Suchergebnisse

Issue 4.4 of the Review for Religious, 1945. ; " GRACE AND ~BEAUTY~--G'. AuguStine Ellard, S.J" . 217 ENEMIES OF FAITHmF. X. McMenamy, S.J . " . 229 NEWMAN AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFE Walter J.On.g, S.J. y : . ~'230 ¯ WHY DOES FATHER ASK QUESTIONS? Gerald Kelly, S.J. Bo~JKs RECEIVED . , . .~252~ PERFECTION IS UNION WI*FH,GOD .~Aug, ustine .Klaas,. S.J. ., 253, PAMPHLET NOTICES ,:~ . .-. . OUR LADY;S PARENTS Francis L. Filas, S.J .~ . .OUR' CONTRIBUTORg / . ' ~ . ~ ~- 270 QUEST~IO,N~ AND ANSWERS~. , 35. Blessed Ashes and Things Put in Sacrar~um- " (.' 271° ~ 36. Jurisdiction o~Mother Generiil and ,Local~Superior . ~7. Bo~y of Deceased Sister in Community Chapel . 38. Permission to Close Religious House . . . . . : . 272 ~ 39.~ Rosaries of String for fi.rmed Forces Only. .° . . ,: . . .o .~273 ~40.~Vows and Status of Reliigious.with Mental Disorder .-. '2_.73) ,41. Anticipating Date of Perpetual Vows .- . : .' .-'. , 275 42. ,Su.pterior's Obligation t6 Pro¢ide Monthly Conference COMMUNICATIONS ' ' ~ " ~77 ' ~BOOK 'REVIEWS~ :7 ' ~A'Dynamic World Order; That You May Live: Too S~nall a Wo-rld: The Hope of the.Har4es~; The Nu'rse:. Handmaid of the DivineoPhysi-." _ ¢ian;.Enjoying the NeW Testament . ~: . . . ' 28.2 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, July, 1945. Vol.IV, No. "4. Publishdd-bi- 'monthly: January, March.May, July,S¢ptemb,er, ahd N0ve~ber at the College Press. 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St.'Mary's College, St., Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical appr.obation.' Entered as second clas~ matter January 15 1942'; at the Post Office, Topeka,,~Kansas, "under the act bf March 3, 1879: ' "~ Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis. S.J., G~ ~ugustine Ellard, oS.J., Gerald Keily~ S.J. Editorial Secretary;: Alfred F, Schneider, S~J.2 Copyright, 1945, by'Adam C. Ellis. .Permission is hereby granted'for quotations of, reasonable length, provided due credit be given this r~view an'd the autt~'b~. Subscription pride: 2 dollars a ~'ear. ~ ~ Pilnted in U: S. A. Before writing to'us, please consult notice on Inside fiack cover. G. Augustine Ellard, S.,J. AN EFFECT of sanctifying grace that does not seem to get as much mention and consideration as it deserves is the beauty that it possesses .and adds to the soul. And yet beauty, with truth and goodness, is the object of the principal aspirations of every spirit. Moreover, beauty is an important element,in the value of grace. A clearer .knowledge of the beauty of grace should lead to a highe~ appreciation of it and a more eager desire for it. I. One could hardly hope in the present stage of the evolution of esthetic.philosophy to propose a for.mal defini-tion of beauty that would be generally acceptable. For-tunately, it is one of those things of which nearly every-body feels that he has a fairly satisfactory empirical notion, even though he could not set it forth in words. Among the definitions of beauty current among those who have studied the matter in the light of Aristotellan br Thomistic philosophy .we find : "the spl~ndor of truth" (attributed to Plato); "the splendor of order" (St. Augustine); "the effulgence of form in material elements definiti~ly limited and proportioned, ok in different forces or actions" (S~. Thomas); "the goodness of a thing inasmuch as when known .by the mind it gives delight" (Kleiltgen, [3ung-mann); and "the perfettion of a thing that makes it pleasing to behold" (Gietmann). Some would place beauty in truth, others in the goodness of a thing, arid still others in both truth and goodness together . Even when it ¯ is embodied in material objects, the perception of it i~ essentia!ly spiritual: animals give no evidence of,having a sense of the beautiful. 217 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Reoietu for~ Religidus Beauty may be either physical or moral. !V~oral beauty is found only:iiri th~ character or moral activity of persons; when one's characte,.r or action,i~ such that the very sight or thought of it ~tit~S delight and admiration, then it is morally.beautiful. Many insta.n.ces of heroism are examples :of it." All 6thOr beauty is physical. This may be material o~ sigiritual. About the material 'ther~ will be rio difficulty, and about the spiritual there need be none. It is simply that beauty which belongs to spirits, as material beauty belongs to visible things. To see and appreciate it properly is poss!ble, of course, only to ~pi~its themselves; but wecan have an analogous knowledge and enjoyment of it. It is very evident that angels must perceive one another and that that perception, of itself, must bring pleasure, in fact, great ¯ pleasure, betause prest~mably the beauty of angels is pro-poi: tionate to. their general ~perfection. Therefore one (good) angel viewing another and finding him pleasant to behold would be ~xperiencing What is meant by physical ~spiritual beauty. 'The angels now in heaven possess, as a matter of fact over and above the beauty that follows their angelic nature, the supernatural beauty of grace. Being g.ood, they exhibit also, of course, moral beauty. Simi-larly, human souls or spirits now i'n heaven and adorned with grace give pleasure to all who see them, both by reason of the natural perfection .and beauty of the. human spirit and because of the love!iness of their grace. It is well to¯note that to please ordelight, the. beautiful need not actfially be seen. It is sufficient that it can be seen, or hgs" been°seen, or can be ~epresented in quasi.-vision before the mind, A young man 'enjoys his belov.ed's beaut~, even when she isabsent: A living human soul in graOe is an object of actuAland full complacence to ~whoever sees it;. therefore c~rtainly to God, most probably to one's guardian angel, and perhaps to all the blessed. In heaven its beauty 218 duly, 1945 GRACE AND BEAUTY will add to the joys of all the angels and saints. Meanwhile there can be great satisfaction in really bein~l beautiful, though that beauty be all hidden.within, and in expecting the future manifestation of it. II. Other works:of God are beautiful; therefore, grace. is beautiful. In view of the extension.of beautyih God's works and the intensity of it in His greater creatures; this argu, ment from induction or analogy, seems to be legitimate. "The firmament on high is his beauty, the beauty of heaven with its glorious shew . The glory of the stars is the beauty-of heaven; the Lord enlighteneth the world on high . Look upon the rainbow and bless him that made it: it is very beautiful in its brightness." (Ecclesiasticus 13 : 1, 10, 12.) If the Supreme Artist has produced beauty so widely, and so profusely throughout His creationm -in natural scenery, inthe forms of crytallization, in flowers, in birds, in the human form and face, and in the angelic nature--it is not likely that He l'ias d~nied a high degree of it to wha.t is in a very true sense one of the greatest of all His productio.ns, namely, sanctifying grace. III. A consideration of the nature of grace confirms the conclusion indicated by induction or analogy. Sanctifying grace is essentially a participation in the divine nature, .that is, in what is in God the fundamental principle of the activity that i~s most characteristic of Him, namely, the direct intuition of infinite truth. Now God Himself must be supremely beautiful. He is the first author of all that is beautiful in His universe, in inanimate scenery, in the stars of the heavens, in the vegetative k.ingdom,. in animals, in men and women, and in the angels. "Let them [men] observing the works of the Creator know how' much the Lord of .them is more beautiful than they: for the first author, of beauty made all tho~e things . For by the greatness of the beauty, and of the creatures, the Creator of 219 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Review fo~'" Religious them may be seen, so as to be known thereby." (Wisdom 13: 3, "5.) Moreoverall the beauties of human art are ultimately.His creations. As a matter of fact God is not only the origin of all beauty; He is Beauty Itself, absolute, infinite, ineffable beauty, without the slightest admixture of anything that could detract from it. That beauty must be infinite, because the~being, truth, and goodness upon which it is founded are immeasurable. Though all perfec-tions are there, they are unified in the highest degree in abso-lute simplicity, and thus they. exist in the most admirable harmony. God is Hisown uialimited light, brightness, and brilliance. Long ago St. Augustine wrote of the beauty of God: "Consider the whole universe; the,heavens, the earth, the sea, all that is in heaveh or on earth or in the sea: how beau-tiful, how marvelous, how well and wisely arranged it al! is! Do these things move.you? Of course.they move you. Why? Because they are.beautiful. What then of Him. who made them? You would be stunned, I tt'iink, if you saw the beauty of the angels. What therefore of the Creator of tt~e Angels?" ($erm. 19, n.5: ML. 38, 136.) And St. Basil the Great: "Is there anything, I ask, more wonderful than the divine beauty? . .What thought is.there more delightful and pleasant than the magnifice ,rice of God? ¯. Altogether ineffable and indescribable is the brilliance of the divine beauty. Speech cannot make it known, nor ear receive it. Even though you should, think of the splendors of the morning star, the brightness of .the moon, or the light of the sun, everything beside the glory of that beauty. is insignificant and dark, and compared with the true light .is more distant from it than the depth of a gloomy and moonless night from the clearest noonday sun." (Reg. Fus. Tract.; Inteccog. 2, n. 1; MG. 31, 910.) Comprehensively to knox~T the magnitude and fascina£ 220 tibn of Beauty Itself and the enrapturing~effect ofbeholding it is pos~ibl'e only to one of the Bli~ssed Trinity. To.have some proper conception of itand how it feels subjectivdly to. see it is: possible only to those who have experienced the beatific vision, and even they c~uld not express itin human lariguage. Surely it is most significant that, giventhe pres-ent superna~u'ral order oi~ things, nothing on earth or in heaven except the .sight of God can quite satisfy, and quiet the' aspirations of the human spirit. But the sight of infinite truth, goodhess, and beauty is sufficient to beatify even the. divine spirit. Even though the beauty of God must remain concealed from us while we are burdened with the veils of mortality, it is so great that for some contemplatives it can ¯ become a source of the most exquisite delight and ecstasy and a most potent stimulus to di~'ine love. ~, Now sanctifying grace, being a participation oi: the divine nature~ and hence of the divine beauty,' must itself be correspondingly beautiful. Or, in other terms, grace is an assimilation to the divine nature and a resemblarice to it, and must slSar'e in its beauty as a'copy partakes of the excel-lence of a masterpiece. With the sonship to God which grace confer~ it must also brihg something of the paternal lineaments and features. -_,~ St. Cyril of ~Alexandria, speaking of the effect 6f grace, wrote: ".Is it not the Spirit thi~t carves the divine image upon us and like a seal imprints upon us a beauty su.perior to any in the world?" (Dial. 7 De Trin., p. 683.) .Again: "All of us who have :believed and become c6nforrned to God have been made, through union with the Son and the Holy Spirit, paiticipants of.thee divine nature, not only in name but in very reality in as much as we have been glori-fied with a beauty that is above all creation. For Christ is fashioned in us.in a manner that is indescribable, not as one 6feature in another, but as God in created nature in.that He 221 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Revieu~ for Religious has transformed our created nature through the Holy Spi.rit into His likeness and raised us to a dignity surpassing that. of all creatures." (De Trin. L. 4.) "The Spirit does not, like a painter, reproduce the divine substance in us as if He were extraneous to it, nor does He in .this way bring us to the likeness of God: rather He Himself who is God and pro-ceeds from God is .invisibly impressed upon the hearts of those wh6 receive Him like a seal upon wax, through com-munion and likeness to Himself, again painting our nature with the beauty of its original model and manifesting the divine image in man." (Tfiesaur., MG. 75, 609:) St. Basil: "Man was made according to the image and likeness of God, but sin destroyed the beauty of that image ¯. Let us return to the original grace from which we were ~alienated by sin. And let us beautify ourselves in the like-ness of God." (Serroo Ascet., MG., 31, 869.) Similarly St. Ambrose: "You have been painted there-fore, O man, and painted by the Lord thy God, You have a good artist and painter; do not. spoil the good painting, resplendent, not with color, but with the truth; expressed not~ with wax, but with grace," (Hex. VI, 47.) And St. Augustine: "Human nattire, When it is justified by its Creato~r, is changed from ugliness and deformii:y into a lovely and beautiful form" (De Trin. XV, c. 8, n. 14). IV, Grace also gives one a share in the beauty of Christ. Among the three divine persons of the Blessed Trinity .bea'uty is appropriatedparticularly to the Word, as "being the flashing-forth of" the Father's "glory, and the very .expression of his being" (Hebrews 1:3)i, or, in Knox's yersion, "who is the radianc~ of his Father's splendour, and the full expression of his being~" Even the created beauty of the humanity of Christ, natural and supernatural, physical and¯ moral, material andspiritual, is very great indeed and an object of the keenest delight to all the angels 222 Jul~, 1945 GRACE ,~NI~ BEAUTY and saints who see it. The Church in her liturgy often proclaims that .beauty: "Thou art beautiful above the sons of men: grace is poured abroad in thy lips . With thy comeliness and thy beauty set out, proceed p~osperously, and reign." (Psalm 44:3-.5.) Commenting on this passage St. Augustine. wrote: ',He is beautiful as God, the Word with the Father; He is beautiful i~ the womb .of the Virgin, where He assumed human_ity and did not lose His divinity.; He is beautiful as .a new-born babe and silent Word (infar~s Verbum) . Beautiful therefore in heaven, beautiful~ on on the earth; . beautiful .in His miracle~, beautiful in the scourging; beautiful while callii~g to life,~ and beautiful in not caring about death; beautiful as He lays down His life,.and beautiful in taking it back: beautiful on t.he. cross, beautiful in the sepulcher, beautiful in heaven . Let not, the imperfections of this body turn your eyes away from the splendor of His beauty. (In Psalm. 44, 3.) Clement of Alexandria thus extolls the.attractiveness of Christ: "Our Savior surpasses all human nature. Indeed He is so beautiful that ' He ' alone deserves to be loved b31 us, if we desire true beauty; for He was the truelight." (St~r,om. L. 2, c. 5.) ' . ~ All who receive sanctifying, grace are adorned after the model of Ch~:ist: "For all Of you who were bapt.i~zed into Christ, have pu~ on Christ" (Gala.tinny3:27):1 "My children witt~ whom I am again in tra.~ai.l,~ until Christ be formed in you" (Ibid. 4: 19) : "Those Whom he hath fore-known, them he hath predestined to bear a nature in the ima~ge of his Son's, that he should be first-born among many brethren" (Romans 8:i9). The Fathers of the Church like to emphasize the 1New Testament texts quoted in this article are from the Westminster Edition. 223 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Retffeu~ for Religious ?esemblance even in appearance between Christ and Chris-tians., Thus St. Cyril.of Alexandria writes: "Nor should we be sons by. adopti.on and inlikeness if there were no real and true son; to His form we are fashioned; to beilike Him we are transformed with a certain art and grace" (Tbesaur. MG., 75, 526). "One is molded to become a son of God according to an excellent model . This beauty is spiritual. ~ By participation in the Holy Spirit they ar~ fashioned in Christ as it were, according to Him as a model . Christ is indeed formed in us, the Holy Spirit impres.sing upon us a certain figurel ~hrough holi-ness and jusgice." (In Isaiarn; IV, II; MG.; 70, 936.) Sim!larly St. Gregory'Nazianzene writes: "Since the day -when y'ou were changed by baptism, all your old features have disappeared, .and one.f°rm l~as been imlSressed upon you all, namely, that of Christ" (Or. 40 In Sancta Lurn., n. 27). V. According to the analysis of the beautiful made by St. Thomas., and followed by many Catholik savants, there are three chief elements that concur to make a thing ¯ beautiful;- integrity, harmony, and brightness. Evidently integrity or completeness, in all parts is neces~'.~y. A person who has lost, say, an arm or a leg would ~:i~ly be a candidate for a beauty prize, nor could a buil'd~.~bf w.,,.hich some integral part has been destroyed exemplify architec~,ural beauty. It is deaf too that .har-mony, taken.in~;. ,,a~.~bgr,~o a,_d sense so as to include symmetry, proportion,, oraer, aria in general proper agreement, is required. All the different components that enter into the constitution of a thing ~bat has beauty~for instance, a cathedral~must have appr6priate size, mutually sui~ one ~nother, be suitably arranged, and all in all so fit together into one.coherent whole as really to mak~ a unit and con-vey .a unified impressioia. Order in some sense is so essential 224 dul~t,.1945 . GRACE AND BEAUTY to beauty that disorder and ugliness are almost synony-mous. = It may be noticed in passing that the name "cos-mos" for the uni~rerse as an ordered system of ,things and th~ term "cosmetics," the art of improving ,:feminine beauty, both come from the same old Greek word for "order." ¯ There is an order that we may call static; it is illus-trated, ¯ for example, in the disposition of an artistically planned pai'b]ti.ng 0r building. Dynamic order is found wherever different movements or actions are subordinated to one purpose: for instance, in the.mecbanlsm of an auto-mobile or in the multitudinous movements of an orches-tra. Order is in a peculiar sense the offspring of intelli-gence; and wherever it is found'and in.whatever degree, it gives satisfaction to the mind that p~rceives it. Though variety is said' to please, no great degree of it is necessary if there be sufficient'richness of content,' as, for example, in the finest silks or velvets, similarly certain single colors and tones, if they be sufficiently pure,, rich, and clear, seem t9 be beautiful. '~The e~y,,e admireth at the beauty of the whiteness thereof tsnow] (Ecclesiasticus 43:20). ~. , The third elen~ent required for the beautiful °is,!bright-heSS. Perfection of being, which is otherwise ~ibl~ to delight one who simply considers it, can hardl,y rfiake much of an impression on one who does not se~ it iclearly. Relat.ively to us, therefore, at least, a ~certain clari~ty of presentation is necessary. J,udged by these three criteria., namely, integrity, har-mony, and brightness;.grace has a right to be called beau-tiful. That it possesses integrity, or in other words that it has all that pertains to its perfection, may be inferred from its spirituality, and also from the fact that it is a creation of the .Divine Artist exclusively. He could not leave one. of 'the highest and noblest of His works incomplete nor 225 G, AUGUSTINE ELLARD Review for Religious inferior in appearance. There is an admirable harmony or order about sanc-tifying grace. To begin with, it sets a person in just the right essential_supernatural' relatiori to God, and thus, :at ~least indirectly, with respect to all other persons and things. Grace is alsoa prindple of order within a man himself inasmuch as it is a source 0f supernatural moral, order and propriety, and hence of .beauty, in all his con-duct. Moreover sanctifyin~ gr.ace'possesses order within itself in the sense that it brings with itself and keeps in proportion all the infused moral virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. All these taken together constitute the supernatural organism, the anatomical basis, so to speak, of the supernatural life, and this organism must have a proportion and symmetry and harmony equal to its gen-. eral excellence. Being spiritual, it must be superior to whatever is material; being of itself immortal and incor- ~uptible,,its beauty should be corr.espondingly great and lovely. Not only this, but since it is supernatural, its attractiveness should be higher 'and better than merely natural spiritual beauty. Oftentimes one of the principal sources of,the satisfaction found in the esthetic contempla-fion of works of beauty is the perception df how the artist has really reached or approached the ideal which was evidently before his mind. In grace, Which is a super-natural likeness of the divinity_---in fact the highest pos-sible likeness of it---~.the in'tended correspondence between the model or ideal and the real must be perfe.ct and com-plete since God Himself is the artist who ~produces it. That grace possesses brightness and adds. a certain light to the soul that it adorns is.abundantly evident from the fact that in all the literature on grace, whether ancient or modern,, light is one of the analogues most commonly used to explain it. Thus the Catechism of the Council of Trent 226 dul~t, 1945 GRACE AND BEAUTY says that grace is "a certain splendor and light, which blots out all.the stains of our souls and makes thos~ souls them- . selves more beautiful and splendid'.' (Or: Balatisrn, 50). Grace, therefore, has its own spir.itual and supernatural ¯ integrity, harm.ony, and brightness, and as such is beautiful or fair to behold. ¯ VI. Beauty as ~an effect of grace was a favorite theme with St. ¯Bonaventure. He liked to conceive grace as making one a sort of spouse of God. Hence it was natural for St, Bonaventure to emphasize the adornment that grace confers and that high and special kind of beauty' which becomes a spouse of God. It makes one so attrac-tive and lovely in the sight of God that one become.s a fit object of divine complacence. "The .king shall greatly desire thy beauty: for he is the Lord thy God, and him they shall adore" (Psalm 44:12). "How beautiful art thou, and how comely, my dearest, in delights" (Canticle of Canticles 7: 6). VII. Among the lekser eventual effects of grace will be the resurrection and the beauty of the glorified body. "Then 'shall the just.shine forth a.s the sun' in the king-dom of their Father" (Matthew 13:43). "The Lord 3esus 'Christ. will tr~lnsform the body of our lowliness, that it may be one with the body of his glory, by the force of that power whereby he is able tb subject all things to himself" (Philippians 3:21). The physical beauty of the glorified body will be yer~ great indeed, even in the case of those in whom it will be least, for instance, in the bodies of b~ptized infants who entered paradise with the lowest measure of grace, or in those sinners or converts who barely squeezed in fit the last moment. "There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; but the glory of the heavenly is different from that of the earthly'" (I Corinthians 15:40). Oftentimes, 227 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD 'R~vieu~ [or Religious if not too often, mortal human beauty is enough to enchant and transport men.It is the product of a merely natural process or of the cosmetician's art. Immortal human beauty Will be the creation of the Infinite Artist Himself and such' as befits the final and crowning state of His uni~rerse. The human beauty that we see here is o. nly.too evanescent; celeso tial~ human beauty will be eternal,, forever adding to the delight of all who behold it. Human beauty in this life is granted indiscriminately to the good, bad, and.indifferent. with the advantage rather in favor of the indifferent or bad. -at least because they are more gi.ven to cultivating it. Glorio fled b~au~y is~ reserved for God's. own elect and favorites. Beaut.y here .issuch as becomes this vale of tears; beauty there must be great enough to harmonize with the mag-nificence of the ~elestial mansions and theexcellence of the" persons who form the celestial society. The least beautiful glorified body should be at the minimum, it would seem, incomparably more.lovely than the. most beautiful body not yet glorified. .'What then of the most beautiful men and women in heaven? The personal physical beauty, not only the spiritual, but particularly now that of the glorified bodies of the ~lect, will, like the beatific vision itself, be proportion~ate to~ ~the. amount of grace with which they entered heaven. "There is the ~!ory o~ the sun, and the glory of the moon, and the'glory of the star~; for star differeth from star in glo,ry. And so it is with the resurrection of the dead."" (I Corinthians. 15: 41, 42.) "In the final state such will be the subjection'of t.hebody to the soul that even the quality of the body will. follow the excelience of the mind: whence according to the different degrees of merit, one soul will be more Worthy than another and one body more glorious, than another" (St. Thomas, In II Dist. 21, q. 2, a. 1). VIII. The practical conclusion from all these consid-. 228 GRACE AND BE/~UTY erations is that one who desires to possess the optimum quality and the maximum quantity of beauty, natural and supernatural, physical and moral, spiritual, and b6dily, who wishes to let the greatest number of the best persons enjoy.it, and who would retain all that beauty for the !onges.t time, should devote oneself to accumulating the highest possible measure ofsanctifying grace. Moreover, the more grace one has, the keener will be one's Vision and fruition of the infinite beaugy of God Himself and of all the finite beauty, whether in persons or things, in heaven and throughout the whole universe, and that eternally. ENEMIES OF FAITH The enemies of faith are tw, o and .they are closely related to each othe, r, sin and worldliness, All sin but especially habits of sin obscure spiritual v~sion: make it hard for the mind to see God's full truth. Sin is a thing of darkness, and it loves the darkness to hide its sham~. Worldliness, however, is perhaps the greater enemy of a living faith because more common, more plausible, more insidious seeing that its manifestations are not'always obviously sinful. Worldliness is!a cast of mind and a habit of will that ignore divine adoption: the blight of a naturalism that vitiates one's appraisals, one's likes and dislikes, all of one's habits of life as though one.~were not a son of God. Gradu-ally but surely does it extinguiih the ligl-it bf th~ new knowledge to end in darkness and sin "and disrelish for prayer and the beautiful realities of God.--F. X. MCMENAMY, S.J., in Alter Christus. 229 ' Walter J. Ong, S.J.- MANY religious, sensing beneath the writings of John Henry,Cardinal Newman a character sympathetic to their way of 1if,e, must have asked thdmselves: Why did Newman not become a religious? In this centenary year of his conversion, many will recall that for some time after Newman was received into the Church'on October 9, 1845~ heithought seriously about the religious life as a vocation for himself and for others of the group of Anglicans who came into the Church with him. ~ In a .sense, he finally' decided both for and against the religious state. A year and ~ half after his conversion, he chos,e, in the life devised by St, Philip Neri for his Ora-torians, a place for himself half-way between that of the religious and~that of the diocesan priest. For members of an Oratory of St. Philip Neri are priests, and assisting lay brothers, who live under obedience in a ~ommunity. Never-theless, they are not religious, for they live thus without public vows. The Oratorian community, compared to a religious community,.ii thus very !oosely knit. Each mem-ber in great part provides for his own material needs out of his own resources, and each is free to leave should he wish to do so. Why. did. Newman settle upon this kind of life? Appeal of Religious Life? Was it because the religious life did not at all. appeal ,to him? Some might suspect this. Indeed, owith all the "230 NEWMAN AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFE writing there is about Newman', it would not .be surprising if ~omeone who likes to spade around in the subconscious has turned up a theory that Newman did not become a religious because the re.ligious life demanded too much self-abnegation. Perhaps someone has. Int~res.ting and even amusing texts could be quoted to support the theory. Let us quote a few. Reactions to Religious Observance? In 1846, the year after their conversion, and before their ordination to the priesthood, .Newman and his fellow-convert Ambrose St. John were to go to Rome, where they hoped to mature some definite plans for their future activity in the Church. At Rome they.would s.tay at the Co.llegio di Propaganda, a seminary conducted by theRoman Con-gregation of the Propagation of-the Faith. In this.semi-nary,, or. college, studies were made by many of tbose destined for the priesthood in missionary countries, among which countries England, like America, was classed ~at the time. From a former stud_ent. 'at the Collegio, a Dr. Ferguson, Newman had wormed out an advance description of the life there.'His letter to St. John reporting wh~t Dr. Ferguson b, ad to say s.bows interesting reactions to matters touching the religious life: Every quarter of an hour has its work and is measured-out by rule. It i~ a Jesuit retreat continued through the year. You get .up at half past five, having slept (by compulsion) seven and a half hours, at quarter to six you run into the:passage and kneel down for the Angelus. Then you finish your dressing. At six you begin to meditate--the prefect going up' and down and seeing you are at your work. Three mihutes off the 1half hour a bell rings for the col-loquium. At the half hour (hal'f past six) mass--which every ond attends in surplice. Seven breakfast, some bread and some milk and (I think) coffee. Then follow schools--at half past e1~ven dinner and so on. A dompulsory walk for.an hour and a half in the course 231 Reoieto for Religious of the day.x Newman calls' attention to some details closely related to common life: Recreation an hour after dinner and supper--but all recreate together ~--no private confabs. In like manner no .one must enter any other .person's room. (Corollary. It is no good two'friends going to Propaganda.) . Further, your letters are all opened, and you put the letters you. write into the Rector's hand. To continue--you must not have any." pocket money . "Then there is no good," I asked, '"in taking money." "No," said Dr. F., "none at all." Next, you may not have clothes.of your own--the RectOr takes away coat, trousers, shirts, stockings, ~c. ~c. and gives you some of the Propaganda's. Although the Collegio was run to train not religious but diocesan priests, the details which Newman here singles out for comment includ~ many which remain more or less a permanent part ~)f the religious life~ From the rueful tone of Newman's letter, one might gather that such details 'are listed because they show where the shoe pinched the most unbeara,bly. Little wonder, one would say, that Newman did not' become a religious. The life plainly did not at all appeal to him.' "They give you two cassocks," he goes on, "an old one and a new one." (Newman's own italics). ' "To complete it, he [Dr. Ferguson] said that I should be kept there three years and that I shouid have to read Per- .rone." Reading Perrone seems to have been ~ associated 'iri Dr. Ferguson's mind only with.feelings of the greatest ter-. ror. Perrone, well-known Italian theologian, Was laterto be Newman's friend and champion. But now Newman passes over Perrone's name without comment, having asso- Ciated with the name nothing but the iinister overtones of xWilfrid Ward, The Life of John Henry Cardinal Netoroan (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1913), I, 132. All quotations from this work are with the kind permission of. the publishers. . 232 , Ju1~,1945 NEWMAN AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFE Dr. Ferguson's woeful recollections. "Meanwhile . . . we heard that at Rome . . . 'apart:. ments' have been'got ready at Propaganda for Dr. Wiseman and' me." Newman must have shuddered as he~ wrote "apartments": at least he put~ the word in quotes. "The only allowanc~ I extracted from Dr. Ferguson," be continues, "was that you might bare private papers in your writing desk . Dr. F. said one thing was provided gratis--snuff ad libitum and I should be allowed to take a snuffbox." In the event, Newman was not subjected to the rules here described for the young seminarians. According .to our projected theory, this should pro.re that he had no stomach for any life restrained by strict rule. His.sub-conscious repugnance to restraint asserted itself here, and be somehow automatically edged his way around even temporary regular observance--this enterprising theory would hold. Other evidence could be scraped up. ofit of " Newman's letters to give body to such proof. For instance, shortly after his conversion he writes of a visit just paid to the Catholic college at Oscott:. ChaHes Woodmason and I . . . arrived here on the fe.Xstival of St. Cecilia . We found the passage crowded and no servants to answer the bell, and bad to poke in as we might, leaving our 1Bggage at the entrance. I say they perhaps were" scandalized, for they have the most absurd notions about us. I think they fancy I never eat, and' I have just lost a good dinner in.consequence. After returning from Birmingham walking and hungry, I literally have had to pick up a crust from the floor left at breakfast and eat it,. from shame at asking again and again for fhings.2 Does this hankering for servants 'and victuals Show the spirit of abnegation which the re!ig~ous life demands? And, the letter gets worse instead of better: 2lbid., I, 103-104. 233 WALTER J. ONG Review for Roligious . Wall, we were ushered into the boys' dining room--the orches-tra at the end, and the table~ plentifully laden,for all hearers with cake and (pro pudor)" punch~a very sensible w.ay of hearing mu.sic. They certainly were scandalized at my d~tecting the pu.nch--for they said again and again that it was made of lemon and sugar. All i~can say is that ours.at the high table was ~emarkably stiff,.and that I was obliged to dilute it to twice or thrice i~s quantity with water. More of this kind of thing ~ould be dug from New-man's correspondence, and one could turn it all to account to explain quite ~eadily Newman's turning away from the religious state. His unconscious self had said from the first, "Don't be a religious,'.' adding with standard subconscious ¯ hypocrisy, "but talk sometimes about the religious life So you'll get the credit for being interested in it." Thus New-man's attraction, to the religious state was sham--the the-ory Would conclude. A good conclusion, if only it 'were true. Such a con-clusion, hoWever, would not be founded on fact, but rather on a wild misinterpretation of some of Newman's pleasant-ries. Indeed, the last passage just quoted hints that people bad associated with Newman, not. mere talk, but definite habits of abstemiousness quite in accord with the little sac-rifices demanded by religious life. Newman's Self-Abnegation. )ks.a matter of fact, Newman had such habit~. An appetite for quite real s~lf-abnega~ion in .imitation of Christ had worked itself out very practically in Newman's lifd even before he entered the Catholic Church. In 1842 he had retired from Oxford to the neighboring town of Littlemore, where he gathered some of his Oxford friends. Here he became a Catholic 'and here he continued to live until February,. 1846. We have an account of the place of retreat at Littlemore in a letter in the Tablet shortly after Newman's conversion written by Father Dominic, the 234 July, 1945 NEWMAN ~AND THE',RELIGIOUS LIFE Italian Passionist who received him into the Church. "Littlemore," Father Dominic explains, is a village about :two or three miles from Oxford. It presents nothing charming in its aspect or situation, but is placed in a low, flat country; it exhibits no delightful vill.as, nor agreeable Woods and meadows, but one u~nvafi~d uniform appeara.nce, rather dull than pleasant. In the midst of this village we meet with a building, which has'more the look of a barn than a dwelling:house; and in reality, I think it formerly was a barn. This unsightly.building is "divided by a number of walls, so as to forni so many little cells: and it is So low that you might almost' touch the roof with'your hand. In the interior );ou will find t.h.e most beautiful specimen of patri-archal simplicity and gospel i~overky.8 The Italian was iensitive to the vagaries of the English weather and impressed by the sombrene.ss ofEngland's dark, damp days. Failure to take measures against such conditions was to him a sign of real mortification: To pass from one cell to another, you must go through a little out-side corridor, covered iladeed with tiles, but opeln to all inclemencies of the weather. At the end of this corridor, you find a small dark room,'whi.ch has served as an oratory. The furnishings and diet impressed him most of all. In the cells nothing is to be seen but poverty and simplicity-~bare walls, floors composed' of a few rough bricks, without carpet, a straw bed, one or two chairs, and a few books, this comprises the whole furniture ! !-! The refectory and kitchen are in the same style, all very small and v.ery poor. From this description one may easily guess what sort of diet was used at table: no delicacies, no wine, no .ale.,'no liquors, but seldom meat; all breathing an .air of the strictesk poverty, such I have never witnessed in any religious house in Italy. or France, or in any other.country,where I have been. A C~ipuchin monastery would appear a great palace when compared with Little-more. It is the "best geniuses of the Ang!ican. Church" who. have retired, to this house, Father Dominic goes on, and have lived there--persons "of birth, learning, and pie~ty,. Slbid.o I, 106,107. 235 WAETER 3. ONG Review [or Religiou~ who possessed, or at least might have possessed, the richest livings and fellowships which the Church of England can bestow." And yet it had been said that their living as they had at Littlemore was due to singularity and pride! "Those who entertain such an idea," the good father continues, "might in the same way calumniate our Blessed Saviour; his Apostles, and all the followers of the Gospel." Foroit was plain to any open-eyed observer that the life at Little-more was undertaken in imitation of Christ. The. ho!y and simple Italian priest, as Newman's biographer Wilfrid Ward calls Father Dominic, gets so excited at the blindness and malice of Newman's critics that he breaks into a regular, litany of puns: "O men, O English-men," he almost chants as he concludes his letter to the Tablet, hear the voice of Littlemore. Those wails bear testimony that the Catholic is.a little more than the Protestant Church, the soul a little more than the body, eternity a little more than the present time. Understand well this little more, and I am sure you "will do a little more for your eternal salvation. This is .apparently what made Newman, who was undoubtedly embarrassed by t.he good father's letter, remark that no one at Littlemore could read the letter with a grave face. Bu~ Newman does not contest the facts which Father Dominic had set down. Newman and the English Scbne Littlemore shows in some ways a .greater attraction to a life of self-abnegation and self-surrender than perhaps most religious exhibit before their novitiate. But Little-more provides us as well with the key to Newman's final decision against the religious life. For Littlemore was the place wh~re Newman retired to learn God's will in his regard, and there, were good signs.that the will of God called him elsewhere than to a r.eligious institute. 236 dulyo 1945 NEWMAN AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFE Had he been at the time of his conversion a young man, Newman might perhaps have entered a religious institute and let his life be shaped there, just as Gerard Manley Hop-kins was to do. Hopkins, an Oxford man like Newman and destined like, Newman to become a great figure in nineteenth-century literature, was converted at the 'age of twenty-two. But Newman. (who incidentally, was to be the one to receive Hopkins into the Chu.rch in 1866) was forty-four when he became a Catholic. He bad already cut himself a niche in English life. He had been the leader of a party which had split open the intellectual .world of Oxford and with it the Anglican Church; and, although the party had finally b~een .badly routed by the liberal Anglicans at the. time it lost many of its ,leaders to Rome, Newman's place in the Oxford movement had made him a marked man in England. And here we have the basic reason why New-man did not turn to. the religious state: he felt that his value to the Church, a value already fixed by his place in Eng-land's life, could not be best exploited the~e: ~ Being Taught God's Wilt .W.riting many years later to young Edmund Froude, who had rather precipitately made up his mind to be a religious, Newman sald, "I know you are a prudent boy, and I wish you gravely and continually to pray God, that you may. be taught His Will as regards you. For we must persevere in prayer, if we would learn it.''~ Newman him-self had had to persevere in prayer-to be taught God's will in his regard and this not only with regard to entering the true Church. For a year and a half after his conversion there was an interval of prayerful searching, as both New-man and his friends, eager to find what place God ,had marked out for them, felt their way about the edifice of' the 4Gordon-Huntington Harper, Cardinal Newman and William Froude, A Correspondence (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press. 1933), p. 169. ¯237 ~rALTE~ ,~. ONG ReOiew [or Reti~iou, s Church,'in which they Were at the same time.very much at home and strangely unconversant with many ordinary thifigs. They were at home because they were indeed in their Father's house, about whichthey, had been reading all their ~lives in the Scriptures and in patristic writings. But, how-ever much at home they felt, the fact was, their Father's house or no, they had never been in it before. Forthis rea-son Newman and Ambrose St. John went frorfi~England to Rome in 1846 to imp.rove their knowledge of the Church from the inside. It is a little amusing to see them cautiously smelling out different theological schools at Ro~e or still indulging in themselves something of the amazement of the benevblent Protestant who has just found thht the Cath-olic clergy are not such a bad lot after all. In this vein, Newman, en route to Rome, writes delight-edly from Langres in France to his friend Frederick Bowles that the French clergy are a merry, simple, affectionate set--some of them quite touchingly, kind and warm-hearted towards me, and only one complaining, as I think he did, of English heaviness (our stomachs were in fault) . M. La~ont is Very cheerful, hnd talks Latin well, which few of "the other clergy.do. The Dean does, and is a kind warmhearted person.5 During this time when he was gaining familiarity with the Church from inside her doors, Newman was in close contact with many religious-TDorninicans, Passionists, Jesuits, Franciscans, and others. He bad a Jesuit confessor at Rome. And Newman was certainly thinking of the various religious institutes in terms Of his usefulness in Christ's cause: "'It i~ ,one especial benefit in the Catholic ~burcb," he writes from Rome to Henry Wilberforc~, that a person's usefulness does not ~lepend on the accident of its .SWard, Life,~ I, 136. 23'8 ,lulg, ~94~ NEV~MAN AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFE being found out. There are so many ready-formed modes of'us~ful-hess, great institutions, and orders with great privileges and means, of operation, that he has but to unite himself to one of them, and it is as if Pope and Cardinals took him.up personhlly.° Newman adds a remark which shows that he was ~hinking of the religious life as a sort of r~fuge from pos-sible ecclesiastical honors: Since, I am in for it, I will add," what (as ~far as Io know) I have. never told to anY0ne--thai, before now; my prayers have been so earnest that I never might" have dignity or station, that, as they have been heard as regar.ds the English Church, I think their will be heard now also. They were~ No honors threatened for m~n)~ weary years; but rather failure and misunderstanding. Special Responsibilities But from the time of his conversion Newman was con-scious tl~at he might have "special responsibilities" which .would not'leave his choice of a State of,life entirely free. He was afraid that these responsibilities might not be discov-ered for him evenin Rome. "I can't tell as yet," he informs . Wilberforce in the same letter, what they will make of me here, or whether they will find me but. It is very difficult to get into the mind of a person like me, especially considering so few speak English . . . and I can say .so little in Italian. Newman and St. John had indeed picked up Italian only in their leisurely journey down through Italy to Rome picked it up not without some disaster, as when, mehning to tell a departing Italian acquaintance in Milan that he hoped to.see him in the winter., St. John blunHered confi~ dently, onto the word inferno for inverno and succeeded only "in leaving the startled Italian with the understanding that the English visitor hoped to see him s6on in hell. Newman was delighted at this occurrence, for St. John Olbid., I, 151. " ¯ 239 WALTER J, ONG Review [or Religious was the greater enthusiast for the language. But when they got to R6me arid Newman could pick his way only rather gingeriy through an Italian ~onversation, he fel'tthat he w~s greatly handicapped in his efforts to find his prope,r place within the Church. Newman wanted information and advice. But "what can people know of me?'" he goes on to Wilberforce, . I don't expect people will know me. The consequence will be, that, instead of returnihg with any special responsibilities upon .me, any special work to do, I Should on my return slink into some re~ady-formed plan of operation, and if I did not become a fi~iar or a Jesuit, I should go on hiamdrumming in some theological seminary or the like. Thus Newman felt that, /:or him; fitting into a ready-made plan might indeed be "'slinking" dodging the "spe-cial responsibility." In accordance with this line of thought, the conviction that he should not join a religious institute finally won out, as it had threatened to do from the first. He writes to Dalgair.ns from Rome on the last day of the year 1846: I have'the greatest fear I am bamboozling nays.elf when'I talk of an order: and that, just as Anglicans talk of being Catholics butdraw back when it comes to the pgint, so I, at my time of life, shall never feel able to give up property and take to new habits.7 But the repugnance to giving up property was no greater,. certainly, for Newman than for many who have embraced the religious life, and it was not this, repugnance which decided him in the course he took. He goes on: -Not that I should not do it [enter a religious institute], had I a clear call--but it is so difficult to know what a. clear call is. I do not know ~nough of the rule of the different ~ongregations to haste any opinion yet--and again I do not think I could, religiously, do any-thing that Dr. Wiseman disapproved. 71bid., I, 170. 240 July, 1945 NEWMAN AND THE RELIGIOUS LII::E Final Reasons for the Orator~t Even with this protestation of ignorance concerning the rules of religious institutes, Newman sbts down' at this time ¯ the reasons which were ultimately to d~termine--indeed, we[e already determining--his choice. In thinking of a. .regular life, he continues, a great difficulty . . . is my own previous history: When it comes upon me how late I am trying to serve the Church,the obvious ahswer is, Even saints, such as St. Augustine, St. Ignatius, did not begin in earnest till a late age. "Yes, but I am much older than ~hey." So then I go on to think and to trust that my past life may form a sort of aphorme [base of operations] and a ground of future usefulness. Having lived so long in Oxford, my name and person are known to a very great many people I do not know--so are my books--and I may have begun a workwhich I am,now to finishl Now the ques-tion is whether as a regular I do not at once cut off all this, as becoming a sort of instrument of others, and so clean beginning life again. As a Jesuit e.g. no one ~ould know that I was speaking my own words:" or was a continuation, as it. were, of my former self. Newman goes on to.set down a notion which he,had thought worthwhile ment.ioning to Bishop Wiseman, that he and his associates should be a group or college in Eng-land dependent on Propaganda, which still administered England in place of a regular hierarchy. "This," Newman concludes, "would not be inconsistent ~ith being Ora-torians." By the beginning of the year 1847 Newman and a group of his friends had fixed on the Oratory of St. Philip as their place in the Church--the place where prayer and common sense and the wishes of their eccclesiastical supe-riors made it plain that God wanted them. In the spring of t847 Newman, St. John, W. Goodenough Penny, J. D. Dalgairns, Robert Coffin, Richard Stantc~n, and F. S. Bowles began a brief novitiate at Rome, and in January of the following year the first English Oratorian ~ommunit~r 241 WALTER J. ONG began tO assemble at Birmingham under a rule adapted slightly to the demands of life in England. Newman's Choice and Prbvidence The event proved that Newman's calculations were {ralid, that his patient and' prayerful search had effectively laid his life in the hands of Providence. For it was to the best interests of Christ's Kingdom that Newman should remain preeminently an individual in the minds of the English people. The English never succeeded in under-standing Newman the Catholic. They would never even have tried to understand Newman the religious---the mem-ber of some weird and superstitious'posse of the Pope's. But with Newman the individual they could at least try to sympathize. And that is how Newman won his countrymen in his ,.Apologia pro Vita Sua, diverting the currents of feeling which swirled confusedly about him into channels friendly to the Church. In 1845 and 1846 and 1847 Newman could not see ahead to the Apologia, in which he was to l~iy bare the history of his religious convictions and jus-ti. fy his conversion to Catholicity. But in the Provi-dence of God, which calls some to one kind of life ai~d some to another, "disposing all things sweetly," he took the step in 1847. which made the Apologia possible and turned his life from a long series of failures into.a great spiritual suc-cess. Had he become a .religious, Newman would have had the same story to tell as he tells in the Apologia. But, as he shrewdly foresaw in 1846, no one would have belie~'ed that he was speaking his own words. In the Oratory of St. Philip, only loosely tied to his associates, he remained .in the popular mind Newman, the individual Englishman. That made" possible the work which God bad for him to do. 242 Why Does Father Ask Questions? Gerald Kelly, S.J. DURING the years of his seminary training,, the young priest-to'be is thoroughly instructed in the duties of those who go to confession anal is also made acquainted with some of the principal difficulties that his future, peni-tents might experience. ' This is as it should be, The priest should be able to help and sympathize with his penitents. But that is only one side of the picture. The confessor-. penitent relationship .is "mutual; and, particularly from the point of view of the penitent, it is, perhaps the most pro-f0u. ndly intimate relationship in the world. The penitent often reveals things to the confessor that he Would not dis-close to anyone, else, even his dearest friend.It seems logical, therefore, that the penitent ought to know something of the duties and problems of the confessor. Catholics do know, in.a rather vague way, something of the confessor's duties and difficulties. They know that he ~ears their sins as the ambassador of God and that he is bound by the most rigid and sacred secrecy possible. And they can readily understand that long hours in the confes-sional must be tiresome and must create a. spei:ial :difficulty with regard to the practice of such virtues as patience and kindness. But there are many things that they do not understand" and one of these seems to be the asking of questions by the.confessor.~ If we may judge from remarks heard in conversations about confession, we may conclude that penitents fall into three rather general classes with respect to being questionbd by the confessor. Some penitents rather like it because it 243 GERALD KELLY Reoieu~ for Religiou~ makes their own task easier and makes them more satisfied that their confession was good. Others definitely resent ~luestioning; they want to say what they have to say and then be allowed to go in peace. Still others neither like nor resent the questioning, but among these many wonder why questions are asked. All these classes of penitents--and of course all who teach catechism and instruct others how~ to go to confession--would very likely profit by-a knowledge of som'e of the reasons why the priest questions °~hem; and if they ~kriew these reasons they would very likely try to improve their methods of going to confession and thus avoid the necessity of questions. As a judge in the placeof Christ, the priest gives abso-lution to a worthily-disposed sinner and refuses absolu-tion to the sinner who is not sufficiently disposed. This is the most imporl)ant office of the confessor; but it is not his only.' function. He is also a pb~tsician., with the duty of healing the wounds of sin.and prescribing remedies for the "future; he is, to some extent~ a teacher, with the duty of instructing the ignorant; and he is the spiritual ~:atber to his penitent, with the° duty of giving paternal admonitions, counsel, affd e.ncouragement. In each and' all of these capacities, the priest might tinct reasons, for questioning pe.nitents. I" cannot discuss all these reasons here; but I should like to call attention to those tbat might be most common or most important. Sut~cien't Matter? For the instruction of. seminarians and for the help. of priests, moral theologians sometimes prepare ~¢hat thev call "case books"--that is, books of practical problems that ~the priest .is likely~ to encounter in.his ministry. To make the problem concrete, it is proposed in the form "of a ficti-tious incident. The student is to,decide what he would do 244 ,lul.q, 1945 \VllY DOES FATHER ASK QUES'I~IONS? under the circumstances; then he can check his solution with the solution offered by the author of the book. I can illustrate the first reason why a priest might ask questions by two s.ample Confessions taken from one of these case books. The first confession is that of a devout woman named Eudoxia. "I never detract others, as many women do," EuSoxia tells her confessor. "I have had to listen to men blaspheme, but.I told them I disapprove of their language. And I forgot to say my morning prayers several times.". That, according to the case book, is Eudoxia's entire confession. Not. a real sin is mentioned; and there is no concluding accusation of the sins of her past life. So far as absolution is concerned, Eudoxia might just as well be a newly baptized baby. But there is this l~rofound difference between Eudoxia and the baby" the baby has not sinned, whereas Eudoxia--unless she has the special privilege given to Our Lady--most certainly has committed some small sins, at least in he.r past life. The confessor's problem is to get her to confess a sin. "Perhaps you have told some small lies, or given way to impatience, or committed some other small sins; like sins of vanity?" the confessor asks Eudoxia. Most of us, I am sure, would call this an easy, safe approach, Tl~ere is" nothing particularly opprobrious about these .sins,.and even very good people occasionally fall into them. But not Eudoxia! "Far be it from me, Father," she replies firmly, ever to commit any of those sins!" With that we can leave Eudoxia to her confessor. He may try to explain to her how all people commit some small, sins, and that in her case it is just a matter of recog-nizing the sins and perhaps of examining her conscience more carefully. He might even indicate that she could get some valuable information abmit herself from. those "other 245 GERALD KELLY women" of whom she spoke in her confession or from those men who blasphemed in her presence. But he may not and cannot give absolution until he knows, there is something to absolve. Virtues, mere imperfections, involuntary acts, and doubtful sins (for example: "I accuse myself in so far asI amguilty") arenot sufficient matter for absolution;' and if a confessionconsists entirely of such things~ the con-fessor simply has to ask questions. ¯ Anbther sample confession, taken from the same case bbok, will illustrate the problem of insufficient matter under a slightly different aspect. This time the penitent is a man, .whose Latin name is best translated by Goodfellow. "'Father," runs Goodfellow's confession, "I haven't anything to confess except that I frequently had impure thoughts, and once, when I was traveling, I missed Mass on Sunday." That is the whole of Goodfellow's confession. He seems tO be a man of few deeds and fewer words. The prin-dipal difference between his and Eud0xia's confessions is that Eudoxia deaily confessed no sins, whereas Goodfellow may be confessing real sins. Every confessor learns, after some little ~xperience, that the accusation, "I had impure thoughts," does,not necessarily mean sin. It could mean that the penitent committed a mortal sin against purity_; but it could also mean that the penit.ent was merely tempted against purity--in other words, that the thoughts were entirely involuntary and not at all culpable. And the same may be said for Goodfellow's failure to hear Mass. Devout people sometimes confess "missing Mass," even when they had. a broken leg. They. do not really mean that they sinned; they merely feel better when they tell the confessor aboutoit. Goodfellow might be one of these devout people; perhaps his journey made it impossible to .hear Mass and lie knew this .was no sin. 246 dul~,IP45 WHY DOES FATHER ASK QUESTIONS? If Goodfellow's impure thoughts were involuntary and he had a good excuse or thought he had a good excuse 'for missing Mass, his confession is the same as Eudoxia's: it Gontains no real sin. Strictly speaking, things like this should not be confessed unless one wishes to get, some advice about them; but if the peni.tent does confess them, he should indicate .that they were not sins and should ' include in his confession some other matter for absolution. Otherwise the confessor must ask questions. Mortal or Venial Sin? Even if Goodfellow's impure thoughts were really sin-ful, there would still be a further problem for the confessor. He has to judge, in so far as this is reasonably possible, whether the penitent ~ommitted a venial sin.or a mortal sin: and this judgment is particularly difficult .to make with regard to such things as internal sins. As I said before, the accusation, "I had impure thoughts," may refer merely to a. temptation, in which case it would be no sin at all. But it could also mean that the penitent was guilty of some negli-gence in getting rid of impure thoughts--and this, though it would be a venial, sin, is a far cry from full consent and deliberate mortal sin. All of us learfied (or were supposed to learn) in cate-chism class that a full-fledged mortal sin must have three. elements: serious matter, sufficient ~eflection, and full con-sent of the will. In some types of[accusations a confessor can readily presume that all these elehaents were present;but in many other~ be must ask a question or tWO to determine whether the matter was really, serious or whether there was sufficient reflection and full consent. It is often very difficult, even after questioning, to.forma judgment regarding reflec-tion and consent; and it can happen that both the penitent and the confessor will have to leave the judgment to God. 247 GERALD KELLY Review for Religious But they are not supposed to "leave it to God" without r~aking some reasonable effort to decide it for themselves. I might mention here that the judgment concerning d~gree of guilt is not nearly so important as the judgment ~oncerning sufficiency of matter. A mistake concerning sufficient matter (for example: if the confessor judged that the confession contained real sin when not even a real venial sin was included in thea c'cusa"tion) would make the abso-lution invalid, even though the penitent, being in good faith, would commit no sin. But a mistake in judging the degree of guilt (for example: by judging a sin to be mortal when it was only venial, or vice vers)~) would not affect the validity of the absolution. The Law or: Integrity Reminiscing on catechism days will also bring to our minds the la~ of Christ that all mortal sins must be con-fessed according to species and number: in other words, the ekact kind of ~in committed andthe exact number of times each sin was committed, in so far as the penitent can tell these details, must be confessed. If the priest notices that this law is not being kept, he must prudently help the penitent by questions. The man who has committed mur-der does not satisfy this obligation by merel.y saying that he violated the Fifth Commandment, because there are many ways of violating that Commandment; and if he murdered his brother he would not satisfy his obligation by saying that he had killed a man, because homicide and fratricide are different kinds of sins. Finally, if we make the wild supposition that he bad seven brothers and that he mur-dered them all, he would not fulfill the law of integral con-fession by simply saying that he had murdered his brothers, because he "is Supposed to tell how many mortal sins he committed. 248 dulg, 1945 WHY DOES FATHER ASK QUESTIONS? I realize that homicide and fratricide are not the regular subject-matter for confessions. A Commandment that would probably touch the lives of ordinary people more ¯ closely would be the Sixth. And the confession of sins against this Commandment present~ special difficulties for both penitent and confessor. Penitents find the confession of sins of impurity embarrassing, and they would naturally 'like to keep their accusation as general as possible. Further-more. they often do not know just how to express them-selves, perhaps because they feel that they do not know the proper terms to be used in the confessional. As for the con-fessor, it is easily seen how he might find the questioning of penitents concerning sins of impurity a particularly delicate matter. The best solution to' the mutual embarrassment problem is to have the penitent try to keep the law of .integrity by confessing in his own words the kind of sin he committed. The confession should be brief and to the point. The confessor can hardly fail to understafid: and thus the need of questions, at least on this score, will be avoided. Of course, there are 15enitents who prefer to be questioned in this matter because they find it too difficult to express themselves without help. These penitents should at least mention their inability to the confessor and asl( for his assistance. True Contrition? A very important--in fact, an essential--judgment to be made by the confessor concerns the penitent's disposition. Practically speaking, tbis means that before giving absolu-tion the confessor must judge that his penitent has. true contrition, at least imperfect contrition. Absolution can-not be ~'alid if the penitent has not this minimum'disposi-sition. ¯Generally speaking, of course, the presumption is that 249 GERALD KELLY Review for Religious ¯ people do not confess their,sins unless they are sorry for them. But this presump.tion admits of many exceptions, as the moral theologiai~s are careful to point out. For instance, there is thecase of the penitent w, ho has been prac-t. ically forced to confession by wife, m0ther~ br teacher. It is true that even under such circumstances a good confession can be made; but there is a very real danger that such con-fessions might be insincere and that genuine contrit.ion and desire for absolution mil~ht be lacking. Another difficulty tha't might make for defective contrition is lack of instruc-tion. Great moralists like St. Alphonsus' Liguori point out that many simple people are a~t to get the habit of going to confession without really appreciating the need of contrition; especially with reference to purpose of amend-ment. In all.cases like the above, where the confessor has a reasonable .suspicion that-contrition is lacking or defective, he must ask a question or two. And besides these general difficulties there are certain sl~ecific problems concerning which he must be especially careful. Among these specific cases a m6st important one .is that of the penitent with a habit of serious sin. . The habitual sinner is apt to have a very vague and ineffective purpose of amendment. In. a general way he wants to break his habit, but he fails to decide on any deft-nite way of doing so. Strong habits are not broken in that way. One must.try to find the reason for his habit and try to remove that reason. The habit may be the result of his own weakness; and in this case he must take some means to strengthen himself. Or the habit may be connected with an occasion of sin; and in this event some very drastic measures may" halve to be taken, with regard to the occasion. These are basic points concerning habits of sin; yet the penitent may be ignorant of them and unconscious of his need for 250 J~,ty, 1945 Wl-iy DOES FATHER ASK QUESTIONS? help. And even if he feels his need very acutely, even if h~ is dreadfully discouraged--a not uncommon effect of habits of impurity---~ he may be too timid to ask for help; hence, if the .confessor does not takethe initiative, great harm may result. Even when a habitual sinner shows good Will his pr6b-lem is apt to be a'difficult one, because.it is not always easy to determine the exact ~ause of the trouble and to prescribe an immediately effective remedy. But the difficulty is much more serious when the penitent manifests a lack of sincer-ity: for example,, if he returns to the same confessor again and again without having made any attempt to follow advice, or if he goes from one confessor to another in order to find an "easy" one or to avoid the .need of giving an account of himself. Human nature is prone, to seek the ehsy ¯ way, and the very law of the Church which allows peni-tents a choice of confessors can be abused in such a way ~s to defeat the purpose of confession. Knowing these things. the confessor cannot omit questions when he notices or has a solid reason for suspecting that his peniten( is insincere. Other Reasons :or Questions. Thus far I have given the principal reasonswhy a con-lessor might feel obliged to ask questions: namely, to determine if there is sufficient matter foi absolution; to decide the degree of sinfulness; to help the penitent to make'- a complete, confession; to test the penitent,'s disposition; and to give needed advice and encouragement. Another very important reason is his desire to correct a false con-science. .These and similar purposes all fall within the scope of his sublime office as minister of the sacrament-- as judge, physiciah, teacher, and spiritual father. And to these we might add the simpler and more natural reasons, such as the fact that he does not hear what is.said, or that 25! GERALD KELLY . he is, not 'sure h.e catches "the penitent's meaning. And finally, the confessor is not exempt~from such difficulties as distractions and sleepiness. His mind may wander, and.his head may nod! If penitents were to keep all these things i'n mind, they would not resent questions, bfit they would try to make their confessions sufficiently clear and complete to allow the confessor tom keep his questions to the mini-mum. No doubt-it is true that occasionally unnecessary and even useless questions are asked: but this is'not the rule. Questioning penitents is seldom pleasant. Books Received ¯(From A~rll ZO to ,lune 20) " " LONGMANS~ GREEN. AND CO., INC., London, New York, Toronto. Enjoying the Neu~ Testament. By Margaret T. Monro. $2.50. THE BRUCE PUBLISHING CO. Milwaukee. A Dynamic 1~7or/.d Order. By Rt. Rev. Msgr. Donald~A. Mac Lean, A. M., S.T.L., Ph.D. $2.50. Weapons for Peace. By Thomas P. Neill. $2.50. CATECHETICAL GUILD, St. Paul, Minn. That You Mug Liue. By L. F. Cervantes, S.J. $2.00. SOCIETY OF SISTERS OF THE HOLY NAMES, Marylhurst, Oregon. The Hope of the Hart, est. By a-Sister of the Holy Names. $4.00 (plus postage). FREDERICK PusTET CO., INC., New~ York. Meditations on Eternitg for t~eligious. By the Venerable Mother Julienne Morell, O.P. $2.50. B. HERDER BOOK CO., St. Louis. A Retreat for Religious. By Rev. Andrew Green, O.S.B. $2.00. Christian Denominations. By Rev. Konrad Algermissen. $7.50. MOTHERHOUSE OF IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, Cdnvent Heights, New Britain, Conn. D,n'l~) Progress in Religious Virtues. By Rev. John Pitrus, S.T.D.'$1.60. 252 Perl:ecfion Is Union wish God Augustine Klaas, S.3. WE OFTEN HEAR it said.that spiritual perfection is union with God .and that~ the moreintimate this union is, the greater our perfection. The statement is true;but is there not frequently some haziness of mind as to just what is meant by. union With God and how it per-tains to perfection? Let .us examine variouskinds of union with God and their relation to spiritual perfectionl Hgposti~tic Union with God 'The closest union of our human nature with the divine is had in Jesus_Christ by rdason, of the hypostatic union, that is, the union of the divine and human natures of Christ in the Person of the Word. One Persofi, the Son of God, having a divine nature from all eternity, took to Himself a human nature like our very own from. the flesh of Mary, and by a viriginal birth became also .the son of Mary. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt' among us" (John 1 : 14). ~Or as. Pope Saint Leo the Great graphically expresses it: "the Wisdom of God built a house in the flesh, whkh He took from a human being, and which He animated with a -rational soul." The human nature of.Christ ever remains distinct from the divine, but the two natures, are subs[an-t~ iallg united in the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. This is the closest possible .union of our human nature with God. Such an intimate, substantial union of the human and the divine is had in Jesus Christ alone, for revelation tells of only one hypostatic union. It were blasphemy to say that in our pursuit of perfection we could ever attain to such an 253 AUGUSTINE KLAAS for Religious immediate union with God. We cannot even understand its character fu!ly since'it is an ineffable mystery. Before it we can only bow our heads in faith, in adoration, and in grati-tude, too, because from the hypostat!c union comes not only our sublime Model of perfection, but also from it, as from a fo~antainbead, flow all our grace, justification, incorporation into the Mystical Body, spiritual perfection. and ultimately our everlasting:union with God in heaven. Union with God in Hea~)en The blessed Jn heaven are intimately united to God. This union of our human nature with ,the divine is not substantial, like the previous one, but only accidental. Called the beatific vision, it is an immediate intuitive p.er-ception of the essence of God ~esuking in 10ve, and a sati-ating joy and bliss that Will last forever. Aided .by the "light of glory; the blessed see God face to face. .'.'We see'nqw, ,through a glass in a dark manner.; but then fa~e to face" (I Corinthians 13" 12). And because of this direct vision of God the blessed love God to' their utmost and are supremely happy for all eternity~ They can neither increase nor diminish this union, since their time of probation is over. They are home at last in their Father's house. ¯ However, union with God in heaven is not had by all the blessed in the same degree, for "there are many man-sions" in our~elestial abode. What determines its degree? The degree o.f our vision of God and of our capacity for love and happiness .hereafter is indirect proportion to the sanctifying grace, merit, and spiritual perfection we have acquired in this l~fe. In other words, the degree.of our union with God in heaven is measured wholly by the degree of our union with God on earth. Union with God on Earth On earth we are united to God' by sanctffging grace. 254 dul~,1945 PERFECTION IS uNIoN WITH GOD Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical on the Holy spirit explains this union as follows: No. one can express the greatness of this work of divine grace in the souls.of men. Wherefore, both in Holy Scripture and in the Gritings. of the Fathers, men are styled regenerated, new creatures, partakers of 0the Divine Nature, children of God, godlike, and similar el~ithets. Now these great blessings are justly'considered as especially belonging to the. Holy Spiri.t . . . He not only .brings to us His Divine gifts, 15ut is the Author of them and is Himself the supreme Gift . To show tile nature and e~icacy of this gift it is.wel! to recall the explanation given by thee Doctors.of the Church of the words of Holy Scripture. Tfiey say that God is.present and exists in'all thin, gs by His. power, in so far as all things are sub'ject toHis power; by His presence, inasmuch a's al! thin~s are uncovered and open to His eyes; by His essence, inasmuch as He is present to all.as the cause of their being (St. Thomas, Summa Tbeologica I, Q. 8, Art. 3). But God is' in ma.n, not just as. in lifeles~ things, but in the.furthe.r way thaf He is also known and loved by him, since even by nature we spontane-ously love, desire and seek after the good.~ Moreover, God by'grac~ resides in the justsoul.as in a temple, in a most intimateand peculiar manner. From this proceeds that union of affection by which the soul adheres cl~sely to God, mor~ so than the friend is united t6 his most lovi.ng and beloved friend,' ~nd enjoys God in all fulness and sweetness. Now this wonderful union, which is prop~ly called "indwelling," differing only in degree or state from that with which God beatifies the saints in Heaven, alt1~ougl4 it is most certainly produced by ~the presence of the whole Blessed Trin-ity--" We {vill come to him, and will make .our abode ,with him" (dohn 14: 23)--nevertheless' is attributed in .a peculiar manner to the Holy Spirit. " Habitual union with God present in the~soul in a pecul-iar way through sanctif)fing, grace is of. the very essence of spiritual perfection in this world, since without sanct.ifying. grace we are supernaturallyand spiritualIy dead. On the other hand, the more sanctifying grace is increased in our souls by the worthy r.eception of the sacraments, especially of the Holy Eucharist, and by the assiduous practice of .the 255 AUGUSTINE KI~AAS Review [or Religious virtues, principally charity, the more, intimate becomes our habitual union with God and "the greater our spiritual.per-fection. When We shall have.acquired the maximum sanc-tifying grace we are capable of, granted our particular, indi-vidual opportunities of nature and.of grace, then.we shall hard attained to the closes~ habitual union with God and tbe highest perfection. This fundamental, essential perfec-tion spiritual writers sometimes call static, perfectior~. There is still another union with God flowing almost spontaneously from the'preceding'one-active union. Ac-tive union with God is called d~cnamic perfection and is what we ordinarily mean when we speak of spiritual per-fection. It consists in union with God by mind and will activity. Union with God b~t Mind Activity Active union with God" through intellect is had by thinking of God, by acquiring more and more knowledge of Him and His divine attributes fromthe .double source of reason and supernatural faith. Such knowledge of God is highly praised in Holy Scripture: "For to know thee is perfect justicei and to know thy justice, and thy power, is'tbe root of immo~tali,ty" (Wisdom 15:3). And Saint Paul: "Furthermore I count all things to be but loss for the ' excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ my lord (Philippians 3:8) . in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3). Among the Fathers of the Church, did not Saint Augustine epitomize the whole of the spiritual life as an ever increasing knowledge of self and of God? By knowledge of God is here meant not. merely theo-retical knowledge, scientific knowledge, knowledge of God acquired chiefly by the study of philosophy and theology, book knowledge, if you will. Practical knowledge of God. 256 July, 1945 PERFECTION I$ ~JNION WITH GOD that is, knc~wledge inducing will activity, , is still more important. Let us evaluate knowl~dge of God with refer~ ence to perfection. Theoretical knowledge of God is excellent. It can be, .and frequently is, a puissant help and incentive' tospiritual perfection. However, it must be asserted that while such knowledge provides a useful soiid basis for perfection, it does not constitute our spiritual perfection, nor even.indi-care the degree of perfection we may possess. Have there ¯ not been saints, like Benedict Labre and Bernadette Soubi-rous, whose scientific theoretical knowledge of God was ¯ very meager? On the other hand, do we not sometimes see students of theology, who have a verst superior knowledg~ of God and work at it all day long; leading imperfect liveR? The fallen angels have an excellent theoretical knowledge of God, but they are the very opposite of perfect. Eminent theologians warn us that perfection "does not consist in union with God by mind activity alone, even a great deal o~ it. "Tell me, dear Father," said Brother Giles one day to the learned Saint Bonaventure, "can a simple, uneducated person love God as much as a scholar? . Yes," replied Bonaventure, "a simple, little old grandmother can love God more¯ than a master of theology." Whereupon, we are told, guileless Brottier Giles rose up, rushed out ¯ th?ough the garden and along the streets of the town crying at the top Of his voice: :"O poor, ignorant, simple old grand-mother, love Gri!! You can still overtake Brother Bona-venture." If this is true, what the little old gran.dmother probably bad was not so much a theoretical as a practical, a '~realized" knowledge of God, a knowledge leading to,the firm judgment.and deep conviction:' "I must value and 10ve God above all else." ¯UpOn this pract!cal mind activity can be built the loftiest perfection, but in itself it still is not the union with God that is equated with spiritual perfection. 257 AUGUSTINE "KLAAS Reoiew for~ Retigiou; Hence, .while we must greatly esteem knowledge of God, both theoretical ~nd practical, and strive constantly and perseveringly to incre~ise it, by meditation, .by spiritual reading, by delving deeper into the truths of faith, by ofien recalling the presence of God. by recollection, and the like, we must not remain content with only that. If we would be perfect we must pass from union with God by mere mind activity to something b~yonfl, to something still more. pre-. cious, to union witb God' by will activity,by~love. Saint Teresa of Avila says t.hat clearly when discussing union with God in her Foundations (chapter 5): "The soul's advancement, does not conist in thinking much; but in loving much." Our spiritual perfection .is measured, .therefore, not by our knowledge of God, even though it be the knowledge of strong supernatural faith, but rather by" our~active lo~¢e of Him. That is why Saint Thomas can say that "the love of those things which are above us; and especially of God, is to be preferred to the knowledge ~f them: Wherefore charity is more excellent than fafth" ¯ (Summa II-II. Q. 23, Art. 6). A'nd so the little old grand~ mother could probably never overtake the saintly Doctor of the Church by her mind activity, even hi~r practical mind activity: she could overtake him by her will, by her union with God through will acti~;ity, by her active love of God. : Union with God by Will Actiuitg Presupposing in the soul a-close union With God through sanctifying grace and a certain necessary union with Him through mind activi(y, we maintain that spir-itual perfection consists above all in union with God by will activity, that is, by active love of God. Supernal~ural faith and hope must be present in the soul, but we are per-fect in proportion as we love God more; and when we have 258 du1~,1945 PERFECTION IS UNION WITH GOD attained the maximum.activelove of God we are capable of with the assistance of grace, then we have reached the very summit of the mount of perfection. Active love is th~ norm and gauge of spiritual perfection. We are just as perfect as we are united to God by active love of Him. Such is the unanimous teaching of Catholic theologians. as for instance, Saint Thomas, who states in his Perfection of Spiritual Life that "the spiritual life consists principall~r in charity. He is simply perfect in the spiritual life who is perfect in charity."° It is' the teaching of the Fathers of the Church who agree with Saint Augustine when he informs us in. his work On Nature and Grace that "incipi-ent charity is incipient justice [justice here means holiness] ; advanced charity is advanced justice; great charity.is great justice; perfect charity is perfect justice." It is the teaching of Saint Paul (I Corinthians 13). It is the explicit teaching of Christ Himself: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and withlthy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greates.t and the first com-mandment. And the second-is like to th~s:.Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." (Matthew 22:37-39.) And again: "Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). And Saint ~John explains: ':God is charity. '" (I John 4: 16).1 Degrees of Union with God Spiritual masters have made many attempts to give us ~he ascending scale, of degrees in this unifying love of God and the characteristics that mark each degree. They are at ,variance in detail; fundamentally, however, they are in accord, for the main landings on the grand stairway leading to the highest love of God are p.retty well known and agreed upon by all. There are three suchlafidings or degrees of 1For. a fuller treatment of this point, el. Revi'eto for Reliyious, Vol. I, pp. 238 sqq. 259 ¯ ~,UGUSTINE KLAAS union with God through love. In the first the soul is so united to God and loves Him to such a degree that it habitually avoids all mortal sin and the occasions of grave sin. It has a nascent but still feeble desire for greater perfection; it still commits many venial sins, but it struggles valiantly and successfully against strong temptations. Penance for the past, purification, and mortification characterize this rather negative degree. Its prayer is mainly discursive meditation on the .fundamental truths of faith, particularly the four last things. This is the degree of beginners in the life of perfection and it is called the Purgative W.ay. in the second degree, the soul not only avoids all mor-tal sin, but habitually rejects deliberate venial sin. It makes advances in detachment from creatures and has an inc.reasing desire for perfection. The degree is more positive than negative, since the emphasis is on the acquirement of the virtues, especially by the imitation ot~ and assimilation to Christ, "the way, the truth, and the life." The prayer in this degree tends to be predominantly affective. It is the degree of those ad.vancing in perfection: it is called the" Illuminative Way. Presupposing the habitual practice of the other two, the third degree is marked by the struggle to reduce semi-deliberate venial sins and imperfections to the minimum. The soul has made great strides towards heroic detachment and is now intent on the maximum practice of the counsels and works of supererogat!on. Its manner of praying becomes more and more simple, contemplation of God's attributes being a favorite form in this degree. Intense charity permeates all its activity, since it now lives for God alone. This is the Unitive W.ay. Of course, these degrees cannot be rigidly delimited. Nor does .the soul. leave one degree and proceed to the next 260 July, 1945 PERFECTION IS UNION WITH GOD mechanically: it may. be and generally.is ~to some extent in all degrees at once. For example, in.order.to keep onese!f babitually from mortal sin, does one not have to observe a certain number of.the counsels? ~.Is the soul in the third degree exempt from doing penance? The Whole matter is one 0f emphasis, and according to the predominance of the va.rious.qualities noted above, a soul.can be easily placed in one of the tb?ee degrees. Moreover, tb~ third degree admits of indefinite progress, since we can neverlove God as much as He can be loved, and hence; our unions with Him can ,ever become more., intimat~ ag long as we live on this earth. Perf.ect and Imperfect. Love of God From the restricted viewpoi.nt of, nobility of moti~ce .two kinds Of active love of God may be distinguished. can love God above all else because He is good to us. Such is the love of God .indicated by the Psalmist when .be exclaims: "For thee my flesh and my heart hath fainted away" thou art the God of-my b.eart, and the God that is my portion forever" (Psalms 72:26). And again: ."I will ¯ love thee, O Lord,my strength.: the Lord, is-my firmament, my.refu'ge, and ~my deliverer . " .(Psalms 1'7:2). Our Lord appeals to thismotive when He proposes "treasure. in bea'Oen. '~ tbe"bundredfold," and "life e.verlasting." Because of the less perfect nature of the motive this love of God, called "imperfect love" or "i.nterested love" of God. it is already a great deal and should by no means be contemned or slighted, but there is a higher love of God springing from a nobler motive: "perfect. love," or as it is sometimes called "disinterested love", of God. "Perfect love" of God is had when We love Him above all else not so much for the good He so generously bestows on us, but for Himself, because He is all-good in Himself. , This "perfect love" is known as the love of benevolence and 261 AUGUSTINE KL&AS Revietv /:or Religio~s friendship. In its exercise we prescind from our own inter-ests or at least subordinate them to Him, since we love God simply for Himself,, and not for our own advantage. "Fhis highest of motives makes this the highest type of love of .God. In it we take complacent delight in God and in His perfections; we ardent!y desire to glorify Him; we actively give glory to Him by conforming our will as much as pos-sible in all. things to His: we .bring others to glorify Him. And all tl~is simply because God is God,.because God is all-good and all-lovable in Himself. The love Of benevolence affd friendship: is perfected extensively when we embrace by our lov~ more of the per-fections of God and more of His creatures; it: is perfected intensivelty when we make the acts of love more vehemently and more constantly until we develop a solid habit of the perfect love of God. W'hen the love reaches the maximum we are capable of then we are simply perfect. M~/stic Union with God Finally, there is still another union with God for which the union by rhind and will activity is an indispensable preparation. It is mystic union, a special gift of God's grace to His favored friends. Mystic unidn with God, an earthly union which approaches that of theblessed in heaven, is not necessary for spiritual perfection, but it is a potent means to it because it results insublime and intense acts of the perfect love of God. The precious gift of mystic union generally presupposes in him who receives it an advanced degree of union with God by active love, espe-cially perfect love. Conclusion To conclude by way of.summary: spiritual perfection is union with. God. It is union with God by a maximum 262 July/, 1945 ' PERFECTION IS UNION WITH GOD of sanctifying grace, called static perfection. It is unio.,n., with God. by a certain am.ount of necessary supernatura'[ mind activity, theoretical and practical. It is union with God by a maximum of supernatural will activity, a maxi-mum of the perfect love of God, called dynamic perfecti.on. This earthly union with God .whkh is our perfecti6n merits for us and is the measure~of our Union with God in "heaven, our ultimate, inamissible perfection. All our union with God, both in heaven and on earth, all.our spiritual perfection, we owe to the hyp0static union with God had in Jesus Christ, since He as God-man merited them fbr us by His life, passion and death. Moreover, He is the peerless Model of all spiritual perfection and union with God. PAMPHLET NOTICES It seems that religious institutes in increasing numbers are issuing pamphlets and other material to attract aspirants to their ranks. This is as it should be. One such pamphlet comes from South Africa and bears the title, Priestly/ and Religious Voca-tion. After giving a brief account of the m. issionary activity of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the author, Father T. F. Kelly, O.M.I., describes the nature and signs of vocation both in relation to the priesthood and to the religious life. He con-cludes with an earnest plea to the generous young people of South Africa to heed' the call of Christ. The pamphlet may be.obtained from the Oblate Novitiate, 44 Park-hill Road, Glebe, Germistou, Transvaal, South Africa. With the same purpose in mind the Sisters of Loretto, Lor~tto M0therho~se, Ner~inx. P.O., Kentucky, have issued a folder entitled "Congratulations Pegg~It."' Written in the form of a letter to a young woman about to enter the novitiate it gives us a brief account of the founding, the history, and the ~vork of the Lorettines in the Uuited States and in China. Some good photogral~hs depicting houses and activities of the congregation greatly increase the value of the folder. Father Albert H. Dolan, O.Carm., the zealous promoter of devotion to St. Therese of Lisieux, has issued a pamphlet, St. Therese, Patroness of the Mis-sions. In 16 pages he sets forth the reasons why SL Therese was chosen as Patron-ess of the Missions and urges her devout clients to follow her example of prayer and unfemittipg sacrifice for the missions. The pamphlet may be obtained from The Carmelite Press, 6413 Dante Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, or 55 Demarest Avenue; Engie~ood, N.J. Piice: ten cents. 263 Our,.Lady's Parents Francis L. Filas, S.3. MUCofH thaes p waree Wntso.u lodf l iOkue rt o,L'kandoyw, w thee c aacnt"u afli nlidf en-osttohriyng directl'y concerning them in the Gospels. However~ Holy Scripture gives us some information in stating that Christ was promised to Abraham and to 3acob, ~nd that He came out of the tribe of 3uda.1 This means that 3esus was a son of David and a son of Abraham, not only legally ~hrough St. 3oseph but also naturally through the Blessed Virgin, and therefore through her parents, 3oachim and /~nne. Various Scripture scholars have proposed a rather ingenious theory tO show that Luke set forth the genealogy of Mary rather than of 3oseph when he.wrote, "And 3esus Hi.resell, when He began His work, was about thirty years . of age, beingmas was supposed--the son of 3osdph, the son of Heli . : . the son of David . . the son of Adam. who was the son of God" (3:23). According to this the-ory the text is phrased differently so as to read, "3esus. being--as was suppbsed the son of 3oseph--the sori of Hell," and so,forth. Thus the person of Heli is identified with the person of 3oachim. Even further, the two names are said~ to be the same, for "Hell" ~Eli) is taken as a shortened form of "Eliachim." Both "Eliachim'~ and "3oachim" are interchangeable, meaning in Hebrew, "God sets up." Unfortunately, so charming a .theory is far from being accepted by all Scripture scholars. From earliest times the ¯ genealogies of Matthew and Luke have usually been inter- XGenesis 18,22, 28; Luke 1:32; Romans'l :3; 2 Timothy 2:8; Hebrews 8. 264 OUR LADY'S PARENi'S preted as giving the 1,egaI ancestry of Our Lord through St. Joseph and not through Mary. This has been the gen-eral tenor of opinion even thoug,19 no one theory fits per-fectly in further explaining th~ problems connected with the two varying accounts. Because of this silence ofthe Gospels we must turn to the only other possible sources of information concerning Mary's parents: the Iegends of Joachim and Anne. The Legends of Joachim and Anne At first sigh~ it might)seem a worthless task to have recourse to a legend to seek data about historic personages. Yet in the case of Joachim and Anne nothing else exists. We must at least consider what' was said about them, even if we cannot a~cept it all as true. The earliest account in which they are mentioned.-is Called the Protoeoange! of James, a work pretending to be a history of the birth of Mary and of the early events in tl~e life of Jesus. 'Having originated about 150 A, D., it is 0nly a hundred years younger than the Gospels and thus enjoys a reputation of antiquity. .- In common with other apocryphal literature ,of its type the Protoeoanget of James was apparently based on snatches of true tradition--a sort.of 'pious gossip---con-cerning Christ and those who were near to Him. Some~ thing like our modern historical novel, the Protoevanget wa~ meant to fill in with plausible details the gaps where the curiosity of the faithful was left unsatisfied by the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke~ and John. But unlike "these Gospels the Apocryphal tradition was of purely human origin. It was neither divinely inspired when com-posed nor providentially kept pure when transmitted. Accordingly, as it was.repeated again and again in word and writing, it accumulated more and more exaggerations, 265 FRANCIS L. FILAS R6biew for Religious and additions, so that at the present day we have no way of determining what is genuine and what is spurious in ~its content. The Chur~ch never accepted this imitation of the true Gospels, but early branded it as apocryphal'(as, for example, in .the Decree' of Pope Gelasius in 495). The majority of early Fa,thers of the Church, as well as later ecclesiastical writers, likewise recognized it as counterfeiL None the less, popular authors in the Middle Ages and afterward borrowed .extensively from .the legendary, source in order to stimulate the great ~levotion of the Ages of Faith. In all this spurious devotional literature the ques-tion of lying or passing on a lie was seemingly not attended to; rather, generous hearts uncritically sought and eagerly accepted every means to gain mbre knowledge, of the lives of desus and His saints. Two enlargements were made of the legend of ,loachiin and Anne as it appeared in the Pt'ptoevar~gd of da~es: namely, the Gospel of Pseado-Matthev~ (about 450 A. D.) and the Gospel of the Nativity/ [~f Mat'V (exact date unknown). As is evident, there is more likelihood of truth in the original, the P, rotoevar~get, than in any of its suc-ceeding variations. This is the substance of the original account: Joadhim is a rich and generous shepherd. He and his Wife Anne are deepl.y grieved because they have no chil-. dren. V~rhile Anne is lamenting tl6e curse of her sterility, an angel appears tO her with the Words, "The Lord hath heard thor prayer, and thou shalt conceive, and shalt bring forth; and thy seed shall be spoken of in all the world." At the same tim~ a similar vision is granted Joach~m ~hile tending his flocks~ In gratitude to God, Anne promises to consecrate.he~ child to the divine service in the Temple. Upon the birth'of the child, who receives the name of 266 dulg, 1945 OUR LADY'S PARENTS l~ary, the happy mother breaks out into a canticle of thanksgiving. Later, when she is three years old, Mary is .brought to the,Temple and joyfully remains there to praise and serve God. Such is the g!st of the early chapters of the Proto-evangel of James. In the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew :the story is given more imagingtive coloring: Joachim's gen-erosity is described at greater length. He distributes his riches to the poor and to those "who' worshipped God"' before taking ashare for himself. At 15 he is already a wealthy shepherd" and at 20 be marries Anne, "the daughter of Acbar, of his own tribe, that is,. of the tribe of 'Juda of the family of David." The couple's childlessness lasts for twenty years, after which the angels appear to Anne and Joachim. The rest of this tale merely develops the story of the Protoevangel, adding more details, greatek emphasis, and .particularly more frequent miraculous inter-ventions. The third and final form of the legend is contained in the Gospel of the Nativitg of Maw, a charming though unhistorical con~pilation of the preceding tradition. This Gospel does not'add substantially to the tale of th~ Proto-evangel, but rather edits it.so that the poetical beauty of the narrative is heightened and made more sublime. ~What Is True of Joachim and Anne? The task of separating the true' from the false in the old Apocryphal legends is most difficult, if not impossible. Yet, though we have no historical norms by which to judge, we can at least, attempt to determine what is definitely interpo!ated and what can perhaps be a vestige of the orig-inal correct tradition. ' In the first place, the special i'niracles of the angelic appa-ritions are quite doubtful. Such momentous divine inter- 267 FRANCIS L. FILAS Review for Religiods ventions in the lives of the parents of Mary would certainly have &awn so muchattention should we say notoriety? .-=to the Blessed Virgin that the obscurity which a-ccom-panied her life with doseph and desus would have given way to constant public notice. Moreoyer,- the Proto-evangel of dames, like all the Apocrypha, has a'very explicit tendency to scatter miracles with a bountiful hand through-out its narrative. Perhaps the most cogent reason for denying credibility to the miracles of the,Protoeoar~gel is the evident modeling of these prodigies on genuine miracles related in Holy Scripture. All the writers of Apocryphal legends are eager to have their accounts placed on a par with the canonical Gospels. They not only copy typical Gospel stories, but even plagiarize directly from th~ inspired text. In thecase ofdoachim his forty days" fast as a prayer. to obtain a child is based on the fasts of Moses, Elias, and Christ.~ Even more striking is the parallel between Anne~s prayer to (3od and theprayer of ,~dnna, mother of Samuel, that the Lord "would give to His servant a man-child.''3 Again, the canticle of thanksgiving of Anne, wife of 3oa-" chim, .is suspiciously similar to.the canticle of her earlier namesake and, .to some extent, to the Mayrffficat of the Blessed Virgin.4 In contrast to the few imi~ortant details given by the Gospels, the legends go to great lengths to set forth trivi-alities. -That is why the familiar details concerning Joa-chim's prosperity must also be re]ected. They constitute precisely the information which the Apocrypha were invented to supply. o The least~doubtful of all the data in the legend is the correctness o.f. the names Joachim and Anne. It seems UExodus 24:18, 34:28; .3 Kings 19:8; Matthew. 4:2. al Kings 1:9,18. 41 Kings 2: Luke 1:46-55. 268 dulq, 1945 'OuR'LADY'S PARENTS likely that,the name "Anne'~ (Anna: Hannah) reminded the early writer of Hannah, mother of Samuel, and thus led him to introduce the direct divine announcement of the forthcoming birth Of M~ry, modeled on that of the annouficement of the birth of Samuel. On the other hand, "Elcana," the name of the father Of Samuel has no resem-blance to "Joachim," the name of the father of Mary. Neither the names nor the circumstances related of Joachim and Elcana are similar. Finally, we must not forget that in all Christian centuries "Joachim" and ".Anne" were accepted as the names of the parents of Mary even while.the other details of their legend were discarded by the majority of Church scholars. While we .can prudently, doubt the authenticity of the legends of 3oachim and Anne, we know with absolute cer-tainty that God gave them every grace needed for their posi-tion as father and fiaother of the Mother Of God: The all-perfect and sinless Mary could hardly be born of any but the most saintly parents. In granting Joachim and Anne the title of saints, the Church has acted wisely and con-si~ te.ntly. The devotion v~hieh it sanctioned does not strand or fall with the correctness or falsity of the iegends. Rather, it represents the honor that is logically paid to the two per-sons ;¢¢hom the Eternal Father chose to bring forth the Mother of God. Just as J~sus sancti~fied Mary and Jose.ph by.His close relations with them, so must Mary .have sanc-tiffed h~r father and mother by her intimacy with ~hem in the years durir~g whi(h God was preparing her for her career as mother of the Savior and as the mother of all redeemed mankind. , The words of St. Peter Damian best express the atti-tude we ought to cultivate with regard to the details of the lives of Mary's parents. "There are s~ome," he writes, "who ¯ w~shing to know what is useless, seek with vain and exces- , 269 ¯ FRANCIS L. FILAS sire curiosity to find who was the father and who ¯ mother of Mary. They seek. to discover in vain¯What the Evar~gelist deemed it superfluous to ~elate. Had this knowledge been necessary, so noble a historiafi would not have neglected to give it to us, inasmuch as it is the constant practice of the sacred writers never to say .what can injure and never to omit what it is useful for us to know.''" If the greatness of the Blessed Virgin stemmed from. ,Joachim and Anne, the Gospels would have described them fully to us. But the case is actuallythe opposite. Mary is the light in whose reflected glory her parents shine. That is sufficient for Our interest. With absolute assurance we know the greatness of Mary from the revealed word of God. This fact again is more than enough to deduce the greatness of her parents. Our piety and devotion do not rest on an old tradition which cannot be authenticated and might one day be proved false in its'entirety. They are based on the truth demonstrated again and again during nine'teen cen-turies of Christian history--nearer to Ma~y means nearer to God. OUR CONTRI.BUTORS AUGUSTINE KLAAS, Professor of Sacramental Theology at St. Mary's College, is the author of several previous articles on the nature of perfection. (~. AUGUSTINE ELLARD and GERALD KELLY are members of our Editorial Board and Professors of Ascetical Theology and Moral Theology respectively. WALTER J. ONG is a stu-dent of theology at St. Mary's. FRANCIS L, FILAS, who has recently been ordained to the priesthood at West Baden College, West Baden Springs, Indiana. has con-tributed several articles to earlier i~sues of the REVIEW. ~Hom. 3 in Natio. B.V,M. .270 ( ues ions and Answers 35 Many sacristans would be grateful ~o you if you would publish these qu6stions and the answers to them in Review for Religious: (I) Must blessed ashes left over Trom Ash Wedn~e~day be put into the sacrarlumT. (2) Please llst all things that should be put into the sacrarlum. 1 ) Yes, it.ls proper to put the blessed ashes into the sacrarium, or else to throw them into the fire. (2) We cannot guarantee to give a list of all the thifigs that should be put into the sacrarium. Here are some of them: used baptismal water, other .blessed water, the.contents of the ablution cup kept near the tabernacle, the water used in washing the altar linens (palls, purificators, and corporals), and the water left in the taoabo dish after Mass. Please outlln~ the respective jurisdiction of the mother general and the local superior in a motherhouse in .which there is alsoa novitiate. What authority should each exercise with regard to (I) Sisters residing habitually in the house, (2). Sisters visiting the motherhouse, (3} occasional, events.~ The mother general goverias the institute as a whole; the local superior governs the local community just as any .other local superior does. Hence the Sisters residing habitually in the house, as well as Sisters visiting the motherhouse, are subject to the local Superior as they would be in any other community. As to occasional events, these have reference either to the local community or to the institute as a whole. In the first case they are under the direction of the local superior, in the second case under that of the mother ~eneral. The novitiate i~ directly under the care and supervision of the mistress of ndvices. Canon 561, § 1 clearly indicates this: "The master (mistress) of novices alone has the right and the obligation of providing for.the formation of the nbvices; he alone is charge.d with the direction of the novitiate, so that no one, under whatever pretext, may interfere in these matters, except 'superiors who are permitted to do so by the constitutions and the canonical visitors; as to the gen-eral discipline of the house, the master (mistress),. together v~ith.the novices themselves, is subject to the (local) superior." 271 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious In two of our cqnvents there has been a bng-standlng custom of taking the body of a deceasi~d Sister to the communlty.chapel on the afternoon before the day of the funeral. I recall either hearing or reading that only the body of a deceased bishop, priest, etc., may be left in the church or chapel befor~ the burial Mass. What is the affltude of the Church on this point? Has canon law any provisions regarding.this maffer? There seems to be no positive, legislation either prohibiting or permitting the body of a deceased person to be brought to .the church or' chapel the day before the funeral and to remain there overnight. o Hence it would seem to be determined by local custom. In places where such a custom has been observed for a long time it may be con-tinued, but it .should not be introduced in other pkices without first consulting the local ordinary. 38 Some years ago we opened a mission house in a diocese distinct from that in which our motherhouse is located. We obtained permission from both bishops to do so. We now wish to close this house, because of serious difficulties. Is it necessary to informboth bishops of our intention to dis-continue our services in that particular parish? The closing, of a religious house is provided for in canon 498 which reads as follows: "No religious housel whether formal or not, belonging to an exbmpt institute, can be suppressed without apostolic authority; a house belonging to a non-exempt congregation approved or commended by the Holy See can be suppressed by the.supbrior gen-eral with the consent of the local ordinary; if it belongs to a diocesan congregation, it can be suppressed by "the mere authority .of the local ordin.ary after consultation with the superior of the congregation, subject however to the prescription of canon 493 if there be questio,n of an only house, and preserving the right of recourse with suspensive ~ effect to the Apostolic See." "' .Hence we must distinguish three cas~s: (1) The house belongs to an exemp.t institute, that is, to an order (which is exempt by law) or to a congregation which enjoys:a special privilege of exemption. In this case the permission of the Holy See must be obtained in order" to close the house. (2) The house .belongs to a congregation approved or commended (decree of praise) by the Holy See. In this case the superior general can close the house with the comenr .of the local ordin.ary, that is, the bishop of the.diocese in which, the house to 272 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS be closed is located. If' the bishop does not igiv.e his consent, the house cannot b~ closed by the su15erior general, o But the perrnissibn of the bishop of the diocese in which the motherhouse is located is not required to close a house in another diocese. (3) The house belongs to a diocesan congregation. The local ordinary alone can close it after consultation with the superior general of the congregation. The superior 'general cannot close the house: odly the bishop can do so. He must consult the superior general, but he does not need the consent o~ the latter. However, if the superior general thinks the house should not be closed, he may appeal to the Holy See against the decree of the bishop. Until the Holy See decides the case the decree remains sus-pended. ~ ~ m39~ On page 306 of the September, 1944, issue of t.he Review, you have an' article on rosaries made of string. We are eager to learn if anyone use these rosaries and gain the indulgences, or is their use restricted to those who are in the armed forc'es? May~ the rosary indulgences be gained by using the rosary plaques which have a kind of notched bead effect forming a decade around the plaque? These have been advertised in some Catholic reviews. ~ From the fact that this extraordinary privilege of blessing rosaries made of string was granted only to chaplains of the British and Allied Forces for the duration of the war, provided they already enjoyed the privilege of blessing and,indulgencing rosaries, it wo.uld seem to follow that the use of such.rosaries is confined to members of the armed forces. It is very doubtful whether others may use them and gain the indulgences ;ittached. In order that it may be blessed and enriched with indulgences,'a ¯ rosary must be made in the form prescribed.by the Church, that is, it must consist of five, ten, or fifteen, decades. The Sacred Congrega-tion of Indulgences explicitly declared on January 20, 1836, that gold or silver rings upon which ten beads had been embossed could not be blessed with the indulgences of the rosary. Such devices as ¯ rings and plaques may be a help for counting Parers and Ayes, but one would not gain the indulgences attached to the recitation of the beads by using them Is a religious institute justified in refusing perpetual vows to a religious who from the first year of her temporai'y profession began' fo manifest' .273 QUESTIbNS AND ANSWERS Review [or Religioug sym.ptoms of a psychosis (dementia praecox h/pc)?' The doctor s!ncerely believes that the cause and perhaps some minor symptoms may have been present heft;re her first'profession (unknown to the relkjious herself). The doctor also recommends that the individual return to the world because she will have a better chance of maklncj' a normal adjustment outside the environs of the cloister. The answer to this case is contained in canon 637: '"Those who have ,made profession of temporary vows may, when the term of the vows has expired, freely leave the institute: likewi'se, the institute, for just and reasonable motives, cab excltid~ the rehglous from renewin~ the temporary vows o_r~from~,making profession of perpetual~vows, nbt however because-bf ili health unless it be clearly proved that the religious, before profession, had fraudulently hidden or dissimulated the.illness." The institute, therefore; may not refuse perpet.ual vows to the religious in question if she did not fraudulently conceal her illness. The religious, however, is free to leave at~th.e expiration of her tem-porary vows, and a dispensation would readily be g'ranted by the proper a.uthority before the temporary vows have expired. It would be advisable, therefore, to have the doctor inform the Sister frankly of her condition and of the prospect of recovery outside the cloister, and to have him suggest to her that she should ask for a dispensation from her temporary vows, or at least leave of her own accord at the expiration of her temporary vows. If the Sister insists on staying, however, the institute may not send h~r away but must allow her to take perpetual vows if she is mdnt~lly capable of doing so. With reference to those who may be incapable of pronouncing final vows, it may be useful to introduce here two answers regarding the treatment and status of a religious who loses his mind during the period of tempbrary vows. The answers were given by the Sacred Congregation of Religious on Februars; 5, 1925, with the approval of His Holiness, Pius XI. "Whether one who is professed of the simple vows in an order or congregation, and who during the three years loses his mind, even incurably according, to the judgment of physicians, can at the end of three years be sent ,back to his relatives or into the world, or whether he must be kept in the religious institute?" The answer given: "In the negative'to the first part; in the af~rmative to the. second." To the further question: "What is the juridical condition of such 274 1945 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS a religious, and what are the obligations of the religious institute in the matter?" the reply was: "The' religious in question belongs to the religious institute in the state in which he was when he lost his mind. and the institute has th~ same obligations towards him that it,had at that time." ~41-- A certain mother superior of a concjreoafio~ in which temporary vows are taken for a year at a time for three: years preparatory to perpetual profess!on availed herself of the permission granted by canon 577, § 2 to "anticipate the renewal of temporary vows by one month. Thus, suppose the Sisters who made their first temporary profession on August IS, 1942, were permiHed to renew their vows for a year on July IS, 1943, and again on June IS, 1944, and final!y were'allowed to take their perpetual vows on June 15, 1945. Would such perpetual vows be valid? No, the perpetual vows .would not be valid because canon 572 requires that a period of three years x~ith temporary vows precede the profession of perpetual vows in order that it "may be valid. The Sis-ters in question had temporary" vows for only two years and ten months. Hence their perpetual vows were invalid. The mother superior misunderstood the permission granted in canon 577. This allows the renewal of temp,orary vows to be antici-pated ¯ by some days but not beyond one month. It does not take away any of the time required for temporary vows. When the Sis-ters took their first vows for a year, that year expired on the same recurring day one year later, August I15, 1943. Hence the vows which were renewed for another year on duly 15, "1943 did not begin to bind until'August 15, 1943, and did not ,expire until August 15, 1944. That this is the only meaning which canon 577 can have becomes evident if we read canon 34, § '3, 5° which tells us how time is to be computed in this case: "When there is question of acts to be renewed at stated times, for instance, a period of three years after temporary profession up to perpetual prof,ession, the'~ime ends on the same recurring day on which it began, but th~ new act may be placed. at any time on ~bat day." Hence perpettial profession may not be made until the same calendar day three years.after the first tempora(y profession ~was made. As w~ have seen above, this complete period of three .years is require.d bE canon 572 for the validit~l of the perpetual. professio.n. 275 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS --42-- Wh~t ;s the ob~J;ga~fion of the local superior wlth regard to conferences to be given to the community from time to time? How often should they be given? Must they be 9;yen by a priest? What is to be done if no priest ;s available? Canon 509 prescribes that "the local superiors shall take care . . . to have given at least twice a month . especially in lay institutes, a pious exhortation to all the members of the house." This exhortation is something.different from the catechetical instruction pre.scribed by the same canon for lay Brothers ahd l~ay Sisters (that separate class of religious devoted-to domestic duties), The purpose of the exhorta-tion is not principally to instruct but to renew the religious spirit and to urge the members of the commu.nity to even greater efforts in the observance of religious discipline and in the acquirement of religious virtues. These exhortations should be given to the community twice a month. Several eminent authors are of the opinion that they need not be given during the summer vacation. The law says that Superiors shall take care. This is a milder form of precept than the ordinary must se'e to it. It requires serious diligence on the part of the superior to have these exhortations given tO the community twice a month. If after diligent care has been exerted' the exhortation, cannot be had, the law is not violated.~ The exhortation may be given by the superior himself or by some other religious of the community tirovided he is capable. In !ay con-gregations an effort should be made to have a priest give these exhor-tations, at least from time t6 time. In case a, priest Or a capable reli-gious cannot be had to give these exhortations, it is recommended that a conference be read in place of the exhortation. Within kecent ¯ years excellent conferences written especially for religious have been published by Fatherg Skelly, Muntsch, Gabriels, and others. They will serve as a substitute for the exhortation as far as subject matter is concerned. This substitute, however, cannot be strictly imposed, since a pious reading is not the juridical substitute for an exhortation. However, in practice, when nothing better can be had, such pious reading of a conference dealing with a subject relating directly to the religious life will.he.lp to attain the puypose of the law, namely, to stir up the religious spirit' and to renew religious observance. 276 ommunicatdons Aga~ns~ "Formalism" " Reverend Fathers: In your last issue a Priest Religious objected to a pointa Sister brought upin the question, "Is there not too much formalism in our life?" The Sister had a point that should make all superiors examine their own governing of their communities. Is adherence to any com-munity rule more important than charity to the laity? 'But that is only by the way. I'd like to answer in my own humble way some of the arguments he proposes in' answer to her question. He begins by saying that we religious are professional people and can't be expected to be on call twenty-four hours a day. Well, if we are professional people, what is our profession? Unless" the religious is in a cdntemplative order, i~n'.t it the saving of souls by persor/al dealings with them? Helping souls to heaven by teaching, preaching, administering the sacra'merits, leading souls closer to Christ by our own'example, especially charity--not only in spiritdal mat-ters but in mundane matters as ~well? We should thank God that the people trust us enough to come to us with their e~rery day troubles, andif these .things make ours a twenty-four-hou,r-a-day job, then that's what it should be. It will be a sorry day for us if they ever do lose this trust in us, and we are not helpingmatters by refusing to even see them. It would be pretty difficult to imagine Christ or the Bles-sed Virgin setting up office hours for those who wanted to talk to them. The story of Christ and the little children gives us some idea of what He would d6. The Priest Religious then goes on to say tha't religious orders would be wrecked over night if their members were at the mercy of every whim and caprice of undisciplined souls that want us to be serv-ants of the pe~ople whenever their impulse suggests. From what I understand of religious life, we're supposed to be servants of the people even when their impulse doesn't suggest it. And as to-the first part, if any order can be wrecked because people want advice, comfort, or even a "hand-out," from the individual members of.the order, it would probably be" for the" good of the Church if it were wrecked. 277 COMMUNICATIONS Reoiew for Rel!yiot~s I know of no such order; but if any exists, its foundations are cer-tainly very shallow--its members are not. at all Christ-like, and they don't give the correct picture of the "Love thy neighbor" policy that Christ preached and that they should practice. The Priest Religious' then goes on to say, "any priest or religious who i~ at the continual call of unreasonable people . endangers his health." That sou,nds as if the average priest or religious has a line of unreasonable people waiting to see him or her all day long. .I've worked' in a large city parish and no one of the five priests there, no matter how popular, ever had more than four different parties waiting for him. It might take him a couple of ho.urs to see them all, but isn't that our job? Not only God, but even the laity expect us to do more than say Mass, hear confessions, run sick calls, teach in the school, and conduct a couple of sodalities. Then too, the average caller at a rectory or convert( is not unreasonable. Certainly., there are.so.me. and we can't expect to be immune. But bnly one out of ten could be called truly unreasonable. The rest of the time isn't the priest or Sister the unreasonable one when he or she objects that the parlor call is taking them from something else? His letter then goes oh to say, "One means of taking care of this situation is to have an intelligent doorkeeper who can "judge when there is a real need." Heaven help us! Why not tell the house-kegper to call us only for sick calls. People usually come to see a priest, not a housekeeper. I've only been ordained nine years, but even I.can see t~e'spirit of anti-clericalism that is growing even among our own people. Much of this is our own fault." Too often we see or hear of a priest or religious who i~ so high-handed that he makes himself inaccessible to the people. That isn't exactly what Christ had in mind when He called us .to be "fishers of men." No, I'm afraid I can't agree with this Pries~ Religious. If we have people storming the doors of our rectories because they want to see the priest, good for us!! True, our health may be endangered by this overwork, but what greater way to become ill tha~by serving the people, reasonable or unreasonable, as Christ would waht us to? In conclusion, to the Sister wl~o asked, "Is there not too much formalism in our life?" I'd like to say, "There certainlyis, Sister, and not nearly enough charity." A Diocesan Priest 278 Jul[t, "19 4 ~ COMMUNICATIONS Delayed Vocations Reverend Fathers: I remember a few years ago a Catholic weekly began to tun a page ~ for the men in~ the.service. Soon the women in the service com-plained that nothing was done for them. Perhaps they will make the same complaint When they realize that' something big is beihg done for the men to keep alive the grace of a vocation to the religious and (or) priestly life, or to enkindle such a vocation. No doubt there are women in the service whom Christ will favor with the call to serve Him as Sisters; women Whom He will want tO continue their marvellous work of caring for the ~eedy and the sick and of educating children, but not without consecrating their lives to ¯ Him in religion as His Spous,.es. These women will bare bad training in rather rigid discipline: they will have learned that it is possible to live contentedly in a uniform that is not made of silks and satins; they will know what it mean~ to make sacrifices for others. It would certainly' be of great heip for them to follow the inspi-rations ot: grace if they would receive positive encouragement from the Sisterhoods, if they .knew they are really wanted. Sisterhoods that are interested in such vocations should let the women know that they are willing to accept them. My attention was called to the Little Flower Mission Circle, Inc. (321.E. 156tb St., New York 55, N. Y.) for the promotion of vocations to all religious communities. It publishe.s a quarterl3~ chlled Come, Folloto Me. Perhaps this could serve the purpose. Or, a bulletin similar to lntroibo could be printed. Centers might be designated where such candidates could meet, either in a schoolc or in the parish hall, or perhaps even in the convent parlor. Tber~ they could come in direct contact with the Sisters. It seems that' such a venture would be most pleasing to Christ and quite profitable to religious communities and to the Church. Religious Priest [EDITORS' NOTE: Upon "receipt of the preceding communication we wrote to the Editor of lmroibo and asked him to tell us something about this publication. We received the following answer--with permission to publish it if we wished.] Reverend Fathers: lntroibo is a mimeographed bulletin that has had three issues since 279 COMMUNICATIONS . Review [or Religlous January and will have five mbre each~year? It is sent to any service-man who writes to Introibo, 19 Eye St., N.W., Washington 1, D.C. It is meant for servicemen who plan to be diocesan priests, religious priests, or Brothers. It makes no difference.what diocese the men will belong t%,or what religious institute they intend to join. The bu

Issue 3.2 of the Review for Religious, 1944. ; :Review,fo¯ r R e h g o u s" MARCH 15, 1944 ,; ~' ~"The Worst of Sinners" . Ar, nold J. Benedeff~' ~ 7 B~beuf on Missionary Vocations . Augustine Klaas - Your PredominantXendency ~ "Pafrlck M. Regan . ~-Su, cjge.~hon from the Fec÷Ory . . . John E~ CQogan~ ':The 'Badder,' the Better" . . ." . . . G_. Aucjusfin~e Ellard Concern|ng, Vocat|ons . The Editors Book Reviews Ouestlons 'Answered Decisions 5f the Holy See. krOLUME III NUMBER :~.VOLUbIE III MARCH 15, 1.94.4 NUMBER 2' Im CONTENTS ON BF.ING "THE WORST OF SINNERS"--Arnold J. Benedetto, S.J. 73 BRI~BEUF ON" MISSIONARY VOCA,TIONSmAugustine Klaas, S.~1. 80 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . , . 93 WHAT IS YOUR PREDOMINANT. TENDENCY?m Patrick M. Regan,,S.d . 94 A SUGGESTION FROM THE FACTORYmJohn E. Coogan, S.3. 103 D~CISIONS OF THE HOLY SEE OF INT,EREST TO RELIGIOUS111 "THE 'SADDER,' THE BETTER" G. Augustine Ellard. S.d. 112 BOOKLET NOTICES . ~24 CONCERNING VOCATIONS The Editors . 125 WANTED: LETTERS ON RETREATS! . 128 TRY' ITH S IN YOUR EXAMEN!~RIchard L. Rooney, S.J .:. .,,1,29 WH0'IS SAINT JOS.EPH?Wililam Stritch, S.J .1.3.0 BOOK REVIEWS (Edited by Clement DeMuth, S.J.)-- Aids to Will Training in Christian Education: Instructions~ on Chris-tian Doctrine: St. Theodore of C~nterbury; Thirty Years with Christ:' White Fire: The Spiritual Conferences of St. Francis de Sales; From a - Morning Prayer; The Path of Love; Latin Gra~nrnar; Know Yourself; .The Text ,of the Spiritual Exercises: History of the Third Order of St. Francis of Penance and Charity; Mother Immaculata of Jesus BOOKS RECEIVED . 131 139o QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS~ 10. Jurisdiction of Ordinary Confessor . 140 11., Mass Stipends and Poverty .° . 140 12. 'Permission to Give Away an Inheritance .: ¯ ¯ 141 13. Appointing an Administrator, and Making a Will 141 14. Blood Relatives in Same Community . 141~ 15. Lace V'eil for Tabernacle ." . ~. ¯ 142 16. Number and Quality of Candles for Benediction . 142 1~7. 'Place f¯or the Christmas Crib . 143 , . 18. Duration of Office for Local Superior .143 19. Sacristan Should Wash Chalice and Ciborium -. . 20~. Frequency o~ Cofi~ession o~ Devotion . 144 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. March, 1944 Vo[. lII. No. 2. Published bi-monthly: January, March, May, July, September. and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter. January 15, 1942. at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3. 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.3., G. Augustine Ellard. S.J., Gerald Kelly, S.J. Copyright, 1944, by .Adam C. Ellis: Permission is hereby granted for quotations of/reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author.,. Subsc.ription price: 2 dollars a year. Printed in U. S. A. Before writing to us, please consult notice on inside back cover, ¯On Being "The ~X/Orst ot: Sinners" Arnold J. Benedetto, S.J. N ANYONE;S list of "Perplexing Sayings of the Saints'" there is likely to be found a host of statements in which the greatest of saints profess themselves to be the "worst bf sinners." Now, since self-knowledge is a presupposi-tion for progress in the spiritual life, how can such self-deception .exist in. those who supposedly are far advanced? Or, since humility is based on truth--some saints consider the wo~ds synonymous~--how can we,. without doing violence to our intelligence, consider as examples of humil-ity those whose statements wandered, as it seems, so far from the realms of rigid fact? After all, there is no separate code of morality for the saints. Untruth is untruth. There can be only one "worst" among sinners, and no saint with .regard for truth can claim that he is that one. Of course, we can make allowances for the exaggera-tions of the 01d-style biggraphers of saints. Thei~ love of rhetoric and of paradox, their eagerness to cull from their heroes some "quotable quote", no matter how eccentric it appears when taken out of context--all this, rather than care and attention in making clear the saints' mentality and spirit, may account for some of the less attractive features one comes across in reading the lives of saints. But when all due allowance has been made, there still remains a goodly residue of strict biographical fact leading one to the unescapable ~onclusion that. many saints really did feel themselves to be the least among men, the worst of all man-kind. Further, the Church--which canonizes neither untruths nor errors--seems to extol the humility of the saints precisely in these pa.radoxicaI statements of theirs. 73 ARNOLD J. BENEDETTO Review for Religious The prbblem becomes excruciatingly acute when we read certain books of spiritual guidance and discover to our horror that toe, we o.urselves, are expected to believe, in all humility arid truth, that we, too, are inferior to all other men and more ~inful than all others. We all feel more or ~less willing to accept hi~mbly our place in the universe, but with all the goodwill in the world we fail to see how the proper place for every man is below his neighbor and how each and every person can be a greater sinner than every other person. One" should avoid making even "pious" errors of judgment. Perhaps No Comparison Is Meant One. possible solution of how a saint could ihave said, "I am the worst of sinners," is that the saint was not really making.a rigid comparison with others, bu~ was thinking simply and solely about himself. Thus, the sentenqe prac-tically means, "I am a very great sinner." If theoriginal statement can be reduced to these terms ~:hen we are to c~n-sider the sain~ as completely ignoring the sins of others and as concentrating only upon his own faults. The saints know God much better than others do, they realize more deeply the tremendous value of His gifts, they are more aware of His helping graces. As a result, they are in a bet-ter position to. see the wickedr~ess, the ingratitude, of sin. They contrast th~ boundless sanctity of God with the insufferable wilifulness of the puny man who refuses to admit his dependence on God. Even the least sin is an abomination in the sight of the Lord. Overwhelmed at the thougl~t of~having chosen any finite good rather than the v.ery great, nay, the infinite Good, the saint cries out that he is a very great sinner. A Shift in the Terms of Comparison A very common interpretation given to this difficult 74 March, 1944 ON BEING ~'THE WORST OF SINNERS" saying is that when the saint claims to be the worst of sin-ners he is comparing what he has of himself with what his neighbor has from God. This means either that the saint is comparing his own natural gifts with others' super-natural gifts, or else is comparing his own sins with his neighbors' good acts. In either case, certainly, such a com-parison justifies the conclusion, "I am worse than all oth- .ers." With this interpretation it isquite easy to see how anyone can claim that he is the worst of sinners, for the things that are being compared are no longer on the same plane. Obviously the supernatural is better than the natural, obviously sin is worse than virtue. Such a Simptiste explanation, with its shift in the terms compared, may appear irrational. What it really amounts to is just a clever--some may think, ineptMway of sa)~ing that sin itself is irrational.~ It implies that a certain minimum degree of humility is required if we 'are to avoid sin. At any rate, such an explanation is given by many iearned theologians. It is mentioned by St. Thomas in the Summa Theologica (2-2, q. 161, a.3). Four-Fold Ignorance Some of thesaints, however, when they assert that they are worse than their neighbor, very plainly do not mean that this is so only when comparison is made between what is of God in their neighbor with what is of man in them-selves. .They mean that their own character, apart from the gifts which God has given them, is much more vile than is their neighbor's character considered, likewise, apart from his supernatural gifts. St. Francis of Assisi (one of the most ardent devotees of the policy of. self-depreciation) explains himself thus: "I feel that I am the worst of sin-. nets, for if God had shown such mercy to a criminal hs He has shown to me, that criminal would be ten tim~s holier 75 ~RNOLD d. BENEDETTO Review for Religious than I am.-" St. Francis dearly suggests that the natural dispositions of the criminal are superior to his own. The explanatioh, however, is not.altogether satisfac-tory. Only God knows with certainty the natural dispo-sitions ofeach man. Because of our ignorance of these dispositions of others, arid because we do not know what hidden gifts God may have given others, we cannot claim to .be better than our neighbor. But neither are we strictly justified in asserting that we are worse than he. We may conjecture that we are worse, we may say that possibly we are worse. We cannot claim absolutely to be worse. Similar to our two-fold ignorande regarding the state of our neighbor is our. ignorance regarding our own present and, especially, our own future state. "Man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love or hatred" (Eccles. 9: 1):. .Quite possibly many~ persons who at present are leading holy lives will not.persevere in such a state. God sees the final disposition of their souls and in His sight they very . definitely are great sinners. Experiential Knowledge The solution that we offer as the final one really includes the other solutions," namely, the comparisons and ¯ the four-fold ignorance. But, presupposing those solu-tions, this final solution brings us more deeply into the .psychology of' the sai.nts. It tries to show not 0nly that, ~with certain limitations and qualifications, there is some .objective.truth in .the statement of the saints, "I am wo. r.se than everybody else," but also to give an account of bow the saints actually, within themselves, could feet Sincerely and intensely that they were the most wretched of sinners. The saints did, indeed, have some knowledge of the limitations of others (though they generally ignored that) ; but of their own unworthiness they had an intense:inner 76 ¯ March, 19 4 4 ON BEING ""~HE WORST OF SINNERS" experiential knowledge. The sins and deficiencies of others they knew by observation, :inference, or. hearsay. But knowledge by actual personal experience is more impres-sive and compelling than any other. Whatever might be said of others, they felt, and felt most keenly, that their themselves were guilty. Whatever arguments pro and con one might bring forward juridically regarding the malice .of others, the saints had actual and direct consciousness of their own wickedness. Seeing their own sins and imper-fections in the sigh.t of God, the horror that rose up in their consciousnbss was just as vivid an experience as an attack of acute indigestion. They may have had painful encoun-ters in.the pas.t, when brought face to face with the malice of their sins; this present experiencing, this tremendous illumination laying bare their utter nothingness and worse-than- nothingness, together with the consequent revulsion of a pure, ardent, and sincere soul, this present experience impresses them mdre vividly than any recollection of:past experiences. "Let others claim that they have had o? are having painful experiences when they recounf their sins within themselves--but really they could hardly be suf-fering as I am. My sins must be the worst p6ssible sins. Never could anyone offend the good God as I have." With reference to their very real, present experiential knowledge they are truly the worst of sinners. These "hard sayings", of the saints thus-contain not absolute truth but relative truth--relative, that is, to the source of knowledge. Having this intense experiential knowledge of their own sins, and l~nowing the sins of their neighbor only by observation or conjecture, the saints based their practical conclusion on the evidence of the inner experience and affirmed that they were worse than their neighbor. With reference to the particular type of evidence which alonethey ar.e considering, they are worse than their 77 ARNOLD ~, BENEDETTO neighbor. Another situation in which,~ similarly, the prac-tical,, working truth is different from the theoretical, abstract truth is the case in which a judge knows, as a pri-vate citizen, that the defendant is guilty but, with refer-ence only to the legal evidence at hand, he must, in his o~.- cial capacity, pronounce the judgment that the defendant is not guilty. One may prefer the following example: If a very brigh~ light is focused upon some particular object and one fixes his gaze for a'long while on the object, then that object ~ill be very. cons~picuous, While objects on either side of it will scarcely be noticed; they will be in. the dark, or, at most, in the penumbra surrounding the illuminated object. Ohio's judgment based on what one sees in the light will be much more accurate and detailed than any judgment made coficerning the unilluminated objects. By their inner experiential knowle~lge the saints become acutely aware of their own littleness and of the infinite contrast between even their leastmoral defect and the wondrous sanctity of God. In the light of this knowledge the saints focus their attention on their own defects and at the same time lose sightof, or but dimly notice, their own good qual'ities and thi~defects and gross sins of their neighbor: According to this light they are worse than their neighbor. The Dominican beatus, Venturino da Bergamo, explains that. the intense feeling and percep.tion of one's own defects may be compared to. the suffering of a tooth-ache. The stifferer feels that he is enduring more pain than anyone else; not that he sees in the light of reason that his pain is greater, but that his.own pain is closez tohim than is that of another. And even if he should know intellec-tually that somebody else has an equally bad or a worse toothache, it is still very true that he experiences and his own, not that of the other person. ,Judging on this 78 o ! March, 1944 ON BEING "'THE WORST OF SINNERS" basis, and relatively to this limited criterion, ~ae could say, "My toothache is the worst," "My toothache feels worse." " Conclusion To account for the unusually'intense pain which the saints feel at the consciousness of their, sins and for the' apparent ease with which they become thoroughly con-vinced that they are the greatest sinners in the world, Father de Guibert1 suggests that these great saints receive a very special divine illumination regarding their own sins, that this illumination is of the same order as the higliest degrees.of infused contemplation. We believe, however, that it is also within the power, of each human being to arrive--with less facility and with a less degree of conviction, it is true, than that of the specially enlightened saints--at the. conclusion, that he is the &orst sinner in th~ world. And many saints and spir-itual writers exhort us to judge in this fashion of ourselves. Pride is one of our worst enemies. It is very deep-rooted. J(ny consideration having in itself some real degree, of truth and helping to make us more humble should be wel-comed. It is humbling to consider oneself the worst of sinners. Possibly We shall be aided in forming this judg-ment by making use of the explanations given in the course of this article, namely, by contrasting our natural endow-ments with our neighbor's supernatural ones, by main-._~ "taining the prudent, doubts and suspense caused by our ignorance regarding our neighbor and ourself, and,. espe-cially, by basing our judgment on the evidence or objective truth furnished us by our experiential knowledge of our own faults as opposed to our unfelt knowledge of the sins of others. 1J.de Guibert, S.J. : l~tudes de Th~ologie Mgstique. Toulouse: l~ditions de la Revue ¯ d'Asc~tiqu~ et de Mystique;, 1930. pp. 283-298. :Br beut: on ¯ Missionary Vocal:ions Augustine K!aas, S.J. ON JULY 16, 1636, Father dean de Br~beuf wrote a lengthy " report to his religious superior, Father Paul Le deune, on the. state of .his mission among .the Huron savages, to the east of what is nov,; Lake Huron. The document contains' some fascinating chapters, illustrating what might be called the iomance of the mis-sions. In chh~ter three, however, by way of interlude, the heroic missionary decides to give a timely Word of advice to those in Fiance, .presumably his younger religious brethren, who are ardently longing tpou ngc6h oens' t.'h.e .w floireenig hne m teilslssi oonfs t hoef Nhaerwd sFhriapnsc, et.r iHmes d, oaensd n soutf "feprui.lnl ghsi so(f missionary life, but neither does he omit the ompensatio.ns and con-solations of that aposl~olate. In these lines Br~beuf seems to be giving us the proper technique in dealing with a vocation to the mis-sions. It is' this:~ don't overemphasize the romance, but tell the truth, the whole truth, the bitter along with the sweet, of. the call to the foreign missions. Incidentally, the cbapte~ also reveals the saint's.own virile spir-ituality-- his love of God, his life of prayer, suffering, and apostolic" zeal. Nor is 1-iis human side left out~ He was forty-three when he wrote it. Thirteen years later, tow~irds four o'clock on the after-noon of Tuesday, March 16, 1649, amid dreadful torments, dean de Br~beuf would die manfully the martyr's death for which his whole missionary life was a conscious preparation. BRI~BEUF'S ADVICE TO PROSPECTIVE MISSIONARIES1 We have learned that the salvation of so many innocent ,souls, washed and made white in the Blood of the Son of God is stirring very deeply the hearts of many, and is excit-ingin themnew desires to leave Old France in order to come 1The original French of this chapter appears in The Jesuit Relations, edited by R. G. Thwaites, V, ol. 10, pp. 86-115. I have added ~hereferences to the ~Scripture texts, which in the, original are quoted freely and.in Latin. Except for the added captiofis and a few changes in paragraphing, the document is presented intact. ¯ BRI~BEUF ON MISSIONARY VOCATIONS. to the New. God be forever blessed, who thus shows us that He has finally ope.ned to these tribes the bowels of His infinite mercy. I do not wish to chill the ardor of~-this gen-erous resolve. Alas! it is these very hearts according ,to God's own Heart whom we are expecting. I wish only to give them a word of advice. It is true that "love is strong as death" (Canticles 8:(5). The love of God has power to do what death does, that is, to detach us entirely, from creatures and from ourselves. Nevertheless, these desires that we feel .of working for the salvation of infidels are not always sure signs of that pure love. Sometimes there may be present a little self-love and Self-seeking, if we look only at the blessing and s~atisfaction there is in putting souls in heaven, without duly conlcider-ing the sufferings, labors~ and di~culties, inseparable from these evangelical works. Dit~cult Journe~t " Wherefore, that no one may be deceived on this point, "I will show him how much he musi suffer here for the name of Jesus" (cf. Acts 9: 16). True, the t.wo who came last, Fathers Mercier and Pijart, did not have as much hard-ship on their journey as we who came up the year before. They did not paddle; their men were not sick, as ours were; the.y did not have to carry heavy loads. Still, no matter how easy the trip with the savages may be, there is always enough to greatlydiscourage a heart not.well mortified. The readiness of the savages does not shorten the road, nor smooth bver the rocks, nor remove dangers. No matter with whom you may be, you must expect to be at the very least three or four weeks on the way, to have as compan-ions persons you have never seen before, and to be cramped rather Uncomfortably in a bark canoe, with no freedom to turn this way or that, in peril fifty times a day of being 81 AUGUSTINE KLAAS Revieu~ [oc Religious upset or dashed upon the rocks. During the day the sun scorches you; at night you are likely to be a prey to mos-quitoes. You sometimes ascend five or six rapids a day, and in the evening you have for refreshment only a little corn crushed between two stones and cooked with ycery clear water. Your bed is the ground and often rough, uneven rocks. There is no shelter but the stars. And with all this--perpetual silence. If you are accidentally hurt, or if you fall sick, do not expect any help from these barbar-ians; for .whence could they get it? And if the sickness is dangerous and you are far from the villages, which are very scattered, I should not guarantee that they would not abandon y6u, if you could not follow them unassisted. When you reach the Hurons you will indeed find hearts full of charity: We will receive you with open arms as an angel from paradise; we will have all the good will in the world to do you good, but we are almost powerless to do it. We will receive you "in a hut so miserabIe that I do not think there is in France any by comparison so wretched that I might say: "That is how you will be lodged." ~Harassed and .tired as you will .be, we can give you only a poor mat, or at most a skin for your bed. And besides, you will arrive at a season ' when miserable little insects, which We call taoul~ac here, but "fleas" in straight French, will keep you for almost entire nights from dosing your eyes, for in these parts they are incomparably more bothersome than in France. The dust of the cabin breeds them; the sa3~ages bring them to us; w.e get them in their dwellings. And this petty martyrdom, not to speak of.mosquitoes, sandflies, ahd other like. vermin, continues usually through the three or four summer months. Instead of being the great professor and learned .tl~eo-logian y6u were in France, you must reckon on being here a humble little school-boy, and, good God! .with. what 82 March, 1944 BRI~BEUF ON MISSIONARY VOCATIONS teachers!--women, small children, 'and all the savages-- and exposed to their laughter! The Huron language will be your .Saint Thomas and your Aristotle.; and clever man that you are, and glib speaker among learned and talented persons, you must make up your mind to be for a long time mute among these barbarians. You will have achieved much if, after a considerable time, you begin to stammer a little. Trials and Dangers oI Mission Life And then, how do you think you are going to spend the ¯ winter here? Having h~ard of all that is endured in winter-ing among the Montagnets savages, I can say that it is almost the li~e we lead here among the Hurons. I say it without exaggeration: the five or six months of winter are spent amid almost.continual discomforts~xtreme co!d, . smoke, and the importunity of the savages. We have a cabin built of simple bark, but so well jointed that we have to go outside to learn what the weather is. Th~ smoke is very often so thick, so acrid, and so persistent that, for five or six days at a time, if you are not entirely used to it, about all you can do is to make out a few lines in your breviary. Besides, from morning until night, our fireplace is almost always beset with savages---~:ertainly, they sel-dom fail to be there at mealtimes. If yOu happen to have anything more than usual, no matter how little it may be, youmust reckon on most.of these gentlemen as your guests; if you do not share it with them, you will be considered mean.As regards tl4e food, it is not so bad, though we usually content ourselves with a little corn, a piece of dried smoked fish, and some'fruits, about which I shall speak further on. Up to now we have considered only the roses. As we have Christians in almost all the villages, we must count 83 AUGUSTINE KLAAS on making the rounds of them at all seasons of the year and of remaining there, according to necessity, for two or three whole weeks, amid indescribable hardships. -Add to. all this, our lives~depend upon a. single thread. If, wherever we are in the world, we are to expect death every hour and to be always prepared for it, this is particularly the case here. For, not to mention that your cabin is like straw and, despite all your care to prevent accidents, may catch fire at any moment, the malice of the savages gives, you cause for constant fear on this point. A malcontent may burn you down or split your head open in some lonely spot. Then, too, you are responsible with your life .for the sterility or fecundity of the earth, You are the cause of droughts. If y6u cannot make it rain,, they talk of nothing less than doing away with you. Moreover, I need only mention the danger there is from our enemies. Suffice it to say that, on the thirteenth of this last month of 3une, they killed twe!vi~ of our Hurons near the village ofContarrea, only a day's journey from us. A short time before, at four leagues from our village, some Iroquois were discovered in the fields in ambush, onl~r .waiting to strike a death-blow at some passer-by. This nation is very timid; they take no precautions; they are not careful to prepare arms or to inclose their villages .with pali-sades. Their usual recourse, e.specially when the en.emy is strong, is flight. Amid these alarms, which affect the whole country, I leave you to imagine if we have any grounds for security. However, if wehad here the exterior, attractions of piety, as in France, all this might still be put up with: In France the large number and the good example-of Chris-tians, the solemnity of the feasts, and the majesty of the ~churches so exquisitely adorned, all preach piety to you. And in our houses, the fervor of our brethren, their mod- 8~ March, 1944 BRgZBEUF ON MISSIONARY VOCATIONS esty, and the noble virtues that shine forth in all their actions--the~e are so many powerful voices which cease-lessly cry out to .you: "Look, and do thou also in like man-ner" (cf. Luke 10:37). You have the consolation of saying Holy Mass every day. In a word, you are almost beyond the danger of falling--at, least the falls are insig-nificant and you have help immediately at hand. Here we have nothing., it seems, which invites to good; ¯ we are among peoples who are astonished when you speak to them of God and who often have only horrible blas-phe~ nies in their mouths. Frequently you will be com-pelled to deprive yourself of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: and, when you have the chance to say Mass, a little corner in your cabin will be your chapel, and even if you had the means, the smoke, the snow, and the rain would hinder you from decorating and embellishing.it. I pass o_.v.er the little opportunity for privacy there is among barbarians, who almost never leave you alone and who hardly know what it is to speak quietly. Above all, i do not dare to speak of the danger there is of ruining oneself among their impurities, in th~ case of any one whose heart is not suffi-ciently full of God to firmly repel this poison. But enough of this; the rest can be known only by experience. "But is that all?" some one will say. "Do you think that by your arguments you haVe thrown water on the fire which consumes me, and hhve lessened ever so little the zeal I have for the conversion of these nations? I say that these things have served Only to confirm me the more in my vocation. I feel more affection than ever for New Frange. I bear a holy jealousy towards those Who are alr, eady 'enduring all these sufferings. All ~hese labors seem to me nothing, in comparison with what I should like to endure for God. If I knew a place under heaven where one could suffer yet more,:I would go there." ~ 85 AUGUSTINE KLAAS Reo~eu2 for "Reli#ious The Briofit Side Ah! whoever you are,.to whom God gives these senti- :ments and this light, come, come, my dear brother, it is workers such as you that we ask for here; it is to souls like yours that God has decreed the conquest of. so many others whom the devil holds even now in his power. Fear no hardships; there will be none for you, since your whole consolation is to see yourself crucified with the Son of God. Silence will be sweet to you, since you have learned to corn- ¯ mune with God and to converse in heaven with the saints and angels: The victuals would be insipid indeed, if the gall tasted by our Lord ,did not make them sweeter and more savory to you than the most delicious viands in thd world. What a satisfaction to ascend these rapids and to climb these rocks for him who has before his eyes that loving Savior, wracked with torments and ascending Cal-vary laden with His cross. The discomfort .of the canoe is very easy to endure for him who thinks of the Crucified. What a consolation--for I must use such language to please youmwhat a consolation, then, to see oneself even abandoned on the road by the savages, languishing with sickness, or .dying of hunger in the woods, and still being able" to say to God: "My God, it is to do Your holy will that I am-reduced to the condition in which You see me," and to consider above all. the God-man" dying on the cross and crying out to his Father: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?." (Matthew 27.:46). If God preserves you in health amid all these hardships, without a do.ubt you will arrive pleasantly in the Huron c~ountry with these holy. thoughts. "He sails pleasantly, whom the grace of God carries along." Now, as regards shelter, food, and bed--shall I dare to say to a hea'rt so generous and disdainful of all that I have. already said on this point, that, although we are hardly in '86 ,Marcia, 1944 BRI~BEUb ON MISSIONARY VOCATIONS a~better position than the kavages, still, in some unknown way, the Divine Goodness makes every difficult thing easy, and each and all of us find everything filmost the same as in France. The sleep we.get lying on our mats seems to us as" sweet as if we were in a goo~l bed; the native food does not disgust us, although there is scarcely any other seasoning than that which God has put into it. No~withstanding t-h~ cold of a six months' winter "spent in the shelter of a bark cabin, open to the daylight, we have.yet to' experience its evil effects; no one~ complains of his head or stomach; we do not know what diarrhea, colds, and catarrh mean. This ¯ leads me to say that delicate persons in France do not know bow to protect themselves from the cold. Those rooms so well carpeted, those doors so well fitted, and those windows closed so care.full);, serve only. to make its effects more keenly felt. It is an enemy from whom one wins almost more by proffering him one's hand than by waging a cruel" ~var against him. As for our food, I ~hall say this, that God has shown us clearly a very special providence: we have secured within a .week our pro.vision of corn for the whole year, without taking a ~ingle step beyond our cabin. Dried fish has been brought to us in such quantities that we are compelled to refuse some of it and to say that we have sufficient. You might say that God, seeing that we are here for His service, wishes~Himself to act as our provider, in order that we may labo.ronly for Him. This same Goodness takes care to give. us from time to time a change of provisions in the form of fresh fish. We areon the shore of a large lake, which affords as good fish as .I have ever seen or eaten in Frfince. It is true, however, aS I have mentioned, that we do not ordi-narily procure them, and still less do we get meat, which is even more rarely seen here. , Even fruits, in season, are not lacking to us, provided 87 AUGUSTINE KLAAS Reoiew [or Religious the year be somewhat factorable. Stra~cberries, raspberries, and blackberries are to be found in almost incredible quan-tities. We gather plentyof grapes, which are .fairly good; the squashes last sometimes four or five months, and they are so abundant that they are to be had almost for nothing, and .so good that, on being cooked in the ashes, they are eaten, as apples are in France. C0nsequently, totell the truth, as regards provisions, the change from France isnot very great. The only grain of the country is a sufficient nourishment, when one is somewhat accustomed to it. The savages prepare .it in more. than twenty ways and ye, t employ only fire and water; it is true that its best ~auce is - that contained in it. Spiritual Advant.ages As for the dangers Of the soul, .to speak frankly,-there are none'for him who brings to the Huron country the-fear and love of Godl On the contrary, I find here unequalled opportunities for acquiring perfection. Is it, no( a great deal to have in your food, clothing, and bed, no other. attraction than simple necessity? Is it not a glorious oppor-tunity to unite yourself with God, when there is at hand no creature whatever to which you can possibly become attached, and when the spiritual exercises you perform con-strain you without effort to inward meditation? Besides your spiritual exercises, you have no other task than the_ study of the language and conversation with the savages. Ab! h6w much pleasure there is for a heart devoted to God " to become the pupil of a savage and of a little child, in order to win them afterwards for God and make them disciples of our Lord! How willingly and liberally God commuiai- -rates Himself to a soul which practises out of love for Him these heroic acts of humility! The words he learns are so many treasures he amasses, so many spoils he carries off 88 March, 19 4 4 BRI~BEUF ON MISSIONARY VOCATIO,NS from the common enemy of the human race; so that he has /eason to say a hundred times'a day: "I will rejoice at thy ~vord.s, as one that hath found great spoil" (Psalms 118: 162). ,Viewed in this light, the visits of the s.avages,, h.owever frequent, cannot annoy him. God teaches him the beau-tiful lesson he once taught Saint Catherine of Sienna, to make of his heart a chamber and a temple for Him, where he will never fail t~o find Him, as often as he withdraws.to it. And if h~ encounters savages there, . they do not inter-fere with his prayers; they serve only to make them more. fervent, and from. this he takes occasion to present these poor wretches to His sovereign Goodness, and to beseech Him earnestly for their conversion. Certainly we have not. here that exterior solemnity which awakens and sustains devotion. We see only the sub-stance of our religion, the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, to Whose marvels faith must open our eyes, aided by no sensible mark of Its grandeur, just as in the case .of the Magi in the stable. Nevertheless, it seems that God, supplying for what we lack. and recompensing us for the favor bestowed on us of carrying It, so to speak, beyond ~o many seas, and of finding a.place for It in these wretched cabins, wishes to confer the same blessings on us. which He is wont to confer on persecuted CatholiCs in heretical countries, These good people.scarcely ever see either a church or an alfar, but the little.they see is worth double what, they would see, were they entirely free. You can imagine what consolation there is in prostrating ourselves at times before a cross in the midst of this barbarism, and, engaged in our petty domestic tasks, in turning our eyes towards and entering into the place which the Son of God has been pleased to take in our little dwe!ling. Not to be separated from this Well-.Beloved of the nations, except by a little 89 AUGUSTINE KL'AAS Re(~iew for Reli~lious bark or tree branch, is it not to be in paradise day and night? "Behold he standeth behind our wall" (Canticles 2:9). "I sat down under his shadow, whom I desired': (Canticles 2:3). SQ much fo~. the interior. If we go outside our cabin, heaven is open to us, and those great buildings which lift their heads to the clouds in large cities, do not conceal it from our view; so that we can say our prayers with com-plete abandon in that grand oratory, which Saint Francis Xavier loved more than any other. With regard to ,the fundamental virtues,~ I will glory, no~ in myself, but in the lot which has fallen to me. Or if I must humbly acknowledge it at the foot of the cross, which our Lord in His grace gives us to carry after Him, certainly this country, or ~ourwork here, is much more suited to feed a soul with the fruits of heaven than with those of earth. I may be mistaken, but Ithink that there is here a spli~ndid means for advancing in faith, hope, and charity. Are we t0sow the seeds of the Faith here, and not ourselves profit by it? Could we put our trust in anyone but God in a region where,, on th~ human side, everything is lacking? Cbuld we want a fine~ opportunity to exercise charity than there is amid the roughness and discomfort of a new world, where no human aft'or industry has y~t pro- Vided any conveniences? is there a. better occasion for prac-tising charity .t'han by living here in order to bring back to God men who are so unlike men that we must live in daily expectation of dying by their hands, should the fancy take them, should a dream suggest it to them,.or should we fail to open or close the heavens at will, giving them rain or fine weather a~ command. Do they not make us responsible for the state of the weather? And if God does not inspire us. or if we cannot work miracles of faith, are we not con-tinua~ ly in danger of seeing them, as they have threatened 9O March, ~1944 BR~BEUF ON MISSIONARY VOCATIONS to do, fall upon us who have done no harm? Indeed, if He who is Truth itself had ~not declared that there is no greater love than to lay down one's life really and once for all for one's friends, I should deem it a thing equally nobl.e, or even more so, to do what the Apostle said to the Corinthians (I, 15:31): "I die dai.ly, I protest by. your glory, brethren, wh'ich I have in Christ, Jesus our Lord"-~-that is,-to d[ag out a miserable life amid the fre-quent and daily perils of an unforeseen death, which those whom you are trying to sa;ce will procure for you. I some-times call to mind what Saint Francis Xavier once wrote to Father Simon, and wish tl:iat it mhy please God so to act that at least the same may be said or written one day even of us, although we may not be worthy of it. Here are his words: "'Excellent news comes from the Motucbas, namely, dohn Beira and his companions are laboring amid the [Treat-est l~ardships and continual danger of death, to the great increase of the Christian religion.'" . About Chastity, in Particular There seems to be one thing here which might cause ¯ apprehension in a son of the Society, that is, to see himself in the midst of a brutal and sensual people, whose example, unless special precaution is taken, might tarnish the luster of the most and the least delicate of all the virtues--I mean chastity. Inorder to obviate this difficulty, I make bold to say that, if there is any place in the world where this virtue so precious is safe, for a man who wills tO be on his guard, it is here. "Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it" .(Psalms 126: 1). "I knew that I could not otherwise be continent, except God gave it, and this also was a point of wisdom, to .know whose gift it was" (Wisdom 8:21 ). They say that the victories won by~ this .91 AUGUSTINE KLAAS ¯ Review I:O? ~Reli~tious daughter of heaven over her enemies are .won by flight. But I believe it is God and no one else.,who, in the most severe encounters, puts to flight this same enemy before those, who, fearing nothing so much as his approaches, go where His g!ory calls them, humbly and with hearts full of confidence in His goodness. And where are we to seek this glory of His? I should say, rather, where find it more purified and freed from our own interests than in a place where there is nothing to hope for other than the reward of ¯ having left all for the love of Him of whom Saint Paul said: "I know whom I have believed" (2 Timothy 1:12). You remember that plant called "the fear of God," with which it is said our Fathers at the beginning of our Society charmed away the spirit of impurity. ¯ It does not grow.in the land of the Hurons, but it falls her~ abundantly from Heax~en, if one is only a little careful to foster what he brings here Barbarism, ignorance, poverty, and misery, which ren-der the life of these savages more deplorable than death, are a constant reminder to us to mourn Adam's fall,, and to submit ourselves entirely to Him who, after so many cen, turies, still cbastizes disobedience in His children in so remarkable a way. Saint Theresa said once that she never made better meditations thi~n in those mysteries where she found our Lord apart and alone--as though she had been present in the Garden of. Olives--and she called this a sample of her simplicity. You may reckon this among my follies, if you like, but it seems to me that we have here go much the more leisure to caress, so to speak, and to enter-tain our Lord with open heart in the midst of these unin-habited lands, because there are so few people who trouble themselves about Him. -And on account of this favor we can say boldly "I will f~ar noevils, for thou art with me" (Psalms 22:4). 92 March, 1944 BR~BEUF ON MISSIONAR'/ VOCATIONS In short, I i.magine that all the guardian angels of these uncivilized and abandoned nations are continually endeav-oring and striving to save us from these dangers. They know well that if there is anything in the world that ought to give us ~¢ings to fly back whence we came both by obedi-ence and by our own inclination, it would be this misfor-tune, were we not shielded from it by the protection of 'heaven. This is what urges them to prqcure for us the means to guard, against it, that they may not lose the brightest hope they have ever had through the grace Of God, of the conversion of these peoples. I close this discourse and this chapter with the fol-lowing words. If at sight of the difficulties and crosses that are here prepared for us, some one feels himself so strengthened from above that he can say it is too little, or like Saint Francis Xavier "amplius, amplius" ("more, more"), I hope that our Lord, in the midst of the consola-tions which He will give him, will also. draw from his lips another admission, namely, that the consolation is too much for him and that he cannot endure more. "It is enough, Lord, it is enough." OUR CONTRIBUTORS ARNOLD J. BENEDETTO is a student of Theology at"St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas. AUGUSTINE KLA^S, Professor of Sacramental Theology at St. Mary's. made special studi~s in Ascetical Theology. PATRICK M. REGAN, Pro-fessor of Apologetics at St. M~ry's, is the author of a previous article on Se_lf-knowledge. JOHN E. COOC~N, a professor at the University of Detroit, has written much on social questions, and will be remembered by our readers for his~ articles on Spiritual Direction. G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD will be remembered particularly for his very "original" article on Hygienic Mortification that appeared in the first number of this review. 93 What: Is Your Predominant:.Tendency? Patrick M. Regan, S.J.~ 441"='EW things better reveal a man than zealous and *"=| persistent efforts to decrease his handicap. That profound and ancient maxim 'know thyself' might be inscribed on the portal of every GoTf Club. He who would attain self-knowledge should frequent the links. If one seriously attempts the task, one will find oneself in golf." Thus writes Arnold Haultain in :his book, The M~jster~t of Golf. '~Know thyself; frequent the links: attempt the task seriously"--these might be styled the ascetical principles of golf. Religious will be quick to see that, routatis mutandis, these principles also express the asceticism of the spiritual life. "Know thyself" would not be out of place on the portal of the religious house. "Frequent the chapel" is excellent advice at all times. "Attempt )our task seriously" is always necessary for the follower of Christ. Such thoughts are a fitting prelude to the study of the predomi-nant tendency, which, in the language of the author cited, is our "handicap" in the spiritual life. In a former article ("Self-knowledge" in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, II, 223), we stated: "Many spiritual writers maintain there is one evil tendency that predominates, bne at the root of most of our .defects and imperfections; that, if we work diligently at controlling this one, we need scarcely expe~id any time.or energy on the rest." The present article will furnish meth-ods and suggestions for determining this predominant tendency. According to many .spiritual writers, everyone is apt 94 WHAT IS YOUR PREDOMINANT TENDENCY?" to discover his predominant tendency among the seven prin- . cipal tendencies to evil, the capital sins, as they are called. Hence it will be helpful at the very outset to make a study of these tendencies, together with opposite virtuds. The following definitions and explanations will greatly clarify our ideas. Pride is ihe exaggerated esteem of self. The evils that spring from pride are: stubbornness, rebellion and independence manifested towards those over us: contempt, harshness and abuse towards tl~ose subject to us: conceit, touchiness, vanity, arrogance, impudence, boasting, striving to magnify one's own importance. Laudable pride is the esteem of one's dignil~y as being Wholly. due to God's free gift. "My soul magnifies the Lord and .my spirit rejoices in God my Savior" (Luke 1:46). Such pride is. ordinate, for joy at success is permissible provided it be so controlled that' it preserves the correct evaluation of self. Humility is a true estimate of s~lf, of talents possessed, together with acknowledgement of lack of talents. Through humility we recognize that we are creatures of God and hence subjec~ to Him; that our bad qualities counterbalance the good that is in us:. that many others surpass us in various accomplishments; that our .talert~s are G~d's free gift~ rather than our own achievement. Avar;ee (Covetousness).is the indulgence of d~slre forthings we may not possess in present circumstances, at least not Without sin or imperfection. Avaiice leads to: violations of .the vow o~ poverty, discontent, unhappiness, dullness of soul towards spiritual things. In a religious it often involves hankering for trifles to give to friends or to retain fo~: ond's own comfort. Conte.ntment is satisfaction with wl~at, we have or with being poor with Christ. Liberality is readiness to share with others, especially with Christ's poor. En~--bitterness towards those we judge superior to us in talents and advantages. It brings such evils as: dislike, hatred, malice; desire 't.o'deprive those we envy of their advantage or to, injure them. Like pride this tendency springs from the intellectual side of our nature. But whereas pride inflates self, giving a.sort of satisfaction, envy emphasizes shortcomings and lack of talent, making us miserable 95 PATRICK M. REGAN Ret~ieto for Religious with consuming bate. Religious are especially exposed to this tend-ency because they.observe a whole array of excellent, even brilliant, accompl!shments and achievements in their brethren. Beneuolence is good will towards othdrs by which we rejoi.ce over their success, or at least resist bitter feelings aroused by e.nvy. Anger is a hot, strong feeling against somebody or something that displeases us, driving us to destroy or injure them. Anger leads to quarreling, fighting, violence; also to hatred, revenge, and bitter talk against people aiad things; to ill-temper and disagreeableness. Gentleness (Meekness or Patience) controls angry feelings, deters from harshness, calmly endures what.displeases, thus conditioning the soul to restrain the burst of anger. Controlling an irascible nature had" much to do with sanctifying St. Andrew Bobola and has sanctified many another to a lesser degree. The same is necessary to sdme extent for ivory religious. Lusf is the desire for sexual pleasure, urging to indulgence not per.- mitred Us. Evils consequent on lust are: immodest thoughts, imagina- ¯ tions, and actions by oneself or with. others; also the tempting of others to the s~ime sin. Lust closes the mind to higher things, destroy-ing the attraction of spiritual realities. A word of warning is here in place. This tendency is so obtrusive, even when not extraordinarily stro.ng~ that one might easily be led to mistake it for the predominant tendency. Hence mature d~liberation is needed before anysuch con-clusion is re.ached. Chastity is control of the desire for sexual pleasure, avoiding every indulgence of it in thought, word, or deed contrary to God's plan in matters of sex. Religious by their vow of chastity have relinquished all right to marriage and its privileges. Hence absolute control of this appetite is obligatory on them in allcircumstances. "GluH'ony is excessive indulgence, of the pleasure of eating and drinking. Iri religious it usually assumes a milder form, ~uch as inor-dinate interest in food, over-anxiety about quantity/ and quality, crlticism of the meals and the cook, an ill-controlled appetite for cer-tain foods.' Excessive indulgence in food results in ill health, laziness, andsensuality. Excessive drinking is apt to lead to a strong.inclina-tion to lust, anger and quarreling. Both forms of gluttony are debasing and cause distaste for everything' worthy of man. Sobriety (Moderation, Temperance, Abstemiousness) consists in retricting one's food and drink to. the needs of health. For religious. 96 "March, "I 944 WHAT IS YOUR PREDOMINANT TENDENCY? some self-abnegation in food and drink is a matter of daily practice. $lo÷h (Laziness) is a slow, heavy habit of. body or mind, shrinking from effort and cultivating idle ease and comfort. Its'consequent evils are: neglect of duty, shirking the unpleasant and troublesome, listless-ness. Idleness leaves the mind open to evil thoughts and desires, and excites temptations to gluttony and lust.: Diligence (Industry) is an instant and constant"fidelity to duty, an eagerness for work. Religious, lacking ihe stern sanction, "work or starve,".can easily fail in dilig.ence, especially in spiritual exercises. Hence" for them. diligence involves zeal for God's glory and the salva-tion of souls. ~ Elimination - Though we may understand perfectly the nature 6f these various tendencies described above, the problem still remains; which one predominates in our souls? A check of the list just giv.en will show us immediately which tend-encies do not hold sway in our soul~. By this simple pro-cedure some individuals have succeeded in eliminating all but the ohe ruling tendency, ' though it must be confessed that this is rather the extraordinary occurrence. As a mat-ter of fact. though, almost invariably five Of the seven can be eliminated even With this cursory examination. There remains then the task of determining which of the remain-ing two predominates. For. approaching this latter ta.sk, let it be noted here, readines~ to face the issue honestly.is the necessary disposi-tion of soul. For that matter, the same disposition is also needed at every point along the way. Hard as it is to admit deordination in our souls, it is still harder to admita ruling ¯ evil inclination. To be good-naturedly indolent is not half as bad as being under the complete .dictatorship Of sloth~ So we incline to deceive ourselves that it is not as bad as painted, .or that it is something else not, quit.e so humiliating. -We even surrender to Satan, allowing him to take over andblind us with his deceits. Courage, there- 97 PATRICK M. REGAN Reoieto for Rel~giotts fore, and honesty, together with a strong resolve to see the task through to ~ finish, are necessary in this quest that leads to self-knowledge. So~trces We begin our quest right in the depths of .our' own souls. Our search is for an outstanding inordinate motive behind our actions. For example, the desire to impress others may ever and relentlessly drive us forward to the various objectives we pursue. On the other hand, the same motive-may sometimes retard us or stop us completely as threatened-frustration drives us to seek an avenue of i~scape. Thus. the deflation of our self-esteem may turn us aside altogether from a praise'~'orthy undertaking.~ It is quite possible for such a relentless drive to exercise considerable dofiaiffation over us without our adverting to the fact. The reason is that We ordinarily observe only our surface acts without ever examining the underlying motive. If upon investigation our findings happen to coincide wi(h the examples just cited, then pride would be indicated as the driving force in our scheme of life and would be set down tentatively as the predominant tendency. We would then proceed to further examination to confi'rm our findings. ,Our next step would be to investigate whether it will explain, at least to a great extent, the deformities we find in our pattern of life. ¯ Hence we question ourselves whether~it explains the difficulties we have in dealing with our superiors, and with others witl~ whom we live or associate, whether it clarifies the reasons for the difficulties which others experience in dealing with us.; whether i~ sheds light on ~he problem of our failure to make progress in the spiritual life. 'If the answers to these various questions point back to the same predominant tendency, we can be quite certain our tenta- 98 March, 1944 WHAT IS YOUR PREDOMINANT TENDENCY? tive judgmentwa~ correct. As the work of self-examination goes forward, mbre and more evidence accumulates to increase this certitude. Aversions are excellent indicators of the virtues most needed~ A long-continued aversion for work tells us ever so plain.ly that we need frequent large doses of exhausting labor to build up the virtue of industry in our souls. Hence we ought to examine o~rselves in this matter of aversions. A simple and brief process it will be, since it is intended rather to confirm our previous findings. "Another help in this effort to unravel the mystery of self is to be more observant ofour thoughts and reactions,. even in unrestrained moments. On these occasions it is well to note what is uppermost in our minds. How often, for instance, all unconsciously, we are busy offering i~,zense to self as we give ourselves credit for being better religious than others, of having more brains, of working harder and accomplishing more. The thought that comes first to mind Oh awakening is significant, as is also the thought l~hat recurs most frequen,tly during the day. These are ungfarded moments in which nature is disarmed, stripped of self-deceit; henc~ like a candid child itcan be very ~elf-revealing. But put it on its good behavior in time of meditation, as it gazes on the meek and humble Christ, and the wolf will don sheep's clothing. How exemplary itwill make itself out to be, in its sweet humility and shining obedience. The final check of this search within our souls will be of our daily examens and our confessions. Getting back to that first motive that prompts our sins and faults will fur-nish new confirmatory light. We shall ~ind, for example, that.what on the surface was a flashof anger, at bottom was a manifestation of pride. Incidentally, with this new lightshed on our habitual faults and sins .we shall be able ~o take effective measures to guard against routine confes- 99 PATRICK M. REGAN Reuieto for Religious sions and to reap more abundant fruit from our reception" of this sacrament. Searching Abroad Besides examining within our souls, we must also ven-ture abroad seeking information concerning outselves. The judgments of others on our characters frequently offer revealing sidelights. For one thing there is less danger of their being prejudiced in our favor; hence, if they but will, they can tell with fair accuracy whether we are proud, or whatever it may be. Since accidental circumstances of time and place or of individual prejudice may falsify the judgment, the more trustworthy-opinion, is the one deduced from many testimonials extending over a long period of time. We gather thes~ by recalling what others said of our failings as children. Parents, family, teachers. companions, friends, playmates instinctively recognized outstanding traits, and in their dealings with us adapted themselves accordingly. Our present daily companions are also discerning of our main character weakness; nor do they always hesitate to tell us about it. Their manner of acting towards ui announces it; their joking remarks are often occasions for their pronouncing judgment on us. Nor- .must the advice of. our spiritual director be overlooked, since, if he knows and understands us, he can afford us .very superior help in our search abroad. Critics Disagree It sometimes happens that those we consult in our se,ar~ch abroad disagree in their opinions of us. A certain author gathered the criticisms of his book and found that it was good and bad, dull and entertaining, slow and swift; clumsy and graceful, strong and weak, a romance and a ser-mon, a drama and a tract. He concluded that, though 100 March, 1944 WHAT IS YOUR PREDOMINANT TENDENCY? critics always claim to be right, it was irfipossible for his book to be all these things. Shouldwe encounter the same rather exceptional experience, .we can console ourselves that nothing" of serious consequence is .lost; we have all the other means of self-knowledge still at our disposal. Ashing God rThe last and greatest help is prayer to the Holy Spirit ¯ for light. A strong conviction that we need divine help above all in this search is a powerful aid in this as in every spiritual undertaking. A short aspiration from the longer prayer of St. Augustine is quite appropriate: "Lord Jesus, may I come to know Thee, may I come to know myself." God "will gladly communic,ate, that knowledge, flooding otir souls with light as a reward of all our soul-searching. Humility, let it be n~ted again, is necessary, lest we be deaf to.every admonition, blind to every light, hardened against the love that corrects. God will be giving directions and inspirations about our predominant tendency, but without humility we shall ignore them. Confessors, retreat mas-ters, and others will be telling us ever so plainly of our besetting weakness, but we shall never heed unless, as we seek self-knowledge, we simultaneously grow~in humi~ity. Finally, salutary lessons in self-knowledge, to be gleaned from meditating on the example of Christ and the. saints, will never be learned unless the heart is hungering to know - self no matter what the~cost to that same. self. Godward Self-kn0wledge should lead us to God; otherwise it is not 0nly useless but even a great hindrance to our spiritual advancement. Well did St. Augustine pray: "Lord Jesus, may I dome to know Thee; may I come to know myself," In the foregoing explanations the demands of the subject 101 PATRICK M. REGAN made it necessary to focus attention on self-knowledge to ~he apparent exclusion of other phases of the spiritual life. This fact should .not betray us into putting too much emphasis on the need of.self-knowledge. We should also understand what true knowledge of self really is. A cita-- tidn from a former article on the subject (REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, July, 1942) will make this clear. "Many are prejudiced against self-knowledge, even fear to undertake the task of acquiring it.; they misunderstand it. It is not to be .confused with morbid, introspection--that avid, uncontrolled interest in self which excludes all else and can be so harmful. No, the acquiring of self-knowledge pos-tulates not only looking inward, but also considerable looking outward to God, to our neighbor, and to our mod-els. the saints. Nor does the study of ~elf mean constant cold analysis of self, for the very reason that it can also be accomplished by noting the ~rirtues of others that impress us and reveal how much we fall short of perfect .design in our own lives. Self-analysis can be a considerable aid to self-knowledge but it does not lead to it infallibly. Some are expert at analyzing themselves, but their self-knowledge is mediocre; while'others have a deep knowledg~ of self, with very little power of self-analysis." As is evident, then, from the method suggested, the predominant tendency itself can be determined~ in a com-paratively~ short space of time, and with not too great diffi.- culty./ But the fruit of our examination we may re, ap all through life, developing for ourselves an intelligent, well-ordered, unified plan of lifeto meet our personal spiritual need and Weakness. This plan will be distinctive of our asceticism; it will assure us spedial'advantages in mounting GOdward. I02 A Suggest:ion ~rom !:he Fact:ory John E. Coogan, S.J. THE factory system, as is now. generally recognized, tended t6 dehumanize labor, making man almost a part of the machine. Little need was left him for intelligence; instead intelligence was "built into the machine." One great manufacturer .remarked, "Any one can work for me who has brains enough to hang up his hat." Even those workmen who had intelligence were often given no adequate opportunity to use it:" the .employer commonly thought of a workman as a "hand," at a time when even cattle were counted by the "head." "i~o stop this debasing of labor, Pius XI, in his encycli-ca!, "Reconstructing the Social Order," reminded employers that man is placed here on earth to develop and evolve all his faculties to the full, to the praise and glory of his Cre-ator. Hence, the Holy" Fathei: declared, "We deem it advis-able that the wage-contract shoul~d, when possible, be modified somewhat by a contract of partnership." Com-menting on these words, Father R. A. McGowan says the workman, in order to develop as ahuman being, should be given some voice in planning the general production policy of his industry, for thus "the soul of man, his will and mind, and his body can breathe more freely, and grow and develop in such work, whereas under any form of regimen-tion., his soul is .starved." If some such participation of subordinates in the planning of the operation of a business enterprise is so, necessary for their full development, it might well be asked whether we are as yet taking full. advantage of such par- 103 ,JOHN E, COOGAN Review for Religious ticipation in our rdigious communities. Among us the practice is of course used widely by a few, less widely by many. But are we even close to exhausting ~ts possibili- " ties? It is true that among us the need in general is not so extreme. Few of our religious are employed at tasks involving continuous mechanical repetition; hence their tasks usually give more opportunity for self-exp~ession and mental development than do the tasks of the ordinary industrial employe. But on the other 1-Jand our religious, because of their frequently superior abilities and education, are capable of a more notable self-exp~ession; hence they languish more if they lack the appropriate opportunities. Every man, the Pope said, is meant by God to develop alI " his faculties to the full. The whole man gives himself to God through the vows; and the whole man, with all his talents, be they one or five, should be used and brought to flower. Since those words of Plus XI urging employers to give their workmen a chance to .use their minds, many employ-ers have seen fit to give such men some share in the formu-lation of the production policies of management. The reason for this more generous policy need not have been that urged by Plus, for even from the standpoint of their own interests employers have cbme to see the wisdom of using more fully the talents of their workmen. It has occurred to them that "the average intelligence ,of the working force is higher .in the United States than in any other country, and native ingenuity, combined with intimate familiarity with processes, can not fail to produce ideas that may advantageously be adopted by the man-agement." This movement,looking to the increase of employe participation in solving the problems of industry has been developing for some years, but early in 1942 it w~is tre- 104 ¯ March, 1944 A SUGGESTION FROM THE FACTORY mendously accelerated when War Production Chief Don-ald Nelson asked that throughout the munitions industry labor-management committees be formed in the interest of increased production. He felt that the laborer's brain-power wa~ largely going, unused where, no positive and .systematic encouragementwas given him to place his sug-gestions before the management with an assurance that he ~vbuld get a respectful hearing, and for fruitful, suggestions a;suitable keward. Within fifteen months after Mr. Nel-son'sp~ 0posal at least 2,000 committees looking to such cooperative efforts Were formed. The result has been a gusher of employe ideas that has contributed heavily to the success of our war effort. In one .automobile plant alone a total of more than 116,000 ideas have been submitted, of which almost 20,000 have been accepted. "War bonds, ranging as high as $1,000 .in value, are awarded for the ideas and $660,895 has been paid out. during the 15-month period. Cash payments--currently are running better than ~ $90,000 monthly:' in that one auto plant. Many of the awards are going to young women still llttle more than novices at machine methods. One such "hand," working on a rifle barrel, promptly suggested an ingeniou~ change in boring thatbrought her a $1,000 award. Another devised a pencil-like tool for picking up small rivet washers, thu~ eliminating the tedious task of picking them up by hand and thus increasing her output. Another hit upon a clever arrangemeiat for telescoping a three-step job into one. '~ In One plant manufacturing cannon, a single machine was devised to take the place ~of ten. machihes, thus "reducing the time on a gun barrel operation from seventy-five'minutes to four.In another plant a worker's sugges-tion reduced the rifling of the barrel of an automatic cannon from three hours and twer;ty-five minutes to thirty minutes. 105 JOHN E. COOGAN Review for Religious ¯ In East Pittsburgh alone, in a single year, the' Westing-house Electric gave awards for more than 2,000 sugges-tions, the largest of these to a grandfather of sixty-two years. And thus the story goes. One device, designed in spare time from scrap mate'rials, has raised the output of certain army tank fire extin, guisher parts from 100 to 400 per eight-hour working shift. Another machine fhat bites off 400,000 rivets a day from spoo.ls of wire is .likewise the happy idea of afactory "hand." Among the first 500 sug-gestions submitted at Douglas Aircraft were enough good ideas tO producea saving of 2,000 man-hours per day. General Electric received more than 40,000: suggestions in ;i single year, 12,000 of these proving worthy of accept-ance. Such suggestions pouring in across the country.have iffsingle instancesmeant savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars, one as much as five hundred thousand dollars in a single year: and this in addition to the many lives saved through speedingup our ~winning of the war. NO wonder, then, that the War Production Board has insti-tuted a system of merit awards, corresponding,to military decorations, for employes who devise means, of increasing or improving war production; these awards" to be in addi- ¯ tion to cash prizes and medals bestowed by employers themselves. The success of this encouragement of employe sugges-tions has been such as to guarantee the continued use of the scheme by intelligent industiialists "after the war., Thor-oughly discredited is the notion that. the workman is only a "hand." One great manufacturer has .predicted .that the .next .fifty years will see "the exploring of the unlimited possibilities of human beings workilag together for a corn- .mort cause ' through mutual understanding, respect, and teamwork." 106 ~- The success of this democri, tizing of industry is but an echo of the success that analogous efforts have long since met with at times in religion. It was in the interest of free-dom for the subordinate that St. Ignatius refu~ed to attempt to prescribe in detail for meeting contingencies that could be only dimly foreseen. "Cut your coat according to the cloth," was the extent of his direction in commissioning a subordinate. Ironclad~directions canonly make for inflexible, blind driving. Wise religious supe-riors have felt themsel~res fortunate at being able to borrow from the pruden.ce and variedexperience of their communi-ties. It is proverbial that those best fitted to govern are the most willing to be governed. In consequence of their -reluctance to rise above their fellows, they minimize their difference of status as much as is compatible.with discipline. Consequently they lend a ready ear to the well-meant sug-gestions of their subjects. Admirers of a more militarized religious discipline have demurred at such deference, feeling it somehow beneath the digni~y of superiors; it is for such that our~ remarks are mbst especially intended. They resemble a friend of New-man's, who felt the latter was being talked down to by an ,intellectual inferior. But the humble author of "Lead, Kindly Light," quietly replied: "'Ar~/or~e can lecture me, and I'll be grateful for it." Thus the large-minded, kindly superior sees no loss of dignity in tt~rning an interested ear to the last and least of the community. .Such ~ superior reflects that only the Holy Father is infallible, and even he only within limits. He knows too that many of the ablest minds in the Church have spent long lives in complete subjection; fortunate the superiors who were able to profit by their wisdom. Many, too, who were once in positions of authority, return with matured minds to the ranks; how valuable may the suggestions of 107 JOHN I~. I~OOGAN" Review for Religious these.be to even the most competent superior~ governing in the, awesome .place of Christ'and only. too. aware of his limitations~ . ~ ~ . ~ ." A Writer of conferences for priests tells t.he: story--v~e hope it is only :that,--of a pastorwho expressed his opinion of his. assistant and house-keeper in the. words, ~'I'm the only One around here-who has brains enough to commit a mortal sin.': That frame of mind will seem inconceivable to the true superior. It~means, for one thing, drawing the blinds against the light; it means poisoning the wells. ¯ In matters coficerned with the salvation and perfection Of immortal souls, there can never be too much light; the .wills dannot flow too clear and pure. If, as has been beau-tifully. said, "One soul' is 'enough for a diocese,"' then the gove.rnment of a religious community can use all the light and wisdom.that might be found in an entire ecumenical council. But readiness to listen to and encourage the suggestions of subjects insures much more than increased .light .in gov-ernment; it makes for more docile, loyal, cdntented, sub-jects: Knowing that their views have been treated with. respect, subjects obey. more promptly-and interiorly. Treated like adults, like adults they now obey. The per-s~ n of the superior is loved and deferred to; and, as St. Ig-natius reminds us, "It is easy to' obey where we-love'that which is.commanded." Gracious superiors thus make for gracious subjects; these subjects in turn are gracious to.their own cbarggs. The example.is fertile and its fruits increase. Another very worth-while result of such respect shown bysuperiors for the judgment of their subjects has been the latter's increased s,elf,respect. An eminent, holy English priest exclaimed some years ago, "Oh, the timidity of the virtuous.". Sometimes.one may wonder whether we do not inculcate in young religious diffidence in:place of humil- 108 March, 1944 A SUGGESTION FROM.THE FACTORY ity.Diffidenceisparalyzing, humility is clarifying. Diffi-dence salts, ~"I can-.do nothing"; humility says, ~"I can:diS all things in Him Who strengthens me.'.'. Sometimes young ¯ people .come to. religion who have. had. responsible pos.i~ tions in the world, and .yet by Vow-time they have hardly enough self-confidence left to pay.their wayon a street-tar. At an age when their companions in the world are managing, large .businesses, these religious tremble at making, the. simplest public appearance or at meeting a, stranger. ¯ Timidity is' not. an apostolic virtue; self-respect emphatically is. Self-respect is prope.r surely to an "Alter Cbristus" or to a "Sponsa Christi," and the deference of _ superiors to. subjects; even to the youngest, by which .that self~respect is built tip must be pleasing to.Christ. It is not enough, as the wise superior knows, that this deference .be shown only to a few.The last and least are most exposed to crippling diffidence and self-contempt~ and they espe.- cially should be encouraged. Even those inclined to be.less-than- loyal~ can be won through this deference; this of course is an essential part of the Boys Town method of Father Flanagan. It is a truism to say tha~ the superiors of tomorrow are the subjects of today. They are now presumably being trained for their high destiny. In.a democratic Order sub-jects can hardly be ~predestined for superiorships and .be given formal and specific training as such. A future Latin teacher may be prepared by courses in Latin, and so of the other branches of instruction. Obviously, future Superiors cannot be set apart and trained in this manner; something of the present system, of relying on Providence for their development must always remain true. But wise"supe~. riots will continue to lend Providence a hand by keeping close to their future successors, letting them see and feel andmwith due proportion--participate in government-in- 109 JOHN -action. ¯ The modern pedagogy is, "Learn.by doing"; and even in the matter of superiorship there is no other way. The experienced superiorfeels, as did the Baptist, "You ¯ must increase; I must decrease," in order that, when another generation must take the helm, it will, be prepared. A final advantage found resulting from the superior's respect for the judgment of the ~ubjects is.a great love of ¯ their vocation: "All good thin, gs have come to me together ¯ with her." Religious are enthusiastic inspirers of new .-recruits when they find supreme contentment in their, reli-gious home. On the.other hand, the attitude of the dis~ satisfied religious to prospective enlistments is, "Enter at your peril." And how could they promise a newcomer the joy they themselves have not found? How important, . then, is this encouragement of joy-in-vocation, as a means of gaining the vocations needed now especially in view of . their recent sharp decline. If religious subjects are encouraged to.a greater initia-' rive, they will quite naturally manifest a greater enthusiasm for the common cause. And here, perhaps, lies a danger. Enthusiasm tends to become insistent. Hence it might be well to remark inclosing that, even with the humblest superior, subjects must always be deferential. After all, it is the superior Who holds the place of God. And while suggestions from a subject may well be in order, not so his insistent demand. Nothing would so discredit a sug-gestion as its giver's failure in religious spirit; for "the wisdom of this world is folly before God." Intelligence is not enough; Satan has that in abundance. But the wise superior will know how to moderate the naturally impe,tu-ous without at the same time discouraging the timid; he will not "quench the smo.king flax." 110 Decisions orr Ho}y January II, 1~44: The Sacred Congregation of Rites, in the pres-ence of Pope Pius XII, approved the decree tuto in the cause for the canonization of Blessed Frances Xavier. Cabrini, foundress of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. hll the prerequisites to h~r formal canonization are now completed. B~sides the cause of Blessed Mother Cabrini mentioned above, there are four other causes completed for canonization. They are those of Blessed Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort, founder of the Daughters of Wisdom and of the Company of Mary, who died in ¯ 1716; Blessed Joan-Elizabeth ,Bichier des Ages, cofounder of the Daughters of the Cross, who died in 1838; Blessed Bernardino Rea-lini, Jesuit orator who died in 1616; and,~ Blessed John Peter de Britto, Jesuit missionary ~vho was martyred in India. in 169,3. Five causes .for beatification have also been compl~ted: those of Ven. Contardo. Ferrini, professor of RomanLaw in various Italian universities, who died in .1903; Ven. Mother Joanna Delanoue, foundress of the Sisters 6f St. Anne of Providence, who died in' 1.736~; Ven. Mother Gioachima de Vedruna de Mas, foundress Of ~he Carmel-ites of Charity,. who died in 1854; Ven, Vicenta Maria Lopez Vicuna, fouhdress of the Spanish Institute. of the Daughters of Mary !mm]lculate, who died in 1'890: and Ven. Alice LeClerc, foundress of the Institute of Our Lady,. who died in 1622. August 18, 1943: The Sacred Penitentiary published a decree an-nouncing that Pope Plus XII granted the following indulgences for saying the prayer, "Lord, save us: we perish": (I) A partial indulgence of 500 days to all who say, the prayer 'with contrite heart. (2) A plenary indulgence, under, the Usual conditions, to all who say the aspiration daily for a full month. .° SOME year's ago, before the Legion of Decency made its influence felt, it was said that the rule in Hollyw.ood was, "The 'badder,' the better!"--that is, the-worse the moral tefidency Of. a. cinema, the more Profitable it was. Whether that statement was true or not, the expression lends itselfto another more wholesome interpretatio~i. In.many cases it is.very dear ~hat.,the worse a thing0is in one respect, the better it is in others. Thus, the harder the examination, the:greater' the satisfaction of the student .-after be'has passed, it. Thelonge~ the workingman's toil, the.higher his pay, especially if it be at the rate of time and a half. The more serious the peri!.that a soldier or sailor .faces successfully, the more honorable the medal or cross . "that he will receive. What is true in life generally is true. particularly in the moral and spirituallife. ¯ The greater a man's trials, the holier and happier he can become. Two classes of people especially could profit by filling their souls with the conviction and persuasion that the :: "badd'er".a thing is from.certain points of.view, thebetter :.,it is from others. Evidently it would be a Source of solace. .and strength to all who are suffering to Se~ that the v~iSrse ¯ "! their plight may seem, to b.e., the'.better 'it :really is,. when considered from the divihe point o.f ,view and in the light of eternity. Again, there are always some strong and vigorous persons who are looking for the shortest and straightest, though it be also the steepest and hardest, path up the mountain of sanctity. Both those who are over- .112 "THE 'BADDER,' THE BETTER" taken with misfortune and those who are.seeking thebest short cut to high holiness should find it advantageous to consider the truths implied in the words "the 'badder,' the better!" And any sensible person who finds that he has to put up with something that is not to his tastemay well be pleased to discover a means of making the best of a bad situation. Pain in the Christian Economy In God's original and preferred plan for man there was no place for pain. Everything was to be p!easant. But since Adam and Eve and all sinners after them have wrongly and perversely sought pleasure, though in itself it is no evil, it is central in the.whole order of providence sub- - sequent to the fall that there should be pain and suffering, and that the happiness of man should be looked for and achieved very largely through them. Man's guilt in tasting forbiddefl pleasure and the unbalanced tendency of his-nature toward pleasiare were to be remedied through pain. Disorder, once introduced into human life, naturally works itself out in difficulty and distress, if not disaster. But it is the merciful and marvelous plan of God that we should convert the consequences of disorder into means to a higher order, the effects of stupidity into helps to a more excellent wisdom, the results of malice into aids to a nobler goodness and sanctitiy. 0 felix culpa! Hence in the entire scheme of the Incarnation and redemption suffering gets a more prominent ~mphasis. It is a leading characteristic of Christ Himself, of His sorrowful Mother, of the Apostles, of all who have done much for the Church, of all who h~ve reached an outstanding degree of sanctity, and in fact of the whole Mystical Body of Christ. In view of the function and purpose of suffering in the whole of the present Chris-tian economy, it is not surprising that, certain necessary 113 (3. AUGUSTINE ELLARD' ¯ conditions being presupposed, the greater the pain, the greater the supernatural results that may be expected. However, pain of itself is not a good, but an evil (physical) ; not a value, but the very opposite, Hospitals, concentration camps, and the world in general are full of people in torment, and unfortunately many of them'do not become better by reason of their suffering; rather, they deteriorate. But pain, borne well, put to morally good ends, can and does occasion an immense amount of good. .The.infinitely wise and loving prbvidence of God sends or permits all.the evils that afflict us for definite good pur-poses, and indeed proportionate good purposes. His ¯ immediate aims are often obscure andindiscernible, but His ultimate and supreme ends we know very well, and the time wil! come when His whole plan will be clearly revealed ¯ to us. Whether or not we see His proximate intentions, we can realize them by prudently, applying His precepts and counsels to the facts of our situation. The wise and good man considers the evils that befall him as parts of the grand divine plan for the universe, reacts as God wishes that he should,.and thus wills and achieves the divine purposes, in this way he pleases God and satisfies himself, and 'also, since our destinies are all bound together, he helps others toward less discomfort and more comfort. Limitations The dictum "The 'bad&r,' the better!" is proposed as true generally, not absolutely and without limitations. If, for example, a man is losing his faculties and sinking into .the moral impotency .of dementia, coma, or death, then it would not be true in the sense in which it is taken here. Sufferirig--and how much there is of it!-~--that is the con-sequence of. one's own folly or fault is not of much use .until at least the error be corrected and good will re-estab- "114 March, 1944. "THE 'BADDER,' THE BETTER" lished. But then al! that is affirmed of the value of suffer-ing is verified. Difficulty may diminish, as well as increase," the moral worth of a good action; it may even completely prevent it from coming into being. Henceit is not corn: mended for its own sake: But if, other factors remaining equal, difficulty calls forth greater goodwill, then it will have the advantages that we are about to indicate. Nothing in these considerations would justify one in imprudently or presumptuously or morbidly seeking to make more trouble for oneself. suffering is like that Pain is an evil, and The rational, attitude to take toward of God Himself in His providence. therefore, except in view of propor-tionate good; to be avoided whenever possible. But,~ in the present state of things, it is also a necessary evil, and, what is more to the point for us, an evil from which intel-ligence and goodwill and effort can extract good. Hence the prudent man will take the ills of life, and, when inspired by the Holy. Ghost, even voluntarily inflict others upon himself--such as, for instance, fasting--in the spirit in which God Himself chastens and corrects His children and puts them upon their mettle. " These limitations being undeistood, we may consider in a simple and practical manner some of the salutary~ truths implied in the prindiple "The 'badder,' the better!" General Values ' In general, therefore; the greater the difficulty or dis-tress or dishonor, the greater.one's opportunity, by reacting ¯ appropriately, to exercise and perfect one's love for the Infinite Goodness of the Blessed -Trinity, to increase the divine glory, to. compensate for past deficiencies; to aug-ment one's own eternal beatitude, and to assist souls in the way of salvation and sanctification. In this sense, the worse a thing is in time, the betterit may be in its results in eter- 1:5 G~ AUGUSTINE ELLARD Review ~:or Religious .,nity. The more Unpleasant it is, humanly sigeaking, the more valuable it may be according to the divine standards of judgment. The Worse it is physically, the better it m'ay be morally and spiritually. The ~harper the pain, the greater the hope of enjoying keener pleasure in the future. The more narrowly pinching one's poverty, the greater the likelihood of amassing better and enduring riches in the h~reafter. The more heartbreaking the mental anguish, thet more exquisite the joys bf the reward that may b~ expected for bearing it well. The deeper a humiliation well borne, the more highly exalted the honor a man can look forward to before God and eventually before the wh~le human race. The harder the .temptation to struggle against, the more glorious the crown of justice that awaits the vic-tor. As creatures become less and less satisfactory, it Is easier to find satisfaction in the CreatOr. In prop6rtion as lovely persons or things of the world allure and beguile us less, the more apt we are to retain the right pe~spectixre and sense of proportion with r~ference to ~reatures and the Cre-ator. To sum up, the worse the evil that afflicts a person, 6f whatsoever nature it may be, thegreater and better the ~pfirposes of God in allowing it, for H~mself, for the suf-ferer, and for others. It is precisely toward the accomplish-ment of these aims, neither more nor less, that these reflec-tions are directed. Means to this Attitude. There are two great means Of truly making the ¯ ".badder" thing turn out to be the better thing. The first is to develop a deep, calm, whole-s0uled, pratical, conviction of these two facts: first, that God in His superior wisdom, benevolence, and power really is directing everything that touches us, including the sins and injustices of others toward us, to our own true and best good; and, secondly, 116 March, 1944 "THE 'BADDER,' THE BETTER" that the best possible thing that we can do for ourselves is to show our good sense and good w{11 by fully co-oper-ating with the operations of divine providence. When God's immediate aims are obscure, then ggeate~r faith and confidence are in order. God could of course give us better opportunities, but wd can never do better for ourselves than to make the most of the opportunties that He does give us. The Other great means is earnestly to cultivate, by serious reflection.and prayer, a true and just appreciation or evaluation of the excellence of the persons whose interests are concerned, and of the magnitude and multiplicity of those interests, in time and in eternity. Among the values suggested by the rule "The 'badder,' the better," the following may be noted. Special Values in the Present Difficulty or dist'ress is a present challerige to one's intelligence and goodwill. It is there to be overcome and vanquished: at least that is the magnanimous attitude toward it. ¯ It tends to provoke and evoke all that is best in a man, to put it to the test, to improve ~nd perfect it. The humble soul will not be presumptuous and overconfident in its own strength, but neither should it be diffident with regard to God. " 'For strength is made perfect in infir-mity.' Most gladly, then, will I rather boast of mine infir-mities, that so there may rest upon me the si:rength of Christ. Wherefore I am well content in infirmities, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in straitsnfor Christ's sake. For when I am Weak, then I am strong!" (II Corinthians 12:9, "10).1 It has always been considered one of the most remark-able manifestations of God's excellence" that He is wise and good and strong enough to.draw good out of every evil that aNew Testament texts in this article are cited from the Westminster Version. 117 AUGUSTINE ELI]ARD Reoieto ~o~ Religious occurs in His universe, and no doubt the w0~se the evil,:the greater the good must be. "We know that for them~that love God.He worketh all things together unto good,~ for them that are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). It is understood that those who love God are intel-ligent and virtuous enough to co-operate with Him. The Christian life was long ago defined as an imitation of God; and to be able to extract good out of evil, and greater goods out of greater evils, would be a mark of an excellent Chris-tian life. In increasing one's efforts to meet the challenge, one's own wisdom and goodness and power are perfected and made more and more like God's. Thus difficulty over-come or pain well borne gives one something of 'which to be supremely proud. "We. exult in the hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we exult.in our tribulations also, knowing ,that tribulation worketh endurance, and endurance experience, and experience hope: And hope doth not prove.false" (Romans 5:2-5). An aviator: who is trying to run up a high record of victories against enemy planes would seek out, rather than shun, dangerous encounters; so. the good man who would like to distinguish himself in the service of the Divine King would look upon-any hardship or surfeiting as so much opportunity to win glory for his Sdvereign and for him-self. The very best physici)ins and surgeons prefer the more difficult, the "more interesting," cases, because thus they have a chance to use and to improve their superior ~kill. They feelthe challenge and are glad to accept it. Many good people have moments when they regret that they do not, have more occasion to showthe magnanimity and heroism that are in them. To be consistent, they ought to acknowledge practically, when the time comes to put up with the unpleasant, that the worse it is, the greater the opportunity for which they have been looking. Since the 1'18 Marc& 1944 "THE 'BADDER,' THE BETTER" time of Aristotle, the difficult has been-considered to be in a peculiar way the province of art and virtue. St. Paul knew and welcomed the.challenge we speak of: "But as for me, Heaven forbid that I should make boast of aught save the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world is crucified to me, and I to the world" (Galatians 6:14). With. Respect to Past Our principle contains most 'valuable lessons with respect to the past. Perhaps nothing discourages people more in their moral and spiritu.al lives than a past record which brings shame rather than pride. Even here these people have their chance. The worse they have been, the greater their need to make up for what they havelost, and hence the more welcome the opportunity to. effect that compensation. When one.has sinned, the sensible attitude to take Would seem to be: "Willy hilly, now I must suffer for it! The sooner it is Over, the more patient I am, the better!" The deeper one is in the red in his accounts with God, the more solicitous one should be about getting into the black again. A person who attacks his past in the spirit of "the 'badder,' the better!" Would have the optimism, ~lan, and force that go with taking the offensive. A little punishmer~t here may save one from much torment in, pur-gatory, and besides it has a positive value (merit), whereas that after death does not. The souls already undergoing the penalties of ptirgatory must have an overwhelming conviction that they would have done well to bethink themselves seriously and see the advantages of their disad-vantages, the comforts of theirdiscomforts~ ~nd the abili-ties of their disabilities. When a man sins or even omits the better alternative in a choice between two goods, God's antecedent plan for His own glory is to that extent frustrated. God would like 119 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Review for Reliqious ~o see the loss made good, unless, 6f course,, it betoo late. In sending or permitting difficulty or tribulation, He intendsand hopes that it Will be used for that end: Thus again, the worse one's affliction, the better the chance it gives to satisfy God for past failures. ,Many devout people nowadays talk much about making reparation fo~ t.he injuries and insults that have been heaped upon the patient and-!ong-suffering FIe~art of 3esus. D0 they realize always that the better their patience in. all that is disagreeab!e, the fuller the measure in which they make that reparation? Other fervent, souls: would imitate St~ Paul and would make up in their "flesh :what is lacking to the sufferings of Christ, on behalf of his.b6dy, which fs the Church'~ (Colossians 1:24). The more and better they suffer, the less they will leave lacking to that Mystical Bgdy. For ~he Future ." But it is with reference to future values that :the rule :"'T.he 'bad&r,' the better!" is best verified. ,The most obvious advantage here is the merit of suffering well. The tiniest and most minuscule bit of discomfort, or dishonor borne meritoriously means an increase of grace: of.sancti-fying~ grace,".that, is, of higher participation in the nature and life of. the.Divinity; of the infused virtues and the,gifts ¯ of the Holy Spirit, that.is, of proximate principles of dei- ¯ form thought, volition, .and activity; of actual graces, that is;.o.f-salutary ideas,., impulses, and aids helping one to live .On:a~ higher plane of the rational and the diyine life; and finally; of a richer share in the . ineffable, beatitude of the most blessed Trinity in. heaveia .throughout the unending aeons of eternity. One's ability to behold: and contemplate .the,Infinite Truth, to love.th4 Infinite Goodness, to enjo.y ¯ .the.Infinite. Beauty, and to.rejoice in the company of: the Divine Persons and : of: .the .whole . celestial society, is pro- .t!20 March, l 9 4 4 ¯ " "THE 'BADDER,' THE BETTER'.' portionately augmented. God is glorified more," the quondam sufferer himself thrills with a more exquisite sense of the divine beatitude, and everybody else in that. blissful region is better pleased and more happy. And Goal repays sincere human effort£, not according to results, but according to a generous~cost-plus system. Meanwhile his own moral stature will be rising at an accelerated speed. Faith will be clarified,, hope fortified., ahdcharity intensified; prudence will become more sharply discerning, religion more devout, humility deeper, fortitude stronger, patience more enduring, and magnanimity greater. Really and consistently to face suffering with ,the disposi-tion "the worse, the better!" is no child's play, and if it be kept up in severe trials and over a protracted period' 6f time, the man who does it shows himself to be something of a hero. If personal sanctity is raised to higher,levels, then, other things being equal, one's efficiency and ability to.d0 God's work and to save souls will be increased also. General resolutions and offerings of self to God cast in some such form as this: "All that Thou Willest, O. God, and the harder, the better!" should prove to be more ¯ effectual. If in the crisis of temptation a person can exclaim ,"The harder, the better!" or, "The worse I have been, the better I am determined to be!" his chances Of coming of( ~he victor will be enhanced. . A JoyousAttitude Taking this view of the unpleasant makes it less unpleasant and more bearable. Evidently this attitude ig less pessimistic and more cheerful. Moreover, such a posi-tive and aggressive reaction,, besides conferring the advan-tages .of offensive strategy over the merely defensive, lessens pain, partly because of the consciousness" of .doing the nobler thing, and partly because a man suffers less when 121' G. AOGUSTINE ELLARD Review ~'or Rdigiotts ¯ he is active and not simply passive. Every football player and every soldier knows that while he" is in actual combat . minor hurts are not felt so keenly. The saying of the old Roman poet that it is sweet as.well as honorable to die for the fatherland, has received universal approbation. For a much stronger reason it ought to be sweet and consoling to suffer for God's sake, or for souls' ~sake, and that swee(ness should bear a proportion both to the loveliness of the Great Beloved and to the amount of evil endured. Everybody who has been in love knows well from experience that there is a certain satisfaction in demonstrating love by sacrifice. As a matter of fact, it can only be suggested, not at all adequately expressed, that in suffering in union witch ,Jesus crucified holy men and women have been thrilled with the most exquisite and indescribable delights. Not that they ceased to feel their agony; but with it, or after it, and by reason of it, they also felt the most rapturous and ecstatic joys. "For according as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so through Christ doth our comfort also abound" (II Corinthians 1:5); they who "for a while. h~i.ve beeia grieved somewhat by divers teHptations . . .~ exult with an unspeakable and glorified joy" (I Peter 1: 6-9). ¯ Moreover, heavier crosses have always been consid-ered a sign of divine predilection. To acquire the heroic attitude.toward suffering,.cert~iin. ardent souls will find themselves helped most by .such reflections as the following. Who is desus who suffered for me.? .What His dignity, goodness, lovableness? How worthy of being pleased even if He had never felt incon-venience because of me? How much didHe suffer for my sake? With what love, mercy, patience, and l'ong-suffering? Why did He suffer? What does He desire of me? With what right? How much-pleased would He be ifI.~hould suffer with Him? To.what extent could I.thus 122 March, 1944 "THE 'BADDER,' THE BETTER" help Him "accomplish His aims in enduring so much pain and humiliation and. such a death?' How much could I aid His Church and His cause with souls? .Would it gratify Christ to see me pr.efer.ring poverty, pain, and opprobrium, not of course for their own sake--that would be perverse-- but for His sake and to further His designs? Pertinent Prayers John of the Crossl-who taught, and in his own person illustrated the fact, that one who is destinedfor a very high degree of divine union, "of total transformation into God,:' must first undergo very severe and thoroughgoing purifications, was v~.ont to pray: "O God, to suffer and to be despised forThee!.". Before Teresa of Avila reached the summit of her myst.ical ascensions, she, Whose latter years ~vere one great battle with difficulty and distress of every sort, would exclaim: "O Lord, either to suffer or to die!" The Italian Carmelite, Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi, outdid her: "O Lord let me suffer or let me die---or rather--let me live on that I may suffer mote!" But before the end Of Teresa's life, .when a furious st6rm of troubles was begin-ning to break over her head, she wrote to a less stouthearted confidant and collaborator:. "Let use make the :attempt, ¯ . . for the more we suffer, the better it Will be" (Walsh, Saint TereSa o[ Avila, 567). It would seem that anybody with faith and reason could pray: "O God, enable me through Thy grace to see ~11 that befalls mein the light.and setting of Tby wise and benevolent and pcwerfu[ providence, to realize practically that Thou makest all things, good and bad, to work together for the best interests of those who love Thee and react rightly, and. thus really and truly to achieve Tl~y beneficent, purposes; all this, out of love for the infinite, .eternal, and ineffable goodness of Thy most blessed Trin- 123 G.' AUGUSTINE ELLARD ity; out of zeal to co-operate with Thee in communicating that same goodness and Thy knowledge and Thy love of it; out-of eagerness to participate in the redemptive sufferings and work of. the God-man crucified; out of fear lest, being too. shortsighted and cowardly, I incur more grievous woes; and finally from a longing to share, and to bring others to share, in Thy own inexpressible and everlasting beatitude." All things considered, whatever is to be said of the theory of evil, the best practical philosophy of evil seems tO be found in the alliterative and ungrammatical oxy-moron: "The 'badder,' the better!" It provides a rational ¯ and Christian means of transforming negative, into posi-tive values, disorder into order, discomfort into comfort, and dishonor into honor. BOOKLET NOTICES Sp;rifual ChecI(-up for Religious, by Rev. Lawrence G. Lovasik, S.V.D. A good booklet t:or occasional examination of conscience and for monthly" recollection. 32 pages. Single copies, 10 cents: 9 cents each in lots of 25; 8 c~nts each in lots of' 100. Published by: The Catechetlcal Gdild, St. Paul, Minnesota. Heart of Jesus. Our Consolatlon---Special devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for the Sick and Afflicted. written and compiled bs' Clara M. Tiry. Contains a veritable treasury of devotions in honor of the Sacred Heart. 72 pages. Single copies, 15 cents: 4 copies for 50 cents: 8 copies for $1.00; cloth bound copies, "50 cents each. Published by: The Apostolate of Suffering, 1551 North 34th ~t., Milwaukee 8, Wisconsin. Good Samaritan Almanacman almanac forthe sick. 64 pages Single copies, 25 cents; 5 copies for $1.00. Published by: The Apostolate of Suffering. What Tho Mass Means, an explanatio~ of the prayers and ceremonies of the Mass, .by the Rev. Victor J. Hintgen. For study clubs. 92 pages. Single copies, 30 cents: redhction in pri~e for 6 or. more. Published by: Our Sunday Visitor Press, Hunt-ington, Indiana. Listens-It's God's Word, an introduction to the New Testament, by the Rev. '"Victor 3. Hintgen: For study clubs. 144 pages. Single cop!es, 30 cents; re~tuc-tion in price for 6 or.more. Published by~ Our Sunday Visitor Press. Modern Youth and Chastity, by Gerald Kelly, S.J. in collaboration with B, R. Fulkerson, S.3., and C. F. Whitford, $,J. Formerly published for restricted cir-i: ulation under the.title Chastity and Catholic Youth. 105 pages. Single copies, 25 cents; 12 copies, $2.70; 25 copies, $5.00;. 50 copies, $8.75: 100 copies, $17.50. Published by: The Queen's Work, 3742 West Pine Blvd. St. Louis 8, Missouri. 124 Concerning Voca!:ions The Editors ~a~JlTH this number of the REVIEW we. close our correspondence W on Vocations. Since we asked for communications on this subject (July, 1943) we have received a number of letters, suggestions~ leaflets, programs; and so forth. We give .he.re a brief account of the material sent us that has not yet been mentioned in the REVIEW. Booklet : Follbw Him, by Godfrey Poage, C.P., is a vocational booklet on the Sisterhoods. It is the companion .booklet to the boys' Follow Me (see REVIEWFOR RELIGIOUS; II, p. 385). It is an dxcellent piece 6f workmin explanation, pictures, and in its universal appeal.J~ll possible .communities are listed and briefly described. No favoritism is shown. This-. booklet is distributed.exclusively by the Thomas .More Book Shop, 22 West Moriroe St., Chicago 3, Illinois. Prices: single copies, .postpaid, 15 cents; 2 or more copies, 10 cents each; per hundred, $8.00. Programs. Father Poage sent us the Program for the Promotion of Voca-tions for use in the Archdiocese of Chicago during Vocation month. The essential points in the program.are of value, not merely during Vocation month, but all through the year. . . To deepen the spiritual life of the students ik the first objectiv~ of the Chicago program. This is to be done by prayer, more frequent Mass and Communion, and the cultivation of a spirit of sacrifice and ~enerosity. The program points out that we should ~train our youth more in the use of ejaculatory prayer, as there is a common misunder-standing that by "prayer" we mean long prayers such as the Rosary or the Stations. With regard to frequent Mass and Communion the suggestion is made that all too often boys and girls have the.f_alse notion that they must go to confession every time they, go to Com-munion; hence we should impress them with th~ truth that ,confes-sion is "necessary only after mortal sin. Thi,s, of course, does-not mean that we are not to teach our students ihe manifold advantages 125 THE EDITORS Review for Religious. of fre~quent c0nfessio~. It seems to us that the last point in the program--the cultivation of a spirit of generosity and sacrifice-- cannot bestressed too much. Today, in particular, all vocations-- not merely religious--require such a spirit; and only too often fail-ures in marriage, as well as in religion and the priesthood, must be attr~ibuted to sheer selfishness. To impart adequate instruction is the second.objective of ~he Chicago program. This. is to be done by allowing questions, by suggesting reading (especially of Follow Him and Follow Me), and by simple talks on such subjects as: The Signs of a Vocation; How to Overcome Ditticult.ies; The Apostolate' that Lies Open; and The Need of Generosity in Following the Promptings of Grace. The. Mission Helpers of the" Sacred Heart (West Joppa Road, Towson, Maryland). sent in this sample program for a Dag of Retreat made by the Our Lady of Good Counsel Club: i0:30: Assembly in Chapel, H~'mn, Prayer. ' 10:45: Is It for Me?--conference by a Sister. I 1 : 15 : Interviews, Visits to Chapel, Stations. 12:00: Lunch. 1:00: Rosary (on the grounds). 1:30: What Would It Mean?-:-cbnference by a Sister. 2:00: Interviews, Visits to Chapel, Stations. 3:30: Address--by a priest. ¯ 4: 15: Benediction. The re£reatants were urged to keep strict silence. Bdoks and pamphlets about various religious communities were placed at their 'disp6sal. An~l they were asked to make known iheir requests for any specifil literature beforethe opening of the retreat. Leaflets l~ather Thomas Bowdern, S.J., (The Creighton University, Omaha 2, Nebraska), once made a. nation-wide survey of those who followed vocations to the priesthood and the religious life during the y6ars i919-1929. He :has written several articles about his survey. and be now prints a 4opage leaflet giving some of the principal findings and a definite program for fo~teriiag vocations~ The leaflet is entitled A Study of Vocations. It may be obtained from Father Bowdern--~2 copies for 5 cents. Marcl~f 1944 . CONCERNING VOCATIONS The Sisters of the Good Shepherd i931 Blair Avenue, St. Paul 4, Minr~esota) sent us a very attractive leaflet, also a postcard folder containing 22 pictures, used to inform lik.ely candidates of the tre-mendous apostolate carried on by the Sisters. Communications Reverend Fathers : For many years while.traveling about the country as a missioner I have been absorbed in the problem of the dearth of vocations. Here are a few brief observations that may throw some additional light on the subject. ~ There is no foundation for the complaint that our Catholic . youth lack the spirit of sacrifice. The communities that have been overwhelmed with vocations are those which offer the greatest hard-ships. The newer communities attract in proportion many more voca-tions than the older established communities. Some of the former had more subjects than missions, while many of the latter had to refuse new missions for lack of subjects¯ Some may attribute this to-, their American foundation, while too many of the older communb ties were of "foreign" origin. Another factor that is Overlooked is pu'blicity.° Many of~- the older communities are forbidden by rule to u~e persuasion in seeking subjects. This has.been interpreted rigorously as forbidding adver-tising of any kind. .If the community in question is not established in the large Catholic centers, it can hardly expect to attract vocations' there. One cannot join a community unless one first knows of its existence. It is unreasonable to expect God to work. miracles to com-pensa. t.e for our neglect o~ human means readil~ ;ivailable. )~ simple attractive pampble't stating the origin arid purpose of the.community would merely make God's work known. More popular pamph!ets on the saints of the Order would also attract vocations. The new communities advertise. Too many of the older-communities are still unknown. Virtue will attract,.vocations. Let.me qu'ote from a letter of a young novice: "My thoughts and .~tesires were of One Whom I wished to serve, so naturally I observed those who were already serving Him, and seeing the goodness and happiness they seemed to display I was quite convinced . . . that the convent was my life'~ home.'~ On the other hand I could quote examples of otfiers who ¯ 127 THEI EDITORS Review for Religious had practically made up their minds to join ii certain community but were absolutely repelled from doing so because of the obvious lack of ~ustice and charity in someone wearing the garb bf that order. Care in selecting subjects means more vocations eventually. Abil-ity to judge character on ~the part of the Novice Master or Novice Mistress will help to exclude those who do not belong. Weakness in admitting one poor subject may mean the subsequent loss of ten worthy vocations. A Priest Reverend Fathers: PerhaPs my experience is no( a common one, but I have found that one thing that sometimes creates'dissatisfacti0n with a reiigious Vocation is the fact that many of us older religious refuse to allow our former pupils to "grow up." Even after these former 'pupils have beeri in religion for several years, we continue to look upon them and treat them as our "boys .and girls." Many of them feel this intensely. E~ienwhen they do not actually give up their vocations, the sense of frustration hampers their work and their natural, growth to a whole-some independence. As a means to p~eserving voc~itions, and to the full fructifying of vocat,ions, I suggest that we "old teachers" examine 0ur~elves periodically on our "maternal" and "paternal" attitudes. A Priest WANTED: LETTERS ON RETREATS! Whim you make a retreat, are there some things that you find particularll, h~lpful--things that yo~. expect and that you'd like the retreat director to be sure to give? And when you give [1 retreat, do you look for a certain disposition on the ~art of the retreatants, yearn for a response that som~,times does not come? :- If you have good ideas, why not air them in our Communications? We w~nt to start some communications on this very practical subject in our next number ¯ (May 15). If you have Somethingtb say and~you want to say it in that num~ber, send it to us immediately. Keep the following points in mind: (1) Make communications as brief, ai possible--withdut, 6f course, sa~rific- ~ing thought for brevity. . (2) Save us editorial wor~ by writing neatly and clearly. Typewritten letters are:~preferred. .(3) Your name will not be printed unless you. explicitly request this." (4) Address communications to: The Editors of P~eview for Religious. St. Mary's'College, St. Marys, Kansas. 'i28 Try This in Your Examen! Richard L. Rooney, S.~. THE Archangel of Religious sat at his celestia! equivalent of a desk in the Mansion of the Guardians and ruefully read the recent reports. For the most part the vows were intact and the spirit of'work was tremendous. But by and large, the particular examens just weren't being kept! His friend~. Ignatius of Loyola, who dropped in now and then for a chat, wouldn't like that, for he had put great. stress on the examen as a means of sanctification. And even the mod-ern psychologists (some of whom had arrived in heaven!) considered it a good device for. self, improvement. But these modern religious-- priests, Brothers, and Sistersmseemed to think quite" differently, if .one might judge from results. The Archangel leaned back and pondered the situation. Perhaps these poor human ¯beings found the thing tedious, had let routine creep in and rob them of zest. Perhaps they had asked the same'old-questions in the same old way and, seeing no advancement, had given up in disgust. Or perhaps they had forgotten th_attheir firs~t job is to be g.o'od human beings; hence they had been pitching their examen= too high ! The Archangel scribbled a set of questions on a piece of skyey paper. He would have the Angel Guardians suggest these to their charges, and then see if the examens wouldfi't improve.~ Here is what he wrote: -1) Do you get along with practically everyone in the com-munity? " 2)~ If not; is it because you practise one or more of the following easy ways of getting yourself disiiked: a) Do you'do your best to let the "other fellow" know he doesn't amount to much?¯ make it clear that his ideas are. awrY, that¯he expr.esses them poorly? that what he does is°really not im-portant? b) ~ Do you try to arrange other people's lives, for them? . c) Have you let your disposition become morose, mood_y, touchy, and sarcastic? " d) Do you find fault on every possible occasion with the R~¢HARD.L. ROONY , food, the weather, the work, superiors, the whole life--always, of course, for the glory of God? e) Do you pick.out and air" abroad tO certain chosen souls the small defects of others? f) Do you pass over no chance to argue--to turn-every recreation into a debate? g) D6 you gossip? (Absolutely the best way in the world of wasting time--God's time--~as well-as showing your own inferiority.) b) Are ygu suspicious, sure that no one is up to any good or has a good motive? i) Are you always center-stage, in the spot-light, talking about that most interesting of topics, yourself? j) Or are you just the opposite--a silent, uninterested bore at recreation? k) Do you always take orders in bad grace--make things as hard for superiors as you can? 1) Are you one of those omniscient people whom no one can tell anything? WHO IS SAINT JOSEPH? Saint Joseph is: ¯ . ¯ the guardian of chastity and of the honor of virginity,---St. Augustine ¯ . .~ the faithful coadjutor of the Incarnation.---St. Bernard . . the perfect example of humility and obedience to God's inspirations. -~t. Francis Borgia . . the man mbre beloved by Jesus and Mary than ail other creatures.---St, lsidore . . the master of prayer and the interior life.-~St. Teresa ¯ . . the model of priests and superiors.---St. Albertus Magnus ¯ . ¯ the mysterious veil which covered the virginity'of Mary.mBossuet ¯ . . the third person of the earthly trinity.--Gerson The foregoing are but a few of the brief panegyrics of St. ,loseph that can be culled from such books as Cardinal Vaughan's Who is St. Joseph? and Pete Binet's Divine Favors granted to St. Joseph. They might be apt subjects for brief medi-tations, during the month of March. w'qC'ILLIAM STRITCH, ¯130 ook Reviews AIDS TO'WILL TRAINING IN C~HRISTIAN EDUC:ATION. By TWO Sis-fers of Nofre Dame. Pp. xvl ~ 237. Frederick Pusfef C~o. (Inc.), New York and C~inclnnaff, 1943. ¯ $2.S0. This work is mostly a development and adaptation of Lind-worsky's doctrine on training the will.The will is formed prin-cipally by suitable motivation suitably inculcated, rather than, for instance, by a sort of will-gymnastics: The three great instincts in human nature, namely, those to superiority, s6ciality, and to self-preservation, are, since the fall, perverted and lead todisorders of every kind. With the help of divine grace; a clear conception and an adequate evaluation of the true destiny of man, and constant co-operation of the will, these three fundamental tendencies can be redirected to what is wholesome, and re-educated, and thus help, rather than hinder, man in reaching that destiny. Character ~s to be judged by these three c~iteria: what a man wills, wh~/, and how. A person is good or bad like his motives. Right motivation depends~ very largely upon keeping attention and thought turned to what is true and good and bea.utiful, and upon appreciating its values. Right emotions follow naturally, and then right attitudes, and these tend to bring about righ~ volition. If all these be maintained and strength: ened with appropriate habits, the result will be the desired good will ¯ and go.od character. The procedure recommended for correcting--n0t for breaking-- the will may be adduced as representative of the book. Suppose a student has an excessive fondness for freedom. It is likely that he really .does not well understand the differences between trueliberty and license. These must be clearly pointed out to him. Then he is to be brought to see and appreciate the advantages of liberty and the disadvantages of license. The corresponding emotions are aroused and fostered~ Then opportunity is given for practice and for finding satisfaction in it. Th~ will must always be cultivated from within, that is, by exciting a.genuine desire for what is good; external rneans~ like setting up sanctions; should be secondary. What has been said will give an idea of the main .psychological principles entering into the structure, of the book. Over and above these there is a multitude of minor pedagogical aids, tables of values, 131. BOOK REVIEWS .- Review for Religious natural and supernatural, lists of attil~udes, of virtues and faults, questions and topics for discussion, etc. The religious and Catholic note is most prominent throughout. As far as~I know, there is no work which would seem to promise more help. for the generality of religious teachers who are eager to direct and perfect the wills of their students. " G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD, S.J. INSTRUCTIONS ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE: VOLUME IV. By the Rev- " erend Nicholas O'Rafferfy. Pp. viii -f- 300. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1943. $3.25. The first three volumes of this series treated of the Creed, the Sacraments, and' the Commandments of God. The present volume includes instructions on Prayer (the Our Father, Hail Mary, and prayer in general), the Precepts of the Church, Sin (mortal, venial, and the capital sins), and the Virtues (the theological virtues and those contrary to the capital sins). It is difficult to estimate the value of a book like this. Judging the matter as objectively as I can, I should say that priests and Reli-' gion teachers who have the time to consult several books in preparing sermons, instructions, or classes, would find in this book an added help, especially because it contains a wealth of Scripture ,texts. But it is hardly ideal for those who must confine themselves to one or two books. In general it makes .rather hard reading. Except for the fact that the divisions are indicated in introductory paragraphs, con-cluding surveys, and numerals'sepagating the various sections, no ¯ effort has been made to use the 'abundant mechanical .helps that im-press matter on the mind and memory. There are some minor ihac-curacies in the text " inacc~aracies that might escape the notice of those who are not well-grounded in theology. One inaccuracy in particular should be called to the attention of our readers. The authorstates that the Church demands physical intdgrity in those who enter the cloister (p. 226). This'must be a slip of the pen. Perhaps some orders require this; but it certainly is .not demanded by canon law.--G. KELLY, S. d. ST. THEODORE OF CANTERBURY. By the Very Reverehd William Reany, D.D. Pp. ix ~ 227. B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis, 1944. $2.00, The scholarly Doctor Reany has added to his former publica-tions, the biography of a great seventh-century Churchman. This St. Theodore is usually known, from the Nace of.his.birth, as St. 132 ~ March. 1944 . BOOK REVlE~WS Theodore of.Tarsus, but is here more properly call~d .from' the place of his See. Divine Providence had very .leisurely prepared the simple.--. monk, Theodore, by studies at Athens and monastic life in both EaSt and West.for the appointment as Archbishop of Cantdrbury in his sixty-sixth year. Tonsured, ordained, and consecrated, h~ came ~to England in 668. He was the first prelate to rule over all of Eng-land, and to weld its differing Christian missions, of Celtic, Roman, and Gallic origins~ into one unified national Church. His hand held the l~elm until his eighty-eighth year, securely guiding the youtig Churc,h into orderly and scholarly currents so truly beneficent for generations to come. The late Cardinal Lepi'cier, O.S.M., Who writes-the preface of this volume, states that it is the firs~ completew0rk bfi Theodore. The painstaking assembling of fragmentary data on Theodore's activities, in chronicles, bishops' installations; ~onciliar acts and the like, is se~ out in such seemingly artless fashion that the writer has had the pain that we may have ttie pleasure. It is easy to see why Engli~hmen of today, who do not share Theodore's Catholid faith, can still see in him one who "laid the foundation of English national unit~;." --- GERALD ELLARD, S.J. THIRTY YEARS WITH CHRIST. By Rosalie Marie Levy. Pp. 2,46. Pub-" llshed by the Author, P.O. Box 158, Station. O, New York I I,.N.Y., 1943. $2.00. . This autobiogiaphy discloses how Miss Levy in her thirty years as a Catholic ~onvert from Judaism has sought to bring the truth to her own race and to whomsover else she can. It tells of her leanings toward Catholicism from youth; of her attempt at religious life in a convent, frustrated by ill health: of a visit to Europe and a pilgrim-age to the Holy Land. The narrative reveals a zeal for Christ that shames the matter-" of-fact attitude of.many a "cradle" Catholic toward the faith. In ¯ 1936 Miss Levy organized the Catholic Lay Apostle Guild whose members circulate Catholic literature and spread Catholic truth bY answerin, g questions regarding Catholic. truths and practices at opeii-air. meetings. Since 1922 she has been active in the Guild of our Lady of Sion~an.organization aimed at the conversion of Jews. Her books include The Heavenl~l Road, designed to bring Jews to the true faith. Other devotional and apologetic titles total six books and~two pamphlets." " : The present work concludes with short biographical sketches of 133 BOOK REVIEWS Ret~iet~ for Religious four notable 3ewish converts; a valuable chapter entitled "The Proper Approach to the 3ewish Mirid"; a short presentation of apologetic q~est[ons and answers; and a ~ollection of correspondence odcasioned during the years of Miss Levy's apostolic work. It is an inspiring autobiography, a valuable handbook for the apologist, and an indispensable aid to those working toward the cofiversion of Jews.--R. SOUTHARD, S.J. WHITE FIRE. By the Reverend E. J. Edward, s. S.V.D. Pp. 219. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1943." $2.7S. Effective contrast points to artistic pla.nning and execution. To take such seemingly diverse physical phenomena as a convent garden, brilliantly beautiful with tropical flowers, under a Pacific summer sun, and the malformed, rotting, shocking face of "a half-dead leper in a leprosarium ward; such antagon.istic characters as a young American nun, filled with the love of God and enthusiasm for her work among the lepers for whbm she has willingly given up every-thing, and a despondent, despairing victim of the disease, whose love of God and man and self has turned to fierce hatred; the hdart-wa. r.ming hu.mor of a 'F~ther Doro, and the d~pth,touching pathos of a self-sac.rificing little leper girl, Dolores; nigh-breathless action of plot, and periods ~)f quiet, pr6found contemplation; to take all these--and more and blend and shade and work them into a pleasing comP0.sitel devoid of hash impressionism, calls for an artist's gift arid touch. Father Edwards has done this. Some. may feel that the story--the action--lags occasionally because of the "introspections" of Sister. Agnes Marie. However, the~e are integral parts of the whole an'd give the motivating force of ardent love of God and neighbor which makes Sister Agnes the heroine she certainly is. There-are scenes in White Fire which will beo long remembered: .old Lion Face, the realistic picture of the scourge of. leprosy; the simple, sincere,, and heroic offering of self niade by Dolores to the Santo Nino: and the finale on Christmas Eve which leaves dne thriliing.~M. F. HASTING, S.J. THE SPIRITUAL CONFERENCES OF ST. FRANCIS DE SALES. Pp. Ixxl ¯ -f- 406. The Newman Bookshop, Wesfm;nsfer, Md., 1943. Repr;nf. $2.75. Two or three times a week, when the weather was fine, Bishop Francis de Sales Would go over to the convene orchard of the Visita- 134 March, 1944 BOOK REVIEWS tion motherhouse at Annecy, in southern France, and sit down on. a rustic bench¯ When the nuns, among' them St. Jane-Frances de Chantal, had grouped themselves on the ground around him, he would talk informally on spiritual topics and answer questions; In bad. weather; for he came "even in bad. Weather," they would assemble in the convent p~rlo~. After the conference,a nun, appointed .because of her good memory, jotted down what the bishop had said and supplied, omissions from the memories of her companions. These conferences continued with lessening frequency from 1610 until the l~ishop~s death in 1622, the audience numbering three in the beginning, ten in the second.ye~ar, and increasing steadily thereafter, As other convents of the Visitation were established, the conferences were copied, sometimes not too carefully, and read with great avid-ity and profit¯ in them also. When some Un.scrupulous editor got hold of a copy surreptitio.usly

Issue 3.3 of the Review for Religious, 1944. ; MAY 15, 19,44 ~Voi~UME,.III Ri VI, I W' FOR :i I LIGIO,,US .VoLuMEIII :" MAY 15, 1944 ~ NUMBER3 ° ONTENTS GOOD CONFESSIONS AND BETTI~R CONFESSIONS--r ~ 'Gerald Kelly, S.J.' ; . 145 THE-QUEgTION OF VOTING Edwin F. Healy, SIJ . 158 CONCERNING BOOKLETS . . . . . THE CARE OF SICK RELIGIOUS Adam C. Ellis. S.3 . " 1"67 WE SALUTE THEE. MARY'. MOTHER OF GODT William B. Fah~rty, S.3. " ' .,'175 WHO IS THIS RODRIGUEZ? Augustin~e Klaas, S.J. " " 181~ ,TWO HYMNS TO ~MARY" -F~ran¢is N. Korth.-S.J . . 1.92 COMMUNICATIONS .(On Retreats and Vocations) . : 198 BOOK REVIEWS~ (Edited by Clement DeMuth S.3.)-- The Man"from Rocca Sicca: Subdeaconship~ Masyk.noll Mission Let~ .tars: Cardinal Mercier's Conferences: Venerable Vincent Pallotti: "Con- " , ,else Catholic' Dictionary: Lourdes Interpreted by the Salve-Re~ina; Teaching Confraternity Classes: Publlc,Speaking . ! . . ~ ¯ . 204 DECISIONS OF THE HOLY SEE OF INTEREST TO" RELIGIOU~ ~210~ BOOKS -RECEIVED . 2110 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 2-1. Redecorating Stations of the Cross . x . '.;. ~ . . . : 212 22. Visit Required for Gfiining Indulgence . 23. Use of Standard Time for Eucharistic Fast . 213 "L24. Voting in Chapter Elections . 214' ' 25. ,Co~frat~rnity of Pil~rim~ " " 2"15 26. Religious Attending Motion Pictures ~. . . : . ". 215 bUR CONTRIBUTORS " ' " . '. ' REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, May, 1944: Vol. III, No. 3. PubliShed bbmon~hly: January. March, May, July, September; and November at the,~College, Press. _606 Harrison~Street, Topeka, .Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St. MarTs, Kansas, with' ecclesiastical approbation. E~tered as second class matter January 15, q9~2, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under'the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.J., G. Augustine~,Ellard, S.J., ~erald Kellyl S~.3,.~ Copyright, 1944, by Adam C. Ellis. Permission is hereby granted for quotations .6f reasonable length, provided due ~:redit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 2 dollars a year. Printed in U. S.A Before writing to us, please consult notice on ins;de back cover. ood Con essions and Bet: :er Cont:essions Gerald Kelly, S.J. ~'~ELIGIOUS not infrequently exp.eo~ience a vague sense |'r~ of dissatisfaction with their conKssions. They must confess .weekly, generally at a certain time, even though they are not in the mood. At times they must make a rather hasty immediate preparation for confession. Their sins are usually "small sins"; in fact, it is often difficult to fodus on any really, definite sins to confess.A certdin 0 amount of routine seems unavoidable; yet routine confes-sions are strongly condemned by many spiritual writers. Finally, most religious have read or heard of the many advantages of frequent devotional confession, and the~. want to reap some of these fruits ~:or themselves. Yet, despite their holy desires, they sometimes fail to see any good effects of their confessions; they are even inclined to wonder if their confessions are not entirely fruitless. Very likely there is no absolute remedy for a sense of dissatisfaction in those who are striving for perfection. Some dissatisfaction is natural, even helpful. But this holy sense of dissatisfaction is different from discourag.ement, worry, or a vague feeling of uneasiness. As much as pos-sible, the dissatisfaction should be clearly defined, because only then can it be used constructively as a stepping stone to the attainment .of one's ideals. My purpose in the present article is to propose a few rules that may help religious to clafif.y any dissatisfaction they may feel with their confessions ~nd to give some defi-nite direction to their efforts for self-improvement. The" rules enunciate nothing new. No doubt most religious- 145 GERALD KELLY ,. Review for Religious know them well; yet I believe that some fail to apply them and that the results of not applying them .are a waste of effort, a lack Of perfect peace of mind, and sometimes dis-couragement. If all religious, from the novitiate onward, would observe these rules faithfully, they would be'much more satisfied, with their confessions and would reap many definite advantage~ from them. Four Rules In formulating these rules, and in commenting on them, I am limiting the subject to the devotional confession, as this is the type of confession that. religious most frequently make. Keeping this in mind--namely, that we are speaking only of the devotional confession--we can state the rules as follows: Rule I: Be sure to confess, at least ;n a 9eneral way, some real, subjective s;n that you have cerfainly comm;Hed. Rule 2: Have genu;ne, supernatural con÷r;÷;on, a÷ least ;mperfecf, for some s;n ;nclucled ;n your confess;on. Rule 3: Be willincj to accept and to perform anyjustly ;reposed penance. Rule 4: Try to sanctify yourself ÷hroucjh confess;on by cult;vaf;ng a more e~fecfive purpose of amendment. It may be well to call attention immediately to the decided, difference between the first three rifles andthe fourth rule. The first three express minimum essentials; the fourth .expresses an ideal. A penitent who observes the first three rules makes a good.confession; a penitent who keeps not only the first three, but also the fourth, makes a better confession. This is an important distinction. Our. ideal, of course, is to make the better confession; but there is a great deal of consolation and peace of mind in knowing that our confessions are good, even though they could be better. A good confession o~ devotion always produces some grace in the soul. 146 May, 1944 GOOD'CONFESSIONS AND BETTER CON~ESSIONS A GOOD. CONFESSION It would be a wise policy .fob every religious to have a two-fold aim in making hisconfessions: first, to make a 9ood confession by fulfilling all minimum essentials; and °secondly, to make his confession even better by the use of some practicable plan for applying the fourth rule. In keeping with this two-fold aim, I am dividing the remain-der of this article into two parts, which treat respectively of a 9ood confession and a betterconfession. Confession of Sins On the part of the penil~ent, three things are requirgd for the reception of the Sacrament of Penance; confession of sins, contrition, and satisfaction. The first of our rules enunciates the minimum essentials for thd first of these acts. It is certainly not difficult for anyone to fulfill this rule in a d~votional confession. It is sufficient to confess any or all of the venial sins comm.iyted since, the last con-fession, or any mortal sin or venial sin of one's past life: A penitent can even fulfill this rule by alv~ays confessing the same sin from his past life: for example, he once culpably missed Ma~s on Sunday, and since, then, in his devotional confessions, he never mentions anything specifically but that one sin. "There's nothing special since my. last confes-. sion, Father,-" he says week aftgr week,. "but in my past life I once missed Mass through my own fault." Finally, the penitent does not have to do even as much as that in a devo-tional ~onfession. It dan b~ sufficient if he simply includes his sins in a general way: for example: "There's nothing special since my last confession, but I want to include all the sins of my life." ,The repetition, week after week, of the same sin of the past life, without confessing any new matter, is not, of course, the ideal. Nor is it the ideal to make a merely gen- 147 GERALD KELLY Review for Religious~ eral accusation. Yet such accuations are, strictly speaking, sufficient in a devotional confession, provided the.penitent has the requisite contrition--as will be explained in the comments on-the second rule.1 I have referred to such accusations, not to encourage their use, but simply to indi-care how easy it.is to live up to the demands of the first rule. Despite the fact that it is comparatively easy to.observe the first rule, it is also possible for well-meaning penitents-- even religious--to violate it and to make unintentionally fruitless~ confessions. Perhaps a few sample confessions-- entirely fictitious, of course--will serve to illustrate what I- mean. A religious is preparing for confession. To him, as he examines his conscience, the past week looks.biack enough. On Sunday, when he,assisted at Mass he had certainly done everything that the Church requires for the complete ful-fillment of the obligation. Yet he had been no seraph at Mass; he could surely have assisted more.devoutly. On Monday, he had felt a strong inspiration of grace to pass up the butter at one meal: and on Tuesday he had felt an equally strong inspiration to spend a half-h0ur of his free time before the Blessed Sacrament. He had neglected both these divine:"invitations. Finally, despite the fact-that his rule ordered that all. should make their beds before the morning meditation, he had three times ~put off this dis-tasteful action until after breakfast. Of course, 1~is insti-tute states explicitly that merely disciplinary °rules, not involving the vows, do not bind under pain of sin; liuf 1The unnecessary use of the merely generic accusation, without mentioning anything in particular (e.g. "There's nothing special since my last confession,. Father; but I want to include in this confession all the sins of my life"), is particularly to be dis-couraged. By reason of a more or less general custom iri the Church, penitents who make devotional confessions are expected to mention some particular kind of sin, either from their past life or conimitted since their last confession. ~For the benefit of students of theology who might read this article, let me say that in speaking of the confession of devotion I use the words "fruitless" and "invalid" indiscriminately. The valid devotional confession must, I believe, be fruitful. 148 Ma~l, 1944 GOOD CONFESSIONS AND BETTER CONFESSIONS this, he tells himself, is no excuse for him. He enters the confessional and accuses himself as follows: "Since my last confession I was negligent in my prayers; I was ungrateful to God; and I was disobedient. That's all I can remember, Father." Another religious] in preparing for confession, note~ that he has often felt strong resentment against someone who had offended him; that he has 10ad many distractions during meditation; and that 6n one occasion he made a re-mark that hurt someone's feelings. He might note also that the feelings and distractions were not voluntary find that the offending remark was unintentional; yet these excuses do not occur to him. He confesses as follows: "Since my l'ast confession I was uncharitable in thought and speech and was distracted in my prayers. That'll be all, Father." A third religious has had a really trying time of it since his last confession. He has been literally besieged by a strong temptation to impurity of thought; in fact, the temptation has been so strong that he really does not know how he stands before God. He decides to go to confession "just~to be safe." In confession he says: '.'I had a very strong temptation against purity, and I want to accuse my-self in ~o far as I am guilty before God. Th~re's r~othing else bothering me, Father." I have chosen these three fictitious confessions because ."they illustrate defects which, thot~gh very likely uncom-mon, could make a.confession unintentionally fruitless. In the first confession, only imperfections,, not real sins, were confessed. In th~ second confession,, the things mentioned might have been sins, but there was no subjectioe guilt; the uncharitable feelings and distracting thoughts were invol-untary, the offending remark was unintentional. In the third confession there was no certain matter: the penitent may have been guilty of mortal or venial sin, but he may 1,49 GERALD KELLY Review for Religious have committed no sin.at all. All of these confessions are at least probably defective. Yet all could be saved from fruitlessness by the intelligent use of a concluding accusation such as "I include in this confession all the sins of my life"; "I want to include all the sins of my past life"; "For these, and fdr all the sins of my life, especially for . . ., I ask pardon from almighty. God and penance and absolution from you, Father." It is true that accusations like these can become purely mechani-cal and practically meaningless, yet they are infinitely bet-ter than such conclusions as: "That's all I remember"-- which adds nothihg to the confession.; "That'll be all,"-- which sounds like a person burring groceries ; -and so forth. It is hardly advisable to force religious to make subtle dis-tinctions between imperfections and venial sins; but it surely is advisable for all penitents who habi'tu'ally commit only small sins to have some concluding accusation which covers up a.possible insufficiency of matter in their con-fessions. " As I said, these confessions are purely fictitious. If they occurred in real life, a confessor would generally note the.deficiency and ask a question or two that would save the confessions from invalidity. Yet this might not always be ,the case; and penitents should be tiained to make goo.d confesiions independently of questions by the confessor. Contrition The second rule givei the minimum essential for con-trition in the devdtional confession. Here again, it is important to distinguish between the ideal and the essential. Of all the acts of the ,penitent, contrition is the most important; and everyone's ideal should be to have a pro-- found and effective contrition. Yet the confession can be good, even though contrition be far from the ideal. The 150 May, 1944 GOOD CONFESSIONS AND BETTER CONFESSIONS ideal, even in a devotional confession, is perfect contrition; yet imperfect suffices. The ideal is that the contrition extend to all.sins confessed: yet it~ is sufficient if the contri-tion applies to any sin included in the confession.8 The ideal is that contrition be deeply moving, like Magdalen's; yet it is sufficient if the contrition be as unemotional as paying the rent. Important though it is, it is not extremely difficult, to haye sufficient contrition for a fruitful devotional confes-sion. A penitent who has once committed a mortal sin, has repented of it, and now includes that sin in his confes-sion, either by mentioning it by name or by including it in a. general accusation, may take it for granted that he has sufficient contrition if he continues in his good resolve to avoid all mortal sin. A penitent who has committed a delil~erate venial sin in the past and who now includes that sin in his confession, either specifically, or at least in his gen- . eral accusation, ha~ sufficient contrition if he renews his good resolve to avoid that sin in future. Even a .penitent who includes only the "smaller" venial.sins in his confes-sionmthe semi-deliberate sins, as they are sometimes called--has sufficient contrition, if he is sincerely resolved to try to do better in some way, for example by eliminating one kind of sin or a certain class of sins, or even by reducing the: number of his small sins. We generally speak of contrition for sin as if it were one simple act. In reality it seems to involve a rather com-plicated process. It would not be worth our while, in a, aWhen I say that it-is sufficient if the contrition applies to only one of the gins confessed, I mean that this is enough for the absolution and the reception of grace through the sacrament. This does not mean that all the other venial sins are for-given. Sins for which there is no repentance at all ar~ not forgiven either in con-fession or outside of confession. For example, a penitent who has committed two venial sins, has true sorrow for one, but no iorrow for the other, would receive grace through the sacrament but not forgiveness for the one unrepented sin. His confession would be fruitful, but it could be more fruitful. 151 GERALD KELLY Reoietu for Religious pratti.c.al article of this nature, to go deeply into this proc-essl " But it may be useful to indicate here that, in making aft. act of contrition, a penitent should pay particular atten-tibn to two dements of the psychological process: namely, to motivation .and to purpose, of amendment. If these two elements are present, one may safely assume that an act of contrition is good; if either one is 1~icking, there is no real cogtntion. ¯ Motivation is not contrition, but it. is a necessary pre-lude td it. The sinner must realize the evil of his acts before he can truly repent Of them. And he must see this evil ~hrough the eyes of faith if his contrition, whether in or out of confession, is to be supernatural and effective. As we know, faith supplies us with a variety of motives f0r.repen~ance, some more perfect than others. It shows Us sin as contrary to the will of God and therefore some-thingagainst God's infinite holiness and goodness; it shows Us: the Son of God suffering on the Cross for our sins; it reveals sin as ingratitude to God~ o.ur.supreme.benefactor; it tells us of theo richness of heaven, of the terrible fate of hell, of the punishmen.ts of pu.rgatory, and of the temporal purlishments for sin in this life. All penitents shOuld keep in mind that the motive for their contrition should be applicable to the sins for which they wish to be sorry. In particular, it is necessary for those who Want to make an act of contrition for venial sins to remember that not all motives that apply to mortal sins are applic~ible to venial sins. Despite the fact that many books speak of venial sins in the most thunderofis terms, venial sin js not mbr~al sin. Mortal sin destroys the likeness of God in the soul; venial sin dods nbtt Mortal sin breaks the l~0nd.gf friendship between the soul and God; venial sin does not. Mortal sin is deserving of hell; venial sin.is not. In recalling these differences I am not trying to 'belittle Ma~l, 1944 GOOD CONFESSIO~IS AND BETTER CONFESSIONS venial sin. I simply insist on the necessity 9f seeing such sins in their true perspective in order to elicit a genuine act of contrition for them. It is only by stretching words far beyond their obvious connotation that one can make an act of contrition for venial sin "because of the fear of hell." This motive is applicable only in a roundabout way: for example, because venial sins may lead to mortal sin,. which is deserving of hell. On the other hand, there are many motives which do apply directly to v~nial sir/s, even to thd smallest of them. Venial sins are contrary to God's holy will; they defeat His wise plans for our sanctification and for our attainment of a certain degree of heavenly glory; they manifest a failure to appreciate His gifts; they are a shabby return fdr what our Lord did for us; they are deserving of some punishment in this life or in purgatory. It would be well for those who make devotional confes-sions to meditate occasionally, especially during the time of retreat, on motives such as these so that they can briefly and intelligently recall appropriate motives when preparing for confession. From the point of view of motivation, therefore, it is perhaps easier to make an act of contrition for mortal sin than it is for venial sin. At least it is easier to see the evil of mortal sin. As for the purpose of amendment, less is required for venial sins than for mortal sin. No matter what mortal sins a penitent has committed, he has not sufficient contrition unless his purpose of amendment extends to all mortal sins. He must will to avoid all mo]:tal sins in the future. Thus, the ordinary definition of a purpose of amendment as "a firm purpose to sin no more" applies quite literally to mor-tal sins. But this does not seem to be strictly necessary with regard tovenial sins. In facL.with regard to all the smaller sins. taken together, it is hardly possible. Rather, in the 153 GERALD KELLY Review for Religious case of sorrow for venial sins, the essential thing is the sincere will to do better. This distinction between mortal and venial sins, with respect to purpose of amendment, is based on the ft~nda-mental difference between these two kinds of sin. Mortal sin, of its nature, implies a rejection of God's friendship; hence one cannot will to gain or continue in God's friend-ship unless he intends to try to avoid all mortal sin, with-out exception. But one who commits only venial sins is already a friend of God; and this friendship admits of many degrees and of continuous growth. There is no con-tradiction in willing to a~coid some venial sins, but not others, or in willing to reduce the total number of one's venial sins, without proposing to avoid venial sin entirely. _ Satisfaction The third rule enunciates' the minimum essential for the third act of the penitent--satisfaction. I stated this rule ¯ merely for the sake of~omplete.ne~s. The rule itself hardly requires comment or explanation, except perhaps to remark --what is probably obvious--that there is a difference between willingness to accept a penance and the actual per- ' formance of the penance. The willingness is required for the validity of the confession; without this disposition a confession would not be good. But the actual perform-ance of the penance does not pertain to the essence of the Sacrament but only to the integrity of it. A BETTER CONFESSION The first three rules, as I said, express the minimum essentials of a fruitful confession. All who make a devo-tional confession, even religious, should make it their first aim t6 keep those rules. But religious, in particular, should not be content with that. Their aim should be to ,make 154 May, 1944 '" GOOD" CONFESSIONS AND BETTER CONFESSIONS their confessions better, especially througl'i the observance of the fourth rule. ¯ Books and articles on confession offer many suggestions for improving our confessions. I .should like to suggest ¯ here merely one workal~le plan for.using confession as an instrument 6f self-improvement; and I think I can accom-plish my purpose better by an example .than by a long dis-cussion. A religious is. making his annual retreat. In surveying the past year he notices that he has committed many small sins. He.wants to correct th~se, and in particular he wants ¯ to correct two habitual~.faults: uncharitable -speech and small sins against poverty. He, determines:what mearis.he willtake to'avoidthese fatilts, and he makes his resolutions accordingly. When his program:is .all prepared, he sud: denly re.alizes,- with a.twing~ of conscience, that he has made :such resolutions in previous refreats and that in a very sh6rt ¯ time they were either badly mutilated or completely ignored. He knows that during the retiea~ hehada sincere.purpose ¯ of amendment; what helacked was something .to sustain that purpose of amendment thiough the year .follow~i.ng the retreat. . Confronted with the vexing problem of an unsustained pubpose of amendment, thereligious decides to solve it.by effecting a union betweenhis retreat .resolutions and.his weekly confeshions Of the coming year; : :.: ¯ .'. The retreat ends; the daysgo by till it is time for.the weekly confession." . In examining his conscience, the rdi-gious looks first .to ~his retreat resolutions. He has kept them this week. He thanks God for this, renews his good resolutibn and, having finished his examination of con-science, he confesses as follows" "Since my last confession ¯ have ' I accuse myself of these and ot: all the other sins of my life, especially uncharitable speech and sins 155 GERALD K~LLY Reoiew for Religio~e against poverty." Another week goes by, with the same results. The "examination of conscience and the accusation of the two special kinds of sin are made in.the same way. In the third week, there is a weakening. Before confession the religious recalls the motives for avoiding these sins, asks pardon for his falls, and renews his good resolution. In confession he accuses himself as follows: "Since my last confession I was uncharitable in speech twice and committed one small sin against poverty. In my annual retreat I determined to cor-rect these faults, and I want to ask pardon for them now and to renew my purpose of amendment. I include in this confession all the sins of my life." Enough for the example. In giving it I do not mean ¯ that evdrything must be taken literally. Ten penitents might follow the same general plan, yet use ten slightly differing methods in applying it. The important thing is the general plannthe linking of the retreat resolutions .with the subsequent confessions. The plan that I have suggested may not-be suitable to all; but, in the absence of a better . one, it is worth trying. It offers definite help along the lines 'of motivation and of concentrated effort at amendment of faults. Retreat is a time of great grace; seldom Will our motivation be nobler .or.more clearly perceived. Any plan which wili continually recall that motivation must be profitable. And I think it is a truismthat in the spiritual life, whether on the nega-tive ok the positive side, there must be some concentration of effort. We cannot rid ourselves of all faults at once;. we cannot acquire all virtues at once. I iealize that this plan involves "monotony"; but I do, not know of any plan for spiritual progress that'does not involve some "monotony." If more variety is really .required, the objectives can b'e changed occasionally, for ¯ 156 " Ma~l, 1944 GOOD CONFESSIONS AND BETTER COlqFESSIOBIS instance, from monthly recollection to monthly recollec-tion: but I think it is important .that we should never get away entirely from our retreat program unless we are faced with entirely new difficulties that demand our undivided attention. Some may object that the plan is too "negative." To this I can answer only that confession.is sfipposed to deal with the "negative" side of our lives and that I have not proposed this plan as a complete enunciation of our spir-itual ideals. And I might add that, if used perseveringly, the plan is very positive in its results. It makes for a great increase of grace through the Sacrament, for increasing purity of conscience, and, incidentally, for helpful spiritual direction by the confessor. MARIAN LIBRARY Some time ago plans were formulated for the organization of a Marian Library at the University of Dayton. The purpose of the project is to collect all known books on the Blessed Virgin, thus honoring Mary, Patroness of the United States, and establishing a center of research on Marlology in this country. If~ you wish to help in the project or wish further information concerning it, write to: Father Law-fence Monheim, S.M., Director, Marian Library', University of Dayton, Dayton 9, Ohio. BROTHER RICHARD PAMPURI Brother Richard Pampuri was a physician and surgeon, a member of the Hos-pitaller Order of St. John of God, who died in 1930, at the early age of thirty-two. The Brothers of St. John of God now publish a small pamphlet containing a sketch of Brother Pampuri's life and some vocational information about their order. For further information apply to: Rev. Brother Master of Novices, Brothers of St. John. of God, 2445 South Western Avenue, Los. Angeles 7, California. PLEASE~Somo subscribers have not yet sent us their Postal Zone numbers. If yours is not on the wrapper of your copy, will you please send it? ,. 157 The Question ot: V0t:ing Edwin F. Healy, S.J. 44| N WHAT ways may a citizen help in maintaining .a genuine democracy?" asks a Civics' Catechism; and, in the answer, first place is given to "voting at elec-tions." The reason for thus stressing the .importance of voting is ~asily understood when one realizes that the bal-lot can fashion the whole superstructure of our govern-ment. The justice of our laws and the effective and impa.rtial administering of them depend upon those who elect to office our legislators and our administrators. Responsibility for the quality of our government thus lies, to a large extent, in the hands 0f our "voters. The citizens of a nation have the obligation of pro-. m0ting the general welfare of their country. This obliga- ¯ tion is one ot? legal justice. BU( what exactly is legal jus-tice? Legal justice is a virtue which inclines citizens to render to their community what is its due. Men are intended by nature, not to live as hermits, but 'to dwell ' togetl~er in groups or communities. Living in groups, they enjoy many benefits. They are thus aided in developing themselves spiritually and intellectually. ~ They thus par-ticipate in the joys of varied companionship. They feel the protective strength of large numbers bound together for a common purpose. They Share in the improvements made possible by the industry and ingenuity of their associates. They have access to~ commddities, forms of XFather Healy wrote this article at our request. It seemed to us that ~uch an article. might be necessary, or at least very useful, at this time. During election year teach-ers are frequently asked questions about the duty of voting, and religious themsel~,es face the personal problem of judging the utility of their voting and their duty to do so. We believe that in some places ecclesiastical superiors" give specific instructions concerning the fulfillment of this duty. In the absence of such particular guidance, religious should find Father Healy's general explanation helpful.reED. 158 THt~ QUESTION OF VOTING entertainment, facilities for travel, and so forth, whic.h would be undreamed of if all were recluses. All this is just as nature intended it. Human society, then," is a natural institution and it,has certain claims on the members of the community. As Pope Leo-XIII wrote in his encyclical Christian Democracg, ".No one lives in a community only for his personal advantage. He lives for the common good as well." A country, a State, or a city, has the right to ¯ deman'd of its citizens whatever is, necessary to promote the general welfare. A citizen, therefore, must fulfill the duties which correspond vcith these rights of the community. The virtue which inclines citizens to live up to these obligations is calle~d legal justice. Legal justice, for example, prompts one to defend.his country, even though this involves facing the devastating gun-fire of the enemy. Legal justice dis-poses citizens to observe the just laws of their State, to con-tribute a fair. share to the.financial support Of the govern-ment. It is legal justice, too, which imposes on citizens the duty of p.romoting the common good by means of intel-ligent voting. The common welfare is greatly furthered by the con-scientious use of the ballot. Member.s. of a community.,' then, should reflect upon the vital importance of exerc!sing this power that is given them by virtue of their citizenship. Intelligent, competent, honest leade~rs are needed by our country. This fact is brought home to us when we realize that our public officials manage, not only political affairs, but matters which may intimately affect the religious activi- " ties, the educational system, and the whole social and indus-. trial life of a city, or State, dr country. A communistic governor or president, for example, could accomplish much towards u~dermining our democracy. A militantly bigoted mayor could do much harm to the Church. Judges who 159 EDWIN F. HEAL¥ are guided by a false philosophy will injure the community in which they live~ One can, therefore, readily understand how much is involved in the selection of those who conduct the public business of our country. It is regrettable that, in spite of its importance, not all who are entitled to the ballot exercise this privilege. It has been estimated that as many as one half ofthose who were .eligible to vote have absented themselves from the polls in some election§ of the past. This was true ev.en in impor- .tant presidential elections. In elections of less general inter-est it has happened that only about one-fourth of the elig-~ ible voters appeared at the polls. Moreover, in primary elections, which select the candidates for o~ce, this apathy in public affairs is often far more pronounced. Such indif-ference ¯ to matters which concern the common welfare encourages corruption in our government. Many of those emp~owered to vote fail to do so because of laziness, or because of some slight inconvenience Which is involved in their particular case~ It requires fair weather to lure some citizens to the polls. Others refuse to vote because they are dissatisfied with the choice of candidates offered by our political parties. Others, again, feel the futility of trying to-defeat one who' is supported by a powerful, well-organized political machine. Often enough citizens excuse themselves from their duty of ~roting on the assumption ¯ that their single ballot will make little difference in the final o results. Although it is possible that one vote may change :the outcome of an election, one must admit that this is highly improbable. Let us suppose, however, that thou-sands of uprightcitizens were to excuie themselves from voting on the plea that "My vote won't matter".--cou,ld not the resulting loss to the desirable candidate easily bring about his defeat? This point should be remembered-by those who honestly desire to fulfill-their civic duty.¯ At 160 May, 1944 TNE QUESTION OF VOTING times, moreover; one is inclined to forget that his failure to east a vote will, in many cases, be equivalent to casting a Vote in favor of a candidate who will harm the public welfare. Althougl~ the common good can be advanced so much by the honest voting of the members of the community, there are a great many cases ~where the choice made at the polls is not dictated by conscience. Not a few of our citi-zens, it is said, sell their votes to the highest bidder. Besides this, there are no doubt many thousands who write their ballots according to the instructions which they have received from some ward boss who has befriended them in one manner or another. A.petty politician obtains votes for his candidate in various ways. He procures jobs on the city payroll for certain ones who will be able to influence the opinion of many acquaintances. He protects Others who are running a business which is forbidden by the law. He "arranges" matters with a friendly judge for thosewho have been arrested for violating minor city ordinances. At election time a dollar here and .a few dollars there buy va!u-able votes. Vo~es which are delivered to the ward boss because of a favor .received do not represent the genuine preference of the v6ters for the candidates selected. They represent merely the preference 6f a single individual, namely, that of the petty politician who has gained control over these votes. Frequently enough the ward boss is quite dishonest. Biibery, lying, injustice are common tools by which he "gets results."~ He has but one choice in any election' and that choice is the candidate that has 'been selected by his political party. Be that candidate good or bad, the ward boss will support him by every means available. We can re.adi!y understand, therefore, that the ward boss's choice may turn out to be one which will be quite injurious to the ¯ ¯ 161 EDWIN F. I-ii~gi.~ :" '/tevie~o ¢or. i~et.,'gio,,s~ go~d of the community. If we recall to. mind the thou-sand~ of those whose purchased votes are merely the rubber-stamped selection of some w~lrd boss, we shall realize what an unfair advantage an unscrupulous candidate may have over one who is honest. Thousands of voters, it appears, are influenced at the polls by one c0nsideration:."What immediate advantage will this'person's election, bring to me?" They seem never to give thought to the effect which the candidate's victory may have on the State or country as a whole. They focus. their attention on some petty benefit which they them-selves will receive. Ordinarily the major consideration for them i~ the question of jobs. Many of those who are employed by the ~idministration which is in power vote for that administration's candidate as insurance against the. iossof their.jobs. They realize that, if the candidate of another p~rty is elected, in all probability he will replace then~ with those who have proved their political allegiance .to him. Th~ere is; of course, no fault to be foun~l with men anal' wom~n-Who endeavor to protect themselves against the loss of their jobs, but it should be evident that .such Pr0.tectiOia .mustnot betheir primary consideration. It should not inteifere Wi~h the fulfilment of.~ their duty .to p.".r0mote thi~: ~0mmon good: Hence;" if.:a 'certain candidate is unfit .for o~ce, he sh0uld: not be. Voted for, no~ matter what patter loyalty might dictate. . " -~ . ¯ . :- . An0~her"~ype 6f citizeri~ ~hat concerns. .us- :in this queso: tion is the one who a~cepts his duty of voting very lightly. Hema~r be an Upright and an intelligent'pe.rson. He may .be irreproachably honest in all his de.alings.with his neigh-boi. He may be a generous contributor to charitable insti-tutioiii. But he fails to do his sha~e in the task of electing competent public officers. With men 0f this type, there is .no pretence ~t making a serious effort to !~arn the qUalifi- 162 Ma~t, ~19 4 4 THE QUESTION*OF.~ VOTING cations:of the candidates listed on the.ballot. They kno~" little of the good qualities or of the bad ones of those: who are running for office. They may .base their opinion of the candidate on such superficial points as that of a winning personality, a magic voice, social standing, the nationality ~ of his parents, and so forth. They form snap judgmentSOf the candidate's ability and do not b~ther, to investigate the soundness of their conclusions. They accept a party plat-form at the value given it by its defenders'and refuse ~to read the arguments of its opponents. " When one recalls, then, the large number of those who are guided in voting by unfair influences and by superficial considerations, the importance of the honest, educated, conscientious voter becomes apparent. " Consequently, it.:is not too much tO expect that especially th6se whoare ¯ blessed with sound 'Christian. training and with at:,least average intellectual gifts employ these benefits' at election time to promote the common good. They should ex~rcise 'all the influence in their power to protect the less fortunate, who are being.exploited by unsciupulous political .bosses. From what has beenexplained above,-it is' deaf,.then, that ci(i'zens~ are obliged :in conscience to, fulfill ~the"du'ty 6f voting. Is this 6bligation a serious one? .Yes, it is, ff0n~e.'-s vote will probably defeata candidate for.office who -would bring? graveharm :to the. comi-fi:unity. A very indompetent. person~ for example,. or-one who'is strongly anti-religio~s~ wouldbe such a candidate. Ordinarily,,however, in this country,' this condition is not verified, .and so the duty to vote is, not grave. Moreover, there is no obligation at :all - ¯ , to vote: (a). if I am certain that my vote would have no effect on the final results of the election; or (b) if ~¢6ting -. would prove seriously'inconvenient or gravely injurious to me. Hence, ,if I were quite sick, and going to the polls would increase my illness, I should be excused from the 163 EDWIN F. HEALY . " Review f.or Religiou~ duty of voting. Even though one's vote would clearly riot affect the course of an election, nevertheless, it is preferable that one go to the polls anyway, in order to give to others the g6od example of taking interest in civic affairs. This, of'course, applies, particularly to persons of authority, whose actions are a guide to many. Besides, my vote is not altogether useless, even if my candidate has no chance of winn';ng the offce, for his. prestige will be increased by each additional vote which he receives. With reference to the duty ofv0ting it should be noted that one' is obliged to vote bonestl~l, that is, he must be guided in his choice of candidate by his genuine desire tO furthe~ the common, welfare. He must select the candidate wh~ is bes~ fitted for the office. The one voted for must l~e qualified to carry .out the requirements of the position sought. It may be that a man is morally blameless, but if he 'is inefficient, inexperienced, dr poorly gifted intellec-tually; his election .would. not be to the best interests of the community. Moreover, one must vote intelligently. He must make sure that he does not waste his vote. A vote is wasted if the ballot is not marked in accordance with the directions given, because such a ballot will be discarded without being counted. An erasure, or blots, or blurs, or -some sign that may be interpreted as a distinguishing, re.ark, . can invalidate the ballot. Writing in ink, instead of pen-cil, marking an "X" outside the prescri.bed box or circle, voting for several candidates for an office when only one may be selected--these are some of the ways in which one can waste his ballot. Not infrequently it happens that the shortcomings of a candidate for some public office are reviewed in detail in newspapers and magazines. The charges made-against candidates by a news organ of an opposing political party are at times very damaging. What is to be said of the moral- 164 Ma~ , 1944 THE QUESTION OF VOTING ity of the practice of exposing the faults and errors of one who is running for a public office~ To call attention to the mistakes and misdeeds ofthe candidates can be a service to the community. The men and women who are seeking publicoffice are thus revealed in their true light, and so the voters are able to judge whether or not the election of such candidates would prove to .be injurious to the common welfare. It is, of course, forbidden to exaggerate a candi-date's deficiencies or to make slanderous statements about him.However, it is altogether licit to mention certain facts in his life: faults, past crimes, evidences of favoritism, dangerous tendencies, examples of inefficiency, ignorance, bigotry, dishonesty, and so forth, when these are of a pub-lic nature. Even hidden crimes or defects may be pub-lished, if these render the candidate unfit for such an office. The reason is dear. Candidates give up their right to keep secret what the common good requires to be known about them. Moreover, those who hold public positions can be said tacitly to consent to the open scrutiny .of their official acts. They are, after all, but the agents of their constitu-ents; hence those whom they represent have the right to demand an acc6unt of their official conduct. The realiza-tion that their actions will thus be analyzed in newspaper and magazine may perhaps exercise a restraining influence against violations of duty. Since, then, writers are allowed. publicly to review the faults and misdeeds of candidates for office, such articles of theirs may be' read without scruple. Not many years ago a certain socialist urged that all nuns be deprived of the right to vote. The argument adduced to justify this recommendation was, we believe, that such women have no interest in civic affairs. In reply to this suggestion it should be made clear that religious men and women, as a rule, have very much at heart the common welfare. Moreover, their interest is not merely an aca- 165 EDWIN F. HEALY demic one, for by their daily lives of prayer and sacrifice and good example they greatly benefit the community in which they live. Because they love their country and ever seek its best interests, they are eager to have only candidates of ability and integrity elected to office. They cast their votes in accord with the dictates of their conscience. Who would deny that their choice at the polls is as carefully considered and as intelligently weighed as that of the average citizen? CONCERNING BOOKLETS The Congregation of Holy Cross is publishing a revised edition ofDirections for Nooitiates of the Congregation of Holy Cross, written in 1895 by the saintly Father Gilbert Francais, Superior General of th~ Congregation from 1893 to 1926. The book contains a simple, fervent set of instructions designed to help novices in the various exercises of the novitiate. Though the book is really the Family Bool~ of the Congregation of Holy Cross, masters and mistresses of novices of other in-stitutes should find it useful. Paper-bound: 182 pages; $I.00. Published by The Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, Indiana. The Holy Cross Brothers publish a very attractive and informative booklet en-titled Holy.Cross Brothers. This booklet may well be held up as a model of clear, simple, verbal instruction on the life of a Brother and of the apt use of photographs to illustrati the text. The Brothers will send a copy to any priest or religious who is interested. ~Write to: Director of Vocations, Sacred Heart ,luniorate, Watertown, Wisconsin; or tb: Direcior of Vocations, St. 2oseph ,luniorate, Valatie, New York. Similar to the booklet on Holy. Cross Brothers is anew brochure, Jesuit Life, prepared by the' Jesuits of the Missouri Province. This province comprizes Colo-rado, Illinois (south and west of Springfield), Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, N. ebrask~, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Residents of this territory mas; secure copies bf Jesuit Life free by applying to: Reverend Father Provincial, 4511 West Pine Blvd., St. Louis 8, Missouri. An Army of Peace is the title of an unusual historical pamphlet--"The Story Of the Sisters of Loretto at the Foot of the Cross as told by Modern Youth." This pamphlet was originally planned and written by the American History Class, Loretto Academy, Kansas City_,. Missouri. "1941. Two years later it was revised by the students of Loretto Heights College, Loretto, Colorado. The illustrations (very "cute"--if you don't mind the word) are the combined work of students of Web-ster College, Webster Groves, Missouri. 48 pages. 10 cents each; 11 for $1.00; 50 for $4.25; 100 for $8.00. Order from: Loretto Heights College, Loretto, Colorado~ 166 The C~re 0t: ~ick Religious Adam C. Ellis, S.J. BECAUSE of the regularity of their lives, their simple but wholesome diet, and the peaci~ of mind resulting from serwng God, rehg,ous usua.lly enjoy remark-ably .good health. It ~s mewtable; however, that there be some sick rehg~ous. These should be looked upon.as bles-sings in a community, and they shoulld be given proper care, both physical and spiritual, according to the letter and the spirit of. ecclesiastical legislation. . Phgsicat Careof the Sick ¯ The Code of Canon Law contains nip specific legislation regarding the physical care of. the sick. This is provided for ¯ in ~he constitutions of individual lnst~tutes, ~which in ~turn are based upon the. provisions laid down ~n the Normae issued by the Sacred Congregation of Bi,~hops and Regulars, June 28, 1901. We may, therefore,' tal[e these latter as.the .basis for our remarks:. ¯ . ¯ Art. 183 requires that each religious, house,., as 4:ar.as. possible, shall have a special place for an in~, rmarg. Though it is impracticable in a small communit~ to reserve aplat~ in the :house for occasional sick members, it is customary-to have a well-eqmpped ~nfirmary ~n the motherhouse, ~n the novitiate, in the house of studies, as w~ell as in all larger communities. These places should b~e kept bright and cheery, ~vithout, however, introducin~ luxuries not in keeping with '.religious poverty. - Art. 184 states that one or more re'embers of the com-mun~ tg, should be set aside for the care ]of the sick. These persons should be endou~ed u~itb all tb le qualities necessar~l 167 /~DAM C. I~.LLI$ Review for.Religio~s f~r the proper fulfillment of their office, and should be -noteworthg fo~ their Fraternal charitg. It is their dutg, under, the direction of superiors, to provide For atl.the necessities of their sick charges, with regard to nourishment and other remedies. In modern times no religious institute should find. any difficulty in having one or more of its members trained as .professional nurses. Many of our Catholic hospitals have training schools for nurses, and religious are always wel-come to go there for training in a religious atmosphere. Every large infirmary in a religious house should have its own diet kitchen in which the special dishes required for the si~k may be carefully prepared either by the religious-nurse in charge or by an assistant. We may remark here in passing that it is not contrary to common life to give a special diet in the community refectory to those religious who need it, ~ven though they are well enough to carry on their work. In many com-munities it is customary to l~ave a special table in the refec-to. ry for those who are on diet, thus saving unnecessary steps for those who serve at table. Art. 185 tells that when necessar!l a doctor should be called, and his prescriptions should be FaithFullg carried out. All things considered, the community doctor should be chosen by reason of his understanding of the nature of the religious life in general and of the special work performed by the community in particular. Then he will know more readily the circumstances Of his patient, and will not be inclined to prescribe extraordinary remedies which are . usually available only to the wealthy. Superiors should be generous in providing for the needs of the sick members of their community. It seems to have been a special characteristic of many founders of religious institutes that they were most solicitous for the care of their 168 Mag~ 1944 THE CARE OF SICK RELIGIOUS sick members. Such a tradition should be carefully pre-served. For major operations, as well as for the cure of.certain diseases, it will be advisable to send a religious patient to a hospital. Ordinarily religious should be taken to a Cath-olic hospital where they will .receive the loving care of other religious and will not.be deprived of the religious atmos-phere. Both superiors and religious nurses should be familiar with the laws of the Church regarding exemptions from fast and abstinence, Sunday Mass, and other like matters, so as to be able .to quiet any scruples on the part of their charges. Spiritual Care of the Sick Art 186 of the Norm~e prescribes that the spiritual needs of sick religious should be attended to no less. ear-nestlg than their material needs. The principal :spiritual needs include confession, Communion, and Extreme Unc-tion. On all these matters the Code of Canon Law con-tains some explicit provisions, on Which it may be helpful to make a few comments. Confession: Sick religious should have the opportunity of going to confession whenever the community 'does, that is, weekly to the Ordinary confessor, on occasion to ,the extraordinary confessor, though they should be asked first whether they wish to avail themselves of these opportuni-ties, ,and should not be forced to do so. Special provision is made in canon 523 for religious women who are ill: "'All religious women when seriouslff ill, even if not in danger of death, mag, as ofte/~,as they u3ish during their serious illness; invite an~t priest whatever to hear their confession, provided that he be approved to 169 ADAM (2. ELLIS- Review [or Religious bear the confessions of women, no? can the superioress either directly or indirectly pre~ent them from doing so." It may be well to note that the canon does not require that the religious be in danger of death, but it suffices that she~be seriously ill in order to use the privilege.The judg-ment as to the seriousness of the illness should be left to the doctor or to a competent nurse. The very fact that it is deemed necessa.ry to callo the doctoi would generalIy be a sufficient indication that the illness is serious, since it is not customary for religious to summon a physician for slight ailments. Again, a patient who is running a fe.ver, or who. is obliged to be in bed for a week or more because of illness, would certainly come under the canon. In case of doubt ¯ about the seriousness of the illness, the sick religious should be given the benefit of the doubt. Sick religious on their part should be reasonable. It would hardly be in keeping with the spirit of the law to call for a confessor wholives a long distance away from the community, thus involving expense for the community and .grave inconvenience for the priest in question. It should also be kept in min~l that the 'canon impose~ no special obligation on the priest who i~ called to answer thd summons,.and the sick religious should be patient and resigned if the priest is delayed incoming or does not come at all. 'Holy Communion: Let us. first recall .that the reception of Holy Communion is a privilege and that, while the Church urges her. children,' especially religious, to use this privilege frequently, even daily, still there is no obligation to do so, except during the Paschal. season. Hence a reli-gious, whether sick or. well, who abstains from the recep-tion of Holy Communion, should not be looked upon as singular, This is a matter which is strictly personal, and one which should never be commented upon in commun-ly0 May, 1944 THE .CARE OI~ SICK :RI~LIGIOU$ ity life. As to sick religious, theremay be many reasons w.hy they do not wish to receive Holy Communion on any specified day. Hence the practical rule to be followed is to ask them each evening whether they wish to receive On the following morning or not. They should be given the opportunity of communicating daily Should they wish to do so, but they should ne.ver be made to feel that they are obliged to do so, much iess forced to do so. Dispensation from the Eucharistic Fast. Canon~858 § 2 makes a partial exception to the law of the Eucharistic fast for certain sick persons. "'The sick who. have been .in bed for a month without cet~tain hope of a speedq recooerg maq, with the prudent advice of their confessor, receive Holq Communion once or twicea week, even though theg ma~] have taken medicine or something b~t toag of~.tiquid food beforehand." . The sick who have.beenin bed for a mot~tb. This does not exc!ude:the patient's being able. to. sit up during cer-tain hours of the day. Besides, there are some sick persons who; because Of th~ nature of their infirmity, cannotlie in bed,- b.ut are confined to a chair Or couch. They certainly may use .this privilege. Likewise those sick persons who are able to get up for an hour in. the morning and go :t6 the chapel for.Mass and Holy Communion; may. use the privi-lege. The .canon does n6t require .that they receive.'H61y Communion in bed in order to.use the privilege. " . " It should be noted, however, that this privilege-may not be used until a person has.actually.been ill. for amonth. The opinion of a doctor that the sick person will be in.b~d for more than a month would not justify that person in using the privilege immediately, but he:must .wait until he has bee~a ill for about thirty days. This number of days.is ,to be counted morally, not ma, thematically, It may be difficult to determine exactly the day on wh'ich a person 171 ADAM C. ELI~I8 Review/or Religi~ous became ill. He may have been feeling poorly~ for several days before be went to see the doctor and was ordered to bed. Such days should be counted to make up the month. Without~ certain hope of a spee'dg recoverg. These words exclude mere conjecture or probability. Unless it is certain, therefore, that the person who has been confined to bedby illness f;3r a month will.be well in a very few days, he may use the privilege as long as. his illness lasts. With tb~ prudent advice of theconfessor. ,This does not mean that the confessor grants the privilege of receiving Holy Communion not fasting--the law does that--but it implies .that his judgme.nt may be, required that the sick person is properly disposed. Hence a sick" religious who is mora.lly certain that be is in the state of grace and properly disposed need not ask the permission of his confessor to use the privilege granted by the.law itself. Once ortu;icea vaeek. These words are to be inter-preted strictly. The sick person may use the privilege not more than twice a week. He may use it on any two days of the week, even though on the other days he observes the Eucharistic fast in its entirety and receives Holy Commun-ion. ¯ Medicine or something bg wag of liquid food. The medicine taken may be liquid, or in the form of solids such "as pills, powders, and the like. Any food taken, however, must be in the form of a liquid, that is, it must be of such a nature that it can be drunk. Under this head would come such items as egg-hOg, thin gruel, milk, fruit juices and the like. Religious nurses will do well. to remember that the privilege granted in canon 858 is for all sick persons; not merely for religious. It may be well to mention here that religious who are chrohic invalids and who find it difficult to observe the 172 ' Mag, 1944 -. THE CARE OI~ SICK RELIGIOUS ]~ucharistic fast-either because of physical weakness, ' or because of the'need of taking medicince during the night, can obtain an indult from the Sacred Congregation of Religious to communicate even daily after having taken medicine or liquid food. It will suffice to write a simple letter stating briefly the nature of the disease, and asking for the privilege~ It will help to expedite matters to have the local Ordinary give his approval to the petition. , As for the Last Sacraments, canon 514 provides as fol-lows: "'In every/clerical institute the superiors.have the right and the dutg to administer, either per. sonall[t or bg delegate, the Holg Viaticum and Extreme Unction, in case of sick-ness, to the professed members, to the novices, and to other persons duelling day and night in the religious house reason or: service, education, hospitatitg, or health." In the case of lay institutes, that is, congregations of Brothers and Sisters, this right belongs to the pastor of the parish in which the religious house is located, or to the chaplain designated by the Ordinary to replace the parish priest (canon 514, § 3.). In convents of nuns, the ordi- -nary confessor or his substitute has this same right and duty (canon 514, § 2). Viaticum. Holy Communion is given to the sick by way of ,Viaticum whenever tl~ey are :in danger of death. It may be received daily as long as tha~ danger lasts, and the sick person is exempted from the Eucharistic fast during this time (canons 858 and 864). The opinion of a doctor, or of a competent nurse may be followed regardihg the danger of death. The sick person need not be actually dying, but it suffices that the illness be such that death may be the result of it. Extreme Unction. This sacrament may and should.be administered to the sick who are in danger of death. ~It may be administered only once during the same illness, ADAM C. ELLIS unless ,the sick person shall have recovered, and again fallen into danger of death (canon 940). Again the. prudent judgment of the physician or a capable nurse should.be fol-lowed both ~as regards the danger of death and subsequent recovery. The administration of Extreme Unction should not be put~off until the patient is actually dying, but should be " administered while the patient is in full possession of his senses. Sick persons, including religious, should be in-structed regarding the secondary effects of this sacrament, one of which is the recovery of health, if such be the will of God. Conclusion It will not be out of place here to urge religious supe-riors and those who have the care of sick religious entrusted to them to do all in their power to care for the material and spiritual needs of the sick. Let them, in thei~ charity, .use measures to prevent, as far .as possible, the beginnings Of sickness, by not overburdening their subjects, by supply-ing them with a sufficiency of good wholesome food, and by providing proper relaxation and recreation within the .bounds of religious propriety. In this connection religious superiors must learn to say "NO" to the .many demands put upon them f(~r.help or work which they cannot undertake without putting too great a strain upon a commun~ity which may be already. .overburdened. They will serve the best interests of the Church and of their own institutes by refusing such work until .they have a sufficient number of subjects properly trained both intellectually-and religiously to undertake such additional burdens. 174 ~ ¯ We, Salu!:e Thee, Mary, h ot:her God! William 13. Faherty, S.J. NO ONE has ever had the persevering energy to list all the titles of Mary. Each country, yes, almost every Catholic locality, has its own beautiful manner of invoking our lovely Lady. In the Litany of Lotetto alone we. appeal to her in over forty ways. Some titles, such as the Blessed Virgin, have universal esteem. Others possess only local popularity] Of all the loving appellativ~s by which her devoted fol-lowers call on Joachim's daughter, the .greatest is "Mother of God." So astounding is it to address a human being in this manner, that we might hesitate to. employ it, were it not revealed doctrine, its use sanctioned by. the Church. In the May 1943 number of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, Father Aloysius Kemper, S.J., analyzed the doctrine of the Divine Maternity. The interesting controversy .that led to its sanction is the theme of this article. The antagonists in this case Were two leading bishops, Nestorius of Constantinople, and St. Cyril of Alexandria. Dispute and discussion of a controverted point of doctrine not infrequently lead to its settlement by conciliar defini-tion. So it was in this matter. .The Council of Ephesus (431) settled the question. But that is running ahead of the story . The Fifth-Century World . Accustomed as we are, in this modern era, to think.of the e.astern shore of the Mediterranean as non-Catholic . territory, we find it difficult to visualize the fi'fth-centur7 setting. Constantinople was the center 6f the Empire, not 175. W. B. FAHERTY Revie~u [o~ Religious Rome, so recently sacked by Alaric and his Visigoths. Not Italy, or Spain, or France, but the Province of Asia on the XVest coast, of modern Turkey was the most Christian sec-tion of the Mediterranean world. St. Patrick was just then preparing .for his missionary trip to Ireland. The great St: Augustine of Hippo was in his last years~ So much for the scene, now what about the Drarnatis Personae? Into the easiern capital as its patriarch came Nestorius, a priest of Antiokh, who soon became known for his zeal-ous hounding of heretics. Worried over'the danger of polytheism, still so strong in the pagan parts of the Empire, as well as over an error concerning Christ's humanity taught by~ a priest, Apollinaris, Nestorius leaned backward in regard to the doctrine of the Divine Maternity. Against him stood St. Cyril, the Patriarch of Alexan-dria, rugged as Gibraltar, a man renowned for the strong virtues of John the Baptist rather than for the gentle quali-ties of dohn the Evangelist. Far away, at Rome, Pope Celestine odcupied the Chair of St. Peter . Theological WarFare The first barrage of battle came when the priest, Anasta, sius, a protegi of the Phtriarch of Constantinople, preached against the use of the extremely popular title for Mary, Tbeotokos (God-bearing). Call her merely Christ-otokos (Christ-bearing), he ordered. Consternation spread arnbng the-Constantinopolitans, for this title, Tbeotokos, had been indaily use for over a hundred years. Almost everyone in the audience had been familiar with it .from ehrliest childhood. The people were.gripped by a dismay and bewilder-ment almostinconceivable to us who live in a milieu that 176 May, 1944 WE SALUTE THEE, MARY, MOTHER OF GOD tends to take doctrinal differences as easily as the changes of the ieasons. Nestorius answered ?omplaints with excom-munication and imprisonment, then mounted the pulpit and bulwarked Anastasius' position. The Patriarch. of the Eastern Capital had flung down the gauntlet. Proclus, the bishop-elect of Cyzicus, a lesser name in this theological battle, accepted. the challenge. Despite the presence of Nestorius in the audience, he rose to the defence of the popular opinion. The Patriarch coun-ter- attacked with a whole series of sermons. Not along the shores ,of the Golden Horn alone, but throughout the East, news of these teachings spread. Across the blue Mediterranean they carried, like the sails of the Phoenicians, to the ancient land of the Pharaohs. St. Cyril rose to the defence of the tiaditional opinion with several letters. First to his own people, then to the monks of Egypt, he gave the true explanation of the Incarnation. He -mapped out a detailed counter-offensive against Nestorius. Two letters to that Patriarch complained of the teaching that had thrown the faithful throughout the East into war-time excitement. Availing nothing by this, Cyril referred the matter to Rome. He sent to the Holy See his correspondence w.ith Nestorius, a collection of the con-tagion- filled sermons, and a work of his own just com-pleted. ¯ A local council, convoked at Rome by Pope Celestine in the .summer of 430, condemned Nestorius. Early in August the Pope commissioned St. Cyril to carry out the condemnation, giving the Patriarch of Constantinople only ten days to retract 'his false teaching. Celestine wrote similar letters to Nestorius himself, to the clergy and people of Constantinople, and to John, the Patriarch of Antioch. The last paragraph of the Pope's authoritative letter to Nestorius is a good.summary of the whole epistle. "You 177 W. B. FAHERTY Review t~or Religious know clearly.out opinion. Unless you preach concerning Chris.t, our God, those things which the Roman ChUrch, the Alexandrian Church,-and. the whole, Catholic Church teach~s, and the most holy. Church of the Cityof Con-stantinople held up to the present, and you separate your-self from that foul novelty as the Scripture enjoins, and condemn it in a written profession within ten days from the day on which you are aware of this. sentence, you will be expelled .from the communion of thewhole Catholic Church" (Mansi, IV, 103~4.35). ~ ~ This was a lightning attack on Nestorius. He was condemned and his rival .was chosen to. give the coupde-grace. What would he do? The cornered Constantino-politan parried the thrust with an. evasive reply and.-a promise to abide by the decision of the general council he had asked the Pope to convene. The Anatbematisms Cyril. was busy, tOO, preparing.the death blow. He drew?. UP twelve statements, called "The:.Anathematisms,'." to which,Nestorius was asked to.subscribe. Though these , ~ere couched in sucha way as tO make evasion impossible, they contained, certain difficulties of terminology. What Cyril understood to mean:-one thing, Nestorius interpreted-in a way that bordered on the false teaching of Apollinaris. So, .,instead of submitting, he issued, twelve, counter-anathematisms, John of Antiocia now stood With Nes-torius. Other bishops of the region of Antioch a.ttacked the twelve statements of Cyril, especially the third, which seemed to teach only one nature in Christ. When everyone seemed, drugged-with anathematisms; the Emperor Theodosius II con, yoked a general council to be, held at Epl~esus in Asia Minor, on Pentecost Day,~' June 7, 431. Ma~t, 1944 WE SALUTE THEE, ~ICIARY, MOTHER OF. GOD Ephesus is today a miserable village on the-west coast of Turkey, not far from the Italian naval base at Rhodes. But in Roman times, it bore the pr6ud sobriquet, "The Torch of Asia." One of the chief ports of. the Levant, it was the center of the cult of Diana in the days of St. Paul. Recall the riot recorded in the Acts, when the streets rang with the cry, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians." From a pagan stronghold it became by the third cen-tury a populous Christian city. Here St. ,John lived in later life. Here sprang up a great devotion to the Mother of God, supplanting the worship of the pagan goddess. To the main church of the city, dedicated to Mary, the bishops were making their way in the spring Of 431. The Council Convenes Since the Antiochean prelates had not arrived by June 7th, the opening of the Council was delayed. On ~he 22nd Cyril opened it, though the Papal Legate and the Patriarch of Antioch were still on the way. This seemed a high-handed act on the Alexandrian's part, for he had no com-mission to preside over the Council. Perhaps he extended hi~ powers as commissary in the indictment of Nestorius. The Acts of the Council record that two bishops, both bearing the name of Alexander, one from Apamea, the other from Hierapolis, had come from John of Antioch to tell Cyril to wait no longer. Yet these same two, along with sixty-six others, personally voted against the opening of the Council in the absence of the Syrian bishops. Nes-torius refused to recognize the jurisdiction of this incom2 plete number, and consequently would, not appear or put in any defence. Yet the first, meeting was held. A crowd of Ephesians g~ithered outside the Church of Mary as the sessions opened. Would Nestorius be con-demned? Would the popular app+llation of the Virgin be 179 W. 'B. FAHERTY '~: ' approv~O.~"~ C~rril, ,whom the Acts Of the Council describe as ".holding the.place of the most holy Celestine, Bishop of the Roman Church" (Mansi, IV, 1123);. presided when the ~ase of Nestorius was discussed. Various pertinent docu-ments were read, and a vote taken.'One hundred and ninety-eigh.t bishops subscribed to the condemnation. The setting sun, had reddened the waters of the Ionian Sea and the quiet .of evening wrapped the city be'fore the first long sessi6n was over. When the bishops filed from the Church, the word of the condemnation spread lik~ elm leaves in autumn among the expectant multitude. Where once rang the ~ry, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians," the shouts of "Theotokos, Theotokos" reechoed in honor of Mary, the Mother of God. With a thousand flaming torches, the Ephesians led the Fathers of the Council in tri-umph back to their temporary residences. A few.days later the papal legates arrived with a defini-tive letter from Celestine. The assembled prelates Were merely to promulgate the decision already made against Nestorius and make it universal. In the third session (2uly lst)the Roman legates confirmed the measures taken. With this the doctrinal work of the Council was a.lmost at an end. ¯ Several trying weeks, were to elapse before the adjournment.-During this interval Cyril preached the sermon in which he spoke the words of our title. Nestorius was deposed from his see in October of the same year, and a moderate prelate, Maximinian, succeeded him. Thus e~ded the Theotokos cgntroversy. For all time it was settled that the universal brotherhood of the-Chris-tian people could salute Mary as the Mother of God. 18o Who Is This Rodriguez? Augustine Klaas, S.J. AUGUSTA Theodosia Drane, the future Mother Francis Raphael, gifted writer and Provincial of the Dominican co.mmunity of Stone, England, tells in her memoirs of her first meeting with Rodriguez. She was about twenty-five at the time and still an Anglichfi. "One day in Mr. Maskell's library I stumbled on three volumes in dark green cloth, the title of which took mY fancy 'Religio.us Perfection.' I carried them ~0ff. It was Rodriguez. A girl of sixteen reading .the Waverley novels for the first time would be a feeble comparison. Better was .this than any conceivable novel, for here at last I found reality. It was precisely what I wanted, what I had always felt the want of: and I Used to cry out, 'Oh if I had only had this bbok at fiftee.n, what a different being I should have been!'~.Imp°ssi'ble not. to be a glutton over these books. I read them by davy; I'read them by night; I read them aloud to my sister, who .was vexed with my enthusi-asm and did not relish the Fathers of the Desert; and When she objected, I walked down to Petit Tot and read them there. I went right through them in a week, and then I be-gan again, and went right through them a second time. If I ever hear depreciating remarks about Rodriguez, as if he were an old fogy, I feel as if I could slay anyone who does not lo;~e him as I do! I think he saved my faith." (A Mere-. oir; edited by Bertrand Wilberforce, O.P., p. 51.) Most religious, perhaps, have not felt the initial impact of Rodriguez' spiritual classic quite so acu(ely as this Angli~ can young lady. At least they have not expressed .them-selves nearly so enthusiastically. Yet, it must be admitted 181 AUGUSTINE KLAA$ that the work of Father Rod/iguez is one of the all-time spiritual best-sellers, and certainly, after "the Spiritual Exercises,;. the most influential spiritual book written by a Jesuit. It has formed and molded tens of thousands df ~eligious, priests, and layfolk for three hundred years and in importance has been placed by discerning critics immedi-ately after the Imitation of Christ, alongside such notable works'as Scupoli's Spiritual Combat and'Francis de Sales'. Introduction to a Devout Life. Pius XI in 1924 addressed to the major superiors of all religious orders and congrega-tions of men an Apostolic Lette.r, in which referring to the training of novices, he says: "Most useful to read through and study will be the writings of Saint Bernard, and of the Seraphic Doctor Bonaventure, as also of Alphonsus Rodriguez . Their power and efficacy, far from failing and being weakened by lapse of time, seem today rather to have increased." (AAS, XVI, p. 142) Who, then, is this Rodriguez? : The Man Alphonsus Rodriguez, unfortunately, has always suf- ¯ feted from the petty annoyance of mistaken identity. And no wonder, since some thirty-five Jesuit writers bear the name of Rodkiguez, four of these prefixing Alphonsus. 'Most frequently he is confused with the Jesuit lay-brother, Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez, who was his contemporary and also a spiritual writer. It is worthwhile, therefore, to set things right by sketching the main events of his life, about-which there is almost nothing in English, and also to add a few interesting details about his great spiritual book. For an account of his early year~', two documents, signed by himself, are of special value. The first is a statement 1~82 Ma~ , ! 944 " " WHO I8 THIS RODRIGUEZ? written by him in the third :person when he was received.:.as. a Jesuit novice in Salamanca:- "He was examined by Father Rector, July 141 1557. Native of--Valladolid, 19 years old, son of Doctor.Rodri-guez and. I)ofia Maria Garcia; a student, has done two years of theology; has profited, greatly from his studies. Signed: Gonzfilez Alonso .Rodrlguez. J In the margin occur these words: "He has.received the tonsure." ¯-Four and a half years later, in January 1562, Alphon-sus, then a Scholastic, filled out-a questionnaire for the Jesuit Visitor from Rome,. Father Jerome Nadal, in which¯ he gives us acandid.portrait of himself (Monttrn.entaS.d.; Nadal, Tome. II, pp. 532-533) : " "My name¯is Alonso Rodriguez. -- Three months from now I shall have completed my 24th year.x , -- I am from old Castile.and V-alladolid. m My parents-are living: -- They have sufficient to support them. --. I have two sisters who are nuns, and four brothers: one.is a monk, another is a priest. , the other two have. almost nothing~ except what their parents may leave them .,. neither is married. " -- I have no debts or obligations, .excepta half-real. which I found and. though knowing to whom it belonged, I did not return it ;.now I have nothing, and even. if I had anything, it seems I could not return it.-- In the world I was devout and given to prayer and almsgiving; and so I prayed a lot, but I did not often frequent the.sacra:. ments, nor did I know anything about mental prayer.-,- I made a vow to be a religious or a monk " On account: of my vow and desire to serve God, .I entered the Company without any consolations., four and a half years ago . . ~ It is a year and a half since I took the vows. ~ Once I XHence, Alphonsus Rodriguez was born in 1538, and, not in 1526, as is stated in Father Rickaby's English edition and elsewhere.' 183 AUGUSTINE KLA~$ Review/or Religious made:the exercises of the First Week for eight or~ nine days. -- I have served in the lowest'offices of the house, made a pilgrimage, served" in hospitals., taughtcatechism. - "I desire to persevere until death in the Company and, with the grace of the Lord, to Obey in all things, no matter how difficult and hard they may be, and to keep the rules very perfectly,, as something in which my perfection con-sists. I desire very much to undergo all the mortifications and experiments of the Company, as though I had just recently entered it, and I desire my superiors ~to take great care to mortify me, because I need it very much, since I am very remiss in mortifying myself . On the other hand, Our Lord gives me promptness to obey in all things . . . Particulaily do I wish to be instructed in prayer .(about whichI am very ignorant) in order to know how to make further progress. -- Wherever the greater service of God our Lord may be, thither am I inclined to go; even though it be to the confines of the earth, I shall go there with good will; and I desire to be able and capable of undeitaking difficult and great things with the div.lne favor. -- Sala-manca, January 15, 1562. Alonso." ¯ Questioned about his studies, he adds: "I have studied thirteen years: five of grammar and three of arts in Valla-dolid, and am now studying theology for the fifth year in Salamanca. I have been thought to be very healthy through-out my studies. I have an inclination for studies, and especially, for theology. But I have little talent for them, especially for metaphysics. Memory is poor and intelli-gence likewise. I know very little about anything, but it seems I know more theology than anything else. I am a bachelor of arts." Obviously Alphonsus.was a young man of high Spir-itual objectives coupled with a humble estimate of him-self. This depreciating inventory of his talents and virtues, .184 May, 1944 WHO Is THIS RODRIGUEZ? however, was not accepted by his. superiors, for after his studies and ordination to the priesthood he was immedi-ately made master of novices in Salamanca at the precocious age of twenty-five. And the records of the time note also that he was "very skillful in solving cases of conscience:" Three years, later, in 1~566, Father Rodriguez left the novitiate at Salamanca for the joint college and seminary at M0nterrey in Galicia, where he taught moral theology in the seminary. Certain little moral treatises written during this period were highly esteemed by Father Thomas San-cbez, the distinguished Jesuit moralist, who made use of " them in his own writings. R.odriguez wasalso rector of this institution of some eight hundred students for six years (1570-1576), and, despite his many duties as rector and professor, f?equently preached "with some ability," heard confessions, and taught catechism in the town's ¯ environs. In 15 79 we find him. in his native cit.y of Valla-do! id, engaged in the Works of the ministry and solving cases of conscience. He remained there for six years. In 1585, by special Order of Acquaviva, the Father General, Rodriguez was sent from his own province Of Castile to that of Andalusia"to be rector and mas[er of novices at the famous college and novi'tiate of .Montilla. He was sent as a troubleshooter to solve some peculiar diffi-culties ~involving the training of young religious. His own provincial superior, Father Villalba, was loath to let.him- .go! "In very few men are so many qualities found together: It is truly a considerable loss for our province. He is very learned, an excellent religious, and made for training young religious in spiritual life and devotion. Of that we have no less need in Castile than in Andalusia." (Astrain, Historia IV, p. 745) On the otherhand, the success of his work at Montilla can be gaged from a letter written two years later to the 185 AUGUSTINE KLAAS Review /:or Religious General by the Andalusian Provincial, Father Gil Gonz.~- lez Dfivila: "One finds there the true formation of the Company and the real way. of training novices . Those who come from" it live according to the true religious spirit, the spirit, of obedience and abnegation, and are. distin-guished for these virtues? To my mind, the best present that Your Paternity has made tb our province . has been to call to it Father Alphonsus Rodriguez; and I hope that if the Fathers of the. third probation pass through his hands, the fruit will be still more precious . '~ (Astrain, ibid, IV, p. 745) Another n~ark of confidence was shown ¯ him when he was chosen to represent the Andalusian prov-ince at the Fifth General' Congregation of his order, held in Rome in 1593. This Congreg.ation put an end to those internal difficulties of the Spanish Jesuit provinces-for .the solution of which Father Rodriguez had labored with such consummate prudence and ability. Five years later Rodriguez left Montilla, having been appointed a general inspector of the Jesuit-establlshments in the province of Andalusia. That done, he.was in Cor-dova the following year, hearing .confessions and giving retreats, and there he remained for eight years, until 1607, when at the age of sixty-nine he once more took up his old duties as master of novices, this time in Seville, and added to them the duties of spiritual father of the community. This was to be his last appointment. During the final two years of his life he was plagued with ill-health and the infirmities of age, so.much so that he could no longer offer up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Then, on-February 21, 1616, "after having received all the sacraments with full consciousness and with such serenity that he seemed rather to sleep than to die," he quietly passed away at the goodly age of sev2 enty-seven years and ten months. Father Alphonsus Rodriguez was an exceptionally 186 .7 May, ,1944 WHO IS THIS RODRIGUEZ? well-balanced character--not brilliant, but prudent, reli-. able, and stead~: Father Nieremberg, who knewhim well, describes him as "affable, thoroughly saturated with the charity of Christ, without a trace of bitterness or sadness; a faint, gentle smile on his countenance." He was much given to' prayerful retirement and perhaps for that reason was som. ewhat timid in meeting externs, He was notwhat we call today "a contact man." "I do nol~ know how to dea! or observe the amenities with e~:terr~s, as my duties demand," he wrote humbly to the General. And Father. GonzMez, the Andalusian P~ovincial, mentions in an offi, cial letter the ."timidity of the superior'.' and ',his emba'~- rassed mannerisms," but adds that this difficulty can be remedie~d by having recourse to ~ther Fathers--and he might have added that the suppl3; of such is usually plen-tifui. : Nevertheless, despite this annoying h~indicap, he was a capable superior, demanding an exact account of what was being done and giving orders so precise that "he seemed. thoroughly attentive to each detail withoutany distrac-tion." His decisions once understood and their carrying out assured, he gave himself heart and soul to the spiritual direction of his novices and subjects. Here he was the mast ter perfectly at ease. In an unobtrusive way, he was a man of constant prayer, mortification, and meticulous observance of rule. When h~ was told that his austerities might shorten his life, he made the disconcerting, but very discerning reply, "An unmortified religious man. is already dead." His own religious brethren do not seem to have been too much aware of his more than ordinary sanctity, for when the 3esuits of Madrid were officially proposing to a certain prelate of the Rota the beatification of Rodriguez' fellow-townsman and contemporary, Father Luis de la Puente, the great author-° 187 AUGUSTINE KLAAS "." Review [or Religious ity on prayer, the prelate exclaimed: "Good! but why not make the same recommendation for the saintly Father Alphonsus Rodriguez ?" His Book At what period of l~is life did Father Rodriguez write his Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues? The bulk of it was written and delivered as exhortations during the thirteen years he was master of novices at Montilla. 'At the bidding of superiors, he arranged the material and improved it during his stay at Cordova, and finally published the first edition in 1609 and the second in 1611 at Seville. ~During the last year of his life, though suffering greatly -from his infirmities, he revised the whole work for a third edition. :. When he was informed on th~ Feast of the Puri-fication, 1616, that the printing of it was completed, he folded his hands and said. cheerfully, "Now thou dost dis- .miss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word in peace" .(Luke 2:29). Two weeks later he was dead. The book has gone through more than fifty editions in Spanish, and has been translated in.to at least twenty lan-guages, including Arabian, Tamil, and Chinese. Among the French translations we find one made by the Jansenists in 1673, in which the.y secretly inserted their erroneous doc-trines on grace. ¯ The first English version was ¯published between 1697 and~ 1699, the translator being none other than Sir John Warner, Baronet, of Parham in S{affolk, otherwise known as Father John Clare, S.J. He is an interesting pe.rsonage. With his young wife he was converted to the true faith and both decided to become religious. She became Sister Clare of the Poor Clares of Gravelines; he.became a Jesuit. They made their solemn profession on the same day, August 15, 1667. Subsequently he became procurator, and later 188 Ma~l, 1944 WHO IS THIS RODR~GUEZ? provincial of the English Pro;cince, but spent most of his life as master of novices and spiritual father at the English novitiate at Warren, Belgium. It was there towards ~he end of his life that he made his translation through the medium of the French version of Abb~ Regnier des Marais,. and saw it through the nearby press of St. Omers. Father Joseph. Rickaby, S.J., the most recent English translator, made some use of it, for he notes in.his preface: "it has cost the present translator a world of toil and trouble. In my veneration for the quaint old seventeenth century version, still read amongst~ us, I endeavored to base my work upon that, instead of doing what I was ultimately forced to do, translating straight from the" Spanish." Practice of Perfection .and Christian Virtues is prima-. rily and .almost exclusively an ascetical, not a mystical work. To criticize it unfavorably, as some have done in recent years; for not discussing mystical prayer at length is unfair. Such was not the purpose of the book. Its author's principal aim was the training of young religious; accordingly, being a man of prudence and common sense, and a go6d pedagogue, too, Rodriguez adapted his teaching on higher prayer to the limited capacity of his disciples, who were mostly beginners in the spiritual life. He is not "anti-mystical.''~ The work deals not so much with the theory of asceti-dism as with its practice. The author.says that he.put the. word Practice in the title because "things are treated in it ih such a .way as may render their practice, very easy." Nor is the subject-matter discussed comprehensively in all its details: "I have laid before" you, as clearly and briefly as I was able, such things as are more essential and more corn- 2To cite but one eminent authority: Father Herbert Thnrston writes in The Month (Vol. 154~ p. 425) : "There can be no question that Father Rodriguez recognized and extolled the higher prayer." Cf. Rodriguez, Practice Vol. 1, pp. 254, 255, 262. 189 AUGUSTINEKLAAS " Revle~v for Religious mort to our profession." However, this practical, limited scope does not on .that account place his spirituality on a low plane. Rodriguez seeks to lead religious.to the highest sanctity by faithfulness to duty in little things, byperfect performance of ordinary adtions, by unremitting purity of intention, by habitual and ever closer conformity to the will of.God. He endeavors to form religious of sustained prayer, m6rtification, apostolic zeal, °and all the virtues; and he points to the loftiest exemplars, Christ and His saints, for "to attain to perfection, one must fix his eyes on what is highest and most excellent." And who will say that he has not succeeded? ¯ The principal sources of Rodriguez' doctrine are Holy Scripture, the Fathers of the Church, and the great spir-i. tual masters of the.past, with a particular pr, edi!ection for those stal~carts, .the religious of the desert. Among the ¯ most frequently .cited authorities are Saint Augustine (271 .times), Saint Bernard (2.5.8 times), Saint Thomas Aquinas (86 times),., and Cassian. ~is. .p.Huries . Ccoasmtilpiaons aitnido nab iosv de ethaer .oa.nrddi n.amrYet~h .0i.dni lcia.t!e:r ahriys~la mnegruita,ge ~hough somewhat .prolix. He has imagination and a ,ki, ndly humor--'.'pepper and¯salt," as one.writer says. For examp!e~ he says that a religious who jumps h, astily a.nd light!y from virtue to x~!rtue is "likd a cat w.~lking on hot coals." I.n addition, all will agree that Rodriguez has an indefinable unctionall his own. " 0fcourse, A!phonsus Rodriguez is. by. no means the perfect author. In his knowledge of things scientifiC, his-torical, and hagiographical, he is a man of his times. He considers certain apocryphal works authentic; too often he copies his sources at second hand; he draws ~considerably on the uiapublished exhortations of his Provincial, Father Gon-zfilez D~ivila, without giving him due credit. A few points 190 Ma~t, 1944 WHO IS THIS RODRIGUEZ? of his doctrine can be legitimately contested and evem impugned. Some of his examples and anecdotes are con-sidered today to be lacking in good taste: many'of, these have been excised in recent editions. But, after all, these. are only minor flaws in an author whose work is a master-piece of spiritual writing, that has successful"ly stood the test of time, and that even.with readers who are more than" ordinarily critical and exacting. It is today the most widely used spiritual textbook .of religious .the world over. A definitive critical edition would indeed be Very Welcome: Many witnesses could be Cited to proire the value and popularity of Rodriguez. Forexample, Father Faber calls the book "an inestimable treasure of the Church." Found-ers and foundresses of religious congregations have been especially lavish in their praises. Our own Mother.Chbrini drew up a list of five books as constituting a sufficient, spir-itual library for her congregation. They are: the Imitation ¯ of Christ, the St~irituat Exercises; the Religious in Solitude Of Father Pinamonti, S.&, the :Bride o[ Christ Of Saifit Alphonsus Liguori, and thePractice of-AlphonsusR0dl!- guez. Saint Alphonsus. Liguori and Saint John. E~dgs. often recommended~ the. Practice. Let Saint Vincent de Paul; the founder of the Lazarists, be our last witness.~, In an instruction to his.religious icongregation dated May: 17, t 658, accompanying the book of Rules he was sendiiig,: he exclaims: "'O Lord, who hast bestowed such blessings~ .on .many books, for example, on the"one we are now re, adihg - at table, so that well-prepared souls migh~ reap .therefrom considerable fruit, in order to free themselves from their faults and go forward in perfection, grant, O Lord,. th) blessing on this our little book . " Father Pierre Coste, the saint's official biographer, says that the book being read at table was none other than the Practice of Per-fection and Christian Virtues by Alphonsus Rodriguez. 191 Two Hymns t:o Mary Francis N. Korth, S.J. SEVERAL mon.ths a'go a reader of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS'wrote to the editors for information concerning a hymn beginning with the words, "Te Matrem." As the editors had no definite information to offer, they addressed the question to the other readers (cf. Vol. III, p. 70). In answer to this request a large number of letters w~re received. These letters carried a great deal of interesting information concerning two hymns to Mary, Te Matrem Dei Lau-damus and Te Mariam Laudamus. The present writer has collated the' information and digested it into the following paragraphs. The hymn Te Matrem Dei Laudamus, often referred to as the "Canticum. S. Bonaventurae," adapts the canticle Te Deurn to the praise of Mary. It is usually printed at the end of five psalms in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, each of which begins with a different letter of the word "Maria." St. Alphonsus Liguori, busy as he was, frequently said these five psalms. For several centuries after the death " of St. Bonaventure (1274), the great 'Franciscan theologian' 'and Doctor of the Church, the Te Matrern was attributed to him. It is found in the early editions of his Opera Omnia, either as a separate canticle or as part of the" Psalterium Majus B.V.M: It is not found, however, in the latest and most critical edition (the Qu~racchi edi-tion) Of St. Bonaventure's worksY Fr.Gallus Haselbeck, O.F.M.,in his Seraphiscbe Marienrninne remarks in substance that, while St. Bona-venture wrote poetical works, there is no poem on the Blessed Virgi.n that can really be proved to be ~is work. (See also J.H. Sbaralea, 8upplementum et Castigatio ad Scriptores Triurn Ordinurn S. Fran-cisci,' Romae, Editore Nardecchia, 1908, Pars. I, p. 1640 It seems that the Te Matrein Dei Laudamus was composed for the Great Office of the Blessed Virgin. This Office never gained uni-versal "recognition and has not become a part of the' Liturgy of the Church. However, the Te Matrem itself has'been used extensively at various times for p.ublic and private devotion. Venerable Vincent Pallotti, founder of ~the Pious Society of' Missions, propagated it through his books and.used it for May devotions. Several of our corkespondents told us about anothe'r hymn, Te Mariara Laudamus, similar to the Te Matrem. The Te Matrera 192 1944 Two HYMNS TO MARY has 44, 45, and 46 verses respectively in the three available Latin versions (all have the same thoughts with a few divergent verse-arrangements) and 43 verses in the two Engli.~h translations at hand.1 This hymn (the Te Matrem) is an almost literal transposi-tion of the thought of the Te Deum, with the exception of 14 extra vers~s (all beginning with "Tu" in the appended Latin text) inserted in the middle of the canticle. Aside from this inseition, the Te M~trern is a closer parallel'of the Te Deum than is the Te Mariam. The latter, however, with its 30 verses in the Latin (29 in the Eng-lish), comes closer to the length of the T'e Deum. Might this prac-tical identity in length have been the reason for the origin of the Te Mariam? At any rate we are told by one reader .that the Te Mariam is an abridgement of a much longer hymn (the Te Matrem) attributed to 8S. Augustine, ~Ambrose, and-Bonaventure in $chiitz, Su'mma Mariana, IL 310. Father William d. Chaminade,~Founder of the Society of Mary, included the Te Mariam in the Manual of the Servant of Mar~/, a book of prayers and hymns which he corn-- piled for the godalities of the Immaculate Conception at Bordeaux, France. This M~nual was printed in 1820 or earlier. In a copy of the Manual it is stated that Father Chaminade took the Te Mariam from one of the then current. French Antiphonaries. Anotl~er cor-respondent writes that "the Te Mariam is sung in places of pilgrim-age of the B.V.M., at least in some basilicas or places of pilgrimage in France." The Te Mariam is found in the Formular!l of the Society~ of Mary. Separate leaflets are printed at Maryhurst Normal, Kirk-wood, Missouri. At Marynook Novitiate (Society of Mary), Galesville, Wisconsin, "they also have the melody: it is really the . melody of the Te Deum laudamus adapted to the words and phrases of this Marian hymn." A variation of the Te Mariam can be found in The Reign of Jesus through Mary---On True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin according to Blessed Grignion de Montfort, Founder of the Com-pany of Mary. This book, composed in, French by Father G. Denis, S.M.M., was translated into English by'.Father A. Somers, S.M.M., and published in 1926 by Burns, Oates, and Washbourne, ,London, England. To conclude briefl~r: the Te Matrem dates back to the thirteenth 1A version of the Te Matrem under the heading, "CaCti urn Sancti Bonaventurae.". was copied thirty years ago from a Latin bo6k in honor of our Lady; the copyist tells us it has 48 verses. 193. FRANCIS N. KORTH, S,J. Review for Religiot:s century at least;, its authorship is unknown. It is not part of. the liturgy of the Church, but has been used for public and private devo-tions by various groups. A similar but shorter hymn, Te Mariara, has been in use since at least the early part of the nineteenth century. Te Matrem Te Matrem Dei laudamus: Te Mariam Virginem profitemur. Te" aeterni Patris Filiam: omnis terra veneratur. Tibi omnes Angeli et Archangeli: Tibi Throni et Principatus fideliter deserviunt. Tibi omnes Potestates et omnes Virtutes coeli coelorum: et universae Dominationes obediunt. Tibi omnes Chori: Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim exultantes assistu'nt. Tibi .omnis angelica creatura inces-sabili voce proclamant: Sancta, Sancta, Sancta Maria Dei Genitrix, Mater et Virgo. Pleni sunt coeli et terra: maiestatis gloriae fructus ventris tui. Te gloriosus Apo~tolorum chorus: ¯ sui Creatoris Matrem collaudat. T~ beatorum Martyrum coetus cahdi-datus: Christi Genitricem glori-ficat. Te gloriosus Confessorum exercitus: Trinitatis .Templum appellat. Te sanctarum Virginum" chorea amabi- 'lis:. k, irginitatis et humilitatis ex-emplum praedicat. Te tota coelestis curia: Reginam honorat. Te per universum orbem Ecclesia invocando concelebrat: Matrem divinae Maiestatis. Venerandam te veram Regis c6elestis puerperam: sanctam quoque dul-cem et piam. Tu Angelorum Domina: Tu Paradisi Ianua. Tu Scala: regni coelestis et gloriae. Tu Thalamus: Tu Arca pietatis et gratiae. We praise thee, 0 Mother of God: and hail thee, Mary, ever Virgin. The whole world venerates thee: as daughter of the eternal Father. Angels and Archangels, Thrones and Principalities: faithfully serve thee. All Powers and Virtues of heaven: all Dominations obey thee. Before thee all the angelic choirs: the Cherubim and Seraphim wait on thee with exultation. With unceasing voice all angelic crea-tures proclaim thee: Holy, Holy, Holy Mary, Mother of God. Mother and Virgin. The heavens and the earth are full: of the glorious majesty of thy Son. With One voice the" ~lorious choir of Apostles: praises thee as the Mdther . of their Creator. T.he white-robed host of' martyrs: glori-fies thee. as the Mother of Christ. The glorious army of Confessors: names thee the Temple of the Trinity. The lovely company of holy Virgins: prolaims thee as the model of virginity and humility. The entire heavenly court honors thee as Queen. Throughout the entire world ~he Church pays honor by invoking thee: as the Mother of Divine Majesty, Venerating thee as the true "mdther "of ¯ the Heavenl~ King: holy, sweet~ ~ind loving. Thou art the Queen of Angdls: and the Portal of Paradise. Thou art the Guide: to the Heavenly Kingdom and its glory. Thou art the bridal chamber and the covenant of mildness and grace. 194 May, 1944 Two HYMNS TO MARY Tu Vena misericordiae: Tu Sponsa, et Mater¯Regis aeterni. Tu Templum et Sacrarium Spiritus Sancti: totius Beatissimae Trini-tatis nobile. Triclinium. Tu Mediatrix Dei et hominum:. Ama-trix mortalium, coelestis IIlumina- ¯ trix. Thou art the Channel of Mercy:" Spouse and Mother bf the eternal King. Thou art the temple and shrine of the Holy.-Ghost: the tabernacle of the Most Blessed Trinity. Mediatrix between God and man: lovei of mortals, our heavenly enlightener. Tu Agonizatrix pugnantium. Advocata." Thou art the Inspirer of warriors: pauperum: Miseratrix et Refugium peccatorum. Tu Erogatrix munerum: Superatrix ac Terror daemonum, et superborum. Tu.mundi Domina, C6eli Regina: post Deum sola spes~:nostra. Tu Salus Te invocantium, Portus naufragantium: miserorum Sola-tium, pereuntium Refugium. Tu Mater¯omnium Beatorum, Gaudium plenum post Deum: omnium super-norum civium Solatium. Tu Promotrix iustorum, Congrega-trix errantium: Promissio Patriar-charum. Tu Veritas Prophetarum, Praeconium, et Doctrix Apostolorum: Magistra Evangelistarum. Tu Fortitudo Martyrum, Exemplar Confessorum: Honor et Festivitas Virginum. Tu ad liberandum exnlem hominem: Filium Dei suscepisti in uterum. Per Te, expugnato hoste antiquo, sunt apert.a fidelibus gegna c"oelorum. Tu cure Filio tuo iedes: ad d~xter~m Patris. Tu [psum pro nobis roga, Virgo Maria: Quem nos ad iudicandum credimus esse venturum. Te ergo poscinius nobis tuis famulis subveni: qui pretioso sa~nguine Filii tui redempti sumus. Aeterna fac, pia Virgo: cure sanctis tuis nos gloria numerari. S~Ivum fac populum tuum, Domina: ut sirens participes haereditatis Filii tui. E~ rege nos: et custodi nos in aeternum. Per singulos dies: O Pin, Te salutamus. ¯ the advocate of the poor, and the compassionate refuge of sinners~ Almoner of Heaven: conqueror and ter-ror of demons, and of the haughty.-. Queen of Earth and Queen of Heaven: after God, our only hope. Welfare of those who invoke thee: haven of the shipwrecked: solace of the ~retched. refuge of the dying. Thou Mother of all the Blessed, after God their fullest joy: comfort of. all the citizens of Heaven. Thou art the Patroness of the ins_t, thbu gathere.st the wandering: and art the promise of the Patriarch~. Thou art the truth of the Prbphets:" the glory and the teacher of the Apostles and Evangelists. ~ Thou art the strength of Mai~yrs, the exemplar of Confessors: the. honor and joy of Virgins. To frde man from exile, tho6 did~f receive the Son of God in thy~.omb. By thee was co.nquered our enemy of old: and Hea~,en was opened for the faithful. With thy Son thou sitt~st: at the: right hand of~the Father.' Pray for us to Him, O Virgin Mary: ~-: who, we believe, will cgme to. judge us. Wherefore we beg thee to aid us, " " thy. sdrvants who have been re-deemed by thy Son's Preciofis Blood. Help us, gentle Virgin, to be numbered with thy saints in eternal glory. Save thy people, Blessed Lady: that they may partake of the heritage of 'thy Son. Rule us: ~nd p.rotect us for all eternity. Daily we greet ~hee: O 1o~,ing Mother. 195 FRANCIS N. KORTH; S.J. . Et laudare Te cupimus: usq.uein aeternum mente et voce. ." Dignare, dulcis Maria: nun et ¯ semper nos sine delicto conservare. Miserere, pia, nobis: miserere nobis. ¯ Fiat misericordia tua magna nobiseum: quia in Te, Virgo Maria, confidi- IllUS. In Te dulcis Maria, speramus: nos defendas in aeternum. Te decet laus, Te decet imperiu~a: Tibi virtus, et gloria in saecula saeeulorum, Amen. Te Mariam Te dilectam Dei Patris Filiam: omnes angeli pr~edicant. Te 'admirabilem Verbi Matrem: credit inferus et contremes¢it. Te Spiritus Sancti Sponsam: piacu-lares flammae invocant. Te omnes Ecclesiae hill: totis praecordiis exultant: MatRm : immensae miserkordiae, Carissimam sanctae Annae: et unicam Filiam, Dilectissimam a Deo: Josephi Sponsam. Tu vena ~eniae: Maria. Tu slngularis: Mater es gratlae. Tu ad redimendum genus humanum: tuum commodasti uterum. Tu, Gabrieli dato consensu: gaudium peperisti universo mundo. Tu, Regina, a dextris Dei stas: Circumdata varietate, 196 Reoiew £or Religious And with mind and tongue we desire: to praise thee forever. Deign, sweet Mary: to preserve us now and forever free from sin. Have mercy on us, O loving Mother: have mercy on us. Let thy mercy "for us be bountiful: for we trust in thee, O Virgin Mary. ¯ In thee. sweet Mary, do we hope: do thou protect us forever. Praise becometh thee: empire befits thee: to thee be power .and glory forever and ever. Amen. We praise, thee, O Mary: ~a£d proclaim thee immaculate. All sinners have recourse to thee: for thou art their refuge: All Christians: and pious associa-tions with their individual mem-bers, devoutly" acclaim thy Concep-tion. Immaculate, Immaculate, Immaculate: O Virgin Mother of God. There is none who would hide himself from the genial warmth of thy char-ity: for thou art the morning rising. All the angels proclaim thee: as the loved Daughter of the Father. Even trembling hell acknowledges thee: as the admirable Mother of the Word. The Purgatorial flames invoke thee: as the Spouse of the Holy Spirit. All children of the Church: magnify thee in the exuberai~ce of their hearts: As Mother of infinite mercy, As the dearest and only daughter: of Holy Ann, As the Spouse of St. Joseph: and most beloved of God. Thou art, O Mary, the channel of mercy. Thou art the all-excelling Mother of grace. For the redemption of the human race: thou didst accede to the designs of God. And by consenting to Ga-briefs word: thou didst beget joy for the whole world. Clothed in varied beauty, thou stand. est as Queen at God's right hand, Te Mariam laudamus: te Immaculatam confitemur. Te reorum patronam: omnes peceatores deprecantur: Tibi omnes christiani: ,et asceticae congregationes: tibi singuli so-dales in Conceptione tua devote proclami~nt : Immaculata0 Immaeulata, Immaculata: O Virgo Theotocos. Nullus est qui se abscondat a calore tuo: aurora consurgens. May, 1944 Mediatrix ut sis: Dei et hominum. Te ergo quaesumus, nobis subveni: q~ii tuam nominatim illibatam Conceptionem solemniter cele-. bramus. Aeterna fac: angelorumbe~,tltate donari. Protege tuos alumnos: et tuere fasciculum haereditatis tune. Et love illos: et fecunda in oper-ibus. virtutum. Tuis solemnibus congregamur: ad benedicendum tibi." Et extollimus Nomen Marine: super omne post Jesu Nomen amabile. Dignare, per purissimam Conceptionem tuam: nos a peccato praeservare. Ostende pro famulis tuis Filio tuo: pectus et ubera tun, Ut ostendat Patri sUO Unigenitus: latus et vulnera. Nulla erit repulsa: ubi talia erunt carttatts mstgnta. Te decet laus, te decet hymnus: tibi jubilus, ih Conceptione tua Immaculata00 Maria. ab universa creatura. Amen. TWO HYMNS TO MARY In order to be the mediatrix of man-kind. We beseech thee, therefore, come to our help: who with special and solemn cult honor the immaculate purity'of thy Conception. Grant that one day: we may be made partakers of angelic bliss. Protect thy children: and preserve thy little Society,. which is thy heritage. And cherish them: and" make them al~ound in the fruits of virtue. On thy festal days we gather round thee: to sing thy praises; And we extol the name of Mary: above every other name, next to the loving name of JeSus." By thy most pure Conception:. deign to preserve us from sin. In behalf of thy children: show thy loving and maternal heart to thy Son, so that in His turn, thy only begotten Son may exhibit: His side and wounds to His Father. There will b~ no refusal: when such pledges of love .are manifest. Hymns of praise and jubilation are due to thee from every creature: owing to thy Immaculate Concep- - tion, O Mary. Amen. NOTE ON THE SOURCES OF THE TE MATREM: The hymn has been found in an old Community Book of the Redemptorists which bears the date 1860, Other sources (Latin or English) that were indicated in the letters sent to us are: The early editions of St. Bonaventure's Opera Omnia. E.g.: 1584 Venetian edition. Tom. II, pp. 316 ft. Paris edition, Tom. XIV, p. 222b. It is also the 1504 Venetian edition and the 1596 Vatican edition. C'f. above, for the recent Quaracchi edition. Mese Di Mag~io Consacrato A Maria 8antissiraa Regina Degli Apostoli Ad Uso Degli Ecclesiastici, Vincenzo Pallotti. " Regain et Testamentum 8.P.N. Francisci. : ollegit Ft. Hilarius ab Antwe'rpia; Tornaci Nerviorum, 1876. lntroductio ad Vitara 8ecapbicara, auctore P. Ft. Gaudentio, O.F.M. Herder, Freiburg, 1'882. Summa Mariana, J. H. Schlitz, Paderborn0 Junfermannschen Buchhandlung; 1908: II, pp. 310-312. Via Franciscana ad Caelestera Hierusalem, auctore P. Pa~lo a Cr. Laschan. Pustet, 1912. Liber Manualis Minoritae, editus iussu A.R.P. Donati' a Welle,. O~F.M.Cap: Typis Soc. S. dohannis Evang., Desclee, 1931, (Continued on next page) 197 [EDITORS' NOTE: We intended to" publish only letters on retreats in the present number. But after th~ Ma~:ch number went to prdss we received tw9 communica-tions on vocation that we thought should be printed. Hence the present number - contains letters on both subjects. We had to condense some of these communica-tions,, and.we still have some for later publication. More letters on retreats will 'be welcome. Kindly make them as brief as your subject-matter allows. Address then~ to: The Editors of.Review for Religio.us, St. Mary'.s College, St. Marys, Kansas.] On Re÷rears Reverend Fathers: May I submit the following thoughts that came to mind as I read your request for letters on retreats: A. Making a retreat: Experience has .convinced me that. one must put aside the ordinary duties of acti~re life. A change of scene is imperative, espe- .cially. fOi, superiors .and administrators. 2." A "closed" retreat is the only setting.suitable for the in'yard silenc~ .and r&oilection imperative for success. ¯ .3. It is not good policy to cover much readingmatter. What is read should be .th.eologicaHy sound, suited to the. individual, and pro*ocakive of. reflection. ., . 4. A wholesome pr.actice in preparation for retreat is tO xey!ew, pgst r~tre~ts and one'~-!i.fe following them, with an aim of making the present exercises really influential in shaping one's course from then 'onwards: " '.: " Bi. Giving r~kre;i~s: ". . .: . 1. A reverent approach.is the ~nly proper one:.a retreat is the work of God; a work that may mean the salvation Of a soul or "t]~ )nakifi'g c~f a saint. " ": " (Note"continued from preceding page) The Mffror of the Bless6d Virgin Mary and The Psalter of our. Lady, by St. Bonaventure. Trans. by Sister Mary Emmanuel, O.S.B. B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis, 1932. Pp. 294-297. The Catholic Apostolate, published by the Pallotine Fathers, Milwaukee, Wis-consin, Vol. XI, p. 113. (Eng. trans, by the Rev. Jos. Baier.) Deuotion in Honor o~ our Blessed Lady; The Fioe Psalms: pamphlet issued by Tile .International Catholic Truth Society, 405-407 Bergen SL, Brooklyn, N. Y. (It is published by permission of the Redemptorist Fathers.) 198 . :.: . COMMUNIGATION$. ,. 2.The retreat master would .d0. well to avo!d.ipeaking,0f. himself. ¯ , 3. Conferences should be kepton a i~igh plane: deeply and supernaturally spiritual. They should be delivered with simplicity and sinceritg. . - .:. .:. ¯ ,. 4. Retreat m~isters would d0.well to avoid.the .use.of."We." '.'We know," "We realize," "We must," "Yet, we often," and.so forth. Retreatants like to accept the conferences .as coming from God, and the retreat master's identifying himself with the retreatants tends to frustrate their efforts. 5.-Novelties or novel themes should not be used to make an impress.ion, or to convince that the retreat master is "different," or the retreat "different." Sometimes this is done to the" neglec~"of important fundamentals, for'example~hell, obedience,' silence:' " 6. Truths that are old and obvious must be reconsidered in every retreat; and time-worn advice must be repeate.d. ~ . 7.Fresh. presentation is necessary-to draw and maintain interest and attention. .- ~: .:,.~ ¯ " .' APriest : " ~'~! R~)~rend' Father~ i . : '" ' ":""" " .MY .be.st retie~s begin" after"~h~y ~iie"~ohipl~ted. ' Fout'raeiia6rab]~: retreats of mY r~ligi6u~ life: ~i~e' 6nes whi~h,s~and ou for ~me.tl-iing in~'' :rather than ":taking~o~ei~hing .outi" Th~ 'ba~ed on 6ur H61y Rule. " Thh.iekieat 'ifiasker hgd"~en't" for~a coibY,) th~N~iice M~s~ress t61d us, and"made thd Spiritual Effeici~d~ ai3"pl~i dfi:edtiy to our daily; ll; ~s.' Thi'Hbl~;' Rfile became a living:, under.h~s direction. ~ . ' . . ' ' '"" ";~'::':' Anbther father showed ia his conference on the Sacrament of- Penance how very often nuns forget to confess envy:and jealou.sy,and:, to:make their purpose of.amendm.e.nt cen~gr.about love.of neighbor. It: makes one's faults against charity, show in .true.ligh~t. whe'n:.s,h~. confesses the basic, cause, .e:g. envy.S(ill another father he!d~:f0r.th such high ideals of sanctity that "_Christ the Ideal of: th :M0nl~ Marmion is included in. my privat.e spiritual read~ng at. least. ¯once every year since. ¯ . ':. Last summer we l~ad a retreat based on the most.beautiful medi-tations I have ever heard.- The director acually showed us hove.to 199 CoMMuNICATIONS Review [or Religious meditate. I p~ay for him every"day as h bendfactor because h.e has so helped ~y meditation problem. " : i'didn't like a retreat in which we' meditated on the Passion on Easter Sunday because the Exercises put it at ,that time. I didn't like a retreat in Which every meditation began with the sanie formula. "I ha~e never liked '"hell-fire" retreats. I could nevdr be scared intobeing good. I could be converted through 16ve of G~d. I do not like to be "'read at" during retreat. If the director uses notes" I. like to have him look at his audience, now and then. Finally,. thirty-five to forty-five minutes are long enough for any conference. If a retreat master hasn't converted me in a thirty minute. talk, he never will by talking over an hour. A Sister Reverend .Fathers: ,When I make a retreat, I don't like the retreat master to in(ro-duce "novel" things to the~ extent of getting away from-afiy of the old and fundamental truths. And if the retreat master uses the Exercises of St. Ignatius, I like him to bring in the: additions, annota-tions, and so forth, because I think that these help us to understand the¯Exercises and to make a bitter retreat, Also~ I think the explana-tions of the points ought to be short enough to allow the retreatants to meditate for a while by themselves. And I like to have a few little .stories and examples in the explanations of the points, because these lessen weariness and dryness.' Fifi~lly~since you've asked for sug-gdstions-- I believe that most of us who make. retreats are greatly aided if w,e feel that the retreat, master practises what he preaches: A Brother ~everend .Fathers: ' I am living in an infirmary where permanent invalids and some elderly Sistersare housed. For several yea.rs we have had retreat mas. ters who seemed more concerned about having us comfor'table and sympathized'with 'than about stimulating our spiritual lives. But a recent retreat master 'gave us a retreat for normal religious, who should understand "that suffering is basic, to spiritual growth, and~ who, if they understand their fundamentals, should strive to look upon suffering as a privilege in their spiritual lives and to use prayer 200 May, 1944 COMMUNICATIONS and the Uniting of their pains with the Suffering Savior for their own spiritual growth and for Other souls. If any group of religious needs to be stimulated to take their Courage in both. hands and to be willing to struggle bravely "and to fight valiantly, I believe it is the invalided religious. This recent retreat master, helped us. to do just that. Though I" have had devotion to the Holy Spirit for thirty years, it hadn't occurred to me that this is a particularly sturdy, "as well as liturgical, devotion. The retreat master expl.ained it as such; and he recommended it highly' to our sick--to make of us valiant women in our trials, soldiers of Christ, rather than self-pitying children." It gave me much joy to hear this because in my own eleven years of invalidism and hospitalization I have wondered why so many reli-gious look upon their suffering as a tragedy and an" opportunity for sel~-pity. This doesn't seem to be a normal Outlook, especially if one has any knowledge of the suffering which is borne in the world, even in the loveliest of homes. To conclude: From my knowledge of r.eligious, I believe Sisters like a sound exposition of practial truths, a "rousing up" on prin-ciples, a thorough overhauling of their every-day living--always with a definite solution through prayer and the Sacraments. This may sound like a large order; but I give it relatively and in contr"ast to the retreat in which one is left with volumes of theory or pages 9f mysticism. I have no quarrel with the beautiful mystici~sm of the Church. I love it. But women seem so often to become mysti.fied instead of mystical! Perhaps men do, too; I wouldh't know, but I have always thought that they are more apt to keep two feet on the ground. A Sister On Voca'don Reverend Fathers: In response to your invitation to "talk about vocations," we are eager to take advantage of this opportunity tO say something for the vocation to the contemplative life. ¯ Rev. 3oseph.3. Strauss, C.SS.R., in his communication on The Little Flowe~ Mission Circle, states that vocations need encourage-ment. This is particularly true of vocation.s to the contemplativ~ life. When a girl feels a desire to enter the cloister, she knows she is aiming high. She does not fed any too sure of herself, a.lthough she feels strongly drawn to a life of prayer and penance. Now, if she is 201 COMMUNICATIONS Rboieto t~or Relibious told that such a life is too difficult, that it does not accord with the spirit of our age, that it is useless, that she' could do more for God in" an active Order, she begins to doubt that God wants her in the clois-ter. She does not expect her parents to "feel, enthusiastic over her separating herself from them so completely, but .when she is dis-couraged by confessors, former teachers, religious friends on whose good judgment.she has always relied for guidance, the result often is that she enters an active Order where she does not firidcontentment, and very often leaves after a shorter or longer trial. This observation is the result of our,own personal e_xperience,in interviewing those who desire to enter our Order after ileaving an active one, or members of active communities who desire to make a change. We feel that if all those who have felt a desire to embrace our life had been duly encouraged we would not experience a want of vocations. - Poor Clare lquns Reverend Fathers : The letters in yo.ur REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS concerning rdigious vocations have interested me. I strike my breast on many scores. For example, I have not put religious pamphlets in conspicuous places where young girls seeking information may receive the vitamins to increase or satisfy this hunger. Material about nursing, social work, and teaching is easily obtained, but they see.little about religious life. I hang my head when it comes to bringing up the subject in conver-sation. I wait f6r the girls to question; they wait for the Sister to instruct. The result is that nothing happens. In.'my prayers the petition for more candidates tags at the end of other requests which seem of more immediate importance. Unwillingly and u.nknowingly I m~y have shocked today's youth. They see us at such close range and are quick to criticize any lowering of their ideal. "The world is sO much with us" that it is easy to slip into its mannerisms. Now after accepting my share of the blame, I intend to fortify myself behind a table and say to the regular confessor of°young women, "Father, what about.you?" . You know your weekly peni-tents and afte~ a year or so you know their spiritual progress and desires, their temptations, in the world and their reaction. Some of these girls might be waiting for a suggestion from you that.would bring into being their first thought of a religious vocation for them-selves. 202 Mag, 1944 COMMUNICATIONS Perhaps in today's s.eminary you are instructed not to offer such. suggestions. .If that be the case then stop reading this immediately. I only know that it is because of my confessor I happen to be where I am, and I am extremely grateful for his suggestion of over twenty years ago. His Saturday line was a very long one so he didn't h;ive much time for each indiVidual. Outside of the confessional I didn't speak to him~more than a dozen times, and then only to bid him the time of day as we passedon the str.eet--so the influence came through the confessional. He first advised me to go each week to Confession and his advice was followed. Then one day he surprised me with: "Do you enjoy going out?" "Yes,. Father." "Do you have a good time in a social crowd?" "If I know the crowd." "Do you keep steady compa.ny?" "No, Father." "Will you say a prayer every, day for a special intention?" "Yes, Father.". A few months later he'qubstioned: "Do you know anything about the life of Sisters. "A little, Father." :'Do you think you would like to be one?" "No, Father." "Well, don't let this question, worry you. Say some praye.rs every day thi*t God ¯will let you know His will and that yot~ ~ill have the:strength to follow. I will remember this inten.fion in ~y Masses." ¯ Thus my confessor took 5he initiative and helped me to make: ~he ¯ first few steps toward my "vocation. This seems to me. to be. grand work--one that the regular, confessor can surely do better thhna retreat master or a teacher: In the future I'll .try harder to foster vocations that are so greatly needed but When it comes to bringing up the subject in conversation I think I'll turn to the regular confessor and say, "Father, what about you?" A Sister 203 Book Reviews THE MAN FROM ROCCA SIC;CA. By the Reverend Reginald M. Coffey, O~P. Pp. xi -I- 140. The Bruce Publishing Company, Mil- ¯ waukee, 1944. $1.75. " '~History probably offers no parallel case of a man being so com-pletely identified with wha~ he has Written. St. Thomas very early, poss.ibly even in his own lifetime, became an institution rather than a personality" (pp. 100, 10.1). In a well-conceived attempt to por-tray the human Thomas, the" author of this popularly-written little volume makes use of the legends and scattered data on the saint's life to reconstruct a fair picture of the man behind the Summae. Apart from a number of distra.cting author-to-reader asides and. an occa-sional expression not in the best of taste, the general reader who is l/o.oking for an 'introduction to this thoroughly human .personality will find The Man from Rocca Sicca satisfying fare. Several pages in .the chapters on the "dumb Ox," on Thomas the saint, the man, the preacher live up fully to the high promise of Father Farrell's preface. They stand out considerably above the level of the rest of the book in giving "a humanly touching intro-duction to Brother Thomas." In this day of excellently written biography and of exhaustive research into medieval sources, one looks forward to a definitivd life_ of St. ThomasAthe .religious, the statesman, the teacher and preacher, the champion of truth, the human dynamo, the dominant personality of his time. The'Man from Rocca Sicca suggests the human values that. will warrant special treatment.mL. THRO, S.J. SUBDEAC;ONSHIP: C;ONFERENC;ES ON THE RITE OF' ORDINATION. By the Revere'nd AIoyslus.Biskupek, S.V.D. Pp. xl -t- 301. B. Herder' B6ok Co., St. Louis, 19~44. $2.50. These medita~ion~ are the fruit of twenty years' experience in directing the Ordinandi Retreats at Techny. Father Biskupek quickly realized how rich in lessons for the young cleric was the ordination liturgy, suitable especially to the days preceding the cere, 'mony. Having found nothing in print along these lines, he mod-estly offers his own reflections as "something new in a field that stands in need of more cultivation."~ .204 BOOK R,EVIEWS The idea is splendid~ and worked out with a gentle persuasive-ness that bespeaks the fervor and maturity of its author. An outstanding merit o~ the book is its attractive simplicity. With no display of erudition or subtlety it proposes straightfor-wardly and effectively the clerical virtues which quite obviously link themselves to the sacred text. To some this obviousnes~might appear superficial. We might look for mort of penetration, grandeur, vitality. Two remedies suggest themselves: evidence of wider familiarity with historical and ascetical backgrounds, and a more humanly appealing richness of inspirational stories and actual experiences from the priestly minis-try. "Retreat masters might feel that a psychological analysis of the cleric's obligations is a more suitable framework for 'the daily medi-tations than the random sequence of the ceremonial. But for a daily hour of conference to link the retreat with the ritual looming so bright on the horizon, the comme.ntary is rich in suggestion. ~R. NORTH, S.J. MARYKNOLL MISSION LE'I'rERS: VOLUME II, 1943. Pp. viii ~-k 54. Field Afar Press, New York, 1943. $ .50. Falling bombs! In an instant a life;s work in utter ruins! Amid the terrors of war Maryknoll heroes are saving souls by bringing Christ not only to Chinese, but also to our American service men in China. The Letters give vivid persotial accounts of work ainong the Bhuddists, shopping tours in Kwelin, the strange life at Tibet, mis- "sion schools in war-torn villages. Thi~ second part of this booklet answers the question, "Why send missionaries to.South and Central America?" The descriptions of the sleepy life of the "barracas," the visit of Vice President Wal-lace to the mission in Villa Victoria, the tender devotion of the natives to Mary, the uniq

Issue 1.3 of the Review for Religious, 1942. ; Review for Religious MAY 15, 1942 The General Chapter of Elections . Adam C. Ellis Retreat Resolutions . Clarence McAuliffe Reparation to the Sacred Heart . Malachi J. Donnelly The, Pivotal Point of Good Will . G. Augustln~ Ellard Scruples Versus the Human Way . ~ Gerald Kelly Hints for Sacristans . Gerald Ellard The Presumed Permission . ¯ . James E. Risk Book Reviews )uestions Answered E)ecisions of the Holy See VOLUME NUMBER 3 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS VOLUME I MAY 15. 1942 NUMBER CONTENTS. THE GENERAL CHAPTER OF ELECTIONS IN A RELIGIOUS CONGREGATION Adam C. Ellis, S.3 . 146 FOR CHURCH MUSICIANS . " . 156 RETREAT RESOLUTIONS---Clarence McAuliffe, S.J . 157 BOOKS RECEIVED . , . 166" ¯ SOME PAMPHLETS . 166 REPARATION IN THE DEVOTION TO THE SACRED HEART Malachi J. Donnelly, S.J. . ." . . . 167 THE PIVOTAL POINT OF EFFECTIVE GOOD WILL G. Augustine Ellard, S.J . 170 SCRUPLES VERSUS THE HUMAN WAY---Gerald Kelly. S.J. 187 HINTS FOR SACRISTANS~erald Ellard, S.J . 194 THE PRESUMED PERMISSION--Jame$.,E~. Risk. S.J . 196 BOOK REVIEWS PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN AND RELIGIOUS PERFECTION . 206 BLESSED ARE THEY THAT HUNGER By the Reverend Richard Graef, C.S.Sp. 206 THE MASS OF BROTHER MICHEL. By Michael Kent . 207 FAST BY THE ROAD. By John Moody . ; 208 THE CATHOLIC REVIVAL IN ENGLAND. By John ,J. O'Connor 209 MEDIEVAL HUMANISM. By the Reverend Gerald G. Walsh, S.J. 209 DECISIONS OF THE HOLY SEE OF INTEREST TO RELIGIOUS 210 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Extension of Temporary Vows; Use df Parish School Funds; Is Reli-gious Habit a Sacramental; Days of Abstinence during Lent; Languages during Canonical Year; Inspection of Letters: Administration of Anes-thetics: Aspirant of East Syrian Rite: Converts from Greek Orthodox Church; Indulgence for Kissing Habit: Extending Period of Probation: Chanting of Little Office; Working during Evening Recreation 211 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, May, 1942. Vol. I, No. 3. Published bi-monthly: January, March, May, July, September, and November, at The College Press, 606 Harrison Street; Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.J., G. Augustine Ellard, S.J., Gerald Kelly, S.d. Copyright, 1942, by Adam C. Ellis. Permission is hereby granted for quotations of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 2 dollars a year. PHnted in U. S. A. The General Chap!:er ot: I::lect:ions in a Religious Congregat:ion Adam C. Ellis, S.3. BY CHAPTER in a reli.gious institute is meant the lawful assembly of those members to whom the con-stitutions give the right to vote when matters of im-portance are to be discussed and decided. Chapters may be general, provincial, or local, according as they represent an entire institute (order or congregation), or a province, or a local community. Provincial and local chapters meet, as a rule, only for the election of delegates to the general or provincial chapter respectively. In this article we are concerned only with the g.eneral chapter, though many of its provisions will apply equally well to a provincial or local chapter. An ordinarg general chapter is convoked at the times prescribed by the constitu-tions-~ every three or six years, or at other regular inter.- vals. An extraordinar~ general chapter is ofie convoked outside the time of the ordinary chapter~ Constitutions approved by the Holy See usually prescribe that an ex-traordinary chapter may not be convoked without the per-missioh of the Holy See, except in the case of the death or resignation of the superior general. The purpose of the general chapter is two-fold: to elect superiors, and to transact other important business. The first kind of chapter is usually called the chapter of elections; the second, the business chapter, or the chapter of affairs. We are dealing here with the chapter of elections only, which is governed by the regulations of the Code of Canon Law as well as by the provisions of the constitu-tions which are not contrary to the Code (cf. canon 507. §1). 146 CHAPTER OF ELECTIONS Time, Place, and Cor~oocation of Chapter. The common law of the Church does not prescribe any particular place for the meeting of the general chapter of elections. The constitutions usually allow the superior general to determi.ne the date and place of the chapter, with the deliberative vote of his council. Sometimes, however, they prescribe that the chapter be held in the motherhouse, and set the day for it as well. In the absence of any definite regulations of the constitutions, the superior general with his council is free to determine the day on which the chap-ter is to be held, as well as its meeting-place. This is true even in the case of a diocesan congregation of religious women which has houses in more than one diocese, as was declared by the S. Congregation of Religious on June 17, 1921, when it explicitly stated that the choice of the meet-ing- place of the chapter rested with the superior general, and not with the local Ordinary in whose diocese the moth-erhouse is located. At the same time the S. Congregation declared that the right to preside over the election in the case mentioned belonged to the local Ordinary in whose diocese the election took place, hence not to the Ordinary of the motherhouse, unless the election is held in his dio-cese. Pope Benedict XV confirmed these decisions and ordered them to be published. The day and place of the general chapter having been determined upon, the superior general will then convoke the chapter, usually by means of a circular letter to be sent to all those who have a right to assist at the chapter. The constitutions usually pr.escribe that such letters are to be sent at least three, if not six, months before the day on which the chapter is to meet. An error in convoking the chapter does not make the election invalid unless one third of those who have a right to attend have not been sum-moned and, by reason of this irregularity, have not taken 147 ADAM C. ELLIS part in the voting (cf. canon 162, § 3). Electors or Members of the Chapter The constitutions will determine who have a right to take part in a chapter of elections. The following are com-monly members of such a chapter: 1. The superior general; 2. The members of his council; 3. All ex-superiors general; 4. The secretary general; 5. The treasurer general; 6. Provincials and two or more delegates from each province, if there are provinces; 7. Local superiors, and delegates of the various houses chosen according to the constitutions. The common law of tl~e Church prescribes that reli-gious with temporary vows have neither active nor pas-sive voice1 unless the constitutions explicitly grant it to them. The constitutions sometimes grant active voice to religious with temporary vows, seldom if ever passive voice. The number of years required by the constitutions for the enjoyment~ of active and passive voice is tO be counted from the" first profession of temporary vows, un-less the constitutions provide otherwise (cf. canon 578, 30). It is customary to elect substitutes for all delegates who are elected to take part in a chapter of elections. These substitutes take the place of such delegates as are impeded or who do not wish to attend the chapter. Unless the con-stitutions declare otherwise, the religious who have been elected delegates may give up their right to attend the chap-ter. XActive voice is the tight to vote: passive voice is the right to be voted for or to be elected to an ot~ce, 148 CHAPTER OF ELECTIONS Prelirainar~.t Session of Chapter In a preliminary session of the .chapter it is customary to examine the credentials of all the delegates to the chap-ter. This having been done, the assembly proceeds by se-cret vote to the election of at least two "scrutineers".0r tellers (cf. canon 171, § 1), unless these are already desig-nated by the constitutions. They must be elected from among the members of the chapter. After being elected they take an oath to fulfill their of Iice faithfully, and to observe secrecy regarding everything done in the chapter of elections. A secretary is usually elected in a similar man-ner, unless one of the tellers acts in this capacity. General Regulations Regarding Voting On!y those religious who are actually present in the chapter have a right to vote. Votes sent in by mail or cast by proxy are forbidden and invalid, unless the constitu-tions or a special privilege granted by the Holy See author-ize the employment of those methods (cf. canon 163). An exception., however, is made in favor of members of the chapter who are in the house but unable to attend the meetings because of illness. Such a person's vote given in writing shall be collected by the tellers and placed with the other votes, unless particular laws or a legitimate custom determine otherwise (cf. canon 168). All must abstain from seeking votes either directly or indirectly for themselves or for others, and no one may validly vote for himself (cf. canons 507, § 2, 170). This does not forbid the members-of the chapter from seeking information from one another regarding the qualities of this or that religious. The constitutions frequently pro-vide for such an opportunity before the day of the election. All votes must be freely given. A vote directly or indirectly extorted by grave fear or fraud in favor of a 149 ADAM C. ELLIS determined person, or of one of a group of persons, is an invalid vote (cf. canon 169, §.1). In order to be valid, a vote freely cast for an eligible candidate must have four qualities: it must be secret, cer-tain, absolute, and determined (cf. canon 169, § 2). Each one of these qualities demands a brief explanation. A secret vote. This means that no member of the chapter may make known to another, the pers6n for whom he voted. A vote which is made public is by that very fact invalid. However, for special reasons, a member of the chapter may declare before the president and the tellers which person he wishes to vote for. The vote is secret, since all the persons to whom it is made. known are bound under oath. not to reveal it. Though not strictly speaking required by law, a written ballot is the most common and most convenient form of carrying on the election and safe-guards the secrecy req.uired. It would seem to be the only form contemplated by the Code. A certain vote. In order to be certain the vote must glare the full name of the person v6ted for so as to distin-guish him from all other persons having a similar name. A vote cast for "the person who will receive the majority of the votes," is an uncertain vote. A vote which cannot be read, or understood, is likewise uncertain; as is also a blank vote. An absolute vote. Each vote must be free from all con-ditions. A vote cast for Peter "provided he is fifty years old," would be an invalid vote. If the condition, however, merely expresses a requirement of the law for the valid election of the person voted for, the. vote would not be invalid: But such conditions should not be put in the vote when given since they are presupposed. A determined vote. An alternative vote is invalid. 150 CHAPTER OF ELECTIONS Such would be, for example, a vote cast for "either Peter or Paul." In conclusion it may be well to note that an invalid vote does not make the balldt in which it is cast invalid. Such an invalid vote is simply not.counted. By accident it may keep the person for whom it was given from getting the required majority of votes. The Election of the Superior General -Before the voting begins for the election of higher superiors in institutes of religious men, all and each of the members of the chapter shall promise under oath to elect those whom they deem before God should be elected (cf. canon 506, § 1). This oath is not required of reli-gious women. In institutes of religious men the superior general pre-sides over the election unless the constitutions provide otherwise. In congregations of religious women the elec-tion of the mother general is presided over by the Ordinary of the place in which the election is held. He may preside personally or through a delegate (cf. canon 506, § 4). For the election of superiors the common law requires an absolute2 majority of votes on either the first or second ballot, while a relative majority suffices on the third ballot, If, on the third ballot, the highest number of votes is given equally to two or more persons, the presiding officer may determine the election by casting his vote, but never in his own favor. Should he decline to do so, then the senior by reason of ordination, or of first profession, or of age, shall be regarded as elected (cf. canon 101, § 1, 1°). Theconsti- 2An absolute majority is constituted by any number exceeding half the number of valid votes cast, for instance, 9 out of 16, 10 out of' 19, and so forth. The person receiving the greatest number of votes cast is said. to have a plurality or relative majority of the votes cast when that number does not constitute an absolute majority of all the'votes cast. Thus, in a chapter in which 25 votes are cast,-,John may receive 11, Peter 8, and Paul 6. ,John has a relative majority. 151 ADAM C. ELLIS tutions may require a greater number of votes, for instance, a two-thirds majority for the election of the superior gen-eral. Constitutions approved by the Holy See usually require that :a fourth ballot be taken in case the third ballot does not result in an absolute majority. ¯ In this fourth bal-lot only the two religious who have received the greater number of votes on the third ballot are eligible for election, though they themselves are excluded from voting on the fourth ballot. In case this fourth ballot results in a tie, the election is determined by priority of ordination, or of first profession, or of age, respectively as mentioned above. The Voting Process When all are prepared the voting begins. It is the duty of the tellers to see to it that the votes be cast by each elector secretly, diligently, separately, and according to the order of precedence (cf. canon 171, § 2). No particular form of collecting the votes is prescribed by the common law, though the constitutions usually determine some detailed method, for instance, the tellers carry a locked box into which each member casts his sealed vote, or the members proceed slowly, one by one, to-the table or desk of the presiding officer, and there deposit their votes in an urn or box, under the watchful eyes of the tellers. When all the votes have been thus.collected, the tellers shall examine in the presence of the presiding officer, according to the manner prescribed by the particular con-stitutions or legitimate customs, whether the number of votes corresponds to the number of electors. Should the number of votes exceed the number of electors, the ballot is invalid (cf. canon 171, §§ 2 and 3), the ballots are destroyed, and a new vote taken. If the number of ballots does not exceed that of the number of electors, they are opened one by one so as to be seen by both tellers, and by 152 " CHAPTER OF ELECTIONS the presiding officer, and noted down by the secretary. After the votes have been counted the presiding officer or one of the tellers announces to the chapter how many votes each candidate has received. This may be done in either of two ways. After each vote is opened and inspected by the tellers and the presiding officer, the name of the person voted for is read aloud.-Or after the votes have been counted, the final results may be read to the chapter by the presiding officer or by one of the tellers. The constitutions or custom will determine the method to be followed. The votes are to be burned immediately after each bal-lot, or at the end of the session if several ballots were taken during it (cf. canon 171., § 4). When the election of the superior general has been com-pleted according to the prescribed formalities, the presiding officer will declare it lawful, proclaim it, and receive the oath of the newly elected superior general. Thereupon the religious both of the chapter and of the community will make their obedience according to custom. All the acts of the election shall be diligently written down by the secretary and, after being signed at least by him, by the presiding officer, and by the tellers, they shall be carefully preserved in the archives of the congregation (cf. canon 171, § 5). Acceptance and Confirmation of the Election The announcement of the result of the election made to the chapter is sufficient notification if the person elected is present; if he is not present the result should be officially communicated to him, and he is to be summoned to the chapter, all further business of which is suspended until his arrival. Unless the constitutions state the contrary, the reli-gious elected is not obliged to accept the office. Should he 153 ADAM C. ELLIS renounce it; he loses all the rights connected with the same, and a new election is held. In the case of diocesan congregations of religious women, the election of the mother general must be con-firmed by the Ordinary who presides over it. For grave reasons, according to his conscience, he may refuse to con-firm the election (cf. canon 506, § 4). In that case, how-ever, he may not appoint the superior general, but a new election must be held. Postutaiion It may fiappen that the members of a chapter wish to have for their superior a religious who is able and worthy to fill that office, but who is excluded from it by some impediment of church law from which the-competent ecclesiastical ~uperior can and is accustomed to dispense. Such a person cannot be validly] elected, but the members of the chapter may postulate him, provided that he receives two-thirds of. the votes of the chapter (cf. canons 179, § 1; 180, § 1)which means that they ask the Holy See to grant the necessary dispensation. Postulation, however, may be admitted only in an extraordinary case and provided the constitutions do not forbid it. (cf. canon 507, § 3). In a letter addressed to the local Ordinaries of the world on March 9, 1920, the S. Congregation of Religious instructed them to be very strict in allowing postulation in the case of the superior general of a congregation of religious women who has just com-pleted two terms of office. In such a case the simple desire of the members of the chapter to re-eleCt the same superior, or the mere ability of the person to fill the office, is not a sufficient reason for postulation. If, however, other grave reasons seem to require the choice of the same person beyond the time allowed by the constitutions, the Ordinary must 154 CHAPTER OF ELECTIONS send a petion to the S. Congregation, in which it is clearly stated what the reasons are, how many ballots were taken, and how many votes were in favor of the person postu-lated. Finally the OMinary must state his own opinion in the matter. The S. Congregation will then give a decision. The fact that the constitutions expressly allow postulation does not excuse from the requirements of this instruction. In case of postulation the members of the chapter who wish to vote for an ineligible person, must write on their ballot: "I postulate N. N." Election of Other Officers The newly elected superior general presides over the election of the other officers to be chosen by the general chapter, unless the constitutions allow the Ordinary the right of presiding likewise at the election of the members of the general council. These elections are usually held in a separate session Of the chapter. The manner of voting is the same as that employed in the election of the superior general. An absolute majority of votes is required on the first and second ballot. If no one has received such a major2 ity, a third ballot is taken in which a relative majority is sufficient. ,If on this third ballot two or more candidates receive an equal number of votes, the presiding officer may cast a deciding vote, though he is not .obliged to do so. If he declines to use his right, the person who is senior by ordi-nation, or by first profession, or by age, is considered elected. The constitutions may provide for a fourth bal-lot in case the third re.sults in a tie. If the person elected is not a member of the chapter, he must be summoned at once, but the chapter does not await his arrival in order to continue its business. After the elections are over, the former superior gen-eral, the members of his council, the secretary general and 155 ADAM G. ELLIS the treasurer general, usually continue to sit in chapter with active voice as long as it r~mains in'session, even though they may have been replaced in their offces by other reli-gious. Should the superior general die during his term of offce, or resignbefore its completion, the assistant superior gen-eral will take his place in the government of the community and will ~onvoke an extraordinary chapter in which dec-tions will be held not only for a new superior general, but also for all the other offices which are usually filled by election in general chapter. The reason for this is that all ¯ the officers elected in a general chapter hold office from chapter to chapter, rather than for a "definite number of years. FOR CHURCH MUSICIANS Of unusual yalue to religious and seminarians working in the field c~f church music is 'the new Catholic Choirmasters' Correspon-derice Course. Four semesters of ~olle'giate° work, accredited by St. Albertus College Department of Music, are done under personal tutorship and will be coricluded with summer schools in 1943 and 1944. The lessons have been prepared by a~ faculty international in personnel and repute, including Dom Desrocquettes0 Dr. Becket Gibbs, Dom Ermin Vitry, Father Gerald Ellard, and others. Zest and .authority characterize their teaching, and phonograph recordings assist amply in problems that need the living voice. General' editor is Clifford Bennett, Gregorian Institute, 1515 Berger Building, Pittsburgh, Pa. Those interested may obtain an attractive pros-pectus by writing to the General Editor. 156 Retreat Resolutions Clarence McAuliffe, S.3. AS ~WEGO ON in the religious life, certain practices, n6t binding under pain of sir/, but nevertheless, of paramount importance in their bearing on the whole spiritual structure, become increasingly .difficult. Among these are the particular examination of conscience, certain rules governing religious discipline, such as the rule of silence, and the formulation of apt resolutions during re-treat. That the delicate web of religious virtues clings for partial support upon the particular examen is admitted by all ascetical writers. The same holds true for the rule of silence, since its utter neglect means the undermining of the spirit of prayer and recollection. But the resolutions we take in our annual retreat are even of greater moment since the continued practice of the particular examen and the preservation of a prayerful disposition depend in no small measure upon them. If we reflect on our happy novitiate days, we shall remember that we experienced no difficulty in making resolutions and recording them. We jotted them down carefully as tokens of our affection for our Divine Savior Who alone besides ourselves knew what they were. We may still have them. We may smile now at some of their characteristics. No doubt we took too many resolutions; we aimed too often at purely external practices; we may even have aspired to fanciful performances. But we can-not deny that they did us good. They kept us fervent: they kept our ideals high; they were concrete proof of our good will in God's service; they bolstered our flagging spir-itual forces. As long as we exercised care in formulating and inditing resolutions during our retreat, we were also 157 CLARENCE MCAULIFI~E faithful to our particular examen and observant of a cred-itable practice of silence. If we ever relaxed our diligence in making resolutions during retreat, our particular exa-men becamea half-hearted or neglected undertaking and our love for silence grew notably remiss. No Excuse t:or Neglect W.hy should the task, for task it is, of taking retreat resolutions ever be neglected by. us? What truly solid rea-son can we give for not writing them down and keeping them close at hand? Every man or woman engaged in a profession or business or in any other activity of moment pauses now and then to determine hn altered course of ac-tion. Small defects ard bound to seep in unnoticed, but they impede success and must b~ removed. Positive prog-ress also must be made; knowledge must be extended; greater zest must be engendered or the business will grow languid and die. Merchants do not hesitate to pay ample fees to public accountants and efficiency experts. These men detect pecuniary losses and open up new fields of ac-tivity for the merchant, and he makes definite plans accord-ing to their advice. Are we religious not engaged in a pro-fession, and a profession transcending all others? Can we deny that peccadilloes of one kind or another are, almost unobserved, weakening the fabric of our spiritual gar-ments? .that we are yet far distant from the glorious hori-zon of perfec~tion to which God beckons each one of us? Should we hesitate during our annual retreat to be our own public accountants and efficiency experts because of the unreasonable murmurings of our natural selves? A Faoorable Time for Resolutions Certainly no time is better suited for determining new spiritual policies than the annual retreat. During it we are segregated from our active duties; we engage in several days RETREAT RESOLUTIONS of silent communing with God; we see again what we al-ways know, but never reduce to perfect practice, that we are made only to serve Him; our spiritual ideals, dimmed by a whole year's mis~, are refurbished; God himself speaks to us and we hear His whisperings periodically, during each day of retreat pleading with us: "Why not give up this sin-less, but inordinate attachment for my sake? Why not de-vote more attention to developing this virtue?" Further-more, our subjective condition is fit for taking sage resolu-tions. We are calm, tranquil; excessive nervous tension, emotional ebullitions, the agitation engendered by custom-ary daily contact with other human personalities m all these vanish in the solitude of retreat. Those New Year resolutions so widely publicized by the newspapers can scarcely ever be successful if brought to bear upon spiritual matters, because the hectic round of daily duties and dis-tractions impedes clear vision and sound judgment. But the retreat is the New Year for religious and it is certainly to our shame if we pass up this one propitious occasion for taking efficacious resolves. Retreat resolutions are apt to be successful for another reason. Our profession is spiritual and its successful prac-tice does not depend on mere human endeavors. God called us to the religious life; He keeps us in it'; .He enables us every day to live it. Any resolution we take is doomed to failure if we count upon our own natural energies to fulfill it. Even the simplest, such as thedetermination to prepare Our meditation more carefully, to make an additional visit to the Blessed Sacrament, to relinquish some convenient, but unnecessary article, cannot be accomplished without the grace of God. Consider what vast stores of grace we must obtain in time of retreat. Not only do we perform our ordinary spiritual exercises, but the whole time is one continual prayer. A veritable mountain of sanctifying. 159~ CLARENCE MCAULIFFE grace is accumulated and with it the right to actual graces to be given us in the future as we need them. We shall need them particularly in order to be faithful to our reso- ¯Iutions, the fruit of our retreat, and they will be supplied generously and persistently by God, success depending solely upon our wholehearted cooperation. Negative Resolutions Why, then, we may ask have our resolutions so often been failures?' Why is it that we can hardly recall them after a few weeks perhaps? Have we been grossly negli-gent in corresponding with the grace of God? Not neces-sarily so. Perhaps our resolutions were not prudently made. God constructed the human being according to very definite laws. If we take resolutions contrary to these laws, especially our psychological laws, we can scarcely expect God to work a miracle to enable us to keep them. For in-stance, most' of us are probably too negative in drawing.up our resolutions. We will not do this; we will not do that; we will quit doing this, and so on. In other words, we pay entirely too much attention to our faults. If we are com-mitting deliberate sins, we must, of course, make them the first object of our determinations. But 'such is not usually the case. We fret over our imperfections or merely semi-deliberate faults, forgetting a sound teaching of theology which declares that it is impossible for any person without a special privilege, rarely granted, to keep from these even for a single day. The chances are that such defects spring from temperament, nervous disposition, unstable health or some other natural cause, partially, at least, beyond our control. Now it is a psychological law that negatives de-press the human soul. If our retreat resolutions comprise merely a lengthy list of "Don'ts" over inconsequential matters, we are .quite surely going to let them lapse. The 160 RETREAT RESOLUTIONS human soul is too lofty in its aspirations to be fettered' by a chorus of petty "I will not's"; it soars to the highest heavens in search of God Himself; unending vistai of per-fection lie stretched out before it and microscopic imper-fections are no obstacle to exalted sanctity even if they stay with us to our dying day. How much wiser it would be to 'resolve: "I will pay an additional visit to the Blessed Sac-rament each day this coming year for a few minutes out of love for my Savior," than to promise: "I will never sit down during meditation in the chapel", when, as a matter of fact, constant kneeling may so distract us that we cannot pray at all from bodily uneasiness. Besides, protracted kneeling may even do us positive corporal harm unless our backs and nerves are of rugged texture. How Man~/ Resolutions? Another mistake to which we may easily succumb is that of taking too many resolutions. It is true that a hun-dred resolutions would be none too many when we see in retreat the intricate labyrinth of perfection. Even so, it would certainly be unwise to take more than four. or, at most, five. Here again asimple law of. human psychology enters into play. We are so constructed that a multiplicity of resolves overbalances US~ dissipates our energies and re-sults in no accomplishment whatever. We cannot expect our Savior to rescind that law in our case by a miracle. It is well for us to recall that old axiom of spiritual au-thors that to advance in one virtue is to advance in them all. Progress, for instance, in the spirit and practice of obedi-ence necessarily reflects progress in the love of God. But love is the pith and core of all sanctity; loreis the all-em-bracing virtue; it means a closer alliance with God, more intimate union with Him; if it makes the tree of obedience more verdant, it must necessarily transmit its vigor to the 161 CLARENCE MCAULIFFE entire forest of virtues. Bearing this in mind, we should in retreat pay heed, firit of all to our vows. An outpost to one of them may have been weakened during the previous year. Then we should look to the virtues animating the vows and make a few positive resolutions that will stimu-late their growth. We must never forget that a religious observant of the vows is a good religious. Focusing our attention upon them, we keep our resolutions down to a minimum. Yet we will make more rapid spiritual s~rides .than we would if we squandered our resources by making decisions on the whole gamut of faults and virtues. The Search After Causes Our resolutions may result in failure for another rea-son also. They may be too vague, too imprecise, too gen-eral. For example, how often have we resolved in retreat to be more fervent in our spiritual exercises! No one could condemn a determination to better these exercises of piety. It is they especiall.y that keep our spiritual lives vigorous and bolster our flagging virtue. But what happened to that resolution to make them more devotedly? For a day or two, for a week or two perhaps, we were more attentive .to them and then, behold, we soon found ourselves in the same old rut of routine and mechanical performance. Why? Simply because our resolution violated a metaphysical law which states that to attain a purpose it is necessary to .~elect means, causes, that will conduce to its realization. If we resolve only upon the end to be achieved, we shall accomplish nothing. Every day we dream ofthings we should like to do, but we neglect the specific means to the end and our resolves are thus mere fancies relegated to the vast mound of inefficacious desires. If we really wish to improve our meditation, examinations of conscience and other spiritual exercises, let us investigate the reason 162 RETREAT RESOLUTIONS why they are performed so perfunctorily. Ii it because we indulge in considerable unnecessary talking? This will certainly dissipate the mind and react upon our spiritual exercises. If we make a determination to practise silence, we shall find that contact with God will become much eas.ier and our meditations will improve. Is it due to un-regu. lated affections of the heart? Then a resolution must be taken to watch carefully over such ungoverned move-ments by removing their occasions as far as possible. Is it due to stark physical fatigue? Then we can do nothing directly, but perhaps we can adopt some regime that will improve our health. Is it due to some other cause? Then let us examine for that cause and decide to overcome it if possible. Definite resolutions of these kinds will inject new life into our meditation whereas a mere hazy resolve to perform it better will soon vanish. This point is of the utmost consequence. Take another example. Most of us are guilty of positive faults against charity and all of us could practise this virtue much more perfectly. Shall we then determine during retreat: "I shall be more charitable"? Such a resolution is praiseworthy,, as a sign of our good will in God's service, but it is bound to lapse just as is the vague determination to do better in our spiritual exercises. If we wish to be more charitable, we must pry into the reasons why we are not more charitable. If we wish to obtain an effect, we must find a proportion-ate cause to produce it. Do we fail in charity because we associate only with those whose temperaments .are con-genial? because we areof a squeamish disposition and allow tiny impolitenesses to jar our nerves? because we indulge in idle ,gossip and small talk? because we have a biting or ridiculing tongue? Could we add blossoms to our charity by interesting ourselves in the activities of others? by de-veloping the spirit of a good listener? by watching for 163 CLARENCE MCAULIFFE opportunities to say a kindly word or express Our sym-pathy? Ways and means to add lustre to this virtue are truly endless. If one defect, in particular, makes us un-charitable, let us in retreat decide to banish it; if some precise means of burnishing our charity occurs to us, let us determine to adopt it. Then we shall find that Christ's own spirit of charity will take root and flourish in our souls. The Bizarre Resolution Fantastic and complex resolutions should also be avoided. Though we never relax our aim at the highest possible perfection, we always keep our feet anchored to earth by the bonds of prudence and common sense. The human mind can only think of one thing at a time; the will can be directed toward only one conscious goal at a time. Both faculties are bound to be smothered by kaleido-scopic resolutions. Suppose a religious were to emerge from retreat armed with this single resolve: From eight o'clock in the morning when her active day began until ten at night when she retired, exactly fourteen hours inter-vened, the same number of hours as there are stations of the cross. During the coming year she would divide the day according to the stations. From eight to nine in the morning she would live in the spirit of the first station, the condemnation of the Savior. From nine to ten her thoughts would Be engrossed with the second station, and so on throughout the day. It is not likely that this well-inten-tioned religious would keep that resolution. It is too bizarre and too involved .and would require constant at-tention from morning to night every single day. Human nature could not stand such a strain without well-nigh miraculous support. 164 RETREAT RESOLUTIONS Keeping the Resolution Once our resolutions are taken and written down, how can we perpetuate them for three hundred and sixty-five days? By adopting them as subjects for Our particular ex-amination of conscience. How often we puzzle over a suitable subject for this examen! The problem vanishes if we have our retreat resolutions on hand. Even though these be only three or four,, they will provide ample matter for the examen. Each resolution can be the subject for a few weeks or a month. Thereafter each resolution can be repeated again and, if this becomes wearisome, variety may be introduced without changing the subject matter. FOr instanc.e, if one of our retreat resolutions is to eliminate unnecessary talking, we can practise this for some days under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin and in imitation .of her silence in the home at Nazareth. Later on, we might exercise it in union with Christ in the desert and in His infancy and in His secluded hours of prayer upon the mountain. At another time we may practise it by repeated ejaculatory prayers to some favorite saint whose help we implore. In this way the subject will not grow tedious and it will never lose its value Since it is one of our rdreat resolutions. These may also be kept alive and vibrant by referring to them duriag the monthly recollection. Why devote this period to any other consideration when God has shown us in our previous retreat what actions of ours will most please Him? Despite our best efforts, however, we shall make un-successful resolutions. In framing them we may continue to violate the laws of human psychology. We may not observe them even for a week though we honestly wanted to do so. We should not be discouraged. God values our good will; and our retreat resolutions, if written down, are 165 CLARENCE MCAULIFFE palpable proof of this" good will. The resolutions of our novitiate days were often ill-formed and impossible of achievement, but they secured God's blessing for us. We kept the vows though we did not as yet have them; rarely did we commit even a deliberate venial sin; we strove by our clumsy retreat resolutions to improve our religious lives. These resolutions won from Christ the gift of fer-vor. He Will reanimate and increase that fervor if we per-severe in taking and recording resolutions during our re-treat. BOOKS RECEIVED (7"0 be reviewed later.) I PRAY THE MASS~. By Hugo H. Hoever, S. O: Cist. Catholic Book Publishing Company. New York. MARCH INTO TOMORROW. By, 3ohn ,J. Considine, M.M. Field Afar,Pres~. New York. ~, . WATCH AND PRAY. By ,John Moffatt, S.~J. The Bruce Publishing' Company. Milwaukee. IN THE SHADOW OF OUR LADY OF THE CiENACLE. By Helen M. Lynch; R.C. The Paulist Press. New York. SOME PAMPHLETS Cheer Up!; Be of Good Heart!; Have ConfidenCe!; Take Courage! These four pamphlets are by Father Bruno Hagspiel, S.V.D. They consist of a varied collection of Scripture texts, anecdotes, poems, and so forth, all designed to cheer the downhearted.~ Price, 10 cents a copy. May be obtained from The Mission Press, Techny, I11. Also, four pamphlets listed under the general title, GOSPEL MOVIES, that treat of Grace; Faith; Sin; Wed in Christ. They contain brief stories based on the Gospels and illustrating these various topics. All are written by Father Placldus Kempf, O.S.B. Price, 10 cents a copy. May be obtained from THE GRAIL, St. Meinrad~, Indiana. 166 Reparation in t:he Devotion t:o !:he Sacred I-leart: Malachi 3. Donnelly, S.J. THE "great apparition" of our Lo~d to St. Margaret Mary took place duiing the Octave of Corpus Christi, most probably in 1675. Showing her His Heart, our Lo~d said: "Behold this Heart which has so loved men, which has spared nothing, even to being exhausted and consumed, in order to testify to them its love. And the greater number of them make me no other return than ingratitude, by their coldness and their forgetfulness of me in this Sacrament of love. But what is still more painful to me is, that it is hearts who are consecrated to me who use me thus." And our Lord continued: "It is because of this that I ask you to have the first Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi kept as a special feast in honor of my Heart. by receiving Communion on that day and making it a reparation of honor for all the insults offered to my Heart during the time that it has been exposed on the altars." The end of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, as revealed to St. Margaret Mary and as approved by the Church, is reparation to this same Heart for the coldness and indif-ference, for the sins and insults suffered by the Sacred Heart, especially in the Sacrament of His love. Reparation, in general, means the making up for an injury or offense committed against one to whom honor and love are due. In the case of reparation to the Sacred Heart, this presup-poses a real personal wound in that Heart caused by the sins of men, and a real ability on the part of those devoted to the Sacred Heart to repair this wound. This confronts us with two difficulties: 1) how can the Heart of Jesus now suffer? 2) how can we repair His sufferings? 167 MALACHI ,J. DONNI~LLY The soul of Jesus Christ.in heaven experiences no sor-row, nor does His glorified body know aught of pain. His perfect happiness can be dimmed by absolutely nothing: nay! not even by the most heinous sins of ungrateful men, How, then, could He complain of the coldness and indif-ference of m~n, and that in words which, seemingly indicate that each sin of the present day is a direct and piercing wound in His Sacred Heart? In a word, the solution lies in an Understanding of the knowledge that Christ, as Man, enjoyed during His, life on earth. Our Blessed Lord was both God and Man. As Man He enjoyed the beatific Vision throughout His whole life. Now, through this vision He received the complete perfection of His intellect. He knew all things that per-tained to His office, His dominion, His mission on earth, all that pertained to the plan of redemption. The knowledge that Christ had, as Man~ was like unto the eternal knowledge of God. During His whole lithe, .especially during the Passion, Christ',' as Man, had knowl-edge of future things; the good and bad 'actions of all men were directly1 present to His mind. Just as a giant search-light in one blazing stream of light covers at once a half-mile area and every inch of space therein, or just as the human eye gazing on a distant landscape sees the whole and each detail at the same time, so, too, did Christ see through the whole of time to come and all the actions of men con-tained therein. He saw all future events as actually present before His eyes and each event was the direct object of His vision. In order to understand better the relationship between the knowledge of Christ and reparation in the devo-tion to the Sacred Heart, let us go in imagination with Jesus to the garden of Gethsemani. As Jesus kneels in 168 REPARATION TO THE SACRED HEART meditation, He begins to grow sad. Why? This sadness can only be caused by the vision in His human mind. As He kneels there, the sins of all men Unfold before His eyes; all the ingratitude of men--especially, of those from whom He might well have expected better things--is directly present to His clear vision. Not a.single sin --- even an ever so secret sin of desire-~elu~les His all-seeing gaze. Also (and this is the consoling aspect of Gethsemani), every single act of reparation of those especially devoted to His Sacred Heart was present to Him. And, as Jesus looked upon these acts of reparation, His loving Heart felt real and deep consolation. When, therefore, at the present time we perform acts of reparation, it is perfectly true to say that there is direct contact between our act of reparation and the Heart of Christ in Gethsemani. Time and space are wiped out. His knowledge bridges nineteen hundred years as readily as we look across a river. We are present before His eyes: our acts of reparation console Him, our sins cause Him sorrow-ful agony. What should be the effect of this truth that all our actions were actuatl~t present to the suffering Christ in His Passion? A deep realization of this can only ground more firmly our love for the Sacred Heart and spur us to more ardent acts of loving reparation to the Sacred Heart. Just as the spokes of a wheel lead to the hub, with which they are in direct contact, so likewise do all the reparatory actions of men the world over lead back to Christ in the Garden; establish immediate contact with His Suffering heart. And the deep realization of this solidly established truth should arouse the deepest aspirations of our hearts and wills to do our utmost to console the great and loving Heart of Jesus. 169 The Pivol:al Point: ot: l=fl:ec!:ive ,ood Will G. Augustine.Ellard, S.J. ['Because of the importance of Father Ellard's theme, and because of the length of the article, we thought that the followihg summary might be appreciated by those who wish some handy way of visualiz!ng and recalling the points devdopedin the article. The Roman numerals refer to the same divisions of the text.--ED.] Summary I. The problem of bringing about moral good will is illustrated by three cases: a)" Good~ but weak, will in oneself; b) Generous, but inconstant, will in oneself; c) Irresponsive or bad will in others. II. What is meant by the expression: "the pivotal point of good will"? III. Things which do not constitute it. IV. It does consist in the realistic appreciation of values. These terms defined. V. Reasons for the assertion: a) Common sense; e) Philosophy; b) ExperienCe; f) Sacred Scripture; c) Observation; g) Theology. d) Experimental psychology: gI. The characteristics of the knowledge that is d~]namic, i.e. apt to move or strengthen the will: a) Presentation of the right aspect; e) Actuality: b) Sufficient" quantity ; f) Novelty ; c) Personal reference: g) Affinity and sympathy. d) Immediacy and imagery; VII. Practical conclusions-- 1. To move or strengthen the will for the present: Realize the values of motives: a) Learning what the pertinent values are; Means: b) Serious reflection and prayer, especially mental: c) Organization of the motives. 2. To steady the will in the future: Have the realization in the focus of consciousness at critical moments. a) Recollection; c) Habituation: Means: b) Association; d) Experience. 170 PIVOTAL POINT OF GOOD WILL SISTER Mary Frail is making her annual retreat. More clearly than she has been wont, she sees the magnifi-cence and beauty of the divine plan for herself, she is delighted with it, and she feels that it would the grand-est thing possible to carry it out in all its fulness. Also she notices that to do so would mean giving up certain rather dear little habitual imperfections. She is torn between two conflicting attracti6ns. Though she is free, and by all means would be pleased to embrace .the whole of the divine plan for her, especially since it is all for her own happiness, still she finds that her will does not respond as she would like. Making his retreat also is Father Inconstant. He finds no great difficulty in resolving upon the noblest courses, but in looking back over many retreats, many excellent resolutions, and many performances not so excellent, be feels rather distressed at the sight of his inconstancy. This time, if possible, he is going to make the new beginning that will stick. Just how--well, that is not too clear to him. Brother Zealous faces a different kind of difficulty. He is a teacher, and he is glad to do everything he can to make good Christians out of his charges. But often enough he finds that his pupils are irresponsive or wilful. Is there anything we can do for Sister Mary Frail, Father Inconstant, and Brother Zealous? Their problems concern wills, their own and those of their charges. Pos-sibly, some consideration of that upon which moral good will turns in a peculiar way, may be of service to them. II. By "the pivotal point of good will" let us under-stand a certain something that precedes good will itself and that, more than anything else, is a condition of its coming into being. Of course it does not determine the will; for man, being free, makes his own determinations, But even the free will is dependent upon previous conditions, and it 171 -G. A. ELLARD is the principal of these that we propose to consider. Ill. This pivotal point of good will cannot be simply knowledge. Hardly anyone would maintain nowadays the old doctrine attributed to Socrates that knowledge makes virtue. It is not freedom of the will; everybody knows by sad experience that he cannot make himself good by a mere fiat of his will, nor even by many of them. Imposition of good habits from without, though continued over a period ,of years, in the discipline, for example, of a boarding school,, may ultimately produce, not what is sought, but a reaction in the contrary direction. Good habits developed freely and from within cannot be the point we are inquir-ing after, primarily because they presuppose much good volition and action, .and the pivotal point is antecedent to these. Nor, to pass to the supernatural order, is grace as such the pivot. Grace could not help to explain natural good will:. Even in supernatural activity, it is not sanctify-ing grace, which of itself is not operative, but a habit in the order of b.elng, not of action. Nor can it be the infused virtues or the gifts-of the Holy Spirit; neither are these of themselves operative; to go into action, they need stimula-tion. In what sense actual grace may fulfill the function we are investigating, will be taken up later on. Prayer, that is, asking God for good will, cannot bethe pivotal point. If the request be granted, the question would remain by what means the good will is brought about. Realistic Appreciation of Values IV. The pivotal point does seem to be found in a realistic, sense or appreciation of values. Let us consider. Everything that is good has value, and therefore value here is understood to be any good. Good is, according to the classical division: the.pleasant, the useful, the proper. Val-ues may be high or low, and positive, like pleasure, or nega- 172 PIVOTAL POINT OF (~00D ~'ILL tive, like pain. Appreciation is the subjective or'personal response to the objective goods that we call values. To appi~eciate is, according to the dictionary, "to set a just value on; to esteem to the full worth of; to be fully sensi-ble of; to exercise a niceperception of worth." Good busi-ness people, like SisterMary Buyer, who has been chosen out.of many to make the purchases for the convent or hos-pital, presumably know how to discern values and prices, In art or literature a man is said to have appreciation if he recognizes or prizes what is beautiful. In general, a person has appreciation if he knows a good thing when he sees it. The wise man has been defined as he who knows true val-ues. Religious who properly evaluate the excellence of God and of His plan have appreciation. Realistic apprecia-tion equals .the reality, or at least approximates the reality, of the value. Appreciation, or evaluation, knowing good things as good, seems to be the vital link between the two spiritual facultieS. It involves knowledge of a certain kind, and thus it is intellectual; since complacency or some other indelib-erate movement of.will must follow the perception of. good or evil, it brings in the will also. In practise, the cultivation of appreciation of true or major values ri~quires the har-monious cooperation of both faculties. V. Among the reasons for placing the pivotal point of good will in a realistic sense or appraisal of values, we may notice the following. Common sense would seem to indicate that it is mo-tives that move the will. But what are motives, directly or indirectly, except values? If athing be of no value to one, why should one bother about it? Our own experience seems to teach the, same. If we consider carefully the best moments and the worst mo-ments in our past lives, and allow for all influences; internal- 173 G, A. ELLARD and external, can we give a better reason for our own inte-rior strength or weakness at such times than that just then our sense of values, our perception of what was really good, ~was most adequate and realistic or least so? A little observation of men shows how eagerly they react to what they value highly; to money, for example, or pleasure, or power, or honor. Salesmen and advertisers achieve their, purpose by inducing people to conceive, the highest possible idea of the worth of their merchandise. Everybody notices how much clerks will put up with from prospective buyers. Would the same persons be so com-plaisant if there were no immediate .gain in view? If it be necessary to, hold his job a man may rather easily bear with the caprices of his employer, ~though at home; with his wife and children, he acts like an 01d bear. Wars, in spite of all their evils, are fought for great economic or. political values. Suppose that, in the iight of experience and observa: tion of men, we. consider this hypothetical case. Let A be anybody who has great sums of money at his disposal. Let B be anybddy else. Let A ask B to do anything that is within the limits of reason. If A0 offer greater and greater amounts of money to B indefinitely, is it likely that B w~ill resist the attraction? Is it not to be expected thathe will yield~ and moreover like it? But money .is only the measure of .material values. That volition is a function Of appreciation or evalua-tion is also a finding of experimental psychology. This is the main practical contention in the works on the w.ill of the distinguished German ~lesuit psychologist, Lindwor-sky1. He specialized in0 the psychology~of~this faculty, and it is to him that I am mostly in~tebted for the ideas in this 1See especially The Training of the ~rill, translated by Steiner and Fitzpatrick (Brute. Mil~.'aukee) ; and The Ps~Icholog~t of Asceticism, translated by Heiring (Edwards: Eondotl). ~ " 174 PIVOTAL POINT OF GOOD WILL paper. According to Lindworsky, experiments show that volition depends chiefly upon insight into values, without of course being determined by them. The will can embrace whatever appears to it to be of value, and it can become very strong if one feels sufficiently that the value is great enough. To move the will, values must be subjectively. experienced. Keeping a resolution is dependent, not so much upon the energy with which it was made, nor upon an inner general strength of will developed by particular exercises, as upon sufficient initial evaluation and especially upon the presence of it in the focus of consciousness at critical moments. "That the secret of influencing the will lies principally in this, to present the ~right motives at the right time, is no new discovery; . it was always the doctrine of the tradi-tional Scholastic psy, chology": so writes Hertling2, a con-temporary authority in ascetical theology. From modern American psychologists: "Forcing oneself to an early rising, and compelling oneself to run six times around the barn before breakfast, or to do some other useless and diffi-cult thing daily, will not bring the result sought for . Will training implies bringing sufficient motivation into play.''8 Philosophy teaches that the object of the will is good that is known. There are two elements expressed in the object and a third is implied. The first is goodness, real or apparent. Hence no one can expect to influence the will except by proposing some good to it. To do anything else would be like trying to make one see what has no color or to hear something that is not sounding. Knowledge is the second requisite, and it is just as necessary. If one had an opportunity to pick up a million dollars, but did not ~Hertling: Lehrbuch der Aszetlschen Theologie (Rauch, Innsbruck), p. 177. 8Goult and Howard: Outline of General Ps~lcholog~l, pp. 338-339. 175 G. A. ELLARD notice it, nothing would come of it. Thirdly, the good whichis presented and known, must be apprehended not merely as true or in any other way, but as good. Where there is no good or no perception of it, there can be no voli-tion. If the good be sufficiently great and seen with suf-ficient clarity, there can be no resistance to its-attraction, as happens with the Infinite Goodness and Beauty in the beatific vision. Hence, in general, the greater the good and .the clearer one's knowledge of it, the more likely the will's acceptance of it, and the more energetic and constant that acceptance will be: Sacred Scripture seeks to move men mostly by prom-ising good things and threatening evil things. But these are values, positive or negative. Christ Himself appears to have indicated what the will follows in such texts as these: "For where thy treasure is, there shall thy heart be also" (Matthew 6: 21). "For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his soul? Or what shall a man give asaprice for his soul?" (Matthew 16: 26). "The kingdom of the heavens is like unto a treasure hid in the field, which a man findeth and covereth; and in his j6y he goeth and selleth.all that he hath and buyeth that field. Again, the .kingdom of the hea~'ens is like unto a merchant in search of. goodly pearls; and when he .hath found one pearl of great price, he goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth it" (Matthew 13: 44-46). A theological consideration: interior actual grace helps us to do good or avoid evil by enlightening the mind and inspiring the will. Psychologically Speaking, one would say that grace moves the will by enlightening the mind. The indeliberate inclination excited in the will corresponds to the ideas aroused in the intelligence. Light relative to a practical step can conceivably bear upon any or all of these three points: what is to be done, why it is to be done, and 176 PIVOTAL POINT OF GOOD '~rILL bow it is to be done. The firstalone would be quite insuf-ficient, and might well be deterrent, as when an unpleasant duty is indicated. To show why a thing is to be done: what is this but to manifest its motives or values, to reveal that it is becoming, profitable, necessary, and so on? In this way, by giving one a subjective appreciation, actual grace enters into the pivotal point of supernatural good will. It tends to correct that perversity which the prophet Isaias denounces: "Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for dark-ness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter" (Isaias 5: 20). It gives one something of that gift of the Messias: "that he may know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good" (Isaias 7:. 15). In modern terms, it enables one to share in Christ's sense of value. The Church has incorporated into the Breviary4 a famous passage of St. Augustine in which he comments on the text: "No one can come to me, except the Father . draw him" (John 6: 44), and uses a quotation from Ver-gil: "If the poet could say, 'Each one's pleasure draws him,'5 not necessity but pleasure, not obligation, but delight, how much more strongly ought we to say that the man is drawn to Christ who is delighted with truth, delighted With beatitude, delighted with justice, delighted with everlasting life, all of which Christ is? . You show a green branch to a sheep and you draw it. Sweets are shown to a child, and he is drawn. Because he runs, he is drawn; he is drawn byloving; without injury to body he is drawn; with bonds of the heart he is drawn. If. earthly delights and pleasures revealed to lovers draw them; does not Christ, revealed by the Father, draw us? For what does the soul desire more strongly than the truth?''° 4Ember Wednesday after Pentecost; Lessons 7-9. 5Eclogues, II, 65. OTractatus 26 in doannem. 177 G. A. ELLARD It may be objected that we know enough or too much already. What we need is not more knowledge, but more willing. Sometimes that is true. But at other times, it may be asked; have we the right kind of knowledge, and enough of that kind? In ~any case, if a man cannot directly make a decision that he would like to make, what do you advise him to try? Have you anything better than that he should reconsider his motivation? Dynamic Knowledge VI. Now let us see if we can discern what kind of knowledge of ~;alues it is that, as it were, magnetizes the will. It is a certain, dynamic knowledge, found to be char-acterized more or less by the following attributes. First, it will present things under the right aspect, that is, it will propose things, not as true--the usual function of knowledge--but as good or evil, lovely or odious, beau-tiful or hideous, and so on. Such are the phases of things that it will bring out into relief. A quotation from the psychologist James will illus-trate what is meant by the right aspect. Consider "the case of an habitual drunkard under temptation. He has made a resolve to reform, but he is now solicited again by the bottle. His moral triumph orfailure lil~erally consists in his finding the right name for the case. If he says that it is a case of not wasting good liquor already poured out, or a case of not being churlish and unsociable when in the midst of friends, or a case of learning something at last about a brand of whiskey he never met before, or a case of celebrating a public holiday, or a case .of stimulating him-self to a more energetic resolve in favor of abstinence than any he has ever yet made, then he is lost. His choice of the wrong name seals his doom. But if, in spite of all the plausible good names with which his thirsty fancy so copi- 178 PIVOTAL POINT OF GOOD WILL ously furnishes him, he unwaveringly clings to the truer bad name and apperceives the case as that of 'being a drunk-ard, being a drunkard, being a drunkard,' his feet are planted on the road to salvation. He saves himself by thinking rightly.''7 The right aspect is not enough. There must also be a certain quantitg in the knowledge. It must be sufficiently clear, evident, rich, and full. In fact, the closer it approaches equality to the reality, the better. This is a particularly important dement in the realism of dynamic appreciation. Hence, obscure, vague, or hazy conceptions of the most tremendous realities may remain inert and sterile. Moreover, personal rfference is vitally necessary. To see that a thing matters to another may leave me unaffected. I must see the vital importance of it for my own dear self. In the last analysis evaluations must be based on one's past experiences of pleasure, pain, or love. Through these gen-uine experiences present knowledge must be vitalized. A man, for example, who does not remember vividly how it feels to have his finger burned, is in no position to begin to imagine how it would feel to be consumed with raging fires in the infernal regions. If one should never have experi-enced the thrill of unselfish love, one could hardly under-stand God's absolute loveliness and make an act of divine charity. Nor could a man who ha~ never been aroused by created beauty react to the Uncreated Beauty. Personal reference is necessary in another sense also. Great things have many values or suggest many motives, some of them apt to appeal to one and others t6 another. Each one must discover those that evoke interest and response in himself and exploit them. One soul may love God as a father, another as a friend, and a third as a spouse. 7James: Talks to Teachers, pp. 187-188. 179 (3. A. ELLARD Two more marks of dynamic recognition of worth are iramediac~t and iraaqer~. Direct perception of an object is much more apt to stir one than knowledge that is only mediate, discursive, or abstract, because it is closer to the object and more like it. Hence .the weakness, from an affective and effective point of vie.w, of reasoning and argu-ments. Love at sight, even to infatuation, is said to occur at times; but nothing like it is possible when men and women know each other only through description or cor-respondence. A dreadful catastrophe may horrify one who sees it but leave.a reader little affected. To make up for lack of immediate knowledge when it cannot be had, the imagination must be used. The more vivid and realtand rich the imagery, the better. The human mind is depend-ent on the senses and the imagination. Hence, to get at the emotions and, through them, the will, fill the imagination. "Empathy," the ability "to feel-oneself into situations," for example, into the Gospel scenes, or into the conse-quences of one's choices, into the pleasures or pains that may follow them, can compensate to some extent for the deficiencies of indirect knowledge. Happily most of the moral and spiritual values may be contemplated in the concrete in persons who have real-ized them. The scale would range from Christ, the Blessed Virgin, and the Saints down to the humblest person who has Something to be admired and imitated. Actuatit~I of knowledge gives it power. It is of deci-sive importance that the motives be actually before con-sciousness at the critical moments when they are moit needed and least likely to be there. It is not enough that they be stored away in the recesses of the memory. Actual consciousness, for instance, of the ~ttractions of unchaste pleasure may win the battle against merely habitual aware-ness of the reasons for keeping chaste. The force of occa- 180 PIVOTAL POINT OF GOOD 'q~rlLL sions of sin illustrates well the characteristics of dynamic knowledge that we have been reviewing; the impression they produce is thoroughly realistic. Nooeln.I is also an aid, as it makes a greater appeal to the sensibilities. Hence, ~o keep a good idea from losing its motive power, consider it from new angles and find new beauties in it. Since choice is always comparative, a preference of one thing to another, superiority! of knowledge of one alterna-tive gives it an added chance of being taken. A slight value well known may be preferred to a much greater one less well known. In general, .other things being equal, that alternative will be chosen the values of which are better known or predominant in the focus of consciousness at the time. FinaliSt, a factor of knowledge that induces prefer-ential appreciation is found in the subject himself, namely. a certain s~tmpath~t, based on a natural or supernatural affinity: the "connaturality" discussed by St. Thomas in the Summas. The classical example, from Aristotle on, is the chaste man's knowledge of chastity as opposed to the theoretical ethician's. With respect to the Supreme or Absolute Value, that is, to God, this affinity is founded principally upon the essential relations of the creature to the Creator and of sonship to the Divine Father. Such seems to be the kind of knowledge that leads to willing and to action. It does not make one learned, and may be greater in the ignorant peasant than in a scholar or theologian. But if its object be divine values, it will help to make one wise and holy. If we could make our knowledge and estimation of eternal values equal to our appraisal of temporal things, our probation would be over. We cannot, to cite an 88umraa Tbeologic~, 2a, 2ae, q. 45, a. 2. 181 G. A. ELLARD instance, have an experimental knowledge of God in this life, though the mystics do lay claim to just that or some-thing like it, and in the light of it they conceive for God a love like that fierce, overwhelming, personal love which arises between man and woman. On the other hand, and to our misfortune, the false or minor values of material things do solicit us through precisely that form of knowl-edge which is thoroughly realistic and dynamic. There-fore it is all the more imperative for us to be mindfully aware of the advantages that sensible attractions have over spiritual, values, and in oposition to do whatever we can to compensate for the difference. Practical Corollaries VII. Suppose we consider separately the cases in which ¯ one wishes to influence a will at the moment and in the future, or what is about the same thing, making a resolu-tion now and endeavoring to secure its observance in the future. 1. To move the will now, and to charge it with power, get l~y all available means the maximum possible appreciation of the values or motives that are pertinent, and diminish as much as possible any antagonistic evalua-tion. ¯ First, it is important rightly to discern just what ought to be done, that is, in our case, what the law of God is or what He prefers. Missing this point, through impru-dence or scrupulosity or laxity, is not conducive to good will. But then focus attention, feeling, and effort on the advantages, gains, and reasons for so acting. Not u~bat ought to be done is to be stressed, but the u;h~/'s. Imitate the clever salesman who sells his wares by persuading the potential buyer that it is really to his own interest and profit to buy. Exhortation had better take this form than a tedious repetition of "Let us'es" or "Let us not's." Put 182 PIVOTAL" POINT OF GOOD WILL the accent, not on the rights of authority, but on the advantages to the subject in obeying; these include the values of obedience itself. Even if you urge that it is God's will, try to explain whg He wills it, what values He has in mind. With most persons, begin with a stron.g appeal to self-interest; then proceed to the nobler interests, such as God's; Christ's, souls'. Very especially in case something difficult or distressing be involved, for example, self-- abnegation, or love of the Cross, the greater the disagree-able feature, the greater must be the emphasis on the good aspects and results. This is a simple psychological neces-sity. Some who exhort to abnegation would seem to think the greater the evil, the more it will be welcomed. Mere negatives--"Dont's"--are never inspiring, and therefore negative resolutions should somehow be given a positive character and value, for instance,-by substitution or sub-limation. To acquire a dynamic sense of moral values two chief means are available; first, to learn what those means are; and secondly, by serioi~s reflection and prayer, to take their measure or realize their magnitude. What the values are is to be learned by study and reading or listening to sermons and conferences. We could not attempt to outline them here. But it may be sug-gested that the perfect man Would strive to know and will .the same values that. God Himself wills and to have a simi-lar appreciation of them. They are the Infinite Goodness Itself and the excellences of the divine cosmic plan, cul-minating in divine beatitude for an,gels and men, with immunity from all evil, for eternity. Included in that plan would be the sublime grandeurs of the Incarnation and of its effects in time and eternity. Next in order is to work up an adequate appreciation of these motives, justly to appraise them, to recognize their 183 G. A. ELLARD ' full worth, to feel their force and significance. This is ~o be done principally by serious reflection and prayer, or better, by both together, that is, by mental prayer. This is the great means and hence the supreme importance and efficacy of it in the spiritual life. St. Thomas has a whole article in the Summa to demonstrate that "contemplation or meditation is the cause of devotion.''9 In it he quotes these words from St. Augustine: "the act of the will arises from understanding." Without mental prayer, or something approaching it, one cannot expect much grasp of moral values: such is human nature. The senses and the world overwhelm one with their values, which are in possession. as it were, from the beginning. A counterbalancing per-ception of the worth of things divine does not come with faith nor without effort. The germ of it.is there, but it must be developed. The human spirit is immersed in mat-ter, and if it is to raise itself above material attractions and maintain itself upon that superior level, it-must exert its forces with an energy comparable to that of the powerful motors of the big clippers or flying-fortresses. This means in the beginning hard thinking and much of it, with ener-getic and sustained will-activity corresponding to the light won. In mental prayer.a vitalized and dynamic insight is gained into divine truths and values, the will reacts and responds at once, the appropriate affections are elicited, the consequences of possible courses of action are carefully weighed and felt in anticipation, the correct moral atti-tudes are assumed, practical resolutions are made and their execution rehearsed, many fervent petitions are made, and grace, coming in ever increasing measure, deepens and enhances the whole process. In a word, one is filled with that light, good will, and strength which are needed to ful-fil one's part in God's magnificent plan. 9Summa Theologica, 2a, 2ae, q. 83, a. 3. 184 PIVOTAL POINT OF GOOD WILL If one cultivati~ m~ntal prayer well and sufficiently, he will also use all the other means to spiritual advancement and thus he will become perfect. If one be faithful in the lower degrees of mental prayer, he may be led on even to mystical contemplation, wherethe labor will be less, and the infused light, appreciation, and love may be incom-parably greater. Mostly in the intimate commerce of con-templation do the spouses of God come to their peculiar experience and all-absorbing love of Him. The funda-mental difference between a mere believer, a person of medi~ ocre virtue, and a saint, seems to be that, whereas they all assent to the same truths, the believer hardly does more, the mediocre person feels to some extent what they mean, and the saint truly realizes their significance. All the motives, general and particular, having been considered, they are to be assembled and associated together, so that one may recall the others, and then they are to be thrown into the scales against their false contraries, and proposed for acceptance to the will, with an inexorable "either. or!" 2. To aid in securing future execution of a resolution, four means in particular are effective: recollection, associa-tion, habituation, and experience. Recollection will tend tO prevent the light and warmth of one's vivid appreciation from vanishing into the dark-n~ ss. God and divine things are in themselves interesting, and if one's insight into them has been sufficient, interest in them will spontaneously spring up. Then without too much difficulty interest will direct attention; attention to divine values will keep them in the field of consciousness; and naturally the affections and will should follow. One should foresee as far as possible the occasions in which one's constancy will be put to the test, and deter-mine in advance by .what precise means one is going to 185 G. A. ELLARD react. "The modern psychology of will teaches that mere volition accomplishes nothing, unless a definite "way of behaving has been planned and practised.''1° Then the occa-sion, the resolution with its means, ~nd the motives, already organized among themselves, are to be associated together in thought as firmly as possible, so that when the occasion comes, it may recall into the focus of consciousness the reso-lution with its means, and this in turn the whole constella-tion of motives. Thus their cumulative force will be available, and successful action may be expected. To illustrate by'an example from Lindworsky: John notices that whenever he meets Charles on the way to work, he falls into uncharitable conversation. He adds to his gen-eral resolve not tofail against charity this means, that when he meets Charles again, he will promptly open a discussion of such or such a topic. Thus he links together all four: -the occasion, the r.esolution, the precise means, and the ¯ motives. 1~ All the procedures indicated in the preceding pages can be cultivated more and more until they become solid l~abits of virtue. Thus greater sureness, facility, and perfection in good are acquired. With every success in accomplishing what one desires, one actually feels and experiences to a certain extent the fruition of one's ideals and values, and thus one's appreciation of them becomes ever more realistic, and more like the divine or Christiike sense of what is of value. If with sufficient realism you. see that your treasure is ~n the Infinite Goodness of the Blessed Trinity and in the advantages of the divine plan, you will find your will there also. lOLindworsky: The P~cbolog~/ of Asceticism, p. 38. ~lbid.o p. 37. 186 Scruples Versus !:he Human Gerald Kelly~ S.3. THIS sketch concerns two characters, both of whom .are "| purely fictitious. Any resemblance to any person in real life.is a mere coincidence. One character is called Humanus, because he represents the ordinary conscientious human being, one who is.cheerfully content to be .~'like the rest of men," The other character is Scrupulosus, so-called because he typifies the victims of that gnawing and unfounded fear of sin known as scruples. ' For Scrupulosus, a supreme difficulty is to appreciate what may be called "the human way of acting." It is hard to.define this human way. It expresses itself in a quiet resignation to the fact that human problems cannot be solved with the exactness of mathematical problems. ~.It is an essential requisite for peace among men and for interior peace with God and oneself. Humanus takes this human way in full, easy stride. A reliable man tells him something; he believes it without struggle. True, the .man might be wrong, might be lying, using a mental reservation, or even deceiving himself. But Humanus does not tr6uble himself about these things, unless there is some reM evidence.to make him suspect them. When a man gives him money, Humanus does not bite it or ring it on a counter. He knows the possibility of counter-feit money; but he knows .too that social life demands that we practise a certain amount of trust in the good will of others. (Incidentally, the author once lived in a place where there must have been a great deal of. counterfeiting. Every time one paid for something in coins, a cautious clerk rang the coin on~the counter. It was most distressing.) . ¯ . Humanus follows the.same human way in his dealings with Go&and himself.God made him huma'n; God.ought GERALD KELLY to be content if he simply acts humanly. And he has enough troubles in life without suspecting himself unduly. Scrupulosus can follow the human way in his dealings with other men; but in those things which concern God and himself he is decidedly inhuman. He seems to thinl~ that, in dealing with God, he must have God's own unerring and penetrating vision of the human heart; that in dealing with himself none of the canons of human peace are applicable. Perhaps a few examples will make this clear. The Sacrament of Penance, truly a Sacrament of peace according .to our Lord's designs, affords no real peace to Scrupulosus. Definitely, it is a torture; a torture to go. a torture to stay away. And the reason for the torment, to put it simply, is that the reception of this Sacrament involves four elements---examination of conscience, con-fession, contrition, satisfaction--each of which can be fulfilled only :in a human way. Suppose we follow Humanus and Scrupulosus through an examination of conscience. Humanus says a few pre-liminary prayers, then looks into-his soul. This is riot a very strenuous process for him;in fact, it verges on sheer routine. Humanus is conscious of the fact that he could improve his method, but he also knows that he fulfills all the essentials. Mortal sins first; and it does not take him long to find :them. Heis no laxist. He knows a mortal sin when he sees one; but he. knows too that they are big enough to be seen with the naked eye. On some Com-mandments he does not even examine himself. Idolatry, murder, robbing banks--all such things are off his list. He would waste his time searching his soul for them. If he does find that he has sinned seriously, he notes the number of times; and if he cannot recall the number, he is content to add the saving word "about." If he is doubtful about the serious sinfulness of~anything--well--he is doubtful: 188 SCRUPLES VERSUS THE HUMAN '~AY There is no use wrestling with the doubt now; if he could not solve it before, he is less likely to solve it now. Venial sins? Humanus knows there were many little things, but it is often hard to cat~ilogue them. He selects two or three, and phrases them as best he can. Sometimes he numbers venial sins, sometimes he doesn't; and he" knows tha~ the number need not be confessed. Finally, Humanus makesan act Of contrition. In this, too, there is a trace of dry routine. Humanus has often resolved to "polish it up" a bit. Contrition never causes him worry; though it has at times puzzled him. However, he has solved the puzzle in the following manner. When a friend offends him and afterwards comes to him, holds out his hand and says he is sorry, Humanus takes the hand and forgives. He never looks to see if there are tears in the man's eyes. He does not stop before forgiving to ask: "Now, John, are you sure you're sorry? Can you swear you're sorry? Do you t:eel sorry? Maybe you're deceiving me, or yourself?" No, Humanus does none of these things; so he solved his puzzle about contrition by deciding that God doesn, t act that way, either. God is content with our just being human. Scrupulostis also examines his conscience! After lengthy preparatory prayers, he finally musters the courage to plunge into the .abysmal depths of his black soul. He goes after mortal sins with searchlight and microscope; and at the end of the search he is amazed that he hasn't found any. That cannot be right. There must be some; at least, there might be some some grim deed that his lax conscience is covering up. Further examination still fails to reveal a clear-cut mortal sin, but by this time he has managed to work up a doubt. Now, is he doubtful? He'd better con-. less it as certain, because if he only thinks he is doubtful and really is not doubtful he will be deceiving the priest. 189 GERALD KELLY As for venial sins, he must have scores of them. Missed morning prayers--distractions in the prayers he did say! He has been told that missing morning prayers is really no .sin, that there is no law of either God or man that says: You must pray in the morning. But be ought to pray in the morning. As for distractions, he has also been told that when involuntary they are not sins, and that even when voluntary they are merely small irreverences. But be ought not to get distracted; it is base ingratitude for him to neglect God in that manner. He'd better give the number of the distractions: 15--no, perhaps it was only 14. He cannot make up his mind, so he decides to say 15; in fact, he finally decides to give the whole background of the ghastly affair. And so on. It is time for him to go to confession. He is not ready, but he will try. Humanus makes his confession, returns to his pew and says his penance and a few prayers of devotion. The time passes very quietly. He leaves the church, full of peace and ready, as he has often.expressed it, "to be hit by a truck." In a general way, he knows that his .confession is not mechanically perfect. Sometimes be does not say things just as he had planned them; he becomes confused, dis-tracted, or even a bit embarrassed. Also--and he has this on the authority of adevout priest--he knows that the confessor may get distracted, or even nod a bit. But this percentage of error does not greatly concern Humanus. God Himself arranged that this Sacrament should be received and administered by human beings. The essentials are quite easy to fulfill; the accidentals allow both the priest and the penitent the opportunity to strive for greater perfectio.~l and increase in humility. It should: be evident from the story of his preparation that no great peace floods the soul of Scrupulosus as he emerges from the confessional. Nevertheless, he grits his 190 SCRUPI~S VERSUS THE HUMAN ~rAY teeth and kneels dowh to say his penance. Three .Hail Marys! He literally "tackles" the first one. But in the middle something goes wrong; he must have missed a word. He starts again, and then again; but he cannot satisfy himself that that Hail Mary is properly said. As he pauses'in desperation, the whole blurred story of the confession begins to unfold before his mind. Nothing was said right. The priest must have misunderstood him com-pletely. The fact that he got only three Hail Marys con-firms him in this fear; if the priest had understood him cor-rectly, he would have given him at least a Rosary. At this moment, a new source of interior torment opens up. Even if the confession had been good, the absolution could not be valid because he did not make a real: act of con-trition. He just went through some words. God must know that he was not really sorry. And his confessions have been that way for a long time; he'simply must make a gen-eral confession. He has made general confessions before without any subs.equent peace of soul, but this one will be different. We might take Holy Communion as another example of the difference between Humanus and Scrupulosus. It should be one of the supreme consolations of the Cath-olic's life. The essentials for its reception are very small: the state of grace, acquired by Sacramental absolution, if need be; and the keeping of.the fast from midnight. Humanus finds the fulfillment of these conditions simple enough. He is satisfied with normal, .human assur-ance that he is in the state of grace. If he doubts about a serious sin, he generally prefers to go to confession, but he knows he has no strict obligation to do so, and he is con-- tent on occasions merely to make an act of contrition and go to Communion. The fast presents him with no prob-lem at all. The law is a safeguard to the reverence due the 191 GERALD KELLY Blessed Sacrament. It forbids eating and drinking after midnight. Humanus knows what ordinary people look upon as eating and drinking, and he does not have to con-sult a chemist~ to find out just what is food. or a physiologist to discover precisely what is meant by eating. All these things are so many thorns for S~'rupulosus. How does he know he is in the state of grace? He can't prove it. He is not sure he can make an act of contrition, so he must always go to confession when in doubt. It may be that his confessor has assured him again and again that, in his present trial, he mayalways~go to Communion, no matter what his doubts, no matter how many sins he thinks he has committed. Even after this and though he knows that the Providence ofGod guides souls through superiors and confess.ors, yet his case is different, and the confessor does not really understand it. As for the fast, here is but one of Scrupulosus'.many hard experiences with it. He is on his way to Mass. His lips tickle. .He rubs his coat-sleeve over his mouth. A moment later he feels something strange in his mouth-- some lint from his coat, he thinks! He gathers all his salivary forces to remove it, but he is too late. He swallows. Well, that's the end. He has broken his fast, he may not go to Communion. This is his first conviction, but in church a gleam of saving common sense is still able to pierce the fog of fear and he does go to Holy Communion. Later the fear returns with a vengeance. He made a sacrilegious Communion. After that, one thing leads to another. He begins to notice a strange taste in his mouth every morning--the lint from the bedclothes! He tries again and again to remove it; but the consciousness of the lint remains, and with it the conviction that he may not receive Communion. There are two ways of solving this lint problem. One 192 SCRUPLES VERSUS THE HUMAN WAY way is to consult a trained theologic/n, wh~ might show Scrupulo~us by keen argumentation that lint is not food, or who might indicate that, even if. it were food, it was not taken "in the manner of food." This is a perfectly legiti-mate method of solving the problem, but hardly a satis-factory one for Scrupul0sus. It allows for too much quibbling, and, even when it does convince, its appeal is only to the intellect. Scrupulosug needs something that will impress his imagination and thus remove the emo-tional pressure of his fears. The second method is therefore a much better one for -Scrupulosus. It is a method suggested by an old and experienced diagnostician of his problem. It is very simple. "You take awoolly blanket, the woollier the bet-ter. Seize firmly in both hands, raise to the mouth with-out flinching, and bite hard. When you have a good bite, then you chew thoroughly and trot to swallow.'" This is a guaranteed cure. After one such experiment Scrupulosus needs no metaphysical discussion to be °con: vinced that human beings do not eat coats or blankets. In this matter, at least, he will be content with ?he human toad. No one-should gather from this brief sketch of Huma-nus and Scrupulosus that the latter does not wish to act as others do. His difficulty .is more subtle. Briefly put, it amounts to thi~: he cannot relax. 'He is like a sick man who fights an anesthetic; or, perhaps more accurately, he is like a man who will take the anesthetic, even if it kills him. So it is with Scrupulosus; at times he fights his fears, at other times he clenches his fists and says he will be human. Neither method will help him. He must relax under the pressure of his fear. This is not easy to do; yet it can be done if only one retains the power of laughing at oneself. For Scrupulosus, a sense of humor is more precious than the gift of tears. 193 Nint:s t:or Sacris!:ans Gerald Ellard, S.J. SACRISTANS for whom its cost or other considerations make Self-Lite Charcoal undesirable may readily secure the advantage of a large glowing surface with ordinary charcoal in the following way. After the unlighted charcoal ~has been placed in the censer, a little wood-alcohol is allowed to, drip on it and soak into it. It is then ignited, and, when the alcohol has burned away, the charcoal will be alight through and through and thus able, when fed with incense, to send up what is actually something like a pillar of smoke, a symbol of prayer visible to the entire congre-gation. The matter of securing the most suitable incense within the means of all is no small concern, and prompts one to mention a variety now being used with eminent satisfac-tion. Its cost is very low' but it is not on sale, as far as we know, in the church-goods houses. Trees of Syria exude a balm that is known in trade as. olibanum. This fragrant and gummy substance is widely used in varnish-making. It is graded in trade circles by the size of the lumps: egg (large) and tears (small). Tears of olibanum make an ideal incense.:~ Stocks available in this country may not.~ last much longer, but up to the present time wholesale drug dealers have had no difficulty in supplying it. The tears should not be powdered, as much of the fragrance would be lost, but burned as they come. In sacristies serving a large number of priests the prob-lem of quickly providing each priest with an alb of just the right length often proves formidable. A Chicago church 194 HINTS TO SACRISTANS where many Masses are the daily rule has at the edge of its alb-cabinet, at shoulder height, an unobtrusive measure indicating the number of inches from the floor. A priest has just to hold up an alb to the measure to see if it is the proper length for his use. It may no longer be news .to sacristans that candle~ burners in pyrex glass are now available in all candle sizes. In style they follow-not the older lamp-chimney shape, which "black out" tOO much of the candle flame and cause difficulties in lighting the candles, but the snug, dose-fitting sleeve pattern. The pyrex burners have all the advantages of the better type of metal burners, with the big additional one of beirig practically invisible. Sacristans shudder to see priests, in adjusting the man-iple, disregard the little tab provided for pinning, .and run the pin.into the precious fabric of the maniple itself. This is riot perverseness, but a measure of necess!ty (or rather, convenience), inasmuch as many of these little .tabs are too narrow to aliow one to run a pin crossways. Many new vestments now provide a shield-shape, or even semicircular, tab which affords ample room for pinning without being conspicuous. In repairing vestments sacristans might well provide such "pin-space." A strict law of the Church prescribes that the priest mix a "very small quantity;', of water with the wine to be consecrated at Mass. Most priests wish to take only a few drops of ,water; and sacristans can help them in this regard by filling the .water cruet almost to the top. When the cruet is pract.ica!ly full, it is easy to shake out a few drops. This is not so easy to do when the neck of the cruet is empty. 195 The Presumed Permission James E. Risk, S.J. THE philosophers tells us that what happens by chance happens rarely and cannot be foreseen. The Church, in her legislation, makes provision for many unusual situations that have arisen in the course of her past history, and may arise again. Hence she grants to all priests emer-gency faculties such as to absolve from censures, to assist at marriages and to perform other priestly functions. Fac-ulties of this kind are not granted to all priests save in cases of spirituhl emergency. Now, the most conscientious reli-gious, too, will find himself at times in an unforeseen situ-ation where permissions required by his vow of poverty or obedience are needed; where the delay necessarily in-volved in obtaining such permissions cannot be admitted. Unusual circumstances arisirig from the uncertainties of travel or health may, for example, produce a situation calling for the legitimate application of the principles gov-erning the presumed permission. Since actions based on presumed permissions should be the exceptioh in the normal life ofa religious, the older theologians took great care to limit their number to the minimum, lest a too liberal application of the-norms of presumption tend to obviate the necessity of asl~ing for many of the ordina~ry permissions. Sincere reflection and a normal exercise of foresight will lead a religious to limit the number of presumed permissions, while a ready ad-mission by superiors that unforeseen situations are, from time to time, inevitable, will prompt them to make allow-ances for the reasonable presumptions of their subjects. Though the question of presumed permissions is by no means limited to the field of religious poverty, it is chiefly from this angle that we shall endeavor to examine it. 196 THE ~RESUMED ~ERMISSION Various Kif~ds or: Permissions Progress in the exercise of religious poverty demands an accurate knowledge of the various kinds of permis-sions granted by superiors. By obtaining permission to acquire, dispose of, and use material things possessing some economic value such as books, money- and the like, the religious is faithful to the obligations freely accepted when he vowed poverty. He does not act in his own name nor as an independent proprietor, but as a poor man who has nothing that he can .truly call his own. Acting w~th-out permission in these matters, he violates his vow by committing what many moralists choose to call a "sin of proprietorship." They say that such a religious acts like a man who is bound by no vow of poverty and is independ-ent of any superior in the acquisition, use, or disposal of property. The commentators on the religious life usually speak of superiors as granting permissions; though in most communities there is generally appointed an assistant su-perior who is empowered to grant many of the ordinary permissions demanded by the obligations of the vow of poverty. Our purpose in examining the nature of the pre-sumed permission leads us to comment briefly on the other forms of permission employed by a religious in the observ-ance of his vow. This will serve to clear the ground for a more accurate understanding of the presumed permission. We spea~k of an express permission as one given by word of mouth or in writing, indicating unmistakably the mind of the superior. A tacit permission, as the very name implies, is p[udently considered as granted from the silence of the superior, who is aware of certain actions that are governed by poverty or obedience. The axiom "silence gives consent" may be reasonably applied when circum-stances are such that, if the superior objected, he would voice his disapproval. An implied permission is one that 197 JAMES E. R~sK is contained in another permission. The permission of a superior, for example, authorizing a /eligious to make a trip, implies the permission to use the funds necessary for traveling. A general permission may embrace many acts of the same or different species. In some religious commu-nities there prevails the practice of renewing each month general permissions in virtue of which a religious may ac-quire or dispose of objects of a very small economic value, such as articles of devotion and the like. The extent of such permission depends on-the constitutions, rules and customs Of the institute. A particular permission .is granted for an individual case. Such a permission, how-ever, if the superior so desired, might be extended not only to a singie occasion but to several occasions calling for the same permission. Thus, permission granted to an ailing religious to consult a specialist might be limited to a single visit or extended to several, according to the nature of the indisposition requiring attention. The Presumed Permission Authors who have treated of the obligations of the religious life agree that a religious is justified in presuming permission when, owing to some inconvenience in obtain-ing permission without delay, he prudently decides that if the superior in the present circumstances, were .asked for the same permission, he would readily grant it. Now be-fore proceeding further, let it be noted that there is one very substantial difference between the presumed permis-sion and. every other kind. All permissions save the pre-sumed permission have this note in common, namely, that they are expressions of the will of the superior who knows the wish of the subject and freely grants it. In doing so, he says, equivalently at least, "I grant you permission for this or that object." Yet when we examine the presumed per- 198 THE I~RESUMED PERMISSION mission, we find that the superior cannot say this for the simple reason that he is unaware of the subject's wish. This leads us to conclude that the presumed permission is, not a permission in the strict sense of the word, but it is a legitimate substitution; and the act resulting from a sin-cere presumption, whether it lies in the sphere of poverty or obedience, is quite in accord with the obligations arising from the religious vows. The religious is acting, not in his own name, but with a clear dependence on the will of the superior. To come more properly to an examination of the pre-sumed permission, the following points of division are suggested by the definition of the presumed permission given above. We must consider: I) On the part of thereligious who presumed: a) the inabitit~/ tO obtain permission in one its ordinarg forms, b) the motioes sufficient to justifg a presump-tion; c) a prudent conclusion. Z) On the part of the superior: the different~mental attitudes towards a presumed permission. Our first condition requisite for the legitimate pre-suming of a permission is the inability to obtain permis-sion in one of its ordinary forms because of the absence of the superior. The most circumspect religious may encoun-ter such a situation when both superior and assistant are .abse, nt or indisposed or so occupied as to permit no inter-ruption. If the proposed action of the religious is so urgent as to exclude a delay until such time as the superior may be contacted, permission may be presumed, supposing the .other conditions are fulfilled. In the second place sufficient motives, reducible to ne- 199 JAMES E. RISK cessity or utility, are required to make a presumpt.ion law-ful. Let us suppose that, while traveling, two sisters are caught in a heavy rainstorm that gives little hope of imme-diate abatement. An umbrella would be a very welcome addition to their equipment in the present predicament. To purchase an umbrella without delay may be instru-mental in protecting their health as. well as their clothing. In such straits it would be quite unnecessary to look for a telephone so as to obtain express permission to make this necessary purchase. The same religious now proceed to browse through a book store while waiting for a train. To their pleasant surprise a rare and very valuable book, much sought after by their superior, meets their eye. It is available at an extremely reduced rate. A real service would be rendered the convent by the immediate purchase of such a book. A situation such as this might even justify the conclusion that the permission to buy the book ought to be presumed. The prudent in.terpretation of the superior's mind, the third requisite for a valid presumption, must never be wanting. On this point, the commentators supply us with expressions that furnish a key to the solution of many a problem that in practice may arise when we wish to justify a presumed permission. They say: "_ . it is prudently judged that permission would be given if asked"; "Per-mission reasonably presumed is sometimes sufficient"; "To presume permission is to act conformably to the will of the $a p er" t "o't ; and so forth. "Prudent"l y" , reasonabl"y, and "conformably to the will of the superior" indicate that a well-founded judgment enters into the very character of the presumed permission. Resting on the basis of whim or hallucination, instead of prudence and reflection, the act of the presuming religious is not to be dignified by the title of a permission; it is rather a gratuitous-presumption or 200 THE PRESUMED PERMISSION the sin of proprietorship. The reasons tha~ justify the prudent judgment will at least approximate those which in ordinary circumstances influence the conscientious superior in consenting to the requests of his subjects. Such reasons will be reduced ulti-mately to necessity or utility in harmony with the norms of the particular religious institute of which both superior and subject are members. For each religious order or con-gregation professes a more or less definite standard in these matters, admitting, for example,, in the matter of poverty, the use of some things as necessary or useful, while exclud-ing others as superfluous or even detrimental to the. spirit-ual interests 6f the religious. With this in mind, the reli-gious about to presume a permission knows that the habit-ual attitude of the superior is to abide by these norms in granting permissions, that the object desired in the present emergency has been granted on other occasions by the same superior, that there is no reason that leads him to suspect that in the present situatioi~ the superior would act differ-ently. Thus, a religi6us says to himself, equivalently at least, "If, here and now; I should ask the superior to grant me this request, I am reasonably certain that he would readily grant it." He comes to this conclusion after hav-ing deliberated on his particular rule of life and the habit-ual inclination of ~i conscientious superior. The "if" clause just expressed is always at least implied in the legitim~te presumption. This explains why the presumed permission is sometimes called the conditioned permission. The per-mission that would involve the acceptance of gifts of an incon.sequential value can be much more readily presumed than the more costly kind. Needless to say, in practise the reasoning process re-quired for a presumed permission is far more quickly con-cluded than described. While walking through town, a 201 religious priest meets a crippled beggar, whom he knows to be sincere. He gives the poor man a few small coins on the presumption that his superior would not object. His own particular institute encourages devotion .to the poor and he has seen his superior, a conscientious religious, act in the same generous fashion. His presumption is reason-able; he has "conformed" his action to the .reasonably in-terpreted mind of the superior. I.s. a religious who has legitimately presumed a permis-sion, say in a matter governed by his vow of poverty, later obliged to notify the superior of his act?. The rule may call for such a manifestation in every case of a presumed permission. Supposing such a prescription does not exist, one would not be obliged to notify the superior of articles now consumed which'had been received b~r way of a legiti-mately presumed permission. Objects Of a more enduring nature, received in virtue of a presumed permission, should be made knov~n to the superior. A kind friend, for exam-ple, meets a' religious and invites him to take dinner with him. The religious accepts his friend's gracious invitation. Before parting, the same kind friend presents the religious with a very excellent volume. To what is the religious obliged in the case? We suppose, first of all, that his pre-sumptions in both cases are justified. If the rule of this religious obliges him to manifest all presumed permissions to the superior, his duty is clear. Without such a provision made by his rule, he would not be obliged to acquaint his superior with the fact that he had prudently presumed to take dinner with his friend. If he wishes to keep the vol-ume which he had lawfully presumed to accept, he would be obliged to approach the superior for permission. For while it was inconvenient to make contact with the supe-rior at the moment when he received the book, there should be no special inconvenience involved in asking for permis- 202 THE PRESUMED PERMISSION' sion on his beturn home. In other words, he can lawfully ¯ presume only as long as conditions justify it. Attitudes of Superior Having examined the conditions that warrant a pre-s. umed permission, let us now look briefly at the different attitudes with which a superior may view such presump-tions on the part ~of the subject. We may reduce them to three classes. 1) The first type of superior may be so disposed that he is ready enough, if asked, to grant the ordinary permis-sions, and does not object to the reasonable presuming of the same permissions. It is possible that he has. expressed himself on this point.To ex.emplify: a religious of the community of this superior knows that permission to sub-scribe to useful periodicals is readily granted. He knows too from his close acquaintance with the superior that there is no objection to presumed permissions in ordinary mat-ters. Such a religious, provided there be no insincerity on 'the point, .may presume to subscribe under the ordinary conditions. For he knows, in the language of the theo-logians, that his superior is opposed neither to. the sub-stance of the act (the~ subscription) nor to the mode or manner (by way of a presumed permission). 2) Another superior, perhaps .with a view of check-ing abuse in the matter of poverty, may be decidedly op-posed to his subjects' presuming permissions. So strong may be his attitude that, outside of cases of real emergency, he is prepared to veto the presumed permissions of his sub-jects. A presumed permission then, outside of extraordi-nary circumstances, would be tantamount to a violation of poverty or obedience as the case might be. To resume the example of subscription for periodicals. The superior in question is not opposed to the subscriptions to useful :peri- 203 JAMES E. RISK odicals. So strongly, however, is he opposed to presumed permissions, that he refuses to allow a subject to subscribe without first obtaining express permission. In this case he would object to the substance of the act (the act of subscribing') not because he failed to appreciate the cul-tural value of useful periodicals, but because he would be opposed to the toad/ir~ which such a subscription were made (i.e. by way of the presumed permission). 3) S~ill a third attitude might be evidenced towards the matter of presuming. Admitting the use of presumed permissions as sometimes justifiable, a superior may reveal his general attitude towards presumed permissions as one of reluctance and displeasure. Such a disposition, however, would not necessarily in'dicate his refusal to ratify a pre-sumption once made. The subject of this superior sub-scribes to a periodical and on the arrival of the first issue is reminded that the superior would gladly have granted the permission if asked. Has this religious violated poverty? He may have sinned venially because of the toay in which he obtained the subscription, that is, by presu~ming instead of asking. The substance of the act, namely, the mere sub-scribing, would not necessarily be'sinful, because the supe-rior would have gladly permitted it. Obedience too could be violated, if the religious deliberately acted against the expliCit order of the superior. To complete our consideration of the various attitudes which mayinfluence a superior in .these matters, this ques-tion may be proposed. Suppose that after a sincere and prudent presumption is made, it is totally repudiated by the superior? If, for example, a book were purchased in such circumstances, what could be done? Strictly. speak-ing, the superior might order the return of the book and reimbursement on the part of the proprietor of the book-store, if this were feasible. That would be for the superior 204 THE ~RESUMED PERMISSION to decide. The religious, who in good' faith erroneously estimated his superior's attitude, would in no wise be guilty of a violation of poverty. For in the case he sincerely inter-preted the mind of his superior and concluded that the con-ditions justified his transaction. Conclusion In conclusion, let .us remember that the presumed or interpretative permission, as some authors call it, has a defi-nite place in the life of an observant religious, but that p!ace is reserved for occasions when the ordinary methods to obtain permission cannot be observed. The conscien-tious religious, as we have already stated, will rarely fail to obtain whatever permis.sions are ordinarily necessary by the more express method of asking the superior. A habitual use of presumption can easily lead to laxity in the observ-ance of poverty so essential to a life in religion that is to be led with any degree of sincerity. What must never be. for-gotten is that cooperation is always necessary in the observ-ance of the vow of poverty: the superior should show him-self ready to grant any request in keeping with the particu-lar grade of poverty professed in hisinstitute, since it is not unknown for subjects to violate poverty rather than ap-proach a superio/Who has shown himself less gracious in the question of permissions. Subjects have been known to deliberately violate poverty, I say, not to mention the gratuitous or unnecessary presumption which is another name for the sin of proprietorship. The religious should be habitually disposed to express that dependence on supe-riors for the use of temporal things, not out of a spirit of servitude but out of a desire to imitate Him Who was hungry and Who had nowhere to lay His head. 205 ook Reviews PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN AND RELIGIOUS FERFECTION for the use of the Merlst Brothers of the Schools. Trensleted from the slx~h French edition; revised end enlercjed. Pp. 567. To be procured from the Marlst Brothers, St. Ann's Hermltege, Poughkeepsie, N.Y. $1.~0. Though this book was written for the Marist Brothers, it could be of great service to other religious as well. In fact, it would make an excellent manual of introduction or a good brief guidebook to the spiritual iife in general and particularly to the religious life. It might be used as a sort of text-book for young religious; it was designed to serve that purpose for the Marist novices. It ~s small, but rich in content; its form is that of. question a~ad answer; in presentation of its material, it is systematic, clear, and definite. From it one could get a well ordered and fairly comprehensive knowledge of the practice of the spiritual and religious life. The Introduction supplies general notions on the end of man, holiness, the religious state, and religious institutes. Part I is entitled "General Means of Christian Perfection," and deals with the desire for perfection, prayei, mental prayer, exercises of piety, conscience, Confession, Communion, direction, spiritual reading, the exercise of the presence of God, and various devotions. In Part II, "General Means of Perfection in the Religious Life," are treated religious vocal tion, the noviceship and religious profession, the vows, and the corre-sponding virtues. It closes with a chapter on "Regularity." Part III is concerned with the obstacles to Christian and religious perfection, and the fourth part is devoted to the virtues. To many of the answers "to the questions are added brief further explanations in smaller type. On many points of major importance select quota-tions from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church are givefi; in these the' influence of St. Francis de Sales and St. Alphonsus Liguori is noticeable. The m~iterial make-up, paper, print, and binding, are neat and attractive. A full table of contents, an analytical tab!e, and a good index make it easy to find what the book contains on any particular point.--G. A. ELLARD, S.,J. BLESSED ARETHEY THAT HUNGER. By the Reverend Richard Graef, C;.S.Sp. Trensleted by Sister Mary Hildegerd Windecker, M. A., Sister of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians end Colored People. 206 BOOK REVIEWS Pp. ~vli + 175. Frederick Pustet, Inc., New York, 1942. $2.00. Father Graef attempts in various ways to encourage the good Catholic in the practic.e of a strong and living faith. His main lines of argumentation are the following: A dynamic faith is necessary for personal sanctity; because sanctity demands self-renunciation, and this renunciation will not be made unless one sees clearly and power-fully the value of making it. Such evaluation is had only in the light of faith. Moreover, supernatural efficiency demands the work both of Christ and of the soul. The principal part of the soul's cooperation consists in genuine, earnest desire; and the source of such desire is faith. Finally, the apostolic influence that each soul is called upon to exert in the world, and thus the ultimate mastery of the world by apostolic souls, can be appreciated only when the world is viewed with the eyes of faith. The" author has made frequent and apt use of the Sacred Scrip-tures. Each of the main sections of the book is divided into numer-ous brief topics. The meditative reading of one or two of these topics might prove, helpful to those wlJo are accustomed to make their men-tal prayer in that way.--G. KELLY, S.,I. THE MASS OF BROTHER MICHEL. By Michael Ken÷. Pp. 307. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1942. $2.S0. Here is a new Catholic novel with an entirely different theme. The setting of the story is sixteenth-century France, a turbulent his-torical period for that country, owing to the threatening Surge of heresy. The spreading falsehoods of Calvin and Luther provide' a dramatic background for the lives of the de Guillemont family, about which the story is told. The interest centers in Michel de Guillemont, the elder son and heir. It is his story from his sincere, impetuous love of Louise to his final unyielding love of God and his Faith in the self-oblation of martyrdom. We share in the tragedy before his contemplated mar-riage that was partly due to the jealousy of his brother Paul and that led to his becoming a saintly religious. We are carried along from the injustice and cruelty of his father to ~he providential meeting with the und.erstanding Father Andr4. We sympathize with him in his deep suffering when the priesthood is denied him. Brother Michel's courageous acceptance of God's will and his intense love of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass keep the interest keen up to the power- 207 BOOK REVIEWS ful climax of his death. The subordinate characters of the least-resisting Paul, the unscru-pulous Anne; the bitter Louise, the heretic Armand, the lovable Father Andre, and others are well portrayed. The story is told with excel-lent description and good use of suspense. The tragic atmosphere is relieved by romance and clever humor. The one striking weakness is the characteristic trait of the modern novel: it leaves untold the retribution due to some charaCters. The Mass of Brother Michel shows the triumph of grace over .personal pain and loss, sin, and human frailty. The passages that deal with the spiritual consolation of the Mass, the reason for pain and suffering in this life, God's love for the sinner, and the courage coming to the soul through prayer are worth reading again and again. Priests, in particular, will find here many inspiring thoughts for practical use and may grow in their appreciation of the privilege of offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.---A. J. DEEMAN, S.J. FAST BY THE ROAD. By John Moody. Pp. xiv + 308. The MacM~llan C~rnpany, New Yorl~, 1941. $2.50. The Wall Street expert on investments and kindred subjects who occasioned not a little surprise a decade ago by embracing the Catholic Faith and reporting the event in the popular The Long Road Home has a new treat for his expanding reading public. The present vol-ume, to quote from the author's foreword, is "an attempt to explain in simple language or by illustration, certain teachings and view. points to be found within the Church which are often misunder-stood by non-Catholics. All this is merely incidental to the general purpose, which is primarily to tell of some of the experiences of one convert .during his first decade as a Catholic." Mr. Moody writes simply, entertainingly, and with precision on a wide variety of subjects connected with his Faith. In his chapters the hard-headed, efficient business man, with the help of God's grace, approaches the Truth. He turns back his cuffs and proceeds to defend it and, campaign for it with gusto. The chapters are topical for the most part, ranging with consider-able agility back and forth over some focal point of Catholicity by means of observation, analysis, chance discussion, and illustrative anecdote. Their cumulative effect is to deepen one's gratitu.de for the gift of Faith and to jolt one anew with the realization that most of 208 BOOK REVIEWS one's non-Catholic friends and neighbors are totally ignorant of or gr6ssly misunderstand the Catholic concept of supernatural life, and are usually indifferent to it. And Mr. Moody, so thoroughly at home in the Church after his ten years as a Catholic, writes with more than ordinary authority and perception of .the money-mad, speed-benumbed, materialistic American mentality. The book is recommended especially to those in search of reading matter never heavy or tiring yet providing food for serious thought --and prayer. The chapters m~y be read in any order, and any or all of them would be suitable for refectory reading.--C. DEMUTH, THE CATHOLIC REVIVAL IN ENGLAND. Pp. ix -I- 102. The MacMillan Company, MEDIEVAL HUMANISM. By the Reverend Pp. ix -!- 103. The MacMillan Company, By John J. O'Connor. New York, 1942. $1.00. Gerald G. Walsh, S.J. New York, 1942. $1.00. These books are respectively the third and fourth volumes in The Christendom Series. According to the announcement of the publishers, "this is a series of popular books on important topics in the history of Christendom, prepared under the auspices of the Con-fraternity of Christian Doctrine . The books are intended to provide informative reading for both Catholic and non-Catholic readers; for study clubs in the parochial units of~the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine: for study groups in the Newman Clubs: as collateral texts in colleges, normal schools, and senior high ~and preparatory schools.'~ Both books appear to measure up very well to the purpose of the series. Professor O'Connor's book gives a fine sweeping picture of that very important period in English life known as "The Catholic Revival," the story of the gradual breaking away from the tyranny of th~ penal laws to the winning of freedom and influence for Cath-olics. Father Walsh's book puts within the reach of the ordinarily intelligent reader with good educational background an illuminating study of the meaning of "Humanism" and of the development of Christian Humanism through the middle ages till it reached its high point in Dante. Bibliographical notes are appended to each book. Father Walsh has also included an abstract for study and review which should prove very helpful.~. KELLY, S.d. 209 Decisions o[ !:he Holy MEANS OF COMMUNICATING WITH THE HOLY SEE A communication from the Most Reverend Apostolic Delegate to the Most Reverend Ordinaries reads as follows:. "In order to remedy, the difficulties of correspondence with the Holy See, His Eminence the Cardinal Secretary of State has'directed me to inform the Diocesan and Religious Ordinaries and Superiors of this country'that in the present circumstances they may recur to the Holy See through this Apostolic Delegation, and so avail themselves of the facilities at our disposal. This office makes frequent use of radiograms, and also of the air-mails to Lisbon wblch, however, are not as regular as formerly. "Upon the receipt of the petitions of Religious for faculties and dispens,ations, this Delegation will communicate with the .Holy See by radiogram or by other channdls, according to the possibilities and the circumstances. When a response has been received from the Holy See, the relative rescript will be issued by this Delegation, in accord-ance with instructions already given or to be given in particular cases. "When requests are made for the renewal of a faculty, the orig-inal rescript should be presented with the petition for renewal. "The Holy. See hopes in this way to continue to correspond with the Religious !n this country and to furnish every assistance to them." 1942, March 21. At the request of many members of the Hier-archy, heads Of universities, and authorities in the world of science, among them members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, His Holiness Pope Pius XII proclaimed Saint Albert the Great to be the heavenly patron of natural sciences. The Most Reverend Martin Gillet, Master General of the Order of Preachers, read the Brief at a solemn meeting held in the Pontifical International Institute Ahgeli- CUmo 1941, November 18. The Sacred Congregation of Rites held a preparatory session in the cause of the Servant of God, Catherine Tekakwitha, Indian virgin, to discuss the heroicity of the virtues practised by her. 210 .uesffons and Answers !1. According +o our constitutions. +he members of our congregation pronoun~:e temporary vows for three years, +hen take. perpetual vows unless, for a very serious reason, a sister is obl;gecl by superior~ to renew her temporary vows for another period of three years. At the end of +ha+ time she must either pronounce perpetual vows or seek~ an inchlt from the S. Congregation of Religious for a fur+her ex+en-sion of temporary vows if she is not 1o return to the world. Recently this latter c~se occurred, but the rescript was delayed, "and the sister d~d not renew her temporary vows until twelve days after they had' expired. In this case, did +he sister cease +o be a member of +he congregation on the day on which her vows expired, and were her subsequent vows invalid? The sister would not cease to be a member of the congregation. by the mere fact that an interval of time elapsed between the expira-tion of the temporary vows and their renewal, unless the superior had positively ordered her to leave and to return to the world. As the case is presented, it is not clear whether or not the constitutions allow this appeal to the S. Congregation of Religious.