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Issue 54.4 of the Review for Religious, July/August 1995. ; Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Mis'souri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ° 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ P.O. Box 29260 ° Washington, DC 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ° Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©1995Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library, clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for com~nercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Jean Read Joann Wolski Conn PhD Iris Ann Ledden SSND Joel Rippinger OSB Edmundo Rodriguez SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JULY-AUGUST 1995 ¯ VOLUME54 ¯ NVUMBER4 contents 486 499 5O8 mission Twenty Inner-City Years Joanna Bramble, CSJ explores feelings, questions, and insights from her effort to revitalize an inner-city neighborhood and empower its people. Corporate Sponsorship: The 1990s and the Fruits of Our Labor Margaret MaW Knittel RSM raises some questions which suggest a fluidity of vision and a loosening of ties in regard to corporate sponsorship and the fruits of our labor. Retirement's Wisdom Years Catherine M. Harmer MMS proposes that retirement for religious may be a time of deepening wisdom and individuation and a time for a greater spirituality to emerge. 519 531 guidance The Enneagram Tad Dunne examines understandings of the enneagram and suggests ways of moving to a larger world of meaning and values. Imaging Spiritual Direction Mary Vginifred CHS discusses guidelines for spiritual direction and presents three images illustrative of the relationship between director and directee. 535 56O heritage The Brazier That Is My God: Teresa on True Prayer's Dispositions, Gifts, and Signs Mary C. Sullivan RSM highlights the prayer of personal conversion wi{h its many gifts as captured by Teresa of Avila in her rich metaphor of "dwelling places." Playing with Edged Tools Donald Macdonald SMNI allows the thought of John Henry Newman to enter us into a richer appreciation of vowed public profession as a part of radical gospel living. 482 Review for Religious spirituality 566 How Am I Doing? Signs of a Healthy Spirituality Melannie Svoboda SND suggests some indicators for checking on how healthy our spirituality is. 573 Appreciating God through Creation Roderick Payne OFM illuminates the heritage of St. Francis to draw attention to some aspects of prayer through creation. 585 589 594 6OO religious life Individualism and Rel!gious Life John Gallagher CSB reflects on three options dealing with the compatibility of contemporary individualism in relation to religious life. Psychological Screening for Religious Life Kevin E. McKenna reviews the help given by the Code of Canon Law for religious congregations attempting to form a consistent policy regarding psychological reports at the time of admission and the maintenance of personnel records. Reformulating the Religious Vows William Reiser SJ reviews the meaning of vows in religious life and suggests that an option for the poor might be a promise for our times. Let's Talk Again about Poverty Richard J. DeMaria CFC probes the meaning of poverty for religious-life practice today. ¯departments 484 Prisms 615 Canonical Counsel: Cloister for Nuns: From the Early Centuries to the 1917 Code 622 Book Reviews ~tuly-August 1995 483 prisms Pope John Paul's two recent docu-ments offer vision and direction: the apostolic letter Orientale lumen (The Light of the East) and the encyclical Ut unum sint (On Commitment to Ecumenism). More than helps to enter into the third millennium, they issue a call to conversion. In Orientale lumen the pope emphasizes that our Eastern Catholic and our Orthodox brothers and sisters are earnest bearers of a venerable and ancient tradition integral to the church's heritage. He calls for all members of the church's Latin tradition to become fully acquainted with this treasure. He desires us all to be fired by a pas-sionate longing that the church's catholicity become man-ifest to church members themselves and to the world, a catholicity comprising the several traditions together rather than in opposition to one another. John Paul uses monasticism as a special vantage point from which we can identify values important today for expressing the contribution of the Christian East to the journey of Christ's church towards the kingdom. In the East, monasticism, which did not experience the differ-ent kinds of apostolic life as in the West, is seen not merely as a separate category of Christians, but rather as a refer-ence point for all the baptized, according to the gifts offered to each by the Lord. John Paul singles out the common traits uniting the monastic experience of the East and the West and forming a bridge of fellowship, "where unity as it is lived shines even more brightly than may appear in the dialogue between the churches." lie empha-sizes the splendid witness of nuns in the Christian East: "This witness has offered an example of giving full value in the church to what is specifically feminine, even break- 484 Review for Religious ing through the mentality of the time. During recent persecu-tions, especially in Eastern European countries, when many male monasteries were forcibly closed, female monasticism kept the torch of the monastic life burning. The nun's charism, with its own specific characteristics, is a visible sign of that motherhood of God to which Sacred Scripture often refers" (9). Among the values reflected in monasticism for the life of the church, the pope highlights 1) a balance in Christian life lived as a personal response to an individual call and as an ecclesial and community event; 2) a liturgy revealing the proper harmony of the baptized-in-Christ and the eucharistic meaning of all creation; 3) a maturing journey in terms of knowing self and being free and able to love as Jesus loves; 4) a tradition of spiritual guidance from brothers and sisters to whom the Spirit has granted this gift; 5) a community showing us a life of communion and service beginning in the family and extending to the wider community; 6) a unity of theology and spirituality deriving from the triune God--the principle and foundation of the Christian understand-ing that the human person is meant for and made for relation-ship; and 7) an all-pervading mystery, enveloped in awe, with which the face of our God presents us. In still wider ways the encyclical Ut unum sint continues the call to deepen the unity we seek with one another and with God. Insisting that the unity of all Christians is God's will and is at the heart of the mission Christ entrusted to his followers, John Paul begs forgiveness for times when Catholics and the papacy itself have contributed to the divisions among Christians and calls for discussion about ways in which the pope can exercise power and authority in a reunited church. He notes that a heritage of saints belonging to all communities provides hope for the dialogue of conversion. "When we speak of a common heritage, we must acknowledge as part of it not only the institutions, rites, means of salvation and the traditions which all the communities have pre-served and by which they have been shaped, but first and foremost this reality of holiness" (84). The urgency of building for the future out of the strengths of Christian heritages marks both of these papal writings. We, like the pope, need to set our sights on this unifying and evangelizing mission of all Christians, thereby living up to religious life's own spiritual heritages. David L. Fleming sJ a~uly-August 1995 485 rnissJon JOANNA BRAMBLE Twenty Inner-City Years After almost twenty years of working towards the revital-ization of West Oakland, a depressed inner-city neigh-borhood, I took a year's sabbatical of travel and spiritual enrichment. In the middle of that year, I decided not to return as director of Jubilee West, the Community Development Corporation I had helped to create. I real-ized that I had unresolved feelings about my years in West Oakland, feelings and questions that I needed to work through before I could move on to the next steps in my work for justice. The reflections below document my liv-ing with those questions. What are my usual feelings about Jubilee West? I feel proud of what it has accomplished, but often I feel deep sadness for the people whose lives have changed very lit-tle, especially the ones I knew well and tried the hardest to help. I feel deep sadness at the unemployment, the drugs, the depressed people, and the piles of garbage that are evident with only a brief drive through the neighbor-hood. I often have an overwhelming sense of failure and powerlessness: so much of my life, love, work, anxiety, joy, hope . . . and so many people still with such con-stricted lives! I feel sadness and grief that the neighbor-hood where I worked for so long was worse after twenty Joanna Bramble CSJ is a consultant to nonprofit organizations in management and program analysis and a member of the provincial council of the Los Angeles province of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. Her address is 529 Jean Street; Oakland, California 94610. 486 Review for Religious years than it was before. It is not that our work did not change anything or made it worse; it just could never do enough. But the main cause of continuing disintegration in that neigh-borhood is not my and others' lack of effort or creative ideas. It is high unemployment and the increasing sale and use of drugs, along with other systemic oppression. How do I keep aware of the interrelatedness of many situations and people and things and somehow see my place as both important and unimportant? What was the situation I came to in 1973? And what did I want to achieve? The 1970 census and the Oakland 701 Study gave the following statistics about the West of Cypress area: ¯ 80 percent black and 18 percent Mexican American ¯ median family income: $3,941 ¯ unemployment rate 26.3 percent for men, 35.7 percent for women ¯ 50 percent of families on welfare; mean welfare income $2,110 ¯ 90 percent of the houses had been expected to be unusable by 1969 (most of these houses are still standing in 1995) ¯ median number of school years completed: 8.4 ¯ 24 percent of people over twenty-five years of age were high school graduates Residents listed their major problems as limited incomes and a high rate of unemployment, extremely poor housing, and poor-quality education. All of these problems still exist and are complex and interrelated. I chose to come to this depressed environment from eleven years of teaching English in white, suburban Catholic high schools. I had interest, concern, compassion, energy, enthusiasm, high hopes . . . and two months of training in community orga-nizing. I remember walking through the neighborhood and mentally singing the words to "Anatevka" from Fiddler on the Roof, newly popular then. The song speaks of the nothingness of the town: "people who pass through Anatevka do not even know they have been here., someone should have set a match to this place years ago." That is what West Oakland looked like to me. But the song goes on to describe Anatevka as home: "where else could Sabbath be so sweet., where I know everyone I meet." That too was West Oakland. It did not take me long to get to know friendly people, many of whom had lived there for years. I walked the streets and .~ly-August 199~ 487 Bramble ¯ Twenty Inner-City Years sat in people's kitchens to discuss neighborhood problems. Soon some longtime residents and I started the West Oakland Improvement Association. What did I want to achieve? Mainly, I did not want a repeat of Anatevka; I did not want people displaced to make room for gentrification or other forms of development. In 1974 I wrote that my major goal was to help increase the peo-ple's awareness of their power to direct their own lives. Over the next twenty years, I became more deeply aware of the immense problems in people's lives and in the physical neigh-borhood. What I wanted to do both stayed the same and evolved, as did the strategies we used. Always there was the goal of empow-erment. As a community organizer I wanted us to win on issues that people had chosen as urgent concerns. More importantly, I wanted to build an organization that could continue to empower people and revitalize the neighborhood. We won on many issues. Our victories brought pride and increased self-confidence to a number of neighborhood people. But building an organization never really happened. People seemed too concerned with per-sonal survival to stay involved very long. It became more and more difficult to talk with people about community problems when they were concerned with getting enough food for their kids, paying the rent, and dealing with drug problems. These survival issues prompted me and my good friend Sister Pat Sears to start St. Patrick's Center at the Campbell Village Housing Project, where we saw to basic necessities, providing food, clothes, counseling, and a youth program. But decent afford-able housing remained the most urgent problem. Concern about people who were being displaced or were living in substandard housing, inspiration from Jubilee Housing in Washington, D.C., lots of participation from neighborhood people and suburban friends, and awillingness to step into the unknown with faith and hope led me and Pat to start Jubilee West as a nonprofit Community Development Corporation in 1980. We immediately began to buy and fix houses for poverty-level people even though we knew nothing about real estate or construction and had almost no money. Jubilee West also continued and expanded the com-munity services and youth programs begun at St. Patrick's Center. What successes can Jubilee West celebrate over the last fifteen years? Eighty units of scattered-site housing, most of it perma-nently affordable to poverty-level families: five million dollars in property assets removed from speculation and able to be con- 488 Review for Religious trolled by the community far into the future; hundreds of children helped with tutoring and enrichment; many others helped with mentoring and private scholarships to attend college; hundreds of adults placed in jobs, coming to literacy and ESL classes, or receiv- .ing emergency food, clothing, and needed counseling; and an his-toric building rehabilitated to accommodate various community events and to house the offices for other services. When I left, Jubilee West had a committed board of directors, a staff of varying degrees of competence, and a good funding base, although financial crises were and continue to be frequent. So why do I frequently feel like a failure? Mainly because I very much wanted to do something "for the people in the houses" more than just fixing houses and lowering rents and because I feel that most people's lives are not changed very much from what they were before. As I grew to know West Oakland people, I came to be most concerned about what I experienced as the "typical" resident. She is a woman about thirty years old, never mar-ried, with three or four children from different fathers. She has about a tenth-grade education, has never held a paying job, has very poor nutrition, and probably has an alcohol or drug problem. If she is not in JW housing or other subsidized housing, she may pay as much as 60 or 70 percent of her AFDC income in rent, leaving her less than $200 per month for all other expenses. She has no car, and so her experiences and those of her children are mostly limited to the West Oakland neighborhood. She appears depressed and apathetic or else quite hostile. So what did I wantJW to do for this woman? I wanted us to empower her to enrich her own life. What did I mean by this? How would I hope to be able to describe her after a .few years? I have thought a lot about my hopes for her, and I recently became aware that they are similar to my unrealistic goals for myself: As I grew to know West Oakland people, I came to be most concerned about what I experienced as the "typical" resident. She is a woman about thirty years old, never married, with three or four children from different fathers. .~uly-/lugust 199~ 489 Bramble ¯ Twenty Inner-City Years I want her to have succeeded in or be in the process of get-ting off drugs, getting more education, finding a job and then a better job, stabilizing her family, getting enough income to move out of subsidized housing, deepening her spiritual values, becoming more psychologically whole, building community with her neighbors, keeping her house clean, taking care of her kids, and working for change in the neighborhood through participating in JW and other organizations. I want her to stay in the neighborhood or come back after she succeeds in order to help the commu-nity work for justice. As I write this, it seems so unrealistic that I want to add face-tiously that she should also be thin and beautiful, but not care too much about her looks. Obviously, one reason I feel like a fail-ure is that I had very unrealizable expectations. Only a few peo-ple could achieve the hbove, and only with superhuman effort or lots of good luck. I wanted my "typical" person to be aware of her power to change and control her own life. That sounds like a good goal. But perhaps my biggest mistake was that I did not give enough conscious acknowledgment to the reality of systemic oppression. When she tries to change in other than very small ways, she runs up against huge obstacles that make it exceedingly difficult if not impossible for her to "control her own life." Only a few really "win" in her situation; but, because those few do win, she feels that she too should be able to win. She blames herself and society also blames her, telling her in many ways that it is her fault. In some ways I contribute to this when I talk about "self-help" without at the same time talking about systemic oppres-sion. Her self-blame does not give her more energy to "fight the system" and to make small and then larger changes in her life; instead it leads to depression, apathy, or hostility. Similarly my self-blame, my feeling myself a failure for not being able to empower her, does not give me more energy to fight the system; in me also it leads to depression, apathy, and sometimes hostility. Issues of injustice in economics, politics, and education are profoundly interrelated. A minimum wage that inserts working people into the poverty level without enough money to pay the rent, a business economy dependent on a certain percent of unem-ployment, thousands of job layoffs so that even many people with good educations are unlikely to keep their jobs that pay a living wage, unjust distribution of wealth including "hidden" subsidies 490 Review for Religious for the rich (whereby more money is "spent" on tax write-offs for interest on home-ownership loans than on all the housing programs for the poor), drug traffic that brings huge profits to a few wealthy people, a welfare system that discourages work, the worst schools usually in the poorest areas, housing thought of as an investment for profit rather than a home to live in, pervasive discrimination against minorities, especially African-American males--these are only a few examples of the interconnected sys-tems that cause my "typical" person's situation. I have known all this for a long time. Did I fail to keep it in my awareness because I felt I could do little about it and I like solvable problems? In any case, I concentrated on self-help pro-grams-- how soon I found that often they do not succeed either! Each person in any self-help program must "choose life" for her-self, of course, and begin to act on her own behalf while at the same time society, "the system," must stop oppressing her. Both are interrelated. But as I reflected on my Jubilee West experience, I still heard the same familiar inner voices of my own self-blame. If only I had been smarter, worked harder, tried something more creative, then I could have made a bigger dent in solving these problems. At this point I was fortunate to come across the book Surplus Powerlessness by Michael Lerner. Lerner first talks about real pow-erlessness, the reality of an unequal distribution of power in this society: If a small number of us try to change things, we will run up against a brick wall. In fact, even if millions of people were to engage in activity to change things, in the short run we would find our society very difficult to change. The brick wall is not just a subjective illusion. The basic fact is this: American society is a class-dom-inated society. A small number of people have vast eco-nomic power while the overwhelming.majority has almost no power in the economic realm. Economic power gives that small group a huge amount of political power. While the rest of us have some political power, it takes vast expen-ditures of energy and time to win small victories. But to say that the elites of wealth and power have over-whelming power is not to say that they have absolute power. Things could be quite different if many people were to engage in the struggle for change. It would be a real strug-gle- and there would be many difficult defeats.~ After talking about realpowerlessness, Lerner describes surplus ~uly-Augus~ 199Y 4.91 Bramble ¯ Twenty Inner-City Years powerlessness as "the set of feelings and beliefs that make people think of themselves as even more powerless than the actual power sit-uation requires, and then leads them to act in ways that actually con-firm them in their powerlessness." He is describing me when he shows how many activists continually manage to redefine the con-ditions of success in such a way that they always feel "one down" for not having accomplished enough; they redefine their victo-ries as failures and do not credit their own real accomplishments. I certainly do that often. Lerner reminds us that when society claims it is set up in a fundamentally fair way, in which people can make it if they really try, powerlessness is seen as a product of the individual's personal failures. Thus self-blame becomes the central element in surplus powerlessness. It grows stronger every time we blame ourselves for having failed in some important way and have no compassion for ourselves in view of all the ways that reality pushes us to be less than we want to be. Taking responsibility for one's own life works only for the part of the population and for the societal issues where objective conditions allow for real change. People need help to distinguish between factors out of their control about which they could be legitimately angry and factors that would change if they changed how they thought about themselves and how they lived their own lives. Surplus powerlessness, self-blame, deflects attention from the real problems and hence from any real solutions. The anger that might be reasonably directed against a social order which gener-ates personal unhappiness is instead directed inwards and becomes depression or a dangerous buildup of repressed violence. But Lerner's next point is also part of my" experience. Once people are no longer disempowered by self-blaming, they are in a better position to change their environment. Surplus power-lessness can be lessened by supportive group interaction and by developing compassion, showing people that the problems they face do not come from personal inadequacies, but are faced by others as well, and that people need one another's help in facing these problems. My reflection on Lerner's concept of surplus powerlessness shows me that I have been blaming the victims, both my typical West Oakland person and myself. I have definitely internalized the American way that tells me that, if I have a problem, I should take care of it, work to change it, and not blame someone else. 492 Review for Religious But, to avoid the extreme of blaming others for my problems, I frequently go to the extreme of not giving much acknowledg-ment to the real powerlessness in my life, to the real systems that are oppressing me as well as my typical West Oakland person. At this point in my reflection, I read Joanna Macy's books Despair and Personal Power and World as Lover, World as Self about the need to feel pain, experience it, work through it: my pain and the pain of others. I see that as a big clue for me. I went back to my sabbatical journal written in Washington, D.C., in 1992. One of the questions in Mary Cosby's class on "call" was "What is your deepest pain?" I wrote, "I'm not aware of very much personal pain. Actually my greatest pain seems to be feel-ing the pain of others: so many homeless people on the street, so many hurting children, so much violence in the world., and feel-ing powerless to do very much about any of this." A few days later at a creative-movement session I felt overcome by sorrow and tears. I kept feeling, saying, crying to myself: "I didn't know how to make it better for people. I am so sad about that ¯ ¯ . sad because people were not helped, not so much that I couldn't help but that they weren't helped., thinking of Sylvia, Spring, Connie, Deedee, Charetta, Pat, A1, Brenda . . . tears because I couldn't do it, but more because life did not change for them . " I remember feeling that I must be avoiding some deeper personal pain if the major pain I was aware of was pain for the world, for other people. Now I see that a major need for me is to feel my pain, which greatly includes pain for the world. Joanna Macy says in Despair and Personal Power: "We have trouble cred-iting the notion that concerns for the general welfare might be acute enough to cause distress., but pain for our world touches each of us, and this pain is rooted in caring., our apparent pub-lic apathy is but a fear of experiencing and expressing this pain, and once it is acknowledged and shared it opens the way to our power." 2 I have definitely internalized the American way that tells me that, if I have a problem, I should take care of it, work to change it, and not blame someone else. July-August 199Y 493 Bramble ¯ Twenty Inner-City Years During that semester in 1992, I picked up an old journal from 1988, specifically looking for how I dealt at that time with my pain over the distressing situations I experienced daily at Jubilee West. A pattern seemed to be: I would run into a small or large problem that was usually a symptom of a larger systemic problem; feel frustrated and ptwerless; think I should be able to solve it; blame myself because I could not; go to bed depressed, wake up with somehow more energy ready to try again, to think up some new way to address the problem . . . but rarely allow myself to really feel my own pain and sadness. Although many people were involved in Jubilee West, I always felt myself ultimately respon-sible. I also frequently neglected my deep need to gift myself with beauty and nourishment for my soul. I have always felt a great desire for silence, solitude, beauty, prayer--for finding ways to experience the sacred in all of life. But I often let compulsive efforts to solve problems rob me of the centeredness necessary for living and acting from a contemplative way of being. As a step in the process of"living the questions" and of writ-ing this article, I walked around the West Oakland neighborhood visiting some of my longtime friends. I had not been able to do this since leaving Jubilee West three years ago; when we moved away last fall, I just disappeared without telling many people that I was going. So this walk was a pilgrimage for remembering and finding cause to grieve and cause to rejoice. What do I learn for myself from all of this reading and reflec-tion and from my recent pilgrimage of walking in West Oakland? What does my inner wisdom tell me? What follows are some exploratory answers as I live the questions: 1. Feel your pain, take time for it. your personal pain and that of the West Oakland people that you care about, and the world that 'faces the possibility of total destruction. Allowing myself to feel pain is hard to do; I am more used to giving thirty seconds to pain and then moving on to possible solu-tions. But, on my walk through West Oakland, I was more able to be with the pain of what I experienced: my own fear when I went into Campbell Village by myself because of what I know of the violence, drugs, and crime that are always there; the usual mounds of garbage everywhere, especially in front of my friend Sally's apartment; Sally's son in jail for using and selling drugs--I remem-ber him as a cute, loving eight-year-old; the fifteen or twenty men on the corner of 14th and Peralta as they always are--drink- 494 Review for Reh~ious ing and buying drugs; Trisha's house boarded up because she was evicted for drug activity, when she had been one of Jubilee West's most promising tenants. 2. Feelyourjoy also and others' joy as well: celebrate small suc-cesses, continue the lifelong task of dealing with your inner judge that says, "but it isn't enough." My walk through West Oakland gave me many opportunities for experiencing joy. It felt good to remember all the times I have been in people's houses having coffee and conversation. My friend Joanne greeted me with a big hug, and we laughed over old times together. Two of her children are doing very well, she is enjoying her job taking care of hand-icapped people, she still feels empow-ered by the victories we achieved together many years ago, and her sense of humor is still spectacular. Annie also greeted me with open arms; she is an elderly woman who owns her own home and several oth-ers in the neighborhood, though all of them are in various stages of disrepair. As I sat in her tiny kitchen, she asked me who she could get to help her change her will, and I remembered how hard it was, many years ago, to convince her to make a will at all. My last stop was Charles Garcia, who because of our orga-nizing efforts scraped up $1,700 twenty years ago to buy the falling-apart house he was living in--a small amount, even in 1974, but monumental to him. Although he was not home, his pride of ownership was evident everywhere: lots of beautiful roses in the front yard, a stained-glass window over the door; his daugh-ter spoke of wanting to. move her own growing family back to that neighborhood. I was pleased to see that there was only one burned-out house on Chester Street, when there had been many a few years ago, and I felt pride as always at Jubilee West's twenty-two new-con-struction apartments on Goss Street, definitely the ~best-looking housing anywhere in the neighborhood. My experience of joy on my walk through the West of Cypress neighborhood brought home to me the truth of Joanna Macy's Celebrate small successes, continue the life-long task of dealing with your inner judge that says, "but it isn't enough." jUuly-August 199Y 495 Bramble ¯ Twenty Inner-City Years words: "When we open our awareness to the web of life, we con-nect not only with the sufferings of others, but to the same mea-sure, with their gifts and powers . . . if we can grieve with the griefs of others, so, by the same token, by the same openness, can we find strength in their strengths, bolstering our own individual supplies of courage, commitment, and endurance."3 3. Acknowledge real powerlessness and systemic oppression. Deepen awareness of this as a reality check, as the main reason for not continuing self-blame, as a step to determining at which point to try to intervene. Catch yourself when you are blaming the vic-tim, whether that victim is yourself or someone else. 4. Acknowledge surplus powerlessness in yourself and in others, and try to find ways to deal with it, mainly by group sharing and by compassion for yourself and others. 5. Give up the myth that there is one key to changing the world. I have had the fantasy hope that there is one key to changing oppres-sive systems and that, if I could just find it, I would know what to do. Now I am more aware that transformation is happening on many levels at once and that it is not necessarily more important to work on one rather than another; I have lots of options for where I can best use my gifts to work for change. 6. Give up the myth that I am totally responsible (even when and if it is my job to be in charge), that I necessarily have the power to create the changes I want. Sometimes I have that power, often I do not. Any transformation will take many people working in many ways. A friend told me recently that she has become passionately committed to nudging the world toward justice and ecological san-ity. The idea of nudging shows a good grasp of reality and the pos-sible, and many people are doing this all over the world. 7. Give as much time as possible to the beauty, silence, and soli-tude that I so long for and know is essential to the life of my soul. My greatest desire is to act from a deeply contemplative stance. I do not always live that way, but I become more and more con-vinced that it is the only way to be who I am, to be at peace with myself and the world. Many questions remain as I come to the end of these reflec-tions, but hopefully every deepened insight leads to new possi-bilities and changes in my way of being, feeling, and acting. My questions will take more than my lifetime to answer. I am reminded of a vivid memory from a few years ago. I was in the midst of a crisis at Jubilee West, and I went to walk around the 496 Review for Religious lake to try to think of what to do. As I walked, I would come up with an idea about a next step, bu~ a voice in me kept asking, "What if you can't solve the problem?" I would be with that ques-tion for a few minutes and then start again to plan strategies. But the voice was persistent: "What if you can't solve the problem?" I have been brought up to believe that, ifI have a problem or see a problem, I should try to solve it. In fact, I very frequently have been able to find solutions to problems, to achieve what-ever I put my mind to achieve. Similarly, in World as Love~; World as Self, Joanna Macy quotes Lyndon B. Johnson as saying during the Vietnam War: "Don't come to me with a problem unless you have a solution." She tells of some colleagues in France who, ridi-culing our American culture for demanding instant solutions to problems, said we should "let the difficulties reveal themselves first before rushing for a ready-made solution, or else you will not understand them.''4 And so, as I walked around the lake struggling with the com-plexities of my crisis, the persistent voice asking "What if you can't solve the problem?" was actually a blessing. It pushed me to experience that often I cannot solve the problem. What is needed then is not more strategies, but waiting in openness: openness to the unfathomable presence, power, energy, connectedness in the universe, in me, in other people, and in all situations--which I call God. What is needed is sitting with open hands and open heart in deep silence and solitude, or dancing with abandonment to powerful music, or walking on the beach feeling the immensity of the ocean, or remembering my redwood tree. What is needed is anything that brings home to me the sacredness of all beings. I am remembering also the poem by Wendell Berry that I first saw on the kitchen wall at Genesis Farm, the environmental study center where I spent six weeks in the spring of 1992. It moved me deeply then and still does, giving me a powerful image of commitment to the possible in the darkest of times: "In the dark of the moon, / In flying snow,/. / The world in danger. / I walk the rocky hillsides / Sowing clover." I wonder what forms my clover will take? In looking through my 1991-92 .journal, I rediscovered another powerful image, a dream I had on 1 February 1992 and had forgotten. The image of wholeness in my dream links with Joanna Macy's wisdom about the interconnected whole in Despair and Personal Power: "What is it that allows us to feel pain for our Bramble ¯ Twenty Inner-City Years world? And what do we discover as we move through it? What awaits us there on the other side of despair? To all these ques-tions there is one answer. It is interconnectedness with life and all other beings. It is the living web out of which our individual, sep-arate existences have risen, and in which we are interwoven."s Deep implications of this dream are gradually surfacing as I continue to reflect on it more than three years later: I am in a house with many people., much chaos., there is a cupboard with a lot of jigsaw puzzles., suddenly they all fall out and come crashing down . . . so there are hun-dreds of puzzle pieces all over the floor., all from differ-ent puzzles . . . instead of feeling hopeless, like I would never be able to sort out the pieces and put each puzzle together again . . . in the dream I feel hopeful . . . like what was individual puzzles is now one big whole . . . and the challenge is to make a new picture in a new way. Soon after I wrote the pages above, my friend Sister Pat, cofounder of Jubilee West, died unexpectedly while we were vaca-tioning in Vermont. We had worked, argued, dreamed, planned, and enjoyed life together in West Oakland for nineteen years of a longer close friendship. Pat was "home" to me; now I feel like a homeless person. In my grief I have felt that God is burning himself into my soul, in intense pain and intense beauty. Was it in another lifetime that I wrote, "I'm not aware of very much per-sonal pain"? I am amazed that "Feel your pain" was one of my "exploratory answers." It has helped me take time for the sadness of my loss. I am hopeful that my pain will give me strength and wisdom to respond to the world's pain in new ways. My under-standing of my own "answers" is deeper than when I wrote them. Hopefully, I am more ready to keep working to create a new pic-ture, a new wholeness. Notes ~ Michael Lerner, Surplus Powerlessness (Oakland: Institute for Labor and Mental Health, 1986). These and other quotations from Lerner are a combination of a variety of pages in this book. 2 Joanna Macy, Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age (Baltimore: New Society Publishers, 1983). These quotations are a com-bination of a variety of pages in chapters 1 and 2. 3 Macy, Despair, p. 32. 4 Joanna Macy, World as Love~; World as Self(Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1991), p. 18. s Macy, Despair, p. 24. 498 Review for Religious MARGARET MARY KNITTEL Corporate Sponsorship: The 1990s and the Fruits of Our Labor I alternate between thinking of the planet as home--dear and familiar stone hearth and garden--and as a hard land of exile in which we are all sojourners. --Annie Dillard, "Sojourner" Mey mother had lived in this home, built by her father, ver since she was eighteen, and now sixty years later she was selling the stained-glass windows, the hardwood floors, everything. All went well but for that last moment holding all the pain. We walked away bearing the image of strangers in that beloved doorway, frame of four generations. Doorways of insti-tutions, too, owned and operated by generations of women reli-gious, hold countless emotionally freighted moments, and near the close of the 20th century the terms "corporate sponsorship" and "fruits of our labor" have become and remain inextricably bound. In one ethical frame come three questions that are relevant to these two realities, corporate sponsorship and fruits of our labor. The three questions suggest a fluidity of vision, a loo'sening of ties. The questions are: Who are we? Who are we becoming? Who are we called to be? Who Are We? Over successive generations the corporately sponsored institutional ministry increasingly became for Catholic women religious in the United States their "hearth and garden," Margaret Mary Knittel RSM served as director of personnel services at Saint Xavier University in Chicago from 1981 to 1987. Presently, as a consultant for nonprofit organizations, she writes to us from I 1 Simpson, H; Geneva, Illinois 60134. ~uly-Aug~st 1995 499 Knittel ¯ Corporate Sponsorship the consummate fruits of their labor, our labor. Hospitals, nurs-ing homes, orphanages, .high schools, and colleges together form a litany of dedicated achievement, of the brick-by-brick accom-plishments of many dedicated women. Annie Dillard's feelings about this planet as hearth and garden and land of exile help identify three groups or generations of women religious who for a hundred years have owned and operated those institutions.1 These generations we shall call the exiles, the arrived, and the The first generation, the exiles, traveled from countries like Ireland, Germany, and Italy to North American mission lands. The second generation, the arrived (or arriv&s), lived in an at-homeness within their institutions in the burgeoning years. Now, in these closing years of the 20th century, we have a third gen-eration, the sojourners, seeking a new way to live their profes-sional commitments and their personal lives as vowed women religious upon finding themselves living in smaller and smaller groupings on a planet presenting challenges and opportunities their pioneering sisters in exile--their grandsisters--would not recognize. For the exiles--pioneers, all of them--the missions of the late 19th and early 20th century meant lives of physical sacrifice and economic deprivation well beyond the virtue or vow of poverty. Those women pieced together budgets, scraping their ingenuity for survival. Having come intent upon working hard, they strove to build hearths and gardens and kept striving and struggling, remaining and reminding themselves to be exiles at heart, women in a foreign land. Echoing the economy at large, the institutional ministries they had founded and maintained boomed after the lean years of the Great Depression. The second generation, the arrived, brought forward personal and corporate energies to build up edu-cational, social-service, and healthcare institutions surpassing the dreams of the earlier immigrant generation, the exiles. With increased settling in, this hearth of the religious women's profes-sional lives, this sponsored work, began for some to take on near-salvific powers. This hospital, this academy, began to hold terrestrial hopes and dreams, promised a salvation, and hinted of a this-side immortality. Plaudits, awards, and status were afforded to this generation of women who had arrived, who in some cases had left a humble family circle for what was increasingly becom- 500 Review for Religious ing an educated, secure middle-class community. They, we, by one definition indeed had arrived. For the arrived, their hospital or academy chapel began to localize the garden of the spirit. Here each morning and evening, all, regardless of professional status, gathered together at prayer. Here the contemplative "side" sought nourishment as the apostolic "side" waited just outside the chapel door. Hearth of work and garden of spirit, these became fix-tures within the corporate institu-tions cared for by the members of this second generation. Who Are We Becoming? In the movie "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" the central figure, an exceedingly obese mother of four, says to her teenage son in a moment of reconciliation, "I never wanted to be like this." She had eaten her way to virtual immobility after her husband walked away from her and their children. Do we women religious, as this 20th cen-tury of ours draws to a close, gaze at our corporate body and say to ot~rselves, "We never wanted to be like this"? The founders of mis-sions here in the United States began on an inspiration to do good The second generation, the arrived, brought forward personal and corporate energies to build up educational, social-service, and healthcare institutions surpassing the dreams of the earlier immigrant generation, the exiles. in the sight of the God, and now, one or two hundred years later, their legatee corporate body has perhaps come to he something overly substantial: substantial hearth and garden, substantial fruits of our labor. These places, these institutions, became the symbolic body of our corporate identity within the church and the symbolic immortality within our destinies. Boards, philanthropic individ-uals, committees, friendships have been cultivated in the name of a hospital, an orphanage, or a school, and individual women's identities have been formed by and dedicated to bricks and steam pipes and windows. And then, as a distant window opened in the early 1960s and Vatican Council II convened, the corporate body ~ly-August 1995 501 Knittel * Corporate Sponsorship began to be looked at and came into question: "Is this who we are becoming?" For some women and men, in and out of religious life, the signs of the times appealed to in the council documents began to replace the signs of success. The prophet Jeremiah's call to voca- Women religious know that an additional thirty years, like those since the council, will not be afforded them. A sizable amount of post-Vatican time has quickly become history, and religious can recite lists of classrooms already vacated, hospital beds unused, and doors closed. tion describes a people God observes burning incense to strange gods and "adoring their own hand-iwork" (Jr 1:16). The prophetic began to ease itself forward. The work of our hands, the fruits of our labor, came into question. Now, in these late days of the 20th century, the hearth lies gray with embers and the garden shows signs of late-summer exhaustion. Women religious know that an additional thirty years, like those since the council, will not be afforded them. A sizable amount of post-Vatican time has quickly become history, and religious can recite lists of classrooms already vacated, hospital beds unused, and doors closed. Worse, we know in our aging the lists of needs more acute, more violent, than our grandsisters might have dared imagine. With abuses crowding our culture into corners that seem to offer no choice, we acknowl-edge there has to be more to this journey. Who Are We Called to Be? Our third generation, the would-be sojourners, wonder at this late-20th-century hour: "Is this our time of exile? Shall we be graced to select to become sojourners. Selecting to be sojourners, to move from being securely settled to securely unsettled, recalls the, sweep of the Hebrew Scriptures showing us a people finding centers other than God. The king-dom, the temple, the land--here was the answer. No, not here, there. No, not there, here. Efforts to restore the earthly kingdom kept centering on realities other than God. But Yahweh contin-ued to insist. 502 Review for Religious Selecting to be sojourners calls us to know how to go into exile, how to travel. Traveling, what shall we pack? Timing, how to schedule transportation, stopovers? And we cannot forget those allowances of minutes and hours, those sponges of time, to absorb this unfamiliar territory, this plan, these new connections. We will not know the language, but will need to interact and relate with others in order to continue on the journey and will have to search our imaginations for ways to communicate constructively. Life will move more slowly even as we continually need to cope with myriad details. Knowing exile, we will know ourselves anew. A clock continues to tick, and while many individual women religious hear it, the instinct to muffle its sound remains. "Enough!" we hear. Our alternative thoughts drift to sojourning, but graying embers say "Enough." We lived through the changes of the 1960s and '70s immediately after the council. No more traveling, turning, leaving, remembering, forgetting, previsioning, refashioning, or paradigm shifting for us! Just leave me alone. Enough. Give me the basics for survival and let me live out my life, here. Give me my job, my position, my power. Give me space. But a clock continues to tick. Learning to Mourn Henri Nouwen has said, "Yes, we must mourn our losses. We cannot talk or act them away, but we can shed tears over them and allow ourselves to grieve deeply. To grieve is to allow our losses to tear apart feelings of security and safety and lead us to the painful truth of our brokenness. Our grief makes us experience the abyss of our own life in which nothing is settled, clear, or obvious, but everything constantly shifting and changing.''2 At issue here is whether or not women religious have the energy to mourn. There have been deaths--countless funerals, remembered rejec-tions, and downright hostilities and hatreds. Yes, death seems to have been an integral part of this life once so much idealized--the youth and the joy! But, through all of these deaths, have we short-circuited a certain human pathos, admixing theologies and spiri-tualities, being at times more stoic than Christian? Several weeks after the death of my mother, an acquaintance asked, "How are you doing?" An incident, fresh that day, helped me to describe a way of being that I would later learn is common to us and may be where the corporate person of religious life .~ly-Auguyt 1995 503 Knittel * Corporate Sponsorship finds itself today. I told him of my standing in the middle of a room that morning, about to clean, but not knowing what to do next. My emotional energy was somehow separated from me as a person. As women religious, do we stand in the middle of a room and not know how to clean it, with our individual and corpgrate emo-tional energy elsewhere? Solneone has said, "Leaders are people who do the right thing; managers are people who do things right.''3 Is there a sense that somehow our corporate energy has separated itself from the corporate body so that with our corpo-rate leadership we continue doing things right rather than doing the right thing? Walter Brueggemann has observed that "reli-gious practitioners are often easy and unwitting conspirators with such denial. We become the good-humor men and women, for who among us does not want to rush in and smooth things out, to reassure, to cover grief?.''4 Rush in, smooth out, reassure--sounds familiar. What and where are the deep-down places in which we will individually and corporately rejoin our emotional energies, find ourselves? While sometimes we feel sublimely practiced in the various forms of grief, having experienced death in many forms, have we mourned? Have we cared enough about ourselves individually and corporately to let in the slow, mysterious loneliness, the ever changing healing of life after a death, a shocking, numbing death, has occurred? This work of mourning looks not only to the past but also to the future, fully realizing that new steps must be taken. The ability to bear wholesome and healing grief is every bit as much a fruit of our labor as the most imposing achievement of our corporate endeavors. Who are we called to be in this late 20th century, and is God directly and immediately in charge? Given our status and our connections, have we--women religious who have arrived--cor-porately capitulated to others' being in charge, someone else's agenda. "The task of the prophetic imagination is to cut through the numbness, to penetrate the self-deception, so that the God of endings is confessed as Lord.''s We come through the numbing to learn from a God in charge that the fruit of our labor may be "only" to know Jesus the Christ once again as way, as truth, as life. In this late 20th century, the fruits of our having arrived carry the exotically sweet flavor of success taken for granted and of 504 Review for Religious controlling power. In some instances we think it necessary to cling to these fruits with an even tighter grip. What sadder use of our time than participating in meetings with unseen forces with a view to reconstituting yesteryear rather than working with hope for tomorrow! Is there true conversation within our communi-ties, or merely some talk while waiting for followers to follow? Whether we would speak with Brueggemann's "prophetic imagination" or Philip Keane's "moral imagination," can we imag-ine imagining? Keane has said, "Communities as well as persons need t6 develop moral character and exercise moral imagination as they seek to address the great issues of our times.''6 When a loved one dies, a significant part of our grieving may involve imagining the future without them. We have known and loved them, but deep down we grieve for ourselves in an unknown future--a birthday or a Christmas--without their presence. We deeply miss this lost past. The exile has begun, with or without us. We need to acknowl-edge it, learning more and imagining more about what it means to mourn. We will be sojourners, like our grandsisters before us, leaving the comforts of home, however we currently define and hold on to them. "A number of factors can hinder persons from being genuinely reflective and playful in their moral thinking," says Keane; "power or force is one such factor.''7 Shall we become more reflective, more playful, and imagine leaving our present "homes" of wrongfully constructed political power, of oppressive behaviors? What prevents us from asking: Who are we? Who are we becoming? and Who are we called to be? The answer from some, if not all, may lie in these processes of the prophetic, these questions. Land of Exile: Corporate Sojournership "Fairly often," says Keane, "I run into persons whose image of God is that God is out to get us. Such persons want to be told what to do, and they are afraid of using their moral imaginations. Their religious or prayer lives will often be quite limited because their fear keeps them from really being open to the power of the Gospel stories.''8 As women religious we seek the courage to imag-ine and do corporately what many individual women and men have already wrestled with in their lives. We need, corporately, to turn in the keys, have a good cry, and move on. 3~uly-Al¢g'ust 199Y 505 Knittel * Corporate Sponsorship Turning in the keys does not necessarily mean a wholesale closing of eacli and every institution. Some would like that, but it could indeed prove shortsighted and definitely unimaginative, even though some say the community's need for money is a good reason for selling this hospital or that academy and others say, "If we sell, we would be doing something holy." Abandoning an inner-city hospital without recourse to imaginative possibilities of how this long-cared-for space--the land's square feet and the buildings' cubic feet--could now serve the poor better might well become a new urban tragedy. We will need to go after anew, with all the civic clout that our years of being respectable arrivges can muster, the neighborhood's endemic and systemic problems. The friends of our institutions of the past may not choose to be the companions of our sojourning in the years ahead. But, together with those who would stay with us, we n~ed to find out who we are called to be. In any new land such as the future, there will be questions, then some answers, and then new questions. Our bequest, the fruits of our labor--whether embodied in our present corporate buildings and our present apostolic endeavors or not--must always be directed towards common goods that our corporate resources and corporate energies can hope to accomplish. People reflecting on the conversion to which all of us are called expect that the hearth and garden that halve come down to tis from a former time, these substantial signs of our having arrived, will increasingly suggest to us new common and corpo-rate lives of sojourning exile. These and similar questions will keep occurring to us: How will we use the power and influence we have? What could the prayer of our community be like? How will we imagine and live appropriate ways of coming together and being together--or of being together and going out together? What can we do most effectively for the coming of the kingdom? Shall we be women of vision, corporately attending to the good? Shall we corporately prepare in earnest to live in exile, to be sojourners, persons consciously and deliberately ready for the journey that begins and ends in God? Notes l Annie Dillard, "Sojourner," in Teaching a Stone to Talk (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1988), p. 150. 506 Review for Religious 2 Henri J.M. Nouwen, With Hearts Burning (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1994), p. 27. 3 Warren Bennis, Why Leaders Can't Lead (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1989), p. 18. 4 Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic hnagination (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), p. 49. s Brueggemann, p. 49. 6 Philip S. Keane, Christian Ethics and Imagination (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), p. 104. 7 Keane, p. 107. 8 Keane, p. 107. Tourist Your T-shirt's stamped in letters large across your chest: KATMANDU. Your bike is labeled with a hundred road resorts. Your car is dotted round with all your touring triumphs . So, why not take another route today? A low-cost tour to that other inner world inside. Stay quiet by that vast unbounded inner ocean in your mind. Dive, swim and surf. Fly free. Ride high the inner waves of thought and feeling endlessly exhilarated, or delve into the dark and secret untrod cavern of your soul. Discover now the mystery of creation; confront the abyss unending of your own nothing-self becoming. And meet in that remote mysterious empty temple, far inside, your God. Cothrai Gogan CSSP .y~uly-August 199Y 507 CATHERINE M. HARMER Retirement's Wisdom Years One of the recurring discussions at assemblies and chap-ters of religious revolves around the rising median age, the need to care for our elderly, and more subtly the growing costs of such caring. The issue is an important one in that most United States congregations have median ages over sixty. An examination of congregational budgets shows that increasingly large amounts of money are dedicated to the care of the elderly. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops has been sponsor-ing a special collection for aging religious that people contribute to with great generosity, but it covers only a small part of the actual costs. A visit to the motherhouse of almost any group of sisters will show that a large part of what was housing for novices in the past is now dedicated to the aging members. Some motherhouses have very fine infirmaries for the sick elderly. There is no question that religious leaders are making great efforts to provide the best they can for their members through all stages of life. I would like, however, to examine two aspects of that effort. The first has to do with the nursing-home care that many of the sick elderly need. The second has to do with the concept of retirement for religious and the way it has been handled over the last twenty years or so. The Sick Elderly The first topic is the simpler one and will get less treatment in this article. In the care of our sick elderly, the emphasis has Catherine M. Harmer MMS wrote "Election: A Call to Service" for our September-October 1994 issue. Her address is Medical Mission Sisters; 300 W. Wellens Street; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19120. 508 Review for Religious been changed from the simple caring for them "at home" that was possible when the median age was much lower and the num-ber of elderly religious was either smaller or relatively smaller. When that was the case, at the motherhouse a small staff assisted by novices and postulants could care for them in much the same way that a family could take care of any sick or elderly member of it. Gradually, as the numbers increased and the sick elderly lived longer, a more professional model, that of the nursing home, became more common. As this was happen-ing, the percentage of vigorously active members was decreasing. At present, in most of the retirement facilities I have visited over the years, the staff is largely lay with very few religious among them. In some very large congrega-tions, with several hundred sick elderly members, the facilities com-pare well with any licensed nursing home, often providing much better care and definitely offering more loving care than in the average nurs-ing home for the laity. In smaller congregations the attempt to pro-vide quality nursing care results in Some small congregations in a given area are studying the feasibility of establishing an intercon gregational nursing home. A few religious leaders are looking at ways to provide for their members in general nursing homes in their area. small facilities that are as expensive to maintain as considerably larger ones would be. In some cases a nursing staff (composed mainly of nurse aides) that could care for thirty patients is taking care of ten or fifteen, sometimes fewer. As congregations face the heavy financial drain, there is a movement toward collaboration among the congregations in a geographic area. This is a positive development that could lead to good care for the religious and lower financial costs. Some groups that have larger facilities are opening them to other congrega-tions. Some small congregations in a given area are studying the feasibility of establishing an intercongregational nursing home. A few religious leaders are looking at ways to provide for their mem-bers in general nursing homes in their area. All of these steps are difficult. Often the members of a con-gregation are very unwilling to have their elderly cared for away .~dy-August 199Y 509 Harmer ¯ Retirement's Wisdom Years from their own motherhouse. At times the elderly themselves feel that they are being mistreated by being separated from their tra-ditional homes. Only a few consider it a good thing to be in a nursing home of mixed patients, men and women, religious and lay, in spite of the pastoral potential of such a model. The efforts of leaders and the combined efforts of congrega-tions to deal with both the physical realities and the psychologi-cal and religious values are important ones. Key for the leaders will be understanding, patience, and collaborative stances. For the members, those who are elderly and those who are not, it is important to develop an acceptance of the reality they face and a willingness to keep their last days congruent with what has gone before. I suggest that this requires ongoing education for every-one and a spirituality that looks at one's last days as continuous with the dedication of earlier days. Religious Retirement In our efforts to prepare one another for "retirement," we may have bought into a model that was emerging after World War II and continues to develop in terms of what aging and retir-ing are all about. This brings me to the second topic, the one which will constitute the major portion of this article. It is all the more important because it bears upon the first as well. It has to do with how we are viewing retirement. I believe that we have accepted a way of looking at retirement which is increasingly being challenged in the population at large and that we need to study it in the light of what our entire religious life is about. Several aspects of this model of retirement raise new questions. The current model in the United States assumes that people will retire at sixty-five if not earlier. When Social Security became a reality in the 1930s, life expectancy was lower, many people did hard physical labor and had relatively poor nutritional histories, and their hope was simply that at retirement they could stop working without worry about becoming dependent on their chil-dren or "ending up in the poorhouse." Today life expectancy is much higher, and the reality is that many people stay active, healthy, and alert for twenty years and longer after they retire. A second aspect, then, is that retirement is a time of not work-ing and, instead, spending one's time and energy at play of one sort or another. (Married women often have less of the play since 510 Review for Religious they are still expected to do the work of keeping up the home.) A problem here is that many retired people soon become bored with the play aspect. Some move toward part-time jobs or vol-unteer work, while others become captives of the television or the endless bingo games of our less creative senior centers. A third aspect of the current model that deserves examina-tion is the tendency to move away from the place where most of life was spent. This sometimes has to do with seeking a warmer climate or more economical housing. The result is that, as peo-ple age, they are out of regular con-tact with their family and must develop new friends. Even the elderly who manage well on their own in their original home are often under pressure from relatives and friends to find a smaller place-- which often takes them away from the community in which they have close ties and away from some sig-nificant activities that they could otherwise keep up. People are living longer while remaining physically and mentally vigorous, and yet the model of retirement continues to treat them as if they cannot do anything but play. What is being lost is the opportunity for them to contribute to family, to friends, to com-munity, in a different way than during their working years, but a way that is significant and needed. What is being lost to society at large is the accumulated wisdom of the elderly, a loss our soci-ety cannot afford. It would be a shame for religious congregations to follow the national model for retirement too closely. While few if any con-gregations have fixed ages of retirement from major involvement in ministries, there has been a subtle movement over the last few decades to start "thinking about retirement" while the religious are in their fifties. Without necessarily meaning to do so, this has too frequently led to a mentality that places retiring somewhere in the sixties, even if there is no real reason to do so. I have vis-ited motherhouses where some of the sisters appear to have retired Although the idea that play is the major activity of the retired has not taken hold so completely in religious congregations, what has developed is a sense that this is my time to do with as I wish. J-uly-dugust 199Y 511 Harmer ¯ Retirement's Wisdom Years far too soon and are desperate for some way to be involved in ministry. Mthough the idea that play is the major activity of the retired has not taken hold so completely in religious congregations, what has developed is a sense that this is my time to do with as I wish. Especially in motherhouses, which tend to be out in the country or relatively isolated, this leads to a combination of small tasks around the motherhouse, activities that mimic the senior citizens' centers, and some increased emphasis on the spiritual life without much attention to how that might be different at this stage of life. Often when I talk with the retired themselves I find a deep longing for two things: to find some meaningful part-time min-istry and to explore what spiritual life means at this latter stage of life. When retirement takes place at a motherhouse, you find the same isolation from community that the lay elderly experience who move to Florida. While most religious have lived and worked in a number of places, there was always the parish, the school or hospital, sometimes the neighborhood, as a framework for involve-ment and support. This is now gone, and the beautiful grounds of the motherhouse, the special facilities, and sometimes the large numbers (for those, notably, who were used to smaller groups) are no substitute for what has been lost. Religious do not, on the whole, do a lot of complaining, but the sense of loss is often heard in the undertones of a conversation. We hear ". everything is so nice here., everyone is so kind . . . but."--and the long-ing is very real. I am increasingly convinced that elderly religious should, whenever possible, have the same choices as the younger members. This stage of life is important, and it needs to be rec-ognized as such. In the remainder of this article, I want to address two impor-tant things about aging and retirement for religious: (1) the sec-ond half of life as a time of deepening wisdom and individuation, a time for a greater spirituality to emerge, and (2) the role of elderly religious in continuing the mission of Jesus. For many ideas here, it will be evident that I am indebted to Carl Jung, but also to a fascinating book by Jane R. Pr~tat on the croning years (1994). As I read her book, I found myself dwelling on several ideas: that our society wastes the wisdom of the elderly at a time when we need it most; that aging is not just something that hap-pens, but a part of the whole picture of life; and that much of 512 Review for Religious what is wrong in contemporary ways of looking at and dealing with aging in general are found also in regard to aging among religious, especially in how we treat the reality we call "retire-ment." The Second Half of Life Some years ago a large number of articles, workshops, and counseling programs focused on a particular transition seen as noteworthy, the "mid-life crisis." This concept seems, from a Jungian point of view, relevant to the developmental model's tran-sition from the first to the second half of life. This division into two halves does not have a chronological point, just ~s mid-life cannot be tied to a specific number of years of life. The first half of life is devoted to infancy, childhood, and young adulthood inso-far as these parts of life have to do with coming to know the world around ourselves, coming to an understanding of who we are as separate from our parents, learning, developing a working career, and moving to success within that career. At the midpoint, we might wake up in the morning and ask: Is this all there is to life? How we answer that question may indicate if the second half of life is about to begin. If the answer is "Yes, this is it!" we could spend the rest of our life simply as a continuation of the first half until death. If the answer is "No, there is something more!" we could enter into the second half of life. In the second half of life, the tasks shift to integration of the parts that have been separated during the first half, the move-ment toward individuation, coming to know ourselves in a dif-ferent way, and the decision to move toward wisdom. The "wise old man" and "wise old woman" archetypes begin to emerge dur-ing the early part of this second half of life. I believe that many people make the shift to the second half of life without ever hear-ing about Jung or his developmental theories. They recognize that something is changing in themselves, and they move with those changes. Some of the "play" elements of retirement--the programs for senior citizens that involve bingo, excursions, and hobbies--could be considered a return to an early part of the first half of lifel Now that we have done our work, earned our pension, we can again become the children whose task is play. For people with a limited field of interests, this may mean watching television for ffuly-August 1995 513 Harmer ¯ Retirement's Wisdom Years As we age; there is often a longing for a deeper understanding, a greater closeness to God. It is a normal part of the second half of life. long hours of the day and night. This is to remain in the first half of life, possibly until death, without ever taking the step into the second half. For other people, the leisure activities are part of their under-standing of where they are in terms of age, but other aspects also begin to emerge. Spending time with their children and grand-children can be a way of being the elder who is communicating the lore and the wisdom of life. This is a second-half activity and one much needed in today's culture, in which single-parent families and families with both parents working are becoming the norm. Contact with the older generation, with grandparents, . uncles, and aunts, which for long years was the norm, now is the excep-tion in many families. Wisdom also has to do with com-ing to a deeper knowledge of God, a greater and deeper integration of the spiritual life. For many people, life has been so busy, so full of duties, that the spiritual life was relegated to a set of rituals honored on a daily, weekly, or yearly basis. As we age, there is often a longing for a deeper understanding, a greater closeness to God. It is a normal part of the second half of life. In some cases it is connected with daily Mass for people who during their working years were quite con-tent with the Sunday Mass; it may mean a return to some of the religious practices of childhood; sometimes it is :a search for deeper intimacy with God. This longing belongs to the wisdom quest of this second stage. Religious, hopefully, have not stinted on their attention to the spiritual and to God's presence all through the active first half of their life. Yet the sense that the latter half of life has some-thing special to offer is found among them as well. One cannot deny, though, that some religious at this stage seem to put i:he haain emphasis on play. Their way of playing may be different, but it is still play and may involve television, novel reading, trips to the casino with the senior citizens' group, and considerable family visiting. 514 Review for Religious As a country we have to explore how to make the wisdom of the elders available to our children and to our busy adults. In the extended family of the past, this happened very simply. At one time in my childhood, I went every Friday after school to my grandparents' home so that on Saturday morning I could help .my grandmother with some of the cleaning she found difficult to do. What I remember most is conversations after supper on Friday with my grandfather, who told me the stories of his youth when he was an organizer of the unions in the steel mills of Pittsburgh. I also remember listening to music on the radio, and all three of us reading our separate books or magazines. Elderly religious off in motherhouses and retirement centers lose their easy contact with yoilnger religious, lose casual opportunities to share their wisdom with them, just as grandparents nowadays are often in other states where spending time with their grandchildren is no longer 'possible. In some motherhouses there are now prayer centers and renewal centers that give workshops and courses for sisters and lay people who are interested. At one point I had a constant flow of their catalogues coming across my desk. Fine as many of these centers are, I rarely saw anything that addressed the need for exploring the spirituality of the latter half of life, of the retirement years. Yet in those same houses I often met older sisters who longed for scripture study, for prayer assistance, for some way of understanding and developing the spirit life for this special part of their earthly sojourn. Some Strategies for the Second Half of Life It seems to me, then, that there are two things leadership would do well to do~ (1)to make it possible for elderly religious (granted their varying degrees of diminished energy) to continue to be involved in meaningful ministries that connect with the congregation's charism and mission and (2) to make conscious efforts to help the elderly religious move through the integrative work of the second half of their life in a way that is just as appro-priate as the novitiate training was for the first half. ., I live in a parish at present where more than half of the sis-ters in the local convent are well into the second half of their life and thus are no longer able to be involved full-time in the min-istries of their congregation. The congregation is a teaching one, jg~uly-August 1995 515 Harmer ¯ Retirement's Wisdom Years staffing many parish and,diocesan schools. A few of the sisters teach in the parish school, others commute to diocesan high schools, and the older sisters are engaged in time,limited but very vital ministries, These include teaching and tutoring in the adult literacy center, tutoring children from the grade school, and vis-iting elderly shut-ins 'in the neighborhood. None of these are full-time involvements. In some cases the sisters go to the school, in others the students come to them in the convent. Whenever I meet with these women, I am struck by the joy and peace that are obvious in them. Not everyone can be placed in a parish convent. Some of our elderly need to be in places like motherhouses where their greater physical needs can be provided for. It is sometimes possible to bring ministries to these motherhouses and at the same time pro-vide a wonderful service to others. I have been to motherhouses where there was day care for children in some parts of the build-ing and day care for ~he elderly in other parts. Two wonderful things happened there daily. The children and the elderly spent some time together every day, and both benefited by the experi-ence. The staff of both facilities had "assistants" from among the retired sisters who, like the women in my parish, could not work full-time, but could be counted on for blocks of time on .a regu-lar basis to help with both groups of day-care clients. o To keep our religious involved as long as possible has another imp.ortant benefit. Most o£ the research on the aging process shows that, if people stay physically and mentally active, they stay healthy longer and age more slowly. We have wonderful examples of very elderly people maintaining their mental and physical capacities long past the expected time and making contributions to art, 'literature,. and the commonweal. Even more important, this is a time when .religious can begin to share the wisdom that has come to them with age, experience, and deep reflection on the meaning of life. This is a wisdom that is very much needed in our culture, a wisdom that too often the children and young peo-ple do.not find around them. Religious can become, in~ a very real way, the grandparent figures ifi their parishes, neighborhoods, and institutions. This is the wisdom of experience joined with reflec-tion upon that experience. 0 The second thing needing attention from leadership is the effort to help religious .use their latter years creatively in order to move toward the union with God that has been such a part of our 516 Review for Religious thinking throughout life. Many of the forms of prayer and spiri-tuality that are helpful to members of active religious congrega-tions during their early and middle years are apostolically oriented. Appropriately, the religious appreciate seeing a close connection between their ministry and their spirituality. The inner life and the outer life are integrated, ideally, in a rich and vibrant way. Changes take place as religious move through the early years of the second half of life. Spending less time and energy in direct apostolic efforts, they have more time for more leisurely ways of praying. They are ready for the next stage of devel-opment of their inner life. Their focus at this stage is somewhat different from that of their early and middle years. It has within it many of the same elements, but also some new ones. In this stage the elderly may desire to recall or renew some of the things they learned in earlier years, but did not have time to savor and assim-ilate. Frequently they speak of their desire for scripture classes, for prayer workshops. These can be useful, but they need to be focused clearly and carefully on the latter years. Now the emphasis is not on quantities of information, but rather on depth, on quiet composure and integration within each individual's inner reality. The wisdom years are the time when the. "wise old woman" and "wise old man" archetypes come to the fore. While the wis-dom can be for oneself, it is even more for others. At this stage there is not likely to be any necessity to go out and preach or teach, but there should be a simple and peaceful realization that the wisdom being garnered is also for others. This is why it is important during these years: for religious to have two areas of concern: one for the continuing development of the wisdom that has been growing in them over the years, and the other for shar-ing that wisdom, very simply and directly, with others. As religious move along through this final stage of life, it is essential that they have the assistance they need to foster the growth of their inner life, to be more open to wisdom, and that they have opportunity to share it with others. Thus, the ending of Most of the research on the aging process shows that, if people stay physically and mentally active, they stay healthy longer and age more slowly. ~uly-August 199Y 517 Harmer ¯ Retirement's Wisdom Years life can be as full and as rich spiritually as any of the earlier stages, and it can be lived out in a truly mission-centered way. This will enrich the lives of the elderly religious themselves, but also of those who are yearning for that wisdom and do not yet know where to find it. It will bring a fullness to the lives of the "retired" and of those around them. It will be a far happier period than one given to play, television, and various excursions. Religious have frequently been the pacesetters in ministry. Perhaps it is time for the "retired" religious to begin to model to other retirees a richer, fuller, and more outwardly directed wisdom retirement. References Johnston, Charles M. Necessary Wisdom: Meeting the Challenge of a New Cultural Maturity. Seattle: ICD Press, 1991. Pr~tat, Jane R. Coming to Age: The Croning Years and Late-Life Transformations. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1994. Exposition Bless you, caress you~ enfold and possess you. Blessed by you, caressed by you, enfolded within you. Possessed. Chris Mannion FMS 518 Review for Religious TAD DUNNE The Enneagram Since the. early 1970s, religious educators, spiritual men-tors, retreat directors, and, most recently, management trainers have been talking about the "enneagram." 1 The theory proposes that each person is hooked by one of nine psychological compulsions--similar to the seven "capital" sins in classical Christian literature? Dozens of authors. and lecturers nowadays are teaching the theory to help people discover which of the nine compulsions is theirs and bow to accomplish their psychological liberation from it. The nine types are often referred to in caricatures: the Perfectionist, the Helper, ~he Status Seeker, the Sensitive Artist, the Observer, the Accuser, the Planner, the Bully, and the Slug.3 To edch of these descriptions, enneagram teachers attach longer descriptions of phobias, ambitions, expectations, learning style, sexual dynamics, management style, virtues, prides, blind spots, fixations, senses of time, and so on. The r~lations among the com-pulsions are represented by a circle whose circumference is numbered, at nine equidistant points. Within the circle is a triangle drawn from points three to six to nine. Also within the circle is a folded hexagon drawn through the Tad Dunne is an adjunct professor of medical ethics at Marygrove College, Detroit, and a management consultant for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan. He has published Spiritual Mentoring (HarperSanFrancisco) and Lonergan and Spirituality (Loyola University Press). He may be addressed at 2923 Woodslee; Royal Oak, Michigan 48073. guidance July-August 199Y 519 Dunne ¯ The Enneagram cycle 1-4-2-8-5-7-1. This strange figure has become the logo of the enneagram system. Enneagram and Myers-Briggs People often compare the enneagram to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which classifies sixteen personality types accord-ing to one's preference for ways of noticing experience and mak-ing decisions. The chief difference between them is that the Myers-Briggs instrument indicates personal preferences, all of which are psychologically normal, while the enneagram indicates pathologies. That is, in the Myers-Briggs'all the types are healthy, while in the enneagram all the types are sick. So the Myers-Briggs is useful for accommodating one's own thinking style with col-laborators'; it helps groups identify the preferences for ways of learning and evaluating that exist,among their members and to deploy their relative .strengths accordingly. The enneagram, in contrast, is useful for identifying neuroses, mostly in oneself. The Myers-Briggs indicator, rooted in Jungian psychology, carries a positive attitude toward human consciousness, whereas the ennea-gram, rooted partly in Freudian psychology, takes a more suspi-cious stand. Few psyqhologists, however, rely on either tool for diagnostic purposes, because of an absence of empirical studies that correlate with validated' tests. Among other helping professionals, the Myers-Briggs indi-cator enjoys a wider and less controversial reputation than the enneagram. The sixteen preferences are easily understood; one can readily find Jung's comments on people's preferences between extraversion and introversion, between sensate observation and intuition, and between thinking and feeling.4 The enneagram, in contrast, has sources shrouded in arcane knowledge from a cor-ner of the Sufi tradition unknown to most Sufis and from George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, a self-styled visionary from Russia with dubi-ous credentials. The many enneagram books and tapes that have been published in the last decade tend to describe each of the nine compialsions in dogmatic terms--a style of presentation that allures some but alienates others,s 520 Some Positive Aspects of the Enneagram One of the most disturbing claims made by enneagram devo- Review for Religious tees is that these nine types cover the total human range of com-pulsions. Not ten, not eight.6 There are subsets among the nine, but these supposedly cover all possibilities. Devotees base this claim on an unfamiliar model of personality and on the ennea-gram logo, whose origins are untraceable.7 But what is really dis-turbing is that, despite the dogmatic claims of the theory and an absence of experiment-based research, it is difficult to find any-one who fails to fit one of the types. Enneagram fans in the help-ing professions, after years of working with the tool, feel that these nine are just about right. And individuals claim that the enneagram has helped them to reach a deeper understanding of their personal compulsions than any other self-help system has, In other words, this weird, unempirical, upsetting, gnostic, and mys-tifying map of the psyche seems to work. In 1990 Claudio Naranjo MD published Ennea-Type Structures: Self-Analysis for the Seeker. Enneagram students were eager to read what he had to say, since he led the development o_f the the-ory among English-speaking publics. His book, the smallest I know of on the subject, builds the theory on much more solid ground. That book is now out of print, but has been incorpo-rated in Naranjo's new and expanded volume, Character and Neurosis, published in 1994. Naranjo lends legitimacy to the theory in several ways. Unlike most other enneag.ram authors, who tend to pile adjective upon adjective and style upon style to cover the many variations possi-ble within each compulsion, Naranjo,keeps the set of descriptors limited. He wants these descriptors to function the way they func-tion in clinical manuals such as the DSM tli, namely, as a list of discreet phenomena sufficient to distinguish one type from another? By describing diseases with as little overlap as possible, he enables therapists to spot the core problem more quickly and waste less time on manifestations of the problem shared with other compulsions. Naranjo also takes pains to make a distinction between pas-sions (anger, envy, gluttony, and so forth) and the cognitive errors that underlie each passion. These errors amount to uncrit-ical assumptions about what life is like--the kind of oversimpli-fied worldview (and subsequent inappropriate adaptive routines) that Ellis deals with in his rational-emotive therapy.9 By pin-pointing cognitive errors, Naranjo believes, a person can iden-tify and dissolve his or her pet myths in order to rob the j~uly-August 199~ 521 Dunne * The Enneagram corresponding passion of its rationale and thereby weaken its grip on the psyche. Another contribution Naranjo makes to the theory is that he consistently explains the psychological dynamics at work in each compulsion, rather than just stating them. By appealing to his readers' understanding rather than their memory, he invites them to consult the workings of their own psyches to verify the pres-ence of certain subconscious routines. This is no small achievement. The mind is easily content with a notional familiarity with terms. Only under the whip of intel-lectual desire will we push forward to uncover for ourselves some of our psychic gremlins that have never seen the light of con-sciousness. Likewise the heart is easily comforted with comfort-able feelings; it takes an inner discipline, responsible to no one but oneself, to face up to the discomforts of acting responsibly. In my limited experience of teaching the theory, I found that many students find it too difficult to allow the teaching to break through their automatic defenses and deal with their hidden fears and cravings. The enneagram doctrine just feeds a ravenous compul-sion. So the Status Seeker uses the enneagram to advance her own reputation. The Observer uses it to gather yet further infor-mation before he ventiares out into the world. And so on. Enneagram work is particularly difficult for teachers. They are tempted to devour the lore with teaching in mind, not learn-ing. The work, however, is for people on a personal mission-- those who possess enough self-knowledge to know they are learners in the school of self-knowledge. Much of Naranjo's prose envisions a therapeutic setting in which a seeker looks to a men-tor for guidance. The aim of the therapy is not to settle what our basic compulsion is, as if from that point on we know what box we are in. The therapeutic outcome is not to identify a conceptual scheme that sometimes describes our behavior. The desired out-come is to understand specific experiences of being not our best selves, using conceptual schemes as initial indicators of what may be causing the trouble. This is why it is important to hold the enneagram types at arm's length. Although some people seem to fit a single type per-fectly, others seem to fit several types. Are these latter persons-- whose self-deceit eludes everyone's analysis--all the while being victims of only a single compulsion? Or have they really developed several distinct alternatives to authentic living? Practically speak- 522 Review for Religious ing, it makes no difference so long as users rely on the ennea-gram as nothing more than clusters of fixations and behaviors that logically hang together. Their conceptual consistency is merely a model to help people raise relevant questions about the inner events that possess a slippery logic of their own. Besides his economy of description and his reliance on per-sonal understanding, a further significant contribution Naranjo makes to the theory lies in how he has analyzed the connection between psychological difficulties and exis-tential decisions about being human. Going beyond Oscar Ichazo, from whom he first learned the theory, as well as beyond the people who had already published his enneagram material, Naranjo bases each psychological dynamic in a fundamental spiritual crisis he calls "ontic obscuration," which is a kind of a deafness to our inner drives to be authentic persons. He proposes that, just as certain cognitive errors under' lie each passion, so certain existential fail-ures underlie each cognitive error. This is significant because it puts the focus directly on the inner work of being fully human. Other authors settle for cate-gorizing people by behavior patterns or look to childhood trau-mas to explain present weirdness--the kinds of analyses commonly found in popular psychology. Indeed, popular psychology usually lacks the words and ideas with which to reflect on that innermost work of authenticity. But, by paying direct attention to "ontic obscuration," individuals can discover that a major driver behind their compulsive responses lies in how seriously they take those quiet impulses to be fully human or else how consistently they have avoided the inner work involved in staying human. This "ontic obscuration" underlies each compulsion in its own manner. The Slug stands at the center, having thoroughly obscured inner voices about how to be one's truest self. The Bully and the Perfectionist hear the voices dimly, but respond through a focus on externals, especially through various forms of anger they feel because things are not what they should be. The Helper, the Status Seeker, and the Sensitive Artist hear the voices, but they divert their desire to become fully human persons into Enneagram work is particularly difficult for teachers. They are tempted to devour the lore with teaching in mind, not learning. ~uly-Augtwt 199Y 523 Dunne ¯ The Enneag'ram becoming just persons whose image carries clout in the lives of o.thers. The Planner, the Accuser, and the Observer also hear the voiceS, but they divert a fear of not becoming fully human into strategies designed to protect the little bits of personhood they believe they possess.l° ¯ Naranjo refers to this approach as his "Nasruddin" theory. The story goes that this mullah was crawling around in an alley near a marketplace, searching for the key to his house. A friend joined in the search and, after finding nothing, asked the mul-lah, "Are you sure you lost the key around here?" The mullah responded, "No, I lost it at home." The friend naturally asked, "Then why are you looking for the key here?" The mullah replied, "The light is much better here." 1, The point is that we often look for the key to our house out under the sun, where everything seems clear. But the key is in the house, an~l the house is dark. The Existential Questign: How Should I Be? For all the benefits ofNaranjo's "ontic obscuration," he does not explain in precise terms what being human involves; he set-tles for a description of some effects of"obscuration." For exam-ple, "loss of a sense of I-am-ness" and "something missing inside.''12 At times he presumes that deep down people really know the experience of "ontic obscuration." At other times he claims that the obscuration itself prevents people from realizing that any kind of obscuration has occurred. So, while it is appro-priate for him to recommend that the seeker find a mentor to help recognize a compulsion, the theory would benefit also from a positive understanding of just what it is that "ontic obscura-tion" obscures. To uncover this prize, we need to reflect on how being human happens to be obscured ifi the first place. Most psychologists agree that the intellect of children develops not only in the amount of information they learn but, more significantly, in whether or not they learn certain higher-level intellectual skills for understanding their experiences. So Naranjo's "ontic obscura-tion'? indicates, not a breakdown in mental development, but rather an unfinished development. It is not a matter of having obscured what once was clear; it is a matter of having been born blind and gradually learning how to see. 524 Review for Religious The developmental problem is how to move from a world of images, behaviors, symbols, and external sensations to the larger world of meaning and values. As children we were able to pose questions about being human only by using images. Should I be pushy? Compliant? Generous? Teacherly? Observant? Like a lion? A turtle? A bird? A monkey? Early successful functioning of one of these styles sets up a habit and provides evidence that the world around us must be of such and such a nature--the one that matches our chosen strategy. To the Bully, then, the world is dog-eat- dog; to the Accuser, the world is ridden with crooks. We build up a behavioral style and support it with a cognitive belief in a par-ticular strategy like one of those described in .the enneagram: being correct, being related, being impressive, being the victim, being retentive, being wary, being pleasing, being pugnacious, or being deaf. We become capable of noticing our compulsions as such only later, when we learn that proper use of our minds and hearts is more important than proper behavior and that intelligent analy-sis and reasonable judgment put us in touch with the real world far better than myths and symbols can. Only p~ople who have learned to think about inner acts of meaning can make a statement such as "There I go again" as they catch on to unreal thinking and feeling. ~ .~ This learning represents a major jump in thinking skills. A person discovers that the world is not just "already out there.''Is The real world is also the invisible world made up of the acts of meaning that occur in people's minds and hearts: the agreements, the plans, the guiding ideas, the reigning values, the loyalties, the spites, the memories, the laws, and the internalized language of the place. Former precepts such as Be corre'ct~ Be connected, Be suc-cessful, and Be the martyr were established in the mind of a~child who had no alternative but to think with pictures and symbols. Bht, in the world of meaning and values, learning how to be human ought to transcend these image-based precepts and adopt precepts based on the functions of the mind and heart. Bernard Lonergan, the late Canadian philosopher whose Insight and Method in Theology have influenced many practitioners in the human and natural sciences, has identified five such func-tion- based precepts. They are: Be attentive, Be intelligent, Be reasonable, Be responsible, Be in love.'4 These voices are in all of us. They are active long before we notice them as distinct July-August 199Y 525 Dunne ¯ The Enneagram impuls.es. Although they still escape the notice of many psychol-ogists as being the most fundamental impulses that make us fully human, they are the living source of our ability to notice, under-stand, realize, take responsibility, and love, For Lonergan, these five precepts support a highly-structured method for the human sciences. But, for people seeking to under-stand their inner compulsions, they can also provide a normal way of referring to the task of being fully human. They can rep-resent the very operations that "ontic obscuration" obscures. These are the events that promise to bring a person to what Naranjo, in a more descriptive and less precise mode, calls "the integrated wholeness of one's experience"; "true aliveness, a sense of existing, a plenitude"; "finding value in the present and the actual.''ts These function-based ~precepts not only transcend image-based precepts; they also enable people to transcend who they are and to rise toward being who they are to be. Lonergan refers to these precepts as "the transcendental precepts." A Therapy of Love The question of how we should be does not end there. While people might rely on a diagnostic tool such as the enneagram to recognize self-defeating thoughts before they become actions, they also need a therapy to help recognize self-transcending thoughts and feelings. This means learning firsthand the differ-ence between the transcendental precepts and their opposites: between being attentive and being oblivious, being intelligent and being stupid, being reasonable and being silly, being respon-sible and being irresponsible, and being loving and being hateful. While anyone can recognize abstractly the contrast between these words, the right-hand members of the pairs conspire quite suc-cessfully to obscure their own functioning right behind our eyes. Fortunately, this conspiracy can be caught in the act. By know-ingly paying attention to the transcendental precepts, we can be more attentive to inner experience. We can be more intelligent about how certain cognitive errors and existential decisions sup-port our compulsions. We can be more reasonable as we admit the truth of how thoroughly our fixation may have dominated our psyches. We can be more responsible in accepting guilt that belongs to us, in shunning guilt that is unreasonable, and in sup-pressing what compulsions we can as they arise. Most wisely, we 526 Review for Religious can let our love for others take the lead more often, including and especially our love for God. When a person falls in love, he or she suddenly sees the exter-nal world as more beautiful, more full of potential, more worthy of respect and care. What has occurred, though, is not a change in the external world one views; it is a self-transcending change in the viewer. Being in love heals much of ~' what was crippled in the other four levels of the person's self-transcendence. That is, being in love gives courage to respon-sibility, realism to reason, insight to intel-ligence, and acumen to attention. The person has risen above the imprisoned self and realized something of the profound marvels of life, nature, and the friendly character of the universe. Love's healing power is evident in the love between friends, within a family, and among fellow citizens and members of a group. It is also evident in the love of God. People who have undergone a religious conversion, whether in a sudden inner revolution or a gradual takeover, experience three new powers. The~y see goodness where the unconverted see only evil. They feel a power to reach out to others at a higher risk to themselves than self-protecting reason would allow. And, after the worst setbacks, they find themselves soon on their feet, mys-teriously alive and submissive to the impulse to love again26 More can be said about the healing effects of religious love, but this milch illustrates how an analysis of our self-transcending acts clar-ifibs'what "being human" means and reveals the available powers that "o'ntic obscuration" obscures. Further analysis along these lines would complement any instance of healing with a thera-peutic theory consistent with religious love. Notice especially how the addition of this account of self-transcendence avoids the typi~cal trap of self-help psychologies. It makes clear that people do not help themselves all by them-selves. When i't is the self that needs help, "self-help" is a con-tradiction in terms. Genuine help must be imported. We rely on each other and we rely on God. In order to let go of our worries that our failures will be someh6w held against us, we rely on the fact that we are loved. Being in love gives courage to responsibility, realism to reason, insight to intelligence, and acumen to attention. Ju~-August199y 527 Dunne ¯ The Enneagram The work of making all this real for oneself is long and hard. It might go something like this: Suppose I typically play the Sensitive Artist, envious of the personas of others and absorbing my injuries in quiet melancholy. I should first keep a diary to log the times I notice my compulsion at work, in order to grow in the habit of noticing, t~nderstanding~ and gradually realizing how precisely my frustrated desire to be a notable person works. (Naranjo suggests that this work on autobiography may take three or four months.) ~7 At the same time, as I grow in self-realization, I should grow in self-responsibility. When I hear the inner voice saying "Be sensitive, be like so-and-so," I should say "Shut up!" and then bend an ear to the quieter voices of authenticity whis-pering, "Just be attentive, intelligent, reasonable, responsible, and in love. Being that is a quite good enough way to be your best." Then, alongside the inner work of self-reflection, I should let myself connect with others. Although Naranjo believes that his book can help a person avoid high-minded and patronizing therapists, I find it hard to imagine people really benefiting from it unless they talk about this inner work with others. Being con-nected to others means obeying the transcendental precept to Be in love. That means letting my love for others be the light that revdals what is truly worth doing, rather than mere consistency or some private ethical principle. Because genuine love heals irre-sponsibility, silliness, stupidity, and inattention, the test of genuine love will be just that: Does it make me more responsible, more ready to face truth, more functionally intelligent, more on the lookout for what really counts? If it does not, it is not love. The inner work also means letting myself be loved. For most of us, with our distorted self-images, this means facing the fact that despite our faults, despite the injuries we have caused others, the person who claims to love us is telling the truth. It means dropping the flimsy defense that "you don't really know me" and admitting that the point is not whether we are fully known, but whether we are appreciated and valued for ourselves. It means realizing that we will never be perfect, that we do not need to expend that much energy defending ourselves, that we do not even need to "fix" ourselves through diligent self-therapy. Unless we rely on God and other people for forgiveness, tolerance, and patience, no pathology or self-help therapy will work. This is only an example of finding our way home. Different people will find different paths. But at least knowing what being 528 Review.for Religious human is about shows us what our home looks like. Gradually-- never fully being, but always becoming, human--we will have returned. We can come in and go out as we please. We will have found our home's key: the house is no longer dark. Notes ~ Enneagram, coined from Greek, means "ninefold marking." 2 Capital means that the sins are principal or "head" (capita) sins from which people's other sins flow. Althofigh the enneagram seems to have arisen independently of the Christian tradition, seven of its compulsions match the seven capital sins. The remaining two are bogus morality (Accuser) and bogus success (Status Seeker). 3 No two authors agree on these generic names, but there is general agreement about the descriptions of each type~ Devotees often refer just to the number, as in "She's a raving Two!" (a Helper). 4 See C.G. Jung, Paychological Types (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1926), chap. 10. Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katharine C. Briggs, developed the fourth pair of preferences, judging and perceiv-ing, based on further observations made byJung. Note that they realize that its usefulness applies mainly to the young. See Isabel Briggs Myers, Introduction to Type (Gainesville, Florida: Center for Publications' of Psychological Types, 1962), p. 8. s The works on which I have based my remarks are: Maria Beesing et al., The Enneagram: A Journey of Self Discovery (Denville: Dimension Books, 1984); Kathleen Hurley and Theodore Dobson, What's My Type? Use the Enneagram and My Best Self (HarperSanFrancisco, 1991 and 1993); Claudio Naranjo, Ennea-Type Structures: Self-Analysis for the Seeker and Character and Neurosis: An Integrative View (Nevada City: Gateways, 1990 and 1994); Helen Pahner, The Enneagram (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988); Don Richard Riso, Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987). I have also relied on various notes taken by students participating in workshops given by Naranjo and others who derive the substance of their doctrine from him. 6 An exception'is Hurley and Dobson, My Best Self, identifying two distinct compulsions in both the Status Seeker and the Accuser, making a total of eleven compulsions. In .any case, there are no enneagram the-orists I know of who have dealt with the fundamental problem of how to set a limit to types. If there is such a limit, then the types will have to be defined by a set of psychological conditions that are limited and verifiable. For example, Karen Horney's division of three reactions to conflict (against people, toward people, away from people) might be matched against three I-world comparisons (bigger than, equal to, smaller than) to generate exactly nine types. Or against the trio Denial, Overconfidence, Underconfidence. The trio Ignorance, Craving, and Fear seems to under-lie Naranjo's thinking. There are many possibilities. This kind of work will 3~ly-August 1995 529 Dunne ¯ The Enneagram be necessary if the professional psychological community is ever to give credence to the theory and, more to the point, if the theory is ever to be shown to explain the actual range of human compulsions. 7 Gurdjieff, the teacher of this model of personality, claims to have discovered the enneagram in the Sufi tradition, but there is little evi-dence in Sufism of any of the heavy interpretative overlay that it now carries. Gurdjieff's confidence in the diagram seems based on numerol-ogy rather than experiment, and he expected that the diagram could rep-resent any human or natural process. 8 Diagnostic and Stat#tical Manual of Mental Disorders III (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 1987). 0 9 See Albert Ellis, Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy (New York: Lyle Stuart, 1963), chap. 3, "Irrational Ideas Which Cause and Sustain Emotional Disturbances," pp, 60-88. l0 The reader should note inconsistencies in the enneagram designs. In Naranjo's Character and Neurosis, pp. 199 and 245, and throughout his Ennea-Type Structures, the triangle arrows run clockwise. Everywhere else in Character and Neurosis, they run counterclockwise. tt Naranjo, Ennea-Type Structures, pp. xix-xx, and Character and Neurosis, p 36. Hereafter page references will be to Ennea-Type Structures, with corresponding references to Character and Neurosis in italics. ~2 See pp. 30/61 and 63/219. He also describes ontic obscuration as: "obscuration . . . of the natural, original, and truest support for one's sense of personal value" (45/196); "the universal pain of fallen con-sciousness, beyond type-bound characteristics" (45/196); "lack of ground-ingin being" (107/197); and "loss of wholeness and sense of being" (138/150). o 13 Walter Burghardt SJ notes that John Courtney Murray relies on this distinction to clarify how weak the old Catholic reliance on dogma-tism really was. See "The Richness of a Resource," in A Spirituality for Contemporary Life, ed. David L. Fleming SJ (St. Louis: Review for Religious, 1991). Murray may well have relied on Lonergan's Insight (New York: Philosophical Library, 1958) for this notion (for which, see real in its index). 14 See Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), pp. 53, 55, and passim. I have developed these notions more at length in Lonergan and Spirituality (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1985) and Spiritual Mentoring (HarperSanFrancisco, 199 I). Is Naranjo, pp. 47/197, 92/94, and 125/173. 16 These powers are traditionally called faith, charity, and hope. I have avoided the traditional terms in an effort to avoid conceptualism and to make clear how religious love heals the injured psyche. 17 Naranjo, p. 158/275. 530 Review for Religious MARY WINIFRED Imaging Spiritual Direction Ipn spite of a plethora of spiritual direction programs pur-orting to train those who would be spirithal directors, it remains a fact that gifts of direction are just that--gifts, not learned skills. Spiritual direction involves listening and hearing, discernment, clarity of vision, and assistance in the development of a relationship between an 'individual and God. While learned skills may assist a spiritual director, it is only deep sensitivity devel-oped through years of personal prayer that enables true spiritual direction. It is often easier to say what spiritual direction is not, than to describe what it is. For example, spiritual direction is not psychotherapy; it is not life skills taught by a social worker; it is not catechistic training for specific church membership. " In a pamphlet entitled Spiritual Direction, Henri Nouwen says: "It is of great value to submit our prayer life from time to time to the supervision of a spiritual guide. A spiritual director in this strict sense is not a counselor, a therapist, or an analyst, but a mature fellow Christian to whom we choose to be accountable for our spiritual life and from whom we can expect prayerful guid-ance in our constant struggle to discern God's active presence in our lives, A spiritual director can be called 'soul friend' (Kenneth I2eech) or a" 'spiritual friend' (Tilden Edwards). It is important that he or she practice the disciplines of the Church and the Book and thus become familiar with.the space in which we try to listen to God's voice. The way we relate to our spiritual director depends very much on our needs, our personalities, and external circum-stances. Some people may want to see their spiritual director Mary Winifred CtlS is the Sister-in-Charge of St. Cuthbert's Retreat House; Federal Hill Road; Brewster, New York 10509. ¯ July-August 199Y S31 Winifred ¯ Imaging Spiritual Direction biweekly or monthly, others will find it sufficient to be in touch only when the occasion asks for it. Some people may feel the need for a more extensive sharing with their spiritual director, while others will find seeing him or her once in a while for a few short moments to be sufficient. It is essential that one Christian helps another Christian to enter without fear into the presence of God and there to discern God's call" (8-9). Because the singular aim of spiritual direction is to assist in growth toward God, there are no set guidelines, no conventional measuring sticks, no right or wrong answers, and no concretely attainable goals. While training in prayer and meditation may certainly make one a more articulate spiritual director, neverthe-less spiritual direction remains a vocation unfettered by rules and regulations, by industry standards, or by a financial fee scale. Most spiritual directees practice St. Paul's suggestion in the Letter to the Galatians, "Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher" (6:6), by making some gift to their directors: homemade bread, flowers from the garden, a book or tape, or some other item; money does not usually enter into a spiritual direction agreement, nor should it. Unlike therapy or counseling, which are professional relationships between a ther-apist or counselor and a client, spiritual direction is a relation-ship of charity and generosity between fellow Christians. Spiritual gifts cannot be purchased; they are not for sale. Three images of the spiritual life may help to indicate ways in which the presence of a director (or mentor or soul friend) may effectively aid us in our growth Godwards. The first image, offered by Thomas H. Green, is :that of a marketplace. The marketplace--or, as Green also labels it, the ldtchen!--is the part of our lives that encompasses a multitude of small, necessary, sometimes tedious tasks which can seem to draw us away from the richness and quiet of our interior lives. "Frequently," Green says, "the demands and frustrations of the apostolate, or of raising a family and earning a living, seem to be merely obstacles to a genuine and deep prayer life. But if I am right in explaining the way the Lord works through these exter-nal activities and events, then we should see them quite differ-ently. Far from being obstacles to our interior growth, they become for us the very sandpaper of our sanctification, at least as important to our growth as what happens in the solitude of for-mal prayer" (121). 532 Review for Religious These are not particularly comfortable thoughts, especially for those of~us who would like to discover a large block of unin-terrupted quiet. Often it is only with the help of a wise spiritual director that we can begin to uncover and acknowledge the wealth of spiritual graces hidden in our routine daily tasks and to see opportunities in what have earlier appeared to be only obstacles. Another, who listens with detached concern, will not only listen to the occasional frustration, tiredness, or boredom in our every-day tasks, but will also hear the voice of God calling to us from what may, on the surface, seem to be 'merely dull routine. As surely as God works in this world, God is also available to us in our work, however .tedious and distracting our marketplace--or kitchen--may feel at times. Another ancient and popular image for the spiritual life is that of a journey or pilgrimage. John Gorsuch describes such a spiri-tual journey as a moving out from a place of assumed comfort, beckoned on by God into the unknown. The image of a journey is particularly apt if considered in its various stages: there is a beginning, with its preparations and planning; the travel itself; and the goal of the journey. In the early stages of beginning a journey, there may be excitement and feverish planning--a guide is helpful here in focusing our attention and helping us to leave behind our unnecessary baggage. I once watched my sister prepar-ing for a backpacking trip: with the advice of an experienced back-packer friend, she was encouraged to take only the essential objects, leaving her backpack light enough to carry and yet stocked with exactly what she would need. But traveling, no matter how well it is planned and prepared, is nevertheless an adventure into the unknown. Often we must stop to ask for directions or other help. In traveling this may be as simple as "Yes, you're on the right road" or "Two more blocks Because the singular aim of spiritual direction is to assist in growth toward God, there are no set guidelines, no conventional measuring sticks, no right or wrong answers, and no concretely attainable goals. July-August 199Y 533 Winifred ¯ Imaging Spiritual Direction and then turn left"; on a spiritual journey, as simple as "Keep lis-tening in your prayer" or "Look in the mirror every morning: you will see a person God loves profoundly." If we are fortunate enough to have a good and reliable guide or director, we are soon back on track. At times, too, the journey's route may seem long and wearisome--turning aside or even giving up altogether may look like the most positive option. Then a wise mentor's word of encouragement may challenge and enliven us to continue with new energy and zeal. And then there is the goal to our journey. Sometimes we are so caught up in the travel itself that we lose sight of the goal. A friend and I once planned to spend a restful week together; iron-ically, we also planned too many sight-seeing activities, with the result that the true goals of the week--to ,rest and enjoy each other's company--were lost. So, on a spiritual journey, it is easy to be distracted by circumstances and surroundings from our true goal of knowing God. We need a wise and discerning director to help us in maintaining a clarity of vision about our goal. A third image is that of epiphany. Adrian van Kaam, from whom I have borrowed this image, describes an epiphany as the "shining forth of eternity in daily people, in often unnoticed events and things" (8). It is an epiphany that comes through in the openness and vulnerability of spiritual direction. Van Kaam goes on to say: "The risen Lord is our life now. Our life must become a hymn of praise to Jesus rising in us . Jesus tells us that the kingdom of God is at hand in each of us. It is already here and now, for we are called to share his resurrection in humanity and history" (65). And surely this is the heart of spiritual direction, that one Christian shares freely with another a word of help, a message of encouragement, a glimpse of eternity. Bibliography Gorsuch, John R An Invitation to the Spiritual Journey. Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1990. Green, Thomas H. Darkness in the Marketplace. Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1981. Nouwen, Henri. Spiritual Direction. Cincinnati: Forward Movement Publications, 1981. Van Kaam, Adrian. The Music of Eternity. Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1990, 534 Review for Religious MARY C. SULLIVAN The Brazier That Is My God: Teresa on True Prayer's Dispositions, Gifts, and Signs It is 2 June 1577. Teresa of Avila is, in effect, under house arrest in the convent of the Discalced Carmelites in Toledo, Spain--a community she founded in 1569.1 She has been on the road for almost ten years, establishing reformed monasteries of Carmelite women and even of Carmelite men committed to the poverty, silence, soli-tude, penance, prayer, and detachment she believes are envisioned in the primitive Rule. But now for the last year she has been ordered to remain in one of her convents (she chooses Toledo) because of political tensions between the Calced and Discalced Carmelites. She is regarded by the Calced as a ringleader who must be kept out of cir-culation. To add to her isolation, on 18 June 1577 the papal nuncio Nicol~is Ormaneto, who has been friendly to the reform, will die, and his successor, Felipe Sega, will come to Spain in August already prejudiced against Teresa and her work. He will later call her "a. restless gadabout woman, disobedient and stubborn, who under the cloak of devotion invented wicked opinions, going about breaking enclosure, contrary to the decree of the Council of Trent and the orders of her superiors, teaching as if she were a doctor, in contempt of the teaching of St. Paul, who com-manded women not to teach."2 Mary C. Sullivan RSM works in the College of Liberal Arts of Rochester Institute of Technology. She may be addressed at Sisters of Mercy; 18 Upton Park; Rochester, New York 14607. heritage j~uly-August 1995 535 Sullivan ¯ The Brazier That Is My God Prologue But now, in early June 1577, during her enforced reclusion, Teresa is in Toledo, writing a book on prayer at the request of her confessor, Jer6nimo Gracifin, a Discalced priest. By the end of July, after one month of work on Las Moradas (The Interior Castle, or The Dwelling Places3), she will be recalled to Avila, where against her own desire she has again been elected prioress of Incarnation, the Carmelite convent she entered as a young woman and from which in 1562 she will found San Jos4, the first convent of the Reform, across town in Avila. But the Carmelite authorities do not want Teresa to be the prioress of Incarnation. They will call for a second vote, and when fifty-four sisters at Incarnation persist in electing Teresa, these sisters will be ex-communicated and denied the sacraments. On 3 December of this same year, John of the Cross, the confessor and spiritual director at Incarnation, will be abducted from Avila at night by Calced friars and taken to the windowless closet cell in the Toledo monastery of the Calced Carmelites where he will remain impris-oned for six months. Simultaneous with all this, the modern form of the Spanish Inquisition is in full swing in Seville, having been operating as a powerful ecclesiastical tribunal for almost a hundred years. The manuscript of Teresa's Life has been in the Inquisition's possession for two years, after being denounced to it by the dis-appointed and vindictive Princess of Eboli.4 In the midst of all this difficulty, most of which deeply dis-tressed her, in the six-month period from 2 June to 29 November 1577 (which will actually amount to only two months of writing time), Teresa will start and complete her masterwork, The Dwelling Places, the treatise on prayer and virtue which more than any other of her writings led Pope Paul VI in 1970 to declare her a doctor of the universal church. Not once in this volume does Teresa refer explicitly to the external affairs which weigh so heavily on her mind and heart, though her letters of this period amply demon-strate her concern, and dismay. Rather, in this magnificent book about a human person's gradually increasing communion with the God dwelling within her, Teresa speaks about the prayer of per-sonal conversion, the prayer of reordering and reordered charity within the human heart. And so The Dwelling Places is a book which may contribute immeasurably to the present-day conversion of the church, of religious life, and of the hearts of individual Christian women and men. 536 Review for Reli

Documents CIDOB: 15Winner of the Global Talent Award, launched by CIDOB and Banco Sabadell Foundation in the framework of Programa Talent Global.







ABSTRACTThis study offers a comprehensive overview of the Norwegian involvement in the Venezuelan peace process as a facilitator of the peace talks between the Venezuelan government and the opposition. It explains what Norway does as a facilitator (the process), as well as how (approach) and why (characteristics of Norway as a suitable mediator, and possible interests), not only in terms of the characteristics making Norway a suitable facilitator, but also its interests and motivations. The main goal is to draw attention to the importance and the usefulness of soft power tools for the achievement of foreign policy objectives and, in particular, peace-making. The study concludes that, for Norway, mediation as foreign policy is, in general but also in the case of Venezuela, the result of a combination of idealist, value-oriented motivations (humanitarian reasons and international stability), and realist, non-altruistic interests (status and access) arising from its constructed national identity and role conception. 1. INTRODUCTIONSince the early 2010s, Venezuela has been embroiled in a grave economic, political, and humanitarian crisis resulting in institutional disarray that reached critical point in 2017. It was in this year that the constitutional order was broken after Decision 156 of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice in Venezuela, whereby this organ attributed to itself the functions of the National Assembly, the country's legislative organ. Deemed unconstitutional by the political parties with a majority in the National Assembly, this move led to mass protests. The government reacted by calling for a new constitution to be drafted by a newly created Constituent National Assembly which, in August 2017, granted itself powers to pass legislation, thus overriding the National Assembly (Bronstein & Cobb, 2017). This was not recognised by the National Assembly but, in 2018, the Constituent National Assembly went ahead and blocked the participation of the main opposition parties in the presidential elections that year. These elections were rejected by a broad sector of the international community, among them the European Union (EU) and the Lima Group.1From 2017, Norway, with a population of just 5.5 million, has been exploring possibilities in Venezuela for political dialogue between the government of Nicolás Maduro and the opposition, first through the Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution (NOREF), an independent foundation that receives funding from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), and later, after 2019, with direct state involvement. Norway has built an image as a peace broker with its success in processes like the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), and in the talks between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). But why did Norway decide to facilitate the peace talks in Venezuela? How does Norway approach peacebuilding in this conflict? This article aims to analyse the causes, process, approaches, and motivations for Norwegian mediation in Venezuela, in order to draw attention to the importance and the usefulness of soft power tools for the achievement of foreign policy objectives and, in particular, peace-making. I therefore explore the comprehensive role of Norway in the Venezuelan peace talks, the background, the process, and Norway's possible interests as a facilitator. I argue that,for Norway, mediation as foreign policy is, in general, but also in the case of Venezuela, the result of a combination of idealist, value-oriented motivations (humanitarian reasons and international stability), and realist, non-altruistic interests (status and access) arising from its constructed national identity and the way it perceives its role as a peace-making nation. As mentioned above, the Norwegian state became officially involved in the Venezuelan conflict in 2019. The domestic situation had come to a head on 23rd January when Juan Guaidó, leader of the opposition and president of the National Assembly, rejected the authority of Nicolás Maduro and declared himself acting president of Venezuela. However, the strategy failed when the military remained loyal to Maduro. Negotiation then became a last resort (NUPI 2020) and Norway began to facilitate negotiations between government and opposition, first in Oslo and then in Barbados, in 2019. These efforts led to further discussion between the parties through 2021 and 2022, in Mexico. In 2022, the war in Ukraine prompted changes in the positions regarding Venezuela of certain actors, notable among them the United States (U.S.) and the EU. As the Spanish Institute of Strategic Studies (Remacha, 2023) points out, U.S. concerns about energy security made it necessary to find a way of guaranteeing the international supply, and Venezuela was (and is) considered to be a strategic source. Contacts between the U.S. and Venezuela were made in 2022, and talks began about removing the sanctions imposed on the country. Given its economic situation, and the presidential elections due in 2024, Venezuela welcomed the rapprochement. If the sanctions were to be removed (at least partially), it was necessary to resume dialogue with the opposition, so in November 2022, negotiations recommenced in Mexico with Norway's mediation. Significant progress was made, and the release of previously frozen international funds was agreed upon (up to 3,000 million dollars earmarked mainly for public health, education, and food), as well as the lifting of some sanctions. Maduro's government is also aware that the 2024 elections should be held according to a model that respects democratic safeguards, with unrestricted participation by the opposition, so that results will be internationally recognised. Venezuela would then be able to resume relations with countries and regions like the U.S. and the EU, thus enabling international investment, particularly in the oil industry, and an improved economic situation (NUPI, 2020). Although the presidential crisis formally lasted until 5th January 2023 when Guaidó's acting presidency was abolished by the National Assembly, the political crisis with the opposition continues to the present day, in November 2023. 1.2. Research goals and objectivesThis study aims to explore the role of Norway as a facilitator in the Venezuelan peace talks, focusing on what it does (the process), how (approach), and why (characteristics of Norway as a suitable mediator, and possible interests). It seeks to demonstrate that, given Norway's national conception as a peacemaker, its strategy in Venezuela expresses a broad foreign policy endeavour that has humanitarian but also reputational and political motivations. More broadly, the importance of soft power tools for state actors to achieve their foreign policy objectives is discussed. Constructivism and Holsti's theory of National Role Conceptions (NRC) help to explain Norway's self-image as a peacemaker, while idealism and realism, together with Touval's "mediation as foreign policy" theory shed light on Norway's use of mediation as a foreign policy tool. Qualitative methods based on analysis of primary and secondary sources, complemented with semi-structured interviews with experts and officials of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have been used. 1.3. Relevance and justificationNorway is a small country in terms of population but one with a notable ability to influence international affairs thanks to soft power. One of ways it exercises its influence is its internationally recognised image as a peacemaker, evidenced through its involvement in several peace processes. Indeed, since 1993, Norway has been engaged in 11 different peace processes (Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2019) with some major successes but also others that were limited. The case of Norwegian facilitation of the Venezuelan peace talks is studied for two main reasons. First, is its relevance in terms of policy significance, as it is an ongoing process, which leads to questions about why Norway acts as a facilitator, and the possible interests it has in doing so, apart from the goal of peace itself. Second, is the practical reason of the author's knowledge of the three languages relevant for this research (English, Spanish, and Norwegian), which is a valuable asset in terms of good understanding of the information from primary and secondary sources written in the three languages. This is an advantage in the research, as it allows cross-checking of information, and offers a broader perspective on the topic. 2. NORWAY AS A PEACEBUILDING NATIONScholars offer several explanations of Norway's involvement in peace processes arising from international conflicts. The result of a pragmatic foreign policy, it combines idealist and realist elements in a seemingly contradictory policy which, in fact, accommodates different domestic interests and maintains inter-party foreign policy consensus (Riste, 2001; Ekengren, 2022).From a constructivist perspective, the notion of Norway as a nation for peace partly comes from its conception of its role as a small, rich, peaceful state, with a clear focus on human rights and humanitarian assistance (Leira et al., 2007). While it is true that the so-called value-oriented (idealist) diplomacy wasstrengthened, above all in the 1990s, with the increased involvement of Norway in several peace processes, its self-image as a peacebuilding nation has always been present (Leira, 2015). The Norwegian peace activist and later Foreign Affairs Minister, Halvdan Koht (1873-1965), argued in 1902 that, although the fact of its being a small state could limit its flexibility in foreign policy actions, Norway could and should secure its status by promoting peace and development. More than 80 years later, in 1989, Jan Egeland, who would become State Secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1990 to 1997, argued that a small, rich country like Norway could be more effective in promoting human rights and peace than old colonial powers or superpowers with their historical baggage and policies based on self-interest and dominance (Sørbø, 2018).Moreover, the notion of status, which is closely linked with the concept of identity, has been prominent in Norway since the nation's beginnings. Leira (2015) describes the pursuit of status as a peace-making nation in the 19th and early 20th century as a way of achieving independence (through moral authority), a means of saving money (as the policy for peace was cheaper than power politics), and as sound realpolitik for a small state. He also refers to the words of Ole Jacob Broch in 1864 when he argued that, when small states need to "engage in the strife of other states", they should do it decisively because, "for them, honour and prestige are even more important than for the greater powers" (Broch cited in Leira 2015, p.22).The role performance of Norway, or itsbehaviour with, and approach to foreign policy actions is, according to Gulbrandsen (2022), influenced by the logic of appropriateness (March & Olsen, 1998), dictated by the image the state has of itself, and constituting a basis for adopting a role in any specific context. In Holsti's view (1970), the main explanation for the role performance of a state arises from policy makers' conceptions of the role of the nation in a system (National Role Conception), but adoption of a role is also influenced by what he calls role prescriptions, which come from the external environment. In this case, if the Norwegian government and the Norwegian people have an image of Norway as a nation for peace, and if the external image they project in other countries is also that of a nation for peace, the logic of appropriateness and the role prescription will dictate that Norway will have to behave as a nation for peace, and thus engage in peacebuilding policy.For Skånland (2010) the Norwegian involvement in peace processes is the result of a discursive construction, amplified by the media, above all after 1993. Media coverage of the Norwegian involvement in the Middle East peace process gave a very positive picture of Norway in general, an image that was strengthened thanks to the perceived successes in the peace processes of Sri Lanka, Guatemala, and Mali. All this crystallised into three main discursive constructions: (1) the decisive significance of the Norwegian contribution for the outcome of peace processes, (2) the importance of peace promotion as a foreign policy tool, and (3) Norway's distinctive approach for peace promotion.Other authors emphasise Norway's peace engagement efforts from a more realist perspective and, in particular, as a policy instrument in its own right (Touval, 2003). Some, like Matlary (2002) argue that mediation is used as an institutionalised strategy for dealing with some of the challenges of being a small state, as well as for promoting Norway's interests in the international arena, and having some influence in international relations. As Stokke (2014) notes, although it has a small population, Norway has a disproportionate importance in other areas (fishing, oil and gas, shipping etc.), thus implying interests beyond its borders as well as influence in other domains because of this prominence. According to Matlary (2002), some Norwegian interestsidentified from a realpolitik standpoint are security (addressed through NATO), economic interests vis-à-vis the EU, access to political decision-making power in the EU and, outside the West, considerable economic interests in oil prices and oil export. Matlary, who collected data through a series of anonymous interviews with diplomats and politicians, alludes to the effects of value-oriented diplomacy in matters of matters and concludes that, apart from a good image and profile, what value-oriented diplomacy provides is access to other arenas where one needs the best possible entry. Her interviewees referred, above all, to access to the leaders of the U.S. Department of State through the policy of peace engagement, especially in the Middle East and, to a much lesser extent, to leaders of EU states. However, she says, it was difficult to collect specific insights into the effects of such access, a perspective shared by Stokke (2010, p.166) who argues that "the extent and manner in which recognition is translated into international influence is complex and may vary from one policy field to another and between different arenas of international relations. This means that it is notoriously difficult to detect and measure the direct benefits from peace engagement". Finally, another interesting perspective is that provided by Neumann (2011). For him, the peace and reconciliation efforts of medium and small countries are a means to maintain a system with which they are reasonably satisfied, because they are not as well equipped as bigger powers to deal with other (more violent) types of conflict resolution methods, and he refers specifically to the institutionalisation of peace and reconciliation efforts by Norway.To conclude, Norway's peacebuilding policy may be understood as apparently idealist (value-oriented diplomacy) and based on a self-image as a nation for peace, which includes both idealist (moral responsibility) and realist (influence in the international arena and security) motivations. Until now, there have been no major conflicts between those two angles (Stokke, 2014), but in an increasingly polarised world, it is becoming more and more difficult for Norway to maintain a balanced policy in peacebuilding processes. 3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKThis study draws on the theory of constructivism to explain Norway's national role conception and considers the notions of idealism and realism to explain mediation as its foreign policy. A theoretical framework based on such apparently antagonistic ideas is, perhaps, not very common but, as Barkin (2003) puts it, a constructivist epistemology and a classical realist theory are, in fact, compatible and, moreover, this kind of framework can be useful in International Relations (IR) theory, as it can specify the relationship between the study of power in IR and the study of IR as social constructions. Indeed, constructivism and perceptions can—and are—often applied to fulfil or justify realist objectives and policies.For the purposes of this study, I consider that mediation as foreign policy is a result of idealist (value-oriented) and realist (power) motivations arising from a constructed national identity and role conception.3.1. Constructivism and national role conceptionFor Barnett (2018), constructivism as an international relations social theory is "concerned about how to conceptualise the relationship between agents and structures, but it is not a substantive theory" (p.88). The basic premise is that the world is socially constructed, which means that "social reality is a product of human consciousness. Consciousness is created and constituted through knowledge that shapes meaning and categories of understanding and action; such knowledge and meanings can be institutionalised in social life; and this institutionalisation, in turn, shapes the construction of social reality" (p.88). These categories shape not only external reality but also its actors, which is an indicator of the importance of the social construction of interests and identity. For example, Norway's identity may shape its national interests, and one of those interests might be security, but the concept of security and how it can be achieved may be linked to Norway's identity.National Role Conceptions, a concept first developed by Holsti (1970), is defined as "the policymakers' own definitions of the general kinds of decisions, commitments, rules, and actions suitable to their state, and of the functions, if any, their state should perform [...] in the international system" (p. 245-246). These are, as mentioned in section 2, the main explanation for the role performance of a state, understood by Holsti as the "general policy behaviour of governments" (p. 245). Role performance is also influenced by what he calls role prescriptions, which come from the external environment and have, as some of their sources, system-wide values, the structure of the international system, and the traditions, rules and expectations of states expressed through various legal instruments (p. 246).The notion of national role conception is related to that of politics of identity, which, in Aggestam's words (1999), is a set of ideas that policymakers use to create a sense of solidarity and cohesion and thus to legitimise general trust in a nation's foreign policy. She argues that speeches sometimes reveal subjective we-feelings of a cultural community related to territory, myths, rituals, institutions, and customs, and she refers to the "institutionalisation" of national identity, which makes identity constructions relatively resistant to change. Moreover, citing March & Olsen (1998), she indicates that certain practices and rules of behaviour that legitimise and explain specific identity constructions are reinforced by such institutionalisation.The starting point of the present study is, therefore, the idea that Norway's national role conception is that of a small, rich, peaceful, democratic state, whose official discourse in peace engagement, especially since the 1990s, emphasises its altruistic contribution as a "peaceful nation that has the values, competences and economic resources" for such an endeavour, but whose work is also "beneficial for Norway's own interests" (Stokke, 2014, p.8).3.2. Idealism, realism, and mediation as foreign policyThere is no generally accepted definition of idealism because there is no settled ontology of the term but, according to Wilson (2012), it generally refers to any goal, idea, or practice that is considered impractical from a state perspective, for example the prohibition and disarmament of nuclear weapons, or global eradication of poverty. In IR it is normally used in both the broad and narrow senses. Broadly speaking, idealism seeks to transcend anarchy to create a more harmonious world order while, in the narrow sense, it is a doctrine tied to the inter-war period (1919-1939) and seen as emphasising the growing interdependence of mankind. I shall focus on the first meaning, which refers to "an approach to international politics that seeks to advance certain ideals or moral goals, for example, making the world a more peaceful or just place" (Wilson, 2019).Realism is a substantive theory of IR that considers states to be the main actors in the international arena, and mainly concerned with the pursuit of their own national interests, security, and struggle for power. Realists view the international arena as a sphere without justice, and with active or potential conflict among its members. They show scepticism about the relevance of ethical norms (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017). This theory has a variety of ramifications but in this study I consider, first and foremost, classical realism because, although idealism is usually heavily criticised by realists, according to Barkin (2003), classical realism perceives the art of international politics as "the practical balancing of the demands of power on the one hand and morality on the other—a dialectic between power and morality [...]. Idealism, for the classical realist, is necessary to inform our actions and underlie our interests in the pursuit of international politics, but realism will always remain a necessary part of relations among states" (p.333). Also relevant is the perspective of neoclassical realism because, while classical realism focuses on the system-level factors, neoclassical realism considers domestic-level factors as variables that can shape foreign policy, which is highly pertinent if NRC theory is used to explain Norway's behaviour in the international arena. Neoclassical realism considers that "objective reality exists, but decision making is impaired by uncertainty and the complexity of the environment" (Rathbun, 2008, p.296).According to Touval (2003), mediation as foreign policy needs to be understood as a policy instrument, as distinct from mediation theory. He argues that it derives from the mediator's perception of the international system, its foreign policy objectives and strategies, and domestic needs. I would also argue that it stems from the mediator's own national role conception and self-perception. Touval (2003) considers that ending a conflict is no longer the main concern of the mediating state, but only a part of a broadly conceived foreign policy as the mediation is also shaped by affairs that are external to the conflict. He highlights three issues arising from a state's international and domestic concerns: (1) mediation is perceived by the public and the officials engaged in it as a moral obligation, which is seldom criticised; (2) foreign and domestic motivations, apart from being an incentive for states to engage in mediation, also shape their strategies and tactics of the mediation; (3) the mediation is evaluated not only in terms of settlement of a dispute, but also the primary goals motivating the mediation. Beriker (2017) offers an expanded perspective of Touval's work, arguing that once mediation is proven to be a viable foreign policy tool, engaging in mediation enables medium-sized powers to create a political space that otherwise would not be available. 4. METHODOLOGYThis study is both descriptive and explanatory, as it inquires more deeply into the events as well as exploring why and how Norway became involved in the Venezuela peace process from 2017 to May 2023. In a deductive approach, existing theories —NRC, mediation as foreign policy, idealism, and realism— are drawn on to explain Norway's behaviour in its peacebuilding policy. The epistemology used is empiricism, since the focus is explanation rather than interpretation, and the ontology is pragmatist because, while the world is understood as existing independently from social actors, the influence of these actors to shape social realities should also be taken into account, together with the fact that, in some cases, this may affect realities existing independently of them.The methods are qualitative, as information provided with quantitative methods would be too superficial for a study that seeks to determine the existence and the characteristics of Norway's engagement in the Venezuelan peace process. The analysis is primarily based on a range of online primary and secondary sources, including government reports, memorandums of understanding, recorded interviews, articles, and academic publications. I consulted these sources, first, for better understanding of the issues and to organise this material around the research question, as well as to identify possible gaps of knowledge. I then conducted semi-structured interviews, with an official from the Norwegian MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and a Norwegian academic, to fill some of the previously identified knowledge gaps, to record their perceptions, and to triangulate the documentary information thus gathered.The first interview, conducted by videoconference on 2 August 2023, was with Professor Benedicte Bull, from the University of Oslo and, inter alia, president of the Nordic Institute for Latin American Studies, whose research has been focused on Venezuela in recent years. The second was with David C. Jourdan, who coordinates the Norwegian MFA's facilitation team in the Venezuelan peace process. This interview was conducted in Oslo on 8 August 2023. Both Bull and Jourdan have given their consent to use their names in the present study. NOREF was also contacted but stated that it could not give interviews on the Venezuelan peace process. 5. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION5.1. Norwegian involvement in the Venezuelan peace processNo official documentary information about the specific manner Norway engaged in the Venezuela conflict during 2017 and 2018 has been found, apart from the mere fact stated in the NOREF website that it was engaged in talks on the conflict in those years. According to its strategic plan 2019-2023, NOREF is a "non-state actor that is able to complement formal Norwegian peacemaking efforts [... and] build directly on the Norwegian tradition of informal conflict resolution". This makes it possible "to support formal peace processes (track I), and informal back-channel conflict diplomacy (track 1.5 and 2)" (NOREF, 2019). This institution has a permanent staff of professionals, experts in conflict resolution, and is governed by a board whose director is appointed by the Norwegian MFA, and whose members come, in general, from different areas of the public sector. In the interview with David C. Jourdan of the Norwegian MFA (2023), he confirmed that NOREF's engagement consists of track 2 approaches. Moreover, he stressed that, although NOREF receives public funds and works closely with the Norwegian state, it is a separate, independent institution. Norway's involvement in the peace process after 2019, when it became public, is described in some detail below. 2019: the first official talksAccording to the Norwegian MFA (2023), Norway has been involved in Venezuela since 2018. However, it was only in May 2019 that talks between the Venezuelan parties, facilitated by Norway, first became public. In this early stage, the negotiations between the delegations of Nicolás Maduro and Juan Guaidó lasted until August 2019, and although significant progress was made, no agreements for solving the political conflict were reached. However, the Norwegian MFA (2023) stresses that these negotiations were a stepping-stone for further talks between the parties, which signed a collaboration agreement in June 2020, with the objective of using frozen funds in the U.S. for a joint response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with support from the Pan American Health Organisation. Several newspaper articles describing the negotiations during that year provide additional information that has been used in this study.In May 2019, Juan Guaidó sent a delegation to Oslo to participate in exploratory talks with representatives of Maduro's government to try to find a solution to the political crisis the country had faced since Guaidó declared himself acting president of Venezuela at the beginning of that year (NRK, 2019a), information that was confirmed by Jorge Valero, Venezuela's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, and the UN spokesperson in New York, Stephane Dujarric. The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) reported the talks for the first time on 15 May but, according to an anonymous source, this was the second time that the parties had been in Oslo, and negotiations had previously been taking place in Cuba.Shortly afterwards, on the night between 16 and 17 May, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a press release confirming that there had been contacts between key political actors in Venezuela as a part of an exploratory phase aiming to find a solution to the country's situation. The Maduro government representatives present at the talks were Héctor Rodríguez, governor of the province of Miranda, and Jorge Rodríguez, minister of Communication. The opposition representatives were Gerardo Blyde, member of parliament, and Fernando Martínez Mattola, who had been minister during the government of President Carlos Andrés Pérez.In the last week of May 2019, the Norwegian minister of Foreign Affairs confirmed that the parties would travel again to Oslo during the following week to continue with the process (NRK, 2019b). Almost at the same time, Juan Guaidó insisted that the meetings in Oslo were not part of a dialogue or negotiation, but a mediation in Norway (El Nacional, 2019). According to Voice of America/Voz de América (VOA) (2019a), Nicolás Maduro appeared a few days later on the Venezuelan public TV channel after the opposition declared that the conversations in Oslo that week had ended on 29 May without any agreement being reached. Maduro stated that conversations had been taking place in secret during the three previous months, that he was proud of his delegation, and that dialogue with the opposition had been constructive. Moreover, he insisted on his wish to find a peaceful solution for Venezuela. Indeed, VOA pointed out that Dag Nylander, a Norwegian diplomat who would become chief facilitator of the Venezuelan peace process, had been travelling to Caracas and meeting with the political actors involved in the crisis since January 2019.The peace talks resumed one month later in Barbados. On 11 July 2019, after three days of conversations, Norway announced that the negotiations would continue (Reuters, 2019). Yet, only a few weeks later, the Maduro government withdrew from the talks when the U.S. president, Donald Trump, announced his decision to block U.S. citizens from engaging in business in Venezuela and to freeze the country's assets in the U.S. According to the Venezuelan government, this had been instigated by Juan Guaidó, while the opposition accused the government of reneging on its commitment to dialogue. Norway's facilitator, Dag Nylander, took note that the planned meetings would not take place and emphasised Norway's role as a facilitator acting at the request of the parties and planning the meetings according to their availability. He added that the facilitation process would continue as long as the parties wished, and provided that there was a realistic position on a solution in the best interests of the Venezuelan people (VG, 2019).According to Bull (2023), Norway, as the facilitating country, was displeased when the talks went public in May, believing that this was premature and that it would complicate the peace process. She also stresses that the Trump administration had no clear strategy for ending the conflict and that, when the U.S. sanctions were announced, there had not been any proper coordination with Norway. She also notes that mentions of the U.S. seem to refer to a single homogeneous actor, when the reality is that there are many actors involved, among them the Pentagon and the Department of State, and these actors may work in different directions, sometimes disrupting a given policy. The Norwegian MFA (2023) confirms it was not aware of the U.S. sanctions that were announced in early August 2019. Both parties and facilitator were taken by surprise.2021: The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding and negotiation rounds in MexicoA year and a half later, in March 2021, new exploratory talks began after the Biden administration's position on Venezuela allowed the parties to negotiate a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which led to the launch of a new negotiation process, starting in August that year. On 5 August, the Mexican President, Manuel López Obrador confirmed that Mexico would host talks between the government of Venezuela and the opposition (Reuters, 2021) and, a few days later, the Norwegian government confirmed its involvement with a tweet (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2021a). The new negotiation process was launched in Mexico City on 13 August, with Dag Nylander as chief facilitator, Jorge Rodríguez representing the Venezuelan (Maduro's) government, and Gerardo Blyde representing the Unitary Platform (the opposition). A MoU —which I refer to in more detail in section 5.3— was released, defining the objective, agenda, method, and composition of the negotiation team. The Norwegian minister of Foreign Affairs, Ine Eriksen Søreide, declared in a press note that the parties were ready to negotiate constructively and that, in the process, they would consult members of civil society as well as political actors. She also noted that there was mutual agreement on the sensitive nature of the negotiations, which was necessary for giving the parties space to make progress (Norwegian MFA 2021b).A second round of negotiations took place at the beginning of September 2021. The parties released a joint statement reporting that two agreements had been reached, the first being to act jointly in the claim of Venezuelan sovereignty over Guyana Esequiba, and the second, a "partial agreement on the social protection of the Venezuelan people". The parties conveyed that the points to be addressed in the following round of negotiations would be "respect for the Constitutional Rule of Law", protection of the national economy, and measures for the social protection of the Venezuelan people.Between the second and the third rounds of negotiation, Erna Solberg, the Norwegian Prime Minister, spoke at the UN General Assembly on 21 September, referring to Venezuela as a country where human right violations were occurring. Her comment was criticised by Dag Nylander as it could, he said, damage the credibility of Norway's role. In a tweet on 25 September, the MFA reaffirmed its commitment as an impartial facilitator in the negotiations and declared that the statement in the UN should not be interpreted as being inconsistent with that (NRK, 2021). The Venezuelan government responded to this diplomatic hitch with a slight delay in proceedings when its representatives arrived one day late at the negotiation round scheduled in Mexico from 24 to 27 September, but which finally took place after 25 September (Euronews, 2021).After this third round of negotiations, the parties released a new joint statement, focused this time on the issue of inclusion and, specifically, on the need for a gender focus in the negotiations, identification of inclusive consultation mechanisms for political and social actors, and condemnation of xenophobic attacks on Venezuelan migrants that had recently occurred in Chile. According to an article by Diego Santander in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo (2021), this third round was so fraught with problems that no specific agreements were reached. Maduro's delegation insisted on its plans to include Alex Saab in the negotiation. Saab, a Venezuelan businessman, was accused of being Maduro's front man, and a key figure in the international economic and financial activities to circumvent the U.S. economic sanctions against his government. However, Saab had been arrested for money laundering in June 2020 in Cabo Verde and was extradited to the U.S. on the weekend of October 16.Negotiations, set for 17 October, were suspended on 16 October when the Maduro government decided not to participate in the next round of negotiations, because of Saab's extradition, which Jorge Rodríguez referred to as a "kidnapping" as it had been carried out "without a warrant and without due process" and accused the U.S. of trying to prevent the dialogue (Gilbert, 2021). The Norwegian government then tweeted that it was still convinced that the negotiations were the only solution for Venezuela, and that it would keep working to encourage the parties to continue (Norwegian MFA, 2021c). In Bull's opinion (2023), while the U.S. system may have its faults, the legal proceedings are independent from political powers so, on that occasion, there was little that U.S. politicians could do to stop the extradition.2022 — 2023: talks after the beginning of the war in UkraineIn March 2022, a new chapter of the dialogue began after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A U.S. delegation formed by members of the Department of State visited Caracas to meet with the Venezuelan government and discuss an eventual isolation of Vladimir Putin. Some analysts also indicated that Venezuela was seen as a possible alternative oil supplier if the U.S. opted to restrict oil exports from Russia, which meant that removal of the sanctions on Venezuela could be considered (VOA, 2022a). Indeed, in May 2022, the U.S. announced that economic sanctions against Venezuela would be eased as a gesture in favour of reactivating the dialogues and also allowing the U.S. company Chevron to negotiate potential future activities with the state-owned oil and natural gas company PDVSA (Agobian, 2022). According to the Norwegian MFA (2023), these actions were a catalyst for the reactivation of the negotiations.Immediately after the announcement, Jorge Rodríguez and Gerardo Blyde met to discuss renewal of the talks (Ocando Alex, 2022a) but, by the end of May, according to Reuters, the Venezuelan government had demanded the withdrawal of Norway as a facilitator, and the presence of Russia (formally an accompanying country in the negotiations after 2021) as conditions for reactivating the negotiations. However, convinced that the Norwegians were their only guarantee for a successful process, the opposition disagreed (Oré, 2022). Bull (2023) specifies that the stance of the Venezuelan government might have been because it saw Norway as taking an excessively "pro-allies" position after the start of the war in Ukraine. She adds that Norway prefers to involve Russia and other big powers in the negotiations rather than excluding them, as they would provide legitimacy to the Mexico talks as the only acceptable platform for solving the Venezuelan political crisis. When interviewed, David C. Jourdan of the Norwegian MFA (2023), made it clear that Norway was never asked to relinquish its role as facilitator. Management of the process resides with the parties, which have remained committed to the MoU that names Norway as the facilitating country.On 21 and 22 June 2022, the Norwegian government held the Oslo Forum, an annual retreat focused on conflict mediation and peace processes. Around 100 conflict mediators, experts, peace process actors, and high-level decision makers from around the world gathered at Losby Gods Manor with the goal of sharing their experience on conflict resolution and peace diplomacy (Norwegian MFA, 2022). Among the peace process actors who attended the Oslo Forum were Jorge Rodríguez and Gerardo Blyde. A Norwegian source told VOA (2022b) that it was "probable" that the conversations would be initiated again, but "not immediately".On 14 September 2022, a group of 18 countries from the Americas and Europe agreed to call upon Maduro and the opposition to urge a resumption of the negotiations in Mexico (Ocando Alex, 2022b).Official negotiations began again on 26 November 2022. This time, a joint statement was issued indicating that the main agenda of the meeting would be social protection of the people. A partial agreement was reached, in which the measures agreed upon were: 1) creation of an organism to implement specific actions and programmes for the social protection of the Venezuelan people (Mesa Nacional de Atención Social, or MNAS); 2) creation of an organism auxiliary to the MNAS to evaluate its processes and the effects of implementation of the measurements adopted; 3) definition of the social areas which, requiring the most urgent attention, needed to be addressed through specific programmes, in particular the public health system, the national electrical system, development of the World Food Programme, educational infrastructure, and rebuilding of the infrastructure damaged as a consequence of the torrential rains in the latter half of 2022; 4) requesting from the UN support for the design and creation of a fund for social support of the Venezuelan people; 5) identification of frozen assets belonging to the Venezuelan state that might be progressively accessed and incorporated into this fund; 6) creation of a commission to assess and verify implementation of the agreement.After this meeting, the negotiations stalled again when the Venezuelan government accused the opposition of not complying with the agreement reached but, mainly and above all, because the frozen US$3,000 million that were to be incorporated into the Fund for the Social Protection of the Venezuelan People had not yet been released (August 2023). According to Maduro, this was a condition sine qua non for resuming the talks. The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, organised a conference on 25 April 2023 in Bogotá, with representatives from numerous countries to discuss the Venezuelan situation. The shared positions of the Venezuelan government and the opposition were explained to the international community, in particular regarding the removal of sanctions, free elections, and reactivation of the peace talks. One of the shared positions for renewal of the talks was that of establishing the Fund for the Social Protection of the Venezuelan People (Ramírez Vargas & Alcalde, 2023). The message that came out of the Venezuela Conference of Bogotá was very clear: the UN trust fund for Venezuela should be set up as swiftly as possible. According to a Reuters report by Spetalnik, Sequera and Armas (2023), on 19 May the Biden administration notified the UN that the money could operate within the U.S. financial system, and that there would be no risk of creditors seizing it to repay the outstanding Venezuelan debt. Accordingly, the UN-administered fund could have been operative at the end of May 2023. However, the decision to establish the trust fund ultimately lies with the UN Secretariat in New York and some insiders allude to the complexity of the process involved and stress that establishing the fund depends on a number of factors. As of late August 2023, it had not been established by the UN. 5.2. Norway's distinctive approach to peace diplomacyIn an interview for the Centre of Humanitarian Dialogue, when asked about the distinctive approach of Norwegian diplomacy in international conflicts, Dag Nylander (2020) identified four main elements: (a) collaboration with Norwegian and international NGOs, (b) low-key diplomacy, (c) long-term commitment, and (d) the ability to make quick decisions.[5] In this section, these four elements will be briefly discussed.Norway's distinctive approach to its engagement in peace processes and with non-state actors was defined after the decentralisation of its foreign policy in the early 1990s. Humanitarian assistance and development policies called for closer cooperation between the Norwegian MFA and non-governmental actors and, according to Lehti (2014), this approach was extended to the area of peace-making. In the 1990s the Ministry responded positively to proposals and initiatives from various NGOs and well-connected individuals with regard to conflictive areas. The range of actors involved in peace-making was broadened, and Norway was then able to act beyond the bounds of government-centred diplomacy with a distinctive, more informal approach to peace diplomacy. Ann Kelleher and James Taulbe (2006) refer to this approach as "Track I½ Diplomacy", understanding Track I diplomacy as that with official representatives of governments and Track II diplomacy as that involving unofficial representatives and sectors of the civil society. An important feature of the collaboration between the state, NGOs and research institutions is that it is extensively funded by the state (Bandarage, 2011). Indeed, some Norwegian NGOs receive more than 90% of their funding from the state which, in Kelleher's view (2006), almost makes them quasi-governmental organisations.As for low-key diplomacy, Nylander (2020) affirms that activities pertaining to peace diplomacy rarely appear in the news, and that they are discreet and unnoticed, often with the involvement of low-level and mid-level diplomats, an approach that allows flexibility in seeking opportunities and in dealing with problems with relative freedom.Norway's long-term commitment to peace diplomacy is based on a broad political consensus for the promotion of peace and reconciliation. Hence, changes of government will not influence the country's engagement in any given conflict. According to the MFA (2000), the goal is not only ending violence but also support for economic, social, and political processes that lead to durable liberal peace in the country concerned.Finally, the ability of Norwegian diplomats to make quick decisions stems from the smallness of the country, not only in terms of population but also social distance. Dag Nylander (2020) mentions that the distance between a diplomat in the field and the ministry of Foreign Affairs is very short, and that it takes just a quick phone call or a text message, sometimes directly to the Minister, to obtain any clearance that may be needed. 5.3 Norwegian approach to facilitation the Venezuelan peace processNorway's approach to facilitation in Venezuela is consistent with its work in other peace processes. It began with secret talks between the parties (low-key diplomacy) and then, having advanced towards a more public and official format, it was formalised with the MoU signed in Mexico on 13 August 2021. In the MoU, the parties defined the agenda and methods for the talks. David Jourdan of the Norwegian MFA (2023) highlighted the importance of this Memorandum, which contains not only the agenda and format for the negotiations, but also a shared vision of the process and the country.As for the method, it is important to mention that it is based on a "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" principle (comprehensive approach), although partial agreements can be reached if the parties consider that a subject has been sufficiently discussed and urgent action is required. This was the case with the two partial agreements on the Guyana Esequiba, and Social Protection of the Venezuelan people signed at the end of the talks in Mexico. This approach has its advantages, such as ensuring "big picture" negotiation, but it also comes with the risk the parties can renege anytime on anything they have agreed to. It was first used in other peace processes including Britain-Ireland in 1995, Palestine-Israel, and in Cyprus and Colombia. The Norwegian MFA (2023) emphasises that understanding the needs of the parties and ensuring that they are in charge of the process, has been key to making progress throughout the negotiations. The Venezuelan conflict is political in nature and requires political solutions, and the negotiation process provides a confidential space where the two parties have an opportunity to reconcile their interests. David Jourdan, sharing the MFA's approach to the political process, points out that Norway has probably been a more active facilitator in the Venezuelan negotiations than in other peace processes.An essential point of the MoU is participation, as it establishes mechanisms of consultation for political and social actors. The aim is for the process to be as inclusive and legitimate as possible. However, there is little information available as to whether this is actually the case and David Jourdan (2023) admits that it is not yet possible to speak of results in this area.Moreover, it should be noted that the Norwegian approach to facilitation, based on discretion and confidentiality, is one thing and how the parties actually behave is quite another matter. On more than one occasion, as can be seen in several documents and declarations, the Norwegian government has emphasised the need for the parties to be careful with their public declarations. In an interview with El País in February 2023, Anniken Huitfeldt, Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, wryly acknowledges an anecdote sometimes repeated by high-profile Venezuelan politicians, according to which politicians will normally control themselves in public but, in private, tell someone else what they really think but, in Venezuela, the opposite occurs: what is said in private becomes amplified in front of a microphone (Lafuente 2023). Vicente Díaz, former director of the Venezuelan National Electoral Council, who participated in the talks held in the Dominican Republic, Oslo, and Barbados says that, since the process in Mexico was "very public" (as occurred in the Dominican Republic), it created difficulties for the parties, since national and international expectations were generated, which meant that more attention was given to audiences than to the talks (openDemocracy 2022). 5.4 Norwegian interests in VenezuelaIn this section and in keeping with the theoretical framework described above, I discuss four possible reasons for Norway's mediation in the Venezuelan conflict: (a) peace and stability (value-oriented diplomacy), (b) reputation, (c) political interests, and (d) economic interests.Value-oriented diplomacy focused on peace promotion makes sense for Norway, a country whose identity as a peaceful country and peace broker has existed at least since the late 19th century. Those values are so widely embedded that a broad political consensus exists among the population over a peace promotion policy, supported institutionally and by an extensive network of non-state actors coordinated by the state. Norway's constructed identity as a peace broker (especially intensified since the 1990s) means that the country acts as such. Moreover, promotion of such values makes even more sense when security has become globalised, and when a conflict in a faraway country can have humanitarian, political, economic, and ecological consequences in distant parts of the world. In this sense, value-oriented diplomacy may acquire realist motivations although, according to Bull (2023), this is discourse that appeared, above all from the 1980s, to justify Norway's involvement in peace processes. One of its proponents was the diplomat and former Labour Party politician, Jan Egeland.Ensuring peace and stability in Venezuela could, for example, (1) help to mitigate the external displacement crisis, which mainly affects neighbouring countries like Colombia and Ecuador as well as the U.S. and others in Europe, with all the humanitarian and economic consequences for those receiving refugees; (2) ensure Venezuela's participation, as a democratic state, in international organisations, thus promoting democratic values and human rights; (3) promote social and economic development in the country, which would create value for its nationals as well as attracting international investment and; (4) finally, through social and economic development, reduce the presence of paramilitary organisations in the country, including the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), which is involved in drug trafficking. During the interview with David Jourdan (2023), we shared these points and he replied that this may well be so, but that such possibilities could also arise as a consequence of a political settlement that includes the removal of the sanctions. He added that the main reasons for Norway's peace diplomacy are the goals of preventing and reducing human suffering, as well as contributing to peaceful societies and stability.Peace diplomacy does not give rapid results (when it actually gives results), but Norway sees it as a policy consistent with its values, and as one whose long-term effects are sufficiently relevant as to justify investment in it.When it comes to image and reputation, Norway's approach on peace has been used as a public diplomacy branding tool, together with the country's natural environment and gender equality, to solve one of the image problems of small countries: invisibility.Indeed, discretion and a low profile do not necessarily mean invisibility, and as long as the right aspects of Norway's peace diplomacy are emphasised in a public diplomacy strategy —for example its role as a facilitator, an engaged partner, and good multilateralist— the discretion that peace diplomacy requires would not be jeopardised (Leonard and Small, 2003). Success in mediation of the Venezuelan conflict would, of course, be positive for Norway's image as a peace broker, although this constructed image is also enhanced through pertinent media coverage mentioning the Norwegian involvement during the Venezuelan peace process. This can be explained by NRC theory since the Norwegian image is constructed not only through success in a certain process but also through the mediating process itself. To give one example, the Google search "peace talks Venezuela Norway" offers almost 4.85 million results, while the Spanish search with "mediación de paz Venezuela Noruega" offers 1.28 million results. Moreover, when Norway uses the word "facilitation"2 it transfers responsibility for the results to the parties, implying that it has the role of supporting and accompanying them, but it will not be responsible if the parties decide that they do not want to continue with the process. This safeguard for Norway's image as a peace broker applies to the Venezuelan case.Political influence has also been identified as one of Norway's possible interests. As Matlary (2003) notes, access to key international actors can result from Norway's engagement in peace processes, including in the case of Venezuela, especially in a context of international energy insecurity, and political tensions due to the high-profile conflict between Russia and Ukraine. In my interview with David Jourdain (2023), "close dialogue with key international stakeholders" together with increased political capital were mentioned as benefits that Norway could reap by engaging in Venezuela. He also pointed out that one of the key features of this conflict is the importance of the U.S. as an actor with the capacity to contribute to the outcome of the peace process.The U.S. is now particularly concerned to find new energy suppliers, and ensuring political stability in Venezuela could provide international legitimacy for oil and gas transactions with its government. Giovanna de Michele, internationalist lecturer at the Central University of Venezuela, told VOA that the best way to extract oil from Venezuela would be through U.S. companies, but the sanctions would have to be eased if this was to happen (Ramírez Vargas & Alcalde 2023). Norway offers an internationally recognised platform for making this possible: the talks in Mexico. It could therefore be a key actor in helping to resolve the political crisis in Venezuela while also supporting an ally, which would contribute to its status as a reliable partner of the U.S. However, as Matlary notes, it is difficult to quantify or define the scope of the access Norway gleans from its peace policy.Finally, with regard to economic interests, there are currently no Norwegian state-owned companies operating in Venezuela, although they can be represented through the investments of the Norwegian National Pension Fund3 in foreign companies that do operate in the country, for example, some Colombian companies, among them Bancolombia, Banco Popular, Banco Davivienda, and Cementos Argos. And, at the beginning of 2023, Ecopetrol, which is financed by Norfund, asked the U.S. for permission to negotiate with the state-owned company PDVSA to explore gas imports from Venezuela to Colombia (Quesada 2023). Among Norwegian investments in the U.S. are Chevron and Occidental Petroleum Corp, and the U.S. has recently given permission to Chevron to negotiate with the PDVSA and, at the end of 2022, a United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) court found that Venezuela was liable for discriminatory conduct in its payment of dividends from an oil and gas venture and ordered Venezuela to pay US$105 million to a Barbadian subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corp (Ballantyne 2022). If an improved political situation in Venezuela increases the revenues of these companies, it could also be positive for Norwegian investments.It should be added that, until 2021, Statoil (later Equinor), the national oil company of Norway, was present in Venezuela where it invested more than one billion dollars between 1995 and 2013 and participated in the Sincor heavy crude oil project with Total and PDVSA. However, due to concerns about the workforce and practical difficulties, Equinor pulled out of the project and transferred its 9.67% participation to CVP, a subsidiary of PDVSA, although it did keep its 51% stake in the exploration license of block 4 on Plataforma Deltana off Cocuina(Øye Gjerde, n.d.). Accordingly, Equinor participation in Venezuela is currently on hold but a greater presence in Venezuela of Norwegian companies, in particular from the oil and gas sector is possible if the country's situation improves.To sum up, although economic links between Norway and Venezuela do exist, they would seem to be limited and not sufficient to explain Norway's participation as a facilitator in the Venezuelan peace process. 6. CONCLUSIONSThe core question of this study is why and how does Norway facilitate the Venezuela peace talks? The results suggest that, for Norway as a facilitator of the Venezuelan peace process, the main goals of mediation-as-foreign-policy are humanitarian, security (better understood as promoting stability in the region), projection of its image as a peaceful nation and a peacemaker, and of its status vis-à-vis key international actors (especially the U.S.).All these goals can be explained through the Holsti's theory of National Role Conceptions (NRC) and Norway's own role prescription as a small, democratic, and peaceful nation, which means it would promote these values through altruistic (idealist) and non-altruistic (realist) actions and perspectives.Interestingly, economic factors do not seem to play a major role as a mediation-as-foreign-policy objective. The economic ties between Norway and Venezuela are presently not significant and, thanks to the diversification of the investment portfolio of the Norwegian National Pension Fund, Venezuela only represents a very small part of Norwegian economic interests.It is therefore relevant to consider the importance of constructivist aspects such as national values and self-conception in shaping the foreign policy of small countries, despite the apparent predominance of realpolitik aspects in an international context of increasing competition. These constructivist aspects offer key information for understanding and explaining the behaviour of small countries and should not be overlooked.Besides, it is worth reflecting on the definition of a mediation success in real, and in mediation-as-foreign policy terms. In the real sense, mediation is successful when it produces long-term reconciliation between the parties, in the eyes of a domestic audience while, for an audience external to the conflict, mediation may be successful simply when a peace agreement between the parties is signed. Meanwhile, for the mediating country or its allies, a mediation is deemed effective when foreign policy objectives are achieved. The approach used by Norwegian mediators in the Venezuelan process is similar to that of previous peace processes. It starts with the organisation of secret meetings and then advances towards a more public and official format. However, some distinctive traits of this peace process have been (1) a somewhat more active role of Norway as a facilitator when compared to other peace processes, (2) the weighty influence of the U.S. in causing setbacks or advances in the negotiations , and (3) premature publicity of this process, when the parties have been too eager to share their views with the press and the public, which may have been an obstacle for achieving progress. Despite these challenges, as of November 2023, Norway has continued to honour its long-term commitment to achieving a peaceful solution to the Venezuelan conflict.This study has created a first timeline of the Norwegian involvement in the Venezuelan peace process by means of consulting information in primary and secondary sources and, when relevant, adding further details obtained in interviews with two experts. This timeline provides an overview of the main milestones of the peace process while highlighting Norway's role as a facilitating country. Possible reasons for its engagement in the Venezuelan peace process have been identified. At a tactical level, the moral and security elements seem to be a high priority for people working in the field. These actors have considerable expertise in conflict resolution and perform their duties diligently. At a more strategic and state-centred level, besides the moral and security components, attention is given to building political capital by means of offering an attractive image to international stakeholders, especially close allies like the U.S. This is, therefore, an excellent example of the importance of peace diplomacy as a soft power tool for a middle-level country like Norway.The limits of the study arise from the nature of an ongoing mediation process. Since silence sometimes carries more weight than words and as discretion is necessary for the process to move forward, only limited information could be directly obtained from relevant actors in the peace talks. In terms of Norway's interests in certain areas, the limits of qualitative methods have not allowed quantification of the importance of each of these interests. The aim of the interviews was to obtain in-depth information that could confirm that such interests exist, and to provide distinctive details that might enrich knowledge of this peace process, rather than quantifying the results. Finally, now that Norway's possible interests as a facilitator have been identified, future research could be addressed at quantifying the weight of each of them in Norway's peacebuilding policy over the last two decades. 7. ReferencesAggestam, Lisbeth. "Role Conceptions and the Politics of Identity in Foreign Policy". ARENA Center for European Studies Working Paper, vol. 99/8 (1999). 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"Idealism in international relations" in: Dowding, Keith (ed.) Encyclopedia of Power, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, p. 332-333.Notes:1- Originally consisting of 12 Latin American nations and formally created on 8 August 2017, the Lima Group is a multilateral body whose goal is to explore mechanisms for a peaceful solution to the political crisis in Venezuela and restoration of a democratic order (Government of Colombia 2017).2- In this study, I use the terms "mediation" and "facilitation" interchangeably. However, mediation normally involves a formal mandate from the parties of a conflict, covering involvement in both the substance and process of the negotiation, while a facilitator is less directive (Greminger 2007).3- The Norwegian National Pension Fund, the world's largest sovereign fund, has investments in over 9,000 companies in 70 countries (Oljefondet n.d.). Key words: Venezuela, Norway, national role conception, mediation, peacebuilding, foreign policy, conflict resolutionDOI: https://doi.org/10.24241/docCIDOB.2024.15/enE-ISSN: 2339-9570

Documents CIDOB: 15Winner of the Global Talent Award, launched by CIDOB and Banco Sabadell Foundation in the framework of Programa Talent Global.ABSTRACTThis study offers a comprehensive overview of the Norwegian involvement in the Venezuelan peace process as a facilitator of the peace talks between the Venezuelan government and the opposition. It explains what Norway does as a facilitator (the process), as well as how (approach) and why (characteristics of Norway as a suitable mediator, and possible interests), not only in terms of the characteristics making Norway a suitable facilitator, but also its interests and motivations. The main goal is to draw attention to the importance and the usefulness of soft power tools for the achievement of foreign policy objectives and, in particular, peace-making. The study concludes that, for Norway, mediation as foreign policy is, in general but also in the case of Venezuela, the result of a combination of idealist, value-oriented motivations (humanitarian reasons and international stability), and realist, non-altruistic interests (status and access) arising from its constructed national identity and role conception. 1. INTRODUCTIONSince the early 2010s, Venezuela has been embroiled in a grave economic, political, and humanitarian crisis resulting in institutional disarray that reached critical point in 2017. It was in this year that the constitutional order was broken after Decision 156 of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice in Venezuela, whereby this organ attributed to itself the functions of the National Assembly, the country's legislative organ. Deemed unconstitutional by the political parties with a majority in the National Assembly, this move led to mass protests. The government reacted by calling for a new constitution to be drafted by a newly created Constituent National Assembly which, in August 2017, granted itself powers to pass legislation, thus overriding the National Assembly (Bronstein & Cobb, 2017). This was not recognised by the National Assembly but, in 2018, the Constituent National Assembly went ahead and blocked the participation of the main opposition parties in the presidential elections that year. These elections were rejected by a broad sector of the international community, among them the European Union (EU) and the Lima Group.1From 2017, Norway, with a population of just 5.5 million, has been exploring possibilities in Venezuela for political dialogue between the government of Nicolás Maduro and the opposition, first through the Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution (NOREF), an independent foundation that receives funding from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), and later, after 2019, with direct state involvement. Norway has built an image as a peace broker with its success in processes like the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), and in the talks between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). But why did Norway decide to facilitate the peace talks in Venezuela? How does Norway approach peacebuilding in this conflict? This article aims to analyse the causes, process, approaches, and motivations for Norwegian mediation in Venezuela, in order to draw attention to the importance and the usefulness of soft power tools for the achievement of foreign policy objectives and, in particular, peace-making. I therefore explore the comprehensive role of Norway in the Venezuelan peace talks, the background, the process, and Norway's possible interests as a facilitator. I argue that,for Norway, mediation as foreign policy is, in general, but also in the case of Venezuela, the result of a combination of idealist, value-oriented motivations (humanitarian reasons and international stability), and realist, non-altruistic interests (status and access) arising from its constructed national identity and the way it perceives its role as a peace-making nation. As mentioned above, the Norwegian state became officially involved in the Venezuelan conflict in 2019. The domestic situation had come to a head on 23rd January when Juan Guaidó, leader of the opposition and president of the National Assembly, rejected the authority of Nicolás Maduro and declared himself acting president of Venezuela. However, the strategy failed when the military remained loyal to Maduro. Negotiation then became a last resort (NUPI 2020) and Norway began to facilitate negotiations between government and opposition, first in Oslo and then in Barbados, in 2019. These efforts led to further discussion between the parties through 2021 and 2022, in Mexico. In 2022, the war in Ukraine prompted changes in the positions regarding Venezuela of certain actors, notable among them the United States (U.S.) and the EU. As the Spanish Institute of Strategic Studies (Remacha, 2023) points out, U.S. concerns about energy security made it necessary to find a way of guaranteeing the international supply, and Venezuela was (and is) considered to be a strategic source. Contacts between the U.S. and Venezuela were made in 2022, and talks began about removing the sanctions imposed on the country. Given its economic situation, and the presidential elections due in 2024, Venezuela welcomed the rapprochement. If the sanctions were to be removed (at least partially), it was necessary to resume dialogue with the opposition, so in November 2022, negotiations recommenced in Mexico with Norway's mediation. Significant progress was made, and the release of previously frozen international funds was agreed upon (up to 3,000 million dollars earmarked mainly for public health, education, and food), as well as the lifting of some sanctions. Maduro's government is also aware that the 2024 elections should be held according to a model that respects democratic safeguards, with unrestricted participation by the opposition, so that results will be internationally recognised. Venezuela would then be able to resume relations with countries and regions like the U.S. and the EU, thus enabling international investment, particularly in the oil industry, and an improved economic situation (NUPI, 2020). Although the presidential crisis formally lasted until 5th January 2023 when Guaidó's acting presidency was abolished by the National Assembly, the political crisis with the opposition continues to the present day, in November 2023. 1.2. Research goals and objectivesThis study aims to explore the role of Norway as a facilitator in the Venezuelan peace talks, focusing on what it does (the process), how (approach), and why (characteristics of Norway as a suitable mediator, and possible interests). It seeks to demonstrate that, given Norway's national conception as a peacemaker, its strategy in Venezuela expresses a broad foreign policy endeavour that has humanitarian but also reputational and political motivations. More broadly, the importance of soft power tools for state actors to achieve their foreign policy objectives is discussed. Constructivism and Holsti's theory of National Role Conceptions (NRC) help to explain Norway's self-image as a peacemaker, while idealism and realism, together with Touval's "mediation as foreign policy" theory shed light on Norway's use of mediation as a foreign policy tool. Qualitative methods based on analysis of primary and secondary sources, complemented with semi-structured interviews with experts and officials of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have been used. 1.3. Relevance and justificationNorway is a small country in terms of population but one with a notable ability to influence international affairs thanks to soft power. One of ways it exercises its influence is its internationally recognised image as a peacemaker, evidenced through its involvement in several peace processes. Indeed, since 1993, Norway has been engaged in 11 different peace processes (Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2019) with some major successes but also others that were limited. The case of Norwegian facilitation of the Venezuelan peace talks is studied for two main reasons. First, is its relevance in terms of policy significance, as it is an ongoing process, which leads to questions about why Norway acts as a facilitator, and the possible interests it has in doing so, apart from the goal of peace itself. Second, is the practical reason of the author's knowledge of the three languages relevant for this research (English, Spanish, and Norwegian), which is a valuable asset in terms of good understanding of the information from primary and secondary sources written in the three languages. This is an advantage in the research, as it allows cross-checking of information, and offers a broader perspective on the topic. 2. NORWAY AS A PEACEBUILDING NATIONScholars offer several explanations of Norway's involvement in peace processes arising from international conflicts. The result of a pragmatic foreign policy, it combines idealist and realist elements in a seemingly contradictory policy which, in fact, accommodates different domestic interests and maintains inter-party foreign policy consensus (Riste, 2001; Ekengren, 2022).From a constructivist perspective, the notion of Norway as a nation for peace partly comes from its conception of its role as a small, rich, peaceful state, with a clear focus on human rights and humanitarian assistance (Leira et al., 2007). While it is true that the so-called value-oriented (idealist) diplomacy wasstrengthened, above all in the 1990s, with the increased involvement of Norway in several peace processes, its self-image as a peacebuilding nation has always been present (Leira, 2015). The Norwegian peace activist and later Foreign Affairs Minister, Halvdan Koht (1873-1965), argued in 1902 that, although the fact of its being a small state could limit its flexibility in foreign policy actions, Norway could and should secure its status by promoting peace and development. More than 80 years later, in 1989, Jan Egeland, who would become State Secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1990 to 1997, argued that a small, rich country like Norway could be more effective in promoting human rights and peace than old colonial powers or superpowers with their historical baggage and policies based on self-interest and dominance (Sørbø, 2018).Moreover, the notion of status, which is closely linked with the concept of identity, has been prominent in Norway since the nation's beginnings. Leira (2015) describes the pursuit of status as a peace-making nation in the 19th and early 20th century as a way of achieving independence (through moral authority), a means of saving money (as the policy for peace was cheaper than power politics), and as sound realpolitik for a small state. He also refers to the words of Ole Jacob Broch in 1864 when he argued that, when small states need to "engage in the strife of other states", they should do it decisively because, "for them, honour and prestige are even more important than for the greater powers" (Broch cited in Leira 2015, p.22).The role performance of Norway, or itsbehaviour with, and approach to foreign policy actions is, according to Gulbrandsen (2022), influenced by the logic of appropriateness (March & Olsen, 1998), dictated by the image the state has of itself, and constituting a basis for adopting a role in any specific context. In Holsti's view (1970), the main explanation for the role performance of a state arises from policy makers' conceptions of the role of the nation in a system (National Role Conception), but adoption of a role is also influenced by what he calls role prescriptions, which come from the external environment. In this case, if the Norwegian government and the Norwegian people have an image of Norway as a nation for peace, and if the external image they project in other countries is also that of a nation for peace, the logic of appropriateness and the role prescription will dictate that Norway will have to behave as a nation for peace, and thus engage in peacebuilding policy.For Skånland (2010) the Norwegian involvement in peace processes is the result of a discursive construction, amplified by the media, above all after 1993. Media coverage of the Norwegian involvement in the Middle East peace process gave a very positive picture of Norway in general, an image that was strengthened thanks to the perceived successes in the peace processes of Sri Lanka, Guatemala, and Mali. All this crystallised into three main discursive constructions: (1) the decisive significance of the Norwegian contribution for the outcome of peace processes, (2) the importance of peace promotion as a foreign policy tool, and (3) Norway's distinctive approach for peace promotion.Other authors emphasise Norway's peace engagement efforts from a more realist perspective and, in particular, as a policy instrument in its own right (Touval, 2003). Some, like Matlary (2002) argue that mediation is used as an institutionalised strategy for dealing with some of the challenges of being a small state, as well as for promoting Norway's interests in the international arena, and having some influence in international relations. As Stokke (2014) notes, although it has a small population, Norway has a disproportionate importance in other areas (fishing, oil and gas, shipping etc.), thus implying interests beyond its borders as well as influence in other domains because of this prominence. According to Matlary (2002), some Norwegian interestsidentified from a realpolitik standpoint are security (addressed through NATO), economic interests vis-à-vis the EU, access to political decision-making power in the EU and, outside the West, considerable economic interests in oil prices and oil export. Matlary, who collected data through a series of anonymous interviews with diplomats and politicians, alludes to the effects of value-oriented diplomacy in matters of matters and concludes that, apart from a good image and profile, what value-oriented diplomacy provides is access to other arenas where one needs the best possible entry. Her interviewees referred, above all, to access to the leaders of the U.S. Department of State through the policy of peace engagement, especially in the Middle East and, to a much lesser extent, to leaders of EU states. However, she says, it was difficult to collect specific insights into the effects of such access, a perspective shared by Stokke (2010, p.166) who argues that "the extent and manner in which recognition is translated into international influence is complex and may vary from one policy field to another and between different arenas of international relations. This means that it is notoriously difficult to detect and measure the direct benefits from peace engagement". Finally, another interesting perspective is that provided by Neumann (2011). For him, the peace and reconciliation efforts of medium and small countries are a means to maintain a system with which they are reasonably satisfied, because they are not as well equipped as bigger powers to deal with other (more violent) types of conflict resolution methods, and he refers specifically to the institutionalisation of peace and reconciliation efforts by Norway.To conclude, Norway's peacebuilding policy may be understood as apparently idealist (value-oriented diplomacy) and based on a self-image as a nation for peace, which includes both idealist (moral responsibility) and realist (influence in the international arena and security) motivations. Until now, there have been no major conflicts between those two angles (Stokke, 2014), but in an increasingly polarised world, it is becoming more and more difficult for Norway to maintain a balanced policy in peacebuilding processes. 3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKThis study draws on the theory of constructivism to explain Norway's national role conception and considers the notions of idealism and realism to explain mediation as its foreign policy. A theoretical framework based on such apparently antagonistic ideas is, perhaps, not very common but, as Barkin (2003) puts it, a constructivist epistemology and a classical realist theory are, in fact, compatible and, moreover, this kind of framework can be useful in International Relations (IR) theory, as it can specify the relationship between the study of power in IR and the study of IR as social constructions. Indeed, constructivism and perceptions can—and are—often applied to fulfil or justify realist objectives and policies.For the purposes of this study, I consider that mediation as foreign policy is a result of idealist (value-oriented) and realist (power) motivations arising from a constructed national identity and role conception.3.1. Constructivism and national role conceptionFor Barnett (2018), constructivism as an international relations social theory is "concerned about how to conceptualise the relationship between agents and structures, but it is not a substantive theory" (p.88). The basic premise is that the world is socially constructed, which means that "social reality is a product of human consciousness. Consciousness is created and constituted through knowledge that shapes meaning and categories of understanding and action; such knowledge and meanings can be institutionalised in social life; and this institutionalisation, in turn, shapes the construction of social reality" (p.88). These categories shape not only external reality but also its actors, which is an indicator of the importance of the social construction of interests and identity. For example, Norway's identity may shape its national interests, and one of those interests might be security, but the concept of security and how it can be achieved may be linked to Norway's identity.National Role Conceptions, a concept first developed by Holsti (1970), is defined as "the policymakers' own definitions of the general kinds of decisions, commitments, rules, and actions suitable to their state, and of the functions, if any, their state should perform [...] in the international system" (p. 245-246). These are, as mentioned in section 2, the main explanation for the role performance of a state, understood by Holsti as the "general policy behaviour of governments" (p. 245). Role performance is also influenced by what he calls role prescriptions, which come from the external environment and have, as some of their sources, system-wide values, the structure of the international system, and the traditions, rules and expectations of states expressed through various legal instruments (p. 246).The notion of national role conception is related to that of politics of identity, which, in Aggestam's words (1999), is a set of ideas that policymakers use to create a sense of solidarity and cohesion and thus to legitimise general trust in a nation's foreign policy. She argues that speeches sometimes reveal subjective we-feelings of a cultural community related to territory, myths, rituals, institutions, and customs, and she refers to the "institutionalisation" of national identity, which makes identity constructions relatively resistant to change. Moreover, citing March & Olsen (1998), she indicates that certain practices and rules of behaviour that legitimise and explain specific identity constructions are reinforced by such institutionalisation.The starting point of the present study is, therefore, the idea that Norway's national role conception is that of a small, rich, peaceful, democratic state, whose official discourse in peace engagement, especially since the 1990s, emphasises its altruistic contribution as a "peaceful nation that has the values, competences and economic resources" for such an endeavour, but whose work is also "beneficial for Norway's own interests" (Stokke, 2014, p.8).3.2. Idealism, realism, and mediation as foreign policyThere is no generally accepted definition of idealism because there is no settled ontology of the term but, according to Wilson (2012), it generally refers to any goal, idea, or practice that is considered impractical from a state perspective, for example the prohibition and disarmament of nuclear weapons, or global eradication of poverty. In IR it is normally used in both the broad and narrow senses. Broadly speaking, idealism seeks to transcend anarchy to create a more harmonious world order while, in the narrow sense, it is a doctrine tied to the inter-war period (1919-1939) and seen as emphasising the growing interdependence of mankind. I shall focus on the first meaning, which refers to "an approach to international politics that seeks to advance certain ideals or moral goals, for example, making the world a more peaceful or just place" (Wilson, 2019).Realism is a substantive theory of IR that considers states to be the main actors in the international arena, and mainly concerned with the pursuit of their own national interests, security, and struggle for power. Realists view the international arena as a sphere without justice, and with active or potential conflict among its members. They show scepticism about the relevance of ethical norms (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017). This theory has a variety of ramifications but in this study I consider, first and foremost, classical realism because, although idealism is usually heavily criticised by realists, according to Barkin (2003), classical realism perceives the art of international politics as "the practical balancing of the demands of power on the one hand and morality on the other—a dialectic between power and morality [...]. Idealism, for the classical realist, is necessary to inform our actions and underlie our interests in the pursuit of international politics, but realism will always remain a necessary part of relations among states" (p.333). Also relevant is the perspective of neoclassical realism because, while classical realism focuses on the system-level factors, neoclassical realism considers domestic-level factors as variables that can shape foreign policy, which is highly pertinent if NRC theory is used to explain Norway's behaviour in the international arena. Neoclassical realism considers that "objective reality exists, but decision making is impaired by uncertainty and the complexity of the environment" (Rathbun, 2008, p.296).According to Touval (2003), mediation as foreign policy needs to be understood as a policy instrument, as distinct from mediation theory. He argues that it derives from the mediator's perception of the international system, its foreign policy objectives and strategies, and domestic needs. I would also argue that it stems from the mediator's own national role conception and self-perception. Touval (2003) considers that ending a conflict is no longer the main concern of the mediating state, but only a part of a broadly conceived foreign policy as the mediation is also shaped by affairs that are external to the conflict. He highlights three issues arising from a state's international and domestic concerns: (1) mediation is perceived by the public and the officials engaged in it as a moral obligation, which is seldom criticised; (2) foreign and domestic motivations, apart from being an incentive for states to engage in mediation, also shape their strategies and tactics of the mediation; (3) the mediation is evaluated not only in terms of settlement of a dispute, but also the primary goals motivating the mediation. Beriker (2017) offers an expanded perspective of Touval's work, arguing that once mediation is proven to be a viable foreign policy tool, engaging in mediation enables medium-sized powers to create a political space that otherwise would not be available. 4. METHODOLOGYThis study is both descriptive and explanatory, as it inquires more deeply into the events as well as exploring why and how Norway became involved in the Venezuela peace process from 2017 to May 2023. In a deductive approach, existing theories —NRC, mediation as foreign policy, idealism, and realism— are drawn on to explain Norway's behaviour in its peacebuilding policy. The epistemology used is empiricism, since the focus is explanation rather than interpretation, and the ontology is pragmatist because, while the world is understood as existing independently from social actors, the influence of these actors to shape social realities should also be taken into account, together with the fact that, in some cases, this may affect realities existing independently of them.The methods are qualitative, as information provided with quantitative methods would be too superficial for a study that seeks to determine the existence and the characteristics of Norway's engagement in the Venezuelan peace process. The analysis is primarily based on a range of online primary and secondary sources, including government reports, memorandums of understanding, recorded interviews, articles, and academic publications. I consulted these sources, first, for better understanding of the issues and to organise this material around the research question, as well as to identify possible gaps of knowledge. I then conducted semi-structured interviews, with an official from the Norwegian MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and a Norwegian academic, to fill some of the previously identified knowledge gaps, to record their perceptions, and to triangulate the documentary information thus gathered.The first interview, conducted by videoconference on 2 August 2023, was with Professor Benedicte Bull, from the University of Oslo and, inter alia, president of the Nordic Institute for Latin American Studies, whose research has been focused on Venezuela in recent years. The second was with David C. Jourdan, who coordinates the Norwegian MFA's facilitation team in the Venezuelan peace process. This interview was conducted in Oslo on 8 August 2023. Both Bull and Jourdan have given their consent to use their names in the present study. NOREF was also contacted but stated that it could not give interviews on the Venezuelan peace process. 5. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION5.1. Norwegian involvement in the Venezuelan peace processNo official documentary information about the specific manner Norway engaged in the Venezuela conflict during 2017 and 2018 has been found, apart from the mere fact stated in the NOREF website that it was engaged in talks on the conflict in those years. According to its strategic plan 2019-2023, NOREF is a "non-state actor that is able to complement formal Norwegian peacemaking efforts [... and] build directly on the Norwegian tradition of informal conflict resolution". This makes it possible "to support formal peace processes (track I), and informal back-channel conflict diplomacy (track 1.5 and 2)" (NOREF, 2019). This institution has a permanent staff of professionals, experts in conflict resolution, and is governed by a board whose director is appointed by the Norwegian MFA, and whose members come, in general, from different areas of the public sector. In the interview with David C. Jourdan of the Norwegian MFA (2023), he confirmed that NOREF's engagement consists of track 2 approaches. Moreover, he stressed that, although NOREF receives public funds and works closely with the Norwegian state, it is a separate, independent institution. Norway's involvement in the peace process after 2019, when it became public, is described in some detail below. 2019: the first official talksAccording to the Norwegian MFA (2023), Norway has been involved in Venezuela since 2018. However, it was only in May 2019 that talks between the Venezuelan parties, facilitated by Norway, first became public. In this early stage, the negotiations between the delegations of Nicolás Maduro and Juan Guaidó lasted until August 2019, and although significant progress was made, no agreements for solving the political conflict were reached. However, the Norwegian MFA (2023) stresses that these negotiations were a stepping-stone for further talks between the parties, which signed a collaboration agreement in June 2020, with the objective of using frozen funds in the U.S. for a joint response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with support from the Pan American Health Organisation. Several newspaper articles describing the negotiations during that year provide additional information that has been used in this study.In May 2019, Juan Guaidó sent a delegation to Oslo to participate in exploratory talks with representatives of Maduro's government to try to find a solution to the political crisis the country had faced since Guaidó declared himself acting president of Venezuela at the beginning of that year (NRK, 2019a), information that was confirmed by Jorge Valero, Venezuela's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, and the UN spokesperson in New York, Stephane Dujarric. The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) reported the talks for the first time on 15 May but, according to an anonymous source, this was the second time that the parties had been in Oslo, and negotiations had previously been taking place in Cuba.Shortly afterwards, on the night between 16 and 17 May, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a press release confirming that there had been contacts between key political actors in Venezuela as a part of an exploratory phase aiming to find a solution to the country's situation. The Maduro government representatives present at the talks were Héctor Rodríguez, governor of the province of Miranda, and Jorge Rodríguez, minister of Communication. The opposition representatives were Gerardo Blyde, member of parliament, and Fernando Martínez Mattola, who had been minister during the government of President Carlos Andrés Pérez.In the last week of May 2019, the Norwegian minister of Foreign Affairs confirmed that the parties would travel again to Oslo during the following week to continue with the process (NRK, 2019b). Almost at the same time, Juan Guaidó insisted that the meetings in Oslo were not part of a dialogue or negotiation, but a mediation in Norway (El Nacional, 2019). According to Voice of America/Voz de América (VOA) (2019a), Nicolás Maduro appeared a few days later on the Venezuelan public TV channel after the opposition declared that the conversations in Oslo that week had ended on 29 May without any agreement being reached. Maduro stated that conversations had been taking place in secret during the three previous months, that he was proud of his delegation, and that dialogue with the opposition had been constructive. Moreover, he insisted on his wish to find a peaceful solution for Venezuela. Indeed, VOA pointed out that Dag Nylander, a Norwegian diplomat who would become chief facilitator of the Venezuelan peace process, had been travelling to Caracas and meeting with the political actors involved in the crisis since January 2019.The peace talks resumed one month later in Barbados. On 11 July 2019, after three days of conversations, Norway announced that the negotiations would continue (Reuters, 2019). Yet, only a few weeks later, the Maduro government withdrew from the talks when the U.S. president, Donald Trump, announced his decision to block U.S. citizens from engaging in business in Venezuela and to freeze the country's assets in the U.S. According to the Venezuelan government, this had been instigated by Juan Guaidó, while the opposition accused the government of reneging on its commitment to dialogue. Norway's facilitator, Dag Nylander, took note that the planned meetings would not take place and emphasised Norway's role as a facilitator acting at the request of the parties and planning the meetings according to their availability. He added that the facilitation process would continue as long as the parties wished, and provided that there was a realistic position on a solution in the best interests of the Venezuelan people (VG, 2019).According to Bull (2023), Norway, as the facilitating country, was displeased when the talks went public in May, believing that this was premature and that it would complicate the peace process. She also stresses that the Trump administration had no clear strategy for ending the conflict and that, when the U.S. sanctions were announced, there had not been any proper coordination with Norway. She also notes that mentions of the U.S. seem to refer to a single homogeneous actor, when the reality is that there are many actors involved, among them the Pentagon and the Department of State, and these actors may work in different directions, sometimes disrupting a given policy. The Norwegian MFA (2023) confirms it was not aware of the U.S. sanctions that were announced in early August 2019. Both parties and facilitator were taken by surprise.2021: The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding and negotiation rounds in MexicoA year and a half later, in March 2021, new exploratory talks began after the Biden administration's position on Venezuela allowed the parties to negotiate a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which led to the launch of a new negotiation process, starting in August that year. On 5 August, the Mexican President, Manuel López Obrador confirmed that Mexico would host talks between the government of Venezuela and the opposition (Reuters, 2021) and, a few days later, the Norwegian government confirmed its involvement with a tweet (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2021a). The new negotiation process was launched in Mexico City on 13 August, with Dag Nylander as chief facilitator, Jorge Rodríguez representing the Venezuelan (Maduro's) government, and Gerardo Blyde representing the Unitary Platform (the opposition). A MoU —which I refer to in more detail in section 5.3— was released, defining the objective, agenda, method, and composition of the negotiation team. The Norwegian minister of Foreign Affairs, Ine Eriksen Søreide, declared in a press note that the parties were ready to negotiate constructively and that, in the process, they would consult members of civil society as well as political actors. She also noted that there was mutual agreement on the sensitive nature of the negotiations, which was necessary for giving the parties space to make progress (Norwegian MFA 2021b).A second round of negotiations took place at the beginning of September 2021. The parties released a joint statement reporting that two agreements had been reached, the first being to act jointly in the claim of Venezuelan sovereignty over Guyana Esequiba, and the second, a "partial agreement on the social protection of the Venezuelan people". The parties conveyed that the points to be addressed in the following round of negotiations would be "respect for the Constitutional Rule of Law", protection of the national economy, and measures for the social protection of the Venezuelan people.Between the second and the third rounds of negotiation, Erna Solberg, the Norwegian Prime Minister, spoke at the UN General Assembly on 21 September, referring to Venezuela as a country where human right violations were occurring. Her comment was criticised by Dag Nylander as it could, he said, damage the credibility of Norway's role. In a tweet on 25 September, the MFA reaffirmed its commitment as an impartial facilitator in the negotiations and declared that the statement in the UN should not be interpreted as being inconsistent with that (NRK, 2021). The Venezuelan government responded to this diplomatic hitch with a slight delay in proceedings when its representatives arrived one day late at the negotiation round scheduled in Mexico from 24 to 27 September, but which finally took place after 25 September (Euronews, 2021).After this third round of negotiations, the parties released a new joint statement, focused this time on the issue of inclusion and, specifically, on the need for a gender focus in the negotiations, identification of inclusive consultation mechanisms for political and social actors, and condemnation of xenophobic attacks on Venezuelan migrants that had recently occurred in Chile. According to an article by Diego Santander in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo (2021), this third round was so fraught with problems that no specific agreements were reached. Maduro's delegation insisted on its plans to include Alex Saab in the negotiation. Saab, a Venezuelan businessman, was accused of being Maduro's front man, and a key figure in the international economic and financial activities to circumvent the U.S. economic sanctions against his government. However, Saab had been arrested for money laundering in June 2020 in Cabo Verde and was extradited to the U.S. on the weekend of October 16.Negotiations, set for 17 October, were suspended on 16 October when the Maduro government decided not to participate in the next round of negotiations, because of Saab's extradition, which Jorge Rodríguez referred to as a "kidnapping" as it had been carried out "without a warrant and without due process" and accused the U.S. of trying to prevent the dialogue (Gilbert, 2021). The Norwegian government then tweeted that it was still convinced that the negotiations were the only solution for Venezuela, and that it would keep working to encourage the parties to continue (Norwegian MFA, 2021c). In Bull's opinion (2023), while the U.S. system may have its faults, the legal proceedings are independent from political powers so, on that occasion, there was little that U.S. politicians could do to stop the extradition.2022 — 2023: talks after the beginning of the war in UkraineIn March 2022, a new chapter of the dialogue began after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A U.S. delegation formed by members of the Department of State visited Caracas to meet with the Venezuelan government and discuss an eventual isolation of Vladimir Putin. Some analysts also indicated that Venezuela was seen as a possible alternative oil supplier if the U.S. opted to restrict oil exports from Russia, which meant that removal of the sanctions on Venezuela could be considered (VOA, 2022a). Indeed, in May 2022, the U.S. announced that economic sanctions against Venezuela would be eased as a gesture in favour of reactivating the dialogues and also allowing the U.S. company Chevron to negotiate potential future activities with the state-owned oil and natural gas company PDVSA (Agobian, 2022). According to the Norwegian MFA (2023), these actions were a catalyst for the reactivation of the negotiations.Immediately after the announcement, Jorge Rodríguez and Gerardo Blyde met to discuss renewal of the talks (Ocando Alex, 2022a) but, by the end of May, according to Reuters, the Venezuelan government had demanded the withdrawal of Norway as a facilitator, and the presence of Russia (formally an accompanying country in the negotiations after 2021) as conditions for reactivating the negotiations. However, convinced that the Norwegians were their only guarantee for a successful process, the opposition disagreed (Oré, 2022). Bull (2023) specifies that the stance of the Venezuelan government might have been because it saw Norway as taking an excessively "pro-allies" position after the start of the war in Ukraine. She adds that Norway prefers to involve Russia and other big powers in the negotiations rather than excluding them, as they would provide legitimacy to the Mexico talks as the only acceptable platform for solving the Venezuelan political crisis. When interviewed, David C. Jourdan of the Norwegian MFA (2023), made it clear that Norway was never asked to relinquish its role as facilitator. Management of the process resides with the parties, which have remained committed to the MoU that names Norway as the facilitating country.On 21 and 22 June 2022, the Norwegian government held the Oslo Forum, an annual retreat focused on conflict mediation and peace processes. Around 100 conflict mediators, experts, peace process actors, and high-level decision makers from around the world gathered at Losby Gods Manor with the goal of sharing their experience on conflict resolution and peace diplomacy (Norwegian MFA, 2022). Among the peace process actors who attended the Oslo Forum were Jorge Rodríguez and Gerardo Blyde. A Norwegian source told VOA (2022b) that it was "probable" that the conversations would be initiated again, but "not immediately".On 14 September 2022, a group of 18 countries from the Americas and Europe agreed to call upon Maduro and the opposition to urge a resumption of the negotiations in Mexico (Ocando Alex, 2022b).Official negotiations began again on 26 November 2022. This time, a joint statement was issued indicating that the main agenda of the meeting would be social protection of the people. A partial agreement was reached, in which the measures agreed upon were: 1) creation of an organism to implement specific actions and programmes for the social protection of the Venezuelan people (Mesa Nacional de Atención Social, or MNAS); 2) creation of an organism auxiliary to the MNAS to evaluate its processes and the effects of implementation of the measurements adopted; 3) definition of the social areas which, requiring the most urgent attention, needed to be addressed through specific programmes, in particular the public health system, the national electrical system, development of the World Food Programme, educational infrastructure, and rebuilding of the infrastructure damaged as a consequence of the torrential rains in the latter half of 2022; 4) requesting from the UN support for the design and creation of a fund for social support of the Venezuelan people; 5) identification of frozen assets belonging to the Venezuelan state that might be progressively accessed and incorporated into this fund; 6) creation of a commission to assess and verify implementation of the agreement.After this meeting, the negotiations stalled again when the Venezuelan government accused the opposition of not complying with the agreement reached but, mainly and above all, because the frozen US$3,000 million that were to be incorporated into the Fund for the Social Protection of the Venezuelan People had not yet been released (August 2023). According to Maduro, this was a condition sine qua non for resuming the talks. The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, organised a conference on 25 April 2023 in Bogotá, with representatives from numerous countries to discuss the Venezuelan situation. The shared positions of the Venezuelan government and the opposition were explained to the international community, in particular regarding the removal of sanctions, free elections, and reactivation of the peace talks. One of the shared positions for renewal of the talks was that of establishing the Fund for the Social Protection of the Venezuelan People (Ramírez Vargas & Alcalde, 2023). The message that came out of the Venezuela Conference of Bogotá was very clear: the UN trust fund for Venezuela should be set up as swiftly as possible. According to a Reuters report by Spetalnik, Sequera and Armas (2023), on 19 May the Biden administration notified the UN that the money could operate within the U.S. financial system, and that there would be no risk of creditors seizing it to repay the outstanding Venezuelan debt. Accordingly, the UN-administered fund could have been operative at the end of May 2023. However, the decision to establish the trust fund ultimately lies with the UN Secretariat in New York and some insiders allude to the complexity of the process involved and stress that establishing the fund depends on a number of factors. As of late August 2023, it had not been established by the UN. 5.2. Norway's distinctive approach to peace diplomacyIn an interview for the Centre of Humanitarian Dialogue, when asked about the distinctive approach of Norwegian diplomacy in international conflicts, Dag Nylander (2020) identified four main elements: (a) collaboration with Norwegian and international NGOs, (b) low-key diplomacy, (c) long-term commitment, and (d) the ability to make quick decisions.[5] In this section, these four elements will be briefly discussed.Norway's distinctive approach to its engagement in peace processes and with non-state actors was defined after the decentralisation of its foreign policy in the early 1990s. Humanitarian assistance and development policies called for closer cooperation between the Norwegian MFA and non-governmental actors and, according to Lehti (2014), this approach was extended to the area of peace-making. In the 1990s the Ministry responded positively to proposals and initiatives from various NGOs and well-connected individuals with regard to conflictive areas. The range of actors involved in peace-making was broadened, and Norway was then able to act beyond the bounds of government-centred diplomacy with a distinctive, more informal approach to peace diplomacy. Ann Kelleher and James Taulbe (2006) refer to this approach as "Track I½ Diplomacy", understanding Track I diplomacy as that with official representatives of governments and Track II diplomacy as that involving unofficial representatives and sectors of the civil society. An important feature of the collaboration between the state, NGOs and research institutions is that it is extensively funded by the state (Bandarage, 2011). Indeed, some Norwegian NGOs receive more than 90% of their funding from the state which, in Kelleher's view (2006), almost makes them quasi-governmental organisations.As for low-key diplomacy, Nylander (2020) affirms that activities pertaining to peace diplomacy rarely appear in the news, and that they are discreet and unnoticed, often with the involvement of low-level and mid-level diplomats, an approach that allows flexibility in seeking opportunities and in dealing with problems with relative freedom.Norway's long-term commitment to peace diplomacy is based on a broad political consensus for the promotion of peace and reconciliation. Hence, changes of government will not influence the country's engagement in any given conflict. According to the MFA (2000), the goal is not only ending violence but also support for economic, social, and political processes that lead to durable liberal peace in the country concerned.Finally, the ability of Norwegian diplomats to make quick decisions stems from the smallness of the country, not only in terms of population but also social distance. Dag Nylander (2020) mentions that the distance between a diplomat in the field and the ministry of Foreign Affairs is very short, and that it takes just a quick phone call or a text message, sometimes directly to the Minister, to obtain any clearance that may be needed. 5.3 Norwegian approach to facilitation the Venezuelan peace processNorway's approach to facilitation in Venezuela is consistent with its work in other peace processes. It began with secret talks between the parties (low-key diplomacy) and then, having advanced towards a more public and official format, it was formalised with the MoU signed in Mexico on 13 August 2021. In the MoU, the parties defined the agenda and methods for the talks. David Jourdan of the Norwegian MFA (2023) highlighted the importance of this Memorandum, which contains not only the agenda and format for the negotiations, but also a shared vision of the process and the country.As for the method, it is important to mention that it is based on a "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" principle (comprehensive approach), although partial agreements can be reached if the parties consider that a subject has been sufficiently discussed and urgent action is required. This was the case with the two partial agreements on the Guyana Esequiba, and Social Protection of the Venezuelan people signed at the end of the talks in Mexico. This approach has its advantages, such as ensuring "big picture" negotiation, but it also comes with the risk the parties can renege anytime on anything they have agreed to. It was first used in other peace processes including Britain-Ireland in 1995, Palestine-Israel, and in Cyprus and Colombia. The Norwegian MFA (2023) emphasises that understanding the needs of the parties and ensuring that they are in charge of the process, has been key to making progress throughout the negotiations. The Venezuelan conflict is political in nature and requires political solutions, and the negotiation process provides a confidential space where the two parties have an opportunity to reconcile their interests. David Jourdan, sharing the MFA's approach to the political process, points out that Norway has probably been a more active facilitator in the Venezuelan negotiations than in other peace processes.An essential point of the MoU is participation, as it establishes mechanisms of consultation for political and social actors. The aim is for the process to be as inclusive and legitimate as possible. However, there is little information available as to whether this is actually the case and David Jourdan (2023) admits that it is not yet possible to speak of results in this area.Moreover, it should be noted that the Norwegian approach to facilitation, based on discretion and confidentiality, is one thing and how the parties actually behave is quite another matter. On more than one occasion, as can be seen in several documents and declarations, the Norwegian government has emphasised the need for the parties to be careful with their public declarations. In an interview with El País in February 2023, Anniken Huitfeldt, Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, wryly acknowledges an anecdote sometimes repeated by high-profile Venezuelan politicians, according to which politicians will normally control themselves in public but, in private, tell someone else what they really think but, in Venezuela, the opposite occurs: what is said in private becomes amplified in front of a microphone (Lafuente 2023). Vicente Díaz, former director of the Venezuelan National Electoral Council, who participated in the talks held in the Dominican Republic, Oslo, and Barbados says that, since the process in Mexico was "very public" (as occurred in the Dominican Republic), it created difficulties for the parties, since national and international expectations were generated, which meant that more attention was given to audiences than to the talks (openDemocracy 2022). 5.4 Norwegian interests in VenezuelaIn this section and in keeping with the theoretical framework described above, I discuss four possible reasons for Norway's mediation in the Venezuelan conflict: (a) peace and stability (value-oriented diplomacy), (b) reputation, (c) political interests, and (d) economic interests.Value-oriented diplomacy focused on peace promotion makes sense for Norway, a country whose identity as a peaceful country and peace broker has existed at least since the late 19th century. Those values are so widely embedded that a broad political consensus exists among the population over a peace promotion policy, supported institutionally and by an extensive network of non-state actors coordinated by the state. Norway's constructed identity as a peace broker (especially intensified since the 1990s) means that the country acts as such. Moreover, promotion of such values makes even more sense when security has become globalised, and when a conflict in a faraway country can have humanitarian, political, economic, and ecological consequences in distant parts of the world. In this sense, value-oriented diplomacy may acquire realist motivations although, according to Bull (2023), this is discourse that appeared, above all from the 1980s, to justify Norway's involvement in peace processes. One of its proponents was the diplomat and former Labour Party politician, Jan Egeland.Ensuring peace and stability in Venezuela could, for example, (1) help to mitigate the external displacement crisis, which mainly affects neighbouring countries like Colombia and Ecuador as well as the U.S. and others in Europe, with all the humanitarian and economic consequences for those receiving refugees; (2) ensure Venezuela's participation, as a democratic state, in international organisations, thus promoting democratic values and human rights; (3) promote social and economic development in the country, which would create value for its nationals as well as attracting international investment and; (4) finally, through social and economic development, reduce the presence of paramilitary organisations in the country, including the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), which is involved in drug trafficking. During the interview with David Jourdan (2023), we shared these points and he replied that this may well be so, but that such possibilities could also arise as a consequence of a political settlement that includes the removal of the sanctions. He added that the main reasons for Norway's peace diplomacy are the goals of preventing and reducing human suffering, as well as contributing to peaceful societies and stability.Peace diplomacy does not give rapid results (when it actually gives results), but Norway sees it as a policy consistent with its values, and as one whose long-term effects are sufficiently relevant as to justify investment in it.When it comes to image and reputation, Norway's approach on peace has been used as a public diplomacy branding tool, together with the country's natural environment and gender equality, to solve one of the image problems of small countries: invisibility.Indeed, discretion and a low profile do not necessarily mean invisibility, and as long as the right aspects of Norway's peace diplomacy are emphasised in a public diplomacy strategy —for example its role as a facilitator, an engaged partner, and good multilateralist— the discretion that peace diplomacy requires would not be jeopardised (Leonard and Small, 2003). Success in mediation of the Venezuelan conflict would, of course, be positive for Norway's image as a peace broker, although this constructed image is also enhanced through pertinent media coverage mentioning the Norwegian involvement during the Venezuelan peace process. This can be explained by NRC theory since the Norwegian image is constructed not only through success in a certain process but also through the mediating process itself. To give one example, the Google search "peace talks Venezuela Norway" offers almost 4.85 million results, while the Spanish search with "mediación de paz Venezuela Noruega" offers 1.28 million results. Moreover, when Norway uses the word "facilitation"2 it transfers responsibility for the results to the parties, implying that it has the role of supporting and accompanying them, but it will not be responsible if the parties decide that they do not want to continue with the process. This safeguard for Norway's image as a peace broker applies to the Venezuelan case.Political influence has also been identified as one of Norway's possible interests. As Matlary (2003) notes, access to key international actors can result from Norway's engagement in peace processes, including in the case of Venezuela, especially in a context of international energy insecurity, and political tensions due to the high-profile conflict between Russia and Ukraine. In my interview with David Jourdain (2023), "close dialogue with key international stakeholders" together with increased political capital were mentioned as benefits that Norway could reap by engaging in Venezuela. He also pointed out that one of the key features of this conflict is the importance of the U.S. as an actor with the capacity to contribute to the outcome of the peace process.The U.S. is now particularly concerned to find new energy suppliers, and ensuring political stability in Venezuela could provide international legitimacy for oil and gas transactions with its government. Giovanna de Michele, internationalist lecturer at the Central University of Venezuela, told VOA that the best way to extract oil from Venezuela would be through U.S. companies, but the sanctions would have to be eased if this was to happen (Ramírez Vargas & Alcalde 2023). Norway offers an internationally recognised platform for making this possible: the talks in Mexico. It could therefore be a key actor in helping to resolve the political crisis in Venezuela while also supporting an ally, which would contribute to its status as a reliable partner of the U.S. However, as Matlary notes, it is difficult to quantify or define the scope of the access Norway gleans from its peace policy.Finally, with regard to economic interests, there are currently no Norwegian state-owned companies operating in Venezuela, although they can be represented through the investments of the Norwegian National Pension Fund3 in foreign companies that do operate in the country, for example, some Colombian companies, among them Bancolombia, Banco Popular, Banco Davivienda, and Cementos Argos. And, at the beginning of 2023, Ecopetrol, which is financed by Norfund, asked the U.S. for permission to negotiate with the state-owned company PDVSA to explore gas imports from Venezuela to Colombia (Quesada 2023). Among Norwegian investments in the U.S. are Chevron and Occidental Petroleum Corp, and the U.S. has recently given permission to Chevron to negotiate with the PDVSA and, at the end of 2022, a United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) court found that Venezuela was liable for discriminatory conduct in its payment of dividends from an oil and gas venture and ordered Venezuela to pay US$105 million to a Barbadian subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corp (Ballantyne 2022). If an improved political situation in Venezuela increases the revenues of these companies, it could also be positive for Norwegian investments.It should be added that, until 2021, Statoil (later Equinor), the national oil company of Norway, was present in Venezuela where it invested more than one billion dollars between 1995 and 2013 and participated in the Sincor heavy crude oil project with Total and PDVSA. However, due to concerns about the workforce and practical difficulties, Equinor pulled out of the project and transferred its 9.67% participation to CVP, a subsidiary of PDVSA, although it did keep its 51% stake in the exploration license of block 4 on Plataforma Deltana off Cocuina(Øye Gjerde, n.d.). Accordingly, Equinor participation in Venezuela is currently on hold but a greater presence in Venezuela of Norwegian companies, in particular from the oil and gas sector is possible if the country's situation improves.To sum up, although economic links between Norway and Venezuela do exist, they would seem to be limited and not sufficient to explain Norway's participation as a facilitator in the Venezuelan peace process. 6. CONCLUSIONSThe core question of this study is why and how does Norway facilitate the Venezuela peace talks? The results suggest that, for Norway as a facilitator of the Venezuelan peace process, the main goals of mediation-as-foreign-policy are humanitarian, security (better understood as promoting stability in the region), projection of its image as a peaceful nation and a peacemaker, and of its status vis-à-vis key international actors (especially the U.S.).All these goals can be explained through the Holsti's theory of National Role Conceptions (NRC) and Norway's own role prescription as a small, democratic, and peaceful nation, which means it would promote these values through altruistic (idealist) and non-altruistic (realist) actions and perspectives.Interestingly, economic factors do not seem to play a major role as a mediation-as-foreign-policy objective. The economic ties between Norway and Venezuela are presently not significant and, thanks to the diversification of the investment portfolio of the Norwegian National Pension Fund, Venezuela only represents a very small part of Norwegian economic interests.It is therefore relevant to consider the importance of constructivist aspects such as national values and self-conception in shaping the foreign policy of small countries, despite the apparent predominance of realpolitik aspects in an international context of increasing competition. These constructivist aspects offer key information for understanding and explaining the behaviour of small countries and should not be overlooked.Besides, it is worth reflecting on the definition of a mediation success in real, and in mediation-as-foreign policy terms. In the real sense, mediation is successful when it produces long-term reconciliation between the parties, in the eyes of a domestic audience while, for an audience external to the conflict, mediation may be successful simply when a peace agreement between the parties is signed. Meanwhile, for the mediating country or its allies, a mediation is deemed effective when foreign policy objectives are achieved. The approach used by Norwegian mediators in the Venezuelan process is similar to that of previous peace processes. It starts with the organisation of secret meetings and then advances towards a more public and official format. However, some distinctive traits of this peace process have been (1) a somewhat more active role of Norway as a facilitator when compared to other peace processes, (2) the weighty influence of the U.S. in causing setbacks or advances in the negotiations , and (3) premature publicity of this process, when the parties have been too eager to share their views with the press and the public, which may have been an obstacle for achieving progress. Despite these challenges, as of November 2023, Norway has continued to honour its long-term commitment to achieving a peaceful solution to the Venezuelan conflict.This study has created a first timeline of the Norwegian involvement in the Venezuelan peace process by means of consulting information in primary and secondary sources and, when relevant, adding further details obtained in interviews with two experts. This timeline provides an overview of the main milestones of the peace process while highlighting Norway's role as a facilitating country. Possible reasons for its engagement in the Venezuelan peace process have been identified. At a tactical level, the moral and security elements seem to be a high priority for people working in the field. These actors have considerable expertise in conflict resolution and perform their duties diligently. At a more strategic and state-centred level, besides the moral and security components, attention is given to building political capital by means of offering an attractive image to international stakeholders, especially close allies like the U.S. This is, therefore, an excellent example of the importance of peace diplomacy as a soft power tool for a middle-level country like Norway.The limits of the study arise from the nature of an ongoing mediation process. Since silence sometimes carries more weight than words and as discretion is necessary for the process to move forward, only limited information could be directly obtained from relevant actors in the peace talks. In terms of Norway's interests in certain areas, the limits of qualitative methods have not allowed quantification of the importance of each of these interests. The aim of the interviews was to obtain in-depth information that could confirm that such interests exist, and to provide distinctive details that might enrich knowledge of this peace process, rather than quantifying the results. Finally, now that Norway's possible interests as a facilitator have been identified, future research could be addressed at quantifying the weight of each of them in Norway's peacebuilding policy over the last two decades. 7. ReferencesAggestam, Lisbeth. "Role Conceptions and the Politics of Identity in Foreign Policy". ARENA Center for European Studies Working Paper, vol. 99/8 (1999). 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Open Democracy, (23 June 2022), (on-line) [Date accessed 15.06.2023]: https://www.opendemocracy.net/es/pese-seis-procesos-dialogo-no-hay-salida-politica/ Oré, Diego. "Venezuela opposes Norway as facilitator for political talks with opposition". Reuters, (25 May 2022), (on-line) [Date accessed 18.05.2023]: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuela-opposes-norway-facilitator-political-talks-with-opposition-2022-05-25/ Øye Gjerde, Kristin. "24 years with Venezuelan oil sands". Industriminne.no, (n.d.), (on-line) [Date accessed 12.05.2023]: https://equinor.industriminne.no/en/24-years-with-venezuelan-oil-sands/ Quesada, Juan Diego. "Ecopetrol pide permiso a Estados Unidos para Negociar con PDVSA". El País, (6 January 2023), (on-line) [Date accessed 12.06.2023]: https://elpais.com/america-colombia/2023-01-06/ecopetrol-pide-permiso-a-estados-unidos-para-negociar-con-pdvsa.html Ramírez Vargas, Salomé & Alcalde, Carolina. "¿Cambiará la situación de Venezuela tras la cumbre en Bogotá?". Voz de América, (26 April 2023), (on-line) [Date accessed 03.08.2023]: https://www.vozdeamerica.com/a/venezuela-posibilidades-conferencia-colombia/7066480.html Rathbun, Brian. "A Rose by Any Other Name: Neoclassical Realism as the Logical and Necessary Extension of Structural Realism". Security Studies, vol. 17, no. 2, (June 2008), p. 294-321, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09636410802098917 Remacha Sanz, Sergio. "Un nuevo rumbo para Venezuela en 2023". Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos, no. 17/2023 (20 February 2023), (on-line) [Date accessed 16.05.2023]: https://www.ieee.es/Galerias/fichero/docs_opinion/2023/DIEEEO17_2023_SERREM_Venezuela.pdf Reuters. "Venezuela government to skip Barbados talks to protest U.S. sanctions". Reuters, (8 July 2019), (on-line) [Date accessed 14.05.2023]: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-venezuela-politics-idUKKCN1UY05L Reuters. "Mexico president confirms plans to host Venezuela Talks". Reuters (8 August 2021), (on-line) [Date accessed 16.05.2023]: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexico-host-negotiations-between-venezuelan-government-opposition-2021-08-05/ Riste, Olav. Norway's Foreign Relations - A History. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2001. Rodríguez, Jorge & Blyde, Gerardo. "Memorando de entendimiento". (13 August 2021), (on-line) [Date accessed 20.06.2023]: https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/d62443bc624041238af2902d356f949c/memorando-de-entendimiento.pdf Santander, Diego. "Nueva ronda de negociación entre Maduro y la oposición finaliza sin acuerdos". El Mundo, (28 September 2021), (on-line) [Date accessed 16.05.2023]: https://www.elmundo.es/internacional/2021/09/27/61520d3d21efa0703d8b461c.html Skånland, Øystein Haga. "'Norway is a peace nation': A discourse analytic reading of the Norwegian peace engagement". Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 45, no. 1, (April 2010), p. 34–54, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836709347212 Sørbø, Gunnar M. "The Norwegian peace engagement: New challenges in a new world order". NORAD, (20 August 2018), (on-line) [Date accessed 25.04.2023]: https://www.norad.no/en/front/evaluation/news/2018/evaluation-views-the-norwegian-peace-engagement---new-challenges-in-a-new-world-order/ Spetalnik, Matt, Vivian Sequera et al. "US tells UN it will shield Venezuelan humanitarian fund from creditors". Reuters, (19 May 2023), (on-line) [Date accessed 20.05.2023]: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-tells-un-it-will-shield-venezuela-humanitarian-fund-creditors-sources-2023-05-18/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Political Realism in International Relations. plato.stanford.edu, (2017) (on-line) [Date accessed 08.05.2023]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism-intl-relations/ Stokke, Kristian. "Peace-building as Small State Foreign Policy: Norway's Peace Engagement in a Changing International Context". International Studies, vol. 49, no. 3-4, (September 2014), p. 207-231, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/002088171453233 Stokke, Kristian. "The Soft Power of a Small State: Discursive Constructions and Institutional Practices in Norway's Peace Engagement". Power, Conflict, Democracy Journal, vol. 2, no.1, (2010), p. 138-173, DOI: 10.22146/pcd.25724 Touval, Saadia. "Mediation and Foreign Policy". International Studies Review, vol.5, no. 4, (December 2003), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1079-1760.2003.00504009.x, p. 91–95. The Venezuelan Negotiation Process, Oslo, regjeringen.no (2023) [Date accessed 13.05.2023]: https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/foreign-affairs/peace-and-reconciliation-efforts/norways_engagement/venezuela_negotiations/id2674295/ Voz de América. "Diálogo: Opción que Guaidó y Maduro no descartan para salvar a Venezuela". Voz de América, (30 May 2019), (on-line), [Date accessed 12.05.2023]: https://www.vozdeamerica.com/a/venezuela-noruega-negociaciones-para-poner-fin-a-la-crisis-/4936901.html Voz de América. "Tras fracaso en Barbados, Venezuela sigue esperando una solución". Voz de América, (11 August 2019), (on-line) [Date accessed 14.05.2023]: https://www.vozdeamerica.com/a/tras-fracaso-en-barbados-venezuela-sigue-esperando-una-solucion/5037644.html Voz de América. "Funcionarios de EE.UU. viajan a Venezuela y se reúnen con oficiales del gobierno: según medios". Voz de América, (6 March 2022), (on-line) [Date accessed 18.05.2023]: https://www.vozdeamerica.com/a/funcionarios-eeuu-viajaran-venezeula-reunen-oficiales-gobierno-/6472694.html Voz de América. "Gobierno y oposición de Venezuela coinciden en Noruega". Voz de América, (20 June 2022), (on-line) [Date accessed 18.05.2023]: https://www.vozdeamerica.com/a/delegaciones-maduro-dialogo-noruega-/6625220.html Wilson, Peter. "Idealism in international relations" in: Dowding, Keith (ed.) Encyclopedia of Power, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, p. 332-333.Notes:1- Originally consisting of 12 Latin American nations and formally created on 8 August 2017, the Lima Group is a multilateral body whose goal is to explore mechanisms for a peaceful solution to the political crisis in Venezuela and restoration of a democratic order (Government of Colombia 2017).2- In this study, I use the terms "mediation" and "facilitation" interchangeably. However, mediation normally involves a formal mandate from the parties of a conflict, covering involvement in both the substance and process of the negotiation, while a facilitator is less directive (Greminger 2007).3- The Norwegian National Pension Fund, the world's largest sovereign fund, has investments in over 9,000 companies in 70 countries (Oljefondet n.d.).Key words: Venezuela, Norway, national role conception, mediation, peacebuilding, foreign policy, conflict resolution

Issue 53.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1994. ; Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JANUARY-FEBRUaRY 199Zl. - V6LUME ~; ¯ NUMBER 1~o Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis Universi~ by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048 ¯ Fax: 314-535~0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ° St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ P.O. Box 29260 ¯ Washington, DC 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ° Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©1994 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library, clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. review for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Joann Wolski Conn PhD Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ Sefin Sammon FMS Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JANUARY-FEBRUARYI994 ¯ VOLUME53 '* NUMBER I contents feature Between the Times: Religious Life and the Postmodern Experience of God Elizabeth A. Johnson CSJ relates the stress within religious life to the loss of traditional God images and the search now for the hidden face of the living God. 29 43 58 toward the synod The Consecrated Life in Church and World Bishop Jan P. Schotte CICM explains the synod of bishops, with brief descriptions of previous ones and the 1994 synodal process. Charism, Charisms, and Faddism A. Paul Dominic SJ brings clarity to the Lineamenta treatment of the charism of religious life and the charisms of its many con-crete forms in various congregations. Hopes for the Synod and Beyond Joel Giallanza CSC focuses his attention on the identity and mis-sion of apostolic religious congregations and their relationship to the hierarchy. 64 73 82 mission and ministry Images of Hope in an Inner-City Parish George M. Anderson SJ shows God working in unlikely places, making use of humble and broken people to advance the values for which Jesus died and rose. A Bracelet of Elephant'sHair Jo O'Donovan RSM shares her sabbatical experience of an "outer" and "inner" Africa. The Modern Development of Messianic Prophecy Allen S. Maller presents for our ecumenical consideration a deeply felt Jewish view of Messianic meaning and fulfillment. 2 Review for Religious experiencing the spirit 89 Living in the Womb of God Marion Zeltmann PCPA reflects upon her experience of enclosure and prayer as a Poor Clare. 95 Do I Really Believe that Death Leads to Life? Francis Blouin FIC suggests some practical ways of responding to the current dyings manifest in religious life. 102 A Rite for Those Departing Religious Formation Peter A. Lyons suggests positive and wholesome ways in which individuals departing from religious life and ~he community mem-bers who remain might deal ritually with this reality. 107 120 130 religious life issues Integrating Human Needs in Religious Formation Howard J. Gray SJ suggests ways of viewing human needs as "longings," radical desires to be integrated in the art of religious ministry. Chapters Present and Future Catherine M. Harmer MMS reviews the history of chapters in reli-gious life and raises questions about their future functioning. Religious Life, a Continuum Francis Assisi Kennedy OSF examines, historical beginnings of reli-gious congregations for patterns surprisingly serviceable today. departments 4 Prisms 142 Canonical Counsel: The Conciliar Decree Perfectae Caritatis 149 Book Reviews Jan~mry-February 1994 3 prisms 1994--a year still to be lived, a year yet to pass into history. For most people there is a healthy anticipation of "good things" when new begin-nings are made. Perhaps such "anticipation" should be called, rather, a precious grace which interconnects us with God, the eternal optimist. New evangelization is the most consistently optimistic theme of John Paul II's papacy. While his encyclicals and apostolic exhortations are many and weighty (witness the most recent Splendor of Truth), I suspect that his repeated call to a new evangelization will be the most significant and lasting grace for the church. The call is a beginning similar to the beginning of a year; it is not as if evange-lization is any newer than the parade of days which form any year's calendar. The newness in large part comes from the attitude with which we enter into evangelization, just as it comes from the way we enter into another year. The oft-quoted phrase about this call to evangelization being "new in its vigor, new in its methods, and new in its expression" is grounded in the attitude which we bring to our Christian responsibility as evangelizers. Attitude alone is not enough, but unless the grace of optimism warms our efforts as believers in Good News to share it and explain it and to offer people a challenge, little evange-lization is the result. Do members of religious congregations need to see a more intimate connection between the new evangeliza-tion and their own efforts at renewal? Since all forms of Christian life come from our having the gospels in our blood, it would seem obvious that an evangelization effort promotes effective renewal. The gospels not only have 4 R~,iew for Religio~s inspired the different forms of religious life, but also have helped shape its various expressions and methods. Men and women moved by the Spirit of Christ have gifted the church with at least three prismatic "colors" of Christ-following that look monastic or mendicant or apostolic. The question remains for us today who have been illumined by these various Christ-prisms how our gospel-inspired attitude can reveal the graced mystery of this life-form in terms of new depths of meaning and new ways of expres-sion- in the very heritage we claim. The darkness we feel comes not from Jesus, the light-source whom we follow, but from our own self-chosen, squint-eyed angle of vision having so little to do with grace or gospel. So often our efforts at renewal seem more a vain search for one "tree of life" instead of for the God who gives all created gifts for our creatively discerned use. Optimism marks the effort of anyone who begins something. An evangelical optimism seems almost lacking both in internal reli-gious congregation renewal attempts and in hierarchical control efforts. As we begin this year of the synod on consecrated life, our prayer for ourselves and our church begs again for that grace dear to our God imaged as the prodigal parent who expects the son (and daughter) to be coming up the road--the grace of opti-mism. As we begin this new volume, Review for Religious warmly welcomes Regina Siegfried, a member of the Sister Adorers of the Blood of Christ, Ruma province, as associate editor. She serves currently as assistant professor of historical studies and spiritual-ity at Aquinas Institute in St. Louis. Former editor of Spirituality Today, she is well known for her books Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, edited with Bishop Robert Morneau, and In the Company of Preachers, edited with Edward Ruane OP. Review for Religious accepts graciously the loss of Michael Harter SJ as associate editor. In his new role assignment as direc-tor of novices for the Jesuit Missouri provirice, he can assure young candidates' solid formation through their familiarity with articles from Review for Religious. So in losing an editor, I am sure that we are gaining a number of new subscribers. Just as he leaves this media field, his prayer book, Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits, has been published by the Institute of Jesuit Sources in St. Louis and is already in its second printing. We wish him well and know that we will miss him. David L. Fleming SJ January-February 1994 5 feature ELIZABETH A. JOHNSON Between the Times: Religious Life and the Postmodern Experience of God As the third millennium of the Western, Christian calen-dar approaches, all manner of assessments are being made about what will fade into history and what will newly flourish in the year 2001 and afterwards. It does not take a new millennium, however, to see that religious life in the United States is passing through an epochal change, the outcome of which in terms of fade or flourish is an open question. The research project "The Future of Religious Orders in the United States," conducted by David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis under the sponsorship of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, and the Leadership Council of Women Religious, sets out fully aware of this moment in history2 The original proposal for this study underscores the rad-icality of the journey now underway. Religious orders, it notes, are in the midst of a process of transformation, defined in categories from the social sciences to mean: The operation of changing (as by mapping or through strategies) one configuration or expression into another in accordance with a rule, a purpose or mission. Elizabeth Johnson csJ is associate professor of theology at Fordham University. This article will be part of a companion book to The Future of Religious Orders in the United States: Transformation and Commitment, (Praeger Publishers, 1993) by David J. Nygren and Miriam D. Ukeritis. Her address is Department of Theology; Fordham University; Bronx, New York 10458-5165. 6 Review for Religious Such change, furthermore, involves: qualitative, discontinuous shifts in organizational members' shared understandings of the organization, accompanied by changes in the organization's mission, strategy, and formal and informal structures. The most basic questions of group and individual identity, involving who religious are, how they are to live, what they are to do, and why, are all at stake. Religious orders in this country, the proposal continues, are in the midst of a transformative process so profound that it will lead to the demise of some, the revitalizing of others, and the birth of new forms of the evangelical life as yet unimagined. The aim of this research project is to identify factors within religious orders themselves that will contribute to a suc-cessful outcome of this major metamorphosis. Recent historical studies have unveiled a heartening picture of how the evangelical following of Jesus in the church, traditionally called "religious life," has been incarnated in a great diversity of forms. From monastic to mendicant to apostolic communities, to mention but a few of the more widespread models, new forms of this living movement have consistently emerged from the insights of individuals and groups responding to the Spirit in the crucible of cultural change. A compelling interpretation of the present sit-uation holds that in the United States, at least, the present crisis of religious orders signals yet another breakthrough in the many-faceted evolution of forms of the evangelical life. If this be true, this is the first time in the history of the church that members of religious orders in a time of transition have been so self-con-sciously aware of their situation and so equipped with the tools of modern research that they can reflect on and even direct the pro-cess of change. The purpose of this essay is to provide a theological context for the data that follows. It is important to note that this essay was commissioned, designed, and largely written before the research project was completed. Therefore it should not be read as an interpretation of the project's findings. Rather, it is intended as an independently conceived reflective piece on this moment in the history of religious life. To .contextualize the report that follows, this essay first surveys the state of the question in contemporary literature on religious life and then identifies a basic shift occur-ring that affects all the rest and that holds great portent for the future, namely, a change in the experience of God.2 January-February 1994 7 Johnson ¯ Between the Times The living tradition of the change of forms of religious life is still alive; the great cycle of death and rebirth is turning once again. State of the Question Starting in the late 1970s, a number of excellent works have contributed to discussion of the meaning of religious life and have expressed the emerging self-understanding of religious them-selves. Written by or available to members of religious orders in North America, the list includes works on the history, sociology, and theology of the life as lived by both women and men in general,3 as well as works that focus on the experiences of women4 or men5 in particular. The imagery and language of these writings reflect the enormous tension in the state of the question, both as lived and reflected upon. There is a prevalence of "re" words: revitalize, refound, rein-terpret, reimagine, reweave, redefine, rebirth. Metaphors point to new creative acts: pouring new wine into new wine-skins; reweaving the threadbare cloth; standing at the crossroads and discerning the way ahead; planting new seeds; mid-wiring a birth; bringing order out of chaos. The focus is consistently on the future: shaping the coming age, strate-gizing for growth, negotiating the challenge of change, claiming identity, being converted. Individual differences of approach in this literature recede when compared with the convergences that these writings dis-play. Virtually all of the authors are seized by the conviction that in the Western democracies the missionary and apostolic mod-els of religious life, prevalent for the last two hundred years, are dying. Relatively speaking and in some cases literally, "there is no one behind us." But this does not mean that religious life itself is dying, for no one form has ever been definitively lasting as the predominant form for every era. What it may well mean, however, is that the living tradition of the change of forms of religious life is still alive; the great cycle of death and rebirth is turning once again,6 The present malaise and decline, if lived through with discernment, fidelity, and courage, can lead to new, yet-to-be-determined forms commensurate with the cultural realities of the third millennium. 8 Review for Religious This being the case, the literature is replete with enlighten-ing analyses of ecclesial and cultural factors at work in the present changes. It also indicates that a strong consensus is taking shape regarding the way forward. A prophetic stance suffused with con-templation is being glimpsed as the crucial spiritual force that seeks expression in coming forms of religious life. Both the anal-ysis and this key proposal are surveyed here as interesting in their own right and as factors that themselves point further to a foun-dational experience of God. Changes in Church and Society The literature agrees that the most important ecclesial factor underlying the shift in religious life's self-understanding contin-ues to be Vatican II's two-pronged theological articulation of the church's identity and mission. Ad intra (internally) the church is first and foremost the people of God, with every member conse-crated by baptism and empowered to life in Christ. The conse-quent universal call to holiness undercuts the traditional notion that religious life is an elite state of perfection whose members are spiritually set above ordinary lay people. Rather, religious live out their call to holiness as a sacrament or sign to the whole church of its Spirit-filled vocation. Ad extra (externally) the church is to turn pastorally toward the world as God's good creation, marred by sin but redeemed by Christ and worthy of attention. The mission of the church in the world undermines the tradi-tional dualism between the sacred and the secular, along with the concomitant idea that religious should be set apart from the world. Rather, they are to live in relation to the world, not over against but ~vith and for, in criticism and compassion. The conciliar shift from a juridical to a more-biblically-based pastoral identity and mission, still being contested and negotiated in the church at large, undergirds the changes in self-understanding, lifestyle, and ministry that now affect traditional forms of religious life. Since the council, additional ecclesial factors have appeared that continue to impinge upon religious life in the United States. The ongoing efforts by religious orders to reinterpret founding charisms is occurring in the context of postconciliar reinterpre-rations of the Catholic biblical, theological, and liturgical tradi-tions themselves. The infusion of insight from these sources is resulting in new and influential understandings, such as the rad- .January-Febrnary 1994 9 Johnson ¯ Between the Times ¯ ical equality of all in baptismal grace. Furthermore, the postcon-ciliar explosion of lay ministries, both ecclesially sponsored and lay initiated, is multiplying the possibilities open to those who wish to serve in the church beyond the confines of traditional religious life. At the same time it creates a situation of shared, collabora-tive ministry between religious and the laity. In these same years, the original immigrant church in this country has reached mainstream status with the majority of its members moving into the middle class. More options for service and advancement have opened up in the civil sector, lessening the church's attraction as the primary field for a dedicated life. In addition, the economic and educational mores of middle-class life coupled with the availability of birth control has resulted in the reduced size of Catholic families, thus shrinking the pool from which candidates for religious life were traditionally drawn. Meanwhile, a new wave of immigration from Latin America and Asia is presently changing the face of the church; one-third of Catholics in the United States are now Hispanic, half of whom are younger than eighteen years of age. Despite outstanding service on the part of some religious of European descent, however, dif-ferences of culture, race, class, and age, if not overt, prejudice, seem to prev.ent the majority of religious orders from making an effective case for their way of life to members of new immigrant groups. Eras do not repeat themselves. All of these ecclesial factors are playing out in the wider con-text of the church .becoming a world church, less European in character and belonging to all cultures; a church of the diaspora, less supported by a homogeneous culture and more a little flock in a pluralist world; and a church in interreligious dialogue, open to the wisdom of other great religious traditions. Social, economic, and political forces at work in the culture of the United States are also contributing to changes in religious life) These forces are many and complex, but several consistently surface in the literature: democracy, which yields a more partic-ipative rather than authoritative style of governance; global aware-ness, which subverts provincialism; growing consciousness of economic and social injustice at home and abroad, which demands action to relieve poverty and promote justice; pervasive violence, which highlights the need for teaching and modeling peaceful resolution of conflicts; materialism, which calls for a countercul-tural witness to simplicity of life and the value of the human over 10 Review for Religious the product; excessive individualism, which cries out for the anti-dote of a genuine community of free and responsible persons; ethnocentrism, racism, and insensitivity to other cultures, which needs the word of the gospel about the fundamental human dig-nity of every person; and feminism, which advocates the equal inclusion of women in that human dignity. The search in the United States for a new, more humane society among ourselves, between all nations, and between human beings and the natural world of this planet contextualizes and begins to inspire the search for new, vital forms of religious life. In a striking way, ecclesial and cul-tural factors have converged in the rise of Christian feminism and its influ-ence in women's religious orders. It is indisputable that women's insights into how to live the evangelical life have never yet been allowed full scope in the course of church history, even now. Perhaps it was the play of prov-idence that unleashed the conciliar reforms at the very moment that the women's movement was gathering force once again in the United States. It is indisputable that women's insights into how to live the evangelical life have never yet been allowed full scope in the course of church history, even now. In any event, while renewing their lives in the light of the gospel and their founding charisms and while strengthening their witness in the world, especially among those depriv.ed of human dignity, women religious became aware of themselves as women in a patri-archal church and society. They .began to notice the systemic absence and silence of women in church pol!cy-making bodies and ministries, its obvious connection with gender, and the result-ing pressures on the way they lived their lives. Contextualized by the women's movement in church and society, they began to find their own voice and to claim, even for themselves, the respect befitting a human person. Women's experience was affirmed as a legitimate if untapped source of knowledge about religious life and its ministry, prayer, community, and governance, and this found expression in their reflection, dialogue, and new constitu-tions. The result of this awakening was a release of energy that bore and continues to bear promise for the future of religious January-February 1994 11 Johnson ¯ Between the Times life. But it also brings conflict as men church authorities refuse to reverence or dialogue with the insights coming from women's experience, insisting rather on conformity to their own under-standing and law. At this point the alienation of legions of women in the church is a matter of public record. Women religious, too, know this darkness. But among women religious in the United States at the end of the twentieth century, the conviction per-dures that the goals of Christian feminism are fully in accord with the gospel. They continue to grapple with issues of identity and mission with the understanding that through their struggle the Spirit of God is offering a transforming grace to the whole church, although, terrifyingly, grace may always be refused.8 In and through all of this analysis of ecclesial and cultural factors that affect religious life today, authors have been seeking clues as to how this life will be able to flourish in the future. The search appears to be narrowing. Glimpse of a New Form: Prophetic, Contemplative Life In books and essays about religious life and in documents generated by religious orders and the national conferences, a new combination of ancient dements is beginning to define the essen-tial character of religious life. The emerging understanding of this life is primarily that of persons and communities called to prophetic ministry embedded in a contemplative relationship to God. Prophecy and mysticism, prophetic witness and contem-plation, will shape the evangelical life of love of God and neigh-bor in its coming age. The two national conferences of men and of women religious place this insight at the head of the list of ten transformative ele-ments they identify for religious life in the future: 1. Prophetic Witness: Being converted by the example of Jesus and the values of the gospel, religious in the year 2010 will serve a prophetic role in church and society. Living this prophetic wimess will include critiquing social and ecclesial values and structures, calling for systemic change and being converted by the marginalized with whom we serve. 2. Contemplative, Attitude Toward Life: Religious in 2010 will have a contemplative attitude toward all creation and be motivated by the presence of the sacred? 12 Review forReligious In a similar way the visioning groups studied in the Futures Project as well as those identified by the research as outstanding leaders consistently and vigorously endorsed the prophetic/con-templative stance. Far from being an esoteric perspective, this stance brings to light what is most basic in Christian faith and what the church itself needs to emphasize in order to thrive in the future. As Karl Rahner foresaw, the spirituality of the future will arise from rela-tion with the living God at the very heart of the world and con-sequently "will be a spirituality of the Sermon on the Mount and of the evangelical counsels, continually involved in renewing its protest against the idols of wealth, pleasure, and power.''t° This is the calling of the church as a whole, and religious life crystallizes and witnesses to this. The two constituent elements, prophecy and contemplation, can be distinguished mentally and examined separately, but in reality they form one living shape, one wholistic form, one gestalt of life. Asking which comes first is a chicken-and-egg kind of question, with no intelligible answer in sight.1~ Contemplation is a way of seeing that leads to union. It arises from an experience of connection with the sacred at the very core of life. Mediated, as always, by created things such as words, images, and actions, this relationship unfolds as persons and com-munities allow these mediations to lead them into the living pres-ence of the holy. Insofar as the created mediations themselves are transcended in contemplation, this experience counteracts the human effort to control the divine and instead delivers the spirit into the bright darkness of God. From one perspective, the con-nection with the sacred is a result of the inflow of the love of God inflaming and awakening the heart. From another, it entails the discipline of becoming fully conscious, journeying to one's deepest self and to the outer limits of the cosmos in order to touch the divine. In the process, the contemplative "knows" God not in an extrinsic, conceptual way but from within, experien-tially. At the very heart of existence one is in touch with holy mystery, a relation for which the I-Thou relationship among human beings is only a remote analogy. As a result, a certain intuition arises by which one begins to know and love the world as God does. This attitude is totally inclusive of all creation. Everything created is precious and sacred within the cosmic ambience of life and is cause for delight and January-February 1994 13 Johnson ¯ Between the Times thanks. But the evident brokenness of the world and damage done persons and other creatures are cause for grief, compassion, and protest. In some unspeakable situations,, the utter depravity of evil occasions the most profound, wordless hope against hope, without any supports, in the risk that God is faithful in judgment and grace. The contemplative attitude is thus not otherworldly but pro-foundly turned toward this world in celebration and resistance, knowing that the Creator is also the Redeemer. The prophetic lifestyle and action that express this way of seeing are not the result of simple humanism (although the world could use a lot more of this too) but of real belief in God. In solidarity with divine purpose for the world, prophetic persons and communities desire to restore right relationships and so to set right what causes pain and suffering. While this has always been the case, the hermeneutic of prophecy in our day with its sophisticated knowl-edge of systems realizes that the wounds of the heart also afflict culture. Thus prophetic witness includes critique not just of per-sonal acts but also of social, economic, and political structures and values in society. Knowing, too, that we are a sinful church always in need of repentance and reform, this witness is borne toward the values and structures of the community itself. The prophetic stance is marked by a number of characteris-tics. These include attentive listening to the creative Spirit of God, connecting with the suffering in a situation and evaluating its causes, naming what is unjust, being empowered to articulate an alternative future based on the dream of God for the world, bringing compassion and hope to the brokenness, and resistance and challenge to the status quo that would maintain it. In the process prophetic persons and communities strive to empower people in their struggle to live and survive, in turn being taught and empowered by them to continue to seek the face of God. In the Christian tradition this witness is shaped by the fol-lowing of Jesus, in whom the compassion of God takes flesh in the world. Contemplation and prophecy were indivisibly connected in his historical life. As Edward Schillebeeckx explains, "In the prophet Jesus, mysticism and healing came from one and the same source--his experience of the contrast between the living God and the history of human suffering." ~2 The reign of God that he announced envisages an end to exploitation or suppression; his ministry in word and deed enacted practical anticipations of this 14 Review for Religious salvation to come. His own drink from the cup of suffering in torment and execution and the seal of God's graciousness in the resurrection ground a hope in human history that has empow-ered discipleship ever since. Remembrance of Jesus through the power of the Spirit guides and informs the life of prophecy and ~ontemplation in the church. This vision of a wholistic con-templative, prophetic shape to reli-gious life in the future, glimpsed in the literature, is already a living, growing reality in some cases. It also stands in contrast to the overall shape of religious life in the present, which has become domesticated by too close an identification with the law, structure, and spirituality of the institutional church. In a particularly eloquent argument, Diarmuid O'Murchu, taking a clue from reli-gious life as it is lived in Eastern religions, contends that religious life in the west needs to reclaim its liminal identity, a move of genuine conversion en.tailing profound change in spirit and structure. Re!igious would then be known as persons and communities who are in touch with the sacred, passionately committed to just and loving relationships, fiercely resistant against exploitation of the earth and of persons, and willing to live countercultural lifestyles with and for the marginalized. They would stand in church and society a.s liminal, archetypal, prophetic persons, articulating and empowering the deepest love.13 To arrive at this goal, religious must confront many chal-lenges and questions. A key CMSM paper muses: People in general probably do not think of us as genuine prophets. What must we do, what price must we pay, if we wish to embrace a prophetic stance? How can we be prophetic without becoming triumphalistic? How can we be prophetic without losing a ministry .to the middle class which is the social origin of nearly all of us? How can we learn to read the signs of the times and discern more surely the thrust of prophecy? What steps must we take to arrive at solid social and cultural analysis? How can we relate our The contemplative attitude is thus not otherworldly but profoundly turned toward this world in celebration and resistance, knowing that the Creator is also the Redeemer. ~anuary-February 1994 15 Johnson * Between the Times traditional institutions to the prophetic role? How can we motivate ourselves, with God's grace, to accept a materi-ally poor standard of living? We have more questions than answers, but we believe that we are on the way to a new, more prophetic presence within the U.S. Church.~4 The Futures Project identifies "fidelity to purpose" and "response to absolute human need" as the two most basic ele-ments for the revitalization of religious life. As this brief survey of the literature shows, the search for the sacred in resistance to what afflicts the world is being fingered as the purpose that will shape the new form of this life. The move toward a contemplative-prophetic stance augurs well for the future insofar as it grapples with the religious heart of the matter in the context of the suf-fering of the contemporary world. Experience of God My own reflection on these matters brings me to a founda-tional area not frequently mentioned in the literature, namely, the idea of God that undergirds the evangelical life. The fasci-nation with the mystery of God is endemic to religious life every-where and at all times. The varieties of structures and self-understandings that have emerged in the course of history only serve to underscore this fact. As Sandra Schneiders observes, "Whatever unites all these people is more interior and spiritual than forms of life or types of behavior."15 The common thread that unites them all is a search for relationship with the sacred, leading to a certain kind of absorption with the religious dimen-sion of life. "Those who are called 'religious' in the technical sense of the word," writes John Lozano, "have decided to adopt a way of life whose intrinsic, underlying explanation is religious experience.''16 This way of life intends to give daily, concrete expression to the experience of God, to empower its further devel-opment, and to manifest its fruits publicly. Put another way by Ladislaus Orsy, the only reason for religious life is the experi-ence of God. This being so, it seems vitally important to inquire about the idea of God that is presupposed at any given moment, for this structures the experience of God that sustains the entire endeavor. As the primary symbol of the whole religious system, the idea of God is a lodestar. It represents what a community takes to be the 16 Review for Religious highest good, the profoundest truth, the most appealing beauty. Thus it is not a neutral concept, but functions powerfully to shape the personal and corporate identity of believers. A religion, for example, which would speak about a warlike God and extol the way he smashes his enemies to bits would promote aggressive group behavior. By contrast, speech about a beneficent and lov-ing God who forgives offenses would turn the faith community toward care for the neighbor and mutual forgiveness.'7 By definition, the One whom people call God is the recipient of absolute human trust, God being "that to which your heart clings and entrusts itself" in the memorable phrase of Martin Luther (OSA).~s Consequently, the idea of God implicitly guides all of a person's and community's principles, choices, system of values, enterprises, and relationships. The symbol of God func-tions. Neither abstract in content nor feeble in its effect, it sums up a people's sense of ultimate mystery, the proper order of the world, and the right orientation of human life and devotion. Along with many others, I sense that a seismic shift is occur-ring in the experience and idea of God in our day and culture. Fully aware that not all people who live at the same time are con-temporaries, I nevertheless think that a certain culturally condi-tioned cast of mind is emerging in our era that yields an idea of God markedly different from the classical model. VChat is emerg-ing is a notion that coherently supports and strengthens prophetic and contemplative consciousness. Thus it is not just the move from a juridical to a pastoral relation of the church to the world, nor the dissolving of the sacred-secular dualism, nor increased global and ecological awareness, nor growing consciousness of injustice, nor any of the other ecclesial and social factors that alone or together are causing the changes in religious life. Rather, at the deepest level what is transpiring, I think, is new experience of God. The Postmodern World The contemporary mind-set in the United States shaped by conditions of the late twentieth century is frequently described as postmodern. First coined in artistic, literary, and philosophical circles, this term is used in a bewildering variety of ways to describe the sentiment that humanity must go beyond the mod-ern. Like the wanderer in Kafka's parable who, when asked where January-February 1994 17 Johnson * Between the Times he is riding to, responds, "I don't know,., only away from here, away from here, only by doing so can I reach my destination,''19. postmodernity points beyond the present to what cannot yet be readily envisioned. Philosopher Stephen Toulmin refers to the world "that has not yet discovered how to define itself in terms of what it is, but only in terms of what it hasjust-now-ceased-to-be," namely, the modern world originating from the seventeenth-cen-tury Enlightenment.2° Modern!ty esteemed at least four dynamic forces: the myth of unending progress, the clear and distinct ideas of universal reason, the power of the self-contained individual directed by his soli-tary ego, and the ascendancy of human control over nature. By contrast, postmodernity is conscious of the end of progress, the limits of reason, the sad isolation of the unconnected individual, and the catastrophe that results when nature is disrespected. Not everything originating in the modern era is to be discarded. One would want to keep the emphasis on human dignity and human rights and their expressions in liberty and equality (fraternity in isolation is suspect). But postmodernity is awake to the egregious failures that the modern ethos has wrought. It wants to go Away- From-Here. Perhaps the most felicitous description comes from David Power, who observes that postmodernism is the sensibility that does not try to pretend that the twentieth century has not hap-pened. Sprung from the disruptive, out-of-control evils of this century, postmodern consciousness is aware of the chaotic, con-tingent, threatened character of existence and the fragility of the human project. Two distinct but related positions have developed within this general description. One, the option for deconstruction, seeks to undo the power and securities that produce such evils. In theory and art it pokes holes through the rationalizations of the victors, unveiling their pretensions to righteousness and order. While in its extreme form postmodern deconstruction leads to radical skep-ticism and nihilism, its bracing insights are powerfully instruc-tive as to what should not be. In tandem with this option, a second, more constructive model has emerged. Suspicious of inherited triumphal truths, it seeks out suppressed voices and sto-ries, risking new interpretations of established tradition "from the margins" in order to enable resistance to the forces of destruc-tion. Its aim, unlike nihilism, is a more just and humane universe. 18 Review for Religious It is this latter type of constructive postmodernism, found in intellectual theory, literature, and art as well as in grass-roots movements, that generates a certain kind of spirituality.21 Its char-acteristics are painted here in broad strokes. Postmodern spiri-tuality notes the ambiguous character of progress itself and takes its bearing not from the dream of untrammeled, irreversible progress fueled by a consumerist mentality, but from the suffering of those on the underside of history, keeping in view the gaps and failures of human advance. It seeks wisdom not in the clear and distinct ideas of what is claimed to be universal reason but is in reality the thought of privileged men; rather, it honors the plurality and ambiguity of human con-sciousness, sensitive to the differ-ence that difference makes according to one's social location in gender, race, and class. The com-pass of postmodern spirituality points not to rampant individual-ism and its violent outcroppings but to the importance of community The compass of postmodern spirituality points not to rampant individualism and its violent outcroppings but to the importance of community and tradition, prizing human solidarity and peace. and tradition, prizing human solidarity and peace. It finds life not in human supremacy over the earth but in affective kinship with the extended family of the cosmos. In a word, it prizes not isolation but essential connectedness; not body-mind dualism but the wholistic, embodied person; not patriarchy but inclusive fem-inism; not militarism but expenditure for the enhancement of life; not tribal nationalism but global justice. Our age is witnessing the shift to a postmodern cast of values, in theory if not always in practice. This constitutes a widespread, if not universal, cultural phenomenon in the United States, even among Christian believers. It may well signal the first phase of an axial breakthrough in human consciousness that will shape the next millennium. If so, that is of no little significance for the future of religious life in this country. For the postmodern sensi-bility in its constructive form has a strong affinity with the prophetic-contemplative stance increasingly envisioned as con- January-February 1994 19 Johnson ¯ Between the Times stitutive for the future of religious life. At the very core of that life is the experience of God. And so we come to the heart of the matter by asking how the postmodern matrix shapes the experi-ence and concept of the sacred. Postmodern Experience of God In our era the concept of God developed by rational En-lightenment theology in the context of modernity has become largely unbelievable. Whether drawn from revelation or philo-sophical inference, this by-now-traditional theism views God as the Supreme Being who created all things and who governs all things with inscrutable providence. Perfect in a way that stands in sharp contrast to the finitude of creatures, "he" (the theistic God is always referred to in male terms) is "infinite, self-existent, incor-poreal, eternal, immutable, impassible, simple, perfect, omni-scient, and omnipotent.''22 Although architect and ruler of the world, it is essential to God's deity that he be essentially unre-lated to this world and unaffected by what happens in it. This view therefore excels at stressing ,divine transcendence and its human counterpart of spirit, while divine immanence along with the importance of matter and the body tend to slip from view. This God of classical theism is modeled on the pattern of an earthly absolute monarch, a metaphor so prevalent that most often it is simply taken.for granted. As a king rules over his subjects, so God the Lord has dominion over his creatures, a view which, as Sallie McFague has shown, is intrinsically hierarchical, whether the divine reign be accomplished through dominance or benevo-lence. 23 In theory such theism adheres to the truth that the mys-tery of God is beyond all images and concepts. Yet history shows how in practice modernity tends to objectify God, reducing infi-nite mystery to an independently existing Supreme Being along-side other beings, a solitary, transcendent power who together with the world can be thought to form a larger whole. This is the idea of God that is no longer seriously imagin-able within a postmodern sensibility. Factors that contribute to its lack of cogency include the evils of this century, contemporary science and its view of the universe, liberation and feminist anal-ysis, the political disparagement of dictatorship, and the encounter among world religions. Any one of these alone would put a large question mark next to the modern symbol of the divine. Taken 20 Review for Religious together within the cultural shift to postmodern consciousness, they all but bury it. The result for people of faith is the radical loss of their famil-iar God image, along with the experience of divine presence that it mediated. Along with this also comes the loss of their sense of place in the order of the universe. As Janet Ruffing comments on the domino effect of loss of the tradi-tional God image in religious communi-ties, "All the ways we had construed our place in the sun and the meaningfulness of our commitment have been gradually eroding.''24 But this experience is not restricted to religious life; it is culture-wide and has attracted a host of com-mentators. For Martin Buber, the loss signals the eclipse of God. For Karl Rahner, it involves entry into the spiri-tuality of a bleaker season. For Constance Fitzgerald, it means the classic mystical experience of impasse and dark night. For Sandra Schneiders, this dark night is not only individual but a corporate purification. For Martin Marry, winter serves as metaphor for this season of the heart. For Michael Bucldey, it is entry into emptiness, silence, the cross in accord with the dynamic of apophatic mysticism,zs For me, this shift is poignantly summed up in the titles of the first and last books of my friend and colleague William Hill OP, now seriously ill. He broke into print with Knowing the Unknown God, an exploration of how the Thomistic category of analogy could lead the mind to God even in the contemporary world. God might be unknown, but we were possessed of some knowl-edge through the judgments we make. Now his recent essays have been collected under the rubric In Search of the Absent God. We are not in possession at all. Enmeshed in history and its suffering, we can but seek the hidden face of the living God.26 The absence of God experienced through the breakdown of traditional mediations of structure and theory does not mean, how-ever, that there is no experience of God at all. In a profound dialec-tic, what has been taken away is encountered in the ache of its loss. Divine absence itself becomes a mode of divine presence. The unknowing beckons to a deeper knowing. Th~ darkness mediates a brightness that the eyes cannot see. The wintry horizon hints at Enmeshed in history and its suffering, we can but seek the hidden face of the living God. .~anuary-February 1994 21 Johnson ¯ Between the Times new life buried beneath the snow. The cry from the depths signals an affirmation of Life deeper than pain, as did Jesus' cry from the cross. As Maura Clarke wrote from E1 Salvador, "In the very absence of God here, God has never been more present to me." 27 It all depends on the character of God. If God be trustworthy, then we hope that we are grounded and enveloped by a Living Presence even here, in the night of the senses and of the spirit. While there is no universal enactment of salvation, the sacred comes in the form of promise mediated through everyday, small fragments of healing, beauty, liberation, justice, and love. This does not remove the darkness, but it allows us to keep on walk-ing. The ice melts but will freeze again: in history there are only relative victories. Lament and celebration are both necessary. Here there are no easy assurances, no props. We know God through hope and, in the face of starkness, even hope against hope, nourished by remembrance and the circle of community. For many years now I have found the prophet of this experi-ence to be Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In his vision God is being edged out of the world and onto the cross, and that is the way, the only way, that God can be with us: "only a suffering God can help.''28 His struggle to believe culminates in the maxim "Before God and with God we live without God.'':9 This is an experience of God in which darkness is an event of disclosure, clearing the decks of a false conception of God and opening contact with the incom-prehensible holy mystery of God who goes beyond all images, all grasping, all ~elling. The manageable God of the modern age who was immediately available and could be counted upon to intervene for our benefit is no longer there. But a new experience of God is already breaking through that intensifies our compassion. Constance Fitzgerald has wisely observed that what is going on in and through this experience is "a progressive hermeneutic of~e nature of God.''3° A full theology of God has yet to be writ-ten in a postmodern context, but the typical spii'itual experience of this age is yielding an unmistakable interpretation.3~ If there be a God at all, then this is absolute holy mystery that can never be fathomed. Not literally a male person writ large, the sacred can be pointed to by any created good: male, female, animal, cosmic. This mystery does not dwell in isolation from the world but encompassesit as the Matrix of its being and becoming. God in the world and the world in God--panentheism describes the mutual relation. Thus related, the Holy One of Blessing is a God 22 Review.for Religious of pathos who participates in the suffering of the world in order to transform it from within. Divine power is the strength of love, rather than raw, monarchical omnipotence. Passionate for justice and peace and compassionate over pain, Holy Wisdom typically self-reveals in the fragmentary breakthroughs of well-being that come about through human partnership with divine purpose. Forever God acts to create a fresh, new future: liberation is her signature deed. A God like this calls for an ethic of critical com-passion. We are impelled so to utter the word of God that the world will be changed and renewed by it. Religious people of all stripes are now in the transitional posi-tion of trying to find words and symbols for this personal and collective experience of God. A common language has yet to come to light. Yet the very way the search is being conducted gives some indication of the outcome. An LCWR paper expresses the efforts of women religious in this regard: God is immanent in creation, in the midst of the web of life. As we bond with the oppressed and marginalized, we know God standing on the side of the poor and oppressed, seeing with the eyes of the poor, leading the oppressed by alleviating oppression. In this context, we see God angry, sad, suffering, marginalized; we see God incarnated in peo-ples of color, in women, in the homeless and battered, the victims of violence and oppression of all kinds. And then the inevitable: Religious find themselves in a "Dark Night." The painful and intense moments of disintegration, which carry the hope for what can break through, characterize our living in this in-between.32 To sum up, the idea of God emerging in postmodern spiritual experience is a contemporary hermeneutic of the God whose reign Jesus preached and embodied: the God of life. If the experience of God is the core of religious life, and if it is this God who is being perceived in contemporary religious experience, then here is a key tt)eological factor shaping the future of religious life in the United States. Conclusion The dialectic between divine absence and presence, in the last analysis, is an experience of the Spirit of God: radically tran- ~tanlmry-February 1994 23 Johnson ¯ Between the Times scendent, like the wind blowing where it will; and at the same time radically immanent, dwelling at the heart of the world to vivify and renew all things. Empowered by the Spirit in our age, people of faith who treasure the living memory of Jesus seek the hidden God of life (contemplation) and live out the passion of God for the world in need (prophecy). It is my sense that religious life is riding the crest of this wave in the postmodern culture of the United States. Internally its forms are breaking down; its interpretive support systems are col-lapsing; rifts with the institutional church exacerbate the dark-ness, especially among women; many members are in distress. Most radically of all, forms of religious life that traditionally medi-ated the experience of God now not only do not mediate this experience but positively block it. At the same time, consciousness of the suffering of poor and marginalized peoples grows; action on behalf of justice continues to attract; women reclaim their human dignity and the voice that goes with it; the vivifying power of God is experienced in and through the human power to chal-lenge, cherish, and set free; the divine mystery is named in new ways. Here and there religious persons and communities begin to articulate the prophetic-contemplative identity coherent with these experiences and act in mission accordingly. For religious life in the United States it is now Advent, the most honest season of all. In my judgment, the times do not call for return to the securities of a previous age. In fact, the very effort to keep alive forms of religious life that have for the most part run their historical course may well be counterproductive to the evangelical following of Jesus. Rather,what is needed is vig-ilant patience, profound prayer, and the ability to act boldly toward that future where new forms of evangelical life will develop. Notes ~ See summary by David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis, "Future of Religious Orders in the United States," Origins 22, no. 15 (24 September 1992): 257-272. Hereafter cited as the Futures Project. Also in Review for Religious 52, no. 1 (January-February 1993): 6-55. 2 1 would like to thank the following colleagues and friends for pro-viding me with materials for this essay: Mary Ann Donovan SC, Patricia Lucas CSJ, Thomas McKenna CM, Janet Ruffing SM, and Clara Santoro CSJ. My deep gratitude also goes to Mary Catherine Hilkert OP, John W. Padberg SJ, David Power OMI, and Sandra Schneiders IHM for read-ing and critiquing the manuscript in outline or finished form. 24 Review for Religious 3 Among the works that have made significant contributions are: Gerald Arbuclde, Out of Chaos: Refounding Religious Congregations (New York: Paulist, 1988). ~. Strategies for Growth in Religious Life (New York: Alba House, 1987). Marcello Azevedo, Vocation for Mission: The Challenge of Religious Life Today (New York: Paulist, 1988). Leonardo Boll, God's Witnesses in the Heart of tbe World (Chicago: Claret Center for Resources in Spirituality, 1981). Lawrence Cada et al., Shaping the Coming Age of Religious Life (New York: Seabury, 1979). Robert Daly et al., eds., Religious Life in the U.S. Church: The New Dialogue (New York: Paulist, 1984). Barbara Fiand, Living the Vision: Religious Vows in an Age of Change (New York: Crossroad, 1990). David A. Fleming, ed., Religious Life at the Crossroads (New York: Paulist, 1985). Mary Jo Leddy, Reweaving Religious Life: Beyond the Liberal Model (Mystic, Connecticut: Twenty-Third Publications, 1990). John Lozano, Discipleship: Towards an Understanding of Religious Life (Chicago: CCRS, 1983). ¯ Life as Parable: Reinterpreting the Religious Life (New York: Paulist, 1986)¯ Johannes Baptist Metz, Followers of Christ (New York: Paulist, 1978). Diarmuid O'Murchu, Religious Life: A Prophetic Vision (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1991). Sandra Schneiders, New Wineskins: Re-imagining Religious Life Today (New York: Paulist, 1986). Jean Marie Tillard, A Gospel Path: Religious Life (Brussels: Lumen Vitae, 1975)¯ The Way Supplement 65 (summer 1989): "Religious Life in Transition," pp. 1-152. Patricia Wittberg, Creating a Future for Religious Life: A Sociological Perspective (New York: Paulist, 1991). Evelyn Woodward, Poets, Prophets and Pragmatists: A New Challenge To Religious Life (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1987). 4 Works include: Mary Ann Donovan, Sisterhood as Power: The Past and Passion of, Ecclesial Women (New York: Crossroad, 1989). Nadine Foley, ed., Claiming Our Truth: Reflections on Identity by United States Women Religious (Washington, D.C.: Leadership Conference of Women Religious, 1988). January-February 1994 25 Johnson * Between the Times Marie Augusta Neal, Catholic Sisters in Transition: Front the 1960s to the 1980s (Wilmington, Delaware: Glazier, 1984). --. From Nuns to Sisters: An Expanding Vocation (Mystic, Connecticut: Twenty-Third Publications, 1990). Lora Ann Quifionez and Mary Daniel Turner, The Transformation of American Catholic Sisters (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992). Ann Patrick Ware, ed., Midwives of the Futttre (Kansas City, Missouri: Leaven Press, 1985). s "Hope-Filled Deeds and Critical Thought: The Experience of American Male Religious and Their Need to Reflect on It," paper pre-pared for the Third Inter-American Conference on Religious Life and printed in David A. Fleming, ed., Religious Life at the Crossroads, pp. 20- 50; John W. O'Malley, "Priesthood, Ministry, and Religious Life: Historical and Historiographical Considerations," Theological Studies 49 (1988): 223-257. The dearth of works in this category is due, I think, to the fact that for most men authors until recently, male experience, given its normative status in church and society, is simply presumed. Thus gendered experience has not become a major category of interpre-tation as it has among women. 6 L. Cada et al., Shaping the Coming Age of Religious Life, is the ground-breaking study that brought the notion of cycles to present-day awareness. See the excellent fine-tuning of this thesis b~; Philip Sheldrake, "Revising Historical Perspectives," The \¥ay Supplement 65 (summer 1989): pp. 66- 77. 7 Here I have found the following particularly helpful: Howard Gray, "Shapes for the Fut.ure," pp. 289-295, and Helen Flaherty, "Religious Life in the U.S.--A Guess at the Future," pp. 296-309, in R. Daly, Religious Life in the U.S.; Anne Clifford, "Women Missioned in a Technological Culture," pp. 37-55, in N. Foley, ed., Claiming Our Truth; the address by Robert Schreiter, "The Environment of Religious Life in 2010," to CMSM/LCWR Assembly in Louisville, Kentucky, August 1989; and the videotape "Religious Life: The Constant Is Change," IHM Sisters, Monroe, Michigan, which is an analysis of societal trends by Amata Miller, Margaret Brennan, and Sandra Schneiders. 8 See Anne Carr, Transfo~wting Grace: Christian Tradition and I, Vomen's Experience (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988). 9 Joint Meeting of the CMSM and the Lcv~rR, Louisville, Kentucky, August 1989. ,0 Karl Rahner, "The Spirituality of the Church of the Future," Theological Investigations, vol. 20, Concern for the Church (New York: Crossroad, 1981), p. 145. ~ One of the best contemporary treatises on contemplation remains William Johnston, The Inner Eye of Love (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978); and on prophecy, Walter Bruggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978). 26 Revieva for Religious 12 E. Schillebeeckx, Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord (New York: Seabury, 1980), p. 821. ,3 D. O'Murchu, Religious Life: A Prophetic Vision, passim. ,4 "Pilgrims and Prophets," paper drawn up by the Religious Life and Ministry Committee of the CMSM for the Fourth Inter-American Conference on Religious Life and printed in D. A. Fleming, ed., Religious Life at the Crossroads, pp. 51-64; quotation at p. 57. is S. Schneiders, New Wineskins, p. 32. 16 j. Lozano, Life as Parable, p. 9. 17 See Gordon Kaufman, The Theological Imagination: Constructing the Concept of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981), pp. 187-189. Kaufmann argues here for the importance of the great symbol of Jesus Christ who, as the image of the invisible God, manifests a God who does not act in a violent way but rather creates a community of love and equality in a peaceable and free way. !8 Martin Luther, "Large Catechism," The Book of Concord (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1959), p. 365. 19 Franz Kafka, "My Destination," Parables and Paradoxes (Berlin: Schocken, 1975), p. 189. I am indebted for this reference to Catherine Keller, "Toward a Postpatriarchal Postmodernity," in David Griffin, ed., Spirituality and Society: Postmodern Visions (Albany: State University of New York, 1988), p. 65. 20 S. Toulmin, The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature (Berkeley: University of California, 1982), p. 254. For further descriptions of postmodernity, see Frederic Burnham, ed., Postmodern Theology: Christian Faith in a Pluralist World (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989); and Paul Lakeland, Theology and Critical Theory (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), chap. 7, "Catholicism and Postmodernity." 21 The essays in the Griffin collection are enlightening, especially his own "Introduction: Postmodern Spirituality and Society," pp. I-31. 22 H. P. Owen, Concepts of Dei~y (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971), p. 1. 23 Sallie McFague, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), pp. 63-69. 24 Janet Ruffing, "Seeing in the Dark: The Present Moment in Religious Life," address to regional meeting of LCWR, Sparkill, New York, September 1991, p. 10. This address, somewhat edited, appears in Review for Religious 51, no. 2 (March-April 1992): 236-248. 2s M. Buber, The Eclipse of God (New York: Harper and Row, 1952); K. Rahner, see note 10; C. Fitzgerald, "Impasse and Dark Night," in Tilden Edwards, ed., Living with Apocalypse: Spiritual Resources for Social Compassion (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), pp. 93-116; S. Schneiders, see video-tape, note 7; M. Marry, A Cry of Absence: Reflections for the Winter of the Heart (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983); Michael Bucldey, "Atheism and Contemplation," Theological Studies 40 (1979): 680-699. January-February 1994 27 Johnson ¯ Between the Times 26 William J. Hill, Knowing the Unknown God (New York: Philosophical Library, 1971), and In Search of the Absent God, Mary Catherine Hilkert, ed. (New York: Crossroad, 1992). 27 Quoted in Mary Catherine Hilkert, "The Experience of Impasse and the Roots of Wisdom," address to Dominican Leadership Conference, October 1991, p. 11. 28 D. Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (New York: Macmillan, 1953), letter of 16 July 1944, p. 220. 29 Ibid, p. 219. 30 C. Fitzgerald, "Impasse and Dark Night," p. 112. 31 For a profound analysis see Peter Hodgson, God in History: Shapes of Freedom (Abingdon: Nashville, 1989); and Wendy Farley, Tragic Vision and Divine Compassion: A Contemporary Theodicy (Louisville: Westminster, 1990). 32 "Reflections upon the Religious Life of U.S. Women Religious," paper prepared for the Fifth Inter-American Conference on Religious Life, 1985, and printed in N. Foley, ed., Claiming Our Tmtth," pp. 173-181; quotation at p. 177. Cana, Meaning Uncertain Wine flowed until there was no more at a wedding in Galilee; Mary, seeing this, turned to her son, one till then like any other, a brother, a carpenter who measured what he said and did. "They have no more wine," she said. He hesitated, questioned her, stirred up feelings between them. In the end Jesus acquiesced, six stone jars, water into wine, a fine line crossed, spirit revealed. Yet the uncertainty remains, was it not a mother's prompting that disrupted heaven's intent or is love so strong even God can be swayed by its openness? Neil C. Fitzgerald 28 Review for Religious JAN P. SCHOTTE The Consecrated Life in Church and World: Toward the Synod On 30 December 1991 the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, called for the gathering in autumn 1994 of the Ninth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to treat the topic: "The Consecrated Life and Its Role in the Church and in the World." But what exactly is a synod of bishops? What are the various theological elements connected with this institu-tion? What are its pastoral aspects? Practically speaking, how does the synodal process work? And in what way does the treatment of specific topics bring benefit to the whole church? toward the synod A Synod of Bishops Etymologically speaking, the term "synod," derived from the elision of two Greek words, syn meaning "together" and hodos meaning "road" or "way," literally means "together on the way" or "sharing a journey." This idea immediately calls to mind the Vatican II image of the church as the people of God "on the move," always on pilgrimage, led and guided by the Holy Spirit through history to its ultimate fulfillment when the Lord shall Jan P. Schotte CICM serves as the general secretary of the Synod of Bishops. This presentation of his to the May 1993 Meeting of the International Union of Superiors General in Rome was orig-inally published in the UISG Bulletin, no. 92, 1993, pp. 68-78. Bishop Schotte may be addressed at Office of the General Secretary; Piazza Pio XII, 3; 00193 Rome; Italy. January-February 1994 29 Scbotte ¯ The Consecrated Life in the Church come again (see Lumen gentium, §6). The term also calls to mind some biblical associations. For example, in John's Gospel Jesus calls himself the "Way" (see Jn 14:6), and St. Paul makes reference to Christianity as the "Way" (see Ac 22:4). The term's rich theological and biblical associations can be saidto culminate in the concept of the church as communion. As quoted in Cbristifideles laici, "communion speaks of a double, life-giving participation: the incorporation of Christians into the life of Christ, and the communication of that life of charity to the entire body of the faithful, in this world and in the next, union with Christ and in Christ, and union among Christians in the church." Therefore, "communion" should not be looked upon as something static, but an active and dynamic reality which is both a hallmark of the church and the divine force continually enliven-ing her. This mystery of the church's communion is reflected in an unlimited number of ways in the church's life, from its most sub-lime aspect in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, to the var-ious encounters both personal and communal experienced by Christians everywhere. One instrument for celebrating the communal nature of the church on the local level is through archdiocesan and diocesan synods, which are becoming more frequent an occurrence. In convoking such a synod, a local bishop gathers around himself, as the source and foundation of communion or unity in his partic-ular church, various representatives of the church community-- lay, clerical, and religious--to pray and reflect in common and, using the eternal truths of the faith as set forth in the teachings of the church, to seek pastoral approaches and solutions to living the Christian life as a community and as individuals. The church's communal nature on the particular and univer-sal level also exists in the authority over the church which was established by Christ and subordinated to the task of preaching the gospel (see LG, §20 and §21). Therefore, where the synod of bishops uses the same word as that applied to celebrating the communal nature of the particular church, there is a basic theo-logical difference. The synod of bishops celebrates the mystery of church communion on the hierarchical level, that is, among the bishops. The Second Vatican Council describes this unity in the fol-lowing manner: "Just as, in accordance with the Lord's decree, 30 Review for Religious St. Peter and the rest of the apostles constitute a unique apos-tolic college, so in like fashion the Roman pontiff, Peter's suc-cessor, and the bishops, the successors of the apostles, are related with and united to one another'~ (LG, §22). This fundamental unity of the episcopate is the basis for the teaching on the collegiality of bishops (see LG, §22 and §23), which is like-wise an essential element in understanding the synod of bishops. The highest and fullest expression of this mystery of hierarchical communion is manifested and celebrated in an ecumenical council where the whole .episcopal college is convoked by the Holy Father. On various occasions the doc-uments of the Second Vatican Council refer to the episcopal gathering as a "synod" (see LG, §54; Christus Dominus, §36; etc.). But in this sense the word has the same meaning and theological significance as "council." Where the "synod of bishops" might resemble a "minicoun-cil," there is a fundamental qualitative difference between the two. For example, a synod convenes only a representative por-tion of the world episcopate, and unlike an ecumenical council, the synod of bishops is convened by the Holy Father for consulta-tive and not deliberative purposes. Nevertheless, despite the dif-ferences, "the synod of bishops," according to the Holy Father, "expresses collegiality in a highly ifitense way." The institution of the synod over twen.ty-seven years ago was inspired by the collaboration among the bishops at the Second Vatican Council and its beneficial effects for the whole church. Pope Paul VI on 15 September 1965 in the motu proprio Apostolica sollicitudo, establishing the synod of bishops, used these words: "With the aim of providing for a continuance after the council of the great abundance of benefits that we have been so happy to see flow to the Christian people during the time of the council as a result of our close collaboration with the bishops [and] because The institution of the synod over twenty-seven years ago was inspired by the collaboration among the bishops at the Second Vatican Council and its beneficial effects for the whole church. January-February 1994 31 Schotte ¯ The Consecrated Life in the Church of our esteem and regard for all the Catholic bishops and with the aim of providing them with abundant means for greater and more effective participation in our concern for the universal church, on our own initiative and by our apostolic authority we hereby erect and establish here in Rome a permanent council of bishops for the universal church, to be directly and immediately subject to our power." Much more than a structure inspired by the Second Vatican Council, the synod of bishops has proven itself to be an apt instru-ment for the implementation of conciliar doctrine and the appli-cation of its pastoral directives. At the same time it has also been the forum for the interpretation and further development of the teachings and spirit of the council. An Instrument of Continuous Pastoral Renewal Though each session is called to respond to unique pastoral situations, no synod is ever an isolated event, but has a relation to other synodal gatherings. Because each synod calls together a representative portion of the episcopate with its head the pope, each synod has a relation to the whole church. At the same time, because the synod is a unique response of the episcopal college to the mandate or mission entrusted to it by the Savior, each synod has a relation to the fundamental salvific mission of the church through history as well. A brief look at the various synods which have taken place to date is evidence enough of the importance of these episcopal gatherings for the church and their value in bring-ing about the reforms intended by the council. Pope Paul VI stated the goals for the First Ordinary General Assembly, held in the fall of 1967: "the preservation and the strengthening of the Catholic faith, its integrity, its force, its development, its doctrinal and historical coherence." One result of this meeting was the eventual establishment of the International Commission of Theologians to assist the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and to broaden a discussion on approaches to theological research. The same assembly provided the stimu-lus for the 1983 publication of the revised Code of Canon Law and also made recommendations to the Holy Father on various pastoral questions. Two years later, in 1969, the First Extraordinary General Assembly was convoked to seek and examine ways and means of 32 Review for Religious putting into practice the collegiality of bishops with the pope. This meeting opened the door to greater collegiality in the pas-toral care of the universal church and in episcopal conferences and the relations between individual bishops. In 1971 the Second Ordinary General Assembly treated two subjects: "The Ministerial Priesthood" and "Justice in the World." In the former, treatment was centered on the theological nature of the priesthood with the intention of addressing certain diffi-culties experienced by priests in the course of their ministry. On the subject of justice, the bishops stated the need to relate the gospel to existing worldwide and local circumstances. "Evangelization in the Modern World" occupied the work of the Third Ordinary General Assembly held in 1974. At this assem-bly the bishops reemphasized the essential missionary character of the church and the duty of each member to bear wimess to Christ in the world. The bishops' recommendations and proposals sub-mitted to the pope were used in the formulation of the apostolic exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi. At the Fourth Ordinary General Assembly, which took place three years later, in 1977, the discussion of the bishops centered on "Catechesis in Our Times," with special attention given to the teaching of the faith to children and young people. Shortly after the synod, Pope John Paul II issued the apostolic exhortation Catecbesi tradendae, which utilized a great many of the bishops' insights and proposals. The First Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, popularly known as "The Dutch Synod," was convoked in 1980 to examine more thoroughly the teachings of the Second Vatican Council on the mystery of church communion and its practical implications on the universal and local level, and the figure of the bishop and his ministry. In this way the synod sought at that time to address its designated topic, "The Pastoral Situation in Holland." The Fifth Ordinary General Assembly in 1980 reaffirmed the church's teaching on the family, in particular defending marriage and the contents of Humanae vitae. From the discussion and the proposals of the assembly, the pope issued the apostolic exhorta-tion Familiaris consortio. In 1983 the Sixth Ordinary General Assembly, held during a specially called Holy Year commemorating the 1950th year of Redemption, appropriately discussed the need of applying the fruits of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection to the individ- January-February 1994 33 Schotte ¯ The Consecrated Life in the Church These different synodal gatherings which have taken place in the course of the synod's history appear more and more clearly as a continuous process of pastoral renewal. ual and society. The bishops' work during the synod served as the basis for the apostolic exhortation Reconciliatio et paenitentia, which for the first time was designated a "postsynodal" docu-ment. The Second Extraordinary General Assembly in 1985 com-memorated the "Twentieth Anniversary of the Conclusion of the Second Vatican Council" and assessed the state of church renewal according to conciliar teachings. The recently published Catechism of the Catholic Church was the result of a proposal by the bishops at this episcopal assembly. "The Vocation and Mission of the Laity in the Church and in the World" was the topic chosen for the Seventh Ordinary General Assembly in 1987. Through a con-sideration of vocation and mission in the context of church commu-nion, the bishops sought to empha-size the distinctive nature of the lay faithful in the church's life and her work of evangelization in the world. The fifty-four proposals of this assembly were used in the formulation of the postsynodal apostolic exhortation Christifideles laici. In 1990 the Eighth Ordinary General Assembly again took up the subject of priesthood. However, where in 1971 the bishops focused on the theological nature of priesthood and its implica-tions, this assembly's attention was more pastoral in tone, cen-tering. upon priestly formation and the "person" of the priest himself-both religious and diocesan--before and after ordination. The forty-one proposals from this assembly were used by the Holy Father in the formulation of the postsynodal apostolic exhor-tation, Pastores dabo vobis. The Special Assembly for Europe was called in the follow-ing year, 1991, to help discern the kairos of the situation on the European continent created by the historic fall of communism and to consider the role of the church in the various programs of renewal and construction. 34 Review for Religious In preparation are two other special assemblies. In his recent apostolic visitation to Africa last February, the Holy Father announced, in conjunction with the release of the assembly's Instrumenturn laboris, that this special assembly will take place in Rome in 1994, just after Easter. In March the Lineamenta of the special assembly for Lebanon was published, initiating the con-sultation phase of the preparation for that synod. These different synodal gatherings which have taken place in the course of the synod's history appear more and more clearly as a continuous process of pastoral renewal, giving opportunity through prayer and reflection to deepen a sense of the church's mission and to stimulate all the people of God to participate in this mission, each according to his or her state. Perhaps our under-standing of the synod of bishops can be further enhanced by fol-lowing the synod process which has taken place thus far in the preparation for the 1994 synod on "The Consecrated Life and Its Role in the Church and in the World." The 1994 Synodal Process The principles governing the synod of bishops and the synodal process are set forth in three basic documents: the motu proprio Apostolica sollicitudo of Pope Paul VI establishing the synod; Ordo synodi episcoporum celebrandae, or the Constitutions of the Synod of Bishops; and the Code of Canon Law, canons 342 to 348 inclusive. For the purpose of our presentation I will limit myself to those aspects of the process which immediately affect the synod topic, its documentation, and the various preparatory phases leading to the synodal gathering. Before the conclusion of the Eighth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, the synod fathers were asked to elect from their number, according to synod regulations, the required fifteen-member council to assist the general secretary in the follow-up work of the assembly and to work on the prepa-ration of the Ninth Ordinary General Assembly. At the same time the synod fathers were invited to make suggestions on a topic to be treated at the next general assembly. There is a certain value to this initial exchange on the topic during the general assembly because the responses are spontaneous and unprepared. In making their suggestions the bishops were asked to keep in mind the following general criteria in selecting a synodal topic: (1) January-February 1994 35 Sctsotte ¯ Tlse Consecrated Life in rise Church that the topic have a universal character, that is, a reference and application to the whole church; (2) that the topic have a con-temporary character and a certain urgency, that is, have the capa-bility of exciting new energies and movement in the church towards growth; (3) that the topic have a pastoral focus and appli-cation as well as a firm doctrinal basis; and (4) that treatment of the topic be feasible, in other words, that it have the potential actually to be accomplished. In retrospect it is interesting to note that even in the initial consultation during the synod itself a con-vergence of ideas was evident regarding the treatment of some aspect of the consecrated life. Shortly after the conclusion of the general assembly, the gen-eral secretariat continued the consultation process by preparing a letter with the above criteria and sending it to the patriarchates, bishops' conferences, heads of offices of the Roman Curia, and the Union of Superiors General--the normal participants in the synod process. This communication requested the submission of three topics in order of preference. The suggestions coming from this consultation were then analyzed and discussed by the members of council of the general secretariat at one of its regularly sched-uled meetings, and a series of formulations of the theme in order of preference was submitted to the Holy Father. Until now the Holy Father has always selected the council's first choice, con-vinced that the consultation process provides a true indication of the desire of the universal church to treat a given subject. Such was the case for the topic of the 1994 synod. The general consultation process revealed a remarkable con-vergence of ideas indicating a preference for the topic of the con-secrated life. Initially some persons made a rather shallow interpretation to explain the choice, insisting that since the laity and the priesthood were treated in the two previous synodal assemblies, it was only logical that the consecrated life should receive attention. The truth of the matter is that in the course of the consultation a great number of reasons were given for calling a synod to treat the topic of the consecrated life. Many argued in the following manner. 1) With the importance of the consecrated life in the church today, there is necessity to reaffirm its true nature in various new social contexts and in the world at large. 2) The flourishing of vocations in some parts of the world 36 Review for Religious and the crisis of vocations in others requires a thorough exami-nation of the consecrated life. 3) After the Second Vatican Council, various efforts have been made to rewrite constitutions, to propose anew the charism of the founder, and so forth, and consecrated life in general has been subject to an overall renewal. Therefore, the time seems right to engage in an evaluative process. 4) The question of the relationship of those in consecrated life to bishops deserves renewed consideration as well as the sub-ject of the greater participation of women and men religious in the overall pastoral plan of a diocese, particularly in light of the unique charism proper to each. Where the document Mutuae relationes has been fruitful and productive on the whole, certain episcopal con-ferences have given indications that there remain some areas still needing attention. 5) The new forms of consecrated life appearing in many parts of the church require evaluation and proper guidance. The nature of religious institutes, secular institutes, and the societies of apos-tolic life needs to be clarified and their role in the church more clearly defined. Many of the new forms of unions and confrater-nities are appearing with the false notion that they are part of the consecrated life according to the evangelical counsels. 6) Some developments and interpretations have caused the common life for religious to be questioned. In some countries there are situations which deserve attention. 7) The prophetic character of consecrated life in certain cir-cumstances needs to be more clearly defined. How is a person in the consecrated life to respond in faithfulness to his or her voca-tion in the face of secularization, the crisis in culture, and the decline in moral values? 8) In some countries religious congregations have abandoned the work proper to them in favor of individual attempts at apos-tolic work. Such a situation raises the concern of religious con-gregations as well as bishops, requiring them to seek the proper pastoral approach to such situations. The above sampling of reasons underlying the choice of topic for the 1994 synod sufficiently indicates its universal appeal, pas-toral relevance, timely character, and feasibility. At the same time, it can be seen that they have a general inter-est for the entire church. In virtue of the church's unity, every part and every member will be affected by the exchange and out- January-Fetrruary 1994 37 Schotte * The Consecrated Life in the Church come. In this sense the synod will not simply treat a topic, but make suggestions to the Holy Father regarding the future. What does the consecrated life have in store for the future? How are those in consecrated life to live out their consecration in the apos-tolic mission of the church? What courageous and bold steps are required to meet the unique challenges made on consecrated life by the present state of affairs in the church and society? Before these questions can be faced by the bishops in syn-odal assembly, the church at large will have time to reflect on them and other aspects of the topic and be invited to make their observations known through the proper channels so that those required to make official responses on the topic to the general secretariat will have current information with which to work. The 1994 Lineamenta The synod process can be divided into four great moments: the Lineamenta, the Instrumentum laboris, the synodal assembly, and the postsynodal document. We logically pause to devote some time to explaining the Lineamenta document, the present stage of preparation for the Ninth Ordinary General Assembly. After the Holy Father's choice of topic, the council of the general secretariat at a regularly scheduled meeting held a roundtable discussion with the secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life and with representatives from the various groups associated with con-secrated life, that is, women and men religious, members of sec-ular institutes, and members of the international organizations of consecrated life in the church, namely, the Union of Superiors General for Men and the International Union of Women Superiors as well as the International Congress of Secular Institutes. The observations resulting from this meeting were fur-ther discussed and developed in subsequent council meetings, and with the help of theologians an outline and texts of the Lineamenta were drafted and studied, before a definitive text was submitted to the Holy Father. As its Latin name suggests, the Lineamenta is an "outline" or general presentation of the synod topic followed by a series of questions intended to direct the prayer and reflection of the whole church on the subject. The information resulting from this stage will provide the raw material for the synod's Instrumentum laboris 3 8 Review for Religious or "working document," intended to present a composite picture of the present situation and prevailing attitudes in the church on consecrated life and its role in the church and in the world. The Lineamenta document is divided into three major parts, each treating a specific aspect of the topic: (1) "The Nature and Identity of the Consecrated Life"; (2) "The Consecrated Life in the church and in the World of Today"; and (3) "The Role of Consecrated Life." The document's initial pages immediately address the prob-lem of terminology. Strictly speaking, the term "consecrated life" in Canon Law refers to religious con-gregations and secular institutes only. What, then, is to be done with soci-eties of apostolic life? Since canon 731, § 1, states that the societies of apostolic life are "comparable to the institutes of consecrated life," it was agreed that the synod topic would also include their treatment. Therefore, when the term is used in the Lineamenta, it is meant to be all-inclusive. After a brief introduction, Part I begins with an explanation of the essential characteristics of the conse-crated life, namely, vocation, conse-cration, mission, the evangelical counsels, the common life, eschato-logical witness, its essential values, and the commitment to the spiritual life. The section then proceeds to speak of the charismatic nature of the consecrated life, as wit-nessed in its variety of charisms and multiplicity of forms. In this regard attention is given to the charism of the founder or foundress, the various forms of consecrated life, institutes of con-templative life, brothers, secular institutes, societies of a.postolic life, and the new forms of consecrated life emerging today. The second part of the document describes the present situ-ation of the consecrated life in the church and in today's world, seeking on this basis to suggest various subtopics which merit consideration, for example, the direction to be taken by the con-secrated life with the approach of the third millennium, the fruits of renewal, new values and aspects of the consecrated life, nega- The synod process can be divided into four great moments: the Lineamenta, the Instrumentum laboris, the synodal assembly, and the postsynodal document. Jam~ary-February 1994 39 Schotte ¯ The Consecrated Life in the Church tive aspects (even these must be addressed), the necessity of a clear witness in responding to the challenges of modern society, and finally the situation in various countries and cultures (Africa and Asia come especially to mind). This section ends with a call to those in consecrated life to continue the renewal begun after the Second Vatican Council. The third section speaks in practical terms of the role of the consecrated life in the church and society, beginning with a pre-sentation on the ecclesial dimensions of the consecrated life, its relation to the church hierarchy, its coordinating structures in fostering communion, its place on the level of the local church, and its communion with the lay faithful. With this in mind, var-ious topics related to the role of the consecrated life within the universal church community are treated, including the new evan-gelization, authentic apostolic creativity, acceptance of the call to evangelization, remaking the fabric of society, promoting the unity of all the baptized, and the dialogue with followers of other religions. The concluding portion of Part III turns its attention to the church's mission in the world, emphasizing features associ-ated with the consecrated life, for example, its specific witness to God's love through the works of mercy; its attention to young people and their needs; its presence in schools, hospitals, and social programs; its dedication to work on behalf of the poor; its role--past and present--in the transmission and formation of cul-ture; and its part in the church's work of safeguarding the values of nature and conscience in today's world. The closing pages of the Lineamenta then offe~ a brief look at Mary as the model and mother of the consecrated life and a reflec-tion on the consecrated life in terms of a renewed presence of Christ in the world of today. The presentation concludes with a section containing the document's endnotes, followed by a table of contents. Incorporated in the Lineamenta text and appearing at the con-clusion of each section is a series of twenty-five consecutively numbered questions which are meant to focus the prayer and dis-cussion of the universal church on various aspects of the synod topic. At the same time, these questions and numbers are to pro-vide an orderly structure for the responses from various individ-uals and church bodies which will be formulated and submitted in the lively exchange on all levels of the church community dur-ing the consultation period. 40 Review for Religious Official responses are expected to be filed with the general secretariat by those normally involved in the consultation pro-cess, that is, patriarchates, episcopal conferences, offices of the Roman Curia, and the Union of Superiors General for Men. Given the synod topic, the International Union of Women Superiors and the International Congress for Secular Institutes are also to submit responses. All responsible for such responses are to work on the best possible manner of facilitating the reading of the document by individuals and groups associated with them, and of seeking information from them so that the responses may be truly complete and reflect the richness of the exchange on the various levels of the local church community. With the publication of the Lineamenta on 20 November 1992, a significant and important stage in the preparation for this synodal assembly was initiated. I would even go so far as to say a most critical phase, because the richness and depth of the Instrumentum laboris, the reference point and source of discus-sion during the actual synodal assembly, depends on the widespread participation of the whole church and a thorough-ness in answering the series of questions posed in the Lineamenta. For this reason, it is incumbent upon each individual in the church, no matter what his or her state or circumstance, to con-tribute through the accustomed channels in this presynodal prepa-ration period, thereby providing the necessary information which will be eventually used in the official responses to be sent to the general secretariat. From my experience over the years I am becoming more aware and convinced of the very real contribution and impact of synodal assemblies in the life of the church. These beneficial results come about not simply from a month-long meeting, but from the whole synodal process, from the consultation regard-ing the theme, the prayer and reflection period, the actual cele-bration of the synod, and its follow-up. Not only do the reflection and prayer which are a part of the Lineamenta phase assist in setting the agenda in the Instrumentum laboris or "working paper," but the process itself taps and exer-cises the dynamism of church communion in the listening, shar-ing, and stirring up of new energies on various levels of the church community. And after the synodal assembly, where there is a con-centrated effort at intensely living the communion which has come beforehand, the effects make themselves felt years later. January-February 1994 41 Scbotte ¯ The Consecrated Life in the Church The Lineamenta itself makes reference to this fact when it states that the occasion of this synod will provide the opportunity for "all members of the church, particularly the institutes of con-secrated life, to reconsider the subject of their own renewal in light of the challenges and the opportunities of the present moment," based on the church's appeal in these days "for a renewed endeavor towards evangelical life, towards a profound spirituality, and towards a generous presence in the new evange-lization" (§33). This time of synodal preparation, then, is an occa-sion for hope, a hope that this profound examination of the status of renewal and the prospects for future growth of the consecrated life in all its aspects will be a moment of grace and revitalization, and bring great benefits to all those in consecrated life and to the church as a whole. Message from a Coreopsis Lanceolata (Daisies Do Tell) Some of us are past our prime, And one of us has lost a few petals; Another--will never see the sun. Yet we all rejoice That we reflect our Maker And celebrate a loving God Who signs each one of us With his own life's Blood. Joann Stuever, ASC postulant 42 Review for Religious A. PAUL DOMINIC Charism, Charisms, and Faddism d sexagenarian religious superior who keeps abreast of the times asked me if I had read the recent document on reli-gious life produced by the council of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops. I said yes, adding hesitantly: "But it is not very interesting." Without hesitation she agreed completely. The Point of Departure: The Lineamenta Surely the Lineamenta, the preliminary agenda on "The Consecrated Life and Its Role in the Church and in the World" prepared in view of the forthcoming Ninth General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, is not a particularly charismatic piece of writing. After all, it is not from the pen of a theologian like Rahner, or a biblicist like Elsa Tamez, or a feminist like Ruether, or a third-world figure like Amalorpavadass, or a cardinal like Martini. On the contrary, it is an official document with its strengths and weaknesses, treating the topic "in a complete organic manner, indicating the topic's precise content and its necessary limits''1 and touching upon "only the essential points of doctrine" (§4).2 As such, therefore, it would read somewhat like a protocol without the charismatic cadence or resonance of your fa~,orite author. However, considering that the document is the product of the pastoral office of the church, we would not be wrong if we rec-ognized in it the charismatic teaching included by Paul in his lists A. Paul Dominic SJ can be addressed at Satyodayam; S. Lallaguda; Secunderabad 500 017; India. .~anuary-Felrruary 1994 43 Dominic * Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism of charisms. And so what it says about religious life as a charism that includes many a charism can serve for our mental nourish-ment and impart to us a spiritual gift (Rm 1:11). It can set us thinking about religious life as a matter of charismatic experi-ence, that is, an experience of living a fundamental charism through as many different charisms as there are societies of"con-secrated" or "apostolic" life. Any serious reflection on this mat-ter will prove to be relevant, for the prevailing confusion in religious life concerns partly the lack of clarity about charism and charisms.3 Religious Life as Charism Religious life, like all life, is best observed in its relationships. On the one hand, it is a part of the church; and, on the other, it is itself the church and so serving, like the church, the rest of the world (§3, §25, and §44). In the first perspective, religious life is one of the many charisms of the church; in the second, it is, as we said earlier, a fundamental charism giving rise to a wide variety of expressions of itself. The religious state of life is a "particular gift in the life of the church" (Lumen gentium, §43). As such it can be properly appre-ciated only when we see it in place, beside many other similar gifts enjoyed by the church. That is why the Lineamenta begins the consideration of charisms (§14-§17) recalling the mystery of the church as the Mystical Body of Christ endowed with many gifts, quoting Paul: "There are many different gifts, but it is always the same Spirit; there are many different ways of serving, but it is always the same Lord. There are many different forms of activ-ity, but in everybody it is the same God who is at work in all" (1 Co 12:4-6). By the parallelism of the verses, the different ways of service or activity are all to be understood as gifts in a variety of forms. Paul goes on to list such gifts in the immediate context (i Co 12:8-10, 28) and also in other letters (Rm 12:6-8 and Ep 4:11). A look at all the lists can give us an idea of the wide range of gifts enjoyed by the growing church. Though it would be anachronistic to look for the mention of religious life among the listed gifts of the Spirit bestowed on the church, note that celibacy is proposed as a special gift (1 Co 7:7). In the course of time the church came to recognize many more gifts in its ongoing life, gifts like asceticism, monasticism, vir- 44 Review for Religious ginity, choice of poverty, and social virtues, to speak only of those that have an obvious reference to religious life.4 As the church grew in self-awareness, it came to discover many elements that we now associate with religious life as its specific gifts; and so today we can speak about "the charism of the consecrated life" (§14), that is to say, the consecrated life itself viewed as a gift or charism. However various and heterogeneous the different charisms may be in the manner of their working, they are one and homo-geneous in intent and purpose. They are all meant to build up the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is built up when the mem-bers are well nourished and so live to the full, reaching unity in faith and knowledge of the Son of God and forming the perfect Person fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself (Ep 4:13). This fullness of Christ is the same as the life permeated by the Spirit ever filling us or even overwhelming us with all her gifts and charisms. Such a life energized by the working of the Spirit is spiritual and holy. M1 the charisms of the Spirit nourish the life of the church, making it ever more holy with the life of Christ himself. Situating religious life thus in the sphere of the church's life of holiness and recognizing in it a universal reality in the church's makeup, the Lineamenta concludes: "With this in mind one speaks of 'the charism of the consecrated life'" (§14). Here is surely an echo of the approach to religious life taken by Lumen gentium, §39-§47. Such an affirmation of religious life, however, is slightly marred by the way the Lineamenta, following of course Vatican expresses it. After describing the way of holiness of religious life marked by vows that establish a special bond to God, Lumen gen-tium concludes: "Thus, although the religious state., does not belong" to the hierarchical structure of the church, nevertheless it belongs inseparably to her life and holiness" (see L §1; see also §14 and §36). One can discover a patronizing voice here, rightly or wrongly. Anyway, what a difference it would make if the state-ment were to read towards the end: "nevertheless, like the hier-archy, the religious state too belongs inseparably to her life and holiness." Does not Vatican II after all state in the chapter on universal holiness, "In the various types and duties of life, one and the same holiness is cultivated by all who are moved by the Spirit of God" (LG §41), and further go on to describe the way of holiness of the different classes of persons and finally end with a clear reference to the life of the religious (LG §41 and §42)? January-February 1994 45 Dominic ¯ Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism There is a good reason why we can parallel religious life and hierarchy in this way. Of all the charisms enumerated by Paul-- who, incidentally, developed the terminology of charisms--the pastoral office of the hierarchy is the only one that concerns a state of life. This idea gets all the greater force because the pas-toral letters signal a development in the idea of charism which continued to prevail in postapostolic times. Paul's reminder to Timothy, "You have in you a spiritual gift which was given to you when the prophets spoke and the body of elders laid their hands on you" (i Tm 4:14), a reminder repeated again in 2 Timothy 1:6, certainly refers to Timothy's charism as one of grace of state or office. If we add to this way of looking at the hierarchical charism the reference to the charism of married life in 1 Corinthians 7:7, where there is a simultaneous reference to the charism of celibacy too, we can discern a line of thinking in which the various particular vocations in Christian life can be considered charisms establishing people in different states of life. So we can now speak in particular of the charism of religious life as the grace of the religious state of life; contributing to the holiness of the church in a particular way. In this context it is enlightening and inspiring to recall an old nomenclature of the religious state of life, namely, the state of perfection, proclaiming visibly the prophetic office of Christ wit-nessing to the kingdo~n here and hereafter. What is basic about states of perfection is the perfection to be acquired by way of the evangelical counsels in a community set-up. The function of any particular way of religious life, contemplative or active, lies. in this: that religious, by their very striving after holiness, call upon all Christians to do the same in their own way. So remarking, Bernard H~iring quotes papal authority in support: "The church would not fully respond to the mind of her Divine Bridegroom, men would not fix their eyes on her as on the 'the signal unto the nations'., if they did not find in her men who reflected the splendor of the gospel more through the example of their life than by means of words.''s All this is not so old-fashioned. A few years ago America carried an article describing religious as those who, unlike the laity, make religion their very career with its own particular structures that not only favor and promote it but also witness to it.6 The charism of religious is to be identified with striving for perfection, as the Lineamenta often repeats (§3, §5, §8, and §16). 46 Review for Religious To speak of the state of perfection is perhaps not a post-Vatican practice. However, in avoiding the falsity of perception possible in the expression, one need not altogether abandon its right use. Rather, we need to rediscover in the correct meaning of the phrase some essentials of religious life. Here is one: "It is not so much we who profess as others (the church, the community) who recognize that we. at least have received an explicit call and have come to a state of commitment to pursue it relentlessly, wholeheartedly; and radically.''7 But even in so reflecting on religious life as a state of perfec-tion, one should beware of a dan-ger. If one were to emphasize the personal pursuit of perfection that religious undertake, one is liable to overemphasize all their many undertakings on the path to perfection, thereby forgetting that any and every charism is a pure and simple gift of God. The story of Peter is apt here, as Bonhoeffer tells it. "Three times Peter heard himself proclaim that Christ is his Lord and God--at the beginning, at the end, and at Caesarea Philippi. Each time it is the same grace of Christ calling Peter to follow, and revealing itself to him in his confession." To reiterate the idea with Bonhoeffer: "This grace was certainly not self-bestowed. It was the grace of Christ himself.''8 Quoting all this, J.M.R. Tillard concludes; "Now, this costly grace., is for Simon Peter and for every religious the charism which makes existence as such a sign of the gospel. This charism comes from the Lord's Spirit . It is truly a gift made by the risen Lord, through his Holy Spirit, to his people. The Lord passes by. his grace seizes certain men and women. Poor sinners, they are nonetheless of those who will say to . . . the world: 'We have found what we were looking for! Come and see!' This is their charism.''9 One may, then, delve into the experience of religious life and discover in its depths not so much a for but a because of. No one enters religious life primarily for some thing or some work, but rather because of the One Who calls. "The for will come later, nec-essarily, but in the radiance and as the evangelical fruit of the No one enters religious life primarily for some thing or some work, but rather because of the One who calls. ~tanuar2/-Febrttary 1994 47 Dominic ¯ Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism because of," as Tillard says.~° Can anything be clearer than this? Yet in the culture shock that religious were exposed to after Vatican Council II, not a few sought their identity in their works and tasks, in their of religious life. But the more they did so, the more elusive they found it. For their real existence as religious was concentrated in the call of Christ to which they had once com-mitted themselves because of the altogether new experience of being seized by the Lord's power. Their existence, therefore, became, or ought to have become, a new existence, a charismatic existence, a charism. Such a vision of religious life as the charism in itself appears distinctly, though in a less charismatic expression, in the Lineamenta when it speaks of the profession of the gospel as the supreme rule for all institutes, whatever their particular ministries may be (§8; see also Perfectae caritatis, §2). The Charisms of Religious Life Once religious life is understood in terms of one unique exis-tential charism underlying all forms of it, one may be able to appreciate the more familiar experience of the particular charisms that at once characterize and distinguish the various institutes. It is in this way that the Lineamenta would seem to interpret the charismatic nature of religious life as taught in the conciliar and postconciliar documents (§ 14). Logically and theologically, the consideration of the charism that constitutes religious life leads to that of the many charisms of religious life. It is the one charism of religious life that begets many a charism in it. Are not the latter "like branches sprouting out wondrously and abundantly from a tree growing in the field of the Lord"? (LG §43, quoted in L §16). Historically, however, what attracted the attention of people was the variety of charisms and not the one charism beneath and beyond all charisms. So, tracing the beginning of religious life from the very infancy of the church, Perfectae caritatis could point out: "Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, many., pursued a solitary life, or founded religious families . And so it happened by divine plan that a wonderful variety of religious communities grew up" (§ 1, partly quoted in L § 16). The mention of solitary life and religious families obviously refers to the twin charisms of original religious life, namely, 48 Review for Religious eremiticism and cenobitism (§9 and §19c). Cenobitism itself in the course of history developed two other charisms, namely, divine contemplation and human service. These in turn became spe-cialized in their ways of focusing on God and on people. In what-ever century religious live out their days, they adopt or develop distinct varieties of direct service of God and humanity, in imita-tion of Christ. Through them, therefore, Christ comes to be shown "contemplating on the mountain, announcing God's king-dom to the multitude, 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" (LG §46, quoted in L §15). Often enough, charisms are considered, or even identified with, graces meant for the common good. Such a consideration is incomplete because it misses something important, namely, the source of the power of service. Charisms are particular graces imparted to us by which we bear or image or reflect or even become Christ in ourselves in a particular limited way, and so are able to render appropriate service in a specific context in a par-ticular part of the world in the manner of Christ himself. So they highlight in us "a specific aspect of the mystery of Christ" (§ 17). However, the gospel, or for that matter Christ himself, if under-stood with proper nuance, is not apart from the church. So the Lineamenta does well in describing charisms as bearing upon a specific aspect, not only of the mystery of Christ, but also of the church's life, and thus manifesting in the makeup of the Mystical Body the multiform grace of Christ (§15). One should not miss here how charisms are at once incarnational and ecclesial (§46). Charisms and Service Once it is grasped that charisms have to do primarily with a fundamental religious way of being, one cannot go wrong in insist-ing that charisms are out-and-out oriented towards service, "des-tined for service of the kingdom" (§3); for surely charisms have an inalienable reference, not only to the way of being, but also to the way of doing. The Lineamenta spells out the nexus between charism and service forcefully thus: "Each charism . . . brings with it a particular manner of faithfully and intensely living the evangelical counsels. In addition, it implies a particular and con-crete style of spiritual life, a determined form of apostolate, a .~anuary-February 1994 49 Dominic ¯ Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism specific experience of community life, and a particular involvement in the world" (816 [emphasis added]; see also $8). What, then, are the specific paths of service in the building of the earthly city (§44)? Not forgetting the contribution of the contemplatives to society through their divine service of worship (§2)--the first permanent foundation of women in the United States was Carmelites~l--the Lineamenta illustrates the service of active charisms thus: "Today the consecrated life is present in our society through the multiplicity of apostolic services rendered to others, each according to its diverse charisms, in one magnificent expression of the charity of Christ on behalf of the integral for-mation of persons; in the education of children and young people, in the care of the sick, the suffering, the elderly, and those in want; and in aid to persons with special needs and those marginal-ized by society" (§44a). What do all such services intend except "to make operative the gospel of the beatitudes and the works of mercy" (§44a)? One particular element of service rendered by charisms con-cerns life of communion within the church. Different forms of religious life characterized by their different charisms do not con-stitute exclusive churches within the church, but, forming part of the one church, ought to feel themselves to be the church and so identify themselves with her (~3 and ~35; see also Perfectae car-itatis, §2c). The charisms of the different religious families, with their charismatic and yet ecclesial-minded founders, belong as much to the whole church as to the religious themselves (~16, §26e, and §46). For not only are they meant for the growth of the chhrch, but they also have their origin, regulation, guarantee, and approval in and from the church (§6, §15, and §16). Therefore, far from being closed in upon themselves, religious offer a rich fare for communion, reflecting ideal church commu-nion (§9). There is every reason, then, to identify the religious living together by the term community. Incidentally, the hierarchy as such can only contribute, in terms of sociology, to the culture of societas with role differentiation; but the religious as such plunge themselves into the heart of society with their charisms of ser-vice (§3, ~42, and §44) and break through segmentations in soci-ety and initiate the culture of communitas in our world.~2 In bringing about this new culture of communion in the world church, the religious, as "experts in communion" (§35), have nec- 50 Review for Relig~otts essarily to act locally in the particular church, but with their hearts spanning universally in the global church (§27a). The exercise of religious charisms "assists everyone--clergy and faithful--to open themselves to the universal and missionary dimension of the church, and., makes the particular churches an image of the uni-versal church" (§39). For a con-crete example of communion resulting from the enduring charisms, the Lineamenta points out the flourishing of lay third orders, lay associations, and lay-volunteer groups "whose mem-bers are bound under different titles to the spirituality and apos-tolic work of various institutes" (}41). Where the charisms do not serve the cause of church com-munion, they are likely to become mere means of some service or religious themselves. other without the underlying spirit. The Lineamenta warns of the danger of reducing the pres-ence of institutes to parochial ser-vice "without encouraging and welcoming the richness of the spirituality and their proper charismatic service" (~40). More plainly, in the church Body each part can do only the service it is meant for. As charisms are vivifying and beautifying graces of the differ-ent members of the Body of the church (§46), they complement one another; and so they cannot healthily coexist without mutual encounter and influence. Perhaps, in the pre-Vatican "ghetto" church, religious congregations developed their own ghettos, pos-sibly without even knowing it. But the time has come, especially in the era of ecumenism, for % better understanding of the sense of communion among foundational charisms" (§27b). It is high time, therefore, for religious to realize how a particularly har-monious communion among themselves, sharing one another's charism, "can and should contribute to express better the full-ness and richness of Christ" (§46), not only in his Body the church, but also in his extended body, the world in need of union. The charisms of the different religious families, with their charismatic and yet ecclesial-minded founders, belong as much to the whole church as to the Jan~ry-Febrz~ry 1994 51 Dominic ¯ Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism As charisms serve the cause of communion in the church, so do they contribute to the unity of the separate congregations them-selves. It is unthinkable that a religious family could maintain its unity of life amid all its committed involvement in the world if it failed to cling to its essential charism for nourishment (§32b). Each particular charism, bringing with it a particular manner of intense eyangelical life, makes the presence of the one Lord pres-ent in space and time (§46) and thus "enriches the legacy of life, history, and spirituality characterizing each family identity, shared in common through the spirit of the founder or foundress" (§16). Keeping Charisms Alive The dynamism of religious life in its variety depends on the vitality of its true charisms. Once charisms turn false, they lose their vitality and spell the ruin of institutes. Present-day insti-tutes can continue their existence faithfully only if they recog-nize, recover, retain, and renew their particular charisms in their past originality and present timeliness (~ 17). What, then, can we say about the renewal of charisms? "In keeping with their proper charism" (§40) and similar phrases recur in the Lineamenta, as in the Code of Canon Law, emphasizing that the charisms are to be preserved with fidelity and continued without alteration, avoiding all subtle deviation from the original spirit (§16). This supposes in religious a healthy appreciation and pride in the early traditions of their congrega-tion, as advocated by Perfectae caritatis. Given the evangelical inspiration of all charisms, one can say more, drawing a compar-ison between keeping to the purity of the gospel and maintaining the primitive charism. As Paul insisted on an anathema for those who dare preach a different gospel (Ga 1:8-9), religious founders and foundresses could do likewise, enjoining their followers to abide by the spirit of their constitutions without any dilution or dissimulation on their part.13 In this spirit, while expressing appre-ciation of the general progress in the awareness of the separate charisms in the different congregations in the postconciliar era, the Lineamenta adds affirmatively: "This consciousness ought to find expression in a spiritual commitment and a working pres-ence which effectively enlivens and makes operative for the good of the church the spirit of the founder orfoundress and the legacy of each institute" (§3 lc). 52 Review for Religious Two modern experiences with regard to charisms are note-worthy. One, the preferential choice for the poor, which has been "a constant feature of charisms in the apostolic life, often inspired by the words and actions of the Lord" (§44c; see also §27d), is becoming more and more a serious concern for religious life, leading communities to share the very life of the poor and the marginalized with all their risks, trials, and problems. Second, reminiscent of the early successes of many a congregation, there is the geographical spread of extant charisms in the younger churches of the third world and in the newly liberated Eastern European countries (§27c), giving rise to new cultural expres-sions of them (§32c). The above-mentioned experiences are two fine examples of how charisms rise to the occasion and serve their purpose today, provided they are ever deepened and constantly developed (Mutuae relationes, §1 i; L ~16) according to the signs of the times (Perfectae caritatis, §2; L §17). The sign today is the oncoming of the third millennium, throwing up opportunities and challenges (§33) and giving rise to the sprouting of new charisms and new forms of evangelical life (§24 and §27c). One aspect of this deepening and developing of surviving charisms lies in the direction of their "being called upon today-- inspired by the spirit of the founder or foundress--to serve as the basis for making new commitments and responses in Christian charity to the new and old expressions of poverty in our world" (§29g) and, more generally, to the changed atmosphere of the world "because of the social and cultural happenings which have rapidly come about in modern society" (§25). This is reminiscent of the call of Mutuae relationes to be innovative enough for bold enter-prising initiatives (§12; L §42). Which persons are inspired enough and thus inspiring enough to make new initiatives and refound their congregations, warding off the subtle temptation to be wise in their own eyes? Only fer-vent people (§29e). Only they can update discerningly for today the expressions of their original charism. But in the absence of such people "a certain leveling in behavior and in the tenor of the spiritual and communal life has brought a certain loss of prac-tical identity in charism and works" (§28b)--as surely happened in India, for instance, when some religious working with the masses wanted no public association whatever with their congre-gation. So the apparently clever and outspoken members certainly ~tammry-February 1994 53 Dominic ¯ Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism need to be cautioned, against tendential postures, theoretical and practical, regarding charisms that go against their.genuineness (§3 lc). A case in point was that of a Jesuit who spoke of the need to rewrite the Ignatian rules for thinking with the church, to the applause of the gathering of course, with scant awareness of their foundation in the mystical union of the church and Christ that inspired Ignatius's Eharacteristic service of the church. While there have been new, positive, and worthy initiatives-- the switch of women religious in the United States from the ser-vice of the clergy to frontier ministries should be hailed as one such measure though grudged by not a few men even in the highly progressive United States of Americal4--there have also been negative, unworthy, and false initiatives--which brings me to the discussion of faddism. Faddism Faddism, the cultivation of fads, has to do with "a rapid, sud-den, and ephemeral collective adoption of novel behavior which affects only superficial or trivial areas of life.''s It was certainly the fad of hasty paradigm shifting when some persons clamored for implementing changes in religious life at a faster pace than peo-ple could cope with. Even when people were willing to change, it was not without the grief of losing the familiar past or the fear of the unknown future. So whoever rushed their fellow religious into the world of Vatican II without at the same time providing them time to grapple with their fear or to grieve over or even rage about their apparent loss were carried away more by an itch for change (2 Tm 4:3) than by the breath of the Spirit, for whom there are times for everything. It was also a fad whenever an opinion gained ground that this or that particular individual was the resource person for renewal. To venture an example, it would seem that a certain fad of what may be called spiritual consumerism surrounded Anthony de Mello of Sadbana fame, for numbers of people kept looking to him alone for renewal, almost as if he were the director of world-wide renewal. In any case, whenever one individual looms too large in some endeavor, the result tends to be superficial, whereas all renewal worth the name happens deep within people, where the creative Spirit works in the innermost recesses of hearts. Another similax: fad, which coflld be called hybridization, was 54 Review for Religious the adoption of a celebrated model as the sole means of renewal, whether or not it squared with the blueprint of one's own origi-nal charism. If the one-month retreat according to the Spiritual Exercises appeared to be such a fad some twenty years ago, today in certain circles external dialogue--whether with native tradi-tions or modern situations--would seem to hold sway more than inner dialogue within one's own charism. Among all those who were "zealous" about reforms in reli-gious life, precious few resorted to a real praxis. Not only did individuals and small groups indulge in the fad of stylized ideo-logical talk.~6 Even entire provinces, if not whole congregations, could be all talk, adopting popular phrases about the poor, for example, rather than making sincere options for them. How pro-ductive can all this exercise be except for inviting occasional out-right condemnation. A bold village woman responded to a group of young religious whose actions were not as forthcoming as their words, "These are not the kind of shepherds who will save the sheep; they swallow the sheep." What is absent in feverish talk, namely, action, can itself become a fad and go beyond all proportion. The slogan (not the idea itself) "formation for mission in mission" suits such a fad, giving the go-by to minimum privacy and seclusion for necessary growth in maturity and personalization. Showmanship and one-up- manship feed this fad, causing each one's action to be largely unproductive. These things are the very opposite of prophetic action. They may have the imaginativeness of the prophets of old, but not their soundness of inspiration. The craze of using anything and everythin

Issue 65.1 of the Review for Religious, 2006. ; Inspiration The Spirit QUARTERLY ~ 2006 Review for Religious fosters dialogue with God, dialogue with ourselves, and dialogue with one another about tb~ holiness we try to live according to charisms of Catholic religious life. As Pope Paul vl said, our way of being church is today the way of dialogue. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis Universit3£ by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-633-4610 ¯ Fax: 314-633-4611 E-Mail: review@slu.edu .° \¥eh site: *~,w.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ° Pontifical College Josephinuln 7625 North High Street ¯ Columbus, Ohio 43235 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2006 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific lihrarv clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. view for religious Editor Associate Editor Canonical Counsel Scripture Scope Editorial Staff VVebmaster Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Eugene Hensell OSB Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Clare Boehmer ASC Stephen Erspamer OSB Kathleen Hughes RSCJ Louis and A~. gela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ QUARTERLY 65.1 2006 contents prisms 4 Prisms context American Catholicism's Chaos-- and Its Future Richard Gribble CSC reviews the present situation of the post-Vatican II era of American Catholicism through an analysis of contemporary authors while providing hope for the future. 21 23 3O challenges 0 Religious Life in the Third World-- a Shangri-La? Anthony Malaviaratchi CSSR paints a rather sobering picture of the difficulties involved in discerning a vocation for third-world candidates and in superiors' exercise of leadership. Personal Reflection Questions and Group Discussion Propositions Challenges for Communities' New Members Guire Cleary SSF sets out some of the challenges experi-enced by new members of religious communities, drawing on his own experiences and observations and on personal histories from other new religious. Review for Religious inspiration 43 A Spirituality of Surrender--A Jesuit's Story Rosemary Stets OSF shares with us the making of a prayer of surrender from her conversation with and the living example of the Jesuit Walter J. Ciszek. 48 57 Two Mysteries in One: Implications for Ministry Giovanni Zevola OMI delves into the meaning of the Annunciation and the Visitation to find there the richness of theology and pastoral care, encountering each other in pastoral experience. Truth: Religious Simplicity Revisited Robert P. Maloney CM focuses on Vincent de Paul's choice of simplicity as "being in the truth" with God, with oneself, with others, and with the created universe; He then discusses some of the dilemmas involved in combining the simplicity of the dove with the prudence of the serpent. Prayer Reflection and Group Discussion 7O Sharing God the Ignatian Way David L. Fleming SJ indicates how Ignatian spirituality affects the ways we understand and relate to God. Personal Reflection and Group Discussion 76 the spirit Led by the Spirit: St. Patrick Andrew Ryder SCJ views the working of the Holy Spirit in the life and missionary activity of St. Patrick from his own witness given in his Confession. departments 92 Scripture Scope: The suffering of Jesus ~ 96 Canonical Counsel: Chapters and Other Meetings 102 Book Reviews 65.1 2006 4 ~hen was the last time that we felt that we were making a flesh start? Maybe it was a flesh start in our getting regular exercise. Perhaps it was a fresh start that we needed in establishing a better relationship with a co-worker or a relative. Or it might be the flesh start we need in working on our spiritual or church life. We hear and are well aware of the bromides like "That's the way it has always been done" or "We always do it that way." It seems that there is nothing more deadening than a routine life, a life of frozen patterns. Yet it is normal, even necessary, that we estab-lish patterns in our everyday living. For exam-ple, for good health we are encouraged to keep to a pattern of sleeping hours. It is usually helpful for us to establish patterns for our personal prayer, or else we begin to find ourselves too busy to take time to pray. We as a church are always calling ourselves to start afresh. That is a purpose of church sea-sons. We have recently finished the Christmas season. We are entering Ordinary Time, which we will shortly interrupt for the Lenten and Easter seasons. Each time the liturgy, through these seasonal emphases, calls us to a fresh assess-ment of how we are relating to God and how we are living our Christian life. What does it mean for us "to start afresh"? It does not mean that we reject everything that we have been doing. It does not call for us to break totally with our past and act as if we have Review for Religious no personal history. Each one of us is only one person, from birth to death and into resurrection. We are the ones that God loves into creation and identifies with, as sons and daughters in the redemptive action of Jesus. We must always work with our God-given gifts and limitations. But, accepting and living with the mystery of our own person, we receive God's call to start afresh, always to be growing, which means change and development. The foods that we liked as children should not keep us from foods we could well like as adults. When was the last time we tried something new to eat? Maybe we are very comfortable attending Eucharistic holy hours, but have we ever taken time to visit people in a nursing home or in a hospital? Perhaps we keep our weekends to our-selves, but are we open to volunteering for our parish's special pantry preparation and delivery for poor people in our neighborhood? Every Eucharist we celebrate invites us to start afresh with Christ. The risen Jesus, in his everlasting stance of offering himself anew totally to God and totally to us, extends his arms to embrace us in his offering as we enter into Eucharist. And so each Mass, with its own ritual pat-tern, is God's invitation to us to start anew. In the simple practice of the daily examination of conscience--once again a helpful pattern in our Christian lives--we find ourselves always being alerted to the surprising ways that God has entered into our lives this day and perhaps, to our sorrow, we have not responded. In a paradoxical way, by our looking back over our day in the examen, we find ourselves starting afresh in our relationship with God. "Starting afresh with Christ"--is this the "routine call" we hear every day? We may find that this call freshens the whole of our everyday way of living. David L. Fleming SJ 6Y.I 2006 RICHARD GRIBBLE American Catholicism's Chaos--and Its Future context In his recent book The Catholic Revolution: New Wine, Old Wineskins, and the Second Vatican Council, the priest sociologist Andrew Greeley uses new wine in old wineskins to describe con-temporary American Catholicism's chaotic state. He contends that, while appearing strong, Roman Catholicism's structures were fragile, for they had not been adequately adapted to chang-ing times. Thus, when the progressive teach-ings of Vatican II came all at once, the structures were not ready for them and chaos ensued.l Can this chaotic situation be a turning point to a stronger church in the future? Using the work of several prominent American Catholic intellectuals, this essay continues the discussion and seeks to increase hopes for the contempo-rary church. Richard Gribble CSC is an associate professor of religious studies at Stonehill College; 480 Washington Street; North Easton, Massachusetts 02356. His current email address is rgribble@stonehill.edu Review for Religious The American Church Today American Catholics today can be divided into two groups. The "spirit of Vatican II" Catholics, the majority of American Catholics, view John xxIII's aggiornamento as a move toward solidarity with the present age. Following the opening words of Sacrosanctum concilium, "The sacred council has set out., to adapt more closely to the needs of our age those institutions which are sub-ject to change," these more liberal Catholics see Vatican II as a starting point for adaptation. Greeley says, "Catholics [today] believe that the church can change and that they can disregard the pope when it comes to making decisions, especially about sex and gender.''2 Some refer to those in this category as "cafeteria Catholics," who feel free to pick and choose what teach-ings they accept and reject. George Weigel, senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., calls such an understanding of the faith "Catholic lite," perceiving this "watered down" Catholicism as the root of the recent sexual-abuse crisis and, by extension, the general malaise in American Catholicism.3 Greeley characterizes the lassitude in the church as "beige Catholicism," with the Catholic imagination, once a source of unity, now replaced by a colorless Catholic life that has little enthusiasm.4 The other group, those labeled "conservatives" in the literature, accepts Vatican II at face value, but goes no further. These Catholics accept and promote what the council taught, but, unlike the more progressive element, do not believe that the council licensed the generation of multiple theologies. They reject the idea that the "spirit of Vatican II" should govern the church. In the eyes of this group, an overemphasis on aggiornamento created the disunities of "Catholic lite" and "beige Catholicism." James Hitchcock, professor of history at St. Louis 6Y. 1 2006 Gribble ¯ dmerican Catbolicism's Cbaos Despite Vatican II's emphasis on the active role of the laity, the hierarchical church is slow to relinquish power and authority. University, is a standard bearer for this position. He writes, "Liberal religion treats secular culture as pos-sessing a superior wisdom and restricts religious beliefs to what the culture allows, including endorsing every movement deemed to be progressive." He suggests fur-ther that liberals have no sense "that modernity itself, in the full sense oi: the term, is simply antireligious, that rejection of belief is essential to its self-understanding." s Given these divisions in American Catholicism, what are the dominant issues? The Catholic editor and writer Peter Steinfels, in his popular book A People Adrift, says the church must nego-tiate (1) the passage from one generation to the next and (2) the pas-sage of power from the clergy to the laity.6 The first passage is compli-cated: those formed religiously after Vatican II ask questions without sufficient background. v_ _ As for the second pas-sage, despite Vatican II's emphasis on the active role of the laity, the hierarchical church is slow to relinquish power and authority. Steinfels concludes: "Today the Roman Catholic Church in the United States is on the verge of either an irreversible decline or a thoroughgo-ing transformation." 7 For Catholicism worldwide and here in the United States, the ideas Catholics had about Pope John Paul II had a strong influence. Almost universally he was well respected for his worldwide crusade for social justice and his influence in the fall of Communism. More conser-vative critics such as George Weigel saw the pope's lead- Review for Religious ership in church affairs, one based on past traditions, to be precisely what was needed to curb uncertainty and dissent. Clearly John Paul saw Vatican II as a point of arrival, not one of departure for church development. Strong authority is needed, Weigel suggests, "to ensure Christians do not settle for mediocrity." 8 In similar sup-port, James Hitchcock claims that John Paul made "a broad and ambitious attempt to relate the Catholic faith to everything positive in modern culture.''9 On the other hand, the columnist David Gibson has written, "For all of John Paul's unparalleled accomplishments, his popu-larity came with a hidden cost to the church.''1° Similarly, the French journalist Alain Woodrow well summarizes how many American Catholics viewed John Paul: "John Paul is self-assured, convinced of his 'divine mission,' and determined to drag the church--kicking and scream-ing if need be--into his own vision of the 21st century, a vision shaped by his Polish ecclesiology and sustained by his theological certainties. No soul searching or admission of doubt here, but a ringing cry: 'Be not afraid'; I am the pope and I know best!''1~ The Church Today: Specific Ideas Vatican II's emphasis on the church as the people of God brought attention to the important role of the laity. In their outstanding study of the Catholic laity today, William D'Antonio and his colleagues have compared the theology and tendencies of three groups of Catholics: (1) those formed before Vatican II, (2) those who matured during Vatican II, and (3) those raised in a post-Vatican II church. All three generations studied seem to want a more democratic church. A positive view of lay partici-pation in the church increases with a generation's prox-imity to Vatican II. Yet participation as measured by Mass attendance and knowledge of church teaching declines 65.1 2006 Gribble * American Catholicism's Chaos 1_ol from the pre- to post-Vatican II church. 12 While lacking an accurate gauge, the study suggested that, because of less religious formation, post-Vatican II Catholics are less committed than their predecessors.~3 The rapid and significant growth of lay ministry, while a blessing ~o the church, has also caused a few problems. The 1999 "Study of Lay Parish Ministry" found that the theology and church policies necessary to govern this explosion of lay involvement have not kept pace with the advance. Additionally, some have raised concerns that the laity's movement into more tradition-ally priestly or religious roles may eclipse the primary role of the laity in the church and/or lead to a clerical-izing of the laity. Some also fear that careerism rather than a desire to serve, a problem called clericalism when noted in the clergy, may invade the ranks of the laity.14 Another concern raised with the post-Vatican II rise of the laity is an evolving mutual distrust and conflict between the clergy and the laity. David Gibson suggests that the rise in lay ministry has created a backlash and retrenchment on the part of priests. The clergy is flex-ing its muscle and standing aloof from the laity.~s Priests find themselves caught between two forces, the laity, with whom they generally agree theologically but dis-trust, and the institutional church, which they trust but do not agree with. Priests generally support the laity's more positive view of sexuality, have a greater sensitiv-ity to women, and possess respect for the laity's freedom to make decisions, especially on moral matters. 16 Yet cler-icalism and poor homilies, among other things, have cre-ated a gap between priests and their flocks. Rather than assigning any blame to themselves for this situation, the clergy generally point to family breakdown, divorce, and apathy as reasons for the divide.~7 In addition to the gap between the laity and the lower Review for Religious clergy, a division exists between the laity and the hier-archy. During the last several years, accentuated greatly by the 2002 sex-abuse crisis, bishops have lost much credibility with priests and the laity. At the June 2002 meeting of the U.S. Catholic bishops in Dallas, Scott Appleby, the church historian and former director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, summarized the problem while proffering a solution: The crisis confronting the church today cannot be understood and thus not adequately addressed apart from its setting in a wider range of problems that have been growing over the last 34 years. At the heart of these problems is the alienation of the hierarchy and, to a lesser degree, many of the clergy, from ordinary laywomen and laymen . To be faithful to the church envisioned by the council fathers of Vatican II, bishops and priests must trust the laity, appropriately share authority with them, and open their financial, legal, [and] administrative practices and decisions to full visibility. 18 Unfortunately, Appleby's call for transparency has not been heeded sufficiently. In many ways the separation between the hierarchy and the laity has widened on account of the bishops' poor reception of the Voice of the Faithful, the laity's effort to seek accountability while supporting the institutional church. The laity's status in the church and its conflicts with the clergy are highlighted by the ongoing struggle for women to gain proper recognition and equality. How paradoxical that, while women are more active in church ministries, they are mostly relegated to the fringes in authority and privilege. The moral theologian Christine Gudorf has stated that, despite church social teaching on the equality of women, papal teaching on the nature and role of women still accentuates the theme of motherhood. Not only does the pope view motherhood as an element 6Y. 1 2006 Gribble ¯ American Catholicism's Chaos 12 of being female; he views it as a definition of woman-hood. 9 The Benedictine nun, lecturer, and writer Joan Chittister, believes that to design doctrines on marriage, family, and sexuality--all of which deeply and directly impinge on women--without their input is to adopt "posi-tions that are incomplete as well as arrogant." 20 Views opposed ~0 the rise of feminism are also pre-sent. In a strong statement James Hitchcock has written: The rise of militant feminism has been one of the most serious crises in the history of orthodox religion, because women have always tended to be more pious than men and the churches are thus alienated from some of their hitherto most faithful communicants, and because militant feminism logically rejects not only a male savior but the very idea of monotheism.21 The crisis experienced by the laity in today's church is present as well in the priesthood, although manifested differently. Before Vatican II the priesthood in general sustained a vertical.rather than a horizontal faith. The priest was symbolic and functional and was character-ized by the concept of alter Christus (another Christ). The popular 1950s television show "Father Knows Best" could have been easily applied to the priest, who stood as a symbol of the institutional church and functioned to serve God's people in every way. Life for the priest and his people was centered in the parish. While some clergy became prominent as social activists or in other specific roles, the operative model was the all-purpose priest-hood. With rectories and seminaries full and the gener-ally high respect afforded priests, as typified by Father O'Malley in the box-office favorites "Going My Way" and "The Bells of Saint Mary's," priesthood in the American church was .strong. Vatican II's emphasis on the priesthood of the laity and on the church as the people of God "demanded a Review for Religious formal and full reconsideration of the role and identity of the priest in the new church.''22 The tumultuous 1960s, the increased pressure on priests to serve as the-ological and spiritual leaders, and the increasing numbers of men leaving the priesthood transformed the remain-ing priests from "all-purpose" to "orchestra leaders." The priest was now called to identify and foster the unique gifts in each parishioner for service to the church. Empowerment of the laity to fulfill its man-date from Vatican II became an integral part of the priesthood. Yet this demand was not negotiated well by many, leading some to suffer an identity crisis and loss of purpose . With many of the faithful serving as ministers of the Eucharist, ministers of the word, ministers to the sick, and similar functions, what was distinctive about the ordained ministry?z3 Father Donald Cozzens, in his Changing Face of the Priesthood, has described 1980 to 2000 as the "priest-hood's dark night." He writes, "The postconciliar years have tested the mettle of priests--crisis after crisis 'shak-ing the foundations' and turning their lives inside out and upside down." 24 He says that the fallout from Vatican II, most notably the rise in dissent, has eaten away at the priest's moral authority and curtailed the cleric's ability to offer pastoral guidance. Yet, despite these conditions, Cozzens believes the priesthood's present dark night has led to a deepening of spirit and a purification of soul and thus a grace and blessing. The dark night was necessary to bring about the conversion of mind and heart that the Empowerment of the laity to fulf!lt its mandate from Vatican Il became an integral part of the priesthood. 6Y.1 2006 Gribble ¯ American Catholicism's Chaos priesthood needed to serve the people of God in a post-conciliar world.2s The priesthood faces additional challenges that must be addressed in the 2 lst-century church. Some more progressive commentators, like Andrew Greeley, suggest that clericalism allows the clergy to hide behind a veil of secrecy and keeps priests from accepting responsibil-ity for their actions. The natural and important cama-raderie that exists in the clergy has too often been used as an excuse to cover up information and actions that might be seen as prejudicial against the institutional church. One need look no further than the recent sex-abuse controversy to find clear evidence of this. Members of a fraternity will not speak ill of each other. In the same light the priesthood's traditional hierarchical posi-tion above the laity gives license for some to dominate God's people or disregard their opinions.26 More con-servative writers lay much of the blame for lassitude in the church at the feet of the clergy. James Hitchcock has written: The spread of secular attitudes in Catholic cultures has not been primarily the work of professors and journalists, but of priests. Laymen who would be disposed to resist secularization, especially as they see it emanating from hostile sources outside the churches, abandon their resistance at the parent bidding of their spiritual leaders.27 Polarization of theology is another contemporary phenomenon in the priesthood. The researcher Dean Hoge in his First Five Years of the .Priesthood provides a convincing argument that younger priests are more con-servative in their theology and align themselves more strictly along the views of Pope John Paul II.28 Andrew Greeley agrees with Hoge's analysis, especially noting the views of young clergy toward optional celibacy and Review for Religious women priests. He suggests three reasons for their views: (1) These priests do not understand Vatican II, (2) they want the security of a clerical state, and (3) they reject uncertainty.29 More positively, Greeley debunks the myth that priests are unhappy men, especially as a result of the celibacy requirement. Greeley's analysis shows that, while priests may not be paragons of maturity and personal well-being, they are similar to married men with com-mensurate educational backgrounds. His data demon-strates that only two percent of active priests see celibacy as a problem and only sixteen percent of clerics who resign do so because of celibacy. Rather, priests leave because they do not like the work. Celibacy becomes a problem only when ministry is not satisfying.3° What is needed for the American Catholic priest of the 2 1st century? Peter Steinfels presents three signifi-cant qualities of future priests. First, they must possess the theological capacity to celebrate the sacraments, preach the word of God, and make contemporary life meaningful. Second, they must have the ability to ani-mate and guide others. Third, they must be account-able. 3~ John Boissonneau, auxiliary bishop of Toronto, provides a different but consistent list of attributes. Successful priests must view their role as countercultural and not be afraid to take risks. Future clergy must place a premium on authenticity in their personal lives and ministry. And, lastly, successful future priests must avoid isolation, drawing their life from the people they serve.32 The Church Tomorrow To speak intelligently about the needs of the future church, one should know what has proved successful in the past. Andrew Greeley's call for a return to what he terms "the Catholic imagination" deserves some review. 65.1 2006 Gribble * ~qmerican Catbolicis~z's Chaos Catholicism must recover the things of beauty that were summarily swept aside in the wake of the spirit of Vatican II, For Greeley the glue that held worldwide Catholicism was the many metaphors that stressed the immanence of God. Rather than perceiving God as transcendent (the general theological perspective of Protestants), Catholics have always been attracted by multiple sense images of God's presence. The smell of incense, the sight of Eucharistic adoration, processions, and statues, and the words of novenas, parish missions, and the rosary have long served as a glue for Catholics. These were practices to which all could relate; all Catholics were on the same page. Scratch one Catholic and the whole church bled. Greeley does not suggest a return to the 1940s or 1950s, but the "beige Catholicism" that predominates today is not the answer either. He believes that Catholicism must recover the things of beauty that were summarily swept aside in the wake of the spirit of Vatican II. Greeley says the church needs chant, statues, and patron saints; we need metaphors for God.3.3 David Gibson agrees, but goes further. He believes that subsidiarity, a principle of Catholic social teaching, must become operative in the church universal. For Gibson, loyalty to Catholicism is rooted in the local parish. Rather than from the top down, he suggests that governing be from the bottom up, giving voice and authority to the laity. He says that what is important for the church is unity, not uniformity.34 Where must the church move in the 21st century in order to be the viable and healthy institution that will Review for Religious well serve the people of God? Peter Steinfels laments that Cardinal Joseph Bernardin's dynamic Common Ground initiative was summarily cast aside and a reasser-tion of papal authority put in its place. He suggests that the Catholic leadership of the future must break out from trench warfare that has constricted discussion in the American Church since Vatican II. He believes that a balance must be struck between theology and pastoral reality and that the lack of dialogue has been harmful, and so he sees Bernardin's plan as the optimum.35 On a similar track the journalist David Gibson sees the future church in the hands of the hierarchy. There are two routes to follow. Of the two, the more conser-vative one would want Rome to reassert its power and its claim on Catholics' loyalty. The other one would admit problems and seek systemic change. Gibson opts for the second, with the belief that bishops must become more vocal politically and seek avenues whereby those ele-ments of the faith that can be adapted to the uniqueness of the American environment are changed.36 The present crisis in .the church must be a point of renewal that affords growth and a brighter future.36a Clearly it is impossible to return to the pre-Vatican II Church, even if one should desire such a move. The ben-efits that Vatican II brought must be fostered, yet the initial postconciliar "throwing the baby out with the bath" must be avoided. The council called for greater inclusivity as manifest in opportunities for laity and open-ness to other people of faith. Recent developments, as expressed in church documents on various levels, have been seen by many as a regression from Vatican II. In August 2000 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith proclaimed concerning Protestants: "If it is true that the followers of other religions can receive grace, it is also certain that objectively speaking [emphasis in the 65.1 2006 Gribble ¯ American Catholicism's Chaos document] they are in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who; in the church, have the full-ness of the means of salvation.''37 This regression of Vatican II's more open position toward Protestants does not bode well for the future. The church must reinvig-orate the spirit expressed in Nostra aetate: "Ever aware of her duty to foster unity and charity among individuals, and even among nations, she [the church] reflects at the outset on what men have in common and what tends to promote fellowship among them.''38 Additionally, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has alien-ated many of the faithful laity by stating: "If extraordi-nary ministers of Holy Communion are required by pastoral need, they should not approach the altar before the priest has received communion.''39 In an effort to return to more reverence for the Eucharist, the bishops have effectively placed on ice the council's call for active lay participation on all levels. The council called for a pastoral approach to the lived faith and for a greater sense of dialogue with the world in order to harness the advancement of human knowledge for the betterment of God's people. While the church must continue to oppose secularism and be a countercultural light to the contemporary fascinations of power, wealth, and prestige, she cannot do so effec-tively through a dogmatic and defensive stance. John Paul II reannounced this unyielding position, casting aside dialogue on key issues when he proclaimed in 1994: "I declare that the church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judg-ment is to be definitely held by all the church's faith-ful.'' 4° The church must be open to dialogue, within its own ranks and with other people of faith. The sensz~s fidelium must be addressed by listening to God's people and having the courage to admit error and to effect Review for Religious change. The church cannot stand aloof from the world, but must engage society on all levels. American Catholicism today is at a moment of crisis, even in chaos, but the church need not panic nor be downcast or without hope. Even a cursory review of church history, both universally and in the United States, demonstrates that there have been many crises in the past, but all were negotiated as moments of change, not despair. Such is the case with the contemporary situa-tion. The fate of the church is in our hands; we are, as Lumen gentium states, the people of God. We must not wring our hands or lament with loud cries; rather, as individuals and community, we must use the present cri-sis as a springboard for action. We might not produce systemic change tomorrow, but we need to think globally and act locally. Margaret O'Brien Steinfels has aptly placed the challenge before us: "We can no longer indulge the slothful habit of postponing the church that we need until the next papacy, until the seminaries are full, until the controversies are resolved, until some faith-ful remnant rules the church. We need to bring the new life into the project of church renewal that we have neglected too long.''4~ Are we listening to the church's contemporary voice and willing to act? Only we can answer. Notes ~ Andrew Greeley, The Catholic Revolution: New Wine, Old Wineskins, and the Second Vatican Council (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), pp. 1-4. z Greeley, Catholic Revolution, p. 58. 3 George Weigel, The Courage to Be Catholic: Crisis, Refor~n, and the Future of the Church (New York: Basic Books, 2002), pp. 219-232. 4 Greeley, Catholic Revolution, pp. 81-89. Drawing from David Tracy's Analogical Imagination, Greeley suggests that the glue to Catholic life has always been its "Catholic Imagination," e.g., a metaphor for ritual, 6Y.I 2006 Gribble ¯ American Catholicism's Chaos devotion, and music. While Catholics today find themselves across the board on many issues, religious and secular, the Catholic imagination has kept unity. Today's understanding and practice of Catholicism threat-ens this cohesion. See Andrew Greeley, Catholic Imagination. s James Hitchcock, "Interpreting Vatican II: Version One, A Continuum in the Great Tradition," Commonweal 128, no. 5 (9 March 2001): 19, 18. 6 Peter Steinfels, A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), pp. 1-14. 7 p. Steinfels, People Adrift, p. 1. s George Weigel, "Liberal Church? Conservative Church?" Crisis 19, no. 10 (November 2001): 32. 9 Hitchcock, "Interpreting Vatican II," 19. 10 David Gibson, The Coming Church: How the Faitbful Are Shaping a New American Catholicism (San Francisco: Harper, 2003), p. 327. 1, Alain Woodrow, "Superstar or Servant?" in The Papacy and the People of God, ed. Gary MacEoin (Maryknoll: Orbis Press), p. 83. lz William V. D'Antonio et al., Laity American and Catholic: Transforming the Church (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1996), pp. 65-66, 73-79. Interesting statistical figures compare the three generations of American Catholics. For pre-Vatican I! Catholics, Vatican II Catholics, and post-Vatican Catholics respectively, the figures were 63 percent, 45 percent, and 23 percent as regards "active perticipation" (Mass atten-dance etc.). For daily prayer the figures were 90 percent, 67 percent, and 56 percent. When asked if Mass attendance is necessary to "be a good Catholic," 60 percent, 74 percent, and 80 percent said no. This lat-ter statistic, while consistent with the decline in participation over the generations, shows pre-Vatican Catholics not feeling as strong an obli-gation to attend Sunday Mass as they formerly did. 's D'Antonio, Laity, pp. 84-99. 14 "A Study of Parish Lay Ministry," Origins 29, no. 7 (1 July 1999): 103-104, 107. is Gibson, Coming Church, pp. 35-62. ~6 Greeley, Catholic Revolution, pp. 120-127. 17 Andrew Greeley, Priests: A Calling in Crisis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), pp. 86-99. 18 R. Scott Appleby, "What Is at Stake in the Present Crisis?" Origins 32, no. 7 (27 June 2002): 116. 19 Christine E. Gudorf, "Encountering the Other: The Modern Papacy on Women," in Change in Official Catholic Moral Teachings, ed. Charles Curran (New York: Paulist Press, 2003), p. 273. Review for Religious ~o Joan Chittister OSB, "Women in the Church: A New Pentecost in Process," in MacEoin, Papacy and the People 0fGod, pp. 11, 6. Chittister has said, "We need a papacy that can see the oppression of women by the church itself and is willing to model their inclusion at the highest levels of Vatican planning." See "Women in the Church," p. 10. 2~ James Hitchcock, "The Guilty Secret of Liberal Christianity," New Oxford Review 63 (October 1996): 12-13. 22 R. Scott Appleby, "Historical Overview Priests in America, 1930- 2002," Origins 33, no. 4 (5 June 2003): 55. 23 Weigel, Courage, pp. 9-34. 24 Donald Cozzens, The Changing Face of the Priesthood: A Reflection on the Priests' Crisis 0fSoul (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2000), p. 130. 2s Cozzens, Changing, p. 137. See also Cozzens, "Priesthood Emerges from a Dark Night," America 180, no. 9 (20 March 1999): 24. 26 Greeley, Priests, pp. 100-113. :7 Hitchcock, "Guilty Secret," p. 15. z8 Dean Hoge, The First Five Years of the Priesthood: A Study of Newly Ordained Catholic Priests (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2000), pp. 3-4. 29 Greeley, Priests, pp. 73-85. 3o Greeley, Priests, pp. 33-35, 48-72; Greeley, Catholic Revolution, pp. 120-127. 3t Steinfels, People Adrift, pp. 307-351. ~2 Bishop John Boissonneau, "Future Effective Priests," Origins 32, no. I0 (1 August 2002): 174. 3~ This is the theme of Greeley's Catholic hnagination. See also Greeley, Catholic Revolution, pp. 131-149. 34 Gibson, Coming Church, pp. 82-108. ~s Steinfels, People Adrift, pp. 352-360. In April 1996 Bernardin sug-gested that the dissension in American Catholicism could be transformed by seeking common ground amongst the various viewpoints. Bernardin's idea was severely criticized by Cardinals Bernard Law of Boston and John O'Connor of New York. ~6 Gibson, Coming Church, pp. 293-317,336. ~6~ Editorial note. Along with some brief quo.tations, these conclud-ing paragraphs contain some ideas that are current in the church in the United States and are often assumed to express Vatican II's spirit and to be its crystallized mandates. They have not always been argued care-fully. They deserve our careful consideration. The hopes we all have call all of us to this care. 37 Dominns Jesus (On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus 65.1 2006 Gribble * American Catholicism's Chaos Christ and the Church), August 2000, §22. 38 Nostra aetate, §1. 39 "Norms for the Distribution and Reception of Holy Communion under Both Kinds in the Dioceses of the United States of America," 14 June 2001, §38. ~o Ordinatio sacerdotalis, §4. See Origins 24, no. 4 (9 June 1994): 51. 41 Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, "The Crisis through the Laity's Lens," Origins 32, no. 7 (27 June 2002): 112-113. Rope Bridge At Ava, once, I crossed the ravine on a lattice of slats knotted into rope; undulant, it bucked at every step. That bridge rode its own law at war with gravity and my bulk. I never breathed as my feet swayed above the pines. I'd pry loose one hand from the guide rope thinned to spider silk to cling an inch farther along. And once on solid land, the terror rose: there was no other way to return. But midway back, I learned the sway, could look down at leaves, guess at bird names, not Jear the hawk's arc. I took a breath, and another, and held less tightly. M. Doretta Cornell RDC Review for Religious ANTHONY MALAVIARATCHI Religious Life in the Third Worldma Shangri-La? The attraction to get into the first world is irre-sistible to many of the people in the third world. As everyone knows, thousands knock on the doors of the first world's embassies. Arrangements and rearrangements are made to accommodate them, and of course many more find their way into their chosen Shangri-Las illegally. Throughout its history, religious life and the church itself have often been microcosms of their own social milieu. Religious life has felt the currents and undercurrents of the world around it. However much religious life .chooses to insert itself into its milieu, in no way is it called to succumb to the social trends of its place and time. This, however, is all too likely to happen, even when we think we are relying deeply on Jesus' words "Do not be afraid, I have overcome the world." Anthony Malaviaratchi CSSR is at present involved in mis-sion and retreat work. His address is Santa Maria; George Silva Mawatha; Kandy, Sri Lanka. challenges 65.1 2006 Malaviaratchi * Religious Life in the Third 14form The founding fathers of the church in the third world were members of religious orders who came in the com-pany of world-conquering colonial powers. Religious life did not sprout in the soil of the third world. Rather, like Western democracy, it was brought there and planted there by zealous missionaries. It is natural, then, that it bears the features of the first world's status and security. Religious life and priesthood in the third world offer to those who join its ranks the status and security that third-world people seek in the first world, and so it is no sur-prise that young people in poor countries join religious life by the hundreds. Two factors are at work in this phenomenon. The first is the poverty of the third world. Since the arrival of television, the "attraction of the eye" has motivated peo-ple to go after the goodies of the developed world. What they see with their eyes literally empowers them to go after those material goods. Second, the competition in the job market frightens many. They sense that, if they have neither great talent nor academic qualifications, they will end up as dropouts in the race. A "vocation" is an attractive alternative, a way of escaping such social pressure and yet attaining a position of prestige. Historically, many have embraced religious life and the priesthood for a variety of such ulterior motives. Vocational Discernment In this situation, vocational discernment has become next to impossible. Whether they are aware of all their motives or not, those seeking religious formation from mixed motives know how to play the game, what to say and do and whom they need to impress, bishops, provin-cials, councilors, formators, and so forth. Even honest per-sons' motivations may come to the surface only after final vows or ordination. Then they may be seen in the lifestyle Review for Religious adopted, which may include having a vehicle of one's own, a personal computer, and a cell phone and being head of an institute that provides plenty of money and freedom for foreign trips, for higher studies in the first world, and so forth. Even those who develop crises soon after ordina-tion are offered the opportunity of settling down in the first world in or outside of religious life. Some congrega-tions do not mind offering these perquisites, these "perks," as a cost of their institutional survival even though it is a blatant compromise of the meaning of religious life. For how long? History will answer this interesting question in the not so distant future. Given these circumstances, then, vocation discern-ment is possible only after final vows or ordination! Discernment can take place only over what is humanly discernible and not over motivations that remain largely hidden from all concerned. Some formation programs have begun to take the first steps in countering this situation by insisting that those in formation live and be employed like any other young person for a considerable period of time. This is probably the vocation discernment exercise best suited for the situation. But many congregations and superiors still seem to prefer numbers. As long as there is poverty and unemployment, they will surely have "vocations." The money poured in by the congregations' first-world units positively encourages this situation. In non-Christian monasteries and hermitages, voca-tion discernment is a lifelong process. When a monk or hermit does not live the life that he embraced, he is asked to leave. So it is in any human organization. When mem-bers of a football club want to play ice hockey, they leave. It is not so in religious life. Members remain in the foot-ball club playing not only ice hockey but polo as well. This situation attracts more "vocations." Not only are 65.1 2006 Malaviaratchi ¯ Religious Life in the Third Worm prestige, status, and security offered but permissiveness as well. Remarkably, the situation we are looking at is found largely in the Latin (Western) form of religious life. Eastern and non-Christian "religious" have protected themselves with the help of authority, laws, traditions, and, in some instances, fundamentalism. Religious life of the Western tradition is flooded with evils that sur-round it: secularism, horizontalism, individualism, and permissiveness. Religious life is thus being suffocated by the very evils from which it is supposed to save not only itself but the world as well. 26 Present Leadership Style In the face of these forces, leadership in religious life has largely failed to fulfill its prophetic and pastoral roles by making only innocuous statements, after which it is "business as usual" in the ranks. Absolutely nothing fol-lows till the next innocuous pronouncement. Thus, many third-world religious, who are culturally much more authority-dependent than their Western counterparts, now have to try to be faithful in an authority vacuum. Leadership paralysis is aggravated by the fact that the modern superior is often an elected one. The ballot directly or indirectly produces leadership according to the voters and their expectations. As seen above, too many voters joined religious life for status and security. Today there are as many private agendas as there are voters. These voters will ensure that the superiors will be past masters at compromise, who will accommodate every private interest. The superiors elected thus will on no account insist on group fidelity to the spirit of the con-gregation nor demand the self-forgetfulness that the nature of religious life requires. Superiors who do will not be reelected. Hence superiors avoid this public Review for Religious humiliation by putting up buildings and expanding apos-tolic commitments. They are glad to be blissfully unaware of what is happening at the roots. It is known today that many third-world nations are culturally unable to handle Western democracy. In spite of that, religious in the third world are expected to rise above cultural barriers and vote for their superior. Western democracy is not the only way in which humans involve themselves and make group decisions for their common good. Superiors now belong to a generation which follows the path of least resistance, namely, the path of conve-nience, the first step of which is the avoidance of all that is unpleasant. Confrontation and correction of individ-ual members is unpleasant, ~ . embarrassing, and painful and is therefore carefully avoided. Also superiors are aware that frequently their correction will be ignored and erring individuals will refuse to change. The~e, however, are situations foreseen in the Gospels ~. and church law, and mea-sures to be taken are prescribed. In the situation we are looking at, the superiors may not themselves believe in those measures. People all around choose "the broad highway to hell" rather than "the narrow path" of growth in fidelity. L~adership paralysis is aggravated by the fact that the modern superior is often an elected one. A Trend and Subsidiarity Aiding and abetting today's leadership style is the widespread trend of looking and speaking only about what is positive. Thus, all negatives (such as, in religious 65.1 2006 Malaviaratcbi ¯ Religious Life in the Third World 28 life, unfaithfulness) are evaded at various evaluations. For any human group that wishes to survive, what ulti-mately matters is not what is positive or negative, but rather what accomplishes or prevents the attainment of its goals. Superiors who take precautions to avoid what is negative seem to imitate monkeys who "see no nega-tives, hear no negatives, and speak no negatives." Thus they fail to keep before them the Leader whose repre-sentatives they are and who did not hesitate to speak of "this evil and adulterous generation." Leaders who reli-giously avoid facing what is negative among their members are likely to be the first to attend to the negatives when their laptop fails, their cell phone needs recharging, or their dog needs worming. In this situation the valuable principle of subsidiarity is much abused in our day. The principle means that the lower levels of authority are encouraged and facilitated to perform to the maximum within their ambit. The principle itself, however, demands that higher levels of authority readily step in when lower levels fail in their one and only duty, namely, ensuring faithfulness to the way of life of the particular congregation. Usually only the first half of the principle is followed today, which amounts to passing the buck. Even when it comes to items vital to religious life, the general chap-ter leaves it to the superior general and his council, the superior general to the provincial, the provincial to the local superior, and the local superior to the individual. The result usually is that the matter is thrown over-board--" leaving it to the individual" being a euphemism today for "forget about it." No structure of religious life--nor religious life itself will survive if it does not learn to evaluate all things with the measure given by the Lord: "By their fruits you will know them." Despite all the above, religious life is not without Review for Religious hope. As a radical way of faith, religious life is called at this juncture to be also a community of radical hope, with its only hope in God and in what he will do. Personal Reflection Questions 1. Have I found that my motivations for my religius voca-tion have changed or been purified over the years since entrance? 2. How do I try to be a help in clarifying another's vocation decision? Group Discussion Propositions 1. In an affluent country, we expect that vocations to reli-gious life will be small in number. 2. In developing countries, vocations to priesthool and reli-gious life have a prestige and security factor that clouds the motivation of candidates and makes discernment more diffi-cult. 65.1 2006 GUIRE CLEARY Challenges for Communities' New Members TRAnglican Church in Aotearoa/New Zealand held eligious Life Conference for religious commu-nities in New Zealand, Australia, and Fiji. Some fifty religious from more than twelve communities gathered at the Tainui Endowed College in H0puhopu 17-21 February 2005. Principal speakers included a Roman Catholic Cistercian and a Sister of Mercy. The location itself was significant. Hopuhopu is the center for the Tainui people, the Aotearoan tribe from which the Maori sovereign is selected. Most of the meetings were held in the tribal debating chamber as a show of solidarity with a people recovering their dignity and strength. One of the workshops was titled Issues of Anger in Religious Communities, presented by an experienced priest and spiritual director, the Rev. Pamela Warnes. Her workshop was a brilliant combination of articulating Guire Cleary SSF, an Anglican Franciscan friar whose "novitiate was a trial for everybody," has worked in New Zealand for social justice and currently is stationed in Hawaii: 2463 Kuhio Avenue, apt. 905; Honolulu, Hawaii 96815. He would welcome comments or questions at guirejohncleary@aol.com. Review for Religious issues and discussing solutions, all conducted in a context of prayer and concluded With a healing ceremony. One paper was my own, setting out some of my experiences as a new religious and my observations of the experi-ences of other new religious. Participants said they had experienced almost everything I mentioned and added a few of their own. At the conclusion of the workshop, one asked me, "Have you been a fly on our wall?" I said I was probably more of a mosquito. The challenges set out below are challenges to most communities, not just religious communities. The largest challenge is getting past the frustration and anger of these experiences to the heart space that allows healing and mature development in the community. To be a new member in any organization or group is always a challenge. The process of incorporation and mutual learning is not easy, and only the experience of service, community, and love make it worthwhile or even tolerable. Incorporation can run the gamut from hazing and emotional abuse to a joyous mutual discovery. Often new members experience anger and shock when the real costs of community life become apparent, and religious communities are in difficult transitions to new models of life. Different types of persons are entering and try-ing their vocation. Having left the novitiate eighteen years earlier, I was just a few days short of my forty-sixth birthday when I was re-received as a postulant in my community in the United States. The age restriction was waived because of my prior connection with the com-munity. Since I joined in 1997, four more men have tried their vocation. All but one were even older than I was. Some of these challenges are peculiar to the mindset of liberal Americans or unique to my own emotional makeup and quirks. New members in conservative com-munities or communities of the third world might expe- 65.1 2006 Clearg/ ¯ Challenges for Communities' New Members 32, rience only a few of these, or not in the same way. Interestingly, communities following a conservative rule and communities of the third world are attracting the most new members. ¯ Age Disparities: Although today's novices may be older than the novices of earlier generations, they are still entering communities where most members are at least twenty-five years older than the new members. ¯ Work Experience: New members have generally had one or more careers and generally outside the religious world. A community may have members who have never had paid employment or have never paid into any pen-sion plans, private or public. This may result in con-flicting valuations of the new members' worth and contribution. ¯ Nationality/Culture: A religious house may consist of members from many nations and cultures. New mem-bers may find that they are minorities in houses within their own native country and may encounter members who lack understanding of the language and culture of the very nation where they are living. In other words, new members may find themselves aliens inside the com-munity and natives only when they are on the other side of the front door. ¯ Relationship Experience: New members generally have had emotional relationships or been married or in partnership before joining the community. Older mem-bers have seldom had such experiences and so may approach communication and relationships differently. Members who have not had mature adult relationships before entering the community may have a tendency to adolescent humor and may be unable to "fight fairly and cleanly." ¯ Big Fish in Little Ponds: Some new members may have had executive careers or may have exercised signif- Review for Religious icant power in education, health, law, politics, or com-merce. Such people may not understand how a long-term member of a religious community can be so incensed over someone putting dishes in the "wrong" place and why that would matter so much. A sister who before joining the community has been responsible for millions of dollars may find it difficult to sit through a lecture on conserving toilet paper. Sometimes the failure of new religious to respond to concerns that seem insignificant leads to a misunderstanding of their motives. One reli-gious told of having said nothing because of hav-ing no opinion about a small matter and then being accused of "holding out for the main chance" by a senior member. In reality the younger religious was unlikely ever to hold an opinion on "the use of antiphons." You may hear in this an echo of Winston Churchill's observation that academic politics is so vicious because the stakes are so low. ¯ Multiculturalism and Multifaitb Experience: Newer members generally have a broader experience of other cultures and faiths and often incorporate elements from them into their own spirituality. Older members usually have begun and continued on a path of traditional Euro- American Christianity. They may disparage or discount the religious experiences or practices of new members, who often have exercised great discipline in their spiri-tual lives for years before joining the community. ¯ Neocolonialism: Much of the growth of religious Somet!mes the failure qf new retigious to respond ,to concerns t~at seem insignificant leads: ~io a misunderstanding of their ,mot, ives. 6Y. 1 2006 Clear)/ ¯ Challenges for Communities' New Members communities with which I am familiar has taken place in countries of the third world. As often as not, how-ever, leadership and finances are in the hands of members of the first world. One of the most peculiar anecdotes of neocolonialism occurred in America. English mem-bers who had been transferred to the United States sub-jected a new religious of American citizenship and Irish descent to ethnic slurs and disrespect. Ironically, when this religious spent time in another country, he received abuse from a fellow religious in his host country for being an American. You do not have to live in the third world to experience tribalism. ¯ Diminisbment of Citizenship: One religious observed that, when on assignment out of her native country, she had to ask permission to return to her home country. The irony is that the decision making was shared by for-eign residents who had never acquired citizenship in the country to which they were not permitting the native-born citizen to return. ¯ Disempowerment: No matter how communities pre-sent and sugarcoat the need for the probation and test-ing of new members, the fact is that new members are disempowered for a number of years. Voting rights might not be earned or granted until years after entrance into the community. Conversely, some communities allow full voting rights tO life-members for their lifetime, no matter their debility or their being out of touch. ¯ Prior Debts: Some new members enter communities with unpaid education debts that have to be paid even-tually. How doe~ the community approach this issue? One community allowed new members to live in'a com-munity house rent-free before being received as postu-lants so that they could continue in employment and thereby manage to pay their debts. Other communities have simply told their aspirants to postpone their voca- Review for Religious tions until all debts were paid. These communities rarely saw those aspirants again. ¯ Preexisting Families: The spirit of the times no longer holds that religious are dead to family and friends. Some new members may still have obligations to aging parents or to children or grandchildren. I chuckle at the recollection of a mother superior exclaiming after a string of widows applied for entrance into her community, "Aren't there any virgins left in America?" One com-munity in the United States had a creative approach to assisting new members who still had some family obli-gations. All new members were given educational loans that did not have to be repaid if the member were life-professed for a certain number of years. In one situation a new member was allowed to use the loan for court-ordered child support. ¯ Financial Identity: Most vocations do not survive into life profession. New members would be severely handicapped if they were to reenter the world with an impaired credit rating. Can the community tolerate the new member's keeping a credit card? The vow of poverty might have to be applied differently among community members. Perhaps differing applications of poverty within the same community are not such a new idea at all. ¯ Decay of Professional Qualifications: Some new mem-bers enter community with outstanding professional qualifications that require continuing education. Recent new members of one community have included a physi-cian, chiropractor, attorney, andparalegal. Failure to maintain those professional qualifications means that new members might lose that qualification o.r, if they leave community, find it difficult to return to their prior career or to their prior salary level. ¯ Health: Newer members are not only younger than the majority of the community, but are generally in much 65.1 2006 Cleary ¯ Challenges for Communities' New Menzbers 36 better health. Frequently that better health is due to memberships in gyms or health clubs. What is the com-munity's commitment to the new members' health reg-imen, especially if they are going to be looked to for doing a large share of physical work? ¯ Secret Customaries: Often it appears that there is a "secret customary" that is not available to new members. Sometimes it is merely poor communication. Other times it is simply a way of older members' maintaining power by asserting that a certain way of doing things is house or community custom. This is a form of manipulation by esoteric knowledge. ¯ The Rule: One novice guardian opined to me that older members usually oppressed the new members on those sections of the Rule of which the older members were least observant. On the other hand, older members have felt harried by new members who took on the role of Brother "Living Rule." As the old saying goes in reli-gious communities, "Wherever you have saints you will have martyrs." ¯ Survivors: Many of the older members of commu-nities are survivors of religious and cultural wars. New members, too, have fought the battles of inclusivity, litur-gical reform, gender, sexual orientation, hierarchy, and so forth, but not in the same way as the older members, and so the new members might not bear the same scars or have the same invested positions. The new members might not be aware of the cost the community has paid for a position. The older members may not realize that the struggle has moved to new fronts or past previously adopted positions. ¯ Loss of Disposable Time and Personal Space: New members frequently have to give up the freedom of dis-posable time and larger accommodations. Often new members have lived alone in housing that they did not Review for Religious share with anyone. Living in close quarters is a major adjustment for new members. I had to get used to using headphones with my CD player. ¯ Peers: New members, with few peers in the novi-tiate, lack the mutual support which they and their lay friends once had and which older religious had as novices. My noviceship was a particularly lonesome time. ¯ Wages and Support: With more of the community entering retirement, there is greater pressure for the new members to support the older members financially. New members are sometimes annoyed at being pressured to find full-time employment and encouraged to find sec-ular employment if the pay is better while some older members are working part-time or only started to con-tribute much money to the community when they began receiving pensions. There is further annoyance that members may bring in a vital salary but have no vote on how the money is used. It has happened that a current bad financial situation was caused by the incompetence or negligence of a prior generation, and then new mem-bers bringing in salaries were expected to assist in the bailout. ¯ Full-time Employment: Many religious, especially younger religious, now have to hold full-time jobs. The community still expects them to participate in commu-nity functions, retreats, and chapters. The only time available might be their vacation time. Physical and spir-itual exhaustion are common results. Sometimes the only compensated employment open to new members is sec-ular employment. They might wonder why they sacri-ficed so much only to find that religious ministry is not available or will not fill the .community's income needs or expectations. ¯ Lost Vocation and Still in Community: Perhaps the saddest members of religious communities are those 65.1 2006 Cleary ¯ Challenges for Comntunities' New Members The religious life is a voluntary choice, but still there is a loss of family, friends, status, and autonomy. 38 members who have essentially lost their vocation. They would like to leave their community, but economic con-venience, advancing age, and fears of adapting to a changed world while losing their vocational self-esteem make them choose to stay. Their bitter or sullen presence disheartens everyone. These members are often a terror to new members arriving with belief, motivation, and fresh ideas. The new members represent what the sullen members have lost and thus become objects of spite. ¯ Pecking Order: New members have the least power. For senior members who process their anger or frustra-tion by petty acts of spite, the new members are the nat-ural prey. Then there is enough pain to go around for everybody. ¯ Isolating the Complainers: It is destructive when severely damaged members of the community are allowed to create environ-ments that are emotionally and sometimes physically unsafe. This behavior may go on for years without challenge because the other members are paralyzed with fear. Newer members who challenge the behavior are sometimes told that they are the ones with emotional problems and need to be "more community minded and charitable." I have seen three communities where former superiors were severely oppressed by dam-aged members. In one case, a former superior simply left the local community rather than raise the issue. What caused them to collude in their own oppression? ¯ Grief, Loss, and Anger: All new members are going through a period of grief and loss and possibly anger at Review for Religious their changed situations. The religious life is a voluntary choice, but still there is a loss of family, friends, status, and autonomy. What are the tools to process the transi-tion? How can new members communicate the extent of their loss to members who may never have had the same degree of freedom or experience in their lay life? * Legal Rights: Religious communities are expected to adhere to the civil and criminal statutes of the nations in which they live and work. Often this means certain expectations regarding privacy and protection that were not present in an earlier era. Violations could result in civil penalties or even in lawsuits from disgruntled for-mer members. Some courts in the United States are look-ing at the relationship between members and their communities in the light of employment law with all the obligations that entails. ¯ Conflicting Ethics: Before entering my community, I had been employed as a paralegal with a specialization in tax law. I was sometimes astonished by financial shenanigans I witnessed in churches and religious com-munities. It seemed that some religious or church author-ities believed they were not subject to the same ethical and legal obligations of other nonprofit corporations. If anything, the secular world showed a higher standard of ethics. Communities or institutions that were finally caught by government or church authorities have some-times received an expensive lesson in the ethics from which they thought themselves exempt. No number, however, can be put on people's loss of trust in religious bodies to which they had looked for a higher level of ethics and honor than they expect from the secular world. ¯ Minefields: New members cannot be aware of exist-ing interpersonal dynamics of the community. Some have reported stumbling into personality conflicts that had been going on for decades. Others have reported that 65.1 2006 Clear)/ ¯ Cballenges for Communities' New Members 4O differences of opinion among older members about for-mation methods resulted in new members' bearing the animosity of the losing side. ¯ Infantilization: When you are put in the position of having to ask for permission, of having your future decided by others, of having to please others at some level in order to be accepted, and of giving up much of your personal power, you have to a degree been infan-tilized. A formation director told me he believes that some infantilization of new members helps to surface immature elements of their personalities that can then be worked on. I was left with the impression that this was wishful thinking. A topic came up in the workshop that was not part of my original paper. People agreed that they had all expe-rienced instances of anger and depression due to the sit-uations described above. Many said they were conflicted because they felt their anger was somehow wrong, even though probably justified on a number of levels. Guilt haunted and paralyzed them. What could they do about these feelings of guilt? Unfortunately, this could not be dealt with in a ninety-minute workshop that was already rich in content. One Of my teachers, a Buddhist, once told me that he frequently contrasted the views of anger held by two religious leaders of great experience and deep insight. Pope John Paul II is said to have written, "I try not to get angry." The Dalai Lama is quoted as saying, "I try not to stay angry." These two approaches are perhaps valuable in tandem. On a personal note, a friend of mine once observed that, when it comes to anger, I may be unlucky in being of Irish and German descent. He said, "Irish and German: burn fast and burn long!" I try to bring that thought to mind when humor seems a remedy. Communities can be hard on their new members. The reverse is also true. A life-professed member of my Review for Religious community once said of a newly arrived postulant, "Ah! Another brother sent by God to test my vocation!" While serving as the curator of one of California's historic mis-sions, I was shown a document describing brothers not speaking to each other, undermining each other's min-istry, taking sides, complaining to religious and secular authorities, and showing every sign of advanced dys-functionality. Recent situation in one's own house? But this description pertained to the Franciscan mission in San Francisco in the 1790s. The more things change, the more they remain the same. One of my more insight-ful Jesuit teachers once asked a brother what gospel med-itation came to mind when he thought about community. He responded with apparent pain, "The agony in the garden of Gethsemane." Thomas Merton had his own difficult experiences with his abbot. St. John of the Cross was imprisoned by his community. We have all been there--usually the imprisonment is emotional. Where and what is the key to freedom? What miracle will bring healing and resurrection? We have a duty to speak the truth to our communities and work for the maturing of us all in Christ, even though we might not see any change in the behaviors that sadden, oppress, or anger us. A wise priest was counseling a young religious who was having a frightening time with his community and was trying to make the community see things from his perspective. After listening patiently and acknowledging the brother's wounds, he said, "Brother, you have assumed that the brothers you are struggling with are suddenly going to smack their foreheads and say, 'Oh my goodness! I never realized that! You are sooo right, and we are going to change our wicked ways.' Brother, you have assumed a level of health that is not in them. What are you doing to grow your own spiritual and emo-tional maturity?" Sometimes a person just has to outlive 65.1 2006 Cleary ¯ Challenges for Communities' New Members a situation. My bishop once told me that there is a say-ing in New Zealand among the Maori people: "Question: How do you get even with your komatua [tribal elder] ? Answer: Outlive him!" It reminds me of a Southern proverb in the United States, "Change comes by funer-als." I wanted to conclude this essay with some pithy wis-dom that would have universal application and solve all ills. Unfortunately, or fortunately, we Anglicans are bet-ter at the questions than the answers. As I was thinking out this section, I was on a long walk on a late summer day in New Zealand. The Maori name for this country is Aotearoa, land of the long white cloud. Our sky was true to its namesake with billowing white clouds in a flawless blue sky. My ears were full of the soaring con-clusion to Rachmaninov's Second Symphony coming from my CD player. My problems with my community, my community's problems, and my problems are still in place. But there is something greater at work that is soar-ing and unfolding within me. I pray that it is my faith, my hope, and hopefully my love that are growing and mak-ing community possible and actual both for me and those who have agreed to let me join my life to theirs. Review for Religious ROSEMARY STETS A Spirituality of Surrender A Jesuit's Story In 1964 Walter J. Ciszek, a Jesuit priest who had been ordained almost thirty years earlier to be a missionary in Russia, returned to the United States with an unbelievable story of faith and deliverance. In 1939 World War II began in Eastern Europe, and in 1941 Father Ciszek's mis-sion was cut short when Russian police arrested him and kept him in Lubianka Prison for five years, mostly in solitary confinement. Accused of being a Vatican spy, he was interrogated, beaten, forced to sign a false confession, and sen-tenced to fifteen years at hard labor. Sent to labor camps in Siberia, he secretly began a priestly ministry to fellow prisoners, men and women near despair in the inhumane conditions. During these years he lost all contaEt with his family and the Society of Jesus, but he never lost hope or faith in God's providence and protection. In a Rosemary Stets OSF is vice president for mission and ~nin-istry at Alvernia College; 400 Saint Bernardine Street; Reading, Pennsylvania 19607. inspiration 6Y.I 2006 Stets ¯ A Spirituality of Surrender A Jesuit's Story Father Walter could see all life's ~circumstances not just at eye level, but from a higher plane-- a position ofgrace and surrender. kind of miracle, through the efforts of his family and fel-low Jesuits working with the U.S. government, he was finally released from Russia and arrived in New York as a free man, a hero, beginning a mission in his homeland. When Father Ciszek returned to the United States, he was in relatively good health, considering all the hard-ship and suffering he had endured during his long years of captivity in Siberia. He was almost sixty years old, but still an active and fit man, writing books, giving retreats, travel-ing to parishes across the country, and meet-ing groups who invited him to speak about his life and his spirituality. He had always been a strong man, and he embraced his new life with energy and excite-ment. His correspon-dence was voluminous, and the phone calls were endless. Since Father Ciszek had two sisters in my congregation, he often visited our convents, sharing his personal spiritual journey with us and inviting many of us to continue the conversations. That was the beginning of my personal friendship with him, which lasted until his death in 1984. Shortly after his return, along with the ever increas-ing demands on his time for talks and retreats, Father Walter began writing his autobiography With God in Russia. A few years later he wrote another book, He Leadetb Me, this one emphasizing the spiritual struggles of his journey, In just a few years he had more commit-ments than he could manage, but kept working. A decade Review for Religious later he suffered two major heart attacks and his health began to fail. . During the last decade of his life he had to modify his schedule and pace at a time when, because of his books and his media appearances, he was probably in greater demand than ever. These restrictions frustrated him because of his deep compassion for others and his gen-erosity toward all who sought his advice and spiritual counsel. But ultimately the changes required by his declining health led him to the spirituality of surrender. Change, it seems, is something most of us greet with reluctance, especially if we are comfortable or content with the way things are in the present. We like to feel that we are "in control" and that things are going well, or going the way we want them to go. And so we are jarred and unnerved when our world turns upside down, overwhelms us, makes us feel helpless. One day, as his health became worse and his sched-ule was accordingly being reduced, Father Walter shared with me during a telephone conversation some of his spiritual response at this difficult time. This was not unusual, for Father Walter moved easily from the natu-ral to the supernatural, and he could see all life's cir-cumstances not just at eye level, but from a higher plane--a position of grace and surrender. As he spoke, I was suddenly inspired to make some notes on the conversation, writing down his words and phrases, listening intently and trying to capture the essence of what he was saying. Afterwards I took the lit-tle scrap of paper with the words I had written and put it in my daily prayer book. As I read the words over and over, I realized they were like prayers themselves, but something more. Whenever I felt overcome by the frus-trations of life, by anger, by annoyance with others, or by sudden dark moods like a summer storm on a lake, I 6Y.I 2006 Stets ¯ A Spirituality of Surrender--A Jesuit's Story ,46] would turn to those words for.comfort and strength. A profound peace would return after I entered fully into the spirit of what I was reading. It seemed that chains fell away from my heart. It was as if a door opened, a prison door that had kept me confined and helpless. I felt joy return. My heart felt light again. It was not just a mental understanding, not just a letting go in my mind, but a sense of surrender which lifted my spirit out of the darkness and into a place of spiritual light. As I surren-dered to God in this prayer, I would sense that I was united with Jesus in his abandonment in the garden. I believe I was united.with God's will in those nanosec-onds. A "yes" to the Father was a leap of faith to a new place. It would give me strength to begin a new task, a natural and spontaneous freedom to let go and move on. It would amaze me: the peace was palpable. Many years ago I shared this story with a friend who was going through a difficult struggle, and she was so moved by the simplicity and peace of the words I had jot-ted down that she asked for a copy. I typed it on a small card, calling it the Prayer of Surrender. We soon were mak-ing more copies and giving them to other friends, who also grew to love and value this prayer, Several years later, after the cause for Father Walter Ciszek's canonization had been opened, I sent my notes, letters, and writings about Father Walter to the Prayer League charged with organizing the materials for his cause. The postulator found the Prayer of Surrender in my notes and decided to distribute it through the Prayer League. This is the prayer that has become my daily bread, the prayer I offer to everyone who is desperate for God's help, going under, barely hanging on. It is a prayer filled with wisdom. It does not remove our suffering, but rather it gives us the courage to accept it without anger or fear. Saying the prayer .during times of intense suffering can Review for Religious be difficult, almost heroic, but each time it enables me to emerge whole, strong, and at peace. Father Walter expe-rienced great suffering in his life, in his long sojourn in Russia and in many trying moments that circled his life like a crown of thorns--and like the pains, humiliations, loneliness, and losses that afflict us all. But suffering was also his banner of glory, uniting him to Jesus, who endured everything for us out of love, the love that saved the world. The Prayer of Surrender is Father Waiter's gift to all of us, a moment of grace remembered and passed on to those who love him, cherish his memory, and seek to understand with him that surrender to God's provi-dence is the way to sublime joy, the grand freedom of finding God in all things. Prayer of Surrender Lord, Jesus Christ, I ask the grace to accept the sad-ness in my heart as your will for me, in this moment. I offer it up, in union with your sufferings, for those who are in deepest need of your redeeming grace. I surrender myself to your Father's will, and I ask you to help me to move on to the next task that you have set for me. Spirit of Christ, help me to enter into a deeper union with you. Lead me away from dwelling on the hurt I feel, to thoughts of charity for those who need my love, to thoughts of compassion for those who need my care, and to thoughts of giving yo those who need my help. As I give myself to you, help me to provide for the salvation of those who come to me in need. May I find my healing in this giving. May I always accept God's will. May I find my true self by living for others in a spirit of sacrifice and suffering. May I die more fully to myself, and live more fully in you. As I seek to surrender to the Father's will, may I come to trust that he will do everything for me. Amen. 6Y.1 2006 GIOVANNI ZEVOLA Two Mysteries in One: Implications for Ministry 48 All who are involved in ministry would say that the Bible is a source of strength for their own spirituality and for their pastoral ministry. Biblical themes support our dedication, our zeal, our commitment to people and situations demanding attention and care. In this article I will show that the Bible is not only a source of texts to use in particular circumstances of the ministry,~ but also a pure and continuous fount of spiritual life especially for the those in pastoral ministry. Biblical themes and figures of the Old and New Testament are familiar to pastoral caregivers, and we all may have heartfelt favorites in our own spiritual life. For the various situations that may occur in pastoral care, some biblical figures and themes have special pertinence. For example, the Exodus experience, Samuel's vocation, the social concerns in the prophetic literature, Zacchaeus's desire to see Jesus, and the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary can be signs "of certain hope and comfort to the pilgrim people of God" (Lumen gentium, §68). Giovanni Zevola OMI continues doing apostolic work in South Korea. His address is 196-51 Yuhyun Dong; Kang Nam Ku; Seoul 135-210; South Korea. Review for Religious Mary can be considered from different points of view, and the few passages of the New Testament where she is mentioned can be sources for understanding our role as disciples and cooperators in the economy of salvation. One meaningful passage is the Visitation recorded in Luke 1:39-56. The verse "During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah" motivated my vocation many years ago. I joined a missionary congregation to dedicate myself to a life of service, and that verse still inspires my life and commitment to the poor. Through the years Mary's attitude of service has informed my spirit, and new insights have helped me grow spiritually and as a human being. The words "she went as quickly as she could" caught my attention and fostered my desire to share with others my sense of the presence of God in my life. I was convinced that, like Mary, we should not keep our own Annunciation for ourselves, but should share it with others through what we do--and doing what we do without delay, "in haste." Mary is the perfect disciple who shares her Master's concerns, values, and attitudes. In Mark's Gospel, Jesus is presented on the scene right away, being baptized by John and proclaiming "The time (kairos) has come," there has to be no delay. Jesus is shown to be in a constant hurry, particularly in chapter one, where it is interesting to note the Greek word euthus. Immediately the Spirit descends on him (1:10) at the baptism. Immediately the Spirit drives him out into the desert (1:12). Simon and Andrew leave their nets at once and follow him (1:18). Immediately he calls James and John (1:20). As soon as the Sabbath comes, he goes to the synagogue to teach, and just then performs a miracle (1:23). His reputation rapidly spreads everywhere (1:28), and he goes straight to cure Peter's mother-in-law (1:29). 6Y.1 2006 Zevola ¯ Two Mysteries in One the force of God's grace : brought to: her in the Annuncia ion,,qnd she becomes a messenger " ff good new.s. In the Visitation, Mary shares Christ's attitude. There is an urgency in proclaiming the good news she has just received through the angel. In Luke 1:26-38 she is presented as the recipient of God's grace, and she becomes the active subject who cannot contain what she has received. She goes to ' -~'~ share it. (Recall here Paul is surfing by . saying "The love of ~. Christ impels us," 2 Co 5:14.) In Mary we see how a disciple is called to announce that "the time has come": the divine project that God has prepared is coming to its maturation and is being made known, and so there is no more delay. Paul expresses the same idea in Galatians 4:4-5: "Vv'hen the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption." Perhaps I can express all of this in an image. Think of a surfer waiting for a big wave to come in. When the right time comes, he rides it and enjoys the surfing--a combination of ability (human effort) and force of the wave (grace). In Luke 1:39 Mary is surfing by the force of God's grace brought to her in the Annunciation, and she becomes a messenger of good news. "During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah." The wave made by the wind of God's Spirit is for everyone. Every disciple of every age has to surf that wave; in doing so we are blessed. See Romans 10:15: "How beautiful are the feet of those who announce good news," how welcome the Review for Religious sound! The personal relationship we have with God is not something we can keep for ourselves; it is a gift to be shared. God invites us to the communion (koinonia) of those called by his grace. The personal relationships in the life of the Trinity should be reflected in our human relationships. For a pastoral caregiver, contemplation and action go together. The vertical relationship of us with God is connected with our horizontal relationships with one another. We are called to do "contempl-action." At the very beginning of the church, in the upper room where Mary and the other disciples are gathered, this doubleness is already present. They receive the Spirit and share the mission of Jesus to proclaim the Good News. Perhaps we can imagine Mary showing the eleven how to ride this new wave of the Spirit and thereby fulfill Jesus' promise: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be my witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judea and Samaria, and indeed to the ends of the earth,' (Ac 1:9). Mary belongs indissolubly to the mystery of Christ, and she belongs also to the mystery of the church from the beginning, from the day of the church's birth. At the basis of what the church has been from the beginning, and of what she must continually become from generation to generation, in the midst of all the nations of the earth, we find the one "who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord" (Lk 1:45).~It is precisely Mary's faith which marks the beginning of the new and eternal covenant of God with man in Jesus Christ; this heroic faith of hers "precedes" the apostolic witness of the church, and ever remains in the church's heart hidden like a special heritage of God's revelation. All those who from generation to generation accept the apostolic witness of the church share in that mysterious inheritance, and in a sense share in Mary's faith. (Redemptoris Mater, §27) 65.1 2006 Zevola ¯ Two Mysteries in One With the inner conviction that Annunciation (experience of God) precedes any Visitation (our apostolate or any form of pastoral care), some years ago I was sent to the Philippines for a missionary experience. What I had received (experience of God through the years of seminary formation) I was ready to share with people in my ministry, and there, through a crisis, God's grace brought a deeper understanding. I could not expect my past experience of God to provide me with enough of what people needed from me. I had to be always open to new Annunciations because we can share only what we have at the moment. My personal contact with the poor (Visitation) was a deeper way for me to experience God. The poor were giving me occasions to take notice of God's Annunciations to me and to receive deeper understandings of them. It was like Mary visiting Elizabeth and, during her time with her, coming to further understanding of the meaning of the Annuciation. She was, in the words of her older cousin, blessed for being mother of the Lord and particularly for her faith in the promise. At this moment the Spirit evokes Mary's Magnificat. Everything was already present at the Annunciation, but comes to light at the Visitation like a seed expressing its vitality gradually. Through my experiences in the Philippines, I came to understand that Annunciation and Visitation are not two separate moments, but only one mystery: the Spirit introducing us into the mystery of Christ. In pastoral care we do not go to others with something already cooked. We might already have the necessary ingredients, but it is the interaction that makes it complete. William Barry says something similar when he considers Jesus interacting with his disciples at Caesarea Philippi (Mt 16:13-20), where Jesus seems to come to a better understanding of his identity: "Could it not be that Jesus needs the disciples' response in order to clarify his Review for Religious own sense of his identity and destiny? . . . Jesus, like any human being, could not establish his identity without the help of others. Looked at in this way, this scene shows that Jesus needs Peter's response to 'confirm' his own sense of mission.''2 Elizabeth does this for Mary, and it is similar for any disciple following in Jesus' footsteps. The Annunciation and Visitation considered as but one mystery show that faith is a journey on which we increasingly come to understand and live the fullness of our vocation. Particularly in Luke, Mary is presented as a woman of reflection upon her life experiences (see Lk 1:29, 2:19, 2:33, and 2:51). In so doing she progresses in faith, like Abraham: Mary's faith can also be compared to that of Abraham, whom St. Paul calls "our father in faith" (see Rm 4:12). In the salvific economy of God's revelation, Abraham's faith constitutes the beginning of the Old Covenant; Mary's faith at the Annunciation inaugurates the New Covenant . Certainly the Annunciation is the culminating moment of Mary's faith in her awaiting of Christ, but it is also the point of departure from which her whole "journey towards God" begins, her whole pilgrimage of faith. (Redemptoris Mater, § 14) This insight invites me to review my tmderstanding of pastoral care and particularly the relationship I establish with the people whom I am called to serve. They are not only the recipients of my attention and commitment, but also my companions on the journey. It is this dimension of faith that gives and renews the strength necessary to be witnesses in caregiving situations and ultimately frees us of the idea that we are the ones fixing problems, that we are the saviors. In fact, our caregiving becomes a kind of school, a place where we learn more about ourselves, other people, and God, who in this school fosters a more intimate relationship with us. The caregiver is also a visitor and guest. The whole history of salvation reads 65.1 2006 Zevola * Two Mysteries in One like a series of moments when God visits his people. Jesus himself was always on the go: "Let us go elsewhere to the neighboring towns." Without any fixed abode, he lives a life of continual visiting. And no sooner is Mary visited from on high than she makes all possible haste to .visit her cousin Elizabeth. She, the visited one, becomes the visitor. There is a missionary dynamic here, for us as well as for Mary. As visitors and guests among those we minister to, we listen differendy, more attentively; we dialogue and tell our stories differently; we become present to others in new ways, ways that make dialogue, shared existence, and even revelation possible. In short, we come empty-handed like Jesus, the vulnerable visitor from heaven, and this can perhaps serve as the reason for our hope. Recently, while working in South Korea (another Visitation), I recognized anew that people are agents of the Spirit inviting me to understand more deeply the message that I would Announce to them. Late in the evening we were driving back to the office after a day visiting the company where Mohamed had had an accident while operating a pressing machine. After a long discussion with the manager, the possibility for this Bangladeshi worker to get insurance was now more concrete. Mohamed and one of his friends invited me to supper in a small restaurant. Suddenly he asked me something that surprised me: "Father, why are you doing this for us?" At first I did not know what to say, because my motivation for the ministry with the foreign workers was something I had not talked about. Finally I said, "My experience of God is at the core of this or any other ministry." I was surprised when Mohamed seemed to agree and reinforce my answer. Mohamed's question had forced me to reconnect theology and ministry as the source and goal of any Review for Religious apostolate. Through reflecting upon our pastoral experience, we learn anew that God's call is the source of our commitment within the church. This led me (Mk 8:14-21) to Jesus, in the boat with his disciples, subtly referring them to his recent feeding of two large crowds and then asking, "Do you still not see or comprehend?. Do you still not understand?" It is theology and ministry together that enable people's faith to recognize God's presence right before their eyes. If ministers focus only on their ministerial activities, they are likely to end up implementing nothing but their own plans and projects. The theological reflection has a double movement, namely, (1) our going to the experience for reflection and (2) coming back for a serene and more objective evaluation. A particular pastoral experience be-comes the stuff for reflecting upon the min-istry that we are involved in. We make a point of noticing that God was present in the experience and how God was present. !t is !heology and ministry together that enable people's faith to recognize, God's presence fright before their eyes. It is in this movement, in the connecting of theology with the experience, that we can "interpret" and "name" the experience lived in faith. The experience thus interpreted and clarified tells more than we originally expected: our experience enriches our theology. Theology and pastoral care, encountering each other in the pastoral experience, are reciprocally enriched.3 Theology enables us to understand God's presence as continuing through time, like the continuing mystery of the incarnation. Pastoral care gives us the here and now in which we can readily find the divine presence revealing itself. 6Y. 1 2006 Zevola ¯ Two Mysteries in One The theological reflection adds depth to the richness of the experience, which otherwise might be quickly forgotten. On the other hand, pastoral care gives theological reflection something very real and concrete from which to get a lively idea of God working, working along with us in the human experience. Mary has been for me a model and now is more of a companion in my pilgrimage of faith, reminding me that Annunciation and Visitation are parts of one wonderful mystery. In everything, like Mary, we can give only what we have received. On this truth Henri Nouwen is very explicit: "To help, to serve, to care, to guide, to heal, these words . . . express a reaching out toward our neighbor whereby we perceive life as a gift not to possess but to share." 4 Notes ~ See D. Capps, Pastoral Use and Interpretations of the Bible, in Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling, ed. R. Hunter (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), pp. 82-85. 2 See W. Barry, God's Passionate Desire and Our Response (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1993), p. 101. 3 See R. Kinast, Pastoral Theology, Roman Catholic, in Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling, pp. 873-874. 4 H. Nouwen, Reaching Out (New York: Doubleday Image Books, 1986), p. 109. Review for Religious ROBERT P. MALONEY Truth: Religious Simplicity Revisited E veryone needs a guiding star, but the stars in the ky are countless. Saints have chosen different ones. Jerome focused on the Scriptures: "Love the Holy Scriptures, and wisdom will love you." Francis of Assisi fixed on God's love in the gifts of creation and the cru-cified Lord, praising God in Brother Sun and Sister Moon and uniting himself with suffering humanity. Vincent de Paul, especially as he grew older, chose sim-plicity, or truthfulness, as the star to guide him to know what to say and do. "It is the virtue I love most," he wrote to a priest-friend, Franqois de Coudray. "It is my gospel," he told the Daughters of Charity, the commu-nity he founded with Louise de Marillac. There are many conte~nporary ways of describing simplicity: authenticity, integrity, genuineness, realness, passion for the truth. In the two sections that follow, I Robert P. Maloney CM, having served for-two terms as superior gen-eral of the Congregation of the Mission, works as project administra-tor for D.R.E.A.M., a joint project of the Community of Sant'Egidio and the Daughters of Charity for combating aids in Africa. His address is Theological College; 401 Michigan Avenue N.E.; Washington, D.C. 20017. 6~. 1 2006 Maloney * Truth: Religious Simplicity Revisited will focus first on simplicity as "being in the truth" with God, with oneself; with others, and with the created uni-verse surrounding us. Then I will discuss combining the simplicity of the dove with the prudence of the serpent. Simplicity as "Being in the Truth" There is a wonderful freedom in those who live sim-ply. They project joy and peaceful confidence. One of the most popular hymns in the English-speaking world, Joseph Brackett's "Simple Gifts," began proclaiming in 1848: "'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free." Simplicity involves making God our ultimate concern, identifying our will with what God is asking. Vincent de Paul remarked rather wryly to Louise de Marillac: "How easy it is to become a saint. The only thing necessary is to do the will of God in everything." For simple persons the kingdom of God becomes the focal point of their life, the ideal that integrates all that they are and do. Of course, growth in single-minded-ness before God, in purity of intention, is a lifelong pro-cess. Our sinfulness continually interrupts our unity with God's purposes. Limited objectives like self-promotion easily distract us from our single-minded pursuit of God's kingdom; even worse, they may substitute for it. In our sinful condition, we are never able to pull our lives together into a perfect opus, finished once and for all. Even those who seem to have done so fall often, some-times badly. Our final integrity comes only from God's forgiving, healing love. It is a gift. In commenting on the simplicity and purity of inten-tion that he had witnessed in the Shaker tradition, Thomas Merton once wrote, "The peculiar grace of a Shaker chair is due to the fact that it was made by some-one capable of believing that an ~ngel might come and sit on it." That sentence is surely worth meditating on. In Review for Religious religious life, many helps have been offered for being in the truth with God: the daily Eucharist, daily mental prayer, and daily examination of conscience are among the most prominent. Human beings are social beings. Human relation-ships are not just an add-on. They make us who we are, forming us gradually. Having friends, falling in love, building a family, joining a community, being part of a nation, an institution, a movement--all these forms of union with others are possible only if there is truth-filled communication. In fact, the English word truth is related etymologi-cally to trust, faithfulness, covenant. Older English-speaking readers may recall the now archaic marriage o tr thfut-reiationships ' with others; implicity - ;:, :haS,its:most: obvious meaning: hoheStg: promise: "I plight unto thee my troth,", which we might translate today as: "I pledge to you my truth (my word, my trust, my commitment)." In fact, we still speak of a promise to marry as "betrothal." In truthful relationships with others, simplicity has its most obvioias meaning: honesty. Trust in the word of another is the condition for life together, for friendship, marriage, community, business ventures, and all sorts of other relationships. Lies bring about the disintegration of communities, the fracture of marriages, the downfall of governments. Lies are not just verbal; they may be present in actions. Marriages collapse through infidelity. Families break down through covert, competing interests. Friendships unravel through secret betrayal. Being in the truth keeps people together; falsehood tears us apart. To put it tersely, simplicity unites; duplicity divides. 6Y.I 2006 Maloney ¯ Truth: Religious Simplicity Revisited 6O Necessary as it is, speaking the truth with consis-tency in religious life is difficult. We are tempted to blur the truth for our own convenience or to avoid being embarrassed. It is difficult to be enduringly true to our word when circumstances change. In the present our statements are true or false right then and there, but, when we make a commitment for the future, it is true only if we keep it true. Truth is fidelity. It is especially in this sense that Jesus is true to us. He promises to be, and is, with us always, even to the end. We too are called to be true in this way--to vows, to friendships, and to our commitments to serve. Thomas Merton once wrote: "We make ourselves real by telling the truth." The truth at the core of each human person strives to emerge. When we express the truth, we construct and reveal our true self. When we distort the truth, we damage not just our relationship with others, but the center of our own being too. Being in the truth with our own self is, of course, vitally related to being in the truth with God and being in the truth with others. BUt our own truth is nevertheless distinctive. There is a distinctive giftedness, a personal vocation from God, that we may not renounce, but must treasure. Simplicity calls us to integrity, authenticity. But, as we journey in quest of personal wholeness, most of us expe-rience our own fracturedness. We sense inner contra-dictions, a broken center, cracks in our personality; sometimes we fall apart. Philosophy, psychology, and sociology have described polarities that people sense within themselves: body/mind, feeling/thinking, heart/ head, unconscious/conscious. Being true to oneself is not as easy as it might seem. Accurate self-knowledge is rare, as Robert Burns elo-quently noted: "O wad some Power the giftie gie us / To see oursels as ithers see us! / It wad frae mony a blun- Review for Religious der free us, / An' foolish notion: / What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, / An' ev'n devotion!" Knowing oneself accurately is essential in life. The philosopher Wittgenstein observed: "You cannot write anything about yourself that is more truthful than you yourself are. That is the difference between writing about yourself and writing about external objects. You write about yourself from your own height. You don't stand on stilts or on a ladder but on your bare feet." Regular confession and the relationship we call "spir-itual direction" are very important means toward self-knowledge. A perceptive confessor or spiritual guide can be a mirror, reflecting back to us what we are not able to see on our own. Speaking the truth is especially impor-tant in such relationships. We choose a "soul friend" so that, with his or her help, we may grow in the Lord's life and in discerning those things which promote God's kingdom. It is imperative, therefore, that this relationship be characterized by free self-disclosure and by the avoid-ance of "hidden corners" in our lives. We need others to echo back to us what is happening or not happening on our journey toward the Lord. The quality of spiri-tual guidance will depend largely upon the simplicity with which we disclose ourselves. Philosophers and theologians have recognized from the earliest times that human existence is inseparable from matter. We are not pure spirit, but have bodies. The philosopher Merleau-Ponty reminds us: "I am my body." We are also related to and dependent on the earth. In a certain sense, as Genesis suggests in the creation story, we come from the earth. Food, water, air, sunshine, and other elements are nutrients of our human existence. Consequendy, if we are to be in truth with God as the Creator, with ourselves as incomplete beings, and with others, we must also be in truth with the created uni- 65.1 2006 Maloney * Truth: Religious Simplicity Revisited verse that is our home. In other words, being fully human involves caring for the earth. In broader terms it means caring for the surrounding universe, whose proportions are staggering and even incomprehensible to us. We do not yet have a comprehensive ecological the-ology, but some of its foundation stones are quite visible and have been set for centuries in Christian tradition: ¯ the presence of God in all creation; ¯ the goodness of all that God has made; ¯ God's providence in accompa-nying history and ongoing creation; ¯ the gratitude, won-der, contemplation, and care for God's gifts that people have as a response to God's gifts. Those who live close to the land often see its impor-tance more vividly than others. When in 1851 the pres-ident of the United States, Franklin Pierce, proposed to buy two million acres of land from the Indian tribes around Puget Sound in the present state of Washington, Chief Seattle (after whom the state's principal city is named) reacted. His famous reflections from the 1850s, about which some historians raise doubts, are neverthe-less a most eloquent environmental statement: Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist on the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experiences of my people . We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony and man--all belong to the same family. We will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us. This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you the land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is ~acred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my peo-l~ eview for Religious pie. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father . You must teach your children that the rivers are our brothers and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother. These words were prophetic. Polluted rivers, con-taminated air, and depleted forests rank high among the problems of modern society. In this matter, as in many others, immediate gratification often wins out over long-range goals. But when the environment is neglected, society pays a heavy price, with the poor suffering most. In many places where religious missionaries serve, eco-logical deterioration adds to the crushing burdens of the neediest of the needy. The Simplicity of the Dove and the Prudence of the Serpent Even for those with a bright guiding star, Christian living is filled with paradoxes: initiative/obedience, flex-ibility/ stability, listening/advising, animating/directing, creativity/humility, trusting/planning, serving/govern-ing, simplicity/prtidence. Matthew's Gospel recognizes that the simplicity of the dove must cohabit, in the same person, with the prudence of the serpent. And in life people's common sense and prudence quickly teach them that they cannot simply speak the unabashed truth at all times. Experience teaches us that virtues like truthful-ness, charity, and respect for the privacy and good name of others at times "compete" with one another. In moments of apparent conflict, prudence enables us to balance and blend such competing virtues. Over the centuries moral theologians have written volumes on the dilemmas that arise in the context of truth-telling. Below I simply offer a few reflections on three of the most common moral dilemmas that reli-gious and all those committed to truth-telling face. 6L 1 2006 Maloney * Truth: Religioux Simplicity Revisited Growing in love involves penetrating to the ddep truth of the beloved, Truth derives from God. It is related to beauty. But the expression of "truths" can sometimes be ugly, cold, arro-gant, and angry. Declarations like "I'm just telling you the truth!" can be a facile excuse for harsh words or an escape valve for pent-up rage. In the Christian tradition truth and love are inseparable. Growing in love involves penetrating to the deep truth of the beloved, coming to understand others not just on the surface but deep down. Likewise, growing in truth involves moving toward deeper communion, overcoming dif-ferences, "looking for the larger truth that embraces my little truth and that of the other," as Timothy Radcliffe reminds us. There is a delicate interplay between mind and heart in the search for truth. For those with a highly intellectual formation, Pascal's corrective can be helpful: "The heart has its rea-sons, which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things." Antoine de Saint-Exup~ry in The Little Prince expresses the same conviction: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." The problem is that we sometimes use "the truth" to massacre others. Under the pretext of being sincere, we destroy truth with "the truth." In a striking essay, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was himself a martyr for the truth, wrote as follows: If it is detached from life and from its reference to the concrete other person, if "the truth is told" with-out taking into account to whom it is addressed, then this truth has only the appearance of truth, but it lacks its essential character. Review for Religious It is only the cynic who claims "to speak the truth" at all times and in all places to all people in the same way, but who, in fact, displays nothing but a lifeless image of the truth. He dons the halo of the fanatical devotee of truth who can make no allowance for human weaknesses; but, in fact, he is destroying the living truth between persons. He wounds shame, des-ecrates mystery, breaks confidence, betrays the com-munity in which he lives, and laughs arrogantly at the devastation he has wrought and at the human weakness which "cannot bear the truth." We must learn to speak the truth while taking other truths into account: the dignity of other persons, their human weakness and ours as well, the love that must characterize all Christian relationships. Our statement of a truth must blend with these other truths. Speaking the truth is therefore.a delicate art rather than a blunt instrument. Very early in life we learn that it is sometimes harm-ful to tell the truth. Our parents teach us as children that some personal and family matters are private; others have no right to know about them. As we grow up, friends begin to entrust secrets to us. As problems arise in our own lives, we ourselves sense the need to talk with some-one, but only on the condition that what we say is kept utterly confidential. These universal human experiences have given rise to a whole body of ethical and legal liter-ature concerning truth-telling, secrecy, and confidential-ity. Confessors and spiritual directors, doctors and nurses, psychiatrists and counselors, lawyers, secretaries, jour-nalists, and many others are bound, in varying circum-stances and within various limits, to professional secrecy. Paradoxically, we have a moral obligation to tell the truth, but we sometimes have a moral obligation not to tell the truth. This is often the case in religious life, where others frequently entrust us with matters of con- 6Y.1 2006 MMoney ¯ Truth: Religious Simplicity Revisited ,66 science and where there are also many "family matters" that are private and should remain within the community. So how does one protect private, even "sacred" truths? Silence, of course, is often the most effective method. In some cases, in the face of inappropriate inquiries, we may be able to communicate, with a combination of gen-tleness and firmness, the delicacy of our situation: "I am sorry, I am not really free to talk about that. I hope you understand." Sometimes, too, with a little bit of inge-nuity, we may say something that some or all recognize as good.humoredly evasive. But for centuries philosophers and theologians have pointed out that there are situations where silence or evasion simply make matters worse and where the right course seems to be to dissemble the truth. To resolve such moral dilemmas, Thomists, defining moral truth as correspondence between what we think and what we say, used the "broad mental reservation." Others, defining truth in relational terms (communication of what is in one's mind to someone who has a right to know), per-mitted "false speech" when utterly necessary to put off those who have no right to know. Neither theory is ideal. Each, in fact, has notable weaknesses. But both recognize that at times there is a moral obligation to "protect" the truth and to put off importunate, inappropriate inquiries, even by misleading the inquirer. In the end, strange though it may seem, one must "learn" to tell the truth. Each word has its own place, its own time, its own audience. Much depends on who is calling me to speak and what entitles me to speak. One of the most poignant, and wise, lines in American liter-ature is what Hester Prynne says to her daughter, Pearl, in The Scarlet Letter (chapter 22): "Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl. We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest." Review for Religious Statements involve a relationship with the person being addressed and at times also with third parties. The truth-teller respects those relationships and maintains them. The nosey inquirer seeks to violate truth and intrude on relationships that truth fosters carefully. It is important to learn how to put such inquirers off, and to put them off well. Truths not only have their time, their place, and their proper audience; they have their own particular peda-gogy. Certain truths have their "moment" in history. Victor Hugo once pointed out that, when an idea's time has come, not even armies can resist it. But, until that time, "new" truths enter most minds and hearts slowly. As mothers and fathers instinctively know, the wise teacher must often wait for the right moment and the right place. I once gave a rather pacifist-sounding con-ference to a group of college students, who loved it. A few days later I gave the same conference to a parish group, which hated it. The time and place were almost the same, but I learned rather painfully that a new audi-ence often requires a new pedagogy. How to present the truth is the key question. This question becomes all the more important as we grow in consciousness that our goal in speaking is not merely the transmission of data but communication and commu-nion in the truth. From that perspective pedagogy is not just a clever means of packaging a "truth" well; rather, it is an integral part of communicating a truth to the other. Emily Dickinson puts it this way: "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant. The Truth must dazzle gradually." This lesson is especially important for teachers who think they have done their job when they have lectured for an hour, citing all the facts and uttering all the "truths." But they must ask themselves whether they have communicated truth or simply uttered it in front 65.1 2006 Malone)/ ¯ Truth: Religious Simplicity Revisited of an inattentive audience. Method is important. Teachers must often reflect not only on the content they wish to communicate, but also on the m~ans for communicat-ing it. The same is true of parents, friends, counselors, and others who must sometimes communicate truths which they know hearers will find it hard to accept. The Greek ~ord for truth, al~theia, means "uncov-ering." Speaking the truth opens us out. What lies within us comes forth. In speaking truthfully we disclose what otherwise remains hidden in our depths. In Greek mythology the goddess of truth puts two pathways before Parmenides: one of uncovering and one of hiding. It is only by "uncovering" that one's true self emerges. The New Testament states this very clearly: "Put on a new self, created in God's image, whose justice and holiness is born of truth" (Ep 4:21). Prayer Reflection Ponder the words of the hymn (perhaps sing it to yourself): Simple Gifts Shaker Hymn Written by Shaker Elder Joseph Brackett, Jr., in 1848 'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free, 'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, And when we find ourselves in the place just right, "Twill be in the valley of love and delight. When true simplicity is gain'd, To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd. Review for Religious To turn, turn will be our delight, Till by turning, turning we come round right. Group Discussion Share situations where you have found that you are com-promised in telling the truth. What kind qf principles did you use in the situation for your way of acting? The Not-So-Holy Grail The commonest cup may serve. As chalice for the King. Even now he pours the wine Until the heart can hold no more. See the crimson And taste the death That is our life. Teresa Burleson 65.1 2006 DAVID L. FLEMING Sharing God the Ignatian Way I n speaking about God, we each have our own way of rying to express our experience. Christian, non- Christian, Eastern, Western approaches differ and yet often point in directions that move in similar ways towards the same goal--a union or an identifying with God. In this reflection, we are trying to share among our-selves the richness of our experience of God as we have received help from Ignatius Loyola, particularly guided by the experiences of the Spiritual Exercises. There is no doubt that Ignatius has been able to enter us into an experience of God that has some specific characteristics that mark what is now identified as Ignatian spirituality. We need to remember that no Christian spirituality is so unique in its characteristics that we do not find it rooted in the Gospels. But characteristics special to a particular spirituality such as Ignatian include the kind of emphasis given to certain aspects or areas, the intercon-nections of elements, and the vision and imagery that David L. Fleming sJ is editor of this journal. He may be addressed at 3601 Lindell Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. Review for Religious become the vehicle moving this particular spirituality. Let us review some of these characteristics of Ignatian spirituality from our experience. We experience a God of gifts. The Ignatian Principle and Foundation is not presenting just a picturing of a creator God. Ignatius provides a fuller picture. In creat-ing, God has chosen us and gifts us that we might choose God through the means of the gifts that are meant to help us to know and to love God. This God has created a human world of gifts-- all provided for us that we might come to know and love God the better. Of course, with so many gifts provided, we find it necessary to make choices, even in terms of developing and using the personal gifts of talents and abilities that God has given to each one of us. Ignatius brings home to us that life is choice, and our choosing is always directed towards God. What does it mean for us to choose God in return? Do we share the God that gifts us with this responsibility? We experience that God is always trying to speak, to communicate with us, through his gifts. As a lover, God does not just speak words to us, even in Scripture. God acts, and his deeds are his expressions of love for us. Ignatius helps us to make the world transparent so that God and God's love shines through the whole of cre-ation. God is not a silent God. For Ignatius, God is always a God in conversation. Are we people who are attentive to God's communicating with us? Do we share with others our experience of this kind of an intimate God? "For'Ignat the. seven days of creation are all vart of God's .,:presence to,us. .71 65.1 2006 Fleming ¯ Sharing God the Ignatian Way 72] We experience God as One who is active and involved with his world--a busy God. Ignatius does not literally understand the six days of creation with God being very active on each of six days and then on the seventh day resting. So that, for many people, God stayed that way--restingmever since! No, for Ignatius, the seven days of creation are all part of God's presence to us. It is all part of God's Now. When Jesus says, ."My Father works, and I work," Ignatius believes him. The dynamic of creation continues and God works. This God, ever active and working with us and with his world--is this the God we share? We experience God in Jesus inviting us to be with him in his work identified as the coming of the kingdom or the reign of God~ In the Pauline mysterious image of the pleroma we know that God intends a certain fullness or completion to his creation, and we human beings---~e ones he loves--are called to play our part within this movement. Does our praying "Thy kingdom come" inspire us in our response to God's invitation to work with God so that the kingdom shines out through our dealings and activities in our ordinary world? Is our working with God in the vineyard of the kingdom the God we share? We experience a God who waits upon our response to this invitation. Just as God waits upon Mary for her response to God's invitation to allow herself to be his mother, so God waits upon each one of us in a similar way to allow ourselves to bring God's life to the world in which we live. Like Mary, we are to have a growing inti-macy with Jesus, and because of his risen life Jesus desires an intimacy that knows no boundaries. Do we share a God who is patient, long-suffering, who waits, for our hesitant and often waffling response? Do we share a God who delights in intimacy with us? Review for Reli~ous We experience our living and working with God. Working does not take us away from our God since God is a busy God, and, being busy, we are right alongside him. Praying, too, flows naturally in a relationship with .a God who converses in so many ways, if we but learn to listen--as when we take time to pray. And so Ignatius shares with us a union with God in the contemplative action of praying and working. There is a wholeness--a unity--in our life that does not take us away from God. Do we live, like Jesus, as contemplatives in action? Is this the God we share? If, in Ignatian spirituality, these are some of the ways we experience God and are moved to share God with others, we need to observe next how this experience flows into how we act. For Ignatian spirituality is above all caught up in a "way of proceeding." Some spiritual-ities identify themselves with a certain horarium--a daily order of set prayers at certain time, such as the Liturgy of the .Hours, one practice that marks a monastic approach to life. Some spiritualities revolve around cer-tain devotional practices, whether so many rosaries prayed within a day, so many set prayers read or recited, perhaps so many hours spent before the Blessed Sacrament. A "way of proceeding" in Ignatian spirituality does not demand any of these devotional obligations, but it does leave a person free to observe any one of them or any combination of them. Just as the text of the Spiritual Exercises remains free of particular devo-tional practices, so Ignatian spirituality imposes no arti-ficial boundaries: prayer times, prayer styles, amount of prayer, particular devotional practices, certain life styles, or specific jobs or responsibilities. Ignatian spirituality is an adaptable "way of proceeding" in our developing a relationship with God, with others, and with our world. From his experience of God, Ignatius wrote the texts 6Y.I 2006 Fleming ¯ Sharing God the Ignatian Way of both the Spiritual Exercises and the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. We find that both these texts are "to be used"; they provide us with a way of proceeding. They are written for the purpose of the practice they generate. Both are written, not just as a rule of life or just a description of a good life, but as an invitation to experi-ence what Ignatius calls in the Two Standards prayer exercise "the true life." Jesus re

Issue 56.6 of the Review for Religious, November/December 1997. ; Living NUMBER 6 Review for Religious is a forum for shared reflection ~n the lived experiehce of all who find that the church's rich" he~'m_ges .of spirituality ~upport tbei~ personal and apostolic Christian li6es. . The articles in the journal are meant to be informative, practical, or inspirationM, written front a~ tbeoflogical or spiritual or s6metimes canonical poin~ t of view. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis Universit3, by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: FOPPEMA@SLU.EI)U Manuscripts, book~ for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonot, gh OP 1150 Cedar Cove Road ¯ Henderson, NC 27536 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information o,1 subscription rates. ¢1997 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal nse, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institUtional promotion, or [br the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Jean Read James and Joan Felling Iris Ann Ledden SSND Joel Rippinger OSB Edmundo Rodriguez SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC Christian Heritages .and Contemporary Living NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1997 # VOLUME56 ¯ NUMBER6 contents virtues Solidarity--More than a Polish Thing Marie Vianney Bilgrien SSND sheds light on the importance of solidarity as a virtue, especially in the preparation of the Synod for America. The Paradoxical Courage of Ananias John L. Barber draws a picture of the disciple Ananias in which the various attributes of his courage guide us in our Christian following. working together 578 587 A Quilt, a Council, and a Church Margaret Mary Knittel RSM proposes that the processes of quiltmaking and the processes of organizations call for an ever active interdependence among equal people before a loving God. Community--Healthy or Dysfunctional? Joel Giallanza CSC makes some practical observations about the choices we make for a healthy community life and describes various causes of dysfunction. 599 The Elderly among Us Eagan Hunter CSC reflects upon the importance of the elderly ~x~ among us for the vital continuity of our religious life. Revie~v for Religious 605 614 being missioned Interreligious Dialogue and the Jesuit Mission Thomas Michel SJ explains the beneficial implications of interreligious dialogue and describes the personal transformation that results. Misery Meets Mystery in Montenegro: A Survival Guide for North American Religious Annette M. Pelletier IHM pictures the "reason" for hope in the flourishing of consecrated life in North America by describing her experience of the people of the Peruvian pueblo Montenegro. perspectives 623 Itinerancy, Stability, and the Freedom of No-Where Brian J. Pierce oP examines the ascetic freedom common to apostolic itinerancy and monastic stability, the freedom both to go wherever God's Spirit moves us and to stay put wherever we have come to see that God dwells. 636 642 Grass-Roots Religious Jeanne McNulty OCV presents reflections on some new ways of living consecrated life. Jesus, Frogs, and Dancing Eileen P. O'Hea CSJ tells of the rich experience of an ever developing relationship with Jesus that deepens our love of God and love of neighbor. departments Prisms Canonical Counsel: Habit and Habitus: Current Legislation Book Reviews Indexes to Volume 56 November-December 1997 prisms Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, Lord of the new universe, the great hidden key to human history and the part we play in it. --Paul V-I, homily in Manila, 29 November 1970 ~esus presents us Christians with two inestimable gifts: familial intimacy with God and a share in divine vision. St. Paul speaks of God giving us wisdom to understand the mystery, "the plan he was pleased to decree in Christ, to be carried out in the fullness of time: namely, to bring all things in the heavens and on earth into one under Christ's headship" (Ep 1:9-10). Overwhelmed with the vastness of the vision, we rightly focus on the gift of intimacy. But, as we come to the end of each liturgical year, we receive reminders about the twinned vision which our relationship with Jesus entails. The many Gospel incidents of his curing blindness imply our need for Jesus to give us ever greater sight along with a deepening love relationship. One of the Gospel titles which Jesus elicits from us throughout our lives is "Teacher." As we continue to reflect on the Scriptures and receive graced insight into relationships and situations of our daily life, we become aware that Jesus remains our teacher as he was for the people during the time of his public ministry. A teacher provides information, presents new ways of seeing things, and makes connections with previous experiences, allow-ing further insights to develop. Through the gift of the Spirit, Jesus. continues giving all the richness of divine perspective. The Spirit's action gives hope to the church, whose vision is always in process of renewal. Through the focus of scripture readings during this changeover from Ordinary Time to Advent, the church faces each of us with our personal responsibility to examine whether we continue to deepen our relationship with Jesus and Review for Religious whether we allow Jesus to keep expanding our vision. The ques-tion for us: Do we seek out Jesus as our Teacher? If we enter into Matthew's final-judgment scene, how does Jesus find us "seeing" and dealing with our fellow men and women? With our aware-ness of ecological balance, how responsible are we to an envi-ronment given over to our care? Does "all things being created in him" affect our attitude of reverence in exploring Mars or some galaxy in the future? We talk about "getting stuck in our ways." We sometimes car-icature it as a special problem for the older person, but it has no age boundaries. We see children quickly get into certain ritualized ways of playing. We certainly know such patterns in our own behavior. In fact, prejudice is a fixed way of seeing or of relating. In the face of personal and historical evidence, it is a paradox to be engaged in a growing relationship with Jesus and at the same time to cling to prejudice. Does prejudice signal to us that we may be trying to focus myopically on the Jesus relationship without let-ring Jesus be Teacher for us? We may forget that faith vision is a grace always to be prayed for. Perhaps we have placed ourselves more in the position of Peter refusing to let his feet be washed, and we too need to hear Jesus' reprimand that unless we allow him to wash our feet (that is, allow our relationship with Jesus to affect our way of seeing and of acting) we will end up having no rela-tionship with him. We need to be challenged by the Pauline vision to enter into the divine pleasure of reconciling everything--both on the earth and in the heavens--in Christ. At the close of a liturgical year, as we listen to the Gospel accounts of end times and final-judgment scenes and then move on, in Advent, to the careful preparations for God's entering into our human history in Jesus, we realize anew how we are called to play our part in the cosmic vision--what St. Paul called "the mystery of Christ," the divine de, sign of salvation. Like St. Paul, we too want to make Christ known, hoping to make every human being complete in Christ, since in him--the image of the invisi-ble God--we see God's image of what it means to be human. And in our Christmas awe we continue to pray that we may have eyes to see that Mystery Incarnate, "the fullness of him who fills the universe in all its parts.'? David L. Fleming SJ The editors and staff of Review for Religious wish all our readers a most blessed Christmas and New Year! Noventber-Decevnber 1997 MARIE VIANNEY BILGRIEN SolidaritymMore than a Polish Thing virtues For too long, people have equated the concept of solidar-ity with the Solidarity Union Movement in Poland in the 1980s. On the other hand, many people have not paid any attention to solidarity because they thought of it either as a Polish thing or as just a passing event. For a few years solidarity generated written articles and symposiums after Pope John Paul II named solidarity a virtue in his 1987 encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis. Can one birth new virtues in our religious tradition? I suspect one can, if one is pope and writing an encyclical. So maybe sol-idarity is a Polish thing! In any case, interest in the virtue soon died down. I know this because in 1994, when I was in Rome writing my dissertation tided Solidarity: d Principle, an Attitude, a Duty, or The Virtue for an Interdependent I4rorld, I seemed the only one interested in it--especially as a virtue. Yet there is a new surge of interest, due to the linea-menta prepared for the Synod of America titled Encounter with the Living.Jesus Christ: Vday to Conversion, Communion, and Solidarity. In the lineamenta, solidarity is referred to as a principle, a duty, and a virtue. Individuals and groups are urged to practice solidarity "to channel effective aid to groups and nations which suffer from poverty." Solidarity as a virtue is "a morally necessary reaction to the exis- Marie Viarmey Bilgrien SSND, director of the Hispanic ministry office in the diocese of Baker, may be addressed at P.O. Box 823; Madras, Oregon 97741 Review for Religious tence of injustice in social conditions" that affects many individ-uals and nations. Emphasizing the fact of interdependence, the lineamenta stresses that solidarity must be practiced not only by individual persons, but by entire peoples and nations, inasmuch as the world is economically, culturally, and politically more and more interconnected. What one country does regarding migra-tion, the use of natural resources, the drug trade, genetic manip-ulation, international economic relations, and so forth affects many other countries. The lineamenta stresses that solidarity is part of the church's social teaching and is to be practiced by everyone (§55); it explains as does Sollicitudo rei socialis that, if we want to undo the structures of sin so prevalent in our world, the solution lies in the moral realm. Just as sins of individuals create structures of sin that take on a hideous existence of their own, "an all-consuming desire for profit and thirst for power," so too acts of the virtue of solidarity by individuals, groups, and nations can build up structures of virtue that have a "decisive influence on economic programs and policies, on social communication, on culture, on healthcare, and so forth" not only locally but also nationally and internationally. It will be interesting to see how the idea of solidarity plays out in the meetings and documents of the Pan-America synod. Solidarity has a longer history than most people realize. It appears five times in the Latin of the Vatican II documents: twice in Apostolicam actuositatem, §8 and §14, and three times in Gaudium et spes, §§4, 32, and 57. In reading the texts one can glean that solidarity has an important spiritual dimension. It is a part of charity and has an individual and a universal dimension. It creates a responsibility to act. Jesus' incarnation shows his and God's sol-idarity with humanity. Our response to that gift is the practice of solidarity, recognizing that we are one family, that we have received gifts and talents to be used cooperatively--for the good of the whole family. Paul VI used the idea of solidarity extensively, especially in Populorumprogressio (see §§17, 43, 44, 48, 62, 64, 73, 80, and 84). It also appears in the Italian translation of Pius XII's encyclical Summipontificatus in 1939. He understood solidarity as the unity Jesus" incarnation shows his and God's solidarity with humanity. November-December 1997 Bilgrien ¯ SolidaritymMore than a Polish Thing of the human race, our.common origin from our Creator, sharing a "common habitation, this world of ours whose resources every-one has a natural right to enjoy., as they are needed for preser-vation and self-development." John Paul has been writing about solidarity since 1969. In his book The Acting Person, in describing personal development, he devotes a whole chapter to the necessity of attitudes of both oppo-sition and solidarity for the true and complete development of mature persons. In naming solidarity a virtue, he gives it greater importance. What does that mean? Solidarity as an attitude, duty, or principle only helps people to do the right thing, but as a virtue it helps them to become good. Duty implies decision and action, but virtue implies a disposition, a power, a perfection. Duty asks, What should I do? Virtue asks, How should I be? Virtue helps us do the right thing for the right reason. Solidarity is a virtue not only for individual persons, but also for groups working together and for nations in a world that is ever more interdependent. Solidarity is the virtue that can move society to the good. Solidarity is the virtue that can transform persons and society. In describing the virtue in Sollicitudo rei socialis, John Paul says that it is the response to relationships in a world that is inter-dependent; "it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good" (§38). He adds that the virtue is valid only when we recognize others as human persons, equal in dignity; when we feel responsible for those who are weaker--the poor (§39). In two paragraphs he lays out the components of the virtue of solidarity: interdependence, the common good, the dignity of the person, the preferential option for the poor. Solidarity recognizes that people, nations, all of creation are interconnected. What happens in one area of the world can have tremendous effects in another part. The actions of individuals, nations, and blocs of nations either increase the structures of sin (thirst for power, all-consuming desire for profit, ethnic wars, unjust wages, inhuman working conditions, patterns of violence and sexual abuse) or can build up structures of virtue (cooperative efforts to bring about a more just world and preserve the integrity of creation: the United Nations, groups concerned about ecol-ogy, peace-and-justice commissions, and so forth). Solidarity as a virtue recognizes people as equal in dignity and worthy of respect. Solidarity as a virtue sees each person as a Review for Religious member of the world family, as an image and likeness of God. Instead of looking at others as simply other, solidarity helps us to see them as neighbors, as brothers and sisters. From this flow the importance and necessity of working together to preserve the human family and the integrity of creation. Some of this can be seen in the work of the U.N. as it sends groups to work with refugees or promote peace between warring eth-nic groups. One sees the virtue in Doctors with-out Frontiers, who work in many parts of the world, and in other volunteer groups promot-ing health, education, and housing in poor coun-tries of the world. In accepting and recognizing the human dignity of each person, there must be a focus on those who are poorest. Both John Paul and Paul VI noted that their eyes were opened to the poor during their travels to Latin America and India. When one stands in a different place, one sees differently. Moving out from the Vatican palace to the streets of Calcutta and the barrios of Rio de Janeiro changes the view. Their eyes were opened; their awareness of people's suffering intensified. After those journeys, both popes talked more and more strongly about the necessity of "an option for the poor." In Sollicitudo rei socialis John Paul explains that a preferential option is not an exclusive option, but is a "firm and irrevocable option." Solidarity with its component of an option for the poor helps us to see the wider issues, the intertwining of systems and structures that oppress the poor rather than raise them up. Somewhere, in solidarity's judgment, the poor have a role. It is not true solidarity if the poor are overlooked or treated with conde-scension. In each judgment that is made, each action taken, one should ask: How will this affect the poor? The real goal of an option for the poor is to move beyond helping them and provid-ing care. The goal is for the poor to be authors of their own actions, to make their own decisions, decisions that are effective in moving them from poverty to participation in society. The goal is for them to be no longer .treated as children incapable of tak-ing care of themselves, but to participate in decision making so that the effects of solidarity are felt by all and begin to reshape the unjust structures that keep the poor poor. Only when the poor Solidarity recognizes that people, nations, all of creation are interconnected. November-December 1997 Bilgrien ¯ Solidarity--More than a Polish Thing are treated with full dignity will the virtue of solidarity begin to flourish in all its splendor. What is at stake is the common good, the good of all and the good of each individual, and solidarity is the virtue that commits everyone to the common good. Solidarity directs nations to sub-ordinate their national interests for the good of the planet, for the good of all. Solidarity directs individuals to transcend their greed and selfishness and focus on the good of the whole. Our years of selfishness, of greed for power and money, have caused havoc in the environment and have placed future genera-tions in jeopardy. No one can quash worrisome questions about the "greenhouse effect," about the dangers of the ozone level in the atmosphere, and about unknown effects of massive deforesta-tion and the continuous piling up of industrial waste. We continue to kill our planet. The widespread experimentation and manipula-tion in the biological sciences has outrun our ability to make moral decisions. Those decisions or indecisions will have for future gen-erations repercussions that we cannot predict. Solidarity is the virtue that can bring us to a greater consciousness of the importance of our moral decisions. Solidarity, by focusing the common good, reminds us that the differences of race, gender, ethnicity, culture, and economic status do not have to be divisive. Solidarity is the virtue for the third millennium. It has the capacity to inform interdependence in such a way that persons, peoples, countries, and nations will relate to each other equally, as members of the same family. Solidarity as a virtue orders actions and relationships towards the common good. It is the virtue that can transform a world of unjust structures, structures of sin, into structures of virtue, structures of justice, family structures. The general secretariat of the Synod of Bishops in its working paper has begun to answer the call of John Paul to unite all peoples of the Western Hemisphere and offers the practice of solidarity as one of the ways to solve the massive problems and inequities of the two continents. Conversion, communion, and solidarity in, with, and through Jesus Christ will be important on the journey into the third millennium. Solidarity is only the beginning. Review for Religious JOHN L. BARBER The Paradoxical Courage of Ananias anlthe pages of the sacred text, we find many courageous, but so human, people. One .such bold, authentic person was Ananias of the Book of Acts. The prelude to his encounter with Paul (then named Saul) is recorded as follows: A disciple called Ananias who lived in Damascus had a vision in which he heard the Lord say to him, "Ananias!" When he replied, "Here I am, Lord," the Lord said, "You must go to Straight Street and ask at the house of Judas for someone called Saul, who comes from Tarsus. At this moment he is praying and having a vision of a man called Ananias coming in and laying hands on him to give him back his sight." When he heard that, Ananias said, "Lord, several people have told me about this man and all the harm he has been doing to your saints in Jerusalem. He has only come here because he holds a warrant from the chief priest to arrest everybody who invokes your name." The Lord replied, "You must go all the same, because this man is my chosen instru-ment to bring my name before pagans and pagan kings and before the people of Israel. I myself will show him how much he himself must suffer for my name." Then Ananias went. (Ac 9:10-16)~ We know very little about Ananias, other than what we glean from this short account in Acts; he was "a disciple" of Jesus and lived in Damascus. Rather than being a longtime citizen of that city, our Ananias may have been a refugee from the persecution of Christians in Jerusalem. Though this is uncertain, we will John L. Barber, a lawyer, married and the father of two college-age sons, is also a lay minister at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. He writes to us from 600 Nokomis Court; Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27106. November-Decentber 1997 Barber ¯ The Paradoxical Courage of Ananias Saul is not only a real person, but also a symbol for the challenge to move from what we know, from safety, into the unknown and risk. --y-72J assume that he was indeed one who had fled from religious oppression. From Paul's address to the Jews of Jerusalem, we learn he was also "a devout follower of the Law and highly thought of by all the Jews living" in Damascus (Ac 22:12). Apparently his name was a common one, for in Acts we meet two other Ananiases. The first appears in chapter 5--Sapphira's husband, who lied to the Holy Spirit--and in chapter 23 we encounter the other, the high priest who ordered Paul struck on the mouth. In the same type of human plight in which our faith is tested, the constancy of Ananias was tried. In this sense Saul is a metaphor for those predicaments into which we must walk, involving a difficult or dangerous person or situation and presenting some risk from which we fear harm. The potential injury we face may not be as grave as the arrest and imprisonment that Ananias dreaded. Nonetheless, to us it feels and seems harmful, and we are afraid. As we journey on our Christian pilgrimage, all of us must face our own fear-provoking Sauls. Who are these Sauls for us? They are those places and people to which we would not go, were it not for God leading, moving, and stirring us and urging us to grow. They are life passages and problems we would not engage in, were it not for God inviting us or interrupting our lives. Saul may appear in life passages such as a midlife crisis or that time when the last child leaving home creates what is commonly called "the empty nest." In these interruptions we lose our bearings. Our "Saul" in them is the challenge of finding our direction again and reorienting ourselves. They might be crises like a divorce or the death of a spouse or loved one, the loss of a job or dissatisfaction with one's career. In these situations we face Saul when we are forced out of our ruts to seek new or renewed meaning for life. Saul is not only a real person, but also a symbol for the chal-lenge to move from what we know, from safety, into the unknown and risk. He is a sign for that time in life when our devotion to God demands concrete but hazardous action. We may find our Sauls in people with whom we have some Review for Religious confrontation, particularly if we are conflict avoiders. On the other hand, the Saul could be a confrontation with our own selves as we meet the challenge of seeing the truth in our own failings and weaknesses, limitations andsins, and dysfunctions and addic-tions. The dangerous Saul might be the challenge of learning healthier ways of relating and living. These types of self-con-frontation, in which we face the painful reality in our own hearts, can require even more courage than conflict with others. Typically, life's Sauls, in the guise of hard and risky challenges, involve both types of encounters: encountering self and encountering another person or some passage or crisis. For both of these, fortunately, we have a guide in the person of Ananias: he faced his own fear and Saul as well. A pattern for a bold Christian spirituality, he presents, when viewed from dif-ferent angles, a multidimensional courage. What, then, were some of the facets of his intrepidity? His Christian courage involved at least five attributes: openness before God, obedience, reluc-tance, calculated surrender, and the gift of grace. Openness before God The characters of the Bible portray many different stances or postures vis-~a-vis God. The prophet Jonah tried "to get away from Yahweh" (Jon 1:3). In Genesis, after Adam and Eve suc-cumbed to temptation, they hid from the Lord God who came to them "walking in the garden in the cool of the day." Ananias, on the other hand, was neither taking flight nor hiding. While he may have fled the persecution in Jerusalem, he did not flee from God. The Lord did not have to say to him, "Ananias, where are you?" as he did to Adam (Gn 3:8-10) or unleash "a violent wind on the sea" as he did against Jonah (Jon 1:4). Instead, Ananias had laid, himself bare before God, saying, "Here I am, Lord. Speak, your servant is listening." This "I-tere I am, Lord" stance in the presence of God is the courageous spirituality. Living "out there," in front of God, is the stalwart posture of discipleship. It is scary to live openly before God. What sins will God allow us to see? How will the glow of his love and the heat of his righteousness feel on our faces? What sufferings that our broth-ers and sisters endure will we, too, be privileged to face? What will the Lord ask us to do? For example, we pray earnestly, longing to hear God as clearly as Ananias did. Then, L.f-73 November-December 1997 Barber ¯ The Paradoxical Courage of Ananias when we do, we are hesitant to do what God has asked of us. We question God, saying, "Lord, did you really say what I thought you said?" or "God, I wanted you to speak to me, but I really don't want to do what you asked." Hiding from God among the trees of the garden is the spir-ituality of fear. Taking flight from God is the spirituality of escape. Openness before God is the spirituality of Ananias. Obedience The obedience of Ananias flowed out of his openness before God. This aspect of courage led to another, that of obedience. Courage for the Christian is different from bravery in other con-texts. For the believer, courage is connected to our obedience to God. An outgrowth of Ananias's openness was his vision in which he heard God speak, a time of intent listening for and to the voice of God. According to author Henri Nouwen, there is a com-monalty between obedience and intent listening. The word obe-dience springs from the Latin ob-audire, which signifies intent listening? Such intent listening is an act of courage in itself. For, if we begin to listen, we may come to know the sound of God's voice. And, if we come to know the sound of the voice, we may actually hear it. And, if we hear what God has to say to us, we are left in a dilemma of response and answer, as was Ananias. Reluctant Courage In our society we tend to view brave people as those who have no fear. In fact, the word "fearless" is a synonym for "courage." Yet, if we wait until we have no fright or consternation before we take a particular action, we will never act; for who among us is never afraid? This, however, is all-or-nothing thinking. Instead of being either valiant or afraid, we are simultaneously both3--valiant and afraid. Bravery, in truth, is action in spite of fear. In the face of the terror which looks us straight in the eyes, courage is a life stance or attitude which enables us to go to that dreadful place where God may be leading and we otherwise would not travel. For Ananias, bravery existed coexisted with his fear. He was obviously afraid of Saul, who journeyed to Damascus "still breath-ing threats to slaughter the Lord's disciples" (Ac 9:1). Having ReviewforReligious heard the Lord, Ananias responded by saying, "But, Lord, let me point out a few things to you. This Saul is a dangerous man. He might arrest me and put me in prison. I've already fled Jerusalem to get away from persecution, and now you want me to walk straight back into it." There is no evi-dence that Ananias ever got over being afraid of Saul. Although he was reluctant in his fear of Saul, Ananias nevertheless responded in faithfulness to the voice of God. He went to Saul in and with his fear. Following the example of Ananias, courage for the Christian exists not in overcoming our human- Courage for the Christian exists not in overcoming our humanity, but in our humanity. ity, but in our humanity. For the Christian, courage lives where there is obedience to the voice of God in spite of a very real dread. A Calculated Surrender For the Christian, courage is also an ambiguous place of ten-sion between knowing and counting the costs of our obedience, on the one hand, and, on the other, surrendering to consequences of our listening to God that are yet unknown. It is action flowing out of a paradoxical wisdom and foolishness. Whatever we might say about Ananias, he counted the cost of obeying God. He knew the risks. About our Ananias, there was a certain sophistication and wisdom. He had a firm grip on life as it really is, including the ugly part, particularly if he was a refugee from the persecution in Jerusalem. As a realistic person, his brav-ery was not a gullible one. Arrest, prison, stoning, persecution-- he knew very well what he might be getting into if he obeyed God and went to Saul. He was regardful of the reality of this man, who "entirely approved of the killing" of Stephen and "worked for the total destruction of the Church" by going "from house to house arresting both men and women and sending them to prison." (Ac 8:1 and 3). While he was well acquainted with the kind of man he was, his encounter with Saul also held a very real terror of the unknown and unfamiliar. Ananias did not know whether he would survive this ordained meeting or be stoned to death. Though we count the costs of our obedience, we still cannot know the ultimate out- Noventber-December 1997 Barber ¯ The Paradoxical Courage of Ananias come. The future cannot be envisioned. An old Jewish proverb says that "man plans but God laughs." Despite our best planning we cannot eliminate all surprises and exigencies. For the Christian, courage involves surrender into the hidden outcome of our obe-dience. In our confrontations we must know the risks we face. We are called to be wise as serpents. At the same time we cannot fore-see all the risks, and so our courage must have some element of surrender in it. In facing others we miglit lose our jobs, endure retribution, or suffer alienation in relationships. In the passages and crises of life, we might be forced from our comfortable lifestyle to one of greater risk as well as service and deeper mean-ing. In discovering ourselves as we really are, we may feel the heat of God's gaze with an intensity similar to the sun shining through a magnifying glass. Discomforting it is to see both the chaff and the wheat of the ripening crop of our own lives. Ananias's intrepidity was not naive, but one rooted in reality. Nonetheless, it involved a letting go of his life and relinquish-ment to God. If we are to be brave Christians, we must enter the place of tension between counting the cost and surrender. Gift of Grace We return to the name Ananias. For actors in the Biblical drama, a name was significant. So it was for Ananias. His name is derived from the Hebrew name Hananiah, meaning "the Lord is gracious" or "the Lord shows grace." For us to hear God's voice, the Lord must speak--which in itself is a special grace. With its limited resources, our own courage can take us only so far. Then, in order to heed the sound of God's voice, we come to the point where our humanity needs a healthy dose of grace. God's gra-ciousness is our access to Christian courage that is required of us if we are to be disciples. Grace is the window through which we step from hiding before God to the presence of God. Grace is the threshold which we cross from a fearful inaction to an obe-dience of reluctant courage. The irony of Christian courage is that it requires both a personal achievement and a gift from God. Living openly before God, Ananias of Damascus exposed him-self to hear whatever the Lord might say. Once he heard the voice of God, he responded in obedience. But his response was a human one of courage in its reluctance and hesitancy in its bravery. Review for Religious Realistic in his intrepidity, he both knew the risk and counted the cost of going to Saul. At the same time, he abandoned himself to the unknown consequences. Then he relied on God's grace so that he might be obedient to his voice. To varying degrees we are all Ananiases, whom William Barclay called "one of the forgotten heroes of the Christian Church." The mystery is that we are persons of paradox--as was Ananias; reluctantly courageous, calculated in our surrender, and obedient through grace--as was Ananias. Notes ~ Scripture quotations are from the Jerusalem Bible. 2 Seeds of Hope: A Henri Nouwen Reader, ed. Robert Durback, p. xxix. 3 I am indebted to Maurice Briggs MA for this insight about "all or nothing" or "either!or" thinking ove? and against "both/and" thinking. Rev. Briggs is a member of the faculty in the Department of Chaplaincy and Pastoral Education at North Carolina Baptist Hospital, Winston- Salem, North Cai'olina. Advent Cave Plato knew about the dark, how we prisoners face the wall in chains, only the fire b~hind us letting us see the m~oving shadows we call real. Far above, looms the door to light, reachable only by those who turn ~ away,from all they know. Wisdom, who lived in the cave at Nazareth where parents made a home and carried water to thefire, sitting at night in quiet, thoughts and the animals dozing near embers, the dying light, after a day of learning the real, calls us to turn and face the door. Evelyn Mattern November-Deconber 1997 MARGARET MARY KNITTEL | A Quilt, a Council, and a Church working together The quilt movement should be preserved as a col-lective enterprise with an ethical concern. If taken seriously as women's art, quilts cannot be perceived and enjoyed as isolated aesthetic objects divorced from the relationships of women to each other and to the rest of humankind. Quilts emin~ently pose the question of how one behaves in the asking and viewing of art. --Radka Donnell, Quilts as Women's Art Twenty years ago I took several tries at developing skills "for the home," sensing at first blush of midlife that my. more productive impulses would require something for my hands to do in my old age. Firs~t, there were the needlepoint classes, ~e.~n quilting. Quiltmaking is not for the faint of heart. As a dropout from Advanced Quilting, I can attest to the shaky feeling in the knees when faced with what appears to be an infinite number of steps. This quiltmaking episode would be instructive. As I have come to understand them, both quiltmaking and organizations involve mutuality and interdependence as essential pro-cesses within their respective collective enterprises. A Collective Enterprise In quiltmaking, the mutuality and interdependence of the women are reflected in th~ final product. Design, tex- Margaret Mary Knittei RSM works as a grants consultant for nonprofit organizations. She may be addressed at P.O. Box 634; Geneva, Illinois 60134. Review for Religious ture, color, and template come together through their hands, through their spirit shaping. "Quilts are healing because they accept the uniqueness, the positive difference, and the mortal limit of each human being."1 A quilt's design, texture, color, and template over a period of time will collect these human beings and express their individualities anew. Design, texture, color, template .become interdependent, one with the others, to bring beauty to the whole. The overall design of a quilt needs a working principle, a template, to express the color and'the texture, to specify the difference. One shape, a tri-angle for example, can be the basic design of countless quilts~ The textures of various fabrics add to color and design, with the template giving the basic shape. Color in all its bold or modest hues as textured by the various materials gets a specific shape and then is pieced'into a growing design. The mutuality and interdependence among the quiltmakers affirm them all. Positive differences go somewhere into a future, not wasting time with empty words of control; rather, they speak of vision. Limit recognizes this is a bordered piece, this quilt, and we its .shapers affirm the grace of the moment~, knowing it could be the grace of a lifetime. .Quiltmaking is a healing image, one that includes authentic conversation, meaning-filled relationships, among the people sharing the brganizational life of a parish, a religious community, a church. "Religion here is the sensation of being one with the whole, of belonging, not of subjection.''~ The virtues of quilt-making are the virtues of a healthy human organization. A Demo~cratic and Affirming Mission . Radka Donnell says in her perceptive book: "To the work of piecing quilts I was silently called, and i( took me years to sort 6ut the problems it revealed and the-difficulties it created. The early groups of contemporary quiltmakers were inspired by a sense of mission. If not expressly feminist in each case, this mission certainly was democratic and affirmative of each individual quiltmaker a'nd each quilt. (p. 6) The metaphor of quiltmaking can remind us of the Second Vatican Council's challenge to the church to accept both its divine mission and the human organization called to participate in thLa$t-7-9 November-December 1997 Knittel ¯ A Quilt, a Council, and a Church mission. Facing problems and difficulties, it is an organization capable of error, of hurt and pain, in search of truth, in sea.rch of healing and grace. During the thirty and more years since the council's call, at times its substantive energy seems depleted and diminished; but ultimately, in the hearts of people, the message will never be muffled or suffocated. The post-Vatican church as organization, as. human organi-zation, seems destined for democratic and affirming conversa-tions. That kind of, change and growth lies in the hands of all believers, as people seated as equals around a corporate quilt. If we are quiet.like the quiltmakers, we still hear, from the heart of the council, that call, that sense of being missioned, to the inclu-sive and respectful goodness of lives lived to the full in the sight of God. Our lives continue on, and as we look desperately for mileposts we acknowledge we are still on the way. Concerns for democratically and respectfully affirming connections become earnest calls for better ways of being together, whether it be in a parish, a religious community, or the church universal. Religious organizations, as human organizations, need to face their corporate humanity. A corporate way of being human is important, whether we admit or deny the fact, whether we like it or not. The foibles of people's human interaction can be acutely felt at an individual level. Often, however, corporate humanity recognizes the problems only after many have been hurt. Words like "low morale" or "uncooperative" become blame tags. The dilemma for leadership is that, when you blame, you do not lead. The nature of bureaucracies is to maintain power, no. matter what the cost. The church needs to ask itself just how bureau-cratic it wants to be. If it chooses to be increasingly pastoral, it will find that parishes, religious orders, dioceses, and the church uni-versal will raise new questions, demand new ways of~behaving. Within a bureaucratic church organization, the individual-- parishioner, ~priest, vowed religious, bishop, employee--will mat-ter less than the maintenance of power: posturing, identifying totally with power, seeking to dominate. To survive, members might feel they must be subservient in one way or another. Within a bureaucracy the common good is co-defined with the maintenance of the organization itself. More time and energy are given to protecting a bureaucratically bungled decision than to thinking through afresh what is happening. Things as we hard known them remain the same. In the face of an entrenched Review for Religious bureaucracy, the better educated, the more aware, may leave. Feeling tokenism and lack of care, they may go off, re,searching for their soul. For those who stay, the mission seems dissolved within the bureaucratic. Doing the task mindlessly and relating to self, oth-ers, and God make it all bearable. Fair Dealing Radka Donnell makes this observation about quiltmaking: To be interested in the theory and practice of quiltmaking means to look for fair dealing between women, as well as between men and women. It indicates a readiness to fight against all obstacles preventing us from creating a better world together. (p. 72) One systems view of organizations sees them as made up of four equal subsystems, mutually interdependent in their rela-tionships. These four separate and different subsystems are called the task, the structure, informal groups, and the individual. These four separate and different subsystems function optimally when all are equal to one another in importance and mutually interde-pendent in their relating. If one of these subsystems puffs up, the whole system is affected. The other subsystems get leaned upon, diminishing their contributions within the whole. If one of these subsystems withers, the functioning whole likewise suffers, gets skewed. Parishes; religious communities, and the church universal as human organizations are distinct systems. Each could be said to consist of the four subsystems of task, structure, informal groups, and the individual. The Task as Subsystem. The task in a. religious community would be its charism, the unique mission of a community as per-ceived within the Catholic tradition in its particular context. Similarly, a parish has a particular local task to accomplish. A contemplative group of religious women varies from an active one, and0an inner-city parish from a suburban one. While each participates in a still larger system, locally they are themselves separate organizations. Over time numerous activities accrete to any organization, but its central mission remains. Confusion, dif-ferences, outright hostilities occur when an important question is not acknowledged or goes unasked: "Just who does the sending, November-December 1997 Knittel ¯ A Quilt, a Council, and a Church the missioning?" Is it God, a founder or foundress, this hospital, a church, the history of a town or city? The Structure as Subsystem. The second subsystem to be looked at here is structui'e or governance. Within a community or a parish, we all know the persons making up the structure. Vv'hether community government be elected or discerned, it finds itself in Whether community government be elected or discerned, it finds itself in a quandary of expectations from membership, and from itself. a quandary of expectations from mem-bership and from itself. Likewise, a new pastor looking around for the first time feels various expectations arising. Leadership needs to lead, but, when it does, its performance may not fit pre-conceived notions. Then leadership may be tempted to resist the future; to lean back and maintain the present, and hence to end up reissuing the past. Leadership in the ideal sustains the vision of the common good, which in itself is a process both democratic and affirming. A structure ideally assumes lines and processes of accountability that are at .once just and active. Leapfrogging .and micromanaging from a0distant central office can bypass managers and commit-tees on the scene and violate the rights of the organization itself. Again, if local people .spontaneously blurt out their evaluation of an associate pastor at a parish council meeting, they bypass proper procedures and strip away the individual's right to an appropriate evaluation of job performance. The structure, we need to remem-ber, is one of four equal and interdependent, subsystems contex~ tualized within an organization. Informal Groups as Subsystem, The informal groups in an orga-nization would be various clusters of individuals espousing simi-lar norms and sanctions among themselves. They appear neutral in a well-functioning organization, manifesting as they do a nat-ural affinity of persons. Sometimes, however, an informal group skews an organization, a company, a religious community, or a parish by losing sight of the larger task, the mission, the com-mon good, and seeking its own way of goverfiing the whole. The informal group may try to impose its own values on the majority in any number of ways: by inclusion, exclusion, intimidation, and oppression, by pushing to be the most holy, the most dedicated to Review for Religious the poor, the most attentive to keeping the church intact, the most pro-life. Many masks can disguise the will for power over others, and an informal group in any organization can obscure and even obliterate the vision. The Individual as Subsystem. The fourth subsystem within this model of organization is the individual. Individuals and the moti-vations they bring to the organization impact the entire system. The recognition of the variety of motivations at play within any group can be a sobering and staggering realization. From studies on the impact of opportunity in organizations, we know that the "anointed" in organizations, those high flyers who move quickly through ~the ranks, are given life through our desire to observe them as winners. We endow their ideas and words with more credibility. We entrust them with more resources and better assignments. We have already decided that they will succeed, and so we continu-ally observe them with the expectation that they will con-firm our beliefs.3 The anointed individual in this language of organization-as-system distorts the life of the organization, overshadowing struc-ture, informal groups, task or mission, and other individuals. Other members give over their .truth, their experience, and, in thus surrendering their individual dignity, they suffocate the pos-sibility of democracy or the achievement of the common good. The anointed individual becomes a god. Within a church or reli: gious organization the confusion of gods for God needs contin-ued sorting. Self-Healing Among her comments about quilting, Radka Donnell says: The.more the system gets into high gear, the more self-he~ aling is needed. (pp. 126-127) In church organizations, isolation and wrongly constructed obediences sometimes intensifies the claim of the few to be anoint-eds. A particular organization's structure, informal groups, and task or mission could conceivably be dominated by an anointed; in this mix, religious language might be used to cover ambition, to anoint the anointed. A wonderful scene from the movie Richard 111 swipes at the capacity of religious language to cover up. Richard, pretending to be secluded and hard at prayer, emerges to be "convinced." to November-Dece~nber 1997 Knittel ¯ A Quilt, a Council, and a Church accept the English throne he has serpentinely plotted and mur-dered to acquire, Knowing that people consider him in some way the anointed one, he now considers himself a god. He becomes increasingly foreign to those around him, and later he meets defeat in battle. Have we ever looked on when a locally anointed individual (now apparently feeling godlike as well) strongly inserted irrele-vant and impertinent opinion into a community or parish com-mittee, spilling the work of months down the drain? Numbers of those very committee members, still ~motionally inclined to attribute greater knowledge and perhaps even a cosmic wisdom to the anointed one, may find themselves recoiling in disarray. Can we recall an experience in our lifetime when an individual crashed through the lines of accountability appropriate to structure, manipulated informal groups by feeding them what they want to hear, and used language of mission or church or patriotism to keep the advantage? Is this the call of the prophetic, we. wonder, as we give over our own individual power to this other individual, the anointed? "Prophetic ministry consists of offering an alternative perception of reality and in letting people see their own history in the light of God's freedom and his will for justice.''4 The test suggested is whether the anointed gives space for us to reflect courageously on our 'individual histories "in the light of God's freedom." To con-tinually strive to see one's own history in God's light will be to know our own history, our own experience, anew each time. This is not a blaming game, an unhealed existence, or a quick fix with aphorisms, but a genuine opening in my life, your life, for healing, for Jesus the Christ. Self-healing is not a plastic therapy for believers, but an engagement with a living. God. The question remains: Does the message of an. anointed one leave room for all these variables, for the lights of a freeing God? Margaret Wheadey contrasts the "anointed" individual within an organization to the "dead" individual. Others in organizations go unobserved, irrevocably invisi-ble, bundles of potential that no one bothers to look at. Or they receive summary glances, are observed to be "dead," and are thereafter locked into jobs that provide them with no opportunity to display their many pote.ntials,s A post-Vatican II church unfurled to Catholics a new way of being, and we need to revisit those challenges. Dying to self, we Review for Religious have come to increasingly realize, never meant not unbundling our own gifts, our own graces, as we become acquainted with them. Our own baptismal anointing as Christians, no longer a vague memory, becomes a constant call. But, alas, we knew that struggling to be "undead"--not be to an anointed, just to be undead--would have its own price, Declaring the king to be naked in a bureaucracy brings life-mark-ing, career-reversing implications. A question, a deviation, could bring death-dealing expulsion from the informal life of the group or from the larger organization itself. Each person having and wanting to have influence, each want-ing to "see their own history in the light of God's freedom," becomes incessantly difficult if declared or assumed to be among the "dead." The equality of persons within an organization is the paradigm for the equality of each subsystem in the model offered here. Puffing up one impinges upon all the others. Withering one depletes all. Equality equates to mutuality among members. The Incessant Pursuit The church, embracing sinners in her bosom, is at the same time holy and always in need of being purified, and inces-santly pursues the path of penance and .renewal. (Lumen gentium, §8) The processes of quiltmaking and the processes of organiza-tions call for an incessant pursuit of mutuality and interdepen-dence among women and men equal before a loving God. The Second Vatican Council invited the church of the 20th century to know both its humanity and its wonder. If parishes, orders of women and men religious, and the church universal in a post-Vatican II church accept themselves as corporate human organizations, they will steadily come to under- Stand the strengths and pitfalls that accompany such aggregate groups, The rich heritage of the church cannot afford to forget that it is an organization of human persons. Such forgetting rehearses feudal futility. There is both frailty and strength in its organizational life. At the level of shared humanity, frailties and strengths within any group will always be fa!i'ly evident. To deny this shared humanity is to set up the religious organization as exempt from the foibles and frets that indeed call on God for its life principle. Novetnber-Decentber 1997 Knittel ¯ A Quilt, a Council, and a Church "The church, or, in other words, the kingdom of Christ now pres-ent in mystery, grows visibly in the world through the power of God" (LG §3). To deny the church's humanness is to deny the power of God. As we continue to unpack that sublimely historic event we fondly call "the council," there is more to do, more to remind others about, more for ourselves to be .reminded about. The Roman Catholic Church as a religious organization, ceasing to gloss over its frail corporate humanity, will come to understand its corporateness at a more profound level. The church as a human organization will come to truly trust in the mystery of its shared life of faith in Jesus the Christ. This living quilt we call "church" calls to a people deeply conversant with a living God. Notes I Radka Donnell, Quilts as Women's Art: A Quilt Poetics (North Vancouver, Canada: GaIlerie Publications, 1990), p. 425. 2 Dorothee Soelle, Theology for Skeptics (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), p. 28. 3 Margaret J. Wheadey, Leadership and the New Science (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1994), p. 60. 4 Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), p. 110. s Wheatley, pp. 60-61. Subscriptions to Review for Religious can now be ordered or renewed by I~AX and.paid for by MasterCardor ~sa. FAX the order form inside the back cov~r~ or CALL our office with, you~r.tcgedit carol numbi~r:.? o. FAX: 314-~-7-7362 ¯ PHONE: 314297727363 Review for Religious JOEL GIALLANZA Communitym Healthy or Dysfunctional? ~or these reflections about community living in religious .~. orders and congregations, I propose what may seem a curi-ous biblical passage, the one that concludes with "Very well, pay Caesar what belongs to Caesar--and God what belongs to God" (Mr 22:21). We are more accustomed to texts on loving one another or bearing one another's burdens or remaining united and at peace among ourselves or reconciling with one another whenever necessary. All those principles and practices are very important for the life of a healthy community. From this text, however, two :practical norms can be drawn which also are impor-tant for life in community: appropriateness and balance. These two norms are tightly intertwined, like a fine weaving; in fact, both can be drawn from those same words of Jesus: "Pay Caesar what belongs to Caesar--and God what belongs to God." First, appropriateness: We do not give to Caesar what belongs to God or to God what belongs to Caesar. In community we can bring realities into~our life together which are not really appro-priate precisely because they are misplaced: for example, unfair expectations of someone or of one another as a group; unwill-ingness to share or communicate something which by our pro-fession we commit ourselves to share and communicate; personal agendas, with their accompanying attitudes and perspectives, and emotions, which may really belong in ministry or to only one of our relationships or somewhere else altogether. Joel Giallanza CSC writes for us once again from: Congregation of the Holy Cross; Via Framura, 85; 00168 Roma; Italy. November-December 1997 Giallanza ¯ Community--Healthy or Dysfunctional? Serious personal reflection and realistic self-knowledge bring with them the ability to answer this simple question: Where does what I am experiencing--this issue, this feeling, this concern-- belong? Where will it be most appropriately articulated and addressed? Inappropriate placement of issues, feelings, and con-cerns generates an inadequate response. Then all frustrations sur-rounding them will be intensified as they continue to be unaddressed. Second, balance: We give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God at the same time. Of the two points, balance is the more challenging, even on a daily basis. Most of our time and energy as apostolic religious are invested in ministry. This is important, given who we are as religious com-mitted to continue the mission of Jesus in the spirit of our founders and foundresses. Nevertheless, we do need to remind ourselves from time to time that each of us has only one limited pool of time and energy. Too easily we can fall out of balance by expending the maxi-mum of our quality time and energy in ministry--or on some-thing else--and simply neglect community or prayer. While that might never degenerate into complete negligence; we may grad-ually adopt a very minimalist approach to community. Then, from time to time, we may feel shocked that those with whom we live every day have changed or rearranged this or that without our having been consulted. Conveniendy we might forget to ask our-selves if we were sufficiently present, available, and interested when those decisions were being formulated and then imple-mented. Community life can be joyful and it can be painful; at times it can be the greatest of blessings and at times the heaviest of burdens. But never has there been a guarantee, that it would be easy. As long as we are human, working to live closely with other people, appropriateness and balance in approaching our commu-nity life will continue to be significantchallenges. "Pay Caesar what belongs to Caesar--and God what belongs to God." We may not always make that payment perfectly, but we are responsible for making the effort 'to live community with the appropriateness and balance which can facilitate the love and unity we seek. Though other things must also be included, these are principal ingredients that determine the quality of life and health within a community. Review for Religious Quality of Community: Healthy or Dysfunctional? Very little, if anything, about community is theory.It is work to live with one another. But through our commitment it is meant to be a work of the heart. The alternative is that members care lit-tle about one another and about the space in which they live. Gradually each individual b~comes the center of a personal uni-verse which has minimal contact and communication with the other personal universes in the vicinity. Then all the theories about community and loving one another constitute little more than fine words carried on hot air. , Community life, then, can be healthy or dysfunctional. These present thoughts will focus on some characteristics of a healthy community and on some earmarks of a dysfunctional community. The following sets of contrasting characteristics represent spec-trums present in all communities. They are presented here only as a stimulant for further reflection and discussion vis-h-vis the specific experiences and contexts of actual local communities. The health or dysfunction of a community is evident from its location on the spectrum. Determining that location is not a random, arbi-trary exercise; it emerges from the members' individual and com-munal self-knowledge, hgnesty, self-examination, and willingness to adapt. Only then can the members decide what adjustments will facilitate living more effectively as a healthy community. Community or Computer? Communication, sharing and processing information, has a major influence on the health or dysfunction of a community. Healthy choices and decisions are based on sufficient and appro-priate, information and clear communication. This assumes gen-uine listening, not simply hearing. Attentive listening enables us to analyze and respond to. someone's words with understanding and love. , , The alternative is not :merely a failure to listen, though that will be part of it. Much more, the alternative strips the entire interchange--the information sharing and the personal decision making--of any affective, human quality. We may react mechan-ically to what we barely hear, quickly making preliminary and sometimes permanent judgments. As individuals and as a com-munity, we may focus,only on facts, with little regard for how all this decision or this expressed opinion will affect the people involved. Then we are no longer a community, but a computer. November-Decentber 1997 Whether the members are a "community or a computer depends upon how they share and deal with information among themselves, how they communicate with one another. A healthy community remains focused on people; it puts information at the service of people. A dysfunctional community operates much like a computer, focusing on the precision and,.processing 6f infor-mation; it tends to view people as servants of that information. A healthy community strives always to choose and decide wi.th understanding and love. By contrast, a dysfunctional community may be efficient, but is not likely to be person oriented. What needs to be done gets done, but with little regard for the vari-ables of human personality, for people's preferences and per-spect. ives, for the rich nuances that the talents and experience of the individual members could provide. Efficiency may be an important value, but it is no guarantee against dysfunction; only love can prevent that. The quality of communication among community members colors the atmosphere, the climate, the spirit, of their residence, marking it as either a home or a hohsing facility: In turn, that atmosphere affects the quality of relationships among 'the mem-bers and thus the witness,they present to'the world around them through their presence and ministry. Assessing the quality of com-munication within a community is among the mos~t effective and direct means of improving the overall health of that community. Community or Condominium? When the members actively establish and actually engage in their communal lifel the community's ;health benefits d.ireetly. Several elements are involved: first, common call and mission. The healthy commianity understands its call and articulates its mission. This becomes a source ofenergy and provides meaning and direction, with far-reaching implications for every dimension of religious life, from personal and communal lifestyles, to voca-tion promotion, to decisions concerning ministries and the use of financial resources. By contrast, a dysfunctional community drifts without a clear sense of where it is going or how it wants to present itself to the world around it. As a result, irreconcilably wide gaps develop among the lifestyles and philosophies of the various members and local communities and jeopardize the very fibers holding the com-munity together. Efforts to identify and maintain any common Revie~v for Religious call and mission are not a priority among the members of a dys-functional community. A second element of community health is mutual respect. Members have a certain maturity and respect one another's per-sons, possessions, and perspectives. This is not to imply that there will be constant and. consistent agreement; that is not realistic. Respect has more to do with recogniz-ing, accepting, and even honoring the differences among the members than with arriving at some superficial level of agreement. By contrast, a dysfunctional commu-nity has replaced respect with recipe. Its members work hard to redesign one another according to some image or stan-dard' they hold which may have nothing to .do with the ideals put before them by the life and example of the founder, or the constitutions, or the experience and capabilities of the members. Redesigning one another consumes much time and energy that should be directed elsewhere., ~ Third--this expands the preceding point--a healthy community celebrates " the 'members' giftedness. Rejoicing in one~ another's gifts is a concrete expression of respect. This assumes that we have made the effort to know one another's gifts; further, this effort involves sharing and communicating with one another. The challenge here is to go beyond knowledge toward: affirmation and even promotion of one another's gifts. This is possible only if we are secure and comfortable with ourselves, with our own individual gifts and goodness. By contrast, the members of a dysfunctional community tear down one another, not so much through specific hatred or dislike, but because of personal insecurity, being uncomfortable with one~ self. Jealousy and envy emerge from .low self-esteem and superfi-cial self-knowledge. If we feel and come to believe that Our gifts or talents are insufficient and inadequate, we may be tempted to build up ourselves by tearing down others. This may be quite subtle: a roll of the eyes, .a nod of the head, a sigh that commu-nicates "There he/she goes again!" In time the only comfort zone The quality o.f communication among community members colors the atmosphere, the climate, the spirit, of their residence, marking,it as either a home or a housing facility. Nov~nber-December 1997 Giallanza ." Communi~--Healtb~ or D~Cunctional? we may experience is when we maintain our distance from one another. We are polite, but politic: never disturbing or unsettling one another, but also never challenging and ultimately, never really knowing and loving one another. Fourth, a healthy community does, of course, provide and allow space--physical, psychological, and spiritual--for the mem-bers, as individuals and as a community, to be alone and silent, to pray, think, reflect, and relate to God. Maintaining and respect-ing such space requires a level of maturity and comfort that does not equate community with constant togetherness nor reduce it to comfortable superficiality. By contrast, a dysfunctional community sacrifices environ-ment and atmosphere to organization and structure. Though everyone has space, the community does not seem to be alive. There is no sense of an appropriate ambiance, a balance between the private and public forums of the members. Privacy tends to degenerate into secrecy, and public times together become safely and securely sociable. Shared prayer and significant interaction among the members are minimized or routinized to assure the completion of requirements without the responsibilities of com-mitment. Fifth, a certain spirit characterizes a healthy community. The atmosphere, the spirit, of a healthy community encourages the members to feel at home with one another, with the physical space, and with the rhythm of life. This spirit speaks more loudly to prospective members and occasional guests than any other aspect of the community's life. If our guests do not perceive that we .feel at home in this space and with this rhythm of life, then they are not likely to feel at home either. The questions confronting us are direct: Do we feel at home here? Is this an atmosphere which encourages~us to contribute, to be open, to trust? If not, why?- By contrast, a dysfunctional community has a climate from which members try to escape in one way or another. This is most clearly observable when the balance between presence and absence collapses. Personal activities of the demands of ministry are allowed to expand and overflow so that it becomes difficult if not impossible to be present for the community meetings, common meals and prayer, and other gatherings and celebrations as well. Away from the community, members feel more alive, and they feel a heaviness when it is time to return. They find it emotion-ally and spiritually draining to live in this community setting. Review for Religious Sixth, efforts to preserve unity indicate a healthy community. Recognizing the work and the sacrifice involved, the members enter willingly into one another's lives through appropriate self-revelation and compassionate listening. And they willingly make the time for that work and sacrifice. By contrast, a dysfunctional community no longer invests time and energy in the quality of its life. Its members may be quite civil and sociable, but they do not form significant affec-tive and spiritual bonds with one another. Their residing together is merely a coin-cidence of time and space rather than a reflection of a deeper commitment to one another. Given the importance of these six characteristics of a healthy community, when dysfunctional cl~aracteristics are dominant, we no longer have a commu-nity but a condominium. Everything appears to be in order, well organized, running smoothly, and comfortably .appointed--but the place is merely a habi-tation, not a home. Everyone is self-con-tained. People pass one another and exchange all the acceptable courtesies and If our guests do not perceive that we feel at home in this space and with this rhythm of life, then they are not likely to feel atohome either. appropriate pleasantries, but maneuver away from any deeper sharing. Obviously, a dysfunctional community can neither attract nor nurture healthy vocations. Those who desire to live in this way could easily find what they want in a well-managed and efficiendy operated condominium. Community or Cold Storage? Life in community necessitates some personal and communal qualities. Though any list is somewhat arbitrary, I would suggest that members of any healthy communit~ have some basic quali-fies that facilitate and sustain their relationships with one another. In their personal qualities, the individual members of a healthy community will have a rich diversity. These qualities, moreover, will vary from community to community. They will, however, include mutual affection and affirmation, willingness to apolo-gize and to forgive, fostering friendships, generosity, compassion, and joy. All these and others communicate a distinctively posi- Novetnber-Dece'mber 1997 Giallanza ¯ Community--Healthy or Dysfunctional? tive response to two simple questions: Am I / Are we happy in this way of life? Would others perceive that we are happy and enthusiastic as they observe our everyday life? This is not to deny the human reality of the striving of us all, with various ups and downs in community life, prayer, ministry, the vowed life, and personal relationships. Admittedly, these qualities may not always be fully evident in us, but it ig essential that we have a commitment and a willingness to make constant efforts to develop them. By contrast, a dysfunctional community seems only to exist, to survive. It does not give the impression of flourishing with all the warmth and beauty of human relationships. It appears to be merely a group of people occupying the same space together, but never encountering one another on a deeper level that calls them to life. A dysfunctional community does not and cannot commu-nicate that the members are truly happy to be living and carrying out their everyday tasks and responsibilities. Communal qualities do not differ significantly from the per-sonal qualities necessary for healthy community. In fact, they reflect the interaction of those personal qualities among the mem-bers. The health of that interaction is especially evident when community members genuinely enjoy one another's company and are generously hospitable to others. They plan for time together on a regular basis, and they safeguard that time as a priority. VChat they do during that time together is not as important as their tak-ing the time to be present and attentive to one another. That attentiveness will overflow so tha.t guests feel welcome to activi-ties of the members' common life. By contrast, the members of a dysfunctional community find time together to be a chore, and so they reduce it to a minimum, either by unchallenged design or through the deterioration of relationships. It would not be uncommon to find much loneli, ness in these situations, loneliness that is compensated for by hav-ing all or most of one's primary friendships outside the local community. In a healthy context, loneliness can teach us and chal-lenge us to deepen .our relationship with the Lord and sharpen our compassion for and sensitivity to the loneliness of others. In a dysfunctional community, however, loneliness takes a very dif-ferent direction: it tends to breed discouragement and depres-sion which lead to compensatory behaviors. Vv'hen a group gives little or no evidence of these personal and communal qualities, they have cold storage, not community. Review for Religious They live together, but only as if in suspended animation, with-out those human qualities and interactions that bring life and happiness and growth to a community. Even if the members of a local community are not aware of this and do not acknowledge it, their guests will see it, and, most certainly, so will those who are considering a vocation to their way of life. Given the realities, of society,today, many of those considering a vocation to religious life come from environments that have little human warmth, little sense of family. It is. unlikely--if they truly want to live in a healthy way--that they would commit themselves to a life of cold storage in a dysfunctional community. Community or Committee? Community is a straightforward reality. If we do not take the time and energy to create it, if we do not take responsibility for it and take initiatives for it, then it will not really exist. Community is never the result of spontaneous generation, nor does it work by automation. The mem-bers of a healthy community do not abdi-cate their right and duty to make, maintain, and monitor the quality of their common life. They accept the idea that reflection together, sharing, and bonded-ness are key elements in the health of community life. By contrast, a dysfunctional commu-nity seems to drift as the members wait for someone to do something, to take responsibility for moving the community forward. On occasion, some issue or sit-uation becomes a crisis before the members mobilize enough to respond reasonably. For instance, the demands o.f ministry may have been allowed to control the scheduling of regular times together for reflection and sharing, or some members' manipu-lative behaviors may have been left unchallenged for so long that the community now manifests a growing collective passivity. The challenge here is to decide if people's lives together will be a community or a committee. "Committe~" here means a tem-porary group formed for a particular purpose. Its members address an issue or perform a task and then they disperse. Maintaining relationships is not a committee's function; in fact, that could Community is never the result of spontaneous generation, nor does it work by automation. Noventber-Dece~nber'1997 Giallanza ¯ Community--Healthy or Dysfunctional? hinder its efficiency and effectiveness. In the case of a community, however, failure to maintain relationships compromises its capac-ity for being a prophetic presence and witness in and for our world. Community or Convenience? There is a genuine asceticism involved in building and sus-taining a healthy community life. This asceticism has some com-ponents. First, the qualities of love and unity in a community must be personal and individual before they can exist commu-nally. If as individuals we take personal responsibility to foster these qualities by helpful activity, then the group we belong to will do so too. In a dysfunctional community there is a wide gap between talk about responsibility and the reality of what is actually done. Everyone may say "we" do such-and-such, but, in reality, only a few take any initiative or action in response to the situation or issue at hand. Second, within a healthy community, care and concern are given generously and appropriately. Generously, because they are directed to each individual within the community. Appropriately, because they are adapted to the particular situations, personalities, and needs of the individual members. The sensitivity and aware-ness at work here are mutual, respectful, and inclusive. Third, individual, active participation is essential to healthy community life. If individuals do not participate in community meetings or contribute to common decisions, they get in the way of healthy community life. Really, there is not much middle ground in this regard. Silence and passivity are not automatically harmless to the quality of community life, Members of a dysfunctional community are passive partici-pants. Every dimension of their consecrated life--prayer, daily interactions, conversation at meals, attentiveness to guests-- reflects a general lack of energy and interest. The members put their energy and interest outside the community. Two means for facilitating this asceticism are personal accountability and effective conflict resolution. Calling one another to accountability is never easy to do, but it does mark the care and concern, the participation and love, of a healthy community. In a dysfunctional community, life together is lived at Review for Religious the lowest common denominator. Community members do not challenge one another, either because of fear or because no one wants to be challenged. Then the whole community will be only as strong as the weakest member; it will make progress only at the pace of the slowest one. Effective conflict resolution is indispensable. A community with absolutely no conflict is not perfect, it is dead!_How con-flict is dealt with in community can weave the members together into a magnificent tapestry of healing and love, or it can tear them into so many scattered pieces of cloth with no common threads. Often a small event or issue, left unaddressed, becomes infected over time, changing a community from health to dys-function, from bondedness to brokenness. If we are unwilling to practice the components of this asceti-cism and use the means that help us do so, we are no longer speak-ing of community, but of convenience. The dysfunctional community protects and promotes and projects a life of conve-nience. Therefore, whatever is inconvenient--whether it is related to prayer or practicalities of living together or personal relation-ships-- never reaches the level of consideration as a community priority. Convenience can assure that no one is upset, but it also guarantees that people will grow in only minimal ways. The Choice before Us The quality of our community is not a onetime choice; we must choose to live in love with one another day in, day out. If we do not make that choice daily and affirm it by our actions daily, we begin to live something else. Eventually our life together becomes ~omething else: a computer, a condominium, cold stor-age, a committee, or a convenience. We become something, but not community. We give witness to something, but not to unity and love. The choice is ours. We know well the words of Deuteronomy 30:19 calling us to "choose life." Sirach, too, .expresses bluntly the choice before us: If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. God has placed before you fire and water: stretch out your hand for whichever you choose. Before you are life and death, and whichever you choose will be given to you. (15:15-17) November-December 1997 Giallanza ¯ Community--Healthy or Dysfunctional? Three questions can assist us in reflecting on our individual and communal response to that life-or-death choice which is ever before us. First, what brings us together? VChy are we here? Is it our faith in Jesus and our desire to live that faith through this religious community and its mission? Or is this life simply a way to do a ministry--teaching or nursing or social service or pas-toral work or whatever? Admittedly, our faith in Jesus and the work we do are not mutually exclusive; but the question here con-cerns the foundation of our life's identity and meaning. Second, what keeps us together? Is it our love for one another and our efforts to support one another in living the way of love? Or is it that we have no alternatives and have become comfort-able? Or are we afraid to consider any alternatives? Having no alternatives and being unwilling to consider other options are not good indications that we have made a healthy and mature choice of what we are doing. Third, what flows from our being together? Is it the prophetic witness of our faith in Jesus and our love for one another? Or is it: our accomplishments? The compliment paid to the early Christians was "See how they love one another!" not "See how much they get done!!~ Healthy community is built and sustained by faith and love and witness. Dysfunctional community is concerned only with the work to be done, the status quo, and the results of what is done. Only a healthy community can project Christian life and human warmth and prophetic witness. These thoughts will close with the Gospel te~t which opened them: "Very well, pay Caesar what belongs to Caesar--and God what belongs to God" (Mt 22:21). Because he is referring to a Roman coin, Jesus speaks in terms of payment. His words remind us that healthy community costs something--we will have to pay. A healthy community costs each of us individually because we must constantly give of ourselves,° thus making our commitment to one another real in our attitudes and our actions. COmmunity costs us collectively because we must commit ourselves to make our life together a witness of love and peace and unity. Together we must call one another to this commitment. Dysfunctional com-munity is free of charge. Healthy community costs something. Individually and collectively, we must determine our willingness to make the necessary payment. Review for Religious EAGAN HUNTER The Elderly among Us Tue, we always have had elderly religious among us. But ~ two factors have changed the emphasis. First~ everyone is living longer, in the secular world and in the religious life as well. In 1900 only four percent of the total general population was over the age of 65--one in every twenty-five. By the year 2000 it is projected that as much as thirteen percent of the total :general population will be over 65. Life expectancy has been extended. It is projected that those arriving at age 65 today can expect to live approximately 16.3 years beyond that age. Second, the median age of religious communities is getting older, changing the dimen-sions of the concern. These two factors have made aging in reli-gious communities a more visible, more widely known concern. The problems faced by elderly religious are not necessarily a matter of increasingly poor health. Even though more vulnerable to ill health than in their earlier years, many continue to live healthy lives into very advanced years and some almost until death. Growing old is physiologically and psychologically inevitable, but these changes vary from individual to individual, with no pre-dictable'pattern emerging. Physiologically, advancing years bring problems of lessened mobility, gradual diminishment of the senses (especially sight and hearing), weakened ability to think and remember, Increasingly, heart problems and strokes occur, bones weaken, and arthritic and other impairments increase. Most older religious seem able to adjust more rapidly to various changes in their physiological world than in their psychological one. Eagan Hunter CSC is professor of education at St. Edward's University; 3001 South Congress Avenue; Austin, Texas 78704. Novonber-Deconber 1997 Hunter ¯ The Elderl~ amon~ Us Many times the decline of physical powers causes a brother or sister to remain somewhat isolated within his or her religious house, out of the "mainstream" and interacting less frequently with others. In the religious life we have been taught that one of the major facets of our existence is our contribution to the ministry and apostolate. Our religious formation tends to make us become self-sufficient. When the necessity asserts itself of cutting back on former activities once managed quite easily, older religious may experience feelings of depression, of uselessness. They may feel themselves a burden to others and no longer able to do their fair share. They seek ways and means through which to make some form of contribution to the common life and to the ministry. Sometimes there is a tendency for younger people to assume tasks which the elderly could do if provided sufficient extra time. In the interest of efficiency and effectiveness, we may become impatient and take the tasks out of their hands. Thus for the elderly the depressing feeling of 'not being able to contribute their part becomes magnified. Younger religious must seek ways to continue incorporating the elderly into the community's daily activities. The contemplation of retirement involves a psychological state, a sense of psychological withdrawal from the demands of one's ministry or occupation and the entry into a totally new ori-entation towards oneself and one's work. The taking of this step in our work-oriented society indeed is a milestone event and a very sensitive process. It marks a turning point in one's adult life, a shift from the middle years to old age. The extent to which retirement is viewed as a positive life transition depends much upon the attitudes of the individual. Some have more difficulty adjusting to retirement than others. Some are reluctant to retire, for their work seems to give their lives structure and meaning which is seen as becoming void in the future. What decisions need to be made when facing this stage of one's lifespan? What choices are available to the individual? Such a transitional adjustment incorporates a process of con-templation and evaluation of life's meaning and purpose, one's vocational call to service. It involves integrating the many expe-riences, meanings, and facts of one's life. It brings into focus one of the most incomprehensible concepts of all--one's own human. mortality. Such an adjustment involves acceptance of one's life with dignity and without too much regret for things not done, roads not followed. This reorientation phase of adjUstment should Review for Religious involve exploring new avenues and ways of being involved. The elderly who are well educated and who have enjoyed their work life will desire to continue some type of positive experiences related to that former occupation, but with lessened participa-tion and responsibilities. I had a great-aunt who was a nun. For some sixty years she was a successful teacher and administrator. With the limitations of advancing old age and the resultant physical losses, it became necessary for her to surrender one by one those things which she loved doing and did well. I can remember visiting her in their infirmary before her death. While we were talk-ing, a younger nursing nun entered the room with a tray containing a stack of small plastic cups used to give medication and a small bowl of soapy water. My aunt had insisted that she still could make a contribution, and this was her way. As we talked, she carefully and slowly washed and dried each cup. A contented smile of pleasure filled her face when the nursing nun returned an hour later to pick up the tray and complimented my great-aunt on the help she was to them. Even this litde bit meant much to my elderly aunt. She still was a con-tributing member of her religious community in her own little way. In my own religious community, we have a brother who cel-ebrated his hundredth birthday in 1996. For many years he was an active teacher, administrator, religious superior. In addition to the task assigned him through his ministry, he reached out in other ways to those around him. Before entering the religious life, he had been a member of the Souza band. It was this gift of music he shared with others over the years of his religious life through playing in various civic musical groups and symphonies. After a major stroke, one of his primary goals was to rehabilitate his muscular coordination to the degree that once again he could make joyful sounds to the Lord on his cello. Prayer, music, and his community became the center of his retirement. He continues to have many gifts to share with others, and share he does. Many of us feel the limitations that the ac6ve demands of our ministry place on our personal time. We sometimes feel there is not sufficient time to pray. But, for many of our retired religious, Younger religious must seek ways to continue incorporating the elderly into the community's daily activities. November-Decentber 1997 Hunter ¯ The Elderly among Us time is what they have most of--so we must plug into this spiri-tual "powerhouse." We must stress to the elderly religious that their contribution is to storm heaven in behalf of the concerns and problems being encountered by those in the active ministry. They can pray and are happy to assume this role of petitioner. Seen in the proper perspective, the lives of our older reli-gious need not be brooding or unhappy. We must give them our support and understanding, realizing the emotional tensions, phys-ical trauma, and disease which have become so much a part of their lives. We must remember that these are the community's elderly of today, and that the elderly of tomorrow will be us! How would we want to be treated? Younger religious must be careful not to participate in a form of age stratification within our religious communities. Such strat-ifying may be seen in the general society, with people being divided into classes and castes of various sorts. In such a society it becomes the norm administered to qualify or disqualify indi-viduals for desired roles and positions. Age is a significant variable in such social stratifications and becomes an operative factor in the qualification or disqualification process. Many of our elderly once held leadership roles in commu-nity undertakings. Through age discrimination such religious may feel that their expertise and experiences are no longer sought, that their role in community has been terminated. We must real-ize the symbolic value of their witness roles. It is their footprints that led our various religious communities to the roles we fill today. The elderly hold a vital position in the continuity of our religious life. Vatican Council II speaks, of the heritage of our various religious orders and congregations. We are asked to turn~ to the sources of Christian life, to the inspirations, conceptions, traditions, and ideals of our founders, as well as to those who fol- ¯ lowed later in our histories. We are asked to restore these to our religious life through modifications that meet contemporary reli-gious and social needs. The elderly among us are those who helped mold our particular institute into what it represents today. They,:are our living heritage, our legacy. Thus we must continue to reach out in order to -benefit from their years of knowledge and understanding of our particular mode of living the religious~ life. Their guidance and insights form a treasure which we cannot afford to ignore or'discredit. The elderly religious among us have seen their family mem- Review for Religious bers as well as their religious associates die. More and more of their generation is disappearing. Feeling the loss of these loved ones, they come face-to-face with their own mortality. The pos-sibility of one's own death becomes a factor of life. When young, we tend to believe we are indestructible--death is something asso-ciated with old age, and we are young. Time passes and the pos-sibility of one's death becomes a reality. Our religious beliefs provide us with a solid and positive creed. The Vatican Council stresses that we have been created by God and that, through the passion and death of Jesus, the terrors of bodily death have been conquered. If we live this life fully, we will be restored to whole-ness and a sharing in .the divine life which lies beyond all corruption. "Hence to every thoughtful man a solidly established faith provides the answer to his anxiety about what the future holds for him. At the same time faith gives him the power to be united in Christ with his loved ones who have already been snatched away by death. Faith arouses the hope that they have found true life with God" (Gaudium et spes, § 18). The resultant insights make it easier to develop one's own coping mechanisms for dealing with the future. Yet death remains a mystery. Our goal should be to assist the elderly to reflect upon their life's achievements done in the name of our Lord and to reflect upon the truths of Christianity related to the meaning of life and death. As Erikson points out, the last stage of the human life cycle encompasses old age and the retirement from the pro-ductive years of life. He sees this last stage as ego integrity.versus disgust and despair. The positive outcome of this last stage is an acceptance of one's self and one's life without bitterness or regret. It is a coming to terms with i:he approaching finality of one's life. It incorporates the avoidance of the negative feelings that one's life has been wasted, the avoidance of discontentment about one's limited accomplishments, the "road not taken," the task not done. Upon going blind, Milton feared that God would chide him for wasting talents and gifts that were now lying useless in him. An inner struggle went on until Milton reached the conclusion that, rather than rejecting the role given him by God, he simply needed to accept it. He phrased this acceptance exceedingly well The elderly among us are those who helped mold our particular institute into what it represents today. November-December 1997 Hunter ¯ The Elderly among Us when he said, "They also serve who only stand and wait." This quiet acceptance is difficult, for most people are action oriented. In the declining years of our lives, God is not asking anything heroic. Rather, he is asking for the quiet acceptance of one's infir-mities, one's physical disabilities and limitations, one's sufferings and pains. St. Paul expresses this acceptance when he says, "I find my joy in the suffering I endure for you. In my own flesh I fill up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body, the church" (Col 1:24). This submission and acceptance can be raised as one's gift to heaven. This is a task we all can do. These elderly religious have preceded us in the labors of our ministries. The burdens ~they carried frequendy were heavy. They did not trudge; they strode onward, for they were people of faith and hope. Approaching the end of their individual journeys, they need our support, our understanding, and our willingness to assist. This we must be willing to give them in their time of need. Simply this is all they are asking of us. To Mary, Journeying (A Visitation Song) "For all your ways~ are beautiful . " Be with us in the morning as with joyful hearts we travel tq carry Christ within us in silence and in song. Be with us as we labor on the hills and in the valleys with your care and with your mercy to all within our world. And when evening shadows lengthen, be our strength as still we journey to our God whose arms await us in the darkness of your peace. Louise Finn CND Review for Religious THOMAS MICHEL I Interreligious Dialogue and the Jesuit Mission "All good theology is autobiography" is a phrase often repeated today. If theology is a reflection on our faith and its implications, then the personal history of how God has acted and is acting in the life of each of us is the starting point for theological understanding. Moreover, as Jesuits, it has been a part of our communitarian spirituality from the beginning to "share our desires," that is, to speak with each other about the great things we want to do for the Lord. From this starting point I would like to share the spiritual desire that has dominated my relationship with God in prayer and work for the past quarter century. It is the desire for greater understanding and love between Christians and Muslims and my desire to make a contri-bution to that end. being missioned Transformation through Dialogue As a Jesuit and a priest,I am today a product of inter-religious dialogue. The way I live my Jesuit vocation is the result of twenty-five years of sharing life with Muslims, discovering the spiritual riches they possess, learning from them, being challenged by them, and at the same time Thomas Michel SJ, secretary of the Vatican Secretariat for Interreligious Dialogue, originally presented this article as a talk to young Jesuits in both Manila and Rome. He may be addressed at Curia Generalizia; Compagnia di Ges~a; C.P. 6139; 00195 Roma PRATI; Italy. ¯ November-December 1997 Micbd ¯ Interreligious Dialogue and the ~esuit Mission having occasion both to bear witness to my faith in what God has achieved for all people in the person of Jesus Christ and to explain to them my understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. In more recent years my apostolate has taken me beyond encounter with Muslims and more and more into dialogue with Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, and the followers of indigenous religions. When I reflect on what has been going on in my life, I see God forming me and transforming me by his grace, over and over, into a person different frbm what I "alas at the beginning of my interreligious journey. I am conscious that, when I teach courses on Islam or when I speak about Muslims, what I say and how I say it are different from the words of someone who has not had my experience of coming to know the Muslim community from the inside. When someone says something tha( pu~ts down or denigrates Islam unfairly, I ~nd myself reacting spontaneously and even emotionally, because they are talking about people that I know, people who have welcomed me into their lives, people whom I love and who have shown love to me. When Muslims are insulted, I feel insulted; when they are wronged, I feel wronged; when they undergo a tragedy, I suffer with them. When something good happens to them, I rejoice with them. When Muslims do wrong, to themselves or to others, I feel ashamed and beg God's forgiveness. When real dialogue occurs, no partner is left unchanged. When I see how much God has enriched my life and deepened my faith through my being in dialogue with others, it is a great source of hope and encouragement to me. For the same Holy Spirit who has been active in my own life is also at work in the lives of my friends of other faiths, using our encounters to touch them too and transform their lives. Most of the time we do not see evidence of this. We work in hope, which is, after all, trusting that God is invisibly active in this world. But God knows that we need encouragement from time to time and gives us "feedback" to keep our hopes alive. About four years ago I received such a .response from Said Khorramshahri, a pious Iranian Qur'an reciter. I had gone to Tehran to represent the Vatican at a national function and was staying about two weeks. Said, a graduate student in English, was assigned to interpret for me at the meetings and conferences that made up my schedule. Review for Religious During this time Said and I had many opportunities to talk about all sorts of things: life in Iran and in Rome, sports, politics, music, our own personal hopes and desires~ and, of course, what is deepest in our lives--our faiths. We shared deeply and hon-estly, and I could often feel the presence of the Lord when we were in conversation. When I returned to Rome, he wrote me a long letter saying that he never imagined that God would use his encounter with a Catholic priest as the instrument by which to pro-foundly change and deepen his outlook on life, faith, and his relations with others. I real-ized that I was not the only one who recog-nized that God was present and active in our encounters. This pious Muslim also saw that God was with us and that "our hearts were burning within us" from the movement of God's grace: I offer this experience merely as an exam-ple. Every Jesuit--every Christian--who has been involved in interreligious dialogue to any extent can tell comparable stories. If my experience has been mostly with Muslims, others could testify to some strikingly similar" experiences of God's activity gathered over the course of their years in dialogue with Buddhists or Hindus, Jews or Baha'is, or followers of the tradi-tional religions of Africans or Native Americans. The point is that, when we truly open ourselves to God in dialogue with another, the Holy Spirit takes over and guides the encounter. As the document "Our Mission and Interreligious Dialogue" puts it, "Open and sincere interreligious dialogue is our cooperation with God's ongoing dialogue with humanity (OMID §5). When we truly open ourselves to God in dialogue with another, the Holy Spirit takes over and guides the encounter. The Need for a Document The document of th~ 34th General Congregation "Our Mission and Interreligious Dialogue" is remarkable. For the first time in Jesuit history, the Society as a whole explored the inter-religious dimension of our Jesuit mission. Certainly, there were always some Jesuits who were involved in various forms of inter-religious dialogue. For a few it was their main apostolate, but for most it was something in which they were involved when they Novetnber-Dece~nber 1997 Michel ¯ Interreligious Dialogue and the ~esuit Mission had extra time, an apostolate they added on to their main duties. Dialogue was often considered a kind of luxury in the Society, of secondary importance to works such as schools, seminary and theological education, parishes. It frequently happened that stu-dents who were interested in carrying out studies on other reli-gions were assigned to other, "more important" fields of study like Scripture, theology, and philosophy. Most of us .involved in dialogue have had the experience of hearing a fellow Jesuit tell us we were wasting our time. "Why do you bother with Muslims?" I have been asked; "you will never convert them." Some comments have seemed to presume that interreligious dialogue and proclamation of the gospel are incom-patible activities, or that dialogue somehow undermined or com-promised the church's mission of evangelization. These questions show that the goal of dialogue was not well understood. It was confused with a type of soft sell, a way to insinuate ourselves into another religious community in order to make converts, or it was seen as a lack of commitment to bear witness to our Christian faith. Dialogue and PrOclamation One of the first issues that the general congregation had to take up was the way int.erreligious dialogue is related to the work of evangelization. It is in this context that the goal of dialogue can be understood. In the one evangelizing mission that Christ gave to his disciples, dialogue and proclamation of the gospel are two distinct aspects. Neither can replace the other. "They should not be confused, manipulated, or regarded as identical, as though they were interchangeable" (OMID, §7). Just as dialogue is not meant to replace proclamation of the gospel, so the duty to pro-claim the gospel must never preempt or negate the work of engag-ing in dialogue. The document describes dialogue as "a new way of being church," in which we discover the "deeper dimensions of our Christian faith and wide~ horizons of God's salvific presence in the world" and engage in activity that "grasps the deeper truth and meaning of the mystery of Christ in relation to the universal his-tory of God's self-revelation" (OMID, §7). What this dense the-ological statement means is that God is at work in the lives of all those who sincerely seek him and that sometimes God's grace Review for Religious produces anyplace in the world people of great holiness, gen-erosity, and love. God carries out this saving work among people of other faiths through the Holy Spirit, who makes use of the religious tradi-tions that people follow to lead them farther and farther along the path of true holiness. Sometimes a person's knowledge of God's saving work in Jesu's Christ precedes: the person is bap-tized and receives the fullness of the Holy Spirit. More often the Holy Spirit precedes people's knowledge of Christ. There is no contradiction here: it is the One God who is at work, whether in Christ'or in the Spirit. Quoting the bishops of Asia, the GC34 document says: "It is the same Spirit, who has been active in the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and in the church, who was active amongst all peoples before the incarnation and is active amongst the nations, religions, and peoples today." We see, then, that the deepest motivation for dialogue is to recognize the Spirit of God wherever the Spirit is at work in the world today and to praise God for the generous action of the Spirit. When we meet Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, and others who bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit in their lives, our reaction should be to praise and thank God. Time spent with sincere believers of other faiths is time spent in discovery of the many and varied fruitsalove, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control--~at the Spirit continues to produce in the lives of other believers. Four Types of Dialogue and Their Goals "Interreligious dialogue," as the document points out, is not one thing, and the document outlines four basic types of dialogue. The goal of each type is not exactly the same. The dialogue of life is a dialogue on the plane of being, and the goal i~ living together in peace, mutually enriching each other by bearing witness to the values we stand for. The dialogue of action is on the plane of doing--working together to oppose whatever enslaves and degrades people, defending the weak, accompanying the poor in their struggle for justice. Its goal is to build together societies formed in accord with the will of God and in reverence for human dignity. An example of the dialogue of religious experience is what was going on during my time with Said in Iran. The goal is for those November-December 1997 Michel ¯ Interreligious Dialogue and the ~esuit Mission in such dialogue to open themselves fully .to God's movements (God's personal history in the life of each person) so that the Spirit can use them to touch and transform the persons. The dialogue of theological'exchange is to .clarify points of con-vergence and divergence, to overcome misunderstandings, half-truths, and distortions, and to come to a greater appreciation of each other's spiritual values (OMID, §4). It is not meant to arrive at a common formulation, to gloss over the differences between religions, or to find a common denominator on which we can all agree. The irreconcilable differences that we discover should nei-ther surprise nor discourage us, since we acknowledge from the start that each religion, is unique and offers its particular com-plex of doctrines and way of life. Dialogue in Patience and Hope If dialogue is about love (OMID, §6), then it is by examining the qualities of love that we learn the attitudes that must accom-pany our efforts at dialogue. In his great hymn on love in the First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul lists some of the qualities of love. It is. significant that the first quality on Paul's list is patience: "Love is patient, kind . oIt is important to spend time reflecting on the quality of patience, because lack of patience, in my opinion, is one of .the great causes of failure in dialogue. Patience includes more than not looking for quick results. I would rather say, "Do not look for results at all." In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna, "Do your duty conscientiously, and do not be concerned about suc-cess or failure?' We might paraphrase this advice by saying that the document "Our Mission and Interreligious Dialogue~' challenges Jesuits to "throw yourselves into this activity, without counting the cost or trying to measure the results." We engage in dialogue because it is our duty as disciples of Christ. As the OMID document puts it, dialogue is an integral element of our Jesuit mission in the world. We are people of hope, .one of the three greatest gifts that God has given us. We work in the hope that God will use our efforts in a way pleasing to God to advance the comingof God's reign in the world. Sometimes we hear people say, "What have you accomplished after all these years of dialogue? There are still religious tensions, ,conflicts, and wars." Review for Religious ~ The same could be said of other aspects of our mission. Those working for justice know that--despite years and years of tireless effort, sacrifices, even martyrdoms, despite vast amounts of time and energy spent--we are still confronted with countless forms of -injustice, oppression, and exploitation in the world. Recent years have even produced new forms. The occasional victories seem few in comparison with the rampant injustices still existing in almost every society. Does this mean that all those efforts at building more just societies have been in vain? No, we recognize ~that we have to keep on struggling in every age, culture, and nation to oppose injustice and defend the oppressed and marginalized. , It-is a similar case with interreligious dia-logue. At the same time that relations between the followers of various religions become better in one place, new conflicts and tensions break out elsewhere. Regions that have had long tra-ditions of people living together in peace sud-denly find themselves enmeshed in religious wars. On the other hand, reconciliation does occur where there has been conflict. People do learn to forgive and move beyond the past. Some peo-ples do find, often through much painful searching and with many setbacks, ways to live together with their neighbors of other faiths. We have all inherited two attitudes that make the effort at dialogue more difficult: One is the modern business ethic of quick and concrete results. In business, people feel they do not have time to wait. If they do not get the job done and done fast, a com-petitor will get an edge on them. People have graphs and tables .and prbjections to show how soon they can expect results. If they fail to achieve them in the time allotted, they go back to the draw-ing board to revise their policies. But it does not work that way with human relations. Things take time, and our efforts may be building a basis of fellowship whose benefits can be seen only in the future. The second attitude that makes dialogue difficult is an attitude of historical optimism that has dominated the philosophy of his-tory in this century. In this view, humankind, through education and technology, is continually evolving towards greater maturity, openness, and well-being. Obscurantism, ignorance, and violence are characteristics of primitive society and bound to be super- We engage in dialogue because it is ourduty as disciples of Christ. November-December 1997 Michel ¯ Interreli~ous Dialogue and the Jesuit Mission seded. In interreligious terms, many Catholics saw the period of the Second Vatican Council as a time when the old religious con-flicts would become a thing of the past. Dialogue would be the instrument of an inevitable result, putting an end to the misun-derstandings and divisions that kept us apart. Patience and Dialogue It seems to me that, if we Jesuits are going to make a contri-bution towards greater interreligious harmony, we must have a more realistic attitude. Dialogue will not solve all the religious conflicts in the world, just as our struggle for justice will never put an end to all forms of injustice and oppression. Rather, dialogue is something that must be carried on in every, society, in every age. Understanding and respect must be built anew in every gen-eration. The challenge will never come to an end, because sin is a part of who we are as humans and, where there is sin, there will be suspicion, hatred, and conflict. The need for patience is not only seen at the macro level of societies and nations. It is also the case in our personal dealings with people of other religions. We are all so full of suspicions, fears, and preconceptions. It takes much rime to get beyond these, to break down the natural resistance that we all bring to dialogue. If people seem unwilling, indifferent, or even hostile to invita-tions to dialogue, we should not be surprised. The burden of his-tory that we all bear is an obstacle that cannot be overcome quickly. We should also not be surprised if dialogue encounters seem superficial or seem to be characterized by an insincere politeness. This indicates that a level of trust at which we can relate hon-estly and deeply has not yet been built. That too takes time and much patient effort. We human beings are not willing to share what is deepest in our lives with people whom we are not yet ready to trust. Until we are convinced that the others will .treat our sharing with due respect, we tend to keep things at a nonthreat-ening, surface level. Only through the slow and laborious pro-cess of forming friendships and building trust do we arrive at the point where people can break through their latent distrust to begin to share frankly and honestly. But, if we Christians are motivated by Christ's love, we will find the determination and perseverance we need, for; as St.Paul says, "Love is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.?' Review for Religious I mention these negative factors, the effects of sin, because interreligious dialogue, although an exciting adventure of dis-covery of the manifold ways in which God lavishes his grace upon humankind, is also a path on which we encounter obstacles, set-backs, and frustrations and painful forms of self-discovery as well. When we are rebuffed, it is not easy to forgive. When we are misunderstood, it is not easy to go back again and again. When confronted with our own limitations and those of our commu-nity, we are tempted to give it all up and retreat to easier ways of life. However, as Jesuits we have a source of strength that we did not have even four years ago. We have the commitment of our whole Society--of our friends in the Lordmto engage in this aspect of our mission. We are helped to do so by our Ignatian vision that comes from our personal relationship to Jesus Christ. We are urged by the 34th General Congregation to develop a "culture 'of dialogue in our approach to believers of other reli-gions that should become a distinctive characteristic of our Society, sent into the whole world to labor for the greater glory of God and the help of human persons" (OMID, § 17), ' What a tremendous ideal to live for! What a challenge we have set for ourselves! ~Ours is the .generation, living immediately after and formed by General Congregation 34, that can make its document "Our Mission and Interreligious Dialogue" a vibrant part of our Jesuit mission in the world. Many foreign missionaries depend upon,people like you who donate subscriptions for them to Review for Religious. To start a subscription for a deserving missionary, please send $24 to: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Blvd. ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108 To pay by credit card, phone: 314-977-7363. November-December 1997 ANNETTE M. PELLETIER Misery Meets Mystery in Montenegro: A Survival Guide for North American Religious oes consecrated life possess the latent power to continue evangelizing North American culture? Current literature on the topic suggests that the "holy experiment" of founding a culture on evangelical values has turned ominously unholy. The pioneer barks that brought (he Pilgrims, Quakers, and Shakers are saidto be aimlessly adrift, having lost their orientation to the Holy. On the other hand, the heritage of integration evident in the cultures in the Southern Hemisphere, where Santa Fe (Holy Faith) was the principal colonizing feature, suggests the power of the sacred to perdure despite a history marked by gore as well as glory. Upon returning to the United States after a time of mission-ary experience in the cultures to the south, one senses how deep the ache for the Sacred is in North American culture. The pro'- gressive deconstruction of the core values and virtues that made the experiment holy suggests that our culture may have lost its. :heart.~ ',Although you express tous what is most precious to you, you do not realize how far we are from where you are," remarks Fred, Henri Nouwen's "world!y" friend for whom he composed his profound reflections, on what it means to be the beloved chil- ~ren of the Holy,G~od present in secular culture. "You speak from Annette M. Pelletier IHM c0nsid~rs this article, following upon her 'contributions to our Septembe~:-October 1993 and July-August 1994 issues, to be the conclusion of a trilogy on Mystery in relation to conse-crated life. She may be addressed at Convento Santa Rosa de Lima; E. Montenegro; Apartado 18-0703; Lima 11, Peru. Review for Religious a context and tradition that is alien to us . Many, many questions need: to be answered before we are able to be fully open to what you say about the life of the Beloved.''2 What is to be the role of us who are called, consecrated, and sent to proclaim such "belovedness" in this deconsecrated world; of us whose specific task it is to offer radical eschatological testi-mony of the coming of the kingdom? 3 Peter, a designated, author-itative witness of that kingdom (realized 'in the presence and per-son of Jesus), reminded his early Christian community "to always be ready to give a reason for their hope" (1 P 3:15). What, then, would be the reason for our hope that the consecrated life will con-tinue to exert a positive influence on a heart-less culture, one that seems no longer to have experience of the "Holy"? The "reason" for my hope. for not just the survival bat the flourishing of consecrated life in North America escapes the concrete directions suggested by the many and various scientific analyses of consecrated life that appear fis part of a search for a definitive future, The "reason" for my hope springs from what I and many oth-ers have "seen and heard" (1 Jn 1:3) of the Mystery of God made manifest in the misery of the absolute poverty in one of our sis-ter cultures in Latin America, Peru. Montenegro, a densely pop-ulated pueblojoven or asentamiento humano (shanty town) situated about forty-five minutes by bus from Lima, owes its misery to both Shining Path terrorism and the disastrous effects of "fujishock" economics on those who have fled from terrorism in the Peruvian sierra during the last decade. No sociological anal-ysis explains why the pueblo children still danced for the fiestas in their school, Fey Alegria 37, and the sisters and the teachers and families stuck together in hope despite the extreme poverty and the designation of the zone as "red" during the darkest days of the reign of terror.4 One "reason" for hope, then, can be the simple fact that this pueblo and its fragile institutions have survived, despite the unholy One "reason" for hope, then, can be the simple fact that this pueblo and its fragile institutions have survived, despite the unholy cultural influences of terrorism and hunger. November-December 1997 Pelletier ¯ Misery Meets Mystery in Montenegro cultural influences of terrorism and hunger. Here is hard:evi-dence, provided by real people who survived' to live, instead of living to merely survive. The madres solteras (single mothers) who raise children of partners who abandon them for another; the youth who are old before they have a chance to be young; the knot of little children who play on the step of the mission-house door--none of these Montenegro dnawim have access to analyt-ical research charting their survival or demise. They simply live their reality, struggling to survive, struggling to find. meaning. Without the luxury of an education, they meet Mystery in their misery on Mystery's 6wn terms. Even though most of them will never really better their lot in life according to North American standards, they seem not to have lost. the reason for their hope. Yes, large numbers may eventually resort or succumb to every vice that a culture of absolute poverty provokes. Yet there :are those who do survive with their dignity as human beings intaci:. Who are they? How are they able to survive? What do they have to say to the religious missioned to the first world, who also seek to survive, but in a culture whose very richness impoverishes the attractiveness, the beauty, the dignity, and the grace of a way of life in love with Life itself?. Could the observation ofMircea Eliade, the famed scholar of religious anthropology, be true: that the evo-lution of modern cultures has generated an atmosphere of intel-lectual elitism in which detachment from the patterns of traditional religion severs Western culture from its core values and belief systems? 5 So what recourse do persons consecrated to the Holy have if they are to survive the consequences of Western culture's demise? The Word had a special word for the religiously lettered and learned Who came by night to ask him questions about signs seen hinting the advent of a new world within the world. To the Nicodemus-like, Jesus counseled that the lettered and the elite turn and become like a child. Anyone privileged to see, hear, and touch the children who, despite the misery of their absolute poverty and the scourge of terrorism, sing and dance in the desert cannot help marveling at the mystery of their "unreasonable" rea-. son to hope. What do they, the "little ones," the ones immersed in the misery of absolute poverty, have to say about the mystery of their survival? Could it be that their link to traditional popu-lar religion provides them with the treasure which cultures to the north have lost: a reason for hope?6 , Review for Religious Who are these ragtag "children of the dust" gathered on the luxurious slab of cement gracing the mission-house front door? From early in the morning until late in the night, this mob of ragamuffins never seems to wonder about "survival," despite the dubious nature of their next meal. They do not have time to worry. They are obviously too busy creatively constructing their own livable-in-the-now reality. The ever plentiful stones and rocks are transformed in,their imagination to sports cars and trucks. Rags and bits of scrap paper adorn a gringa-faced "Barbie" in highest fashion. So actively engaged in living life to the hilt, these tawny tots are too busy having fun to be concerned about surviving. Sure, they are hungry and ill clad. By our standards they are woefully abused by family systems that claim "the more I beat you, the more I love you." But they are too resiliently cre-ative to let abuse or malnutrition get in the way of living. The ".proper7 things they deserve as fundamental rights--healthcare, education, food--hardly get a thought. One hesitates to say it, but, to almost every visitor, these kids on the step are definitely having fun. Their joy, laughter, unsuppressible desire to befriend anyone, especially foreigners visiting the mission house, betrays the secret entry of Mystery into their absolute misery. Their grasp on an unseen reason for their hope renders ridiculous the first-world worries about where God and religion and the church might fit in a deconstructed culture. "Multiphrenia" is one malaise the Montenegrinos never get. The inner' chaos caused by too much input from too many conflicting media sources promoting ever changing values is a postmodern misery they miss.7 Take, for example, ten-year-old Lorenzo, a victim of his father's abuse. Every so often Lorenzo is whacked in the face. with an iron pipe for not bringing in his share of the family keep. How could little Lorenzo, every visitor's fast friend, keep smiling, jest-ing, and joking despite the ugly scarson his ever dirty face? The Mystery of God peeks through his misery in his nonconcern for predictable "survival." That unerasable smile insists that God's Mystery is manifest even in this most undeserved misery. Just what is it that keeps that smile on his face--and so many others like his!--in this desert valley of so many, many tears? Does his smile betray a reason to hope that we cannot, yet, see? These stepkids also deal with the reality of too few resources and personnel to assure them of a viable future. Most children are without parents until late in the night, when Mom or Dad or November-December 1997 Pelletier ¯ Misery Meets Mystery in Montenegro live-in mate come

Issue 52.3 of the Review for Religious, May/June 1993. ; frOe i g,i ous Christian Heritages and Contempora~ Living MAY-JUNE 1993 ¯ VOLUME 52 ¯ NUMBER 3 Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University. by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048 ¯ FAX: 314-535-0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ 5001 Eastern Avenue ¯ P.O. Box 29260 Washington, D.C. 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ° P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Single copy $5 includes surface mailing costs. One-year subscription $15 plus mailing costs. Two-year subscription $28 plus mailing costs. See inside back cover for more subscription information and mailing costs. ©1993 Review for Religious for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Michael G. Harter SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Joann Wolsld Conn PhD Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ Se~n Sammon FMS Wendy Wright PhD Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living MAY-JUNE 1993 * VOLUME 52 ¯ NUMBER 3 contents 326 feature Prophecy or Restorationism in Religious Life Gerald A. Arbuckle SM describes the effects of the prophetic and the restorationist movements on religious life. 340 350 witnessing Would That All Were Prophets~ Dianne Bergant CSA examines the 'meaning of prophecy in the life of religious congregations. Committed Christian Secularity Paul J. Philibert OP explores some areas of development for those called to the life of the secular institute. prayer and direction 364 Liturgy of the Hours: A Reflection Suzanne Zuercher OSB finds that the ritual praying of the Liturgy of the Hours manifests what monastic life is and needs to remain. 371 380 Get Serious! The Monastic Condemnation of Laughter Kenneth C. Russell suggests some ways for us to understand and give modern application to the monastic attitude towards laughter. A Mystical Moment: Spiritual Direction and the Adolescent Fred Herron highlights aspects of spiritual direction in the con-text of adolescent development. 322 Review for Religious 39O 418 428 432 446 454 religious leadership Religious-Leadership Competencies David Nygren CM and Miriam Ukeritis CSJ report on skills and characteristics which mark superior performance for contemporary religious leaders. Some Ruminations on the Identity of Religious David F. O'Connor ST reviews the current identity issues around religious life. An Identity Dilemma: Standing with the Poor Patricia McCann RSM focuses the question about a gap between the espoused ideal and the reality of standing with the poor in religious life and ministry. ~ living gospel values Poverty as the Embrace of Insecurity Richard J. De Maria CFC stresses that the insecurity of poverty in some form remains essential to religious life. Men Vowed and Sexual: Conversations about Celibate Chastity Selin D. Sammon ~MS and Judith Ann Zielinski OSF describe a project sponsored by the Conference of Major Superiors of Men to enhance the living of celibate chaste life by vowed men. A Story of Addiction and Co-Addiction William F. Kraft tells a story of how the problems of addiction and co-addiction can be signs of contradiction that lead to new and better living departments 324 Prisms 462 Canonical Counsel: Common Life and Houses 469 Book Reviews May-.~une 1993 323 prisms ~edo not talk much about "working at the virtuous life." Perhaps the Pelagian inference--that "working at it" is enough, all by itself---keeps us suspi-cious of such talk. Maybe we are reluctant to admit explic-itly that virtue is on our list of outmoded things. There is also the possibility, even the likelihood, that some people strong in virtue have offended us in some way. "Nice" people may be easier to live with and less offensive than people imbued with courage or fired up for justice' sake. But Jesus demands more of his followers than that they be nice. Christians in every age need to work at the vir-tuous life. Recently in North America the news media have made much of various accusations or admissions of sexual mis-conduct by bishops, priests, and religious. The result is that the leadership in the local church and in religious congregations has had the painful, but necessary, task of coming to terms with a difficult and disturbing situation. What becomes evident to those living the consecrated life is that celibate chastity is not only something which we can "lose," but also something to be worked at: that only through a lifetime effort does one grow in chastity and love. Various programs like Marriage Encounter and the Christian Family Movement and Teams of Our Lady have long stressed how couples need to Work at their marital chastity if they are going to deepen their love and grow to be ever more faithful to each other. In a similar way, through some painful reminders today, both men and 324 Review for Religious women in celibate commitment are being called to make the effort they need to make if they are to grow as loving celibate people. In the scholastic theology of St. Thomas Aquinas we are taught the meaning of the virtues of the Christian life through his masterly explanation of habit. It would be interpreting Thomas fairly to bring our commonsense thinking about acquiring a habit to our understanding of his insight into acquiring--"working at"--virtue. Without denying the primacy of grace, especially experienced in the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, we need to put forth the human effort to make those qualities more deeply our own. Theological developments since Vatican II have stressed that, just as conversion is continual in a Christian's life, so too growth in virtue is never finished--nor can either of these occur in iso-lation; they demand the presence of the faith community. Similarly, we now see even more clearly that virtue, like conver-sion, is never a private matter but impacts the public and social sphere. Our very working at virtue gives force to our evangeliz-ing efforts in our families, communi.ties, and workplaces. As a case in point, then, there are recent efforts being made to ~work at celibate chastity within a community setting and not in isolation. As married people have discovered in their various Christian family organizations, it is within the faith community that growth in virtue finds its support and that marriage and fam-ily values are witnessed to and witnessed. "'Men Vowed and Sexual," a project sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Major Superiors of Men and reported on in this issue, is one way to achieve a com-munity setting of support and understanding for the celibate chaste development of individuals. In another effort to assist those who are committed to the tasks of spiritual formation, the Christian Institute for the Study of Human Sexuality has been announced by the staff of theJesuit Educational Center for Human Development. Along 0¢ith the primacy of the grace of God and continuing individual effort, such community projects point the way for all of us to "work at" virtue today. David L. Fleming SJ May-June 1993 325 feature GERALD A. ARBUCKLE Prophecy or Restorationism in Religious Life "Turmoil is going to break out among your tribes." --Hosea 10:14 Anthropologically a tribe is a gathering "of bands., hav-ing a feeling of unity deriving from numerous similarities in culture, frequent friendly contacts, and a certain com-munity of interest.''1 By this definition religious life before Vatican II was one tribe consisting of many bands or clans (congregations) bound together despite their individual differences by a common belief in the nature and purpose of religious life. Now this tribal oneness no longer exists. Today, instead of clans within one tribe, we have many dif-ferent tribes that do not share a common vision of reli-gious life. Even within the same congregation there can be several different tribes, each claiming that it alone is authentically interpreting religious life and the original founding congregational vision. Communication across the boundaries of these reli-gious- life tribes may be poor, as is commonly the case between different ethnic groups at any time in human society. Each tribe, says anthropologist Edward Hall, usu-ally takes the position of "thinking and feeling that any-one whose behavior is not predictable or is peculiar in any way is slightly out of his mind, improperly brought up, irresponsible, psychopathic, politically motivated to a point Gerald A. Arbuckle SM continues to write, lecture, and con-duct workshops on the refounding of religious life. His address is Refounding and Pastoral Development Unit; 1 Mary Street; Hunters Hill; Sydney, N.S.W. 2110; Australia. 326 Review for Religious beyond redemption, or just plan inferior.''2 This rather blunt (but generally accurate) statement of tribal ethnocentrism describes the strong prejudice-founded belief that my tribe is the center of everything, and all other groups or tribes are scaled and rated with reference to it. Unfortunately, the way some religious tribes within contemporary religious life at times view other groups-- with hostility and self-righteous intolerance--is not unlike Hall's description. Sometimes. religious-life tribes agree to co-exist side-by- side with apparent harmony; peace is maintained because they agree at least tacitly not to raise their significant differences over the m~aning of religious life. They deny or suppress the differ-ences lest exhausting tensions erupt openly. Dialogue, which demands an op.enness to the other and to the possibility of change, is difficult in these circumstances--even impossible. This article has a twofold function: first, to summarize why one religious-life tribe has fragmented into many different tribes or quasi-ethnic groups since Vatican II; and second, to describe the significant qualities of these tribal groups. From Tribe to Tribes in Religious Life Religious Life: Founding Myth Undermined. The founding myth .of religious life historically evolved wheri people began to gather together to live the radical values of the gospel, to devote, them-selves totally to the person of Christ and his kingdom values. The major mo;vements (monastic, conventual, and apostolic) were prophetic reactions to abuses or corruption of power within the church and society at large. Prophetic action is thus integral to the founding stoW of religious life. Johannes Metz correctly asserts that religious communities must be "a kind of shock therapy" challenging the church to live the fullness of Christ's message. "Against the dangerous accommodations and questionable com-promises that the church . . . can always incline to," he writes, "they press for the uncompromising nature of the gospel and of the imitation of Christ.''3 Myths bind people together with a common vision. They are value-impregnated beliefs and notions, born in sacred time and space, that people live by and live for; at the level of the culture they are primarily unconscious, powerful in their influence, and partic-ularly difficult for people to articulate objectively except in stoW form or by describing the life histories of their culture's heroes or May-a~une 1993 327 Arbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism: heroines. In reality people adhere to relatively few archetypal myths, of which the conspiratorial enemy and the all-powerful hero-liberator are central kinds. Myths provide a feeling of cer-tainty, direction, and trust rather than the paralysis, fear, or bewil- The council challenged religious to rediscover the prophetic heart of their ministry when it directed them back to the person of Christ, the founding experience of their own congregations,. and the apostolic needs of the world. derment that chaos--the opposite of order or the predictable--brings.* Over time, however, myths can drift away from their original message without people' being quite aware of what is happening. This in fact hap-pened to the founding myth of reli-gious life. In recent centuries religious life has lost its prophetic emphasis within the church and the world and has become based on three pivotal assumptionscontrary to its original founding vision: the world is funda-mentally evil and tobe avoided, reli-gious are the spiritual elite of the church, and their task is to be uncrit-ically supportive of the ecclesiastical and pastoral status quo.~ Vatican II dramatically under-mined these aberrant assumptions and the myth they sustained when it stated that the world is capable of redemption and the church must inter-act with it through a process of exchange/dialogue (that is, incul-turation). 6 Furthermore, all people--not only religiousware called to, and are capable of, holiness.7 Religious asChristians could no longer remove themselves from the concerns of the world, nor could they ever again consider themselves the spiritual elite of the church. Finally, the council challenged religious to rediscover the prophetic heart of their ministry when it directed them back to the person of Christ, the founding experience of their own congregations, and the apostolic needs of the world. The revi-talized founding myth was not neatly put together by the coun-cil and it would be a long time before religious could rediscover with confidence its authentic nature and implications. Reactions to Vatican Ih Conversionist and Restorationist Groups. It is a basic experience of anthropology that any interference with a founding story or myth of a group--even when fully justified (as 328 Review for Religious occurred at Vatican II) and intellectually assented to by the peo-ple involved--is catastrophic or chaotic at the level of identity, belonging, or feeling.8 A satisfying and interiorized myth is never re-created quicHy out of turmoil or chaos. The reaction to a dramatic mythological change, such as hap-pened to religious life at Vatican II, normally follows a fairly pre-dictable pattern. First, there is an effort to control initial unease or anxiety through legislative or structural changes so that an anxiety-reducing order can once again emerge, but political or legislative action alone is ineffective without an attitudinal open-ness to an as yet unformulated new myth. The phase of chaos follows; neither traditional support systems nor mere structural changes provide the needed sense of direction and belonging. Symptoms of depression--such as anger, numbness, "lostness," feuding, denial, sadness, witch-hunting to assign blame for the chaos--emerge within the group or in individuals. As the chaos persists, people are apt to turn to one of two options: either conversionist or escapist movements. Leaders of these movements have the charismatic ability of articulating appropriate visions and strategies to achieve them. Conversionist movements develop when people recognize that the way to change is not by nostalgically and uncritically returning to a former cul-tural stage but by struggling to relate to an entirely different ambience. The building of a new founding myth is painful, demanding courage to let go the past, the willingness to walk in the darkness of uncertainty and ambiguity, waiting, creating and testing new ways of acting adapted to the changing circumstances. No sudden solution to the malaise of the chaos is possible.9 Commonly many people cannot cope with the darkness and uncertainty demanded by the conversionist approach. They seek the escapist option with its fundamentalist and simplistic remedies to the confusion. Fundamentalistic or sect movements are com-mon today within Islam, Judaism, and Christianity and in the arena of politics just as they have always been in times of dra-matic social or cultural changes. They take various forms. For example, some are millenarianl° as they promise a dramatic and imminent appearance of a world of meaning and belonging to their disoriented followers, on condition they commit themselves without question to simplistic and authoritarian-led actions. The popularity of these fundamentalist movements today~ testifies to the extent and depth of the cultural upheaval through- May-3~ne 1993 329 Arbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism Restorationism is the vigorous effort to return the church uncritically to the pre-Vatican II structures, practices, and attitudes. out the world in reaction to the speed and radicality of contem-porary technological; social, and economic changes. Patrick Arnold's definition of fundamentalism is particularly apt: it is "an aggressive and marginalized religious movement which, in reac-tion to the perceived threat of moder-nity, seeks to return its home religion and nation to traditional orthodox prin-ciples, values, and texts through the co-option of the central executive and legislative power of both the religion itself and the modern national state.''t2 This definition highlights the emphasis that fundamentalists place on the role of civil and religious governments to coerce people to accept their beliefs. James Hunter sees fundamentalist movements as "characterized, to varying degrees, by a quality of organized anger." They aggressively want to make history right again.13 Intellectual arguments will not convert people away from fundamental-ism because fundamentalism is a reaction to a loss of felt belong-ing, not necessarily to inadequate intellectual reasoning. Fundamentalist movements form an increasingly strident, intolerant, and powerful force within the Catholic Church today, indicative of the extent of the chaotic upheaval sparked off by such forces as Vatican II and the opening 0f the church to a world caught up in its own tumultuous change--the revolution of expressive disorder of the 1960s and early 1970s.14 These restora-tionist movements demand that the church return to its pre- Vatican II culture with its patriarchal, dependency, and authoritarian models of leadership. Whoever dares to question what fundamentalists do are branded as contemporary "witches" who are out to undermine in a conspiratorial way what restora-tionists define as orthodoxy. In brief, restorationism is the vig-orous effort to return the church uncritica'lly to the pre-Vatican II structures, practices, and attitudes. (I say "uncritically" because there are some key pre-Vatican II values that need to be revital-iz. ed, for example, a respect for a living tradition.) Restorationism is an abuse of power because key values of Vatican II--for exam-ple, collegiality, the call to inculturate the faith within local 330 Review for Religious churches--are either rejected or undervalued. Like Thomas the Apostle, fundamentalist or restorationist Catholics earnestly seek clear-cut signs of the presence of the Lord: "Unless I can see the holes that the nails made in his hands and can put my finger into the holes they made, and unless I can put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe" (Jn 20:25). Contemporary Religious Life: Tribal Models .With the disintegration of the then prevailing founding myth of religious life, in addition to the other upheavals consequent on Vatican II, religious today are torn between the enticements of fundamentalist or restorationist solutions to the chaos they expe-rience and the painful requirements of the call to radical conver-sion. Those opting for the latter take to heart the words of Christ to Thomas: "Blessed are those who hav~ not seen and yet believe" (Jn 20:29). They recognize that the church (and religious life) is in the liminality stage of a crucial rite of passage--the pre-Vatican II church has yet to be let go and the new to be confidently cre-ated based on Vatican II values. It is a time of pain, lament, and hope. Prophets and prophetic movements are needed to create the "pastoral quantum-leaps" necessary to bring the gospel into interaction with the most.urgent needs of today--secularism and political/economic oppression for example.~s The following tribal models of contemporary religious life fall within what I will call "escapist" or "conversionist" categories. By "escapist" I mean that religious tribes within this category avoid in various ways the struggle to return to the original found-ing myth of religious life--that is, the prophetic challenging of the church and the world. "Conversionist" tribes, however, struggle to live this challenge. My purpose in offering these categories and models is to help clarify an increasingly c.omplex situation within religious life; it is not my aim to judge the subjective moti-vations of individual religious. Finally, a word of warning about the use of models. An anthro-pological model is not a perfect representation of the real world. Rather, a model is very much a necessary research construct to facilitate a better understanding of very complex situations. A model reflects reality to the extent that it highlights certain emphases or trends. For the sake of clarity unnecessary details are omitted. A situation can then be researched to discover just May-J~ne 1993 331 Arbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism how far it diverges from or conforms to the model. In practice one will rarely find in real life a perfect embodiment of a model; par-ticular qualities of many models will tend to be present, but the characteristics of one model will predominate over others. A model is not a caricature since the latter is a deliberately inaccu-rate representation of reality for comic effect; No one expects a caricature to be modified in the light of reality.~6 Category 1: "Escapist" Religious-Life Tribes The Nativistic Tribal Model. Tribal leaders claim that the unquestioning return to the symbols (for example, religious garb), myths, and rituals of.religious life before Vatican II will in some magical way resolve the loss of meaning or relevance among reli-gious. Fundamentalist and sect-like tribes that approximate to this model fanatically assume "we have the truth and the pope is on our side," yet, like all Catholic fundamentalists, they selectively read ecclesial documents to support their position and rather thoroughly ignore the social teaching of the popes. These com-munities withdraw from the "contaminating world" (which they look upon with considerable doom and gloom), refuse all dia-logue with their opponents, and avoid any critique of restora-tionism in the church. In fact, they are zealous supporters of ecclesiastical restorationism. Prayer is stressed, but only the pre- Vatican II forms that highlight a personal or privatized holiness removed from the world's concerns. They cultivate, as the Puebla document says, "a spirituality of evasion.''~7 Candidates are encouraged to join, but screening and training programs are inadequate for the demands of today's apostolic work. The more who join, the more certain nativistic tribes are that God loves them. In brief, they place the survival of their con-gregation over their commitment to the full mission of the church. The Conservative Tribal Model. In the conservative model, lead-ers are moved by the numerical success of sect-like and restora-tionist lay movements within the contemporary church; they uncritically encourage the return to pre-Vatican II traditions-- for example, quasimonastic structures for apostolic communities, traditional religious habits, and pious customs--but with less fanaticism than nativistic leaders. Souls are to be converted to the Lord, compassion shown to the poor, but the faith/justice 3 3 2 Review for Religious apostolates are to be avoided as irrelevant and dangerous to one's consecrated vocation. Conformist-oriented candidates are encour-aged to join these tribes, particularly if they have above-average needs for security and identity. Dependency and conformity are valued "virtues" in this model as in the previous one. New forms of prayer are allowed--as, for example, in the charismatic movement--provided they do not lead to involve-ment in the social-justice apostolate. Asceticism is an esteemed virtue, but within the narrow limits of the individual's journey to the Lord or as a way of encouraging him or her to submit to authority and the congregational status quo. Liberation theology and inculturation are considered dangerous "leftist" ideologies, and criticism of ecclesiastical restorationism is not considered necessary nor encouraged. The Millenarian Tribal Model. Millenarian movements immi-nently and dramatically expect the miraculous transformation of the world by supernatural methods. In millenarian religious tribal life, all forms of instant-holiness or inner-peace programs are .offered by tribal leaders--for example, encounter-group sessions, bodily relaxing techniques, immediate-union-with-God prayer sessions. Pastoral planning programs are formulated with the assurance that they will automatically lead to an increase in voca-tions. Often, as a sign of one's authentic conversion, in true mil-lenarian style religious indiscriminately discard as "old-fashioned" any reference to the past; thus, for example, the great spiritual traditions of Saints Teresa and John of the Cross are seen as of lit-tle or no value.Is Religious keep searching feverishly from one workshop to another for the "right leader, or spiritual/professional guru, to describe the latest way to inner peace and a firm sense of direc-tion" for themselves personally and their congregations. Try harder, they feel, and the correct miraculous technique will turn up eventually. Leaders and followers are so concerned about inner-peace and identity issues that ecclesiastical restorationism and the apostolic demands of the world are of little concern to them. The Therapeutic or "Me-istic" Tribal Model.19 In the previous tribal model, religious do have concern for the welfare of the group and its future, even though it be in an introverted way. However, group life and concern for its future are of minimal importance to the therapeutic tribal model. Tribal life is marked by individualism, excessive concern for self-fulfillment, and uncrit- May-a~une 1993 333 /trbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism ical acceptance of secular consumer or material standards. The group andits leaders exist solely to support the narcissistic, indi-vidualistic, and independent aspirations of its members. There is a paradox in this tribe: rampart individualism on the one hand and the desperate need for personal affirmation and support from other tribal members on the other. Individuals may undertake important apostolic work, but it is done with little or no reference to their religious tribal com-mitments or vision. In other words, the links between members and the corporate vision are so weak that the tribe is equivalently a social club; a typical attitude would be: "I remain in touch with my community only as long as it serves my needs." If restora-tionism is criticized, it is only because it is thought to be an obsta-cle to the pursuit of individualism and personal self-fulfillment. The prophetic corporate commitment of religious life within the church and the world has no meaning in this tribal model. The Neo-Conservative T~:ibal Model. Religious gather around leaders who were once fervent advocates of change, but have now become overly fearful of the chaos and the extremes of attempted adaptation programs they see around them. They believe that only slow, measured ox~ predictably safe apostolic adaptation to the world will achieve new expressions of religious life. Orderly pastoral planning becomes an ideology or an end in itself, not a condition for bold creative apostolic action in response to the most urgent pastoral needs of the world. There must be no diver-gences from the pastoral plan lest chaos erupt.2° "Risk is out, order is in" becomes axiomatic. It is assumed that revitalization can occur only if the whole community or congregation moves in response to agreed-to mis-sion statements and strategic pastoral planning. Intra-group ten-sions and conflict are to be avoided at all costs: "Let the province move when all are ready and willing to do so; otherwise no change is to be sanctioned." The sense of belonging to or affiliation with the congregation is viewed as more important than the struggle for the religious community to realize its primary task of prophetically challenging a secularizing world and the church. Creative religious who believe that chaos requires a more rad-ical linking between the gospel and cultures are marginalized or pressured out of the community since they threaten the group's desire for an orderly approach to refounding. The faith/justice apostolate is only lightly supported lest involvement in it disturb 334 Review for Religious the unity of the community. Any critique of restorationism is couched in unchallenging or vague tones for the same reason. The Radical Non-Conversion Tribal Model. These tribes are led by people who have a vision of a radical, social-justice program. However, because the faith values of religious life do not impinge on their consciousness, they see themselves only as social workers, activists, or enablers of others. Their view of the gospel is limited only to the procla-mation of forms of liberation. They do not see that their "contribution to lib-eration is incomplete if [they] neglect to proclaim salvation in Jesus Christ.''2t Tribal life in this model is very fragile; either people withdraw from religious life since it no longer has any meaning for them, or they remain, generally with bitterness against their congregation and the church, living The ultimate identity of religious comes from their faith in the person of Christ and his mission to the world, especially to the marginalized and powerless. highly individualistic lives, refusing any effort to work toward an authentic religious-life vision. There is an un-Gospel-like harsh-ness to their criticism of restorationism within the church. Category 2: Transformative/Refounding Tribal Model Tribes within this, category are transformative or prophetic communities recognizing that the only way out of the chaos is through radically new faith-justice, hope-inspired, corporate action in which the gospel message is directed to the most urgent needs of today. The ultimate identity of these religious tribes comes from their faith in the person of Christ and his mission to the world, especially to the marginalized and powerless. The chaos is seen in biblical and anthropological terms as potentially a graced experience--the chance to rethink the mission of religious life and the tribe's commitment to it. Hence, for exam-ple, these religious tribes struggle to be living witnesses to the radical demands of prayerful asceticism in opposition to the sym-bols of consumerism and "instant spirituality"; living witnesses to the virtue of hope in order to counter symbols that seek to May-ffune 1993 335 Arbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism negate any redemptive and eschatological power of suffering; liv-ing witnesses to the need to dialogue with the world so as to counter the elitism/sectarianism of restorationist Catholicism; living witnesses through their lifestyle and attitudes to God's mercy, Jesus Christ, in concern for the alienated and the oppressed; living witnesses to vibrant community-life relation-ships founded on interdependence, mutuality, and faith sharing to counter the symbols of excessive individualism, abuse of author-ity/ power in society and in the church; living witnesses to a spir-ituality of involvement with the world, especially the powerless, to counter a spirituality of evasion.22 Through their imaginative, faith-oriented action they create a new founding myth of reli-gious life, a vision in which creative and prophetic action is an integral and primary quality. For these transformative tribes, it is Christ's mission that has priority, not the physical survival of the community. If they dis-cover it is God's will that they are to die, then they accept this as the chance to enter more deeply into the mystery of Christ's suf-fering and resurrection. Consequently, if people do ask to join these tribes, they are accepted only if there are well-founded hopes that these candidates have the demanding qualities of maturity to live and work on the prophetic edge of the church and the world. These communities foster within themselves prophetic or refounding persons who are able to relive within today's context the experience of the original congregational founding people. They are pained to see the void between the gospel and the needs of the world; so, like their original founding members, they move to create pastoral strategies to bridge this gulf. They, together with others in their communities, are dreamers who do. These are rest-less or liminal people in the sense that they are on the edge of what is considered to be the "correct or predictable" way of being reli-gious; they are prepared to critique everything according to gospel values. Not surprisingly, therefore, they and their communities evoke anxiety within tribal groups of category 1; their vision is too threatening so marginalization, tribulation, and suffering are their inevitable lot (as has commonly been the case with founding peo-ple of religious communities over the centuries).23 These apostolically risk-oriented leaders and prophetic tribes maintain their zeal only as long as they prayerfully admit to their own inner powerlessness without the grace of God. Once they allow their own attachment.s to the predicable to go, they repeat- 336 Review for Religious edly rediscover, as did the lamentation psalmists of old, that noth-ing is impossible to them through the mercy and love of the Lord.24 Restorationism is critiqued with a boldness of apostolic faith, love, and compassion because they take to heart the fact that "Christ summons the church., to that continual reforma-tion of which she always has need, insofar as she is an institution of [people] here on earth.''2s Conclusion In the centuries immediately before Vatican II, religious life had become a bastion of the unchanging status quo within the church. We even called it the "religious state." But by its origins it .was never intended to be something static, but an ongoing expe-rience of prophetically becoming in reaction to the ever-changing apostolic needs of the world. Once religious say they "have got it all together," then they have lost their passion for creative gospel life. Today, Paul VI said, the "split between the gospel and culture is without a doubt the drama of our time,''z6 so religious to be true to the original founding myth must be at the cutting edge of the gospel and culture. This is an inescapably agonizing experience, for it means cri-tiquing not just the world but also the church itsel~---a church in which the forces of restorationism are daily more visibly present. Religious life is in the stage that anthropologist Victor Turner terms liminality,27 that is, the betwixt-and-between stage; the unnecessary structural constraints of the former state of religious life have gone, and the reinvigorated founding story of prophetic action has yet to emerge with confidence. It is a stage rich in imaginative apostolic potential for the future. But it is also a dan-gerous phase for those religious who are excessively frightened of the darkness of uncertainty and ambiguity. They are tempted to flee into the false comforts of restorationism and to reengage uncritically the structures of pre-Vatican II religious life, seeing around them "nothing but prevarication and ruin"ZS--the defeatist attitude John XXIII warned us against. When this happens, these religious turn their backs on what is the most exciting and prophetically stimulating period for religious life in centuries. May-~une 1993 337 Arbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism Notes ' R. Linton, The Study of Man: An Introduction (Appleton-Century- Crofts, 1936), p. 231. 2 Edward Hall, Beyond Culture (New York: Doubleday/Anchor, 1976), p. 43 3 Johannes Metz,F0110wers of Christ: The Religious Life and the Church (Exeter: Burns and Oates/New York: Paulist, 1978), p. 12; see also an analysis of the prophetic nature of religious life by D. O'Murchu, Religious Life: A Prophetic Vision (Notre Dame: Ave Maria, 1991). 4 See G. Arbuckle, Earthing the Gospel: An Inculturation Handbook for the Pastoral Worker (London: Geoffrey Chapman/Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1990), pp. 26-43; see also M. Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return (New York: Bollingen/Pantheon, 1954), chap. 1. s See Arbuckle, Out of Chaos: Refounding Religious Congregations (New York: Paulist/London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1988), pp. 68-77. 6 See "The Church in the Modern World," The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter Abbott (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), §44; for expla-nations see Arbuclde, Earthing the Gospel, pp. 15-20. 7 See "The Church," §40f. 8 See M. Douglas, Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (New York: Pantheon, 1970), p. 38. 9 See Arbuckle, Out of Chaos, pp. 14-28. ,0 See explanations by Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (New York: Oxford Un!versity, 1970). ~l For an overview of world fundamentalism see Concilium, no. 3, 1992. ¯ ,2 "Reemergence of Fundamentalism in the Catholic Church," in The Fundamentalist Phenomenon, ed. N. Cohen (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1990), p. 174. ~3 "Fundamentalism in Its Global Contours," ibid, p. 63. ,4 See overview of Catholic fundamentalism by T. O'Meara, Fundamentalism: A Catholic Perspective (New York: Paulist, 1990), passim, and Patrick Arnold, "The Rise of Catholic Fundamentalism," in America, 11 April 1987, pp. 298-302. *s See Arbuclde, Earthing the Gospel, pp. 187-220. ,6 For an analysis of the nature and usefulness of anthropological mod-els see L.C. Luzbetak, The Church and Cultures (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1988), pp. 135-139. ,7 Final Document, Conference of Latin American Bishops, 1979, § 826. ~8 See T. Merton, "Cargo Cults in the South Pacific," in America, vol. 121, no. 5, 1969, p. 96. ,9 See a fuller development by Arbuclde, "Suffocating Religious Life: A New Type Emerges," in The Way Supplement 65 (1989): 26-39. 338 Review for Religious 20 For insights into the dangers of overplanning see R. Stacey, Managing Chaos (London: Kogan Page, 1992), pp. 43f., 208. 2, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 1975, §47. zz See Arbuclde, Strategies for Growth in Religious Life (New York: Alba House, 1986), p. 41. 23 See J. Lozano, Foundresses, Founders, and Their Religious Families (Chicago: Claret, 1983), pp. 65-70. 24 See Arbuclde, Change, Grief and Renewal in the Church OgVestminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1991), pp. 61-107. 2s "Decree on Ecumenism," Abbott, §6. 26 Ibid, §20. 27 See V. Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (New York: Aldine, 1969), p. 95. For a summary of Turner's insight into limi-nality see Arbuclde, Earthing the Gospel, pp. 74f. 28 "Open!ng Speech to the Council," Abbott, p. 712. Will He? Veils gone, Securities gone, "Respect" gone. Adulation and ~. Convent-mysteries All gone. Can I sing my Song of Songs to Him In the rags of who I really am ? Will He love me still? Without my baubles And my cover-ups, Will He still love me? Crushed in His arms, 0 wonder of it all! I came to know That, in my poverty, He loves me Twice as much! Maxine Inkel SL May-~'ane 1993 339 DIANNE BERGANT Would That All Were Prophets witnessing In 1989 the joint assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men (LCWR/CMSM) drew up ten charac-teristics of the "transformative" religious life of the future. The first of these, prophetic witness, is described as fol-lows: "Being converted by the example of Jesus and the values of the gospel, religious in the year 2010 will serve a prophetic role in church and society. Living this prophetic witness will include critiquing societal and eccle-sial values and structures, calling for systemic change, and being converted by the marginalized with whom we serve." The following reflections have been prompted by this statement. "Behold, I am doing a new tbing" (Is 43:19) Before we discuss prophetic witness, we should briefly consider prophetic insight: Why is prophetic insight needed? Where does it originate? Prophetic insight is born in times of crisis, in its basic Greek meaning of decision and not its popular-usage meaning of misfortune or distress. In a time of crisis, a community is at a turning point and needs some kind of decisive direction--or the community should be at a turning point but, failing to recognize this, needs someone to call it to repentance and reform, to conver- Dianne Bergant CSA presented the substance of this article in a talk to the chapter members of her congregation, the Sisters of St. Agnes. Her address is Catholic Theological Union: 5401 S. Cornell Avenue; Chicago, Illinois 60615. 340 Review for Religious sion, to turning. But, of course, a community is not always at some kind of crossroads; and, if it is relatively faithful to its nature and ideals so that its members encourage and inspire each other, it may not need, for the time being, any distinct and indepen-dent prophetic insight. When prophetic insight is needed, where will it come from? One cannot casually assume it in oneself; not every member of the community is blessed with it. While it is the fruit of a very personal relationship with God, it includes perceptive insight into the reli-gious implications of "the signs of the times," an insight that calls for decision and usually for some kind of change. Prophetic insight is lit by the flame of passionate attachment to the religious tradi-tion. It is critical, not for the sake of being critical, but for the sake of the word of God. Illumined by this word, it perceives either the faithfulness of believers to their religious identity or a lessening or lack of this faith-fulness. It sees clearly what people should embrace within society in order to deepen their commitment to life and to God, and it sees what they should avoid. Prophetic insight assesses the values of contemporary society with eyes of discerning faith, recogniz-ing any distortions and, on the other hand, relating society's authentic values to their divine source. The biblical prophets did not call for change for the sake of change. They spoke out when they were convinced that their communities were in peril. They were often alone as they chal-lenged the institutions and practices that limited and sometimes shattered the lives of their communities. At times the threat fac-ing .their communities was evident to all. For example, King Ahaz was well aware of his predicament when Isaiah warned him against Assyrian entanglement (Is 7), as was King Zedekiah when Jeremiah spoke to him (Jr 27). At other times the threat was more insidi-ous, and the community seemed oblivious of its surrender to seductions that compromised its religious identity. We read that Amos condemned the Israelites for disregarding their covenant responsibilities in favor of material prosperity and that Hosea denounced the people of his day for yielding to the religious prac-tices of the Canaanites. The prophets seem always to have been Prophetic insight is lit by the flame of passionate attachment to the religious tradition. May-June 1993 341 Bergant ¯ IVould That All Were Prophets convinced that the situation had to change because it threatened the community's relationship with God. Prophetic insight and satisfaction with the status quo are seldom compatible. The prophets usually found themselves in conflict with offi-cial leaders. This was not because they disdained authority or authoritative organization, but because the leaders were respon-sible for public policy and for the social and religious structures that supported that policy. Therefore, when those in responsible positions failed to lead as the religious tradition directed them or when the policies and structures themselves created divisions of privilege or marginality, the prophets denounced the status quo and called the community to a new vision. They seldom, if ever, proposed specific new approaches to the problems. They were the visionaries, not the policy makers. They were the ones who called for a new society; others would work to fashion such a society in line with the prophetic insight. We must not confuse prophetic with apocalyptic, which also grows out of a dissatisfaction with the prevailing situation. Prophetic insight, whether it is reassuring people of divine com-passion and care or warning them of God's indignation and jus-tice, is fundamentally positive. It knows that human history with all its possibilities, challenges, and risks is the matrix within which the reign of God takes shape. Down amid social, economic, and political reality, such insight is neither ignorant of nor removed from the needs, aspirations, movements, and accomplishments of society, for it believes that it is within society that God is revealed. A genuine prophetic spirit is fashioned and enlivened by the ener-gies of the day. It is not a spirit of the past or, for that matter, of the future, but of the present. It knows that God is immanent and continually involved in the lives and history of people here and now. No event, no moment in time, is beyond the realm of God's activity. Authentic prophetic i,nsight insists that human beings can indeed influence the course of history and, with divine assistance, can bring .to birth the reign of God. "Apocalyptic" comes from the Greek word for revelation. Since it refers to a divine message about the end of the world, in the minds of many it is associated with prophecy. It maintains that the world and all within it must be purged before it can enjoy that for which God intended it, and it believes that this purgation will be individual, social, and cosmic. For this reason an apocalyptic atti-tude is fundamentally pessimistic. It not only challenges but rejects 342 Review for Religious the prevailing social, economic, and political reality. It does not encourage involvement in the world in order to transform it. Instead, it advocates separation from the world in order to pre-vent contamination. An apocalyptic point of view contends that sinful history is ultimately and exclusively under divine control, and therefore it awaits the defeat of evil and the triumph of good-ness. It believes that only after purgation will the new age appear and God's reign be victorious and unchallenged. While prophetic fervor drives people into the marketplace (for example, Jesus going from village to village proclaiming the reign of God), apocalyptic zeal frequently bids them escape into the desert (for example, the Essenes of Qumr~n waiting for the reign of God to come). At times prophetic insight has been confused with an apostolic spirit, which also calls for decision, repentance, .and reform and is also 6ommitted to the transformation of the world. The word apos-tle comes from the Greek for "send," and it stresses the intimate relationship between t~he sender and the person sent, rather than any message that may be involved. In a veery significant way, the one sent actually represents the sender. "Those who hear you, hear me; and those who reject you, reject me" (Lk 10:16). Paul under-stood his call in this way: "So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making an appeal through us" (2 Cor 5:20). Such an intimate rela-tionship between the apostolic minister and the Lord is more than a matter of personal holiness. It is inextricably li.nked with repre-sentation of the Lord to the world. This is quite different from the situation of the prophet, where the focus is not on the person sent but on the message sent. Belief in the power of the word itself is clearly seen in a passage from Second Isaiah(55:10-11): For just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down And do not return there " till they have watered the earth, making i( fertile and fruitful, Giving seed to those who sow and bread to those who eat, So shall my word be that comes forth from my mouth; It shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it. Insisting on these distinctions does not suggest that an apos-tle cannot also be prophetic Or that a prophet may not at times May-June 1993 343 Bergant ¯ Would That All Were Prophets entertain an apocalyptic attitude. Rather, it is to point out that these perspectives are in fact different from each other. "Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy" (J1 3:1) The LCWR/CMSM statement speaks of conversion, critique, and change, language that implies that religious life is indeed at a crossroads. It further claims that "religious in the year 2010 will serve a prophetic role in church and society." Such a claim pre-sumes that an entire body of people will enjoy a kind of insight When the community finds itself at a crossroads, prophetic witness becomes more crucial and even more complex, because there is ambiguity among the members regarding it. that is normally not communal. This prompts us to ask: How can we ascribe prophetic witness to the whole group without compromising the power of unique prophetic insight? In answering this question, we must remember that religious commu-nities are made up of the daughters and sons of foundresses and founders, who critiqued the dominant social and reli-gious cultures of their times and found them wanting and who, as a result, brought new vision and devised new ways of living in the world and in the church. They frequently called for repentance and reform; they always called for decision. Their visions, their insights, became the charisms of their religious families. Because these charisms were always in some way prophetic, fidelity to tMm will always result in a form of prophetic witness. This will be true even when a community does not face a time of crisis, for devoted living out of the founding charism is the fundamental prophetic ideal to which members always commit themselves. Rededication to the ideals of the com-munity does not always call for prophetic insight, but it always demands faithful commitment. However, when the community finds itself at a crossroads, prophetic witness becomes more crucial and even more complex, because there is ambiguity among the members regarding it. It may be that social changes call for a new and contemporary inter-pretation of the founding charism (for example, the early Christian controversy regarding the admission of the Gentiles and the 344 Review for Religqous observance of the Law [Acts 16]). When this is the case, a com-munity faces a serious challenge. It must choose which guidelines to follow in critiquing the social change itself, and it must decide how the integrity of the charism can be guaranteed even as it is reinterpreted. The community as a group must discern how to address this challenge faithfully, and communities do not always achieve consensus on such matters without difficulty. On the other hand, the group may have lost its prophetic edge and may be itself in need of prophetic critique. Such a cri-tique should come from within the community, from an insider who knows the charism intimately and can bring its challenge to bear upon prevailing community understandings that are inade-quate. But who can perceive and articulate the hopes and ideals of the community in such a way as to speak both to it and for it? The community must discern this matter as well. (An example of such a dilemma is the ill-fated clash between the prophets Jeremiah and Hananiah [Jer 28].) Since the charism is to be found within the group and not merely in the intuitions of one individ-ual, the community must be able to recognize itself in the insights of its perceptive member or members. The task of a community at a crossroads is twofold: (1) a crit-ical examination of "the signs of the times" in order to discern the real religious needs of the moment and (2) a thorough anal-ysis of its established religious institutions and practices in order to discover their underlying traditional religious value. Only after such examination and analysis can the community hope to bring to bear on contemporary needs the traditional religious values that flow from its charism. It is not enough to approach this task with faith and commitment. Serious examination, rigorous eval-uation, and faithful yet imaginative reinterpretation are required, all of which call for extensive information, keen insight, and cre-ative visioning on the part of each member and the community as a whole. Not every member will be proficient at each step in this analysis and reinterpretation, but if each member has been formed in the founding charism, everyone will be able to enter into the process in a thoroughly beneficial manner. It is in this way that prophetic witness can be ascribed to the whole group without compromising the power of unique prophetic insight. "Behold, I make all things new" (Rv 21:5) Time and again we have heard it said that we are in the midst of a paradigm shift. May-June 1993 345 Bergant ¯ WouM That All Were Prophets Actually, because of the complexity of today's world, we are under-going the radical shift of m~iny paradigms. The ways in which we understood the world, society, human endeavor, and theology seem no longer adequate to meet and interpret the realities now facing us. The presuppositions of the modern world with its tech-ntlogic~ il achievements and its hierarchical manner 6f manage-ment are being seriously challenged. We ai'e standing on the threshold of the postmodern world, and yet we remain caught in many of the paradigms of the past. For example, we know that the patterns of growth and pros-perity which have provided many of us in the Western world with the benefits of material comfort can no longer be sustained at the same rate or for the same number of people as has been the case till now. One reason for this is that we are depleting our available material resources and are doing little or nothing to replenish them. There are limits to the environment's ability to sustain the kind of lifestyle to which the Western world has grown accus-tomed. Nature may be able to endure a certain amount of imbal-ance, but if its tolerance is exceeded it can no longer be expected to sustain our life. Despite our realization of this fact, we are still caught in a lifestyle that requires an inordinate amount of fuel for heating and for travel, of water for cooling, of paper for com-munication, and so forth. Another reason that we can no longer sustain our present pat-terns of gro.wth and prosperity is that we no~ realize that our privileged lifestyle has often been secured at the expense of the human rights of others. Frequently we are able to procure what we need or what we want at bargain prices only because workers that provide us with these products are paid wages far below what they need in order to live with dignity and hope. We already fight wars over land and the control of natural resources and at the expense of vulnerable people and nations. Still, we continue to live relatively comfortable lives while professing to be in solidar-ity with the disadvantaged. On another issue, we reject any androcentric or misogynist anthropological view that regards women as derivative. We refuse to consider ourselves natural followers rather than leaders, sup-porters rather than directors, dependents rather than providers. We have become sensitized to language and imagery that explic-itly insults, subtly minimizes, or completely disregards women. And yet at times we ourselves employ the very strategies of priv- 346 Review for Religious ilege and control, both among ourselves and with others that we believe relegated us to positions of subservience in the first place. In yet another area we are engaged in ministerial situations that call for a high degree of resilience and include extensive trav-eling. Ours is a kind of itinerant existence which demands that rootedness, a feature that is essential for any sound life, be found somewhere else than in a particular place. Despite this we are often efltangled in concepts of community that are more fitted to a sedentary lifestyle than a peripatetic one. . Finally, we have committed ourselves to the transformation of the world, a world that seems bent on greed and power and on violence in order to preserve privilege. We have taken on min-istries of advocacy; direct social service; ecological, peace, and justice activism; and the influencing of policy on all .levels of gov-ernment, and we carry out these ministries in dangerous circum-stances. We have committed ourselves to uncommon selflessness. All the same, we are often caught in the contemporary preoccu-pation with our own health, both physical and spiritual; the sur-vival of our group and our institutions, even at the price of compromised ideals; and the glorification of personal and pro-fessional accomplishments. None of the above is done hard-heartedly. Rather, things have changed either so rapidly or so imperceptibly that we have had neither the time nor the insight carefully to analyze either the old models that governed us or the new ones that are emerging. Nonetheless, we have already taken upon ourselves the task of fashioning an alternative way of living in the world, and if we are to be faithful to this commitment, we will have to examine seri-ously not only what we do but also how we do it. We will have to learn anew that the reign of God is more a process than~a prod-uct. It is brought to birth not so much in what we do as in the way we do it. Although it is in the world, it is not of the world, and this includes the world's systems and strategies. In order to bring this reign to birth, we must first acknowl-edge that this same world has played an active role in forming us into the people we have become. We possess many of its features (for example, our political and economic values), and we carry the effects of its history (for example, our inherited preferences and prejudices). Although it plays sugh a formative role in our lives, we are not always aware of the ways in which our particu-lar worldview promotes our own well-being and enhances our May-.l~une 1993 347 Bergant ¯ IVould That All 14Zere Prophets lives. It is very easy to take for granted the attitudes and mores into which we have been socialized and to presume that they and only they offer a way of dignified human living. Yet how will we be able to transform the world if we are not even aware of how We must listen to the marginal, not because their way of living and coping is better than ours, but because they help us to see what is wrong with a system that makes people marginal in the first place. much we are embedded in that world and its values, and how much that world and its values are embedded in us? Usually it is only when people feel restricted or in some way diminished (in other words, when they are not members of the dominant or influential group of the culture) that they question the justice of the restriction and then of the underlying rea-sons for it or for the continuation of it. This explains why those who suffer oppression or who are relegated to marginality or invis-ibility within a group are sometimes better critics of that group than are those who are privileged and satisfied. We must listen to the marginal, not because their way of liv-ing and coping is better than ours, but because they help us to see what is wrong with a system that makes people marginal in the first place. But even this may not be enough. We may need someone's prophetic insight to uncover for us our own complicity with such systems and with the world that we hope to transform. We may need to listen to the voices in the world and in the church that offer us insights that, left to our own devices, we may not be able to gain; voices that call for authentic collaboration rather than subtle control, for willing cooperation rather than self-interested competition, for genuine interdependence rather than aloof independence or inappropriate dependence, for gra-cious mutuality rather than uncompromising domination, for uni-versal justice rather than selective exploitation, for unaffected respect rather than veiled disdain, for tender compassion rather than detached indifference, for the reign of God rather than busi-ness as usual. This paper ends where it began, with the challenge of the LCWR/CMSM statement: "Being converted by the example of Jesus and the values of the gospel, religious in the year 2010 will 348 Review for Religious serve a prophetic role in church and society." The task before us appears monumental, but then we are taking on the whole world. Like our predecessors in their own periods of crisis, in many ways we are in uncharted waters, but they did not drown--so why should we expect to? We are being called upon to address urgent human needs that are not only social but also religious in nature. As we work to transform the world, we are bringing to birth the reign of God. Added to this challenge is the task of developing a contemporary theological understanding of who we are and what we are doing. We may still claim meaningful religious traditions that informed us in the past, but our conventional expression of these traditions is not always helpful in the postmodern world that we face. Despite all of this, we believe that we have been called by God and that we are the heirs of a prophetic charism. We are convinced that we must be steadfast in what we do, without being unyielding. We must be bold as we face the unknown, with-out being foolhardy. We must be confident of the pervasive power of God's love, without being presumptuous. We must be creative as we face the future, without being forgetful of the past. In all of this we must be genuinely humble, for after all it is God who promises: "Behold, I make all things new" (Rv 21:5). Letterto a Friend on Her Return from Retreat in a Hermitage Don't be afraid; you bring the forest and the trees back with you. Deer roam the corners of your room; shadows hang upon the curtdins, crouch playfully upon the pane. Healing is not out there; it's within if it's at all. Deep nights and double days, the soft wool throw of quiet. Peace: you carry it with you like persistent pink impatiens in your heart. Ann Maureen Gallagher IHM May-June 1993 349 PAUL J. PHILIBERT Committed Christian Secularity tkniS difficult to profess a Christian lifestyle that is very little own and largely misunderstood, but my hope is that secu-lar institutes will become better known and much more appreci-ated. In this article I argue that the consecrated life of the professed secular Christian is the most vivid example of the ide-als of Christian living in the secular world that were put forward at Vatican Council II. In the light of this council's theology, one would expect church leaders to illustrate the radical meaning of baptism by speaking at every opportunity of'the ideals and prac-tice of members of secular institutes. Yet four years ago, when Pope John Paul II spelled out in his apostolic exhortation Christifideles Laici the "vocation" and "mission" of the lay faithful in the church and in the world, he made only the briefest refer-ence to secular institutes: In the field of a "commonly shared" lay vocation, "spe-cial" lay vocations flourish. In this area we can also recall the spiritual experience of the flourishing of diverse forms of secular institutes that have developed recently in the church. These offer the lay faithful, and even priests, the possibility of professing the evangelical coun-sels of poverty, chastity, and obedience through vows or promises, while fully maintaining one's lay or clerical state.~ Many diocesan bishops in the United States appear to be unaware of the meaning of secular institutes or unconcerned about their development. What, we may ask, does this lacuna in the ordinary teaching of the church actually mean? Paul J. Philibert oP is prior provincial of the Southern Dominican Province. His address is 3407 Napoleon Avenue; New Orleans, Louisiana 70125. 350 Revie'w for Religious One can start the assessment by noting that the present papal administration seems to be distancing itself from some of the reformist orientations of the council. For so long have we been dividing recent church history into two periods called "concil-iar" and "postconciliar" that we have failed to recognize a more complex reality which needs to be named. Like many others, I would divide these years into three periods: 1963-1965, the "con-ciliar" years, during which the council was in session; 1965 until the death of Pope Paul VI in 1978, the "postconciliar" years, dur-ing which the Vatican and most Catholic bishops endeavored to implement the liturgical and pastoral reforms of the council; and, since 1978, a period of "ecclesiastical reassessment" during the pontificate of John Paul II. One of the council fathers, who is now a retired archbishop, has said, "The council rejected triumphalism (the church has all the answers), clericalism (the church is a pyramid), and legalism (church teachings presented as laws). The church is in the mod-ern world as are its ministers. There is no retreating to being people of another world.''2 Yet, to a greater or lesser degree, all three of these orientations--triumphalism, clericalism, and legal-ism-- are creeping back into the attitudes and utterances of some church leaders. Some describe the present tendency of the Vatican as "restoration," that is, an orientation to restore things to the way they were before Vatican II. That may be too extreme a judgment, even though one can understand why some think that way. Different observers account for this retrenchment from the "postconciliar" period in different ways. Some have observed that a significant motivation for this papal administration has been to avoid schism with the Lefebvrites and other ultraconservative Catholics; they say that the Vatican has been bending .over back-wards to avoid alienating those who pretend that Vatican II never happened. Others suggest that some high officials in the Vatican believe that much that came out of the council was mistaken in its orientation and must be replaced with the preconciliar solutions. Probably more accurate is the view that many of the documents of Vatican II are compromise statements that contain the seeds of tension that are now sprouting and bearing the fruit of division and conflict over some basic notions of church. Tlie major orientations of this pontificate that seem to touch on secular institutes are centralization and institutional nostal- May-June 1993 351 Philibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity The major orientations of this pontificate that seem to touch on secular institutes are centralization and institutional nostalgia. gia. Regarding centralization, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that some heads of Vatican congregations think that incultura-tion and diversity of practice have gotten out of hand. Cardinal Ratzinger is reported as saying that national organizations of bish-ops have gone too far in establishing their independence of Vatican control. Some American bishops, and bishops in Holland and Germany too, have been called on the carpet and chided for statements of theirs. These are examples of what I mean by central-ization. This pontificate does not want anything to be happening in the local churches without consultation with the top. As regards institutional nostalgia, the example of religious comes to mind. The pope personally or through personal del-egates working above the level of the Roman congregations has given prefer-ential treatment to certain new, conser-vative religious institutes like the Society of St. Peter and the Legionaries of Christ as well as to some small traditionalist groups that stayed with the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the excommunication of Archbishop Lefebvre. During the summer of 1992, the Holy See granted approval to a new Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious in the United States at the request of a small number of traditionalist sisters here. (They are fewer than ten percent of the religious women in this country.) This fairly momentous decision was taken by the pope at the behest of an American cardinal arch-bishop without any consultation of the three existing church lead-ership conferences: the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men. Among other interpretations, actions like these make one wonder if this pontificate is calling into question the principles and outcomes of the past thirty years of efforts at institutional renewal undertaken by the vast majority of religious in this country and in western Europe. What is being held up as a positive counterex-ample is the attitude and practice of a small number of religious who follow a regular'daily order and wear a distinctive habit. 352 Review for Religious Separation rather than transformation marks the spirit that is approved. I need to admit, of course, that mistakes and excesses did occur in the thirty years of postconciliar efforts at renewal. That is too obvious to miss. But it needs to be pointed out, I believe, that the Vatican seems now to single out for approval a simple return to the ways of the preconciliar period. This is what I mean by institutional nostalgia. Applying these observations to secular institutes, I note that their form of consecration does not fit well either with central-ization or with institutional nostalgia. They are trying new ways of implementing the church's ancient commitment to consecrated Christian life. Even though their commitment and spirituality are admirably in accord with the lay vocation and mission as described in Pope John Paul's apostolic exhortation, their juridi-cal and cultural independence place them somewhat outside the central preoccupations of this pontificate. In this context I now ask two essential questions: What is the vocation of a consecrated secular Christian? And how should it evolve? Institutes Described in the Code" of 1983 The 1983 Code of Canon Law describes secular institutes carefully. Their members share a radical commitment to Christian witness and apostolic endeavor. The charism given to secular institutes and recognized by the church is to united Christian commitment and secular presence in the world. Members remain lay or diocesan priests, even though they receive a canonical sta-tus in view of their profession of a consecrated life. The 1983 Code has abandoned the term "states of perfec-tion" and, above all, the language of Provida Mater (1947), which allowed one to think that there was a sort of hierarchy of institutes of perfection which placed members of secular institutes within a third rank. Canon 710 says: "A secular institute is an institute of consecrated life in which the Christian faithful living in the world strive for the perfection of charity and work for the sanctifica-tion of the world especially from within." The use of the cate-gory "consecrated life" allows the possibility of avoiding reference to the category "religious." In the eyes of the present Code, "reli-gious" and "seculars" are two categories of consecrated life of equal dignity. May-June 1993 353 Philibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity Canon 713, §2, indicates that lay members, in the world and operating in a secular manner, participate in the church's evan-gelizing task in various ways: (a) by means of the witness of their Christian life, (b) by their fidelity to their profession of the evan-gelical counsels, (c) by their "efforts to order temporal things to God," and (d) by shaping the things of the world so that they are enlivened by the spirit of the gospel. "Also, they cooperate in serving the ecclesial community, according to their particular sec-ular way of life" (c. 713). Members of secular institutes are called to strive for the per-fection of charity. The ultimate purpose of secular institutes is apostolic. Their apostolate is the expression and the exercise 6f their consecration. As to lifestyle, the Code of 1983 is insistent upon the secular dimension of their living. Neither common life nor religious garb is to be imposed upon members) Consecration vs. Commitment Let us linger for a moment on the term "consecration"; it is the source of a great potential misunderstanding. Almost thirty years ago, Father M. D. Chenu (the gre, at French Dominican theologian who died in 1991) pointed out that the term "consecration" was loaded with ambiguity when employed in a context of relation or service to the world. The word, from the Latin for "to make sacred," supposes an opposition between the sacred and the profane. Is it, asked Chenu, a useful term.at precisely the moment when the Roman Catholic Church is articulating its openness to the world and its embrace of the ordinary conditions of human expe-rience (see Gaudium et Spes)? Historically the word "profane" meant "not pertaining to that which is sacred or holy," from the Latin for "outside the temple." So, Chenu argued, we would do better in this age to leave aside the term consecration, which suggests an oppo-sition to the secular (the nonsacred) and to express the intensifi-cation of a Christian life with a word like commitment.4 Chenu was at the time in search of the authentic meaning of religious life. His remark is even more pertinent to the vocation of members of secular institutes. Chief among their stated goals is to witness to the fullness of a lay vocation or (in the case of ordained members) of baptismal maturity in a world of secularity. The key issue, it seems, is how to be an active participant in sec-ular life and at the same time to be an exemplary Christian. 354 Review for Religious Secular and Christian What is authentic secular living, and what is authentic Christian witness? One of the meanings of the word secular (from the Latin saeculum, meaning "age") is "pertaining to the spirit of the age or the character of the times." This may refer to things like clothing styles and popular music, but is there a deeper mean-ing too? What is the most profound challenge of our age? I think that the answer lies somewhere within the interplay of political and religious phenomena. We are coming out from what was sometimes called "the age of alienation" or "the age of anxiety." Not that all alienation and anxiety are over and done with, but the world seems to be mov-ing out from under the cloud that threatened us for 45 years with nuclear destruction. It is amazing, now that the Cold War is ended, that there is not more acknowledgment and analysis of the waste of wealth on arms of cosmic destructive power. If the trillions of dollars spent on armaments in the past five decades had been available for peaceful solutions to world problems, we could have eliminated illiteracy and starvation and attacked poverty and disease. We were victims of irrational fear for fifty years; now that period is passing. The demise of the major communist governments is another symbol of a changing age. The irony is that Karl Marx devised the philosophy of communism as a response to "alienation"--people not being able to participate meaningfully in the economic and political processes that governed their lives. The tragedy is that the government of the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin became instead a totalitarian dictatorship that was even more alienating than the corrupt government to which it was reacting. Marx's issue, though--participation versus alienation--is still the issue. Here in the United States, at the end of an overlong pres-idential electoral campaign, it is not at all clear that people are pre-pared to participate vigorously in politics, We have been alienated by the media and by the deviousness of the c~ndidates themselves from truly raising or genuinely addressing the issues that are the most significant for our nation as a whole. In the religious world, participation versus alienation is like-wise a key issue. One analysis of the Second Vatican Council and its aftermath is that the dominant social reality of this age has been to promote full participation in church life--worship and administration included--to all those who, by their baptism, are May-ffune 1993 355 Philibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity entitled to dynamic interaction within the "body of Christ." Forty years ago we would never have conceived of a woman eucharistic minister, a lay pastoral administrator, or a nonclerical chancellor of a diocese. Now we have all these things and have learned to take them for granted. Despite the fact that more progress has been made in securing entitlements to church office for lay people in general and women in particular in the past fifty years than in the previous fifteen hun-dred years, there is nonetheless strong agitation for even more par-ticipation, includinglthe ordination of Catholic women to priestly service. It can be argued that to be authentically "secular" today is to take a stand for the promotion of rightful participation of all persons in the structures, processes, and decisions that shape their lives and shape the communities in which they live. Authentic Secularity Authentic secularity includes three Cs: conversation, com-passion, and conversion. Social psychologists have argued that people enter into a new form of relation when they treat others not as strangers or inferiors, but equals. This is what I mean by "conversation." A conversation is marked by give-and-take, by listening as well as speaking, receiving as well as giving. This atti-tude, when adopted intentionally, empowers others. It opens us to the perspective of another despite distances of role and situation. It favors the understanding and fellow feeling that we generally call "compassion." Living this relation of conversation and com-passion promotes experiences of "conversion." Here conversion means for me a reorientation that makes us eager to promote the growth and freedom of others. By this conversion, one becomes an agent of liberation and a facilitator of the moral and emotional maturity of our neighbors in this world. My effort to spell out the agenda of authentic secularity in our age of transition has remained rather general and abstract, but I hope that these ideas may stimulate recognition of these patterns or possibilities in yourself. I hope you will notice that many people are still marginalized from government and the econ-omy, education and the church, and that their true well-being can be promoted through their fuller participation in these things. The promotion of such participation is a clear responsibility of those who have secular integrity .at heart. 356 Review for Religious Authentic Christian Witness Beyond secular integrity, how does one integrate authentic Christian witness with it? How is one authentically Christian today? First, I would observe that the key issue here is more akin to pol-itics than to piety. I use "politics" in Plato's classical sense, mean-ing the ethos and the discourse of a people. Of all the dynamic changes that have touched the lives of American Catholics as a result of Vatican II, none has been as important or as far-reaching as the transformation of our sense of church. We no longer see Sunday worship as sacred theater. We see that we are each church, but not as isolated consciousnesses, isolated pieties, or isolated agendas. We are church as part of an organic cooperation and growing solidarity in the gospel and in the Holy Spirit. The council's mos~t dramatic theological paradigm shift, according to most theologians, was the fresh view of the church as the people of God. This view was the fruit of decades of the-ological work, especially biblical research and exegesis, liturgical studies, and the reinstitution of adult catechesis in northern Europe in the period between the two world wars. All three of these streams of research found it important to stress the theo-logical continuity between the Old Testament and the New. The opinion that the Old Testament's God was thunderously severe and arbitrary while the New Testament's God is forgiving and gentle was seen for the simplistic misinformation that it was. Better biblical texts and better exegesis, based not upon early Latin translations, but rather upon ancient Hebrew manuscripts, allowed several generations of biblical scholars and theologians to appreciate the theology of the Old Testament for what it was, a testament of mercy and salvation. The key concept of both tes-taments, which unified the revelation of the ages, was that of a people called and saved by God from alienation and absurdity. From the call of Abraham through the story of the sons of Jacob, the Egyptian slavery and the exodus, the kingships and the exile, and the times of the prophets and the remnant, one message dom-inated salvation history. God called and chose a people to become his very own so that they could bear witness in their very existence to his transcendent reality and mercy. The theology of Vatican II places this truth above all others, forcing other themes of theology and other pastoral insights to adjust to it. God calls a people to be the visible expression of God's way with the real. The descendents of Jacob, Israel, heard May-.l~une 1993 357 Pbilibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity In Jesl, ls ~ God was again calling a people to be his own--. this time a people so closely identified with Jesus the Lord as to be calledhis "Body." (despite disbelief and temptation) and were haunted by God's call until they became the Judaism of history. Jesus came to call them into an intimate relation of love, forgiveness, and transformation by revealing the mystery of the triune God. But many of them rejected the Messiah Jesus, and the story of God's people reached a new moment in the followers of Jesus. These followers carried the "good news" to the nations, while Israel "hardened its heart" once again. But the fundamental truth did not change: in Jesus, God was again calling a people to be his own--this time a,~ people so closely identified with Jesus the Lord as to be called his "Body." It may be that in this theological insight lies the greatest challenge of all for members of secular institutes. For reasons largely associated with the ori-gins of secular institutes in hostile, anti-clerical societies, the institutes adopted the principle of discretion or reserve. One characteristic of this is that the members are not to lead a lifestyle pub-licly distinct from that of their neigh-bors. Part of their "secularity" is their immersion in the ordinary. A public religious profession or an unusual lifestyle would deny institute members access to the are-nas of.activity and witness in which they hope to use their apos-tolic energies: the place of work, casual neighborhood conversations, and the deliberations of university faculties, gov-ernment agencies, and community assemblies. This kind of anonymity--not publicizing their secular- institute commitment-- need not keep members from active involvement in a local parish's liturgical and apostolic life, but institutes differ in encouraging their members to lend their energies to the shared life and apos-tolic projects of their parish community. An authentic Christian life, however, is, as I said above, an ecclesial life. The institute members must always reflect the call of God to all Christians to be part of the people, of God and to give solid witness to God's presence and mercy in the midst of a hurting world. Therefore, they need to guard against such things as escapism, a piety .that is self-absorbed rather than apostolic, 358 Revie~ for Religious and a manner of liturgical participation that avoids involvement with the worshiping community. The ministry of reconciliation and atonement of the Lord Jesus can be seen as a work of solidarity with those who had become alienated from the forgiving and empowering word of his Father. As Vatican II's Constitution on Divine Revelation puts it, "Jesus perfected revelation by fulfilling it through his whole work of making himself present and manifesting himself: through his words and deeds, his signs and wonders, but especially through his death and glorious resurrection from the dead and final send-ing of the Spirit of truth." The central challenge to our moment of time from the gospel is that of visibly joining the dynamics of faith and of social trans-formation. I have been trying to evoke a general sense of the issues that are involved in this joining. But now it is time to turn to the admirable text of Pope John Paul II that followed upon the synod of bishops of 1987 and in which he summarizes the synod's theological insights. Christifideles Laici At the heart of the pope's message in Christifideles Laici is the assertion that lay Christians can bring to the frontiers of society a presence of the church that is unique. As the council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Says, "The laity are called in a spe-cial way to make the church present and operative in those places and dircumstances where only through them can she become the salt of the earth" (§33).5 It is the secular insertion of the laity that is the treasured aspect of their witness, in the pope's analysis. He says, "In particular, the lay faithful are called to restore to creation all its original value. In ordering creation to the authentic well-being of humanity in an activity governed by the life of grace, they share in the exercise of the power with which the risen Christ draws all things to himself and subjects them along with himself to the Father, so that God might be everything to everyone" (§14). The pope interprets the secular character of the lay Christian as a theological dimension of the experience of being Christian. It involves living in the world and transforming it through the exer-cise of "every one of the secular professions and occupations." It involves their relationships with family, friends, professionals, members of society, and authorities of the civil order. May-June 199.~ 359 Philibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity The pope's theological affirmation appears to be that living and working in the context of ordinary reality from motives of faith in God and love for our human fellows is in itself an exercise of grace with the power to influence and ennoble human exchanges. The pope makes an unusually strong statement in saying: The images of salt, light, and leaven taken from the gospel, although indiscriminately applicable to all Jesus' disciples, are specifically applied to the lay faithful. They are partic-ularly meaningful images because they speak not only of the deep involvement and the full participation of the lay faithful in the affairs of the earth, the world, and the human community, but also and above all they tell of the radical newness and unique character of an involvement and par-ticipation which has as its purpose the spreading of the gospel that brings salvation (§ 15). The pope goes on to emphasize that a member of the lay faithful cannot remain in isolation from the community, but must live in an interaction with others that builds up the church. With reference to the church's liturgy, the pope says, "The various min-istries, offices, and roles that the lay faithful can legitimately ful-fill in the liturgy, in the transmission of the faith, and in the pastoral structure of the church ought to be exercised in confor-mity to their specific lay vocation, which is different from that of the sacred ministry" (§23). At the heart of lay people's ecclesial life is the parish, which is the symbol and the realization of the community of Christians. The pope reports that at the synod the bishops, in their discus-sions about renewing parishes, proposed two approaches: (1) "adaptation of parish structures according to the full flexibility granted by canon law, especially in promoting participation by the lay faithful in pastoral responsibilities"--so as to respond to situations where parishes have become geographically too large or where exiles and migrants demand specific pastoral responses (such as ministry in languages foreign to the place); and (2) devel-oping "small, basic or so-called 'living' communities where the faithful can communicate the word of God and express it in ser-vice and love to one another; these communities are true expres-sions of ecclesial co~nmunion and centers of evangelization in communion with their pastors" (§26). Thus the pope links the renewal of the parish to the expanded role of the lay faithful in the ani~nation and development of parish communities and the foundation of base communities alongside 360 Review for Religious and within the structure of existing parishes. Clearly, the need to find new forms of relationship that call to faith and celebrate faith within the neighborhood or the village is at one and the same time a diagnosis of the church's weakness today and a challenging mission for committed lay people. The pope, stating that the council insisted upon "the absolute necessity of an apostolate exercised by the individual [lay Christian]" (§28), then cites the following text of the council: The apostolate exercised by the individual--which flows abundantly from a truly Christian life (see Jn 4:14)--is the origin and condition of the whole lay apostolate, even in its organized expression, and admits no substitute. Regardless of circumstance, all lay persons (including those who have no opportunity or possibility for collaboration in associations) are called to this type of apostolate and obliged to engage in it. Such an apostolate is useful at all times and places, but in certain circumstances it is the only one avail-able and feasible.~ The pope's letter says much about the possibilities for holiness in committed lay life, but here I will include only some summary comments taken from its closing pages. A key preoccupation of Pope John Paul is to foster unity between everyday life and faith experience. He speaks of the need to evangelize the cultures within which we live. In part this means finding a place (in conversation and in social action) for the gospel values that the church preaches. Lives that integrate prayer, con-templation, and liturgical and sacramental life are a witness to the divine origin of our life and our world. The pope urges a readiness to take part in church programs and activities at local, national, and international levels. He indicates the crucial need for capable persons to commit themselves to catechesis and religious teaching. He urges people to organize gatherings and meetings focused upon a Christian analysis of family, civic, and social expe-rience. Finally, he mentions the value of a spirit of detachment and generosity and the power of the witness of poverty in a world " that is seduced by the power of materialism. John Paul then calls for a "reevangelization" of the Catholic and Christian world; we need, he says, to "remake the Christian fabric of the ecclesial community itself. This will be possible if the lay faithful will know how to overcome in themselves the separation of the gospel from life, to again take up in their daily activities in family, work, and society an integrated approach to life May-.~ne 1993 361 Philibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity that is fully brought about by the inspiration and strength of the gospel" (§34). Earlier I noted how odd I find it that this lengthy document refers only briefly to secular institutes. I will not dwell further on that point. I observe, however, two things on the relation between secular institutes and the pope's apostolic exhortation on the laity: (1) I think this papal document is an extraordinarily well-crafted exposition of the meaning of the life of the vows for members of secular institutes. What they effectively commit them-selves to is an intense baptismal transformation as spelled out in the documents of Vatican II and summarized in the pope's letter. (2) The papal teaching here takes us a step further. The mem-bers of secular institfites must be committed to fostering the Christian life of their friends and neighbors. There is a mission-ary dimension to their vocation--towards their neighbor and towards the common culture within which they live and celebrate together. Although I have no firsthand experience of living the life of secular institutes, I have come as an interested outsider to the study of this dedicated form of life. My hope is not to answer ques-tions and close off discussion, but to raise questions and open new avenues of dialogue. I feel that secular institutes, especially in the United States, have a great opportunity. The church needs evan-gelical guidelines to help people grow in personal holiness and in effective witness to all the people around them. And so I hope that members of secular institutes will find ways to articulate their sense of their vocation even more clearly 9nd ways to make others aware of the very existence of secular institutes and the nature of their life. The gospel warns us about keeping treasures hidden. Notes ~ John Paul II, The Lay Members of Christ's Faithful People: Christifideles Laici (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1989), §56. 2 David M. Bulger, "Men Who Love Their Priesthood and Their Church," Touchstone (National Federation of Priests' Councils newslet-ter) 8, no. 1 (fall 1992), p. 2. The prelate in question is the Most Rev. James Martin Hayes, retired archbishop of Halifax. 3 See the helpful summary in E Valdrini, J. Vernay, J. E Durand, and O. l~chapp~, Droit Canonique (Paris: Dalloz, 1989), pp. 188-121. 362 Review 3~r Religious 4 M. D. Chenu, "Consecratio Mundi," in The Christian in the World: Readings in Theology (New York: Kenedy, 1965), pp. 161-177. 5 The Documents of Vatican H, ed. and trans. W. M. Abbot and J. Gallagher (Ne~ York: Association Press, 1966): The Dogmatic Con-stimtion on the Church, §33. 6 Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity (Apostolicam Actuositatem), §16. Loving Verbs I've always loved nouns. Neatly framed words with clear definitions. Solid, stable words that name safe things, things you can count on and hold and keep. I know now that I've been afraid of verbs. Words that do and have and are. Words that whirl past you so fast you can't catch them, that alter and change things and give ulcers to nouns . Loving verbs is like saying yes to the rollercoaster, going on but still being scared. Loving verbs is saying yes to a kaleidoscope of action and being and having and feeling. Loving verbs is saying yes to Possibility. I think it's time for me to fall in love with verbs. Christen Shukwit OSF May-~une 1993 363 prayer SUZANNE ZUERCHER and direction Liturgy of the Hours: A Reflection "Ritual is the enactment of the myth." --Joseph Campbell The reality of monastic" life has always been formed and shaped around the ritual of the Liturgy of the Hours. In his Rule for Monasteries St. Benedict devoted numerous, if brief, chapters to the content and structure of this prayer, which he called the Work of God. The Divine Office requires that monastics pause again and again, offer praise together, and then move on to the next aspect of their lives. The complete circle of the monastic day gains its momentum ahd energy by stopping for the Work of God. Many monastics no longer spend eight periods daily praying the Liturgy of the Hours. Nevertheless, the pri-ority of this liturgical prayer remains, and they continue to gather daily. For contemporary monastics, as for early ones, this form of worship best manifests what their life together is about. Early monastics were lay persons even in all-male communities, and so opportunities for daily eucharistic celebrations did not exist in many monasteries. In such a context it is understandable that Benedict would place a high priority on the Work of God, which he made the distinctive and constant form of community praise and worship. It remains the heart of monastic prayer life even in this twentieth century. Suzanne Zuercher OSB, well known for her writings and work-shops, has held both administrative and formation roles in her community. Her address is: St. Scholastica Priory; 7430 North Ridge Boulevard; Chicago, Illinois 60645. 364 Re'view for Religious In times when we are so intent on exploring what religious community really means, one place to look for the answer is in this ritual of the Liturgy of the Hours. Joseph Campbell tells us that by examining a ritual we can find out about the myth the ritual attempts to express. For this reason I would like to spend time reflecting on elements of the Divine Office as it is celebrated in monastic communities in order to better understand what com-munity means in such settings. Today's monastic communi-ties say something about who they are as they gather daily for this ritual and worship. Perhaps even they need to pay close attention to what that statement is. Are we overlooking what community life is and needs to remain by failing to examine what may well be its clearest manifestation? Initially, the most basic communication a monastic community makes by gathering for the Work of God is that their life is founded on hope. David Steindl-Rast in his book Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer distinguishes hope from optimism. A hopeful per-son lives in the present. An optimistic one looks ahead, pumping up positive feelings of how good things will be. A person of hope looks with confidence and trust into reality simply as it is right now. He or she--or they when one speaks of a community of hopeful people--finds life in ordinary, humble, actual experience. Rather than having expectations of good things to come, persons of hope have only one expectation: For those who live and wait in the present moment, life/Life will be a surprise. Monastics watch for such surprises. Ritual, Campbell also reminds us, is by its very nature boring. In its repetitiveness it fails as entertainment and distraction. Instead, ritual forces those who participate in it to search beneath the words and actions to discover the reality it gives shape to. This holds true whether worshipers are from Indonesia or Illinois. Boredom demands the deeper search for meaning beneath litur-gical action. Those who observe monastic communities repeating psalmody week after week and year after year may wonder what can possi- The most basic communication a monastic community makes by gathering for the Work of God is that their life is founded on hope. May-j%ne 1993 365 Zuercher ¯ Liturgy of the Hours bly draw them together for so repetitious a ritual. The sequential reading of Scripture, the yearly round of liturgical seasons, the consistent liturgical gestures are rhythmic, to be sure. To some, such repetition may appear empty and uncreative; but for monas-tics, whose worship is formed around this liturgy, such ordinari-ness underlines the reality of all human life and, consequently, of their life together. It calls to them, demands of them, that they look more deeply into what their lives are about. Eventually, if they are to continue to gather for the Hours, they are forced to cut through ritual to discover what that ritual signifies. It is dif-ficult, if not impossible, to endure the repetitive round of common prayer without such a breakthrough. Monastics who do not respond to this challenge to go deeper either go to sleep or despair. Sooner or later they absent them-selves psychically and physically from gatherings of the commu-nity in prayer or otherwise. Those, however, who hang, on in the face of meaninglessness can be led to the conversion at the heart of monastic commitment. Anguish and desperation can lead to rebirth and transformation in this as in other aspects of the spir-itual life. We do not willingly plumb our lives. We do so only when something demands that we move from the obvious to what that obvious is really expressing. We are forced to ask some questions: Why do we come together, stop our work, come home early, make sacrifices to be together for this time of prayer? What is the mean-ing behind what we do and say here? Do we believe all this, see it as important, even primary? Such questions are about the liturgy. But they are also, if we look closely at them, questions about community itself. Do we really see significance in using up our energies in praise of God together? Given life/Life as mystery, there is no final answer to any important human question. That is possibly why we keep asking what community is over and over again, generation after gener-ation, even though we have a Rule to guide us. Our human nature ultimately insists on experience. Experience is how we learn our answers. Liturgy of the Hours revolves around a lived experience of virtues we have all learned about which form the bedrock of the spiritual life. It makes these virtues concrete. First, we find faith in the gathering of the community, and we believe that life/Life will be found here. Then we recognize that the space in which we 366 Review for l~eligio~s gather is a sacred place where holiness will quicken us; for this we hope. And when it does bring the energy we call spirit/Spirit, we are truly one people, God's family, united in love with those who gather here and with the world of which we are a microcosm. Indeed, the place of our gathering for liturgy is sacred, but the spiritual spills over, if it is gen-uine, into all the other aspects of life: to the kitchen, the grounds, the classroom, the social agency, the hospital ward, the parish offices, the artist's studio. All are sacred places, all filled with objects and growing things and others who are sacred vessels. Benedict told his monastics to pause wherever they were in their work for God's Work, the Liturgy of the Hours, to remind themselves that everything is sacred. They were not to make life holy; they were to remind them-selves that it already is. Another element of monastic community is stability. Sometimes misunderstood as never going anywhere, stability does have something to do with being together in physical space. There is symbol in gathering. When community members come in one after another and take their places for the Work of God, their gathering together says what people want and need to hear expressed: You can count on my presence. Seeing the same per-sons gathered for prayer day after day makes real the word fidelity. The action of monastics looking around and noticing commu-nity members assembled with them is itself a form of prayer--a consoling and strengthening reminder that we wait as a people for our God (o come to save us. The monastics who gather share daily living, values, com-mitment; They are the same people who will be together in wor-ship and in all the other moments of existence as well. Praying together stands for and ritualizes all our being together. Talk and write as we will about the importance of being one in spirit, actu-ally hearing the voices and observing the silences and singing the psalmody with community members provides a needed testimony of this dedication to one another. The physical setting and its rituals offer another reflection on monastic community. As weeks pass, those who participate in the Liturgy of the Hours assume first one role in the ritual and then another. From presider to chanter, to reader, to the one who Praying together stands for and ritualizes all our being together. May-gTune 1993 367 Zuercber ¯ Liturgy of the Hours intones the various choirs, to merely being one of the group at prayer, the rhythm of life involves numerous tasks. The rhythm of monastic community is similar. One may be the prioress for a time, and then the procurator or the formation director, the gar-dener or the cook, the principal of the school or a teacher, the hospital administrator or a staff nurse. Monastics move easily and regularly throughout their lifetime in one another's company from the responsibilities of authority to those of obedience. They do so simply; it matters little in their life together what title they may have or how much prestige it carries. If today they have a larger role, yesterday they were one of the group and tomorrow they will be so again. Prolonged and consistent living among the same people pro-vides opportunity for a unique sort of learning. All the ministries monastics assume in the community and beyond it are for ser-vice, and this service changes. When a group lives in continuity with one another, moving from role to role is a normal, unim-pressive experience. Members give of their talents now in one way and now in another. The content of the Liturgy of the Hours is almost entirely scriptural. Meaning comes from the long and nourishing story of the Judeo-Christian tradition found in both Old and New Testaments. The history of redemption is larger than any indi-vidual person or any community, but Scripture provides words for the human experiences lived out by the whole group and each of its individual members. Monastics ponder the Scriptures until its words--and more importantly, the message they proclaim-- permeate their lives, are absorbed into the marrow of their bones. Body and mind and feelings soak up the liturgical seasons in their cyclic rhythm. In my own experience I once met a group of spiritual direc-tors who were to companion some monastic women on their first directed retreat. These directors expressed concern about how to introduce praying with Scripture. To their surprise, the monastics they directed not only understood the relevance of suggested pas-sages, they were able to add many others on the same theme. The directors were amazed at how steeped these women were in the concrete experiences which various Scriptures highlighted. Many of them had done litde formal scriptural study, but the constant association of the texts with their day-to-day lives had blended both together. 368 Review for Religious The simple reflection on the Gospel which the Liturgy of the Hours provides testifies to the natural, nonelaborate quality of the best of prayer, the best of living. There is design and order in the structul'e of God's Work, but medieval embellishments have been done away with in these times of ours. Monasticism is again being expressed very simply in its most basic and original form, and its prayer ritual has assumed some-thing of the natural breathing in and out of word and silence. As a result monastics experience the order and peace found when an appropriate amount of structure shapes life. It is important that what is and needs to be predictable not degenerate into rigid formalism. Monastic liturgy makes the statement that, as is true for all mature persons, mgnastics need to learn to bend with changing breezes without uprooting themselves as they do so. Perh.aps the most signifiEant statement the Liturgy of the Hours makes is that "it is good for us to be here." In the end, community is its own justification as is prayer. Religious life is valuable simply because it is. People live in community; it is the human thing to do. The kind of community people choose varies according to who they are. Monastics live their kind of commu-nity life primarily because it "fits" them. They find their whole-hess with other people who, like them, seek God, the Work of God and obedience as described in the Rule for Monasteries. When members of monastic communities live their under-standing of who they are in a whole and happy way, they cannot but witness to God's love and peace and joy. They do so simply by their lives. Of course, it is true that any whole person is called to care and to serve~ to be concerned and to work for the good of others. Monastics, therefore, find that they cannot contain what God has given them. It overflows to those around them and cre-ates yet another expression of stability in the environments in which they live. The vision of monastic community that underlies this article is idealized, to be sure. So, too, is the fantasy of perfectly carry-ing out the Liturgy of the Hours. Such perfection never happens. There are coughs and sneezes; people read too softly or too loudly, Perhaps the most significant statement the Liturgy of the Hours makes is that "it is good for us to be here." May-3~ne 1993 369 Zuercber ¯ Liturgy of the Hours too slowly or too fast. People forget to perform their assigned role in the ritual and the flow of things is upset. Differing inter-pretations about how the psalmody is to be read or sung by the group create subtle conflicts. All of these imperfections, and many more besides, limit the beauty and peace of liturgical celebration. Despite such imperfections, monastics continue to gather together for this less-than-perfect expression of a community life that is also less than perfect. They watch and wait, not knowing at what hour the Bridegroom will come in the form of some insight, some consolation, some discernment, some energy released from image or symbol, some decision to act. The Spirit blows when and where it wills. Those who wait find their quick-ening at the point of what we might Fall readiness--a readiness which differs for each person. It demands a culmination of a num-ber of life experiences to reach such a ripeness. Monastics gathered for Liturgy of the Hours never know when their individual hearts will be warmed, when the heart of the person beside them will be set on fire, when the community as a group will hear God's response to the Spirit's groaning within. But they wait, nonetheless, with a certain amount of patience and good humor for these freeing moments to occur in the world of time. This reality best describes for me what community is. It has not always been my description of our life together, but in recent years community has come to mean waiting with one another for each person's time. The ritual of Liturgy of the Hours celebrates and makes that description clear over and over, day after day. It, indeed, enacts the reality we struggle to define, the myth of reli-gious community. 370 Review for Religious KENNETH C. RUSSELL Get Serious! The Monastic Condemnation of Laughter /~,n, chapter six of his famous rule, St. Benedict bluntly forbids talk leading to laughter,''1 Later he notes that a monk has reached .the tenth step of humility when "he is not given to ready laughter:, for it is written: 'Only a fool raises his voice in laughter'" (Si 21:23).2 This condemnation of mirth is not, we must note, some oddity that can be explained away on the basis of Benedict's personal history or the troubled period in which he lived. His outright condemnation of the joviality we applaud was echoed in other monastic rules and in the critical comments of church fathers such as St. Ephrem and St. John Chrysostom.3 This harsh attitude toward laughter seems strange to us and even downright unhealthy. The early spiritual masters frowned on laughter; we, on the contrary, are suspicious of seriousness. ' In today's world all truth is spoken with a smile, as Horace rec-ommended, and Woody Allen, despite his recent troubles, is the only Hamlet we are willing to tolerate. Why Laughter Was Suspect But what prompted the first monks to condemn laughter? The scholars who have explored the early monastic rules and the sayings of the desert fathers offer various explanations. For one thing, laughter disrupts monastic order. It shatters the silence that represents the readiness of a disciple to listen.4 A monk who Kenneth C. Russell is a professor of the theology faculty at Saint Paul University. His address is Saint Paul University; 223 Main Street; Ottawa K1S 1C4; Canada. May-June 1993 371 Russell ¯ Get Serious.t is busy laughing is not ready to hear whatever may be spoken to him by the Holy Spirit or the abbot. In the monastic context it is the abbot's duty to speak and the monk's to listen,s The monas-tic rules are particularly hard on the effort to provoke laughter. In terms of order, this all makes sense because a joker in the clois-ter is obviously the equivalent of the clown in the back row of a classroom competing with the teacher for the other students' attention. Monasticism's reasons for rejecting laughter went deeper than that, however. The early monks prohibited laughter because they associated it with an arrogant, self-satisfied disdain for God and neighbor. Did Jesus not in fact say, "Woe to you who laugh now; you shall weep in your grief" (Lk 6:25)? And where in the New Testament does it say that Jesus laughed? This may not seem an important point to us, but the early monks took the failure of the gospels to show Jesus laughing quite seriously. They were not the only ones. Not even popular piety, which was ready in every cen-tury to fill the gaps in the gospel narrative with legends and sto-ries, ever developed the image of a lighthearted, laughing Jesus.6 Why this suspicion of laughter in the first Christian cen-turies? There would seem to be cultural as well as religious rea-sons for this uneasiness. In the tight-knit societies of the ancient world, laughter was likely to be laughter at someone: the for-eigner, the deformed, the handicapped. It separated the person who had done something "funny" from the group and made him or her a legitimate object of scorn. Laughter mocked and excluded the outsider. This social reality is reflected in the view of the ancient Greeks who, though they recognized risibility as a dis-tinctive human quality, concluded nonetheless that laughter was unbecoming to a mature human being because of its characteris-tic cruelty.7 The world in which monasticism took shape was sev-eral centuries away from the classical era, but the same high regard for how one appeared to others and the same sensitivity to shame were operative. Laughter, therefore, could be seen as a destruc-tive and even satanic force,s We must not think, however, that the fathers and the early monks favored a kind of pious gloom. They did not. In fact, some of those who made the harshest remarks about laughter were well known for their geniality and cheerfulness. What they frowned on was a certain lighthearted devil-may-care joviality. But why? To get to the heart of the matter, I think we have to look beyond the 372 Review for Religious historical situation and the predictable considerations of monas-tic discipline to the very essence of laughter. This is the only way we can discover what the fathers were really condemning and determine whether what they said has any message for us today. What Is So Funny? It seems to me that humor springs from the tension between our spiritual aspirations and the physical limitations imposed on us by our bodies and our confinement in a physical world with laws of its own. Comedy, in other words, is built into our very being. Even when we avoid the ridicu-lous pretensions that blind the proud to the banana peel right in front of them, we are funny creatures. Our efforts to go up the down escalator, our inability to guarantee that the soup in our spoon will reach our mouth without mishap, and all the other follies of daily life constantly remind us of our basic humanity or, to put it differently, of our littleness and dependence. Our comic condition mocks our solemnity? Therefore, if we have a prudent measure of humility and a min-imum of wisdom, we cheerfully accept our role in the human comedy and laugh at ourselves. We also laugh at others, but usually because we identify with them and see ourselves in their pratfalls. That is why Charlie Chaplin holds our attention or why we laugh at the-shy scientist in The Gods Must Be Crazy who falls all over every bit of furniture in sight in the presence of the attractive young woman who has entered his life. "Isn't it the truth!" we say. Male or female, we know what it is like to be completely overwhelmed by the attractiveness and charm of another human being. We have all been there, and our laughter celebrates our humanity and the glory of its fragile being. Our laughter testifies that the world, for all its troubles, is a joy-ous place and humanity, for all its pain, a wondrous thing in the hands of a God who can be trusted. Faith and cheerfulness would seem to go together. Our laughter testifies that the world, for all its troubles, is a joyous place and humanity, for all its pain, a wondrous thing in the hands of a God who can be trusted. May-June 1993 373 Russell ¯ Get Serious! But does our laughter always stand in such a healthy rela-tionship to the basic seriousness of life? What about the cynicism and despair that echoes in much of our laughter? For, indeed, we use laughter, not only to relativize the tragic dimension of life, but also to trivialize it altogether. Laughter can be a way of saying, "Hey, when it comes to silliness and stupidity, we're all in the same boat!" or it can be a frightened, frenzied dance over the abyss of anxiety. Laughter can be a life-affirming chuckle or a panicky giggle. Laughter, therefore, is not necessarily a sign of faith, nor is it necessarily, to use .the title of Richard Cote's contribution to a theology of laughter, "Holy Mirth." 10 It may, indeed, signify a brave stance before the meaninglessness of life. It may be a deter-mined retreat from a truth too dismal to contemplate. It may, ultimately, be an avoidance of seriousness. The Nature of Laughter We have lost the ancient world's suspicion of laughter, but it remains true, nonetheless, that making someone the object of laughter can be a disguised act of aggression. The same chuckle that mocks the other may comfort the joker with the consolation that he or she is not "like that." Whether crude or subtly sugar-coated, this alienating humor is the basis of most racial jokes and stories. Is this cruel aspect of humor just a negative twist that can be explained away by human sinfulness, or is it, in fact, the very basis of laughter? Surprising as it may seem, most philosophers and psychologists who have studied laughter connect it with aggres~ sivity and defensiveness. You may hit your neighbor with a feather duster and protect yourself with a water pistol, but you do hit him and you do defend yourself. In the evolutionary and anthro-pological way of looking at humanity which these thinkers adopt, laughter is partly a protective device, like the cuteness of small ani-mals, and partly a barrier erected to protect the group from the unfit and different. Laughter offers an alternative to a direct assault in those circumstances where overt aggression would be ill-advised. "If you can't hit him, tickle him to death, or make him so uncomfortable he gives up and goes home." The experts seem to consider laughter akin to the excited, mocking behavior of the likes of Tarzan's Cheetah.11 374 Review for Religious Are the psychologists and phenomenologists right? They cer-tainly seem to be on target when they describe how laughter func-tions in society. We have all, at one time or another, used laughter to disarm someone who has assumed an aggressive stance in a conversation, or we have, conversely, "jokingly" taken a verbal punch at someone we dared not face off with seriously. But must we fol-low them when they explain laughter in purely evolutionary terms? Must we see it merely as an outgrowth of aggression and defensiveness? Is laughter--harmful or helpful, loving or hateful--merely an amoral by-product of our swing down out of the trees? Is it someth!ng that will van-ish once genetic engineering succeeds in bleaching aggression out of the human gene pool? The notion that laughter is rooted in the desire to figh.t and defend ultimately cloaks the most lighthearted laughter in very dark colors indeed. It is surely prefer-able, therefore, to view laughter as a God-given, inherent human characteristic and not merely as a stained leftover from some newly grounded ape with the jitters. It is a proper human attribute that can be used, like most things human, for good or ill. Why, then, was laughter so harshly condemned by the spiri-tual masters of early monasticism? It is true that they placed a high value on the gift of tears which enabled a monk to lament his sins .and, indeed, the human condition in its alienation from God, but they certainly did not favor going about under a dark cloud.~z Sadness, after all, is one of the spiritual disorders in the list of passions that John Cassian handed down to Western monasti-cism. 13 We have to keep in mind that cheerfulness is one thing, the deliberate effort to provoke laughter quite another. What Laughter Does It seems to me that, to hold the monastic condemnation of laughter in perspective, we have to keep in mind that cheerfulness is one thing, the deliberate effort to provoke laughter quite another. Cheerfulness is the mark of someone who knows the May-.]une 1993 375 R~ssell ¯ Get Serious! score, as it were. Confidence in the providence of God and faith in the resurrection of Christ make Christianity a joyful religion. Therefore, those who penetrate to the heart of things, the wise, are inclined to be cheerful. However, if they heed the warning of St. Benedict, they will not "love immoderate and boisterous laugh-ter." L4 Certainly they will "speak no foolish chatter" and will not say anything "just to provoke laughter." ~5 Yet surely there is much to be said for the effort to make peo-ple laugh. After all, jokes, wit, and "foolish chatter" function as social lubricants. They act as icebreakers and frequently provide an interlude of relaxation and entertainment in the tense envi-ronments in which many of us operate. This is certainly true, but nonetheless I am inclined to say that, even at the best of times, laughter is a movement toward the surface, toward the shallows. It is always escapist. It is always a distraction because it is always a movement away from the quiet center of one's being. The fact that clowns and clowning around distract us does not, of course, make the effort to provoke laughter an evil. Laughter has its proper, place and its uses. In the hustle and bus-tle of the large, impersonal metropolis in which most of us earn our living, it is a marvelous instrument of social interaction. It helps us survive in a world of strangers. We may not know one another's history or evefi what the person next to us does when he or she is not working in this office, serving on this committee, or attending this class; This may be regrettable on a theoretical level, but the truth is that things would not go smoothly if we had to establish a deep interpersonal relationship with the mul-titude of people we meet. We encounter them in a specific con-text where we wear, as it were, a name tag referring to only one aspect of our personal history. We are "employee," "tennis part-ner, . student," or whatever. We want to be known and to feel that we fit in, but at the same time we have no desire to expose our pri-vate life to people we meet in this one-dimensional setting. Shared laughter allows us to achieve these contradictory goals. It binds the group together by touching our common humanity and, by veer-ing away from a focus on the personal, it protects our privacy. Laughter keeps everything light and frothy as it should be among those who work in the same place or band together to pursue some common social or recreational goal. This'is not the perspective that preoccupied the early monks. Therefore, their derogatory assessment of laughter should not 376 Revie~w for Religious be read as an attack on the social use of humor nor interpreted as a put-down of stand-up comics or, for that matter, the office wiseguy. The words of the fathers were addressed to those who had withdrawn from the turmoil of life and the humor that helps it function pleasantly. They were addressed to those who had, as it were, gone apart to concentrate. An effort to deliberately pro-voke humor in a setting which, by reason of its very seriousness, was surely prone to the laughter rooted in the human condition was obviously inappropriate. Laughter was as out of place in this setting as it would be on a green during a pro tournament. It broke the pros' concentration. Worse than that, the inclination to stir others to laughter indicated that a monk had fallen victim to the restlessness and distraction that the desert tradition called acedia.16 Conclusion Does this ancient suspicion of laughter have anything to say to us today? I think it challenges all Christians to ask, "Why am I laughing?" Does our joviality spring from the confidence that gives rise to cheerfulness, or is it perhaps anxiety in cap and bells faking nonchalance in the entrance hail of death? Is it the prod-uct of faith in a loving God who demonstrated his seriousness by making humans glorious beings and his love by giving them two feet to fall over to help keep things in proportion? Or is it the by-product of unbelief that opts, despite it a

Issue 59.6 of the Review for Religious, 2000. ; NOVEMBER: DECEMBER 2000 ,VOLUME 59 NUMBER 6 Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for.Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, iVlO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP Mount St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subsEription rates. ©2000 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. Jew rel,g,ous LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming sJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm James and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Kathryn Richards FSP Joel Rippinger OSB. Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ Patricia Wittberg SC NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2000 VOLUME 59 NUMBER 6 contents 566 spiritual practice Retrieving the Practice of Silence Donald J. Goergen oP enters us into an appreciation of silence that we might commit ourselves more to its observance. 575 The Dangers of Solitude Kenneth C. Russell, guiding readers through some 12th-century advice to hermits, shows its 2 l st-cenrury relevance to hermits and others as well. 584 A Spiritual Direction Mary Beth Moore SC gazes at, listens to, a few moments of reality and possibility within contemporary sisterly living. 594 a witness response Contemplative Religious Witness: A Redemptoristine Monastery Dennis J. Billy CSSR finds the life of a group of contemplative sisters very much present to his apostolic mission, and happily reflects that the reverse is true as well. 601 AVowed Response to the Postmodern World Andr~ Maureen Soete SSND seeks ways for the vowed life to contribute more vigorously, more effectively, to the alleviation of troubles in our troubled world. Review for Religious 608 examples from the past Mary Ward: Centuries Her Scroll Lawrence F. Barmann sketches the life story of Mary Ward, the saintly English founder of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as an inspiration for us living in the current ecclesial milieu. 614 627 St. Catherine's Letters: Human Love, Gracious Authority Stan Parmisano OP finds that in style and content the letters of Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) have surprising and challenging and charming relevance for persons living today. Katharine Drexel's Cultural Relevance Now Normandie J. Gaitley SSJ sketches the life of the recently canonized Mother Katharine Drexel SBS (1858-1955), a Philadelphia debutante who used her inheritance to serve Native Americans and African Americans. 633 643 vocation When Vocations Happen by Accident Elizabeth Julian RSM describes with quiet enthusiasm her sense of a flexible small community in New Zealand that fosters acquaintance and has shown itself to foster vocations. Vocational Support Donald Macdonald SMM speaks of the human need of support in one's vocation and of the providential availability of that support if we are alert to its manifold presence. departments 564 Prisms 650 Canonical Counsel: Responsibilities of the Novice Director 656 Book Reviews 666 Indexes to Volume 59 November-December 2000 prisms Whave come to appreciate the rich complexi.ty of the biblical term jubilee, espe-cially as we have looked toward the new millennium. But as we approach the Advent and Christmas seasons of the year 2000, one focus of jubilee stands out. Jubilee implies celebration. Advent and Christmas seasons pro-vide an opportune moment for us to consider what it is that we celebrate. Celebrati6n often means bringing people together, sometimes those dearest to us, and at other times the "crowd" that comes together only for special occasions. Celebration can include elegant banquets or simple fin-ger food. It may suggest a refined cocktail party or a noisy beer-keg-and-pretzels get-together. Celebration can imply long-term planning or it may be a spur-of-the- moment, spontaneous occasion. We celebrate beginnings, like newborn babies and the wedding day; we celebrate completions, like school graduations and retirements. We observe national patriotic days, and we take time for religious festivals. But for all the aspects of a jubilee year of forgiveness, justice, and reconciliation, what is it that we most cele-brate? The biblical notion of jubilee celebrates, above all, our being God's people and our living like God's sons and daughters. This planet called Earth is "home" for us because it is God's home. Our space-age view of our planet Earth has brought home to us how much we all are "stewards," not owners, of God's gift to us. Review for Religious What is striking is how our jubilee celebrations enter us into the Gospel Prodigal Son parable. Whether we more identify with one who hopes to see life as only an arena of personal delights and squanderings or whether we more identify with the other who defines life as a kind of slavery with weighty obligations and grim duties, we realize how much we need a jubilee understanding of life. Both sons, in Jesus' famous parable, understand neither the father who helped bring them into life nor the life which this father wants to share with them. The first son in his self-cen-tered celebrating misses the point of celebration. The second son in his self-defined servitude also misses the idea of celebra-tion. Just as the father in the parable goes out of the way to meet each son, so God continues to break into our life to call us to a reality of biblical jubilee. Advent is our jubilee celebration of our longing and desire to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our life. Christmas is our jubilee celebration of God's desire and longing to come and play forever among the children of Earth. Advent and Christmas are at the center of our understanding jubilee because both seas~ons emphasize the heart of all our reasons to celebrate: God calls us sons and daughters, and we know the redemptive salvation that Jesus brought, of living in God's home all the days of our life. David L. Fleming SJ thank you for your ~uppor~throughout thi~ pa~t yoar and pray that (~od~rieh o a nd~ abundant iubiloo Advont and ~hri~tma~ Th~ Mitor~ and ,of Revi~ ~orRoligiou~ . " November-December 2000 spiritua practice DONALD J. GOERGEN Retrieving the Practice of Silence Jesus experienced the need for quiet. "In the morn-ing, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed"(Mk 1:35, NRSV). What did he seek there? What did he find? The Book of Psalms is quoted in the New Testament more often than any other book of the Hebrew Bible. What role did the psalms play in the prayer of Jesus? "Be still, and know that I am God" (Ps 46:10). How often in the course of his life did Jesus pray over verses like that, or this: "For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation"? (Ps 62:1). There are few things in human life more important, both personally and communally, than discovering the value of silence. Spirituality and religion are important dimensions of human and social life, and so are silence and stillness. Other civilizations, perhaps more pastoral, more agrarian ones, had greater opportunities for the practice of silence. Our times seem less fortunate in that regard. Yet silence is essential to wholesome living. My purpose in these reflections is to help us appreciate silence more and commit ourselves to practicing it. Donald J. Goergen OP wrote on celibacy for our May- June 1998 issue. His address is Friends of God Dominican Ashram; 720 35th Street; Kenosha, Wisconsin 53140. Review for Religious Worship, Charity, and Silence Which is more important, love of God or love of neighbor? (Mk 12:28-31). It does not take much to realize that this question is falsely posed. Which is more important, inhaling or exhaling, yang or yin? St. Anselm spoke of God as "the Being a greater than which cannot be conceived." Certainly, for one who believes, God alone deserves to be worshiped. Adoration and praise are the only appro-priate responses to God. Although there is nothing in human life more important than love of God, the God of Jesus instructs us that there is something that must precede or accompany it. "So, when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remem-ber that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift" (Mt 5:23- 24). "Those who say 'I love God,' and hate their brothers or sis-ters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also" (1 Jn 4:20-21). As important as worship is, equally important is the practice of charity, love of neighbor, the "works of mercy" (Mr 25:31-46). The revolution in Jesus' teaching was not that he understood love of God, the Shema (Dr 6:4-5), as the core of the Hebrew Scriptures. Almost every practicing and devout Jew understood that to be the great com-mandment. But Jesus' placing love of neighbor (Lv 19:18; Mk 12:31) on a par with love of God, that was revolutionary, and for him that was what true religion is about. For Jesus, the second commandment is not secondary, not second in the sense of less significant. According to Matthew, it is "like" the "great and first" commandment (Mr 22:38-39). Luke (10:27) reports them as really one commandment. True worship or love of God is inseparable from true com-passion or love of neighbor. But what do love of God and love of neighbor, or worship and the works of mercy, have to do with the practice of silence? Abhishiktananda, or Henri Le Saux, the French monk who came to India in 1948 and immersed himself in its reli-gious environment, wrote: Now if something has passed in this long discourse by the way of words, yet beyond words, if you have heard in the words of the Upanishads some echo of what the Spirit has November-Decenlber 2000 Goergen ¯ Retrieving the Practice of Silence certainly whispered in your heart when you sat in contem-plation of the mystery of the Father and the Son, then you will discover by yourselves the secret of what is called the Advaitic or Upanishadic prayer. It can be summed up in one Hebrew phrase of Psalm 65, which Jerome translates: silen-tium tibi laus. Silence is praise for you. Silence in prayer, silence in thanksgiving, prayer, and adoration, silence in meditation, silence inside and outside as the most essential preparation for this stillness of the soul in which alone the Spirit can work at his pleasure.~ The contemplative and interior journey, the love and worship of God, are dependent on silence. But charity or love of neigh-bor depends on silence too. A loving kindness toward our human companions on this earth requires the silent journey inward just as true worship of God requires it. Can there be true love of neigh-bor without confronting the truth about ourselves? Can we expect reconciliation and forgiveness in our world if we ourselves are not yet ready to forgive? If we are to transform our world, we must also be working on becoming transformed ourselves. Social engage-ment requires time apart. Silence is essential if we are to deepen our love for God and our love for our neighbor. Silence, Solitude, and Simplicity What does silence sound like? What does it look like? Are there different kinds of silence? Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earth-quake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. (1 Kg 19:11-13) True silence, the inner stillness, the still point, is an achieve-ment to be sought, yet always remains a grace. But it is a grace upon which we must focus our attention. It requires discipline, which does not guarantee interior silence, but rather prepares the way. We must devote time to "the practice of silence," the practice of interior and contemplative prayer, the practice of an awareness that is the fruit of quieting the mind.2 Such "quiet" is not easily obtained in our world today. Not Review for Religious that a busy, technological, urban society is the enemy of silence, but neither is it a friend. Modern social and commercial life cannot prevent the pursuit of silence, but neither do they encourage or value it. Entertainment is a noisy industry. The more channels we have on television, the better. But then they must be filled--with "stuff," whatever it be. They compete for attention; thus, the more out-rageous, the more likely the success. The Internet now multiplies ways to distract us from an inner stillness. Not to find television entertaining seems quaint. To see it or the overuse of the Internet as distraction from true entertain-ment, a life with God quietly pursued, is sec-ular heresy. For silence is not the stuff of which modern societies, commerce, or edu-cation are ordinarily made. Not that the media, the schools, the churches, market-places, and businesses are avowed enemies of silence; they are just uneasy with it. We are talking about a disciplined silence that requires resolve. Its close friends are solitude and simplicity. These compan-ions reveal how countercultural true silence really is. Solitude is one of silence's most cherished friends. Yet how difficult it is in our world today to find solitude, to pursue solitude, to practice solitude. We are "driven" away from it. We can hardly face the silence within ourselves. We flee. As Francis Thompson wrote: I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter.3 The running is aided by all the activities of our world, justified by the needs of our world, and rationalized by "This is just our world and that's the way it is." To desire silence we must value solitude. We identify aloneness with loneliness. But, until we are at home with ourselves, we will always be lonely, no matter how busy, how "with it," how much with others we might be. As we know, marriage is no cure for loneliness. Neither is single life. Dietrich Modern social and commercial life cannot prevent the pursuit of silence, but neither do they encourage or value it. November-December 2000 Goergen ¯ Retrieving tbe Practice of Silence Bonhoeffer once cautioned us to be wary of the person who lives with another or in community who cannot be alone, or who lives alone but cannot live in community.4 Sociality and solitude are two sides of the same coin: we can-not find one without the other. Silence lives on solitude. We must find ways to structure it into our lives on a regular basis, like the food we eat. Where can we find that place apart, that space for being alone, and for how long can we keep ourselves there with-out being taken up by distractions~ Where can we go to practice silence? Or how in the midst of activity can we find that cell within? s One of solitude's companions is simplicity of life. Simplicity inside requires simplicity outside. A cluttered, thing-filled, con-sumer- intensive environment is hardly the place in which to prac-tice an awareness that few things in life are important. The world immediately outside myself needs to reflect what I am trying to attain within myself. Simplicity in life is an outward expression of simplicity within. One's "within" and "without" go together. And now we can see more clearly why our current economic world can easily become an enemy of silence. The pursuit of silence eventu-ally becomes a pursuit of simplicity of life--which is a recognizable enemy to a consumer economy, a global and ever expanding mar-ket economy. Not that the market is evil; it is just easy prey to the pretension that it alone is important, the be-all and end-all of human life. The practices of silence, solitude, and simplicity enable us to see the truth about economic pursuits: How inhumane they can be when given priority in life, how grounded in greed they become! Kinds of Silence There are a variety of silences.6 Silence can be either destruc-tive or constructive.7 Destructive silence is refusing to speak when a word is called for, a word of consolation, of affection, of chal-lenge. Destructive silence can be passive aggression, a refusal to participate, a lack of care, a form of punishment, unconscionable noncommunication. But silence as context for an interior journey is positive. Silence as a socia! context is the absence of noise in our imme-diate environment. There are different degrees of environmental silence. A noiseless environment is difficult to find in modern Review for Religious urban settings. One can distinguish rural silences and urban silences. For someone unaccustomed to rural silences, the sound of the cricket or the howl of a coyote can be disturbing. There are sounds to which we have become accustomed and those to which we are not. Familiar sounds need not destroy environmen-tal silence, but can blend with it. There is a silent stillness to the vastness of nature: the sounds and silence of the ocean, the moun-tains, the desert, the plains. Each is a different environment and a different silence. On a windless day, sitting atop one of the mountain peaks of the Sangre de Cristo range near Christ in the Desert Monastery in northern New Mexico, one can hear an almost Human silence absolute environmental silence. Human silence is the presence of nonspeech, call be a silence It is not necessarily noncommunication or non-of solitude, communitarian. Silence itself can communicate abundantly, and it is amazing what can be corn- but it can also be municated without words. Human silence can be a silence of solitude, but it can also be commu- communitarian. nitarian. A solemn silence can prevail in Christian or Buddhist monasteries or a Hindu ashram, in a synagogue, church, or mosque. These settings or "environments" can be sacred space. There are times and places when human speech is out of place or out of season. Human silence can be community silence, but there is also personal silence. An individual person can cultivate silence--by seeking environmental silence, or sacred space, or solitude, but also by the practice of silence: avoiding unnecessary speech, c~eating personal space, the silence of one's own room, withdrawing to "the cell within," lis-tening to music, allowing absorption in art and beauty, acquiring an inner stillness and the practice of meditation. Personal silence itself is not only oriented toward calm, tran-quillity, and an absence of stress, but ultimately toward interior silence, the silencing of the mind, even if this is rare or only momentary. I remember a conversation with a cloistered Dominican nun, who had a doctorate and had been teaching before joining this cloistered contemplative community. When I asked why she had joined the monastery, she replied, "I needed to stop thinking if I was going to start praying." The human being is a reflective being, but also a contemplative being that sometimes needs to move beyond thoughts (mental silence) as well as wordsv-~z-~'~---)-'[-i November-December 2000 Goergen ¯ Retrieving the Practice of Silence (verbal silence). The interior journey is in fact directed toward this deep silence within, this cave of the heart, this still point, this soul of the soul, this human spirit. Spiritual silence is the human spirit at peace, the silence of the spirit in its communion with the Spirit of God, the divine Spirit, the Holy Spirit. This is mystical silence, with its dark nights, its ecstatic joy, its calm recollection, its deep rest. Silence of any sort is most often not constant, but periodic, coming at intervals, having a rhythm of its own. Deep silence, mystical silence, is not an achievement but a grace. Thus one can speak of the grace of silence, a grace that is present in varied ways and at varied levels, exteriorly and interiorly: the prayer of silence, the silent Presence, the Holy Mystery. It is this mystery that we cel-ebrate in liturgy and seek in contemplation. We experience litur-gical silence, a pastoral silence, intimate silences, times and places not to speak, for which words are inappropriate, occasions on which only silence can communicate. Silence can communicate from within a depth beyond words. In community, in friendship, in ministry, and in prayer there must be silence as well as speech. Divine silence is God's very own silence, God's very own self-communication, God's' awesome and incomprehensible transcen-dence, God's overwhelming intimate immanence, God's elusive presence and mysterious absence, God's truth and God's beauty, the Nameless One whose name is Father, Son, and Spirit, the One- Who-Is, the One-Who-Is-With-Us, the silence of being, the sound of ore, the soundlessness of communion, the union of God and humanity, the union of Word and flesh, the triune union, the incor-poration of humanity into the silent triunity of its Creator. There is ultimately no distinction between divine Silence and divine Speech. They are one 'and the same. God's speech is silent, and God's silence speaks. Silence and Theology .The practice of silence is necessary not only for the spiritual journey and to sustain our humanity. It is also essential for doing theology. Theologians are accountable for their theology to their professional peers, to their varied communities of faith, and to society at large for the quality, fidelity, and social implications of their work. They cannot absolve themselves of this threefold responsibility. But the theologian is also accountable to God. One Review for Religious does not stand before the Holy Mystery, the mysterium fascinans et tremendum, without asking the Holy Spirit for courage, guid-ance, and wisdom. In other words, all theology must begin with prayer. It has both a reflective moment and a contemplative moment. It is not an ego project, but a work of the Spirit. Theology cannot be done apart from silence. The practice of silence, of placing oneself in the presence of God, of meditation, of listening, of longing are all part of doing theology. Theology can too easily become words, verbal batdes, polemic, agenda ridden, jargon, rather than revelatory, illuminating, con-nected to life, committed to Truth. This happens when theolo-gians neglect the practice of contemplative silence--which would make them aware of both the inadequacy and the necessity of words for communicating the divine mystery. A theologian needs to be practiced in the art of silence. So does the magisterium in the church need to practice it. "Roma locuta est," the saying goes. But think of the symbolic power in "Roma tacuit." What a wonderful example that could be. Magisterial authority must reflect that we are a learning church as well as a teaching church. Is not part of the crisis over author-ity the ways in which the church exercises its authority? We do not grant authority easily to those who do not listen. Silence gives value to words. Apart from words, silence can be sterile, but apart from silence words lose their power. As Ecclesiastes (3:7) says, "There is a time for keeping silence, a time for speaking." Silence is a work of the Spirit. True silence is ulti-mately prayer. It speaks with authority. It communicates truth. It creates community. It is the voice of the soul, of the human spirit, and of the Holy Spirit. Can we afford to allow its practice to become peripheral in our lives? In The Sleeping Beauty, Ralph Harper points to the value of silence for our world: Each order of experience has its own a.tmosphere. The atmo-sphere of presence, of giving, of wholeness, is silence. We know that serious things have to be done in silence, because we do not have words to measure the immeasurable. In silence people love, pray, listen, compose, paint, write, think, suffer. These experiences are all occasions of giving and receiving, of some encounter with forces that are inex-haustible and independent of us. These are easily distin-guishable from our routines and possessiveness as silence is distinct from noise.8 November-December 2000 Goergen ¯ Retrieving the Practice of Silence Not only nuns and monks, but all of us need to retrieve the art and practice of silence. We need to dip deeply into the silent abyss of self, of God, of God in the self and the self in God, We need to explore the emptiness and the fullness that lie within us. We need silence. Notes 1 Abhishiktananda, "The Upanishads and Advaitic Experience," in The Further Shore (New Delhi: I.S.P.C.K., 1984), p. 117. 2 Buddhist traditions also see a triple relationship: compassion, rooted ¯ in egolessness, which in turn is rooted in mindfulness. These three are intimately connected. See Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (San Francisco: Harper, 1992), esp. pp. 59-72, 116-122, 188-201. 3 The first lines of "The Hound of Heaven." 4 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1954), esp. pp. 76~89. "Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. ¯. The mark of solitude is silence, as speech is the mark of community. Silence and speech have the same inner correspondence and difference as do solitude and community. One does not exist without the other. Right speech comes out of silence, and right silence out of speech. Silence does not mean dumbness, as speech does not mean chatter. Dumbness does not create solitude and chatter does not create fellowship" (p. 78). s See Catherine of Siena: The Dialogue, trans. Suzanne Noffke OP (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), on the "cell of self-knowledge," pp. 25, 118, 122, 125, 135, and 158. 6 Theodore Pereira in "Eloquence in Silence, Healing in Stillness," Indian Theological Studies 33 (June 1996): 99-126, has written about different types of silences. 7 "Silence itself is expressed in several ways. We know silences of contempt and of joy, of pain and of pleasure, of consent and of solitude." Jean-Luc Marion, God without Being (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 53-54. ~ Ralph Harper, The Sleeping Beauty (London: Harvill Press, 1955), pp. 110-111. The word "men" in the original was changed to "people" to accommodate current usage. Review for Religious KENNETH C. RUSSELL The Dangers of Solitude ~o~e~oe ldi!a nTgheerrse oisf as ololintugd tera. dAitniodn t hoef wwaarrnniinngg sw hoauvlde- bneo th ceormmiets solely from cenobites suspicious of solitaries off doing "their own thing." Religious who have the highest regard for the blessings and joys of the life of aloneness with God have tempered their enthusiasm with cautionary words about the special difficulties the solitary is likely to encounter. Thomas Merton, for example, warns that "sordid difficulties and uncertainties" attend .the life of even interior solitude,l Authors from the first centuries of the church conjure up frightening pictures of the demons who lie in wait for the unsuspecting hermit, while modern writers warn newcomers to the desert that solitude will force them to confront the disturbing image of their true self. The message is clear: more awaits the novice hermit than the beauties of nature and the spiritual delights which ancient and contemporary enthusiasts of the eremitical life tend to emphasize. I suppose that most contemporary solitaries would agree that demons in one guise or another must be wrestled with and that it can, indeed, be a distressing experience to come face to face with the self we usually avoid in a flurry of activity. However, I also suspect that most hermits are somewhat amused by both the modern and the ancient depiction of their lot. They would be only too happy to confess that there are no monsters writhing in the Kenneth C. Russell last wrote for our March-April 2000 issue. His address remains 40 Landry Street, Apt. 1505; Vanier, Ontario; K1L 8K4 Canada. November-December 2000 E5-7-5 Russell ¯ The Dangers of Solitude corners of their huts and that the identity crisis so precious to their contemporaries does not keep them awake nights. What they actually confront, it seems, is a routine cycle of sun and cloud on a prairie stretching clear to the horizon. There are no mountains or valleys to speak of. Their bad days are as unremarkable as their good ones. They struggle against subtle temptations, not spectacular ones. It has always been so. The 12th-century Cistercian Aelred of Rievaulx recognized this in his hard-hitting Letter to a Recluse, addressed to his elderly sister but written with less seasoned solitaries in mind? So did his contemporaries Peter the Venerable and Bernard of Portes, who wrote shorter and less theologically dense letters to male recluses who had asked their advice.3 Twelfth-century recluses lived in circumstances that are quite different from those in which most modern hermits seek solitude. But this does not mean that the letters of Peter and Bernard are merely quaint witnesses to a bygone era. The basics of the eremitical life are constant across the centuries. They are also unaffected by the way in which different solitaries choose to live the eremitical life. Whether the solitary is a recluse, a hermit, or a homeless wanderer like Benedict Joseph Labre does not radically modify the eremitical life. Consequently the letters Peter and Bernard wrote to 12th-century male monastic recluses remain relevant to male and female solitaries of all kinds, even today. Indeed, it seems to me that their practical orientation makes them especially useful. Therefore, I want to focus on the difficulties these authors see arising when the honeymoon period of the eremitical life--which may last a good long time--is finally over. In highlighting some of the minor difficulties which can grow into major problems if not attended to, it is not my intention to present a negative view of the solitary life. It does have dark days; it would not be a human enterprise if it did not. However, in focusing on the gray periods, I am not denying its spells of fine weather. I am merely reiterating the warning uttered down the centuries that people who wander off into the desert on their own had better know what they are about. Peter the Venerable's Letter to Ghislebert Peter the Venerable, the great abbot of Cluny, was, by his own admission, a very busy man. In fact, he shocks us a bit by admitting that he read the letters from a Cluniac recluse named Ghislebert in Review for Religious his choir stall on Holy Saturday. He claims that he had simply not been able to find a moment to read them earlier. Peter may have been rushed, but he nevertheless knew something about the eremitical life. Not only did he himself periodically spend time in solitude, but he had pastoral experience in directing monks who sought a solitary retreat for a limited period or for life. There were actually a large number of hermits living in the woods near Cluny. Peter the Venerable, then, knew what he was talking about when he replied to Ghislebert's request for guidance. The key to Peter's advice is the emphasis he puts on the idea that, as a recluse, Ghislebert has been buried with Christ. We do not know the nature of the liturgical ceremony with which Ghislebert was committed to his cell, but other sources indicate that the idea of being buried with Christ and dead to the world was sometimes dramatically represented by using funeral rites to initiate such enclosure. In any case, Peter emphasizes that, if his effort to live as a recluse is going to succeed, Ghislebert had better be sure that he is indeed dead to the world and the world dead to him. To drive home the point, Peter quotes the desert father Arsenius: "Flee people, be silent, and you will be saved." In short, be what you have set out to be and all will be well. Although we may feel a little ill-at-ease with the medieval idea of the recluse being rather literally buried with Christ, it is obvious that any new solitary needs to make a definitive break with the world and his or her past to get off to a good start. He or she has to be serious about being marginal. But, for all the images of being cut off and buried, the reality is that a living human being goes into the desert. He or she wants to be there, of course, but the spiritual and especially the psychological conditioning to solitude is not achieved by a mere act of will. The hermit, in fact, begins with some interior dividedness. Part of the self has no interest in disappearing. Inevitably the life force will rise up against the isolation and denial of achievement that the solitary life demands. Hermits also soon discover, as the Carthusian Guigo II puts it, that they are a crowd unto themselves. They are, indeed, the doorway through which the world presses into the cell. They may succeed in finding a quiet spot on the sidelines of society, but the Hermits soon discover that they are a crowd unto themselves. November-December 2000 Russell ¯ The Dangers of Solitude internal vacuum created by their withdrawal makes them vulnerable to the imagination's readiness to reassert their right to a place in the world. Since hermits have what we might term a "weak" present, the mind tends to take refuge in either the past or the future. Bernard of Portes will highlight the way in which the past crowds into the hermit's mind. Peter the Venerable puts more emphasis on the daydreams about the future which exploit the hermit's status to draw him away from his solitude. He pictures the monk turned hermit imagining that he feels the tabs of a bishop's miter on the back of his necl~ or fantasizing that he is the wise, holy, and much admired abbot of a large monastic community. This is all nonsense, of course, and surely most beginners are as amused by the tricks the imagination plays as Peter the Venerable is. What is not funny is that these silly thoughts can trouble prayer. It is also true, unfortunately, that small threads can weave themselves into strong ropes. If hermits are not careful, they can convince themselves that they are made for something better than the sorry life of a solitary. A more serious pressure to "return from the dead" and reenter the hustle and bustle of.life, bit by bit, springs from the essential nature of the solitary existence. Hermits have to live without the external momentum that social interaction usually provides. They are not carried along by the excitement of what is going on at their workplace, nor can they look forward to parties or sports events to distract them. Unfortunately, unless solitaries maintain their focus on whatever is the task of the moment, their day-to-day existence will begin to feel dull and wearisome. The obvious way to relieve this lethargy is for the solitary to engage in a small amount of pastoral or counseling activity. This sounds like a psychologically sound idea, especially to modern Christians, who are more than a little suspicious of the way hermits pull away from the good causes "activists" think so important. Peter the Venerable, however, is not so sure. He is afraid that this public ministry will become addictive. Instead of relieving the hermits' boredom so that they can return to the solitary life refreshed, each turn outward makes solitude all the more unbearable and the turn away from it all the easier. What looks like a solution to the pressures of the eremitical regime can destroy a hermit's ability to live the solitary life. "Doing good" can do a hermit in. A second consequence of the turn outward is that the solitaries' Review for Religious availability attracts people who offer two enticing things: prestige and cash. Since the strict eremitical life deprives hermits of the ordinary opportunities to see themselves mirrored in the reaction of others, Peter the Venerable rightly fears that Ghislebert will take the high esteem in which he is held by those he helps as the true measure of his worth. The abbot sees a further danger in the money that the hermit will be offered for his services. With all the good intentions in the world, Ghislebert can easily find himself managing a little charitable fund which will grow, as such things do, until, as Peter puts it, he is putting up buildings and demolishing himself. Peter's point would seem to be that hermits who are not perfectly honest about their motivations can make a place for themselves in the world. They can keep an address in the woods, as it were, and still be part of society. The price they pay, unfortunately, is the abandonment of their original commitment. History offers many examples which confirm that the hardest thing in the world for solitaries is actually to be what they profess to be. Aelred of Rievaulx was very hard on the way in which solitaries drift into outside activities. He sharply admonished them to wake up to the facts of their vocation. "When you are pressured to get involved: Tu sede, tu tace, tu sustine. Sit still, keep quiet, and stick it out! Period! Leave the doing of good deeds to those who .have the responsibility for such tasks." The solitary's fundamental temptation, it seems, is to focus on something other than God. According to Peter, this can be anything from good works to an obsession with health or appearance. "Doing good" can do a hermit in. Bernard of Portes's Letter to Rainald The Carthusian Bernard of Portes agrees with Peter the Venerable that solitaries need to be on guard against the distractions that are likely to entice them away from their fundamental commitment. He is particularly sensitive, however, to the spiritual and psychological repercussions of the hermit's withdrawal from society. He understands very well that the social self will not go lightly into solitude. Though hermits are united to all believers and, indeed, all humanity in their union with Christ in his church, the social self wants to strut its stuff in the midst of the diversions November-December 2000 Russell * The Dangers of Solitude Hermits do not have the social status they enjoyed in the 12th century. of the marketplace. It does not want to be shut away with not much more than God to focus on. Therefore, Bernard warns Rainald that he must expect a spell of bad weather sooner or later. One day he might be hit by a wave of sadness and the next be in a bad mood and irritable. He will find tapes from his past running in his head while he reedits the script of what he said and did. A troupe of lewd thoughts will stage its floor show one day, and lukewarnmess flood in the next. It seems that there is no escape from these inner storms and flat stretches. Indeed, Bernard maintains that hermits go into the desert specifically t6 wrestle with these elements that distract us from God. They are, we might say, the psychological echoes of a hermit's attachment to the world he or she claims to have renounced. Bernard of Portes warns hermits that, because they are no longer carried along by the current of daily life in society, they will be the targets of acedia and sadness. Acedia, a listless psychospiritual condition, weighs so heavily on its victims that some escape from the boredom o'f the here and now into dreams of what has been and might yet be while others slip into the torpor of chronic fatigue. This affliction, which involves a hanging back from the initial vocational commitment and a failure to actualize it in the present moment, "detemporalizes" hermits. It weakens their focus on the here and now and sets them adrift. Therefore they look outward for things to occupy their mind and fill their time. Bernard says it is very important for hermits to give their life a certain self-generated dynamism by moving from one activity to another th~'oughout the day. Oddly enough, this is in accord with the traditional wisdom that the secret of the eremitical life is "Keep it moving." Bernard also emphasizes meditation and advises Rainald to be totally present to the words he is saying when he recites the Office. Bernard, it is quite clear, believes that acedia can be held at bay if a hermit puts his or her mind to it and lives in the present moment. Sadness, however, is another matter. Bernard seems convinced that an occasional period of feeling down is an inescapable feature of the eremitical life. Sadness is, I suppose, a pit into which an Review for Religious individual ill-suited for solitude might tumble, but this does not seem to be what Bernard has in mind. He is describing, not a chronic or pathological condition, but the normal downturns of life--which the hermit feels more intensely because of his or her isolation. On the spiritual level, the alternation of these strong and weak periods is inevitable in view of the ebb and flow of God's grace. If acedia pulls one away from the present, sadness can be said to sink one into it. Sadness is the clouding over of the eternal horizon of hope which draws us forward. Without the attraction of the ultimate goal--which is, remember, the sole dynamic element in a hermit's life--the individual is oppressed by the miseries of the present. For no good reason, anger can well up in the solitary and rail away at the self or other people: "Nothing they do is ever any good, and nothing I try ever works out!" Such slack times call for patience, because, once again, the temptation is to shift attention away from God and the love that is his due. The self, whether proud or inadequate, whether much sought after or neglected, must not become the primary object of the hermit's attention. Application to Modern Hermits Is any of this applicable to modern hermits living in country cabins and cheap city apartments? I think so. Times have certainly changed, but the leisure of the hermit can still go flat, and money remains a worrisome issue. Unlike their 12th-century counterparts, modern hermits do not have to figure out how to channel their excess funds to the poor without attracting a crowd of beggars, but they do have to worry about how to live apart from the world and still earn their keep. Unless they are supported by a religious congregation or order, paying their bills and providing some measure of stability in an unsettled time can be a real preoccupation. Indeed, it can shipwreck their project altogether. Pride, which Peter the Venerable and Bernard of Portes see as a major threat to hermits, would seem to be less of a worry these days. Solitaries are looked up to once again, but the applause is not unanimous. In fact, many people who give their lives to the service of Christ and his poor question the sense of such a calling. Certainly hermits do not have the social status they enjoyed in the 12th century. In any case, while many religious who become November-December 2000 Russell ¯ The Dangers of Solitude With no one else to worry about, they can become obsessed with every ache. solitaries identify themselves as hermits, most lay hermits have no official status of any kind. They live a hidden life which is just that, hidden. The lack of social status does not mean, of course, that hermits are immune to the temptation to take a little secret pride in the uniqueness of their calling. Pride, however, does not seem to be the great danger it was to hermits in the Middle Ages. Certainly relevant today, however, is the emphasis Peter the Venerable and Bernard of Portes put on the need for the hermit to exist in the now. This almost Buddhist focus on being present to the moment is for both of them basic to the eremitical life. Without this absorption in the here and now, distractions press in. The hermit, to borrow a phrase from the world of sports, "loses his or her concentration" on the worship of God in unending prayer. This is a major problem, but, given the restrictions of the solitary life, it manifests itself in small and sometimes silly ways. For example, hermits may get too wrapped up in their work or turn repairs to their dwelling into a full-scale redecorating project. They can become finicky fussbudgets who insist that every item in their cell be lined up just so. Worse yet, with no one else to worry about, they can become obsessed with every ache and sniffle. What are we to make of Peter the Venerable's condemnation of the tendency of hermits to make themselves useful to their fel-low Christians by offering them the fruit, as it were, of their con-templative silence? Must we conclude that he, and Bernard as well, would censure the spiritual direction and parish activities in which some contemporary hermits get involved? Not necessarily. In their letters both authors emphasize--and we must keep in mind that they were writing to recluses, that is, to solitaries who in theory were totally cut off from the world--that the singularity of the eremitical life means that hermits will have to work out what is best for them. Therefore, while Bernard borrows from the cus-toms of the Carthusians to make all kinds of suggestions to Rainald about the details of his life, he realizes that it is up to the hermit to exercise discretion in choosing what suits him. Consequently, we can conclude that, although Peter and Bernard show that it is easy for hermits to delude themselves about why they are rendering this or that occasional service, it is up to them to determine, after Review for Religious taking counsel, what fosters their aloneness with God and what hinders it. I suspect that there are times when novice solitaries, going through a dark period, might welcome the sight of a few demons raising cain in their living room. They might even be glad to summon up the self-absorption required for the drama of a first-class identity crisis. Anything exciting and novel would be a relief. What they have to contend with, however, day in and day out, as Peter and Bernard remind them, is the subtle task of remaining faithful to their original commitment in all kinds of psychological weather. They have much to gain and much to lose. Peter the Venerable and Bernard of Portes, who shared a high regard for the solitary life, warn them, therefore, to take care. Notes ' Thomas Merton, "Notes for a Philosophy of Solitude," in his Disputed Questions (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1960; Noonday Book, 1976), p. 165. 2 A Rule of Life for a Recluse, trans. Mary Paul MacPherson, in The Works of Aelred of Rievaulx, Vol. 1: Treatises, The Pastoral Prayer, Cistercian Fathers Series, no. 2 (Spencer, Massachusetts: Cistercian Publications, 1971). 3 Neither the letter of Peter the Venerable to Ghislebert nor Bernard of Portes's letter to Rainald has, as far as I know, been translated into English. The Latin text and a French translation of Bernard's letter can be found in Lettres des premiers chartreux, Vol. 2, introduction, critical text, French translation, and notes by "un chartreux" (Sources chr~tiennes, no. 274; Paris: Cerf, 1980), pp. 50-79. For the Latin text of Peter's letter, see Giles Constable, The Letters of Peter the Venerable, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), pp. 27-41. November-December 2000 MARY BETH MOORE A Spiritual Direction Connie drew the heavy drape across the window, noting the ast gray light filtering from the west. She turned on a small lamp on one side of the room and lit the vanilla candle at the other. Immediately its aroma permeated the small space. She selected a Mozart disc from the handful of CDs near the love seat, placed it carefully on the turntable, pressed play, and adjusted the volume so that the maestro's graceful, precise notes were barely audible, as subtle as the candle. She paused, looking slowly to each corner until satisfied by the atmosphere she had created. Free of clutter, the parlor was just large enough for the love seat, chair, and coffee table. She sat down on the chair. Connie never sat until she was satisfied. She was a short, heavy woman and, since it was not easy for her to get out of a chair, she considered the act of getting into it. She had a few moments before her guest arrived, and this time was also planned. The guest or, more precisely, the directee required the kind of attention one must work up to. So she made an effort to appreciate the room for its own sake. She awaited the security these preparations usually brought. She summoned the attitude of inner peace which any directee had a right to expect of her, breathing deeply, ignoring the slight pulse in her legs, ankles, even noting the contradiction between attending to a pleas-ant carnal sensation--the candle--and determinedly shutting out the unpleasant. She made herself breathe. Connie had been a spiritual director for almost twenty years, Mary Beth Moore SC writes from 3496 Jerusalem Avenue; Wantagh, New York 11793. Review for Religious and people liked her. She had talent in this abstruse area, and she knew this because her directees said so. Most of her clients were nuns, participants in a lifestyle whose subtle conflicts she knew as her own, having been a nun now for forty years. Relationships: community, friends, principals, superiors. Even, occasionally, a romantic entanglement. And, of course, the relationship with God. Connie never told them what to do. She listened. She asked ques-tions. She recalled for the searcher his or her own best qualities. (Yes, even the occasional priest or layman found his way to her.) Generosity. Loyalty. Courage. Connie never mi~de these things up. Yes, that was the talent. Seemingly from thin air, she would recall a point the directee had made two months before, or ask precisely the right question. "What must you do to grow in this sit-uation?" The question was perhaps trite, but the answers never were. Stammering or articulate, passionate or cool, the directee usually responded with a perfectly credible plan of action, one whose truthfulness went to the heart of the matter. She had learned to expect the creativity that her directees brought with them. Still, Connie did not consider herself creative. She thought of herself as a modest person, and attributed the results to God's grace. When she looked in the mirror, she saw a face that had always been plain, and was now old. Of course, Connie had not once seen her own brown eyes transformed with the glow of the full attention she gave to the directees. They simply thanked her. She expected nothing more. At the sound of the doorbell, Connie took hold of the chair arms and, giving herself a boost, stood and steadied herself before crossing the short distance to the front door. She was pleasantly nervous for this encounter with her client, and she hurried as much as she could, knowing how uncomfortable it was to wait at her door. The Bronx brownstone faced southeast toward the Sound and Long Island, and through the winter a stiffwind blew almost steadily. She opened the door to see a petite woman framed against the dark corridor of the street, hopping around on the stoop to cope with the cold. The sky behind her was clear, but dark. The city lights obliterated all but the highest-hung stars. "Marilyn, my dear, come in quickly before the wind knocks you down." "It almost did. I parked a block away, and--" "Did you meet much traffic?" Connie took Marilyn's coat and shivered at the cold that rolled off of it. November-December 2000 Moore ¯ A Spiritual Direction "Som'e, as usual. The Cross Bronx is always crowded." "Oh, that's a terrible road. I always feel glad when I turn off. A cup of tea before we start?" "I would love it, if it's no trouble. It sounds so good." "No trouble at all. Go in and make yourse.lf comfortable. I'll be right back." She indicated the room she had just prepared, and waited to be sure her guest was seated before disappearing into the inner quarters to make tea. She returned with a tray and two steaming cups. They were silent as they fixed the tea to their lik-ing. Part of Connie's skill was to suppress small talk as the pre-lude to spiritual direction. Chatter cluttered the spirit, she believed. She had once lived as a hermit for three months, and the disci-pline served her well. After a suitable interval she moved to her cus-tomary opener. "So, tell me, what brings you to spiritual direction?" "Ah, yes. Well, I have the intuition, this notion. It haunts me and I feel almost, I don't know, maybe, embarrassed to share it. Or even ashamed--though maybe that is too strong a word. I've tried to discuss it, get a hold, but I." Connie listened as the other woman stuttered, and felt a tug of compassion. She leaned ever so slightly toward her, her eyes widening to lend support to the recitation. A sexual problem per-haps. Everything supposedly out in the open these days, but the unique turns of the human heart, and the struggle to articulate them! She waited. ". this notion, and others don't want to hear, or maybe can't hear. Almost a conviction actually." "A conviction that ." Connie was poised, waiting for the other to look up. "I don't want to offend you, as well. But I suppose it's foolish to come and beat around the bush. You see--" "'I assure you, my dear, I won't be offended. I'm eager to hear what you have to say." "A conviction that it's over. Over, over, over." Connie frowned, noted the slightest wave of impatience with the conversation's turn. "You'll have to tell me what 'it' is, I think." "This." She spread her hands as if her meaning should be obvi-ous, indicating the candle, the lamp, and Connie herself with thrusts of her chin. "Convents. Middle-aged women living in polite little groups, good-hearted, but accommodated. Comfortable. Convents, parlors, single beds, obsessive neatness, vanilla candles. Over." Review for Religious "Leave my candle out of it, at least," Connie said, more emphatically than she had intended. She was offended, but she did not realize it quite yet. "O.K. Your candle may be spared." Marilyn grinned. "But as for the other elements, well, the writing is on the wall." "Nebuchadnezzar? A kingdom about to fall?" Connie tried to get her bearings. The other's hesitancy had disappeared, her voice got stronger by the sentence, and Connie began to think that her earlier, tentative approach might have been a ploy. "Yes. That's exactly right, Connie. The humble kingdom we built for ourselves that did so much good. Children we taught, sick we nursed. It was a world in itself, a kingdom if you will. We had a place in a religiosity that was shared by Catholics every-where. In that Catholic world, we had a mystique of holiness, otherness. We were a cheap labor pool. Now others can do what we did, without living a special way of life." She took deep breath while Connie waited with alarm. "I believe our lifestyle is ending." Buy time. That was Connie's second idea, after the first one, something like, who do you think you are? Who are you, sup-posedly asking me for help, boldly upending a tradition? One that needs no defense. "I must keep eye contact," she thought. "Marilyn, too, is a committed religious, sincere, middle-aged, a seeker like myself." She was unused to such a strong emotion that was not compassion. She focused with effort. "Fall back on tech-nique," she urged herself. When she finally spoke, her voice was light. "Well, that's radical, for sure. Possibly a bit reductive. I'll need some time to take in the idea. But, in any case, you know that spir-itual direction does not provide answers. Why don't you tell me about your prayer. What's happening there?" "Connie, don't you see? That is what's happening. I pray, but I feel afraid. This sense of winding down . . . it, it assaults me. This is the result of my reading the signs of the times. And, very selfishly, I wonder what will happen to us. I'd actually like some-body to refute me." "'Prayer is the balance of mind and heart. Perhaps you think too much." November-December 2000 Moore ¯ A Spiritual Direction "Prayer is the balance of mind and heart. Perhaps you think too much." "Oh, maybe. It's just when I have an insight I always think it's correct. I'm not pious, either." Marilyn's voice had softened. Connie saw that she had heard her words as a correction, as in fact they had been. She had men-tioned fear, a key word in Connie's work, the rope binding the spirit, an adversary of growth. Usually Connie would have asked about it, but this evening it suddenly seemed like too much trou-ble. She was impatient, her back began to ache. She sought for a middle ground. "Or perhaps I think too little. You're a challenge to me, and I'm not sure if I can be as objective as I like. Can you"--she searched for the way back to Marilyn's point--"can you stay with the questions?" She got a little stronger. "Ride the questions." Marilyn thrust out her chin, as if shg regarded the question as an object in the room. There was a pulse of silence. "Yeah. That's a good idea." She smiled and looked at Connie with a glint of humor. "Good luck. I'll pray with you." There was a notable pause, and Connie sighed before turn-ing to topics of lesser import. Her back pain was easing, and she felt relieved that the conversation had returned to a manageable place. She was no coward. She had borne others' tears and rage at God. But a messy squabble with herself as partner was not at all congenial. She had put the balance back. She would pray with and for Marilyn. Both were careful to refrain from gossip in the spiritual-direc-tion setting; the set of those who chose such support was small, and many knew each other. Still, there were allowable facts--some-one's new job, an elderly sister's passing. And, after the intense discussion of the inner life, it was consoling to take in the mellow light and the full attention, each from the other. When they had finished the tea, and the candle wax threatened to spill on the table top, Marilyn moved to go. Connie helped her with her coat, saw her out into the cold air. The street was quieter now and a single star, maybe a planet, winked above the streetlights. She closed the door and went back to her direction room to turn off the light and blow out the candle. The wax had leaked onto the table into a viscous pool. "Ride the question," she repeated softly aloud to herself. She had been pleased to hit upon a phrase Revie~v for Religious that seemed to help her directee, but, as she turned it over in her mind now, looking at the empty room, it sounded trite, facile. The dialogue with Marilyn echoed in her mind, and a sensation rip-pled quickly, like the hint of an unpleasant duty she could not quite remember. She stepped away from the room with unusual haste and headed for the community recreation room and her favorite TV program. When Connie got to the community room, Sarah was watch-ing a public TV program--something about endangered species-- with the intensity of a graduate student. While she made eye contact with Connie, she held up a forefinger to postpone conversation until the program seg-ment ended. Connie sank into the chair and waited. She did not mind. It was more inter-esting to observe Sarah than to watch the parade of facts on the screen. She could easily see in the woman the ardent girl she had taught thirty years before, and, in her unsettled state of mind, that girl seemed to inhabit the room again. Sarah's field was biology, and she brought her expertise along with boundless energy to a nonprofit agency that monitored the environ-ment. Connie studied her with detached affec-tion. What was it that made Sarah so interesting? The combination of ambition and idealism, thought Connie. She was the perfect nun for our time. Connie mused about the effect of her own ministry. She had joined Sarah and the others in the brownstone house the year she finished her term as novice director. It had been her initiative to work free-lance in spiritual direction, and the community con-firmed' her choice. Her clients found her by word of mouth. She spent her day much as she had with the novices, in a disciplined but unhurried rhythm of prayer, study, and client appointments. It was Sarah who persuaded Connie to get a paying job two years ago. Some of the sisters in her own house had argued against it, but Sarah persisted. She pointed out to Connie that she com-plained about being the one to answer telephone solicitations and wait for plumbers. Sarah, the realist, reminded the community that their income base was shrinking, since the elderly sisters far outnumbered the younger wage-earners. Connie began to mind She could see in the woman the ardent girl she had taught thirty years before. November-December 2000 Moore ¯ A Spiritual Direction not having even a modest paycheck to present for the running of the house, and the quota for the retired sisters' care. The only thing she did not tell Sarah and the others was that she was tired of not having tales to "tell at supper about the outside world they inhabited each day. What could she say about spiritual direction? In that field there were no general issues, no little anecdotes, to report, only secrets of the heart whose value was discovered as the directee conferred it. So Connie took a job as the secretary in a little Catholic school in the Bronx. She bolstered the idealistic young man who was prin-cipal and lent an ear to the parents who rushed through with for-gotten lunches and umbrellas. She now had tales for the dinner table with the community, and savored even more the evenings of direction. She did not allow herself to miss the easy pace she had once enjoyed. She was often tired. She worried intermittently about losing weight, especially when Sarah inaugurated a new restric-tion in the community diet. She gave up insisting that they buy whole milk: it was not worth the commentary on cholesterol. But these were small .annoyances, predictable, familiar. If the occa-sional ache or pain pressed itself too deeply into her conscious-ness, her mind might leap to the future for a moment. But the pain subsided, or was integrated into what she chose to put up with. It was against her principles to measure herself by a worldly standard. She gazed at the TV for a bit, savoring the comfort of her (avorite chair until the program finished and Sarah pressed the mute button. "How was your day?" Connie asked. "Really productive," Sarah answered brightly. "I spent the morning editing that junior high 'natural city' curriculum. Jake did a great job with the project and I told him so. Then I had a meeting with the Friends of the Harbor committee. Giuliani's guy stopped in. Nice person actually, said he would continue to press our concerns with the mayor. He sounded sincere, but we'll keep the pressure on anyway. Peter was pleased." "Peter?" "Grossman, the earth sciences professor from Bronx Community College, that one who chairs--" "Oh yes, I remember him." Connie made it a point to keep up with the cast of cha[acters that peopled Sarah's offbeat job. "Did Jake's wife have the baby yet?" Review for Religious "Three days ago! I thought I'd told you. Mother and daugh-ter are doing fine." Sarah described the particulars of the birth in detail, then trained eager eyes on Connie. "How was your day?" Connie's mind returned to her session, where a seasoned nun had suggested that religious life would become a thing of the past. It was an abstract idea, after all. The common room she shared now with Sarah was perfectly real and stable. The house had been paid for. "Connie, your day?" Sarah's voice called her from her reverie. "Anything wrong?" "Wrong? Oh no." She hesitated. "Do you think about the future, Sarah? I mean our community. Do you think there will be nuns living in this house in twenty years? Youngish nuns, enthu-siastic like yourself, women who believe in prayer, the vows? Some of my directees"--she tried to be deliberately vague--"a few think our way of living is a thing of the past." Sarah frowned. "It could be, you know. Let's face it. No one has joined the community at all in the past five years, and those of us in it aren't getting any younger. It could be. But, hey, God our Mother will bring to birth something new. Birth, growth, decay, matter recycle into new growth. It's a universal process. Why should we escape it?" She reached for the TV wand."Do you want to watch anything else?" "You've thought about this?" "Oh, it crosses my mind now and again. Shall I turn this off?." Sarah waved the remote again. "Sure." Connie could see that Sarah was preparing to leave the community room, and a wave of desolation passed over her. She longed to call out, "Please don't go, yet," but she knew perfectly well such a request would startle Sarah. "She'd probably think I'm having some kind of attack," Connie thought. "What reason could I give for the need of her presence?" Nothing came to her. Sarah was at the door now, turning back, her gaze objective and ldnd. "You O.K., Connie?" "I'm just fine," Connie answered quickly. "Sufficient for the day is the trouble thereof." Sarah was satisfied. "Sleep well, then." "You too." Connie was alone now in the familiar room, and hothing could threaten her. Soon her strange moment of panic would pass, and she would move to her usual routine, fold back the newspaper, November-December 2000 Moore ¯ A Spiritual Direction enjoy the silence. She had an honorable job. She loved Sarah, and the others with whom she lived and shared an uncomplicated love of friendship. She scanned the headlines, then tossed them aside to read the Arts page, a book review, but she struggled to concen-trate. "Loneliness has no hold over me," she thought. Loneliness and solitude were the same companion in different dress, the bite of one and the consolation of the other alternating throughout her days. But the mood of release she sought at the end of the day still eluded her. She focused on the gratitude she must render for the events of the day, and recalled a grandmother who had come to the school to deliver a forgotten lunch. In her mind's eye she could see the weary black face transformed with smiles when the child hove into view. But, when the memory dimmed, a keen discomfort reasserted itself. She pushed through her rote evening prayer, "Now Lord you may dismiss your servant in peace, for my eyes have seen your sal-vation. A light of revelation to the Gentiles and a glory for your people Israel." Simeon, welcoming his life's end, having seen the object of his heart's desire. "He was lucky," she thought. The prayer did not seem to help at all. She turned off the light in the common room and made her way out by the light of the street lamp filtering through the blinds. She turned toward the kitchen. "A nice cup of tea," she thought. "It will clear my mind." She made the tea. She measured out her usual two spoonfuls of sugar, tasted it, then furtively added a third. She sipped it slowly and regarded the clock, whose subtle whine could be heard in the silence. "I tell my directees to face their fears. And so must I," Connie concluded. "What was it, then, old age?" But she dismissed this quickly. Maybe prettier, fitter women, yes, even nuns might struggle with this, but she had never known herself that way. She had long ago accommodated herself to aches and wrinkles. Nor was it fear of death. Not yet. Her mother, her aunts, stout women all, had lived into their nineties. "I probably have a few decades in me," she mused. What had Marilyn said? "It's over." That was the phrase that had ripped her, as if a web of equilibrium she hardly knew existed was torn, and its sundering had discovered a category of feeling she could not recognize. "Now, Lord, you may dismiss your servant in peace, because my eyes have seen your salvation." Simeon's words came back Review for Religious again, with the picture of the bearded sage, smiling and content, holding an infant whom he knew certainly to be the savior. Who did he think he was? "I'm jealous of him," she thought. And, since the habit of honesty was well established, Connie began to name the struggle. The child Simeon held had just been named Jesus, newly circumcised, accompanied by proud parents. She was jealous of Simeon's proximity, his luck to be in the right place at the right time. She was envious of the consolation of touch, the embrace that illuminated him, at once revealing the true iden-tity of the child. But most of all she was jealous of his certainty. As a young idealistic woman, and through all the vicissitudes of the years, she had fallen back on the certainty that she was doing God's will. And, just as the meeting with a newborn child had transformed Simeon from a bumbling old man into a prophet, so she had thought her lifestyle would transform her. She looked around the kitchen slowly, scrutinizing the cabi-nets, the fridge. Stalling. The fear she felt was not provoked by the encounter with Marilyn, but rather unmasked by it. Fear, raw fear, as when a young child is lost in a crowded arena. Connie placed both hands on the teacup and concentrated on the warmth that spread to her palms. She recalled, with effort, that she was an adult. But, slowly, understanding came to her. What was threatened was certainty and specialness. The fear in her belly suggested that she had bartered for those goods with the austerity of her lifestyle and her vows. Yet she herself had taught the basic truth of spiri-tual direction so many times: All that is not love must be rooted out. She could not blame anyone or anything external for her new situation. She sat thus at the kitchentable for a long while, and the tea, untouched, grew cold. By and by she simply admitted that an inner battle was just beginning; she might as well go to bed. Fear would come and go, and grief, too, must attend the process. She lay in bed, listening to the faint sounds of traffic, making an effort to yield to sleep in order to be ready for the next day. But, as she was poised on the mysterious shelf before consciousness falls away, a phrase floated up from the well of memory, a saying she would work with for months to come, "Though a bird be tied to earth by only a thread, still he cannot fly." November-December 2000 a witness response DENNIS j. BILLY Contemplative Religious Witness: A Redemptoristine Monastery At the end of each academic year, I leave my work at the Alphonsian Academy in Rome and spend the summer months as an author in residence at Mount St. Alphonsus, the Redemptorist retreat center in Esopus, New York. During my time there, one of the responsibilities I share with the other members of my community is to celebrate Eucharist at the nearby Redemptoristine monastery of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. This small community of contemplative nuns devotes itself to being what their 18th-century Neapolitan foundress, Maria Celeste Crostarosa (1696- 1755), called a "living memory" of the Holy Savior. My close contact with the sisters there has helped me appreciate more deeply the contemplative dimension of my own vocation. It has also helped me see the intimate relationship between the Redemptorist and Redemptoristine callings, two very different lifestyles-- one apostolic, the other contemplative--deeply devoted to a common charism of proclaiming "plentiful redemption" in Christ. Dennis J. Billy CSSR, a frequent contributor to this review, may be addressed at Accademia Alfonsiana; C.P. 2458; 00100 Roma; Italy. R~view for Religious Spousal Love As a community of women entirely dedicated to contemplation, the sisters at Perpetual Help Monastery maintain a spirit of separation but openness to the world around them. They follow the norms of papal enclosure as laid out in church law and interpreted by their Constitutions and Statutes, but do so with a keen sensitivity that their contemplative vocation places them at the very heart of the local church. In the spirit of Vatican Council II, they have also renewed their way of life to be more in keeping with the spirit and charism of their foundress. In doing so, they have attempted to adapt the contemplative life to the exigencies of North American culture while at the same time taking care to maintain the significant countercultural and eschatological witness that religious life in general and the contemplative life in particular seeks to convey. The result is a small but dedicated group of women religious whose lives are deeply immersed in the mystery of Christ and his body, the church. Verbi sponsa, the recent Vatican instruction on contemplative life and the norms of papal enclosure, describes cloistered nuns as becoming, with the Virgin Mary, "the 'living memory' of the church's spousal love" (§1). I could not read these words without thinking of the special meaning they would have for the Redemptoristines at Esopus and throughout the world. Mary's close.relationship to her Son places her in a position of humble service toward all who turn to her. "To Jesus through Mary" was the way St. Alphonsus de Liguori (1696- 1787) liked to express Mary's role in the economy of salvation. Everything she does is meant to lead us to a closer, more intimate relationship with her Son. Her loving and heartfelt fiat in Luke's Gospel reminds us that it could not be otherwise. Her response to the angel reveals a deep trust in God's trust in her. She became the Mother of God because of her spousal relationship with God, which was itself a gift from God to her and, through her, to all the world. When seen in this light, to be with Mary a "living memory of the church's spousal love" leads quite naturally (perhaps it would be better to say "supernaturally") to being a "living memory of the redeeming Christ." Each remembrance is a single dimension of a To be with Mary a "living memory of the church's spousal love". Ly-95---2 November-December 2000 Billy ¯ Contemplative Religious Witness much larger reality: you cannot have one without the other. Keenly aware of this connection, the Redemptoristines at Esopus proclaim their spousal love for their risen Lord at their daily Eucharist, where he eats with them, drinks with them, and caresses them with the gentle, calming breeze of his Spirit. A Eucharistic Community It is often said that something is not fully experienced until it is remembered. If this saying is true, then the Redemptoristines' desire to become a "living memory" of their Lord must foster a deeper experience of Jesus' presence in their hearts and in their midst. One need only consider the deep spirit of prayerfulness that fills their daily celebration of the Eucharist to see that this is so. These simple celebrations tap into the hidden life of contemplation going on in the deepest recesses of their hearts and reveal the height and depth and breadth of the paschal mystery. The daily Eucharist is the center of the sisters' lives. It immerses them in the mystery of God's love which their lives espouse and puts them in intimate contact with their risen Lord. The Eucharist reminds them of the "eucharistic quality" of the cloistered life itself (see Verbi sponsa, §3). Separation from the world enables the sisters to be present t6 the world on a much deeper level. It enables them to share not only in Jesus' life of kenotic self-offering, but also to join him in his eternal act of thanksgiving to the Father. This close connection between the Eucharist and the sisters' contemplative vocation touches the very heart of the redemptive mystery. It affirms Jesus' ongoing presence in their community and gives meaning to every dimension of their largely hidden life of prayer. The sisters' daily remembrance of Jesus is possible only because of Jesus' continual remembrance of them. They seek to be a living memorial to the living memorial he has left them in the Eucharist. They, more than anyone else I have met, take to heart Jesus' words "Do this in memory of me." In this light, life in the Redemptoristine cloister at Esopus takes on the threefold dimensions of banquet, sacrifice, and presence that characterize the mystery of every Eucharistic celebration. Being a "living memo~ry" of Jesus, in other words, means seeking to give nourishment to others (banquet) through a humble offering of self (sacrifice) in the name and in the company of Jesus, who is "Emmanuel, God wi~h us" (presence). The Review for Religious Eucharist, in other words, not only is the summit of their lives, but permeates everything they do. Without it, there is no way they could continue or even survive. From Death to Life I once had the occasion to experience this eucharistic quality of the sisters' lives in a profound and beautiful way. Sister Mary Regina, one of the sisters in the community, was nearing death after a long-drawn-out battle with cancer. This was happening at the very time I had been scheduled to lead the sisters in their annual ten-day retreat. After learning that Regina's death was drawing near, I fully expected the retreat to be canceled (or at least postponed), since the sisters' hearts were heavy with sorrow and their schedule was already overloaded by the "round the clock" attention Regina's condition demanded. I was ~urprised, therefore, to learn that the community wanted the retreat to go on, despite the added strain it would put on them. I was even more surprised (but also delighted) when, on the first day of the retreat, the prioress asked if it would be all right to celebrate Mass in the infirmary so that Regina could attend from her sickbed. That Eucharistturned out to be the last Regina would ever share in--at least on this side of death. The breaking of the bread took on special significance as we celebrated in the presence of one whose life was ebbing away. The nearness of death brought a special solemnity to our celebration. Regina's silence added depth to our words; her gaze, a quiet calm to our troubled, questioning hearts. The knowledge that she would not be with us much longer affected the way we prayed. Everyone in the room seemed to have one eye fixed on the Lord and the other one on her. And that was the way it should have been, the way the Lord himself wanted it. This was Regina's moment. With her community around her, she was free to be herself before her Lord. Firmly fixed on the host, her eyes told us in a quiet, nonverbal way that Jesus was with her in a way he had never been before. So it is, I believe, with all of us at or near the time of death. Each one of us must one day drink from the same cup. Now it was Regina's turn. Separation from the world enables the sisters to be present on a much deeper level. November-December 2000 Billy ¯ Contemplative Religious Witness Near the end of Mass, I looked around the room and experienced that sense of communion that can only come from hearts united by their common yearning for God. As my eyes moved from face to face, I could sense the pain that the community as a whole and each of its members was experiencing as a result of Regina's illness and imminent death. I could also sense the deep love that bound them to each other and, at this special moment, to Regina. In the midst of the sadness, my gratitude deepened and gave way to a deep sense of peace. The Lord was with us, and that was all that mattered. I closed my eyes and imagined myself in the upper room. The Heart of the Church Contemplatives, we are told, live at the very heart of the church. On this day I was grateful for this brief glimpse God had given me into the heart of a contemplative community. There the simple mysteries of life and death are recognized, pondered, and celebrated. There human existence is plumbed to its depths and experienced in all its wonder and heightened fragility. There the restlessness of the human heart forages in the darkness of divine mystery. There God is allowed to be God and is welcomed, however he chooses to come. Very few of us ai'e called to live as contemplatives in the heart of the church. Those who hear the call and respond to it often find that they have been driven to it by the relentless pursuit of a passionate divine Lover. Happiness would elude them anywhere else. Only there, in the cloister, can they give themselves exclusively to God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. Their hidden life behind their monastery walls is the visible reminder of what they have left behind--and journeyed into. So essential is it to the good of the whole that it recedes, almost by necessity, to the background of life's numerous surface activities. Like the heart itself, it is never seen, rarely heard, seemingly still, but always pumping. The heart, one might say, is an appropriate metaphor for monastic enclosure itself. Some of the most vital activity in the entire body takes place within the narrow, confining chambers of the heart. These otherwise empty cavities are formed by the inner contours of the heart's muscle fibers. The constant expansion and contraction of these tissues forces the blood through the chambers Review for Religious and creates enough pressure to make it flow throughout the rest of the body. In a similar way the empty spaces within the cloister are visibly shaped by the rules of monastic enclosure which, firm yet flexible, allow the life of the contemplative community to distinguish itself from the rest of Christ's body in order to perform for it a special function. Here the all-important apostolic dimension of the contemplative life comes to light. The contemplative community plumbs the depths of the Spirit so that the life of the Spirit may flow more freely to all the members of the body. Here the law of inverted magnitudes operates in full force. The contemplative community confines itself in time and space in order to open itself up to and move more deeply into the sacred. This simultaneous movement ("juxtaposition," if you will) of contraction and expansion is at the center of the contemplative experience. Although not everyone is called to live a life of monastic enclosure, all of us are called to foster a contemplative attihade toward life. For us to do so, this dynamic .movement of physical withdrawal and spiritual expansion must somehow come into play for each of us. Active and Contehaplative I began these reflections by stating that my contact with the Redemptoristine community at Esopus has given me a deeper appreciation of the contemplative dimension of my vocation as a Redemptorist, missionary. I also like to think that, in some way, the appreciation has been mutual, giving rise in them to a deeper sense of the apostolic dimension of their lives as contemplative religious. We share a single charism which, although expressed in drastically different lifestyles, brings to light the plentiful redemption wrought for us in the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Contemplative religious, we have seen, live in the very heart of the church. The Redemptoristines, to my mind, do much the same for the apostolic mission of the Redemptorist congregation. Both orders, after all, share common origins and embrace the same motto: Copiosa apud eum redemptio ("With him there is plentiful redemption"). To follow the Lord in his work for the poor and most abandoned (as Redemptorists try to do) is closely tied to being a "living memory" of the risen Lord (as the sisters try to be). Each order focuses on a different dimension of the one redemptive mystery and, for this very reason, is intimately related to the other. Noventber-December 2000 My experience at Esopus has taught me that contemplative religious can best contribute to the apostolic mission of the church by simply being themselves and living whatever Rule they follow with patience, humility, and deep compassion. In doing so, they reveal the depth of their humanity and remind us of the intimacy we are all called to share with the divine. The eucharistic quality of their lives enables them to celebrate the present moment-- whatever it may bring--by sharing the gifts of self-offering and sensitive personal presence. Their life of solitude places them at the very heart of the church's life and ongoing mission. Their enclosed life offers the world a countercultural and eschatological sign of what is still to come, yet somehow already mysteriously present in the deepest recesses of the human heart. Like the Redemptoristines at Esopus, contemplative religious are called to lose themselves in the mystery of the divine in order to find themselves in the face of the very next person they meet. They plumb the depths of human experience in order to move more deeply into the sacred and live in intimate spousal union with their divine Lover. All of them are living reminders of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. All are visible expressions of the church's living memory of what took place in the person of Jesus Christ and takes place today in his body, the church. Theirs is a message for all times, all places, and all circumstances. Those who hear it will recognize the need to foster in themselves a contemplative attitude toward life. Those who do not will miss a unique opportunity to peer beneath the surface of life and behold, as never before, the innermost treasures of the human heart. Review for Religious ANDRI~ MAUREEN SOETE A Vowed Response to the Postmodern World Tphosetm choadrearcnte wriostrilcds asryem bpetionmgs s, taunddie rde aalnitdie ps roofb oeudr bsyo -sccailelend-tists, sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, and theologians. All seek to understand the reality, foresee the consequences, and arrive at some satisfactory description and response. Since I am not a theologian, scientist, philosopher, or any of the above, I do not claim to understand this reality, much less propose responses. What I offer is simply my own response as a woman religious, specifically a School Sister of Notre Dame. The Situation of Our Age Postmodern issues have been touching us and coming into our consciousness for some time now. Our world is rapidly chang-ing, and what we once thought were objective, unchangeable real-ities are in fact changing. The "way to be" and the "way to do" for the present generation seems so different from our way. What can all this mean to SSND sisters and associates at this time? This time of change may feel like a breakdown. The world has become so different that we may not like it and may question Andr,~ Maureen Soete SSND has ministered in Japan for thirteen years. This article is the address she gave to an assembly of Japanese and North American School Sisters of Notre Dame in Kyoto on 9 January 2000. Her address is 11 ol Kawarada-cho; Matsugasaki; Sakyo-ku; Kyoto 606, Japan. November-December 2000 Soete * A Vowed Response the direction in which it is heading. Envisioning ourselves living in this new age, we may have the feeling that we do not fit, for what we understood as reality is being challenged. This is not just the usual generation-gap experience that we have all probably experienced from one side or the other. This phenomenon has been observed by many since the first hints of it in the 1970s and is obviously a real cultural shift. The choices for different lifestyles, the questioning of what we considered permanent values, and the challenges to our thinking are in some ways unnerving. We may catch ourselves longing for the good old days--the secure structures, the way students "used to be," and the way convent life was. It almost tempts us to choose to respond by retreating--by going back. These times are being described by the word chaos. Some of the chaotic things that people observe and study are political, eco-nomic, and social oppression; poverty, starvation, and unemploy-ment; the oppression of women; the ecological crisis; nuclear threat; secularism, materialism, and the failure of churches to renew themselves and inspire belief. Chaos causes a great deal of anxiety, but it also provides us with the moment and the call to rediscover our real story and our deepest roots. How Our Foundress Would Respond As followers of Mother Theresa Gerhardinger, we can ask ourselves how she would manage in this age, how .she would respond if she were alive today. We know that our answer would have something to do with our charism. What is it that she passed on to us that is ageless? What is the changeless essence that will survive these times and even give us the hope we need to go on? When we think of Mother Theresa responding to her time and day we think of a strong woman of prayer, a woman of God, a woman in touch with the reality and needs of her day, a woman animated and energized by the conviction that women can change the world, a woman who knew that, if people can change, the world can cMnge too. But at the root of all these images of her was her sense of God's desire and call "that all be one." She longed for the oneness of all in God. She was a woman willing to strug-gle for unity on every level. She could see unity in diversity, for she believed in the rights of individuals and the respect due to each person. She learned the Review for Religious lessons essential for real unity--lessons of love, respect, appreci-ation, tolerance, and trust--first from her own parents and later from her mentors Bishop Wittmann and Father Job. These were her models, inspiring her to foster the same values among her sis-ters and her society. It was her commitment to unity and her drive "to make one" that gave her tireless energy for mission, and could give us the same tireless energy. The Postmodern Age The academic world has come to use the term "postmodern" in an attempt to name this period of the world's history because this is the period in which people are reacting to all that is false and untrue, all that has not worked in our familiar modern age. In some way the choice of the name "postmodern" is like calling the butterfly a "postcaterpillar." "Postcaterpillar" might be a suitable name during the period when we observe that the caterpillar is no more, that what was once the caterpillar now seems dead or half dead, changing unaccountably. But once we see the beautiful creature with bright wings emerge, flutter freely, and take flight, we find ourselves calling it a "butterfly." Similarly, because of the lack of clarity about the future, schol-ars describe the present reality by noting changes from the earlier condition.When all of the characteristics of this age become clear and show some coherence, it will be time to give the new period a name. The world may not reach that point in our lifetimes, but I hope that all of us want to be a part of the creation of the new name. We can do that by appropriately influencing, shaping, and creating some of the characteristics that will emerge. I suggest that a principal characteristic must be unity. That same oneness that was Christ's mission and Theresa Gerhardinger's mission must be our mission too. Failure of the Modern Age The modern age promised us that by science and technology, by dividing the whole, dissecting and labeling every part, and con-trasting one thing with another, it could understand and solve the problems of our world and probe the depths of reality. It promised that the world would be controlled and developed and perfected, and that human beings would reach great heights. But science November-December 2000 [--~2 ¯ Soete ¯ A Vowed Response Our prosperity and plenty come to us on the backs of the poor and oppressed. itself has had to admit that the mysteries of the world are far beyond such probing; that our scientific advances have actually destroyed much of our world and have led us to live in fear of some scientific developments; that actually, in spite of all of our sci-entific progress, we have missed opportunities to expand and develop our spiritual and human potential and have inst(ad created horrendous human misery. MI of the human misery in the world today is a sign that these former beliefs are not working. When I think of the oppression, poverty, ecological recklessness, uncontrolled materialism, and other problems of our day, I can understand why a new generation rejects our old answers. When I hear dogmatic pronouncements from our churches or from our governments about how things should be and see that those very pronouncements bring about more division than unity and hope alnong peoples, I can understand why some of my own young nieces and nephews reject them as incomplete, irrelevant, without meaning in their lives. It is probably true that there have always been famines, always children abused, always conflicts among religious groups, always people oppressed and exploited and murdered--but we have not always known about them with such immediate clarity. Now, thanks to advances in technology, we do. We are informed immediately about what is happening around the world. And we know now what the prophets and economists have been telling us for a long time, that our prosperity and plenty come to us on the backs of the poor and oppressed. And now the poor and oppressed know that too. We can see all of the "signs of the times" on our nightly news programs. It is up to us to read them carefully, interpret them honestly, and respond accordingly. If society is not organizing itself so as to be inclusive of all citizens, but chooses rather to be exclusive, then the developments in the world around us must sig-nal that we are going in the wrong direction. If our lack of respect for our environment cries out to heaven and to us in its misery, if our land is no longer fertile, our water is befouled, and our air is poisoned--if we really see and recognize this, we must know that we are going in the wrong direction. Review for Religious If our neglect of the poor and downtrodden causes our edu-cation and healthcare systems to fail, and if our competitive cul-tures make the lives of many people miserable, then all of that neglect and competition must be the wrong direction. If the signs tell me that life the way we have thus far organized it is not work-ing, that nothing succeeds, that my actions effect disaster for oth-ers, I am obviously moving in the wrong direction. After recognizing all of this, what do we do? We must make choices in response to these signs. We can choose to be "the tired ones" who give up to let someone else lead the renewal. We can choose to be "the selfish ones" who create only our own security and pleasure. Or we can choose to be "the hopeful ones" who will look for new possibilities for ourselves and for the world. I want us to be the ones who choose to be hopeful. I think we must con-tinue to believe that human beings hold the potential to create a world that works for all peoples. Our Vows as a Response I think that as vowed religious we might bring new dimen-sions to the thinking about solutions to world problems and could radically affect outcomes--not by seeing ourselves as an elite group distanced from our neighbors by some holy and private choices, by mysterious vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience, but rather by remembering--and letting ourselves be reignited by--the zeal with which I think we all made our first vows. I mean the per-sonal hope that we would change the world for the better, that we ourselves would bring with us the presence of Christ, that by sharing our love, faith, and hope we would make Christ visible and bring all the world to oneness in God. What happened to that most wonderful zeal and enthusiasm? I think that we religious need to ponder deeply the meaning of our vows and the witness our lives can give, must give, in con-trast to various trends and news events. I think of instances of environmental pollution, of trials for war crimes, of the terroriz-ing of ethnic and religious groups, and of the mother of a young child who could kill another woman's little girl. We seek to be effective in demonstrating hope and bringing it into our world. In a world where millions (including helpless children) suf-fer from the lack of such essentials as food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and education; in a world where people use their wealth November-December 2000 Soete ¯ A Vowed Response to produce more wealth so that they can live in a style that uses up the goods of the earth; in a world where people want more and more and give less and less to the laborers who produce the goods; in a world full of people who throw away and waste without even a thought--in such a world I have promised, we have promised, to use only what we need and to share everything we have. Are we keeping that promise? Would anyone who looks at us, our lifestyles, or our closets notice our choiceto do with less and our willingness to share? Would they be edified, stand in awe of the way that we are keeping our promise? In a world where groups of human beings look upon other groups as lower and with great intolerance seek to get rid of them; in a world where "ethnic cleansing," ways of death, become a way of life for some; in a world where nationalism means that free-dom to be intolerant of the differences of other races or peoples-- in such a world I have promised, we have promised, to love inclusively and to take on Jesus' own reverence and concern for all people, excluding no one. Are we keeping that promise? Would anyone who looks at us, at our way of being with the people with whom we live, at our way of being with the people at our place of ministry, notice our love, tolerance, and respect? Would they be edified and stand in awe of the way we are keeping our promise? In a world where the strong and influential make decisions for the weak; in a world where whole groups of people are not consulted about matters that affect vital areas of their lives; in a world where people are murdered because they disagree--in such a world I have promised, we have promised, to search for God's will and the right direction through dialogue and conversation, con-sultation and collaboration with all concerned. Are we keeping that promise? Would anyone who watches how we lead or partic-ipate in groups of students or teachers or coworkers notice our collaborative style or the way we listen to every person? Wotild they be edified and stand in awe of the way we are keeping our promise? What Then? I have spoken about our vows, emphasizing them as three promises because the term "vows" can sometimes be spiritualized and focused only on our commitment to God. In thinking about them as promises, I had a sense of a great possibility. I began to see Review for Religious that what we promise is more like a radical way that all human beings need to choose if we are to create a world where all people can live with dignity. I Wonder what might happen if we shared these choices of ours more openly among ourselves and witnessed to them more radically with our associates and with our partners in ministry. I am not so sure of our next step. I am not so sure how this small core of friends and others like us might have a good impact on our society and our world. But I think that somehow we can--and I challenge ourselves and others to come alive with that potential. "Striving for Unity" is our charism. We are supposed to be masters of it by now. Why, in our Japan Region alone, if we add up all of our years of religious life, we have more than three thousand years of our SSND lifestyle! I hope that we and others may gather together everyone's good insights and with them create for ourselves an exciting and real-istic dream as we step forward with God into this third millennium. Many of us will probably not be around when the next era gets its name, but--just as we prefer the word "butterfly" to "postcaterpillar" when thinking of the little creature's potential--would we not want the concepts of oneness, tolerance, collaboration, acceptance, and respect to be part of the name given to the next era? Are there initiatives for us to take, or can we at least support and encourage the wonderful people around us who are already dedicating their lives to this conversion and transformation of the earth? Is this not what we want to use our energy and ingenuity for? Is this not a way that we could use our positions as educa-tors and as ministers? Is this not worth the offering of the rest of our lives? We have promised to use only what we need. Are we keeping that promise? November-Decen~ber 2000 LAWRENCE F. BARMANN Mary Ward: Centuries Her Scroll examples from the past Today, amid questions about effective evangelization in the 21st century, about leadership and ~uthority in the Catholic Church, and about women's fuller participa-tion in these efforts and echelons, there is much that can and should be learned from Mary Ward at long last. During her lifetime four hundred years ago, she experi-enced much suffering and failure, but her full contribu-tion to the church and the world seems now to be only beginning. For religious in the United States and else-where who may know little or nothing of this extraor-dinary woman, I hope this article may provide a brief but warm introduction. The recent book I will be draw-ing from and citing is an excellent place to make fur-ther acquaintance with her goodness and truth. I refer to Mary Ward: Pilgrim and Mystic by Margaret Mary Littlehales IBVM) Mary Ward was an English gentlewoman, well-con-nected by birth, and related to many of those who were executed for their part in the ill-conceived Gun Powder Plot of 1605. She was born in Yorkshire in 1585, three years before the defeat of the Spanish Armada and four- Lawrence E Barmann is a professor of American studies and theological studies at Saint Louis Univ, ersity. His address is Humanities Building; 3800 Lindell Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. Review for Religious teen years after Pope Pius V's bull Regnans in excelsis made techni-cal traitors out of all English Catholics who claimed allegiance to the pope by inviting them to dethrone Queen Elizabeth. So mar-tyrdom for the faith, or at least willingly accepted hardship for the ability to practice it, became the very atmosphere in which Mary Ward grew to adulthood. Such an atmosphere is often inducive to quick spiritual maturity, and in Mary Ward's case it certainly was. By the time she was sixteen, Mary Ward had developed a strong prayer life and the conviction that God intended her for the religious state in some form. Her parents thought otherwise, and Edmund Neville, heir to the earldom of Westmoreland, became her suitor. After Mary had gently rejected him, Neville became a Jesuit; and at twenty-one she persuaded her father to allow her to go to the continent to try her vocation to religious life. In 1606 Mary arrived at SaintoOmer in the Spanish Netherlands (now northern France), where English Catholics escaping persecution in their homeland had been migrating for decades. Through the advice of misguided confessors, she entered a Poor Clare convent, only to realize within a year that this was not where God intended her to be. In 1609 she returned briefly to England, where she seems to have gained some light about God's choice for her. Upon returning to Saint-Omer with a small group of English women about her own age, she set about doing for women's education what the Jesuits were doing for boys among the emigr~s. She called her community the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and her specific intention was "to train English girls from Catholic families to be wives and mothers or religious, but all to be apostles for the faith in England." She was convinced that women were quite as capable of edu-cation as men, though she thought they did not need precisely the same courses. For Greek and Hebrew she substituted modern lan-guages, and for physical training, dancing. Moreover, she set about having her own followers trained to teach such things. In the patri-archal world and church of the 17th century, this was considered wildly innovative and thus suspect; and so the church authorities, who alone could approve her work as a religious institute, were to make Mary pay dearly for such innovation. Once, in 1617, after hearing a Jesuit priest comment on the work of her schools that, "when all is done, they are but women," Mary remarked calmly but with conviction: "There is no such dif- November-Decen~ber 2000 Barmann ¯ Mary Ward ference between men and women that women may not do great things . And I hope in time to come it will be seen that women will do much . What think you of this word 'but women'? but as if we were in all things inferior to some other creature which I suppose to be man." Mary Ward's convictions about this and much else were drawn not primarily from books and debates, but from her intense relationship with God and from his grace working through her wonderfully balanced and prophetic personality. As the schools grew and young women increasingly wished to join Mary Ward's community, she needed to settle on some rule of life. By 1611 already about forty women had cast their lots with hers. Both the local bishop and her confessor tried to force her to adopt either the Augustinian, Benedictine, Franciscan, or Carmelite rules. To these urgings she could only respond that "they seemed not that which God would have." These "English Ladies," as they were now commonly called by their supporters (or "Jesuitesses," by their detractors), could not have adopted any of those earlier rules for women and continue to do the work to which they were called; all four rules as they were applied to women in those days required canonical enclosure. Finally Mary Ward had her answer, and it was to lead to incredible suffering for the remainder of her life. To the papal nuncio in Cologne, Monsignor Albergati, she explained: About this time, in the year 1611, being alone in some extraordinary repose of mind, I heard distinctly not by sound of voice, but intellectually understood, these words: "Take the same of the Society"; so understood as that we were to take the same both in matter and manner, that only excepted which God by diversity of sex hath prohibited. These few words gave so great a light in that particular institute, comfort and strength, and changed so the whole soul as that it was impos-sible for me to doubt, but that they came from Him whose words are works. Mary Ward's conviction that God intended her to adopt the Jesuit Rule to her institute of religious women and to do her spe-cial work in the world rather than in a cloister was what 17th-cen-tury western Europe obviously needed if it were to remain at all Catholic. But it was a conviction far in advance of the convictions of most of the male authorities in post-Reformation Rome. Furthermore, the Jesuits had managed to incur the jealous wrath of the secular clergy in England, and these latter pursued Mary with calumnious accusations simply because she intended to estab-lish a female religious congregation based on Jesuit principles. Review for Religious These calumnies found a ready hearing in Rome. The Jesuits them-selves were ambivalent about her institute, sometimes being extremely helpful and sometimes joining the enemy. In 1622 Mary Ward finally met the Jesuit general, Mutius Vitelleschi, who was deeply and permanently impressed by her. Henceforth the Jesuit general would instruct his men to be supportive of Mary's work and gracious to her, short of such involvement as might lead to a sort of second order--something St. Ignatius Loyola had strictly for-bidden. Meanwhile Mary's institute had established schools not only in Saint-Omer, but in Liege and Rome, and would soon have houses in Naples, Perugia, Munich, Vienna, Pressburg, and elsewhere. Mary herself, always of delicate physical constitution, went back and forth across the Alps, mostly on foot, frequently in winter and in the midst of the Thirty Years War, in order to strengthen and encourage her followers; while at the same time she worked tirelessly to gain the necessary support of bishops, the Roman curia, and the pope, for the approval of her institute. The number of high-placed clerics who opposed her for reasons that had nothing to do with reli-gion, or even good sense, always outnumbered those who sup-ported her. The bishop of Vienna, for instance, wrote to Rome in 1628 to complain that the English Ladies had opened a school there without his peymission (though they had the emperor's per-mission and he had even given them a house and funds) and that the girls in Mary Ward's school had actually performed publicly in a comic school play! With the Catholic religion collapsing in central Europe, a bishop's jealousy of his rights against the only Catholic ruler of any weight in the region would ultimately prevent the Catholic education of young women in the empire. Of popes with whom Mary had to deal, Urban VIII, who would condemn Galileo at Mary Ward's conviction that God intended her to adopt the Jesuit Rule to her institute of religious women was what 17th-century western Europe obviously needed if it were to remain Catholic. November-December 2000 Barmann ¯ Mar~ Ward about the same time that he condemned Mary Ward, was the most duplicitous. She first had an audience with Urban in 1624, in which she pleaded for approval of her institute and in which Urban smiled and smiled and totally misled her about his intentions. Eventually he ordered the suppression of all of her houses and the dissolution of her institute, and this merely on the basis of English clerical calumnies and calumnies spawned by the hurt pride of ambitious continental clerics. Mary herself was eventually imprisoned as a heretic in a Poor Clare convent in Munich, by order of the Roman Inquisition. There she nearly died, though she so impressed the resident Poor Clares that they knew she was anything but a heretic. Meanwhile, her followers were being systematically driven from their houses and were mostly on the verge of starvation. Having at length been released from prison, Mary set out at the end of 1631 for Rome in order to clear her good name for the sake of what she hoped might be the future of her institute. Kneeling at Urban's feet she burst out, "Holy Father, I am not nor ever have been a heretic." At which the pope interrupted, "We believe it, we believe it; we need no other proof." He also allowed the institute to continue (under private vows) in Rome and under his protection. In 1637 Mary Ward set out again for England, though it would be May of 1639 before she actually got there. She sought a letter from Pope Urban to give to Queen Henrietta Maria to gain the queen's support for her institute. The letter Mary received speaks of her as "one much esteemed in Rome both for her well-known qualities and piety, which will without doubt cause Your Majesty to see and hear her." This was the same Rome which, only half a dozen years earlier, had imprisoned her as a heretic and decreed the destruction of her life's work. The queen did receive Mary gra-ciously, but within a year the country would be in the throes of political ttirmoil that would end in civil war and the execution of the king. Without completely abandoning her hope of establishing a school in London, Mary went north to Yorkshire in 1642, and there she died at Osbaldwick, a short distance from the city of York, on 20 January (old style) 1645. After her death Mary Ward's institute did in fact flourish, and finally, in 1977, after a wait of 366 years, the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary was able to realize Mary Ward's original insight and founder's charism by adopting the Jesuit Constitutions, and with the blessing of the Jesuit general, Pedro Arrupe. Margaret Mary Review for Religious Littlehales's study of Mary's Ward's life reveals many things. It reveals the costliness, but also the great happiness, of completely abandoning oneself to God. It also demonstrates that, within the external church structure, official authority can be quite wrong, but probably less so in proportion to the genuine humility of its wielders. Mary Ward's life demonstrates incontrovertibly that God's intended purposes are often achieved through the near annihilation of the human instruments of that achievement. Christians should not be surprised by this, for such was the case with God's own Son. Contemporary religious, both men and women, can find great encouragement and inspiration in the life of this saintly English woman. Dorothy Day did, and she even titled her own autobiog-raphy with a remark Mary Ward once made as she pondered what lay ahead of her as a young woman bent on seeking only God's will--"the long loneliness." Note 1 Margaret Mary Littlehales, Mary Ward, Pilgrim and Mystic, 1~8Y- 164~ (Tunbridge Wells, England: Burns and Oates, 1998). Pp. 272. £18.95. Patrimony my patrimony is a deity unknown whose name I cannot pronounce communicated to me in stuttering speech, in fits of temper and in weeping, in so many questions unleavened by answers in silence and in absence by those struck dumb and those afraid to speak Sefin Kinsella November-December 2000 STAN PARMISANO St. Catherine's Letters: Human Love, Gracious Authority One level of St. Catherine of Siena, perhaps her deepest, is revealed in her Dialogue.' But this great work, whether in the original or in proper translation, is strange fare for many mod-ern readers. Its subject matter--mystical union with the Trinity in and through Christ--is high and heavy and, I should think, attractive only to the relatively few seriously intent upon such union. Its language often includes words and phrases borrowed from the scholastic theology of the day, though Catherine's orig-inal genius keeps breaking through, giving new form to old mat-ter. The book is also rife with personification and allegory (Christ the Bridge, the Tree of Life, Vineyard of the Soul, and so forth)-- fun for the medieval reader, but dry and tedious for today's read-ership. Also, in the Dialogue Catherine is quite formal and impersonal. The lively, dynamic personality recorded in history is certainly there, but it has to be searched out, for it is hidden in the shadow of the great Truth she labors to expound. She herself is merely un'anirna in the mighty presence of her God. Her letters are a different matter.2 They are personal--writ-ten not by an anonymous "soul," but by the flesh-and-blood Catherine. Io Caterina rings throughout, addressed not to people in general, but to here-and-now individuals. The letters evoke wide and popular interest. They deal with Catherine's own life Stan Parmisano OP wrote about theology and faith in our September- October issue. His address remains Saint Albert's Priory; 5890 Birch Court; Oakland, California 94618. Revie'a, for Religiou, and visible experiences and with details about life around her, social and political as well as spiritual. Their language is not borrowed from or freighted with outmoded rhetorical devices, but is pleas-ingly spontaneous and informal, as alive today as in Catherine's own time. On the whole the letters are original. They are Catherine, in every vibrant word and phrase--simple, nuanced, various, alive with passion for the truth, and the truth in particu-lar situations. They are "unliterary," to be sure, for they were talked, not written, by our unlettered saint, but they are clear and coherent, direct and firm, though also tactful. Catherine sometimes digresses, loses the train of her thought, but she never really rambles on or gossips. She has little time for light conversation ("Let us run, let us run, for the time is short!"), and her central point is almost always clear and precise. Though each of her letters is unique, many of them fall into a common pattern. They begin with Jesus, and with Catherine as the slave of the servants of God--never, for Catherine, a mere pious formula, but always freshly genuine. Then she often seems to lose herself in the contemplation and exposition of one of the mysteries of faith, which, however, turns out to be pertinent to the subject of the letter. Soon she comes to the question at issue, and, if in the initial paragraphs she was high and spiritual, peacefully contemplative, now she is very much the active apostle dealing practically and in detail with earthy mat-ters. She ends with statements of love and concern for her corre-spondent, placing all in the hands of God: "Bathe you in the blood of Christ crucified. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love." The letters reveal the breadth as well as depth of Catherine's concerns, and her marvelous ability to adapt, with no compromise of ideal, to various situations and personalities. To a little niece she writes in gentle, childlike simplicity about the wise and foolish virgins in the Gospel and the lamps they bear: "Do you know what this means, my daughter? By the lamp is meant our heart, because a heart ought to be like a lamp. You see that a lamp is wide above and narrow below, and so the heart is made to signify that we ought always to keep it wide above through holy thoughts and holy imaginations and continual prayer; always holding in mem-ory the blessing of the Blood by which we are bought . I said . simple, nuanced, various, alive with passion for the truth, and the truth in particular situations. November-December 2000 Parmisano ¯ St. Catherine's Letters that a lamp is narrow below, and so is our heart: to signify that the heart ought to be narrow toward these earthly things--that is, it must not desire or love them extravagantly, nor hunger for more than God wills to give us" (letter no. 23). To Alessa, as to other of her women disciples, she sends prac-tical advice about the religious life, which is to be lived "both with and without moderation . For love toward God should be with-out measure, and that for creatures should be measured by that for God, and not by measure of one's own consolations, whether spiritual or temporal." And how manage this? "Make two homes for yourself, my daughter: one actual home in your cell, that you go not running about into many places, unless for necessity, or for obe-dience to the prioress, or for charity's sake; and another spiritual home, which you are to carry with you always." This last, she con-tinues, is "the cell of true self-knowledge," embracing both the knowledge of God and the knowledge of self, "two cells in one. ¯ and when abiding in the one you must abide in the other, for oth-erwise the soul would fall into either confusion or presumption. For, if you rested in the knowledge of yourself, confusion of mind would fall upon you; and, if you dwelt in the knowledge of God alone, you would fall into presumption" (no. 49). Still within the uncompromising truth and love of Jesus, but with some relevant adaptation, she writes in a much different vein to Sir John Hawkwood, the English soldier of fortune who was the scourge of the Italian city-states. She begs him to leave "the service and pay of the devil., and take the pay and the cross of Christ crucified." He is a soldier; let him remain such, but let him now become Christ's knight: "I beg you, then, gently in Christ Jesus, that, since God and also our Holy Father have ordered a crusade against the infidels and [since] you take such pleasure in war and fighting, you should not make war against Christians any-more-- for that is wrong to God; but go against the infidels. For it is a great cruelty that we who are Christians, and members bound in the body of Holy Church, should persecute one another." And she concludes abruptly but quite aptly with a subtle undertone of warning against his soldiering altogether: "I beg you, dearest brother, to keep in memory the shortness of your time." Her final words are as usual: "Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love" (140). To that formidable woman of the world Queen Joanna of Naples, who first sided with Clement, then Urban, then with Review for Religious Clement again in their rival claims on the papacy, Catherine writes in a similar manner, but with deeper sorrow and fiercer passion: "Dearest Mother--mother, I say, insofar as I see you to be a faith-ful daughter of Holy Church--it seems to me that you have no mercy on yourself. Ah me! because I love you I grieve over the evil state of your soul and body. I would willingly lay down my life to prevent this cruelty. Many times I have written to you in compassion, showing you that what is shown you for the truth is a lie; and the rod of divine justice., is ready for you if you do not flee so great a wrong. It is a human thing to sin, but perseverance in sin is a thing of the devil . Be merciful, ah, be merciful to yourself]. I say no more to you. Remain in the holy sweet grace of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love" (348). She writes differently to Gregory xI than at a later date she would write to Urban vI. Gregory was weak and vacillating, and so in her letters to hi~n she exhorts him to be "manly" and firm in his high office of supreme pontiff: "Be manly in my sight, and not timorous . I, Catherine. write you in his precious Blood, desiring to see you a manly man (uomo virile) without any servile fear." And, when Gregory hesitates in his resolve to return to Rome for fear of being poisoned there, Catherine reminds him that there are other, more terrible kinds of poison; and at any rate there's as much poison "on the tables of Avignon . as on those of Rome!" (229, 239). Urban, on the other hand, from the start of his pontificate was already betraying that spirit of anger and vindictiveness that would end in personal revenge, violence, and mt~rder. One had written to Catherine after the election of Urban: "It seems that our new Christ is a terrible man." In her first letter to him, Catherine appears to be aware of this and shapes her words accordingly: "Next I beg you, and constrain you by the love of Christ crucified, as to those sheep who have left the fold--I believe for my sins-- that, by love of that Blood of which you are made minister, you delay not to receive them in mercy, and with your benignity and holiness force their hardness; give them the good of bringing them back to the fold, and, if they do not ask it in true and perfect humility, let Your Holiness supply for their imperfection. Receive from a sick man what he can give you" (291). Religious life is to be lived "both with and without moderation." November-December 2000 Parmisano * "St. Catherine's Letters She writes to William Flete and other hermits at Laceto a gem of a letter begging them to leave for a time the peace and quiet of their forest retreat and come to Rome on pilgrimage in support of Urban. She desires them so to lose themselves as to seek "nor peace nor quiet elsewhere than in Christ crucified." If out of piety they are loath to leave their solitary life, they must know that there are woods and forests aplenty in and around Rome! (326). To Raymond of Capua, her Dominican soul brother and dearest friend, she writes in every which way: tenderly, pas-sionately, in joy, in anger; now as a scolding mother, now as his obedient daughter, now reproving him for cowardice and want of faith, now exposing her own weakness and want of love. And, often uncomfortably for Raymond, always she wants him together with herself to die a martyr: "I tell you, sweetest Father, that, whether we will or no, the time we are living in enjoins us to die, so do not live any longer." (333). Catherine's Human Love This last suggests one of two facets of Catherine's personality that may prove especially problematic for the modern reader of her letters, namely, the quality of her human love. The spontane-ity, passion, naturalness, and totality of her love for the Person of Christ is beyond question: she is quite literally consumed, body and soul, with love for Him, who is mad (pazzo), drunk (ebro) with love for her. But, when it comes to lesser*folk, her native inclina-tions seem to be oversupernaturalized, and her love may appear forced and lacking in the milk of human tenderness and warmth and understanding. This would explain the extreme discomfort she experiences when ordered by the Lord to leave her solitary life and give to others the same love that she gave to

Issue 68.2 of the Review for Religious, 2009. ; Mission and Ministry Renewing Religious Traditions Reviewing Outward Signs QUARTERLY 68.2 2009 Review for Religious fosters dialogu~e withGod, dialogue with ourselves~: and dialogue with one another about the holiness we try to live according ~ iocharisms of~Catholic religiouslif¢. As Pope Paul Vl said, our way of being Church is todqy the way of dialogue. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034o639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-633-4610 ¯ Fax: 314-633-4611 E-Mail: reviewrfr@gmail.com ¯Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ° St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ Pontifical College Josephinum 7625 North High Street ¯ Columbus, Ohio 43235 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2009 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any inaterial (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribution, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. ~ gournalof Catholic ~pir~ual~y Editor Associate Editor Canonical Counsel Scripture Scope Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming sJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Eugene Hensell OSB Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp . Paul Coutinho sJ Martin Erspamer OSB Margaret Guider OSF Kathleen HughesRSCJ Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD QUARTERLY 68.2 2009 contents prisms 116 Prisms 118 132 144 mission and ministry ~ ~_ Paul's Dynamic Mission Principle,s: A Missioner's Reflection James H. Kroeger MM shares with us ten "mission principles" valid for Paul of Tarsus and for today's Pauls as well--the result of his own reflections as a missionary and a meditative reading of St. Paul. Personal Reflection and/or Group Discussion A Franciscan Approach to Ministry Daniel P. Horan OFM ~eflec~s on Francis of Assisi's life and writings and suggests that the five characteristics that emerge provide a helpful parad!grn for all pastoral ministers in the church. Personal Reflection and/or Group Discussion Discipleship and Walking by Faith Damian C. Ilodigwe, along with Abraham and the apostle Thomas, shows that discipleship needs deep faith daily. Review for Religious 152 168 renewing religious traditions Reparation and the Sacred Heart: A New Intrepretation Virginia M. Herbers ASCJ suggests a new understanding of reparation which speaks to the lived reality of the Body of Christ in a global community as well as to the Christian mission to live a life of service. Being Heard, Being Healed: Learning from the Quaker Tradition James H. Schimelpfening SM shares his refreshing experience of community that came from a series of six seasonal retreats based on the Quaker tradition and the work of Parker Palmer. Personal Reflection and/or Group Discussion 181 192 reviewing outward signs Religious Habits Reconsidered Doris Gottemoeller RSM looks over changes of habit and other changes and raises some thoughtful questions about what is now past, having been passed with a view to the future. On Wearing a Habit, from My Perspective Patricia McCarthy CND shares her experience of responding to God's grace in giving witness to her religious consecration in order to help us all to question our freedom in responding to God's grace in our own call. departments 204 Scr.ipture Scope: The Gospel of St. Paul 208 Canonical Counsel: Response to the Role of Law in the Church 214 Book Reviews 68.2 2009 prisms 116 T celebration of the Pauline Year has stimulated a large number of books on the person and writings of St. Paul. As a theologian I have been most taken by the importance of the Holy Spirit in Paul's Letters. In dogmatic development, it will take a few centuries before the church can articulate a theology of the Trinitarian God, and so Paul's writings about the working of the Spirit are all the more arresting. One of the titles that we give to the Holy Spirit in our Nicene creed is "Giver of life." That title is one of the best summaries for how Paul describes the Spirit in the life of the individual Christian and of the Christian community. In his Letter to Titus, Paul makes a summary statement about how much the Spirit is truly the Giver of life. "[God] saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he richly poured out on us through Jesus Christ our savior." Through the image of the Spirit being poured out, all the specifics of this new life find their font. Early on in his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul asks "Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" He then goes on to say "for the temple of God, which you are, is holy." But Paul becomes more creative and copious in his description of the Spirit's gifts when he employs the image of the human body. That we all are members of the Body R~vie~ for Religious of Christ receives its most detailed description in this Letter of Paul's. We are all baptized into the one Body in the one Spirit. The Spirit is the Giver of the many different kinds of spiritual gifts, and at the same time "to each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit" (1 Co 12:7). What we might take for granted, Paul assures us, is the Spirit's gift. Paul's example is "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Co 12:3). Surely our sacramental words, "I absolve you," "this is my Body," "I baptize you," are Spirit-filled and Spirit-given words. But more simply, our expressed desires--"teach me to pray," "Lord, for-give me," "Lord, here I am"--are the continuing daily pouring out of gifts of the Spirit. That the total health of the Body depends on each and every one of us being open to the gifts of the Spirit and so sharing this divine life remains central to Paul's theology of the Spirit's gift-ing both to the individual Christian and to the Christian community. In Paul's Letter to the Romans we receive the rich-est understanding of our prayer as Christians. "The Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings" (Rm 8:26). Our very effort to pray--sometimes feeling so dry and empty--is always a gift of the Spirit. Perhaps our own sense of futility in praying excites the gifting of the Spirit's groans within us all the more, and within the groanings of the community praying as well. Paul's insight gives us consolation in our daily effort to pray. From these few examples, perhaps we will be stirred to greater gratitude for Paul's own gift of in.sight into the Spirit as the Giver of life as we celebrate.the Pauline Year. David L. Fleming SJ 117 68.2 2009 mission and JAMES H. KROEGER Paul's Dynamic Mission Principles: A Missioner's Reflection ministry The apostle Paul is considered the greatest missionary of all time. He is called the Apostle of the Gentiles since he was mainly responsible for the spread of Christianity into the Gentile world. The church owes much to Paul for its growth; he pioneered its early expansion by his mission labors and his theological reflection. A brief synopsis of Paul's life includes the following approximate chronology: 5-10 (birth at Tarsus), 15-20 (studies in Jerusalem), 36 (conversion), 36-39 (Damascus, Arabia, Jerusalem), 39-43 (Tarsus), 43-44 (Antioch), 44-48 (first missionary journey), 49-50 (Council of Jerusalem; Antioch confrontation with Peter), 49-53 (second missionary journey), James H. Kroeger MM, a missionary in Asia (Philippines and Bangladesh) since 1970, is professor of systematic theology, missiology, and Islamics at the Loyola School of Theology; Ateneo de Manila University; Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights; Quezon City 1108; Philippines. jkroeger@admu.edu.ph 53-58 (third missionary journey), 58-60 (prisoner in Caesarea), 60-63 (voyage to Rome, prisoner in Rome), 64-66 (Spain? Rome? elsewhere?), 66-67 (prisoner in Rome), 67/68 (death in Rome). This brief chronology provides the context from which Paul's dynamic mission principles emerge; they are the result of both mission praxis and deep theological reflection. Paul's letters and the Acts of the Aposdes provide much insight into Paul's missionary thinking and methods. Over the centuries many authors have tried to digest Paul's mission thought and praxis, emphasizing the "central ideas" of this aposde. This effort may be admi-rable, but can result in a certain selectivity. Thus, this author is chary of claiming to capture the "essence" of Paul's insights. One cannot compose a "CliffsNotes" or abbreviated version of Paul's thought. His letters were written over a span of ten years; they were based on a lengthy ministry of preaching the gospel message in an extraordinary variety of circumstances and to diverse groups of people. Readers, consider this pie.ce a long-term ad gentes missionary's :personal reflections based on a medita-tive reading of St. Paul. Through an interaction of this writer's personal experience and the profound thought of Paul, ten "mission principles" took form. Emerging from Paul's life and refracted through the experience of a contemporary missioner, these insights are, I think, valid for the church's missionary activity today, twenty centuries after Paul's birth. Depth Awareness of Vocation. In Paul's mind there was no iota of doubt about his calling, his vocation; for Paul and all missioners, mis-sion originates in the call of God. Several passages in the 68.2 2009 Kroeger ¯ Paul's Dynamic Mission Principles book of Acts portray this: "The Lord said to [Ananias], 'Go, because this man [Paul] is my chosen instrument to bring my name before Gentiles'" (Ac 9:15). "The God of our ancestors has chosen you . . . because you are to be his witness before all humanity, testifying to what you have seen and heard" (Ac 22:14-15). "I have appeared to you for this reason: to appoint you as my servant and as witness of this vision in which you have seen me" (Ac 26:15). In addition, the majority of Paul's letters begin with a firm assertion of his identity as a chosen instrument of God. "From Paul . . . an apostle who does not owe his authority to men or his appointment to any human being, but who has been appointed by Jesus Christ and by God the Father who raised Jesus from the dead" (Ga 1:1-2). "From Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus who has been called to be an apostle, and specially chosen to preach the Good News" (Rm 1:1). Several other let-ters begin with almost the same words: "From Paul, appointed by God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus" (2 Co 1:1); see also 1 Co 1:1, Ep 1:1, Col 1:1, Ph 1:1, and others. Writing to the Corinthians about Christ's resur-rection, Paul categorically states: "I am the least of the apostles; in fact, since I persecuted the church of God, I hardly deserve the name apostle; but by God's grace that is what I am, and the grace that he gave me has not been fruitless" (1 Co 15:9-10). Radical Commitment to Christ. Paul's experience on the Damascus road was, in fact, only the starting point of a lifelong relationship; mission envisions a totally Christ-centered life. Paul expresses this in various ways: "Life to me, of course, is Christ" (Ph 1:21). "None of us live to ourselves, and none of us die Review for Religious to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's" (Rm 14:7-8). "I have been crucified with Christ, and I live now not with my own life, but with the life of Christ who lives in me" (Ga 2:19-20). All of Paul's writings speak of his love for Christ, his identification with Christ. So intimate was his rela-tionship that he could even advise the Corinthians: "Imitate me as I imitate Christ" (1 Co 11:1). Paul tells the Thessalonians that they can follow his example: "You observed the sort of life we lived when we were with you, which was for your instruction; you were led to become imitators of us and of the Lord" (1 Th 1:5-6). Paul, writing to the Philippians, makes a moving com-parison of his previous life to his newfound existence in Christ: "I believe nothing can happen that will out-weigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For him I have accepted the loss of everything, and I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him" (Ph 3:8-9). Voluntary Acceptance of Suffering Not relying on words alone, the apostle Paul preached the gospel by his life and example. In a par-ticular way, vulnerability and acceptance of the cross authen-ticate mission. In imitation of Christ who gave himself up to death even for sinners (Rm 5:8), Paul considers his suffering for the sake of the gospel to be a participa-tion in Christ's sufferings (2 Co 1:5-7). Paul saw him-self as sharing in Christ's kenosis (Ph 2:6-11). Writing to Timothy he says: "Join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling" (2 Tm 1:8-9). 121 68.2 2009 Kroeger ¯Paul'$ Dynamic Mission Principles Paul recounts his numerous trials in the service of the gospel; he mentions his imprisonments, beatings, shipwrecks, travels, robberies, hard labor, sleeplessness, hunger, thirst, and nakedness (see 2 Co 11:23-27). Paul also mentions that he had to bear "a thorn in the flesh" (2 Co 12:7). Yet, he notes, "I am quite content with my weaknesses, and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and the agonies I go through for Christ's sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong" (2 Co 12:10). Of course, this vulnerability is intimately linked with the paradox of the cross: "Continually we carry in our bod-ies the.dying of Jesus, so that in our bodies the life of Jesus may also be revealed" (2 Co 4:10). Like Paul, all missionaries need to say, "May I never boast of anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Ga 6:14). Insightful Mission Methods One can affirm that all Paul's energies were mission-focused, yet one can also point out that he employed dis-tinct methods to achieve his purposes. Mission demands creative, inculturated, ever-renewed approaches to evange-lization. Paul sought various occasions which would facilitate his proclamation; he attempted to connect his preaching with people's daily lives and worldview. Paul's approach at Ephesus (Ac 19) is exemplary; he would preach in a synagogue or a nearby house and attempt to link th~ Jewish faith with Christian revelation (see Ac 13:5 & 14, 14:1, 17:1). Acts 17:22-31 narrates Paul's famous speech in the Areopagus, the central assembly place in Athens, the cultural capital of the Greek islands. Paul mentions their altar to an unknown god; he refers to the philoso-pher- poet Epimenides (vv. 23 & 28). Although many mocked Paul, his intelligent method won some followers Revie~v for Religious for Christ. Paul, the "practical" missioner, moved from the familiar to the unfamiliar, from the unknown to the known. Pope John Paul II has exhorted missionaries to move into new mission frontiers, "the modern equiva-lents of the Areopagus" (Redemptoris missio, §37). Paul's missionary sensitivities are manifested in his conviction that adaptation (inculturation, in today's parlance) is essential when mission meets a new situa-tion (Ac 15). He vigorously opposed the imposition of Jewish legal traditions, cultural observations, or external religious practices on Gentile Christians; these could hinder the spread of the gospel into the Gentile world. Paul even withstood James in Jerusalem (Ac 15) and Peter in Antioch (Ga 2:11-14). Paul articulates his "inculturated" method of becom-ing "all things to everyone" (1 Co 9:19-23). He adapts himself to the Jews, to those outside the law, and to the weak. His vision is crystal clear: "I have made myself the slave of everyone so as to win as many as I could. ¯. I made myself all things to everyone in order to save some at any cost; and I still do this, for the sake of the gospel, to have a share in its blessings." Urgent Gospel Proclamation ~. Paul did not understand "preaching" as giving a spir-itual reflection in a liturgical assembly. Integral procla-mation means heralding an urgent message from God that profoundly affects the destiny of all humankind. Mission has lost none of its urgency in the contem-porary world. Paul's words possess an authentic ring-- even in our ears today: "For, if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!" (1 Co 9:16). For all Christians, evangelization must be a 123 68.2 2009 Kroeger ¯ Paul's Dynamic Mission Principles "daily preoccupation" (2 Co 11:28). As Pope Paul VI noted, "the presentation of the gospel message is not an optional contribution for the church. It is a duty incumbent on her by the command of the Lord Jesus" (Evangelii nuntiandi, §5). This Pauline "mission principle" is actually a call for an examination of conscience on the part of the church. Have many local churches placed too much emphasis on administrative efficiency, pastoral management, eco-nomic accountability, liturgical practice, canonical and catechetical orthodoxy--all to the detriment of dynamic programs of renewed evangelization? Have inward (ad intra) concerns vitiated the church's outward (ad extra) mission commitments? Paul's words contain a challenge to all churches and religious communities: "All the way along, from Jerusalem to Illyricum, I have preached Christ's Good News to the utmost of my capacity" (Rrn 15:19). Paul wrote these encouraging words to Timothy: "Make the preaching of the Good News your life's work, in thoroughgoing service" (2 Tm 4:5). 124 Deep Love of the Church In examining Paul's apostolic methods, it is enlight-ening to probe his view of the church. Paul primarily understands the church as a local community of baptized followers of Jesus Christ; he was not opposed to a uni-versal church, but in his day the local congregation was central to his experience. Mission and love of the people who constitute the church go hand in hand. This principle echoes the thought of an elderly Maryknoll missioner who never tired of repeating: Mission is people. Paul had great love and concern for the ecclesial com-munities he founded with painstaking effort. His writ-ings frequently and spontaneously express his affection: Review for Religious "It is only natural that I should feel like this towards you all, since you have shared the privileges which have been mine: both my chains and my work defending and estab-lishing the gospel. You have a permanent place in my heart, and God knows how much I miss you all, loving you as Christ Jesus loves you" (Ph 1:7-8). When the churches Paul established with patient apostolic ministry were in trouble, he shared their pain; he speaks of his "daily anxiety" for them (2 Co 11:28). He wonders aloud: "I am afraid that my work for you may have been wasted" (Ga 4:11). "My children, I must go through the pain of giv-ing birth to you all over again, until Christ is formed in you" (Ga 4:19). Although the Corinthian community had many internal problems (divi-sions, immorality, idolatry, etc.; see 1 Co 1:10-13, 5:1-5, 10:14- 22), Paul, the affectionate missionary, loved them dearly: "You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all" (2 Co 3:2). "Keep a place for us in your hearts . As I have already told' you, you are in our hearts--together we live or together we die. I have the very greatest confidence in you, and I am so proud of you that in all our trouble I am filled with consolation and my joy is overflowing" (2 Co 7:2-4). His writings frequently "and spontaneously express his affection. Close Collaboration with Coworkers The apostle Paul, though a strong personality, was a team worker in the task of evangelization. He under-stood that all apostolic ministry is enhanced through collab-orative efforts. Some few examples show that Paul saw 68.2 2009 Kroeger * Paul's Dynamic Mission Principles great advantages in working together with other apos-tles. On his first missionary j6urney, Paul was accom-panied by Barnabas and Mark (Ac 13-14). Timothy and Silvanus were his trusted coworkers in Corinth and else-where (2 Co 1:19). Titus was his appointed deputy in dealing with difficulties in the Corinthian community (2 Co 8:23), Among other coworkers and fellow aposdes were Luke, Erastus, Aristarchus, and Tychicus. Paul considered teamwork and collaborative minis-try important for a variety of reasons. Apostles working in partnership presented a visible image of the church as community; it gave the people an example of common witness. A variety of apostles working for a common goal presented a more balanced picture of the church than Paul alone could have given. In addition, the gifts of vai'ious individuals were put at the service of gospel proclamation. Paul frequendy expressed his admiration and appre-ciation of his collaborators; he called Timothy his "coworker" (Rm 16:21) and tenderly describes him as "my dear and faithful son" (1 Co 4:17) whose "worth you know, how like a son with a father he has served with me in the work of the gospel" (Ph 2:22). Paul referred to Titus as "my brother" (2 Co 2:13) and "my partner and coworker" (2 Co 8:23). Even if disputes occasionally arose, Paul sought to promote communion in mission. Paul offers contemporary ministers a model of cooperative ministry. Commitment to Social Transformation Paul preached a gospel of freedom and liberation along with his manifest concern and love for the poor and the suffering. The gospel message of human dignity and equality, if embraced, leads to social transformation. Revie~v for Religious Paul firmly believed in the transforming power of the gospel message, and he proposed to his communities the model of Jesus Christ: "Remember how generous the Lord Jesus was: he was rich, but he became poor for your sake, to make you rich out of his poverty" (2 Co 8:9). And, for gospel credibility, Paul himself imitated Christ. Though he possessed citizenship in the Roman Empire, to show his social concern and commitment he chose the lot of ordinary working-class people and labored with his own hands for his livelihood (1 Th 2:9, 1 Co 4:12). Paul challenged many of the social, racial, religious, cultural, and economic barriers of his times. One brief example illustrates Paul's social message. In ancient times, there were three great blessings pronounced in the Jewish synagogue: "Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, . . . who hast not made me a Gentile, . . . who hast not made me a slave,., who hast not made me a woman!" Paul certainly had these barriers in mind when he expressed the new unity of those baptized in Christ: "There are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Ga 3:28). All, without dis-tinction, are to gather around the Eucharistic table, that great center of unity. Numerous additional examples of Paul's social con-sciousness readily come to mind. He struggled to alleviate the suffering of the Christian communities in Jerusalem and Judea during a severe famine (1 Co 16:1-4). Paul laid down ~a clear apostolic principle: "The only thing insisted on was that we should remember to help the poor, as indeed I was anxious to do" (Ga 2:10). Paul converted the runaway slave Onesimus and then demanded that he be accepted "no longer as a slave but something much bet-il, 27 68.2 2009 Kroeger * Paul's Dynamic Mission Principles ter than a slave, a beloved brother" (Phm 16). In a word, Paul preached authentic liberation: "When Christ freed us, he meant us to remain free" (Ga 5:1). 128 Effective, Exemplary Lifestyle The apostle Paul was always careful that .his per-sonal life would encourage and facilitate the spread of the gospel and never become counterproductive. The witness of a Cbristian life is the first and oj~en most effective proclamation of the gospel. When Paul speaks of imitation in his letters (he is not being arrogant), he believes that Christians can encourage one another through their Chrisdike words and deeds. An exemplary lifestyle is a very effective mode of proclamation. "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ" (1 Co 11:1). Paul commends the Thessalonians because "you were led to become imita-tors of us and of the Lord" (1 Th 1:6). Paul, the exem-plary missioner, is seeking to draw people to Christ, not to himself, through his encouragement to imitate model Christians: "I have sent you Timothy. he will remind you of the way that I live in Christ" (1 Co 4:16). Several of the foregoing sections of this presenta-tion refer to key elements that coalesce to form Paul's life-witness as an apostle: Christocentric spirituality, voluntary vulnerability, innovative mission approaches, evangelical urgency, collaborative ministry, social engagement. To these elements one could add additional virtues, as Paul himself does in his lists of spiritual gifts (see 1 Co 12 & 13, Ga 5:22). In a theology of mission today, the holistic approach to mission that Paul's life shows would be termed "inte-gral evangelization." Paul consistendy strove to run the race successfully and fight the battle successfully (see 1 Co 9:24-27). He kept his eyes fixed on Christ; he told Revie~v for Religious the Philippians: "I am still running, trying to capture the prize for which Christ Jesus captured me" (Ph 3:12). Total Reliance on God's Providence Paul had full confidence in God's everlasting love and fidelity; the guarantee of God's salvific love is Jesus Christ. Paul asks: "If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him?" (Rm 8:31-32). Mission always remains "God's project" and evangelizers seek to be God's faith-filled, humble instruments. Paul cooper-ated with God's grace so willingly and generously because he was firmly convinced that he was doing God's work. He asserts that he is only a servant of the gospel: "I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but God made things grow. Neither the planter nor the waterer matters: only God, who makes things grow" (1 Co 3:6-7). Paul lived his apostolic life with great confidence and full trust in God, whom we can call "Abba" (Rm 8:15, Ga 4:6-7). His life wasfilled with many sufferings, hardships, and challenges; he even faced Spirit-given "roadblocks" in his missionary journeys (Ac 16:6-10). Fully convinced that his life and mission were dependent totally on God and the Spirit's guidance, Paul labored unceasingly, always ascribing any missionary success to God. "By the grace of God I am what I am . I worked harder than any of them--though it was not I, but the Paul labored unceasingly, always ascribing any missionary success to God. 129 68.2 2009 Kroeger * Paul's Dynamic Mission Principles grace of God that is with me" (1 .Co 15:10). Paul asserts: "The love of Christ urges us on" (2 Co 5:14), "I can do all things in him who strengthens me" (Ph 4:13), "The Spirit comes to help us in our weakness" (Rm 8:26). Paul was a man of faith. The dynamic aposde Paul is undoubtedly the great-est missionary of all time. Based on his mission experi-ence and profound theological insights, this presentation has proposed ten "mission principles," valid for Paul of Tarsus and for today's Pauls as well. Paul burned' with the flame of God's love that was enkindled in his heart at his conversion; that flame pervaded his whole existence, even to the final hour of his martyrdom in Rome. It is good for us to notice that, even in the face of all the afflictions and sufferings he endured, Paul was a fulfilled, joyful, Spirit-guided missioner. Paul over-flowed with the Good News, and spread God's saving love everywhere. His awareness of God's transforming grace given to him in abundant measure enabled him to joyfully proclaim Jesus as Lord (see 1 Co 15:10). Paul, exemplifying a genuinely missionary attitude, was filled with deep joy, not because of personal grati-fication or external success, but because he saw many communities accept the person of Jesus. He wrote to the Philippians: "My brothers and dear friends, do not give way but remain faithful in the Lord. I miss you very much, dear friends; you are my joy and my crown" (Ph 4:1). To the Thessalonians Paul wrote: "What do you think is our pride and our joy? You are; and you will be the crown of which we shall be proudest in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes; you are our pride and our joy" (1 Th 2:19-20). The Corinthians received this message from Paul: "I have the very great-est confidence in you, and I~ am so proud of you that in Review for Religious all our trouble I am filled with consolation and my joy is overflowing" (2 Co 7:4). Paul's exhortations need to be heard by the mission-ary church today: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice" (Ph 4:4). "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Th 5:16- 18). "My brothers, rejoice in the Lord" (Ph 3:1). "Shine in the world like bright stars, because you are offering it the word of life" (Ph 2:15-16). Pastors, missionaries, catechists, religious, all ministers of the church, imitate Paul, the joyful evangelizer. Selected Resources Alien, R. Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours? Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1962. Grassi, J. The Secret of Paul the Apostle. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1978. Grassi, J. A World to Win. Maryknoll: Maryknoll Publications, 1965. Matera, E Strategies for Preaching Paul. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2001. Murphy-O'Connor, J. Jesus and Paul: Parallel Lives. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2007. Smyth, B. Pauk Mystic and Missionary. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1980. Srampickal, T. "The Secret of Paul's Missionary Success," Third Millennium 10 (2007): 41-66. Witherup, R. I01 Questions and Answers on Paul. New York: Paulist Press, 2003. Personal Reflection and/or Group Discussion What principle(s) of Paul, identified by Kroeger, most caught your attention for use in your own mission? If you were to list your own mission principles, how would they compare with Paul's? 131 68.2 2009 DANIEL P. HORAN A Franciscan Approach to Ministry 1321 During his final days St. Francis of Assisi reflected on how he had lived his life and spent God's time. To preserve his recollections of the birth of his new religious order and leave a record of his hopes for the future, he dictated his Testament to some of the fri-ars who were caring for him. In it he recalls his conver-sion to follow Christ and shares what it means to be a Franciscan: to live the gospel. Today Francis continues to inspire people in all parts of the world and every faith tradition. His Testament is the last of a series of writings by Francis that reveals his vision of ministry. Beyond what people often call "Franciscan spirituality" stands his vision of ministry in the church. It is a manner of living in the world, being in relationship with God, and serving our sisters and brothers. The year 2009 marks the eight-hundredth anniver-sary of the order's founding. As we celebrate this mile- Daniel P. Horan OFM has written on Franciscan theology, philosophy, and spirituality. His address is Holy Name College; 1650 St. Camillus Drive; Silver Spring, Maryland 20903. horandp@gmail.com Review for Religious stone, it is good to consider Francis's example and reflect on his vision, which serves as inspiration and guidance. In this article I will highlight five themes that emerge from Francis's writings to form a ministerial ethos that is particularly Franciscan. One does not need to be a Franciscan, a Poor Clare, or a secular Franciscan to adopt a Franciscan approach. Any pastoral minister can benefit from the insights of one of the greatest saints and reformers in Christian history. Everything Done in Humble Service When Francis started his work for God, having renounced his worldly possessions and aspirations, he did penance and followed the gospel as he felt led by God.~ Soon others sought to imitate his efforts and fol-low him in what Franciscan scholar Thadd~e Matura calls the "Franciscan project." This project, while ini-tially not the goal of Francis himself, quickly grew to include thousands of friars and hundreds of sisters,z What made them follow in the footsteps of this medi-eval man and renounce property and adhere to a life of obedience and chaste celibacy? One element of the Franciscan project that emerged early was radical adherence to subordinate positions in society. Francis's early followers saw the humility of a man who left behind the life of a wealthy merchant to live among lepers and outcasts. In his Earlier Rule, Francis had instructed them where among the social strata they should strive to live. He says, "Let no one be called 'prior,' but let everyone in general be called a lesser brother. Let one wash the feet of the other." Francis continued by enjoining his brothers to be "lesser ones" always "subject to all.''3 This spirit of humility is the foundation for all the 133 68.2 2009 Horan ¯ ~ Franciscan ~pproach to Ministry characteristics of a Franciscan ministry. Francis was less concerned about what someone did in the world than about how someone did it. Here we see his admiration for Christ's humility as central to his spirituality: to be Francis was less cbncerned about what someonedid in the world than how someone did: a Franciscan is to live the gospel by following in the footprints of Jesus Christ. Michael Blastic summarizes this well: "As Jesus turned toward those around him, so Francis and Clare in contemplation and com-passion incarnate the praxis of Jesus as they follow him in their world by turning to those around them.''4 From his incarnation and birth to his death on the cross, Jesus' life served as Francis's model for humble service. Perhaps the most succinct articulation of Francis's image of humble service is found in Admonition XIX. Here Francis says: Blessed is the servant who does not consider himself any better when he is praised and exalted by people than when he is considered worthless, simple, and looked down upon, for what a person is before God, that he is and no more. Woe to that religious who has been placed in a high position by others and [who] does not want to come down by his own will. Blessed is that servant who is not placed in a high position by his own will and always desires to be under the feet of others,s 134 Humility is a virtue of ministry, being of service to and among people, that Francis often wrote about. Besides being a reoccurring theme in his Admonitions, humility becomes a constitutive characteristic of the Franciscan way of life when it appears three times in his Review for Religious Later Rule. In chapter 3 we read, "I counsel, admonish, and exhort my brothers in the Lord Jesus Christ not to quarrel or argue or judge others when they go about in the world; but let them be rrieek, peaceful, modest, gende, and humble, speaking courteously to everyone, as is becoming." Two chapters later in the same document, Francis exhorts his followers to always work humbly as servants of God and disciples of poverty. Toward the end of the Rule, Francis again reminds his followers that even amid persecution, hardship, and infirmity they are to have humility and patience while loving those who persecute them.6 Francis echoes the theme of humility at every opportunity because in this way Christ served his brothers and sisters and in this way he desired to serve. Thaddte Matura makes a keen observation about the importance of humility in Francis's way of life and in the movement he gave rise to. Matura believes that Francis was.well aware of the temptation, perhaps within him-self, for pastoral ministers to consider themselves better or above those whom they served.7 It is possible that his concern about friars judging others and seeking special privileges was rooted in his own experience as the son of a wealthy merchant, a well-off young man who was disgusted by lepers and people of lower social status. Regardless of Francis's initial motivation, we are the inheritors of a vision that inspires ministers to always put others before themselves.8 In a world that is fraught with self-centeredness and material accumulation, where even devoted ministers are tempted to seek personal reward, a humble approach to ministry remains prophetic. Relationship Takes Priority Francis's way of being-in-the-world followed the example of Jesus Christ. Michael Blastic insightfully 68.2 2009 Horan ¯ A Franciscan Approach to Ministry connects the divine humility that Francis recognized in the incarnation with God's outward movement toward humanity.9 It was in humility that God incarnate, Jesus Christ, entered into relationships with the people around him. All four Gospels tell of Jesus' encounters with many people: the marginalized, outcast, wealthy, powerful, average, violent, peaceful, and so on. Because he lived a perfectly humble existence among his sisters and brothers, Jesus could meet people as they were, rec-ognizing the inherent dignity of each human person. For Francis, this became a major component of his way of life and remains a Franciscan characteristic today. Vv'hile most of the preserved writings of Francis are letters, prayers, and admonitions or guidelines addressed to large numbers, we have one letter that was written to a particular minister. His identity remains anonymous, frustratingly so for many, but the anonymiW allows us to stand in his place and receive personally from Francis his wisdom concerning ministry, a touching wisdom straight from his heart. Francis is concerned about this friar's attitude and disposition, and he says: I wish to know in this way if you love the Lord and me, his servant and yours: that there is not any brother in the world who has sinned--however much he could have sinned--who, after he has looked into your eyes, would ever depart without your mercy, if he is looking for mercy.~° Mercy trumps justice. Relationship remains the pri-mary way for people to understand all their encoun-ters. Vghile this observation may appear obvious, the reason is that we are already familiar--if only subtly and indirecdy--with the Franciscan way of seeing ministry. This was not always the case. The Franciscan historian Joseph Chinnici describes the early Franciscan move- Review for Religious ment as a radically new form of "penitential human-ism." He applies this term to the Franciscan movement's effort to bring people together peacefully amid "social discord and violence." This approach to ministry puts relationship and com-munity above per-sonal journeys of faith and conversion. One's own conversion, if it is a Franciscan one, should lead toward others and away from one's own self.~ It ~ is for precisely this reason that Francis insisted that the friars be mendicants, not monks, and live with the whole world as their cloister, not limiting it to a monastery's four walls. Franciscan ministries are not simply good methods, skillful implementations of model practices. Rather, they are a project that seeks to unite those who are separated by the violence of social, political, and ecclesial dissent.12 To stress relationship as the primary approach to minis-try, Francis often used familial terms. In his Earlier Rule, he says, "Let each one love and care for his brother as a mother loves and cares for her son."13 In Francis's spirituality, such a familial understanding of relation-ship extended even beyon.d human relationships to include all of God's creation. In his most famous work, The Canticle of the Creatures, he addresses all elements as brother or sister. In an age of heightened ecological awareness, our relationship with the earth and the rest of creation can influence our ministry positively. We are called to minister to all with a deepened sense of our One's own conversion, if it is a Franciscan one, should lead toward others and away from one's own self. 137 68.2 2009 Horan ¯ ~l Franciscan ~pproacb to Minisl~ interdependence and relatedness as children of God and brothers and sisters of all God's creation. Avoid Attachment There is great wisdom in a mendicant model of life. In a life of detachment from personal property, pasto-ral ministers become less preoccupied with their status, their control, their "things." If a particular ministry does not "belong" to a particular minister, one becomes a curator, a caretaker, one who takes good care of some-thing of value not one's own. This contrasts with the oligarchic approach, a small group's limited vision often preventing a ministry's expansion or creativity. Francis was quite convinced that appropriation of anything, including one's work as a minister, would lead to other problems. His Earlier Rule is filled with admonitions and warnings about the danger of attachment. In chap-ter 7 he says, "Wherever the brothers may be, either in hermitages or other places, let them be careful not to make any place their own or contend with anyone for it." He goes on to say, "Guard yourselves against the anxieties of this world and the cares of this life," and summarizes by saying: "Let all the brothers strive to follow the humility and poverty of our Lord Jesus Christ, and let them remember that we should have nothing else in the whole world except as the Apostle says: "Having food and clothing, we are content with these" (1 Tm 6:8).14 While today most ministers, including professed Franciscan women and men, would find it difficult to live in this world strictly observing the instruction above, the key to Francis's insight is found in the word "strive." We understand this as a more perfect vision of an imperfect manner of living in this world. It is the Review for Religious model that pastoral ministers should have in their work, striving in humility and poverty to not appropriate the work as their own. Thy Will Be Done Naturally, the divestment of property and ownership of even one's ministry leads to the question: Then to whom does it belong? For Francis the answer is simple: M1 good things come from and belong to God. It is in the perfect prayer of Christians that we find the source and purpose of our ministerial endeavors, "Thy will be done." When our efforts in ministry become more about our will, our ambition, or our desires, then we have left the realm of ministry and entered some level of self-centeredness. Closely linked to Francis's view of attachment is his understanding that all ministry is the work of God for God. This understanding affirms and renews people's vocation to service. It directs the gaze of ministers from themselves back to God as the source of their inspiration to follow their ministerial vocation. Francis often wrote about God's will in connection with his own ministry and that of the Friars Minor. In his Letter to the Entire Order, Francis reminds his broth-ers of their vocation and its connection to God's will. He writes: "Give praise to him because he is good; exalt him by your deeds; for this reason he has sent you into the whole world: that you may bear witness to his voice in word and deed and bring everyone to know that there is no one who is all-powerful except him.'ns Matura highlights this thought of Francis when he says, "Anything good that we have or do, no matter how personal it is, comes to us from God, and we are only administrators of that good, as it were.'n6 In addition to the proper attribution of our gifts and vocation to 139 68.2 2009 Horan ¯ A Franciscan Approach to Ministry God, this thought frees us of the weighty burdens of self-sufficiency and responsibility. Unhampered by the pressure ministers frequendy put on themselves, we are free to be God's instruments, working in partnership with Christ and others. In this way we leave the world of "lone rangers" and enter the community of Christians working toward the kingdom. I'40 Pray without Ceasing A Franciscan approach to ministry must always flow from a life of prayer. Those who adopt this approach are not just people who pray, but people whose words and actions are also prayer. This lived prayer is con-stant openness to conversion, allowing God to enter and transform lives from worldly concern and triviality to authentic gospel living--in Christ's footsteps, as God's instruments of peace today. In a brief letter to St. Anthony of Padua, Francis responded to his request for permission to teach the-ology. This was a new initiative, for up to this time Franciscans had largely avoided academic ministry. Francis was cautious of higher education because of the tendency of the educated to think better of themselves, look down on others, and move away from the charac-teristics of ministry we have examined above. Francis knew of Anthony's gifts, however, and knew that many friars had asked for his instruction in theology. Francis told Anthony, "I am pleased that you teach .sacred the-ology to the brothers providing that, as is contained in the Rule, you 'do not extinguish the Spirit of prayer and devotion' during study of this kind.''17 Even a ministry as basic as training other friars for pastoral ministry was viewed as secondary to prayer and devotion. Francis writes in his Earlier Rule that those who Review for Religious come after him are to love the Lord God, who has given everyone everything, with their whole heart, soul, mind, strength, understanding, powers, effort, affection, feel-ing, desire, and wish. This is not to be an occasional experience or portion of time apart from the rest of life, but the modus operandi of ministry. Later in the same text Francis writes: Wherever we are, in every place, at every hour, at every time of the day, every day and continually, let all of us truly and humbly believe and hold in our heart and love, honor, adore, serve, praise and bless, glorify and exalt, magnify and give thanks to the Most High and Supreme Eternal God, Trinity and Unity.'s This is another echo of the Franciscan understanding that one's entire life should be given back to God as prayer. Such a life naturally nourishes a vocation to service and ministry. When one's actions are directed back to God with humil-ity, with relationship as the priority, without encumber-ing attachments, and with recognition of everything as God's work, then life is transformed into prayer. Ministry then is not a person's self-motivated effort or effectiveness, but the outpouring of God's gifts received prayerfully and gratefully and sharbd with others. Eight hundred years after the first Franciscan began to do ministry in the small town of Assisi, we find our-selves inspired by Francis's example to continue the mission of God's work in our world. Regardless of our particular manifestation of God's work, all pastoral min-isters can find renewed life and purpose by reflecting A Franciscan approach to ministry must always flow from a 'life of prayer. 141 68.2 2009 Horan * .4 Franciscan AIqn'oacb to Ministry on a Franciscan approach to ministry. Humility keeps us approachable and ready to give loving service. The priority we give to relationship brings us to places where we can best foster loving unity among our sisters and brothers and grateful respect for all of creation. Detachment helps to seek the right things, without being distracted by worldly concerns. Recalling that God is the source of all our gifts and our personal voca-tion puts our work into perspective, while bolstering our purpose to work hand in hand with God. Finally, more than just say prayers, we strive to live lives that are prayers, lives that help bring God's love to our world. Notes i Francis of Assisi, "The Testament," verses 1 and 14, in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 1, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, J.A. Wayne Hellmann, and William Short (New York: New City Press, 1999), pp. 124 & 125. Further citations of this first volume will be noted as FAED followed by page numbers. 2 Thaddde Matura, "Francis of Assisi and His Posterity Today," in Gospel Living: Francis of Assisi Yesterday and Today, ed. Elise Saggau (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute, 1994), pp. 263-267. Matura compares Francis to Jesus while explaining similarities of the Franciscan orders and the church. While Francis is held as the founder and model for the three Franciscan orders (much as Jesus is for the church), he is not credited with intentionally founding a new movement in the proper sense (see p. 264). ~ Francis of Assisi, "The Earlier Rule," 6:3-4 and 7:2, in FAED, p. 68. 4 Michael Blastic, "Contemplation and Compassion: A Franciscan Ministerial Spirituality," in Spirit and Life, vol. 7, ed. Anthony Carrozzo, Vincent Cushing, and Kenneth Himes (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute, 1997), p. 172. s Francis, "Admonition 19: A Humble Servant of God," in FAED, p. 135. 6 Francis, "The Later Rule," 3:10-11 (emphasis added), 5:4, and 10:7-10, in FAED, pp. 102-105. r Thadd~e Matura, Francis of Assisi: The Message in His Writings, Review for Religious trans. Paul Barrett (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute, 1997), p. 167. s St. Bonaventure, the Franciscan saint and doctor of the church, later wrote about the importance of humility in the evangelical life, beginning his treatise Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection with that topic. See Works of St. Bonaventure, vol. 13, trans. Thomas Reist and Robert Karris (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute, 2008). 9 Blastic, "Contemplation and Compassion," p. 153. 10Francis, "A Letter to a Minister," verse 9, in FAED, p. 97. 11 Joseph Chinnici, "Penitential Humanism: Rereading the Sources to Develop a Franciscan Urban Spirituality," in Franciscans in Urban Ministry, ed. Roberta McKelvie (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute, 2002), pp. 119-122. ~2 See Chinnici, "Penitential Humanism," p. 123. 13 Francis, "Earlier Rule," 9:1 I, in FAED, p. 71. ~4' Francis, "Earlier Rule," 7:13, 8:2, and 9:1, in F~IED, pp. 69-70. is Francis, "A Letter to the Entire Order," verses 8-9, in FAED, p. 117. 16 Matura, Francis ofAssisi, p. 132. 17 Francis, "A Letter to Brother Anthony of Padua," verse 2, in FAED, p. 107. 18 Francis, "Earlier Rule," 23:8 and 23:11, in FAED, pp. 84 & 85. Personal Reflection and/or Group Discussion 1. What model or approach do I currently use in my pastoral ministry? 2. In what ways do Francis's insights speak to me today? 3. What characteristics of a Franciscan approach to ministry do I live particularly well? Where could I strive to improve? 68.2 2009 DAMIAN C. ILODIGWE Discipleship and Walking by Faith God never deceives us. When we entrust our life to him and allow him to direct us, he ensures that all goes well. We may not know where he is lead-ing us. We only see the present, and nothing beyond it. Indeed, even the present is sometimes not clear, and in any case it reaches beyond itself into the future. The present invites to us to keep moving despite perplexity. Here our faith is our strength. Faith propels us forward. So long as we know that God is with us, we can afford to take the next step. We need not be apprehensive. We can be certain that we shall reach our destination even if we have to move slowly and sometimes with some frustradon. Without faith we do not see that God is leading us. If we step out into the unknown future at his bidding, it is likely that we will persevere to the end (see Heb 11). Damian C. Ilodigwe last wrote for us in early 2008. He is a priest and lecturer in philosophy at Ss. Peter and Paul Major Seminary; P.M.B. 5171; Secretariat P.O.; Ibadan, Nigeria. dammychuks2000@ yahoo.com Review for Religious We should trust God at each step, even when we do not know what lies ahead. He shows us his plan piecemeal. An aspect of faith is trust. We can think here of chil-dren and mothers. Usually young children are wholly dependent on their mother. She gives instruction, and the child wonders about it. But this wondering does not prevent the child from carrying out the mother's bidding. He may ask questions, of course, but unless he is simply seeking some clarification he will not get very far. He will not be permitted to ignore or resist what his mother asks him to do. Usually children know, for their own good, when they had better obey. Usually they carry out their mother's instruction even when they do not fully understand. What is true of the relation between children and their mother is true of our relationship with God. Like little children, we need to give God our utter trust (Lk 11:5-13; 18:1-8). Because our faith tells us that God acts in our best interest, we can afford to follow his bidding no matter the inconveniences we feel to be associated with it. A childlike simplicity in our relationship with God is an index of vibrant faith and of maturity in this relationship (Lk 12:22-31). The' Case of Abraham In the life of Abraham we find an example of this childlike faith. He is ready to do the Lord's bidding even when this involves a great deal of sacrifice. Many instances in his life illustrate his utter commitment to God. Consider the divine request to leave his country for another land: "Leave your country, your family, and your father's house, for the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name so famous that it will be used as a blessing. I will 68.2 2009 llodig'we ¯ Discipleship and Walking by Faith In the life of abraham we find an exa ple ff bless those who bless you; I will curse those who slight you; all the tribes on earth shall bless themselves by you" (Gn 12:1-2). How could God ask Abraham to do a thing like this?1 The demand appears extravagant and even ridiculous. Is it reasonable to leave his native place, where all his friends are? He is established here. He has security here. To leave means leaving good memories and property behind and beginning all over again. As the saying goes, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. It is foolish to abandon what has proved itself over the years without a good clear reason. That rea-son would be that the change will certainly make things better. But, for Abraham, the future is a clouded certainty. All that is certain is that he should leave and that he will be shown another land. Regarding the particulars of the promised land, he knows nothing. He is told, though, that from him will come a great nation. That promise appears less attractive than it might because of its general vagueness. Yet at another level it provides a certain motivation because it comes from God, from Abraham's faith in God. It is only faith that can quickly overcome the disenchantment pr0~oked by lack of information about this promised land. Abraham is certainly a man of faith. For, in spite of the obvious per-plexities associated with this directive, he. takes the bull by the horns. He understands that it is the Lord speak-ing and that he knows what he is doing. Consequently he sets out as the Lord has told him to do. Scripture tells us that Abraham is seventy-five years old when he Review for Religious leaves Haran. He takes his wife, Sarai, and the people they.have acquired in Haran. Their journey takes them to Canaan (Gn 12:4-5). Abram's age of seventy-five is significant, emphasizing the great inconvenience of this movement. He is not a young man eager to be off on his own. So in a sense it is a blind journey. God guides him. As is always the case, the Lord does not ask us to do something and then leave us to our own design. He does not leave us on our own. He provides for us one step at a time. The entire picture can never be available to us all at once. As Abram journeys, he comes to Shechem's Oak of Moreh, in Canaan. The Lord appears to him and says he will give this land to his descendants. Abram builds an altar there. He proceeds to the hill country east of Bethel and then to the Negeb (Gn 12:7-9). Although Abram has stepped out into the unknown, he is never alone. He knows in faith that the Lord is with him through all the stages of his journey. And so he is our father in faith (Heb 11:8). He is wholly sub-missive to God, and God does not fail him. Abraham becomes the father' of a multitude of nations. The Challenges of Discipleship and Our Contemporary Situation At this juncture we may ask what we can learn from Abraham's experience. We can learn much regarding the challenges of discipleship. Our life, too, is a journey, a journey of faith towards God's kingdom. God calls each of us out of our various backgrounds to pursue a special life journey, a pilgrimage to a distant destination. The fundamental truth about this is that God is with us all the time, even when we do not take cognizance of him. His presence empowers us to be what he wants us to be. '147 68.2 2009 Ilodig~ve ¯ Discipleship and Walking by Faith Without evidence we are likely to feel discdnnected, His providence sustains us and guides every.aspect of our life. We need to let this truth have an impact on the way we live our life each day. We need to entrust ourselves completely to that providence. "For those who --~ love God, all things work together unto good." We may not understand just how they fit together now or will fit together in the end, but we cannot doubt that they do fit together. God's love, acting as a redemptive principle, inte-grates every aspect of our experience, bringing every-thing into God's ultimate plan for us all. The practical implication of this truth, then, is that we must learn to walk by faith rather than by sight.2 There is a world of difference' between walking by faith and walking by sight. When we walk by mere sight, we are all the time looking for visible, tangible, measur-able evidence of what we should do or should have done. For many purposes and many aspects of reality, there is such evidence, but for other purposes there is none. We may feel that without that kind of evidence there is no reality. If so, we are likely to feel disconnected. We are likely to feel we are living within limited horizons, likely to have a vague feeling that we are missing something. Not enjoying that feeling, we give oursel~es a warrant to deny there is any reality behind our vague feeling. We decide not to let ourselves be affected by what we claim is unreality. We refuse to be open to it. On the other hand, our admittedly limited knowl-edge even of the physical world should persuade us to see and affirm that the fullness of reality is far broader 148] Review for Religious than, say, the empirical data we have of the astrophysi-cal universe or the jungles of Brazil. We may lack the resources to fully penetrate such real worlds, and the world of faith as well, but we do not have reason to deny their reality and the impact they can and should have upon us.3 We need not deny spiritual reality even though we lack tangible and visible data that serve as empirical evi-dence. Spirituality's reality is accessible to faith. Faith transcends the evidence of the empirical sciences. When we walk by faith, we find ourselves in some sense at home in all of reality. The experience of Abram challenges us. Because he walked by faith, he was able to see far beyond the lim-ited reality of his time and place. Ready to journey with the Lord, he stepped out into the unknown that in some way he could actually see. In time he realized much of the promise he had. received. Abram's faith was his sav-ing grace. In our dealing with the Lord, some tension remains between the way of faith and the way of mere sight. . Sometimes we may walk ahead of the Lord or far behind him, and thus miss some of what we would have received from him. When our faith is stronger, we are better able to synchronize our mind and heart with God. We see better what he sees; we dream better the dream that he dreams for us; we see a road even when our ordinary sight sees no road. In short, our world of possibilities becomes larger; we live our lives more abundantly. Thomas's Encounter with the Risen Lord Consider Thomas. He did not believe when the other apostles told him they had seen the Lord. He insisted that unless he touched Jesus' wounds he would 149 68.2 2009 llodigwe ¯ Discipleship and Walking by Faith 1501 not believe (Jn 20:24-25). His predicament is under-standable. He cannot transcend the inclination to walk by sight. He demands empirical evidence in a matter that requires faith. The reality of the risen Lord is not accessible to, cannot be contained in, the limited world of empirical evidence. This becomes clear to Thomas when the Lord grants his demand for evidence. "Put your finger here, and look at my hands; then stretch out your hand and put it in my side. Stop your doubting and believe." Thomas says, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus says to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe!" On 20:26-29). Thomas wants empirical evidence in order to believe, and he is granted the rare privilege of touching and seeing. But the Lord does not fail to make clear that this privilege is not really necessary. Indeed, it is argu-able that it is not the empirical evidence that generates Thomas's confession. Thomas could have touched the Lord and still not believed. There is another factor, the factor of grace. One cannot come into the presence of the risen Lord without being positively affected. That is what seems to have happened in Thomas's case. It is clear that what really matters is faith, not sight: "Happy are those who believe without seeing me." Without empirical evidence they believe, and this is what makes them blessed. The experience of the risen Lord is paradoxically a reward for their faith. It is their faith, not empirical evidence, that opens them to the reality of the risen Lord. Faith is a gift. through and through. God's gift, the presence of God, is received and perceived through faith. If we turn again to the experience of Abraham, we note that he avoids the tension between the way Review for Religious of faith and the way of sight. He does not ask for evi-dence as Thomas does. He is ready to step out into the unknown simply because he believes it is the Lord speaking. Faith sustains him on his travel. Faith brings him to the promised land. But before this ever comes to pass in time, faith has already enabled him to realize the promised land spiritually. The claim of faith is certainly one we cannot afford to ignore in our everyday struggle. We need to keep in mind the distinction between the way of faith and the way of sight. So as to realize our full destiny in the Lord, we must cultivate the habit of walking by faith rather than by sight, bringing faith into every aspect of our existence. It will enrich our vision of life and increase our ability to deal appropriately with all that occurs in our day-to-day living. In carefully fostered faith, the unthinkable becomes thinkable, the impossible becomes possible, and our entire life will be lighted by the glory of God. Notes I Even more extravagant is the later demand that he sacrifice Isaac, the child of promise. Here, too, Abraham's response marks him as a model of faith. See Genesis 22. z See Ralph C. Martin, Called to Holiness (Mumbai: St Pauls, 2001), pp. 101-117. 3 Faith and reason complement each other. Indeed, as Pope John Paul I! famously remarked, "Faith and Reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth" (Fides et ratio, §7). 151 68.2 2009 VIRGINIA M. HERBERS Reparation and the Sacred Heart: A New Interpretation renewing religious traditions The conciliar decree Perfectae caritatis was pro-mulgated in 1965 to guide renewal "in order that the great value of a life consecrated by the profession of the counsels and its necessary mission today may yield greater good to the church" (PC §1). Thirty years later John Paul II affirmed that "the consecrated life has not only proved a help and support for the church in the past, but is also a precious and necessary gift for the present and future of the people of God" (Vita consecrata, §3). In fidelity to the council's call and in response to the pope's call for authentic interpretation of founding charisms, the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus have in recent years striven to understand Virginia M. Herbers ASCJ is vocation director of the Aposdes of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and director of Queen of Apostles Spirituality Center; 800 Montebello Camp Road; Imperial, Missouri 63052. svhascj@yahoo.com Revie~ for Religious authentically the role and relevance of reparation within the Sacred Heart devotion. This effort has led me to believe that, just as religious consecration still has significance in the world today, so too does reparation. I affirm Karl Rahner's claim in 1966 that devotion to the Sacred Heart is not a dated, old-fashioned piety, but rather is quite relevant today. He later insisted that this devotion is indispensable "since the future of the church was decided by the love of the heart of Jesus in dying and depends on the final decision of Our own hearts."' I think Rahner is correct. I would add that consecrated life itself can be understood as a lived interpretation of Sacred Heart devotion, and that the religious profession of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart demonstrates the proper understanding of repa-ration in the Sacred Heart devotion. This community's charism illuminates a unique aspect of God's love, pro-viding for the entire church a renewed understanding of our baptismal vocation (see PC §1). To appreciate this charism of reparation, a brief look at the religious vows and the Sacred Heart devotion will provide helpful background. Let us take them in turn. The Evangelical Counsels Vita consecrata asserts that religious vows are not an initiative of the individual religious, but a response of the individual to God's call: "The experience of this gracious love of God is so deep and so powerful that the person called senses the need to respond by unconditionally dedi-cating his or her life to God" (VC §17). The profession of poverty, chastity, and obedience is the consecrated person's response of love to the One who loves her infinitely. Hearing the call and responding to God's love is not unique to those in religious life; it is implicit in 68.2 2009 Herbers * Reparation and the Sacred Heart baptismal consecration. Profession of the evangelical counsels does not set religious apart from the body of the faithful as holier, closer to God, or more perfect. It is not a consecration differing in essence from baptismal consecration. Rather, it is rooted in baptism. It is an intensification of baptismal consecration for mission; it is a specification of the baptismal call.2 As such, it is a sign to all the baptized of what and who we are called to become as followers of Christ and members of his Body. "Religious life 'clearly, strikingly, astonishingly' ¯ . . leads the church to see what the whole church is called to by baptism, to see it clearly and strikingly in a public and communal embodiment that helps people toward realization.''3 Profession of the evangelical counsels is thus a rec-ognition by religious of the fullness of God's love for all, and a response to that love with the gift of their entire lives. Through the vows of chastity, poverty, and obe-dience, religious center their lives on the "God-quest" and proclaim that "I commit my whole self, everything and forever, to the undying love that has claimed me for the transformation of the world." Profession of vows is thus "a unitary and unifying act, a solemn, formal, and public act, by which a person takes her whole life into her hands and freely disposes of it in self-gift to Christ and his Body within the congregation."4 Sacred Heart Devotion Devotion to the Sacred Heart has traditionally been understood as an icon of God's love for humanity, devel-oping direcdy from incarnational theology,s Humanity recognizes God's love in the love of the God-man, Jesus Christ, as shown specifically in his heart. The incarna-tion allows human beings to experience God's love in Review for Religious tangible human ways. The heart of Jesus reveals the heart of God, embodied and enfieshed. This capac-ity has implications for all who follow Christ, for "the only Son of God, in becoming incarnate, takes on a human heart [and] we are called to share in this love and to receive through the Holy Spirit this extraordinary capacity to love.''6 Devotion to the Sacred Heart, then, is not devo-tion to an abstract symbol, but devotion to the per-son of Jesus and his love for each human being. The incarnation gives humanity access to what was formerly inacces-sible, God's very self, during Jesus' earthly life and now in his Mystical Body, the church. In the heart of Jesus, God calls us to "become what we receive"7 and to incarnate God's love ourselves as members of Christ's Mystical Body. What, then, does the heart of Jesus teach us about the incarnate love of God? Devotion to the Sacred Heart encompasses four characteristics of God's love: (1) Christ's heart shows us that the incarnate love of God is a continuing, dynamic reality, not an abstract theory or historical event; the heart of God is enfleshed in the body of Jesus and continues to beat in his Body, the church. (2) Christ's heart is a heart wherein two natures--human and divine-~coexist in perfect harmony. (3) Christ's heart is on fire with love for all humanity, both in general and in particular. (4) Christ's heart is an Devotion to the Sacred Heart has traditionally been understood as an icon of God's love for humanity. 68.2 2009 Herbers ¯ Reparation and the Sacred Heart open, broken heart--opened by the soldier's lance after the sacrifice of his human life, and broken by human sin, weakness, and error. The Religious Vows: Returning Love for Love Given the understanding that religious vows are a response to love and a sign for all the faithful of our common call to share in Christ's mission, and given the understanding that Sacred Heart devotion is (a) an ongoing dynamic expression of God's incarnate love, (b) exemplified in the love of Jesus' heart, which is in perfect union with the Father and the Spirit, (c) con-tinually on fire with love for us, and (d) still wounded by humanity's rejection of divine love even while revealing through the open wound the ultimate gift of his life, we now turn to the modern relevance of the religious vows as a distinct and poignant means of living Sacred Heart devotion. The consecrated religious professes vows as a return of love for Love, as a response from her heart to the outpouring~of God's love upon her. The very act of con-secrated profession can be interpreted as a profound act of Sacred Heart devotion, as attested by John Paul II: "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 . 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" (Redemptionis donum, §8). Acknowledging and accepting the love of God and responding "in kind" are not enough, however. The Sacred Heart of God incarnate is not a mere image to be worshiped or just a pious practice to be encouraged. The encyclical on Sacred Heart devotion, Haurietis Review for Religious aquas, quotes Thomas Aquinas on this point: "Religious worship is not paid to images, considered in themselves, as things; but according as they are representations lead-ing to God incarnate. The approach which is made to the image as such does not stop there, but continues towards that which is represented.''8 In a similar way, professing vows in the church as a response to God's love commits religious to loving service of the church and, not stopping there, to loving service of the incar-nate Word of God. Our acceptance of God's love in baptism transforms us; in religious profession this baptismal transformation shapes our likeness to Christ, compelling us to return his love by following his example of ministering self-lessly to all those in need. Pope Benedict XVI expresses this directly: "When we practice this devotion, not only do we recognize God's love with gratitude but we con-tinue to open ourselves to this love so that our lives are ever more closely patterned upon it . The experience of God's love should be lived by men and women as a 'calling' to which they must respond. Fixing our gaze on the Lord. helps us to become more attentive to the suffering and needs of others.''9 Interior devotion is thus manifested in ministerial outreach. The three vows constitute a unique expression of Sacred Heart devotion, corresponding to specific char-acteristics of incarnate love. The heart of Jesus is a heart both human and divine, the heart of a man and the heart of God. Within one heart, two natures coex-ist in a mysterious unity that leaves each distinct yet undivided. Jesus' human heart beats in rhythm with the heart of God; his human will is perfectly synchronized with the will of God. The desire of the man corresponds completely with the desire of God for the man. 157 68.2 2009 Herbers * Reparation and tbe Sacred Heart In this lies the kernel of religious obedience--to have our hearts beat in time with the heart of God. Consecrated persons who vow obedience strive to desire what God desires, to will what God wills, to attune their hearts to the heart of God. "To want the same thing, and to reject the same thing, was recognizeff by antiq-uity as the authentic content of love: the one becomes similar to the other, and this leads to a community of will and thought,m° Genuine obedience is not confor-mity to an external authority nor submission to a will foreign to our own. The vow of obedience "in its deep-est roots is a dedication to freedom, not to subjection or servitude . True freedom is to be found in union with the will of God."1' The vow of chastity expresses devotion to the heart of Christ by expressing his love for all people. Just as the Sacred Heart is "a heart on fire," so by vowing chastity do religious enkindle the fire of love in their own heart. Sandra Schneiders insists'that the vow of chastity "must be based on a deep religious experience of being loved by God in Jesus and an experienced per-sonaL fulfillment in returning that love." She adds that this vow "leads the person toward personal transforma-tion in love and allows the person to participate mean-ingfully in the emergence of a new, whole, and loving world characterized by equality, responsible intimacy, and mutuality."12 Clelia Merloni, the founder of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart, describes the "fire of love" kindled by the apostle's vow of chastity as holy zeal: "You see, daugh-ters, wherever the fire of divine love is, it cannot remain hidden or idle, but at once it manifests itself as the liv-ing flame of a holy zeal . Remember, daughters, that zeal must be active, untiring, gentle, and prudent: zeal Reuiew for Religio~.s does not inflame the heart without manifesting itself in works."13 By vowing lives of consecrated celibacy, reli-gious perpetually submit to the consuming fire Of God's love, which in turn impels them to share that love with everyone she encounters in an inclusive, not exclusive, way. Professing chastity enables religious to fan into flame a love that embraces all, recognizing in each face the face of God. As Benedict xvI wrote in Deus caritas est (§ 15), "The concept of 'neighbor' is now universal-ized, yet it remains concrete. Despite .being extended to all mankind, it is not reduced to a generic, abstract, and undemanding expression of love, but calls for my own practical commitment in the here and now." The vow of chastity calls us to embrace each while embracing all, to love particularly w~ithout loving restrictively, to love universally and specifically. Pierre Teilhard de Chardifi described the source .and the consequence of this type of loving as fire: "Under the symbol of the Sacred Heart, the divine assumed for me the form, the strength, and the properties of an energy, of a fire . Through its power to become universal, this fire proved able to invade and impregnate with love the whole atmosphere of the world in which I lived.''~4 By professing poverty, religious make yet another return of love for Love, mirroring the woundedness of Christ's heart. John Paul II says that "on Golgotha Jesus' heart was pierced by a lance as a sign of his total self-giving, of that sacrificial and saving love with which he 'loved us to the end'" On 13:1).15 By accepting death at the hands, of humanity, the God-man sacrificed all for love. "From the infinite power proper to God, the heart of Christ did not retain anything except the unarmed power of the love that forgives . In the heart of Christ are encountered divine riches and human poverty."~6 68.2 2009 Herbers ¯ Reparation and the Sacred Heart In the profession of poverty, devotion to the broken heart of Christ is made tangible also through responding to the suffering ofhis heart in the poor of .today's~worl~d. 160 This kenosis, this. self-emptying, is the expression of Love to which the vow of poverty responds. In accept-ing death Christ accepted all and gave all. In professing poverty religious do likewise--accepting all that is given them from the hand of the Father and giving all in a return of love for Love. This is devotion to the open heart of Christ. In the profession of poverty, devotion to the broken heart of Christ is made tangible also through respond-ing to the suffering of his heart in the poor of today's world. For vowed reli-gious, devotion to the Sacred Heart includes recognition that his heart remains broken, suffering as people continue to betray and reject love, to ignore and neglect the hurt-ing, to strike first. The world's physical, emo-tional, psychological, and mental pain con-tinually shows the heart of Jesus suffering in his Body. Clelia Merloni insisted that "The heart of Jesus, disguised as this particular sick person, calls you to a mission of charity, since the sick make up the very body of Jesus.''17 Clelia exhorts her sister apostles to recognize that where there is sickness, pain, or suffering, there is the open, broken heart of Christ. The profession and living of poverty expresses solidarity with all those who are wounded in and by society, and expresses union with Christ's broken heart suffering today. By professing evangelical poverty, con- Review for Religious secrated religious commit themselves "to eliminating structures of oppression and to promoting projects of solidarity for the benefit of the poor" (VC §89). Only as the poor can we hope to alleviate the suffering of the poor.~8 Through their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedi-ence, consecrated religious express their love with the entirety of their lives. This threefold consecration uni-fies all religious communities. Their distinctive charisms are demonstrated by their various ways of expressing this consecration. The founder of my congregation, Clelia Merloni, was entrusted with a particular charism within Sacred Heart devotion--a charism to be apostles of the Sacred Heart. Her apostles were to be characterized by zeal and charity, but more importantly by one aspect of Sacred Heart devotion: reparation. She pleads with her apostles to make their lives relevant to the church's mission in the world: "Our congregation needs subjects who are strong and robust in virtue, not pious statues!''19 Sacred Heart devotion, for Clelia and her apostles, always implies responding to the living heart of Christ through lives of reparation. Zeal and charity are insufficient for those professing vows as Apostles of the Sacred Heart. Only when we are motivated by a spirit of reparation can we be seen clearly as apostles of the Sacred Heart devo-tion. What, then, is the nature, meaning, and relevance of the reparation this congregation fosters? A New Interpretation of Reparation Theologically reparation has often been mistakenly equated with atonement and expiation. Atonement is "an act of divine love that effects a new state of things, the peaceful relationship between God and man. Man is reconciled to God. atonement is effected through the 161 68.2 2009 Herbers * Reparation and the Sacred Heart blood of the cross . man is placed in a new relation to God.''2° Atonement, therefore, is effected once and for all in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Christ's death and resurrection made humanity "at-one" with God, reconciling a broken relationship, correcting and reversing the effects, of human sinfulness, thus mak-ing humanity's "atonement" not only unnecessary but impossible. Expiation is closely related to. atonement in that it is appeasement by sacrifice, specifically the sac-rifice of Jesus' death, which appeased God's justice and "remove[d] the cause of the sinner's alienation from God in. order to restore him to holiness and divine favor.''2' Taken to their logical ends, these notions of atone-ment and expiation .seem to perceive "the love of God given us in Christ Jesus" as either correction of a rela-tionship gone awry or Christ's willing acceptance of the penalty of death due us. In this context, the practice of reparation seems to be about "repairing" broken-ness, "atoning for" sinfulness, and "making up" for wrongdoing as we model our life on Jesus Christ. This is the vision of reparation in Pius XI's 1928 encycli-cal Miserentissimus Redemptor (§18): "Whosoever of the faithful have piously pondered on all these things must needs be inflamed with the charity of Christ in his agony and make a more vehement endeavor to expi-ate their own faults and those of others, to repair the honor of Christ, and to promote the eternal salvation of souls." This "atoning" and "expiative" sense speaks of a need for humanity to repent, convert, and wor-ship, but nowhere does it speak of the invitation given to humanity to love in the face of brokenness, that the heart of God may be loved and not rejected. I propose that, in the context of Sacred Heart devotion, reparation speaks direcdy of this invitation: "The focus of God's Review for Religious ¯ forgiveness in Christ is less on a word that is spoken to assuage guilt and more on a transformation of relation-ships-- with God and with other human beings."22 As seen above, religious consecration is a response of love prompted by the recognition and humble accep-tance of the unconditional, sacrificial love of God. Each of the vows has been shown to uniquely manifest, in the light of devotion to the Sacred Heart, a particular aspect of our loving response. Reparation, as a dis-tinctive response of love, is a particular expression of Sacred Heart devotion. It is a response of love to the broken heart of Christ, as when we see someone we love (and also Someone) hurting, broken, bleeding, and in pain, and want to--need to, are impelled t0--respond in manners worthy of love. William Temple, archbishop of Canterbury during World War II, claimed that the motive for reparation is that we not "go on wounding one who accepts our wounds like that; we are filled with fear, not the old craven fear of punishment, but the fear of wounding the tenderest of all hearts.''23 Reparation does not necessar-ily seek to repair the wrongdoing (for we may not be responsible for it), but seeks to respond to the broken heart of our loved One by offering concrete, tangible acts of love. This authentic healing power of reparation '~"The focus of God's forgiveness in Christ is less on a word that is spoken to assuage guilt .and more on a transformation of relationships-with God andwith othe~r human beings." 163 68.2 2009 Herbers * Reparation and the Sacred Heart 164 was understood by Aquinas: "When one. is in pain, it is natural that the sympathy of a friend should afford con-solation., because, when a man's friends console him, he sees that he is loved by them, and this affords him pleasure. Consequently, since every pleasure assuages sorrow, it follows that sorrow is mitigated by a sympa-thizing friend" (ST I-II.38.3). To extend this idea to how human acts of love serve as loving reparation to Christ, John Paul II said in another place: "In the heart of Christ the human heart comes., to unite filial love for God with love for the neighbor. In this way--and this is the true meaning of the reparation asked for by the heart of the Savior--on the ruins heaped up by hatred and violence can be built the civilization of love so greatly desired, the kingdom of the heart of Christ.''24 For the Apostles of. the Sacred Heart, it is imperative that they understand rightly their mission in the church and their ministry in the world. Their witness of repara-tive love can show all the faithful what their response to the brokenness of our world must be. Reparation, far from being an obsolete relic, is an essential component of Clelia Merloni's charism, and a unique way for her apostles to live their vows of poverty, chastity, and obe-dience. Experiencing Jesus as God's incarnate love, they are called to respond as incarnate love to his open heart still broken in the woundedness of his loved ones. In respond-ing, they are not merely practicing their own personal spirituality; they are engaging in their ministry. As Pius XII said in Haurietis aquas (§112), "In show-ing devotion to the most Sacred Heart of Jesus, the external acts of piety have not the first or most impor-tant place; nor is its essence to be found primarily in the benefits to be obtained." Rather, reparation must be a dynamic response of love, reaching out to the broken- Review for Religious ness of humanity--at any given moment, in any given circumstance. "The practical good that emerges in the event [of reparative love] is seen not only in the inward realm of personal and spiritual values, but in the trans-formation of the material order through which the val-ues are expressed.''25 Living her congregation's motto, "Caritas Christi urget nos!" (2 Co 5:14), consumed by the love of God given her in Christ Jesus, an apostle the Sacred Heart "returns love for Love" by the gift of her life of vowed chastity and reaches out to ev.eryone in selfless service. By her vowed obedience she matches her heartbeat to the heart of God. By their vowed poverty she is free to give her all to the broken hearts around her. She accepts humbly the gifts she receives from the incarnate, inflamed, obedient, and open heart of Jesus and returns them as her gift to his Body, the church. The reparative value of these gifts lies in its heal-ing power for the broken heart of Christ in the church and in the world. Reparation from this n~w perspective is most assuredly, then, not merely valuable for those among the faithful who may be attracted to it as a pious practice, but a vital mission entrusted to each mem-ber of the church. Reparative love is the love of God poured out through us, incarnate in the members of Christ's Body, embodied in real hands and real hearts. Reparative love speaks a word of selflessness to a world broken by hatred and individualism. It lives a life of generosity in a world broken by selfishness and fear. It breathes a promise of forgiveness for a world broken by resentment and injustice and gives a hand of compassion to a world broken by suspicion and greed. Reparation is anything but old-fashioned piety entrenched in sen-timentalism or self-derogation. Rightly understood in the brokenness of our contemporary experience, repa- 165 68.2 2009 Herbers * Reparation and the Sacred Heart 166. ration is the tender answer of hearts on fire, yearning to express themselves boldly, so that brokenness and woundedness may always and only be answered with all-consuming love, centered in God, reaching out to every one of God's beloved people. Notes I Quoted in Annice Callahan, Karl Rahner's Spirituality of the Pierced Heart (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1985), pp. 108, 110-111. 2 See Patricia E Walter, "Religious Life in Church Documents," Review for Religious 51, no. 4 (July-August 1992), and Nadine Foley, "The Nature and Future of Religious Life," Origins 19, no. 13 (1989): 212. 3 Michael Himes, "Returning to Our Ancestral Lands," Review for Religious 59, no. 1 (January-February 2000): 18. 4 Sandra Schneiders, Selling All (New York: Paulist Press, 2001), pp. 108, 114. s It is important to be aware of this rich history as we examine Sacred Heart devotion from a modern perspective. For a more com-prehensive examination of the history of the devotion, see Timothy O'Donnell's Heart of the Redeemer (Manassas, Virginia: Trinity Communications, 1989) and Joseph Stierli's Heart of the Saviour: A Symposium on Devotion to the Sacred Heart (New York: Herder and Herder, 1958). 6john Paul II, "Letter to Bishop Raymond Seguy, Bishop of Autun, Chalon, and Macon, June 22, 1990," in Holy Father, Sacred Heart, ed. Carl J. Moell SJ (New York: Crossroad, 2004), p. 210. 7 Augustine, Sermons on the New Testament 7(7). s Thomas Aquinas, ST 1/-1/.81.3 ad 3. See Pius XII, Haurietis aquas (1956), §103. 9 Benedict xvI, letter on the fiftieth anniversary of Haurietis aquas, 15 May 2006. 10 Benedict XVI, Deus caritas est (2005), §17. '~ Sandra Schneiders, New Wineskins (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), p. 109. ,2 Schneiders, New Wineskins, pp. 105, 106. ~3 Clelia Merloni, Spiritual Anthology, ed. Pierpaula de Farias (Rome: privately printed, 1992), pp. 167, t73. Review for Religious ,4 Quoted in Christopher E Mooney, Teilhard de Chardin and the Mystery of Christ (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Image, 1968), pp. 28-29. 15 John Paul II, "Homily during Sacred Heart devotions and beati-fication of Father Stefan Wincenty Frelichowski, at the Aviation Club in Torun, June 7, 1999," in Holy Father, Sacred Heart, p. 112. 16 John Paul II, "Homily at the Polyclinic of the Agostino Gemelli University Hospital in Rome, June 28, 1984," in Holy Father, Sacred Heart, p. 47. 17 Merloni, Spiritual Anthology, p. 167. ,s James Alison poignandy elucidates this idea with his concept of the "intelligence of the victim." See Knowing Jesus (London: Ashford Colour Press, 1998). 19 Merloni, Spiritual Anthology, p. 334. 20 Kenneth E Dougherty, "Atonement," in New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. (Detroit: Gale, 2003), vol. 1, p. 837. 21 Lucien Richard, "Expiation (in Theology)," in New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., vol. 5, p. 565. 22 L. Gregory Jones, "The Craft of Forgiveness," Theology Today 50, no. 3 (October 1993): 356. 23 William Temple, The Faith and Modern Thought, quoted in Leonard Hodgson, The Doctrine of Atonement (New York: Scribners, 1951), p. 80. 24 See the letter of John Paul II to Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach sJ on the Canonization of Blessed Claude la Colombi~re SJ, in UOsservatore Romano, English edition, 27 October 1986, and referred to by Benedict xvI (see note 9 above). 25 G.W.C. Thomas, "Reparation: The Sevenfold Pattern of Redemption," Church Quarterly Review 158, no. 327 (April-June 1957): 165. ,167 68.2 2009 JAMES H. SCHIMELPFENING Being Heard, Being Healed: Learning from the Quaker Tradition We cannot change the world by a new plan, project, or idea. We cannot even change other people by our convictions, stories, advice, and proposals, but we can offer a space where people are encouraged to disarm themselves, lay side their occupations and preoccupa-tions, and listen with attention and care to the voices speaking in their own center. --Henri Nouwen1 168 Community is a word that is tossed around a lot, but is hard to define. My own religious order and those who share in the Marianist tradition embrace community as a constitutive part of our mission and identity, and thus we engage in countless conversations discerning its meaning, the place it has in our lives, and how it is to be an instrument of mission. After thirty-five years of religious life and after living in communities on four continents, my experience of community is all over the board. Sometimes I am most grateful for it, but other times it has been quite the opposite. James H. Schimelpfening SM lives at Marianist Community; Meyer Hall; 4435 East Patterson Road; Dayton, Ohio 45430. Review for Religious Recently I experienced community in an utterly refreshing and transformative way. I participated in a series of six seasonal retreats based on the Quaker tradition and the work of Parker Palmer. The Center for Courage and Renewal, partially funded by Lilly Endowment, offered these retreats for clergy and con-gregational leaders) The approximately twenty partici-pants represented a variety Of religious denominations, including a young Jewish woman and myself, the only Catholic. That in itself made the retreats interesting and delightful. These retreats, spread over eighteen months, opened up and stretched my idea and sense of community. I want to share with you something of the enriching, grace-filled, contemplative experience that the retreats were for me. Welcoming the True Self One of the principal resources for the retreats was Parker Palmer's A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey toward an Undivided Life. He portrays community as "one that knows how to welcome the soul"--or true self--and how to hear its voice within oneself. He refers to this kind of community as a circle of trust, a revealing name. Such a community, he writes, allows us to reach in towards our wholeness, out towards the world's need, while living at "the intersection of the two.''3 This intersection is sometimes a daunting place to be. One needs to be with others who, in the right sort of way, support and encourage each other in their moving inward and outward. Often, at least in my experience of community, issues and concerns are discussed, debated, and at times argued; then votes are taken, and there are winners and losers. Tensions, often subtle but barely hidden, may 169 68.2 2009 Scbimelpfening ¯ Being Heard, Being Healed remain. As a result, people keep trying to fix each other or straighten the others out. Advising and rectifying implies that one knows what is good for others if only they would acknowledge it. Community harmony and peace become elusive, and passive-aggressive behavior comes to the fore. Life in community has taught me that violence has many forms that give pain and raise suspicion and result in protective walls. Often persons are diminished and given less respect in favor of group-think or the institution itself.4 Life in community some-times fails to lead persons to wholeness or holiness, and when such failings occur the mission too falters. Touchstones In the series of retreats that I was part of, there was a quite different style of community and way of being present to one another and ultimately to oneself. I have experienced it also in other religious and church com-munities, but only rarely, and even more rarely as an intentional way of being together. In each retreat of this series, one of the first things we did was review the Circle of Trust Touchstones, the guidelines for all of our time together, not only when we were "sitting in the circle." We would: ¯ presume, extend, and receive welcome. ¯ be present as fully as possible. ¯ offer by invitation, not demand. ¯ speak our truth in ways that respect other people's ¯ not fix, save, advise, or set each other straight. ¯ learn to respond with honest, open questions. ¯ turn to wonder when the going got tough. ¯ attend to our own inner teacher. ¯ trus~t.and learn from and in the silence. ¯ observe deep confidentiality. ¯ know that it is possible to leave the circle with Review for Religious whatever you needed and that the seeds planted could and would keep growing. To live these touchstones intentionally takes work and demands attention, but something good happens and a different environment is created. These touchstones were practical and crucial for our community because we were so diverse. We were men and women, ordained and nonordained, Christian and Jewish, various races and ages, formed in different religious traditions with different doctrines and creeds, coming from all over the country, and having various personali-ties and committed relationships. It was only by living these touchstones that something new and deep could be born, so that we could move beyond differences that would normally keep us separate. Living these touchstones introduced ways of being together that led to deeper respect for persons and enduring bonds of friendship and trust. It is all too easy to focus on what is different and what is perceived to be "wrong," instead of expe-riencing what is right. This environment made it pos-sible to speak and listen in a gender and more attentive manner. It is all too easy tofocus on what is different and what is perceived to be "wrong," instead ,of experiencing what is right. Circles of Trust Parker Palmer calls such a community a circle of trust. The name, in my experience, is descriptive. We would sit in an unbroken circle with no one coming first or being 171 68.2 2009 Schimelpfening ¯ Being Heard, Being Healed 172j last, no beginning or end.In the center of the circle would be a small table with a candle and flowers that would serenely hold our attention, and hold us together like the hub of a wheel. When speaking we would "speak to the circle," not across the circle as groups may do and thereby tend to debate and break down the sense of the whole, of community. That happened to us once, and the feel of the group changed and became charged with something that we recognized as not helpful, not what we desired. We returned to speaking to the circle, not across it, and the environment healed. "Speaking to the circle" is speaking from one's own inner self to the center of the circle, where all that is said is held attentively and respectfully. There is no speaking from one ego to another, nor is it about try-ing to impress or persuade. It is simply about expressing oneself, a kind of sharing that is less stressful and much more peaceful,s Trust is what constitutes the circle; without trust there is no circle. Trust makes the space safe for sharing one's truth without fear of judgment or criticism. This trust grows deeper over time. As I share these reflections, I realize that a circle of trust can seem like avoidance of conflict, blind acceptance, lack of discernment, or some such idea. It might even seem "new age" and shallow. My experience, however, is just the opposite. A circle of trust and living the touchstones allow for something deep to emerge and grow and bear fruit. Circles of trust allow more truths to come to light and authentic relationships to form. It is interesting and even important to note that Quakers do not avoid diffi-cult situations, but instead are present to them differently. That is why historically Quakers have often been present where thorny social issues like justice, peacemaking, and reconciliation are being pondered and evaluated. Review for Religious A circle of trust forms a community that allows per-sons to be attentive to their inner self, what we often refer to as one's true self. This true self can surface in an enviroriment that is encouraging, one that is respectful, silent, attentive, and caring. As Parker Palmer points out, a circle of trust is focused on an inward journey and invisible yet very real pow-ers. The purpose of the circle is to support each person's inner journey. A circle of trust lives the paradox of "being alone together," of being present to one another as a "community of solitudes."6 Solitude and community, rightly understood, go together; they are not opposed. In truth, everyone needs both the interior intimacy that comes from solitude and the otherness that comes from life in community. The purpose of this community is to allow the true self, the self in God, to present itself. Unfortunately, however, too many "communities" do not provide this environment; instead, they scare the true self away. It withdraws into the shadows because it does not feel safe to come forward. We wear masks and do not share what is most truly our own. Too often we do not even know what is most true within us. A circle of trust community is made of people who know how to sit quietly and wait for the soul, the true self, to show its face. The relationships within it are "not pushy, but patient; not confrontational, but compassionate; they are filled, not with expectations and demands, but with abiding faith in the reality of the inner teacher and in each person's capacity to learn from it." In my experience, it is atypical to find a community that has people who have the capacity for this kind of presence to each other. "The people who help us grow toward true self," Parker Palmer writes, "offer uncondi-tional love. They don't judge or try to change us. They 173 68.2 2009 Schimelpfening * Being Heard, Being Healed do offer and hold hopeful expectancy, creating the space that safeguards and encourages the inner journey."7 This is an incredible gift to offer one another, and within this form of community we find, I believe, the greatest potential for growth and transformation. What most people desire is to be heard and honored. As one fellow retreatant commented, "To be heard is to be healed!" Too often in community and in conver-sation we do not feel we have been genuinely heard or respected, and this only deepens wounds and pro- ~_ duces greater alienation. In the circle of trust, deep ¯ .~.L listening to one another, as well as to oneself, is paramount and happens rather naturally. Listening deeply is a nonviolent act; it is an amazing gift to offer. Patient listening, and forming circles of trust according to the touchstones, moves against the .grain of our habitual culture--both secular, and religious. Circles of trust are about listen-ing, expectant listening. This kind of listening only goes deeper with time and is all about God. God is the one who makes such listening possible and who gives us the hunger and thirst for it. God beckons, and we soon dis-cover that all that is good comes from the hand of God. Ultimately, God is the goal of our listening, for in so doing we can discern and do the work of God.s The content is simple, and its purpose is to open us to deeper listening and reflection. We would use poetry, stories, songs, or reflection. Metaphor plays an important part in this kind of sharing because images, allegories, allow us to approach from a slant, not head- What most people desire is to be heardand honoredl , Review for Religious on; they bring into play much more than the intellect. Metaphor has a way of surprising, even seducing the heart and soul, while tricking the mind into taking another look and discovering mystery in the process. We all belong to numerous kinds of groups and com-munities, each offering something unique and respond-ing to different needs. Circles of trust, however, generate within me a longing for such a community within the church and in religious life. Such a community, it seems to me, creates an environment that encourages and sup-ports deep growth and leads to holiness. Circles of trust might not seem to be as useful or as practical and func-tional as other groups might be, and so one considers circles of trust idealistic, utopian, unrealistic, even for religious or church communities. I would disagree. If we strove towards such deep trust and respect, many of the functional things we now squabble about would sim-ply disappear, and other practical details of life would take care of themselves. If they had to be dealt with, conversation and decision making about them would be quite different. We too easily forget that even our busi-ness meetings have a spiritual component and, hope-fully, necessitate a listening for truth.9 The experience and outcome would be a lot healthier, and life together would be more amiable, more authentic, and even more reflective of the gospel and Christian living. Circles of trust and community are not about numbers, but about the quality of the space created and shared. As Parker Palmer notes in A Hidden Wholeness, we live divided lives. We live alienated from our true selves, and end up feeling depressed, aimless, anxious, or angry. We feel the pain of being alienated from our own truth. We yearn to be centered,1° and a circle of trust creates the space where centering can happen and foster wholeness. 68.2 2009 Scbimelpfening * Being Heard, Being Healed A Spiritual Experience Although not always described this way explicitly, circles of trust are a spiritual experience, and the retreats I participated in were, beyond doubt, retreats. They were days of communing with God, with the Spirit of God very much alive and present within us and among us. The retreats were distinctly reflective and contempla-tive, with time for being alone and time for sharing with another or with the entire circle. The environment of the retreat center itself was ideal,ll The Tibetan chime would draw us into silence and into the circle. I found it easy to recall that, where two or three are gathered in God's name, God is truly present. The entire environ-ment was charged with the holiness of God. It was an experience of the shekinah of God. Clearness Committees Those familiar with the Quaker tradition know that forming Clearness Committees is an important part of their life. Each of our retreats set aside time for the work of Clearness Committees. I found myself refer-ring to them as Quaker discernment, a way of listening for truth, truth that is .not imposed from outside, but arises from within. This was one of the most important experiences of discernment that I have ever engaged in, most especially with a group, and was for me a highlight of our time together. This discernment is not done fir us, as sometimes occurs. Instead, in a circle of trust, in a safe, reflective space, we are engaged in our own dis-cernment, in our own way and time, with the encourag-ing and challenging presence of people who really and truly care for us)2 Clearness Committees help the focus person (who has asked for its help)13 to walk an inner iourney. They do so by their presence, asking open and Review for Religious honest questions, not interpreting or offering advice, not judging or fixing, but treating the person carefully as he or she looks and listens deeply. There is no con-flict of agendas or egos; there is only one focus person with one agenda. Just as the circles of trust offer a new way of conceiv-ing community, so the Clearness Committees offer a new way of helping persons make decisions about the direction of their life. I found here an incredible respect for the person and belief in the action of God. Instead of decisions, especially the more personal decisions, being made by others, a Clearness Committee allows for a form of listening and obedience that holds promise of greater life for the person and also, in the long run, for others and for ministry. Clearness Committees were a primary factor in draw-ing me to the seasonal retreats, for I was doing discern-ment in my own life. A series of circumstances along with much that was moving within my own heart and soul had made me wonder where the Spirit might be leading me. I needed and desired some form of guidance, and I needed to enter more deeply into a process of discernment, but I did not want someone or a group telling me what to do. I was desperately seeking someone or a group willing to walk with me, providing the safe place where I could be open and vulnerable in my discerning reflection. In my own religious community this did not seem possible. My superiors were likely to approach my questions as an administrative concern and decision, but did not seem able to walk with me in the way I needed. The seasonal retreats, however, with the circles of trust and the blessed opportunity to be the focus person of a Clearness Committee drew me like a bee to nectar. I asked for a Clearness Committee to sit with me not 177 68.2 2009 Scbimelpfening * Being Heard, Being Healed Such d cision ,making; demands great patienee, and a strongcom i m n once but twice. The experience was powerful because of the safe, caring environment and the confidentiality, the love and faith, that were present. The immediate experi-ence was powerful, but I was surprised and delighted by how it continued to reveal truths in the following days, weeks, and months. Did I receive an immediate answer? No. Were there "aha" moments? More later, than at the time. Was clarity received? Yes, but much more came long after the experience was over. Such decision making demands great patience and a strong commitment to the process: it can take time for the truth to come to light. Quakers are good at waiting and supporting one another in this invest-ment of time and pres-ence, doing so in the belief that a truth can and will come to light and, when it does, can be embraced with one's whole self. One lets the work of God pro-ceed and reveal itself. This "Quaker discernment" takes as long as is needed. It is exceedingly countercul-rural in our quick-fix, fast-food, I-want-it-now culture. If, as religious communities, church, and church min-istries, we could learn to discern in this way, I believe that both community life and ministry would be a good deal richer. Going Home As a high introvert when I first began attending the retreats, I was uncertain about it, but, having read A Hidden Wholeness the year before, I was curious enough Review for Religious to give it a whirl and see what would happen. After the first couple of retreats, I felt completely at home, and, although I never knew what the experience of any particular retreat would be, I soon learned to trust the Spirit, believing that whatever would happen would be grace--and I was never disappointed. It seemed that each retreat was its own "peak" experience that helped me go deeper and deeper into my soul while being sup-portive of others doing the same. Many retreats, even when powerful, are one-shot experiences, but this series of retreats, organized accord-ing to the seasons of the year, allowed for sacred remem-bering of what happened previously and delving into it once again from a slightly different slant, so that further truth could be discovered. On top of everything else, this was a wonderful ecumenical and interfaith setting that opened many wonderful doors. The most difficult part of each retreat was returning home to community and ministry. Although I would return deeply renewed, I saw that my recent experience of community would not be present back home. Every three months, as the next retreat drew near, I would look forward to it with great anticipation. My challenge now is to live the expe-rience and find ways to invite others into these circles of trust so that they too may have the joy and benefit of entering them that I have had. As I noted earlier, there are many different forms of community and many different definitions of commu-nity. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, "Community is not an ideal; it is people."14 1 believe that what the Quaker tradition and Parker Palmer offer is worth exploring and experiencing as a very practical way of forming and being community. "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (Jn 13:35). r179 68.2 2009 Scbimelpfening ¯ Being Heard, Being Healed Notes ' As quoted in Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live An Authentic Life (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2005). z Center for Courage and Renewal, www.couragerenewal.org. 3 Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: TbeJourney toward an Undivided Life (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2004), pp. 22, 25.4 The word person is used intentionally; not individual. The distinction is critical. 5 Palmer, Hidden I~oleness, pp. 118-119. 6 Palmer, Hidden Wholeness, p. 54. 7 Palmer, Hidden Wholeness, pp. 59, 60. 8 Michael Waida, Expectant Listening: Finding God's Thread of Guidance (Wallingford, Pennsylvania: Pendle Hill ~ublicationsi 2007), p. 16. 9 Wajda, Expectant Listening, p. 22. ,0 Palmer, Hidden Wholeness, pp. 45-46. " Santa Sabina Center, San Rafael, California. 12 Palmer, Hidden Wholeness, p. 27. ~3 The focus person asks for Clearness Committee assistance regard-ing a question or issue that he or she is struggling with and seeking light about. ,4 Jean Vanier, From Brokenness to Community (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1992), p. 35. 180] Personal Reflection and/or Group Discussion What has been your own occasion of experiencing the kind of "words of trust" that animate community life? Have you or has your community developed your own special ways of deepening the trust and faith-sharing integral to religious community living? How would you describe it and how often is it used? Review for Religious DORIS GOTTEMOELLER Religious Habits Reconsidered Years ago, when we were just beginning to wear secular dress, a sister friend remarked to me that she never noticed what anyone else was wearing. The remark struck me because I thought she was missing an important commu-nication from others. But, upon reflection later, it seemed likely that she meant that everyone deserves our respect, whether clad in rags or riches, in style or out--a conviction that I share. Also, I thought, she ,was probably indi-cating she is less sensate than I. As the years passed, however, with religious habits less and less in ,evidence, I have occa-sionally thought of investigating the topic more deeply. Comments such as these persist: "If you wore a habit, you'd get more vocations" and "Real sisters wear habits." They imply that our Doris Gottemoeller RSM last wrote .for us in 2005. Her address remains Catholic Healthcare Partners; 615 Elsinore Place; Cincinnati, Ohio 45202. 1181 68.2 2009 Gottemoeller * Religious Habits Reconsidered transition in dress is symbolic of an abandonment of val-ues or identity. It is hard at times not to feel defensive. No doubt there is scholarly literature available about the significance of dress through the ages. Dress as an indicator of social class and status, the change from toga and tunic to trousers and dresses, the influence of climate and occupation, and the development of new fabrics and methods of production--all of this has prob-ably been studied. I have not consulted any of it. First, I want simply to recall and describe this period of change. Then I will reflect on the significance of a religious habit for women and of the many decisions to forgo it. I will close with some questions for reflection and dialogue. Some readers may assume that there is noth-ing to be learned from the decisions made so long ago, but I think that some reflection can bear fruit for our present and future. What a Habit Is Not A religious habit is not a costume, a dress that tempo-rarily provides a new identity, either for dramatic effect or for fun. Costumes are worn in stage productions and at Halloween parties. A disguise is another form of temporary identity, one intended to deceive people. A vestment is worn to temporarily designate that one is performing a sacred function. Nor is a religious habit a uniform. Commentators ask, "Vv'hy don't you wear a uniform like airline atten-dants, nurses, and police personnel?" These uniforms signify professional qualification and a certain authority. In given situations their wearers are entided to respect because of their official function. Note, though, that uniforms often admit of variations. The attendants on a plane may be wearing slacks, shorts, or skirts, with or Review for Religious without coordinating jackets or sweaters. They are all in uniform, but they choose different forms of it. Nursing uniforms, too, admit of variation, even within the same department or on the same floor of a hospital. In contrast to any of these options, the religious habit was a permanent and unchanging garb. The cloth-ing ceremony at the beginning of novitiate signified a new identity, which one intended eventually to make lifelong. As we dressed each morning, we said prayers specific to each item of clothing. For the habit itself we prayed, "Clothe my soul, 0 Lord, with the nuptial - - robe of charity that I may carry it pure and undefiled before Thy judgment seat," The prayer for donning the cincture was "0 Lord Jesus Christ, who became obedi-ent unto death, even the death of the cross, grant me the true spirit of religious obedience." In my experience there were no optional choices around color or design or style, very litde adaptation to climate or occupation. Permission to wear a white habit in nursing care and in the tropics is the only possibility I can recall. The clothing ceremony at the beginning of novitiate sig nified a new identity. The Mandate to Change Before the mandate of Vatican Council II to update, our habit was the only dress we wore. In my experi-ence each sister had two habits, a heavy pleated wool serge version for Sundays and feast days and an every-day version in a lighter fabric. Neither was really wash-able. We wore a knee-length black veil, inner and wide outer sleeves, a leather cincture to which was attached a 183 68.2 2009 Gottemoeller ¯ Religious Habits Reconsidered 841 long rosary, and a starched white cotton coif and guimpe which we changed on Sunday and at midweek. Heavy black stockings and black oxfords completed the ensem-ble. Going out in winter required a shawl or a long black cloak with a heavy black veil pinned over the house veil. This habit was worn 365 days of the year, from rising in the morning to retiring at day's end, in the convent, the classroom, or the hospital, at work or recreation, at home or abroad. The habit was everywhere recognizable and, when clean and pressed, somewhat graceful and attractive. It was also economical: the daily habit lasted several years and the Sunday habit for many years. Thus it was a witness to poverty. The design had remained essentially the same for over 130 years. But, despite its familiarity and attractiveness, the habit was unsanitary, unsafe, and ill-suited to the climate in many places. It was also impractical for many occupations such as housework or recreational sports. Furthermore, all of the parts had to be sewn by hand. Keeping perspi-ration from the starched linens which encircled the face in hot weather was another challenge. Considerations such as these prompted the conciliar directive: "Habits should be simple and modest, at once poor and becoming. They should meet the requirements of health and be suited to the circumstances of time and place as well as to the services required by those who wear them. Habits of men and women which do not correspond to those norms are to be changed" (Perfectae caritatis § 17). This directive prompted the first genera-tion of modified or updated habits. Chapters reviewed designs, and each congregation chose one which seemed to embody the desired improvements. For the Sisters of.Mercy of the Union, this transition occurred in the summer of 1968. The new habit was mid-calf in length Review for Religious and could be purchased from a manufacturer's catalogue in an array of sizes. A veil which came just below the shoulders was attached to a white cap which left some hair exposed in front. The habit was washable, and nothing was starched. From Modified Habit to Secular Dress Why didn't this updated habit, which responded to the conciliar mandate, last? Here the story becomes more complex. As the decades passed, most congrega-tions loosened or eliminated their requirements that everyone wear a habit, even for professional or formal occasions, I would suggest that the following are some of the f~ctors that led to this evolution. First, the change of dress coincided with other changes that brought us into new settings and new cir-cumstances. Permission to travel without a companion and to drive an auto-mobile were two sig-nificant changes. No longer~did we have to depend on employ-ees or volunteer lay-persons to chauffeur us to professional meetings, doctors' appointments, the library or grocery, or a museum, movie, or sporting event. Freedom from the need for a sister companion encouraged individual choices about where to go or what to do with one's discretionary time. Some outings were with only lay friends or relatives. Individuals did not necessarily want to stand out in such settings. The introduction of personal budgets was another change Why .didn't this updated habit, which re.sponded to the conciliar mandate, last? 68.2 2009 Gottemoeller ¯ Religious Habits Reconsidered that facilitated variation in dress, as individuals could choose where they wished to shop and what they wished to buy. Another limit to the success of updated habits was the matter of style. As long as we were in 18th- or 19th-century garb, there was no relationship to any contem-porary style. But an adaptation to "circumstances of time and place" suggests at least some relationship to what other people are wearing. Hemlines are a case in point. Should they be adjusted upward and downward with changing styles? What about the size and proportions of the individual sister? The traditional habit swathed her in so many yards of fabric that her figure was effectively concealed, but the modified habit was more flattering to some than to others. Does everyone have to wear the same color? Do you wear the same thing for scrubbing the kitchen floor, lecturing before a class, attending a board meeting, and playing tennis on Saturday after-noon? Considerations such as these meant that individ-uals almost immediately began modifying the modified habit and also acquiring supplementary wardrobes for occasions when a habit was deemed inappropriate. The question of a veil comes in for special consid-eration. Questions of comfort, ideology, and style inter-mingled. In the old habit, when no hair was visible, we usually cut it very short for comfort. As soon as some hair was visible, it had to be styled. And not every style looked good peeping out from a veil. Keeping a veil anchored on one's head was sometimes a challenge. More significandy, the veil signified for some a femi-nine subservience to men. (Around that time, women gave up wearing hats and veils in church, and nurses stopped wearing caps with their uniforms.) Some argued that the veil was intended to symbolize virginity. Well, Review for Religious if it did, then shouldn't male religious who take a vow of celibacy also wear them? As we began to experiment with lay dress, some continued to wear the veil for a time, leading to some unfortunate combinations of flowered dresses topped off with veils. (Interestingly, the appearance of Islamic women clad in burqas and veils in Western cities was still too rare to invite a com-parison.) Another circumstance that promoted individual choice of dress was the movement toward individual-ism overall in Western culture. This is a phenomenon that would require books to chronicle and critique both its lights and shadows, but the point here is khat we were not immune from its influence. Religious life is essentially a communitarian commitment, but in many ways--not only choice of dress--it has embraced, or at least permitted, a wider expression of personal choice. While we were experimenting with dress, we were also exploring new ministries, new living arrangements, and new prayer styles. Much of this was a healthy reaction to practices which had encouraged immaturity, but some of it has diminished our corporate identity and witness. Nevertheless, choosing how to present oneself on a particular occasion or in a particular setting can be a revelation of one's personal judgment and self-iden-tification. Looking Back on the Changes in Dress The first thing that can be said is that the changes described here proceeded without a lot of self-reflection. We lacked the critical distance necessary to analyze the consequences of our choices or their interaction with other choices we were making. At times we hesitated to raise the issue in community for fear of seeming

Issue 68.4 of the Review for Religious, 2009. ; Theology and Life Religion; Life Models ,Exemplars of Faith Sharing ,Experience QUARTERLY 68.4 2009 Review for Religious fosters dialogue with God, dialogue with ourselves, and dialogue with one another about the holiness we try to live according to charisms of Catholic religious life. As Pope Paul Vl said, our way of being church is today the way of dialogue. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-633-4610 ¯ Fax: 314-633-4611 E-Maih reviewrfr@gmail.com ¯ Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©200~ Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribution, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. ~ gournalof Ca~hohc ~pirituah~y eview for religious Editor Associate Editor Scripture Scope Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming sJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Eugene Hensell OSB Mary Ann Foppe TracT Gramm Judy Sharp Paul Coutinho sJ Martin Erspamer OSB Margaret Guider OSF Kathleen Hughes RSCJ Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD QUARTERLY 68.4 2009 contents prisms 340 Prisms 342 353 theology and life Christian Existence and Theology's Relevance Randall S. Rosenberg sketches how the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar challenges us to ask whether theology is not simply about understanding, but about an understand-ing that includes aesthetic-dramatic encounters. How You Eat Matters A. Paul Dominic SJ draws the implications from sacrifice, meals, and human eating in the Hindu, Jewish, and Christian traditions that all human eating is truly meant to be a religious act. Questions for Personal and Group Reflection 364 379 religious life models Opening a New Window: Fifteen Years after the FORUS Study Patricia Wittberg SC proposes that current religious , congregations consider encouraging social-movement organizations (SMOs) as viable versions for future religious life. Revisiting Religious Identity William P. Clark OMI carefully reflects on how Vatican I! presented religious life and brought a freshness once again to the special vocation offered by God to those consecrated by religious profession. " Questions for Personal and Group Reflection Review for Religious 389 exemplars of faith ~ Encounters Early and Late: John Bosco and Paul Leo J. Heriot SDB draws upon the experience of St. Paul and of St. John Bosco to show how God may communicate with us, telling us to find him in our contemplative awareness of others and ourselves. 395 On Hilda of Whitby Sister Hilda Kleiman OSB reflects on the origins and spirituality behind her new religious name, Hilda, which means "Battle Maiden." 4O4 411 sharing experience ~ World Youth Day and Religious Life William Prospero SJ describes how World Youth Day promotes consecrated vocations by providing young Catholics with a joyful experience of living the evangelical counsels. Marriage and Celibacy: Rivals or Complements? Benny Phang OCarm works from an insight from John Paul lI's Theology of the Body to see the complementarity of the vocations of marriage and celibacy rather than viewing them as rivals. 427 432 443 departments ~ ,~ ~ Scripture Scope: Praying the Psalms with an Elephant in the Room Book Reviews 2009 Index 339 68.4 2009 prisms I n early January 2009, I was told that I had less than a year to live. As I come to write these reflections in our final issue of the year 2009, I share various reac-tions that have been part of the landscape over the past months. My first response to the doctor's prognosis ff)r pancreatic cancer was that it is a gift to be told that one has so many months to live and that an end is in sight. The doctor, of course, went on to give options. I could have an operation, and it would likely add some months. I could also have the operation, followed by chemotherapy/radia-tion, and it would add some months and likely some years. The doctor wanted to give me some time to think about the options, but I immedi-ately agreed with his own stated preference that I would undergo the operation and follow up chemotherapy. It seemed that medically I was in a place where I should follow the biblical injunc-tion, "choose life." The operation seemed to be successful in removing the visible cancer, and the six-month- long chemotherapy treatment has been an experimental study program including a vaccine that eliminates radiation. I have fin-ished the program as of the publication of this issue. Now I live within a wait-and-see time of measurement and ~esting. Revie~v for Religious November remains a church time to remember the dead and remind ourselves of our own mortality. I have been feeling even more attuned to the reality of my own personal dying throughout these past months so that it is easy to celebrate November liturgy. It is nice to be put "on notice"--which is how I consider the identi-fication of my cancer. The likelihood of dying is just made more real and, as it were, within reach. It allows me time to reflect and pray how I face this kind of time, what attitude I want to take, and how I want to use the time I have. It does not seem fearsome or dark. In fact, it seems full of surprises of how God wants to meet me in unexpected ways, sometimes not initially pleasing to me. I seem to be taught a lot about powerlessness, patience, and the goodness of strangers. I also believe strongly in the efficaciousness of the prayer support of others. Advent is a church time of looking forward to new life and especially of our life forever with God. It con-eludes with Christmas, a celebration of how God, in Christ, enters into our human life, never to let it go. Throughout 2009 with all its medical focus, I have con-tinued to be blessed with finding new life and I again look forward to entering into Advent with greater ¯ appreciation. Christmas will be God's own gift to me of celebrating the gift of human life for however many more months and years God intends. With celebrating Christmas, it is good to remember that we were all born to be living a life forever with God, and that remains my hope too. David L. Fleming SJ 341 The Review for Religious Advisory Board and Editorial Staff wish all of our readers a most blessed Advent and Christmas season. 68.4 2009 RANDALL S. ROSENBERG Christian Existence and Theology's Relevance theology and life 342 "Ihe Swiss thinker Hans Urs yon Balthasar is something of an enigma. He has been called the greatest Catholic theologian of the 20th century. He is the inspiration behind many believers who understand themselves as "orthodox" or "solid" Catholics. His work has been seen as an example of greater integration of spirituality and theology. He is the author to whom Jon Sobrino SJ refers in his reflec-tions on the "faith of Christ," a controver-sial position which has been criticized by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. His ideas about gender complementarity and women's ordination have angered many. Some scholars, with strong Thomist commitments, have vigorously criticized his Christology and ¯ soteriology. Other scholars besides Sobrino are Randall S. Rosenberg is assistant professor of religion and philosophy at Fontbonne University (a school spon-sored by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet); 6800. Wydown Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63105. Review for Religious beginning to make use of his thought to meet the con-cerns of liberation and political theology. My plan here is not to analyze all these currents. Rather, I intend to look at Balthasar's distinctive ideas about the aesthetic-dramatic constitution of Christian reality. He sees God's revelation, God's self-disclosure, as occurring first in aesthetic and dramatic forms, and he sees Christians as called to be co-actors in this "theo-drama" through liturgical ritual and a distinctive way of living. A Generational Concern Some of my attraction to Balthasar is probably gen-erational. I was born ten years after the Second Vatican Council. Although my childhood was shaped by a won-derful Catholic parish and school, my contemporaries and I still experienced what William Portier has called "the dissolution of the American Catholic subcul-ture." Not that I particularly desire a restoration of the good old days; for many, those days were apparently not so good. But it seemed to me, as I began to read Balthasar, that he was not only restoring something of the Christian vision's rich particularity and oddness, but also pointing out to people how beautifully and dra-matically that vision has enhanced all kinds of human lives, the great variety of saints most eminently. As he writes in Love Alone Is Credible, "Lovers are the ones who know most about God; the theologian must listen to them" (p. 12). It was exciting to discover a thinker who brought into his theology the witness of holy people and great texts not normally found in systematic theologians' reflection: Th~r~se of Lisieux, John.of the Cross, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Dante, to name just a few. 68.4 2009 Rosenberg * Cbristian Existence and Tbeology's Relevance Balthasar preserved what he called a "kneeling theology," without downplaying the use of reason in Christian life. And yet this same thinker also engaged seriously the thought of Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. In other words--Rodney Howsare has shown this in his book Baltbasar and Protestantism: The Ecumenical Implications of His Theological Style--Balthasar's theological vision had room both for God's revelation in Christ and for the works of reli-gious- philosophical scholars as legitimate moments in under-standing and present-ing Christian truth. Balthasar preserved what he called a "kneeling theology," without downplaying the use of reason in Christian life. His enviable dis-play of both loving devotion and a critical engagement with modernity prompts me to see him as embodying in important ways the dual task of ressourcement and aggior-namento set by Vatican II. Christian Existence as Theo-Drama The aesthetic-dramatic nature of Christian life is shown in the Scriptures. Moses and Paul experienced, aesthetically, the beauty or glory of God in the burn-ing bush and on the road to Damascus. These aesthetic encounters were also dramatic, and they led to the rest of their lives' being high drama as well. It is a com-mon feature of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures that experiences of God are not just holy feelings; they have a vocational, missionary purpose. The first part of Balthasar's multivolume trilogy, The Glory of the Lord, describes the way we first encounter the phenomenon Review for Religious of divine revelation as beautiful. The second part of the trilogy, Theo-Drama, recognizes that God's revelation is not something we merely look at; rather, we are drawn into the drama of revelation and are called to respond. Robert Barron nicely captures Balthasar's aesthetic-dra-matic emphasis: Christianity--like painting, baseball, and philoso-phy- is a world, a form of life. And, like those other worlds, it is first approached because it is perceived as beautiful. A youngster walks onto a baseball dia-mond because he finds the game splendid, and a young artist begins to draw because she finds the artistic universe enchanting. Once the beauty of Christianity has seized a devotee, she will long to submit herself to it, entering into its rhythms, its institutions, its history, its drama, its visions and activities. And then, having practiced it, having worked it into her soul and flesh, she will know it. The movement, in short, is from the beautiful (it is splendid!) to the good (I must play it!) to the true (it is right). In my own encounter with Balthasar, I have most appreciated his dramatic emphasis. In the first volume of his breathtaking five-volume Theo-Drama, Balthasar gives attention to the drama of human existence by using writers like Shakespeare, George Bernanos, Bertolt Brecht, Eugene Ionesco, and even the American Arthur Miller in a kind of prolegomenon to his understanding of Christian existence as "theodramatic." His range of reference to Christian, non-Christian, and even anti- Christian dramatists is astonishing. He uses the theater to illuminate the risk and gravity of human life, the catastrophes and tensions that constitute our existence, and the finite time span within which we must struggle for the good, under judgment and in the face of death. The theater can offer an opening to people's encoun- 68.4 2009 Rosenberg * Christian Existence and Theology'$ Relevance 346 ter with revelation. Balthasar's theodramatic approach employs the metaphor of the world stage. As actors in history, human beings share in the Son's mission, under the Holy Spirit's direction. Just as an actor's role in a theatrical drama constitutes a limited part of the play for a particular purpose, the finite lives of persons who share in the mission of Christ, no matter their life span, dis-close meaning that is relevant for the whole of history. On a personal note, I have appreciated Balthasar's dramatic treatment of the tragic in human existence. I have made my own the following remark of Rowan Williams: "What I found in Balthasar's work was an extraordinary depth of contemplative understand-ing, along with vivid awareness of the tragic quality of human existence--the hellishness of humanity and God's involvement in it--which resonated very deeply with me." Ever since I was a child, I have been par-ticularly sensitive to this tragic dimension, a disposition that has been heightened by my wife's daily work with children who suffer from cancer. The problem of evil as it manifests itself in sickness, natural disasters, random acts of violence, war, oppression, and genocide is never far from my mind. The late British theologian Donald MacKinnon, noting that Balthasar rarely treats the horror of the Holocaust directly, adds that "the nervous ten~ion of the whole argument witnesses to the author's passion-ate concern to present the engagement of God with his world in a way that refuses to turn aside from the over-whelming, pervasive reality of evil." Balthasar does not paper over the pathos of the real world, a pathos full of darkness and ambiguity. For him, God, in the incarna-tion and passion of Jesus, "steps to his opponent's side and, from within, helps him reach justice and freedom. Review for Religious Hnitude, time, and death are not negated: they are given a new value in a way that is beyond our comprehension. Indeed, even what is hostile to God, in all its profound abysses, is not abandoned; God does not turn his back on it: it is taken over and reworked." Balthasar never taught academic theology at a uni-versity. He spent many years, however, as a university chaplain. In the Switzerland of the 1940s this kind of work was largely cultural. Balthasar the chaplain spent his time giving lectures, in the evening debating in various student societies, and giving retreats. To borrow John W. O'Malley SJ's useful catego-ries from his Four Cultures of the West, Balthasar's thought more resembles cultures three and four--"Poetry, Rhetoric, and the Common Good" and "Art and Performance"-- than it does culture two--"The Academy and the Professions." O'Malley's remarks on Erasmus could be said about Balthasar: "He felt he could criticize Scholastic theology because he had an alternative to offer: a return to the more literary and rhetorical style of the Fathers. That was the 'ancient and genuine' the-ology, quite different from the 'modern' theology. It was genuine because it was drawn directly from the sacred texts and because it had led to a 'theological life.' It touched the heart and centered on the few truths that were essential to Christianity rather than on the second-ary issues the Scholastics pursued" (p. 160). Balthasar once remarked that his study with the Jesuits, largely in Neo-Scholastic mode, was a "grim struggle with what men had made out of the glory of revelation." He Balthasar never taught academic theology ,at a university. 68.4 2009 Rosenberg * Christian Existence and Tbeology's Relevance 348 ~ "could not endure this presentation of the Word of God and wanted to lash out with the fury of Samson," tear "down the whole temple," and bury himself "beneath the rubble." It is often true that Balthasar's mode of presentation resembles a patristic sermon more than a scholastic treatise. In my recent experiences of presenting papers, giv-ing academic lectures, and doing job interviews, it has become evident that this aesthetic-dramatic emphasis genuinely excites scholars and ordinary laypeople. This emphasis could also be said to be Balthasar's greatest shortcoming as a "systematic" theologian. He is called "unsystematic" by those who argue for the indispens-ability of a more scientifically or theoretically con-structed theology in the manner of Thomas Aquinas. Let me address both sentiments. On the one hand, I am convinced that Balthasar's aesthetic-dramatic emphasis nurtures an appreciation for the inexhaustible mystery that resides at the heart of Christian revelation. He offers a richly symbolic and imaginative approach--one that fosters better Christian living, namely, the dramatic artistry needed for fulfill-ing our own unique missions. That is, his theology can give momentum to the religious feelings and beliefs that help us accomplish good in the particular circumstances of our lives. On the other hand, the aesthetic-dramatic emphasis is not always helpful when one does "system-atic theology" in order to answer the further questions that arise out of one's aesthetic-dramatic, liturgical, or devotional life. Balthasar's theology, besides being eclectic, has a contemplative emphasis that prefers to let "paradox" be the answer, rather than carefully working out a set of terms and relations and bringing a theo-logical intelligibility to the concrete conditions in which Review for Religious Christians live their lives. One is more likely to find this kind of intelligibility in Bernard Lonergan or Karl Rahner. Let me offer an example. It was my encounter with the writings of Balthasar that helped me discover the "weightiness" of the mystery of the cross. Balthasar is not content with presenting the cross as merely a consequence of Jesus' prophetic stance in the world. It is that, but it is also much more. It contains a vicarious element, which somehow involves Jesus' "taking on" the sin of the human race. Balthasar desires to do justice to a dominant theme in the Fathers, namely, the admirabile commercium, God's "wondrous exchange," with sinners. With aesthetic and dramatic power, Balthasar communi-cated to me the cross's power and centrality. And yet as questions arose--How did Jesus "take on" sin? Did he also take on our guilt? If so, did he also experience a loss of hope and the kind of darkness sinners experience?-- I became less satisfied with his systematic answers (or lack thereof). In my own research I have been more satisfied with a Thomist pattern of explanation (also not without its critics), given contemporary expression in Bernard Lonergan's writings on "Satisfaction" and the "Law of the Cross." Such writings offer terms and relations that can be used in engaging the modern sciences construc-tively. Balthasar has often prompted in me an excite-ment and concern about such theological questions Balthasar's theology, has a contemplative emphasis that prefers to let ',paradox" be the answer. 349 68.4 2009 Rosenberg * Christian Existence and Tbeology's Relevance and then failed to give me adequate answers. In his De Verbo Incarnato, Lonergan writes that, if one approaches Christ's passion and death with primarily a "symbolic mentality," where image and feeling predominate, then one is likely to express the meaning of the cross in terms of "substitution" or "satispassion," that is, in terms of Jesus' "suffering enough" for sins. These words do not do justice to the sophistication of Balthasar's approach, but they indicate something about his theological style in general and his theology of Christ's passion and death in particular. In my estimation, because of its dramatic terminology and its reliance on the mystical experiences of Adrienne von Speyr, Balthasar's theology of Christ's passion and death is often unclear and even reckless. I wonder, though, whether this theological question, sparked by the power of Balthasar's presentation, would have occurred to me at all without his help. Balthasar himself was not concerned with meeting the requirements of a technical, theoretical, systematic theologian. He once said in an interview, "My books are not the kind of theology that belongs to the aca-demic guild and therefore they are not particularly suited for dissertations." He remarked, "I have to say that for me the only truly interesting theologians are the saints: from. Irenaeus through Augustine to Anselm, to Bonaventure, or figures that allow the radiation of holiness to show forth, such as Dante or Newman; one could also mention Kierkegaard and Solovyov." A Call for Fruitful Integration My concern goes beyond the question of Balthasar's adequacy as a systematic theologian. I have accentuated his aesthetic-dramatic approach here, but I know there are many other approaches as well. My concern is the Review for Religious shape of Catholic theology in the 21st century and the place of the aesthetic-dramatic style therein. Vv'hat does theology conceived in Anselmian fashion as "faith seek-ing understanding" mean in light of the many theologi-cal styles we have inherited from the 20th century, from what Fergus Kerr has called "the Heroic Generation"? In my discussion of the cross, I have offered a "the-oretical" or "explanatory" challenge to Balthasar's theological style. Let me now say that Balthasar, too, offers a challenge. He makes us ask: Must not theol-ogy go well :beyond understanding to an understand-ing that is aesthetically and dramatically in touch with the joys and challenges of ordinary Christian existence? Shouldn't theology be more attentive to the Mystery that is encountered in aesthetic and dramatic form in our workaday world's prayer and worship? A question remains regarding what to do with the diversity of theological styles we have inherited. R.R. Reno has suggested that "we need a period of consolidation that allows us to integrate the lasting achievements of the Heroic Generation into a renewed standard theology." Let me suggest, without adequate exposition, one possible way forward, a way which has been similarly outlined by Robert Doran SJ. The chal-lenge of this generation is to integrate three 20th-cen-tury theological movements--contemporary Thomism, the ressourcement project of la nouvelle thdologie, and the various expressions of political-liberation theol-ogy. These three movements could be of help (1) in explaining theological doctrines in a theoretical man-ner that is capable of engaging with the natural and social sciences in search of a unity of knowledge; (2) in experiencing and mediating Catholic thought and culture through aesthetic-dramatic forms; and (3) in 68.4 2009 Rosenberg * Christian Existence and Tbeology's Relevance dealing with concrete human suffering of all kinds in light of the gospel mandate to transform a world in need. Such a grand vision would require sympathetic and critical conversations, the highlighting of comple-mentarities and dialectical differences, and the humil-ity to be open to revision. If such an integration were to occur, it would require doing justice in an orderly way to the richness of being human in the flow of his-tory, that is, being psychological, intellectuall rational, moral, loving, mystical, and worshipful. For this enter-prise Balthasar would certainly not have all the answers, but he would have much to contribute to it. By Beauty Tethered God of the dawn and high noon and of twilight and midnight; God of the tides and the myriad droplets of dew; God of gardenias and larkspur and tulips; by beauty, God,~ tether my being to you. Mary Anne Huddleston IHM Review for Religious A. PAUL DOMINIC How You Eat Matters I fEatthien gti,t lAe sJeoeymous sa Sbaict rpiufizczel.i"n gIn, It hper ompoatstee ra noof tehaetr-: ing, as in every other human exercise or experience, there is surely more to it than meets the eye, or indeed the tongue or any other sense organ. Perception of such impalpable reality may take no time or consume no little time. Communicating that reality, however, normally requires time, and maybe a detour. Anyway, in the present case, the process has been for me an experience of obscurum per obscurius, though at the end it was all darum (clear), bathed in light. "Hindu Prayer: A First for Congress"--that was the title of the news item from India Abroad News Service on 14 September 2000. The news was the historic event of a Hindu priest delivering the opening prayer in the United States House of Representatives.1 The prayer ran as follows: "O God, you are omnipresent, omnipo-tent, and omniscient. You are everything, and nothing A. Paul Dominic SJ wrote for us about dreams in 2008. His address is Aishalton c/o St Ignatius Mission; Lethem P.O.; Rupununi, Guyana (South America). Emaih pauldominicsj@yahoo.com 68.4 2009 Dominic ¯ How You Eat Matters is beyond you. You are our mother and father, and we are all your children." It continued: "Whatever you do is for our good. You are the ocean of mercy, and you forgive our errors. You are our teacher, and you guide us on to righteousness . Today, in this great hall, are assembled the elected representatives of the people of this nation. They are ready to perform their duties. God, please guide them in their thoughts and actions so they can achieve'the greatest good for all." The prayer ended with an invocation from the ancient scriptures of India. "May all be happy, may all be free from disease, may all realize what is good, may none be subject to misery; peace, peace, peace be unto all." The fact of the Hindu prayer in the U.S. Congress was objectionable and even threatening to some. Many others strongly counterprotested. Anyway, the words of the prayer cannot be construed really offensive to any-one, except of course an atheist. As a matter of fact, they breathe the deepest longings of harried humanity hop-ing in the Divinity. The way they are addressed to God smacks of no narrow Hinduism nor any sectarianism for that matter, but an inclusive theism. The God invoked is everybody's God.2 If the Hindu priest had his own traditional or peculiar thoughts about God, in no way does that show itself in his prayer. Even the concluding prayer, taken from the Hindu scriptures, sounds indeed more universal than particularly Hindu. It seems to show that genuine prayer cuts across ,barriers of religion. Everything connected with prayer in Hinduism can-not, of course, be explained thus. There are aspects of Hindu worship that are confined and meaningful only to adherents of Hinduism with its practices and tenets. Even here, however, it is wise to distinguish between what is exclusively Hindu and what is purely religious-- Review for Religious even though in practice the two are generally too inter-twined to detect. We should, however, exercise ourselves in this regard, for we can be surprisingly enriched as Christians and, what is more, find ourselves agree-ably bonded with other sincere believers. For example, though the ritual of sacrifice in various religions is dif-ferent in all of them and likely to distract and distance other people, the faith element in those sacrifices can be heartwarming and edifying to all those who can intuit it. Some reading I did about Hindu sacrifice proved to be quite inspiring. From it I got a sense of the homely and heavenly meaning of sacrifice beyond the altar's formal vesture, furnishings, and ceremony. I have grown to believe that eating at table has the character and odor of a true sacrifice. I was confirmed in my belief when I found a simi-lar thought in a poet with a Christian background. He shares his vision charmingly and persuasively: Since you must kill to eat, and rob the newly born of its mother's milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship, And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacri-ficed for that which is purer and still more innocent in man.3 I have no inkling of how the poet arrived at his vision of profound truth. I can recount, however, my experience in this regard, recalling first the Hindu insight. i have grown to believe that eating at table has the character and odor of a true sacrifice. 68.4 2009 Dominic * How You Eat Matters A Hindu Adumbration The universe in the ancient Hindu vision originat-ing from the Vedic4 times of 2000 BC consisted of three worlds: the physical, the psychological, and the spiritual manitCesting themselves not as separate but congruent spheres. Fire (Affni in Sanskrit) at the physical level was obviously visible flames, like those burning a sacrificial offering to the deity. At the psychological level it was the mind exercising itself in thinking and knowing. At the spiritual level the same word was a name of God. Given the superiority of the spiritual over the physical and the psychological, the latter two were regarded and grasped as manifestations of the one supreme Spirit called Agrni, extending through the three-tiered universe. "The fire which is the sun, the fire which is the earth, that fire is in my own heart," as a Vedic verse put it pithily. One cannot miss the images of the three worlds: the sun standing for the spiritual, the earth for the material, and the human for the psychological.5 Anyone who is not at ease with this ancient under-standing needs only a moment's thought to see its con-nection with reality. For this a comparison with another religious tradition may help. In the Judaic tradition, physical fire serves the cultic needs of purification and liturgical rituals of offering. Fire that necessarily burns can signi~ blazing anger and, more importantly, the tribulation that cleanses the heart and proves the soul righteous. Fire is predicated of God's own self in theophanies of saving presence, transcendence, and benevolence. God appears as the burning bush and the pillar of fire and indeed as consuming fire (Dt 4:24, 9:3; Is 33:14). God purifies his servants and sets them afire with zeal so that the whole universe may shine in glory. Christian tradition has inherited this entire view Review for Religious and given it its own emphasis. Recall Jesus saying: "I have come to bring fire on the earth and desire that it be kindled" (Lk 12:49).6 Observing parallels in the Vedic and Biblical views of the world, one may see other ones as well. In the Vedic thought, sacrifice involves a conscious perception that the three worlds are bound together as one universe. Sacrifice involves lighting a fire and burning an obla-tion on the altar. The idea behind the ritual is that the spiritual fire that is in heaven is also buried in the earth, and so it bursts forth when stones or sticks are struck. By being burned, the gifts laid on the altar are carried to heaven. The fiery sacrifice returns all that is on the earth to its original source in heaven. The ideal of sacrifice behind this graphic picture is not absent in the Bible. Elijah's successful sacrifice when the prophets of Baal miserably failed (1 K 18:22.-38) comes to mind here. To continue still further with the inner significance of the Vedic sacrifice, as long as sacrifice is performed everything keeps returning to its origin, and human beings find themselves living in harmony with the uni-verse. When people fail in their duty of sacrifice, they interfere with the cyclic rhythm that sustains the world of which they are a part. They use the mountain of gifts without attending to their nature, thereby isolating both themselves and all things from their origin. They violate the law of the universe. But, when sacrifice is duly and gratefully done, it redounds to universal prosperity. This seems reflected in Psalm 50: "Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High." The last element of all sacrifice is perhaps too obvi-ous to be striking: it is eating the sacrificial offerings. What is offered in sacrifice is normally things that peo-ple eat, and so a sacrifice ends as a sacrificial meal. But 68.4 2009 Dominic ¯ How You Eat Matters In the matter of sacrifice, the universal beliefwas that, when humans ate something of the sacrifice, the deity had partaken of it first. who eats in sacrifice? Those who sacrifice, of course. But, as the sacrifice is not offered to themselves, they do not eat alone. When the sacrifice is consumed by fire, it is believed that the deity above consumes it. This understanding is highlighted in the Hindu scriptural verse: "I, the Lord, become the fire of life, and seated in the body I consume the four kinds of food." This passage is certainly obscure for many, though it is for Hindus a familiar verse (vakya in Sanskrit) of the Bhagavad Gita, perhaps the most personal of all their scriptures. Anyway, what it says links human eating with divine eat-ing. In the matter of sacrifice, the universal belief was that, when humans ate something of the sacrifice, the deity had partaken of it first. Similarly, one may well conclude that what humans eat in ordinary meals is at the same rime consumed by "the fire of life," which is none other than God dwelling in human bodies. And so a human meal itself becomes a sacrifice to God. Bede Griffiths, the English Benedictine who, along with other foreign pioneers in India, continued the Indian tradition of ashram (akin to monasticism in the Western tradition), explains the point thus: "That fire, which is in the heaven above and in the earth beneath, is in our own bodies; we offer our food in sacrifice in that inner fire and it is consumed in the fire and surrendered to God again. So a meal is a sacrifice." Here is a subtle move from a sacrificial meal eaten on occasion to daily Review for Religious meals eaten in the joyous, harmonious spirit of sacri-fice. Drawing from another stanza in the Bhagavad Gita, Griffiths concludes that "anyone taking a meal without sacrificing is a thief; this is to take the gifts of God and appropriate them to oneself instead of receiving them as gifts and returning thanks.''7 A Christian Follow-Up Such a thought can startle nominal or profane Christians who have no thought of God whatever when they satisfy their hunger and thirst or overly indulge their tastes. Normal devout Christians accustomed to their routine mealtime prayer may well find more mean-ing in their daily practice. The grace before and after meals will then become the grace of meals as sacrifice. The whole meal from start to finish becomes an exercise and experience of grace, with the grace understood in terms of sacrifice. If sacrifice involves material fire for burning the oblation, daily meals as sacrifice ought to burn with the psychospiritual fire of desire--desire not merely for food, but for the One who gives the food. The Giver of food gives not only the natural and won-derful food and drink, but also the hunger, thirst, and taste buds necessary to enjoy it. Further, through our gratefulness God raises our minds beyond the mean philosophy of eat, drink, and be merry before it is too late. Enkindled by this grate-fulness, we cannot but experience a burning hunger for God. This does not produce asceticism in us so much as refine our taste for the simple, healthy, necessary food that makes for joyous living. At the same time it enables us to find God in food itself.8 This way of eating, that is much more than munching and gulping, becomes a sacrifice by virtue of the prayer surrounding our meals. 68.4 2009 Dominic ¯ How You Eat Matters As St. Paul says, food is for the stomach and the stom-ach for food, and ultimately the body is for the Lord (1 Co 6:13). Sacrificial prayer, then, from hearts burn-ing with fervor for God, rises like incense and raises people's spirits while leaving them contented with their daily bread. It is the very opposite of making a god of one's belly (Ph 3:19)9 and sacrificing to it. This talk is not farfetched or feverishly imagined. It breathes the spirit of Jesus who, being more a mystic than an ascetic, ate with much gratitude to his Abba God and with the childlike merriment of having been blessed. When necessary he gave hungry people food, but he also chided them for not understanding their hunger aright. One may learn a lot from his controversy with them as they were looking for him the day after he had miraculously fed them with bread and fish to their hearts' content (Jn 6). He unveiled to them their own undignified thoughts regarding food and satisfaction. He warned them not to work for food that cannot give life, but for the food from God that gives eternal life. "God's bread comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." Jesus told them that people do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from God's mouth (Mr 4:4). Jesus' conduct in eating teaches about meal as sac-rifice. He takes the bread, looks up to heaven where his Abba Father dwells, gives thanks to him, and shares the bread with those around him generously, then pre-sumably eats along with them till finally making sure that nothing that remains goes to waste (Mt 14:19-20). While this pictures partly the proper Jewish uttering of a blessing such as "Praised be thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who bringest forth bread from earth," Jesus portrays more faithfully and characteristi- Review for Religious cally what his Abba intended when he led his people, feeding them with manna and so training them for life. His counsel to his eager listeners on the Mount is not to worry about food and drink. His words are meant to uplift them with the realization of their blessings on any given day, making of it a sacrifice of praise and grati-tude. The same spirit suffuses the prayer Jesus taught people to pray: "Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread" (Lk 11:2-3). Because our daily meals are ideally sacrifices filling us with gratitude and.uniting us with the bountiful Abba Father, Jesus began his unique sacrifice at an ordinary, if festive, meal, his last meal before he died. And there he bequeathed his new sacrifice in the form of a unique meal. It is with the same inspiration that he spoke of the heavenly life with God as a banquet of communion with God and all God's beloved (Mt 8:11, 22:2). What happens when, thinking of a penitential aspect of sacrifice, we lose sight of the sublime aspect of eat-ing and drinking? One answer is that then we cannot fully engage in the divine mystery of our Christian sac-rifice. We would even act contrary to the spirit of the sacrifice when we are not celebrating the Liturgy for-mally. The Corinthians did this, as Paul reminded them. When they came together for the Lord's Supper, they did not wait for the Lord. Paul says: "When you meet together, it is not the Lord's Supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal, and one is hungry and another is drunk" (1 Co 11:20-21). To spell out an implication in Paul's words, ordinary human meals should be much like the Lord's Supper. There is or should be etiquette and the spirit of sacrifice in every ordinary meal. 361 68.4 2009 Dominic * How You Eat Matters 362 The Hindu version of what happens when we do not honor the sacrificial aspect of human eating is best illustrated by a Hindu story. A man sought to know from a Hindu priest the greatest being in the universe worthy of a sacrifice. Following the clear instruction, he began offering food to the newly acquired idol in his house. One day he found a rat eating the offering. Inferring that the rat must be greater than the idol, he began making his sacrificial offering to the rat, till one day he saw a cat threatening the rat. So he began mak-ing his sacrifice to the cat. One day the man's wife saw the cat on an eating spree in the kitchen and chased it away with a stick2 Made aware of this greater power of his wife, he began making his sacrifice to her. Then one day, finding the meal she cooked and served too salty, he shouted at her. She quivered at his anger. That encounter made him feel superior to his wife, and so he began to offer food sacrificially to himself. He ate and ate until he died. Can anyone be so foolish? Not in such an obvious way, but most of us are probably about half that foolish. The really wise, of course, would know how to enjoy food and drink while recognizing that they are also part of the grateful sacrifice due to God. There is something beautiful and divine in such sacrifice pervading daily life without formal rubrics and yet illumining the rubrics of the altar. "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God" (1 Co 10:31). Notes ~ There was a similar first occurrence of prayer, this one in Sanskrit, spoken by a Hindu in the Nevada State Assembly on 19 March 2007 and in the Nevada State Senate on 7 May 2007, both in Carson City. See Kaumudi USA-News, March 2007 (front page). 2 Some Muslims, however, would not agree on this. Review for Religious 3 Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1976), p. 30. 4 The word derives from the Vedas, the earliest Hindu scriptures in Sanskrit. s See Bede Griffiths, A New Vision of Reality (New Delhi: Indus, 1992), pp. 58-59. 6 See John L. McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible (Bangalore: Asian Trading Corporation, 1998), pp. 277-278. 7 Griffiths, New Vision, p. 61. The verse itself runs thus: "Nourished by your sacrifice, the Gods will grant you your heart's desires. / What a thief is he who enjoys their gifts but gives nothing in return!" (3:12). See Raimundo Panikkar et al., The Vedic Experience (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1977), p. 428. s As Jesus overturned the notion of unclean food in Jewish Pharisaism and declared all food clean (Mk 7:19), he would also declare all food good against what may be called Christian libertinism. 9 Of course, in the Pauline context the reference was to Jewish dietary laws that in Christianity were being superseded, whereas here it is the regrettable exaltation of food for food's sake. Questions for Personal and Group Reflection 1. How do you consider grace before and after meals meaningful to your Christian living? 2. Can you explain that the Last Supper exemplifies for us how our daily meals are "ideally sacrifices filling us with gratitude and uniting us with the bountiful Abba Father"? 363 68.4 2009 PATRICIA A. WITTBERG religious life models Opening a New Window: Fifteen Years after the FORUS Study More than fifteen years ago, Miriam Ukeritis csJ and David Nygren CM published their groundbreaking study, The Future of Religious Orders in the United States) In it they predicted that religious congregations had only a ten-year window of opportunity before the aging of their current members and the lack of new entrants would render them nonviable. Many resisted this prediction, refusing to believe it. Some spun visions of an alternate (and socio-logically naive) future in which religious con-gregations would expand to include married and single, vowed and nonvowed, Catholic and non-Catholic, male and female, all somehow gathered together under the aegis of a vaguely defined charism? Others, not knowing what to believe, considered religious life's future Patricia A. Wittberg SC wrote about the "recipro-cal identities" of apostolic life and consecrated life in our July-August 2002 issue. Her address remains 2141 Dugan Drive; Indianapolis, Indiana 46260. Email: pwittber@iupui.edu Review for Religious something they could do litde about and focused their diminishing energies on their ministries instead. Fifteen years later, for many religious congregations, the window of opportunity appears to have closed. Few if any of their members are under the age of sixty; no one has entered for ten or even twenty years; vocation directors are burned out or depressed. Many members coverdy believe--and some openly argue--that it is use-less and unethical to invite young people to enter. It is for these congregations, especially, that I am writing this article, but I offer it as well to communities which are in less dire straits. I. believe that both could profit from the following alternative. I would like to point out a different--and more sociologically feasible--path for the future of declining religious congregations. I do not see this as replacing traditional religious life--which is thriving on a smaller scale in some (but not all) of the CMSWR congregations in the United States, and on a larger scale in Africa and South Asia. There will always be a place in the church for the traditional model of religious life. But U.S. Catholic culture is no longer as hospitable to this model as it once was. If it were, several hundred, not a few dozen, traditional religious congregations would be springing up in this country, and they would be doubling in membership every decade. Such explosive growth was the norm for religious congregations founded in the 19th century, and it obviously is not happening today. This comparative lack of interest, however, does not indicate that present-day U.S. Catholics are unspiritual heathens. They simply are not attracted to the traditional model. I believe that American Catholicism would be bet-ter served if several other versions of religious life were also available to young Catholics. By"other versions" I 68.4 2009 tVittberg ¯ Opening a New Window A social movement is a wave of beliefs and/or actions that sweeps large numbers of persons into working toward a specific goal. 366 do not mean the lifestyles currendy being modeled by most of the non-CMSWR religious congregations. These are faring even worse than the traditionalist orders in attracting new members. Their charisms are still beau-tiful and, for the most part, still valid in today's world. But they are not being presented in a form that appeals to young Catholics today. Instead, I want to suggest a different strategy for handing on a congregation's charism to a new generation: starting one---or preferably severalmsocial-movement orga-nizations. To explain how this would work, I first need to define a few terms. Broadly considered, a social movement is a wave of beliefs and/or actions that sweeps large numbers of persons into working toward a specific goal. Examples are the civil-rights movement, the women's movement, the envi-ronmental movement, and the right-to-life movement. Each of these movements may con-tain dozens of separate social-movement organizations (SMOs) which focus on particular activities, particular groups of people, or particular issues related to the larger movement's goals. Thus, the environmental movement includes large organiza-tions like the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, and Greenpeace and also many smaller groups that focus on saving the monarch butterfly, cleaning up a local river, opposing the dumping of toxic waste, and so forth.3 There have been religious social movements and, thus, religious social-movement organizations as well. In Review for Religious Protestantism, a succession of social movements called "Great Awakenings" sparked a host of religious revival groups throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, several of which developed into full-fledged denominations such as the Mormons, the Seventh-Day Adventists, and the various Pentecostal churches. In Catholicism, waves of devotionalism swept through both 17th-century France and 19th-century North America,4 spinning off pilgrim-age societies, sodalities, and prayer groups devoted to particular saints, scapulars, or novenas. These were not .religious orders at their inception, but some later did develop in that direction. Other times they simply strengthened the existing orders. I am suggesting that religious congregations con-sciously try to foster something similar today. Most still have one or more members who are passionate about meeting some particular need in today's world, be it sav-ing the environment, feeding the poor, sheltering home-less women and children, providing free medical care to the uninsured, or mentoring the spiritually searching,s Many of these members have already worked out a more or less specific theology to ground their activities and to explain how their passion fits with the congregation's charism. Some have recruited a corps of volunteers to help them in. their work. To paraphrase the famous line from MoliEre,6 they are already "forming a religious SMO without knowing it." However, these passionate members are often less connected to the rest of the con-gregation. For years, even decades, the other members may have left them alone to "do their own thing." But it is only a small step from what these indi-vidual religious are already instinctively doing, for their congregation deliberately to form and maintain several SMOs to enflesh its charism for subsequent genera- 68.4 2009 Wittberg ¯ Opening a New Window 368 tions. All that remains is to help each incipient group to articulate its identity publicly, to specify clearly its religious grounding in the congregation's charism, and to take specific steps to ensure its leadership continuity and stable membership. This might simply involve: ¯ Picking a name connected with both the charism of the congregation and the specific focus of the group: "Vincentian Servants of the Homeless," "Franciscan Brothers and Sisters of the Earth," "Centering Pray-ers," and so forth. ¯ Adopting an identifiable sign of group affiliation, for example, a common T-shirt or a medal. ¯ Maintaining a public-relations effort to inform potential volunteers, donors, other members of the con-gregation, and the church at large about the group's existence and to attract them to its mission. ¯ Spelling out the criteria for entering and exiting the group, expectations of membership, and ongoing group governance. Previous evidence indicates that, paradoxically, groups with more rigorous expectations are more likely to succeed than those which demand less of their adherents.7 The first two steps are relatively simple, and may already have been taken. But they are not enough. Unless some provision is made for the continuance of the SMO, it may not survive its founder's retirement. The founding brother or sister may be neither inter-ested in nor skilled at such bureaucratic maintenance activities. For the remaining steps, therefore, a religious congregation may be able to offer valuable help from its communications office (for the third task), and its leadership (for the fourth). The kind of social-movement organization I am advocating may or may not be represented by a con- Review for Religious gregation's associate program. A congregation's associ-ates could certainly be this kind of group--but only if they are organized around a readily articulated spiri-tual focus and/or apostolic activity that distinguishes associate membership from the larger call given to any Catholic. Simply stating that associates are devoted to "living the charism of the founder" is not enough. The more focused the associates' commitment--whether in monthly or weekly prayer/lectio according to the founder's spirituality, or in working on a regular basis with the vowed members in their ministry, or in staffing some auxiliary ministry that complements that of the vowed members--the more my SMO proposal here can be applied to them. Otherwise, an associateprogram will not be sufficiendy distinct from the lifestyle of non-associates to enflesh the order's charism on its own. Advantages of the SMO Model I am suggesting that some congregations--especially those whose members have tacitly abandoned the hope of attracting new vowed members--make a point of acknowledging this and then start to recruit people for their present members' particular SMOs. What would be the advantages of such a strategy? First of all, any given religious congregation will survive only to the extent that its members are passionately devoted to some particular version of their founding charism. The future of religious life does not rest with the tired or apathetic, but after a long period of decline many religious now are both. Most congregations have only a few members with the needed passion and enthusiasm. Moreover, these members may not all be focused on the same passion. Some may live and breathe God's call to serve the poor; others may devote their energies to preserving God's 68.4 2009 Wittberg ¯ Opening a New Window Any given religious congregation will survive only to the extent that its members are passionately ~devoted to some particular version of their founding charism. 370 creation through environmental activities; still others, with a more contemplative bent, may foster spirituality through centering prayer, pastoral counseling, or reli-gious art or music. A religious order faced with only a handful of healthy and passionate vowed members, each deeply devoted to a different passion, faces a serious dilemma. It can either focus on one of these passions to the exclu-sion of the others (which would be profoundly alien-ating to those left out), or it can try to include all of them (which dilutes the con-gregation's spe-cific identity and its ability to rally its members around a common goal). Either way, a congregation's ability to recruit to vowed membership is weakened if its remaining passion-ate members are devoted to different articulations of its charism, because its overall corporate mission identity will be weak.8 In contrast, enfleshing these articulations in several different SMOs would strengthen a congregation and improve the chances for its charism to survive. Since each SMO's participants are not necessarily vowed to the congregation, it is not only possible but desirable that several could exist under the same congregational "rOOfo''9 The more different SMOs a congregation's members "spin off," the greater the chance that one, at Review for Religious least, will catch fire. As I will argue below, this may then become the seed for the congregation's future. A second advantage of the SMO approach is that it is a sociologically feasible way of incorporating temporary members or inviting specific demographic groups into the congregation's family. The prospect of temporary membership in permanently vowed religious congrega-tions has been discussed for over thirty years without ever coming to fruition.'° This is probably a sign that the concept is unworkable. A host of decisions would need to be faced in a congregation that included both permanent and temporary members: financial expec-tations, for example, or voice and vote in chapters. Maintaining a distinction between the two groups could imply a second-class status for the temporary members; erasing the distinction would depreciate the perpetually vowed members' commitment. Also, there is not now and never has been any indi-cation that large numbers of potential entrants are clamoring for the option of temporary membership in communities with perpetual vows. If anything, the opposite is the case. In contrast, however, various lay movements that are similar to SMOs are thriving in the church--which may be a sign that the model is a more compatible and sociologically viable Way of enfleshing a religious call in today's world.'1 Lay social-movement organizations are compat-ible with temporary commitment. In fact, many actu-ally expect that their members will stay no more than three or four years. Prayer or volunteer groups specifi-cally targeting high school or college students would be examples of these. A recently begun group is the St. Joseph of Arimathea Society--groups of high school students in Cleveland and Louisville who help provide 371 68.4 2009 Wittberg ¯ Opening a New Window A final advantage of religious ¯ social-movement organizations is that it is less devastating for the members if they dissolve. dignified and reverent funeral services for homeless peo-ple, and for murder victims and deceased old and young people whose relatives are too few or too devastated to arrange a funeral themselves. The students provide sing-ers and pallbearers, tend the "potter's field" cemetery, and collect money for flowers and grave markers. More traditional examples of student organiza-tions include prayer groups (Athletes for Christ, rosary or adoration societies) or twinning arrange-ments with a school in a poor area. There is no expectation that the students will remain members of these groups after their graduation, although they may be directed to affiliated adult groups which they may or may not choose to join. A final advantage of religious social-movement orga-nizations is that it is less devastating for the members if they dissolve. While no data exist on the number of failed attempts that preceded or accompanied the suc-cessful founding of religious orders in previous centu-ries, anecdotal evidence in our histories indicates that at least as many attempts to found religious orders have failed as succeeded. This appears to be true today as well. Of the 97 new religious communities listed in the 1999 Directory of Embrging Religious Communities, 24 had dissolved by 2006, and another 21 had lost members.~2 Founding or truly refounding a religious order is a chancy business, and those who commit their lives to one of these new groups risk losing both financial security Review for Religious and mental/emotional health if they fail. Committing oneself to an SMO carries with it many fewer risks. Outcomes For those religious who are concerned for the pres-ervation of their congregation's charism, forming one or more SMOs could have several beneficial results: ¯ Social-movement organizations may be effective recruit-ment vehicles for vowed membership. With few religious teaching in Catholic schools, most young Catholics have never seen a sister or brother. And few religious inter-act with anyone younger than fifty on a deep or regu-lar basis. How can young Catholics join a lifestyle they know so little about? How can religious invite those they never see? Participating with vowed religious on an ongoing basis in a soup kitchen, a prayer group, or an ecological project will help young people get to know the religious involved--and vice versa. ¯ One particular social-movement organization may develop into the vehide that will carry a congregation's charism into the next generation, after all of the former vowed mem-bers are gone. If so, this would finally realize the inclusive ¯ scenario that the "Transformative Elements" painted for the future of religious life twenty years ago. How could anyone say that a religious charism was extinct if, instead of a small number of vowed religious, an SMO of married, single, Catholic, and non-Catholic men and women were living it out by feeding the hungry, praying a particular devotion, tutoring poor children, or in some other way were bringing the founder's original vision into the 21st century? "Life is not ended, merely changed." ¯ A truly successful social-movement organization will often, however, contain a number of members who do want to devote their entire lives to its vision. It may 373 68.4 2009 Wittberg ¯ Opening a New Window be that these members will not join the original community, but will instead begin a new one. If the first community is still around at this point, their wisdom and experi-ence would be invaluable for the new group. If not, the stories of the SMO's original founder--the sister who started a free clinic in Appalachia, the brother whose soup kitchen mobilized a city to feed the poor--will serve as a template. After all, Frederick Ozanam (the founder of the St. Vincent de Paul Society) lived sev-eral centuries after Vincent himself. St. John Bosco had never met St. Francis de Sales. Throughout the millennium and a half that Catholic religious life has existed, many new religious orders or lay groups have been formed from old templates. SMOs could provide templates of this very kind. Next Steps I believe that social-movement organizations could be useful, both for religious congregations that have given up on recruiting vowed members, and also for more-viable communities that still attract some young people. For the former, it may be the last remaining way they have of passing on their charism to a new genera-tion. For the latter, it may help them attract even more new entrants. The next steps I would suggest to con-gregations wishing to found such organizations--or to foster the ones their individual members have already begun--are as follows: ¯ Take inventory of today's society: What are its deep-est needs or desires? As I have noted previously,~3 the best way to determine these needs is to look at what larger social movements are currently growing. The most pressing social movements reveal themselves by the large number of SMOs they spawn. Are there already Review for Religious a lot of small environmental groups? Prayer groups? Adoration groups? Groups working with the poor? Women's groups? Check out the directory of associa-tions on the Internet Public Library (http://www.ipl. org/div/aon/)to find out. Is there room for another SMO, locally, in this movement? For example, is there a group that the movement currently does not reach, such as Hispanics or high school youth? Is there a new tactic or way of addressing the issue that existing SMOs do not use? Could adding your congregation's spirituality or charism deepen commitment to the social movement? ¯ Take inventory of your congregation: Who are your passionate members? What are their passions? How, if at all, do these passions relate to the charism of your founder? What larger social movements do these pas-sions relate to? Are your community's passionate mem-bers interested in leading or organizing a group to assist them in their work? Or, better, have they already done so? Are other members in your congregation interested in helping them? ¯ What does the group still need in order to succeed? Does it need to expand its pool of potential volunteers? Secure more stable funding? Plan for the founder's retirement? What is the optimum size for the group? Would expansion be good for it--or dilute its unique character? If the latter, can the group's model be "fran-chised" in some way, with separate independent chap-ters in various cities?14 ¯ What assistance can the congregation render? Can your communications office help to publicize the group? Can your vocation personnel and/or associates help locate new volunteers? Does the group need a place to meet? Need mentoring in finances or grant writing? What about retreats or prayer days on the charism? And 68.4 2009 Wittberg ¯ Opening a New Window 376 who in the congregation could provide these services? A weakness in any new religious organization is its "liabil-ity of newness," which may lead to mistakes that imperil its very survival. A more experienced mentor could be a tremendous help. It is obvious by now that religious life is at the end of one of the cyclic downturns which have recurred over the centuries. Rather than resign ourselves to our "inev-itable" extinction--and thereby create a self-fulfilling prophecy--I think we should notice that the SMO model offers a way to midwife the new forms of religious life that will thrive and grow in the years ahead. The many permutations of this model already appearing--associ-ate programs, lay ecclesial movements, mixed emerg-ing communities--are foreshadowings, I believe, of an absorbing future. This is true even if most of them fail, as new ventures often do. More will continue to spring up until some "get it right." With their centuries-long experience and the passions of at least some of their vowed members, today's religious congregations could help in this rebirth. Notes ~ David Nygren and Miriam D. Ukeritis, The Future of Religious Orders in the United States: Transformation and Commitment (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1993). 2 A good example would be the third and fourth of the so-called "Transformative Elements" developed by the joint CMSM/LCWR meet-ing in Louisville in 1989--and cited on pp. 255 and following of Nygren and Ukeritis's book. Supposedly, this is what religious life would look like in the year 2010. In hindsight, it reflects more wishful thinking than any real-world trends for vowed religious life. 3 Fora fuller discussion of social movements and social-movement organizations, see my Pathways to Re-Creating Religious Communities (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1996), chap. 4. 4 See Elizabeth Rapley, The D~votes: Women and Church in Seventeenth Review for Religious Century France (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1990), and Anne Taves, The Household of Faith: Roman Catholic Devotions in Nineteenth Century America (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), for these waves of devotionalism. s My own congregation has individual sisters--of whom I am extremely proud--deeply involved in all of these activities. 6 Or maybe not so famous--the citation refers to a line from Moli~re's comedy Le bourgeois gentilhomme, in which a nouveau riche man is being tutored in literature and discovers that he has been speak-ing prose all of his life without knowing it. 7 See, e.g., Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), chap. 7. 8 According to the Nygren and Ukeritis study, mission identity is the principal variable influencing a congregation's success (see pp. 97-98). 9 Several religious families have known this instinctively. For exam-ple, my own Vincentian tradition includes, not only the Congregation of the Mission, the Daughters of Charity, and the various Sister of Charity Federation congregations, but also the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Ladies of Charity, Vincentian Marian Youth, the Association of the Miraculous Medal, and the Missionary Cenacle, all of which are move-ment organizations of nonvowed laypersons. Similarly the Salesian family includes, not only the Salesian priests and Visitation nuns, but other vowed religious such as the Sisters of Mary Help of Christians, the Missionaries of St. Francis, the Salesian Missionaries of Mary Immaculate, and the Oblate Sisters of St. Francis de Sales, plus lay groups such as the Association of St. Francis de Sales and the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales. to I am not referring here to societies of apostolic life like the Daughters of Charity, who make annual vows, but rather to including an option for temporary membership in congregations whose members are now expected to make perpetual vows. Moreover, even among the Daughters of Charity, there is the assumption that one's annual vows are really for life. ~' According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), Emerging Communities of Consecrated Life in the United States (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2006, p. 16), ten of the twelve most rapidly growing new indigenous emerging communities in the U.S. are mixed communities with some, or all, lay members. t2 CAP, A, Emerging Communities, p. 16. 377 68.4 2009 Wittberg ¯ Opening a New V~ndow ,3 Wittberg, Pathways, pp. 80-85. ,4 The above-mentioned St. Joseph of Arimithea Society seems to operate through "franchises"--the Cleveland and Louisville chapters appear to be separate from each other. Many.other groups enlisting high school or college students operate similarly. A Sampler of Potential (and Actual) Religious SMOs 1. "Franchised" Youth Groups (local school chapters, perhaps with a national headquarters supplying materials or training) a. Volunteers supporting a local soup kitchen b. A high school or college centering-prayer group c. Group spiritual direction, big brother/sister spiritual mentoring d. Adoration societies, sodalities 2. Ministry Groups (non-age-specific, perhaps linked nationally in a network or association) a. Supporting crisis pregnancies b. Companioning the dying c. Running a women's shelter d. Strengthening marriages 3. Spirituality Groups (may have a centralized head-quarters and/or a youth branch - see #1, above) a. Devotion to a particular saint b. Performance of a particular spiritual practice (Eucharistic adoration, centering prayer, pilgrimages) c. Spiritual mentoring, group spiritual direction 4. Lifestyle Groups a, Simple living b. Intentional communities c. Peace and reconciliation Review for Retigious WILLIAM P. CLARK Revisiting Religious Identity mnthe years following the Second Vatican Council, uch attention was focused on changes in religious life. Much writing and much effort have been directed toward rethinking or reimaging religious life. In light of all that, one might be tempted to say "Enough already!" An old saying has it that familiarity breeds contempt. Familiarity can also breed complacency and neglect. It might be good, then, to look once again at what it means to be a religious, to reflect on our religious iden-tity. Besides the decree on the renewal of religious life, Perfectae caritatis, Vatican Council II also spoke of the role of religious in Lumen gentium, the dogmatic con-stitution on the church. In chapter 6, §44, we read that the religious state "manifests in a special way that the kingdom of God and its high requirements transcend all earthly considerations, bringing home to all people William P. Clark OMI, longtime teacher and administrator, lives at St, Henry's Oblate Residence; 200 North 60th Street; Belleville, Illinois 62223. 379 68.4 2009 Clark ¯ Revisiting Religious Identity the immeasurable greatness of the power of Christ in his sovereignty and the infinite might of the Holy Spirit marvelously working in the church.'" The council is simply saying religious life gives special witness that, above and beyond earthly values, there is something we call the kingdom of God. While religious life's characteristic witness is spe-cial, it is not exclusive. It is the duty of all Christians to give witness to the kingdom of God. All Christians, be they lay or religious, are committed to living out their baptismal consecration. Emphasis on the common voca-tion of all Christians highlights what is of fundamental importance, the fullness of Christian life informed by charity. That emphasis also counteracts any tendency to draw unfavorable comparisons between the lay and religious states, as though laypersons are somehow sec-ond- class citizens or "children of a lesser God." That broad emphasis on all Christian life is rooted in the most ancient tradition of monasticism. In his masterful study The Spirituality of the New Testament and the Fathers, Louis Bouyer finds certain constants in the literature of monasticism. He affirms them because they were some-what obscured by later developments. One such insight is that the primitive monk did not appear special. Whether by himself or others, his vocation was not considered par-ticular or exceptional. The monk was simply a Christian, a devout layperson who took the most radical means to live the Christian life to the fullest. The monk proposed no other end than to be saved. All his life, the monk asked for no other teaching from his elders than the means of attaining that goal. His fundamental and persistent ques-tion was: "Tell me. How can I be saved?" Two points need emphasis. First, holiness, the fullness of Christian life, is not something reserved Review for Religious to religious, while laypersons are called to something less. Second, religious are to focus on the essential, on the search for union with God, and not see holi-ness as something incidental or distinctive which sets them apart from "ordinary" Christians. Fundamental to religious identity is one's identity as a Christian. It is the fullness of the Christian experience that constitutes Christian identity. There are three major elements in the Christian expe-rience. The first is not distinctively Christian. It is the human preamble. It consists in discovering that human happiness and fulfillment are not brought about by tak-ing. We all start out that way, looking for that certain something or combination of things which, if we could only latch on to it and make it our own, would provide fulfillment. The Christian experience becomes possible once we realize that what we really seek is something or someone to give ourselves to, something or someone greater and nobler than ourself. It is a search for some-thing or someone that will endow our life with meaning and purpose. Finding that something or someone is the beginning of faith as a lived reality. It becomes the basis of all commitment worthy of the name. The second element makes the experience specifi-cally Christian. It consists in finding that greater-than-self reality in the person of Jesus Christ. It is finding in his words meaning for our life. It is finding in his life the pattern and model for our own. The third element is the desire to share what we have found. We want others to find the meaning and purpose that have become our own. We want to live out this meaning and purpose in love for one another. The full Christian experience, then, is apostolic and missionary. 381 68.4 2009 Clark * Revisiting Reli#ous Identity 382 If this Christian experience is not real in our lives, no amount of theorizing about what it is or should be will ever make it so. Furthermore, theorizing will not help much in our lives as religious. If the Christian experience is real, it can be progressively liberating, freeing from all those attitudes of mind and spirit that limit us to operating within the narrow confines of self-ish interests. Like all Christians, religious are to give witness by their lives to the possibilities open to everyone for liber-ation from enslaving attitudes like inordinate ambition, defensiveness, possessiveness, self-pity, and cynicism. The life of religious should also be an active witness to joy, to hope, and to love. The call to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity seems so daunting that peo-ple often try to evade its challenge. In doing so, lay-persons sometimes say that holiness is something for religious and priests, not for "ordinary" persons like themselves. Likewise, religious sometimes find a type of escape through dependence on the system. Religious life involves a kind of system that includes public vows, constitutions and rules, and a goodly number of prac-tices found in the traditions of various religious insti-tutes. We might think just plugging into the system will make us as holy as we need to be. It is easy to just coast along. All too easily we can come to rate as virtue whatever is conformable to our religious surroundings. Custom and routine can so enslave us as to dispense us from personal decision. Of course, custom and routine, as well as the regular practices and exercises of religious life, are also great helps--if we understand and use them righdy. They do not, however, carry us all the way. They reflect the fact Review for Religious that in choosing to be religious we have set the direction of our lives. But they do not guarantee we never lose that direction. The need for ongoing renewal is simply the need to reaffirm, to reset our direction. The human condition is such that nothing can be taken for granted except the constancy of God's grace, of his invitation. Another point on which the council spoke explic-itly is religious consecration. Everyone of the faithful is consecrated to the divine service by baptism. Clearly, in various contexts the word "consecration" has various meanings, causing difficulties to be raised about how this idea applies to religious. In address-ing those difficulties, the council begins by relating religious con-secration to baptism. Religious consecra-tion adds nothing to the baptism's sacramental character. It is, however, in the line of baptismal grace. That grace can be lived in varying degrees of intimacy. The coun-cil speaks of religious as being "more intimately conse-crated to the divine service." That phrase is significant. It does not say "more strictly" or anything that might seem to emphasize some form of legal obligation. What the council points out by those words is that baptismal consecration can be interiorized to a greater or lesser extent by grace and by love. Ultimately, the truth of every Christian life consists in one's baptismal consecration. But God calls people to live out that consecration in different ways. For religious The call to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity seems so daunting that people often try to evade its challenge. 68.4 2009 Clark ¯ Revisiting Religious Identity the call to God's service is more explicitly determined. It takes on a particular form or style. To put that a bit differently, for religious the vital response called for by God's loving initiative is made concrete in a specific and distinctive way. By making a certain explicit profession of the evan-gelical counsels, persons technically become religious. The purpose of such profession is to commit ourselves more explicitly and more profoundly to living our bap-tismal consecration. At one time religious profession was commonly called "a new baptism" in homilies at profession ceremonies. In those days it was not always adequately explained. The council statements revitalized and clarified that idea. In reflecting on religious consecration, it is important to realize that such consecration is the work of God. Virtually every page of Scripture speaks of God's initiative in regard to creatures. Jesus told his disciples: "You have not chosen me. I have chosen you." Passages like that have a particular resonance for religious. It is God who calls religious and consecrates them through the church's ministry. Because it is God's work, religious consecration is permanent. God's choice and God's fidelity are unchanging. God is constant in the grace he offers, in his call. Our challenge is to keep trying to respond generously to that call. Religious consecration represents a special instance of the mysterious interaction between grace and human freedom. Obviously it is essential that those consecrat-ing themselves to God's service be free. At the same time we must recognize that the consecration is ulti-mately God's work. Religious profession has never been considered a sacrament by the church. In recent years many things have been referred to as "sacraments," in a broad sense Review for Religiot~s of the word. In the strict sense, religious profession is not a sacrament. That does not mean, however, that religious profession has no reality beyond the disposi-tion and conduct of the subject. Religious consecration is something accorded to free persons precisely as free. To be received, the consecra-tion requires a personal response to God's call. That response includes certain characteristics. It must be sufficiently enlightened, conscious, and free. A person's intention and the vows which formulate that intention are eminently free acts. Conversely, when the church dispenses from vows, she judges that in reality there was some impediment to freedom in the original profes-sion, something lacking in what was offered for divine consecration. The fact that religious consecra-tion is not a sacrament does not mean nothing more is involved than the liberty of the one making vows. On God's part the engagement is indefectible. A vocation consists in a person's being called to a cer-tain manner of life. Each vocation has its own structure and laws. Those laws are not to be understood as some-thing imposed from the outside. They derive from the very nature of the life in question. To ignore structure and laws proper to religious life would be to think of reli-gious life as funny putty which can take on any shape one gives it. History shows significant variations in the forms of religious life. But, in the last analysis, that life must always be directly related to what is most fundamental in Christianity, the search for God and growth in charity. A vocation consists in a person's being called to a certain manner of life. 68.4 2009 Clark * Revisiting Religious Identity In the Christian understanding of life, the goal is progress in charity. Jesus made it clear that love of God and love of neighbor sum up the whole law. Love gives ultimate value to what we do. That is why religious con-secration is wholly directed towards love of God and neighbor. It is precisely that love which gives the value of consecration to the activity of the religious. The idea that one's activities must continuously be animated by charity is certainly not new. We have heard it countless times in one form or another. Nor is it distinctive. It is true for everyone. By religious profession we are committed to that goal more explicitly, more officially, as it were. On the part of religious, the consecration of one's life consists in using distinctive means for achieving the common Christian goal of progress in charity. My cir-cumstances, my state of life, determine the means that are most appropriate for me. Jacques Maritain offered an excellent definition of means. He said means are the end in the process of coming to be. Thus, at each moment of our journey toward the perfection of love, we make that end real by employing the appropriate means, Perhaps we should emphasize the word "journey." While we hope we are on the right road and we try to keep moving in the right direction, we never reach the end, the perfection of love, in this life. Another way to put that is to say that holiness is not so much a place we arrive as it is the way we travel. Consciousness of our shortcomings and failures makes us reluctant to think of ourselves as holy. A num-ber of years ago Archbishop John Roach of St. Paul, in a pastoral letter on spirituality titled A Friendship Unlimited, offered a valuable insight in this regard. He wrote: "It's a funny thing, but for years I couldn't imag- Review for Religious ine thinking of myself as holy. I was equating holiness with perfection, and I knew I simply didn't have that. It is clear to me now that holiness is the desire to be a friend of Jesus Christ and to surrender my will to God. I may stumble along with that. I have so far--but, so long as I continue a sincere effort toward that goal, I am holy." It might help also to remind ourselves of one charac-teristic of holiness that is often overlooked. It is compat-ible with human frailty. Many stories and most statues of saints give a wrong impression, an impression of otherworldliness that obscures the fact that those saints were real human beings with human faults and weak-nesses. Examples are plentiful. St. Augustine was given to rages. St. Thtr~se of Lisieux had bouts of depression. St. Vincent de Paul, the great saint of charity, was said to be bilious and subject to fits of anger. St. Jerome was aggressive and insulting to persons who disagreed with him. In fact, one of his contemporaries said of Jerome that his malice was such that no saint could live within miles of him. The secret of all of those people is that they never gave up struggling and working to overcome their human weaknesses. They knew what counts is not the triumphant victory of total perfection, but persevering effort. Teresa of Avila said we should strive and strive and strive, for we were made for nothing else. She was right, of course, but the way she said it makes it sound hard. And it is a constant challenge. We cannot gloss over that. But I like the way T.S. Eliot put it when he said: "We are only undefeated because we keep 6n trying." In question 186 of the Secunda Secundae of his Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas treats of things that per-tain to the religious state. He speaks at length of the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience and argues their ,387 68.4 2009 Clark ¯ Revisiting Religious Identity necessity for religious perfection. He points out that "a person cannot offer his whole life to God directly because that life is not lived all at once, but only suc-cessively. Hence, a person can only offer his whole life to God through the obligation imposed by vows" (my translation). Thus, our real challenge is not the perfor-mance of heroic acts, however beautiful, however noble, for every human act is by nature transitory. Our real challenge is the heroism of a whole life, offered to God without measure, without reservation, without regret. This is done through religious consecration, through the vows. And in this the entire person, mind and heart, must be involved and permanently involved. Note ' The Vatican translation and the revised Flannery translation, melded. See Lumen gentium, chapter 6, §44: "Regni Dei denique super omnia terrestria elevationem eiusque summas necessitudines peculiari modo patefacit [status religiosus]; supereminentem quoque magnitudi-nem virtutis Christi regnantis atque infinitam Spiritus Sancti potentiam in Ecclesia mirabiliter operantem, cunctis hominibus demonstrat." Ed. 388 Questions for Personal and Group Reflection If religious sisters and brothers are identified with the laity, how do you claim their special religious identity? 2. Has Clark been helpful in underlining aspects of religious identity that distinguish religious life for priests, sisters, and brothers? Would you want to add or subtract anything? Review for Religious LEO J. HERIOT Encounters Early and Late: John Bosco and Paul Saul was present at the stoning of the lov-able Stephen, and perhaps this increased the Pharisee's desire for Christian blood. Fernand Prat says, "Not content with being present at the torture of the victims, he entered into houses and dragged out the inmates, both men and women, to hale them to the dungeons."' Saul set out on the trail of Christians not to evangelize them but in pursuit of them to bring them to what he thought was justice. He had asked the priests to give him the offi-cial mission to seek out Jesus' disciples in the synagogue of Damascus and drag them before the Sanhedrin. In the Acts of the Apostles we have three accounts of the vision on the way to Damascus (9:1-19; 22:3-21; 26:12-20). It is Luke who makes the first announcement of Leo J. Heriot SDB wrote for us about Margaret Bosco in 2007. His address is now Don Bosco House; PMB Government Buildings; Suva, Fiji-Islands. exemplars of faith 389 68.4 2009 Heriot ¯ Encounters Early and Late this event; later we hear Paul giving his own account. The accounts agree on the important points: the occa-sion, the place, the time of day, the dazzling light, Saul's fall to the ground, his dialogue with the mysterious voice, his blindness, the return of his sight, and the total change in his life. From being a firebrand of a persecutor, he became a sower of the Good News of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The whole change of his behavior, his heeding of the strong voice's words, and his subsequent dedica-tion to a new cause make us aware that he was not led by fanaticism or goaded on by personal ambition. Jesus Christ seized him, pulled him close to himself. From the accounts of this conversion, nothing presaged it, noth-ing hinted that the fierce Pharisee would change regard-ing this person Jesus Christ, changing and becoming a disciple of Jesus and a preeminent apostle. Looking at this conversion, one gets the impression that it is beyond human explanation. It would be folly to try to find some simple plausible human causality. Pauline theology gives pride of place to the empow-erment of grace, and Saul was certainly under the influence of grace. It is not possible to explain this con-version apart from divine grace. Paul helps us with these assertions from his writings: "Have I not seen Jesus, our Lord?" (1 Co 9:1). "Last of all, as one untimely born, he appeared also to me" (1 Co 15:8). Grace found in this man fertile soil that would produce a great extension of the stoW of Jesus, a stoW that would make people aware of the immense, unfolding gift God gave to Saul and to the world on Saul's way to Damascus. Saul's encounter with the risen Lord as he sought to obliterate that Lord's message had a huge influence on him. One of the Apostle's boldest and most profound Review for Religious teachings was that of Christians' being incorporated into Christ's mystical body. For this Pharisee, Paul, Christ becomes all in all; Christ becomes everything. This idea is contained in seminal form in the question Jesus puts to the blinded Saul: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" (Ac 9:4). Paul was not attacking Jesus directly; he was defending his Pharisaism by trying to prevent Jews from falling into the ways of this crucified "reformer" of Judaism. In Saul's conversion God's grace is evident, work-ing a transformation immediately. It is like the blinding flash of light. The extraordinary illumination appar-ently brought about Saul's immediate com-pliance with Jesus' words and his swift transformation into a disciple and apostle. The stunned Saul changed his course once and for all. He found himself in a new world, a world almost alien to the life he had lived until then. Paul was overwhelmed by a new faith, a belief in the person of Jesus Christ as his Lord and master. He began a new and demanding life that only a strong and deep faith and love could sustain. He expresses that faith in his Letters to the Galatians and the Romans, an active faith that revolutionizes the whole person and alters the direction of people's lives. From the moment of his conversion the gaze of Saul is riveted on the person of Jesus Christ. We would go too far, however, if we reduced Paul's life to the moment One of the Apostle's boldest and most profound teachings was that of Christians" being incorporated into Christ's mystical body. 391 68.4 2009 Heriot ¯ Encounters Early and Late of his conversion. His continuing deep reflection on the mystery of God's love strengthened him as he went about his apostolic life. Our beliefs, too, are not simply the result of our reading or reflection, but come from God's communication with us, often in the quiet con-templation of a Divine Master stretching out his hand to us and telling us to find him in our contemplative awareness of others and ourselves. 392f The Boy from Becchi, Another Man of Zeal In an audience on 21 March 1858, Pope Pius IX, now Blessed, told the priest from Turin: "When you get back to Turin, Don Bosco, you write down these dreams and everything else you have told me, minutely, and in their natural sense. Save all this as a legacy for your Congregation so that it may serve as an encouragement and norm for your Sons.''2 After nine years this same pope questioned him once again. Don Bosco's reply was "I truthfully lacked the time. I was so taken with [any number of things]." The pope said, "Well then, I not only advise you, but order you to do it." Don Bosco promised to write down his early experiences, and he kept his word.3 In his poor handwriting Don Bosco scrawled out his first dream. "At the age of nine I had a dream that really changed my life and influenced me throughout my life. I dreamed I was near my house at Becchi, and a crowd of young boys had gathered there to have fun and play games. Some were playing, some were laughing, and not a few were cursing. Shocked by their expres-sions, I jumped in among the boys, swinging wildly and shouting at them to stop saying those things. At that moment a Person appeared among us. He was dressed in a long white robe, and his face radiated such light Review for Religious that I could not look at it. Suddenly he called me by name. 'Giovanni, you have to win these boys not by blows but with gendeness and kindness (bont~). So begin right now to show them that evil is ugly and virtue is beautiful.'" Although these words confused him, this little boy, nine years old in 1824, was being commissioned for God's work. He said, "I am so small and these are young men. What you are asking me to do seems to be impos-sible." But he was told: "What seems so impossible, you must achieve by being obedient and acquiring knowledge." The boy shouted, "You ask me to do the impossible!" The voice said, "I will give you a teacher under whose guid-ance you will learn and without whose help all knowl-edge becomes foolishness." Beside this Person stood the Lady to whom young Bosco's mother had taught him to pray regularly. The Lady, taking his hand, said, "Giovanni, look carefully. What do you see?" The crowd of boys was changed into goats, dogs, cats, bears, and various other animals. The Lady of his dream said to him, startlingly: "This is your field of labor." Then she gave him a one-word recipe for getting these boys to improve: "amorevolezza" (loving concern). The wild animals disappeared, having been turned into sheep. The Lady then told him, "In due time you will understand," and with that she put her hand on his head. At table for morning coffee he told his family about his dream. Each one said something different. His "At the age of nine I had a dream that really changed my life and influenced me throughout my life." 393 68.4 2009 Heriot * Encounters Early and Late brother Joseph said, "Oh, Giovanni, you are going to become a farmer looking after sheep and goats, caring for them." His brother Anthony said, "Oh, Giovanni, you are going to become the leader of a gang of ban-dits!" After other such remarks, their wise old grand-mother said in an authoritarian tone: "Giovanni, take no notice of dreams." And Mama Margaret said con-vincingly, "Prepare yourself, Giovanni, for your future apostolate." This, then, is what Pope Pius IX referred to in 1858 when he told Don Bosco: "This is the begin-ning and the foundation of your work. Give this dream to your Congregation and make it a part of their life." On the road to Damascus, Paul was astonished by the voice that changed his life. It had the power to change his life and send him on a new mission. While any comparison of nine-year-old John Bosco's dream to Paul's experience near Damascus would be lopsided, we may remind ourselves that both of them were impelled into a new life, a new apostolate, by mysterious expe-riences beyond usual explanation. Are there not many other divinely wondrous experiences as well? Why not keep them in mind? Notes ~ Fernand Prat, The Theology of St. Paul (London: Burns and Oates, 1964), p. 25. 2 The Biographical Memoirs ofSaintJohn Bosco, ed. Eugene Ceria SDB (New Rochelle, New York: Salesiana Publishers, 1980), vol. 5, p. 577. 3 Ceria, Biographical Memoirs, vol. 1. pp. 95-96. Review for Religious HILDA KLEIMAN On Hilda of Whitby ~ah~na tIr oennt eorre da tfheea msto dnaayst.e Ir yw, Ia hs ando nt orta cisheodse an Catholic, and I was not named after a saint, though I had a lovely name. After I entered, the prioress asked me to choose a patron, and I chose St. Hilda of Whitby. Initially I hesitated to choose her because, generally speaking, we do not know much about her. We know when she was born and died, where she lived, and some of the activities she pursued, activities for which she was well known and respected. But we know little about her character, her spirit, or her inner life. How did the tone of a gathering change when she walked into a room? How did she regard those whose lives and souls were entrusted to her care? Was her glance warm or cool? Did she have a glint in her eye? Answers to these ques-tions seemed permanently unavailable. A few months after I entered my community, I attended a concert given by Festival Chorale Oregon, Hilda Kleiman OSB writes from Queen of Angels Monastery; 840 S. Main Street; Mt. Angel, Oregon 97362. Email: ajkjune@juno.com 68.4 2009 Kleiman ¯ On Hilda of Wbitby a local, award-winning choir directed by Dr. Solveig Holmquist. I had been a student in her college choir for three years at Western Oregon University. I was excited to see her again, even from a distance, even from the back as she conducted the choir. When she entered the concert hall, she was as I had remembered--not tall or physically imposing, yet filled with a presence that shot through her spiky hair, her sharp eyes, and her earrings and many bracelets. I saw a woman in full possession of herself and the situation at hand. She stood before the choir and the orchestra, and they knew what to do sim-ply by the movements of her hands and a thin baton. I remembered standing before her with my eyes on every move she made. In every gesture, every expression, she embodied musician and conductor. She made the vocalists and musicians one as we let her lead us--as, with our minds but also our hearts, we let her be our breath to the very last note. When Dr. Holmquist arrived at Western, she had clearly learned how to draw people together. Shortly after being hired, she was told there were no students at Western who could really sing. Given that this was untrue, and even uncharitable, Dr. Holmquist did not listen. She simply set up a table at the activities fair at the beginning of the school year and started signing students up for auditions. By the end of the year, she had set the choral music program on its feet, doubling the size of the choir, planning tours, and establishing a student-led choir council. I began to see that music was Dr. Holmquist's life, and part of that life was invit-ing the rest of us into the music in whatever way was appropriate for each of us. I loved her for it, and I still do. Though I do not think I would have used the word at the time, I see now Review for Religious that what I received from Dr. Holmquist was a deep and vigorous image of vocation. I have no doubt that through the music she is doing what God created her to do. Shortly before I graduated, I tried to say as much to her. In her office one morning, I described what I saw in her. I said I was not a born musician like her, but rather a writer and a reader, and I was looking for my own purpose in life. The day I attended the Festival Chorale concert was November 17th, the feast day of St. Hilda, and the first time I observed her feast day as my own. As I watched and remembered Dr. Holmquist, some of the reasons why I choose Hilda began to emerge. It was not about wanting to be an abbess as Hilda was, any more than it was about wanting to be a cho- , ral conductor. It was not about imitation in such a specific sense, but about living in the presence of someone who could play a part in calling me to be who I am supposed to be and to do what I am meant to do. It was about the profound effect just one person who is living her vocation may have on those around her. If I imagined myself as a member of Hilda's monastery, much as I had been a member of Dr. Holmquist's choir, what could I learn about who I am supposed to be here and now? It was about the profound effect just one person who is living her vocation may have on those around her. 397 The Venerable Bede, an English monk and writer of the 8th century, is our sole source of historical infor- 68.4 2009 Kleiman ¯ On Hilda of Wbitby marion on Hilda. After serving as the abbess of several monasteries, she established at Whitby a double monas-tery, a community of monks and nuns. In his history of the English church, Bede tells us she taught those within her community to study the Scriptures thoroughly, to observe good works, and to foster many virtues, "but especially peace and charity." In part, the influence of her goodness was seen in the five outstanding men from her monastery who became bishops. In addition to her own monks and nuns, others from all walks of society sought her direction. In this way Hilda, "whom all her acquaintances called Mother because of her wonderful devotion and grace," guided many people to God along the path of their particular gifts and circumstances. Bede also gives us the story of Caedmon, a shy sheep-herder whom "God's grace made remarkable." One night Caedmon received a vision from God in which a man asked him to compose and sing him a song. Caedmon answered that he could not sing, and the man replied "But you shall sing to me," and he did, thus becom-ing the first poet of the English language. When Hilda learned of Caedmon's gift, she invited him to become a monk and be instructed in sacred history, which he then rendered into beautiful music and poetry. Caedmon soon became not just a poet but a disciplined and beloved member of the community as well. At his death he asked if there were any who held any ill will against him, and he was assured that there was not. When then asked if he was at peace with those attending him, he replied, "I am at peace with all the servants of God." Among well-known events of church history, Whitby is known as the site of the synod in 664 at which the controversy between the Celtic and Roman dates for observing Easter was resolved. The problem disturbed Review for Religious many people, Bede tells us, even to the point that they feared "that they might have received the name Christian in vain." Those arguing for the Roman date were victo-rious, yet Bede describes Hilda and her community as favoring the Celtic practice. While he tells us the results of the synod, Bede does not describe Hilda's response to the decision. We do not know if in the end she was saddened, relieved, or pleased. From what we do know about her leadership, however, we can perhaps assume that many looked to Hilda for guidance as to how they should respond to this decision. We can see the great respect she had for the Scriptures and the wisdom of the church. We can see that she taught those around her to be of service in all peace and charity. Even as she neared her death, she urged those in her monastery to "maintain the gospel peace among themselves and with others." I imagine that Hilda had a profound sense of perspective, of knowing, in the end, which beliefs and practices held priority. Unity within the church mat-tered more than any particular date, and gracious accep-tance of the decision of the synod mattered more than the content of the arguments. I was aware of St. Hilda before I was a Catholic because I attended St. Hilda's Episcopal Church for sev-eral years during high school and college. St. Hilda's is a small community; the church holds perhaps fifty peo-ple on a Sunday. I met the vicar, Noel Knelange, when I first arrived, and about a year later Noel's husband Bill was ordained a deacon. I attended the ordination and sang in the choir, helping to lead the congregation out of the church singing "The King's Highway" for the recessional. During the service I was taken aback 399 68.4 2009 Kleiman ¯ On Hilda of Whitby Bill's ordination gave me the image of dedicating one's life to God alone, and Noel, bluntly and without~ pretense; connected ~that image, to me, 400] by the beauty of the liturgy and the fact that Bill was grounding his life and identity in his faith. Somehow God wanted him. God wanted exactly who Bill was, a middle-aged man, a deaf man deeply involved with the deaf community of the diocese, a man who loved to fish so much that during the homily the bishop gave him a new fishing pole, now that he would be a fisher of men. Afterwards, during the reception in the parish hall, I was standing near Bill and Noel, probably eating a cookie, when Noel turned to me and said, "Well, you could do this too you know!" What? I did not want to be a deacon or a priest. I did not understand why she said that, and we never talked about it later. I forgot about Noel's words until after I had become a Catholic and been a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Mt. Angel, Oregon, for several years--even though I had often wondered when the thought of becoming a nun first came to me. Bill's ordination gave me the image of dedicating one's life to God alone, and Noel, bluntly and without pretense, connected that image to me. The seed of the idea of staking everything on "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen," as we read in the Letter to the Hebrews, was planted and would take root in ways I never suspected. Just a few years Review for Religious later, I was led to the Catholic Church, to a Benedictine monastery, and to a surprising new relationship with St. Hilda, a relationship reflected in women like Solveig Holmquist and Noel Knelange. Regardless of whether they were aware of all the details, they could and would change the course of a life in a single breath, with a single word. The name Hilda comes from the Old English and means "Battle Maiden," a fact I learned only after I received the official word from .the prioress that I could take Hilda as my new name at my final profession. I took to the image of the Battle Maiden immediately--the tension between toughness and gentleness, knowledge and innocence, between what we think we know and what we in fact do not, a tension not to be resolved but used as ingeniously as possible until the day of death. Other people have taken to my choice of the name Hilda, to the "Batde Maiden" too. "Battle on, maiden!" says my mom before she hangs up the phone. After ask-ing me to explain the meaning of Hilda to my class-mates, one of my seminary professors warns that "from now on, you gendemen better look out!" The best, how-ever, is my friend Ania. With her I have established The Society of Honorary Battle Maidens. We have taken as our charter the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians: "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies." To bet- 401 68.4 2009 Kleiman ¯ On Hilda of Wbitby ter understand our society, I have listed qualities of the Battle Maiden, which include the following and will surely be added to as I ponder this further: ¯ A persistent love, grounded in the love of God that pursues us without end. She can keep extending her love for other people, regardless of how they respond, if at all. If she feels hurt by this, she takes it to mean that her efforts were not the most gracious way to love this particular person, and it is time to try something else. She is intelligent, so her persistence does not suggest beating her head against a wall, but rather keeping her wits about her and being willing, always willing, to try again. ¯ The beginning of an understanding of the fourth step of humility in the Rule of St. Benedict: "The fourth step of humility is that, in this obedience under diffi-cult, unfavorable, or even unjust conditions, his [or her] heart quietly embraces suffering and endures it without weakening or seeking escape." She does not, in the end, resent that this step asks her to endure injustice, even contradiction, for the sake of the God she loves. She accepts that sometimes such endurance will require her to speak her mind, to name what is difficult, recognizing that endurance can be more than just waiting for the bad to run its course. Bravery of heart becomes part of her core. She understands that false sisters and broth-ers (and are not we all false and contradictory at one time or another) are part of reality; to deny this is of no use to anyone. She uses their words and actions to strengthen her reliance on the Lord so that it remains possible for her to pray for her enemies. ¯ An enduring kindness that she tries to exercise in any situation, par.ticularly in her words. At times, she may manifest her kindness in ways that are more tra- Review for Religious ditionally recognized as kindness--offering to lend a hand in household tasks, greeting guests with courtesy and assisting them in their needs, acknowledging the accomplishments of others with a sincere compliment. Kindness, however, is also needed in more challenging situations. It is a kindness to try to change the sub-ject when she hears murmuring or gossip about some-one who is not present. It is a kindness to walk away and not participate even by listening when this tactic fails, perhaps biting back the words rising in her throat that she would like to put everyone in their place with. Kindness calls her to address only in private any embar-rassing situations that involve another person, so as not to worsen the pain her words would likely cause if spo-ken publicly. To enjoy membership in The Society of Honorary Battle Maidens, you and I do not need to be in full possession of these qualities. We do need, however, to recognize their worth and strive to live with their inher-ent tensions, tensions that in the end are simply the tensions of the cross. Image Bearer One of a kind, Here for a reason, Plucked from the mire, Now wearing white, Bearing His likeness, I am immortal, A soul crafted By the Holy. Teresa Burleson 403 68.4 2009 Vv'ILLIAM PROSPERO World Youth Day and Religious Life sharing experience 40_4] Many vocation directors will confirm that a substantial number of candidates for seminar-ies and institutes of consecrated life consider a World Youth Day (WYD) experience to have been an important part of their discernment. Many candidates say they first thought seri-ously about religious life or the priesthood while on a WYD pilgrimage. What is it about WYD that promotes consecrated life? Sister Joseph Andrew, of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, asked me to speak about this very topic at a recent discernment retreat at the motherhouse in Ann Arbor. No less than a hundred 'thirty young women attended. When I asked how many had been to WYD, about one third raised their hands. The main reason for "only" a third, I William Prospero SJ is pastor of St. Mary's University Parish (on the campus of Central Michigan University); 1405 South Washington; Mount Pleasant, Michigan 48858. Emaih will.prospero@stmarycmu.org Review for Religious believe, is that most of them were too young to have attended any other WYD than the one in 2008 in Sydney, Australia. Sydney did not draw huge numbers from the United States because of the travel cost. Nonetheless, many of the young women present had managed to attend that WYD. I believe there are several reasons why WYD pro-motes consecrated life and priesthood. Though I do not have any statistical analysis to prove my points, I have a wealth of experience assisting young WYD pil-grims in their discernment about consecrated life or priesthood. I have attended four WYDs: Denver (1993), Toronto (2002), Cologne (2005), and Sydney (2008). I have served as a priest on the last three. I have wit-nessed more than ten pilgrims enter religious life or the seminary. The main reason, I believe, for the wealth of WYD vocations is that WYD gives a taste of life as a conse-crated person. Pilgrims experience about two weeks of consecrated living. WYD provides a veritable "trial run" of living the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. In. living the vows on WYD, pilgrims experience the intense joy of the universal church gathered around the pope. They make the connection that living as a religious could be enjoyable and meaningful. The possibility of consecrated vocation becomes real for the first time in many pilgrims' lives. Pilgrims experience poverty the first day of com-mitting to go on WYD. They realize that the costs can be high. As I began recruiting for Sydney, I recall sev-eral students resisting, sa.ying $2,850 was too costly. My response was: "Do you want to go? Has God put this desire in your heart? If so, then commit and the money will come. I promise. And, if not, I will personally cover 405 68.4 2OO9 Prospero ¯ World Youth Day and Religious Life Trusting God for material needs is a tangible experience of religious poverty. 406 whatever you can't. But you must promise you will com-mit to this and try your best to raise the funds. I prom-ise you, God will provide." Every pilgrim had enough funds. On four WYDs I have never met a pilgrim who fell short of funds. For the 2008 WYD in Sydney, we took seventy pilgrims from the Diocese of Saginaw, each paying $2,850. There are stories of pilgrims finding funds flow-ing in from fund-raisers and from the most unexpected sources. Trusting God for material needs is a tangible experience of reli-gious poverty: God provides. Pilgrims trust him, and all works out. From the beginning, they learn that those who commit to a reli-gious pilgrimage are cared for by God. They learn this throughout WYD, beginning with their first moment of commitment. Poverty finds many manifestations, usually very inconvenient ones. As the pilgrimage officially begins, I speak of the "great ball of suffering" that one endures on WYD. For some reason, chaos and inconvenience reign. This makes trusting God mandatory, not optional. For example, because of delayed flights, our travel time from our departure to our host parish in Kiama, south of Sydney, was thirty-eight hours. And the last two hours were in a bus with a broken heater (it was winter there) while rain and forty Fahrenheit degrees of damp cold were welcoming us. These horrendous situations created the proper spirit in which to celebrate Mass, Revie;v for Religious namely, our sense of spiritual and actual poverty: "We are not in control!" Having celebrated Mass at a crowded boarding gate in the Los Angeles airport (LAX), we found special meaning in celebrating Mass again, hungry and cold, at the very end of our trip. I was reminded of the four thousand hungry and tired people in Mark 6:1-8 who were worn out from their journey, so Jesus fed them. It was as if Jesus intentionally brought the people out to a deserted place to experience their poverty and to see and taste the goodness of God. Poverty makes pilgrims hungry for Jesus. Another example of poverty happened at the Papal Welcome at Sydney's harbor. Afterwards we were hun-gry and cold. Several pilgrims collected our chits or tickets and got our meals, bags of hot stew (option: beef or pork). After getting the same victuals several days in a row, pilgrims were cheerfully dubbing them "barf bags." Our meals were being eaten on the ground or on cement blocks or wherever we could prop ourselves up. One night, however, several alert pilgrims found some plastic chairs and brought enough over for the group of seventy to sit. We could sit and eat! We were so grate-ful. I cannot recall ever feeling so grateful for having a chair to sit on. This is what WYD does: it makes the ordinary into a gift from God. Once one begins to see that everything, everything, is a gift, then one can start living a radical Christian life. So the gift of sitting, eat-ing, enjoying each other's company, and basking in the reality that we just saw in person the Vicar of Christ, all add up to an explosive experience of the joys of the kingdom. Poverty makes human experience more real, and opens us to the true value of community. How sim-ple and uncomplicated it all is. 407 68.4 2009 Prospero ¯ Worm Youth Day and Religious Life Over and over one witnesses pilgrims making sacrifices for the sake of the group. 4081 If pilgrims are properly prepared and guided, they have a wonderful experience of interacting positively with the opposite sex. Even sleeping conditions, oth-erwise inappropriate, become an experience of intense respect and honor of boundaries. One sees the "other" as sacred and as a fellow pilgrim on the way, some-one to be honored and respected. I have never known of any of our pil-grims engaging in actions that are meant for mar-ried couples. Sleeping shoulder to shoulder with two thousand other pilgrims may seem cause for temptation and raised eyebrows, but never have I seen anything but excellent moral behavior among our pilgrims. Even where there are dating couples, they hardly ever "pair off" from the group. The whole atmosphere is one of intense commu-nal living. People are attentive to the needs of everyone, sharing and caring for one another. The pilgrim learns that one does not need to pursue or engage in roman-tic relationships to be happy. Celibacy for the kingdom becomes tangible, livable, and enjoyable. At WYD the intense communal activities, which sometimes involve distressing conditions and both-ersome inconveniences that must be endured, build a joyful esprit de corps. Over and over one witnesses pilgrims making sacrifices for the sake of the group. Opportunities for minor sacrifices abound, such as shar-ing personal items to assist another in need and collect-ing meal tickets and standing in line to retrieve meals for a group. These and other sacrifices reveal acom- Review for Religious mon care for one another. Moreover, the group lead-ers have the ultimate say in all major decisions about travel, gatherings, agendas, and special needs that arise. Individual wills give way to the group, or to the lead-ers' decisions. Through these experiences one finds joy in sacrificing one's own will for the good of the group, opening up to the gift of religious obedience. Consecrated persons make a sacrifice of their lives for the good of the church and the world. Pilgrims experience the power of loving sacrifice firsthand, and its power to build up the Body of Christ. Eddie Dwyer, a Saginaw seminarian, said: "Three things I hate are lines, sitting on the floor, and crowded spaces, but the love at WYD made sacrifice easy." All these experiences find rich meaning in the cel-ebration of the sacraments, namely, confession and Eucharist. The intensity of confessions, celebrations of Holy Mass, and Eucharistic adoration affirms God's real presence among his people. All the sufferings and joys of pilgrimage are offered up to the Father in the won-derful exchange of gifts that the Eucharist makes real. All is gift. As a priest I am overwhelmed by the power and joy of the priesthood, by the sacramental fruitful-ness on WYD. What power can be manifested in such weakness! The Papal Mass at the conclusion of WYD provides the perfect environment for the overflowing gratitude of the pilgrimage to express itself. Pilgrims, freshly and deeply aware of God's goodness, gratefully share their belongings with others. Jackets, caps, and an assortment of other personal items are offered and received in a wonderful exchange of gifts. God's kingdom becomes visible in everyone giving their things away to bring joy to both receiver and giver. In his Spiritual Exercises 409 68.4 2009 Prospero ¯ Worm Youth Day and Religious Life St. Ignatius Loyola speaks of the free exchange of gifts between those who love each other (§231). This is the Christian life. As church and bride of Christ, we receive every good thing from God and make an offering of our very selves back to him in gratitude. This joyous exchange finds particular power at the Papal Mass. The accumulation and possession of .things no longer has appeal. The giving and receiving of love becomes the reason for existing. Consecrated life witnesses to the joy of the kingdom of heaven through the. gift of self to God. The Papal Mass provides a taste of the joy offered to those who radically take up the call to follow Christ the Bridegroom wherever he goes. As I lead pilgrims to WYD, I make a point of having several priests, seminarians, and religious sisters accom-pany us. When lay pilgrims rub shoulders with conse-crated persons, consecrated life now has a face, and that face is familiar and human. No longer is the question of consecrated life somewhere off in the distance, but it is real and lived by real people. The possibility of consecrated vocation opens up as the joys of serving the kingdom find witness. I count WYD the single most important vocation promotion ministry that I do. 410 Review for Religious BENNY PHANG Marriage and Celibacy: Rivals or Complements? MMarriage and celibacy are often seen as contraries. isunderstanding about these two vocations still exists among many people who do not fully under-stand celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven or the meaning of marriage. They see marriage as con-trary to celibacy, totally separated from it, and unable to contribute anything to it. And they understand celibacy as merely a pessimistic, negative rejection of married life and love. They even think celibacy is responsible for many sexual problems. About these matters people raise critical questions such as: Is marriage contrary to celibacy or even a rival? Is marriage a higher and better state than celibacy, or is it the other way around? Does marriage confirm celibacy or devalue it? If marriage confirms celibacy, how does it do so? Benny Phang OCarm, an Indonesian priest studying at the Angelicum for a doctorate in moral theology, can be addressed at Centro Internazionale Sant'Alberto; Via Sforza Pallavicini, 10; 00193 Roma, Italy. Blog: theouiosoter.blogspot.com 411 68.4 2009 Pbang ¯ Marriage and Celibacy On this topic I want to draw some reflections from the messages of Pope John Paul II (collected in Theology of the Body), from the critical reflection on celibacy in the Catholic Church written by Aloysius Pieris sJ, and from the experience of St. Th~r~se of Lisieux of her vocation to religious life. Marriage and celibacy, are interrelated. To hurt either one by being unfaithful in it also hurts the other. 412- Rival Vocations? In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus places the counsel of celibacy in the discussion of the impor-tance of marriage, when he argues against divorce (Mt 19:3-12). Pope John Paul confirms this, saying, "[From Matthew's Gospel, Mt 19:10-12], it can be seen sufficiently clearly that here it is not a question of diminishing the value of matrimony in favor of continence, nor of less-ening the value of one in comparison with the other.''1 "Christ's words on this point are quite clear. He proposes to his disciples the ideal of continence and the call to it, not by reason of the inferiority of, or of prejudice against, conjugal union in the body, but only for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.''2 One can, however, argue for St. Paul's position when he writes, "So then, he who marries his fiancee does well; and he who refrains from marriage will do better" (1 Co 7:38). Does this Pauline text not mean that mat-rimony is good, but celibacy for the kingdom of heaven is better?3 Review for Religious We need to comprehend the reason for celibacy in the evangelical counsel. Jesus says, "There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can" (Mt 19:12). This is the only reason for the evangelical counsel of celibacy. The reason is not to devalue marriage, but for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. To understand the "difference" between Jesus and Paul as regards celibacy and marriage, John Paul gives us an insight: In his pronouncement, did Christ perhaps suggest the superiority of continence for the kingdom of heaven to matrimony? Certainly he said that this is an excep-tional vocation, not a common one. In addition he affirmed that it is especially important and necessary to the kingdom of heaven. If we understand superiority to matrimony in this sense, we must admit that Christ set it out implicitly. However, he did not express it direcdy. Only Paul will say of those who choose matri-mony that they do "well." About those who are willing to live in voluntary continence, he will say that they do "better" (! Co 7:38). (Theology, p. 275) The conscious and voluntary renunciation of the conjugal love of marriage and family life by celibate per-sons is not a devaluation of marriage, but it is a form of self-sacrifice. John Paul explains: "Christ understood the importance of such a sacrifice . He understood the

Issue 58.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1999. ; fo r relg io iu s, Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living jANUARY-FEBRUARY 1999 ¯ VOLUME 58 ¯ NUMBER 1 Review for Religious is a forum for shared reflection on the lived experience of all who find that the church's rich heritages of spirituality support their personal and apostolic Christian lives. The articles in the journal are meant to be inforntative, practical, bistorical,'or inspirational, written from a theological or spt~itual or sometimes canonical point of view. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis Universi~, by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ° Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: foppema@slu.edu Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP P.O. Box 29260; \,Vashington, D.C. 20017 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©1999 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library, clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Jean Read James and Joan Felling Kathryn Richards FSP Joel Rippinger OSB Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC .Chrfisfian Heritages and Contemporary Lfiv~ng JANUARY-FEBRUARY 199~ * VOLUME 58 ¯ NUMBER 1 contents 6 28 perspective. Apostles and Martyrs: Consecrated Life at the Bishops' Synod for Asia John Mansford Prior SVD presents the challenge of the 1998 Synod for Asia to enter into a threefold dialogue--with religions, cultures, and the marginalized. Catholic Guides in Dialogue with Buddhist Practice Paul Bernadicou SJ reviews the progress of Catholic writers in their efforts to provide a fruitful exchange between Christianity and Buddhism. 35 42 traditions Lithuanian and American Sisters: A Lively Interactive Dance Barbara Valuckas SSND describes some of the similarities and differences in the issues facing women religious in the West and in Lithuania. Serpents and Doves: The Company of St. Ursula Ann White draws our attention to the pioneering Ursuline Marie Guyart (Blessed Marie of the Incarnation) living out the vision and spirit of the foundress, St. Angela Merici, to combine the secular and sacred, the worldly and the religious. spirituality 48 The Art of Discernment: The Aesthetic Dimension Xavier Plissart MAfr explains that a basic and essential quality of disce~:nment is that it should strive to be as common as possible in its insight and process, and as universal as possible in the aim toward action. Review for Religious 61 The Still Point: Contemplation Kathy Dunne RC shares her experience and her insights into the unitive way, a way not isolated in prayer, but intimately connected with the dance between the contemplative and apostolic life. 68 82 .aging Caring for Our Own: Competent, Personal Long-term Care in a Faith Perspective Imelda Maurer CDP pictures how life in long-term care looks for some communities of women religious and the witness that is given to the human values that our faith provides. What Is My Mission in Retirement? Francis Blouin FIC clarifies the call of service especially for those who no longer serve in active ministry. 86 report Scrupulosity: Age-old Problem, Holistic Response Paul Duckro, C. Alex Pollard, and Jason Williams describe a synergistic collaboration between behavioral science and religious faith for finding an effective response to the problem of scrupulosity. departments 4 Prisms 98 Canonical Counsel: Living the Evangelical Counsels 103 Book Reviews Janualy-l.¥brllaty 1999 Many of us are familiar with the late Henri Nouwen's Return of the Prodigal Son--a book in which Nouwen reflects on the Gospel story and Rembrandt's painting of the same title displayed in the Hermitage musuem in Saint Petersburg in Russia. Some years after writing the book, Nouwen died while he was on a journey to Russia to participate in a television fea-ture dealing with the painting and his book. Nouwen's fascination with Rembrandt's painting of the famous Lucan parable makes a special appeal to us all in the year 1999. As we continue to follow the direc-tions of Pope John Paul's apostolic letter "As the Third Millennium Draws Near," we know that the year 1999 is dedicated to seeing things "in the perspective of Christ: in the perspective Of the 'Father who is in heaven'" (§49; Mt 5: 45). Just as the previous two years were dedicated respectively to Jesus Christ and to the Holy Spirit, so this final year preparatory to the new millennium is focused particul.arly upon God--the One Jesus calls Abba-Father. A dynamic is uniquely associated with this third year of preparation. It is the journey motif. We are to pay special attention to the fact that we human beings are '.'on the journey to the house of the Father." The God we come to know on our journeying is not just a good God but a God of forgiving love, a compassionate God. Following an allusion made by the pope, w.e might iden-tify the year 1999 as the year of the parable of the prodi-gal. Like the prodigal, we all are on the road leading home. Like the prodigal, we may have a mix of feelings about the life choices we have made and the values we Review for Religqous. have lived. Like the prodigal, in the midst of evaluating our life we sometimes find ourselves needing to throw ourselves on God's mercy--and ready to do so. In one way or another, then, we tend to find ourselves on the road with the prodigal, similar in our rue-ful disquiet about past failings and in our modest plans for a fresh start. Most important, though, is our coming to the ever new and deepening understanding of the reality of God's relationship with us--the One who keeps watching for us whenever our approach, the One who hastens to embrace us into the family. Demanding as the actual journeying of our life may be, our attention should be fixed primarily on the journey of our heart. The heart needs to be quiet and hear the questions: Where are we now in our journey? Is life for us Christians lived truly as a pilgrimage--a journey with a direction? How have we come to know God in our adult years? Is God the one we experience as so compassionate to us that we feel the pull to address God with Jesus' intimacy-of-love word Abba? Most commonly, pilgrimage evokes a picturing of a group mov-ing onward together. So, too, in our pilgrimage we are not alone. Our Christian community in all its various forms--family, parish, sodality, religious congregation--makes real that it is a "we" jour-neying together to the Father. The call to a new evangelization summons us, already known in Pauline times as a people of "The Way," to be welcoming to a humanity searching for the way. Pilgrims are known to tell stories as in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and pilgrims are known to sing songs as the psalms so often describe. As we continue our journeying in 1999, we need to tell one another our own parables of a pilgrimage home. Together we sing songs of praise to the Father "who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing'I (Ep 1:3-4). The year 1999 can be a special pilgrimage for us all. David L. Fleming sJ Januao,-Februaty 1999 JOHN MANSFORD PRIOR Apostles and Martyrs: Consecrated Life at the Bishops' Synod for Asia Nowhere else in the world is religious life flourishing-- in both its traditional and more contemporary forms-- as it seems to be in Asia. Thus, unsurprisingly, of the 252 participants at the Synod for Asia (19 April to 14 May 1998), some 90 were members of religious orders or congregations, 36 percent of the total. Among these 90 were 63 of the 188 synodal fathers (including 10 superiors general) and 27 of the 58 auditors and experts (including 8 sisters, 5 priests, and two brothers). These numbers, of course, do not represent the pro-portions of consecrated life in Asia and are not intended to. Eight sisters among 244 men reflects neither the presence nor the role of sisters--let alone other women--in the mission of the Asian churches. It was, after all, a synod of bishops, not a, meeting of religious. The ninety religious were present because religious are active in Asia today at all levels of ecclesial life. But with over a third' of the participants belonging to religious orders and congregations, religious life in Asia was not far from the surface of the synodal discussions. John Mansford.Prior SVD has worked in Indonesia since 1973 and writes from Seminari St. Paulus Ledalero; Maumere 86152, Flores-NT:r; Indonesia. During the Synod for Asia, he was liaison officer for the English-speaking press. His article is being published also in Informationes SCRIS, the in-house publicatio~a of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societie~ of ApoStolic Life. Review for Religious The theme of the synod--"Jesus Christ the Savior and his mission of love and service in Asia 'that they may have life and have it abundantly'"--does not refer directly to consecrated life, but it is central to religious life. Religious are active agents in Jesus' mission of love and service, and so consecrated life was referred to in the context of mission. The evangelical theme of the synod was explained at leng.th in two presynodal documents, the lineamenta (guidelines) published in September 1996 and the instrumentum laboris (working docu-ment) published on the eve of the synod itself (February 1998). I wish to glance briefly at these two documents before looking at the synodal documents themselves. Presynodal Documents While all the lineamenta are of interest to religious as mis-sioners, there are just six explicit observations on consecrated life in this document. Half of these are in chapter 2, on the history of Christianity in Asia. Regarding mission in Asia before the 12th century, we read: "Most of these early missionaries and bishops were monks; others were merchants and ordinary Christians" (§9). The important point here is that Eastern-rite churches have been in Asia since Apostolic times and are not the result of Western colonial expansion since the days of da Gama and Columbus. These churches in the Middle East (from Palestine to Iran) and 'in southern India (Kerala), founded long ago by "monks, merchants, and ordinary Christians," are Asian and are accepted as such amid the dominant local populations, whether Muslim or Hindu. This was emphasized time and again by the patriarchs and bishops of these churches. Unfortunately, the story is. different for other churches in Asia. In the 15th and 16th centuries, missionary activity went hand in hand with the colonial expansion of Portugal and Spain. Even today, five hundred years later and half a century since most Asian countries achieve~l political independence, these Latin-rite churches are still looked upon as Western imports. Although some churches were initiated by laypeople (in Indonesia, for example) or even were founded by laypeople (in Korea, for exam-pie), many of these missi6ners were religious. Thus we read in § 10: "Between 1510 and 1640, Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, Augustinians, Carmelites, and Theatines all established houses in Prior * Apostles and Martyrs Asia." Despite the colonial link, the lineamenta emphasize these orders' pioneering work of inculturation. Clearly, the guidelines are rereading history with the needs of contemporary mission in mind. The small, "half-hidden tradition" of dialogue in the past is about to become the great "major tradition" for dialogue in the future. "Many 'missionary-minded' religious congregations sprang up in Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. Several of these congregations are still at work in Asia. During t.his same period a number of Asian religious congregations of men and women estab-lished themselves in Asia, particularly in India and the Philippines. During the 19th century, for the first time women ventured out into distant lands in Asia to bear witness to Christ and his gospel and to serve the poor . They also became a very essential part of mission in Asia, especially in the preparation of catechumens and the education of children" (§12). One of the signs of renewal since Vatican Council II is the way in which education, previously domesticating, is now. more and more following a liberating model. Such postconciliar renewal is taken up in the following section on "Lessons Learned from History." Among "Significant Contributions" after Vatican II are "con-tinental structures . for the religious in Asia, such as the Asian Meeting of Religious (AMOR), [which] bring the particular churches in Asia together and help coordinate their missionary and pastoral activities" (§14). Perhaps AMOR has achieved more than any other collegial body in opening up the leaders of religious orders and congregations to the wider social realities in which they live and work. This is surely the vital role that Asia-wide bodies are filling: awareness building and ongoing formation among religious leadership. There will be no new evangelization without a shift in consciousness (one of Longeran's "conversions"). Shifts in consciousness come about when we listen to each other and discover the links between our differing situations. Ond important sign that the local churches are now becoming mission-sending churches instead of being exclusivelj~ or mostly mission-receiving churches is the emergence of new Asian mis-sion societies. In the past "the agents of mission were mostly mem-bers of religious orders, congregations, and missionary institutes. Today the local churches of Asia have a number of Asian mis-sionary institutes" (§ 15). As we shall see, this was later taken up on the floor of the synod. Review for Religious Towards the end of the lineamenta ("Agents of Evangelization," §32), the term "consecrated life" is used for the first time. This is in the context of a mission theology of religious life. "It is a very heartening thing to note that many particular churches in Asia have already established mission institutes to send missioners to other countries, even though they themselves are in need of missioners in their own countries. Asian bishops have a particular responsibility to promote mission institutes and to be generous with their personnel for mission areas. Religious orders, congregations, and mission institutes have played a very remarkable role in the evangelization of Asia from the very beginning. Consecrated life is a very privileged means of evange-lization. Persons consecrated by religious vows can dedicate themselves fully to evan-gelization work because of their radical choice of the evangelical counsels, their total availability, their capacity for origi-nality in mission methods--as the history of mission shows, their spirit of generosity and their easy mobility." In this way the lin-eamenta sum up consecrated life in Asia: its historical contribution, distinctive witness, and recent developments. Responses from Asian episcopal conferences to the lineamenta were numerous, some of which have been widely published. Those of Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, and India appeared in the East Asian Pastoral Review (no. 1, 1998). The instrumentnm laboris, or syn-odal working document, is thus a commentary by the preparatory committee upon the lineamenta, taking into account the views of the Asian bishops. Not surprisingly, the instrumentum is very dif-ferent in both tone and accentuation from the initial document. It is closer to Asia. Religious life gets five explicit mefftions, and these are of inter-est: First, in the historical section, it is regretted that the pio-neering work of dialogue with cultures and other Asian religions was discontinued so quicklyi "Even though the missionaries' efforts met with many successes, it is felt that a proper understanding of these elements in the work of evangelization would have led to a greater acceptance of the faith by the people of Asia . The church's rediscovered appreciation of other religions and cultures should find greater expression in her missidnary approach" (§14). There will be no new evangelization without a shift in consciousness. Janumy-Feb~wa~y 1999 Religious today are being called to recapture these creative insights from the past. However, there is a price to pay. In continuing Jesus' mission of love and service through interreligious and inter-cultural dialogue, consecrated life in the Latin rite will have to leave behind its Western heritage and become radically Asian. This latter point was brought up many times on the floor 6f the synod. While no section in the lineamenta was devoted to religious life, the whole of §16 of the instrumentum is. devoted to "Consecrated Witness." Mention is made of the "steady increase in the number of vocations during the past decades," both to "tra-ditional religious congregations and institutes which are Western in origin; in recent years a number of new local religious congre-gations have sprung up in Asia." "In many cases o . . service pro-vided by missioners has led to martyrdom." "Witness in Asia has ¯ . . come from a great many of the church's religious orders and congregations who have made a major contribution to the growth of the local churches in Asia during the last five hundred years of evangelization. Tens of thousands of religious sisters and brothers, by their love and unselfish service to those who suffer from poverty in its many forms, have contributed to nourishing the faith of many in the church in Asia. Some of these have given an invalu-able service to local churches by establishing houses of formation, especially seminaries. They have been able to reveal the compas-sionate, loving, and caring face of Jesus to the peoples of Asia. Religious brothers have given an outstanding service to the cause of general education, vocational training, technical education, and developmental works. Contemplative religious have also made a unique contribution to the Christian mission in Asia by their prayers and their witness of complete dedication to a life of union with God." Missioners are contemplatives in action--this is a favorite saying of John Paul II. The evaluation of Catholic mission history in Asia (920, "Leaven in Society") highlights the work of religious in educating the laity. Not aJfew outstanding national leaders in cultural, eco-nomic, and .political affairs, even in countries where Christians are a tiny minority, are alumni of Catholic schools. Towards the end of the instrumentum are two more refer-ences to consecrated life, neither of which' is found in the initial lineamenta. In 942, "The Word of God and Mission," we read: "Some responses ask for a greater attention to the Sacred Review for Religious Scriptures, the word of God, in all areas of church life, especially by bishops, priests, deacons, those in consecrated life, catechists, and lay missioners. Preachers, especially missioners, should draw from the Bible and lead their hearers to take up the word of God for personal study and inspiration . God's word has an inherent power to touch the hearts of all peoples, both Christians and believers of other faiths." This link between the centrality of the biblical apostolate in mission and the centrality of the word in the life witness of the missioner came up later on the synodal floor. Finally, in "The Service of Dialogue," we read: "The mission of the church takes place in interaction with others of which dia-logue is an important aspect. Some bishops in Asia have placed an emphasis upon what they term a 'dialogue of life and heart.' . ¯ . Cloistered sisters, who lead lives of prayer and love in open friendship with their neighbors of other faiths, have shown them-selves to be among the most effective practitioners of the dialogue of life." This is one of the few references to contemplative life in the presynodal documents. While just two participants in the synod were from contemplative orders, a central part of the synod was the link between contemplation and action. God-experience and authentic life-witness are crucial. Proclamation in Dialogue During the first seven days, 191 interventions were made by the synodal members and auditors. A quick, thematic analysis of these interventions follows. Twenty-three interventions were on °interfaith dialogue, 18 on the local, church as a communion of communities (a participative, collegial church). Sixteen interven-tions were on inculturation, 11 on the church's option to accom-pany the poor and margin.alized, and 10 on the challenge of economic globalization. Another 10 were on Asian spirituality and God-experience, 7 on youth, and another 7 on the church in China. Six focused on the ancient Apostolic churches of the Middle East, 5 on issues concerning women, 5 concerning the laity, 4 con-cerning schools, 4 concerning ecumenism, 4 concerning indigenous peoples, 4 concerning family life, and so on. VVhat picture emerges from this rough breakdown? Seventy-six percent of the intervention~s (146) dealt with four main topics: the Asian churches in diaiogue with other faith traditions (43 inter-ventions), the church becoming Asian by dialoguing with living Janttary-Februat.'y 1999 Prior ¯ Apostles and Martyrs r ¯ ] cultures (41 interventions), the churches learning to dialogue with the poor (33 interventions), and the Asian church as a church of the laity (29 interventions). Thus, for the bishops and observers, the threefold dialogue with other religions, with cultures, and with the marginalized looks to the context, approach, and con-tent of the New Evangelization. In this threefold dialogue Christ will become all in all, "that they have life and have it abundantly." Clearly, members of religious orders and congregations are involved in this threefold dialogue, one way or another. In responding to Jesus' mission through the threefold dialogue, con-secrated life itself is evange.lized. It must be noted that only three interventions took up conse-crated life as its sole subject (§§2"5, 81, and 99), while three supe-riors general included religious life as one of their topics (§§68, 133, and 134). Others touched upon consecrated life as part of their intervention. Ten superiors general spoke of various aspects of mission. Some other interventions are of direct relevance to religious, those on Asian spirituality, for instance, and on the strug-gle of women. I here pinpoint a few major issues culled from these interventions. Women in Church and Society Keeping in mind that the great majority of religious are women and that the majority of missioners in Asia are women also, the few interventions on women are of particular impor-tance. Sister Filomena Hirota MME (Japan), one of the eight sis-ter auditors pres.ent, spoke on women's growing awareness and on women's movements which demand that the fundamental equal-ity and dignity of all women and girls be respected in thought, attitudes, and practices. After referring to statements by the FABC (Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences) over the years, she said: "The church in Asia has a predominantly feminine face. In many countries women constitute 70-80 percent of its member-ship. The presence of women in pastoral ministry, their service to the poor and marginated, their commitment to peace and jus-tice in ecumenical and interreligious relationships, and their sol-idarity actions in promoting the dignity and equality of all women, men, and children have been significant and important." She went. on to say: "A new way of being church in Asia calls for a church in solidarity with the cry of women in a prophetic Review for Religious way." The church is called to "become a credible sign of the dig-nity and freedom of women in society and in the world" (Fourth FABC Assembly). The church has to find a concrete way to respond to the Holy Father's words expressing regret and apology for wrongs and insensitivities toward women in the church: "May this regret be transformed, on the part of the whole church, into a renewed commitment to fidelity to the gospel vision" (Letter to Women, 29 June 1995). She made five proposals: (1) "Members of Mother Church are called to be agents of communion, to create wholesome and equal relationships of compassion and care among humankind and with nature." (2) "Theology from women's perspectives and experiences should be introduced in seminaries and mission formation courses." (3) "It is important, indeed necessary, for male members of Mother Church to discover and grow in 'feminine' insights and attitudes in imita-tion of Jesus (see FABC Assembly 1990) so that their service may be fully and genuinely human and Christian in a society where the logic of domination is destroying both human beings and nature." (4) "Future priests should be formed so as to accept women as equal disciples and companions in their evangelization work." (5) "As a concrete sign of recognition of the fundamental equality of all bap-tized persons (including their dignity and rights) and the church's commitment to uphold women as equal partners, it is urgently rec-ommended: (a) that there be a minimum of 30 percent participa-tion of women in all church organizations and councils; (b) that in the church all women, including religious sisters, be justly com-pensated for their work; (c) that women be given support and opportunities which will enable them to study theology and related subjects; (d) that in each diocese a committee be formed to address injustice, especially against women and children, and to take effec-tive appropriate action in coordination with other local, national, and international organizations; (e) that all language (which sub-consciously influences our conscious attitudes) of church-related writings reflect the equality of men and women. May Mary of the Magnificat accompany us in this jourfiey as we women commit ourselves to Jesus' mission of love and service in Asia!" Appropriate here is the intervention of Pastor Agustina Lumentut, of the Central Sulawesi Christian Church of Indonesia, The church in Asia has a predominantly feminine face. Januat3,-FebruaD, 1999 Prior ¯ Apostles and Martyrs one. of the ecumenical delegates from the Christian Conference of Asia. She noted: "In Asia many countries are afflicted by a mon-etary and economic crisis. Therefore poverty and suffering increase for men, but in particular for women who will be hit most by the rising prices of their basic needs. Often the husbands and the older children of Asian women have gone away to the big cities to find a job and never return. No 'syn-odos,' no 'walking-together' any-more for many Asian women and their families. But there is a 'syn-odos,' a 'walking-together' with women from the same reli-gion, but also from other religions, women who have similar expe-riences. As Asian women theologians have stated: 'These shared experiences can become one of the primary sources for theologi-cal reflection, for rereading the Scripture, for a new interpretation, a new perspective.' As long as Asian women find the courage to tell each other their stories and share their .experiences, they have hope. Women are walking together. But is the church walking with them?" David Fleming SM, superior general of the Marianists (inter-vention no. 68), reflected on the compelling power of feminine images of the holy in Asian religions. In Hindu spirituality female images usually stand for shakti, power, creative energy. In Bengali Hinduism great attention is paid to Durga, a feminine image of the holy that is portrayed, almost like the Woman of the Apocalypse (chap. 12) as conquering the forces of evil, crushing the serpent's or dragon's head. Such feminine images, far from inducing passivity and helpless resignation, point to great social dynamism. The many feminine figures in Asia have arisen in a context of theo-logical reflection and catechesis that-is totally different from ours and surely unacceptable to us as Christians on the level of doctrine. Nevertheless, they enshrine some religious imagery that we Christians naturally find realized in Mary. She is a holy woman of contemplative sensitivity, one who experienced God rather than analyzed God. She is full of compassion and sensitivity to the poor and suffering, in dynamic solidarity with them, sharing their strug-gles as a woman of the people in an oppressed nation. In herself she lives a harmony with God, with her fellow human beings, with nature, and with society. David Fleming ended by saying: "Much of this Asian sensitivity for what we might roughly call the 'feminine' aspects of the holy is in fact integrated into the tender and almost cbnnatural devo-tion to Mary that characterizes so many Asian Christians. I am Review for Religious not talking of an integration of doctrine or of any new theologi-cal assertions about Mary. But I believe that a culture that shows so great a sensitivity to the feminine side of the holy has a great deal to contribute to our Christian experience of Mary, not only in Asia but also in the rest of the world. It helps us see the dynamism and vitality of Mary in the work of salvation and her power to motivate us to a commitment in solidarity with the poor. In this way we can give a greater Asian content to the conviction often expressed by the Holy Father that Mary is the 'Star' enlight-ening and directing the progress of the new evangelization in our era." All this is of interest to religious, both women and men. What images of God have we internalized, which images are we proclaiming by our lifestyle and in our work? God-Experience Time and again, bishops spoke out on the centrality of authen-tic experience of the human and the divine. I take up just one example, the presentation of Bishop John Osta of Patna, India (intervention no. 37). It is, "Bishop John said, "not enough to repeat doctrinal or theoretical formulas; personal witness to a personal experience is called for." Bishop John called for a new contem-plative lifestyle for all in the church. In this "rebirthing" of the church, religious have a pioneering role: live the Christian mystew in an Asian way! Integrating prayer forms from other Asian reli-gions is not syncretism, he maintained, but a demand of our times. The bishop continued by quoting FABC (Hong Kong, 1977): "The decisive new phenomenon for Christianity in Asia will be the emergence of genuine Christian communities in Asia, Asian in their way of thinking, praying, living, communicating their own Christ-experience to others . We should beware of seeing our future mission in categories that belong to the past, when the West shaped the churches' history. If the Asian churches do not dis-cover their own identity, they have no future." David Fleming made an interesting contribution on some aspects of the "dialogue of religious experience." His nine years in Nepal and India informed his presentation. He said: "To speak to the heart of Asian people and enter into a genuine dialogue of religious experience, religious and bishops should give special attention to developing the Christian contemplative life in Asia, as well as to enriching the contemplative dim.ension within all insti- P~o__r_ ¯ ~ostles and Martyrs, tutes of consecrated life, in order to create inculturated forms of living the spirituality of each institute. This is an aspiration widely shared, but not always so well realized, by religious institutes pre-sent in Asia." He continued: "Interreligious dialogue on the level of reli-gious experience involves a giving and a receiving, so that much can be learned from the deep religiosity of people and from their religions. Such dialogue shows us concretely how the Spirit of God has been at work through the centuries in the religious expe-rience of others. We often find that interchanges with seekers of holiness in other religions open up new vistas for Christian life and especially refresh our'memory of elements in our Christian spir~ itual heritage that we have tended to forget and neglect." He gave some examples: "A genuinely inculturated celebra-tion of the Eucharist. Very often, after participating in liturgies that integrated elements from the great variety of Indian cultures-- Hindu, Muslim, animist--Indian Catholics told me how richly these inculturated liturgies moved them, touching something that had perhaps been buried and a bit regretted in their souls during their years of taking part in more Western-style liturgies." A sec-ond example: "The disciplines of yoga direct us to pay greater attention to an approach to the body that disposes us to prayer. Similar teaching exists in our Christian tradition, especially in the hesychasm of Eastern medieval Christianity. But I doubt if we will easily rediscover this neglected dimension of spiritual discipline without the help of interreligious dialogue." Another example: "Attention to the rich oriental teaching .on praying with a mantra has sparked a fruitful renewal of c'ontemplative prayer among Christians in our time, often called 'centering prayer.' A similar approach was inculcated in ancient Christian monasticism, from the Egyptian desert through John Cassian, and in the oriental Christian tradition of the Jesus Prayer. The prayer of the rosary is, in its own way, within the same tradition. But today many Christians, East and West, are rediscovering this contemplative form of prayer through interreligious dialogue." Cardinal Eduardo Martfnez Somalo, prefect of the Congregationfor Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL) gave the 81st intervention. The cardinal's eight points emphasized the centrality of t~tal dedication by the consecrated person. The key to mission witness is who she or he is, not what she or he does. Cardinal Martfnez Somalo linked the Revlew for Religious contemplative and mystical dimension of consecrated life to an ascetical lifestyle. This comment is particularly pertinent as Asia suffers a major monetary crisis on top of long-standing systemic poverty and injustice. In simplicity and prayerful silence, religious undergo day by day conversion to the gospel. After the primacy of religious experience, the cardinal emphasized the need for a solid theological formation, particularly necessary as we enter into dia-logue with Asian cultures and other Asian religions. He ended on a note of joy and hope at the many vocations to religious life in Asia. These key issues echoed and strengthened the contributions from Asia itself. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, superior general of the Jesuits, con-trastedthose who work for results with those who live out of love (intervention no. 97). The high-quality institutions run by reli-gious orders do not automatically proclaim the love of God. Our apostolates proclaim love when they are run by people "through whom God's love shines." Similarly with the work of dialogue: we dialogue in love without calculation or ulterior motives. In our apostolates we do not proclaim self but Christ crucified. I was reminded of the saying of John of the Cross: "Where there is no love, put love, and you will reap love." A short comment, one of many during the synod, about the centrality of God-experience, came from Bishop Gratian Mundadan (intervention no. 124) of Bijnor of the Syro-Malabar rite, India: "A Hindu sadhu once told Abhishiktanandaswamy: If you want to touch the heart of Indians, every one of you must become a guru. A guru is one who has deep God-experience. Such a guru does not quote, does not instruct, does not formulate, does not dogmatize. The guru shares personal experience of God, It is not just a question of presenting Jesus Christ as the guru; every Christian needs to become a guru--deep in the experience of God. . Spirit-filled and Spirit-led aposdes began their mission with sur-prisingly great success . "Unfortunately the scenario changed. The communities of the Spirit became institutionalized. When possessions, power, and authority increased, the need to rely on the power of the Spirit decreased. The Holy Spirit remained the forgotten person of the Holy Trinity. The humble, poor servant Christ, who came to serve and not to be served, was forced to assume the status of a power-ful king instead of continuing to be the King of the heart. The church began to rely on competency and human efficiency, doc- Jamtao, oPYbruaO, 1999 Prior ¯ Apostles and Martyrs trinal as well as juridical. If the church's power and authority comes only from competency and human efficiency, then we are facing a crisis in our mission. For such a competency based on knowledge, ideas, administrative skills, and laws will search for its legitimacy in the rational, in the human. The power of the church is reli-gious, spiritual, power from heaven. When the leaders of the church are devoid of such a spiritual power, they'will take shelter in juridical power. "There is an urgent need to change this image. The leadership of the church has to change the style of functioning, to become more spiritual, free from institutional authoritarianism and fully at the service of the gospel and the world. Such a leadership will be able to animate people to God-experience and help them translate this experience into fraternal love. This is to be the original con-tribution of the gospel to Asia, where other religions concentrate on God-experience alone without any effort to serve the brethren. The leadership of the church will have to discern and activate the vari-ous charisms of the whole Christian community: build up commu-nities of love and fellowship as did the Apostles. Such a leadership will seek to strengthen the capacity of the people of God to become true faith communities as against the dichotomy that exists today between faith and life among Christians: make these communities powerful evangelizing communities, empower the faithful and enable them to face the challenges of the present day and of the future with interior power, power from above, and not with worldly wisdom and efficiency. ".Following the way of Christ, the church in Asia has to assume the way of kenosis, of self-emptying, of the cross, of loving and self-giving service. We have to develop a kenosis ecclesiology. We have to shed attitudes of power, domination, influence. Such a church will appeal to the Asian mind . Let the call of the synod to the church of Asia be a return to the sources, to the spirit and style of the early church, where the Spirit of God reigned." Asian Mission Societies Edward Malone (Hong Kong) is the long-serving assistant secretary general of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC). The bishops of south, southeast, and east Asia have belonged to FABC since 1970; they are now to be joined by the churches of central Asia. Father Edward devoted his intervention Review for Religious (no. 99) to Asian mission societies: "Although the number of [Asian] Christians remains small in comparison with Asia's bur-geoning masses (2-3 percent of all Asian peoples), this 'little flock' (Lk 12:32) seeks to share its riches and discovery of Christ with neighboring peoples . They are aware that 85 percent of all the world's non-Christians live in Asia. "Responses to the call of mission and evangelization within Asia have taken a variety of forms. Most international institutes of women and men have a home in Asia. New groups and new forms of religious life, secular institutes, and lay orga-nizations have emerged to respond to the call of world mission. Yet I wish to highlight a unique ~ and essential form of mission response. This charism is that of the missionary society of apos-tolic life. In recent decades, six such societies of men have emerged in Asia: the Missionary Society of the Philippines, the Missionary Society of Saint Thomas the Apostle (India), the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of Korea, the Missionary Society of Thailand, the Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society (Philippines), and the Heralds of Good News (India) . These societies of men who are pledged to lifelong commitment to foreign mission bring a unique--and essential-~- contribution to the church's missionary activity. "These mission societies of apostolic life contribute a partic-ular focus to mission. Their contribution is ad genres, ad exteros, and ad vitam. They direct their efforts to evangelization ad genres, to those who have not yet heard the liberating and salvific Good News of Jesus Christ; ad exteros, to peoples outside their own coun-try, cultural milieu, and language group; and ad vitam, through a lifelong commitment to this unique form of mission witness. There are countless local churches in Asia that owe the emergence of their faith and communities to the dedicated labors of such mis~ sion societies of apostolic life founded in other parts of the world. The 'time of the heirs' has come for all local churches of Asia to respond by establishing such mission societies . A local church is not intended to live alone; it is 'not a community in isolation from other communities of the church one and catholic. Rather it seeks communion with all of them' (FABC 1). This is a unique con-tribution that mission societies of apostolic life can bring to the local churches throughout Asia. Such societies can become 'bridges 85 percent of all the world's non-Christians live in Asia. Januaty-Febt'tlat3, 1999 Prior * Apostles and Martyrs of communion' by which the sister local churches of Asia can appreciate and exchange their unique gifts. In this way the gospel is proclaimed, communion is strengthened, the 'dream of catholic-ity' emerges and is concretized . Though not limited to Asia alone, their growth will result in Asians evangelizing Asians, the emergence of authentically missionary local churches, the strength-ening of bonds of communion among the churches of Asia . " Edward Malone then pointed out developments that foster or hinder mission ad genres. First, in an ecclesiology of communion, we need bridges of exchange and communion. Missioners ad genres foster communion among sisters churches. Second, churches that do not experience this exchange (sending/receiving) can become closed ih upon themselves. They could become vulnerable to local ideologies and a closed nati'onalism. Third, if ad genres mission is not promoted, there will remai~ many unreached peoples through-out Asia. Fourth, pastoral care even keenly felt must not be allowed to derail the local-church ad gentes mission effort (this has often happened: working abroad with nationals from the same church of origin does not fulfill the ad genres vocation). Father Malone con-cluded by mentioning two current temptations: (1) the "tempta-tion of success" (to settle down with the visible results of evangelization, hesitating to turn over the parishes, schools, and institutions to the local church and diocese and move out to new frontiers) and (2) the "temptation of pastoral care" (seeking to answer all the pastoral needs of a diocese and so losing the will to reaffirm the original charism, "to g9 and make disciples"). Ours must always be the motto of the apostle Paul: "Christus me misit non baptizare, sed evangelizare" (1 Co 1:17). Edward Malone's informative and provocative contribution drew two responses from superiors general of mission societies that originated in the West. Father Franco Cagnasso, PIME superior general (intervention no. 13 3), welcomed the Asian missioners, that is, those who remain authentically Asian. Their presence is positive for the whole church. They are less institutionalized and live close to the poor. Many have a valuable interiorized approach to the mystery of Christ. People from the other continents have redis-covered their Christian faith through reaching out to Asian spiri-tuality. Father Franco ~lso welcomed the fact that Asian churches were open to receiving cross-cultural missioners from outside Asia. The more the Asian churches become self-sufficient pastorally, the more they can move out to dialogue with others. Review for Religious This contribution was followed by that of Father Raymond Rossignol, superior general of the Missions of Paris (intervention no. 134). He emphasized that each and every church should be open to send and receive cross-cultural missioners. No church should be encapsulated. History has left the Asian churches with a problem: they are perceived by majority communities as being foreign (Western). Also, in the past, Western missioners have tended to dominate local church personnel. One reaction to this is for each church to look after itself without outside "interference." However, we need to find suitable ways to ensure that cross-cultural mis-sioners can be present in all churches--not just in those who are not yet "self-sufficient." Raymond Rossignol concluded by saying: "No church is so poor that it has nothing to offer others; no church is rich enough that it cannot receive from others." Formation of Religious One of the burdens of history is that Western-style churches were planted in Asia during the colonial era. In the words of the president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Sri Lanka, Bishop Oswald Thomas Colman Gomis (intervention no. 141), "the church has remained foreign in its public image and expression, in liturgy, art, architecture, mannerisms, and presentation of doc-trine, and above all in patterns of life, especially those of her reli-gious . Most of my brothers and sisters here, I believe, would agree with me that this image remains very much a block to evan-gelization today. This synod [should] find some formula to erase this scar inherited at birth by many churches in the countries of Asia." One place to start is formation. Bishop Arturo M. Bastes (intervention no. 25) gave a tour de force, finishing his presentation a split second before the micro-phone was cut off. A former SVD provincial, Bishop Arturo of Romblon, Philippines, spoke on formation for religious in the contemporary Asian context. His exposition focused on four important shifts taking place in the Asian churches: a shift from a Eurocentered church to an authentically Asian church, a shift in our understanding of history, a shift in the model of church, a shift in our understanding of spirituality. Each shift has its impact upon formation communities. ¯ According to Bishop Arturo, the church's mission in Asia has been approached from the perspective of a Eurocentered church, Prior ¯ Apostles andMartyrs deeply conditioned by the European colonialism of the times. Formation of religious was or still is monocultural, Western or European. While religious vocations are rapidly decreasing in Europe and the rest of the Western Hemisphere, there is an ever increasing number of religious vocations in Asia. A contextual-ized formation is suited to the mentality of Asians. There should be real insertion in social reality. Asian formators are developing practical methodologies in contrast to Western academic models. Academic study needs to be accompanied by practical method-ologies in the light of Asian realities. The second shift is in our understanding of history. The great world religions Hinduism and Buddhism, whose cradle is Asia, antedate Christianity by thousands of years. Christianity was born in Asia, but has been alienated from Asia by becoming Eurocentered. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines proposed that the synod "explore exhaustively in an open and humble way the revelatory nature" of the religions of Asia and their impact on the church's proclamation of Jesus. There is much that the church can learn from other Asian religions regarding the values of God's reign. Persons beginning religious-life formation need a great feeling of respect for other religious tra-ditions which offer "salvation" even before the coming of Christ. Christian religious should not feel "superior" to people of other traditions. Asian formandi and formandae need to remain Asian even when they join international congregations. The third shift is in church models. When the church embed-ded itself in Europe, a mindset arose that considered Europe Christian and the rest of the world pagan. Unfortunately, they seem to have identified Christianity with whatever is European. Many third-world churches are striving to shift away from a tri-umphalistic model to a church identified with the social condi-tions of the people. Without a sense of the poor, there can be no genuine following of Jesus in Asia. Hence, candidates for the reli-gious life in Asia should be trained to have both an affective and effective commitment to the poor. All religious congregations today emphasize "preferential~ option for the poor." The question is: Do we really mean it? The "passing-over to the poor" is admit-tedly one of the most difficult transitions for a religious congre-gation. The fourth shift highlighted by Bishop Nrmro ~ls in our under-standing of spirituality. Traditionally we have associated spirituality Review for Religious with an institutional way of living. We need to shift our under-standing of spirituality from institutional to incarnational. More basic to each congregational charism is being rooted in the incar-nation of Christ. There is a dynamic and essential relationship between culture and spirituality in a common humanity. The three characteristics of an incarnational spirituality are self-transcen-dence, search for meaning, and the gift of self. These are at the heart of every spirituality, whether Christian or non-Christian. Globalization of the free market is attacking Asia; the prospects of the third millennium are frightening. Religious women and men of Asia should join forces to fight, con-sumerism by living a spiritual life that is accessible to their fellow Asians, whatever their creed. Bishop Arturo concluded by suggesting that religious candidates should seriously study and reflect upon the spirituality of other Asian religions besides the teachings of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. The Spirit is present in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, and even primal religion. The vocation of Asian religious today is to save Asia, by the wisdom and depth of Asian spirituality with which Asians feel at home, from the onslaught of materialism coming from global market forces. Asian spirituality is not opposed to the teachings of Christ, for it is a true manifestation of God's Spirit working in all peoples. Janet Wang, president of the Conference of Major Religious Superiors of Women of Malaysia-Singapore-Brunei, spoke of dia-logue within the church: only a church in dialogue can dialogue with cultures and other religions. She spoke of mission in the light of the church as communion. The church in Asia needs to grow in dialogue of life and heart so as to be a visible and efficacious sign of communion in the multiracial and multireligious societies in which we live. While we are challenged to intensify interreligious dialogue and dialogue with culture, we cannot ignore the need to improve our capacity to dialogue within the church at the grass-roots level--among priests who work in the same parish, as well as among priests, religious, and laypeople. One of the best forms of The great world religions Hinduism and Buddhism, whose cradle is Asia, antedate Christianity by thousands of years. Prior * Apostles and Martyrs For formation to become Asian, future l rofessors need to do their special studies in Asia rather than in Rome or elsewhere in the West. evangelization in secularized societies like ours is the witness of love and reconciliation, unity in diversity, authority as service. The Spirit is calling us to move away from the image of a cler-ical institution to the building of a participatory church where priests, religious, and laypeople have a common vision of church as communion. The church in Asia will become more alive and efficacious to the extent that the laity and religious are actively involved with their parish priests in pastoral plan-ning and decision making. Sister Janet said, "Our religious communities need to be recognized as Christ-centered basic ecclesial communities within the local church." Changes in attitude, however, do not come automatically. Persons need to be formed in a gradual, experiential way. Sister Janet concluded: "May I strongly recommend, also on behalf of the Conference of Religious Major Superiors of Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei, (1) that seminarians be formed to a better understanding of consecrated life in the context of the ecclesiology of communion, (2) that pri'ests, religious, and laypeo-pie be formed together towards a new way of being church. With hearts open to the action of the Spirit, we need to listen to the word of God, to pray and reflect together, to search together, and in an atmosphere of dialogue to carry out pastoral planning, pastoral care, and mission outreach together as church, the family of God in Asia." Francis Adeodatus Micallef, apostolic vicar of Kuwait (inter-vention no. 43), also spoke of the spiritual formation of religious. "Spiritual formation of candidates should not suffer as a conse-quence of formation programs . Lifestyle should reflect the deep spiritual formation which these centers are imparting." The key word here is authenticity. Bishop Peter Chun Hon-Ting of Kuching, Malaysia (inter-vention no. 62), spoke on seminary formation; his comments are germane not only to clerical religious. Bishop Peter Chun empha-sized the absolute need for a sound knowledge of the religiocul-tural situation of one's country and a critical knowledge of the ReviewforReligious economic and political conditions that affect people. Many bish-ops emphasized the link between contemplation and involvement, spirituality and politics. Bishop Peter also stressed the dignity and equality of lay and clerical, the Bible as the soul of all theology, and the integration of Asian philosophies and spiritualities into the curriculum. For formation to become Asian, future professors need to do their special studies in Asia rather than in Rome or elsewhere in the West. Not far from the question of formation is that of spiritual direction. Vicente Cajilig OP, secretary to the Office of Education and Student Chaplaincy FABC (Philippines), gave the one inter-vention on spiritual direction. He said: "Spirituality in Asia, as seen by formators, is a form of journey and accompaniment. This journey follows a certain pathway that leads to interiority. The model of all models is Christ, with whom the formandi and for-mandae are configured. The directee arrives eventually at the stature of Christ." He concluded that, above all, a "spiritual pro-gramme that prepares spiritual directors themselves is important. While formation in theology gives candidates a firm foundation in the faith, the handling of the spiritual task requires added know-how on the journey of the Spirit." Schools A continent-wide synod is not the place to look at individual apostolates in any meaningful detail. Where the churches in Asia are small, even insignificant minorities, elite schools have been an important apostolate. As independent governments and majority communities have developed their own, even better, school systems (see intervention no. 125 by Bishop Leo Laba Ladjar of Jayapura, Indonesia), this traditional apostolate is being increasingly ques-tioned. The preferential love for the poor also raises fundamental questions. Alwis Sunanda FMS (Sri Lanka) put it like this: "An educational system, especially at the tertiary level, committed to the service of the values of Jesus and right relationships, orients its curriculum and research towards greater understanding of the social forces at work in exploitative societies such as exist in parts of Asia. It shines light on exploitative and liberative forces in those societies and tries to motivate students and teachers to choose a set of values different from the existing capitalistic, consumerist, wasteful, gender- and ethnically biased values. Its library and social January-February 1999 Prior ¯ Apostles and Martyrs communications would be a help to the poor and the needy, those who are marginalized, and exploited women and men." Brother Alwis, however, went on to suggest that "the social system in the context of Asia tends to ensure that Christian schools serve the interests of more affluent groups in society. How valid, in practice, is the argument that we can influence the future shape of our soci-ety by training the children of the elite in our schools? Are we not, instead, put in a position of maintaining the existing social order, to the extent that our own values and lifestyle are adjusted to continue a system of education that bolsters, if not aggravates, the inequalities? Often a glaring incongruence exists between the gospel we teach and the work we do, between our expressed mes-sage and the lives we live. We ourselves, though, might not notice this by reason of our great dedication to the cause we serve." Brother Alwis concludes, "Today we may have a better chance of being faithful to the call of the gospel by working in programs that foster nonformal education, adult education, values educa-tion, and education through peoples' movements rather than through traditional educational systems." This is just one thoughtful contribution among the many that were made about various apostolates. What is clear is that, fifty years after most Asian countries became independent, religious orders are having to look again at many of their traditional apos-tolates, successful as they superficially look. The Propositions The synod is over and the bishops are back at their posts. Some time in 1999 an apostolic exhortation will be published, based upon the 59 propositions drawn up during the final days of the synod. Two of these propositions, numbers 27 and 28, deal respectively with "consecrated life" and "mission societies of apos-tolic life and other mission societies." I did not receive a copy of the propositions, and the synodal members handed theirs back to the secretariat. From what I heard in the synodal hall, and the notes I made, I can make the following brief cominents. In Proposition 27, religious are looked upon as a reminder of the universal call to holiness who inspire a self-giving love towards everyone, especially the least of their brothers and sisters. The synod calls upon religious to undertake a renewal and revitaliza-tion of their commitment to proclaim the saving message of Jesus Review fo," Religious Christ. Formation should be Christ-centered and contextualized, faithful to the group's charisms, with emphasis upon life witness. Spirituality and lifestyle should be sensitive to the religious her-itage of the people they live with and serve. Proposition 28 acknowledges the continuing contribution made by mission institutes of apostolic life. The recent founding of mission institutes of apostolic life in Asia itself is an expression of the missionary dimension of the churches of Asia. The synod encourages the further establishment of mission societies charac-terized by their commitment to mission ad genres, ad exteros, and ad vitam. Encouraging Words Each and every woman and man dedicated to the consecrated life in Asia has received renewed encouragement from the 1998 synod to .continue the daily witness of risking oneself for Christ's sake. We have been challenged, some thirty-six years after the opening of the Second Vatican Council, to take up the language of the threefold dialogue with religions, cultures, and the marginal-ized and to flesh it out in lives of radical witness to the incarnate Word and graceful Spirit. This threefold dialogue is one integral movement of evangelization, the evangelization of the whole of life in all its myriad dimensions. As apostles of the crucified and risen Lord, we promote life in multicultural, multifaith Asia. As martyrs to the truth-giving Spirit, we endeavor to live ascetically with the marginalized. There is no reason for holding back: we have the dream, we know the strategies. We have the documents, we have the official encouragement~ The only real barrier is the narrowness of our minds and the smallness of our hearts. "Have courage, I have conquered the world!" On 16:33). "For God is greater than our hearts" (1 Jn 3:20). Janualy-Februa~y 1999 PAUL BERNADICOU Catholic Guides in Dialogue with Buddhist Practice Ion the latter 1960s Thomas Merton, prophetic here as in many ther areas with fresh religious insight, declared that, "far from being suspicious of the Oriental mystical traditions, Catholic contemplatives since the Second Vatican Council should be in a position to appreciate the wealth of experience that has accumu-lated in those traditions." His 1967 book Mystics and Zen Masters included an earlier essay expressing admiration for the 16th-cen-turyJesuit missionary effort in China, seeing that effort as a pro-logue to contemporary religious understanding. Merton was joined by a bevy of other Catholic scholars eager now to enter into dialogue rather than to proselytize in their mis-sionary outreach. In the words of the council's Declaration on Non-Christian Religions, Catholics were now asking themselves how these Asian and other ways try to pierce "that ultimate and unutterable mystery which engulfs our being, and whence we take our rise, and whither our journey leads us." The council docu-ment not only gave permission to respect the teachings of these other ways, but also invited Catholic scholars to "acknowledge, preserve, and promote the spiritual and moral goods found among them, as well as the values in their society and culture" (§§1, 2). Just before his tragic death in Bangkok at an East/West monas-tic conference, Merton wrote about his deeply moving sight of the Buddha sculptures at Polonnaruwa (Asian Journal, New Paul Bernadicou SJ chairs the University of San Francisco's theology department and is tertian instructor for the California province of the Society of Jesus. His address is 2130 Fulton Street; San Francisco, California 94117. Review for Religious Directions, 1993, pp. 233-236): "I mean, I know and have seen what I. was obscurely looking for. I do not know what else remains, but I have now seen and have pierced through the surface and got beyond the shadow and the disguise." He wrote beautifully about these huge, silent figures "questioning nothing, knowing every-thing" with their great yet serene smiles. Another Catholic monastic voice from that period was Aelred Graham's, who in Conversations: Christian and Buddhist Encounters in Japan (Harcourt, Brace, 1968, p. xiv) recounts how he sought to pass from the area of academic study to that of firsthand experi-ence of Buddhism. In his sixtieth year, after long experience as a Benedictine, he had the opportunity to speak with some for whom the Buddha was a role model no less than Jesus was for him. He describes the value of such religious encounter as "not at the peripheral level of Christian ecclesiology, which still preoccupies so many Catholic theologians, but at the basically existential level of who we are and what human life is all about." Jesuit Guides The Jesuit missionary H.M. Enomiya Lassalle, already in Japan before World War II, eventually inculturated his Christian Zen meditational practice into a Zen-style Jesuit retreat center in the countryside at a remove from bustling Tokyo. He published his personal findings regarding the helpfulness of Zen for an enhance-ment of Christian meditation. In Zen Meditation for Christians (German original, 1968; Open Court Publishers, 1974, pp. 151- ¯ 152), he illustrates this conviction with the parable of the prodi-gal son. In the typical way of Christian meditation at the time, you would reflectively think about the youth's family circum-stances, then the effrontery of his demand for his inheritance, then his degradation after wasteful spending, and finally his remorse and return to his father's house. A deeper form of medi-tation would not simply use~ the prodigal son as a symbol, but identify with him as an image of oneself. The person meditating would thus become the prodigal son. It is myself who reveled in our father's house only to estrange myself and now hanker to return in repentance and humility. "When we perform medita-tion in this manner and begin anew each time we practice, our heart is then purified and transformed directly and immediately through meditation--rather than indirectly through intellectual Janua~y-Februa~Ty 1999 Bernadicou ¯ Catholic Guides in Dialogue In Zen the method of purification involves working on koans, but in Christianity the emphasis is on meditation and the importance of Scripture. considerations of the will." This type of meditation is similar to Zen, wherein the Zen practitioner becomes one with a koan (that is, a Zen paradox designed to break through discursive con-sciousness to intuitive insight). ~ Heinrich Dumoulin, a Jesuit colleague of Lassalle at Sophia University in Tokyo, edited in the 1970s a series titled Religious Encounter: East and West which was "intended to promote an understanding of the living unity, diversity, and meeting-ground of reli-gious phenomena, Asian and Occidental." Dumoulin's own first contribution to the series, Christianity Meets Buddhism (Open Court, 1974, p. 198), emphasized that interreli-gious dialogue can contribute uniquely toward opening up a new horizon. Both Christianity and Buddhism involve a search for ulti-mate reality, and a dialogue between the two is "perhaps one of mankind's greatest hopes." A Jesuit of Japanese origin also at Sophia University, Joseph Kadowaki, whose youthful background had been Zen Buddhism and who was later baptized a Christian, came to recognize similarities between Zen monastic training and his own Jesuit novitiate training. In Zen the method of purification involves working on koans, but in Christianity the emphasis is on meditation and the imlSortance of Scripture. After he began to practice Zen, Kadowaki found that he could read the Bible in a new light. His book Zen and the Bible (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977) describes the method used in solving a Zen koan and shows how to appreciate the many para-doxical or obscure koan-like passages in the Bible. William Johnston, the fourth member of this quartet of Jesuit scholars of Zen at Sophia University, recently published his mag-num opus, Mystical Theology (HarperCollins, 1995, reprinted by Orbis, 1998). He has for more than twenty-five years been in the vanguard of the Christian and Zen Buddhist dialogue. He pub-lished Christian Zen: A Way of Meditation in 1971 (Harper and Row; 2nd edition, 1980); it provides explicit guidelines for a way of Christian meditation that incorporates Zen insight. Wordless Review for Religiot,s meditation, a modified lotus position, rhythmical breathing, and the use of koan are explored as Zen practices which can heighten Christian meditation. This interest in meditation led to his scientific investigation into its effects: Silent Music: The Science of Meditation (1974; reprinted, Fordham University Press, 1997). Johnston surveys what scientific research has uncovered about altered states of con-sciousness, brainwaves, and biofeedback. He investigates both Eastern and Western meditation by which one enters deeper lev-els of consciousness. The discovery of such meditation's "passive energy" and of other physiological and psychological benefits show its power to heal and comfort the distressed. And Johnston points out how the "nonattachment" and "knowledge of empa-thy" required in meditation can help people find genuine friend-ships and intimacy in their relationships. Thus he has added insights from modern science into the dialogue between Eastern and Western religious traditions. His Mystical Theology (1995) updates this message for many contemporary laypeople practicing meditation and finding them-selves drawn into mystical states of consciousness. John of the Cross wrote such a theology for the 16th century, and Johnston attempts it for our own century through his ongoing dialogue with modern science and with Buddhism. "Traditional mystical theology was written for monks and nuns . This is the age of the laity. Now married people who live a busy life in factory or classroom or office or laboratory aspire to a life of meditation and mysticism" (p. I0). They look for spiritual guidance as they grap-ple with problems of sexuality, social justice, world peace, and protection of the environment. Trappist Guides Also at the forefront of contemporary Catholic encounter with Asian practice are the adept Trappist advocates of centering prayer Basil Pennington and Thomas Keating, who have taken up where fellow Trappist Thomas Merton left off. In his 1977 Daily We Touch Him (Doubleday Image, 1979) and 1980 Centering Prayer (Doubleday Image, 1982), Pennington explored how to adapt the principles of Transcendental Meditation (TM) and Zen to Christian meditation. Daily V~e Touch Him is a simple but helpful guide to finding God's presence in one's own daily experience: "God is pre- January-February 1999 Bernadicou * Catholic Guides in Dialogue sent to us from the very first instant that he calls us into being-- and thenceforth forever he touches us at every point and level of our being. He is present to us. But are we present to him?" (pp. 14- 15). With Centering Prayer the focus is on returning to the roots of early Christian prayer, especially in the Eastern church and the patristic traditions. Centering prayer combines the best features of this Eastern Christian practice in a blend of East and West that inspires personal Christian prayer today. Thomas Keating likewise explores the Eastern Christian roots of his contemplative heritage in Open Mind, Open Heart (Continuum, 1994). The book moves beyond discursive meditation and acts of devotion to the intuiti'~e level of contemplation. Keating surveys the history of contemplative prayer in the Christian tradition, and follows with step-by-step direction in the method of centering prayer. He manifests how such an approach opens one's mind and heart to the contemplative dimension of the gospel. His recent Intimacy with God (Crossroad, 1996) builds on his earlier volumes by summarizing material from talks he has given in more recent years to people ranging from advanced prac-titioners of centering prayer to persons just starting out. He con-tinues to provide a Christian alternative to the appeal of Asian practices. His conviction is that our journey into intimacy with God leads us "powerfully outward, toward the bonding that we call the Communion of Saints: the capacity to relate to one another with the unconditional love with which Christ relates to us" (p. 160)~ Keating's prayer instruction parallels the apophatic style of much Buddhist meditation. Christian Theology and Buddhism An outstanding Catholic interlocutor with the Buddhist tra-dition on a more speculative and theological level is the Jesuit Aloysius Pieris, who was the first non-Buddhist to receive the doc-torate in Buddhist studies in his native Sri Lanka. His Love Meets Wisdom: A Christian Experience of Buddhism (Orbis, 1988) consists of a series of essays which explore the social as well as the spiritual side of Buddhism, its political and its religious visions, and issues important to the ongoing Christian-Buddhist dialogue. Pieris thinks that Christians can learn from Buddhism, integrating their own prophetic teaching .of love with the Buddhist mystical appre-ciation of wisdom. If heart-to-heart dialogue is genuinely pur- Review for Religious sued, agapeic Christianity and gnostic Buddhism will be mutually complemented and enriched in an integration of compassionate wisdom that could transform the plight of the oppressed poor and of our threatened environment. Pieris's more recent Fire and VVater: Basic Issues in Asian Buddhism and Christianity (Orbis, 1996) further expands on these liberation themes. Current Contributions Such informed exchange between Catholic and Buddhist monastics continues to proliferate in current publications. Three particularly impressed me when I recently surveyed the literature. 1. The Ground We Share: Everyday Practice, Buddhist and Christian (Shambala, 1996) is a conversation between Zen roshi Robert Aitken and Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast, edited by Nelson Foster. Their dialogue begins with everyday practice rather than with philosophical and theological concepts. The result of their intense and lively conversations was to uncover the com-mon ground of meditational experience that gives hope for fruitful exchanges between Christianity and Buddhism into the future. 2. In The Silent Dialogue: Zen Letters to a Trappist Abbot (Continuum, 1996), David G. Hackett corresponds with sev-eral Trappist monks of St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, dur-ing the 1970s, particularly Abbot Thomas Keating. Mter Hackett's conversion to Catholicism, he set out on a two-year stay in Japan, where he experimented with how Zen practice could deepen his Christian prayer and spirituality. Abbot Keating proved himself a knowledgeable and astute guide in his comprehension and inte-gration of Eastern ways to Christian prayer, as we might have sus-pected from his own writings. 3. The Gethsernani Encounter: A Dialogue on the Spiritual Life by Buddhist and Christian Monastics (Continuum, 1997) captures the voices of some twenty-five Buddhist and twenty-five Christian monks and nuns in a discussion of their contemplative traditions Christians can learn from Buddhism, integrating their own prophetic teaching of love with the Buddhist mystical appreciation of wisdom. Januaty-Febtwa~y 1999 Bernadicou ¯ Catholic Guides in Dialogue at an historic meeting hosted by the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. The Dalai Lama, who first suggested the conference, also recommended that it be held at Gethsemani in memory of Thomas Merton, whom he had met just before Merton's untimely death while attending a similar Buddhist and Christian monastic exchange at Bangkok. Though scholars in the field of spirituality were present, the focus of the convocation was more expressly on the everyday practice of meditation and prayer in the two tradi-tions. What steps help to progress in meditative enlightenment? What does each tradition have to contribute to our profound human yearning for an encounter with ultimate reality? What can we say and how must we respond to the compassionate wisdom with which this encounter enlightens the seeker? Prescience and Continuing Hope Just before his tragic demise in 1968, Thomas Merton stated in the Temple of Understanding meeting in Calcutta: "I think we have reached a stage of [long-overdue] religious maturity at which it may be possible for someone to remain perfectly faithful to a Christian. commitment and yet to learn in depth from, say, a Buddhist or Hindu discipline and experience." Few realized at the time how prescient this provocative comment would sound nearly thirty years later at the 1996 Gethsemani gathering. Review for Religious BARBARA VALUCKAS Lithuanian and American Sisters: A Lively Inter°active Dance Lithuania, the geographical and cultural gateway to east-ern and central Europe, was the first Soviet republic to declare independence from the Soviet Union just as the last decade of this century began. Almost immediately, American sisters of Lithuanian birth or descent, and American sisters from other ethnic backgrounds as well, went to Lithuania to knit bonds of friendship with women who had been cut off from the, world of women religious during five decades of military occupation and brutal repression of the Catholic Church. Going in response to requests from the Lithuanian congregations,. they were sponsored by the Office to Aid Eastern and Central Europe, of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), by the Hilton Fund for Sisters; and by many other organizations including their own congregations. The sisters gave canonical consultation on the adap-tation of constitutions, assisted in the formation of the Lithuanian Conference of Mfijor Superiors, gave pro-grams of theological updating and ongoing formation, and conducted retreats and days of recollection for sis-ters who could barely remember what these were. In Barbara Valuckas SSND wrote "Lithuania: A Return to My Ancestral Home" for our May-June 1995 issue. Her address is Pilgrim Ministries, Inc.; 9 Academy Hill; Watertown, Connecticut 06795. Januao,-l~¥btvtary 1999 Valuckas ¯ Lithuanian and American Sisters the early days of this lively dance, the Lithuanian sisters encour-aged their American counterparts to take the lead although their United States partners learned innumerable steps from them. By 1997 the dance was well along, but the partners were begin-ning to shift places. In January 1997, while I was in Lithuania conducting a program evaluation, the president of the Conference of Major Superiors described plans for the first Congress of Lithuanian Sisters, to be held the following August. When I asked her about the main purpose of the congress, she' replied in two simple but profound words, "We exist!" To be able to affirm this after experiencing decades of efforts to exterminate religion and religious persons from Lithuania was a touching testimony to the deep faith and high courage of the Lithuanian sisters. Some months later, those of us who had worked with the sis-ters in Lithuania received invitations to attend the congress as guests. The invitations were addressed to "you, who have walked with us from the beginning." Our joyful response to this invitation brought us to Kaunas, the old capital of Lithuania, to be enthusi-astic onlookers as the Lithuanian sisters celebrated their own dance of survival and hope for the future. The theme of the congress was "the past, the present, and the future." The president of the Conference of Major Superiors, who had herself experienced years of surveillance by the KGB, recounted the sisters' sufferings during the years of occupation. One of her most startling revelations, however, was this: At the beginning of the occupation, there were seven congregations in Lithuania; at the end of the five decades of attempted annihilation, there were twenty-four! Some of this multiplication was due to the success-ful efforts of KGB infiltrators to fragment the existing congrega-tions, but much of it was due to the clandestine formation of new congregations. God provided for the future of the church through the courage of women who received their entire formation in secret. The several hundred sisters who attended the congress included older sisters who had entered established congregations before the occupation, sisters who had entered existing or new congregations secretly during the occupation, and sisters who had entered the various congregations since independence. These three groupings have had very different experiences of religious life, and yet they face together the challenge of bringing religious life in Lithuania into the future. Review for Religions This will mean facing and moving through the problems of the present. The speakers at the congress were very honest in naming these problems. They are not very different from the ones facing women religious in the West, although the historical context and hence the resolutions may be somewhat different. Some of the main issues identified by speakers at the congress were public wit-ness, community life, and just compensation. Public Witness As in the West, the sisters in Lithuania are grappling with the question of what it means to give public witness. At this point, much of this issue is being discussed in terms of the religious habit. Almost all of the sisters attending the congress wore habits even though they had not ordinarily done so. That is, as an American sis-ter of Lithuanian origin pointed out to us, most of the congregations had never worn habits because they had been formed during the occupation, when habits were forbidden. When Pope John Paul II visited Lithuania in 1993, however, the sisters were asked to come to their meeting with him in the cathedral wearing habits. So the sisters created habits on the spot and appeared before the Holy Father wearing them. They wore them again for the congress. The bishops who were present at the congress and some of the sister speakers expressed the wish that the sisters wear their religious dress at all times. It is worth noting that, unlike the sisters in the West, the women religious in occupied Lithuania were forced to give up their habits and their ministries overnight. Their change to sec-ular dress had not come about from reflection on the Vatican II documents and on the relationship of religious life to culture. By forcing the religious to put their habits away, the occupiers made the church virtually invisible overnight. Now the church hopes to regain its visibility, and wearing the habit or not is a central question. It will have to be resolved from within the lived experi-ence of the Lithuanian sisters, although they have been very inter- As in the West, the sisters in Lithuania are grappling with the question of what it means to give public witness. January-February 1999 Valuckas ¯ Lithuanian and American Sisters ested in learning from the sisters of the West how the habit issue wasrdealt with and resolved. Community Life o Along with their habits, the various congregations lost their buildings, their communal spaces, overnight. Many religious women were forced out onto the streets and lived there or in fields or barns until they were able to find work and lodging. All through the years of occupation, they lived in little flats with one Or two other sisters or with relatives and friends, wherever they could find a place. Now, although somd of the congregations have begun to get their property back from the government, many are still without a common space. Some of the sisters are afraid to form communities again because they have forgotten how to live com-munity life. Others are eager to try it, but feel the need for help in the skills of building community together. The middle group of sisters--those whose formation was clan-destine-- is numerically the smallest; this leaves the elderly sisters and the newest members trying to negotiate a common life :across the barriers of age and extremely different life experiences, Some of the speakers at the congress referred to these cross-genera-tional tensions and pleaded for patience and more effort to deal with them in the process of building community. A special difficulty faces the sisters who have not received' their property back or who never had common property to begin with. The elderly sisters in these congregations live in tiny flats scattered around the cities and villages. They are often dependent on the younger members for both financial support and physi-cal care. It is not uncommon for young sisters to finish a day's work only to begin visiting the individual elderly sisters, bathing them, shopping for them, and providing for other needs of theirs. These younger members are also expected to contribute their services to the growing ministries of a church that has emerged from the underground and seeks to make its voice heard ~in the culture once again. While these conditions are not directly com-parable to conditions in the West, assuring that younger mem-bers have time and space for their own formation and are not unduly burdened with maintenance issues is a Western concern as well. This situation is related to another issue narried by the Lithuanian sisters. ~ Review for Religious. Just Compensation Now that the church is free to operate in the open, the sisters are expected to give time and energy to parish ministries, catech-esis, and so forth. This is usually in addition to their full-time work in the secular economy, which provides the sustenance they and the elderly members in their care need. Speakers at the congress acknowledged the heavy burden placed on the sisters because, to date, their work for the church has gone largely uncompensated. Some speakers indicated that questions have been raised among church officials about why sisters need salaries or pensions. All of this would be very familiar to sisters from the West. Common Questions, Other Questions, Other Steps Given the similarity of the issues facing women religious in both East and West in spite of their cultural and historical differ-ences, one would assume that the dance that began at the begin-ning of this decade could go on for a long time, growing more unified as it moved into: the future. This, however, may not be the case because other dancers have moved into the space in an effort to change the dance into another kind of movement. Some of this change of step has come into Lithuania in the form of newspapers and magazines that portray women religious and reli-gious life in the West as quite degenerate. Some has come in the form of living persons. In informal conversations at the congress, some of the Lithuanian sisters spoke of making a retreat during the summer at which the retreat master gave considerable time to frightening descriptions of religious life in the West. The Lithuanian sisters heard, for example, that sisters in the West had no prayer life and that they had boyfriends. These insinuations had the effect of sowing doubt and suspicion even in sisters who had had very pos-itive experiences of the American sisters who had worked with them directly. Some of the bishops and sister speakers at the congress were quick to warn the Lithuanian sisters about negative influences from the West, especially about feminism and about failure to adhere to the teachings of the church. That some of these warnings came from the very leaders who had invited the American sisters to attend the congress may be a sign of the confusion and ambivalence toward the West that is Janua~y-Febtvlary 1999 Valuckas ¯ Lithuanian and American Sisters In every multicultural dance, there are tensions and always the danger of stepping on one another's cherished values. becoming more prevalent, not only in Lithuania, but in other countries of eastern and central Europe as well. One sister speaker exhorted the Lithuanian sisters to cling to the values of their own religious heritage and not to "turn jewels into stones." Although the majority of the grass-roots Lithuanian sisters begged'us to return to continue sharing experiences with them, seeds of doubt and uncertainty had been sown in their hearts by their own lead-ership. Since the years of occupation and Soviet-style education conditioned most Lithuanians not to trust anyone, these seeds may be falling on soil that is still receptive to doubt and mistrust. An example of this occurred during and after the congress. Speakers represent-ing both the bishops' confer-ence and the superiors' conference stressed the serious need for Lithuanian sisters to be trained in the skills of spir-itual guidance and spiritual formation of others. In fact, the sisters who had attended our workshops in earlier years had, in their evaluations, requested training in these skills. Yet our offer to pro-vide this very kind of assistance with highly trained sisters from the United States was met sometimes with polite silence and some-times with suspicious questions. In such circumstances, it is only natural to wonder about the future direction of the dance. In every multicultural dance, there are tensions and always the danger of stepping on one another's cherished values. It is clear that the Lithuanian sisters need to find their own way, a way that is true to who they are. They need to be able to say "We exist!" not just about their survival through a difficult past, but also about the present and the future. Part of that existence, however, is going to be in an increasingly interde-pendent world. If the "We exist!" is for the future, it may mean enlarging the phrase to "We exist together!" The fact that the Lithuanian con-gregations were able to move from relying on their own congre-gations to creating an intercongregational formation committee is a sign that, given time and trust, they have the inner resources to Review for Religious move to a larger "we." The initiation of this intercongregational committee had, in fact, been inspired by the intercongregational nature of the teams of American sisters who had come to work with them. The Lithuanian sisters quickly saw that a larger "we" was not only possible but very rich in its possibilities for a happy sharing of many various gifts. We sisters from the West, on the other hand, need to keep remembering that our "we" is not the only "we" in the world. We need to be willing to look at the fears and suspicions about us. To the extent that they are justified, we need to allow ourselves to be called to conversion of heart and life. To the extent that they are not, we need to live with integrity and truth and to search patiently and mutually for new dance steps. Perhaps it is in our conversion of heart together that the Spirit will lead us all in a new dance of interdependence. Dispossessed Who believing would not hope? the child asked herself, dismantling in one stroke a holy triad. But stay, time-taught. It always does. Faith came easy. She was born believing unseen worlds. ¯ And lo~? Without it, there'd be chaos. As for hope? That limpid bird fled, sickened with the weight of errant expectation-- until finally the woman lay down and cried and cried and cried and cried-- while faith and love held hands and waited. Maryanne Casey Hannan .Tanaa~y-Febtvtao, 1999 ANN WHITE Serpents and Doves:, The Company of St. Ursula I n Quebec City, high above the St. Lawrence River, some eligious women live behind a cedar fence in a convent, sup-posedly set apart from the world. Yet the world of New France, as it existed nearly four hundred years ago, comes to them every single day in the persons of innumerable Amerindians. Who could possibly tell where these women's religious life leaves off and worldly life begins? We divide life into the sacred and the secular, and have done so since the 16th century, when Reformers who thought and prayed under dull northern skies became 'disengaged from the ideas of Renaissance painters and explorers and princes of Europe's sunlit south. Ever since, we have distinguished the worldly--rev-elers and artists and livers of free lifestyles--from religious peo-ple who go to church, pray, do good works. This division blurs the truth about people in both categories, sacrecl and secular. Consider the Company of St. Ursula, a boldly daring 16th-century Roman Catholic women's community. In the Ursulines' lives, religion and worldly adventure mixed inseparably. But Ursulines do not appear in secular books that tell adventure sto-ries. Ursulines show up in books about religion, written in sober words that mask the daring quality of their thoughts and acts. The Ursulines first caught my attention in Quebec City, where their convent has stood in the Rue Donnacona since the 17th century. As I gazed at the convent's faqade, I wondered why Ann White has a Ph.D. in history and teaches at the Edmund Burke School in Washington. Her address is 5130 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., apt. 203; Washington, D.C. 20008. Review for Religious any woman would give up cultivated, comfortable French life for the frigid wilderness of Quebec. My guidebook said the nuns came to found a girls' school. Everyone knows the name of Samuel de Champlain, the explorer who established the first French settle-ment at Quebec City, but how many know the name of the woman who started the first girls' school in the Nev~ World? She was Marie Guyart, member of the Order of St. Ursula, who arrived in Canada from Tours, France, in 1639. Her name fails to appear in books about explorers' and pioneers' adventures because those are "secular" stories. Yet Marie Guyart was a pioneer. Starting a girls' school anywhere in the 17th century was a pioneering act, and starting a school in the New World for girls of warring Amerindian tribes required a large dollop of pioneering bravery. Not only Marie Guyart's physical bravery impressed me, but also her idea of adventuring in unknown spaces. She had never traveled outside the Touraine region of France, yet as she sat in her convent she pictured herself in what she called the "vastitudes" of New France. "My body was in our monastery, but my spirit was tied to that of Jesus and could not be enclosed," she said. What did she know about Canadian vastitudes? Practically noth-ing. She had never heard the word "Canada" until four years before she departed for its frosty landscape. But being enclosed within four walls of a convent in Tours did not prevent her from imagining herself founding "a -house for Jesus and Mary" in an unknown land across a vast ocean. Marie Guyart acquired her expansive, daring cast of mind from her Ursuline company, who inherited it from their founder, Angela Merici. As much a child of the Italian Renaissance as Christopher Columbus, Angela Merici founded the Ursulines just forty-three years after Columbus's first voyage. Columbus, says one of his biographers, combined Christian faith with an impulse toward expansion. We ignore the faith, concentrate on the expan-sion, and place him in our secular category. Angela Merici pos-sessed the same Renaissance combination of faith and expansiveness as Columbus, but we ignore her expansiveness, con-centrate on her faith, and pop her into our religious pigeonhole. Angela Merici did not found the Ursulines until she was in her sixties. A farmer's daughter from northern Italy, she spent years working with a group of lay Christians to relieve misery brought to Brescia, a city near her birthplace, by the French inva-sion of Italy. She helped to organize orphanages and refuges for January-February 1999 White ¯ Serpents and Doves prostitutes, and she worked in a hospital for incurables, the only hospital that would accept Brescia's increasing numbers of syphil-itics. By the time Angela Merici traveled to the Holy Land around age fifty, her skills at helping the sick and the poor were well known--so well known that, when she stopped in Venice on her way home from Palestine, the city fathers asked her to remain there and organize charitfible works in their city. She said no. Furthermore, she left Venice immediately, so that they could not ask the archbishop to command her to stay. Soon afterwards she went to Rome, where once, again there came a request to borrow her skills. This time the pope himself, Clement vii, who asked her to remain and organize charitable works in his city. Surely this was an offer that Angela Merici could not refuse. Any "religious" woman would say yes to the pope, would she not? Angela Merici said no. Her Renaissance mind fit no pigeon-hole. She went back to Brescia to formulate a vision as expansive in its own way as Columbus's vision. Her company of women, named after a 3rd-century patron of young scholars, would be the first Christian company dedicated to instructing young girls. They would also tend the sick. These female teacher-work(rs would live in the world. No medieval convent walls would constrain them; they would freely walk the streets of north Italian cities from Milan to Venice. This Ursuline plan ignored religious/secular categorizing. Though Angela Merici never met her contemporary Martin Luther, her mind grasped the same idea that his mind grasped, a very old Christian idea, that the church's lay people--worldly, sec~ ular people--hear God's call as clearly as the clergy, the church's religious people. Angela Merici created an institution that blended the religious and the worldly. A young woman joining the Company of St. Ursula would pledge herself to virginity, but she would not live in a convent and she would not wear a habit. She would live at home with her family as she taught girls and tended the sick. Before Angela Merici's time, young women faced a stark, secular-versus-sacred choice: they could marry or they could enter a convent. Angela Merici's Ursuline plan gave them another option: pursuing useful work in the world while maintaining a religious identity. Habits of religious pigeonholing make us see Angela Merici, with her piety and good works, as blandly "religious," while we ignore her extraordinary worldly shrewdness. Not only did she Review f!~r Religious have enough sense of her own purpose to spurn a pope's offer, not only did she single-handedly offer devout European young women a new vocational opportunity, but she also obtained a papal decree permitting members of her company to hold a dowry from their families just as securely as if they were marrying or entering a convent. Moreover, her Testament for the Ursulines' four-woman board of directors shows she understood that her young women would face changing circumstances in the future: "If, according to times and needs, new rules should be made, or any change introduced, do it prudently and with good advice." It was with such worldly sagacity that Angela Merici deployed her Christian faith in 16th-century Italy. She shows us what Jesus meant when he told his disciples they needed to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Angela Merici's "religious" accom-plishment is incomprehensible without an understanding of her "secular" insight. ~ As her Ursulines spread throughout northern Italy and into France over the next half century, people with a pigeonholing men-tality-- churchmen, parents of Ursulines, and Ursulines them-selves-- changed the company's organization into something more recognizably religious. When Marie Guyart became an Ursuline in 1631, less than a hundred years after the first Ursulines signed their names in a book in Brescia, she entered a convent and, she donned a habit. The Company of St. Ursula, contrary to Angela Merici's vision, by Marie Guyart's time had become a religious order like other religious orders. Yet even in a convent Marie Guyart shared Angela Merici's expansive Renaissance spirit as she thought about the danger of dying from hunger and cold or at the hands of Canadian savages. These considerations, she said, made "no change at all in the dis-position of my spirit." "Secular" explorers like Champlain were plainly not the only people in 17th-century France who dreamed great, daring dreams. In New France (whose soil she kissed upon her arrival), Marie Guyart continued to live according to the rule of enclosure. She Angela Merici's Ursuline plan gave another option: pursuing useful work in the world while maintaining a religious identity. Januaty-Febt'uaty 1999 lq/'Isite ¯ Serpents and Doves This mixing of sacred and secular in the Canadian convent yard was part of Marie Guyart's theology. and her fellow Ursulines lived in convent buildings set within a large yard on the promontory overlooking the St. Lawrence River. They stayed within the yard's cedar fence, obeying their religious rule about not going out into the "world." But this enclosure was very different from the Tours convent for Marie Guyart: In New France the woodland world came to her: Algonquins, Montagnais, and Hurons; Abenakis, Nipissings, and Attikamegues; Iroquois girls sent by their mothers to learn the elements of the Christian faith. Twenty to fifty young girls lived in a boarding school that the Ursulines established within their convent walls. Amerindian men also visited the convent, for a meal or for instruction or simply to find out what went on there. Marie Guyart wrote, "I see generous and brave captains on their knees at my feet, begging me to have them pray to God before they eat." Moreover, this mixing of sacred and sec-ular in the Canadian convent yard was part of Marie Guyart's theology. She not only wel-comed inhabitants of Canada's woodland world to her convent, but also saw her savage Christian converts as every bit as religious as those labeled religious, the Ursulines and Jesuits in New France. "A savage confesses just as well as a reli-gious," she said. The Jesuits emphasized how hard it was for Amerindian Christians to behave the way they thought Christians should behave; Marie Guyart saw in them the full capacity for Christianity. The converts' devotion, she said, reminded her of the Christians of the early church. So what do these moments of Ursuline history--the lives of Angela Mericiand Marie Guyart--show us? That enclosure in a convent is bad? That the Ursulines-were more progressive than ,other Catholic groups because at first they spurned convent life? By no means. Ursuline history shows us Christian life without religious/secular categories: Angela Merici taking advantage of Renaissance Italy's expansive spirit to create an effective vehicle .for faith; Marie Guyart joining Christ among the Amerindians while living in a convent. Jesus did not say, be a serpent or a dove, choose between the secular and the sacred. He said, achieve worldly wisdom and reli- Review for Religious gious innocence, both at the same time. The famous figures who lived five hundred years ago, at the birth of the modern age, do not fit our narrow classification scheme of religious versus secular. Emperor Charles v was as much a man of faith as he was an effi-cient 16th-century ruler. Martin Luther was as much poet as priest--so much the poet that, in the judgment of one Reformation historian, if he had lived in another age he would have produced an epic rather than a new church. Michelangelo's art fused his awe of human beauty with his awe of the greatness of God. Nonetheless, we are in the habit of relentlessly classifying these people--the "religious" writer, the "secular" politician, the "sec-ular" artist--missing the breadth of their persons and the com-plexity of their accomplishments. Not so rigidly fixed in our minds as these famous figures, Angela Merici and Marie Guyart will fly right out of their religious pigeonhole if we let them. The two Ursulines were wise enough to take advantage of Renaissance Europe's expansive spirit, faith-ful enough to take big risks for Christ. Their lives overmatch our narrow categories of secular and sacred. Each was worldly and religious, both serpent and dove at the very same time. "But you, who do you say that I am?" (Matthew 16:15) Not in wisdoms Echoed from borrowed minds, Nor in quick phrases Caught and snatched and etched On today's tongues, Not even in the warm whispers Patterned on a mother's speech, A teacher's truth, A prophet's cry. Who do you say that I am When only you are left to form the words? When only I am left to listen? Suzanne Mayer IHM JanuaL'F-FebruaO, 1999 XAVIER PLISSART The Art of Discernment: The Aesthetic Dimension In this paper I discuss what I call the aesthetic dimen-sion of the art of discernment. I want to show that dis-cernment is an attempt to enter into the original divine creative dynamism for the whole of creation. This attempt is itself a creative activity aimed at realizing creation's original harmony. Since the whole of creation shares the same source and is directed towards the same goal, discernment should ideally be a striving towards communality. Consequently, a basic and essential qual-ity of discernment is that it should strive to be as com-mon as possible in its insight and process, and as universal as possible in its aim toward action. Theological Foundation Creation The initial insight for spiritual discernment is that God is active in our world, that creation is dynamic. The original goodness that God imparted to creation is more a life than a state: divine life continues to be breathed into the whole of creation. Essentially, discernment is a matter of seeing more accurately where and how this Xavier Plissart M_Mr has done formation work and taught in various African countries. He is currently attached to the Centre de Recherche et de Documentation Africaine. His address is: Bukavu, R~p. D~m. du Congo; B.P. 333, Cyangugu; Rwanda (Africa). Review for Religious divine "inspiration" is operative. The effort to see this depends upon our having the faith conviction that God's creativity in our regard is a genuine invitation to participate in divine life, an invi-tation that recognizes the full validity of creation's "otherness." The faith insight above applies to the totality of creation. Everything created proclaims in some way the fullness of divine life. But the proclamation acquires a special significance when we turn to. humans beings, for it depends upon their receiving an invitation to proclaim God's life and their conscious responding to it. Created in the image of God (imago Dei), we in turn become creative through our free response. We have the imagination (in Hebrew, yetzer) that makes it possible for us to integrate our actions in the flow of divine creativity, or not. Consequently, it is important for us to discern and decide how we shall orient our life and direct our actions. Context and History Divine dynamism has been at work in creation from the begin-ning, and human consciousness, responding in various ways, has shaped our world until the present day. We must, therefore, be fully conscious of the past. Discernment always implies looking back (if we use visual imagery) or listening (if we use acoustic imagery). God's conversation with the world and with humankind results in what we live and experience today. At the most personal level, St. Ignatius Loyola advises retreatants of the Spiritual Exercises to examine regularly the content and flow of their spir-itual life and life of prayer. Many religious persons and commu-nities today have gained great benefit from what is called "life review" to see God at work in their own history. It is also common practice now to try to "read" the "signs of the times" to see the underlying current. Believers find God at work, but unbelievers alike may discover the dynamism of creative energy with which they want to connect. Believing that God has been and is active in the world, we see, too, that we have the creative potential to go with or against this divine activity. In the Spiritual Exercises Ignatius describes in detail how one can become aware of inner movements that are aligned with the divine plan or that militate against it. This takes place in a context of faith and in an atmosphere of prayer. His analysis of consolations and desolations has served as a guide for many. Recently, however, spiritual writers have felt the need to widen the Plissart ¯ The Art of Discernment field of application. When we become more keenly aware of all the areas in which the Spirit of God is at work, it becomes evident that we must try to widen our horizon if we want to obtain a more accu-rate idea of God's action, a wiser discernment. Consolations and Desolations Revisited Ignatius himself implicitly recognizes the need for an inter-personal attentiveness to the Spirit when he advises that discern-ment should take place with the guidance of a spiritual director. Today we would include here the validity and even necessity of discussing the matter with one's spouse (if one is married) or a uniquely close "soul friend." An uneasiness in the friend or spouse might be a sign of desolation, and both persons would do well to become aware of it in the effort to find the will of God. Ignatius speaks of taking into account the position of the church. If with Vatican ~I we see the church as the people of God, our attentiveness to God's presence becomes broader and much more varied. Tensions in a community could well be interpreted as "desolation," or gratuitous excitement as false "consolation." We could and should make use of the well-developed techniques of group dynamics and see how a discerning insight might help us to perceive more clearly whether the movements animating a par-ticular group are from God. The vision we speak of here comes from faith; it can be of advantage only to individuals and groups that genuinely want to follow the Lord. Similarly, in discernment we do well to explore critically the meaning of divisions, resentments, estrangements, and insensi-tivity within ecclesial structures and institutions to see how these "motions" speak to us of God's creative or challenging activity in our world. Can we say that controversies on, say, contraception or feminism have nothing.to tell us about the divine activity in our world and in the hearts and minds of God's own people? I believe that an unwillingness to see the significance of such "movements" would represent a dire lack of a discerning spirit. Jon Sobrino, Enrique Dussel, J.B. Libanio, and others have shown clearly how, as we find ourselves confronted with a theol-ogy of domination, we must take into account the sociopolitical reality in order to make a valid discernment. The option for the poor which theologians of liberation advocate is not just another theological position. It is the result of a careful reading of the core message of Jesus in its relationship with the social reality. Review for Religions As the Quakers tell us, the "light of God" is also present and active beyond the confines of the circle of Christian believers. Indeed, this was also recognized in the documents of Vatican II. So we will have to .learn to discern how God speaks through the political debates of our present age, through intercultural struggles, through the economic and ecological issues of our world, and through people's search for a cosmic spirituality. Would we not say that people's uneasi-ness when faced with news ¯ items depicting poverty can be a sign of "desolation" calling for conversion and a change ¯ of heart? Would we not say that people's fear of an atomic disaster can~ be understood as a sign of "desolation" in a world which gives priority to war over peace? Would we not say that the renewed interest and practice of meditation of all kinds is a sign of "consolation" in a rediscovery of the importance of the inner world? The first, step in this reflection has brought us to the conclu-sion that, if we truly believe that God's Spirit. is indeed active in the world and if our aim is to integrate our decisions and actions as perfectly as possibly into this creative dynamism, then we will have to widen considerably the scope of our attentiveness to the divine presence. Our discerning of God's ~vill seems ~to bring us much further than it used to, well beyond the realm of personal spiritual life. No more can we think of attaining holiness through a private imitation of Christ (see Castillo). What we have examined is the first aspect of discernment, the "listening" element. It corresponds to what is called in Ignatian spirituality the "discernment of spirits" and also, in the Quaker tradition, to the simple prayer meeting. The regular practice of such discernment helps people to be more aware of God's pres-ence in their life. But it should also help friends or groups to a vision of where God is leading them communally. It can give us an insight into God's guidance for the church, for society, and indeed for the whole world. Acquiring such a common insight will be of great advantage in tackling the second aspect of discernment which we examine below. Tensions in a community could well be interpreted as "desolation," or gratuitous excitement as false "consolation." January-FebtvtaD, 1999 Plissart ¯ The Art of Discernment Anthropological Foundation: How Do We Decide? The Point of Entry Insight into the divine activity is not just an academic exercise. We have already indicated above that it has a very clear purpose. We do not "listen" to the voice of God simply to admire its har-monic quality. We want to add our voice to the symphony. Peters clarifies the distinction between discernment and elec-tion, but goes too far when he says that "the method [of election] is a way of finding the will of God, and has nothing to do with dis-cerning movements" (p. 30). Our insight into God's creative activ-ity inevitably challenges us to a response. Thus we seek not only to hear God's voice, but to discern God's will. This becomes a direct call. The general inspiration which we have discerned ini-tially takes shape gradually and becomes a specific invitation. This is where we move from a "discernment of spirits" to a process of election: we are faced with alternatiyes, and we have to make a choice. What is happening is that we become aware of a krisis, a fork in the road. This requires a diakrisis: deciding which way to go. The process of decision is always situated existentially, and it is good, indeed important, to know the path that has led to it, the approach to the point of entry. Ignatian spirituality has clarified the process itself, but has not specified precisely the scope of what to consider. In the Spiritual Exercises lgnatius's guidance in the pro-cess of election seems to be directed mainly to an individual mak-ing a decision about his or her future state of life. But commentators indicate that the principles are not restricted to such instances. Since Ignatius and his companions use similar prin-ciples for many of their decisions, it would seem that the process of election is applicable to all levels of human decision. This is indeed to be expected if we are fully aware of divine invitations at all levels of human activity. So we have to widen the scope here also. The most obvious level of decision making is that of the con-scious self. It concerns an action for which .one will be directly and personally responsible. But not many decisions, if any, are totally private. So the interpersonal is nearly always present in decision making. It is then a decision that affects those who are involved in a relationship, and we would expect that the process of discernment would implicate all participants. Decisions concern-ing close friendship and marriage are good examples of this, and Review for Religious one can widen the scope to community decisions, family deci-sions, and so forth. The moment of decision, the need for discernment, may not be obvious when persons reflect and discern purely as individuals, but may become obvious on the social level and then brought down to the personal. Good examples of this would be an eco-nomic crisis or a population crisis, each with its repercussions on the life of the community, the family, and the individual. Still wider areas of decision may involve cultural changes, religious or institu-tional sclerosis, or natural disasters. These will require decision-making processes that have a wide place of entry, but do not ignore personal elements (which are never absent). In these areas Ren~ Simon's reflection on the relationship between law and discernment is helpful. The process of election will be very different, but the basic elements will be these: insight based on some interpretative belief, examination of the challenge by means of dialogue, and proiection towards the realm of action for assess-ment and choice. With regard to the charismatic role of discern-ment in relation to institutional sclerosis, Ladislaus Boros makes the following interesting remark: "The charismatic and underiv-able aspect is essential to the church, .for God has never retired, as it were, in favor of the official ecclesial administration. Nor has he abdicated in favor of the guidance of the Holy Spirit given to the higher and highest instances of.the church. God himself is the Spirit [see Jn 3:8] blowing 'where it listeth,' [blowing] alike on children and idiots, the poor and simple, and theologians of all kinds" (p. 78). Clearly we are dealing here with a widening continuum. Division into sections is arbitrary. Yet there appear to be both an inner limit to this continuum and an outer one, limits beyond which we seem to lose control. At the inner limit we enter so deeply into the self that the processes become unconscious. The creative dynamism is still active, but escapes our grasp. Eastern religions (Hinduism and Buddhism) and perhaps certain forms of Christian mysticism situate our connection to the absolute at this level. At the outer limit we grope toward the immensity of the cosmos and fail to grasp it. This time it is the far heavens that are beyond us. Within these two limits we can set the realm and scope The interpersonal is nearly always present in decision making. Januaty-Febrnaty 1999 Plissart ¯ The Art of Discernment of responsible praxis, the point of application of the process of discernment leading to action. The Question of Universality We are now becoming more aware that any discernment in a process of election has repercussions at all levels. Wherever. the stone may fall, it creates ripples over the whole surface of the lake. Decisions involve the same universal creative dynamism, and they have effects that resound through the whole realm of responsible praxis. This would seem to make the task of discernment abso-lutely daunting: What attitude, then, can we take? Many spiritual writers indicate that discernment does not lead to certainty. This is something we must accept at all stages of the process. We try to examine God's creative and dynamic presencefin our life, in the life of others', in our society and culture, in the world as a whole. But our point of view is inevitably limited. We try to take into account the flow of our own life from the moment of birth, or the flow of history in our communal, eccesial, or social context, but we cannot see the whole picture. Then when a prob-lem occurs, when the moment of decision arises, we try to situate ourselves in this picture, to ga~ther all possible data that might be relevant, but we can see only a few elements and have.,to be con-tent with that. We want to listen to as many people as possible because each one can give us a useful insight into the light of God that illurfiines our search, but there is always more light beyond, which we cannot fathom. We do not want to be biased; we want to be "indifferent" and try to avoid undue influences from our own background, from our s6cial or physical environment, and so forth, but we cannot extract ourselves from our own existence. We may try to see the consequences of a certain decision so as to make a better assessment, but we can see only that far, and no further. Clearly we cannot take everything into account. One rather unsatisfactory way in which this problem has usu-ally been solved, at least at the practical level, was to look at the process simply from its point of entry. For instance, if the issue was to decide about my own vocation, I would simply examine what my decision on this should be in the context of my life, and leave other decisions to be made by others, for example, church offi-cials, parents, civil authority, and so forth. Or, if the issue involved natural science--whether, for example, .to continue to develop nuclear technology--scientists would limit themselves to the sci- Revibw for Religious entific possibility and expediency and leave civil rulers to decide on the social consequences. In a sense there may be a vision of faith in such a position. If each person decides validly within his or her restricted level of insight, can we not trust the original cre-ative dynamism to realize the harmony that is its aim? Perhaps. But I believe that the above position has far too often been interpreted in a minimalist way. I believe that it is defeatist and dangerous. I believe that a true vision of faith will require of us that we try to achieve as wide a scope as possible. Therefore, at the close of this paper I would like to advocate a maximalist inter-pretation of the question I raised in the previous paragraph. The Criterion of Harmony Common Discernment Spiritual discernment and discernment in view of making a decision according to the divine will have always been considered an art. This is an implicit acceptance of the tentative value of the conclusions that are reached. But at the same time it points to the totality of impact of any decision within the whole creative flow. Our attentiveness to God's voice in our life and in the world cannot be restrictive. It must always tend to its widest possible scope. Only then can the full impact of divine creativity be recog-nized and accepted. The search for the divine will in any particular instance, and the attempt to discern which course of action would best coincide with that divine will, must situate the process of examination as widely as possible. I emphasize that it is" in the measure in which this is attempted and achieved that the dis-cernment will be a valid one and that global harmony will be fos-tered. Some examples will show this more in detail. A young woman aware of God's presence in her life, believes she is called to serve God in a special way. She enters a process of discernment to find out whether and how she should respond to such an invitation. Clearly, at least three groups will have to be involved in her discernment process to make it valid. First, she will have to consult with family and friends. The decision would Our attentiveness to God's voice in our life and in the world cannot be restrictive. January-February 1999 Plissart ¯ The Art of Discernment change not only her life, but also their relationship with her. Second, the new group she wants to join will have to be part of the discernment too, since the decision means that the group will or will not go through the change of integrating her into their circle. Third, the discernment will involve the church in which the com-mitment would be made, since her decision will occur in that con-text. Traditionally, each group of people would make their own dis-cernment and, if no consensus was reached, the final say would be settled through the exercise of authority. Yet it seems evident that a greater harmony could be achieved if each group would in some way participate in a common process of discernment. The young woman can dialogue with family and friends about her pos-sible vocation. She can dialogue with the new group to see how her decision would affect her and them. Members of the group can meet her family and exchange opinions on the project, church officials could speak with representatives of the group about the decision, and so forth. If each participant is genuinely searching for guidance from above, the. decision-making process itself and the outcome of it will foster harmony among these people. Such coop-eration will witness to divine creativity at work. Another example. A local religious community wants to decide whether to continue its insertion into a depressed urban area or take on another responsibility. Traditionally, they go through a process of discernment as a group while their superiors also con-sider the decision. Though the local church community might be implicated in the decision, it might not be consulted. When groups arrive at opinions separately, tension easily arises if and when sep-arately formed opinions do not coincide. Here again a common discernment process--at various levels according to possibilities-- would undoubtedly foster harmony: Let the local religious group and the local Christian community meet and exchange on the pro-ject. Let superiors come and .discuss the issue with the local reli-gious community. Let all persons in the several groups be given a chance to go through their personal discernment process in dia-logue with each other. Let the local church authorities dialogue with the group of religious and with the local Christian commu-nity, and so forth. Let the participants allow, in each of these encounters, the Spirit of God to illumine their hearts and minds through the contributions of others. Thereby they will witness to. God's creation of, respect for, and empowering of people who Review for Religious have wonderful differences among themselves. In doing so they will certainly create harmony. A final example. A number of homeless people have occupied a derelict building and are now threatened with eviction because the area must be transformed into a recreation ground. The home-less people refuse to leave. Some local pastors support them in the name of the gospel. The local politician is under pres-sure because the potential inv

Issue 49.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1990. ; Religious Life Spirituality The Clericalization of Monasticism =Thomas Merton and the Enneagram Directing the Third Week Volume 49 Number 2 March/April 1990 R~\'u~w~:o~ R~:~.l(mms (ISSN 0034-639X) is published hi-monthly at St. Louis Universily by the Mis-souri Province Educational Institute of Ihe Society of Jesus: Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Blvd. Rrn. 42g: St. Lxmis. MO 6310g-3393. Second-class postage paid at St. b,~uis MO. Single copies $3.50. Subscriptions: United States $15.00 for one year: $28.00 Ibr two years. Other countries: US $20.00 for one year: if airmail. US $35.00 p~r year. For subscription orders or change of address. wrile: Rt~','ll~w I:oR RI~i.IGOUs: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth. MN 55806. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to R~:\'~:w rot R~:u~;mus; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. ©1990 REview For REI,IGIOUS. 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 Advisory Board David J. Hassel, S.J. Sean Sammon, F.M.S. Mary Margaret Johanning, S.S.N.D. Wendy Wright, Ph.D. Suzanne Zuercher, O.S.B. March/April 1990 Volume 49 Number 2 Manuscripts, books f~,r review and correspondence with the editor should he sent to R~:\'~:w vo~ R~:k~;~ous; 3601 I,indell Blvd.; St. la~uis, MO 63108-3393. Cnrrespondence abnut 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 ardered from R~:\'~:w FO;{ R~:LmtOUS; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. I,~mis. MO 63108-3393. "~Out of print" issues are available frnm University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service fiw the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. PRISMS . The desire for new life, new ideas, new expressions, new insights permeates the everyday existence of us all. Modern day advertising and the consumer economy of first world countries continuously search out the ways to sell products, not in terms of real needs, but in terms of in-duced needs for something new. Consumerism builds upon the human desire for the new, while at the same time offsetting the equally strong human tendency to remain comfortably entrenched in the familiar. The Church seasons of Lent and Easter confront us all with our de-sires for the new and with our equally strong tendency to remain firmly entrenched where we are. The dialogue between Nicodemus and Jesus in the third chapter of St. John's Gospel captures well the continuing ex-change between the Christian and God, clearly focused during these Church seasons. Approaching God out of a certain darkness in our lives, we seek new life and new growth, a new understanding of our faith, or a new sense of relationship with God and with neighbor. But when God starts indicating a dying to some familiar life patterns, when God starts pointing the way to "being born anew," we are tempted to laugh it .off, to claim we are "too old" to need that kind of change. Why not a little "renewal," perhaps a little "restoration," or maybe even an attempt to "recapture" past devotion or past grace (charism)? Any of these words seem to allow ias to keep some measure of control, to retain some-thing of the old and familiar, and yet to pray and give God a place. Rebirth--to be born anew--remains the challenge of Lent and Eas-ter. Rebirth means the dying and rising--the pattern of the paschal mys-tery- which we Christians celebrate in the daily Eucharist. More clearly in these Lenten and Easter seasons we come face-to-face with the most traditional faith concept--that it is the Spirit who brings to birth and who gives life, in our continuing personal growth in our life-in-Christ, in the life of our religious congregations, and in the life of our Church both lo-cal and larger. Our personal response to being born anew is taken up in the articles "Directing the Third Week" by Joseph P. Cassidy, S.J. and "The Theme of Joy in the Spiritual Exercises" by Joan Mueller, O.S.F. We are given new insight into our call and our response to new life in the articles "Will the Real Prodigal Son Please Stand Up?" by Christine Ere-iser, O.S.B. and "Redemption and Romantic Melancholy: Thomas Mer-ton and the Enneagram" by Suzanne Zuercher, O.S.B. "The Re-demption Kernel" by Dennis J. Billy, C.SS.R., presents a new theologi-cal approach in understanding dying and rising, with special application 161 169 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 to religious life. Robert T. Sears, S.J., in his article "Resurrection Spiri-tuality and Healing the Earth," expands our vision about Jesus' resur-rection affecting the ecology of our whole world andso giving us the re-sponsibility of a new life-healing power. Finally those articles specifically dealing with renewal and transfor-mation in the congregations of women and men religious indicate the ar-eas of present struggle, the history of a sometimes laborious develop-ment, and the proposed costly future of new life. The various authors-- Stephen Tutas, S.M., Charles Reutemann, F.S.C., Anne O'Brien, gsic, and Lora Ann Quinofiez, C.D.Po and Mary Daniel Turner, S.N.D., de N.--invite us into seeing and knowing a life beyond renewal and trans-formation, a birth which only the Spirit can bring about for the future of religious life. May the joy with which the risen Jesus consoles us now become more richly our experience of new life. David L. Fleming, S.J. Resurrection Spirituality and Healing the Earth Robert T. Sears, S.J. Father Robert Sears, S.J., teaches in the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola Uni-versity in Chicago. This article had its origin in a presentation made to the North American Conference for Christianity and Ecology. His address is 5554 S. Wood-lawn Avenue; Chicago, Illinois 60637. Those involved in ecology and those involved in a healing ministry are for the most part on two different tracks. The one is focused on a scien-tific study of evolution and the interdependence of creation, the other on individual hurts with little attention to environment. My own healing min-istry, on the other hand, has led me little by little to concern for the en-vironment. I began with attention on the individual, then was led to see family relationships into past generations as grounding present destruc-tive patterns. And only recently have I become aware that the environ-ment itself is affected by these destructive patterns and needs healing. Several experiences have brought me to this conclusion. In the first place, there is evidence that places are affected by what occurs on them. Barbara Shlemon, noted for her healing ministry, has observed the ongoing destructive influence violence can have on certain places. She felt called to build a healing center in Clearwater, Florida but over a year's time could not find a place. With two others she prayed for guidance and one member thought of Native Americans. They looked into the history of that region and found that it was the location of a war with the Seminole Indians where it is estimated that some 10,000 to 15,000 Seminole Indians died as we took their land. They had a service of reconciliation, asking forgiveness of the Indians for what our ances-tors did then. The very next day an ideal piece of land opened up for 163 "164 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 them! It was as though God would not give the land till reparation was made for that violence. I will speak later of an instance in my experi-ence from Chicago. The civil war Camp Douglas lay between Thirty-first and Thirty-third streets and Cottage Grove. Some 6000 Confeder-ate soldiers died there in inhuman conditions, and when we went there to pray for healing, we found that prime property still overgrown and in ruins. Secondly, we have some experimental evidence that plants at least remember. Cleve Backster, an expert on the psychogalvanic skin re-sponse that is basic to the lie detector, decided one day to attach the elec-trodes to a tropical plant in his office. ~ He wondered if the plant would respond to cutting it. It did, but not as much as he expected. He then thought he would burn its leaves, and even at the thought the graph showed a violent response. The plant seemed to be able to anticipate his intended violence. He then set up a situation where plants could "wit-ness" a destructive action. Six people were selected and given numbers. All but one were instructed on their paper to go into the room, look at the plants, and leave. One was instructed to tear up and stamp on one of two plants in the room and then leave. Electrodes were attached to the remaining "witness" plant, and each person again went into the room. Only the plant "knew" who was responsible! There was no re-sponse for the five innocent persons, but when the culprit went into the room the plant responded vigorously, as if in fear. It seems to have re-membered. 2 Finally, Dr. Kenneth McAII, an English psychiatrist noted for his heal-ing ministry with family systems, was traveling by banana boat over the Bermuda Triangle (a place formed by an imaginary line between Miami, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda where for hundreds of years ships and aircraft had gone down without a trace) when the boat was caught in a terrible storm.3 In escaping south, one of the ship's boilers broke leaving them adrift. In his quiet leisure, he heard a droning outside. It wasn't the crew. Researching, he found that this was the place unfit slaves were thrown overboard so their owners could collect insurance money. As Genesis 4 said of Cain's killing Abel "Your brother's blood cries out to me from the soil," these souls were crying out from the sea. On returning to En-gland, Dr. McAI! got Anglican bishops in various places to celebrate Eucharist for those who lost their lives in an untimely way in that place, and later the Bermuda Anglican bishop did the same. For five years be-tween that celebration (in 1977) and his book (1982), there had been no reported accident in that region. Resurrection Spirituality We are dealing with incidents that are hard to repeat scientifically, but such evidence supports a view of the world as living and responsive to what occurs on it. Much like humans who are God's most developed creatures, the earth seems to be marked by past experience. Can it be healed? What implications might result for the earth if humans under-stood how to assist in this healing? It is my conviction that a deeper un-derstanding of the resurrection of Jesus would help us bring healing not only to humans but also to the earth. I will begin by relating creation-centered spirituality to a focus on resurrection. Resurrection-Centered Spirituality A recent focus on the importance of celebrating creation and joining its creative impulse is the work of Matthew Fox: Creation-centered spiri-tuality (see his Original Blessing: a Primer in Creation SpiritualiO, (Bear & Co. Inc., 1983). Fox sees traditional spirituality (which he terms Fall/ Redemption spirituality as instanced in Augustine, Thomas h Kempis up to Tanqueray) as dualistic, focused on the danger of sensuality and earthiness and on the need for ascetical restraint. He argues for another tradition which he finds in the Yahwist, wisdom writers, lrenaeus, Eck-hart up to Teilhard de Chardin, which is basically positive toward crea-tion. In his view Fall/Redemption spirituality sees little value in science, focuses on original sin and its effects, encourages detachment from the world and moral self-control and awaits the end of the world rather than its transformation. Creation spirituality, on the other hand, welcomes the discoveries of science as revealing the creator, focuses on the blessing of creation and our God-given commission to care for it, moves beyond moralistic negation of human action to a sense of communion with na-ture, and believes in the ultimate goodness and creativity of the cosmos. He wants to move beyond a focus on guilt to a focus on spiritual growth. He presents four stages from the work of Eckhart: befriending creation, befriending darkness, befriending creativity or our inner divinity, and be-friending new creation and universal compassion. I found myself in tune with those goals, but not with Fox's negation of the Fall/Redemption tra-dition. It gradually dawned on me that those very goals are restored to us through the resurrection of Jesus. Let me explain. It was Teilhard who turned our attention first to many of these themes. When he was in the novitiate, he told his director about his de-sire for both spirituality and science, and his wise novice director encour-aged him to pursue both, believing that God would somehow bring them into unity. His focus on evolutign did make theologians suspicious that he was neglecting original sin. In response he wrote an appendix to The 166 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 Phenomenon of Man explaining that evil was discoverable at every level of evolution, even though he chose not to speak of it for the sake of clar-ity, There is the evil of failure and disorder in adjusting and emerging, the evil of decomposition of the present to make room for the new, the evil of solitude and anxiety (especially for humans) in striving for con-sciousness in a dark universe, and the evil of growth itself--the constant struggle to make progress against the inertia and resistance of the pre-sent state. Whether further there is an excess of evil, stemming from an historic tragedy, he declines in that study to say. What he does persua-sively illustrate is that humans emerge as a higher consciousness within an evolving universe filled with seeds of new creation. We must choose, and in choosing we bring creation with us for better or worse. By our choices we develop a human "layer" of evolution, a noosphere, that af-fects everything. We create culture and "history," and we, in turn, are influenced by that history. We need only look at our technological world which drives our days with given hours and our attention with narrowly determined tasks to see how we are formed and informed by our crea-tions. Yes we are faced with new possibilities and creative challenges, but new creation is conditioned by the patterns we have grown accus-tomed to: our compulsion to consume and to live by an ever increasing standard of consumption. What will empower us to change? It is this awareness of historical conditioning that makes me take more seriously than Fox seems to the doctrine of original sin. Granted the doctrine as developed by Augustine needs reconsideration, still its roots are the biblical insight that our evil choices have a history. It is not enough to change our present attitudes because the present is conditioned by the choices made in our past. Our ancestors need healing and the earth affected by our ancestors needs healing. Joy in creation cannot accom-plish the earth's healing alone. We need redemption, yet a redemption that does not separate us from the earth but empowers us to purify the earth and bring it into wholeness. Redemption must be more than per-sonal. It must extend to the whole of creation. The resurrection of Jesus changed his sinful, unreliable disciples into a powerful community of com-passion. Can we expand our view of the resurrection to include its power to restore the earth? Let us see. Stages of Salvation History Both Freud and Jung worked on the assumption that the growth of the individual in a speeded up way goes through the stages of evolution-- from emergence out of water to the unfolding of human physical and psy-chological life. This evolutionary view need not be seen as contrary to Resurrection Spirituality/167 creation, since God's creativity is always required. It simply describes how God creates. What I have found is that human spiritual growth also recapitulates the stages of salvation history, and it is only in light of sal-vation history that the resurrection as its culmination can be fully under-stood. I have found five such stages culminating in the death/resurrec-tion of Jesus as the goal of the process: initial faith (Yahwist), familial faith (Elohist/Deuteronomist), individuating faith (Exilic prophets and Job), communitarian faith (foreseen in Isaiah 53, first lived in Jesus) and mission faith (revealed in Pentecost).4 Let us begin with individuating faith. Ezekiel 18 cites the saying: "You have heard it said that the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge." It then goes on to say: "That will no longer be said in Israel, for the children are mine as well as the fathers." They had been living by a so-called "conditional covenant" that af-firmed: "if you keep my law, then you will be my people." That cove-nant, Yahweh affirms, they have broken (see also Jr 31:32), and it is ab-rogated. Yet in this breakdown there is a breakthrough of a promised "new covenant" when Yahweh says: "I will put my Spirit within you and make you live by my statutes" (Ez 36:27). lndividuating faith, then, is a breakdown of human effort and a turning of each individual to God's initiative. I experienced this personally through a period of depression while studying theology in Germany. I began studying Freud to get some understanding, but was still depressed. Then one author led me to Isaiah 43:18 (written during the Exile): "remember not the events of the past ¯ . . See I am doing something new." In other words, healing would come from God's present creativity, not from my efforts to re.pair the past. From that central breakthrough (Israel's and my own), I saw that mere keeping the law (familial faith) was no longer enough. In that stage "The sins of the fathers/mothers are handed down to four generations (and more in my experience), the blessings to a thousand" (see Dt 5:9f, Ex 20:5-6 and so forth). In other words the patterns of history are handed down for better or worse till there is a collapse of human efforts and an inbreaking of God's new creation. Even before that concentration on hu-man cooperation through law, there is (in the Yahwist, Gn 2-3, 12:1-5 and others who wrote in the time of David) a focus on trusting Yahweh in order to find life. That universal trust, however, gave rise to intermar-riage and distortion of faith in Yahweh (as it can do whenever we lose the specificity of our faith) and so encountered the prophetic challenge of the Elohist and Deuteronomist. We see the result of even this human "161~ / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 effort in their Exile. Once we turn to Yahweh's spirit ourselves, we need to find the spirit in others. This we do by the forgiveness of enemies which I believe we find first only in the ministry of Jesus, though it was foreseen and for-gotten in Isaiah 53--the suffering servant. This stage of unconditional forgiveness allows us to remain faithful even to unfaithful partners (as Jesus did with Israel) and so to die that others might live. It forms the basis for the compassionate community that Matthew Fox envisioned. And finally, the actual gift of life in union with God releases a new communal reality through the Pentecostal power of the Spirit. Through the Spirit Jesus' death/resurrection builds a living, self-giving commu-nity that is open to all and to all creation. I contend that it is through this transformation of humanity that ultimately the earth itself will be trans-formed. The ground and goal of this development is God who raised Christ from the dead. The norm of who God is is not creation alone, but the life/death and resurrection of Jesus. "Who sees me sees the Father" (Jn 14:9). God's suffering love surrendered his own Son for us, and through Jesus' response of self-surrender the Spirit of self-giving love is sent and revealed. God is revealed as a community of self-giving love in this world-forming event. This pattern of stages is fully revealed in Jesus, but is lived out cy-clically. Individually or communally we can have a breakthrough to a new stage but then regress to a previous stage. This, I believe, is what happened in the Church. With the failure to convert Israel, the message of Christ went to the gentiles who were not prepared with the solidarity of a thousand year history. The gifts of the Spirit led to factions as we see in the Corinthian community and in the Didache. The central gift of the Spirit of forgiving love that builds the self-giving community was su-perseded by the need for institution and discipline (my "familial stage"). Structure and control replaced healing as focus of attention. As in Jesus' time, I believe we are again emerging from the familial stage of development to recognize again our need for forgiveness and healing. Healing the Human Family In order to understand the healing brought by the resurrection, we need to look at sin in history. The Yahwist, who first wrote of the sin of our original ancestors, did so by first looking at the sin of his day (the time of David). It was a time of domination and exploitation, of loss of faith in Yahweh because of the multiple marriages of kings like Solo-mon, of alienation of families torn by strife. If Yahweh was all good, Resurrection Spirituality 169 how could this happen? The Yahwist concluded (see Gn 2-3) that ~t was due to a freely chosen loss of faith in Yahweh. Humans were the culmi-nation of Yahweh's creation, formed from the earth, given the power to name (and so direct) creation and the commission to subdue the earth and bring it to order. All creation served humans, as humans served God. But they chose their own way and not only did they hide from Yahweh, but they also blamed and were alienated from one another. God gave as pun-ishment that Adam would dominate his wife and the woman would cling to her man, and the earth would be hard to till and not graciously yield crops. The Yahwist was symbolically telling the story of sin. Humans were given care for the earth, but when they turned from God, the source of creativity, they could only use power, dominance, and force. Further, this beginning continued in history. Cain doubted his accept-ability, envied and then killed Abel. Domination and enmity, social and sexual sin were handed down generation to generation to the Yahwist's own day. His solution was a return to trust in Yahweh as Abraham did (Gn 12: 1-5). But as we have seen, Israel proved incapable of such trust. God's Spirit was promised "to make them keep God's Law," but cen-turies passed. A similar envy and hatred of one gifted by God led to Je-sus' death. The heritage of sin exploded around him. The earth quaked and shook the foundations, as though being exorcized from an ancient wound. What began its healing was not a simple trust in God's good-ness. It was Jesus' willingness to forgive and trust God while suffering the effects of human sin. Such generational patterns, we find, change only when they are understood, compassionately borne, and forgiven. This is how we can view Jesus' resurrection. As human he inherited his nation's sinful temptations (see his baptism "to fulfill all justice" (Mt 3: 14-5) and his temptations which were like those of Israel). Yet he re-sponded with a surrendered trust in God. Under God he showed he had "authority" over storm and sea, and over the fig tree. Yet he freely bore the hatred of the Jewish leaders and Romans. His death culminated a life of trust in God, and through his resurrection he "sent" the Spirit to con-tinue this new life with his disciples. What Adam was called to and lost by distrust, Christ restored not on the basis of the old creation, but by the "new creation" through his resurrection. The world is restored to God's favor not by a return to the past (creation), but by a reconciling call from the future--the resurrection. It is important to understand the resurrection as such a restoration in this world. The Resurrection Firstly, the resurrection is an event in this world. It is not uncom- 170 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 mon to imagine the resurrection as Jesus' reward.apart from this world. He has made it and motivates us to try harder. Scripture presents a very different view. Peter's sermon in Acts points to the gift of the Holy Spirit as the sign that Jesus has been made "Lord and Messiah" (Ac 2:36). The resurrection meant that Jesus was made Lord over the whole earth. As Paul put it: "God . . . put all enemies under his feet" so that he in turn can subject all to God "that God may be all in all" (I Co 15:28). This is expressed in the earliest Creed: "Jesus Christ is Lord" (Ph 2:11). Far from separating Jesus from the world, the resurrection unites him to the world in a new sovereign way to bring everything to its intended goal of the kingdom of God. Secondly, the resurrection is a now event. A second misconception is that the resurrection is a past event rewarding Jesus. In the resurrec-tion Jesus returns to God and opens creation to union with God. Since God's Time is an eternal now, the resurrection is also an eternal now. That means it touches all time and all space. It affects the heart of every creature with a deepened and more absolute hope. It is not a particular event that we canlocate in a particular space and time. It is an event that transcends our concept of space and time, and is universally available if we but call upon the Lord. Thirdly, it is not merely spiritual but also bodily. All the apparitions point to bodily aspects: eating fish, touching his side or clinging to him, seeing him though some doubted. The resurrection is, as Teilhard might say, a new phylum in our world, the basis for building all believers into a new Body, a new family that is based not on blood ties or cultural ties, but on faith in Jesus as Lord and on the power of God's Spirit. Since it is a bodily event, it also penetrates the depths of bodiliness and so of the earth. As Colossians says, "It has pleased God to make absolute full-ness reside in him, and by means of him to reconcile everything in his person, both on earth and in the heavens, making peace through the blood of his cross. "( !: 19-20). Fourthly, therefore, in Jesus' resurrection the whole of creation has a new beginning, a new creation. This is the ultimate ground of spiritual healing. Spiritual healing is not simply a repairing of wounds, like re-parenting because of wounds from one's parents. It is actually creating anew. As Isaiah 43 taughtme: "Do not look at what is behind, behold I make all things new." I realized that healing came from looking at God's ever present creativity, not at one's problems. God's love heals our basic distrust. God's love gives us power to forgive rather than re-bel against our heritage in the familial faith stage. I have come to see Resurrection Spirituality that Jesus' resurrection restores our link to the creativity of God. He is the 'new Adam" (1 Co 15:22), the ground of our new family in God. He is also the one who fulfills God's command to Adam--increase and multiply, subdue the earth and bring it into order. As Lord, Jesus has this power to create anew in right order. It was Teilhard who called our attention to three basic principles of ongoing creation or evolution: differentiation, increasing interiority, and deepened community. Every new stage of evolution--molecules to life to sensation to thought--shows increased complexity or differentiation, increased self-activity or freedom, and all this in a total unity. If resur-rection is the final point of creation, a new creation from God, does it show these principles to the highest degree? It does. The Spirit from God gives each a "different" gift "for the building of the body." Differen-tiation and community are both increased as we see in the free sharing with the community that occurred in response to the Spirit in Acts. And the Spirit frees us to our deepest truth. The resurrection is a life at work in our deepest depths calling us through intimacy with Jesus, the Spirit, and our loving Creator. Finally, it is through sharing in the resurrected life of Jesus that we share Jesus' Lordship and power to heal. The miracles of Jesus (show-ing his power over materiality) are expressions of the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. We are to do "even greater works" (Jn 14:12). Jesus' power over the storm at sea (Mt 14:22-33) and over the fig tree (Mt 21:18-22) are not presented as unique to him. Jesus com-plains about their "little faith" and says if they had faith as a mustard seed they could say to the mountain "go into the sea," and it would obey. "If we die with Christ," Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:11-12, "we shall also live with him; if we hold out to the end we shall also reign with him." Andagain in Romans 5:i7: "If death began its reign through one man because of his offense, much more shall those who receive the overflowing grace and gift of justice [grace from Jesus' resurrection] reign through the one man, Jesus Christ." The disciples are to share Je-sus' rule which extends not only to believers but to the whole world (the whole universe). We share this rule not by our own power but as chan-nels of the Spirit--the resurrected power of Jesus, 'for without me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5). Thus, in the scriptural view, the gifts that were meant for humans from the beginning of creation--union with God, rule over the earth that would respond fruitfully, partnership between men and women and the power to bless their offspring--were lost through Adam and Eve's sin 179 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 but restored through the death/resurrection of Jesus. We are to live now in the power of the resurrection or new creation, not just by union with world creativity. Resurrection differs from creation in that it is centered in a personal relation to Jesus (whether explicitly confessed or implic-itly lived through love) and has at least the following characteristics: a commitment beyond feeling (as revealed in Jesus' death in fidelity to God), creative community beyond failure (as seen in his disciples' re-newed community), wholeness beyond perceived disintegration (as seen in their power to heal), and the ability to face death through trust in God's indestructible life. All these are qualities of Jesus' resurrection Spirit as seen in Scripture. But the central difference, in my view, is that creation focuses on the beginning, unaffected by historical choices (an "original blessing"), whereas resurrection restores a new beginning by forgiving and healing actual historical choices and their effects. The stages that Matthew Fox finds in spiritual growth (befriending creation, befriending darkness, accepting inner divinity, cocreativity) almost par-allel the historical stages I discovered (trust and familial being creation, individuating faith opening to darkness, communitarian releasing crea-tivity in relationships, and mission caring for all and the earth). Only he omits the historical grounding. What Jesus' resurrection does is make his-torically real those goals. Jesus took our death-bringing choices on him-self, and in God empowered a new beginning for those who believe and receive forgiveness. All creation "waits" for that freedom of the chil-dren of God, Paul says in Romans 8:20. It is consigned to futility (or emp-tiness) for the sake of that hope. This resurr._ection power is already at work in us (Col 3:1 ). How can it help us become instruments of healing the earth? Healing the Earth If we are meant to live by the power of the resurrection to reconcile, order, and heal, we need to know the principles of such a life. Firstly, we need to be oriented to Jesus' victory. The resurrection brings creation into union with God. Jesus became human and since all humans are united with all creation, his death/resurrection brings crea-tion into union with God's own life. This cannot be lost. The universe is fundamentally saved though we cannot be sure how this transforma-tion will actually work itself out. Healing prayer is grounded in this truth, and seeks Jesus' guidance for how to cooperate with the saving of the earth. Secondly, our power to envision and imagine needs to be trans-formed by this vision of God's kingdom. What we believe affects what Resurrection Spirituality / 173 comes to be. Belief is not a surface act of mind alone, but also includes feeling, will, and imagination. Jesus' initial proclamation was "Repent and believe the good news." Repent meant "change your mind, believe the good news." Healing prayer is often unsuccessful because we do not expect and envision the hoped for change. For example, we might pray for a friend to be healed of an illness, yet go on complaining about how he or she suffers. We are attending to the sickness, not envisioning her getting well and thanking God for it. The conversion we most basically need is to trust God's love totally, We are channels of God's creative light, but if our minds are filled with worries and fears, what we are ac-tually believing is that the worst will happen. It is a spiritual law: what we believe is what we cause. We need God to change our faith, to help us believe that God wants and can bring good to the earth, and that we are given the power to pray for this. An example may help. How many times have we not prayed for good weather with little effect? Perhaps we did not have sufficient faith for such a large project. We may have to start smaller--say with our gar-den- in order to be convinced about the power of such prayer. Or per-haps we don't really believe we have such power with the weather. "That's God's domain," we may have been told and believed. Jesus' disciples were shocked when Jesus commanded the storm to be still, but he c6rrected them for their little faith (Mk 4:40). A number of cases show that we do have marvelous power under God. In a talk on healing the earth (given at the annual conference of the Association of Christian Therapists, San Diego, 1982) Barbara Shlemon told of a prayer for just that purpose. She and several others were giving a healing retreat for sev-eral hundred Native Americans in Montana when a tornado was spotted heading directly toward their camp. Not wanting anyone hurt they thought of disbanding, but decided first to pray for guidance. The way they were graced was to ask the Bishop to say a prayer for God to turn aside the tornado and let only a slight rain come to water the ground. Al-though he was not used to this kind of prayer, the Bishop complied, and then went on with the healing Mass. That is exactly what happened. Only a slight rain fell. The incident may not have received notice if a journal-ist had not been present, with the result that the next morning's head-lines read "Tornado divides and misses a healing service and then comes together again." Needless to say, the Bishop was quite impressed (he had said after the Mass "One does need common sense"). Many other examples could be given.5 Thirdly, what heals is God's love. The more we are filled with God's 174 / Review for Religious. March-April 1990 love and forgiveness, the better channels we will be for all sorts of heal-ing, including that of the earth. If we harbor resentment or judgments against others, we block the power of God's healing. Many instances could be given, but the one that comes to mind was given by Fr. Jim Burke, O.P. in a retreat. He was in a retreat where people shared con-version experiences and one sister spoke of getting to like Detroit after harboring a dislike for many years. Fr. Jim felt her words like a knife. Whenever he thought of bad examples of cities, Detroit came first to mind. In the repentance service he asked forgiveness for his condemn-ing attitude toward Detroit and asked for God's view. The result was that in the next few years he had fifty invitations for missions or retreats in Detroit whereas before he had almost none. Forgiving love opened the way for God's love to work. As we pray for the earth, we need to ask for God's forgiveness of those who exploit the earth, and for ourselves who in many ways have hurt the earth unawares. It is not resentment and bitterness that heals, nor discouragement, but forgiving love and faith. Fourthly, we have found that blocks may often be from the past both in individual healing and in healing the earth. As I mentioned earlier, places seem to remember what has happened on them and similar evil seems to continue. A group of us were led to have a Mass said for the civil war dead from Camp Douglas in Chicago, and to pray for the camp grounds. We found through history that some 6,000 Confederate soldiers died there in inhuman conditions, and the place of the actual camp (be-tween Thirty-first and Thirty-third and Cottage Grove in Chicago, a very suitable piece of land for building) was still a waste land after more than 100 years! We felt many of the dead did find release. We wondered what affect it might have on the land, and now three years later we passed by and saw a new housing complex being built there. I mentioned Dr. McAll's prayer for the Bermuda Triangle, and the five year freedom from incidents. He has many similar examples. We have been led to pray for such events as the Alamo (and the enmity between Spanish and Whites affected by that battle), the different sides in the Northern Ire-land dispute, several areas in Chicago with Mafia and Satanic connec-tions, divisions in Livingston, Kentucky, and similar areas. It may well be that the root of a present misuse or exploitation stretches back to an original hurt (like the killing of the Seminole Indians), or to injustice per-petrated by the Church (like the witch trials of the sixteenth and seven-teenth centuries). In sum, we have found that the same principles that apply to healing of persons apply also to healing the earth. Psalm 115:116 says: "Heaven Resurrection SpiritualiO, / 175 is the heaven of the Lord, but the earth he has given to the children of men." Nature is also given into our care as well as other persons. The earth is given to us to learn to love. As children teach us our sin by how they are affected by it, so God seems to let the earth be devastated so we will see our own inner devastation that causes it. But Jesus has come to restore to us power through his resurrection and Lordship to pray for its healing. Whether we will choose to restore the earth or exploit it has been given to us to decide. Implications for Us What are some implications for our own care for the earth'? Firstly, true prayer is helped by being informed.6 Agnes Sanford found out about the San Andreas fault in order to pray for it, how the earth must swell to create new land, how a division of the.earth falls along that fault. She prayed not to stop movement (that would have caused problems else-where), but that the tremors would be many and slight so that no destruc-tion would occur. If we want God to heal the earth, it helps to know what to pray for. Should we pray for the leaders of nations to realize the im-portance of their land? For the leaders of firms and their relation to the health of the environment? Ask God for guidance. Secondly, we need to grow in awareness of the power of healing prayer. Each of us will be led differently to experience God's love and forgiveness, and begin to pray for small things. Rest in God's love, en-vision that love and light radiating out into your selected place (a flower, garden, bird, and so forth). Envision with love and gratitude the healed condition you anticipate (a healthy flower, garden, and so forth), and fi-nally thank God. If nothing happens, you can check a number of things: your faith (are you convinced God wants this? that God wants to respond to your prayer?), your attunement to God's plan for this area, its appro-priateness with regard to other things (for example, not to pray for a good day for a picnic when the earth needs rain). God is infinite creative love and Jesus has been given "all power" to bring the earth to order. We are Jesus' instruments, so prayer will be effective if we have learned to become channels. Thirdly, you may expand your concern to some place like a city or church. Agnes Sanford was led by one lady to pray for cities. You may pick out city hall (quite a challenge in Chicago, but we have been try-ing). Visualize God's love bringing peace to that place, reconciling dif-ferences. We can waste our energy complaining because what we attend to is what we cause. We need to develop a constructive attitude of trust in God's Spirit and pray with a vision of peace being given. "176 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 There may be some particular issue that you are led to pray for. One of our group worked at Edison, and found his particular office rife with competition and discord. He did not even want to go to work. As we prayed we were led to pra}, for Thomas Edison himself who had no re-ligious faith and was disillusioned and angered by conflicts and compe-tition around the use of electricity. We prayed for him to be healed and opened to trust in God, to forgive and be forgiven and for the corpora-tion he began to be freed from that attitude. There has been relief in my friend's office, but long term change can require ongoing prayer. Or we may be concerned about the loss of small farms and the ex-ploitative policies of insurance companies that have received the land. We may not know how to.pray for such complicated issues and can best leave them in God's hands, always ready to do what we are led to do. We can pray God's light into these lands, and God's protection. I was asked by some members of the Association of Christian Therapists to go out to their land and bless it, and pray for any traumatic events (Native American or otherwise) that occurred on it. I was more than happy to do that knowing the many instances where such prayer has helped, though in most cases we don't see the results for some time. Conclusion As Psalm 115 says: "Heaven belongs to the Lord alone, but he gave the earth to humans." We have misused it, appropriated it for ourselves, as the parable of the vineyard says, and even killed God's Son, but we have not been left without resources for healing. Through the power of the Holy Spirit in Jesus' resurrection we can cooperate in God's ongo-ing creative work. We pray daily: 'Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." In heaven God rules. On earth we pray that God may also bring life, peace, order and justice, but it cannot be done except through many who make themselves channels of God's love. Agnes Sanford likes to use the example of the light bulb. God is the power source, Jesus the transformer, but there will be no light unless we light bulbs are wired to Jesus and ultimately to our triune God. Further, one light can light a room, but if we want to light a house or a city ,we need many bulbs. God has entrusted the earth to us and given us the en-ergy. We still have to understand how creation works and how it is healed, and we need to become ever more fully united with God's crea-tive power. Resurrection Spirituality / "177 NOTES ~ See Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, The Secret Life of Plants (N.Y.: Avon Books, 1973), chapter I. -' Ibid, pp. 24-25. Backster admitted the plant could have picked up guilt feelings in the culprit, but since it was for science he likely had none. 3 See his Healing the Famil\' Tree (London: Sheldon Press, 1984), pp. 59-61. 4 See my "Trinitarian Love as Ground of the Church," Theological Studies, vol. 37, no. 4, Dec. 1976, pp. 649-679 where I develop this argument, and "Healing and Family Spiritual/Emotional Systems," Journal of Christian Healing, vol. 5, no. I (1983), pp. 10-23, where I apply the five stages to healing family systems. 5 See Agnes Sanford, Creation Waits (Plainfield, N.J.: Logos International, 1978) for several of her examples. 6 See W. R. Parker and E. St. Johns Dare, Prayer Can Change Your Life (Prentice- Hall Inc., 1957) where they give results from three self-chosen control groups-- prayer only, therapy only, and prayer and therapy--and found that the prayer and therapy group improved by far the most. and prayer alone the least! They concluded that psychology (understanding) was needed to guide the prayer. Bang! Bang! "Yeah!" The miniature cowboy (or was it a cop? Scandalous play, whichever) said to his tiny victim, who wouldn't stay still, "'When you're really dead, you're dead for life." And I thought of a seed in the ground And a stone rolled away in a garden and "Out of the mouths of babes." Clarita Felhoelter 3105 Lexington Road Louisville, KY 40206 The Third National LCWR-CMSM Assembly Stephen Tutas, S.M. Father Stephen Tutas, S.M., finished his term as President of the Conference of Ma-jor Superiors of Men Religious at the time of the August 1989 national assembly about which he writes. Previously he had served as the Superior General of the So-ciety of Mary (Marianists) in Rome. His address is Marianist Formation Center; 22622 Marianist Way; Cupertino, California 95014, The Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men Religious held a joint national assembly in Lou-isville, Kentucky, August 19-23, 1989. Over one thousand participated in this historic discussion of the future of religious life. What was spe-cial about this meeting was that it was a gathering of leaders of the esti-mated 130,000 women religious and 30,000 men religious at the service of the Church in the USA and beyond. What was also significant was that the discussion of the religious life of the future was placed in the context of our Church and society. It was not an in-house discussion, but a reflection on the future of the world and the Church and the response of religious to these anticipated changes. We viewed the challenging movie "Global Brain" and listened to stimulating presentations and reactions. Besides the women and men re-ligious, Mrs. Donna Hanson spoke from the perspective of a lay person while Archbishops Thomas Kelly and Pio Laghi represented the official local and universal Church. The greatest strength of the assembly, how-ever, was the quality of sharing that took place at the 119 round tables as the participants expressed their thoughts about where they are going-- and where they want to go--as women and men religious at the service of the Church in the USA. 178 The Third National LCWR-CMSM Assembly / 17'9 Charles Reutemann, F.S.C., described the process well: ". not so much of identifying something new but of grasping firmly the signifi-cant strands that have emerged and are emerging over the past twenty-five years . " Reports of the table discussions were gathered and col-lated, leading up to consensus on ten "transformative elements for re-ligious life in the future." And because the most important part of any meeting is what comes afterwards, the last session of the assembly was devoted to a table-sharing of planned follow-up. As Robert Schreiter, C.PP.S., pointed out ". if we are to be faithful to our tasks in lead-ership, and engage in more than a maintenance ministry, then look into the future we must." The assembly was an inspiring experience of looking back with grati-tude and of looking forward with hope, anticipating changes in the world around us. For me, it was another occasion to thank God for the grace of living at this time in history. As the assembly came to a close and I completed my term of service as President of CMSM, I looked ahead to a new phase in my life. I continue a very active ministry with women and men religious of many communities besides my own Marianist com-munity, and I also pray and reflect with many diocesan clergy and laity in the context of spiritual direction and retreats. Accordingly, my first act after the meeting was, as always, to pray and reflect about what I had seen and heard. Then I decided to offer this summary to others. When the tri-conference commission on religious life and ministry met for the first time this past February, two tasks were determined: the clarification of the identity of religious life and the promotion of collabo-rative ministry. Both objectives were emphasized at the LCWR-CMSM National Assembly. In fact, they seemed to be fused into one in the un-derstanding that religious in the future will be recognized precisely by their commitment to collaborative ministry in the local church. In this regard I found the observation made by Charles Reutemann especially significant: "Of special interest today is the phenomenon of lay partici-pation in founding charism., what seems to be demanded today is that bonding between lay and religious be one of a common spirituality, a ba-sic Christian spirituality of mission modified by the unique focusing of a congregation's special founding charism . . . a shared vision focused on a common ministry." To be ecclesial means to b~ collaborative, to have a sense of belong-ing to a larger community, to recognize that each person brings a unique gift to the group as a whole. Religious life, with the emphasis on spe-cific charisms, is built on the realization that each person is gifted and Review for Religious, March-April 1990 that a dynamic community is one that calls forth the gifts of every mem-ber. What religious try to do in their own communities--recognize and affirm giftedness--is applicable to the larger Christian community. Donna Hanson used the image of a relay "where people work together helping each other toward the community's common goal." Relays "re-quire planning, patience, and practice. Relays demand teamwork . . . could we also discover new ways of supporting our team members in their vocations to marriage, the single state, religious life and ordina-tion?" What will be the specific contribution of religious life to the Church of tomorrow? The LCWR-CMSM assembly gave the strongest endorse-ment to three features: women and men religious will be prophetic, con-templative, with a preferential option for the poor. These are not exclu-sive properties of religious. All the baptized are called to belong to a Church that is prophetic, contemplative, with a preferential option for the poor. Donna Hanson called for a new agenda: "We on the relay team must expand our Church agenda from a preoccupation with A, B, C-- abortion, birth control, and celibacy--to a more comprehensive com-mitment to D, E and F-- debt, environment, and family." This church-in-the-world emphasis is very promising for religious life and for the Church as a whole as we move into the twentieth cen-tury. It was good to hear Archbishop Laghi speak about a Church in the USA that is vibrant and still growing, and to hear him echoing the words of Pope John Paul II about religious life at the heart of the mystery of the Church. He reaffirmed the desire of religious to be on the cutting edge and to be prophetic and also challenged religious to find new mea-sures to meet the needs of ttiese new times. While some focus on the de-cline of numbers and the aging of religious, Archbishop Laghi chose to remind the religious that much more remains to be done. The climate of the meeting was remarkably positive, but not unreal-istic. Recognizing that attitudinal change is always difficult, the partici-pants saw the need for intensified ongoing formation as we move into the twentieth century. They also saw that the most significant changes would take place in communities and in the Church through incultura-tion. Change does take place most dramatically through the incorpora-tion of new members. There is need to reach out more effectively to blacks, native Americans, Hispanics, Asiatics, and also to others who are at present marginalized from church and society. But Robert Schrei-ter also issued a warning: "American Catholics' demand for a partici-patory model of leadership in parishes, coupled with the growth of lay The Third National LCWR-CMSM Assembly ministries, will result in a great deal of energy expended on intramural strife over issues of power and authority . There is great tension involved in striving to build a Church that calls forth the gifts of every member. Shared responsibility is a marvelous ideal, but not easily realized. But as I reflect on this, I am encouraged by looking at where we have come from and where we are going today. Our hope for the future is always based on our experience of God at work among us in the past. The tri-conference retirement project is a great ex-ample of ecclesial collaboration. The tri-conference commission on re-ligious life and ministry is a promising new structure in the Church. The ongoing collaboration between LCWR and CMSM regionally and nation-ally is an important witness. Looking forward to the year 2010 means that we are dealing with four five-year plans. Only a great belief in the value of religious life and the power of the Spirit at work among us enables religious to accept the mission to be messengers of hope in the Church today. The assembly statement was a commitment: "We will nourish these transformative elements for religious life in the future." They were ten in number, arranged in the order of priorities. The first three are these: 1. Prophetic Witness Being converted by the example of Jesus and the values of the gos-pel, religious in the year 2010 will serve a prophetic role in church and in society. Living this prophetic witness will include critiquing societal and ecclesial values and structures, calling for systemic change and be-ing converted by the marginalized with whom we serve. 2. Contemplative Attitude Toward Life Religious in the year 2010 will have a contemplative attitude toward all creation. They will be attentive to and motivated by the presence of the sacred in their own inner journeys, in the lives of others, and through-out creation. Recognizing contemplation as a way of life for the whole Church, they will see themselves and their communities as centers of spiri-tuality and the experience of God. 3. Poor and Marginalized Persons as the Focus for Ministry Religious in 2010 will be investing their resources in direct service with and advocacy for structural change on behalf of the poor and margi-nalized. They will minister where others will not go. Their own listen-ing to and learning from the poor and marginalized will shape all aspects of their lives. The other transformative elements, without commentary, are: 4. Spirituality of Wholeness and Global Interconnectedness Review for Religious, March-April 1990 5. Charism and Mission as Sources of Identity 6. Change of the Locus of Power 7. Living with Less 8. Broad-based, Inclusive Communities 9. Understanding Ourselves as Church 10. Developing Interdependence Among People of Diverse Cultures. While all ten are important, the first three received the strongest sup-port from the assembly. Preliminary to being a prophetic witness is the openness to conver-sion. It is interesting that religious are calling themselves to a continu-ous change of attitude. This change will come about as religious reflect on the example of Jesus and the values of the gospel. I found the words of Graciela Volpe, R.S.C.J., very helpful: "By their charismatic and prophetic vocati6n, religious men and women are called to capture and interpret the signs of the times, the demands of God in each historical moment. This requires letting oneself be led by the Spirit, opening to the Spirit of God, an entrance on the road of discernment, a humble and sin-cere search for the call of God in each situation in the complexity of events. ' ' It is also interesting to note the closing words of the first transfor-mative element. People are converted not only by meditating on the gos-pel, but also by associating with the marginalized with whom they serve. In the third transformative element, we are reminded that listening to and learning from the poor and the marginalized will shape all aspects of our lives. Many of us are just beginning to learn what this means. But as any-one learns and shares, others in the community also learn. Perhaps this is the most striking feature of this transformative ele-ment and in fact of all the priorities, namely, that being prophetic is not something peculiar to religious life. The entire Church is called to be pro-phetic. Religious recognize that they are called to contribute their aware-ness of what it means to be prophetic. Their mission is to lead by exam-ple. This is what it means to be on the cutting edge. Religious are called to be outspoken in word and in lifestyle. This call to be prophetic prompts two basic questions: How do we critique societal--and ecclesial--values and structures? How do we call for and facilitate systemic change? Charles Reutemann commented: "As we look at religious life, in its lifestyle and varied ministries, and the spirituality which motivates it, can we say that we need more than ever to be prophetic, to continue to offer a radical criticism of the social and political injustices in our society, in housing, schooling, racism, and so The Third National LCWR-CMSM Assembly / "11~3 forth, and to bring a contemporary vision of the beatitudes and gospel message that will energize a confused and disheartened people?" Being prophetic goes hand in hand with being contemplative. It is important to note that the contemplative attitude we want to develop as religious communities and as Church is toward all creation. We see the need to step back from contemporary activism even while being intensely apostolic. We need to be attentive to the presence of the sacred first of all in our own journeys, and then in the lives of others. As we see God at work in our own lives, we are able to see God at work in the lives of others. Our awareness of how God is at work among us is the key to both ministry and community. Contemplation is a way of life for the entire Church. But religious, individually and corporately, are called to be centers of spirituality in the Church and to be expert in being able to share the experience of God. Once again we see that religious life in the future is to be characterized not so much by what religious do, as by how religious live. In being prophetic and contemplative, religious are inspired to reach out to the poor and to the marginalized. This will become more and more the focus of ministry. Graciela Volpe reminded us of the assertion of Le-onardo Boff: "A Copernican Revolution has been produced in the Church, whose.significance goes beyond the Latin American ecclesial context, and concerns the universal Church. This option signifies the most important pastoral-theological transformation which has occurred since the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. With it a new socio-historical place is defined, from which the Church wishes to be present in society and construct herself, namely, in the midst of the poor, the new subjects of history." But Graciela also reminded us that ". the option for the poor is being viewed with suspicion, obstacles are be-ing put in its way and sometimes it is condemned. The Christian base communities begin not to be trusted. A surge of neo-conservatism is be-ing felt within our Church." While the Christian community must be concerned about everyone, religious serve to remind the Church not to forget the poor and the margi-nalized. I found it especially challenging to note that religious in the fu-ture will minister where others will not go! Direct service with the poor and advocacy of structural change on behalf of the poor are already be-coming more and more characteristic of contemporary religious life. Again, Graciela Volpe shared her experience in commenting that "this mission of Jesus was eminently concrete. Jesus lived it in a conflic-tual context, fighting against sin and for the human person, especially 11~4 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 the poor. To follow Jesus today implies for us the consciousness that we also are supposed to live his mission in concrete historical situations, cer-tainly conflictual ones, 'in an ongoing struggle against sin which mani-fests itself in concrete political, economic, and social structures." While Robert Schreiter challenged us with the observation that "communities now have much rhetoric about the poor, but generally pursue a middle-class lifestyle" Charles Reutemann rightly pointed out that "it would be impossible to have lived religious life for the past twenty years with-out being aware of the intense focusing on the concerns of the poor, the option for the poor." The Church of tomorrow cannot be exclusive or closed. It must be recognized as compassionate and welcoming. The role of religious life is to help build a Church that calls forth the gifts of every member, a Church which recognizes the potential and actual giftedness of every mem-ber, a Church which continually restates the universal call to holiness and mission, a Church which gathers together God's sons and daughters as co-disciples. INCARNATION While sage and sorcerer Sought salvation in words, And high priests strove in blood To reverse man's age-old curse, While from scruples' towers Flagellant and Pharisee Laid siege to Paradise, You remade us from a woman, Formed of her flesh, instead of dust, No longer mere breath and image, But Your very Self at her "Fiat." Kathleen T. Choi 1706 Walanuenue Ave. Hilo, Hawaii 96720 Religious Life Spirituality in the Year 2010 Charles Reutemann, F.S.C. Brother Charles Reutemann, F.S.C., is a de La Salle Brother of the New York prov-ince. He currently serves as a staff member of the Center for Spirituality and Justice in Bronx, New York, as adjunct professor in spirituality and spiritual direction at the Maryknoll School of Theology, and spiritual director at St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, New York. For sixteen years he had been director of the Sangre de Cristo Renewal Center in Sante Fe, New Mexico. His address is St. Joseph's Seminary: Dunwoodie; Yonkers, New York 10704. When first approached to share some reflections on religious life at this year's LCWR/CMSM assembly, the year 2010 was proposed as a con-text for describing what religious life might look like in the foreseeable future. It was an attractive image, 2010, arbitrary but just far enough ahead to make one wonder. The program theme has since been descrip-tively changed to "tradition and transformation in religious life," but I have the feeling that the substance is the same: what will things look like twenty years down the road, as we move through present traditions and experiences? In targeting 2010 we recognize that the changes shall not happen over-night, nor in 2009, but that the future is already germinating and hap-pening now. Would it be correct then to say that since we now seem to be in a settling out, settling down, though still transitional period of re-ligious life, it would be helpful to identify and further describe the main trends and movements ihat are presently pro~,oking and energizing us so that we might embrace them in greater depth and with more enthusiasm? Is it a question then not so much of identifying something new but of graspingfirmly the significant strands that have emerged and are emerg- 185 Review for Religious, March-April 1990 ing over the past twenty-five years, and see if we can continue to weave them integratively into a religious life experience that will support and enhance the evolving Church in its quest for the kingdom? "Spirituality" would seem to be an "in" word today: articles, books, seminars, institutes--all are using the word repeatedly and in a variety of ways. Somehow I have the feeling that underneath its repeated use there are two strong movements: the quest for interiority and the con-tinuing quest for identity. In addition, I find it difficult to locate any one definition of spirituality that applies to all of its uses. Thus, for our pur-poses and partially because of my own bent, I should like to settle for a definition that focuses on the experiential, that is, what it feels like from within, as well as something that is applicable to all situations, re-gardless of different belief systems and religious responses. Hence, I would describe spirituality as a kind of mind-set, or a heart/mind-set, or if you are familiar with the skill of focusing, a body-sense/heart/mind-set that focuses a person's energies as he or she receives, reflects on, judges, and acts out life's responses in light of the transcendent. Spiri-tuality is thus a kind of integrative orientation which penetrates and chan-nels energies, as a person seeks for meaning and lives out life's choices. Except for the totally fragmented person, most of us function out of some spirituality in a good part of our conscious moments, though we may not be actively aware of that. Again, what is said of the individual may be said of the collectivity: groups function out of a spirituality, a heart/mind-set orientation as collectively they seek for meaning and live out life's choices with some awareness of the transcendent. A helpful metaphor for an experienced spirituality would be that of a large cable of many copper strands through which an electrical current flows. For the Christian, and afortiori, for the religious, this electrical current can be identified as the Holy Spirit, or the grace of Jesus, or the grace of God--whichever term one feels most comfortable with. In any case, the electrical current is a power source beyond the self; yet it be-longs to the self in freedom to accede to, impede, or modify the flow of this current. In such a metaphor for spirituality, the electrical current is absolutely indispensable; yet it is the copper cable and its strands that need to occupy our attention as we seek to describe religious life spiritu-ality in the year 2010, for all of us have some responsibility for that. I see the cable as having as many as eight identifiable strands sometimes overlapping through which the current of God's grace is presently form-ing the expression of religious life. I would name them as: founding charism strand, holistic strand, the experience of God strand, dealing Religious Life Spirituality with impasse strand, prophetic strand, conversion strand, feminine prin-ciple strand, and ministry strand. A brief description of each follows. The Founding Charism Strand By now, many initiatives have been taken by each religious group-ing to reappropriate its founding charism. Serious scientific research has uncovered the language, thought-patterns, and experiences of the foun-der and his or her early companions. Based upon this, there has been an attempt to re-say the rule, the constitutions, methods of governance, and mission statement. Through questionnaire, convocation, document, and chapter meeting, practical steps have been taken to involve the total mem-bership in valuing the charism, in recognizing it in its present lived ex-perience, and in re-appropriating it more enthusiastically as an histori-cal ideal for the present and the future. Underneath, of course, there is the strong conviction that it is God's Holy Spirit who has created the charism and who now invites us to a new appropriation. Yet there remains a challenge: we need to continue to demytholo-gize the founding charism by putting it into contemporary thought-form, imagery, and applicability, even as we must recognize that the charism itself has not completed its growth, for it is a living reality that can be ever transmuted while still retaining its original identity. Reli-gious are not meant to be stamped-out copies of an historically-conditioned founder, but possessors of his or her charism that is rooted in an initial gift which flowers in new ways and new relevances. For us, of special interest today is the phenomenon of lay participation in our founding charism. Lay collaboration is being redefined into more than a shared participation in the good works of religious, or a prayerful bond-ing of common aspirations. What is being demanded today is that the bond between lay and religious be rooted in a common spirituality, a ba-sic Christian spirituality of mission modified by that unique focusing of a congregation's special founding charism. Today and into the future we shall speak of creating Lasallian, Franciscan, Marian families; but this will have to be rooted in a mutually shared spirituality of mission with its unique focus flowing from the founder's gift. In lay-religious collabo-ration today there are no firsts and seconds, but a shared vision focused on a common ministry. And so, this founding charism strand needs fur-ther attention as the numbers of religious lessen and lay-religious col-laborators increase. The Holistie Strand Last February, I was part of a group of three hundred who attended "1111~ / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 a seminar on American Spirituality at the Mercy Center in Burlingame, California. While there, I noticed an announcement on the bulletin board that said there was a resident sister who was available to give a massage, for a fee. I have never had a massage, and regretted that I could not work it into my seminar schedule. But it did seem appropriate: spirituality with massage. Is this what holistic spirituality is all about?--"holistic"-- again, a much-used word, but one that attempts to say that body and spirit need equal attention, that the cultivation of the whole person comes about through an exciting multiplicity of experiences that leads to nature/ person integrity. Personally, I like to say that "holistic" is not just an integrated harmony of body and spirit, but that it includes a felt experi-ence of God, that the experience of self (body-spirit) in a developmental growthful way is also a God-experience, something that happens simul-taneously. Karl Rahner seems to suggest this when he speaks of the uni-versality of religious experiences in ordinary happenings. Should this not incline us to want to grow more holistically?. For then, God would not be thought of as some kind of "adversary," standing over and above the self, calling the individual to some better self, but as a Presence within, calling a self that is desirable (as Sebastian Moore would say) to further growth and development. Becoming one with the self (body/ spirit) is becoming one with God. Spirituality and massage do go to-gether. A fully-embraced holistic strand within spirituality opens the door to a healthy receiving and adapting of psychology in its theories and popu-larized processes. Self-knowledge and self-acceptance are essential to healthy spirituality, and modern psychology offers extraordinary help in becoming the holistic self. A rapid glance at the prospectus of extended renewal programs offered to religious today show such things as: jour-naling, dream analysis, enneagram, focusing, Myers Briggs interpreta-tion, and so forth--all tools for self-knowledge and integration. Added to this are the relational helps: skills for collaboration and community-building, communication skills, and the arts of relating. Then there are the healing arts which use music, massage, color, fiber, and clay. Is all of this not a strand of a spirituality of the present into the future, a mod-erated, integrated cultivation of body-spirit? Tennyson's lines from Ulys-ses might well signal the motivation: I am a part of all that i have met. Yet all experience is an arch where-thro" Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades Forever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, Religious Life SpiritualiO, / 189 To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho" to breathe were life. The Experience of God Strand (a balance to the holistic strand!) By title, this strand of religious life spirituality may seem to be the most obvious. There can be several differing theologies of what reli-gious life is all about, but there's no arguing with its name: "re-ligious"-- bound back to God. God is the central agenda, God is the enough, and, as the Constitution on the Church insists, the religious is centered on God and "the more." We have heard it many times: serv-ice and doing are essential for religious; but it is the "being," the wit-nessing to the central agenda that God is and that God cares in the immediacy of an exciting and troublesome world--that is what religious are all about. And yet, to achieve that kind of presencing, religious can-not just be, they have to be nourished by a lively, ongoing experience bf God. Here, the key word is "experience": do we really believe that God is extraordinarily near in the ordinary, in the daily, in the moment? If so, where are the happenings, the daily experiences in life where we can say: here! God is affirming, inviting, scolding, caring? If Elizabeth Barrett Browning can say to her beloved "how do I love thee? let me count the ways," should that not also be the language of the religious who is a lover? Let me count the ways, O Lord, that you come to me today and I to you. Our Judaeo-Christian God is a passionate, personal God, who invites to a relationship, but who also exacts a relationship and a passionate response. Obviously, prayer, prayerful awareness, is cen-tral to a "counting of the ways," a deliberate acknowledging of the re-lationship. Prayer is not an end in itself, nor is it a conjuring act, though that belongs, of course. Prayer at its core is "a counting of the ways," a saying "yes" in a fumbling, inadequate way to the intermittently ex-perienced God. In our times, there have been all kinds of development of the prayer response: contemplative centers, prayer workshops, experiments with methodologies, books. Yet, with all of this, it remains important that we be not distracted from the central fact: God is ever near, wiping away the tear, suffering with us, helping us to taste and see in the immediacy of our lives. Cultivating an awareness of God's presence is our chief re-sponse. That, too, is the central girl that spiritual directors can be for oth-ers: a hungry awareness of this passionate God. Very much part of the "experience of God" strand, though it could be given separate treatment, is our focus on the human Jesus. I have al-ways felt that one of the most significant statements in that remarkable 190 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 book, Shaping the Coming Age of Religious L(fe, by Cada, Fitz, and oth-ers, is this: "One of the major prerequisites for the movement of a re-ligious community from a time of search and darkness to that of creat-ing a transformed community is the personal transformation among a significant number of people in the community . The most striking feature of this metanoia is a new (in the sense of deep, broader, and so forth) relationship to the person of Jesus and the gospel message of the kingdom." Experiencing Jesus in his humanity has a special attraction for our era which values the human and seeks to minister to its broken-ness. Today, Christology has fed into this contemporary longing with many remarkable studies: and belief in a resurrected human Jesus, who has gone before us and who is now let loose in our world as a healing, ministering presence, is for many a source of great hope. I would think that an ideal spirituality of 2010 would include a lively love affair with the person of Jesus in which through the concrete instances of his his-torical life we would penetrate his mind and heart and thus stretch back into the heart, mind, and feelings of our very God. God may be inex-haustible mystery, but divinity does not have to be mysterious--there is Jesus. The Dealing with Impasse Strand We do not have to have lived long to be convinced that life is filled with impasse situations: rejections, oppression, exploitation, and suffer-ing bear a multitude of names and disguises. Spiritual directors hear from their directees an endless litany of these darkness experiences, and the pain and confusion which they cause. Also, if our social critics and art-ists are any gauge, what happens to the individual is happening on the worldwide stage of society where drugs, local wars, forced deportation, the funneling of natural resources for weapons of destruction, the stran-gulation of initiative by business conglomerates, are creating societal im-passe in the social, political, and economic spheres. Just as "figuring a way out" is no longer an option for the individual in impasse, rational planning by societies seems less and less feasible. Social institutions are becoming paralyzed by never-ending impasse situations. What kind of spirituality is best able to deal with impasse? Once again, we probably know the answers, but it may be helpful to spell them out and thus fashion another strand of a wholesome religious life spiri-tuality. Earlier this summer, while Pope John Paul was visiting Norway, a country which has one of the highest p~r capita incomes in the world, one 28-year old student was interviewed as saying: "We have every-thing, yet something is missing in our lives, something spiritual. So Religious Life Spirituality many things happen that you cannot explain. We often talk about this at our university." Impasse. The Holy Father himself made this com-ment: "Science and technology, like the economic life they generate, cannot of themselves explain, much less eliminate, evil, suffering, and death." Impasse. The reality is that material self-sufficiency and politi-cal planning, so terribly necessary for all, cannot of themselves resolve deep personal and societal impasse--something which even liberation theologians are coming more and more to realize. Here in America, we have experimented extensively with the self-help techniques of psychology as being able to bring a person or a group through impasse. Gail Sheehy writes of the victorious personality, the survivor who by self-trust, flexibility, and the assistance of a mentor is able to overcome the cataclysmic effects of being a boat-person, a sur-vivor of the holocaust, a castaway from a disintegrated family. Yet even here, psychology does not seem to be enough--another level has to be touched to resolve impasse. Witness the Cambodian refugee, whom Miss Sheehy cites as a victorious personality, who says: "I started thinking, 'maybe God has a plan for me.' If I didn't think that way I would have given up so many times." Are self-help insights and techniques enough to confront impasse? What then? Allowing for the need of economic and political plan-ning, as well as the need for psychological self-awareness, would it not be true to say that the day-to-day impasse situations of our lives can only be met by Christian reflection: "Maybe God has a plan for me"? Here we touch upon experienced faith in a contemplative mode. This is not so much a belief system as it is a simple awareness that "God chooses what is foolish in the world to shame the wise and what is weak in the world to shame the strong" (! Co 1:27). God has a plan for me. Such an awareness rests in the paradox of nothingness and its seeming im-passe. In such awareness of darkness before the Lord, individuals and groups, moved by faith, can quietly exclaim: "I am crucified with Christ--but I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me" (Ga 2:20). Maybe God has a plan for me, as I rest in the crucified Christ. A spirituality of the present into the future needs very much to make creative space for contemplative moments where impasse is accepted and reflected on-- gone through contemplatively. Only then can there be a flowering of hope that will nourish a utopian praxis in the very face of such impasse. The Prophetic Strand Although history tells us that there have always been prophets, we seem to be needing them more today than in our remembered past. Is it 199 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 because of the extraordinary changes and the accelerated rate of change that we find we need someone to tell us what this means and where it is all going? Is it also because, as never before, the media is able to re-veal to us the tragedies and unending travail of so many of the world's inhabitants? Planet earth,, though spectacularly beautiful from a distant moon walk, is pock-marked and diseased when looked at closely--the media has shown us this. We can no longer afford to "bring on the clowns" to help us forget; rather, we find we need prophets, truth-tellers, to remind us that many on planet earth can never be fully human, fully alive; we need truth-tellers, prophets, to help us mourn injustice, and to show us by lifestyle and ministry how to offer the poor some uto-pian hope and an alternative vision. We religious: are we meant to be prophets in our own culture? We are accustomed to describe ourselves as being on the cutting edge, as be-ing in the world but not of it, belonging but not entrapped, always strug-gling for justice and the better way. Certainly, scriptural prophets were on the cutting edge of their cultures, belonging to the scene but refusing to be corrupted by it. Certainly, too, our founders and foundresses and early associates were on the cutting edge, prophets in their culture. Is it part of our vocation then to be prophetic in a special way, and will it become even more evident and necessary as we reappropriate in depth our founding charism? Will it be a clear mark of the refounded religious group that, in both lifestyle and ministries, there will be significant mourn-ing and denouncing of injustice in the marginalized as well as the offer-ing of clear alternatives for social betterment? It is remarkable how Walter Brueggemann's book on The Prophetic Imagination has captured the thinking of many who today are writing about religious life! I join them as I add these thoughts. Brueggemann points out that anyone who uses power, particularly in bureaucratic re-ligion and religious life, tends to develop "a royal consciousness," that is, a fixated omniscient view that power-holders are automatically the cus-todians of God's power, and hence know best how to control structures and limit dissent. A royal consciousness mentality loves law and order, and exalts the status quo. A royal consciousness mentality is forced to stifle creativity, encourage passivity, and consequently fosters fear and mistrust. But, Brueggemann says, the oppression goes just so far; his-tory reveals that when the very stones are crying out, God breaks through and overthrows the control by raising up prophets. Andthe prophets play two roles: they radically criticize existing inequities, not so much as a social crusade or in strident indignation but in grief and lament, a thren- Religious Life Spirituality ody of woe. And secondly, the prophets provide alternative visions that penetrate the numbness of despair and give energy for opening up new paths. Does Brueggemann's insight speak to religious life today? By life-style and ministries are we being called to a more visible prophetic spiri-tuality that will enable us to offer radical criticism in housing, school-ing, job opportunities, religious expression, medical care, and a host of other social and political structures, and continue to bring a contempo-rary vision of the beatitudes and gospel message that can truly energize a confused and disheartened people? The ways and means of prophetic expression will vary: we may be serving as individual catalysts rather than as groups, we may be creating communities rather than living in com-munity, and so on; but prophecy must certainly be part of religious life spirituality in 2010. The Conversion Strand In 2 Corinthians Paul writes: "All of us gazing on the Lord's glory with unveiled faces, are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image by the Lord who is Spirit." For the Christian, the process of transformation or conversion entails a lifelong focusing on the face of Christ and an active surrender to the Lord who is Spirit. Conversion is one of those strands of spirituality that everyone recognizes as essen-tial. Mohandas Gandhi rues that he is still unconverted: "It is an unbro-ken torture to me," he says, "that I am still so far from him, who, as I fully know, governs every breath of my life, and whose offspring I am." Thomas Merton, on what was to be the last day of his Asian jour-ney exclaims: "What is essential . . . is not embedded in buildings, is not embedded in clothing, is not necessarily embedded even in a rule. It is somewhere along the line of something deeper than a rule. It is con-cerned with this business of total inner transformation." Conversion. The parameters of Merton's 1968 perceptions of religious life may have changed, but the business of total inner transformation remains a formi-dable goal for all religious. Property can be bought and sold, garb can undergo many modifications, rules can be simplified and redirected; but that firm decision with its appropriate means whereby we place ourselves on the path of Jesus remains the never-ending challenge. Conversion of individuals, of small communities, and of the total grouping remains a basic project in religious life. Two observations about conversion and spirituality. First, there is de-veloping a new kind of leader in the Church. Inasmuch as social con-cern about armaments, the economics of structural poverty, refugees, ecol- 194 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 ogy, the homeless, and so forth, have high priority in the consciences of Church and society, people are looking to leaders who can deal ef-fectively with such concerns. And, more often than not, the Church lead-ers who are rising up to work with them are indiscriminately sister, priest, brother, lay person, bishop; but what is common to them all is that each has undergone a personal conversion, a conversion provoked by some kind of renewal experience--a program, charismatic prayer, an AA experience, some social justice involvement that helpfully trauma-tized-- and through this experience or series of events each has found an-swers to very real and very personal questions about their lives and their ministry to others. "What they have in common," Kevin O'Rourke says in a Commonweal article, "is not ideological; it is experiential, an ex-perience of conversion and commitment. And, they are becoming the lead-ers in the American Church; they are spearheading the move to involve the Church in (struggling) with nuclear disarmament, capitalism, and third world issues." Is the religious of the future being invited to a lead-ership in a variety of ministries, a leadership that demands a spirituality of radical conversion? My second observation about conversion is that it seems it must be an across-the-board experience. Bernard Lonergan, James Fowler, a host of writers in recent issues of The Way magazine, all insist that conver-sion goes well beyond our moral responses. Conversion must affect the integration of our emotions and feelings, the rectitude of our thinking, the purifying of our images of God, the maturity and depth of our reli-gious enthusiasms--and all of this accompanied by that inner critical sense, discernment if you will, by which we pay attention to the subtle movements of our desires, attitudes, indecisions. A spirituality of the fu-ture geared towards total inner transformation must be accompanied by Buddhist awareness, or what Hemingway crudely called "a built-in crap detector." Only then will pure passionate energy be released and sim-plicity achieved. The Feminine Principle Strand Of the eight strands, the one about which I feel the least secure is what I am calling "the feminine principle strand." My insecurity comes not from a.lack of conviction about the importance of this strand--far from that. Rather, it is rooted in my own limited.knowledge and my be-lief that only a woman can adequately speak to the subject. Neverthe-less, something must be said. It would be impossible to have lived religious life for the past twenty years without being aware of the intense focusing on the concerns of the Religious Life Spirituality poor, the option for the poor. Likewise it would be impossible to have lived religious life in the same span of time without being aware of a simi-lar intense awareness of the feminine in Church and society, especially as that touches upon the demands of justice for women. These two con-cerns have marched along together, principally because the claims of jus-tice are common to each, but also, I think, because women, and relig-ious women in particular, have been in the forefront of succoring the poor through individual and group initiative. The claims of justice un-derlie every enterprise of religious life ministry. But it is the feminine and justice--an understanding of, respect for, and espousal of--that I feel must color our spiritual vision in the future. Once again, allow me to reduce my observations to two specific ar-eas. Most of us now accept the anima-animus duality of Jungian analy-sis and recognize that both operate within us. Likewise, most of us are probably still struggling to work out the implications of this distinction as we strive for wholeness. For example, speaking for myself, I sub-scribe to the theory that each man needs to go from his socialized mas-culine self, to his feminine self, and then to his deep masculine self, if he is to complete the journey of personal integrity. The same would ob-tain for woman: from the socialized feminine self, to the masculine self, to the deep feminine self, and thus to integrity. But, in a world that is patriarchal in language, symbol, and structure, much has to be overcome; the feminine needs to be underscored, both for the man and the woman. The gifts and qualities of the feminine are the ones that need to be ap-preciated and actively endorsed. We know those feminine qualities well: the ability to tap into and relate experience, the ability to be in touch with feelings and to articulate them in detail, the gift of making friendships that mature, the gift of a special bonding with the earth, for holding it sacred and walking on it gently. All these are specifically feminine quali-ties and gifts, and I would see our cultivating them as a consciously-chosen goal in a spirituality of the future. My second observation would have to come under the heading of "woman and justice"--a vast topic, but one that pertains to every di-mension of society and church. Simply put, the goal may best be ex-pressed in the words of Carolyn Osiek in her book Beyond Anger where she writes: "What we need is a transformation of patriarchy into a dis-cipleship of equals." A discipleship of equals; yes, that's it, and it would involve an ongoing conversion of attitude and action that must affect lan-guage, symbol, structure, and relationship. As part of a spirituality, this would mean an alert conscientization, a willful desire for justice in a spe- Review for Religious, March-April 1990 cific realm. A spirituality of the future must include a feminine princi-ple strand that addresses at least these two specific areas. The Ministry Strand "Go out to all the world and tell the good news." That is the com-mand. At the beginning ofevery religious congregation there was always some human need that cried out for relief, some opportunity for bring-ing the gospel message and Jesus to the marginalized. Founding groups and we their followers continue to believe that we are called by the Holy Spirit to be involved in the cause of Jesus through love of neighbor and a concern for justice. Of all the strands of religious life spirituality this has to be the most central and dominative: ministry rooted in faith and love that seeks justice. For me, the best contemporary expression of this goal was spoken by Pope John Paul II to a gathering of religious superiors: "The central conviction for meaningful renewal of a religious group lies in a deep-seated sense of mission for each individual and within the group. More than contemporary abstract social and psychological models, your for-mation programs for new members and for old, your community struc-tures of government and lifestyle will be well-ordered and sharpened when they are infused by a contemporary understanding and feeling for the group's historically-derived mission . Mission fires the idealism of the young and old alike. Mission calls us to pay the price, to bear the burden, to suffer pain, loneliness, and loss. Mission remains at the heart of the active apostolic vocation." If this be so, as we look into the future, we may want to define and evaluate our spirituality of mission according to three factors which have special meaning for today. First, the works of ministry. To what extent are the present works of our congregations the legitimate offspring of the founding charism? As a guide to this evaluation, it may be more impor-tant to gauge the religious zeal with which the ministries are being pur-sued, rather than their specific nature. Paul's words in 2 Timothy seem appropriate: "I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God bestowed when my hands were laid on you. The Spirit that God has given us is no cowardly spirit but rather one that makes us strong, loving, and wise" (2 Tm 1:6-7). Genuine ministry will always have a driven quality about it. Secondly, although all works of justice attract Christian ministry, our present technological society calls us to give special attention to struc-tural justice. Our socio-political-economic institutions and systems fre-quently oppress in a nameless, faceless way. We will not be able to con- Religious Life Spirituality / "197 front this unless our vision sees three and not just two dimensions to hu-man existence: the individual, the inter-personal and the public or so-cietal. How often, for example, in working for change through minis-try, have we focused on structures: personal, community, business, neigh-borhood, and asked: are these structures oppressive or life-giving? am I contributing to their power? A spirituality for ministry today must in-corporate a much clearer and more sensitive awareness of structures and their power if justice is to be achieved. Thirdly, our world has gotten smaller and more cohesive. United na-tions, one world, global village, planet earth are the terms we use, and our ministry responsibility needs to reflect that. Consequently, I would see that the ministry strand of religious life spirituality would have a global and ecological orientation that would make us concerned citizens that can pass beyond geographical boundary and language as we bring Christian outreach to all people and to the earth itself. Will "missionar-ies" be a special category in religious congregations of the future, or will all of us be part of that? A Final Word Where can we go with this? If I myself were reading this presenta-tion and found myself agreeing with some of it, and wanted to take some action, I think I would first sift the word "spirituality": is it a signifi-cant operative reality, and if so, what is its power and function within religious life? Depending on the answer to that, there is the matter of defi-nition: what is religious life spirituality and is there a generic understand-ing that cuts across congregational differences? Next, there is the image of the cable and its strands: are there identi-fiable patterns, movements, elements that we are being called to live out as religious today and into the future? If so, is it helpful to tick them off in some form of completeness/incompleteness, and can we then match these with our own congregational documentation (rules, mission state-ment, and so forth) and major endeavors (ministries, lifestyle, and other creative involvement), so that we might see where we are on the living chart of contemporary religious life? In other words, are we ready for some kind of self-evaluation as we move towards 2010? Following that, I should think a number of possibilities would de-velop: As a first (1) possibility, after a careful critique of our congrega-tional group, there might be cause to have a major celebration, a convo-cation or something similar, where the message would be: "We are on the right track; let us continue, though we might want to give some spe-cial consideration to such and such a strand. A second (2) possibility "191~ / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 might be the recognition that, although our congregational group has an intellectual or "documentary" grasp of these major strands, we, the rank and file, do not own them sufficiently in our lived experience, and we need to devise further strategies to address that. A third (3) pos-sibility, though I doubt it exists, is that our congregational group has not yet adequately come to an intellectual awareness of the import of these strands in religious life today. And so, we come back to our starting point: what will religious life spirituality look like in the year 2010, and what can we do about it now? Canticle To I Am The splendor of Your love is dazzling winter sunlight upon drifts of snow frozen by the frosts. At other times, it has the deep roar of immense waves crashing against red granite rocks which have patiently withstood the continuous onslaught of the sea. Also, it has the tranquillity of a street puddle made by the rain. Such a place can catch countless reflections of skyscrapers, the intense blue of a child's inquisitive.eyes. Your love is the song of a red cardinal telling the world that spring has come. Brother Richard Heatley, F.S.C. De La Salle Centre 45 Oaklands Avenue Toronto, Ontario M4V 2E4, Canada From CMSW to LCWR: A Story of Birth and Transformation Lora Ann Quihonez, C.D.P. and Mary Daniel Turner, S.N.D. de N. Sister Lora Ann Quifionez, C.D.P., is a former executive director of the Leader-ship Conference of Women Religious. She served as a member of the general coun-cil of the Sisters of Divine Providence of San Antonio, Texas. Sister Mary Daniel Turner, S.N,D. de N., is also a former executive director of the LCWR. She served as president of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. They are currently co-authoring a book on the renewal of religious life in the United States. They may be addressed at 1319 Floral Street, N.W.: Washington, D.C. 20012. This article is based primarily on sources in the archives of the Dominican Sis-ters, Adrian, Michigan; of the Sisters of Loretto, Nerinx, Kentucky: and of the Lead-ership Conference of Women Religious. The authors have constructed chronologi-cal sequences and the details of events from correspondence, minutes, proceedings of assemblies, internal reports, and a few in-house publications of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (Conference of Major Superiors of Women). The dates of the papers consulted fall within the years cited in the article. That the last twenty-five years have witnessed marked changes in Ameri-can Catholicism and that women religious have been prominent actors in the change process are evident. From children and daughters of the Church to women and partners in the mission of the Church, from ob-servers of to active participants in church-world affairs, and from insti-tutional church workers to initiators of and collaborators in multiple serv-ices, women religious of the United States, setting out from a stable and precisely-defined state of consecration, have journeyed to a less secure, and more expanded life of mission. There are many lenses through which we could examine this journey. The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR)--founded as the Conference of Major Superiors of Women (CMSW)--however, offers a unique lens through which to view 199 200 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 the coming-of-age of American women religious. ~ Composed of the chief officers of congregations of women religious, the conference is a juridically-recognized body in the Church, having of-ficial status with the Vatican and the American hierarchy. The major su-periors, as the designated leaders of their congregations, give priority to their communities, and issues of meaning and ultimate direction engage their energies. Joining with their peers in the conference, they are in a privileged position to probe and analyze issues. Moreover, since their roles encourage the promotion of change consonant with the mission of the Church and their respective charisms, they possess a certain degree of moral authority to consider common responses to the claims of church and world on their resources. Two events--the founding of the conference in 1956 and its verita-ble refounding in 1971--illuminate the transformation which occurred among the leaders of congregations of women religious within a span of twelve years, a metamorphosis not unlike the one among the sisters of the United States. These events reveal women of their times who carried out their responsibilities from very differing worldviews. This difference, graphically captured in their contrasting perceptions of religious life, is clearly evident in the records of the founding and the refounding of the conference. For the founders of the conference, consecration to God, the pursuit of personal holiness, and separation from the world were the essential elements of religious life. They understood their vocation as a call to a "state of perfection," whose legitimacy came from ecclesiastical author-ity. Religious were "religious" first and foremost; apostolic works were secondary, mere "nets" for saving souls. Corporate institutional ser-vices, however, ensured their collective and public identity. Stability, cer-titude, and order marked this way of life; regular observance distin-guished the "good sister." The place and the role of religious in church and world were secure and privileged. The statutes drafted at the time of the founding of CMSW simply reflected this theological perspective and mirrored the corporate self-understanding of the major superiors in the 1950s. Many of the major superiors of the late ! 960s and early i 970s, how-ever, imaged religious life not so much as a state within a "perfect so-ciety" but as a reality rooted in the Gospel, organized around and for the mission of the Church and shaped in history through the Spirit-inspired insights of persons living it. The work on the conference bylaws at the time of reorganization made apparent that leaders of women's con- From CMSW to LCWR / 201 gregations were refashioning their religious identity and reordering their place in the Church. Appreciating the universal call to holiness of all bap-tized persons espoused by Vatican II, these women searched for a cor-porate self-definition that would simultaneously speak to the commonly-shared vocation of all Christians and describe religious life as a distinct, but not more perfect, response to the Gospel. For a significant number of these leaders, personal holiness and the transformation of society were inextricably related. They no longer judged the world as alien territory; it was a locus of the holy. No longer secondary, works were constitutive of an apostolic life. They were not to be determined by a priori definitions of appropriate "religious" ac-tivities nor confined solely to corporate institutional commitments. World realities attested to needs and services were to be responsive to them. The mission of the Church, not regular observance, was the or-ganic principle of an apostolic religious life. In contrasting the members' work on the CMSW statutes and on the LCWR bylaws, we see that these differences determined the purpose and character of the conference. Conference of Major Superiors of Women (CMSW) 1. Genesis The story of the founding is an account of a church movement with its beginnings in post-World War II Europe and its inspiration in the call of Pius XII for "aggiornamento" in and collaboration among religious institutes. The movement, deriving its direction from Vatican officials, gaining momentum through the international congresses and national meetings of religious held in the fifties, ultimately became institutional-ized because of the persuasive moral power of Vatican officials and the allegiance of American women religious to church authorities. 2. Organizing the Conference. In 1952 Valerio Cardinal Valeri, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Religious (SCR), appointed a committee of seven women to help plan the first national congress of religious of the United States. In April, 1958, he asked this same body to organize, in consultation with the ma-jor superiors of men, a national conference of religious in the United States. Writing to Mother Gerald Barry, O.P., superior general of the Dominicans (Adrian, Michigan), chair of the organizing committee, Val-eri states that the purpose of national conferences "is precisely to en-able those who understand most intimately the particular needs and con-ditions of their own country or area to provide for those needs by means 902 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 best adapted to their situation" (Oct. 9, 1958). These women, however, saw no need for a conference because organizations like the National Catholic Welfare Conference, the National Catholic Education Associa-tion, and the Catholic Hospital Association were ably serving com-munities in matters related to apostolic works. Besides, the need for "ag-giornamento" was not a felt-experience in the United States, where works were thriving, vocations abounded, and religious life seemed sta-ble. Nevertheless, if the Holy Father wanted such an organization, these women could be counted on to help realize his dream. They knew that the major superiors of the United States, "obedient children" and daugh-ters of the Church, would obey the wishes of the Sovereign Pontiff. Within six months (April--November, 1956) the Committee had drafted statutes, secured SCR approval for their work, orchestrated a na-tional assembly of major superiors, and set in motion a process for es-tablishing a conference. In doing their task, they relied heavily on the statutes of the newly-formed Canadian Religious Conference, which included both women and men; they also took quite seriously the directive of Valeri to structure national conferences according to local needs. Thus, although the SCR assumed that there would be a single conference for women and men, the Sisters' Committee took the view that the needs and problems of relig-ious women and religious priests were quite different. They saw a sepa-rate conference for women as a practical necessity: women must orga-nize and act on their own behalf. (No references were made to religious brothers in these early discussions!) Convinced as they were that other national organizations compe-tently advised women religious in matters pertaining to health, educa-tion, welfare, and "foreign missions," the organizing committee at-tached less importance to establishing a national office than did their male counterparts, also drafting statutes for a national conference. And so the women decided that a national executive committee would serve as a kind of "national sec?etariat" for the CMSW. Authority within the conference would be entrusted to the executive committee, and its mem-bers alone would elect national officers. The executive members would make decisions, direct programs, and transmit the mind of the Church to major superiors. While the conference membership would gather na-tionally every five years, the organizing committee did not envision mo-bilizing their power for corporate action. The national executive com-mittee would determine what, if any, activities were appropriate for a re-ligious conference. From CMSW to LCWR / 903 The organizing committee did, however, attach great significance to regional organization and activity. Local and regional diversity, so much valued in the United States, demanded this emphasis. The regions, there-fore, would constitute the strength of the conference and serve as forums for education and gathering places for major superiors to study together issues and topics relating to religious life. Work on the statutes made evident the relative certainty of the found-ing women about the nature and purpose of the Church and religious life. They accepted the official definitions and the practices of ecclesiastical authority as well as the canonical prescriptions about religious life. This certainty guided their deliberations and left its mark on the statutes, which clearly identified CMSW as an ecclesiastical moral person, depend-ent on church officials for its being. Submission to church authorities within the limits of canon law was to be the hallmark of the new organi-zation. Determining the criterion for membership was also no problem: only major superiors as defined by church law qualified. Similarly, the pur-pose of the conference was precisely specified: the spiritual welfare of religious and matters that were properly spiritual would engage the re-sources and energies of the conference. In summary, the statutes of CMSW structured a conference accord-ing to a hierarchic-elitist worldview, shaped in harmony with the domi-nant classical theology of religious life as a state of perfection and a life of consecration. Conference programs, activities, and relationships would take their direction from this worldview and theology. 3. The Founding Assured that the SCR endorsed their preparatory work, the organiz-ing committee planned a national meeting for November 24, 1956. Fol-lowing Vatican directives, they invited only major superiors of pontifi-cal congregations. Although the more than 235 in attendance unani-mously approved the proposed statutes, some raised the possibility of experimenting with a national conference for one year before making a final decision. The participants easily and quickly disposed of the ques-tion: what the Holy Father wanted, United States women religious wanted. Experimentation was unnecessary. And thus, the CMSW was founded. As originally envisioned, it was to be simply and only a conference: a forum for the spiritual benefit of major superiors as well as for the revitalization of religious life and an organ for communicating and promoting the mind of the Church. The months between November, 1956, and July, 1957, were devoted 204 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 to organizing the six regions, in particular, to electing regional officers who would serve as the eighteen-member national executive committee of the conference. A report given by Mother Alcuin McCarthy, O.S.F.--first National Chairman (sic)--at the Second International Congress of the States of Per-fection (December, 1957) reviews the founding activities of the confer-ence. Her account, simply and directly told, makes clear that, within the context of the Roman initiative, the organizing women took full charge of the process of founding and did so according to their understanding of the needs of religious life in the United States. It likewise records a story marked by the absence of conflict. Whatever the reservations of the founding women about the need for a national conference and about cer-tain organizational features, their steady reliance on church authorities and, in turn, the confidence of Roman officials in them worked together to bring about a stable, well-defined organization. The SCR officially recognized the conference in 1959 and approved the statutes in 1962. As a pontifically approved organization of major su-periors, the CMSW was well on its way to becoming a nationally and internationally recognized presence in the Church. Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) In contrast to the record of the founding of CMSW, the account of its reorganization is a story of women religious profoundly affected by Vatican II, influenced by the movement of Catholics into mainstream America, unsettled by the politics and cultural revolution of the sixties, challenged by the liberation theology of Latin America, and somewhat conflicted about their own identity and purpose. The decision to reor-ganize emerged from within the conference, engaging the members in an intensive review of the statutes and generating a transformation of con-sciousness about the purpose and organizational components of the con-ference. In fact, the implementation of that decision brought about the refounding of the CMSW. The Work of Reorganization The journey toward the refounding of CMSW was initiated and di-rected from within the conference. Responding to a request from Mary Luke Tobin, S.L. (then CMSW National Chairman) to ascertain the readi-ness of American congregations of women religious to implement Vati-can II, the National Executive Committee (NEC) appointed, in 1965, a research committee to direct this task. The committee launched the Sis-ters' Survey, a questionnaire of some 645 items, answered by 139,000 From CMSW to LCWR / 205 women religious in the United States. Since responses to the Survey made it clear that the sisters were eager to participate in decision-making, the research committee recommended to the 1967 assembly of the CMSW a study of conference structures. The NEC engaged the mem-bership in a study of the statutes that developed into a full-blown educa-tional program, calling for the active involvement of all the members. In many ways the process paralleled the special general chapters then un-derway in individual communities. In revising the statutes, CMSW members probed radical questions about the nature and purpose of religious life and necessarily about the nature and purpose of the conference. Conversations made evident that some leaders of women's congregations understood and experienced ap-ostolic religious life as something other than a "state of perfection" and a life of "separation from the world." The reports from regional meet-ings show that the appropriate relationship of religious to the world was a dominant issue in the discussion. The clear-cut distinction of classical theology between the sacred and the secular and between the "strictly spiritual" and apostolic works no longer held sway. It could not be as-sumed that traditional formulae about religious life, its purpose and mean-ing, claimed general allegiance among conference members. To some members it seemed that a spirit of secularism was finding its way into the conference. The records of this study also show the major superiors grappling with questions of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and debating the issue of mem-bership eligibility. What was the appropriate relationship between a pon-tifically approved organization (the conference) and church authorities? What was the legitimate and necessary autonomy of the conference within the church system? They questioned, too, criteria for membership. A proposal to include associates evoked fear among some members: they believed that to admit major superiors who did not fit canonical defini-tions and leaders of groups who did not have canonical approval would surely undermine the identity of the conference. Minutes of regional discussions also point up that a few members ex-pressed seriousconcern about the relationship between the national and the regional levels. Disturbed by what they perceived as the "sociologi-cal" character of the Sisters' Survey and its propagandizing intent, some members believed the influence of the NEC, who commissioned the study, needed curbing. Even the egalitarian principles shaping the orga-nizational character of the conference did not wholly dispel mistrust of the power of the NEC. 906 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 The proposed revisions of the bylaws drastically altered the purpose and role of the national meeting as well as the constituency and function of the governing body. Now conference members were to gather annu-ally and as a national assembly determine directions, establish goals, and specify priorities. A national board constituted by the chairs of the newly structured fifteen regions, five officers, and the executive director would govern according to the directions determined by annual assemblies and be accountable to the membership for its decisions and actions. The proposed bylaws provided for an expanded national office. This restructuring also caused anxiety among some members. As directors and coordinators of programs, research, development, communications, and fiscal procedures, the staff would, some thought, be in a position to ex-ercise too much power in the conference. Assurances from conference officers about the ecclesial character of the conference, the proposed restructuring of the regions, the move to universal suffrage for the election of the national officers, the function of the national assembly as a decision-making body, the board's account-ability to the membership, and the supervision of the staff by the board did not totally eliminate tensions within the conference. These tensions remained throughout the process of revision and after its completion. The revised statutes--now called "bylaws' '--adopted by the mem-bership in 1971 represented the dominant position, if not the unanimous view, of the membership. The bylaws clearly identified the conference as an ecclesial body, sophisticated as an organization. The members were unequivocally "women" in the Church, equal among themselves and partners with church officials in carrying out its mission. While they were clear that the bylaws of the conference existed to serve the leaders of congregations precisely as leaders, the purpose and objectives of the conference were broadly conceived, allowing for great diffusion of en-ergies and wide-ranging agendas. Not only were the Church and the world legitimate forums for concern and action, the conference was chal-lenged to be a transforming agent in both spheres. Strikingly, the lan-guage of the bylaws manifests a dynamic, evolutionary worldview, and the objectives mandate the development of a theology of religious life consonant with that worldview. Re founding Without prior consultation with or endorsement from the SCR, the national board presented the proposed bylaws for a final vote during the 1971 assembly. This was not, however, the first opportunity for a total conference discussion of the revised statutes: A special assembly had From CMSW to LCWR / 207 been held in February, 1970, to provide full membership debate on the purpose, role, and objectives of the conference. They had endorsed the restructuring of the conference from six to fifteen regions and adopted universal suffrage for the election of national officers. At the 1971 As-sembly the members approved the revised statutes and a new title, Lead-ership Conference of Women Religious. The newly-adopted bylaws and title signaled a transformed under-standing and appreciation of the raison d'etre of the conference: not only was it to be a forum for enabling leadership, it was also to become a cor-porate force for systemic change in Church and society. LCWR was born and with it an organization committed to constructive, creative use of power and influence in Church and world. No longer simply a forum for sharing, it now became an agent for change. The assembly, the national board, and executive committee as well as the secretariat and national committees consolidated the corporate power of the conference to coor-dinate regional and national levels and promote collaboration with Church and civic organizations. Following the 1971 Assembly the board directed the staff to initiate whatever actions were necessary to have the new name legally recog-nized. The former name CMSW, they agreed, communicated a negative image to the public: its militaristic and hierarchic connotations needed dispelling. This action and the adoption of the bylaws by the assembly without prior approval of SCR caused consternation not only among some conference members but also in some members of SCR. Presented with the newly adopted bylaws in November, the SCR raised questions about the lack of explicit jurisdictional lines between the conference and Church authorities and the meaning of the new title. Amendments to the bylaws worked out by the national board stilled, for a time, the concerns of SCR about jurisdictional issues. Provisions were incorporated to acknowledge the "authority of the Holy See and of the bishops," the relationship of the conference to SCR, and its re-sponsibility to the Apostolic Delegate in "its more important activities." As a result, the SCR granted definitive approval of the bylaws in 1972. Agreement about the title, however, did not come until 1974. For some SCR authorities the appropriation of the term "leadership" by the United States major superiors appeared arrogant. Besides, they charged, the language evoked the negative images associated with terms like "Fuh-rer" and "II Duce." After much dialogue between conference officers and members of the SCR and the addition of a statement in the bylaws clarifying the meaning of "leadership," SCR officials finally endorsed 201] "1 Review for Religious, March-April 1990 the title. The CMSW, according to one observer, had taken "a sharp new turn." The work of producing bylaws gave evidence of a growing ap-preciation of United States culture by the major superiors. And though probably unconscious of their kinship with feminists, the CMSW mem-bers of the late 1960s demonstrated commitment to becoming a self-determining conference, not isolated from Church officials but interact-ing with them. Concluding Reflections I. Transitions: Times, Events, Movements Between the call of Pius XII in the 1950s for "aggiornamento" and the challenge of John XXIII for renewal, the United States had experi-enced rapid and radical change. The flight from the cities to suburbia, the volatile confrontations of the civil rights movement, the assassina-tions of John F. and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the ex-cruciating agonies and divisions over United States involvement in Vi-etnam, the farm-workers' struggle for justice, the anti-Communist para-noia, the Bay of Pigs debacle, and the development of a vocal feminist minority threw the country into a national paroxysm. Self-doubt, dissent, and protest became a way of life. Moreover, the nation was not untouched by liberation movements in Third World countries. The presence of Peace Corps volunteers and of United States religious in Latin American countries awakened social re-sponsibility and global sensitivities, and, at the same time, called into question the role of the United States in international inequities. The United States was a world power. Was it a force for international jus-tice? The response of Catholics in the United States to Humanae Vitae was a powerful symbol and experience of intense ferment in the Church, evok-ing as it did a storm of protest. Public dissent was no longer confined to civic matters. The American Church, consciously becoming a "local church," was loosening its ties to Rome as Catholics moved into main-stream America, became better educated, and delighted in the experience of a Catholic president. Catholics were at home in America. They had assimilated well ~pecifically American values: the sharing of power, the right to dissent, participation in decisions that affect one's life, dialogue, respect for differences, and due process. The political upheavals, in ad-dition, evoked a new awareness of and commitment to these values. For many Catholics, however, these values were not simply or only From CMSW to LCWR / 209 cultural: they were consonant with the Gospel. They could, and should, find their way into Church life and structures. As renewal efforts within religious congregations demonstrate, women religious were not immune to these developments. They were profoundly affected by them. Movements directly related to religious life also influenced religious women. The expansion of education and theological competence brought about by Sister Formation (SF) activities in the 1950s and early 1960s insured that "new" ideas concerning both Church and society circulated in communities. Newer members, in particular, as well as congregational leaders and formation directors sensed that some structures and practices within religious institutes were not workable nor productive of healthy people and groups. Neither were they compatible with a developing sense of apostolic religious life. In many ways, the SF movement had prepared religious to respond boldly to the societal and ecclesial chal-lenges of the 1960s. In particular, the Vatican II mandate for renewal, its acknowledg-ment of the vital connection between Church and world, and its charac-terization of the Church as People of God and as Pilgrim People found receptive minds among a significant number of women religious. These ideas, validating the developing consciousness of many religious concern-ing the meaning of apostolic religious life, opened the way for its re-imagination. The depth of the response of United States religious to Vatican II was probably enlarged by the presence of Mary Luke Tobin, S.L., as an of-ficial observer at the Council. Her work on the commission which de-veloped The Church in the Modern World uniquely prepared her to be-come an ambassador of the Council. Traveling extensively throughout the country, she challenged women religious to take an active role in the world: they were to be bold advocates for justice and peace. As the presi-dent of CMSW (1964-67), she was in a privileged position to dissemi-nate the "good news" of Vatican II among major superiors. Her influ-ence was especially felt in the program planning of the national as-semblies from 1965-1967, assemblies that proved powerful corporate and formative ex

Issue 29.5 of the Review for Religious, 1970. ; EDITOR R. F. Smith, S.J. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Everett A. Diederich, S.J. ASSISTANT EDITOR John L. Treloar, S.J. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS EDITOR Joseph F. Gailen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editors, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be sent to R~vxEw FOR l~mcxous; 6t2 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 63to3. Questions for amwering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's Church; 32i Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania tgx06. + + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ecclesiastical approval by faculty members of the School of Divinity of Saint Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Edu-cational Institute. Published bimonthly and copyright ~) 1970 by REVIEW FOR R~LlCIOU. at 428 East Preston Street; Baltimore, MaC/- land 21202. Printed in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at Baltimore, Maryland and at addiuonal mailing offices. Single copies: $1.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $5.00 a year, $9.00 for two yeats; other countries: $5.50 a year, $10.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be ¯ accompanied by check or money order paya-ble tO RZVXEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Renewals and new subscriptions, where ex¢ora. partied by a remittance, should be sent to R£vI~w FOR RELIGIOUS; P. O. ~OX 671; Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Changes of address, busine~ correspondence, and orders not a¢¢ompanid by a remittance should be sent to REvll~W l~Ol~ RELIGIOUS ; 428 East Preston Street; Baltimort, Maryland 21202. Manuscripts, editorial cor-respondence, and books for review should be sent to REVIEW ~OR RF.LIOIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building ; 539 North Grand Boulevard: Saint Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to the address of the Questions and Answers editor. SEPTEMBER 1970 VOLUME 29 NUMBER 5 ,!111; JOHN W. O'MALLEY, S.J. History, the Reformation, and Religious Renewal: Pluralistic Present and New Past Even the most cautious historian would probably be willing to subscribe to the sweeping generalization that Roman Catholicism has changed more radically in the past four years than it had in the previous four hundred. A sense of uprooting and upheaval is inevitable under such circumstances, and we should not be surprised that the resulting tension has been felt most acutely in religious communities. These communities presumably" are the places of keenest religious sensibilities and, at least until recently, the places where the traditions of the past were professedly cultivated. But the changes have often shattered these traditions and have inter-rupted the sense of continuity with the 'past. The conse-quent confusion has forced religious to turn, sometimes somewhat desperately, to any quarter which promises rescue. Somewhat paradoxically, religious even turn to history, in the hope that the long narrative of the Church's pilgrimage will throw light on the present crisis. Often the specific focus of their interest is that other era of history well known .for its religious tension and tt~rmoil, the age of the Reformation. This focus is at least in part due also to the !fact that the theology and spirituality of the Reformation era had been protracted in the Church to the very eve of Vatican II. In studying the sixteenth century many religious were to some extent ~tudying themselves. The present author, as a practicing historian of the Reformation, has frequently been asked by religious in 4- ¯ Fr. John W. O'Malley, S.J., is as-sociate professor in the department of history; University of Detroit; Detroit, Michigan 48221; . VOLUME 29, ~.970 ÷ ÷ ÷ 1. W. O'Malley, $.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 636 the past several years to answer the following question: Is not the present upheaval in the Church very similar to .the upheaval of the Reformation era? The following pages will attempt to answer that question and to use it as a focus to explore the unprecedented nature of the aggiornamento we are experiencing today. It is to be hoped that such an exploration will be helpful to reli-gious in trying to understand their present situation in history and in describing to them the drastic creativity which is required of them in the renewal of their own communities. "Is not the present upheaval in the Church very simi-lar ~o the upheaval of the Reformation era?" The ques-tion begs for an affarmative answer, and such an answer is indeed suggested by many obvious similarities between the sixteenth century and the twentieth century. Both centuries,, for example, experienced a challenge to papal authority; both centuries tried to revise the forms of religious life, saw large numbers of men and women leaving religious life, and so forth. However, in spite of the many similarities and in spite of the measure of consolation which an affirmative answer might bestow, the fundamental reply to the question has to be a re-sounding negative. The present upheaval is radically different from the upheaval of the sixteenth century. It is important for us to see just how it is radically different, for only then can we cope with the practical repercus-sions which such a difference has on our own lives. In order to explore this topic we must first expose two assumptions which are the basis of the discussion which is to follow. These assumptions are simple and familiar to us all, but they bear repetition because they are so fundamental. First of all, behind every action there is an idea. Ideas are power. They are dynamic in character and even the most abstract of them tends eventually to issue in action and to influence conduct. Therefore, to study an idea is to study the energetics of social change. Secondly, behind every idea there is a culture, a fabric of thought and feeling of which any given idea is a partial expression and reflection. The idea may even have been created by the culture in question, for ideas are not eternal. They are born at some particular time and in some particular place. Or if the idea was merely inherited fxom an older culture, it is modified and changed by the new culture as the new culture accepts it as its own. In the study of the history of ideas, sensitivity to the total cultural context is an absolute prerequisite for discerning an idea's birth, de-velopment, and even total transformation, in the course of its history. The idea towards which we shall direct our attention is the idea of Christian reform :or renewal. As an idea it has its own history, which is a reflection and expression of the various cultures where it was and is a vital force. This history until recently was not much investigated by historians, but it is now receiving more adequate atten-tion. We shall try to trace this history very briefly, with special emphasis on the Reformation era, in the con-viction that such an endeavor will be enlightening and helpful for us in our present crisis. In particular, we shall contrast the cultural framework which undergirded the idea of reform in the age ,of the Reformation with that which undergirds aggiornamento today. Recent studies on the origin and early development of the idea of reform in Scripture and the fathers of the Church have shown that in those early'centuTies reform meant the transformation of the individual Christian into God's image and likeness. It had not as yet occurred to Christians in any very c6herent fashion that the Church as an institution--or rather that institutions in the Church--might be subject to reform and revision. The idea of institutional reform surfaced for the first time during the so-called Gregorian Reform or Investi-ture Controversy of the eleventh century. During this period the functions and allegiances of the episcopacy were at the center of the bitter contest between pope and emperor, and it was the papacy which wanted to change the status quo by returning to what it felt was an older and sounder tradition before bishops had become sub-servient instruments of royal and imperial policy. With the Gregorian Reform the idea was inserted into the Western ecclesiastical tradition that the Church it-self was subject to reform. The impact of this idea upon later history is incalculable. From the eleventh century forward the idea would never again be absent from the story of the Church; and at some times, as in the early sixteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries, it would come to dominate and profoundly disturb that story. By the early years of the sixteentll century we can honestly say that a reform hysteria had set in. Reform had become the common preoccupation, almost obsession, of the age. What is to be said about [ireform in the sixteenth century? Perhaps the first thihg which strikes our at-tention is the almost limitles~ variety of reform ideas and reform programs. We see stretched before us a chaotic panorama in which it is hard to find order, progression, or consistency. The figure of Luther, of course, dominates the scene, and he to some degree influenced, at least by way of reaction, all reforms in the century: But we are really hard pressed to find a very obvious intellectual affinity between him and a refbrmer like Michael Servetus, who denied the Trinity and ÷ ÷ VOLUME: 29,' 1970 6:~7 I. w. O,M,a~y, S.I. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 638 who taught that the corruption of Christ's doctrine, which began with the Apostles and which was furthered by the fathers and scholastics, was brought to inglorious constimmation by contemporary ~eformers like Luther. And what direct relationship was there between an Anabaptist quietist like Conrad Grebel and an Ana-baptist visionary like John of Leyden, who made polyg-amy obligatory at Mfinster and maintained himself there in voluptuous, polygamous opulence? Even within Catholicism a great gap separates Gasparo Contarini, the conciliatory Venetian nobleman and friend of St. Ignatius, from the fierce and rigid Gian Pietro Carafa, at .whose election to the papal throne even Ignatius blanched. The more we learn about the sixteenth cen-tury the more clearly we see how complex and variegated it was. Generalization seems impossible. And the at-tempt to compare it with the twentieth century seems even more impossible, for we are all keenly aware of the variety and even contradiction which characterizes contemporary ideas of reform and aggiornamento. We have set ourselves an impossible task. ¯ On the other hand, if what we said earlier about cul-tural patterns is true, all of these reform phenomena should be able to be studied as manifestations of a common culture. There should be somewhere, if we dig deeply enough, elements manifestative of a common intellectual and emotional experience. These elements, though distinguishable from one another, also com-penetrate one another, so that in speaking of one of them we to some extent are also speaking of the others, since all are facets of the same cultural reality. We are justified, therefore, in our undertaking, especially if we keep clearly in mind how precarious it is and how subject to exception is almost every generalization. In our comparison of the sixteenth with the twentieth century we shall concentrate on two elements or phe-nomena which are particularly significant for out topic and particularly revelatory of the character of the two cultures. The first of these phenomena we shall designate as the cultural parochialism of the sixteenth century and the cultural pluralism of the twentieth. The cul-ture of the sixteenth century was a parochial culture. The great controversies of that century were carried on within what we now see to be the narrow confines of the Western intellectual tradition. One reason why the sixteenth century was an exciting century in which to live was that it initiated through its voyages of dis-covery the new age of world consciodsness which we experience today. But only the faintest glimmers of. this world consciousness had penetrated to Europe by 1517. It is true. that in the Italian Renaissance, which to some extent was contemporaneous with the Reforma-tion, there was a greater awareness of cultural diversity. Moreover, there was an attempt to come to terms with it. Both Nicholas of Cusa and Marsilio Ficino speak of the splendor which comes to religion from the diversity of rite and ritual which God permits throughout the world. But such tolerance and breadth of vision was not characteristic of the European intellectual scene as a whole. Indeed, even where these virtues were. operative they eventually tended to be snuffed out by the harsh polemics of the religious controversies. The very dictum "Scripture alone," which we associate with the Protes-tant reformers, is symptomatic of what was happen-ing. No matter what is to be said of this dictum as an expression of theological principle, from the cultural point of view it suggests narrowness and constriction of vision. The Catholic formula, "Scripture and tradi-tion," is broader and suggests an urbane and mature consciousness of complexity, but it, too, implies more restriction than the ideas of Cusa and Ficino. The re-formers--- Protestant and Catholic--railed against what they felt were the paganizing tendencies' of the Renais-sance, and we often echo their judgments even today. But much of this so-called paganizing can be more be-nignly and more accurately .interpreted as a serious at-tempt to broaden the cultural base of Christianity. The cultural parochialism of which we have been speaking was made possible and even fostered by the slow and inadequate means of communication which the sixteenth century had at its disposal. More im-portant, these slow and inadequate means made it possible for sects to develop and for governments to impose a particular and rigid religious style on whole populations. In other words, it was still possible to ex-clude those factors which would tend to develop re-ligious and cultural pluralism or to operate for a more broadly based unity. German Lutheranism, Dutch Calvinism, Spanish Catholicism could continue to perdure as distinct and seemingly relentless cultural .phenomena only because they were protected from fac-ing the challenge of cultural and religious diversity. We today have no such protection, and we cannot construct barriers to keep out what we find offensive and disturbing. In the modern world pluralism is the very air we breathe, and it is one of the most signifi-cant factors influencing us and marking us off from all men who have ever preceded us on this globe. Modern means of communication have introduced the otherwise-minded into our very homes, and we have no instrument to muffle them. We must come to terms with diversity. ÷ :÷ VOLUME 29, 1970 639 4. I. w. o'Mo~, s.1. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 640 Our: Christianity, therefore, and our style of renewal must come to terms with it. Ecumenism, for instance, is not simply an accidental adoi:nment to our religious and intellectual style. It is not simply a good idea that we concocted and then tried to thrust down the throat of an unwilling Church. We perhaps cannot describe it as inevitable, but we cer-tainly can describe it as symptomatic of the culture in which we live and urgently required by it if we genuinely believe in truth and honesty. Our experience of pluralism has forced us all to admit the possibility of different, complementary, con-trasting, and at times almost contradictory insights into the same data. It has forced us to realize that each of these, insights may have some validity and that no set of categories can capture any reality in all its splendor and multiplicity. This realization, has not made us gkeptics, but it has made us cautious in our judgments and aware of how relative our insights might be. Our experience of pluralism has thrust upon us a new epistemology. In the sixtbenth century the assumption which under-lay religious discussion was that truth was one and that orthodoxy was clear--clear either from Scripture or from the teaching of the Church. Cultural parochialism fostered this assumption. It allowed beliefs to perdure untested by confrontation with different beliefs. The epistemology of the sixteenth century, parochial and rigid with the academic rigidity of the scholastic de-bates, made little allowance for the possibility of plural-ism of insight. It insisted upon the exclusive validity of a single insight, with a consequent insistence upon the exclusive validity of particular categories and concepts. Truth in such a system is not multifaceted and ever some-what beyond our grasp, but monolithic and subject to our despotic contro!. It is de jure intolerant. Its particular formulations are so many weapons for use in battle ¯ against other equally parochial formulations. Polemic, therefore, is its appropriate literary style. The theology of the sixteenth century is quite cor-rectly described as polemical and controversialist theol-ogy. We perhaps fail to realize how appropriate such a style of theology was to the cultural experience and epistemological presuppositions of that century. To an intolerant truth corresponds an intolerant literary form. No other form would be honest. The only possible explanation for a person's refusal to accept the true and orthodox insight must be moral perversity. Hence, orthodoxy and virtue, heterodoxy and vice were the two sets of inseparable twins. Significantly enough, the characteristic literary form of the Italian Renaissance was the dialogue, the form which implies an awareness of diversity and a willing-ness to live with it. It was an awareness too delicate to be able to contain the religous resentments which ex-ploded in 1517. But it is not too delicate today. Dialogue is the literary form required by our epistemology, which has been conditioned by our experience of cultural pluralism. Dialogue and rapprochement are not arbi-trary creations of the ecumenist. They are necessary corollaries to being intellectually honest in the latter half of the twentieth century. Our style of renewal, therefore, cannot be apodictic, autocratic, intolerant, or suffused with old-time single-minded zeal. Our culture--that is to say, WE, as prod-ucts and creators of that culture--require something else. Our style is radically different. It is groping and tentative. It is experimental and participati~ve. It is even somewhat double-minded, for it realizes that even re-ligious reform must keep an eye on secular realities precisely as potential for religious values. The second phenomenon manifestative of the cul-tural divergence of the sixteenth century from the twentieth century is perhaps more important: the sense of history operative in the two centuries. Here, es-pecially, we must beware of giving the impression that each individual in the sixteenth or twentieth century thinks about his past in precisely the same way. In the sixteenth century, in fact, historical thought ranged from the subtle understandings of persons like Fran-cesco Guicciardini and Desiderius Erasmus to the crudest forms of apocalyptic. However, we can say that, by and large, sixteenth-century thinkers discerned some consistent and coherent pattern in the historical process, and they saw this process as directly under the divine influence. They usually arrived at their formulations of such a pattern by a very arbitrary fusion of historical fact with metahistorical speculation which they drew from Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The result was often a hodge-podge of myth, metaphysics, and unsub-stantiated historical data. From this was constructed a pattern of expansion or decline or cycle or cataclysm or culmination which was presented to the reader as God's design. Thus the author was able to rise above history's mystery and to protect himself from history's terror. There was one very important consequence of this approach to history: it tended in some fashion to absolutize the past. The religious thinkers of the six-teenth century all tended to see past events, especially religious events, as issuing from God's hand and as under His direct influence. They were not particularly Renewa/ VOLUME 29, 1970 641 ~. W. O'Mall~, S.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 642 concerned with the singular, contingent, concrete hu-man causes which produced particular phenomena. They were concerned rather to see them as products of di-vine providence, as r~eflections of the divinity, as neces-sary elements in a predetermined pattern. They thus tended to endow them with an absolute value which defied reconciliation with the contingent historical cir-cumstances under which they had come into being. The contrast of this style of historical thinking with our own is dramatic. We all have acquired to a greater or lesser degree some measure of historical conscious-ness ~s defined in terms of modern historical method and hermeneutics. What this means is that we approach the past as a human phenomenon which is to be under-stood in terms of human thought and feeling. Each person, event, doctrine, and document of the past is the product of contingent causes and subject to modification by the culture in which it exists. Everything in the human past is culturally conditioned, which is just another way of saying that it is culturally limited. Such awareness of cultural conditioning distinguishes modern historical consciousness from that which pre-ceded it, and it is an awareness which has been growing ever more acute since the nineteenth century. The text of Luke's Gospel could have been produced only by first-century Judaic-Hellenistic Christianity. Fifteenth-century humanism would have created a completely different text, different in concept as well as in language. Awareness of such cultural differentiation helps make Scripture scholars today much more keenly conscious of how Scripture is the word of man than they are of how it is the word of God. Until quite recently the very opposite was the case. What modern historical consciousness enables us to understand more clearly than it was eve~ understood before, therefore, is that every person, event, doctrine, and document of the past is the product of very specific and unrepeatable contingencies. By refusing to consider them as products of providence or as inevitable links in an ineluctable chain, it deprives them of all absolute character. It demythologizes them. It "de-providential-izes" them. It relativizes them. The importance of such relativization is clear when we consider the alternative. If a reality of the past is not culturally relative, it is culturally absolute. It is sacred and humanly unconditioned. There is no possibility of a critical review of it which would release the present from its authoritative grasp. For one reason or another an individual might.reject a particular institution or set of values as not representing the authentic tradition of the past. But. there is no way to reject the past as such. There is no way to get rid of history. The two styles of historical thinking which we have just been describing radically condition the idea of re-form. If we were to describe in a word the funda-mental assumption which underlay the idea of reform in the sixteenth century, it would be that reform was to be effected by a return to the more authentic religion of a bygone era. Somewhere in the past there was a Golden Age untarnished by the smutty hand of man, an age when doctrine was pure, morals were upright, and institutions were holy. It was this doctrine, these morals, and these institutions which reform was to restore or continue. According to this style of thinking Christ somehow or other became the sanctifier and sanctioner of some existing or pre-existing order, and that order was thus imbued with transcendent and inviolable validity. For centuries many Christians thought that such an order was the Roman Empire, and that is why the myth of the Empire's providential mission and its duration to the end of the world perdured many centuries after the Empire ceased to be an effective reality. According to this style of thinking all the presumptions favor obedi-ence and conformity. Protest and dissent can only rarely, if ever, be justified. There is no way to see Christ as contradicting the present and rejecting the past. Such a style of thinking is foreign to our own. Even though as Christians we attribute a transcendent mean-ing to the person of Jesus and therefore attribute a special primacy to those documents which resulted from the most immediate contact with him, we cannot see the first Christian generation as a Golden Age. Scoiologi-cally speaking, it was the charismatic generation. His-torically speaking, it was a generation like all others-- human, contingent, imperfect, relative. The formula-tions of Christian doctrine in the great early councils must be subjected to the same radical criticism. We do not easily find in them a harvest of eternal and immu-table truth. Intellectually, therefore, we repudiate the sixteenth-century's historical style. Emotionally, however, we find a certain satisfaction in it of which it is difficult to divest ourselves. What satisfies us in this style is its fufidamental premise that somewhere in the past there is an answer to our questions and a solution to our prob-lems. If we could only get back to the ':true mind" of somebody or other, how easy it then would be to im-plement our reform. How easy it then would be to save ourselves from the risk of having to answer our own VOL:UME" 29, 1970 643 ~. W. O'Mallt'y, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ¯ 6,t4 questions and solve our own problems. This is the emotional consolation which such a style of historical thinking provides. We neatly fit ourselves, for instance, into a preconceived pattern of homogeneous develop-ment, and then we dip into the Golden Past to discover how to behave as the pattern unfolds itself. We are secure. We have been saved from history's terror. No such salvation, however, is open to us of the twentieth century. Modern historical consciousness has relativized and demythologized the past, thus liberat-ing us from it. But we are liberated only to find our-selves on our own. The past has no answers for us, and we face the future without a ready-made master-plan. It is this fact which makes our style of renewal radically different from every reform which has ever preceded it. We are painfully conscious that if we are to have a master-plan we must create it ourselves. In spite of certain superficial similarities, therefore, the problems of the sixteenth-century Reformation are not those of twentieth-century aggiornamento. Underly-ing these two reforms are two radically different cul-. tural experiences, which have radically transformed the idea of reform. Our twentieth-century idea of reform has been conditioned by our experience of religious and intellectual pluralism, and this has transformed it from pronouncement to conversation. Our idea of reform has also been conditioned by our modern historical consciousness, and this has divested us of the consola-tion of a past which answers our questions and tells us what to do. The implications of the foregoing reflections for re-newal within religious communities should be obvious. First of all, our problems will not be solved from on high by some sort of autocratic decree. Before any reasonable decision is reached on any major question a certain amount of open discussion and communal dis-cernment is an absolute prerequisite. The exercise of "obedience" is thus so drastically changed that we can well wonder if the word, with all its connotations, is really an adequate expression of what we now mean. In any case, participation and tolerance of diversity of viewpoint are now such pervasive realities of the cul-ture in which we live that there will be no viable + solutions to any problems without taking them into ac- + ¯ count. ÷ Secondly, although we do want to get back to the "true mind" of our founders, we must realize that we are in a very different cultural context than the founders were. We have to be bold in interpreting their "mind," and we must realize that even they do not answer our questions in our terms. Keligious renewal today, for the first time in the history o[ the Church, is more con-scious o~ its break with the authentic past than it is of its continuity with it. This may not be a very consoling realization, but it is one which we must constantly be aware o~ as we try to face the ~uture. Indeed, we face a new future because to a large extent we have created ~or ourselves a new past. j. DOUGLAS McCONNELL Good Stewardship Is Management and Planning J. Douglas Mc- Connell is a mem-ber of the Stanford Research Imfitute; Menlo Park, Cali-fornia 94025. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Thank God for the courage and wisdom of the fathers of the Second Vatican Councill Their decree, Perfectae caritatis, charging all institutions and orders to under-take renewal, may have provided a means that will en-able the talents of both men and women religious to be developed more fully and utilized more effectively in serving the People of God. It may also be the means by which some (not all) orders will survive in the years ahead. There is no need here to discuss the declining numbers of[ novices, the increasing numbers not taking final vows or opting for exclaustration, the growing costs of retirement, and the trend in age distributions. These are symptoms, not causes, and their disappearance rests entirely on how the orders adapt themselves to this, the latter third of the twentieth century. Historically, the least practiced parable within the Catholic Church has to have been the parable of the talents, and this is particularly true insofar as orders of religious women have been concerned. They have truly been hand-maidens of the Church; they have occupied subservient roles and have been encouraged to remain in secondary roles--interpreting kindly the motives and action of others, shunning criticism, and avoiding evaluation of another's fitness for her work or position--yet they possess tremendous capabilities. For the better part of a decade Stanford Research In-stitute (SRI) has undertaken research projects in the area of corporate planning, and for many more years in the field of management. In that time, working with members of the Fortune 500 and numbers of relatively small businesses, SRI has developed a philosophy or a set of principles that underlies the physical tasks in the planning process and exercise of management functions. In the last three years we have been privileged to work with the following orders in assessing their present and future status: Sisters of the Holy Cross, Notre Dame, Indiana; the Sisters of Charity of Mount St. Joseph, Cincinati; and the Sisters of Charity of Mount St. Vincent, New York. The 'philosophy of corporate planning has proved to be as effective for religious orders as for corporations. We do not have "the answer," and we are the first to admit that our approach evolves a little with every study and improves; but we do have a system that is logical, comprehensive, participative, timely, and oriented toward results. The system SRI follows is outlined here because we believe it offers sound means of planning for. the future, of implementing change without chaos, and of exercising true collegiality and subsidiarity. A number of sisters have even called it "the key to survival." What Is Planning? All of us plan to some extent whenever we think ahead to select a course of action. But this is a weak way of defining planning. SRI prefers to define effective planning as a network of decisions that direct the intent, guide the preparation for change, and program action designed to produce specific results. Note that the emphasis is on goal-directed action. Ob-jectives can be determined and achieved if properly planned for. The network of decisions recognizes the in-terrelationships between internal and external factors and that earlier decisions may greatly influence later ones. On more than one occasion I have heard of a diocese "giving" a high school to an order. The deci-sion to accept, in at least two instances, has meant a considerable drain on the human and financial re-sources of the orders concerned and effectively com-mitted them to that apostolate for many years, irrespec-tive of the priorities of the sisters in the congregations. Throughout our private and corporate lives we make decisions under conditions of uncertainty; and we trust, with varying degrees of probability, that the outcomes will be as anticipated. The formal process of planning described briefly here does not guarantee success, how-ever that may be defined, but it considerably enhances the probability. SRI does not talk about short and long range planning as separate functions. Planning is the function that ex-tends into the future as far as is considered desirable. If a college operated by an order requires 50 percent of its faculty to be religious (so it can provide Christian wit- 4. 4- + Stewardship VOLUME 2% 1970 647 ]. D~ .McConnell REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS '648 ness and remain economically viable), the retirement pattern for the next six or seven years determines what type of graduate fellowships should be offered for both the coming academic year and the several that. follow. The awarding of fellowships in its turn requires that other decisions be made.This year's budget and deci-sions should be determined on the basis of their con-tribution to the long range objectives of the institution or order, and not be de facto determiners of the direc-tion the organization takes. The Genius Founder Our research studies and project work concerned with the nature of organizations, corporate development, and successful management have indicated that, in almost every case, successful organizations of all kinds have been the brainchild of a single person or, in rare instances, of two in partnership. Names such as Vincent de Paul, St. Ignatius Loyola, Elizabeth Seton, Catherine McAuley, St. Francis Xavier Cabrini, Baden Powell, General Booth, Henry Ford, Alfred Sloan-Charles Kettering, Gen-eral Wood, Hewlett-Packard, the Pilkinton Brothers, Andrew Carnegie, and H. J. Heinz come readily to mind. By analyzing the attributes and state of mind of the "genius founder" of the business enterprise, SRI devel-oped a framework of tasks designed to re-create the mental processes of the genius entrepreneur within the management team of the corporation. Let me explain further. As we see it, the success of the "genius founder" is in large measure caused by his un-swerving dedication to setting high goals and .to reach-ing for them. He has vision on which he bases his own objectives and sets his own goals. And he does this not simply on the basis of last year's results plus some growth factor or what has always been done, but on the basis of his own perception of his own capabilities and the drive to satisfy his own needs. These attributes of vision and ~ommitment in goal setting are most impor-tant. Other distinguishing attributes of our "genius founders" appear to us to be: oA willingness to assume risk oA sense of inquisitiveness or unceasing curiosity ~Insight into relationships between concepts, objec-tives, needs, and needs satisfaction; the ability to see implications or utility ~Ability to make sound value judgments as to what is central and peripheral to attaining his objectives ~Creativity, be it in the area of product, technology, or a new marketing approach oFeasibility judgment based on foresight, experience, and a problem-solving ability oAbility to marshall the resources needed to accom-plish his objectives and goals oAdministrative ability to organize the resources to accomplish his goals and satisfy his inner needs. Organized Entrepreneurship To translate the "genius founder" or "genius entre-preneur" concept to the complex organization, SRI de-veloped a methodological framework that we call "or-ganized entrepreneurship." This framework provides a process of planning that meets the criteria of compre-hensiveness, logic (including provision for retraceable logic), participation by the corporate membership, time-liness, generation of rapid understanding based on a common frame of reference, and an orientation toward results, that is, the decisions reached can be acted on and managed. Through a series of tasks it also repro-duces corporately the distinguishing attributes of the entrepreneur. Let us now briefly go through the planning steps with their various tasks to show you how they fit together in a logical pattern. Step 1: Determination of Corporate Objectives Many institutes and orders have approached the question of who they are and what they want to achieve in overly simplistic terms. Too often purpose is expressed only in broad conceptual statements such as "the glorification of the Lord," "mercy," and "charity" and in terms such as "care for the homeless, the sick, and the aged," and "Christian education." Motherhood statements of a broad nature serve a unifying purpose but tend to let the members of a congregation under-take any work whether it really fits the primary purposes of the order or not. What a congregation is and what it is about are com-plex issues, and definitional statements formulated must take into account the expectations of the several stake-holder groups, the corporate skills and resources, and environmental change. One implication of this is that objectives have to be reviewed periodically. The end result is a family of objectives or, as people like Grangerx and Boyd and Levy2 have termed it, a hierarchy of objectives. a Charles H. Granger, "The Hierarchy of Objectives," Harvard Business Review, May-June 1964, pp. 63-74. ~ Harper W. Boyd and Sidney J. Levy, "What Kind o£ Corporate Objectives?" Journal o] Marketing, October 1966, pp. 53-8. Stewaraship VOLUME 29, 1970 64:9 ÷ ÷ ÷ ]. D. McConnell REVIEW FOR'RELIGIOUS 650 When defining the broad purpose of an organization, one has to recognize the sometimes conflicting interests of the stakeholders, that is, the members, the diocese(s),. the suppliers, and the customers (parishes, students, pa-tients, and the like) and yet resolve the conflict. Be-neath this broad umbrella a hierarchy of objectives is formulated for each stakeholder group, apostolate area, and the generalate of the congregation. As one goes through the hierarchy, the objectives become more specific in their direction, their distance, and the rate at which they can be achieved. The specification of objec-tives also facilitates the development of key criteria for evaluating performance and, sociologically, it recognizes the reality of the situation. The refusal of many clergy to accept Pope Paul's ruling on birth control was really a move to realign those matters considered to be within the realm of individual conscience, those .considered to be within the realm of the clergy, and those considered to obe essential to the faith and therefore within the realm of the Holy See. The present thrust to clean up the environment is an expression of the expectations of the-community stakeholders whose objectives have not been accorded rightful emphasis in the past by a society that has acceded too often to the claims of industry. To develop this hierarchy of objectives it is necessary to undertake a series of analyses. Stakeholder .4 nalysis The typical stakeholders in a congregation of religious are the members, .the diocese(s), functional or apostolate groups, customers, suppliers, financial institutions, and the community within which it operates. For each stakeholder group the governing board at-tempts to answer the following broad questions: oWhat does this group want from the congregation? oWhat expectations does this group have for the con-gregation? ~To what extent are these expectations being met? ~To what extent can the congregation meet them, recognizing .that it is impossible to do everything? Expectations will relate to such items as number and quality of services provided, fees charged, availability, citizqnship, jobs provided, behavior, ethics, and morality. The analyses should take into account the present balance and reconciliation of stakeholder interests, rec-ognizing conflicting interest and expectations as well as attempting to assess what is changing that will affect future expectations. A realistic stakeholder analysis within most dioceses would reveal the extent to which the expectations of local parish priests are being met at the expense of sacrificing the interests of the other stakeholders--the students, the parents, and lthe teachers (lay and religious) staffing the schools. An~ interesting commercial example is the Unilever Company in Africa, which made realistxc stakeholder analyses and surwved the nationalistic fervor of transition fromI colonies to countries by becoming a manufacturer rather than a trader, an economic developer of local resources rather than an extractor, and a partner rather tha~n an oppo-nent. Today, Unilever has a stronger position than ever in African markets. Special studies are almost mandatory because the senior corporate managementI group can hardly be expected to know the basic underlying factors determlmng expectations and perceptions of the stake-holder groups. The provisional stakeholder analysis for ~any commu-nity would include such factors as the percentage of families directly employed by the ~nstxtut,e; the con-gregation's contribution to and percentage of local taxes, if any; the number of members in religiohs teaching, social, civic, and political jobs (full and pa~t time); the annual contributions by the congregation Ito area or-ganizations; sponsorship of local groups; pol~itical action (lobbying, testifying regardxng leg~slatxon) at all levels; and local community attitudes toward the institutions of the congregation. In overseas operations it should also include studies of such factors as ~he political climate, stability of government, acceptan~ce, cultural variables, and attitudes toward overseas-based congrega-tions. Customer analysis will vary by type of apostolate. An orphanage would have different criteria froth those of a college or a retreat center, for example. Nevertheless, all analyses should include estimates for each class of serv-ice, the total potential "customers," the actual numbers served, the "market" share by value and volume, and an evaluation of quality of service as perceivec.lI by custom-ers. As is readily apparent, data on stakeholtler expecta-tions have to be gathered from a wide variety of sources: internally within the congregation, from independent appraisers, and from those actually served. Determining Corporate Potential The final component of this first task of ~tetermining corporate objectives is the establishment of a level of ~ . aspiration in the form of the corporate potentxal. Henry Ford estimated his potential as prowd~ng e~,ery Ameri-can family with an automobile. William Hesketh Lever wanted to make cleanliness commonplace in an era when Queen Victoria took a bath "once a week, whether she ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 29, 1970 651 4. 4. 4. ~. D. McConnell REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS needed it or not." Our genius entrepreneurs have al-ways reached high, and this has been true of religious like Saint Vincent de Paul or Martin Luther King. The SRI approach is to treat potential as an expres-sion of the governing board's attitude to the congrega-tion's future. Potential can be expressed both in Ford's and Lever's conceptual terminology and also in more pragmatic terms such as the amount of patient care pro-vided, number of students educated, social work case loads, financial soundness, professional hours contrib-uted, and average Sunday morning attendance at Mass. Corporate potential is based on all key-planning issues derived from studying the social and economic outlook, the apostolate areas in which the company is interested, the opportunities for more effective resource utilization, the likely effects of important stakeholder expectations, and a congregation's own conclusions about its level of ambition and strength of commitment. As we see it, the determination of potential stimu-late~, motivates, and enables speculation about its attain-ability. Projected results are not predictions in the com-monly accepted sense but are simply estimates of what could happen when the assumptions made turn out to be valid. The concept aims at stimulating the setting of ambitious congregational and apostolic goals. The result of this phase of the planning process is the setting of a hierarchy of corporate objectives, including a set of ambitious yet realistic human resources and financial objectives. For an order of women religious today to expect to maintain a membership of 1,500 highly qualified professionals by recruiting 50 to 60 novices a year is totally unrealistic. Sound corporate ob-jectiv. es, together with a clear concept of what religious life is all about, should enable a congregation, however, to arrest and then reverse the currently familiar down-ward trend. Step 2: The Assembling o[ In[ormation The assembling of information consists of four main tasks: An in-depth evaluation of what is being done now, an analysis of the skills and resources of the con-gregation, an evaluation of environmental change, and an appraisal of planning issues. The goals and objectives of the congregation and its apostolate areas are explicated to obtain sets of criteria for the evaluations that have to .be undertaken. Once the criteria are established, it is relatively simple (1) to de-ten- nine what information is needed and the data sources necessary for an objective in-depth analysis and evaluation, (2) to develop instruments to collect data not already in existence, and (3) to put all these to-gether. Analysis of the skills and resources of the organization requires three studies: one of government, one of human resources, and one of financial resources. SKI suggests the development of a computerized personnel inventory. This enables detailed analysis and projections to be un-dertaken, as well as aiding in matching skills and in-terests to apostolic needs. Studies of environmental change can and should be obtained from a number of sources. They may be as broad as Kahn and Wiener's ,Economics to the Year 2018/' .~ or as specialized as a local city planning com-mission's forecasts of school population. Most congrega-tions are largely unaware of the amount of information on environmental change that is available just for the asking. In planning the future staffing for elementary schools in a diocese, one order learned that a school would disappear completely within fi~e years because the city planned a freeway through the area, which would mean the razing of almost all homes in the parish. The trends in the age distxibution of an area may indicate the development of different needs in future health care (less obstetric and more geriatric and cardiac care, for instance) and types of social services offered. Undertaking environmental analysis is one thing; ensuring its acceptance and use by management is an-other. One large sophisticated American company un-dertook a test market study in Japan to see if a market existed for a type of convenience snack food. The cor-porate management were ethnocentric about this prod-uct to the point that they refused to believe unfavora-ble test market results the first and second times around and insisted the study be replicated a third time. Busi-ness has no monopoly on this form of myopia, and much of the Church's attitudes toward parochial education appears analogous. The final task in the assembling of information, the appraisal of planning issues, is undertaken by the planning group. Following house or apostolate briefings, planning issues are solicited from those judged to have "management perspective"; to contact all members of the congregation has been our rule to date. Each mem-ber submits as many issues as he desires on a standard-ized form. In the first planning cycle the issues tend to be highly oriented to the present, but experience shows that in subsequent cycles the time horizon expands con-siderably. Typically, the submitted issues identify the 8 Herman Kahn and Arthur J. Wiener, Economics to the Fear 2018 (New York: Macmillan. 1967). 4- 4- St~ardship VOLUME 29, 1970 1. D. Mc~onne// REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 654 ~functionM point of impact on the institution or con-gregation, the nature of the impact, whatever supporting evidence exists, and suggested ranges of possible action. Issues are then grouped into families of issues that have common causes, that yield to a common solution, or that can be assigned to a single responsible person. You may ask: "Why solicit planning issues from mem-bers as a major basic input to the planning process?" The underlying assumptions are that people will do only what they see is of interest and importance to them and that each individual's perception is his reality. Members of a congregation cannot be expected to devote time and energy to matters they do not consider relevant to them as religious. The system also provides government with an excel-lent upwards channel of communication and, by per-mitting every member to participate and contribute ac-tively, enhances the probabilities of acceptance of the plan and a commitment to achieve it. This participative philosophy is touched on again later in this article. Step 3: Development of Planning Actions The major superior and the members of the governing board then read through each family of planning issues, screening out those where action has already been taken or is imminent, or where incorrect perception is in-volved. In these cases executive action is indicated. Each family of issues is then reviewed in the light of the corporate objectives, special studies' highlights, the analysis of resources, and the "real" message indicated by the issues. The members of the governing group then take each family of issues and identify the kind of action it suggests, what is at stake in terms of costs and benefits, the costs (both out of pocket and opportunity) of taking action, the degree of urgency, the first and second order implications of the kind of action sug-gested, and the management personnel who should at-tend to it. These individual efforts in translating issues to responses are then reviewed by the whole of the ex-ecutive group whose discussions strive to combine re-lated actions into broader, more fundamental actions and to identify important actions still missing. Use of a task force to assist in this process may be helpful. Suggested actions emerging from this review should then be tested by whatever means deemed appropriate. Feasible actions are then grouped by three or more levels of priority. Step 4: Preparation of the Provisional Plan In this s~ep of the planning process the proposals for action are translated into specific action assignments that, when completed in detail, provide the goals, action, and controls portion of the provisional plan. This provi-sional plan corresponds with the marshaling ability of our "genius entrepreneur." We suggest the use of a specific form that, when ap-proved by the assignment group and accepted by the action assignee, represents an authorization to proceed and a cohtract to perform the specified action in the terms stated. One important set of Form 3s, as we call them, relate to the continuance of present operations and thus ensure that all aspects of the congregation's activities form part of the plan. Before final approval the Form 3s flows through the finance and planning offices, where calculations of total costs and benefits are made for each priority level and are compared with total resources available. This pro-vides the governing board with a means to decide how many and which tasks can be undertaken within the planning period. The actions, tasks, or projects selected are then built into estimates of benefits and costs to see the effects on congregational performance and where the plan will posit the congregation with respect to its current per-formance, intermediate goals, and movement toward at-tainment of the longer range objectives. At this point the planning group updates the special studies' highlights; assembles the draft statements on corporate objectives and key assumptions; and produces summaries of the action programs in terms of timing, pro forma financial statements (operating statement, balance sheet, cash flow), and resource requirements (manpower, equipment, facilities, and capital)--broken down by organizational units, priorities, and whether they are current or developmental operations. The natural advocate of each action proposed then describes it and leads discussion within the governing board to double-check the plan in terms of the realism of goals, schedules, and cost/benefit estimates, of agreed-on performance standards (that is, the rules of the game), of interdependence among organizational units, of effects of unrealistic goals on the rest of the congregation, and of whether each action proposed is justified in terms of the congregation's objectives. This may sound like a detailed process that takes a lot of central government's time, and it does. But it ensures that: oThe government group understands all aspects of the proposed plan. oWithin the context of the emerging corporate pur-pose and strategy there is a review of program con-÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 29, 1970 655 ÷ ÷ ÷ ]. D. M~mme~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 656 tent, a rank ordering of programs, and anallocation of resources in accordance with priorities. oAn appraisal of various program combinations oc-curs, highlighting the relative emphasis on continu-ing present activities and developing new ones, the magnitude of effort required to reach each poten-tial, and the timing and sequence of interrelated programs. oAfter final decisions and allocations are made, the provisional plan is put in final form and presented by the major superior to the board for approval, and then approved programs are channeled to ac-tion assignees. The first year o£ the plan is the congregation's budget. The congregation is now at the point of managing by plan, which parallels the "genius entrepreneur" charac-teristic of administrative ability. It has succeeded in rep-licating the characteristics of the "genius entrepreneur" in a corporate framework. In subsequent periods the congregation recycles through the planning process, and the family of plans is updated and reissued. The first year of the plan as up-dated becomes the operating budget and the final year of the plan is extended. Here perhaps a word of warning is in order. Remember that lead time is an absolute necessity. It takes three to five years before major moves have a real impact on a corporation, and SRI believes that the same will hold true for congregations of religious. Maior in-depth evaluations are probably required only about every five years. In the interim period the special studies, updating of stakeholder analyses, and solicitation of planning issues from members are all that is likely to be required. Conclusion Our experience has been that the organized entre-preneurship model works. In the five years (this is the sixth) that SRI has been conducting executive seminars in business planning, more than 600 executives from over 300 companies representing every continent of the globe have participated. Many corporations, such as Coca-Cola, Owens-Corning Fiberglas, Lockheed, Merck, and Cyanamid, have been using one or more variations of the model with considerable success. The model de-scribed here is the adaptation that has been developed for congregations of religious despite the difficulties of measuring benefits and some kinds of costs when non-financial criteria are applicable. It is too early to say to what degree the orders SRI has assisted with planning have benefited, but there is every reason to believe that they are adapting with the times and will continue to be dynamic forces in the Church and wider society in the years ahead. Highly idealistic, yet realistic, spiritual and temporal goals and objectives have been determined. Honest objective evaluations have been undertaken, recommendations have been made, plans for their implementation have been drawn up, and these are being put into effect. Government has been democratized and strengthened. Management sys-tems have been introduced. And all of this has been done by directly involving some 250 members of each order in task forces and less directly involving all mem-bers through solicitation of information, opinions, at-titudes, and issues important to them. The final plan is theirs and they are committed to it. This motivation alone enhances the probabilities of success. In addition, the management skills of these congregations have been added to greatly. The sense of community has been en-hanced by the reaffirmation of congregational goals and objectives, the open realization of the pluralism inherent in any large group of people, and the translation from concept to action of both subsidiarity and collegiality. Another vital factor that enhances the probabilities of the orders strengthening themselves as a result of the introduction of modern management techniques and planning as part of their renewal is the quality of .their leadership. It takes strong, forward-looking leaders to see the benefits from and to commit their members to a major planning project such as this and then see that it reaches fruition. Good management is good stewardship of resources to attain goals and objectives and to provide the greatest benefits for all stakeholders with the resources available. One essential component of good management is plan-ning. ÷ ÷ ÷ S~ardshi~ VOLUME 29, 1970 657 LOUIS G. MILLER, C.Ss.R. The Social Responsibility of Religious Louis G. Miller, (~,Ss.R., is on the staff of Liguori Publication in Li-guori, Mo. 65057. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 658 It is in the temper of our times that religious who take the vow of poverty are under close scrutiny. The youthful generation has a sharp eye for phoniness, and they are quick to draw attention to the gap that seems to exist between professing a vow of poverty and the actual living of a poor life. The matter concerns the individual religious and it also concerns the religious order or congregation as a whole. The following reflections have to do with one aspect of the problem which, in my opinion, religious communities have, generally speaking, neglected in the past. I mean the responsibility of devoting some part of the community funds to investment in projects designed to help relieve the most pressing social problem of our time: the widening gulf between the haves and the have nots in our society. Before developing my theme, let me state that I am well aware of the self-sacrificing work being done by religious in their parishes and in teaching and nursing programs for the poor and deprived. When a parish staffed by members of a religious order goes through the inevitable cycle and changes from middle-class to low-income parishioners, the people stationed there pitch in, ordinarily, and try to adapt to the new situation that is thrust upon them with energetic zeal. What we are concerned with in this article is social consciousness on the provincial level. In the ordinary course of development, a province will accumulate funds, and it will seek ways to invest these funds. The interest from these investments goes to the support of educational institutions and missionary projects. There are two ways of doing this. A religious community can invest its funds under the single motivating principle that the investments be safe and that they bring the highest possible return. This is the course followed by many a conscientious bursar or procurator, and in the past, few questioned it. Another way of going about .the matter of investing funds would be to look for ways and means of applying them to the alleviation of the pressing social crisis of our time. No one can be unaware that such a crisis exists. It finds expression in the widening gulf between rich and poor, the increasing bitterness in the racial confrontation, and the alienation between generations that seems to result from the other factors. In Vatican II's Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of Religious Life there is a very apt expression of community responsibility in this regard. After noting that "poverty voluntarily embraced in imitation of Christ provides a witness which is highly esteemed, especially today," the Decree goes on to say: Depending on the circumstances of their location, communi-ties as such should aim at giving a kind of corporate witness to their own poverty. Let them willingly contribute something from their own resources to the other needs otr the Church, and to the support of the poor, whom religious should love with the tenderness of Christ (Number 13). As we well know, the young appear to find it.difficult to put their faith and trust in any kind of "establish-ment" today. They only too readily suppose that an institution of its very nature is so hamstrung by long-standing traditions that it cannot move in the direction of new and imaginative ventures. Over and above the tremendous work being done by religious in, for example, inner city projects; over and above occasional cash donations to worthy causes, I believe we need something in the nature of a symbolic gesture on the level of capital fund investment. I believe this would serve as a large factor in winning the confidence of young people that we are indeed willing to back up our words with our deeds, and that as an institution we can take a forward step. The heart of the social crisis today, most authorities agree, is the housing problem. The United States Commission on Civil Rights calls this the "most ubiquitous and deeply rooted civil rights problem in America." The Koerner Report agrees and makes it clear that its dimensions are so great that if a solution is not found within a few years, the resultant pressures could produce riots far more terrible than those our country experienced two or three years ago. The plain fact of the matter is that while each year 1.5 million new family homes are built in the United States, nearly all of them are on a de facto segregated basis. Since World War II the FHA and VA have financed $120,000,000 in new housing. According to a ÷ ÷ Social l~sponsibitity VOL~bl~ 2% k970 .I. + L. G. MC.iSllse.Rr,. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 6~0 survey made two years ago by the American Friends' Service Commission, less than two percent of this housing has been available, kealistically available, to non-whites. Each year we get larger white belts in our suburbs and more compressed black cores in our cities. The black core is continually compressed inward upon itself. Recently in St. Louis representatives of the president's Commission on Civil Rights, under the chairmanship of Father Theodore Hesburgh, after long hearings on the situation there, issued a depressing report that, although legally integrated housing is in force, de facto segregation in the great majority of suburbs is still very much the order of the day. He was quoted as saying: "Everybody we interviewed admitted that we have a grave problem; but nobody knows what to do about it." I propose that we direct some of our provincial invest-ments, perhaps a tithe of 10 percent, to the alleviation of this de facto discrimination in housing. In doing so, we would not of course be pioneers among church groups. There are available for study a number of interesting examples of what can be done and has been done. In Akron, Ohio, there is a nonprofit interfaith organization, organized in 1964, called INPOST, spon-sored by local Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches. INPOST has directed several million dollars of investment into a complex of 108 units of low-cost housing, 72 units of high-rise housing, and 28 town houses. It is hoped that this complex will become a model for similar developments across the country. The diocese of Peoria for the next three years will advance $35,000 annually toward urban renewal and poverty programs in their area, with special emphasis on housing projects. We have noticed in the news recently that the Chicago Jesuit province recently made available $100,000 to be used as bond money to try to keep black families from being evicted from their homes. These are families with no equity in their homes even years after purchase at inflated prices, and legally able to be evicted on missing one payment. The Franciscan Sisters of Wheaton, Illinois, have announced an $8,000,000 plan to build and operate as nonprofit sponsors a residential complex for senior citizens and middle-income families in that area. The diocese of Detroit has been a leader in approving at least one $74,000 loan as seed money for testing the feasibility of having houses prefabricated by the hard-core unem-ployed for erection in the inner city. There is a national organization,, with headquarters in Washington, D. C., called SOHI, or "Sponsors of Open House Investment." Congressman Donald M. Frazer is its chairman, and numbered in its long list of sponsors is a host of distinguished Americans of all creeds and a variety of professional competences. It seeks to promote investment by individuals or by non-profit institutions of about 10 percent of their available investment capital in housing that is open to all. The organization does not itself invest. But it alerts indi-viduals and nonprofit groups to investment opportuni-ties in equal housing. It seeks to bring together investors of good will and housing professionals who are com-mitted to open occupancy. It operates on the principle that if a person cannot do anything himself to help solve the housing problem, his funds, if he has money to invest, can be an eloquent voice to help in the terrible silence of the decent in facing up to the housing problem that exists in our Country today. Under the slogan "National Neighbors" it seeks to build bridges of understanding between people, whatever their race or color. The Headquarters of SOHI is located at 1914 Connecticut Ave., N. W., Washington, D. C. 20009. Objection to these proposals can be made, of course, on the grounds that there is a smaller interest rate on such investments, and they are not as safe as blue chip stocks. Also, the objector might continue, the religious community needs all the money it can scrape together in these difficult times to support the various projects already in operation. But I submit that this does not absolve us from our social responsibility. If things are tough for us, they are much tougher for a great many people in the have-not group. They are a lot tougher even for people who have the money, but who can't buy a home in a decent neighborhood because their skin is black. If the social problem in our country is not met and dealt with, the most gilt edged investments will not be of much use or solace in the turmoil and violence that may follow. ÷ ÷ ÷ so~d VOLUME 29, 1970 661 SISTER M. RITA FLAHERTY, R.S.M. Psychological Needs of CeBbates and Others ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister Rita is chairman of the Department of Psy-chology; C~rlow College; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 662 Today when the value of celibacy--to which so many thousands of priests and religious are committed--is being questioned, it seems important that every facet of the problem be examined. The questioning seems to be the result of: (1) Vatican II's emphasis on the true value of marriage as a way of life that can lead to the highest sanctity and spiritual fulfillment, (9) the research of Biblical schoIars which raises questions about the time, place, circumstances, and even authenticity of those words of Christ which were formerly quoted in defense of celibacy, (3) the difficulty of practicing celi-bacy in a culture that places a high premium on sexual pleasure, and (4) the emotional difficulties that can arise as a result of deprivation of this important physical and psychological need. While all aspects of this problem deserve close study, it is with the last aspect that this paper will be concerned. In spite of all these problems and new discoveries, there are many religious and priests who cannot ignore what they believe is the prompting of the Spirit to live a celibate life. These people who choose to live in the unmarried state are entitled, it would seem, to have this freedom and also to have any help from psychologists or others who can aid them in solving some of the problems that may arise as a result of that choice. Although this study is directed toward the needs of celibates, actually much of the material is applicable to both married and unmarried alike. Basic psychological needs are to a great extent universal, differing only in emphasis and means of satisfaction from one cultural group to another. In studying the behavior of humans, psychologists in general would conclude that all behavior is motivated, that is, it arises from some need within man. Behavior, as defined by psychologists, is an attempt to provide satisfaction for a need. What is a need? What happens when a need is experienced? A need is a state o[ tension or disequilib-rium that results from some lack within the person. When this need is felt, it causes the person to become tense and restless; it activates him to perform some action in order to relieve the need--to get rid of the tension and to achieve a state of ~atisfaction or equilib-rium. A man who is watching a television 'show may not be conscious of his need for food, but he does become restless while watching and jumps up at the commercial and goes to the refrigerator to find something to eat. This behavior is directed towards a goal that will relieve the tension from hunger. Hunger is classified as a physical need, along with thirst, need for sleep, for oxygen, for elimination, for sex, and for many other activities that help to maintain a state of physical satisfaction. Each of these physical needs is tied in with a biological system within the body which in most cases depends on satisfaction of the physical need for survival. One cannot imagine a man being deprived of oxygen for more than eight minutes or deprived of water for more than a week or of food for much more than a month, without dying. Therefore when the person becomes aware of the lack of oxygen, water, or food he becomes agitated and rest-less and gradually filled with tension until he finds a suitable object to satisfy his need. And so it is with all the other physical needs, .including sex, except that the need for sex seems to be the only one which is not necessary for the individual's preservation of life--it is, however, very important in the preservation of the race. For this reason celibates need not worry about endangering their lives, but they must expect a certain amount of frustration and tension resulting from the deprivation of this basic physiological drive which in man is also part of his whole personality. However, physical needs comprise only one of three categories that may be termed human needs. One must also consider psychological and spiritual needs in studying human behavior. Although many psychologists discuss a large variety of psychological needs the five most com-monly mentioned include: affection, security, achieve-ment, independence, and status. Since these needs are more subtle and do not usually lead to loss of life, people are often unaware of the tension created by them. Yet the tension can become very strong and even lead in some individuals to a complete disorganization of personality which could be termed a kind of psy-chological "death." ÷ ÷ Sister Rita REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS TiLe need for affection implies the need to give and receive love. This is very important throughout life, but seems most important during infancy and early childhood, in studies done by Ribble, Spitz and others young infants deprived of mothering, that is, fondling, petting, and other signs of affection have in some cases gradually wasted away in a disease called maras-mus. Older children and adults may not die from lack of affection but they may develop some severe person-ality deviations. The second psychological need mentioned is that of security which Karen Homey defines as the need to feel safe from the dangers of a hostile and threatening world. Physical security is not the important element here as was demonstrated by the children who ex-perienced the terrors of the London bombings during the Second World War. It was found after the war that those who were separated from their parents and sent to places of safety in the country showed more psychological disturbance and insecurity than those who lived through the raids in the city of London while staying with their parents. Evidently the presence of people who love you makes one feel more secure than any amount of physical safety in the presence of strangers. As adults, we experience insecurity when we fear that no one loves us or that those people who are present in a situation we perceive as threatening do not really know us or understand us. The next psychological need is achievement or the feeling that one has accomplished something worthwhile. The individual must be convinced himself of his achievement. Another person telling him that his work is good is not sufficient if he himself is dissatisfied with the outcome. Therefore when one reaches a personal goal, a feeling of real achievement can be experienced-- but often p~ople who are deprived of affection or feel insecure cannot feel a satisfying experience of achieve-ment. The anxiety that is generated by deprivation of these other psychological needs may either paralyze their efforts so they cannot achieve, or if they do achieve, the results are rendered personally unsatis-fying. Once a person can achieve, however, he usually wants to become independent. The need for independ-ence involves the ability to make decisions and take responsibility for one's own actions. During adolescence this need gets very strong and continues throughout life. One can never be considered a mature adult until he has achieved an independence of "though.t, decision, and action. Finally the need for status or a feeling of self-worth must be considered as probably the most improtant psychological need found in humans. The need for status includes the desire to be a worthwhile person-- to be a good person. Everyone has this very basic need to see himself as a person who is worthwhile. Anyone who views himself as bad, inferior, or inadequ.ate does not satisfy his need for status. More Americans are visiting clinical psychologists today because they "hate" themselves, than for any other reason. If this need for self-worth is not fulfilled the person cannot be really happy. A final category of human needs is not usually men-tioned in psychology books but should be noted here, that is, spiritual needs. These include a need to believe, love, and worship an absolute Being--someone outside of man who is infinitely good and powerful. Spiritual needs also include the need to "live for others," to go out to others, to have a meaning for one's life. Depriva-tion of needs in the spiritual area are less perceptible, that is, many people can seemingly go for years without showing tension over these needs. However, because these needs are most subtle does not mean they do not exist or that they are less important. Since psychology is a relatively new science it is understandable that very little investigation has been conducted in this intimate but obscure area of man's personality. Victor Frankl and other psychotherapists are writing more often these days about existential neurosis, which is a frustration and anxiety caused by a lack of purpose in one's life. Those individuals who see no purpose in life or reason for living may very often be suffering from a deprivation of spiritual needs. Now in considering the problems brought on by these needs one must remember that they can be operating on a conscious or an unconscious level. A man may be aware that he is hungry and go in search of food, or sometimes he may be unaware that the frus-tration, tension, and even depression he experiences could be eased by eating a good meal and perhaps getting a good night's sleep. So, while most physical needs are consciously felt, sometimes needs for food, sex, sleep, and so forth may be causing tension for which we cannot account. The psychological needs are much more likely to operate on an unconscious level, perhaps because many people would be loathe to admit their needs for affection, approval, status, and so forth. It is possible for a person to be aware that he needs to be loved or esteemed by others, but it is more likely that he would repress this, thereby causing the need to operate on the unconscious level. Finally, spiritual needs are most likely to be 4- 4- 4- Need~ o] Celibates VOLUME 29, 1970 665 Sister Rita REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 666 repressed and many people go through life not realizing that they have a human need for God--a need to depend on an all-powerful Being for love and help. One might ask how a discussion of these needs js involved in the problems of celibates. It is the thesis of this paper that many celibates can stand the frustration involved in a deprivation of the sex need if other needs are adequately met. For religious it is likely that the physical and spiritual needs are satisfied more often than the psychological ones. Because of faulty training in the areas of friendship, detachment, and obedience a number of celibates ex-perience extreme frustration in areas of at~ection, security, and independence. Because of a fear of engendering pride or a false concept of humility many religious practices have also deprived individuals of a feeling of self-worth. Rarely in the past was praise given for work well-done, and it is the unusual person who can satisfy his need for self-esteem unless he sees others regarding him as a good person. In the past some celibates ma~ have been able to maintain some feeling of worth and goodness based solely on the assumption that celibacy was a "higher" form of life than marriage. Now, postconcilar writers are emphasizing that all states of life can lead to sanctity and that all Christians are called to lead a life of perfection. By thus equalizing the various states, the only prop that some celibates had for a feeling of self-worth (admittedly it was a poor onel) has been pulled away from them. Also in the past the People of God tended to look to those leading a celibate life as somehow being better than non-celibate Christians. Now there is a tendency in Catholic books, articles, and newspapers to question the value of celibacy. This questioning accompanied some-times with a kind of ridicule and cynicism may even-tually cause some celibates to become skeptical about the celibate commitment they have made. Those religious and priests who are abandoning the state of celibacy and seeking dispensations to marry are not necessarily suffering primarily from the deprivation of the sex need. It may be that a person who feels lonely, unloved, and unappreciated may seek in the marriage state the companionship, love, and appreciation that could legitimately have been given him in a loving Christian community. On the other hand, it must be admitted that some celibates may feel it necessary to invest their love in one person of the opposite sex, and thus realize that marriage is the only solution for them. In a recent study cited in the International Herald Tribune (March 10, 1970) the results of a Harvard study conducted by James Gill, S.J., showed that in the case of the 2500 priests leaving the United States priest-hood each year, celibacy does not seem to be the major causal factor. Father Gill indicates that he finds that the priests who are leaving and marrying are very often depressed. The priest dropout was most often a man who found himself taken for granted in a crowded system that sometimes denies the human need for approval. This discovery has caused some of the Church's most dedicated and talented priests to become sad, lonely, disillusioned, and resentful. As one examines these findings of Gill, one is reminded of a similar syndrome that psychiatrists have found in many young business executives--men who find themselves caught up in a structure filled with activity but which leaves the individual disillusioned with a system that deperson-alizes him. It is likely, then, that the American culture is a big factor in the working structui~e of the Church in the United States and that the same conditions that operate in the society to dehumanize the individual are also operating in the Church structure. In a personality analysis, Gill found that many of the priest dropouts were task-oriented men, who were raised by their parents in such a way that the achieve-ment of goals, particularly difficult ones, appealed strongly to them. They tended to go about their work in a compulsive, perfectionistic way, not seeking or enjoying pleasure from it, but aiming unconsciously at the recognition and approval they would gain from those they served. Father Gill goes on to show that when this recognition and approval are not experienced, the priest is in deep emotional trouble. It takes between five and fifteen years for a priest like this to experience the disillusion-ment that will eventually lead to some kind of a crisis. The priest then begins to feel that he is being taken for granted, that nobody seems to care how hard he has worked. Usually priests like this have so consistently performed in a better than average manner that bishops and religious superiors simply expect that they will do a good job. Since applause and approval come less frequently with the passing years the priest gradually feels more and more dissatisfied with himself, with his role in the church, and with his requirement of celibacy, At this point in his life, he becomes an easy prey to emotional involvement with the first sensitive woman who comes into his life. It is evident from Gill's study and those of others that celibacy or deprivation of the sex need is not necessarily the principal problem. Many priests and VOLUME 29, '1970 religious who leave to marry are probably seeking satis-faction for basic psychological needs that could legiti-mately and rightly have been satisfied in a celibate community, or a group of Christians Who practice charity by looking out for the needs of their fellow-man. Celibates must be capable of interacting on a deep personal level with at least a few people. Through. these friendships they will be able to love and appreciate themselves, which in turn enables them to love others. ~In the past, authority figures were looked to for approval and recognition which would lead to some psychological satisfaction and a feeling of self-worth in the celibate. In the light of the findings cited above, it would seem advisable to educate all members of the celibate community (and eventually all the People of God) to a clear understanding of these emotional needs. Only in this way will it be possible for the celibate to receive from some of his peers th~ affection, approval, and sense of self-worth which is so necessary if he is to sustain the frustrations of living in a celibate en-vironment. New ideas about love, friendship, and obedience must be given to all sectors of the community, young and old alike, if the celibate is to survive psychologically. Also the value of the celibate life must be rediscovered, not as a "higher" kind of life, but as a life that can lead to a rich, happy existence as one spends it living for others and thereby living for God. ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister Rita REVIEW FOR" REI;IGIOUS 668 THOMAS A. KROSNICKI, S.V.DI The Early.Practice of Communion in the Hand Travel in the United States and Europe has reen-forced my impression that the practice of Communion reception in the hand has already become quite com-mon. Understandably, the reaction that it causes is quite varied. On the one hand, it is labeled another liberal innovation; on the other, it is seen as the. result of an honest endeavor to make the reception of the Eucharist an authentic sign. In any case, and this is the purpose of the present article, we should realize that this practice, now officially permitted in. Belgium, France, Germany, and Switzerland, is not an. unprec-edented development in the liturgy of the Church.1 Synoptic Considerations The Synoptic accounts record the institution narra-tive as taking place in the setting of a meal which was almost certainly the Passover meal.~ The bread that Jesus used at the Lord's Supper would have been the unleavened bread (matzoth) of the Jewish Passover rite. It is interesting to note, however, that by the time the evangelists set about to record the institution event, they simply used the Greek word "artos," or leavened bread. This is understandable since it is generally accepted by Scripture scholars that the words of institution in the Gospels present the tradition concerning the Lord's Sup-per as preserved in the very celebration of the Eucharist in the early Christian communities. It seems, therefore, that when the Eucharist was celebrated outside the Thomas A. Kros-nicld is a member of Collegio del Verbo Divino; Ca-sella ~.Postale" 5080; Rome, Italy. VOLUME 2% 1970 See "Taking Communion," Worship, v. 43 (1969), p. ~440. Mt 26:26; Mk 14:22-3; Lk 22:19. 669 ÷ T. A. Kromicki, $.V.D. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Passover week, leavened bread was commonly used by the early Church) We should also note in this context the word used to describe the distribution of the eucharistized bread. Jesus simply gave it to those who were present. "Take and eat," Jesus said to his apostles. The verb used is the Greek Xa~/3~vo~ which is a generic verb indicating the simple act of taking (with the hand) as is seen from the use of the same verb in Luke 22:19 where Jesus "took the leavened bread." (K~d Xo~v &prov). Frbm these considerations, though no direct proof is established, two points can be asserted. In the Apostolic Church the Eucharist was leavened bread and was dis-tributed in the ordinary manner of giving. A few selected texts ~om the writings of the Church fathers will clearly demonstrate that hand reception of the Eucharist was practiced in the first centuries. Tertullian to Cyril of Jerusalem We would not expect to find in the writings of the fathers an exact account of the mode of Communion reception that was common at their time. There was no reason for them to explain such practices. The most that one can find in searching through their works are oc-casional references to the practice. These indications point to hand reception. The oldest witness we have that the faithful received the Eucharist outside of the solemn liturgy and, in fact, in their homes, is Tertullian (d. 220). At the same time he is an implicit witness for the early practice of hand communion: A whole day the zeal of faith will direct its pleading to this quarter: bewailing that a Christian should come .from idols into the Church; should come from an adversary workshop into the house of God; should raise to God the Father hands which are the mothers of idols; should pray to God with the hands which, out of doors, are prayed to in opposition to God; should apply to the Lord's body those hands which confer bodies on demons. Nor is this sufficient. Grant that it be a small matter, if from other hands they received what they contaminate; but even those very hands deliver to others what they have con-taminated. Idol-artificers are chosen even into the ecclesiastical order. Oh wickednessl Once did the Jews lay hands on Christ; these mangle His body daily. Oh hands to be cut offl Now let the saying, 'If thy hand make thee to do evil, amputate it,' (Mt. 18.8) see to it whether it were uttered by way of similitude (merely). What hands more to be amputated than those in which scandal is done to the Lord's body? * ~ Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Bible (New York: 1963), pp. 697- 702; Joseph M. Powers, Eucharistic Theology (London: 1968), pp. 60-1. ~ Tertullian, On Idolatry (PL, v. 1, col. 744C-745A; trans.: Ante- Nicene Fathers, v. 11 [Edinburgh: 1869], p. 149). In Tertullian's To His Wife which discusses the dangers incurred by a Christian wife even with a "tolerant" pagan husband, we read: Do you think to escape notice when you make the Sign of the Cross on your bed or on your body? Or when you blow away, with a puff of your breath, some unclean thing? Or when you get up, as you do even at night, to say your prayers? In all this will it not seem that you observe some magical ritual? Will not your husband know what it is you take in secret before eating any other food? If he recognizes it as bread, will he not believe it to be what it is rumored to be? Even if he has not heard these rumors, will he be so ingenuous as to accept the explana-tion which you give, without protest, without wondering whether it is really bread and not some magic charm?" The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus of Rome (d. 235) goes into even more detail when giving prudential advice about home (and understandably hand) reception of the Eucharist: Every believer, before tasting other food, is to take care to receive the Eucharist. For if he receives it with faith, even if afterwards he is given something poisonous, it will not be able to do him harm. Everyone is to take care that no unbeliever, no mouse or other animal eats of the Eucharist, and that no particle of the Eucharist falls on the ground or is lost. For it is the Body of the Lord that the faithful eat and it is not to be treated care-lessly. o Cyprian's (d. 258) exhortation to the martyrs en-courages them to arm their right hands with the sword of the Spirit because it is the hand which "receives the Body of the Lord": And let us arm with the sword of the Spirit the right hand that it may bravely reject the deadly sacrifices that the hand which, mindful of the Eucharist, receives the Body of the Lord, may embrace Him afterwards to receive from the Lord the reward of the heavenly crown.~ When the same author speaks of the lapsed Christians, he says: On his back and wounded, he threatens those who stand and are sound, and because he does not immediately receive the Lord's Body in his sullied hands or drink of the Lord's blood with a polluted mouth, he rages sacrilegiously against the priests? ~ Tertullian, To His Wife (PL, v. 1, col. 1408AB; trans.: Ancient Christian Writers, v. 13 [Westminster: 1951], p. 30). ' 6 Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition, cc. 36-7 (Bernard Botte, ed., La Tradition apostolique de saint Hippolyte [Miinster: 1963], pp. 82-5; trans.: Lucien Deiss, Early Sources o] the Liturgy [Staten Island: 1967], p. 68). ~ Cyprian, Letter 56 (PL, v. 4, col. 367AB; trans.: The Fathers o] the Church [hereafter = FC], v. 51 [Washington: 1964], p. 170 where the letter appears as Letter 58). 8 Cyprian, The Lapsed (PL, v. 4, col. 498B; trans.: FC, v. 36 [1958], pp. 76-7). ÷ ÷ ÷ 2". A. KrosM¢~, $.V~D. REVIEW FOR RELI@IOUS Moreover, Cyprian gives us two accounts of persons who were not worthy to receive the Eucharist in their hands. He writes: And when a certain woman tried with unclean hands to open her box in which was the holy Body of the Lord, there-upon she was deterred by rising fire from daring to touch it. And another man who, himself defiled, after celebration of the sacrifice dared to take a part with the rest, was unable to eat or handle the holy Body of the Lord, and found when he opened his hands that he was carrying a cinder.D Hand Communion reception was certainly practiced in the time of persecution as we know from Cyprian, but Basil (d. 379) is our best witness to this fact: Now, to receive the Communion daily, thus to partake of the holy Body of Christ, is an excellent and advantageous practice; for Christ Himself says clearly: 'He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life everlasting.' Who doubts that to share continually in the life is nothing else than to have a manifold life? We ourselves, of course, receive Communion four times a week, on Sundays, Wednesdays, Fridays,. and Saturdays; also on other days, if there is a commemoration of some saint. As to the question concerning a person being compelled to receive Communion by his own hand in times of persecution, when there is no priest or minister present, it is superfluous to show that the act is in no way offensive, since long-continued custom has confirmed this practice because of circumstances themselves. In fact, all the monks in the solitudes, where there is no priest, preserve Communion in their house and receive it .from their own hands. In Alexandria and in Egypt, each person, even of those belonging to the laity, has Communion in his own home, and, when he wishes, he receives with his own hands. For, when the priest has once and for all com-pleted the sacrifice and has given Communion, he who has once received it as a whole, when he partakes of it daily, ought reasonably to believe that he is partaking and receiving from him who has given it. Even in the Church the priest gives the particle, and the recipient holds it completely in his power and so brings it into his mouth with his own hand. Accordingly, it is virtually the same whether he receives one particle from the priest or many particles at one time?° There is reference here to more than hand commun-ion. Since no priest or deacon was present, in this case the persons communicated themselves. This was not, however, limited to times of persecution, as Basil points out. Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386) gives us the clearest ac-count of the manner of hand communion common at his time. In his Mystagogic Catecheses addressed to his D Cyprian, The Lapsed (PL, v. 4, col. 500B-501A; trans.: FC, v. 36 [1958], pp. 79-80). Cyprian notes the practice of taking the Eucharist home and the reception of communion outside of the liturgical celebration. The Eucharist was in this ease reserved in some sort of a box. ~ Basil, Letter 93 (PG, v. 32, col. 484B-485B; trans.: FC, v. 13 [1951], pp. 208--9). catechumens we read: When you approach, do not go stretching out your open hands or having your fingers spread out, but make the left hand into a throne for the right which shall receive the King, and then cup your open hand and take the Body of Christ, reciting the Amen. Then sanctify with all care your eyes by touching the Sacred Body, and receive It. But be careful that no particles fall, for what you lose would be to you as if you had lost some of your members. Tell me, if anybody had given you gold dust, would you not hold fast to it with all care, and watch lest some of it fall /and be lost to you? Must you not then' be even more careful with that which is more precious than gold or diamonds, so that no particles are lost? u Augustine and the Early Middle Ages As we see from the above excerpts, the method of Communion reception up to the time o[ Augustine at least, indicates the practice of hand reception. With Augustine (d. 430) two innovations become apparent for the first time. The men are told to wash their hands; the women are instructed to receive the Eucharist on a white cloth, commonly called the "dominicale]" laid over their hands.1~ In Sermon 229 he writes: All the men, when intending to approach the alt~r, wash their hands, and all the women bring with them clean linen cloths upon which to receive, the body of Christ, thus they should have a clean body and pure heart so that they may re-ceive the sacrament of Christ with a good conscience.~ The same practice is mentioned in the Sermons of Caesarius of Arles.14 The first witness that this author was able to find, giving an explicit example of mouth reception of the Eucharist, was Gregory the Great (d. 604). The case in question is the reception of the Eucharist by an invalid from the hand of Pope Agapitus (535-536): While he [Agapitus] was passing through Greece, an invalid who could neither speak nor stand up was brought to him to be cured. While the weeping relatives set him down before the man of God he asked them with great concern whether they truly believed it possible for the man to be cured. They an-swered that their confident hope in his cure was based on the ~a Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogic Catecheses (PG, v. 33, col. l124B- 1125A; trans.: Joseph A. Jungmann, The Mass o[ the Roman Rite [London: 1959], pp. 508-9). ~ In 578 the Council of Auxerre stated the same in Canons 36 and 42 (Mansi, v. 9, p. 915). Canon ~6: "A woman is not to receive com-munion on the bare hand." Canon 42: "That every woman when communicating should have her 'dominicale.' If she does not have it, she should not communicate until the following Sunday." ~Augustine, Sermon 229 (PL, v. 39, col. 2168A). The sermon is probably by St. Maximus of Turin (Sth century). x~ Caesarius of Aries, Sermon 227 (Corpus Christianorum, v. 14, pp. 899-900; trans.: Andr~ Hamman, The Mass: Ancient Liturgies and Patristic Texts [Staten Island: 1967], pp. 242-3). ÷ ÷ ÷ Communion VOLUME 29~ 1970 673 4. 4. T. A. Krosnicki, $.V.D. REVIEW FOR ~ELIGIOUS power of God and the authority of Peter. Agapitus turned im-mediately to prayer, and so began the celebration of Mass, offering the holy Sacrifice to almighty God. As he left the altar after the Mass, he took the lame man by the hand and, in the presence of a large crowd of onlookers, raised him from the ground till he stood erect. When he placed the Lord's Body in his mouth, the tongue which had so long been speechless was loosed.= It would be difficult to conclude from this one example that this was the common practice of the time, for it is known that on occasion the Eucharist was applied to parts of the body as a form of sanctification of the senses or as a cure.an Agapitus might have preferred in this incident to place the Eucharist on the tongue of the invalid since, as Gregory relates, the man Was mute. Gregory also notes: "When he placed the Lord's Body in his mouth, the tongue which had for so long been speechless was loosed." In the eighth century writings of Bede (d. 735) we come across another example of hand reception of communion. Describing the death of a brother, he writes in his Ecclesiastical History: When they had lain down there, and had been conversing happily and pleasantly for some time with those that were in the house before, and it was now past midnight, he asked them, whether they had the Eucharist within? They answered, 'What need of the Eucharist? For you are not yet appointed to die, since you talk so merrily with us, as if you were in good health.' 'Nevertheless,' said he, 'bring me the Eucharist.' Having re-ceived It into his hand, he asked whether they were all in charity with him, and had no complaint against him, nor any quarrel or grudge. They answered, that they were all in perfect charity with him, and free from all anger; and in their turn they asked him to be of the same mind towards them?' Periods'of Transition The transition from the reception of the Eucharist in the hand to that of the mouth as we know it today, seems to have begun at the end of the, eighth century and is allied to the change from leavened to unleavened bread. Alcuin of York (d. 804), the learned friend and counselor of Charles the Great, seems to have been the first to indicate the use of unleavened bread,is But even then, it is unclear whether he intended to state that the bread should be unleavened or merely indicates its usage. He does, however, clearly show that unleavened ~ Gregory the Great, Dialogue 3 (PL, v. 77, col. 224B; trans.: FC, v. 39, pp. 116-117. la Plus PARSCn, The Liturgy o[ the Mass (London: 1957), p. 23. 1T Bede, Ecclesiastical History of England IV, 24 (PL, v. 95, col. 214C-215A; trans.: A. M. Sellar, Bede's Ecclesiastical History o[ England [London: 1912], pp. 280-1). ~ R. Woolley, The Bread o/the Eucharist (London: 1913), p. 18. bread was used. Along with this change to unleavened bread came the introduction of the small round wafers which no longer required breaking or chewing.19 It seems that this fact influenced the change to mouth reception of the Eucharist as well. The use of the un-leavened bread with its capability of being more easily preserved became a matter of greater convenience. The Councils of Toledo and Chelsea show that there must have been some common irreverefices on the part of the clergy when using ordinary bread for the Eucharist. The best way to obviate such disrespect was to require a special bread, other than the everyday domestic type, for the celebration of the Eucharist3° Another reason for the change to unleavened bread was to forestall any confusion between the Eucharist and the common bread of the household. The change to mouth reception became a matter not only of practicality but also as the result of the misun-derstanding of the sacrality of the individual Christian. Due to the thinking of the times, the Christian was no longer considered worthy to touch the Body of the Lord with his hands.~1 With exaggerated sentiments of humility and unworthiness, the faithful received the Eucharist on their tongues. The eucharistic practice had also been influenced by the overemphasis on the divinity of Christ to the almost exclusion of his humanity. The mortal, sinful man dare not touch with his hands the all-holy, powerful God. All of this led to the point where by the ninth century hand Communion was no longer the practice. The Council of Rouen (878) explicitly condemns hand Communion reception on the part of the lalty.~ The tenth Ordo romanus, dating from the ninth century, describes mouth reception of communion not only for the laity but even for the subdeacon. Priests and deacons, after kissing the bishop, should receive the body of Christ from him in their hands, and communicate themselves at the left side of the altar. Subdeacons, however, after kissing the hand of the bishop, receive the body of Christ from him in the mouth.~ The eighth and the ninth centuries were then the 19James Megivern, Concomitance and Communion (Fribourg: 1963), p. 29. ~0 WOOLt.EY, The Bread, p. 21. ~a See K. Bihlmeyer and H. Tiichle, Kirchengeschichte, v. 2 (Pader-born: 1958), p. 120: "In this period [the Middle Ages] in order to avoid irreverences as much as possible, in place of bread to be broken, small wafers ('hostia,' 'oblata') were introduced. For the same reason the holy food was no longer placed in the hand of the faithful but directly into the mouth." m Council of Rouen (Mansi, v. 10, pp. 1199-1200). ~Andrieu, Les Ordines romani du Haut M~yen Age, v. 2 (Lou-vain: 1948) p. 361. ÷ ÷ ÷ Communion VOLUME 2% 1970 675 periods of transition from the hand to the mouth recep-tion of the Eucharist. For a time both methods must have been in use. Once again, we find ourselves in a similar period of transition. The mouth form of recep-tion is still the more common practice but no one can deny that the practice of hand reception is becoming even more common especially among smaller groups and at Masses celebrated for special occasions. From this brief and admittedly sketchy glance at his-tory, it can be readily seen that hand Communion is not really an innovation for .it seems to have been the ordinary manner of reception of the Eucharist for al-most eight hundred years. + ÷ ÷ T. A. Krosnlcki, S.V.D. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS EDWARD J. FARRELL Penance: Return of the Heart The theological literature on penance has been en-riched by writers of the stature of Karl Rahner, Bernard H~iring, and Charles Curran; and we have, as a result, an enlarged understanding of its significance for our own day. I do not propose to speak so much of theology as of experiences and to invite you to reflect with me and to think into the mystery of penance. I speak to you as an expert to my fellow experts, as an authority among fellow authorities, because each one of us is an authority on penance. We have long lived it and we cannot have lived so long and celebrated the mystery so frequently without in some way becoming experts, authorities, or at least persons with much experience. Living itself is an experience of penance. One thing is certain; penance is alive, and anything alive changes. One of our deepest hopes is that we cim change, be-cause penance is concerned with change--not the kind of change which we sometimes call spontaneous, which we can so easily speak of in words, but a change in a much deeper level of being and action. The sacrament of penance, or penance itself which we are experiencing today, has an aura of Spring about it. There are certain seasons, certain times, certain patterns to the Christian life even as there were in Christ's life; and we follow those patterns. Christ was buried. He arose. And the truths of Christ will not be unlike Himself. There are forgotten truths in our faith, in our life experiences which have been laid aside and buried. We can become so familiar with particular realities that we forget the language. Even our relationship with Christ can be diminished. But there is always a resur-rection, always a rising. They are like bulbs which lie bur.led and forgotten in winter's chill grip, but still are there, waiting, until, mysteriously, Spring comes and we discover them. There is an expectancy about Spring. ÷ ÷ ÷ i~.dwa~d J. Fartell is a stuff membe~ o~ 8a~ed ~ea~ 8emi-n~ y; 2701 Chicago Boulevard; Detroit; Mi~igan 48206. VOLUME 29, 1970 ÷ 4. l~. ]. Farrel~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 678 There is an expectancy about penance. It is a new dis-covery for each of us, something which we have not wholly experienced before and it is important that we understand the why of thii. Penance is ancient, yet ever new. There is a "today" even though we have had a "yesterday." There is in us always a newness and an aliveness. When we were young, when we were very small, we saw things in a particular way. Then we grew, grew up, de.veloped in many areas. There is, however, a certain stabilization that takes place; and if our growth did not in some way level out, we would be sixty, eighty, perhaps one hundred feet tall. Imagine the problems of the environment thenl In our early years we thought that when our physical growth had leveled off and stabilized that our growth was finished. Yet it had only begun. When we grew to a certain size perhaps we returned to the school where we once attended kindergarten and the first primary grades. The old neighborhood looked almost quaint. It looked so small because we had grown so large. This physical growth is a true growth; yet it is after we have achieved it that the real growth takes place, the growth of mind and heart and soul, by which we are led into and beyond the senses, into the arts, literature, history, philosophy, and faith. Even in our day of specialization, as one follows ever more deeply his specialization it becomes in some strange, little un-derstood way, narrower and narrower until at a mys-terious moment it opens into a wholly new horizon. At such a moment one is made aware that this universe is too vast for the mind to grasp. It is, then, in this experience that man slowly and painfully becomes little. It is then that he begins to acquire real knowledge, real humility, that he moves toward maturity. I think that we are on the edge of this kind of growth. No longer do we need the pride and arrogance of adolescence. This humility, or perhaps humiliation, has touched all of us. We become aware of an unsureness, the unsureness of maturity; we begin at last to know that we do not know and perhaps will never know all that we so much desire to know. A pro-found transformation, a growth, an evolution now takes place in us. Now we begin to discover truths which we really had never known, yet were there awaiting our discovery, our awakening to their being. We never knew them at all, we never saw them; they were there but we did not see them. We have heard about these ideas, con-cepts, truths, perhaps even talked about them. Now, however, in this new experience we have no word, no thought, no concept, perhaps not even a theology. Now we become much more people of experienced awareness and all must be initialed with our initial and be ours in our unique w~y; otherwise, we belong to no one, nor do the truths belong to us. We begin to know ourselves in a new context of spiritual knowledge. I think this experience is true especially of the mysteries of Christ, the mystery of the Church-~which is essentially mystery--the mystery of penance, the mystery of celi-bacy; and the mystery of human action, the mystery of your act and of my act. When we do something, it is irreversible. We never can step back and undo it. .There is an act which we call a promise and that act nails down the future. It is an absurdity because who can speak for his future; and yet a promise is possible and is perhaps the most significant act a person makes; for we know, even as we make the act, that it is unpredictable; even beyond that, any act has an ano-nymity in its effect. We do not know what effect it will have, how long it will endure, what changes it will create. Humanly speaking, the past, the future, even the present are so much not in our grasp. Yet in all of our acts the mystery of Christ speaks to each one of these realities. He speaks to tile events of the past, reversing what we have done in the act of forgiveness and of penance, in the act of promise in the future which is involved in the penance, the metanoia, the change that we are seeking. The Gospel very simply summarizes Christ's begin-ning: "The time is fulfilled, the kingdom is at hand. Repent, believe in the gospel." How ancient those words are and how new; yet who has heard them? Who has heard them and put them to life? This says something about the mystery of Christ to us and the mystery of His Church which can never be separated from Him. To think of the Church without Christ is to miss the mystery of both. So we move in this deep awareness into the inwardness of Christian mystery, into a knowing, into, finally, a .meaning of penance. And penance, what is it? It is a hunger, a hunger for change; it is a hunger for newness, a hunger for life, for growth; it is a hunger for wholeness and holiness; it is a hunger for experience. Most of all, I think, it is a hunger for being with and to and for. It is a relation-ship that is being sought. It is a togetherness. It is profoundly significant that the command of Christ was: "Repent." Why did He not begin with Eucharist? Is the Eucharist not enough? Was it enough for Christ? He began with: "Repent"; He concluded with Eucha-rist. It is interesting to recall the briefly recorded con-versations of Christ with His Disciples. One day our ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 29, 1970 6'79 ÷ ÷ ÷ ~. ]. Farrell REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 680 Lord asked them: "Who do you say I am?" They are always interesting, both the questions of Christ and the commands of Christ, because they are so personal, be-cause they are asked directly of us throughout the whole of our life, and because these are the call He gives to us. He asked: "Who do you say I am?" To answer for the whole group, one volunteered--Peter, and he called back who he was. At the end of our Lord's mission, after the resurrection, He spoke to Peter again but this time He spoke his name: "Simon Peter, do you love me?"--not once, not twice, but three times. By name, He called him out by namel "Simon Peter, do you love me?" and as a consequence of Peter's answer, He gave another command. He said: "Feed, feed my sheep"- strengthen your brethren. Long ago you all made profession and how many times have you made confession since? What is the re-lationship between profession--confession? You cannot find it in the dictionary, but I think there is a very necessary correlation between profession and confes-sion. Peter's profession of faith and Peter's confession of love--this is what penance is all about. Really, sin is a very secondary thing.'Sin is unimportant to Christ. Penance is about a change, a change in our capacity to love. You made your final profession in words and we are all moving toward our final confession. Each one of us has his own history of penance. Just imagine trying to go over your confessions the last year or five years or ten years; imagine forty years of confessions, and how many confessions have yet to be made? Confession: we know the confessions of Jeremiah in the Old Testament, about the mirabilia Dei, the wonder-ful things of God; the confessions of St. Augustine have disappointed many a reader who was looking for true confessions and there is so little there---eating a few pears, an illegitimate child. Really all he is talking about is the first extraordinary discovery and the ongoing discovery of the love of God for him and the power it effected in him. This is why we can speak of his con-fessions. Penance is first of all a confession, a song of praise to God. How unfortunate we are. We so often have said and perhaps still do say: "I cannot find any-thing to confess." Well, even if we did, it would be merely a partial confession because the first thing about penance is to find something, to find the love that one has received, to sing about it, to confess it. Penance is first of all an act of prayer and of worship, of thanks-giving, a recognition, a discovering of the wonderful love of God for us. But that is only part of it because it is only in the strength of this love that there can be sin. If one has not yet tasted or seen or felt something of the love of God, then he cannot sin because sin is cor-relative to love, and there cannot be any sin except in the context of love because sin does not exist except in the non-response to love. Penance is a discovery of what love is and what it is to love. A sister once commented: "In our community there are so many, almost everyone, who are ready to forgive. There is so much forgiveness but there is no one who can confess her need for forgiveness." It is so easy to forgive. Did anyone ever confront you with the words: "I forgive you"? Have you ever been forgiven by another person, a second or third or fourth or twentieth time. The words, "I forgive," do not make any difference. You can come to me and tell me you are sorry and I can say I am sorry, too--about the book you lost or about the car that got dented, but that does not change. You can tell me you are sorry about the way you got angry and what you called me, and I can say, "I forgive you," but what happens when we say that word? Can we forgive? When we say, "I forgive," we are not talking about the action of God, we are not talking about the grace of Christ or the word of the Church; we are saying: "I am trying not to respond to you as you deserve." That is what we ordinarily mean, and implicitly, there is a warning, "Do not let it happen again," because when it does happen again, we remind them: "How many times?" Forgiveness? There are not many of us who are capable of forgiveness. There is no one of us who is capable of forgiveness in the sense that God forgives and Christ forgives, because when Christ forgives, He is not saying He is not going to respond to us as we de-serve but He reaches into us, to the very roots of that which makes us the irascible persons we are. He does something if we let Him, if we are ready to be healed, to be touched, and to be cured. No person can forgive sin. We can empathize with people, we can say we are sorry that they are the miserable creatures they are, but we cannot change them unless we have the capacity to love them with the love of Christ. Otherwise they are untouched by our forgiveness and this is why there is a need and a hunger to be freed from our incapacity to love and not simply to be excused and accepted and remain unchanged. In the great mystery of Christ's death and resurrection it is the sacrament of penance that enables us in some way to get in touch with Him because without getting in touch with Him we cannot do His work. There is a strange misunderstanding in those who feel that the Eucharist is enough, that they can ignore our Lord's call to repent and forget our Lord's suffering and death. It is as if in some way I can forgive myself, can just ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 29, 1970 681 4. 4. E. ]. Farreli REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 682 tell Him I am sorry or we can tell one another: "I forgive you, forget about it." In our non-response to love, our inability to love we experience the fact that we cannot heal, that we do not cnre. As someone said, it is not so much that the community or Church' has hurt them, but it has not healed them and that is why they can no longer suffer in this way. It is a partial truth, perhaps, but it is a truth. So often w~ cannot put this need for healing into words but we do expect, we do expect something. Some of our older brethren in Christ are not, I think, too far off in their intuition about the relationship between penance and Eucharist, pen-ance and community; and I think I would say that there is a correlation between the diminishment irl the cele-bration and experience of penance and the diminish-merit in community. The sacrament, the life of penance which is but the life of Christ lived out continually, is the most personal of all the sacraments, the most intense and, therefore, the most difficult. Perhaps it is the last sacrament we are ready for because it demands so much of us; it demands such maturity, it demands such a capacity to suffer, the most terrible kind of suffering, to really learn who we are, and we will do anything to escape that kind of suffering, that kind of anguish. Who of us is really ready to face the living God? There is so much we do in our life to prevent this happening. We talk a good faith, we even have many theologies, b~t who of us really wants to know himself as the Lord knows him? We do not have many temptations. It is the saints who are the primary witnesses to faith, not the theologians who are the primary witnesses--the saints, unlettered, undoctoral but primary witnesses to love. We do not get tempted too often to express our sorrow in the dramatic gesture perhaps of a Mary Magdalen. We do not to6 often weep over our sins, prostrate our-selves before the Eucharist or the Christian community and confess what we are. We have forgotten and per-haps at times we do not even have the capacity any longer because it has been so underexercised. Yet the life of Christ and the reality of man speak out, and we find an extraordinary emergence today from beyond those who are called to give public witness to the mystery of Christ. We find the phenomena of penance and confession and public confession in those "outside." We see it in Alcoholics Anonymous, we see it in Syna-non groups, in sensitivity groups, encounter groups, where the first thing persofis do is to repent, to bare their souls on the guts level and expose who they are. It is an extraordinary experience to experience our poverty and our honesty and in so many ways our nothingness and it gives a kind kind of game can ever give us. It who are or who have been in a there are no games left any more real. We see this, and perhaps l-IS. of freedom which no is something like those mental hospital where and all they can be is it say~ something to The Lord does not accuse us, the Lord does not call to mind our sins: we are the only ones that remember them. The Lord simply asks us again and again: "Do you love me?" Today one is often questioned on the frequency of confession. Should religious go every week to confession?. I think it is very important to see the sacrament of penance in terms of the totality of the Christian life; it is not something that can have its significance only in isolation and only in terms of sin. There was a valid aspect, I think, to the intuition and practice of the Church in encouraging and calling her priests and re-ligious to confession regularly and I am sure it was not so much in terms of their need for absolution from sin but more in terms of confession of the praise of God, and for a deeper understanding of how priests and religious in a special way are the most highly visible embodiment of the Body of Christ. There was an extraordinary article in Time maga-zine in February on environment and I would certainly commend it to your spiritual reading. In this article some experts say that we have so interfered with the ecological system of the world that it is irreversible and human life cannot continue on this planet beyond 200 years. This was just a small portion of the article but it drove home" the reality that the smallest atom has a history, has an effect that goes so far beyond itself that it is almost incalculable what any act of ours can do. I think it speaks so strongly, about the mystery of human community and how we affect one another not only for a moment but have an ongoing effect; and that nothing is really lost. It speaks so strongly to the awareness we must carry within ourselves of the responsibility Christ took upon Himself for the whole world and for the sin and inability and absence of love in so many. It speaks to the fact that to follow Christ's likeness we, too, must be totally concerned with the conversion and transformation of people and where there is not love, to put love. When religious or priests go to confession, they go first of all to recognize that they are sinners and no one of us gets beyond that basic fact--that we are sinners even though saved. The remarkable thing in the testimony and history of the saints is that the more one grows in his experience of the love of Christ, the more ÷ ÷ ÷ Penance VOLUME 29, 1970 ÷ ÷ E. ]. Farrell REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 684 he realizes how much this love is absent in himself and he is drawn to the sacrament of penance out of his life experience; not from some external "you ought to" or "you should," but because it becomes more and more a need. There is a hunger for it which cannot be satisfied by anything less except being plunged into this mystery of Christ. St. Catherine of Siena spoke so deeply of this mystery in words that sound strange and rather strong to us-- "Being washed in the blood of Christ." But at the same time, these are words that are deeply Scriptural--Isaian --the Suffering Servant--the mystery of the blood of Christ. We need to be. deeply penetrated with them. We need to be aware that when we go to confession, which is a profession of faith, a confession of love, and a deep experience of a need to be touched by Christ and to be transformed by Him, sgmething takes place even though there is no way of validating it in terms of a pragmatic principle. It does not make a difference. ~¥hy bother? We cannot measure it on the yday to day level just as life cannot be measured on that particular level. There are movements within ourselves that per-haps take a long time before they can make their mani-festation in our nervous system, on the tip of our fingers. When we go to confession we need to be aware that a whole community is involved, not just a par-ticular house but everyone who is in our lives. We can pick up the paper and read about the crime and the violence, especially to the young and the old, and the helpless, the war, and unemployment, and we can read it and so what? It does not seem to enter into the very life that we are living. We are called to be that Suffering Servant and to make up in ourselves what is lacking in others, to in some way experience what Paul experienced. When someone was tempted, he, himself, felt the fire o{ it; when someone was sick, he, himself, experienced it--that deep interpenetration of all these people involved in Christ. So, when one goes to the sacrament of penance, it is for one's own sins-- the incapacity, the inability to love, missing the mark so often, but it is also in terms of the sins of others. Christ's whole life was this life of penance. Religious living is and has to be a following in this life of penance, this ongoing change, this ongoing conversion. One of the problems of frequent confession is the confessor. I think we are all caught .in this together. Our theology is usually behind our experience, and there are many priests who have had great difficulty in finding confessors themselves. I do not think there is more than one in thirty priests who has a confessor, has a spiritual director; and there has been a great impoverishment because we have not recognized nor developed this charism. I do think there is a special apostolate that the Christian and especially the relig