IHM finds that a research trip to investi-gate the educational needs of African women religious opens new insights into the mysterious power of intercessory prayer as an expression of solidarity, 4 Prisms 96 Canonical Counsel: Discretionary Dismissal 103 Book Reviews o2.1 200~ You now have in your hand the first quar-terly issue of Review for Religious. You may not have noticed the difference. Perhaps you did note that the usual dating by months was miss-ing on the cover and inside too. Instead of January-February 2003 on the cover, there is only the word Quarterly, with the designation 62.1, followed by 2003. With our worldwide dis-tribution between the northern and southern hemispheres, it seemed good not to identify our quarterly issues by seasons since there could be only confusion about whose summer and whose winter was being named. Each issue will be iden-tified throughout by its volume (e.g. 62) and its own particular number (e.g.1) and, of course, the year. The quarterly issues will be mailed in January, April, July, and October. Each issue will maintain the same quality articles by our contributors. But we hope that you will find a greater reading ease because of the slight change in our type size and its leading. The number of pages in each issue remains the same. Where we as editors intend to experiment and hope to get your response is in the two sup-plements that are included in your subscription price for the year 2003--the first identified with the Lent/Easter seasons and the second with the Advent/Christmas seasons. The supplements Review for Religious will be 32-page issues, with articles more relevant to the identified liturgical seasons. Each article in the supplement issue will be followed by some suggestions for your own prayer and reflection, stimulants for conversations between two or more, and perhaps a brief prayer or Christian heritage citation that will stir your own interaction. Rather than leaving a reader passive, we hope to encourage a greater personal involvement with an article and even more easily prompt a community discussion. We look for readers' reaction and response back to us as editors. If these experiments provided in the supplement issues receive shaping and support by your responses, we will eventually include them in the article presentations in the ordinary quarterly issues of the journal. In each supplement we will pro-vide a postcard for easy response. But you can also write, fax (314-977-7362), email (review@slu.edu), or log on to our web page (www.reviewforreligious.org). We ask that you do give us your response. The first supplement will be mailed in March and the second in November. Review for Religious has provided articles of infor-marion, pastoral help, and reflective inspiration through-out its history during the past century. As. we are in the beginning years of this new millennium, we desire to sustain and even enhance that long tradition. But now, through our supplement experiment, we seek to serve you, our readers, with a journal that more easily accom-modates the dialogue so necessary for our Catholic life-- dialogue with our God, dialogue within Ourselves, and dialogue with one another. As Pope Paul VI said, our way of being church is .today the way of dialogue. The editors of the Review desire that this journal continues to play an integral part in our being church. We hope that you will enter into the dialogue with us. ¯David L. Fleming SJ ~" 62.1 200:t ROBERT P. MALONEY Building a Healthy Community Ecosystem High above the mountain ranges of the Western United States glides the California condor, the largest bird in North America. With its wingspan of nine feet, it soars to an altitude of three miles~ swooping down from time to time to feed on red meat and salmon with a healthy appetite. Black body, bare head, red knees, this majestic bird has flown over the mountains and valleys of California, Nevada, and Arizona for millennia. But by 1990 only twenty-three remained, six in California and seventeen near the Grand Canyon in Arizona.It was an endan-gered species. Every species needs its own peculiar eco-logical system in order to survive. When that system is rich, the species thrives. As its ecosys-tem deteriorates, the species gradually dimin-ishes and may become extinct. Millions of Robert P. Maloney ClVl, superior general of the Congregation of the Mission, is a frequent contributor to this journal. He resides at Congregazione della Missione; Via dei Capasso, 30; 00164 Roma, Italy. Review for Religio us species that once inhabited the planet earth are now extinct. So too will it be one day for the human race. Will its ecosystem be destroyed by a violent cataclysm of human making, a massive bomb? Will it be destroyed when a g!ant asteroid crashes into the planet? Will it be destroyed by a suffocating pollution? Who knows? And religious life? Or the life of particular congre-gations of sisters, brothers, and priests? Nature teaches us the simple lesson that they will grow and flourish only if the ecosystem found and developed by their founders centuries ago, and renewed from time to time, remains salubrious. Otherwise they will decline and perhaps one day disappear. The Builders of the Ecosystem Today the word animation is used again and again. It means to give life, breath, soul, spirit. The documents of most contemporary communities state that superiors (or coordinators, supervisors, or whatever word is used to designate them) in a worldwide congregation, or in a province, or in a local house are called to be animators among the men or women with whom they live. This is no easy task. In fact, it is an enormous challenge. Two pieces of data highlight for me the critical nature of this challenge; one is existential, the other juridical and anthropological. The existential datum. Over the last several years, about three hundred members of my congregation between the ages of thirty-five and fifty have passed through a three-month ongoing formation program in Paris. They have come there from more than fifty coun-tries on all the continents. The priest who has been in charge of the program from the beginning has told me that the concern they have most frequently expressed is an uneasiness about community living. They sense that something is lacking in our life together. In the last three ,7 62.1 2003 Maloney * Building a Healthy Community Ecosystem If the superior is good at the job, the chances are that the local community will be very much alive. decades, most of our provinces have taken significant steps forward in the renewal of our apostolic life. Little by little we have focused more clearly on the poor and on our missionary nature. But many in the program ask: Have we found the right formula for our life together? Does community provide the faith support, the solidar-ity in action, the encouragement, the understanding, the home that many today--especially the young--seek when they join an apostolic society? This uneasiness, expressed by many, is the challenging existential datum that I find myself pondering. The second datum is juridical/anthropological, and it too is enormously challenging. Article 129 of the con-stitutions of my own con-gregation, which is similar to articles in ma.ny other constitutions, says: "The Congregation forms itself particularly in the individ-ual local communities." Even apart from juridical considerations, that is where congregations really live and .grow--in the local community. That is where we are either happy, or unhappy, where w.e either pray or do not pray, where we either feel support or do not feel it. That is where we either enjoy one another's company or flee from it, where we either plan and act in solidarity in serving the poor or where we merely park for the night at a convenient motel in order to go out again in the morning as a lone-ranger type of apostle. This juridical/anthropological datum raises the urgent question: Can we create in our local communities a healthy ecosystem where our members live, grow, and even thrive? Review for Religious But there is more to this second datum. The same article states: "The superior, as the center of unity and animator of the life of the local community, should pro-mote the ministries of the house and, with the commu-nity, should be concerned for the personal development and activity of each confrere." This paragraph states the importance of the local superior's role. He or she is a key animator in the local community, an energizer of its life and activity. Of course, superiors do not stand alone. Others share this responsibility. But, if the superior is good at the job, the chances are that the local community will be very much alive. And, if he or she is bad at it, the local community will have considerable difficulty finding the anima, the breath, that it needs in order to live healthily. What can we realistically hope for in regard to local superiors and local communities? I hope, first of all, that congregations will devise more effective ways for local superiors, along with those in their houses, to build up ecosystems where members will thrive. Surely, local com-munities are not all alike. Some are large. Some are small. Some revolve around a single work. Some embrace mul-tiple works. Given such variety, local superiors need to ¯ have specific tools for building healthy local ecosystems. That raises a critical problem and stirs up a second hope in me. The constitutions of most congregations propose a community plan for the life and activity of the local community. It is a covenant, so to speak. We com-mit ourselves to support each other in our apostolic labors, our life together, our prayer, our vows, our ongo-ing education--our very life. But I have the impression that many local communities--and this is the problem-- do not take the formulation, implementation, evalua-tion, and regular revision of a community plan seriously. During my visits to the provinces as superior general, I often note that local community plans are badly made9 62.1 2003 Maloney * Building a Healthy Community Ecosystem ¯ or are merely the daily order. This is also a frequent comment in the reports that provincials send me about their visits to local houses. So my second hope is this: that more and more members of congregations will take local .community planning seriously, and that local supe-riors will learn to do so too. Five Crucial Community Moments It is always important to speak about community con-cretely. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said: "The person who loves his dream of community more than the real com-munity itself destroys community.''1 Community exists when we live it concretely and vitally. Let me dwell briefly on five significant elements in the ecosystem of community living. They are, so to speak, the air, the water, the sun, the fire, and the soil of local communities. Meals. It might seem strange that I begin with eating, though of course the principal communal act that Jesus left his followers was precisely a meal. My focus, how-ever, is not on food (though St. Vincent de Paul, my congregation's founder, encouraged treasurers to pro-vide good wine and good bread).2 My focus is on com-mon meals as a primary sign of union. When asked what are the most striking memories of their families, count-less people describe long festive dinners at Christmas or Easter in which people sat around the table telling sto-ries, or a time together on vacation when everyone ate together, and relaxed, sang, played games, and talked until late into the night. Of course, not every meal can be that way. But meals are a prime time for good human communication. They are times when our tradition is deepened because we hear stories from the past and speak of wonderful men and women whom we have known. They are times when our .tradition ia developed because new people express new insights and new ways of responding to the same values in the service of the poor. Review for Religious Decades ago reading at table occupied religious dur-ing meals. Today meals are an opportunity for genuine, interested table talk. But at times communities eat rapidly, with sparse conversation. In some houses it is hard to get everyone together even for a single meal a day. Crucial in the conversation that characterizes meals is attentive listening. As members of communities, we must be deeply interested in one another, in our back-grounds, our histories, our gifts, the projects that set us on fire. Few things are worse than having an excit-ing experience to relate, bringing it up at table, and finding no one eager to hear it. I regret to say that this happens often. Not long ago I felt agitated by what seemed an injustice done to a priest by a bishop. I tried to tell my story to two people. Both were preoc-cupied with other things that day. When I was a short way into my story, one after the other interrupted to tell his own story. I had to conclude that it was my turn to listen, and I never got my story out that day. Of course, the Eucharistic meal plays a most signif-icant role in our lives. It is a time for attentive listening to the word of God, for genuine stiaring in faith, and for union in the life of the Lord. Some of my striking memories in community have been wonderful Eucharistic celebrations. That brings me to a second key element in an invigoratingcommunity ecosystem. Prayer. Here let me mention two distinctive moments. Common liturgical prayer should be prepared well and celebrated beautifully and meditatively. When this is the case, it is a significant time for us to be in contact with God, with one another, and with young Crucial in the conversation that characterizes meals is attentive listening. I! 62 1 2003 Maloney ¯ BuiMing a Healthy Community Ecosystem people who hunger to.pray with us. It can be a time when we cry out: It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to make music to your name, O most High, to proclaim your love in the morning and your truth in the watches of the night. (Ps 92:2-3) Of course, if our prayer is routine, ill-prepared, and dis-tracted, it is of little value. Then, as a great saint once put it, it is like "barking dogs" in the presence of God. But, done well in the tradition of the church, l~turgical prayer is something beautiful for God and attractive to the .par-ticipants, especially today's young people in their thirst for an experience of prayer. Meditative prayer can seem a rather solitary exercise, but it is crucial that community members support one another in reflecting on God's word and in contemplat-ing God's presence. Over the years I have felt that sup-port very much. I. am encouraged when I find myself meditating with my brothers and sisters. If the liturgy is "the summit toward which the activity of the church is directed" (Sacrosanctum conciliurn, §10), meditative prayer is an important foundation stone. It strengthens 'our faith, and so, of course, communities members should encourage each other in it. Members of small communities often say that it is almost impossible for them to pray together because they are so few and are busy with multiple works. I am in utter disagreement with their conclusion. I realize, of course, that the prayer of a small community cannot be the same as that of a large community. But even in small communities we must pray together. If we do not find the time to do so, we are lost. Faith sharing is one of the contemporary forms that the traditional "repetition of prayer" is taking. It can be a powerful moment in building community if the mem- Review for Religious bers share their faith with great simplicity. Faith sharing is not meant to be a homily prepared ahead of time, nor is it meant to be a release for one's pent-up anxieties. Rather, it is a spontaneous expression of our hopes, our doubts, our joys, our pain as we live and pray before the Lord. If we wrestle with life and share our sense of who we are and what we seem called to be and do in the light of the gospel, I am confident that we will come to know and appreciate one another mucl~ more deeply. Fun. If prayer is the human heart searching for God, humor helps us to realize that God is unpredictable, as are most of us, his creatures. Humor is linked to our perception of incongruity. There is much that is incon-gruous in our lives, if only we can see it with a little bit of distance. It is very important to have fun in community. Fun fosters harmony, preventing us from being overly serious about ourselves. Important as it is that the community work together, it is also important that we relax together and laugh from time to time, that we enjoy one another's company. In this way we will see different aspects of each other's personality too. Thomas Aquinas says a striking thing about playful-ness: "Unmitigated seriousness betokens a lack of virtue, because it wholly despises play which is as necessary for a good human life as is rest." A local community should be creative in organizing times of diversion. I lived in a house where once a week, at night, we watched a video-tape of a movie together. Actually, we now do this from time to time in our general curia. We agree on the film ahead of time. Somebody prepares a few snacks, and we sit around and talk about it afterwards. I love it, and so does everybody else. Nobody has to come, but every-body does. I lived in a community in Panama wher~ we came together from separate mission houses every Monday in 62.1 2003 Maloney * Building a Healthy Community Ecosystem order to pray together, hold a meeting, and then enjoy the rest of the day in each other's company. Almost nobody on the mission ever missed that day. There are many other possibilities, but it is very important that we enjoy one another's company, laugh, relax, and at times simply have fun. Meetings. Even though meetings are sometimes a scourge in our lives, or, as many have suggested, one of the contemporary forms of mortification, they are nonetheless a very important community moment. They are a time when important communication takes place. They should be a moment in which everyone feels included and in which people feel a common responsi-bility for the values being shared and the decisions being made. I suggest that two meetings are of particular impor-tance. The first is the meeting for formulating the local community plan. Unfortunately, as I have already men-tioned, many communities still do this poorly, making it an occasion for deciding on an order of day, rather than a time for creativity. They are slow to exercise the flexi-bility that their constitutions provide. But the meeting for formulating the local community plan can be pre-cisely the time in which the ecosystem that I am describ-ing can be created, developed, enriched, and covenanted. The second is the meeting for evaluation, for revision de vie. We seek ongoing communal conversion within community. Evaluation times are times to reflect, hon-estly and peacefully, on our mission and our lifestyle. At such meetings people can offer suggestions for the growth of a local community. Often the key is balance, the ability to integrate various values: mission, prayer, life together. In our lives simple dialogue is essential, drawing out from one another our feelings and thoughts, posing helpful questions; giving one's own reaction with-out being either defensive or aggressive. Review for Religious Apostolate. The apostolates of religious communities have a communal dimension. In our era characterized by individualism, it is crucial that local superiors plan in common with the members of their houses, evaluate in common, and animate the members of the community to work as a team as much as possible. There are few things that tie us together more than cooperating in an exciting common apostolic project. It is wonderful when, in a healthy sense, we are all proud of what we do in a mis-sion or seminary or parish or school or soup kitchen or social-justice program. There are many ways of showing apostolic solidarity. Do we listen to what our brothers or sisters have done during the day when, com-ing home tired, they want to chat with us in the evening? Do we let them share with us the challenges they meet in their aposto- ¯ lates? Do we pray for and with our brothers and sis-ters in their apostolates? Can local communities truly be called "apostolic communities"? Or are they just workers' residences? Common interest in the work of each local community member is a powerful unifying force. A final word. Not every community w!ll renew itself and attain the ideals envisioned by the constitutions of the institute. A provincial and his council have the dif-ficult task of working toward the gradual renewal of the local communities. As they do that, I suggest that younger members be assigned only to communities that engage in a serious process of renewal. It is those com-munities that carry the seeds of future life. A province with three communities where the members live life The key is balance, the ability to integrate various values: mission, prayer, life together. 62.1 2003 Maloney ¯ Building a Healthy Community Ecosystem vitally has a real future. A province with twenty com-munities where the members just survive is not likely to survive. Unless a province builds genuinely participa-tive communities, it dies. And the California condor? I am happy to report that in the last decade its number has increased from twenty-three to a hundred and twenty (a good-sized province!). Those who love this majestic bird redeveloped an ecosys-tem where it could live and even thrive. I hope we can do the same thing in our local communities. Notes Dietrich Bonhoeff~r. Life Together (London, 1954), p. 15. SV llI, 505. SV refers to the 14-volume French edition of St. Vincent's works, edited by Pierre Coste (Paris: Gabalda, 1920-1925). Friday It's the day of the cross. A crucifix hangs on my bedroom wall, gore masked by silver paint, beams sanded smooth. Even in euphemized translation void of smell and moan of death the message is clean Dressing my unpierced body and combing hair unnettled with thorns, I look through the crosshairs of the coming hours and reflect on the risk of murmuring "Thy will be done." Patricia Schnapp RSM Review for Religious CHARLES M. MANGAN The Spirituality of CICLSAL's "Starting Afresh" (~'~! tarting Afresh from Christ: A Renewed Commitment to Consecrated Life in the Third Millennium" is the recent instruction, dated 19 May 2002, published by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL). This fifty-seven-page document, originally written in Italian, stems from the congregation's plenary session on 25-28 September 2001 in Vatican City. Mindful of the 25 March 1996 apostolic exhortation Vita consecrata of Pope John Paul II and of his vision for the Third Christian Millennium as enunciated in his 6 January 2001 apostolic letter Novo millennio ineunte, the members of the plenary did not intend "to produce another doctrinal document, but rather to help consecrated life enter into the great pastoral guidelines of the Holy Father with the contributon of his authority and of charismatic service to unity and to the universal mission of the church" (§4). Charles M. Mangan is a priest of the Diocese of Sioux Falls and an official in the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. His address is Villa Stritch; Via della Nocetta, 63; 00164 Roma, Italy. 17 62.1 2003 Mangan ¯ The Spirituality of "Starting Afresh" "Starting Afresh from Christ" presents many aspects of consecrated life, but it focuses "primarily on spirituality." Although onewill find references to the importance of the spiritual life for consecrated men and women throughout this text, one entire part, among four, is exclusively dedicated to the topic. This essay briefly discusses that part's seminal points concerning the primacy of spiritua!ity in the consecrated life. Part 3 is tided "Spiritual Life in the First Place" (§§20-32). From this let us identify five essential dimensions regarding spirituality for consecrated persons. A Receptivity to the Holy Spirit's Stirrings Just as the founders and foundresses of religious institutes yielded to the mysterious intimations of the Holy Spirit, so today's consecrated persons must be marked by their incredible docility to him, permitting themselves "to be led by the Spirit to a constantly renewed discovery of God and of his Word, to a burning love for God and for humanity, and to a new understanding of the charism which has been given" (§20). Those founders and foundresses enjoyed an initial experience of the Paraclete that is to be preserved and ever deepened by contemporary consecrated persons. The Holy Spirit's actions are always fresh and creative. Consecrated men and women, by their openness to him, are drawn into a profound intimacy with the Lord. An "intense sp!rituality" really means living according to the Holy Spirit. If consecrated life is to have the "spiritual rebirth" that it needs, then the spiritual life must occupy the foremost position in each institute and in the heart of each consecrated man and woman. How does a consecrated person live spiritually? By attending to the evangelical counsels, imitating the inner life of love and communion of the Blessed Trinity, adhering to the charism of the institute as contained in its Review for Religious constitutions, and embracing the church's teaching regarding consecrated life, especially Vita consecrata. A deeper spirituality then emerges, one "which is more ecclesial and communitarian, more demanding and mature in mutual support in striving for holiness, more generous in apostolic choices." Indeed, a profound spirituality demonstrated by consecrated men and women will be of particular benefit to the Mystical Body of Christ because of its ability to edi~ and summon others to a more authentic spiritual life. The movement of the Holy Spirit in the consecrated life effects genuine communion bervceen the members, allowing them then to share what they have received in their mission to the people of God. Jesus Christ, the Sole Point of Departure "To start afresh from Christ" signifies that consecrated persons, led by the Holy Spirit, recommit themselves to the critical path of conversion and renewal. The Apostles accepted this way twenty centuries ago. Only by conversion and renewal is one made available for the announcement of the kingdom of God. While one's sinfulness must humbly be acknowledged, it need not be an insuperable deterrent to following Jesus. He has bestowed his call on consecrated persons, all of whom require his abundant grace to respond generously. Consecrated life, to quote Vita consecrata, is "a living memorial of Jesus' way of living and acting as the incarnate Word in relation to the Father and in relation to the brethren" (§22). Christ is the center and source of all that consecrated persons are and do. The consecrated life does not exist without the evangelical counsels, which enable religious to love the Lord and embrace his will; the communitarian life, in which Jesus assembles his friends around himself and bestows on them his lasting presence; the mission, which obligates consecrated persons to seek 19 62.1 200~ Mangan ¯ The Spirituality of"Starting Afresh" Christ in others and convey his overwhelming love and mercy to them. If consecrated men and women do not realize God's love for them, their efforts will be useless. He has loved first. All love is a response to his love. Courage is essential in the genuine living of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the absence of which takes the wind out of the sails of consecrated life. The Holy Father earlier challenged all consecrated persons to let themselves be guided always by the contemplation of Christ's face. This contemplation is possible particularly in (1) his word and sacraments, primarily the Holy Eucharist; (2) the church, gathered in his name; (3) all people, especially the poor, the suffering, and the needy; (4) each event of life. Holiness is the result of the encounter with Jesus. Religious can recognize the Master only if they are steeped in faith. The "habitual reading" of the word of God, prayer, and acts of charity are demanded if religious are to know Jesus. A "lived spirituality," frequent pondering of their institute's charism, and prayerful investigation into the sources employed by their founder or foundress provide welcome vigor to the spiritual life of consecrated persons. The Centrality of God's Word As the Holy Father has observed, "the first source of all spirituality" is the Word of God. Without reading the Scriptures, consecrated persons will not obtain sanctity. Founders and foundresses, convinced of this, were captivated and inspired by the word. The consecrated men and women of our era likewise must be. Happily, there has been a renewal in love for and contact with the word within communities of consecrated persons. They must continually ponder Sacred Scripture, especially the Gospels. By referring often to their Rule and Review for Religious constitutions, consecrated persons find the "particular interpretation of the gospel given by the founder and foundresses as the result of a particular prompting of the Spirit, and it helps the members of the institute to live concretely according to the word of God" (§24). When consecrated persons are formed by the Lord's word, they develop into "servants of the Word in the task of evangelization." Prayer and contemplation have a specific rapport with the word of God. They furnish the ambient for receiving the word, and they themselves spring from that very Word. How tragic if a consecrated person tries to live without the Word! "As a consequence life itself loses meaning, the faces of brothers and sisters are obscured and it becomes impossible to recognize the face of God in them, historical events remain ambiguous and deprived of hope, ~and apostolic and charitable mission become nothing more than widespread activity" (§2 5). Contemplation, which originates in communion and friendship with Christ, brings forth vocations to the consecrated life. Pope John Paul II contends that the "first task" of consecrated men and women is contemplation. There are myriad forms of prayer and contemplation. One community will differ from another in this respect. Yet the Liturgy of the Hours and the Mass are paramount regardless of the institute. When consecrated persons go to Mass and recite the Liturgy of the Hours, God is adored, these consecrated men and women are blessed in their endeavor, and others who Contemplation, which originates in ¯ communion and friendship with Christ, brings forth vocations to the consecrated life. 2I 62.1 2003 Mangan ¯ The Spirituality of "Starting Afresb" notice are touched. Each consecrated person must daily set aside time "to enter deeply into silent conversation" with Jesus. Consecrated persons share who they are and what they have with the Lord, who in turn enlightens them so that they may progress along the path to everlasting life. Faithfulness to prayer is not always easy for the consecrated person. "At times fidelity to personal and liturgical prayer will require a true effort not to allow oneself to be swallowed up in frenetic activism." Christ, who inspires prayer, will bring forth good fruit from those consecrated persons who strive to communicate well and often with him. Eucharist as Privileged Locus for Meeting Jesus, and the Need for Asceticism and Penance The Mass is the renewal of the paschal mystery-- Christ's passion, death, and resurrection. There is for consecrated persons no substitute for the daily Mass and extended adoration of the Holy Eucharist. In the Mass we are doubly fed. We receive God's Word proclaimed in the Sacred. Scriptures and his very Body and Blood under the appearances of bread and wine. Nourished by the hand of the Good Shepherd through the daily Mass, consecrated men and women become more capable of praising him as he deserves, strengthening the bonds of communion, and participating in the apostolic mission to the world. "We all need the daily viaticum of encounterwith the.Lord in order to bring, everyday life into sacred time which is made present in celebration of the Lord's Memorial" (§26). What happens in the lives of consecrated persons because of their connection to the Eucharist? They become further conformed to Christ. As he offered himself to his Father, so consecrated persons offer themselves and are themselves offered by Jesus to his Father in paradise. The fortifying of communion and Review for" Religious mission that occurs because of the Eucharist is impossible without "mutual forgiveness and the commitment to love one another." Imbued with the spirit of the Eucharist, consecrated persons forgive and are attentive to the needs of their neighbors. Each Mass is an opportunity for consecrated persons to renew their commitment of service to their brothers and sisters. It is in the Eucharist that "the community of consecrated persons., becomes a witness of communion and a prophetic sign of solidarity for a divided and wounded society. In fact, the spirituality of communion, so necessary to establish the dialogue of charity needed in today's world, is born in the Eucharist." What Jesus did on Calvary was no less than give his life, which was "the greatest expression of his love--and the Eucharist relives the mystery of this moment" (§27). By the practice of asceticism, consecrated men and women demonstrate their wish to be united to the Son of God. Self-denial, which is to be "consonant with our times," associates consecrated persons to Christ. Then they seek his suffering face, as they do when they console the sick, the imprisoned, the poor, and sinners. The outreach rendered by consecrated persons has encouraged those they have assisted to have recourse to the sacrament of reconciliation. Consecrated men and women, too, must regularly avail themselves of confession. Given the new moral and spiritual poverties of our age, consecrated personsare to do as Jesus would: aid the needy in their trials and "take upon themselves the pain and the sin of the world, consuming them in love." Communion: Sine Qua Non for Consecrated Life The "spirituality of communion" compels consecrated persons to do all. they can to start or continue a dialogue rooted in charity. Attempts to spread communion by consecrated men and women are to encompass all 23 62.1 2003 Mangan ¯ The Spirituality of "Starting Afresh" peoples, but especially those who reside in locations oppressed by ethnic hatred or violence. For consecrated persons, communion begins in their contemplation of the Blessed Trinity dwelling within the human soul. All persons, then, are seen as brothers and sisters worthy of love and respect. Consecrated persons offer their friendship and compassion, desiring to share in the sufferings of the burdened. Communion is the extension of consecrated persons to those outside of their community, but it also has an intra dimension within their community. "The divine and human value of being together freely in friendship and sharing even moments of relaxation and recreation together as disciples gathered around Christ the Teacher is being rediscovered" (§29). Communion among different communities of the same institute is also vital. Vita consecrata, Novo millennio ineunte, and "Fraternal Life in Community," the 2 February 1994 instruction issued by CICLSAL, are helpful in understanding the notion and application of communion. Every endeavor to sustain communion among institutes should be fostered. A "joint search for common ways of serving the church" (§30) ensures that a crippling isolation need not hold sway. The following of Jesus Christ by consecrated persons is to be enjoyed together among various institutes. Consecrated men and women gain much from being exposed to the solid "ecclesial movements" that have recently blossomed in the church. An exchange between institutes and these movements benefits each. Consecrated men and women are to collaborate and experience communion with the laity. This cooperation is multifaceted. "Monastic and contemplative institutes can offer the laity a relationship that is primarily spiritual and the necessary spaces for silence and prayer. Institutes committed to the apostolate can involve them in forms of pastoral collaboration. Members of secular institutes, lay Review for Religious or clerical, relate to other members of the faithful at the level of everyday life" (§31). There is a host of secular orders, third orders, and lay associations that enable the laity to live to some degree "the charismatic ideals" of religious institutes. Formation of consecrated persons and the laity will facilitate these projects and permit them to continue. The long-anticipated renewal of consecrated life will reap the fruits of this cooperation. "In this new climate of ecclesial communion, priests, religious, and the laity, far from ignoring each other or coming together only for a common activity, can once again find the just relationships of communion and a renewed experience of evangelical communion and mutual charismatic esteem resulting in a complemen-tarity which respects the differences." Communion is a mere chimera if the bishops, including the bishop of Rome, are left out of the equation. We marvel at the genuine sentiment of "feeling with the church" that marked the lives of the founders and foundresses of institutes. "It is impossible to contemplate the face of God without seeing it shining in that of the church. To love Christ is to love the church in her persons and institutions" (§32). In this period of frequent and even public dissent from the church's teachings, consecrated men and women must be the exception. They are to be "convinced and joyful spokespersons before all" of the magisterium's proclamation of the truth. Consecrated persons are to Consecrated men and women gain much from being exposed to the solid " ecclesial movements" that have recently blossomed in the church. 2~ 62.1 2003 Mangan * The Spirituality of "Starting Afresh" give their allegiance of mind and heart to the magisterium. Consecrated persons enjoy the liberty to make known to their bishops and to the diocesan clergy with whom. they work their opinions and proposals. The church's charismatic and hierarchical elements upbuild each other. Starting Afresh from Christ is a restatement at the beginning of this millennium of the cherished principles of consecrated life. The spiritual life is keenly stressed because of its inarguable primacy for all consecrated men and women. May consecrated persons, imitating the Blessed Virgin Mary, in whom "all the charisms of consecrated life are mirrored and renewed" (§46), increase in their ardor for the face of Christ and his church and start afresh to serve, in true communion and charity, their brothers and sisters. Starting Afresh from Christ: A Renewed Commitment to Consecrated Life in the Third Millennium was published by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana in Vatican City and may be found on the Vatican website (www.vatican.va). See also Origins 32, no. 8 (4July 2002). 26A Plea Lord, I want to be the lamb you cuddle to your cheek; the one you rescue from tight places, that very one you seek whose senseless straying your vast love pursues; whose wounds you bind, heal. The one, if ever lost, you rush to find. Avis Kunca Kubick Review for Religious WILLIAM P. O'BRIEN Dialectic in the Spiritual Exercises In the summer of 2000, I participated in a spir-itual- direction practicum with Jane Ferdon Op and George Murphy SJ at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California. George and Jane teach a contemplative approach to spiri-tual direction, by which the director seeks to help the directee focus on and remain with expe-riences of God.~ That fall I put this approach into practice, offering individual spiritual direc-tion and, the following summer, giving person-ally directed eight-day retreats at Jesuit Retreat House in Los Altos, California. Later that sum-mer I accepted an invitation to join a team to direct the thirty-day Spiritual Exercises at Milford Spiritual Center in Milford, Ohio. Although eager for the experience, I worried that the contemplative approach might not work for the long retreat, with its thoroughly out-lined series of meditations. To my wonder and William P. O'Brien SJ is doing graduate study in spiritual-ity at the Jesuit School of Theblogy at Berkeley. His address is 2535 Le Conte Avenue; Berkeley, California 94709. o2.1 2003 O'Brien ¯ Dialectic in the Spiritual Exercises~ delight, I found that, because God moves people in ways the Exercises follow and promote, the contemplative approach does indeed work in that context. Other direc-tors have had similar experiences.2 Reflecting on this, I have come up with a simplified model for understanding the interior movement in peo-ple making the long retreat. In the first part of this essay, I examine a progression of dialectical shifts. Then I show that the text of the Exercises, follows such a progression. In light of these findings, I propose that the enterprise of spiritual direction calls the retreat director to trust God more deeply as the true master of souls. Quotations of the Exercises are from the Ivens translation.3 Interior Movement as Dialectic The human soul in contact with God tends to behave in characteristic movements of negation and affirmation. This may lead to either spiritual desolation or spiritual consolation, depending upon how the retreatant responds, but there is always an invitation to know God more deeply.4 As people grow in relationship with God, they find themselves more focused on others and conse-quently less on themselves. In this process we can distinguish five progressive moments as the heart receives God's love.5 The first is when the self deeply realizes that it exists rather than not existing. The second is when the existing self, believ-ing itself bad, sees itself as good. The third is when the good self, recognizing its sinfulness, finds itself forgiven. The fourth is when the forgiven self, feeling conflicted, hears itself called. And the fifth is when the called self, now deeply aware of its limitation, experiences itself accepted by God. Each new moment incorporates the resolution from the preceding moment. Thus, for exam-ple, before the self can deeply recognize its sinfulness, it already must have seen its basic goodness.6 The deepest Review for Religious union with God implies the other four moments. In other words, to discover the depth of negation and affir-mation in our lives constitutes spiritual growth. People may wonder here whether these interior moments represent a historical or logical reality, and whether the progression happens necessarily. First, because people can recog-nize these moments in themselves and in others, we can say that they are pat-terns in their life histories and therefore have a histor-ical character. Furthermore, because each new moment presupposes the preceding one and tends to develop into the next, we can see a certain logic here. But, because the movement has to do with making choices freely and with developing personal relationships, we cannot speak of any histori-cal necessity in the progres-sion. In other words, although reflecting on the dynamic can help us recognize interior movements in a retreatant, we cannot predict those movements. And, while the pro-gressive moments seem to have an internal logic, nei-ther can we deduce the moments necessarily as we might draw a conclusion from premises. The interior life oper-ates through psychological, social, and biological realities, not abstract ideas. But the strongest evidence that the progression does not develop in a necessary fashion is that retreatants often revisit moments they appear to have resolved. Some retreatants one day have a strong sense of their own sin- While we cannot know for sure where God will lead any of us, we can recognize general patterns and thus a common ¯ spiritual dynamic in the .unique histories of particular retreatants. 62.1 2003 O'Brien ¯ Dialectic in the Spiritual Exercises fulness and God's forgiveness, only to return a little later to those same issues. Others make the long retreat a number of times, apparently engaging the same pro-gression over and over again. From these cases it appears that we cannot claim to have finished with a moment once and for all, and that most retreatants move moment to moment according to a more or less natural develop-ment. Many variables influence their movements, includ-ing circumstances, free will, and the intention of the Spirit, And so, while we cannot know for sure where God will lead any of us, we can recognize general pat-terns and thus a common spiritual dynamic in the unique histories of particular retreatants. Dialectic in the Spiritual Exercises We have considered how the soul in touch with God appears to move dialectically according to an interior spiritual dynamic. Those giving the long retreat can facil-itate this movement by paying attention to the charac-teristic patterns of the Spirit's work in retreatants and as the Spiritual Exercises describe and track them. To ini-tiate this process, directors might give retreatants some time to reflect on God's presence, beginning with a recognition of their desires--if only the desire to make the retreat) Some instruction in prayer methods may help: centering prayer, lectio divina, consciousness exa-men, and so forth. Directors also may want to share with retreatants the Annotations from the beginning of the text (§§1-20), as Ignatius suggests,s Through this reflec-tion retreatants typically begin to recognize both the gift quality of their lives and God's personal love for them-- the first two moments of the dialectic wherein they real-ize that they exist and see themselves as good. Retreatants seem to receive these initial graces more as movements of the affect than as the acquisition of ideas, which is to say they sense that their lives come as free gifts and they Review for Religious feel loved by God. Directors should encourage these movements in any way possible, perhaps by sharing some scripture passages or the text of the First Principle and Foundation (§23). As retreatants grow in awareness of God's love for them, they often notice that certain internal factors block their acceptance of this love. In Quest for Sanctity Gerald Grosh includes among these factors an adherence to legalistic principles, an acquiescence to addictive impulses, and a propensity to think badly of oneself.9 The challenge for directors now involves recognizing these blockages and help!ng retreatants negotiate them by focusing on the presence of God. Retreatants take more or less time to accept God's love and the gift quality of their lives, and some may never do so. In any case, directors must keep in mind that the Spirit directs the retreat and controls the giving of graces. To work against the Spirit by moving to some Other moment of the dynamic or some other part of the Exercises generally results in confusion and frustration for all involved. Having received these initial graces, sometimes as dramatic and consoling experiences, retreatants often begin to consider on their own how they have responded to God's love and gift of life. At this point they may sense in themselves a tendency to move away from God--the tendency we call sin. We can think of sin as the shadow that each of us casts in the light of God's love. Awareness of this shadow signals movement into what Ignatius calls the First Week of the Exercises, where the various med-itations serve to develop this awareness of and contri-tion for personal sin. The grace of this week thus appears in recognizing oneself as a loved sinner--that God con-tinues to affirm us despite our propensity to turn away.~° Awareness exercises such as examens of conscience and consciousness can help in this process (§§24-43). 62.1 2003 O'Brien * Dialectic in the Spiritual Exercises At this point in the Exercises, Ignatius introduces the four-part prayer method by which retreatants express their intention for the prayer period at hand (§46), con-sider the setting of the meditation they plan to make (§47), ask for the particular grace they desire (§481, and engage in heart-to-heart communication with God and the other figures who appear to the imagination (§§53-54). He then presents the familiar content of five exercises to follow: the history of sin--among the angels (§50), among the first humans (§51), and of any particular person (§52); a meditation on one's own sins (§§55-61); a repetition of the previous exercise and a "colloquy" with Mary, Jesus, and God the Father (§§62-63); a more general summary exercise (§64); and the meditation on hell (§§65-71). These five exercises engage retreatants sequentially, help-ing them focus first on their egocentrism before leading them to consider their idolatry and their way of treating others as things, to meditate on their core sin, to recog-nize their fundamental need for salvation, and finally to dwell on the spontaneous sense of gratitude they feel for having received that salvation as a free gift. The impor-tance of the meditations thus lies in the inner experience they track rather than in their content, and directors may use material as seems appropriate.11 Finding themselves saved (forgiven) humbles retreatants and helps them see themselves as loved sin-ners, which marks the third moment of the dialectic. In this feeling of humility lies the key to the movement out of the First and into the Second Week, as gratitude stirs the retreatants to know the One who saved them. They often experience this desire as a call to which they respond with timidity and reluctance, feeling their inter-nal conflict. Resolution of this conflict marks the fourth movement of the dialectic, which the meditation on the Call of the King develops (§§91-98). To expand the desire to know their Savior, retreatants may find it helpful to Review for Religious .meditate on the early life of Jesus: incarnation and annun-ciation (8§101-109), nativity (88110-117), presentation and flight into Egypt (8132), finding in the temple (8134), Nazareth and baptism--even up to the temptation, as this seems in keeping with their sensibilities. The retreatants' attraction to Jesus naturally grows as they consider him in his poverty, transparency, and vul-nerability. But, as they come to know and identify with him, they may notice that an attraction within themselves to riches, honor, and pride forestalls deeper intimacy. This awareness of personal limitation begins to resolve itself in the fifth moment as they feel ever more deeply God's acceptance of them as they are. The preference for the way of Jesus thus represents not sim-ply an external "doctrine" (8145), but the retreatants' own intuition into themselves and the One who saved them. The Two Standards meditation follows this move-ment (88136-147), but directors may encourage the dynamic using other materials. Here retreatants natu-rally begin to reflect on their availability to choose iden-tification with Jesus in concrete situations and consider how ready they might or might not be to follow him unreservedly. Ignatius proposes the meditation on Three Classes of People to facilitate this reflection (88149-156), but again directors may suggest other resources. In considering the depth of their commitment, retreatants may feel drawn to reflect on how Jesus lived out these values in his own public ministry, so that they learn to serve by watching him serve. Passages from Scripture might help engage this sense of vocation and The retreatants" attraction to Jesus naturally grows as they consider him in his poverty, transparency, and vulnerability. 62.1 2003 O'Brien ¯ Dialectic in the Spiritual Exercises mission, as may biographies of holy men and women (§ 100). Meditation on the public ministry of Jesus, which can take from seven to twelve days or more (§§158-161), often leads retreatants to a greater or lesser feeling of love for him. Ignatius invites retreatants to reflect on this range of feelings as Three Kinds of Humility (§§ 165- 168), but directors once again may use a variety of mate-rials in order to develop the heartfelt but qualified desire for intimacy with God. As this desire grows in retreatants, they may want to walk with jesus through his Passion (§§190-209), as this leads to deeper union with the one they first experienced as Savior, signaling movement into the Third Week. As always, the director encourages retreatants to remain focused on God's presence and to respond generously to the invitations of the Spirit (§5). To help maintain this focus, Ignatius suggests attention to eating habits (§§210-217). At some point, retreatants may want to consider the buria! and subsequent resurrection of Jesus as recorded in the Scriptures and tracked in the meditations for the Fourth Week (§§218-225). John English suggests that an imperative to "go and tell other people" might arise here from the retreatants' own prayer, further calling them out of themselves.~2 Regardless, the focus must remain on God's call. The dynamic continues to engen-der a deepening of affirmation through the various moments as retreatants recognize God's loving action everywhere. The director may want to use the Contemplation to Attain Love as a means to promote this movement (§§230-237). A Call to Trust Recognizing the dynamic in both the Exercises and the experience of my retreatants encourages me as direc-tor to trust that God rather than I or the retreatants ini- Review for Religious tiates and sustains the movement. Accordingly I think of my role primarily as helping retreatants bring to birth in therhselves the fruit of the Spirit.~3 In so doing I facil-itate the work of the parakletos who leads Christians to deeper appreciation of the Gospels' truth and strength-ens them in difficulty.~4 Peter-Hans Kolvenbach uses similar language in describing the retreatant as "one who wishes to be seized by the Spirit and who goes to another for help about how to let that happen--help which will not 'hinder.'" Kolvenbach rightly emphasizes the desires of the retreatant for God and for help in engaging God, such that "both [the giver and the receiver of the Exercises] ought to stay attentive to what the Spirit is doing rather than to what the one giving the Exercises might seem to suggest." Kolvenbach critiques two oppos-ing extremes of direction style, one he characterizes as the "disappearing director" and the other as the "over-rigid director." as The former takes a hands-off approach, erring on the side of no help, while ~he latter takes a hands-on approach, erring on the side of interference. In fulfilling their charge, directors learn to walk a mid-dle road focused on God's presence. Having said this, we cannot ignore the need many retreatants express for practical training and assistance to hear God speak. As they come to resonate with the voice of the Spirit, they still may look for explicit help from their directors until eventually. ~he directors find themselves walking With their retreatants, primarily as companions or listening aides. But note that the interior development of the retreatant under the guidance of the Spirit sets the tone for the relationship rather than any plan in the mind of the director. Again, the director's role involves helping retreatants attend to religious experience. Any change in the relationship between director and retreatant as the retreat progresses should thus come as both grow in spir-itual freedom from hearing and trusting God. O'Brien ¯ Dialectic in the Spiritual Exercises Notes t For a description of this approach, see William A. Barry SJ "The Contemplative Attitude in Spiritual Direction," Review for Religious 35 (1976): 820-828. z For an early account see William A. Barry SJ, "The Experience of the First and Second Weeks of the Spiritual Exercises," Review for Religious 32 (1973): 102-109. 3 Michael Ivens SJ, Understanding the Spiritual Exercises: Text and Commentary: A Handbook for Retreat Direciors (Leominster, Here-fordshire: Gracewing, 1998). For a more technical analysis of the Spiritual Exercises using Hegelian categories, see Edouard Pousset SJ, Life in Faith and Freedom: An Essay Presenting. Gaston Fessard's Analysis of the Dialectic of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, ed. and trans. Eugene L. Donahue SJ (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1980). 4 The terms "spiritual desolation" and "spiritual consolation" refer to the existential orientation of the human soul in relation to God. The states come about from either rejecting relationship with the Lord (desolation) or choosing it (consolation). Spiritual conso-lation reveals itself in love of the creator and the love of creation implicit therein, an increase of hope, faith, and charity, and peace of soul; spiritual desolation reveals itself in their opposites (§§314-317). 5 The term "moment" here refers, not to an interval in time, but to a passage in the interior life. Avoiding such terms as "phase" and "step" is meant here to discourage thinking of the spiritual journey as analogous to either growing up or ascending a ladder. Souls, in fact, seem to progress in a spiral rather than linear fashion, such that we constandy find ourselves revisiting interior spaces and relearning spiritual lessons as our relationship with God deepens. This being said, each successive "moment" implies those preceding it, as fur-ther explained in the body of this article and in footnote 6. 6 Because interaction with God changes people, each moment constitutes a different way of experiencing the dynamic of negation and acceptance. In this sense such terms as "conflicted self" and "limited self" refer to specific moments in the progression, even though we ordinarily speak of sinfulness as internal conflict or lim-itation. The idea is that, having experienced forgiveness (see Lk 15:21-24), we still find ourselves capable of turning away from God. For this reason we speak of God's affirmation in the fourth moment not as forgiveness but as a call to discipleship (see Lk 5:1-10). Personal sin here recedes as the theme, yet we still feel our defi-ciency, now understood as internal conflict. Having accepted the call, we experience negation not primarily as sinfulness or conflict but Review for Religious as all that precludes a full response--our circumstances, self-image, sinfulness, disordered affections, and so forth. We thus speak of God's affirmation in the fifth moment as the entirety of our accep-tance (see Lk 15:31-32). 7 On the importance of bringing our desires before God, see James M. Keegan sJ, "Praying with Desire," Human Development 11:3 (Fall 1990): 35. Keegan argues that we make ourselves avail-able to God by voicing what we want and thus opening the possibility of a mutual relationship. s "Autograph Directory of St. Ignatius," in On Giving the Spiritual Exercises: The Early Jesuit Manuscript Directories and the Official Directory of I Y99, trans, and ed. Martin E. Palmer SJ (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996), p. 7. 9 Gerald R. Grosh SJ, Quest for Sanctity: Seven Passages to Growth in Faith (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1988). ,0 This sense of sin differs from the low self-esteem that can block the retreatant from initially accepting God's love. Until retreatants, accept God's unconditional love, they cannot see them-selves as sinfully choosing to reject it. ~' As Ivens explains, "this stage of the Exercises consists not in any way of meditating on sin and repentance, but in material and a dynamic of a particular character" (p. 45). ,2 John English SJ, Spiritual Freedom (Chicago: Loyola Press, 1995), pp. 231-232. ~3 Joyce Diltz develops this metaphor at length in "The Spiritual Director as Midwife," Presence 2:1 (January 1996): 18. ~4John 14:16; 14:26; 15:26; 16:7. ~s Peter-Hans Kolvenbach sJ, "Discourse on Exercises and Co- Workers," Review of Ignatian Spirituality 33, no. 1 (2002): 28, 30, and 31-31. 37 62.1 200~ JOAN L. ROCCASALVO Ignatian Women Past and Future T graced beginnings of the Society of Jesus are ompletely known if the women who participated in its vision are left out: "one gains the impression that ¯ . . the Society owes its existence to many women.''1 This article speaks of women who participated in the early Society's apostolic work and supported its ministry; it looks at four religious institutes with an Ignatian spir-ituality and at religious-life issues in the United States; and it offers a suggestion for renewal.2 The Past: 1491-1556, 1650, 1877 In 1540 Pope Paul III officially recognized the Society of Jesus. Neither monks nor friars, the early Jesuits devoted themselves to pressing apostolic needs of the day. They undertook an itinerant ministry. In early Christianity, women participated in a peri-patetic ministry. The apostolic labors of the church fathers are copiously detailed, but recent scholarship reveals that women matched them, setting an example for other women.3 In the 16th century, lines of societal Joan L. Roccasalvo CSJ wrote for us twice in 2001. Her address is University of Scranton; Center for Eastern Christifin Studies; Scranton, Pennsylvania 18510. Review for Relig4ous demarcation for women were clear. Women either married or entered the cloister, and prostitution was common. The ministry of nuns was an extension of their monastic enclosure. Upper-class women ran their house-holds, enjoyed mobility and independence, and numbers of them shared in Ignatius's apostolate. After the death of Ignatius's mother soon after his birth in 1491, he was put in the care of his sister-in-law Magdalena, who provided him with a courtly education. A pious and educated aunt, Maria de Guevara, a third-order Franciscan, had established a cloister next to a hos-pital. She. fostered Ignatius's lifelong commitment to hospital ministry. While recuperating, at Loyola from a leg wound sustained at Pamplona, the young man read lives of Christ and the saints when nothing else was avail-able. Inspired by their lives, he set out to emulate them. Ignatius traveled to the celebrated Benedictine monastery at Montserrat, a place of pilgrimage to this day. There, before a statue of Our Lady of Montserrat (the Black Madonna), in keeping with the chivalric code and in pilgrim's garb, he kept an all-night vigil. On 24 March 1522 he placed his sword before the Mother of God and sang and prayed with other pilgrims.4 Ignatian Women in the 16th Century At Manresa, Ignatius the layman experienced the ulti-mate combat, the battle within. During a period of con-solation, he received five graces near the River Cardoner: mystical illuminations of the Holy Trinity, creation, the Eucharist, the incarnation, and matters of faith and learn-ing. Thereafter he was fond of speaking about all good gifts coming from above. The Spiritual Exercises embody these graces and are forever linked with them.5 Ignatius called Manresa "his primitive church" because here his world-vision was born and took shape.6 Women were the first to benefit from the Exercises.7 62.1 2003 Among those who followed him and looked after his needs were In~s Pascual, an influential widow, and Jer6nima Clavera, administrator of Santa Lucia hospi-tal for the indigent? He made the acquaintance of Isabel Roser. Writing to her fifteen years later, he says: "I am indebted to each one [of the women] and chiefly to you-- for to you I owe more than to anyone I know in this life.''9 The townspeople called Ignatius "the sack man";l° the women were known as "Ifiigas," followers of Ifiigo (his Basque name).ll An elderly woman who impressed Ignatius with her wisdom and holiness told him of her desire that one day Jesus Christ would appear to him.12 Years later Ignatius spoke of his vision, at La Storta near Rome, of the Father with his Son carrying his cross, telling Ignatius, "I want you to serve us. I will be propitious to you in Rome.''13 "If," as Garcla-Mateo notes, "one reflects that the stay in Manresa was the most decisive time in Ignatius's spiritual development, then the role of these women is very sig-nificant." 14 Though Ignatius was schooled in matters of faith, he saw the need for more education in faith and learning. From 1523 to 1538 he studied in Barcelona, Alcalfi, Salamanca, Paris, and Venice. In Barcelona, Ignatius's vision attracted women of the upper class. He instructed them in the Exercises, and they helped him minister to the poor and sick.15 Estefania de Reques6ns, Guiomar Gralla, and the gifted Isabel de Josa all revered him as an apostle.16 In Alcalfi Ignatius met some fifty women of the lower class. He shared his conversion story and gave them the Exercises. Ignatius found himself suspected of being an alumbrado, an "enlightened" one.17 Townspeople gossiped. When two Ifiigas disappeared, the gossip intensified, and he was imprisoned. Sometime later Maria de la Flor, a prostitute, made the Exercises. Desirous of retreating to the desert like St. Mary of Egypt,18 she remarked that Ignatius was Review for Religious the first man who did not regard her as an object.19 These women defended him at his trial. In Salamanca it was the same pattern: giving the Exercises, ministry, suspi-cion, interrogation, and imprisonment by inquisitors. Ignatius and his Society-in-the-making continued studies in Paris and Venice. Financial need pressed him once again to request help from ladies in Barcelona. They sent him and his companions the equivalent of "care packages," which helped sustain them during their studies.2° In Rome Ignatius created a new apostolate where women could help other women.21 For prostitutes decid-ing to reform their lives, the convent had been their only option. Yet many felt no attrac-tion to the cloister. And so in 1543 Ignatius, after receiving financial support, mostly from his loyal women friends, and with ecclesiastical backing, founded St. Martha's, a house for endangered girls. Isabel Roser, widowed and childless, took up a leadership position and lived there with two companions. Under Cardinal Carpi's patronage, they formed La Compagnia della Grazia. The car-dinal asked the Society to under-take the temporary spiritual direction of the institution.22 Other wealthy laywomen joined in the work at St. Martha's: Lucrezia de Bradine, Juana de Arag6n, Margaret of Austria, and Leonor Osorio, who took sixteen young prostitutes into her household and procured marriage dowries for them.23 The work of St. Martha's flourished and became a model for foundations in Messina, Valencia, other cities. At the end of 1543, nearly one hundred women were seeking a new life at St. Martha's)4 The townspeople called Ignatius "the sack man"; the women were known as "I£igas," followers of I£igo. 41 62. I 200~? Roccasalvo ¯ Ignatian Women Past and Future Women responded with munificence to the end of Ignatius's life. The Society's most generous donors were Faustina de' Jancolini, who bequeathed her house and lands to Ignatius,. and Donna Maria Frassoni del Gesso, who gave 70,000 gold scudi for the construction of the Jesuit church and college in Ferrara. Without their help Ignatius could not have expanded the Society's apostolate. These generous women became known as "the most lov-ing mother(s) of the Society of Jesus."25 Women Seek Admission into the Order: 1545-1552 It was only a matter of time before several apostoli-cally minded women, married or widowed, sought admis-sion into the young Society of Jesus. Their request seemed logical. Ignatius had given them the Exercises; they participated in apostolic works and had given their estates or large sums of money to the order. Now they wanted to enter the Society. They too would be engaged in an itinerant ministry--or so they thought. In 1545 Isabel Roser and her two companions asked to be admit-ted into the Society. She appealed to Paul Ill and received his permission. Ignatius then received their vows.26 A female branch of the Society was temporarily established, but, when Isabel embroiled Ignatius in family squabbles, he sought papal intervention.27 Licet debitum, promul-gated in 1549, freed the Society from any permanent responsibility for women. It reinforced the Jesuit promise of mobility and granted the general of the Society per-mission to send members "to teach theology and all. dis-ciplines 'anywhere.'''28 Still, to avoid inflexibility, Ignatius permitted his men to hear the confessions of nuns on occasion, but Jesuits were forbidden to serve as their res-ident chaplains or regular confessors. Jesuits were sometimes asked to help in the reformof convents and monasteries, a priority of the Catholic Review for Religious Reformation. Sister Teresa Rajadell, a Benedictine nun, and others sought admission into the Society because of corrupt conditions in monasteries. Of the four letters Ignatius wrote ~to Sister Teresa, the first remains a model of spiritual direction. Meanwhile other laywomen attempted to imitate Isabel Roser's initiative: Francis B0rgia's sisters-in-law Juana de Meneses Barreto and the wealthy Sebastiana Exarch, who without her husband's knowledge was ready to make a vow of obedience to her confessor after completing the Exercises. Sebastiana's letter reached Ignatius in the middle of his difficulties with Isabel Roser. The letter is significant because, in a con-versation with Jesuit Father Araoz, the bishop of Barcelona "criticized the pastoral meth-ods of the Jesuits, especially in that they gave women the Spiritual Exercises to perform 'in profound secrecy and silence' after the manner of the suspect Mumbrados." Juana de Cardona was willing to do anything to be received into the Society: i'epeat the Exercises, divest her-self of revenues, relatives, and friends, and serve in the Society by pledging herself as a pilgrim and missionary-- she would obey "even unto death.''29 The willful Jeronima Pezzani took a vow of obedi-ence to Ignatius without telling him first. With her large donations and her rule and constitutions, she planned on helping the Society set up colleges in Parma and Cremona. She and her companions hoped to transform the House of St. Martha into a convent of "Jesuitesses." 30 Ignatius's refusal to accept women into the order was not because of an enmity toward them, but because of the circumstances of the time. 62. I 2003 Roccasalvo * lgnatian Women Past and Future "It needs to be Understood," writes Garcia-Mateo, "that Ignatius's refusal to accept women into the order was not because of an enmity toward them, but because of the circumstances of the time.''31 He remained unbudgeable in all cases but one. Infanta Juana, Regent of Spain In 1555, by way of exception, Princess Juana, daugh-ter of Charles V and sister of Philip II, pressured her way into the Society through the influence of Francis Borgia. Because of internal hostility to the Society, any denial of her request might jeopardize their work in Spain. To ensure their apostolic freedom, Ignatius bowed to her wishes, but a discreet letter to her betrayed his reluc-tance. As "Marco Sfinchez," her membership was to be kept a strict secret in the Society. Juana's courtly way of life remained unchanged. Her apostolic availability was limited, but she did what was possible in her double life. As her own superior, she safeguarded and advanced Jesuit works. She took first vows as a scholastic, but never became a fully professed member of the Society. On the one hand, Juana used her power to help the Society defend itself against the attacks of some churchmen. She gave a large amount for the founding of a college at Valladolid and wrote a letter to support the foundation in Louvain. On the other hand, she caused anxiety when "murmurs began to arise in Spain, and especially in court circles, against the 'Jesuit government'., and against 'Jesuitical practices' in her 'palatial convent.'" In 1573 the anomalous lady Jesuit died, outliving Ignatius by sev-enteen years. "The experiment was never repeated," notes John O'Malley.32 Ignatian Women: Role Models for the Future The remarkable deeds of the Ifiigas prompted Ignatius to favor the establishment of a company of Review for Religious women that with missionary mobility could devote itself entirely to apostolic work.33 This vision would be realized beginning in the mid 17th century. An Ignatian institute may be distinguished in four ways: "through reliance on Ignatian texts in the formulation of their own constitu-tion, through influence by individual Jesuits, by model-ing certain works or structures on those of the Society of Jesus, and by inspiration drawn from Ignatian Christological and apostolic visions.''34 Among these groups are the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (IBVM), the Sisters of St. Joseph(csJ/ssJ), the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (RSCJ), and the Faithful Companions of Jesus (FCJ).3s A short summary about each is offered here. Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary: 17th Century In 1612 Mary Ward, a precocious woman not yet thirty years old, gained official approval from the Franciscan James Blaise, bishop of St. Omer, to form the Institute of Mary, modeled on the Society's way of life. Hearing in prayer the words "Take the same of the Society," she understood them to mean take Jesuit ideas and practices "insofar as they are applicable to women." Apostolically mobile, her sisters wore no distinctive garb. In 1629 Mary's brave vision resulted in a brief impris-onment and the suppression of the institute. Isolated Jesuits like Roger Lee and John Gerard supported her enterprise, but, because her institute resembled the Society, it encountered opposition from Jesuits them-selves and from seminary priests who resented the new institute's freedom. Though it claimed no dependence on the Jesuits,. its members were labeled "Jesuitesses" and Rogerites.36 Despite the bishop's public support, the Holy See intervened. In 1630 "Urban VIII signed the bull of sup-pression [declaring the institute] 'suppressed, extinct4,5 62.1 2003 Roccasalvo * Ignatian Women Past and Future rooted out, destroyed, and abolished.'" In 1877 the insti-tute was officially approved as the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It professes: "Inspired by Mary Ward's vision, we will claim more passionately and live more radically our Ignatian spirituality and share it more widely with those among whom we live and work." 37 The Sisters of St. Joseph: 17th Century In 1650 six apostolically minded women, guided by the French Jesuit Jean-Pierre Mddaille (+1669), were officially recognized as the Daughters of St. Joseph. These women ministered to others outside the cloister without religious habit, but wearing a distinctive attire-- that of the widows of Le Puy.38 Like the Jesuits, the Sisters of St. Joseph embraced a wide ministry: "ready for everything, available for all.''39 An institute parallel-ing the Society's apostolic mobility, envisioned by Ignatius, was at last established for women. The charism of the Sisters of St. Joseph is embodied in their consensus statement referring to "an Ignatian- Salesian climate.''4° Father M~daille gave the first Sisters of St. Joseph theSpiritual Exercises in the form of max-ims or proverbs, a 17th-century genre. The Exercises are their matrix and inspiration. The Maxims depend on the Exercises for their internal structure. St. Francis de Sales "lived under Jesuit direction from his school days onward, he made the Spiritual Exercises annually, and he took as his apostolic model the life and work of.St. Charles Borromeo.''41 The Introduction to the Devout Life emerges from the schema and content of the Exercises, with many passages paraphrased avec douceur from the Exercises. The Society of the Sacred Heart: 19th Century In 1800 St. Madeleine Sophie Barat (+1865) founded the Society of the Sacred Heart. Madeleine Sophie's intent was to begin a company of women parallel to the Review for Religious then suppressed Society of Jesus whose work would be to revitalize Christian life in France. Her motto was "unity and conformity to the Heart of Jesus." The constitu-tions, based on those of the Jesuits, were approved by Leo XII in .1826.42 The Society of the Sacred Heart resembled the Jes-uits, stressing the rigorous spiritual and intellectual training of its nuns. With its coherent plan of studies especially in the humanities, its interna-tional network of schools educated young women worldwide. In 1818 St. Philippine Duchesne made a foundation in the United States. In 1964 the Religious of the Sacred Heart removed their rule of cloister. ¯ In 1820 the Faithful Companions of Jesus (FCJ) were founded in Amiens, France, byMarie Madeleine de Bonnault de d'Hoiiet. Impressed by the Society of Jesus, she founded an institute bearing the Holy Name and following the Jesuit constitutions. An international con-gregation, they profess: "In the Exercises we contem-plate the life of Jesus, coming into personal contact with him and interiorizing his attitudes and values.''43 The Society of the Sacred Heart resembled the Jesuits, stressing the rigorous spiritual and intellectual training of its nuns. Catherine the Great and the Society of Jesus The suppression of the Society of Jesus (1773-1814) was affected by the three-power partition of Poland .in 1772. The papal bull of suppression was not promul-gated in the part that had come under the rule of Russia's Catherine the Great. She valued the educational work of the two hundred Jesuits living there and permitted them to teach in what was called White Russia. By the Roccasalvo ¯ Ignatian Women Past and Future time of the Society's restoration in 1814, their numbers had increased to 337.44 How women advanced the Society's apostolic mission during the suppression is a rich topic for research. Catherine was no Ignatian woman, but she kept the Society's flame burning during a dark night in its history. Issues of Religious Life Perfectae caritatis mandated that religious live more in line with the modern world. The universal call to holi-ness proclaimed anew by Lumen gentium (§§3 3, 40) urged the laity to engage in "the saving mission of the church itself." A recent document on religious life says, "If. the thii'd millennium will be the time of promotion of the laity, of associations, and of ecclesial movements, we can rightfully ask, What place will be reserved for the traditional forms of consecrated life?''45 Perfectae caritatis does not clearly differentiate reli-gious life from the lay state, as sociologist Patricia Wittberg SC reminds us.46 Lumen gentium and Perfectae caritatis declare a distinction of degree, though not of kind.47 Experience tells us that religious do belong to a distinct category, as we shall see.48 Prophetic Witness Religious life is "mainly the fruit of the free and dynamic action of the Spirit in the church; it is a charis-matic way of life" existing since the early centuries of the church. If religious life is marked by its prophetic witness, its characteristic sign is the vow of consecrated celibacy. It accepts God's gift of friendship and "is best disposed for the development of a life of prayer and con-templation." 49 Consecrated celibacy is an attitude and a fundamen-tal choice affecting a person's entire life. One's center of affectivity is Christ himself, whose love is centered Review for Religious totally on his Father. His love embraces all. So with con-secrated celibacy. No other person may substitute for Christ at the center of one's heart. Because this vow touches every aspect of one's experience, it involves "a certain affective renunciation and a solitude of the heart which form part of the cross offered [to them] by Christ.''5° Supported by community friendships, the love of consecrated chastity excludes no one. Companionship in Christ frees celibate women and men for service to others without the demands of close family ties. The world is their family. Solitude and strong friendships, contemplation and action, are dynamically balanced. Religious women and men stand as external signs of God's presence and activity in the world. In a secularized environment their prophetic witness focuses not on themselves but beyond themselves, on Christian values and ultimately on God. Religious life is the Spirit's great gift of love to the church. Particular Charisms When consecrated persons are attracted to a partic-ular vision of Christ's paschal mystery given to a founder or a small group, they will assume that same vision,s~ A charism begins with an unmerited religious experience of depth and intensity by which God singles out an individual and touches that person with an unforgettable experience of love in Which he or she is given a special vision of the Divine Majesty. The mode of receiving the charism is shaped by the person's historical and cultural conditioning as well as by his or her temperament, human gifts, and limitations, all of which Christians recognize as the effects of God's active love in history,s2 The charisms of the Benedictines, Dominicans, 62.1 2003 Franciscans, and Jesuits define who they are. Each order was founded by a person to address a specific need and mission at a specific time in the church. The Jesuits expanded their apostolic focus to include the whole world for their mission. Like the call of .Christ to his disciples, orders attract followers to their founder's way of life and to their graced activities, the attraction often preceding knowledge of the founder's name. But sooner or later the various orders must elicit each candidate's deep-down commitment. Each order, like a perfume, gives off a uniquely identifying, fragrance: A whiff of Benedictine spirituality is detected the moment you step. into the interior of an abbey church. After.weeks, a chemical reac-tion occurs between monastic life and .the human spirit. You discern the Benedictine heart notes: a blend of chant, Liturgy of the Hours, lectio divina, work in the fields. Silence and solitude are the fixatives lending constancy. Then there's the interplay with a monk's chemistry. Differences exist for those wearing the perfume as a signature. Yet you recognize the underlying Benedictine fra-grance . The nuns at an abbey in New England make a perfume from flowers in their pine forest. It's called Attar of Peace. It ¯ summons up the grounds and even the com-munity. The scent has made the place its own; spirituality can be embodied in a fra-grance, s3 Wittherg notes that today we see the opposite in practice: "The members of most congregations now have widely diverse interpretations of their community's charism, as well as varying degrees of commitment to it."s4 Let us take a closer look. Review for Religious Religious Institutes from Past to Present The Tridendne reforms of the 16th century held fast until the early 1960s. With the advent of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the manner in which women lived religious life changed significantly. Today traditional religious institutes in the West either are in chaos or are dying." In the United States there are more than one hundred sixty secular institutes, a nontradi-tional form of consecrated life. Most religious vocations now come from India and East Asia. In Creating a Future for Religious Life, Wittberg remarks that the decline in vocations in the West is not "an ongoing religious crisis," but part of the life-death rhythm of creation, from which religious institutes are not exempt: "A recurring pattern of foundation, expansion, stabilization, and breakdown has developed time and again throughout history of Western Christianity, in intervals of two hundred fifty to three hundred fifty years." In the late 1960s Ladislas ~)rsy SJ anticipated Wittberg's observation: [Consecrated religious life] rejoiced in peri-ods of splendor, and it suffered the bitter expe-rience of decline--yet it never died. After each crisis it recovered and manifested signs of internal strength. It showed also a remarkable capacity to adapt to the needs of every age; it was continually enriched with new, external forms,s6 If birth-and-death is a natural pattern, why not allow communities to die a peaceful death? Because not all institutions die because of external reasons. Several met their demise because of internal causes: deconstruction of their charism, laxity and moral decadence, fashion-able spiritualities and divisiveness,s7 The aggiornamento called for by Pe. rfectae caritatis began in a grim context. By the early 1960s religious women were too removed from the modern world. After 62.1 200t Roccasalvo ¯ Ignatian Women Past and Future their daily apostolic work, sisters would return to a vir-tual enclosure where physical presence, equated with community life, took precedence over the apostolate. Detailed rules regarding the minutiae of daily life cramped their spirits. Superiors wielded power that often impeded psychological maturity and the development of talents. Even minimal contact with the outside world Was closely monitored and discouraged. This rigidity contradicted the ministry for which these institutes were founded,s8 Most communities anticipated reform and responded at once. Others moved at a slower pace or on a superfi-cial level. Some institutes were successful at rediscover-ing or revitalizing their shared vision. Today, for example, the Benedictine nuns of Today Ignatian institutes pursue their charism with varying degrees of intentionality. Regina Laudis Monastery in Bethlehem, Connecticut, report a waiting list of candidates. Other institutes minimized, ignored, or altogether uprooted their charism. There may be a good reason for this. The charisms of women's congregations sometimes seem rather eclectic, unless the group is a female counterpart of a men's group such as the Benedictines. It is difficult for a group with a hybrid charism to discern its principal charism. Some groups seem not even to have one. When we speak of the schools of spirituality, many women's religious institutes do not fall into neat categories as the men's orders do. Some groups, however, with clear identities like the Ignatian, have removed elements that uniquely identified them as a particular institute and have added other elements. Today Ignatian institutes pursue their charism with vary-ing degrees of intentionality. Review for Religious Marketing experts tell us that "tampering with an identity--a brand, a restaurant, a cola, or any other con-sumer product--can be a perilous business.''59 Religious groups with a renewed sense of identity and mission appear to be in a strong position to survive. Those that have "tampered with" or discarded their identity are in peril. The Current Situation Since the 1960s, issues such as governance, ecclesi-astical poverty, obedience, and common life have under-gone change. Let us briefly examine the present-day resonances of this statement. Governance. Out of Vatican II emerged a collegial spirit. There it applied to bishops acting in union with the bishop of Rome, but this spirit has permeated the church. In nonepiscopal groups, it is more accurately referred to as coresponsibility or shared decision making. Centralized, hierarchical groups must find a way to incor-porate the collegial spirit. In decentralized communities, superiors have been vested with less authority, and they govern less if at all. For women, the past remains an open wound, but "everyone her own pope" leads to chaos. We have not yet realized a communion ecclesiology. Economics and Poverty. Every religious institute must support itself. The plunge in finances is a cause for con-cern even though religious are tax-exempt. Diocesan structures require sisters working in them to contribute their services. The local ordinary determines what small fixed stipend will be given to those working within his diocese. The stipend, falling below the poverty line, varies from diocese to diocese.6° Major superiors have tried unsuccessfully to remedy this long-standing abuse. With larger memberships, communities could manage their budgets on contributed services. This is no longer the case. 62.1 200~ Roccasalvo * Ignatian Women Past and Future Economics and Obedience.' Flexibility to choose one's ministry has brought its own problem. Today, in a com-petitive market, unemployment among religious is a stark. reality. If a position opens up, especially one paying a full salary, it is likely to be in a nondiocesan institution far from the local community. Though superiors gladly send a sister "in obedience," they have little choice but to do so; these sisters support themselves and sisters who receive no diocesan stipend. Economics and Community Life~ The employment sit-uation mentioned above has affected the traditional understanding of community life as an essential part of religious living, and so community life is on the wane. With greater personal freedom to choose their aposto-lates, sisters work not only in' different places but also on different schedules~ Common life, yes; community under one roof, no.61 Has maintenance displaced mis-sion as a community focus? Does economics drive the maintenance? Decline has set in. Numbers are plummeting. Attitudes formed over the years have hardened. Loss of judgment has followed, and a tendency to create a make-believe world under the cover of optimism. No large corporation or small business would permit losses with-out a realistic analysis of facts. Instead of facing and dis-cussing them with intellectual and emotional honesty, most religious are in denial. They continue glorifying a way of life that is fast ebbing away. Johannes Metz notes that loyalty "not infrequently takes on the lineaments of necrophilia: of shutting one-self up in dead patterns of life and behavior, patterns perhaps that have been worn to death in the power of the Spirit.''62 Years ago small institutes were the first casu-alties, and a few merged vcith larger ones. Today larger institutes are in jeopardy. Given this trend, by 2020 a handful of religious will remain as an endangered species. Review for Religious Young people are avoiding institutes in decline. Instead they seek ecclesial groups with "fiery vision." 63 Many applaud religious women for continued ser-vice to others, and praise is richly deserved. Sisters have worked hard all their lives without seeking or receiving recognition. They have educated men and women in leadership positions and have promoted vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Their contributions to almost every walk of life are considerable. Critics, how-ever, paint a picture of confusion, blurred identity, indi-vidualism, secularity, and irrelevance. Renewal through the Spiritual Exercises Holiness of life brings its own "fiery vision"; its radi-ance attracts others to God. Today, in a wasteland of secularity, reform will not be realized from external pres-sure. Religious must vigorously pursue inner conver-sion. For four hundred and fifty years, the Spiritual Exercises have stood as an instrument of interior trans-formation. They changed the religious contours of chaotic 16th-century Europe. Today, even with com-peting syncretic aids, they continue renewing the church among lay ecclesial groups.64 Ignatian women can build up the world by living this "fiery vision" and, without dilution, handing it on to others longing for meaning in life. In this school of prayer, one intensely desires con-version of heart. This book for "exercising" brings the whole person into the cosmic Christ. It requires prayer-ful activity of the whole person: body, mind, spirit, imag-ination, memory, and the subconscious. This "retreat" of solitary prayer becomes active service of neighbor. The exercitant assumes the mind of Christ, "for Christ plays in ten thousand places, / Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his, / To the Father through the features of men's faces." 65 62.1 200~ The Exercises for a New Millennium In a post-9/1 1 world, we face a new world situation. In the past the Exercises, with their theocentric world-view that includes spiritual humanism, have attracted non-Christians as well as Christians.66 Jews and Muslims, for example, without compromising their beliefs, have benefited from them. The goal is not conversion but a more devout practice of one's faith, more attuned to global harmony.67 Discernment calls Ignatian women to regard others with love, seeking unity in all things. The Trinity and the incarnation, the two fundamen-tal dogmas of Christianity, permeate the Exercises. Our Trinitarian God, archetype of unity and diversity, "is one, good, true, and beautiful because [God] is essen-tially Love, and Love supposes the one, the other, and their unity.''6s In the incarnation God condescended to flesh to raise women and men to God. Created in God's image, all are called to the divine likeness. The Johannine Gospel impels us to live within the Trinity, who lives in all creation. Christ's humanity presses us to respect and reverence those whose beliefs differ from ours. The incarnation links us to one another in a global village. Interacting with other great religions, wherein the Spirit breathes, will advance the oneness for which Jesus prayed. Ignatian women, indeed all in the church, must be fully catholic to be fully Catholic. The Exercises for Ignatian Women Religious For Ignatian women religious at the start of this mil-lennium, more is asked of our consecrated life. Drawing its meaning from the Trinity, celibacy is to be valued and embraced as affectivity. The Trinity's inner love is the model of that love which God offers us throughout our lives. When the motive for pleasing others is love, affa-bility and good manners are assured. Circumstances call us to a lifestyle of frugality. As stewards of Mother Earth, Review for Religious we must train ourselves to think, feel, and act with greater vigilance over God's sacramental world. Envisioning a new attitude toward personal freedom, coresponsibility, and communion, ecclesiology places the Trinity at the heart of governance. These reflections do not guarantee that institutes will attract new members at once, but the future will bear fruit if we plant strong seeds now. Ignatian religious women are called to share this "fiery vision" with others--noblesse oblige. The Exercises encompass three other graces which Ignatius received at Manresa. God's cosmos is indeed "charged with the grandeur of God.''69 In the Eucharist, Christ offers himself to his Father, and he nourishes us, his Body. Our service must be actu-alized in our becoming what we have received. Neither mere activism nor pragmatic service, it is faith expressed as love.7° The Exercises embody tides quaerens intellectum, faith seek-ing underst~inding, valuing and developing our gifts. Commitment to faith and learning sharpens our sense of justice and our other sensibilities. For Ignatian women religious at the start of this millennium, more is asked of our consecrated life. The Magis from Ignatian Women Religious Reform will not necessarily guarantee the survival of our various institutes. Perfectae caritatis (§ 19) spoke of the possibility of establishing new communities, cau-tioning the need for discernment regarding their "use-fulness" and promising future. Challenging women religious to begin their own institutes, Wittberg says: Find a vision which consumes and vitalizes you, one which you are willing to die for--and to live the rest of your life for. Start the jour- 57 62.1 2003 Ro~casalvo ¯ Ignatian Women Past and Future ney. Don't wait until fifty, or twenty, or even ten people are ready to go with you . Start the journey alone, if need be, and then invite others to come along . Expect to fail ~everal times. Expect to lose your way. Learn from your mistakes and try again. That is what founders, and refounders, do. That is the cru-cifixion, the "Passover," to which they are called. The resurrection, we know by faith, will also occurfl1 A bold challenge, indeed. One leaves her institute to found another only at the prompting of the good Spirit. Still, it is well to recall that, without separation from the Benedictines, there would have been no Bernard of Clairvaux, the Cistercians, or Thomas Merton. Without separation from the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, there would be no Mother Teresa, 'no Missionary Sisters of Charity caring for the most destitute of the dying. Women are endowed with the gift of building a cul-ture of love founded on love. How muchmore religious 'women who follow the Ignatian way! Their "fiery vision," emerging from the Exercises, sees the impossi-ble as possible--as imaginative, practical, an'd prophetic. The Spirit will lead our discerning hearts to build the future "all ablaze with God springing up everywhere.''72 Notes ' Rogelio Garcfa-Mateo, "Ignatius of Loyola and Women," Theology Digest 45, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 32.'In this article I men-tion only a few of the women who helped Ignatius. 2 I thank Fathers Ladislas ~rsy sJ and Brian O'Leary SJ, Sisters Judith Roemer, Marion Honors CSJ, and Maria Pascuzzi CSJ, and my brother for their insights and encouragement to write this article. 3 The deaconess St. Macrina (d. 380) founded the Basilian order with her brother St. Basil. They wrote the Rule for nuns and monks. She founded an orphanage for girls, ~he first of its kind. St. Olympias (d. 408), deaconess and friend of St. John Chrysostom, distributed Review for Religious her vast fortune to the poor and rallied to his defense when he was illegally deposed. This led to her own exile. 4james Brodrick SJ, St. Ignatius Loyola: The Pilgrim Years, 1491- IY38 (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, 1956), p. 86. 5 The Autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola, trans. Joseph E O'Callaghan, ed. John C. Olin (New York: Fordham University Press, [1974] 1992), pp. 36-40. 6 Thomas M. Lucas sJ, "The Saint, the Site, and the Sacred Strategy: Ignatius, Rome, and the Urban Mission," in Saint, Site, and Sacred Strategy (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1990), p. 20. 7 Garcfa-Mateo, "Ignatius and Women," p. 29. 8 Hugo Rahner SJ, Saint Ignatius Loyola: Letters to Women, (Freiburg: Herder / London: Nelson, 1960), pp. 4-10. 9 H. Rahner, .Letters, .p. 265. '°Jos~ Ignacio Tellechea Idfgoras, Ignatius of Loyola: The Pilgrim Saint (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1994), pp. 180-181. 1, H. Rahner, Letters, pp. 10, 252. 12 Garcfa-Mateo, "Ignatius and Women," p. 29. 13 John W. O'Malley sJ, The First Jesuits (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 34. 14 Garcia-Mateo, "Ignatius and Women," p. 29. 15 See n. 14. ,6 H. Rahner, Letters, pp. 10, 296-297. ,7 Brian O'Leary SJ, "Foundational Values in the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius," Milltown Studies (Spring 1994): 7-9. 18 H. Rahner, Letters, p. 11. Mary of Egypt is considered an icon of repentance. ,9 Tellechea, Ignatius, p. 254. 20 H. Rahner, Letters, pp. 174-176 and PLATE XII facing p. 321; 181-182, 185, 192. 2, Garcia-Mateo, "Ignatius and Women," p. 30. 22 Ludwig Pastor, The History of the Popes, Vol. 12 (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1923), p. 42. 2~ O'Malley, First Jesuits, p. 180. 24 Pastor, Popes, Vol. 12, p. 43. 2~ H. Rahner, Letters, pp. 197, 209-211; consult all of Part 3, "Begging for the Kingdom of God," pp. 169-206. Also pp. 15,199, 211, 15. 62.1 2003 Roccasalvo * Ignatian Women Past and Future .60- 26 Garcfa-Mateo, "Ignatius and Women," p. 31. 27 H. Rahner, Letters, pp. 287-290. 2s O'Malley, First Jesuits, p. 201. 29 H. Rahner, Letters, pp. 340, 331-335, 126-128, 303,310. 30 H. Rahner, Letters, 318-319, 323. 3~ Garcia-Mateo, "Ignatius and Women," p. 32. For Ignatius's responses to these women's petitions to enter the Society, see H. Rahner, Letters, pp. 260, 308, 318, 323. 32 H. Rahner, Letters, pp. 52-67, 56-59, 59, 60, 59. O'Malley, First Jesuits, p. 76. 33 H. Rahne~:, Letters, pp. 251,260. 34 Mary Milligan,. "What Is an 'Ignatian Congregation'?" Way Supplement 70 (Spring 1991): 41-50. 35 Included as well are the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary (RSHM), the Religious of the Cenacle (RC), the Religious of Jesus and Mary (RJM), the Society of the Holy Child Jesus (SHCJ). 36 M. Emmanuel Orchard, Till God I/Viii (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1985), p. 29, nn. 17 and 33, and pp. 49-50. Also M.P. Trauth, "Ward, Mary," New Catholic Encyclopedia. 37 Orchard, Till God Will, p. 102. William V. Bangert SJ, A History of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1972), p. 146. See . 38 M~daille Committee, "The Spirituality of Jean-Pierre M~daille" (New Orleans, 1967), pp. 2-3. 39 Tellechea, Ignatius, p. 413. ~o Constitution of the Sisters of St. Joseph (Brentwood, N.Y., 2000), p. 9. 41 Elizabeth Stopp, "Francois de Sales," in The Study of Spirituality, ed. Cheslyn Jones et al. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 381. 42 See , p. 6. 43 See "Our Spi;'it," ._ 44J.E Broderick SJ, "Jesuits," New Catbolic Encydopedia. 45 "Starting Afresh.from Christ: A Renewed Commitment to Consecrated Life in the Third Millennium," Origins 32, no. 8 (4 July 2002), §12. 46 Patricia Wittberg SC, The Rise and Fall of Catholic Religious Orders: A Social Movement Perspective (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), p. 232. Review for Religious 47 In Lumen gentium a religious is "more intimately consecrated to divine service. This consecration gains in perfection since by virtue of firmer and steadier bonds, it serves as a better symbol of the unbreakable link between Christ and his spouse, the church" (§44). Perfectae caritatis states that religious follow Christ "more freely and imitate him more nearly. Hence, the more ardently they unite themselves to Christ through a self-surrender.involving their entire lives, the more vigorous becomes the .life of the church and the more abundantly her apostolate bears fruit" (§1). Emphasis added. 48 Sandra M. Schneiders IHM, Finding the Treasure (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2000), p. 128. 49 Ladislas M. 0rsy sJ, Open to the Spirit (Washington-Cleveland: Corpus Books, 1968), pp. 17, 21, 25. 5o Our Jesuit Life (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1990), p. 94. s, Joseph de Guibert sJ, The Jesuits: Their Spiritual Doctrine and Practice (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1986), p. 2. 52 John C. Futrell SJ, "Discovering the Founder's Charism," Way Supplement (Autumn 1971): 63. s3 Joseph Roccasalvo, The Odor of Sanctity (USA: Xlibris, 2000), pp. 106-107. s4 Patricia Wittberg SC, Creating a Future for Religious Life (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1991), p. 138 and n. 4: "In some congre-gations, this pluralism has become so great that it is difficult to see what remains in common in any vital sense. Members have some vague sense of belonging to a group. This sense of belonging is usu-ally sustained by a vague ethos or spirit, by memories of a shared his-tory, by a sense of responsibility for the elderly members, and by personal relationships with those who are coworkers, coinhabitants, or like-minded allies. But belonging is not the same as commitment." Mary Jo Leddy, "Beyond the Liberal Model," Way Supplement 65 (Summer 1989): 46. 55 "Starting Afresh from Christ," pp. 130-147. ~6 ~rsy, Open to the Spirit, p. 13. ~7 Wittberg, Rise andFall, pp. 186-188, 41, Table 2.1, and 184ff, Table 10.1. 5s Male religious orders would not have tolerated these structures. s9 Eric Asimov, "When Makeovers Go Awry," New York Times (31 July 2002). The famous Russian Tea Room in New York City recently closed because its new owner "tampered" with its tradi-tional identity. One can only imagine the outrage of sports fans if the 61 62.1 2003 Roccasalvo ¯ Ignatian Women Past and Future New York Yankees were to tamper with their logo designed by Tiffany. 60 Before 1940, religious brothers working in the same diocese received more than twice as much as the sisters. Wittberg, Rise and Fall, p. 52. 61 Common life may refer to all members living under one roof or contributing to a common fund for the common good. It means that common rituals are observed as well, more easily observed in monastic than in apostolic communities. 62 Johannes Metz, Followers of Christ: The Religious Life and the Church (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1978), p. 20. 63 A phrase used by Evelyn Woodward in P~ets, Prophets, and Pragmatists (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1987), p. 51. 64 This dry manual has been published some 4,500 times over the course of four hundred years. 65 "As kingfishers catch fire" by Gerard Manley Hopkins. 66 O'Leary, "Foundational Values," pp. 5-13. 67 Ronald Modras, "The Spiritual Humanism of the Jesuits," America (4 February 1995): 10. 6s Hans Urs yon Balthasar, "A Rdsum~ of My Thought," in Hans Urs yon Balthasar: His Life and Work, ed. David L. Schindler (San Francisco: Communio Books and Ignatius Press, 1991), p. 4. 69 "God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins. 70 O'Leary, "Foundational Values," p. 19. 7, Patricia Wittberg SC, Pathways to Re-Creating Religious Communities (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1996), pp. 199-201. 72 Pierre Teilhard de Cha~din SJ, Letters to L~ontine Zanta (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 41. Review for Religious A. PAUL DOMINIC Learning from Jesus, the Son of Man All Christians know Jesus as the Son of God, and rightly so. But he never referred to himself by that rifle, except once (according to the synoptic Gospels), when the high priest asked him before the Sanhedrin, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?" and he replied, "I am" (Mk 14:61-62). But often (eighty-one times in the Gospels) he spoke of himself as .the Son of man.1 In fact, even on the above occasion of affirming his Sonship of God, he went on to clarify.at once, "And you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of the Power." Reclaiming Jesus as the Son of Man In expressing their faith in Jesus, the early Christians called him Lord (also my Lord, our Lord, and Lord of the universe), Emmanuel, Savior, and the like, all expressions suggestive of his divinity. But never once did they name him A. Paul Dominic SJ last wrote for us in our issue of November-December 2001. His address is c/o Missionaries of the Poor; Fatima Nagar; Warangal 506 004; India. Dominic ¯ Learningfrom ~esus, the Son of Man the Son of man, with the notable exception found on the lips of Stephen (Ac 7:56). If, thus, no primitive creedal statements contain any reference to him as the Son of man, that need not deter us from Jesus' preferred way of speaking about himself. It is intriguing, too, that, on a rare occasion when he was drawing someone to believe in him, he asked him, according to the witness of John, "Do you believe in the Son of man?" On 9:35).2 So why not look at Jesus as the Son of man and learn from him what ways mark him out as the Son of man? So far, so good. But what is or can be understood by the Aramaic terminology the Son of man? It is surely one of the most discussed questions, with almost as ma. ny opinions as there are scholars. At the same time, it is one of the most important questions, as Milan Machovec says, "in considering the person and influence of the Master from Galilee.''3 Whatever the Marxist author's reason for saying so, there is truth in what he says, if only because the favorite self-designation of Jesus was the Son of man. The Meanings of"the Son of Man" As we seek to understand what Jesus meant by "the Son of man," we should remind ourselves that as a rule he did not indulge in cliches and fads nor as a rule confuse and confound people, but communicated himself to them in transparent, if teasing and provocative, ways. Further, from the many studies made on the subject, we may throw some light on the matter. Primarily, the expression Son of man was not a title, but a modest reserved way of referring to oneself in Galilee's Aramaic idiom. So, when Jesus used the choice phrase, .he was not drawing attention to himself, much less thrusting or projecting himself proudly, but presenting himself humbly.4 A much older use of the phrase, carried over from the Old to the New Testament, was simply as a synonym of Review for Religious "man" or "human being," without any special emphasis (Ps 80:17). Depending on the context, however, there could be an emphasis laid on human nature as nobler than subhuman, on the one hand (compare Dn 7:3-7 and 17-26 with 7:13), or of course as infinitely lower than the divine, on the other (Ez 2:1). Another element of emphasis could be that the speaker conceived of himself (I guess the expression was used only by men) not apart from but part of humanity. Far from being a stranger to humanity, he was part and parcel of it, owning himself a member of all humanity. Its usage was obviously comparable to that of the other expression "sons of the world" (Lk 16:8),5 which meant, of course, belonging to the world. Similarly, therefore, "the son of man." meant one who belonged to the world of humans. Jesus' Characterization as the Son of Man All this made sense in relation to the person of Jesus, as already mentioned. So, when he characterized himself as the Son of man, he was not passing himself off as something higher than others. Whatever else he was, he was still a man, pure and simple, and so like any other human being, as the early Christians believed (Ph 2:7). Besides all this, Jesus could have had something more in mindl He was not just resigned to, or even simply content with, his human status. He was appreciative of, and even intent on, something greater in the experience of being human. Keeping in mind the Gospels' emphasis on Jesus' use of the term "Son of man" and on the dignity of the individual human ("man as man") and of all humanity, Albert Nolan submits "that Jesus' frequent and emphatic use of the term 'Son of man' was his way of referring to, and identifying himself with, man as man.''6 Here is a nuanced insight that could be missed. Unlike others, Jesus used the term "Son of man" not by way of 62.1 2003 Dominic ¯ Learning from Jesus, the Son of Man Jesus used the term "Son of man" not by way of habit, but with a conscious intent. habit, but with a conscious intent. It was a way of expressing his vision of humanity, experienced in himself in solidarity with others. Whatever else he claimed to be, it was not apart from being a "son of man" among the likes of him. In other words, being a man, he could not but assodate himself with every social segment, making no discrimination whatever among human beings based on sex or status or religious sanction or what have you. What were the implications of this identification that Jesus made with others in the bosom of his religious tradition? Unlike the others, he not only inherited this religious outlook handed down by the ancients, but he consciously incorporated it and indeed incarnated it. He knew that being human, denoted by the term "son of man," embraced two opposite experiences. On the one hand, "son of man" implied and connoted that human life is short-lived like the grass (Is 51:12) or, like the worm, lowly and vulnerable (Jb 25:6). The " phrase "Son of man" showed that before God human stature cannot be anything but small (Ps 11:4). It showed that human creatures as such are mortal, terribly mortal (Ps 90:3, Ez 2:1), and thus no more significant than a dying breath or fleeting shadow (Ps 144:4). It emphasized that every human being is caught up in sin (Ps 14:2-3). On the other hand, besides and beyond all this, there was a transcendent sense to the religious term "son of man." It suggested and revealed that every "son of man" is an object of Providence (PS 107:8), something for divine wisdom to find delight in (Pr 8:31)," a crown of creation by divine plan, and even a partner with God (Ps 8:5-8). Before God, then, every Review for Religious human person is both nothing and, strangely enough, all blessing. It was with this manifold tensive human reality that Jesus identified himself. He was at home with this holistic vision of humanity; his lifetime was of a piece with it. Becoming Like the Son of Man Being the Son of man, and preeminently that, Jesus wanted others, too, to claim and share the same privilege that God envisioned for humanity. In this light some of his sayings lend themselves to a new interpretation. "Thus," Nolan remarks, "to say that 'the son of man is master even of the sabbath' is to say that 'the sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath' (Mk 2:27-28). To say that 'the son of man has power on earth to forgive sins' is to praise 'God for giving such power to men' (Mr 9:6, 8). To say that 'the foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head' could mean that, whereas the Herods (foxes) and the Romans (birds) have a place in the present society, man as man has no place yet."7 Such an outlook offers the inspiration for all humans to attain the true glory destined for them by God, despite their own acute sense of infdriority and insignificance. It echoes in practical terms what the mystical psalmist joyously discerned: "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in.place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet" (Ps 8:3-8, N1V). Even though Jesus, believing this and acting on it, realized its truth in his life and invited others to do the same, people hesitate to conceive of themselves in this light. It is to such people that a sacred author quotes the67 62. I 2003 Dominic ¯ Learning from Jesus, the Son of Man above psalm and makes this assuring comment: "Now in subjecting all things to them God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them; but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor" (Heb 2:8-9). Let there be no mistake. The glorification of Jesus was not because of any angelic or royal nature he enjoyed, but because of his pure, radical human status in and through which, of course, his Abba God was at work. It was through becoming the lowly son of man, clothed in flesh, frailty, and fragility, that he became the glorious Son of man, thanks to his Abba God. Stephen was the first one in the biblical record to contemplate Jesus in this fashion. It was in this spirit, too, that the early Christians sang that, on the one hand, Jesus was "made in human likeness and [so] in his appearance found as a man" (Ph 2:7, CCB) and that, on the other hand, he was exalted in glory and given a name at which every knee must bend. rvVhat does. this all mean for us human beings, in whose image the Son appeared, though at the end he was seen in God's image? Are we not to follow, keeping our eyes on him who is the pioneer and perfecter, of our faith leading to glory (Heb 12:2)? And yet we hesitate to think of ourselves in these elevating terms, despite God's having predestined us all to be conformed to the image of his Son (Rm 8:29-30). The Way of Being Human Those of us who hesitate--and that is 99.9 percent of us--must face the truth, namely, that we hunger for honor and glory, but are not willing or concerned to be honored and glorified by the One from whom comes everything we have or could have. We have an all-tooo human tendency to seek the approval of others (Jn 5:44) or, what is worse, to smugly compare ourselves favorably Review for Religious with others. When we do not succeed in such maneuvers, we lament like the regretful psalmist: "Lord, let me know my end, and what is the measure of my days . You have made my days a few ha.ndbreadths, and my lifetime is .as nothing in your sight. Surely everyone stands as a breath. Surely everyone goes like a shadow .For I am your passing quest, an alien, like all my forebears. Turn your gaze away from me, that I may smile again, before I depart and am no more" (Ps 39:4-6 and 12-13). Or we resort to the opposite tactic, aggressiveness. We cover up our nothingness and by hook or crook seek to become a power to reckon with. When such efforts succeed, the social and political world is negatively affected, witness the stories of conquerors and empires. Such conquerors tend to show humanity at its worst. As pictured in the Book of Daniel, they are beasts that inflict violence on others and, inescapably, on themselves. They are the opposite of the "one like a son of man" who in the very presence of God receives divine fellowship, honor, and glory not only for himself but for everyone like himself (Dn 7:1-14). How true this is of Christ! Surely he is, as a pastoral commentary says, "the perfect human, and he bears the destiny of humanity," 8 and so in his glory will draw all to himself On 12:32). This will happen in growing measure as we become more like him, the Son of man, shedding increasingly our alien beasdy nature and becoming more It was through becoming the lowly son of man, clothed in flesh, frailty, and fragility, that he became the glorious Son of man, thanks to his Abba God. 62.1 2003 Dominic. ¯ Learning from Jesus, the Son of Man and more what we are and what we are meant to be, namely human. What Kahlil Gibran said of him rings true: "He came to send forth upon this earth a new spirit, with power to crumble the foundation of any monarchy built upon human bones and skulls . He came to demolish the majestic palaces, constructed upon the graves of the weak, and crush the idols, erected upon the bodies of the poor. He came to make the human heart a temple, and the soul an altar, and the mind a priest.''9 Peter could invite all Christians to Christ with these words: "Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and, like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood" (1 P 2:4-5). Doing this increasingly in our world, we will become the embodiment of Daniel's vision of the son of man, in union with Christ, the Son of man. To grow to the measure of his full stature--that is the call for Christians as individuals and as a community (Ep 4:13). 70 Notes t See the note on Mk 8:31 in The NIVStudy Bible, p. 1510. Unless 6therwise indicated, all biblical citations are from NRSV. 2 It is worthy of note that, though some ancient versions have "Son of God," the modern translations, such as N~$V and N'JB, have preferred the adoption of "Son of man," following other ancient" authorities. 3 Milan Machovec, .4 Marxist Looks at ]esus (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1976), p. 120. 4 Many would seem to agree on this point. For this and related points, see the short survey of opinions in The New ]erome Biblical Commentary, ed. R. E. Brown et al. (Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 1991), nn. 78:38-41, pp. 1324-1325. 5 If this is true, I wonder why it does not seem to receive mentibn among the scholars. 6 Albert Nolan, ~esus before Christianity (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1977), p. 119. Review for Religious 7 Nolan, Jesus before Christianity, p. 119. 8 See the explanation on Mk 8:27 in Christian Community Bible (Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 1990), p. 89. 9 Kahlil Gibran, Secrets of the Heart (New Delhi: UBSPD, 1943), p. 56. The Rendezvous On this red and rainwashed morning a cottonwool wispy cloud hangs over the hill as if to kiss the earth beside the waterfall and say: "I came to meet you here." On the driveway, as I walk, a cottontailed jackrabbit ventures close, so close that I can see the color of his eyes and catch his smile for me. He says: "I came to meet you here." At the gate, an oversized robinredbreast red as the freshened desert earth writes my name across the path in a twirl of song, as if to say: "I came to meet you here." In my heart I know that as I walk the morn the Risen One reiterates: "I came to meet you here." Mary T. O'Brien PBVM 7I 62.1 2003 DENNIS J. BILLY Perseverance: The Courage to Persist ~t~ T et us not grow weary of doing good; if we do not relax our efforts, in due time we shall reap our harvest" (Ga 6:9).1 These words of St. Paul show the importance of following Christ to the end, even in try-ing and difficult times. Perseverance, as we normally call it, is "to persist long in some undertaking until it is accomplished."2 All Christians are called to persevere in their vocations. For religious, this undertaking concerns Christian discipleship lived in a community dedicated to the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedi-ence. This should be their one, consuming lifetime pro-je

Issue 61.3 of the Review for Religious, 2002. ; Review for Religious helps people respond and be fait~hful to God?s universal call to holiness by making available tO them the spiritual legacies~ that flow from the charisms of Catholic consecrated life, Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ° St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP Mount St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2002 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for persQnal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. vie w for religious LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp James and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hensell OSB Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla sJ Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ MAY JUNE 2002 VOLUME 61 NUMBER 3 contents 23O spiritual growth Transformative Aspects of Spirituality George A. Maloney SJ emphasizes the need for us to rediscover the personal, interrelational, triune creator God and thereby find a spiritual renewal in our Christian practices of prayer and asceticism. 242 St. Alphonsus and Today's Spiritual Direction Dennis J. Billy CSSR examines St. Alphonsus's relevance as a "spiritual master" and identifies elements that people can use in their own practice of spiritual direction. 252 265 dialogue Louise de Marillac and Elizabeth Seton: Women of Spirit Anne Higgins DC and Betty Ann McNeil DC allow Louise de Marillac and Elizabeth Seton to speak out how their lives as wives, mothers, widows, and spiritual leaders model the life of the Spirit for contemporary women in ministry. From Paschal Mystery to Reconciliation, from ASCs tO Adorers Regina Siegfried ASC traces the expansion and maturing of her own religious congregation's foundational charism, modeling for other congregations how to discover their still relevant and appropriate gift in contemporary society. Review for Religious 272 religious life culture Distinctiveness, Diversity, and Commoness in Consecrated Life Deborah M. Cerullo SSND proposes ways of dealing with diversity and externalizing our new reality so that we sustain the distinctiveness that is religious life. 281 The Culture of Religious Life within Asian Culture Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR outlines some considerations that Asian religious need to observe when adapting to Asian culture, not merely fitting in but challenging the culture to conversion. 299 reflections Why Only Three Evangelical Counsels? Brendan Kneale FSC offers some new reasons to the traditional ones for our having three defining vows for consecrated life. He echoes Pope John Paul's challenge to clarify the anthropological significance of the counsels. 3O8 Religious Life Revisited Lucy Fuchs reflects on some aspects of religious life, with her reflections occasioned .by a fifty-year reunion of those wh.o stayed as religious and those who left. departments 228 Prisms 313 Canonical Counsel: Voluntary Departure 320 Book Reviews May-June 2002 prisms In several ways, known to us all, Christianity is a scandalous religion. The GreeE word skandalon means a small stone that causes one to trip or fall. "To scandalize," then, is to be a stone that, deliberately or not, causes another to fall. In the Old Testament, God is sometimes a scandal. By his manner of acting or not acting, especially in their times of exile, the Israelites see God as a scandal. The prophet Isaiah identifies God as the stone of scan-dal and the rock that causes the two houses of Israel to fall (Is 8:14). In the New Testament, we find this text of Isaiah applied to Christ in the first letter of Peter (1 P 2:8). Jesus is a scandal, a sign of contradiction against which people's hearts become hardened. Paul bluntly proclaimed that our preaching Christ crucified is "a scandal for the Jews and folly for the gentiles" (1 Co 1:23). If we place ourselves within a Buddhist or Muslim culture, we begin to realize how much a scan-dal the mysteries of the incarnation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection remain for people. God becom-ing man?--why would God ever want to do that? God dying shamefully as a criminal?--that is no reason-able or respectable idea of God. God being raised from the dead and. keeping a human body for eternity?-- that is too much even for those who like science fic-tion. Jesus Christ truly is a scandal. Just like the ubiquitous stones that cause us to trip .and fall, so Jesus knows that scandals in human life Review for Religious are inevitable. When at our best, we Christians in our good-ness will sometimes appear and even be scandalous to others. Our belief in Christ can scandalize. Perhaps our sacramental worship--eating and drinking the Body and Blood of Christ-- gives scandal. Franciscan poverty was a scandal to burghers of the 13th century. To some in the 16th century, there was scan-dal in Jesuits claiming to be religious but not singing the Divine Office and not having distinctive religious garb. Maybe 2 lst-century religious women serving the poor and needy on all sides of a civil conflict are a scandal. Just as Jesus himself is a scandal to certain people of his time, so "goodness" can be a scandal even within Christ's church. Like Jesus, we do not want our goodness to be a scandal to others so that their faith in God is shaken or their charity is lessened. While trying to avoid scan-dal in our doing good, we know ourselves to be part of a scan-dalous Christianity. But there is the dark side of scandal in Christianity. Jesus speaks harshly about those who deliberately cause another to fall into sin and to lose faith in God. "It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea., than that he should trip up a single one of these little ones" (Lk 17:2). Jesus had a sharp word for Peter, accusing Peter of trying "to trip him up" by saying the crucifixion should never have to happen (see Mt 16:23). The church in the United States is being buffeted by scan-dals centering on priests sexually abusing young people and on bishops for their lack of oversight. The stumbling blocks have been experienced not only by the victims, but also by many parishioners whose trust of the church and faith in God are undermined. Our human scandal, causing others to fall into evil or distance themselves from God, is a sin. Sin demands repen-tance, seeks God's forgiveness and, if possible, our wronged neighbors' forgiveness too. The darkness of human scandal in all too many places is lightened only by the scandal of a God we call Savior and Redeemer, a God who is just, but also patient and merciful. Thank God we belong to a scandalous Christianity. David L. Fleming SJ May-3~une 2002 spiritua growth GEORGE A. MALONEY Transformative Aspects of Spirituality The human race has entered a new age. We are too close to the launching of it to know what is really happening or to see where it will lead us. We are like adolescents seeking meaningfulness in newfound powers emerging inside them and exploding confusedly around them. We feel a tension between pessimism, even fear, and optimistic dreams of a world of increasing richness. Through satellites we are in immediate contact not only with people and events all around planet Earth, but also with other planets as well. In a way our universe is shrinking, for distant parts of it are becoming more and more present to us. But we also stand in frightened isolation against the reality exploding before us into mysteries that we cannot handle with our limited human knowledge. One way to cope with such richness and apparent meaninglessness is to retreat into ourselves. We can build physical and psychological walls around us; George A. Maloney sJ has taught theology, edited the jour-nal Diakonia, conducted and directed many retreats, written articles (including four in this journal, 1965 to 1995), and published sixty-three books. His address is Contemplative Ministries; 13338 Del Monte Drive, #3-K; Seal Beach, California 90740. Review for Religious within the narrow confines of ~elf-centered consumerism, sports, cults, and new and old religious ideas that favor ghetto living, we can live in "splendid isolation" from the rest of the world. Traditional Western Christian views, based largely on Scholastic philosophy and theology and Newtonian physics, no longer seem adequate. An overemphasis on impersonal dogmas and structures and rituals is yielding to a search for revitalization. People seek transcendence and personal experience of God in their lives. Carl Jung has shown how some people use the institutional, dogmatic, and ritual aspects of their religion as a defense against subjective, inner religious experience. His writings strongly advocate that the quest for religious experience is an integral and necessary part of the search for our true self) The rationalistic framework that has been used to present Christianity to the West is in need of a complementary vision. Such a vision would not really be new. It is found in the Old and New Testaments. It is an openness to God as mystery, meeting the transcendent God in reverential awe and wonderment. It takes our eyes away from ourselves as the exploiting center of the universe and focuses on a humbly adoring response to God's invitation to share his divine life. Abraham J. Heschel, the great Jewish mystic and theologian, captures this contrast between a heavily accentuated, rational approach and one of perceptual intuition: "Most of our attention is given to the expedient, to that which is conducive to our advantage and which would enable us to exploit the resources of our planet . But there is more than one aspect of nature that commands our attention. We go out to meet the world, not only by way of expediency, ~ but also by way of wonder. In the first we accumulate information in order to dominate; in the second we deepen our appreciation in order to respond.''2 A Transcendent but Als0 Immanent God Most of us grew up with a Newtonian understanding of the universe, of God, and .of ourselves. In this paradigm God is "up there," a static observer of a .mechanical world. He directs the world through the laws of mechanics which are built into the cosmos. What moves through abs'olute space and time are May-June 2002 Maloney ¯ Tran~formative Aspects of Spirituality God is seen as energizing Love, acting on all of his creation from inside as well as outside. material particles called ,atoms: small, solid, indestructible things, the basic building blocks for all material creatures. In 1905 Albert Einstein published his special theory of relativity and "slew a beautiful theory with an ugly fact," in the words of T.H. Huxley. He proved that space and time form a four-dimensional continuum (space-time) and showed that all reality is relational. Norman Pittenger, a process theologian, describes this dynamic universe well: "We live in and we are confronted by a richly interconnected, interrelated, interpenetrative series of events, just as we ourselves are such a series of events."3 In such a view, all of us being part of God's creation, God is seen as energizing Love, acting on all of his creation from inside as well as outside. He is seen, not as a God up there or over there--as an object--but as a triune community of personal love, interacting with all his creatures, ordering all seeming chaos into loving unity. He leads all things in a dance of harmonious motion, stretching toward greater complexity hnd yet greater union. This God is truly, as St. Paul told the Athenians, not far from us, "for in him we live and move and have our being" (Ac 17:28). ~ Einstein describes how science and religion are in intimate relationships with each other~through the gift of mystical wonderment: "The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms--this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness.4 Such wisdom and beauty can come .only in the religious insight that all human beings and all of our material cosmos are interrelated and interdependent, through a sense of community, of belonging together and sharing the riches that God has given. It is through interior prayer, through humble and loving Review for Religious adoration, that we can encounter God as a personal, loving, infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere, and who embraces each of his creatures in the unity of his dynamic, loving creativity. Only in such intimate oneness with God can we receive living knowledge that is also transforming love. Only such experienced love will allow us to see our unique place in the whole of creation. Transformed by such oneness with God, we can stretch out creatively to bring about a more loving universe. Before we can rediscover some Christian practices to help in our renewal in this young millennium, we need to rediscover the personal, interrelational, triune creator God. This brings up the perennial question asked by Eastern and Western Christianity: How does God, who in his true essence is unreachable and unknowable, come to us? If he is perfect and unchangeable, how can he relate to us? "No one has ever seen God" (1 Jn 4:12, Jn 1:18). We would have to be God in order to know him fully. Yet the good news Jesus brings us is that God so loves this world as to give us his Son so that we may share in God's own nature, even in this life and more fully in the life to come (2 P 1:4). This is why the early Eastern Fathers always insisted on the distinction between God's essence and his uncreated energies. It preserves the awesome transcendence of God that can never be totally possessed by finite creatures. God Is Primal Grace Of all God's material creatures, only we human beings are an unfinished nature that has been gifted by God with spiritual faculties to communicate with his knowledge and love. We are capable of freely receiving God's communications and responding to his call to become divinized children of so loving a Father (1 Jn 3:1). The redemptive work of the crucified and risen Jesus consists in giving us his Spirit of love, through whom we may know the Father and the fullness of the Son On 17:3). Thus we can become true children of God On 1:12, Rrn 8:15, Ga 4:6). This "going forth" of God, to use Pseudo-Dionysius's term, is simply grace in its primal sense. It is God in 'his hesed, covenantal love, pursuing his people by stretching out his "two hands-- Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit," in the words'of St. Irenaeus. May-~une 2002 Maloney * Transformative AspectsofSpirituality God is, therefore, grace as he goes out of himself in his uncreated energies to share with us his very own life. We can truly know God and experience him intimately. Mthough in his Godhead or essence he is totally incomprehensible, yet in his energies he can be experienced as perfect love giving itself to us. In this experience of God as free gift of love, we can know him in his personal love toward us and can cooperate with his loving energies toward others. God's energies are the loving relationships of the Persons of the Trinity with regard to ourselves. God's activities are not divided.into sacred and secular, the supernatural and the natural. These energies are not "created things." They are God himself in self-giving to us in one essence of love, yet in three distinct Persons. The energies are personal. They are the whole Trinity acting in loving self-giving to all creatures. In such a view, God is never inactive.regarding us and his created worlds~ Grace, then, is not a created "thing" that God heaps upon us when we pray ardently. God permeates all persons, all things, all events by his personal, loving, uncreated energies. Every thing, every event, in the universe is "graced" and penetrated by God at each moment. It is for us to find new eyes to see this presence. This is possible through Jesus' resurrection. He brings us this "new life" as a Person, fully God and fully human. We are branches of his life-giving vine; he is our bridge to the Father. Body-Soul Relationships The way we perceive ourselves as human beings is the way we relate to other human beings and to God. For centuries we have viewed human beings as entities existing all by themselves. We have failed to see ourselves as persons oriented toward others in body-soul-spirit relationships. Instead, through Platonism's way of expressing Western Christianity, the human being was seen as a cgmbination of a body and a separable rational soul. The body was seen as material and perishable, the soul as immortal by its nature: it could live forever after being separated from the body in death. In the 17th century, Descagtes did more than any other thinker to create the impression of the body and soul being two Review for Religious distinct, objective entities. Such an objectivization of the body and the soul left its heavy mark upon our Western Christian idea of how we relate to God, ourselves, others, and the world around us. Such a view of the human person does not fit well with the biblical vision of human beings' relationships with God, others, and the entire created world. St. Paul describes a human person as being in the process of becoming holy and blameless, "spirit, soul, and body, for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Th 5:23). The Bible does not present a human being as one who "possesses" a living soul, but rather as a living "ensouled" body-person. A human person does not have a body as a possession; the ensouled body is the whole person. This human person, accordingly, in his or her totality, exists in relationship with all of matter and with the trinitarian God, whose being pure spirit does not prevent the Son from being incarnate among us. God (as ruah) breathes into human beings and restores them to a new love relationship with God. If God, then, is so dynamically present to us, why do we not "see" him everywhere? Because, as we have said, our concept of ourselves as "possessing" several objects, a body and a soul, has led us to think of God as an object outside of ourselves, usually in a lofty region called heaven. We :have forgotten the immanence of the passionately loving Trinity, God dwelling within us. In our prayer we approach God "rationally,".as persons who see ourselves as the center of our own activity and who see God as the "object" out there to whom we pray. The philosopher Martin Heidegger can furnish us with insights for a new vision of God and ourselves. For him God is a dynamic, energetic force, never static, but always revealing himself to us in the events of each day. Truth is an event, not an abstract concept. It is an event of "nonconcealment," a "revelation," a stripping away of the veil so that the fullness of Being may shine forth,s The infinite God, of course, never becomes fully revealed to human beings. ~ The fullness of God's infinite Being, his Godhead, remains hidden, but is glimpsed as We have forgotten the immanence of the passionately loving Trinity, God dwelling within us. May-3~une 2002 Maloney ¯ Transformative Aspects of Spirituality the Ground of all created beings. To see God in his revelation is to love ourselves and all other creatures by a created participation in the uncreated and all-powerful love of God. Diaphanous Matter God is present in all things with his loving activity. In our contemplation, then, we should see God existing in all of his material creation and working in our very own bodies to bring them into the harmony of "spirit, soul, and body" that Paul speaks of'(1 Th 5:23). Jesus used his human body in communicating with his heavenly Father, finding his Father working in and through his human body. Jesus could enjoy the Father's love in being there, in his body. His body was also the place where the Father's energies were at work. If Paul could write, "Your body, you know, is the temple of the Holy Spirit" (1 Co 6:19), how much more must Jesus have known the sacredness of his body? He used his body as a gift to communicate God's Spirit in love to all whom he met. We too are to use our bodies integrally as part of ourselves: who we are as whole persons living lives as receivers and givers, as persons who are loved and love in return, growing into greater likenesses of Christ by God's presence within us. If God's energies touch us in our bodily relationships, then our bodies can experience the effects of God's loving activity. The idea that our bodies are basically evil, or at least not very sacred, must change to a more incarnational view. We should find God's goodness in the feeding and clothing of our bodies, in our sexuality, even in various postures of our body as We pray. Praying with Our Whole Being We find in the Old and New Testaments the command "You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength" (Dr 6:5). In prayer we should use not only our mind and memory, but our whole being, body, soul, hnd spirit. We need in the West to learn how to use our body in praying before God. All mystical traditions of East and West agree that a certain amount of exterior silence, a certain amount of aloneness, is necessary for interior concentration. True silence Review for Religious is an integration of all the powers of body, psyche, and spirit for the hearing of God's word. We Westerners need inner silence in order to reach the still-pointedness that the mystics speak of. A way of becoming "one-pointed," suggested by the disciplines of yoga, is to look intently upon a flower, a painting, or some other beautiful object. In Eastern Orthodoxy worshipers focus or center on the Trinity, Christ, Mary the mother of God, or a saint by using icons to lift them into the presence of the one represented in the icon. Through such focused consciousness, they begin to lose their focus on themselves and become immersed in the presence of God, the Giver of all beauty. They find themselves transcending the limitations of place and time and the tyranny of their "conditioned" self, with its unruly desires. Through such concentration they not only begin to perceive a oneness with the world around them, but also a slowing down of their mental activities, with a feeling of peace and quiet as they enter the numinous presence of the Divine. Breathing properly is the first step toward finding ourselves as integrated persons. Rhythmic breathing tends to make us detached, relaxed, and hence more free to focus and reflect steadily, calmly, and effordessly upon the indwelling Trinity. A form of body-prayer almost lost to Westerners is prostration. Lying on the floor, face down, fosters a great awareness of our creaturehood before the awesome Allness of God. Our body is exposed and defenseless; we feel truth .and simplicity tangibly. The empirical ego disappears, and only the true self remains. Throughout the history of Christianity, many reform movements have sought to recall Christians to a simpler, more pristine vision of Christianity and away from an exaggerated attachment to religion's externals. !n the 16th and 17th centuries there rose up in Europe a puritan protest against Roman Catholicism. Material techniques that had been in use from Apostolic times--such as sacraments and sacramentals, pictures, statues, icons, incense, candles, water, oil--were removed from many Christian churches during and after the Reformation period. As we are "whole" persons whet/we enter into prayer, it is only natural that material aids can help us to move from one level to another in a fuller integration of our total human nature May-~une 2002 in our prayer. We can be helped by memories of specific human experiences and by symbols and pictures; they are likely to be filled with spiritual meaning, elevating our consciousness to greater awareness of God. We should not be afraid of such things if they truly do help us to pray better. In our relationships with God and neighbor in this world of ours, perhaps our greatest need is external and internal discipline, that is, asceticism. Important Principles We need to keep clearly in mind the distinction between God's freely bestowed grace and our free cooperation in using various techniques to dispose ourselves to receive God in his grace. First, we must remember that God wishes to give himself to us directly through an immediate experience. This communication is made to a human person, a whole being, not to a separated soul or a detached intellect. It is important, therefore, to prepare ourselves for prayer and worship through asceticism and. psychosomatic techniques to bring our whole being to a point of receptivity or single-mindedness to receive God's communication on the highest level we can attain. Second, we must recognize that all such preparatory acts are only conditions for prayerful union with God through grace. Our own best efforts, by themselves, leave us absolutely impotent to attain such union. Union with God is a free and gratuitous gift whose bestowal cannot be dictated by our human wills nor be assumed after long and careful preparation. Most importantly, if our uses of psychosomatic techniques are truly to help us receive God's life-giving grace, they must conform to the whole plan of salvation as revealed by Holy Scripture and church teaching and illustrated in the lives and writings of the saints. In our relationships with God and neighbor in this world of ours, perhaps our greatest need is external and internal Review for Religious discipline, that is, asceticism. The more exclusively rational our religion is, the less discipline of body, soul, and spirit do we find. In our lives, is there an habitual attitude of self-control and inner discipline? In all of our body, soul, and spirit relationships, do we exercise an alertness and a turning to God whereby we keep things in balance? St. Paul exhorted the new Christians of Corinth to bring every thought and flight of fancy of theirs into captivity and into obedience to Jesus Christ (2 Co 10:5). Jesus insisted that we first clean the inside of the vessel (our heart) and then the outside (Mr 23:26). A Means to Love God and Neighbor The end of our Christian life is to love God with our whole heart and to love our neighbors as ourselves (Mt 22:37-40). But there can be no new level of awareness in prayer that God is our all unless we courageously strive to put to death all affections and attachments to lesser loves that are obstacles to our full love of God and neighbor. Many Christians have heard distorted teachings on asceticism. The "worldliness" within human hearts has all too often been equated with the material world which God created and saw as "very good" (Gn 1:31). Is it any wonder that with a more holistic, biblical approach to theology and anthropology, informed by the behavioral sciences of psychology and sociology, we have turned from an old "traditional" view of asceticism? But have we replaced it with something better? Today, in our pleasure-oriented culture, our bodily appetites are more in need of discipline than ever. The way we approach this must be determined by the goal, namely, to love God and neighbor as perfectly as possible. Jesus had to go against his own desires in order to do at all times whatever most pleased his heavenly Father. His ascetical practice was always subordinated to the Father and had its full meaning insofar as it brought him into more intimate union with his Father (Lk 22:42). Ascetical principles include the following: (1) Any and all ascetical practices are means to attain the end of the spiritual life. (2) The whole person needs continual discipline of body, soul, and spirit in relationships with things, other people, and God. (3) Certain areas of our being are more important in determining ll/lay-~une 2002 Maloney ¯ Transformative Aspects of Spirituality our choices than others. Without neglecting any area of our being, we especially need control of our interior faculties of memory, understanding, and will, for it is through these faculties that our moral decisions to commit sin or practice virtue are made. (4) The areas needing discipline, then, include the body with its five exterior senses, the interior senses (the emotions, imagination, memories), the intellect, and the will. Exaggerated selfqove in the will is the root of all movement away from God. The great ascetics of the desert advise us to be guided in the spiritual life by a "soul-mate" or spiritual director, someone who is learned in the science of the spiritual life and is also holy. They advise us to reflect often, in the presence of the Trinity, and especially at the end of each day, on what we have done moment by moment in thought, word, and deed and so to discover the roots that prevent our cooperating with the Holy Spirit's gentle inspirations. The athletes of the desert, men and women "intoxicated with love of God," can also tei~ch us, in our world of sense pleasures and comforts, the value of fasting. Jesus in the Gospels teaches the necessity of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer and shows that they are intimately related. These things can be done quietly and humbly. "Your Father, who sees what is hidden, will repay you" (Mt 6:16-18). Fasting, to be truly Christian, must include turning to God ~metanoia) with a corresponding openness, to love and serve our neighbor. We experience a oneness with every human being, especially the poor and the hungry. Fasting perhaps once a week from our habitual eating habits can help us be inwardly attentive to God's loving presence in our daily life. ---24o Living the Transfiguration Feast We have presented some of the transformative elements of Christian spirituality that may help our daily living-out of the Feast of Transfiguration. This feast, celebrated on August 6, is a major feast among Eastern Christians. They bring to the church the first fruits of their harvest to be blessed and offered to God, but a deeper faith-vision penetrates this simple ritual, the mystery of the seed falling into the e~rth to bring forth fruit a hundredfold. We Christians in baptism each become a seed Review for Religious planted in the church. We are to grow to full maturity in Christ Jesus. A transfiguring process takes place over the spring, summer, and autumn years of our Christian lives. The seed grows from within, but also in the outer world. God's transfiguring power, his divinizing energies of love, work in us and in the world around us. The same loving God is the source both of our being and of all the beings around us. With this thought, this vision, we realize that the world has not changed, but we have changed. God's presence was always there as active love, but we took little notice of it. What we felt as darkness is now suffused with light. Seeing our uniqueness in God's love for us, we now see the uniqueness of all other beings in God's love for each of them. The true test of how Christian we are and to what degree we have been baptized in the Holy.Spirit is the degree of our involvement in bringing mercy and love to those suffering. "I was hungry and you gave me food . . ." (Mr 25:35-40). The presence of God within us becomes a swelling ocean wave that flows out to inundate the entire world with God's love. What was hidden now becomes revealed. Through our loving cooperation, what seemed absent now becomes present and transfiguring. As the Holy Spirit broods over us, baptizing us with his love and fire, we become a transfigured microcosmos in the incarnate Christ. We image the macrocosmos of the heavenly Jerusalem. Notes ~ See Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972). 2 Abraham J. Heschel, Man Is Not Alone (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Young, 1951), p. 36. 3 Norman Pittenger, Process Thought and Christian Faith (New York: Macmillan, 1968), p. 13. 4 Quoted by Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein (New York: New American Library, 1962), p. 108. s See Martin Heidegger, "Plato's Doctrine of Truth," trans. John Barlow, in Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, ed. William Barrett and Henry D. Aiken (New York: Random House, 1962). May-yune 2002 DENNIS J. BILLY St. Alphonsus and Today's Spiritual Direction ~Lhigeuno drei a(l1i6n9g6 w-1it7h8 t7h)e, tlhifee daoncdt owr oorfk ps roafy eSrt .a Andlp thhoen psautsr odne saint of confessors and moral theologians, we cannot expect to find precise, ready-made advice about spiritual direction for today. But this is not to say he has nothing to offer our current understanding of this ministry. Although Alphonsus was lim-ited by the general spiritual outlook of his day, he also had a way of surpassing it, and he brought great benefit to the people he served. In understanding Alphonsus's relevance for spiritual direction today, much will depend on how we approach his thought and which aspect of it we emphasize. In this essay we will examine the basis of his reputation as a "spiritual master" and identify the elements that people can use in their own practice of spiritual direction. A Gospel Spirituality At the outset it is important to recognize Alphonsus's missionary fervor. The major projects of his life--his mission preaching, his writing, his founding the Redemptorist Congre- Dennis J. Billy CSSR, a frequent contributor to our pages, writes from Accademia Alfonsiana; C.P. 2458; 00100 Roma, Italy. Review for Religious gation, his prayer--were all motivated by his desire to bring the Good News of plentiful redemption to others, especially the poor and most abandoned. Alphonsian spirituality is first and foremost a gospel spirituality, one which takes seriously the person of Jesus and his injunction "to make disciples of all nations" (Mr 28:19). In 18th-century Naples, Alphonsus inter-preted this calling in a very personalized way. Rather than going to faraway lands, he looked to his own "backyard," where peo-ple did not have easy access to the church's ordinary means for spiritual growth. This option for the poor, this willingness to go where others were not interested in going, led Alphonsus and his small band of followers to small moun-tain villages on the back roads of the king-dom of Naples. Their evangelizing efforts for the poor, illiterate peasants they found in the forgotten hamlets of Campania, Puglia, Basilicata, and Calabria helped change the spiritual landscape of south-ern Italy. These early Redemptorist missioners reminded peo-ple that God had not forgotten them, but was very much with them in their desire and thirst for spiritual growth. To ensure that such growth would continue, Alphonsus and his followers set up various devotional structures (confraternities, Eucharistic devotions, evening chapels) that would foster prayer and devo-tion in these fledgling faith communities after they left. Alphonsus's gospel spirituality helps us appreciate the var-ious nuances in the old debate whether there is a single Christian spirituality or many2 Inasmuch as every expression, of it must be rooted in the person of Christ, Christian spirituality is one. At times, however, individuals and groups have followed Christ in various particular works, spiritual practices, or styles of living. The great number of religious congregations, secular institutes, and lay movements that have appeared in the church's history suggest the almost infinite number of ways of following Christ. In this sense there are many Christian spiritualities, and many still to come. For our present purposes, Alphonsus's own prac-tice of the love of Jesus Christ can be seen as both different from and united to all other authentic Christian spiritualities. Throughout his life Alphonsus's overriding purpose was to draw others closer to Christ. May-June 2002 Billy ¯ St. Alphonsus and Today's Spiritual Direction Because of its flexibility and popular diffusion, moreover, his particular brand of gospel spirituality reminds us thatlthe term spirituality itself allows for various nuances and can be treated on a number of levels.2 A Man of Prayer Throughout his life Alphonsus's overriding purpose was to draw others closer to Christ. He believed that everyone could share an intimate relationship with Jesus and that the key to such a relationship was to be dedicated and persistent in prayer: "He who prays is certainly saved. He who prays not is certainly damned.''3 These strong words show Mphonsus's emphasis on prayer in fostering a mature relationship with God. Prayer, for him, was "the great means of salvation.''4 Everyone, he believed, receives sufficient grace to pray. Meditatio or mental prayer is particularly important for turning one's whole heart and mind to the Lord.s Alphonsus developed a simple formula for mental prayer that could be easily taught to the rustics of the Italian hill country, thus introducing them to one of the great riches of the church's tradition. In doing so he was criticized by a number of "enlightened" Neapolitan clerics for "casting pearls to swine" and thereby desecrating the church's treasures by sharing them with people who could not appreciate them, let alone put them into practice. Alphonsus, however, had little time for such judgmental remarks or for those who made them. Throughout 'his life he popularized the church's teaching on prayer. He met people where they were and helped them little by little to pray to God as inti-mate friends .speak with one another. "Paradise for God . . . is the human heart," he liked to say.6 Prayer was for him the means par excellence for enabling this divine indwelling to occur. He never tired of emphasizing the centrality of prayer for the spir-itual life: "There may be some who, after the perusal of my spiritual works, will accuse me of tediousness in so often rec-ommending the importance and necessity of having, continual recourse to God in prayer. But I seem to myself to have said not too much, but far too little.''7 Not only did he emphasize prayer in his own writings, but he also encouraged others to do the same: "I say, and repeat, and will keep on repeating as long Review for Religious as I live, that our whole salvation depends on prayer; and, there-fore, that all writers in their books, all preachers in their sermons, all confessors in their instructions to their penitents, should not inculcate anything more strongly than continual prayer.''s It is no small coincidence that Alphonsus is often referred to as the "doctor of prayer.''9 For him, we can get nowhere in the spiritual life without it. With it we have access to the copious redemption made possible by Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection. Leading Others to God Leading others to Christ was what Alphonsus's missionary vocation was all about. This conviction helps explain his Marian piety. Mary's life and her role in the church center on this same calling. By staying close .to Mary, Alphonsus felt assured that his own life of leading others to her Son would intensify and bear much fruit. This explains why his writings are full of the-ological references, edifying stories, and heartfelt prayers to the Madonna. Mary, who pondered in her heart all that happened to her son, is the Christian disciple par excellence. In his own efforts to follow Christ and to contemplate the great events of the paschal mystery, Alphonsus relied on Mary's generous help and protection?° When taken under the heading of the "care and cure of souls," spiritual direction encompasses virtually every aspect of the church's pastoral ministry. Such an assessment would be dou-bly true for Alphonsus, who through his preaching, writing, direction of souls, and general pastoral care did all he could to lead people to a more intimate relationship with God. Everything that Alphonsus did can be considered a kind of spiritual direction. Even activities that did not directly touch the lives of others (his prayer, his spiritual reading, his own private devotions) had a missionary dimension. These activities had a Marian dimension as well. What is more, the subtle balance between contemplation and action that appears in Mary's joyfulfiat is characteristic of Alphonsus's missionary activity. For him, prayer and action are two sides of the same apostolic coin. To separate them or to give undue emphasis to one or the other could do grave damage to missionaries and the people they serve. May-~une 2002 Billy ¯ St. Alphonsus and Today's Spiritual Direction When taken as "a helping relationship focusing on a person's spiritual growth," Alphonsus's spiritual direction is "directive" in nature and closely tied to his confessional practice.~ This is not to say that he did not sometimes give spiritual direction through correspondence or in conversation outside the confes-sional.~ 2 In fact, his practical temperament and his eclectic use of the church's spiritual tradition led him to take circumstances into account in his pastoral praxis with individuals. In general, however, Alphonsus saw a close connection between spiritual direction and sacramental confession. While he was aware of the distinction between the two, he was firm in his insistence that the confessor be someone who not only forgives sins, but also leads penitents further along the path of sanctity.~3 Alphonsus's strong penchant for uniting the two appears most clearly in his Praxis confessarii, where he delineates in descending order the four offices of the confessor: father, doc-tor, teacher, and judge.'4 For Alphonsus, every confessor has the responsibility of guiding souls to sanctity. This is so because all the faithful (not just a select few) are called to the perfection of Christian living. The term "spiritual director," in other words, is not simply for those who guide people through the rarified states of mystical experience, but for all confessors helping peo-ple in all states of life to walk the path of holiness. Alphonsus thus went a long way in demystifying the role of spiritual director in the Christian tradition. His efforts brought nourishing spiritual sustenance to ordinary people. This "meat and potatoes" approach was a benchmark of Redemptorist practice and char-acterized the Alphonsian approach to direction for years to come. More specifically, the principal characteristics of the Alphonsian confessor-director are: (1) an attitude of being more of a father and doctor than a judge, an attitude of charity, good-ness, and mildness in welcoming and treating penitents and in disposing them to penitence (so that their absolution need not be deferred or denied); (2) an attitude of kindness in giving penance, seeking rather to heal the soul than exact punishment for faults; (3) a marked preference for the poorest and most ignorant of the social classes; (4) a concern for giving the pen-itent the means not only to avoid a relapse into sin, but also to advance along the way of holiness; (5) recognizing the rela-tionship between preaching and confession, with preaching Review for Relig4ous preparing the way for confession and continuing its work.15 These characteristics of the Alphonsian confessor-director demonstrate the practical orientation of Alphonsus's mission. He sought to preach the good news of plentiful redemption to as many people as possible. He saw the wisdom of treating the confessional not as a tribunal, but as a means for educating the faithful in the ways of holiness. The connection he saw between preaching and confession reveals that he understood spiritual direction as something that extends to the ordinary care of souls. Ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue was not a viable option in his day. There was still too much polemic and mutual antag-onism among the various Christian denominations for constructive dialogue to take place, and the church's stance toward non-Christian religions was characterized by out-right condemnation of their tenets and a call to conversion. In Western Christianity, moreover, the church had to struggle not only against proselytizing by Protestant reformers, but also against the secularization stem-ming from the Enlightenment. In dealing with these threats, the church adopted a "fortress mentality"; it tried to shelter the faithful from as many harmful influences as possible~ It should not be surprising that Alphonsus, a foyal son of the church, espoused similar views. He sought, on the other hand, to preserve a certain "com-munion" of the various spiritual traditions within the church. He displayed a remarkable openness to the various approaches he encountered. If they passed the critical test of orthodoxy, he felt free to borrow whatever might be useful in his mission to bring about a fundamental conversion in the hearts and lives of people, especially the poor and most abandoned. This prag- When taken as "a helping relationship focusing on a person's spiritual growth," Alphonsus's spiritual direction is "directive" in nature and closely tied to his confessional practice. May-June 2002 Billy ¯ St. Alpbonsus and Today's Spiritual Direction matic openness to other spiritual traditions stood in contrast to quarrelsome petty arguments among some religious orders of his day. Such unhealthy competitiveness focused on small points that separated their approaches to the spiritual life, rather than on what united them. Alphonsus much preferred to emphasize what bound them together. His rule of thumb was whether a particular spiritual practice draws people closer to Christ. A corollary was that it be beneficial to as many people as possible~. This practical eclecticism led him to a synthetic approach to direction that was peculiarly his own. To cite just one example, he valued highly the spiritual doctrine of Teresa of Avila on the interior mansions of infused contemplation and encouraged directors to follow it whenever they encountered someone with tendencies toward mysticism. Unlike some representatives of the Carmelite school of spirituality, however, he affirmed with the Jesuits that not everyone is called to infused contemplation in this life. Accordingly, in his direction of souls, he focused on meditation and acquired contemplation.~6 In the final analysis, Alphonsus was convinced, it is not a method or approach that leads people to metanoia or a "change of heart," but a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. To this end Alphonsus probed various spiritual traditions within the church and used whatever he thought would benefit the people he served. Doing so, for Alphonsus, was an exercise of Christian love. He would have agreed wholeheartedly with Bernard of Clairvaux's assessment of families of spirituality in the church: "I admire them all. I belong to one of them by observance, but to all of them by charity." ~7 Doctor of Prayer As mentioned earlier, Alphonsus's reputation as a spiritual master eventually earned him the title of the "doctor of prayer." 18 His renown as a spiritual director comes from his cre-ative, eclectic, and pragmatic use of the traditions that preceded him. As an interpreter of these traditions, he focused on the one thing which, in his judgment, ultimately mattered in life, to enter into an intimate relationship with Jesus, the Redeemer. Prayer, for Alphonsus, was the primary means given to us to accomplish this end. Spiritual direction, for him, was both gen- Review for Religious eral and particular. It could take place in many contexts, but primarily had to do with the confessor's task of helping people grow in holiness. While Alphonsus saw a distinction between confession and spiritual direction, his zeal for souls and his popularizing sen-sitivities brought him to the conclusion that he and other priests in his day and age could best serve the people of God by draw-ing a close bond between the two. Sacramental confession, after all, was an application of Christ's redemptive love to the life of the penitent. Since, for Alphonsus, redemption was "plentiful," it followed that people's experience of sacramental reconcili-ation should include not only for-giveness of sin, but also guidance to help penitents grow in holiness. He believed that spiritual direction was for the masses--not a select few-- and for people of all walks of life. The close bond that he saw between preaching and the confes-sion- spiritual direction experience also suggests an organic (even circular) relationship between the general and more personal elements of anyone's receiving spiritual direction. These considerations have great import with regard to the relevance of Alphonsus's spiritual doctrine for today. His walk-ing with the Lord was both like and unlike our own. Walking in his footsteps today cannot mean following his teachings to the letter. That would be to overlook the prudenc.e of Alphonsus's own pastoral decisions; it would mean neglecting to take into account the pressing concerns and very different pastoral needs of our own day. Following Alphonsus today must mean making creative, eclectic, and pragmatic use of the spiritual traditions that have come down to us as they first came to Alphonsus along with what he himself has handed down to us. Following him must mean sifting through what he considered beneficial for the peo-ple of his day and finding .practical applications for the people of today. It must mean a way of spiritual direction that helps people get word of Christ's plentiful redemption and fosters a Alphonsus's reputation as,a spiritual master eventually earned him the title of the "doctor of prayer." May-June 2002 Billy ¯ St. Alpbonsus and Today's Spiritual Direaion lifelong conversation with God deep in their hearts. Spiritual direction in the Redemptorist tradition today must neither pre-tend to be, nor try to be, nor be an exact replica of what it was during Alphonsus's day. It should resonate with his teaching, however, and glow with his missionary fire, his yearning to lead as many people as possible into a deep friendship with the Lord. Notes 1 For references to this debate, see Walter H. Principe CSB, "Toward Defining Spirituality," Studies in Religion / Sciences religieuses 12 (1983): 129, esp. n. 3. 2 For a discussion of levels of spirituality in relation to Alphonsus, see Dennis J. Billy, Plentiful Redemption: An Introduction to Alpbonsian Spirituality (Liguori, Missouri: Liguori Publications, 2001), pp. 98-101. 3 Alphonsus de Liguori, Prayer: The Great Means of Obtaining Salvation and All the Graces Which We Desire of God, in The Complete Works of Alphonsus de Liguori, ed. Eugene Grimm (New York: Redemptorist Fathers, 1886-1894; reprint, Brooklyn, St. Louis, and Toronto: Redemptorist Fathers, 1927), Vol. 3, p. 49. Hereafter, Complete Works, Vol. 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 6. 4 Complete Works, Vol. 3, pp. 19-22. 5 Alphonsus de Liguori, Mental Prayer and the Exercises of a Retreat, in Complete Works, Vol. 3, pp. 252-258. 6 Alphonsus de Liguori, The Way to Converse Always and Familiarly with God, in Complete Works, Vol. 2, p. 395. 7 Alphonsus de Liguori, The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, in Complete Works, Vol. 6, p. 456. 8 Alphonsus de Liguori, in Complete Works, Vol. 3, p. 240. 9 See Pope Pius XI, "Allocuzione del 20 Settembre 1934," in Annuarium Apostolatus Orationis (Rome, 1935), p. 73; also Dizionario di Mistica (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1998), s.v. "Alfonso Maria de Liguori (santo)," by G. Velocci. 10 For the theological and pastoral dimensions of Alphonsus's Marian devotion, see Hamish EG. Swanston, Celebrating Eternity Now: A Study of the Theology of St. Alphonsus de Liguori (Chawton Alton Hampshire: Redemptorist Publications, 1995), pp. 220-230. ,1 For various definitions of spiritual direction, see Dennis J. Billy, "The Relations of Spiritual Direction," Studia moralia 36 (1998): 67, n. 1. t2 For spiritual direction in Alphonsus's correspondence, see Sean Wales, "The Ministry of Spiritual Direction: Saint Alphonsus, the Review for Religious Spiritual Director as Seen though His Letters," in Reflections on the Spirit of Saint Alphonsus, ed. M. O'Shea (Monroe, Michigan: IHM Publications, 1987), pp. 93-107. ,3 Emilio Lage, "S. Alfonso e la direzione spirituale," Spicilegium historicum CSSR 48 (2000): 22-25. 14 Alphonsus de Liguori, Praxis confessarii ad bene excipiendas con~ fessiones, chap. 1, in Theologia moralis, Vol. 4 (Rome: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1912; reprint 1953), p. 528. ,s Emilio Lage, "S. Alfonso," p. 14 (my translation). ,6 Joseph W. Oppitz, Alphonsian History and Spirituality: A Study of the Spirit of the Founder Saint Alphonsus M. Liguori and of the Missionary Institute, The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Rome and Suffield, Conn.: privately published, 2nd printing, 1978), p. 30. 17 Bernard of Clairvaux, Apologia to William of Saint Thierry, IV.8 (PL 182.903), cited in Pope John Paul II, Vita consecrata (1996), §52. ~s See endnote 9 above. "erat lux vera" here shines that light soft and luminescent brilliant and incandescent firefly by night and sun by day ember and inferno manifold, multifarious, multifaceted variegated and diverse that light which mothers every honest light the stars and their stones incendiary and catoptric candlelight and firelight and the light which warms and dances tender glowing in the eyes of the one you love through every shuttered window bolted door and locked gate in every place which shows a space there shines that light which all the world illumines enkindles and enflames Se~n Kinsella May-June 2002 ANNE HIGGINS AND BETTY ANN McNEIL Louise de Marillac and Elizabeth Seton: Women of Spirit dialogue Although separated by a century and more, Louise de Marillac (1591-1660) and Elizabeth Seton (1774-1821) were bound together by the Holy Spirit in ways of charity and wisdom.~ Their lives mirror one another. As wives, mothers, widows, and spiritual leaders, they model the life of the Spirit for contemporary women in ministry, for all whom the Gospels inspire to tend the fire of divine love in their own hearts and in the lives of others. Elizabeth made the first English translation of the original (French) biography of Louise.2 With the support and guidance of the French Sulpicians in Maryland, Elizabeth founded the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph's (31 July 1809) in Emmitsburg. For her sisterhood, the first to be founded in the United States, she adapted the Rule that Louise de Marillac and Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) had developed for the Anne Higgins DC, poet and English instructor, also does campus ministry at Mount St. Mary's College and Seminary, Emmitsburg, Maryland. Betty Ann McNeil DC is province archivist for the Daughters of Charity and a member of the Vincentian Studies Institute. They write from St. Joseph's Provincial House; 333 South Seton Avenue; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727. Review for Religious Daughters of Charity, founded in Paris 29 November 1633. The Setonian legacy expresses their charism today. This article compares and contrasts the themes common to their lives, and notes how they saw themselves until devastating things happened to them, .changing their lives forever. Through devastation and change they remained faithful to God, and God created something new through them.3 In her new life Elizabeth found "peace"--"enjoying the liberty of solitude, country life, and plenty of every good." We invite you to enter into "Sabbath moments" as Louise and Elizabeth tell us about themselves in first-person vignettes, which include or are based on their own words. May the Spirit guide this reflection on roots and be a source of blessing for all who live or are listening in on the Vincentian and Setonian legacy.4 (At intervals, we invite you to pray and reflect on their story, which may also be yours.) Like the five modern women discussed in a 1990 book called Composing a Life, Louise and Elizabeth "were engaged in that act of cremation that engages us all--the composition of their lives." Like these women--and guided by the Holy Spirit and fueled by their faith--"they worked by°improvisation, discovering the shape of their creation along the way, rather than pursuing a vision already defined." And they "combined familiar and unfamiliar components in response to new situations. Their commitments were continually refocused and redefined." s LOUISE: I had been looking at my life in one way. I was born into an upper-class Parisian family, but I never knew my mother. And my father referred to me as "ma' fille, ma naturelle." From infancy I was raised in a convent and a boarding school. When I was four, my father remarried, and his new wife did not accept me. ELIZABETH: I had been looking at my life in one way. I was born into an upper-class New York family, but my mother died when I was three. When I was four, my father remarried, and his new wife did not accept me. LOUISE: "God, who has granted me so many graces, led me to understand that it was his holy will that I go to him by way of the cross. His goodness chose to mark me with it from my birth, and he has hardly ever left me, at any age, without some occasion of suffering." 6 ~lay-June 2002 Higgins and McNeil * Women of Spirit ELIZABETH: "Will not Jesus Christ be with me? Was I not signed with the cross of salvation in baptism?''7 "You and I must meet him - we must be crucified - it is in vain to start [recoil], or think of escaping." 8 "The thirst and longing of my soul is fixed on the cross alone.''9 "We are never strong enough to bear our cross; it is the cross which carries us, not so weak to be unable to bear it, since the weakest become strong by its virtue." 10 LOUISE: "O God, I have resolved to admit no love unless it be for you!" 11 Ihad been looking at my life in one way, and then things happened to change it. When I was nineteen, I had my heart set on joining a contemplative order of nuns, the Capuchins. I even made a private promise to join them. But my spiritual director, P~re de Champigny, who was the provincial of the Parisian Capuchins, said no. He said I was not physically strong enough, and he said, "I believe that God has other plans for you." 12 ELIZABETH: I had been looking at my life in one way, but then things happened to change it. When I was nineteen, I fell in love with William Magee Seton (1768-1803). I married him, and we moved into our house in lower Manhattan. Then the children came: Anna Maria, William, Richard, Catherine, and Rebecca.13 "Sitting on a litde bench before the fire - the head resting on the hand, the body perfecdy easy, the eyes closed, the mind serene contemplating, and tracing boundless Mercy and the source of all excellence and perfection - how pure the enjoyment and sweet the transitions of every thought - the soul expands . . . all earthly interests recede - and heavenly hopes become anxious wishes. "I can patiently, submissively, submit to thy holy will, adoring in sweet confidence of thy mercy - preserve me but this heavenly peace, continue to give me this privilege beyond all mortal computation of resting in thee, and adoring thee my father - friend - and never failing support - for this alone I implore, let all other concerns with their consequences be entirely and wholly submitted to thee." 14 LOUISE: So, at twenty-two, I was married to Antoine Le Gras (1581-162'5). He was a good man, conscientious, deeply religious, and charitable to the poor, and I grew to love him. We had one son: Michel-Antoine [1613-1696]. We lived in a town house on the right bank of the Seine. It was a pleasant life in those first years. Review for Religious I had been looking at my life in one way, and then things happened to destroy it. to change it. In 1617, when I was twenty-six, my kinsman the Marquis d'Attichy and his wife had both died, and we took charge of their seven children . . . Then, my own husband, Antoine, became ill. I remembered my old promise to God to enter religious life. I began a dark journey through doubt. Everything seemed to be filling apart for me. I entered into a great desolation of spirit which lasted until Pentecost, because of a doubt as to whether l should leave my husband, as I wished to do in order to repair my first vow and have freedom to serve God and neighbor . I feared further that the attachment I had for my director might prevent me from taking another, thinking myself obliged to quit him . . . I had great pain because of doubt concerning the immortality of the soul. These three uncertainties gripped my soul in agonies which now seem to me unimaginable. On the day of Pentecost, at Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs during holy Mass, all of a sudden my spirit was cleared of these doubts. I was made to understand that I must dwell with my husband and that the time would come when I would be in a position to make vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience and that I would be in a small community where others would do the same. I then understood that I would be in a place where I could help my neighbor [although] there would be much coming and going . , . I was also assured that God would give me another director, who was then, so it seems to me, shown me in a vision, and I felt a repugnance to accept him. I submitted, nevertheless, although it seemed to me that it would not be necessary to make this change yet. My third difficulty was banished, by the assurance I felt in my soul that it was God who revealed all this to me, and that, there being a God, I must not doubt the rest)s Reflect for a few minutes now on your Pentecost experience. "I believe that God has other plans for you." LOUISE: Some months after that, I met Vincent de Paul, who became my spiritual director. And I took care of Antoine, with great love, for four years, until he died in December 1625. I was thirty-four. I had been looking at my life in one way., and May-June 2002 Higgins and McNeil ¯ Women of Spirit then things happened to destroy it. to change it. and in the midst ofthe"destruction, in the midst of the changes, I remained faithful to God. I held on, and God created something new. ELIZABETH: I had been looking at my life in one way. and then things happened to change it. When I was twenty-three, pregnant with Richard, my father-in-law died, and we took charge of the seven young Seton children . . . and then things happened to destroy my life. William's health became a real worry for me. When I was twenty-seven, my father died . . . Around that time, too, the family business suffered terrible losses., and William was so ill that we decided to travel to Italy for his health. After thirty terrible days, quarantined in the Lazaretto near Livorno, we moved to a house in Pisa, rented for us by the Filicchis.~6 Will died there, with Anna Maria (Annina) and me at his side. I was twenty-nine. He was buried in Livorno. Each time I visited his grave, I wept over it for a long time with inexpressible tenderness and "unrestrained affection." It seemed that I loved him more than anyone could love on earth.17 I had been looking at my life in one way., and then things happened to destroy it. to change it. - "the sharp thorn in the heart."~s And in the midst of the destruction, in the midst of the changes, I remained faithful to God. I held on, and God created something new. It was in those months in Italy after William's death that I was exposed to the full radiance of the Catholic faith. You drew me to it, Jesus - you and your Mother. Through storms of tears and questions, of doubts and anguish, you drew me to the Catholic faith. @hrough fifty-six days on the ocean voyage home, with Annina, and in the company of Antonio Filicchi, through desires and temptations, I remained faithful to you, God, and you created something new. In New York, on Ash Wednesday 1805, I turned the corner of Barclay Street, where St. Peter's Catholic Church was, and said to myself: "Here, my God, I go, heart all to you!" ~9 Reflect for a few minutes now on your conversion experience. LOUISE: Ultimately I came to embrace the God of both light and darkness and proclaim, "God is my God.''2° "I gave -~2~5~6-] him my full consent to work in me by his power whatever he Review for Religious willed to see accomplished.''2~ In 1629 1 met a young woman of Suresnes named Marguerite Naseau [1594-1633], who had presented herself to Monsieur Vincent. She was the first to serve in the Charities.22 Vincent de Paul asked me to organize and form the growing group of country girls who had come to Paris to serve the poor. "God, my only hope, your love impels me." My urgency impels my sisters. "Continue, [my sisters,] to love His service by observing your Rules, especially by the cordiality and support you show one another. You can be certain that God is with you.''23 Give yourselves entirely to God in order to serve God in the poor24 "As for your conduct with the sick, may you never take the attitude of merely getting the task done. You must show them affection, serving them from the heart, inquiring of them what they might need, speaking to them gently and compassionately.''2s "Perfection is not to be found [in excessive introspection], but in the practice of true charity.''26 "Be very gentle and courteous toward your poor. You know that they are our masters and that we must love them tenderly and respect them deeply.''27 Our Savior has taught us charity in order to make up for our own powerlessness to render him any service,z8 "Oh, what a happiness it would be, provided God were in no way offended, were the Company to serve only the totally destitute.''29 I had been looking at my life in one way., and then things happened to destroy it. to change it. and in the midst of the destruction, in the midst of the changes, I remained faithful to God. I held on, and God created something new. Reflect now on what God has created new in your life. In the midst of the changes, I remained faithful to God. ELIZABETH: I had been looking at my life in one way., and then things happened to destroy it. to change it. and in the midst of the destruction, in the midst of the changes, I remained faithful to God. I held on, and God created something new. On Pentecost 1806 1 received the sacrament of confirmation May-June 2002 Higgins and McNeil ¯ Women of Spirit from Bishop John Carroll. Later I wrote to my spiritual advisors: Things are so bad in New York for me, and so financially tenuous--should I move to Canada? While I was waiting for some reply, I chanced to meet Father William Du Bourg, who invited me to Baltimore to open a school for girls. Bishop Carroll and all my priest friends supported me, and in June 1808 we began our journey to a new life, in Maryland. LOUISE: I put my trust in Providence. I said to my sisters: "If you completely entrust everything to the guidance of Divine Providence and love the most holy will of God, this will contribute greatly to your peace of mind and heart. In fact, this is one of the most essential practices I know of for growth in holiness.''3° "We can have no peace with God, with our neighbor, or with ourselves unless Jesus Christ gives it to us.''3~ "Vows have their origin in Love. in the cross." 32 "One of the principal graces God has given you, my sisters, is your call to this Company and your vocation of charity; I will tell you, then, what your thoughts about it should be - there may be both very highs and very lows and still without contradiction.,,33 ELIZABETH: I had been looking at my life in one way . . . and then things happened to destroy it. to change it. and in the midst of the destruction, in the midst of the changes, I remained faithful to God. I held on, and God created something new. While I was trying to figure out a way to teach poor little girls, God sent into my life Mr. Samuel Cooper, a convert, who was becoming a priest and was disposing of his wealth. He wished to fund education for Emmitsburg's poor, and also various services for the elderly and for needy families. "Our Lord will direct all, whatever you say or do I shall consider as his voice and will.''34 "I set out on a new career: peace and silence and submission the whole aim.''35 "Do we serve God in hope, looking to his promises, confiding in his love, seeking his kingdom, and leaving the rest to him?''36 "Providence has disposed for me a plan after my own heart.''~7 Reflect awhile on your eJcperience of Providence. ELIZABETH: Not only would I have a school there, but a new religious community. I wrote to a friend in New York: "Mr. Cooper has given a handsome property for the establishment of such females as may choose to lead a religious life. We are going Review for Religious to begin our novitiate in a beautiful country place in the mountains." 38 I rejoiced in my new home, communing with God amidst "woods, rocks, walks.''39 "Peace . enjoying the liberty of solitude, country life, and plenty of every good.''4° I wrote to my lifelong friend Julia Sitgreaves Scott: "It is true also that I shall be at the head of a community which will live under the strictest rules of order and regularity.-41 Even in Emmitsburg I remembered my last home in New York, on State Street. I wrote to my dear friend Eliza Craig Sadler: "Think of me when you pass it again. Can a heart swell so high and not burst? Yet would I change one shade or trial of it? That would be madness, and working in the dark.''42 The building and nurturing of my new religious community was my next challenge, for "one can't talk of making nuns like making bread.''43 I cautioned about the danger of being "lovers with our lips rather than our heart, while a true lover of Christ can never have enough of his cross.''44 I told my young sister-in-law Cecilia Seton: "Rejoice to bear your share in the cross, which is our passport and seal to the kingdom of the Redeemer.''4s At our council meeting we agreed that "no personal inconvenience should prevent Sisters of Charity from doing what duty and charity required.''46 From its inception I felt loved by my sisters. I told my New York friends that they should come and see my community's black gowns and demure faces, "which hid a set of as lively and merry hearts as ever met together.''47 As grateful as I was for the plenty of every good, the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament was for me the best of all God's gifts. It was the treasure of my soul.48 Sickness and death were never far from us in Emmitsburg. In 1810, when my sister-in-law, now Sister Cecilia Seton, died, I told Julia Scott: "I am sending my rosebuds to bloom in heaven." 49 On 12 March 1812 my beloved daughter Annina died. Through the stark days after her death, I found myself "begging, crying to Mary to behold her Son and plead for us, and to Jesus to behold his Mother - to pity a mother, [this] poor, poor mother." S° On 3 November 1816 my youngest, Rebecca, died. She was only fourteen. "I am sending my rosebuds to bloom in heaven." May-June 2002 Higgins and McNeil ¯ Women of Spirit "God is with us - and, if sufferings abound in us, his consolations also greatly abound, and far exceed all utterance. [I was] not only willing to take my cross, but kissed it too.''sl "My own troubles.will teach me, I hope, how to comfort others." s2 Reflect on troubles that taught you how to comfort others. --- 260-J ELIZABETH: In 1811 I met Father Simon Gabriel Brutfi, "a true cordial to my heart."" He was my soul's friend and guide. The Scriptures continued to be God's wellspring for me. "Nothing in our state of clouds and veils can I see so plainly as how the saints died of love and joy, since I, so wretched and truly miserable, can only read word after word of the blessed 83rd and 41st psalms in unutterable feelings - God - God - God - that the supreme delight, that he is God, and to open the mouth and heart wide that he may fill it." s~ "I long and wish to serve our Lord with every breath I draw."" "Oceans of LOVE to plunge in for eternity, every faculty of our soul dilated!!!!! - heavenly pure supernatural love undivided - God alone - ,,s6 Love love love, when will I love enough? "This world of separations must have its course. We must take its good and evil quietly as it passes - for my part I am now so accustomed to look only at our God in all that happens that it seems to me [that] the most painful things in the order of his providence can but increase our confidence and peace in him, since all will draw us but nearer to himself." ~7 "If it succeeds I bless God, if [it] does not succeed I bless God, because then it will be right that it should not succeed.''s8 LOUISE: In my prayer at Chartres, where I dedicated the Company to God through the prayers of the Blessed Virgin, I asked God to destroy the Company "rather than let it be established contrary to his holy will." s9 ELIZABETH: God, your love impelled me. and my urgency impelled my sisters. "Our God is God, and I know.all will turn out well at last., the ways of Providence are mysterious indeed as to the human nature, but most clearly we may distinguish in them the progress of the divine, pervading all.''6° "Be children of the church . be children of the church .,. May the most just, the most high, and the most amiable will of God be accomplished forever!''61 LOUISE: I had been looking at my life in one way., and Review for Religious then things happened to destroy it. to change it. and in the midst of the destruction, in the midst of the changes, I remained faithful to God. I held on, and God created something new. My life with the Company of Charity captured my heart, focused my mind, stabilized my soul for the single-minded search for the living reign of God, of God who was justice for the poor, healing for the sick, light for those in darkness. My story, like yours, is about bringing spiritual presence to a world lost in the mundane.62 ELIZABETH: "Let your chief study be to acquaint yourself with God because there is nothing greater than God." 63 "How grateful, then, should we be for our vocation, which is in itself a practice of the two principal commandments - obliging us to give every moment of life to charity, serving her [our vocation, charity] exteriorly in our care of the body, but principally in our care of souls, speaking to them of God, and helping them to know and love him eternally. Besides, how grateful we should be to God for choosing us for this manner of life.''6~ Notes ~ A version of this article was first presented at Seton Legacy III, a symposium on Elizabeth Seton and Incarnational Spirituality for a Contemporary World (Sisters of Charity Federation, 2001). 2 Nicolas Gobillon, La Vie de Mademoiselle/sic] Le Gras: Fondatrice et Premikre Superieure de la Compagnie des Filles de la Chariti, Servantes des Pauvres Malades (Paris: Andr~ Pralard, 1676). 3 This reflection may incorporate music and song into a multimedia presentation. The opening song could be "I Heard the Voice of Jesus" (Kingsfold). An entrance procession could be orchestrated with a solo flute, then flute and piano, then flute, piano, and guitar, then singing. As the song is sung, a processiofi could begin, with candle, incense, and LOUISE and ELIZABETH. Reflective interludes could be enhanced by sung verses of an arrangement of Elizabeth's favorite psalm, Psalm 23 (such as Marty Haugen's "Shepherd Me, O God"). The reflection could conclude with "Sing a New Church" (Nettleton). 4 See Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing (New York: Doubleday, 1999), p. 165. 5 Mary Catherine Bateson, Composing a Life (New York: A Plume Book, 1990), pp. 1, 9. 6 "On Charity," in Spiritual Writings of Louise de Marillac, ed. Louise May-3~une 2002 Higgins and McNeil ¯ Women of Spirit Sullivan DC (New York: New City Press, 1991), p. 71 I. 7 "Mother Seton's Baptism," in Mother Seton Guild Bulletin 16 (November 1945), p. 3. 8 Elizabeth Seton to George Weis, 13 May 1810, quoted in Mother Seton Notes by Simon Gabriel Brute, ed. Loyola Law DC (Emmitsburg, 1884), p. 98. 9 To Philip Filicchi, 21 January 1809, in Elizabeth Seton: Selected Writings, ed. Ellin M. Kelly and Annabelle Melville (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), p. 244. ~0 "Exercise of the Presence of God," in Archives Saint Joseph's Provincial House, Daughters of Charity, Emmitsburg, Maryland (hereafter ASJPH), 1-3-3-23B, 58. Quoted in Joseph I. Dirvin CM, The Soul of Elizabeth Seton: A Spiritual Portrait (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), p. 103. ,l Ec. 848. ~2 Joseph I. Dirvin C2vl, Louise de Marillac (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1970), p. 22. ~3 Anna Maria 1795-1812, William 1796-1868, Richard 1798-1823, Catherine 1800-1891, and Rebecca Mary 1802-1816. ~4 31 December 1799, ASJPH 1-3-3-3:1. ,5 See "Light," in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 1. ,6 Antonio and Filippo Filicchi, devout Catholics who lived in Livorno (Leghorn), were longtime business associates of the Setons. Filippo married Mary Cowper in Boston; Antonio's wife was Amabilia Baragazzi. ,7 See letter to Rebecca Seton, 5 March 1804, in Elizabeth Barley Seton: Collected Writings, 3 vols. projected, ed. Regina Bechde SC and Judith Metz SC (New York: New City Press, 2000), Vol. 1, p. 294. ~8 To Julia Scott, 5 March 1805, in Bechde and Metz, Elizabeth Barley Seton, Vol. 1, p. 345. ~gJoumal for Amabilia Filicchi, 27 February 1805, Ash Wednesday, in Bechde and Metz, Elizabeth Bayley Seton, Vol. 1, p. 375. 20 To Vincent de Paul, 24 August before 1650, in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 341. 2~ "Renunciation of Self," in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 720. 22 Dirvin, Louise de Marillac, p. 87. See also "On the Love of Our Vocation and on Helping the Poor," 13 February 1646, in Conferences of Vincent de Paul to the Daughters of Charity, ed. and trans. Joseph Leonard CM (Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1968), Vol. 1, p. 217. zs To Catherine Gesse, 4 May 1659, in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 639. 24 See "On the Love of Our Vocation," in Conferences of Vincent de Review for Religious Paul to the Daughters of Charity, Vol. 1, p. 223, and "On Serving the Sick and the Care of One's Health," 11 November 1657, also in Conferences, Vol. 3, p. 292. 2s "Instructions to the Sisters Who Were Sent to Montreuil," October 1646, in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 773. 26 To the Sisters of the H6tel-Dieu of Nantes, 13 July 1658, in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, pp. 600-601. 27 To Sister C~cile Agn~s, 4 May 1650, in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 320. 28 See "On the Spirit of the Company," 9 February 1653, in Conferences of Vincent de Paul, Vol. 2, p. 204; also Vincent de Paul to Anne Hardemont, 24 November 1658, in Vincent de Paul, Cor-respondence, Conferences, and Documents, ed. and trans. Marie Poole DC (New York: New City Press, 1997), Vol. 7, pp. 396-397. 29 Ec. 994. 3o To Mathurine Gu6rin, 23 December 1659, in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 662. 31 To Our Very Dear Sisters, the Daughters of Charity at Nantes, in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 197. ~2 Ec. 845. 33 "Thoughts of Mademoiselle Le Gras On [the] Vocation of [the] Sisters of Charity," trans. Elizabeth Ann Seton, in Reflections of Saint Louise, ASJPH 1-3-3-24B. This manuscript in Elizabeth Seton's own handwriting is the first English version of the final book of Nicolas Gobillon's/~e de Mademoiselle Le Gras. 34 To Philip Filicchi, Baltimore, 21 January 1809, in Kelly and Melville, Elizabeth Seton, p. 244. 3s To Rev. Simon Gabriel Brute, November n.d., ASJPH 1-3-3- 12:81. 36 "The Sisters of Charity meditate on the service of God," ASJPH 1-3-3-20E, 37. 37 To Julia Scott, 2 March 1809, ASJPH 1-3-3-6:76. 38 To Rose Stubbs, Baltimore, 20 February 1809, ASJPH 1-3-3- 2:103. 39 Dear Remembrances, ASJPH 1-3-3-26A, quoted in Kelly and Melville, Elizabeth Seton, p. 352. 40To Julia Scott, 20 July 1810, ASJPH 1-3-3-6:83. 41To Julia Scott, 23 March 1809, ASJPH 1-3-3-6:77. 42To Eliza Sadler, Baltimore, 20January 1809, ASJPH 1-3-3-7:35. 43To Julia Scott, 29 October 1812, ASJPH 1-3-3-6:95. ~ "Exercise of the Presence of God," ASJPH 1-3-3-23B, 57, quot'ed May-June 2002 Higgins and McNeil ¯ Women of Spirit in Dirvin, Soul of Elizabeth, .pp. 102-103. 45 To Cecilia Seton, 1 October 1803, Bechtle and Metz, Elizabeth Bayley Seton, Vol. 1, p. 224. 46 First Council Book," Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph's, 20 August 1814, ASJPH. 47 To Julia Scott, 20 September 1809, ASJPH 1-3-3-6:79. 48 See Dirvin, Soul of Elizabeth, p. 74. 49 To Julia Scott, 20 July 1810, ASJPH 1-3-3-6:83. 50 To Rev. Simon Gabriel Brute, 22 September 1812, ASJPH 1-3-3- 12:33, quoted in Dirvin, Soul of Elizabeth, p. 82. 5t To Rebecca Seton, 20th [November 1803]. Archives Mount St. Vincent, Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul of New York, N/P 110: M, II, 12. 52 To Archbishop Carroll, 6 August 1809, Archives of the Archdiocese of Baltimore 7M4. 53 To Julia Scott, 20 May 1815, ASJPH 1-3-3-6:106. 54 ASJPH 1-3-3-12:44, n.d. Psalm 83 (Ps. 84 in present-day Catholic Bibles) and Psalm 41 (Ps. 42) are prayers of longing for God. 55 To Antonio Filicchi, 22 May 1810, quoted in Kelly and Melville, Elizabeth Seton, p. 280. s6 Kelly and Melville, Elizabeth Seton, p. 327. 57 To Mary FitchBayley Bunch, 26.June 1819, ASJPH 1-3-3-7:88. 58 To Antonio Filicchi, 6 May 1805, in Bechde and Metz, Elizabech Barley Seton, Vol. 1, p. 362. 59 "Account of the Pilgrimage to Chartres," October 1644, in Sullivan, Spiritual Writings, p. 122. 6o To Cecilia Seton, Friday, July [1806], ASJPH 1-3-3-8:92. 6, Law, Mother Seton Nobles by Simon Gabriel Bruti, p. 26. 6z See Joan Chittister OSB, Fire in These Ashes. 63 To Cecilia Seton, 19 November 1802, ASJPH 1-3-3-8:87. 64 "Thoughts of Mademoiselle Le Gras on [the] Vocation of [the] Sisters of Charity," trans. Elizabeth Ann Seton, in Reflections of Saint Louise. Review for Religious REGINA SIEGFRIED From Paschal Mystery to Reconciliation, from ASCs to Adorers ~thodate smcoritbivea tietss ca hcaornigsmreg? aWtiohna tto p ursoem dpiftfse trhenatt tsearmmein coolomgy-munity to find another name for itself, for use within the com-munity and for others' use too? The Adorers of the Blood of Christ have recently experienced these two developments. For a community of women religious whose charism is rooted in a cen-tral mystery of our redemption, the answers to those questions flow from a developing appreciation of our rich charism. Some excellent recent studies of religious life and charism provide the background for this article.~ But, rather than focus-ing on distinctions and nuances of charisms, this article takes note of one congregation's growing understanding of its charism and maintains that "history changed the expression of our charism," as Joe Nassal CPPS says in "Reclaiming Our Name.''2 While 19th-century terms often sound antiquated to 2 lst-cen-tury ears, the founding charism, now expressed in today's lan-guage, still resonates for our' congregation. In a letter to Biagio Valentini CPPS, dated 28 June 1841, Maria de Mattias, founder of the congregation, wrote: "The Regina Siegfried ASC, known to many of our readers, writes from the Department of Theological Studies; Saint Louis University; P.O. Box 56907; St. Louis, Missouri 63156. May-June 2002 SiegiCried * From Paschal Mystery to Reconciliation spirit of this holy work., is all charity., charity toward God and the dear neighbor." The preface to the 1857 constitution describes the charism in these words: Now this our lowly Congregation that lives and labors under the glorious title of the most precious Blood of Jesus Christ must be patterned and shaped into a living image of that divine charity with which this ¯ divine blood was shed and of which it was and is sign, expression, measure, and pledge. Maria de Mattias understood our sharing in the redemption in terms of our practice of "charity toward God and the dear neigh-bor." In violent 19th-century Italy, where political and social strife were the reality of life, Maria de Mattias knew that the "divine charity with which this divine blood was shed" spoke to the hearts of her "dear neighbors," especially the women and children, who needed education and longed to hear a word of peace. Recent Developments in the Founding Charism After Vatican Council II, the congregation, now worldwide, missionary, and ministering in truly needy places, rephrased the founding charism in its 1968 "Life Charter," and kept the same wording in the 1992 revision of the constitution: Our charism as Adorers of the Blood of Christ is deeply rooted in the death-resurrection mystery of Jesus. Ours is a paschal identity, signed in the blood of the Lamb. As a congregation we are to bear witness in hope and joy to the living presence in our world today of Christ's adoring, redeeming love, which gives meaning to human suffering and can render it power-fully liberating and life-giving. (§22, "Paschal Mystery in Our Charism") Although the title of our congregation has changed slightly over the years, "adorers" has always been a decisive part. The original document, written in Maria's own hand, has "Adorers of the Divine Blood." A later shift was to "Adorers of the Blood of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." In 1968 the congregation's name was changed from "Sisters Adorers of the Most Precious Blood" to "Adorers of the Blood of Christ" to reflect a more contemporary and holistic under- Review for Religious standing of the theology of the Blood of Christ. The United States expression of the charism moved from devotionalism to a concentration on the paschal mystery. We began to give more attention to life, death, and resurrection in the life of Jesus, in the life of the church, in the life of the congregation, and in its members' lives. Immersed in this mystery of our redemption through community education and personal prayer, we hoped to grow to be "more credible witness[es] of God's tender love, of which the blood of Jesus is vibrant sign and unending covenant pledge" (Life Charter, §2). Becoming credible witnesses meant (and still means) living lives of simplicity, involvement in social-justice issues, solidarity with the poor, and improving our community living through communication workshops, conflict resolution, and prayer. Reflecting on the intensely apostolic implications of the charism helped us understand more fully that ministry flows from prayer and prayer floods ministry, much as the classic "Gift of the Nile" provided thriving stands of wheat. "Adorers" in our tide is contemplative; "Blood of Christ" keeps us mindful of the work of redemption. The one title expresses the unity of con-templation and mission. Along with other communities, we researched our roots, wrote histories, and reclaimed a charism that had been in us from the beginning. We .were proud to be Adorers of the Blood of Christ, confident that our paschal-mystery charism continues to be a fiery and energizing spirit for the church and us. The United States expression of the charism moved from devotionalism to a concentration on the paschal mystery. From Paschal Mystery to Reconciliation In "Reclaiming Our Name," Joe Nassal CPpS writes: "The charism does not change . What changes is our response that is shaped by the currents of history." This is precisely what hap-pened to the Adorers of the Blood of Christ and to other May-June 2002 Siegfried ¯ From Paschal Mystery to Reconciliation Precious Blood congregations in the early 1990s. After our two decades of highlighting the paschal-mystery facet of the charism, historical events drew our attention, prayer, and reflection to another facet of our theologically complex charism. Our international congregation has a province in Bosnia and had United States missionaries in Liberia, West Africa. In the early 1990s war raged in both places. While we dreaded that sisters might be killed in Bosnia, it was the five United States Adorers shot and killed in Liberia in October 1992 that gave the Croatian sisters who ministered in Bosnia the courage to stay with the people, to witness to peace, and to attempt to bring reconciliation there. Matija Pavic, one of the Croatian Adorers who experienced the war and destruction of that country, wrote: Since their martyrdom I can say we feel greater close-ness among us, at the level of the province and of the congregation as well . We experienced the truth of the Word that we are called to witness Christ even to shedding of our own blood. We were overwhelmed by feelings of worry, compassion, and prayer; it was as if their suffering spilled over into us.3 Reconciliation is p.ossible only when we have embraced the paschal mystery. The violent shedding of blood in our lifetime--in South Africa, Central and South America, Croatia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Indonesia, in the crime and violence on U.S.A. streets, and in the terrorist attacks here, there, and there too--this bloodshed cries for reconciliation rather than revenge. As Adorers, we understand the seemingly impossible hope that the shedding of the Blood of Christ gives to Christianity. Christ's death was not the end, but the beginning of salvation and reconciliation. So, too, the bloodshed and suffering of our world today need not be just a sad series of endings; it can be the beginning of a new, though painful, reconciliation for this world of ours today. While bloody violence in South Africa and Central America and elsewhere horrified us, much of it was far away from our-selves, or so it seemed. Liberia and Bosnia, similarly far away, were made personal, close up, and full of grief for us Adorers because of the presence, suffering, and death of sisters of ours in those countries. We were now immediate sufferers, with raw Review for Religious and public sorrow. We knew, however, that our sisters gave their lives in the service of the Liberian people and that the Croatian sisters of our congregation willingly suffered along with their people. As Robert Schreiter CPPS has written, "repentance can orig-inate from the side of those who have perpetrated violence, but reconciliation and forgiveness must come from the side of those who have suffered violence.''4 Revenge is anger with an ugly face and the wielding of weapons. The retaliator is reduced to the level of the perpetrator; revenge continues the cycle of violence, spinning it out of control into more madness. Reconciliation is love tempered by suffering, immersing the wounded in the depths of the paschal mystery of our redemption. Reconcilers seek to restore wholeness, and not cause more fragmentation and division. Reconciliation and revenge are not mutually exclusive things separated by an unbridgeable chasm. Rather, they are participants in a con-versation earnestly seeking deeper understanding. For either partner to demonize the other destroys the communication. In a homily during a prayer service for peace shortly after 11 September 2001, Joan Range ASC told us "we must reflect on the cost of bringing peace through reconciliation." She prayed that Jesus would "heal our wounds and give us [his] Spirit so that we can be ambassadors of [his] reconciling presence in the world." Peace and peacemaking on many levels become the work of those who reconcile. Robert Schreiter describes three characteristics of the spir-ituality of reconciliation: an attitude of listening and waiting, attention and compassion, and a postexilic stance.5 As we tell our own stories of the violence done to us, we learn to listen to other sufferers, to wait with them as the pain becomes trans-formative. Reconciliation keeps us conscious of the suffering of others; we become compassionate in ways we never dreamed possible. We learn to live in a new place, beyond the circum-stances that abruptly or gradually exiled us from our former existence: "For those who are reconciled, reconciliation becomes Reconcilers seek to restore wholeness, and not cause more fragmentation and division. May-~une 2002 Sie~ffHed ¯ From Paschal Mystery to Reconciliation a calling. They move to a wholly new place, from which they call oppressors to repentance and serve in a prophetic way for the whole of society.''6 From ASCs to Adorers Why, in the last year or two, have we in the United States province of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ begun to refer to ourselves as "Adorers" instead of using the convenient acronym "ASCs"? (Our website is now even !) Is it merely a way to greater name-recognition, an attempt to dis-tance ourselves from the elaborate code of Catholic religious-congregation abbreviations? While Adorers seems easier to understand and to have better name recognition, I think there is more to it than that. The shift from ASCs to Adorers highlights the contemplative dimension of the charism and provides for the balance of prayer in the midst of activity. Helen Lindsey ASC believes that "Adorer is a statement of who we are; adoration is what establishes the uniqueness of our charism.''7 We have become comfortable with "Adorers" because we have contemplated the paschal mystery, we now realize and internalize more fully what reconciliation means and demands, and we wonder where next the vitality of our charism will lead us. Perhaps Maria de Mattias sensed the link between adoration and reconciliation when she wrote to her bishop on 13 November 1838 that our work is to "establish that beautiful order of things which the great Son of God came to establish in his blood." Contemplation and adoration urge us to reconcili-ation and restoration of right relationships. Theresa Wetta ASC succinctly describes the unfolding of the charism when she says: Reconciliation as a current expression of our charism was prompted, I believe, by the work the CPPS men were doing on spirituality coupled with the increasing need for reconciliation in our more violent and disturbed world. Love and unity have always been expressions of our charism. Now we see love and unity achieved through efforts at reconciliation--the same deep union that Jesus achieved for/with us through the shedding of his blood.8 Review for Religious While this article concentrates on one small community, I think it has implications beyond the Adorers of the Blood of Christ. If we believe that all religious congregation charisms are vibrant, flaming gifts and graces given to our founders and living in us, they do indeed grow, develop, and breathe in us for today's world. Communities can trace the expansion and maturing of their foundational charism to discover how that gift is still relevant, appropriate, and significant in contemporary society. Notes ~ See Marianne Stevens RSM, "Revitalizing Charisms Inspiring Religious Life," and Joseph Nassal CPPS, "Reclaiming Our Name," Review for Religious 53, no. 6 (November-December 1994): 847-859 and 840-846, respectively; Margaret Susan Thompson, "Charism or Deep Story? Towards Understand Better the 19th-Century Origins of American Women's Congregations," Review for Religious 58, no. 3 (May-June 1999): 230-250; Sandra M. Schneiders IHM, Finding the Treasure (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2000): chaps. 9 and 10. z Review for Religious 53, no. 6 (November-December 1994): 843. 3 Email to author, July 2001; trans. Viktorija Tomic ASC. 4 Robert J. Schreiter CPPS, Reconciliation: Mission and Ministry in a Changing Social Order (Maryknoli: Orbis Books, 1992), p. 21. See also Joseph Nassal CPPS, Premeditated Mercy: A Spirituality of Reconciliation (Leavenworth: Forest of Peace Publishing, 2000), for another fine study of reconciliation. s See Schreiter, Reconciliation, pp. 70-73. 6 Schreiter, Reconciliation, p. 73. 7 Helen Lindsey ASC in email to author, 31 December 2001. 8 Therese Wetta ASC in email to author, 24 January 2002. May-June 2002 DEBORAH M. CERULLO Distinctiveness, Diversity, and Commonness in Consecrated Life religious life culture Much is being written these days concerning where we are currently situated in religious life. Some are calling it the dark night of the souU Others see it as a time for courageous waiting,2 comparing it to being inside a cocoon, developing as we are meant to develop, but at risk of being impatiently opened too soon? While these images are helpful, especially as they allay some of the fears that surround the uncer-taihty of our times, I wonder if there is more clarity about who we are becoming than we sometimes give ourselves credit for. We have spent many years devel-oping those aspects of our life of faith that we share with others' outside our communities, including spirituality, ministry, community, and even charism. We have deconstructed our boundaries and empha-sized an inclusiveness in keeping with Vatican Council II's renewal of the universal call to holiness. As our understanding of what we share with others continues to develop, we are now also beginning to hear the call Deborah M. Cerullo $$ND wrote "Charism and Membership" in our September-October 1999 issue. She is visiting associate clinical professor of law at Boston College Law School; 885 Centre Street; Newton, Massachusetts 02459. Review for Religious to discover our distinctiveness. We are being asked to explore what makes the lifestyle of religious life distinctive, not because it is better or holier, but simply because it is different. This article will explore questions about distinctiveness, diversity, and commonness as we continue our movement from the high-walled boundaries of the pre-Vatican II era to our cur-rent search for new boundaries. It will also propose one method that religious institutes might use to answer these questions. My bias in this project is a belief that we are in a criti-cal time. If we wish to sus-tain the distinctiveness that is religious life, we must deal with our diversity and externalize our new ~reality in a more common way. My thoughts are from the view-point of one who did not experience religious life before or during most of its Religious life is a lifestyle that inculcates and fosters interior and exterior habits that have proved helpful in following Jesus Christ closely. deconstruction, having entered in the mid 1980s. I do not claim that others who entered when I did necessarily have the same thoughts as I do, nor do I think that only those who entered after Vatican II have thoughts like mine, but I do think that we who never experienced religious life's preconciliar uniformity have a different perspective on "commonness" than those who did.4 From my perspective commonness is not the same as uni-formity. I take for granted that diversity is good and that respect for the needs of individuals is important for our future. Distinctiveness and Diversity The distinctiveness of religious life comes from its primary focus, which is God. It is a lifestyle that inculcates and fosters interior and exterior habits that have proved helpful in follow-ing Jesus Christ closely. The means that are most distinctive of the lifestyle of consecrated life are the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, shared governance and finances, and a perma-nent commitment to religious life. Except that unmarried lay life excludes sexual activity, no other Christian lifestyle requires May-June 2002 Cerullo ¯ Distinctive'hess, Diversity, and Commonness --- 294A people to renounce private property, sexual activity, marriage, and autonomy (sharing financial resources with other members and abiding by decisions made by other members), all on a permanent basis. As religious life does too, other Christian lifestyles, of course, call for ministry, community, prayer, and social justice. For some, these calls come from within the charism of a par-ticular religious family through various associate programs,s Although religious and others still ask whether those making only temporary commitments might be invited to full mem-bership or whether some dedicated people should be invited to make permanent but partial commitments that would, say, include participation in government but not the life of the vows, these are questions without present answers. Meanwhile, other questions about joining with others in ministry, promoting social justice, forming alternative communities, and praying and grow-ing spiritually have all been answered with a resounding yes, and the only questions left are whether there need be any limits to this sharing. There are diverse views in religious life today and diverse choices being made. I believe that exploring this diversity is crucial to understanding the distinctiveness of religious life.6 Because being nonjudgmental and tolerant is such a strong cul-tural value today, many have adopted a live-and-let-live attitude that can prevent dialogue from being meaningful. While this attitude reduces tension and conflict within our congrega-tions, there is danger of our not engaging one another at enough depth to keep our passion alive, the passion inside each of us that enlivens our commitments for shared mission. In discussing diversity we must ask whether there are essen-tials in the living o]: consecrated life beyond which we venture at our peril. If so, how do we decide what they are? For exam-ple, most would agree that an active sexual relationship is incon-sistent with the commitment to consecrated celibacy. The boundary is fairly well established, with little, though some, disagreement. Even the disagreement, however, is more in the-oretical terms thari in. open behavior. Can we identify similar boundaries for gospel poverty and apostolic obedience? Gospel poverty seems to be an area that permits a wide variance of opinion, but at the same time includes silent disapproval of the Review for Religious way some members' choices undermine community relation-ships. Apostolic obedience seems to enjoy wide support for the view that the distinctiveness of our living the vow of obedience is limited to who we invite into our discernments (that is, lead-ership instead of a spouse or friend), rather than something qualitatively different. Even here, however, there would be wide disagreement about how and when leadership is invited into our personal discernments. Although these issues are significant, the questions sur-rounding the areas that we share with nonmembers are, I believe, even more significant. In our age of respect for the individual and in our reaction against religious life's preconciliar unifor-mity, we are strongly supportive of a wid~ diversity of choices in ministry and in styles of community and prayer, including when and with whom we engage in these aspects of our life. This diversity is so great that many of us have difficulty finding members with whom to share our work, homes, and prayer, especially on a daily basis. For like-minded members to come together once or twice a month is seen as an acceptable alter-native to daily sharing, especially by those whose entered before Vatican II, the majority of our membership. This opinion is not shared by most members who entered after the council and is a growing source of difficulty.7 This issue is at the heart of our different belonging needs. For mem-bers who have a well-developed sense of belonging after decades of membership, living, working, or even praying with other members of the congregation does not appear to be a strong need so long as the intermittent connection is maintained. The same practice would also likely satisf3, those who do not have a strong sense of belonging within the congregation, but still desire some of the benefits of membership. The question that remains is whether our diverse choices about ministry, community, and shared prayer so detract from our distinctiveness that our current support for them will con-tribute more to the loss of our lifestyle than to its flourishing, or whether the values and social movement that generated this diversity are so important that diversity must be allowed to con-tinue unabated. VChile in theory the answer probably lies some-where between these extremes, that middle ground can be achieved only if enough members keep trying to achieve it. May-.~une 2002 Cerullo ¯ Distinctiveness, Diversity, and Commonness The area where we seem most united, with very little articulated diversity, is in our social-justice views. The area where we seem most united, with very little artic-ulated diversity, is in our social-justice views. Vghile tolerance of different perspectives on living the vows, prayer, community life, and ministry are, in my view, the norm, this is not true of our justice perspectives. In her recent book Finding the Treasure, Sandra Schneiders has gone so far as to suggest that this social-justice work on behalf of the poor and marginalized (which she calls the prophetic dimen-sion of religious life) isin fact a primary distinguishing characteristic of religious life.~ While Schneiders's work as a whole is a major contribution to any analysis of contemporary religious life, this assertion seems to me quite extraordinary, con-sidering the latitude she gives in all other categories. Her descrip-tion of our prophetic role as standing on the margins of church and society, lamenting the iniustices of our world, and offering hope to the oppressed seems appropriate for some of our mem-bership, for whom social justice is a passion. It seems all the more appropriate, then, for some congregations whose charism involves such social protest. But, though I believe that most of us would support and affirm the need for a social-justice dimen-sion in our lives and our congregations, I am not convinced that we would agree that this dimension is the distinguishing char-acteristic that all members must espouse with the fervor and ded-ication of a prophet. Rather, many would assert that our prophet role as witnesses of hope and love in a broken world is meant for everyone, and that service to others is legitimate in its own right, not simply as it affects the poor and marginalized. But, even if I am wrong and most religious would claim that social justice deserves a primacy in our lives, where does that leave us on the issue of diversity? Is there a place among us for those who do not experience social justice as the primary motivating or sus-taining aspect of our vocation? What about those with minority political views? These examples highlight the difficulties we are experienc-ing as we decide what areas of our lives to emphasize and what, Review for Religious if any, boundaries should be set or maintained. Is it ever appro-priate to claim that a practice or belief is normative, or would we too likely return to a conformity that has been rejected or a majority rule that is not sufficiently respectful of individual per-spectives? I believe that how we answer these questions together within our own individual institutes will determine whether we hold on to the distinctiveness that is religious life, at least in its North American manifestation. Externalizing Our Common Reality The renewal of Vatican II brought many changes to reli-gious life, deconstructing a world where the externals had become ends in themselves. Externals became suspect, and inter-nalizing new understandings of our lifestyle became the norm. Diversity and respect for individual choices became so highly valued that the value of commonness for the sake of shared mis-sion was overwhelmed. Our challenge now is to discover ways to integrate these values so that the common life may reemerge, not in its preconciliar form, but in a way that maintains dis-tinctiveness and provides religious with sufficient support. One way to do this, I believe, is to identify the parts of our new real-ity that we regard as common and to give them external expres-sion. Symbols, myths, public rituals, and expected standards of behavior are identity markers which we need in order to embody our commitment? We must do this in a way that respects legit-imate diversity and individual needs, but does not make diver-sity and individualism ends in themselves, valued at the expense of the common life. So how might religious, together, go about answering some of these questions? In my own community we have begun with a process of theological development, especially in the areas of Christology and ecclesiology as they relate to diverse world-views from the classical, modern, and postmodern eras. Other communities are doing the same~° or are engaging in ongoing dialogue on significant.theological issues, i1 Another step in this process could include corporate theological reflection on the various elements discussed above. A group would discuss these in relation to their lived experience and with a view toward tak-ing action. It would aim at practical action, not theory, working May-June 2002 Cerullo ¯ Distinctiveness, Diversity, and Commonness out of specific contexts rather than generic truths and drawing upon lived experience as much as classical texts. It would cor-relate this experience with the sources and texts of the religious tradition and then draw out practical implications for living.12 The action goal would be commitment to living these practical implications. This process could be used in local communities, geo-graphical areas, provinces, or even entire congregations. It could involve members, associates, coworkers, or guest contributors, but decision making would be left to those planning to live the commitment. Givefi the potential difficulty of this level of dia-logue, perhaps the use of certain rules for dialogue would be useful, such as those articulated in the Common Ground ini-tiative, where Catholics with differing viewpoints are encouraged to dialogue:13 ¯ We should recognize that no single group or view-point has a complete monopoly on the truth. ¯ We should test all proposals for their pastoral realism and potential impact on living individuals. ° We should presume that those with whom we differ are acting in good faith. ¯ We should put the best possible construction on differing positions, addressing their strongest points rather than seizing upon the most vul-nerable aspects. ¯ We should be cautious [about] ascribing motives. ¯ We should bring the church [or, in our case, religious life] to engage the realities of contemporary cul~re by acknowledging both our cul-ture's valid achievements and real dangers. ¯ It could be helpful to have a skilled facilitator who is not a member of the group. Such a person can help participants to hear all voices in the dialogue, not only those that are loudest or most articulate. Another way for the group as a whole to hear different voices might be to practice by bringing together smaller groups that have types of ministry in common or simi-lar ages or similar community lifestyle experience, and then dis-cussing differences that occur even among themselves. In all such efforts, what is important is the honesty and depth of our dialogue and a true commitment to its results, neither of which is quickly or easily achieved. Summing up, I believe that we are in a critical time in reli- Review for Religious gious life when we must deal with our diversity and externalize our new reality in a more common way if we wish to sustain consecrated life's distinctiveness--the very reason why we entered religious life. The development of new symbols, myths, public rituals, and expected standards of behavior--or perhaps reclaiming some of the old with a new understanding of their meaning in our lives--is essential if we are to survive as a dis-tinct lifestyle. If we identify, and perhaps create, more of what can hold us together in this life we share, it will lead to a deep-ening of our individual and community spiritual life and empower us for more effective ministry. I believe, too, that more will want to join us if we can tell them with greater clarity who we are and how our life is different from theirs. While this can never be the primary motivation for our choices, without new members it will not matter how much diversity, respect for indi-viduals, prophetic witness, or postmodern sensibility religious life fosters, except in the lives of its last generation. Notes ~ Sandra M. Schneiders II-hVl, Finding the Treasure: Locating Catholic Religious Life in a New Ecclesial Context, vol. 1 of Religious Life in a New Millennium (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2000o), chap. 5. 2 Barbara Fiand SND, Wrestling with God: Religious Life in Search of Its Soul (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1996). 31 could not locate the source of this image, but I remember read-ing it on more than one occasion. 4 See Patricia Wittberg SC, Pathways to Re-Creating Religious Communities (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1996), p. 126. s See John Paul II, Vita consecrata, §54. 6 1 am indebted to Mary Maher SSND for first raising this point in a workshop titled "SSND: Living in Many Worlds," held in 1999 in Chattawa, Mississippi. 7 See Catherine Bertrand SSND, "Common Threads: Are We Weaving or Unraveling?" Review for Religious 57, no. 6 (November- December 1998): 566-577. 8 Schneiders, Finding the Treasure, pp. 137-149. 9 Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR, "Refounding by Honing the Purpose Concept," Review for Religious 57, no. 4 (July-August 1998): 417. ~0 Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary have been leaders in developing materials for this process and have been gener- May-June 2002 Cerullo ¯ Distinctiveness, Diversity, and Commonness ous in sharing them with others. And see Marie Chiodo DW and Mary Irving SSND, "An Itinerant Approach to Theological Updating," Review for Religious 57, no. 3 (May-June 1998): 247-259. n For example, the Congregation of Notre Dame, with whom I live, is engaged in such a dialogue on the topic of Eucharist. 12 See Robert L. Kinast, What Are They Saying about Theological Reflection? (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2000). 13 National Pastoral Life Center, Called to Be Catholic: Church in a Time of Peril, Origins 26, no. 11 (29 August 1996), pp. 169-170 passim. Walking by St. Cecilia's Convent Still taking that side of the street And the convent's brick sidewalk For the memories that it had: Behind bricks" barred recesses, the lives Lived by bells that to children Seemed gladder than children's; what wrinkles Of feature or fate those wimples hid, stayed Hidden from us, singing gaily "St. C! St. C!" For the school team. Where is she now, Virginal martyr and mistress of musics, Who sheltered our years and sheltered Her servants, the habited girls? And if I knocked at her convent And said, "Take me back in" to my innocence, Sisters, to a life lived by bells, Would I find her and them? or myself only Behind bricks still quixotic as ever, Impossibiy dreaming the St. C Of me has yet to begin. Nancy G. Westerfield Review for Religious NIHAL ABEYASINGHA The Culture of Religious Life within Asian Culture Tqe battle cry of the Fr,e, nch Revolution was "Liberty, uality, and Fraternity. The revolution in France and other revolutions that followed in Europe are well known. Two hundred years later it is almost ironical that Neil Kinnoch, onetime transport commissioner for the European Union, would almost parody that battle cry, saying "A car, a pair of jeans, and a burger are the new evidence of liberty, fraternity, and equality." Innovations within a Culture Innovations almost always stem from individuals. Yet, as Max Weber has remarked, no intellectual has ever established a religion. What becomes of the innovations is what the many other individuals who constitute society make of them. Often the results have little to do with the intention of the innovator2 To have some idea, then, of the likely direction an innovation will take, one has to look at who constitute the society into which the innovation is introduced. People differ not in soundness of reasoning, but in the principles and modalities that govern its exercise. Human experience is shaped, molded, and in a sense constituted by cultural and linguistic forms. Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR wrote two articles for our pages in 1999. He may be addressed during his sabbatical year (till mid January 2003) at St. Hilary Parish; 5465 Citronell Avenue; Pico Rivera, California 90660. May-June 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Religious Life within Asian Culture The vast majority of international religious institutes rose in the West, with its long Christian tradition. Only after the 16th century were numbers of them planted in Asia. Of these, many accepted local members for the first time only in the late 19th century. With few exceptions, the first Asian superiors were named only in the mid 20th century. Today there are very few foreign religious in Asia (except for some that have come to Asia to seek members to staff their establishments in the West). Hardly any foreigners are superiors. The organization and direction of religious life have been entrusted to local personnel. But the principles and modalities that govern the course of religious life as lived in Asia need to be reflected on more carefully. The fact that international religious institutes are well established in India in terms of numbers, buildings, and involvement in many forms of apostolate does not mean that these institutes have adapted themselves to the Asian context. The question that needs to be raised is: Do these religious institutes give indications of the innovative witness of their founders and foundresses according to the principles and modalities of the functioning of the Asian mind? Unfortunately, it would seem that many Asian branches of religious institutes seek direction from their general administrations for the resolution of their local problems. The general administrations are for the most part non-Asian, and so the question arises: On what principles and modalities of reason do they offer direction'to their units in Asia? That one must keep the institution going at all costs because most present-day vocations come from Asia and Africa? Or that what the local unit decides must be right? Or that what the local unit judges to be good is good also for the institute? These modalities of reasoning can be legitimate and valid in specific instances, but are they the correct general modalities for the Asian context? The numerical growth of religious life in Asia is evident. These numerous Asian members must certainly not function or seem to function like foreign implants within the Asian culture. On the other hand, they must not simply be part and parcel of the Asian culture. Religious life must always be a challenge to the existing culture. It must be an innovation, one that witnesses to the Source of its incarnate newness. The present article oudines some considerations, in the working out of this process of Review for Religious adaptation to Asian culture--not merely reflecting the culture, but challenging it to conversion. I shall do this in the form of theses for discussion (italicized below). They are not exhaustive treatments of the issues. The Movement of Adaptation The movement of adaptation #from the gospel to the culture and back to the gospel, which is then proclaimed in its originality in a cultural modality. In his address to the first meeting of the Pastoral Council for Culture, Pope John Paul 1I pointed out that the Vatican Council committed "the whole church to listen to modern man in order to understand him and to invent a new kind of dialogue which would permit the originality of the gospel to be carried to the heart of contemporary modalities." The human situation, however, is ambiguous. People have forces in their own hands: The operative question is: What is worth losing in a culture in favor of what is to be gained in life ? either they control them or they become enslaved by them. In every instance, then, the operative question is: What is worth losing in a culture in favor of what is to be gained in life? Life is not just a dimension of the human situation that involves the satisfaction of biological or aesthetic or other needs. It is, rather, the way revealed in Jesus Christ, and it is to this life that the Christian is committed. As Pope John Paul has said, "man is the way of the church." But "man" must be understood in terms of the man, Jesus Christ. It is the proclamation of Jesus Christ that is the mission of the church) It is through inculturation that the church becomes an intelligible sign of what it is and a more effective instrument of mission. Adaptation's Goal By their witness to escbatological values, religious are called to bring the Good News of conversion into the heart of the culture. May-d~ne 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Religious Life within Asian Culture (Religious institutes began as innovations; they must continue innovating or slowly fade away.) Pope John Paul has said that mission is contemplative action and active contemplation. Sometimes silent witness is the only way.3 Before him Pope Paul vI pointed out that "the gospel, and therefore evangelization, are certainly not identical with culture, and they are independent in regard to all cultures. Nevertheless, the kingdom which the gospel proclaims is lived by men who are profoundly linked to a culture, and the building up of the kingdom cannot avoid borrowing the elements of human culture or cultures . Therefore, every effort must be made to ensure a full evangelization of culture or, more correcdy, of cultures. They have to be regenerated by an encounter with the gospel,"4 beginning (we could add) with an encounter resulting in regeneration/conversion in the lives of Asian religious themselves. How does this happen? Perhaps the message to youth issued at the end of Vatican II can suggest a path. Each generation has to receive from its elders what they have to offer, but each generation is committed to build a better world than their elders had. In fact, the youth of today, despite many negative assessments of them, can surprise their elders. In 2000 almost a million young people gathered in Rome for the World Youth Day. The organizers were amazed at their restraint and gen-erosity. Founded as innovations, religious institutes challenge the existing forces within their culture by proclaiming the gospel afresh, bringing the good news that is able to convert and transform the culture. Such results follow in the early years, but new problems arise when the founding insight needs to be . adapted to circumstances and cultures that are quite different. As institutes increase numerically and spread geographically, their original creativeness requires some adaptation in ascetical practices, forms of work, lifestyle, and so forth. If the adaptation is not done carefully, religious life is likely to be of the world, not merely in it (rather than in the world and not of it). It would reflect the culture uncritically, without challenging it at all. Social structures in Asia, even at the present time, are feudals (at least in aspiration, if not always in fact). So the temptation in adaptation and proclamation would be toward conforming to social aspirations and doing the things that are respected and Review for Religious likely to gain recognition in society. But there must be no letup in looking for ways that the gospel and the charism (innovations, both of them) can retain their relevant originality in the Asian context. Adaptation in Context Adaptation needs to take place, for the sake of being relevant within the Asian cultural traditions. Otherwise there is danger of the message being unintelligible or thoroughly misunderstood. As has been pointed out, the Gospels can be seen as reflecting the minds of the particular evangelists. Mark is factual; Matthew is holistic and gives the big picture; Luke follows a step-by-step approach and is systematic; John preaches love. Similarly, the historical books of the Bible are factual; the prophetic books view present situations within the big picture as God might see it; the wisdom literature attempts to be syste,natic; and the psalms and the Canticle of Canticles are odes to love. All the books are valuable, and no book is less the word of God than the others. Only the modalities are different, re