Search results

Issue 43.4 of the Review for Religious, July/August 1984. ; Pliz~hhihg :the N~Vitiate Process = °~i"~ !~ta~D o"es a Religious Institute Owe Its Members? :,~-~:: A Retreat for the Eighties Volume 43 Number 4 July/August, 1984 RE\'~w FOR Rl~.~(;~otJs ( ISSN 0034-639X). published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. I.ouis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis. MO 63108. Rt-:v~l-:w t:oR Rl~t.l~;~otJs is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus. St. Louis. MO. © 1984 by Rl~v~l~w ~:OR Rl~l.l~;~Ot~S, Composed. printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. I.ouis. MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A. $10.00 a year: $19.00 for two years. Other countries: add $2.00 per ycar (postage). For subscription orders or change of address, write Rl-:Vll.:W ~-oR R~.:t.t~;~otls: 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. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor July/August, 1984 Volume 43 Number 4 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be senl to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's University; City Avenue at 54th St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW I-'OR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprinls are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Redemptionis Donum: An Expression of Love for Religious John Paul H In his letter of April 3, 1983, to the bishops of the United States inviting them "to render special pastoral service to the religious" of their dioceses and country, Pope John Paul wrote: ". as pastors of the Church, w~ must proclaim over and over again that the vocation to religious life God gives is linked to his personal love for each and every religious." Redemptionis'Donum is a solemn instance of his own efforts to do just that. As such, it forms a fitting cap to the series of articles REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS has been publishing in recent issu.es in support of.this episcopal ministry to religious. The text which follows is taken from Origins, April 12, 1984, vol. 13: no. 44. Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus: 1. The gift of the redemption, which this extraordinary Jubilee Year emphasizes, brings with it a particular call to conversion and reconciliation with God in Jesus Christ. While the outward reason for this extraordinary jubilee is of a historical nature--for what is being celebrated is the 1,950th Anniversary of the Crucifixion and Resurrection--at the same time it is the interior motive that is dominant, the motive that is connected with the very depth of the Mystery of the Redemption. The Church was born from that mystery, and it is by that mystery that she lives thrrughout her history. The period of the extraordinary jubilee has an .exceptional character. The call to conversion and reconciliation with God means that we must meditate more deeply on our life and our Christian vocationqn the light of the Mystery of the Redemption, in order to fix that lift and vocation ever more firmly in that mystery. While this call concerns everyone in the Church, in a special way it con-cerns you, men and women religious, who, in your consecration to God through the vows of the evangelical counsels, strive toward a particular fullness of Christian life. Your special Vocation, and the whole of your life in the 481 41~2 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 Church and the world, take their character and their spiritual power from the same depth of the Mystery of Redemption. By following Christ along the "narrow and., hard" way,~ you experience in an extraordinary manner how true it is that "with him is plenteous redemption" (copiosa apud eum redempti.o)? 2. Therefore, as this Holy Year moves toward its close, 1 wish to address myself in a particular way to all of you, men and women religious, who are entirely consecrated to contemplation or vowed to the various works of the apostolate. I have already done so in numerous places and on various occasions, confirming and extending the evangelical teaching contained in the whole of the Church's tradition, especially in the magisterium of the recent ecumenical council, from the dogmatic constitution ~Lumen Gentium to the decree Perfec-tae Caritatis, in the spirit of the indications of the apostolic exhortation Evan-gelica Testificatio of my predecessor Paul VI. The Code of Canon Law, which recently came into force and which can in a way be considered the final conciliar document, will be for all of you a valuable aid and a sure guide in concretely stating the means for faithfully and generously living your magnificent vocation in the Church. 1 greet you with the affection of the Bishop of Rome and Successor of St. Peter, with whom your communities are united in a characteristic way. From the same See of Rome there also reach you, with an unceasing echo, the words of St. Paul: "I betrothed you to Christ, to present you as a pure.bride to her one husband.'~ The Church, which receives, after the apostles, the treasure of marriage to the divine Spouse, looks with the greatest love toward all her sons and daugh-ters who, by the profession of the evangelical counsels and through her .own mediation, have made a special covenant with the Redeemer of the World. Accept this word of the Jubilee Year of the Redemption precisely as a word of love~ spoken by the Ch'urch for you. Accept it, wherever you may be: in the cloister, of the contemplative communities or in the commitment to the many different forms of apostolic service--in the missions, in pastoral work, in hospita!~s or other places where the suffering are served, in educational institu-tions: schools or Universities--in fact in every one of your houses where, "gathered in the name of Christ," you live in the knowledge that the Lord is "in your midst.TM May the Church's loxiing word, addressed to you in the Jubilee of the Redemption, be the reflection of that loving word that Christ himself said to each one of you when he spoke one day that mysterious "follow me"~ fxom which your vocation in the Church began. Vocation And Jesus, Looking Upon Him, Loved Him 3. "Jesus, looking upon him, loved himTM and said to him, "If you would Redemptionis Donum / 48:3 be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.'n Even though we know that those words addressed to the rich young man were not accepted by the one being called, their content deserves to b~ carefully reflected upon, for they present the interior structure of a vocation. "And 3esus,~looking upon him, loved him." This is the love of the Redeemer: a love that flows from all the human and divine depths of the redemption. This love reflects the eternal love of the Father who "so loved the World that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.TM ,~ The Son, invested with that love, accepted the mission from the Father .in the Holy Spirit, and became the Redeemer of the World. The Father's love was revealed in the Son as a redeeming love. It is precisely this love that constitutes the true price of the redemption of man and of the world. Christ:s apostles speak of the price of the redemption with profound emotion: "You were ransomed., not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot," writes St. Peter.9 And St. Paul states: "You were bought with a price."'° The call to the way of the evangelical counsels springs from the interior encounter with the love~ of Christ which is a redeeming love. Christ calls precisely through this love of his. In the structure of a vocation, the encounter with ,this love becomes ,something specifically personal. When Christ "looked upon you and loved you," calling each one of you, dear religious, that redeem-ing love of his was directed toward a particular person, and at the same time, it took on a spousal character: it became a love of choice. This love embraces the whole person, soul and body, whether man or woman, in that person's unique and unrepeatable, personal "1." The one who, given eternally to the Father, "gives" himself in the Mystery of the Redemp-tion, has now called a human person in order that he or she, in turn, should give himself or herself entirely to the work of the redemption through member-ship in a community of brothers or sisters, recognized and approved by the Church. Surely it is precisely to this call that St. Paul's words can be applied: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.? You are not your own; you were bought with a price."~ Y~es, Christ's love has reached each one of you, dear Brothers and Sisters, with that same "price" of the redemption. As a consequence of this, you have realized that you are not your own, but you ~belong to Christ. This ,new awareness was the fruit of Christ's "loving look" into the secret place of your heart. You replied to that look by choosing him who first chose each one of you, calling you with the measurelessness of his. redeeming love. Since he calls "by name," his call always appeals to human freedom. Christ says: "If you wish . "And the response to this call i§, therefore, a free choice. You have chosen Jesus of Nazareth, Redeemer of the World, by choosing the way that he has shown you. tll~4 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 If You Wish to .Be Perfect. 4. This way is also called the, way of perfection. Speaking to the young man, Christ says: "If you wish to be perfect . "Thus theidea of the "way of perfection" has its motivation in the very Gospel source itself. Moreover, do we not hear, in the Sermon on the Mount: "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect"?.~2 The calling of man to perfection was perceived in a certain way by the thinkers and moralists of the ancient world, and also afterward, at different periods of history. But the biblical call has a completely original nature. It is particularly demanding when it indicates to man perfection in the likeness of God °himself.~3 Precisely in this form; the call corresponds to the whole of the internal logic of revelation, according to which man was created in the image and likeness of God himself. He must therefore seek the perfection proper to him in the line of this image and likeness. As St. Paul will write in the Letter to the Ephesians: "Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself upfor us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."~4 Thus the call to perfection belongs to the very essence of the Christian vocation. It is on the basis of this call that we must also understand the words which Christ 'addressed to the young man in the Gospel. These words are in a particular way linked to the mystery of the redemp-tion of man in the world~ For this redemption gives back to God the work of creation which had been contaminated by sin--showing the perfection which the whole of creation, and in particular man, possesses in the thought and intention of God himself. Especially man must be given and restored to God if heis to be fully restored to himself. From this comes the eternal call: "Return to me, for I have redeemed you.''15 Christ's words, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor" clearly brings us into the sphere of the evangelical counsel of poverty--which belongs to the very essence of the religious vocation and profession. At the same time, these words can,be understoodin a wider and, in sense, an essential way. The Teacher from Nazareth invites the person he is address-ing to renounce a program of life in which the first place is seen to be occupied by the category of possessing, of "h'aving," and to accept in its place a program centered upon the value of the human person, upon personal "being"---with all the transcendence that is proper to it. Such an understanding of Christ's words constitutes, as it were, a wider setting for the ideal of evangelical poverty, especially that poverty which, as an evangelical counsel, belongs to the essential content of your mystical marriage with the divine Spouse in the Church. Reading Christ's words in the light of the superiority of "being" over "having," especially if the latter is understobd in a materialistic and utilitarian Redemptionis Donum / 485 sense, we, as it were, touch the very anthropologial bases of vocation in the Gospel. In .the framework of the development of contemporary civilization, this is a particularly relevant discovery. And for this reason, the very vocation to "the way of perfection" as laid down. by Christ becomes equally relevant. In today's civilization, especially in the context of the world of a well-being that is based on consumerism, man bitterly experi¢nces the essential incom-pleteness of personal "being" which affects his humanity because of the abund-antand various forms of "having." He then becomes more inclined to accept this truth about vocation which was expressed once and for all in the Gospel. Yes, the call which you, dear Brothers and Sisters, accepted when you set out on the way of religious profession touches upon the very roots of human-ity, the roots of man's destiny in the temporal world. The evangelical "state of perfection'~ does not cut you off from these roots. On the contrary, it enables you to anchor yourselves even more firmly ih the elements that make man man, permeating this humanity which, in various ways, is burdened by sin, with the divine and human leaven of the Mystery of Redemption. You Will Have Treasure in Heaven " Vocation carries with it th6 answer to the question: Why be a human person--and how? This answer adds a new dimension to the whole of life and establishes its definitive meaning. This meaning emerges against the back-grou'nd of the Gospel paradox of losing one's life in order to save it--and on the other hand, saving one's life by losing it "for Christ's sake and for the sake of the Gospel," as we read in Mark.t6 In the light of these words Christ's call becomes perfectly clear: "Go, sell what you possess ~nd give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.''t7 Between this "go" and the subsequent "come, follow me'; there is a close connection. It can be said that these latter words determine the very essence of a vocation. For a vocation is a matter of following the footsteps of Christ (sequi: to follow, hence sequela Christi). The terms "go. sell.' give" seem to lay down the precondition of a vocation. Nevertheless, this condition is not "external" to a vocation, but is already inside it. For a person, discovers the new sense of his or her humanity, not only in order "to follow" Christ, but to the extent that he or she actually does follow him. When a person does "sell what he possesses" and "gives it to the poor," he discovers that those possessions, and the comforts he enjoyed, were not the treasure to hold on to. That treasure is in his heart, which Christ makes him capable of"giving" to others b~y the giving of self. The rich person is not the one who possesses, but the one who "gives," the one who is capable of giving. At this point tile Gospel paradox becomes particularly expressive. It becomes a program of being. To be poor in the sense given to this "being" by 4116 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 the Teacher from Nazareth is to become a dispenser of good through one's own human condition. This also means to discover "the treasure." This treasure is indestructible. It passes, together with man, into the dimension of the eternal. It belongs to the divine eschatology of man. Through this treasure man has his definitive future in God. Christ says: "You will have treasuie in.heaven." This treasure is not so much a "reward" after death for the good works done following the example of the Divine Teacher, but rather the eschatological fulfillment of what was liidden in these good works here on earth, in the inner "treasure" of the heart. Christ himself, in fact, when he invited his hearers, in the Sermon on the Mount, ~s to store up treasure in heaven, added: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."~9 These words indicate the eschatological character of the Christian vocation. They indicate even more the eschatological nature of the vocation that is realized through spiritual marriage to Christ by the practice of the evangelical counsels. 6. The structure of this vocation, as seen from the Words addressed to the young man in the synoptic gospels,20 is traced little by little as one discovers the fundamental treasure of one's own humanity in the perspective of that "trea-sure" which man "has in heaven." In this perspective, the fundamental treasure of one's own humanity is connected to the fact of "being, by giving oneself." The direct point of reference in such a vocation is the living person of Jesus Christ. The call to ~the way of perfection takes shape from him, and through him in the Holy Spirit who continually "recalls" to new people, men~and women--at different times of their lives, but especially in their youth--all that Christ "has saidTM and especially what he "said" to the yo.ung man who asked him: "Teacher, what good deed must ! do to h~ve eternal life?"~2 Throughthe reply of Christ, who "looks upon" his questioner "with love," the strong leaven of the Mystery of the Redemption penetrates the consciousness~, heart and will of one who is searching with truth and sincerity. Thus the call to the way of the evangelical counsels always has its begin-ning in God: "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide."~3 The vocation in which a person discovers in depth.the evangelical law of giving, a law inscribed in human nature, is itself a gift. It is a gift overflowing with the deepest content of the Gospel, a gift which reflects the divine and human image of the Mystery of the Redemption. "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be thb expiation for our sins.TM A "Fuller Expression"of Baptismdi Consecration 7. Your vocation, dear Brothers and Sisters, has led you to religious pro-fession, whereby you have been consecrated to God through the ministry of Redemptionis Donum / 487 the Church, arid tiave been at the same time incorporated into your religious family. Hence the Church thinks of you, above all, as persons who are "conse-crated": consecrated to God in Jesus Christ as his exclusive possession. This consecration determines your place in the vast community of the Church, the People of God. And at the same time, this consecration introduces into the universal mission of this people a special source of spiritual and supernatural energy: a particular style of life, witness and apostolate, in fidelity to the mission of your institute and.to its identity and spiritual heritage. The universal mission of the People of God is rooted in the messianic mission of Christ himself--prophet, priest and king--a mission in which all share in different ways. The form of sharing proper to "consecrated" persons corresponds to your manner of being rooted in Christ. The depth and power of this being rooted in Christ is decided precisely by religious profession. Religious p~ofession creates a new bond between the person and the one and triune God in Jesus Christ. This bond develops on the foundation of the original bond that is contained in the sacrament of baptism. Religious profes-sion "is deeply rooted in baptisma.I consecration and is a fuller expression of it.'~ In this way religious profession, in its constitutive content, becomes a new consecration: the consecration and giving of the human person to God, loved above all else. The commitment undertaken by means of the vows to practice the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience, according to the determinations proper to each religious family as laid down in the constitutions, is the expression of a total consecration to God and, at the same time, the means that leads to its achievement. This is also the source of the manner proper to consecrated .persons of bearing witness and of exercising the aposto-late. And yet it is necessary :to seek the roots of that conscious and~free consecration and of the subsequent giving of self to God as his possession in baptism, the sacrament that leads us to the~paschal mystery as the apex and center of the redemption ac,~omplished by Christ. Therefore, in order to highlight fully the reality of religious professions, we must turn to the vibrant ~,ords of St. Paul in the Letter to the Romans: "Do you,no~t know. that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that like Christ. we too might walk into the newness of life";26 "our old self was crucifiedowith him so that., we might no longer be enslaved by sin";27 so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus?s Upon the sacramental basis of baptism in which it is rooted, religious profession is a new ~'burial in the death of Christ": new, because it is made with awareness and by choice; new, because of love and vocation; new, by reason of unceasing "conversion." This "burial in death" causes the person "buried together with Christ" to "walk like Christ in newness of life." In Christ crucified is to be found the ultimate foundati,~n both of baptismal consecration 41111 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 and of the profession of the evangelical counsels which--in tile words of the Second Vatican Council--"constitutes a special consecration." It is at one and the same time both death and liberation. St. Paul writes: "Consider yourselves dead to sin." At the same time he calls this death "freedom from the slavery of sin." Above all, though, religious consecration, through its sacramental foundation in holy baptism, constitutes a new life "for God in Jesus Christ." In this way, simultaneously with the' profession of the evangelical counsels, in a much more mature and conscious manner "the old nature is put off," and likewise "the new nature is put on, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness," to use once more the words of the Letter tothe l~phesians.29 A Covenant of Spousal Love 8. Thus, then, dear Brothers and Sisters--all of you who, throughout the Church, live the covenant of the evangelical counsels-~-renew in this Holy Year of the Redemption your awareness of your special sharing in the Redeemer's death on the cross--that sharing through which ~you have risen with him, and continually rise with him, to a new life. The Lord speaks to each of you, just as he once spoke through the prophet Isaiah: Fear not, for i have redeemed you: ' ~ I have called you by name, you are mine.a0 The evangelical call: "If you would be perfect., follow meTM guides us with the light of the words of the divine Teacher. From th~ depth of the redemption there comes Christ's call, and from that depth it teaches the human soul. By virtue of the grace of the redemption, this saving call assumes in the soul Of the person called the actual form of the professioh of the evangelical counsels. In this.form is contained your answer to the call .of redeeming love, and it is also an answer of love: a love of self-giving--which is the heart of consecration, of the consecration of the person. The words of Isaiah "I have redeemed you., you are mine"--seem toseal precisely this love, which is the love of a total and exclusive consecration to God. This is how the special covenant of spousal love is made, in which we seem to hear an unceasing echo of the words concerning Israel whom the Lord "has chosen as his own possession.'~2 For in every consecrated person the Israel of the New and Eternal Covenant is chosen. The whole messianic People, the entire Church, is chosen in every person whom the Lord selects from the midst of this people; in every person who is consecrated,for everyone, to God as his exclusive possession. While it is true that not even the greatest saint can repeat the words of Christ: "For their sake I consecrate myself"33 in the full redemptive force of these words, nevertheless, through self-giving love, through the offering of Redemptionis Donum / 489 oneself to God as his exclusive possession, each one can, through faith, stand within the radius of these words. Are we not reminded of this by the other words of the Apostle in the Letter to the Romans that we so often repeat and meditate upon: "I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship"?.34 These words are, as it were, a distant echo of the one who, when he comes into the world and becomes man, says to the Father: "You have prepared a body for me. ~. Lo, I have come to do your will, O God.'~5 In this particular context of the Jubilee Year of the Redemption, let us, then, go back again to the mystery of the body and soul of Christ as the complete subject of spousal and redemptive love--spousal because redemp-tive. For love he offered himself; for love he gave his body "for the sin of the world." By immersing yourselves in the paschal mystery of the Redeemer through the consecration of the religious vows, you desire, through the love of total giving, to fill your souls and your bodies with the spirit of sacrifice---even as St. Paul invites you to do in the words of the Letter to the Romans just quoted: "To offer your bodies as a sacrifice.'~6 In this way, the likeness of that love which, in the heart of Christ, is both redemptive and spousal, is imprinted on the religious profession. And such love should fill each of you, dear Brothers and Sisters, from the very source of thatparticularconsecration which--on the sacramental basis of holy baptism-- is the beginning of your new life in Christ and in the Church: it is the beginning of the new creation. Together with this love, may there grow deeper in each one of you the joy of belonging exclusively to God, of being a particular inheritance of the most Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now and then repeat with the psalmist the inspired words: Whom else have I in heaven? And when ! am with you, the earth delights me not. Though my flesh and my heart waste away, God is the'rock of my heart" and my portion foreverP7 Or 1 say to the Lord, My Lord are you. Apart from you I have no good. O Lord, my allotted portion and my cup, You it is who hold fast my lot,3s May the knowledge of belonging to God himself in Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the World and the Spouse of the Church, seal your hearts39 and all your thoughts, words, and deeds, with the sign of the biblical spouse: As you know, this intimate and profound knowledge of Christ is actuated 490 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 and grows deeper day by day through the life.of personal, community and liturgical prayer proper to each of your religious families. In this, too--and especially so--the men and women religious who are dedicated essentially to contemplation are a powerful aid and a stimulating support for their brothers and sisters devoted to the works of the apostolate. May this knowledge of belonging to Christ open your hearts, thoughts and deeds, with the key of the Mystery of the Redemption, to all the sufferings, needs and hopes of individuals and of the world--in the midst of which your evangelical consecration has been planted as a particular sign of the presence of God, for whom all live,40 embraced by the invisible dimension of this kingdom. The words "Follow me"--spoken by Christ when he "looked upon and loved" each one of you, dear Brothers and Sisters--also have this meaning: you take part, in the most complete and radical way possible, in the shaping of that new creation,4~ which must emerge from the redemption of the world, by means of the power of the Spirit of Truth operating from the abundance of the Paschal Mystery of Christ. Evangelical Counsels The Economy of Redemption 9. Through your profession the way of evangelical counsels opens up before each one of you. In the Gospel there are many exhortations that go beyond the measures of the commandment, indicating not only what is "neces-sary," but what is "better." Thus, for example, the exhortation not to judge,42 to lend "expecting nothing in return,'~3 to comply with all the requests and desires of our neighbor,44 to invite the poor to a meal?5 to pardon always,46 and many other invitations. If, in accordance with tradition, the profession of the evangelical counsels has concentrated on the three points of chastity, poverty and obedience, this usage seems to give clear enough emphasis to their importance as key ele-ments, and, as a kind of "summing up" of the entire economy of salvation. Everything in the Gospel that is a counsel enters indirectly into the pro-gram of that way to which Christ calls when he says: "Follow me." But chastity, poverty and obedience give to this way a particular Christocentric characteristic, and imprint upon it a specific sign of the Economy of Redemption. Essential to this "economy" is the transformation of the entire cosmos, through the heart of man, i'rom within: "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. and will be set free from its bondage to decay, and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.'~7 This transformation takes place in step with that love which Christ's call infused in the depths of the individual, in step with that love which constitutes the very substance of consecration: a man or woman's vowing of self to God in religious profession, on the foundation of the sacramental consecration of baptism. Redemptionis Donum / 49"1 We can discover the bases of the economy of redemption by reading the words of the First Letter of St. John: Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it: but he who does the will of God abides forever.'~ Religious profession places in the heart of each one of you, dear Brothers and Sisters, the love of the Father, that love which is in the heart of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the World. It is love which embraces the world and everything in it that comes from the Father, and which at the same time tends to overcome in the world everything that "does not come from the Father." It tends therefore to conquer the threefold lust. "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life" are hidden within man as the inheritance of original sin, as a result of which the relationship with the world, created by God and given to man to be ruled by him,49 was disfigured in the human heart in various ways: In the economy of redemption the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience constitute the most radical means for trans-forming in the human heart this relationship with "the world": with the exter-nal world and with one's personal "1," which in some way is the central part "of the world" in the biblical sense, if what "does not come from the Father" begins within it. Against the background .of the phrases taken from the First Letter of St. John, it is not difficult to see the fundamental importance of the three evangel-ical counsels in the whole economy of redemption. Evangelical chastity helps us to transform in our interior life everything that has it sources in the lust of the flesh; evangelical poverty, everything that finds its source in the lust of the eyes; and evangelical obedience enables us to transform in a radical way that which in the human heart arises from the pride of life. We are deliberately speaking here of an overcoming as a transformation, for the entire economy of the redemption is set in the framework of the words spoken in the priestly prayer to the Father: "1 do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to guard them from the evil one."~0 The evangelical counsels in their essential purpose aim at "the renewal of creation": "The world," thanks to them, is to be subjected to man and given to him in such a way that man himself may be perfectly given to God. Participation in the Self-Emptying of Christ 10. The internal purpose of the evangelical counsels leads to the discovery of yet other aspects that emphasize the close connection of the counsels with the economy of redemption. We know that the economy of redemption finds its culminating point in the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ, in whom there are joined self-emptying through death and birth to a new life through the Resur-rection. The practice of the evangelical counsels contains a deep reflection of this paschal duality;5~ the inevitable destruction of what in each of us is sin and 492 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 its inheritance; and the possibility of being reborn each day to a more pro-found good hidden in the human soul. This good is manifested under the action of grace, toward which the practice of chastity, poverty and obedience renders the human soul particularly sensitive. The entire economy of redemp-tion is realized precisely through this sensitivity to the mysterious action of the Ho!y Spirit, the direct author of all holiness. Along this path the profession of the evangelical counsels opens out in each one of you, dear Brothers and Sisters, a wide space for the "new creation"~z that emerges in your human 'T' precisely from the economy of the redemption and, through this human "I," also into the interpersonal and social dimensions. At the same time it emerges in humanity as part of the world created by God, that world that the Father loved "anew" in the eternal Son, the Redeemer of the World. Of this Son St. Paul says that "though he was in the form of God. he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men."53 The characteristic of self-emptying contained in the practice of the evangelical counsels is therefore a .completely Christocentric characteristic. And for this reason also the Teacher from Nazareth explicitly indicates the cross as the condition for following in his footsteps, He who once said to each one of you "Follow me" has also said: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (that is to say, walk in my footsteps).54 And he said this to all his listeners, not just to the disciples. The law of renunciation belongs therefore to the very essence of the Chris-tian vocation. But it belongs in a particular way to the essence of the vocation linked to the profession of the evangelical counsels. To those who walk the way of this vocation, even those difficult expressions that we read in the Letter to the Philippians speak in comprehensible language: For him "I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be-found in him.'~5 Renunciation therefore--the reflection of the mystery of Calvary--in order "to be" more fully in the crucified and risen Christ; renunciation in order to recognize fully in him the mystery of one's own human nature and to confirm this on the path of that wonderful process of which the same apostle writes in another place: "Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day.'~6 In this way the economy of the redemp-tion transfers the power of the paschal mystery to the level of humanity, docile to Christ's call to life in chastity, poverty and obedience, that is, to a. life according to the evangelical counsels. Chastity, Poverty, ,Obedience II. The paschal character of this call makes itself known from various points of view in connection with each individual .counsel. Chastity It is indeed according to the measure of the economy of the redemption Redemptionis Donum / 493 that one must also judge and practice that chastity which each of you has promised by vow, together with poverty and obedience. There is contained in this the response to Christ's words, which are at the same time an invitation: "There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it. Prior to this Christ has emphasized: "Not all men can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given."~s These last words clearly show that this invitation is a counsel. To this also the apostle Paul devoted a special reflection in the First Letter to the Corinthians.59 This counsel is addressed in a particular way to the love of the human heart. It places greater emphasis on the spousal character of this love, while poverty and still more obedience seem to emphasize primarily the aspect of redemptive love contained in religious consecration. As you know, it is a question here of chastity in the sense "of making themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven," a question, that is, of virginity or celibacy as an expression of spousal love for the Redeemer himself. In this sense the apostle teaches that they "do well" who choose matrimony, but they "do better who choose virginity.'~° "The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord,'~ and "the unmarried woman or girl is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit."62 There is contained neither in the words of Christ nor in those of Paul any lack of esteem for matrimony. The evangelical counsel of chastity is only an indication of that particular possibility which, for the human heart, whether of a man or of a woman, constitutes the spousal love of Christ himself, of Jesus the "Lord." "To make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" is not in fact merely a free renunciation of marriage and family life, but a charismatic choice of Christ as one's exclusive spouse. This choice not only specifically enables one to be "anxious about the affairs of the Lord;" but--when it is made "for the kingdom of heaven"---it brings this eschatologi-cal kingdom of God close to the life of all people in the conditions of temporal-ity and makes it in a certain way present in the midst of the world. In this way consecrated persons accomplish the interior purpose of the entire economy of the redemption. For this purpose expresses itself in bringing near the kingdom of God in its definitive, eschatoiogical dimension. Through the vow of chastity consecrated persons share in the economy of the redemp-tion through the free renunciation of the temporal joys of married and family life; on the other hand, precisely by their "having made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven," they bring into the midst of this passing world the announcement of the future resurrection63 and of eternal life: life in union with God himself through the beatific vision and the love which contains in itself and completely pervades, all the other loves of the human heart. Poverty 12. How very expressive, in the. matter of poverty, are the words of the 494 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 Second Letter to the Corinthians, which constitute a concise synthesis of all that we hear on this theme in the Gospel: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yete for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.TM According to these words, poverty actually enters into the interior structure of the redemptive grace of Jesus Christ. Without poverty, it is not possible to understand the mystery of the gift of divinity to man, a gift which is accomplished precisely in Jesus Christ. For this reason also it is found at the very center of the Gospel, at the beginning of the message of the eight Beatitudes: "Blessed are the poor in spirit."~5 Evangelical poverty reveals to the eyes of the human soul the perspec-tive of the whole mystery, "hidden for ages in God.'~6 Only those who are "poor" in this way are also interiorly capable of understanding the poverty of the One who is infinitely rich. The poverty of Christ conceals in itself this infinite richness of God; it is indeed an infallible expression of it. A richness, in fact, such as the divinity itself, could not have been adequately expressed in any created good. It can be expressed only in poverty. Therefore it can be properly understood only by the poor, the poor in spirit. Christ; the God-man, is the first of these: He who, "though he was rich became poor," is not only the teacher, but also the spokesman and guarantor of that salvific poverty which corresponds to the infinite richness of God and to the inexhaustible power of his grace. And thus is it also true--as the apostle writes--that "by this poverty we have become rich." It is the teacher and spokesman of poverty who makes us rich. For this very reason he says to the young man.of the synoptic gospels: "Sell what you possess and give . and you will have treasure in heaven.'~7 In these words there is a call to enrich others through one's own poverty. But in the depths of this call there is also hidden the testimony of the infinite richness of God which, transferred to the human soul in the mystery of grace, created in man himself, precisely through poverty, a source for enriching others that is not comparable with any other resource of material goods, a source for bestowing gifts on others in the manner of God himself. This giving is accomplished in the cohtext of the mystery of Christ who "has made us rich by his poverty." We see how this process of enrichment unfolds in the pages of the Gospel, finding its culmination in the paschal event: Christ, poorest in his death on the cross, is also the one who enriches us infinitely with the fullness of new life through his resurrection. Dear Brothers and Sisters, poor in spirit through your evangelical profes-sion, receive into the whole of your lives this salvific profile of the poverty of Christ. Day by day seek its ever greater development! Seek above all "the kingdom of God and his righteousness," and all other things "shall be yours as well.'~8 May there be accomplished in you and through you the evangelical blessedness that is reserved for the poor,69 the poor in spirit!70 Redemptionis Donum/ 495 Obedience 1 3. Christ, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And beingfound in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.7~ Here, in these words of the Letter of St. Paul to the Philippians, we touch the very essence of the redemption, In this reality is inscribed, in a primary and constitutive way, the obedience of Jesus Christ. Other words of the apostle, taken this time from the Letter to the Romans, confirm this: For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous.72 The evangelical counsel of obedience is the call which derives from this obedience of Christ "unto death." Those who accept this call, expressed by the words "Follow me," decided--as the council says--to follow Christ who "by an obedience which carried him even to death on the cross, redeemed human-ity and made it holy.''73 By living out the evangelical counsel of obedience, they reach the deepest essence of the entire Economy of the Redemption. By ful-filling this counsel, they desire to gain a special sharing in the obedience of that "One alone" by whose obedience all "will be made righteous." It can therefore be said that those who decide to live according to the counsel of obedience are placed in a unique way between the mystery of sin74 and the mystery of justification and salvific grace. They are in this "place" with all the sinful background of their own human nature, with all the inheritance "of the pride of life," with all the selfish tendencies to dominate rather than to serve; and precisely by means of the vow of obedience they decide to be transformed into the likeness of Christ, who "redeemed humanity and made it holy by his obedience." In the counsel of obedience they desire to find their own role in the redemption of Christ, and their own way of sanctification. This is the way which Christ marked out in the Gospel, speaking many times of fulfilling the will of God, of ceaselessly searching for it. "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his works."75 "Because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me."76 "He :who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for 1 always do what is pleasing to him.''77 "For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me."78 This constant fulfilling of the will of the Father also reminds us of that messianic confession of the psalmist in the Old Testament: "Behold I come; in the written scroll it is prescribed for me. To do 3/our will, O my God, is my delight, and your law is within my heart.''79 This obedience of the Son--full of joy--reaches its zenith in the face of the passion and cross: "Father, if it is your will, take this cup from me; yet not my will but yours be done."s0 From the prayer ~in Gethsemane onward, Christ's 1196 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 readiness to do the will of the Father is filled to the very brim of suffering, becoming that obedience "unto death, even death on a cross" spoken of by St. Paul. Through the vow of obedience consecrated persons decide to imitate with humility the obedience of the Redeemer in a special way. For although sub-mission to the will of God and obedience to his law are for every state a condition of Christian life, nevertheless in the "religious state," in the "state of perfection," the vow of obedience establishes in the heart of each of you, dear Brothers and Sisters, the duty of a particular reference to Christ "obedient unto death." And since this obedience of Christ constitutes the essential nucleus of the work of the redemption, as is seen from the words of the apostle quoted above, therefore also in the fulfilling of the evangelical counsel of obedience we must discern a particular moment in that "economy of the redemption" which pervades your whole vocation in the Church. From this derives that "total availability to the Holy Spirit" who is at work above all in the Church, as my predecessor Paul VI puts it in the apostolic exhortation Evangelica Testificatio,8i a'nd who is likewise manifested in the constitutions of your institutes. From this derives that religious submission which, in a spirit of faith, consecrated persons show to their legitimate superiors Who hold the place of God.82 In the Letter to the Hebrews we find on this theme a very significant indication: "Obey your leaders and submit to them; for they are keeping watch over your souls, as men who will have to give account." And the author of the letter adds: "Let them do this joyfully, and not sadly, for that would be of no advantage to you."~3 On the other hand, superiors will bear in mind that they. must exercise in a spirit of service the power conferred on them through the ministry of the Church, and they will show willingness to listen to their brothers or sisters in order to discern more clearly what the Lord asks of each one. At the same time they retain the authority proper to them to decide and order what they consider appropriatr. Hand in hand with submission-obedience thus conceived goes the attitude of service which informs your whole life after the example of the Son of Man who "came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."s4 And his mother, at the decisive moment of the annunciation-incarna-tion, entering from the very beginning into the whole salvific economy of the redemption, said: "Behold, 1 am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word."aS Remember also, dear Brothers and Sisters, that the obedience to which you committed yourselves by consecrating yourselves without reserve to God through the profession of the evangelical counsels is a particular expression of interior freedom, just as the definitive expression of Christ's freedom was his obedience "unto death": "1 lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one Redemptionis Donum / takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.'~6 Love for the Church Witness 14. In the Jubilee Year of the Redemption the entire Church wishes to renew her love for Christ, the redeemer of man and of the world, her Lord and also her divine Spouse. And so in this holy year the Church looks with special attentibn to you, dear Brothers and Sisters, who, as consecrated persons, occupy a special place, both in the universal community of the People of God, and in every local community. While the Church wishes also your love for Christ to be renewed through the grace of the extraordinary jubilee, at the same time, she is fully aware that this love constitutes a special possession of the whole People of God. The Church is aware that, in the love that Christ receives from consecrated persons, the love :of the entire Body is directed in a special and exceptional way toward the Spouse who, i~t the same time, is the Head of this Body. The Church expresses to you, dear Brothers and Sisters, her gratitude for your consecration, and for your profession of the evangelical counsels which are a special witness of love. She also expresses anew her great confidence in you who have chosen a state of life that is a special gift of God to the Church. She counts upon your complete and generous collaboration in order that, as faithful stewards of this precious gift, you may "think with the Church" and always act in union with her, in conformity with the teaching and directives of the magisterium of Peter and of the pastors in communion with him, fostering at the personal and community level a renewed ecclesial awareness. And at the same time, the Church prays for you, that your witness of love may never fail.87 She also asks you to accept in this spirit the present message of the Jubilee Year of the Redemption. Precisely in this way the Apostle Paul prayed in his Letter to the Philippians, that "your love may abound more and more., with all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruits of righteousness. "~ Through the work of Christ's redemption "God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.'~9 1 constantly ask the Holy Spirit to grant to each one of you, according to your own gift,9° to bear special witness to this love. May "the law of the Spirit that gives life in Christ Jesus" be victorious within you in a way worthy of your vocation, that law that has "set us free from the law of. death.TM Live, then, this new life in the measure of the different gifts of God, which corresponds to the vocation of your individual religious families. The profession of the evangelical counsels shows each of you how, with the help of the Spirit, you can put to death92 everything that is contrary to life and serves sin and death; everything that is opposed to true love of God and others. The world needs the authentic "contradiction" provided by religious conse- 4911 / Reviow for Religious, July-August, 1984 cration, as an unceasing stimulus of saivific renewal. "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.'~3 After the special period of experimentation and renewal provided for by the motu proprio Ecclesiae Sanctae, your institutes have recently received, or are preparing to receive, the Church's approval of your renewed constitutions. May this gift of the Church encourage you to know them, to love them, and, above all, to live them in generosity and fidelity, remembering that obedience is an unambiguous manifestation of love. It is precisely this witness of love that the world today and all humanity need. They need this witness to the redemption as this is imprinted upon the profession of the evangelical counsels. These counsels---each in its own way and all of them together in their intimate connection--"bear witness" to the redemption which, by the power of Christ's cross and resurrection, leads the world and humanity, in the Holy Spirit, toward that definitive fulfillment which man, and through man, the whole of creation finds in God and only in God. Your witness is therefore of inestimable value, You must constantly strive to make it fully transparent and fully fruitful in the world. A further aid to this will be the faithful observance of the Church's norms regarding also the outward manifestation of your consecration and of your commitment to poverty.94 Apostolate 15. From this witness of spousal love for Christ, through which the entire salvific truth of the Gospel becomes particularly visible, there also comes, dear Brothers and Sisters, as something proper to your vocation, a sharing in the Church's apostolate, in her universal mission--which is accomplished con-temporaneously in every nation in many different ways and through many different charisms. Your specific mission is in harmony with the mission of the apostles whom the Lord sent "to the whole world" to "teach all nations,'s5 and it is also linked to the mission of the hierarchial order. In the apostolate which consecrated persons exercise, their spousal love for Christ becomes, in an as it were organic way, love for the Church as the Body of Christ, for the Church as the People of God, fbr the Church which is at one and the same time Spouse and Mother. It is difficult to describe, or even to list, the many different ways in which consecrated persons fulfill through the apostolate their love for the Church. This apostolate is always born from that particular gift of your founders which, received from God and approved by the Church, has become a charism for the different needs of the Church and of the world at particular moments of history, and, in its turn, this apostolate is extended and strengthened in the life of religious communities as one of the enduring elements of the Church's own life and apostolate. In each of these elements, in each field--both of Redemptionis Donum / 499 contemplation so fruitful for the apostolate and of direct apostolic action--the Church's constant blessing accompanies you, as does at the same time her pastoral and maternal solicitude with regard to the spiritual identity of your life and the correctness of your activity in the midst of the great universal community of vocations and charisms of the whole People of God. Through each of the institutes separately, and through their organic integration into the whole of, the Church's mission, special emphasis is given to the Economy of Redemption, the profound sign of which each one of you, dear Brothers and Sisters, bears within himself or herself through the consecration and profession of the evangelical counsels. And thus, even though the many different apostolic works that you perform are extremely important, nevertheless the truly fundamental work of the aPostolate remains always what (and at the same time who) you are in the Church. Of each one of you can be repeated, with special appropriateness, these words of St. Paul: '~For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God."96 And at the same time this "being hidden with Christ in God" makes it possible to apply to you the words of the master himself: "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."97 For the sake of this light with which you must "shine before men," of great imPortance among you is the witness of your mutual love linked to the fraternal spirit of each community, for the Lord has said: "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."gg The fundamentally communitarian nature of your religious life--nourished by the teaching of the Gospel, by the sacred liturgy, and above all by the Eucharist--is a special way of accomplishing this interpersonal and social dimension. By caring for one another, by bearing one another's burdens, you show, by your unity, that Christ is living in your midst.99 Important for your apostolate in the Church is every kind of sensitivity to the needs and sufferings of the individual, which are seen so clearly and so movingly in today's world. For the Apostle Paul teaches: "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ,;~°° and he adds that "love is the fulfilling of the Law."1°1 Your mission must be seen! Deep, very deep must be the bond which links it to the Church!~°2 Through everything that you do, and especially through everything that you are, may the truth be proclaimed and reconfirmed that "Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her"~o3--the truth that is at the basis of the whole Economy of Redemption. From Christ, the Redeemer of the World, may the inexhaustible source of your love of the Church pour forth! Conclusion The Eyes Enlightening the Heart 16. This exhortation, which 1 address to you on the Solemnity of the Annunciation in the Jubilee Year of the Redemption, is meant to be an 5{11) / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 expression of that love which the Church has for men and womeri religious: You, dear Brothers and Sisters, are truly a special treasure of the Church. And this treasure becomes more understandable through °meditation on the reality of the redemption--for which the present Holy Year offers a continuous opportunity and a welcome encouragement. Recognize therefore, in this light, your identity and your dignity. May the Holy Spirit--through Christ's cross and resurrection--"having the eyes of your hearts enlightened," enable you "to know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints."~0~ These "eyes enlightening the heart" the Church unceasingly asks ]'or each ¯ one of you who have already taken the road of the profession of the evfingelical counsels. The Church, together with you, asks for the same "enlightened eyes" for many other Christians---especially for young men and women--that they, too, may discover this way, and not be afraid to enter upon it, that---even in the midst of the adverse circumstances of life today--they may hear Christ's "Follow Me."1°5 You, too, must strive for this through your prayer, and aiso through the witness of that love whereby "God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us."~o6 May this witness become present everywhere, and universally clear. May the people of our times, in their spiritual weariness, find in this witness both support and hope. Therefore serve your brethren with the joy that wells up from a heart in which Christ has his dwelling. "And may the world of our time., be enabled to receive the good news, not from evangelizers who are dejected and discouraged., but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervor, who have first received the joy of Christ."~07 The Church, in her love for you, does not cease "kneeling before the Father. and praying"t0g that he may effect in you "the strengthening of the inner nature,''~09 and, as in you, so also in many others of your baptized brothers and sisters---especially young people--so that they, too, may find the same way to holiness which, in the course of history, so many generations have traveled together with Christ the Redeemer of the World and Spouse of Souls, often~ leaving behind them the bright radiance of God's light against the dark and gray background of human existence. To all of you who travel this road in the present phase of the history of the Church and the world there is addressed this fervent hope of the Jubilee Year of the Redemption, that "you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have the power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."~0 Message of the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord On the Feast of the Annunciation in thi~ Holy Year of the Redemption, I place the present exhortation in the heart of the Immaculate Virgin. Among all Redemptionis Donum / 501 persons consecrated unreservedly to G6d, she is the first. She--the Virgin of Nazareth--is also the one most fully consecrated to God, consecrated in the most perfect way. Her spousal~love reached its height in the divine motherhood through the power of the Holy Spirit. She, who as mother carries Christ in her arms, at the same time fulfills in the most perfect way his call: "Follow me." And she follows him--she, the mother--as her teacher of chastity, poverty and obedience. How poor she was on Bethlehem night, and how poor on Calvary! How obedient she was at the moment .of the Annunciation, and then--at the foot of the Cross--obedient "unto death!" How dedicated she was in all her earthly life to the cause of the kingdom" of heaven through most chaste love. If the entire Church finds in Mary her first model, all the more reason do you find her so--you as consecrated individuals and communities within the Church! On the day that calls to mind the inauguration of the Jubilee of the Redemption, which took place last year, I address myself to you with this present message to invite you to renew your religious consecration according to the model of the consecration of the very Mother of God. Beloved Brothers and Sisters! "God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."lll Persevering in fidelity to him who is faithful, strive to find a very special support in Mary! For she was called by God to the most perfect communion with his Son. May she, the faithful Virgin, also be the Mother of your evangelical way. May she help yoti to experience and to show to the world how infinitely faithful is God himself! With these hopes 1 bless you with all my heart. From the Vatican, March 25, in the Jubilee Year of the Redemption, 1984, the sixth of my pontificate. NOTES ~See Mt 7:14. 2Ps 130(129):7. .JSee 2 Co 11:2. sSee Mt' 19:21; Mk 10:21; Lk' 18:22. 6Mk 10:21. 8Jn 3:16. 91 P 1:18-19. ml Co 6:20. ~2Mt 5:48. ~JSee Lv 19:2; 11:44. ~4Ep 5:1-2. ~6Mk 8:35; see Mt 10:39; Lk 9:24. ~TMt 19:21. ~gMt 6:21. ~°See Mt 19:21; Mk 10:21; Lk 18:22. 22Mt 19:16. ~JJn 15:16. 241 Jn 4:10. 4See Mt 18:20. 7Mt 19:21. ~1 Co 6:19-20. ~Sls 44:22. ~sSee Mt 6:19-20. 2~See Jn 14:26. ~See Second Vatican Council, decree Perfectae Caritatis, 5; see also document of the Congrega-tion for Religious and Secular Institutes "Essential Elements in the Church's Teaching on Religious Life as Applied to Institutes Dedicated to Works of the Apostolate" (May 3 I, 1983), nn. 5ff. ~6Rm 6:3-4. ~TRm 6:6. 2SRm 6:1 I. ~gSee Ep 4:22-24. 51)2 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 J°ls 43:1. 34Rm 12:1. asPs 16( 15):2,5. 42See Mt 7:1. ~6See Mt 6:14-15. ~°Jn 17:15. 5JPh 2:6-7: 57Mr 19:12.° 6~I Co 7:32. ~2 Co 8:9. ~Mt 19:21. 32Ps 135 (134):4. J3Jn 17:19. a~Heb 10:5,7. ~6Rm 12:1. aTPs 73(72):25-26. 39See Sg 8:6. ~See Lk 20:38. :4~2 Co 5:17. *JLk 6:35. '~See Mt 5:40-42. *~See Lk 14:13-14. *TRm 8:19-21. '~1 Jn 2:15-17. ~gSee Gn 1:28. ~See Perfectae Caritatis, 5. 522 Co 5:17. ~Mk 8:34: Mt 16:24. ssPh 3:8-9. 562 Co 4:16. 5SMt 19:11. 59See I Co 7:28-40: ~°See I Co 7:38. 621 Co 7:34. 6~See Lk 20:34-36; Mt 22:30: Mk 12:25. 65Mt 5:3. 66Ep 3:9. 67Mt 19:21; see Mk 10:21; Lk 18:22. 7°Mr 5:3. 7~Ph 2:6-8. 74Mysterium lniquitatis; see 2 Th 2:7. 77Jn 8:29. tSJn 6:38. ~OLk 22:42; see Mk 14:36; Mt 26:42. 82See Perfectae Caritatis, 14. 85Lk 1:38. 86Jn 10:17-18. 89Rm 5:5. 9°See I Co 7:7. 6SMk 6:33; eLk 6:20. 72Rm ~: 19. 7-~See Perfectae Caritatis, I. 75Jn 4:34. 76Jn 5:30. 79ps 40(39):8-9; see Heb 10:17. s~See Evangelica Testificatio, 6. S~Heb 13:17. ~4Mk 10:45. sTSee Lk 22:32. ssPh 1:9-1 I. 91Rm 8:2. 92See Rm 8:13. 9-~Rm 12:2. 9~See Code of Canon Law, canon 669. 9~See Mt 28:19. 9~Col 3:3. 97Mt 5:16. ~Jn 13:35. 99See Perfectae Caritatis, 15. t°°Ga 6:2. ~o~ Rm 13:10. ~°2The Code of Canon Law explicitly mentions this with regard to apostolic activity: see canon 675, sec. 3. ~O3Ep 5:25. , ~Ep 1:18. IO~Lk 5:27. ~°~1 Jn 4!12. ~°TPope Paul VI, apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, 80. ~°sSee Ep 3:14. ~°gSee Ep 3:16. n0Ep 3:17;19. ml Co 1:9. Encourage Vocations May I also ask you for something?You are well aware of the needs of the Church all over the world in relation to vocations to the priesthood and to the religious life. My request is that you do not fail to challenge the young to follow Christ in this way. Help them to discover the divine call. Support them by your prayer, your advice, and the example of your lives.--John Paul Ii, to the General Chapter of the Congregation of Christian Brothers. L'Osscrvatore Romano, 24 April, 1984, p. 9. Commitment: Dying and Rising to Self Anthony Wieczorek, O. Praem. This article is the fruit of the prayerful reflections of Bro~ Wieczorek as he approached the time of his solemn profession during the days of Holy Week. His last article. "Poverty. Time. Solitude: A Conte.xt for a Celibate Life-Style.~appeared in the issue of September/October. 1982. Bro. Wieczorek resides in St. Joseph Priory: 103 Grant Street: De Pere. WI 54115. Commitment is a life and death decision. This is especially true for such commitments as marriage, profession, arid even the taking 'on ~of certain jobs requiring a good degree of responsibility. Commitment is a decision to live a certain life, to embrace life and enter into it fully. At the same time, it is a death. It means letting go of other options and alternatives, of other equally good or better ways of living. For both these reasons, because commitment is an embracing of life and death, commitments are' often difficult to make, causes of not a little anxiety and fear. The fear is not simply because of the dying required; it is perhaps least of all due to that. Rather, the main cause for fear in commitment is precisely the living, the life that is chosen with all its unknown consequences. Life is just as much out of human control as death. Life is just as much a surrender as death. When a person truly abandons oneself to living, truly living--wak.efully, consciously, with senses open and alert to every and anything--the final result is just as mysterious and uncertain as death. At least that is what I am finding out as the day of my solemn profession nears. What is involved in making such a commitment? Where will such a life lead? What price will such a life demand? For make no mistake, living exacts a terrible price--terrible and beautiful. Truly, commitment is a dying and rising of self. The self I am and know given over to transformation by living a life the consequences and end of which 1 cannot envision. The frightening part of commitment, for many of us, as these reflections try to articulate, is not just the dying to other lives, it is the rising to new and different life and, perhaps, to 503 504/ Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 an equally new and different self. The Seed of An Uncertain Future I wonder, Lord, if you wonder where all the singleheartedness has gone. It is still there, thought now I am no longer so wholly consumed by it. All its life, the residue of its past as well as the fire of its dreams, is squeezed tightly into a single seed. The seed is all curled up about itself. It is afraid to die for when it does it will erupt into nbt only new life, that is not so bad, but into different life. The tree from which that scared seed grew is only one parent. The other is mystery, wild and elusive. It will be no new tree that stretches itself upward and downward but a different tree. And so I cling to the last shreds of my former life, feeling it nonetheless slipping, being pulled endlessly from my grasp. And when the last element is gone and I fall helplessly into the soil, half buried by the force of the fall, then I shall die/rise--for it is all the same--to not only live anew but differently. I die to arise as a self I do not know; the me I am assumed, eaten up as food, by the person 1 shall become. .The seed existing in me is devouringme to nourish itself. It is eating its way out of me, bite by bite. Soon I will be gone. Yet not gone, for a new and different self will begin to grow from where 1 stood, with its own life, its own dreams and future. As it is now part of me, so then ! shall be part of it, consumed as fuel until it is strong enough to move away and seek its own source of life, to wrap its lips around the mystery which gave it birth and suck into its being a vitality and energy I cannot imagine, let alone comprehend. And it will grow as the mystery it drinks saturates every cell of it. By that time l will have played my part. The husk that will be what remains of me will slowly crumble with a dry, crinkling sound. Discarded, will I be remembered by what has become of me? Will anything of me survive in that which survives me? When 1 too hang a lifeless husk from a tree, consumed wholly by what exists within me? Of Acorns and O~ks It's too bad acorns can't fly. Maybe it's just as well. I wonder, if they could, how many over the years would have changed their minds and returned in a flurry of little wings to the tree from which they fell? A person just can't be sure. In the fall, if you sit quietly amid the sounds of wind and rustling leaves you can occasionally hear the sudden and quite distinct plop of an acorn hitting the ground. And if you lean over it you can even hear the final little sigh the acorn makes just before, separated from the life of the tree, it dies. For me, the acorn is a symbol of faith. The whole and utter point of an acorn's life is to die. It dies so that the oak tree within it can sprout and grow and give birth to more acorns and so more oak trees. But what about the acorn? That surely isn't much of a life. I wonder if they're informed of the odds of success before they're sent on their suicide dive? For all the acorns that fall, how slim a percentage are able to accomplish their full mission? How many of Commitment: Dying and Rising to Self / 505 the well meaning little things end up in the bellies of squirrels? or get picked up by people like me who put them in a pocket, or sit them on a desk as a remembrance? All that wasted potential. That's why l say, it's too bad acorns can't fly. But acorns don't seem to mind the odds. Millions fall to pointless deaths each year. Each one, I suppose, acts in faith. And so do they die. Maybe I'm too romantic about this. Maybe acorns kick and scream over their fate. Maybe it's not that acorns voluntarily let go at all. Perhaps they hang on for dear life, literally, while the wind and tree try to shake them loose. And don't blame the tree; it is, after all, the wind that does the shaking. The wind jostles and bounces the branches and leaves until the acorns can no longer hang on, until .th,.ey fall, with a plop, onto the ground below. In my room is an 1con, Rublev's The Holy Trinity. On it are three figures, the three visitors greeted by Abraham. Each represents a different person of the Holy Trinity. They are, from left to right, Son, Father, and Spirit. They are seated at a table and on its center is a solitary cup. The symbolism speaks of the cup as the cup of commitment or decision or vow. The cup is the symbol of the incarnation. The Son in drinking it would vow to undergo the incarnation, the ministry and death. The Father looks sadly at the Son but makes no move to urge his drinking. The decision must be made freely and the Father respects that. The Spirit, though, is much less inhibited, much more impetuous. The Spirit motions toward the. cup, as if to push it closer to the Son, encouraging him to drink. In Greek and Hebrew, the word for spirit and wind is the same. I think that the word for Jesus and acorn should be the same also. The Spirit blew the cup across the table and thbn with a sudden gust blew the Son right out of heaven so that he fell, with a plop, upon the earth to live so briefly and then with a sigh die so that from his seed new life might sprout and grow. I wonder if the Son would rather have hung on to the Father? I Wonder if without the Spirit's insistence the Son would have continued to cling to heaven? Who can blame either of them? What were the Son's odds for.success? And the Spirit? The Spirit is the seed contained within the acorn--Son. Do not feel sorry for the acorn, nor for the Son. Rather, feel sorry for yourself; All of us are acorns. Each one is complete with a spirit-seed~ We cling to a cross and cling desperately, lest we too fall and we too germinate into a new and different creation. And yet, it is our purpose and fate to let go and drop down into the life we find ourselves forced by various kinds of necessity to live. I like to fancy myself a tree. Sad to say I am only the acorn. I am meant to fall, meant to die so that the. life within me might sprout and grow. For now, though, l~cling with all my strength to the tree, high above life, not at all anxious to.surrender my grasp and fall into it. I look down on the acorns already fallen with arms that ache and fingers that are numb. The wind will not let up. It is but a matter of time. Eventually I will fall and that will be that. There will be nowhere to go but into life, a life wholly foreign and different from my life as an acorn. Up to now I have not minded being an 506 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 acorn. But now I see a very serious shortcoming: acorns can't fly. The Waves and Tides of Life Yesterday I stood at the water's edge and watched the waves ebb and flow. The water Would rush ashore in a burst of extroversion and then, just as shyly, recede, as though it had scared and embarrassed itself with its own excitement. Today I think, how much life is like those waves. There is an ebb flow to my emotions. Today, though, 1 ebb, recede back into myself to be alone with my loneliness. And today, as I sit and recall the waves, they seem like hands groping, flaying out to grab hold of an3ithing or anyone~ They are like the hands of a ghost that can. neither hold nor ever be held. The waves that beat the sand and stones, are they ii'ying in fact to climb the shore? to step out and stand and walk out among the people who have from time to time plunged into their world only to emerge after a moment and walk away? Those people who enjoyed the waves for a moment, befriending them only to leave for the business of their own lives, leaving, too, the waves to lap longingly after life they can never know or share? I with them ebb further into my heart, receding back into the memories of those who have plunged for a moment into my llfe only to leave and leave me lapping after them. Like a lake .I sit alone, from time to time rising up with a rush only to slip back into myself, startled and embarrassed by my own need. Something within me is like a wave that slaps ashore but never stays, Something within me surges up only to be pulled back within by some internal gravity. I'm not sure if that something is just shy, testing the air and environ-ment then fleeing back inside, or if it is trapped, tryin~ to escape the,grasp of something else holding it bound. I don't even know what the something within me is, the wave-like thing that surges within me. I wonder if the waves feel the futility of their endless spending of energy? What do the waves accOmplish? At what do they succeed? Too pragmatic a question? I guess so. But the question comes because I, like them, ebb and flow over and over, so much motion without any progress onward or toward. Things within me, feelings, truths, continually well up and slide onto the shore of consciousness only to teasingly return to the depths, staying only long enough to be quickly felt, to be glanced, to pose a question but never long enough to give: an answer or even listen to my response. Maybe then 1 have it all wrong. Maybe the point of the waves is not for them to venture ashore. Maybe the waves are not groping but beckoning hands, calling me to enter it, urging and compelling me into its depths. The ebb and flow of feelings that roll up into consciousness, are they bait meant to lure me into my own depths? Endlessly they call, endlessly they reach .out to stroke and caress me into compliance, easing my fear with warm, soft strokes. Those waves that nowhere go gather me and draw me not nowhere but~down, deep down, then deeper still until memory of shore is gone and the memory of me upon the shore is equally gone, washed away by the waves. Commitment: Dying and Rising to Self ] 507 The Bondage of Busyness I'm sorry, Lord, so much these past few weeks l've had to do, to be busy about. How easy it is to put off being sensitive and aware by doing. It leaves no time to be, only time enough to do. Lately I've been going through life at light's speed. Stars blur into indistinguishable streaks of white light. And people too. And you, God; and you, too. You bead up on the surface of my life like water and roll away while 1 race on. It is for self-defense. Awareness requires sensitiv-ity and for that ability to feel. To feel. Can't I just ponder you slowly in my mind? Must I dare to feel you? To be pierced by experiences, allowing them to enter in, leave an impression, even draw blood7 There ,is something in me struggling to be free. Always the same words. And why not? It is the same reality. Bondage. When, Lord, when will I learn? When will 1 take the lessons to heart and emerge whole and authentic? It is being you require not sacrifice~ not doing. They are quite wrong, those who say "just being" is a passivity. It is work, painful work without respite: 1 know why people are wont to go mad. It is all so painfully obvious. Why do I go on living in such foreign realms where things done and not being alive is the currency? The True, the Real is here, so obvious, waiting. 1 wait too. I wait for death to free me from all my falsity and foolishness, from the hustle and bustle. And l blame you for the fire and brimstone I call upon myself. I hold my breath while ! pray for death, hoping ¯ all the while it will pass me by.,I am too afraid of living; of feeling life, to die. Doing is my excuse for not being, for not taking the time or oppo~unity to feel. After death, 1 imagine, there will be all eternity to be. But even now I can feel the fabric of the womb pressing against my face and hands. My fingers grope to tear it away. 1 strain to open my eyes against it and see beyond it, crying an angry moan through it and dissolve it with my tears. Being means living and I will not allow myself to be born. I want to die but fear birth, fear the living. If 1 do not die I cannot be born, cannot be. 1 am afraid of eternity, afraid that once I pass through this existence to life I will have nothing to keep me from being, from living truly. It is not physical death I fear. That is only the symbol. Physical death reminds me that someday I must make the 9assage: Physical death is a taunt that reminds me that this existence is illusion and all the busy things I do to keep me from being and feeling are illusory too. That's why I flee from death, for 1 am afraid to live, to be, to feel. The struggle is to be born. The bondage to be enwombed. Death is the door I refuse to open for life awaits me on the other side. When will I let go and let death take me? When, 1 know now, I can let go of my fear of feeling. Death is release but 1 do not want to be free. No, that is not true. I crave it, crave life even as I fear it. I die to the wrong thing. I die to life so that I may live in death instead of dying to death, the death in which I now, and yet, live. If I die to death 1 shall rise again to live life, to feel life. And so, to insulate myself, I lie buried beneath piles of mud while my spirit struggles to soar. I choose death 5011 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 for it is painless, effortless, feelingless. The mud is all the deedsI do, must do, ought to do, have to do, can do, should do. All these excuses, a facade of life to imagine the things 1 do, the death I live in, means I am really alive. I refuse the resurrection and choose the facade. The facade of life that I live, for I have not died. Death waits. I can be embraced any time, any time I choose to live. It is so simple:,to be free 1 must simply die to death and be willing to live. Two things block my way, fear and self-consciousness. Maybe there are three things, death is the third. They are, I'm sure, all interrelated., Fear of death of the selL.l have, after all, gone through quite a turnsince my graduate school day~ when self-fulfillment was the key. Maybe it still is a key, though not to any doors I find before me. The key now is death~ death to self. Maybe I'm morel a Buddhist than 1 thought. Fear stares me in the face every :step of the way. The face of fear fills my vision. It is only an illusion though. Fear has no more a face than does a mirror. Fear's face is my own reflection. So here it is Good Friday, a day of self-denial, a day of the celebration of the conquest of fear. Your faith, Lord, conquered your fear. And for me, I lack the faith for it will bid me to face fear and enter into death. And when 1 die I shall rise__to live, to feel. Feel what? The truth: uncertainty, sorrow, loneliness made more real by love, impotence, insignificance. Even your death, Lord, has changed so little. What then of mine? ~;ou see my self-consciousness is all that keeps me from consciousness. Make no mistake, I know the grace is there. I know that if I stand silently with outstretched hands you will fill them. For that reason my hands are tightly closed into fists, fists that grasp and cling to every shred of self-consciousness I can find. ~Get behind me, Satan, your ways are not God's but man's." There is so much power in those words. The object of that little outburst of yours was not Peter's remarks but the voice within you that Peter only echoed. Why after all die, to whom will it matter in the end, much less now? I have the same voice in me, it is my voice trying to shout down the voice Of the spirit-seed begging for birth. And so I cry out.with you, "get behind me, self-consciousness." An Allegory on Arising Somewhere an alarm is ringing but I can't seem to wake enough to turn it off. It pulls and tugs at me but I am too groggy to do much more than mutter with swollen tongue still drunk with sleep. I must wake, I tell myself, but my limbs refuse to acknowledge any signals from my duty-bound brain. Of the past Triduum, Good Friday was my best day, of the three the day of greatest wakefulness. It left me eager for the Vigil service--but there it ended, l lie in my tomb thrilling over resurrection but cannot muster the consciousness to rise. I close my eyes to resurrection so that I may return to the opium of my ¯ Commitment: Dying and Rising to Self / 509 dreams. I,know I am dreaming for I know that 1 am unawake. But my sleep-logged body lacks the bouyancy to rise. I sleep on while the alarm rings on. Good Friday and I became such good friends because we spoke the same language: death--only unlike Good Friday, I refused to move on to'Easter Sunday, Each day by my own decree is a Good Friday. For, having to choose between the tomb and wakefulness, I have chosen the tomb. Holy Thursday was too busy for me to find in it any portal to mystery, let alone your presence. But Good Friday loomed like a sudden door in the middle of the service and I entered in. It felt right, necessary. I need to die, to hand myself over to death. But I refuse to enter fully into Good Friday, for from where I stood j,ust inside the threshold I could see that it extended out into Holy Saturday--when the alarm begins to ring--and opened up into Easter Sunday. So there it is, a matrix of transformation, a labyrinth one wanders through to emerge as some new self the old one lost somewhere within. I don't even think I mind the death anymore. It is somehow inevitable and in a sense it has already begun. But in the foreground I can hear the alarm waking me to consciousness even before fully asleep. It is that that scares me. I try to ignore it: can't you tell I'm dead? What do you mean it's time to get up? Do the dead rise and shine? I found in Good Friday an escape from consciousness and feeling but found also the alarm that tries so persistently to raise these unwilling limbs to new life. It does not end on Good Friday. On the third day, it says, he rose again. It took Jesus three days to lose his tug-of-war with God. Obvously you simply weren't trying, l'm proof that the contest can go on much longer. We are told to give our lives over to God as though we were lumps of clay, as though it were an act done once and for all. That is simply not how it is. We are balls of yarn that God slowly pulis, unraveling us and knitting us into something new. The same yarn but a new being--and we don't even get to choose the pattern. And so I hang on as mightily as I can, trying to unravel what God has knitted and rewrap myself into a safely static ball of potential: After all; look at what God did with the "yarn" that was--and is--Jesus. His own friends couldn't recognize him when God got through. So God and I are engaged in a tug-of-war. It took you three days, Lord? Three days to let totally go and be remade? Would that I were as weak. Unfortunately, God does not seem to be as strong as we claim. He is losing, his new creation is losing its shape, slowly being undone. The alarm bids me to stir and awaken, to loosen my hold on myself and let what I am be used up, transformed and brought back as one more patch on a huge and colorful woven mosiac. But now I am talking about Easter. Now I am talking about wakefulness, consciousness, the empty tomb with its wrappings neatly folded and put aside, like sheets and blankets on a bed remade and forgotten during the daylight hours. But I am still wrapped warm within my bed. The tomb is not yet vacant. I cling to my self-consciousness, the self 1 think 1 know and do not want to lose. But despite the sleep, I cannot hold on to myself much longer, the sleep deepens and my grip upon myself loosens. 510 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 God. tugs once more and smiles, "Nothing but a little snag," and goes on knitting making who knows, what to one day soon be sewn into a patchwork of eternity and serve some purpose in a plan not my own. Each day for me is Good Friday and soon Holy Saturday when I will be remade an~ then reappear a stranger, washed ashore on the morning of some Easter Sunday. Reciprocal On top of hell a bluebird sits On an apple branch. A mocking bird's swelling song, Tiptop in a tall cedar, chants A confiteor to such irony. Cows graze in emerald pastures. The sun~ rising red, puts the moon to rest: And morning prayers are said. Below these placid pastures, Below fring.ed acres, --primed and waiting-- Are the missiles, restrained, yet ready To fly whistling seaward, to other Pastures, where other dwellers sit on Top of hell, listening to another Bluebird singing, on an apple branch, A mocking bird trilling, tiptop In a tall cedar. Martha Wickham 560 N. Walnut, Apt~ °1 o Taylorville, IL 62568 Ecclesial Relationships for Religious: Desires and Limits Alexa Suelzer, S.P. This article is the text of the second annual lecture and colloquium sponsored by Review for Religious in conjunction with the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University which took place at the university April 12-13. In the spring of 1983, Sister Alexa was appointed to the special committee of religious formed by Archbishop John Quinn to collaborate with the ponifical commission established to facilitate the pastoral ministry of bishops to religious in this country. Sister Alexa, whose background is in Scripture, has had extensive administrative experience within her own community. She may be addressed as St. Mary-of-the-Woods College; St. Mary-of-the-Woods, IN 47876. Almost a year has passed since John Paul 11 wrote to the bishops of the United States concerning the religious--both men and women--in their dio-ceses and.sent them a document titled Essential Elements in the Church's Teaching on Religious Nfe As Applied to Institutes Dedicated to Works of ApostolateJ a compendium drawn from pertinent decrees of Vatican H, papal writings, and documents of the Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes. Its authority derives from its sources and from the personal approval of John Paul? Perhaps there was a time when such imposing credentials would preclude criticism--but no more! Reaction from religious has covered the gamut from strong affirmation thro.ugh indifference to angry rejection. One religious' assertion that the teaching affirms her.waY of life is counterbalanced by another's depression at seeing her path questioned. Between these extremes lie varying degrees of agreement and disagreement. It seems safe to say that the enumeration of the indispensable elements (prayer, evangelical witness, and so forth) meets with general acceptance, but description of each of them finds the variety of reactions described. Sometimes the criticism is on peripheral issues: Why single out American religious? ~Why 511 512 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 were the LCWR and CMSM passed by? What is the hidden agenda? At times the criticism stems from misreading the text, e.g., presuming that the "ending of the special period of experimentation," condemns religious life henceforth to the s, tatus quo. At times the language and concepts are faulted as archaic and stereotypical, better suited to an earlier time. More serious are the theological challenges: the failure to realize adequately the evolution of religious life through the centuries, the use of consecration as a master category, the neglect of the prophetic element, and an unsatisfactory eccle-iology. From listening and speaking to religious, both individually, and in groups, I am led to believe that the last name---ecclesiology--is the source of the greatest difficulty. How one receives the document depends in great part upon the view of the Church--the ecclesiology--that is operative, consciously or uncon-sciously, in the reader:. Ecclesiology is assuredly an issue, for relatedness of religious life to the Church is one of the clearest affirmations in Essential Elements. In his letter accompanying the document John Paul refers to this fact in such phrases as "their ecclesial vocation,TM and "specific relation to tile' Church."~ Essential Elements repeats and elaborates these ideas: "Religious life belongs to the life and holiness of the Church. The Church authenticates the gift and mediates the consecration.6 And throughout there is a steady recurrence of phi'ases like "canonically erected by competent ecclesiastical authority";7 "according to constitutions wh'ich the Church, by her authority, accepts and approves";8 or "works of charity entrusted to the institute by the Church and performed in her name.''9 Relationship to the Church is in fact the seventh of the ten essentials named. Some parts of the section bear quoting: Religious life has its own place in relation to the divine and hierarchical structure of the Church. The founders and foundresses of religious institutes ask the hierarchial Church.publicly to authenticate the gift of God on which the existence of the institute depends. In their origins, religious institutes depend in a unique way on the hierarchy. As a particularly rich and important example of these manifold gifts, each religious institute depends for the authentic discernment of its founding charism on the God-given ministry of the hierarchy. This relationship obtains not only for the first recognition of the institute but also for its ongoing development. In short, the Church continues to mediate the conseCratory action of God in a specific way, recognizing and fostering this particular form of consecrated life.t0 Similarly in the section on evangelical witness it is noted that the saving work of Christ is shared by means of the concrete services mandated by the Church 'in the approval of the constitutions,tt The fact of this approval qualifies'the kind of service to be undertaken, since it must be faithful to the Gospel, the Church and the institute.12 ¯ .These statements are explicit to the poi'nt of overkill. They can be seen as a Ecclesial Relationships for Religious / $15 counterbalance (if not a reaction) to the exuberance of post-conciliar years in which the institutional dimension of the Church had been played down, if not denigrated. To understand how this state of affairs came about, it will be helpful to look at events in the field of ecclesiology both during and after the Council: In the first session of Vatican II the proposed schema on the Church offered by the Theological Commission was modeled, on the standard theological treatment of th~ manuals, a treatment laying heavy stress on the juridical and organizational aspects of the Church. Quite early in the debate the Council Fathers realized that the desired definition and description could not be simply in external, hierarchical terms, but the Church must be seen as mystery, that is, as described by Paul V1, a divine reality inserted into history, not fully to be captured by human thought and language. It is an indication of the development of the Church's understanding bf her nature and mission that the bishops turned to a fresh approach which would, be more historical, dynamic, and biblical. After a new draft and a series of revisions during the second and.third sessions, Lumen Gentium, The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,~3 was approved almost unanimously/and was immediately pro-mulgated, November 21, 1964. ~ The course of theology these past two decades has been charted largely by the insights'of Lumen Gentium. Its pastorial stance, its :use of fresh imagery, and its insistence on the universal c, all to holiness provided a new approach to the role of .the laity. Its presentation of the episcopate (a subject whose discussion had been necessarily cut short~ during the interrupted deliberations of Vatican I) introduced collegiality. And the discussion of the relation between the Church and other Christians led not only to rapprochement with other denominations but, through recognition of the Spirit's action in all men and women, led the Church to a clearer understanding of her own nature and mission. The decision of the Council Fathers to begin their reflection at the level of mystery, and only thereafter consider the visible, hierarchical elements of the Church was not fortuitous. The work of Vatican .II was built on an .ecclesiology which had been developing for the past half century. Nevertheless the Council, by reason of its stature and its pronouncements, gave a definite impetus to subsequent studies in ecclesiology= The topic is a leading one in the system of Karl Rahner. The major post-coriciliar work of Hans Kiing deals with the Church. Edward Schillebeeckx' recent works in Christology followed upon his treatment, over a period of years,of the Church in terms of sacramentality. On the popular level Avery Dulles' Models of the Church helped the non-specialist to appreciate the Church by means of many models, intellectual constructs, each giving a particular insight into the mystery of the Church, never fully to be apprehended by any of the models, or, indeed, by all of them~ Despite the advances of Vatican II and of subsequent ecclesiology, it 5"14 ] Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 should be recognized that the theology of Vatican I1 is transition theology. Lumen Gentium, for example, is filled with fresh insights, but these are seldom developed and their relation to older views--which the Council apparently still espoused--is not always evident. For example, although: Lumen Gentium treated the'x;isible, hierarchical dimension of:the Church only in second place, the institutional element still looms large, partially, of course, because it could be dealt, with in practical, coherent terms. (Probably the Church as institution is still the model in. possession~among the rank and file.) Again, the Council documents speak often of charismata (dona is the word used) but apart from insisting that these must be respected when shown to be genuine, little is said about the. relationship between "the gifts, both hierarchical ,and charismatic"~4 and their interplay. All in all, a kind of nervousness characterizes some postconciliar theology, especially in "official" statements~ a tendency to distrust the initial steps taken by the Council Fathers and to return to the safer paths of neoscholasticism.~5 l.believe Essential Elements shows such a tendency. At the.same time, by its consideration of the Church0primarily as mystery and its subordination of hierarchical to charismatic elements, Lumen Gentium itself supplied ammunition for the kinds of anti-institutional attacks we have witnessed in recent years. By a sort of semantic shift, "institutional, hierarchical Church" is sometimes referred to as.a separate entity over against---even in conflict with--the "charismatic Church?' When such polarization occurs it is easy to neglect or deny the interpenetration of the visible and invisible dimensions. An authentic theology, however, must develop from an under, standing of the Church as a single reality, both visible and invisible, having both hierarchical and charismatic elements. 16 One consequence of polarization can be seen in a renewed emptiasis upon institutional factors, possibly to balance what is, seen as a too enthusiastic espousal of a "spiritual" Church. Such stress is found in Essential Elements, which notes that the Church's hierarchic character proceeds from the headship of Christ,17 and calls deliberate attention to "the divine and hierarchical structure of the Church."~8 Posing the two dimensions one against the other can be avoided by the sacramental recognizing nature of the Church, an aspect Which is treated in a few, but crucial, sections of Lumen Gentium. Its opening paragraph names the Church."a kind of sacrament or;sign of intimate union with God, and of the unity of' all mankind." It insists that the visible assembly and the spiritual community"form one interlocked reality which is composed of a human and a divine element."~9 But here again the insight is not developed and we are not told how the Church is this sign.20 . .0 The-sacramental principle--a distinguishing mark Of Roman Catho-licism- affirms that God works in and through visible, material :reality. The" principle stems from the realization that, since men and women are finite and limited, the divine is available only sacramentally, that is, by mediation. This sacramental encounter is the point of intersection between God and hispeople, an encounter is the point of intersection between God and his people, an Ecclesial Relationships for Religious / 515 encounter through which the grace of Christ reaches individuals and communi-ties. As Thomas Aquinas teaches, Jesus Christ is the great sacrament of God's presence and salvific action. Similarly the Church is the sign of Christ and the Spirit's'~healing presence among us. This traditional teaching has been utilized by many contemporary theologians who see in sacramentality a key to understanding the Church and her mission. Essential Elements insists that religious life "in a special way participates in the sacramental nature of the People of God."~1 But even if one considers the Church primarily in sacramental terms, as the document~ purports to do,22 the visible, institutional aspects can be overpowering--and Essential Elements is here a parade example. It is quite possible to accept :fully the principle of mediation and at the same time object to its wholesale application. In the widest sense sacramentality or mediation applies to the realities through, which the transcendent is disclosed and communicated tb us--realities also through which .our responses to the transcendent are experienced. It is in this very broad sense that Essential Elements uses the principle. This extension of the concept of mediation to numerous aspects of religious life meets with strong criticism and resistance. The document is heavily weighted in terms of mediation through the visible Church and her hierarchy. For example, the profession of the counsels is mediated by the Church;23 it is the Church that authenticates and mediates consecration;24 and continues to mediate the consecratory action of God.2~ Further, the document is replete with phrases like "competent ecclesiastical authority".26 ".vows~which the Church receives",~7 and "authority conferred by the Church."~ Additional evidence of the role of mediation can be seen in the emphasis place upon consecration. Following its sources,~9 Essential Elements insists that "the baptismal gift is the. fundamental Christian consecration and is the root of all others.~° With the:same fidelity3~ it notes that religious life is "a partictilar form of consecration."~ Despite the rather frequent use of the word, however, thenotion of consecration is not central in the source documents, as is evident in specifying phrases such as "a certain special consecration."~a (It is noteworthy also that the Council' Fathers rejected De consecratis "Concern- Consecrated Persons"--as a title for the conciliar decree on religious life.) It is somewhat surprising, then; that Essential Elements has seized upon con-secration as the category unde~ which to organize what it has to say about religious life, ~tating explicitly: "Consecration is the basis of religious life,TM and then continuing to use consecration as a leitmotif in almost every subsequent section. This focus is not pleasing to everyone. True, consecration has been an honored concept in the tradition of the Church for long centuries, but it is not a popular focus today. Consecration (setting aside some one or some thing for divine worship and service) smacks of dualism, and introduces dichotomies alien to a contemporary holistic approach to reality. Rightly or wrongly, the term is seen by some as elitist, a perpetuation of the "state of perfection" 516 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 mentality. It can also be argued that a decree.addressed to members of institutes dedicated to works of the apostolate should accord a higher place to mission, even though the document is careful to note that consecration always leads to mission.35 Further, Essential Elements insists that consecration takes place through an ecclesiastical, hierarchical function; Lumen Gentium states that the liturgical setting of religious profession manifests that it is .a state consecrated to God.37' Thus the action of the Church looms large in comparison with the subjective dedication, that commitment is more decisive than its acceptance by the Church through the hierarchy, an acceptance which makes the commitment visibly and publicly ecclesial. In speaking of conse-cration through the profession of the counsels, Perfectae caritatis says that the perfection of the consecration depends on the~stability of the vows or other bonds.38. On the contrary, it should be emphasized that what consecrates is not the vows,o,but the commitment expressed through the vows," which are specification for a life of total dedication. As the documents themselves make clear, totality is the characteristic of religious life. For many .religious the category of discipleship is a far more meaningful biblical paradigm to use in talking about religious life. Critics have asked why such an attractive concept was not utilized more fully, especially in light of the earlier declaration that "since the fundamental norm of religious life is a following of Christ as proposed by the Gospel, such is to be.regarded by all communities as their supreme law."39 Discipleship is a popular theme today; its bibliography--both for religious and Christians in general--grows apace.~° Avery Dulles has revamped his models in favor of the Church as ~i community of disciples; certainly this schema does justice to the elements present in the other models.4~ Essential Elements, however, refers'only briefly~to discipleship: "Formation is the process of becoming more and more a disciple of Christ."42 Possibly the writers chose to stress consecration (even, as we have seen, expanding the comments of its sources) because discipleship is seen a~ a gift and challenge to all the people of God, and to describe religious life as a particular~ form of discipleship might not provide a sufficient distinction. Consecration, of course, implies discipleship. As already noted; the authen-ticity of the consecration depends upon the. genuine commitment of the subject, that is, upon the acceptance of the demands of a life of discipleship. Critics may be right in holding that the emphasis on consecratio.n--neces~arily external' and involving mediation--may obscure the element of personal decisions and dedication as well as invite unneeded supervison from without. Consecraton can become a mere rite--something that is done to me, Anrther aspect Essential Elements chose not to treat is the prophetic nature of religious life. Here the document imitates the reserve of its sources. Considering the prophetic role of the people of God Lumen Gentium notes only that . ¯ the holy People ofGod shares also in Christ's prophetic office. It spreads abroad a " living witness to him, especially by a life of faith and:charity and by offering tO God a Ecclesial Relationships for Religious / 517 sacrifice of praise, the tribute of lips which give honor to his name.43 Nowhere does it elaborate this theme. In the subsequent chapter on religious the many riches of their life are noted, but without specific mention of a prophetic function.'~ Essential" Elements does not go beyond its sources, although some paragraphs in the section on witness show a prophetic stance.45 Conciliar documents and subsequent pronouncements have made a studied effort to avoid defining too closely the essence of ~'eligious life. Despite the emphasis it places upon consecration Essential Elements calls tfiis the basis not the essence, of religious life. Public vows, consecration, life in community all these are described and discussed but with no affixing of strict labels. Given the evolution of religious life over the centuries (the shift from eremetical to cenobitical forms, the role of poverty, the concept of mediated obedience, the juridical nature of religious commitment)° it would be foolhardy to fasten upon any one of these important elements as everywhere and at all times essential to religious life. What the°history of religious life does make clear is that this way of life is created by a person's total dedication to God in an' exclusive relationship. Early monks were described (and later defined) as completely ded!cated to God and totally oriented to his service. To become a monk was identical with giving oneself over to God. Later St. Thomas insisted on the totallgift of one's life as the hallmark of religious life. Celibacy, renunciation, eventually mediate~d obedience all were expressions of the interior commitment to live entirely for God. The religious brings the commitment common to all Christians to the level of a lifestyle. As the core of such a life is the personal decision to respond, to the internally received vocation. Vatican II acknow-ledged this interpretation, affirming that the religious is "totally dedicated to God and is committed to the honor and service of God under a new and special title."46 Perfectae carita~is speaks of "self-surrender involving their entire lives,"47 and "a call to live for God alone."~8 Essential Elements picks up on the same note, speaking of a "profound and free self-surrender."49 The religious "dedicates the whole of life.to God's service."~0 In reflecting on the relative merits of consecration and discipleship as the better paradigm for clarifying religious life, it is ~vell to remember that all our descriptions and discussioris are part. of the history of a form of life which is still evolving. The definitive word on the Church has yet to be. spoken; how much more so for religious life! Surely there is room for more than one view. Given the conservative (preservative) nature of religious writing in general, the document of n~cessity shows a rootedness in .th+ past and a somewhat unwilling concession to the exigencies of the contempo~rary scene. But it has definitely advanced beyond positions of twenty years ago, evincing a greater understanding of different styles of community life, of the need for new forms of service, the mutuality of authority and obedience, and the nature and scope of format~.on. De.spite shortcomings, it is a document we can live and work with. 5111 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 But each of us comes to the reading of Essential Elements with particular baggage of our own baggage which may lead us to accept or reject the document out of hand. I would now like to consider some of the obstacles in the way of an honest approach to Essential Elements. Today we hear a great deal about tension: tension headaches and tensions between the super-powers; harmful tensions and creative tensions; interpersonal and intrapersonal tensions. It is the last-n~med--intrapersonal--that I want to speak aboui. All of. us necessarily operate with inner tensions which can be destructive or helpful depending on how successfully we achieve a creative balance. Most ofour specific tensions can be gro.uped under the master category of a tension between the world of desire and the world of limitsP~ A consideration of this topic may furnish some insights on our attitude to the Church in general and to Essential Elements in particular. It does noi require much reflection on the data of our experience to show that human thoughts and feelings oscillate between the poles of great expectations--for ourselves and our world and a depressed.recognition of the barriers imposed by our finiteness. Lumen Gentium says it well: ¯ . tl~e modern world shows itself at once powerful and weak. capable of the noblest deeds or the foulest . The truth is that the imbalances under which the.modern world labors are.linked with that more basic imbalance rooted in the heart of man. For ~n man 'himself many elements wrestle with each other. Thus. on the one hand? as a creature he experiences his limitations in a multitude of ways. On the other, he feels himself to be boundless in his desires and summoned to a higher life.52 The language of Lumen Gentium is abstract and non-specific, but practical examples from everyda3~ life are not lacking, The realm of desires is the realm of imagining, questioning, fantasizing--outside space and time where the human spirit meets no fixed limits. We can thirst to be theacme of beauty or charm, to attain all wealth or knowledge, to abolish in~hstice and brifig peace to the world. No sooner do we pe,rceive something to be good than we can desire it. But the moment we attempt to actualize our desire we meet limits, for every acl of choice is an act of self-limitation as well. Some of these limits are built in: our sex, race, nationality. Others are products of our environment, training and education. Our desire for knowledge is contained by our mental ability, educationai opportun!ties or financial status. We can be overwhelmed by these' limits and refuse to work at transcending them or we can unrealistically deny their existence and embark on a Faustian venture doomed to failure. We mu~t have a healthy ~respect for limitations, but not settle for them. Conversely, like Daniel we must bemen and women of desire, aspiring to'excellence, but aware of limits, l~esires and limits interact: they test, correct and sustain each other. in a particular situation, however, we may deny one or the other and fail to hold them in creative (ension. We haay objectify our boundaries, making a value of our very limitations. Or we may objectify our aspirations, setting them Ecclesial Relationships for Religious / 5"19 forth as values in themselves and refusing to acknowledge any restrictions upon them.53 Briefly, and perhaps simplistically, a religious with a strongly institutional view of the Church may hold such a position through a kind of mindless loyalty which relieves her or him of responsibility for life decisions. Likewise the one who places no curb upon personal autonomy and independence may dismiss outright directives coming from hierarchical sources. The refusal to transcend limits or the failure to acknowledge them results in a harmful imbalance leading to depression, anger and arrogance. Some examples will illustrate our subject at hand relatedness to the Church. In the first place, we come up against the need to find a balance between desires and limits as we reflect upon the respective demands of tradition and experience. T.S. Eliot has observed that the mature poet must possess the historical sense--a perception not only of the past as past but of its, abiding presence: the poet must write with all of Europe in his bones.54 This kind of interaction is hard to come by, the more so in contemporary society. Our age of pluralism and personalism stresses, and quite rightly, the role of experience in living responsibly. Pope John noted this in his opening address .to the Vatican Council: ¯. the spirit of the ~,hole world expects a step forward toward a doctrinal penetration and a formation of consciousness ~n faithful and perfe~:t conformity to the authentic doctrine, which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods ofo research and through the literary forms of modern thought. The substance of the ancient deposit of faith is one thing; the way in which it is presented is another.5~ Contemporary iheology¯in general works to correlate the classic formula-tions of faith with today's experience of salvation, a task involving past and present, tradition and experience in a process which is the pro.duct, not of caprice or whim. but of a.reflecting faith communityP6 In the particular theology of religious life we must bring our own experience to bear on the received teaching about that life. Ideally interaction should result, but realistically one or other element tradition or experience may be minimized or denied. A religious may place such restrictions on consulting the data of experience that he becomes frozen in the past. If the only thing necessary is to rec~ix~e a pat:adigm of religious life from others--whether the constitutions of my institute or hierarchical pronouncements--then personal experience is of small moment. Life then becomes a constant, perhaps defiant, reiteration of tradition. Personalism. pluralism, consultation of experience are all regarded as a betrayal of religious life. When a document like Essential Elements is received it is absorbed but held apart from the events in life which legitimately modify its content. On the other hand, a religious can objectify her own experience, making it the primary judge of reality, canonizing it to the point of neglect or denial Of the place of tradition in religious life, with a consequent dismissal of whatever does not accord with individual experience. But raw experience has little value. T.S. Eliot mourns,."We have had the experience but missed the meaning.'~7 Constitutions must do more than describe contemporary experience; they 590 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 must submit that experience to the light of the Gospel and traditional teaching concerning religious life. An oft-repeated criticism of Essential Elements is its failure adequately to acknowledge "the American e.~xperience," both the impact of democracy upon the experienc~e of religious life'in general, and the more specific American experience of the past two "decades of adaptation and renewal. Religious everywhere exist within the context of a particular culture which profoundly affects and shapes their lives. In the United States these past twenty years have witnessed the effort to articulate a form of religious life which is genuine and at the same time inculturated, that is, disengaged from the structures and customs of the past and brought into' line with contemporary American life. Inculturation is a desideratum, but so is "counterculturation," particularly for religious. Once again we .are in the world of desires and limits. The requirement~ of a culture often lead to a re-interpretation of the founder's charism. But not all elements of a culture are compatible with the Gospel; some are hostile. For authentic religious life there must be a continuing dialogue between the Gospel and its cultural expression. Let us look at another example. The Council calls us to be a pilgrim people, wayfaring Christians who have here no lasting ~ity. But the attitude proper to a pilgrim is threatened by the nester (who wants to move not at all) and by the rover (for whom change is the very stuff of life). The nester is all too willing to stay put. Religious 'who ' welcome the document's stre~s upon corporate mission, seeing in it the preservation of the founder's charism and an assurance of Church approval, need to reflect whether such l~oyalty does not stem from an exaggerated nesting instinct which makes thefia satisfied with limitations, freeing them from the risk of other works or from~the challenging forms of community and prayer which new tasks might demand. Nesters t~est comfortably in their limits, taking a passive stance and opting for the security provided by familiar structures. Nesters are often hard workers, but comfort and security, not challenge and growth, are their expectations of religious life. The kingdoffi °lSossesses for them no sense of urgency. Because such persons often do not think for themselves, they readily go along with the crowd and compromise values if this will help mairitain the status quo. To move frbm nester to pilgrim the situation must be acknowledged~ for what it is: a refusal to transcend limits and take responsibility for life. Such recognit.ion brings freedom to move beyond self, freedom to become a genuine pilgrim. Rovers too have difficulty balancing desires and limits, but of a different kind. Such religious entertain exaggerated notions of what (hey or their institute could accomplish if freed from hierarchical trammels. In warnings about scattering resources over too many works the rovers see only an encouragement of timid mediocrity and they are resentful of anyone who suggests parameters to their utopian schemes. Moving from project to project, they are voluble about what they are against--less clear about what they stand Ecclesial Relationships for Religious / 521 for. Destructive anger is often operative under the guise of zeal for the kingdom and service for the oppressed. A true pilgrim spirit cannot be attained without recognizing the poverty imposed by limitations. Johannes Metz observes: Through the transcendental expanse of his spirit, man lives in the open air. in the future of unlimited possibilities. His task is not to lose himself there, 15ut to make something of himself through them. He makes them his potentialities by his historically unique and irrevocable personal decision, through which he finds a foothold in the th~:ust of his existence. Doubtless we could multiply instances of such tensions within us. Let a final eXample serve as summary: the struggle between self-fulfillme~nt and self-transcendence. Thanks to developments in philo.sophy and the behavioral sciences our society has passed from institutionalism to personalism,,from an often static essentialism to existentialis.m. Religious life has reflected these changes. As novices many of us were "trained" (and the word is significant) in a traditional ethic Of self-denial and conformity; now we are confronted with healthful challenges to personal growth through responsible decision-making. Where once we awaited assignment at the discretion of the superior, now our gifts, our talents---even our preferences--are consulted and respected. The insights of psychology tell us that much of the discipline of the past--the asceticism, penitential practices, total-institution structures--was not the excellent means for personal development we once thought. Scores of institutes have mounted extensive programs: workshops in psychology, assertiveness training, human potential and the like--all dedicated to the self-actualization of the religious. This is to the good. Religious who were formerly content to let life happen to them, with limits imposed' by institutional structures and custom, have awakened to a sense:of freedom, responsibility and renewed vitality. They can now rejoice in new ways of acting unfettered by pessismism] legalism or guilt. But the journey°to self-fulfillment has pitfalls of its own. The goods of p~rsonal growth and independence can assume top rank in a hierarchy of objectified, individualistic values. The movement to actualize human potential can be trivialized tb the point of a petulant "doing my thing." Poised against the desire fore fulfillment is the Gospel call to conversion and self-transcendence. Behavioral scientists ask how the self of psychology and the self of the Gospel can be reconciled and some of them see no possibility of this. An easy appeal to the slogan, "The glory of God is man fully alive," would seem to suggest that the path of self-actualization is the only one we need to ~follow. But Jesus' directives about denying oneself, taking up the cross and even dying are still normative for the Christian. The dichotomy between self-fulfillment and the demands of Christian spirituality can be bridged only by a transcendence that reaches beyond both self-actualization and self-denial. Our deepest yearnings-- the desire for meaning, truth, value, love---can be satisfied only when we shift our primary focus from our personal needs and desires to the needs of others. It is to such transcendence that John Paul calls the whole Church, but 522 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 especially us religious, inviting us to live more intensely .the mystery of the redemption. It is a call to holiness and renewal, a call to penance and conversion.59 In practical terms the call requires objective and humble evaluation of our life. We can of course choose not to heed this particular appeal. ,We can receive the document as an unwelcome and unwarranted admonition, spend our timelooking for the hidden agenda, fault the document for its omissions and commissions. In such case we have'had the experience but missed the meaning. ~ Essential Elements is an authoritative document, but not a definitive one. Like Lumen Gentium it does not canonize the past nor consecrate tl~e present but prepa.res for the futui'e, not least of all by reason of the fruitful dialogue it can initiate. A healthy realism shows that we are all, hierarchy and religious alike, part of a sinful Church, semperformanda et reformanda. We manifest the mystery of the Lord "ina faithful though shadowed Way.'~0 Let us work to remove the shadows so that we may become those "blazing emblemsTM of the kingdom in a Church which is truly lumen gentium, the light of the world. NOTES ~Hereafter, Essential Elements or EE. The edition used is that of the Daughters of St. Paul, Boston, 1983. ~lts application must be made with due regard for the principles applicable to all magisterial pronouncements. These principles, however, are not always clear. Karl Rahner notes, ~Theology has shown relatively little interest in a more nuanced answer to the question of the proper and permissible relationship of, the average Catholic to the official teaching of the Ch,,urch." See Rahner and K-H. Weger; Our Christian Faith: Answer for the Future (New ~ork: Crossroad, 1981), p. 125. 3EE. 2. 4Lette~ of John Paul II in EE, 4. 51bid. 3. 6EE, 8. 71bid, 10:, 81bid, II. 91bid; 12. ~01bid, 38, 40, 41, 42. ~qbid, 24. ~21bid ~3Hereafter,'LG. The sohrce for this and other documents of Vatican !I is Walter M. Abbott, ed., The Documents of Vatican !! (New York: Herder and Herder, 1966)~ ~4LG, 4. ~sSee Karl Rahner,~Concernfor the Church, Theological Investigations, XX, tr. E. Quinn (New York: Crossroad. 1981), pp, 94--97, ~6"~he disjunctive use of these terms is unfortunate. Karl Rahner notes that "the official element in the Church has a ~zharismatic element. For it is evident that the gifts of the Spirit can only be regulated by a gift of the Spirit. In other words any attempt to regard the official and charisma

Issue 12.4 of the Review for Religious, 1953. ; The Spiril: ot: SI:, Clare and I-ler Order Sister M. Immaculata, P.C: CEVEN centuries'ago, on August 11, 1253, the shadows of death ~ were lengthening around a group of sorrowing nuns whose ~ foundress and Mother lay dying. In ecstatic joy, she clasped to her heart a roll of parchment sealed with the Fisherman's seal. Clare Sceffi, a. noble lady of Assisi, had fled from her castle home when she was eighteen to follow Francis Bernardone. Francis had dreamed of adventure for. Christ, and no one had caught~ the flame of love that burned in his heart more ardently than Clare. Fran~is's course had now been run a full quarter of a century, and he was already b.eing venerated as the great saint whose popularity would grow even to our own day. pope Innocent IV had ascended the throne of Peter but the year before. His keen vision scanned the lower!rig storm clouds over a Europe ever beset by the Moslem threat. Could he but make the rulers of the Christian countries bestir themselves out of their com-fortable and only too often lustful letha/gy, to heed his call "God wills it !" With the burdens of ~his exalted, office heavy upon him, he, the Vicar of Christ thought of one little virgin, hidden behind cloister walls in Assisi. He knew Clare, heard she was dying; and he remem-bered the intrepid courage with which she had pleaded with him and some of his predecessors for approval Of her Rule, and of the Seraphic poverty to which she and her Daughters aspired. Innocent, like several Pontiffs before him, had,hesitated to approve a rule of life requiring such poverty as Saint Francis had bequea.thed to Saint Clare and her Daughters. Men, they thought, might oblige themselves to observe it,-but what of cloistered nuns? What would become of a community thus deprived of all revenue and financial security? Innocent was thinking of Clare, thinking of how she lay dying, her one wish and desire unfulfilled. He did not send her a message of comfort and his blessing. Under the inspiration, no doubt of~ the Holy Spirit, he grasped his pen, signed the Bull of approval con-taining her Rule; and then, with his retinue, turned his face toward Assisi. There at San Damiano he entered tl~e lowly cell of Clare and placed in her hands the approval for which she had prayed and 169 SISTER M. IMMACULATA Re~evo :or Religious ~)leaded and suffered for over f.orty years. We can imagine" the astonishment of Clare and her Sisters when the Holy Father himself stood at the convent portals. How she must have pre,ssed that docu-ment to her heart and sung her last hymn of love to Christ her Spouse. Clare had imbibed th.e spirit of Francis at its source, .cher-ishing it firmly and wholly, and bequeathing it to her Daughters as they knelt at her death bed. And they have cherished, loved, and guarded it. They have preserved it unchanged since 1253. Through 700 years the Rule of Saint Clar~ has often been buffeted by storms, and has been wounded at times by the infidelity of her children, but it has always emerged in its first freshness and .strength. It still lives in 1953, and today there.are 19 houses of Poor Clares in the United Stat~s. Our modern age has not been able to undermine the observance of the Rule nor destroy its spirit. The order has grown silently, spreading its branches in neaily every country of the world. No nationality but has found the Rule and its spirit congenial, so that the daughters of Saint Clare scattered throughout the countries of the world have always been able to adapt themselves to her Rule, which .has proved .independent of time or place. Today our American girls still observe the Rule Innocent IV placed in the hands 0f the dying foundress. " What is the spirit, contained in the Rule of Saint Clare? As. in ¯ her own time, her Daughters live a contemplative life in strict en-closure. The spirit, one of poverty, love of prayer leading to closest union with God, is joyous, and their personal sanctification is as much for the efficacious gaining of gra~e for"soul~ as for the strength-ening of the bond of love in the order. It is a life of joyful giving, closing the doors to what the world calls pleasure by the vow of en-closure, thus finding the treasure which is worth more than all pos-sessions. Though it embraces the deprivation of "the things the world de-sires and cherishes, this seclusion with its penance does not entail a sad, bleak; and joyless existence. It is not the thing~ that are barred from the cloister which bring peace and joy to the soul, but those that are found within, of which the world knows nothing. There is song in the heart of the cloistered nun. for she is not burdened with the superfluous gadgets and noises which fill so many hours of our com-plex modern life. Saint Francis has been coi~sidered a model of penance and self-abnegation, but was ever saint more joyous? Hadever a saint a heart 170 ,July, 1953 SPIRIT OF ST. CLARE more full of music? His seemed to be an overflowing fountain of happiness, and he communicated it to those around him. In this, as in all else, Saint Clare was his faithful follower. Penance for her was not practiced for penance's sake. It was an outlet for the love burning in her heart ,and reaching out for more adequate fuel to feed its flame. This joyous spirit still pervades the cloisters where the Daughters of Saint Clare follow in her footsteps and observe her Rule. Their hearts are the cups that still hold the happiness of which the world has now so little, because their lives are still spent in genuine love and wholehearted giving. The worlff today is filled with sorrow and suffering,, and count: less hearts.are bearing a burden they could well consider supreme penance, did they but think of accepting all in a spirit of penance. The heart's most loving, if inarticulate, acceptance of penance is the willing b~aring of the unwelcome burdens so often placed on it by God. To be silent and lovingly resigned is always, to practice pen-ance in a very perfect form. The Daughters of Saint Clare vowing a Rule which imposes manypenances are but reaching out for greater love, ~vhich is warded With greater joy in God's service. Penance is not ugly, harsh, and fearsome. The bell which call~ one to ri~e from welcome sleep to seek the light of the sanctuary in the dead of night may sound un-welcome to a tired body: but is theie anything rfiore beautifuf_than the religious wending their silent 'way to the choir to make their first act of adoration before their Lord in the taberf.acle when the day has just begun? Standing in their stalls, they offer the praise of virgins before the face of~God, a prayer with the Son of God, ",bhile the world sleeps or sins. Does anyone know the joy in the hearts of those who give Him this homage? So it is with all the penances.prac7 ticed by the Daughters 6f Saint Clare. Penance for penance's sake is repugnant, meaningless, and very often food- for pride and phari-saism, so entirely alien to the spirit of Saint Clare. Penance for "love's sake is sweet. If there are still hearts in the world today which know unalloyed joy, they are undoubtedly those whose lives are being poured out in the most unselfish and wholehearted giving. Their joy is most full because their lives are most full of giving. The transition from the life of our modern girl to a postu!a~nt the cloister is not so drastic as some would suppose. Young, eager, lighthearted, with a soul attuned to God's grace, she assumes by slow degrees the duties and customs to which she adapts herself. She learns 171 SISTER M. IMMACULATA Review for Religious to love the hours of prayer, the Divine Office, the silence and regu-larity, The joyous acceptance of the sacrifices imposed by the Rule creatds a deep happiness and peace, which is found" especially in the hours of prayer. Prayer is not a ready-made gift in anyone. It en-tails mortification, is often itself mortification, but a mortification that decreases as the spirit of prayer and union with God increases There are no secrets of rapid progress over the rough path that leads to union with God, except the secret of persistent self-abnegation and striving for that wlsich obliterates self, and builds up in us the Christlikeness which alone makes us one with Him. But God does not lure us into the wilderness of. the contemplative life to forsake us and l'eave us to our own helplessness. True, we seem to take a leap in the dark When we embrace the contemplative life, but our Lover is not a human being whom we fear to trust. Like Clare who left her castle home in the dead of night, her Daughters follow where their Divine Spouse leads, and the path. is ever to union with God and the embrace of the Holy Spirit. While the enclosed life of contemplation should not be glamor-ized, neither should it be made a fearful existence df joyless sacrifice and penance. Too often is either mistake made. Those who look for a thrill rush to embrace what they do not understand, looking for something occult, dxpecting tangible thrills of gra.ce or ecstatic prayer before they have hid anything like the foundations of the spiritual life. On the other hand, ferszent though timid souls are often over-come by fear of what may be expected of them once they step behind the cloister walls. Neither is the correct attitude. Those to whom God gives a vocation to the contemplative life, have, nearly always, a natural yearning for God. They want Him, are looking for means of. union with~Him, "have a certain joy in prayer, and, with the light affd guidance of the Holy" Spirit, find pehce of soul in the difficult stretchds of the way as well as happiness in His tornforts. Union with God is a growing state, and though it often advances in dark-ness there are times when it comes into the light, and a light that does not fade entirely even when the way is again through dryness. There is too much emphasis put on the trials, sufferings, and dark-ness of the interior life and not enough on the joy in God and peace Of soul found therein. It has been said that Saint Clare, had she lived in our day, would have founded a missionary order. No Daughter of hers would ever consent to this opinion. Clare knew without a doubt to what she 172 dulg, 1953 SPIRIT OF ST. CLARE was called and she never wavered. She did not simply follow a pat-tern of her time. Indeed, we know that a number of:Benedictine houses, especially the large one at Florence, took the Rule of Saint Clare. It was Agnes, her sister, who was sent there to be the abbess under the new Rule. Francis knew Clare was a contemplative, as he was himself, and the hearts of both were so much the missionary's that no field of labor would ever satisfy' their zeal. Nothing less than the entire world would be Clare's mission field, as it was that of Francis and his Order. Italy and Assisi were no closer to her than the farthest-flung mission. No contempla.tive is one indeed if she has not' the heart of a missionary. Francis's was the call to go out and preach,. Clare's the outstretched arms of a Moses on the mount of contemplation. Clare would give to Christ, her Spouse, not only herself, but all the world. She'knew the fields were white for the harvest and she would obey the words of Christ and pray that the Master send laborers into it. He did not bid her go out and gather it in, bu~ strengthen the arms of the workers. She knew the limita-tions of her own weakness, but prayer and sacrifice, united with the prayer of Christ in the Divine Office, in in~erior love and union, were and are the all-powerful weapons which can reach the opposite ends of the earth at one and the same time. It was the spirit of Clare. as it was the spirit of Francis, to be daring enough to wish to support the Church, on her own weak shoulders, knowing that the Hands and Heart of her Divine Spouse were supporting her. The Spirit of Saint Clare, the foundress of the "Poor Clares, is still living and burning brightly after seven centuries. It calls to the heart cJf the modern girl of our cities as it did t6 those of the middle ages. The life she and Francis instituted for her Daughters is not outmoded in the 20th century, but instead is as living, warm, and joyous in the hearts of the novices of ~oday as in the days of Saint Clare in the little monastery of San Dami~no in 1253. ST. CLARE PLAY BY A POOR CLARE Candle in Umbria is the story of Saint Clare of /~ssisi told in a verse play by a Poor Clare Nun. The play of four acts, eight scenes is suitable for production by college :students or by high schools with special direction. The play was written to honor the foundress of the Poor Clares on the seventh centenary (1953) of her death. The authi~r is a regular contributor to Spirit magazine. ~$1.00 per copy, including the music for the "Canticle of the Sun" which is embodied in the play. Those interested in obtaining a copy of this productior~ should write to: Poor Clare Monastery, Route 1, Box 285 C, Roswell, New Mexico. 173 News and Views Yocational Institute at Fordl~am The Third Annual Institute on Religious and Sacerdotal Voca-tions will be held by. the School of Education, Fordham University, Wednesday, July 29, and Thursday, July 30, on the Fordham. campus. Ways of encouraging, fostering, and guiding vocations~.to the diocesan priesthood an/d to the religious life will be~ discussed by outstanding experts. For further information write to Rev. John F. Gilson,.S.J.,' Fordham Univ. Sch6ol of Education, 302 Broad-way, New York 7, N.Y. ,~ Institute of Spirituality At the National Congress of Religious, held last summer at the .University of Notre Dame, it ,was suggested that the University offer summer school courses in spiritual theology and an institute of spir-ituality each year for the Sisterhoods. This suggestion was favorably received by the representati(,es of the Sacred Congrdgation of Reli-gious and by th.e religious superiors who attended the congress. To carry the suggestion into effe~0 the Notre Dame Department of Religion is inaugurating this summer a program of courses in spir-itual- theology as part of its graduate work in view of a Master's De-gree in Religion. Moreover, since many superiors and mistresses of novices are unable to be present for the summer school, courses, the University is offering a distinct. Institute of Spirituality for them. This is also sponsored by the Department of Religion. The Institute is not a part of the academic program and offers no credits towards a degree. All the lectures and discussions are specially arranged for Sisters superior and novice mistresses. A~ the formal opening of the Institute, on the evening of July 31, His Excellency,. the Most Reverend John F. O'Hara, C.S.C., D.D., will deliver the address. From August I to 7, there will be three lectures each morning. Topics and speakers for these series of lectures are: "'The Role of the Sister Superior and Novice Mistress," by Rev. Paul Philippe, O.P.; "The Theology of the Religious Life and the Vows," by Rev. Joseph Buckley, S.M.; and "Ascetical and Mystical Theology," by Rev. Charles Corcoran, C.S.C. Each after~ noon, August 1-6, the three lecturers will cbnduct workshops on their subject-matter. On four evenings, August I-4, there will be 174 Julg, 1953 NEws AND VIEWS special lectures, running simultaneously, as follows: "The Liturgy and the R~ligious Life," by Rt. Rev. Martin Hellriegel; "Canon Law for Religious," by Rev. Romaeus O'Brien, O.Carm.; and "Psycho-physiology and Religious Sisterhoods," by Rev. Gerald Kelly, S.J. The Institute will close on the morning of August 7 with an address by Very Rev. Theodore M. He.sbargh, C:S.C., President of the Uni-versity of Notre Dame. Morol Theology ond Love There was a day when the science of Christian moralit~r included everything that is now partitioned into moral theology, ascetical the-ology, and mystical theology: in othei~'words, it included the entire Christian life, in all its degreesof perfection. Bdt the very growth of the su,bject-matter made some kin~i of division necessary, at least for teaching purposes. This division more or less limited moral the-ology to the sphere of what is obli~Tator(/: tb the study of laws, of the exact limits of the obligations imposed by the laws, to the.conditions which might constitute exemptions from these laws. and so foith. There is one great advantage of this ~partiti0n: it makes a dear distinction between what is obli~Tator~l and what is superero~lator~t; and this distinction is ext~rbmely important for the preservation of peace of soul. Nevertheless, from the point of view of moral the-ology, there is also a decided disadvantage: the science is made to ap-. pear too negative. Perhaps every student and professor of moral the-ology has been conscious of this disadgantage, and perhaps many of them h:~ve tried to find some way of introducing a more.positive and inspirational dement into moral theology without, of course, scaring its basic clarity. Father G. Gilleman, S.J., a Belgian Jesuit who teaches theology in India, suggests that moral theology can gain its necessary inspira-tional note by emphasizing charity as the very soul of the Christian life--which it truly is, whether in the sphere of obligation or' of supererogation. Those who ire'intdr~sted in improving.the method of moral theology should nbt fail to read Father Gilleman's book. The title is, Le primat de la charitd en thdologlie morale. It is pob-lished by E. Nauwelaerts, Louvain, Belgium. The price is 225 Bel-gian fr'ancs. $t. Joseph Research Center A St. Joseph" Research and Documentation Center has been estab-lished at St. Joseph's Oratory, Montreal 26, Quebec. The constitu- 7.5 NEWS AND VIEWS tions of this organization have the approval of His Eminence, Paul Cardinal Lel~er, Archbishop of Montreal. The purpose of the so-ciety is to encourage a more profound study of the position of St. 2o-seph, and eventually to subsidize works published on the saint. It will sponsor research in fields such as church history, liturgy, and the arts, as well asin theology. Membership is open to' all interested in-dividuals or groups. Inquiries can be sent directly to St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal or to Rev. F. L. Filas, S.J., at Loyola Univer-sity, Chicago 26, Illinois. Scholarships at Catholic University" The Catholic University of America has made provision for. 160 half-tuition scholarships for post graduate studies for the next aca-demic year. Open to lay men and women, priests, Brothers, and Sisters, the grants/ worth $300 towards 'tuition, will be awarded on the basis of scholastic excellence and financial need of the applicant who is entering on post graduate work. Grants are available in all studies except philosophy, engineering, and architecture. Appli-cants should write to the Registrar, Department G, Catholic Univer- ¯ sity of America, Washington, D.C., for additional details on the program. Office of the Passion in English The Confraternity of the Passion, in answer to many requests, has had The Little Ofl$ce of the Passion of Our Lord desus Christ translated into English and made available in Small booklet form. The booklet may be obtained for 25 cents from the Confraternity of the Passion, Sacred Heart Retreat, 1924 Newburg Road', Louisville, Kentucky', or from any Passionist Monastery. ~ Layos Catholic Records Layos Records is a Hollywood recording company devoted ex-clusively to the production of Catholic records. The first record, " "Act of Contrition," is already in circulation. Original music was composed by Peter; Jona Korn, and the piece is performed by the Roger Wagner Chorale. The company plans to sell the recordings through advertisements in the Catholic press. A five-year schedule calls for the production of a new Catholic record, at six-week inter-vals. The firm is being advised in its musical program by Father John Cremins, head of the music depastment of the Los Angele~s Archdiocese. The record company is anxious to ha~,e suggestions from Catholic music and audio-visual departments regarding the type of material to be recorded. 176 On !:he Particular i:::xamen [EDITORS' NOTE: The first two articles on the particulmr examen .arrive~l almost simultaneously. The fact that the first is from an American Brother studying in Switzerland and the second from a Belgian missionary in India would seem" to indicate, universal interest in this practice of asceticism. The third contribution to this "sytfiposium"'is .from a member of the Jesuit Mission Band of the New Yot;k province. Communications from Our readers that may bring some more hdpful ideas to the practice of the particular examen are: welcome.] William T. Anderson, S.M. UMAN nature is prone tO falling into a rut. Those who lead very ordered lives often become slaves to routine. Religious sometimes feel the deadening effe~ct of routine and.habit: in fact, if we ark not car~eful, we find ourselves going to chapel without any preparation and without ~any aim. Day after day slips by and, before we know it, a year is gone. When .we 'take inventory at the annual-retreat, the shelves of our spiritual warehouse look" bare indeed. Perhaps we ought once in a while to ask ourselves a few embar-rassing questions on our religious duties. The reflections listed below are the result of just such a scrubbing of the~ soul. What effect has particular examen had on me? What is my attitude towards this ex-ercise? What importance has this exercise ir~ the spiritual life? Is there any direct ratio between successful zeal and progress in particu-lar examen? After .asking yourself these questions, try to answer them honestly. Then read on and see whetheroyou agree with the ideas given below. 1. A written record is a "'must" for examen. A record book for examen was insisted on in the novitiate. Over and over we heard how necessary this was. Yetsome 'religious perhapscast their examen book out the window of the car carrying them from the novitiate to the train station. Some of us used it for a while, but then discarded it. And that ~ras the beginning of the end. Perhaps most religious who do not make examen with a record as a help do not make exa-men. I~ this a rash statement? Do .you make examen faithfully without a iecord? Does your personal experience agree with this observation ? 177 "~,VILLIAM T, ./~NDERSON Re~iea2 for Religious 2. The subject for~ examen must be specific. If the subject is not limited to definite occasions during the day, or to specific'times scat-tered oxier the usual schedule, after a time the examen, period becomes' " 6nd during which 6u~ Stomach continually reminds us "that a meal is not,far off, or it is a p~eriod of planning unconsciously our work for the rest of the day or the morrow. Vagueness here is the deadly ene-my of progress. 3. Our apostolic influence is in direct ratio to our efforts at par-ticular examen. We learned in the scholasticate that while knowl-edge is very necessary for a teacher, the more important ingredient for a successful teacher and religious educator was the hbility to get along with people and to attract souls. Anyone who has taught fora few years will attest to the authenticity of this statement. Any one will also agree that teaching boys, especially adolescent b.oys,.can be a very nerve-racking job. Nervous tension may ruin any influence which we might have with students when we use sarcasm or unjust punishments, show favoritism or laxity on some occa-sions, or exercise undue ~ever!ty on others. Examen is the means which we have at our disposal to develop in us that self=control which is so necessary for the teacher. To be kind when words of sarcasm rise to outlips, to be exacting ~h~n we fed sluggish and lazy, to give words of correction which yet, do not cut, to be patient when we have had little sleep or food (as on fast days), ~o work steadily despite the fact that "results" are not forthcoming--is M1 this.poisible without examen? Most prob-ably not. As soon as we stop working at examen, we find ourselves difficult to get along with, harsh, lazy, or sarcastic. The weeds of our defects spring up rapidly'bnce we lay down the hoe of particular exam'en. 4. Particular examen is a sine qua non for communit~l life. All of the.foregoing can be just as well applied to community life. Com-munity life sometimes causes a lot of friction, some heat, and at times, even fire. Examen is the~exercise we need to mold our charac-ters so that we learn to avoid occasions which.cause arguments' or to cement, fraternal relations, once they are broken.~ Community life is sometimes a big cross; there is no need to make Jrbigger for a fellow r~ligious. 5. Examen is one of the best means we have of attaining our ideal, desus,'Son of Marv. Putting off the old man and putting on the new man is quite a job for us weak mortals, afflicted as we.are by 1"78 953 PARTICULAR EXAMEN the effects of original sin. It seems impossible that a religious can be sincere and continue hi~ striving for perfection in religious life with-out keeping up with the daily examen. Progress tgward making ourselves like to Jesus, Son of Mary, is made only by the grace of God and constant striving on,our part. Much of oar progress in the spiritual life proceeds, ex opere operantis. And examen is an excel-lent measuring rod for our own effort. 6. Examen is one of our most poten~t means of recruitment. Stu-dents join our ranks, not because of what we say or what we write. but because o~ what we are. If we are real religious, if we are. happy in the knowledge that we are striving to perfect ourselves,, if we show the acquired virtues of patience, charity, humility, and piety, it is ~mpossible that recruits will not come to us. Is there a. better adver, tisement for the religious life than a real religious, one who is daily advancing in virtue? Holiness attracts. Examen is a potent means of holiness. . Perhaps you do not agree with all or even any of the foregoing reflections. 'Be that as it may, you must admit that, granted that particular examen is necessary, we often negl.ect this important reli-gious exercise. Not only must we strive to be present for the examen each day, but we must make it fruitful by daily striving.~ Growth. in" virtue seems to demand the daily examen. As his particular examen goes, so goes the religious. P. De Letter, S.J. The particular examen i~ a common practice of modern spiritual-ity, As every canonical fiovice knows, it consists in direct.ing atten-tion to a particular point, either a fault to be corrected or some practice of virtue, to be fostered. Popularized if not originated by St. Ignatius~ of Loyola, this has become a common tactic in the spir-itual life. All have a passing acquaintance with it. As proposed in the Spiritual ExWcises, attention is to be focused on the particular examen three times every day: at the morning oblation, in theexam-ination of conscience at noon, and again 'during the evening exam-ination. Through this practice gifferent defects, are "gradually elim-inated and needed virtues acquired. 179 ~ P DE LETTER Remeto for Rehgtous A Fact from Experience Yet some religious do not succeed with the particular examen. They apparently fail to see its use 6r grasp its meaning: At any rate, they draw little, profit from it even whrn they do not drop it alto-gether as a useless formality. This is true even among religious who in no way neglect their interior life. Their failure is not due to wil-ful neglect or to tepidity. They simply do not' see their way to making a success of the practice. . Since sound spiritual writers speak so highly of the worth of the particular examen, it seems desirable to examine some apparent neglect and to revalue._.this spiritual exercise. We may sum up its importance by saying it is a sign of spiritual vitality, especially for those who have spent some years in religion. It may not be all-important m itself, at least when it is thought of and practiced in too narrow a manner. Generally its practice is a good indication that.the interior life is thriving. More often than not, its neglect means alack of spiritual vitality. In a limited sense, fidelity to" the practice of the examen can serve as a barometer reading of spiriti~al fervor. A Restricted Conception of the. Exarnen The formal idea of the particular examen can be applied in two different ways regarding both the choice of the subject matter and the manner of conceiving its pragtice. One way is very concrete and definite, perhaps too mechanical and artificial at least for life-span practice. For instance, we decide on rooting out a habitual fault such as the neglect of silence, resolve to avoid transgressions, and keep a record of the eventually-decreasing faults. Or we concentrate our attention on a specific practice of virtue such as kind interpretation of the actions of others and endeavor to. increase the number of these acts throughout the day, checking at noon and night to see how we have succeeded. This method is very rightly advised in the beginning of the religious life. It is an effective means of correcting exterior faults and defects and of gradually developing a religious way of thinking, speaking, and acting. It is also useful at other periods in life when it is necessary to remedy some faulty way of speaking'or acting that has crept in unnoticed. Another Approach If the particular examen is to measure up to what writers say about it and be a really powerful means of progress, there ought to be another way of conceiving its practice which does justice to its 180 1953 PARTICULAR EXAMEN importance. A number of religious have given the assurance that the following approach "works." Instead of taking just any particular fault or practice of virtue, we should fix on some central interest or need of our spiritual life. If the subiect is important it will less easily be forgotten. Then its !~ractlce, oreferably positive rather than nega-tive, should be conceived in a broad and inclusive manner. By means of the resolve made and renewdd at the three times--morning, noon, and night--we work at gradually penetrating our working day with an ideal or conviction rather than at c.ounting a number of particular acts 6r ,defects. To be more specific, the most suitable ;sub.iect matter for our par-ticul~ r examen is the main resolution or resolutions of our annual re- " treat. When this subiect is properly" chosen, it answers a real need and generMly our great~st one. It may crystallize into some maxim or mqtto. Then the oractice will consist in keeping this before our mind or recalling it when needed and pbssible. We thus slowly come to live in the atmost)here or disposition which our watchword con-veys. ¯ We begin to think, speak, and act accordingly. Some examples are: "The LordIoves a cheerful giver": "Ndt for me, Lord, but for Thee": "To have that mind in you which is in Christ." The prac-tice of framing our resolution in a driving maxim or a quotation from Scripture can be very helpful 'though it is not essential. What is essential is to keep before our mind a definite objective, sufficiently central and important for our personal interior life, such as cannot be lost sight of as long as our effort for spiritual "progress is kept alive. In this method our faithfulness and success in the,practice of the par-ticular examen are the criterion of our vitality and fervor. This will create a .congenial interior climate in which our souls can thrive. The importance of tEis concep~ion of the examen is evident at once. Nor is there any danger that we shall overlook and forget it throughout a busy day. If our work is permeated with a driving spiritual ideal, as it should be if it is to be different from mere secular work, a particular examen that looks after 6ur present main spiritual need will help sustain this retreat-clear inspiration. It is only in moments of forgetfulness when we neglect grace and allow natural-ism to guide our thought or conduct that the particular examen will also suffer from this spiritual thoughtlessness, But the examen itself, by reason of the resolve and the effort it implies, helps to forestall or exclude and .certainly to dimi6ish these "secular moments" in our days. 181 P. DE LETTER Review [or Religious Room [or Varietg We need not fear that this method will leave no room for a helpful variety that will maintain interest. When our particular examen aims at our central, yet definite, spiritual interest or need, its subject, matter can and naturally will take on many different aspects according to the variations of that interest or need, directed both by grace and by our psychology. As a matter of fact, our spiritual needs and interests evolve gradhally according to seasons and circumstances and to the inspirations of grace. These will reveal now one,e, ~now another side which before remained more or less hidden or unnoficed. Moreover, when our retreat resolutio.n, as is gener~ally the case, is not restricted to one but foresees several particular needs, we can alternate the practice and change from one to the other when the 'one seems to have worn out and lost its grip. Later, we can often return to the first with a refreshed outlook and new ardor. ( Dispositions and/or Acts Does this manner of practicing the examen require specific acts as does the first, or may we dispense with these? It may require them and generally does. That depends on the subject matter and on in-dividual dispositions. Some people can maintain a habitual disposi-tion of recollectedness or selflessness without insis(ing on or multiply- , ing definite acts. Others are in need of such acts, which arise spon-taneously from their resolve to be recollected or self-forgetful. spirit of praye.r normally demands some explicit acts of formal prayer; habitual or virtual prayer alone would not be sufficient. Self-lessness, trust, apostolic zeal can be habitual dispositions, but some explicit acts, whether exterior or interior, would not do any harm but would help very much even if they were not altogether necessary. The marking in a book after the noon "and evening check-up, which is generally a real help to our dodging human nature,'is not to be overlooked in this second way. But it need not be done in numer-als. Some people are congenitally poor in.arithmetic. Instead of marking the number of acts or df faults, a gener~al notation may suf-fice, for instance: good, average, poor; or A, B, C; or any way one prefers. When we mean business with our particular examen and make use of all the means to succeed, we still must expect times when our effort will have little success. Some days everything goes well spir-itually; other days it does not. These ups and downs need not be 182 July, 1953 PARTICULAR EXAMEN ; magnified; even in0 the "downs:' our effort can and generally does remain substantially faithful and successful to an extent. This should not be oveHooked: otherwise unwarranted and naive optim-ism may flounder during low moods, Provided our desire and effort .does not flag, even this partly unsuccessful particular examen still marks a steady progress. - The second way of conceiving and. practicing the particular exa-men makes the exercise not just a small device for casual use if it suits but rather an important ~nd obligatory factor in every serious effort for progress. Without it. spiritual life~.slackens if it does not die down. Perhaps we should say that every, fervent life actually keeps this practice of the particular examen, though possibly without giving it that name. Every fervent spirituality is practically boun,d to aim at and concentrate on some definite objective required by the present need. Fervent sduls do so spontaneously. It can only make for better ~esults if they are aware of this law of spiritual vitality and resolve to follow it. Seen in this light, the particular examen-is an essential unit inthe structureof spiritual progress. It is, not just a decorative trifle. We need not fear that this determined and steady effort at lJrog-ress in one particular direction will result in a state of uneasy t~nslon and nervousness. As in the whole spiritual life, so also here, ti~e-de-sire and endeavor for advancement must combine ardor and peace,, earnestness and patience, genuine'effort and disinterested acceptance of the results. For is it not grace that makes our effort possible and suc-cessful? Human endeavor is a subordinate factor. It is no doubt, necessary: grace does ndt replaceit. But it is trust in grace combined with sincerity in not sparing ourselves unduly that makes a burning, yet peaceful ardor possible. The particular examen, understood in this grand and realistic way,, repays, th~ effort we make in a measure which it is impossible,to anticipate. Fidelity to grace is often re-warded beyond human expectation. Gabriel A. Zema, S.J. 1. Let us take, for example, the habit of passing on to a friend or acquaintance our low opinion of the fault or sin 0f another. De-pending on circumstances, the thing may be no sin at all, a.venial, or a mortal sin. Even if no actual sin, it is a habit that belongs to no 183 GABRIEL A. ZEMA lady or gentleman; and it can lead to a lot of trouble. 2. On rising, or after morning prayer, write a figure, say "3," some place where you can again see it at the end of the day. (Even nosey people will never know what "3" stands for.) For you "Y' means you are determined to control your tongue three times that day on the habit you set ouk to break. 3. When you look at the figure at the end of the day while examining your conscience as every sincere re!igious.should--it is pos- Sible you won't know what it stands for yourself. You may even have forgotten you put it there. ,But a little reflection will bring back the breaking-that-habit idea. 4. Very well, begin all over again. On the second day you may find that you have not controlled your tongue even once. Go to the third day more determined than ever. 5. I~eep'up the practice for ten or twelve days. You will find a definite improvement if you are at all serious about it. 6. At the end of ten or twelve days take tip another fault and give it ~he same treatment. Follow the same procedure. After you have worked on three or four faults.--never forgetting to keep im-' proving on them--go back to the first one and see how the patient looks! 7. In morning and evening prayers ask Our Lady to come to your aid. BOOK NOTICE THE INTERIOR CARMEL: THE THREEFOLD WAY OF LOVE, by John C. H. Wu, a very brilliant Chinese. convert, diplomat, and scholar, "wi'll help highly intellectual.lay men and women to raise their spiritual lives of contemplation and divine love td an equal height and to give them something of the lofty mysticism that char-acterized St. John of the Cross. It will also aid very busy religious or priests to make their exterior activities conducive to a ,higher and more intense internal spirit. Interestingly and inspiringly Dr. Wu quotes the ancient Cbiriese sages, Confucius and Mencius, to rein-force the lessons of modern Catholic and Spanish Carmelite mysti-cism. (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1953. Pp. xii + 257. $3.25.) 184 Child Mo!:her: r cious ynt:hesis Mother Winifred Corrigan, r.c. AT HOLY COMMUNION, the soul authentically in love with ~ God, is sometimes conscious of itself as a banq~ethall in which the memorable gospel of the anointing of the Lord's feet by "a sinner" is being reenacted. This soul becomes aware in itself of two sep.arate impulses. One is the generous spirit of the Magdalen, utterly expending self for the beloved Master, freely offering to spend its best years in obscurity or lovingly giving its body to be burned. The other impulse, also within .the soul, is viewing, rea-soning, even objecting: "To what purpose is this waste?" It is the soul speaking in terms of the apostle 3udas, not yet the traitor, who prudently considers the extravagance of broken alabaster."For this might have been sold for much, and given to the poor." That Our Blessed Lord openly favored and approved the sym-bolic self-surrender ~f Mary Magdalen, the sinner, we know. "The poor you have always with you but me you have not.always." We have experienced, too, bow the logic of Divine Wisdom reconciles our opposing desires and restores equilibrium. "Thy. sins are for-given thee. Thy faith hath'made thee safe, go in peace." Devotion to Mary performs a similar function. It tends to unify two spiritual realities sometimes thought to be at variance: the doctrines of spir-itual" cbildbood and spir!tual motherhood. Why are these doctrines ever considered incomigatible? In the natural order, it is plain that the two states, childhood and mother-hood, are not in opposition. Obviously, the same person can be both child and mother. The basic concept, mother, one who merci-fully sustains the life of her offspring ("do not kill it"), is unfor-gettably presented to us as illustrating the wisdom of Solomon. "Give the living Child to this woman.for she is the mother there-of." This concept of mother ~choes the first woman's name, Eve, mother of the living. The concept of child, in the Divine Mind, is expressed for us in the Fourth Commandment. In the Book of Ec-clesiasticus (Chapter 3) the blessings of fruitfulness and long life are promised in detail to the loving, obedient child. Writing to his dear Ephesians, St. Paul confirms this divine revelation for New Testa- 185 MOTHER WINIFRED CORRIGAN Review for Religious merit times.- "Children, obey your parents in. the Lord, for this is just. Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first command-ment with a prorriise: that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest be long lived upon earth." Thus, for the Christian, it is natural for the faithful child to become fruitful, nor would the sacrifice of mar- ¯ riage and family usually be required in order to keep the Fourth Commandment. In the supernatural order, the harmonious' sequence between the roles of child and mother is less apparent. In making ready to lighten up the mists by reference to M.ary, it may be well to clarify the meaning of the terms, spiritual childhood and spiritual mother-hood, according to Scripture and the lives of the saints. Spiritual Childhood Our Lord has strongly set forth the reality, even. the necessity of spiritual childhood. "Amen, I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little, children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." He then counsels the humility of a little child for his disciples, and for all who would be "greater in the kingdom of heaven." The reality of spiritual motherhood is presented for us in the forceful language of St. Paul. "My little dhildren," he wrote to the Galatians, "of whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you." His apostolic cry for souls re-echoes the appeal of the Divine Lover, heard in the Old Testament (Isaias 49:15). There it tran-scends rather than distinguishes itself from the pangs of .natural motherhood. "Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her wombs. And if she should forget, y.et will I not forget thee/' Amid the miracles of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we find this divine, motherly concern for human needs manifesting itself in a sweet, considerate way. He took the hand of Jairus' 12"-year-old daughter and raised her from the dead. Then, having counselled her parents to secrecy, he "commanded that something should be given her to eat." Some of tl'Je saints have discovdred the .beautiful qualities of spir-itual childhood and spiritual motherhood.contained in the above and similar passages. At Holy Communion, they have explored the mystery of their Eucharistic Lord .entering the human body, resting there like a helpless, unborn child, in order to nourish the life of the soul. The Divine Word, repeating the mother's cry: "Do not kill 186 Jul~,1953 GRACIOUS SYNTHESIS it!" 'daily fulfills His own promise: "The bread that I will give. is my flesh, for the life of the world." The saints have understood how, by their very self-effacement, by being belittled and becoming as little children, they too can maternally assis~ in the birth, growth, and' development of the Mystical Body. St. Th~r~se of the Ch'ild Jesus (1873-1897) has renewed the interest of the modern world in the doctrine Of spiritual.childhood: Her position as youngest child of the Martin family and her early entrance into religious life preserved in her soul the true attitude of a child. How this spirit of utter dependence on her heavenly Father helped her to fulfill her maternal duties as nox}ice mistress to the souls "who came to me asking for food," she tells with unique charm in her Autobiographgt (p. 213). Her present title of patroness of the missions suggests the breadth of her spiritual moFherh0od, hidden deep in her youth and Carmel. No discordant contrast is the spirituality of Blessed Th~r~se Couderc (1805-1885), foundress of the Congregation of Our Lady of the Retreat in the Cenacl~. As the oldest girl in a large family and as young superior of a religious community, sloe early developed the valiant traits characteristi(of spiritual motherhood. Then. con-sequent upon bet consecration to Our Lady, shesaw her responsibili-ties removed and she went down willingly into years of oblivion. In her 60th year, Blessed Th~r~se or, as we know her better, Mother Th~r~se, had emerged from the darkness of humiliation and failure, to find herself a humble, cherished adorer confronted with the holi-ness of God. "He treats me always." she wrote at this time, "like a child who would not have the strength to bear trials, Also the sweetness He makes me feel in His service makes me forget and bear all." This is the stage at which she detailed her doctrine of self-surrender. While it graduall~ led her into the thicket of unitive suffering and reparation, she continued to call it an easy means of sanctification, noting that there is "nothing so sweet to practice.': Marg, the Ideal The ideal of self-surrender is Our Lady of the Cenacle. It is Our- Blessed Mother in th~ last. perhaps 15-year, epoch of her earthly life. She has already received her Divine son's formal commission for the motherhood of mankind, on Calvary. In the Cenacle or "upper room," by a mother's persevering prayer and a claild's anonymity- ("who when she was first of all became-the last" St. Bernard), 187 COMMUNICATIONS ReotetO [or Reltgtot~s Mary continues to attract us to the sublime by the gracious synthesis of her life. In religious life, Mary's spirit is learned and gained in a'variety o.f ways: perhaps in the shared intimacy of Holy Communion, perhaps in the fragrant solitude of a retreat. Our Lady is ever the, true child ,and the true mother. Her spirit, '!meek and strong, zealous and prudent, humble and courageous, pure and fruitful," imparts to us our own proper measure of both these roles. When we have reverently analyzed ~and appreciated the doctrines of spiritual childhood and spiritual motherhood, we may be allowed to accommodate an angel's words as our simple directive,. "Take the Child and His mother." Thus, sincere, day to day imitatio'n of Our Blessed Mother. gradually becomes our meaningful response to an ever more imRerative invitation. We then find that we have tended to integrate in our spiritual .life the two ways'of which Mary, our model, is the gracious synthesis. Reverend Fathers: I agree with Sr. Ma~y Jude', 0.P., in her articl~, "The Summa for Sisters" (March, 1953), that a study of the works of St. Thomas would help our Sisters become better religious and better teachers However, I do not agree with Sister regarding "the distinctive phe-nomenon of the active orders today." Professed religious who are seeking admission to contemplative orders are a growing concern of the Church, but they are not a phe-nomenon. They are the logical result of the transition that has been taking place within active orders. Truly "their final profession is far enough behind," but a glance at those former days may illuminate the darkness, mistrust, and mis-understanding that surrounds them. When ~hey entered religious life the goal was one--it was clear-cut, that is, perfection which would I, mean intimate union with God. During their novitiate and perhaps I' for the first ten years of their religious life their concentrated all their it efforts to attain this end. Then stress was not on education, nursing, i! or Catholic Action, but on the presence of God and the pursuit of I virtue; however, because of pressure from without, the change of l 188 duly, 1953 COMMUNICATIONS standards, and the requirements by the St'ate, professional knowledge, ability, and skill became a necessity. Therefore. higher education with Saturday and weekday classes was added to teaching, plus parent-teacher m~etings, sodalities, public relation groups, discussion clubs and first~id courses. These religious lack neither intelligence nor good will. They readily admit with St. Thomas the greatness of the charity of the apostolate. Theylive, for the most part, lives of self-renunciation and sacrific6. Other,wise they would not be seeking admission to the cloister.- Nor are they seeking only the joys of contemplation. Most of them would gladly spend themselves and be spent in the apostdlate if they could still be c~rtain that their union with God was increasing not decreasing. But the signs point in the opposite direction. Let us look at one of these Sisters of fifteen y~ars ago. Today, instead of the one goal of 'union with God, she has another, that of professional competence. What has happened to her.as a result? First, the intensity of her desires and her efforts in the spir~itual life has naturally been weakened by her concentration on her work. Second!y, the virtues of the interior life, silence, and recollection do not have the opportunity for development they had in fdrmer days. Distractions in one form or another and activity hinder their growth. Thirdly, the virtues of the hiddefi life have become watery. They lack the positive yirility that so characterizes interior souls. She is in the world and does not wish to be of the world, yet its spirit of ac-tivity and distraction are now hers. ~ Viewing these results, she finds a growing conviction that her. spiritual life is deprived of the degree of vitality that once was hers and thai the culprit is activity. From this conviction flows the fear that her work and its accessories are separating her from Christ. It is not the fear of a neurotic; it is a well:founded fear that demands recognition and attention. No zealous religious desires to go to heaven alone; no thinking religious denies the value of the apostolic life,, but there is much ac-tivity in the life of the religious today that could not conceivably be put in the category of Apostolic. Those who strive to unite prayer and action as St. Paul and St. Thomas, St. Catherine and St, Teresa of Avila did, find they fall short of the ideal, in fact they fail. Tl~is is not just subjective thinking. It can be proven without much spiritual examination. As in nations, so in groups, and so with the individual, the pe- 189 COMMUNICATIONS ~" riod of adjustment is 'fraught with dangers. These must not be spurned. They should be recognized and analyzed. It is the chal- . lenge of our age. , The desire for contemplation is rapidly growing in America, not o~ly.in orders of women but also among men. We have a Father Moore, a Father Raymond, and a Father Merton, to name only a few outstanding ones, to prove this. Not only is contemplation sought by' religious in active orders, but so many young, eager Americans have sought admission to the Trappist Monastery in Kentucky that they .have had to build five new foundations in a short time, The Carthusians, stiil in their infancy in America, have a waiting list. All. this is significant. ¯ Would Sr. Mary Jude say all these people were exceptions, or that they lack the ability to find the delicate balance between prayer and work. I doubt it. Looking at it from this' broader .point of view, we see that this cbndition of which~ Sister M, Jude speaks i~ only a branch of a much larger river that is sweeping America from coast to coast. If we wish to insure the vitality and growth of our active orders, we must see that. the desire for intimate union 'with Christ is given outlets and opportunities for development, .even if it means the curtailment of many activities. We can do without the latter, but without the for-mer all action is but sounding brass and tinklilag cymbals. --A SYMPATHIZER. "BLESSED BE HER GLORIOUS ASSUMPTION" .On December 23, 1952, Our Holy Father, Pope Pius XII, decreed that the in-vocation printed above is.to be added, to'the Divine Praises whenever they are re-cited after Mass or'after Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.' In the official publi-cation of this decree, which appeared in the Acti~ Apostolica Sed~'s under date of March 21, 1953, vol. 45, p. 194, it was stated that this new invocation should be inserted after the invocation "!Blessed be~ th~ Name of Mary Virgin and Mother." However, L'Osseroatore Romano for April 9 contained a correction, issued by the Sacred Congregation of Rites on Apr!l 8, to the effect that it should be inserted im-mediately after the other invocation: ',',Blessed be her Holy and Immaculate C.oncep, tion." ,. The ob'.i~ati0n of inserting this new. invocation into the Divine Praises begins on dune 21, 1953, that date being three months from the date of the ACtu Apos-tolicae Sedis in which the decree appeared, in conformity with canon 9 of the Code of Canon Law. We take this occasion to remind our readers that on Oc~0ber 31-, 1950, in con-nection with the formal definition, Pope Pius XII decreed that the invocation Queen assumed into f-leaven should be added to the Litany of Loretto after the ~'oCation "Queen conceived without original :sin." At the same time he also up-, proved a new Mass which is to replace the Mass formerly said on the Feast of the Assumption. 190 I Spiri :ual Progress and Regress Charles A. Nash, S.J. AN IDEA as old as St, Augustine, and. rebbrn in Rodriguez, pic-tures the spiritual life "as a ,b~all of string you are carefully winding up. IL once you drop it, it readily unwinds, and it takes a long time and much effort to .wind it up again. This same idea, on a natural plane, permeates the business day of six thousand psychiatrists in the United States who have become profoundly, interested in what happens once the ball of life is dropped and starts to unwind. Their technical name for it is regression or the reversal of t~ae normal steps Of growth. Regression is of such paramount im-portance in psychiatry that it is often .defined as "the science of re-gressive phenomena." The aim of this article is to picture regression in the spiritual life and.to use psychiatric data in order to empha.size certain psychological factbrs that underlie spiritual progress. " Because it is their.daily, business, psychiatrists today are fast be-coming experts in the delicate art of character change or the forward step to maturity, As modern scientific.innovators in an ancient field. these medical specialists have made many valuable scientific investi-gations and acquired much practical experience in the last twenty-five years. Religious ark wise to profit by some of their ideas on regress and pr,og~ess toward maturity 'which have a direct practical bearing on the religiou~ life. Like the psychiatrist, a religious, too, practices daily the delicate art of character change, but be aims at a greater spiritual maturity. The forward progress at which a psy-chiatrist aims in treating his patient strikes a close parallel to the for-ward progress of a religious in the spiritual life. Both involve a gradual change of character. Psychiatrists must know character change in two directions, both Zegre~s and progress. The classic exampl,e of regression or unwinding in human life is old age. We are often a casual witness when time, by its slow process, lays its fingeron a man. We have watched elderly PerSons gradually drop things most cherished in !ife, one by one. first a man b~gins to lose the wide ifiterests he once had. Sports no longer interest him; he stops traveling is much as he used to; his friendships narrow dow.n; interest in his daily, work begins to lag. All gradually culminate in his retirement.1 If he.k~eps his mind open '~Leland El Hinsie?Concepts and Problems of Ps~ychotherapg, p. 124: Understand-able Psgchiatrg, chapter on "Regression." * 191 ¯ CHARLES A. NA~H Reoietu for Religious and pliant and is ready to welcome whatever the future may bring, the elderly pers.on often mqves gracefully through his last years. Often enough, however, his mind closes up and he loses track of the day and the hour. He becomes hostile to what is new, to change, to innovation, closing off hislmind to the future. In the ,course of time he may become self-centered and petulant, and fall back upon the 'manners of his childhood, then of his infancy. He may have to be bathed, fed, dressed, assisted in walking. For him it is a haven of repose, a citadel of safety. He has reverted to his "second child-hood" and regressed to the activities of an infant. Besides the com-plete unwinding of habits of maturity in "second childhood," there are many pictures of partially unwound habits which are but-smaller portraits on a much reduced scale. Unwinding Spiritual Life Complete spiritual regression can be 'seen in-the nominal of "fallen-away" Catholic of any age who knows his religion but drops. its practice entirely. The unwinding spiritual, life runs down a path more or_ less parallel to "old age and ~econd childhood." The ¯"fallen-away" .Catholic's practical interest in religion slowly wanes, and he gradually closes off his mind to religion, becoming spiritually self-centered. One by one he drops the religious practices he once cher-ished. -Sunday is like any other day; the churchdoor remains ever .i:los~d. He stops going to Mass; he falls away from the Sacraments: his prayer life diminishes to a minimum or none at all. Gradually, his acquired spiritual habits Unwind until he is back to "childhood," where spiritual obligations and.moral responsibilities are at a mini-mum. He has traded away God for careless, vacant ioaming. As far as religion is concerned, he is once' again like a small boy, sans reason and his seventh birthday. Instead of progressing to an ever greater possession of God, he has gone backwards. Here, too, miniature por-traits of regression are quite common in the spiritual life where a spiritual habit or two may start to unwind. Progress and regress follow definite patterns. .One is a dynamic, forward-moving pattern toward maturity; the other moves back-ward down the path a man has come up, Life experience normally present~ the picture of a continuum of, forward growth along a life-line which falls into natural periods: birth, childhood,, adolescence, young manhood, adulthood, change of life, and decline. It is the common lot of mortal man to :crown his numberless daily experi- 192 Jul~j, 1953 PROGRESS AND REGRESS ences with.an ever greater maturity. This growing maturity is dearly won through countless small successes. In sharp contrast, the re-gression pattern, at any age and at any level of development, is a're-versal of the' normal steps of growth along', this life-line. Read the life-line forward and you have progress; read it backward and you have regression. Psychiatrists'~tell us that every man takes a backward step now and then. No one, save Christ our Lord and His Blessed Mother, is co,mple.te master of his every action. For religious, the single back-ward step may occur in problems of obedience,' the daily order, pov-erty, t~he practice of virtue, the daily rosary, spiritual reading--to name but a few possibilities. The single backward step is not. so significant. When this backward step becomes a definite pattern, then real spiritual regression is beginning. But despite" occasional backward steps, psychiatrists say the nor-real person is about ninety per cent adjusted to life.~ About ten per "cent of life he cannot quite master and he dodges it in one way or another. In other words, man's daily batting average is about .900; the ratio of small successes in life to small failures is about ninety to ten. Whether saint or sinner, some failure pursues him every day, but success (forward progress) definitely predominates in his actions. Dgnamic Equilibrium Because he is fundamentally successful but always carries some failure in tow, the average person strikes a balance with life. He reacts in terms of an equilibrium--a dynamic, forward-moving equilibrium in which progressive factors predominate, ,but regressive ones are also present. This equilibrium ,is built into the very struc-ture of his mind through the years. It is his own practical system of reacting to life, his working method of dealing with experience de-rived ,from his past.psychological history. Psychiatrists have learned~ to investigate this equilibrium scientifically and now actually measure it,.with~scientific formulas,a When it breaks down, regression begins. If it does not break down, progress continues. ~This figure refers to the over-all or.comprehensive picture of all man's actions in meeting life. Personal success in one particular action, however, may vary from mastery, to littleor no control. Leland E. Hinsie, Concepts and Problems of Pay-. chotherapt./, p. 77. Edward A. Strecker, Fundamentals of Ps~/chiatr~/, graph on p. 231, 3E~lward A. Strecker, Fundamentals of Psv. chiatr~t, p. 51. Franz Alexander and H~len Ross, Dgnamic Psgchiatrg, p. 140. CHARLES A. NASH Reoieto for Religious This dynamic equilibrium produces manifold effects. It gives an even tenor to, man's ways and stability to his character. It embeds past success in the human system for'future successful operation. As a result, whatever a man does in his normal day leaves most of his old order standing. A singld act, forward or backward, leaves most of his autobiography of character largely unchanged. Occasional back-ward steps are readily tolerated and absorbed without throwing the forward motion offstride. Because of it, a major change of character. occurs slowly. A spiritual character change requires many actions over a considerable period of time. In many aspects of life this equilibrium acts as a shock-absorber, an internal ,resistance built right into the structure of personality for resisting the "blows of outrageous foitune." For instance, a death in the family may score a temporary psychological and emotional knockout in other members of the family~. But soon the pendulum swings back to normal and old habits take over once again. Gradu-ally, the appreciation of life built up through the years prevails, and life goes forward once more. Because of his equilibrium, a man does not deteriorate psychologically at one major blow, nor can ,he turn himself'inside out, for better or worse, overnight. Role o~ Failure After much failure or long-enduring stress, this same personal balance or equiliblium can wear thin or even "break down." When this occurs, the backward pattern of regression slowly begins. Then, a religious falls back upon lower and lower levels of his spiritual life, and becomes beset by earlier and earlier habits of his career. The first failure is easy to take, but not a series of them. Failtire is hard on morale, and daily failure has a numbing effect on our effort. The effect of failure is to close off the mind to the difficulty and 0fall back upon.earlier habits. After repeated failure, for instance, a religious may gradually close off his mind to formal mental prayer, and fall back upon his earlier habits when mental prayer was not part of the daily schedule. All spiritual regression has one point in common: it is a back-ward step to an earlier and easiei adjustment to the difficulties of the spiritual life. At the, same time, unfortunately, spiritual progress either slows down or stops. Part of the goal drops out of the picture "for the present," and there is a partial farewell to hopes of greater things. Instead of the "new man in Cl~rist," it is a return to the 194 PROGRESS AND REGRESS "old man" of self when spiritually less mature. The significance of regression in the spiritual life is that it sounds the knell of forward progress. Continued progress requires that a religious take failure~ in stride. Often small successes in life become so integrated into a religious per-sonality that they almost go unnoticed. We only see and take note of our failures, and they can come to loom large on the daily hori-zon. After repeated failure, therd is danger that a religious will close his mind and chart his future course by past failure. The true measure of the future, bower(r, is past success. There is no small touch of humility and wisdom in expecting some daily failure and not charting our future course by it. Man normally moves forward in a dynamic equilibrium with a ninety per-cent rate of success. American Stgiritualitg The pace or tempo of character chahge is a slow one. Being' American-minded, we naturally expe.~t rapid results. The very at- . mosphere of our times--an era of modern machine .efficiency, high- 13ressure business methods, production miracles, and high-speed travel--promotes an ingrained bent toward immediate success. Rightly' or wrongly, we feel there should be a twentieth-century ¯ masterkey to the spiritual life, a foolproof device as dependable ?s the multiplication table. Yet strangely enough, our spiritual life seems to move at the tempo of the first centuiy in a twentieth-century World. True character change may be hard to see. We Americans see the, entrancing picture of industrial production, but we look upon spiritual progress in our own lives as a vague or blank picture. Sanc-tifying grace and internal actual grace are both intangible and invis-ible. We sow the representative crops, the seeds of humility, love of God, obedience, and the other virtues, yet always wonder2--when's the harvest? To see results, we often make one good resolution suc-ceed another in rapid succession, turning our spiritual life into a series of short-term cycles, partly for variety, partly to convince ourselves that we are getting somewhere and making progress. But after six months of short-term cycles we are ready to doubt whether we are changed an iota. That old spiritual problem which we settled once, and for all two weeks ago somehow surges back to life again today. A series of .these experiences can readily warp ore: spiritual judgment or ~lgrudence and lead to loss of effort and discouragement. Then 195 CHARLES A. NASH Review for Religious failure charts our course. Being constitutiOnall~y successful, we shift our effort to some more promising line of_ endeavor, and the spirit of' spiritual progress becomes like a ghost on the outermost rim of the real business of daily living. 200-300 Hours Psychiatrists have much this same time-problem. How much time is required to make a permanent change in a patient's character~ How long to turn a man around and start him forward again on the life-line to maturity? A considerable body of evidence indicates that it takes two hundred to three hundred hours, roughly speaking; to make a permanent character change.4 This means one hour a day, seven days a week for about nine months devoted to making the change, whate;cer that change may be. No matter how un-American it may sound, there seems to be normally no substitute for time in a 'permanent character change. Even if our minds thunder and rever-berate in syllogisms, it still takes from two to three hundred hours to drive' the lesson home permanently and to relate it in experience to the concrete parts of life. A religious may profitably add a bit of timing to his spiritual motor; Permanent growth is not like reading through a spiritual book in three or four days ~nd expecting the result; it is more l,!ke the slow, nine-months' nurturing of the child in the mother's womb. It is not the work of a day or a week, but it finds a closer parallel in the one hour a day for nine months thata student devotes, say, to mathe-matics ~r history or language in school. Putting on a facet of Christ's personality is not done in one meditation; it slowly develops like the b.aby slowly developing back and neck muscles, balancin'g on his feet at six months, and finally learning to walk near the end of a year. Permanent character change, is more in the image of St.,Peter and the Apostles learning confidence in Christ over a period of several years, and still being a bit shaky at His death when confronted with actual life experience. But worth noting is the ever-recurring fact of suc-cess. After nine months in the womb the baby actually is born; a year later he walks; in nine months the student knows his history, mathematics, and language. In time the Apostles did attain cona-dence in Christ. Actual success is the constant experience of the hu-man race if timk and energy are dev6ted to the task. 4Leland E. Hinsie, Concepts and Problems of Psychotherapy, 11-12. 169. John Knight, S~o'ry oI My Psychoanalysis, 2-3. 196 155, 166- Ju~,~, ! 953 PROGRESS AND REGRESS ¥~rhat l~appens in two or three hundred hours? In that time our perso.nal equilibrium changes. Through ~ur mind and emotions there slowly winds a new track of virtue all its own. Character change invoIyes a rather thoroughgoing shift in our habitual reaction to life. It requires a new appreciation of life as a permanent part of the m~nd, a' new emotional pattern, a new reaction to a vast number of concrete situations. Suppose, for example, a close friend dies with whom you have associated night and day for ten years. In all the old situations which constantly remind you of this lost friend you m~lst make clear to yourself that you have this friend no longer, and that a renunciation is necessary. He is Vividly represented {n many personal memories and experiences. You will have to correct your reactions for many a day, and detachment must t~ke place separately in each instance. Similarly in character chan, ge. "The single action, the passing thought hardly dents the human system: it remains more like a feeble echo in the soul. A single action leaves one's equilibr!uin for meeting life largely unchanged. In two or three hundred" hours, however, the new reaction "works through" and permeates our mind and our thinking~ In that time it develops its own emotional pat-tern and becomes permanently related in experience to most of the concrete parts of life. Factors in Adult Progress As adults, we tend to sell human nature short. We frequently forget what a long way we have come since childhood, the countless number of small successes involved in our present degree of maturity. Starting out as a helpless babe, man slowly learns t6 walk, to speak, to run, to master language, to enjoy countless new experiences,, to cope with school life, to earn a living, to marry and support a fam-ily. Any one of thesehas practical difficulties of time and energy and personal ability somewhat like those in the spiritual life: Yet by the common experience of mankind, their attainment ih practically cer-~ rain if sufficient time and energy is devoted to the task. As adults we tend to forget the countless milestones we have already passed, and even come to expect no new milestones in the future. Often as adults we cut down on spiritual time and energy, and act in the practical order as if religious experience had been exhausted. If a religious tries to compress thirty hours int6 twenty-four, it is inevitable that he will have to scalp time from his spiritual life to ac-complish this feat. In this regard it would seem that all of us are endowed with a certain native shrewdness of the horse-trading vari- 197 CHARLES A. NASH ety. But little time means little progress. Sometimes we run our spiritual life like a carburetor with too thin a mixture of energy to operate the machine. Life's fast teinpo drains away energy. The more our limited daily energy is channeled to other things, the less remains available for character change or spiritual growth. ~ If there is no time and energy, there is no progress. As we grow older, our ideas of spiritual experience tend to become mote and more .rigid. Spiritual progress is difficult in a rigid mind, like mov, ement in a. straitjacket. Progress demands an open and pliant mifid with the door ever open to wider spiritual experience. Often in order to pro-gress we first have to unstiffen our spiritual ideas and keep them lim-ber. Age is not a true limit to spiritual growth. Remai'ning ever an experiencing being, man normally moves ever forward irma dynamic equilibrium toward an ever greater maturity in God. If the human mind closes to the future, it falls back upon the past. Not age but the man himself puts a stop to progress, by refusing new spiritual ex-perience. The Divine Plan Time, energy, and an open mind docile to the Holy Spirit fit into God's design for human experience on earth. In His divine plan as the Creator of human nature and every human experience, God has an eminently skilful regard for bo~h the strength and the weakness of the earthly pilgrim in his slow daily progress. He assists the slo~v, three-hundred-hour pace by the superior motivation of divine reve-lation, by countless actual graces, by the supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and charity. When only a miracle can be substituted for time, when our very best efforts are always attended by some failure, we catch no small glimmer of the "divinity that shape~ our ends" in the gift of-the three theological virtues. For without hope progress stops; without faith the path grows dim: without love the heart grows faint along the way. But in God's design for religious ex-perience ,the pilgrim is fortified by God Himself. Faith illumines our mind along the road to God; hop~ keeps effort alive and the goal be-fore our eyes; and love is even now a participation of the goal itself while progressing along the way: Divine assistanc~ and a ready w~l-come ever await the pilgrim at every step of his journey. "Come to Me all you that'labor and are heavily burdened and I will refresh you." The lq.ng-run trend of spiritual growth, in God's design, is a quickening triumphal march. ~ 198 The Unseen World Jerom~ Breunig, S.J. THE telescope and microscope have extended our horizons im- | measurably. They have opened up unseen worlds for us. "How mean is earth when I look to heaven," said St. Ignatius one night in Rome more than 400 years ago. Hbw much more mean-ingful this remark is today when the giant eye at Mt. Palomar, California, a 200 inch telescope, helps us penetrate into the sky to the staggering limits of more than one billion light years" and reveals millions of suns like our own moving at the incredible .speed of 500,000 miles, per hour. .~Apart from the findings of the great ob-servatories, even a good telescope on a clear night can reveal wonders hidden to the eye. We can see the pock marks that craters ma~ke on our next ~lo~r neighbor, the moon, which is a scant 238,000 miles fr6m our planet. We. can see the nine moons that cluster about Jupiter, the'ring of light about Saturn, as well as the fiery masses said to be billions of stars. ~The inicroscope opens another unseen world. To the unaided eye what is on the glass slide lo6ks like'a drop of water. Under the microscope we see many protozoa of all kinds. We can see scores of little slipper-shaped animals called paramecia caromin~ about in the water. Perhaps a sluggish, slow-moving amoeba can be sighted or a green euglena of the mastigophora (whip-bearing) family, propel-ling itself by its whiplike tail. After human vision gtopped, the zo-ologist has pushe,d on with his microscdpe to discover 30,000 kinds of protozoa in an unseen world. But there is another world still more 'marvelous and far more important than the worlds that the magnifying glass reveals. It is the unseen world of spiritual realities. Higher visual aid is required to penetrate far into this invisible but real world. We are blind and helpless without the eyes of faith. St. Paul speaks right to the point. "What is faith? It is that which'gives substance to our hopes, which convinces, us of things we cannot see." What are some of the realities in this unseen world? What are some of the "things we cannot see" except with the eyes of fai'th? No one has ever seen a soul at the moment God created it,'when it.left the body, or at any other time. Nor has anyone seen the re-birth of a soul at Baptism when the higher life of grace is infused and the human clay is made immortal diamond, when the bap'tized 199 ,In I JEROME BREUNIG Reoieto for Religious is made a son of God and heir of heaven, when the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity come and make their home in the soul, trans-forming it into a temple of God. "Blessed are those who have not .seen and have believed." Faith convinces us of things we cannot see. No one has seen a soul red as scarlet washed whiter than snow by the absolution of a priest. Nor has anyone seen the bread of heaven restoring the waning strength of the soul. No one has seen the inexpressible joy of the elect in the mansion,s of heaven, the chastening anguish of the souls in the prison of purgatory, or the black despair of the damned 'in hell. "Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed." Faith convinces us of things we can-not see. Opposition of the Sense-World It is essential to salvation to stay aware of the unseen world but it is not easy. We live in a world of sense. Our very mode of learning is rboted in sense impressions. There is nothing in the mind / that was not first in the senses. Even faith comes by hearing. Our convictions about what we cannot see are constantly being challenged by things we can see. It is a losing battle, naturally. For instance, we will ordinarily be more vividly impressed by paging through a national picture magazine for a few minutes than we will by reading the Imitation of Christ for the same length of time. Unless we con, stan.tly cultivate supra-sensible reality by reading, reflection, and prayer, we will not be able to offset the ever-present attraction of the sensible. We.are also at the m'ercy of our less immediate environment. We are influenced by what we see, hear, feel; and much of this is secular. It is not informed with respect for the sacred unseen realities. There are also abundant examples of godlessness. To claim there are no atheists in foxholes, on the operating tables in our hospitals, among the alumni of our schools; Or ("there but for the grace of God go I") among ex-religious is to close one's eyes to the facts. The lack of respect for God's creative co-operation in h.uman generation is widespread and appalling. There are hardened, blinded men who look on death like the fallen-away who "assured" the hos-pital chaplain: "If I die on the operating table, there will not b'e any-one to take me away." Many non-believers patronize our "naivete" in accepting the sacramental system. A Catholic mayor was openly ridiculed in the public press: "How can he be fit to manage the city goverttment when he is foolish enough to believe a little wafer is his 200 duly, 1953 THE UNSEEN WORLD God." Communists use brutal methods.to eradicate, "to wash away," a sense of the supernatural, but secularism has a smooth ap-proach that sometimes is even more effective in uprooting faith, hope, and charity. The recent ~u.rvey of religion in the United States has produced some startlin~ data. The first report that 99% of the people be-lieved in the existence of G~od was heartening, but the subsequent studies revealed the shallowness of much of this belief. Thd eighth" of the series, "What Americans Think of Heaven and Hell," reported the following statistics in the March number of the Catholic Digest. "Do you think there is any real possibility of your going to.hell? Yes, answered .I 2 %; No, 29 % : Don't know, 17 %; Do not beh.eve in hell, 42 %." In other words, 88 % of those questioned were not greatly concerned with .a truth that Christ underlined clearly, in His teaching. And this is the. environment, through the press, radio, television(?), and a thousand other contacts, we live in. The un-seen world of faith has competition. Witnesses to the Unseen The greatest Witness to the reality of the unseen world was" Christ, God2s Son, who clothed Himself with flesh and blood, a true human nature, worked miracl~s, and founded a ,visible Church to bear witness to the invisible grandeur of divine realities. He invites religious in a special way to continue to bear witness. He has invited them to prove the eternal value of.a better world to a money-mingled, sex-sick, rugged-individual generation by being poor, chaste, and obedieht as He was in the wor'ld. "But if religious are not inhabi-tants of this unseen world they will never impart the irresistible con-viction that the unseen world exists." The recent communication from a Poor Clare (REVIEW, No-vember~ 1952, 312-14) contained the eloquent witness to the un-seen world that is afforded by contemplatives. "There is an unseen world which to her (a Poor Clare) is very real. The incidents of daily lilt'are mere accidentals which are of value so far as they pur-chase for her more perfect union with God. This unseen world is as real to her as the things she can reach out and touch, and touching it she can make every action of hers prayer. I am speaking of prayer,mnot prayers," Until the unseen world is as real to us as the things we can reach out and touch, we will not convey the conviction so badly needed. 201 C. A. HERBST Reuieto for Religious, There is on~ way to make this world that real. It is by living in it. I remember a retreat master's remark on tills point. "You have to have darkness to find a picture on the sensitive plate, and you ha~e to have prayer to bring out the invisible presence of God." Again, it is ' prayer and not prayers that will enable us to live the convictions of our faith. Chari!:y C. A. Herbst, S.J. W~HEN a learned man among the Jews asked Our Lord: "Which is the great commandment in the law?" Christ answered: "Thou shalt love the' Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, andwith thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment." (Mt. 22: 37, 38). This was not new with Christ. It is the burden not only of the New but als0 of the Old Testament. written, as St. Paul says, "with the Spirit 6f the living God.in the fleshly tables of the heart" (II Cot. 3:3). The theological virtues are the greatest of all the virtues. Thdre are three of them: faith, hope, and charity. "And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three." Of these three, love of God' for His own sake is the queen: "But the greatest of these is charity" (I Cot. 13:13). Its object is God Himself, and our motive for loving Him,. too, is His own dear Self, "because Thou are all good and worthy of all love." "I call charity that virtue which moves the soul to love God 'for His own sake and oneself and the neighbor for God's ~ake," said St. Augustine. Charity makes all the virtues live. It is the soul even of faith, without which it is impossible to please God. "The life. of the body is the soul. By it the body moves and feels. Even so the life of faith is charity, because it works through charity, as you read in the Apostle: 'faith that worketh by charity' (Gal. 5:6). When charity grows cold, f~ith dies, just as the body does when the soul leaves it." (St. Bernard, Serrn. "2 In Resurr.) "O my God, ,I love Thee above all things." How can I truth-fully say this when I prove many times every day by committing venial sins that I love even tiny creatures more than I love God? Or why is it that I do not cry for love of God wheaa I lqse Him by mor-tal sin but I do cry when I lose my mother by death? Although ¯ 202 drain, 1953 CHARITY these actions seem to be contradicting my words "0 my God, I love Thee above all things," they, really do not. I can weep over my mother's death and commit venial sins and" still love God objectively above all things. That is, I can, and do, go on sincerely and earnest-ly wishing Him the l~reatest good, .that He will continue to be the supreme object of all love and receive divine honors. I can commit venial sins and weep over temporal ld~s and still love God above all things appreciative4 , too. by preferring God with an efficacious will to all created things, by esteeming Him as thehighest good. I can so value and esteem Him ak to be r~eady to lose all else rather than abandon God. We canndt recall too often that true love is in the will, not in the fe~!ings or ~motions. A mother's instinctive and spontaneous feelings and enfotions may draw her to love her child more ir~rensel~, with greater ease, tenderness, and alacrity, than she does God, yet she is ~eady to lose her child rather than offend God seriously. Her love for God is greater and deeper, and influences her soul more p[ofoundly. She loves God objectively and appreciatively more, and intensively and emotionally less. Thihgs of sense appeal more directly and affec-tively than spiritual things do. That in the supreme test, love for God is greater and stronger than any natural love is wonderfully shown in the death of St. Perpetua, martyr. "Neither the tears and oft-repeated prayers of her. aged father, nor the mother-love for the baby boy at her breast, nor the ferocity of her tormentors could move Perpetua from her faith in 3esus Christ." This is brought out, too. by the incidents in the daily lives of the "little people" in Christ's Church' in this living present, so well presented by Father Trese. " 'We've a good pastor,' my.people say --and I am ashamed. Ashamed as I stand beside Katie Connelly at the bed of her just-dead son, and hear her say, 'It's God's will. isn't it, Father?' while she clutches my. hand. Ashamed as I stand beside Ed Fetter at his wife's bier, and hear him say, with three little tykes hanging to his pants-legs, 'If this is what God wants,, we've got to take it, Father.' Ashamed as I ride with the Martins to the Stat~ Hospital where they are taking their son, and hear the mother say, as she bites her lip, 'Well, we've all got to have our cross, Father.' " (Leo Tress, Vessel of Clapt, 24.) Love has various degrees. - In the love of concupiscence there is something of self. I love another because I will get something out of it for myself. This is love of God for my own sake, with selfishness, 203 C. A. HERBST but a very good selfishness. This is the great virtue of hope. Then there is the love of complacency, in which I am glad and rejoice, take pleasure in, another's good, just~ because it ishis good. By it I re-joice in ~the divine perfections~ "Thus approving the good which we see in God, and rejoicing in it, we make the act of l~ve which is called complace-ncy; for we please ourselves in the divine pleasure infinitely more than in our own,' (St. Francis de Sales, Looe of God, V, i). A third and higher'degree of love is~ the love of benevolence, By it we wish another well, want good to come to him. This love we express in the Our Father when we pray: "Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy kingdom ~ome, Thy will be done!" Love consists more in deeds than in words. "If you love me, keep my commandments," Our Lord said (John 14: 15). Every-body knows that "talk is che~p,'° but actions filled with love are purest gold. A fine expression of love is a gift. That is why we give gifts on birthdays and on other joyous occasions. Gifts are the language of love. This is shown most strikingly at Christmas time. It is ~ the . feast of giving, of the Gift. Men give then because God taught them to show love that way. He gave the first Christmas Gift by giving Jesus Christ, His son. "God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten son" (John 3:16). That was Bethlehem. That was Calvary, too. "God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten son." The .lesson ChriSt taught from the crib and from the cross is the same lesson; love in deed, in giving. The soul that loves God cannot miss that. It is convinced that love consists in a mutual exchange of gifts. "What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What ought I do for cnrlst. The answer leaps forth: "Take, O Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding~ and my whole will." One gives oneself whole and entire. We cannot do more. But we can do it more solemnly and more specifically, and we have. Religious surrender to God the goods of the world by the vow of poverty. They surrender to .God the goods of the body and of family, life by the vow of chastity. They surrender to God the goods of the soul, especially that most precious thing, their will, by ~he vow of obedience. "Almighty and Eternal God, I vow to Thee perpetual poverty: chastity, and obedience." This is our answer to the divine challenge: "Thou shalt love'the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy .whole soul, and with all thy strength, and wi'th all thy mind . This do, and thou shalt live." 204 The Moral Code Cat:holic I-lospit:als Gerald Kelly, S.J. SOME years ago there was a colorful basketball official who used to delight (and sometime~ enrage) spectators by his dramatic way of telling players, "You can't do that[" Again and again his whistle would be heard and he would be seen speeding across the floor, an accusing finger' pointed at some offending player, as his piercing voice insisted," "You can't do that!" ¯ For all too many people, I fear, this officialmminus his pleasing dramatics--might represent the Catholic hospital and its moral code. Engraven in the minds of these people is the picture Of a devoted non- Catholic physician bending over his patient in the operating or de-livery room, yearning to do something to save the patient's life, but frustrated in this salutary design by the Church, which, through the Sister superior or supervisor or chaplain, raises its restraining hand 'and says unsympathetically, "You can't do that!" Certainly much of the publicity given to v~arious events that take place in our hos-pitals caters to this impression. For example, a few years ago, in Brownsville, Texas, a physician who had sterilized a woman in defiance of the hospital code was dis-missed from the staff. The incident received nation-wide publicity in the daily'papers; and the correspondent of one widely-read weekly devoted to it considerable space and ev?n more emotion. The Sisters of Mercy had closed the doors of mercy to the doctor whose only purpose was mercy~ Follow-up letters from doctors, including one from the vice-chief'-of-staff of their hospital, favored the Sisters and showed little sympathy for the expelled physician. Other letters, however, showed marked sympathy for the doctor and for his emo-tional reporter. One letter in particular expressed great !mpatience with this.Church which insists on projecting the taboos .(a favorite epithet for commandments, divine and human) of the Dark Ages into the twentieth-century operating and delivery rooms. In this and similar incidents We have examples of the old prob-lem of misunderstanding.' The critics usually do not understand our hospital code. Even Catholics, I think, seldom realize what goes into a code. In fact, many seem to have the impression that a Cath- 205 GERALD KELLY Review fur Religious olic hospital moral code consists in ond supreme principle (which, incidentally, is "best-seller" nonsense at its best) that mothers must die fortheir babies. These people ought ko have more accurate in-formation, and it seems logical that they might expect to get it from religious because the Catholic hospital, is one of the most distinctive and extensive achievements of our religious institutes. The following paragraphs p~ovide at least the minimum essentials for giving correct information. ~ Why a Code? Since.the administrators of Catholic hospitals are men and women whose lives are consecrated to God, they can conscientiously conduct these hospitals only when they have a reasonable assurance that the law of God will be observed in the treatment of the sick. One way of obtaining this assurance is to formulate the pertinent moral prin-ciples and their applications into a code and to have the staff-members guarantee that they will observe this code. The first reason for having a code, therefore, is to satisfy the conscience of the admin-istrators. This is aptly stated in the introduction to the present code of the Catholic Hospital Association: "Catholic hospitals exist to render medical and spiritual care to the sick. The .patient adequately considered, and inclusive of his spiritual status and his claim to the helps of the Catholic religion, is the primary concern of those entrusted with the management of Catholic hospitals. Trustees and administrators of Catholic hos-pitals understand this responsibility tbwards each patient whom they accept, to be seriously binding in conscience. "A partial statement of this basic obligation is contained in the present Code of Ethical and Religious Directives. All who associate themselves with a Catholic hospital, and particularly the members of the medical and nursing staffs, must understand the moral and reli-gious obligations binding on those responsible for the management and operation of the hospital, and must realize that they are allowed to perform only such acts and to carry out only such procedures as will enable the owners and administrators to fulfill their obligations." What was .lust said might be construed as meaning that the sole or primary purpose for having a moral code is to protect administra-tor~ against doctors who might perform illicit opera.tions in their hospitals. This" is not true. Generally speaking, doctors and nurses, both Catholic and to a large extent the non-Catholics, want clear 206 July, 1953 ~ HOSPITAL CODE guidance in the ethical problems of their profession. And they want it because they are conscious of a need. As members of a. profession ithat deals constantly with life and death, with mutilation of the hu-man body, with expensive and sometimes dangerous remedies, they are faced again and again With acute ethical problems. Yet large numbers of them, even among tl~e Catholics, have never had the op-portunity of taking~a course in medical ethics. Others who have had such a course have grown "rusty" and need some convenient way of refreshing their memories. For all of these a moral code, which con-tains concisely-stated principles and practical applications to the field of medicine, satisfies a definite need. Making a Code What have our Catholi~ hospitals done to provide the needed guidance through a moral code? For many years the hospitals of the United States and Canada used a very brief ~ode which was excellent at the time it was formulated but which became more and mor~ in-adequate as the progress of medicine introduced new problems and threw new light on old ones. A new and more complete code was needed, and many dioceses prepared such a cod~ for their own use. It was not until 1947 that work was begun on a revised code for the Catholic Hospital Association of the United States and Canada. The work done by the committee on this revised code may be of interest., The committee first made a careful examinationof all the recently-composed diocesan codes, selected what seemed the best material from them. and arranged this material plus their own contributions in a manner that seemed best for handy reference. When this was done, a preliminary draft of a new code was sent for criticism to a large number of doctors and moralists in various parts of the United States and Canada. The doctors consulted included both Catholics and non-Catholics. They were chosen for eminence in their profession and not for ~hei~'religion. These consultants, doctors and moralists;: submitted criticisms some of them. very detailed---of the prelim-inary formula. The criticisms were carefully weighed by the com-mittee and a new formula was drafted. , This was referred again to the original critics; more suggestions were offered; and the code was finally formulated in a manner that met"with universal apprbval. This code was publ!shed in 1949 by the Catholic Hospital Associa-tion of the United States arid Cahada, and it is used today in most o'f the dioceses of these two countries. Some dioceses which had gone~ 207 GERALD KELLY Review [ur Religious to great trouble to prepak-e their own codes still use these in preference to the revised code of the C~tholic Hospital Association. Two observations are in place here in order to ~0revent misunder-standings. First, there is a question pertinent to revising a code: does this mean that morM principles change, or, as some people would put it, does it mean that the Church has changed its moral ~tandards? Obviously, the revision of a hospital code should have no such im-plications. Moral principles do not change: and, from the stand-point of ~principles, the only'reasons for revising an approved code might be to include some principle not beret0fore included, or to ex-press more clearly and simply one of the principles already included. But the application of moral principles to medicine can change be-cause this application depends on the medical facts, which can change with the progress of.science. For example, there was a time when the only way of successfully treating certain infections was' by surgical operation, but tod~ay many of these infections can be arrested by the use of recently-discovered drugs. A fact like this can be the basis for declaring that an operation which was permissible several years ago because necessary for the patient's welfare is no longer permissible. This is but one example of how the application of principles to con-crete cases can change. The revision of a code is largely concerned with these concrete cases. A second observation concerns ~he fact that different codes are fol-lowed in various dioceses. Does this mean that what is morally good in one place is immoral in another? Again the answer is in the nega-tive. The differences in the codes concern neither the moral prin-ciples nor the licitness of specific operations and treatments. They concern rather the selection and arrangement of materi.al, with per-haps the addition of some purely disciplinary regulation .which may be thought necessary in one place but not in another: for example, on the need of consultation before some operation is allowed. Content of Code .: At this point, if not before, someone might well ask just wh~it, is a code, and what goes into it. I can best answer this question by're-ferring specifically to the revised code of the Cat.holic Hospital As-sociation, which is entitled Ethical and Religious .Directives/~or Cath-oti~ Hospitals. As the title implies, this code contains two sections. The second section contains directives of a religious nature which concern the reception and administration of the ~acraments and the 208 dulg, 1953 HOSPITAL CODE reverent disposal of.amputated members and immature babies. For the most part, this sectibn of the code would directly concern only Catholics or those who wish to become Catholics. The first section contains ethical directives, that is, principles of the natural law with applications to medicine. Since the natural law binds all men, the provisions of this section apply to all patients, doctors, nurses, and other hospital personnel, regardless of their religion. This is really the moral code of our hospitals. My subsequent remarks app.ly to this section. Basic Principles The,baslc moral principles which are ~ formulated and applied in ¯ our ethical directive~ can be reduced to these six: (a) the .need of the / patient's consent; (b) the inviolability of innocent human life: the intrinsic.evil 'of contraceptive practices: (d) the principle~.of the "double effect"; (e) the principle of "liberty" and (f) the principle of "totality." Perhaps a few words about each of these principles will .be informative without being unduly soporific. ~) The patient's consent. Each individual human being has bqth ~the right and the duty to care for his health. When a doctor treats a patient, he is simply exercising the patient's own right of self-preservation for him, and he may not perform even legitimate operations without the consent of the patient.,. This Consent may be' given explicitly, as would be the case if an operation would be ex-plained to the patient and he ~would then agree to it. Or it may.be implicit, as would be the case if the patient asl~ed for a cure, with the understanding that he is.willingto Submit to all the necessary pro-ce. dures, even without .explanation. Or it may be reasonabtg pre-sumed, as is the case when a doctor gives emergency treatment to an unconscious man. Sound morality requires consent in one of these forms and l~oth civil law and medical associations recognize ~his. For infants and others who are incapable of acting rationally, the parents or guardians have the right to give the consent., b) The inviolabilitg of innocent human life. The meaning bf this principle is strongly and clearly explained in a memorable pas-sage of our present Holy Father's Allocution on the moral problems of married life (October 29, 195 I). This.passage Should be f~imiliar, not 0nly to religigus in hospital work, but to educators as well. "Now the.child, ~ven the unborn child," said the Pope, "is a hu-man being, a human being in .the same degree and by ~he same title as 209 ,,It GERALD KELLY Review for Religious is its mother. Moreover, every human being, even the child¯ in its mother's womb, receives its right to life directly from God, not frdm its parents, nor from any human society or authority. Therefore there is no man, no human authority, no science, no 'indication,,' whether medical, eugenical, social, economic/or moral, that can show or give a valid juridical title for a deliberate and direct disposing of an innocent human life, that is to say, for an action which aims at its destruction, whether such destruction be intended as an end or as a means towards some other end which may "itself be in no way illicit. So, for example, to save the life of the mother is a most noble end, but the direct killing of the cl~ild as a means to that end is not law-ful. The direct destruction of the 'so-called 'valueless life,' whether born or unborn, which was practised a few years ago in numerous in-stances, can in no way be justified. And therefore when this i~ractice began the Church formally declared that it is contrary to the natural law and to the positive law of God, and consequently" illicit--even under instruction from the public authority to kill those who, al: though innocent, are nevertheless by reason of some physical or-ps3;- chical taint useless to the nation and even become a burden on the ¯ community. The life of an innocent human being is inviolable, .and any direct assault or. attack on it violates one of those fundamental laws without which it is impossible for human beings to live safely in society. We have no need to teach you the particular significance of this fundamental law and its bearing upon your profession. But do not forget it: above any human law, above any 'indication' whatso-ever, there stands the indefectible law¯ of God." The Pope's words are obviously directed against doctbrs and others who think that in certain situations there are good reasons (they call them "indications") for the direct killing of an unborn child. Against these men he defends the right of the child. But he does not limit his words to the child; he defends all innocent human life. The direct (i.e., the intentional) taking of such life is never permissible. Any procedure which'would result in death for either the mother or the child (or for any other innocent person) can be justi-fied only when the death is an unintended and unavoidable by-product of the procedure. Incidentally, this principle of the inviola-bility of human life also condemns the so-called mercy-~killing (the taking of a patient's life to relieve him of suffering), whether it is done with or without the patient's consent. c) The intrinsic evil of contraception. The Church, especially in 210 July, 1953 HOSPITAL CODE the oi~cial t~aching,of the two last Popes, has'constantly branded artificial birth control as contrary to the law of nature, and therefore intrinsically evil. The most ~adical form of this evil is direct steri-lization, which means the intentional destruction of the procreative power. Doctors have many ways of accomplishing this, and all of of them.are forbidden by our code. .d) The principle oF the "'double effect.'" Students of ethics are familiar with this principle and know that it contains the solution to many of the practical,~problems of life. Conscientious people often use it without knowing it exists. The aviator who bombs an im-portant military target, foreseeing but not desiring the deaths of some civilians, is perhaps unwittingly using this principle. The student who must read a treatise on sex, foreseeing but not wanting tempta-tions against chastity, is using perhaps also unwittingly the p~inciple of the double effect. And all of us. whether we realize it or not, are following this same principle when we perform some good and neces-sary action, realizing that, despite our best intentions, certain others will misunderstand and will be'led to rash judgments and to criti-cism. The deaths of the civilians, the sexual temptations, and the harsh thoughts and criticism, are all simply unavoidable and un-wanted by-products of actions that are good in themselves and of sufficient importance to be performed despite the evil effects that at-company them. The principle of the double effect has many applications in medicine, especially as regards surgical operations on diseased repro-ductive organs with the unavoidable destruction of the procreative power and as regards treatment of a pregnant mother with some un-intentional but unavoidable risk either to herself or to her child. This last point was clearly explained by. Pope Plus XII in his Allodution to the "Family Front" (November 26, 1951): "On purpose," he said, "We have always used the expression "direct attempt on the life of an innocent person,' "direct killing.' Be-cause if, for example,-the saving of the life of the future mother, in-dependently of her pregnant state, should urgently require a surgical act or other therapeutic treatment which would~have as an accessory consequence, in no way desired or intended but inevitable, the death of the fetus, such an act could no longer be called a direct attempt on innocent life. Under these conditions the operation can be licit, like other similar medical interventions, granted always that a good of high worth is concerned, such as life, and that it is not possible to 211 GERALD KELLY Review fur Religious postpone the operation until after the birth of the child, or to 'have recourse to other efficacious remedies." e) The principle of ."libertt.t." Physicians do. not always see eye-to-eye on the value of certain treatments or operations. For ex-a.~ ple, take the much-discussed and too-much-popularized operation called Idbotomy. Thisoperation consists essentially in severing cer-tain fibers in the brain, and its general purpose seems to be to reduce emotional tension and thus help in the cure of some mental illnesses and in relieving otherwise unbearable pain. The sharpest kind of con-troversy exists among reputable physicians as to the good produced by the operation, the risks it involves, the types of patients that might benefit from it, and so forth. And this is but one example of many decidedly controversial questions in the sphere of medicine: Theologians, too, have their differences of opinion; and this is especially true when they are faced with a new problem. "There are pros and cons to many of these problems, and it may take a long time before the issues are sufficiently clarified to have a ffnanimous opinion for either side or until the teaching authority of the Church inter-venes to settle the matter. Sound morality supplies this practical principle that may be fol-lowed in these legitimately debated matters: obligations (i.e., pre-cepts and prohibitions) are not to be imposed unless they are certain. This is what I mean by the principle of "liberty." For the doctor, this means that, with the consent of the patient, he and his consult-ants may follow what they sincerely judge to be the proper medical procedure as long as this procedure is not certainly wrong. I f) The principle of "totality." I have taken this woful from Pope Pius XII, who said in his address on the moral limits of medical research a~ad treatment (September 14, 1952): "By virtue of the principle of totality, by virtue of his right to use the services of his organism as a whole, the patient can allow individual parts to be destroyed or mutilated when and to the extent~necessary for the good of his being as a whole." Obviously, this is an extremely important principle in medi'cal practice. Every time a doctor, acting according to the principles of sound medicine, and with the consent of his pa-tient, removes an eye, a hand, a gall-bladder, etc., he is following this principle of totality. He removes the member, which is a part of the whole, because it has become in some way.a threat to the survival or the well-being of the whole. 212 Jul~, 1953 HOSPITAL CODE Conclusion The foregoing are. the main, if not the only, principle~ that form the core of an~] sound medico-moral code. Perhaps I have giventhem too much space: yet it seems to me that one really appreciates our hos-pital codes only when he sees these basic principles grouped together and briefly explained. It may be taken for granted that an~ doctor who conscientiously follows these principles will act, not ~nly ac-cording to sound morality, but also according to sound medicine. Earlier in this article I suggested that in the minds of many people the supreme moral principle of Catholic hospitals seems to be that mothers must die for their babies. This, as I said, is best-seller non-sense at its best, and perhaps I should have said at its worst. Implicit in this attitude is the idea that in a critical situation a Catholic mother must always prefer her baby's life to her own. The idea is erroneous. Obviously, no mother may allow the direct taking of her life in order to save her baby, because, as Plus XlI declared, the direct destruction of any innocent life is morally wrong. And even a~ regards the risking of her life, e.g., by submitting to a dangerous operation, for thd sake of her baby, we must be very careful about making universal state-ments. We would have to consider many concrete factors before we could decide whether such a risk is obligatory or even permissible. Closely related to this erroneous notion that in our hospitals mothers must die for their babies is the idea that, since Catholic hos-pitals do not permit thereapeutic abortion (a "gentle" expression for the practice of killing babies to "save" mothers), they lose more mothers than do other hospitals. Not only is there no statistical basis for this, but what statistics we have indicate the very opposite. /~or example, two Boston doctors, Roy J. Heffernan and William "A. Lynch, recently obtained information about maternal deaths from 171 hospitals in various paris of our country. This information covers a period of eleven years, 1940-1950. In these hospitals, during this long period, there were more than ~hree million deliveries, about evenly di~iided, between hospitals that permit therapeutic abortions and hospitals that exclude this practice. The maternal death rate in the hospitals that do not allow therapeutic abortions was .87 .per thousand deli~ceries, whereas in the hospitals that do allow therapeu-tic abortion the maternal death rate was .98 per .thousand deliverles. According to these and similar statistics', the keeping of God's law saves not only babies but their mothers, as well. This is a too-littld-known aspect of the apostolate of Catholic hospitals. 213 .ues!: ons and AnSwers ~18m What can be done to counteract some Iong-sfandincj practlce, s en-gaged in during time of retreat by Sister-retreatants, for example, re-hearslng daily for one or two hours the Mass and hymns to be used ,for the reception ceremony; embroidering and crocheting between conferences2 The Sisters who participate in these works find that it interferes with thei~ recollection. ¯ Some work ab.out the house, some choir practice, and other little jobs (like needlework) would not seem to interfere ,too much with retreat recollection if indulged in only for about aft hour or so a day. That would still allow the retreatants a fair amount of time for un-disturbed private reflection an~l personal duties. If, however, the re-treat schedule were already extraordinarily crowded (which is usually not the case), there might be little time left for such tasks as indi-cated in our question. In any case, it is important that retreatants h~ve a fair amount of leisure time for private reflection, for jotting down. spirittlal "lights," for additional rest, and the like. ml9m At times it is necessary to post items pertinent to religious' in various departments of an establishment in regard to keeping rooms in order, having greater care of furniture, and the like. Would it not further a bet-ter ~om;nunity spirit if such directions were posted in the community room rather than on the doors of the different departments where outsiders may read them and make comments? Yes, it would be better to post items of a personal or private na-ture, whether they pertain to the community as a whole or to indi-vidual members of the community, in some place reserved to the reli-gious family .in preference to other more or less public places. Thus criticism might be lessened. It is possible, :though, that sometimes superiors ihtend such notices not merely nor primarily for religious who are in charge of or are working in a department, but especially for the outside help. Then such notices would be posted where those for whom they a~e intended would see them. In these cases, however, care should be taken that the wording of the notice does not occasion criticism of the religious. 214 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS In a religious congregation (in which simple vows are taken) may a ~ell-glous who is subiect fo a provincial superior have a right of appeal to the superior general when the religlous wants a farad or extra permission? To begin with, religious have the right of communicating with higher superio.rs: such correspondence is sealed. Religidus could. therefore, ask for various permissions from higher superiors. Some extraordinary permissions are usually asked of higher superiors ra~ber than of the immediate superior. Ordinary permissions, however, as a general rule are to be sought from the immediate superior. If that superior refuses the permission, one should not request the same per-mission from a higher superior without informing him that the per-mission was refused by the lower superior." Good government dic-tates that procedure, as ~ell as courtesy ahd possibly the rules of the institute. Before asking for any extra permissions or "favors," religious should remember .that superiors are to help their subjects observe common life; hence superior~ may not readily grant extra permission.s to a subject unless the Circumstances of the case warrant it. Likewise superiors must then be willing, and able, to grant the same permission to any other, subject in the same circuhastances. Subjects should try to lighten° the superior's burden' of of~ce by not requesting permis-sions which superiors should not grant either because they are not consonant with religious life, or because they would violate or harm common life, or because of some other good reason. Besides being a violation of common life, "favoritism" in a community is always odious. The cause of our Venerable Founder has been in progress at Rome for thirty years. In order to help Stimulate popular devotion to our Founderu particularly among ou~ students and their parents--our Order is in the habit of prlntlng, from time to time pictures and devotional pamphlets about him. Up to now. printed matter of that type only bore the nlhll obsfaf of the ordinary of the diocese where our motherhouse is located. It was brough~t to our attention lately that we need the approbation of the Holy See ~or an~ printed material about our Fo, under who has been de-clared Venerable. Is that observation correct? Canon 1387, of the, Code of Canon Law states that what per-tains in any way to the causes of beatification and canonization of 215. QUESTIONS ~ND ~NSWERS Servants of God may not be published without the permission of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. @his restriction applies only~to causes which are pending before the Sacred. Congregation; not to those which are finished (person b~s been canonized), or are pending be-fore some other body "than the Sacred'Congregation of Rites. During the time permission must be obtained from the Sacred Congregation, no further permission of the local ordinary is necessary for publica-tion of matter approved by the Sacred Congregation. The Codex pro Postulatoribus Causarum Beatiffcationis et Can-onizationis i4th edition, 1929, page 26, nos. 21 and 22) repeats the abo~ce and includes pictures (imagines) under the provision of can-on 1387. Several author~ who comment on canon. 1387 say that it seems to refer only t6 documents and. acts connected with the prosecution of th~ cause, such as summaries and proofs proposed for furthering the cause, opinions of consultors; comments of. the prornotor tidei, and the like. These authors rely on a Monitum of the Sacred Congrega-tion of Rites of February 12, 1909, which required previous' permis-sion of the Sacred Congregation for the publication of accounts,of the llfe, virtues, and "wonders" of Servants of God. Consequently it seems probable that the devotional pamphlets and pictures mentioned in our question need not be submitted to the Sacred Congregation for approval. m22-., Postulants are being sent out to the missions to hel'p with the teaching in schools*. They return to the motherhouse fop the week-ends. Are supe-riors justified in extending the postulancy for,three or four months, because the number of novices to be 'professed is not sufficient to fill the places of Fhe postulants? The Normae of 1901 (which have been used as a model for the constitgtions of rehgzous ,congregations) allowed a period of pos-tulancy ranging between gik--and twelve months. They permitted the superior general f~ a ~just cause to prolong the postulancy up to three additional months i~ particular cases (n. 65). A just cause was considered to exist if superiors remained uncertain about the vocation of the candidate, about his qualifications Or defects, or about his ad, justment to the life of the institute. ¯ The Code of Canon Law speaks of a postulancy of at least six entire months which must. be made by all women in religious insti- 216 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS tutes with perpetual vows and by the lay brothers in the.institutes of men. It permits the major superior ,to prolong the postulancy, but not beyond another six months (canon 539). This may be done in particular cases. The purpose of the prolongation is again to allow superiors more time to size up the applicant's vocation and more pre-cisely. his aptitude or fitnes~ for their religious institute. In the light of the above, it is rather difficult to see how superiors wbuld be justified in extending the postulancy for three or four months in the case under consideration. It might be well to add that the Apostolic Delegate has special .faculties to shorten or prolong the postulancy pre~scribed by the Code of Canon Law. Relatives of a relig;ous send money to a mutual friend with the under-standing that the religious will let that friend knowwhat he wants the friend to buy for him on the occasion of his blrfhday, Christmas, Easter, and the like. Is such procedure in keeping with poverty, or would the religious be considered as having a reserved fund of money? In the final .analysis the practice outlined' in the question reduces itself to a private fund of money at the disposal of the religious, a form of peculium generally contrary t~o the poverty professed by most. religious institutes, At best, this is contrary to cohamon life and the spirit of povert, y. A religious who countenanced such a practice could very well profit from reading Father Gallen's excellent article on "The Spirit of Poverty'" (REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, VIII .[1949], 35-43), not to me.ntion various other articles on common life arid the vow of poverty. As a practical solution, the religious could advise his relatives, who wish to give him a present, to send the money.to 'him rather than to the mutual friend. It would be understood that the reli-gious will turn in the money to his superiors to be added to the com-munity funds; then, when the religious needs something, the superior will provide it from the community funds. In that way both the vow and the spirit of poverty, as well as commott life, will be safe-guarded. A Sister acts as organist for the children's choir and for the adult choir during Mass and other services. Does canon law forbid this? A similar questi6n about a Sister organist was answered in the 217 Review ?or Religious BOOK REVIEWS pages of this REVIEW, VIII (1949), 325. Attention was called to possible diocesan regulations on the matter, even though the Code of Canon Law says nothing about it. In genera~ it seems that there would riot be much objection to a Sister acting as organist for a chil-dren's choir. In case of reai need this might also be stretched to in-clude an adult Choir of women only. But for a mixed adult choir:. "In practice,no Sister should undertake to play the organ for amixed choir of men and women without the express permission of the local ordinary and of her ownhigher superior" ibid.). / Book Reviews .~IRACLES. By Jean Hell~. Translated by Lancelot CL Sheppard. Pp. v~ -h. 288. David McKa¥ (~omp~ny, Inc., New York, 1952. $3.~0. This work is not a philosophical or tbeo16gical treatise on mir-acle. s. Rather, by a fairly detailed historical presentation of selec.ted cases, it is designed to give the reader a fairly general knowledge of, them. It is "a synthesis, or more modestly perhaps, an attempt at a synthesis" (p. 14). The whole story is built around persons, and l~eferably persons Who are not very remote from us in time. The language is not technical, but adapted to all intelligent readers. ,, The first chapter is an account of "miracles of humility": it: pre-sents the "stories of the Cur{ .of ~Ars and of Bernadette Soubi~ous; Then there follows, "Fatima, or the Age of Mary." Therese Neu-mann does not measure up to the author's standards and require-ments. But--surprisingly enough--"Catberine Emmerich, 'Narra, tot' of .the Gospels" and her writir~gs touched up by Clement Bren-tano meet with his full approval. The apparitions at Beauraing, BelgiUm, 1932-1933, are judged t6 be "childish fiction.'" Neverthe~ less' this is one of the few among recent cases that have received epis-copal approbatton. A particularly interesting feature of th~s book is the final chapter: "imitators and Fakers of Miracles." By contrast it serves especially well to bring out the great differences that obtain be-tween, genuine supernatural signs and others that are ~fraudulent, and how the pretended marvelous can be detected and distinguished from whaTt his~ a wuthhoelnet iwc.ork emphasizes the prudent reserve and critical spirb of the Church toward whatever is proposed as surpassing the limiv 218 duly, 1953 BOOK REVIEWS of nature, and tends to,bring about in the mind of the reader a simi-lar wise attitude.---AUGUSTINE G. ELLARD. ., A LIFE OF CHRIST. By Aloys Dirksen, C.PP.S. Dryden Press, New York, 1952. Pp. 340. $3.75. This book is unique in two respects: first, it has the '.'split-p~ge format." that is to say, in the upper part we find the Confraternity text of' the Gospels, and entirely separated from this section, a com-mentary on the Gospel text. One can turn the pages of the upper section without disturbing those below. Secondly, the Commentary and its Introduction are models of intelligent compression. Eight introd_uctory chapters furnish,,~i background for a better understanding of the actual commentary. These include a brief dis-cussion of the sources for a life of Christ, an outline of the geography of Palestine, a survey of the l~revious history of the Jews. the politi-cal and social conditions and prevalent religious beliefs of the period when our Lord was onearth. Such a comprehensive introduction can treat these matters only in barest outline, and if a few inaccuracies have crept in, this can readily be excused. The commentary, too, is suggestive rather thar~ exhaustive: but it is usually very much to the point. The ordinary reader will find there what he wants to know about the Gospel text he is reading. At the end of the commentary, by way of appendix, is a list of messi-anic prophecies found in the-Old Testainent. and of the Old Testa-ment quotations found in the four Gospels. Since the author uses many tec

Issue 5.4 of the Review for Religious, 1946. ; RE VOLUME V / J,ULY 15. 1946 " Nu~BE~,~- ' , , CONTENTs "ORIGINAL SIN AND EDUCATION~Cyril VSIlert. S.J. " " 21,7 A TIMELY PAMPHLET . ¢ -.'. . , .' , 228 ~CONCE~NING DISTRACTIONS~ha'rles F. Donovan, S.J, ~ 2;29 IN CASE YOU DON'T KNOW IT~ * 232 "SAINT APPEARED TWICE"--CIem~t J. McNaspy, S.J . 233 ~ PLAN OF SELF-DENIAL WITHIN THE 'REACH OF ALL ~ "Robert B. Eitem S.J . " 239 gP~LS ~ORVOCAT~ONS ., . ~,.~ 2~ SPEAKING' OF NAMES--Claude Kean.O.F.M . DECISIONS OF THE HOLY SEE . ,249 OUR CONTRIBUTORS " . . TWO HE~RTS--W. H. Hingston S.J '. ~ 251 ANN~N~EMENT . - . ~. ~_. ~-25~ RECEPTION OF SEMINARIANS INTO RELIGIOUS INSTI~UTES~, Adam C, Ellis, S.J . :BOOKS RECEIVED . ' ~ ' 263 /QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ' ,~ 22. Permission to Use G~ld Watch . 23.,Number of Delegates for General Chapter: Soliciting Votes 26~' 24. Use of Income from Special Fees '. . ~. 26~ 25. Religious Candidate Whose Parents Have,Bad Reputation 266~ ~ 26. Going to Confession in Order of Seniority . . ~ . 266 27. Communion Sundays ahd Contests to Promote Frequent Communion 267 28. Order of Precedence in Mdther House " " 268 BOOK REVIEWS-- ' , ~,~ The Mystical Life; Meditatio~ on the Passion: The Catholic Centre: Mission for Samaritans: Forming a Christian Mentality; How to Medi-tate; The Mystical Baldy of Christ: La ~iete Eucharistique: John Henr~ , , . Newman: Centenary Essays; The T h"ird Day Mano'logy: Mast'er and~ - Model: Dove Flights: Kyrie Elei~on:XTh~ P~ychology of Liturgical MU- " sic; The Life,of Father Pro 271 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. ~uly, 1946. Vol. V. No. 4. Pu~lisfied bi-monthly; January, March:May. July, September. and November at the C011ege.Press,4 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas. *by-St. Mary's College. St. Marys, ,~ansas, . with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered' as second class ~atter/~anuar), ~'15, "1942. at the Post O~ce, Topeka, ~Kansas. under the act of March 3:. 1879. EditgrlaL Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.J. G, Augustine Ellard. S.J., Gerald Kelly, S.J. Editorial Secretary: Alfred F. Schneider. S.J. " Copyright, 1946, by Adam C. ElliS, Permission is hereby. ~ra~n t e d for- quota't m:"n ~s. of reasonable length, provided due credit "be given this review and the auth6r.' Subscription price:, 2 dollars a year. Printed*ifi ~. Before writln~ to us,,please consult notice on inside 'back over~ ¯ ~' Or~gin~°l ~in ~nd Educa :ion Cyril Vollert, S.J. ~OST OF US who try to keep up with educational ~V~ controversies and discussions have~ become some-what surfeited with reiterated assurances that the one hope of salvaging this creaking world, so near the shoals of disaster, is education. We are told that education can save democracy, resolve the .c~lass struggle~ and confer on man. the good life.- " The striking t~I-iing is, much of this is true. But to realize'these great expectations education must be rightly conceived and rightly directed. It must be true education for man as he actually is; and it must be aimed at the right goal. Most of the. arguing about education is futile, and therefore fruitless, ' because those whd contribute the never~e.nding stream of articles, addresses, and books about education are so'often, unrealisticAn their view of the p.er~son who is to b~educate~d.or are wrong in t~eir idea.of t~e~upshot ofthe educational process. They are trying to stee~la rudderless sh~p throagh an uncharted sea to an unknown port. unless[we are right.in our notion of~the objec-tive to be a.t~ta[ned and of the~p.erson wh9 is to be educated, we are scarcely,.in a position to decide what the ~educational process ought to ~e. , . I,n this article.I s~all not pr3sume to fix the ~ltimate goal of education. Readers of this periodical know very. ~well what it is: ,God, whom we are to possess in the eternal happiness of the beatific vision. Nor shall I rashly attempt to outline an educational program. My purpose will be to describe the beneficiarydr" such a program and to indicate 217 CYRIL VOLLERT ' Reoiew /or t~elipiotts the proximate end to be achieved. The artist cannot pro-duce a masterpiece unless he knows the material he has to work on. Neither can the teacher succeed in transforming an uneducated person into an educated person unless he understands man as he actually is. The raw material of the educational' process is a boy or girl born in original sin, and still suffering the results'~ of original sin. This statement is not naive. It is not a bogy of a bygone day. It is true today and Will remain true for all time. Such a view is the only realistic view. Any other notion is false, or at least inadequate. But even tki'e truth that the person to be educated began life in original sin and still staggers under the burden of the consequences Of origi-nal sin may be distorted. To see the truth, two extremes have to be avoided: a vapid optimism and a groundless pessimism. Clear vision is n~eded, unobstructed either by rose-colored lenses or by smoked glass. The optimistic vie.w, credited by romanticists to the philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau but "actually as old as Pel~ag~us in the fifth century and his iritellectual ancestors, is that every man at his origin is wholly good. Let him alone; do not hamper or misdirect the natural play of his thought-processes and appetites; and he is capable of 'ifidefinite growth ingoodnegs. Signs of the break-up of the "electiv~ System" point to th~gradual abandonment of this view. But many. educators still do not know wh~t is to replace this shallow optimism. Rousseau and Eliot are no longer the .leaders to the promised land. Nevertheless the typical modern educator remains a Pelagian. /] The pessimistic view is also hoary with antiquity. Its crudest form, Manichaeism, regards all matter as evil. Therefore man, so far as he is a corporeal being, is evil. He is hopeless till he. gets out of his Body. A less irrational 218 1946 ORIGINAL SIN AND EDUCATION variety of this pessimism is the notion, characteristic of uncontaminated early Lutheranism and Protestantism generally, that original sin intrinsically corrupted man, l'eft him forever a sinner ihcapable "of morally good actions, and destroyed his free will. Nothing can really correct the depravity of Lutheran.man. His defilement can be covered up byChrist's merits, but he himself stays a sinful wretch, utterly corrupt. A trace of this idea of man, greatly diluted, is found sometimes among Catholics, even amdng educated Cath-olics and religious. They may have a notion, not very-pre-cisely formulated, that man's nature, though not wholly corrupted by original sin, was inwardly wounded so that his understanding, considered on the purely natural _level, is now intrinsically darkened and his will is intrinsically weakened. Those who harbor such an idea of man may have been Subjected to defective instruction On this point; or they may have failed rightly to grasp what was correctly taught; or they may have had teachers who repre-- se, nted a very small, and practically unimportant,-minority opinion tfiat man actually was thus injured by original sin. But there is no sound theological basis for this per: suasion. The truth is that man, coniidered simply as natural man, is as whole today, in intellect and will, as was man regarded in his purely natural endowment when he came from the creative hand of God. In other words orig-inal sin left man in no worse condition, on the purely human level of his mind and will, than he was before Adam cast his momentous decision against God. What is true in all that we hear about the disastrous effects of Adam's sin is this: the first man deliberately renounced God and thereby lost the supernatura! endow-ments which God had conferred on him for the whole 219 CYRIL VOLLER~. 'human~ race. Adam was created not Reoiew for Religious only in'a state~ of ¯ na.tural:perfecti0n, but .was elevated to.the~sonship of God by sanc._tifying grace,. Mor9o,ver,, to~ complement th!s~divine -gift and to enable Adam to preserve it for0himself and .the entire human family, God added other remarkable.gifts, notably, t_he.~gift of.integrity whereby all hispowers affd faculties were perfectly~subordinated to his. reason and.~.wi11., and the gift of immortality whereby his. body.~asi~sub~, 'jected to his~soul so that it was liberated from the necessity of fa!ling into corruption and death. These inconceivably .great bounties, all of ,,them beyond ,the capacities ,of human na°ture, Adam. received for himselt and for all his,~descend- By:_sinning Adam lost~them all~. He lost originals, jus-tice for himseff 'and fo~ his posteri.ty., His children and his children's children down to the end of time (with the unique)exception, ofo.th~ Bles'sed V4rgin'Mary).were begot-ten in.a-sta:te,.of estrangement from God. Instead' of.being ,bOrn sons. and daughters of God in sancti£ying grace: the,y. were,born.%without that relation to God,,,.the-only Fight relation.to God once God bad,elevated mankind i(in. Ada_m). to:the,supernatural level:~ ~They were born ~in,:the stat&of . ~ ~W.ith the sin inherited from" Adamgo theieffects.of, the sin:loss'[0f,the othe'r accompanying 'gifts, integrity, and im-morgality.:,,. ThereforeAdam's~children,are worse off ~ihan-he~-~ as.,.~ Forthey all come into°the,W.ofld withbut.-the grage of di,v, ine~sonship,, without integrit~y, without immottalit, y: ,Adam s,mn £change mankind for the wors~, ifi!,soul and.in :,, --But Adam's~ sin ,did not wreck his. human nature as. such.' We are no w6rse Off now than we ~oul'd have been if God had never elevated Adam to be His ~ad0pted son, with this exception: we ought to be biafn with sanctifying 220 July, 1946 ORIGINAL SIN AND EDUCATION grace, and we are not; find so we are born in a state dis-pleasing to.God, a state of sin. ~l~rue, if we ~compare ourselves with .A'dam as he actually was in Paradis'e, we are far .inferior,,. We are deprived'of the supernatural and.preternatural Preroga~tives¯ that. made him so extraordinarily perfe~t~a man. P~i0r fo baptism we lack the divine sonship he had; and so we come into the world as sinners. And even though.we-.recover tl~e . grace of divine sonshil3 in baptism, we lack the gift of integrity: and so we find in otirselves an unruly mass of conflicting .powers, the 10w~r at odds with the higheL th6 body unsubservient to the soul. We lack the gift of immor-tality,. and so we succumb to illness, wounds, gradual cor-ruption, and death. But if we regard only Adam's nature itself unperfected by any of these gifts, oar own natures ar'e just the same. Adam's-nature, left to itself, ,had the sameelements and equipment as otirs. If he had not had the gift of integrity-he. too w.ould, even without any sin, have experienced the same conflict among his faculties. His senses would have sought their own pro~er objects just as gtubbornly as ours do,-against the will's consent. 'His body .would have been exposed to illness, decant, and death. All this appears, quite reasonable. Our first pgrents, as ,they .actually were, with God's supernatur.al and preter- ' natural gifots added to" their natural make~up, were clearly superior to .tis. Bui if we disregard Whatever is preter-n~ atural arid supernatural, we headily seb th~at they .had the same nature as we their children have. : Only one thought, nagging at our memories of what We have heard and read, keeps thrusting forward an objdc-tion; we have been taught that, as a result.of original sin, ourintellects have been darkened and our wills have been weakened. This ii :the very statement in the elementary 221 (~YRIL VOLLERT Re~oiew for Religious catechis~ most 6f us have studied: "Our natur~ was cor-rupted by tl~e ~in of our fi~st parents, which darkened our understanding, weake.ned our will,.and left in us a strong inclination :to evil." ' ' This brings us to the heart of our discussion:, just what this statement means. It means that, without the gifts of original justice,'-particularly integrity and immortality, our minds are less able to acquir~e truth and our willsare less firm in pursuing good th.a.n if we had those, gifts. I~ does not mean that original sin has .intrinsically harmed our minds and wills so that their natural power to khow and ¯ will has b~en destroyed or i~apaired, ~ The doctrine taught by the familiar catechism of our childhood is of course true. But the trUth.admits of better wording; and the recent revision of this catechism puts the matter more clearly: "The chief punishments of Adam which we inherit through original sin are: death, .suffe)ing, ignorance, and a" strong inclination to sin." What~ever is taught by the ~.hurch about t.h~ darkening of the intellect and the weakenirig of. the~will can be under-stood, and actually is understood by .all great theologians;, in .the sense of a deterioration as compared .with the mind and will of man in the state of c;riginaljustice. .This is easily perceived, in .the °casfi of the will. God ~en~riche, d Adam;s nature, with the'gift of integrity, which lined up .all his powers and passions under, the control of his reason and will so that his animal appetites could not take the initiative in attracting ~him toward evil and could no~ prevail .against the command of'his will., In punish~ ment for his sin, Ad,am lost thisomarvelous gift for him-self and for all of us. We do not possess the gift of integ~ rity, and'so *there is lacking in us the perfect order among. our various powers ~and appetites which that~ gift would have proc~ured. In. other words, we are subject to unruly 222 dulq, 1946. ORIGINAL SIN AND EDUCATION c'oncupiscence, which means simply that each of our .appe-tites seeks its own good heedless of the good. of the whole person. When an attractive object confronts any of our senses, that sense can immediately reach out for the object quite independently of. the will's.consent, and even against the will's command. By that very fact our will is weakened. Concupiscence pulls us toward the tempting object even though we realize that taking it involves sin. We .may "already have reached out to seize it before the mind adverts to what we are doing: And even after the mind does take notice, the enticement still persists, the tug is still felt. We are much less able to resist the allurement than if the Senses were fully under our cohtrol. The will may say, "No!" Sense appetite says, "Yes!" And both will and sense appe- .,.rites. are mine. I am being torn between a higher and a lower good. I can resist, because :my will is still in charge. But often I give up; especially if, the battle is a long one. My will does not resist; I surrender, satisfy my lower craving at the expense of moral good, and so I sin. Adam in the state of original justice would have under-gone no such struggle. His will could simply have said, "No!" The sense appetite would, have straightway obeyed. Indeed, the sense appetite could not have been attracted to the object in the first place without the assent of the will. Therefore'my will is weaker than his; but only because.of the pull of concupiscence. My will, as a natural faculty just in itself, is in no way weakened by original sin. The same is the case with our intellect. Adam had a preternatural gift of infused knowledge. We have not. Therefore our understanding is dark as compared with his, for .his was bathed with divine light. If Adam had not ~inned, he would not have handed on his special, infused gift of knowledge to his descendants. For this knowledge 223 CYRIL VOLLERT Review [or Religious was a personal gift with-vc~ich God eciUipped the~fii~st-man, created.aS he Wasin adulthood in intimate communion with God and with a special office as teacher of the children.he was to beget. ~: ~ ._ ,. ~ - ~ :,~,.- ,~ Adam had, yev other endow, menfs~perfecdnghis intel-lect, Alohg with. the sanctifying grace that~ele~ated him to dupernatural heights went the infused'~virtues, theological and moral. Among these are faith and prudence,., which resided, in his intellect. These'he would h~ve~transmitted: But. he sinhed,~and,so could not. transmit sgnctifying grace and, all 'the:accompanying.gifts. We,~ born without.~sanc-tifying~, grace, begin life deprived of the infused virtues, .includidg " those ,.which would have.equipped ~our minds With a habitual~aptitude for higher truths, In this respect, too, our. minds are defective as com#ared with his before the Eall: . _ ~Bu~-here we must'consider another factor, which is :sel~ dora,well,brought out. In sinning, Adam~ lost, 'besi~h sanctifying grace>~ith its cortege of infused.'virtues, ,th~ preternatural~ gif~s~: of,integrity and immortality. with:~heqos£of, immortality~w_¢nt the loss of impassibility, 6r :immuflitw,.to~sfl.ffering, disease, and death~.,~:~His body was no longer.perfectl~ subject;to his sou.L: ~ ~ From' Adam.weinherit ~bgdies ~bereff of these~ gifts. .Not bnly are we sfibject to 'conCupiscence,~ b6t me-have .,bodies unprot&ted, from ~harm-bythe -g "~ "f t~s~ .:.o.~lm~"m -ortahty and impassibility.,. Ou~. souls are immorthl, ~but tEey ha.re not the' pow&~to i~part., i~mortality to bur bodies. ~us.left ,their nat6ral ~eakness; our bodies easily giveAn, to f~tig~e, .to a thousand different, diseases,',to, the decrepitude of advancing age, .and~:.to dissolution. All. this,,has weighty ~consequences for ~0ur ~no~ledg~ and our (apacity to learn. Obviously~ ,the,pull 0f-c6ncu~iscence,is a tremendous obstacle to the acquisition~of knowledge. Web.have a kin~ 224 ORIGINAL SIN AND EDUCATION ship for the concrete, the. sensible. Higher truths, especially the truths of theology, ,religion, and metaphysics, hav~ -little charm for most people. They waht to know and experience what is pleasant and easy. Whatever has a sur-face interest excites them. The clang of the fire-engine bell~ upsets the class; not only children in third grade but university students, and the professor himself, feel the urge fo rush to the window. Philosophy is hard put to it to rdsist the seduction of the radio. Mathematics runs a poor ~second to.movies. A game of ball in the nearby playground is. more fun than geography or arithmetic. Shakespeare. and Thackeray have less appeal than the funnies. Another important consideration, is the fatigue that goes with thinking. Continuity is essential to study. But the brain soon wearies and seeks distraction. Even under -the most favorable circumstances, sudh as absolute quidt. freedom from interruption, and robust health, mental con- ¯ centration is extremely hard work. We know how right Aristotle was When he remarked, "Learning is'accompanied by pain[" The experience of students is well formulat,ed in a wise man's saying that has passed into a p~overb.: "Knowledge maketh a bloody entrance." But ideal circumstances are rarely granted to us. Leisure for thinking is a luxury. The very necessity of caring for the bbdy's needs takes up the most valuable portion of our time and eneigies. The majority of mankind must spend half or more of each working day in sheer toil for bread~ What leisure is left is without the freshness of mind required for acti,~e thought. -Even when a person has leisure and opportunityfor learning, his bodily condition is often a deterrent to efficient °study. The eye too soon grows dim, and reading has to be rationed. Hayfeve-r, sinus infection, a cdld in the head, the hundrei:l ills that plague mankind, all. militate against the ¯- 225~ CYRIL VOLLERT ~ Revietu /or Religious attention, correlation, and penetration required for ¯ rained.thinking and for the mastery of but a single province of human kno,wledge. ~f~to such bodily distresses we add the emodonal~bias that s~ems froni concupiscence and ,impedes the disinter-ested pursuit of truth, if we take account of the environ-. mental restrictions that, as in Soviet Russia', block access to th~ sources of truth, and if with allthis we mix in the lying propaganda, rooted in selfishness or in bigotry,, that not only closes off truth but teaches error, we can go very far in explaining the darkening of our under~tandin.g that is a result of original sire , Truly, our ability to gain knowl-edge is grievo.usly inferior to that of Adam when, before he rejected God's grace, he was shielded from all these evils by his preternatural gifts of immunity to concupiscence, suf-f~ iing, and bodily dissolution. But our natural faculty of intellect was in no way intrinsically injured by original sin. Our intellect and our will are the same now, considered as purely natural perfec.-' tions, as they would have been if Adam had handed down to-us original justice instead, of original sin. Our intellec-trialand volitional inferiority results from our lack of the preternatural gifts that would have removed all obstacles to their perfect functioning. Such is the teaching of all front, rank theologians, a teaching based on their study of revelation. The punish-ment of original sin, St. Thomas notes, is restricted to the withholding of the supernatur;il goods gi:anted by God to. our first father-for transmission to his posterity.1 ~ Su;irez agrees with Aquinas: The common and true doctrine is that the powers of man or of his free will, rhgarded from the standpoint of the perfection they would ha~,e had in the state of pure nature, were not diminished in iCompendium Theologiae, 1 226 Julg, 1946 ORIGINAL SIN AND EDUCXTION fallen nature by original sin; they are inferior only when compare~' wxth the strength and integrity conferred on them by original jus-rice. -~ - St. Robert Bellarmine teaches the same doctrine: The corruption of nature resulted not from the lack of any natural gift, nor from the presence of any" evil quality, but from the . sole loss, owing to Ada~'s~sin, Bf the supernatural endowment.8 Thus the raw material of our educational endeavors is ~the boy or girl, the young, man or woman, with intelle'ct and will essentially unimpaired on the natural plaiae. Our aim in education should be to develop this goo,d natural equipment and to transfigure it with all the super-h~ itural ,goods Christ has given to the Church for t.he benefit of His brethren. Revelation, the Church, the sacraments, ~sanctifying grace,'the infused virtues and. actual graces and all that the Church_disp0ses of for building up the body of Christ must raise and0perfect the souli of men together with their" faculties, xspecially their powers of inteIlect and wiff. The proximate purpose of our educational work must be to train.the youth entrusted to us so to master thdmselves that, within ~he. supernatu0ral sphdre to which they have been re-elevated by Christ, they may pumue the Truth which is God, and embrace the Good, which is also God. The closest possible approxim:ition to the original in.tegrity must be the goal to which we lead our limping, students. This is no mean ambition for those whose life'long voca-tion lies in the classroom and on the campus. The same goal.is the one we religious propose to reach in our own self,education. But in addition to the bottom-less treasury of graces open to all Catholics, we enjoy,'in" our ascetical striv~ings, certain freedoms that can bring us much closer to the original freedom Adam had. Our privi-lege js brought home to us by the matchless,champion who ~DO gratia, prol. 4, c. 8, n. 5. 8De gratia primi hominis, . 5. 227 CYRIl., VOLLERT -upheld t~ae greatness of the religiot~s state against pertly attackers of his day~ ¯ The exercise of perfection requires that a person 'd6 away witl~ whate~'er can impede him from directing his affections wholly to God; ¯ for in~this consists the perfection of charity. There are'three obstacles of this sort. T14e first is the desire for external good£ This' is removed by the vow of poverty. The"second is the proclivity for pleasures of sense, among which lustful delight isthe keenest., This is surmounted by the vow ol~ chastity, The third obstacle is the deordination of th~ human will. And this.is corrected by,the,vow of " obedience.4 Thus with intellect and will intrinsically good and unspoiled in their natural soundness by original sin, we C~n with Ggd's grace'overc0me all hindrances and eventually make ou~r .own, in limited degree, the perfection of tl~e sec-. ond Ad:;m, J~sus Christ. We cannot, indeed, ever in this" life attain to the integrity of original justice; Christ did0not ~ restore that extraordinary privilege to redeemed man: ~ BuS as brothers and sisters of the God-man, or truer still, as living members of His body, we can get closer to the second ~dam, and therefore closer to God, 'than the first Adam was ~ in his primeval innocence. And so our last state can .be better ~han the first. ~ '~St.'Thomas, 8umraa, II-Ilae, q. 186, a. 7. A TIMELY PAMPHLET~ ':The Guide Posts of the Almighty to Perma~ient Industrial,Peace" presents a "plea for .the Ten Commandments as the only solid basis for lasting peace, industrial and international. The section which describes the rights and dutie~ of 'labor and management is particularly"excellent. Every emp!oyer and every laborer might well read this with profit. The pamphlet is from the pen of the Most Rev. Richard J. Cushin.g, D.D., Archbishop og Boston, and is published by the Radio Re151ies Press, St. Paul, ,Minnesota. Price: I0 cents. ~ 228 Concerning Dis :ra t:ions Charles F~ Donovan, S.d. THERE is an aspiration which I should like torecom-mend; yet I fear it might be misunderstood. It is: "Jesus, be my distraction." Now distractions are bad, they are sappers of spiritual energy, things to be avoided. And obviouslq we' do not intend to couple the name of Jesus with anything evil. But. there are certain characteristics of distractions which would be worthwhile if transferred to the thought of Our Lord, namely, their persistence, their fascination,.and their seeming ubiquity. It is these qual{- ties ofdistractions I have in mind when I say, '"3esus, be my distraction," which is a brief way of saying, ",lesus, be the magnet of my mind, the channel of my thoughts, the theme of my day from task ~o'task; when dut.y of any sort commands the center of the stage, lurk in the wings of my heart, and the moment I pause, the moment I am free ~et the spotlight of my soul rest on You alone." Every day at Ma~s the priest exhorts us, "'Sursttm corda'" (Lift up your hearts). And we respond,"Habemus ad Dorninurn'" (We have them lifted up to the. Lord). This lifting we reaflifm daily is not our passive elevation by God to the state of grace. When we receive grace,~Christ stoops and does the lifting. Yet even with grace we may remair~ earth-bound and inert. The lifting w~e profess when we say. "'Sursurn corda'" is an active elevation, our cooperation with Christ, an ~ffort to use His grace to meet Him on His own level. As Dora Augustine Baker puts it in the 'vigorous English of Shakespeare's time, we mean the "forced but very facile elevations of the will, that bluntly or blindly heaves itself up towards God." We-heave ourselves in spirit 229 CHARLES F. DONOVAN Review for Religious towards God in hope and love and joy. A distraction-, therefore, is truly a fail--not necessariI~ a fall in the sense of sin, btit a descent from the heights of communion with Christ. If we are habitually distracted we really should answer the priest, "'Habemus ad humum'" (Our hearts are fixed on the earth, on dust, on our own level). There is a fervor, a preoccupation with God which in the face of a present and pressing tluty, like signing checks or making out report cards, could be called a distraction. Some of the saints have been "bothered" by such distrac-tions. Saint Ignatius, 'for instance, sometimes had to be dispensed' from reading the Office because during it he would experience ecstasy and thus be kept from other daily business. Saint Teresa was often afraid to think of God, lest she experience some divine visitation that wquld interfere ~vith her work or embarrass her in public. BUt most of us need have no worry about such piotis distrac-tions. It is not often the thought 6t? God-that makes us' shabby workers. Our trouble is generally not that prayer keeps us from mundane things but that mundane things keep us from prayer. Our mind-wandering tends to be from God to creatures, the kind of distraction to wh{cb that religious referred who complained, with healthy self-criticism, that his new superior conducted-such prolonged ~zisits at chapel after meals that he ran out of distractions and had to' pi~ay. Now if we really have .our hearts lifted ad Dominum, if our habitual tendency and spontaneous impulse is to think of Jesus, then distraction in prayer becomes not impossible, but at least unpleasant and of slight Spiritual d~nger, like a ¯ fly buzzing around our prie-dieu. There are also distractions whicb occur all day !ong even in non-prayer time, but which don't actually keep us from our work. These are, therefore, rather potential thah 230 July, 1946 CONCERNING DIS, TRACTIONSj real distractions. Theyare our worries, our enthusiasms, our pet interests, the things which are just outside the. focus of our attention or just below the surface of consciousness, to whichthe mind tends to revert over and over dttring the day. If these concerns, these potential distractions,-are intense, the person who has them is said to be preoccupied or to "have something on the mind." Wouldn't it be won-derful if we were so intimate with Our Lord that we could be said to have Jesus on our mind? Of course, that is the ambition of all religious, to be so in love with Our Lord that He is our dominfint interest, our hobby, the object of . our ardent enthusiasm, our companion day and l~ight. Finally, there are the distractions which we seek, favor-ire" topics to which we let: our mind lazily turn in moments of relaxation, familiar themes which we find congenial and. particularly helpful when we are trying to get to sleep. The subjects that we choose for such distractions are indicative of our spiritual health. _The old saying, "Tell me~ whom you, go with and I'll tell you what you are," is applicable to mental as well as to persgnal companions. If wespon-taneously- turn to worldly thoughts, then we a.r.e very probabl); worldly ourselves. If our favorite reveries are spiritual, our character is most likely spiritual. Habitual 'and sought distractions, the recurrent musings of our idle moments, can be of tremendous influehce in our - spiritual lives. They not only indicate character; they also form character and spiritual taste. Wl~at we think ofand enjoy thinking of~when we are free, when the rule is not directing us, and the choice of mental occupation is up to ourselves, both manifests and shapes the inner self., These chosen reveries can be the occasion when temptation is most .likely to assail us. They can be little secret escapes from the cloister and from the spirit of religious life. Therefore it is of first importance that we cultivate lofty and holy 231 CH'ARLES F. DONOVAN mental companionships so that our idle moments will be in keeping with the tone of our religi0,us profession and will strengthen rather than dissipate our religious spirit. As ~ Kempis says (Bk.iii, ch.58)~ "That cometh in'to my mind which by custom pleaseth me best to think upon: and where my thought is accustomed to be, there is that which'~I love." What nobler~ theme, what~holief com-panion gould we have for our unpres~ribed and effortless meditations than Our Lord Jesus Christ? Wouldn:t we be in a blissful state of spiritual perfection if~. during the day's work we looked forward eagerly to those moments of rest, especially the moments ~ before sleep, when-we would be able to think easily and lovingly of. ,lesus, and say with the poetess, "I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart?" In Case You Donq: Know It-- The Catechetical Guild Educational Society publishes a first-class magazine entitled Catholic Youth. $1.50 per year, for ten issues: 15" cents pet"copy; quantity rates to ~chools and churches on r~quest. Write to: CatholicLYouth, 128 E. Tenth Street, Saint Paul. I" Min-nesota. Another Catechetical Guild project is Post-Reporter, Catholic Youth's own newspaper. It is published every second Monday during the school year. $1.00 for full school year; 5 cents for single copies: bulk rates on application. ¯ Address, as above. The Dominicari Fathers~'of the Province of St. Albert tile Great publish The Young Dominican for the benefit of young men~ho aspire, to become Dominican students. The paper is attractive and informative. Copies are sent.on request. Address requests to Brother Bede's Mail Box, Dominican House of Studies, River Forest, Illinois. The Missignar~r 'Sisters of Mother of God recently began publi-cation of The.Ark, "a. monthly periodica, l devdted to ecclesiastical and' cultural affairs, p~rticulaidy Of Eastern Rites." "Subscription: $2.00 per year; 25 cents per copy. 232 Sain : Appeared Clement J. McNaspy, S.J, AM WRITING this just after giving Holy Commumon in.one.0f the.'most favored and sacred spots in our coun-try. It is the nearby convent infirmary. .The com-municant was a lay sister of the Religious of the Sacre'~d Heart. I don't know her name. The convent is .really c~alled the College of the Sacred Heart; it is located in Grind Coteau, Louisiana. If you have never heard of Grand Coteau, let me assure you.that it is one ~f the least worldly villages anywhere. T.here is no motion picture in town. There is not even a chamber of commerce. A stranger would probably~call it a "sleepy" town. Yet few towns in the United States have known such spiritual activity. For one. thing, Grand Coteau boasts a retreat house where the spiritual, exercises are made almost weekly by sizable groups of laymen. There is too a desuit-novitiate within the city limith; and no ridigious need be tol~l that a novitiate can hardly be called a "sleepy" place, especially at recreation time. But Grand ,Cot ea 'u s c.laim to. veneratioo goes far .beyond this. o As you ~drive'along Louisiana. Highway No; 5 toward the. outskirts of the village of Sunset, you are sta~rtled by a garish-(fortunately, somewhat fadi'ng) 'placard: National Shrine, Saint A15peared Twice." ~An'd the sign points to Grand Coteau.,Jhidden beneath pines and oaks and moss, one mile north of the highway. -l~his gives away Grand Coteau's secret. One of the very few first-class miracles performed in the United Sta~es and officially accei0ted by the Church took place th.ere, in ¯ that very infirmary where I w.as just privileged to gi~re 233 CLEMENT J. MCNASPY Review for Religious Holy Communion. No, the miracle didn't happen yester-day. Yet o'nly a few weeks a~o we buried ninety-six year old "Tante Yomme," who when in school at'the convent had been a witness of the miracle, the last surviving wit-ness. Besides, private archives have a way of annihilatink even decades of years; and the kindness of Reverend Mother Superior of th~ College of the Sacred Heart has put into my hands these treasured documents, original affidavits and first hand descriptions. It is engaging to read among them Sister Mary Wil-son's personal account: how she was cured of~a disease diagnosed as incurable. There glo.w warmth and imme-diacy in the young novice'-s story. She hurries along, ingenuously, simply, impatient of conventional syntax and punctuation, not even careful to sound completely consist-ent. Here are her own words, as copied from the document heretofore unpub!ished.1 Tie very next day (December 10, 1866) I was worse than I had ever been before up to that time, all hope of getting better abandoned me; I felt getting weaker and my sufferings were so intolerable that it seemed to me that it was impossible to bear them long--Given up by the Doctor I disposed myself to receive the.Holy Viaticum this was oix the 10th of December and on the llth the Father gave me the - last Plenary Ifidulgence. One of our dear Mothers brought me a picture of Blessed Berch-marts on~the 6th and said that the community was going to make another Novena to Blessed BerchmansI looked at Mother and in my incredulity asked her, if there was any other saint left that they had not already importuned; for my dear Mothers and Sisters had already made so many novenas that I thought neither God nor the Saints were willing to confer any favor upon me ". I do not think I had eaten an, ounce of food for about forty days, during that time I had taken nothing but a little Coffee or ,tea which" for a week before I recovered, I could no longer take; and for two weeks no medicines had been administered--the Doctor said 1To facilitate reading, dashes have been inserted in the text. 1946 "SAINT APPEARED TW~rCE'' it was useless 'to torture me more so he stopped giving me any; the last two days I was unable to swallow even a drop of water . ¯ Owing to the condition of my mouth and fongue it was greatly feared I would not be able to swallow the Sacred Host--the Father therefore gave me but a sm~ill particle~it was with great difficulty that I could receive even this; the Father perceiving it remained b~; my bed,side with ciborium in hand until he had the perfect assurance that I had swallowed it,~this however could only be affected by means of a teaspoonful of water, and attended by. intense palm Being Unable to speak I said in my heart: "Lord, Thou who seest how much I suffer if it .be for your honor and glory, and the salvation of my soul I ask through the intercession of Blessed Berch-mans a little relief and health, otherwise give me patience to suffer to the end, I am resigned"--then placing the. image of Blessed Berch-mans on my mouth, I said: "if it be true that you can work miracles, I wish you would do something for r~e,--if not I will not believe in you. ~I can say without s~cruple or fear of offen'ding God, I heard a voice whisper: '~Open your mouth." I do so as well as I felt some one put as it were their finger on my tongue and immed~ ately I was re|ieved. "I then heard a voice say in a distinct and loud tone: "Sister, you will get the desired habit, be faithful, have confi-dence, fear not!" I had not yet opened my eyes, I did not know who was by my bedside I turned around and said aloud: "but Mother Moran I am well"--then standing by my bedside I saw a figure he held in his hand a cup, and there was some lights burning near him--at this beautiful sight I was afraid--I closed my eyes and asked: "is it Blessed Berchmans", He answered: "Yes, I come by the order of God, your sufferings are over, fear not !" I opened my eyes but he was gone. The Sister infirmarian had gone down to the chapel to receive Holy Communion. I sat up in the bed I felt no pain. I was afraid it was an illusion and that my cure was not real--I turned over and over in the bed but without pain--I then exclaimed: "It is true, Blessed Berchmans has cured me." , The Sister infirmarian soon returned from the Chapel and made her'act of thanksgiving before a little altar in the, infirmary. I did not speak to her: in about three quarters of an hour Mother Superior came in to see me, fearing at the same time to find me in the agonies of death,--but what was not her great surprise when she met my eyes which had not been opened for six days and heard me wish 235 CLEMEN'T J. MCNASPY Review ?or Religious her good morning. Mother in utter amazement drew back and exclaimed: "and what, those eyes!" then s~eing my mouth perfectly healed.she added: "that mouth!" On and on, page after page, Sister Mary Wilson details her dreadful illness, how the doctors had given .up ,hope, and the aftermath of her cure. Equally impressive, also in these archives, are the sworn accounts of D~octors James G. Campbell and Edward Millard, both.of whom certify, in stolid.professional language, to the miraculo~us cure. Dr. Millard concludes in these words: N(~t being able to discoveb any marks of convalescence, but an immediate r'eturr~ to health from a most sever~ and painful illness, I am unable to explain the transition by any ordinary natural laws. I hereby declare under the sanctity of.my oath that the above state-ment, according to the~best of my knowledge and belief is entirely true. (Sig1~ed) Ed. M. Millard. M.D., Grand Coteau, La., Feb. 4th, 1867. Sister Wilson's close friend, Mother Moran, has for-tunately also left ah eyewitness account. Her sisterly sympathy for the young postulant so .eager to receive the habit is felt as we read along: ' Wednesday evening, Miss Wilson asked me if it was night; for her eyes being continually closed, she could not distinguish' between night and day.On hearing my answer, she rejoined: "I never more expect to see the l.ight of day. I cannot pbssibly endure such suffering much longer." - She then with perfect composure gave me several commissions, requesting me t~ attend to their execution after her death; she expressed her lfiappiness in dying at the Sacred Heart (Convent), and entrusted me with the expressing of her thanks for all her Mothers and Sisters from whom, she said, she had received so many p~oofs of affection and tender charity. Her weakness was so great, that-her voice was scarcely audible, and she spoke with such difficulty that it required over an hour to articulate these few" words. Next morning I was surprised to fintl her still living: this day, Thursday,. certainly surpassed all that had preceded, in the intensity-of pain; her half opened mouth displaying a tongue swollen, inflamed and raw, gums and teeth all 'clotted with black corrupted 'blood, 236 "SAINT APPEARED TWICE" excited an involuntary sensation of horror followed by a deeper ,senti-ment of the most. tender compassion in every one. who saw her in this condition. Mother Moran goes on to tell how exulta~ntly Sister Wilson leaped from what was thought her deathbed, and she reports the physician's reaction when he ~ame to visit his dying patient: Not being able to assign any natural ~ause capable of producing such an effect, .he several times repeated: '~Really, Miss Mary, I can-not understand it! But one thing is certain, if you recover, it is cer-tainly' not to medicine or to my care that you are to attribute your cure." - Among other interesting documents from the convent archives are the-sworn testimonies of Fathers Nachon, Benausse, and Serra, all from th~ nearby. Jesuit college, who had assisted the postulan.t with the last sacraments. Each of these Fathers writes in his own hand, in a personal way, with distinct individual touches. As you read along you wonder if they thofight it odd of Blessed John Berchmans to by-pass his own brethren's house to appear in a neigh-bo~ ing community. If they felt sensitive on this point they surely show no-indication of it: in fact, they seem almost proud that the Blessed had chosen one of their spir-itual charges to work perhaps his greatest miracle. More arresting, probalSly because less technical and formal, is a letter from Father Na~hon to a. Miss M~ry Perry, who would seem to be a non-Catholic. Writing enthusiastically just four dfiys filter the miracle, the~Father tells ~f tlqe fl~ry ~tirred up fill around Grarld Coteau~ ~The moral that he draws is~ possibly .l~ss significant in ourbwn. claywhen Loubdes and Fatima are so widely talked about. He writes: You see, child, that the time of miracles is not entirely passed away. There is nothing astonishing for us Catholics, since we know that~the saints are powerf.ul with God and that nothing is impos- 237 CLEMENT J. MCNASPY sible to God. We may rejoice it has happened amongst us because it excites us to devotion, and contributes to. animate our faith. No wonder that the Archbishop of New Orleans immediately started canonical proceedings to investigate the miracle.' Rome moves proverbially slowly, l~ut after tire-less probing and cross-examination the Church was at length satisfied and set its seal of approval on 'the mirac~- lous healing. It was officially accepted for the canonization of the young Blessed; who henceforth is' thought of as peculiarly belonging to Grand Coteau. For generations now the citizens of the little village have simply taken their privilege for granted. They are not at ali surprised that Heaven should have chosen Grand Coteau to break through to earth. And visitors usually make just that comment. For there are visitors to Grand Coteau, even though no one pushes publicity. Thereare the devoted alumnae who return to dear "Coteau" to see favorit~e old teachers or justthe hallowed, tastily land-scaped grounds. Students of the modern college, and academy attract relatives'and friends. And often enough devotees of azaleas, live-oaks, or Acadian lore are drawn to Grand Coteau. All these, quite naturally, spend some time in prayer in the infirmary. Periodically a .group of" retreatants from the retreat house will also come, and once a year the Jesuit novices and scholastics pay a pilgrimage of homage to their young con-frere. "The small room where the apparition took place has been cony6rted iiato a tiny chapel dedicated to St. John Berchmans. Onl~ two quiet mu~al~ and a notice placed where.the Saint stood remind one that this is one of Ameri-ca's treasUred shrines. "° " ,238 , A Pla°n of.Sei -denial Wi!:hin :he Reach of All Robert B. Eiten, S.J~ ~N ~CATHOLIC LIFE the principle of self-denial holds ~an important place. Yet it is a fact known to all that in i?his~ matter of self-denial there is danger of going to extremes--of failing either by defect or by excess. Those :who are too ,easy on themselves practically exclude the likelihood or even the possibility Of their reaching high perfection.; they go against the injunctions of Our Lo~d and the Chur.ch, and they oppose the common teaching .of ascetic writers. On the other hand, those who overstep their powers and go to the other extreme run the risk of broken health, shattered nerves, and even the loss of vocation. These latte} try to follow a special path without a special c,all; with only ordinary g.races at their dispoiaI they try to follow a way of life that is possible only with .e~xtraordinary grace. There havd tJeen, and there are, souls who have a special vocation to continuous heroic mortifica-tion and even vOluntarily-sought sufferings. These souls need" particular guidance; what we say here is not for them. But concerning those souls--whether priests, religious, or lay peoplemwho Seek high perfection with the aid, at least normally, of only ordinary graces, one might ask.: What~measure "of self~denial and mortification is to be expected of~ them? The answer to this question is~ con-tained in the following program. 1. To begin with, a large number of acts qf-self, abnega,ti0n and mortification can be practiced by ca?~fullg observing the Commandments, thelaws of the Church, and 239 ROBERT B. EITEN for Religious the duties of our state of life includiag the rules and customs of_our religious institute; and by patientl~l bearing those sufferings which a life of carff, ul and reasonable fidelity to grace imposes on us. This does not mean that one will never slip here and there;, for to observe peffectt~l over a long period of time the rules of at least some religious insti-tutes requires special graces over and above the ordinar!l or~es.~, It is well for religious to remember that this is no small program; for a careful observance of the rules makes. great demands in the matter.of self-effacement and morti-fication. St. 3ohn Berchmans declared that the common life was his greatest mortification. 2. Many sufferings, hardships, sorrows, and denials come to us in the ordinary pro.vidence of God. Some~times Divine Providence makes great demands. This was the case during Wokld War II when many, besides sufferingth~ loss of dear ones, had to er~dure such things as destruction of property, poor wages, nearly impossible rationing limi-tations, and so on. It is clearly the will of God that we bear such sufferings at least without complaint, and patiently. Sufferings of this kind may come to us from queer, sorts of cau.ses, cond.itions,, a~nd occasions. They~ .m~,ay come from superiqrs.,I from e~quals,, o.r frominferio, rs; from.t,he i~justice and frqm the justic~e of. others; from ,the sins, o.r.even from the generous but tastl~ss cha~rit, y of°others; or from inani-mate. creation, as~ ~n, othe cas~ "of bad Weather, t~ornadoes, floods, and so fbrth. 3: The, well-estab!ish.e~l and reasonable c.onventions, of polite society which make for proper refinement;~etiquette, ci~lture, neatness, and general social decency, algo provide 1Obviously the fact that we might be assisted only by ordinary graces should never be a pretext for carelessness in observing our rules. Thus we must seriously apply ourselves to their observance as far as we can and ask.God for the h~elp needed tO observe them perfectly. 240 _ '." ~JuJv, 194~5 ~ ~ ~ A PLAi~I OF.SELF-DENIAL~ ~ ~_ ~mucb material for self-abnegation and restraint. We, ought -~to respect these conventions" i'n a spirit of love" of the neigh-bor for the love :of,God since-these things make'life more ~ livable. Theie is r;o reason why their observance cannot-be ~upernaturali~ed. Included here are, such-things as table _ .manners, which should be exquisitely delicate but Without _.affectation; deanlinehs and neatness about our person,. office,- and room; .proper restraint in both the quality and.~ oquant~tg of' food; proper deference shown towards certain /persons.by reason of their age, sex, and rank;~ politeness and the avoidance of all vulg~arity; and, in general,, restraint in our conversation. "- Here it is well to include the mortification involved correcting deflects of disposition" and character. These -('&fects make Us deficient and negligent in the performance . our,duties and their are annoying to others. Slipshod .work, absent-mindedness, failure to return things, frequent boast" fulness, sarcastic language, a ~failure to keep appointments, "all are examples of the defects here referred to. In brief, we should always be and act the perfect, cultured Christian~ gentleman. We may well keep in mind St. Anthony'.s saying_that a saint would be-at home in any society. Such. deportment too (to dwell on another point casually) would be an effective means of fostering and getting voca, tions, oY°Ung people would be fascinated by what they. see -in us and would want to share with us that life which seems _to bring with oit, as it should, such refinement, culture, and fine iense .of propriety. ~ 4. Besides the foregoing instances of the cross which, ° wd~might say, are imposed upon us, there still remain mor~ ~tificati0ns and sufferings which we freely impose on our-~ Selves. ~ In other words they are entirety-voluntary, ~vith-" ' out° any obligation of i~recept or necessity~ All founders ROBERT B. EITEN ~-°-~ " ' Reti~ew for Religious; -of tel.i~i6us orders and all great spiritual~ writers, agree that voluntary penances are in some way an essential element of serious" tending towgrds perfection. Besides-the exercise humility and the cross, these v~oluntar~r penances prsvide,.~ for the.exercise of other virtues. o True, these voluntary mortifications must be practiced° prudently .and under the directi6n of the superior or of a goqd spiritua~l director. Norm.ally we should not, orat least need not; wait for them to propose what v61untary mortifications are to be practiced. Usually such things as ¯-spiritual attractions, reading, the insi)irations of gra~e, and~ so forth will suggest to us what might be done. After thiriking over the matter seriously, we propose, to .our. superiors or spiritual directors what vol~untary mortifica~ tions we .would like to practice. We then follow out their directions. This obedience will protect us against excesses ",in ~ith~r direction. Of course.no one needs permission to practice any of the mortifications mentioned or suggested under No. 3~ above.~ In spite of all the safeguards provided,by consulting,, and following the advice of superiors and spiritual diiectors in this matter, there remain sd,me obscurity and uncertainty - as to what and bow much voluntary mortifica.tion should ¯ be undertakenl An excellent practice might be, perhaps~. to,ask God to. send us in His providence those physical and , mental sufferings which are proper to help us reach.tl'iat~ d~gree o~ perfection to which He has called us. Such a request, if it is sincere, includes the firm resolve to conform ~ourselv~s to His will in all sufferings and hardships__w~hich He-may fiend us. ' 5. Fi~nally, it is not too much to expect fervent souls to, have at least the desire to .desire affronts, humiliationk re~'roaches, misunderstandings, and so forth. A better, dis- positidn:wouldbe to d~slre, tolong for, and to love thes~;~: ver~ things just to be like Qbrist and to help Him mo~e~" ~ffectively in the great workof the redemption. : However . ~ofi"hcco~nt of human misery and frailt~ a soul might.not these ~eneroOs dispositions. If' one has, howeqer, the'desire_to desire these things, he is by that very .disp0si-tion ~rep.aring himself for an actual desir~ and love of. :~ffronts, humiii~tions, and.so on. 7 " Here we might add that souls ought to try to mairftain a ~pi~i~ of cheerfulness in all circumstances of life; whether -'these be e'asy to bear Or very tr~ring. S. uch a spirivadds much, me~it ~and abnegation to mortifications alrea'dy practi, ced. 'A~nd how such a c6nstaht cheerfulness impresses others f, or. the better! To be cheerful at all times're~u~ires gr.eat abne-gation- anal perhaps at times a special grace.Well mi.ght We, ask,God to give us this .grace. ,,:o ~ The t~oreg~ing program of self-denied seems to be pos-sible for all. No one-will ~oncede that- it is an easy one; ~and, yet no' one can Say that it is impossible. It is sweetly: r_easonablg, not violent; yet it will make us like Christ ~Crfi~ified and will make us active collaborators with Him in the g.reat work of the redemption. '~?' P~erh£ps someone, may ask why nothing has been said~ ,.~bout gictim souls, that is, souls who offer themselves and their whole lives with all the sufferings, ti:ials, humilia-tions, mortifications, and so forth contained:therein to Gbd ::.~":jus~ as Christ did upon His entrance into the~ world °-(.~f: Hebrews 10: 5-10.) By. way of reply we may say that: souls who feel themselves supernaturally" urged to ~:his kind of offering, may follow si~ch an urge. Obviously tl~e motive for so doin~ may vary. ,It might, for example be to offer self for the' same intentions that .Christ had; or tb fill':up in one own s flesh~ what is wanting in C.hnstos ¯ o - . 243 ~ROBERT B,~ EI~TEN = ,~, ~ pfission~ fOr"~the Church.-- f.~Colos~sians 1 : 24~ 5 : Thi~--- ~victim-life, th~s.3pds(Slgte-of the cross and suffe)~ag; i~ ¯ grand:vocation., It does not, however, n~cessarilg in~olve~. any more moriifica~ions tha~ tBose~ we have ~mentioned,butT only gives special force to the ~o~i)e f6~ beating them:. _ If however there is question of a victim-sohl in the limited sensd that is, of one who_ ~sks for exceptional ~uffe)i.ng, what should be done? .No~ally,~one should~ not ~.permitt~d to makesuch'a request for-sufferi~g,~asq~ -may show a lack of humility and can emily lead to illu- ~s~ons( But if it is clear that an-individaal-has a special vocation for this type of life, then such a one should fi~stbe thoroughly,t~sted. After suNcient p~oof of the call to such a l'ife of ~uffering, the soul may offer itself to God in this very cult vocation. ~ ' "' " Let us hope that the abov~ Pr9grhm wiil clarify -'t}rs,fo~ us and that we.may "by the mercy of God"~present :our '"~odies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto"God; ~0fir] re~sonable service" (Romans 12;, 1).= . ~I am 'much indebted to De Smedt (NOtre vie surnaturelle, volume 2, "pp.~472 252) not only for much of the ~aterial- found here but also in some wag fdi~the i~spiiation to write this article. ~ -~ .APP[AL5 FOR VOCATIONS ~ .~ ~he following vocation folders and pamphlets rely chiefly on excelle~t and well cffosen photographs to make their appeal: Modern Samaritans, from the NoVitiate "df~ the Alexian Brothers. Clayto~. Missouri: How about gou? (an appeal t~pros~ pective ~riest candidates) and Co~e In (an appeal for fay. Brothers), b6th from "~th~ Dominican House of Studies. River Forest, Illinois:'A Life to Give, from th~ Sisters of St. Casimir, 26.01 W. Marquette Road, Chicagq 29, Illinois: Dominican Sisters: St. Marg o~ the Springs, from the Novitiate.-St. Mary 6f tile Springs, Columbus 3. Ohio;Whg a Hospital Sister? by Rev. Dr. L. Rumble. M.S.C., fiom Radio Reply Press, St. Paul, Minnesota. * Our Ladg's Fz, ends, by Rev. Ju~ Senieur, O.F.M.Cap., describes the work t~e R~gina ~leri Society for the spiritual and financial suppprt of priestly and reli-'~ gious vocations. It. is .published by the Catholic Uni4ersity Cofiference of-Clerics and Religmus. C.S.M.G,, Cathohc Umverslty, Washmgtqn 17, D. C.~ . :~ '-- " 244 - "~,HE visitor,~a gray-hai~ed alumnlus of th~ college~, ~was [~, movifi~ about the° crowded recreation room o[ the faculty" friars, greetirig old acquaintances and ~aking new ones. He approached a card table where, over unfin-ish~ ed pinochle, three.~ unfamiliar friars stood awaiting him. "Tom Casey, class of '13," he ~smiled brgadly, hand extended. "Onesimus," .smiled back the first. "Eleuthe[ rius," smiled back the second. "Symphorianus, smiled the third. And albeit no stranger to Franciscan-phenomena. Tom Casey, class of '13, blinked hard and made a que4~r frog-like noise in°theback of his throat. "Where do you peo131e[get those names?'" he dazedly wondered. Here were names not found.~ven in his prayey-book Litany of the~Saints-though .surely there are enough odd ones in that long list! NOr had he ever, iffal[his long years and his wide travels, encountered those names among the living. If~the~y reminded him~of anything~subsolar at all, it:wa~ of Pullman sleeping cars---or of the Latin play in hi~:.4ophbfiiore year:~or of just" plain "printer's pie:' '~ What a downright shame, his meditation concluded, that nbr~ m~il"youhg men, oprobably christened :John, Wflham, Pat-rick; should now have to confront mankind as Oneslmus, "Eleutherlus, Symphorianus! -~ ~" Undoubtedly,~the religious n~mes of many of~us~d6 ~starfli~ the si~cular eai. They may at first hav~ ~tarfiede v~e ~n our ~own. Wi~: i~robably had "h.oped for something, con[ ventio~al; but the superior, with the finality"~of Z~icl-Jar~, siinply ~declared, "This is hi~ (or her)" r/am'e," and uttered bizarre syllables. A'ndothat was'that. Or, if permitted to CLAUDE KEAN Review for Religious choose our names, we probably found the community's nomenclature as depleted as Kresge counters at closing time on Christmas Eve; and what we got was what all earlier customers hadjudiciously foregone. So the names that many ,of us bear are admittedly unusual. Are they, therefore, absurd? Or may it not be that, compared with the proper names of many layfolk (names which were selected from unrestricted possibilities), our abnormal names are actually quite normal? or oub apparently mean-ingless names are at least relatively, fraught with remark-ab, le significance? From stray evidence now and then I have long sus-pected that the answer lies in our favor. From a half-hour of recent research, I now know for certain that it does. The "research" consisted in a mere scanning of proper names in the.telephone book of a representative eastern clty of the United States. Under the A alone, I found a hundred proper names, male and female, much morfi extravagant than any ever imparted to friar or monk or Sister¯ or Brother. ' To be specific, who. of us, even though destine~dot9 teach geography, is named Maryland, .or Virginia,; 6r,Columbia, or Dallas; or St,aten, or~ Reno? O~who of u~, e,ve ~n~th0.u.gh a ngt,ed nature-lover,. ~ . .bears the. name of Fern,~.~,or,Ivy, or Myrtle, or Reed, or. Violet, or, Daisy,~ or Pansy?., ~ Or ,who of .us, e.ven,thgugh avowedly interested in the classic, long,ago," wears toga-like the name of Homer, or Ca.to, or ~.~Virgil, or Caesar, or th~ myrtle-laden name of Phoebe, or Penelope, or Vesta? Or what choleric character among us is openly known as'Hasty?--what phlegmatic as Tranqu.ilisim~?-- what cynical as Burr?mwhat loquacious as Verba or Vow, els? Yet, as the telephone book plainly attests, laymen who possess these given names do walk and breathe, 246 SPEAKING OF NAMES A few names that occur-under theosame letter A savor of surrealism: Bushrod,.Hedgecomb, Hunk, Whip. Others would seem to suggest endearment: A1icebelle, Birdie, Bowie, Dernie, Goldie, Hommey,-Libby," Shorey, Sibbie, Trudie, Wadie. A sizeable percentage looks yearningly,- though uncertainly, towards the glory that,was Rome and the grandeur that was Greece: Aetha, Al"eathea, Cleora, C1evius, Euna, Iola, Lathena, Lesbia, Nova, Orpha, Thea. Several others walk in veiled oriental mystery: Arsinoe, Bayan, Desma, Zelma, Zetta. There is something of a faded Elizabethan charm in Clift, Bourne, Dell, Teare; and something suggestive Of remote constellations yet undiscovered in Arie, Angrous, Elsir, Louv~enia, Norment, Ord, Sigrid. The rest, howeyer symbolic, are not ~iuite clear in their allusions, and must be listed as mere vocables: Alonda, Armeita, Awillda, Beekman, Belva; Buxton," Demleta, Ena, Grice, Kermit, Lola, Lona, Lora, Ponten-ciano, Reta, Rulloda, Velma, Wilda, Worth. Now, it is no concern of mine--apart from the admin-istration of baptismmwhat names people bestow upon 'their offspring. In the exercise' of American freedom of expression, they may even, if they so wish, prefer numbers to names. (Ripley discovered not long ago anAmerican youth with the proper name of "Eleven."). Nor-do I in the least imply that odd names denote odd characters, that "that which we do call a rose by any other word would" not "smell as sweet." My sole contention is that, as mere~ alphabetization, the secular nomenclature equals in singu-larity, and .frequently even excels, the religious. And ~he Bell Telephgn¢ Company is. my star witness. But names are more than vocables: they are symbols. And the modern secular trend in names indicates the com-plete secularization of modern thought. Gone now are 247 CUAUDE KEAN Review/:or .Religious the.days~when~ the-names of~_men-=:as well as of the,ships they° sailed,and the ,new lands they discovered--were drawn from the rich vocabulary ~of Catholk,Faith. Gone,~ too, for the most part, are the days when devout Protestants turned to their Bibes in search of worthy nami~s for their newborn. In an age turned materialistic, men are more and mor'e taking ~their names not from God's great, but~from the:world;s great: from poets and philosophers of, a~cient Rome and Greece;. from~literati~urs of later eras (my tele: phone~ list includes Milton, Addison, Scott, Emerson, Haw-thorne~) ; from .modern scientists, like Burbaiak and Edison, and modern statesmen, like Roose~celt and Churchill. ° In even'.m6re articulate expressionof, th~ materlahstlc spirit if has now b~6m~ th~a~epted prhctice tona~e pkr-s6ns fiot¢.Mte~ other persons~ but affei things hft~r flbra . and:fauna,~ and geograpb~cal~it~s; and '~vefi mechanical objects.~ -This~ ph~ndmenbfi wOuld, to~do:i~'.ju~tlce~ ~req~i~ a Chesterton's~afysis: :.~ut,ev~n'on tge gu~face~ ~4t, to c~!l,~a.gifl ~'Petunia;,)'.;~or a;boy "Ohio", or '~Derrick":. '(and theg~ does.~,exist, a.[.b~y with: that name), is2 nbt]perceptibly ~ny;~more~?ra.tio~al.~,than. to. call ~a ~favorite .p.etuma.~ . Ger-tr~ fle,:5,or~.the stxte of OhiO~"Harold,'' or a~derrick,,,on 4be property', , "~ rl' .~1,~,- .".d" " , ¯ '~ '~ -,-~ ~. - :~ ~TBa'~: be ,to,hea~n, ~he~.figm?s" that we~rehg~ous-bear ar~,the -names obpersons. , ~nd" at"that,~ no ord~narF per-sgns: -Pe~ha~s~hose'p~rs6nshv~d m~the fat-off ~ast. "Per-ha~ little' i~'kfiooh Oaboot-them~x~pt ,tfi~t "a ~N~o or'3 Tr/j~h~r'~fi ,Diocletiah ~Ut th~ to death:; W~rid has not e~n th~"vag~egt memory 6f~the~.~-'rYet~they are the truly gr~at"~of"the 'h6~an race;.and ~God knows them~well., In their :flames ~we have inherited a, lustrous lggacy~ of honor, ~ special tide-to: protection and~aid. And in-.those names~ we h~ve~,6ur~inspiration fovholy living and DECISIONS OI/: THE HoLY SEE. dying--as :Ruskin .words it; . l~ifting hol.y hands without-wraith, and sinking to blessed ~sle~p.withoht fear." So what 6dds if ~the lay-w0rld pities 0r plllor,es us fdr ohr names? 0 What odds if not one person in ten cab pro~ nounc~e those, names fl~uently, and~,,not one in twenty can ~spell them correctly? We know the inner worth of those flames. And as to their ,outward form, well, an occasional glance at the telephone book will afford us unfailing peace hnd satisfaction. ~ .~o~yember'21, 1945:o The Sac~'d P~nite£tiary announced th~/t His " Holiness Pope'Pius XI~i in ari audience granted to the Cardiri~l Pen[- . tenfiary M~jdr ~n Ndve~ber 8, 1~45, h~d gracio~s~ grafit~d t~al indulgence o~ fifty days to the f~thful who devoutly,k~ss the ring of a p~efect apostohc. Th~s ~s t~ same indulgence which the faithful may gain by devoutly k~ss~ng the r~ng of an archbishop or bishop (Pr~es et Pta O~era, n. ~}0). Prefects apostohc are prelates'in m~s~ slon countries who govern a t~rr~tory call~ a prefecture apostohc. Usua!ly they. are not b~s~ops: h~fi~ the special ~r~nt recbunt~d 'abd~. Pemtent,ary answered ~ree questions regarding the p~ous exerc,se of the Way qf the Cross: I. According "to a decred.,dated August 6, 1757, it~ is~provided that for the pious exercise~0f the Way df the Cross, when otherwise a disturbance might be daused, a~priest and two clerics or cantors may ~ake the rounds, pausing at each station and reciting the accustomed prayers, while the faithful ie~ai~ing ia' their places give the responses. Question: Does this de~i~e.~ hold~ .only fgi, th~ ~.bublic~, exercise~ of the Way of the Cross made in a church, o~ does it hold ~hefi this exer-cise is m~de~by religious in their chapels?. - Answer: In the a~rmative to the first part, in the ndgative to the second. II. Questior~: Whether under the circumstances-mentioned in the decrees of Februa~'y 27, 1901, and of May 7, 1902 namely, when 2~49 DECISIONS OF THE HOLY SEE all the religious cannot go in a body from station to station in their chapel without causing a disturbance be~cause of the smallness of the place they can gain the indulgences connected with the i~ious.exer-cise of~the Way Of the Cros~ i'f only one re, ligious (B~roiher or Sister) makes the rounds f~om station to station and reads aloud ~the accus-tomeffprayers, while'rthe rest remaining in their places rise and genu-flect there.for each station? Answer: In the affirmative. " III. Question: Whether in the same circumstances already de-scribed for religious and following the same method, the faithful who live a common life, as mentioned in canon 929 of the Code of Canbn Law, can gain the indulgences attached to the pious exercise of the Way of the Cross if one man or woman, respectively, makes the rounds of the stations of the Wa.y of the Cross and recites the cus-tomary prayers? Answer: In the affirmative. Questions I and II tell us that in a religious community chapel it is not necessary to have the priest recite the prayers for the Way of the Cross; it suffices for one of the religious, Brother or Sister, to make .the rounds from station to station and to recite the customary pray-ers. ~ This has be~n explained before in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (I, 1942, p. 424; IV, 1945, p. 61). Question III extends the same privilege to communities of the faithful living a common lifb, for instance, nurses in/training in a h~pital, old folks living in a home, orphans, studehts at a boarding school, an~ so forth, so that the group may gai.n the indulgence in the chapel if one of their number, man or woman, makes the round of the stations and says the accus-tomed prayers, while the rest remaining in their places answer the prayers and rise and genuflect at each station. OUR~CONTRIBUTORS o ~LAUDE KEAN is on the faculty of Holy. Name College~ the Franciscan house of studies, Washington. D. ~C. He formerly taught at St. Bonaventure College anc~ served as spiritual director of the Franciscan Brothers of Brooklyn. W.H. HING-STON is spiritual director at ~lesuit Seminary, Toronto. CHARLES F. DONOVAN has just completed a year of ascetical study at St. Robert's Hall. Pomfret Center, Connecticut. CLEMENT ~1. MCNASPY is a professor of classical languages at St. Charles College, Grand Coteau. Louisiana. ROBERT B. EITEN, a professor at the University of Detroit, is much interested in ascetical subjects. CYRIL VOLLERT and ADaM C. ELLIS are members of the theological faculty at St. Mary's College, St. Marys, K~nsas. 250 Two I-[eart:s* W. H. Hingston, S.J. IN HIS RADIO address at the close of the Fatima jubilee (October 31, 1942) Pope Pius XII consecrated the wsrld to the Immadulate Heart of Mary. In the same year, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, he pub- -licly repeated this. consecration and ordered that, as a per-petual memory of this solemn consecration, the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary should be celebrated annually in the universal Church. In obedience to this, order the Sacred Congregation ' of Rites had a new Office and Mass com-pose& and these were presented .to the Holy Father for approval on December 10, 1943. A decree of the Congre-gation of Rites, dated May 4, 1944, which incorporated the text of the new Mass and Office, ordered that the feast 15e celebrated annually on the Octave day of the Assump-tion, August 22. ' Despite the fact that the decree promulgating the feast was issued two years ago, this year may be the first Oppor-tunity for many of us to make,~use of the new Mass and Office~. The occasioh seems an apt one for recalling some of the basic thoughtspertinent to the devotion to the Immacu-late Heart of Mary, and particularly for considering the relation of thii devotion to theworship of the Sac'ted Heart of Jes~us. Obviously there is an intimate link between the devo-tion to Mary's Heart and tha(which we render to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The same saint was employed by Provi-dence to initiate simultan, eously both devotions. No hearts *This article appeared in slightly different form-in The Canadian Messenger of the Sacred Heart, December. 1945, pp. 778-782. It is reprinted here with permission. 251 .W.~ H. HINGSTON Review [or Religious were ever so united by resemblance and by affection as those of .Jesus and~ Mary. The very flesh of Jesus came from Mary alone through the power of the Holy Ghost. Yet under,the outward likeness of the two beautiful devotions there are fundamental differences; and it is the purp.ose of this a~rticleto set forth briefly the resemblances and the dif2 ferences as a help toward an und~rst~indirlg piety. ¯ There is an essential 'difference to b~ observed from~the oai'set between the Form fff devotion paid to the Sac}ed Heart of Jesus and that paid ~o the Heart of HiS Moth'~r, .be.cause of the fact that in one instance veneration is ren- "d~red tO a divine Person and in the other t0a human son. Since all devotioh goes to the person whom we invoke or honor, it is e¢ident that there must be an infinite distance in this regard between the cultus of the Heart of the God- ¯ man and the cultus of the Heart of .Mary; between honor shown to God_and that shown to a creature no matter how highly favored. ~ To mark t~is essential distinction it seems pre, ferab, le, when speaking of the~ heart ofMary alone and'apart from the heart of Jesus, to use .the words H61y Heart. 0f.Mary, or Immaculate Heart, or Most"Pure Heart of Mary: rati~r than '"Sacred'" Heart ofeM~ry. That i~s whhtthe~Church d6es. Sh~ employa the.title Sacred Heaitof M~ry onl~ in the combified "title of ihe Sacred "Hearts of 5es~s and Mary. Apart°from t'h!s~ preliminary consideration, which.is of a general nature and recalls that first and most essential dis~ tinction which is never lost sight ofo by Catholics but is s~mply taken for granted, there ale other .important dis-tinctions to be made. They relate to the-three chief way~ in which we can co sider a~ay°devo~iofi, or:t0 tde t fire leading aspects under which a dev6t~on may be stud~ed. These are: i'ts ma.,terial object, its f6~mal obje~ct, it.s sp~dia.l 252 appeal~:-i'Th,ough these.wolds ~ay~ ~ound a bit 'technica),~: ~:.-x.~_~;tlSey-~ire very Useful :and '~ccurate;~ and we have all ::.(~li~rized ~ith them thrs~gh~the explanatiSns ~whidh-~e ~a~e Often~h~eafdof the de~otion to the.S'acred Hea;t Jesus. Now on each of these three fundamental ~eadings, ~;~Which together sum up a devotion, the differences between_ "~he~cultus of the Heart of Jesus and that of the H~art Mary are mgmficant and p~ofound. ¯ ~ -~irst~ then, as to the material object. In both devotigns .~a humafi heard.of flesh is presented forour veneration. Yet " ~t Once,we note a profound difference. ~The hea?t of Jesu.s :~" isin ~tself an object of ~doration. It is adorable because ~ is g~a~t.Bf that ihdividual human gature which the Divine :~ ",W0rd" mbec~0 m"m g " ~ncarnate took to H"~ m s~elf and" made Hi_s .Very own.~ It' is part of Him. Though a created object, ~-t~gfigh-a mgtenal thing, ~hough Buman flesh, .~t ~s ~he.heart ~f the Son of God madeMan. The honor, we kh~w /'~ m~s~inciude ad;ratiom "In contrast to this; iff the --,:~ 2~i~n ~to .the heart of Mary such ~eneration i~ refid~fed as~" ~ay~ be paid to a 5feature, b~t nothing o~ the adoration. ~ t~at belongs to God Mone. - N~vertheless, adoration is not the .principal act in th~ ~Tdevotion ~,t~ .the Sacred Heart. The human h~art.of the ;~Sa~ior is:~resented to us nbt primarily.that, we may r~nder ~-~,adoration~ bui because of what it stands for, the hu~" -heart:being the natural symbol of human love.~ T. he_~ight 6f the heart of Jesus spontaneously calls to mind His human -i~ l~ve,for His Father and for us. Uoiversally the he~r(is ~.,. looked upon .as the organ, or at least the symbol-of,ldve. ~So fiatural_a symbol of love is it, that in every lan~uhge the h~art.of a ~an is taken for his inward dispositions.--Aman" ~:. <" .- who - is generous, kind, sympathetic is spoken o~" as big--. ~,'hearted, ~tender-hearted, and so f~rth; or else; if he m~ni- 253 ,W H HINGSTON , ~ ,7~ * ~ ~Reoteto for Reltgtous ,, fegt no such pleasant~characterlstlcs,~ he is spoken of as hard-., h_eart~d, cold-hearted, heartless.~ - --~ N~w that thes~e preliminary observations .have beeri ~ade, we daft completeour statement regarding the materml - j,obj~ct i~ the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus~an'd,say' F_hat it-is His heart of flesh taken as the natural symbol Of " His hhman lo;¢e. The natural sy.mbolism of the heart p.la~cs a large pii,~t in the devotion, which would not be underitandablewith-.-. out'~t. In the devdtion to Maryls Heart on the contrary, the symbolism of the heart is faint and not at all empha-. sized, ,th~ reason being that it i~ not.so much her~love as her pUrit~y and her fidelity that we consider. Our attentibr; ~alled far more to the purity, htimility: and. Other vir~ue~ of ithat most faithful heart than to the~ qualities of its love., It ts~ riot hard to discover the reason why in the,devotion to t~he Heart of Jesus such emphasis is placed on the natural sym-b01ism of the heart, and why such emphasis, is lacking, from, "the'~correspbn.ding devotion to the Heart of His Mother. This will become still more apparent when we consider the_ ,f, ormal object of each devotion. A first difference between. "the t~vo devotions is thus found evenin the matefial object; which in both devotions is the heart of flesh, but in ~ach t~e~ ~ l~eartfis viewed under a somewhat different asp, ect. ~A setond and more pronounced diffe~rence lies ifi tl'ie~ - .formal object of. each,, d~voti6n. - The formal object of the devotion to Jesus' Heart is His human love for m~n. ,-,, Note in'the first place t.hat it is His human love which is stressed: -~a'ther 'than His divine love. Coeterrial with the FatheY~' '/he Wor& the~Second Person of the m6st adorable,_Trini_ty~, ,has known from ~everlasting and has loved witff an eteriaal love,each one of us. Yet it is not this eternal lovebelonging -to His divine n~ature that we c~nsider in His Sacred Heart:,,~ ~, ' dul~l, 19~ 6 "~ ~ ' ' TWO HEART~. . .~ We~ read-therein His huma~-10k~e. The symbolism of the heartdna.kes this perfectly clear, for tl~ heart i~ the symbol ~ of h~uman love, no~of divine love._ Besides, the love'of ['Jesus is presented to us as a suffering love, andonly the" .human in Him can suffer. " We venerate the human love b_y .which a divine Person loves us. Yet Christ's eternal love 5, belonging to His divine nature, though it is not and cannot properly be symbolized by any .natural symbol," is by no, ,means excluded from this°devotion. -After all, we love that ,Person Himself who loves us and suffers for u , and Him as He is, whole and entire Hisvery self, .the~ one living principle of a lov~ that is both human'and divine. The.Woid having been made flesh, having becorhe P0S- - sessed of a human °nature like ours, now loves-with a love that began only at His Incarnation, that is truly .human,- -xhat is ~harged with all the emotions of man's spiritual will -*and is colored with all those feelings that have their roots -., in- the sensitive part "of man's bodily make-up. Christ, though~a divine Person and not a human person, loves even ¯ in the, manner that human p~rsons love. He experiences, 'tOo, the consequences of human love, even to the suffering ~ Which unrequited love entails. The greater the capacity_ ~-~ .for loving, the greater the capacity for. suffering. The more -. rintense and unselfish theaffection, the ,greater the anguish-when such affection, goes unrecognized .and is not returned: Note in th~ sed6nd place' that it is Jesus" human love ° ~or. men that. is .the formal object, rather than His htiman 10re for His Father. Undoubtedly Christ, in the-human" nature that He had made His own, loved FIis Father with a,_ll the strength Of His human will; yet it is not this lmre -for His.Father that is dwelt upon, but His love for mdn_. '-"Behold the Heart which has so,'loved men," were His words to St. Margaret Mary. In contrast to this we find that in the devotion to the" Most Pure Heart.of Mary the formal object,, insofar ~is it ¯ is love and not fideli.ty, is love for her 3esus and for her _G~d, not her love for ma'nkind, at least not primarily her 10re for.mankind. We do not positively exclude from our-~ thoughts in this devotion the motherly ,love that she bears to all mankind; but our attentiofi is focused on something ¯ ~lse, rlamely, on the complete and unique absence of all self-love, on the absolute fidelity to grace, on the devotedness of-- M~ry's heart to God. . " Thirdly, there is the special appeal to be considered in each of .these two devotions, outwardly so alike. ,Here the contrast is most marked. In the devotion to_ His Sacred Heart, 3esus makes an appeal to us by His very love for to love Him i[~ return. He opens His breast, bares-His'heart - to us, reveals it afire with love for. us, bleeding for us, ~giving itself to uS without holding back anything, even t~o the Cross, even to the Eucharist; He even humbles Himself before us and shows us the wounds thiit our indifference and -. coldness have inflicted upon Him, piercing His v.ery heart. His fs a suffering love, arld.there is an awful pathos in'His hOpeal, t-he appeal of the~ Son of God begging of His crea~ tures the favor of being loved in return. Our Savior appea~l~. ~strongly to our feelings; but it would be a grave mistake 6n_ our.part and a complete misunderstanding of His plea were we to content ourselve~ with~ giving Him in answ~er mere;. ~ pious sentiments. He ga~e us deeds! He pleads for real reparation, exercised not so much in the way that at6nemen~ ~ is usually exercised, ~amely, by works of pe~nance, bfit° rather by works~ of love, especially through the ever more ,perf~ect doing of His Father's will and the perform~ance of acts ofde~votion towards Himself in the Eucharist. In "the devotion to the Most Pure Heart of Mary~ there" duly, 1946 " Two HEART~ -is also an appeal, of course, but it is not an impassioned appeal, nor are we besought to love her. She does not show us the love of her heart for us, as 2esus does, and beg us to love her in return. Unquestionably Mary has loved and actually does love us much, incomparably more than any one, save only her Son, has loved us; but there is nd allusion ~o this in her appeal. Mary's love is also like her Son's, a suffering love; and it is significant that those sufferings by which she shared in the Passion to such an extent that she is deservedly styled Queen of Martyrs were all endured in her sinless heart; for of bodily sufferings we bare no record. It is furthermore a historical fact that c6mpassion for the broken-hearted Mother--so bravely standing beside the.Cross, as St. 2ohn presents her, or with the torn and lifeless-form across he/ lap, as Christian piety has long depicted her first led the faithful into the sanctuary of Mary's suffering, heart. Nevertheless the sorrows 0f Mary form the object of a distinct.and much more ancient devo-tion in the Church; and in the devotion to the Most Pure Heart the thought of compassion is not prominent. The heart of Mary° is usually depicted encircled with fragrant roses to denote the flowers of many virtues, with~ which it is adolried, not with,thorns. The specia! appeal in this devo-tion is reilly a .very ge.ntle and very sweet and persuasiv.e invit~ition to highdr ~hings. ~ It is a call to .lead an interior life and to imitate the Blessed Virgin by purity of,life, ,by perfect.chastity~ of;th~ affectigns .which are to be. dlrect~ed ~ avcay"~ro, m°creatures,wl~oliy tO G~d, by the practice' of all those wrtues that are particularly dear to her Son. 2esus, because He is God, draws us by the cords of Adam to himself, to the Divinity. Mary because she is a creature draws us, not to herself but directly to her Son, to .her God, to Him who is in truth her child, born of her, yet 25.7 W. H. HINGSTON Review for Religious who can say of Himself: "I and the Father are one'.' (John 10:30). "Amen I say'to you, before Abraham was made, I am" (John 8:58). "Philip, he that seeth Me, seeth the Father also" (John 14:9) " The two.devotions closelycorrespondwith'one another, yet each in its own sphere. They are not on the same footing. Devotion to the Heart of Mary is really a beau-tiful pendant to the devotion to the Heart of Jesus. Her heart is, after His, the most beautiful thing in all creation, because in every way the most perfect copy of His. Upon such beauty the angels gaze in rapture. To portray it is beyond the reach of words. Yet in contemplating Mary's loveliness let us guard against the mistake of far~cying that her very greatness keeps her aloof, a sublime but ethereal beauty far removed from us, dwelling above all angels and saints in the court of the Most High. The symbolism of ~tie heart ought to save us frdm. this baneful illusior~ and should impress' upon us that Mary's is a warm and comfbrting loveliness, tender ~and sweet, and constant and motherly. The tho~ught of this should .fill us~ With confidence rather than with awe. Shh can be approached in all our needs and in our every mood. She can comfort as.none other can, for the heart of the Virgin Mother has experienced sorrow of e;cery kind and has ,known such depths of human v~oe tha~ all other anguish compared to hers must seem bearable and light. But, far and above all, tile heart of Mary overflows with joy; and no one can approach her in thought and no( feel happier for it. She takes her children by the hand and leads them straight to the Sacred Heart of Jesus along the way of encduragement, and hopefulness, and holy joy. The resemblanees between the two devotions are man, r and obvious. Reflection and meditation bring out the differences, and with clearer knowledge comes a deeper 258 July, 194i5 TWo HEARTS understanding of both these lovely devotions centered upon two human hearts that beat in unison. What does the devotion to the Most Pure Heart of Mary add to our devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus? It supplies an additional motive for trust in Him. Mary is so approachable, so understanding, so near to us! She is just one of ourselves. 'And withal how close she is to Christ! How dear to His Heart! How worthy by her stainless purity to plead the cause of us poor sinners with Him, who is the fruit of her womb, and to lead us to Him. Besides, a'better realization of the fundamental differ-ences thatexist between the two devotions brings out cer-tain aspects of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of desus which otherwise might never have been so clearly under-stood. In'this sense devotion toMary's Heart is seen to be a complement to the devotion to the Sacred Heart, which ii itself rooted in the mystery of the Incarnation, with which Mary was so intimately associated in the divine plan. But, best of all, there is the encouragement given us by Mary's life to lead an inner life. The attractiveness of . Mary's example is .best studied in its source, her heart. There we can appreciate the exquisiteness of her every action, feel the warmth of her tender affection, and breathe in the entrancing fragrance of her purity, which rises like incense in a pure white cloud from the selfless sanctuary of her immaculate heart. ANNOUNCEMENT It is even more ditScult to get pap~,r now than it was during the war. For this reason we are reducing the size of the REVIEW from seventy-two pages to sixty-four pages. The amount of matter in each number ~ri!l be about the same as we are using more small type than usual. .We shall return to the 72-page issue just as soon as we can get some guarantee of a regular supply of paper. 259 Recept:ion of Seminarians int:o Religious.lnst:it:ut:es Adam C. Ellis, S.3. ON JULY 25:194 l,.the Sacred Congregations of Religious and of Seminaries issued a joint decree regarding the reception of ex-seminarians into a religious institute and the admission of ex-religious into a seminary. This decision was duly" publi.shed in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (1, 1942, p. 71), as was also a private an-swe~ regarding the same given on May 11, 1942 (III, 1944, p: 67). A number of problems have arisen regarding this decree. Recently we received copies of Commehtarium pro Retigiosis which had been delayed by the war. One of these (XXIII, 1942, pp. 226-237) contains an interesting commentary on this decree written by His Eminence, Cardinal La Puma, then Prefect of the S. Congregation of Religious, who died in 1943. Although the Cardinal did not intend to give.an authentic interpretation of the decree but me.rely a pr!vate or doctrinal interpretation, as he himself tells i~s, yet since he was co:author of the decree there is no other person better qualified.to explain it to us; and we are happy to give our readers the substance of his commentary. We shall omit those parts which pertain to the reception of an ex-religious into a seminary, and confine ourselves to the parts which are of interest to-religious the reception of an ex-seminarian into a religious institute. For a better understhnding of the matter, we repeat here that part of the decree which pertains to our special subject: ~ "Likewise, before those who for ahy reason whatever have left a,semlna[y are a'd-miffed fo a religious family, the religious superiors shall have recourse to the S. Con-gregation of Religious, which will inform them of their opinion (;ud;clum) after having cons;dared all the circumstances of the case." The fact that the document issued by both Congregations jointl~r is called a decree should not be_overstressed, since-it provides little more than.a caution and a necessary re~medy to secure the faithful observancd of certain important prescriptions of t_he Codewhich have been treated too lightly. Much less is this document to b'e considered as a general decree, or new law, since it was not prepared in a plenary session, and it was not approved in focma speci~ica by the Holy Father. 260 SEMINARIANS RECEIVED INTO RELIGION The decree does not establish a new impediment to entrance-lnto' religion or into a seminary; nor is previous permission, properly so-called, to be asked from the SS. Congregations to admit a person into a seminary or into a religious institute since this is left to the proper superiors. The SS. Congregations are to be consulted; and after con-sider~ ng tl~e case,, they will give their opinion (iudicium) ; but thereby they'will neither admit nor impede admission, nor defer it, nor render it more difficult. The SS. Congregations had no thought or intention of. granting to Ordinaries, even indirectly, the faculty to oppose the flee entrance of' seminarians into religion except in the cases explicitly mentioned in the Code--that is, in the case of seminarians and other clerics in sa~red orders and even for these only within the strict and well considered circumstances mentioned in canon 542, 2°, first case: Let us now explain the terms of the instruction quoted above. By seminarg is meant an ecclesiastical.college in which those who aspire to the clerical state are,prepared according to the prescriptions of the law, even though a few lay students are admitted. ;A college to which both clerical and lay students are admitted almost indis-criminately chnnot be called a.seminary. To admit to a seminary means to receive a person as a seminarian; to be dismissed from or to leave a seminary supposes that one who has been a seminarian ceases to be an aspirant to the clerical state by reason of dismissal or voluntary withdrawal. To adn~it to a religious f~mitg means to admit one as a true member, that is "to the novitiate, of a religious institute in which pub-lic vows. are taken, but not to a society of men living in common without public vowS. The words "those who for any reason whatever have left ~a seminary" apply to those who are dismissed from a seminary by superiors as well as to those who leave voluntarily, thereby bidding farewell to their vocation to the clerical state, even though they do so unwillingly because of pressure brought to bear upon them from without. The phrase in question does n_ot apply to those who have completed their studies in a seminary and await ordination outside; "nor does it apply to those who have left a seminary in order to fulfill their, military service but intend to return afterwards, and thus do not renounce their vocation. What about those who Ieave a seminary because theg wish to enter religion? An authentic reply of the S. Congrega6on of Religious given to the question on June-25, 1942 says that "the decree does not 261 ADAM (2, ELLIS affect those who leave a seminary or college in order to embrace the life of religious perfection in some religious institute since these are provided for in'canon 544, § 3." Another class of seminarians who are not subject to the decre'e are those who~though they have truly left a seminary, either by reason of dismissal on account of a lack of talent required, for st6dies, or because they thought they were not called to the clerical state now ask to be admitted to the class of lay brothers in a clerical institute or as lag religious in a non-clerical institute. This means that an ex-seminarian in the strict sense of the term may not be admitted to a religious institute as an aspirant to the priesthood. He may, however, be received as a candidate for the lay brotherhood in a clerical insti-tute, or as a Brother in any non-clerical institute. There are some non-clerical institutes in which a few members are promoted to the priesthood while the majority are Brothers. In this case the ex-seminarian could be received as a Brother, but not as a candidate for the priesthood. If a religious superior wishes to receive an ex-seminarian in the strict sense, that is ohe who has been dismissed from a seminary or who has given up his vocation to the priesthood of his own accord, he must have recourse to the S. Congregation of Religious for its opinion on the case before he can admit him to the novitiate as a can-didate ~:or the priesthood. Meanwhile, however, provfded the superior has re~ceived ttie necessary testimonial letters and is morally certain that no impediments exist, he may admit the ex-seminarian in ques-tion to the postulancy or first probation preceding the novitiate while he awaits the opinion of the S. Congregation regarding his admission to the novitiate. In order to avoid useless delay, which may be harmful to voca-tions, the S. Congregation requires the following documents and tes-timonial letters, written or at least signed by the rector of the semi-nary: (1) testimony regarding the moral and intellectual.qualities of the ex-seminarian; (2) testimonials regarding studies made, as well as progress i~i them, and grades obtained in examinations; (3) tes-timony or opinion about the inclination or propensity of the aspirant towards the religious state; (4) finally, testimony regarding the reasons why the candidate left the seminary and the manner of his doing so, namely, whether he was dismissed or left of his own accord, and whether he left after finishing his studies at the end of the scho-lastic year. These dbcuments should accompany the petition of the 262 duly, 1946 '- BOOKS RECEIVED candidate and should be sent to the S. Congregation of Religious by the religious superior together with any other information which may be judged opportune, either in confirmation, or by way of example, or; finally, as a possible refutation of the statements of the rector of the seminary. Books Received (ApriL20 .to June 20) THE NEWMAN BOOK SHOP, Westminster, Ma~iyland. The Sacred Ceremonies of I2ow Mass. 'By Rev: Felix Zualdi. C.M. $2.00, More About' Fatima and the Immacidate Heart of Mary. By Rev. V. Montes de Oca, C.S.Sp. (No price given.) Life of St~ Stephen Harding. By J. B. Dalgairns: $2.50. A Mystic Under Arms. By' Ft. M:-Eugene Boylan, O.Cist.R. (No price given.) The Spirit of Christ. By Father James, O.F.M.Cap. $2.50. Counsels to Confessors. By St. Leonard of Port Maurice. $1.50. FREDERICK PUSTET COMPANY, New York and Cincinnati. Spirit in Darkness. By Rev. Fr. Brice, C.P. $3.50. H. DESSAIN, Malines, Belgium. Caeremoniale: Pars Altera: De Celebrante. Auctc;r~ J. F. Van Der Stappen. (No price given.) THE BRUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY, Milwaukee. Wisdom /or Welfare. By Sister M. Dolorita, S.S.N.D. mentls in Genere. By Emmanuel Doronzo, O;M.I. $3.75. Shoulder.- By Rev. Thomas J. Hosty. $1.50. $2.00. De Sacra- Straight from the THE MARIAN FOUNDATION, San Antonio. The Golden Thread of Netoman. By ReV. William R. Lamm, S.M. (Paper). $.50 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, New York. St. Paul: Apostle and Martyr. By' Iglno Giordani. $2.50. B. HERDER BOOK ~OMPANY, 'St. Louis. The Mysteries of Christianity. By M. J. Scheeben. $7.50. Christianity: An Outline of Dogmatic Theology for Laymen. By Joseph H. Fichter, S.J. $2.50, JOSEPH F. "WAGNER, INC., New York, Scriptural References for the Baltimore Catechism. By G. H. Guyot, C.M. (No price given.) (No price given.) THE DECLAN X. MCMULLEN COMPANY, New York. Most Worthy of All Praise. By Vincent P. McCorry, S.J. ST. ANTHONY GUILD PRESS, Paterson, New Jersey. Frances Schervier: Mother of.the 'Poor. By Sister Pauline. 263 May a superior grant a Sister with simple vows permls~ion~ fO use a gold watch? A moderate use of an article made of gold is not. in itself, con-trary to the vow of poverty. This is evident from the fact ,that some constitutions approved by" the~HolY See prescribe the wearing of a gold ring. Frequently the constitutions or legitimate custom forbid the use of articles m_ade of gold. In such cases the superior dould not grant permission for the use of a gold watch. But if there is no such prohibition, the, superior may grant the permission, provided that the watch is not so expensive as to cause surprise to the faithful who see th~ religious wearing_it. This element depends upon. local circum. stances and customs. A possible solution for the 'problem involved might be'to have the watch removed from its gold case and put into one of less precious material. ~ 23 Accordln9 to canon law how many delegates are necessary to make up a general chapter representing a community of one thousand Sisters? May delecjafes of the general chapter of a religious communlfy induce other members o{ the chapter, before the election of the mo÷her general has taken place, to vote for a certain group of Sisters whom they wish have fpr council members? Canon 507, § to tells us that "in elections which are made by chapters, the universal.law as set forth in canons 160-182 shall be obsdrved, as well as the constitutions of the institute which are not contrary to this universal lawJ' The Code leaves th.e organization of general chapters of religious institutes entirely to the constitutions. Constitutions approved by the Holy See. usually provide that every house of twelve or more members is represented in the general chapter by the local superior and by at least one delegat~ elected by the mem-bers of the local community. Smaller houses are grouped together to form a unit of from twelve to eighteen members. This group then elects one delegate from among the local superiors and one from amdng the subjects. If the institute requests it, the S. ~ongregation of Religious will allow large communities one delegate for every twelve Sisters. Thus a community of fifty Sisters would be entitled 264 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS to elect four delegates from that community. Paragraph two of canon 507 states explicitly: "All must abstain from seeking votes either directly or indirectly for themselves or for others." This law is dear and needs no explanation. Howe:oct, the constitutions frequently allow the members of the chapter to seek information from other chapter members regarding the qualifications of certain individuals well-known to them. Insuch a case the mem-bers bf the chapter ~hould give the information required, but should abstain from positively urging any member to vote for another mem-ber. Their ~duty should be confined to giving the information requested~ according to the best of their knowledge, in all charity and sincerity. It may be well to note i~ere that 'the delegates elected by the indi-vidual communities sh0uld not be instructed regarding persons to be voted for. This would clearly be contrary to the canon quoted above: The community must have confidence in the good judgment of the delegates ,whom they elect. --24--- A college has regular tuition and board and room charges. Over and above these charges_there are fees in various departments for certain courses, for instance in home economics for food, interior decoration, and s6 forth; in the music department, for the use of musical instruments. In a~ word, these fees are for things used, for materials, instruments, and the llke. Tl~e sum total of fees charged in any department make up the budget of that department. Must such fees be used only as described or may they also be used for the general cjood of the department, for instance to buy supplies, such as records, in the music department; to give the students of that particular department an. outing; to finance a student's trip to-a con-ventlon as a representative of that department? As long as the fees charged to make up the budget of any si'ngle department are used in that dep~rtment~ both justice and Canon Law ate satisfied. ~:~he purchasing Of instruments and stipplies needed for -the laboratory experiments of the department are certainly for the benefit :of the students, and the same inay be said regarding the travel-ing expensesof a representative of the department who is sent to a .convention. And it is perfectly in keeping with the law of,'the Church to use any balance left over at the end of the year to give the students of that department an outing or some other entertainment " to which, payment of the fee for board and tuition gives them no right or cl:aim. 265 QUESTIONS AND ~NSWERS Review for.Religious ' m2Sm, Our constitutions havi~ the following provision regarding candidates for admission: "Their parents must have borne a good reputation; and should these have been under repute of any enormous crime, or have been condemned in any criminal court, the aspirants cannot be received." Does this artlcle of our constitutions oblige us 1o reject an aspirant whose par-enfs are divorced and remarried? Since the constitutions seem to have in mind a crime against the civil law and a condemnation in a civil criminal court, divorce and "remarriage would not come under the prohibition of the constitu-tions. The requirem'ent of a good reputation on the part of the par-ents looks to the edification of th.e faithful. One may say that the parents have lost their good reput~ition if the faithful would be scan-dalized by the admission of their daughter into a religious commun-ity. Hence in our practical case, if the divorce and remarriage are things "of the past, forgotten by most people, there would be no diffi-culty in receiving the aspirant. If they are recent events,, p~udence must dictate whether the reception of the candidate into religion would cause disedification or not. It may be well to note that the constitutions do not positively forbid the reception of the daughter of parents who have a bad reputation, as is the case in the second part of the article quoted. Hence it seems that such a candidate could be admitted even though her parents are divorced and remarried provided her reception would not cause scandal to the faithful. In some instances at least, it might be a cause of great edification: for instance, if it became known that the daughter was entering religion to aton~ for the sins of her parents. --26-- I heard recently of a community of Sisters in ~vhlch custom demands that they go to confession in seniority. Do you know if such a cu'sfom really exists? Would it not be against canon law? It seems to me that confes-sors' might easily recognize their penitents in such circumstances. It is not clear just what is meant here by going to confession "in seniority." If it means "according to seniority groups"---e.g. senior professed, then junior professed, then novices there seems to be nothing particularly harmful about the custom. This arrangement according to groups would simply facilitate good order and could hardl~r be a source of embarrassment to individuals. Very likely our correspondent refers to a case in which indi- 266 Julg, 1946 QUES'~IONS AND ANSWERS Oiduals go according to sepiority. 'We t6o have heard of such a custom, although we do not know of any definite pl_ace where it exists. Strictly speaking, this custom is not against the l'etter of canon law; at, least, we are not aware of any provision of law which forbids it." It'seems to us, however, that such a custom is not in accord with the spirit of canon law. For one thing--as our corre-spondent points Out" it makes it very easy for confes'sors to recog: nize ~oenitents, for if the confessor knows the community at all he will. very likely know something of the order of seniority. This is often embarrassing t6 a confessor and it.is also an obstacle to the perfect liberty of spirit enjoyed by a penitent. At least, many penitents can confess more freely when they are not recognized as individuals. An added inconvenience for the penitent, if individual seniority is insisted on, is the fact. that those who immediately follow her will always know ju,st howlong her confession takes. Also, if she does wish to take a long time, she may be embarrassed at the thought of delaying the others. m27-- What is the mind of the Church on such matters as havln9 contests between 9fades to have the most Communions in a week, and on havln9 compulsory Communion Sundays under those circumstances where the-external pressure on an individual to receive Communion is very 9rear2 The principle for solving questions like this was clearly formu-lated in a reserved instruction issued by. the Congregation of the Sacraments on December 8. 1938. The text of this instruction may be found in The Canon Law Dfgest, II, p. 208. A synopsis of the instruction was printed in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, III, p. 268. The same number of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (III, p. 252) contained the translation of a very thor6ugh commentary on this instruction by Father Emile Bergh, S.3. For an adequate discussion of this impor-tant matter we refer our c~)rrespondent to the text of the instruction and to Father Bergh's article. Answering the question very briefly, we should say: Any prac-tice which induces pressure to receive Holy Communion is wrong and should be changed without delay. If '!spiritual treasuries," contests between classes, Communion Sundays, and so forth, are had at all, they should be conducted in such a way that all indi;ciduals will feel perfect freedom to abstain from Communion if they wish. 267 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Revleto ~or Religious According to our constitutions, .the order of precedenc6 among .the Sisters is as follows: The .superior general always and everywhere precedes all the Sisters including local superiors. Then come: the general council- Ior~ accorcfing to the order of'thelr election; .the secretary general; ~the treasurer general: former superiors general in the mother house (in other houses they follow the local superior); the mistress of novices'. Is this order of precedence to be interpreted as ¯follows? (I) All general officers taEe -precedence over the local superior in pres;ding over the assemblies of~ the mother house community. In other words, in the event .that the superior cjeneral is not i~resent, who presides over the assemblies and exercises of the mother house community? (2) Just what rank and authority, does the Io~al s~perlor of the mother house hold in the mother house? (3) If the mistress of novices is a councillor and the local superior is not, does that fact dispense the mistress of novices from being subject ~o the local supe-rior and excuse her from a chapter presided over by the local superior? (4) Does a councillor stationed in any house other than the m~)ther house take precedence over the local superior? Before answering the specific questions asked above, it may be helpfial to analyze the concept of precedence. Precedence is a sign of g~e~ater honor because of greater e~cellence. It consists in the right to occupy a more honorable place i~a church, in processions, or in assemblies; or in the right to act before others. for instance, to cast a vote ahead of others. This right of precedence supposes-in the person who enjoys it a certain excellence or dignity which places on others the obligation of reverence or obedience to them. Among religious the right of precedence is conferred upon an indi-vidual religious because of th~ office which he holds. Such.an office may or may not have authority over others attached to it. Thus superiors in a religious institute (whether they be general, provincial; or local superiors) have precedence over their subjects by reason of their authority to govern them (canon° 106, 2°). Other officials such as councillors, secretaries, bursars, mistresses of novices, enjoy the right of precedence because of the dignity of their office .even though it does not carry with it any authority over other professed r.eligious. .From the foregoing' it is evident that in assemblies in which no authority is exercised, such as the presence Of a religious community in chapel for the recitation of the office or of othe~ prayers in com-mon, or attendance at meals in the common refectory, it is quite 268 1946 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS r~asonable that-some officials enjoy" pre.cedence over the local superior', even though they-be subject to her in the external discipline of ._the house. They would rank higher in the order of preced.ence~ and would take.a higher.placein the chapel or in the dining room: but .they would not exercise" any, act of authoritg in either place: Such acts "of authority in general:assemMie's belong to superiors only, not to officials who do not enjoy authority over others by reason of their- - office. . The order of precedence in any particular institute is determined by t'he constitutions and by the customs of that institut~e (canon 105, 5°). The common law contains no provisions governing precedence of officials within a .particular institute. According to the present practice Of the S. Congregation,of.Reli-gious, precedence in religious congregations ,is as follows: (1) The superior general precedes all superiors, provincial as well as local, always anti everywhere. (2) The general councillors come next, in the. order, of their election, then the secretary .general and the treasurer general, but only in .the general mother house' in other houses they take their places after the local superior. (3) Former supe~riors gen- ¯ eral come after the treasurer_general, but only in the mother house. Some constitutions give precedence over local s.uperiors to the ~general councillors and to the secretary and treasurer general. Such provisions~ of older con'stitutions would prevail over the piesent practice of the S. Congregation. Any doubts, especially with regard to recently approved constitutions, should be solved according to the pr.esent practice of the S. Congregation. (4) The provincial superior has precedence in all the houses of his province; i~rovincial councillors, provincial secretary and treasurer take precedence but in the provinr cial house only: in other, houses they come after the local sup~erior. Regarding the local superior of the mother house: (1) She gov-erns the community of the mother house just as a local superior ggv-erns a local~ house, that is, in all things pertaining to the community as such,'but subject to (he limitation put upon local superiors by the law of the Church'and by the constitutions. (2) Evidently the superior general takes precedence over the local superior everywhere and at all times; she is not subject to the local S.uperior of the mother house. (3). Unless the constitutions or legitimate "custom~ have exempted higher officers and have made them-directly depend.ent on the superior general, the general councillors, secretary and treasurer ¯ general, exTsuperiors and so forth, are all subject'to the local, s.uperior 269 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS even thotfgh in public assemblies they take a higher place. (4) So,me constitutions provide that the first councillor or any one of the coun-cillors appointed by the superiqb general~ shall be local superior of the mother house. ' The mistress ot: novices and the novices are subject to the local Superior in all matters pertaining to the general discipline of the house (canon 561, § I). The fact that the mistress of novices is also a general couricillor would not change her relations to the local supe-rior of the mother house unless the constitutions or legitimate custom place her direct.ly and immediately under the superior general. In this latter case ~i distinction would have' to be made. In her official capacity as mistress of novices, she would still be under the general authority of the lo.cal superior together.with her novices by reason of the legisla-tion- of the Code; but in her private capacity ~s a general councillor she'would n6t, but: would be directly finder the authority of the. supe-rior general. We are ready- now to answer the questions asked above:. 1. In the absence of the superior general, the local superior of. the mother house presides over .all assemblies of the mother house com-munity. Officials--such as general councillors, the secretary general, the treasurer general--may precede th~ local superior in such assem-blies, that is they may occupy a higher place of honor; bfit they do not fireside, tl'iat is they do not exercise any authority, ianless legiti-mate custom gives them the right so to do. 2. The local superior~ of "the,mother house exercises the same authority over the community as such as does any other local superior over her community. All Officials, the superior genera.1 alone excepted, are subject to her regarding the general discipline of the house, unless -the constitutions or "legitimate custom have exempted higher officials from her authority and have made them subject to the superior gen-eral alone. If the mistress of novices is a councillor and the local superioress. is not, the former wo~uld still :be subject to the local superior in. the chapter of faults presidedover by the local superior, unless the coun-cillors have be~n~explicitly excused from such s.ubjection either by the constitutions or by legitimate custom. , 4. NormaIly a general councillor stationed in another house wh{ch is not the mother house does not take precedence over the.local superior unless the constitutions or legitimate custom explicitly so declare. 270 THE MYSTICAL'LIFE. By Pascal P. Parente, S.T.D., Ph.D., ~J.C.B,.A, s' s o "c,ate Professor of Ascetical Theology,. Catholic University of America. Pp. x ~- 272. B. Herder Boo~( Company, St. Louis, 1946. $2.50. This is the companion volume to the same author's The ~tscet[cat Life, which appear.ed two years ago and contained an announcement of this work. With it Father Parente completes his systematic sur-vey of the spiritual life, and gives us the first study of the kind to ema'nate from an American theologian. Thus it possesses a certain histo'ric~l distinction. In content it is just about what one would expect in a brief intro-duction to mysticism. The first part of it is entitled "General Aspects and Basic Elements of Mysticism," the. second "Mystical State~ in Particular," and the third "Mystical Phenomena."' The last chapter discusses the practical questions of direction for mystics, the perusal of mystical literature, the vocation to the mystical life, °and desire for it: Without saying much about the controversies which have enlivened mystical theology i~i recent years, Father Parente generally steers a middle course between the doctrines of the" extreme schools. \ He is a strong advocate for the distinction between acquired and infused ~onteinplatlon. Rather singularly and originally he pro-poses that the difference is neither specific nor one of degree,-bu.t one of iaianner, of the way in which contemplation comes to one. It is highly uncertain whether St. Teresa, for instance, and others who ha~e experier~ed the diversity, would agree that there is not a greater distinction. In describing the prayer of quiet, the first of the "infra-ecstatic states~,'' the author writes: "As a matter of fact, God by reason of His omnipresence does not enter but simply makes Himself known to the soul" (page 121). Is there any such perception or . experience in" acquired Eontemplation? The vocation to mystical graces is not universal, but, at least practically, restricted to a limited number ofsouls. 'It is rather characteristic of this ~rork that it opens with an inter[ esting account of the ancient pagan mystery cults. It contains rela-tively much from Scripture and also from the Fathers Of the Chfirch that illustrates or supplies analogues to mystical phenomena. The cases botfi of Teresa Neumann and of Padre Pio of Pietralcina, the 271 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Relioious first stigmatized priest, are .treated professedly. ~-G. AuG. ELL/~RD, 8.2. MEDITATION ON THE PASSION. Compiled from Varlou~ Sources, with an Introduction" by the Reverend Reginald Walsh, O.P: Pp. rift ~ 305. The Newman Bookshop, Westm. lnsfer, Maryland, 3946. $3.'/5. "Reaction to a meditation book, especially t'o a book on the P~is-sion, is aft'extremely personal thing. What strikes a responsive chord in one person may prove dull finduninspiring to another. Yet, in spite of the uncertain personal factor; this book is .likely to please and to be helpful to almost anyone who sincer.ely wishes good meditation matter on the Passion. The various chapters treat of the entire Pas-sion'with thoroughness, yet without that meticulousness that makes one nod drearilywhile preparing his meditation. The. points are well planned and gasiiy fixed in the mind. The reflections are sound and agreeably warm. The colloquies--well, it seems that in affy meditation book colloquies have to be taken as "the bitter with the sweet." At least, this reviewer (behold :the personal element!) would be well pleased: if all meditation books dis.pensed with the Ohs .and Abs that give colloquies the fingernail-on:the-blackboard effect. But it is only fair to say ~hat if you like colloquies, you will likethese; and if you do not like them, you can. easily skip them, for they are clearly labeled. The meditations were composed originally by a ~ister who was mistress of novicek for thirty years. The editor has omittedthe parts that applied to ieligious women as such; hence the present edition is useful (decidedly so) to ~ill.--G. KELLY, S.3. THE CATHOLIC CENTRE. By Edward Ingram_ Watkln.Pp. 261. Sheed' and Ward, New YorE, 1945. $3.00.- The republishing of this book Six years after its first appearance is subely, due as much to the book's intrinsic merits as to the fact that Mr. Watkin's more recent Catholic Art and Culture has made his name and w(~rth known to a greater number of readers. This earlier work takes its name from the fact that "Since Catholic Christianity is the supreme :and most complete revelation of religious truth, and the philosophy which it implies the most.balanced and comprehen-sive i.nt~rpretation of human experience, we shall expect to find Catholicism and the philosophy it demands occupying a central position between all extremes and one,sided excesses, reconciling and 272 dulg, 1946 ~ BOOK, REVIEWS balancing[them,by m~aintfiining the p~ositive truth they'contain'~aiad rejecting their~exce~ses and exclusions." The detailed exposition of the ways in which Catholicism is central,~ complemented realistically by the fa~t, that "As. actually~ practiced and understoo& ho.wever, Catholicism is not the perfect oia media, nor do.es .it occupy the exact centre of. human thought and action" because of~human 1.imi-" tations "gives, the author materi:~l for a skillfully integrated., bogk. He~outli~es the ideal, searches out and b~ings under a very uncom~ .plimentary spotlight remediable defections from the ideal; and pro-poses various readjustments by .way of constructive criticism: The attentive reader will not always agree with Mr. Watkin, but he cad hardly fail. to-be,prodded into serious thinkihg oi~ fundamental .questions.--C. DE MUTH, S.,J. MISSION FOR SAMARIT.AN$. By Anna Dengel, M.D. I~p. x -[- 126. The ~,:~ Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1945. $1.75. Medical rriissions is" a,live subject,in the Catholic' mind. Here we hav~.~short .bier-comprehensive treatment from the pen of a pioneer in the movement. The doctor'and the religious in Mother Dengel speak on every page. Not only is she a skilled practitioner,~but she hfis~studied ~he;history °bf:her :field thoroughly. Her statements,~are carefully~ weighed anff sulS~orted; by c0nvincing~evidence. ceeds in stirring the heart to an.appreciation for her ideal,~the win_ning 6fpagan souls for,Christ by~supplyin~ them with.the expert medical ~a~?e of religious .doctor~ and.nurses. Christ is responsible; :for the Catholic attitude~'towards the s!~ck: He first healed men's bodies and.then won their~souls: Mother Dengel has it ~thiit one purpose of His coming was to. renew the weak.ened h~man"body for.the sake of thesoul. She~ puts before us the response ofthe Church tboChrist's~example and precept. ~ Universal care ,of the si~k and°diseased'has flourished wherever~Christ's Church has~ reache& The lat~er half~ of the book is of intriguing'interest. ~ The medi-c~ il situation of mosto of,our mission~fields, includingeven the,,Negroe.s and white vagrants of America, i~ briefly but chpably described. Tbe picture is indeed pathetic, all the more so because ignorance, super-station, and~lack of facilities i~ccount for so much needless suffering. Mother De_ngel shows us ou~ opportunity: if with complete unselfish-ness we devbte ourselve~to the restoration of pain-wracked bodies, we can be sure that the grace of Christ, working through us,¯will take care of their souls. R.D. HUBER. S.J. ,.273 BOOK REVIEWS FORMING A CHRISTIAN MENTALITY. By the Reverend Killan J. HennHch, O.F.M.Cap. Pp. xll -t- 288. Joseph F. Wagner, Inc., New York, 1945. (No price g~ven.) This book, designed as a companion volume to the :author's Youth Guidance, was written to aid priests, teachers, and parents in their direction of'young people. The work is divided into two parts. The aim of the first is to promote the spirttuahzatlon of individuals in their preparation for married life. The second part continues this project with a description of the Christianization of the famil,~ through the liturgy. Father Hennrich's qualifications for this task are attested by his many years of experience in dealing with'adolescents and by th6 dozen or more books he has written in the past several decades-on various phases of Catholic social activities. The exposition is rather abstract and impersonal, almost wholly unrelieved by graces of style, variety, or sprightliness. But preachers and educators who study the book perseveringly will find that it outlines a sound program for the instruction and religious guidance of young men and women. C. VOLLER'I', S.~I. HOW TO MEDITATE.BY Rev. John P. Roothaan, S.J. Translated by Rev. Louis J. Puhl, S.J. Pp. viii + 72. The Newman Bookshop, Westminster, Maryland, 1945. $1.25. First published in 1837, Father Roothaan's little treatise De Ratione Meditandi has become the classic exposition of the so-called "Ignatian Method'" of prayer. Not that St. Ignatius ever intended that religious and other pious persons should confine themselyes to this.rigidly methodical form of prayer for the rest of their lives. He himself "suggests bther forms in his Spiritual Exercises; but he intended it to serve as an introduction to and foundation for a life of prayer. Hence the translator tells us in his introductory note: "It is an undeniable fact that here even the most unlettered beginner will find a clear, easy, fruitful method of meditation that can easily be adapted., to personal needs and dispositions." Normally the religious who has seriously practiced this funda-mental method of prayer, as explained by Father Roothaan, will in due time pass on to the practice of affective prayer: but even he will find it helpful if not necessary to fall back occasionally upon the method d~scribed by the author. It is always a safe refuge in time of spiritual dryness and affliction. ¯ 274 July, 1946 ,~ BOOK REVIEWS Thi~ little book should b~ in the hands of every novice. Older ¯ religious will 6nd it u~eful reading "to spu'r them on to greater dill-gence in practical .and fruitful prayer, and zeal in the pursuit of per-fection." This reviewer .regrets exceedingly that this English version of Father Rootbaan's classic was not publ.ished ~n pamphlet form so as t6 give it a wider distribution.--A.C. ELLIS, S.J. THE MYSTICAL BODY OF, CHRIST. By Frledrlch Ji~rgensmeler, D.D. Transl,,fed by H. Gardner Curtis. Pp. :~09. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, J945. $3,00. The first section of this book discusses the biblical doctrine.and offers an excellent presentation of the importance and place of the Mystical Body in the divine plan of salvation. The second part develops the author's conviction that this ~ys~ery is the fun~amental~ principle of asceticism. /, The translation from ~bicb this photographic reproduction was ma'de is yery disappointing. After comparing several sections of the book, sections of ten to fifteen pages in length, with the original German, this reviewer was astounded at the many inaccuracies found in the translation. Furthermorel ~t times, phrases, clauses (in fact, sometimes' whole sentences) have been~ omitted. For example, we. read (p. 64) : "The Second Person of the. Godhead u, nited mankind to Himself in a hypostatic union." And, again (p. 81) : "Christ is distinguished from the Father and the Holy~ Ghost by the circum-stance .of His human, existence." .Needless to say, the original Ger-man does not have such ambiguous-(to say.the very least)~ doctrine. The last paragraphs of pages 65~.~66, and sections of pages 69 and 70 are very inaccurately translated. In general, religibus who have not studied theol0gy will find this book too ponderous. Sections, especially the treatment of the Mys: .tical. Body in the ascetical life, will be .helpful. But we cannot ,. recommend the English translation.--M. LA PIETE EUCH,~RISTIOUE By J. F.Ber~ube, s.s.s. Pp. 151. La Libr'-'qrle Eucharls÷ique, 514,.avenue Monf-Royal Est, M<;nfreal 34, 1945. (No '" prlce-given,) The source,, the means, ~nd the end of a11 our life of grace is 2esus Christ. The Holy Eticharist, ~because it c6ntains the whole Christ, must therefore be the source, the means, and.the end of .our spiritual 275 BOOK REVIEWS R~oieto [oF Religidus life. How the Eucharistic Christ, in the ~acrifice of the' Mi~ss, in Holy Communion, in the Real Presence, is the all and all of our tioliness, and fl0w we should respond to these profound truths-- .l~his is the book's important message to the faithful. It is followe.d by two eloquent~ inspiring pronoi~ncements of Pius XII

Issue 3.2 of the Review for Religious, 1944. ; :Review,fo¯ r R e h g o u s" MARCH 15, 1944 ,; ~' ~"The Worst of Sinners" . Ar, nold J. Benedeff~' ~ 7 B~beuf on Missionary Vocations . Augustine Klaas - Your PredominantXendency ~ "Pafrlck M. Regan . ~-Su, cjge.~hon from the Fec÷Ory . . . John E~ CQogan~ ':The 'Badder,' the Better" . . ." . . . G_. Aucjusfin~e Ellard Concern|ng, Vocat|ons . The Editors Book Reviews Ouestlons 'Answered Decisions 5f the Holy See. krOLUME III NUMBER :~.VOLUbIE III MARCH 15, 1.94.4 NUMBER 2' Im CONTENTS ON BF.ING "THE WORST OF SINNERS"--Arnold J. Benedetto, S.J. 73 BRI~BEUF ON" MISSIONARY VOCA,TIONSmAugustine Klaas, S.~1. 80 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . , . 93 WHAT IS YOUR PREDOMINANT. TENDENCY?m Patrick M. Regan,,S.d . 94 A SUGGESTION FROM THE FACTORYmJohn E. Coogan, S.3. 103 D~CISIONS OF THE HOLY SEE OF INT,EREST TO RELIGIOUS111 "THE 'SADDER,' THE BETTER" G. Augustine Ellard. S.d. 112 BOOKLET NOTICES . ~24 CONCERNING VOCATIONS The Editors . 125 WANTED: LETTERS ON RETREATS! . 128 TRY' ITH S IN YOUR EXAMEN!~RIchard L. Rooney, S.J .:. .,,1,29 WH0'IS SAINT JOS.EPH?Wililam Stritch, S.J .1.3.0 BOOK REVIEWS (Edited by Clement DeMuth, S.J.)-- Aids to Will Training in Christian Education: Instructions~ on Chris-tian Doctrine: St. Theodore of C~nterbury; Thirty Years with Christ:' White Fire: The Spiritual Conferences of St. Francis de Sales; From a - Morning Prayer; The Path of Love; Latin Gra~nrnar; Know Yourself; .The Text ,of the Spiritual Exercises: History of the Third Order of St. Francis of Penance and Charity; Mother Immaculata of Jesus BOOKS RECEIVED . 131 139o QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS~ 10. Jurisdiction of Ordinary Confessor . 140 11., Mass Stipends and Poverty .° . 140 12. 'Permission to Give Away an Inheritance .: ¯ ¯ 141 13. Appointing an Administrator, and Making a Will 141 14. Blood Relatives in Same Community . 141~ 15. Lace V'eil for Tabernacle ." . ~. ¯ 142 16. Number and Quality of Candles for Benediction . 142 1~7. 'Place f¯or the Christmas Crib . 143 , . 18. Duration of Office for Local Superior .143 19. Sacristan Should Wash Chalice and Ciborium -. . 20~. Frequency o~ Cofi~ession o~ Devotion . 144 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. March, 1944 Vo[. lII. No. 2. 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, Kansas, 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.3., G. Augustine Ellard. S.J., Gerald Kelly, S.J. Copyright, 1944, by .Adam C. Ellis: Permission is hereby granted for quotations of/reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author.,. Subsc.ription price: 2 dollars a year. Printed in U. S. A. Before writing to us, please consult notice on inside back cover, ¯On Being "The ~X/Orst ot: Sinners" Arnold J. Benedetto, S.J. N ANYONE;S list of "Perplexing Sayings of the Saints'" there is likely to be found a host of statements in which the greatest of saints profess themselves to be the "worst bf sinners." Now, since self-knowledge is a presupposi-tion for progress in the spiritual life, how can such self-deception .exist in. those who supposedly are far advanced? Or, since humility is based on truth--some saints consider the wo~ds synonymous~--how can we,. without doing violence to our intelligence, consider as examples of humil-ity those whose statements wandered, as it seems, so far from the realms of rigid fact? After all, there is no separate code of morality for the saints. Untruth is untruth. There can be only one "worst" among sinners, and no saint with .regard for truth can claim that he is that one. Of course, we can make allowances for the exaggera-tions of the 01d-style biggraphers of saints. Thei~ love of rhetoric and of paradox, their eagerness to cull from their heroes some "quotable quote", no matter how eccentric it appears when taken out of context--all this, rather than care and attention in making clear the saints' mentality and spirit, may account for some of the less attractive features one comes across in reading the lives of saints. But when all due allowance has been made, there still remains a goodly residue of strict biographical fact leading one to the unescapable ~onclusion that. many saints really did feel themselves to be the least among men, the worst of all man-kind. Further, the Church--which canonizes neither untruths nor errors--seems to extol the humility of the saints precisely in these pa.radoxicaI statements of theirs. 73 ARNOLD J. BENEDETTO Review for Religious The prbblem becomes excruciatingly acute when we read certain books of spiritual guidance and discover to our horror that toe, we o.urselves, are expected to believe, in all humility arid truth, that we, too, are inferior to all other men and more ~inful than all others. We all feel more or ~less willing to accept hi~mbly our place in the universe, but with all the goodwill in the world we fail to see how the proper place for every man is below his neighbor and how each and every person can be a greater sinner than every other person. One" should avoid making even "pious" errors of judgment. Perhaps No Comparison Is Meant One. possible solution of how a saint could ihave said, "I am the worst of sinners," is that the saint was not really making.a rigid comparison with others, bu~ was thinking simply and solely about himself. Thus, the sentenqe prac-tically means, "I am a very great sinner." If theoriginal statement can be reduced to these terms ~:hen we are to c~n-sider the sain~ as completely ignoring the sins of others and as concentrating only upon his own faults. The saints know God much better than others do, they realize more deeply the tremendous value of His gifts, they are more aware of His helping graces. As a result, they are in a bet-ter position to. see the wickedr~ess, the ingratitude, of sin. They contrast th~ boundless sanctity of God with the insufferable wilifulness of the puny man who refuses to admit his dependence on God. Even the least sin is an abomination in the sight of the Lord. Overwhelmed at the thougl~t of~having chosen any finite good rather than the v.ery great, nay, the infinite Good, the saint cries out that he is a very great sinner. A Shift in the Terms of Comparison A very common interpretation given to this difficult 74 March, 1944 ON BEING ~'THE WORST OF SINNERS" saying is that when the saint claims to be the worst of sin-ners he is comparing what he has of himself with what his neighbor has from God. This means either that the saint is comparing his own natural gifts with others' super-natural gifts, or else is comparing his own sins with his neighbors' good acts. In either case, certainly, such a com-parison justifies the conclusion, "I am worse than all oth- .ers." With this interpretation it isquite easy to see how anyone can claim that he is the worst of sinners, for the things that are being compared are no longer on the same plane. Obviously the supernatural is better than the natural, obviously sin is worse than virtue. Such a Simptiste explanation, with its shift in the terms compared, may appear irrational. What it really amounts to is just a clever--some may think, ineptMway of sa)~ing that sin itself is irrational.~ It implies that a certain minimum degree of humility is required if we 'are to avoid sin. At any rate, such an explanation is given by many iearned theologians. It is mentioned by St. Thomas in the Summa Theologica (2-2, q. 161, a.3). Four-Fold Ignorance Some of thesaints, however, when they assert that they are worse than their neighbor, very plainly do not mean that this is so only when comparison is made between what is of God in their neighbor with what is of man in them-selves. .They mean that their own character, apart from the gifts which God has given them, is much more vile than is their neighbor's character considered, likewise, apart from his supernatural gifts. St. Francis of Assisi (one of the most ardent devotees of the policy of. self-depreciation) explains himself thus: "I feel that I am the worst of sin-. nets, for if God had shown such mercy to a criminal hs He has shown to me, that criminal would be ten tim~s holier 75 ~RNOLD d. BENEDETTO Review for Religious than I am.-" St. Francis dearly suggests that the natural dispositions of the criminal are superior to his own. The explanatioh, however, is not.altogether satisfac-tory. Only God knows with certainty the natural dispo-sitions ofeach man. Because of our ignorance of these dispositions of others, arid because we do not know what hidden gifts God may have given others, we cannot claim to .be better than our neighbor. But neither are we strictly justified in asserting that we are worse than he. We may conjecture that we are worse, we may say that possibly we are worse. We cannot claim absolutely to be worse. Similar to our two-fold ignorande regarding the state of our neighbor is our. ignorance regarding our own present and, especially, our own future state. "Man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love or hatred" (Eccles. 9: 1):. .Quite possibly many~ persons who at present are leading holy lives will not.persevere in such a state. God sees the final disposition of their souls and in His sight they very . definitely are great sinners. Experiential Knowledge The solution that we offer as the final one really includes the other solutions," namely, the comparisons and ¯ the four-fold ignorance. But, presupposing those solu-tions, this final solution brings us more deeply into the .psychology of' the sai.nts. It tries to show not 0nly that, ~with certain limitations and qualifications, there is some .objective.truth in .the statement of the saints, "I am wo. r.se than everybody else," but also to give an account of bow the saints actually, within themselves, could feet Sincerely and intensely that they were the most wretched of sinners. The saints did, indeed, have some knowledge of the limitations of others (though they generally ignored that) ; but of their own unworthiness they had an intense:inner 76 ¯ March, 19 4 4 ON BEING ""~HE WORST OF SINNERS" experiential knowledge. The sins and deficiencies of others they knew by observation, :inference, or. hearsay. But knowledge by actual personal experience is more impres-sive and compelling than any other. Whatever might be said of others, they felt, and felt most keenly, that their themselves were guilty. Whatever arguments pro and con one might bring forward juridically regarding the malice .of others, the saints had actual and direct consciousness of their own wickedness. Seeing their own sins and imper-fections in the sigh.t of God, the horror that rose up in their consciousnbss was just as vivid an experience as an attack of acute indigestion. They may have had painful encoun-ters in.the pas.t, when brought face to face with the malice of their sins; this present experiencing, this tremendous illumination laying bare their utter nothingness and worse-than- nothingness, together with the consequent revulsion of a pure, ardent, and sincere soul, this present experience impresses them mdre vividly than any recollection of:past experiences. "Let others claim that they have had o? are having painful experiences when they recounf their sins within themselves--but really they could hardly be suf-fering as I am. My sins must be the worst p6ssible sins. Never could anyone offend the good God as I have." With reference to their very real, present experiential knowledge they are truly the worst of sinners. These "hard sayings", of the saints thus-contain not absolute truth but relative truth--relative, that is, to the source of knowledge. Having this intense experiential knowledge of their own sins, and l~nowing the sins of their neighbor only by observation or conjecture, the saints based their practical conclusion on the evidence of the inner experience and affirmed that they were worse than their neighbor. With reference to the particular type of evidence which alonethey ar.e considering, they are worse than their 77 ARNOLD ~, BENEDETTO neighbor. Another situation in which,~ similarly, the prac-tical,, working truth is different from the theoretical, abstract truth is the case in which a judge knows, as a pri-vate citizen, that the defendant is guilty but, with refer-ence only to the legal evidence at hand, he must, in his o~.- cial capacity, pronounce the judgment that the defendant is not guilty. One may prefer the following example: If a very brigh~ light is focused upon some particular object and one fixes his gaze for a'long while on the object, then that object ~ill be very. cons~picuous, While objects on either side of it will scarcely be noticed; they will be in. the dark, or, at most, in the penumbra surrounding the illuminated object. Ohio's judgment based on what one sees in the light will be much more accurate and detailed than any judgment made coficerning the unilluminated objects. By their inner experiential knowle~lge the saints become acutely aware of their own littleness and of the infinite contrast between even their leastmoral defect and the wondrous sanctity of God. In the light of this knowledge the saints focus their attention on their own defects and at the same time lose sightof, or but dimly notice, their own good qual'ities and thi~defects and gross sins of their neighbor: According to this light they are worse than their neighbor. The Dominican beatus, Venturino da Bergamo, explains that. the intense feeling and percep.tion of one's own defects may be compared to. the suffering of a tooth-ache. The stifferer feels that he is enduring more pain than anyone else; not that he sees in the light of reason that his pain is greater, but that his.own pain is closez tohim than is that of another. And even if he should know intellec-tually that somebody else has an equally bad or a worse toothache, it is still very true that he experiences and his own, not that of the other person. ,Judging on this 78 o ! March, 1944 ON BEING "'THE WORST OF SINNERS" basis, and relatively to this limited criterion, ~ae could say, "My toothache is the worst," "My toothache feels worse." " Conclusion To account for the unusually'intense pain which the saints feel at the consciousness of their, sins and for the' apparent ease with which they become thoroughly con-vinced that they are the greatest sinners in the world, Father de Guibert1 suggests that these great saints receive a very special divine illumination regarding their own sins, that this illumination is of the same order as the higliest degrees.of infused contemplation. We believe, however, that it is also within the power, of each human being to arrive--with less facility and with a less degree of conviction, it is true, than that of the specially enlightened saints--at the. conclusion, that he is the &orst sinner in th~ world. And many saints and spir-itual writers exhort us to judge in this fashion of ourselves. Pride is one of our worst enemies. It is very deep-rooted. J(ny consideration having in itself some real degree, of truth and helping to make us more humble should be wel-comed. It is humbling to consider oneself the worst of sinners. Possibly We shall be aided in forming this judg-ment by making use of the explanations given in the course of this article, namely, by contrasting our natural endow-ments with our neighbor's supernatural ones, by main-._~ "taining the prudent, doubts and suspense caused by our ignorance regarding our neighbor and ourself, and,. espe-cially, by basing our judgment on the evidence or objective truth furnished us by our experiential knowledge of our own faults as opposed to our unfelt knowledge of the sins of others. 1J.de Guibert, S.J. : l~tudes de Th~ologie Mgstique. Toulouse: l~ditions de la Revue ¯ d'Asc~tiqu~ et de Mystique;, 1930. pp. 283-298. :Br beut: on ¯ Missionary Vocal:ions Augustine K!aas, S.J. ON JULY 16, 1636, Father dean de Br~beuf wrote a lengthy " report to his religious superior, Father Paul Le deune, on the. state of .his mission among .the Huron savages, to the east of what is nov,; Lake Huron. The document contains' some fascinating chapters, illustrating what might be called the iomance of the mis-sions. In chh~ter three, however, by way of interlude, the heroic missionary decides to give a timely Word of advice to those in Fiance, .presumably his younger religious brethren, who are ardently longing tpou ngc6h oens' t.'h.e .w floireenig hne m teilslssi oonfs t hoef Nhaerwd sFhriapnsc, et.r iHmes d, oaensd n soutf "feprui.lnl ghsi so(f missionary life, but neither does he omit the ompensatio.ns and con-solations of that aposl~olate. In these lines Br~beuf seems to be giving us the proper technique in dealing with a vocation to the mis-sions. It is' this:~ don't overemphasize the romance, but tell the truth, the whole truth, the bitter along with the sweet, of. the call to the foreign missions. Incidentally, the cbapte~ also reveals the saint's.own virile spir-ituality-- his love of God, his life of prayer, suffering, and apostolic" zeal. Nor is 1-iis human side left out~ He was forty-three when he wrote it. Thirteen years later, tow~irds four o'clock on the after-noon of Tuesday, March 16, 1649, amid dreadful torments, dean de Br~beuf would die manfully the martyr's death for which his whole missionary life was a conscious preparation. BRI~BEUF'S ADVICE TO PROSPECTIVE MISSIONARIES1 We have learned that the salvation of so many innocent ,souls, washed and made white in the Blood of the Son of God is stirring very deeply the hearts of many, and is excit-ingin themnew desires to leave Old France in order to come 1The original French of this chapter appears in The Jesuit Relations, edited by R. G. Thwaites, V, ol. 10, pp. 86-115. I have added ~hereferences to the ~Scripture texts, which in the, original are quoted freely and.in Latin. Except for the added captiofis and a few changes in paragraphing, the document is presented intact. ¯ BRI~BEUF ON MISSIONARY VOCATIONS. to the New. God be forever blessed, who thus shows us that He has finally ope.ned to these tribes the bowels of His infinite mercy. I do not wish to chill the ardor of~-this gen-erous resolve. Alas! it is these very hearts according ,to God's own Heart whom we are expecting. I wish only to give them a word of advice. It is true that "love is strong as death" (Canticles 8:(5). The love of God has power to do what death does, that is, to detach us entirely, from creatures and from ourselves. Nevertheless, these desires that we feel .of working for the salvation of infidels are not always sure signs of that pure love. Sometimes there may be present a little self-love and Self-seeking, if we look only at the blessing and s~atisfaction there is in putting souls in heaven, without duly conlcider-ing the sufferings, labors~ and di~culties, inseparable from these evangelical works. Dit~cult Journe~t " Wherefore, that no one may be deceived on this point, "I will show him how much he musi suffer here for the name of Jesus" (cf. Acts 9: 16). True, the t.wo who came last, Fathers Mercier and Pijart, did not have as much hard-ship on their journey as we who came up the year before. They did not paddle; their men were not sick, as ours were; the.y did not have to carry heavy loads. Still, no matter how easy the trip with the savages may be, there is always enough to greatlydiscourage a heart not.well mortified. The readiness of the savages does not shorten the road, nor smooth bver the rocks, nor remove dangers. No matter with whom you may be, you must expect to be at the very least three or four weeks on the way, to have as compan-ions persons you have never seen before, and to be cramped rather Uncomfortably in a bark canoe, with no freedom to turn this way or that, in peril fifty times a day of being 81 AUGUSTINE KLAAS Revieu~ [oc Religious upset or dashed upon the rocks. During the day the sun scorches you; at night you are likely to be a prey to mos-quitoes. You sometimes ascend five or six rapids a day, and in the evening you have for refreshment only a little corn crushed between two stones and cooked with ycery clear water. Your bed is the ground and often rough, uneven rocks. There is no shelter but the stars. And with all this--perpetual silence. If you are accidentally hurt, or if you fall sick, do not expect any help from these barbar-ians; for .whence could they get it? And if the sickness is dangerous and you are far from the villages, which are very scattered, I should not guarantee that they would not abandon y6u, if you could not follow them unassisted. When you reach the Hurons you will indeed find hearts full of charity: We will receive you with open arms as an angel from paradise; we will have all the good will in the world to do you good, but we are almost powerless to do it. We will receive you "in a hut so miserabIe that I do not think there is in France any by comparison so wretched that I might say: "That is how you will be lodged." ~Harassed and .tired as you will .be, we can give you only a poor mat, or at most a skin for your bed. And besides, you will arrive at a season ' when miserable little insects, which We call taoul~ac here, but "fleas" in straight French, will keep you for almost entire nights from dosing your eyes, for in these parts they are incomparably more bothersome than in France. The dust of the cabin breeds them; the sa3~ages bring them to us; w.e get them in their dwellings. And this petty martyrdom, not to speak of.mosquitoes, sandflies, ahd other like. vermin, continues usually through the three or four summer months. Instead of being the great professor and learned .tl~eo-logian y6u were in France, you must reckon on being here a humble little school-boy, and, good God! .with. what 82 March, 1944 BRI~BEUF ON MISSIONARY VOCATIONS teachers!--women, small children, 'and all the savages-- and exposed to their laughter! The Huron language will be your .Saint Thomas and your Aristotle.; and clever man that you are, and glib speaker among learned and talented persons, you must make up your mind to be for a long time mute among these barbarians. You will have achieved much if, after a considerable time, you begin to stammer a little. Trials and Dangers oI Mission Life And then, how do you think you are going to spend the ¯ winter here? Having h~ard of all that is endured in winter-ing among the Montagnets savages, I can say that it is almost the li~e we lead here among the Hurons. I say it without exaggeration: the five or six months of winter are spent amid almost.continual discomforts~xtreme co!d, . smoke, and the importunity of the savages. We have a cabin built of simple bark, but so well jointed that we have to go outside to learn what the weather is. Th~ smoke is very often so thick, so acrid, and so persistent that, for five or six days at a time, if you are not entirely used to it, about all you can do is to make out a few lines in your breviary. Besides, from morning until night, our fireplace is almost always beset with savages---~:ertainly, they sel-dom fail to be there at mealtimes. If yOu happen to have anything more than usual, no matter how little it may be, youmust reckon on most.of these gentlemen as your guests; if you do not share it with them, you will be considered mean.As regards tl4e food, it is not so bad, though we usually content ourselves with a little corn, a piece of dried smoked fish, and some'fruits, about which I shall speak further on. Up to now we have considered only the roses. As we have Christians in almost all the villages, we must count 83 AUGUSTINE KLAAS on making the rounds of them at all seasons of the year and of remaining there, according to necessity, for two or three whole weeks, amid indescribable hardships. -Add to. all this, our lives~depend upon a. single thread. If, wherever we are in the world, we are to expect death every hour and to be always prepared for it, this is particularly the case here. For, not to mention that your cabin is like straw and, despite all your care to prevent accidents, may catch fire at any moment, the malice of the savages gives, you cause for constant fear on this point. A malcontent may burn you down or split your head open in some lonely spot. Then, too, you are responsible with your life .for the sterility or fecundity of the earth, You are the cause of droughts. If y6u cannot make it rain,, they talk of nothing less than doing away with you. Moreover, I need only mention the danger there is from our enemies. Suffice it to say that, on the thirteenth of this last month of 3une, they killed twe!vi~ of our Hurons near the village ofContarrea, only a day's journey from us. A short time before, at four leagues from our village, some Iroquois were discovered in the fields in ambush, onl~r .waiting to strike a death-blow at some passer-by. This nation is very timid; they take no precautions; they are not careful to prepare arms or to inclose their villages .with pali-sades. Their usual recourse, e.specially when the en.emy is strong, is flight. Amid these alarms, which affect the whole country, I leave you to imagine if we have any grounds for security. However, if wehad here the exterior, attractions of piety, as in France, all this might still be put up with: In France the large number and the good example-of Chris-tians, the solemnity of the feasts, and the majesty of the ~churches so exquisitely adorned, all preach piety to you. And in our houses, the fervor of our brethren, their mod- 8~ March, 1944 BRgZBEUF ON MISSIONARY VOCATIONS esty, and the noble virtues that shine forth in all their actions--the~e are so many powerful voices which cease-lessly cry out to .you: "Look, and do thou also in like man-ner" (cf. Luke 10:37). You have the consolation of saying Holy Mass every day. In a word, you are almost beyond the danger of falling--at, least the falls are insig-nificant and you have help immediately at hand. Here we have nothing., it seems, which invites to good; ¯ we are among peoples who are astonished when you speak to them of God and who often have only horrible blas-phe~ nies in their mouths. Frequently you will be com-pelled to deprive yourself of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: and, when you have the chance to say Mass, a little corner in your cabin will be your chapel, and even if you had the means, the smoke, the snow, and the rain would hinder you from decorating and embellishing.it. I pass o_.v.er the little opportunity for privacy there is among barbarians, who almost never leave you alone and who hardly know what it is to speak quietly. Above all, i do not dare to speak of the danger there is of ruining oneself among their impurities, in th~ case of any one whose heart is not suffi-ciently full of God to firmly repel this poison. But enough of this; the rest can be known only by experience. "But is that all?" some one will say. "Do you think that by your arguments you haVe thrown water on the fire which consumes me, and hhve lessened ever so little the zeal I have for the conversion of these nations? I say that these things have served Only to confirm me the more in my vocation. I feel more affection than ever for New Frange. I bear a holy jealousy towards those Who are alr, eady 'enduring all these sufferings. All ~hese labors seem to me nothing, in comparison with what I should like to endure for God. If I knew a place under heaven where one could suffer yet more,:I would go there." ~ 85 AUGUSTINE KLAAS Reo~eu2 for "Reli#ious The Briofit Side Ah! whoever you are,.to whom God gives these senti- :ments and this light, come, come, my dear brother, it is workers such as you that we ask for here; it is to souls like yours that God has decreed the conquest of. so many others whom the devil holds even now in his power. Fear no hardships; there will be none for you, since your whole consolation is to see yourself crucified with the Son of God. Silence will be sweet to you, since you have learned to corn- ¯ mune with God and to converse in heaven with the saints and angels: The victuals would be insipid indeed, if the gall tasted by our Lord ,did not make them sweeter and more savory to you than the most delicious viands in thd world. What a satisfaction to ascend these rapids and to climb these rocks for him who has before his eyes that loving Savior, wracked with torments and ascending Cal-vary laden with His cross. The discomfort .of the canoe is very easy to endure for him who thinks of the Crucified. What a consolation--for I must use such language to please youmwhat a consolation, then, to see oneself even abandoned on the road by the savages, languishing with sickness, or .dying of hunger in the woods, and still being able" to say to God: "My God, it is to do Your holy will that I am-reduced to the condition in which You see me," and to consider above all. the God-man" dying on the cross and crying out to his Father: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?." (Matthew 27.:46). If God preserves you in health amid all these hardships, without a do.ubt you will arrive pleasantly in the Huron c~ountry with these holy. thoughts. "He sails pleasantly, whom the grace of God carries along." Now, as regards shelter, food, and bed--shall I dare to say to a hea'rt so generous and disdainful of all that I have. already said on this point, that, although we are hardly in '86 ,Marcia, 1944 BRI~BEUb ON MISSIONARY VOCATIONS a~better position than the kavages, still, in some unknown way, the Divine Goodness makes every difficult thing easy, and each and all of us find everything filmost the same as in France. The sleep we.get lying on our mats seems to us as" sweet as if we were in a goo~l bed; the native food does not disgust us, although there is scarcely any other seasoning than that which God has put into it. No~withstanding t-h~ cold of a six months' winter "spent in the shelter of a bark cabin, open to the daylight, we have.yet to' experience its evil effects; no one~ complains of his head or stomach; we do not know what diarrhea, colds, and catarrh mean. This ¯ leads me to say that delicate persons in France do not know bow to protect themselves from the cold. Those rooms so well carpeted, those doors so well fitted, and those windows closed so care.full);, serve only. to make its effects more keenly felt. It is an enemy from whom one wins almost more by proffering him one's hand than by waging a cruel" ~var against him. As for our food, I ~hall say this, that God has shown us clearly a very special providence: we have secured within a .week our pro.vision of corn for the whole year, without taking a ~ingle step beyond our cabin. Dried fish has been brought to us in such quantities that we are compelled to refuse some of it and to say that we have sufficient. You might say that God, seeing that we are here for His service, wishes~Himself to act as our provider, in order that we may labo.ronly for Him. This same Goodness takes care to give. us from time to time a change of provisions in the form of fresh fish. We areon the shore of a large lake, which affords as good fish as .I have ever seen or eaten in Frfince. It is true, however, aS I have mentioned, that we do not ordi-narily procure them, and still less do we get meat, which is even more rarely seen here. , Even fruits, in season, are not lacking to us, provided 87 AUGUSTINE KLAAS Reoiew [or Religious the year be somewhat factorable. Stra~cberries, raspberries, and blackberries are to be found in almost incredible quan-tities. We gather plentyof grapes, which are .fairly good; the squashes last sometimes four or five months, and they are so abundant that they are to be had almost for nothing, and .so good that, on being cooked in the ashes, they are eaten, as apples are in France. C0nsequently, totell the truth, as regards provisions, the change from France isnot very great. The only grain of the country is a sufficient nourishment, when one is somewhat accustomed to it. The savages prepare .it in more. than twenty ways and ye, t employ only fire and water; it is true that its best ~auce is - that contained in it. Spiritual Advant.ages As for the dangers Of the soul, .to speak frankly,-there are none'for him who brings to the Huron country the-fear and love of Godl On the contrary, I find here unequalled opportunities for acquiring perfection. Is it, no( a great deal to have in your food, clothing, and bed, no other. attraction than simple necessity? Is it not a glorious oppor-tunity to unite yourself with God, when there is at hand no creature whatever to which you can possibly become attached, and when the spiritual exercises you perform con-strain you without effort to inward meditation? Besides your spiritual exercises, you have no other task than the_ study of the language and conversation with the savages. Ab! h6w much pleasure there is for a heart devoted to God " to become the pupil of a savage and of a little child, in order to win them afterwards for God and make them disciples of our Lord! How willingly and liberally God commuiai- -rates Himself to a soul which practises out of love for Him these heroic acts of humility! The words he learns are so many treasures he amasses, so many spoils he carries off 88 March, 19 4 4 BRI~BEUF ON MISSIONARY VOCATIO,NS from the common enemy of the human race; so that he has /eason to say a hundred times'a day: "I will rejoice at thy ~vord.s, as one that hath found great spoil" (Psalms 118: 162). ,Viewed in this light, the visits of the s.avages,, h.owever frequent, cannot annoy him. God teaches him the beau-tiful lesson he once taught Saint Catherine of Sienna, to make of his heart a chamber and a temple for Him, where he will never fail t~o find Him, as often as he withdraws.to it. And if h~ encounters savages there, . they do not inter-fere with his prayers; they serve only to make them more. fervent, and from. this he takes occasion to present these poor wretches to His sovereign Goodness, and to beseech Him earnestly for their conversion. Certainly we have not. here that exterior solemnity which awakens and sustains devotion. We see only the sub-stance of our religion, the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, to Whose marvels faith must open our eyes, aided by no sensible mark of Its grandeur, just as in the case .of the Magi in the stable. Nevertheless, it seems that God, supplying for what we lack. and recompensing us for the favor bestowed on us of carrying It, so to speak, beyond ~o many seas, and of finding a.place for It in these wretched cabins, wishes to confer the same blessings on us. which He is wont to confer on persecuted CatholiCs in heretical countries, These good people.scarcely ever see either a church or an alfar, but the little.they see is worth double what, they would see, were they entirely free. You can imagine what consolation there is in prostrating ourselves at times before a cross in the midst of this barbarism, and, engaged in our petty domestic tasks, in turning our eyes towards and entering into the place which the Son of God has been pleased to take in our little dwe!ling. Not to be separated from this Well-.Beloved of the nations, except by a little 89 AUGUSTINE KL'AAS Re(~iew for Reli~lious bark or tree branch, is it not to be in paradise day and night? "Behold he standeth behind our wall" (Canticles 2:9). "I sat down under his shadow, whom I desired': (Canticles 2:3). SQ much fo~. the interior. If we go outside our cabin, heaven is open to us, and those great buildings which lift their heads to the clouds in large cities, do not conceal it from our view; so that we can say our prayers with com-plete abandon in that grand oratory, which Saint Francis Xavier loved more than any other. With regard to ,the fundamental virtues,~ I will glory, no~ in myself, but in the lot which has fallen to me. Or if I must humbly acknowledge it at the foot of the cross, which our Lord in His grace gives us to carry after Him, certainly this country, or ~ourwork here, is much more suited to feed a soul with the fruits of heaven than with those of earth. I may be mistaken, but Ithink that there is here a spli~ndid means for advancing in faith, hope, and charity. Are we t0sow the seeds of the Faith here, and not ourselves profit by it? Could we put our trust in anyone but God in a region where,, on th~ human side, everything is lacking? Cbuld we want a fine~ opportunity to exercise charity than there is amid the roughness and discomfort of a new world, where no human aft'or industry has y~t pro- Vided any conveniences? is there a. better occasion for prac-tising charity .t'han by living here in order to bring back to God men who are so unlike men that we must live in daily expectation of dying by their hands, should the fancy take them, should a dream suggest it to them,.or should we fail to open or close the heavens at will, giving them rain or fine weather a~ command. Do they not make us responsible for the state of the weather? And if God does not inspire us. or if we cannot work miracles of faith, are we not con-tinua~ ly in danger of seeing them, as they have threatened 9O March, ~1944 BR~BEUF ON MISSIONARY VOCATIONS to do, fall upon us who have done no harm? Indeed, if He who is Truth itself had ~not declared that there is no greater love than to lay down one's life really and once for all for one's friends, I should deem it a thing equally nobl.e, or even more so, to do what the Apostle said to the Corinthians (I, 15:31): "I die dai.ly, I protest by. your glory, brethren, wh'ich I have in Christ, Jesus our Lord"-~-that is,-to d[ag out a miserable life amid the fre-quent and daily perils of an unforeseen death, which those whom you are trying to sa;ce will procure for you. I some-times call to mind what Saint Francis Xavier once wrote to Father Simon, and wish tl:iat it mhy please God so to act that at least the same may be said or written one day even of us, although we may not be worthy of it. Here are his words: "'Excellent news comes from the Motucbas, namely, dohn Beira and his companions are laboring amid the [Treat-est l~ardships and continual danger of death, to the great increase of the Christian religion.'" . About Chastity, in Particular There seems to be one thing here which might cause ¯ apprehension in a son of the Society, that is, to see himself in the midst of a brutal and sensual people, whose example, unless special precaution is taken, might tarnish the luster of the most and the least delicate of all the virtues--I mean chastity. Inorder to obviate this difficulty, I make bold to say that, if there is any place in the world where this virtue so precious is safe, for a man who wills tO be on his guard, it is here. "Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it" .(Psalms 126: 1). "I knew that I could not otherwise be continent, except God gave it, and this also was a point of wisdom, to .know whose gift it was" (Wisdom 8:21 ). They say that the victories won by~ this .91 AUGUSTINE KLAAS ¯ Review I:O? ~Reli~tious daughter of heaven over her enemies are .won by flight. But I believe it is God and no one else.,who, in the most severe encounters, puts to flight this same enemy before those, who, fearing nothing so much as his approaches, go where His g!ory calls them, humbly and with hearts full of confidence in His goodness. And where are we to seek this glory of His? I should say, rather, where find it more purified and freed from our own interests than in a place where there is nothing to hope for other than the reward of ¯ having left all for the love of Him of whom Saint Paul said: "I know whom I have believed" (2 Timothy 1:12). You remember that plant called "the fear of God," with which it is said our Fathers at the beginning of our Society charmed away the spirit of impurity. ¯ It does not grow.in the land of the Hurons, but it falls her~ abundantly from Heax~en, if one is only a little careful to foster what he brings here Barbarism, ignorance, poverty, and misery, which ren-der the life of these savages more deplorable than death, are a constant reminder to us to mourn Adam's fall,, and to submit ourselves entirely to Him who, after so many cen, turies, still cbastizes disobedience in His children in so remarkable a way. Saint Theresa said once that she never made better meditations thi~n in those mysteries where she found our Lord apart and alone--as though she had been present in the Garden of. Olives--and she called this a sample of her simplicity. You may reckon this among my follies, if you like, but it seems to me that we have here go much the more leisure to caress, so to speak, and to enter-tain our Lord with open heart in the midst of these unin-habited lands, because there are so few people who trouble themselves about Him. -And on account of this favor we can say boldly "I will f~ar noevils, for thou art with me" (Psalms 22:4). 92 March, 1944 BR~BEUF ON MISSIONAR'/ VOCATIONS In short, I i.magine that all the guardian angels of these uncivilized and abandoned nations are continually endeav-oring and striving to save us from these dangers. They know well that if there is anything in the world that ought to give us ~¢ings to fly back whence we came both by obedi-ence and by our own inclination, it would be this misfor-tune, were we not shielded from it by the protection of 'heaven. This is what urges them to prqcure for us the means to guard, against it, that they may not lose the brightest hope they have ever had through the grace Of God, of the conversion of these peoples. I close this discourse and this chapter with the fol-lowing words. If at sight of the difficulties and crosses that are here prepared for us, some one feels himself so strengthened from above that he can say it is too little, or like Saint Francis Xavier "amplius, amplius" ("more, more"), I hope that our Lord, in the midst of the consola-tions which He will give him, will also. draw from his lips another admission, namely, that the consolation is too much for him and that he cannot endure more. "It is enough, Lord, it is enough." OUR CONTRIBUTORS ARNOLD J. BENEDETTO is a student of Theology at"St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas. AUGUSTINE KLA^S, Professor of Sacramental Theology at St. Mary's. made special studi~s in Ascetical Theology. PATRICK M. REGAN, Pro-fessor of Apologetics at St. M~ry's, is the author of a previous article on Se_lf-knowledge. JOHN E. COOC~N, a professor at the University of Detroit, has written much on social questions, and will be remembered by our readers for his~ articles on Spiritual Direction. G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD will be remembered particularly for his very "original" article on Hygienic Mortification that appeared in the first number of this review. 93 What: Is Your Predominant:.Tendency? Patrick M. Regan, S.J.~ 441"='EW things better reveal a man than zealous and *"=| persistent efforts to decrease his handicap. That profound and ancient maxim 'know thyself' might be inscribed on the portal of every GoTf Club. He who would attain self-knowledge should frequent the links. If one seriously attempts the task, one will find oneself in golf." Thus writes Arnold Haultain in :his book, The M~jster~t of Golf. '~Know thyself; frequent the links: attempt the task seriously"--these might be styled the ascetical principles of golf. Religious will be quick to see that, routatis mutandis, these principles also express the asceticism of the spiritual life. "Know thyself" would not be out of place on the portal of the religious house. "Frequent the chapel" is excellent advice at all times. "Attempt )our task seriously" is always necessary for the follower of Christ. Such thoughts are a fitting prelude to the study of the predomi-nant tendency, which, in the language of the author cited, is our "handicap" in the spiritual life. In a former article ("Self-knowledge" in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, II, 223), we stated: "Many spiritual writers maintain there is one evil tendency that predominates, bne at the root of most of our .defects and imperfections; that, if we work diligently at controlling this one, we need scarcely expe~id any time.or energy on the rest." The present article will furnish meth-ods and suggestions for determining this predominant tendency. According to many .spiritual writers, everyone is apt 94 WHAT IS YOUR PREDOMINANT TENDENCY?" to discover his predominant tendency among the seven prin- . cipal tendencies to evil, the capital sins, as they are called. Hence it will be helpful at the very outset to make a study of these tendencies, together with opposite virtuds. The following definitions and explanations will greatly clarify our ideas. Pride is ihe exaggerated esteem of self. The evils that spring from pride are: stubbornness, rebellion and independence manifested towards those over us: contempt, harshness and abuse towards tl~ose subject to us: conceit, touchiness, vanity, arrogance, impudence, boasting, striving to magnify one's own importance. Laudable pride is the esteem of one's dignil~y as being Wholly. due to God's free gift. "My soul magnifies the Lord and .my spirit rejoices in God my Savior" (Luke 1:46). Such pride is. ordinate, for joy at success is permissible provided it be so controlled that' it preserves the correct evaluation of self. Humility is a true estimate of s~lf, of talents possessed, together with acknowledgement of lack of talents. Through humility we recognize that we are creatures of God and hence subjec~ to Him; that our bad qualities counterbalance the good that is in us:. that many others surpass us in various accomplishments; that our .talert~s are G~d's free gift~ rather than our own achievement. Avar;ee (Covetousness).is the indulgence of d~slre forthings we may not possess in present circumstances, at least not Without sin or imperfection. Avaiice leads to: violations of .the vow o~ poverty, discontent, unhappiness, dullness of soul towards spiritual things. In a religious it often involves hankering for trifles to give to friends or to retain fo~: ond's own comfort. Conte.ntment is satisfaction with wl~at, we have or with being poor with Christ. Liberality is readiness to share with others, especially with Christ's poor. En~--bitterness towards those we judge superior to us in talents and advantages. It brings such evils as: dislike, hatred, malice; desire 't.o'deprive those we envy of their advantage or to, injure them. Like pride this tendency springs from the intellectual side of our nature. But whereas pride inflates self, giving a.sort of satisfaction, envy emphasizes shortcomings and lack of talent, making us miserable 95 PATRICK M. REGAN Ret~ieto for Religious with consuming bate. Religious are especially exposed to this tend-ency because they.observe a whole array of excellent, even brilliant, accompl!shments and achievements in their brethren. Beneuolence is good will towards othdrs by which we rejoi.ce over their success, or at least resist bitter feelings aroused by e.nvy. Anger is a hot, strong feeling against somebody or something that displeases us, driving us to destroy or injure them. Anger leads to quarreling, fighting, violence; also to hatred, revenge, and bitter talk against people aiad things; to ill-temper and disagreeableness. Gentleness (Meekness or Patience) controls angry feelings, deters from harshness, calmly endures what.displeases, thus conditioning the soul to restrain the burst of anger. Controlling an irascible nature had" much to do with sanctifying St. Andrew Bobola and has sanctified many another to a lesser degree. The same is necessary to sdme extent for ivory religious. Lusf is the desire for sexual pleasure, urging to indulgence not per.- mitred Us. Evils consequent on lust are: immodest thoughts, imagina- ¯ tions, and actions by oneself or with. others; also the tempting of others to the s~ime sin. Lust closes the mind to higher things, destroy-ing the attraction of spiritual realities. A word of warning is here in place. This tendency is so obtrusive, even when not extraordinarily stro.ng~ that one might easily be led to mistake it for the predominant tendency. Hence mature d~liberation is needed before anysuch con-clusion is re.ached. Chastity is control of the desire for sexual pleasure, avoiding every indulgence of it in thought, word, or deed contrary to God's plan in matters of sex. Religious by their vow of chastity have relinquished all right to marriage and its privileges. Hence absolute control of this appetite is obligatory on them in allcircumstances. "GluH'ony is excessive indulgence, of the pleasure of eating and drinking. Iri religious it usually assumes a milder form, ~uch as inor-dinate interest in food, over-anxiety about quantity/ and quality, crlticism of the meals and the cook, an ill-controlled appetite for cer-tain foods.' Excessive indulgence in food results in ill health, laziness, andsensuality. Excessive drinking is apt to lead to a strong.inclina-tion to lust, anger and quarreling. Both forms of gluttony are debasing and cause distaste for everything' worthy of man. Sobriety (Moderation, Temperance, Abstemiousness) consists in retricting one's food and drink to. the needs of health. For religious. 96 "March, "I 944 WHAT IS YOUR PREDOMINANT TENDENCY? some self-abnegation in food and drink is a matter of daily practice. $lo÷h (Laziness) is a slow, heavy habit of. body or mind, shrinking from effort and cultivating idle ease and comfort. Its'consequent evils are: neglect of duty, shirking the unpleasant and troublesome, listless-ness. Idleness leaves the mind open to evil thoughts and desires, and excites temptations to gluttony and lust.: Diligence (Industry) is an instant and constant"fidelity to duty, an eagerness for work. Religious, lacking ihe stern sanction, "work or starve,".can easily fail in dilig.ence, especially in spiritual exercises. Hence" for them. diligence involves zeal for God's glory and the salva-tion of souls. ~ Elimination - Though we may understand perfectly the nature 6f these various tendencies described above, the problem still remains; which one predominates in our souls? A check of the list just giv.en will show us immediately which tend-encies do not hold sway in our soul~. By this simple pro-cedure some individuals have succeeded in eliminating all but the ohe ruling tendency, ' though it must be confessed that this is rather the extraordinary occurrence. As a mat-ter of fact. though, almost invariably five Of the seven can be eliminated even With this cursory examination. There remains then the task of determining which of the remain-ing two predominates. For. approaching this latter ta.sk, let it be noted here, readines~ to face the issue honestly.is the necessary disposi-tion of soul. For that matter, the same disposition is also needed at every point along the way. Hard as it is to admit deordination in our souls, it is still harder to admita ruling ¯ evil inclination. To be good-naturedly indolent is not half as bad as being under the complete .dictatorship Of sloth~ So we incline to deceive ourselves that it is not as bad as painted, .or that it is something else not, quit.e so humiliating. -We even surrender to Satan, allowing him to take over andblind us with his deceits. Courage, there- 97 PATRICK M. REGAN Reoieto for Rel~giotts fore, and honesty, together with a strong resolve to see the task through to ~ finish, are necessary in this quest that leads to self-knowledge. So~trces We begin our quest right in the depths of .our' own souls. Our search is for an outstanding inordinate motive behind our actions. For example, the desire to impress others may ever and relentlessly drive us forward to the various objectives we pursue. On the other hand, the same motive-may sometimes retard us or stop us completely as threatened-frustration drives us to seek an avenue of i~scape. Thus. the deflation of our self-esteem may turn us aside altogether from a praise'~'orthy undertaking.~ It is quite possible for such a relentless drive to exercise considerable dofiaiffation over us without our adverting to the fact. The reason is that We ordinarily observe only our surface acts without ever examining the underlying motive. If upon investigation our findings happen to coincide wi(h the examples just cited, then pride would be indicated as the driving force in our scheme of life and would be set down tentatively as the predominant tendency. We would then proceed to further examination to confi'rm our findings. ,Our next step would be to investigate whether it will explain, at least to a great extent, the deformities we find in our pattern of life. ¯ Hence we question ourselves whether~it explains the difficulties we have in dealing with our superiors, and with others witl~ whom we live or associate, whether it clarifies the reasons for the difficulties which others experience in dealing with us.; whether i~ sheds light on ~he problem of our failure to make progress in the spiritual life. 'If the answers to these various questions point back to the same predominant tendency, we can be quite certain our tenta- 98 March, 1944 WHAT IS YOUR PREDOMINANT TENDENCY? tive judgmentwa~ correct. As the work of self-examination goes forward, mbre and more evidence accumulates to increase this certitude. Aversions are excellent indicators of the virtues most needed~ A long-continued aversion for work tells us ever so plain.ly that we need frequent large doses of exhausting labor to build up the virtue of industry in our souls. Hence we ought to examine o~rselves in this matter of aversions. A simple and brief process it will be, since it is intended rather to confirm our previous findings. "Another help in this effort to unravel the mystery of self is to be more observant ofour thoughts and reactions,. even in unrestrained moments. On these occasions it is well to note what is uppermost in our minds. How often, for instance, all unconsciously, we are busy offering i~,zense to self as we give ourselves credit for being better religious than others, of having more brains, of working harder and accomplishing more. The thought that comes first to mind Oh awakening is significant, as is also the thought l~hat recurs most frequen,tly during the day. These are ungfarded moments in which nature is disarmed, stripped of self-deceit; henc~ like a candid child itcan be very ~elf-revealing. But put it on its good behavior in time of meditation, as it gazes on the meek and humble Christ, and the wolf will don sheep's clothing. How exemplary itwill make itself out to be, in its sweet humility and shining obedience. The final check of this search within our souls will be of our daily examens and our confessions. Getting back to that first motive that prompts our sins and faults will fur-nish new confirmatory light. We shall ~ind, for example, that.what on the surface was a flashof anger, at bottom was a manifestation of pride. Incidentally, with this new lightshed on our habitual faults and sins .we shall be able ~o take effective measures to guard against routine confes- 99 PATRICK M. REGAN Reuieto for Religious sions and to reap more abundant fruit from our reception" of this sacrament. Searching Abroad Besides examining within our souls, we must also ven-ture abroad seeking information concerning outselves. The judgments of others on our characters frequently offer revealing sidelights. For one thing there is less danger of their being prejudiced in our favor; hence, if they but will, they can tell with fair accuracy whether we are proud, or whatever it may be. Since accidental circumstances of time and place or of individual prejudice may falsify the judgment, the more trustworthy-opinion, is the one deduced from many testimonials extending over a long period of time. We gather thes~ by recalling what others said of our failings as children. Parents, family, teachers. companions, friends, playmates instinctively recognized outstanding traits, and in their dealings with us adapted themselves accordingly. Our present daily companions are also discerning of our main character weakness; nor do they always hesitate to tell us about it. Their manner of acting towards ui announces it; their joking remarks are often occasions for their pronouncing judgment on us. Nor- .must the advice of. our spiritual director be overlooked, since, if he knows and understands us, he can afford us .very superior help in our search abroad. Critics Disagree It sometimes happens that those we consult in our se,ar~ch abroad disagree in their opinions of us. A certain author gathered the criticisms of his book and found that it was good and bad, dull and entertaining, slow and swift; clumsy and graceful, strong and weak, a romance and a ser-mon, a drama and a tract. He concluded that, though 100 March, 1944 WHAT IS YOUR PREDOMINANT TENDENCY? critics always claim to be right, it was irfipossible for his book to be all these things. Shouldwe encounter the same rather exceptional experience, .we can console ourselves that nothing" of serious consequence is .lost; we have all the other means of self-knowledge still at our disposal. Ashing God rThe last and greatest help is prayer to the Holy Spirit ¯ for light. A strong conviction that we need divine help above all in this search is a powerful aid in this as in every spiritual undertaking. A short aspiration from the longer prayer of St. Augustine is quite appropriate: "Lord Jesus, may I come to know Thee, may I come to know myself." God "will gladly communic,ate, that knowledge, flooding otir souls with light as a reward of all our soul-searching. Humility, let it be n~ted again, is necessary, lest we be deaf to.every admonition, blind to every light, hardened against the love that corrects. God will be giving directions and inspirations about our predominant tendency, but without humility we shall ignore them. Confessors, retreat mas-ters, and others will be telling us ever so plainly of our besetting weakness, but we shall never heed unless, as we seek self-knowledge, we simultaneously grow~in humi~ity. Finally, salutary lessons in self-knowledge, to be gleaned from meditating on the example of Christ and the. saints, will never be learned unless the heart is hungering to know - self no matter what the~cost to that same. self. Godward Self-kn0wledge should lead us to God; otherwise it is not 0nly useless but even a great hindrance to our spiritual advancement. Well did St. Augustine pray: "Lord Jesus, may I dome to know Thee; may I come to know myself," In the foregoing explanations the demands of the subject 101 PATRICK M. REGAN made it necessary to focus attention on self-knowledge to ~he apparent exclusion of other phases of the spiritual life. This fact should .not betray us into putting too much emphasis on the need of.self-knowledge. We should also understand what true knowledge of self really is. A cita-- tidn from a former article on the subject (REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, July, 1942) will make this clear. "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-knowledge pos-tulates not only looking inward, but also considerable looking outward to God, to our neighbor, and to our mod-els. the saints. Nor does the study of ~elf mean constant cold analysis of self, for the very reason that it can also be accomplished by noting the ~rirtues of others that impress us and reveal how much we fall short of perfect .design in our own lives. Self-analysis can be a considerable aid to self-knowledge but it does not lead to it infallibly. Some are expert at analyzing themselves, but their self-knowledge is mediocre; while'others have a deep knowledg~ of self, with very little power of self-analysis." As is evident, then, from the method suggested, the predominant tendency itself can be determined~ in a com-paratively~ short space of time, and with not too great diffi.- culty./ But the fruit of our examination we may re, ap all through life, developing for ourselves an intelligent, well-ordered, unified plan of lifeto meet our personal spiritual need and Weakness. This plan will be distinctive of our asceticism; it will assure us spedial'advantages in mounting GOdward. I02 A Suggest:ion ~rom !:he Fact:ory John E. Coogan, S.J. THE factory system, as is now. generally recognized, tended t6 dehumanize labor, making man almost a part of the machine. Little need was left him for intelligence; instead intelligence was "built into the machine." One great manufacturer .remarked, "Any one can work for me who has brains enough to hang up his hat." Even those workmen who had intelligence were often given no adequate opportunity to use it:" the .employer commonly thought of a workman as a "hand," at a time when even cattle were counted by the "head." "i~o stop this debasing of labor, Pius XI, in his encycli-ca!, "Reconstructing the Social Order," reminded employers that man is placed here on earth to develop and evolve all his faculties to the full, to the praise and glory of his Cre-ator. Hence, the Holy" Fathei: declared, "We deem it advis-able that the wage-contract shoul~d, when possible, be modified somewhat by a contract of partnership." Com-menting on these words, Father R. A. McGowan says the workman, in order to develop as ahuman being, should be given some voice in planning the general production policy of his industry, for thus "the soul of man, his will and mind, and his body can breathe more freely, and grow and develop in such work, whereas under any form of regimen-tion., his soul is .starved." If some such participation of subordinates in the planning of the operation of a business enterprise is so, necessary for their full development, it might well be asked whether we are as yet taking full. advantage of such par- 103 ,JOHN E, COOGAN Review for Religious ticipation in our rdigious communities. Among us the practice is of course used widely by a few, less widely by many. But are we even close to exhausting ~ts possibili- " ties? It is true that among us the need in general is not so extreme. Few of our religious are employed at tasks involving continuous mechanical repetition; hence their tasks usually give more opportunity for self-exp~ession and mental development than do the tasks of the ordinary industrial employe. But on the other 1-Jand our religious, because of their frequently superior abilities and education, are capable of a more notable self-exp~ession; hence they languish more if they lack the appropriate opportunities. Every man, the Pope said, is meant by God to develop alI " his faculties to the full. The whole man gives himself to God through the vows; and the whole man, with all his talents, be they one or five, should be used and brought to flower. Since those words of Plus XI urging employers to give their workmen a chance to .use their minds, many employ-ers have seen fit to give such men some share in the formu-lation of the production policies of management. The reason for this more generous policy need not have been that urged by Plus, for even from the standpoint of their own interests employers have cbme to see the wisdom of using more fully the talents of their workmen. It has occurred to them that "the average intelligence ,of the working force is higher .in the United States than in any other country, and native ingenuity, combined with intimate familiarity with processes, can not fail to produce ideas that may advantageously be adopted by the man-agement." This movement,looking to the increase of employe participation in solving the problems of industry has been developing for some years, but early in 1942 it w~is tre- 104 ¯ March, 1944 A SUGGESTION FROM THE FACTORY mendously accelerated when War Production Chief Don-ald Nelson asked that throughout the munitions industry labor-management committees be formed in the interest of increased production. He felt that the laborer's brain-power wa~ largely going, unused where, no positive and .systematic encouragementwas given him to place his sug-gestions before the management with an assurance that he ~vbuld get a respectful hearing, and for fruitful, suggestions a;suitable keward. Within fifteen months after Mr. Nel-son'sp~ 0posal at least 2,000 committees looking to such cooperative efforts Were formed. The result has been a gusher of employe ideas that has contributed heavily to the success of our war effort. In one .automobile plant alone a total of more than 116,000 ideas have been submitted, of which almost 20,000 have been accepted. "War bonds, ranging as high as $1,000 .in value, are awarded for the ideas and $660,895 has been paid out. during the 15-month period. Cash payments--currently are running better than ~ $90,000 monthly:' in that one auto plant. Many of the awards are going to young women still llttle more than novices at machine methods. One such "hand," working on a rifle barrel, promptly suggested an ingeniou~ change in boring thatbrought her a $1,000 award. Another devised a pencil-like tool for picking up small rivet washers, thu~ eliminating the tedious task of picking them up by hand and thus increasing her output. Another hit upon a clever arrangemeiat for telescoping a three-step job into one. '~ In One plant manufacturing cannon, a single machine was devised to take the place ~of ten. machihes, thus "reducing the time on a gun barrel operation from seventy-five'minutes to four.In another plant a worker's sugges-tion reduced the rifling of the barrel of an automatic cannon from three hours and twer;ty-five minutes to thirty minutes. 105 JOHN E. COOGAN Review for Religious ¯ In East Pittsburgh alone, in a single year, the' Westing-house Electric gave awards for more than 2,000 sugges-tions, the largest of these to a grandfather of sixty-two years. And thus the story goes. One device, designed in spare time from scrap mate'rials, has raised the output of certain army tank fire extin, guisher parts from 100 to 400 per eight-hour working shift. Another machine fhat bites off 400,000 rivets a day from spoo.ls of wire is .likewise the happy idea of afactory "hand." Among the first 500 sug-gestions submitted at Douglas Aircraft were enough good ideas tO producea saving of 2,000 man-hours per day. General Electric received more than 40,000: suggestions in ;i single year, 12,000 of these proving worthy of accept-ance. Such suggestions pouring in across the country.have iffsingle instancesmeant savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars, one as much as five hundred thousand dollars in a single year: and this in addition to the many lives saved through speedingup our ~winning of the war. NO wonder, then, that the War Production Board has insti-tuted a system of merit awards, corresponding,to military decorations, for employes who devise means, of increasing or improving war production; these awards" to be in addi- ¯ tion to cash prizes and medals bestowed by employers themselves. The success of this encouragement of employe sugges-tions has been such as to guarantee the continued use of the scheme by intelligent industiialists "after the war., Thor-oughly discredited is the notion that. the workman is only a "hand." One great manufacturer has .predicted .that the .next .fifty years will see "the exploring of the unlimited possibilities of human beings workilag together for a corn- .mort cause ' through mutual understanding, respect, and teamwork." 106 ~- The success of this democri, tizing of industry is but an echo of the success that analogous efforts have long since met with at times in religion. It was in the interest of free-dom for the subordinate that St. Ignatius refu~ed to attempt to prescribe in detail for meeting contingencies that could be only dimly foreseen. "Cut your coat according to the cloth," was the extent of his direction in commissioning a subordinate. Ironclad~directions canonly make for inflexible, blind driving. Wise religious supe-riors have felt themsel~res fortunate at being able to borrow from the pruden.ce and variedexperience of their communi-ties. It is proverbial that those best fitted to govern are the most willing to be governed. In consequence of their -reluctance to rise above their fellows, they minimize their difference of status as much as is compatible.with discipline. Consequently they lend a ready ear to the well-meant sug-gestions of their subjects. Admirers of a more militarized religious discipline have demurred at such deference, feeling it somehow beneath the digni~y of superiors; it is for such that our~ remarks are mbst especially intended. They resemble a friend of New-man's, who felt the latter was being talked down to by an ,intellectual inferior. But the humble author of "Lead, Kindly Light," quietly replied: "'Ar~/or~e can lecture me, and I'll be grateful for it." Thus the large-minded, kindly superior sees no loss of dignity in tt~rning an interested ear to the last and least of the community. .Such ~ superior reflects that only the Holy Father is infallible, and even he only within limits. He knows too that many of the ablest minds in the Church have spent long lives in complete subjection; fortunate the superiors who were able to profit by their wisdom. Many, too, who were once in positions of authority, return with matured minds to the ranks; how valuable may the suggestions of 107 JOHN I~. I~OOGAN" Review for Religious these.be to even the most competent superior~ governing in the, awesome .place of Christ'and only. too. aware of his limitations~ . ~ ~ . ~ ." A Writer of conferences for priests tells t.he: story--v~e hope it is only :that,--of a pastorwho expressed his opinion of his. assistant and house-keeper in the. words, ~'I'm the only One around here-who has brains enough to commit a mortal sin.': That frame of mind will seem inconceivable to the true superior. It~means, for one thing, drawing the blinds against the light; it means poisoning the wells. ¯ In matters coficerned with the salvation and perfection Of immortal souls, there can never be too much light; the .wills dannot flow too clear and pure. If, as has been beau-tifully. said, "One soul' is 'enough for a diocese,"' then the gove.rnment of a religious community can use all the light and wisdom.that might be found in an entire ecumenical council. But readiness to listen to and encourage the suggestions of subjects insures much more than increased .light .in gov-ernment; it makes for more docile, loyal, cdntented, sub-jects: Knowing that their views have been treated with. respect, subjects obey. more promptly-and interiorly. Treated like adults, like adults they now obey. The per-s~ n of the superior is loved and deferred to; and, as St. Ig-natius reminds us, "It is easy to' obey where we-love'that which is.commanded." Gracious superiors thus make for gracious subjects; these subjects in turn are gracious to.their own cbarggs. The example.is fertile and its fruits increase. Another very worth-while result of such respect shown bysuperiors for the judgment of their subjects has been the latter's increased s,elf,respect. An eminent, holy English priest exclaimed some years ago, "Oh, the timidity of the virtuous.". Sometimes.one may wonder whether we do not inculcate in young religious diffidence in:place of humil- 108 March, 1944 A SUGGESTION FROM.THE FACTORY ity.Diffidenceisparalyzing, humility is clarifying. Diffi-dence salts, ~"I can-.do nothing"; humility says, ~"I can:diS all things in Him Who strengthens me.'.'. Sometimes young ¯ people .come to. religion who have. had. responsible pos.i~ tions in the world, and .yet by Vow-time they have hardly enough self-confidence left to pay.their wayon a street-tar. At an age when their companions in the world are managing, large .businesses, these religious tremble at making, the. simplest public appearance or at meeting a, stranger. ¯ Timidity is' not. an apostolic virtue; self-respect emphatically is. Self-respect is prope.r surely to an "Alter Cbristus" or to a "Sponsa Christi," and the deference of _ superiors to. subjects; even to the youngest, by which .that self~respect is built tip must be pleasing to.Christ. It is not enough, as the wise superior knows, that this deference .be shown only to a few.The last and least are most exposed to crippling diffidence and self-contempt~ and they espe.- cially should be encouraged. Even those inclined to be.less-than- loyal~ can be won through this deference; this of course is an essential part of the Boys Town method of Father Flanagan. It is a truism to say tha~ the superiors of tomorrow are the subjects of today. They are now presumably being trained for their high destiny. In.a democratic Order sub-jects can hardly be ~predestined for superiorships and .be given formal and specific training as such. A future Latin teacher may be prepared by courses in Latin, and so of the other branches of instruction. Obviously, future Superiors cannot be set apart and trained in this manner; something of the present system, of relying on Providence for their development must always remain true. But wise"supe~. riots will continue to lend Providence a hand by keeping close to their future successors, letting them see and feel andmwith due proportion--participate in government-in- 109 JOHN -action. ¯ The modern pedagogy is, "Learn.by doing"; and even in the matter of superiorship there is no other way. The experienced superiorfeels, as did the Baptist, "You ¯ must increase; I must decrease," in order that, when another generation must take the helm, it will, be prepared. A final advantage found resulting from the superior's respect for the judgment of the ~ubjects is.a great love of ¯ their vocation: "All good thin, gs have come to me together ¯ with her." Religious are enthusiastic inspirers of new .-recruits when they find supreme contentment in their, reli-gious home. On the.other hand, the attitude of the dis~ satisfied religious to prospective enlistments is, "Enter at your peril." And how could they promise a newcomer the joy they themselves have not found? How important, . then, is this encouragement of joy-in-vocation, as a means of gaining the vocations needed now especially in view of . their recent sharp decline. If religious subjects are encouraged to.a greater initia-' rive, they will quite naturally manifest a greater enthusiasm for the common cause. And here, perhaps, lies a danger. Enthusiasm tends to become insistent. Hence it might be well to remark inclosing that, even with the humblest superior, subjects must always be deferential. After all, it is the superior Who holds the place of God. And while suggestions from a subject may well be in order, not so his insistent demand. Nothing would so discredit a sug-gestion as its giver's failure in religious spirit; for "the wisdom of this world is folly before God." Intelligence is not enough; Satan has that in abundance. But the wise superior will know how to moderate the naturally impe,tu-ous without at the same time discouraging the timid; he will not "quench the smo.king flax." 110 Decisions orr Ho}y January II, 1~44: The Sacred Congregation of Rites, in the pres-ence of Pope Pius XII, approved the decree tuto in the cause for the canonization of Blessed Frances Xavier. Cabrini, foundress of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. hll the prerequisites to h~r formal canonization are now completed. B~sides the cause of Blessed Mother Cabrini mentioned above, there are four other causes completed for canonization. They are those of Blessed Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort, founder of the Daughters of Wisdom and of the Company of Mary, who died in ¯ 1716; Blessed Joan-Elizabeth ,Bichier des Ages, cofounder of the Daughters of the Cross, who died in 1838; Blessed Bernardino Rea-lini, Jesuit orator who died in 1616; and,~ Blessed John Peter de Britto, Jesuit missionary ~vho was martyred in India. in 169,3. Five causes .for beatification have also been compl~ted: those of Ven. Contardo. Ferrini, professor of RomanLaw in various Italian universities, who died in .1903; Ven. Mother Joanna Delanoue, foundress of the Sisters 6f St. Anne of Providence, who died in' 1.736~; Ven. Mother Gioachima de Vedruna de Mas, foundress Of ~he Carmel-ites of Charity,. who died in 1854; Ven, Vicenta Maria Lopez Vicuna, fouhdress of the Spanish Institute. of the Daughters of Mary !mm]lculate, who died in 1'890: and Ven. Alice LeClerc, foundress of the Institute of Our Lady,. who died in 1622. August 18, 1943: The Sacred Penitentiary published a decree an-nouncing that Pope Plus XII granted the following indulgences for saying the prayer, "Lord, save us: we perish": (I) A partial indulgence of 500 days to all who say, the prayer 'with contrite heart. (2) A plenary indulgence, under, the Usual conditions, to all who say the aspiration daily for a full month. .° SOME year's ago, before the Legion of Decency made its influence felt, it was said that the rule in Hollyw.ood was, "The 'badder,' the better!"--that is, the-worse the moral tefidency Of. a. cinema, the more Profitable it was. Whether that statement was true or not, the expression lends itselfto another more wholesome interpretatio~i. In.many cases it is.very dear ~hat.,the worse a thing0is in one respect, the better it is in others. Thus, the harder the examination, the:greater' the satisfaction of the student .-after be'has passed, it. Thelonge~ the workingman's toil, the.higher his pay, especially if it be at the rate of time and a half. The more serious the peri!.that a soldier or sailor .faces successfully, the more honorable the medal or cross . "that he will receive. What is true in life generally is true. particularly in the moral and spirituallife. ¯ The greater a man's trials, the holier and happier he can become. Two classes of people especially could profit by filling their souls with the conviction and persuasion that the :: "badd'er".a thing is from.certain points of.view, thebetter :.,it is from others. Evidently it would be a Source of solace. .and strength to all who are suffering to Se~ that the v~iSrse ¯ "! their plight may seem, to b.e., the'.better 'it :really is,. when considered from the divihe point o.f ,view and in the light of eternity. Again, there are always some strong and vigorous persons who are looking for the shortest and straightest, though it be also the steepest and hardest, path up the mountain of sanctity. Both those who are over- .112 "THE 'BADDER,' THE BETTER" taken with misfortune and those who are.seeking thebest short cut to high holiness should find it advantageous to consider the truths implied in the words "the 'badder,' the better!" And any sensible person who finds that he has to put up with something that is not to his tastemay well be pleased to discover a means of making the best of a bad situation. Pain in the Christian Economy In God's original and preferred plan for man there was no place for pain. Everything was to be p!easant. But since Adam and Eve and all sinners after them have wrongly and perversely sought pleasure, though in itself it is no evil, it is central in the.whole order of providence sub- - sequent to the fall that there should be pain and suffering, and that the happiness of man should be looked for and achieved very largely through them. Man's guilt in tasting forbiddefl pleasure and the unbalanced tendency of his-nature toward pleasiare were to be remedied through pain. Disorder, once introduced into human life, naturally works itself out in difficulty and distress, if not disaster. But it is the merciful and marvelous plan of God that we should convert the consequences of disorder into means to a higher order, the effects of stupidity into helps to a more excellent wisdom, the results of malice into aids to a nobler goodness and sanctitiy. 0 felix culpa! Hence in the entire scheme of the Incarnation and redemption suffering gets a more prominent ~mphasis. It is a leading characteristic of Christ Himself, of His sorrowful Mother, of the Apostles, of all who have done much for the Church, of all who h~ve reached an outstanding degree of sanctity, and in fact of the whole Mystical Body of Christ. In view of the function and purpose of suffering in the whole of the present Chris-tian economy, it is not surprising that, certain necessary 113 (3. AUGUSTINE ELLARD' ¯ conditions being presupposed, the greater the pain, the greater the supernatural results that may be expected. However, pain of itself is not a good, but an evil (physical) ; not a value, but the very opposite, Hospitals, concentration camps, and the world in general are full of people in torment, and unfortunately many of them'do not become better by reason of their suffering; rather, they deteriorate. But pain, borne well, put to morally good ends, can and does occasion an immense amount of good. .The.infinitely wise and loving prbvidence of God sends or permits all.the evils that afflict us for definite good pur-poses, and indeed proportionate good purposes. His ¯ immediate aims are often obscure andindiscernible, but His ultimate and supreme ends we know very well, and the time wil! come when His whole plan will be clearly revealed ¯ to us. Whether or not we see His proximate intentions, we can realize them by prudently, applying His precepts and counsels to the facts of our situation. The wise and good man considers the evils that befall him as parts of the grand divine plan for the universe, reacts as God wishes that he should,.and thus wills and achieves the divine purposes, in this way he pleases God and satisfies himself, and 'also, since our destinies are all bound together, he helps others toward less discomfort and more comfort. Limitations The dictum "The 'bad&r,' the better!" is proposed as true generally, not absolutely and without limitations. If, for example, a man is losing his faculties and sinking into .the moral impotency .of dementia, coma, or death, then it would not be true in the sense in which it is taken here. Sufferirig--and how much there is of it!-~--that is the con-sequence of. one's own folly or fault is not of much use .until at least the error be corrected and good will re-estab- "114 March, 1944. "THE 'BADDER,' THE BETTER" lished. But then al! that is affirmed of the value of suffer-ing is verified. Difficulty may diminish, as well as increase," the moral worth of a good action; it may even completely prevent it from coming into being. Henceit is not corn: mended for its own sake: But if, other factors remaining equal, difficulty calls forth greater goodwill, then it will have the advantages that we are about to indicate. Nothing in these considerations would justify one in imprudently or presumptuously or morbidly seeking to make more trouble for oneself. suffering is like that Pain is an evil, and The rational, attitude to take toward of God Himself in His providence. therefore, except in view of propor-tionate good; to be avoided whenever possible. But,~ in the present state of things, it is also a necessary evil, and, what is more to the point for us, an evil from which intel-ligence and goodwill and effort can extract good. Hence the prudent man will take the ills of life, and, when inspired by the Holy. Ghost, even voluntarily inflict others upon himself--such as, for instance, fasting--in the spirit in which God Himself chastens and corrects His children and puts them upon their mettle. " These limitations being undeistood, we may consider in a simple and practical manner some of the salutary~ truths implied in the prindiple "The 'badder,' the better!" General Values ' In general, therefore; the greater the difficulty or dis-tress or dishonor, the greater.one's opportunity, by reacting ¯ appropriately, to exercise and perfect one's love for the Infinite Goodness of the Blessed -Trinity, to increase the divine glory, to. compensate for past deficiencies; to aug-ment one's own eternal beatitude, and to assist souls in the way of salvation and sanctification. In this sense, the worse a thing is in time, the betterit may be in its results in eter- 1:5 G~ AUGUSTINE ELLARD Review ~:or Religious .,nity. The more Unpleasant it is, humanly sigeaking, the more valuable it may be according to the divine standards of judgment. The Worse it is physically, the better it m'ay be morally and spiritually. The ~harper the pain, the greater the hope of enjoying keener pleasure in the future. The more narrowly pinching one's poverty, the greater the likelihood of amassing better and enduring riches in the h~reafter. The more heartbreaking the mental anguish, thet more exquisite the joys bf the reward that may b~ expected for bearing it well. The deeper a humiliation well borne, the more highly exalted the honor a man can look forward to before God and eventually before the wh~le human race. The harder the .temptation to struggle against, the more glorious the crown of justice that awaits the vic-tor. As creatures become less and less satisfactory, it Is easier to find satisfaction in the CreatOr. In prop6rtion as lovely persons or things of the world allure and beguile us less, the more apt we are to retain the right pe~spectixre and sense of proportion with r~ference to ~reatures and the Cre-ator. To sum up, the worse the evil that afflicts a person, 6f whatsoever nature it may be, thegreater and better the ~pfirposes of God in allowing it, for H~mself, for the suf-ferer, and for others. It is precisely toward the accomplish-ment of these aims, neither more nor less, that these reflec-tions are directed. Means to this Attitude. There are two great means Of truly making the ¯ ".badder" thing turn out to be the better thing. The first is to develop a deep, calm, whole-s0uled, pratical, conviction of these two facts: first, that God in His superior wisdom, benevolence, and power really is directing everything that touches us, including the sins and injustices of others toward us, to our own true and best good; and, secondly, 116 March, 1944 "THE 'BADDER,' THE BETTER" that the best possible thing that we can do for ourselves is to show our good sense and good w{11 by fully co-oper-ating with the operations of divine providence. When God's immediate aims are obscure, then ggeate~r faith and confidence are in order. God could of course give us better opportunities, but wd can never do better for ourselves than to make the most of the opportunties that He does give us. The Other great means is earnestly to cultivate, by serious reflection.and prayer, a true and just appreciation or evaluation of the excellence of the persons whose interests are concerned, and of the magnitude and multiplicity of those interests, in time and in eternity. Among the values suggested by the rule "The 'badder,' the better," the following may be noted. Special Values in the Present Difficulty or dist'ress is a present challerige to one's intelligence and goodwill. It is there to be overcome and vanquished: at least that is the magnanimous attitude toward it. ¯ It tends to provoke and evoke all that is best in a man, to put it to the test, to improve ~nd perfect it. The humble soul will not be presumptuous and overconfident in its own strength, but neither should it be diffident with regard to God. " 'For strength is made perfect in infir-mity.' Most gladly, then, will I rather boast of mine infir-mities, that so there may rest upon me the si:rength of Christ. Wherefore I am well content in infirmities, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in straitsnfor Christ's sake. For when I am Weak, then I am strong!" (II Corinthians 12:9, "10).1 It has always been considered one of the most remark-able manifestations of God's excellence" that He is wise and good and strong enough to.draw good out of every evil that aNew Testament texts in this article are cited from the Westminster Version. 117 AUGUSTINE ELI]ARD Reoieto ~o~ Religious occurs in His universe, and no doubt the w0~se the evil,:the greater the good must be. "We know that for them~that love God.He worketh all things together unto good,~ for them that are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). It is understood that those who love God are intel-ligent and virtuous enough to co-operate with Him. The Christian life was long ago defined as an imitation of God; and to be able to extract good out of evil, and greater goods out of greater evils, would be a mark of an excellent Chris-tian life. In increasing one's efforts to meet the challenge, one's own wisdom and goodness and power are perfected and made more and more like God's. Thus difficulty over-come or pain well borne gives one something of 'which to be supremely proud. "We. exult in the hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we exult.in our tribulations also, knowing ,that tribulation worketh endurance, and endurance experience, and experience hope: And hope doth not prove.false" (Romans 5:2-5). An aviator: who is trying to run up a high record of victories against enemy planes would seek out, rather than shun, dangerous encounters; so. the good man who would like to distinguish himself in the service of the Divine King would look upon-any hardship or surfeiting as so much opportunity to win glory for his Sdvereign and for him-self. The very best physici)ins and surgeons prefer the more difficult, the "more interesting," cases, because thus they have a chance to use and to improve their superior ~kill. They feelthe challenge and are glad to accept it. Many good people have moments when they regret that they do not, have more occasion to showthe magnanimity and heroism that are in them. To be consistent, they ought to acknowledge practically, when the time comes to put up with the unpleasant, that the worse it is, the greater the opportunity for which they have been looking. Since the 1'18 Marc& 1944 "THE 'BADDER,' THE BETTER" time of Aristotle, the difficult has been-considered to be in a peculiar way the province of art and virtue. St. Paul knew and welcomed the.challenge we speak of: "But as for me, Heaven forbid that I should make boast of aught save the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world is crucified to me, and I to the world" (Galatians 6:14). With. Respect to Past Our principle contains most 'valuable lessons with respect to the past. Perhaps nothing discourages people more in their moral and spiritu.al lives than a past record which brings shame rather than pride. Even here these people have their chance. The worse they have been, the greater their need to make up for what they havelost, and hence the more welcome the opportunity to. effect that compensation. When one.has sinned, the sensible attitude to take Would seem to be: "Willy hilly, now I must suffer for it! The sooner it is Over, the more patient I am, the better!" The deeper one is in the red in his accounts with God, the more solicitous one should be about getting into the black again. A person who attacks his past in the spirit of "the 'badder,' the better!" Would have the optimism, ~lan, and force that go with taking the offensive. A little punishmer~t here may save one from much torment in, pur-gatory, and besides it has a positive value (merit), whereas that after death does not. The souls already undergoing the penalties of ptirgatory must have an overwhelming conviction that they would have done well to bethink themselves seriously and see the advantages of their disad-vantages, the comforts of theirdiscomforts~ ~nd the abili-ties of their disabilities. When a man sins or even omits the better alternative in a choice between two goods, God's antecedent plan for His own glory is to that extent frustrated. God would like 119 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Review for Reliqious ~o see the loss made good, unless, 6f course,, it betoo late. In sending or permitting difficulty or tribulation, He intendsand hopes that it Will be used for that end: Thus again, the worse one's affliction, the better the chance it gives to satisfy God for past failures. ,Many devout people nowadays talk much about making reparation fo~ t.he injuries and insults that have been heaped upon the patient and-!ong-suffering FIe~art of 3esus. D0 they realize always that the better their patience in. all that is disagreeab!e, the fuller the measure in which they make that reparation? Other fervent, souls: would imitate St~ Paul and would make up in their "flesh :what is lacking to the sufferings of Christ, on behalf of his.b6dy, which fs the Church'~ (Colossians 1:24). The more and better they suffer, the less they will leave lacking to that Mystical Bgdy. For ~he Future ." But it is with reference to future values that :the rule :"'T.he 'bad&r,' the better!" is best verified. ,The most obvious advantage here is the merit of suffering well. The tiniest and most minuscule bit of discomfort, or dishonor borne meritoriously means an increase of grace: of.sancti-fying~ grace,".that, is, of higher participation in the nature and life of. the.Divinity; of the infused virtues and the,gifts ¯ of the Holy Spirit, that.is, of proximate principles of dei- ¯ form thought, volition, .and activity; of actual graces, that is;.o.f-salutary ideas,., impulses, and aids helping one to live .On:a~ higher plane of the rational and the diyine life; and finally; of a richer share in the . ineffable, beatitude of the most blessed Trinity in. heaveia .throughout the unending aeons of eternity. One's ability to behold: and contemplate .the,Infinite Truth, to love.th4 Infinite Goodness, to enjo.y ¯ .the.Infinite. Beauty, and to.rejoice in the company of: the Divine Persons and : of: .the .whole . celestial society, is pro- .t!20 March, l 9 4 4 ¯ " "THE 'BADDER,' THE BETTER'.' portionately augmented. God is glorified more," the quondam sufferer himself thrills with a more exquisite sense of the divine beatitude, and everybody else in that. blissful region is better pleased and more happy. And Goal repays sincere human effort£, not according to results, but according to a generous~cost-plus system. Meanwhile his own moral stature will be rising at an accelerated speed. Faith will be clarified,, hope fortified., ahdcharity intensified; prudence will become more sharply discerning, religion more devout, humility deeper, fortitude stronger, patience more enduring, and magnanimity greater. Really and consistently to face suffering with ,the disposi-tion "the worse, the better!" is no child's play, and if it be kept up in severe trials and over a protracted period' 6f time, the man who does it shows himself to be something of a hero. If personal sanctity is raised to higher,levels, then, other things being equal, one's efficiency and ability to.d0 God's work and to save souls will be increased also. General resolutions and offerings of self to God cast in some such form as this: "All that Thou Willest, O. God, and the harder, the better!" should prove to be more ¯ effectual. If in the crisis of temptation a person can exclaim ,"The harder, the better!" or, "The worse I have been, the better I am determined to be!" his chances Of coming of( ~he victor will be enhanced. . A JoyousAttitude Taking this view of the unpleasant makes it less unpleasant and more bearable. Evidently this attitude ig less pessimistic and more cheerful. Moreover, such a posi-tive and aggressive reaction,, besides conferring the advan-tages .of offensive strategy over the merely defensive, lessens pain, partly because of the consciousness" of .doing the nobler thing, and partly because a man suffers less when 121' G. AOGUSTINE ELLARD Review ~'or Rdigiotts ¯ he is active and not simply passive. Every football player and every soldier knows that while he" is in actual combat . minor hurts are not felt so keenly. The saying of the old Roman poet that it is sweet as.well as honorable to die for the fatherland, has received universal approbation. For a much stronger reason it ought to be sweet and consoling to suffer for God's sake, or for souls' ~sake, and that swee(ness should bear a proportion both to the loveliness of the Great Beloved and to the amount of evil endured. Everybody who has been in love knows well from experience that there is a certain satisfaction in demonstrating love by sacrifice. As a matter of fact, it can only be suggested, not at all adequately expressed, that in suffering in union witch ,Jesus crucified holy men and women have been thrilled with the most exquisite and indescribable delights. Not that they ceased to feel their agony; but with it, or after it, and by reason of it, they also felt the most rapturous and ecstatic joys. "For according as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so through Christ doth our comfort also abound" (II Corinthians 1:5); they who "for a while. h~i.ve beeia grieved somewhat by divers teHptations . . .~ exult with an unspeakable and glorified joy" (I Peter 1: 6-9). ¯ Moreover, heavier crosses have always been consid-ered a sign of divine predilection. To acquire the heroic attitude.toward suffering,.cert~iin. ardent souls will find themselves helped most by .such reflections as the following. Who is desus who suffered for me.? .What His dignity, goodness, lovableness? How worthy of being pleased even if He had never felt incon-venience because of me? How much didHe suffer for my sake? With what love, mercy, patience, and l'ong-suffering? Why did He suffer? What does He desire of me? With what right? How much-pleased would He be ifI.~hould suffer with Him? To.what extent could I.thus 122 March, 1944 "THE 'BADDER,' THE BETTER" help Him "accomplish His aims in enduring so much pain and humiliation and. such a death?' How much could I aid His Church and His cause with souls? .Would it gratify Christ to see me pr.efer.ring poverty, pain, and opprobrium, not of course for their own sake--that would be perverse-- but for His sake and to further His designs? Pertinent Prayers John of the Crossl-who taught, and in his own person illustrated the fact, that one who is destinedfor a very high degree of divine union, "of total transformation into God,:' must first undergo very severe and thoroughgoing purifications, was v~.ont to pray: "O God, to suffer and to be despised forThee!.". Before Teresa of Avila reached the summit of her myst.ical ascensions, she, Whose latter years ~vere one great battle with difficulty and distress of every sort, would exclaim: "O Lord, either to suffer or to die!" The Italian Carmelite, Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi, outdid her: "O Lord let me suffer or let me die---or rather--let me live on that I may suffer mote!" But before the end Of Teresa's life, .when a furious st6rm of troubles was begin-ning to break over her head, she wrote to a less stouthearted confidant and collaborator:. "Let use make the :attempt, ¯ . . for the more we suffer, the better it Will be" (Walsh, Saint TereSa o[ Avila, 567). It would seem that anybody with faith and reason could pray: "O God, enable me through Thy grace to see ~11 that befalls mein the light.and setting of Tby wise and benevolent and pcwerfu[ providence, to realize practically that Thou makest all things, good and bad, to work together for the best interests of those who love Thee and react rightly, and. thus really and truly to achieve Tl~y beneficent, purposes; all this, out of love for the infinite, .eternal, and ineffable goodness of Thy most blessed Trin- 123 G.' AUGUSTINE ELLARD ity; out of zeal to co-operate with Thee in communicating that same goodness and Thy knowledge and Thy love of it; out-of eagerness to participate in the redemptive sufferings and work of. the God-man crucified; out of fear lest, being too. shortsighted and cowardly, I incur more grievous woes; and finally from a longing to share, and to bring others to share, in Thy own inexpressible and everlasting beatitude." All things considered, whatever is to be said of the theory of evil, the best practical philosophy of evil seems tO be found in the alliterative and ungrammatical oxy-moron: "The 'badder,' the better!" It provides a rational ¯ and Christian means of transforming negative, into posi-tive values, disorder into order, discomfort into comfort, and dishonor into honor. BOOKLET NOTICES Sp;rifual ChecI(-up for Religious, by Rev. Lawrence G. Lovasik, S.V.D. A good booklet t:or occasional examination of conscience and for monthly" recollection. 32 pages. Single copies, 10 cents: 9 cents each in lots of 25; 8 c~nts each in lots of' 100. Published by: The Catechetlcal Gdild, St. Paul, Minnesota. Heart of Jesus. Our Consolatlon---Special devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for the Sick and Afflicted. written and compiled bs' Clara M. Tiry. Contains a veritable treasury of devotions in honor of the Sacred Heart. 72 pages. Single copies, 15 cents: 4 copies for 50 cents: 8 copies for $1.00; cloth bound copies, "50 cents each. Published by: The Apostolate of Suffering, 1551 North 34th ~t., Milwaukee 8, Wisconsin. Good Samaritan Almanacman almanac forthe sick. 64 pages Single copies, 25 cents; 5 copies for $1.00. Published by: The Apostolate of Suffering. What Tho Mass Means, an explanatio~ of the prayers and ceremonies of the Mass, .by the Rev. Victor J. Hintgen. For study clubs. 92 pages. Single copies, 30 cents: redhction in pri~e for 6 or. more. Published by: Our Sunday Visitor Press, Hunt-ington, Indiana. Listens-It's God's Word, an introduction to the New Testament, by the Rev. '"Victor 3. Hintgen: For study clubs. 144 pages. Single cop!es, 30 cents; re~tuc-tion in price for 6 or.more. Published by~ Our Sunday Visitor Press. Modern Youth and Chastity, by Gerald Kelly, S.J. in collaboration with B, R. Fulkerson, S.3., and C. F. Whitford, $,J. Formerly published for restricted cir-i: ulation under the.title Chastity and Catholic Youth. 105 pages. Single copies, 25 cents; 12 copies, $2.70; 25 copies, $5.00;. 50 copies, $8.75: 100 copies, $17.50. Published by: The Queen's Work, 3742 West Pine Blvd. St. Louis 8, Missouri. 124 Concerning Voca!:ions The Editors ~a~JlTH this number of the REVIEW we. close our correspondence W on Vocations. Since we asked for communications on this subject (July, 1943) we have received a number of letters, suggestions~ leaflets, programs; and so forth. We give .he.re a brief account of the material sent us that has not yet been mentioned in the REVIEW. Booklet : Follbw Him, by Godfrey Poage, C.P., is a vocational booklet on the Sisterhoods. It is the companion .booklet to the boys' Follow Me (see REVIEWFOR RELIGIOUS; II, p. 385). It is an dxcellent piece 6f workmin explanation, pictures, and in its universal appeal.J~ll possible .communities are listed and briefly described. No favoritism is shown. This-. booklet is distributed.exclusively by the Thomas .More Book Shop, 22 West Moriroe St., Chicago 3, Illinois. Prices: single copies, .postpaid, 15 cents; 2 or more copies, 10 cents each; per hundred, $8.00. Programs. Father Poage sent us the Program for the Promotion of Voca-tions for use in the Archdiocese of Chicago during Vocation month. The essential points in the program.are of value, not merely during Vocation month, but all through the year. . . To deepen the spiritual life of the students ik the first objectiv~ of the Chicago program. This is to be done by prayer, more frequent Mass and Communion, and the cultivation of a spirit of sacrifice and ~enerosity. The program points out that we should ~train our youth more in the use of ejaculatory prayer, as there is a common misunder-standing that by "prayer" we mean long prayers such as the Rosary or the Stations. With regard to frequent Mass and Communion the suggestion is made that all too often boys and girls have the.f_alse notion that they must go to confession every time they, go to Com-munion; hence we should impress them with th~ truth that ,confes-sion is "necessary only after mortal sin. Thi,s, of course, does-not mean that we are not to teach our students ihe manifold advantages 125 THE EDITORS Review for Religious. of fre~quent c0nfessio~. It seems to us that the last point in the program--the cultivation of a spirit of generosity and sacrifice-- cannot bestressed too much. Today, in particular, all vocations-- not merely religious--require such a spirit; and only too often fail-ures in marriage, as well as in religion and the priesthood, must be attr~ibuted to sheer selfishness. To impart adequate instruction is the second.objective of ~he Chicago program. This. is to be done by allowing questions, by suggesting reading (especially of Follow Him and Follow Me), and by simple talks on such subjects as: The Signs of a Vocation; How to Overcome Ditticult.ies; The Apostolate' that Lies Open; and The Need of Generosity in Following the Promptings of Grace. The. Mission Helpers of the" Sacred Heart (West Joppa Road, Towson, Maryland). sent in this sample program for a Dag of Retreat made by the Our Lady of Good Counsel Club: i0:30: Assembly in Chapel, H~'mn, Prayer. ' 10:45: Is It for Me?--conference by a Sister. I 1 : 15 : Interviews, Visits to Chapel, Stations. 12:00: Lunch. 1:00: Rosary (on the grounds). 1:30: What Would It Mean?-:-cbnference by a Sister. 2:00: Interviews, Visits to Chapel, Stations. 3:30: Address--by a priest. ¯ 4: 15: Benediction. The re£reatants were urged to keep strict silence. Bdoks and pamphlets about various religious communities were placed at their 'disp6sal. An~l they were asked to make known iheir requests for any specifil literature beforethe opening of the retreat. Leaflets l~ather Thomas Bowdern, S.J., (The Creighton University, Omaha 2, Nebraska), once made a. nation-wide survey of those who followed vocations to the priesthood and the religious life during the y6ars i919-1929. He :has written several articles about his survey. and be now prints a 4opage leaflet giving some of the principal findings and a definite program for fo~teriiag vocations~ The leaflet is entitled A Study of Vocations. It may be obtained from Father Bowdern--~2 copies for 5 cents. Marcl~f 1944 . CONCERNING VOCATIONS The Sisters of the Good Shepherd i931 Blair Avenue, St. Paul 4, Minr~esota) sent us a very attractive leaflet, also a postcard folder containing 22 pictures, used to inform lik.ely candidates of the tre-mendous apostolate carried on by the Sisters. Communications Reverend Fathers : For many years while.traveling about the country as a missioner I have been absorbed in the problem of the dearth of vocations. Here are a few brief observations that may throw some additional light on the subject. ~ There is no foundation for the complaint that our Catholic . youth lack the spirit of sacrifice. The communities that have been overwhelmed with vocations are those which offer the greatest hard-ships. The newer communities attract in proportion many more voca-tions than the older established communities. Some of the former had more subjects than missions, while many of the latter had to refuse new missions for lack of subjects¯ Some may attribute this to-, their American foundation, while too many of the older communb ties were of "foreign" origin. Another factor that is Overlooked is pu'blicity.° Many of~- the older communities are forbidden by rule to u~e persuasion in seeking subjects. This has.been interpreted rigorously as forbidding adver-tising of any kind. .If the community in question is not established in the large Catholic centers, it can hardly expect to attract vocations' there. One cannot join a community unless one first knows of its existence. It is unreasonable to expect God to work. miracles to com-pensa. t.e for our neglect o~ human means readil~ ;ivailable. )~ simple attractive pampble't stating the origin arid purpose of the.community would merely make God's work known. More popular pamph!ets on the saints of the Order would also attract vocations. The new communities advertise. Too many of the older-communities are still unknown. Virtue will attract,.vocations. Let.me qu'ote from a letter of a young novice: "My thoughts and .~tesires were of One Whom I wished to serve, so naturally I observed those who were already serving Him, and seeing the goodness and happiness they seemed to display I was quite convinced . . . that the convent was my life'~ home.'~ On the other hand I could quote examples of otfiers who ¯ 127 THEI EDITORS Review for Religious had practically made up their minds to join ii certain community but were absolutely repelled from doing so because of the obvious lack of ~ustice and charity in someone wearing the garb bf that order. Care in selecting subjects means more vocations eventually. Abil-ity to judge character on ~the part of the Novice Master or Novice Mistress will help to exclude those who do not belong. Weakness in admitting one poor subject may mean the subsequent loss of ten worthy vocations. A Priest Reverend Fathers: PerhaPs my experience is no( a common one, but I have found that one thing that sometimes creates'dissatisfacti0n with a reiigious Vocation is the fact that many of us older religious refuse to allow our former pupils to "grow up." Even after these former 'pupils have beeri in religion for several years, we continue to look upon them and treat them as our "boys .and girls." Many of them feel this intensely. E~ienwhen they do not actually give up their vocations, the sense of frustration hampers their work and their natural, growth to a whole-some independence. As a means to p~eserving voc~itions, and to the full fructifying of vocat,ions, I suggest that we "old teachers" examine 0ur~elves periodically on our "maternal" and "paternal" attitudes. A Priest WANTED: LETTERS ON RETREATS! Whim you make a retreat, are there some things that you find particularll, h~lpful--things that yo~. expect and that you'd like the retreat director to be sure to give? And when you give [1 retreat, do you look for a certain disposition on the ~art of the retreatants, yearn for a response that som~,times does not come? :- If you have good ideas, why not air them in our Communications? We w~nt to start some communications on this very practical subject in our next number ¯ (May 15). If you have Somethingtb say and~you want to say it in that num~ber, send it to us immediately. Keep the following points in mind: (1) Make communications as brief, ai possible--withdut, 6f course, sa~rific- ~ing thought for brevity. . (2) Save us editorial wor~ by writing neatly and clearly. Typewritten letters are:~preferred. .(3) Your name will not be printed unless you. explicitly request this." (4) Address communications to: The Editors of P~eview for Religious. St. Mary's'College, St. Marys, Kansas. 'i28 Try This in Your Examen! Richard L. Rooney, S.~. THE Archangel of Religious sat at his celestia! equivalent of a desk in the Mansion of the Guardians and ruefully read the recent reports. For the most part the vows were intact and the spirit of'work was tremendous. But by and large, the particular examens just weren't being kept! His friend~. Ignatius of Loyola, who dropped in now and then for a chat, wouldn't like that, for he had put great. stress on the examen as a means of sanctification. And even the mod-ern psychologists (some of whom had arrived in heaven!) considered it a good device for. self, improvement. But these modern religious-- priests, Brothers, and Sistersmseemed to think quite" differently, if .one might judge from results. The Archangel leaned back and pondered the situation. Perhaps these poor human ¯beings found the thing tedious, had let routine creep in and rob them of zest. Perhaps they had asked the same'old-questions in the same old way and, seeing no advancement, had given up in disgust. Or perhaps they had forgotten th_attheir firs~t job is to be g.o'od human beings; hence they had been pitching their examen= too high ! The Archangel scribbled a set of questions on a piece of skyey paper. He would have the Angel Guardians suggest these to their charges, and then see if the examens wouldfi't improve.~ Here is what he wrote: -1) Do you get along with practically everyone in the com-munity? " 2)~ If not; is it because you practise one or more of the following easy ways of getting yourself disiiked: a) Do you'do your best to let the "other fellow" know he doesn't amount to much?¯ make it clear that his ideas are. awrY, that¯he expr.esses them poorly? that what he does is°really not im-portant? b) ~ Do you try to arrange other people's lives, for them? . c) Have you let your disposition become morose, mood_y, touchy, and sarcastic? " d) Do you find fault on every possible occasion with the R~¢HARD.L. ROONY , food, the weather, the work, superiors, the whole life--always, of course, for the glory of God? e) Do you pick.out and air" abroad tO certain chosen souls the small defects of others? f) Do you pass over no chance to argue--to turn-every recreation into a debate? g) D6 you gossip? (Absolutely the best way in the world of wasting time--God's time--~as well-as showing your own inferiority.) b) Are ygu suspicious, sure that no one is up to any good or has a good motive? i) Are you always center-stage, in the spot-light, talking about that most interesting of topics, yourself? j) Or are you just the opposite--a silent, uninterested bore at recreation? k) Do you always take orders in bad grace--make things as hard for superiors as you can? 1) Are you one of those omniscient people whom no one can tell anything? WHO IS SAINT JOSEPH? Saint Joseph is: ¯ . ¯ the guardian of chastity and of the honor of virginity,---St. Augustine ¯ . .~ the faithful coadjutor of the Incarnation.---St. Bernard . . the perfect example of humility and obedience to God's inspirations. -~t. Francis Borgia . . the man mbre beloved by Jesus and Mary than ail other creatures.---St, lsidore . . the master of prayer and the interior life.-~St. Teresa ¯ . . the model of priests and superiors.---St. Albertus Magnus ¯ . ¯ the mysterious veil which covered the virginity'of Mary.mBossuet ¯ . . the third person of the earthly trinity.--Gerson The foregoing are but a few of the brief panegyrics of St. ,loseph that can be culled from such books as Cardinal Vaughan's Who is St. Joseph? and Pete Binet's Divine Favors granted to St. Joseph. They might be apt subjects for brief medi-tations, during the month of March. w'qC'ILLIAM STRITCH, ¯130 ook Reviews AIDS TO'WILL TRAINING IN C~HRISTIAN EDUC:ATION. By TWO Sis-fers of Nofre Dame. Pp. xvl ~ 237. Frederick Pusfef C~o. (Inc.), New York and C~inclnnaff, 1943. ¯ $2.S0. This work is mostly a development and adaptation of Lind-worsky's doctrine on training the will.The will is formed prin-cipally by suitable motivation suitably inculcated, rather than, for instance, by a sort of will-gymnastics: The three great instincts in human nature, namely, those to superiority, s6ciality, and to self-preservation, are, since the fall, perverted and lead todisorders of every kind. With the help of divine grace; a clear conception and an adequate evaluation of the true destiny of man, and constant co-operation of the will, these three fundamental tendencies can be redirected to what is wholesome, and re-educated, and thus help, rather than hinder, man in reaching that destiny. Character ~s to be judged by these three c~iteria: what a man wills, wh~/, and how. A person is good or bad like his motives. Right motivation depends~ very largely upon keeping attention and thought turned to what is true and good and bea.utiful, and upon appreciating its values. Right emotions follow naturally, and then right attitudes, and these tend to bring about righ~ volition. If all these be maintained and strength: ened with appropriate habits, the result will be the desired good will ¯ and go.od character. The procedure recommended for correcting--n0t for breaking-- the will may be adduced as representative of the book. Suppose a student has an excessive fondness for freedom. It is likely that he really .does not well understand the differences between trueliberty and license. These must be clearly pointed out to him. Then he is to be brought to see and appreciate the advantages of liberty and the disadvantages of license. The corresponding emotions are aroused and fostered~ Then opportunity is given for practice and for finding satisfaction in it. Th~ will must always be cultivated from within, that is, by exciting a.genuine desire for what is good; external rneans~ like setting up sanctions; should be secondary. What has been said will give an idea of the main .psychological principles entering into the structure, of the book. Over and above these there is a multitude of minor pedagogical aids, tables of values, 131. BOOK REVIEWS .- Review for Religious natural and supernatural, lists of attil~udes, of virtues and faults, questions and topics for discussion, etc. The religious and Catholic note is most prominent throughout. As far as~I know, there is no work which would seem to promise more help. for the generality of religious teachers who are eager to direct and perfect the wills of their students. " G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD, S.J. INSTRUCTIONS ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE: VOLUME IV. By the Rev- " erend Nicholas O'Rafferfy. Pp. viii -f- 300. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1943. $3.25. The first three volumes of this series treated of the Creed, the Sacraments, and' the Commandments of God. The present volume includes instructions on Prayer (the Our Father, Hail Mary, and prayer in general), the Precepts of the Church, Sin (mortal, venial, and the capital sins), and the Virtues (the theological virtues and those contrary to the capital sins). It is difficult to estimate the value of a book like this. Judging the matter as objectively as I can, I should say that priests and Reli-' gion teachers who have the time to consult several books in preparing sermons, instructions, or classes, would find in this book an added help, especially because it contains a wealth of Scripture ,texts. But it is hardly ideal for those who must confine themselves to one or two books. In general it makes .rather hard reading. Except for the fact that the divisions are indicated in introductory paragraphs, con-cluding surveys, and numerals'sepagating the various sections, no ¯ effort has been made to use the 'abundant mechanical .helps that im-press matter on the mind and memory. There are some minor ihac-curacies in the text " inacc~aracies that might escape the notice of those who are not well-grounded in theology. One inaccuracy in particular should be called to the attention of our readers. The authorstates that the Church demands physical intdgrity in those who enter the cloister (p. 226). This'must be a slip of the pen. Perhaps some orders require this; but it certainly is .not demanded by canon law.--G. KELLY, S. d. ST. THEODORE OF CANTERBURY. By the Very Reverehd William Reany, D.D. Pp. ix ~ 227. B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis, 1944. $2.00, The scholarly Doctor Reany has added to his former publica-tions, the biography of a great seventh-century Churchman. This St. Theodore is usually known, from the Nace of.his.birth, as St. 132 ~ March. 1944 . BOOK REVlE~WS Theodore of.Tarsus, but is here more properly call~d .from' the place of his See. Divine Providence had very .leisurely prepared the simple.--. monk, Theodore, by studies at Athens and monastic life in both EaSt and West.for the appointment as Archbishop of Cantdrbury in his sixty-sixth year. Tonsured, ordained, and consecrated, h~ came ~to England in 668. He was the first prelate to rule over all of Eng-land, and to weld its differing Christian missions, of Celtic, Roman, and Gallic origins~ into one unified national Church. His hand held the l~elm until his eighty-eighth year, securely guiding the youtig Churc,h into orderly and scholarly currents so truly beneficent for generations to come. The late Cardinal Lepi'cier, O.S.M., Who writes-the preface of this volume, states that it is the firs~ completew0rk bfi Theodore. The painstaking assembling of fragmentary data on Theodore's activities, in chronicles, bishops' installations; ~onciliar acts and the like, is se~ out in such seemingly artless fashion that the writer has had the pain that we may have ttie pleasure. It is easy to see why Engli~hmen of today, who do not share Theodore's Catholid faith, can still see in him one who "laid the foundation of English national unit~;." --- GERALD ELLARD, S.J. THIRTY YEARS WITH CHRIST. By Rosalie Marie Levy. Pp. 2,46. Pub-" llshed by the Author, P.O. Box 158, Station. O, New York I I,.N.Y., 1943. $2.00. . This autobiogiaphy discloses how Miss Levy in her thirty years as a Catholic ~onvert from Judaism has sought to bring the truth to her own race and to whomsover else she can. It tells of her leanings toward Catholicism from youth; of her attempt at religious life in a convent, frustrated by ill health: of a visit to Europe and a pilgrim-age to the Holy Land. The narrative reveals a zeal for Christ that shames the matter-" of-fact attitude of.many a "cradle" Catholic toward the faith. In ¯ 1936 Miss Levy organized the Catholic Lay Apostle Guild whose members circulate Catholic literature and spread Catholic truth bY answerin, g questions regarding Catholic. truths and practices at opeii-air. meetings. Since 1922 she has been active in the Guild of our Lady of Sion~an.organization aimed at the conversion of Jews. Her books include The Heavenl~l Road, designed to bring Jews to the true faith. Other devotional and apologetic titles total six books and~two pamphlets." " : The present work concludes with short biographical sketches of 133 BOOK REVIEWS Ret~iet~ for Religious four notable 3ewish converts; a valuable chapter entitled "The Proper Approach to the 3ewish Mirid"; a short presentation of apologetic q~est[ons and answers; and a ~ollection of correspondence odcasioned during the years of Miss Levy's apostolic work. It is an inspiring autobiography, a valuable handbook for the apologist, and an indispensable aid to those working toward the cofiversion of Jews.--R. SOUTHARD, S.J. WHITE FIRE. By the Reverend E. J. Edward, s. S.V.D. Pp. 219. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1943." $2.7S. Effective contrast points to artistic pla.nning and execution. To take such seemingly diverse physical phenomena as a convent garden, brilliantly beautiful with tropical flowers, under a Pacific summer sun, and the malformed, rotting, shocking face of "a half-dead leper in a leprosarium ward; such antagon.istic characters as a young American nun, filled with the love of God and enthusiasm for her work among the lepers for whbm she has willingly given up every-thing, and a despondent, despairing victim of the disease, whose love of God and man and self has turned to fierce hatred; the hdart-wa. r.ming hu.mor of a 'F~ther Doro, and the d~pth,touching pathos of a self-sac.rificing little leper girl, Dolores; nigh-breathless action of plot, and periods ~)f quiet, pr6found contemplation; to take all these--and more and blend and shade and work them into a pleasing comP0.sitel devoid of hash impressionism, calls for an artist's gift arid touch. Father Edwards has done this. Some. may feel that the story--the action--lags occasionally because of the "introspections" of Sister. Agnes Marie. However, the~e are integral parts of the whole an'd give the motivating force of ardent love of God and neighbor which makes Sister Agnes the heroine she certainly is. There-are scenes in White Fire which will beo long remembered: .old Lion Face, the realistic picture of the scourge of. leprosy; the simple, sincere,, and heroic offering of self niade by Dolores to the Santo Nino: and the finale on Christmas Eve which leaves dne thriliing.~M. F. HASTING, S.J. THE SPIRITUAL CONFERENCES OF ST. FRANCIS DE SALES. Pp. Ixxl ¯ -f- 406. The Newman Bookshop, Wesfm;nsfer, Md., 1943. Repr;nf. $2.75. Two or three times a week, when the weather was fine, Bishop Francis de Sales Would go over to the convene orchard of the Visita- 134 March, 1944 BOOK REVIEWS tion motherhouse at Annecy, in southern France, and sit down on. a rustic bench¯ When the nuns, among' them St. Jane-Frances de Chantal, had grouped themselves on the ground around him, he would talk informally on spiritual topics and answer questions; In bad. weather; for he came "even in bad. Weather," they would assemble in the convent p~rlo~. After the conference,a nun, appointed .because of her good memory, jotted down what the bishop had said and supplied, omissions from the memories of her companions. These conferences continued with lessening frequency from 1610 until the l~ishop~s death in 1622, the audience numbering three in the beginning, ten in the second.ye~ar, and increasing steadily thereafter, As other convents of the Visitation were established, the conferences were copied, sometimes not too carefully, and read with great avid-ity and profit¯ in them also. When some Un.scrupulous editor got hold of a copy surreptitio.usly

Issue 48.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1989. ; R F.vu-'.w FOR RF.uG~OUS (ISSN O034-639X) is published bi-monthly at St. l_x~uis University by thc Mis-souri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus: Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Blvd., Rm. 428: St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis MO. Single copies $3.00. Subscriptions: $12.00 per year: $22.00 for two years. Other countries: for surface mail. add U.S. $5.00 per year: for airmail, add U.S. $20.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write: REviEw FO~ REt.~GOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to REVtEW ~'oa RE~ol~;totJS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. David L. Fleming, S.J. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Editor Associate Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editors Jan./Feb. 1989 Volume 48 Number I Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOUS; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Rich-ard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709-1193. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from R~:vtEw r'oa REU~aOUS; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, M! 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. Review for Religious Volume 48, 1989 Editorial Offices 3601 Lindeil Boulevard, Room 428 Saint Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 David L. Fleming, S.J. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Editor Associate Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editors R~:vIEw FOR RELIGIOUS is published in January, March, May, July, Sep-tember, and November on the twentieth of the month. It is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index and in Book t~e te~I Index. A microfilm edition of R~:v~Ew FOR RELIGOUS is available from University~ Microfilms International; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyrighl© 1989 by R~vmw FOR RELiGiOUS. A major portion of each issue of REvmw FOR RgL~G~OUS is als~o regu-larly available on cassette recordings as a service for the visuallyl' im-paired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 1 O010. PRISMS . Religious life today presents a varied landscape of images. Some would see the landscape more in the fading light of autumn colors or, perhaps, far more somberly in the gray bleakness of a barren wintertime. Others look out and observe a springtime of new growth, with tender fresh green shoots and small delicate blossoms just visible above the ground level. All the various ways we have of picturing religious life have some basis in reality. For there are various prisms through which we view all life, including religious life. Prisms are very important because they do provide a way for us to see, to highlight and to emphasize, to reject and to ignore. As others share their prisms of vision with us, we gain en-trance to worlds of different colors and new life. Of course, if we main-tain our vision only through our own prism, our world begins to take on a singleness of color and a frozen artificiality of life. REVIEW FOR REL~C~OUS, from its first January issue in 1942, has tried to provide various prisms through which we might view the whole worldscape which must be a part of a vibrant Christian spiritual life and so necessarily a part of religious life. As newly appointed editor of this journal, I intend the variety of insights into the consecrated lifeform, tra-ditionally called religious life, to remain an essential contribution of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. This contribution seems all the more necessary at our particular moment in the Church when often more time is spent in defining and establishing one's own position than in listening or learn-ing of another's. I do not want to wear out an image, but there is another important pointer for us in the kaleidos6ope. The prisms of a kaleidoscope only pro-duce their beauty because of their relationships, one to another. I find that the prisms through which we view life only present us with adequate truth, new life, and fresh ways ofacting if we maintain the relationship of various viewpoints. That is the great strength of the Church who pos-sesses various pictures of Jesus in her gospels, who allows differing phi-losophies and theologies to provide understanding to her faith, and who approves the charisms of vastly differing forms of religious life to be le-gitimate icons of Christ for all the Christian faithful and for the world. It is in the maintenance of relationship that we possess the criteria of le-gitimacy, continuity, and true creativity. 4 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 In our current issue, the usual variety of articles gives indication of the richness of interests which help form the context of religious life. In subsequent numbers I intend to take the opportunity to highlight one or other article because of the importance of its issue or the insight or un-derstanding it provides. Sometimes I would like to reflect more broadly about certain key concerns of religious life as it is being lived in our Churc,h and world today. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in this way will continue to provide prisms as well perspectives on the relationships of the many prisms that make up our religious lives. David L. Fleming, S.J. What Do You Want?m The Role of Desires in Prayer William A. Barry, S.J. A frequent contributor, Father Barry wrote "God's Love Is Not Utilitarian" for our issue of November/December 1987. His address is Jesuit Community: Boston Col-lege; Chestnut Hill, MA 02167. know: you're going to ask what I want. "As I was driving up to the retreat house, I thought of your perennial question: 'What do you want?' and here's what l~came up with." I have often noticed that peo-ple who see me for some time for spiritual direction or directed retreats say things like this. It even becomes a bit of humorous byplay, as though they want to beat me to the punch. Clearly, one of my favorite questions for directees is the one Jesus put to the two disciples who began to fol-low him: "What do you want?" (Jn 1:38). If directees pick up on this predilection and start asking themselves the question, then, I believe, a good deal of my work as spiritual director is done. If we know what we want in prayer, we are going to find our way. After a practical belief that God wants an intimate relationship with each one of us and that God is directly encountered in our experience, nothing is more important for the development of our relationship with God-~-for our prayer, in other words--than knowledge of what we want and of what God wants. In this article I want to discuss the role of desires in prayer. Anyone familiar with the Spiritual Exercises knows that among the preludes to every meditation or contemplation is: "I will ask God our Lord for what I want and desire." In the various stages or weeks of the Exercises, Ignatius states what the desire is in each case. For example, in the First Week I "ask for a growing and intense sorrow and tears for my sins," and in the Second Week I "ask .for an intimate knowledge 5 Review for Religious, January-February 1989 of our Lord, who has .become man for me, that I may love him more and follow him more closely." In an earlier article in the R~v~Ew, l tried to show that each of the desires of the Exercises is a desire for some par-ticular revelation by the Lord. ~ On the face of it, it looks as though Ignatius is saying: "Here is what you should desire at each stage of the Spiritual Exercises." One conclu-sion might be to take a person through the four Weeks and just put be-fore him or her what Ignatius gives as the desire. In fact, this has been the procedure in preached retreats, including the preached thirty-day re-treats we older Jesuits and other religious made in novitiate and tertian-ship. But what happened if, as a matter of fact, I did not really desire to know Jesus more intimately when the Second Week was presented to me. Suppose, for example, I was still too afraid of what he thinks of me. In most instan(es, I would guess, we just presumed that we had the de-sire if it was Second Week time. But I would contend that without the real desire we never got very intimate with Jesus. Indeed, I believe that "what we really desire" is diagnostic of the stage of the Exercises we are actually in. To demonstrate this thesis we need to look at the role of desires in any relationship. If you get a call from someone asking for a.meeting, is not your first question, at least to yourself, "What does she or he want?" In fact, many meetings between people come off badly because the individuals involved have mistaken ideas of what each other wants. For example, I want to become your friend, and you believe that I want help with home-work; you want to help me, but are not even thinking of a deeper friend-ship. At the end of the meeting both of us are going to be pretty frus-trated unless we talk about our different desires and come to some understanding. Often enough, too, relationships become frustrating be-cause of ambivalent or incompatible desires in one or both parties. For example, I want to get closer to you, but I am also afraid of you. Or I want a friendship with you (a happily married woman), but I also want to goto bed with you. Every intended encounter with another person is accompanied by a"desire or desires'. We are not always aware of our de-sires, but they are present, and they condition our behavior in the encoun-ter. Now suppose that I want to befriend you and you do not want my: friendship. Will my efforts :at befriending get me or you anywhere? Only to frustration and resentment, probably. But let us say that I persist in trying to do nice things for you. What will happen? You will probably get more and more irritated and thus less and less likely to become my Role of Desires in Prayer friend. And like many a "do-gooder" whose good deeds are rejected, I may eventually wash my hands of you and call you an ingrate who de-serves his fate. Friendship is possible only when the desires are mutual, when you freely desire my friendship and I freely desire yours. Friend-ship cannot be coerced. "But," someone may object, "we often do things that we don't want to do. Because of my friendship for you, for example, I will go to a movie I don't like." But what do you want? If it is because of friend-ship with me that you go to the movie, is not your deepest desire to please me or to be with me? The friendship is more important than the movie. I believe that the centrality of desire for the developing of a rela-tionship cannot be denied. Now let us look at the importance of desires for the relationship with the Lord. In the first chapter of John's gospel, the two disciples of John are intrigued by this Jesus whom John has just pointed out as the lamb of God. So they start following Jesus. When Jesus asks them what they want, they say, "Rabbi, where are you staying?" They do not yet have strong desires, it seems; curiosity seems to be the desire. Jesus does not disdain this desire. "Come," he replies, "and you will see." Unless we have some attraction toward God, some curiosity or hope or desire, we will not take the time to begin our side of the relationship. If I be-lieve in my heart and feelings that God is an ogre, ready to pounce on any infraction, then I may try to placate him, but I will never want to get close to him. And God, as it were, does handstands.to convince us that he really is benign, that he is, as Jesus asserted, Abba. The p.rofli-gate wonders of nature, our own creation and life, the words of Old and New Testaments, Jesus himself, and other loving, caring people in our lives--these are all signg of God's desire that we find him attractive and let him come close. But he cannot force himself on us, or will not. We must have some desire to get to know him better. Sebastian Moore af-firms that God's creative touch which desires us into being arouses in us a desire for "I know what," that is, a desire for the Mystery we call God.2 This experience (understood as the experience of one's creation and continued creation) can be seen as the affective principle and foun-dation for the development ofone's relationship with God. The desire for "I know what" is what makes' our hearts restless until they rest in God. Many people need help to recognize that they have such a desire. Be-cause of life's hurts they may not recognize any other desire but to be left alone, or not to be hurt any more. Telling such people that God is Review for Religious, January-February 1989 love has little or no effect. They may need help to admit to God that they are afraid of, him and desire to be less afraid. Indeed, they may need help to voice some of their anger at life's hurts which seem to them to have come from the Author of life. The fact that they have not completely turned away from religion indicates that they may still want something from God, even if only an acknowledgment that he knows what hap-pened to them in life. Like Job some may cry out: "Then know that God has wronged me and drawn his net around me. Though I c~'y, 'I've been wronged!' I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice." Only after he has poured out his sorrows, seemingly, can he say: "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth" (Jb ! 9:6-7.25). In other words, it may take a great deal of pas-toral care and patient spiritual direction for some people to come to the point where they can trust life and the Author of life enough to let into their consciousness the desire for "'I know what.'" Job's friends have tried to derail him from expressing his desires to God: In his misery he wants God to speak to him. He will not lie and say, as his friends insinuate,, that he deserves his calamities because of his sins. Hewill not accept the just-world hypothesis proposed by his friends according to which anyone's sufferings must be deserved. No, he knows~that he does not deserve the awful fate that has befallen him and desires to speak directly .to God and to hear God's answer. Often enough we Christians are like the friends of Job. To a mother who has just.lost her only child we might say, "God knows best." and thus make it difficult for her to voice her outrage at God and her need for God's own answer to this awful loss. Sometimes we feel that we have to de-fend God against the anger directed at him by people in pain. Yet the anger may be the most authentic way for a person to relate ~o God and to ex.press a desire to know God's response. Finally in chapters 38 through 41 God does answer Job out of the whirlwind. The response may not sound very comforting or apologetic to _us, but apparently Job is satisfied, for he says: "My ears had heard of you but.now, my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in ~du.s.t and ashes." Moreover, then God speaks to Job's friends, "I am angry with you and your two friends, because yQu have not spo-ken of me what is~right, as my servant Job has" (Jb 42:5-7). Whatever else God's speech from the whirlwind means, it certainly does not mean that Jg~bohas lost God's friendship by voicing so strongly his desire to have God answer him. Another biblical instance of an attempt to derail a desire directed to- Role of Desires in Prayer ward God comes in the first chapter of the First Book of Samuel. Han-nah, one of the two wives of Elkanah, is barren and miserable. She wants a son. Her husband, seeing her weeping and fasting, says to her, "Han-nah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you down-hearted? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons?" In other words, Elka-nah wants Hannah to forget her desire and be satisfied with what she has. In the story we do not hear Hannah's reply, but her actions tell us that she is not put off by Elkanah's entreaties. She goes to the temple and "in bitterness of soul., wept much and prayed to the Lord." Indeed, when accused of drunkenness by Eli, the priest, she says, "Not so, my lord, I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I was pouring out my soul to the Lord." Hannah knows what she wants and is not afraid to tell God over and over what it is (I S 1:8, 10, 15). Often we tell ourselves or are told to quell our desires, to look at all the good we already have. We can be made to feel guilty and ungrateful for desiring what we want. But if we do suppress our desires without be-ing satisfied that God has heard us, then, in effect, we pull back from honesty with God. The result for our relationship with God often is po-lite distance or cool civility. Perhaps God cannot or will not grant what we want, but for the sake of the continued development of the relation-ship we need to keep letting him know our real desires until we are sat-isfi~ d or have heard or felt some response. In 2 Cbrinthians Paul says, "There was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to tor-ment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' " Now Paul could stop making known his desire because now he knew God's answer. "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. :For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Co 12:7-10). Convictions such as Paul's come not from theological or spiritual nos-trums, but from the experienc~ of growing transparency between a Paul and the Lord. Too often we use the hard-won wisdom of a Paul to short-circuit a similar transparency in our own relationship with the Lord. A woman may, for example, be experiencing the "dark night of the soul" and not like it at all. Her desire may be for it to be removed. She may be helped by the knowledge that others have experienced the same thing before her and been the better for it, but such knowledge does not have to satisfy her desire to be rid of the "dark night." A short circuit in the Review for Religious, January-February 1989 relationship might occur if she is told by her spiritual director or tells her-self to squelch her desire "because the experience is good for you." What she needs to experience is God's response, not a theorem of spiri-tual theology. She needs to know (really, not notionally) that God does want this darkness for the good of their relationship. Such real knowl-edge comes only through mutual transparency. Most of the healing miracles of the New Testament depend on the desire of the recipient for healing.The example of the blind beggar Bar-timaeus (Mk 10:46-52) stands out, but is not unusual. "When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, 'Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.' Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' " Obviously Bartimaeus will not be hindered from expressing his desire by any num-ber of voices trying to quiet him. These "voices" can come from within us as well as from without, by the way. "Jesus won't have time for the likes of me; other people have more important problems; things aren't so bad." These interior voices may be expressing our ambivalence about being healed. Just as Bartimaeus had made a way of life out of his blindness, so too we may have made our own physical or psychological or sPiritual limitations a way of life and be afraid of what a future without them might be. One person on a retreat thought that he desired healing from a kind of dark-ness that seemed to rule his life. But then he heard the Lord ask, "Do you want me to heal you of this?" and he had to admit that he was not sure. Interestingly, he felt that God approved the honesty of his response. The inner voices may also express our fear of arousing strong desires for healing only to have them dashed. "Suppose I really want to be healed and I hear the answer Paul got? What a disappointment!''3 Desires are complex and often contradictory. However, once we have allowed the ambivalence and complexity of our desires to surface, we have some-thing else to ask the Lord about. In the Bartimaeus story Jesus calls him over and asks, "What do you want me to do for you?" Bartimaeus is quite clear and unambi-valent, "Rabbi, I want to see." "Go," says Jesus, "your faith has healed you." I have italicized Jesus' words. Without the faith of Barti-maeus, apparently, this miracle could not have occurred. The miracle re-quires a. partnership between Jesus' healing power and desire to heal and Bartimaeus' faith and desire to be healed. Indeed, Bartimaeus' desire is his faith in action. An example may help to illustrate this point. Once I was filled with Role of Desires in Prayer anger and self-pity about the turn a friendship had taken and thought that I was praying for healing. I was contemplating the story of the two blind men in Matthew 9:27-30. When Jesus asked them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" I knew immediately that I was not ready to give up my self-pity and anger. If I did desire healing, it was with the same "but not yet" desire with which Augustine at one time desired chastity. I did not have the "faith" found in the two blind men and in Barti-maeus, a faith that showed itself in unambivalent desire. Another exam-ple that shows how desire is faith in action is provided by the father of the boy with the evil spirit reported in Mark 9: 14-29. Instead of asking directly for a healing, the father said to Jesus, "But if you can do any-thing, take pity on us and help us." Because he did not believe in Jesus' power to heal, he could not desire the hea!ing directly. "If you can?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes." To which the father replied, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief." In effect the man is saying, "Help me to desire healing." This last example brings us close to the hub of why desires are the raw material out of which relationships are made. In order for the heal-ing to occur, there must be a meshing of desires. Bartimaeus's desire for healing meets Jesus' desire to heal; without both desires there is no rela-tionship, at least no mutual relationship. This point is beautifully illus-trated in the story of the leper. "A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, 'If you are. willing, you can make me clean.' Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. 'I am willing,' he said. 'Be clean!' Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured" (Mk 1:40-42). Clearly desire meets desire. The kind of relationship Jesus desires is a mutual one', where desire meets desire. The need for a partnership of.desires becomes even clearer when we look at friendship. In John 15:15 Jesus says, "I have called you friends," and then goes on to indicate what that means from his side, "for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." From his side the desire has been to be fully transparent, to com-municate to them all that he is. His desire meets their desire to know him as fully as possible. Of course, full mutuality of friendship means that they desire to be fully transparent before him and he desires to know them fully. Take away one side of these desires and there no longer is a mutual relationship. Of course, on the apostles' part (and on ours) the mere desire for mu-tual transparency does not carry it off. "Between the cup and the lip . " Our desires are ambivalent and complex; we are fearful crea- 12 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 tures, as well, and our fears get in the way of what we most deeply want. We need help and healing to grow toward mutual transparency with the Lord. But that help is available if we want it. If we notice, for example,, that we want to know Jesus better, but are afraid of the consequences, we can ask Jesus for help to overcome our fears. But again we notice that desire is the key to developing the relationship. The retreatant mentioned earlier who told God that he was not sure that he wanted healing of the darkness that ruled his life provides another example of the reciprocity of relationships. Later in the same day he be-came more sure that he wanted healing and asked the Lord to heal him. The Lord's response was perplexing; "I can't," he seemed to say. The retreatant was enraged at such a response when his own reluctance had been overcome, and he let God know in no uncertain terms. Yet still later in the day, out of the blue, as it were~ he heard the Lord say, "But we can." He knew immediately that the Lord meant that he could live more out of joy than sadness if he kept desiring the Lord's helpful presence rather 'than withdrawing into himself. "We can" meant partnership. At the beginning of this article, I stated that the real desires a person has are diagnostic of where the person is in terms of the four Weeks of the Exercises. Let me now return to that point. If retreatants do not have a real trust in God's loving care and providence, they will not desire that God reveal to them their sinfulness. Without an experienced-based be-lief in God's goodness and 16ve, without, in other words, what I have called earlier an affective principle and foundation, people are too fright-ened of God to be able to say and mean the last words of Psalm 139: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (23-24). If there is no such real desire, then the First Week of the Exercises is not on. And, it seems, at this point God's desire is not so much to reveal sinfulness as to convince the person that he is "Abba." Similarly, if a retreatant voices the desire to know Jesus in or-der love him more and to follow him more closely, yet in his prayer con-tinually identifies with those who need healing, perhaps his real desire is to be healed. The desire of the Second Week to know Jesus shows it-self in an interest in Jesus himself, his values, his emotions, his dreams, his apostolate. If the retreatant is not really interested in these matters, but continually focuses on his own needs and weaknesses, then the Sec-ond Week is not. really in progress. Jesus himself may at this time desire more to heal than to call to companionship. The difference between the First and Third Weeks also comes down to a difference in desire. In the Role of Desires in Prayer First Week I desire to know that Jesus forgives me (and us), that he died for my (and our) sins; the focus is on desiring to have a deep experience of how much Jesus loved us even though he knew how sinful we were. The desire of the Third Week is more to share the passion with Jesus in-sofar as this is possible. The focus is on what Jesus felt and suffered, and the desire is that he reveal that to me. Retreat directors, I believe, do their most important work when they help their directees to discover what they do in reality want. And so every retreat could begin with a con-templation of Jesus as he turns and says, "What do you want?" As re-treatants hear these words and let them penetrate their hearts, they will come to know better what they desire; in other words, they will know better who they are at this time in their relationship with the Lord. NOTES ~ "On Asking God to Reveal Himself in Retreat," REVIEW FOR REI.IOWOUS 37 (1978): 171-176; reprinted in David L. Fleming (ed.), Notes on the Spiritual Exercises of St. ignatius of Loyola (St. Louis: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 1983), pp. 72-77. 2 Sebastian Moore, Let This Mind Be in You: The Quest for Identity Through Oedi-pus to Christ (Minneapolis: Winston-Seabury, 1985). 3 In another context I have discussed the courage of Bartimaeus. See "Surrender: Key To Wholeness," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 46 1987): 49-53. Perspectives on Parables and Prayer Donald Macdonald, S.M.M. Father Macdonald's most recent contribution to our journal was "A Pathway to God" (May/June 1988). His address continues to be: St. Joseph's; Wellington Road; Todmorden, Lancashire; 0L14 5HP England. A sister said that her annual retreat was less than satisfying because "the priest, who shall be nameless, seemed to spend a fair bit of time telling us how good he was. I nearly offered him a trumpet." My response was and is to wish that he could come for my annual retreat, if only to exer-cise my sense of humor, even though, as I suspect, he may be speaking tongue in cheek. If not, so much the better! This is not meant to be flip-pant, for it seems to me in recent years that retreats and such like are becoming more technical, esoteric, and managed. So often there has to be a title with content specified, ra~nging from privately directed to Bet- .ter World and charismatic, by way of the Spiritual Exercises, Inigo, Sadhana, Progoff, Zen, Yoga, and so much else; it seems a prudent step, therefore, to first inquire before one enters. The seeker for silence and stillness, for example, is likely to find an all-action organized retreat not a little off-putting. But it all seems so terribly earnest, with little humor. A retreat is undeniably important when seen as a chance for inspira-tion, encouragement, and vision, particularly if the opportunity comes only once a year. It is important that the Gospel is preached; arguably, over the years, some vocations may have gone by default, even among those who die as religious, inasmuch as the Good News, as the New Tes-tament would understand it, might not have been heard. It is sometimes asking much of a preacher during a retreat to try and shore up a creaking building on the verge of collapse when the day-by-day support has not been given. But what seems to happen today is a grasping for technique 14 On Parables and Prayer which is expected to provide the key to the Gospel. The search for the philosopher's stone is endemic. This, of course, may not be quite fair to someone who senses per-haps that "Thou [God] hast made us for thyself and our hearts are rest-less till they rest in thee" (Confessions 1:1).~ But expectation is not God, nor is disappointment nor, indeed, sat-isfaction. To set one's all on technique or the competence of the preacher or the receptivity of the audience is to risk losing everything. Humor will spare us that and much else. The late John Main, O.S.B., told a friend, a Ramakrishnan monk, who had asked him how he proposed to teach meditation, "Sit down, sit erect, say the mantra, and that's it.''2 His friend said that such an approach would never work with Westerners. It is so simple they will not believe you. His advice was to deliberately com-plicate it, saying you have esoteric knowledge which you can give only after they have been coming for at least ten weeks. Only then can t.hey be initiated. Throw in the name John Cassian for good measure. That should attract them. This raises a smile, as it is so close to reality as some of us observe it. A Greek Orthodox priest spoke similarly of students coming to his monastery asking to be initiated into the Jesus Prayer. "Say it." "But. ? . No, just say it." As you advance you need guidance. It is all rather deflating, for someone seeking the heights, to be told to begin at the beginning. It will be recalled that Peter L. Berger identified humor as one of his "signals of transcendence," a marvelous way out from all which might tend to dominate and frighten us in a seemingly locked-in world. It is crucial for perspective. "Laughter can show that power is ultimately' an illusion because it canno( transcend the limits of the empirical world. Laughter can--and does every time it relativizes the seemingly rocklike necessities of this world.''3 There is such a thing as gallows humor. Laughter can be a link with the divine and all that is, not just all that is here. How could a preacher or a community ever take themselves wholly seriously again after hearing this little story about a retreat director? He impressed a community as an obviously saintly man. His reputation grew as the week progressed--until he asked for meat on Friday. No saint would ever do that! On such are reputations built and lost. Favorite humorous authors such as P. G. Wodehouse or James Thurber can provide permanent links to God and reality. Once in their friendly and familiar company, we find space to simply relax and enjoy ourselves. We smile at Walter Mitty as we see ourselves in him. Our prob- 16 / Review for Religious,'January-February 1989 lems lessen in the face of what some of the Wodehouse characters have to meet. A Sergeant Bilko on black-and-white television can do as much. Holding on to the relative like this may help us see that there is always another chance--and if the Go.spei is to be believed, the time is now. I am far from underplaying the need for a properly prepared retreat or suggesting that one can laugh off whatever happens. Nor would I dis-count the value of any particular technique or approach. I would but say that everything here is relative and humor can help us see it. Father Enomiya-Lassalle once gave a day's Zen retreat to forty Korean novices, whose reaction was that "Up to now we used to have a scriptural text in our daily meditation to meditate on. Today for the first time we have felt that to meditate is to pray."4 One is grateful;for the sisters' experi. ence, but even if the priest had neve.r set foot in Korea, the providence of God would not have neglected them. Everything then can help, but nothing is essential. When the retreat .disappoints, all need not be lost. This is particularly so for those who know how to interpret their life in terms of Scripture. A fairly comprehensive experience convinces me that few can. If there is one cause of failure both in preacher and audience, it lies in the inability to do that. I would be astonished if novices knew how to do it, and very surprised to find it in the great majority of their senior brothers and sisters. One simple test is to listen for the Gospel when religious speak of what is happening to them and how they see it. The Gospel is the common coin of the Catholic Church, but many use it gingerly like a foreign currency. They do not know its value, or what to do with it. Authentic Sources 'Religious have been authoritatively urged that to genuinely live their calling they should draw "on the authentic sources of Christian spiritu-ality., in the first place they should take the Sacred Scriptures in hand each day" (Perfectae Caritatis, no. 6). Here faith and life are meshed as one. What a Jewish commentator, W. G. Plaut, said of the Torah, the Christian can wholeheartedly endorse for Scripture in its.entirety. "We hold that the Torah is a record of Israel's striving to meet God and un-derstand his will. In centuries of search, of finding and forgetting, of in-spiration and desperation, God touched the soul of his people and the sparks of these meetings burn in the pages of the Torah.' ,5 The "sparks of these meetings" are found in the pages of Scripture, and once prop-erly kindled they produce an enduring, not fitful, flame. In each meet-ing with God, which really means now, the religious by profession would wish his or her mind to be at one with the will of God, faith and life re- On Parables and Prayer flecting the one reality: "That man is Your best servant who is not so much concerned to hear from You what he wills as to will what he hears from You"(Confessions 10:26). That distinction is crucial, and none knew better than Augustine how hard it was to really make the transi-tion. All of us are innately self-centered, easily deceived. It is, then, prac-tical to go to the authentic sources of the Church's tradition, where "in the centuries of search, of finding and forgetting. God touched the soul of his people." Even Augustine intuitively seems to have felt this in his search for God. "I absolutely refused to entrust the care of my sick soul to the philosophers, because they were without the saving name of Christ. and whatever lacked that name, no matter how learned and excellently written and true, could not win me wholly" (Confessions 5: 14; 3:4). So while the attraction for God in Christ and authenticity was there, Augustine could not at first bring himself to find this, least of all in Scripture. He tells us honestly why: "So I resolved to make some study of the Sacred Scriptures and find what kind of books they were . My conceit was repelled by their simplicity, and I had not the mind to penetrate into their depths" (Confessions 3:5). He lacked "sincerity, openness of mind and that fundamental rev-erence which is a willingness to be commanded" which one who went deeper than most saw as minimum requirements before the Bible can do anything for a person.6 It is so hard to change one's mind radically, and that lovely quality of fundamental reverence before Scripture Js rarely found, especially in those who like to do things their own way--which means all of us, but for the grace of God. ~ Augustine was later to envy the Church's faithful whom he had once patronized as ignorant and unlettered. Once he himself had discovered the treasure which they so nonchalantly possessed, how his perspective changed: "Of what great harm to Your little ones was their far slower intelligence: since they strayed not far from You and so could fledge their wings in safety in the nest of Your Church, and nourish the wings of char-ity with the food of solid faith?" (Confessions 4:16). In thus moving from inauthentic to authentic existence as he saw it, he now realized that his "superior" stance was only that of the man with the empty stomach who does not know where to find food, in his case, "the food of solid faith." The search, tension, and struggle are perhaps heroic and the stakes are life or death, but nothing is gained by patronizing those who sit down each day at a full table. He finally knocked at their door and asked to come in and share what they had. Again his perspective changed: "It is with utter certainty that I love You. You have stricken Review for Religious, January-February 1989 my heart with Your word and I have loved You" (Confessions 10:6). It is well known that an appar.ently chance reading of Romans 13 and 14 finally enabled Augustine to see. Now from within the heart of the Church he is convinced that "Thou [God] didn't touch me, and I have burned for thy peace" (Confessions 10:27). This is not notional knowl-edge enabling him to speak to his intellectual peers, but the real insight given him by the word of God from within the Church enabling him to see faith and life as one. The sparks of the earlier meetings with God are now aflame in re-sponse to his word. His life and perspective are transfigured. It is per-haps not without its underlying humor to see this gifted man, with many of the gli~tering prizes within his grasp, now held enthralled by the faith of his mother and her nurse (see Confessions 9:8). He had traveled for miles and years searching for what he had left at home. If religious had this innate feeling of fundamental reverence before Scripture, always subordinating themselves to the word, never dominat-ing it, they might more easily warm to the sparks of the meetings with God in their own daily life, and so find a flame which they could never leave. Even among the trumpet calls of a preacher's self-proclaimed ex-cellence, the word of God isthere if one knows how to listen, but it is unlikely to be heard unless one is habitually doing this. That perspec-tive is all-important. A practical illustration may perhaps make the point. A Treasure Found Parables form much of the Gospel, and few strike a cord with the religious vocation more than "the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field" (Mt 13:44). Taken from life, it is meant to make us think. What is being said here? We under-stand what is being said, of course, but we are meant to assimilate its implications. Its dynamic is as powerful as Christ is real. Insofar as I be-lieve that God in Christ is here speaking to me, I shall respond and so attempt to make the Gospel my own. In fact, that parable, for many, is little more than an interesting analogy. It is a helpful example, an exter-nal, verbal, and indeed visual aid, as useful in the junior school as in the religious community. Precisely because that may not unfairly be de-scribed as the most usual understanding of the parable, the true perspec-tive is little known, and so those words scarcely ever spark into a flame. If that is compared with the approach to parables of T. W. Manson in a fine book first published over fifty years ago and often reprinted, we will find ourselves in another world where the sparks of the meeting On Parables and Prayer between Christ and ourselves can really catch fire. He says: Jesus is not concerned to demonstrate that God exists but rather to show the nature of the God whose existence is common ground for him and his audience. His aim is not to make God an article of faith but the ob-ject of faith. We are often concerned to make God probable to man; .he set out to make God real to them. It is this fact which makes parable the inevitable form in which the teaching of Jesus on the nature and ways of God should be delivered . The true parable., is not an illus-tration to help one through a theological discussion. It belongs to the same order of things as altar and sacrifice and prayer, the prophetic vi-sion and the like . It is a way in which religious faith is attained, and, as far as it can be, transmitted from one person to another. It is not a crutch for limping intellects but a spur to religious insight. Its object is not to provide simple theological instruction but to produce living re-ligious faith.7 This is Scripture seen from the inside. How many readers of this page honestly think like that? If religious habitually think in those terms, it seems to me that they keep it well hidden. Could the average reader echo, from experience, all that Manson sees--parable, the obvious teach-ing medium to make God real . . . a mode of religious experience on the same plane as altar, sacrifice, prayer, and insight., a way in which faith is attained, not a crutch for limping intellects., producing living religious faith? The easiest way to answer such questions is to ask: What did we feel when the parable was first quoted--' 'the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field."? If Manson was articulating what we have long known and felt, the resonances first produced by the par-able will still be there on the level of faith, not necessarily feeling. His comment would then simply buttress what we know to be true. Is our faith like a treasure found? Is this what has brought us to religious life? Is it a superb insight into reality? Is any sacrifice worthwhile to really possess it? What do we give in view of what we ~et? Can this treasure in any sense be found through the medium of an imperfect preacher? Do these words hold us up as they obviously show us up? One has to ask questions and link details together for the purposes of writing, but if the parable is properly assimilated to any degree, it is better to be silent and still and let the image absorb us and lead us where it will. We are then on the level of altar, sacrifice, prayer, and insight, willingly or even grudgingly, in view of the demands, letting ourselves be drawn into God through his Word. Perspectives that we perhaps know notionally are opened up to limitless horizons. Faith, not feeling, is seek- 20 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 ing to really understand. For years we have known the parable by heart. Have our hearts ever got the point and made it our own? Only silence and wonder stemming from fundamental reverence will do that. Fundamental Reverence For some years now virtually all religious communities have the for-mal daily prayer of the Church as their morning and evening prayer. In-variably, individuals or groups are given charge of liturgy and prayer, which generally means that coming to daily prayer one has to first find out what has been rearranged. Pages have to be marked, hymns noted, and alternative readings attended to. The pattern is rarely predictable. All this is done, one hears, because the community wants it, for the ordi-nary daily office is boring and repetitive. This constant adaptation is then seen as a practical attempt to engage the community in really meaning-ful prayer. In view of what has already been said, much of this suggests that those who foster or want this, apart from the risk of choosing only what-ever has personal appeal, may have no real feeling for Scripture, which may be why continual rearrangement is felt to be necessary to hold at-tention. This is, of course, the technique of the junior school, .where the children's attention span is limited and meaning has to be immediate. Yet if one receives~a line, phrase, sentence, or sentiment of Scripture on the level of altar, sacrifice, prayer, or insight, one just cannot keep chang-ing the focus without fragmenting the reality. Even to move, pick up a hymnbook, attend to alternative prayer or reading, or in general to be .never quite sure what is happening next, can be to break concentration. There may be some gain in alertness but, arguably, loss in continu-ity and assimilation. The Psalms and readings from the daily office have not yet been heard for the first time as Augustine, Manson, the Jewish commentator Plaut, and others would understand it, and will never be if one constantly changes the focus of attention in terms of relevance. One is all the time being brought up to the surface, never left long enough to go down to the depths. Ideally, the Psalms and readings could be so predictable that one almost knows them without turning the page. Only then do they have a chance of becoming part of ourselves so that we can truly listen, not just hear. Fundamental reverence would ask no less. But, however well intentioned, when one has to scan the board for the next item on .the agenda of prayer, or wait for the inspiration of a colleague, one is perhaps paying too high a price for spontaneity. The seemingly prosaic parable as a "spur to religious insight" must be in-vited to speak, not ordered to. On Parables and Prayer When Scripture is approached like this in the context of prayer, what one hears matters little. In time, perhaps less and less comes to mean more and more. It has not been and cannot be quite assimilated. Occa-sionally its relevance may be all too clear, as when, on the morning fol-lowing news of the horrific deaths of the seven astronauts in January 1986, one read: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, naked I shall return. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken back. Blessed be the name of the Lord. If we take happiness from God's hand, must we not take sorrow too?" (Jb 1:21, 2:10). Even if the words appear as dull as a school textbook, it does not matter. Nor does immediacy or surface mood. On the level of prayer, altar, sacrifice, and insight, it is one's faith responding to God that makes the connection. In time the words will peel away and matter less and less as one is held in faith, just as a smile or wave from a friend has a mean-ing out of all proportion to the action. It is a perspective on reality for which one is grateful. NOTES t The Confessions of St. Augustine, translated by F. J. Sheed (London: Sheed and Ward 1944). All references to The Confessions are from here. 2 John Main, O.S.B., "Christian Meditation," The Grail, 1978, p. 19. 3.Peter L. Berger, A Rumor of Angels (Penguin Books, 1971), p. 91. 4 The Tablet, London, January I 1, 1986, pp. 31-32. 5 The Torah, W. G. Plaut and B. J. Bamberger (New York: Union of American He-brew Congregation, 198 I), p. 1294. 6 C. H. Dodd, The Authority of the Bible [1929] (Fontana Paperback, 1962), p. 269. 7 T. W. Manson. The Teaching of Jesus (CUP, 1931; paperback, 1963), pp. 72-73. The Gift of Not Giving Jane Kammer C.S.Bo In our issue of January/February 1983, we published Sister Jane's "Three Times I Asked: Reflections on Weakness." She is a pastoral associate at St. Benedict Church in San Antonio. She may be addressed at 5107 Ozark; San Antonio, Texas 7820 I. So Jesus said to them, 'Well, then, pay to the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor and pay to God what belongs to God ' (Mt 22:21). "Jesus exclaimed, 'You ask me for a miracle? No! The only mir-acle you will be given is the miracle of the prophet Jonah' " (Mt 12:39). "As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had had the de-mons begged him, 'Let me go with you!' But Jesus would not let him"(Mk 5:18-19). A popular Christian saying and song is "God loves a cheerful giver." Giving has been exalted as a hallmark of Christianity, and so it is. Didn't our leader, Jesus, give his very life to show us God's great love? Giving has also been extolled as the virtue of the ideal Christian woman. For most of her life, my mother gave. She waited on my father; she gave of herself for her children. For all but the last few years of her life, I never heard her say no to anyone who asked a favor. But after she had grieved over my father's death, a change took place in my mother. At sixty-two she learned to drive a car; she went on vacations; she joined groups and clubs; and she began to say no to requests she really did not want to fulfill. She had discovered another dimension of giving. Giving is not always healthy for the giver or for the receiver. It is not true respect when I continually do for another what the person can do for him/herself. I am beginning to learn the gift of not giving. Teilhard de Chardin said, "Your essential duty and desire is to be 22 The Gift of Not Giving united with God. But in order to be united you must first of all be --be yourself as completely as possible. And so you must develop yourself and take possession of the world in order to be. Once this has been ac-complished, then is the time to think about renunciation; then is the time to accept diminishment for the sake of being in another. Such is the sole and twofold precept of complete Christian asceticism" (The Divine Mi-lieu [New York: Harper and Row, 1960], pp. 70-71). I believe that part of developing myself is learning, through practice, the gift of not giving to everyone who seems to ask. If I continually place my focus on others, then I cannot really give myself in love to them, for I do not have a self to give. It is my task to discover and develop the unique person God intends for me to be. I am codependent. To me that means I tend to place my center out-side of myself. I am inclined to seek affirmation and validation from some-one else. I feel safest when giving, not receiving. I am a people pleaser who fears rejection. Taking things personally and blaming myself for whatever seems less than perfect are aspects of my codependence. I have lived with many "shoulds" from the past which I have interiorized. In many ways my life repeats the story of my mother. But it is not too late to refocus my center within myself. I can learn to allow the true "me" to emerge from within. In time I can become a self-validating, self-affirming person whose peace is permanent and whose happiness does not depend on the mood of another. If I stay with myself, I can learn to love and accept myself as I am, even while want-ing to change some things about myself. I can give myself the gift of not giving up on the real, beautiful, and exciting "me." Moreover, I can learn to give the gift to others of responsibility for themselves. By re-fusing to absorb and carry the emotions of others, I will gift them with the faith that they are capable of living their own lives, making their own decisions, and caring for themselves. One morning I attended a meeting of four people who work in the same field. One of the workers continually griped and complained. Ne-gativity flowed out of her every word and facial expression. At the end of the session, I felt depressed, oppressed, and.burdened. I had absorbed into myself the flow of her negativity. But I can give myself the gift of not taking responsibility for other people's feelings, for others' pleasant or unpleasant feelings. I can maintain my joy, peace, and positive out-look if I am aware of my tendencies and if I give myself the gift of not giving in to codependence. I can learn to trust other people to run their own lives. I can deepen my trust in God. Review for Religious, January-February 1989 As codependent I also try to control others, though I may not be aware that I am doing so. I have not seen my friend for quite a while. I miss him or her. I may long with emotional intensity to see and be with my friend again. This is all right; this is me~ I fall into codependence, however, when I expect my friend to feel the same emotions that I do, the same strong loneliness. Because he/she feels differently does not mean that we are no longer friends. We are still connected by the bonds of love and the union of our spirits, but my friend is entitled to his/her own emotional swings. Occasionally we may both experience the same feelings, but that just happens; it cannot be programmed. By giving the gift of not giving my friend the task of living up to my expectations, I free him/her to be a unique self, and I free myself from the frustration of unmet expectations. As I grow, I learn the gift of n6t giving allegiance to everything that is said about,~me, even when it is said by significant others in my life. Opefiness to consider feedback is good and necessary for growth, but I can take the comments offered, test them sincerely against what I know of my true self, and decide to allow them to influence me or reject them as not fitting. More and more I stand free: receptive but able to make choices and.changes for myself. Each of us operates out of a specific personality type. I know that those "unacceptable" aspec.ts of myself, my "shadow," can become for me sources of undreamt growth and expansion. If I am introverted, recognition' of the shadow invites me to promote the development of more assertiveness, more sociability. By taking up the challenge of my "opposites," I give myself the gift of not giving in and becoming com-pletely immersed in my dominant qualities. I also give to others the gift of my expanded personality., my versatility to be reflective and quiet, and to be spontaneous and outgoing. I then realize that I have the potential to grow in all qualities of personality. Giving the gift of not giving can be risky. This is especially so if one is looked upon as a professional "helper." 1 am supposed to rescue peo-ple, or so it is often assumed. But the divine in me nudges me to grow and to foster my own "undependence" so that I do not need to rescue in order to feel worthy or worthwhile. I can then rejoice with the other in his/her efforts that lead to confidence, success, self-esteem, and de-victimization. When I encourage the other to look within her/himself for the indwell-ing God, the source of strength and goodness, then the other's success in dealing with difficulties is truly authentic and lasting. I become, not The Gift of Not Giving a rescuer or savior, but a real companion and friend. Recently a friend said to me, "I am upset over certain events that have taken place lately. I feel I can share with you about those situations because you are concerned and will give your support and prayers, but you won't take on my problems and become as upset as I am, and so be-come an added problem and burden to me. And you won't smother me with sympathy either." I consider those remarks a confirmation of the rightness of the gift of not giving and an uncovering of the true meaning of compassion. Jesus gave the gift of not giving. He refused to give direct answers to the Pharisees who were trying to trap him. He did not allow them to control him or his mission. Jesus did not perform miracles for those un-believers. He refused to compromise himself in order to please them. He did not even accept the adoration of the man who was cleansed from evil. Jesus will not allow us to follow him out of coercion or ignorahce. We must make up our own minds. He gave us the gift of not giving easy answers; he taught in parables. Jesus leaves us free and invites us to re- .sponsible living and loving. He refuses to take on our responsibility for ourselves and our world even though we often try to put on him th~ blame for our misfortunes and our mistakes. o Christ's peace was from within. He was "self-centered," anchored in the depths of his love springing from deep within. We too are chal-lenged to anchor in the gift of self that we find within, put there by God. One way to self is through the gift of not giving. Chapters and Structures William F. Hogan, C.S.C. Father Hogan wrote "The Cross Reconsidered" for our issue of March/April ! 988. His address remains: Fratelli Cristiani; Via della Maglianelli, 375; 00166 Roma, It-aly. Postconstitution chapters in most congregations take a very different form from those in which much labor was directed to working out, concept by concept, word by word, texts of constitutions to be submitted for ec-clesiastical approval. If there was perplexity in some institutes as to what a chapter would do when there were no more constitutions to write, the wonderment soon dissolved as attention was focused on the principal calls of the times: justice, peace, preferential option for the poor, sim-plification of lifestyle, apostolic spirituality, and so forth. Less legisla-tion emerged from the chapters; the accent was on setting immediate goals for administrations and planning steps for implementation of di-rection by the community: simple documents of challenge for reflection, inspiration, action. A variety of formulas, techniques, and approaches have been used to provoke a deep listening to the Spirit during sessions and to share the chapter's reflections and concerns with the larger con-gregation. Our times have seen much effort and creativity to make chap-ters meaningful experiences, and more will be needed in the future be-cause there is no magical formula that can cover every set of concerns or apply to all chapter circumstances. The uniqueness of each chapter will demand an approach suitable to its particularity: what works for one may very well not be beneficial to another. The experience of many congregations would advocate that it is not necessary for chapters to go over every element of the life of a congre-gation, as ordinarily done in the past, because there are so many other 26 Chapters and Structures participative structures in place between chapters. More effective results emerge when one topic is pursued in depth and the congregation's ef-forts are channeled in a particular direction. At the same time it is im-portant that a chapter and other community organs related to a chapter devote some attention to important points other than the principal topic. The 1983 code of Canon Law determines a number of issues to be treated in the particular law of religious congregations, and these fall under the responsibility of a general chapter. Most of these matters have been leg-islated in the constitutions; there is widespread reluctance to touch them after experiencing the difficulties of having constitutions approved, even when a group intellectually acknowledges the need for modifications. Oth-ers are taken up in the secondary book and should be reviewed by the chapter, even though its primary thrust is not concerned with the particu-lar law as such. There are ways of accomplishing this so as not to dis-tract from the major chapter consideration--for example, through the use of an ad hoc committee reviewing the legislation and making recommen-dations to the assembly. Without this review there is always the possi~ bility of a gap developing between living and the calls of the Spirit to move forward in mission. One of the most basic areas not to be overlooked is that of the struc-tures of government, where there are many questions deserving ongoing congideration even though structures are usually treated in the constitu-tions and considered of more permanent nature than rfiatters'of the sec-ondary book. Frequently the particular law of a congregation will state that structures are for the mission:, that the participation of the institute in the continuing mission of Jesus is the determining factor for structures of authority and government and the division of a congregation into life-promoting and mission-serving units. It .is far too easy to let the concept of structures for mission become a dead letter, since the mission is not staticbut constantly undergoing variables. Reflective vigilance is needed to take into account the changing factors of the mission of Jesus today and be at the service of the mission in fact and not just in word. This is especially true in international congregations with their divi-sions into provinces, regions, sectors, and so forth, but finds application also'in national and diocesan groups. Religious institutes are experienc-ing decreases in some of their internal divisions because of aging, loss of members, and other factors with the result that some previously sta-ble units no longer appear capable of maintaining the autonomy neces-saryto function as a unit in the same way. In not a few instances there is occurring a reversal of what have up to this point been geographical Review for Religious, January-February 1989 central and peripheral areas in congregations; then, too, there often is dis-persion of individuals and communities, along with new forms of com-munity. New foundations in third-world countries being made by differ-ent provinces of the same congregation point to a need for a networking among them to provide for sharing of experiences and insights, even if situations are not yet sufficiently clear to establish more permanent struc-tures. And surely, sufficient reflection on the units of a congregation will give rise to other situations in need of monitoring. Canon law and practice leaves the regulation of internal divisions to the individual institute and the authority therein determined, as long as the basic points of the approved constitutions are followed. These latter often allow for more flexibility than seems apparent at first glance; where there may be lacking the necessary suppleness, recourse should be had to the appropriate Church authority. A desire for survival may force the issue of restructuring in some congregations rather than a more overt con-cern that structures serve the mission; whatever be the motivation in fact, watchfulness is called for and the occasion of a chapter provides an op-portunity to exercise a healthy vigilance. Reflection on structures is not meant to pull religious in on them-selves, but outwards to furthering the work of Christ and promoting the qualitative dimension of ministry, life, and contribution to the local Church--lest there be a discrepancy between what we say of ourselves in principle and the reality of what we live. Connected with this reflec-tion is the issue of identity and charism, in the sense that the question at times arises whether to bolster the presence of the congregation in one part of the world through bringing new members from countries where vocations are still in abundance or simply to let the presence eventually fade out of existence. The tendency is to give an answer in terms of the works the religious are doing and whether the apostolates should be con-tinued; yet there is a deeper element than simply the works: Are the re-ligious bringing anything different in terms of witness to the local Church that others cannot effect? Not just a question of doing, but the reality of being: How are we in wha~ we do? No simple answers can be given to this; much soul-searching about the identity to which we witness is en-tailed. And if there is nothing .particular being shared with the local Church in terms of charism, it may be that the Spirit is saying that the congregation's presence is no longer gifting the local Christian commu-nity. A number of other matters concerning authority structures deserve periodic consideration, such as terms of office, interimsbetween chap- Chapters and Structures / 29 ters, and whether chapters are the only or best vehicles to accomplish the promotion of the mission and life. Many congregations have gone through a number of changes during the last two decades concerning the duration of offices because of concern with people being in positions too long, the need for freshness of vision in monitoring change and the cur-rents of the times, and the promotion of participation and development of individuals' gifts and talents. Sometimes in addressing one set of val-ues and making decisions in accord with them, experience shows that other values suffer and perhaps there is conflict in trying to integrate all the facets. Thus some congregations have gone full circle and returned to their original terms of office after various experiments; others have opted for a longer nonrenewable mandate; and still others have deter-mined upon several shorter terms. It would be idealistic to think that the workable formula reached for the present should not be open for recon-sideration if changing circumstances would indicate the need for another solution. Frequently religious Speak of the amount of energy that is expended in preparing chapters and implementing their decisions and orientations; also of the insufficiency of time between chapters for a congregation to realize the implications of chapter decisions before being moved on as a group to other subject matters. The frustrations sometimes expressed in this regard, in conjunction with fatigue over the number of meetings in which religious at times have to participate on different levels, raise the issue of whether there are other ways to accomplish the goals with-out the mechanism of chapters so regularly and all that is entailed therein, and still preserve and foster the principles of members working together toward policies of life and mission. Creativity of thought is needed here to safeguard the values intended by the structure of chapter and at the same time to prevent excessive use of energy that could be more directly channeled toward mission. Further, it might prove opportune from time to time to reflect on some of the points brought over into religious structures from corpora-tion models to assure the rights of individuals and promote participation. Some were needed to correct abuses or remedy problem areas at a par-ticular time. Are they still needed? Has something been lost from the com-munity- of-faith dimension while stressing organizational approaches? Where is the congregation now in the balance of values? Some benefi-cial insights could be gained by a congregation relative to structures for mission from treating these and similar questions. Not to be overlooked either would be the number of people involved :30 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 in community administration full time: too few? too many? enough for the needs of mission on the part of the congregation? How do we under-stand these needs now, taking into account the concept of community for mission and the need for good government and sufficiently broad-based decision making? The answer given at one time will apply only as long as circumstances remain basically the same: hence the need for periodic review. To look at some of these issues of structure from the viewpoint of service of the mission and the community's growth for mission may ap-pe. ar as an invitation to furiher instability in religious life; perhaps it would involve furthe~r unsettling, but in terms--hopefully--of the unset-tling aspe~zts of Jesus' message and mission a~d of the mentaJity of foun-ders and foundresses. Their primary passion, in following Jesus,,was to reveal the Father's love and assist others to experience it in their lives; institutionalization of religious life and structures as such generally arose after the founders' times. Stability of life is an important aspect of relig-ious life; it is expressed in the Church's definitions of consecrated life (see can. 573,1). However, stability must not be equated with no change, especially when the mission that gives meaning to the consecrated life demands change. Stability demands serious prayerful reflection on the whole issue of change, keeping our vision focused 'on the person of Je-sus arid his mission today. And while we concentrate our ,energies and attention on the great sweeping calls of the Spirit of Jesus as reiterated through the Church, we must also keep alert to whether internal struc-tures are enabling for response to mission. Meta-Expectations and the General Chapter J. Roberta Rivello, S.S.J. Sister J. Roberta Rivello is a Sister of Saint Joseph of Philadelphia. She is currently Dean of Graduate Studies Division at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia; prior to that she was research analyst for the Department of Army where she worked for the past seven years. This paper is about the difference between expectations reasonably held and "meta-expectations," and what happens when "meta-expecta-tions" are part of the agenda for a general chapter in religious institutes. Having to deal with these meta-expectations in the general chapter may be a part of the reason why so many religious institutes find themselves, in the years immediately following a general chapter, in the midst of a good deal of frustration, anger, even~outright rejection of some of the mandates of the general chapter. I believe this occurs because many of the expectatio.ns explicitly ex-pressed by the members of an institute are clearly not the substantive con-tent for the general chapter to consider. When a religious institute re-quests from the membership proposals, recommendations, and sugges-tions prior to a general chapter, it may be of some benefit to explain at the same time what is reasonable for the members to expect from the chap-ter, and to provide some criteria for arriving at the proper methods for expressing those expectations to the chapter delegates. Part of this edu-cation could include guidance into what constitutes "reasonable expec-tations," and how to differentiate between these and what I term "meta-expectations." I use the term rneta-expectations as a phenomenological description for the kinds of aspirations and expectations which are not structurally 31 Review for Religious, January-February 1989 . and substantively significant to the issues ~hich h~ive been identified as chapter material. Persons who express such "meta-expectations" through their proposals and letters certainly do not perceive them as meta-expectations-- or they would not submit them. I believe it is the job of the prechapter committees to communicate to those who submit such pro-posals, even personally if possible, why it is that their expectations are not reasonable for the chapter to include in its portfolio of proposals. Do-ing this would eliminate some of the postchapter frustration, even if in-itially the explanation is quite difficult to accept. A general chapter may, for example, need to deal with spirituality and prayer as they relate to the charism of the institute, and proceeds to invite proposals to that effect. When the proposals are reviewed, how-ever, it is found that some members have expressed a variety of expec-tations which~ are, not substantive.ly identifiable with the charism and spiri-tuality of the institute. If these .expectations were to become content for the~delegates' consideration during the chapter, they could seriously im-pair the effectiveness of chapter deliberations and could ultimately erode the charis~n itself of the institute. The "mandates" of a general chapter are simply directives with en-forcement p.ower. These mandates deal with matters which have an im~ pact on the~members' sPiritual development, community life, prayer, ap-ostolic works, or other important areas which are integral to the life of a religious.The precise direction which the general chapter should take is undergirded by the constitutions and charism of the institute. Whatever else, a chapter accomplishes, it ought to accomplish the ful-fillment of its members' first-order reasonable expectations. These rea-sonably held expectations, in turn, ought to flow from the institute's spiri-tuality and charism. Ageneral ch.apter,, however, need not attend with great detail to ful-filling second-order expectations since these do not necessarily consti-tute the ne'cessary and sufficient matter for a general chapter to entertain. It is these latter which I term meta-expectations. Meta-expectations are something which a newly elected leadership might need: to consider sometime soon after entering into their term of office. But religious institutes which choose to concern themselves with such non-reasonable expectations during the general.chapter frequently find that there are.significantly sharp differences between the way the dele-gates perceive of the proposals presented to them and the way the pro-posing me,.mbers perceive the resulting chapter mandates. They will ac-cept the mandates accord.ing to what their expectations were prior to gen- Meta-Expectations and the Chapter eral chapter. Even in the Church today there is a growing sense that religious in-stitutes are experiencing very serious differences in the way the mem-bership perceives the outc0me of general chapters. This is partially due to the way general chapters often conduct their prechapter preparations and the way that Chapters of Affairs are conducted. These differences in perception and interpretation area result of the failure to differentiate between the reasonable expectations and the meta-expectations of the in-stitute's membership. This failure further fragments the members and their acceptance of the mandates and authority of the chapter. In this paper I will try to clarify what are reasonable expectations for a general chapter, and to show the difference between reasonable expec-tations and meta-expectations and how they influence the general chap-ter, Conflict between these two kinds of expectations can exist whenever expectations of any kind are elicited and aroused. For example, if one is invited to dinner, it is all right to expect something to eat but it is not reasonable to expect filet of beefi That is a meta-expectation, and while it may not be wrong to hold such a meta-expectation, it certainly is not reasonable; nor need the host meet it. Neither should the one holding such a meta-expectation be disappointed or offended if the host does not ~erve filet! More relevant to our discussion are the expectations religious have about their general chapters especially when preparations for them evoke strong expectations among the members as well as among the delegates. As I gtated above, two. of the things which ought to be simultane-ously evolving in the months prior to a chapter are how to identify and clarify the proper content for consideration and how to prepare both dele-gates and members to be able to differentiate between meta-expectations and reasonable expectations. It is reasonable for members of a religious institute to e£pect its gen-eral chapter to ~nandate programs for renewal, for spiritual development, for apostoli6 works, and for good community life. But it is not.reason-able to (xpect it to'decide how the membership ought to rest and relax, even thou'gti such matters are very important and time arid thou~ht~ought to be given to their consideration. It is as unreasonable for the member-ship to expect this to be considered as it would 'be for the general chap-ter to consider it---even if some of the delegates want it added to the agenda. The business of a general chapter is to redesign the future of the institute as it finds itself called to reveal Christ to the world in its con-temporary situation. This is its first-order work and is the only claim any- Review for Religious, January-February 1989 one can reasonably make on a general chapter. If the institute is true to its charism, the general chapter will succeed in fulfilling reasonable ex-pectations, and a newly elected leadership, or a reelected leadership, will be confirmed and authorized in working together to find ways and means to carry out what the chapter has mandated. In doing so, general administration should act in such a way that it further clarifies the difference between reasonable expectations and meta-expectations. Acting thus after the chapter assures continuity as well as flexibility in the institute's lived-out charism, since it preserves the in-tegrity of the institute's constitutions even while assuring versatility in their application to the reality that presents itself here and now.~ After all, it is in the real world that the institute exists, and its contemporary situation should be the focus of the institute's energies if it is to survive. If, however, the general chapter takes into consideration everything sub-mitted to it, the real essence of the institute's life becomes obscured. In addition, every proposal presented to the chapter contains its own par-ticular character and language which force the delegates to unpack its meaning before addressing the issue it contains. By sifting out the recta-expectations from the agenda, the delegates will be freed to concentrate on the constitutions and charism of the institute and to interpret the con-temporary situation in light of the Gospels for the world the institute is called to serve. There is good evidence that the bishops did this in Vatican II docu-ments. The document Lumen Gentium shows that they were aware of their .responsibility to separate out the recta-expectations from the rea-sonable ones.2 Their emphasis was on common-good considerations. Common-good considerations evolve from whatever the community has in common, not from things incidental to it. I believe this is why the docu-ments are clearly and straightforwardly parousial (expectant), so fitting for a Church in labor to reveal Christ to the world. For religious insti-tutes, the emphasis should also be on the common good, that is, on what the institute holds in common and what it shares as an institute in labor to reveal Christ to the world. For religious, this is found in their consti-tutions and in the charism of its founding. The document Perfectae Cari-tatis expresses the expectation of the Church about what it believes re-ligious institutes are called to be: Religious should carefully consider that through them, to believers and nonbelievers alike, the Church truly wishes to give an increasingly clearer revelation of Christ. Through them Christ should be shown con-templating on the mountain, announcing God's kingdom to the multi- Meta-Expectations and the Chapter / 35 tude, healing the sick and the maimed, turning sinners to wholesome fruit, blessing children, doing good to all, and always obeying the will of the Father who sent him.3 Rather than stating the expectations of religious, the document states what it is the Church expects of the religious institutes. This sense of expectation is not alien to either the Old or New Tes-taments. Scriptures retell the sacred history of a people filled with ex-pectation for a Messiah. For some, that expectation was misplaced or mis-focused so that when the Messiah came, when the expectation was ful-filled, they did not recognize it. Likewise, the message of Christ was clearly a statement of what it was he expected of us as we await his sec-ond coming. It is this same degree of expectation which is the ground-ing for religious institutes coming into being in the first place, that is, to reveal Christ to others even as we await (expect) his second coming. At this time some institutes are preparing for their chapter. A great deal of preparation will take place, I am sure. Included in that prepara-tion should be some education on what constitutes reasonable expecta-tions for the membership to have and how to express those expectations in proposals, letters, and prechapter committee work. I believe that some of the meta-expectations expressed prior tochapter in proposals to the general chapter are the result of excessive reliance on congregational and personal self-analyses which, in turn, rely too heavily on current statis-tics, social analysis, and popular trends. This tendency is best described as the historicist versus the historical view of events.4 Both views are needed but if they are not balanced, the religious institutes are robbed of either their historical tradition and dynamism (charism) or of insights derived from knowledge of the cultural and intellectual shifts occurring in society. Needless to say, I believe the omission of either is wrong. In fact, one of the tasks of the general chapter is to ensure that the bal-ance between both perspectives is maintained. Furthermore, an advan-tage to holding the Chapter of Election after the Chapter of Affairs is to ensure that the elected leadership is committed to carrying out the man-date of the general chapter and to the mission of the institute visible in its charism. The business of meta-expectations derailing expectations occurs daily in society--in the system of justice, in education, in government and other natural systems. It ought to occur less frequently in religious institutes if they are open to the Spirit unfolding in them. One other example of the distinction between meta-expectations and Review for Religious, January-February 1989 expectations might clarify what I am saying. In a religious institute mem-bers may experience some dissatisfaction with the missioning process, and all kinds of proposals expressing both meta-expectations and expec-tations emerge. The dissatisfaction is with the process and not with the people doing the job. Instead of focusing on the dissatisfaction, the dele-gates begin, as a result of some meta-expectations, to design new roles and functions for the persons charged with missioning when they ought to have seriously looked at the process and analyzed the cause of dis-content. The process is in need of change; failure to redesign it changes nothing, and future chapters will find themselves still dealing with dis-content about the process. Sometimes an issue is finally resolved but only after it has resurfaced in several chapters. One cannot be sure, however, that the ultimate resolution flows from reasonable expectations or not. What is certain is that if it is the result of meta-expectation something of the institute's charism is diminished. A model for expectations showing the process involved in discern-ment of the kinds of things which happen as a result of responses pro-vided in proposals follows: -Perception: dissatisfaction with missioning process -Response: a change is needed in the process In this model the response is a ~reasonable expectation for members to have. The model also lends itself to scrutiny by the delegates who will then test various recommendations made in the context of chapter to see how they relate to the charism and spirituality of the institute. In doing this, no special interest or meta~expectation will drive the final outcome. After chapter, the information and proposals not used in chapter can be given additional study and perhaps even be used for input into some ad hoc trial period of experimentation. A second model based on meta-expectations follows: -Perception: dissatiSfaction with missioning process -Response: establishment of new roles for persons charged with process The response in this case is the fulfillment of a meta-expectation since it begins to deal with m'any different aspects of the dissatisfaction. The issue is clearly defined as dissatisfaction with the process; then the charism and spirituality of the institute should dictate the solution. The response in this model is expressive of one of the many meta-expecta-tions expressed, all of which are not substantively, relative to the insti-tute's charism and spirituality. This model is provided as example; it is not a definitive model. Religious institutes can substitute ever so many examples which violate their own particular charism. This is not to say Meta-Expectations and the Chapter / 37 that it is wrong to have the vision to redesign the institute or to follow "paths unknown." What this paper is addressing is the growing aware-ness among religious that somewhere things are going amiss and worse, that it is becoming increasingly more difficult for the institute to recog-nize its own charism and spirituality at work in the Church for which it is called to reveal Christ and through him the Father. In this brief essay I have tried to make a distinction between the jus-tifiable and reasonable expectations one might have for a general chap-ter and the meta-expectations one might have, which are not reasonable for a general chapter to consider in its deliberations, no matter how at-tractive or relevant those meta-expectations appear. NOTES ~ Bernard J.F. Lonergan, S.J., Insight: A Study of Human Understanding. London. 1958. passim. 2 Walter M. Abbot, S.J. (ed.), The Documents of Vatican !!, p. 225, n. 26. All ref-erences to the Documents are taken from here. 3 Documents, p. 77, n. 46. 4 For an insightful account of the distinction between historicism and historicalism, read Bernard J.F. Lonergan, S.J., Method In Theology: London, 1971. pp. 323- 326, 239, 318. See also the works of Wilhelm Dilthey and Ernest Troeltsch; Maurice Mandelbaum. Enc. Phil., 4:22-25. Thomas Merton and His Own Cistercian Tradition M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O. Father Basil's most recent article in this journal was "Simple Contemplative Prayer" (March/April 1987). He now resides at Assumption Abbey; Rt. 5, Box 193; Ava, Missouri 65608. I presume most of the readers of this essay are fairly familiar with the life and development of Thomas Merton. In the last pages of the Secular Jour-nal, Merton sums up his spiritual journey towards the Church and mon-astery: From Gilson's Spirit of Medieval Philosophy I learned a healthy respect for Catholicism. Then Ends andMeans taught me to respect mysticism. Maritain's Art and Scholasticism was another important influence, and Blake's poetry. Perhaps also Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism, though I read precious little of it. I was fascinated by the Jesuit sermons in Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man! What horrified him, began to appeal to me. It seemed to me quite sane. Finally G. F. Lahey's Life of Gerard Manley Hopkins; I was reading about Hopkins's conver-sion when 1 dropped the book and ran out of the house to look for Fa-ther Ford. ~ It is not surprising that this author would be influenced primarily by authors and their books. In a preface to A Thomas Merton Reader, published in 1962, six years before his tragic death, Merton summed up his monastic years: I would say that my life at Gethsemani has fallen roughly into four pe-riods. First, the novitiate. I was a novice in 1942-1944. Those were hard years, before the days when radiators were much in favor during the win-ter, when the hours of communal prayer were much longer, when the 38 Merton and Cistercian Tradition fasts were much stricter. It was a period of training, and a happy, aus-tere one; during which 1 wrote little. The best Gethsemani poems be-long to this period. At the end of the novitiate my health broke down and I was ap-pointed to write and do translations of French books and articles. I was also studying philosophy and theology in preparation for ordination to the priesthood. This second period extends from 1944, my first vows, to ordination in 1949. At first the writing was very bad . In 1946 I wrote Seven Storey Mountain, in 1947 Seeds of Contemplation, and in 1948 The Waters of Siloe. After ordination, in 1949, there was an-other brief period of poor health and nervous exhaustion. I was almost incapable of writing for at least a year and a half after I became a priest. Then after a rest period in the hospital, I wrote The Ascent to Truth and Bread in the Wilderness (both about 1951) and finished The Sign of Jonas, 1952. In 1951 1 was appointed the Master of Scholastics, that is, of the young monks studying for ordination in the monastery. This en-tailed a fair amount of work preparing conferences and classes. Books like The Living Bread and particularly No Man is an Island and The Si-lent Life belong to the end of this period. Finally, a fourth stage. In 1955 I was made Master of the Choir Nov-ices. This is an office involving considerable work and responsibility. No writing of any account was done in ! 956, but after that it was possi-ble to produce short books or collections of essays, and some poetry. Disputed Questions, The Wisdom of the Desert, The Behavior of Titans, and New Seeds of Contemplation belong to this last period. So too do more recent essays on nuclear war, on Chinese thought, on liturgy, and on solitude.2 It is notable that in all of this literary reminiscing, Merton does not mention specifically any Cistercian Father or any of the work he did con-cerning them. Actually he does not seem to have had any contact with the Cistercian tradition prior to entering the monastery. But, in fact, once he entered the Cistercian life he so immersed himself in it that it became the very matrix of his life and .thinking. In his early days as he was as-similating Cistercian spirituality, Merton wrote about the Cistercian Fa-thers explicitly. When he served the community as Master of Scholastics and as Novice Master, he spoke about them constantly; his notes and his taped conferences are full of them. Later they cropped up spontaneously in his writings, the paradigm against which he evaluated what he was then absorbing. One of his favorites would find his place in the final talk Merton gave a few hours before his sudden death.3 When Merton first entered the monastery, there was, as he said in the epilogue of The Spirit of, Simplicity,4 little of the Cistercian Fathers 40 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 available in English.5 But this did not hinder him. He not only found no problem in reading the Latin texts in Migne, he strongly believed that translations always lacked something of the origin~il.6 How carefully he studied these texts is witnessed not only by his frequent use of quota-tions from them in his early writings and the talks he gave his scholas-tics and novices, but also by the .und.erlinings and annotations found in the voit]mes of the Fathers which he used. One of Thomas Merton's-- or Frater Louis, as he was then called-- earliest assignments was to translate a.report from the CisterCian Gen-eral Chapter, entitled The Spirit of Simplicity,7 and provide a suitable in-troduction for it. He'not only did that but gathered a complementary selection of texts from St. Bernard on interior simplicity in its fullness. He translated these and commented on them, turning the report into a full book. This part of the The Spirit of Simplicity has recently been published in a volume in the Cistercian Studies Series with two other early Bernar-dine essays of Merton.8 He wrote a five-part study of Bernard and St. John of the Cross for Collectanea which expresses his concern of that period when he was writing The Ascent to Truth .9 We can detect in these essays a certain struggle Merton was experiencing in trying to respond both to the rich, fully human patristic heritage Bernard offered him and the exciting, stimulating, scholastic approach which John of the Cross was able to integrate with a high mystical theology. It wbuld be Ber-nard's approach that would win him over. In the prologue to The Sign of Jonas he would write: "I found in writing The Ascent to Truth that technical language, though it is univer-sal and certain and accepted by theologians, .does not reach the average man and does not convey what is more personal and most vital in relig-ious experience. Since my focus is not upon dogmas as such, but only on their repercussions in the life of a soul in which they begin to find concrete realization, I may be pardoned for using my own words to talk about my own soul." ~0 The third piece in the Cistercian Studies volume witnesses to another early concern of Merton--the superiority of thecontemplative life. In an extensive essay which was first published serially in ~Collectanea and later appeared as a volume in French,~ Merton is at pains to establish that the apostolic life, though it may have a fullness beyond the purely contemplative life, as Bernard ,acknow!edges,.has true:value only inso-far as it flows out of contemplation. And thus the contemplative life is in itself more important or of greater dignity. Merton's~argumentation Merton and Cistercian Tradition here is not all that easy to follow, nor that cogent. Later he himself would comment negatively about such preoccupation.~2 The eighth centenary of Bernard's death led to a spate of publishing on the saint. Merton translated the papal encyclical produced for the oc-casion and wrote an introduction to it. ~3 He was invited to introduce other works. His preface to Bernard de Clairvaux, a collection of studies pub-lished by the Historical Commission of his order and edited by its chair-man, Father Jean-de-la-Croix Bouton, shows the increasing influence of Bernard on Merton.~4 The piece is filled with scriptural texts and allu-sions. We might.say it is a very Bernardine piece about Bernard. In line with his earlier concentration, Merton sees that Bernard added to the Cis-tercian reform "an emphatic call to contemplative union with God." ~5 At the same time Merton begins to reveal a more integral understanding of Bernard as a "man of his times . . . a many-sided saint." 16 This is further in evidence in the next piece. His .introduction to Bruno Scott James's translation of the letters of St. Bernard, he considered important. ~7 At his behest it was included in A Thomas Merton Reader in the section ".Mentors and Doctrines."~8 It revealed Thomas Merton's growth in his appreciation for Bernard in line with his own personal growth. Merton had had his experience on the cor-ner of Maple and Fourth. He now beheld all with a greater integrity. He had a new .appreciation for Bernard the man. H~e appreciated the letters because they so well brought out the human dimension of the great saint: They [the letters] show the man as he is, and because he is so much a man, readers who forget that saints must be men may sometimes be in-clined to question his saintliness . Bernard is sent to instruct us how human a saint must be to forge'out the will of God in the heat of the affairs of men . He had the humility to be himself in the thick of a silly argument. He had the good grace to admit that a saint might pos-sibly have to bicker with another saint . The angry Bernard, the pas-sionate Bernard . . . the merciful Bernard, the gentle long-suffering monk who could be as tender as a mother . 19 As Merton noted in his brief literary biography quoted above, liturgy came more to the fore in a later period of his life. In Seasons of Cele-bration he published one of his most beautiful pieces on St. Bernard: "The Sacrament of Advent in the Spirituality of St. Bernard.' ,20 It is undoubtedly St. Bernard, the "Theologian of the Cistercian Life" (as Merton's friend Jean Leclercq would name him), who received the most attention from Merton. Besides Bernard's prominence as the mas-ter of the Cistercian school, there would be the influence of Gilson. As 42 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 we have seen above, Gilson was one of the first to open the way for Mer-ton towards Catholicism. Merton's respect for him never diminished, and his masterful work The Mystical Theology of Saint BerndrdZ~ was most carefully studied and wholly accepted by Merton.22 But Merton read all the significant Cistercian Fathers, and spoke and wrote on them as occa-sion offered. The "Bernard of the North," Bernard's disciple, the abbot of Rievaulx, Aelred, received special attenti.on. Merton has an extensive un-published piece on him, which looks like it was on the way to becoming a book. We can hope it will. soon appear in Cistercian Studies. It is an important piece, and I shall return to it later in this esgay. As one of his first projects for Cistercian Publications, Merton wrote an introduction for Father Amfd6e Hallier's Monastic Theology of Aelred of Rievaulx. Here again we see the later Merton rejecting earlier attitudes: Let us be quite clear the monastic theology of Aelred is not a partisan "theology of monasticism." It is not an apologia for .the life of the monk, and not a kind of gnostic system organized to prove some sup-posed superiority of "the contemplative life," urging a flight to ineffa-ble convulsions,z3 He saw that "the Christian life is, for Aelred, simply the full flow-ering of freedom and consent in the perfection of friendship. Friendship with other human beings is an epiphany of friendship with God." Mer-ton notes that "Not so long ago, some of Aelred's books were kept un-der lock and key in Trappist libraries. ,,24 Merton never wrote a particular essay on Bernard's closest friend, William of Saint Thierry, but he considered him "a profound and origi-nal theologian and a contemplative in his own right."25 He dedicated one of his first books to him, "one of the saints and mystical theologians of the Golden Age," and quoted him extensively in the foreword.26 In regard to the fourth of the evangelists of Citeaux, Guerric of Igny, we have the opportunity to get a sampling of Merton's more ordinary treat-ment of the Cistercian Fathers in his talks to the juniors at Gethsemani. Sister Bernard Martin of Chimay transcribed two of Merton's talks which had been taped and published the transcription in Cistercian Studies in 1972.27 For Merton, "Guerric was really deep and very spiritual and very mystical."28 And as Merton.opens him up for his novices, he is also very much alive, very practical and down to earth. It is in these intimate talks that we best see how the Cistercian Fathers reverberated in the mind and heart of this twentieth-century Cistercian Father. Merton and Cistercian Tradition There is a more formal treatment of Guerric of Igny and his liturgi-cal sermons in Merton's introduction to the Gethsemani Christmas book for 1959: Sister Rose of Lima's translation of Guerric's Christmas ser-mons. 29 Other Cistercian Fathers turn up in Merton's published writings. There are poems about St, Alberic3° and St. Malachy.3! When Cister-cian Studies began publishing Sister Penelope's translation of the ser-mons of Isaac of Stella, Merton provided an introduction for this "not the least interesting of the Cistercian writers."32 He found him a "more independent thinker and less subject to the dominant influence of Saint Bernard''33, whose writings reminded him "at times of Eckhart in their tone."34 Merton's spirit resonated with this abbot who withdrew from a large and important Cistercian abbey to an erernus, a poor and lonely island foundation. Merton provided an introduction for another Cistercian Father, one of his favorites, Adam of Perseigne.35 Earlier he had written about Adam's theory of monastic formation in an essay that was published in Charles Dumont's French translation.36 Adam was for Merton something of a mentor in his duties as novice master, and his admiration for the ab-bot of Perseigne remained till the end. In his final talk at Bangkok he brings him forth to illustrate a basic monastic theory.37 When the earlier essay was further developed, Merton gave it a new title, one that wit-nessed to his own development: The Feast of Freedom. Adam, Aelred, all the great Cistercian Fathers led Merton in the same direction. But Merton did not have an unbounded admiration for all the twelfth-century Cistercian writers, Here is an example, Gamier of Langres: Gamier was not deep and not spiritual and not mystical. He was a literal-minded person with a lot of learning. As a matter of fact he is quite in-teresting, On the liturgy, he has a lot of little statements about what they did at the time and what they thought they were doing and why they did it. But these are just little statements of historical fact. Today Gamier would be a scientific-minded critic. "But a scientific-minded critic in the Middle Ages is just about zero, because he has nothing to work on . He's finished, he's dated, he's way back. He is no more modern than 'a twelfth-century concept of the universe.38 He goes so far as to say: "His work., is not in English at all, and if it never gets translated into English that won't be too soon.' ,39 This does, though, give, us another indication as to the extent to which Merton worked his way through the pages of Migne4° and ex-plored all the published writings of the early Cistercian Fathers. 44 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 Above I have mentioned the monograph that Merton was working on entitled "Saint Aelred of Rievaulx." This is a significant piece of work. In placing Aelred in context Merton gives a fine synopsis of Cis-tercian history and especially literary history from the foundation in 1098 up till the death of Becket (+ 1170). But I think one of the valuable ele-ments of this work is the insight that Merton has as a later Cistercian writer into these early Cisterclan writers. Indeed, as I read the pertinent section I ask.myself if this is not a candid insight into Merton himself as a Cistercian writer: ¯ . . the rich and elegant vitality of Cistercian prose--most of which is sheer poetry--betrays an overflow 0( literary productivity which did not even need to strive for its effects: it achieved them, as it were, sponta-neously. It seemed to be second nature to St. Bernard, William of St. Thierry, Adam of Perseigne, Guerric of lgny, to write with consummate beauty prose full of sound and color and charm, There were two natural explanations for this. The first is that the prolific Cistercian writers of the Golden Age were men who had already been thoroughly steeped in the secular literary .movements of the time before they entered the clois-ter. All of them had rich experience of the current of humanism that flow-ered through the twelfth-century renaissance . There is a second explanation for the richness and exuberance of theo-logical prose in twelfth-century monasteries of Citeaux. If contact with classical humanism had stimulated a certain intellectual vitality in these clerics, it hlso generated a conflict in their souls. The refined natural ex-citements produced by philosophical speculation, by art, poetry, music, by the companionship of restless sensitive and intellectual friends merely unsettled their souls. Far from finding peace and satisfaction in all these things, they found war. The only answer to the problem was to make a clean break with everything that stimulated this spiritual uneasiness, to withdraw from the centers in which it was fomented, and get away somewhere, discover some point of vantage from which they could see the whole difficulty in its proper perspective. This vantage point, of course, was not only the cloister, since Ovid and Tully had already be-come .firmly established' there, but the desert--the terra invia et inaquosa in which the Cistercian labored and suffered and prayed . The tension generated by the conflict between secular humanism and the Christian humanism, which seeks the fulfillment of human nature through ascetic renunciation and mystical union with God, was one 6f the proximate causes of the powerful mystical writing of the Cistercians. , However, once these two natural factors have been considered, we must recognize other and far more decisive influences, belonging to a higher order . It is the relish and savor that only experience can Merton and Cistercian Tradition give, that communicates to the writings of the twelfth-century Cister-cians all the vitality and vividness and impassioned sincerity which are peculiarly their own . The White Monks speak with accents of a more personal and more lyrical conviction that everywhere betrays the influence of an intimate and mystical experience . It is the personal, experiential character of Cistercian mysticism that gives the prose of the White Monks its vivid freshness . Since the theology of the Cistercians was so intimately persona! and experiential, their exposition of it was bound to take a psychological di-rection. All that they wrote was directed by their keen awareness of the presence and action of God in their souls. This was their all-absorbing interest.4~ Many scholars have noted that Merton's writings show a rather su-perficial knowledge of the Eastern religions. But when I traveled in the East and spoke with the spiritual masters there who had come into con-tact with Merton on his last journey, they said they had never met any-one from the West who had so fully understood their ways. I think the same might be said of Merton and the Cistercian Fathers. Certainly many scholars know more about the Fathers and the early history of the Cis-tercian order. But few, if any, so fully understand their spirit as does this twentieth-century Cistercian Father. Moreover, no one has been able to express so fully and clearly, and in a way that communicates to our times, what these Fathers have to say to our times and to the renewal of the Cistercian order. Cistercians cannot but profit from choosing Tho-mas Merton, their F.ather Louis, for their lectio, from spending time with him and letting him lead them into a deeper, fuller understanding and appreciation of their Cistercian Fathers. NOTES ~ Thomas Merton, The Secular Journal ofThomas Merton (New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1959), pp. 268f. 2 A Thomas Merton Reader, ed. by Thomas McDonnell (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962), pp. viiif. 3 Adam of Perseigne. See The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions, 1973), p. 333. 4 The Spirit of Simplicity: Characteristic of the Cistercian Order (Trappist, Ken-tucky: Abbey of Gethsemani, 1948). 5 Ibid., p. 137. Merton played an important role in remedying this situation in the part he played in the founding of Cistercian Publications, which has now published more than forty volumes of the Cistercian Fathers in English. 6 Reader, p. 317. 46/Review for Religious, January-February 1989 7 See note 4 above. 8 Thomas Merton on Saint Bernard, Cistercian Studies Series (hereafter CS), vol. 9 (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1980), pp. 103-157. 9 New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951. ~0 Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1953), pp. 8f. ~ Marthe, Marie, et Lazare (Bruges: Desclee de Brouwer, 1956). ~2 In the preface to A Thomas Merton Reader he would write: ". it would be a still greater misapprehension to say I am simply trying to prove that the contempla-tive life is 'better than the active life,' . Not only am I not trying to prove these propositions, but stated in this bald and unqualified manner, I do not even hold them. It is true that fifteen years ago I was able to get excited about such theses, but I have come to see that controversy about speculative matters of this sort is not only a waste of time but is seriously misleading. We are all too prone to believe in our own pro-grams and to follow the echo of our own slogans into a realm of illusion and unreal-ity"( p, viii). 13 The Last of the Fathers (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1954). ~4 Bernard of Clairvaux (Paris: Editions Alsatia, 1953). It was later published in The Tablet and Cross and Crown and in Disputed Questions (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1960),.pp. 260-276, under the title "St. Bernard, Monk and Apostle." ~5 Disputed Questions, p. 263. 16 Ibid., p. 262. ~7 Bruno Scott James, St. Bernard of Clairvaux Seen Through his Selected Letters (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1953), pp. v-viii. ~8 Reader, pp. 315-319. 19 Reader, pp. 316f. zo Seasons of Celebration (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965), pp. 61-87. z~ New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955. 22 There is a copy of Gilson's work in the Merton Center at Columbi~ University with Merton's underlining and marginalia which indicate the care with which he stud-ied this book. 23 Am~d~e Hallier, The Monastic Theology ofAelred ofRievaulx, tr. by Colum-ban Heaney, CS 2 (Spencer, Massachusetts: Cistercian Publications, 1969), p. viii. 2,~ Ibid., pp. xif. 25 "Saint Aelred of Rievaulx," MSS, p. 20. ??26ft2The Spirit of Simplicity, pp. vf. 27 Thomas Merton, "Guerric of lgny's Easter Sermons" in Cistercian Studies, vol. 7 (1972), pp. 85-95. 28 Ibid., p. 85. 29 The Christmas Sermons of Blessed Guerric of lgny, tr. by Sr. Rose of Lima (Trap-pist, Kentucky: Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, 1959), pp. 1-25. 30 "Saint Alberic" in Selected Poems of Thomas Merton (New York~ New Direc-tions, 1959), pp. 44f. 3~ Ibid., pp. 75ff. This poem is reproduced in the Reader, pp. 177f. 32 Louis Merton, "Isaac of Stella: An Introduction to Selections from his Sermons," in Cistercian Studies, vol. 2 (1967), p. 243. 33 Ibid. 3,~ Ibid., p. 244. 35 "The Feast of Freedom: Monastic Formation according to Adam of Perseigne," Merton and Cistercian Tradition in The Letters of Adam ofPerseigne, vol. 1, tr. by Grace Perigo, Cistercian Fathers Series, no. 21 (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1976), pp. 3-48. 36 "La formation monastique selon Adam de Perseigne," in Collectanea Ordinis Cisterciensium Reformatorum, vol. 19 (1957), pp. 1-17. 37 The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions, 1973), p. 333. 38 "Guerric . . . Easter Sermons," pp. 85f. 39 Ibid. 40 He read Garnier in Patrologia Latina, vol. 205. 4~ MSS. pp. 10-17. Liturgy of the Hours: A Canticle for Canticles Three canticles encompass all our praise: Three sacred songs of trusting love and hope. At dawn there breaks upon us like the sun, Old Zechariah's paean to God's work. At dusk, like Vesper star, young Mary sings Magnificat for mercy to us all. Then at day's end in darkness gently fall Old Simeon's thankful words, as clear and bright As Compline candles glowing in the dark To mark the end of day, perhaps of life: To let God's servants go in peace to him. Three son~s that with their jeweled antiphons, Like winking diamonds, daily bring delight As we lift hearts at dawn, at dusk, at night. Maryanna Childs, O.P. Ohio Dominican College 1818 Sunbury Road Columbus, Ohio 43219 The Challenge of Church Teachings: How Do I Respond? Lucy Blyskal, C.S.J. Sister Lucy Blyskal, C.S.J., has a doctorate in canon law and is a diocesan judge on the Tribunal of the diocese of Rockville Centre, New York. Her article is the fruit of her canon law dissertation on the Church's teaching authority. Her address is Tri-bunal of the Diocese of Rockville Centre; 50 North Park Avenue; Rockville Centre, New York 11570. In view of the increasing number of official Church pronouncements on many debated issues, how can today's religious keep informed and re-flect intelligently on such statements? How does one discern and listen to the Spirit of the teaching Church and the Spirit within oneself? The purpose of this article, comprised of two parts, is to help us to respond appropriately to papal and episcopal documents. The first sec-tion discusses three main aspects of the Church's teaching authority: (I) the truths of the faith as given to the ff.hgle.Church; (2) the concept of infallible Church teaching; (3) the noninfallible teaching and the response owed to it by the faithful. The second part offers the reader a practical method for analyzing doctrinal statements, and then applies this method to evaluate three somewhat controversial doctlments issued recently. Hopefully, this information will lead to a deepened knowledge and love of the faith which ought to transform our hearts and impel us to serve justice and peace in the world. Part I: Church Teaching Authority Revelation as Given to the Whole Church To set the correct context for'a discussion of teaching authority, it is important to keep in mind that the Church is fundamentally a commu- 48 Challenge of Church Teachings / 49 nity of faith and witness which worships God in Jesus Christ and bears witness to the Church's divinely given message throughout the world. Because Christ handed over the deposit of revelation to the whole Church, it is in the possession of the whole body of Spirit-empowered people, not just the hierarchy. While Scripture calls Peter the "rock" on which the Church was to be built, it never refers to him or the twelve apostles as "the Church." Thus, to speak of "the Church" as having done something when in fact an office or official is the source is theo-logic. ally incorrect; one should name the office involved, for example, "the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated . "~ In its doctrine on infallibility, Vatican I carefully and explicitlyaf-firmed that the deposit of revelation is with the whole Church. The text of Vatican I names the Church as the primary subject of infallibility in stating that: "the Roman Pontiff. enjoys the infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wanted his'Church to be endowed in defining doc-trine concerning faith or morals."2 Vatican II in The Constitution on the Church (article 12) clearly reitera.ted that, thanks to a supernatural sense of faith which characterizes the People of God, "the body of faithful as a whole, anointed as they are by the Holy One (see Jn 2:20, 27) can-not err in matters of belief." Since all believers possess, can perceive, and have insights into the Christian revelation, what is the specific task and charism of the hierar-chy? By Christ's will, the disciples were commissioned: (I) to be his "witnesses. to the end of the earth" (Ac !:8); (2) to "go and teach all nations" (Mt 28:19) his full revelation, under the guidance of his Spirit. (1) The chief vocation of the disciples and their successors is "to witness" to the integrity and truth of the evangelical doctrine. This call to witness does not necessarily include the capacity to have and to ar-ticulate the deepest insights into the meaning of the mysteries of our faith,3 which is a special gift. It is noteworthy that this gift has produced some of the most significant developments in the understanding of the faith not in members of the hierarchy but in such persons as Thomas Aqui-nas, honored as the common teacher of the Church, and Teresa of Av-ila, named doctor of the spiritual life. (2) Because of Christ's command to his disciples to "teach all na-tions," the Christian community from its earliest days has also recog-nized the importance of an authoritative teaching body to maintain inner unity as the gospel was being spread. By Christ's will, this teaching authority, termed the "magisterium," belongs to the hierarchy who are 50 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 sacramentally empowered and assisted by the Spirit to speak in the name of.Jesus Christ. Therefore, Catholics are to trust what pope and bishops teach, not because of their personal learning or stated reasons for their teaching, but precisely because of the spiritual authority of the office they occupy.4 Infallible Teaching Authority Vatican Council I first defined the infallible teaching authority of the Church as an article of faith in promulgating the dogmatic constitution Pastor Aeternus in 1870.5 While it reaffirmed this dogma of Vatican I, Vatican Council II integrated it into the doctrine on the collegiality of the bishops united with the pope and the doctrine of the Church as the People of God (Constitution on the Church, articles 12, 18, 25). Article 25 of this constitution6 states that when the pope or the episcopal col-lege (pope and bishops together) solemnly,proclaim matters of faith and morals, they are protected by the Spirit of Christ from misleading the peo-ple by teaching erroneous doctrine; hence their teaching is infallible. Several conditions need to be fulfilled for a teaching to be consid-ered infallible. First, the doctrine must deal with a matter of faith or mor-als. Second, it must be proclaimed by a duly authorized Church teacher as binding on the universal Church. Finally, it must be proclaimed "to be definitively held" by all Catholics as a dogma of faith. This infalli-ble teaching authority has been exercised only rarely since its cautious and circumscribed definition by Vatican Council I. More recently, the Constitution of the Church and the 1983 Code of Canon Law7 describe three ways in which this infallible magisterium can be exercised. (I) The pope may issue a solemn or ex cathedra pronouncement. Ac-cording to Vatican Council I, popes possess and can articulate the infal-libility with which the Divine Redeemer endowed his Church for defini-tive decisions in matters of faith and morals. For example, Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption by the bull Mun~ficentissimus issued November i, 1950. (2) The episcopal college may act solemnly in ecumenical councils. In ecumenical councils, the episcopal college, assembled in one place, acquires a special clarity and efficacy. Here the corporate episcopate can act in a solemn manner to define an article of faith; for example, Vati-can Council I promulgated the doctrine of infallibility in Pastor Aeter-nus in 1870. (3) The episcopal college may exercise its "ordinary and universal magisterium." In their ordinary and universal magisterium, the same bish- Challenge of Church Teachings / 51 ops, without coming together in one assembly, and with each remaining at his post, can definitively set forth some doctrine for the absolute ac-ceptance oLthe entire Church. In practice it is not always easy to ascer-tain whether or not the magisterium in a given case is exercising infalli-bility through this "ordinary" manner. It has been suggested that a pos-sible example of this level of Church doctrine is the common and con-stant teaching of pope and bishops throughout the world on the moral evil of abortion. How is an infallible doctrine to be received by the faithful? Vatican II's Constitution on the Church and the 1983 Code hold that infallible teaching must be accepted with obsequium fidei, translated as the 'as-sent of faith." This assent of faith is to be absolute and unconditional because it involves divine authority which utteriy excludes the possibil-ity of error. Consequently, the obstinate denial of truths proclaimed as infallible would constitute heresy. However, various Church documents warn the faithful to receive a teaching as infallible only when it has been definitively proclaimed as such. Vatican II, for example, declared that its statements on faith or morals should be seen as binding on the Church only when the council expressly declared them as such.8 Like'vise, the new Code cautions that no doctrine is understood to~ be infallibly defined "unless this is manifestly demonstrated. ,,9 From this review of the meaning of infallible teaching, it is obvious that the great majority of doctrinal statements issued on a day-to-day ba-sis do not fit into this category. Rather, most documents seem to belong to the nondefinitive level of authority--which makes the accurate under-standing of this noninfallible teaching crucially important today. Noninfallible Church Teaching The noninfallible magisterium is the term used to refer to the follow-ing exercises of the Church's teaching office: (l) the pronouncements of the pope when he is not teaching ex cathedra; (2) the declarations of an office of the Roman See with the special approval of the doctrine by the pope as his own; (3) the declarations of a curial office with routine but not special papal approval; (4) the promulgation of a doctrine by the pope toget, l~er with the college of bishops in council; (5) the teachings of an individual bishop; (6) the pronouncements of a grouping of bishops in an episcopal conference or a particular council. In order to respond appropriately to the numerous doctrinal state-ments issued by these official teachers, one needs to understand: (I) the nature of noninfallible teaching; (2) gradations among nondefinitive teach-ings; (3) inherent difficulties. Review for Religious, January-February 1989 ( I ) The Nature of Noninfallible Teaching. Three basic principles un-derlie this exploration of the noninfallible magisterium. (a) The concepts of noninfallible Church teaching and the response owed to it are evolving concerns whose complete meanings are not yet in the Church's consciousness. ~0 Recall that the definition of infallible teaching authority (1870) took place only within the last one hundred twenty years of the Church's two thousand year existence, (b) The issues of nondefinitive Church teaching and the response owed to it are being examined and applied by a Church that is itself an evolving reality as a community and an institution. ~ (c) With the spread and evolution of the Church, there has been a concomitant growth and development of doctrine, for example, "a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down" (Constitution on Divine Revelation, article 8). Vati-can II reiterated in its Decree on Ecumenism that: "If there are deficien-cies in the formulation of doctrine . these should be appropriately rectified at the proper moment" (article 6). More recently, the Congre-gation for the Doctrine of the Faith for the first time officially acknowl-edged that even the Church's expression of a truth of revelation at a par-ticular age may need to b~ reformulated in a subsequent era. ~2 These of-ficial statements on the growth possible in dogmatic teaching can be ap-plied afortiori to the noninfailible level of teaching. ,Basically, it is difficult to categorize the precise nature of nondefini-tire teaching. According to Orsy, noninfallible teaching is composed of two types of doctrine in an organic unity: some changeable h~uman thoughts (often of a particular school), and incorrupt expressions of the deposit of revelation. For this reason, simplistic statements such as "non-infallible statements by ecclesiastical authorities are binding," or, "dis-sent from noninfallibly stated doctrine should be always permissible" do not recognize .the complex content of the body of noninfallible beliefs. Orsy also makes the important observation that a particular document may, and. usually does, contain a mixture of infallible and noninfallible teachings without any indication of the different levels involved. ~3 In 1967, the German bishops referred to another significant aspect of noninfallible teaching authority when they pointed out that this level of magisterium "can, and on occasion actually does fall into error." 14 Francis Sullivan, a theologian, comments that it seems impossible to fault the reasoning of the German bishops: if the nondefinitive teaching of the magisterium is not infallible, it can be erroneous and can stand in need of correction. ~5 Here the basic principle of the development of Challenge of Church Teachings doctrine comes into play. Indeed the Church has corrected or reversed its stance on a number of occasions. 16 For example, the Decree on Ecu-menism of Vatican II clearly departed from previous papal teaching re-garding the Church's negative stance on relationships with non-Catholic Christians. Another obvious example is the final lifting of the condemna-tions imposed in the celebrated "Galileo case." ~7 In their pastoral letter, the German bishops point out that the Church has always been aware of the possibility of error. They conclude, how-ever, that in order to maintain the true and ultimate substance of faith the Church officials must, even at the risk of error in points of detail, "give expression to doctrinal directives which have a certain degree of binding force." (2) Gradation Among Noninfallible Documents. The weight or gra-dation of importance of a noninfallible statement can be indicated either by the person or body issuing the teaching, or the type of literary genre of the document itself that is utilized to promulgate the teaching. (a) As noted earlier, noninfallible statements can be issued by the pope or the bishops. Since the formal authority o.f the pope and the epis-copal college exceeds that of the bishops acting individually or con-jointly, there are obviously gradations among the various teachings prom-ulgated. (b) The second criterion for ascertaining the weight of a particular ~ondefinitive pronouncement is its literary genre, or, "the nature of the document" that is utilized (Constitution on the Church, article 25). Ap-ostolic constitutions, for example, are considered the most solemn form of papal documents. Then come papal acts in the form of letters in two categories, encyclical epistles and encyclical letters, the latter form be-ing less solemn than the former. The ordinary magisterium of the pope is also found in doctrinal dec-larations of the curia, for example, of the Congregations for Doctrine and for Seminari

Issue 18.4 of the Review for Religious, 1959. ; Two, Prayers John XXIII Prayer for the Church of Silence [On January 23, 1959, the Sacred Penitentiary pub|ish~d the Italian text ~f a prayer composed by the Holy Father for the. Church of Silence. The original text, a translation of which appears.below, is to be found in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 51 (1959), 112~13. A partial indulgence of three years can be gained by the faithful when they recite the prayer with contrite heart.] OJESUS, Son of God, who lovedthe Church and who gave Yourself for it to sanctify it and to make it appear before You glorious and immaculate (Eph 5:23-27), look down with mercy on the painful conditions to which Your mystical spouse is subjected in certain parts of the Catholic world and especially now in the great nation of the Chinese. ! See, O Lord, the treachery that threatens the souls of Your faithful' and consider the calumnious insinuations leveled against Your pastors, Your ministers, and Your faithful followers who long to spread the truth of the Gospel and that kingdom of Yours which is not of this world. How insistent and dangerous are the attempts to tear the seamless robe of Your spouse, the one, holy, catholic, apostolic, and Roman Church, by separating the hierarchy and the local communities from the only center of truth, authority, and salvation, the See of Peter! Before this spectacle of such grave evils, we ask first of all for pardon for the offenses which are being committed against You. In truth the words spoken by You to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?" (Acts 9:4), can well be repeated today, as they could be in the course of recent and past history. We trust always in the efficacy of the sublime words You addressed to Your Father from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Lk 23:34). As Your sacrifice was the source of universal salvation, so through your grace may the martyrdom which the Church, Your spouse 193 JOHN XXIII Review [or Religious and our mother, suffers in different regions bring salvation all men. O Prince of Peace, grant that the bishops and the priests, the religious and the laity, may always and everywhere be "solici-tous to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph 4:3). May Your omnipotent power overcome every hu-man calculation so that pastors and flocks may remain obedient to the voice of the only universal Pastor, the Roman Pontiff, who feels in his heart the responsibility of that supreme desire of love: "Holy Father, keep in Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are" (Jn 17:11). Finally~ O Redeemer, look with satisfaction at the merits and prayers of Your and our Mother, the august Queen of the missions and of the universal Church; look at the labors, the sacrifices, and the blood of "the innumerable heralds of the faith who have always and are still giving heroic testimony to You; and, mindful above all of Your precious Blood shed for many for the remission oz sins, give Your peace to China and to the entire world, because in no other is there hope and victory .and peace, but only in You, our Lord and immortal King of the ages and of the nations. Prayer to the Eucharistic Christ [The following prayer, the orighaal text of which is given in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 51 (1959), 163-64, was composed by the Holy Father as a preparation for the coming International Eucharistic Congress to be held in Munich, Germany. His Holiness (AAS, 51 [1959], 164) has granted a partial indulgence of ten years to the faithful who devoutly recite the prayer with contrite heart; moreover once a month they may gain a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions, if they have recited the pra~,er daily for a whole month.] O Jesus, King of nations and of ages, accept the acts of adoration and of praise which we, Your brothers by adoption, humbly offer to You. You are "the living Bread come down from heaven which gives life to the world" (Jn 6:33) ; High Priest as well as Victim, You offered Yourself on the cross in a bloody sacrifice of expia-tion to the Eternal Father for the redemption of the human race; 194 July, 1959 Two PRAYS.US and now each day You offer Yourself on our altars by the hands of Your ministers so that there might be restored in each heart Your "kingdom of truth and of life, of holiness and of grace, of justice, of love, and of peace~' (Preface of the Mass of Christ the King). O "King of Glory," may Your kingdom come! Rule from Your "throne of glory" (Heb 4:16) in the hearts of children so that they may keep immaculate the shining purity of their baptismal innocence. Rule in the hearts of youth so that they may grow in wholesomeness and purity and in docility to the voice of those who represent You in the family, in school, and in the Church. Rule in the heart of the home so that parents and children may live united in the observance of Your holy law. Rule in our country so that in the harmonious ordering of the social classes all its citizens may regard themselves as children of the same heavenly Father, called to work together for the common temporal good and happy to belong to that one Mystical Body, of which Your Sacrament is both the symbol and the everlasting source. Rule, finally, O King of Kings and "Lord of Lords" (Deut 10:17) over all the nations of the earth and enlighten the rulers of each nation that, inspired by Your example, they may nourish "thoughts of peace and not of affliction" (Jer 29:11 ). O Eucharistic Jesus, grant that all people may serve You freely in the knowledge that "to serve God is to reign." May Your Sacrament, O Jesus, be a light to the mind, a strength to the will, an attraction to the heart. May it be a support to the weak, a comfort to the suffering, a viaticum of salvation to the dying, and for all may it be a "pledge of future glory." Amen. 195 The Rest:oral:ion ot: All Things in Christ: Richard Cardinal Cushing, D.D., UL.D. [The following address by the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston was delivered as the main address of the Sacred Heart Institute for Nuns conducted by American Directors of the Apostleship of Prayer and held at Roberts Center, Boston College, on April 4, 1959.] THE DEVOTION TO the Sacred Heart makes no appeal whatever to those outside the Church and to some within the Church. It is the story of a nun who had a vision of our Lord in which He showed her a wound on His side. Then He said to her: "Behold the Heart which loves so much, and is loved so little in return." What is this but sentimentalism, and a kind of senti-mentalism which does not appeal to people of our times. My dear Sisters: Is there anything more undignified than the figure of the rejected lover who cannot keep his abandon-ment to himself, but must go about exposing his wounded feel-ings for all the world to see, inviting sympathy because he unloved? Yet that is the figure under which Divine Love rep-resented itself to the apostle of the Sacred Heart--St. Margaret Mary. Why? It may help to understand the answer if we recall that all through the Old Testament this is the kind of language in which Almighty God refers to the disloyalties of His people. The covenant which He made with the Israelites when He brought them out of Egypt was like a marriage contract com-mitting both sides to fidel.ity; and when they turned to the wor-ship of idols, he appealed to that covenant. "And thou," He says through the prophet Jeremias, "and thou with many lovers have been unfaithful; come back to me, and thou shalt find welcome." This is pleading language, and it is God who pleads. When a prophet of the Old Testament speaks like that, he is using a metaphor. The Old Testament is full of metaphors. When others talk about God raising His hand, stretching out 196 I:~ESTORATION IN CHRIST His arm, keeping a watchful eye over His friends, giving a ready ear to their prayers, we'do not think that God, who is pure spirit, has hands or arms or eyes or ears like ourselves. And so it is when God describes himself as a jealous lover. He means that if He were a man, this is how the infidelity of His friends would affect Him. If He were a man? In the fullness of time, He became man; He trod our earth, and was subject, as man, to the play of emotions; He wept and rejoiced. He was indignant, and felt fear. The metaphors had come true at last: God Incarnate really saw with human eyes and stretched out a human hand to save us. And He was accessible like ourselves, to the expressions of feeling which we find so difficult to control. When an injury was done to the honor of His Father in heaven, He flared up; and we read in the New Testament: "Jesus looked upon them with anger." The success of His first missionaries gave Him the same feeling which comes to you and me when good news reaches us, and we read that "At that time, Jesus was filled with gladness." The tragedy of a friend's death was told him. The sad news drew from Him, as it would from us, a 'tribute of natural tears and we read: "Jesus wept." Our Lord did not even hide from us His disappointments: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, still murdering the prophets, and stoning the messengers that are sent to thee, how often have I been ready to gather thy children together, and thou didst refuse it!" How often--He looks back over the sad record of Jew'ish history; the authentic accents of a Divine Person pierce through the veil of His humanity and here is God weeping with human eyes over tl~e pent-up sorrows of a human heart. Now I think we have the real meaning of the Sacred Heart devotion; it translates the Divine Nature into human terms for us. After all, we find it hard, don't we, to get God into our mind-picture? We cannot portray Him--His glory dazzles us; we are confused b~ the thought of the enormous gulf which lies between Him and creatures. We know that His Providence 197 CARDINAL CUSHING Review for Religious extends over all His works; He cares even for the sparrows, and yet. He is so great, and we are so small! Even our sins-- just an unkind word said about a neighbor, and we tell ourselves and we confess that we have offended God; think of the scale of the thing, our little lapse, and His infinite existence, put side by side! And then think of tl~e Sacred Heart, and all at once the whole thing becomes vivid, clear. Jesus Christ in heaven, taking an interest in our tiny needs, as He took an interest in many tiny needs on earth. Jesus Christ hurt by our sins, as He was hurt by so many slights and disappointments up and down the villages of Galilee. The echoes of our prayer no longer seem to die away in infinite distance; they strike a chord in the Sacred Heart, and become vocal to us, real to us. If critics object that we are too sentimental over our devo-tion in honor of the Sacred Heart, that we single out one partic-ular side of our Lord's character, represent Him too insistently in one particular attitude, one of mercy and tenderness and wel-come, let us remind them that it is these qualities in the Divine Nature which we find it most difficult to believe. Here, most of all, we need a diagram in flesh and blood to convince us. How can God, so upright a judge, be merciful? How can He, who is without passion, be tender to us? How can He, who has no need of human companionship, welcome us? It is these qualities, that we rejoice to see mirrored in the Sacred Heart. Our Sacred Heart statues and holy pictures represent our Lord in one particular attitude, as He revealed Himself to Sister Margaret Mary, an attitude of tender abasement, of mournful pleading with mankind. Again critics wonder. Is this your Christ, they ask, this weak, womanish figure, in a posture of sentimental appeal? Is your religion all sugary sweetness, all variations on a minor key? Has it stopped still with the seventeenth century; has it no mes-sage for today? And to that we answer, No, you have it all wrong. The Sacred Heart is the treasury of all those splendid qualities with which a perfect life was lived; it is the repository of 198 July, 1959 RESTORATION IN CHRIST all those noble thoughts which mankind still venerates in the Gospels'. It was the Sacred. Heart that burned with anger when the traders were driven out of the Temple; it was the Sacred Heart that loved the rich young man, yet would not spare him; it was the Sacred Heart that defied Pilate in his own judgment-hall. It is strong and stern and enduring; it hates prevarications and pretences. The perfect flowering of a human life, not on this occasion or that, but all the way, all the time, the utter sacrifice of a human will-- that is what the Sacred Heart means. There is no picture, no statue on earth that can portray its infinite beauty. The perfect flowering of our life at all times and in all ways; that should be the harvest of our devotion, dedication, and con-secration to the Sacred Heart. Religious, more than any other group of the followers of Christ, have the opportunity to reach that ideal. They have the available means and opportunity to answer the plea of the Sacred Heart for the return of human love for love divine. In the silent anonymity of your community life, you offer day by day the sacrifice of your personal independence and your natural yearning for recognition and human affection. If you live consist-ently with the ideals of your religious profession, you can truly say that you have left all things and have become so Christlike as to have produced the perfect flowering of your own life in the life of the Sacred Heart. Your vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience leave nothing for yourself. Through these vows, the essence of the religious life, you become one with God. How could you attain to a more perfect flowering of your life? Truth-fully you are called Sponsae Christi. In this capacity you can kneel each morning before the alkar on which the Sacrifice of Calvary is renewed and identify your love with the love of the Eternal Priest in humble and self-less fulfillment of the ideals of perfection which He Himself estab-lished in His earthly life. It is not without significance, therefore, that the spread of devotion to the Sacred Heart in modern times owes its origin 199 CARDINAL CUSHING Review for Religious to the apparitions of our Blessed Lord not to some renowned scholar or churchman but to a lowly nun. St." Margaret Mary was one of yourselves. Her call to the religious life, her postu-lancy and novitiate, her profession of religious vows, her long years of obedience to her rule and prayerful cooperation with the wishes of her superiors--all these circumstances of her life have their counterparts in the life of each one of you, St. Margaret Mary also found the same difficulty which you experience in following up the inspirations of God's grace which come so mysteriously to those who are closely associated with apostolic works. Neither religious themselves, nor those who cooperate with them in realizing the objectives of their various communities, can ever understand completely the divine orienta-tion of the human impulses out of which the success of any reli-gious community is drawn. As we look back over the centuries at what happened be-tween 1673 and 1675 in a little French village, we can see clearly that the judgments of psychologists and the cautious reserve of theologians and canonists have all played their part in the spread of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of which St. Margaret Mary was destined to be the modern apostle. They could not under-stand sentimentalism of this kind for they did not recall that Christ was man as well as God, human as well as divine. What stands out unmistakably in her life is her humble and charitable forbearance in the face of adverse personal criticism and her unquestioning submission to the authority of the Church. That indeed is one of many phases of the perfect flowering of human life: the total sacrifice of one's will to the will of another. Her spiritual directors understood her and guided her with sympathy and encouragement; she followed their counsel and obeyed to the last detail their suggestions of hopeful expectancy of eventual approval, A soul which is illumined by divine grace, a will that is one with the will of God, is never stubborn or un-disciplined. Margaret Mary's own certainty of the truth of the revelations made to her brought likewise the conviction that God's 200 July, 1959 RESTORATION IN CHRIST plans would be realized in God's own way and in God's own time. She knew that she was but the instrument of the power and mercy \ of Him who had afforded her unquestionable evidence of His love. She knew that the Christ, who had revealed to her the richness of His own inner life, was also the Christ who had founded His Church and who had'sent His Holy Spirit to abide within it until the end of time. In this peaceful and undisturbed awareness of her own relation to Christ our Lord, she was content to suffer the disappointment and frustration that would be in-volved in the reconditioning of men's souls which the spread of devotion to the Sacred Heart would bring about. When we look at Margaret Mary from this point of view, we see in her a great-ness of soul and a discerning penetration of divine wisdom which the humble circumstances in which she lived and died could never have revealed to those who knew her as a sister in religion and as a fellow human being. She is the messenger, the apostle of the devotion to the Sacred Heart because her heart gave all to the Heart of Christ. The beauty of her soul was the perfect flowering of life. And here, I think, is the great lesson which you, my beloved religious, can take to yourselves. In your life as religious you must share in the sorrows and sufferings which were glorified on the Cross. This is the meaning for you of the mystery of the Sacred Heart which was made known to the world by one of your number. How can that be accomplished? First of all, by self-immolation. To seek for oneself alone in religious life any measure of comfort or self-gratification is to substitute the prudence of the world for the prudence of the brides of God. As spouses of Christ, you must be faithful to your mystical espousal and marriage and accept cheerfully the burdens of community life and surrender yourselves without reservation to the demands which your respective congregations may make on you as they carry on their appointed apostolic works. Secondly, in your religious life you must resemble Christ in the mediating functions of His priesthood. The sacred humanity 201 CARDINAL CUSHING Review for Religious of Christ, symbolized in its ministrations of love by the Heart which was pierced with a lance, enable Christ to stand as a mediator between God and men. So too the religious, living in the world even while separated from it by the boundaries of her cloister, brings God into the lives of others as she carries on her varied works. The religious is thus in a very real sense a mediatrix between God and men. Those whom you serve are thereby raised from earth to heaven by the unselfish detachment with which you apply your-selves to works upon which material values may be set. Thus you are able to stand at Christ's side as His devoted helpers. Thus you are drawing men's souls to Christ as did Christ Him-self in His revelation of God's love for man in the visible form of His human nature. Thirdly, your principal objective as religious must always be to diffuse into the souls of others the love of Christ. How dismally we fail, even while we seem to be successful, if we have gained spectacular victories in ambitious undertakings at the cost oi: arousing bitterness and dissension among those with whom we live and work! In the companionship of your sisters in reli-gion, in your relations with your superiors, in the services which you render to your community, in your ministrations of charity and mercy to the faithful, you must always be a messenger of divine love and an inspiring example of the practice of Christian charity. I don't know of any othdr way in which we can respond to the appeal for love from the heart of Christ unless it would be to crystalize that response by fidelity to the spirit and letter of the Morning. Offering of the Apostleship of Prayer. This is more than a prayer formula, it is a way of life by which every act of the day becomes transformed into a prayerful tribute to the Sacred Heart. It is also the way of gpiritual child-hood for it sanctifies the ordinary things of life into extraordinary spiritual power and unites us to the sacrifice of the Mass through-out the world~ The Morning Offering is also the greatest means by which we can recognize the importance of each day in our lives. Each 202 July, 1959 RESTORATION IN CHRIST day is life in miniature. Today is unique; it has never happened before, it can never happen again. For one moment it is all-important, fills the.stage; tomorrow it will have taken its place in the unreal pageant of dead yesterdays. It has a significance, then, all its own; but this significance belongs to it because it is related to a series. We may think of it as the beginning of a series, the first day of a new departure in our lives. Or we may think of it as one day among others, with the same duties, cares, temptations as the others. Or we may think of it' as the last~ of a series; one today will be the last of all our todays, with eternity for its infinite tomorrow, and it may be this. Think of this day, for example, as the beginning of a new departure. How shall we begin? Not by any frantic efforts of our own; we will begin by listening to the voice of God: Hodie si vocem eius audieritis, nolite obdurare corda vestra. We speak to Him through ou.r spiritual exercises, and we unite ourselves with all the members of His Mystical Body throughout the world by today's offering of everything we do to Him. There is another use we may make of the magic word today. Instead of worrying about whether we shall ever commit our cus-tomary sins again, let us simply resolve not to commit them today. Dignare Dornine die isto sine peccato nos custodire; let us see if we can't cheat the devil, like some grasping creditor, by saying "Not just yet; not today." And let us ask simply for the grace which is needed to avoid those sins just in the sixteen hours that lie between bed-time and bed-time. Die isto, let us make today a holiday from our venial sins. This day without sin- we will avoid, His grace helping us, those little daily repeated irreverences by which we offend Him. This day without sin- we will especially avoid sinning against ourselves, by the wrong use of God's creatures. And we will avoid sinning against our neighbors. We know the sisters we have to live with, the little t~aults ot~ manner and behavior .which get on our nerves, all the more surely because they are repeated day by day. This day, with this gladness in our hearts, we will 203 CARDINAL CUSHING greet them with a cheerfulness which is infectious, which lightens their burden as well as our own. A smile at all times- how much difference that can make to life's tragedies! Today, sanctified and enriched by the Morning Offering, becomes like a sacrament from which we can derive not only an inspiration for the future, the future that may be so different if we will use today aright; not only a warning for the present, to make us avoid this day the temptations that every day beset us, but an attitude, also, towards the past, an attitude of abiding penitence and reparation. Let us remember our sins each day, as if we had no more space left for sinning; let us repent for them, as this were our last opportunity of contrition. And He, who re-turned to heaven with the penitent thief for His escort, will shorten our purgatory and hasten to unite us with Himself. Hodie vocem audieritis ~ it can never be too early to begin our conver-sion. Hodie eris mecum in paradiso ~ thank God, it can never be too late. Our renewed consecration today to the Sacred Heart gives evideace of our appreciation of the tremendous potential which you have at your disposal for the restoration of all things in Christ. We consecrate you anew to the Sacred Heart because you belong to Christ, because you are one with Christ, and because your efforts are so powerful and so indispensable for the realization of His divine mission. Let me become the spokesman for each one of you as I repeat the words of consecration which St. Mar-garet Mary formulated as she gave expression to her own consum-ing love ot: Christ her Lord: I consecrate to the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ my person and my life, my actions, pains and sufferings, so that I may be unwilling to make use of any part of my being save to honor, love and glorify the Sacred Heart . Do Thou consume in me all that can displease Thee or resist Thy holy will. Let Thy pure love imprint Thee so deeply upon my heart that I shall never more be able to forget Thee or~to be separated from Thee. May I obtain the grace of having my name written in Thee, for in Thee I desire to place all my happi-ness and all my glory, living and dying in very bondage to Thee. Amen. 204 The AAariology of Pope Plus XII John A. Hardon, S.J. IT IS EASY to write on Pope Pius XII and the Blessed Virgin Mary because there is so much to say. We might recall how as a young boy in Rome he would stop every day to visit the shrine of Madonna della Strada at the Church of the Gesu where, as he told his mogher, "I pray and tell Mary everything." Or we might reflect on his life-long devotion to the rosary, his frequent sermons on our Lady, his constant reference to her in his writings or, in summary, his own testimony shortly after election to the papacy, that "our priestly life began with Mary and has always been directed under her motherly eye." In all this profusion of Marian piety, one aspect may be overlooked. Pius XII made a substantial contribution to the science of Mariology, a contribution concerning which, no doubt, volumes will be written in the years to come. We shall examine only the highlights of a large subject, whose implications have an important bearing on the whole body of Christian asceticism. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary On November i, 1950, Pius XII answered the requests of the Catholic hierarchy with a solemn definition that, "by the authority.of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by Our own authority, We pronounce, declare and define as a divinely revealed dogma: The Immaculate Mother of God, Mary ever Virgin, after her life on earth, was assumed body and soul to the glory of heaven." The spontaneous reaction of the faithful was gratitude for the exalted honor paid to the Mother of God. The Pope's own sentiments were expressed to the bishops gathered in Rome for the occasion, when he told them the joy he felt over the proclamation and the assurance it gave him that Mary would obtain the graces of which mankind stood in such dire need. On the level of piety and devotion, therefore, Mary's Assumption was only the climax in a series of definitiong 205 JOHN A. HARDON Review for Religious to honor the Blessed Virgin, beginning with the divine maternity at Ephesus and terminating in the past century with her Immaculate Conception. But dogmatically the constitution Munificentissimus Deus has a much deeper significance that de-serves to be recognized. Shortly before the actual definition but after its public an-nouncement, the Anglican bishops of England lodged a formal protest against the "new" dogma. "We profoundly regret," they said, "that the Roman Catholic Church has chosen by this action to increase dogmatic differences in Christendom and has thereby gravely injured the growth of understanding between Christians based on a common possession of the fundamental truths of the Gospel." The Anglican complaint was not a wild gesture. It exposed their radical opposition to the Church's authority over Christian doctrine, which I believe many Catholics ~do not fully appreciate. Pope Pius defined Mary's Assumption as a truth divinely revealed. Of the two sources of revelation, theologians com-monly say the Assumption was implicit in tradition, in spite of the practical absence of documentary evidence before 300 A.D. Some years before the definition, a scholarly work was published under Vatican auspices on The Silence of the Early Centuries on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The author frankly admitted that except for apocryphal sources we have no explicit witness in the early patristic age. Yet the Pope finally declared the doctrine was in revelation. How do we know? On the answer to this question rests a new insight into Christian tradi-tion which had been gaining momentum since the eighteenth century. Briefly stated, tradition is coming to be identified more and more with the Church's magisterium or teaching office and less exclusively as the genetic source, along with Scripture, of the truths of salvation. Behind this new emphasis is a development of dogma since the Council of Trent which reveals hidden depths of power in the Mystical Body of Christ. The Church is being seen more clearly as not only the guardian of a faith once and for 206 July, 1959 MARIOLOGY OF PIUS XII all given-to the Apos.tles, but as perpetual expositor of that faith in every age to the end of time. In August of the same year that he defined the Assumption, the Pope laid down the principles~ which guided the Marian defini-tion. The Church's teaching authority, he said in Humani generis, is not confined to reflecting or consolidating the past. It is also, ~nd especially, the vital, presetit-day function of an organism animated by the Spirit of God: "Together with the sources of revelation (Scripture:and tradition) God has given to His Church a living magisterium to elucidate and explain what is contained in the deposit of faith only obscurely :and, as it were, by implication," The degree of obscurity, we may add, is irrelevant. Given this faculty by her 0~:ounder, whose" Spirit of truth abides with her at all times, the Church can infallibly discern what belongs to revela-tion no matter how cryptic the contents may be. Consequently whenl Pius XII defined the Assumption, he did more than propose the doctrine for acceptance by the faith-ful or give them a new motive for devotion to the Blessed Mother. He vindicated as never before the Church's i~ower to authorize a legitimate development in doctrine .and pii~ty that scandalizes those outside the true faith and may even surprise b~elieving Catholics. The Assumption thus becomes part Of a'larger process, along with Catholic Action, the litui:gical movement and even such practical matters as the mitigated Eucharistic fast, in which the current problems of the Church and the present needs of souls are being met by the Holy Spirit: It was no coincidence that on the day following the Assump-tion d~finition the Pope expressed, the hope that this new honor to Mary would intrbduce "a spirit of penance to replace the' prevalent love of pleasure, and a renewal of family lifE, stabilized where divorce was common and made fruitful where birth control was practiced." If there is one feature that characterizes the modern world it is 'the cult of the body. Science and ingenuity exhaust themselves in providing for bodily comforts, avoidance of pain, and the.pampering of every sensual desire. Divorce and 207 JOHN A. HARDON Review for Religious birth control, lurid reading and entertainment are only symptoms of a deeper malady for which revelation provides at least one Certain remedy: faith in the resurrection of the body, for us on the last day as for Mary on the day of her departure from this life. Since the body is made to be immortal, it is infinitely im-portant to provide for its eternal happiness by discipline and sell control--because the alternative is also bodily immortality, but in hell, as the price of earthly pleasure against the will of God. The Immaculate Conception Three years after defining the dogma of the Assumption, Pius XII Called on the Catholic world to join in the observance of a Marian Year from December, 1953, to December, 1954, to commemorate the centenary of Pius IX's definition of the Immaculate Conception. He introduced the Marian Year with the encyclical Fulgens corona, whose doctrinal content went far beyopd the immediate purpose of proclaiming a season of special prayers to the Mother of God. According to the late Pontiff,. the Assumption was a conse-quence of the Immaculate Conception, not merely in the super-ficial sense of something suitable, but in the. strict logic of supernatural merit and providence. "These two singular privi-leges bestowed upon the Mother of God stand out in most splendid light as the beginning and the end of her earthly journey. ,For the greatest possible glorification of her virgin body is the comple-ment, at once appropriate and marvelous, of the absolute inno-cence of her soul which was free from all stain. Just as she took part in the struggle of her only-begotten Son with the serpent of hell, so also she shared in His glorious triumph over sin and its sad consequences." This correlation between the two mysteries has a long and respected theological history, which other statements of Pius XII indicate that he knew very well. Addressing the National Eucha-ristic Congress of Cuba in 1947, he acknowledged the petition which the Cubans 'had sent to the Holy See relative to Mary's 208 July, 1959 MARIOLOGY OF PIUS XlI Assumption. "This mystery must certainly be true, according to the mind of him who has rightly been called the Doctor Eximius, who teaches that this privilege is most eminently congruent with the innocence and purity of the Virgin Mary." The Doctor Eximius was Francis Suarez, the sixteenth-century theologian. whose Disputations on the Blessed Mother are the most exhaustive in classic Mariology. Again in the actual document of definition, the Pope referred to Suarez's conclusion that "the mystery of the Assumption was to be believed with the same firmness of assent as that given to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. Thus he already held that such truths could be defined." How are the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption related in Suarez, and by implication in Pius XII? Their rela-tion arises from the subtle but necessary connection between sin and its consequences in the after-life. The souls of the just in heaven, says Suarez, still desire and seek the glorification of their bodies. To the extent to which this is lacking to them, they are deprived of the perfection of beatitude, even though only in accidentals. When the soul of Mary, therefore, was separated t~rom her body, this hunger and desire for "the perfect perfection" were not absent. Being always full of grace, she had a title to perfect glory on leaving this world. And what Mary desired, she must immediately have obtained, in virtue of her exalted position and "by a mother's right." Therefore just as during her stay on earth she had never contracted the least stain ofsin, so after this life she was freed from every corruption and sequel that are the wages of sin. Her body was not to decay, nor was she to wait until the last day, as others who are sinners, to rise with her body from the grave. In the same document, Fulgens corona, the Pope made an-other association, this time a historical one, and not between the first and final mysteries in the life of the Blessed Virgin but be-tween the Immaculate Conception and the supernatural phe-nomena at Lourdes. In his judgment, "the Virgin 1QIary herself wished to confirm by some special sign the definition which the 209 JOH~ A. HARDON Review for Religious Vicar of Christ her divine Son on earth had pronounced amid the applause of the whole Church. Four years had not yet elapsed ¯ ~hen, in the French town at the foot of the Pyrenees, the Virgin Mother showed herself to a simple and innocent girl at the grotto of Messabielle, And to this same girl, earnestly inquiring the name of her with whose vision she was favored, with eyes raised to heaven and sweetly smiling, she replied, 'I am the Immaculate Conception.' " Following the original visions, thousands of peo-ple from every country in the world have made pilgrimages'to Lourdes, where "miraculous favors were granted them, which excited the admiration of all and confirmed the Catholic religion as the only one given approval by God." This judgment is highly significant. In the last analysis, a Catholic wants to prove that no other religion than his own is from God, he must invoke some principle by which any religious system can be tested and its divine authorization verified. Such a principle is the norm of miracles, which even the unlettered primitive can understand. It says simply that when God com-municates a revelation (as claimed in some form by every organ-ized religion), He will confirm the mysteries He reveals and make them rationally acceptable by working miracles in favor of the truths that He wants believed. Or put negatively, He will not work miracles in support of a pretended revelation because, as master of the miraculous, He would be actively cooperating in a lie. In the context of the Lourdes apparitions and the constant stream of preternatural wonders there granted by God, this means that what Lourdes stands for is perennially attested as true. The Immaculate Conception is a strict mystery, not even conceivable apart from revelation. Miracles are visible signs of divine inter-vention that lead the well-disposed to believe (or strengthen their belief) in what cannot be seen, on the argument that the same agency which produces the phenomena also revealed the doc-trine in whose atmosphere the phenomena take place. 210 July, 1959 MARIOLOGY OF P~us XII Mediatrix of Graces . The !ast element in the triad of Marian privileges to which Pius XII made a lasting theological contribution is Mary's role as universal mediatrix of graces. On the fourth anniversary of the Assumption dogma and in closing the Marian Year, the Pope instituted a new feast of the Queenship of Mary, for May 31, and in the encyclical Ad caeli Reginam elaborated on the basic principles that underlay Mary's royalty, namely, her unique posi-tion as liaison between Christ and the humar~ race. An examination of the teaching of the fathers of the Church since the rime'of Origen, Ephrem, and St. Jerome shows a prac-tical unanimity in regarding the mother of Jesus as sharing with Him, albeit subordinately, a truly royal dignity~. Ephrem called her "Empress and Ruler"; Origen, "Mistress and Queen"; the seventh ecumenical council spoke of her as "the Lady ruler ~of all Christians"; and in modern times, Benedict XIV gave her the title "Queen of heaven and earth." The ancient tradition is re-flected in the liturgy of the East which poetically addresses Mary as "carried into heaven on the. chariots of the cherubim, the seraphim wait upon thee and the ranks of the heavenly host bow before thee." Familiar hymns like the Salve Regina and prayers like the Litany of Loretto confirm the sentiments of Christian art since the Council of Ephesus (431 A.D.) which "portrays Mary as Queen and Empress seated upon a royal throne, adorned with the royal insignia, crowned with the royal diadem and surrounded by the host of angels and saints in heaven and ruling not only nature and its powers but also over the machinations of Satan." However, more important than the evidence of its traditional character is the dogmatic basis for Mary's queenship which the late Pontiff traced to her divine maternity and her association with Christ in the redemption .of the world. The Pope synthesized in bold analogy the Catholic doctrine which some theo.logians con-sider definable. The Blessed Virgin has not only received the grade of excellence and perfection which is supreme after that of Christ Himself but has also received some sharing 'of that et~icacy by which her Son and our 211 JOHN A. HARDON Review for Religious Redeemer is rightly and properly said to reign over the minds and wills of men. For if the word of God performs miracles and gives graces through the humanity He has assumed, if He employs the sacra-ments and His saints as instruments for the salvation oi~ souls, why should He not use His mother's office and efforts to bring us the fruits of the Redemption? We may transmit the comparison between Mary's intercessory power and that of other saints. Certainly if they can pray in our behalf and obtain favors we should not otherwise receive, how much more the Queen of Saints and the Mother of the Author of grace. The remarkable thing is to associate the Blessed Virgin's share in our Redemption with the humanity of her divine Son and to compare its efficacy with the function of the sacramental system. Both analogies are penetrating concepts. By relating Mary's role of mediatrix to the human nature of Christ, the Pope wished to emphasize what even Catholics are liable to forget, that while God can perform by His own power all that is effected by created natures, yet in the counsels of His providence He has preferred to help men by the instrumentality of other men- whose efficacy for sanctifying others depends on their proximity to the human nature assumed by the Son of God. Viewed in this light, the potentiality of the Blessed Virgin as an instrument of grace takes on staggering proportions. As the woman whose consent mad~ the Incarnation possible, who carried in her womb and brought into the world the Word made flesh, and whose association with Christ during His life and sympathy in death were the most intimate conceivable- her efficacy at the throne of God must be, without fear of exaggeration, "almost immeasurable in power." If we compare Mary's mddiation with the sacraments of the New Law, we gain a further insight into her place in the economy' of salvation. We know that on the level of sanctification nothing is more internal than heavenly 'grace which begets holiness; and yet the ordinary and chief means of obtaining grace are external, in the form of sacraments administered by men specially chosen for that purpose and by means of external rites. In baptism 212 July, 1959 MARIOLOGY OF PIUS XII there is pouring of water; in confirmation and extreme unction, anointing with oil; in orders, the imposition of hands; in matri-mony, the expressed acceptance by the two spouses; and in pen-ance, the vocal and visible absolution by the priest. All these actions are external and their agents are all human, but condi-tioned on their performance in the spirit of faith, such trans-cendent changes occur in the spiritual world as the removal of a life[ime of sin by a sign of the cross and the conversion of a piece of bread into the Body of Christ. ' The more clearly we see ho.w the Blessed. Virgin shares in this type of sacramental effciency, the less scandalized we shall be to say that "as God is the Father and Lord of the universe, preparing all by His power, so the Blessed Mary, repairing all things by her merits, is the ruler and mother of all." While re-maining subordinate to her Son as a creature to her Creator, she was instituted by Him on the cross as the great sacrament of His mercy and the visible sign of internal grace which He promised to those who, like Plus XII, "approach with confidence to the throne of our Queen and Mother to beg help in difficulty, light in dark-ness, and solace in trouble and sorrow." 213 Practice ot: t:he Noly See ,Joseph F. ~llen, S.,.J. CANON 509, § 1, obliges all superiors to inform their sub-jects of all decrees of the ~Holy See concerning religious and to enforce such decrees. The activity and mind and will of the Holy See are also revealed, and sometimes in a more practical manner, by approved constitutions and com-munications addressed to individual religious institutes. article drawn from these sources was published in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in 1953. This article is based on the same sources concerning lay institutes ~ from January 1, 1954. The order of material followed in the article is the usual order the chapters of constitutions of lay institutes. This is the third part of a series of three. 14. Dismissal. It is canonically interesting that the con-stitutions of an order of women, who recently received permis-sion to resume solemn vows, contain the following article: "A professed of either perpetual simple vows or of solemn vows who is dismissed from the institute is by this very fact dispensed from her vows of religion.''3° 1 5. The general chapter. (a) Convocation and members. A most interesting fact canonically is the appearance of a procuratrix general to handle the affairs of a pontifical congre-gation of women with the Holy See. The article in a set of constitutions recently approved by the Holy See reads as follows: "The procuratrix general resides in Rome and transmits the affairs of the congregation to the Roman Curia according to the intentions and directions of the institute. The procuratrix general has the right to attend the general chapter and to give her suffrage.''31 (b) Invitation of non-capitulars to the general chapter. Several constitutions of recent date empower the IBM., 16-1957-282. Ibid., 16-1957-114-16. 214 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE superior general, either alone or with the advice or consent his or her council, to summon or invite the following non-capitulars to the general chapter: one or more religious ot: the same institute to .assist the secretary of the chapter as steno-graphers, other religious of the same institute to any session, and a priest or lay person to present and discuss a question of interest to the capitulars. It is evident that none of these are permitted to vote and that all such religious of the same institute are obliged to secrecy in the same manner as the capitulars. It seems prudent to add the observation that the capitulars should have sufficient time for discussion of a matter after such a consultant has left, since often they would at least hesitate to express their opinions fully before such a person, particularly if he or she is not a member of the same institute. I have seen such provisions only in recent constitutions; but some of them, for example, that on the stenographers, have been followed in fact by some institutes. Unless expressly forbidden by the particular constitutions, these ~. provisions may be followed by any institute, since they are not contrary to canon law and are entirely reasonable in themselves. In any revision of the constitutions, art institute should consider ar~ article of the following tenor: The superior general (or with the advice or consent of his or her council) may summon other religious to assist in the clerical or similar work of the chapter. He may also summon such religious and even invite an extem for consultation or to present and discuss questions with the chapter. None of these are permitted to vote, and all such religious have the same obligation as the capitulars to secrecy. (c) Delegates. i° Necessity of delegates. The Holy See de-mands a system of delegates for the general and provincial chapters and does not permit in centralized institutes what we may style a universal chapter, for example, that all the religious pf perpetual vows be members of the general or provincial chapter. This necessity was repeated in a recent reply to a quinquennial report. A system of delegates is also necessary 215 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious now for the general and regional chapters of nuns. The neces-sity of delegates was emphasized in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 10-1951-187-90. The elected delegates from a province to the general chapter are almost universally two, most rarely three or four. The Holy See has approved, eoen recently, variations of this norm, for example, "one or two delegates according as the province has less or more than a hundred members"; "one delegate for each province but two delegates for any province that exceeds three hundred." 2° Added delegates from larger houses. It has been practically universal that a larger house elected only one delegate, no matter l~ow many religious of active voice it contained. Added delegates were very rarely admitted, for example, one delegate for every twelve religious. There has been a greater willingness on the, part of the Holy See in recent years to permit such added delegates. However, one of the defects of the house system is that it puts a large and unwieldy number in the general or provincial chapter as the institute increases in size. This difficulty is evidently intensified by the system of added dele-gates. Furthermore, proportional representation is not de-manded. The business of a general chapter is not the interests or the affairs of a particular house or province but only those of the institute as a whole. The same principle is true of the provincial chapter. 3° New systems. A fundamental variation of the group system recently approved by the Holy See is as follows. A first list is made of all local superiors and a second of all the subjects with passive voice. The latter are arranged in groups according to horizontal precedence, that is, each group has a proportionate number of older and younger re-ligious~ Copies of the two lists are sent to every religious with. active voice. Each of these votes for a determined number of local superiors and a determined number of subjects from each group of the second list. Those with the next highest number of votes are the substitutes. Therefore, every such religious votes for all the local superiors and subjects who will 216 July, 1959 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE be members of the general or provincial chapter. The system may be further varied by sending out the list of superiors first and including in the second list all local SUl~eriors not elected in the first election. The following is an example of another new system, which has been approved for at least two institutes by the Holy See. The superiors of all houses of at least twelve religious are members of the general chapter in virtue of their office. The number of delegates from the houses is apparently established by the superior general with the consent of his council. Let us suppose that twenty is the established number. Each religious Who has active voice votes for twenty delegates from the entire institute. A graduated value is given to this vote: for example, if Brother Francis is the first name voted for, he receives twenty points; Brother Robert, the last name on the same ballot, receives one point. Or the relative value can be computed as one and one-twentieth. The votes are necessarily sent in to the general council, and thus a relative majority decides the elections. Those with the next highest number of votes are the substitutes. One objection to this system is the complicated computation of the votes. Some have objected also to the fact that the local superiors are members of the chapter in virtue of their office and to the power of varying the number of delegates from the houses. Another institute proposed the same system to the Holy See; but the number of delegates, twenty, was fixed by the constitutions, no local superior was a member of the chapter in virtue of his office, the delegates could be either local superiors or subjects, and the same value was given to a vote for a religious no matter in what place his name was found on the individual ballot. The Holy See approved this proposed text with two exceptions, the number of delegates was reduced to fifteen, and the local superiors of houses of at least'twenty subjects were made ex officio members of the general chapter. (d) Preliminary sessions. Some recent constitutions, as also several approved in the past, command the superior general to give the general chapter a 217 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious copy also of the last quinquennial report ~o the Holy See. (e) Postulation of superior general. The Holy See admitted the postulation of a mother gerieral for a third successivd six-year term but expressly excluded further postulation of the same religious. (f) Election of the general officials. 1° Election or appointment of the secretary general and bursar general. In a fairly recent communication to one institute, the Sacred Congregation stated that these two officials should be ex officio members of the general chapter because of their general knowledge of the institute. The validity of this reason is evident. .~It could be well appliedto some other offices, for example, the general supervisor of schools and studies. If elected, these two officials uniformly have such membership. The Holy See, also in recent years, has sometimes approved the appointment of either or both of these officials by the superior general with the consent of his council, in some cases with and in others without ex officio membership in the "general chapter. I personally doubt that a general chapter is a good judge ~f the specialized abilities demanded by these offices~32 It seems to me that the preferable policy is to appoint both of these officials with ex officio membership in the general chapter. 2° Incompatible offices. In the Former practice of the Holy See, one of the general councilors, except the first, could be elected also as secretary general; but the bursar general could not be a general councilor. Constitutions that contain this provision must evidently be observed. In constitutions more recently approved, the Sacred Congregation permits any of the councilors except the first to be also either secretary, or bursar general. One institute received an indult permitting the first councilor, or assistant general, to be also bursar general, provided that no inefficiency resulted to the first office. (g) Chapter of affairs. 1° Committees. An article of the following type is more efficient than the one usually found in constitu-tions: "At least two .weeks before the opening of the chapter, 32 Ibid., 10-1951-190-91. 218 July, 1959 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE a committee of three or more chapter delegates, appointed by the mother general in consultation with her council, shall examine and prepare for the chapter all the matters submitted by the hohses for which the decision of the chapter is necessary. This committee shall classify all questions submitted and present them to the general chapter for action." 2° Public voting. The general norm of public rather than secret voting in this chapter is also more efficient and is contained in some recent constitu-tions, for example, "The business of the chapter will be settled by the majority of votes, by secret ballot if the majority of the chapter requests it." 3° Duration of ordinances of general chapter. The following norm of a set of constitutions recently approved is more reasonable than the one commonly found in constitutions: "The decisions and enactments of the general chapter remain in effect permanently unless amended or rescinded by subsequent chapters." 4° Duration of ordinances of a ,superior. At least two recent sets of constitutions state: "Every order gi~,en by a superior ceases to. bind on the expira-tion of his term of office." This should have been qualified. As Van Hove well states: "Many ordinances enacted from dominative power continue to exist on the cessation from office of the superior who established them, because they are im-plicitly renewed by his successor, who is presumed to intend that the customary order in a community continue to be observed until he changes it.''33 16. The superior general. The quinquennial report. The only article in this chapter of the constitutions that needs com-ment is that on the quinquennial report to the Holy See. Every religious institute is now obliged to make this report, for example, independent monasteries, independent houses, and diocesan congregations of men and women are also held to the report.34 The following comments were i:ound in the replies of the Sacred Congregation to several reports. Whenever a Van Hove, .De Leglbus Ecclesiasticis, I, n. 359, note 4; cf. Jone, Commen. tarium in Codicem Iuris Canonici, I, 46. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 15-1956-156~57. 219 JOSEPH F. GALLEIq Review for Religious pontifical document is mentioned, its date and protocol number should be given, for example, March 19, 1955, Prot. N. 6097/54. Each house should have a book of chronicles in which the principal events of the house are recorded and should also have its own files and archives. The acts of the general chapter, that is, the elections made and the ordinances enacted, not the minutes, should be sent to the Sacred Congregation by pontifical institutes. The following question also caused difficulty: "How do superiors see to it that the decrees of the Holy See which concern religious be known and observed by their own subjects?" This obligation is incumbent on all superiors by the prescription of canon 509, ~ 1. The Sacred Congregation was dissatisfied with many replies to this question. It seems to me that the answer was easy with regard to knowledge, i. e., all houses subscribe to the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, in which such documents are explained, and all houses have the fol-lowing work, in which the text of such documents is given in Eng-lish, Bouscaren, Canon Law Digest, I-IV (The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee). Circular letters of higher superiors should call the attention of their subjects to such documents and insist their observance. Their enforcement should also be part of the ordi-nary government of all superiors, should be included in the reports of lower to higher superiors, and be investigated and insisted on in the canonical visitations of higher superiors. Since the Sacred Congregation insists even on local archives, it seems to me that a religious institute should always be given the original rescript from the Holy See that concerns it or at least a photographic copy of such a rescript, and not a mere summary in English of the contents of the rescript. The names of the prefects and officials of the Roman congregations who sign rescripts are often most inaccurately stated and trans-lated into English by lay religious. This is true of the name, the title, and the office. These mistakes are frequently quite public, for example, on the documents appended to the con-stitutions. Those who transmit rescripts should translate these 220 July, 1959 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE names into English for .lay religious. An indecipherable signa-ture can usually be. determined by cgnsulting the Annuario Pontificio. It would help if the signature were fully typed out on the original document below the written signature. 17. The general council. (a) Superior alone governs. Many constitutions, old and new, contain an article of the following tenor: "The congregation shall be governed by a superior general and four councilors." This is an error. The superior alone governs an institute, a province, or a house. The councilors are not associates in authority but advisers. Therefore, such an article should be more accurately phrased, as in the following recently approved constitutions: "Although the superior general must ask the opinion of the general council in matters of greater importance and must sometimes secure its consent, nevertheless, she issues all ordinances in her own name because she alone possesses the right to govern the congregation." (b) List of what a superior may do without the advice or consent of his council. Several constitutions, even some recently approved, contain such a list. This seems to me to be entirely superfluous. It is immediately evident that a superior has the right to govern completely unassisted except for the matters reserved by canon law or the constitutions to higher authorities or that from the same sources demand the con-sent or advice of his council. 18. The secretary general. Many constitutions keep repeat-ing, especially of the secretary, secondlyof the bursar, and lastly of the novice master, that he has no right to vote in a general or provincial council unless he is also a councilor. Isn't this evident? Are we vdry likely to affirm that anyone has the rights of an office that he does not possess? 19. The bursar general. Even recent constitutions continue to speak of a safe locked by three different keys in general-ates, provincialates, and local houses. One of those keys is to be kept by the superior, the second by the assistant, the third by the bursar. All three must therefore be present to open the 221 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious safe. How efficient is such a safe? How possible is it even buy such a safe? Religious institutes continue also to put determined sums in their constitutions, for example, the amount in extra-ordinary expenses for which recourse is necessary to the superior general. The changing of such an amount is a change of the constitutions and will demand the permission of the Holy See for a pontifical institute and that of all the ordinaries in whose dioceses the.institute has houses in the case of' a diocesan con-gregation. It would be sufficient and more practical to say, "according to the norms established by the general chapter." Such amdhnts may then be changed by any subsequent chap-ter. A recent set of constitutions enacts: "In the houses en-trusted with parish schools or other establishments which are responsible to ecclesiastical or lay administrations and where the sisters receive a fixed salary, the funds shall be .kept and admin-istered as indicated in article . ., except that any surplus shall be paid annually into the provincial fund." This matter was explained in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 14-1955-329. The article on alienation no longer contains the 30,000 t~rancs or lire, or $6,000, of canon 534, § 1 but is phrased, "of a value that exceeds the sum established by the Holy See." 20. Local houses and superiors. A recent set of constitu-tions states: "Though the sisters ought to be desirous of embrac-ing all human misery and of drawing the whole world to the service of God, nevertheless, the congregation shall not establish new houses if, in those already existing, there is not a sufficient number of sisters to insure that not only the works of mercy can be carried out adequately but also that religious observance can flourish." The last clause might well have been amended to: that religious observance and a normal human life can flourish. This very practical matter was commented on in the REVIEW FOR RE~LIGIOUS, 17-1958-121-22. Canon 516, § 1 demands that councilors be had in every formal house and favors or recommends councilors also in smaller houses, In several replies to quinquennial reports, the Sacred Congregation insisted on 222 July, 1959 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE the appointment of local councilors and that local council meet-ings be held with the frequency commanded by the constitu-tions. Insistence was also placed on the law that a local superior should not be the local bursar except in a case of necessity (c. 516~ § 3). A recent set of constitutions makes the prac-tical and necessary observation that everything said about local superiors applies also to the local superior of the 'mother house. The presence of a higher superior does not diminish the author-ity nor lessen the duties of this local superior. One order of nuns and two congregations of sisters have indults that dispense them from the law of canon '1306,§ 2, that is, that purificators, palls, and corporals used in the sacrifice of the Mass must be first washed by a cleric in major orders.3~ 21. The constitutions. The only thing noteworthy under this chapter in the present practice of the Holy See is a fre-quent addition to the norm on the obligation of the constitu-tions. It has always been evident that a divine or ecclesiastical law repeated in the constitutions retains the obligation it has in itself, that is, it obliges under sin according to the matter. The same obligation is equally evident of any action that falls under the vows. It has been the universal practice to declare that the other articles of the constitutions did not immediately oblige under sin but under the penalty imposed for their infraction. It was also universally stated that sin was committed in the violation of such articles by a sinful motive or by a violation that caused scandal. The following qualification is now fre-quently appended to the norm for these other articles: "The articles concerning government and the fundamental norms that determine the necessary functions or the duties and offices by which government is exercised, as also the articles that enact and consecrate the nature, spirit, and special purpose of the congr.egation oblige immediately in conscience according to the matter." This qualification is evidently taken verbatim from Ibid., 15-1956-101. 223 JOSEPH F. (~ALLEN Muzzarelli, Acta et Documenta Congressus Generalis de Statibus Perfectionis, I, 540. It does not seem to me to be too clear nor too precise. It "should be added here that a considerable number of both pontifical and diocesan congregations have made a general revision of their constitutions in recent years. 224 A Lit:e Table t:or. Religious Priest:s 1953-1957 Francis C. Madigan, S.J. THE JANUARY 1955 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS carried an article by Sister Josephina, c.s.J., on the average age at death of sisters in two communities of religious women, presumably of her own congregatmn1 . In view of the interest of religious, and particularly of religious superiors, in Sister Josephina's stat", s"tLcs, the writer believes that readers of the REVIEW will be equally interested in a life table setting forth the mortality experience of a large community of religious priests2 whose headquarters are located in New York City and whose principal field of operations embraces New York State ¯ and northeastern New Jersey.3 Some comments on life tables and their use are in order. First of all, they are based not on death records only, but on the proportion of deceased members to living members, for each age gr6up and calendar year studied. The present table gives average figures t:or the calendar years 1953-1957. Secondly, life tables are an accurate barometer of health conditions prevailing in the particular group to which they relate. They permit direct and unbiased comparisons of the mortality of this group with that of other groups through the mortality rates and expectations of life developed in the tables. Superiors of similar groups of priests should find these mortality rates and expectations of life helpful in coming to decisions about the number of men that must be prepared to keep certain lines of work adequately staffed. The table will also prove useful in determining whether health conditions in 1Sister Josephina, C.S.J., "Longevity of Religious Women," Review [or Religious, XIV, I (January, 1955), 29-30. 2Priest was defined for the purpose of the study to mean. both ordained priests, and religious seminarians ("scholastics") studying for the priesthood. 3There were 1247 priests in this community on June 30, 1955, which was the midpoint of the study. The main work engaged in by the members is education. 225 FRANCIS C. MADIGAN Review for Religious their community are satisfactory both in general and in regard to any particular age group. Some time ago through the use of such a table the superiors of a certain religious community found that the number of deaths yearly experienced in their scholasticate was entirely out of line with expectations, and upon investigation they found that certain health measures relating to diet and housing were being overlooked. Correction of the situation resulted in an immediate lowering of the death rates for the affected age groups. The table may also be of assistance to superiors, in another way. Of late a number of communities have been consider-ing or have actually bought group insurance for their members. The mortality rates and expectations of life in the table should prove helpful both to these communities and to insurance companies in determining what is a fair premium. The use of the table is simple. In the leftmost colunm one finds the age in which he is interested. Following this age across .its row, he comes first to the mortality rates. These are given for both five-year and one-year periods, and for the five-year periods, in terms of both observed and graduated rates. The observed rates are placed next to the age beginning the precise period to which they refer, as are the one-year graduated rates. The graduated five-year rates are placed in parentheses two lines below the observed rates and refer to precisely the same period of time as the observed rates. These mortality rates are probabilities of dying during the period 'specified for those priests who were alive on the birthday mark-ing the beginning of the period. In using the table to compare the probabilities of dying at any particular ages, it is better to use the graduated rather than the observed rates. This is because the latter rates con-tain fluctuations from age to age due to chance variation, whereas the former represent, as closely as can be determined by study, the general law of mortality, which seems to underlie the observed fluctuations of a particular set of rates. A priori we would expect mortality to follow a smoothly rising curve 226 July, 1959 A LIFE TABLE with the advance of age, and graduation is based on this expectation, while at the same time it attempts to keep very close to the original rates observed at each age. For example, if the age-specific mortality rates observed during the period 1953-1957 should continue in effect, we would expect an average oi~ 5.5 priests to die (on the basis of the graduated rates) before their fortieth birthday, out ot~ every thousand priests alive on their thirty-fifth birthday. However, in the general public we would expect thirteen out of every thousand to die during the same period.4 During the one-year period from their thirty-fifth to their thirty-sixth birthday, we would expect only one priest to die out of every thousand. The reference, of course, is only to priests of the community studied. How might a superior compare the experience of his own community with that of the priests described? He could do this by relating the number of deaths at any particular age in a calendar year to the number of persons in his community who had been of that precise age on their last birthday. Divid-ing the i~ormer by the latter would give the one-year probability of dying. Similarly, he could find the five-year probabilities of dying by relating members who had died within a specific five-year age bracket in the calendar year to the number of members of his community who were between these ages at the start ot~ the year. Rough approximations could be used if only ~ general picture of the mortality rates of the community is ~lesired, while more careful methods might be employed to nvestigate the records of age-groups which seem to have un- _~sually high mortality. Of course, unusually high mortality rates for a particular ~-ge-group may represent simply fluctuations due to chance. ~,ccordingly, it is well to combine the results of the observation ,f several calendar years, as these average rates will show fewer --xtremes due to mere sampling variation. It would not be 4The comparison is not perfect since the rates of the general public are "or 1954, rather than 1955 which is the mid-year of the period studied for ¯ riests. However, it is close enough to make differences inconsequential. 227 FRANCIS C. 1V[ADIGAN Review for Religious wise, however, to average more than ten years' experience be-cause of the change in medical techniques that takes place over that length of time. These affect the death rates. The column next after the white male mortality rates fifth column) shows the number of priests who survive to each quinquennial birthday out of 100,000 priests alive on, their fifteenth birthday. By mentally shifting the decimal point, can be converted into the number left alive out of 100. (Multi-plying by the proper multiple would give the number left out of 200, 300, 400, and similar numbers.) This column might prove helpt~ul to superiors in endeavoring to forecast size of a certain age group some years from the present. For example, one might get some idea from it of the number priests ordained today who would be expected to be still alive in twenty or thirty years, if we assume that these priests roughly of the same age. The following column (sixth), which gives the number of priests dying in each successive five-interval out of the original group of 100,000, might also prove helpful in this connection. The seventh column will probably not be particularly use-ful to superiors or other interested religious. It is included because of its relation to the following column. This seventh column presents the remaining total number of years of to be lived by the surviving members of the original 100,000 priests up to the time when the last survivor dies. The last column presents probably the most useful set figures in the table. These expectations of life are found dividing the total number of years to be lived (column by the number of persons surviving to start the period (column 5) at any particular age. The first expectation, at age 15, sums up the entire mortality and longevity experience of whole cohort of 100,000 priests, and is directly comparable t.h~ experience of other groups of persons at age 15. Expecta-tions of life at succeeding years sum up the entire experience t~rom that age onward to the death of the last member. 228 July, 1959 A LIF~- TABLE The expectation of life is the average remaining number of years to be lived by priests surviving to some particular specified age. For example, priests studied in this table had at 30 years of age an average remaining lifetime of 38.5 years while white males of the general public had only 36.4 years of life remaining. Care must be observed, however, in drawing conclusions from column eight. Because one has noted that the average lifetime of priests is greater than that of white males of the general population, he should not conclude that the oldest ages reached b)~ individual priests necessarily exceed those of the most long-lived members of the general population. As a matter of fact, the opposite is true because of the greater numbers in the general population and the greater resultant probability of extreme cases. The difference in average length of life is pri.ncipally due to the fact that a larger number of the general population die before reaching old age. For this reason one will notice that the expectations of life at ages above 60 do not differ as much as do the expectations at the younger years. A second caveat refers to the fact that the mortality rates and the expectations of life refer to statistical averages. We cannot be sure of any particular person or persons that their lives will be as long or short as the mathematical averages. For example, the expectation of life of priests aged 30 is 43.5 additional years of life. However, any particular priest might be killed tomorrow in an automobile accident, or on the other hand he might live considerably beyond the average expecta-tion of life. The same is true of any small group of priests, where sampling variations due to health or accident might be very large. In addition, one should bear in mind that as time goes on, health conditions continually improve. At least this has been the experience of the past hundred years. Thus one would expect that in 1958 a priest's expectation of life would be slightly better for any particular age than it was between 1953 and 1957, and that his chances of dying during any one-year or five-year interval would be correspondingly less. 229 FRANCIS C. ~V[ADIGAN Review for Religious Table 1. Life Table of Large Community of Religious Priests with Headquarters in Northeastern United States, for the Period 1953-1957, with Mortality Rates For Five-Year and One-Year Periods and Expectation of Life by Single Years of Age, Compared for Five-Year Age Groups with United States White Males, 1954. Priest Priests Total Survivors Dying Years Expectation MortaLity Beginning During Lived by of Rates Each Each Priesr~ Life Age 5-Year 1-Year 5-Year Five-Year Five-Year at Ages ¯ Priests U~S. Interval Observed~ Graduated U.S. Male Interval, Interval and Above Male 15-16 .00000 .00068a .00610b 100,000 0 5,797,816 57.98 55.0 16-17 .00068 56.98 17-18 (.00339)c .00068 55.98 18-19 .00068 54.98 19-20 .00068 53.98 20-21 .00549 .00068 .00890 I00,000 549 5,297,816 52.98 50.3 21-22 .00069 52.04 22-23 (.00349) .00070 51.09 23-24 .00070 50.15 24-25 .00071 49~20 25-26 .00578 .00073 .00800 99,451 575 4,799,069 48.26 45.7 26-27 .00074 47.31 27-28 (.00379) .00076 46.36 28-29 .00077 45.42 29-30 .00079 44.47 30-31 .00000 .00082 .00900 98,876 0 4,303,365 43.52 41.1 31-32 .00085 42.52 32-33 (.00439) .00088 41.52 33-34 .00091 40.52 34-35 .00094 39.52 35-36 .00628 .00099 .01300 98,876 621 3,808,975 38.52 36.4 36-37 .00106 37.57 37-38 (.00549) .00111 36:61 38-39 .00115 35.66 39-40 .OOll8 34.70 40-41 .00683 .00125 .02080 98,255 671 3,316,009 33.75 31.8 41-42 .00136 32.79 42-43 (.00757) .00149 31.83 43-44 .00166 30.88 44-45 .00186 29.92 45-46 .03874 .00214a .03530b 97,584 3,780 2,825,753 28.96 27.5 46-47 .00248 28.17 47-48 (.01490)e .00290 27.38 48-49 .00342 26.60 49-50 .00404 25.81 50-51 .03177 .00484 .05600 93,804 2,980 2,346,801 25.02 23.4 51-52 .00566 24.17 52-53 (.03333) .00661 23.32 53-54 .00773 22.46 54-55 .00899 21.61 July, 1959 A LIFE TABLE Mortality Age ~-Year l-Year 5-Year Interval O~serveds Graduated U.,S Male 55-56 .02900 .01058 .08380 56-57 .01231 57-58 .06765) .01374 58-59 .01545 59-60 .01727 60-61 61-62 62-63 63-64 64-65 65-66 66-67 67-68 68-69 69-70 70-71 71-72 72-73 73-74 74-75 Priest Priests Total Survivors Dying Years Beginning During Lived by Each Each ~ Priests Five-Year Five-Year at Ages x Interval Interval and Above 90,824 2,634 1,885,471 .09036 .01960 .02205 ¯ 11805) .02450 .02750 .03051 .12700 88,190 7,969 1,436,896 .28666 .03586 .03795 .19084) .04125 .04452 .04795 .13382 .05225 .05650 .273.10) .06150 .06685 .07150 ¯ 18570 80,221 22,996 1,011,626 ¯ 24920 57,225 7,658 668,076 75-76 76-77 77-78 78-79 79-80 80-81 81-82 82-83 83-84 84-85 Expectation of Life Priests U.S. Male 20.76 19.6 19.87 18.97 18.08 17.18 16.29 16.2 15.54 14.82 14.08 13.35 12.61 13.1 12.42 12.23 12.05 11.86 11.67 10.5 10.95 10.24 9.52 8.81 .45904 .07650 .35440 49,567 22,753 401,147 8.09 8.2 .08200 8.04 .35495) .08500 7.98 .08750 7.93 .08870 7.87 .36387 .09051d .48470 26,814 9,757 209,757 7.82 6.3 .O9149 7.46 .38689)e .09311 7.12 .09452 6.76 .09642 6.41 85-86 .39950 .10116 17,057 6,814 103,400 6.06 5.1 86-87 .10653 87-88 (.45904) .11340 88-89 .12299 89-90 .13367 90 and 1.00000e Above 1.0000e 10,243e 10,243e a The life table is based on the observed rates. These rates are for five-year periods. b The mortality rates for U. S. males, 1954, are for five-year periods. In the source they are given only to four places. A zero was added to each to assist the eye in comparisons. e The rates given in parentheses are five-year, graduated rates for priests. They are for the iame five-year period as the observed rate immediately above them. d The one-year graduated rates give the probabilities of dying during the next year, for persons of this exact age. ¯ o This final interval is not one if five years, but continues till the death of the last survivor. Source for the life table values of United States white males, 1954: National Office of Vital Statistics, "Abridged Life Tables. United States, 1954," Vital Sta-tistics- Special Reports, National Summaries, 44, 2 (May 15, 1956), 38. 231 Survey Roman Documents R. F. Smith, S.J. IN THE FOLLOWING survey those documents will be summarized which appeared in Acta Apostolicae Sedis through February and March, 1959. All page references throughout the survey will be to the 1959 ~AS (v. 51). Synod and Council On the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, January 25, 1959, His Holiness John XXIII, together with the cardinals present in Rome, participated in the closing of the Church Unity Octave at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. After the ceremonies the Vicar of Christ delivered a private but solemn allocution (AAS, pp. 65-69) to the assembled cardinals. After telling them of his awareness of his duties both as Bishop of Rome and as Pastor of the universal Church, the Pontiff remarked that the diocese of Rome needs an increase of energy as well as a coordination of individual and collective efforts, if a more abundant harvest of souls is to be gathered. Moreover, he continued, the entire world has its needs; for though the grace of Christ continues to achieve its victories, still there are many who refuse to believe in Christ, immerse themselves in exclusively eartldy pursuits, and under the inspiration of the Prince of Darkness wage active opposition against what is true and good. To meet these needs, the Pope. said, there must be revived certain ancient forms of doctrinal affirmation and ecclesi-astical discipline which have in the past proved their ability to clarify thought, to increase religfous unity, and to reanimate Christian fervor. "Venerable Brothers and beloved Sons! Trembling a little from emotion but nevertheless with a humble resoluteness of purpose, We announce in your presence the name and proposal of a double celebration: that of a diocesan synod for the City and that of an ecumenical Council for the universal Church." After mentioning briefly that among other results of these two endeavors, there would be effected the hoped for revision of canon law, the Pontiff concluded his allocution by recommending his two proposals to the care of the Blessed Virgin and the saints of heaven. Previously on the same day and during the Solemn Mass that closed the Unity Octave, HIS Holiness had delivered a homily (AAS, pp. 70-74) in which he emphasized that the Church's linking of St. Paul with St. Peter should be a symbol of the unity of the bishops, 232 I~OMAN DOCUMENTS successors of the apostles, and of the faithful with the successor of St. Peter. It is from this unity, he concluded, that there will flow to the world the liberty and peace it desires. Closing of the Lourdes Centenary On February 15, 1959 (AAS, pp. 135-39), the Holy Father delivered an allocution in the Basilica of St. Mary Major to mark the end of the Lourdes centenary for the city of Rome. After reminding the Romans that the adoration of Christ is always the center of every form of devotion to Mary, HIS Holiness once more recalled to his listeners the permanent message of Lourdes: confident prayer of petition, exercise of penance, and solid piety manifested in the form of pilgrimages. These pilgrimages, he continued, whether to Lourdes or to the thousands of other shrines of our Lady, are not to be regarded as pleasure trips nor as the satisfying of some vague religious feeling; rather they should recall the eternal truths of life and- purify the soul so as to better fit it to appreciate the eucharistic banquet. In our prayer of petition, he went on, we need not fear to ask for temporal gifts; but our requests should not begin or end with these, for the goals of our life and the means thereto far exceed such things. Finally, he pointed out, because of the threefold concupiscence to be found in man, human beings need disci-pline and penance; accordingly there can be no Christian without the exercise of penance. The Holy Father concluded the entire allocution by lamenting the moral disorders that are multiplying at the present time and urged the faithful to petition heaven that good sense may return, that the faith may revive, and that perseverance never grow slack. Three days later on February 18, 1959 (AAS, pp. 144-48), the Pontiff sent a radio message to Lourdes and to the entire world for the conclusion of the centenary year, considering in it the message to be found in the life of St. Bernadette. Bernadette, he said, once more proves the statement of St. Paul (1 Cor 1:27-28) that. God chooses the weak things of this world to ~onfound the strong. Our generation, tie continued, has made admirable scientific progress, and humanity has been seized with a sense of pride at the possibilities now opening to the power of man. But, he added, St. Bernadette recalls to us our need for humility and prayer and reminds us that from Lourdes there comes a call to penance and to charity, a call to detach ourselves from riches and to teach us to share with those poorer than ourselves. Later during the same day (AAS, pp. 140-43) the Pope delivered an allocution to a group of Frenchmen in the Church of St. Louis, King of France. He recalled the long and noble history of Catholicism in France, noting that that history had culminated in the appearances of 233 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious Mary at Lourdes. Having remarked that in the plans of Divine Provi-dence each nation has its own special mission, he went on to describe the mission of France in the phrase: The country of France is the country of Mary. He concluded by reminding his listeners that the last previous Pope who bore the name of John was a Frenchman. Further Documents and Speeches Under the date of February 6, 1959 (AAS, pp. 129-35), John XXIII sent an epistle to the archbishops, bishops, and other local ordinaries of Italy in commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the death of Pius XI and thirtieth anniversary of the Lateran Pact. In the epistle John XXIII recalled that in the last months of his life Plus XI had planned a plenary meeting of all the bishops of Italy and had in fact begun the composition of the talk he intended to give at the meeting. Sickness and death prevented the completion of the speech, but the unfinished manuscript furnishes us with sufficient knowledge of the last thoughts.of Pius XI. The first subject Pius XI had chosen to consider was that of the care that bishops should have for their seminaries. He reminded them of the need to watch over their seminaries vigilantly even in little matters; he particularly stressed the necessity of sustaining the rectors of seminaries in their severity in admitting candidates and in later promotions to orders. The next p.oint in the projected speech was a warning to the bishops that they should not be surprised if their words were often twisted and misinterpreted. (It should be remembered that Pius XI was writing when Fascism was at its height in Italy.) At this point in the manuscript, John XXIII noted, the writing becomes shaky and confused. But there was still enough strength in the dying pontiff to write a paragraph on the tenth anniversary of'the Lateran Pact. The paragraph is a moving and eloquent one, the dying Pope addressing the relics of the Princes of the Apostles, calling on them to exult because God has returned to Italy and Italy to God, imploring them to prophesy the perseverance of Italy in the faith, and ending with a desperate plea for peace for the entire world. These, remarked John XXIII in conclusion, were the last recorded thoughts of a great Pope. On January 18, 1959 (AAS, pp. 74-79), John XXIII delivered an allocution at the Gregorian University to the assembled professors and students, emphasizing how the very name of the institution recalls the glorious memory of Pope Gregory XIII, who during his pontificate from 1572 to 1585 effected the full restoration of Christian discipline in the Church. 234 July, 1959 ROMAN DOCUMENTS On January 30, 1959 (AAS, pp. 80-81), the Pope addressed members of the Christian Union of Business Executives and Managers. I-Ie regretfully reminded his audience that th~ ~rror still persists that industrial production inevitably involves the conflict of divergent interests. Actually, he said, executives, managers, and workers are not irreconcilable antagonists; rather they are cooperators in a common work which requires mutual comprehension and a sincere effort to overcome the temptation to seek only one's own profit. Under the date of January 17, 1959 (AAS, pp. 149-51), the Vicar of Christ sent a written message to the school children of the United States. His message, the Holy Father wrote, was one of love: God's love for all mankind and man's duty to love God in return and his neighbor for His sake. He urged the children to show their love for children less fortunate than themselves by praying for them and by giving them all possible material aid. Miscellaneous Matters In the issues of AAS under consideration there¯ are several docu-ments which concern Catholics of the Byzantine rite. By the apostolic constitution Singularern huius, dated May 10, 1958 (AAS, pp. 97-98), an exarchate was erected in Australia for Ruthenians of the Byzantine rite; Sydney was designated as the see of the exarchate. A later decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Oriental Church, dated December 12, 1958 (AAS, pp. 107-108), extended the jurisdiction of the exarchate to Ruthenians living in New Zealand and Oceania. A second decree of the same congregation and under the same date (AAS, p. 108) changed the see of the exarchate from Sydney to Melbourne. Byzantine Rite Catholics of Ukrainian origin living in the United States were the object of the apostolic constitution Apostolicam hanc, issued July 10, 1958 (AAS, pp. 156-57). The constitution raised the exarchate of ~Philadelphia to metropolitan status, while the exarchate of Stamford (Connecticut) was made an eparchate. The two together now form a new ecclesiastical province. AAS, pp. 112-13 and pp. 163-64, gives the original texts of two prayers composed by John XXIII for the Church of silence and in honor of the Eucharistic Christ. An English translation of the prayers is given elsewhere in this issue. The last document to be considered is a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites issued on August 11, 1958 (AAS, pp. 160-62). The decree approves the introduction of the cause of the Servant of God Clara Fey (1815-1894), foundress of the Sisters of the Poor Child Jesus. 235 Views, News, Previews FROM JULY 31 to August 7, 1960, there will be held the thirty-seventh World Eucharistic Congress, in Munich, Germany. The first four days of the Congress (Sunday, July 31, to Wednesday, August 3) will consist chiefly in conventions of Catholic organizations and g.roups, while the last four days (Thursday, August: 4, to Sunday, August 7) will emphasize liturgical and devotional services centered around the Mass and the Blessed Sac~:ament. Catholic associations who intend to hold meetings during 1960 are requested to hold the meetings in Munich during the days of the Eucharistic Congress. Inquiries about the Eucharistic Congress should be directed to the following address: Generalsekretariat des Eucharistischen Weltkongresses, Maxburgo strasse, 2, Munich, Germany. A community of sisters in New Hampshire has asked that the following communication be printed in the pages of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. "Perhaps some of the religious superiors of sisters in the eastern states would appreciate knowing of an ideal rest and nursing home for sisters desiring complete rest and an opportunity of regaining lost health. As far as we know, it is unique, in that regular medical attendance forms one of the necessary advantages of this quiet and well organized rest home . This home is well furnished and comfort-able, but not luxurious -- so that sisters would quite naturally feel right at home. Rates and information will be furnished on request from Reverend Mother Superior, St. Margaret's Convent, Rest-a-While Building, Gabriels, New York." The twentieth annual North American Liturgical Week will be held under the patronage of Most Reverend Leo A. Pursley, Bishop of Fort Wayne, at Notre Dame University, from Sunday afternoon, August 24, to Wednesday evening, August 27. The theme of the Week will be "Active Lay Participation in the Liturgy according to the Instruction of September 3, 1958." A guest of distinction, who has announced his attendance at the Week, will be James Cardinal Lercaro, Archbishop of Bologna. Room accommodations during the Week will be provided at nominal charge. F.or information regarding such accom-modations write to: Father William Leonard, S.J., Boston College, Boston 67, Massachusetts. It is a pleasure to announce a new magazine which will be of interest to religious. The title of the magazine is Lasallian Digest, a quarterly which began publication in Fall, 1958. The quarterly not only provides informative articles concerning the history, spirituality, 236 VIEWS~ NEWS, PREVIEWS and educational philosophy of the Brothers of the Christian Schools; but it also includes general articles that will be of value to all religious" engaged in educational work. The address of the magazine is: Lasallian Digest, Mont La Salle, Napa, California. The second World Sodality Congress will be held from August 20 to August 23, 1959, at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. All sodalists, directors, and moderators, whether members of federations that are affiliated to the World Federation of Sodalities or not, are invited to send representatives to the Congress. Youth sodalities are requested to send only members who are at least sixteen years of age. The theme of the Congress will be "The Vocation of Sodalists of Our Lady in the Crisis of the World Today." Further information concerning the Congress can be obtained by Writing: World Congress of Sodalities of Our Lady, 101 Plane Street, Newark 2, New Jersey. A special leaflet missal containing the Mass of St. Joseph the Workman and designed especially for use at Labor Day Masses is being published by the Catholic Council on Working Life (21 West Superior Street, Chicago 10, Illinois). The missal will be set in large, easy-to-read type with special drawings of men and women at work in a variety of occupations and professions. The leaflet will be ready for shipment on August 1, 1959. Single copies of the leaflet will cost fifteen cents; reduced prices on quantity orders may be obtained by writing the Council at the address given above. The Little Brothers of Jesus hope to begin a new quarterly to be called ~lesus Caritas; the title was a favorite phrase and emblem of P~re de Foucauld whose spirituality the Brothers continue and prolong. A French magazine of the same title has been in existence for some time and in the fall of 1958 a trial issue of an independent but similar English magazine under the same title was issued. The theme of the first issue was "The Gift of Friendship." The new magazine promises to enrich English spiritual reading, since it will mediate the spirituality of the famed Pbre de Foucauld. Persons interested in the magazine should contact: Brother Roger, 24 Autumn Grove, Leeds 6, England. Marquette University, 1131 West Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee 3, Wisconsin, announces an Everett Curriculum Workshop which will grant three semester hours of graduate credit in education. The Work-shop, under the direction of Sister Elizabeth Ann, I.H.M., of Immaculate Heart College, Los Angeles, will explore the application of the Everett Report on Sister Formation to the needs of communities of sisters. 237 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious It has been designed specifically for directresses of study and for the administration and faculty of juniorates and scholasticates (college level) of sisterhoods. The Workshop has been scheduled for the mornings and afternoons of August 6 to August' 26, 1959. It is open only to sisters; the fee is $36. Inquiries concerning the Workshop should be directed to Dean John O. Riedl of the Graduate School of the University. ( ues!: ons and Answers [The following answers are given by Father Joseph F. Gallen, S.J., professor of canon law at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland.] --20-- The constitutions of our pontifical congregation, approved recently, state three times that a religious who is legitimately dismissed is by that fact freed of all her religious vows. This statement is found after the articles on the dismissal of a professed of temporary vows, those on the dismissal of a professed of perpetual vows, and finally after the article on the automatic dismissal of canon 646. I thought that repetition was to be avoided in constitutions. Wouldn't it be much simpler and less confusing to state once that a sister professed of perpetual or temporary vows who has been legitimately dis-missed is by that very fact freed of all her religious vows? The Code of Canon Law itself, in virtue of canon 648, frees a professed of temporary vows, as soon as the dismissal is effective, from all the vows of his religions profession. The code itself (c. 669, § 1) does not free a religious of perpetual vows from the vows of religious pro-fession by the very fact of his dismissal. Such a liberation may be effected by a provision of the particular constitutions, and constitutions approved in more recent years usually contain this provision. (REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, September, 1957, 275, 282, 288) The evident reason therefore for the threefold statement is that the Sacred Congregation is opposed to the admixture of canonical with non-canonical matter in the one sentence. However, excessive repetition is to be avoided in the constitutions, and the present repetition is especially unfortunate because it occurs within the same chapter of the constitutions. In one official document, the Statutes for Extern Sisters of Monasteries of Nuns, n. 121, the Sacred Congregation of Religious itself stated this effect in the one article: "A sister legitimately dismissed according to the norm of the preceding articles is by that very fact freed of all her religious vows, whether temporary or perpetual." The Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith follows exactly the same principle in its typical constitutions for diocesan missionary congregations, n. 128. 238 July, 1959 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 21 Our pontifical constitutions state: "The written declaration of the profession, whether temporary or perpetual, signed by the professed sister, by the mother general or her delegate, in whose presence the profession was made, and by two other sisters as witnesses, must be preserved in the archives of the congregation." (Cf. c. 576, § 2.) What is the meaning of the phrase "in whose presence the profession was made"? If it means the one who received the profession, why doesn't it simply state this? The wording of your article in this respect is that of the canon. It does mean the one who received the profession, and it would have been much better if the canon had simply stated this. This meaning is clear from the nature of the act of profession, since canon law itself demands the presence only of the one professing and the one receiving the profession. Furthermore, the rest of the canon, evidently referring to the same person, speaks explicitly of the superior who receives the profession. The unwillingness to repeat a word, phrase, or clause in the same context is a frequent cause of ambiguity in canon law. We do not change the wording of the canons, even when one finds an evidently better and more accurate wording. The Sacred Congregation of Religious itself changed the wording in the Statutes for Extern Sisters of Monas-teries of Nuns, n. 48, to "who received the profession or renovation." --221 You advocate fewer trifling permissions. So do I. What about monthly permissions? We first assemble for this purpose. Each sister then kneels individually before the superior and says, "Please, may I ask my permissions?" Isn't it sufficient to ask permissions? Why must I ask to ask them? She then asks the permissions. "Please, may I rise, dress, wash, say my prayers, perform my community exercises, go to different parts of the house, do my charge, prepare my work, use books, borrow and lend, give away and keep small articles, and bathe when necessary? Please, may I have these permissions?" Don't I already have at least implicit permission for things I am directed or commanded to do, e. g., to rise, perform community exercises, do my charge, and to read at least the books neces-sary for my work? How can I go to the chapel without washing and dressing? If I have permission to wash, doesn't that include all of me? Why do I need pe~-mission to bathe? This ritual consumes from ten to forty minutes. Is it necessary or profit-able, especially when we cannot keep up with our duties? We are told that it is an occasion for increasing merit, but it seems 239 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious to me to be a very dumb one. Aren't there sensible ways arriving at perfection? This thing of becoming a fool for the sake of Christ can he taken too literally. Impatience has sharpened the style of the questioner and, I hope, has exaggerated the content of her question; but this is not a sufficient reason for de.nying her a hearing. A monthly renewal of such things as dispensations from any of the duties of common life is reasonable. It would also be reasonable to have a less frequent renewal. I have never been able to see the profit of the formalistic monthly permissions, of which the present case is a sufficiently good example. As the questioner says, she already has at least implicit permission for many of the things she is requesting in these monthly permissions. Such monthly per-missions are, in my judgment, an unnecessary, unprofitable, and formalistic detail. A woman's ability to handle details is a valuable talent, but in the religions life she often perverts it and grinds the spiritual life into a smothering dust of details. I believe it is a sound spiritual maxim that artificiality in spiritual matters is an infallible sign of error. Why should we need artificiality to follow perfectly the most reasonable and most highly integrated person who has. ever existed, Jesus Christ? It is not possible nor does obedience demand that we have the expressed will of a superior for every action. If the motive of our action is the vow of obedience (and it is presumed to be such), any action in conformity with the Rule, the constitutions, cnstoms, usages, and the tacit or presumed will of the superior has the merit of the vow. "In many cases, especially of sisters, one finds a manner of governing, a way of conceiving discipline and obedience that reduces the life and religious observance to an arid and oppressive formalism, a negation and death of the religious life itself and of zeal." Rev. J. Alberione, S.S.P., Acta et Docurnenta Congressus Generalis de Statibus Perfectio~nis, I, 270. 23 When is a vote uncertain and consequently invalid (c. 169, § 1,2°)? A vote is certain when the person voted for can be known without any fear of error from the vote itself. A vote for Brother Francis is invalid if there are two or more religious of that name. It cannot be argued that the elector intended to vote for the elder Brother Francis, who will very likely, be elected, rather than for the younger Brother Francis, for whom it is very improbable that anyone would vote. The vote itself must be certain. The family name or other identification must be included when .there is more than one religions of the same name. It is the almost universal custom always to append the family to the religions name. The vote is also uncertain when the writing cannot be deciphered or the sense understood. 240 July, 1959 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Our monastery of nuns recently resumed solemn vows. Was I, the superioress, obliged to inform the pastor of the parish of baptism of each of these nuns that she had made profession of solemn vows? Yes. Canon 576, § 2, prescribes: " . . . . and moreover, in the case of solemn profession, the superior who received the profession shall inform the pastor of the place of baptism of the solemn profession, in con-fortuity with the norm of canon 470, § 2~" The latter canon reads: "In the register of baptisms there shall'be noted also the record of the baptized person's confirmation, marriage (unless it was a marriage of conscience, as stated in canon 1107), reception of subdiaconate, or ~olemn profession; and these facts are always to be included in baptismal certificates." Canon 576, § 2, should be and usually is included in the constitutions of nuns. The evident reason for the obligation is that solemn religious profession is a diriment impediment to marriage. Therefore, the notification of the solemn profession of any religious is to be sent to the pastor of the parish of baptism. According to the canon, this duty falls on the superior who received the solemn pro-fession; but he or she may do it through another. In fact, the notification is the duty of the superioress of the monastery, even if she did not receive the profession; and this is the usual wording of the constitutions. The notification should contain the full secular and religious name, the place and date of the solemn profession, the full names of the father and mother of the religious, and at least the approximate date of the baptism. Complete and accurate data for the notification can be obtained from the baptismal certificate, if this is in the files of the house where solemn profession was made. --25-- Our general motherhouse is in France. Our constitutions underwent a general revision. Is an ~mprlm~t~tr re~iuired in France for the printing of the constitutions in French? Is another imprimatur necessary for the English translation of these constitutions from the French? The answer to both questions is yes. Prudence demands that any translation of the constitutions, also and especially of the original approved text, be submitted to the examination of a priest conversant with the canonical terms on religious. If this is not done, awkwardness, inaccuracy, and errors of translation are very likely. Canon law com-mands previous censorship by a local ordinary for determined works but only if they are published (c. 1384). Publication means that the work is made available to the general public. Therefore, works that are destined solely for the members of a religious institute are not published; 241 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious and there is no obhgation of submitting them to the previous censorship of a local ordinary. However, it is the common practice of lay institutes to submit the constitutions to this censorship of the local ordinary. According to this practice, there should be an imprimatur for the constitutions in French and another for the English translation, because canon 1392, § 1, requires another censorshilJ for a translation. The granting of an imprimatur appertains to the proper local ordinary of the author, the ordinary of the place of publication, or the ordinary of the place of printing (c. 1385, § 2). A compiler or translator is included under the term of author. Strictly speaking, the author or legislator of constitutions of lay institutes is the Holy See or the local ordinaries; the official compiler is the general chapter. Constitutions are translated and distributed (published) under the authority and direction of a higher superior. Therefore, the imprimatur for these constitutions may be requested from the ordinary of the place of the general chapter, of the residence of the higher superior, or of the place of printing. In fact it is practically always given by the ordinary of the residence of the higher superior. m26-- Brother X, professed of solemn vows, was a lay brother in our order. He became an apostate from religion. Both his local and immediate higher superior were earnestly striving to persuade him to return to the order. We learned later that he had met a woman, a Catholic and previously unmarried, two weeks after he left his religious house. A week later he got a priest to marry himself and this woman. He concealed the fact of his solemn vows. The constitutions of our order explicitly state that a professed of solemn vows who is legiti-mately dismissed is by that very fact freed of his solemn vows. Was the marriage of Brother X and this woman valid? If Brother X had been a religious cleric in sacred orders (sub-diaconate, diaconate, priesthood) or if a legitimate dismissal, in virtue of the law of the constitutions, did not free him from his solemn vows, his marriage would have been certainly and evidently invalid by reason of the diriment impediment of sacred orders (c. 1072), or solemn religions profession (c. 1073), or both. Therefore, the case of a solemnly professed described above is possible also with regard to a nun or a religious man destined for the priesthood but not yet in sacred orders. The automatic dismissal of canon 646 is a legitimate dismissal, since this canon explicitly states it to be such and it is effected according to law and by law. This dismissal therefore produces the effects of a legitimate dismissal. The code itself (c. 669, § 1) does not free a dismissed religious of perpetual vows, whether solemn or simple, from the vows 242 July, 1959 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS of religious profession by the very fact of the dismissal; but such a liberation, as in the present case, may be effected by the constitutions. We presuppose that the only possible source of invalidity in this case is the solemn religious profession. If, prior to the Catholic celebration of marriage, this religious had publicly apostatized from the Catholic faith, or had run away with a woman, or had attempted marriage outside the Church, he would have been immediately and automatically dismissed in virtue of canon 646. His own constitutions would have freed him in the same instant from all his solemn vows. Since the diriment impediment to marriage is attached to his solemn vow of chastity, which would have ceased to exist, his former solemn profession would in no way have interfered with the validity of a later Catholic celebration of marriage nor would the impediment in question have had to be dispensed. It would simply have ceased to exist. No such previous crime occurred in the present case. Brother X did not even, know the woman until two weeks after he had left the religious house. Canon 646 automatically dismisses any religious who attempts or contracts marriage. It is therefore certain that Brother X was automatically dismissed by canon 646 and freed of his solemn vows, and consequently of the diriment impediment, by the constitutions at the moment that he and the woman gave the marriage consent. There-fore, the precise question is: does a simultaneous freedom from a diriment impediment suffice or is a freedom previous in time necessary for the validity of marriage? I believe that a simultaneous freedom suffices and that the marriage was valid. Canon law does not solve this individual case nor does it explicitly state any general principle on the matter. The case should therefore be decided from analogy (c. 20). There are at least two analo-gous cases in the code, and it can also be maintained that these cases implicitly affirm the general principle of the sufficiency of si~nultaneous freedom. Canon 1126 states that the bond of a former marriage con-tracted in infidelity is dissolved by the Pauline Privilege only when the conv.erted party actually contracts a new and valid marriage. Therefore, in the Pauline Privilege the simultaneous freedom from the diriment impediment of a valid and still existing marriage suffices for the valid contracting of marriage. By the prescription of ecclesiastical law, a marriage is invalid if one of the parties is free and believes the other party to be free when in fact the latter is a slave in the strict sense of this term (c. 1083, § 2, 2°). The common interpretation of this canon is that the marriage is valid if the slave obtains freedom by marriage. Therefore, we again have a case in which simultaneous freedom from an invalidating cause suffices for the validity of marriage. It cannot be objected that this solution offends against the principle that no one should profit by his crime. This principle cannot be main- 243 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious tained against an expressed declaration of law. The code itself (c. 648) frees from his vows a religious of temporary vows who commits any of the crimes listed in canon 646, and canon 669, § 1, and positively and explicitly permits the particular constitutions to grant the same freedom to a professed of perpetual vows, whether solemn or simple. --27-- I read the constitutions of a lay congregation that has recently been made pontifical. Their definition of an ordinary and extraordinary general chapter differs from our own, which I enclose. Which of these definitions is correct? In older constitutions, an ordinary general chapter is one convoked regularly at the intervals determined in the constitutions for general elections. This interval is usually every six years, because in the modern practice of the Sacred Congregation of Religious th~ term of office of the superior general is six years. An extraordinary chapter in the same constitutions is one convoked outside of such regular intervals. The first reason for such a chapter is the vacancy of the office of superior general by reason of death, resignation, or deposition. The second is a serious matter affecting the entire institute. The latter is therefore only a chapter of affairs and only for determined matters, such as approval of a revision of the constitutions. This latter chapter in pontifical lay congregations demands a serious reason, the deliberative vote of the general council, and the permission of the Holy See. (Bastien, Directoire Canonique, n. 240, 2; Battandier, Guide Canonique, nn. 341, 346; Schaefer, De Religiosis, n. 452.) In very recent years, the Sacred Cong~'egation has changed this definition in the constitutions of lay congregations that are being made pontifical but not in revisions of constitutions of congregations that were already pontifical. The change consists in the fact that any chapter for the election of a superior general is termed ordinary, any other is extraordinary. The following article typifies this change. "A general chapter is called ordinary whenever it convenes for the election of a superior general, whether a~ the expiration of the ordinary term or when the office becomes vacant for any reason at another time. Any other chapter is said to be extraordinary and may not be convoked without special authorization of the Holy See, upon request by the superior general with the consent of his council." Both definitions are therefore correct, that is, all institutes retain the definition given in their own constitutions. 28- We have a common or public devotional renewal of vows twice a year. The renewal is made before the reception of Holy 244 July, 1959 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Communion. Do we by this renewal gain the indulgence men-tioned in the R~ccolta, n. 756? The Raccolta reads: "The religious of any order or congregation who privately renew their religious vows with at least a contrite heart, after celebrating Holy Mass or receiving Holy Communion, may gain an indulgence of three years." It can be argued that the essential condition is a devotional renewal, not necessarily a private renewal, or that an indulgence granted to a private renewal afortiori applies also to a public renewal. Therefore, the indulgence is gained by a public or private'devotional renewal of religious vows. However, the text clearly demands that the renewal be made after the reception of Holy Com-munion. Therefore, a public or priva, te renewal before Communion does not suffice. On the days of such public devotional renewals, the indul-gence may be gained by again renewing the vows privately after Com-munion. No determined formula is required; and brief formulae, such as "I renew the vows made at my profession," "I renew my vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience," would suffice. The condition that the renewal be made after Holy Communion seems strange, because in two documents, issued before the Code of Canon Law, the Sacred Congregation of Rites had prescribed that professions and public renewals were to be made before Holy Com-munion by religious of congregations who took or renewed their vows during Mass (S. R. C., 3836, 3912). This rite has been retained after the code as a prescription of their own law by at least most of the same religious institutes, and the natural tendency of a religious is to renew his vows privately at the same time during Mass that professions and public devotional renewals are made in his institute. 29 Our constitutions demand an absolute majority for the ejection of the superior general on any of the first three ballots. If such a majority has not been obtained, on the fourth and last ballot only the two religious who had the highest number of votes on the third ballot may be voted for. Of these two, the one who receives the greater number of votes on this fourth ballot is elected. In our last chapter, there was no doubt about the one elected. The constitutions also are clear on the matter; and the president of the chapter gave a brief, simple, and clear exposition of the article. However, on the fourth ballot a vote was cast for a religious who was not one of the two highest on the third ballot. We simply did not know what to do about this vote. This one vote was invalid, because it was in' favor of one who lacked passive voice absolutely, that is, one who simply could not be 245 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review [or Religious elected. The constitutions clearly restrict eligibility on the fourth ballot to the two who had the highest number of votes on the third ballot. There was also no question whatever of postulation. The constitutions of our congregation demand merely thirty years of age and ten years of profession for a regional superior. Is this correct? Is it sufficient? Any part of an institute that fulfills the canonical requisites for a province is in fact and in law a province, no matter by what name it may be designated in the particular constitutions. The essential canoni-cal requisite for a province is that. of being a distinct moral person, distinct as such from the institute and the houses. A provincial superior is necessarily a canonical higher superior. We presuppose that your regions are not in fact canonical provinces, as is at least practically always the case. The authority of a regional superior may be delegated by a superior general or provincial. If so, he is not a higher superior. The regional superior may possess ordinary authority, that is, authority given by the law of the constitutions. If so, he is a higher superior (c. 488, 8°). In the former case, your constitutions are correct. Canon law does not legislate on the matter~ and the thirty years of age and ten years of profession are prescribed entirely by your own constitutions. If, however, the regional superior is a higher superior, canon 504 must be observed, that is, for the validity of his appointment or election he must be Of legitimate birth, have been professed for at least ten years in the institute computed from his first prQfession (August 15, 1955 -- August 16, 1965), and have completed his thirtieth year (January 1, 1930 -- January 2, 1960). 31 Our pontifical congregation is very large. For many serious reasons, we hesitate to make an immediate division into provinces. We believe it would be more prudent to begin instituting several regions. Do we need the permission of the Holy See to do this? No. Obviously your regions will not be pro~vinces. Therefore, the canonical norms (c. 494) on the erection of provinces do not apply. The establishment, delimitation, change, and suppression of regions may be made by the general chapter or the superior general. Since the matter is so important, the latter ~hould at least consult and preferably have the consent of his council. The latter is practically always de-. manded for these acts when the constitutions make provision for regions. Cf. Larraona, Commentarium Pro Religiosis, 5 (1924), 263-64; Schaefer, De Religiosis, n. 325; Toso, Commentaria Minora, II, 246 July, 1959 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS De Religiosis, 17; Vromant, De Personis, n. 375; Vermeersch-Creusen, Epitome Iuris Canonici, I, n. 603; Coronata, Institutiones Iuris Canonici, I, n. 519. Our constitutions state only that a professed religious who commits any of the crimes listed in canon 646 is by that very fact legitimately dismissed. It seems to me that it would be only sensible for the constitutions to tell us what these crimes are. I think also that canon 646 should be given fully in the consti-tutions. It has not been the general practice to do so in lay institutes, as it has been in clerical institutes. However, some constitutions of the former type of institute do contain the complete canon. Canon 646 was given fully and explained in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 16 (1957)~ 283-89. The canon reads: § 1. The following religious are considered as automatically and legitimately dismissed: 1° Public apostates from the Catholic faith; 2° A religious man who ran away with a woman or a religious woman who ran away with a man; 3° Those who attempt or contract marriage, even the so-called civil marriage. § 2. In these cases, it is sufficient that the higher superior with his chapter or council according to the norm of the constitutions make a declaration of fact; but he must take care to preserve the collected proofs of the fact in the files of the house. 247 Reviews [Material for this department should be sent to Book Review Editor, aEVIEW FO~t RELIGIOUS, West Baden College, West Baden Springs, Indiana.} PORTRAIT OF A PARISH PRIEST. By Lancelot C. Sheppard. Westminster: Newman, 1958. Pp. 183. $3.50. One hundred years ago, on August 4, 1859, died St. John Vianney, Curl of Ars. A living inspiration to laymen and religious as well as to the secular clergy, he had become almost a legendary figure in his own lifetime. Today, his name calls to our mind a student so slow that only the shortage of priests and the insistence of an influential friend made it possible for him to be ordained. We think of a preacher who spent hours of agony in composing commonplace sermons, and then would forget them once he got into the pulpit only to speak with such zeal and intensity as to move his hearers to tears. Contrasting images of Ars come before us -- the out-of-the-way village of 1818, where there was a dilapidated old church, sixty houses, four taverns, and "no great love of God"; and the place of pilgrimage of 1859, with a restored church, no tavern, but one school for girls and one for boys, and crowds of the devout and the curious. Portrait of a Parish Priest treats of a man in whose life the extraordinary seems to be the ordinary thing. Living for years on two or three potatoes a day, with but two hours sleep a night, the CurLkept up a strenuous apostolic life. He could size up the most delicate cases of conscience in a moment and even knew the problems of many penitents before they entered the con-fessional. Many a distressed sinner was singled out from the crowd by the saint's voice and called in to penance ahead of a long line. Scoffers eventually prayed. Diseases were often cured. Add to this the almost nightly rappings, voices, and even the burning of the bedclothes, which the Curl was convinced was the work of the devil, the Grappin, and we have a picture of a truly remarkable man. None of these facts ar~ new, and all have been well treated in previous biographies. The unique feature of Portrait of a Parish Priest is its interpre-tation of the facts. For besides giving us a portrait of a great saint, the author paints a picture of a man. And the life of John Vianney was not a series of interludes between one extraordinary event after another. A man capable of deep discouragement and subject to great psychological tensions, he had been tempted to give up his studies for the priesthood, to desert Napoleon's army, and to flee from the responsibility of his parish. He was convinced that he was not fit for his job and feared greatly for his own salvation. It was his heroic perseverance in the face of these obstacles that was truly remarkable. In the author's opinion, the psychological tension under which the Curl worked was responsible for the "diabolical" disturbances in the saint's life. Whether or not the reader agrees with this explanation, he will find it thought-provoking and will welcome the insistence upon the fact that it was the Cur~'s heroic virtue and not the extraordinary events (whatever their expla-nation) that made him a saint. 248 BOOK REVIEWS St. John Vianney was a man filled with the horror of sin, because he was a saint filled with a love of the living God. But he was also a man who poured out condemnations of pleasures Which can be legitimate in themselves, a man who would refuse absolution to those who would not promise to give up dancing. Fie could, it is true, appreciate the humor of a situation; but on the whole he tended to see the dark side of things. Yet this should not be surprising in a man who grew up in a France in which the Church, was being persecuted and in which clouds of Jansenistic thought still darkened the moral atmos-phere. One new fact which the author brings to light

Issue 7.2 of the Review for Religious, 1948. ; A. M~ D. G. Review for Religious MARCH 15, 1948 Devotion . - . o Matthew Germ;ng Mor~,Abouf Maturity . Gerald Kelly Thank~glvlng after Holy Communion ¯ ¯ Clarence McAuliffe Gifts to Relicjious-qll . Adam C. Ellis Thou'cjhts on Obed;ence. ~ edwerd J. g,rney ~ Purity of Intention . C.A. Herbst Invitation to Praise . Richerd L. Rooney ,Books Reviewed Ouesti~ns Answered VOLU~E VII, RI::::VIi W FOR RI::LIGIOUS ¯ VOLUME VII MARCH, 1948 NUMBER 2 CONTENTS DEVOTION--~Matthew Germing, S.J . 57 CONCERNING COMMUNICATIONS . 62 ~MORE ABOUT MATURITY-~Gerald Kelly, S.J. .¯. . .63 THE CHRISTIAN ADULT . THANKSGIVING AFTER HOLY COMMUNION-- " Clarence McAuliffe, S.J . 73 ~. GIFTS',~Tb RELIGIOUS III. PERSONAL VEI~SU8 COMMUNITY PROPERTY--Adam C, Ellis. S.J. 79 THOUGHTS ON OBEDIENCE--Edward J. Carney. O.S.F.S .8.7 'BOOKS AND BOOKLETS . ~. ¯ ¯ ¯ 90 PUI~ITY OF INTENTION--C. A. Herbst, S.J . 91 INVITATIQN TO PRAISE--Richard L. Rooney, S.J .95 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . " . 97 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 7. Second Year Novices Doing Work of Professed . 98 8. Postulancy not Interrupted by A'bsence . : ¯ . ¯ '98 9. Novices Perform Penance in Refectory . 99 10. Indulgences for Sign of Cross with Holy Water . 99 I 1. Informing Bishop before Renewal of Vows . 99 12. Passive Voice in Provincial Chapter . 100 13. Plenary Indulgence on Each Bead of R~.osary . I00 14. Instruments of Penance . 100 15. Absence from Novitiate. during~Sumraer . . . " . I01 16. Retreat betore Final Vows . ~. ¯ 101 ~BOOK REVIEWS-- The Way of Perfection: For Thee Alone; The Christ of Catholicism; From Holy Communion to the Blessed Trinity; The Love of God and the Cross of Jesus; Papal Legate at the Council of Trent: Schoolof the Lord's Service: Maryknoll Spiritual Directory .102 " BOOK NOTICES . '107 FOR YOUR INFORMATION-- Vacations for Sisters; Flour ~or Altar Breads; For Vacation Schools; Summer Sessions . 111 REVIEW FOR RELIGIO~JS, March, 1948. Vol. ,VII, No. 2. Published bi-monthly: January,March, May,July, September, and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topel~a. Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St.'Marys, Ka~nsas, 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.3., G. Augustine Ellard, S.J., Gerald Kelly; S.2. Editorial Secretary: Alfred F. Schneider, S.3. Copyright, 1948, 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, Before writ;rig to us, please consult not;co on Inside back cover. - .) -Devotion ¯ . Matthew Germing, S.J. ACAREFUL READER of The ~lmitation of Christ ~vill "ret~em-bet the saying of its author, '.'I would rather feel cgmpunction similart shtaatne mkennotw in ictosn dneecfitinointi "owni.t"h ,Ith me sauyb jbeect p~ethramt iftotremds ttoh e".m tiitklee a of. this paper-: I would rather have devotion than be able to explain its meaning or kno~.its definition. I will qubte.adefinition from Father. T. Lincoln .Bouscaren~s book, Principles of the I~eligious Life (p. 36), which reads as follows: ".Devotion is nothing else th~'n the readiness.of the will to s~et to work at whatever is-for the honor and service of God." This is the theological definition and, allowing for some verbal differences, may be r~garded as .~tandard among modern theologians. It harmonizes well, ~to~o, with the etymology of. the word devotion. F~r de~'otion means being devoted, and devotednesi to God means about the same thing as readiness of ~vill to do what-ever is for-the honor and service of God. D~votion therefore in the service of God is readiness to do what God requires of us and what we know. is pleasing to Him. It is not enthusiasm, nor pious sentiments, nor a. showy manner of prayer or piety in or out of church. Rather, it is promptness and fidelity' and alacrity and generosity and hearty good will in serving God. It is an evey-ready disposition to observe God's commandments and pre-cepts, to embrace and do whatever we know will~be pleasing ~o our Father in heaven, whether He encourages us with the sweetness of His grace or leaves us.in aridity. This is substantial QL essential devotion. It resides~ essentially in the will, not in the affections merely. When it comes to be the pre'~ailing° state of mind of a per_- son, it is called ~:ervor of spiriItt-. s"p r~in "g s" from charity, ai~d in turn nourishes chamy. Ammated by this spirit, the soul bught to remain permanently devoted to God, consekrated to Hi~ honor and inte~ests, ever on the alert to take'up and carry out what her state of life or her superior tec~uires. Devotion springs from the love of God. In the words of St. Francis de Sales, a great authority on this subject: True living devotion stipposes the love o~ God: nay rathei it is nothing else than a true love ofGod, yei not any kind 0f love; for in so far as divine love 57 MATTHEW GERMING beautifies our soul and makes us pldasing toHis divine Majesty, it is called grace; in so far as it gives us strength to do good,, it is called charity: but when it reaches such a degree of perfection that it enables us not only to do good~, but to do it careffilly, frequently, and readily, then it is called devotion . Since" devotibn consists in an excelling degree of charity, it not only makes us ready and active add diligent in observing all commandments of God, but it also prompts us to do readily and heartily as many good works as we can, though they be not commanded but only counseled or inspired,z Under normal circumstances substantial devotion is often accom-panied by some measure of peace and joy and alacri_ty, even sensible pleasure and sweetness. This sensible sweetness has been given the name of accidental devotion; accidental, because it is no necessary par/ of substantial devotion, though it may and often does serve a very useful purpose. When the joy and pleasure affect the will only, they are purely spiritu.al and are styled accidental spiritual devotion, the affections having no part in them. But when the pleasure is sen-sibly felt in the affections of our sensitive nature, then we have what is properly called sensible devotion. The genuineness of sensible devotion must be judged by its fruits, not by feelings. Substantial devotion, as was said above, consists in" an ever-ready disposition °to observe God's commandments and precepts under all circumstances. If your sensible devotion strengthens you in this disposition, if it makes you more devoted to God, to duty, to rule, more humble and obedient, more considerate, and patient, more kind and helpful and forgiving, more ready to make sacrifices, and in all things more unselfish, then the probability is that your sensible devotion is genuine and from God. It would be a big mistake, however, to imagine that therefore you have attained a notable degree of virtue; it is possible that God wishes to encourage the good will you mani-fest in what is in reality a feeble beginning. What is needed on our part in such circumstances is gratitude and a keen sense of our unworthiness and" helplessness.2 It is a commendable thing to pray for devotion, substantial devotion most of.all. The founder of-at least one religious order wrote into the constitutions of his order the following rule: "All must apply themselves earnestly to the attainment of devotion according to tile measure of God's grace imparted to the'm)' And 1St. Francis de Sales. Introduction to the Devout Life, Chap. 1. $St. Ignatius' "Rules for the Discernment of Spirits" may furnish useful reading in connection with sensible devotion. Father Rickaby gives the text with a few notes in The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, Spanish and English, with Commentary, p. 143: 58 Maccho 1948 " DEVOTION the Church ha~. officially condemned the opinion that it is wrong .to desire and strive after sensible devotion. AS a matter of fact, sensible devotion is a gift of God and sometimes a help that we need in order to keep us from. falling into sin by reason of our natural weakness. Hence one may. well pray for it and, ,by the practi~ce of mortification and purity of conscience, dispose oneself to deserve it. Father de Ravignan, the celebrated preache~ of Notre Dame, Paris, wrote: _ We often complain that we have no attraction for prayer and spiritual¯ things. Certainly, if one thing is needful, it is this attraction, this taste, this unction in holy things. For if that is wanting, many other things will be wanting besides:, for what one does unwillingly, against the grain, one does badly, or at any rate, the task is a painful one. and codrage often fails for its accomplishment . If there is o~ie thing necessary, for our existence [ou~ supernatural life is meant], one treasure which we are bound to desire and to use every effort to attain, that thing is devo-tion . Without a doubt we must not serve God solely for our own consolation and for our own personal satisfaction. That wbuld be egoism. We must put the accomplishment of God's will. His glory, and His kingdom in the first place: but also. by reason of our infirmities and our weakness and in'order the.better to esfab-lish His kingdom in our hearts, we, must be filled,, not now and then. but always and forever with the love and sweetness and unction of a holy devotion.a This love and relish of spiritual thi.ngs, this sweetness and unction of a h01y devotion form an element that is beyond .the attainment of our unaided¯efforts. It must come from the Holy Ghost and His gifts, especially the gifts of wisdom, and kriowledge,_a~nd godliness (also called piety). We must implore Him in the ipirit of humilit.y and with a contrite heart, conscious of out.unworthiness and helpess, ness, but at the same time fully- confident tha,t our peti.- tion will be granted. Our Lord Himself has assured us of this in a very formal and emphatic way in a well-known passage of the Gos-pel of St. Luke about the importdnate bat successful beggar (Luke 11:8-13).It is supposed that the things we ask for will be for our spiritual good. Should God. foresee that they will prove harmful, He will refuse our specific request and answer our prayer by giving us something better instead. The Church bids us pray. "Come, Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and kindle in them the fire of Thy love." Yes. each of us ought to pray in all simplicity and sincerity :, Come, Holy Spirit. ' fill my heart and mind and my will with holy thoughts and desires, with" thoughts of God and how to serve Him with more care and exactness and fidelity, with deep-felt reverence and holy fear. Teach me. O Holy Ghost, how to pray, how best to-please God by my tho.ughts, my words, my actions: enlighten me with Thy grace., showing me how to become truly humble, 8Conferences on the Spiritual Life, pp. 32, 34. 59 MXTTHEW GERMING Reoiew for Religious ufiselfish and charitable i m~a_ke me see and. recognize what is worldly in me and grant me the strength to cast it from me 'and despise it, , " 'Send forth Thy Spirit,' 0 Godma twofold spirit, the love of - God and the holy fear;of God:" In one 6f his spiritual works Father Rickaby writes: "Never since the first preaching of Christianity have the judgments of God been less thought of and less dreaded .than they are at this .day/'4 He assigns'two possible reasons: (a) increased sensitiveness to suffering, which causes men to resenL se.ve~re .punish- .ments; (b) naturalistic views of life, which have robbed multitudes of their faith or at least blunted their sense 6fthe supernatural. ~ Ai a consequence they have come to regard thet~ri~ths:of" religidn with a giddy lightheartedness, the cure for which is fear~.0f God and dread -of His anger. We would prescribe the same r~medy.--fear of God~ind dread of His anger for those Catholics who aie infected with the naturahsm and secularism that have been flooding the earth since the late war. Again, we pray, saying, " 'Se~nd foith Thy Spirit,' O God, andleave us not to our natural desires, to the promptings Of the natural man within us." ~he natural man is seldom entirely and thoroughly supernaturalized even in the cloister and the sanctuary, much less so in the world at large; and gradually he comes to be the source of e~ery kind of worldliness. Now worldliness is a great enemy of devotion. For devotion implies dedication of oneself to God and the cause of God; dedication to God in ti~rn implies determination, it implies taking life seriously, it implies earnestness and perseverance in.serving "the person and the cause that "are the object of our devotion and con-secration. Worldliness, .on the contrary, gets a man interested -, and soon inordinately interested--in the attractions, the gains and lo~sses, the 1~leashres and efijoYmdnts of'~ the" visible World. Of this ~visible scefie the beloved, disciple said: "Do not bestow your 10re on the world and what the world has to bffer. What does the ¯ world offe~? Only gratification of corrupt fiature, gratification of the eye, the empty pomp of livin~ . . The world and its gratifica-tions pass away; the man who does God's will outlives them for-ever." (I 2ohn 2:15-17.) Such"is worldliness and the worldly spirit, "gratification of cor-rupt nature," the antithesis of devotion. Devotion draws men God-ward; worldlines_s draws them down to earth and keeps them there. This is the reason why it is responsible for not a few defections from ~p. dr., p. 230. March, 1948 DEVOTION r~ligion and from the faith. St. Paul,had experience of a typical case. Writing to Timothy, he says: "Demas has deserted me, lpving this w6rld" (2 Tim. 4:9). In his letter to Philemon (vs. 24) the Apostle had referred to Demas as one of his fellow workers: here h~ records his defection from the apostolic vocation, possibly also frbm the faith. How terse, how precise the statement! "Demas has deserted me, loving this world." It is. the story of many another defection from the religious life of persons with whom the drawing power of this world proves stronger than devotion to Christ. For-tunately ihere is also a more encouraging side. If.there is any class of peopleto which devotion is-of particular interest, it is religious. Why-so? Beacuse it was devotion to God or to Christ our Lord--they come to the same ~--that prompted them to become religious. There was a time when all who at,present are ~eligious became gradually convinced that our Savior was inviting them to leave home and father and mother, to part with all they posses~sed, to renounce all merely human love, and to bestow their whole love on Jesus Christ. It was devotion that made them accept His invitation. And again, it was devotion that urged them on to make their religious profession, an act which, next to martyrdom, is the highest expression of devotion possible to man. The thousands upon thousands of/eligious in this country, both men and womeh, are each and all so many living examples of what devotion is actually accomplishing, first, for the eternal salvation and holinessof these chosen souls themselves, and then for the spiritual and tempot?al welfare of millions of people for whom they are spending them-selves. Religious are on a footing of equality with pegple who.°are not religious in regard to ,the observance of the commandments of God and the laws of the Church. They ought to be, and I believe they are, exemplary in their observance. Besides, they are bound to observe their vows and the rules of the order of which they are.mem-be, rs. By fidelity to these several obligations they fulfill, the duty that rests upon al! religious of striving for Christian perfection: " The matter of striving after perfection is some,thing that-cannot be acomplished in a week, or a month, or even a year. It is a life that demands close attention for years; and the religious must realize that it is part of human weakness to grow remiss in spiritual exet-rises that are "of daily occurrence. Frequent repetition may beget negligence; repeated negligences are apt to beget a hasty and purely 61 k CONCERNING CO)MMUNICATIONS me~hanical'way of doing ,thing,~. "Haste is th~ ruin of devotion," is the expression of St. Francis de Sales, who evidently uses devotion here in the sense of reverence and iecollection in prayer. This usage i,,: not so rare. " The Bishop of Geneva said this over 300 years ago, but ~he ~ruth 6f his saying is confirmed for our streamlined fige by no 'less an authority than Bishop Hedley, O.S.B., who adds on his own acount: "This (hast~) if persisted in, is certainly nothing less th~in mockery of God" (A Retreat, p. 270): Again St. Francis,de Sal~s says, "Believe me, only one Our Father, said with feeling and affection, is of infinitely more Worth and value than ever so great a number run o~er in haste" (Introduction to tl~e Deuout Life, Part II, Chap. I). "Show me how you say your Hail Mary," said a great Saint, "'and I will tell you how you love God." In some of the above q~o~ tations there is question of pri~ying with devotion. Devotion can be truly said to hold one to reverence and carefulness in prayer and. also, to perseverance in,one's lifelong striving for perfection. CONCERNING COMMUNICATIONS Some letters on the Subject of vacations for Sisters reached us too late for pub-lication. They will be published later. We encourage communications on this and other ~opics. New subscribers who wish to familiarize themselves with the dis-cussion on vhcatigns will find it helpful to read page 11 1 of the present number, as well as the back numbers of the REVIEW there referred to. 'To facilitate our work and to avoid confusion, we request that orrespondents observe thi~ following suggestions: 1. If you w~int your letter published, address the envelope to: . Cornmunicat;ons Department Revlew for Rel;glous St. Mary's College Sf. Marys, Kansas 2. If at allpossible, type th'e letter, double-spaced. 3. Make the letter as brief as you reasonably can, Without however sacrificing ideas for the sake of brevity. '~. sign your name and address at the end of'the letter. If, however, you do not wish your name and addres~ published, add a postscript to that effect. In the past we hard published some letters that were not signed, and we may do so again in the future. However, we cannot guarantee that unsigned letters will receive the~ same consideration as those that are signed.raTHE EDITORS. 62.' More Abou!: Ma!:urlty 'Gerald Kelly, S.3. A PREVIOUS ARTICLE contained a general description of ~'emotional maturity and a somewhat detailed discussion of one of its characteristics,x The present article will briefly sketch the other characteristics with special emphasis on points that .seem of most value to religio.us. Unselfishness Ascetical writers say much about the need and b~auty of unselfish-ness in theirtreatises about the supernatural 'virtue of charity. Psy-chologists lay anequal "emphasis on the need of unselfishness for, leading an adult life. By unselfishndss the. psychologists mean thoughtfulness of others, the ability to gioe in contradist.inction to .the childish tendency to receioe. They show how men fail in busi-ness, in professional life, in social life,, and ~bove all iri marriage because they think only of themselves andJseek only their own'gain withoUt regard for the feelings and desires of:others. They demand as a minimum for succdssful.adult life what may be called in com-mon parlance a "fifty-fifty" spirit, a.willingness to go halfway and to give. as much as one takes. The mention o'f this "fifty-fifty" spirit reminds me of a very impressi~;~ remark made by a young Catholic layman at a discussion on marriage. Most of the participants in the discussion were unmarried collegians. They had almost concluded that for a suc-cessful marriage the husband and wife should both be willing to go halfway and to share burdens equally, when this young man, who had been blessedly married for several years, startled them with these. words: I have heard and read a lot about this "fifty,fifty" recipe for a happy marriage: but my wife and I ate convinced that this isn't en6ugh. [f each is willing to go only halfway, you simply come to a dead stop. .We have found that each must be willing to go more than h.alfway. Let's call it a "seventy-five-seventy-five" basis: that gives fifty percent extra to run the house on. The ideal constantly proposed to religious certainly goes beyond the psychologist's minimum standard for maturity; yet even this minimum standard is,not infrequently higher than our actual prac- ~See Volume VII, pp. 3-9. 63 GERALD KELLY Reoieto /or Religious tice, Selfishness is a form of childishness that is not easily lald aside. It can-:'d~sgmse ~tself~m.om~ny ,f6rms and actually appear as various ~irt~ues.? for examPle, as the necessary care of health, as the protection Of o n 'e s rlghts, as kindness to a friend, "and so forth. ¯ It can change .colors like the chameleon; it can wedge into the holiest of exercises. : Even__p.sych0~logists who know little of the: ideals of the-rehg~.o.us life could pr0b~bly gi~e us a very searching and illuminating ~xamination on our unselfishness or the lack of it. They'have the distressing f~tculty of avoiding generalities and' getting down tO" pertinent particulars. For instance, if a psychologist were allowed to. invade the privacy of our examination of conscience and to question us, he would very likely include such details as these: - Do you take.the best food at table or do you leave it for others? Do you try to get the newspaper first. (if there is a newspaper) or give others this chance? Do you' monopolize, conversation or show an interest in what others have to say?_ Do you make it a point to note what pleases others, and are you willing to do .that even at the expense of your own'whims? .- Those are .samples'of~the little things that show who is'and who is not selfish. It is interesting to note that our rules or customs usually include ~ such points: and for this~reason we have probably come to think of them only in terms of religious perfection. It is enlightening, ~and perhaps humiliating, to learn that even a material-istic psychologist would examine us on those very points, not to determine whether we~are saintly religious, but merely to discover if we are" really grown up. In Testing the Spirit,~ Father Felix Duffey, C.S.C'., rightly" insists on the need of a wholehearted spirit of self;sacrifice in the religious life." The life begins with self-obla~ion,'and its true ,peace i~ had only.by those who continue.in this spirit. In my first article on the subject of emotional maturity, I referred to religious who show a marked indecision about their vocation b~cause they seem never to have actually made their decision on the one sound principle,, namely, the will of God. Perhaps one reason for this indecision is that such p~ople are not really seeking God but self. . While I was teaching a group of Sisters ,in summer school, we ~Published by- Herder, St. Louis, 1947. See p. 31 for Father Duffey's remarks on self-sacrifice. The-second part of this book (pp, 25-98) contains a number of questions designed to help a vocational counselor to judge the emotional qualifica-tions of a candidate for th~ religious life. 64 March, 19~8 MORE ABOUT MATURITY-discussed ~ome~of th~ characteristics of emotional,maturlty. The class agreed tlfi;it in° actual life some of, the marks of the truly unselfish persofi would be the ~following: a tolerant attitude, cburtesy~ tact, a ready spirit of c~o-operation, consideration for the feelings and moods of others . One'thing th]t all of us ~hould keep 'in .mind is~this: a religious gives up the normal don~olations of family life. Yet it is doubtful if anyone can entirely divest, himself of the fundamental craving for love"and attention. ~ Some people d,o this exteriorly; but usually they suffer mu~h"° i'nteri6rly '6ver' it~ or the repression does some damage to thei~ personality. Part of the supreme art of living the religious life is to show to others thd kindness and sympathy for which they naturally" crave without letting one'i chari~y degenerate into sensuous or particular friendships. ~Each religious cgmmunity, is a family, and the members should be bound .together by an affection i~hat~is familial." The unselfish person realizes this and is warm and ap~r6achable without being soft and sentimental. Commur~it~ Responsibilit~ In speaking of unselfishness, I was thinking primarily in terms of thoughtfulness of others as individuals. This is a beautiful char- ~acter trait, but it is not enough for maturity. .The mature person must also.be "group conscious," that is, alive to his responsibility to promote the common good. This subject offers religious a vast field° for personal examination: for our lives are of necessity cornrnunit~ lives, and t'he success or failure of the whole venture depends on the co-operation,0°f each individual. No one can do it all; anyone can spoil it all--at least~in some sense. ~How can we test ourselves with regard to this sense of personal responsibility in commgn enterprises? The psychologist, I believe, would examine us on all the community aspects of our lives. He would very likely ask aboht such small points as this: Do you turn off radiators and lights when they are not needed? And he would put questions of greater moment such as: Do you help to keep certain privileges like .the radio, movies, victrola, and so forth, by not abusing them?" And he would want to know especially about your pfiblic conduct, for example: Do you speak well of your commun-" ity? Do you act always in such a way that you give no one gro.unds for thinking ill of your community, your institute, the religious life,~ the whole Churcli? 65 GERALD KELLY Reoiew ~or Religious Tha~ would be a general formula for the psychologists' quds-tions: the little things, the things of greater moment, the things of tremendous.import. Into this general scheme he would insert many other questions besides those I mentioned--for instance: Do you observe library rules so that all have a chance to read the booksL Do y6u enter into .special community projects, lik~L helping the mis-sions? When you play games, are you content to work for the team or do you want the spotlight even at tl~e expense of the team? Very likely we could list pages of pertinent questions, but there. is no need of doing that here. Each one who" wishes to examine him-self. on this aspect of maturity can forniulate his own questions. The essential point behind all such questions is to determine if .the reli-gious realizes that he is a part of a community and that all the inter-ests of that community are his interests. He work~ with the com-munity at home; he represents the community to outsiders. His lack of co-operation at home can spoil the harmony of common life and dull the effectiveness' of the community as an apostolic instrument: his disloyalty or bad example before outsiders can literally bring about a spiritual catastrophe. While I am on this subject I may as well refer to another article previously published in the REVIEW. Writing about the "'Qualities of a Good Moral Guide" (V, pp. 287-88), I described a sort of professional loyalty that should characterize all counselors. The example cited was that of,a priest who might have to correct the erroneous conscience of a child. The priest might find that the error arose from wrong advice by the child's rfibther or teacher: but in correcting the error he should try as.much as possible not to under-mine the child's confidence in his mother or teacher.It is a delicate. problem, but it can be solved by one who is conscious of the fact that all the child's counselors must work togethe~r: Many such deli-cate problems occur in our lives. For example, a teacher may make a mistal~e, and the case m~y be referred td the principal. The prin-cipal must do justice to the. students; but if at all possible both principal and teacher should act in such*a way that the proper rela- .tionship between teacher and class is not. harmed. This is not merely to save the personal feelings of the tea_cher~ but principally for the good of ihe class and of the entire school. Superiors can do much to foster the sense of community respon-sibility in their subjects, especially by keeping them well-informed about community affairs and projects. Some superiors seem to think 66 March, 1948 MORE ABOUT MATURITY that they are the "official worriers" for the, community: and they tell their communities little or nothing about business plans and such things. Everything is a solemn secret, even the name of the next retreat director. It is true, of course, that some things must be kept secret;-but exaggerated secretiveness is hardly calculated to foster a personal community interest in the. individual memberWs.hen treated as children, they are quite apt to react as children. Temperate Emotional Reactions Emotions are a part of human life. Granted an appropriate stimulus, there ought to be some spontaneous emotional reaction: for instance, the sight of sorrow should provoke sympathy, the' per-ception of kindness should prompt gratitude, the perception of imminent danger should stimulate fear, and so forth. Such reactions_ are normal. Some men seem to have such dominating control over tl~eir emotions that they either do not react to normal stimuli or they repress the reaction so swiftly that it is perceptible to none save them-selves. This is not necessarily virtue, not necessarily true maturity: on the" contrary, it may be quite inhuman. The "poker face" is neither a psychological nor an ascetical ideal. Our Lord certainly showed emotional reactions fear, pity, joy, .and so forth--although ~ He was capable, if He so wished, of repressing even the slightest reaction. True maturity, therefore, consists in responding properly and temperately to emotional stimuli. To show no emotion is ii~human: to react with u'ndue vehemence is immature. Calm anger may be justified both morally and psychologically: a wild outburst is never the proper reaction. Hearty laughter may be the adult, reaction to a humorous situation or anecdote, but hysterical giggling and ,wild guffaws are signs of immaturity. Both adult and child may feel fear: and both may and should run away from danger when there is no reason for facing it. But ,when duty calls, the true adult will control his fear and face the danger, Psychologically, the specific difference b,et, ween adult and chi, ldish emotional reactions lies in control. The adult reaction is held to moderation: the childish res.ponse is an explosive outburst. The ¯ ,_ problem 'of maturity is to acquire such control of the emotions that undesirable ones are eliminated or calmly repressed as much as pos-sible and desirable ones are used with moderation. For .example, although the kind of love that leads to marriage is good in itself, it is 67 GERALD KELLY Reoieto /. or Religious undesirable for religious; hence situations that would fost.er., it should be quietly avoided. On the other h~nd, a tender love of God, pro-vided" it has real spiritual substance, is desirable and is to" be culti.; rated. And so it is,with many other emotions: sorrow for sin,, sympathy with Our Eord, affection for our friends all such things can help greatly in the religious life; and the mature attitude towards them should be ofie of reasonable use. ~ "¯ As I suggested in the previous article, it would be easyto.cull the. psychological literature for questions to bring Out the negative side; and this is particularly true of emotional control. F0.r example., here are so~e offthe negatives: Do you easily b~come fretful?. Are you impatient to carry out your impulses? Do you expl6"de over a tiny offence? Are you~ a victim of moods~--up today and down tomor~ row? Do you nurse injured feelings for a 10ng time?" Are you i:lis"2 turbed frequent.ly by haunting fears? Do you indulge, in terrific w~eping spells?_ Do, you "sulk in your tent"? Do you .look u~6n yourself as a-martyr; or'th~ victim of misunderstanding and injfis~ rice? Do you easily" gro~r hilarious? ' ' ° The purpose of thes~ ~and similar'questions is clear. If reactions such as those just mentioned are characteristic of a person, he is immature. Or/ the other hand, if he.usiaally manifests poise, if he readily adjusts himself interiorly to emotionally stimulating situa-tions he.is an adult. ¯ We can conclude this section ;by quoting the description-of adult e~notioiaal control given by Father P, aphael McCarthy, S.J., in Sat:eguarding Mental Health: The management of one's emotions demands various kinds of repressions. ~It means that a man responds with the emotion that is justified bythe circumstances: he does not allow himself to become passionate over minor provocations and he ceases to be excited when the cause of his emotion is passed. Self-government implies, aiso, that a man can moderate his affective reactions; be'can make partial responses, so that he can feel fear without being thrown into panic, he 'is not swept into a towering rage by trifling oppositions, nor does he bellow when his hat is blown off by the wind. He can, moreover, check the physical expression of l~is emotion so that he does not strike out like an imbecile whetl he is angered,¯ or dash ¯ away like a terrified child when he is frightened,s "~ Attitude on Sex There is, at least in many instances, a rather close connection between one's generhl emotional control ' and one's attitude on sex. aPublished by Bruce, Milwaukee, 1937. See p. 287 for the text quoted here. ~he book gives a.clea.r pbrtrait of the ordinary emotional difficulties and helpful sug-gestions for controlling emotions. 68 March, 1948 MORE ABOUT MATURIT'/ Thi~, will be clear, I think, if.we consider briefly what shoulci be the mature attitude on sex. The adult" should be well-informed abbut the purpose of sex and the meatiirig of chastity. Not that he needs to kno~v everything about'sex; for 'there are some aspects of sex that are definitely patho-logical ahd~ that need be known only by exper~ts. But an adult sh6uld know the-normal phenomena pertaining to the psychology and physiology of sex, and. the moral and ascetical principles that apply to the sexual sphere. Without such correct knowledge he is apt to experience the adolescent's embarrassment in the presence of others, as well as a curiosity that easily becomes°morbid. Moreover, ~with-out such knowledge, he is unable to make ;i correct estimate of his own reactions to persons and situations, and this may lead to regret-table imprudences, to extreme sensitivity, and to scrupulosity. He comes to fear sin everywhere because he really does not know what-sin is; and he. cannot cope quietly ~with temptation because he does not know clearly, what is expected of him. Ignorance and anxiety, in a matter so fundamental and important as sex are aln~ost certain.to have an unwholesome effect on one's personality and to hinder the full development of the other characteristics of maturity. Protiting bg Criticism "Are you sincerely grateful to those who point out your faults to you?" I was more than a little startled when I read that ques-tion in a maturity test drawn up by a man who. I feel sure, has little br no .appreciation of Catholic asceticism. He was thinking 0nly in terms of sound psychology; yet he included in his test a equality which we are apt to look for only in the saints. Let us consider this in terms of our own experience in the reli-gious life. Spiritual directors often, tell religious that they should be patient when others point out theii faults: in fact, it is.generally said that religious should be willin'g to have their faults pointed out by others. And at times the directors do speak of gratitude; .but my. impression is that, when there is question of religious of only ordi-nary virtue, the directors tell them to be grateful to. God. They scarcely dare to counsel gratitude to the critic; rather, they seem con-tent with hoping that criticism will not be the occasion of angry out~ ~bursts or of long-continued grudges. But the psychologist unhesb tatingly demands gratitude to the critic; the psychologist dares to enter where the spiritual director fears to tread. 69 GERALD KELLY Review for Religioffs Perhaps I have underestimated the v, irtue of religious and have made the picture too black. Yet, if superiors, spiritual directors, and critics could all pool their experiences and thus determine the ave.rage reaction of religious'when corrected, I wonder what the result would be.Would it be that correction is the cause of an angry outburst? or of sullen silence? or of tears over the "evident injustice"? or of a defiant mind-your-own-business attitude? Would.it be that cor-zection is generally answered with a "Why-don't-you-say-something-to- the-other-fellow?"' Or wouM it be that correction is usually ~eceived with quiet resignation? or with depressed spirits but an hofiest attempt to be grateful' to God "for the humiliation"? 0r.with a certain eagerness to know the truth and. with gratitude towards the one who had the courage to point it out? Some moral theologians use an expression that is in remarkable agreement with the question put by the psychologist~ They refer to fraternal correction as a "spiritual almsgiving." The implication, of course, is that the critic is doing one a favor and is' deserving of thanks. And obviously, anyone who realizes that it is-'really good ,~or hi}n to know his faults, should ~0e grateful to the person who helps him in this regard. Hence, it seems that what the psychologists call maturity in this matter, is actually the ability to appreciate true values; one realizes the utility of knowing one's own faults and the - difficulty usually experienced by.those-who have to point them out. Are we therefore childish when we resent criticism? It seems that usu~illy we are; yet there are some special factors that may make ~i difference: For instance, osome offer criticism in an offensive man-net; others offer it through spite and without sincerity. And of -course there are those people who hgve so cultivated the art of fault-finding that they" see faults where there are none. Even in cases like these' the adult should receive criticism With composure; but there seems to be little need for~g.ratitude. While I am on the subject of profiting by criticism, I might men-tion that an adul.t, even when grateful.to his critic, should receive the criticism intelligently. Whether it be a criticism of one's character, of one's writings, or of anything else, it should be weighed carefully before.it is followed. Facin~t Reality] Reality is life, the whole of life; but wtien psychologists speak of facing reality they seem to think particularly in terms of one's 70 MORE ABOUT MATURITY capacity for attempting what is difficult and for adjusting oneself to painful situations. Speaking of men who shrink from realit~ or are broken by reality, they give such examples" as these: patients who love the hospital because it affords them loving attention and dependence and shelters them from the burdens of work and respon-sibility: men who go along ,nicely in a subordinate position but break when they receive a promotion: men who can live a quiet life but break when they must be active: men who thrive on activity but cannot stand the monotony of a quiet life: men who overindulge in recreation; men who avoid the realities of life by taking to alcohol: the wife who runs to her mother at the first sign of trouble "or responsibility in marriage. Little test questions sometimes used to determine whether one has the adult ability to face reality might run somewhat like this: When you are given a job that you are afraid of or dislike, do you try to get out of it either openly or by excuses that you know are not valid? Do you get upset or go to pieces when faced with a new situa-tion that will force you out of a rut? Are you given to day- . dreaming? When you fail, do you justify yourself by.a lame excuse or do you admit the failure and try again? DQ you find that you are. wasting more and more time, finding many useless things to do, before you settle down to the real work of the day? Do you dread responsibility and try to evade it? Do you neglect the present by thinking and talking in terms of your glorious past or by boasting of your glorious future? For us religious, reality is to a great extent the duty of the moment. Disagreeable or not, that duty is God's will--and that is the supreme test of reality. Yet we do have an amazing power of dodging, consciously or unconsciously, the disagreeable tasks.- One religious neglects his studies to engage, as he says, in "works of the apostolate." Another accomplishes the same result with equal ingenuity by deciding that "he has no head for books," but he can fit himself for his future work by playing games, making gadge~ts, and so forth. And grill another shirks the mondtony of prayer and study with the consoling observation that he was "cut out for the active life." Failur~'and disappointment are among the hard realities of life. The adult is expected to face them with composure when they threaten hnd to adjust himself quietly to them when their occur. Yet is it not true that all too many religious have been broken and soured 71 MORE ABOUT MATURITY by shch things? Do we not see, at least occasionally, a rdligious still-. .~comparatively young, yet useless for further work in the cause~of Christ because he has been denied the fulfillment of some ambition? Here ]s'a problem that I believe is not uncommon among us. As we move on fhrough our years of training we note a great de~ire for accomplistiment, yet on the other hand a great fear to undertake the very things we so much desire. We feel a dread of responsibility, which~, if fostered, can ruin our whole lives. I know of one sound defense against th~is: namely, to make up one's mind to try anything that is assigned by superiors and, never to try to avoid it unless there is some really good, reason for asking the superior to reconsider the matter. A religious who begins .to yield to such fears may soon find that his self-c6nfide~ce is utterly destroyed. We can conclude this point by refe~rring for a moment to_the life of Out'Lord. From the first moment of His life He was conscious of t.wo tremendous future events: "the.Cross and the Resurrection; and the actual HYing of His life--as far as the records show-- pre~ents a simil~r pattern: failure and success, pain and~joy, the bittei and the sweet. In His life too were the security of obeying andthe responsibility' of commanding, the doing bf~little things and the 9complishing of great things, the quiet hidden life and the bustling active life. It i~ a complex pattern; yet through.it all runs a won-drously simplifying'theme it was all His Father's will. The~ .same pattern runs through our lives, and the best tonic for fear and dis-appointment is the abiding .consciousness of God's loving provi-dence. One who has this consciousness, who is able to see the hand of God and the plan of God in all the events of his life, is scarcely in danger of becoming emotionally unstable; he is admirably mature. THE CHRISTIAN ADULT Hence the t~ue Christian, product of Christian education, is the supernatural man who thinks; judges and acts constantly and .consistently in accordance with right reason illumined by the supernatural light of the example and teaching of Christ: in other words, to use the current term, the true and finished man of character. ---PIUS XI, Christian Educat{on of Y~uth 72 Thanksgiving Afi: .r Holy Communion Clarence McAuliffe,: S.J. THE decree, Sacra tridentina synodus, issued by'the Congregation ofthe Council on December 20; 1905, and approved by Plus X, promulgated frequent and even daily Communion. Among the c6nditions for daily Communion the decree includes a "careful preparation" (sedula pr'aeparado) for the Sacrament and a "fitting thanksgiving" (congrua gratiarura actio). Nothing more specific can be found in this decree. No definite time for the con-tinuance of thanksgiving is mentioned. No precise manner of " making thanksgiving is recommended. The decree simply, states that thanksgiving should be "fitting" or "suitable" or "appropriate."_ ~ -~With regard to tim(-extension, .however~ we know that a thanks-giving is "fitting" when it continues as'long as Christ remains present within us. I6deed, thanksgiving may be aptly'described as a reverent attention paid to Our Lord during ~heTtime that He abides within a person after the reception of Holy Communion. In other words, thanksgiving shouId continue until the sacred species are corrupted, for with their corruption the Savior ceases to be present. Since this time ~nn0t be determined with mathcmatlcal precision and will vary with different persons according to their health and other conditions, catechisms and theologians have laid it down as a practical norm that thanksgiving should be made for about a quarter of an hour.In practice, therefore, one who devotes about fifteen mihutes to thanks= giving is carrying out the spirit of the papal decree. It is an objective fact that priests and religious in general do make a quarter of an hour of thanksgiving after ,Holy Communion. It is possible, however, ~hat all may not be aware of certain dogmatic reasons why thanksgiving shofild continue for this .length of time. Once informe.d of these reasons they may be prompted to make their thanksgiving with greater devotion. T.hey will also be able to trans-mit these theological principles to others and thus to counteract the widespread neglect of adequate thanksgiving so noticeable among lay Catholics today. The first reason for making a thanksgiving of about fifteen min- 73 CLARENCE McAULIFFE Review for,Religious utes springs from our faith in the Real Presence and may be calle~l a reason of courtesy or propriety. If a bishop visits a convent, he receives not only a warm welcome, but also assiduous attention as long as he chooses to remain. All the Sisters meet him. As many as possible remain in his presence. He is'the focal point of the eyes and ears of all He may not have any favor to bestow, but he receives the same marks of respect anyhow. His dignity as a successor of the twelve"apostles demands courteous consideration and his visit to the convent is itself a benefit. Politeness, attention, Utmost hospitality are marks of appreciation for this benefit. Their omission would be a discourtesy. The application of this example to Holy Communion is obvious. In Holy Communion we receive Christ Himself. He comes to visit us. He is present in His entirety with His divine nature and His human nature, both beady and soul. He is identically the same Christ as He is at this very moment in heaven. He remains within Us until the sacred species are corrupted. He merits the same attention that we would infallibly bestow upon Him were He to knock upon our door with the sacramental veils removed and His own lineaments manifested to us. Hence mere civility should urge the recipient of Holy Communion to make a suitable thanksgiving. To fail in this is thoughtlessly to ignore Christ. ' But other dogmatic reasons should prompt communicants to make the recommended thanksgiving. All the sacraments confer sanctifying grace automatically, but it is quite probable that Holy Communion has in Itself the power to impart more sanctifying grace than any other sacrament. Let us suppose, for instance, that one person is about to receive confirmation: another, Holy Communion. ~Both persons have exactly the same amount of sanctifying grace and both have the same proximate preparation. In this case, it is quite probal~le that the communicant receives more sanctifying grace automatically than the person confirmed. - This is the more remark-able. when we reflect that confirmation can never be received again during an entire lifetime: whereas Holy Communion may be received every.day. The same is frue even of the sacrahaent of orders as com-ps/ red with Holy Communion. Ineffable, indeed, are the powers to consecrate, to offer the Mass, and to forgive sins, powers that are conferred upon the priest by the sacrament of orders. Nevertheless, it is quite likely that even this sacram'ent, despite the exalted dignity it bestows'and despite the fact that it, too, can never be received a 74 Marcl~, 1948 THANi