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Issue 61.5 of the Review for Religious, 2002. ; Challenge and Response Life and Death Theory and Reality Time and Eternity SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2002 VOLUME 61 NUMBER 5 Revie~ forReligious belps p~ople respo~ anit b~ fi~itbful to God's universal call to bbliness . ~, Oy omaki~tff available to,~tbem tbe sp!ritual legacies that flow from tbi cbarismsof Catholic consecrated life. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ \Veb site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP Mouut St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, MaD, land 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, ~\tN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2002 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library, clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distrihu-tiott, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. view for religious LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Fopp~ Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp James and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hensell OSB Ernest Eo Larkin OCarm Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2002 VOLUME 61 NUMBER 5 contents 454 challenge and response Fire and Flame, Purification and Vocation Donna Markham OP spells out the healthy interpersonal life necessary for the women and men accepted into ministry. 462 Lessons from a Time of Distress Joel Rippinger OSB reflects as a male, a monastic, and an ordained religious on the sexual-abuse scandal in the church in order to discern the voice of the Spirit and the signs of the times in the events we have experienced. life and death 472 Choose Life: Reflections Ten Years after Five Deaths Regina Siegfried ASC celebrates the tenth anniversary of the murder of five Adorers of the Blood of Christ by noting 1) that Liberia is still in the grip of a life-and-death struggle, 2) that the paschal-mystery chari.sm of the ASCs is in clearer focus, and 3) that ASC mission in Liberia continues on. 481 Made Perfect through Suffering Marie Beha OSC reflects on the meaning of suffering seen in the light of the September triad of feasts--the Exaltation of the Cross, the feast of the Sorrowful Mother, and the Stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi. Review for Religious 494 hsory Right Relationships in Consecrated Life Dennis J. Billy CSSR applies the clear and extensive teaching on the spirituality of communion, what it means to live in right relationships with others, to the community life of reli-gious congregations. 511 Contemporary Theologies of the Vows Ellen M. Leonard CSJ compares and contrasts central ideas about religious life from contemporary writers Barbara Fiand, Diarmuid O'Murchu and Sandra Schneiders. 522 Discouragement Viewed through Mark's Gospel Eugene Hensell OSB enters us into an imaginative reading of Mark's Gospel in order to help contemporary religious communities to move away from our preoccupation with quantity and focus on the quality of our discipleship. 535 Time as Gift Carolyn Humphreys OCDS reviews how we might make time, God's gift to us, our gift back to God. 541 Heaven: The Day the Drilling Stopped Sister Mary Stephen Brueggeman PHJC reviews her changing ideas of heaven which bring her closer to the truth of our life forever with God. flep r n en s 452 Prisms 546 Canonical Counsel: Automatic Dismissal 552 Book Reviews September-October 2002 prisms L the United States the first anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attack upon the New York World Trade Center towers and the Washington DC Pentagon headquarters rouses many reflections about the changes in daily life that this vivid sad event brought about. With the subsequent anthrax scare, mail service was delayed and has never fully recovered because of precautionary restrictions on packages and letters. Any major public event-- sporting, political, musical, and even religious--now includes the aspect of a heightened security. Even more evidently, the rigorous security screening that has been imposed upon all air travelers has caused a reduction in the number of passengers, no matter how hard the major airlines have tried to entice them back. Review for Religious, too, has been affected by the September 11 events. Let me share with you how I have experienced this effect. In my fourteen years as editor, I have generally had a large number of manuscripts--unsolicited--flowing across my desk. I estimate that among them I have chosen one third for publication. But last October to January, it was as if the river had run dry. The flow of manuscripts became a trickle, and there was little improvement until the recent summer months. Why such a dramatic and universal change, including even our writers from other parts of the world? Let me offer an interpretation of this phe- Revie'~ for Religious nomenon. There is a classic book about mystical prayer, by an anonymous author, titled The Cloud of Unknowing. I do not want to talk about mystical prayer, but I would like to describe our human status after September 11 as entering a cloud of unknowing. The events of that day raised up life-and-death questions, yes, but more than that. An urge to examine human relationships, religious motivations, social inequalities, and the secularizing of world cultures came to the fore. In addition to these huge issues came the church scandal of sex-abuse by priests and the mishandling of these cases by bishops. Questions abounded, but not many ways of making an ade-quate response. In this tumultuous milieu, talking of pieties and priestly service and religious-life problems seemed unimportant or even petty. Important issues had arisen, and dealing with them seemed far more necessary than writing about them. I was reminded of St. Paul's words "we are perplexed, but not in despair." I believe that we all were caught in a kind of cloud of not knowing what to think or say. We were perplexed, but our mood was not one of despair. True, article submissions show something of a rebound in recent months. But I am under no illusions. Just as we live with the continuing effects of this day, so I believe that we will continue to find that our thoughts are being stirred in new ways, our affect is being shaped, and our choices are being challenged. We still remain perplexed. September 11 is more than a tragic event in one nation's history. The year just past has seen dyings in many aspects of civil and church life. We have entered a new era of examina-tion of our humanity in relation to one another and to God. The September I 1 event challenges the secular domination of any one culture and demands that social inequities within coun-tries and between countrie~ be dealt with in new ways. With St. Paul, we too can say that we are always carrying about in our body the dying of Jesus, the confusion that sin is and brings. But we live--and our authors are continuing to write--so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. Our hope finds expression in this prayer: "On each of our dyings, shed your light and your love." David L. Fleming SJ September-October 2002 DONNA MARKHAM challenge and response Fire and Flame, Purification and Vocation What can be said about vocations in the midst of the " fire storm in which we find ourselves these days? How do we encourage idealistic, good-hearted, and generous young women and men to throw their lot in with us in the midst of such sinfulness and pain? Over the course of my Dominican life, when I have been particularly grief-stricken or have found myself afraid or angry or unable to think clearly about a given crisis, I have called upon my Dominican "ancestor" Catherine of Siena to intercede for me, to beg the Spirit to help me. In that spirit I summon up this prayer, written by a contemporary Dominican woman, Patricia F. Walter, to set the scene for these reflections: Fire of Exodus, Flame of Pentecost, time and again you have beckoned us into the desert and propelled us from the upper room. Melt our resistance, dispel the frost of fear. Enkindle our longing, warm our compassion, and transform us in your fiery Spirit. Donna Markham OP, executive director of Southdown, presented these reflections (here somewhat edited and abridged) as a talk at the Serra International Convention in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on 30June 2002. Her address is Southdown; 1335 St. John's Sideroad East; RR #2, Aurora, Ontario; Canada L4G 3G8. Review for Religious Living Flame of Love, burn deep within us. Give us the strength to endure the heat and set our hearts afire. Catherine herself lived in and preached to a church in crisis. She was somewhat of a scandal in her day. She was a woman who others felt did not know her place, a woman who went into prisons, a woman who traveled with men, a woman seeming "not too tightly wrapped" as she spoke with God in strange ways, a bold woman who dared confront the pope. Nonetheless, we see in her the fusion of wisdom and love that led her to the marginalized and suffering poor, and also to the suffering within herself. God does not call perfect people to discipleship. As Catherine faced the suffering deep within the church and the suffering deep within herself, the dark side of life and of her own personality became apparent to her, and she faced it. She was not afraid to respond to God's call. "Vghen we are whom we are called to be, we will set the world ablaze," she wrote. It was in that conviction that she extended her love unreservedly to those she met along the way. Her compassion and mercy touched the imprisoned, the terminally ill, the intellectually misled, those condemned to die, and social pariahs of all sorts. Her loving determination to be true to whom God called her to be emboldened her. She found the courage to take on some of the most painful situations of her day. Catherine shows us that, even when everything is stripped away (our status, our security, our comfort), if we are whom God has called us to be, unreservedly extending ourselves to suffering people of every kind, we will fill our world with the fire of Pentecost. This is the Christian vocation. It is to this that we dare to call our young people, to be dedicated women and men of Jesus' gospel-- persons who, true to their personal call, bring healing and mercy into this broken world. God does not call perfect people to discipleship. Our Contemporary Context These days we Catholics are experiencing how suffering calls us to purification and forgiveness, how it beckons us to September-October 2002 Markham * Fire and Flame, Purification and Vocation transformation. God's Spirit nudges us in our shock and sadness to open our innermost selves ever more humbly to the Pentecostal fire of conversion. We do so in the assurance that a loving and faithful God promised to be with us in the cloud by day and, in the darkness of the night, to be with us as a pillar of fire. So it was for every stage of the Israelites' journey (Ex 40:38), and so it is for this suffering church, brought low and humbled in desert days. We count on God to be with us now, to lead us forward and to call us to purification and transformation. The community of faith needs leaders who are as generous and dedicated as they are unafraid. We count on strong lay leadership, and we count too on those who are willing to give themselves to the service of the gospel as chaste, celibate religious and clergy. Our humbled and sinful church--led by God throughout salvation history and infused with God's spirit-- calls forward those who will lead. We dare to do so knowing full well that this is an extraordinarily complex time, a time of shattered trust, the disillusion of broken shards. At the dawn of this postmodern era, when we face crises in our world and in our church, we more than e~er need leaders who will counter narcissistic individualism and alienated self-reliance. We need leaders who will witness to and proclaim the healing power of a compassionate and merciful God. We cannot settle for mediocrity. Among us are spirit-filled women and men. Members of our families, they are old, young, and in between. We need to believe in the church's power to be an influence toward good; we need to pray for God to call them, and we ourselves need to call them. Rampant skepticism, pervasive questioning, and the deconstruction of authority typify this emerging postmodern era. We can neither turn back history nor simply reapply modern solutions (that worked well several decades ago) to postmodern crises. Walking along humbly and perhaps quite anonymously in these fragmented times are those who will inspire us and help us make sense of what appears chaotic and meaningless. My sense is that the only way we can survive on this planet is by countering postmodern deconstruction with gospel-focused reconstruction. The leaders of the postmodern faith community must be courageous souls willing to pose serious and soul-searching questions. Will we proclaim with our actions and our Review for Religious words the centrality of relationship with God, with the communion of saints? How will we commit to sharing faith across the community of believers, with Christians and with other persons of faith as well? Will we act as agents of healing and reconciliation in our broken world? Will we develop new ways of standing amid the tension of our differences, becoming parmers rather than adversaries in the midst of some inevitable conflict? Clearly, perhaps more than ever, we need clergy, religious, and lay leaders who will help us notice the good that we hold in common and will move us to deepened generosity, justice, compassion, and forgiveness. VCho are these people who will minister among us, this humbled people of God whom we call church? Those who can be instruments of healing and hope; those who will venture into areas of the world, or of the intellect and the soul, where others cannot or will not go; those who will walk into areas of human experience that desperately need the gospel to be proclaimed-- women and men courageous enough to let themselves feel the Spirit's fire, become deeply converted, and thereby lead others to conversion. Aptitude for Priesthood and Religious Life This is no time to settle for less-than-healthy p~ople in our seminaries and formation houses. We do not ask for perfect people, but we ask for fundamentally healthy people. A balanced and healthy spiritual life--people at home before God, with a personal relationship to God--is the basis of a vocation. Without sometimes finding Jesus in the contemplative silence of prayer, and also in activity with and among the worshiping community, ministerial life becomes hollow rhetoric and wooden routine. Similarly, as people's relationship with God must be strong, so must their relationships with others be mature, rich, and fulfilling. We all have memories of relational disasters that have punctuated the history of ministry in the church. Frightened, socially uncomfortable, hostile, and aloof religious and clergy have been professed or ordained, sometimes unwittingly and sometimes as a conscious way of filling slots. At this time we must not repeat such arrangements. Rather, we must count on psychologically stable men and women who can handle the Septentber-October 2002 Markham ¯ Fire and Flame, Purification and Vocation demands of working in a church and world that are in a period of upheaval. The capacity to endure the stresses of this time, remain faithful to the gospel, and proclaim the countercultural message of Jesus' compassion and care is predicated upon mature psychological development. Relationship with God, relationship with others, and relationship with oneself constitute the basic health of ministers of the gospel. The mature human being is able to connect with others, can sometimes separate from others without becoming despondent, and can be interdependent, reliant on others. Without his intimate relationship with God, Moses could not have risked the harshness of the desert, the Israelites' long exile, without a clear home, without even the comfort of a clear destination. All the while, however, the pillar of fire was there. And it is still with us. When we are grounded in relationship with God--even when we are'not certain of the terrain we walk upon, even when we seem lost, even when we are tempted by mirages or seduced by the securities of the past--we dare to continue on. A strong reliance on God enables healthy ministers to rely also on companions in the difficult search for a true and loving response to the signs of these times of ours. Those who cannot relate, who do not have close or sustained friendships, or who are exploitive or manipulative in their interactions with others do not belong in the priesthood or religious life. Nor do stiff, distant, rigid, detached persons who are dismissive or controlling of others. Living with a damaged ability to connect with others in healthy ways, such persons are highly vulnerable to exploitive sexual behavior. As the ability to connect with others and with God is important, so is the ability to take leave, to separate from others. In the spiritual life there are times when God seems silent or distant. Spiritually healthy persons are attuned to the God of silence, the God shrouded in the cloud. Emotionally healthy individuals can tolerate separation. They do not function out of an insatiable neediness for continued nurturance and affirmation. Clingy, demanding, possessive people do not exercise ministry well. Their pastoral style is indecisive, hesitant, and largely ineffective. Good pastoral ministry includes the capacity to be interdependent. Priests and religious must be able to find God in Review for Religious the community of believers, even as they are stretched and challenged within that community. Stand-alone "talking heads" who believe their mission is to infuse knowledge and faith into subordinates manifest the worst of postmodern narcissism. Puffed-up arrogance issues from deep insecurity and gnawing inadequacy. Because they are preoccupied with themselves, their pastoral style is likely to be experienced as secretive and mystifying. The women and men accepted into ministry today must be secure in their personal identity and confident in God's incredibly persistent accompaniment, even in the nighttimes of their experience. They must be deeply aware that the mission of Jesus transcends their own self-focus. We might well ask ourselves what must occur in our admission and formation processes to ensure that those who will be ordained or professed are persons of this kind. As is evident from these comments, a healthy interpersonal life is the place to begin. In her classic book, The Birth of the Living God, psychoanalyst Anna Maria Rizzuto comments exquisitely on the important connection between people's relationship with God and their ability to form relationships with others. People's relational life--including their ability to depend on, separate from, and collaborate with others--is mirrored in their God quest and thus is the touchstone for their spiritual life as well as their ministerial life. This is evident in Moses' life in the desert, in the lives of the disciples' gathered and inspirited in Pentecost's upper room, and in the life of Catherine of Siena bringing the gospel's truth to so many. Implications for Formation When, from their personal experience of candidates, admissions board members have made positive evaluations, those judgments should be confirmed by psychological evaluations. Far from being enemies of the faith journey, the social and behavioral sciences can give candidates valuable insight and assist their continued growth, along with confirming that they have the psychic strength to handle ministry in a restive church. The Thomistic adage that "grace builds on nature" seems apt. That is, we cannot take severely damaged persons into our seminaries September-October 2002 Markham ¯ Fire and Flame, Purification and Vocation and religious communities with the expectation that somehow, if they pray enough, they will be able to take the stress of ministry today with a modicum of effectiveness. That would be unfair to both the individual and the people of God. Psychological evaluation is helpful in screening out those who have personality disorders or cognitive deficits that would interfere with trustworthy and effective ministry. After admission to a seminary or a religious congregation, discernment continues. That two-way process of determining if there is a fit between the individual's gifts and the charism of priesthood or a particular religious institute should be diligently undertaken by the candidate and the formation directors. If either party has any doubt, the process should be terminated. Serious errors are made when either the individual or the formators decide to continue the process in spite of serious concerns. The candidate who says he or she must simply pray harder in order to be happy and at peace in the life, or the formator who says "Let's give him one more chance" or "Let's send her to psychotherapy," is setting the stage for unhappiness or, worse, for future ministerial dysfunction. The discernment process must take place in prayer and serious dialogue. Wonderfully dedicated persons may not be called to a life of chaste celibate ministry. Doubts on either side necessitate making the difficult decision to terminate the process. In light of the demands of these times, other things too seem imperative in fostering healthy vocations in seminaries and houses of formation. Along with necessary courses of study, serious spiritual direction by trained directors is probably more important today than it ever has been. The general quest for meaning in our culture, people's longing for connection to the Sacred, and pervasive skepticism affect all of us and inevitably affect the spiritual life of candidates for priesthood and religious life. Assisting candidates to have a contemplative personal relationship with God and to be comfortable seeking harmony with God's spirit active in our world is surely a crucial undertaking of the formation process. Candidates today must experience a radical call to ministry. They must have a strong altruistic desire to extend themselves to others, especially those in critical need. Central to formation, and I would say crucial today, is some form of immersion among Review for Religious the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the suffering, the angry. The world cries out for compassion and healing. People yearn for the love that can cast out the terror that lurks in corners of rage and despair. Without burning desires to put lives wholeheartedly at the service of Jesus' mission, without willingness to feel uncomfortable or inadequate, ministry in the postmodern marketplace is likely to be sadly ineffective. Critical and Creative Fire It is my growing sense that we are not engaging in formation in ways that meet the needs of persons preparing to minister in this time. I wonder if we are not still imposing modern solutions on postmodern realities. In a world disconnected, divided, and fragmented, heightened attention to community-building seems crucially needed. With our seminaries and houses of formation still separated from the culture, I wonder if we are missing something terribly significant as we prepare people to be healing agents in that culture. Regarding formation, critical and creative thought is needed. Varied apostolic opportun-ities, cooperation across gender lines, and intelligent immersion in the crises of these times must be balanced by solid theological knowledge and spiritual experience and commitment. We search for ways to promote vocations, and we strive to have minds and hearts ever more ready for the fire of God's Spirit. We believe that our faith life is precious, that healing can and will happen, that there is more life than death, no matter how cold or dark things may seem. Like Catherine, we too pray that our resistance may be melted, that the frost of our fear may be dispelled, and that, warming us by burning away impurities in us, God will give us a fierce fervor that can set hearts of the next generation on fir!! In a world disconnected, divided, and fragmented, heightened attention to community-building seems crucially needed. Septentber-October 2002 JOEL RIPPINGER Lessons from a Time of Distress Inf the citizens of the United States developed an entirely ew way of looking at things in the months after 11 September 2001, members of the Roman Catholic Church in North America underwent a similar transformation in the first six months of 2002. The numbing succession of stories on cler-ical sexual abuse, episcopal cover-ups, and lay outrage over the betrayal of trust by church authorities have constituted a seismic shock, whose tremors continue within the Catholic Church in the United States. The reaction of laity and religious alike has been accelerated and imensified by the extensive media cover-age of these matters. In describing American Catholic reaction to the sexual-abuse scandal, one can say that it is equal parts outrage, sad-ness, and alienation. One of the notable and positive consequences of these events is that church authorities have given greater heed to the voices of Catholic lay people. Opinions of the laity are now received with a seriousness and sympathy that until recently were hard to detect. This development is all to the good. At the same time, the ordained in the church and those in positions of authority have been chastened and humbled more than many would have thought possible, an eventuality that few think would ever have been self-initiated. All that being said, a perspective on recent events that has not received much attention is that of religious in the church. Joel Rippinger OSB writes from Marmion Abbey; Butterfield Road; Aurora, Illinois 60504. Review for Religious More particularly, I can speak from the position of a male, a monastic, and an ordained religious. Perhaps more uniquely, I can speak as an historian whose perspective sees all that has occurred as an unprecedented watershed in the church's his-tory. From this perspective my hope is that my reflection may enable fellow religious to discern the voice of the Spirit and the signs of the times in the events we have experienced. Before attempting an objective historical judgment of this crisis in Catholicism, an inventory of personal emotions seems appropriate. The images that come to mind are of being caught in a storm at sea without a rudder or being thrown into one plot twist after another like a character in an action film. For any man who spent all of his adult years as a religious (and then also as ordained), never before these events was there a need to cope with a feeling of collective shame. If at one time vowed celibates sometimes felt that they were being distortedly per-ceived as asexual persons or just marginalized singles, now they felt that people were perceiving them as among the sexually perverse. The sense of accomplishment that for many years had accompanied their apostolic labors was now undercut by reve-lations that the very people being served had been betrayed by ministers themselves. People have long been aware, of course, that religious have in their communities a support system that diocesan priests and numerous lay ministers often do not have. I agonize over the plight of the growing number of new DPs, not displaced persons but displaced priests, men who have been removed from their assignments as a result of allegations but who lack access to the same network of healing that religious communities have and who, hounded by the press, seem to have become nonpersons like people struck from party lists in totalitarian states. For the increasing number of religious engaged in the ministry of spir-itual direction, the size of the crisis is soon evident. Lawyers and public-relations personnel for dioceses find themselves in a war zone as they face a hostile press and wounded families of vic-tims of sexual abuse. Catholic social services confront the dispir-iting discovery that their funds have been siphoned away for payments to victims of sexual abuse. Ranks of good priests find their public profile diminished and their spiritual strength sapped as they go about their ministry with the self-conscious- Septeml~er-October 2002 Rippinger ¯ Lessons from a Time of Distress ness that comes from ,facing misplaced suspicion at every turn. It is arresting to consider that among the few safe places of hos-pitality and confraternity for these persons to seek restoration in are religious houses. The Lens of History When one looks at the present crisis historically, a number of seminal issues come to the surface. The first is that nativist and anti-Catholic sentiment, so powerful in various periods of American history, has reappeared. That sentiment was clearly seen in the way that the secular press seized on the issue of sex-ual abuse. The New Yorker and National Review, the Boston Globe and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, odd bedfellows on other topics, joined in their insistence on full disclosure and even in their misunderstandings of Catholic teaching. The confusion of the vow of consecrated celibacy of religious and the promise of celibacy taken by diocesan priests was only one of many errors regarding the Catholic Church that appeared in the press. Fact checkers could be unconcerned that some simple down-to-earth accuracy escaped their investigative radar scanning. The print media, however, paled in comparison with the television indus-try. The traditional networks and the cable news leaders were both drawn to the story. Whether it was the American cardi-nals meeting in Rome or the American bishops meeting in Dallas, the confluence of church symbolism, sexuality, and inept or corrupt authority drew coverage that smacked of tabloid jour-nalism. (One had to strain to find any voice given to superiors of religious houses or congregations. With a few notable excep-tions, both local and national networks ignored that realm of Catholic vowed life.) In all this, one wonders what direction the film industry, already given to frequent caricatures of Catholic priests and religious, might take in future screenplays involving the church. Compared with earlier periods of anti-Catholicism in American history, however, contemporary treatment is less offensive. When one thinks of the fictionalized treatment of women's religious life in The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk in the period prior to the Civil War, even the present-day embel-lished broadsides are slight in comparison. As much as the polit- Review for Religious ical cartoons that burst into the attention of the American pub-lic in 2002 seemed to lack all respect for the institutional church, they do not approach the Thomas Nast cartoons of the 19th century or the caricatures of Al Smith when he ran for president in 1928. An element of the current crisis that is a significant change in popular perception of the Catholic Church in the United States is an anticlerical slant. The American hierarchy, which until recent years had been heralded for its leadership regarding respect for life and in forming public policy on social-justice issues, was now the target of not only mavens of the media but also many ordinary Catholics. On the intertwined matters of sex and money and power, people scrutinized the conduct of the church's ordained authority figures. For those called to witness to the evangeli-cal counsels of consecrated celibacy, poverty, and obedience, there was little chance to miss the irony. While the United States for years resisted the per-vasive anticlericalism of European nations such as France, Italy, and Spain, it is increasingly evident that the status of the ordained in North America has been reduced markedly. Although this reduced status has not been felt with the same forcefulness among religious men and women, the high percentage of ordained members among the former and people's proclivity to think of both groups together sug-gest that the status of religious in Catholic eyes will be not be as high as it was up to the council. Beyond any doubt, there is a growing resentment toward the clerical culture of recent years. Whether directed towards closeted decision making by bishops or towards an air of unassailable authority among local priests, resentment is real and not restricted to feminists or to lay men and women with liberal agendas. Establishing the extent of this resentment by opinion polls would not seem as pressing a need as dealing with discernible causes of such resentment. It is hard to gauge just how powerful the media were in generating adverse public opinion against the Catholic Church Nativist and anti- Catholic sentiment, so powerful in various periods of American history, has reappeared. September-October 2002 Rippinger ¯ Lessons from a Time of Distress Scandalous behavior on the part of the clergy and religious, and also closeted policy making on the part of bishops, have been recurrent themes of American Catholic history. in the face of so much questionable behavior. Today's media have no real historical antecedent. The media treatments of Watergate and Humanae vitae provide matter for suggestive comparison but not for accurate assessment. In the public eye, the hierarchy and its representativesappear to have suffered an erosion of credibility that is without parallel. Insofar as this will have an effect on the church's image as a whole, it is bound to undermine the perception that ordinary Catholics and others have of members of religious congregations. Another historical perspective worth noting is that scandalous behav-ior on the part of the clergy and reli-gious, and also closeted policy making on the part of bishops, have been recur-rent themes of American Catholic his-tory, not merely developments of recent years. One strains to see such histori-cal awareness present in assessments of today's situation. Before the screening mechanisms of today, communities of men and women religious often took in individuals whose pasts were at best questionable. When sexual promiscuity or the misuse of alcohol occurred, typically it would take place outside the cloister and.involve the clergy in their pastoral assignments. When such misconduct became known publicly, the tolerance of the faithful was amazing, especially when the perpetrators would be reassigned to other parishes or missions. Therapeutic interventions and the reporting of specifically criminal actions to civil authorities were absent as procedural options until recent decades. Even many years after these events, historians found themselves frustrated by the selective purging of pertinent correspondence or data in community and diocesan archives. The upshot was that the press did not have access to records in the manner that exists today. In addition, there was an understanding that journalists would not cross a line in regard to investigating Catholic Church institutions. The culture that produced Hollywood's idealized images of priests and religious Review for Religious portrayed by Spencer Tracy, Bing Crosby, Loretta Young, Gregory Peck, and Ingrid Bergrnan did not deem it appropriate to uncover the darker side of that image. New Aspects of the Present Crisis One striking irony in the unfolding of recent events in the sexual-abuse scandal is the supporting cast that came into the public eye. The pray, pay, and obey lay people of the preconciliar era had now acquired positions of power and influence within the church. So, although the persons accused of criminal or immoral behavior were almost exclusively male and ordained, the church voices being heard were largely lay and even female. Women religious serving as chancellors (coordinating the func-tioning of diocesan offices) were asked to speak for the church. Lawyers, whether representing victims or perpetrators, pro-fessed their Catholicism and often a background of Catholic education. Catholic education, in fact, has had a role in the overall picture of the current sexual-abuse crisis. The primary apostolic work of many religious communi-ties, religious education has proved to be the very venue in which much sexual abuse took place. The large-scale lawsuits instituted against orders in Canada and the United States (to say nothing of Ireland and Australia) for systematic victimization of students signaled how vulnerable these institutions had become. The moral scandal in all of this seems to have been more the sin of omission by persons in authority who failed to intervene than the sexual crimes themselves. Some critics took note of the lack not only of moral integrity among administra-tors of Catholic schools, but also of a professional stance and adequate structures to deal with such criminal behavior. In both cases, administrators of religious schools were forced to admit to a complicity in allowing perpetrators of abuses to continue in their work. This situation pointed to a real deficiency in religious for-mation as well. Just as the sexual-abuse scandals in the United States in the last half of the 20th century indicated the flawed formation provided for many priests in seminaries, so too the formation programs of religious communities do not appear to have prepared people well for celibate commitment. Celibacy September-October 2002 Rippinger * Lessons from a Time of Distress and sexuality in formation programs were usually treated only in a general and allusive way that was felt to be circumspect, seldom with a candid and detailed explanation of realistic areas of struggle. An even sadder irony is that considerable numbers of vocations to the religious life were themselves sexually abused. Fear of divulging any information about such abuse only made the climate of conflicted feelings and shame more pronounced. Maintaining that secret and carrying the hurt of their past exacted a price that religious orders are only beginning to real-ize. As important as the vow of consecrated celibacy was for the identity and witness of all religious, it did not "keep up" with the culture. The sexually saturated American culture since the 1960s sent people to religious houses with sexual experience and atri-tudes that were considerably removed from, if not at cross pur-poses with, the ascetical tools they were expected to acquire in their spiritual life. For many generations, candidates came to religious com-munities at an early age and led lives sheltered from the wider world. In recent decades, more mature (that is, older) candi-dates with more education and more independent and sophis-ticated career experience made for an entirely different set of expectations. As much as Generation Xers and the millennium generation were recognized as requiring a new manner of for-marion, especially for developing the skills required by a celibate commitment and for developing a deeper understanding of their sexual identity, formation programs that provided this were the exception rather than the rule. Sadly, too, the emerging need in the last decades of the 20th century to assist older religious who had awakened to their sexuality as a more complex reality than they had previously realized was typically overlooked or ignored by religious communities. In recent years there has been tension and conflict between the discipline of psychology and the more traditional skills of the spiritual life such as fasting, mortification, and a deepening prayer life. Too frequently the matter appeared as an either/or proposition. Either one bought into the therapeutic model and relied upon the work and recommendations of trained clini-cians to deal with misbehavior, or one thought that only an ascetically proficient religious could be trusted to give effective witness. In truth, both the discipline of psychology and the tra- R~vie~ for Religious ditional methods of acquiring gospel holiness were needed as partners, not opponents. Religious superiors, many of whom had trained therapists in their communities, began to see the need to model such a partnership. Another facet of religious life that has been accentuated by the distressing events affecting the larger church has been, for want of a better term, a sense of entitlement. Part of the judg-ment rendered on the American ~riesthood by contemporary observers is that ordained men have generally been encouraged to see themselves as special, people having a status that put them on a pedestal. The connection of this attitude with nar-cissistic behavior and a feeling of deserved entitlement is not hard to make. The same holds true for the attitudes of exclu-sivity and domination that were attached to the role of the ordained. Insofar as religious communities, consciously or unconsciously, adopt such attitudes, they play into the hands of those who want to write them off as irrelevant to the modern world. One of the commonly employed descriptions of religious life in the last forty years of renewal has been its prophetic role. The term implies a forceful, unsparing, and honest stance in the face of evil or oppression. The fact that the veil on much of the evil behavior in the Catholic Church had to be lifted by persons and institutions outside it says much about consecrated life's complicity. For many years, communities and congrega-tions expended much energy and resources on the small minor-ity of the "troubled." It became standard operating procedure to deal with such matters in the closed circle of community. The reasons for this seemed evident. First of all, only the superiors would have all the facts to make the decision. And there was the need to respect both promised confidentiality and the good name of the institution. Somehow this learned behavior was able to compromise any impassioned effort to deal with the issues underlying these cases of moral failing and misbehavior. How much of the moti-vation behind this was because of religious obedience and humil-ity and how much of it was indifference and a desperate desire to preserve an image is hard to say. But the fact remains that few voices of prominence from the ranks of religious (one thinks of the Dominican Father Thomas Doyle, whose recommendations September-October 2002 Rippinger ¯ Lessons from a Time of Distress on sexual abuse to the American bishops in 1985 were largely filed away) were willing to play David against the Goliath of the church hierarchy. In some respects, many church authorities, when confronted with the revelation in early 2001 of sexual abuse of religious women in Africa by church figures, were other instances of not wanting to hear the prophetic voice. The history of religious life tends to teach that the minis-terial needs of each generation change, and so religious com-munities have to adapt to those needs. The church today would do well to prepare a good number of compassionate and com-petent men and women religious to minister to the victims of sexual abuse. The great capacity of religious in previous eras to form new ministries and institutions to deal with changing pas-toral needs will be tested again in this case. The professional training needed to provide such personnel should be a part of ordinary programs of formation. If seminaries throughout the United States are now committed to detailed screening and comprehensive instruction in the area of sexuality and celibate skills, religious communities should do no less. Historians can also be of assistance in future years. When one reads the available popular or scholarly histories of reli-gious congregations and communities in the United States (and they are many), one searches largely in vain for any serious or systematic discussion of sexual misbehavior, or of substance abuse and severe emotional problems. Part of the reason for this, as alluded to earlier, is that much of the record of such activity has been expunged from archives and other records. But there is no evading the truth that such scandals have had an influence on the character and development of many commu-nities and congregations. A beginning needs to be made towards having discreet, honest, and sensitive histories written on such matters so that the problem of silence and averted eyes no longer prevails. In the history of the modern church and modern conse-crated life, real transformation and spiritual progress have almost always been initiated by outside events. The Protestant Reformation and the French Revolution's destruction of reli-gious houses had positive effects within the Catholic Church. Reformed congregations and new houses of religious emerged to confront the new challenges of the time. Review for Religious The situation today, in the church and in North American relig!ous life, has similarities with those earlier historical moments. As much as the current crisis contains elements that are entirely new (for example, the mass media that shape much of public opinion and the "age of litigation" that surrounds the church in the United States), there nonetheless is much to learn from both the distant and the immediate past. New voices must be heeded, and a new genera-tion of leaders will be needed to change church and com-munity structures that have failed. To accomplish that daunting challenge, they must preserve the best of tradition and listen more carefully than their predecessors to the lessons of the past and the voice of the faithful around them. New approaches to ministry will be proposed, and they will enlist the ranks of religious women and men to The church today would do well to prepare a good number of compassionate and competent men and women religious to minister to the victims of sexual abuse. redirect their commitment and their resources. A new paradigm of formation in religious life must more realistically and pro-foundly prepare people to live a celibate commitment. Such a paradigm will blend the distinctive charism of tradition with the revised understanding of how religious life at the dawn of the new millennium has been changed unalterably by yet another tectonic shift in the geography of consecrated life. The proto-cols of the past (whether they be called secrecy, damage control, or protecting the institutional image at the expense of individ-uals) have been found wanting. It is incumbent upon the present and future generations of religious to effect a conversion wor-thy of their vowed commitment. September-October 2002 life and death REGINA SIEGFRIED Choose Life: Reflections Ten Years after Five Deaths Ten years ago five Adorers of ~he Blood of Christ were murdered in Liberia, where the congregation had had missionaries for twenty-two years. It seemed then that the deaths ended what the sisters had worked hard to build. God, though, told us long ago: "I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live" (Dr 30:19). Now, ten years later, some of the picture does not look nearly as bleak as it did in 1992. Three things are more obvious now than they were when the five Adorers were killed on 20 and 23 October 1992. One is that Liberia is still in the grip of a life-and-death struggle; another is that the paschal-mystery charism of the ASCs is in clearer focus for many members. The third is that the ASC mission in Liberia has not ended with the deaths of the five missionaries. Commemorating the tenth anniversary and celebrating the lives of the five murdered ASCs, this article focuses not on their deaths Regina Siegfried ASC last wrote for us in our May-June 2002 issue. Her address is Department of Theological Studies; Saint Louis University; P.O. Box 56907; St. Louis, Missouri 63156. Revi~'w for Religious but on the situation in Liberia and on the valiant spirits of people there who continue their legacy. The community's mission in Liberia began in 1970 in the coastal village of Grand Cess, in the Cape Palmas diocese. By 1984 the Adorers had eleven sisters ministering in Gardnersville (a suburb of the capital city, Monrovia), in Kle, and in Grand Cess. In 1989 civil war broke out, with Charles Taylor leading the rebel forces. Allegedly, rebel soldiers shot Joel Kolmer ASC and Barbara Ann Muttra ASC on a Tuesday, while they were on a short automobile journey away from their Gardnersville convent, and three days later other rebels came to their convent and shot Kathleen McGuire, Agnes Mueller, and Shirley Kolmer. My community has had ten years to assimilate those stark facts, to grieve intensely, to remember lovingly, and now to celebrate gratefully those lives generously poured out. Liberia Ten Years Later To keep these five deaths in perspective, it is necessary to realize that, since 1989, 200,000 Liberians have died; 800,000 more are refugees in neighboring countries and elsewhere. More than 1 million Liberians are internally dis-placed within the country. All of the country's infras-tructure lies in ruins and the economy has collapsed. However, leaders of the seven warring factions in Liberia are engaged in a lucrative underground econ-omy. In June 1996, deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs. Ambassador William Twaddle testified before Congress that the National Patriotic Front of Liberia alone may have made $75 million a year from the sales of Liberia's timber, iron ore, rub-ber, gold, and diamonds.' The murder of Liberian President Samuel Doe in 1990 brought intense civil war. The seven Adorers then in Liberia fled the country. By March 1991 Sisters Shirley Kolmer and Joel Kolmer returned and were followed in August by Sisters Barbara Ann and Agnes and by newcomer Sister Kathleen. The sisters worked with youth to help them refocus their lives after fighting at too young an age. September-October 2002 After the sisters' deaths in 1992, fighting .continued to devastate the country. In September 1996 Ruth Sando Perry headed the Liberian New Transitional Government. During that same year armed conflict once again erupted in Monrovia, but by August the warring factions signed the Abuja II Peace Accord. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf opposed Charles Taylor, leader of one of the factions; he defeated her for the presidency in May 1997. On 14 March 2001, testifying before the House International Relations Subcommittee on Africa, Senator Russ Feingold unequivocally labeled him a war criminal: "We have all read the appalling accounts of atrocities committed in the region. I believe that some of the responsibility for these terrible abuses rests upon Charles Taylor's shoulders. In fact, I believe that Liberian President Charles Taylor is a war criminal." Jeffrey Bartholet's in-depth article and analysis of Taylor in the 14 May 2001 issue of Newsweek argues that Taylor is "a dictator adrift . He maintains the faCade of democracy, while ensuring that no one threatens his power" (p. 31). In May 2002 the International Herald Tribune reported that fighting had once again broken out in Monrovia. Taylor's government troops attempted to quell a rebel offensive. Adding to Taylor's self-serving indifference to the plight of the people of Liberia are other grim conditions that compound the misery: child soldiers, illegal diamond trade, crumbling and destroyed country-wide infrastructures, and deforestation of a once breathtakingly beautiful and fertile land. Boys orphaned by the war joined factions that offered promises of booty, power, and the glamour of guns. Girls became the mistresses and servants of older soldiers, with rape and resulting pregnancies fo~ girls too young to be mothers. Some children were forced to kill as part of an initiation rite and to ensure their complicity and loyalty to a faction? With the theoretical peace of August 1996, many of the child soldiers were disarmed. But taking guns from children does not mean they are educated, prepared with skills, or rehabilitated for society. Often with no parents, no home, and no school to return to, these child soldiers were well on the way to becoming today's lost young adults. In assessing the plight of the child soldiers, Stephen G. Price, of the office of justice and peace for the Society of African Missions, has written: Revie~a for geligio~,s Rehabilitation requires some kind of reconciliation in the larger Liberian society, where the atrocities of war experience can be faced in some way, and a means of living with the memory of them is achieved. It also involves responsible persons hearing young fighters tell their own stories of personal involvement. The grief, terror, and guilt will be a huge emotional burden, and a bomb waiting to explode again, if it is not expressed.3 Although the war may be technically over in Liberia, the fighting and refugees have spilled into neighboring Sierra Leone. That country's Revolutionary United Front smuggles diamonds through Liberia, where Charles Taylor reportedly takes a cut of the pro~fit.4 The African Faith and JustiCe Network newsletter of March 2001 reports that nongovernment organizations and the United Nations have succeeded in getting the diamond industry to commit itself "to rapidly developing a Certification of Origin system that would allow global markets to exclude diamonds originating in civil-war situations. However, the industry has moved slowly to implement this commitment, prompting more active calls for UN or government action" (p. 5). The same newsletter says that fighting over diamonds has closed so many clinics and pharmacies that people are unable to get appropriate drugs or treatment for common, easily treatable illnesses. Child soldiers, illegal diamond smuggling, and ordinary Liberians without ordinary social services and a working infrastructure--all are signs of death, destruction, and general mayhem. But only on one level. Liberians continue to choose life; the forces for life outnumber the seemingly grim, death-dealing, and nearly hopeless situations they face every day. Their natural tendency toward optimism and a God-centered hope sustain them. Nongovernment organizations such as Catholic Relief Services, the Society of African Missions (SMA fathers), other missionaries, But taking guns from children does not mean they are educated, prepared with skills, or rehabilitated for society. September-October 2002 Siegf!'ied ¯ Choose Life the Africa Faith and Justice Network, Senator Feingold's testimony, the clean diamond act, and programs such as Development, Education, and Leadership Teams in Action (DELTA) and Development Education Network-Liberia (DEN-L) are slowly, surely, and quiedy restoring life to this country. Located in Gbarnga, Bong County, and committed to training lay leaders to "promote grassroots participation in sustainable development and good governance,''5 DEN-L trains workers, community leaders, and unionists to analyze local and national situations and to network, advocate, and work for a Liberia where life is sustainable. DEN-L is but one example of an organization staffed by fearless committed people who envision a country where peace and reconciliation bring new life. The ASC spirit lives on in lay associates who still gather to pray, to remember, to celebrate. Lay people now staff the Catechetical Village Leadership Training Center in Kle, Bomi County, begun by Antoinette Cusimano AS in 1986. The sisters' house in Gardnersville is a clinic. Five Liberian brothers staff Sister Shirley Kolmer School in Barnersville. Sister Kathleen McGuire School is a newly built structure in Cooperfarm, a village near Monrovia. The work of Sister Barbara Ann in healthcare is continued in Tubmanburg and Kle and many surrounding villages by a nurse trained by Barbara Ann and her staff. Another aide trained by Barbara Ann works in the clinic in Kle; the clinic had been the sisters' home. Since it is the custom of the Liberians to name their children after some persons important to them, some Liberian girls now answer to the names of sisters who served in Liberia, including the slain sisters. Despite it all, perhaps because of it all, the spirit nurtured by the five ASCs and other ASC missionaries lives in the people who carry on their legacy without their presence. The missionaries have risen in the people. ASCs Ten Years Later The sisters have risen in the people of Liberia. How do their spirits live in the congregation of Adorers of the Blood of Christ? The answer to that question impels us to focus on the charism, our legacy from Maria de Mattias, founder of the Adorers. The Review for Religious Constitution of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ is quite clear about the charism: Our charism as Adorers of the Blood of Christ is deeply rooted in the death-resurrection mystery of Jesus. Ours is a paschal identity, signed in the blood of the Lamb. As a congregation we are to bear witness in hope and joy to the living presence in our world today of Christ's redeeming love, which gives meaning to human suffering and can render it powerfully liberating and life-giving. (§22) Shaped by and immersed in this basic mystery of Christianity, the Adorers expect this "paschal identity" to permeate their corporate and personal lives. Baptized into the life and death of Jesus, vowed to God as sisters in a congregation whose constitution encourages its members to be "ever more credible witnesses of God's tender love, of which the blood of Jesus is vibrant sign and unending covenant pledge" (§3), the paschal-mystery charism of the Adorers found stark reality in the lives and deaths of the sisters in Liberia. These five credible witnesses lived and died the charism. Charisms of communities are wild, fiery, free, hard to control by law and institutionalization. If this is true of eharisms in general, it is certainly true for the Precious Blood charism, which pulses with the life of the paschal mystery, urging contemplation, speech, and action, impelling us to mission.6 The Precious Blood charism is rooted in historical times that were rife with political and social unrest. Injustice for the poor of society was so common that it was not given much consideration except for the countercultural founder who was on fire with the gospel message of God's reign. Fire and passion for the mission, the urgency to be with the marginalized of society, pushed our founder and our pioneer members to take risks that appeared foolish to the complacent. These are the same qualities that urged five Adorers to return to Liberia in the face of evidence that pointed to staying home, staying safe. Such vision demanded conversion on the part of Maria de Mattias and of the five killed in Liberia. It calls for the same in us. Joe Nassal CPpS writes in a similar vein when he says: To be a disciple of the Precious Blood today is. to stand with those of Matthew 25: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the ill and im- September-October 2002 Siegfried ¯ Cboose Life Our sisters died because of what they believed in-- God's love for all people, especially the poor and suffering. prisoned. This implies that, when we stand with those who are at the margin of our society, we are no longer in the center ourselves. We allow those with whom Jesus identifies to pull us out of our cozy and comfortable cocoons into the real world where pain and suffering is ever present.7 Ten years ago grief was too raw, tears and disbelief too close, for comfort. But ten years have given the Adorers time and space to contemplate the mystery of those terrible days in late 1992. Life has indeed gone on. We know the slain sisters would expect us to get on with the mission. But, for many Adorers, "getting on with the mission" meant and means soul-searching, questioning, pondering the paschal mystery in a new light. Contemplation of Jesus' life with a focus on the paschal mystery means reflection on the reality of blood poured out for the sake of others. The fact and the symbol of Jesus' shedding of blood calls Christians, especially congregations dedicated to the Precious Blood, to consider the totality of a life gift, the meaning of giving all even to the point of death. From a pragmatic view, both Jesus and the sisters killed in Liberia were in the wrong place at the wrong time, yet they stood up to the wielders of power and the forces of destruction. The disciples of Jesus, like the Adorers, needed to theologize about the meaning of seemingly meaningless deaths. Marcia Kruse, a U.S. Adorer,s reflects that: "Actions and events become signs or symbols of a deeper meaning. Our sisters died because of what they believed in--God's love for all people, especially the poor and suffering. Their lives and deaths are symbols, examples of total giving, and that total giving is what we are called to." Wherese Wetta, another Adorer from the United States, writes: "Five of our Adorers had given their very lives because of their solidarity with the Liberian people. The sisters knew that Review for Religious the Liberian people were brothers and sisters to us, redeemed by the Blood of Christ and sacred in God's eyes." Mini Vadakumchery, an Adorer from India, communicates in the same vein: "They offered themselves as a living sacrifice and answered the cry of the poor. Today I . . . am ready to risk and challenge my life in any situation." Violence, political and social unrest, and neglect of the weakest in society are streams that run through the time of Jesus, through the 19th-century founding of our congregation, and through today's world--the living and dying in the present-day neglected country of Liberia being a prime example. But another stream of compassion, standing with, and advocacy mingles with those deeply stained waters. Whenever people throw in their lot with the disenfranchised of society, with those who need our presence as much as we need theirs, then the saving power of Jesus finds a home, and everyone finds a home. The stream of life weakens the stream of death. This is the cycle of paschal-mystery theology--life ultimately means resurrection. The wood of the cross had its effect on bitter desert water, as Moses experienced typologically at Marah: "He cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet" (Ex 15:25). This is part of paschal-mystery theology. Jesus came that people may have life and have it to the full; this means going beyond the bitter and the sad, beyond death, to resurrection, that joy beyond joys. Matija Pavic, one of the Adorers in Croatia who lived amid ¯ the war and destruction in that country, writes in a similar vein: Since their martyrdom I can say we feel greater closeness among us, at the level of the province and of the congregation as well, as if their martyrdom itself strengthened and drew us together, waking us up to the seriousness of our life commitment at the same time. We experienced the truth of the word that we are called to witness to Christ even to shedding of our own blood. We were overwhelmed by feelings of worry, compassion, and prayer; it was as if th¢:ir suffering spilled over into us. At the same time we were sure that their blood was not shed in vain. We know that it will be a new seed for the kingdom of God here on earth.9 September-October 2002 Sieg?Cried * Cboose Life The congregation continues to choose life. Many of us are ministering in the same areas that we were ten years ago, but the awareness, the consciousness, is deeper than before the events in Liberia. As a United States province we offer more assistance to victims of violence, are more attentive to women and children and to work with refugees. Today the charism has taken on a new dimension of reconciliation. We want to be reconcilers in our torn world, living the life, death, and peace of Jesus where we are and seeking out areas where reconciliation is needed. Life is precious; we cherish each other and try not to take one another for granted. If we are to become our charism in our society, we must respond to the call that the charism voices in our hearts. The paschal mystery invites us to life through death. It is our legacy to insure that the spirit of the sisters killed in Liberia lives in us as vibrantly as it does in the people of Liberia, whose lives they touched graciously, joyously, and effectively. Notes ~ Ezekiel Pajibo, "Liberia: A Brief Overview," Africa Faith and Justice Network, March 1977. 2 Stephen G. Price, "Child Soldiers in the Liberian War," SMA Office of Justice and Peace, March 1997. 3 Price, "Child Soldiers." 4 Washington Post, 17 April 2000. s Taken from "Information about the Development Education Network Liberia." 6 Some of the ideas on paschal-mystery charism are taken from my article "The Missionary Heart," Review for Religious 54, no. 6 (November-December, 1995): 913-917. 7 Joe Nassal CPPS, Passionate Pilgrims: A Sojourn of Precious Blood Spirituality (Carthagena, Ohio: Messenger Press, 1993), p. 17. 8 Adorers worldwide were invited to submit reflections on the effect the sisters' deaths had on them. Some of their comments are included in this article. 9 Translated by Viktorijika Tomic ASC. Review for Religious MARIE BEHA Made Perfect through Suffering ISn the days immediately after the terrorist attack of 11 eptember 2001, the liturgy celebrated--yes, "celebrated"-- a familiar cycle of feasts: on 14 September the Exaltation of the Cross, the next day the feast of the Sorrowful Mother, and two days later the commemoration of the Stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi. This triad has always touched my heart, but I never really understood the reason. Last year the cycle's themes grew in clarity as, in the light of the September tragedy, the why of suf-fering demanded deeper answers. So many innocent people had died, so many others suffered multiple losses, and so many of us, perhaps all of us, had our lives, our attitudes, changed. As has been said over and over, "nothing will ever be the same." Amid all this, what was the liturgy asking us to celebrate? How did these past events touch the present of our suffering? What did it all mean? Exaltation of the Cross The very titling of the feast holds paradox. If familiarity were not dimming the challenge, we would all be aghast every time a cross is exalted to a place of honor in a church or home, every time it is raised up in blessing. Unfortunately, we take Maria Beha OSC, frequent contributor to our pages, lives at the Monastery of St. Clare; 1916 North Pleasantburg Drive; Greenville, South Carolina 29609. Septe'mber- October 2002 Beha * Made Perfect through Suffering this linking of cross and glory for granted. After all, it is the cross of Jesus that we are lifting up. Familiar religious senti-ment blunts the starkness of the reality. But what about our own suffering? Could that be lifted up? This was my question. As I explored the readings for this feast, they only height-ened the cross's mystery, inviting us in the entrance antiphon to "Glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" and stressing in the preface that God has "decreed" that we should be "saved by the wood of the cross." As I pondered the paradox of these too familiar phrases, still others came to mind. "It was fitting that God . . . in bringing many children to glory should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings" (Heb 2:10). And, equally mysterious, "he learned obedience through what he suffered" (Heb 5:8). Suffering redeems. That is what the phrases proclaimed, what I had always heard and said. But was it what I believed, what I had experienced? To raise the question in the first person singular was to realize just how much ambiguity remained in my act of faith. Certainly I believed that the suffering of Jesus was redemptive; that was unquestioned bedrock. But what about human suffering, other people's as well as my own? Specifically how did the tragedy of 11 September hold potential for redemp-tion? And how about the bone-wrenching pain of my friend so seriously injured in a near-fatal auto wreck? And the grief of a single mother whose three small children died when flames swept through their trailer home? The examples easily became an almost endless litany.of human misery and grief. I began to feel myself slipping down into a vortex of tragedy that could only paralyze. I hurried back to Jesus and the exaltation of his cross. From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus revealed God's compassion for human suffering. Just the sight of the grieving widow at Naim was enough to call forth a life-giving response. Jesus took the dead man by the hand and "gave him back to his mother" (Lk 7:11-17). No one had asked Jesus to do anything. It was as though the mother's suffering compelled him to act. And how many times throughout the Gospels Jesus responds to pain in the same way, healing lepers, the blind, the deaf, the lame. As Mark says, "wherever he put in an appearance, in vil-lages, in towns, or at crossroads, they laid the sick in the mar-ketplaces and begged him to let them touch just the tassel of Review for Religious his cloak. All who touched him got well" (Mk 6:56). Others ~possessed by demons, many of whom we would today consider emotionally ill, also called forth Jesus' compassion. He drove out the demons, freeing those who had been in their grip. In word and deed Jesus tells us that God is on the side, not of suffering, but of new life, freedom, health, healing. In other words, suffering is not to be gloried in but rather to be worked against. In the end time of a "new heaven and a new earth [God] will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more" (Rv 21:1, 3-4). This is where we are going, but the life and death of Jesus amply testify that suffer-ing is integral to our ever arriv-ing at that kingdom of glory. While working against suffering in the life of others, Jesus also accepted it in his own. He real-ized early on that responding to God's call would bring suffer-ing, not only to himself but also to those whom he loved. From the beginning of his ministry, he warned his disciples of his coming passion and rebuked Peter sharply for refusing to accept this reality: "Get behind me, Satan" (Mt 16:23). Even the everyday of Jesus' life was punctuated with the hardships of an exhausting ministry, complicated by a lack of understanding on the part of those closest to him and subject to harassment by the religious leaders. Mark's Gospel (6:6) says he was "amazed" at their "hardness of heart." How it all must have hurt him! His own family thought him "out of his mind" (Mk 3:21) and came to take him away. His closest friends, the likes of James and John, were more concerned about their sta-res in the kingdom (Mk 10:35-40) than in what Jesus was trying to teach them. On the last night of his life, his disciples' lack of understanding would degenerate into a cowardice that left him alone at the end. If suffering was present throughout Jesus' life, his death and dying were terrible: an innocent man condemned to the most shameful of deaths, done in by the jealousy of religious leaders Jesus tells us that God is on the side, not of suffering, but of new life, freedom, health, healing. September-October 2002 Beba ¯ Made Perfect through Suffering For suffering to be redemptive we must not seek it out, exaggerate it, or add to it. whose legalistic observance covered over the corruption of dead men's bones. Betrayed by one of his own, deserted by all but a handful of his alleged followers and supporters, tortured and mocked by his executioners, yet "he did not open his mouth" (Is 53:7). Even in the agony of death by crucifixion, his words were full of love for his mother, for the one disciple who remained faithful, and for the dying thief. To his Father his final plea was one of concern for others, "Forgive them, they know not what they are doing," accompanied by his own complete sub-mission, "Into your hands I commend my spirit" (Lk 23:34, 46). Jesus' death summed up his lifelong attitude of accepting the suffering that came to him in accord with his prior choice. "Not my will but yours be done" (Lk 22:42) summarized who he was and what he was about. As a conse-quence of this first love, Jesus responded to the suffering in his life in such a way that it became redemptive. That is what we cele-brate on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross and what we must experience in our own salvation history if we are ever to embrace the mystery of suffering. Have we ever, perhaps only in retrospect, seen something painfully difficult become redeem-ing grace? I know that for me a debilitating illness that con-fined me to total bed rest for six months when I was a cocky twenty-two-year-old was grace beyond compare. During those endless days of being unable to do anything, I had time to think long thoughts, to sift through my life values and lay aside some of the driving ambition that might very well have detoured my whole religious life. I began to learn how fragile my control of events and how life's meaning had to go deeper. I am sure you can add your own experiences of the redemp-tive value of suffering: the family that finds unity and union in caring for a sick child, the marriage that is strengthened by cop-ing with serious financial difficulties, the struggle to get an edu-cation that makes learning a lifelong priority. The list goes on and maybe needs to--showing us over and over how our faith can grow stronger through the redemptive power of suffering. Revie~v for Religious But at some point the very examples we recall also reveal that suffering is a two-edged sword. Its redemptive potential is not automatic. We all know people whom suffering has shrunk into self-absorption, and we know whiners and complainers who specialize in self-pity. Many of us do not have to look any fur-ther than our own hearts to recognize how destructive suffering can be. It can occasion a crisis, with people choosing a path of lifelong bitterness, defeat, despair. Redemptive suffering moves in the opposite direction, open-ing us to others and to God. It shrinks our pain, putting it in perspective, not the stoic perspective that "well, things could be much worse," but faith's perspective that suffering is not the end, that God brings healing, health, joy, resurrection. For suffering to be redemptive we must not seek it out, exaggerate it, or add to it. Ours is not to be the self-centered pain that protests with injured innocence, "Why me?" Nor should we try to find some husk of self-satisfaction by compar-ing our burden of pain with someone else's. Each person's suf-fering is unique, if for no other reason than that this present difficulty is piled on a unique miscellany of memories and past experiences. Trustful acceptance of suffering keeps us moving in the direction of redemption and healing. Our suffering takes on true meaning when it is caught up in the passion of Jesus. In our suffering we are being invited to "complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church" (Col 1:24). Already in baptism we are immersed in the dying and rising of Jesus. What began in his redemptive act continues as we accept the cross into our own life. Each time a choice of ours says no to sin and yes to new life in Christ, we live out the possibilities of our baptism. Each time we offer God the daily bread of our ordinary lives, we present to him a living sacrifice of praise. The Eucharistic transubstan-tiation changes not only ourselves but our world. We must focus, not on our own immediate experience of pain, but on Jesus, "fixing our eyes on the head of our faith . . . who suffered the cross" (Heb 12:1). I can recall vividly a woman who suffered ten long years from multiple sclerosis, experiencing all of its terrible dimin-ishments till at the end she was completely immobilized, unable to so much as move herself in bed. When asked, foolishly September-October 2002 Beha ¯ Made Perfea through Suffering enough, "How are you today?" her invariable response was, "Just the way God wants me to be. And how are you?" I think hers was a highly personal, well-lived translation of Jesus' own faithful response "Not my will but yours be done." She did not choose suffering, but when it came she accepted it and so dis-covered grace and peace despite the pain. Compassion's Power Suffering comes not only in our own flesh but also in the pain that others must bear and we with them. In some ways this suffering-with-another is more difficult than simply bearing our own pain, since pain deepens when all we can do is stand by helplessly. We can neither prevent another's journey toward death nor live the journey for them. We cannot force anyone to choose health and healing. Demanding that someone get coun-seling is not therapeutic; hiding the cigarettes only adds decep-tion to the mix; neither leads to conversion. Yet just "being with" another seems too little. How often I have heard parents express their wish that they could wrestle with cancer themselves rather than stand by helplessly while their child endures the awful rounds of surgery, chemo, and radiation. And how much pain is added to the suffering of a dying husband or wife, leaving behind a. spouse whose loneliness they know will never be healed. People suffer the added burden of helplessness when their friends lose their job, their health, or their home. "I don't know what to say, what to do!" we exclaim, with truth. But, hopefully, we do not use such inability to solve another's problem as a pretext for noninvolvement. Perhaps this is one of the uncon-scious reasons we seal our hearts against caring too much; instinc-tively we know it will cost us. True love is willing to risk the personal suffering that accompanies compassion. If love exposes us to greater suffering, it is also true that suffering with another can open our hearts for greater love. Children who have lost their parents in a tragic accident pull at our heartstrings. Accompanying someone facing a terminal ill-ness can give us an impetus to sort through and rearrange our own values. The terrible tragedy of 11 September 2001 stirred an unprecedented outpouring of generosity, people giving because they just had to. Strangers worked together as part- Review for Religious ners. People who lived next door became neighbors. People dis-covered strength they did not know they had when others' needs called it forth. Helping someone even in ordinary circumstances can cre-ate a close bond. Just taking a few moments to greet a new-comer can open the door to a lasting relationship. Taking the first step toward reconciliation may result in a friendship cemented now in the experi-ence of mutual forgiveness. It almost seems that some expe-rience of shared suffering, of difficulty overcome, is neces-sary if relationships are to mature into true intimacy. Exposing our vulnerability, allowing another to be with us in our pain, not only presup-poses trust but enlivens it as well. We come to know each Pain and suffering offer not only opportunity for growth, but also possibility of destruction or division. other in deeper, more personal ways. Our love has been tried and is more secure because it has passed the test. Love "suffers with," and "suffering with" can deepen love-- but not always. Once again, pain and suffering offer not only opportunity for growth, but also possibility of destruction or division. The sickness of a child may lead to parental quarrels and divorce. Friendships falter and fail in the face of difficult times and circumstances. How many siblings find themselves locked into bitter quarrels after the death of a parent? And, on a larger scale, a national tragedy can initiate a cycle of blame and mutual suspicion, of escalating violence and threats of revenge. Suffering is always a two-edged sword. It reveals hearts. That is what we celebrate on the feast of our Sorrowful Mother. Mary's love for her Son exposed her to tremendous suffering, and that suffering deepened and revealed her love. "A sword will pierce your own soul" (Lk 2:35) was a promise consequent on her accepting her unique vocation. A call from God, any call from God, implies going beyond one's present comfort level. So Mary's "Be it with me according to your word" (Lk 1:38) meant that her life would never be the same. She was being asked to transcend her power to understand, control, even September-October 2002 Beba * Made Perfect through Suffering explain. Inevitably others would be uncomprehending, some-times judgmental, even condemning. There was nothing she could say or do to make it easier for those who loved her, or for those who did not. Her only option in the face of this suf-fering was to trust that the God who called was faithful. That faith would be tried when her own Son remained behind in the temple without a word of explanation to her or Joseph. "Why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been searching for you with great anxiety." Their mother-son relationship was secure enough to survive his counterques-tion, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" (Lk 2:48-49)~ Out of this suffering must have come some deeper level of trust and understanding. Still later their tested relationship would grow into Cana's fuller confidence, "Do whatever he tells you" (Jn 2:5), and all through Calvary's final hours. There their love faced its ultimate test of mutual surrender. Mary gave her Son back to the Father; Jesus gave his mother to another "son." Mary's "Be it done according to your word" .was consummated in Jesus' "Into your hands I commend my spirit." But that cry of ultimate shared suffering was not the end. Out of it came new and eternal life, pain transformed into last-ing joy. We have no recorded appearance of the risen Jesus to his mother. Maybe it occurred but was too private, too personal, to be recorded. Maybe Jesus and Mary knew each other so well that there was no need for such confirmation. What we do know with faith's assurance is that now they are united beyond suf-fering in love's joy. Compassion breaks hearts open, leaving them vulnerable to more pain but also to more love. It did so for Mary; it can do the same for us if we are willing to risk a love that suffers because of caring for another. Such love is very different from the passivity of self-centered suffering that we bring on our-selves and which has almost no value. Worrying over all the "maybes" of our fears for self or others is common enough, but it accomplishes nothing. While acknowledging that we .are wor-riers, we also need to move proactively toward more produc-tive thinking. Similarly the murmuring and muttering that runs its compulsive tape through our minds needs closure, not the self-defeating stance that allows the pain to go on because "that Review for Religious is just the way things are." Ill health, our own or other peo-ple's, is not allowed to serve as a semilegitimate excuse for imposing unnecessarily on the goodwill of others or withdraw-ing from the concerns of the wider community. Similarly, true compassion does not permit people to become victims of the tragedies that have befallen them. Contrast self-indulgent forms of suffering with true compas-sion, where an individual goes beyond ego's narrow, rigid bound-aries to reach out to others in their pain. Such self-sacrifice is life-size, opening us to love's demands, risking involvement beyond our capacity to control the cost; it is redemptive. Such was the passion of Jesus; such was Mary's compassionate love. Christocentric Suffering Fruitful suffering is incarnational. It both accepts and works against the here-and-now pain that comes into our own lives and the lives of others with whom we risk love's involvement. This kind of suffering makes a real difference in us, in our very selves. It did so in particularly dramatic ways in the life of Francis of Assisi, and this is what we celebrate on 17 September when we remember his reception of the stigmata, having his body marked with the wounds of Jesus. What happened to Francis is what must happen in some way in our own lives. Sharing in the pas-sion of Jesus is meant to mark us, to make us different. The process begins when we look long and lovingly at Jesus and see how unlike him we are. This is the sinful self that needs conversion, and such radical repentance is bound to be costly. Changing old patterns of behavior which we recognize as self-defeating, but which still offer the comfort of familiarity, exposes us to the awkwardness of the new and untried. Letting go of habits, even habits that have been helpful in the past but no longer contribute to our growth, seems as risky as a child's first steps without support. All of these changes, not only from bad to good but also from good to better, initiate a cycle of falling, failing, struggling, starting, over. It is the cross of repentance that encourages true growth. The pain of conversion, both initial and ongoing, is made more bearable as long as we feel we are in control. Determining what we are going to change, the timing, when and how much, September-October 2002 Beha ¯ Made Perfect through Suffering There comes a time when all our activity is fixed on only one point, that of obedience and surrender. means that the very self is never much threatened. And yet it is this self, which has a mind of its own, a will of its own, that must die. Growth into Christ implies obedience. Suffering that is redemptive, then, is both active and passive. These two elements are related not as contradictories, as though some pain were active and some passive, but rather as the con-cave and convex of the same reality. Living as a Christian requires asceticism. We must make a choice, take a stand, do something. Even when pain comes into our life unbidden, we are actively responsible for the attitude we take toward it. And yet suffering is not to be chosen for its own sake; it must, as we have seen, be worked against. Still there comes a time when all our activity is fixed on only one point, that of obedience and surrender. In the end we are asked to give back to God all that God has first given us: our activities, our gifts, our relationships, our very lives. But this is not where we begin. First we give thanks to the "one who has given us everything needed for life" (i P 1:3) by using whatever we have received in the service of others. And we continue to do that as long as we can, accepting the suffering that is implicit in generous service: fatigue, the disci-pline of constancy, the boredom of daily routine. We continue to give despite the discouragement of failure, of plans that go wrong, and perhaps of the ingratitude of those whom we are trying to serve. In simply doing what is ours to do, we come to know the purification of active suffering. We learn that saying yes to others includes a no to ourselves. Francis knew this only too well. His decision to follow Christ more closely cost him dearly. He lost his relationship with his family (especially his father) and with friends, gave up his dream of glory through knighthood. Kissing the leper at the beginning of his conversion meant going beyond the comfort-able generosity of tossing someone a coin. His call to preach the gospel included all the hardship of an itinerant lifestyle. Embracing Lady Poverty meant going without the security of Review for Religious possessions. Even the great number of followers who were attracted by his example brought its own suffering, complicat-ing with the onerous responsibility of administration the simple life he desired. In addition to these sufferings, Francis also deliberately practiced a demanding asceticism. In fact, he afflicted his body so severely that he ruined his health, a mistake he came to rec-ognize and regret. At the end of his life he owed Brother Body an apology and said so. But Francis's initial mistake does not mean that freely chosen asceticism is of no value. On the con-trary, the small suffering implied in such self-imposed disci-pline incarnates our desire for God and makes room in our hearts for deeper union. This was Francis's experience and that of so many of the saints. It can also be ours, if we embrace the active asceticism of emptying ourselves of some perfectly good and legitimate things in order to make room for God. Fasting is the classic example of such discipline. Food is necessary for our survival and is one of our everyday pleasures as well. Our enjoyment of food is healthy. Unfortunately, many and even most of us overeat or undereat, and that is unhealthy. We indulge ourselves, passing up the vegetables and taking a second desert. We abuse food and ourselves in the process. I sometimes suspect that a piece of fruit as the symbol of the first temptation is especially apt, since eating remains a problematic area for many people. And so fasting retains its importance as a spiritual discipline. Setting some limits on what, when, and how much we eat can give some realism to our need to die to that demanding self of ours which expects ready gratification. A reasonable fast not only does not endanger our health, it p~obably promotes itq while also letting us share in some small way in the hunger of the multitudes in our world who lack enough food to live on. What we save by cutting back on snack food, or on expensive kinds of meat, can be given away? as an immediate fruit of our fasting. On a more profound level, some experience of hunger can stir in our hearts a greater hunger for God. This is what Francis knew when he incorporated fasting into his way of life. Because his fasting was both a consequence and an expression of love, it finally came to be strict without being rigid. His severe fasts during six forty-day Lents left him //0'1 Septentber-October 2002 Beba ¯ Made Perfect tbrougb Suffering with an empty stomach but a heart full of love for creation, for his brothers and sisters, and above all for God. At the end Francis became free enough to enjoy good food, the sweetmeats his friend LadyJacoba brought him, and to exhort his brothers to rub the very walls with meat on Christmas. His fasting along with occasional feasting came to incorporate the worship of enjoyment, gratitude, and praise. Yet as time went on Francis's suffering was less and less a matter of his own decision and choosing. It became more pas-sive, something done to him where his only activity was the choice of response. Illness, aggravated by the imprudent asceti-cism of his early days and by the crude medical practices of the time, wearied both his body and his spirit. His stomach gave him almost constant pain. His eyes failed, and this man who had so rejoiced in the beauty of creation became almost blind. Even more of a heartbreak, some friars who had at first embraced his gospel way of life came to find it too much for them. They rejected Francis, demanding that he turn over the governance of the order to another. He lived out his final years in submission and obedience. Suffering abounded in his last years, and to this was added the pain of the stigmata. The wounds in his body were real; they bled profusely enough to require bandaging. The nail marks in his feet made every step difficult, and in the end he had to consent to ride on a donkey. His hands became more and more useless, and he hid them in the ample sleeves of his tunic. How did Francis respond to all of this suffering? When his eyes were cauterized, he prayed Brother Fire to be gentle with him. When his body was too worn to go any further, he returned to San Damiano, the place of his beginnings. There Clare and her sisters tried to care for him, and there in the midst of des-olation of body and spirit he composed his glorious Canticle of the Creatures: "Praise, my Lord, for Sister Moon and Brother Sun. for Sister Water and Brother Fire. for fair and every kind of weather." Yes, praise for every kind of weather and every gift of nature and grace, for the good times and the days of pain. Praise. And gratitude, because it is all gift. This is what the stigmata celebrates: not just the fact that Francis's body was marked by the cross, but that his whole life was. He embraced suffering, accepted what came to him, while Review for Religious working against it in his ministry of healing and serving oth-ers. His heart was filled with compassion for all God's creation, his own friars, the lepers, all in need. And at the end his lifelong desire to be like Christ left him marked with the wounds of the passion. What happened in his life must happen in ours, if not in such dramatic ways, at least with equal reality. Suffering will mark us as Christ's own. We will be signed with the sign of the cross. This is what I think we celebrate in the triad of feasts that mark mid September: the Exaltation of the Cross, the Sorrows of Mary, and the Stigmata of St. Francis. Each feast hints at suffering's true meaning. First of all, it is redemptive, intended to lead us into greater freedom and love. If this is to happen, we need to accept the suffering that inevitably comes into our lives, but also to move with all our strength in the direction of health and healing. And we need to do this regarding not only our own pain but the pain of others too. Compassion, standing with others in their pain, will open us to more suffering. But there is where we will want to be if we love enough. Still, it will be costly. Life will bring us suffering that we somehow choose, but also some that we do not choose but must learn to accept. This suffering will mark us with the wounds of the passion. What our little cycle of September feasts celebrates, then, is this: that in our lives suffering is redemptive both as gift and as given. This is what it was for Francis, for Mary, for Jesus. It is what the suffering that comes into all our lives is meant to be for us. Starshine Starshine is sometimes all the light we need to get our bearings. a heavenly.reminder of light beyond measure, that will not yield to the nightclouds haunting the horizon of our heart. Diana SeagoOSB September-October 2002 DENNIS j. BILLY Right Relationships in Consecrated Life theory and reality Right relationships reminds me of Anne Quirk's children's novel, Dancing with Great-Aunt Cornelia, a story about a dysfunctional New York family and a thirteen-year-old girl's discovery that her eccentric, incredibly tall, and extremely rich great-aunt is really her grandmother. Near the end of the story, the family finally comes to terms with its denial, insensitivity, anger, and odd way of relating. The reconciliation takes place at a dance party hosted by Great-Aunt Cornelia in her enormous Manhattan town house just off Fifth Avenue. Although tensions run high at first, eventually the entire family let down their guard and end up dancing with one another--and quite enjoying it. As Connie, the young narrator, puts it: "I'm sure I danced with my father, with Bendey, with my mother, and with Eleanor, too. For a while I guess we were all dancing together, in a sort of tango with seven people and a large dog. Maybe it was actually more of a tangle than a tango.''~ Dennis J. Billy CSSR, a frequent contributor to our pages, may till 25 January 2003 be reached at Mount St. Alphonsus Retreat Center; P.O. Box 219; Esopus, New York 12429. 1~eview for l~etigio~ Festivity and Dance To my mind, living in right relationship with others is much akin to taking part in a festive dance. What matters is not whether we know how to dance, but whether we are willing to participate and, if need be, even play the part of the fool. Many of us, unfortunately, have failed to recognize this important fact of life. Quirk's funny and eccentric story with its festive (and quite unexpected) ending reminds us of our human penchant for being continuously "out of step" with each other and refusing to take part in the celebration of.life. It pokes fun at our pet peeves and silly vanities that get in the way of our capacity to love. It puts a mirror before us and encourages us to take a good look at ourselves and at those around us. We may see that our attempts at getting along with one another are often "more of a tangle than a tango." But we may notice, as well, our deep desire to get it right, to be "in sync" with the people in our lives, despite the differences, the awkward diffidences, that keep us apart. Our desire to participate in this great dance of life comes from deep in the human heart, evincing the divine love within us. The Christian God is the God of the living. The life of the Trinity affirms the sacred character of festivity and dance. Celebration, for this God, flows from love and is closely allied to it. In his book The Third Peacock, Robert Farrar Capon breaks through our traditional stereotypes of God and involves the Father, Son, and Spirit in a heavenly bash of ongoing creation: And God the Father looked at the whole wild party and he said, "Wonderful! Just what I had in mind! 7by! 7by! 7by!" And all God the Son and God the Holy Ghost could think of was to say the same thing. "Tbv! %v! Toy.t" So they shouted together "Tbv meod!" and they laughed and laughed for ages and ages, saying things like how great it was for beings to be, and bow clever of the Father to think of the idea, and how kind of the Son to go to all that trouble putting it together, and how considerate of the Spirit to spend so much time directing and choreographing. And forever and ever they told old jokes, and the Father and the Son drank their wine in unitate Spiritus Sancti, and they all threw ripe olives and pickled mushrooms at each other per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.2 September-October 2002 Billy ¯ Right Relationships in Consecrated Life Our yearning for reveling, celebration, and dance, the desire to be at one with ourselves and to live in communion with those around us derives from something within us that is, at the same time, far beyond us. According to our Catholic belief, it is rooted in the ground of all reality, in the intimate life of love of a God who simultaneously is both one and many. The Christian God exists in and for communio: for unity in diversity and vice versa. Our desire for communion and right relationship stems from our being created in the image and likeness of this mysterious, personal, yet transcendent ground of love. Even though we are fallen, dysfunctional, bent out of shape (however one wishes to term it), the imprint of divinity grows within and manifests itself in our deepest longings. We yearn for communion with one another ultimately because of God's yearning for communion with us. We are miserably out of step with one another, yet haunted by the deeply rooted hope that things can and will get better, not through our own doing, but because of the God who made us, loves us, and holds us in being. A Spirituality of Communion Recent church documents highlight how important it is for believers to nurture a "spirituality of communion" in their lives. In Novo millennio ineunte (2001), his apostolic letter on the new millennium, John Paul II puts it this way: A spirituality of communion indicates above all the heart's contemplation of the mystery of the Trinity dwelling in us, and whose light we must also be able to see shining on the face of the brothers and sisters around us. A spirituality of communion also means an ability to think of our brothers and sisters in faith within the profound unity of the Mystical Body, and therefore as "those who are a part of me." This makes us able to share their joys and sufferings, to sense their desires and attend to their needs, to offer them deep and genuine friendship. A spirituality of communion implies also the ability to see what is positive in others, to welcome it and prize it as a gift from God: not only as a gift for the brother or sister who has received it directly, but also as a "gift for Review for Religious me." A spirituality of communion means, finally, to know how to "make room" for our brothers and sisters, bearing "each other's burdens" (Ga 6:2) and resisting the selfish temptations which constantly beset us and provoke competition, careerism, distrust, and jealousy. (§43) It would be difficult to come up with a more comprehensive vision of living in right relationship with others. The pope invites us to contemplate the mystery of the Trinity within our hearts and to discern its presence in those around us. He asks us to be aware of the presence of others, to minister to their needs, and to reach out to them in a spirit of friendship. Doing so means making room for others in our lives and allowing them to make room for us. It means living in communion with them on every level of our human makeup: the physical, emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual. The pope's words describe a vision of "right relationship" that few would fault or disavow. Most of us have no problem accepting his vision of communion or right relationship. Our trouble is putting it into practice. I am reminded of Walter Principe's distinction about the different levels of spirituality: the experiential, the doctrinal, and the analytical? We accept the teaching on the "spirituality of communion" and can easily accept it as a vision that we should look to and strive to implement in our lives. We can even study, analyze, and criticize it for the purpose of making it a more coherent body of teaching. On the experiential level, however, many of us have difficulty taking the steps to make this teaching on communion and right relationships an integral part of our lives. We experience a gap between what we envision and who we really are. That gap may be small or large. The size of it determines how much dysfunction we experience in our personal, family, and community lives. The pope invites us to contemplate the mystery of the Trinity within our hearts and to discern its presence in those around us. 497 . September-O,'tober 2002 Billy ¯ Right Relationships in Consecrated Life To my mind, the key question is not whether the gap between vision and experience exists, but whether we recognize it and are taking steps to make it smaller and smaller. We need to recognize the gap, accept it as something that will never fully go away (at least in this life), and take appropriate steps to narrow it. This task is not a one-time challenge, but must be taken up again with each new day. The Vision of Vita Consecrata My suspicion is that religious have a particularly difficult time coming to terms with the discrepancy between the vision of the life to which they have been called and their actual experience of it. I say this because the church places so much hope in consecrated persons' being "true experts" at achieving communion that the gap between vision and lived reality is bound to be quite large. This vision is presented quite clearly in Vita consecrata (1996), John Paul II's postsynodal apostolic exhortation on the consecrated life. As the following excerpt demonstrates, consecrated persons must live up to enormous expectations: A great task also belongs to the consecrated life in the light of the teaching about the church as communion, so strongly proposed by the Second Vatican Council. Consecrated persons are asked to be true experts of communion and to pradtice the spirituality of communion as "witnesses and architects of the plan for unity which is the crowning point of human history in God's design.". The sense of ecclesial communion, developing into a spirituality of communion, promotes a way of thinking, speaking, and acting which enables the church to grow in depth and extension. The life of communion, in fact, "becomes a sign for all the world and a compelling force that leads people to faith in Christ . In this way communion leads to mission, and itself becomes mission"; indeed, "communion begets communion: in essence it is a communion that is missionary." (~46) A little later the document makes it clear that an important aspect of this "spiri~ality of communion" is "an allegiance of Review for Relig4ous mind and heart to the magisterium of the bishops, an allegiance which must be lived honestly and clearly testified to before the people of God by all consecrated persons, especially those involved in theological research, teaching, publishing, catechesis, and the use of the means of social communication." To be sure, "because consecrated persons have a special place in the church, their attitude in this regard is of immense importance for the whole people of God." The document points to the testimonies of founders and foundresses, who demonstrated "a constant and lively sense of the church." To further its claim, it cites the loyal devotion, to the church of such great saints as Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Ignatius Loyola, Teresa of Avila, and the Little Flower. Such examples of full ecclesial communion need to be constantly recalled if consecrated persons "are to resist the particularly strong centrifugal and disruptive forces at work today" (§46). Speaking, thinking, and acting with the magisterium are thus considered in the light of a vital role given to consecrated persons in the church universal in accord with the venerable tradition of great saints and founders and foundresses and with a view to the church's missionary nature. These ever expanding contexts give an added richness to the concept of the spirituality of communion and should not be overlooked. Only by taking them into account can consecrated persons understand their important role in the post-Vatican II era and "be nourished from the wellspring of a sound and deep spirituality" (§93). Another key text on the spirituality of communion comes later in the same document when institutes of the consecrated life are given the specific task of spreading this spirituality of communion: The church entrusts to communities of consecrated life the particular task of spreading the spirituality of communion, first of all in their internal life and then in the ecclesial community, and even beyond its boundaries, by opening or continuing a dialogue in charity, especially where today's world is torn apart by ethnic hatred or senseless violence. Placed as they are within the wbrld's different societies (societies frequently marked by conflicting passions and interests, seeking unity but uncertain about the ways Septentber-October 2002 Billy * Right Relationships in Consecrated Life to attain it), communities of consecrated life--where persons of different ages, languages, and cultures meet as brothers and sisters--are signs that dialogue is always possible and that communion can bring differences into harmony. (§51) This paragraph affirms the pope's hope "that all will grow in the understanding and spirituality of communion" (§50). It also supports his earlier statement about the obligation of fraternity as a form of witness to the Trinity: "By constantly promoting fraternal love also in the form of the common life, the consecrated life has shown that sharing in the Trinitarian communion can change human relationships and create a new type of solidarity" (§41), one which does everything "in communion and d!alogne" (§74) and which favors "that 'dialogue of life' which embodies a basic model of mission and of the proclamation of Christ's gospel" (§102). Notice the threefold range of this special task entrusted to consecrated persons. They are to spread the spirituality of communion first within themselves, second within the ecclesial communion, and third beyond its boundaries. Motivated by their deep personal love for Christ (see §84), they reach out in dialogue that "is the new name of charity, especially charity within the church" (§74). --YO0 Implications for Consecrated Life I would like to take a. deeper look at just what this "particular task of spreading the spirituality of communion" (§51) might mean for members of institutes of consecrated life. The threefold framework of internal life, ecclesial communion, and beyond will be particularly helpful in this regard. Internal Life. In the first place, institutes of consecrated life are called to put their own houses in order and live in harmony: "In an age characterized by the globalization of problems and the return .of the idols of nationalism, international institutes especially are called to uphold and to bear witness to the sense of communion between peoples, races, and cultures" (§51). They do so first and foremost by living out their common charism in communion with each other, even though they represent various age groups, nationalities, cultural backgrounds, and theological perspectives. The attempt of such communities to dialogue Review for Religious among themselves and to bring unity out of the diversity of their experience is an effective sign of that community of heart and mind to which all are called. This communion in the institute's internal life should exist on all levels of its communal makeup-- local, provincial, and general--and should foster cooperation between these levels, in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity. A natural outgrowth of this internal application of the spirituality of communion is cooperation among the different institutes themselves (see §52). Bound by the common call to the evangelical counsels, these institutes, both old and new, should regard one another with profound respect and strive to work together in their efforts to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world. Relationships among such institutes should not be marred by jealousy, indifference, or suspicion. The document recalls St. Bernard's words about the various religious orders: I admire them all. I belong to one of them by observance, but to all of them by charity. We all need one another: the spiritual good which I do not own and possess, I receive from others . In this exile the church is still on pilgrimage and is, in a certain sense, plural: she is a single plurality and a plural unity. All our diversities, which make manifest the richness of God's gifts, will continue to exist in the one house of the Father, which has many rooms. Now there is a division of graces; then there will be distinctions of glory. Unity, both here and there, consists in one and the same charity. (§52) In this spirit the document encourages coordinating bodies such as the conferences of major superiors and the conferences of secular institutes to work in harmony with each other as well as with the episcopal conference of each country. They are also encouraged "to maintain frequent and regular contacts with the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, as a sign of their communion with the Holy See" (§53). The point of all this is that the spirituality of communion, once it is lived within the life of an institute of consecrated life itself, should naturally overflow into similar relations beyond its boundaries. Ecclesial Communion. For this reason, the pope also encourages mutual relationships of respect and collaboration Septentber-October 2002 Billy ¯ Rigbt Relationships in Consecrated Life between institutes of consecrated life and every level of ecclesial communion: with other states of life within the church (the laity, the clergy) and also with brothers and sisters of the various Christian confessions. All of this should be done out of respect for the common dignity shared by all the faithful (§31), but in such a way that "the identity of the institute in its internal life is not harmed" (§56). In this context, cooperation with the laity receives special mention. The document notes that "many institutes have come to the conclusion that their charism can be shared with the laity" (§54). This sharing takes many forms, from sharing their spirituality to various kinds of pastoral collaboration. As a result, "the participation of the laity often brings unexpected and rich insights into certain aspects of the charism, leading to a more spiritual interpretation of it and helping to draw from it directions for new activities in the apostolate" (§55). Emphasizing the equal dignity of both men and women before God (§57), the document specifically deals with the role of consecrated women. It describes them as "signs of God's tender love towards the human race" (§57) and points out that "women's new self-awareness also helps men to reconsider their way of looking at things, the way they understand themselves, where they place themselves in history and how they interpret it, and the way they organize social, political, economic, religious, and ecclesial life" (§57). Ecumenical dialogue is yet another level of ecclesial communion to which institutes of consecrated life must give due attention. Lectio divina, common prayer, dialogue in friendship, cordial hospitality, and common undertakings of service and witness are among thq many forms of ecumenical dialogue. The work of Christianity is not just the work of these institutes that were specifically founded for this purpose or because of a later calling (§57). The pope makes it quite clear that "no institute of consecrated life should feel itself dispensed from working for this cause" (§101). Special emphasis is given to the monastic tradition in the Eastern Catholic Churches for the help they can give in promoting unity with the Orthodox churches and given also to monasteries of contemplative life, to whom the pope entrusts "the spiritual ecumenism of prayer, conversion of heart, and charity" (§101). Review for Religious Beyond. The spirituality of communion moves consecrated persons beyond the bounds of the Christian communion of faith into dialogue with other faiths and cultures: "Because 'interreligious dialogue is a part of the church's evangelizing mission,' institutes of consecrated life cannot exempt themselves from involvement also in this field, each in accordance with its own charism and following the directives of ecclesiastical authority" (§102). They do this primarily through "the testimony of a life of poverty, humility, and chastity, imbued with fraternal love for all" i§I02). Dedicated to that "dialogue of life" which finds its mission in the proclamation of the Good News, they "promote appropriate forms of dialogue, marked by cordial friendship and mutual sincerity, with monastic communities of other religions" (§102). Other areas for cooperation include concern for human life and efforts to promote the dignity of women (§102). All such efforts, moreover, require proper formation, study, and research, together with deep faith and personal and spiritual maturity (§102). Finally, the "spirituality of communion" asks institutes of consecrated life to place themselves at the service of all humanity. Their service to the world involves "a life of self-giving love" (§75). Indeed, "the fact that consecrated persons fix their gaze on the Lord's countenance does not diminish their commitment on behalf Of humanity; on. the contrary, it strengthens this commitment, enabling it to have an impact on history, in order to free history from all that disfigures it" (§75). This means, first and foremost, offering "the witness of a life given totally to God and to their brothers and sisters, in imitation of the Savior, who out of love for humanity made himself a servant" (§76). It also means living .a life of genuine inculturation, one that "requires attitudes similar to those of the Lord when he became man and walked among us in love and meekness" (§79). In their attempt to serve as "a gospel leaven The "spirituality of communion" asks institutes of consecrated life to place themselves at the service of all humanity. September-October 2002 Billy ¯ Right Relationships in Consecrated Life within a culture, purifying and perfecting it" (§80), they follow the church in its preferential option for those "in situations of greater weakness" (§82). This includes "the poor, in varied states of affliction., those on the margins of society, the elderly, the sick, the young, any and all who are considered and treated as 'the least'" (§82). Some of the concrete ways in which they meet the needs of the poor include the care of the sick, their presence in the world of education, their presence in the field of social communications, and the evangelization of culture (see §§83 and 96-99). Their life of evangelical poverty, moreover, "is a value in itself," which, "accompanied by a preferential love for the poor," is expressed "especially by sharing the conditions of life of the most neglected" (§90). To be sure, "there are many communities which live and work among the poor and the marginalized; they embrace their conditions of life and share in their sufferings, problems, and perils" (§90). To summarize: The spirituality of communion is kindled by God in the institute of consecrated life and is meant to have a ripple effect on the entire life of the church. Arising within the institute, where members of various ages, cultures, and educational backgrounds live together in a spirit of fraternal love, it reaches out to other institutes, to other states of life within the church, to other Christian denominations, to other religions, and to all of humanity. It does so in a spirit of dialogue and service to give witness to the personal presence of Christ in the world and to the power of the Trinity to transform human relationships. Its mission is to build relationships of solidarity wherever human beings congregate and to be a sign of the intimate life with God to which all are called. The Gap between Vision and Experience The above presen.tation shows that the Catholic Church has a clear and extensive teaching on the spirituality of communion, what it means to live in right relationship with others. While this teaching has concrete implications for communities of consecrated life, the problem we are facing, as I suggested earlier, has to do with narrowing the gap between the teaching we profess and our actual lived experience. We need to take a good, hard look at these urgent practical concerns. Review for Religious One way of doing so is to adapt the psychological language of action, voluntary disposition (or habims), and attitude to the experience and needs of consecrated life today. According to this understanding of human behavior, an action involves a single deliberate object and intention, while a voluntary disposition (as opposed to an unwanted involuntary habit) refers to an active pattern of behavior acquired through the continuous repetition of actions. An attitude, in turn, is an active disposition voluntarily acquired through the repetition of options, those value choices that define a person's life project. An action, in other words, is singular and concrete; a voluntary disposition, a deep-rooted deliberate pattern of behavior; an attitude, a deeply ingrained option for a particular set of values.4 Ideally, there exists a strong continuity be-tween a person's actions, voluntary dispositions, and attitudes. In real life, however, this continuity can manifest varying degrees of strength and is often even disrupted. The same could be said of the actions, voluntary dispositions, and attitudes of a family, group, or religious community. When applied to communities of consecrated life in the light of the church's teaching on the spirituality of communion and the gap between vision and lived experience, it is of paramount importance that we find a way of helping to shape people's attitudes. To do so, we must recognize that there is a circular relationship between actions, voluntary dispositions, and the formation of attitudes. That is to say, attitudes give rise to various actions and voluntary dispositions and are at the same time shaped by them. To overlook these important relationships is to risk forming consecrated persons whose actions run contrary to, or at best are inconsistent with, the values they truly hold and which define their life's project. This circular relationship between actions, voluntary dispositions, and attitudes means that religious communities Ideally, there exists a strong continuity between a person's actions, voluntary dispositions, and attitudes. September- October 2002 Billy ¯ Right Relationships in Consecrated Life must develop complex strategies for narrowing the gap between vision and lived experience. Such a strategy must involve an ongoing interplay between teachings, structures, practices, and critical reflection that enables individuals and the community to test and verify the vision that defines them so that it can be authentically nuanced (and perhaps redefined) to express what they truly are called to. From there, the community needs to develop structures and practices that will reinforce in daily life the values expressed by this defining vision. For the desired attitudes to truly take hold, these structures and practices need.to be firm yet flexible, taking into account the three principles of church teaching about right relationships: the dignity of the human person, the common good, and the virtue of solidarity. In today's world, communities of consecrated life cannot be effective instruments of the spirituality of communion if they do not make great efforts to inculcate these principles in the lives of their members. To do otherwise would increase the gap between vision and lived experience rather than narrowing it. Narrowing the Gap In his popular bestseller Maybe (Maybe Not), Robert Fulghum offers some important insights into what he calls the public, private, and secret lives of everyday life: Public lives are lived out on the job and in the marketplace, where certain rules, conventions, laws, and social customs keep most of us in line. Private lives are lived out in the presence of family, friends, and neighbors who must be considered and respected, even though the rules and proscriptions are looser than what's allowed in public. But in our secret lives, inside our own heads, almost anything goes.s Although Fulghum is writing about American society in general, his insight has, to my mind, special significance for our topic. If, in their attempts to narrow the gap between vision and lived reality, communities of consecrated life do not give due consideration to the attitudes behind the various dispositions and actions that they ask of their members, a dangerous rupture can take place between the public face they present to the outside Review for Religious world, the private life lived within the community, and a secret life known only to a few, hidden from other members, and institutionally suppressed and even denied. When this occurs, the dysfunction within a community can reach great intensity and cause great misery for both the members and those they claim to serve. A religious institution, I am suggesting, has not only a public and a private life, but also a secret life. For members to live in fight relationship with others, all three of these lives need to be acknowledged, understood, and dealt with in mature and responsible ways. Otherwise the gap between vision and lived experience will increase rather than diminish, and the community will be based on an illusion, living in a house of mirrors, where appearances deceive. A community of consecrated life, in other words, needs to get in touch with its shadow side, the darker part of the community's life, which influences decisions even though the community may be only peripherally aware of them. Only by acknowledging this dark side, taming it, and then befriending it will a community ever come to understand itself and be able to channel its vast resources in creative and constructive ways. I do not intend to go into specifics about what all of this means for the evangelical counsels or life in community. The church's teaching on these constituent elements of the consecrated life is clear and has been adequately developed elsewhere. What I will say, however, is that, when examining the spirituality of their particular institutes, communities need to look at the various gaps that exist

Issue 55.4 of the Review for Religious, July/August 1996. ; Revi for Retig ous i, a fo .m for shared res ea on on the lived experience of all who find that the church's rich heritages of spirituality support their personal and apostolic Christian lives. The articles in the journal are meant to be informative, practical, or inspirational, written from a tbeological or spiritual or sometimes canonical point of view. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis UniversiD, by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: FOPPEMA@SL UVCA.SLU.EDU Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP 1150 Cedar Cove Road ¯ Henderson, NC 27536 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©1996 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religiou$ Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Jean Read James and Joan Felling Iris Ann Ledden SSND Joel Rippinger OSB Edmundo Rodriguez SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JULY/AUGUST1996 *VOLUME55 *' NUMBER4 contents 342 symposium - part 3 Religious Life: Directions for a Future Albert Dilanni SM reviews three stages of religious-life renewal and sets forth those areas for future efforts. 365 expanding vision Internationality: Consciousness Raising and Conversion Janet Malone CND highlights six stages of consciousness raising in the process of a religious group's becoming purposefully international. 373 Toward Multiculturalizing a Religious Community Finian McGinn OFM presents the challenge of multicultural diversity in religious-life communities and some directions towards resolution. Review for Religious 388 396 new life It's Summer! A Letter to Young Religious Robert P. Maloney CM encourages those who are young to enjoy and use well the gifts of this summertime of life. Emerging Forms of U.S. Religious Life Marlene Weisenbeck FSPA identifies the motivations and the relationships between charism, mission, and ministry in the formation of new communities and styles of consecrated life. 414 425 340 431 436 witnessing I Guess and Fear Donald Macdonald SMM suggests some clarity points in the midst of current confusions in religious life. Force of Habit William Jud Weiksnar OFM reflects upon the sign and symbol value of the simple brown tunic of a Franciscan. departments Prisms Canonical Counsel: General Chapters: Current Legislation Book Reviews .~uly-August 1996 prisms FVhenT/~7 is "enough" enough? It is the common question: Did you get enough to eat? enough to drink? Is the room warm (cool) enough for you? Enough is a hard concept to define in our practical living. If people's perception of their own worth as persons is tied up in their work, when have they worked long enough or hard enough? Some people find it difficult to turn over responsibility to others or "to retire." Enough seems not to have a place in their vocabulary. Others at a younger age let work consume their days and evenings and weekends. They, too, seem oblivious to the possibil-ity of freely chosen limits. We have heard the phrase "get a life" and we know that it can be a criticism to the quick for such people. Besides questions of food and drink and work and rest, enough plays a similarly difficult role in determining security. When are there more lights outside and more locks and alarm systems than we need for reasonable secu-rity? When do we have enough money for travel and its surprises and emergencies? When is there enough money put aside for care of the elderly--others or ourselves? The danger with a money-focus is, as Jesus describes in a story, that our barns are never quite big enough to hold our piled-up wealth. When we consider healthcare in the industrialized countries, we find again the difficulty of knowing when enough medical care has been called upon and when we are moving into extraordinary and sometimes minimally enhancing medical procedures. The subtlety of enough allows us morally to steer our way between the always immoral assistdd suicide and the decision to refuse any extraordinary means to prolong life. Review for Religious For each of us, in our uniqueness, to know how to live enough and move enough and have being enough remains a rich grace-gift to be prayed for. We call the gift which helps us to say "enough" Christian discernment. To be a person who discerns demands that we be people attuned to the working of God's Spirit in our lives. Discernment is not a process of decision making that we stir up on a moment's whim. When we think of people (per-haps including ourselves) as being attuned to God, we mean that they have a serious and ongoing relationship with God in prayer and in reflecting on the Scriptures and God's workings in the world. Such people find themselves growing in a sensitivity, as all lovers do, to the ways of seeing, the desires, and the ways of acting of the one loved. That kind of sensitivity is the power source of our Christian discernment. Because sensitivity is involved, it is not something we learn by rulebooks although Jesus reminds us that "I have come, not to abolish [the law and the prophets], but to fulfill them" (Mt 5:17). As we can appreciate, the process of discerning is not a sometime thing that we can blithely manage at short notice unless we are sensitized lovers of God. The dailyness of prayer and Eucharist are privileged ways for us becoming lovers growing in sensitivity. Today we seem to live with the question of Enough? in many areas of our lives, and our personal decision about enough does not come easy. We need to enter deeply into our Catholic faith and experience Jesus' promise of "another Paraclete." Yet there is one instance of enough which remains a paradox. Can we ever grow enough in God's love that our sensitivity for discernment can say "enough"? David L. Fleming SJ NOTE: On our inside front cover we provide our E-mail address. For some of our domestic and international subscribers, it may give convenient and helpful access to our editorial office. ALBERT DI IANNI Religious Life: Directions for a Future symposium part 3 Today we often hear a question seldom asked before Vatican Council II: "How is it going with your congre-gation?" And We know immediately that the questioner is interested in vocations. Nearly always the answer is: "Quite good in the third world, but bad in the first world." After thirty years of renewal efforts, the average age of most congregations founded before the 20th century is in the 60s for male l~eligious.and in the 70s for female reli-gious. Patricia Wittberg speaks of "catastrophic decline," "collapse," and "probable demise," and Markham, of "mas-sive denial." In the 1960s religious women in the United States numbered over 200,000. They have suffered a 55 percent decline and now number about 90,000. Given their average age we can expect further decline. Male reli-gious have suffered a decline of over 30 percent. We can hedge about these cold facts, but they are a cause for deep concern. A moderate decline in vocations would be man-ageable, but such a steep decline demands that we ask searching questions about the process of renewal. There are disparities within the vocation situation. In the first world, some communities are attracting significant numbers of candidates. They are the newer communities like Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity and the Albert Dilanni SM last wrote for us in September-October 1993. He is now superior of the Marist novitiate, Our Lady of Mercy, at 15 Notre Dame Avenue; Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140. Review for Retigio'us Legionaries of Christ. In Mexico the Legionaries are referred to as the. new Jesuits and are subjected to criticisms similar to those launched against Jesuits in an earlier age. (A new group with a similar name, Cruzados de Cristo, has sprung up in Mexico and is enjoying similar vocational success.) The Fellowship of New Religious Communities had sixty-three new Catholic congrega-tions on its 1993 mailing list. There are at least two dozen oth-ers) Most of these groups are traditional in theology, but creative in developing community structures and prayer forms and in their integration of the laity. Even in the third world, vocational growth is not homoge-neous. The .main areas of growth are sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, especially India and Indonesia. Brazil, on the other hand, is either stable or on the decline. The crucial factor seems to be that the churches of Africa and Asia, often surrounded by strong Muslim groups, tend to be more "conservative" of classical Catholic practices and spirituality, while the Brazilian church more than all others has adopted liberationist tendencies. Three Stages of Renewal I believe that we are in the second' phase of a three-step pro-cess in the renewal of religious life since Vatican II. The first step was the explosion immediately after Vatican II, an explosion pro-voked not only by the council but by the secular cultural revolu-tion. It was a time for rejecting all categories and trying to live in the in between. It was a time'of high experimentation in theology and lifestyles, of reexamination of all institutions including the family, traditional morality, and etiquette. In religious life we moved away from whatever seemed rigid, artificial, and stiflingly traditional, in favor of what seemed more dynamic, new, and life-giving. No longer defensive regarding the democratic ideals of the West, we sought to integrate them into our congregational existence. We dismantled structures that were in place for cen-turies, emphasized interpersonal dialogue and individual needs, decentralized authority, created leadership teams, redefined poverty, chastity, and obedience, abandoned institutional aposto-lates in favor of small-group work with the poor or the marginal, and reinterpreted community in terms of sharing quality time together. It was the best of times and the worst of times. It was a time of great creativity especially in the founding of new types J'ul),-./lugust 19~6 Dilanni ¯ ReligiousLife The second stage of the renewal, is the time of the winnowing fan, the stage of sober reassessment. of apostolate--Joan Chittister often stresses this and women's role in it--but also a time of great confusion, of loss of identity, of abandonment of loyalties, of many departures and few arrivals, of decline in morale and fear of the future. The second stage of the renewal, in which we presently find ourselves, is the time of the winnowing fan, the stage of sober reassessment. Recent books and articles from all "over the ideo-logical spectrum are calling for self-criticism and evaluation of the directions taken .by the renewal: Avery Dulles, Elizabeth McDonough, Joan Chittister, Patricia Wittberg, Martin Tripole, Mary Jo Leddy, Judith Merkle, David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis, and on and on. Almos~ all urge a move beyond the individualism apparent in the so-called "liberal" model. They speak of the need of "common vision" and a "corporate sense" and "criteria by which the validity of their lives can be measured." The authors do not agree on the solution. Some call for a deeper retrieval of the community's charism (if it has a charism); others, for a real communal commit-ment to helping the poor and the oppressed; and still others, like MaryJo Leddy and Joan Chittister, for a move beyond liberalism to something even more radical or revolutionary. The third stage in this renewal process will be, I believe, a time of greater peace, when the good features of the new have been institutionalized and its excesses discarded and Catholics once again view religious life as a way to follow Christ in a more literal way. In this symposium, however, we are still at the stage of sober reassessment, discussing whether we need to shift into a new gear and or just stay on cruise-control. I approach this challenge not in despair but in hope, a hope that arises out of reading the his-tory of religious life. Before the French Revolution (1789) there were 300,000 male religious "in Europe. Forty years after the Revolution this number had decreased by more than two-thirds to 70,000. But in the 1830s a great revival began. Some 600 new Roman Catholic religious congregations were founded in the 19th century, more than at any other period, and the actual number of religious attained historic new heights. The Jesuits, who had been suppressed from 1773 to 1814, flourished as never before. A similar reflowering is not impossible in our time. Review for Religious o The contemporary crisis of religious life has been very deep. It is related to the .attempt to restate the Christian faith for an age called postmodernity. We have been adapting with great strain to a new kind of need for God, not a God of the gaps who fills in for the weaknesses of science, but a God at the center of life, a God who provides depth of meaning and answers our ultimate concern. Directions for a Future: Background Considerations ., George Aschenbrenner SJ felt that in my 1994 book I had set down criteria that might guide a reevaluation of the renewal and an effective move to the future.2 So for the present symposium he assigned me this topic: What are the criteria for judging whether a .proposed change of direction or structure in religious life will be a profitable change? What are the signs of a good change? I have interpreted his question as asking: In what directions should we move, and why? But, before we can entertain the question of directions, some background considerations are necessary. First, we must realize that the theological backdrop to religious life has shifted dra-matically. Up to thirty years ago, all religious, irrespective of their style of life, shared a theological consensus that dated back to the early church. Whether they were hermits, monks and nuns, medieval mendicants, apostolic Jesuit-type religious, or religious of the newer 19th-century type, all religious viewed themselves as primarily engaged in saving souls, their own and those of others. Christianity in general and religious life in particular were given a mystical and eschatological interpretation and were concerned with union with God and "the four last things." Intellectual activ-ity and teaching and care of the sick were important, but were subordinate to a concern for eternal salvation, the "one thing necessary." Since Vatican II, however, chinks have appeared in this higher unity, this sacred canopy, and basic questions have been asked about the meaning of Christianity and the place of religious within it. While the media and some religious focus on controversial issues of church polity like clerical celibacy and women's ordination, the deeper questions are: How should we conceive of our relationship to God? Does salvation begin on earth? What is the meaning of the kingdom of God? Within the mystical-eschatological emphasis, the dominant metaphor for women's congregations was that of becoming a ~uly-Aug~st 1996 Dilanni ¯ Reli~ous L~e "spouse of Christ." To some people of today, this may seem intol-erably sexist, patriarchal or "kyriarchal," but the image contains a core of meaning valid for both men and women. It underscores the need for an affective union with Christ and with a personal God. Mystical language was its common coinage. Commentators spoke of "spiritual marriage" and "transforming union." Many books were written about progress in mental prayer, contempla-tion, and the three stages of the interior life. Today a hunger for spirituality is still alive among religious, witness the popularity of directed retreats and the Ignatian Exercises. It is part of what David Tracy calls an "amazing resurgence in spirituality.''3 Nevertheless, our consuming interest has been elsewhere. Whereas previously religious sought to move outward from a deep interiority, we have preferred to begin with exteriority. Like behaviorists, we have been convinced that action shapes hearts and that congregational renewal would come from movement into relevant apostolates that reexpressed our charism. The "spouse of Christ" model was criticized as a "beautiful soul" spir-ituality, and its practitioners were compared to birds preening themselves. Salvation was brought down to earth, and holiness was linked with wholeness--becoming a well-integrated person-- and with service to others. "Crazy" saints like Philip Neri (who did outlandish things out of humility) were out. The fasting of Catherine of Siena and others has been understood as "holy anorexia" (Rudolph Bell's term), a subconscious protest against male domination. Unless mortification was relational--a sacri-fice involved in one's work for others--it was conside~'ed unhealthy. Better to work for and with the poor than to fast in adoration of God. As a result, a new metaphor for religious life replaced spouse of Christ. It was the image of the prophet at the cutting edge of social and political issues,, breaking new ground in the liberation and humanization of peoples, especially through systemic change in favor of the poor and oppressed. After the Jesuits' dramatic shift toward faith and justice, the charisms of most other active congregations, no matter how diverse, were suddenly found to center on these same concerns. The Roman synod of 1971 called social justice a "constitutive" part of the Christian apostolate, and many interpreted this as meaning that it was to be a necessary component of each apostolate. Most recently, however, a reac-tion has set in. Jesuits like Avery Dulles and Martin Tripole, while Review for Religious agreeing .that social justice should be a fundamental concern of religious life, resist the notion that it is an essential ingredient of each Jesuit apostolate. It is now reported that even Pedro Arrupe SJ, its principal protagonist, had second thoughts about how it was absolutized.4 Strangely, the metaphor of religious as social prophet did not attract numbers of vocations, certainly not in the first world. Marie Augusta Neal admits this and attributes it to fear of its inherent difficulty and risks. But, historically, danger did not deter but rather whetted the appetite of people intent on the religious adventure. Nineteenth-century missionaries like St. Peter Chanel boarded rickety ships on precarious one-way trips lasting eleven months to preach to peoples who had not yet emerged from can-nibalism. Could the resistance to the new prophetic stance be due to something other than fear? Could it be that, however admirable, it is not perceived by Christian consciousness to be at the center of the religious project? In what follows I will set out three directions in which we must move in future efforts toward renewal. The first two are sociological and could apply to almost any social group or cor-porate entity. They are actually dialogues with Wittberg and with Nygren and Ukeritis, whose studies I find revealing. The third direction is theological and addresses some of the questions just raised. Directions for a Future The first direction: An effective religious community must be visible. Recent authors have sounded the alarm that religious life, especially among women, is disappearing as a visible corporate entity, as an institutional presence. Joan Chittister writes that religious communities have "done a great deal to foster the prophetic individuals in their midst," but "at the same time, they have done very little to function as prophetic groups.''5 Elsewhere she dramatizes: "Religious must ask themselves what they stand for as a congregation and who knows it, because if nobody knows it we don't stand for it." She continues: "When we stood for edu-cation, health service, and the care of innocent children, everyone knew it. When we stood for insertion of Catholics into the white Anglo-Saxon world, no one called that political, and everyone knew what we were about, Religious congregations stood as bul-j~ uly-dug~st 1996 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life warks against ignorance, illiteracy, disease, abandonment, and secularism. We turned our resources in those directions. Now we have the best-educated groups in the world, each member of which is regarded with professional respect, and the most invisi-ble congregations.''6 " This is an important point that should guide future planning. If as religious we desire truly to influence others and attract new candidates, we cannot act as disembodied spirits, noncorporeal freedoms, anti-institutional angels. We must witness not only as individuals but as a collective unity. And to do so we must be vis-ible as a collective unity. Clearly, religious were more visible as members of a group when they worked in institutional commit-ments and wore an identifiable religious habit. When they left these institutions and took on secular jobs in social service, when they declined the habit and were absorbed into the crowd, they tended to lose corporate impact of all kinds, even the new one of being socioreligious prophets. "The more its members became unidentifiable," says Wittberg, "the more difficult it became for any order, as a corporate entity, to fulfill its newly defined prophetic role.''7 Another major cause of the current invisibility of religious congregations has been our readiness to embrace contemporary democracy's postmodern move toward absolute egalitarianism and nonelitism. Eager to abdicate every hint of triumphalism, we have become levelers. This is seen in the way we have interpreted Lumen gentium's universal call to holiness, which, according to Wittberg, hit like a bombshell and robbed religious of a sense of distinctive identity. It had this effect because theologians and reli-gious interpreted it politically rather than theologically or spiri-tually. "We are all called to holiness," said the commentators, emphasizing the word all, as if the point of the doctrine were to rule out all talk about more or less effective roads to holiness or about religious life being a way of perfection aspiring to something higher. But is the political point the central thrust of the decla-ration? Should we not place less stress on the "all" and more on what we are all called to, that is, holiness? Should religious not be less worried about standing out (or failing to stand out) and more concerned about redoubling their efforts to achieve holiness within their life and lifestyle? In fact, what happened was that the idea of striving for personal holiness dropped out as the cen-tral concern for religious. Review for Religious The reason for this overemphasis on the political may be due to the church's relative inexperience with democracy and moder-nity. In her sociological study of religious orders; Wittberg con-tends that the 19th-century religious congregations, sharing the restorationist mentality of the church, never really came to grips with the modern thrust toward liberty, fraternity, and equality. Rather, these congregations retreated into a fuga mundi (flight from the world), reinstated 17th-century practices, and lived in a time warp for years. In America this was exacerbated because most religious sprang from and ° worked in isolated immigrant subcultures. It is perhaps because of this that, when Vatican II opened the doors, the congre-gations went overboard in their embrace of the new forms of participative democ-racy. We eagerly adopted its absolute horror of distinctions for fear of elitism and played down all differences between religious and laypersons. As a result we vanished as visible corporate groups purporting to be on a different road to holiness.8 But can this continue? Can the concept of religious life long endure in an atmosphere of hyper-egalitarianism? Would reli-gious life ever have sprung up at all if some persons did not desire to be different and follow Jesus in a more literal way? Wittberg describes religious life as a form of virtuoso or (less frequently) heroic religiosity. Practitioners of virtuoso religiosity are those within a religion who want to go the extra mile. They want to create a zone of intensity within the field of holiness. They p(r-ceive themselves as different and, to some degree, as exemplars. Prospective virtuosi come together, says Wittberg, "in the expec-tation that their participation will help to maintain some collective good--the health and welfare of the destitute, or the conversion of heretics, or even the establishment of a utopia of saints on earth that can serve as a beacon to others.''9 Christianity and other religions have always spawned such virtuosi. Luther dissolved the vows of the monks and declared everyone equal in the quest for holiness, but soon Protestantism was crowded with Pietists, Mennonites, and Anabaptists. Later it was the Shakers and today the Pentecostals. Recently, new virtu-osi groups have mushroomed Within Catholicism: the Legionaries of Christ, the Missionaries of Charity, the Lion ofJuda, Les Fr~res We must witness not only as individuals but as a collective unity. July-August 1996 DiIanni ¯ Religious Life de. St. Jean, the Opus Dei, the Neo-catechumenate, the Focolare, the Sant' Egidio community of Rome, Comunione e liberazione, and so forth. All model themselves on the early Christian com-munity in Acts or the seventy disciples commissioned by Jesus (Lk 10), both of which seem to represent Christianity lived in its highest purity. Like the early Christians, these new groups believe that forming Christians is not easy, but requires being challenged to live one's baptism; requires a formation process, a "way" (some form of RCI& program), a sustaining community, and a partici-pative liturgy. We must accept the fact that as religious we desire to be dif-ferent and follow Christ in a distinctive way. If we are to influence others, to witness as prophets, our commitment must be in some way public and Visible. If this is perceived as a higher way, so be it. Chalk it up to diversity. We cannot blur all distinctions out of a fear of elitism. All groups that aspire for something more are in danger of elitism and must be warned against it, but their enthu-siasm should not be crushed. Members of religious congregations purport to live their Christianity in a way that is differently orga-nized, more regulated, more intense, and at times more difficult than that of other Christians. They will have an impact on oth-ers to the degree that their sacrifice is real and their corporate witness is visible. Whether through all this they always succeed in becoming men and women of God is another question. The second direction: Effective religious community should be inten-tional as opposed to merely associational, and this demands a transcen-dent corporate goal and adequate commitment mechanisms. An intentional community is a community with a purpose for the sake of which members are willing to make significant sacri-fices of their individual preferences. Examples are sports teams and the military. An intentional community is different from an associational community, which admits a plurality of goals and calls for a lesser degree of sacrificing of individual preferences. Intentional communities have a strong sense of direction. This is due to at least two things: a transcendent corporate cause and a set of commitment mechanisms, that is, common sacrificial prac-tices that reinforce commitment at a level deeper than rational persuasion. We will consider these two elements in turn. A transcendent corporate goal: Discussing visibility, we have already dealt with the need for a goal, for being clear on where the Review for Religious group stands. Here I make the further point that the goal must be one that transcends the community itself. I say this because some authors seem to believe that the goal of a community can be inter-nal to ~the community itself. Edwin Keel and Susan Beaudry, for example, propose a third ruling metaphor for religious life, beyond those of the spouse of Christ and prophecy. For them, religious life is best presented under the image of a journey together toward God. They maintain that "what religious have been seeking, whether they realize it or not, and what religious community can offer, is neither surrogate family life, nor friendship, nor the intio macy~of small groupings, but faith companionship on the spiritual journey." 10 They describe the common spiritual journey in terms of a discovery of one's personal vocation before God and an integra-tion of it with that of others. Spiritual maturity is achieved by getting in touch with what Jung calls the Self, which lies deeper than the ego and is the place where we truly meet God. The old perfection model of holiness with its rigid rules tended to flat-ten individual differences and to foster immaturity. The journey image with its new and democratic skills--province assemblies, mission statements, corporate reflection processes, confrontation techniques (all now permanent parts of religious life)--may seem messier, but is psychologically healthier. Community life is like a family going on a trip in a crowded van, constantly negotiating, sometimes bickering, always arriving, never reaching. Some of these spiritual-journey elements are valuable; but I wonder whether the journey can be the dominant metaphor of religious life. Does it not tempt us to remain in an associational model of community, which, to believe tl~e experts, does not endure beyond one generation?I' Does it not come too close to what Gerald Arbuckle has called the "therapeutic" community? Can it generate the needed intensity and direction? For all the benefits of psychology, are not psychological self-absorption and an overly intense regard for the internal aspects of community part of the cause of our present decline? Wittberg says, "'The dominant language of religious life., shifted from theological constructs to social and psychological paradigms,' that were inad-equate to explain what was distinct or desirable about the lifestyle."~2 This has gone so far that in some congregations com-munity members who desire entry into a new local community must first present a written evaluation of themselves from the July-August 1996 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life community they are leaving. In other congregations the .concern for personal autonomy and consensus has at times resulted in the election of effete leaders at the local level. Is there nota middle ground between the not-in-touch-with-their-feelings religious of the past and some present-day religious who have become too self-involved as individuals or as community? In order to form an intentional community, people must come together for the sake of a cause that transcends both themselves and their experience of journeying together. A clearly articulated spiritual or apostolic vision and ideal must draw them on. Each member must partially relinquish his or her personal, vocation in favor of the vocation of the congregation. One's personal project must be trimmed in favor of the community proiect, Older reli-gious tell stories of pioneer days in schools and hospitals when they roomed together in classrooms and toiled almost slave hours. They may stress the pain and suffering, but from the glee with which they tell the stoW we know they would not have exchanged it for the world. Their reward lies in having been part of some-thing greater thanthemselves, protagonists together in a great religious adventure. Commitment mechanisms: Historically, intentional religious groups have been sustained in their resolve not only by clear tran-scendent goals but also by a number of practices that sociologists call commitment mechanisms. These are practices, customs, or rituals that reinforce motivation by solidifying the affective ties between the members. Sociologist Benjamin Zablocki contends that the commitment mechanisms discarded by congregations after Vatican II were actually essential for community survival.~3 The primary types of commitment mechanisms were first developed in the monasteries and then adapted to other forms of religious life. They are (1) common rules and rituals, (2) boundary maintenance, (3) shared sacrifices, and (4) mortification practices. 1. Common rules or rituals include the daily horarium and schedule, spiritual exercises, meals :in common, reading at meals, and grand silence. They are found in the constitutions and in books of customs. 2. Boundary-maintenance mechanisms Fiave the purpose of maintaining a clear distinction between members of the group and other people. Examples of such mechanisms are: wearing a common habit, living together in cloistered convents, bestowing new names, and reducing the visits of family and outsiders. (Today Review for Religious the lack of vocations has spawned the phenomenon of associative membership, which renders the boundaries more fluid and lessens the sense of identity. Most recently commentators are beginning to bemoan an excessive fluidity. Their plea is that such a religious congregation cannot long endure unless there is a strong core group of full-fledged members who are strongly distinguished from others.) 3. Shared sacrifices arise out of involvement in common works of the congregation. Historically there was no stronger source of cohesion than shared sacrifices in behalf of an institute's common apostolates. 4. Mortification practices include such customs as culpas, the chapter of faults, receiving monition, fasting on certain days, taking the discipline, wearing a common habit, and wearing a veil. These worked to strip off an old identity in favor of a new one and in the process helped to cement people into a higher unity. In reviewing these mechanisms I am in no way advocating a return to all or to any of them. On the other hand, religious life cannot prosper without some structures that reinforce motivation at the affective level. To move beyond individualism we need to invent common rituals and symbols that speak to us at the level of the subcon-scious. We cannot build community by teaching a charism only conceptually while leaving it to each member to embody it in his or her own way. If our religious life has no face, our communities will end up being only comfortable hotels. In replacing outdated commitment mechanisms, we must employ new psychological insights and provide adequate room for personal differences. But these new mechanisms must have some relation to past ones. In creating them we must carefully study the older structures to see what purpose they had in the mind of the founder, to discover what aspect of the charism they expressed. The new structures must be more suited to our times, but they must also connect with and incarnate the charism and spirituality of the institute. The role of the superior is a commitment mechanism of tra-ditional religious life that is not often mentioned. We must admit, People must come together for the sake of a cause that transcends both themselves and their experience of journeying together. ~dy-AuKtwt 1996 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life however, that nothing worked better to reinforce collective unity than Mother Superior. The traditional superior, especially when he or she was also the founder, was considered a voice of God. Today, conversely, some 75 percent of religious communities of women have no superior in any traditional sense. Mother Superior has been replaced by the "director" or "animator" or by a "lead-ership team." Such language, it seems to me, confuses two dif-ferent realities, authority and leadership. The first is the attribute of an office; the second, the quality of a person. In some congregations the role of superior has been largely taken over by an appointed middle-management bureaucracy with tendencies to perpetuate itself.~4 One sister has written to me say-i. ng, "Our best leaders are in our cemetery." Without desiring to turn back the clock, I ask: Was there a resonance present in the traditional role of superior that has been lost? If past superiors were legalistic and overbearing, were the best of them not the true spiritual leaders that We still hanker for? Were they not per-sons who loved the congregation and its charism and knew how to stir hearts and shape a vision? Commitment mechanisms are making a comeback in the new congregations and in the new lay religious movements in Europe and Latin America. The Neo-catechumenate, for example, invites members into a "way" (camino), which comprises certain distinct steps, a kind of RCIA for Catholics, through which each mem-ber must pass before they are considered "formed Christians." Some of their techniques involve confrontation and mutual crit-icism. New seminaries using Neo-catechumenal techniques, all called Redemptoris Mater, are springing up in many parts of the world. The Sant' Egidio lay community of Rome invites its mem-bers to sung vespers and a commentary on the Scripture every evening. Many religious congregations use directed retreats and the renewed thirty-day Ignatian Exercises as a more personalized form of commitment mechanism. Other communities have intro-duced formal faith-sharing sessions, a kind of lectio divina in which members Ponder scripture passages or the constitutions together and then discuss them. Patricia Wittberg suggests that it might be profitable to explore the new religious movements to see how traditional Catholic frameworks for "religious virtuos-ity are being reworked, whether consciously or unconsciously. ¯ in order to address the assumptions and values of the late-20th-and early-21 st-century American culture." 1~ Review for Religiou~ Visibility, intentionality, a clear and transcendent goal, and some commitment mechanisms--these are the sociological aspects necessary to be effective as a group. For Wittberg, their lack has been the major reason why the new metaphor of religious as reli-gious prophets has not truly taken hold. Ithas failed to galvanize religious communities, she believes, because contemporary indi-vidualism and pluralism have been allowed to dominate religious life. As a good sociologist, she remains neutral with regard to the desirability of the new metaphor itself. I wonder, however, if this goes far enough. Are there not other and deeper reasons why the new metaphor of religious prophet has not really caught on? If prophecy means being on the cutting edge, the question remains: On the cutting edge of what? of politics? of social betterment? of all this, plus something more? I accept and welcome the model of prophecy, but I do question its content as expounded by many religious at the pres-ent time. I believe that the prophet must identify the deepest assumptions of the age and try to respond to its deepest hungers. Have we; aspiring religious prophets, truly engaged our culture at its deepest levels? This brings me to my third and last statement of direction. Third direction: Effective religious community demands a concept of prophecy that engages the surrounding culture at its deepest levels and responds to its most profound hungers. Wittherg and others believe that because of restorationism the 19th-century church and its many new religious orders did not come to grips with the problems of modernity. My question is: In the prophetic model as currently understood, do we do so even now? I concur with Nygren and Ukeritis, who say that those con-gregations will be revitalized that are "rooted in their relationship with God, and that, in a spirit of fidelity to their founding purpose and responsiveness to absolute human need, confront the current gap between Gospel and the culture.''16 1 agree with Chittister's formal principle that religious congregations must "release every-where in society, at every level, through every individual member, wherever the members are, and whatever separate things they do, the white heat of those congregations' charism in one great cor-porate mind and one easily seen communal heart.''17 We must engage the dominant first-world culture and do so as corporate .t~uly-August 1996 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life entities. We cannot run from it or remain indifferent. But, because we are religious, we must be careful to engage it at its deepest levels and not merely superficially. Historically, religious life flourished precisely when it was perceived as countering a culture's expressed values while answer-ing its deepest hungers. St. Francis of Assisi attracted followers, not because he was in conformity with his times, but because he challenged his times and in this way spoke to its heart of hearts. As we move toward the future, we must ask ourselves: What are the deepest hungers of our culture? Judith Merkle says that "the question which faces religious congregations today is what aspect of reality has the power to most deeply call us to life." 18. This is really the same question, for we are part of our culture, and our own deepest hungers will not differ much from those of the general culture. Some authors answer this question by insisting that we will be called to life by moving away from individualism and becoming a transformative community bent on creating a better world. In their eyes, the deepest need of contemporary culture is to achieve better rela-tionship with the poor, the oppressed, and the marginal; and this will be achieved by eradicating unjust social structures and oppos-ing oppressive ideologies like patriarchy, sexism, and racism. But is such a project sufficient? Is it at the center of religious prophecy? Is it where we address the deepest needs of our culture? Certainly, many of these ethical issues are important. They are a response to Gaudium et spes and in tune with the attempt of the-ologians to develop a more earth-centered interpretation of the kingdom. This new notion of the kingdom does not contradict the traditional view, but complements it. It asks us not to allow our desire for heaven to blind us to our duty to extirpate crass injus-tices in this world. In this view, the kingdom is not only a future heaven but the actual presence of God's power for transforming the world. So the religious project, the kingdom, has two loci. But, in many religious congregations, has the sociopolitical not become the solitary day-to-day focus? Is this not why the so-called prophetic model attracts so few first-world candidates? Have we not gone the route of liberal Protestantism, which in its social-gospel emphasis is fast losing ground to the Pentecostals and Evangelicals? In their nonparticipation and shifts of loyalty, are not lay Christians trying to tell us something? Review for Religious Can a religious congregation survive if its primary, all-inclu-sive goal is to solve complex and intractable social and moral issues? I doubt it. This is so especially when, in practice if not in theory, God is reduced to being a ground for human generativity or creativity in the social arena. Sociopolitical issues are impor-tant and can even be construed as religious in nature, but they are not at the center of the religious project. The center of the religious project is clear and simple: to affirm the existence and the love of God. This is true especially in our times, in which the major event has been the "death of God," the conviction that the idea of God is either meaningless or even detrimental. The first attitude comes from the side of science and the second from an existential-ist philosophy of life. The scientific picture as taught in many universities is one of a world that evolved by sheer chance from a big bang to con-scious, reflective beings. If through some. accident all conscious beings are destroyed, the Godless universe would be bereft of consciousness, and being would be a perpetual winter, In the sci-entistic worldview, sheer chance takes the place of God, and human life is voided of any objective meaning or purpose. Moral ¯ systems' become games contrived by human 'beings to bring about the maximal satisfaction of desires while avoiding conflict. The moral game is born of an enlightened egoism. For existentialists, following Nietzsche, religion must be ban-ished because it is repressive and life-denying and robs us of rad-ical freedom. It imposes an objective moral system that does not allow us to create values. We must choose between a life of free-dom and a God of enslavement. "Man dies at the touch of the Absolute," says Merleau-Ponty. One way in which existentialist atheism shows up in our culture is in its penchant for absolutiz-ing choice. No matter how dire the consequences, Americans will plump for choice on any issue. If there is no God, then each indi-vidual can be God, not only in general but at every moment and in every decision. This combination of scientific atheism and an existentialist absolutizing of individual power and choice has given rise, as Nietzsche predicted, to a sense of meaninglessness, to nihilism, to The center of the religious project is clear and simple: to affirm the existence and the love of God. July-August 1996 DiIanni ¯ Religious Life the banalizing of life, to the "unbearable lightness of being," The death of God has ushered in the death of man (and woman). Choosing and consuming, consuming and choosing, modern men and women are stranded on the anorexia-bulimia line--on the endless shuttle between fullness and emptiness." Is this all there is?" they ask. And many teenagers commit suicide or random murder, and others just keep on dancing. "Even more than athe-ism," says Walter Kasper, "the nihilism that flows from atheism is the real mark of the age."~9 This nihilism or voiding of meaning has its positive side. It is the modern expression of the hunger for God. It is in providing a lived response to this hunger that contemporary religious life will achieve its true prophetic role. Beyond all else, religious life must be a drumbeat proclaiming that God exists, that God's love for us through Jesus is unconditional, that it sustains us in suffering and continues beyond our death. The way for religious to engage the surrounding culture effectively is to witness that, far from crush-ing life, God alone gives it ultimate meaning and sense. I believe that at least two things must be retrieved by religious to help them achieve this truly religious end: interiority and, along .with it, an ardent desire to relate to the personal God who transcends the world. By interiorityI mean a new emphasis on the life of prayer and reflection and on being teachers of the spiritual life. Pierre Hadot, a French historian of philosophy, is influencing sophisticated the-ologians like David Tracy into bringing spirituality into the cen-ter of theology. He criticizes modern theology for its sharp division between theory and spiritual practice. Hadot insists that, unlike people of earlier times and of non-Western cultures, we Western moderns have not allowed theology to express itself in spiritual exercises. The old Stoics had spiritual exercises for com-ing into contact with the Logos, and this was one reason why Simone Weil loved the Stoics. The modern segmenting of the-ology and praxis--seen, for example, in the dropping of devo-tions since Vatican II--is one reason for the deep hunger for spirituality today. R~ligious must once again emphasize growth in personal holiness and speak to people about their experience of prayer, about their interior praxis with God. Our formation pro-grams must not fail to impart a sense that each person has 'a spir-itual life in which it is possible to make progress through prayer. Joan Chittister is correct when she insists that we cannot "confuse work with prayer, good intentions with the spiritual life:''2° Review for Religious We must regain a sense of the personal God who transcends the world, but with whom we can enter into intimate union. In a 1989 America article I spoke of our need to love God as well as our neighbor and said that the love of God cannot be totally expressed through neighbor love, Several weeks later, in a letter to the edi-tor, J. Robert Hilbert sJ wrote that "one must be careful" in draw-ing a distinction between love of God and love of neighbor. "God," he says, "is not an 'other' in the sense of a categorical object to be spoken of in parallel with other objects of my knowl-edge and love. It is rather precisely in God's transcendentality as the absolute Other that love of God and love of neighbor come together in a unique and necessary oneness.''2~ I do not know if such talk of God as the "absolute Other" does the job of maintaining the necessary balance between the immanence and transcendence of God. I am sure, however, that in their return to spirituality contemporary Christians are rebelling against attempts to blur the distinction between the love of God and the love of neighbor, even though both are absolutely necesshry and intimately intertwined. Classically God has been conceived of as higher than and dis-tinct from the world, a Creator who does not need us but who loves us even beyond our death and asks us to requite that love. In ~our effort to rethink the notion of God in a way acceptable to modernity, we must avoid the danger of turning God into some underlying catalyst for our doing :good, an ~lan vital or wisdom force. In the last thirty years, so many theologians liberationists, feminists, process theologians, all striving to develop an idea of a God who is intrinsic to our lives--may have fallen into just this trap, Have they not carried too far the idea that we are God's project for social betterment, that in some Hegelian way the Absolute is working through our creativity to achieve a world of peace and justice? I have two problems with the current political and this-worldly interpretations of the kingdom. The first is with the type of pol-itics it generally espouses, and the second with the primacy of politics itself. ¯ First, does not the particular type of politics espoused by some religious carry a great deal of questionable ideological baggage? A "politically correct" reading is .given to work with the poor and oppressed. The abortion question is often studiously avoided. Feminist publications of the most radical sort are taken seriously. 3~uly-August 1996 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life Environmentalism is fast becoming a new religion among some religious, while they fail to realize that it has become extremely big business filling many already fat pockets. A listening ear is not lent to the arguments of those who distinguish between good and bad ways of helping the poor, arguments presented in thoughtful books like Marvin Olasky's Tragedy of American Compassion. And yet anybody who is truly concerned about the poor should also be attentive to the ways in which, with the best of motives, we may be locking them into a perpetual victimhood. But, beyond these particular issues, I think there is an overem-phasis on the sociopolitical in general. Social justice and the fos-tering of the earthly kingdom is not the whole gospel nor even the center of it. The hunger for another justice beyond social justice is never altogether absent from the human heart, Social justice is important, of course, because it is the minimum, upon which an earthly Christian community can be built. When it is dramat-ically absent, we cannot remain passive. When it is dramatically absent for many years for great numbers of people, it can for a time even be a consuming passion. But we must be careful that the gospel not be totally reduced to it. For the fact remains that we die eventually and that no program of social justice exists that can prevent our death or provide meaning to our dying. Beyond social justice, the church must have something to say also, perhaps especially, to those who are about to conclude their earthly life.22 Most religious, no matter how radical their politics, do retain a strong belief in a transcendent and personal God and a faith in the resurrection of the dead. But often this does not appear to be the main focus of their life and action. Unsure of the existence~ of the devil, many religious are very adept at naming the demonic. They are sure that sin has changed and we now better understand what constitutes real sin and real virtue, Evil, they think, is not located primarily in personal sins of commission, but in 'political and economic structures and in the sins of omission that keep these structures in place. Along with this perception, they have the conviction that the new technological possibilities available to us bring new responsibilities. Thus, they are fond of repeating that, since it is now possible for the first time to feed everyone, we have a special duty to create political structures and delivery sys-tems to implement this possibility. There is doubtless much to be said in favor of this, but, religiously speaking, it contains little that is new. Systemic and structural change is simply a new aspect Review for Religious that the perennial Christian demand of love of neighbor and of the stranger has assumed today. There remains the caveat of humility: that we not think we possess the answers to complex structural problems of politics and economics and that we curb the thought that we can ever build utopia on earth. In spite ofmy theoretical recognition of social justice's impor-tance and in spite of my practical efforts, past and present, in behalf of civil rights and of the poor, I believe that, from a reli-gious point of view, the social project remains ,superficial. Metaphysically, it is ultimately uninteresting. Cornel West, the brilliant black theology professor at Harvard Divinity School, often discusses social issues on Boston television. One day he was especially aroused and ended his speech with: "My brothers and sisters, this is the real important stuf!!" I shook my head and thought: Millions of people are dead and everyone is going to die. How can a theologian give such ultimate importance to this transient consciousness show we call the world? I am more in tune with Wilfrid Duffy SM, a priest-poet friend of mine afflicted with Parkinson's, whom I took to visit Michelangelo's statue of Moses in Rome. Disappointed with Moses' worldly appearance, he wrote a poem called "The Death of Moses" which ends with these words: ~ There was no dirge-- Just hard marble, noble features, Well-spaced fingers and toes, a certain strength, and some magnificence. But no d~sert; no voice of God, Unless I was not listen.ing. Perhaps it was I who had died. In the sociopolitical vision of the kingdom as practiced by some, where is the magic Of Bernini's sculpture of St. Teresa of Avila in rapture with God? What is the meaning of fasting, prayer, personal mortification, the Eucharist, confession, the drama of conversion and grace, justification, of Jacob wrestling with an angel? Interiority and mystery seem to get short shrift in the cur-rent version of the prophetic vision, as do original sin and personal sanctification and, yes, even ultimate salvation. Have we learned the Marxist lesson too well? Annette Pelletier IHM asks some poignant questions in this regard. "Have any., of the adaptations since Vatican II pro-claimed to the people of God the basic message that grace works? yuly-August 1996 Dilanni ¯ Reli~ousLife Politics, justice, and even morality cannot be the absolute center of the religious-life agenda. What else will or can ever change the present identity crisis of consecrated persons and their various congregations into an opportunity for reform, revitalization, and renewal if not the power of Mystery to fascinate but also to convert? Has this pri-mal experience of the Judeo-Christian tradition fallen by the way-side?" She continues: "Since Vatican II, adaptation and renewal have bridged the gap between the world and the consecrated life, but of what metal has that bridge been forged? Could it be that in bridging the gap an essential element of the identity of persons consecrated to God some-how got lost? What credible and clear evi-dence do religious women and men give to show that contact with the Holy somehow, mysteriously, does make a difference?" She quotes Richard Fragomeni saying that "the Christian tradition ultimately stands in silence before the operation of grace, the wonder of surprise, and the movement of a power beyond that of human consciousness and performance.''23 To be truly prophetic in the religious sense, religious life requires an integration of these two points of view about the king-dom-- the mystical-eschatological and the sociopsychological-- both of which have their roots in the gospel. The first rightly stresses the need for a mystical union with God' in this life and the hope for ultimate union with God hereafter. The first com-mandment, said Jesus, is that we love God with our whole heart. On the other hand, the Jesus we meet in prayer and in the Scriptures is the very embodiment of a God of compassion. Jesus reveals that Yahweh is not a "generic" God (Brueggemann), but a God who is interested in justice. To be involved with the God of Jesus is to be involved with the poor and the marginal of this world. We cannot be satisfied with urging them to suffer in the hope of an eternal reward in heaven. And yet secularism remains the deepest problem of the dom-inant culture, and it is at the center of the religious project. It is in grappling with this aspect of our culture that religious ,;rill truly and most deeply engage it. The deconstructionists are hard at work trying to be rid of all "metanarratives," and the pragma-tists are banishing any attempt to ground any~statement as true, A valedictorian at Harvard recently said: "At Harvard they teach Review for Religious you that you can hold any value you want, as long as you don't hold it to be true." Television is not far behind. It continues to dis-place the deep and serious with celebrity, with hi-tech gossip, and with the tolerance morality of the talk shows. I strongly applaud Joan Chittister's suggestion that we must be corporately visible, but the principal goals she sets--educating the world about °the new social questions of the age, about sexism, racism, the environment, and multiculturalism, about the whole agenda of political correctness--all remain at the level of politics and sometimes debatable politics. There is justice and justice. Politics, justice, and even morality cannot be the absolute center of the religious-life agenda. But coming to grips with an atheis-tic secularism can, for it is a directly theological and religious issue. What is more countercultural, to say that we are going to save planet Earth or to say that Jesus rose from the dead and that this makes all the difference? Which answers our deepest and most ultimate concerns? Which, metaphysically speaking, and which, from a religious point of view, is more interesting? Perhaps the last thirty years of religious life have been fruit-ful after all. With T.S. Eliot we may be able now to cease our exploration, return home, anddiscover the place for the first time. For in thirty years we have changed and perhaps only now have the wisdom to plan a renewal and a future. In our planning for the 21st century, can we not truly join action and contemplation, this-worldly love and the inystical-eschatological--envisage, that is, a close friendship between oneself as prophet and oneself as spouse of Christ? And can we not then send them both off on a splendid quest that we might call, according to the metaphor Qf Keel and Beaudry, "a journey together toward God"? Notes * See Patricia Wittberg, The Rise and Fall of Catholic Religious Orders (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994), p. 269. 2 See Albert DiIanni, Religious Life as Adventure (Staten Island: Alba House, 1994). 3 William R. Burrows's interview with David Tracy in America, 14 October 1995, p. 16. 4 See Martin R. Tripole, "The Roots of Faith-and-Justice: Critical Assessment," Review for Religious 54, no. 5 (September-October 1995): passim. s Joan Chittister, "Religious Life Today: Response to Kerkhofs," Religious Life Review 32, no. 4' (1993): 203. Dilanni ¯ Religious Life 6 Joan Chittister, "Religious Orders," National Catholic Reporter, 18 February 1994, p. 16. 7 Wittberg, Rise and Fall, p. 239. s The findings of Nygren and Ukeritis also seem to confirm that the flight to democracy was not well thought out: "Assumption~ regarding the applicabilit~ of democratic forms of governance to religious life were made with little or no conversation regarding the appropriateness of this move. Centuries-old notions of obedience were dismissed and replaced with concepts such as ,listening to the Spirit' which, while challenging, lack a history of experience to provide a context that produces consis-tency in form or process" (David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis, The Future of Religious Orders in the United States [FORUS] [Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1993], p. 240). 9 Wittberg, Rise and Fall, p. 27. ,0 Edwin L. Keel SM and Susan Beaudry PM, "Journeying to God Together," Review for Religious 53, no. 3 (May-June 1994): 441. 1, See Elizabeth McDonough, "The Past Is Prologue: Quid Agis?" Review for Religious 51, no. 1 (January-February 1992): 82, and also Wittberg, Rise and Fall, p. 193. ,2Wittberg, Rise and Fall, p. 256. 13 See Wittberg, Rise and Fall, p. xi. 14On developments of this sort, see Elizabeth McDonough, "Beyond the Liberal Model: Quo Vadis?" Review for Religious 50, no. 2 (March- April 1991), pp. 172-173 and 176-177, and her "Past Is Prologue," pp. 79- 82. In the latter article she is using material from Patricia Wittberg, Creating a Future for Religious Life (New York: Paulist Press, 1991). ,s Wittberg, Rise and Fall, p. 270. ,6 .Nygren and Ukeritis, FORUS, p. 244. ,7 Chittister, "Religious Orders," p. 16. 18 Judith A. Merkel, Committed by Choice (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992), p. 54. ,9 Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ (New York: Crossroad, 1986), p. ll. 20 Chittister, "Religious Orders," p. 17. 2,America, 2 September 1989, p. 127. 22 It is unjust to ask some to struggle to the death for a future utopia to be enjoyed only by others in the future. Even the Marxist philosopher Theodore Adorno was exercised by this problem and insisted that there must also be a justice for the dead. 23 Annette M. Pelletier, "Fascination with the Holy--and Conversion," Review for Religious 53, no. 4 (July-August 1994): 562-563,565. Review for Religious JANET MALONE Internationality: ConsciousnessRaising and Conversion nternationality in religious congregations has a price, and .l. congregations that in recent years have called themselves inter-national are now in the various stages of conversion requisite to being purposefully international or what Catherine Harmer has called intentionally international. At this point it is important for them to keep their eyes open to internationality's richness, for the changes and conversion that are requisite to being truly interna-tional bring the difficulties--the price--very much to the fore. Ways of Coping Change can be scary, and becoming an international congre-gation has been quite difficult for many communities, to the point where certain resistances have surfaced as ways of coping with this new "crisis." In working with such congregations, I have noted various ways of coping. Some groups want to downplay the full connotation of internationality in its mission sense of supra-nationality even when in fact, with acceptance and incorporation of some different cultures and nationalities, a new congregational culture has already come into being that, in many ways, goes well beyond being the mere sum of its older and newer parts. Other congregations that have called themselves international by reason of their physical expansion into other nations now deal Janet Malone CND wrote "Coming Home: The Journey Within" for our May-June 1995 issue. Her address is 24-1002 Dufferin Avenue; Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; S7H 2C1 Canada. ~uly-August 1996 Malone ¯ Internationality with subtle and varying aspects of resistance throughout their congregations. In still other congregations, the resistance has been quite subtle, with efforts by some members to have their congregations refer to themselves, not as "international," but as "multicultural" or "intercultural" or as congregations "with an international character." Some congregations seem ready to rescind the appellation of internationality because of the cost in terms of both personal and corporate conversion. They would justify this retrograde step by emphasizing that they are not really international because they are present in only.a few other nations. On the other hand, if a congregation purposefully decides to become or to remain an international one, it most likely must go through, both personally and corporately, an actual step-by-step process of conversion. This involves consciousness raising. The Process of Consciousness Rai sing In this article I want to highlight the different stages of con-sciousness raising. Being consciously aware of these stages can help change "hearts of stone to hearts of flesh" (Ez 36:26) in the process of becoming purposefully international. In my January- February 1992 article "Internationality--At What Price?" I spoke about conversion; herein I shall elaborate on what I now see as the intermediate steps of consciousness raising in the conversion process. Sometimes the dominant culture is replaced by another group's culture with the result that the oppressed become the oppressor. When that happens, a congregation--using power in a way that creates scarcity, and marginalization--plays'the game of musical chairs. Whether the oppression is conscious or not, those with power marginalize others and continue the injustice. It is normal for there to be resistances, biases, prejudices, and stereotypes as a congregation becomes truly international, for various members are at different stages of consciousness awareness (and conversion) in their own. enculturation, acculturation, and inculturation. It has been my experience in worki.'ng with inter-national groups that resistance to change in the form of preju-dices and stereotypes comes from very sincere people who feel threatened by the unknown and wonder how the proposed changes will affect them. Like most things in life, consciousness Review for Religious raising does not happen all at once. Rather, it is a process of awareness and evaluation of hitherto unperceived injustices that preclude the changes necessary for conversion. The rhythm of consciousness raising is different for different individuals, and it holds a particular challenge for those in lead-ership roles in a congregation. These need to be somewhat com-fortable with the unknown, with taking risks. Only then can they encourage the members to take some requisite steps toward becoming comfortable with the attitudinal and structural changes that can eliminate subtle oppressions of which many members may be quite unaware. In so doing, they model equality and mutuality. Consciousness raising he.lps to bring about real change in the attitudes of individuals and in congregational structures that reflect the dominant culture. Consciousness raising gradually brings a group to an honest evaluation of the ways of being and doing in the group that, in many instances, are distinctive of the domi-nant, founding group. Such an evaluation can then lead to the necessary changes in praxis. Stages of Consciousness Raising Adapting the work of Gaylor and Fitzpatrick, I will now high-light six differeht stages of consciousness raising in congregations becoming purposefully international. Not linear, these six stages in consciousness raising tend to overlap in a helical fashion. The first stage, the "no big deal" stage, is characterized by per-plexity and sometimes denial that there is a problem, This can be experienced by both sides of the internationality challenge: those who are the majority and see no oppression whatsoever and those who--unaware of it or only minimally aware--are the receivers of such oppression. Thus, there can be outright denial of the injustice and dismissal of any claims of it or a trivializa-tion of the injustice. For example, in a mixed-language group where there is "whisper" translation, people in the majority group may interrupt a minority speaker in midsentence and demand immediate translation. On the other hand, members of the major-ity group may carry on a full conversation among themselves while translation is being provided for the minority group. Members of a majority find it difficult to see this kind of problem even when it is pointed out. The minority group may see this as ,the way things have always been and display a certain ffuly-August 1996 Malone ¯ Internationality passivity or resignation. In both instances there is no awareness or almost none in this "~no big deal" stage. If, however, a congrega-tion is really serious about its internationality, then each language group, regardless of numbers, deserves a sacred space to under-stand and be understood. At this stage, discrepancies between the majority's demands and the needs of the minority can be trivialized by the majority with such statements as "Oh, it wasn't intentional" and by the minority with "They don't mean to be rude." In both instances there is no consciousness or only a minimal awareness of injustices and oppression, subtle or otherwise. The second, "eye-opening" stage occurs when a member of either group, the majority or the minority, experiences such types of oppression with some discomfort. Itis very easy here to revert back to the "no big deal" stage, but at .this second stage both groups can see previously status-quo experiences in a new light. Consciousness is being raised; as Ecclesiastes 3 observes, the "sea-son" for it has come. Experiences that were seen as normal are now evaluated some-what differently. Still, this evaluation is fragile. If, as a member of the dominant group, I am not much impressed by this new eval-uation, then I. may become ambivalent and protective of the sta-res quo. If I am a member of the minority group, I may not speak out on an injustice for fear of being rejectedand labeled a trou-blemaker. Members of the majority may realize for the first time that they refer to a minority group from a developing nation as "cute" and "innocent," with "so much to learn." In this stage they come to a deeper insight into what they are really saying. The third, "on the fence" stage is that point where, although: individuals or groups in an international congregation now se,e unequivocally the injustices within the congregation towards cer-tain groups, they still do not have the courage to "walk their talk." They still try to curry favor with both sides. Being "on the fence," they maneuver between the two sides without taking a firm stand on the side of the oppressed. Although it is important to see both sides of any situation, still it is critical at certain times to get "off: the fence." The warn-ing of Jesus about being lukewarm resounds here. For example, in a congregation which has called itself international, a particular group lobbies to change that term to something like intercultural because it thinks, that will solve the discontent of some of the Review for Religious majority group. Without a critical analysis of the issues involved, many congregation members may stay "on the fence" and not try to explore possible resistances underneath. The fourth, "coming home" stage of consciousness raising is that point where an individual or a group in the international congregation moves to making public various convictions on issues integral to internationality. It is the point where the personal convictions expressed heretofore only in safe, private spaces are now shared in more public places within the congregation, although still in rather circumspect ways. This stage is both diffi-cult and challenging because "the medium becomes the message." For example, a per-son or a group may submit to the congre~ gational leadership a proposal for specific structural changes to enhance the congre-gation's internationality. The private has become public, but not as yet within the public forum of a chapter or assembly of the total congregation. The fifth, "passion" stage of conscious-ness raising is a .more integrated stage involving both head and heart. Persons immediately come to mind who have had a passion for certain truths: "I have a dream."; "Ask not what your country can do for you."; "Go and gather up the drops of blood . " This stage challenges individuals and groups to lace their reasoned and dispassionate discourse with some emotion, such as anger at instances of oppression and injustice. When expressed construc-tively and nonviolently, such anger can be an energy and .catalyst for change. For example, at international meetings where an impasse has been reached because of fears and resistances, a spe-cial meeting might be called to get at these fears and blocks to any change. The danger here can be that the only interventions rec-ognized in the group are those which focus solely on "defini-tions," "constitutions," and "canon law." The challenge is to get underneath the words to the energy of the emotions. Only when the stories of personal experiences around such feelings are shared is there any movement in the group toward some deeper con-scious awareness. Members of the majority may realize that they refer to a minority group from a developing nation as "cute" and "innocent," with "so much to learn." Malone ¯ Internationality Patience and waiting are also critically important in this stage; planting the seeds of change and waiting for them to blossom is what being prophetic is all about. It is the process of going from "mine" to "ours." For example, an important component of being international is to have an international communications office and journal, both of which are grassroots and decentralized so that inculturation can gradually occur from the bottom up. It may take some time for that dream to move from being "mine" to "ours" in an international group because of many different variables, some of which may be subtle efforts to hold on to the status quo. The sixth and last stage, "acceptance/appropriation/incorpora-tion," is the crux of consciousness raising. It is that season in the life of a congregation where being international is not just the decision of a chapter or decision-making body. Rather, it is the season where internationality is the lived reality in the group. Such acceptance/appropriation/incorporation leads to a sense of equality and mutuality in the congregation and is reflected in both personal and corporate attitudinal and structural changes. Personal Conversion Having surveyed the stages of consciousness raising about biases, prejudices, stereotypes, and resultant injustices and oppres-sion, we now explore their implications for conversion. Personal conversion may take many different shapes including intellectual, moral, and spiritual conversion. Although conversion, like con-sciousness raising, is not a linear process but in many ways a gift of the grace of G6d, yet this helical process has some distinct aspects. Intellectual conversion interfaces directly with the stages of consciousness raising. It is a seeing with new eyes that continuing to support or collude with oppressive structures and ways of being in one's congregation is wrong. Now morally aware of behaviors in these matters that are actually sinful, the members of the dom-inant group must become morally aware also of their passivity in not speaking out about an ol6pressive status quo. An attitudinal shift must occur that moves them to do something about the injus-tice, be that something ever so small in the large scale of things. When people perceive the general pattern of increased aware-ness and its call for moral conversion, they may notice the :pattern in groups not only where they oppress others but also where oth- Review for Religious ers oppress them. They should notice, too, that it is very easy for the oppressed to become the oppressors in other circumstances. Unless there is a conscious intent to break the cycle of oppression, ¯ it is likely to continue. Spiritual conversion calls members of a congregation to live the gospel in .a radical way, such that there can be true love, for-giveness, and reconciliation as the different ways of oppressing come to light. Such conversion is countercultural when there is reconciliation and not revenge. "Love is patient, kind, not jealous, does not seek its own interests, is not quick-tempered, and does not brood over injury. It does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with.the truth" (1 Co 13:4-6). Corporate Conversion Corporate conversion requires changes within the organiza-tional structures of the congregation so thfit the sense Of mutuality and equality will exist both in word and in the lived praxis. Catherine Harmer details the structural changes required to become intentionally international. These changes are summa-rized here: 1. Each of the different provinces/regions/cultural entities in a congregation has the necessary autonomy to make local decisions regarding ministry choices, personnel changes, formation, and finances. 2. The leadership in each province/region/area should normally be made up of the people of that country. 3. International congregational committees and task forces must include representatives from all areas. 4. General chapters must also be representative of the total congregation not bnly in attendance but also in plan-ning and staff. 5. Provision must be made to accommodate diverse lan-guage groups at such meetings. 6. The members of the central administration of the con-gregation must reflect its internationality. 7. The founding group should eventually cease to domi-nate in all aspects of the congregational life. Conclusion Some congregations, ~n their beginnings, were not founded as international groups.~ In recent years they may have called July-August 1996 Malone * Internationali~ themselves international because of their "physical" expansion to different nations. They go through birthpangs when this acci-dental internationality becomes a purposeful or intentional inter-nationality. This article has affirmed that various resistances to the new and the temptation to go back to the "good old days" are a nor~ mal part of such a new birth. This process, for both personal and corporate conversion, has been clarified by the application of Gaylor and Fitzpatrick's stages of consciousness raising to the matter of becoming a truly international congregation. References Jean Alvarez. "Prejudice in Religious Congregations." Human Development, Winter 1983. Christine C. Gaylor and Annelle Fitzpatrick. "The Stages of Consciousness Raising." Human Development, Fall 1987. Catherine Harmer. "Internationality: Intentional or Accidental." Review for Religious 52, no. 1 (January-February 1993): 111-118. Janet Malone. "Internationality--At What Price?" Review for Religious 51, no. 1 (January-February 1992): 109-117. Dorcas Surely, there was time to miss what might be missed: garments made, acts of charity attested to by friends and neighbors, the complexities of a simple style, feel of wool well-woven, the breathless moment prior to a newborn's angry cry. Then, did you hesitate at all on that gruff apostle's word before, gazelle-like (how else), you leapt from there to here? Leonar~i Cochran OP Review for Religious FINIAN McGINN Toward Multiculturalizing a Religious Community ~nheaot happens when a community evolves from a homoge- us ethnic group to a heterogeneous ethnic group? Do the inner structures of the group change? Do they have to change; if so, how far? How can we change structures to meet the multi-cultural needs of the members? Do we have any models of recent attempts toward multiculturalization of institutions? With more Hispanic and southeast Asian membership in U.S. religious com-munities, what are the areas of greatest tension? How do we pre-pare our members for a multicultural institution? Is there a different type of preparation for the older members than for the younger? Does the same phenomenon happen to public educational institu-tions, businesses, and large corporations? These are but a few of the issues confronting provincials in the United States as they realize that they have been writing more letters in Spanish to their members than those of the previous administration and that they see more and more Vietnamese-- survivors of the fall of Saigon in 1975--in their houses of forma-tion. What has happened to the province we entered in the 1950s? At that time most of us were German, Italian, Polish, and Irish-- predominantly Westerners of European descent. Now, in the mid 1990s, we have become pluralistic, much more ethnically diverse, and the old ways of doing things have begun to change. As ministers of the local :church, most of us have witnessed our parishes and other apostolates change demographically, but we Finian McGinn OFM serves as vicar provincial for the Santa Barbara province of the Franciscan friars. His address is 1500 34th Avenue; Oakland, California 94601. ffuly-August 1996 McGinn * Toward Multiculturalizin~ a Reli~ous Communi~ have failed to look inward at our own religious communities. We have tried to prepare the people in our areas of work by inviting experts to give inservices and workshops to inform the parish-ioners about the new reality they face and to help them understand the new refugee and immigrant neighbors in their midst. We have applied multicultural solutions to our apostolates, but we have failed to prescribe them for our own religious communities. Immigrants and Refugees in General What are the differences of today? Ethnographers tell us that the Hispanic, the southeast Asian, and the African American have different ways of looking at the family, at community life, work, interpersonal relationships, prayer; recreation, decision making, and at many other issues which are essential to religious life. Even though 'we see out communities beginning to change demo-graphically we continue to do what we have been doing for years. Superiors are becoming aware that many of the strategies that were used before are no longer effective today because of the dif-ferent cultural values held by the members. Is there agreement on a common hierarchy of values? How does a superior take into consideration the Asian notion of "sav-ing face" in his or her decision making? If the culture affirms dependence and docility, how does one teach independence, assertiveness and confrontation? If the culture emphasizes family, interpersonal relationships with persons of the same culture and close-knit ingroupings, how does it embrace a larger community of muhiethnic members? How do different cultural groups view the vows; how do they see religious obedience? How much does a province change to accommodate the new cultures? .Multiculturalizing in the United States presents a rather polit-ically sticky problem. At present the United States offers a con-text where xenophobia is quite present. Historically we have gone from the melting pot model to a nonwelcoming model and from: "Come but assimilate quickly" to "Don't come and, in fact; you're not welcome!" Today movements against immigration are strong; foreigners are looked upon as inferior, their culture deficient, their language an obstacle to the acquisition of English. The province is aware of and perhaps may even pick up these negative attitudes by contagion or osmosis. Minority candidates who lived in the society where antiimmigration propaganda is prevalent Review for Religious approach the province wondering in what manner they will be received. R. Otheguy, commenting on the melting pot notion of the United States, remarks: "Because of their experience with racism in this country, many Hispanics have long ago given up hope of disappearing"--of blending into U.S. society. Baker takes the reasoning a step further and concludes that Hispanics found in multiculturalism a way to become at least somewhat American and keep their cultural values at the same time. He states, "Because of the [Hispanic's] history of being the victim of racism, the result may be the prevention of assimilation and integration with a consequent need to embrace some form of multicultural-ism for survival, security, status, and self-enhancement." Ethnic minorities themselves speak of additive biculturalism and bilingualism (Cummins, 1989). The melting pot paradigm has stressed a subtractive aspect: "Acquire English and lose your native language! Assimilate into U.S. society and forget your own culture; it's a deficit." Ethnographers and multiculturalists, on the other hand, speak of English-plus and acculturation to the host cul-ture. "ApprEciate your own language and learn English too. Take on the good U.S. cultural values, but don't lose your own culture in the process!" Most minorities lean toward maintenance of their language and culture as they adapt them-selves to the U.S. resettlement process (Lambert & Taylor). Paulo Freire describes the approach whereby the dominant culture wit-tingly or unwittingly attempts to impose the mainstream culture on new arrivals as "cultural invasion . a form of cultural domi-nation." Hopefully today's religious community advocates the addi-tive approach. As in many of these issues, however, it is much easier to speak about it than to do it. How do different cultural groups view the vows; how do they see religious obedience? How much does a province change to accommodate. the new cultures ? A Pluralistic Religious Community in Missionary Lands After some years in a missionary area, the superior general of a congregation in Rome insists that groups of a congregation 3~uly-August 1996 McGinn ¯ Toward Multiculturalizing a Religious Community from different nations in a foreign missionary country form one province. Each small group initially came to the mission country and received a portion of the mission territory within which to work. Members of the same ethnic group struggled with the lan-guage together, worked together, prayed together, evangelized the territory together, and accepted and formed native vocations. After some years this group and others in the missionary nation are asked to begin to form one entity together with the native religious of the area. This is an extremely difficult process and almost always poses a threat to both the foreigners and the native-born religious. The foreigners are no longer the majority in the group. They brought the faith, founded the missions, trained and even baptized and formed the native religious. In fact, they are still held in awe by the native religious members of the congregation. The foreigners are older and have been trained in a different the-ology of mission. The native religious, members of the host cul-ture, know the nation and its culture much better ,than do the foreigners. They have definite ideas on what should be done in their own country but are afraid to offend the foreigners who have given them the faith in the first place. This leads to a cultural impasse. To form the one entity from many disparate groups and to agree upon a common set of values is fraught with tension. In the United States In religious communities of the United States, however, usu-ally the majority membership of the institution is of white west-ern European stock; they are members of the host culture who have been living religious life for some time and have reached a consensus or implicit agreement upon certain common values of the institution. The tension arises as other multiethnic members become a sizeable minority, become visible, and begin to make their voices heard within the membership. How do the new mem-bers fit in? How does the larger group make room for them? What interior and exterior changes must take place to allow this to happen? How Other Institutions Meet the Challenge Businesses are learning new strategies to capitalize on inter-national markets and to improve communication with foreign Review for Religious nationals. Many public school districts, impacted by the influx of immigrants and refugees, offer classes, inservices and workshops on understanding cultural differences to relate with parents and members of the minority community and to enhance crosscul-tural communication. Business and education are presently publishing ma6~y books and articles dealing with multicultural differences and ways of adapting to and understanding people of other cultures. We, as religious, have not yet tapped these sources for our own com-munities. Business Since the Peace Corps in the early 1960s, many types of cross-cultural training programs have been designed to prepare indi-viduals for life in another culture. The goal of such programs is to help the business organization reduce and' prevent business losses and personal trauma. Harris and Moran. describe at least four models of training in cross-cultural orientation programs, ranging from lectures and readings about the culturel through simulation activities and sen-sitivity training to a cultural awareness model which seeks to develop one's ability to recognize ~cultural influence~ in personal values, behaviors, and cognitions. The goals of any training in cultural awareness are the following: a)to develop one's skill in diagnosing .difficulties in intercultural communication, b) to teach one when to suspend judgment when confronted with behavior which appears odd, c) to help one become aware of one's lack of sufficient knowledge of the other culture, and d) to increase one's motivation to learn more about the culture and the people. Public School Districts Public schools train cultural staff persons in cross cultural com-munication and hire. experts of the target 'cultural groups to present orientation and inservice to administrators and both certificated and classified personnel. These inservices and workshops are offered to both new and veteran teachers and staff. The host culture is compared to the immigrant or refugee culture. Culture brokers and the cultural specialists explain the areas of possible tension and/or misunderstanding; differing'values are examined, discussedL, 3-7-7- .~dy-Aug~tst 1996 McGinn ¯ Toward Multiculturalizing a Religious Community and understood. The goal of the process is twofold. It seeks to offer awareness and understanding of the newly arrived ethnic group and to examine the behavior of the teachers, administrators, and staff toward this group. James A. Banks distinguishes between two types of curricula in the schools: the manifest curriculum and the hidden curriculum. It is the hidden curriculum which is more cogent and which impo.ses the implicit norms and values of the school. Hopefully, the process of cultural awareness will shed some light on the hidden values and norms of the institution. Steps Religious Groups Are Taking By far one of the most multicultural communities in the United States and elsewhere is the international community of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. From its very foundation it has been international and universal in scope. It has no set policy governing ethnicity in the local house, yet from the beginning of the institute, its communities have been from different countries, ethnic groups, and cultures. Members of the institute have con-sistendy affirmed the intention that wherever possible, their com-munities be international in membership. Although they do not have formal courses in international living, the administration does try to provide the members with experiences locally, provincially, and at the general level that will expose them to the reality of living in a multicultural commu-nity. In recent years, two continuing formation programs have helped the members deepen this expression of international, mul-ticultural living in community: They also have regional meetings and meetings of administrators. "All of these gatherings, while addressing specific questions, give the opportunity for the sisters to get to know one another and to build up understanding and relationships. [The gatherings] deepen the sense of our being from many different places and our unity in diversity" (MOtte). It should be noted that in the gatherings the sisters use three linguae francae--French, Spanish, and English as official languages dur-ing the meetings. Maryknoll , Maryknoll has developed its Cross-Cultural Training Services for those who wish to discern theircall and prepare for cross- Review for Religious cultural ministry. A team of experts directs a month-long, inten-sive preparation, including a week retreat, for those planning to work abroad. The topics discussed during the training include culture and society, adjustment to a new culture, strategies for surviving culture and language shock, spirituality, inculturation, and discernment. As always, Maryknoll continues to offer a realistic prepara-tion to both religious and lay persons who find themselves called to a global ministry. Much of the content studied in the training sessions is vital and, with a little adaptation, can easily be used in workshops for religious institutions in the United States which are in the process of becoming multiethnic. Content of a Multicultural Awareness Program Should any province wish to set up a program to make itself more multicultural there shoul~t be certain key components of the content area. The actual training program could range from lectures, workshops to an institute, or any combination of the three. The speakers at the events should be experts in various areas of ethnic studies, preferably not members of the partici-pating religious group. In the world of language-minority students, J. Cummins speaks of certain "dimensions" necessary for the empowerment of minorities. The dimensions mentioned in Cummins's paradigm for empowerment touch the very center of multicultural living. They can easily be adapted from an educational institution to a reli-gious community. Cummins stresses four essential dimensions: language, collaboration, reciprocity, and advocacy. A. Language. The language issue is important. Theoreticians speak of language shock as. they describe, the early years of a person's resettlement in the United States. Bilingualists stress :the incor-poration of one's home language into the life of the school and its curriculum. The inclusion of the minority language and culture into the school has significant effects on the personality, attitudes, and the social and emotional well being of the students and their parents. The language issue in a religious community is also of impor-tance. The minority candidate must feel at ease in the language of the .host country. At times, both community and ministry err by failing to allow sufficient time f6r the acquisition of higher cog- 3~dy-.4ug~t 1996 McGinn * Toward Multiculturalizing a Religious Community The emotional drain of trying to live in a society that speaks one's second language is stressful for the minority religious. nitive and academic vocabulary to emerge in second-language acquisition, and, satisfied with the conversational idiom which we hear daily, tell the newly arrived religious, "There's a great need in the ministry for a Spanish-speaking religious. You know enough English now, get to work in a barrio parish. Fulfill our need in the Spanish-speaking ministry!" (The language learner, too, may become impatient with the slowness of the acquisition process and, in his or her impatience, opt to begin ministry sooner than he or she should.) This may be a great boon for the ministry of the province, but not for com-munity life. We have deprived the candi-date and the religious community of the depth and the wisdom which both can bring to community living. In this area it seems much better to err on the side of more English. rather than less. The'emotional drain of trying to live in a society that speaks one's second lan-guage is stressful for the minority religious. No matter how proficient one is in L2, there are times when learners simply shut down. Teachers, those who have studied abroad, and linguists describe the state of one who has paid attention all day to academic discourse in the weaker language and in the evening simply blanks out and is unable to comprehend even the simplest of phrases in L2. Larson and Smalley describe language shock as a component of culture shock that has profound effects on one who is trying to acquire the lan-guage of the host society. Rese~irchers point out that the disori-entation caused by language shock can induce a whole syndrome of rejection. The newly arrived must cope with the new stress and therefore must divert attention and energy from learning the second language. The learner begins to reject speakers of the tar-get language. These speakers become the source of his or her dis-orientation and, therefore, he or she has difficulty forming identifications necessary to learn the language of the host coun-try. The problem becomes even more complex if the learner per-ceives, erroneously or otherwise, that the speakers of the target language reject the learner and his or her culture .and language. Language has many paradoxical uses. Instead of opening doors, it can close them. It can,; at times, be used as a wall, or a Revlew for Religious defense to unite a group or to keep others out. Knowingly or unknowningly, fluently bilingual speakers will use the language which other members of the community do not understand to keep them out of the circle or to provide a feeling of belonging for themselves. Unless one knows the linguistic code--he or she can-not enter the inner circle. Opportunities to study the languages of the members of the community should also be offered and even encouraged for the majority members of the religious congregation. Bialystok and Hakuta treat the types of motivation in second-language learning and come to the conclusion that few of us learn a second lan-guage as an end in itself. Most of us learn it "to gain access, through verbal interaction, to cultural dealings with people who lay claim to that language." As most of us can read a language better than we can speak it, community liturgies and prayer of the hours could be said on alternate days in either language if the members of the local com-munity were in the process of~becoming bilingual. Fine language courses with new, nonthreatening and nonbelittling methodol-ogy are offered in practically every large city of the country. Corollary 1. Spending the time and energy in the attempt to learn a language used by a large number of the religious congregation (that of the host country and that of the minority cultures) is a good investment by the province in community life. B. Collaboration. Cummins claims that where the culture of the family is not given status in the school and communities and parents are kept powerless, then inferiority and lack of school progress may result. When there is parental collaboration with the teacher there is usually success. Religious communities at times tend to take the culture of origin of the member for granted and in no way envision it as a factor in the religious formation of the individual. We tend to think that their mother and dad are like our mother and dad and that their home is like our home. With the advent of people from many diverse areas of the world, the assumption no longer works if it ever did. The following is an example from education of this type of reasoning. A successful middle-school teacher recently remarked: "I just assumed that their home was like my home and for two years in middle school I demanded at least thirty minutes of written homework. Then I visited one of the homes. It was a revelation. ~dy-August 1996 McGinn ¯ Toward Multiculturalizing a Religious Community The.home and local community of the culturally different are areas that the religious province cannot afford to ignore. In a two-bedroom apartment three families were living (around 16 individuals). There was no quiet space, very lit.de furniture, and little ones were scurrying all around. If any homework could be done, it would be done at the kitchen-table, the only table in the home. This would be done while the five elders were watching television at the same time in the same room. I began to realize that doing homework in'a home such as that one was notan easy task. The example was not characteristic of only one family but of the vast majority of families of Hmong students at that school." Awareness of the culture and the val-ues of the minority religious is essential. Conchita Delgado-Gaitan has many stud-ies that analyze learning experiences in the home and parental strategies used to impart knowledge and values to the chil-dren. She compared the home strategies with those used by the school of the dom-inant culture to discover convergence or dissonance. She studied the linkage between the culture of the home and that of the school. The home and local community of the culturally different are areas that the religious province cannot afford to ignore. Culture shock, discussed in most cultural orientation work-shops, is not as easily remedied as one might think. This psychic ~hock is the anxiety which results from the disorientation encoun-tered upon entering a new culture. Larson and Smalley describe how essential characteristics of good mental health are often lost just by moving into a new culture. Extreme symptoms of culture shock may pass relatively quickly as ways of coping with the new environment are acquired. More subtle problems, however, may persist and produce stress which can last for years. Paul Pedersen, in his recent book, A Handbook for Developing Multicultural Awareness, confirms that culture shock is likely to last over the visitor's entire stay in an unfamiliar culture, reappear in a variety of forms, and not be limited to an initial adjustment. Spindler and Spindler, of Stanford University, have been train-ing people in ethnographic evaluation of educational environ, ments for many years. Cultural therapy, the term the ,Spindlers use to describe a procedure of reflective, cross-cultural analysis of Review for Religious individuals of different cultures through personal encounters, has become quite famous. The aim of the therapy is to promote cross cultural and intracultural behavioral understanding. The process involves open dialogue between people of different cultures (teacher and student or a member of the host culture and one of the cultural minority). It seeks to reveal to the educator and to the minority student unconscious biases and cultural ethnocentrism. Trueba shows how culture shock experienced by the culturally diverse can have an effect on the members of the host culture, and he observes: "Therefore, it is extremely important for teach-ers to realize that they are experiencing cultural shock when they try to function effectively with children who do not share their values and expectations. Academic success requires, then, that both teachers and students build learning environments in which success is possible for both." How can we make the local reli-gious communities places which assure success and fairness for all members of whatever culture? With each of the four dimensions paternalism on the part of the member of the host culture is a temptation, Among members of the religious institute, the environment should be one of equal-ity. A paternalistic attitude in this process would promote a depen-dency which would impede empowerment and fail to promote success. On the other hand, members of the religious commu-nity who have lived in other countries and those who have strug-gled to acquire another language--of host country or of the language minority--are equipped to act as culture brokers and even cultural therapists in helping to make the new culture more familiar and less strange and in creating an atmosphere which insures fairness and success. Corollary 2. Awareness of the new cultures in the religious community should be encouraged. Study of one's own culture and that of other members of the community should be pro-moted. Appreciation of the ethnic diversity of the community by listening and telling stories without ethnocentric bias and judgment will hopefully develop respect for the legitimate cultural differences of the religious community. C. Reciprocity. Cummi~as's third dimension stresses the fact that the language minority student must not simply receive the new knowledge passively but there should be a reciprocal inter-action, a dialogue in which the minority students bring their rich-ness to the process. 3n~uly-August 1996 McGinn ¯ Toward Multicultu~alizing a Religious Community In a religious community this type of sharing appears to be difficult to attain. It demands that those who have lived in the host country all their lives and have been in the religious com-munity for many more years must begin to listen to the new ones and look at the goals and mission of the congregation from their perspective. It requires a change of attitude. In a nonjudgmental manner, one can begin to act as an ethnographer and discover new realities and appreciate the vibrant faith and the beauty in approaches to the sacred which have not been part of one's own history. To do this one must allow a forum for the culturally dif-ferent and listen to them with respect. They become the teachers. Bilingual members and members who have lived in mission lands are an asset to the religious community. Religious of diverse cultures are at different levels of acculturation, and the bilingual and former missionary members of the community are equipped to act as bridge makers in opening the dialogue between the older religious of the host country and those who are culturally diverse. Corollary 3. Reciprocity is a step toward healing the rem-nants of cultural shock. "I struggle to understand and appre-ciate the minority religious' culture, language, approach to the divine, family, and community, and the newly arrived struggle to appreciate my culture, language, approach to the divine, family, and community." ~Many demands are involved in the process, but the struggle leads to mutual respect and understanding. D. Advocacy. In a school setting, Cummins insists that the majority teachers become advocates for the language minority children. Many of the instruments used in the evaluation of minor-ity students are based and standardized on the language of the majority population, and it is often easy to detect types of insti-tutionalized racism in the school and even in the hidden curric-ula. Therefore, the minority student needs someone who is able to open doors, give advice, and accompany him or her in situations which involve power and status relationships between dominant and dominated groups at different levels of a society. When we apply this to a religious community, we can begin to consider the customs of the congregation and its particular provincial statutes to discover cultural differences which could render harmonious living difficult. Advocacy involves seeing that house libraries have sufficient current books and periodicals in the mother tongue and insisting upon minority representation at Review for Religious various levels of formation and administration even to the actual selection of superiors who are open, tolerant and appreciative of other cultures represented in the community. Benjamin Schwarz states: "Dissatisfied minorities want, at a minimum, a real voice in determining their future--but a real voice for the minority means real sacrifice for the majority." Corollary. 4. Those who enjoy acceptance in the dominant society and who are comfortable with the everyday life in the religious community spontaneously offer direction and knowledgeable advocacy. They also help to provide a voice for the ethnic minority members of the community. Toward Multiculturalization Developing multicultural awareness in a community requires many changes. Pedersen concludes his work for cross-cultural counselors by stating that the many changes involved "will pro-duce a widening ripple effect as these changes bring about other changes." He continues: "We are moving toward a future that requires us to understand persons who are different from our-selves, whatever our culture might be. Developing multicultural awareness is the strategy for our survival as well as our growth in meeting the diverse needs of a multicultural global village." In a recent letter to all the friars, Herman Schaluck the gen-eral of the Order of Friars Minor, told his brothers that the new projects which the order has embarked upon in Africa, Thailand, and the former Soviet Union were intentionally international and multicultural in makeup to sign a new way of thinking. In spite of the difficulties inherent in the understanding of an international, multicultural fraternity, the order seeks this new quality of liv-ing together. The general explains: "Paul insistently states (Ga 6) that it is not a matter of being Jews or pagans, of being cir-cumcised or uncircumcised, but of being a 'new creature.' Life in an international [multicultural] fraternity is therefore not some-thing of secondary importance or a question of strategic maneu-vering: it is rather already evangelization itself by way of example." An Apostolic Challenge We considered a number of apparently hypothetical ques-tions about a religious community evolving from a homogeneous to a heterogeneous grouping. What happens? What changes ~uly-August 1996 McGinn ¯ Toward Multiculturalizing a Religious Community occur? Can it be done? Suppose we did design workshops and planning sessions on cross-cultural awareness for the total com-munity from the insights offered by education, business, and the training programs~for foreign missionaries. Suppose, to.o, we set up processes within the provincial structures for dialogue, reciprocity, and advocacy. Would the program be successful? Certainly many changes would occur, and change is almost always tension-filled and difficult to accept. However, it would be quite exciting to embark upon such a journey. It would demand much tolerance, patience, and charity on the part of the total member-ship to ensure that the program would succeed. What a sign of forgiveness, openness, trust, and conversion such a religious com-munity could offer the world around it. The approach would cer-tainly be countercultural. Only the members themselves know whether they are willing to do this. Perhaps a religious community is the only institution which can meet this challenge. I have spent many years trying to con-vince public schools, public school districts, and even welfare departments to become more multicultural but to no avail. Conversion, forgiveness, sacrifice, patience, understanding, and charity are woven into the very fabric of religious life. These are the same virtues required to make an institution multicultural. We religious are called to be a sign. Perhaps we Can be a sign to U.S. society that actually e pluribus unum is realizable. Bibliography Baker, C. Foundations of Bilingt~.al Education and Bilingualism. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1993. Banks, J.A., and McGee Banks, C.A., eds. Multicultural Education. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1989. Bialystok, E., and Hakuta, K. In Other Words. New York: Basic Books, 1994. Cummins, J. Empowering Minority Students. Sacramento: CABE, 1989. Delgado-Gaitan, C. "Traditions and Transitions in the Learning Process of Mexican Children: A Ethnographic View." In Spindler, G. and L. (eds.) Interpretive Ethnography of Education: At Home and Abroad. Hillsdale: Laurence Erlbaum, 1987a. Delgado-Gaitan, C. "Parent Perceptions of School: Supportive Environments for Children." In Trueba, H. (ed.) Success or Failure? Learning and the Language Minority Student. Cambridge: Harper and Row, 1987b. Review for Religious Delgado-Gaitan, C~, and' Trueba, H. Crossing Cultural Borders: Education for Immigrant Families in America. New York: Falmer, 1991. Freire, P. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Seabury, 1970. Freire, P. The Politics of Education. Boston: Bergin and Garvey, 1985. Hanley, K., csj. Cross Cultural Training Services. Maryknoll, New York, Harr.is, ER., and Moran, R.T. Managing Cultural Differences. Houston: Gulf Publishing, 1991. Lambert, W.E., and Taylor, D.M. Coping with Cultural and Racial Diversi~y in Urban America. New York: Praeger, 1990. Larson, D.N., and Smalley,'W.A. Becoming Bilinguak A Guide to Learning Language. California: William Carey Library, 1972. Law, E.H.E The VVolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1993. Motte, personal correspondence, 1995. Otheguy, R. "Thinking about Bilingual Education: A Critical Appraisal." Harvard Educatiorial Review 52 (3), 1982. Pedersen, P. A Handbook for Developing Multicultural Awareness: Alexandria: A~. erican CounselingAssociation, 1994. Schaluck, H., OFM. "On the Way Towards a New Era," May 8. Prot. 083!.19. S'chwarz, B. "The Diversity Myth: America's Leading Export." The Atlantic Monthly 275 (5), 1985. Spindler, G., and Spindler, L., eds. Pathways to Cultural Awareness. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1994. Trueba, H.T., Jacobs, L., and Kirton, E. Cultural Conflict and Adaptation: The Case of Hmong Children in American Society. New York: Falmer, 1990. JUST PUBLISHED-- The Best of the Review - 5 The Church and 'Consecrated Life (see insert at back of book for ordering) "At a time when hope for religious life and its future is once again on the rise, the articles in this book offer an exceptional and much needed panorama of the critical issues of renewal faced by contemporary men and women religious. Elizabeth McDonough and David Fleming have done us an enormous favor in bringing together the Best of the Review in this area. I recommend this book enthusiastically; its authors take us another step along the journey to that future for religious life for which we all long." --Se~nSammon FMS Vicar General Marist Brothers, Rome 3~uly-August 1996 new life ROBERT E MALONEY It's Summer! A Letter to Young Religious J My dear brothers and sisters, It is wonderful to be young. At least, most of us who have grown older think so! Young adulthood is the summer of life; autumn and winter follow only later. In the vibrant years of youth, heart, respiration, and physical strength are at their peak efficiency. Our inner drives, too, are fully alive: our quest for meaning, our longing for deeper rela-tionships, our yearning to create a better future. I am writ-ing today to encourage you who are young to enjoy, and use well, the gifts of this summertimh in your life. Youth has many striking advantages. As the superior general of a community, I often see these in the lives of young religious, both men and women. Let me describe some of them briefly. First, youth has drive and enthusiasm. It is good to rejoice in youth's vigor. I can remember a period in my life when I could interview ~tudents all day long, prepar.e classes until late at night, be up again at five the next morning for prayer and the Eucharist, and then teach a full schedule. The day arrived when I could no longer do that. But I still look back with happy memories on the vibrant energies of youth. Young people can give with zest. And they want to give their lives to something'worth-while. They seek a cause, and when they find one they Robert P. Maloney CM serves as superior general of the Vincentians. His address is Congregazione della Missione; Via dei Capasso, 30; 00164 Roma, Italy. Revie~ for Religious ? launch into it with enthusiasm. ,Their dreams, their~hopes, their vision of the future have not yet been dimmed by bitter experi-ences, or failures, or the harsh fact' that much of reality changes quite slowly. Young people gaze at the world's needs and believe that they can make a contribution. Second, youth has imagination and spontaneity. Young people bring new horizons to communities~ They have the capacity to envision new solutions, They often feel free from rigid categories or structures that have become creaky or clumsily reinforced over the years. They find it easy to identify with the words of Vincent' de Paul that "love is inventive even to infinity.''1 They are willing to "dream the impossible dream." Spontaneity is one of the refreshing aspects of youth. Young people say unexpected things. They question practices that some of us older people never had any doubts about. At times we may find that. their questions make us uncomfortable or defensive. But we should by no means be quick to interpret youth's spontaneity as a sign of aggres-siveness; rather, it often comes from a genuine desire to seek the truth. Third, youth is able to change. Those of us who are older have ploughed deep furrows. It becomes increasingly harder for us to climb out of the ruts we have dug. The furrows of the young are shal-lower. They can be ploughed over. Their direction can be changed so that new waters run through them and new life sprouts up. That is why good initial formation is important for the young. They are pliable enough to ~hink new thoughts, learn new.ways, and create new things. Of course, youth has its struggles too, its gnawing problems. Let me dwell just for a moment on a few of these. Because youth is searching, it is often uncertain about its goals or even its values. Experience tells us that, today especially, young people have diffi-culty making a permanent commitment. There is so much rapid change in society, there is so much disillusionment with those whose values the young may once have prized, that they find it hard to decide where to sink their roots. This means that young people are often confused. They are grappling with the meaning of their live~i They are hesitant about making a definitive commitment. Experience tells us that, today especially, young people have difficulty making a permanent commitment. ff~uly-August 1996 Malone~ * It's Summer? One of the greatest challenges in ministry today is to present attractive, even risky, alternatives to young people and accom-pany them in the difficult task of deciding, Several recent studies point out that young'people seek explicit religious goals, intense community life and solidarity, and explicit and worldwide service to the most needy. Young people can certainly find these goals realized in the call to follow Christ faithfully and to give them-selves to the church's preferential option for the poor. Young people often struggle with thei~ sexuality. Of course, those of us who are older are engaged in the same~struggle too. But the young experience in an~ awakening way strong physical drive; sex-ual energy, a desire for close, intimate relationships. And, unfor-tunately, the turbulent years of adolescence often do not come to a calm, peaceful resolution, but rather to a negotiated truce, after which war may soon break out again. It is~helpful for those of us who live in community to recognize that this is a basic human story, not just ours. It is also important for the young to speak about their sexual struggles with great simplicity with a wise spiritual guide. Youth lacks experience. This is an inevitable fact. All of us expe~ rience life's joys and its sorrows only gradually. Growth takes time. Yet there is a deep knowledge and love that come only from experience. There is gold that can be refined only in the fire. Of Course, not everyone who experiences life's joys and .suf-ferings grows, But, on the other hand, no one grows without a healthy dose of realistic experience. Our ongoing formation pro-grams must. help young people reflect on their experience and grow from it. Having said all this, let me acknowledge that I have painted with broad strokes. Some of the gifts that I have described as characterizing young people are often found in good measure in those who are older too. Likewise, some of the problems that have briefly touched on above plague not just the young, buvalso their elders. Today let me lay before you, young religious, a series of chal-lenges. As .the superior general of an apostolic community, I find that these are the most important things in my heart as I think of the many young men and women who long to live religious life generously today. I call them challenges because my own per-sonal experience, with its frequent failures, tells me they are not easy to respond to deeply. Review for Religious Be deeply rooted in the person of Jesus. This seems obvious, but there is nothing more important that as an older brother I could say to you. "Remember," St. Vincent de Paul once wrote, "that we live in Jesus Christ by the death of Jesus Christ and that we ought to die in Jesus Christ by the life of Jesus Christ and that our life ought to be hidden in Jesus Christ and full of Jesus Christ and that in order to die like Jesus Christ it is necessary to live like Jesus Christ.''2 The Gospels ring with this conviction: Jesus is the absolute center. "I am the way, the truth, and the life," Jesus says. "No one comes to the Father except through me." "I am the vine." "I am the gate." "I am the shepherd." "I am the light." "I am the true bread come down from heaven. The one who feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood will live forever.''3 Let me simply recall to you today the wonderful prayer attributed to St. Patrick: Chri]t be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in c~'uiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger. I recommend two principal means for focusing on the per-son of Jesus, The first is daily meditative prayer. Make Christ the center of that prayer, especially the crucified Lord. Engage in a well-defined period of reflective prayer each day (for example, a half hour), and let the Lord capture your mind and your heart. The second means--and it is not completely distinct from the .first--is to find, love, and serve Christ in the person of the poor. They are our lords and masters. Jesus li~es on in them in a special way, particularly in the crucified peoples. It is so easy for the "world," and for us too, to become numb to their plight: the 5.7 million people of Haiti, who have been so poor for so long that their pain is no longer news; the 2.5 million Bosnian refugees, victims of "ethnic cleansing"i the 1.5 million Somalians on the edge of death by starvation; the countless Rwandans who have been brutally slain. Our contemplation of the crucified Lord can-not remain merely a pious exercise, nor can it be simply medita-tion on a past event. The Lord lives on in his members. He is .~uly-Auffust 1996 Maloney ¯ It's Summer? crucified in individual persons and in suffering peoples. The call is to see him and to serve him there. "When I was hungry you gave me to eat. When Iwas thirsty you gave me to drink.When I was naked you clothed me" (Mt 25:35-36). Learn from. the poor, and be inventive in serving them. I say this to you very directly: it is only the simple and hum~ ble who really grow in the Lord's life. Only0 they can learn the depths of God's wisdom. The saints knew this very well because they had made the gospel teachings their own. That is why the founders of communities urge. all their members to grow in sim-plicity and humility. Learn especially from the poor. They can teach all of us about gratitude for small gifts, about patience in waiting, about hoping against hope, about loving those around us, even in the midst of suffering and oppression, and about shar-ing the little that we have with our brothers and sisters. It is only when we have learned from the poor that we can be inventive in serving them. It is they who will explain to us their deepest needs, and then we can bring them gifts that will really be helpful. Your creativity and imaginativeness as young people will be nourished by what you can learn from them. They will be a life-giving source in your ongoing formation. I encou

Issue 44.4 of the Review for Religious, July/August 1985. ; REvtEw Fo~ R ELIGIOUs(ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial uffices are located .at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. REVIEW FOR R ELIGIOLIS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1985 by R EV~EW FOR R ELIGtOUS, Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A. $10.00 a year; $19.00 for two years. Other countries: add $2.00 per year (postage). For subscription orders or change of address, write REvl[w RELIGIOUS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel E X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editor July/August, 1985 Volume 44 Number 4 Manuscripts, hooks for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to RI:vIEW ~OX RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Richard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVlEW FOR R EL~amUS; Room 428; 3601 LindeH Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. ~Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rdo; Ann Arbor, M! 48106. Answering the Call of Christ M. Ingeborg Rohner, 0 S. E This article is based on a,talk given by Mother Ingeborg at the national meeting of the Institute on Religious Life which was held, in Washington D.C. in June of this year. Mother lngeborg is sgrving as provincial of her community,,and resides at St. Francis Convent; 2120 'Central Avenue; Alton, IL 62002. All of us here have heard a great deal in recent years about vocations to the religious life. So very much of what we have been hearing goes under the general heading of "Vocation Crisis~---why the crisis arose, and what we. should be doing about I do not intend here to propose'new analyses to explain, or remedies to resolve this crisis. Rather I would hope,to be able to share simply with you a summation of what we in our community have been doing to foster vocations, and what we have learned from the effort. My primary credential for addressing this subject has been my fourteen years of experience (1970- 1984) as director of novices for my community, du.ring which time I have also been responsible for vocation recruitment. Before sharing these experiences with you, I would like to attempt to give some formulation to the fundamental and evolving understanding of the nature of vocation that I have brought tothis twofold task given to me by my community. I am made the,bolder in this attempt because I find myself in such agreement with the statements of our Holy Father in his apostolic exhortation Redemptionis Donum: "The call to the way of the evangelical counsels springs from the interior encounter with the love of Christ, which is,a°redeeming love. christ calls precisely through this love of his" (n. 3). The Holy Father cites the well-known passage from Mark (10:21), 481 4112 / Review for Religious, 'July-August~ 1985 applying it specifically to the matter of vocation: "And Jesus, looking upon [the young man], loved him." This look--a specifically personal look takes on a spousal character, the Holy Fath, et notes, involving as it does a choice made on the basis of an exclusive love-relationship. The gospel narrative is the basis of my confidence that there will always be vocations to that explicit form of evangelical radicalism which we call religious life. I am confident of this simply and in the final analysis because we have been created for God--and thus created for love. Every vocation has its origin when Love itself--our loving God--looks into the eyes,into the hearts, of those who truly seek h'im. Whenever this happens, the fire of a radical love-response will be enkindied. St. Francis looked once into the ~yes of the Crucified One and under-stood this well. From that moment of encounter, he would cry: "Love is not loved!7 ¯ What .did Francis ,see? He saw what each person who is truly called by Christ sees in some fashion: Infinite. Love reaches out to his creature, and asks for a response of love. And that lo~k, and the response it invokes, in briefest terms, constitutes the "vocation-story" of each and every person . who has ever been called by Christ. Since God is Love, I am called to respond to his love. Pontius Pilate once asked: "What is truth?" Perhaps the question for our time ~ought to be: "What is lo.ve?"--because our modern perceptions of the meaning of love seem so distorted. Especially for us religious is ,thi's question of supreme importance because not only does one's initial call/response, but also to a considerable extent does one's perseverance depend on how one understands the meaning of love. The Meaning of Love ¯ St. Thomas Aquinas has defined love as "velle alicui bonum"---to will (effectively) for another~what is good. In its richest understanding, this definition would seem to include within its comprehension., all efforts, to bring another person alive in some fashion; to make another person full and i'ich; to enable another person to realize the full flowering of his or her potential. . In his.Spiritual,Exercises, St.!gnatius of Loyola noted that authentic love becomes manifest~more in deeds than inwords, that it consists in the exchange of complete mutuality between lovers, insofar as this is possible. Quite evidently what is intended in these simple phrases is a real sharing, not ,merely a: verbal exchangi~-of facile promises. What is intended is a sharing of all that I have and, much more difficult and frightening--and fulfilling--of.~all that I am. Answering the Call of Christ / 483 This is the form of love that is also at the base of that special covenant relationship which we call spousal. In our humhn experience this form of covenant bonding may, perhaps', begin with a kind of fascination, an experience which is not deliberately chosen, but which "happens" to indi-viduals. Yet, when it is authentically human, it ends with a commitment, it ends with a :decision, it ends with a definitive'choice, a choice that-is characterized by the word unconditional, a~ choice which includes as its further limit,forever. " " This is the kind of love that is revealed in the life and being and teaching of Christ. When the Holy Father talks about the love that the religious somehow experiences, to which the religious is called to make a responsei .it is this kind oflove to which he is pointing. It is the love of choice, of commitment, it involves the definitive handing over of oneself. It. is a love, therefore, that ischaracterized by fidelity in the commitment that has been undertaken. ~. The Mystery of V9caf!on ~, A vocation, the call or summons from Christ that isaddressed:to an. individual, involves.a mystery. However it happens, however the.process i~ launched, to whatever moment we point,as marking its "beginning," the more fundamental question ofeach~vocation story yet remains: Whatis it in, me, ,in my personal.history, that has already "set me up" so that 1 become responsive to that particular stimulus, and choose to answer in this particular way? How do I come to perceive that I am called, that I am called to this particular community? ~ ~ ~ " " What.is' it, this mysterious .something, that can bring (o the convent door and entrance into religious life, a person ~who oftentimes, is barely Christian, a person who knows.the proper words, perhaps, but has not yet really heard them, and is not reallylquite sure what they mean--words fis fundamental as: God,-Trinity, Christ, sacraments, Church. Yet. there clear!y is something.thatdraws this particular person to a ;way of life that, she does not know, that she does not understand,, but upon which she is some.how simply willing to embark. How can the response of such a person be a response of love, the unique response to a unique call that is centered upon the ~rson of Christ who is to become her All, when she does not even know, really, who Christ is?0 ' .~. I have witnessed this process, too often to be able to deny it. God, in his goodness, mysteriously touches the soul of such a persrn in a way ihat makes it possible for her to hear him say to tier:~ "You, come and follow me!'?.She, in turn; effectively says: "Who are you?'l don't even know you." 484 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1985 And he says, in effect: "Come andsee! In time you will know! For now, just come and follow me." And, so very often, this is what she does. And, so very often, this is what actually happens. When the person is responsive, it does happen that, out of such seeming nothingness there can blossom, a genuine vocation. Out of seemingly nothing a :relationship does grow and develop between her person and the person of Christ. A soul content with its God even thus vaguely understood, a soul that is beginning to consider everything else as of little value,is a soul that is opening unto God and to the movements of God within it. And God can and does act on that soul. .In each individual, then, what is of crucial importance to the develop-ment of a vocation are those specific components of .personality which make us to be the individuals that we are, those peculiar sensitivities which make us to bealert and attentive so as to hear God's call in the first place, and tO respond to its gradual unfolding within our life-story. Every vocation is always utterly unique, even as is the person to whom it is addressed. Christ deals with each soul in a vefy~concrete way. The transcript of his dealings with each soul constitutes that person's life-history. It is in the working out Of this life-story 'that different individuals .arrive through so many different paths at the convent door.' It really does not make much difference, .then, what actually brings a person to the convent door. All kinds of influences and incentives can be found to be operative, even today, in bringing this to pass: adolescent hero-worship; distinctiveness of dress or function, a specific career choice, a generous, but barely differentiated impulse to serve. All of these have been operative in the different vocation stories. It really doesn't matter, very much what it is that actually brings a person, to the door. What is of crucial importance for the development of authentic human life within the convent is why the person remains, even though the final coming to terms with this may involve a process of growth that can even require years for its full development. It is the openness to the possibility of such growth that is absolutely required if this life-choice is not to be frustrated. Vocation as aProcess . , Experience has ~convinced me that typically by the time of vows the novice really is in a position to commit herself--if only after a fashion but still effectively--to the way of life that she has chosen for herself. I am not at all sure, though; that every novice, even by the time of vows,-has yet~truly found her vocation, her call, the concrete determinants that will specify her way of responding. The newly professed are often still very far from know- Answering the Call of Christ ing how to, or even being willing to, let God be God in their lives. Even as their director, then, I don't always fully understand how a vocation develops within each individual. I do know we formation people do not cause any vocation to grow. Our office is' to discern, to invite, to clarify matters with the individual. Our task is to maintain an atmosphere that is nurturing, one in which this mystery that is.a vocation can develop. But beyond these forms of enablement we are only bystanders and observers of the developing relationship that takes place between the individuaiand her God. Vocation, then, is a process. It is not an instant product. It is a Very ,gradual process, one that has a beginning and a middle, but there is no identifiable end-point to its development in this world. I don't know how, or even that the process is going on day after day--even in my own soul--except by looking back, by recognizing in retrospect how he has brought me, in ways that I don't often understand, to ~xperience him in ways that I could not predict; and he has done this not according to any plan of mine, but according to his own free determinations. Christ does not normally call saints tO religious life. Normally he calls d~velol6ing, limited human persons who are willing, even if inconsistently so, to become saints. He calls them to enter upon a lifelong enterprise with him. ~And herein, it seems tome, lie the essence and the theology of religious vocation. The Vocation "to Be" "In the 50s, 60s and 70s, and even into the 80s, we religious had been putting a great deal of emphasis in our vocational literature on the works that we do. We used to advertise constantly the service that our congrega-tions were doing "for Christ": teaching, nursing, social work, and so forth. And we invited young people to join us in those enterprises, But, especially today, sooner or later there must arise the question: "But why be a religious? I can do all these works 'for Christ' as a lay person." And that, of course, is quite true! This is the reason why 1 personally atiach such great importance to a theme that our Holy Father, John Paul II, has been trying so very hard, and in such a variety of ways to emphasize, as he also does in Redemptionis Donum: What religious are is of far greater.importance than what religious do. Our vocation is a call to be, more than it is a call to do. "Doing," .of course, is going to follow out of that call, out of that "being~" But the call to religious life is a call to be! This is a theme of such great importance, one which we in formation work must find ways of communicating convincingly to our young people. 4116 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1985 This is the understanding of vocation that' has influenced so strongly what we in our community and province have been doing in our vocational ministry. But enough o.f theory! Let us pass, now, to facts regarding our com-munity and its experience of the past fourteen years of exercising this ministry. A Summary of Our Congregation Worldwide, the total number of sisters in our congregation is 1,917. Our motherhouse is in Germany; we also have provinces in-Holland, Japan, Indonesia, Africa, and America (including a rapidly developing mission in Brazil). In descending order, our largest novitiates are located in Germany, USA, Brazil, and Indonesia. The combined American province includes all of the United States, as well as Brazil. ~The mission in Brazil, now twelve years old, includes seven stations and hasa rapidly growing novitiate and postulancy. The total ,population of,our, combined province is 134 sisters, with an ave.rage age of 28. For the United States proper these figures are 10! sisters, whose aver~age age is 31 years. It is about this segment of our province that I propose now to comment. In my tenure as director of novices (1970-84), 101 you.ng women entered our 6ommunity. Fifty-five of this number remain in the community while, all told, forty-six have left. Of those fifty-five sisters, sixteen are in first formation, twenty-four are. junior-professed, and fifteen are sisters with final vows. Statistics on ThoJe Who Have Left the Community : 26 individuals left as postulants: 18 chose to leave 8 were asked ! 1 sisters left as noyices: 6 chose to leave 5 were asked 8 sisters left as juniors: 7, chose to leave, I was asked 1 finally professed sister chose to leave. Hopefully the fundamental motivation of the fifty-five sisters wh'o remain in our community is clear: these are women who want to continue on the way they have chosen, the way of learning how to return love for Love, life for Life, and, with his grace, they will persevere in this course that they' have Chosen. ' Reasons for Departure Regarding those who have left our community, the discoverable reasons for., their departure are manifold. Almost a fifth of these women were found to be afflicted ,with some incapacitating mental illness. Sometimes it is the pressure of convent living which brings such to the surface. Answering the Call of Christ / 487 Doubtless~in. some instances the potential for this factor should hax?e been discovered prior to admission--and we are getting better at this important task. On the other hand, our candidates come from all over (he continent, and in the practical order it is difficult to have sufficient time with them for the successful identification of every latent illness. ~ ' In "a few instances, those who departed from our community finally yielded tO' faniily pressure. It takes ~ourage and at times a great deal:o~" stamina to'live out the Gospel imperatives which demand that one' lbave family and all things else in order to be a disciple of Christ. "Whoever puts tiis hand to the plow but keeps looking back is unfit for the reigfi of Grd" (Lk 9:62). In these instances, apparently, the faith of the individual was hot strong enough to withstand the pressure generated by the drain of the contrary feelings experienced in the face of familial displeasure. In yet other instances, ianguage barriers and transcultural trauma affected the outcome of admission. Perhaps in these instances I was naiv~ in not assigning greater weight to the difficulty that such factors would briiag to the formation experience when I accepted into the novitiate per-sons too recently arrived in this country, or too recently con{,erted to the Church. Chastity, too, is a source of a variety of problems, the basic remedy of which remains the same. St. John, the virgin apostle resting on tl~e bosom of Christ, remains the symbol of th~ love-relationship which must develop ¯ between the consecrated celibate and God. Its absolute necessity li~s been evidenced again and again in my experience. What is at issue here is not the maintenance of some form of sterile virginity,_ but the hurturing of a "garde~a well protected," of a "secret place" reservbd for the One Bridegroom to whom th~ individual has pledged herself, whom she has chogen for herself. There is room as well of course! for the 1rye-experience of a Mary Magdalene, who knew ho~, ~o love totally because she knew how to love ardently. Bfit no~mally virginity tl~rown carelessly away, or purity held. cheaply does not provide fertile soil for the growth of true love. So it was that about a fifth of thosewho departed from our community had been 'playing (I chose the term' deliberately) with sex, 6yen while still among us, apparently~ scar~:ely realizing the gravity of their actions against their own lives and hopes, as well as against God, the community, and the larger society. Lacking in genuin~ interior discipline, they often seemed weakened in spirit to the point of no longer even recognizing or desiring their ~:rnsecrated chastity as a positive value. ~ Theexperience of being sex.ually abused in childhood was fi fact~,r in a few instances of those Whose leaving was partly motivated by the demands of "41~11 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1985 chastity. I know that often in such Eases something effective can be done-- because I have seen it happen. In these instances, however, we were-not able to find that "something." In regard to the need for friendship in religious life and our natural hunger for human love, a spiritualdirector once said: "Don't give yourself to love unless you have given up love." In some cases this principle appar-ently was not grasped, or, if grasped,' was not accepted. There was one clear instance of lesbianism. But evidence of immaturity and an excessive sensu-ality in the quest for intimacy seemed to be operative in other cases. The "Third Way" is no longer considered "in." But there has lingered a misun-derstood desire for friendship leading to relationships which prove to be actually counter-productive, stifling genuine interest in growing or even maintaining a spiritual life. Eventually some individuals were asked to leaye. ¯ Perseverance Reflecting upon the experience we have had with all those who have left our community, I have come to the conviction that if "vocation" is a mystery, perseverance in one's vocation is no less so. I have wondered how applicable, in certain of these instances, might be the suggestion contained in Bonhoeffer's phrase: some were "hoping to live by 'cheap grace.'" St. Paul wrote: "You have been purchased, and at a price!"(l Co 6:20). It is the cross of Christ that is the purchase price of our redemption. There isjusi no cheap or easy way to give my life back to him in the daily lived response of my love. ~ A very evident problem of our time is that of perseverance in one's commitment. The young people Who join us come from.a society that is geared to the expectation of instant results. Their expe, ctation is real, even if its fulfillment is beyond the realm of the possible. There is no such thing in real life corresponding to what is longed for in our "instant society,." bu~t they have been taught that the dream is real, and they have. bought into the dream. And the dream undermines their seriousness of purpose and their constanc~ in commitment. The young people who come to us have spent a tremendous proportion of their lives before a TV screen. Formation persons .should look at TV from time to time specifically to remind themselves of the surrounding culture out of which their young charges have come. They might look specifically to see what has been so formative in the lives of today's young people. Perhaps as formative as the shows and movies of TV is the constant repetition of the message of easy success and instant gratification that is communicated in the flow of advertising. All commercials, it seen/s, prom- Answering the Call of Christ ise in one fashion or other instant satisfaction, immediate relief from pain, the effective remedy to every discomfort, success in business, wealth beyond measure, the guarantee of the deepest and most enduring of interpersonal relationships--parenting as well as r.omantic--all of which attractive goals are to be won by th~ use of mere products. The key to Prince Charming's Success lies in a tube of toothpaste; a lozenge guarantees success in meeting the girl of one's dreams--and effort-lessly living happily ever after! Oh, no one consciously, knowingly assumes such patently absurd attitudes. But attitudinal formation is seldom conscious and knowing. And so they come to us, the young, with their expectation of "instant holiness" as well! They really do anticipate immediate and unending union with God, constant consolation in prayer, gratification in work, an imme-diate perception of the worthwhileness of whatever they are doing. They really do look forward to finding heaven on earth in the convent. They really do anticipate living out their days 'with lovable and loving compan-ions, within the walls of perfect, ready-made Eommunities. And the pain of disillusionment is heavy indeed. Our young people today need a great deal more attention and care, counseling and encouragement, and affirmation ~than did our generations of a simpler age. In my own novitiate, there was one director for l I0 novices. Today we offer the young much, much more help--both from within the community, through the greater number of persons assigned to the work of formation, ahd through reliance on a variety of outside resour-ces as well. Yet there is no sure or magic remedy for solving all problems. There is no structure, no system that can guarantee perseverance, l can no mo~e guarantee my fidelity to my vocation than I can guarantee my salvation. The strength that I need can only be found in him who~called me, and in ¯ his acceptance of my self:gift. Left to myself, then, 1 could not guarantee even today. But relying on him, I have confidence that, even if I should fail today, he, the Faithful One of Israel, will raise me up again; he will make up for my infidelity. I know this to be true because I have experienced it to be so in my own life, and I have witnessed it to be so in ~the lives of so many others. I have experienced and I have seen that he uses our weaknesses, even as he uses our strengths, in order to fastiion the persons he loves and calls into being. Apart from him, because of my own experience of being human, I know I could not promise him "forever." With him, I could hope to do so because he accepts my promise, and in accepting my promise he pledges himself to be my enablement. 490 / Review for Religious, July, August, 1985 Another source of unrest, a negative influence on t.he possibility of perseverance for the young today, is the emphasi.s that our culture places on feelings. Faith is not. a matter of feelings, but of trust and decision. Young people, however, tend to base their decisions largely on fedings. If I feel good, what I am about is all right. If I feel bad, then I made a wrong decision, and should simply change my situation. 'This is also perhaps the greatest source of failed commitment in our society today--witness our soaring divorce rate. A vocation is the source of a developing relationship .between persons. It is a personal encounter, one on one, and involves the personal experience of the redeemi ~ng love,invitation of Christ and the personal response made by the individual, an integral person, made up of a very concrete body and a very part~c~ular soul. Christ does not extend his invitation to an. abstrac-tion, nor is a stereotype capable of making a personal response. A vocation, then, is always deeply involved with concrete, historical specificity--which means that it has to do with an individual ~with a very particular history, wiao is Composed of very specific wrinkles and warts, Stains and blemishes, the sum of all his or her shortcomings as well as of his or her assets, which, all combined, constitute the existential reality, that is the object of the choice Christ made when he said to the individual: "Come!" .~ I don't know for certain that all the forty-six young women who left our community during those fourteen years did not have a call from God to the religious life. I don't know--whether through their fault or mine--a real vocation was lost in one or other instance. On the other hand, there is also the Gospel story to consider of the man from Gerasa out of whom Christ drove unclean spirits. This man, too, wanted to follow Christ, but he was told: "Go home to your family, and make it clear to them how much the Lord in his mercy has done for you." (Mk 5:19). Whatever the result of such a reflection, ,every departure from the convent works some hardship on the community as well.as on the individual. There is always some degree of tension and an experience of sorrow sur-rounding every departure. ~ And so by tile end of my tenure in office, I became much more careful in screening candidates, both for their sake and for ours. Even so, when novices or postulants leave I am not overly concerned. Their coming, after all, was for the ~ke of a testing. But St.~ Paul says: ":God's gift and his call are irrevocable!" And so it would seem that, once a call has been confirmed by the acceptance of her vows in the .Ch, urch, the individual making profession should be able to persevere in her commitment ~with the help of God's grace. Every departure of a professed sister leaves me uneasy, questioning, most especially if the sister be finally professed. I Answering the Call of Chris~ / 491 do grieve over each such departure--~ven as, at times, 1 can recognize its inevitability. Who Is Accepted? Understanding vocation in the way I have outlined obviously is going to have ramifications on our attitudes and on procedures we devise for receiving young women into our community. On principle, any girl who applies will be,given serious consideration. This principle is based, not on what some might call the "warm body syndrome," but on the conviction that God is generous with his grace, and that we in our turn must be eager to identify, nurture and celebrate the gift of this grace--which is a ,voca-tion- whenever and wherever we find it. Our openness to the discovery of vocations must be a very active openness. ~ 'Thus it :is that we have accepted girls of vastly varied backgrounds and conditions into our community. We have accepted graduates fight out of high school, provided that they have reached their eighteenth .birthday. We have accepted ~some young women with incomplete college experience, as we have accepted others with undergraduate and graduate degrees. In fact, we have accepted two women who came to us with Ph.D.'s. And we have also accepted candidates coming to us from a variety of other backgrounds in the kind and length of the work experience they bring. For myself, and experience has convinced me of this, I belie~,e that criteria,based on age and education or the length of work experience play but relatively little part in helping us to discern a ,readiness on the part of a candidate to answer Christ's call to religious life. The ideal candidate pos, sesses, obviously, a readiness and a capacity to love--and to give her life entirely to Christ, Such a person will always have some intuitive perception that this includes embracing his cross as well; involving the need for self-denial. The presence of such traits in some degree, surely, is what identifies who is clearly ready to enter into religious life. But sufficient for entrance also, other things being equal, can be simply a willingness to be generous. The desi~:e or need to be a caring person can be enough to warrant the beginning of the process of discerning a vocation, hence ultimately, perhaps, of admitting a candidate into religious life, In short, I remain firm in the.conviction that the seed of vocation is to be found in very simple soil, that God is, indeed, generous with his gift of the charism of vocation among his People.ol~believe that I find support for this conviction in the. injunction addressed by St. Paul to the Church of Corinth: ~ Brothers, consider ygur situation. Not many of you are wise, as men account wisdom, not many are influential; and Surely, not many are well- 492 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1985 born. God chose those whom the world considers absurd to shame the wise; he singled out the weak of this world to shame the strong. He chose the world's lowborn and despised, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who were something; so that mankind can do no boasting before God (1 Co 1:26-29). All of us who have answered Christ's call are carrying a precious treasure in "earthen vessels." We are all fragile and limited. In point of fact, it is precisely persons of the sort that Paul describes who do answer, and have always answered, the call of Christ. Do young people today prefer, or look.for "traditional" communities? At first glance it might seem that they do; the facts seem to suggest this conclusion. But being "traditional" of itself will not attract or keep new members in a community. As for our own congregation, 1 hope and pray that it would be our love for God and his Christ, our love for the Church, our joyful service of God's People, our constant endeavor to overcome our sinfulness, our desire to live in community, and, perhaps most of all, our evident awareness of who we are and what we are trying to accomplish with our lives, with the help of his grace--that these are what constitute our attractiveness and the effec-tiveness of our invitation to young people to come be with us, and to strive with us to do the same. The procedure we follow in establishing and maintaining contact with potential candidates is simplicity itself. We have very modest advertisements in a few publications; there is word of mouth; and to some extent there is theinfluence of our few institutions. These are the sourcesofjust about all of our initial contactg. But, whatever the source, every contact is taken very seriously, and every individual who makes contact receives individual, consistent--and even persistent--attention. The sisters who undertake this labor of maintaining personal contact have made lasting friendships beyond the circle of' those who actually became candidates, who actually entered. This, in barest outline, is our entire procedure of vocation-re-cruitment. There will always be vocations to the radical living of the Gospel, just as there will always be people who would "dare to let God be God'in their lives." The seriousness and the respect with which we treat every initial contact is based on this assumption. , Surely we live in times that are hard for religious life. Of course we are aware that throngs of young people are not beating on convent doors seeking entrance. Yet we ought not to abandon hope as though God were not Lord. This difficult age is the time into which you and I are born by ,God's Answering the Call of Christ / t193 holy will. And we always seek to embrace this holy will. We have to pray, to sacrifice, and to surround with tender, but also with effective care, those whom God has called and entrusted to us. We have to make earnest efforts to find these young people and to invite them to continue the project of religious life into the future, not for the sake of maintaining a community or an institution, but that God's grace.might continue to be evidenced to a world that is hungry for our witness, and that his kingdom might be enfleshed in our time, too--in accordance with his most holy will. Speaking to seminarians in 1979, our Holy Father said: It is worth dedicating oneself to the cause of Christ, who wants valiant and decided hearts . It is worth making an option for an ideal that will give you great joys, even if at the same time it demands a good many sacrifice!! May those who have received the gift of a call to this life and service take these words into their hearts with courage and joy! "It is worth it!"---as we all here today know so well. Trinitarian Image Let us make man to our image and likehess (Gn 1:26). The Father's image: creating, loving, providing; Dimmed by destroying, not caring, denying. The Son's image: compassionate, patient, self-immolating; Blurred by indifference, impatience, self-seeking. The Spirit's image: sanctifying, consoling, strengthening; Marred by debasing, neglectihg, undermining. Dimmed, blurred, marred By life's harsh ways, Unexpectedly, breathtakingly revealed By mankind suffering. Sister Catharine Consilii, S.S.J. 17 ! I Race St. Philadelphia, PA 19103 Facing the Future: Formation in Apostolic Spirituality Patricia Spillane, M.S. C. Our readers will recognize Sister Spillane as the author of"From Tablet to Heart: In-ternalizing New Constitutions," which appeared in the issues of July/August and September/October, 1982, and which is still available as a single reprint. Sister, a 'Missionary of the Sacred Heart, is a novice director for her community, and is involved in "Philadelphia's very ac~tive inter-community formation program." She may be addressed at the Sacred Heart Novitiate; 67th and Callowhill Streets; Philadelphia, PA 19151. As theologians, spiritual writers, and religious leaders struggle with the attempt to define and clarify apostolic spirituality---especially as it is emerging today among American men and women religious--we, as minis-ters of formation, have a special problem. ~There are fifteen years remaining until 2000 A.D. During these years, how are we to fulfdl our responsibilities to our congregations, to the Church, arid to the wrrld in helping to form men and women who are ready for the adventure and challenge of apostolic religious life? Some of us may be tempted to ignore the challenge before us, maintain-ing a style of formation that certainly worked in the past, but may not prepare persons for the reality they must face in the next fifteen years. Others of us may see so much flux about us that we may decide that "mainstreaming" is the best approach to formation, and so fail to provide the basic core of stability necessary for religious and human development. How do we avoid these two extremes? I am sure that all of us will spend the closing years of this millennium in seeking adequate responses to that question. 494 Formation in Apostolic Spirituafity / 495 In these pages I would like to focus on some characteristics of our emerging apostolic spirituality, and offer some tentative formational guidelines: To begin with, it seems to me: Apostolic religious are called to be evangelizers in an environment that it " increasingly de-structured and stressful. This calls for greater maturity in ' both religious identity and personal identity. Apostolic Religious Are Called to Be Evangelizers , If we are to be, and to form, men and woman of and for the Church, we are called to form evangelizers since: ° Evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity,. She exists in order to evangelize.~ Therefore, beyond any professional skills with which men and women come to religious life today, and the professional formation ,.we may subse-quently giv~e them, there must be a primary commitment to .the central mission of evangelization. Whether a Young religious is destined io. be a DRE, a parish social minister, a CEO in a large hospital, or a Dean of Students in an academic environment, he or she must be primarily an eWhgelizer within any given structure or situation. , To prepare persons to become evahgelizers calls for a twofold thrust. On'the one hand, We need to motivate them for their o,wn ongoing spiritual journey: [they] have a constant need ~f being evangelizqdthemselves, if [they] wish to retain freshness, vigor, and strength in order to proclaim the Gospel (EN 15). On the other hand, we need to encourage personal maturation in them of the human foundation on which the spiritual Can build the maturation in self-awareness and capacity for discernment which is so essential for mission and evangelization. For example, we need to help persons in formation to recognize their own tendency to hide behind a role, or profes-sional structure, .or human efficiency instead of dealing directly with the risky business that evangelization can be. Not only must they be in an evangelizing stance with those to whom they minister, but even more importantly, also with their lay collabora"tors and peers. Often those who can easily minister to students, patients, or parish families are threatened when called upon to address those same issues with faculty, staff, pastoral associates, and others. If our religious institutions are to remain viable into the third millennium, this evangelization of staff is even more essential. As formators of apostolic religious, we need to help men and women in 496 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1985 initial formation to grow in the strength and clarity of their personal religious identity so that they can face the anxiety-provoking and risky challenges of evangelization at all levels. In becoming aware of who they really are and who they are called to be, young religious can move away from defensively using comfortable positions and allow themselves to be confronted by the unsettling demands of evangelization. Similarly, those who have become Comfortable with evangelization need to be flexible enough to respond ~to the needs of the congregation within its institutiom, see the evangelical possibilities in that setting, and not cling to situations that may be' more personally satisfying. A growing capacity for mobility and flexibility--for realistic adjustments to the demands of the apostolate; .congregation, and Church--is essential for apostolic religious formation. Otherwise, we run the risk of always having to adjust the apostolate, congregation and Church to the demands of the individual. In an Environment That Is Increasingly De-structured In many congregations, much of the pre-Vatican II system of a well-or-dered religious life regulated by stated norms and given structures has disappeared. However, the need for personal and group order remains. What has replaced the external structures and systems? A vacuum? Chaos? Peer pressure? Ideally, we would like to think that it has been replaced by individuals who have the cap~icity to structure themselves and make deci-sions about external structures that are both human .and value-oriented. But since experience teaches us that this does not happen automatically, what are we doing as formators to foster the'development of such individ-uals? Are we providing people in initial formation with sufficient opportu-nity to make their own decisions, build up their own "structures, and then reflect on how those decisions and structures promote their formation?' The decrease in numbers of personnel has also contributed to destruc-turing. Men and women entering religious life today must be ready to enter into smaller communities; they may be the sole religious in a school, clinic or agency. Again, this requires a different style of relating, a greater facility in communicating with different .types of people. Religious need to be much more independent, while at the same time committed to the value and process.of community-building. Hence the identities of which I have already spoken must include the'capacity for both autonomy and intimacy in the kind of religious life that can move ahead to the millennium. The decrease of religious structures also means that we do not live surrounded by visible reminders of our faith, but in an increasingly secular-ized world. Consumerism, professionalism, self-actualization can appeal to our emotional needs and dull that faith vision of who we are and what we Formation in Apostolic Spirituality / 497 ¯ are called to be in the world for others. People coming into religious life (and those already present!) can bring with them a real confusion between their needs and values, colored and encouraged by a society of which they are a part. To be able to distinguish clearly between what is emotionally attractive and what is consonant with the Gospel requires a process of human and spiritual integration that takes time and skill. However, with-out it, apostolic discernment can flounder, our faith vision can be distorted in the service of ourselves, and we can substitute our personal preferences for the Gospel .of Christ. In An Environment That Is Increasingly Stressful Change, work, pressure, being too alone, being too close--all of these can prove threatening to different individuals at different times, producing stress and tension. While a certain amount of life-stress is inevitable and should be an impetus for growth, certain kinds and levels of stress tear at the very fabric of apostolic religious life. Naturally, we will experience the tension of renunciation between our own needs and Gospel values if we are trying to follow the Lord, but he rarely asks us to labor passively under continuous stress. Persons differ in their capacity to withstand stress and in their ways of coping with it. Some carry such an inner burden of conflict that hardly any external pressure is needed before they feel any stress; these may be the same persons who have never developed effective coping mechanisms to deal with the normal tensions of life. Others may unconsciously deny the inner effects of external pressure--only to end up ulcerated, aggravated or acting out in inappropriate ways. People in early stages of religious life development need to have a good handle on their inner stress patterns and coping mechanisms so that they will be able to face the realistic difficulties ahead of them. Unrealistic expectations of future community and mission need to be encountered and dealt with one by one, along with an understanding of what inner factors interact with external difficulties to make stress reach intolerable levels. The years of initial formation would seem to be an excellent time for dealing with inner tensions, so that later these may not be the source of distortion, projection and unnecessarily high tension in the community and mission. For example, someone who expects community to be far more nurturing than it can or should be may need help to understand what factors in them produce such a,need-expectation for support, affirmation and comfort. Another who expects community assignments to enhance her own profes-sionalism must confront why her inner security and self-esteem are so 4911 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1985 shaky. Both kinds: of situations produce frustration and stress that can. easily become intolerable unless they can begin to be defused :by one ,who understands both the person and the values of the congregation. Since so many religious congregations .are .in a state of bridging between, the past that is still with us and a future that breaks out here and there, we need to address with those in formation those realistic sources of tension that are built into our current state of religious life; i.e., tensions ~that may be generated by: -living with religious who are threatened by or resentful of change; -being the only religious ministering in a particular institution; -having assumed too much work and too ~much responsibility and more. We need to be able to deal with the stress inherent in forging ahead, which always involves leaving behind: -leaving behind familiar patterns of living and working, to risk the new and unfamiliar in an effort to respond to God's people; -enduring Separation from friends and loved ones. to move to areas where the need is greatest; -leaving behind our own concepts of ministry to be able to. listen and respond to what the community is asking; -"letting go" of consumer comforts that we can use to,assuage our tensions and pain. All of this indicates that we should not be passive victims of stress, but active collaborators in seeking to integrate and hear what the Lord is saying behind or through each tension. As formation ministers, we cannot expect to help others unless we ourselves have dealt with our own stress issues:- the stress of unrealistic expectations from the community, of dis-agreements with those in authority, of our own sense of inadequacy in facing certain problems, of our own reluctance to confront certain individ- Uals or situations. All 'of these create stress; as a :result.we may try to avoid or deny .the problem; repress our anger and depression, somatize our difficulties, or displace upon otherskand never provide the modeling in stress management that young people in. formation need to see in us. Maturity in Religious Identity The 1983 document of the International Union of Superiors General on Apostolic Spirituality maintains that living a truly apostolic religious life calls for "bold initiatives, constancy in self-giving,0and humility in adversity.~2 Such a challenge can only be met on the solid foundation of an integrated life where religious identity has gradually consolidated and merged with personal identity. As the same document reminds us: "Grace Formation in Apostolic Spirituafity / 499 presupposes nature, is grafted onto it, and ennobles it" (AS 9). (Actually it is :misleading to speak of these two identities as separate, but for discussion .purposes, I.~will look at them sequentially.) Religious identity is not a matter of religious enthusiasm or intellectual curiosity, of certain behaviors, practices or opinions. It is the result of a slow process that occurs where someone (whose personal identity has already crystallized to some extent)gradually surrenders to the Lord, stage by stage and step by step, in a context of growing relationship. Often in very young persons or those whose identities are poorly formed for many reasons, :a cloak of religious appearances may cover up the underlying emptiness. In some religious communities, this may take the form of exter-nal conformity and going along with the group; in other communities it may take :the form of using all the right phrases, being involved in all the current issues. However, this pseudo-religious front (which is unconscious to the person) may mask a lack of genuinereligious struggles and personal convictions, of hard.won growth in prayer and faith over the years. It is possible for one whose identity is weak or confusedto join a group that promises a clear picture of who the person is supposed to be. Religious identity is then "put on" as an external garment, rather than being slowly built up from within~. Certainly, religious identity calls for transformation in Christ, but it would seem that normally Christ looks for someone who already t~ in order to enter into transforming dialogue, A pseudo~religious identity will always be looking for external clues in ambiguous community and ministerial situations. He or she will be seeking security along familiar and well-trodden paths. On the contrary, a trans-formed .personal identity will be one that can risk, dare, step out (if even in .only hidden and small ways), He or she will be taking small steps toward the "profound interiority" (AS 20) which alone can see the world with a transforming gospel vision. Only one who is maturing humanly and spirit-ually can enter into genuine ~relationship with the Lord, allowing defenses to. crumble until one stands naked and loved before him. From that matu-ration comes the kind of compassion for other~ and "apostolic love" (-AS 17) that is .the hallmark of apostolic spirituality. How do we promote this process as religious formators? First of all, we must be in .touch with our own faith journey over the years, seeing the various phases of our own maturing in fidelity--as well as being willing to confront those infidelities 'with which we still struggle. Only in that way can we trust .our own intuitions about the maturation in faith of those with whom we work. -~ Secondly, we must insure that "religious identity" is not being Used defensively by identification with religious structures, works or lifestyle.We 500 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1985 must look to see if the entering person has sufficiently consolidated a sense of self so that grace can build upon nature~ Thirdly, we must remember that religious and human development are intertwined and actively encourage people in formation to get integrated professional help to resolve the inconsistencies that ma3) hamper the development of their voca-tion. Fourthly, we should continue to'provide experiences throughout the formative period where our men and women in formation have the oppor-tunity to struggle with their own religious beliefs, practices and values alone or with less support than they would like. This may sound~cruel, but if they are always surrounded by an environment that is protective of their values, they may be unconsciously only complying for the sake of rewards or punishments, or identifying for the sake of belonging to the. group. (Of .course, we have to be able to provide the hdp to process the experience and support them through the difficulties.) Unless young people find themselves occasionally in situations devoid of rewards or group support, how will they ever know if they have.internalized the value for the sake of the Lord they profess to follow? Whereas a pseudo-religious identity is based on compliance and identification, a genuine religious identity is based on internalization of gospel values that are uniquely appropriated by the indi-vidual within the context of a loving relationship with Christ that extends outward to the community and to the world.4 In an environment where the external structures and norms supporting compliance have disappeared, often we can search for like-minded groups that will support our choices and values. This is one of the reasons why identification with community is so strong among people entering religious life today. Identification is a normal stage for someone entering religious life, but that stance needs to mature and grow. At best, identification is a temporary solution on the road to forging a more mature religious identity that can both walk alone and be with others during the next fifteen years. For example, someone could have identified with a social justice group that provided significant formative influence and support for his emerging identity. While that is a good departure point for a ministry to the poor, sooner or later the person needs to face deeper issues in himself; e.g., perhaps how his anger when his work is not appreciated has more to do with his own conflicts than with his love forthe poor, or how his generosity wanes when his companions move onto another field. A preferential option for the poor needs to be at the service of the poor--not at the service of one's own needs for approval or esteem, or as an expression of one's narcissism or displaced aggression. The poor and emarginated. deserve the best we can give them--the persevering self-less labor of one willing to lay down his life because he has truly understoodand internalized Formation in Apostolic Spirituafity / 501 Jesus' attraction to the powerless and oppressed. We can help people to grow to that point of self-less giving--and often the best place to start ourselves is by embracing the often thankless, frustrating, and lonely posi-tion that is ours as ministers in the service of formation. Maturing in Personal Identity I have already mentioned several components of emerging personal identity that strengthen and consolidate the human foundation that the Lord draws to himself: -the ability to structure oneself in a meaningful and integrated way; -the ability to handle internal and external stress; -the capacity to internalize gospel values which provide a dynamic motivational source. There are many ways in which personal identity interfaces with religious identity, but I would like to mention only one additional factor because of its significance for evangelization--i.e., that maturing in personal identity transforms one's manner of relating to others. Maturing in personal identity is intertwined with the process of individ-uation-- that struggle whereby an individual moves away from either an overly-dependent position of symbiosis or cohesion with another (or group)--or from an overly-independent position of aloofness or distance. Obviously evangelization suffers whenever the evangelizer is fixated at one or another of these levels. But the emerging personality is also being deprived (although the person would not feel it that way!)~ither because the person is too fearful to withstand the necessary experience of being alone--or too fearful to interact--and therefore is effectively deprived of that enriching and maturing stretching that the threatposes. It is through facing and dealing with such initially threatening alternatives (between being with or being without another) that each person rtioves along the individuation spectrum to where autonomy begins to be possible--where someone is personally secure enough to "go it alone" when the Lord calls for that in different apostolic or communitarian situations--while at the same time, retaining a genuine capacity for interaction and dialogue. Thus true autonomy and intimacy are fruits of the long journey towards personal identity for the apostolic religious--characteristics which-.can make them servants of the Lord and of the Church--instead of being bogged down in their own fears and resistances.5 We would be foolish to expect people in formation to have completed this passage. More realistically, we need to recognize the individuals who are dependently enmeshed in relationships that are more dependent than intimate (as well as have the courage to recognize when we ourselves are 509 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1985 caugh~tA in that bind !), and then lovingly and persistently confront through all the stages of denial and resistance that. follow. Similarly, we need to approach the more disengaged person and persuadg them with time and patience to begin to enter into relationship. In this way, the journey of a thousand miles towards genuine autonomy and intimacy, if it has not already begun by the time of entrance, can do so, with singlebut significant steps ,in the right direction, at the beginning of religious life. Formational Implications Many.formational implications have already been noted in the course of this article. Le me crystallize a few others under two headings: Formation Personnel: If we accept ~he thesis that we need strong religious and human identities to be ev~angelizers in a de-structured and stressful world, then we first have to address these issues for ourselves as formators. How do we as formation personnel deal with prioritizing our own time and energies, with managing our own stress reactio.ns, strugglin~g with our own issues of personal and religious identity? What are we doing for our own perso.nal and spiritual growth processes? How can we understand and empathize with people in formation if we are "detached ~pectators" observ-ing. their struggles from some safe distance or if we are only aware of them on some intellectual level, having,nev~er allowed ourselves to ,get in touch with our own.feelings and our own sense of ourselves? How can we be companions to_those on the formative journey unless we have jou~eyed and been ~accompani~ed ourselves? Obviously there is need for training programs for formation person.nel bu, t, not all.prggrams deal with the issues of personal integration of which.I am speak, ing. It would seem to me that each formator needs to make decisions about where and how he or she will receive this,kind of personal integrating assistance, .so as to be a disciple for the Church and the world by .the turn of the century. Persons in Initial Formation: . Much fine work has.been written concerning spiritual learning and direction _in t,he pre-novitiate, and juniorate programs which needs not be repeated here. However, the issue of how human formation ,interacts with spiritual development.-~-sometimes to enhance.and sometimes toimpede is often a more difficult one for formation personnel. !n recent years, there has been much interest in "readiness criteria" for various stages of formation which include elements, of both religiousand personal identity; for example Formation in Apostolic Spirituality /'503 Giallanza and ~Gleason's concern for comfort with affectivity, personal independence, social comfort, generosity.6 It would seem that apostolic religious life calls for some degree of actualization of ttiese areas prior to entrance, as well. as reliable indications of capacity to continue to grow in .those directions. How can this be addressed.'? ,~ It would seem that one way would be for the congregation to be in dialogue with the professional doing psychological' testing, indicating ahead of time to the psychologist what are their areas of concern for their religious life and apostolate. Specific feedback can then be requested in these areas concerning the person being tested. The psychologist should be able, through depth interviewing, projective and non-projective testing, to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the applicant, to indicate their capacity to grow and mature in the needed areas and under what circum-stances- e.g., spiritual direction, delaying entrance, growth therapy, work experience, etc. In addition to providing feedback on the person's strengths and weaknesses, a psychologist who is a religious may also offer a perspec-tive on how mature the persbn's religious values seem to be. Feedback to the individual is essential so that the assessment can chal-lenge the person to work with formation personnel on their growing edge. There should be also the possibility of further ongoing help so that, ~by ,growing in self-awareness, the individual may free himself or herself more for the kingdom and the great work of evangelizat.ioh to be dofie in the Church. Another equally important component of maturing identity for ~pos-tolic religious life is apostolic experience, carefully planned and monitored to allow the individual to experience the joys and frustrations, challenges and monotonies of missi6n. However, apostglic experience can eithe'r be a tool for grov~h or an occasion of disillusionmeiat and bitterness, dependihg on how aware the persons are of their own tend.encies, of the apostolic reality that lies before them, and of how much help they have had, prior and during, .to process the experience.7 Finally, I think it is important for people entering religious life to gee that we are all engaged in the same struggle and that we, as professed, take our own ongoing formation as seriously as we do initial. In that way, they can have more realistic expectations of where they should be along the continuum of religious life as they move to final profession--and how much the work of maturing in apostolic religious life is the journey of a lifetime. The document on Apostolic Spirituality maintains that: The integration of prayer and action., is a gradually evolving and quite often a falteringly progressive experience. However falteringly, if lived in 504 / Review'for Religious, July-August, 1985 sincere response to God's ongoing call and constantly molding action, it giv~es rise to that Christ-mindedness which should characterize the true apostle (AS 45). Men End women in initial formation need to feel that they are partners with us in the same "falteringly progressive experience." We accompany each other on this passage into Christ-mindedness, steadfastly encouraging ,those who are pilgrims with us along the way. NOTES ~Paul Vl. On Evangelization in the Modem World, Dec., 1975 no. 14. 2"Theological Reflections on Apostolic Religious Life." Molinari; Ewen, Vallejo. USIG Bulletin, no. 62, 1983. (This document was also printed under the same title in Review for Religious, Jan/Feb, 1984.) Hereafter referred to as AS. ~For a more extensive treatment of the interrelationship between human and spiritual development, see: Joyce Ridick, S.S.C., 71"easures in Earthen Vessels: the Vows. Sthten Island: Alba House, 1984. 4For more discussion on the relationship between compliance, identification and inter-nalization in ~:eligious life, see: Luigi Rulla, S,J, Depth Psychology and Vocation. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1971, esp. pp. 146-152, 307-318. ~For further discussion on the role of identity in religious life, see: Patricia Spillane, M.S.C., "Called to Be Both Loyal and Prophetic," In-Formation, May, 1982. 6Joel Giallanza, C:S.C., and John Gleason, C.S.C., "Reflections on Initial Formation," Human Development, Fall, 1984. 7patricia Spillane, M.S.C., "When is Apostolic Experience Formative for Religious Life?" Reprints of the Religious Formation Conference, October, 1981. Cross-Cultural Formation: ¯ Culture Does Make a Difference Pat Forster, 0 S.E Sister Forster is director of six novices and seven sisters with temporary profession. Her previous experience included nursing and mission work in Latin America. She has earned a Master's Degree from the Franciscan School .of Theology. Sister Forster may be addressed at 727 East Margaret Street; St. Paul, MN 55106. ~n addressing the subject of cross-cultural formation, I believe it is neces-sary to discuss the racial and cultural implications for both the initiate entering a formation culture and for the directors involved in the orientation of a new member to the community as well as of the community, to the new member. I will, then, first speak of the reflections I have embraced as a formation director. Later, I will addressthe implications for the initiate in a multi-cultural environment. Perhaps the call to formation personnel is a little simpler in that the expectations of what is hoped fo, r are put on one person or one team rather than on a whole cgmmunity. Somehow a community expects of formation personnel what in reality .is important for all of its members. The basic needs are the same. Each person in community is essentially a formation dir.ector, and needs the suggestions that will follow in this article. However practically speaking, we all know that doesn't happen. Formatioia personnel will probably be more effective in cross-cultural formation if they have experienced another culture and have, therefore, an understanding of the pain of oppression as well as of the freedom of having entered into another lifestyle. Formation personnel must also be prayerful people who through their reflection and love respond with transcendent 506 / Review for Religious, July-J4ugust, .1985 values. They would, then, respect the whole person, regardless of c61or, culture, education, beliefs, or personality. It seems that one of the major areas of concern would be that formation personnel have a good grasp of who they are.and who the other is. This will include a good psychological grasp of the stages of growth and development in adults as well as an understanding of the formation person's own personal growth and devel-opment. Granted, this is a lifelong process, and as individuals we are always limited in our ability to do this, there must be some indication that something of depth is in process for this director and her or his God. A few worthwhile questions for formation personnel might be: In what way am I oppressed? If a woman, do I recognize my oppression as a woman? If of a minority culture, do I identify xwho I am and embrace this difference? Am I threatened by not understanding my feelings and thus deny them, or am I open to the unfolding of myself and the other (see Mk 14:66-82)? Foi'mation directors, in addition .to being prayerful .and clear about who they are, will need to be friends who emPower the initiate (see Jn 21:5-17). Each initiate is in the same process as the.director--that is, pre-paring for loving service which is essentially unknown: "And somebody else will put a belt round you and take you where you would rather, not go" (Jn 21:18). To change and to accept who we are and who the other is, is a challenge because we really do not know the outcome. The results will be realized in a new fullness, in the mystery of death and resurrection. Cross-cultural vocations ~;ill need an environment which is, at one time, of their own familiar tradition find, at another time, of the tradition of the other. As Bishop Lyke stated: "W~ need to be with our own at one time and at another time, we need to be with the other."l Because there are no answers ~ind the process is rather a continued one, cross-cultural formation programs will need frequent evaluations and multiple opportunities. An environment which offers multicultural opportunities would be positive. If the initi~ite can actually experience his or her own culture in the parish or in a Specific Christian community while also experiencing the mixture of cultures within the community, distinctions could be made which would identify "yours, mine, and ours." "There is one Body, one Spirit, just as ybu were all called into one and the same hope when you were called" (Ep4:1-~5). Another area of particular importance is that of couhseling. A forma-tion and/or spiritual director must be very aware of differentiation. For example, the way one culture approaches authority, modesty, family life, and so forth, is different from the way another culture d6~s. If several cultures are involved, the formation director will need to be very sensitive to the nuances of languages and culture. The ideal would be that the~dii'ector~ Cross-Cultural Formation / 507 be bilingual and thus know moreconcretely the difficulties of understanding variations in meanings. We must always assume that, if two languages are being used, there is a language problem, This is also true of the differefit languages used.between the whites of Northern U.S.A, and the blacks of Southern U.S.A. Another language is involved. The challenge'is on both sides, not on one or the other. Both verbal and non-verbal messages and feelings need to be understood. The more sensitive person is often the more highly motivated person and the most open to new experiences, so a sensitive person is most helpful. Yet knowledge and experience in another culture tan increase sensitivity andthe ability to identify with another person, and motivate him/her toward further growth? Those directing formation will need to be able to live with the tensions between cultures and facilitate an integration into community. They will ~need to encourage personal identity with the person's culture and within the community. They will need to discern that which is a personality weakness, strength, cultural difference, and simple adjdstment to the for-mation culture and the community culture. Ehch person has a special charism. So, special parish or civic experiences will be important within the pari~h or~ civic community, ~With a variety of°cultures, special coimselors will be important. A black woman needs a bla~k counselor perhaps, or a special house of formation may be needed for the new Hislbanic candidates. Special prayer styles, studies, communications, liturgies, periodicals, and love will be necessary for-all hoping to live effectively in a cross-cultural community. Basic Theology : There is a basic theology which I would name, poetically, a theology of "Conversion and Conflict: ~. ontemplation and Creativity." A multi-culturMcontext implies the challenge of a.multiplici~y of ~,iewpoints which correspond with the differing experiences of people from diverse backgrounds and cultural traditions. A multi-cultural context suggests that no one group has a monopoly on truth. It further implies that.people from cultural and racial backgrounds other than our own are not merely "strange" or "different" or "inferior," but have a perspective of their own) Each person then is unique and important. No one person or culture is to remain isolated, Human beings or groups are always called to live in .tension. This tension can be both negative and positive. It is negative when it causes too much self-occupation or gelf-negation. It is positive when it calls the person to growth and conversion. Transcendent values take the individual to conversion. The human person possesses a character of abso- ¯ 508 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1985 luteness which transcends as well as~ constitutes the person. To live in a cross~ultural community, conflict and conversion are simultaneously necessary. Conversion is necessary because .it is a turning to the Lord, a turning ~to the truth within self, to the home within. It is a turning to the truth of the other. This truth is known through walking in some confusion and conflict to a new openness and finally to a solidarity. Within this process the human spirit releases its true spirit which is symbolic of a transcendent reality. The transcendent-reality to which I refer is that pro-cess of unfolding the~ true person within the transforming-converting power of the Lord Jesus. This is the individuation or humanizing process which creates new persons and/or new communities. Sacrament and Sacred Having spoken for an openness to constant conversion in ~he midst of differences and conflict, I now wish to speak of the need for a theology of the sacred.All is sacred. All is created by God. We as dependent creatures can interpret all as sacred or profane. In the life of every person the underlying plea is that we interpret the other as sacred. In community, too, the underlying plea is that we interpret the other as sacred. To treat another sacredly is to recognize sacrament. Jesus in his humanness is the primordial sacrament; this is, Jesus, first ¯ and foremost, announces God's loving kindness, compassion, recon.ciliation,¯ presence, otherness. Insofar as we are receptive to this presence in another, we are recognizing the other as sacrament. Our taking time to understand the uniqueness of the other in his or her culture and history is taking the time to know a new divine reality, a new sacrament, the sacred: Doing this will create a new community, a.cross-cultural community. It will mean I never take for granted that I know your history or even that I know my own. It does take for granted that I do not know but am learning daily. Formation directors of cross-cultt~ral communities, then, will be recon-cilers, knowing they have failed to love both locally and globally. ~They will be taken beyond today and beyond the United States. They will begin to see themselves as a minority who will be open to the majority. They will be men and women willing to create a "civilization of love." Cross-Cultural Formation For some years now, perhaps even centuries, there has been something of a debate about culture. Does it make a difference? We North Americans have had a sense of the "melting-pot" within our heritages. Today, in 1985, the "melting-pot" concept is basically unacceptable. Today we respect and honor the sacredness and uniqueness of each person, and further, of each Cross-Cultural Formation / 509 culture. As a people, we do not.ask one anothei" to be part of a melting-pot, we speak more appropriately of a "mosaic," that is, of a people who Choose to come together and are aware of their uniqueness and innate value systems. These people then identify their culture and acculturate on the basis of self and communal awareness. This is an informed decision and it is a decision which retains its own value system. The initiate, then, who chooses toj0in a community which has another cultural.orientation must be a person who knows his/her identity as differ-ent and cherishes that identity while knowingly entering into and accultur-ating to the community only insofar as her/his uniqueness and richness are not compromised. This, of course, will not be possible for many initiates. They will not have that security about their self-identity and thus will need more time or, more specifically, their own time. ,George DeVos states that the following areas will need to be addressed for the persons of multiple cultures coming together: I. Each culture raise~ questions regarding a differentiation between the culture and physical, or motor development; 2. There are issues related to the information-processing mecli-anisms in personality. That is, cognition, perception, and logical thought which carries with the culture; 3. The expressive components in human behavior related to the nature of symbolic thought in the person and its expres-sion through myths, dreams, ritual practices, ideologies, and other bodies of emotional and affective motivations vary within cultural traditions; 4. Empirical investigations find socialization patterns unique. Certain cultures collectively have prevalent child-rearing practices, role expectations, and specific values on the intel-lectual and emotional developments of their members; 5. The mode of change and its implications in cultures differ. Unless there is an asserted effort by social sciences to under-stand change in concert, each discipline and each culture will have partial answers; 6. There are issues~ related to the prob.lems of mental health. What is conformity in one culture .is deviance in another.4 ¯ Over the past four years, I have seen all six of these principles in action. I have 'ministered in two formation programs and the persons included in. the programs were black, white,~Hispanic, and Asian. Let me now address each area specifically. Physical and Motor Development .~ The most important cultural influences on physiological growth are, of 510/ Review for Religious, July-August, 1985 course, related to diet. Other cultural influences related to physiological growth are those of intense sensory stimulation. Included in this stimulation is the effect of such things as circumcision, piercing of the nose, ears, or lips, inoculations, shaping of the head, clothing, experiences of extreme heat and cold, or the .administration of internal stresses such as emetics, irritants, or enemas. When these kinds of things are found in a culture, theperson is found to be taller,.than those in a culture where there is no such stimulation. There are also noticeable differences between carnivorous and non-carni-vorous eaters, between smokers and non-smokers. Cultural pa.tterns tend to,be related~to ~the physiological, psychological, and spiritual patternings .of a.people~ ~ ' Information and Processing One's perception, cognition, and logical thought~change with the family environment, societal pressures, and global awarenesses. If a person is given an intelligence test which is standardized for the Anglo, a Chicano will likely fall short because of another environmental influence. It is of utmost importance that testing personnel or information seekers are com-petent in the minority or culture they are ministering to, If they are not of that culture, they must be very competent in cross-cultural questions. The examiner must establish a rapport with the examinee and'must be sensitive to cognitive differences. For example, people Who have been trained for years to be introverts will be less responsive to external stimtili and more responsive to values of an internal nature: Special training is required of the examiner for linguistically different learners. Testin~ and information seeking should ideally be donb in the t~stee's first language. Testing results require value jl]dgrnents and, therefore, cannot be '~all-or-nothing decisions." Other criteria must be used for cognitive, perceptive, and logical interpreta-tions. ~Using test score~s as the b~is for making a decision tha! will adversely affect an individual's,.education or occupational (vocational) future consti-tutes a clear abuse of the testing process."5 The problem of cultural bias in criteria must be one of primary focus for testing, employment, motivational evaluation, and cross-cultural growth. Human expression of inner attitudes will vary With gestures, folklore, verbal communication, and more. Without recognition of the differences in cognitive thought the "melting-pot" will continue. That is, witho.ut conscious" awareness of identifying the differences, it is possible to expect people tO blend into another's culture rather than maintain uniqueness. Expressive Components Each cultural tradition has different expressive components. These Cross-Cultural Formation / 511 components are noted, particularly in affective expressions. Dreams, too, are related to a culture and cannot be interpreted except within the cultural context of the dreamer. Family ties are frequently misinterpreted with differing cultures. The components of each culture are. complex and unex-plainable. They must be lived and listened to. An initiate, in order to be tinderstood, will need to be assertive enough to tell the myth of her/his family. The expression of this myth will include family affectivity, ritual; prayer life, food, clothes, games, and so forth. Socialization-Empirical Investigation Socialization patterns vary considerably, depending on the economic level of the "person. One of the young women in formation telling of her myth explained how important it was to the family to eat potatoes; this seemed very logical to the rest of us, the majority of whom came from rural farming areas. However, with further storytelling, the woman indicated that since the income of the family was .were in the form of potato chips in a so.me pop and hamburger. This family to buy a large sack of potatoes and a so minimal the potatoes purchased small package along with perhaps never had enough money on hand large piece of meat on sale. Their money came and went on a day-to-day basis. This econQmic situation formed the physiognomy of the family, its buying power, the habits of the family in terms of diet, and ability of the family to .budget. Another important socialization~ pattern is that of the roles assigne~ to various members of the family. One,child may~be assigned as the home-maker, another as outdoorswoman or man and another as the student. These roles are assigned within a culture, which then.doubles.the significance of the role for a young woman who comes to community and has never learned to cook because she was the ~utdoorswoman, or for the young man who never learned to cook while .in his home but now as a novice must cook fo~ the local community. When the.young man happens to be a Hispanic, the cultural shock is even greater. Men in the Hispanic culture are even more distanced from the kitchen than those in a white culture. Change .Concerning the' issues of change in society,- it is of paramount impor-tance that each culture understand the effects of cultural change on the adaptation and adjustment of individuals. For the individual considering two cultural changes, that of religious life and that of another cultui:al environment, chang~ will be more complex. The personality of the individ-ual will remain in spite of acculturation; and, in fact, it becomes exaggerated in its strengths and weaknesses. This alone can be very difficult for an 512 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1985 individual. Without much notice the anger they knew within themselves before seems to have twice its potential. The passivity an individual identi-fied previously now seems twice as passive, and so forth. Initiates must be counseled in these normal phenomena. There are variations of definitions from one culture to another. What is known to be bizarre in one culture is normal in another. Each ethnic group or person must. recognize the basic culture which belongs .exclusively to itself. The initiate must know her/his history and culture. It is not true that we come knowing our history. The initiate must also return to the culture of her/his past and reflect on that which is truly culture, that which is familiar only, and that.which is unique to be one with the "whole lot" while maintaining and sharing that which is uniquely hers/his. This requires a good deal ofself-possession and self-assertion. -. Mental Health ' '~' ThiS area bears little comment since it has been stated already that the mental health of an individual in one culture is very different from that 'of one in another culture. It is perfectly acg, eptable for North Americansto behave like "work~ihoiics" and then take off work for three days because of a cold. It is less acceptable for North Americans to be lazy than for them to be doing something behavioral which would prevent~ the cold. It is very acceptable for a black or Hispanic woman to miss work or a social gathering .because of her monthly cycle than it is for a North American to do so. The initiate, then; must be a person of deep faith, willing to move beyond self. The step beyond self is a step of faith. All persons involved in the cross-cultural formation l~rogram must be a transcendent people. To be a transcendent people is to be a people who believe in a God of surprises. The willihgness to gift one another with the space and place to be whb we are as well as~to become a new people, a transcendent people, is to be a people, who beli~ive ina new richness, a new community. NOTES ~Bishop James Lyke, O.EM., Assisi Lectures, February 1, 1982,.Berkeley, California. 2Paul P. Pedersen, Juris G. Draguns, Walter J. Lonner, and Joseph E. Trimble, Co,.u.nseling Across Cultures (Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 1981), p. 316.~ 3Archie Smith, Jr., Ph.D., "Pastoral Care in Multi-Cultural Contdxt," Guest Lecturei', Pacific School of Religion, February,, 1983, unpublished paper. 4George DeVos, "Problems and Research in Comparative Human Behavior;" Proceed-ings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 113, No; 5, October, 1968, ppl 351 ff. 5Joe L. Martinez, Jr., Chicano Psychology (New York: Academic Press, 19~77), p. 181~ Christian and Religious Obedience Brian O'Leary, S.J. Father O'Leary's earlier article, "Celibate Friendship," appear.ed in the issue of Janu-ary/ February, 1980. Father resides in Manresa House (Dollymount; Dublin'3; Ireland) where he is occupied in research and teaching courses in Jesuit spirituality and in the theology of religious life: O ui~ whole relationship"with God can be both e~perienced and under-stood ~n terms of obedience and "disobedience. Obedience is not just one virtue among other virtues. It is not part of a relationship, that is experienced in isolation, or that can be examined in isolation from the remainder of that relationship. It is an element ir~ every virtue, or if one prefers, it is the soil in which all other virtues take root and grow. This, of course, is taking obedience in its widest sense as cooperation with the will of God, bt~t this is also its most fundamental sense. There is an all-pervasiveness about obe-dience ~vhich reaches into every nook and cranny of our human existence. Obedience as Listening It is illuminating to reflect on the root meaning of the Latin word oboedire which means to listen. We are called to listen to God as he speaks, communicates, reveals himself in Scripture, in the teaching of the Church, in other people, in the signs of the times, in our consciences, in the stirrings of our hearts. Such listening can take myriad forms, from basic self-a~cep-tance, throughan eager following of one's special calling within the Christian community, to the final Amen in accepting the time and manner of one's death. Samuel's "Speak, Yahweh, your servant is listening" (1 S 3:10) is the basic,'lifelong attitude and prayer of the devout Christian. Since Christianity is a form of theism, its adherents are committed to a 513 514 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1985 belief in the self-revelation of a personal God. Consequently much emphasis is placed on the supernatural modes of God's speaking, such as inspired and inerrant Scriptures, and the life and teaching of Jesus himself! At various times in the past ~and in various different ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, the last days, he has spoken to us through his Son, the Son that he has appointed to inherit everything and through whom he made everything there is (Heb 1:'1-2). But we ought not to minimize the more ordinary, natural modes of God's speaking. God is the God of reality, and so every aspect of reality is a vehicle for his communication with us. Listening begins, therefore, with what is closest to us--our experience of ourselves. We listen to our bodies as they reveal their~ needs to us (e.g. for nourishment, rest, shelter). We listen to our affectivity with its constantly fluctuating attractions and revulsions. We listen to our souls yearning for ultimate meaning, for aesth~etic expe-rience, an'~ for everitual immortality. To fail to listen to ourselves is to fail to listen to God. As we move outwards from our own psyches there awaits us the invitation to listen to others. Men and women in their very humanity, in their interpersonal relationships and as constitutive of society, are mediators of God and his lording pla, n for us. We are called to listen, n~ot just.to the words people use, but to the experiences,~the Vulnerability, the fragility, the mute i0ngings ~that lie behind the words. This mode"of attentive, empathetic listening, this contemplative attitude towards people, involves encountering the other as other find not as a mere projection of ourselves and our o.wn concerns. As the other speaks, so God communicates, whether we are meeting~ttlat other'as individual or as societal, o~ Obedience as Faith ' The all-pervasive, all-embracing quality of obedience is also underlined in Paul's phrase, "the obedienc~ of faith." ~ Through him [Christ] we received grace and our apostolic mission to preach the obedience of faith to all pagan nations in honor of his name (Rm 1:5). .Glory to him who is able to give you the strength tO liv~ according to the Good News I preach, a~nd in which I proclaim Jesus Christ, the revelation of a mystery kept secret for endless ages, but now so clear that it must be broadcast to .pagans everywhere to bring them to the obedience of faith (Rm 16:25-26). ere obedience is clearly not a particular moral virtue, but that total human response to the Good News. which is proclaimed in the apostolic preaching. Paul's mission is to bring people to this surrender in faith to Christian and Religious Obedience / 515 God. This surrender is not forced; it may be refused. It is a free acceptance of, and response to the Word. This is the radical experience of metanoia for which Paul's own conversion on the road to Damascus could ser~e as a paradigm. Ultimately, for Paul faith is obedience and "obedience is faith, while unbelief is disobedience and .disobedience is unbelief. In the Old Testament Abraham exemplifies this faith-obedience both in his response to God's call (Gn 12:1-5) and in his willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac (Gn 22:1-18). In the latter story Abraham is asked to take and offer as a holocaust not only "your son, your only child Isaac, whom you love" (which would be a natural and personal tragedy), the one person through whom the promises of Yahweh were to be fulfilled for the Chosen People (which would be a spiritual ~and national tragedy). The.key to the biblical writer's interpretation of this complex story is found in the words: All the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your descendents, as a reward for your obedience (v. 18). But the primary model of Christian Obedience is that of the adult man Jesus to his Father. Time and again, in St. John's gospel particularly, wd see the deep fascination which the Father exercised on the human sensibility of Jesus. Much light is thrown on what it meant for Jesus tO be°Son, and how his personal se~nse of identity came from his experience of filial'~relationship. His mission appears, not so much as something entrusted to him from outside, but a~s intrinsic to who he is. "To be Son" is "to be ~ent'~ is "to be on mission." My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to complete his work (Jn 4:34): 1 can do noticing by myself; I can only j6dge as I am told to judge, and my-judging is just, because my aim is to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me (Jn 5:30). When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing of myself: what the Father' h~ taught me is what I preach; lie who sent me is with me and has not left me to myself, for I always do what pleases him (Jn 8:28-29). The world must be brought to know that I love the Father and that I am doing exactly what the Father told me (Jn 14:3 l). The cumulative effect of such textspowerfully communicates the obe-diential attitude of Jesus into which the Father wishes to draw all Christians. Obedience within the Church The Father sent his Son to carry out a saving mission which culminated in the Paschal Mystery, the death and resurrection ,of Jesus. The Father 516/ Review for Religious,, July-August, 1985 and the Son sent the Holy Spirit to carry out a sanctifying mission which inaugurated the community of the New Israel at Pentecost the commu-nity that is Church. Through baptism each person who is initiated into the Church is at the same time inserted into this two-pronged saving/sanctifying mission. Every Christian is not only saved and sanctified but called to share in the saving and sanctifying of others, to be sent into the world as'was the Spirit-filled Jesus. But the primary subject of this sending or mission is not the individual but the community or Church itself. It is by being in com-munion with the Church that the individual receives his/her mission which has its ultimate source ("author") in the Father. Hence the need for authority. Without authority and the means to exercise that authority the Church could not maintain itself in,unity nor fulfill its mission to the world. Since .the Church .is of divine institution and part of God's plan for humanity, the only aut.hority which can legitimately exist in it is God's autho.rity. When we reflect on Scripture we see how God reveals himself, communicates his mes.sage, and exercises his authority through intermediaries or mediators. Moses mediated the Old Covenant to Israel in the Old Testament, while Jesus in his hum~inity mediated the New Covenant in New Testament times. Now the risen Christ through his Spirit shares this mediated authority with th.e Church as a whole and with its duly-constituted leaders. Ho~v such authority is exercised need not concern us here; enough to recognize that it exists and that it is coextensive with the needs of the community for its internal well-being and its saving/sanctifying mission. Much can be learned from the final logion in St. Matthew's gospel: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time (Mt 28:18-20). Christ's presence thrrugfi the ages guarantees the reality of the lifeline linking the Church with the source, the author, of all authority God the Father. Religious Obedience There is a parallel, although not an identity, between the authority which exists in the community that is Church,and that which exists in the community that is a religious institute. In both, the ultimate source of authority is God; in both, that authority is mediated; in both, an obediential response is required. Such authority within a religious institute is recognized in faith by a person making a vow of obedience, and then responded to existentially through the daily living out of that vow. Although~both the Christian and Religious Obedience / 517 authority and the obedience are mediated, the vow itself can only be made to God, More precisely, it is made to the Father. As with Christian obedience in general, of which religious obedience is a particular expression, our response-pattern as religious is that of Jesus who "emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave" (Ph 2:7), yet knowing that he is the Beloved Son of the Fatfier. Furthermore the religious state constitutes a closer imitation and an abiding ¯ reenactment in the Church of the form Of life which the Son of God made his own when he came into the world to dothe will of the Father (Lumen Gentium, 44). A question, however, can be raised about the legitimacy of my (or any Christian's) making a vow of obedience in a particular institute. There is a presupposition that the' will of God fbr m~ is to be found with more certainty and clarity in the context of this specific group of people. Both logically and chronologically, before the vow, and necessarily underpin-ning it, is :an act of faith. How can such an act of faith be justified'?. The answer is twofold, Subjectively, there is my own inner experience of call which is leadihg me, not into marriage, nor into the single lay state, nor into some other religious institute, but into this concrete grouping of likeminded and vowed Christians. It is presumed that this subjective experience has been prayer-fully and realistically discerned with the aid of competent spiritual direction. Objectively, there is the guarante6 of the Church which, in approving this institute, has recognized it as a milieu in which the Holy Spirit is present and acti~,e. When the institute in its turn decides to accept me as a member, I can be sure that the Holy Spirit will speak to me in the context, and through the authority structures, of thisgrouping. Within such an institute ongoing discernment isopossible, and such discernment brings together harmoniously the interdependent realities of authority and obedience. The vow implies that never again~do I discern anything merely asan individual. Religious obedience is primarily the attitude of the whole institute seeking the will of God through living out the impliEations of its charism in the contemporary 'world. At any particular time this communal attitude may be more or less faith-ful, and so more or less obediential, more or less Christlike. (A barometer, in psychological terms, is often that of'morale.) The individual member, in turn, may be more or less in ha~rmony with this communal attitude. If I have a strong sense of belonging, then I will actively and enthusiastically participate in the institute's communal search for God's will, striving together towards viable and relevant apostolic choices. On the other hand, if I feel alienated from the institute, living on its fringes, I will tend to opt out of the communal search. I will become 518 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1985 passive in regard to discernment and forward planning, at best adopting a privatized approach to obedience~doing what I am told, perhaps, but otherwise abandoning my responsibility to play an active role in the dis-cerning and decision-making process within the institute.,~This is a form of disobedience and a failure in faith. Four Aspects of Obedience , ~ Christian and religious obedience involves the whole person and calls for a radical stance which can only originate at the core of a person's being. If that cbre has not been touched, obedience remains superficial if not inauthentic. Because of its all-pervasive nature, obedience is multi-faceted and needs to be examined from different points of view if its reality is not to be distorted. With religious obedience especially in mind we~ will now raise up four of these aspects or dimensions. Ascetical The human person is not obedient by nature. There is both a positive and a negative reason for this. Positively, autonomy or self-rule is the mark of the mature pets.on. The journey from childhood to adulthood is in large part a growth in desire for, capacity for, and exercise of autonomy. But since .a per.son lives in a human community, this autonomy has to be balanced by the demands of interpersonal,, social and political realities. Accepting the need for such balance, and integrating the corresponding limitations of one's autonomy, are also parts of the maturation process. All of this already presupposes an ongoing asceticism. Limitations imposed on one's autonomy by external factors and forces invariably pro-voke resistance, anger, pain and yet eventually they have to be rdcognized as inevitable. This process of growth is sometimes presented as moving through the stages of dependence, independeiice, and interdependence. This iast is the mark~of the mature, socially-integrated adult: an autonomy which recognizes the corresponding autonomy and rights of others. Negatively, there are the realities of sin and disorder. The healthy drive towards autonomy is seduced and vitiated by an unhealthy drive towards egoism and pride. While human autonomy can never b~ absolute, yet we are constat~tly beguiled by Satan's promise: "You will be like gods" (Gn 3:5). It is surely significant that the sin of Adam (ht~mankind) is presented in Scripture as disobedience arising from an overweening desire for autono-my the auionomy of God himself. Against this background the ascetical aspect of religious obedience becomes clearer. Obedience is a human virtue, an attitudinal habit which must be learned through its exercise. The aim is never to break a person's Christian and Religious Obedience / 519 will, but to lead the religious to a genuine inner freedom which will prevent manipulation either by outside pressures or by disorders within the-self. Such freedom will express itself not only in docility and availability, but also in creativity and initiative. Mystical. . This second aspects.of obedience consists in that contemplative gaze towards Christ which enables one to discover him in the interplay between authority and obedience. Given this contemplative attitude a religious actualizes an increasingly intimate union with Christ in two ways. Firstly, the person recognizes in the authority of the superior the authori.ty of Christ, and in the person of the superior the person of Christ. Secondly, othe religious enters into and continually enfleshes, the obediential attitude of Christ himself. The Risen Lord does not hand over, as it were, our obedience t6 the Father as something extrinsic to himself. Rather, since we died and rose again with him in baptism, our obedience is part of his obedience, a prolongation of it in today's ~vorld, just as our prayer is part of his-prayer and is offered to the Father as the prayer of the Whole Christ: the Body-~- head and members. Religious obedience, therefore, is both obedience to Christ present in the superior, and a sharing in the obedience of Christ as he responds filially and radically to his and our Father. He was humble and walked, the path of obedience all the way to death his death on the cross (Ph 2:8). Our obedience and that of Christ are co-terminous. They both lead to Calvary. Obedience, therefore, can be compared with martyrdom, as indeed it has been in the tradition. Martyrdom haaS, either be that total, instan-taneous and violent handing over of ourselves to God through other-in-flicted d~hth, or the piecemeal, gradual, daily handing over of ourselv~es to God through the self-inflicted consequences of the vow of religious obedience. The latter is experienced as continued self-emptying which builds'up to that final and inevitable self-emptying of our natural death when we shall hopefully say with utter freedom and love, "Father, into your hands 1 commit my spirit" (Lk 23:46). Apostolic ¯ Insofar as religious obedience is a union with the obediential will of Christ, so far is it also a union with the salvific will of the Father who "wants everyone to be saved and reach full knowledge of the truth" (1 Tm 2:4). As such, along with every other expression of Christian obedience, it is truly apostolic. Nevertheless, in specifically apostolic institutes the link between obedience and apostolate is much more explicit and direct. Here obedience is primarily in function of mission, a spiritual tool of mission. ~90 ] R~view for Religious, July-August, 1983 The reality of, authoi-ity-obedience is thee channel through which mission, ¯ which originates with the Father, is mediated to the institute and to the individual members. Since mission is constittitive of the basic charism of - such institutes, and is not an optional or subsidiary dimension, obedience as apostolic.has an enormous importance and centrality. Under this heading comes the whole area bf apostolic discernment, both personal and communal. Apostolic choiceS---the selection of ministries and plans for running and evaluating them--become a major issue. A deep level of trust and openness between the members of the institute, and especially in relations with superiors, is necessary. Underpinning this, a spirit.uality which closely integrates contemplation and action is required. Authority calls 'forth and harnesses the good will, talents and energies of all, directing them with zeal and in the spirit of the institute, towards mission. In ,such an atmosphere of faith and serious purpose one dare not trivialize obedience, for example, by seeing it merely in terms of discipline, good order, or even of asceticism. If mature adult obedience does not flourish, neither does the charism of the ir~stitute, and neither does the. mission which is that of the contemporary Christ. Unitive Obedience leads to a union of minds and hearts. However, this is true only when its ascetical demands have been accepted, its mystical dimension has been experienced, and its apostolic thrust has become a powerful dynamic in one's own life and that of one's fellow:religious. This unitive aspect emerges almost spontaneously as the result of religious obedien~ which i~ lix;ed authentically and faithfully. It is not the direct purpos.e of obedience, but rather a side effect which can be gratefully recognized and received as part of the hundredfold promised by Christ to those who have left all for his sake. Vowed Celibacy and Human Sexuality M. Keith, 0 S. E Sister Keith works at the Parish Center of St. Alphonsus Church; 154 Church Street; Deet'~eld, MI 49238, where she may be addressed. There is no doubt that the mentors of our society today, probably at no time more so in history, have placed a great deal of emphasis on complete sexual fulfillment as the answer to everything. Heavy demands are placed on people for self-fulfillment via genital satisfaction. New patterns of sexual manners and morals aris'e constantly. This stress on genital intimacy makes it even more difficult to ignore. Media blitzes, which overtly and covertly proffer a barrage of sexual invitations to genital intimacy to the whole of society, at times overwhelm people. It can be said then, without a doubt, that our culture's emphasis on genital sex dbes provide at least subliminal seduction to all. Therefore, in this age, with its stress on genital intimacy for self-fulfill-ment, celibacy seems an impossible contradiction to the expectations for life which most people hold as a value. Lifelong celibacy, deliberately and freely chosen in the face of one of the most sex,oriented of societies, seems like the ultimate madness. To choose celibacy is a challenge to the cultural idols of hedonism and consumerism. Not only does our culture attack the value of celibacy, western attitudes also undermine even the previous supports that once were available for the~celibate lifestyle. In fact, in some ways, ours is the most discouraging culture possible for a celibate option. Celibac~y today demands the courage of a totally countercultural stance. Today it is much harder to avoid coming to grips with sexuality than it used to be. We are more aware how much sexuality pervades a person's 521 522 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1985 entire life situation. One's sexuality is seen to extend to every level of being: bodily, emotional, intellectual and volitional. More specifically, human sexuality is a powerful stimulus to move toward others and away from self-centeredness. Human sexuality thus helps attenuate ego-centrism, which dehumanizes both self and others. "Genital sexuality," of course, refers to acts, thoughts, fantasies, desires and feelings which involve or promote direct genital behavior. It is in this sense that today's society holds to the .notion that humanity is impossible without full gratification of the sex drive. Such, however, is not a universal truth. It is the purpose of this paper to show that a vowed celibate is and can become a fully integrated, psycho-sexually mature being without genital sex. Human sexuality is a basic ontological determinant of who we are as persons, and personal i~dentity is.a prerequisite for sexual maturity/identity. This personal identity is, in significant ways, worked out within images of sexual identity and sexual complementarity. Such is fully attained only in the arena of human relationships. Psychological. research shows that the incidence of sexual difficulties and immaturity is neither greater nor less among celibates than among non-celibates. Psychologist Abraham Maslow (1954) pointed out that it is not sexual abstinence as such that is pathogenic, but .the feelings or motiva-tions accompanying it. It is now well known that many cases are found in which celibacy has no pathological effects. Clinical work with non-neurotic people gix;es clear answer that sexual deprivation becomes pathogenic in the severe sense only when it is felt by the individual to represent'irejection by the opposite sex, inferiority, lack of.worth, lack of respect, isolation, or thwarting of basic needs. Sexual deprivation can be borne with some relative ease by individuals for whom it has no such implications. Religious celibates in no way deny or wish to reject their sexuality. In fact their understanding of their celibacy and of their sexuality matures as they advance in age and experience. Becoming an enlightened and respon-sible sexual being is always a lifelong challenge, This challenge involves, among other things, the development of psychosexual maturity. ,And the goal of psychosexual maturity is not orgasm; it is the capacity to love. In the celibate, this maturity is evidenced in the fuller development and harmonious interplay of the individual's psychological and sexual capacities within an ordered value system. Dr. Menninger has stated that "Insofar as choice determines behavior, it stems from some consideration of values." Psychosexual development in the celibate quite evidently cannot be iso-lated from choice and values. There is no realistic way of doing so. Vowed Celibacy and Human Sexuaflty / 523 In choosing celibacy, then, what is at issue is not a negation of any human good or value. It is rather a relativizing of priorities in fife. In choosing a celibate lifestyle, it is a tribute to the values in life that one chooses to celebrate. Celibacy lived means to the individual that: 1) the development of full humanity is more important than genital sexual expression; 2) that true generativity is greater than sexual potency; 3)that self-transcendence is more fully human than self-fulfillment. Psychosexual maturity is not static; it is a dynamic, ongoing process. Whether'a person becomes a celibate or marries, the same maturity, accep-tance of self as a sexual being and the ability to live with impulses and integrate them into the self, is a requirement to achieve full humanity. The bald fact of not being married, of not being involved in a sexual relationship does not constitute the celibate life. To be a vowed celibate means to be empty for God, to be free and open for his presence in many people and to be available for his service. In the past, perhaps, it was not uncommon for some religious and laity to think of celibacy as a state of being asexu~il. In fact, though, vowed celibacy is not an asexual state, even though it precludes full genital inti-macy. Taking vows does not snuff out personality. To say that a vowed celibate drops out of the sexual rivalry game doesn't suggest that the person is no longer a sexual being. It is normal to have sexual feelings. ~ Modern modes of expression would say that the celibate is still fully a sexual being, but without actual genital expression. As stated above, becoming an enlightened and responsible sexual being is a lifelong process; and the celibate, like all other humans, must redirect the tendency to regress into becoming selfish.Celibates need to realize that sexual abstinence does~not automatically confer the capacity to love people in general any more than incontinence in marriage increases the love for anyone. As a matter of fact, though, one difference in the celibate lifestyle is that it does move toward a more freeing love than do other lifestyles. The heart of vowed celibacy is rather.a special, unique and total conse-cration to Christ. The true celibate is effectively head over heels in love with God?' Vowed celibacy is a commitment to love Christ. This is achieved by a genuinely mystical form of life. Without some graspof mystical vision, the celibate is unlikely to remain celibate for long, The depth, and quality of personal prayer manifests itself in the depth and quality of vowed celibacy. Without vision, there is risk of psychic damage. Ignace Lepp (1963) states that ". the libido cannot be channeled in a different direction without injury to sexuality, unless it finds itself entirely consumed in the service of a higher psychic activity." This sublimation means to redirect the sexual drive. It does not mean 524 / Review for Religious, July-August; 1985 to pretend that the sex drive doesn't exist, or to forget it, or to set it aside. Sublimation channels the sexual impulse; it does not stamp it out., But in attempting sublimation, the person must be free and sufficiently motivated by life-ideals which can actually utilize these sublimated energies. The vowed celibate life, attempted without convictions and some form of mysticism, is an attempt at sexual suicide and self-destruction. If lived without an internal conviction, the response will be the simple negation of all the good of life and love and humanity in the individual. One's vowed "celibacy cannot be a complete withdrawal of all involvement in human sexuality; such a step would be the denial of humanity. Rather, consecrated celibacy must become a positive affirmation of beauty and strength. The vow of celibacy, lived with faithfulness, speaks out. against the negative aspects and excesses of the sexual revolution of our time. It contradicts the contemporary attitudes where infidelity and failure to keep commitments is an accepted way of life. Celibacy makes a positive contribution to life since Christian celibacy is an explicit affirmation that a person is aperson first and not second to his or her sex function. It provides a deeper insight into the sexuality of persons themselves. Vowed celibates are seen as total persons, not as individuals dichotomized into body/spirit. Authentic celibacy, then, is an enfleshed experience. Celibacy cannot be understood in isolation. It is experienced in a heterosexual society. It is a growing life experience in and with Christ. This means growing in love with Christ and growing in prayer with Christ. The effects of this lead celibates to a growth and deepening in their love for all people, especially for all those with whom they come into contact. Their response will grow, become actualized and manifest itself in time. And like all love, it defies description. Mature love does not come easy; it is always a growth process. For the b, elibate, this entails a process of growing as a sexual being. It is a continual becoming of the person the celibate is called to be through and. with Christ. Thus celibacy is a call to wholeness and holiness that involves patience, discipline and care. Far from lessening our need of the experience of love, celibacy offers a greater freedom in loving--a freedom to love, at times, without hope .of returned love, and to love the unlovable. This form of unselfish love witnesses to the compassion and mutual respect which are integral to justice, and moral rightness. Celibates live fundamentally indePendent lives; lives not directed to the well-being of.the single destiny for two that is common to. marriage, but directed by the demands of Christ and the Church. Religious celibacy is for loving and living. Vowed Celibacy and Human Sexuaflty / 525 Celibate love is primarily universal in character. It is a call to be con-stantly open to authentic relationships, to befriend any person met with a non-demanding love. It thus is a challenge to celibates to become the persons they are meant to be, to maximize their love and self-giftedness to others. The challenges and rewards of celibacy are the challenges and rewards of love itself. The celibate experience, in sum, is a way of making love, something everyone must do, and, like all lovemaking, it defies close scrutiny. Like all lovemaking, it is a relational exiaerience beyond words. Another great value of the celibate experience is that of availability. ¯ The vowed celibate belongs to no one person, hence to all persons. There is risk to this. Depending on how it is lived, cdibacy can either render the individual sterile or productive. Unless there is a giving away of self, celibacy is supreme sterility. Lived positively, selflessly, celibacy can be distinctively and consciously creative. These creative powers can be termed "generativity. ~ ¯ Generativity is the ability to give, nurture, and sustain life. Erikson states that: ". to know that adulthood is generative does not necessarily mean one must produce children. But it means to know what one does if one does not produce children." In Erikson's eight stages of the development of the person, generativity characteristics of adult life are met even in institutions committed to celibacy. Celibates believe that they will attain a sense of.generativity through loving relationships with people, thus creating life: The celibates'.self-abun-dance and vitality and life-giving existence will be evidenced by their presence and participation in the world. Specifically, the generativity found in vowed celibacy is a commitment to a care and concern that is universal; to a love that is life-giving and without limit. Although there is total and° exclusive intimacy between the vowed celibate and Christ, this does not exclude other relationships. In~ fact inti-macy with Christ depends on other relationships to make it possible. Friendship and support are necessary to the celibate, as is deep prayer and honesty before Christ. Religious celibacy has everything to do with inter-personal relationships. The celibate is a person firmly ~planted on earth for relating to others. Indeed, to be human is to be relational. And, of course, the psychosexually mature celibate loves individuals, not abstract humanity. Today there is a great emphasis on the forming of authentic friendships among both men and women religious. Research has shown that good psychosexual development involves and demands relationships with a vari-ety of people. Drs. Conrad Baars and Anna Terruwe, who have integrated psychiatry with their faith, note that masculine/feminine relationships, as well as same sex friendships, help to develop a wholesome emotional.life. 526 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1985 ~. There can be no genuine happiness without friendships. Friendships, however, are not easily acquired. They demand work, time and cultivation. Human relations are never finalized, Celibacy also requires the development ofa capacity for deep and lasting relationships. Friendship in th~ lives of religious celibates takes many forms, As one moves across the spectrum from a.cquaintance to friendship, however, the reality of celibacy becomes more pertinent. The love of authentic friendship is not easy, and there are those hurts and disappointments which are part of the "human condition" (Sr. Marie Dugas, S.S.A. 1983)~ But the benefits of friendship help make life worthwhile. Jesus is the model for celibates. He loved all people. He also had several disciples and social friends~ These friendships also developed through hurts, misunderstandings and disappointments. The love experienced in celibate friendship is that of the giving and receiving of love. This experience introduces one into a new understanding of life and one's relation to life. It allows one to rid oneself of the unneeded, counterproductive defenses which hinder growth and integration. It allows one tO be touched by the power beyond the self. Research has shown that true growth and healing take place only in a relationship characterized by love. Celibates, then, should have close friends. The development of friendships in the celibate lifestyle is critical to inter-nal/ external integration which if properly pursued will result in an ade-quately mature personality. Sexual urges will not put the celibate value system and behaviors out of sync in genuine friendship. The celibate friendship is less a response to physical attractiveness and more of a caring for what is good in theperson. The celibate friendship is an attentiveness to the other in a flexible manner rather than in a fixation. Mutual love cannot mean mutual possession. Celibates ~are united in friendship only by the bond of their free will, a bond that is not indissoluble as is that of marriage. And celibate friendships normally do not simply happen. There is ever present the element of choice involved in who twill be admitted, and to what degree of intimacy he or she will be admitted, AlL people, not only celibates, fill their heed for intimacy through. friendships. Intimacy in human living is important for personal growth, self-esteem and for a feeling that life is worthwhile. The more we live in :a mass society, the more importaiat are intimate relationships to maintain our individuality and identity. For Abraham Maslow, in the self-actualiz-ing person, the higher need is for intimacy. If this need is satisfied, the need for genitaljty is lessened Vowed Celibacy and Human Sexuafity / 527 Intimacy can be defined as unfeared self-abandonment, an unfeared self-disclosure and a dissolving of ego boundaries. In intimacy, one gives up control of what is seen by the other. It involves the sharing of one's real identity with others. Eric Berne (1974) calls intimacy a "game free" relationship. Healthy interpersonal living always involves both distance and intimacy. A celibate person striving for universal love must realize that this does not mean universal intimacy. Intimacy requires disciplined living. Besides being grounded in one's own vocation, the celibate must affirm and desire the growth of the other. This non-possessive, non-exclusive love also encourages the growth of the other's relationships with people. The celibate is pleased when the other develops new, outside relationships and interests, knowing that they are the sources of life and growth. The celibate knows that it is important that people never stop growing in love. One definition put it this way, "A friend is one who knows you as you are, understands where you've been, accepts who you've become and still gently invites you to grow" (Sr. Marie Dugas, S.S.A. 1983). This is the heart of intimacy for the celibate lover. If the intimate relationship is healthy, life-giving and creative, it will enhance the quality of the celibate's prayer life, of other relationships and the general well-being itself of the celibate. Vowed celibacy is a viable lifestyle. Although the way of celibacy suits relatively few persons, it is in itself, and for those persons a "normal" way to be, a viable way to meet life and create it. Celibacy means distinguishing between needs and wants. It is a meaningful lifestyle. This life entails an act of radical rejection of some values ih the culture that easily become idola-trous. Celibacy is much more than a set of sexual mores; it is an extension of Christian virtue. It is an act of affirmation about certain human and gospel values that easily become submerged in the culture~ The celibate lifestyle is thus prophetic in its witness. The celibate life lived in the Spirit of Christ can be a very profound and rewarding way of life, The celibate, by foregoing the type of mutuality found in marriage, is saying that no 'human efforts or human projects can ever achieve the full destiny possibl6 for humanity. The celibate is, saying that our full destiny is achievable, not by our own power, but through the power of Jesus Christ. Celibacy joyfully lived, presents an alternate vision. This lifestyle proclaims that the end of life is intimacy with God and others. Joyfully lived, this lifestyle points to what must ultimately be the end of any lifestyle, love of God and others for the "sake of the kingdom." Far from being quixotic, celibacy simply is one way that some men and women find it in their heart to be worth following, a way to be fully alive in this world. The Clown on the Cross Margaret Halaska, 0 S. F. Sister Halaska's previous article in these pages was "A Model of Discernment: The Experience of a Franciscan,' (March/April, 1984). As with that earlier article, the present one also offers a reflection based on a personal experience. Sister Halaska may be addressed at Holy Family Convent; Box 6; Bayfield, WI 54814. I It was a Day of P~rayer for me. I unlocked the door of the house where I was staying that day and walked in. A cross with the clown on it was standing on the living room floor, leaning against a table. The figure caught me off guard, and for a brief moment I was caught in the paralysis of.surprise. But its presence was an invitation.which I could not resist. In a short time I was sitting on the floor directly opposite the strange appari-tion. It intrigued me. A soft clown-figure in place ofothe usual corpus of/ hardened plaster., a clown that was warm and gentle even to the eyes . a clown whose puffy cheeks you could squeeze, creating temporary dimples ¯. a clown whose face reflected pain and peace all at once., a clown who was held to the cross partly by an outsized crown of thorns, one of which pierced his clown-hat and held him fast to the wood. During the course Of the day, I prayed long and often befOre the Clown on the Cross. I didn't say much. I tried to listen. The Clown was silent. I was silent. But the silence was not sterile. Eventually, in an explicable way, the Clownflrew me to himself. Suddenly, | wanted to hug him. It was the moment of prayer. The desire became stronger but I became aware that the Clown was too little and I was too big. And that, too, was prayer. I moved closer to the Clown, touching his face and probing his hands and feet. I felt, not the rigor of death, but the softness of Life. In a new and very powerful way the Paradox of the Cross was again speaking to me: One must die to live. 528 The Clown on the Cross / 529 One exceptionally long thorn pinned the clown-figure to the cross. Needle sharp, piercing, it hooked the hat. I found myself feeling a 'slight sense of relief that it was only the hat! At the same time, it appeared that the thorn was what secured the C!own to the Wood, leaving his arms a little more free .than those of the more conventional plaster casts which are nailed tightly. Somehow those arms

Issue 45.5 of the Review for Religious, September/October 1986. ; REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices ave located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. REvIEw FOR REIolGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1986 by REVIEW FOR REt,IGIOUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A. $ I 1.00 a year: $20.00 for two years. Other countries: add $4.00 per year (postage). Airmail (Book Rate) $18.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write i~vlr~w FOR I~LtG~OUS: EO. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel E X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editor Sept. / Oct., 1986 Volume 45 Number 5 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to I~v~Ew FOn REt,tG,OUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Richard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW ~Oa REL~C~OUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell . Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, M! 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. Dominican Mission and Apostolic Common Life Mary A nn Fatula, O.P. Sister Mary Ann is the Chairperson of the Theology Department of Ohio Dominican College (1216 Sunbury Road; Columbus, OH 43219). Her last article, "Trusting in the Providence of God," appeared in the issue of January/February, 1986. In company with other religious orders, we Dominicans have placed a great amount of energy into reclaiming our mission of apostolic preaching in the Church. Yet even as we have become increasingly competent and profes-sional in our ministries, more than a few of us have sensed that something is radically missing from our reappropriation and that our mission requires far more of us than the total dedication of our energies to ministry. If we are honest, we must admit to a growing pain which we too easily push aside because we fear the cost of facing its implications. We find our ministries consuming us, sapping our energies and perhaps making very little real or lasting impact on others in spite of our hectic lives. At the same time, we see that the women and men drawn to Dominican life do not come to us for the sole sake of ministry. In many cases they already have been successful in a ministry and are looking for a committed community which will nourish their prayer and service in the Church. Yet we know in our hearts that precisely what these young people desire and have aright to expect from us we seem unable to offer them. In addition, our study of Dominic shows us that his vision entailed not simply a task to be accomplished but the far more comprehensive and demanding reality of a life to he lived. As we catch glimpses of these truths, we are beginning to suspect that our desire for "something more" in our life together expresses 641 642 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 the Spirit's own cry within us for the very life to which this same Spirit has called us: a life of preaching as the apostles did, out of a rich communion not only with the Lord but also with one another. The Relation Between Dominican Mission and Apostolic Common Life Many of us may not have reflected on the importance of community when we entered religious life, and yet we probably experienced its value, at some level at least, simply because we could not escape its structure. Today, however, we often have local settings in which hardly a semblance of com-munity life exists. On weekends no one is around; on weekdays it is difficult, if not impossible, to find one evening during a given month when even a small community is present in its totality at a supper meal. In many instances, not much binds us together except the TV set. We know by experience that simply promulgating laws does not make us choose something, no matter how valuable it is. We make free commit-ments because we have experienced the beauty of the reality held out to us, or because our hearts and minds reach out to claim a value when its beauty becomes apparent to us. Perhaps we do not experience the beauty of common life today--quite the opposite. But a deepened understanding of what common life can and must be for us could inspire us to consciously claim it anew. Far from providing "icing on the cake" to pep up our mission, so to speak, apostolic common life is literally a matter of life and death for us: if we do not reclaim it, we will perish. The interior communion and interdependence at the heart of Dominic's vision is something no structure or law can deliver to us; no outside force will hold us responsible for living it unless we ourselves do. Dominican apostolic common life, and thus the Dominican mission, will survive only if living men and women freely choose to devote their energy to living it. As M.H. Vicaire points out, Dominic renewed the apostolic life in its fullness precisely because he founded the outer element of missio upon the inne~ element of communio. The mission of itinerant preaching of God's word, the very ministry that founds the Church, was to flow from the rich interior life the Dominicans lived through prayer, the evangelical counsels, community and study. Far more than the task of merely verbal or written preaching, Dominic's mission entailed living the Word we preach with our mouths and pens, preaching in fact with our very lives. "I have come to cast fire on the earth" (Lk 12:49). We know the differ-ence between the preaching of mere words, and the kind which enlightens and sets fire to us: "Were not our hearts burning within us as he spoke to us on the way" (Lk 42:32). Dominican preaching is meant to be both light (or the mind and warmth for the heart because that preaching Dominican Mission / 643 comes from fire in the heart. This constitutes the Dominican mission in the Church, inseparably Word and Spirit, truth and love, light and fire--the fire of loving communion lived and put into words. The Spirit of communion anointed Jesus himself in the word he proclaimed (Lk 4:18); gathering a community around him, he preached not as an isolated individual but united to his Father and also to the twelve: "Let usgo to the next towns that we may preach there also, for this is why I came out" (Mk 1:39). When Jesus sends the apostles to preach, he sends them not one by one, but two by two (Mk 6:7). A witness at Dominic's canonization process in Bologna testified, "his words were so moving that most of the time he himself and his listeners were stirred to tears." We ourselves weep when something in a speaker's heart sets fire to our own hearts. Dominic wept when he preached because he spoke of what he loved and lived in his communion with the living God and with brothers and sisters. Jordan of Saxony writes of him that his "fre-quent and special prayer to God was for the gift of true charity." In a marve-lously creative synthesis Dominic combined the itinerant preaching of the apostles with the communio of the early Church. Preaching formed the purpose of the Dominicans' prayer, study, and community; but even more, the apostolic life they lived together, the reality of their love and communion with one another in the Lord, constituted the loudest and clearest word they preached. "Living Together," Community Life, and Common Life We have learned to distinguish between mission and ministry; our mission of preaching entails living the apostolic life in its fullness, preaching what we live, while our ministries express that mission in concrete and diverse ways. In a similar manner, we can distinguish between simply living together, community living and common life. Most of us perhaps know the first reality, "living under the same roof." Like ships in the night we greet each other but have no real connection to or interaction'with one another. Some of us may know, too, the deeper reality of community life, concrete sharing of goals, interests, work, prayer, responsibilities. But the words "common life" in fact translate the Latin word communio denoting an interior reality, a union of hearts and minds which only the Spirit can effect. Certainly this communion must be expressed in concrete forms, yet its reality is far more deep and inclusive than what "living together" or even "community life" denotes. We can share many things in community and still not share the deepest reality for which we are called together, the Lord whose love makes us one. The Hebrew and Christian Scriptures which, inspired Dominic's vision 644 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 portray preachers as people joined together to receive and to proclaim the Word expressing the very life they live in communion with others. Recalling how communities gathered around the Hebrew prophets, the author of John 17 places on the lips of Jesus the following prayer: May they "be one, as you, Father, in me, and I in you." May they all "be one in us, that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." These words hint at the truth that no mere human effort can bring about communio. We have already tried human plans, projects, laws and programs, and we still find that we cannot achieve by our own efforts alone the kind of communion to which we are called as Dominicans. Only the Spirit gives life, and only the Spirit can offer us the power to live the kind of communion to which our vocation calls us, a human sacrament of the unspeakable com-munion at the heart of the triune God. When we ourselves love, we find that the closer we come to another, the more the union causes a bitter-sweet pain precisely because we cannot achieve the kind of oneness we desire. Because we cannot literally have one mind and heart with another; there remains always that final place in us which no one else can know or enter. But the Father, Son and Spirit live literally one life; in their communion no hint of division or separation exists. Our call to communio, to the common life, invites and urges us to be in some way a sacrament of this trinitarian communion. The Acts of the Apostles describes this reality among the early Christians: "The company of believers were of one heart and one soul in the Lord . . . they had all in common" (Ac 4:32). Here common life signifies not simply the sharing of material goods but ultimately the interior bond which makes them of one mind and heart in the Lord. Precisely because of this communion, the early disciples share everything in a "common life." This apostolic communio described in Acts 4:32 clearly inspired Dominic's own vision. The Rule of Augustine which he adopted for his Order opens with the proclamation that those gathered together have been called by the Lord precisely to live with one heart and mind in the Lord. And the primitive Constitution of his Order begins with this prologue: "Because a precept of our Rule commands us to have one heart and one mind in the Lord, it is fitting that., the uniformity maintained in our external conduct may foster and indicate the unity which should be present interiorly in our hearts. "" The earliest constitution of Dominic's Order thus identifies preaching not as a mere speaking of words, but as the expression of unity in the Lord which even in their diversity binds the members together in the apostolic common life. Dominican Mission / 645 The Basic Constitution adopted at River Forest in 1968 emphasizes this theme anew. The first three paragraphs speak of the mission of proclaiming God's Word, but the fourth paragraph makes clear the very heart of this mission: "Because we share the mission of the apostles, we follow their way of life as Dominic conceived it. With one soul we live in community." This distinction between the interior communion and the concrete expression of it in community life has important implications. Those who for serious reasons are unable to live in Dominican community may yet be truly living in the communion that binds us together with one heart and soul in God. Communio does have to be lived out in concrete ways, and community life is one of them, but Dominican communio is lived out also through study, prayer and ministry that flow from our interior union with our brothers and sisters in Dominic's family. We are called to foster one heart and soul in the Lord--a mystery far more deep and demanding than simply living under one roof. The Holy Spirit at the Heart of Dominican Apostolic Communion We address Dominic as "Preacher of grace" precisely because his procla- ¯ marion came not only from grace, from the Spirit's fire, but also spoke about grace, the supremacy of God's mercy and power in our lives. The Dominican mission calls us to preach from the fullness of our own experience of this mercy, our own realization that finally God's work and not our own will save us. In our attempts to renew and to live this communion among us, we are thus brought to our knees; the word of grace we are called to preach to others becomes only a "noisy gong and clanging cymbal" (1 Cot 13:1) unless it is also the word of grace we ourselves live together. In writing of love, Aquinas stresses how the activities of knowing and loving expand and enlarge us by uniting us to reality beyond ourselves. The process of becoming mature adults entails the ability to extend ourselves outside of our own limited being to others around us. Knowledge takes reality into us, so to speak, but in also lov!ng what we know we reach out in an "ecstatic" movement outward toward what we love (ST I, 16, 1). In love, we put others in place of ourselves and regard their good truly as if it were our own. The ecstatic nature of love's union in this way truly enlarges our being, increasingly actualizing us as human persons. Thomas distinguishes, however, between self-gratifying love and the love of friend-ship. In self-gratifying love, although we seem to be drawn out of ourselves to good outside us, the movement of love remains within us and focused on ourselves; we desire the good of others not for their sake but for our own (ST I, 28, 3). The love of friendship, in contrast, loves others as equals and directs 646 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 our affection outside of us to their reality precisely as other. True union thus happens only when we reach out of ourselves in an unselfish move-ment of love toward others' own uniqueness. Yet as experience itself teaches us, our own efforts alone cannot effect this kind of love. Precisely for this reason, "the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Rm 5:5). Most of our communities have engaged in some program of helping us to appreciate and to tap our own resources, especially the gift of one another. But the gift we have left most untapped is the very person of the Spirit. Aquinas notes that the Spirit's name as Gift denotes gratuitous, unreturnable bestowal, with no expectation of return. And because a gift is presented to us only so that it may belong to us, the Spirit given to us is truly ours, our possession, our gift, our Spirit (ST I, 38, 1). Dominican women especially are called upon to renew this awareness of and reliance upon the Spirit's power in our life and ministry together. If we would claim our affinity for the Spirit's tender mercy and strength within and among us, we could become ourselves a new gift in and for the Dominican family, a living gift of women who live and speak the anointed word. For the word we have preached as Dominicans too often has not conveyed or come from the Spirit's anointing. This seems to me a special contribution which Dominican women can make to the Order today: to live and to proclaim the word of truth warmed with the fire. of life. Aquinas stresses that the Word cannot be divorced from the Holy Spirit: because the Son eternally breathes forth the very love between him and the Father, the living person of the Spirit, the Word is always Verbum spirans amorem-- the Word breathing forth love (ST I, 43, 5, ad 2). Only when we internalize this truth will we live out our call to be preachers not simply of the Word but of the anointed Word. Our mission to preach the Word by its very nature thus demands our increasing submission to the Spirit of God in whom we are to find the motiva-tion and power for our life together. "Ask, and it will be given you . . . if you who are evil know how.to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Fath.er give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him" (Lk 11:9, 13). We need to call down upon our life together the Spirit who alone can effect the interior communio at the heart of our preach-ing mission. As Aquinas stresses, the charity at the heart of our union is a created participation in the very person of the Spirit (ST II-II, 24, 2). This is a profound and radical insight, it seems to me: the bond of love we share is in some sense nothing less than the very reality of the Spirit, the divine person of love. As a participation in this Spirit, charity heals and enlivens our capacity to love one another truly as other. Again as Aquinas Dominican Mission / ~147 comments, charity of all the virtues has the strongest inclination to its act, for it reaches out to live in a spontaneous movement of pleasure and delight (ST II-II, 24, 5, ad 3; II-II, 23, 2). Since the Spirit's own person dwells in us by charity, making his power of love in some sense our very own, charity is specifically the same act whereby we love God and also one another. The movement of selfless love that binds us to each other thus of its very nature binds us also to God (ST II, 25, 1). The interior communion at the heart of our preaching mission calls us to reach out to one another's joys and sorrows, but we know how difficult it is to do this. We may be physically in the same room, apparently speaking and listening to one another, and yet we know in our hearts how often we are not present to one another's concerns. This kind of communion can happen only when the Spirit opens us to one another. As William Hill points out, the Spirit--and not just some effect of the Spirit's activity--is the very bond in some way uniting us in apostolic communion.' Perhaps we have had tastes of this communion at a time when we were bound together in a community sorrow or joy or at a time of deep prayer and celebration. We may have experienced this interior bond when the group was lost in silence and we had an intimation that our common life is not simply words we say or tasks we do for another. As Hill notes, when the Spirit "lays fast hold of us, we begin to live from a personal center that is our own self.''2 This last insight suggests that Dominican apostolic common life is possible only at the price of a profound continuing conversion on the part of each of us. W~ are called to live not from a center of narrow interest and self-concern, but from the abundant love of the Spirit who enlarges our hearts by making room in them for the truth of one another, In the depths of our being, the Spirit "lures us to the self-transcendence" of interdependence in the midst of our diversity: "The proper domain of the Spirit is not life in isolation, but in communion.''3 Neither Jesus nor Dominic sent our people one by one to convert the world, to be individual leavens in many places. This is a valid call, but it is not ours as Dominicans. If we are to live our charism in the Church, our preach-ing must express the fire of love that we live first of all in communion with one another. Individual men and women may have 1o minister alone in special cases, but their ministry also is called to give voice to the communion at the heart of the Dominican mission. If we are truly to live what we preach and preach what we live, the word we proclaim as Dominicans must express the apostolic communion we live with one another. The apostles' own preaching had such power because it overflowed with the Spirit's love lived in communion with one another, Because the Spirit inflames and anoints our preaching only to the extent that this same Spirit 648 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 binds us in love in one another, we will rediscover what it means to be fire in the Church, as Dominic was, only when we rediscover the absolute central-ity of apostolic communion. In many instances we still do not preach and minister out of the abundant communio we live with one another. And to the extent that we do not, we are insipid in the Church, a "noisy gong" and a "clanging cymbal" (1 Cor 13:1). Each of us is called to beg the Spirit's grace in our individual life and in our life together that our preaching would in fact give voice to the communioh we live with one another. Renewing Common Life Through Renewing the Four Elements of Dominican Life Because the Spirit's grace entails the mystery of both God's activity in us and also our free human cooperation, perhaps our most significant task in deepening our communion is to give renewed attention to each of the four elements which comprise Dominican apostolic life. And for both Dominican women and men, it may well be not simply a question of reclaim-ing but also of claiming these elements as our own in a way we have never done before. With regard to the first of the elements, prayer, we realize that our preach-ing is meant to flow from the abundance of our contemplation: "'contemplata aliis tradere. "" Yet too often we find ourselves saying, "My work is my prayer; the demands of my ministry prevent me from devoting explicit time to prayer." But as Vincent de Couesnongle, former master general of the Order, commented in an address at Providence in 1982, "People quickly distinguish the preachers who speak of the Friend with whom they constantly live, from the preachers who speak of him as of a stranger and try to pass him off as a companion with whom they are on familiar terms. The first know how to speak about God, because they are in the habit of speaking to God." People are thirsting to find in us women and men of God, and they recognize our pretense when we do not pray. And because this is so, what we most owe others in our ministry is precisely what we do with our time when we are not with them. Experience itself teaches us the paradox of grace: that God accomplishes wonderful things through us when we do not devote one hundred percent of our time to ministry, when we devote ourselves also to adoration before the living God in prayer. Many of us are perfectionists who think that our time must be consumed by projects to make our ministry more effective. Without belittling these efforts, more than a few of us are discovering that redirecting some of our " energy from compulsive busy-ness to time in prayer and fostering contempla-tive peace in our lives effect far more profound results than our efforts alone could have accomplished. What we do with our time when our people do Dominican Mission / 649 not see us often bears the deepest gifts for them when they do see us. We owe the people to and with whom we minister a consecration of our time to prayer so that they will find in us living evidence that God's presence and mercy fill the world. With regard to the second element of Dominican life, we are beginning to suspect the radical nature of our call to study. Dominic identifies as the crucial element at the heart of his Order the sacred study which opens us to contemplation and preaching. And is this not what we most lack in our lives today? Again, in his 1982 Providence address, de Couesnongle stresses, "It is a systematic, deepened and persevering study that we need to under-take . If this is not the case, then spiritual suffocation awaits us. The experience of each one of us shows this sufficiently." De Couesnongle com-ments that he stopped congratulating members of the Order for working so hard precisely because "people are overworked., they believe that one has to work like this. And thus, an unbalanced life results" whose equilibrium can be regained only by "stressing more a basic study that is at once serious and prayerful." Without prayer and study, we do no real preaching. We women especially must claim as never before our call to profound study; if we think we have no time for this because of our ministry's demands, we fool ourselves. No one will force us to study; this is a priority choice we ourselves must make. We come now to the third element that fosters communio, our com-munity life. In 1980, de Couesnongle noted in his report to the General Chapter meeting at Walberberg that he too easily believed the common life could be renewed simply by insisting on meetings and rules, as if these would automatically bring results. He came to see that true community life flourishes only to the extent that each person freely chooses to commit herself or himself to a real interest in the community members and to sharing what makes up his or her own life. "The newspaper and TV . . . will simply not suffice to excite and nourish an authentic community life. How many of us know how to share with outsiders what is best about ourselves, but become soeechless with our sisters and brothers?" We need to become, as never before, women~and men of the Word shared with one another, choosing to live what Dominic asked of us by speaking to and about God with one another. Is this not what we so little do? Because very few structures foster our communio, community life will cease to exist unless we freely choose it. We easily blame those in authority for the erosion of our life together when in fact we ourselves are responsible for its life or death. If our communities die, each one of us is responsible. We must begin to speak the Word to one another, to pray together, to speak to one another of deeper matters than simply the weather. 650 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 Because mission is our purpose, our community life and sharing of the Word with one another cannot be a matter of adding more time requirements to our already busy day; our commitment to one another must be in terms of quality rather than quantity time. Even if we are fortunate enough to experience a measure of community life, it is often not communio, our shared faith in the living God, that binds us together. But by taking advantage of the opportunities we already have for quality time together, we can take the risk of improving the level of conversation at table and of sharing the Word at our prayer and house meetings. And instead of harboring anger and resentment, we can begin to speak the truth in love to one another, for even honest fights do far more to foster communio than polite silence. Candidates to our communities who may have tremendous gifts for preaching and prayer and yet do not value the commitment to communio show by this very fact that whatever call they do have, it is not to Dominican life. And we who have already consecrated ourselves to this life must con-sciously choose today what perhaps we have never really chosen before, a true commitment to the community life that fosters the communio at the heart of our Dominican mission. De Couesnongle noted in his 1982 Provi-dence talk that as we have abandoned structures, individualism and non-par-ticipation have grown, and these are the "enemy number-one of community life." "Community life demands interpersonal relationships. Are we not too easily secretive. Do we not spontaneously hide what we are?. We bottle ourselves up and dodge compromising questions." He also notes the radical nature of our present call to community, precisely because so much today militates against a true union among us. We have become as secula-rized as the world, as filled, perhaps, with a selfish individualism that makes it increasingly difficult for us to reach out of ourselves to one another. Just as we ourselves must ratify our own baptismal vows, we Domini-cans are called to make a personal choice to live in fact what we say we are living. We can no longer escape facing ourselves with the question: "Why am I here? If I want to preach as a Dominican, my preaching must come from a true communio I myself concretely live." Unless each of us squarely faces this question and lives out its implications, we will surely die as com-munities, because we will fail to live our charism in the Church. Since the Dominican tradition has always treasured the richness of plural-ity, there are and will be diverse ways of living our call to communio. Our being bound together with one heart and mind in the Lord will express itself in different ways according to the character of each local community. And if for some serious reason a Dominican must live alone, he or she can still live out the Dominican call to communio-missio by fostering in whatever ways possible a true communion, a oneness of mind and heart with the Dominican Mission / 651 brothers and sisters. As our congregations decrease in numbers, we will be forced to cooperate with one another in the kind of collaboration that the Dominican family asks of us. Increasingly we are called to minister together, to provide options for living in communities of other Dominican congrega-tions in order to preach and minister from a communio concretely lived. And we need to actively work toward these new kinds of configurations. We consider finally the relation between communio and ministry. We Dominican women especially are growing to realize that our mission is not simply ed.ucation but Dominic's mission, the preaching of God's Word through our varied ministries. Each of us needs to take personal responsi-bility for the extent to which her ministry concretely expresses this mission and to ask ourselves how we can best focus our varied gifts in the service of proclaiming the Word. Perhaps more than a few of us are called to re-examine whether the ministry to which we are devoting our energies is the one to which God is calling us now, the ministry which best utilizes our gifts for the mission of proclaiming the Word. We need also to ask ourselves whether we have allowed our ministries to consume and master us, rather than to free us in joyful service. When we fail to live the Dominican call in all of its elements, when we cheat other dimensions of our life to devote all of our energy to ministry, we find our-selves in an inevitable burnout, ministering not out of the abundance of our communion with God and with one another, but out of our own emptiness. Not every possible ministry is meant for us as Dominicans. If we are not ministering from the fullness of a contemplative peace and in a way that fosters this peace in others, we need to face the hard question of why this is so. If all that we bring to the world as Dominicans is more busy-ness, more hectic activity, we have nothing to contribute. What others need from us is not more unpeacefulness but the witness of men and women who minister from the depths of contemplative peace. This is one of the chief ways we are called as Domincans to be counte~:-cultural. When our ministry no longer fosters this peace within and around us, when it drains us end-lessly and yields nothing but unpeace, we need to take a second look at whether God is not calling us to another ministry more at the heart of our mission to proclaim the Word. De Couesnongle points out in his 1982 Providence address: "Work is not prayer., in saying we lack time we find an easy excuse. Do we have the right to present ourselves as religious whose word proceeds from the abundance of contemplation? Time is needed, if we are to pray. Let us find this time and give it to God . . . This is my dream for the Order: contemplation and preaching., preaching ex abundantia contempla- 652 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 tionis. "' This is also Dominic's dream for us. But a dream becomes reality only when we ask it as a gift from God and then with all of our hearts make a conscious choice to commit ourselves to its realization., together. In his 1970 commentary on the Fundamental Constitution, Vicaire stresses that our one profession, our one vow, integrates us "'into the communion, and it is the communion which has the mission. "" Our vow consecrates us not only to God but also to one another, for it consecrates us to be a "reli-gious community of life vowed to preaching." Our Dominican life itself "is an apostolic mission in the Church" that springs from the communion we live with one another. Vicaire continues: we are not "just a team engaged in a common task." We are "a community of life, centered essentially in faith's response to the Gospel and in the seeking for God together." Our call to the common life is the heart of our specific mission in the Church, for our preaching as Dominicans is meant to flow from our communion with God and with one another, the communion that makes us in truth of one heart and mind in the Lord. "This requires that we be a true community. We are in it for better or for worse, as in the conjugal community, until death." We need to take seriously this "conjugal" relationship not only with the Lord but also with one another, for as married people can and do tell us, real communion happens only at the cost of personal time and energy and commitment. Our Dominican mission will again bring fire to the Church and world only to the extent that it springs from and expresses the communio we live with one another. As ! write these words, 1 am conscious of how little I live them. But I also know that to run from the truth is to sell our very soul. May the words de Couesnongle spoke in Providence in 1982 about the common life as the indispensable well-spring of our preaching mission in the Church continue to knock at the door of our minds and hearts: "Each of us must feel herself or himself responsible for this. We have to pay out of our own person . Alone and in community, let us have the courage to confront this problem and then, 'Do what he tells you.' " NOTES ~William J. Hill, O.P., The Three-Personed God (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1982), p. 303. 21bid, p. 288. 3lbid, p. 307. Active and Monastic: Two Apostolic Lifestyles George A. Aschenbrenner, S.J. Father Aschenbrenner is well known to our readers especially for the series of yearly surveys in spirituality he authored from 1980 through 1985. For the past year he has been Director of the Spiritual Formation Program at the North American College in Rome, where he may be addressed (00120 Vatican City State). This article originally appeared in the USIG Bulletin (Rome: no. 70, 1986), and is reprinted with permission. The spirited beauty and gracefulness of Jesus Christ has inspired the minds and hearts of women and men for centuries. They have been stirred, at times, to feats of missionary heroism all over the world. At other times, they have found encouragement for quiet, hidden faithfulness to the daily duties of a very ordinary state in life. In all these different types of heroism the moti-vation is the same: an enthusiastic love of Jesus Christ. In some way, then, Christian spirituality is always one and the same. Its beginning and end, its motive and energy always focus on that one whose words still echo in hearts today: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" (Jn 14:6). But over the many years, this one, central essence of Christian spirituality has taken expression in many different forms, some of which, at times, have seemed almost irreconcilable. Whenever these different forms are misunderstood and their common rooting in one basic Christian spirituality is forgotten, then they can become competitive or even truly at loggerheads. The interrelationships of each form with the one fundamental Christian spirituality, and of the various forms among themselves, have not always been easy and clear. But as long as we are careful to maintain a lively familiar-ity with and a genuine belief in Jesus Christ as the root and foundation of 653 654 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 Christian spirituality, we can speak of numerous Christian spiritualities. The following quotations are good examples of two very different dynamics within the one basic Christian spirituality: The Carthusian life rests upon a deep foundation of silence which you know and love, and it is in that depth that the Eternal Word is born for each one of us. There lies our whole vocation: to listen to Him who generates the Word and to live thereby. The Word proceeds from Silence, and we strive to find Him in His Source. This is because the Silence here in question is not a void nor a negation but, on the contrary, Being at its fullest and most fruitful plenitude. That is why it generates; and that is why we keep silent.~ Take down your lantern from its niche and go out! You may not rest in firelight certainties, Secure from drifting fog of doubt and fear. You may not build yourself confining walls And say: 'thus far, and thus, and thus far shall I walk, And these things shall I do, and nothing more.' Go out! For need calls loudly in the winding lanes And you must seek Christ there. Your pilgrim heart Shall urge you still one pace beyond. And love shall be your lantern flame.2 Though the dynamic of expression is different in these two instances, the core of the matter is the same: a heart afire with God's love in Jesus. But there will often be a very significant difference in the details of the daily living out of these two dynamics. And though the difference is never so profound asto destroy a common essence and a genuine bond, yet it is significant enough to prevent an easy identification of these two forms. My concern in this article is to describe and distinguish further these two different charisms or spiritualities, without endangering their basic rootedness in the tradition of Christian spirituality. Often in the past the Christian tra-dition has distinguished between monastic and apostolic spiritualities. I would like to suggest a further refinement of that distinction--a nuance that seems to me to be important and clarifying in these present times of struggle to understand the essence and expression of apostolic spirituality in religious life and throughout the Church. After some comments on the essence of all Christian spirituality as being apostolic, I will describe at some length what I will call two different apostolic lifestyles, charisms or spiritualities: the monastic and the active. Among the ancient world religions Christianity is unique in its strong Two Apostolic Lifestyles / 655 incarnational quality. In the Christian religion, at its center, is the claim that the Son of God became a full human being. Neither a deceptive illusion, nor a passing hallucinatory appearance, Jesus of Nazareth intimately, pre-cisely, awesomely gives flesh in our midst to the God who lives, beyond beginning or end, in unapproachable light and holiness. In Jesus, there can be no doubt that God is turned toward us forever in loving forgiveness and is ineluctably involved with and committed to our world evolving in time. In fact God is the decisive source and gentle sustainer of all being and crea-tion. And so we find in Jesus someone who enters our world confidently and profoundly, someone who lives and loves tenderly, courageously, thoroughly, and yet whose center of identity is never fully of this world. His God, addressed so intimately as Abba, "my dear Father," focuses his heart far beyond all of this world. On Calvary an apparently absurd and horrendous death can be desired, even chosen, precisely because his identity, though fully lived within this world, is not finally rooted here. And this identity is then fully revealed by God in the blessing of resurrection. The God of Christian religion always far transcends in being, beauty and life anything of this world. And so the Christian God is never fully identified with or by anything of the here and now, but, in Jesus, stands forever committed in loving forgiveness to all of us and to our created uni-verse. Fired by the same Spirit of God, all disciples of Jesus must learn to find an identity resonating in God far beyond this world while they live and love with a profound joy and hope that implicates them seriously within this world--but never so as to confine their identity to what they can see, taste and know here and now. And this balanced integration of the seriously incar-national with the transcendently eschatological has never been easy for any disciple of Jesus. There must never be any doubt of Christianity's healthy, creative and serious concern for this world. In the sense of a serious commitment to and involvement with our world, every disciple of Jesus must be intensely apostolic. Not to be apostolic, in this sense, is simply to betray Christian discipleship. For this reason, any facile distinction between apostolic spiritu-alities and monastic spiritualities may confuse, and may even deny the healthy, creative and serious concern--the apostolic concern--with this world that must be part of monastic spirituality. Nevertheless, as the central point of this article will make clear, there are two different ways of living out Christianity's serious, loving concern for this beautiful, anguished world. A central assertion of this article is that the essential apostolic orientation of Christian spirituality can be expressed in either a monastic or an active lifestyle. And these two quite different apostolic lifestyles are the result of God's Spirit at work in the hearts of men and women. This distinction, then, 656 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 is not something simply of human invention. Over centuries, as believers have struggled to be faithful to the Spirit of God inspiring their hearts, apostolic concern for our world expressed itself in a variety of ways. The evidence for our distinction here has resulted from God's love stirring human hearts down the ages. This distinction between the two dynamics of a monastic and an active relationship with the world cuts across the whole Church. It can name the experience of lay men and women as much as it can describe different types of religious congregations. And the Church has not always found it easy to acknowledge and respect these different apostolic charisms among women and men. Today, however, as a result of Vatican II, we are in a better position to recognize and cooperate with the different ways that grace stirs human hearts to express themselves and to be present.to God. To confuse or blur these two distinctive apostolic dynamics runs the danger of not respecting God's call in human hearts and of not cooperating properly in the formation of an appropriate apostolic Christian presence. The monastic and the active styles of Christian apostolate are not meant as hard and fast divisions. Rather, they express tendencies, movements of grace in our hearts. For many people and for many religious congregations, the challenge is to achieve the proper blend of these tendencies. We are speak-ing here, then, of a whole spectrum of development, from the highly monastic with little mixture of the active, right through to the highly active with a similarly small mixture of the monastic. It is like a long clothesline, and every individual and every group in the Church may be imagined as a clothespin that God attaches to some part of the line. As we consider these two different apostolic dynamics and tendencies of grace in the human heart, the issue centers on nothing less than identity-- either the identity of an individual or the corporate identity of a religious congregation. To avoid spiritual schizophrenia and identity confusion, no pins ought to be on the clothesline in the exact center. People who try to focus identity on this central point of the spectrum attempt the impossible balance of a life in apostolic faith of exactly equal monastic and active proportions. Religious congregations that referred in the past to themselves as semi-cloistered have been invited after Vatican II more carefully and decisively to interpret their identity with clear priority for either the monastic or the active style. The semi-cloistered balancing of exactly equal monastic and active dimensions is not possible. And such identity confusion, besides the damage done an individual or a religious congregation, also wreaks havoc in the ministry which, as the product of such identity confusion, must also be con-fused and weakly focused. Before moving now to a description of each of these two apostolic dynamics and lifestyles, two further comments are in order. First, no priority Two Apostolic Lifestyles / 657 of one style over the other is intended. The claim is that the monastic and the active are different and distinctive. There is no claim that they are superior, one to the other, in any way. Second, in describing each dynamic I will center on groups or on individuals who legitimately embody each tendency in a fullness and a clarity--with little qualification and nuance. When seen in such simple clarity and fullness, the dynamic in question can be better appreciated. But it should be understood that for many individuals and reli-gious congregations, the precise challenge is for them to qualify and nuance both dynamics so as to achieve an appropriate and identifying blend of each one.3 The Monastic Apostolic Dynamic I will describe six aspects of the monastic charism. These aspects are not disparate realities that stand on their own; rather they coalesce into a whole sensibility and way of life. As integrated and unified, they make up the monastic experience of God and the monastic vision of reality. These aspects are rooted in a distinctive dynamic at work in human hearts and comprise what, in the Church's long history, is usually called monastic spirituality. 1. Formal prayer is the primary determining influence. In the monastic apostolic lifestyle, the formal prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours and the Eucharist, and any other private contemplation resulting from the liturgy, has a clear and decisive primacy in the development of the Whole way of life. These times of formal prayer are the first items placed in the daily schedule. They literally determine the schedule and the contour of the life. As regularly spread throughout the day, this experience of formal prayer clearly determines, not only the schedule, but the very structure of monastic spiritu-ality. The heart of the monastic person is primarily and thoroughly rapt in the contemplation of God. And simply everything reveals this primacy. 2. Order, routine, regularity and schedule are central. Because of the clear priority of the Liturgy of the Hours and the Eucharist, the monastic life reveals and requires a regularity of order and schedule. Often, only Sundays"and special feasts will vary the fundamental routine of monastic life. An active prejudicefor variety as the spice of life should not lure monastic people away from a profound regularity of life in which the monastic heart is purified and disciplined for docility to the spon-taneity of God's Spirit. The disorder of any inappropriate irregularity is serious enough to trivialize the monastic experience of God. 658 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 3. Being set apart from the world in order to be part of the world. The monastic dynamic always requires an appropriate withdrawal from the world. This being set apart from the world can never become an end in itself, nor an uncaring protection from the world. Should such a lack of concern develop, the monastic life would have lost that apostolic commitment to this world which is essential to all Christian discipleship. But for the monastic heart, it is precisely through being set apart from the world that a care and concern for the world grows and is appropriately expressed. This monastic withdrawal from the world can serve as a reminder for all disciples of Jesus. "If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but the reason that the world hates you is that you do not belong to the world for I chose you out of the world" (Jn 15:19). These words of Jesus profess a type of separation from the world without which serious Christian discipleship can never be possible. The monastic separation from the world-- never meant to be a frightened disinterest, but rather a sharing in God's passionate care for this world--serves as a reminder of Jesus' words for every Christian disciple. This monastic separation from the world is expressed in many different ways. Some monasteries are situated literally out in the middle of nowhere. Others are situated in the midst of an inner city, still crumbling or now being redeveloped. Sometimes the monastic person is set apart from the world in a small, simple apartment-hermitage. Especially in experimentation after Vatican II, monastic women and men have rediscovered that the cloister of the heart contemplatively fascinated in God is the central issue, much more than any grilles and cloistered spaces. And yet, unless there is an appropriate external separation from the world, the monastic heart will be distracted and become trivialized in its simple contemplative focus on God. 4. Stability, solitude and peace figure prominently in the monastic life. From the outset, in discussing the importance of each of these three qual-ities in the monastic life, key distinction must be made between the quality considered as a profound inner reality of heart and as an external expression of that same interior reality. When stability is viewed as a profound, inner quality of heart, it typifies and would be expected of any mature believer-- and not just of the monastic person. Interior stability, as dependability and responsibility before God, always entails the refined sensitivity which dis-tinguishes God's word of true love from the many other seductive words of apparent and fallacious love heard at times within the human heart. This inner stability and refined insight comprise the core of faith maturity and, therefore, would be at the very heart of both monastic and active apostolic lifestyles. Two Apostolic Lifestyles / 659 But there is an appropriate external expression of this inner stability of heart that typifies the monastic lifestyle and not the active. Vowed stability in a monastic congregation, though surely a profound reality of heart in all the members, also unites them in this specific place with a communal bond that facilitates their ongoing search together into God. This kind of external stability, while stimulating profound communal experience of God in the monastic life, obviously interferes with the mobility of the active life. To appreciate the necessary role of solitude in the monastic life, the same distinction must be applied. A regular experience of solitude alone with and in God is another sign of every mature believer, whether called to the monas-tic or the active life. Without such experience of God in solitude, we remain superficial and immature, in our experience of life, ourselves and God. One of the dangers that could weaken the Church's ministry today, especially in the active form, is the situation in which active apostles become too busy for regular prayer in solitude--with the result that their faith becomes immature, superficial and indecisive. But for the monastic heart there must be an appropriate external expression and atmosphere of quiet solitude if one is to maintain a live witness within the Church of an inner solitude with God, a nourishment for which all our hearts year9 and are made. In a similar fashion, peace, as a deep inner quality of heart, is Jesus' gift to every serious disciple. Beyond this mature, inner experience of Jesus' peace, the monastic apostolic lifestyle also provides an external expression and atmosphere of peace, without the disruption and distraction of the active lifestyle. This distinction between inner quaiity of heart and external expression is very helpful in describing both the overlapping and the distinctiveness of these two apostolic lifestyles. I will make use of it later in describing the active style of being apostolic. 5. The apostolate of formal prayer is most typical of monastic spirituafity. The formal prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours and the Eucharist and of individual contemplation is the chief and primary apostolate or ministry of the monastic heart. No other secondary ministry should be practiced except insofar as it relates to and does not interfere with the monastic life of con-templation alone with God. To blur or confuse this ministerial primacy of formal prayer could, once again, trivialize the monastic experience of God. The monastic heart always senses a salvific radiation emanating from its contemplative adventure alone in God. 6. Importance of physical presence in the formation of monastic community. Christian community is usually easier to define than to live. Wherever 660 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 it occurs, it is a union of minds and hearts primarily focused by a shared faith vision. Though many other elements, like similar age, training and interests, may facilitate union of minds and hearts, nothing is more important than a genuinely corporate faith vision regularly experienced and appropri-ately expressed. In the monastic style of Christian community, physical pres-ence, often in silence, plays a very important role in developing and maintaining the unity deriving from a corporate faith vision. A physical togetherness in prayer, reading, eating, sleeping and recreating are further aspects of the monastic dynamic at work in human hearts--and they are not unimportant ones in the living of monastic community. The Active Apostolic Dynamic Contrasted with the monastic, the active apostolic lifestyle is rooted in a different dynamic in the heart, and it also takes a different expression. This difference becomes obvious in the first of the six aspects that I will now describe. 1. Ministry is the primary determining influence. Vatican II, when describing this active dynamic in terms of religious life, speaks of communities in which "the very nature of the religious life requires apostolic action and services.''4 When this active charism is given either to a whole community or to an individual believer, it is ministerial involvement, rather than formal prayer, that determines the contours and the schedule of daily life. This is an important but very subtle point, which requires further eluci-dation, lest it be seriously misunderstood. To give primacy of influence to ministry is not meant to deny the absolute importance of quiet contemplation for the active apostle. Henri Nouwen states clearly the importance of formal prayer for ministry when he says: "If the minister wants to minister 'In the Name' he must live in the Name and speak and act from there.''5 Without mature prayer, mature ministry just is not possible. To deepen their regular contemplative experience is a great challenge today for active apostles, so busy and fatigued with responding to our modern world's needs. Let me be firm and clear in asserting this radical importance of formal prayer for the busy minister. The point to be stressed here, while not denying the importance of regular prayer, concerns the influence that ministry has on the whole makeup of the active life. The legitimate demands of ministry form the schedule of the day. When people enter a new ministry, with the intention of maintaining a past set time for private prayer which now will clearly interfere with availability for the new ministry, this violates the dynamic of the active apostolic charism. Two Apostolic Lifestyles / 661 To have a schedule of formal prayer already in place before entering into the new ministerial situation is backwards for active apostles. Rather, they must first insert themselves into the new ministry and get an honest sense of its reasonable demands. Only then can their conviction about regular contemplation determine the specifics of when, where and how long they should pray each day. That there be regular contemplation is beyond doubt, regardless of ministry. But the determination of the specifics of regular contemplation depends upon the demands of the new ministry. For the active apostle, ministry, then, while not a substitute for regular contemplation, is the primary determining influence in this whole way of life. 2. Flexibility for change is central. Because busy ministry and service of others is essential to active spiritu-ality, a regular routine scheduled around formal prayer is not possible. A flexibility of heart and spirit is called for, in order to respond to the challenges and needs of a world so often in great upheaval and unrest. The earlier distinction between a profound reality of the heart and its external expression is important here again. Flexibility of heart is not some-thing that only active apostles know. A profound inner flexibility of spirit makes possible genuine docility to the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit--and is always a sign of spiritual maturity, both for monastic and for active people. Responsible involvement in complicated and unsettled situations, something not usual in monastic life, calls forth in the active apostle a distinctive external expression and practice of this mature flexibility of heart. The struggle and anguish involved in much of our response to Vatican II reveals how hard it is to change a routine and how prone many of us are to find our security in a rather rigid routine rather than in a faithfully loving God. As indicated above I believe that a routine is not only healthy, but necessary for living out the monastic charism. But, while a certain routine is necessary for all human life, the active apostle must always resist the escape into an overly monastic routine and must learn to trust the gift of flexibility that is always part of the active apostolic dynamic in the Church. 3. Ability discerningly to find, be with and serve God in all activity. Someone in a busy, active life can become very scattered and distracted. One's attention almost constantly flits from one thing to another. One's energy and concern are poured out in one situation after another. Drained and running, one loses a sense of focus, of unity and maybe even of funda-mental meaning. As life gets more and more hectic and chaotic, burnout of body and spirit sets in. Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 Moments of special religious experience in formal prayer cannot, all by themselves, stem the tide of this heightening discouragement and tension. More than regular formal prayer is needed. Despite a great desire for unity and integration, human consciousness is capable, often without being aware of it, of various compartmentalizations. One of these is the split between formal prayer and the activity of life. In such a split, the surge of religious experience in private prayer ebbs in the face of all the busy activity of the rest of the day. The frantic, frenetic business of the day often calls forth and reveals in the apostle little sense of God. Private prayer is stubbornly main-tained in an attempt to keep religious experience alive. But such an ebb and flow of religious experience actually saps the apostle's energy and finally fails in accomplishing the desired integration in which all the activity of a day contributes to, rather than interferes with, a person's unifying religious experience. The proper balance of regular prayer and discerning involvement in the business of everyday can simplify and purify the focus and commitment of a heart so that the compartmentalized split of human experience into sacred and secular is gradually healed in a unity whereby all human experience bbc0mes religious--and finds God. In my own opinion, this is the greatest challenge still facing active apostolic spirituality. Often, past religious for-mation produced a compartmentalized relationship between prayer and activ-ity. Religious formation, in many ways, is still struggling to help active apostles find the proper interior integration that facilitates, and actually makes possible, the religious experience of finding, being with and serving God in all activity. Active apostles need a reflective sensitivity, in order to recognize the subtle but real difference between a selfish manipulation of others that finds self and a generously humble service of others that finds God. Only a genuine experience of the intimacy of God's love as beyond all other love and inviting a radical abandonment of self in love to God, together with a rigorously careful discernment of inner affective experiences, can make possible a human, loving presence that finds God in all activity and dealings with others. Vatican 11 makes a similar claim when it says that, for com-munities in religious life whose very nature requires apostolic action and services, "their entire apostolic activity should be animated by a religious spirit.''~ 4. Mobility and apostolic availability are key in active spirituality. Because mission and active ministry are so central to the active apostolic dynamic, mobility of body and spirit are important. Any rigidity in a person can interfere with the fruitfulness of this charism. In an active religious corn- Two Apostolic Lifestyles / 663 munity, the members come together precisely in order to be sent out on specific ministries, each of which shares in God's mission of salvation in Jesus. Any stubborn selfishness or immature insecurity will always corrode that mobility for mission which should characterize active spirituality. Apostolic availability is a readiness of spirit born of a freedom radically fascinated with a loving God's faithful commitment to us. Because of the inevitable limitation of human weakness and sinfulness, this freedom never perdures perfectly in a human heart. It must be won and received again and again. But the more this precious freedom grows in a human heart or in a whole congregation the more an availability of spirit allows the person or congregation to be thoroughly committed to a present ministry, but always with a readiness for wherever God's love may lead in the future. 5. The prayer of the apostolate is most typical of active spirituafity. The phrase that typifies monastic spirituality is reversed here. Granting, once again, the absolute value of regular contemplation in any serious spiritual life, the typical and more important prayer of the active apostle is a distinctively prayerful presence in and through all activity. This is related to. the third element above, i.e. the need to find, be with and serve God in all activity. The prayer of the apostolate should not be misunderstood as that claim and practice that many of us struggled with through the 1960s and 1970s: "my work is my prayer." Most of us now know the heresy.of such a claim, even though active apostles who would not want to profess an identification of work and prayer can still easily be pressured into living such a heresy. We have learned again over recent years that for no one does work become prayer, unless that person regularly stops working--and prays. So the prayer of the apostolate does not mean any simpliste identification of work and prayer. Rather the prayer of the apostolate involves two mutual and integral movements. The first is an appropriate, regular involvement in contempla-tion, which gradually spills over and renders pi'ayerful everything the person does, says and is. The second is an involvement in activity which stirs a desire for, and sometimes provides the subject matter of, formal contemplation in private. As one grows faithful and sensitive to these two movements, a pres-ence in all activity develops which is prayerful--a presence which is the Spirit of God praying and which reveals those clear signs of the Spirit mentioned in chapter five of Galatians. ¯ 6. A unity of mind and heart extending far beyond physical presence. Whereas the corporate faith vision of those sharing the monastic charism 664 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 requires much physical presence with one another, the active apostolic dynamic, because its very nature requires apostolic action and services, does not depend as much on the physical presence of the members to each other. It can foster a union of minds and hearts among members missioned all over the world in various ministries. Obviously, this corporate bond is not auto-matic. It is not the effect of any one person's fiat. It cannot be something superficially external. Rather, a unity rooted deeply in the hearts of all mem-bers will always require a profound attitude of heart on the part of each member, a distinctive type of missioning process and the careful practice of certain human, symbolic means. To say that the active charism depends less on the physical presence of the members than the monastic does certainly does not mean that physical presence can be simply disregarded in active communities. It is inhuman to imagine that members of a local live-in community, whatever the size, can develop a union of minds and hearts if they never gather together in quality physical presence. However, without disregarding the need for some such physical presence, we must not conceive the communitarian dimension Of the active charism according to monastic norms. Many active congregations today continue to struggle in local communities with how much physical presence of all members and what quality of presence of each is needed if there is to be a genuine, faith union of minds and hearts. If this struggle is not better resolved soon, increasing numbers of active religious, caught in the tension between involvement in an exciting ministry and the boring frustration of no shared vision in the local community, may well find celibacy too heavy a burden to bear alone. The De-monasticizing of Active Religious Life As religious have seriously responded to Vatican II's invitation to return to "the original inspiration" behind their own institute, a greater realization of the clear distinction between the differing and graced dynamics of the monastic and active has grown among us. In the wake of this growing clarity there also comes the realization that in the past we have not always respected this distinction with enough care. A major part of the renewal of religious life, therefore, has involved the de-monasticizing of institutes which were, in their founding, and which should, with greater fidelity over the years have continued to be, actively apostolic rather than monastic. This de-monasticizing process has not been easy. Mistakes have occurred. At times, inevitably, overreaction has set in. And many individuals have experienced great personal anguish in the midst of the confusion and turmoil of critiquing and of chang-ing, through experiment, revered and long-standing practices. But this process, although most painful, was unavoidable. To avoid it Two Apostolic Lifestyles / 665 would have been as serious a refusal as to violate the reverent d~cility due the Spirit of God who invites us to be faithful to the genuine, graced identity of our religious institute. In the past twenty years much headway has been made in realigning the fundamental conception, formation programs, ministerial practices and daily living of communities according to their rediscovered, original identity. Though the process is surely not finished, we are presently involved, appropriately enough, in a period of careful assessment of the fruits of this renewal process.7 A successful evaluation can help us to sift the precious wheat of fidelity to the essentials of religious life, as incarnated in appropriate contemporary expressions of the original founding charism, from the deceptive (though often attractive!) weeds of contemporary develop-ments that either destroy a necessary continuity of identity or shortsightedly try to defend older forms, which are now, and ought to be, simply dead. Vatican II reminds us of the importance of fidelity to the unique charism and identity of each religious community. "It serves the best interests of the Church for communities to have their own special character and purpose."s In line with this directive Thomas Merton cautions us against confusing the monastic and active dynamic: "The monastic life must not be evaluated in terms of active religious life, and the monastic orders should not be equated with other religious institutes, clerical or otherwise. The monastic community does not exist for the sake of any apostolic or educational work, even as a secondary end. The works of the monk are not justified by their external results but only by their relevance to his monastic life alone with God.''9 In conclusion, let me point to three results of respecting the clear dis-tinction between the active and monastic dynamic. First, we must be careful how we make use of the Liturgy of the Hours. In the monastic community the Liturgy of the Hours is a primary determinant and focus of the whole day, at which the physical presence of all is expected. In the active commu-nity, a regular communal prayer besides th.e Eucharist seems necessary. Some use of the Liturgy of the Hours may serve as an appropriate regular com-munity prayer. On the other hand, some other type of communal prayer may better serve a particular community. If something o.f the Liturgy of the Hours is used, it should not become a primary determinant and focus of schedule, to the detriment of the members' ministerial involvement. So, depending on the size and variety of the local community, the physical presence of all members is neither expected nor possible. However, the active community would be deficient in its unified faith vision if each member did not share the same desire to pray together regularly--which desire would always take expression in physical presence, except for ministerial reasons. But for an active community to use the Liturgy of the Hours in a monastic fashion would be to violate its God-given charism. 666 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 Second, members of active communities cannot avoid a natural monas-ticizing tendency as they get older. As the biological breakdown of old age sets in, religious become less and less active, they settle into a much more regularized pattern, and the apostolate of prayer becomes more predominant in their daily lives. If we are careful of certain presuppositions, this natural monasticizing tendency will not necessarily violate the active apostolic nature of a community. But the older members, whose lifestyle is now understand-ably more monastic, must not claim that this monastic lifestyle is the genuine identity of the whole congregation. Another subtle change of attitude could be entailed here. If a section of the motherhouse is located where many of the older, retired sisters are living, then naturally the style and schedule of life for that part of the house will be more monastic--as it should be. However, we must then be careful .that this more monastic schedule and style not be idolized as typical for all other houses of the congregation, an image that motherhouses often in the past have projected. Such a misunderstanding would be a serious interference with the unity and ministerial effectiveness of the whole congregation. In fact, it can be downright demoralizing and dis-torting for younger members. Furthermore, though these older members are much more inactive than earlier in their lives, they must be helped to keep the active zeal and concerns of their hearts alive and peacefully integrated with their bodily inactivity. These older members must also have a live sense of the ministry of old age and retirement. They must be helped to realize how valuable and necessary for the whole congregation's ministerial effectiveness is their own ministry of prayer and sacrifice. So often older religious think they have retired from ministry. I cannot stress enough the need for the elderly, and for everyone, to realize that while the aged and the sick must humbly retire from active involvement they never retire from ministry. The final and most important ministry is dying. If these concerns are not forgotten, then the natural monasticizing tendency of old age 'will not interfere with the active, apostolic nature of a religious community. Third, in the long history of women's religious congregations, for various historical reasons which are beyond my simple point here, the Church has had great difficulty in recognizing the active charism at work in the hearts of various foundresses. Angela Merici, Mary Ward, Marguerite Bourgeoys and Louise de Marillac and their followers are but a very few examples of the suffering this confusion has caused. In some ways the Church still continues to struggle today with this issue of more fully acknowledging and facilitating the active charism within communities of women religious. It is very clear that the Church's welcoming approval of valid contemporary forms of active spirituality among women religious--and without imposing any additional, Two Apostolic Lifestyles / 667 illegitimate, monastic expectations-- will enormously enrich God's mission of justice and love in our world. This article has described two different charisms, two different apostolic lifestyles, the active and the monastic. The Spirit of God has created and kept these two charisms alive in the Church. In a recent talk to the American bishops Michael Buckley, S.J., summarized the treatment of charism in the document "Directives for Mutual Relations Between Bishops and Religious in the Church": "Charism always involves three factors: It is an enabling gift of the Spirit which so conforms the recipients to Christ that they build the Church.''~° Three things, then: a gift of the Spirit, intimacy with Jesus, for the sake of the Church. As we come to appreciate further the active and monastic lifestyles in the Church, it is the hope of this writer that we will not confuse or corrupt these different charisms, but cooperate with what God intends, through them, for the unity of the Church, the holiness of its members and the service of a faith-filled justice in our world. Paul's words to the Corinthians both confirm and stimulate our hope: There is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of service to be done, but always to the same Lord; working in all sorts of differ-ent ways in different people, it is the same God who is working in all of them. The particular way in which the Spirit is given to each person is for a good purpose (1 Co 12:4-7). NOTES ~They Speak By Silence, a Carthusian (Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Inc.), p.3. 2One Pace Beyond--The Life of Nano Nagle, M. Raphael Consedine, P.B.V.M., (Moorabbin, Victoria: L.R. McKinnon & Co., 1977), p. 7. 3As a result of their study of the document "Essential Elements in the Church's Teach-ing on Religious Life as Applied to Institutes Dedicated to Works of the Apostolate," Franciscans are investigating and proposing the evangelical life as the best description of their charism. It remains to be seen whether this evangelical life is a third type of spirituality different from what I am calling the monastic and the active, whether it is its own unique blend of the active and monastic, or whether it is a particular version of an active spirituality. 668 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 4Vatican 11, "Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life," #8. 5Soul Friend, Kenneth Leech, (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1977), p. viii. 6Vatican II, "Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of Religious Life," #8. 7See my two articles "Assessing and Choosing Even as the Journey Continues," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, March/April 1984, and "Come Let Us Talk This Over: Issues in Spirituality, 1985," Part 1, 'REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, July/August 1985, and Part II, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, September/October 1985. 8Vatican II, "Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life," #2. 9The Monastic Journey, T. Merton, (New York: Image, 1978), p. 213. ~°See "The Charism and Identity of Religious Life," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, September/ October 1985, p. 661. From Tablet to Heart: Internalizing New Constitutions I and II Address: by Patricia Spillane, M.S. C. Price: $1.25 per copy, plus postage. Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Canonical Considerations of Autonomy and Hierarchical Structure Elizabeth McDonough, O.P. Sister McDonough is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Canon Law at The Catholic University of America (Washington, DC 20064). This article is based on a presen-tation she made to the LCWR convention in New Orleans last September. In the Middle Ages--from the grips of which many people suspect canon law has never been freed--canonical discipline was known as "practical theo-logy." That is, it was not a separate science as it is today, with specialized formulators, practitioners, codifiers and interpreters. What people did on a regular basis became operative norms of action. By authoritative interven-tion or by custom these operative norms of action eventually became recog-nized as laws in the technical sense of the Aristotelian/Thomistic construct, that is: An ordinance of reason formulated and promulgated by one charged with care of the common good. At that point in time the reasonableness of the norm, the intelligence of the individual, and each person's freedom of choice were paramount. Also in the Middle Ages--from the grips of which many people like-wise suspect religious life has never been freed--the ancient monastic and recently discovered mendicant ideas of religious life held sway. By that time the former was already highly clericalized, feudally land-based, rather well-off, and subject to frequent reforms. The latter was a new notion capitalizing on mobility, the development of towns, the discovery of trade, the rise of universities, and renewed lay piety. It, too, soon became rather clericalized; comfortably land-based, economically well-off, and in need of frequent reforms. 669 670 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 Nearly three centuries later at the time of Trentmfrom the grips of which most people are quite certain canon law and religious life have not been freed--canonical science was heavily influenced by nominalism, voluntarism, legalism and emerging casuistry. At that point in time the reasonableness of the norm, the intelligence of the individual, and one's freedom of choice were no longer paramount. The then recognized forms of religious life were suffering badly from the mediocrity and compromise and half measures that commonly accompany the waning of initial fervor, the dissipation of energies, the loss of resources, the monotony of the ordinary, the discovery of personal interpretation, and the sometimes misplaced convenience of dis-pensation, exception and privilege. Similarly, all of society was in flux: notions of political power, emerging nations, methods of warfare, forms of communication, frontiers of exploration, monetary systems, philosophical reasoning, theological conclusions, and ecclesiastical structures all experienced incredible upheavals and alterations. And in the midst of this social and ecclesial melange, the desperately needed "new idea" of apostolic religious life was conceived by Angela Merici, Ignatius Loyola, Mary Ward, Louise de Marillac and Jane de Chantal. These charismatic individuals were fol-lowed in a few centuries by Catherine McAuley and many others. Perhaps it was a failure of imagination on the part of the ecclesiastical establishment that perpetuated the ancient, cloistered, monastic model in theological reasoning and canonical practice for women religious. But reli-gious life itself simply continued to develop. Eighty percent of the religious groups ever founded became established between Trent and the twentieth century, and non-cloistered, non-solemnly vowed, apostolic religious life for women was finally universally recognized, but not until 1900. Canon law-- retaining some remnant of its medieval ',practical theology" identity--could not ignore the reality of the "new idea" in religious life forever, although recognition came rather slowly by our standards. Relating to the Present But what precisely is the connection of all this with the topic at hand, namely "Canonical Considerations of Self-Determination, Just Autonomy and Hierarchical Structure"? The connection is this: At the moment recog-nized forms of religious life are suffering badly from the mediocrity and compromise and half measures that commonly accompany the waning of initial fervor, the dissipation of energies, the loss of resources, the monotony of the ordinary, the discovery of personal interpretation, and the sometimes misplaced convenience of dispensation, exception and privilege. Similarly, at the present time all of society is in flux: notions of political power, emerg-ing nations, methods of warfare, forms of communication, frontiers of explo- Canonical Considerations / (171 ration, monetary systems, philosophical reasoning, theological conclusions, and ecclesiastical structures are all experiencing incredible upheavals and alterations. We are clearly in a post-conciliar era incredibly comparable to the late Middle Ages and to post-Tridentine times. In the midst of this social and ecclesial melange, religious life is again in need--perhaps desperately in need--of yet another "new idea." But those of us who are currently members of established communities, more than likely, are not the bearers of this desperately "new idea." At best we are perhaps--or certainly have the opportunity to be--artisans of a transition. And with proper understand-ing and use, this writer contends that canon law can be a great aid in this transition. Fostering a Transition To illustrate the transitional role of contemporary religious institutes, let us for a moment take the medieval methodological approach of canon law as "practical theology" and look at what current "theology in practice" in the 1983 code suggests about this life we call "religious." To begin, the new law talks about life: an identifiable form of life, a substantive form of life, a stable form of life. It speaks of a life clearly understood and freely chosen: a life of following Christ, a life of total dedication to God. It con-siders this life a particular state in the Church undertaken by profession of the evangelical counsels and lived in accord with the supreme law of the Gospel as expressed in the proper law of one's institute. It is a life involving some fixed organizational structures, certain obligations and rights, various spiritual exercises, some restrictions on personal and apostolic activities, numerous clear procedures for admission and departure, and a public con-nection to the local and universal Church. From the point of view of "practical theology" the new code requires proper law specification in seventy-four out of the one hundred fifty-three canons that apply to religious institutes. In other words, in nearly half of the canons concerning religious, the institute itself must or may determine specific elements of the life of its members, both individually and collectively. Thus, widespread distinctions in practice are not excluded by the universal law requirements for common life, identifiable superiors, necessary forma-tion, apostolic limitations, departure procedures, and the like. The prin-ciple of subsidiarity is canonically incorporated in the new code, and opportunities for practical variations are amply provided. How well or to what extent these are utilized depends entirely on one's proper law. Proper-law revision, or the writing of constitutions, as experienced during the last two decades in the life of religious institutes has been no easy task, however. In some instances the process was carried out in an ambience of 672 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 internal polarization that fomented contentions among members as each retreated to his or her corner courageously defending the truth for the sake of God. In other instances the formulation of an institute's truly representa-tive legislation was complicated by a certain lack of contemporaneity in institutional and hierarchical Church structures themselves. Nevertheless, these difficulties do not negate the fact that it is precisely the revision of proper-law wherein lies the opportunity for institutes to incorporate new ideas and new experiences of religious life. Good proper-law revision allows them to accomplish this without having to shoulder the burden of being the initiators or receivers of the desperately needed "new idea" mentioned above. Moreover, incorporating new ideas and experiences in proper-law to the greatest extent possible now, can help pave the way for later canonical acceptance of other, newer ideas and experiences, however long that may take. Institutionalizing Charisms Backtracking momentarily before going on, let us note that the phrase "new idea" is entirely inadequate. Ideas have consequences, but they are not the only realities that have consequences. And religious life is never primarily or merely an idea, an intellectual endeavor. It is a gift of the Spirit to, in, and through the Church. Charisms are like seeds planted in particularly fertile soil in a specific historical context. They are shaped and reshaped by the exigencies of history, by the fortunes and misfortunes of the passage of time. They are nourished and grow and evolve in the context of everyday life with everyday people--interspersed here and there by those we happily refer to as "saints" (while being equally happy we never had to live with them). Charisms are never captured in constitutions or any collection of fundamental and secondary documents. Charisms live in people or they do not live at all. Legal norms, on the other hand, are externally formulated and externally measurable. They can never totally express internal motivation. Thus, the basic import of any constitutions and any collection of fundamental and secondary documents is not merely their juridical perspective and canoni-cal determination. The legal heritage of an institute, capturing as best it can the articulated charism, is always conditioned by the emerging values of real life as experienced by those inspired to embrace the charism. People are, you see, an undeniably important element of the canonical system. On another level, the institutional Church, which in some form or another has been with us for nearly two millennia, must itself occasionally reach out and embrace a genuinely new charism. In such instances the ecclesial structure must fracture its preset boundaries, redefine its established cate-gories, and reorient its institutional life in order to incorporate, that is, take Canonical Considerations / 673 into its structures, a new breath of the Spirit. This reaching out and embracing a charism has probably happened only three times in Church history: for Benedictine monasticism, medieval mendicancy, and post-reformation apostolic orders. In each instance, institutional embracing of the new charism occurred quite slowly, required numerous adjustments and experienced set-backs over the years. The time may very well be ripe for another institutional embracing of truly new charisms of consecrated life in the Church. If so, this too will occur slowly, require adjustments, and experience setbacks. And, if history can offer us any objective insights regarding the process and its effects, one might be cautioned to note that once the institutional Church reaches out and embraces a genuinely new charism, the rest of the story is that of the charism's institutionalization. It is simply a matter of time and human nature: initial ideals are eventually dimmed or forgotten; initial fervor is slowly chilled or lost; initial Gospel goals are gradually subordinated to preservation of the new institution. Suffice it to say that the readers of this article are, more likely than not, part of already established, already institutionalized charisms and, as such, are not the first wave of any new movement in religious life. Limiting Self-Determination and Autonomy The parameters of ecclesial embrace and the exigencies of historical evolu-tion are the primary limiting factors in the "self-determination"aspect of any religious founder or foundress, of any religious institute. Self-determina-tion is never absolute. It has always been far from so for religious life, and still is. But this is also the case, for example, regarding members of the Christian faithful in general. In the new code all Christians are entitled to form associations (c. 215). All Christians should lead holy lives and promote the building up of the Church (c. 210). All Christians have the right and duty to work towards announcing the Gospel of :salvation (c. 211) and to undertake apostolic activi-ties (c. 216). But no Christians are obliged in any way to seek official recog-nition for these :activities in 'any canonical form unless they choose to do them in the name of the Church '(c.301,). And no Christian is obliged in any way to choose any form of consecrated life (c. 573 §2). Yet the self-determination of any Christian (which is never absolute to begin with) is quite circumscribed and channeled--limited, if you will--by either of the above choices once made. As individuals we cannot be both teachers and nurses at the same time. As communities we cannot be both monastic and apostolic at the same time. As institutes we cannot be both Ursuline and Franciscan at the same time. Thus, in an era that prefers to deal with "both/and," we are sometimes faced with an inevitable "either/or" because 674 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 no self-determination is absolute. Similarly the "just autonomy" of any institute is always and only to be considered within the context of ecclesial embrace and historical evolu-tion. Philosophically speaking, autonomy refers to freedom from external control and censure. It guarantees room for action and reflection without disruption, but it includes necessary coordination in reference to the whole. Nevertheless, any auto nomos, from the Greek to be self-normed, is funda-mentally limited by creation and redemption: by our realistic situation of being creatures in an ambience of and affected by evil. As individuals we have from the start only limited independence that remains always relative: so, too, with religious institutes in the Church. Appreciating the Role of Obligation Here it may be important to digress somewhat to consider the bias that supports the current canonical system. It is a philosophical/theological con-struct characterized by valuing status, common good and obligation. This is so in contrast to more recent philosophical/theological constructs character-ized by valuing human dignity, individual advantage and personal rights. Neither need be mutually exclusive of, or in direct contradiction to, the other. But both have often appeared so. Even with the advances of the last few centuries and the affirmations of recent popes and the articulations of Vatican Council II, the former con-struct is the one that clearly underlies the new law. In the new code, the communal context of "status" constantly qualifies any affirmations of equality in dignity. In it, the common good--perceived as a set of conditions enabling the attainment of reasonable objectives for the sake of which individuals have decided to collaborate--is clearly prior to independent, indi-vidual advantage. In it, rights are subordinate to and conditioned upon duties intrinsic to the Gospel and to our social nature. In it, the protection of rights is for the sake of fuller participation in one's evangelical and social obliga-tions. And in it, patriarchal paradigms and male-dominated linear images still predominate. But what of the alternative constructs? What of, for example, the philosophical and theological mind-set that emerges from the social contract and human rights theories of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau? These are to a great extent the basis of our constitutional republic and the foundation of American civil law and jurisprudence. Prescinding from their equally patriarchal paradigms and male-dominated linear images, note that social-contract and human-rights theories appear to posit the pristine existence of free, independent but highly vulnerable individuals willing to ransom a portion of personal autonomy for collective security. Rights are the "playing Canonical Considerations / 675 cards" or the "poker chips" of the barter: some cannot be relinquished (these are termed "inalienable"); others can be relinquished but can also be recalled (in breach of contract). It may appear, at times, that the institu-tional Church would be much better off with a healthy dose of American civil liberties incorporated into its legal system: with a civil rights basis; with non-hierarchical checks and balances; with protection by administrative pro-cedures; with guarantees of prior notification, due process, provision for counsel, and the like. And, for the most part, this is probably not only an accurate observation but also a viable possibility and partial reality. Witness, for instance, the numerous appeals boards and administrative tribunals that already exist in many religious institutes and dioceses to complement the heavily hierarchical Church system. Indeed, it is clear that these two systems are not, and need not be considered, contradictory or mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, there is a significant difference between the Medieval and Enlightenment mind-sets, and the difference is crucial for ecclesiastical law and especially for religious institutes. Social-contract and human-rights con-structs, while very affirming of life and dignity in theory, are singularly inept at guaranteeing life and dignity to the individual from the community in practice. This is because one finds in them no legal locus of obligation. They are based, if you will, on the implicit myth that somewhere there exists a Utopian world of perfectly free humans who have no alienated or usurped rights and who experience no unresolved conflicts, individually or collectively. Reality is not quite so Utopian. So, for example, in the American social-contract/ human-rights systems, suppose you are .walking over a bridge beneath which there is someone in the water drowning. Note that, even though the drowning person has affirmed rights to life, education, suitable housing, equal-opportunity employment, a just wage, and more, there is absolutely no civil-law focus of obligation for anyone to come to his or her aid. This is not to say there is no moral obligati?n to come tothe person's aid, but there is no legal one. In fact, the legal system--because of numerous possibilities for litigation--at times seems even to militate against fulfillment of one's moral obligations in such situations. And note that we are not discussing here the medical/moral/legal subtleties of prenatal life or of the terminally ill. We simply have a recognizably fully alive human being with numerous affirmed rights who ends up quite dead because of lack of legal obligation in the system itself. In sharp contrast, the Aristotelian/Thomistic system of law, and even further back the Judaic/Talmudic system of law, are based primarily on obligations: common, mutual, reciprocal obligations that arise from a cor-porate experience. The Hebrew, the Christian, the religious is chosen-- passive voice--be it at Sinai, through the Last Supper, or by a call to conse- 676 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 crated life. We are chosen. This is not to suggest that we, therefore, have no responsibilities; but rather, to highlight the fact that the initiative is God's. Only the response is ours. Thus it is the beginning of our system's notion of legal obligation that becomes the crucial difference in the end.~ We do not begin by bartering away any pristine "rights." We receive a gift, with consequences. The legal constructs of our lives relate to divine events in and through which everything necessary for the eternal salvation of everyone for all ages has somehow already been given, in some sense even commanded. They are the same divine events in and through which we have freely assumed personal perpetual obligations. And they provide for an amazing absence of Utopian myths. For there is in salvation history ample evidence of human failure, outright betrayal, personal and collective infidelity, repeated digressions, and an uncanny unwillingness to live up to our part of the bargain. In contrast, on the part of God, there is ample evidence of long-suffering patience, relentless forgiveness and unswerving fidelity to the promise of mercy. Moreover, if we do not read the Gospel too selectively, even after having done everything expected, you and I have no basic right or even a distant claim to any reward whatsoever, although we are assured in the end of attaining the greatest possible goal. Situating Obligation in Hierarchical Structures The importance of proper law--the law that obtains for one's own insti-tute- has already been mentioned in regard to fostering the current transition in the paradigms of religious life. Proper law is also crucial to any element of self-determination and just autonomy within the Church's hierarchical structure. And the central element of ecclesiastical proper law, as well as ecclesiastical universal law, is the locus of incumbent obligation. This is what gives our laws content and objectivity for assuring the protection of values and the exercise of rights, even if these values and rights are not directly named as such. In fact, whether or not the values and rights are actually named in the law is of minimal importance. Perhaps at this point an example is in order. There is an ancient principle of Roman Law which states: Where there is a right, there is a remedy (Ubi ius, ibi remedium). It is in the logical contrapositive that we more readily recognize the truth of the principle, namely: If there is no remedy to be found for violation of an affirmed right, there is really no right at all. With this in mind, let us proceed to the example. It is an example not taken from ttie~ law for religious so that the content will not distract from the point intend~dl. Chnon 22'1! §'2',of~ the 1983 code states: If the Christian faithful are sum- Canonical Considerations / 677 moned to judgment by c6mpetent authority, they have the right to be judged in accord with the prescriptions of law applied with equity. It sounds wonder-ful. But what is there to guarantee that this will, indeed, be the case? The answer: incumbent obligations and opportunities to insist on their fulfill-ment as provided in the canons on judicial procedures. °The affirmed right of c. 221 §2 can be vindicated because all tribunal personnel must take an oath that they will fulfill their functions properly and faithfully (c. 1454). All tribunal personnel must disqualify themselves from involvement in cases concerning: (1) persons with whom they have a first-cousin or closer relationship, (2) persons for whom they are guardians or trustees~ (3) persons with whom they have a close friendship or for whom they feel a great animosity, as well as (4) those instances in which they desire to make a profit or avoid some loss (c. 1448). And if the tribunal personnel do not disqualify themselves, the parties in the case can lodge an objection (c. 1229) to which the court must attend before the trial can continue (c. 1451). All tribunal personnel are forbidden to accept any gifts whatsoever for the performance of their duties (c. 1456). And any tribunal personnel are subject to penalties, including loss of office, if they refuse to deal with a case for which they are competent, or attempt to deal with a case for which they are not competent, or violate the law of secrecy, or inflict damage on the parties out of malice or serious negligence (c. 1457). In other words, these procedural canons--specifying as they do the legal locus of obligations and providing the opportunity to insist that the obliga-tions be fulfilled--are really what give canonical force to c. 221 §2. But the point is this: These canons, albeit with different numbers, were also in the former code. The affirmation of current c. 221 §2 was not. How much this newly affirmed "right" would mean without these related obligations is questionable, for indeed: If there is no remedy, there is really no right. And how much this newly incorporated right actually adds to the related, already long-standing procedures still remains to be seen. All the foregoing in norway intends to ignore the fact that. even in the best of legal systems incumbent obligations can upon occasion be observed primarily in the breach. The intention is, rather, to provide a clear under-standing of the importance of obligations in the Church's legal system in order to investigate more meaningfully the numerous obligations contained in the canons concerning religious institutes. Religious Institutes and Obligations To begin our discussion, as well as to illustrate the complexity of the: interrelationships among canons, let us consider thosecanons contaii~ed under the title "Obligations and Rights of Institutes and of their Members,." cc. 678 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 662-672. As often as one might comb the (official Latin) text of the canons, there is not one strict right (ius) to be found. But at this point in the presenta-tion, such a discovery should be no great surprise: It is the locus of incumbent obligation, not the affirmation of rights, that is the substantive base for our legal system. Moreover, listed in these canons there are numerous obliga-tions from which it is clear that what other legal systems call "rights" will be respected even though not mentioned by name. To pursue the practical content of obligations/rights in the code as related to self-determination, just autonomy and hierarchical structure, we will isolate one of the canons in this section and investigate its canonical consequences. Perhaps the most important obligation listed in this set of canons is that of c~ 670: Each institute must (debet) supply for its members all those things necessary for attaining the end of their vocation. The debet is canonically preceptive language. The subject, object, and matter of the obligation are, respectively, the institute, its members, and necessities. Proper law should certainly address itself to the objective meaning of "necessities," and the meaning should have some reference to what is justly judged so in an equit-able manner by competent authority within the norms, structures, and resources of a particular institute. There is some problem, to be sure, with relating mandated necessities to the end of one's vocation when that end ultimately transcends temporal realities and, thus, is effectively precluded from the possibility of practical evaluation. But consequences of the mandate in c. 670 are extensive and have already been addressed by canonists.2 At the very least, this obligation on the part of institutes is interpreted as requiring those in positions, of government to provide for, and as giving members a corresponding right to: (1) sound, complete, approved proper law, (2) structural provision for general chapters, superiors and councils, (3) systematic formation, (4) stable community life, (5) suitable options for apostolic action or internal work in accord with the institute's mission, and (6) appropriate material goods and .opportunities for ongoing health care, formation, work and renewal. Note that none of the mutual obligations/rights in this list are meaningful except as connected to a coherent legal system that can guarantee their fulfill-ment. And recall that in Church law the locus of incumbent obligation is what provides objective content and procedural safeguards for affirmed or unaffirmed rights. It is the locus of incumbent obligation that is the basis for whatever down-ward or lateral accountability might exist in our hierarchical system, which Canonical Considerations / 679 operates primarily on the intrinsic principle of upward accountability. That is, in fulfilling well the obligations it has towards its members (i.e., its down-ward accountability), any institute is also more than likely fulfilling its obliga-tions towards the other elements of the hierarchical structure (i.e., its lateral and upward accountability). Simply put, an institute cares for downward accountability by attending to the legal obligations it has towards its members. It does this by providing for at least the six categories mentioned as flowing from the requirement of c. 670. But in so doing the institute is not only protecting the rights of individual members. It is also establishing itself on a sound operational basis for relating to equivalent juridic persons, such as other religious institutes, in lateral accountability. And it is likewise con-tributing to its own just autonomy in the upward accountability of the insti-tute to higher authorities in the hierarchical structure. Thus, all of the mutual obligations/rights that derive from c. 670 are directly or indirectly related to the question of an institute's existence and just autonomy. But the motive for action and the locus of accountability in c. 670-- fulfilling obligations toward members--shift the focus for the institute from that of accepting the collective imposition of alien restrictions to that of guaranteeing the possible pursuance of someone's response to having been chosen. It is possible to approach this accountability from an entirely different perspective, namely: from the recog-nition of just autonomy for religious institutes in c. 586. Indeed, the result of beginning with c. 586 might even be somewhat similar, as will be seen in the next section. Yet the basis for action in the former approach is probably more canonically sound. Religious Institutes and Just Autonomy Canon 586 states that it belongs to local ordinaries to preserve and protect (servare ac tueri) the autonomy of each institute. In the same canon "just autonomy of life, especially of government" is recognized by universal law. The canon goes on to describe this "just autonomy" as that by which insti-tutes enjoy (gaudeant) their own discipline and have the power to pre~serve (servare valeant) their patrimony3 intact. The patrimony of an institute of consecrated life is described in c. 578 as the intention and purpose of the founders/foundresses, sanctioned by competent ecclesiastical authority, con-cerning the nature, end, spirit and character of the institute as well as its sound traditions. The canon adds that this patrimony is to be faithfully preserved (servanda est) by all. Elsewhere, in c. 631 § 1, the general chapter is given special responsibility both to protect (tueri) the institute's patrimony as described in c. 587 and to promote its appropriate renewal (accommodatam renovationem). Still elsewhere in c. 587 §1, institutes must (debent) incor-porate into their constitutions .whatever is established regarding their 680 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 patrimony in order to faithfully protect (ad. fide#us tuendam) the voca-tion and identity of their instutute. Another set of canons is also pertinent to the investigation at hand: cc. 675 §1, 611 #2, 677 §1, and 671. The first states that in apostolic institutes apostolic action is part of their very nature (ipsam eorundem naturam). The second states that a bishop's consent for canonical erection of a religious house includes the right (ius) to exercise the works proper to the institute according to the norm of law and within any restrictions contained in the consent. The third states that superiors and members of institutes should faithfully retain (fide#ter retineanO and prudently accommodate (prudenter accommodenO the mission and works of their institute. And the fourth states that members may not undertake pgsitions outside of those proper to the institute,without the permission of legitimate superiors. Both the language and the interplay of all these canons are significant. The patrimony of any institute, or, if you will, the meaningful heritage or expres-sion of its charism, is somehow to be contained in its proper law. Note that this is the same sound, complete, approved proper law to which membe~-s have a right by reason of the obligation in c. 670. And this patrimony is to be preserved by all--an unqualified and inclusive all--according to c. 578. Con-stitutions (c. 587), general chapters (c. 631), and local ordinaries (c. 586) are each required (using some form of the same Latin verb, tueor) to protect the institute's patrimony. Chapters have the responsibility to renew it (c. 631), while superiors and members have the ability to retain and accommodate certain aspects of it (c. 677). Now for the sake of example, let us suppose that an institute has been founded whose nature is apostolic, whose purpose is to practice the corporal works of mercy, whose spirit is non-monastic, and whose character, because of its purpose, is for the most part one of commitment to individual rather than to collective apostolates. Let us also suppose that the instutute is of pontifical right, that it has three canonically erected houses in three dioceses, and that its members are present in seven other dioceses in which the institute has n6 canonically erected houses. Finally, let us suppose that a member of this institute, with appropriate permission from internal authorities and fulfilling the norms of universal and proper law, is exercising an apostolate which the diocesan bishop does not wish this person to exercise in the diocese entrusted to his care. The stage is set, is it not, for the play of tensions commonly experienced between just autonomy and hierarchical structure? Without being facetious, let me suggest further that the script for this act of the play commonly has the religious entering stage left, the bishop entering stage right, and all defini-tive action coming Deus ex machina from above. The entire performance Canonical Considerations / 681 is usually viewed only through the opera glasses of a communications media well known for its ability to distort the factual while filling lacunae with unfounded conjecture. When the curtain falls, there are inevitable winners and losers, but who belongs to which category most often depends on where you were seated--center orchestra, third balcony, backstage, or in the wings. And usually the real issues have neither been well addressed nor even partially solved, while genuine Christian values, not to mention Christian people, have more than likely been forgotten or neglected or badly battered during the performance. As a canonist, this writer holds there are viable alternatives to the above scenario. For, if law does nothing else for us in the Church, it ought to at least be able to function as the impartial arbiter in cases of conflict. How well it can do this for cases such as the above, however, depends on how clearly and thoroughly obligations are both delineated in proper law and fulfilled by those responsible for them. But, to return to the case and the question at hand: Can the bishop prohibit the religious from exercising the apostolate in the diocese entrusted to his care? If you view it from the per-spective of the religious--to use familiar phraseologywthe "bad news" is that he probably can, because ultimately all religious are subject to the power of the bishop in apostolic works (c. 678 §1). The "good news" is that such a prohibition would be very difficult in some circumstances. Needless to say, if you are looking at this case from the vantage point of the bishop, the content of the answer is exactly the same: The prohibition is probably possible but possibly very difficult. The law, you see, is rather objective and can be an impartial arbiter in such matters, even though the "goodness" or "badness", attributed to the content would probably be reversed (and logically so) in the judgment of the bishop. Why is it probably possible but possibly very difficult for the bishop to forbid the religious from exercising an apostolate in the diocese entrusted to his care? The answer, to be canonically sound, requires a careful investi-gation of the canons previously mentioned. If the institute is an apostolic one, then apostolic works are part of its nature by law (c. 675). The nature of an institute as sanctioned by ecclesiastical authority is part of its patri-mony to be preserved°by all (c. 578) and contained in its constitutions (c. 587). The power to preserve this patrimony is part of an institute's legally recognized just autonomy of life, and local ordinaries are to preserve and protect this autonomy (c. 586). Regarding just autonomy of life, on the one hand, it cannot be restricted merely to internal matters or only to government. If autonomy is restricted to internal matters, then the understanding of religious life under universal law would be a dichotomized, compartmentalized one. The code takes great 682 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 pains to indicate that this is clearly not the case, and especially for the apostolic activity of apostolic institutes (cc. 662, 673, 675). Furthermore, if autonomy is restricted to the institute's internal government, then the just autonomy "especially of government" recognized in c. 586 is a meaningless phrase even canonically. On the other hand, if any apostolate is fundamental to an institute and if any autonomy in regard to this apostolate is to be recognized, then the apostolate must be clearly articulated in the institute's constitutions. If it is clearly articulated in the constitutions, and if the institute has a canon-cially erected house in the diocese, then this includes a strict right (ius) to exercise proper-law apostolate(s) of the institute from this house (c. 611 #2). Note, however, that while the institute has this right, each and every member of the institute is not necessarily free to exercise the right. Canonists do agree that, in granting consent for a religious house, a diocesan bishop can restrict some of the institute's activities for all of the members or all of the institute's activities for some of the members. But they also agree that he cannot restrict all of the institute's activities for all of the members. If he judges this extreme restriction necessary, he simply ought not to grant consent for establishing the house. Thus, in response to the case, if: - there is a constitutionally established apostolate - exercised by a member of the institute -~with proper internal permissions ~ according to universal law (i.e., legally) -. from a canonically established house -to which no general or specific apostolic restrictions have been attached, it would be very difficult for the bishop to prevent the religious from continuing the apostolic activity. The prohibition would not be impossible, however, because it is provided by c. 679, that if: - the bishop judges there is a most grave cause - after having referred the matter to the major superior - and if the major superior does not take appropriate action - the bishop can prohibit the religious from remaining in the diocese. But this action constitutes a penalty (c. 1327 §1) which means that -the procedure for application of penalties is to be followed (cc. 1341-1353) - no steps may be dispensed with (c. 87) 7 all wording must be interpreted strictly (c. 18) - the constitutions of the institute may not be violated (c. 1327 §1) and - the bishop must immediately inform the Holy See of his action (c. 679). Canonical Considerations / 683 Whence, the answer given above must contain an important qualification: The prohibition is probably possible but possibly very difficult only if the initial legal obligations regarding apostolate, houses and constitutions have been fulfilled by the institute to which the member belongs. But such is not usually the case, is it? For the most part situations arise in which it is clear that one or many of the above legal obligations have not been fulfilled and, consequently, the rights involved are not well protected. It often happens that the institute has no canonically erected house in the diocese. Then there is simply no right for the institute or any of its member to exercise any apostolate there. If they do so, they do so at the good will of the bishop who can subsequently forbid what he has previously permitted. The written agreements between diocesan bishops and competent superiors, which are now required by c. 681 when entrusting works to religious, might possibly give the religious a cause for civil-law action in the case of a breach of contract, but this could only occur if the agreements were poorly composed canonically in the first place. One might add that adhering to the require-ment for these written agreements, which are supposed to include the type of work involved, could possibly identify potential conflicts such as the above case in their incipient stages. It also often happens that a particular activity exercised by a religious is not mentioned--or at least not referred to in a specific enough manner--to definitively include it in the constitutionally approved elements of the insi-tute's apostolate. The competent internal authority by making a practical interpretation in the course of good government may judge that this specific activity is included within the constitutionally approved elements of its aposto-late. But if this practical interpretation is challenged and recourse is had to the competent external authority, the interpretation of the authority who approved the constitutions in the first place is the one that prevails. Another common occurrence is practical accommodation of an institute's mission and apostolic works by the superiors and members in accord with c. 677. An institute may adapt its apostolate from educating orphans, for instance, to educating Blacks or Hispanics. Or, again, an institute may relin-quish nursing in hospitals in order to serve in home-nursing ministries. Some-times these accommodations are not subsequently or accurately incorporated into one's constitutions by a general chapter. But legal affirmation of such adjustments is both the obligation and prerogative of general chapters accord-ing to c. 631. If general chapters do not fulfill their obligations by providing an adequate update of an institute's proper law, the "good news" and "bad news" for the religious will be rendered as mentioned above. Three other forms of apostolic accommodation are also common and can be far more problematic, namely: 684 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 (1) defining the institute's mission and apostolate in so generic a manner that almost any apostolic activity can be included in them, (2) including in the institute's mission and apostolate some activities that appear to be only indirectly connected with its patrimony, and (3) including in the institute's mission and apostolate those activities which relate closely to those prohibited for religious in universal law. It would be unrealistic--if not grandiose--to attempt a treatment here of the specifics of each of these instances, but all three can certainly be recog-nized as occasions for another play of tensions between just autonomy and hierarchical structure. In the process of approval of constitutions, competent ecclesiastical authorities often perceive these instances as fostering generic vagueness or minute inclusiveness or institutional challenges: Their response is usually to request or to mandate adjustments in wording and/or content. This is often viewed by the institutes both as a violation of their just auto-nomy and as a negation of their renewal experiences. There is no doubt that the attitudes of those involved in the dialogues concerning constitutional revision are crucial to the results. In the first case just suggested, there can be--but need not be--a real danger of dissipating an institute's resources by too extensive a diversification within a generic category, such as education or health care or social justice. In the second, there can be, but need not be, a noble attempt to "legitimize" the activity of every member, however diversified, by incorporating it by name into the institute,s proper law. In the third, there can be, but need not be, a genuine and necessary prophetic challenge to the gradually institutionalized: restrictions on Gospel imperatives. Whether competent authorities and reli-gious institutes approach these and similar situations from a stance of polari-zation and confrontation or from a stance of pluralism and constructive compromise alters the "flashpoint" of the matter involved. A "flashpoint" is the degree of flammability of combustible materials. Most readers will probably be aware that there have been many tenuous "flashpoints" approached and passed by the interaction of hierarchy and religious--as well as among religious themselves--throughout history. Such opposition and conflict, indeed, utter conflagrations at times, have been regrettable and are certainly not to be excused.4 But in the interaction of religious charism and ecclesial institution they will always be potentially present. Suggestions are sometimes made that religious institutes experiencing great charism/hierarchical tensions might opt for what is referred to as "non-canonical" status. Legally speaking "non-canonical" is a misnomer as well as an almost impossible option. Religious institutes are by law public juridic persons (c. 634, 116 §2). Canonical Considerations / 685 This means they automatically have a "canonical status" which can also be described as legal standing or public authentication within the ecclesial structure. This status is understood to guarantee the soundness of the insti-tute's charism and traditions, to empower the duly elected officers of the institute forgoverning, and to confer a mandate on the institute (and its members) for apostolic activities. It is quite clear in Church law that only the appropriate ecclesiastical authorities--namely, Diocesan ]~ishops or the Apostolic See--can erect religious institutes (cc. 576, 578-579, 589), can approve and accept the charisms of founders and foundresses (c. 578), and can officially interpret and moderate the practice of the evangelical counsels (c. 576). Any public juridic person in the Church is by law a "perpetual" entity and can be legitimately extinguished only by competent authority (c. 120 §1). The Apostolic See alone is able to suppress an institute of consecrated life once it has been canonically erected (c. 584). On the occasion of such sup-pression, the disposition of the goods of the institute, which are by law "ecclesiastical goods" (c. 1257), belongs to the Apostolic See (c. 584) unless the approved statutes of the public juridic person (i.e., the institute's proper law) provide otherwise (c. 123). Thus, the material possessions of any religious institute, as well as the final decisions regarding what is to be done with them, do not belong ultimately to the institute or to its members but to the institutional Church. Moreover, religious institutes are "collegial" public juridic persons (c. 115 §2) andas such continue to exist (unless suppressed) as long as there is one surviving member, upon whom all the rights and obliga-tions of the institute devolve (c. 120 §2). For two major reasons, therefore, it is not legally realistic for a religious institute as such to become "non-canonical" in response to the tensions experienced in the interplay of the institute's charism and hierarchical struc-tures: (1) suppression of a religious institute is difficult to accomplish and (2) truly non-canonical status is almost impossible to find. First, an institute does not have the authority to suppress itself; and it is rare that all members of an institute might opt for requesting suppression by the Apostolic See. If such were the case., however, the juridic person could totally cease to exist. But if even a few chose to remain and were allowed to do so, these few would then enjoy all the rights and assume all the obligations of the still existing original religious institute. The ecclesiastical goods of the institute would also be subject to the care and control of the remaining members according to Church law? In other words, the mem-bers of any religious institute cannot simply decide to self-destruct the juridic person and head off into the sunset, each fortified with his or her own "piece 686 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 of the (institutional) rock." Second, even if an institute were sup

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

Issue 47.5 of the Review for Religious, September/October 1988. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The edito-rial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO. 63108-3393. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. ©1988 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Single copies $3.00. Subscriptions: U.S.A. $12.00 a year; $22.00 for two years. Other countries: for surface mail, add $5.00 per year; for airmail, add $20.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Philip C. Fischer, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read M. Anne Maskey, O.S.F. Acting Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editors Sept./Oct. 1988 Volume 47 Number 5 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to R~.wEw EOR R~.LtGWOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Rich-ard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave., Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW ~o~t REI.IGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. The Social Dimensions of Religious Ministry Joseph P. Daoust, S.J. This is a slightly revised version of Father Daoust's well-received address on August 13, 1986, to the thirtieth national assembly of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men. He has been his province's assistant for social ministries and higher educa-tion. At present he is on sabbatical in Africa and Asia and has no fixed residence, but he may be addressed at Jesuit Provincial Office; 7303 W. Seven Mile Road; De-troit, Michigan 48221. In a terrifying image of where our civilization is leading us, a prominent Italian writer envisions Western 'man (and woman) becoming like an earth-worm: a simple organism having only mouth, intestines, and anus, do-ing nothing but ingesting, digesting, excreting. ! It is an image of pro-ducing in order to consume, and consuming mindlessly in order to move what has been produced through our societal '.~'gut." Any kind of con-sumption will do, just as the earthworm moves any kind of soil through its intestinal tube. Indeed, that is how the earthworm (and Homo con-sumens) moves ahead in dark, dank, endless underground burrows-- consuming, producing, excreting. When indigestion sets in because of overproduction, war serves as a purgative,°consuming the detritus of ex-cess lives and goods, relieving the constipation of our maniacally pro-ducing and consuming system. Such is one vision of what we are doing to ourselves as a society. There is another vision of what society can become: [God] will reign over many peoples and arbitrate for mighty nations; and they shall beat their swords into pl6wshares,.and their spears into prun-ing hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit, everyone under his vine and un- 641 649 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 der his fig tree, and none, shall make them afraid; for the mo~th of the Lord of hosts has spoken it (Mi 4:3-4). In this vision, peace comes when each peasant has enough of the earth's goods for simple sustenance and can sit in quiet contemplation of the goodness of a just and beautiful world. All of this is achieved by learning God's ways and walking in God's path.2 Neither of these visions is fully realized in our world today. There are forces at work leading toward the first; the Spirit of God continues the age-old struggle to draw us toward the second. We are called as citi-zens of this age, as Christians, as religious, to invest our lives in help-ing our society make the ancient Deuteronomic choice: "I set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live" (Dr 30:19). Life is what the reign of God would bring about in our midst; the flowering of a society of justice and peace. The reign of God has profound social consequences. Justice and God's Reign: Scriptural Considerations in Scripture the reign of God is inextricably linked with social trans-formation. When Israel came to know Yahweh, it was as a God who heard their groaning in slavery and delivered them out of bondage (Dt 10:18-19). Remembering their own deliverance by God, the Israelites were bound in covenant not to oppress the poor or weak in their midst (Ex 22:21ff.). For Yahweh is a God who hears the cry of the poor (Ps 34:6). Again and.again Yahweh intervened through the prophets to call Israel back to this elemental demand: Is not th'is the sort of religious p?actice that pleases me?--it is thb Lord Yahweh who speaks--to break unjust fetters and Undo the thongs of the yoke, to let'the oppressed go free., to share your bread with the hun-gry and shelter the homeless poor, to clothe the man you see to be na-ked and not turn from your own kin? Then will your light shine like the dawn and your wound be quickly healed over. Your in.tegrity will go be-fore you and the glory of Yahweh behind you (Is.58:6-8; see also 1: 16, 10:1, 42:5). The religions and gods of the ancient Near East were primarily con-cerned with the legitimation of the established order of things3 (a func-tion still all too current today!), Imperial power, divinely ordained class structures, codes of behavior which reinforced "the way things have al-ways been"--these were the trappings of (eligions whose gods could be captured in images, located in certain sacred places, and therefore con-trolled. The divine power was thus subject to purchase (propitiation), Social Dimensions of Ministry / 64:3 able to be administered and routinized so as to support society's estab-lished ways of proceeding. Israel in the Old Testament is constantly tempted to refashion God in controllable images. Royal leaders and wealthy classes are portrayed as the initiators of this "whoring after' other gods" so as to legitimate their oppression, wars, and sumptuous ways. What distinguishes ancient Israel from surrounding societies is the constant intrusion of an imageless God, who refuses to dwell in temples or in"gold idols fashioned and controlled by the powerful. Yahweh dwells only ineffably on high, and with the lowly (Is 56: 15). Israel's God is dis-engaged from the ways of worldly power and identifies over and over again with the marginal, the dispossessed in society.'~ Indeed the iden-tity of this imageless God cannot be captured in traditional religious ways, but is expressed only by what Yahweh does--primarily acts of so-cial liberation: I am Yahweh . . . who delivered you from bondage (Ex 20:1), who loves j,ustice (Ps 99:4), who sees justice done for the orphan and widow, who answers the poor and needy (Ps 86:1 ), who chooses the weak (Dt 7:7), who reduces princes to nothing, and annihilates the rulers of the world (Is 40:23). Jesus spends his public ministry extending the good news of God's compassion and reign to all. It was a scandal to his contemporaries that he especially~ included suspect classes (shepherds, publicans, tax collec-tors), social outcasts (lepers, prostitutes, adulterers, Samaritans), and the poor. He went to his death coffsciously assuming the role of the Suffer-ing °Servant of Yahweh, knowing that this was the only way to bring about the reign of his Father. Some sought his death because he reso-lutely presented an unconventional, iconoclastic face of God Ioying the outcast, the db'wntrodden, the poor--"He has blasphemed.'~ Others sought his death because' his proclamation of God's justice threatened the social order.5 The Scriptures, then, portray a God who cares passionately about jus-tice, indeed even a "pain-embracing" God6 who acts in solidarity es-pecially with the oppressed and the marginalized. Christ in his ministry and message seals this revelatioh of God constantly acting in the world so as to bring about its transformation. The Gospels close with Christ risen inviting us down through the ages to "Follow me." Justice and God's Reign: Cultural Considerations Down through the ages the Church has wrestled with that impera- 644 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 tive with varying degrees of success. Like the Israelites of old, the Church is often tempted to replace the radical, transforming call of the Gospel with something more palatable to the cultural and social powers that be. Oppressive divisions of wealth and power, wars to protect these divisions, sumptuous living for some and dire poverty for others--these still need legitimation as of old. The idols which legitimate today are ide-ologies, social and economic theories, materialism and consumerism apo-theosized as a way of life. Idolatry in a literate society is more likely to use words than precious metals to achieve its effects. But religion is still being domesticated so as to legitimate and maintain, rather than confront, these idolized patterns of injustice. One hundred fifty years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville visited America and found our culture and social institutions permeated with a new idea: Individualism is a calm and considered feeling which disposes each citi-zen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and withdraw into the circle of family and friends; with this little society formed to his taste, he gladly leaves the greater society to look after itself . They form the habit of thinking of themselves in isolation and imagine that their whole destiny is in their hands . Each man is forever thrown back upon himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.7 This individualism intersected congruently, then as it does now, with the competitive pursuit of self-interest, defined in terms of material well-being. But de Tocqueville found these social "habits of the heart" coun-terbalanced and modulated by a strong tradition of biblical faith, with its emphasis on self'-sacrifice for the common good, supported by the re-publican virtues of our early democracy: public duty and civic equity. Modern commentators have found these modulating forces to be with-ering, and individualism, competition, and rampant pursuit of material self-interest becoming exclusive social preoccupations.8 Individualism, like any other human creation, has much to recommend it, much human value. But when it becomes absolute, unquestioned, unfettered, it dis-torts and truncates human interaction. Its idolization creates and sustains injustice in society on a mass scale. Recent studies of American life and religious values have shown the distortions that unfettered individualism produces ir~ our cultural patterns of faith and religion.9 Historically., the disestablishment of religion America may have helped compartmentalize religious faith away from public social concerns. But religious individualism has been the moving force for the privatization of religious faith and practice. Social and cul- Social Dimensions of Ministry / 645 tural patterns of our society have been immunized from religious critique or challenge in the faith of many. Religion is felt to deal only with per-sonal or family issues; it intersects with public policy only to challenge it if' it intrudes on these narrow issues. Other social policies and struc-tures, individualism itself, materialism, the competitive economic envi-ronment- all are beyond the competence of religious critique. God and faith have no relevance in the marketplace, the business or political world, or anywhere outside the "soft" inner realm of the personal and the familial. In fact, religion blesses "the way things are" in these secu-lar real-world social settings. It legitimates them and the results they bring about, as effectively as the compartmentalization of religion to tem-ple worship and sacrifices did in ancient Israel, with consequent uncon-cern for the oppressed, the hungry, the poor. Religion is seen culturally by most as an idiosyncratic choice, a strictly personal preference or conviction as to which "brand" each per-son would like to "consume." And American consumers of religion largely choose a faith distorted by cultural forces so as to give them res-pite from social chaos and from a sense of social destiny beyond their control. They do this by retreating inward, to focus on the inner self, or by retreating outward, to externally imposed structure coming, they be-lieve, directly from God. The first of these privatized patterns of religion, the dominant U.S. cultural preference, is the retreat inwards to the inner self. ~0 Personal ex-perience of one's inner self is the one secure basis for religious mean-ing. Self-realization, personal growth, is the highest aspiration. There is a great similarity to the goals and language of psychological therapy. Re-ligious practice is spiritual utilitarianism: "What's in it for me?" Spiri-tual experience is primarily individual and prescinds from the world and its problems. The world and even God are seen in terms of their impact on this inner self. Morality is individualistici commitments to others, to the world, are transient: "s(~ long as it feels right or helps me grow." The Church can be reduced to a kind of spiritual Kiwanis Club or psy-chological. therapy group in the individual's pursuit of self-fulfilling ex-perience. The second pattern of religious individualism is no less privatized. It is more prevalent among the less affluent, or among those whose self-image is not strong enough to found religious meaning there. Faith is placed in sources of meaning external to self and the real world. God speaks from "outside'"the ordinary world (and the inner self), directly giving rules and tenets which, if they are rigidly adhered to, will bring 646 / Review~or Religious, September-October 1988 about salvat.ion of the obedient individuai--there is little hope for the world. Fundamentalist adherence to biblical texts, magistral father fig-ures, or traditions gives meaning and some sense of security in a bewil-dering social Order. Morality is personalistic rather than societal; it deals with interpersonal and family relations in clear, simple answers; it leaves unchallenged the sociocultural setting in which these are played out. The world, society at large, is either beyond question or beyond salvation. In either case, faith has little to say to it. ., Both of.these cultural patterns of religion, therapeutic withdrawal to the inner self and sectarian withdrawal to external structure, are the prod-uct of individualism. It is individualism retreating from confrontation with a chaotic, seemingly uncontrollable social environment. Material-ism, competitive pursuit of self-interest, ruthless power pervade the secu-lar realm of business, politics, the media. Recent rapid shifts in social structures and paradigms destabilize a cultural setting already inhospita-ble to traditional religious values. Individuals, frightened, isolated, pow-erless, withdraw from the imperatives of biblical faith which might re-quire them to confront these social forces to work for the new creation of God's reign. A religion of inner escape or outer control seems to of-fer a haven from the heartless world. But both forms of religion lack the ability to integrate the self and/or God with the surrounding society. Per-sonalized religious experience supplants the "mighty acts of Yahweh" as the basis for belief. And such faith is fragile, fading when the per-sonal experience fades. There is only a faint hold on commitments, to faith itself and to the other-centered giv.ing which builds on faith. Church, rather than being the fundamental sacrament of God's insertion into the world, becomes a community of convenience or of protection from the world. In solipsism or sectarian withdrawal, religion stands apart from worldly matters. It is a pale shadow of robust biblical faith: the faith of a people on mission from a world-transforming God. This description of American religious behavior is not just the way millions.of lay believers of all religious backgrounds practice their faith. These are tidal forces affecting the faith life of all of us as members religious orders and congregations. We are equally tempted to withdraw from the fullness of biblical faith into therapeutic blandness or rigid struc-turalism. We too can live more easily with these idolized forms of relig-ion, which neither do justice nor admit the injustice of such unconcern. Religious life itself can become an enclave for self-realization or secu-rity, safely compartmentalized away from the rigors of God's call and mission to a troubled world wracked by social sin. Which one of us has Social Dimensions of Ministry / 64"/ not felt keenly the longing to huddle, Jonah-like, even in the belly of a whale, rather than face Nineveh? Justice and God's Reign: New Directions But also in our lifetimes as religious, we have witnessed a remark-able movement of God's Spirit. It is transforming the Church and relig-ious life, calling us again to our biblical roots. The God who cares pas-sionately about this world, who hates idols and the injustice they le-gitimate, is neither absent nor sitting quietly in a culturally designed com-partment. Embracing the pain of the poor and the marginalized, God broods over our bent world "with warm breast and with ah! bright wings." ~ In Vatican II, the Church chose to position itself as a people in serv-ice to the world, seeking to transform it in the biblical image of God's justice. ~- The 197 ! Synod of Bishops specified this further: J~stice and participation in the transforming of the world fully appear to us ~s a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the gospel, or, 'in other words, of the Church's mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation (Justice in the World, no. 6). The social teaching of the Church has gone~ beyond a reformist long-ing for organic, static society. In ,.magisterial teaching and theological de-velopment there is the commitment to struggle for and with the margi-nhlized to achieve justice. The spiritual is not compartmentalized from the affai'rs of this world, but integrated as a critical, driving force to shape '~'a new earth where justice will abide.''~3 In'theory and in prac-tice, from Medellin to the Philippines, in our inner cities and in recent pastoral letters of U.S. Bishops, we have witnessed the Church exercis-ing the ancient 'special love of Yahweh for the poor. ~4 Our challenging mission is newly clear, as are the many social forces which oppose it. It is the mission of our "pain-embracing" God, it is the mission of Christ see~king the reign of God.' It is fresh and new in our age, and as old as the prophets: "This is wfiat Yahweh asks of you, only this: to act justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God" (Mi 6:8). What Justice Requires But what does it mean to do justice'? or to transform the world? or change social structures? The justice which flows :from faith in Yahweh has a dynamic, trans- 648 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 formative quality. Subtle philosophical distinctions may be appropriate for impartial, uninvolved observers. But there is a simplicity and stark-ness to biblical justice questions, which are raised in God's name from peasants (Amos, Micah), slaves (Moses), and exiles. ~5 The royal circles of Egypt, Jerusalem, or Rome are preoccupied with questions of pros-perity (how to get more) or security (how to keep it). The prophetic voices from below demand that freedom, sustenance, places of dignity in the community be given (back) to every one Of God's chosen people. Everyone has a right to these goods, as a birthright from God who cre-ated and gave them all to the community in the ~fi~:st place. God will act to make things right again if those in power will not listen. The primary expectation of God from Israel is the doing of justice, in this sense sharing with or restoration to those on the margin of society: the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the poor. Every other ethical norm or covenan-tal requirement flows from this reading of social reality. There is to be a redistribution of social power and goods to achieve a society where all can sit under their own vine and fig tree, with no one to trouble them. Or as gentle Mary puts it in Luke: "[God] has pulled down princes from their thrones and exalted the lowly. The hungry he has filled, with good things, the rich sent empty away" (Lk 1:52-53). The pastoral letter of the U.S. bishops, Economic Justice for All, contains an eloquent articu-lation of what justice requires in our times. The scriptural section of that letter is especially worth meditating upon, to touch i'nto our faith as the force which moves us to justice. The religious reality described there can be summarized as the community of the human race--the community in which and through which God creates each of us as individiaals-- building community. This community is given all of creation to enjoy, and God's love be-sides. In response, God asks in covenant that the community be com-mitted to care for one another, that they show the same resilient love (he-sed) and solidarity toward each other that God has Shown them, The touchstone of this solidarity, from the time of the prophets, has been whether the community cares for those at the margins of society, those without power to demand a share of what the community has been given by God. This preferential option for the poor is as ancient and as crucial to the covenant as Yahweh's earliest commands to Israel concern-ing the widow, the orphan, the stranger in the land (Ex 22:20; Dt 10:.18). In fulfillment of the covenant, the community needs to do more than distribute food and clothing to the poor~ It has to bring ,them in from the margins, allowing them to participate in the creative life of the commu- Social Dimensions of Ministry nity. Then they can provide for themselves in dignity and will no longer be marginalized. In this, the pastoral letter goes beyond the usual em-phasis, in Catholic practice, on works of charity. These are seen to be insufficient since the poor have a right to a creative place in society, not just to be passive recipients of our largess. Bringing the marginalized into full participation in community life will, of course, build up the community itself. It will then be more able to show solidarity to those still at the margin, bringing them into fuller participation, and so forth. The cycle of response to the covenant is also the cycle of the community regenerating and building itself up as a soci-ety of justice. The ~uli religious insight is that, in this dbing of justice to one another, God is made present, is found, is worshiped at the cen-ter of this communal re-creation. Faith and justice reinforce each other, even merge, as God moves us to transform our society. This cycle de-scribes positively how God cails us through justice to renew the face of the earth. But there is also resistance to the Spirit of God; it creates injustice in the structures of society and reverses the cycle of creating a commu-nity of justice. A community can tear itself apart by denying meaningful participation to the poor, ignoring the increasing masses of the margi-nalized, replacing communal solidarity with relentless pursuit of self-interest. This injustice the Spirit of God calls upon us to confront, for the Spirit "convinces the world concerning sin and justice and judg-ment" (Jn 16:8).~6 A practical example may clarify how social structures can resist trans-formation. Some one hundred fifty years ago, the Jesuits in Maryland owned slaves. When Jesuit authorities in Rome remonstrated with them over this situation, the American Jesuits responded that the slaves were being very well cared for and, indeed, would likelY suffer much worse if they wei'e given their freedom and turned loose in American society. The Jesuits of Maryland missed seeing the social structure--slavery-- which needed to be transformed, and focused on the personal dimension of care the slaves received. It seems so evident now, but to those en-meshed in the toils of unjust social structures, they often seem "natu-ral," "the way things are,", unquestionable and unconfrontable. The U.S. bishops of the last century were also unable to confront slavery as an institution until the Civil War settled the question for everyone. ~7 One wonders if the terrible price of that war would have been paid had the churches and religious .people of the land not resisted, by and large, the call of the Spirit to transform the structure of slavery. 650 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 While it is clear that God can work to bring good even from wars and great social cataclysms, this is not the way in which the Spirit of God desires to achieve the transformation of the world. The model of the Suf-fering Servant of Isaiah becomes normative for us in the cross of Jesus. Justice is a constitutive element of what the reign of God is about, but "suffering with" the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized is the man-ner of achieving God's jus.tice. We are called to follow our "pain-embracing" God, and our crucified Lord, in confr6nting the evil of this world. It is a manner far different from ou~ ordinary human institutions of violence, vengeance, and material power. God's ways are not ours, and God's just,~'ce cannot be fully achieved w. ithout a~lopting God's ways. Principles of Ministry for the Reign of God If I have been at all clear, it seems to me that two principles flow from what has been developed thus far. I would like to make these two principles explicit, go on to a couple practical strategies for implement-ing them, and then conclude with three sets of questions for considera-tion. What God has done for us and what God asks of us create a first prin-ciple. An essential part of the reign of God is justice, specifically the jus-tice which flows from living out a faith in Yahweh, faith in Jesus. There-fore, followers of Christ should have a concern for justice as a central focus of all their ministries. There are not justice ministries separate from other ministries, any more than there can be ministries separated from faith. Faith and justice are the complementary core of all Christian min-istry. Secondly, the "pain-embracing" love of God, especially inclusive of the marginalized in soc.iety, characterizes the ministry of Jesus "even unto death, death on a cross." The followers of Jesus are missioned to work for the reign of God in like fashion: through experiencing the strug-gle for justice "from below," at the sidle of the downtrodden, accept-ing the conflict or defeat which that entails, believing in the way of the Suffering Servant who is the Lord. Practical, Strategies The following suggestions are practical strategies for implementing these two principles. They are not new, but they might be helpful~ 1. Reflection on mihistry, and particularly on the justice dimension of ministry, should be based on experience. We experience the living God in ~'the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men [and women] of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way Social Dimensions of Ministry / 651 afflicted.'? ~8 Christ dies and rises again for us in sharing the struggles and visions of real people. Experience draws us beyond ideologies and preconceptions; it energizes us for our quest for the reign of God. But the experience must be reflected upon. Stream-of-consciousness ministry may be personally vivifying, but it does not help us understand the social forces that create what we experience, or how we habitually respond. Social analysis can gradually remove the limitations of our cul-tural blinders and make us more critically aware of the social structures which must be transformed to "make clear the way of the Lord" (Mr 3:3). But so~zial analysis is often sterile, immobilizing, unless it is joined with faith and reflection on what God is saying to us. Relating both our experience and our analysis to the wellsprings of our own faith life en-ergizes us to act, and inspires us to discern how to act, for the reign of God. Our ministry is, then, m~ade reflective and revivifieO. And it gives us. further experience, which can be further reflected upon, leading to fur-ther inspiration and discernment. And so on. Many of you will recognize this process for reflection on ministry. It has been variously called the hermeneutic circle, the circle of praxis, or the pastoral cycle. 19 It is a methodology for moving steadily and re-flectively toward more authentic ministry. It may sound a little ominous at first, with terms like "social analysis" and '.'theological reflection." But it can be done very simply. It has been effective among illiterate peas-ants. 2° All of us ought to be able to do it. As a strategy for ongoing re-flection on ministry, it is.best when done communally, as a form of com-munal discernment. 2. In all ministries, there is the opportunity to experience the joys, hopes, griefs, and anxieties of ordinary people. But at least in orders like the Jesuits, most ministerial settings provide scant opportunity to come into contact with the poor and the marginalized. This should not mean that these ministries are exempt 'from the imperatives of justice-seeking or that they are unable to carry out ministry for the reign of God authen-tically. Ministries such as education or pastoral work with middle- and upper-class publics can seriously commit themselves to the work of con-scientization for the reign of God. These ministries deal with those who exercise power and influence over "the way things are"; their publics can bring about or at least come to tolerate changes in the social order which lead toward justice for the marginalized. It is a crucial element of the mission of all these ministries to communicate the call of the liv-ing God for solidarity, especially with the marginalized, and to urge con- 659 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 sistently that social injustices be transformed to bring about the reign of God. But particularly in these ministries, the lack of any lived experience of the poor or oppressed strengthens ct]ltural-religious tendencies toward therapeutic blandness or conformist externalism. We should attempt to build into these ministries, and into the lives of their publics, some ex-perience of real people living at the margins, victims of unjust social con-ditions. There are immersion programs, social-service projects, inte-grated discussion groups, and other forms of contact between people whom our social structures tend to isolate from each other. Such ex-periences will often be episodic, ephemeral, perhaps even seem voyeur-istic. But they can be honed to a finer edge of reality if they are carried out in cooperation with people who are in consistent, full-time ministry or presence among the poor. Within religious congregations we can leaven all our ministries by missioning some of our best people to ministry among the poor, asking them to share with all of us the insights and challenges of their lived ex-perience. The enlivening experience of God present at the margins can be corporate, shared by brothers or sisters in widely divergent ministries, if conscious efforts are made to foster such sharing. For this leavening to occur, it is important that the religious we mission to ministry among the poor be among our best, mainstream people willing and able to in-teract with a wide range of our corporate membership. My experience has been that we too often allow the lone rangers, the disaffected, the angry, or the difficult to wander off in ministry to the poor. Or we so isolate good folks sent into difficult ministries of social justice that they burn out quickly. As religious communities we can become more effec-tively present with the poor, with consequent enriching of all our apos-tolates, if we will take care to engage in such ministry corporately and reflectively. Mere presence among the marginalized does not guarantee any re-flective stance, in terms of either social analysis or theological reflec-tion. There is ample evidence of religious, ministering regularly among the poor, who never question the social structures which afflict their peo-ple. Or worse, they adopt a benevolent one-way relationship of "giv-ing" to the poor, rather than living with and learning from them about the reality of God. To counter these tendencies, itis helpful to be in con-tact with those engaged in the direct ministry of social change, challeng-ing some aspect of social injustice from an integrated faith perspective. As a full-time occupation, religious ministry for social change is rare Social Dimensions of Ministry / 653 this country. There is every indication that God's spirit is calling us, through the Church, to make it more prevalent. But it is unlikely to be-come a dominant mode of ministry in any religious congregation. That does not mean that a few good men or women could not be missioned, in each of the larger ~ongregations, to engage in this newly urgent min-istry. Not only will this serve social transformation for the reign of God; it can helpail our ministries become more competent to deal with the so-cial and theological questions most pressing in our society. Small or large religious congregations can relate to interreligious social-justice centers in most major cities of the United States. And individuals in any minis-try can become advocates of social change in one area or another, as par-ticipants in coalitions of concerned people devoting time and energy out-side their ordinary works to transforming society.2~ There should be no religious congregation so burdened with maintaining historical com-mitments that it cannot find ways to mission at least some key members to collaborative or part-time work for social justice, so as to leaven the entire ministry of the group. In this strategy, then, every ministry can participate in some level of social action for the reign of God: conscientization of the more afflu-ent and powerful, ministry of presence and social service among the marginalized, direct ministry for social change of unjust social structures. Having all three levels of social ministry within a congregation, if there is communication and cross-fertilization among them, can enrich the mis-sion of all for the reign of God. Even where all three levels are not pos-sible, much the same effect can be achieved by collaboration with other religious and lay people committed to working for the transformation of society. No matter which ministries are present within a congregation, all must become imbued with a central concern for social justice. The reign of God and the love of Christ draw us all to this. Some Questions for Consideration Let me turn now to three sets of questions, for which, I assure you, I have no answers. But they may be worth wrestling with in thinking about the future of religious life. I. Most religious congregations had as part of their founding charism a special concern for ministry among the poor.22 Most of our congrega-tions several generations ago ministered mainly among the poor in Amer-ica: immigrant Slavs and Germans, Italians and Irish, still on the mar-gins of American society. Why now are the vast majority of American male religious working in ministries for the more affluent? Was it a form 654 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 of ministerial "bracket creep," where we drifted up the income ladder along with the traditional publics we served, moving with them in from the margins of American society? If we were to decide anew about where to focus our ministries, what might the Spirit call us to do for the reign of God? 2. Most young men and women coming into reiigious life have been formed by American sociocultural conditioning. They look to religion to foster their own self-realization or to shelter them from the world's turmoil through external authority. Our older veterans of religious life are subject to these same alluring siren songs of American cultural relig-ion. Doour models of early and continuing formation, with their empha-sis on psychosocial development or on external structures of religious life, challenge cultural limitations of religious belief and practice? How much therapeutic self-nurturing or sheltering in external authority do we allow? How can we transcend these tendencies in order to instill full bib-lical faith, which integrates God, society, and self? How form religious for mission, to join our suffering, pain-embracing God in transforming the world? 3. The last set of questions is not mine. They come from Archbishop Weakland when he was asked how Jesuits could help implement the so-cial vision of the Economic Pastoral. :His response went something like this: (a) You Jesuits have a lot of access to the powerful in society. They are your alumni, counselees, fellow board members. You turn to them to support~your own works. Will you use that access to power on behalf of the marginalized and their agenda of justice? (b)You Jesuits have ex-perience of the third world, knowledge of the marginalized. Will you bring that forcefully into the consciousness of the American people, who are so woefully ill-informed about the struggles and attitudes of the poor? (c) There are many good young people, in business, the professions, or factories, who are dissatisfied with what our society offers. They want to remain lay men and women, but long for a way of life, a vision, more consonant with the Gospel. Can you imagine, and then image credible lifestyles and life goals for these lay Christians? Archbishop Weakland's q'uestions are generalizable, I would think, for almost any religious con-gregation. Conclusion ¯ I would like to observe, in conclusion, that fait.h does not seem to be a question at the margins of society. Faith in God is very much alive in the third world and in the inner city. There the overwhelming ques-tions are those of justice. Faith seems most fragile and in doubt in the Social Dimensions of Ministry / 655 sterile, cluttered tunnels of our earthworm society of affluence. Faith with-ers here, though we overnurture it with self-concern, though we fence it in with our fears. But faith in the living God is a wild thing. It thrives at the margins, where struggle and hope for God's justice blaze brightest. If we go there, our own religious life may be rekindled, as we join our God in renewing the face of the earth. Let us go, then, without guilt or rage. Let us go in joy because our God draws us, calls us to join the struggle there for the transformation of the world. There, too, we shall meet the love of our lives, Jesus the Lord. NOTES ~ Alberto Moravia, The Red Book and the Great Wall (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968);' pp. 12-21. -~ Mi 4:2. See Walter Brueggemann, "Vine and Fig Tree: A Case Study in Imagina-tion and Criticism," The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 43 (1981): 188-204. 3 See W. Brueggemann, '~OId Testament Theology as a Particular Conversation: Ad-judication of Israel's Socio-Theological Alternatives," Theology Digest 32:4 (1985): 302-325. This excellent study of the conne~ztion between Old Testament theophany and justice in the social order was the Bellarmine Lecture at St. Louis University in 1985. I am indebted to it for many of the insights in this scriptural section. 4 See Norman Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh (Orbis, 1979), chapter 49: "Mutual Reinforcement of Yahwism and Social Egalitarianism." 5 Jn 11:48-51. See Jon Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads (Orbis, 1978), pp. 201 ff. 6 The term is Brueggemann's. See his "A Shape for Old Testament Theology: Em-brace of Pain," The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 47:3 (I 985): 395-415. 7 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, first published 1835-1840. Quota-tion is from Anchor Books edition (1969), pp. 506-510. 8 See J. F. Kavanaugh, Following Christ in a Consumer Society (Orbis, 1981), or his address to this Assembly in 1985: "Religious Life and Leadership in the Con-text of American Culture." From a different perspective, see Daniel Bell, The Cul-tural Contradictions of Capitalism (Basic Books, 1976). 9 An outstanding example of such studies is Robert Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart (Univ. of California Press, 1985). I have relied upon it heavily for this section: ! cannot recommend it highly enough. Another recent study of religious and social trends concurs with much of Bellah's findings: see J. Chittister and M. Marty, eds., Faith and Ferment (Augsburg/Liturgical Press, 1983). ~0 See Bellah, op. cir., pp. 235ff. ~ The phrase is from G. M. Hopkins's poem, "'God's Grandeur" (1877). ~2 See especially Gaudium et Spes, nn. I-3 and passim. ~3 Gaudium et Spes, n. 39. See C. Curran, "Catholic Social Ethics: A New Ap-proach'?" Clergy Review (Feb.-Mar. 1985). 656 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 ~'~ On the history of the preferential option for the poor, see D. Dorr, Option for the Poor: A Hundred Years of Vatican Social Teachings (Orbis, 1983). ~5 See Brueggemann, Parks, and Groome, To Act Justly, Love Tenderly, Walk Hum-bly: An Agenda for Ministers (Paulist Press, 1986), a fine series of reflections on the Micah text and on justice. m6 See Pope John Paul ll's two recent encyclicals on sinful social structures, Domi-hum et Vivificantem (1986), no. 56; and Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1988), passim. ~7 See Doris Gottemoeller's talk to this Assembly in 1985: "Challenges to Relig-ious Leadership from a Changing U.S. Church," p. 7. ~8 Gaudium et Spes, no. 1. 19 As developed, respectively, by Juan Segundo, The Theology of Liberation (Or-bis, 1976); by Paolo Freire, The Pedagogy of the Oppzessed (Herder & Herder, 1970); and by Holland & Henriot, Social Analysis (Center of Concern, 1984). The last has a simple, practical treatment in chapter I. 20 See Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname (Orbis, 1979). 2~ Examples nationally include: Amnesty International, Bread for the World, Catho-lic Worker, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Interfaith Action for Economic Justice, Just Life, Network, Pax Christi, to name only a few. There are countless local and regional grouPs as well. 22 From a brief survey of the self-descriptions of U.S. male religious groups listed in the latest vocation guide, Ministries for the~ Lord: A Resource Guide and Direc-tory of Catholic Church Vocations for Men (Paulist Press, 1985), this seems to be true for the great majority of nonmonastic religious congregations of men. I'd Love to, Lord, But. Paul Wachdorf Father Wachdorf's "Leading People into Prayer" appeared in our May/June 1988 issue. His address remains the same: University of Saint Mary of the Lake; Munde-lein, Illinois 60060. In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 4, Jesus returns to his home town of Naza-reth, goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and reads from the prophet Isaiah: The spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore, he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and release to prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord (Lk 4:18-19). These words give a tone and a direction to the public ministry Jesus was about to begin. In 1971, the Synod of Bishops meeting in Rome produced a docu-ment entitled Justice in the World in which they state: Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or, in other words, of the Church's mission for the redemp-tion of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation (Justice in the World, Synod of Bishops, Second General Assembly, Nov. 30, 197 I). The teachings and the ministry of Jesus and the teachings of the Church have consistently proclaimed that action on behalf of justice is not simply an option, not just a matter of personal preference or inter-est, but is an integral part of the gospel message and the Christian life-style as we are called upon to live it. 657 Review for Religious, September-October 1988 Given the crucial importance of this ministry in the Church and in the world today, I would like to reflect on my own journey into and ex-perience of the ministry of social justice from two viewpoints. First, I will look at some of the common resistances people encounter in them-selves as they hear the gospel challenge of social justice. Then, I want to examine some possible steps which people might profitably pursue to help them break through their resistances and respond more fully to the challenge of social justice. Intellectual Assent vs. Active Participation For the past seven years I have worked with the social justice pro-gram at Mundelein Seminary. Prior to that, I served in a parish for six years. During my years in a parish, I always gave intellectual and verbal assent to the principles of social justice. After all, how could I as a priest do otherwise? But as I look back on those years, I realize that my no-tional assent was not often translated into real and different patterns of behavior. Practicing what I preached about social justice was no simple task, although I did not realize that at the time. Resistances, Excuses, Rationalization~ After my appointment to the seminary, I was elected as the faculty representative for our Peace and Justice Committee. Frankly, I was not enthused about this appointment. But since ! felt somewhat insecure in my new environment and in my new work, it seemed to be an offer I could not refuse. I began to think about my commitment and involvement, l won-dered, "What am I supposed to do?" Soon I recognized within me sev-eral resistances, excuses, and rationalizations. In the past, they had kept me from becoming involved in the ministry of social justice in any sig-nificant way. I wanted to say yes to the Lord and to respond to the call of social justice. But my excuses kept getting in the way. At that point, I realized that 1 would have to critique my resistances with honesty through dialogue and prayer. Otherwise, my resistances would effec-tively block me from ever becoming involved in any way at all. Prophets Are Not Popular Quickly, I recognized the first resistance. Prophets are not popular. From Old Testament times to the present day, men and women who sting the conscience of a nation, a people, or a Church become unpopular. They are often criticized; they have their motives questioned; and they are pushed to the fringes of society. I'd Love to, Lord, But. / 659 ! remember very clearly an incident that happened as I was growing up. In the early 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King led a march through my neighborhood, a white Catholic stronghold, to Marquette Park. I remem-ber standing on the corner on which my parish church and rectory were located watching the march. There were hundreds of white people lin-ing both sides of the street. Many of them were shouting, cursing, or throwing things at the marchers. Two of the priests came out of the rec-tory and began telling the people to go home and leave the marchers alone. Some of the people responded by cursing at the priests and tell-ing them to mind their own business. I saw a man spit on one of the priests. The following Sunday at Mass, the priests spoke out in favor of the marchers and their cause and spoke against the behavior of the bystand-ers, many of whom were good parishioners, pillars of the church. A few people at the Mass got up and walked out. Those days, I helped count the Sunday collection. That week and for a few weeks afterward, the col-lection went down significantly. I have never forgotten that incident. I still admire the courage of my parish priests. At the same time, I am aware that my later reluctance in seminary and in my initial years of priesthood to become involved in the ministry of social justice or to preach about justice issues was strongly influenced by that experience. In my initial involvement with the Seminary Peace and Justice Com-mittee, I soon came to a basic understanding. ! must be willing with com-plete honesty to critique that part of myself that desires to be popular and to be liked by others. Otherwise, I would never say anything controver-sial or would never speak out or would rarely take action on behalf of issues of social justice. Poverty is Messy and Unglamorous A second resistance for me rests in a simple fact. Poverty is messy and unglamorous. For the past seven years I have volunteered on a part time basis at an overnight shelter for the homeless. Many of the people who come to spend the night there are not "pretty." They are dirty; they smell; they are often sick; some have head lice; some are alcoholics; some belong in a halfway house or mental institution. I have always been fortunate enough to grow up and live in a clean, healthy, and comfortable environment. Throughout much of my life I have been isolated and insulated from the poor and the homeless. I rec-ognized another need for honest critique. I needed to confront that part of myself that wants life always to be nice, comfortable, and pretty. Oth-erwise, I would never become involved. 660 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 Myths, Stereotypes, and Prejudices A third resistance for me consists in myths, stereotypes, and preju-dices. Our culture is filled with them--about racial, ethnic, and relig-ious groups and about the poor and those who work for and with them. "The poor are lazy and would rather be on welfare . If they really wanted to, they could better themselves . They like being poor. See how happy they are . People involved in social justice causes are un-patriotic . All social justice organizations are communist inspired." The list goes on and on. I cannot go to a social gathering without hearing at least one joke that plays upon racial, ethnic, and cultural stereotypes. At times, I have told and laughed at those same jokes. I needed to confront and honestly critique my own myths, stereotypes, and prejudices. Otherwise, I would never become involved. Social-Justice Ministry is Disturbing There is a fourth resistance. I find this ministry disturbing. Working in the area of social justice has forced me to critique my own lifestyle, my attitudes about material possessions and wealth, and my use of the world's resources. I must admit that I like the good life. Conspicuous consumption is the name of the game in American society. In my early years of priest-hood when I was no longer a poor student but had a regular salary, I re-ally enjoyed having nice things. They compensated for my "great sac-rifice" of celibacy. I needed to honestly critique my own desire to live the good life and my tendencies toward materialism. Otherwise, I would never become involved. Fear A fifth resistance for me is fear. I found within myself a whole clus-ter of fears. I believed that if I worked with the poor and on behalf of social justice, I would be injured, harmed, or abused in some way. When I spent my first night at a shelter for the homeless, I was thor-oughly convinced that I was going to get head lice. TV news broadcasts and newspaper articles have always been filled with stories of crime and violence among the poor and in the inner city. When I was in college, I was robbed at gunpoint by two young black men. That experience re-inforced an attitude that had been drilled into me in all kinds of ways in my neighborhood: all black people are dangerous and to be feared. I needed to critique with honesty and courage that part of myself that de-sires security and safety at all costs. Otherwise, I would never take the I'd Love to, Lord, But. / 661 risk of becoming involved. An Overwhelming Sense of Poverty and Injustice in the World There is a final resistance. When I consider the extent of poverty and injustice in the world, I feel overwhelmed. I say to myself: What can one person possibly do to make a difference? My efforts will be futile and a waste of time. The work is innately frustrating. I will continually run into brick walls and have to deal with bureaucratic red tape and unsym-pathetic people and institutions. Progress is often measured in inches. You live with little or no sense of accomplishment. I realized that if I was not willing to honestly critique my own feelings of being over-whelmed and my own desire for instant results, then I would never be-come involved. Overcoming Resistances ~ It was not easy for me to look at my resistances. It is no easier to-day. Life seemed to be more pleasant when I closed my eyes to the re-alities of poverty and injustice as they existed all around me. Even after seven years of working with our Peace and Justice Committee, I find that I can still bring out of my storehouse old and new excuses which warn me to "back off," to rest because "I have done enough." As I con-tinue to come in touch with each of my resistances, I am aware that there are various steps that I have to enter into in order to overcome them. MyNeed for Challenge A first step is to allow myself to be challenged by others. I found myself challenged recently in a way I least expected. My sister who is a registered nurse and a certified nurse midwife recently volunteered to work for two years in Papua New Guinea as a lay missionary. I asked her why she wanted to do this. She told me that she was aware of the many talents, gifts, and blessings God had given her throughout her life. She felt that serving as a lay missionary was one way in which she could best express her gratitude to God. As I listened to what she had to say, I felt a lot of pride and admira-tion for my sister. At the same time, I felt a bit embarrassed as I realized that my own commitment to serving the poor at times looked pale in com-parison. I need people like my sister to challenge me and to keep me look-ing at my resistances. I need people like my sister to inspire me and to keep me in touch with my desire to bring to others the Good News that Jesus proclaimed in the Gospel of Luke as he began his public ministry. They need to say little. Their lives are bold proclamation. 669 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 As important as they are, such challenges are ~not enough for me. I have an amazing capacity to ignore or rationalize away the challenges that come from outside of me. To break through my resistances, I need to pray, to dialogue With others, and to simply begin. MyNeed for Prayer A second step for me is to bring my .resistances before the Lord in prayer. I begin by naming as honestly as I can my fears, my doubts, and my inner resistances. I express to God in my prayer what I am feeling and why I am feeling it. I ask God to break through my denial, to re-move from my eyes the scales that blind me to the,breadth and depth of my resistances so that I can see them for what they are. I place my resis-tances in the hands of God and invite God to respond. Here begins what I call the zone of discomfort in my prayer. To say to God "thy will be done" rather than "my will be thine" is~very fright-ening. What if God reveals to me something 1 do not want to see? What if God asks me to do what I do not want to do? At this point, I must qui-etly and patiently wait for God to respond, trusting that the God who loved me into existence will not abandon me or ask me to do anything that I am not capable of doing. MyNeed for Dialogue Prayer leads me to a third step. I need to talk to another person about my resistances. St. Ignatius in his Rules for the Discernment of Spirits, Week I [326] talks about the evil spirit as a false lover who "acts in or-der to keep his own suggestions and temptations secret, and our tactics must be to bring out into the light of day such suggestions and tempta-tions to our confessor or director or superior" (David Fleming, S.J., The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: A Literal Translation and A Contem-porary Reading [St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1978], p. 213). Resistances need to be brought into the light of day so that they can be seen for what they are. When I do not talk to another person about my resistances, I find that they can gain power to control me, even after I have brought them to prayer. I can easily deny them or sweep them un-der the carpet. In hones( dialogue with another, I am given the gift of freedom of choice. In honest dialogue with another, I find challenge, new perspective, affirmation, support, and the courage to begin. My Need to Begin A fourth step is to begin. At Mundelein Seminary, there is a Spiri- l"d Love to, Lord, But. / 663 tuality and Justice group composed of faculty and students. Each mem-ber of this group has chosen a concrete action to pursue during the school year in some area of social justice. People have chosen to fast, to work at a soup kitchen or a shelter for the homeless, to deaccumulate their pos-sessions and to live more simply, or to pursue the Pax Christi vow of nonviolence. The premise behind this group is that we live ourselves into new ways of thinking, valuing, and behaving. The way to begin is robe-gin. The way to break through and break down our resistances is to be-gin doing something, no matter how small or insignificant. I have chosen the Pax Christi vow of nonviolence as my action for this year. In the sh"ort time that I haqe pursued this, I have already be-gun to experience ways in which my thinking, my attitudes, my values, and my behaviors are changing. I can feel my resistances to living out this vow b(eaking down in the very act of acting. The words of Mother Teresa are most applicable here: I never look at the masses as my responsibility. I look at the individual. I can love only one person at a time. I can feed only one person at a time. Just one, one, one. You get closer to Christ by coming closer to each other. As Jesus said: "Whatever you do to the least of my breth-ren, you do to me." So you begin . ! begin. I picked up one per-son. Maybe if 1 didn't pick up that one person, 1 wouldn't have picked up 42,000. The whole work is only a drop in the ocean. But if I didn't put the drop in, the ocean would be one drop less. Same thing for you, same thing in your family, same thing in the church where you go. Just begin . . . one, one, one. (Source unknown) MyNeed for Support A final step for me is my need for ongoing support. My commitment to working for justice in the world is fragile and tenuous. I find that I need ongoing challenge to help me keep looking at and dealing with my resistances. I also need the support and affirmation of others to keep me going when I experience moments of discouragement and frustration. The Spirituality and Justice group of which I am a part provides me with opportunities for ongoing challenge, prayer, dialogue, and action. At our initial meetings, we spent time praying about the commitment we hoped to make. We broke into dyads to talk to another about why we chose to be a part of this group, about the action we were planning to pursue, and about the fears and resistances we were experiencing inside of us as we prepared to begin. We came back into the larger group to share the fruits of our dialogue. We concluded with shared prayer. At this point, most of us in the group have chosen and have begun 664 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 to pursue an action. We see future meetings as an opportunity for us to take time for solitary prayer as we continue to bring our actions before God. The meetings help us to share in aone to one way and in the larger group the impact that our action is making on our thinking, valuing, and behaving. The meetings offer support and prayer for and with one an-other in our actions. Here we give witness and challenge to one another as we keep looking at and confronting our resistances. Conclusion The journey into the ministry of social justice is challenging, diffi-cult, and painful. There are many ~tesistances that cooe from within and without. There are many starts and stops. It is a journey that cannot be successfully negotiated alone. There can be no authentic journey with-out God and fellow travelers. My experience is that the journey is well worth the effort for my good and the good of others. May the Spirit of the Lord be upon us in our quest to "bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and release to prisoners." Understanding Novitiate Formation Wilkie Au, 'S.J. Father Au has just completed six and a half years as novice director. He is writing a book tentatively titled Acquiring Habits of the Heart: Holistic Religious Forma-tion. He may be addressed at Loyola Marymount University; P.O. Box 45041; Los Angeles, California 90045. Vatican II,s call for the renewal of religious life set into motion a radical reexaminatio.n of the purposes, processes, and structures involved in the formation of candidates for religious life. The aggiornamento of John XXIII required that those responsible for religious formation make the adaptations needed to prepare religious candidates fora lifetime of dedi-cation and service in a rapidly changing world and Church. Because sen-sible adaptation depended on having a clear sense of what objectives were sought, much of the discussion among formation personnel (forma-tores) in the postconciliar years centered on the purposes and goals of the different phases of the formation process. Consequently, the noviti-ate or initial formation in many orders was thoroughly evaluated in light of the renewed understanding of religious life in the modern world, and many dramatic changes followed. Nevertheless, more than twenty years later the question is still being asked today: "What should be the overriding aims and objectives of the novitiate?"~ According to Father Gerald Arbuckle, S.M., a former as-sistant general of his community, many formation personnel today agree that the experience and the efforts to adapt the novitiate program accord-ing to the requirements of Renovationis Causam have not always been as successful as they would have wished. Many are still uncertain about what to do in the novitiate. Many questions remain: "Should there be a one,to-two-year novitiate? . When should the formative apostolic ex-periences take place and what should they accomplish? . How much 665 666 / Review for Religio. us, September~October 1988 separation, if any, from the world around them should novices experi-ence?" In brief, many questions about the aims and objectives of novi-tiate formation persist.2 Today the drastic drop in the number of those entering the novitiate adds further reason for adaptations in novitiate formation. To be accept-able, these adaptations must, however, retain the essential goals of the novitiate. Precisely what these needed changes are and how they are to be implemented will depend on concrete circumstances of place and per-sonnel. But, more importantly, before any sensible adaptation can be made, it is imperative that there be a clear rearticulation of the basic goals of novitiate formation. Otherwise,. there is the danger that our ad-aptations will be misguided and essential aspects of novitiate training be inadvertently°lost. The purpose of this article is to articulate an under-standing of novitiate formation, based on my si'x years of experience as director of novices of the Jesuits of the California Province. It is my hope that this article will stimulate and contribute to a discussion of novitiate formation at a time when formatores throughout the world are attempt-ing to deal with the adjustments made necessary by, among other things, declining numbers. While this article will. reflect Jesuit documents and my ,own experi-ence working within a Jesuit novitiate (with a group averaging between twelve to fifteen,new candidates every year), I am hopeful that other re-ligious groups of men and 'women working with smaller numbers can dis-cover in my comments what is universally true of the novitiate process in general. In a word, I believe that any novitiate program that purports to embody the spirit of Vatican I1 must include three essential aspects: (1) vocation discernment; (2) religious, socialization; and (3) Qngoing in-dividuation. These three overlapping purposes of the novitiate must, in my opinion, be retained no matter what adapta!ions, are made to accom-modate changing circumstances. What follows is a discussion of these three major goals of the novitiate. Vocation Discernment The objective bf vocation discernment in the novitiate is to help nov-ices come to a peaceful awareness and a free acceptance' of God"s will for them in regard to their state of life. Candidates come seeking help in discerning wh(ther God is indeed calling them to a lifelong commit-ment to tile service of Christ with this particular religious group. Sev-eral considerations are helpi~ul in providing this assistance to them: Confirmation of a Call versus "Weeding Out" The nOvmate must be Viewed as a positive process, as a concrete aid Novitiate Formation / 66"/ to those trying to test out their call to religious lif~. The novitiate should not be designed or perceived as a "weeding out" system, something ,like the basic training of an elitist military unit or the strenuous audition for a coveted part in a chorus line. The novitiate process would be vitiated at its core if it were to be seen as a systematic attempt to test candidates by deliberately placing artificial obstacles before them and screening them on the basis of their ability to overcome these obstacles. The de-structive and dysfunctional consequences of this negative view of novi-tiate formation can be documented in the "horror stories" of many older religious. In addition to the regrettable pain and htirt inflicted on peo-ple, a negative approach ~to the novitiate is fundamentally flawed because it encourages fearful and anxious novices to circumvent, rather than in-vest in, the complex process of discernment. Vocation discdrnment requires an openness and attention to one's in-terior movements, especially in prayer, and an honest disclosure and dis-cussion of these movements in spiritual direction. These attitudes of open-ness and honesty cannot exist in the kind of atmosphere of fear and threat which a "weeding out" approach inevitably produces. Furthermore, such an approach focuses too much attention on external requirements that need to be met in order to survive, like ~'hoops one has to jump through" to make the grade. Dangerously distracting, such a pre-occupation with "making it" can seriously jeopardize the integrity of one's discernment process. Good discernment relies heavily on a per-son's ability to hear the voice of the Lord speaking deeply in the soli-tude of one's heart and in the concrete circumstances of one's life. In light of this, the novice director can be most helpful by imitating the posi-tive role of Eli, the priest, who directs the young Samuel to the place where he is instructed to respond to the Lord's summons by saying, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening" (1 S 3:1-9). The Dynamic of Election and Confirmation The term "election"' was used by lgna~tius of Loyola to designate the choice made by a person seeking the will of God regarding some con-crete matter in his or her life. For the last four centuries, Christians have found the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius helpful in making an elec-tion, especially when trying to determine how they should serve Christ. For Ignatius, such a determination was best done in the context of prayer, for "prayer is the place where we sort out our desires and where we are ourselves sorted out by the desires we choose to follow. ,,3 The spiritual discernment that takes place in the novitiate results in an election regard-ing the direction one's vocation should take. Besides providing direction, Review for Religious, September-October 1988 however, the election process in the novitiate also seeks to test out the depth and freedom of a person's desire to serve Christ through the life of the vows. The Exercises were designed by Ignatius to help in "preparing and disposing the soul to rid itself of all inordinate attachments, and, after their removal, [in] seeking and finding the will of God in the disposition of our life for the salvation of our soul."4 In a Jesuit novitiate the Exer-cises are usually made in the course of a thirty-day retreat soon after en-trance. This experience provides the context in which the Jesuit novice director helps the individual novice either to make an election regarding his vocation or to reaffirm his previously~ made decision to be a Jesuit. Those who make an election to pursue the Jesuit way of life must then generously engage in the novitiate process with the hope that the Lord will clarify and confirm their desire. Thus, vocation discernment in the novitiate involves a two-year period of' monitoring one's deepest desires and ascertaining whether the desire to serve the Lord as a Jesuit perdures and deepens throughout the course of the novitiate. If this desire per-dures, the novice can then express this desire through the first vows of a Jesuit. Michael J. Buckley, S.J., describes these first vows as an offering, following upon an election, made in perpetuity, very much like the initial election of the Exercises. Like this offering, they are con-tingent upon the subsequent confirmation by the Lord, worked through a human being's personal religious history over the next ten or fifteen years.5 Until he takes his final vows many years after the novitiate, "the Jesuit lives in a period of probation, testing whether the first offering of his life to God [through first vows] is accepted and confirmed by divine providence."6 Buckley summarizes this Ignatian dynamic well by explain-ing "the way in which one moves toward finding and giving his life over to the will of God" within the framework of the Spiritual Exercises. There isthe initial offer of a choice to God our Lord, an offering which is made according to a time for making an election and which is then presented before the Lord . What the dynamic of the election looks for after the moment of offering is the subsequent confirmation'by God. Election as a religious history, as an experience of Providence, devel-ops over time between these two major events: the time of human offer-ing and the period of confirmation by God.7 Clearly, then, the objective of vocation discernment in the novitiate is to help novices determine whether the depth and direction of their Novitiate Formation / 669 heart's deepest desires move them to make a self-offering of themselves through vows. Absolute clarity and certainty regarding the future can-not be expected at the end of the novitiate period, since the person's self-offering must await "the subsequent confirmation by God." As Buck-ley eloquently states, For a man who follows God, who listens to God throughout his serious experience, the future is unknown and mysterious--not unlike God him-self. And he moves into this mystery without prematurely forcing clar-ity because his experience of God directs this movement.8 The Test of Existential Validation Colloquially stated, the test of existential validation asks novices this question: "Does the shoe fit?" This is an important question for voca-tion discernment, and it must be asked on a regular basis. While the Ig-natian election helps novices find God's will for them in the deep de-sires of their hearts, the test of existential validation enables them to dis-cover God"s will in the concrete details of their lives. The method of existential validation is basically very simple. When they first enter, the novices are asked to live the life of a Jesuit as if they have already taken the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Then they are asked to pay attention to the "fit" throughout the course of their novitiate. In other words, they are asked to "try on the shoes of being a Jesuit" and check for the fit as they actually walk in those shoes. In their concrete experience, do they find that living the vows in an actual Jesuit community is life-giving and productive? Do they dis-cover that, with the passage of time, there is an increasing congruence between what they want for their lives and Jesuit ideals? As they grow in knowledge of what being a Jesuit involves concretely in this histori-cal time and place, do they find a match between what they desire and what life in the Society of Jesus offers and requires today? Another aspect of existential validation involves testing the authen-ticity of one's desire. This is done mainly by checking for the congru-ence between what one professes to value and desire and how one actu-ally chooses, decides, and behaves. Although all human beings live with a discrepancy between the ideal and the real, drastic and consistent de-viations from the norms and aspirations of religious life should make one question the genuineness and depth of one's desire to be a religious. Though painful and disruptive, getting in touch with authentic desires can be a liberating experience. Furthermore, while self-reporting is an important means for gather- 670 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 ing data in the process of existential validation, the feedback of the re-ceiving community is also very important in testing out the existential fit between the individual novice and the peculiar charism of a particu-lar religious institute. Vocation discernment in the novitiate must ascer-tain not only if a person desires to take on religious life, but whether he or she has been given the gift and charism to live that life. A realistic assessment of this capability is a crucial aspect of vocation discernment. For example, from the concrete evidence of a person's life, can it be judged that the Lord has given the aspirant to an apostolic religious com-munity the following prerequisites: -- the ability to live in community with relative peace and joy? -- the capacity to love with celibate chastity in a non-exclusive man-ner? -- the.freedom to live with simplicity and detachment? -- the ability to be mobile and available to be sent anywhere on mis-sion? The underlying presupposition of this line of inquiry obviously is that one's God-given abilities, personality, and inclinations can indicate in helpful ways the precise form and manner in which one is being called to serve Christ. Not to pay serious attention to these concrete indicators is to disregard an important aspect of vocation discernment. Vocation Shortage and a ~,ranny of Numbers I would like to make a final comment regarding vocation discern-ment in the novitiate. It seems to me that the declining number of candi-dates c~n create a ,~ituation in which vocation discernment is not engaged in with seriousness and detachment. The disordered desire to keep the few that come can jeopardize and short-circuit the discernment process. At a time of drastic diminishment, external pressures to hang on at any cost to the few that do enter are sometimes exerted by formed members of the community. This pressure, as well as the interior unfreedom of formatores themselves, can impede a thorough discernment process.9 Fur-thermore, unconsciously treating novices with a "precious few" men-tality can lead to a form of coddling that would be unhelpful for relig-ious formation and spiritual growth. Religious communities that have had only a few candidates during the last decade and at present experience only a trickle from year to year are particularly susceptible to this dan-ger. Religious Socialization: "Habits of the Heart" The term "religious socialization" has been popularized by John Novitiate Formation / 671 Westerhoff III in discussing the question of how elements of religion and faith ,~are transmitted from one generation to another. While he does not apply the term to the formation of religious candidates, nevertheless, it seems to capture quite well one of the essential purposes of the noviti-ate, that is, the handing on of a religious tradition and lifestyle to per-sons desiring to enter the life of a religious group as fully participating members. Religious socialization, according to Westerhoff, is a process consisting of lifelong formal and informal mechanisms, through which persons stistain and transmit their faith (worldview', value ~syst~m) and lifestyle. This is accomplished through participation in the life of a tradition-bearing community with its rites, rituals, myths, sym-bols, expressions of beliefs, attitudes and values, organizational pat-terns, and activities.~° As defined by Westerhoff, religious socialization is a lifelong proc-ess and thus does not exactly describe the novitiate, which (to the relief of all involved) is limited to one or two years. Technically speaking, re-ligious socialization is equivalent to the whole process of formation, which more and more is being viewed as a lifelong affair. Because of ongoing liturgical renewal, biblical and theological reflection, and the rapidity of changing conditions of our times, religious have been urged to commit themselveS seriously to "continuing formation." ~ Neverthe-less, the ~oviiiate is the initial phase of the lifelong process involved in the assimilation of members into religious life. Viewed as such, Wester-hoff's notion of religious ~ocialization provides a useful way of under-standing an essential purpose of the novitiate. Adaptations of novitiate formation must be guided by the essential goal of religious socialization. The basic question raised by the task of handing on the tradition Of religious life to new aspirants is this: What is tO be~handed down and how? What values, beliefs, mores, and ways of proceeding has the receiving community judged to be of perennial worth, such that they should remain permanently .definitional of the group? To employ a phrase of Alexis de Tocqueville, the nineteenth-century French observer of democracy in America (a phrase recently popu-larized by a national bestseller), what are the "habits of the heart" that the receiving community deems absolutely essential for maintaining its group life with integrity and vitality'? In "habits of the heart" Tocqueville included "notions, opinions, and ideas that 'shape mental habits'; and 'the sum of moral and intellectual dispositions' " as well as habitual practices with respect to such things as religion. ~- Once the receiving community has come to a clear consensus on the 672 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 content which it wishes to transmit, then it must decide on the most ef-fective means for this transmission. The question of how to raises a num-ber of considerations which every novice director must ponder if the no-vitiate program is to have any intelligible rationale. Some of these im-portant considerations will be discussed below. The Question of Contact and Separation For the sake of effective religious socialization, there often arises the question of what contact novices should have with family, friends, those in ministry, and formed members of their own religious order. Arbuckle has provided a very useful framework to reflect on this question. ~3 Re-lying on anthropological data regarding initiation rites, he proposes three-stage process for the novitiate, which, according to him, is essen-tially an initiation rite: the stages of separation, liminoid, and the incor-poration or reaggregation. Stage I emphasizes separating the novices from the ordinary life they have left behind in order to dramatize the radicality of the transition from lay life to religious life. While this stage may be brief, the separation also symbolic. The symbolism must express to the candidate that in order to respond to the call of the Lord there must be a withdrawal from the world of "or-dinary" living with its roles and interests, its speed, and its distraction. The symbolism must convey the message that to follow the radical de-mands of the gospel message one must be prepared to "leave father, mother, brothers, sisters, and all things" for the sake of the Lord. 14 To convey this new dramatic reality, novices should, at this stage, be separated physically and geographically from other members of the group who have already gone through the passage of initiation. Not to separate them, "when the aims of the initiation process are so different from the aims of postnovitiate training, is to make the realization of the novitiate aims impossible to achieve."~5 The second stage, called liminoid (from the Latin, limen, threshold), requires the kind of seclusion that fosters strong investment in commu-nity building. It is precisely in the context of a vibrant community life that the novices are to experience the "habits of the heart" which the receiving community wish(s to transmit to its new members. This is the time for introducing the novice to the unique spirit of the institute, peculiar charism within the Church, and its characteristic way of proceed-ing. By so inculcating its spirituality, mores, history, and tradition, the receiving community aims to bond the new member to its past and thus Novitiate Formation / 673 to provide a foundation for the novice's identification with the group. According to Arbuckle, this second stage of relative seclusion should last about a year. The third stage is that of incorporation or reaggregation, a period when novices are reconnected with the religious family outside the no-vitiate. This stage should be as long as or even longer than the liminoid stage. Basically a time of "evaluated pastoral experience," this stage is to be seen as an integral part of the novitiate process. Arbuckle ex-presses the aims of the third stage by citing paragraph 25 of Renovationis Causam: Besides gradual preparation for apostolic activities, they [that is, the ex-perimental periods outside the novitiate] can also have as their purpose to bring the novice into contact with certain concrete aspects of poverty or of labor, to contribute to character formation, a better knowledge of human nature, the strengthening of the will, the development of personal responsibility and, lastly, to provide occasions for effort at union with God in the context of active life.~6 In my opinion, Arbuckle's three-stage approach provides a rich and comprehensive understanding of the novitiate process, as Well as a sound basis for determining the question of the amount of separation and con-tact that would be helpful for novices. That there be some kind of alter-nation between separation and contact has also been clearly endorsed by others. For example, the Jesuit decree on novitiate formation states: Although entrance into the novitiate should entail a real separation from the life previously led in the world, superiors should nevertheless pro-vide that the novices, while consistently maintaining a spirit of recol-lection, should have sufficient social contact with their contemporaries (both within and outside the Society). Likewise the necessary separation from parents and friends should take place in such a way that genuine progress in affective balance and supernatural love is not impeded. IV The Arbuckle model is useful because it enables the novitiate to ef-fectively bond new members to the religious group, which is the goal of religious socialization. The bonding is both with the past (the commu-nity's traditions and history) and with the present (its present members and ministries). By means of form'al and informal contact, then, the re-ceiving community links its new members to its group life. The Question of Structure and Nonstructure It is my opinion that both structure and nonstructure have important and different functions in the process of religious socialization. The no- 67'4 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 vitiate process must include times for both. Structured time is important for thi~ development of the habits and skills necessary for sustaining a lifetime of religious dedication. This time of structure is the period tra-ditionally known as "common order" during which the novices's day is regulated according to a schedule with definite periods for communal and personal prayer, for work around the house, for conferences and classes with the novice staff, for individual study, and for apostolic in-volvements. Because the development of habits such as those that con-tribute to a faithful prayer life and spiritual discernment requires regular repetition and practice, structured time for such training is important in novitiate formation. Equally important is time for more freedom and less structure in the novitiate learning process. These times of nonstructure provide an op-portunity for the novices to test out to what extent, they have internal-ized and appropriated what they have sought to learn during times of struc-tured learning. For example, has the individual novice found himself or herself able to faithfully sustain a regular prayer life when away from the structural supports of the novitiate? To foster personal responsibility among novices for their own development, the Jesuits' 3 i st General'Con-gregation stated that "a necessity is that the no~,itiat~'s way of life be not so rigidly determined that the novices, lacking in all initiative, can hardly ever practice spiritual discernment, or even obedience itself, ex-cept in the form of a passive and impersonal submission."~8 The non-structured periods of the novitiate allow the novices as aspiring religious to find out truthfully and behaviorally what changes in their lives and at-titudes have actually taken place as the result of their training in the limi-noid stage. Therefore, I believe that a rhythmic alternation between struc-tured and nonstructured time is an essential dynamic of the novitiate learn-ing process. The Question of Experience and Reflection Another important learning dynamic in the novitiate involves the com-bination of experience and reflection. This mode of learning, variously called experiential learning or praxis, calls for the novice's active engage-ment in learning experiences and a subsequent reflection upon those ex-periences, with an eye to what insights and knowledge can be.,gleaned from them. This form of experiential learning is applicable to many ar-eas in which novices are called to grow, that is prayer,t9 interpersonal relationships,2° and ministerial effectiveness. The goal sought through this mode of learning is, in the words of the Jesuits' 33rd General Con-gregation, "a transformation of our habitual patterns of thought through Novitiate Formation / 675 a constant interplay of experience, reflectipn, and action.' While experiential learning can be a powerful form of learning, there is always the danger that it can lead to anti-intellectualism, if it is not carefully applied. Experience is the indispensable raw material of expe-riential learning. But it remains unprocessed--that is, raw material-- without the equally important process of reflecting on the experience. The danger is effectively obviated when serious effort an~d sufficient time are devoted to dwelling on the experience in such a way that ideas and principles are abstracted out of it and feelings are symbolized. In addition'to serious reflection, there is a further requirement of ef-fective praxis. To be used intelligently, experiential learning must be grounded in a well-thought-out theory of experience. As John Dewey warned in 1938, "The belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative. Experience and education cannot be directly equated to each other."zz Mere insisten~ze on the necessity of experience, there-fore, is notenough. In Dewey's words, "Everything depends on the qual~ ity of the experience which is had."z3 Therefore, to use the experiential mode of learning in the novitiate effectively,formatores must ensure (!) that the quality of the learning experiences engaged in by novices be se-riously evaluated and (2)that the novices, with the assistance of a skilled facilitator, give sufficient time and attention to follow-up reflection on their experiences. The Ongoing Process of Individuation The third major aspect of novitiate formation calls for the ongoing fostering of the personal growth of candidates. While the agenda of the receiving community is stressed in the process of religious socialization, the individuation process respects the agenda of persons in their individ-ual growth process. Since it is the case, more and more, that candidates enter the novitiate at such diverse ages and at such different points of p.er-sonal development, novitiate formation must seriously recognize individ-ual differences and aid individuals to move ahead, not regress, in the de-velopment of their selfhood. After all, the ability to give of oneself in self-donation presupposes that one first possesses a self. According to Carl Jung, the process of individuation is a gradual growth toward whole-ness and harmony, involving the progressive differentiation and detailed development of all parts of the human personality. Since individuation is a lifelong project, entry into religious life cannot halt its progress with-out stunting the healthy maturation and development of religious as hu-man beings. 6"/6 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 Since Vatican II, religious have been strongly ehcouraged to take con-tinuhl human growth seriously and to take care that their commitment to religious life does not impede their prior responsibility as human beings to a~tualize their God-gi~,en potential. In the eyes of an increasing num-ber of c,~ontemporary theologians, the motivation for continuous human growth is clearly a religious one. Human life'is seen as a gift fr6m the Fi~ther. At the same time, God couples the gi~ft of life with a challenge to person~s to be cocreatorsof their lives, freely fashioning their lives into "something beautiful for God." In this ongoing process of human de-velopment,~ the Lord of creation and the human works Of his hand col-laborate. Therefore, for the person who seeks to respond to God's in-itiative, a commitment to continuous growth'is not only a choice, but requirement. To deny the inner impulse t.oward continuous growth is tan-tamount to not responding to God, because, in the words of Gregory Baum, "as d.estiny, as summons, as love., God is present in man's mak-ing of man."~-4 John Haughey, S.J., states that the refusal to take seri-ously one's vocation to be a cocreator with God also takes on a moral dimension. When the refusal to choose leaves the work of God's hands unfinished, then this peculiar kind of inaction takes on a moral dimension. Why.'? Because the unique way of manifesting some aspect of the fullness of God that every person is born to manifest remains potency. Refusal to come to the point of decision, choice, or commitment can leave some-thing of creation itself unfinished and hence God's glory incomplete. This constitutes evil at the level of:being itself. An individual thwarts the purpose of God's creating him by refusing to exercise the cocreator-ship that he could exercise. That which is called forth by God is ren-dered void by man.25 Consequently, religious life and novitiate formation must reinforce among no'vices the importance of continuing their commitment to the proc-ess of individuation as they are simultaneously socialized into the group. Growth in spiritual maturity depends heavily on integral human devel-opment. This truth has long been captured in the Scholastic adage that "grace builds on nature." Leo P. Rock, S.J., a former novice director, applied this truth 'to novitiate formation in a pithy way: "Grace does not substitute for nature, but fulfills it. Healthy, sane personality develop-ment is the most fertile soil in which grace can take root and grow. Growth in religious life can best happen in the situation which best fos-ters personal human growth.''26 The following considerations may be helpful toformatores as they consider how to best foster such prerequi- Novitiate Formation / 677 site human growth in the novitiate: The Developmental Nature of Human Growth Human growth takes place in stages, with each stage presupposing and building on preceding ones. As deveiopmentalists put it, these stages are. invariantly sequential. A person cannot, for example, go from stage one to stage four by skipping the intervening stages. This principle thus requires t~at every individual novice be met where he or she is on enter-ing the novitiate, and then helped to proceed ~forward, stage by stage, from tha.t personal starting point. This is especially important because per-sons entering religion today .vary so much in age, background, and de-velopment. An undifferentiated treatment of novices would prove to be an unenlightened and eventually frustrating appr6ach. Another key consideratibn is that, as a Jesuit formation document puts it, "human development does not proceed at the same pace in eve-ryone." z7 This fact calls for adaptation of the process to individuals. Therefore, in. fostering growth in the novitiate, it seems important that the focus be kept on the individual and the particular~areas of his or her life that stand most ready for development at any particular time. Force-feeding of any kind not only risks dging violence to people, but will ul-timately be countbrproductive in leading to any kind of significant, long-term learning. Personal Responsibility and Religious Obedience The renewal of religious life since Vatican II has certainly challenged men and women to understand and qive the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in ways that do not impede personal maturity and psycho-logical health. Twenty years ago Jesuit John Courtney Murray spelled out this challenge in a talk to fellow Jesuits. He warned that religious obedience poses a real danger to personal maturity if it fosters the abdi-cation of personal responsibility for one's life and choices. Obedience is a perilous"path to personal maturity, according to Murray. This is be-cause the vow of obedience, if poorly lived out, produces people "who to a degree are purposeless, their lives not consciously and strongly pat-terned, not inwardly directed toward a determined goal with all the or-ganized power of the whole self.' ,28 Religious can succumb to the trap posed by obedience by being pas-sive and overly submissive to authority figures in order to gain accep-tance and approval or to enjoy a kind of infantile dependence free from the anguish of personal decision-making. Those who manifest these and othe'r forms of immature behavior often rationalize their way of acting Review for Religious, September-October 1988 in spiritual terms, thus disguising and denying what they~ are actually do-ing. When they say that they "just want to follow God's or the supe-rior's will," it is sometimes simply a rationalization to justify their to take responsibility for themselves.29 This becomes obvious when the superior clearly has no strong feelings or particular preference about wfiat should happen and in fact would like the religious to assume some independent initiative and to indicate a clear preference. Realizing this threat to maturity, ihe document on Jesuit formation makes clear that "the more the noviceg are stimulated to assume respon-sibilities with prudent and discerning charity, the more successfully will .they acquire Spiritual maturity and the more freely will they adhere their vocation."3° A correlative document on Jesuit obedience states that mature obedience is unattainable apart from the constant cultivation a spirit of initiative and responsibility.3~ A Discernment Model to Develop Responsible~Obedience To foster personal responsibility within the framework of religious obedience, I have used the following eight-step model to teach novices a way of practicing dis~zernment: Step 1" Identify the decision to be made or tl~e issu~ to be resolved. Step 2: Examine the underlying values or concerns (human, Chris-tian, religious, and Jesuit) involved. Step 3: Take time to pray over the matter, paying attention to how one is being drawn or led in prayer. Step 4: Discuss the matter with a spiritual director. Step 5: Dialogue with the superior and engage in a mutual search for God's will in the matter. Step 6: Strive for a state of lgnatian "indifference," that is, a state of inner freedom and equipoise which allows one to accept whatever decision or resolution would be for God's greater glory. If a person is unable to achieve "indifference," discussing the matter in spiritual direction can bring valuable self-knowledge and clarity about how best to proceed in the search for God's will. Perhaps, more prayer and dia-logue with the superior regarding conflicting values and perspectives may be needed before a peaceful closure and decision can be arrived at. Step_ 7: Accept the superior's decision with ,trust in God's. provi-dence at work within the dynamics of religious obedience. Step 8: Stay open to the emerging data of ongoing experience to check for confirmation. In a study of lgnatian obedience, John Futrell, Novitiate Formation / 679 S.J., states that "the principal means of confirmation of the decisions of the superior., are the mutual contentment of himself and his com-panion and the proof of living experience.' ,32 If there is serious doubt "that the superior's decision truly reflects God's will, the process of ,prayer, consultation, and dialogue must begin again. This discernment process promotes personal responsibility and growth because it requires the full engagement of the novices. In com-ing to a decision, they must work with.their religious superior, rather than have things fully decided or resolved for them from above. Step I requires them to invest in the process of defining the parameters of the issue from their personal point of view. Step 2 involves a process of val-ues clarification in which they state the values that are at stake in the de-cision. Steps 3 and 4 give them the chance to critique these values, both alone in prayer and together with a spiritual director. Steps 2, 3, and 4 press them to ask an important twofold question: "Am I free to pursue my values.'?" and "Are my values worth the pursuit?" By requiring them to come to some kind of tentative stance or decision before dialogu-ing with the superior, these steps promote their sense of selfhood, which is largely shaped in the process of personal decision-making. Finally, if attained, the spiritual attitude of Ignatian indifference provides them with the inner freedom which guarantees that their act of autonomous choice can be integrated with religious obedience. For, in the end, indifference allows them to accept whatever is decided with a sense of adult respon-sibility and commitment to the way of evangelical obedience. Summary Reflections Before ma~king a concluding recommendation, it might be helpful to summarize what has been proposed here: I. Adaptations in novitiate formation must always be guided by the three, essential goals of the novitiate: vocation discernment, religious so-cialization, and ongoing individuation. 2. Novitiate formation as it relates to vocation discernment must be seen as a positive aid concerned with the confirmation of a call, rather /han as a negative process of "weeding out" candidates. The process of election monitors the will of God being expressed in the heart's deep-est desires, and the process of existential confirmation searches for the will of God manifested in the concrete circumstances of one's life. 3. Novitiate formation as it relates to religious socialization is the proc-ess by which a religious community receives new members and bonds them to the community's past and present by (a) sharing with them its tradition, spirituality, mores, and "habits of the heart" and (b)welcom- 680 / Review for Religious, September-October 1988 ing them to its current fellowship and ministries. 4. Novitiate formation as it relates to ongoing individuation is the process by which the, personal growth and development .of individual nov-ices are fostered, even as the novices are being socialized into the com-munity. Towards this end the novitiate attempts to promote individual initiative and personal responsibility within the context of religious obe-dience. In light of what has been proposed above, I recommend-~that, wher-ever and whenever possible, communities with small numbers of nov-ices (for example, five or fewer) join together with,other compatible groups ~to form a larger formation community, Examples of compatible groups might be novices of different provinces of the same religious or-der (for example, an interprovinciai Jesuit or Dominican novitiate) o con-gregations with the same founding spirit (for example, Franciscans, Bene-dictines, Mercy Sisters, St. Joseph Sisters). In my opinion, the goals of religious socialization are. better accomplished in larger groupings and are very difficult to achieve with just two or three novices ~ibsorbed into a regular apostolic house. This is especially true of the liminoid phase of religious socializa-tion, which relies heavily on an experience of community. During period, novices are meant to acquire the religious values,mores, and spiri-tuality of the group by experiencing daily life in a vibrant community, whose central ministry is the socializing of novices into religious This regrouping for the sake of forming larger formatiow communities can be on a full-time or part-time basis. A very successful example a full-time merger has been Loyola House in Berkley, Michigan, which houses the joint Jesuit novitiate program of the Chicago and Detroit prov-inces. Part-time collaborative programs have taken various forms. For example, for two straight years the Jesuit novices of the California and Oregon provinces joined together for two months to experience the Ig-natian Exercises together. Last year three Jesuit novitiates'pooled their resources and spent five weeks together to study the history of the or-der. Another example of such successful collaboration is the intercom-munity novitiate experience in such places as Los Angeles and Denver. Large and autonomous formation communities can provide S'everal very important dimensions of novitiate training that communities of or two novices cannot provide. Briefly, they are the following: Peer formation. In my experience, peer formation is an important as-pect of religious socialization, As novices experience together the dif-ferent aspects of religious life and share theirjfaith and religious experi- Novitiate Formation / 681 ences with each other, they are supported and "edified," in the best sense of the word. Spiritual conversation among novices regarding the story of their vocation, their experience in prayer and ministry, their strug-gles with the vows and with community living can provide much needed support and insight. Liturgical formation. Larger, autonomous novitiate communities are more likely to have a well-planned, coordinated liturgical life, which can be very important in the spiritual formation of novices. When there are only two or three novices living together, chances are that there will be no orga0ized liturgical life in the community. Instead, the novices may merely join in a convenient parish liturgy. When this occurs, the peda-gogical function of liturgy within formation is greatly diminished. Staffing and programmatic advantages. Because of the growing short-age of active members in practically every religious community in the United States, the search for qualified personnel for the various apostolic works of a community often invites a subtle competition among the vari-ous ministries. As a result, there is a danger that novitiate formation will get short shrift because of the very small number of novices being min-istered to. A larger group of novices in some kind of interprovincial ar-rangement would provide a stronger claim for greater investment by the community (a) in qualified formation personnel whose work is given full-time status and assured of some continuity and (b) in some regular and relatively fixed program of instruction for the training of novices. With-out this kind of investment, it is hard to expect that a person asked to be a part-time novice director for one or two years will devote the time and energy needed to understand the complex process of novitiate for-mation and to develop the skills and knowledge needed to do a good job. When left to function on their own, communities with just a trickle of novices tend to create a makeshift, ad hoc arrangement to handle the for-mation of the few. It seems that having several ongoing, large-group, com-mon novitiate programs which could accommodate novices from vari-ous communities that share the same charism or spirit of a founder would be helpful for meeting the need created by the drastic drop in recent years. None of this would be complete without a word about the inherent, not to say mind-boggling, paradox of religious life and growth. While we are called upon to use all of the knowledge and expertise at our dis-posal, it is the Holy Spirit who effects growth, who gives life, and whose gifts shape the soul--a Spirit who, much to the surprise, despair, and con-fusion of our best-made plans, still blows where it will. This does not Review for Religious, September-October 1988 relieve us of the responsibility of bringing what expertise we can muster to fostering human, spiritual growth. But it reminds us that it is the Holy Spirit, whose ways transcend all our human expertise and wisdom, often confounding them, who effects and shapes the growth we hope to facili-tate. NOTES ~ See Gerald A. Arbuckle, S.M., "Planning the Novitiate Process: Reflections of an Anthro.pologist," in REVIEW FOR REL~6~Ot~S (July/August 1984): 532-546. , 2 Ibid., 15.~ 532. ~' 3 Ann and Barry Ulanov, Primary Speech: A Psychology of Prayer (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), p. 20. '* Annotation # I, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, translated by Louis J. Puhl, S.J. (Chicago: Loyola Upiversity Press, 1951). 5 Michael J. Buckley, S.J., "Final Vows in the Society of Jesus," in National Jes-uit News, vol. 10, no. 7, April 1981, p. 8. 6 Ibid., p. 9. 7 Ibid., p. 8. 8 Michael J. Buckley, S.J., "The Priesthood as a Religious Event," in The Berkeley Jesuit, spring 1970, p. 7. 9 "In all selection and testing of seminarians, necessary standards must always be firmly maintained, even when there exists a regrettable shortage of priests. For God will not allow his Church to lack ministers if worthy candidates are admitted while unsuitable ones are speedily and paternally directed towards the assuming of other tasks and are encouraged to take up the lay apostolate readily, in a consciousness of their Christian vocation." Paragraph 6, Decree on Priestly Formation (Optatam Totius), in The Documents of Vatican !I, ed. Walter Abbott, S.J. (New York: Amer-ica Press, 1966). ~0 John Westerhoff III and Gwen K. Neville, Generation to Generation: Conversa-tions on Religious Education and Culture (Philadelphia: United Church Press, 1974), p. 41. ~ Nos. 138-140, "The Spiritual Formation of Jesuits," in Documents of the 31st and 32nd General Congregations of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1977), pp. I I 1-113. See also no. 23, "Companions of Jesus Se~nt into Today's World," Decree # I, Documents of the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1984), p. 50. ~2 Quoted in Robert N. Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Com-mitment in American Life (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1986), p. 37. ~3 Arbuckle, op. cit., pp. 540-545. ~': Ibid., p. 540. ~5 Ibid. ~6 Quoted ibid., pp. 542-543. t7 No. 22, Decree 8, "The Spiritual Formation of Jesuits," Documents of the 31st and 32nd General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, p. 104. Is Ibid., no. 19, p. 103. 19 For an explanation of how praxis or experiential learning is applied to prayer, see my "Teach Us to Pray," in Company: A Magazine of the American Jesuits, vol. Novitiate Formation / 683 I, no. 3, April 1984, pp. 8-10. 2o For a discussion of the experience/reflection dynamic in learning about interper-sonal relationships, see my "Particular Friendships Revisited," in Human Devel-opment, vol. 7, no. I, spring 1986, pp. 34-38. 2~ Decree I, -#40, Documents of the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus. 22 John Dewey, Experience and Education (London: Collier-MacMillan Company, 1938), p. 25. 23 Ibid., p. 27 (emphasis in the original). 24 Gregory Baum, "Reply and Explanation," in Ecumenist, vol. 9, Nov.-Dec. 1970- Jan.-Feb. ! 971, p. 18. z5 John Haughey, S.J., Should Anyone Say Forever: On Making, Keeping, and Break-ing Commitments (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1975), pp. 23-24. 26 Leo lb. Rock, S.J., "The California Province Novitiate: What We Do and Why," an unpublished paper, September 1973, p. 4. 27 No. 24, Decree 8, "The Spiritual Formation of Jesuits," Documents of the 31st and 32nd General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, p. 105. 28 John Courtney Murray, S.J., " The Danger of the Vows," in Woodstock Letters, fall 1967~, p~ 42 I. 29 For a discussion of obstacles to mature religious obedience, see my "Dealing with Projection: Recognizing and Removing a Common Obstacle to Mature Religious Obe-dience," in Human Development, vol. 6, no. I, spring 1985, pp. 6-1 I. 30 No. 23, Decree 8, " The Spiritual Formation," in Documents of the 31st and 32nd General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, p. 105. 31 Nos. II and 12, Decree 17, "The Life of Obedience." Documents of the 31st and 32nd General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, pp. 164-166. 32 John C. Futrell, S.J., Making an Apostolic Community of Love: The Role of the 'Superior According to St. Ignatius of Loyola (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), p. 143. Some Thoughts on the Vocation to Celibacy Clifford Stevens Father Stevens has been, over the course of many years, a Trappist, a parish priest, an Air Force chaplain, an editor of The Priest, and a small-town pastor. He has pub-lished a novel, Flame Out of Dorset, about St. Stephen Harding, twelfth-century Cis-tercian. Last appearing in our pages in 1986, he writes from the monaste(y he founded: Tintern; Monastery Road; Oakdale, Nebraska 68761. The very foundation of the vocation to celibacy must be the complete free-dom from compulsion with which the choice of celibacy is made. Free-dom from external compulsion, in that no one can be forced by external pressures to choose the celibate vocation, and freedom from internal pres-sures, ascetic, moral, spiritual, which would make the choice of celibacy anything but a conscious, free choice, based on something within the vo-cation to celibacy itself. The choice of celibacy is not a rejection or de-nial of the excellence of marriage. ~ It is rather an affirmation of realities that transcend sexuality and marriage.2 This "anthropological" base of the choice of celibacy is a critical factor in celibate happiness, and that celibate happiness is based precisely on the facts that [ could find happiness in marriage, that in choosing celi-bacy3 ! am just as free to choose marriage, and that marriage has a good-ness and nobility all its own. There is a profound reason for this complete freedom from compul-sion based on the specific excellence of celibacy itself, and not in com-parison with something else. The profound reason is this. The gift of sexuality and its directedness toward intimate expression'~ in marriage comes, with our very creation, from God's goodness, his wis-dom, and his benevolence. It is an integral part of our humanity and our 684 Thoughts on Celibacy masculinity, and no power on earth can deprive us of it because it comes with the~very blueprint of our nature. (This article looks at celibacy from a masculine point of view, not because the feminine viewpoint is not im-portant, but becduse it is outside the author's experience.) The ,gift of sexuality, in fact, is the root reality of our bodily exis-tence and of our masculine nature, and has a power and a goodness that enriches human life immeasurably. However we want to describe it, you and I, men endowed with all the gifts of a masculine nature, are shaped and fashioned by every ripple and nuance of our living flesh for physi-cal intimacy with a woman. To hide this from ourselves in the name of celibacy would rob the choice of celibacy of half its meaning. The choice of celibacy can never be based upon a denial or ignoring of the inherent goodness of sexuality or the preeminent goodness of sex-ual intimacy in marriage,s Moreover, it is possible to possess one's sexu-ality in this full awareness of its essential goodness, in complete inno-cence, with a wholesome sense of dignity, freedom, wonder, apd joy in its possession and, with the same complete innocence, to look forward to and experience its joyous expression in marriage; or, if one is a celi-bate, to be profoundly appreciative of its joyous expression in marriage, with the same complete innocence.6 The choice of celibacy is not based upon a lack of appreciation for sexual intimacy in marriage or upon any conviction that the experience of marriage is in any way displeasing to God. These are simply unsound anthropological bases upon which to build a vocation to celibacy and, unwittingly, they can plant deep in.the recesses of one's motivation a time bomb ready to go off. It is unfortunate that in the history of Christian spirituality the voca-tion to celibacy has often been explained in terms that denigrate the value and beauty of sexual love in marriage. The impression is given that the choice of celibacy is somehow a flight from something radically unspir-itual and that the celibate looks upon conjugal intimacy as something be-neath his dignity, something that would mar his perfect purity. The choice of celibacy, if it is genuine, has nothing of this motivation about it, but is based solidly and squarely upon something more positive and something more exhilarating. Celibacy must be based on a profound appreciation for the gift of sex-ual intimacy as personal gift and endowment from God and as an inte-gral part of one's masculine inheritance. Nobility of soul does not fail to plumb and to appreciate the riches of masculine possibility which is the natural inheritance of an awakened and full manhood. Review for Religious, September-October 1988 This possibility, with all its splendor and enrichment, does not ex-haust the human possibility, but it does enshrine some of its noblest in-stincts, of the feelings and of the mind, and an intimacy that mirrors the very passion of God himself. As a celibate I set aside intimacy with a woman, with all its rooms of joy and beauty, only for a greater intimacy and its even more won-drous rooms of beauty, and its universe of joy. But in doing so, I will not deny the power, the significance, or the magnitude of the masculine expectancy that I set aside and turn away from. This intimacy, by what-ever name it is called, is riveted into my very flesh; the lineaments of this passionate preoccupation are traced and interlaced in the warp and woof of my very biology. The gift of manhood with all its passionate possibilities is one of the richest gifts of God. I set it aside freely, not with no appreciation for its beauty, and not with regret, but because I have stumbled on a greater beauty, a more powerful intimacy, and a more earth-shaking encounter. In the shadow of that intimacy and in the tremor of this expectancy, every other human possibility fades into insignificance. I do not hide from myself the shattering loveliness and singular beauty of the sexual intimacy that could be mine, but celibacy reaches out to something greater, fully as rich, fully as valid, and as fully a com-plement to my manhood as the rich experience of love in marriage. This is the sound anthropological base upon which the vocation to celibacy is founded. It may not be part of one's original motivation since, in the beginnings of a vocation, you are simply too busy and too taken up with the excitement of a new direction to reflect upon every element of your motivation. But ultimately what is implicit in your choice must be made explicit by thought, reflection, and personal exploration, and there must not be in the root motivation of celibacy anything resembling spiritual or moral snobbery or looking down on marriage. The choice of celibacy must be based upon some excellence in the vocation of celibacy itself, and not in mere comparison with something else. Only then can the specific excellence of the vocation to celibacy become part of your own life,~and--I am sure I do not have to repeat--thespecific excellence of celibacy is not the fact that you do not have a woman in your life or that you sleep alone. This is a necessary condition, but if that is all that celibacy means to you, you could end up being the most miserable of men, deprived of the crowning act of your masculine nature, the finest and noblest expression of your manhood, with nothing to take its place. That would be a deprivation of singular magnitude. Thoughts on Celibacy And this is something that we should never forget: As celibates we deprive ourselves of this crowning act of our masculine nature, the fin-est and most genuine expression of our masculinity that is sexual inti-macy in marriage. If that terrifying vacuum were not filled with some-thing that touched with joy the very roots of our manhood, the dep-rivation and emptiness would be almost too much to bear. This is one of the consequences of celibacy that has not often been touched upon, but it certainly explains some of the strange aberrations of clerical and religious life and some of the tragic consequences of an ill-motivated and immature commitment to celibacy. One of the major problems in the vocation to celibacy is that many celibates have not through deep personal reflection made explicit in their own minds what was implicit in their choice of celibacy and have ac-cepted, quite uncritically, an evaluation of sexuality in general, and of their own sexuality in particular, that is based on tenets of a Neoplaton-ist and Stoic anthropology embodied in an older type of spirituality. This evaluation notonly placed no value upon sexuality itself, but tended to denigrate as totally unworthy of the spiritual person the inti-mate expression of sexuality in marriage, thus negating the very mean-ing of sexuality and placing a negative judgment on the very possession of one's sexuality. Really, it all starts and ends there: What evaluation and judgment do you place upon the intimate expression of sexuality in marriage? If that judgment is a negative one, you can never really be com-fortable in the possession of your own sexuality. The true Christian evaluation of sexual intimacy in marriage, based upon the vision of sexual love embodied in the Christian revelation it-self, is that the intimate expression of sexual love in marriage is (i) the crowning act (in fa~zt, the primary and unique act) of one's manhood, (2) the finest, noblest, and most genuine expression of one's masculinity, (3) the unique expression of love between a man and a woman, (4) God's crowning gift to one's bodily existence, and (5) the gr,eatest earthly gift that God has given to the human race. This is implicit in the very choice of celibacy, even though that evalu-ation may not have been part of the conscious motivation when the choice of celibacy was made. Historically, the negative sexual tenets we have mentioned are part of a North African phenomenon that included Neoplatonism in Alexan-dria, the monastic movement in the same area, the spirituality of Eva-grius Ponticus, Tertullian, and St. Augustine (and the ascetic movement in the West), and the monastic spirituality of John Cassian, who reflected Review for Religious, September-October 1988 in his writings the sexual anthropology of the Alexandrian monastic move-ment. A healthier anthropology can be found in the robust passion for life in the classical Greek tradition, reflected in the best of Plato and the monu-mental work of Aristotle, later embodied in the Spirituality of the Greek Fathers and in the philosophical achievements of Saints Albertus Mag, nus and Thomas Aquinas. That anthropology recognized the inherent goodness of our senses and our sense life, the inherent goodness of hu-man sexuality, and the innate and preeminent goodness of the intimate expression of sex in marriage. This view, however, was never embod-ied in "traditional" spirituality and had little influence on spiritual doc-trine. The work of Aquinas, however, bore fruit in many areas over the cen-turies even though some of his basic tenets were condemned by an older "Augustinian" sChool soon after his death in 1274. In the documents of the Second Vatican Council, particularly, Gaudium et.Spes, the Aqui. nas view was recovered, and we have in the council documents a posi-tive and wholesome anthropology of sexuality7 which should have a pro-found influence on future spirituality. NOTES ~ "Students should have a proper knowledge of the duties and dignity of Christian marriage, which represents the love.that exists between Christ and the Church." Op-tatam Totius, Decree on the Training of Priests of the Second Vatican Council, ed. by Austin Flannery, 0.P~., no., 10, p. 715. 2 "They should recognize the greater excellence of virginity consecrated to Christ, however, so that they may offer themselves to the Lord with fully deliberate and gen-erous choice, and a complete surrender of body and soul." ibid. 3 Celibacy seeks, on the basis of personal:experience and personal judgment, a con~ tinual intimacy with God and with divine things; it provides that personal solitude without which, for this p_articular individual, such continual intimacy with God would be impossible or unlikely. Celibacy is not chosen because there is any value in mere sexual deprivation, but because it is a natural step towards a lifestyle totally or domi-nantly preoccupied with the eternal and the divine. Celibacy bears witness in one's own person to the eternal dimension, to the reality and significance of the eternal in human life. '~ For the purpose of this article, sexuality and sexual intima~3, have these meanings: Sexuality is a gift of God that comes with the act of creation, a personal endowment that should be borne with a certain masculine dignity and yet worn joyfully~ and lightly. Our sexuality is inherent'ly good, and so, too, is the intimacy with a wdman to which it leads. Sexual intimacy is a gift of God that comes with the very blueprint of our nature, Thoughts on Celibacy in the sense that the pattern of that intimacy is molded into our very bodies. Sexual intimacy is part of our human and masculine inheritance, and its expression in mar-riage the very crown of masculinity and femininity. But while sexual intimacy is a gift to our person and our nature, its expression is meant to be embodied in a personal choice based on love, embedded in the marriage covenant, and to be the setting and inexhaustible source of the deepest human hap-piness. Sexual intimacy comes with our nature and our personhood. It is the living expres-sion of the noblest human love and is itself the image and mirror of God's own love for human beings. By celibacy we freely deprive ourselves of this most enriching gift,'this crown of our masculinity, for the simple reason that we, called by God, have other plans for ourselves. 5 The nature of the vocation to celibacy is not a denial of the inherent goodness and sublimity of married love, but an affirmation, the affirmation of something beyond the sexual and beyond the earthly, the affirmation of another relationship and the cul-tivation of that relationship as the main occupation of one's life. Celibacy is a dep-rivation, but it is a freely chosen deprivation of something seen to be part of one's own human inheritance and something preeminently good. St. Thomas links celi-bacy to the virtue of magnificence, a certain exuberance in living, a bursting of the bonds of the ordinary to reach out to the extraordinary. It is based on a hunger for the eternal and for an intimacy as real and as stunning as the intimacy of man and woman in marriage. See Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues (University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), pp. 145-180.' 6 Celibacy is part of the virtue of sophrosyne, touched upon in Aristotle's Ethics, with a fuller treatment in the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas. The object of sophrosyne is the body, and those things that are of the body (soma, somatos). There are several levels or kinds of sophrosyne: (I) joy and pride in bodily being itself (simple sophrosyne), (2) joy and pride in bodily well-being (dignity), (3) joy and pride in bodily senses (liveliness), (4)joy and pride

Issue 39.6 of the Review for Religious, November 1980. ; The Fot~rth Level of Prayer Developmental Stages and the Novice Limits of Adaptability of the Exercises Volume :~9 Number 6 November 1980 REVIEW ~:OR Rrl.J~aOt~S (ISSN 0034-639X). published hi-monthly (every two months), is edited in collaboration with faculty members of the Departmenl of Theology of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room a,28:3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis, MO 63108. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri, © 1980. By R~v~w FOk RFa.~¢aous. Composed. printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis. Missouri. Single copies: $2.(X). Subscription U.S.A.: $8.1XI a year; $15.00 for two years. Other countries: $9.00 a year. $17.00 fi~r two years. For subscription orders or change of address, write R~v~w I;Ok R~-:~,~;~ot;s: P.O. Box 6070: Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor November, 1980 Volume 39 Number 6 Correspondence with the editor and the associate editors, manu~ripts and books for review should be sent to REw~:w ~on R~:~AG~OUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19131. "Out of print" issues and articles not re-issued as repr.ints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 North Zeeb Road; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. The Benedictine Call to Judgment James M. Desche~e, O.S.B. Brother James has written this article especially to celebrate the 1500 anniversary of the Benedic-tines. His last article, "Journey into Christ," appeared in the issue of July, 1980. He resides at Christ-of-the-Hills Monastery; P.O. Box 32849; San Antonio, Texas 78216. Make no mistake about the age we live in; already it !s high time for us to awake out of our sleep., the night is far on its course., day draws near. (Rm 13:11,12). Despite the Lord's command to comfort the afflicted, one cannot help but be struck by the frequency with which the Lordhimself afflicts the comfort-able. Despite our very human tendency to seek peace and security, one cannot easily forget (for the Lord will not permit it) that Christ came "not to send peace, but a sword" (Mt 10:34). When, like ancient Israel, we have come to prefer the security of enslaved lives, the Lord, ever perverse in his grace, calls us out of our comfortable slavery to wander in a desert of freedom, exiled from security and peace. ¯ Wandering.in that terrible place, we long with all our hearts to be back in the dreary mud pits of Egypt, preferring the dry but dependable crusts of slavery to those fierce, unsatisfied hungers we discover within us as we sojourn in the desert of fre~edom.and ~of judgment. Whatever the pain of crises in our lives, we must never forget that the crises themselves are divine gifts. The Greeks, who had a word for everything, gave us the word crisis. But they wisely knew (as we often do not) that the word, while it involved pain, really meant a time of challenge and judgment, an opportunity to-measure and evaluate and change. For the Christian, crises are moments in which God confronts us with truths we had preferred not to see, with realities we have chosen to ignore, with decisions we have refused to make. For the Christian, a crisis is a 801 802 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/6 moment--albeit painful--of deepest grace. For a Christian who has become settled in a life of slavery to routine and superficial existence, a moment of crisis is a moment of salvation and an opportunity to regain touch with th~ deep roots of being, to be enlivened and energized by a return to life and grace. Just as there are moments of crisis ! of j udgment-- in each human life, so are there moments of crisis in each human generation and in each human society. This is the human condition: to stand--as an individual and as a race--at eve.ry moment in need of judgment and of conversion, in need of redemption and of new life. It is his recognition of this condition--and of Christ's lordship over all our crises--that prompts Saint Paul to call us to judgment: "Make no mistake about the age we live in; already it is high time for us to awake out of sleep." Paul's word, translated here by "high time," is the Greek kairos, with its sense of urgency, of.opportunity, of occasion. The word for Paul usually suggests a critical time (a time of judgment), a God-filled moment of salvation, an end and a beginning. Fifteen hundred years ago was born a man whose wisdom in crisis was to have an incalculable influence on the history and life of our. western world. Benedict, born around the year 480 in the small Umbrian town of Nursia in the Apennines, found himself thrust into a world in crisis. The old Roman Empire and its social fabric were f~lling into ruin around this young man. Rome itself narrowly escaped attack by Attila the Hun in~452 only to be sacked a few years later by the Vandals. Nor was the Church im-mune from crisis. In 451, churchmen struggling over the doctrinal issue of the two natures in Christ met in council at Chalcedon. The results were a victory for dogma but a defeat for Christian unity, giving rise to the two schisms of the NestOrians and the Monophysites, and planting the seeds of the great disunity between east and west that were to bloom prodigiously in the later Middle Ages. In brief, it was an age not unlike our own. Into the crisis of his age entered this man Benedict who wisely allowed the larger crises of his time to become one with his own personal moment of crisis, of judgment and of salvation. In the person of Benedict, in fact, a judgment is passed upon the age itself: "Even while still living in the world, free to enjoy all it had to offer, he saw how empty it was and turned from it without regret" (St. Gregory the Great: Dialogues, H, Preface). It is the genius of Saint Benedict, and the special mark of his,holiness, that this judgment, while never compromising itself, always avoids the taint of the puritan harshness we of later generations have come to expect in those who renounce the world. Instead, as we discover in the Prologue to his Rule, Benedict's judgment is filled with goodness and grace, with charis as the ancients knew it, sounding clear notes of kindliness; graciousness and mercy. Benedict calls his advice that of a "loving father" and finds only joy in the~call to judgment: "What can be sweeter to us, dear brothers, than this voice of the Lord inviting us? Behold, in his loving kindness the Lord shows us the way of The Benedictine Call to Judgment / 803 life" (Rule, Prologue). As the monk confronts the crisis of his own life, any hardness results from the very hardness and smallness of his own heart. But in crisis, the Lord stands ready to give the monk a neff heart and with this growth comes an ineffable joy: "For as we advance in the religious life and in faith, our hearts expand, and we run the way of God's commandments with unspeakable sweetness of love" (Rule, Prologue). In its essence, the monastic or religious life as Benedict understands it is a call to judgment, a call to be ever open to the voice of the Lord, a vocation to enter into each and every moment of crisis with the faith tha, t God is present in that moment to recreate and renew our hearts and our lives. The great enemy to this vocation is hardening the heart: "Today if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts." And Benedict's remedy for this is sounded in the opening of his Rule: "Listen, my son, to your master's precepts, and incline the ear of'your heart." For Benedict this is no poetic fancy. To listen, to incline the ear of the heart, is exactly what is meant by obedience. "By the labor of obedience you may return to him from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience" (Rule, Prologue). Obedience, to the Latin ear ofSaint Benedict, always carried a message we easily miss in the English word. Obedience (from ob +audire) has to do with listening, with hearing, with attending to. It involves an openness and a sensitivity to the voice and,the, will of the Lord speaking to each person in each situation. To obey is tobe wholly open and submissive to the Lord in crisis; it is to be ever willing to enter into crisis because that is .where the Lord will be found at that moment. It is a willingness to allow the Lord tobe our judge, to have his way with us. It isa willingness to let one's,heart be broken, if that is the Lord's will. It is to. hold back no part of one's life,ands'being from the Lord of all life and being. To obey is to be wholly the Lord's creature, Benedict clearly indicates that it is in obedience that the monk finds a deep stability when he quotes from the Gospel the words: "Whoever listens to these w~ords of mine and acts upon them, I will liken him to a wise man who has built his house on rock. The floods came, the winds blew and beat against that house, and it did not fall, because it was founded on rock" (Rule, Prologue). When we are in crisis, security and stability appear to lie in avoiding the critical issue. When .the Lord calls.us out of slavery into the desert, slavery doesn't look so bad. Only the0deepest faith and the deepest trust in the Father's love can teach us to face the crisis, to enter into judgment, to listen to and obey the voice that calls us into seeming desert and chaos and.ruin. For Benedict this faith and trust are reflected in the words: "In his loving kindness the Lord shows us the way of life." What appears to be a way of death is really the way of life. One of the.practical ways Benedict provides to his monks for learning this deep trust in the Father's unfailing love is the office of the abbot; the abba who incarnates among the monks the Father himself. It is by his obedience to the abbot that the monk learns obedience to the Father. Indeed, it isin his obe- 804 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/6 dience to the abbot that the monk is obedient to the Father. Yet Benedict is careful to remind the monk that obedience-- in its radical sense of openness to crisis and the will of God expressed in concrete situations--is not limited to the relationship between a monk and his abbot. The monk is to recall that he must be obedient to all his brothers. "Not only is the boon of obedience to be shown by all to the Abbot, but the brothers are also to obey one another, knowing that by the road of obedience they are going to God" (Rule, Chapter 71). The call to crisis involves every member of the community. No one is to be denied our obedience--our listening, our sensitivity, our responsiveness. Every crisis between Christians, whether they be monks or not, is a God-filled kairos, a time of salvation. In light of the foregoing, it may be objected by some that this appears to be a diminution of the force of the vow of obedience. I have avoided all the juridical and legal aspects of the vow. Yet I have done this purposely, and for two reasons. First, the vision I find in Benedict of obedience is deeper, stronger and more demanding than. any purely juridical concept. Indeed, it is possible (perhaps even common) to find juridically conceived obedience an effective means of escaping real crisis, real judgment and encounter between the monk and the Lord. Secondly, a purely juridical view limits our considera-tion to those who are juridically bound by a vow. Yet Benedict's view of obe-dience is no less applicable to every Christian man and woman than to monks. All are called to crisis, to judgment. No Christian is exempt from this demand nor from the demand of obedience to each of his fellow Christians. Nor is any Christian exempt from the demand Benedict makes by the vow of conversatio morum, usually translated as "conversion of manners" or "reformation of life." For in its most profound sense, this vow is essentially a radical call to crisis, to judgment. It requires that at every moment we respond to the voice of the Lord calling us to newness of life. Today's response may have to be relinquished to tomorrow's response. Our hearts must be continu-ally open to each new judgme.nt and call from the Lord. We are not to settle down, not to set camp in the desert, but to be continually on the move. There is no standing still in the service of the Lord. Endless conversion, perpetual metanoia, are the marks of a truly living Christian. To guarantee that the monk will not be tempted to escape this demand of endless reformation and endless conforming to the living will of God as revealed in crisis and discovered by obedience, Benedict adds the third vow of stability. By this the monk renounces his right to escape God's demands in the present moment and circumstances by moving into other circumstances. Run-ning away is not permitted the monk and so there is nothing for him to do but to submit to the divine crisis and know it is God's will that he submit. From the day of his profession, the monk is assured by God's promise that it is here, among these particular persons,, that God will confront him in crisis. To flee from these brothers, then, is to flee from God and his call. (I do not wish here to enter into the problematical issues of canonical transfer of stability or of The Benedictine Call to Judgment / 805 departure from the monastic life, though these deserve fuller treatment in light of what has been said here.) One of the last points to consider in Benedict's vision of the Christian life authentically lived is the place of humility. A close examination of his chapters on hi~mility reveals that humility has a great deal to do with truthfulness. It has to do with facing the truth about ones.elf. It has to do with seeing oneself for what one is. It is a virtue of utter and radical realism. Above all, its end is tosee oneself as God sees one. It involves looking at fearful truths intently and steadily, refusing to turn away from them, until by grace and work, all fear is transformed into love and "the monk will presently come to that perfect love of God which casts out fear" (Rule, Chapter 7). Humility is thus related to crisis; it helps us to face crisis, to endure judg-ment, to bear the truth. It also enables the monk to be of assistance to his brothers in their need to face crisis. The monk serves his brother by being perfectly truthful, by obscuring nothing of his own weakness or sin and nothing of his brother's weakness and sin. Humble monks do not support one another in self-deception. Equally importantly, the monk is alway.s ready, in humility, to take from the moment of crisis the truth of his own goodness and to affirm the same in his brothers:.Humility is the readiness to admit the truth as it is revealed at every moment. This is particularly seen in the requirement that the monk hold back nothing about himself from his spiritual father. Every selfish thought, every petty jealousy, every twinge of hatred--all must be laid without hesitation before the spiritual father. In this way, spiritual direction for the monk becomes in the truest sense a crisis and a moment of salvation. Nothing of Benedict's vision is without relevance to the life and growth of every Christian. In this fifteen-hundredth year of Saint Benedict's gift to Christianity, it must be seen that his gift is a gift to all men and women who seek the Lord. The gift of his monks is to be bearers of crisis. The monk must live in such a way that the world may never forget that Christ is Lord. The monk must live in such a way that the values of the world, insofar as they are opposed to the values of Christ, are absurd and empty. Benedict's sons and daughters must see that their lives bring a continual judgment on the lives of all men and women; that their lives are lived in a way that proclaims the power of truthfulness, of humility, of obedience. The monk must live his life in such a way that it would make no sense if there" were not a loving Father guiding and ruling all things. It is this "senselessness" that can bring the world into crisis, into facing the truth of its own empty values, its own abandonment of God, This is the Benedictine crisis, this call to judge the world not by condemn-ing or rejecting it, and certainly not by fleeing it; but by living every moment in such a way that the world must face the question of God's rule and the reality of his kingdom. Our criticism must lie, like Benedict's, not in speaking against the world (though this too has its place), but by the positive and grace-filled 806 / Review for Religious~ Volume 39, 1980/6 living of our lives in truth, in love, in brotherhood, in simplicity, in peace: In our time, perhaps more than ever, this is the task to which Benedict's monks and nuns are called, For all of us it is a time of crisis, of asking whether weare really doing what Saint Benedict interided. To answer this question, we do not 'need to examine our effectiveness. For our effectiveness lies entirely in our observance of the Rule and spirit of Saint Benedict. It is by being witnesses to God's kingdom that we shall have our effect, and this witness lies in our fidelity to the principles we have briefly looked at~here: obedience, continual reformation, stability, humility. For fifteen hundred years the presence in the world of Benedictine monks has been a sign and a challenge, a judgment and a question .--a crisis. So long as~we do not ourselves abandon the elements of our life which keep us ever open and sensitive to the workings of the Spirit, so long as we have the faith and the courage to examine ourselves for fidelity to the authentic Benedictine tradition and to step into the future with faith and trust and submissive-ness- so long as these things are present,,the Benedictine family and mission will be .needed, will be in crisis, will be genuinely alive, ~ We attest to a frightened world that the'sword of Christ.is but a prelude to the peace of Christ, that death through olSedience leads to the fullest life, and that the ruins of our lives in the crises we meet are the foundations of Resur-rection. The world's fear must be cast out by the perfection of our love.For it is love that is the greatest judgment and crisis in all of human history. Benedict, in his school of the Lord's service, shows us the way to the crisis of love. The Fourth Level of Prayer: Mystery David J. Hassel, .S.J. Father:Hassel is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Loyol~i University in Chicago. His last arti-cle, "'Prayer of Personal Reminiscence: Sharing Oners Memories with Christ," was printed in the issue of March, 1977 and is still available in reprint form. He currently resides at 6525 North Sheridan Road; Chicago, IL 60626. Ironically, the terms most frequently used to describe our present-day spirituality can cause us the most c6nfusion: peace, consolation and desola-tion, dryness in prayer, contemplation in action, discernment. Since these terms.point to.mySterious processes within our experience, even a book-length analysis of them would be hardly adequate. But perhaps an article can achieve some clarity if it attempts simply to locate the happenings described by these terms~ In other words, if we were to ~st~rvey the various level~ of human awareness--e~en with some crudity--we might better understand the events occurring at these levels.' But before doing tlais survey, could we first describe the problems to be touched hire? For ~xample, people can feel disturbed about the peace they experience in their decisions and their prayer. Is this peace simply the euphoria of having finally made a decision after hours or days of sweaty deliberations? Is peace in prayer mainly exuberant physical ~nd mental health? The f6~ty'- year old priest has decided that God no longer wants him to practice° his priesthood but now wishes him to marry the woman who has helped him so ' I am deeply indebted to the retreatants whose honesty and trust have furr~ished me with the data out of which this article rises, i am particularly indebted to the following persons who have attempted to save me the usual number of unhealthy exaggerations inevitable in such an article as this: Mary Ann Hoope, B.V.M., Robert Harvanek, S.J., Paul Clifford, S.J., John Schuett, S.J., Richard Smith, S.J., Robert Murphy, S.J, :Mary Jane Linn, C.S.J., Frank Houdek, S.J., Jules Toner, S.J., Mrs. Mary Ellen Hayes. 807 808 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/6 much in his ministry and in his discovery of manhood. He feels peace in this decision; but is this "peade" simply the relief from heavy parish obligations and the glad anticipation of married life? Will "peace" remain when his new life begins to place renewed obligations on his shoulders? Again, a person can experience what seems to be a split in his personality. He finds himself half-miserable, half-happy. He asks himself: "How can I, at one and the same time, experience the depressing defeat of losing my job and yet, in my depths, feel confident? Are there two of me? Is this the play of con-solation and desolation within my life? Or are the pressures of life splitting my consciousness into two?" A third problem is Christ's command: "Pray always." Such a request seems psychologically impossible when a mother is raising four children between the ages of two years and twelves years or when an engineer is testing a heavily traveled city bridge for stress-breaks and wondering what will hap-pen in the business community and-at city hall if he condemns the bridge, or when the advertising executive is sizing up a prospective customer, estimating the product to be advertised, and puzzling over the morality of a slick sales-pitch which has just come to mind. But if Christ is asking the psychologically impossible, is he not providing the conditions for skepticism about his whole message? A fourth problem arises when we focus upon discernment process the three puzzling cases just mentioned. What does it mean to discern God's will in a decision, if I am unsure about peac~, consolation-desolati0n, and ongoing prayer in my life? Such discernment is often termed the concrete call of Christ to the individual Christian or to his community. But does God call only through external circumstances and other people, or does he not also" make his desires known within the experience of the individual Christian? Does such an interior experience occur in the imagination or in the mind or in the heart of the person? Or in all three at the same time? Or somewhere else? Some clarity, it is contended here, can be attained in these problems if one distinguishes four levels of awareness in the praying Christian: the superficial, physical, psychic, and mysterious. Could we, therefore, describe these levels then indicate a way of uncovering the fourth level, next show the type of partial solution which the appreciation of this fourth level offers to our prob-lems, subsequently explain how the fourth level would seem to affect the upper thre~ levels of awareness, and finally offer some cautions about the use of this fourth-level explanation? These five steps would be the strategy of this presentation. Four Levels of Awareness2 First Level: the Sensuous-Superficial. This first level is the skin-surface of experience: sensuous awareness. It is a tissue of minor irritations and pleasures. For example, I am displeased by the cold draft playing on my neck during the auditorium talk, or by the raspy.voice of the woman describing her The Fourth Level of Prayer: Mystery / 809 Florida vacation or by the first gnawings of hunger at 4:30 p.m., or by the slight rash on the back of my hand. At this same level, I experience satisfac-tion at a favorite meal of ham and sweet potatoes, at the sweet smell of spring grass just cut, at the relaxation of a hardy laugh, at the caressing of the family cat. Such minor irritations and pleasures ordinarily do not demand much at-tention and are taken for granted as the normal flow of life. Though I am often barely conscious of them, they do give life its continuous texture. Second Level: the Physical-Vital. Underneath the first level of awareness, there are other happenings which demand attention because they last longer and are more intense tfian events of the first level. Here are the pains and joys which go deeper than minor ir.ritations and pleasantries~ Anyone who has experienced the steady throb of neuralgia or the constant harassment of ulcer pains or the brain-deadening effect of insomnia will vouch for the e~xistence of this second level of awareness. Here are also pleasurable joys which exceed the simple pleasures described in the first level. There is, for example, the exuber-ance of glowing health, the feeling that "all the world is beautiful and owned by me'~-experiences which the carbonated-drink advertisements exploit. At this level the fifth symphony of Beethoven can stir a person to his depths with its elegant majesty, can make him feel noble beyond his dreams. Or this level contains the sustained sat!sfaction of slowly mastering one's tennis or golf. Here, too, the ecstasy of sexual pleasure .occurs with its deep drum-beat of powerful delight. The very power of the pains and pleasures of this second level demand our attention and make us aware of how superficial the first- . level irritations and pleasures are. Yet these second-level happenings do com-penetrate and influence the first-level, sensuous awareness. One's enjoyment of a favorite dinner is enhanced by the feel of good health or diminished by in-somnia. Third Level: the Psychological-Psychic. Although the second level of awareness contains happenings of insistent strength, still the third level of awareness is capable of riveting a person~.s attention and so possessing him or her that, for a time, he or she is seemingly unaware of second- or first-level happenings. The deep sorrows and the pure joys of this level totally permeate a person's being and consciousness. For example, the young woman, working at her first secretarial job, may be hypnotized by fear of failure so that her voice creaks, her fingers clog the typewriter keyboard, her memory fails and she feels no hunger throughout the first day of work. The paranoid person 2 In their article "Phenomenology, Psychiatry, and Ignatian Discernment," (The Way, Supple-ment #6, May, 1968, 27-34) Felix Letemendia and George Crofts'peak of four levels of experience: the sensorial, the vital, the psychic and the spiritual, which somewhat resemble the levels described here. They have borrowed their descriptions from Max Scheler, the philosopher, and from Kurt Schneider, the psychiatrist. Of course, there are many levels of experience, if one wishes to be very specific. But perhaps this more simplifiedlsketch of four levels better serves our present purpose. 810 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/6 may be so concentrating on the "derogatory actions" of others that he walks through a glass door without knowing that he is bleeding from cuts. At this third level a woman may experience haunting doubts about her ability to love another adeq~uately and thus may begin to feel like a dull, unattractive child u~na.ble to evoke love from another. A father's mental pain at watching his daughter waste away in unrelievable cancer is matched on this level only by the suffering of a wife undergoing systematic and.continuous belittlement from her husband while the children look on bewildered. But at this third level, the depth of the pure joys~equal such sorrows. Here an6ther mother experiences the warm security of being loved by an admired husband and of being respected by admiring children: Here, too, is where the older brother ~njoys the four-touchdown afterri0on of his younger brother whom h~had 6oached on all the moves of a tigl~t end during four years. It is at this third lev61 that the novelist reads over the'laudatory reviews of his book and experiences lasting gratitude to the elderly journalism teacher who had taught him his craft. Here, too, the woman social worker sits late at her desk, savoring the bone-tiredness but deep satisfaction of a day well spent in patiently binding together fragmenting families, persons, and situations. This third level, then; encompasses the top two levels'and, in so doing, can render them almost routine. For the top two-levels, distracting as they may be to this thir~l level of awareness, are integrated into a fuller meaning at the°third level. The tired social worker does feel the pangs of hunger at the ~irs~t level, and at the second level does anticipate the pleasure of relaxing at home with her husband over a leisurely dinner, but all this is occurring in the wider and deeper context 'of fulfillment in her work at the third level of awareness. Fourth Level: the Underground River of God. ~ The fourth level is like a great underground river which, underlying the upper three levels, quietly nourishes them, sustains them in their storms and blisses, acts as the continuity (the stay-in~ power) underneath~their sometimes rapid fluctuations of irritation-pleasantry, pain-pleasure, sorrow-joy. Compared to theupper three levels, this fourth level is a quiet beneath turbulance, a constancy amid flux, a seem-in~ Passivity under great activity. Consequently, the fourth level is never explicitly conscious in itself (as are the top three levels) but only by way of cont~ast with the top levels. It is not simply experiential, but implicitly experiential,' as we note in the following two cases. Discovery of the Fourth LevEl A remarkable case-history, whose details rife changed to disguise the ~ Being ignorant of C. G. Jung, the author would not wish the combined images of underground river and of ever deeper experiential levels to be interpreted as intentionally Jungian. ' John F.~ Dedek in his Experimental Knowledge of the Indwelling Trinity: an Historica/Study of the Doctrine of St. Thomas (St. Mary of the Lake Seminary Mundelein, Illinois, 1958, pp. 125r142) calls attention to Aquinas' doctrine that.the Christian's knowledge of the Trintiy is quasi The Fourth Level of Prayer: Mystery / 811 person, illustrates how this fourth level can be discovered. A woman novice in a religious order located onthe west coast came to a midwest Jesuit University to begin her collegiate studies. Her novice mistress had taken a dislil(e to her, told her that her lack of intelligence would keep her from ever being a useful member of the congregation, succeeded in turning the other novices against her and yet had capriciously admitted her into vows. When ! met this woman, her skin was blotched with anxiety, the doctor had diagnosed stomach ulcers, she herself felt isolated and :depressed~ But she also was convinced that, despite all the sufferings, God wanted her to be a nun. As three years went by, she discovered that she was a straight "A" student, that she had special talents for political science, that she was being accepted by her fellow students and by the nuns with whom she lived, that she could pray. In other words, she found that she had a future, that deep happiness could occur in religious life. As these discoveries slowly permeated her life, the skin-blotches .disap-peared, the ulcers became healed, the sense of alienation was replaced with the warm feeling of being accepted by her religious community. The steady accomplishment felt at the top three levels of her experience now allowed her to experience by contrast a constant uneasiness or lack of peace at her deepest level, the fourth level. During the period of her novitiate experience, she could not be clearly aware of the uneasiness at the fourth level, because it was clouded by all the disturbances at the upper three levels. Only the growing brightness at the top three levels of-her experience during her collegiate days enabled her to appreciate the bl~i9k uneasiness at the deepest level of her being. After a year or so of disc_e~;nment at-this fourth level, she gradually came to acknowledge that the Lord was asking her to leave the religious community and was calling her to another way .of life. She resisted this leave-taking because she had found so much pleasure, joy, fulfillment in her religious com-munity and in her study-work. Finally she accepted God's will and, leaving the congregation, secured a job in Washington as research assistant to a member of Congress who bullied every member of his staff consistently and impartial-ly. The former novice's skin again took on the anxiety blotches, again she was consulting a doctor about stomach pains, again :she felt herself sinking into a dark and angry depression. But to her surprise, at. t.he fourth level of awareness now opened to her by her previous and present experience, she found a constant serenity never before experienced, The Lord was apparently experimentalis, i.e., "knowledge that is joined to charity" (p. 146). But he is unable to determine whether for Aquinas "this knowledge is merely discursive cognition based on signs or rather some kind of immediate or supra-discursive perception of the divine persons." Such knowledge is cer-tainly at the deepest l~vel of man's experience and, according to.the above analysis, is inferential, that is, the person becomes aware by contrasting the top three levels with the fourth level. The cen-tral texts noted in Aquinas by Fr, Dedek are in I Sent., D. 14, q. 2a., and 3; D. 15, Expositio Secundae Patris Textus. Also Sum. Theol. I, q. 43, a.5, ad 2. 812 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/6 approving her new way of life. At a great price and with subtle indirectness she had discovered the fourth level of awareness where the Lord calls to her and speaks in her discernment. Among other factors for diagnosing God's will for her, the crucial factor was the continuous uneasiness or the steady Peace at this fourth level. A second quick example illustrates these same points in a less extra-ordinary way. One day in a community corridor I met a fellow Jesuit who had just returned from home. He said to me, "You know my younger sister just died, I discovered two weeks ago that my doctoral thesis of a year's slaving has already been written by a South American, I'm wondering whether I can handle the theology courses scheduled for next year, and I haven't slept more than four hours a night during the last two weeks. But do you know? I must be crazy. Down deep I'm at peace, God loves me and will help me work out these things, I worry at one level of me; but at a deeper level I feel at peace." Could it be that this man is discovering with new clafity 'and enjoying with fuller appreciation the fourth level within his experience--precisely because of the striking contrast between the top three levels of suffering-sorrow and this fourth level of serenity-security? But what is this fourth level so poetically described as the underground river of God within us? First of all, its peace ap-pears to be a sense of God's approval, almost a companioning of the person by God, On the other hand, its uneasiness seems to express God's disapproval which produces an emptiness and loneliness. Secbndly the experience of peace or uneasiness is implicit to the top three levels; that is, it is recognizable by contrast with these levels yet is hidden under and within them. Thirdly, because of its depth and implicitness, this fourth level is difficult to describe directly. Instead, one offers experiential case-histories with the hope that the latter can point within the hearer'sexperience to his or her fourth level. For this reason, too, metaphor ("underlying river of God," "the ocean floor of life-experience" and "the background music of our activity at the top three levels") is employed rather than neat definitions composed of essential char, acteristics or criteria. Fourthly, the peace of the fourth level is marked by a passive alertness to.the top three levels of activity, an intent listening at the fourth level, a sense of not being along, a wi!lingness simply to be and to let be, an expectant openness to all future events. Yet at the same time, this peace permeates, patiently strengthens and lends finer quality to all the activities at the top three levels? What Is Happening at the Fourth Level? Peace. One event of vital importance seems to be happening at the fourth level: peace, a perduring serenity even amid storms at the top three levels. ~ Prayer experience at the fourth level bears a number of resemblances to what Karl Rahner describes as transcendental experience in his Foundations of Christian Faith (Seabury, New York, 1978), pp. 20, 21, 54, 58. The Fourth Level of Prayer: Mystery / 813~ Once the four levels are distinguished, it becomes clear that the word peace can refer to at least four different states in a person's awareness. At the first level, peace would mean enjoyment of life's little pleasures without its normal irritations. Confer television's beer and cosmetic advertisements for further clarification of this bodily peace. At the second level, peace could well mean a combination of good health, unworried mind and settled emotions. The fisherman, safe from the office telephones and watching the sun rise over water dimpled by surface-fee~ding trout, may well be the symbol of tl~is peace of mind. At the third level, peace may be euphoria, the neatly balanced inner life of felt achievement, of skilled competence, of fully satisfying family life, of pleasant prospect. For examples, look at the All-American father or mother in the Geritol or insurance-annuity advertisements; or, .better, look to the disciplined people who are willing to suffer much for the good of others. This could be called peace of heart. As we have mentioned, the top three level~ of peace, when disturbed, can reveal by contrast the fourth level of peace. Evidently, when one is recollecting himself or sinking into himself to discover his center of being so that he can pray better, he is actually dropping down through the three upper levels of awareness so that he can reach the fourth level where life flows most richly, quietly, serenely. He will note how the peace of this fourth level tends to render peaceful the upper three levels and he will understand better the restlessness of those who appear to have everything but lack peace of being or person. So, h'~ will discover that fourth-level peace is not just the concern of the wise, the religiously inclined~ the fortuna~tely educated; it is the goal and hope of every living person. Indeed, this is precisely what the Taoist, the Buddh.ist, and the transcendental meditator seeks. Yet not all seem to recognize the fourth level cli~arly for what it is: the felt presence of God. And quite a few seem unwilling to pay the price of such .recognition. For the price i~ double: (1) a sometimes painful discerning of ~what factors are operating within the fourth level and (2) for the Christian, the consequent willingness to accept the call of Christ (n6w heard more clearly,) and to respond to it more generously. Let us attempt some exploration of thesetwo points. Discernment. A spate of articles and floods of conversation about discern-ment make it one of the "in" terms. As luck would have'it, the mystery of discernment is not lessened by all this attention. Nor will this article do anything more than try to show where discernment takes place~ To put it starkly, discernment occurs radically at the fourth level.6 What 6 In using the term radical discernment to point to God's approving (peace) or disapproving (uneasiness) movemeni within the fourth level, I do not intend to discount the other convergent factors which go into the full discernment process, e.g., the weighing of reasons pro and con, obe-dience to lawful authority, spiritual direction, the testing of the decision in the actual living of it, use of Scripture, the calibrating of patterns of past behavior and accomplishments (the direction 814/Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/6 this:statement means become clearer only after one defines the events (or states) of desolation, consolation, depression, and elation. For it would seem that these four states occur only at the upper three levels. In other words, although desolation and consolation are used to read the spirits influencing a person to good or to evil, and although they may well appear to intrude upon the fourth level, still they are quite distinct from a perons's peace or lack of peace at this lowest level. Nor do depression and elation enter the fourth level of man's awareness even though they can obscure the peace or uneasiness of this level. Consolation-Desolation, Elation-Depression. It is necessary to define these four terms experientially in order to understand and to test in one's own awareness the truth of the above statements. First of all, though desolation can cause depression and intermingle with the latter almost inextricably, still desolation is not the psych.ological state of depression. For desolation is induced by the evil spirit, not by the psychological dy~.namisms causing depres-sion such as extreme fatigue, poor self-image, seemihgly depreciatory actions by admired people, neurotic or psychotic impulses, and so on. In addition, desolation has spiritual effects, i.e., those based on faith experience. Thus the person undergoing desolation feels that God igat a cold distance or does not exist at all. This person finds himself convinced that he has no future b~cause he can do no good for. anyone, least of all for the kingdom of Godl He feels totally unloving and unlovable for God and his people. On the other hand, depression is not concerned with faith-o.bjects such as these, but is involved with natural goals and hopes which, however, can be easily entwined with faith objects, e.g., when th~ nun-teacher estimateg that her attempt to write a biology book is being thwarted (depression) by her own lack of competence or (paranoia) by the devious enyy-tactics bf the department chairman so that as a result she cannot Contribute to God's glory and his kingdom. To put all this succinctly, depression paralyzes or weakens the human as human; while desolation freezes or enerx~ates the Christian as Christian. Thus it almost goes without saying that consolation is not elation since of one's life), and so on. But I am saying that in the midst of complex decisions, peace or uneasiness at the fourth lex;el is the predominant factor to be considered. For often enough the reasons pro and con cancel each other out; authority often gives such broad directives that numerous alternatives are left open; spiritual direction can only help the directee discover for himself or herself the peace or uneasiness; testing of the decision in practice can be somewhat ambivalent; use of scriptural prayer is itself tested in terms of consolation and desolation which, in turn, are discerned in terms of peace or uneasiness; patterns of past behavior do not fully account for new demands of life, new turns on the road of life. For more on discernment, confer Karl Rahner's The Dynamic Element in the Church, (Herder and Herder, New York, 1964) Part 111: "'The Logic of Concrete Individual Knowledge in Ignatius Loyola." Thomas M. Gan. non and George W. Traub's The Desert and the City (Macmillan, Toronto, 1969) Chapter VIII: "The Logic of Christian Discernment" says much clearly in short compass. The Fourth Level of Prayer: Mystery / 815 strengthening consolation ~(as distinct from Satan's eventually debilitating elation) is caused by God, not by such psychological dynamisms as the sense of worked achievement, the feel of competence in skilled activity, the reassurance of someone's deep affection, the hope of career-success, the discovery of one's deepest self. Fo~ consolation, unlike the elation which it can cause and enter, is concerned with faith-effects. That is, God consoles me with the inner faith-vision that he pervades the whole world, with the hope that I can do much for him and his people, with the certainty that I amcapable of deep devotion to the triune God and his people, Briefly, consolation is the state of feeling cl.ose to self, God, and others; just as desolation is the state of feeling isolated from God,. others, and even one s self, Consolation ~s a deep sense of the commu'nion'~of saints because of the felt presence of faith, hope, and charity; while desolation is experience of the utter loneliness of hell. Only God can cause consolatio.n; just as Satan is the sole cause of desolation, a deliberate attack on the three God-given virtues of faith, hope and charity. And both pheno~aeha occuronly at the top three levels of a person's experience- .Dryness in Prayer. Obviously, when consolation and desolation are swinging back and .forth (along with elation and depression) in one's experience, one feels no "dryness in prayer." For this dryness is the state of normalcy, the middle balancing state between the swings of consolation and desolation, of elation and desolation. Indeed, it is the state of~everyday living. Thus, dryness in prayer is not necessarily a sign of God's displeasure. For one cannot undergo the alternations of desolation-consolation or of depression-elation over.long periods of time without becoming exhausted'physically as well as spiritually. There must be periods of so-cailed~dryness if only so that the con-solations and desolations may be felt with refreshed sensitivity. It should be noted here that there is a dryness induced by ungrateful or disloyal actions, by petty selfishness, by clever screening out of spiritual insights which might disturb Complacency. This is when God declines to speak to Us with Consolation lest he seem.to approve our.state, and when Satan does not want to disturb our foolish self-satisfa'ction with desolation. But this dryness of complacency is not the normal dryhess in prayer even though both types of dryness occur within the same top three levels and can intermingle or at least succeed each other This intermingling makes it necessary to enter the fourth level of e~xperi-ence to explain~what normal dryness in prayer is. For underlying this dryness of the top three levels, can be a perduring sense of being right with God, of not being alone, and even of companioning God--despite all one's mistakes, shortcomings, and sin~fulness. This fourth-level, implicit sense of God is itself a prayer of quiet calmness which gives endurance, balance, and centering to all our spiritual living.~ This prayer of trusting expectancy would seem to be the somewhat experiential divine presence of which Aquinas speaks. Here the 816 ./ReviewforReligious, Volume 39, 1980/6 person is, in the words of Hans Urs von Balthasar, "a sustained utterance of prayer.''8 For this reason, such prayer can go on underneath one's fatigue, distractions, deadness of feeling, fitful sexual urges, tightening tensions, twitches and quirks. The quiet, hidden (not explicitly conscious) presence of God is supporting all the events at the tbp three levels of experience as one studies educational theory, works crossword puzzles, sells toothpaste, kisses children goodnight, and argues with one's spouse; This is why the :fourth level of experience can be described as a great underground river which quiets, stabilizes, nourishes, and guides the praying person. It is that which enable us literally to pray always. For, to change the figure, peace of the fourth level is like the quiet background music to all our endeavors on 'the upper levels. Again, this peace is the sense of carrying within oneself the Center of the World and of having nothing to fear (See Rm 8:35-39; I Co 3:21-23). Seeming Dereliction. For these reasons, even a partial obscuring of the fourth level can be a confusing, even an initially frightening, experience. When one'~ sense of the indwelling presence of God seems clouded in some way within the fourth level itself and not merely by desolation or depression at th~ top three levels, one experiences a certain dereliction. One.feels cut adrift, terribly alone, like a solitary canoeist drifting on a great body of night water. For the fourth level contains the center of one's universe, the hope of one's total future, the sourse of one's strength to love when not loved back. Of course, the fourth level of experience is never completely obscured; God is never far away. In fact, our very vulnerability and helplessness prob-ably make us, like the waif, even more appealing to him. Yet because this feel-ing of atheism at the fourth level is often accompanied by a convergence of outside calamities affecting the top three levels (confer the example of the Jesuit mentioned earlier), the suffering is acute. In fact, the sufferer needs the reassurance of spiritual direction as much as the storm-engulfed navigator needs clear sighting on the North Star. Still, in this seemingly total absence of consolation, to say nothing of elation, there perdures the subtle peace of God's presence never doubted even though ba~ely felt. Indeed, after the tem-porary dereliction, one feels more sensitive to peace', more alert to G.od's movements within the fourth l~vel.9 ' A wise and experie~ntial description of prayer amid dryness is Leonard Boase's Prayer of Faith (B. Herder, St. Louis, 1962), especially Chapters IV and V. (Paperback reissue: Our Sunday Visitor Press, Noll Piazza, Huntington, Indiana, 1976, a somewhat rearranged edition). ~ Hans Urs yon Balthasar, Prayer(Paulist Press, New York, 1961), translated byA. V. Littledale, p. 36. (Though not easy reading, this book gives deep understanding of prayer. One of its surpris-ing insights is that "even the dark night of the soul, the total absence of consolation, is a form of consolation" (p. 239). The paradox would seem to be that the ve~:y endurance of desolation with trust and love is itself a type of consolation. , * In his When the Well Runs Dry (Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, 1979), Thomas H. Green, S.J., has provided an encouraging synthesis of Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Leonard Boasei and The Fourth Level of Prayer: Mystery / 817 Levels of Prayer. Consequently, as one sinks down past the first or sensuous level where vocal prayer finds expression, past the second and third levels where meditative and affective prayer predominate, and into the fourth level where prayer of.simplicity (simple being) occurs, the praying person hears more and more clearly the call of Christ within. Here one listens with a deeply passive alertness underneath the swirl of activities on the top three levels.'° Here the God-hunger is never sated; here in faith one feels heard, faced, touched by the Other. From here one responds with a surprising strength and tenderness. For, from here an all-embracing hope reaches up through the top three levels to say: "There will always be someone to serve and to love wherever I go, whomever I meet, whatever be the conditions of myself and others," From here love explodes up through the top three levels in strong generosity: "How can I give joy to my friends, coworkers, people I serve? How can I help each discover his or her deepest value and find this in each other and in Christ?" Thus, at the fourth level one seems to discover the peaceful river of God's mysterious presence, the radical source of discernment underlying consola-tion and desolation, the prayer of quiet calmness underneath the normal dryness of routinized life, the sometime feeling of dereliction when God is Closest, and the source of exuberantly hopeful generosity at the call of Christ. Influence of the Fourth Level on the Top Three Levels Despite its many levels, human experience is a unified focusing on the world, God, and self. So, it is not surprising that the peace of the fourth level percolates up through the upper three levels--with varying results. For example, in flooding up into the top three levels, this peace may make a face radiant, give added physical strength, direct strong emotions into creative activity, lend stable purpose .to one's thinking, imagining, feeling, deciding. Under these conditions even the ordinarily dour person will occasionally appear to be cheerful and rather outgoing. Because joy and lightness of heart are not infrequently a result of this pe~ace, people may rashly judge that a per-son undergoing deep sorrow at the third level is strange because of "his being unmoved, his quiet smile." On the other hand, uneasiness felt at the fourth level can move up and disturb. A person may be fe~eling euphoric at the top three levels and yet expe-the Cloud of Unknowing, within his own experience of prayer and of giving spiritual direction. ¯ Especially helpful are Chapters IV, V, and VI where he imaginatively and succinctly describes the Dark Night of the Senses and the Dark Night of the Soul. ~o M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., works with brilliant clarity at this fourth level in his two articles "Centering Prayer--Prayer of Quiet" (REwEw FOR RELIGIOUS, Vol. 35, 1976/5, pp. 651-662) and "Progress in Centering Pr~iyer" (REVIEW FOR RELIGIOOS, VOI. 38, 1979/6, pp. 833-838). These are complemented by Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O., with his "Cultivating the Centering Prayer" (REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, Vol. 37, 1978/1, pp. 10-15). 818 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/6 rience a vague restlessness; 'amid continuing success, the man who has everything may feel a sense of incompleteness; within a totally secure situation ("I simply can't lose") a sense of impending chaos sends up ripples of fear from the fourth level. When this happens, people will sometimes~seek to distract themselves from this basic uneasiness. They will overwork., start an unending process of job-jumping, try multiplemarria.ges, haunt psychiatrists, exhaust themselves .on attractive trifles like stamp collecting, golfing, crocheting and televiewing. St. Augustine's description of his ownfascinatio nugacitatis is a case history of one man's twenty-year struggle with constant uneasiness at the fourth level. But if peace from the fourth level is arising within a person's euphoria at the top three levels, it acts as a stabilizing ballast to the ballooning emotions and exuberant activities. For its very perdurance at the depth of one's being gives a sharp sense of the temporariness of success. Indeed, the .implicit awareness of God at the fourth level helps us to feel, as well as to understand, how relative are all events and things compared to the absolute faithfulness of the Lord. In this way, contemplation is permeating not only the top three levels of experience but entering into all the activities issuing from these levels of experience. The duality of contemplation and action is becoming more and more unified as the active person becomes more and more aware of the fourth level of experience. For the prayer of simplicity at the fourth level, in penetrating the top levels of experience, gives a new alertness to God's presence in others, a renewed hope in people's future fidelity, a deeper con-fidence in God's providence. Lastly, it should be mentioned here that the neurotic or psychotic person, if put in touch with the fourth level,, may find a new source of hope. Underneath all the disturbances at the top three levels where the psychiatrist competently works to free his client from constricting fears, is the fourth level where the spiritual director competently tries to help a person interpret God's call. Because these four levels intermingle, both the psychiatrist and the spiritual director must know something of the other's area of competence, must learn to respect each other's discoveries, and must cooperate to help their client accept and live within his limitations. In this way, the neurotic or the psychotic can slowly learn that God will be daily with him, that he can hope against hope without this being just another contradiction, that he is lovable and capable of loving, that, like Theresa of Lisieux, he can become a saint. '~ Four Dimensions of Prayer Experience. Once we have indicated, how the fourth level of awareness intermingles with and influences the other levels, we " In his Storm of Glory (Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1955, Image) John Beevers indicates that Theresa of Lisieux struggled with personality imbalance of a serious nature from her mother's death (Aug. 28, 1877) until her miraculous cure by the Blessed Virgin (May 13, 1883). See pp. 34, 41-43. The Fourth Level of Prayer: Mystery / 819 are in a position to change the metaphor of "levels" to that of "dimensions" of experience. For human experience is marvelously unified and thus all the levels of awareness do permeate and mutually modify each other in forming a single human consciousness. For example, the fourth level contains the deep root of every prayer. Yet this prayer flowers differently, e.g., into prayer of the feelings and imagination at the third level, into reflective-meditative prayer at'the second level and into vocal prayer (action-prayer) at the first level. This is why these forms of prayer can be equally profound, can succeed each other quickly during a fifteen-minute period of prayer, can support and challenge each other, and can vary in intensity as does conversation between two human beings. This interchange between levels of prayer experience is also the reason why discernment, though founded radically at the fourth level in basic peace or uneasiness, nevertheless also occurs at the third level in the shapes of consola-tion, desolation, obedience, friendship; at the second level in terms of Scrip-ture, historical memories, and reasons pro and con; and even at the first level in the setting of such conditions for discernment as fasting, silence, and mortification. Obviously, then, the presence of God, so intimately and per-duringly active at the fourth level, is not limited to that level of awareness. Consequently, to change the model of explanation from "levels" to "dimensions" is not to deny the distinctions among the four levels and to homogenize their diverse influences on each other. Rather, it is to assert con-comitantly the remarkable unity of a praying person's consciousness. This is to say that all four levels, while remaining distinct, nevertheless are como penetrating and mutually influencing each other like distinct eddies in the single stream of human consciousnesL ,Some Cautions About the Fourth Level Because the above description of the location and the dynamics of the fourth level is rather crude, one must carefully assess one's own experience to see if it somewhat fits this description. One should not be unduly surprised if things are not totally clear. Then, too, one's spiritual director should be con-sulted for the necessary qualifications of the many flat statements made above. At the heart of each person is the deepest mystery and this article can hold only a fitful candle-flame to it. It is hoped that the shifting shadows accompanying such a flame will not obscure the basic contours outlined. For there are many, many layers of experience, and consequently, many, many interpretations of them to be considered. Still, no matter how many levels of experience, there is always the last and deepest level of man's being where union with God is radical.'2 ,2 Would it be outrageous to predict that growing sensitivity to the fourth level of experience will occur through steady practice of the examen of consciousness? 1120 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/6 Further, though God may be most present and most clearly speaking at the so-called fourth level, still he is also present in all the levels above. As a result, it takes some reflective living to distinguish these levels and to calibrate their functions. So I have been warned: "Only veterans of the spiritual life will really understand what you are saying; others will be mystified or will mistakenly think that they understand--with consequent bad results." In response to this, I can only say that the Lord protects those trying to find him and that no one can escape the facing of mystery deep within himself. It seems to me that we are never "safe" with any mystery, never in control, never ade-quately understanding, always searching and groping, always trusting amid our fears. If we must take chances in order to grow, then here would be the best place of all to gamble. Now Available As A Reprint Prayer of Personal Reminiscence: Sharing One's Memories With Christ by David J. Hassel, S.J. Price: $.60 per copy, plus postage Address R~view for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Journey into Journey--A Reflection Rita Bernard Walton, S.S.J. Sister Rita's last article, "Nomadic Memories," appeared in the January issue, 1978. She resides at St. Charles Seminary; Overbrook; Philadelphia, PA 19151. i was tired, as though at the end of a long journey. Long it had been, for I had journeyed into the human condition and had come to the doorway of under-standing that the human condition was so fragile, so delicately beautiful and so unique. I had journeyed and had come to the crossroads of another journey. It was there that I met Jesus in a new and startlingly beautiful way. For many days I had concentrated on the road itself, the dust, the rocks, the potholes, the many trials of faith and trust, the deaths along the way. It was easy to lose sight of the sunshine, even when it was directly overhead, when my mind grappled with the why of human events of suffering and death, events that seemed to crash in, like hurricane winds. Jesus had been my companion on the whole of my'journey, but for awhile I lost full sightoof him as I became enveloped in the dust-cloud of self pity and independence. It was only when I fell, or when I cried out in hurt or pain that my vision cleared enough to allQw me to see that others were just as fragile and beautiful as I, and I saw him in them. Friends tended to my wounds, making his,compassion so real. I continued on my journey, renewed in tasting the empathy that had been portioned out to me. It was when I came to what seemed like the end of my journey, at the crossroads, that my vision cleared in grace and I saw Jesus again. He was standing there right in front of me as though in a line at the bus depot. He was as dusty and worn down at the heels as I was. He had been journeying in the human condition, too. We looked deeply into each other's eyes, feeling recognition flood within as our eyes drank in the sight of the human condition. "I have come to do the will of him who sent me" (see Jn 6:35-40) we both said together, laughing and hugging 821 822./Review for Religious, ~'olume 39, 1980/6 each other as old friends do. Calvary lingered in my bones and memory. We had tasted each other's experience in dialogue often along the way before this. The look in our eyes now spoke more eloquently than words as we recalled our meetings on The Hill. I saw myself reflected in his eyes and came to understand how much he loved so many other fragile creatures like me--enough to die upon that Hill. Suddenly, I saw an endless procession of fragile creatures reflected in his eyes as once again I heard him say: "I have come to do the will of him who sent me. come follow me" (ibid.; Jn 1:43). All through my life I had worked to achieve something and here I was wrapped in the total surprise of being given unconditional love and the knowledge of its depth of meaning, of its desire for response. I felt rooted in time, yet weightless, as my mind and heart saw and felt the others who had responded to his call. I saw Jesus before me gesturing like a white-faced clown who beckons a crowd to come forward. He skipped around gleefully to show the.adventure with him that lay ahead. I felt life and death penetrate me, both at the same time. Self came to life and self died as I stepped forth, lifted by the urgency ofthat leap. I found myself transformed, a new clown among clowns, called to love the human condition. The clowns remind us, with a tear and a smile, that we share the same human weakness. Thus, it is not surprising that, in the:clown, we have a powerful image to help us under-stand the role of, the minister in contemporary society.' I had laughed and cried so often along the way, feeling the human condi-tion fired in my bones, but it was only my own condition that I had felt. I had seen others and so often moved on without feeling. In this leap away from myself I experienced the desire to share in, and feast in the human condition of my brother an~d sister clowns, the soon-to-be Clowns as well as the never-to-be clowns. Jesus had touched my fire-brighted stillness and unharnessed me. I no longer marched in my own parade~ My mind whirled in thoughtful excitement and new comprehension as I" found myself thinking of my Old Testament favorites, friends whose life stories had~ encouraged me to persevere along the way. I laughed when I thought of Abraham. In my own way I understood how he felt having been stirred by Yahweh (Gn 12:1). When Abraham was seventy-five years oid he had an experience 0f God that created a disturbance in the order of his life. Yahweh took possession of him as friend and placed within him the seed for upsetting the known order of the time. Abraham was headed toward a new foundation caused by the deliberate intervention of God into the course of human history. In response, Abraham abandoned his natural roots and "went" (Gn 12:14). Abraham was called to bring life to celebration in know-ing God's affirmation, and he allowed God to alter the course of his life ' Nouwen, Henri J. M., Clowning in Rome, New York, 1979, p. 2-3. Journey into Journey--A Reflection dramatically. His response brought biblical religion to birth. God moved across the existing culture, purified the existing religion and showed himself to be a personal, saving God. Abraham's story is a story of the trials and con-solations he experienced in his need to have faith in the God who called and stirred him. I think Abraham would have made a good clown. His faith touched me as I reflected on his journey into a new land. I, too, was journeying in a new land and realized that love had placed within me, also, the seed for upsetting my known order of time. Jesus had intervened in the course of my human history and created a disturbance in the order of my life with his call to follow him. He walked on my sand and seeded the field of me. He called me friend, beloved; and I felt his warmth. I was unbirthed, in labor to be born, wrapped in silent wonder, wrapped in warmth, encased, ensacked in womb-like nurturing, waiting to become more of who I am. I was born and aging, greying, daily dying, stepping slower, encased, ensacked in tomb-like mystery, waiting to become more ofwho I am. I was spiraling unborn to birth, spiraling birthed to dying, going both ways--to life, to death-- like the seed, dying to be alive. Quantum leap, broken shell, o rising beauty from out of clay, reaching upwards to the Son; I felt the warmth of him who enters and transforms in utter silence and mystery. His warmth pulled my roots down into the numerous sands of time. His warmth pulled my beauty up into the spiraling newness of his life. Ah, the wonder of it all. I was 894 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/6 nurturing the mystery of God in me, waiting for the moment to be more of who I am. I had journeyed into the human condition and found the footprints of those who had been there before me. I had cried out from my own slavery that held me deep within my selfishness. I had longed for a new freedom. My Lord, I ask you' to lure me once more and lead me out into the wilderness and speak to my heart. Give me back the vineyards of your love and make my troubled valley a gateway of hope. Show me how to respond to you as I did when I was young, as I did when I came out of the Egypt of sin and into the land of freedom in your love. When that day comes, teach me again how to call you "my husband" and no longer let me call you "distant Lord." Take the names of sin off my lips; let them never be uttered again. When that day comes make a treaty for me with all that is wild in me. Break up the battle in me and make my sleep secure. Betroth me to yourself forever, betroth me with integrity and justice, betroth me with tenderness and love. Betroth me to you with faithfulness so I may come to know you. (see Ho 2:16-22) The Lord put Moses before me for reflection. He marks a turning point in salvation history and is a promise, an expectation for the future (Dt 18:15). Moses' journey with God took him to.the edge of fulfillment. He was deprived of the joy of entering the Promised Land in this life. His glance across the Promised Land accepted ownership of it for his people and it climaxed his ministry to them. His glance thrust us forward as a people of God. Glances along my journey, glimpses of future freedoms thrust me forward, too, and helped form me along the way. My living-dying-living is an exodus event that I continue to celebrate in my covenant with God in grace. I had to learn, as did Moses and the Israelites, to live with confidence in God. God wished me, too, to be content with him. Though he provided much manna, he continued to call to a deeper surrender, to total reliance (Dt 8:2-3). Exodus became a present :reality in the celebration of Eucharist. My "daily bread experience" called me to come out of my self-will slavery into the freedom of surrendering my needs to my Provider. I began to learn to live Journey into Journey--A Reflection / ~125 without the securities and comforts that had been baals along the way. He gave to me in "miraculous measure" (see Ex 16:14-31, 17:6) to increase my faith in order to conquer temptations and survive the desert trials. I began to realize that my whole life was dependent upon his sovereign grace and prom-ise. I felt the trust formed within me asI came to a new life, became a truer person, nourished and brought into covenant. My gratitude and trust found expression in the celebration of the Eucharist and in the ways I began to live with others. His all-the-time presence which had cut into my life, became a deeper experience of presence. This "peak:' experience left its mark on me and continues to call me into wonder and celebration and into deeper exami-nation of the heart of my being. I found that I was interacting with the extra-ordinary love of God. Justice, equity and charity e.ntered a new depth within me. "The wages of a day laborer are to be paid before the day is over, before sundown of the day itself, since he is poor and looks forward to them" (Dt 24:15). This thought brought affirmation alive in me. To pay my brothers and sisters their due ,wages before the sun goes down, to affirm them for who they are, for what they do, was to help me to live in sacred truce with my God and with each one of them. Affirmation makes me lovable. God affirmed me by my creation, by my calling to be more along the journey. Affirmation enriched community liv-ing and spilled out over into liturgy where the heart of affirmation comes to a depth of appreciation around the table of the Lord. I had journeyed into the human condition and learned affirmation from God's presence to Abraham, to Moses in the desert, and with me in the desert night into which he had invited me. I realized that finally My self-will cocoon had worn thin. It had cracked. The long hours of darkness and death-like sleep were at an end. A new awaking had flashed through my being, and I felt the pulsation of new life in the deep recesses of my unknown self. I felt my weakness, fragileness, and the limited space this life permits; but I had come to know the unbounded space of time that my Creator has. I felt a flutter in my new wings, faith sustained and overcame the fear of being lifted by the gentle breeze that warmed my wings and lifted them to the sun and sky. There ffere flashes of color and shapes of hope I had never seen before. They surrounded me and formed a world of trust that enhanced the colors I, too, had been gifted with. Wings and color, 826 / Review for fleligious, Volume 39, 1980/6 warmth and sun, gentle .breeze and cracked cocoon, --a new world, a new pulsation of life, and surrender, amen, your will be done. . and I was born, and borne aloft to him on the wings of love. Silence, burst of sound. Darkness, flash of light. " Once entombed, now unwombed, made real. Made real and set free, set free in the desert castle of life, sparked by the Flame of Love, enveloped by the Cloud of the Spirit, held only by the Song of Mortalness and the time to sing it in joy. I was made real, with what was real gone. I no longer fit into the crevices of the past nor in the ways of yesterday. I couldn't speak to yesterday as once I did. I tried and laughter faded, while puzzles formed and pain stood up. Yesterday and I were no longer one, and I had to trust that wings and colors would speak for themselves, that pains would be salved by the Son for I could not fold my wings to return to the cocoon of yesterday. A new form of life was presented io me in my quantum leap; for it to remain effective I knew I had to relate to and affect the world where I lived. I had to examine what would guide and support, my internal strength during my period of adjustment~ I was. on journey with a definite purpose, to keep cove-nant with my beloved God. I knew my quantum leap was a "peak" moment to recall and bring to celebration. I knew that I had to celebrate.by living fully alive, deeply in tune and in harmony with the life that surrounded me. God had funneled me down through many generations of people and I had to live as an important part of the whole production of life. I realized that Jesus held the promise of life. He set me free from sin and death through the sorrow and joy of the cross. Faith and trust had to stay alive in me and come to external expression in the celebration of life. Jesus had drawn me close and changed the structure of my existence. I became aware of his wanting my total dependence, a dependence of love, a life of daily living- " dying-living in the internal martyrdom of the consuming fire of love. I felt like bread dough that had become leavened and I was rising to the proportion that Journey into Journey--A Reflection / 827 he had measured out for me. He asked only for love. His was the action which created laughter within me, a love that reflected itself in a deeper sense of peace and joy. I was given a new identity in living a deeper form of covenant love. I was being built and structured into a new expression of love that gentles, purifies and strengthens as it sets the soul aflame with the desire to serve and love in total unity of mind, heart, and will. Nothing seemed dif-ferent, yet everything was different, is different. There is a new beauty in the air, in the pulsation of life and in silence which is an alive silence filled with wonder. In the silence of wonder I found and. still find my attitudes under reform. My wildness is being consumed further. The cry of the poor wants to be heard; and Jesus asks for a compassionate friend to respond to the cry of pain, of loneliness, of suffering that is crying out from members of his bruised body. In my meeting with Jesus at the crossroads of my journey, in the quan-tum leap of faith, in exodus from self, Jesus had blessed me--blessed me as poor. He brought me to the beautiful awareness of the fragileness of the human condition we all share. In union with him in the blessed poverty of dependence I am learning to share his love-gift. His living word gives me courage and encouragement. I hear him say: You are poor, and I have need of your povertyr your dependence on Me, Blessed are ihe poor in spirit; the kingdom o'f heaven is theirs (Mr 5:3). Your Father, who sees all that is done in secret, will reward you (Mt 6:6). You are poor, and I have need of your poverty to fill the hungry with good things and to give dessert to the poorest poor who are filled even with the crumbs of things, and the little that the poor can share. You are poor. Come! I know the plans .I have in mind for you. Plans for you to seek me with all your heart (Jr 29:11-14), for you are poor with need to find me, with need to listen so to listen to the poor and the poorer-- with a heart's care. 828 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/6 You are poor. The Plan I have for you is poor, a foolish plan, a prophet's plan. ¯ Console my people, console them (Is 40:1). Go now to those to whom I send you. and say whatever I command you (Jr 1:7). Do not be afraid, for I am with you (Is 43:5). I have called you- pool', I will be with you--poor, passing through the sea.--poor, walking through fire~ poor, you are precious in my eyes--poor, you are honored--poor, and I love you--poor. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. You are poor, and I have need of your poverty for the poor are blessed in spirit, heaven is the kingdom that is theirs. It is the Father's given reward. You are poor . Come! I lead you with reins of kindness, With leading strings of love (Ho 11:4), for you are poor with need to be fed, with need to be led-- so to, lead, for it is only the led who become those who lead. You are poor, and I have need of your poverty; for the poor are blessed in spirit, heaven is the kingdom that is theirs. It is the Father's given rewhrd You are poor, and I have need of your poverty. Come! I shall feed you in good pasturage. Journey into Journey--A Reflection / 829 You will rest in good grazing ground. I will show you where to rest (Ezk 35:14-16) Come! Come to feed the rich who fatten on the spoils of greed. Come! Come to look with me for the lost one, the stray one, the wounded one. Come! Be a true shepherd to them. You are poor, and I have need of your poverty, for the poor spirit is blessed. Heaven is the kingdom, a reward given by the Father who sees. Who sees that you are poor. You are poor, and I have need of your poverty. I have need for your spirit to be poor, poor enough to be sustained only on manna, on quail, on water, from rock (Ex 16), poor enough to be sustained on providence, the sustenance of the poor. You are poor, and I have need of your poverty. Come! Show the anawim the manna for thb seventh day so they may gather and share what few omers they need (Ex 16:23). Bring forward the people tha~t is blind, yet has eyes, that is deaf and yet has ears (Is 43:~). They are poor and in need of your poverty. Your poverty-- my song, piped through a bruised reed of foolish clay. Come! Sing a new hymn! Let praise resound from the ends of the earth, Let the sea sing praise, 830 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/6 Let the deserts and the cities raise voice! (Is 42:10-11). Your poverty--my song, piped through a bruised reed of foolish clay. Come! Come to the water, thirsty as you are; and though you have no money, come! I make no charge for corn, for wine, for milk. I make no charge for satisfying bread (Is 55:1-3). Come! Give your attention, listen! I know theplans I have in mindforyou (Jr 29:1 l). Come! Come to covenant (Is 55:4). you are poor. Your poverty--my song. My words do not return to me empty. They water the earth. They give growth and seed (Is 55). --seed for the poor. Your poverty--my song. You are poor, and I have need of your poverty, for the poor spirit is blessed. Heaven is the kingdom, a reward given by the Father, who sees . . and he took pity on them. (Mk 6:34). He took the five loaves and the two fish. (v. 41). They all ate., and (v. 42) They collected the scraps remaining, twelve baskets full (Mt 14:20). Come! You are poor, and I have need of your poverty. In grace and love I respond: Let what you have said be done to me (Lk 1:38). I am poor, ° and I have need of your song. Journey into Journey--A Reflection / 831 It took many years to form Israel as a people:. It takes us years to be formed as his beloved. We each experience our own Exodus, Covenant, Tran-sition, and Celebration through many times of stepping but of chronolo.gical time into kyriological moments. So, come! I was tired, as though ~at the end of a long journey. Long it had been, for 1 had journeyed into the human condition to find that the next stage of the journey was just beginning. I have joyfully met you along the way. Come! O God, in mercy bless us; let your face beam with joy as you look down on us. Send us around the world with the news of your saving power and your eternal plan for all people. How everyone throughout the earth will praise you! (Ps 67:1-3, adapted The Way). An Apostolic Spirituality for the Ministry of Social Justice by Max Oliva, S.J. Price: $.50 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Developmental Stages and the Contemporary Male Novice Jonathan Foster, O.F.M. Father Jonathan is Director of Continuing Education for the Chicago-St. Louis Province of Franciscans. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Adult Education and Develop-ment. His present address is Office of Continuing Education; 3400 St. Paschal Drive; Oak Brook, IL 60521. Writing an article such as this is a precarious business. The study of adult development stages is of fairly recent origin in the empirical sciences. There is some very interesting theory (Erikson, 1963, 1964; Kohlberg, 1968; Levinson, 1978; Fowler, 1978; Vaiilant, 1977), but not an abundance of evidence. Moreover, what theory and evidence exist leave us with no clearcut delimita-tion of such stages. One prominent developmentalist (Neugarten) has in fact stated that all we know is that there is some development in adults. Its precise staging is by no means widely accepted. An article such as this is also precarious because of the subject of interest: novices. They comprise no one adult developmental stage. In recent years in my own community, the age range has run from twenty-two to fifty. To treat them all as "young adults" is obviously to allow some of them to fall through the cracks, or, if you will, off the end. Nevertheless, I will attempt to make some sense out of the evidence we have to date, and apply this to a reasonable estimate of what a novice is. I take the age of a typical novice from our Vocation Center's projection of the next few classes currently in pre-novitiate programs for our province. According to this projection, the age of most novices in the immediate future will fall between twenty-two and twenty-eight. There will certainly be a few older than this. But it is not likely, in view. of current policies, that there will be any younger. The observations I will make here will concern the generality of 832 Developmental Stages / 883 young American adults, from whose company we can assume most novices come. According to Levinson (1978), the essential task of the young adult is to separate himself .from emotional dependence on his family and the social structure from which he comes-- not thesame, it should be noted, as destroy-ing his roots. He does this by exploring different possibilities for making his life and creating a stable life structure in which to live out whatever this separation has led him to. Both elements, exploration and stabilization, need equal attention during this period. In one way or another, ehch of the stages we shall look at attempt to deal with this dynamic. The Developmental Task: Identity and Dream Formation I am treating these two stages as one because of their intimate connection with each other. By identity I mean the ability of the individual to see himself as essentially the same person as he passes through the many, even profound, changes of his life. The first great change in a person's life is the traumatic passage from adolescence to adulthood with all the separation and newness it brings with it. The achievement of identity is not so much the search for something new and frustratingly elusive as it is the maintenance and building of a "unique and reasonably coherent whole".(Erikson, 1968), something that holds together and remains ultimately the same despite the shock of change, and the addition of the new. In other words, "identity" is not exclu-sively drawn from within. It is built on a given reality growing out of the experience of community, persons, the historical times, and especially at this age, out of ideology. Ideology is a vision according to which the individual wants to live. Identity in this ideological sense moves into dream formation, a concep-tion of life that the individual picks oi~t as most suitable to his personality. Identity is thus not a mere summation of all experiences a young man has. It is the process by which he tries to integrate what he already knows about himself with elements of experience that seem to promise him a vision and purpose by which he can live and give meaning to life. In this process he must perceive himself as at core unchanged. The question he must answer at this stage of life is simply, "Do I fit with this dream?" Several elements go into the achieving of this identity. One of the principal catalysts is the attraction of a strong ideological system, such as, for example, the Franciscan way of life. This is the "dream." It may stem from a purely ideological contact with St. Francis. But it does not become a real and viable dream until it is experienced in a vital institutional reality, and in attractive personalities living it out. In accepting and trying out the "lived dream," it is especially important that there be at least one special person who embodies that dream, and inter-prets it to the new aspirant in a way that has personal significance to him. This 834 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/6 is the mentor so often spoken of today. He is not typically a hcro at a distance--though this is possible--but, in our context, a committed religious who shares the younger religious' visionandwho pays special attention to the latter's apprenticeship in that vision. The first reality is probab!y of more significance to older communities with well-known and charismatic founders. We find it particularly so in the Franciscan order, whose founder is one of the most popular and attractive men in history. The problem is this, that today, to a far greater extent than in earlier years, young men are attracted to the Franciscan order precisely by the dream, with relatively less experience of those who profess to embody it. Up to fifteen years ago, most aspirants came to the order out 6f heavily Franciscan contexts, attracted, not by the historical vision of St. Francis--of which they had but a dim view--but by the actual way in which Franciscan priests and brothers lived their own vision of religious life, or by a traditional piety which was, upon close examination, barely distinguishable from that of any other religious order. The dream that attracts candidates today, however, is more often.in touch with the historical view. Candidates thus are more likely to be confused and puzzled by their encounter with many friars who entered the order out of con-tact with Franciscans, not St. Francis, and who may seem, therefore, to the candidate to have rationalized the historical "dream" away. It creates in him, moreover, great insecurities that perhaps his vision is not a real one, or that "those who count" may not view his "dream" as an acceptable version of the Franciscan vision. It is for this reason, once more, that the mentor is extremely important to the young religious, to reassure him--perhaps even to play the advocate before "those who count." In this connection, it seems desirable that the place where novices live should not feature a uniform view of the particular order's "dream." Both staff and community should display some diversity in interpretation of that "dream." Thus both mentor and community can at once challenge and support the candidate's perception of the "dream." Another identity-related problem with this age-group is the prolongation of the moratorium (Erikson, 1963). This is a period of life, usually beginning with adolescence and lasting an indeterminate period (often well into the mid-twenties), in which an individual, committed to nothing, explores and plays with a variety of possibilities or dreams. This is an entirely legitimate develop-ment, perhaps one that many of us never fully undertook. Ideally, it ought to be completed by the time of entry into novitiate, but in today's society, which increasingly delays adulthood, it is not at all unlikely that a candidate will try novitiate with the same degree of uncommittedness as he might hax~e tried being a cowboy in the nineteenth century. Novitiate, it seems, implies some degree of commitment to the dream, and"should not be 'viewed as a moratorium experience. A third problem is that young adults at the "identity-dream formation" Developmental Stages / 835 stage are given to caricaturization. In an attempt to make the dream fit, and fit so securely as to cover all aspects of the aspirant's reality, he tends to see it in terms of black and white. Consequently, he tends to portray his chosen dream somewhat unrealistically, and even to be intolerant of other dreams. The attraction of young people to an oversimplified view of life and reality is well known, and applies just as much to novices in religious orders. Kohibert (1968) and Fowler (1978) have both pointed out that people at this stage of development make moral and religious judgments primarily in terms of their commitment to a particular group of people or an institution which they see as embodying their dream. This is distinct from making judgments in terms of abstract principles applicable to one~'.s own group as well as others. Such a development is perhaps natural and necessary. However, the activity of an overzealous or overly charismatic director--or indeed mentor--can play directly into this .,caricaturizing tendency and allow it to sharpen into a dangerously unrealistic view of life. A further problem is that powerful religious conversions sometimes occur at this stage. Individuals allow themselves to be so overwhelmed by a vision or dream .that they cease to see continuity between what they were before the conversion and what they see themselves to have become because of the conversion. Indeed often they do not want to see the continuity. Such conver-sions, apart from rare cases, are obviously disruptive to the developmental process of identity formation. Of some interest to directors of a novitiate, which, ambng other things, is a time of an intense and unremitting daily round of organized prayer, is the attitude of young adults towards organized religiosity. It is in the latter phases of identity formation that participation in formal religious practice is typically at its very lowest ebb. This usually reflects the individual's attempt to separate himself from dependence on his family and culture, including the religious structure bound up with that. The fact is that it is precisely in the novitiate year that aspiring religious are subjected to the most intense exposure to formal religiosity they will perhaps ever know, and this may rub a bit excessively against the developmental grain. Some caution must be urged, too, concerning the possibilities of contem-plation at this stage. True religious contemplation--by means of which the individual, while retaining his identity, is drawn out of himself into union with God--is objectively oriented. It assumes some stable sense of identity. It is for this reason that religious contemplation is not normally found in young adults and most often flourishes in the more contented self-acceptance of mature adulthood. What passes for contemplation among the young is more typically a preoccupation with the achieving of identity than the handing over of this identity into union with God. The young adult is by developmental necessity more self-centered, indeed self-absorbed, than other-centered. Novitiate directors need to keep this in mind when inculcating habits of prayer and contemplation. To speak of the novitiate as a "year of contemplation" 8:36 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/6 can be misleading, and even, in terms of what both novices and their directors expect to happen, damaging. The Developmental Task: Intimacy Intimacy is basically the task of learning to establish close relationships with others, to respect human beings as ends, not mere means, of learning to communicate. It is a form of love, and it is the love that characterizes persons at this age. Erikson (1964) distinguishes this love of Relationship from the love of Care that is characteristic of the more mature adult. The task of intimacy may be described as one of the major tests of a person's identity. If this identity is'securely in hand, then one is capable of risking it in relationship, and indeed must do so. If the identity is not secure, intimacy is more difficult to achieve and is often avoided or at least sim~ated. Most young people, however, make serious forays into intimate or quasi-intimate relationships at this stage. Intimacy is indeed the task that marriage at this age seeks to accomplish. The relationship is not, however, exclusively heterosexual, although this is the typical form it takes. Erikson (1964), in a phrase reminiscent of St. Francis of Assisi who urged his brothers to exercise a mother's love for their confreres, wrote that intimacy also happens when "young adults become sons of each other." The failure to achieve intimacy results to some degree or other in isolation, the inability to relate deeply. A number of structures will be important in a novitiate to enable the process of intimacy achievement to go forward. Obviously, there must be opportunities for the development of friendships, including friendships with women. Some friendship will be available within the community, but since friendship-making is highly selective, this may not always be the case. With the smaller novitiate classes prevalent today, making intimate friendships has become more difficult. Larger classes make such relationships more possible. Smaller numbers limit the possibility. Given these smaller numbers, the importance of locating the novitiate in a community which includes a substan: tial number of other religious seems important. For this reason, close friend-ships outside the novitiate community cannot be excluded either. Hence the advisability of allowing, indeed encouraging, other forms of maintaining friendship contact: visits, correspondence, telephones. The mentor is very important to this task. The mentor-relationship is an intimate one when it is exercised in spiritual direction, confession, or simple friendship. There is indeed a case to be made (Levinson, 1978) for the "Special Woman" as mentor to the young male adult. In this relationship, intimacy expands easily into a heterosexuality which is less threatening to the celibacy aspect of the dream. A lived brotherhood is important for the young adult. Not only does it increase the likelihood of selective friendship, but failing this, still allows for a considerable amount of sharing at a deeper level. In this respect, the current emphasis in most orders on brotherhood or community is an especially attrac- Developmental Stages / 837 tive aspect of/he dream for young men. The achievement of intimacy in an all-male structure presents special problems. Women, in such situations, tend to get caricaturized. They may be over-romanticized as indispensable partners in the life-journey. They may be feared as a threat to the dream. Or they may be ridiculed as a result of a cultural residue of male chauvinism, a position unfortunately supported by a large segment of the male ecclesiastical establishment. Hence, it is important that novices have an on-going encounter with women their own age, such as for example the inter-novitiate program in the Chicago area where novices from several different communities of men and women meet weekly for study, prayer and informal interaction. However, it is also interesting to note that, even in the larger world, many men get so caught up in their dream, or their career, that women do not romantically interest them at this stage. This may very well describe the situa-tion of the modern novice, as we shall note when we discuss career consolida-tion below. What frequently happens, however, is that once they reach the thirties, some of that pressure lifts, and the quest for intimacy with women starts anew, including a deep interest in marriage. Homosexuality is a form of intimacy, and is, of course, always a problem in the all-male society. This is more true today when there has been some social legitimation of the homosexual friendship. There is simply no way of avoiding this possibility, and directors should understand that an occasional homosexual encounter neither automatically implies homosexuality nor is necessarily grounds for expulsion. Finally, the concern for intimacy explains in part the young religious' preference for one-to-one ministries over the ministries involving administra-tion, leadership and social change. It is the need for people in his life. Developmental Stage: Career Consolidation Vaillant (1977) points out that an intermediary stage occurs between Erikson's stages of Intimacy and Generativity, one that Erikson did not fully consider. This is the stage at which the young adult becomes preoccupied with establishing work skills and climbing the career ladder. It begins in the twen-ties, and lasts usually throughout most of the thirties. What is important about this period is the mastery of a craft, the seeking of approval for one's work and achievements, the thrust of ambition, the excitement of developing a career, the sheer pleasure of work and success. It is a time when the vividness of the dream recedes, and the individual focuses rather on the work associated with the dream. The role of the mentor also declines. Thus, what guides the young adult at this stage is neither parent, mentor, nor even dream. It is the satisfaction of the work itself. What happens at this stage may very well be the triumph of the larger society's "Dream" in the individual, the American Dream of Success and Achievement. Certain it is that American society strongly rewards work, achievement and success. It is not surprising that the 838 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/6 career-consolidation stage is accompanied to a large extent by the decline of the intense inner life that characterized the stages of Dream Formation and Intimacy. Given the increasing number of older candidates entering religious life, especially those already committed to or having just finished intensive preparation for professional careers, it is important that directors be aware of this dynamism. To the extent that this development stage is at work, the novice must have opportunities to exercise his competence, not, perhaps, in his chosen career, but at least in some area of novitiate life. This means that he shall have to be given some area of responsibility that is more than sweeping a corridor~ He must, moreover, be constantly able to exercise at least the basic tools of all work-competence: the hands, the mind, the imagination," and judgment-making that has consequences. The larger question may be to what extent this professional training and competence already acquired may have on the novitiate experience. Such training and competence may have achieved apart from the dream formation which the novitiate agenda is all about. It may even be somewhat separate from-- even in conflict with -- that dream. Yet it usual-ly has brought continued rewards and satisfaction so necessary at this stage of life. It is not clear to me how a novitiate experience handles such a conflict. But for a novitiate director to simply ignore this previous experience does not seem to me to constitute a reasonable response. These, then, are the stages of development likely to be encountered in a given novitiate class. Because of their fluidity and because of the individuality with which each person passes through them, they are perhaps useful more as mind-sets by the director than as the basis for actual guidelines. Three recom-mendations emerge strongly from their consideration, however. The first is the necessity to view a novitiate as a highly individualized experience. Not a solitary experience, but one which a group of young men move through together, each following to whatever extent necessary his own individual track. Obviously, Group Spiritual Direction is no substitute for individual attention. Which leads to the second recommendation, the need for mentors. Whether this role is carried out by the director, his associate, a chosen spiritual director, or another member of the religious community, its impor-tance is critical. Finally, given the social context of Identity/Dream Forma-tion and Intimacy, it seems important that the novitiate be not a sequestered experience. A director and his novices should not go off to the woods by themselves for a year. They should live in an extensive friar community and they should be in regular, on-going contact with the community-dream-- manifested certainly in its documents, but even more so by regular in-depth contact with the people who incarnate that dream in their lives. Yes Peter G. van Breemen, S.J. Father van Breemen is a staff member of the newly erected Dutch Center of Spirituality Om Vuur; Twelloseweg 5; 7419 BJ Deventer, The Netherlands. This article is a chapter from his forthcoming book, Certain as the Dawn, scheduled for publication by Dimension Books (Denville, N J) in the fall of 1980. doration always implies surrender, a fiat. In fact adoration is a surrender of our whole being, a dedication of all our affection, a gift of every minute of our time. Adoration has to be lived; it commands a life-style. Since adoration is the ultimate, it includes everythir~g. Adoration is a Yes, expressed with or without words during prayer, but then lived every single moment of the day and of the night. Being the ultimate, adoration also provides perspective to all that precedes; the total Yes injects meaning into everything that is encom-passed by it. Three concise lines which Dag HammarskjOld wrote in his diary in March 1956, some five years before his tragic death, offer a framework for a meditafibn on Yes. You dare your Yes--and experience a meaning. You repeat your Yes--and all things acquire a meaning. When everything has a meaning, how can you live anything but a Yes!~ You Dare Your Yesmand Experience a Meaning "Yes" is a daring word: it implies arisk and requires courage. It means a leaving behind in order to move ahead. We leave behind what is certain and we ventureinto the unknown. We give up what has become dear and proceed as a ' Dag HammarskjOld, Markings, transl, by Leif SjOberg and W. H. Auden (London, Faber & Faber), p. 110. 839 840 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/6 free person without looking back. "None of you can be my disciple if he does not renounce all his possessions (Lk 14:33). "Whoever puts his hand to the plow but keeps looking back is unfit for the reign of God" (Lk 9:62). It can be very hard to really say good-bye. A famous French proverb claims it is mourir un peu, a little, dying. It means farewell to people and to things to which we are far more attached than we realized. We give to the people with whom we live and we take from them. Somehow we are more aware of the sacrificing during the actual process, while the receiving becomes more manifest after it has stopped. It is like the various organs of the body which we easily take for granted as long as they function well, whereas we learn to appre.ciate them most when ill. It is only in the concrete leaving that we find out how dependent we are on the things we have collected during the years, how we have become entangled in the small world of our hands, our minds, our hearts. We have developed our own ways of enjoying and asserting ourselves in that small world, even to the point of imposing it on others. We have learned to manage in it. To leave means to cut the ego. That is one reason why we shrink from giving up the past. Being human is essentially living in an exodus-situation. Leaving is part of life. We have to ready ourselves in many .minor rehearsals for the final farewell which is the only absolute certainty of everybody's life. Apart from God, everything in life is transitory: everything biological, social, political, intellectual, etc. The refusal to accept this passing quality of life causes stunted growth, induration, and in extreme cases, neurosis. The early Chris-tians sometimes called their faith "The Way." God is always greater; he keeps us continually on the move. "Here we have no lasting city; we are seeking one which is to come" (Heb 13:14). Jesus stressed that the kingdom of God re-quires the Gift of self: "Whoever would save his life will lose it, whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Mt 16:25). The giving up of oneself in this life is not done once and for all; it is an ever-growing gift of self and demands an increasing willingness to sacrifice. To leave people and things behind does not mark the end; rather it opens up a new beginning in a wider context. The severing of the umbilical cord introduces the baby into the family; the leaving of the family's security challenges the adolescent to venture into a big world; the renouncing which Jesus demands leads us into the kingdom of God. The pruning is for increas-ing the yield. The Father is glorified in our bearing much fruit. It is not the stripped, stifled, petty life that honors him, but the life which surges to the full. Jesus leads the way. This man-for-others appeals. The reflection of his intimacy with his Father intrigues and invites us. He calls us to follow. We do not know where his way will lead us, but we do have an intuition that it will transform us for the better. If our hearts are cluttered with houses or land, relatives or friends, job or hobby, he is going to set us free so that we can go forward. All that remains will be love--serving God and serving people. The Yes is particularly scary because it is so personal. It affects the deepest 841 in me, where I am most myself. There exists no mold for it. It is my yes, such as no one before me has ever said and in which no one can really accompany me. The Yes condenses my whole self. I have 'to descend into the depths of my self in order to perform the act of my life. The person who wants always to be upheld by others could never go that far. Yet in saying Yes, there is a solidarity with others which gives strength and inspiration. The community of all those who spoke their Yes gives us support. Outstanding is the help of Mary who is an immaculate Yes, a simple fiat. Above all, her Son in his absolutely unambiguous and unrestricted Yes, enables us to dare our Yes: "Jesus Christ. was not alternately 'yes' and 'no'; he was never anything but 'yes.' Whatever promises God had made have been fulfilled in him; therefore it is through him that we address our Amen to God." (2 Co 1:19-20). Nevertheless it remains an adventure to follow Jesus in his Yes. It entails giving up tangible security and the felt affirmation by others. It is an act of faith. "Yes" is a word of freedom; to be authentic it can never be forced. Ultimately it can be said only to a person, not to a thing or an institution. The German author Giinther Grass once wrote an enigmatic little "poem" to which he gave the title "Yes." This house has two exits; I use the third one. Between Anne and Anne, I choose for Anne. The interpretation is said2 to be that both exits of the house lead into meaning-lessness which G~nther Grass rejects. The third exit is not something but someone: Anne. Between Anne the saint and Anne the sinner, between Anne the beautiful and Anne the unattractive, the poet chooses the actual Anne, and through her finds life meaningful. His yes to the real Anne saves him from the existentialist void. Grass' poetic riddle rhymes well with HammarskjOld's clear entry: "You dare your Yes--and experience a meaning." Meaning implies more than an intellectual conviction; it comprehends the whole of life. True meaning is beyond success or failure. The Way leads to the wisdom of the cross; this is a disaster which is a triumph, and a victory which is a catastrophe. The paschal mystery unites the horror of the crucifixion and the glory of the resurrection. The folly of the cross reveals the ultimate mean-ing. The following of Jesus leads beyond the antithesis of humiliation and elevation. The Way leads into a new realm of life where old values acquire a new perspective and where what used to be considered meaningless shows an unexpected significance. Therefore it provides a tremendous strength for making sacrifices. As long as we count the cost, seek our own comfort, fight for our position or strive for recognition we have not yet said a whole-hearted gsef Sudbrack, S.J., in Geist und Leben 48, October 1974, pp. 346-347. 842 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/6 Yes nor experienced the true meaning of life. You Repeat~Your Yes--and All Things Acquire a Meaning It is not enough to say Yes just once, It has to,be repeated over and over again. We have to set out on a way and we have to carry on step by step. Our Yes is a growing reality; the further we go, the deeper and richer its content. The resistance, of course, is always there. We do not want to reiterate it in ever new circumstances. We find ourselves, like Jacob, resisting the angel of Yahweh (Gn 32:23~33). During the night Jacob crosses the ford of the Jabbok and untildaybreak he wrestles with aman whom he does not know is a divine messenger. At the end of his fight he asks for the stranger's blessing. He then receives a new name, Israel, meaning "you contehded with divine beings." In his struggle against God he becomes injured and keeps on limping. It is a strange, but .typical story. How difficult to recognize God in his numerous disguises. How easy to consider him a threat to be fought. How often is our encounter with God, before it becomes a bow to receive his blessing, first a long, dark ~resistance. How much harm do we inflict on ourselves in that opposition. Every refusal to repeat our Yes does harm to our personality; it stifles our growth, eats out our joy and reduces the meaningfulness of our life. What follows are self-concern, grudges, resentment, compensations, addic-tions of all kinds, polarization which we stretch too far, fencing in against other people. The half-hearted Yes creates impaired persons, very much unlike the kind God wants us to be. "I know your deeds; I know you are neither hot nor cold. How I wish you were one or the other--hot or cold! But because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth!" (Rv 3:15-16). The Yes has to be repeated so often that it includes everything in the past, in the present and in the future. As long as there is something in my past which I reject, there is still a screen in me that pr~events my being transparent. That which I repress or resent splits my inner self, or becomes a heavy chain I drag along behind me. It may take time to really accept the suffering or the failure that came to me, maybe long ago, but it is vital that I do accept it. The Yes can create a meaning where first there was none. The repeated Yes will become more mature, more profound, more silent, and eventually it will extract light from the dark, radiance from, the cross. "We know that God makes all things work together for the good of those who have been called according to his decree" (Rm 8:28). To say Yes is to accept the present. It means to acknowledge gratefully the talents and the possibilities I have without thinking that all of them have to be realized. It means to accept my limitations in health, education, character, etc., while at thesame time trying to overcome them. It means to transform gently weaknesses into strength, innate temptations into grace, given potential into a ripe harvest. It means to say Yes to the lives of others and to give them the room and the sympathy they need. It means to accept the situation I am in, Yes / 843 and myself in that situation. To repeat my Yes will lead to self-acceptance which in turn, will make everything else meaningful. It is obvious of course, that the Yes is not identical with a limp settling for anything, neglecting all attempts to improve things. The opposite is true: it is only by accepting them that things can be improved. No effort born of anger, impatience or resentment will bear fruit. An example may illustrate this point. Suppose the parents of a stuttering boy have great difficulty in accepting /he child's handicap. Whenever he stammers, they harshly make him repeat his words. One evening the parents discuss the situation. They both had noticed that the stuttering was becoming worse and they begin to see that the pressure they put on the boy may have something to do with it. So they decid~ to make no more remarks when the child stammers. Both father and mother manage to live up to their resolution, and yet they find that the speech handi-cap is becoming still worse. After some time, they talk things over once more and discover that, in their first discussion, they had changed only their policy, their external approach, but not their interior attitude. They had stopped scolding all right, but they still resented the stuttering. The boy was no longer being reprimanded, but he still felt the pressure of disappointing his parents. At this :pOint the parents break through to a new mentality and accept the boy as he is, with his stuttering. The paradox is that from now onward, the child can slowly improve in his speech because he no longer has to. This is a real paradox: as long as the parents resentfully demanded it, progress was blocked; after thedefect is accepted in peace, it begins to improve. In some cases we are simultaneously both the parents and the boy! The Yes to the future is a stark act of faith since we do not know what ~ve are saying Yes to. It is only the confidence in a person that enables us to say Yes for better or for worse. In the wedding it is the trust in the spouse, together ¯ with our faith in God that allows us to engage in a common future and to accept whatever it has in store. In ordination and in religious profession it is--over and above the reliance on the community--the belief in the living God that constitutes the basis for commitment. Without a strong spirit of faith, it would be utter foolishness to promise solemnly and forever poverty, chastity, and obedience. In fact the beauty and the testimony of the vows con-sists precisely in their being so explicitly an act of faith. When Everything Has a Meaning, How Can You Live Anything But a Yes! The faithful repetition of our Yes eventually leads us to the watershed where life starts flowing in another direction. The uphill climb pays off in a panoramic perspective and gracious ease to live the Yes continuously. The pilgrim has become single-hearted and now sees God everywhere. The purity of his eye penetrates to the deepest Ground of everything and discerns all as grace-filled and meaningful. This in turn reinforces the Yes. Life has become whole and holy. Meaninglessness implies that the various life-experiences are disconnected 844 / Review for Religious, l/olume 39, 1980/6 and therefore disconcerting. It just does not make sense! They present a void which creates feelings of despair. They paralyze all efforts to do something about it because they suggest that it is all useless anyway. Suicide becomes an alluring temptation. In the realm beyond the watershed the isolated pieces fall into place and show a pattern never perceived before. Perhaps it is more accu-rate to say that the change takes place not so much in the objective reality as in our view of it. We have finally reached the vantage point where we have the right perspective. The total Yes has rendered all reality transparent and coherent. We feel like Jacob awakening from his dream at Bethel: "Truly, the Lord is in this spot, although I did not know it!" (Gn 28:16). A deep joy a~ccompanies this experience. It is like coming home after a long, hopeless meander. That home is really the presence of God. We now recognize him everywhere, even where previously we had discerned nothing whatsoever of him. He is the bond that connects all. It is the old concept of divine providence which we rediscover in shining newness. Meaningfulness then, is not some-thing, but someone. God has nothing since he is the creator of all. He does not produce something which he then delivers. He remains the living center of all that is; without him, it could not be. In everything he gives, he gives himself as well; therefore he can be found in everything. It is ohly in recognizing God this way that reality acquires its full meaning, is allowed to be all that it is meant to be. The basic trust which is so vital for human well-being now extends to all of reality. "Nothing can separate us from the love of God." (Rm 8:39). The surrender can now be complete. How can we live anything but a Yes? We can join in with Charles de Foucauld in his prayer of abandonment: Father. I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, 1 thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures-- I wish no more than this, 0 Lord. Into your hands l commend my soul; I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for ! love you Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands, without reserve, and with boundless confidence, for you are my father. Others, to art.iculate their gift of self, may prefer the older prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola at the end of his Spiritual Exercises: Take, Lord, all my liberty. Receive my memory, my understanding, my whole will, Yes / 845 all that I have and possess. You have given all to me; I return it all to you. Do with me as you will; Give me only your love and your grace. with these I am rich enough and ! desire nothing more. In Luke's Gospel we find an expression of total abandonment that is still much older and took only one word:fiat. With it Mary chooses obedience as the pattern of her life, "Let it be done to me as you say" (Lk 1:38); through it she surrenders her body to God, and all her possessions are also included in this one act of abandonment. Said in a moment, it is spelled out in a lifetime. As a sheaf is bound in the middle and fans out towards the ends, so the life of Mary, in all its bounty, is held together by this little word. All her years before this moment flow into it and all the rest of her life flows from it. God's grace enables her to say it, and in saying it, she enables God's grace to work in her. It directs her whole beirig towards God and away from selfishness and self-concern. It makes her completely transparent so that through her the Light in its fullness can come into the world. It creates the room God needs to become man. Jesus is the embodiment of. Mary's Yes, the fruit of her fiat; greater fruitfulness is inconceivable. Her fiat in no way stymies her personality; in fact, it brings her utter fulfillment and is the prototype of all Christian fruit-fulness. We come to you, Mother of our Lord and Mother of us all, to thank you for your Yes that gave us the incarnation of God's own Yes and brought life to its fullness. We ask you, teach us to follow you in saying our Yes with faith and courage. You know the cost of living the Yes; protect ours in integrity and joy. Ask your divine Son for the grace always to repeat our Yes with an ever-growing surrender and to experience how this increases the meaningfulness of our life. Under your inspiration may we help to build the kingdom of God today and every day, for ever and ever. Amen. The Social Context of Personal Prayer in Seminaries Stephen Happel Father Happel is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at St. Meinrad Seminary; St. Meinrad, IN 47577. This article is based on an earlier paper originally published in Learning to Pray Alone (Abbey Press), pp. 34-43. Private prayer is never accomplished without a social, communal context. Individual prayer has not only social conditions and social ramifications, but also social ingredients which quaiify and constitute its very nature. Our private languages are learned in the public forum. We speak to ourselves because others have spoken to us and because we have learned to speak to them. So too with God. Both the personal vocabulary and private grammar of our speech with God are primarily social-ecclesial in their initial stages (whether learned from parents or teachers), in their performance from day to day, and in their various results (ministering to others, praying with others, allowing the kingdom to be formed). If one combines this sense of the social dimension, indeed social constitu-tion, of prayer with its fundamental component, dialogue with the Other, then that Other will almost necessarily have the characteristics of the "social other" experienced at any given point in human development. So, for exam-ple, in one's earlier years, speaking with God is accomplished in the horizon of the discipline and "otherness" of one's parents. Religious psychologists maintain that it is possible atany given point in an individual's life to indicate the creative synthesis of parental figures which qualifies the notion of God.' Thus, I will maintain in the following that "the other" in the seminary context ' See A. Vergote, Psychologie religieuse (Brussels: Dessart, 1966), esp. pp. 294-299, 307. The Social Context of Personal Prayer / 847 will radically qualify the ability or inability of individuals to pray alone. How is "the other" experienced in the seminary environment? Needless to say, the reflections offered here should not be taken so much as judgment, but as description. It may be true that the achievement of human freedom in relation to God is the goal of seminary education programs; but what sort of inter-active freedom does seminary structure actt~ally provide? The typological description of institutional structure which follows is not so much an analysis of any particular seminary as it is the affective grid of the institution-known-as- seminary. I offer it as an hypothesis about the problem, and suggest that facing it constructively may assist in achieving a solution to the problem of praying privately.2 The Perfect Society: A Unity of Transcendentals The seminary, whatever its historical origins, seems to think of itself as an autonomous, indeed "perfect society." In an updated version of this ideal, it would be described as a place in which all would be brothers and sisters; in which power would intelligently persuade and invite to participation rather than willfully force; in which external forms of .religious expression would always mirror interior dispositions; and in which each person's relation to sur-rounding Nature would be in terms of appreciating and creating Beauty, rather than exploiting it. Affect and reason would be coincident; and the Good would necessarily flow from and be the origin of both. The truth would always be told; the good would always be practiced; and the beautiful would be in evidence everywhere. Institutional structure would incarnate and measure this integration; individuals would readily learn to assume the responsibility of living these goal,s; and, as St. Paul says, God would be "all in all." This enlightened reincarnation of Christian society, however, contains two major oversights of fact: namely, the overwhelmingly transient character of a seminary's student population, and what has been gracefully entitled by a colleague of mine "human sloth." These may be described in more classical terms as "the finite character of the human condition," and "original sin." Now the inclusion of these two facts of human experience into our descrip-tion of societal mix does not justify removing the human odcasion for achiev-ing freedom. I do not subscribe to the simplification which would suggest: "Mistakes will be made; therefore remove the possibility of mistakes." But their inclusion does allow us to see what happens when it is assumed that an institution can easily incarnate the human good without reference to the criticism required by the acknowledgement of finitude and guilt. The first consequence of these two facts is that power will inevitably fall to 2 1 am also convinced that some of the problems discussed and the solutions proposed, if utilized, would go a long way in aiding contemporary Catholic seminaries in their task of acculturating the older students who are entering seminary at present. 848 / Review for Religious, l/olume 39, 1980/6 those who remain the longest in the situation, in this case to the faculty and administration. The second is that this power will be concretized in a bureaucracy which is supposed to "run the system" irrespective of the iden-tities of the participants. Students, faculty, staff, and administration will all feel victims of "the other" who is the system (confer the,response to ques-tions: "That's the way it's done around here," noting especially the neuter passive construction). But because students are the primary mobile popula-tion, they will feel the alienation of power

Issue 33.5 of the Review for Religious, 1974. ; Review lot Religious is edited by faculty members of the School of Divinity of St. Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copy-right ~) 1974 by Review ]or Religious. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.75. Sub-scription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year; $11.00 for two years; other countries, $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to Review ]or Religious in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent Review ]or Religious. Change of address requests should include former address. R. F. Smith, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor September 1974 Volume 33 Number 5 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to Review for Religious; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts, books for review, and materials for "Subject Bibliography for Religious" should be sent to Review for Religious; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, SJ.; St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106. Papal Bull Holy Year Proclaiming the Paul VI Given below is the English translation of Paul VI's Bull proclaiming the Holy Year that will begin on Christmas Eve, 1974. The translation is that which appeared in the English edition of Osservatore romano. Paul, servant of the servants of God, to all the faithful: Health and apostolic blessing. As the universal jubilee to be celebrated in Rome approaches, the memorials of the Apostles shine forth more brightly for the faithful as the goal of pilgrimage--the holy places of Rome where the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul are worthily preserved and religiously venerated, those "holy fathers" through whom the ~ity became not only the "diSciple of truth" but also the teacher of truth1 and the center of Catholic unity. Down the centuries, these memorials have always impelled the Chris-tian people to be fervent in their faith and to testify to ecclesial communion. This is so because the Church recognizes her identity and the cause of her unity in the foundation laid .by Jesus Christ, namely, the Apostles." From as early as the second century the faithful came to Rome to see and venerate the "trQphies" of the Apostles Peter and Paul in those very places where they are preserved,:' and they. made pilgrimages to the church of Rome to contemplate her "regal dignity."4 In the fourth century the pilgrimage to 1See St. Leo the Great, Sermon 82, 1 : PL 54, 422. ZSee Rev 21 : 14. 3See the testimony of Gaius, an ecclegiastic of the time of Pope Zephrynus, as given in Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica, II,25,7. 4See the inscription of Abercius, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia at the end of the second century; the text and translation is given in M. Guarducci, "L'iscrizione di Abercio," Ancient Society, v. 2 (1971), pp. 176-7. 993 994 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 Rome became in the West the principal form of that kind of religious journey. It was similar to, and had the same religious purpose as, the pil-grimage which was made in the East to Jerusalem where the Lord's sepulchre is found? In the early Middle Ages, those who were "linked to the Chair of Peter,'''~ and those who wished to make a profession of their orthodox faith at the tombs of the Apostles,; especially monks, came off pilgrimage to Rome from various parts of Europe and even from the East. The idea of a pilgrimage increased further from the 12th to the 13th century, becoming all the more common by reason of a renewal of spirituality and popular piety which spread throughout Europe at that time. This renewal served to enrich the ancient notion which the Church received from tradition and which was equally 1~o be found in other religions, namely, the concept of a "pilgrimage undertaken for the love ot~ God.''s The jubilee year originated in this way; it was as it were the result of a maturing process in the doctrinal; Biblical and theological fields.:' It emerged plainly for the first time in the year 1220 when our predecessor Honorius III proclaimed a jubilee.year for pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Thomas ~ Becket.1° Later, as is well known, pilgrims came to Rome to the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul, in the great popular and penitential movement of the year 1300, a movement confirmed by our predecessor Boniface VIII.11 This was marked by a longing to obtain pardon from God and peace among men. The move-ment was directed to this very lofty motive: "the glory of God and the exaltation of the faith.''1~ The Roman Jubilee of 1300 was the beginning and the pattern for those which have followed (every 25 years from the, 15th century onwards, except when the series was interrupted by extraneous circumstances). This is an indication of the continuity and vitality v~hich have always confirmed the relevance of this venerable institution for every age. It is correct to say that the jubilees celebrated in recent times have pre- ~See St. Maximus of Turin, Homily 72: PL 57, 405b. GThe expression is found in a letter of St. Columban to Pope Boniface IV in 613: Sancti Columbani opera ed. G. S. M. Walder (Dublin, 1957), p. 48. rConcerning this custom see F. M. Mignanti, lstoria della sacrosanta Basilica Vaticana (Rome/Turin, 1867), p. 180. 8See in general B. Kotting, Peregrinatio religiosa: Wall]ahrten in der Antike und das Pilgerwesen in der Alten Kirche (Regensburg, 1950). ~R. Foreville, "L'id6e de jubil6 chez les th6ologiens et les canonistes (XII-XIII s.) avant l'institution du Jubil6 Romain (1300)," Revue d'histoire eccl~siastique, v. 56 (1961), pp. 401-23. 10p. Pressuti, Regesta Honorii 1H (Rome, 1888-95), p. 1840; the text is given in R. Foreville, "Le Jubil6 de saint Thomas b. Becket du XIII au XV sii~cle (1220-1470)," Etudes et documents (Paris, 1958), pp. 163-4. alBull, Antiquorum habet fida relatio, dated February 22, 1300: Extravagantes Comm. V,IX, I. ~zSee the gloss of Cardinal Giovanni Monaco on the same bull. Papal Bull Proclaiming the Holy Year / 995 served this outstanding value whereby the unity and renewal of the Church aCe affirmed in a special way and allmen are encouraged to recognize one another as brothers and to walk in the path of peace. Such a desire was manifested at the beginning of this century when our predecessor Leo XIII proclaimed' the jubilee year in 1900. The human family was~ filled with the same hopes and expectations when, a,quarter of a century later, afflicted by grave ,dangers and contention, 'it awaited the Holy Year of 1925. These were proposed for the special Holy Year of 1933 on the occasion of the 19th centenary of the redemption. The same noble aspirations for justice and peaceful coexistence among men were put forward by Pius" XII for the last jubilee, in the year 1950. I It seems to us that in the'present Holy Year all the principal and im-portant motives of the previous jubilees are present and expressed in sum-mary form in the .themes that we ourself laid down in our discourse of May 9, 1973 when we first announced ,the Holy Year: renewal and reconcilia-tion. a:~ We have offered these themes for the reflection of pastors and faithful, particularly during the anticipated celebration of the jubilee in local churches, and we have.added to them our exhortations and our catechesis. But the aspirations that the two themes enunciate and the lofty ideals that they express ~vill find a more complete realization in Rome, where pilgrims to the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul and to the memorials of the other martyrs will come into more ready contact with the ancient sources of the Church's faith.and life, in order to be converted by repentance, strengthened in charity, hnd united more closely with their brethren by the grace of God. Thi~ renewal and reconciliation pertain in the first place to the interior life, above all because the root of all good and, unfortunately of all evil, is found in the depths of the heart. It is in the depths of the heart therefore that conversions of metanoia must take place, that is, a change of direction, of attitude, of option, of one's way of life. But also for the Church as a whole, ten years after the end of the Second Vatican Council we view the Holy Year as the ending of a period of reflection and reform arid the beginning of a new phase of building up in the theological, spiritual, and pastoral spheres, to be developed on the foundations laboriously laid down and consolidated during the past years; in accordance with the principles of new life in Christ and of the communion of all men in Him who reconciled us to the Father by His blood,a~ For the whole w~arld this call to renewal and reconciliation is in harmony a3See Paul VI, "Allocution Announcing the Plans for a 1975 Holy Year," May 9, 1973: AAS, v. 65 (1973), pp. 322-5. 14See 2 Cor 5:18-20; Rm 5:10. 996 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 with the most sincere aspirations for freedom, justice, unity, and peace that we see wherever men become aware of their most serious problems and suffer from the mishaps produced by divisions and fratricidal wars. With the message of the Holy Year, therefore, the Church wishes to indicate to all men of good will- the vertical dimension of life that ensures reference of all aspirations and experiences to an absolute and truly universal value, without which it is vain to hope that mankind will once more find a point of unification and a guarantee of true freedom. Even though it is charac-teristic of many sectors of modern society to assume secuIar forms, the Church, without interfering in matters which do not come within her competence, nevertheless wishes to impress on men the need to be con-verted to God who alone is necessary,a5 and to imbue all their actions with fear and love of Him. For faith in God is the most powerful safeguard of the human conscience and is the solid foundation of those relationships of justice and brotherhood the world yearns for. The pilgrimage to Rome by representatives of all the local churches, both pastors and people, will therefore be a sign of a new process of conversion and brotherly reconciliation. As the minister of the word and of the grace of reconciliation, we respond to this sign of the interior dispositions of the pilgrims and of the renewed resolve of the Christian people whom they represent, by imparting the gift of the jubilee indulgence, insofar as we are able, to all the pilgrims who come to Rome and to all those who, though prevented from making the journey, accompany them in spirit. II It is well known from the Church's very ancient custom that the indul-gence attached to many penitential practices was granted in a special way as a gift on the occasion of pilgrimages to the places sanctified by the life, passion, and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ and by the confession of the Apostles. Today, too, we associate ourself with that venerable tradition, according to the principles and norms that we have ourself laid down in the apostolic constitution Indulgentiarum doctrina~'; and which we wish to recall briefly at this point. Since Christ is our "justice" and, as has been fittingly said, our "indul-gence," we, as the humble minister of Christ the Redeemer, .willingly extend a share in the gift of the indulgence~in accordance with the Church's tradi-tion- to all the faithful who, through a profound conversion of heart to God, through works of penance, piety, and brotherly solidarity, sincerely and fervently attest their desire to remain united in charity with God and l~See Lk 10:42; Mt 6:33. ~6Apostolic Constitution, lndulgentiarum doctrina: AAS v. 59 (1967), pp. 5-24. Papal Bull Proclaiming the Holy Year / 997 their brethren and to make progress in that charity.~: In fact, this sharing comes from the fullness of the treasury of salvation which is primarily found in Christ the Redeemer Himself, "in whom the satisfactions and merits of His redemption subsist in all their value.''xs In this'fullness in Christ, which we have all received,x" there shines forth "the most ancient dogma of the communion of saints, whereby, in Christ and through Christ, the lives of the individual sons of God are linked with the lives of all the other Christian brethren by a marvelous bond in the supernatural unity of the Mystical Body of Christ, as in one mystical person.''~° For, "by the hidden and benevolent mystery of the divine will, men are linked together in a supernatural relationship, whereby just as the sin of one also harms the others, so also the holiness of one is beneficial to the others.'''-'~ By means of the indulgence, the Church, making use of her power as minis-ter of the redemption of Christ the Lord, communicates to the faithful a sharing in this fullness of Christ in the communion of saints,'-"-' providing them with the ample means of salvation. Thus the Church, aiding and embracing them like a mother, sustains her weak and infirm children, who.find a firm support in the Mystical Body of Christ, which in its entirety works for their conversion through charity, example, and prayer. Thus penitents find in this singular form of ecclesial charity a powerful aid to help them put off the old man and put on the new. Conversion and renewal consist precisely in this.'-':' In fact, the Church's aim in granting indulgences is not only that of helping the faithful expiate the punishment they have deserved but also that of stimulating them to carry out works of piety, penance, and charity, and in particular works that serve to favor the growth of faith and the common good.~' III For this reason, interpreting.as it were the Church's maternal sentiments, we impart the gift of the plenary indulgence to all the faithful who are prop-erly disposed, and who, after confessing their sins and receiving Holy Communion, pray for the intentions of the supreme pontiff and the college of bishops: 1:See Paul V1, Letter to Cardinal de Fiirstenburg Officially Announcing the Beginning o! the 1975 Holy Year, dated May 31, 1973: AAS, v. 65 (1973), pp. 357-60. ~SApostolic Constitution, lhdulgentiarum doctrina, 5: AAS, v. 59 (1967), p. 11. ~gSee Jn 1:16. -~0Apostolic Constitution, lndulgentiarum doctrina, 5: AAS, v. 59 (1967), pp. 10-1; and see St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, III,q.48,a.2 adl; and q.49,a.l. ZlApostolic constitution, lndulgentiarum doctrina, 4: AAS, v. 59 (1967), p. 9. '-'Zlbid., 8: AAS, v. 59 (1967), p. 16. '-':~See Paul VI, Letter to Father 'Constantine Koser on the 750th Anniversary o] the Portiuncula Indulgence, dated July 14, 1966: AAS, v. 58 (1966), pp. 631-4. z4See the Apostolic Constitution, lndulgentiarum doctrina, 8: AAS, v. 59 (1967), p. 17. 998 / Review Jor Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 (1) If they undertake a sacred pilgrimage to one of the patriarchal basilicas (the basilica of St. Peter's in the Vatican,,St. Paul's Outside-the- Walls, ttie Lateran Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior, or St. Mary Major), or to some other church or place of the city of Rome designated by the competent authority, and devoutly take part in a liturgical celebration there, especially the Sacrifice of the Mass, or some exercise of piety (e.g., the way bf the cross, the rosary); (2) If they visit, in a group or individually, one of the four patri-archal basilicas and spend some time there in devout recollection concluding with the Our Father, the profession of faith in. any approved form, and a prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary; (3) If, being prevented by illness or some other grave reason from going on a pilgrimage to Rome, they unite themselves spiritually with this pilgrim-age and offer their prayers and sufferings to God; (4) If, being prevented while in Rome. by illness or some other grave reason from taking part in a liturgical celebration or exercise of piety or visit made by their group (ecclesial family or social, as mentioned in 1 and 2 above), they unite themselves spiritually with the group and offer their prayers and suffering to God. During the Holy Year, moreover, the other concessions of indulgences remain in force, with the proviso as before that a plenary indulgence can be gained only once a day;~'' however, all indulgences can always be applied tb the dead in modo suffragii."-''~ For the same reasons, namely, in order that the faithful be provided with ¯ every possible aid to salvation, and to help priests, especially confessors, we proclaim that confessors taking part "in the jubilee pilgrimage may use the faculties they have been given in their own dioceses by the legitimate au-thority,~ so that both on the journey and in Rome they may hear the con-fessions of the faithful accompanying them on the pilgrimage, and also the confessions ot~ others who, together with the members of their own group, may approach them. The right of the penitentiaries of the patriarchal basilicas regarding the confessionals reserved to them is maintained,'-'~ and special faculties will be granted by the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary to the penitentiaries. IV We stated above that the following two principal purposes have been established for the Holy Year: spiritual renewal in Christ and reconciliation with God, and we have said that these aims concern not only the interior '-',~See Enchiridion indulgentiarum, norma 24, para. 1. ~Ibid. norma 4. ~zSee Paul VI's motu proprio, Pastorale munus, I, 14: AAS, v. 56 (1964), p. 8. "-SSee First Synod o] Rome, 1960, art. 63. Papal Bull Proclaiming the Holy Year / 999 life of each individual but the whole Church, and also, .in a certain sense, the whole of human society. For this reason we earnestly exhort all con-cerned to consider these proposals, to undertake initiativ,es and to coordinate programs so that during the Holy Year real progress may be made in the renewal of the Church and also in the pursuit of certain goals very dear to us, in accordance with the farsighted spirit of the Second Vatican Ecu-menical Council. Repentance, the purification of the heart, and conversion to God must consequently bring about an increase in the apostolic activities of the Church. During the Holy Year, therefore, generous efforts must be made to further evangelization, which is certainly the first of all the activities to be promoted. For the pilgrim Church "has been divinely sent to all nations that she might be 'the universal sacrament of salvation' "'-'~' and she "is by her very nature mis.sionary,' . and in the course of her history is renewed to the extent that she shows herself ready to accept and to deepen through faith the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God, and to proclaim His saving message to men by word and the witness of her life. The coming assembly of the Synod of Bishops does not have a merely extrinsic and fortuitous connection with the Holy Year.-On the contrary, as we have already stated, "a zealous effort must be made to coordinate and closely link both these ecclesial events.'':~ In this regard the Synod will pro-pose directives and suggestions for the reflection of pastors gathered about the supreme pontiff, so that they may carefully consider in the light of faith "the evangelization of the modern world," taking into account, in the light of the charity of Christ, the wishes of the whole Church and the more urgent needs of our time. Therefore devout attention to the word of God together with catechetical instruction given to the faithful of every state and of all ages must lead Christians to purify their way of life and to a higher knowledge of faith; it must dispel doubts and stimulate the negligent to joyfully activate in their lives the gospel message; it must impel everyone towards a conscious and fruitful sharing in the sacraments; it must encourage communities and indi-viduals to give witness to the faith by the uprightness and strength .of their lives, so that the world may see the reason for the hope that is in us.:"-' Now ten years after the SecQnd Vatican Council began, the great and salutary work of renewal in the fields of the pastoral ministry, the practice of penance, and the sacred liturgy, we consider it altogether fitting that this z~Vatican Council II, Ad gentes divinitus (Decree on the Missionary Activity o] the Church), I: AAS, v. 58 (1966), p. 947. :"qbid., 2: AAS, v. 58 (1966), p. 948. :;~"Discourse to the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops," Osservatore romano, April 6, 1974, p. 4. :~See 1 Pt 3:15. 1000 / Review jor Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 work should be reviewed and furthered. If what the Church has clearly approved is kept in mind, it will be possible to recognize the valid and legitimate elements to be found in the many and varied experiments that have been carried out everywhere. Similarly, these same elements can, by a more earnest effort, be put into practice in accordance with the norms and principles suggested by pastoral prudence and a sense of true piety. The presence of large numbers of pilgrims, both pastors and people, from Christian communities throughout the world, brought together in Rome by a fraternal desire to gain the true benefits of the grace and love of Christ, will undoubtedly afford excellent opportunities for putting forward, comparing, and evaluating studies and viewpoints of various kinds. This will most cer-tainly bc the case if congresscs and meetings are held at different levels in the ecclesial community and by varied groups of experts, and provided that prayer and a ready willingness to carry out the apostolate are joined together. At this point we wish to draw particular attention to the need to find a just and proper balance between the differing demands of the pastoral min-istry today, a balance similar to that which has been admirably achieved in the sacrcd liturgy. We refer to the balance between tradition and renewal, b~twccn the necegsarily religious nature of the Christian apostolate and its effectivencss as a force in all fields of social living, between free and spon-taneous activity--which some are accustomed to call charismatic--in this a.postolate and fidelity to laws based on the commands of Christ and of the pastors of the Church. For these laws, laid down by the Church and con-tinually brought up to date, make allowance for individual experiments within the Christian community, in such a way that they are a help in build-ing up the body of Christ, which is the Church, and not a hindranceY:' We wish likewise to draw attention to the ever increasing need to pro-mote the kind of apostolate which, without damaging the Church's necessary and traditional institutions, namely dioceses and parishes, takes special account of particular local circumstances and categories of people. Such an apostolate must ensure that the leaven of the gospel permeates those forms of modern social living which often differ from traditional forms of ecclesial life and seem foreign to the communities "in which the faithful gather to-gether and are linked" in prayer, faith, and charity. The forms we are thinking of are principally those of workers, members of the academic world, and young people. It will also be necessary to examine carefully the methods of teaching religion and of preaching the sacred word of God, to insure that they meet the needs of our time. This mt~st be done with the aim of finding effective methods. Special care must be taken to insure that the media of social com-munications promote the human and Christian progress both of individuals and of communities. :~.aSee Rm 15:2; 1 Cor. 14:3; Eph. 4:12. Papal Bull Proclaiming the Holy Year / 1001 These are questions of the greatest seriousness and importance. We must face up to them and with humble prayer seek the grace of the Holy Year in order to solve them. V As is well known, i~ recent years one of the Church's most pressing con-cerns has been to disseminate everywhere a message of charity, of social awareness, and of peace, and to promote, as far as she can, works of justice and solidarity among all men, whether individuals, social groups, or peoples. We earnestly desire, therefore, that the Holy Year, through the works of charity which it suggests to the faithful and which it asks of them, should be an opportune time for strengthening and supporting the moral conscious-ness of all the faithful and of that wider community of all men which the message of the Church can reach if an earnest effort is made. The ancient origins of the jubilee as seen in the laws and institutions of Israel clearly show that this social dimension is part of its very nature. In fact, as we read in the Book of Leviticus,:" the jubilee year, precisely be-cause it was dedicated in a special way to God, involved a new ordering of all things that were recognized as belonging to God: the .land, which was al-lowed to lie fallow and was given back to its former owners; economic goods, insofar as debts were remitted; and, above all, man, whose dignity and free-dom were reaffirmed in a special way by the emancipation of slaves. The year of God, then, was also the year of man, the year of the earth, the year of the poor, and upon this view of the whole of human reality there shone a new light which emanated from the clear recognition of the supreme dominion of God over the whole of creation. In today's world also the problems which most disturb and torment mankind--economic and social questions, the question of ecology and sources of energy, and above all that of the liberation of the oppressed and the uplifting of all men to a new dignity of life-~can have light cast on them by the message of the Holy Year. We wish, however, to invite all the sons and daughters of the Church, and especially the pilgrims coming to Rome, to undertake certain definite tasks which, as successor of Peter and head of that church "which presides over the universal gathering of charity,'':~' we now publicly propose and com-mend to all. We refer to the carrying out of works of faith and charity for the benefit of our needy brethren in Rome and in other chu'rches of the world. These works will not necessarily be grandiose ones, although such are.in no way to be excluded. In many cases what are today called "micro-realizations" will be sufficient, corresponding as they do to the gospel spirit of charity. In this field the Church, in view of the modest resources at her :~"Lv 25: 8ff. :~r'See St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Romans, salutation: Funk, v. 1, p. 252. 1002 / Review jot Religious, Volume .33, 1974/5 disposal, will perhaps have to limit herself more and more to giving men nothing more than the widow's mite.:"~ But she knows and teaches that the good which counts most is that which, in humble and very often unknown ways, manages to provide help where there is a small need and to heal small wounds--things which often find no place in large projects of social reform. Nevertheless, the Church feels that it is necessary to give encourage-ment also to these larger programs for promoting justice and the progress of peoples. She renews her call to all those who have the power and the duty to build up in the world a more perfect order of social and human relations, urging them not to give up because of the difficulties of the present times and not to be won over by selfish interests. Once more we make a particularly strong appeal on behalf of developing countries and of people still afflicted by hunger and by war. Let special attention be given to the many needs which oppress man today, to the finding of employment by which men can provide for the needs of life, to housing which so many lack, to schools which need much assistance, to social and medical aid, and to the develop-ment and safeguarding of decent public moral standards. We should like also to express the humble and sincere desire that in this present Holy Year, too, in accordance with the tradition of previous jubilees, the proper authorities of the different nations should consider the possibility of wisely granting an amnesty to prisoners, as a witness of clemency and equity, especially to those who have given sufficient proof of moral and civic rehabilitation, or who may have been caught up in political and social upheavals too immense for them to be held fully responsible. We express in anticipation our gratitude ~ind invoke the Lord's abundant blessings on all those who will strive to insure that this message of charity, of social awareness, and of freedom, which the Church addresses to all men in the lively hope that she may be understood and listened to, is ac-cepted and translated into reality in the political and social order. In express-ing this hope we are conscious of following a wonderful tradition which began with the law of Israel and found its fullest expression in our Lord Jesus Christ who, from the very beginning Of His ministry, presented Him-self as the fulfillment of the ancient promises and figures connected with the jubilee year: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.'':~: Vl If there is one spiritual advantage which we especially desire from the :";See Lk 21:2; Mk 12:42. ZrLk 4:18-9. Papal Bull Proclabning the Holy Year / 1003 celebration of the Holy Year, .it is an increase in the number of those who devote their lives to serving the Church, especially priests and religious. For in order that the paths of grace and the means of salvation which the Holy Year indicates and offers to all the faithful may be properly explained and made available, there will always be a need for those sacred ministers and witnesses of Christ's gospel who by completely following the Lord show their fellowmen, namely the men of this and subsequent ages, the way of penance and of holiness. Thus, the voice of God must be listened to diligently. He never ceases to stir up and invite chosen individuals to dedicate themselves generously to the .service of the Church and the whole human race by the exercise of the priestly ministry and by the faithful witness of the religious life. Some will be called by God to offer themselves to Him through obedience and sacred celibacy and as priests of Christ to teach and sanctify and lead the faithful wherever they may be. Others, men and women of various ages and conditions, will be attracted to the religious life, so that by fulfilling their baptismal promises through a higher way of life they may fully live in the spirit and truly benefit the Church and society. We desire strongly that the multitude of these especially dear members of the Church may increase and flourish more and more, so that through their priesthood and t~e~activity of their religious life they may bear the joyful message of Christ to the ends of the earth and all give glory to the heavenly Father. VII Finally, we wish to proclaim and preach that the reconciliation of Chris-tians is one of the principal aims of the Holy Year. For, before all men can be brought together and restored to the grace of God our Father, com-munion must be reestablished between those who by faith have acknowl-edged and accepted Jesus Christ as the Lord of Mercy who sets men i~ree and unites them in the spirit of love and truth. For this reason the jubilee year, which the Catholic Church has accepted as part of her own custom and tradition, can serve as a most opportune period for spiritual renewal and for the promotion of Christian unity. We would, moreover, point out that the Second Vatican Council has taught that every effort and undertaking directed toward the reconciliation of Christians and all true ecumenism must necessarily start from an inner conversion of the heart, since the desire for Christian communion springs and grows from spiritual renewal, self-denial, the full exercise of charity, and fidelity to revealed truth?~ It is here that there is to be found the full and proper realization of the whole ecumenical movement to which the Catholic Church adheres as far as she is able, and through which Churches and communities not yet fully .~sSee Unitatis redintegratio (Decree on Ecumenism), 7: AAS, v. 57 (1965), p. 97. 1004 / Review [or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 in communion with the Apostolic See seek and desire the perfect unity willed by Christ. It is in fact the task and duty of the whole Church to reestablish this unity in full ecclesial communion.:'~' The year of grace, in this sense, provides an opportunity for doing special penance for the divisions which exist among Christians; it offers an occasion for renewal in the sense of a heightened experience of holiness of life in Christ; it allows progi'ess toward that hoped for reconciliation by intensified dialogue and concrete Christian collaboration in the salvation of the world: "that they also may be one in us, so that the world may believe.'''~ We have expressed once more our intentions and our desires concerning the celebration of the Holy Year in this city of Rome. Now we invite our brothers in the episcopate and all the pastors and faithful of the churches throughout .the world, of those churches also which are not in full communion with the Roman Church, and indeed all who believe in God, to participate at least spiritually in this feast of grace and redemption, in which Christ offers Himself as the teacher of life. Together with the pastors and faithful on pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles and the early martyrs, we desire to profess faith in God the almighty and merciful Father and in Jesus Christ our Redeemer. For our part we would hope that all who come to Rome to see Peter'1 may through us experience in the Holy Year the truth of the words of St. Leo the Great: "For in the whole church Peter repeats each day, 'You are Christ the Son of the living God,' and every tongue which confesses the Lord is inspired by the teaching of this voice.'"': We would wish also that through our ministry and that of our brother priests a huge multitude of faithful may come to the sources of salvation.":' May the holy door which we shall open on the night of Christmas Eve be a sure sign of this new approach to Christ who alone is the way"" and the door.4'~ It will be a sure sign too of the paternal affection with which, filled with love and desiring peace, we open our heart to all. We implore the Blessed Virgin Mary, the holy Mother of the Redeemer and of the Church, Mother of grace and of mercy, collaborator of reconcili-ation and shining example of the new life, to ask her Son to grant to all our brethren and sons and daughters the grace of this Holy Year, to renew and preserve them. To her hands and to her maternal heart we commend the beginning, the development, and the conclusion of this most important matter. 3Olbid., 5: AAS, v. 57 (1965), p. 96. 4°Jn 17:21. 41See Gal 1 : 18. 4"-Sermon 3: PL 54, 146. ¯ ~:~See Is 12:3. ¯ ~4See Jn 14:6. t~See Jn 10:7,9. Papal Bull Proclaiming the Holy Year / 1005 We wish this our letter to take full and immediate effect in such a manner that. whatsoever has been laid down and decreed in it be religiously ob-served by all concerned and come into force, all things to the contrary not-withstanding. If anyone knowingly or unknowingly shall act other than in accordance with what we have laid down, we order that such action be con-sidered altogether null and void. Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on the 23rd day of May, the solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, in the year 1974, the 1 lth of our pontificate. 1, Paul, Bishop of the Catholic Church The American Religious, Evangelizer at Home Peter J. Henriot, S.J. The following is the text of the address that Father Henriot delivered to the 17th Annual Assembly of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men held in Chicago June 16-20, 1974. Father Henriot is a staff associate of the Center of Concern; 3700 13th Street, N.E.; Washington, D. C. 20017. In a recent article in America magazine, Father Hubert Horan, a White Father who spent several years as a missionary in Tanzania, questioned whether the topic of the upcoming Synod, "evangelization," was a "cop-out," a retreat from more potentially controversial questions. Given his own mis-sionary understanding of "evangelization," he felt that it certainly was not an insignificant topic, but one which would be rich and fruitful in increasing our understandings and actions as Church in the world today. But Father Horan did admit that the term is a "slippery one," open to ever wider and wider interpretations. In a sense, we might say that evangelization, like charity, "covers a multitude of sins." Thus in countless discussions preceed-ing, during, and after the Synod this fall, discussions such as we are in-volved in these days here in Chicago, this topic will be explored, broadened and narrowed, and, hopefully, appropriated in our own individual lives and in the lives of our communities. This morning, in addressing the topic, "The American Religious, Evan-gelizers at Home," I will not be offering you any neat and compact new definition of evangelization. I know that you all recognize the difficulty-- the folly---of attempting that, since we are all grappling with what this term means. I do not apologize, therefore, for using the meaning which the official pre-Synod document has adopted for the sake of clarity, namely, "the activity whereby the Church proclaims the gospel so that the faith may be aroused, may unfold, and may grow." The American Religious, Evangelizer at Home / 1007 Evangelization and Action for Justice How the A~erican religious is called upon today, to take part in this task of evangelization is a question critical to our vocation of service in the Church. I would like to narrow our focus of attention during this day to one aspect or dimension of the task of evangelization, an aspect which was defined and delineated at the last Synod in 1971. This aspect ,is found in a sentence which I must adroit I have probably overused by quoting it inces-santly, "in season and out of season." The sentence is from the Synod's statement, Justice in the World: Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or, in other words, of the Church's mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation. The preaching of the gospel--the task of evangelization--includes as a "con-stitutive dimension" the task of "action for justice," the commitment to trans-form a world where increasingly we hear, again in the words of the Synod, "the cry of those who suffer violence and are oppressed by unjust systems and structures." I want to share with you this morning my own understanding of why [l~is "action for justice" is constitutive to the task of evangelization, and why it is worth reflecti~ng on, praying over, and resolvihg about in our focus on the "American Religious, Evangelizer at Home." But let me firs[ make one thing perfectly clear, to borrow a phrase. My emphasis here is not upon "social action," the "social apostolate," or similar segmental aspects of religious life. My emphasis is upon a characteristic, a modality, of religious life which must--if religious life is to be evangelical--be c6nstitutive of its existence and practice~ in our Church and our world today. The Global Scene Our discussion has to be placed in context, and not carried on in a vacuum. "]'he context is our modern world, where, again citing the words of the 1971 Synod, "social structures place obiective obstacles in the way of conversion of hearts, or even of the realization of the ideal of charity." Less than two weeks ago I participated in a conference of over one hundred major religious leaders from Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish groups in the United States, called to discuss and plan the response of churches and synagogues to the current crisis in .global justice. During three days we heard factual analyses of the world situation from diverse figures such as Robert McNamara, President of the World Bank, and Neville Kanakaratne, Ambassador to the United States from Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and a leading Third World spokesperson. We heard theological analyses of'Why religious people should respond, from people such as Archbishop Marcos McGrath of Panama, and Rabbi Marc Tannenbaum, of the American Jewish Com- 1008 / Review [or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 mittee--who both spoke of liberation from oppression as being central to the message of God's dealing with His people. And the participants planned and committed themselves to strategies for change: through the political system, in lifestyle, in education, in investment policies, and so forth. Finally, the conference received a ringing "statement of conscience," which spoke of the need for a profound conversion, in values, interests, and loyal-ties, in policies, institutions, and patterns of behavior, if any effective steps were.to be taken toward meeting the crisis of global justice. I would like to read one of the opening paragraphs of that statement to you, because I believe that it puts a context to some of the things we will be discussing~ The conference said: As Americans we have come to realize how many of our national policies, of our institutional structures of production, marketing and defense, and of our current personal patterns of conduct and consumption, are all inextricably linked to the ongoing av, d explosive global catastrophe of famine, hunger and malnutritior~; which continues to claim millions of lives every year in various parts of the world. Things are not getting better. The rich are getting richer, the poor poorer. Many millions will die this year from starvation. Hundreds of millions of children will be so undernourished that, if they survive at all, their physical and mental development will be seriously retarded. This is our world. The conference was able to say those things because it had put before it a description of a world marked by the twin horrors of hunger and repression. With the price of grain tripled in the past few months and the present world food reserves down to 27 days, the lowest since World War Two, the spectre of famine is a daily reality to millions of people in Africa and the Indian sub-continent. World-wide inflation, heightened through the quadrupling of the price of oil in the past year, means that the increasingly scarce resources of our finite world are getting even scarcer. And the world's population, now approaching 4 billion, will double in the next 35 years--except for the intervention of war and/or famine. Such deadly intervention is, of course, a real possibility. In a globe increasingly small, increasingly finite, and increasingly in-terdependent, two-thirds of the people of the world live in conditions of des-titution and degradation, while one-third enjoy the rich blessings created for all humankind. It is a literal re-enactment of the Dives and Lazarus story. Justice Needs at Home But in setting the context here, even so cursory a reference to the global scene should not distract us from the problems of social justice here at home. Those of you who live and work in major urban areas know that our cities, though outwardly quiet in the past few years, continue to see unrest, amidst conditions of unemployment, poor housing, and poor educa-tional systems. Our political system--as we approach the celebration in song and dance of our Bicentennial--seems paralyzed, locally as well as The American Religious, Evangelizer at Home / 1009 nationally, to deal with issues such as prison reform, tax reform, medical care, and so forth. One out of six Americans lives below a poverty line of what is required for basic health and well-being; the unemployment rate rose again last month to around 51/2%, with the rate of non-whites twice as high; inflation con-tinues to eat away the savings of the elderly and those on fixed incomes; while' life expectancy for the'average American is now around 71 years, for the non-white it is ten years less; and the U.S. infant mortality rate is one of the highest of any major industrialized nation in the world. Ten million Americans go to bed hungry every night in our land of diet cola and weight-reducing programs. Structural and Systemic Approaches This picture of social injustice--globally and nationally--is nothing new to you, I am sure. What might be new to you is the emphasis I want to give to the structural, systemic nature of the problems. We are not talking about isolated instances of poverty and injustice, but of the socio-economic-polit-ical structures, institutions~ and processes which create and perpetuate these problems. We need to move, as Gustavo Gutierrez suggests, from an "anec-doctal" approach to social problems to an "analytical" approach. Not stories about cases of injustice, but systemic analysis of why the injustices exist: only this will help us to experien~:e that call to profound conversion I spoke of earlier. This structural approach to injustice is central to the understanding of evangelization we are addressing here. It is central to the q971 Synod's discussion of "the systematic barriers and vicious circles" which hinder true justice. It is central to an appreciation of the strongest statement made by the Synod, when the Bishops described the present-day situation of the world as "marked by the grave sin of injustice." For the structural social injustice in our world and our nation is nothing less than sin, social sin. Social Sin and Evangelization Herein 'lies the reason why "action for justice" and transformation of the structures of injustice is constitutive to the preaching of the Gospel, to the task of evangelization. It is a continuation of the saving work of Jesus, who frees us from the bondage of sin: "For Gods~ loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost, but may have eternal life. For God sent his son into the world not to condemn the world but so that through him the world might be saved" (Jn 3:16-8). We Christians talk about sin only because we can talk of redemption, of grace. St. Paul tells us: "Where sin abounded, grace has abounded all the more" (Rm 5:20). And so as we speak of social sin, we also speak of social grace, God's revealing goodness and love in the social structures, institutions, and processes which we have created down through history. 1010 / Review /or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 It is precisely to fight against social sin, and to cooperate with social grace, that we Christians engage in "action for justice," that is, commit our-seives to the cause of social justice. Such action is not peripheral to the task of evangelization but is integral, constitutive. The 1971 Synod summarized this by saying: The mission of the preaching of the Gospel dictates at the present time that we should dedicate ourselves to the liberation of man even in his present ex-istence in ~this world. For unless the Christian message of love and justice shows its effectiveness through action in the cause of justice in the world, it will only with difficulty gain credibility with the men of our times. Thus the American religious evangelizer is, in a very true and genuine sense, the socially just religious, the socially just community. Note again that I am not speaking of social justice as an "apostolate" or as "work" or "projects." Social justice is a way o[ li[e which is integral to the.religious re-sponse to the call of the gospel. As integral to the gospel, it is something which cuts across all aspects of the evangelical life which we profess. It is living out of values which are counter to the values embodied in oppressive structures; it is a simplicity which says no to the conspicuous consumption which wastes the world's finite resources; it is a sharing which says no to the hoarding of the affluent in a world of so much poverty; it is a reaching out which says no to the dominance of entrenched power over the weak; it is a hope which says yes, there is a possibility of social change for a more just world. Action for social justice, then, is evangelization, a preaching of the good news to the poor, because our fundamental religious option is on the side of the poor, the powerless, the oppressed. We can do no less, reminded as we are by Mary's Magnificat of the fundamental option of God who has "pulled down princes from their thrones and exalted th.e lowly; the hungry he has filled with good things, and the rich sent away empty" (Lk 1:53-4). Concrete Implications Against this background of an understanding of the American religious evangelizer as the just religious, the just community, I would like to discuss some concrete implications which I see coming from this structural approach. I believe that they are only further extensions of what Father Paul Boyle wrote in his letter in the spring of 1972, urging CMSM members to be "witnessing and educating to social justice," and of what your own 1972 CMSM Assembly affirmed in the several resolutions you passed on the topic of social justice. For the sake of our exploration here this morning, I will speak in terms of the traditional aspects of evangelization, word, witness, and work. The word refers to the vision we religious have and relates particularly to the topic of formation; witness refers to our credibility, and relates to our life The American Religious, Evangelizer at Home / 1011 style; and work refers to the corporate thrust of the 9ommunity, and relates here specifically to the question of leadership. 1. Formation It has become increasingly accepted--theologically, philosophically, sociologically--that it is only possible to speak of the reality of a human person today by taking into full account the three dimensions of human existence: the individual, the interpersonal, and the public. These are not three separate and distinct dimensions so much as three moments in our perception of a single reality. The individual dimension is the realm of the private, the intimate. The person is an individual in as much as he/she is unique. The interpersonal dimension, on the other hand, is constituted in those relationships by which one individual deals with another in either, the limited sense of an 1-Thou encounter or in an extended sense of ordinary" societal dealings, The public dimension, however, includes the projections of individual and interpersonal existence into the institutions, structures, and processes of society. The person is organically one with these projec-tions. The identity of a human person is inadequately situated outside this triadic framework, this consideration of all three dimensions simultaneously. For this reason, the formation process of the American religious evangelizer must take account of the public dimension, the area of a person's involve-ment in and interaction with social structures, processes, and institutions. This formation--and I include the preparation of the novice, the training appropriate to brothers or. priests, the on-going "continuing education" programs for everyone in the community--should take account of the peculiar situation of the religious in the United States and the Roman Catholic Church of this last quarter of the twentieth century. Let me briefly suggest three points to be taken note of in this formation. "Spiritual Renewal and Social Justice Action First, there is great need today for an integration ,of the so-called "spiri-tual renewal" movement with the movement for greater social justice. We are experiencing in the Church today th6 movement of the Holy Spirit, renewing us through a heightened attention to prayer and faith, a growing acceptance of shared prayer, directed 'retreats, discernment workshops, spiritual direction, and the increasing activity, of charismatic, Pentecostal groups. Last year's annual CMSM Assembly was especially devoted to "building the faith community?' But I think that we are all aware that a danger lies in the possibility of a "turning inward," a false "spiritualism." Thus there is the potential case of someone becoming involved in these spiritual activities, spi,ritual ministries, as an escape from involvement with the evangelical task of changing unjust social structures. This might be understandabl~, given some of the flurry of "social action" during the 1960's, 1012 / Review [or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 and also the intensity of challenge in the authentic struggle for social reform. But we religious would surely fail in our responsibility to our Church and our world if we did not make every effort to integrate the two great dy-namisms moving around us today, the call for more active°social justice and the drive for more deeply renewed interiority. Social Determinisms Second, we have to attend in formation to the power of the "social determinisms" which affect all of us American religious. These determinisms are part of our culture and infringe upon the full exercise of our freedom. They provide the context, the milieu, within which choices are made. I will mention three of them which my colleagues at the Center of Concern have in recent months been analyzing--the implications of which I believe you ¯ °will all realize. (a) "Cultural addictions"--those patterns, habits, styles of life which we become acculturated, socialized, to from birth. Though frequently lived out inadvertently, these cultural addictions have a powerful influence over our choices, for example, in the matter of life style in this affluent, consumption-oriented nation. (b) "'Mindsets"--those perceptual frameworks, paradigms, which guide our thinking, our viewing of reality. For example, we Americans tend to be highly mechanical, pragmatic, problem-solving, "can-do,'" in perception. (c) "Class bias"--those socio-economic-political expectations and ideologies which influence our patterns of speech, behavior, judgment. Since the majority of religious come from the middle-class and few, I suspect (though I am open to correction on this), from the working class, we have a class orientation which provides us with specific sets of norms, values, and attitudes. These social determinisms operate in us all. Think for a moment of examples in different members of your community, and in yourself. They must be recognized and critically examined if we American religious are. ever to raise questions, for instance, about the global social justice implica-tions of the American way of life, of being Number One, of the spirit of competition, and so forth. Need for Sociological and Theological Analysis Finally, we need to foster in all stages of formation, for young and old alike, a deepening insight into both the sociological analysis of the struc-tures of injustice and the theological analysis of the imperatives of justice. How knowledgeable are the members of our community, for example, about the facts of world population; about the institutions of global trade such as tariffs, multi-national corporations, and monetary arrangements; about the relationship of the current food crisis to the energy crisis through the link of the fertilizer shortage? How aware are we religious about the structures of injustice in our own country--inequitable tax systems, the policy of "red- The American Religious, Evangelizer at Home / 1013 lining" on housing mortgages, zoning policies, cost of medical care for the elderly, the farm worker problem? And how conversant are we about the Church's social consciousness as articulated through the great documents of "~Rerum novarum, Quadragesimo anno, the Christmas messages of Pius XI1, Mater et Magistra, Pacem in terris, Gaudium et spes, Octagesima adveniens, Justice in the World? What do we know of the theology of liberation, and other expressions of social theology? My several questions, of course, may simply be unfair. I am not saying that all religious need to be social scientists or social theologians. But the questions do point to the continual need to update ourselves in the reality of the world we live in--a need which can be met only through organized efforts in formation. And our updating must include not only study but also experience, the real praxis of which Paulo Freire speaks. Only then can we religious hope to be about the task of evangelization. 2. Life Style In one of several disturbing passages in the 1971 Synod's statement Justice in the World, the bishops addressed the issue of the credibility of the Church regarding its message of social justice. Its credibility, the document said, was affected by its own mode of acting, and in the possessions and life style found in the church. Two passages are particularly relevant. In speak-ing of temporal possessions, the Synod argued that the evangelical witness the Church is obliged to give should never become ambiguous because of privilege, power, and wealth--the gospel must be proclaimed to the poor. "If instead the Church appears to be among the rich and the powerful of this world, its credibility is diminished." Again, the Synod suggests an examina-tion of conscience regarding life style, wherein we ask ourselves "whether our life style exemplifies that sparingness in regard to consumption which we preach to others as necessary in order that so many millions of hungry people throughout the world may be fed." Now I know that we religious have all been engaged at great length in discussions about the meaning of our vow of poverty today. I.know that we all cringe when we hear remarks like that of Bishop Sheen--and I usually don't quote Bishop Sheen in my talks--to the effect that "There are millions of people who would be only tOO glad to take a vow of poverty." Yes, would that the poor of the world had such a luxury to embrace religious poverty! Changes in Religious Poverty But I really think that the terms of the discussion and debate over religious poverty have changed in recent years. While still recognizing the ascetical and spiritual value of the vow of poverty--linking it to the kenosis of the Lord Jesus--we are beginning to appreciate its social value, I might 1014 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 even says its political value. This appreciation is contained in the 1971 Synod's on "sparing and sharing" as a way to meet the challenge of global justice. It is found in the 1972 resolutions adopted by the annual CMSM Assembly, in which you yourselves pledged a program of action to promote within your communities greater simplicity of life style "to express our solidarity with the poor of the world and our respect for the needs of future generations." It is found in the 1973 Lenten pastoral letter of the Dutch Bishops, who discussed "Prosperity, Responsibility, Frugality," and spoke of the obligation of all Christians who live in an affluent nation to practice a socially-oriented sparingness as a no to even greater and greater con-su~ ption. And it is found recently, to speak of somethi~ng I know personally, in a communication of Father Pedro Arrupe, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, on "Simplicity of Life," in which he urges Jesuits to experi-ence an inner conversion to the poverty of Christ so that we can regain true apostolic credibility--especially with the poor. This would be shown in a simpler and hence freer life style. This communication is part of a con-tinual insistence on the part of Father Arrupe that unless Jesuits come to grips with the problem of their poverty, they have no future. In the socially unjust contemporary world, they deserve no future. This new dimension to an understanding and practice of religious poverty is linked to the realization that poverty and affluence, underdevelopment and oTerdevelopment, are correlatives. In a small, finite, and interdepen-d~ int globe, the extra serving of grain-fed beef on Dives' table means a smaller crumb of bread for Lazarus; the eight-cylinder automobile which guzzles petroleum products in the United States means a higher price for gasoline used to run the little irrigation pump on a small farmer's plot in India. The course of the Green Revolution--production of miracle grains to stave off famine in the developing countries--has in recent months come to a shattering halt because of the global shortage of fertilizer. But heavily-fertilized private lawns, golf courses, and cemeteries in the United States will not turn brown this summer. Freeing Ourselves [rom Affluence How can we American religious witness to an evangelization which really is a preaching of the Good News to the poor? We need to free our-selves from the subtle--and not so subtle--attachments to the affluent ways of our American life style. Today our simplicity of life is menaced, as Father Arrupe says, "not by a single but by a double danger. It is menaced not only by our built-in egoism, but by the consumer society in which we are plunged: a society that provides with such facility almost everything our egoism craves." We really do need freedom. But how free are we? (And I ask myself this question just as hard as I ask you.) Without making an effort to reduce our corporate resources and simplify our life styles, we American religious The American Religious, Evangelizer at Home / 1015 will continue to experience great unfreedom and our ability to be evan-gelizers will be hindered. Again I quote Father Arrupe: If, in a society of economic progress, abundance, and consumerism, we lack the spirit of poverty and the detachment derived from it, we run the risk, more than at any other time in the past, of becoming slaves. Slaves in many different ways: slaves of propaganda, of that high-pressure salesmanship which is the distinguishing mark of a consumer society; slaves of acquisiliveness, the drive to accumulate possessions which begin as luxuries and end up as neces-sities; slaves of snobbery, which limits our apostolic 9.ctivity, whether openly or tacitly, to a privileged social class. Poverty and simplicity of life, on the other hand, by reducing our needs to a minimum, sets us free--free to respond to any and every challenge of the apostolate. Three Points for Consideration Much could be said about promoting a response to that challenge of the apostolate, about promoting a life style which witnesses to the social dimension of evangelization I have been speaking of here. I mention only three brief points. First, because changes toward a simple life style run so counter to prevailing American values of consumption and affluence, there is need for religious communities to institute a positive, community-based and community-supported plan to reduce corporate resources and simplify individual and community life styles. The process does not come through pious wishes but through pragmatic plans. Second, continual community reinforcement and critique is required, to assure that efforts at simpler life styles are undertaken with a maximum of common sense, a minimum of self-righteousness, and a modiciam of good humor. Thirdly, we need a spirit of experiment, of risk, of adventure, in this task. A new citizen's lobby for affecting policy to meet the world hunger crisis, Bread for the World, has recently encouraged Americans to experi-ment with three meatless days a week, in order to curtail our dispropor-tionate consumption of~ meat--the most inefficient source of protein in a protein-short world. If religious communities in the United States were not risky enough to have offered this suggestion earlier, surely we could hope to be risky enough to try out the suggestion now that everyone is talking about it. 3. Leadership In developing the social dimension of the task of evangelization, I have spoken at considerable length of the word aspect of formation, and the witness aspect of life style. I will speak only briefly of the third and last aspect, the work aspect of leadership. Whereas I have had experience with formation programs (my own and others') and have analyzed and experi-mented with simpler life styles, I stand this morning before this august body of religious leaders with considerable hesitancy to speak about leadership. You have the experience--for better or worse!--which I lack. 1016 / Review [or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 But voices from below have never been lacking, so I would like to share with you at least two points. These relate to the promotion of the just community which I have called here the American religious evangelizer at home. The first point deals with models of support given by religious superiors for social change for justice, and the second deals with the issues of polarization and reconciliation. Superiors as Models of Support First, in relating to your communities in matters of social justice--in life style, education, spirituality, apostolate, corporate practices, and so forth--you obviously have several avenues of approach open to you. And here I am simply articulating out loud your own experience. You can exhort the group as a whole, calling them to a closer attention to the oppor-tunities and demands of "action for justice." This can be done by letter or conference or personal address to select groups. Or you can single out par-ticular persons and/or communities for a strong world of affirmation and encouragement. These persons or communities may be the "Abrahamic minorities" in your midst (to use the phrase Dom Helder Camara used last year in speaking to the LCWR) who struggle for justice in a tentative, prob-ing way on the fringes of community; or they may simply be those quiet, long-suffering members who hunger and thirst after justice in less noticeable ways. The approach of affirming these religious not only strengthens them in their work but also educates others in your community. Or again, decisions you take which have social justice impact, and ex-planations for these decisions which you share with your community and with the wider public, can be effective works of evangelization. I think of several instances in recent years where superiors have announced the opening of some new apostolate or the closing of some traditional apostolate, and explained their reasons in ways which significantly advanced the cause of social justice. Finally, there is the symbolic action of the superior who publicly speaks out on an issue of social justice, or personally involves him-self in some particular justice struggle. Last year's statement on universal and unconditional amnesty endorsed by many CMSM members, and the pa,rticipation of CMSM members on the picket lines of the Coachella Valley in support of the farmworkers, are two instances which come to mind. A statement this year by the CMSM in support of the Equal Rights Amend-ment would be a powerful contribution to the social justice issue of women's rights in our society. The point I wish to make in citing these various models of leadership action by religious superiors is simply to indicate explicitly the many ways which are open to you. Superiors, Polarization, and Reconciliation My second point touches on something which sometimes follows when The American Religious, Evangelizer at Home / 1017 this leadership in social justice has been exercised, or when the community really does get involved in "action for justice." This is the issue of polariza-tion in religious communities and the task of the religious superior to be a reconciler. The coming celebration of the Holy Year will emphasize the theme of reconciliation; several months ago, Father Paul Boyle wrote to the CMSM membership a letter discussing this topic. In the context of our focus here on the social dimension of evangelization, I have frequently heard it said that issues ofsocial justice sometimes divide religious communities. We American religious are clearly not all Democrats or,Republicans, con-servatives or liberals, capitalists or socialists. While we may agree in the abstract on many social pr.inciples (but then sometimes we do not even do that!), we usually do not find general agreement or consensus on specific, concrete problems and/or their proposed solutions. What is the religious superior to do when faced with division or po-tentially serious polarization. Let me caution against reconciliation. I say that because I am wary of an,effort to reconcile, smooth over, create consen-sus, where serious issues of social justice are at stake. Usually such recon-ciliation results in the more progressive point--which is frequently, but not always, the point of social justice--being 10st in compromise. At least let me suggest that sometimes reconciliation does not mean that two points of view are reconciled to each other, but that one point of view is reconciled to the point of view of the gospel. The superior who "reconciles" members ° of his community to social justice is truly about the work of evangelization. By Way of Conclusion Let me conclude these reflections of the word, witness, and work aspects of the task of evangelization by referring back to a point which Father Walter Farrell made last year in his summary remarks on the closing day of your CMSM Assembly, which had as its theme "The Role of the Major Superior in Fostering the Faith Community." Some of you may recall that Father Farrell commented that when you asa group talked about prayer, even about God's direct action in prayer, you were quite at ease. But the moment that social issues and the social dimensions of Christianity were raised, you became nervous. Now I was not there to notice your nervous-ness, so I will leave the point to your own memory and reflection. What I do hope and pray for this year is that any nervousness we feel will npt keep us from exploring openly and with feeling the topics I have sketched here this morning, the social structural dimension of evangelization, and its impli-cations for formation, life style, and leadership. Rather I would hope our nervousness would only be that of the Apostle Paul, who on one occasion was led to say: "Woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel!" Just as I began my presentation this morning with that Synod statement which I have overused by quoting again and again, I would like to end by quoting a Scripture passage which I have also much overused. But it is a 1011~ / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 passage which is worth using again and again, especially in the context of the social task of evangelization we are discerning about today. It is from the fourth chapter of Luke: He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day as he usually did. He stood up to read, and they handed him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll he found the place where it is written: The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he h~s annointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord's year of favor. He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the assistant and sat down. And all eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to speak to them, This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen. "This text is being fulfilled today even.as you listen." Really, that is the challenge of the "American Religious, Evangelizer at Home"--to strive mightly to assure that this text of good news for the poor, liberty for the captives, new sight for the blind, freedom for the oppressed, this text is indeed being fulfilled, yes, even today as we listen. A Christian Is a Poor Man Kevin O'Shea, C.Ss.R. Father Kevin O'Shea teaches theology at the Redemptorist College; Pennant Hills; Sydney, Australia. Poverty is the most difficult dimension of religious life at present. It is the point at which the tension is greatest between spirit and institution. Institu-tional poverty is reasonable, moderate, and tolerable; in fact, it is argued if it should rightly be called poverty. Charismatic poverty is anything but reasonable, is beyond moderation, and is nearly intolerable; it takes its spirit from a new reading of the Scriptures and calls poverty by its real name. In this sense, poverty is in all likelihood the greatest ferment in religious life at present. What a renewal of chastity and of obedience have not achieved, may well be done, in alarming proportion, by this renewal of poverty. Para-doxically, it is not among religious alone that the renewal is coming. It is coming from men of the Spirit who are taking the gospel to mean what it says. The position of the Gospels on poverty is strikingly clear. Christ's fol-lowers must leave all, and give it to the poor; they must leave the worl~l, and become poor. It is all or nothing. It is not measured and calculated action. It is a form of divine madness. It is the foolishness Of love. The New Testament suggests three main motivations for such poverty. Povert-y is a Messianic mystery; it is a kenotic reality; and it is an ecclesial communion. Poverty a Messianic Mystery A long Hebrew tradition pictured the Messiah (the Christ) as anointed by God to go among the poor, to be a man of the poor, to join the ranks of the poor, and to bring help and life to the poor. Jesus lived in the strength of this image; He shared the misery of the poor and did all He could to 1019 1020 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 lessen it, and He waited there in it with the poor for God to come, in His own day, and remove it. The poor were the people who had no resources of their own to assure them of a future and a hope. They were the dispossessed, the disappropriated, the displaced people of this world. They were literally the no-hopers, the have-nots, the forgotten people, the little people without a land. And it was to them that the Messiah came, and it was among them that he became one of them. Not because their misery was a good thing, but be-cause it was a good thing to be among them and to share it, remove it, wait in it patiently till God would take away all tears from their eyes. To His disciples who followed Him, the Messiah asked a Messianic life style: the mystery of their incorporation in the ranks of the poor. A Christian, like the Christ, is a poor man. Poverty a Kenotic Reality The New Testament speaks of a disease of the Christian heart called dipsychia. It is a split psychology, a sort of spiritual schizophrenia. The Christian wants to give himself totally to God, yet he feels an attraction to the things that are easy and immediately in front of him. He is torn two ways. He lacks unity and integration as a single person. There is only one cure for this trouble in the New Testament: it is kenosis, the self-emptying of the person to the very roots of his human existence of which Christ gave him the supreme example of His life and death on the cross. It is only in that utter nothingness of kenosis that integrity is possible. There is no other "fulfillment." But this kenosis is not an attitude, a spirit, and a mentality of mortification, as the Greeks might have thought. It is tangible and real: a man leaves all he has, and becomes poor, nothing, empty, dead in the things he has prized. He knows the nakedness of the poor man. It is not poverty of spirit. It is poverty. Poverty and Ecclesial Communion There is a principle in the New Testament that what one gives up to become poor is given over to the poor, so that they are enriched by it. Christ was rich in laying a rightful claim to Sonship of God. Rich though He was in this respect., He became poor for us and did not cling tenaciously to this right for Himself. Thus, through His poverty, we became rich in His very Sonship. In the Jerusalem community, the model and norm of radical following of Christ in the Church, no one kept his own things (ta idia)-- shall we say that no one "did his own thing"---but each one's own things became thereby the things of all (ta koinonia). It is poverty, then, in its genuine realism and in the self-emptying it implies, that constitutes com-munion and community. The Church is a community because it is a Church. of the poor. Its common life is not a sharing of advantages each retains so that one complements the other; it is a giving of one's all to all and for all, so that in the emptiness of all there can be a truly communed life. Christian Is a Poor Man / 1021 Emphases in New Testament Poverty In these three New Testament motiv.es of pove.rty, there is a strong emphasis on a// --- all is given, so that a poor man can be nothing and have nothing. There is no limit to the poverty that. might be embraced. There is no poor man excluded from the reach of the gospel. There is no poor man that the Christian will not help, no poor man that he will not join. Anawim (the poor) is a plural word; and it has no limits of poverty. There is an instinct for the most needy, the most abandoned, the poorest of all. In these motives, too, there is a new kind of consciousness inculcated in the Christian disciple. What he does, effectively, by external action, for the poor, is limited and, in the last count, not very effective; that does not matter: What matters is what happens to him, and to the poor, when he gets among them and joins them. It gives him a compassion, a self-forget-fulness, a tenderness, an ability to care that transfo~:ms him and communi-cates itself to the poor to whom he now belongs. In poverty, he has become an embodiment of love. He has begun to sense the reality of an incarnation. He has begun to learn to live as a "dropout" from the existence he might have clung to. He has gone to the castoffs from society, who will love him even if they know that he was not always one of them and is not so deeply rooted in misery as they ai-e. He has gone away from the comfortable and complacent, who have struck him of[ from their lists. He knows the lone-liness of the missionary among the anawim. In these motives, again, there is an undreamt of realism and a stark simplicity. This poverty is not a philosophical theory; one does not muse that every creature is poor, or that man is a conscious beggar for his given existence from God. Nor is this poverty simply the acceptance of whatever limitations (or "poverty") are in fact in one's life, which for the moment cannot be removed. Nor is it the poverty of someone who equips himself to help others, and then looks around for needy people to help, and has to be content with less than ideal types to begin. In this poverty, one does not work out first the a priori conditions of poverty and then see how to imple-' ment them. There are really poor people before our eyes, and it is their poverty we must share, with them that we must become one in a self-for-getting and serving compassion. The poor are always with us. They are there, and we respond to them in an instinct of love, not in a calculation of reason. The Gospel Poor Man The life style of the gospel poor man is then that of a worker among the battlers for existence, a struggler among the not-yet-assured, a sharer among the insufficiently endowed, humanly as well as spiritually. It is a simple life, frugal, hard-earned, frustrating, substandard, where one is not sure how one is to survive, where one lives with the poor on their terms, and on his own, where one lives well below the ordinary normal comfort one might have as the result of one's talents and energy. The gospel poor man 1022 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 gives his time and his self to the poor, and finds 'his place among them. He can say, "We poor." The inspiration for this way of life is Biblical. We could sum it up in slogan words that resonate anew today in the heart of the Church: words like Messiah, anawim, shalom, shaliah, diakonia, evangelion, eucharistia, the mercy of God. Messianism, Anawim, .Covenant, and Peace There is a real resurgence of Messianism in the Church today, Christians are realizing that they are not Christians unless they fall in love with Jesus as Messiah and adopt his Messianic life style. This means that they must fall in love with the poor of their own time, and adopt their life style, for love of Jesus and the gospel of.the poor. A resurrection theology, over two decades, has divested us of an exaggerated spiritualism' in.our spirituality. A poverty theology, stemming from a new Messiah theology, will divest us of a remain-ing complacency in which we would persuade ourselves, if not others, that we share in the sufferings of the Lord without sharing the lot of His little ones. The anawim are His little ones. Because they are the poor, they are the poor of God. God cannot help it--He must fill emptiness with Himself. He cannot make a covenant except with the poor. It is to those who have neither a future nor a hope that He comes to make flow upon them a river of peace, and to bind Himself to be in person their future and their hope. God laughs at those who would offer Him their goods and their love~ and, as it were, enter a two-way relationship with Him: He loves one way, giving His all to those who have nothing and are nothing. After all, He must have His own way of, as it were, joining the poor, too, musn't He? For, to them, He gives His all. This is wh~t the covenant means, and this is the shalom it brings. Shalom does not mean peace, at least, if peace means a comfortable inner feelin.g of security, and no hostilities without. When God loves the anawim, and sends His Christ to them, He does not--immediately, at least--take away their poverty. They are still the poor, these poor of God. His shalom is not an anaesthetic so that they do not feel it. But it is shalom, and it is a trust and a faith and a certainty that He has not chosen the thi.ngs that are, but the things that are not. It is a willingness to smile, even at death. For resurrec-tion is assured, since the eschaton belongs to the anawim. The simplicity of washing the feet of the poor and of serving them in their deepest human needs is itself a total life style, and those who have heard the Messianic call have no option but to live it. It is not easy to wash a poor man's feet. They are dirty, they smell, and he will probably not thank you, but kick you in the face.You probably won't succeed, but you will know that there is a kind of happiness words can never explain in keeping on .doing it. This is the diakonia of the gospel. A Chr~t~n Is a Poor Man / 1023 o Gospel means good news. To proclaim the gospel means to speak, but much more to be good news to men. Some of my American friends have an unkind expression about a difficult and unattractive, character: They say, "He's bad news." They also say of a genuine and real person, "He's good news." Jesus Himself was this kind of good news to the little ones, to the poor. When He began.His Galilean ministry, he read from the ,scroll of Deutero-Isaiah: "He has, sent me to be good news tothe anawim." When we work in his name, in our apostolate, are we, ourselves, good news to men, to poor men? And do we realize that there is no such thing as a direct apostolate to the rich and the well-established, there is only a mission of Jesus and His disciples to the poor? The others get in to the extent that they, too, leave all and become members of the anawim! , Eucharistia and Mercy Eucharistia--the giving of thanks, the celebrating of life, and saying now in Christ, for the past thanks, for the future yes~ Shall we ever know, the truth of that thanks for the past until we can bless the Providence that has made-us poor men? Shall we ever say a total yes to the future until we can face it without any resources as the pure gift of our Covenanted Resource, the God of the poor? It is only then that we shall know Him in the breaking of the bread of pilgrims, at the table of the poor, and discover in surprise that the Eueharist is the liturgy of the little ones. It is true. God has no love that is not mercy. Mercy is His response, in His heart, to misery. To be among the first clients of His mercy, we must be his anawim. A vocation" to His love is a vocation to our brother, the poor man. Recently, a student of mine at Fordham wrote these words as the conclusion of an assignment on the meaning of the apostolate: Are the people of the Word something sp~'cial, or is it only their words? Will their lives speak to us? The eye and ear ~vorld is all sewn up by the talented admen of Madison Avenue. What is left to us? The heart world. The world where flesh,, speaks to flesh, heart to heart. Do not speak religious themes to me. Speak the Word that is in your heart, your experience of life, enriched, made more than human, by the saving power in it that is believable because you believe it. I do want to be told, not by hearing you but by knowing you. Or is that an issue? I ask you if you understand, and your answer is your life. The Recovery of Messianic Man This poverty of Messianic man we are beginning to see again in our time. It is the challenge of our conscience, this cry of the poor. We can no longer vaguely know that half the world is starving for food, and more than half of it for love, and write off .the situation as bad luck, or permitted by providence, and promise to pray for it and count our own blessings. That is not the Christian life; indeed, it is not human life. The new global village is one parish. Every man is my neighbor, and it is a sin to regard a man as a 1024 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 stranger. The Church is beginning to challenge the reasonable moderation and balanced calculation of its stance, before the secular reality of poverty in the world. Some would even speak of the end of a "Constantinian era" and the beginning of a new Mcssianic epoch where the Spirit shall anoint us and send us to the poor. If this is true, it is but a beginning. We have yet a long way to go. When we try to relatc this thinking with the established or recently adopted norms of institutional poverty among religious, the lines do not even meet. Juridic poverty had a place in the history of religious life," but it is not the same as evangelical poverty. Many, of course, in the name of realism, will remind us 'that just as we once spoke of "tending to perfection," an ideal we never reached, so here we must feel obliged only to tend to this perfection of poverty and Messianic life, not to reach it immediately. Yes, but the acid test of the new Christian conscience is that it cannot use this theological formula as an excuse from real and significantly new action. Formulated obligation cannot measure up to a charismatic spirit. Our conscience is telling us that we are suffering from compassion fatigue, that we have enjoyed the protection of our callousness, that we must now .make a new option to be compassionate rather than honorable. Our skin must stretch around the globe, so that if any man hurts, we hurt with him, and do some-thing about it. The Cry of the Poor Pope Paul has taken up this point in his apostolic exhortation to religious (ll tempio massimo, July 2, 1971). "Our contemporaries," he says, "question you with particular insistence about poverty." "You hear rising up, more pressing than ever, the cry of the poor." "Was .it not to respond to their appeal as God's privileged ones that Christ came, even going as far as to identify Himself with them?" It is a "pressing call for a conver-sion of minds and attitudes, especially for you who follow Christ more closely in this earthly condition of self-emptying." It calls for "a conversion of hearts, it is a call to love." What, in practice, will the cry of the poor demand of religious? First, "It must bar you from any compromise with any form of social injustice." Secondly, "It obliges you to awaken consciences to the drama of human misery." Thirdly, "It leads some of you to join the poor in their situation." Fourthly, "It calls many institutes to rededicate some of their works to the poor." Fifthly, "It enjoins on you a use of goods limited to the requirements of your work." Sixthly, "It is necessary that in your daily lives you give external proof of poverty." A Christian is a Poor Man / 1025 Seventhly, "It is not normal to allow yourself everything offered to you." Eighthly, "Earn your own living and help the poor by your work." Ninthly, "You cannot purely and simply conform to your surroundings." Tenthly, "Do not be excessively preoccupied with appearing to be poor." All this is said in conformity with the patterns of obedience and specific apostolate in a given institute. It is a call from the needs of the times and the demands of the gospel. It is a vocation to discover Christ as a poor man. Renewal and Poverly Much energy has gone into the renewal of religious community. Some-times one gets the impression that they are trying to be beautiful resident communities of loving relationships which might then, as an overflow, have something to contribute to the poor. This is heresy. The Church has no mandate to be a resident, domesticated Church. It is essentially missionary, a pilgrim, servant Church of the poor. It is only by living its vocation to poverty among the poor that it can discover the kind of community life Christ intended for it. Likewise, much work has gone into the renewal of authority and obedience in religious life. It will not fully succeed until authority becomes an initiation of new life among the poor, and obedience is a heeding of the cry of the poor. Again, much has been done to make religious life more human, more relational, more interpersonal, more affec-tive. But the tenderness and the gentleness and the caring concern that we so desire, we must learn from our involvement with the poor. It is but an-other work for the meekness of the anawim. Of the poor, it has been said, "Only he who sees the invisible accom-plishes the impossible."~Of the gospel poor man who goes to the poor, we might likewise say, "Only he who loves the unlovable is good news to the little ones." A Penance Service Bonaventure Hinwood, O.F.M. Father Bonaventure Hinwood is a faculty member of The Seminary; 191 Main Street; Waterkloof; Pretoria, South Africa. His penance service given below was originally composed for teaching sisters to be used during Lent 1974. mo 4. 5. B. 6. 7. 1026 Introduction HYMN OPENING PRAYER P(riest): Heavenly Father, who does not wish the death of a sinner but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live, we beg You to turn the light of Your truth upon our lives and bring us to true repentance in this time of mercy. Make your Holy Spirit active within us this evening to lead us to see our lives as they are in Your sight, and to sensitize our hearts so that we may give a true response of love and sorrow to Your call. This we ask through Jesus Christ, our Mediator with You and the cause of our joy. C(ongregation): Amen. SCRIPTURE READING: John 3:16-21. SERMON HYMN First Sel]-con]rontation SCRIPTURE READING: Matthew 16:24-7. P. My sisters, the most precious thing in the whole world for most of us is ourselves. This is demonstrated by the fact that we will frequently use or abandon almost every other person or thing in order to realiz,e our own image of our self-fulfillment, to achieve our own plans and A Penance Service / 1027 projects, to satisfy our needs and desires. Jesus, however, has come to free us from our self-centeredness. He has come to give us a share in His own capacity to devote and to give oneself wholeheartedly to bringing about God's kingdom, and to love Him and those for whom He died. This can only be done by an unstinting gift of ourselves to Him. Do we really desire to make this gift, and are we really intent upon trying to make this self-offering more complete? A(ssistan0 1: Jesus' great commandment tells us that we should love the Lord our God with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind, and our whole strength, and our fellow men as ourselves. This is a fulltime job. Yet a lot of our valuable time and energy gets wasted irt useless tension, frustration, and self-pity. Why is this? Am I really prepared to let go of my own will, or am I too attached to my own wants, my own plans, my own projects, my own way of doing things, my own rhythm of life? A. 2: Am I truly open to viewpoints other than my own, or is my own way of looking at things always my supreme criterion in life? Do I really try to understand the contrary opinions of others, or am I too busy thinking of ways to defend my own viewpoint even to listen to what others are saying? Am I too confident in my own judg-ment to consult with others or seek their advice? Have I failed to respect other people's greater learning or experience? How often have these attitudes of mine been the cause of misunderstanding with others or tensions in the community? A. 1: Do I try to lighten the burden of those charged with regulating the affairs of the Church, the community, and the school by ready cooperation and obedience, or am I destructively critical and stub-born? Do I accept that they are honestly trying to do theirbest for the common good and for me, or am I suspicious and negative in my attitude towards them? Do I seek first the kingdom of God and the common good, o.r is my own convenience primary? SILENCE FOR REFLECTION PI~AYER FOR FORGIVENESS P. Jesus who instructed us that "If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Mt 16:24): . Have mercy on me a sinner. P. Jesus who calls us to "Shoulder my yoke and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Mt 11:29-30): 12. Have mercy on me a sinner. 1028 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 11. 12. P. Jesus who warned that "Anyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and anyone who humbles himself will be exalted" (Mt 23: 12): 12. Have mercy on me a sinner. P. Jesus who said by the well of Jacob, "My food is to do the will of the one who sent Me and to complete his work" (Jn 4:34): C. Have mercy on me a sinner. P. Jesus who prayed in Gethsemani, "My Father, if this cup cannot pass by without my drinking it, your will be done" (Mt 26:42) : ¯ . Have mercy on me a sinner. P. Jesus who, although You were the Son of God, "learnt to obey through suffering" (Heb 5:8) : 12. Have mercy on me a sinner. P. Jesus who, having been made perfect, has become for all who obey You the source of eternal salvation (Heb 5:9): C. Have mercy on me a sinner. P. Jesus who has taught us that a man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends (Jn 15:13): 12. Have mercy on me a sinner. Second Self-con]rontation SCRIPTURE READING: John 15:5, 8-12. P. My sisters, the tone of our own lives gives a tone to the environ-ment in which we live, the mental and emotional atmosphere which we create in our own personalities affects the social atmosphere in which those around us have to live. If we, therefore, are negative, cynical, disgruntled, and grumpy people we pollute the atmosphere of those around us with unpleasantness, tension, gloom, and sadness. If, however, we are positive, creative, contented, and cheerful, then we provide for others an atmosphere of brightness and warmth, of enthusiasm, lightness, harmony, and joy. Does our love for others extend as far as building up Christ's joy in ourselves for their sake? -A. 2: It is only in freedom that we can be truly joyful, and Christ has come to set us free from the inordinate and selfish attachment to people, places, activities, and things, which is the cause of much of our sadness. Do I cherish that freedom which a positive and profound living out of my religious vows brings, or are they for me merely nega-tive restraints which produce frustration and discontent? Am I a ful-filled and joyful person because I love in the freedom of my religious vocation, or have I become selfish and finicky? A. 1: In the theme song for the film Brother Son and Sister Moon, Francis complains that he seldom sees and hears the wonders of God's A Penance Service / 1029 13. creatures because he is too "preoccupied with selfish miseries." Am I so busy with my own emotions, particularly negative reactions of suspicion, wounded pride, self-defense, and criticalness that I am un-able to see the beauty, goodness, and virtue of the people and things around me? Am I so busy manipulating and condemning God's creatures, that I do not have time to thank Him and rejoice in them? A. 2: St. Francis said once to a mournful looking brother that the only reason for being sad was because one was in mortal sin, and the only cure for that was to go to confession. Do I really appreciate what an ecstatic thing it is to have been saved by Jesus Christ, to have been made in Him a child of the Father and an heir of God's Kingdom? Am I so busy rejoicing with Mary at the great things God has done for me, that I do not have time to get downhearted and miserable about the other things that may not go the way I want them to? SILENCE FOR REFLECTION PRAYER FOR FORGIVENESS P. Jesus Christ who has told us the good news we read in the passage from St. John so that You may share your joy with us to the full (Jn 17:13): 12. Forgive me my preoccupation with selfish miseries and my lack of joy. P. Jesus, when the wise men heard the prophecy of your birth in Bethlehem and saw the guiding star they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy (Mt 2:10): 12. Forgive me my preoccupation with selfish miseries and my lack of joy. P. Jesus, when You told Zacchaeus that You would stay in his house that day, Zacchaeus welcomed You with joy (Lk 19:6): 12. Forgive me my preoccupation with selfish miseries and my lack of joy. P. At the angel's message about your resurrection, Lord, the women with great joy ran to tell the disciples (Mt 28:8): 12. Forgive me my preoccupation with selfish miseries and my lack of joy. P. Lord who told us that the person who finds the treasure of the kingdom of heaven, in his joy goes and sells all he has to buy it (Mt 13:44): . Forgive me my preoccupation with selfish ~miseries and my lack of joy. Time for Personal Examination and Confession Conclusion 1030 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 15. 16. 17. PENANCES (one penance to be chosen by each penitent) a. Make the Stations of the Cross, meditating on the obedience, meek-ness, and humility of Jesus. b. Spend ten minutes thinking of the good points of a superior, fellow religious, or pupil of whom you are often negatively critical, and praying for her. c. Walk around or sit in the garden for ten minutes listening to the birds and insects, and looking at the trees and flowers, clouds or stars, and thank God for His goodness and rejoice in the wonder of His creation. OUR FATHER (recited by all together) P. May almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you your sins, and bring you to everlasting life. C. Amen: P. May the almighty and merciful Lord grant you pardon, absolution, and forgiveness of your sins. 12. Amen. DISMISSAL P. May the. Lord renew you with His energy and joy. May He ac-company you on your way with His presence and make all your works fruitful. May He strengthen you against all that is evil and give you the courage to serve those nearest to you and all men wherever they may be. And may the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be with you and remain with you always. 12. Amen. 18. HYMN The Formation of Contemplatives in Action Ladislas Orsy, S.J. Ladislas Orsy, S.J., who has written often on the theology of religious life, is a mem-ber of the Department of Canon Law; The Catholic University of America; Washing-ton, D. C. 20017. Contemplatives in action are the salt of the earth; as a gracious gift from God, they have a tang, and they are able to bring some goodness into every-thing they touch. Quite a good description of religious life! No wonder many communities intent on the ideal of being the salt of the earth raise the question: How do we form contemplatives in action? We take their query, but, to make it more manageable, we break it up into three questions. First, who is a contemplative in action? Second, how does one develop into such a person? Third, what structured program can help the development? That is, our reflections revolve around three topics: the person, the process, and the program. While the focus of our attention is on the person, the resulting description will exhibit a somewhat static picture. It cannot be in any other way. But the movement that gives us con-templatives in action must he somehow caught; therefore, the pilgrim's progress must be delineated, as it were,'in its natural state. Then comes the problem of the environment, how external structures contribute to a process that is so deeply internal and personal. Since everybody knows how far-reaching these three questions are and how difficult it is to find any final answer, we are in the happy position of having to respond to only limited expectations. The reflections of a man may be no more than a drop into the ocean, but, for that man, it is certainly pleasant to contemplate the vast dimensions of the ocean even if he cannot add much to it. 1031 1032 / Review for Religious. l/olume 33, .1974/5 The dimensions of the question of the formation of contemplatives in action are indeed vast, and the real answer will not be given by any writer, but existentially by communities who do something about it. After all, for-mation is a practical issue. PART I: TIlE PERSON The beginning of any search should be an inquiry. We have already broken up the big fundamental issue into three more particular ones, and now we focus on the first: Who is a contemplative in action? Two qualities must be present in the person: the capacity to contemplate and the ability to act. Moreover, the two should be blended together; this is what the issue implies. Hence, to put our search on the right paths, there should be an even more particularized sequence of questions. Let us ask therefore: Who is a contemplative person? Who is a person of action? And finally, to see how the two blend together, let us see who is an integrated person. Who Is a Contemplative Person? The term "contemplative" can be used in different senses. At times, it means a hermit, a recluse, or a religious with strict enclosure: then it focuses on the external situation in which a person is found, such as solitude and separation from the world. At times, the term means a person bent on in-tellectual reflection: then it focuses on the internal disposition of a writer, of an artist, of anyone who is of reflective type. The Christian Contemplative In Christian tradition, the word includes a sacred dimension: a con-templative person is the one who experiences in his innermost being a tran-scendent and sacred power that draws him to Christ. All the words in this general description° connote a mystery. To be contemplative, then, is to experience in the depths of our being the intrusion of a power that moves us to a direction that is beyond our horizons. This experience does not enter-tain the senses; they can remain thirsty and hungry. Nor does it satisfy the intelligence; it can remain frustrated and empty. But the experience brings a meaning to our humanity even if not every part of it can appreciate its values. The content of the experience is hard to describe; it is not concep-tual; it is the perception of an internal movement that does not necessarily bring new knowledge nor leave a specific impression on our being. Rather, we become aware of an energy that is given to us from a source that is more powerful than ourselves. It comes from a world that is beyond our ordinary capacity to see or to reach. It comes from a transcendental source. This power that wells up in our being is apprehended as sacred. It is concerned with our ultimate destination. It comes from God; it carries us to God. The discovery of this energy may remind us of the precious pearl of a great value; the merchant who finds it sells all to buy it (see Matt 13:45-6). The Formation o] Contemplatives in Action / 1033 The analogy is partially right. The gift is more precious than any pearl, and to sell all to have it makes good sense. Yet the same gift is not an object to be stored and exposed for admiration; rather we become aware of a current that takes hold of us, of a movement that reaches us at the depth of our being. Other Descriptions oI a Contemplative This description leads to another formulation of the definition of a con-templative person. He is the one who is ordinarily aware of the presence and power of the Lord in him and who follows the direction of the move-ment imprinted in him. This definition is more personal; it names the source of the power--it is the Lord. All is put into the context of a person-to-person relationship. The energy is transcendental and sacred because it originates in the one who moves all living things. The experience of the power is an obscure aware-ness of the Lord reminiscent somewhat of the experience of the Apostles fishing on the Sea of Tiberias at the breaking of the dawn and noticing a stranger on the shore. Attracted by His unusual presence, surprised by the power of His voice, gradually they became aware that it was the Lord. The intrusion of the Lord in our life is a gift that does not create a state of romantic happiness; rather, it helps us to realize the complexity of our nature. We can be happy at some depths and yet suffer acutely from thirst and hunger. We can be resigned at one level and yet mourn the loss of a loved person at another level. We can be anchored through hope and yet tossed around by the uncertainties of this world that may amount even to persecution. The gift of contemplation and the discovery of it could be described in many other ways. All would be analogical and incomplete. We could speak about a small light that attracts from a great distance but does not alleviate the darkness and the loneliness of the night. We could speak about a rising inner security that holds a person firm while he is subject to present and future shocks from a world that changes around him. The term "contemplative" may not be the best to describe a person so blessed, since traditionally it implies an intellectual vision and does not con-vey the idea of participation in a movement. The distinction between the two--vision and movement--may be flimsy especially at greater depths. Nonetheless, the term has been sanctioned by tradition; hence it would be difficult to break away from it. Besides, there is no adequate term to cover the reality we described. Through this awareness of God's presence and power, a person trans-cends himself, is carried beyond himself. He enters a new universe that is marked by God's immensity and His infinity. The old conceptual horizons with their precise circumscriptions disappear, and new desires get hold of the heart. The actions of such a person will spring from a new source. 1034 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 Becoming a Contemplative Person We attempted an answer to the question: Who is a contemplative per.- son? To understand him further, let us raise the question: How does some-one become a contemplative person? Clearly, there is no other way of becoming a contemplative person than by discovering internally the Lord's power. The gift is independent of us, but the process of discovery is somewhat within our capacity. This search for the elusive gift that is present enough to attract us and absent enough to require a long journey has been frequently described in Christian tradition as a descent into greater depths or as an ascent to greater heights or as a steady progress into ever more intimate dwellings of God in our being. All these allegories are meaningful; all converge into saying that there is a process that ought to be a progress toward a closer relation-ship with the Lord. Usually we speak of the pilgrim's progress, of man's journey to God; correct speech would require us to speak of God's progress in overwhelming man with His grace and power. The initiative is really His at every stage. Yet we can resist His approaches or subtly divert our attention from them. Hence, pragmatically, it serves a purpose to speak of our own journey to God. Perhaps to reconcile the exigencies of the primacy of grace and of our own need to be alert to God, we can use a modern alle-gory and speak about a process of liberation that man must go through to be transformed into an image of God. The principal agent in this process is the Lord, but we are real, active agents as well, if not to the extent of giving freedom to ourselves, at least to the point of removing obstacles before the helping hand of God. Need for Progression in Depth We take up the traditional allegory in a different way: to become a con-templative person means to enter into life with increasing intensity. There is a need for progress in depth. Man indeed is a complex being endowed with an awareness of life at different levels: on the level of what his senses can perceive and communicate, on the level of what his mind can penetrate and understand, and on the level that has no limitations because it opens up into the infinite universe discovered through faith. We all live and move on all these levels; in the awareness of our being, they intermingle, they form a unity. Nonetheless, a person's development can be arrested on the level of a world communicated to him through his senses, without much understanding, without the light of faith. A person can find satisfaction on the level of hu-man intelligence, a worthy and dignified life it would be, yet without the hope that springs from faith. Finally, a person can reach the depths that faith brings and let all his life be invaded by the light and strength that origi-nates in the Lord who revealed Himself through the contingencies of human history. The Formation o] Contemplatives in Action / 1035 Libration from the Communications of the Senses The life of a person can revolve around the content of those communi-cations that he receives from his senses, and the expansion of his personality into the fascinating world of creative intelligence or into the limitless world of faith can be impeded. Such a person is underdeveloped. Without know-ing it, he is a captive of those steady impacts that he receives from the out-side world; his being relishes them, or at least is attached to them, at times to the point that any desire to go deeper is weakened to the point of ex-tinction. Our particular culture favors such an attitude. Much of the press, radio, television, cinema thrives on the passive receptivity of the public; the media rarely stimulate creative activity; still less do they send their readers, lis-teners, o~ viewers into an advefiture of faith. When someone is immersed in that world, the impression clouds his mind and cancels out the natural dynamism of a desire for better things. If this is so, there is a need for an internal war of liberation. To begin with, the person must become conscious of his mutilated state; he must admit that his growth has been arrested, and that he is deprived of a fully human and Christian life. Obviously enough, we are speaking more of a principal trend than of an absolute univocal state. There will always be some intelligent activity in every person, some movements of faith in every Christian, but the question is which of these many trends prevails. '°~AI great deal of our traditional asceticism was meant to liberate the pers.o~ from the captivity that communications from the senses can induce. Thus far it was good; it went wrong when it assumed that mortification alone can achieve liberation. It is also necessary to show the person broader vistas of intelligence and' faith that attract. No one will ever exchange some-thing for nothing, but show him a better value that pulls his being and-he will be ready to sacrifice many things. Many novitiates failed in the past because they taught asceticism without opening up new horizons. As soon as the novitiate was over, the imposed practices collapsed, and there was no realization of new frontiers that opened up into a new world. Liberation from the overbearing communications that come through our senses is necessary, but it can be achieved only by the steady pull of higher values consistently present in our consciousness. Liberation from the Limitations of Intelligence A person's life can focus mainly on the fascinating world of his creative intelligence. This is progress in depth; it means more humanity, it means greater likeness to God's image. Yet it has limitations: it does not know the immense world opened up by faith, or, when that world is presented, it can impede the person from entering into the dizzy unknown that he cannot measure or explain. The world of human intelligence can offer much human satisfaction. We feel at home there, the problems are of our own size, and 1036 / Review Sot Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 the objects of our desires are attainable. It is all a comfortable and also a comforting world, but, because there is a longing in man for the infinite, a reassuringly human world can become a prison; man can enclose himself in a universe proportionate to his mind. A process of liberation may be necessary precisely to enter a new universe opened up by faith, perhaps by the experience of the presence and power of the Lord in our innermost being. Much of the traditional literature that spoke about the mortification of judgment intended to speak about the freeing of the mind for the impact of faith, about opening up our being for God's own horizons. It was right as far as it did not suggest an empty exercise but rather showed .the greatness of God and the harm6ny of His plan which makes worthwhile an exchange that leads to the loss of our thoughts and desires. The New World o] Faith To live on the level of faith is to live in a new universe with God in its center, known as He revealed Himself through Jesus Christ. In Him, all things and events receive a meaning--our own life included. The limitations of our humanity imposed by the senses and by our intelligence are broken up; there is an infinite openness in every direction. The transition into the world of faith is a radical ch.ange. Once again, it brings out the complexity of our natui'e. While the deepest and the best in us relishes the expansion of our horizons into infinity, while'~we experience a new security in our Maker, our mind misses the clarit.y, of human equations, and our senses long for the security of a more familiar world. Paradoxically the universe of God that brings peace to our restless he~-t unsettles our intelligence and our senses. For those who live by faith, the awareness of a deep security is compatible with the experience of insecurity in their human-ity. To comprehend this seemingly contradictory situation is the clue to the acceptance of it. Many recoil from entering the universe of faith because they cannot handle this complex situation in themselves, and they do not realize that the resulting tension is the ordinary lot of a pilgrim who is entering into an unknown land. No writer has ever better described this paradoxical state than St. John of the Cross: To enjoy all enjoy nothing; To possess all, possess nothing; To be all; be nothing; To know all, know nothing. To reach what you do not enjoy go where there is no enjoyment; The Formation oj Contemplatives in Action / 1037 To learn what you do not know, tread the path of ignorance; To obtain what you do not possess, walk without possessions; To be what you are not, leave behind all that you are. (The Ascent o] Mount Carmel, Book 1, Chapter 13) Our translation is not literal. Its intent is more to bring out the stark simplicity of the Spanish text than to render exactly each word. Once we understand the complexity of our nature, those sharp contrasts painted by the saint become meaningful. At one level our being can embrace all and be satisfied, while on another level it is thoroughly frustrated and empty. In the depths of our heart we can know of the presence of a mystery and accept its demands, while our mind and senses cry out for some nourishment more proportionate to their desires. The Paradoxes of a Li[e in Faith No one should be surprised if a person entering the universe of faith and experiencing its dimensions and demands on his being becomes upset and appears disoriented. He has a fine balancing job to do, and it cannot be learned in one day. Moreover, he may discover new depths every day, and like all humans he may become dizzy and scared. He must reconcile securi-ty with insecurity, satisfaction with hunger, a most intense personal relation-ship with a human loneliness. He experiences courage and fear, the ex-pansion of his own personality and the loss of friends who do not under-stand. But as the balancing work progresses, he begins to be himself in a fuller sense of the word than he has known before. Almost certainly, he be-comes both a witness who attracts and a sign that is contradicted. He finds his journey both lonely and exhilarating. Strangely enough, as he progresses into the unknown land of faith, his humanity opens up and his intelligence becomes more creative than ever and his senses partake somehow in celebrating new discoveries. Such a person is anything but dull; he is the salt of the earth--with a tang. Summing It Up To sum it all up: a human perso.n can live on different levels. His life may revolve around the impacts that his senses communicate, or his life be an expression of the creativity of human intelligence, or his life may be the sharing of God's life and of His universe in faith. To speak about levels, of course, is to use a metaphor to express somehow the complexity of our nature, about which there can be no doubt. These levels blend into each other, and a thoughtful person graced by God should progress from the more external to the more .internal, from human desires to divine in-vitations. There is a dynamism in our being that attempts to bring it con-tinuously to greater depths. 1038 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 The right question about the formation of contemplatives can be formu-lated now; it is: How can a person be helped to progress into the universe of faith; how can his attention be directed to the unknown land that God's revelation opens up, and how can he be attracted into desiring an adven-ture? In particular, the question should be put: How can a person be helped during the specific crisis of transition from the world of human measures into the unmeasurable universe of God? To this question, we shall return when we speak of the process and pro-gram of formation. Before doing so, we must reflect on action that springs from contemplation. Who Is a Person of Action? A contemplative person is the one who experiences the Lord's presence and power in his innermost being, a close interpersonal relationship. Is it a closed relationship as well? Or, is it open so as to" inspire action? At any rate, who is a person of action? Two Misconceptions To clear our mind for a fruitful inquiry, let us exorcise it from two mis-conceptions. One conceives human action as something added to a person from the outside in much the same way as an external object can be pegged onto a tree. Such an aberration, of course, does not make any sense. Human action proceeds from the depths of a person, as the fruit is produced from the inner potentials of a tree. As there is an organic, sequential unity between the tree and the fruit, so there is a dynamic and harmonious unity between the inner riches of a man and his actions. They cannot be considered separately, even if mentally we draw a distinction between cause and effect. Another mistake is to think that actions to be significant ought to be s.pectacular. °They must initiate a new movement, or they must make a dra-matic impact on thousands. Not so! Significant action can evolve around humbler objects, as the actions of a Christian mother who takes care of her family, or the actions of a monk who with sudden inspiration or enduring patience creates a new melody to praise the Lord. By action, we mean all kinds of creative activity that somehow enriches this universe. Action Is an Enrichment o[ the Universe Now that these understandings are out of the way, we can return to our question: Who is a person of action? He is the one who brings fruit that can be seen by his fellow men and enriches them. The quality of the action depends on the potentials of the person who produces it; and the state of his mind, of his heart will be projected into his actions. An action is first born when our intelligence discovers a possibility for enriching this universe. It ought to be a real possibility in the sense that The Formation o] Contemplatives in Action / 1039 the action once taken will blend into a broader plan that is already un-folding outside us. Therefore, no one can be sensibly active unless he can direct his attention to all relevant facts around him, unless he can grasp an intelligent pattern behind them; moreover, he must have strength and energy to transform a possibility into reality. Action is indeed an act of creation. Through it, man somehow tran-scends himself, produces something new, similar to his internal x;ision and desire. When active, man becomes more like God, his creator; after all, he was made to the image of God. Not only is there nothing wrong with action; there would be something missing in a man who is not active--the image of God our creator would not be complete. It follows also that due to the complexity of our nature our actions may originate at different levels; the quality of action will reflect the quality of its source. Levels o] Action An action may originate in what is communicated through the senses without the benefit of intelligent reflection and judgment and without the enlightening influence of faith. It can be a mere emotional response, or it can be a way of doing what the others are doing; in such a case, a man operates in a poor way. What is best in his humanity does not participate in the action. The external act is. marked by its shallow origin; it does not create "a new harmony in the world, it merely add's to the universal noise. At best, the.person beats the drum with the others. An action may proceed from intelligent insight and reasonable judg-ment. Such action is certainly worthy of man, although it may not reflect the wisdom of God that is scandal to the Jews and sheer stupidity to the pagans. Some fields of human activity requir~ this type of action, such as going back and forth in space. After all, the laws of space are proportionate to our intelligence, and consequently, a proper field for reasonable opera-tions. But such action is not enough to build the reign of Christ. The deepest source of action in a Christian is in his contemplation, in his awareness of the Lord's presence and power. When action comes from such depths, it must pass through the screening of critical intelligence; it must also reflect the humanity of our senses: nonetheless, it is born from grace. It comes from God, it builds the kingdom. The Liberation o[ Action As in the case of contemplation, there is a problem of transition into the universe of faith to which Christian actions ultimately must ~be adjusted. Since it does not provoke an immediate reaction on the level of the senses, since it does not prompt ~n immediate intelligent response, our action itself can appear as a journey into the vast immensity of the unknown; all the problems of the paradox we described for contemplation are manifest in 1040 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/5 this field too. Also, the process of liberation must take place in a similar way. Our action must proceed from an increasingly deeper source. A Christian person of action, then, is the one who received God's grace in his whole being and in whom grace brought fruit for the enrichment of the world around him. There is integrity in such a person because his beliefs are followed by good deeds, and those deeds do not spring from an emotional reaction, not even from mere human reasoning, but from a depth which is scrutinized by the Spirit of God. Such a person has a unity in his being; he is whole, he is made of one piece; in his acts of creative action, he mani-fests the image of the Creator. All the elements are together now to answer the question: Who is an integrated person? Who Is an Integrated Person? An integrated Christian person is the one who has developed his poten-tials fully, and thus he became whole. He lives his life with all the intensity his resources allow. He experiences God's presence and power in his inner-most being, and he builds the kingdom of God through external action. In a small scale, he revives something of the mystery of the Incarnation. He is in this world, and he is attentive to all that happens around him. He brings his intelligence to bear on all facts and events. Through his in-sights, he penetrates deeper than the apparent truth. He is liberated enough to see new possibilities, and, once he has decided on a course of action, he is

Issue 22.5 of the Review for Religious, 1963. ; THOMAS DUBAY, S.M. Personal Integrity and Intellectual Obedience If only through what we may term'a nebulous feeling of supernatural discomfort, no thoughtful religious long escapes the knotty problems implied in his reasoned re-actions to his superior's directives. Sooner or later he wonders how the perfection of obedience could possibly and honorably require that he judge to be wise and prudent what he may on occasion strongly feel to be un-wise and imprudent. Some of the implications of this complex question we have explored in two previous articles.1 The interest shown in these questions together with the oral and epistolary discussions consequent on them have prompted us to propose several additional problems and to seek suitable solutions to them. The Problems Religious superiors, like the rest of humankind, usu-ally do not know what we may call the content of the divine will. As I type this sentence I cannot be certain that objectively speaking this is what God prefers me to be doing at this moment. When a major superior as-signs a religious to teach the tenth grade, he cannot be sure that such is precisely the divine preference for this particular religious. In both of these cases all we can know is that our action, and our intentions are good. At times we may be reasonably assured that the action we contemplate is in its concrete circumstances better than some other, but even then we do not see how God judges the situation. Does not our inability to know the content of God's will render pointless the whole concept of intellectual obedience? Is the subject supposed to conform his judg- 1"Psychological Possibility of Intellectual Obedience," R~w~w FOR RrLtO~OOS, v. 19 (1960), pp. 67-76, and "The Superior's Precept and God's Will," REVIEW FOR RELmXOOS, v. 20 (1961), pp. 435--41. 4, 4" Thomas Dubay, S.M., is the spiritua director at Notr. Dame Seminary' 2901 South Carroll ton Avenue; Ne~ Orleans 18~ Louisi aria. VOLUME 22, 196~ 49~ ÷ + ÷ Thomas Dubay, $.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 4:9,1 ment to the superior's judgment because the latter is somehow expressing the thought of God when he com-mands? And if the superior is not expressing the divine mind, why should one try to think as he thinks? Meaning of Intellectual Obedience Before we wrestle with these questions, we should per. haps review the fundamental principles involved. And among them we may recall first of all that intellectual obedience implies the attempt of a subject to see the wisdom of his superior's decision. While it does not re-quire a man to call black white when his superior is manifestly wrong, yet it is more than an assent to the mere proposition that God wills the non-sinful act of compliance. This latter assent plainly is not a conformity to the thought of the superior (as the classical concept of intellectual obedience would have it) or even an at-tempt at conformity (with which the classical concept would be content when more is not possible). Agreeing that God wills execution of a given command is nothing more than an assent to a universally received principle of Catholic theology: God wills obedience to legitimately constituted authority. Intellectual obedience according to the formulation of St. Ignatius .Loyola in his well known letter (from which Pius XII said we may not depart) requires that the subject "think the same, submitting his own judg-ment to the Superior's, so far as a devout will can incline the understanding." And hence in the many matters in which evidence is not coercive, "every obedient man should bring his thought into conformity with the thought of the Superior" (America Press edition, ;~ 9). This doctrine presents no problem when the subject possesses a founded certitude that his superior is either right or wrong. In the first case his judgment is con-formed by the very seein~ that the direction is correct, and in the second there is no need to try to conform to what is obviously false. The problem arises in debatable matters, matters in which an honest and objective man will agree that there may be something to be said for each of two or more opposing views. Since the evidence in these cases.is not coercive, a religious practices in-tellectual obedience when he makes a serious attempt to see reasons ~or the superior's view as well as for his own. We spont.aneously conjure up reasons for our own opinions, and so intellectual honesty hardly requires much effort regarding this half of the situation. But we do not spontaneously think up reasons for an opposing opinion, and so effort is requisite if we are to be co~n-pletely open. While this effort should be made in our disagreements with any man, it is especially needful in the relationship of the subject to his superior. Because of the position the latter holds as a representative of divine authority and because we may presume that this representafive re-ceives divine help in the exercise of his office (not, how-ever, a help that makes him infallible), the ftillriess of religious obedience bespeaks an especial effort to agree with his thought insofar as honesty permits and a devout will can bring it about. When a good religious, therefore, receives an unpalatable directive, this third and highest degree of obedience suggests that he make an earnest at-tempt to see his superior's point of view whenever the matter is important enough to consider motives at all. Man's Knowledge of the Divine Will From the point of view of the divine will, we may re-call to what extent a conformity is possible and in what sense a superior may be said to manifest that will. A man's will is materially conformed to God's when he wills precisely what God wills. If God were to give him a pri-vate revelation indicating exactly what He wished done at a given time and if the recipient of the revelation carried out the command, there would be a material con-formity. In this case the person's activity would corre-spond exactly with what we have called the content of the divine will. On a moment's reflection one can easily see that a material conformity known to be such is usu-ally impossible. A man simply does not know as a ,rule precisely what God knows to be the preferable course of action together with the circumstances that should sur-round the action. A religious superior is no exception to this limitation on our knowledge of the divine intellect and will. Frequently the superior cannot know that this directive or that is exactly what God would like done at this time and in these circumstances. And if the superior cannot know, neither can the subject. Formal conformity, however, is another matter. It re-fers to the motives one has in doing whatever he does. A man conforms his will to God's when he refers what he does to the divine good. Such is the conformity that St. Paul taught when he enunciated the command that we do all for the motive of God's glory: "Whether you eat or drink, or do anything else, do all for the glory of God" (1 Cor 10:31). While we often cannot know the content of the divine good pleasure and therefore cannot be sure whether or not we possess a material conformity to it, we can always know the motive with which we are to act, and thus we can be sure that we possess a formal con-formity. Hence, even thongh I cannot be sure that my proposal to give ten dollars to this particular poor man is the best thing I could do with the money (God may 4- 4- 4- Intellectual Obedience VOLUME 22, 196.,1 495 ÷ ÷ ÷ Thomas Dubay, $.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 496 well know some other better way in which I could use it) and even though as a consequence I do not know whether my will is materially conformed to His, yet if a~ a matter of fact I do give the gift out of love for God I am sure that my will is formally harmonized with His. And this is all that I am commanded to do in the situa-tion. I am bound to have the right motive for whatever good act I perform. When all this, then, is applied to religious obedience, it means that a superior usually does not know the con-tent of the divine will and consequently may or may not be commanding-, in material accord with it. From the point of view of the subject obeying, this does not matter. God does will that he carry out the precept as long as there is no evil in it. (We must notice that in this prac-tical execution of the command material conformity is always possible and commendable, that is, conformity to that content of the divine will which has revealed that it wants men to obey their superiors.) Furthermore, the subject should possess the formal element, the proper motive for obeying, which proximately is the authority of the superior and ultimately the ordering of his obedi-ence to the divine goodness by charity: Suggested Solutions We are now prepared for the first of our problems. Why should a religious try to make his judgment regard-ing some precept conform to his superior's judgment when he is not even sure that the latter's represents the content of the divine will? How can the constitutions of some religious congregations admonish members that they should make their superior's judgements their own, that they should "obey" even the superior's thought inso-far as such is possible? In answering these questions several principles must be borne in mind. First of all, any man is bound by mere natural honesty to conform his mind to the truth insofar as he is able. No one has a right to entertain error. He may have a right to immunity from attack because he is in error, but this is not to say that he has a right to cling to the error. There can be no right to what is unreal. Secondly, in a'genuine difference of opinion between two persons in which difference the truth is not definitely established with 'an objective certitude, honesty demands that any man make a sincere effort to see the reasons for the other's view. Any man is bound to weigh the other man's reasons as well as his own. Any other procedure is mere prejudice. Hence, the demand of intellectual obedi-ence that a subject try to see that his superior's directive is wise is no intrusion on his human dignity or intel-lectual integrity. On the contrary, this perfection of obedience is protective both of intellectual humility and of integrity since it aids a man in divorcing himself from his often inordinate attachment to his own opinion. It opens his mind to other views and other opinions. Hence, this fundamental honesty by which we give a sympathetic consideration to the intellectual position of another is common both to the subject-superior relationship and to the ordinary man-to-man relationship. Yet there is a difference. There must be a difference. Otherwise, we could hardly speak of the attempt a re-ligious makes to conform his judgment to that of his superior as a distinct degree of obedience. But what is the difference? What is the difference between Brother X and Sister Y trying to look sympathetically upon their superiors' decisions and these same two persons attempt-ing to discuss a question of politics or philosophy in an unprejudiced manner? In both situations there is a pursuance of truth, an effort to maintain intellectual in-tegrity. The solution to this problem is difficult, admittedly difficult. And we frankly confess that we are not at all sure that our solution is adequate. We think that it is correct as far as it goes, but we are not sure that it says all that needs to be said. We believe that there are two reasons why a religious' attempt to see his superior's decision as feasible and cor-rect is something over and above this same religious' ef-fort to see a differing view in an ordinary discussion. The first "something over and above" is the supernatural posi-tion of the superior. While he remains a weak, imperfect, and entirely fallible human being, an ecclesiastical su-perior does occupy in the supernatural society which is the Church a position which is ultimately derived from God Himself. As Pope Pius XII rightly observed, the authority by which religious superiors rule is a participa-tion in the divinely received authority possessed by the Roman Pontiff. Therefore, while the religious superior does remain fallible, and sometimes sadly fallible, yet his dispositions and directions enjoy an ontological rank that other dispositions and directions do not enjoy. This basis and rank are the foundation for a new reason over and above intellectual humility and integrity why a sub-ject should seek to view his superior's disposition sym-pathetically and seek, if possible, to conform his judg-ment to it. A second reason is based on the relationship between the first and second degrees of obedience with the third, that is, the relationship between execution of the com-mand (first degree) and conformity of will (second de-gree) with the submission of intellect (third degree). A mere reflection on the psychology of obedience indicates ÷ + Intellectual Obedience VOLUME 22, 1963 ÷ ÷ ÷ Thoma~ Dubay, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 498 that the perfection with which a man executes a directive and with which he conforms his intention to that of his superior will ordinarily be dependent on his intellecttial agreement or disagreement with the judgment implied in the directive. Our point is not that the typical religious will not execute a command unless he sees its wisdom but that he often will not execute it as per[ectly when he believes it to be unwise or foolish. Our point is also that he will find conformity of the will, that is, really wanting to carry out this command, much more difficult when the precept appears to him unfeasible. A religious priest whose superior directs him to teach a course which he judges to be of flimsy value hardly throws himself ir, to the task of doing an excellent job with it. He teaches the course, yes. But unless he is a man of rare virtue, he cuts at least some minor corners with it. A sister who is asked to organize a testing program that seems to her ineffectual is an unusual person if she does not experi-ence difficulty in wanting to organize it. Because there is a lack of intellectual harmony between these religious and their superiors, harm is done to the first and second degrees of their obedience. This fact affords us another reason over and above mere open-mindedness why a subject should seek to see the wisdom of his superior's decisions and to conform his judgment to them. If our analysis is correct, it seems to follow that intel-lectual obedience is rooted in the will. The conformity on this third level is, of course, found in the intellect; but the force moving the intellect toward it is the will. This observation is not surprising when we consider that the "moving-moved" relationship is the case even with the execution of a command. The actual operation of teach-ing or sweeping is executed by the other faculties, while the moving role is that of the will. We may speak, there-fore, of obedience of the intellect because it is the in-tellect in the third degree of obedience that is harmo-nized with the intellect of the superior, even though it is the will that moves it to the harmony. There remains another facet to this problem, or, if one prefers, another problem. Granted that we have in-dicated two reasons over and above mere intellectual honesty why a subject should attempt to see his superior's view, we must yet discover what guarantee of truth can be offered that will justify the subject's conformity. After all, is not evidence the fundamental criterion of truth; and if we are going to ask a religious to hold a precept as prudent or feasible, do we not have to assure him of its validity on the basis of objective evidence? And if a religious superior has no divine guarantee that his di-rections conform to the objective truth of things, how can one rightly ask another to harmonize his intellect with them? This is no easy problem. In answer to it ~ve must first, remark that no one is asking a subject to extend the value of his intellectual assent beyond available evidence. We do not suggest that a religious ought to make a certain judgment that his superior is correct ~vhen there simply is no irrefragable evidence that he is correct, nor do we feel that the sub-ject should entertain a judgment of higher value than his superior entertains. If the superior only thinks that this course of action is feasible, surely the subject is not re-quired by intellectual obedience to be sure that it is such. As a matter of fact, the latter would be a difformity, not a conformity. We may observe, likewise, that in many of the disposi-tions made in a religious community neither the superior nor the subject can be prudently sure that a particular course of action is the most feasible. An autocratic su-perior may act as though he is certain that his decisions are the only reasonable ones; but this does not, of course, mean that they are. How often can one know with complete certitude that a given sister should teach the third grade rather than the fifth or that a brother should specialize in history rather than in political sci-ence or that a priest should serve on the mission band rather than on a parish staff? Many of us may entertain strong opinions in such matters, but few could offer in most cases objective evidence that one decision alone is reasonable or even the best possible. It would seem, then, that intellectual obedience frequently does not require a certain assent. But we think that it often requires an opinionative assent, that is, an assent that holds a proposition to be probably true because based on one or more solid mo-tives. Two reasons suggest this statement. First, when an intelligent man or woman (we refer to the superior) decides on a course of action, one may usually presume that there is at least one solid motive behind it that would found at least an opinionative judg-ment that the decision is a prudent one. Secondly, the superior himself usually judges his directive as at least probably correct; and so il~ he can find some good reason for it, the subject of good will should frequently be able to find it also. The first reason bears on extrinsic evidence (authority), the second on intrinsic. Is a guarantee required for the objective truth or wis-dom of the command? Must the superior in looking for intellectnal obedience in his subjects offer them some guarantee that he is at least probably if not certainly right in his dispositions? Although the two questions ÷ ÷ ÷ Intellectual Obedience VOLUME 22, 1963 499 4. 4. + Thomas Dubay, $.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 500 may look equivalent, we would answer yes to the first and no to the second. No man can rightly give an intellectual assent to a proposition unless he has some motive pro-portioned to the quality of his assent. I do not proceed in an orderly fashion when I judge to be certain an as-sertion for which I have only probable evidence or when I hold an opinion with not even probable evidence. Hence, a religious need not judge his superior to be surely correct when he can see only probable reasons in favor of the command. When the subject can see no intrinsic reason in favor of the precept's feasibility (and such is rare, indeed), he should either refrain from judg-ing it altogether or base his opinionative judgment that it is feasible on the mere fact that his superior thinks, it so. In this second case he rests on extrinsic authority or evidence. His intellectual honesty is preserved in that he has not made a certain assent, and his obedience is per-fect in that he has made every reasonable effort to bring his judgment into accord with that of his superior. A superior is not ordinarily bound to offer the guar-antee for the assent his subject is to give to his disposi-tions. It would be unreasonable to expect one in author-ity to explain his reasons every time he decides upon some course of action. And it happens occasionally that natural secrecy prevents him from disclosing why he acts as he does. Yet at the same time we feel that often, if not usually, a superior should spontaneously offer reasons for his directives when they are out of the ordinary or when they are especially susceptible to misunderstanding. would even say that unless secrecy forbids it, a superior ordinarily does well to let the reasons for his commands be known whenever an intelligent subject could not l easily conclude to them and when the matter is impor-tant enough to go into them at all. Otherwise, it is dif-ficult to see how the subject could give an intelligentl assent or bring his judgment into line with that of hisJ superior except perhaps by a sheer act of will. As we have just hinted in the preceding paragraph,, all of our above attempts to give a reasonable account the roots of intellectual obedience as it bears on the ob-jective order of things are directed toward cases in whichl an agreement with the superior's mind is called for. There are many cases in the ordinary living of the re ligious life in which the directions given are not impor tant enough even to concern oneself about a conformity~ of judgment. In these it is rather blind obediertce thai is indicated: the willed execution without any thoughi as to why the command is given. We hardly think tha, a sister who has been asked by her superior to serve a.~ companion for another on a trip to town should bothei about trying to discover the rightness of the request o~ why it was made. Such scrutiny too easily lends itself to pettiness. Our above discussion rather envisions more important matters in which a religious should know his superior's mind that he may all the better carry it out. How, then, may we answer the questions with which we began? Does our inability to know the content of the divine will render meaningless the whole concept of in-tellectual obedience? It the superior is perhaps not ex-pressing the divine mind when he commands, is there any point in the subject trying to conform his judgment to that of his superior? Man's inability to know the divine mind in many of the practical details of human lille does not render mean-ingless the widely received principles of intellectual obe-dience. The religious is not assenting to his superior's direction as though it were an infallible oracle, nor is he judging that it is the only possibly reasonable disposition of the matter. Precisely because we reject the notion that a superior is revealing the content of the divine mind do we dissolve at the same stroke that other mistaken notion that in intellectual obedience the subject is assenting to a certain proposition known as such by God. Rather is the subject merely trying to put his whole being, intellect as well as will and body, into a harmony with his su-perior, a man who takes the place of God for him. And this attempt at harmonization implies no violence to in-tellectual integrity for the simple reason that it rests on evidence, either intrinsic or extrinsic. We may conclude, then, that the religious who prac-tices perfectly all three degrees of obedience integrates rather than disintegrates his personality. He executes di-rectives promptly and wholly, and thus establishes a new contact with God who has parceled out some of His supreme authority to men. He wants to carry out the precept because he sees the divine authority in a human instrument, and thus he places himself in the genuine stream of what is. He attempts to set his intellect in ac-cord with his superior's, and thus he simultaneously maintains intellectual integrity and submits his supreme faculty to the divine order. And all this is done through supernatural charity. This is sanctity because it is reality. ÷ ÷ ÷ In~ellectual Obedience VOLUME 22, 1963 501 PAUL HINNEBUSCH, O.P. Requesting in Charity ÷ ÷ ÷ Paul Hinnebusch, O.P., is the chaplain at Rosaryville; Pon-chatoula, Louisiana. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ~02 We are all very conscious that charity inspires us .to give help to others, but have we ever realized that char-ity also inspires us to ask for help? St. Thomas Aquinas was well aware of this. He writes, for example, to a prince: "Your charity has asked me to reply in writing to your question. It is not proper that the requests which charity faithfully offers be refused by a friend.'u Thomas realized so well that charity seeks help as well as gives it, because he knew from experience what unity in lively charity can be. Living in the golden age of the Order of Preachers, when community life was fully synonymous with life in charity, when mutual charity penetrated everything, Thomas daily experienced char- ~ty at its best. Charity was a mutual give and take in per-fect spontaneity. Those early friars knew well the spirit behind St. Augustine's command in their rule: "Call nothing your own, but let all things be held in common among you." In the thinking of Augustine, this statement applied not only to material goods but to whatever the Christian has, whether material or spiritual, whether gifts of grace or talents of nature. Augustine was remarkably conscious of the unity of all Christians in Christ, of how all live one same life together in Him. For example, constrasting his own intensely active life as a bishop with the leisurely contemplation of a monk to whom he is wri(ing, Augustine says: "We are one body under one head, so that you are busy in me, and I am at leisure in you" (PL 33:187). Because I am one with Christ, what Christ is doing in you He is doing for me. And because you are one with Christ, what Christ is do-ing in me He is doing for you. We are one body with many functions of one life. We are one mystical person in Christ. Elsewhere Augustine writes: "Whatever my brother has, is mine, if I do not envy and if I love. I do not have it in myself, but I have it in him. It would not be mine, if we were not in one body under one Head." x Martin Orabmann, The Interior Lile o] St. Thomas Aquinas (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1951), p. 9. In this unity of life in Christ, this one life in love, the mutual sharing of spiritual and material goods is love in action. Love receives as well as gives, love asks as well as grants. If the bond of love makes us consider that our brother's needs are our own and inspires us to supply him with what he needs, that same bond of love does not hesitate in appealing to our brother's love for help. Our appeal is based upon our love for him and his love for us. It is only right that what we expect him to grant in char-itY should be requested in that same charity so that both the asking and the giving are an exercise and a strength-ening of the bond of love. Our blessed Savior sets a beautiful example of these things in dealing with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. In His love for the woman, He desires to do her a service; but good psychologist that He is, He knows that her pride will resent His offer of help. And not merely because in her particular case pride will resent the un-veiling of her sin but because human beings in general like to be independent and do not care to admit that they need others. Their pride instinctively resents anyone who tries to help them. We have all experienced at one time or another the pain of having our charity rebuffed. And therefore when Jesus wishes to do this woman a service, instead of immediately offering help to her, He begins by requesting help from her. He knows how valu-able a request for help can be in establishing good rela-tions among people. Rather than give her pride an op-portunity to resent His help, He appeals to what is best in her human nature. Human nature was made for love. But love's proper act is to give. To win the woman's good will and love, Jesus gives her the opportunity to give to Him. He asks her to do Him a service: "Give me to drink" (Jn 4:10). His humble request and His need immediately wins her sympathy and benevolence. Upon the initial good will which she thus manifests, Jesus proceeds to build an eternal friendship. By humbly accepting the service of her love, He leads her humbly to accept His love in re-turn, His love with its gift of "living water" springing up into a divine love, binding her to Him in an everlast-ing friendship. This is the apostolic technique which Jesus teaches to His apostles. Christian charity has to be mutual, love has to be a response to love. From the prospective convert the apostle must draw forth some sort of love, even if it is only an act of natural benevolence towards him. Grace, seizing upon this, can transform it into some-thing divine. Since man was made for love and love's proper act is to give, if we would set up a bond of love between our-÷ ÷ Requesting in Charity ÷ ÷ Paul Hinnebusch, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 504 selves and our fellow we must give him the opportunity to give to us. We must win his benevolence and sym-pathy by humbling ourselves before him in need. Love knows how to receive as well as give. Is not the recogn:i-tion of another's need a natural incentive to sympathy and love? Is not then the humble recognition of our mu-tual need of one another the best soil for mutual low:? For charity is mutual giving. Almighty God has deliber-ately created us mutually dependent upon one another that we may have an opportunity to love by giving ar, d to love by receiving, that thus the bond of love may 'be perfect. Therefore our blessed Lord instructed His apostles to receive even while they gave: they were to accept the hospitality of those to whom they wished to preach, they were to eat what was placed before them, they were to sleep on what was prepared for them (Lk 10:7-9). They were to be humbly dependent for material things upon the people upon whom they wished to shower super-natural gifts. Thus there would be established a balance and the mutual interchange which is charity in action. St. Paul's words describe the situation well: "There is a just bal-ancing- your abundance at the present time supplying their need, that their abundance may in turn supply your need, thus making for an equality" (2 Cor 8:14). Christ used this same technique with the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Though it was getting towards evening and the day was far spent, He acted as though He were going on, giving them the opportunity to urge their hospitality upon Him, so that by their love in giv-ing to Him their hearts would be prepared to receive His greater gifts (Lk 24:28 f.). Christ our Lord sent forth His disciples two by two so that they could mutually give and receive as they trav-elled to their missions, upholding one another in love. For in Christianity there is no room for the proud inde-pendent spirit which rejects others as though he does not need them, spurning their help as though he can get along without them, refusing to accept from others lest a debt of gratitude make him dependent upon them, carefully hoarding his own resources in fear that giving to others will impoverish him and make him dependent. How tremendously more fruitful all of our labors would be if all of us would work together in this humble charity which recognizes our need of one another! True charity is ever humbly aware of our mutual dependence upon one another in Christ and of our solidarity in Him; and therefore it is willing not only to give help but humbly to accept it and to give again in grateful return. For Christians must never give to others with an air of condescending superiority but must always humble them-selves to the level of the needy, in genuine compassion. "Be minded as was Christ Jesus," says st. Paul. "Though he was divine by nature, he did not consider his being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, bi~t on the contrary he emptied himself, taking the nature of a slave, and was made like to men" (Phil 2:5-6). For the gifts of God, whether spiritual or material, are never given to us in order to exalt us above our fellowmen but rather to give us the means of serving Him in humble love. "Freely ~have you received, freely give" (Mr 10:8). If St. Thomas Aquinas always looked upon requests for his help as proceeding from humble charity, in humility he considered himself the servant of all in that same charity. For example, a young Dominican lecturer of Venice once wrote to him a list of thirty-six questions and asked for the answers within four days! Though this may seem to be an inconsiderate abuse of the generosity of an extremely busy man like Thomas, especially since the questions were vaguely phrased, nevertheless in sending back all the answers Thomas gently replied: "Although I h~ave been very busy, I have put aside for a time the things that I should do, and have decided to answer in-dividually the qusetions which you proposed, so as not to be lacking to the request of your charity." We must beware, then, of setting self-sufficient bound-aries about ourselves, saying, as it were, "This is my sphere of influence in the community, this is the work I will do. I can do this and no more, and I will accept no help in doing it, for I am self-sufficient within these lim-its. I want no help, because I wish to be independent of the need of helping another in return. So let us all de-marcate our spheres of influence, let us carefully portion out the common resources of our community life. This portion shall be mine, that portion shall be yours, and let us not trespass upon one anotherl You may not borrow my help or my equipment or my resources even in time of need, for at all costs we must avoid trespassing the 'rights' of one another. In short, let us kill all the spon-taneity of community life in charity." Religious who by vow have renounced everything, even their own wilI, are the last people in the world who should be insisting upon their rights. Is not charity a higher law than rights, does not charity break down the wails of proprietorship? Does not charity concede to others that to which they have no strict right? For whenever we have something and our neighbor is in true need of it, then it is no longer our own but his. It is not his in justice, but in charity. He cannot demand it of us--unless he is in dire necessity--but he can humbly ask it in love, and we grant it in love. We owe it to him + + + Requesting in Charity VOLUME 22, 1963 505 Paul Hinn~bu~ch, O.P. REVIEW FOR REL|G~OU$ in the charity which makes all of us one body under one Head. And yet, there is order in charity. For though what I~ have is given me by God not just for myself but for the service of others in Christ, yet I must use and distribute what I have in an orderly way, using it for the appointed purposes in community life. If I am called upon to de-vote some of my time or my resources in giving emer-geny help to another so that my appointed tasks may seem thereby to suffer, rather than stifle charity's eager-hess to help I entrust my own affairs to divine providence while I attend to the immediate needs of my neighbor. On the other hand, the common ownership of all things in community life, in this one body under one Head in charity, does not justify any one member or group of members o[ the religious community in appro-priating an unjust share of the common resources, taking more than should be alloted when distribution is made to each according to his need. If resources are unjustly appropriated in this way, even the charity of those who are unjustly deprived cannot approve of the injustice, though they may have to endure it in patience. Even charity cannot approve of the injustice, for charity is obliged to love the common good and cannot permit this harmful swelling of one member at the expense of an-other. We cannot appeal, then, to the fact that we are one body under one Head to justify any highhanded appro-priating of the common resources. What my neighbor has is mine, what the community has is mine, but only in the friendship of charity. I have only love's rights to these things. And therefore only in humble charity may !1. re-quest more than is already allotted to me. Only mutual charity makes what is his mine and what is mine his. Charity never demands, charity humbly asks. And when she has received, in due course she makes a grateful re-turn. Everyone who is generous in fulfilling the law of char-ity and is ever eager to be at the service of others sooner or later runs into those who abuse his generosity by mak-ing, in the name of charity, requests which charity has no right to make. There will be those who will use the main point of this article as an excuse for imposing upon others, saying, "I request this in charity, so in charity you may not refuse me." Are there situations when we may refuse requests for help without violating charity? At first sight it would seem not, for our Lord says, "Give to everyone who asks of you" (Lk 6:30). However, our Lord never asks the im-possible. There are times when one is so laden with other duties of justice and charity that he cannot possibly ful-fill a request for help. But in a case like this, charity must know how to say "No." "There is always a way of refus-ing so graciously," says the Little Flower, "that the re-fusal affords as much pleasure as the gift itself would have." Lest we abuse charity's rigl~t to ask help, we must al-ways be very considerate of those of whom we ask help. We should not ask a generous person for his help when we could do the things ourselves easily enough. For if the one we ask is really charitable and generous, then we can be sure he already has more than enough to do, for every-one is asking his help. We must take care never to ask un-necessarily or selfishly. If we really do not need help and the person we ask sees that this is so, then he is not uncharitable in refusing us. In this case a work of charity is not called for, since by definition a work of mercy is aid given to one who has true need. Furthermore, a busy religious has to be dis-criminating in the works of charity he undertakes. Since it is impossible for him to do everything, he does not violate charity if he makes a prudent choice about whom he is to help or about the type of aid he is to give; for as we have said, there is an order of charity. No one is obliged to sacrifice the greater works of charity and jus-tice to aid someone who would abuse his charity. Even in refusing a request which charity has no right to make, we must be charitable in our manner of refus-ing. One must patiently bear with the fault of the one who seeks to impose upon him. Likewise, we must be careful in judging whether or not a person really is abus-ing charity's rights to ask. Ordinarily we ought to pre-sume that the bond of charity lies at the basis of all re-quests for our help. If we may refuse help to those who are uncharitably inconsiderate in the requests they make of us, on the other hand we should anticipate the needs of those whose charity is so considerate of us that they hesitate to ask our help lest they unduly burden us. If, when necessary, charity knows how to refuse help in a gracious way, true charity is also always gracious in its manner of giving help. If our consent to help another is grudging and ungracious, we deal him an uncharitable blow even as we help him, for we humiliate him by our attitude. My son, to your charity add no reproach, nor spoil any gift by harsh words! Like clew that abates a burning so does a word improve a gift. ÷ ÷ + Requesting in Charity VOLUME 22~ 1965 5O7 Sometimes the word means more than the gift; both are offered by a kindly man. Only a fool upbraids before giving: a grudging gift wears out the expectant eyes (Sir 18:14-17). "The word means more than the gift" because the gen-uine charity behind the asking and the giving, the giving and the receiving, is the one thing precious above all else. 4- 4- 4- Paul Hinnebusch, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ANTONIO ROSMINI Three Q estions on the Spiritual Life [Antonio Rosmini, 1797-1855, was one of the great figures of the Church in the nineteenth century. Besides founding the Rosminian Fathers (the Institute of Charity), he also founded the Sisters of Providence (the Rosminian Sisters). As the founder of the sisters, he was naturally solicitous for their spiritual progress and advancement. The Review is happy to present here a translation of a letter :from Father Rosmini to the members of the Sisters of Providence in England on three important matters of the spiritual life. The translation has been made by the Reverend Denis Cleary, I.C.; Saint Mary's; Derrys Wood; Wonersh; Guildford, Surrey; England.] Stresa~ September 24, 1850 Dear Daughters in Christ, I would not wish you to judge my charity towards you by the number of letters which you receive from me. The Lord knows that I have you in my heart and that I offer you to Him every day on the altar. If I write infrequently, attribute this to my weakness and to the fact that I know you have a superior who is full of zeal for your growth in Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, now that this superior of yours, and my dear brother in Christ, is returning to you after his journey to Italy, I cannot but send with him a letter which will serve to thank you for the gifts which you have sent me in your charity as a sign of your devo-tion and in which I shall answer those three important questions which you sent to me. I answer these questions because, although I know that you could have the same answers from your immediate superior who is full of wisdom and the spirit of God, I think that hearing the same things from me, as you desire and ask, will give you consolation and strength in doing good because of that affection and obedience which you grant me in Christ Jesus. It is for this reason that I write, not necessarily for your greater instruction. The first question which you ask me is this: "How can one use a spirit of intelligence without falling away from simple and blind obedience?" ÷ Three Questions VOLUME 22, 1963 + 4. ÷ ¯ 4ntonlo Rosmini REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS This question and the other two which follow show your spiritual discernment becau.se they manifest your de-sire for instruction in the most perfect things. Perfec-tion demands that we know how to join and harmonize in our daily actions those virtues which, at first sight., seem opposed and even, perhaps, to exclude one another reciprocally. In fact, although no virtue can ever truly be opposed to another, just as no truth can be opposed to another truth, there is an art in uniting harmoniously those virtues which belong to faculties and passions which have contrary tendencies. When possessed by a per-fect man these faculties and passions come together in an orderly way. Knowing how to bring them together, there-fore, belongs to the study of that perfection to which we are consecrated. The person who seeks for perfection is rather like a composer who knows how to blend the voices of contralto, baritone, and bass. Coming now to your que.,stion, I say that simple and blind obedience can be joined with a spirit of intelli-gence and that this can be done in various ways. The First Way. It must be realised that the higher and the more universal the reason which governs our actions, the greater the use we make of a spirit of intelligence. Acting with a spirit of intelligence only means acting ~c-cording to reason without allowing ourselves to be moved or disturbed by any passion whatsoever. Now the highest and most universal of all reasons for acting is that of doing in everything the will of God (I expect you have seen what I have written on this matter and have also read it). But he who obeys with simplicity and purity is certain of doing the will of God who has said concerning ecclesiastical superiors: "He who hears you hears me." This is a simple but efficacious and sublime reason for acting. It contains so much good in itself that, when it is present, it renders every other reason superfluous. So you see that although obedience is called blind this is not because it is without light but because it has so much light that it does not need to take it from elsewhere. It is as though a man is said to be without light because he does not light candles when the sun shines. The Second Way. Besides this, he who obeys blindly and simply can use his spirit of intelligence in the way in which he carries out what he has been commanded. Two persons carry out a command of their superior: one of them does it without reflection, without attention, without putting his heart into the work, without think-ing of what he has been told, without endeavoring to understand what has been commanded; the other does the same work trying to know, first of all, what his supe-riot's intention was, then endeavoring to carry out that intention in the best way possible as if it were his very own. The former, you see, acts without conviction and almost in spite of himself. The other performs his duty willingly; he desires to succeed; he finds his happiness in this work since he is certain of pleasing God. The latter obeys both with simplicity and with a spirit of intelli-gence, like a living and intelligent person, not like a machine. It is obviously impossible for the superior, when he commands, to mention in detail all those things which concern the way in which the order, is to be carried out. He gives the command and then leaves the subject to carry it out. The subject who has the greater spirit of intelligence can be known immediately through observa-tion of the manner in which he carries out his duty. The Third Way. It often happens that the command is more or less general and that many things are left to the common sense of the one who receives it. In this case, the subject must be careful to note the sphere of action de-termined for him by the command of his stiperior. Within that sphere he is obliged by obedience itself to work in a personal manner, not capriciously, 9[ course, but according to sound judgment, that is to say, with a spirit of intelligence. If you consider the different members of a religious congregation, you will see that they all act through obe-dience, even the general of the order because he is subject to the pope at least. Nevertheless, obedience leaves a more or less free field to the details of their obedience. .Superiors have greater scope in this respect than subjects. According to his position, each one can .and must make use of his spirit of intelligence. In your own house, you begin from the central superior and you go down through all the other offices, each of which is subordinate to the one above and so directed by obedience. Nevertheless, all the work has to be carried out with a spirit of intelli-gence. Everyone has to use this spirit in so far as obedi-ence leaves the matter to her discretion. Take another example, a teacher or a nurse, for in-stance. Obedience imposes this work, and so the merit of obedience is present. But what a great deal of intelligent application is needed to carry it out perfectlyl And if you consider even particular commands, you will find that the greater part of them leaves some liberty where one's own intelligence can be used. For instance, you have to write a letter and have even been told in general what to write. Is it not still necessary to think carefully about the way in which the matter is to be expressed? Obedience, therefore, never determines all the actions which a person does--that would be impossible. Many commands give scope, and great scope, to the exercise of personal initia-tive. + + + Three Questions VOLUME 22~ 196~ ~ntonlo Rosmini REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS The Fourth Way. This concerns the observations which we make respectfully to our superiors about the commands they give us. These observations are perfectly lawful, but in order to make them with a true spirit of intelligence three conditions are required: first, that these observations spring simply from zeal for good and t.he glory of God, not from any self-interest; second, that they are not made lightly--in a word, that we do not say the first thing that comes into our head without having re-flected upon the matter; third, that they are made in spirit of submission so that if the superior insists upon his command the subject does not sulk but does what he is told with alacrity and joy. If the matter has great importance for the glory of God and it seems that what is commanded by the superior is not the right course, one can have recourse to a higher superior. This is not contrary to the simplicity of obedi-ence provided that the three conditions mentioned are put Jr;to practice. Superiors like to hear the observations of their subjects provided that these are offered in a spirit of charity and humility. If after all this it happens that what has to be done and what is done for obedience leads to some harmful effect (provided, of course, one is not treating of sin), the one who obeys has lost nothing. On the contrary, he gains because his act of obedience con-tains a mortification which is most pleasing to God. The man who mortifies himself in order to obey has taken great step forward on the road to sanctity both because he has denied his own will and because he has sacrificed his selblove and submitted his reason to a greater reason, God's very own, from which the command comes. That is suflacient for the first question. The second question is this: "How can one unite prac-tically the spirit of contemplation to an active life en-gaged in works of charity?" Since the union of holy contemplation with the exer-cise of works of charity is the aim of our congregation, follows that we must not be satisfied until we have ob-tained from God the light to join these two things in our-selves. I say that we must obtain from God the power of uniting contemplation and action in our life because the' only master who can teach us such a sublime science is, Jesus Christ Himself who gave us a most perfect example' of it. You see, this science consists in nothing else but' union, and the closest possible union, with Jesus Christ. In His mercy He has already prepared in His Church the' means necessary for this union. Even before we were born or knew how to desire them, these means were made' ready for us. What are these means, then, which enablel us to obtain this intimate and continually actuated union~ with Jesus Christ, this union which does not distract us from works of external charity but, on the contrary, im-pels us towards them and helps us to implement them? The first among them is the pure and simple intention of seeking Jesus Christ alone in all our thoughts, works, and actions. This uprightness of intention is harmed to a greater or less degree by any other affection which influ-ences our actions. It follows that our intention of seeking in everything Jesus Christ alone is not perfect if we have not given up self-love and sensuality entirely. I said, how-ever, that that intention which seeks Jesus Christ alone in everything is hurt by every affection which influences our internal or external actions because an affection or sensation which has no influence on our voluntary thoughts or words or actions (in which case the affection or sensation is entirely opposed by our will) in no way diminishes the purity of our intention. On the contrary, it gives it scope and increases it according to those words of God to St. Paul: "Virtue is made perfect in tribula-tion." The second means, which serves to help the first, con-sists in carrying out all our exercises of piety, and espe-cially our reception of the sacraments and our assistance at Mass, with the greatest possible fervor, tenderness, gratitude, sincerity, and intelligence. It is especially in these two acts of devotion that there is loving union be-tween Jesus Christ and the devout soul. The third means is that of endeavoring continually to keep alive the love of Jesus Christ in our hearts by hold-ing Him present, painted, as it were, before the eyes of the soul. We have to hear His words as they are recorded in the Gospel; we have to consider the actions which He performed during His mortal life and at the moment of His precious death (all these actions should be familiar to a spiritual person); we must apply His words and His example to ourselves and to all that we have to do; we must ask how He would act in our case and how He wishes us to act; when we are in doubt we should take advice, desiring sincerely to know and to do what is most perfect and is most pleasing to Him; we must listen to His voice with reverence and love when He speaks within US. The fourth means is that of beholding Jesus Christ in our neighbor. Whenever we have contact with our neigh-bor, we must endeavor to be of use to him in Jesus Christ and receive from him edification for ourselves. If we have a great zeal for the salvation of souls, we shall do every-thing in our power to win them and to bringlthem close to Jesus Christ. At the same time, we will wage war on useless and idle words and upon superfluous conversa-tioHnso awnedv vear,i nin c uorridoesrit yto. direct our every wo|rd/and work + 4. 4. Three Questions VOLUME 22, 1963 Antonio Rosrnini REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS to the betterment of others and of ourselves, and so to bring forth fruits of eternal life, two things are necessary: primarily and principally, charity should always be ou.r guiding star; secondly, we must ask from Jesus Christ the light of His prudence which multiplies the fruits of charity. A soul that always proposes to itself the good of souls in everything that it says or does will always be recollected even in the midst of many external works be-cause its spirit is always intent on charity; and he who thinks always of the charity of Jesus Christ and has noth-ing else in his heart is always recollected in Jesus Christ and in God because the Scripture says: "God is charity." To acquire the habit which enables these four means to fructify in a constant recollection of spirit even in the midst of external occupations, it is necessary to make great efforts in the beginning and mortify oneself reso-lutely with regard to everything that distracts the mind and is opposed" to this state of recollection and of the presence of God. We must ask this grace of Jesus Christ with great constancy. Only by persevering in intense prayer can the soul be established in that permanent con-dition of quiet in God which is never lost through any' external action provided the will does not give itself to evil. Here you must realise that the power which communi-cates with God and is joined to God is different from those other powers with which we work externally. When, therefore, man has come to a certain state of con-templation and union, he works with those powers which regard external actions without placing any obstacle to that supreme power which gives him quiet and rest in God. So it is that we read of certain holy persons who, while they seemed completely taken up externally, were speaking internally with their God and Creator. And this conversation of theirs, instead of impeding them, helped them to do their external works better, just as outward actions did not turn them away from their interior~ union with God. Such a desirable state is usually obtained by those faithful and constant souls who, at the beginning, suffer much and mortify themselves greatly and pray with in-tensity and wholeheartedness. This is the state which the Sisters of Providence must strive to obtain during the time of the novitiate when they have every opportunity, if only they will use it, of binding themselves indissolubly to God, the spouse of their souls. The union begt, n then must last for the whole of their life. Those sisters who have not obtained it completely during their novitiate must strive to gain it as soon as possible, But let us pass to the third question. The third question was, then: "How can one unite per- fect zeal and an ardent desire for the perfection of charity with perfect detachment from the esteem~ of others and a sincere desire for contempt and ill use." This question is no less difficult to dea,1 with than the preceding two--to answer in practice, ,I mean, not in words. But what is difficult to Jesus Christ and to those who hope in Him and pray to Him . ?~t In order to reply to this last question~of yours, I say that it is necessary to suppose in a person h foundation of solid humility. This consists in not attributing to oneself that which belongs to God alone or to other men. Humil-ity, in fact, is only justice. It is just that m~{n should think himself nothing (because he really is such) and that he should think God everything; it is just tl~at man should recognise that glory does not appertain to !nothing but to that which is everything. Therefore he should wish for no glory for himself but the greatest possible ~glory for God. When a man knows these things, it is just ~hat he should feel a certain uneasiness when he is praised by men be-cause he who is nothing cannot desire to b~ praised with-out usurping what is not proper to him. IOn the other hand, he should be joyful when he sees that men glorify God. Man however is not only nothing. He is something worse: he is a sinner (not only because of the sins which he has committed but also because of th~se which he could have committed and would commit con. tinually if God did not have compassion on him). It lis just there-fore that he should desire to be despised[and that he should rejoice when he is ill treated by mefl. Sentiments of this nature must be unshakeable and deeply implanted in the soul of a religious person. Nevertheless, this per-son must realise also that although man is a, lnothing and moreover subject to every sin, Jesus Christ lias redeemed him through His mercy freely given; He h~s saved him and clothed him with Himself in such a maqner that the Christian bears the adornments of Jesus Christ. These are more or less rich and precious according io the abun-dance of virtues, of merits, and of grace poss,essed by the Christian. A man who finds himself adorned in this man-ner is indeed mad if this causes pride in him. On the other hand, if he realises that all these treasures are given to him freely and through no merit of his own, he will humble himself and attribute to God alone dhe glory of them without usurping for himself even the sdaallest part of that glory. Yet, just as God has given to man theset'reasures of v~rtue and of grace through a wholly gratmtous love, so also He makes h~m a paruc~pator of H~s own glory. Once more, though, man must not consider this glo',ry which is g~ven to him as his own but as belonging to Jisus Christ 4, Three Questions VOLUMF 22~ 1963 4. 4. ÷ Antonio Rosmini REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS who, through His mercy, has wished to pour it out upon those who believe in Him, and to allow them a share it. With all this well understood, we can formulate certain rules which enable us to unite a desire of perfecting onr works of charity with detachment from self-esteem and, moreover, with a sincere desire of contempt (a most pre-cious thing). The rules are the following. First Rule. Generally speaking we must not give any occasion for contempt, at least through our own fault. When, despite this, we are belittled~ we must receive our humiliation with joy as something precious; we must thank God for it without fearing that it will damage our works of charity because, even if some damage does re-sult from it, this is desired by the Lord for His own ends. We ought not to turn away from it but trust in Provi-dence which will know how to obtain greater good h'om the immediate evil. Second Rule. We must never do anything whatever to gain praise from men. To do so is a most despicable act. When praise doescome of its own accord, we must at-tribute it to Jesus Christ to whom alone it belongs; we must, for our part, fear it as a danger and take precau-tions against it by internal acts of humility and contempt of ourselves; we must protest that we do not want to re-ceive it as a part of our reward. After this, if we find that praise is useful towards the perfection of our works of charity, we can take pleasure in it provided that this pleasure concerns the perfection of charity. We must not refer it simply to ourselves and we must be careful that no feeling of vanity or pride arise from it. On the con-trary, after we have received praise we should prepare ourselves for greater humiliation, persuaded that praise has made us no better than we were before. Third Rule. When we realise that the praise has been exaggerated, we should be displeased because this is con-trary to truth and justice. We should attribute it to the large heart of the one who gives it. Fourth Rule. In order to know whether we are really detached ourselves, we must see if we are glad when others are praised. You especially must ask yourselves whether you rejoice when praise is given to your sisters. Even the very smallest dislike or jealousy on this account would be a very great defect. You must be generous with others but especially with your sisters; you must consider their virtues far more than their vices; and you must try to maintain, by just means always, the esteem which others give them. Everyone must be ready to turn praise away from herself and see that it goes instead to her sis-ters. Each one must wish to be first with the work in hand and the last to be praised. This is not a dit~icult thing when a person considers his own defects and the virtues of others; when he no longer judges or condemns the defects of others; when he leaves ~ll judgment to God to whom alone it belongs; when he puts into prac-tice the lesson which Jes.us Christ tau :ht with these words: "Do not judge and you will not be judged. In fact, exposing oneself to the danger of j, " " one's brethern is the same as doing tlztdging wrongly ¯Therefore, in order not to be in danger o~ em an injury. lnj"us ¯uce against them, one must abstain [croom mevitetrinyg d aen-finitive judgment which may harm them. tions as the answers occurred to me. I hope that, if you meditate and do all this, you ever more dear to God and assure for your mortal crown. Your most affectionate fat~ Filth Rule. We must never speak of th ings for which we can be praised-~even the world considers this wrong. Moreover, although we ought not to bl'ame ourselves without good motives, nevertheless we ought to strive to cover up our virtues as far as we can andI to speak con-temptuously of ourselves sometimes provided so with sincerity This i . ¯ ~ .we can do you are speaking with yo~u rp rsaislsteewrso orrm wy iethspl et~cmerlsloyn ws h"en wh.om you are friendly, provided, once mo~, that itwl~tahs a s~ncere foundation. My dear sisters in Christ, I have replied t.o your ques- ,n our Lord will become seives an lin-er in Christ, A.R. ÷ Three Questions VOLU~ ~:,, SISTER JEAN DE MILAN, S.G.C. Toward Greater Maturity ÷ ÷ Sister Jean de Mi-lan, S.G.C., teaches psychology at Rivier College; Nashua, New Hampshire. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 518 The compatibility of neurosis and religion has re-ceived considerable attention in the psychological litera-ture of the last. thirty years. It is argued that sanctity re-quires a certain integrity in the psychic order,1 that man's struggle for perfection is directly proportionate to his mental equilibrium.2 There is no doubt, then, as to the importance of mental health in religious life where men and women consecrate themselves to God by vows to practice the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Religious commit themselves to community living and they depend mostly on one another for the works of the community and for companionship. It takes only elemental charity to prompt one to look into the dynamics of a neurosis in search of the elements incom-patible with a religious life. It is now an accepted fact that without being diagnosed psychoneurotics everyone exhibits neurotic symptoms at irregular intervals. It will be the purpose of this paper to identify these neurotic traits and to suggest measures within the framework of a religious life which can help to attenuate if not to eradicate the troublesome symptoms. The paper will be developed along twelve characteris-tics listed by Schneiders as typical of neurotic person-alities: immaturity and sensitivity, self-centeredness, un-realistic ego ideal, rigidity and anxiety, isolation, ag-gression against self, mental conflict, lack of control, sug-gestibility, irresponsibility, lack of sense of humor, and emotional instability,s These traits can be found in many people including religious; it is only when they become x Jordan Aumann, "Can Neurotics Be Saints?" Cross and Crown, v. 5 (1953), pp. 458-59. s Robert Meskunas, "Sanity and Sanctity: An Inquiry into the Compatibility of Neurosis and Sanctity," Bulletin o] the Guild o] Catholic Psychiatrists, v. 7 (October, 1960), p. 248. s Alexander A. Schneiders, Personal Adjustment and Mental Health (New York: Rinehart, 1955), pp. 390-95. a consistent and persistent pattern that/one speaks of a neurotic personality. As a type of adjustment, it is in-adequate and it represents an meffioent and unwhole-some effort to meet the demands and rdsponsibilities of daily living. / 1. Immaturity,and Sensitivity The neurotics immaturity makes allI problems and frustrations loom large and menacing, IThis tendency, often paired with regression, connotes not only loss mature habits of behavior but a consequ~ent progressive inadequacy of response. The neurotic be.comes decreas-ingly able to meet the ordinary demands for social living and begins to withdraw from acuve part~opauon, m group acuwty. He does not master hfe ~ut expects life to look after him. He is unusually sensitive to comments concerning himself and cannot tolerate/any form criticism. His sensitivity makes the stresses~ and threats of reality almost unbearable¯ Religious life favors the cultivation of a/Christianper-sonality through the development of a perfect life---~ne exquisitely balanced, of noble service to ohe's neighbor, a life most happily modeled on Christ Hi~aself. In lead-ing to spiritual maturity, religious life de~aands of one constant and close personal contacts in theI common life which comprises factors capable of actualizing the po-tentialities of the individual. To be a constructive and mature power, the individual personality ]nust exercise itself through activity upon others. Religious who can be characterized by "immaturity and sensitivity" are likely to be living in a sElf-contained world. They have refused to walk through the doors swinging outward where the self can be ektended and actualized. 2. Self-Centeredness Neuroticism is characterized by a life which is, in some respects, self-centered. It is ~mmatunty s firs.t ally. The neurotic makes his ego the center of the universe; good is what is good for the ego, bad only what unpleasant to it. Menninger, a renowned psychiatrist, b~lieves that Christ Himself laid down one of the pnnople~s of mental health that is now recognized as of paramo,unt impor-tance. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all quoted Christ when they said: "For whosoever will save his life s~all lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake will save it." What better can condense the attributes of a mature per-sonality? "Some men can love others enough~ to derive ¯ more satisfaction from that than from being lo~ved them-selves. It is still a magnificent precept. If you can follow VOLUME 22, 1963 ,519 it, you will never have to make a date with a psychia-trist." 4 Religious life, because of its theocentric plan, teaches a person to surmount his egocentricity. It also provides a basis for satisfactory interpersonal relations and cha:r-ity toward fellow men in the fatherhood of God instead of in changing human sentiments.5 The spirit of self-abnegation and self-denial is fundamental to the re-ligious life. Religious are called to share one mind, one heart, one life, one love in Christ. Their social service is motivated by the love of God in the neighbor. Self-love, then, tends to decrease as a function of one's love. for others. The paradox of a self-centered religious be-comes a serious indictment. + + + Sister Jean de Milan, S.G.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 3. Unrealistic Ego Ideal The neurotic harbors an almost pathological ego ideal which prevents him from achieving a realistic attitude toward the issues and problems of daily life. His goal is a purely idealized and often artificial one. The ego ideal, the self one wants to become, may take the form of an ideal of personal conduct or it may be identified with certain desired accomplishments. The purpose of the ideal is to bring about identification with it in view of self-actualization. It emphasizes the forward movement or activity that is characteristic of living or-ganisms. The personal pattern of tendencies is projected into the future. This orientation toward future goals is commonly accepted by psychologists as a mark of matu-rity. Obviously, it reaches its highest perfection in re-ligion where man is oriented toward his ultimate goal.e Religion aims primarily at bringing persons closer to God, and by doing so it may secondarily promote their mental health. When a person believes that God assists him in a very personal way, life's perplexities and emo-tional crises become relatively unimportant. With such a clear-eyed notion of God, of His claims on the indi-vidual and His plans for him, the religious has a reliable and stable framework upon which to build a plan of life. Religion is the supreme moral virtue dominating his interior life and his relations to other human beings, and the religious view of life becomes the philosophy which dominates both thought and conduct.7 Such a man is strengthened by the sense of his own personal dignity. ' Schneiders, Personal Adjustment, p. 160. ~ James H. VanderVeldt and Robert P. Odenwald, Psychiatry and Catholicism (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1952), p. 185. e James E. Royce, Personality and Mental Health (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1955), p. 277. ~ Thomas Verner Moore, Personal Mental Hygiene (New York: Grune and Stratton, 1944), p. 236. A religious has only to gauge his serentty to evaluate himself on this trait. 4. Rigidity and Anxiety The neurotic's rigidity and anxiety d, not allow ~him to adapt to changing situations. Flexibility, suppleness, and malleability are the signs of life. I Rigidity, rigor mortis, is the sign of death. Such is the sta'te of the person who lacks malleability, whose personali~,y is excessively rigid'S Fear and anxiety, the very core of neurosis, are emo-tions which generally assume a rather egoistic character. It is well known and readily accepted thatldiffuasnexiety is reduced in the neurotic by the development of somatic symptomatology, exther phys~ogentc or psychogemc ~n nature. The physical symptoms then bdcome ways of structuring the anxiety¯ Anxiety may result from dejection flowing from one's inabilityto realize his ambitions; it maylbe due to in-jured vanity. There are surprisingly few neurotics' among people who are genuinely humble. Real Ihumil!ty is a prophylaxis against the anxieties one encounters ~n every day human interaction, for the truly huml~le person not only recognizes his own weaknesses and limperfections but he remains peaceful when his deficiencies are recog-nized by others also.9 One who has consecrated himself to God by religious vows is officially the spouse of Christ. Bu~ one can be officially the bride of Christ without having made in reality a complete sacrifice of himself in which his will is identified with and absorbed in the will of God, or without having attained to that psychologtcal state that St. John of the Cross designates as "spiritual ,matrimony." This state results in a cessation of all anxiety and a men-tal state of peace and delightA0 It is quitd remarkable how religious experiences tend to the moral perfectton of the one who has them. They give him a be~ter mode of adjustment in his relations to other humanl beings and a spiritualized conception of the nature of t~ials. 5. Isolation There is a certain amount of hostility in .he neurotic make-up coupled wtth tnabthty to get along w~th others. The psychoneurotm ts essenually a maladjusted personal- 8 Charles J. D. Corcoran, "Types Suited or Unsuited for Religious Vocation," Proceedings o] the Eighth Annual Convocation o[ the Vocation Institute (Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press, 1955), p. 33. 0 Raphael C. McCarthy, Sa]eguarding Mental Health! (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1937), p. 253. lOThomas Verner Moore, The Driving Forces o[ H~man Nature (New York: Grune and Stratton, 1948), pp. 421-22. ÷ ÷ ÷ Maturity VOLUME 22, 1963 521 4. Sister lean de Milan, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ity and the victim of a bad system of mental habits. isolation results from a group of defense reactions, in-cluding primarily the fundamental biological reactions of defense and avoidance. The neurotic withdraws from his social group and becomes a nuisance even unto him-self. Man is a social being whose ultimate destiny is bound up with his observance of the great commandment dual charity. His perfection as a person is analogous to that of a seed which, to bear fruit, must grow outside of of itself. Religious growth in perfection can be measured in terms of one's serviceability to and influence on others. A life in the service of God and man, a wholehearted de-votion to the ideal of religious life, appears as the realiza-tion of our friendship with God. The profound feeling of loneliness and sense of isolation one experiences oc-casionally can be cured by a sincere trust in God, our friend. 6. Aggression Against Sell Neurotics are characterized by a great deal of petulance, annoyance with others, sensitivity to their at-titudes and behavior, readiness to quarrel and to find fault, and so on. Self-hatred as well as hatred of reality underlies both the spiritual and emotional disturbance. Aggression against self flows from conceited pride which has a twofold weakening effect: one of walling up its victim from reality and the other of making him super-sensitive to anything that might be construed to indicate a belittling attitude on the part of others,ix Running through all these neurotic ups and downs is a thread of chronic dissatisfaction and hopelessness which pre:;ents the eternal problem of "to be or not to be." The neurotic tries to evade the problem but no evasion is possible. He goes on unhappy and feeling offended and disregarded while it is within his power to modify, change, develop, and perfect his attitudes of mind, his emotional reac-tions, and the habits that fall under the competence of the will. It may call for the adoption of a new plan of life. Religious life, by having one strive towards the per-fection of a Christian personality, calls for a conscious development along the lines of private and social con-duct. Weekly confession is productive of a healthy ac-ceptance of one's shortcomings without introspective brooding. One is helped to come to a realistic acknowl-edgement of one's place, one's assets and liabilities, and one's dignity and dependence on God. Meditation is also a great promoter of insight. n James A. Magner, Personality and $uccessIul Living (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1945), p. 44. Mental Conflict Since it is the nature of conflict to pull the organism in different directions at the same time, deep-seated neurotic conflict is bound to disrupt the organization of personality. In the concept of. conflictI the conscience principle is of supreme importance; for it often happens that there is no real conflict between desire and its mere physical fulfillment, or between desire a~d one's sense of expediency, but that it is mainly and al~ove all between desire and the sense of duty. When impulse and fear are in conflict, the neurotic tries to resolve the conflict not by cont.trolling the im-pulse but instead by evasion and decep, uon. The fear results in behavior which seeks grauficauon while trying to keep punishment from occurring; thits strategy com-monly involves secrecy and falsehood. Th~ neurotic seeks to avoid social disapproval, but his conscle, nce hurts him. Attempts at repression may be unsuccessful and the in-dividual may resort to neurotic symptoms. Rehg~on, by reason of its experiences, behefs, and prac-uces, ~s eminently stated to the reducuon of damagxng conflict, feelings, and frustrations. It constantly reminds one of the intrinsic value and dignity of man, and of the fact that he is created to the image and likeness of God; there is no better way to offset the traumatic effects of in-feriority and the feeling of personal worthl~essness. There can be no more solid anchor than trust in! divine provi-dence and in the belief of His personal interest in each of His creatures. Conformity to the will of th~ all-wise God makes life's sorrows and fears bearable. Whlen a religious weakens under the burden of mental conflitcts, it will be wise for him to work out the debits and credits of his conduct in terms of self-will and will of G~d. 8. Lack of Control When the emotions are chronically ou~[ of control, some degree of neurosis exists. There is no neurosis with-out some evidence of failure in control an~t integrative functions. Integration presupposes wisdom ~in the intel-lect and character in the will--a scale of lvalues, self-knowledge, and habits of self-control. Most o,[ the neurot-ics are recruited among those whose will power is undeveloped. Stability amid the ups and downs of emotional moods is essential to both physical and mental heal~.h. Here the virtues of fortitude and temperance play their part. Re-ligion gives moral principles with a bac,king which makes them easier to hold onto when the going is hard. Meditation, a daily spiritual exercise for all religious, Moore, Mental Hygiene, p. 306. 4. Maturity VOLUME 22, 1963 ÷ ÷ $i~tet lean d~ Milan, $.G.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 524 readjusts their thinking to a proper sense of values. Be-sides, one is not allowed to elude the dynamics of grace for any considerable time when one truly lives his re. ligious life. 9. Suggestibility Suggestibility is closely linked with emotional im-maturity and harmful dependency. The suggestible neu-rotic is controlled by an idea or by someone else rather than by himself. His want of self-confidence makes him dependent upon others so that he leans on their judg-ments and readily yields to suggestion. He is vacillating in his purposes, uncertain in his opinions, fearful of re-sponsibility, and reluctant to assume the initiative in any activity. Such feelings batter at a person's mental in-tegrity until it is weakened or destroyed.13 Suggestibility resembles "lack of control" inasmuch as it implies lack of integration. The greater one's erno-tional vulnerability, the greater will be the predisposition to neurotic reactions. No doubt the neurotic is happier with his neurosis than he would be without it in view of all the circumstances external and internal as he per-ceives them; however, he lacks the happiness of an inte-grated personality. What VanderVeldt said of religion can be said of re-ligious life: "The condition for the mental health value of religion is that people truly live their religion.TM Perhaps not all people who are supposed to be religious and become neurotic have made their religious convic-tions an integral part of their lives. 10. Irresponsibility Sense of responsibility is the realization that one has certain duties and obligations to fulfill and the deter-mination to fulfill them to the best of one's abilities. Sense of responsibility and the willingness to accept obli-gations are dependent to a great extent on maturity. The comparison is often made of a neurosis being a closed door that bars dyn~imic development for the neu-rotic. If the doors of the neurotic hell are locked from the inside, the psychotherapist can only help the patient find the key. This is not an easy task as the neurotic pa-tient clings to his symptoms even though he is disturbed by them and seeks psychiatric help. The neurosis is a way of life that is pleasant to the neurotic, especially when he is able to manipulate the environment to meet his selfish needs. The ability to assume responsibility is in large part a McCarthy, SaIeguarding Mental Health, p. 266. VanderVeldt and Odenwald. Psychiatry and Catholicism, p. 193. matter of moral courage¯ One who has honest religious convicuons feels obhged to do something worthwhile for God and for man. He turns aside from the unwholesome pursuit of selfish pleasures. Religious Iprinciples direct his mind to the purpose of life, and in/so doing they do not deprive him of pleasure but' give it i~ abundance and permanence as he attains the great purp, ose of life in the service of God and man. If he has adopted the religious ideal with enthusiasm, then it become~ a powerful in-hibitory force against the development of unwholesome mental conditions.15 11. Lack ol Sense of Humor A good sense of humor is one of the c iteria of mental health and adjustment. It is not found in the neurotic whose life is humorless, a drab affair d~ minated by ill-ness, conflict, frustration, dissatisfaction, ~and discourage-ment. Humor is based on the perception of incongruities; it is a feeling of surprise, the joyous shock Iof discovery in our appreciation of life's incongruities. To find these con-trasts we must be self-detached,.account ourselves of little ¯ importance, look outwards and not rewards, feel drawn to people and to th~ngs ~n thanksgxwng; for humor ~s the reward o1: a wxll-to-commumty. "Wlll-to-cornmumty ~s not to be understood as a fixed determ~nauon to hve with the community but rather the will td live in a com-munity as a grateful member of a crowd,°r group. Hu-mor should be the natural endowment oflall thowsheo seek to live in religion. The test of a true sense of humor is the capacity to laugh with others at one's self; but that i~ not all. One must discover the reason for such laughter. One must learn to discover in the laughter of others s~omething like a comphment. True humor ~s akin to brotlierly love and sympathy; ~t brads us closer together and relaxes all un- ! due tensions. There is nothing so effecuve in checking the ingrowing pains of pride as a sense of h~umor. People who take themselves too seriously need the ~antidote of a good laugh to reduce values to their true llevel and to declare a permanent moratorium on manyI of their pet grievances and frustrated ambitions.17 A sense of humor combats anxiety, which is a blight on the ~ehg~ous life, by exercising the mind in a way which develops a living, vibrant suppleness. Cheerfulness is the siga which ac-companies sacrifices made out of true love, the love of God. Gloom and sadness are the signs of s~lcrifice made ~ Moore, Mental Hygiene, pp. 244-45. xo Ferdinand Valentine, The Apostolate o[ Chastity (Westminster: Newman, 1954), p. 15. x7 Magner, Personality and Success]ul Living, p. 48. ÷ Maturity VOLUME 22~ 1963 out of self-love, out of vainglory. A" sense of humor enables one to behd without breaking under the weight: of the cross, to see the proportion between the suffering,; of this life and the glory of the next, and to see oneself in the humble relationship of creature to Creator. 12. Emotional Instability Emotional instability is a dominant feature of the neurotic personality and a primary determinant of the neurotic's difficulties. Along with his emotional change-ability and high general emotionality, he exhibits be-havior that is characteristic of a spoiled child. There is an intimate connection between mental and moral health. Wholesome effective living and mental stability require an adequate scale of values, or philos-ophy of life, and a set of worthwhile attitudes and habits. These qualities can be provided more efficaciously and more abundantly by religion than anything else in one's life. Only moral virtue can give a healthy, integrated personality. The virtues moderate one's emotions and temperament, bringing them into balance. A virtuous life will result in unity and integration of personality. Summary and Conclusion Religious are not immune to neurotic behavior; at one time or another, a religious is likely to exhibit neu-rotic traits. But by its very nature, the religious life can help one counteract the possible neurotic tendencies. A brief discussion of the positive contributions of religious life to mental health was introduced with the discussion of each neurotic trait. The religious man or woman of humble faith in God, of daily prayer and consultation with God, of devotion to his or her religious duties as God has given light to see them has the assurance of a full perspective on life, health of mind, peace of soul, and a view of time in the light of eternity,is ~s James A. Magner, Mental Health in a Mad World (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1953), p. 298. 4. Sister Jean de Milan, S.G.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 526 ROBERT j. KRUSE, C.S.C. Au in Religio 'From a supernatural point of view, th, exercise of re-ligious authority and the practice of ehg~ous obedience are meaningful only when conceived as~ participations in the authority and in the obedience of Christ our Lord. eAd::a°~n:r~ ~Vreo~tern~p. t to understand authority and obedi- . ~ a ~nrist-centered way of ~ife, we become gud~ of gloss misunderstanding In such }a situ . - gardless ot the reasonableness "a n d t h et ingenudittlyO oIlf~ oreu-r solutions to the problems which religiouslauthority and religious obedience pose, such solutions remain void of genuine supernatural worth. In discussing authority and obedience, therefore, our first and constant care must be to associate them with our life in Christ. ~therwise our discussion will remain purely human and natural and a ~. consequence sterile Attempts ,~ ~-~ - ~-,. ¯ s. hfe~as ~,s Christian a"nd relig~io tu~s x lcifaett~ ~m Uu~lvt lbnee wanaal~zffd in divine terms. To confront supernatural reality with purely natural reflections betokens a wand of reverence ~r~he g~dly way of life with which we ~re ~a . ~st our Lord. ~ ceu ~n In this article we will speak of authority in the r - ligious life. In a subsequent article we will ~er some r~ flections on religious obedience. Of the t~o topics the latter is the more all,cult. Both are intimately connected. Afith~rity and obedience are relative terms so that what-ever ,s said o~ the one necessarily contains implications for the other. In our discussion of authority ~e ~ill group our considerations about three focal poiqts: first, re-ligious authority and the mystery o[ the ~ncarnation; second, religious authority and the imitation of Christ our Lord; and third, religious authority and] the mystery o~ the Redemption. Divine life flows to the souI through many channels. Ultimately, however, all of those channels drink at a sole spring and that spring is Christ. It is He who gives ÷ ÷ Robert J. Kruse, C.S.C;, is a faculty member ot? Holy Cross Fathers Semi-nary; North Easton, Massachusetts. VOLUME 22, 1965 Robert CK,~.Ce., REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 528 to the soul living water, "a fountain of water, springing up unto life everlasting" (Jn 4:14). What is it that the Christian and that the religious seeks? He seeks a share in the life of God. For without a share in the life of the eternal God, man is deprived of all eternal significance. Unless a man looks outside of himself to a higher order, to the transcendent order, to God, in search of an ex-planation for his own existence, unless a man looks be-yond self to Another for the fulfillment of his own noblest hopes, he remains imprisoned without hope in the finite, in the created, in the temporal order--with no more persona/significance than that of any other transi-tory phenomenon. Ultimately, all religious questions re-duce themselves to this sole question: the nature of man's relationship to God, the possibility of man's sharing in the life of God. For apart from such a possibility man becomes merely a moment in time. And self is incapable, totally incompetent to satisfy its own profoundest aspira-tions. So that man seeks a way out of the maze of human, created, and limited reality, finite love, imperfect good-ness and truth, a way which will lead him to the enjoy-ment eternally of unlimited reality, infinite love, perfect truth. That way is Christ. Christ is the sole way. There is no other way. Among all communications of divine life, none re-motely approaches that enjoyed by the holy humanity of Christ our Lord. For in all truth the human intellect, the human will, and the human body of our Savior are the intellect, will, and body of a divine person. No created being save the holy humanity of Christ, that hu-manity f.ull of grace and of truth, enjoys this personal union with God. Truly in the womb of the Virgin Mary are celebrated the nuptials of God and of man. In the mystery of the Incarnation, we witness the wedding of the divine and the human in the person of the Word made flesh. And in virtue of His holy humanity, the Son may be said to render perfect obedience to His Father and our Father. "Therefore in coming into the world, he says., a body thou hast fitted to me .B.ehold, I come., to do thy will, O God" (Heb 10:5-7). It is indeed significant that because of His obedience our Savior is glorified and exalted. "Appearing in the form of man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even to death on a cross. Therefore God also has exalted him" (Phil 2:7-9). It is equally significant that because of His obedience our Savior lays claim to His Mystical Body, the Church, and wins authority over that Body. "Christ is head of the Church, being himself savior of the body," so that, "the Church is subject to Christ" (Eph 5:23-24). God has made all things "subject under hwihsi cfhe eint,d eaendd i sh hiims b hodey ""a (vEepn hea a2so: 2 'o2-v--e2 r-~ ,a) . r/t t,h, e_ C h u r c h., indeed would onlyY g uruhdrigsitn. gOlyn athssee ontth teor lhthaen dw, imll aon y." sup.eriors. The obvious explanatiofi is a~t hand: ~h:uir. Perxor" ,s not Chtr. iIsn d e e d , t h e s u p e./rior ma n be conspicuously Christlike T~;o ~.2, .y ot. even. course, irrelevant. For the. s.u. p,~er-i~olras naauttlhoonr iat s", .ot authority of Christ even if tbo . ¯ ,~ - y as the --- ~uperaor § conauct is far t~oro gmr ~asnpr itshtlei kper.o Tfohuen rdo osti gonf itfhicea pnrcoeb olefm.~/tihiees I innc aa rfnaailtuioren. God has willed to use human channels fo~" the communi-cation of divine life. First and foremost, t~e holy human-ity of the Word Incarnate. That humani,ty is, of course, "tried as we are in all things except sin" ~Heb 4:15). But in His Mystical Body the Incarnation ~1of the eternal Word is extended through all the centuries of man's pilgrimage in exile. And to His Body C~rist has com-municated His authority. In the Church~.~which is the prolongation through history of the mystery of th c,.,arn.auo.n--davme life is communicated ;,,! ,.~" .~__ t, oa. lhe Church can do this only becaus~ Christ is her Head; and in Christ human nature has lald claim on the divine, on the life of God. So that in th~ Church, the Body of Christ, the perfection and humanity receives truly divine gifts, fduilflfneess of Chri.~t's There is, of course, this crucial our Savior's fence between is --' r-. ,., r~.er ~s holy, perfectly sinl,~ss; the latter str~lYesP:~t~ut~iYn "fer~n'wnghi21.y. In the lmeantime it ~vL~.rot~uide of the holiness of its Hena ~dt. sBeuetk ws rite.~h:daelm Cphtriiosnt oin r - h.as c,o,.mmumcate.d to His Mystical B.bdy a arti~i- ~m,~e, ~sni.n ~f.un ltnaless osw on[ a tuhttaato Mrit"ys, tai c~aa]r-t i_cri, ~.,.;.~ i ~soay cann~o, ~t msucbnv eevretn. t~r,~a, ~,~,,.e~ m_t_ynstee.rry l nofta t}hlie. bIlnec naronra itmm.np ercecmabalien si m~ plliivciirt~lyg aty today and everyday. Such religious are ~unwilling to admit that divine life can be communicated to them through human channels---channels ¯ frailties which the very term "humans"u ibmjepclite tso. Talhlu tsh ien our treatment of authority, perhaps our basic need is to emphasize more the "humanness" of it~that it is the ex- ÷ tension and continuation of the mystery of ~he Incarna-tion, the m)stery of God's making His own a human ÷ nature in order thereby to redeem human nature. y our Loro resid " ~mperfect and sinful human bein¢~. . I , ~ an --~, we mUSt also alIlrm ~ut~i~y VOLUME 22t 1963 5,?,9 4" 4" Robert Kru~e, C£.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 53O that it is a duty incumbent upon those in authority to become increasingly perfect and sinless. In this effort those in authority have a sure guide: our Lord's exercise of authority. We have here a question not of what author-ity might be but of what authority must be. That is to say, there is an obligation for those in authority to ad-minister their trust in a Christlike manner. It is not, therefore, a question of some vague, elusive ideal but rather a question of serious moral obligation. Of cour:;e, as in every creaturely .undertaking, perfection is never totally realized. That does not, however, render its quest any less imperative. What, in more concrete .terms, does the Christlike exercise of authority involve? Fundamental, it seems to us, is the sense of service. "But Jesus called them (the apostles) to him and said, 'You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. Not so is it .among you. On the contrary, whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you, shall be your slave; even as the Son of Man has not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many' " (Mt 20:25-28). In the last analysis it is the functidn of those in authority in the religious life to contribute by their direction to "building up the Body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the deep knowledge of the Son of God, to perfect manhood, to the mature measure of the fullness of Christ" (Eph 4:12--13). Religious authority, then, stands in service of Christ's Mystical Body. The superior must never forget that his commands are addressed to a subject in whom the Spirit of Christ dwells. Let those commands never grieve that Spirit. Authority's commands must come from Christ: and be directed to Christ. That is, the superior must speak words which are sensitive to the Spirit of Christ within himself--words which the Spirit of Christ within the subject recognizes as springing from a kindred Spirit. It is the same Christ who both commands and obeys. Con-siderations of a purely human kind, attitudes which re-flect a purely natural assessment of the nature of author-ity-- these are entirely out of place and constitute a degradation of religious authority. Fundamentally, the superior's role is to act as an instrument for the more per-fect rule of the Spirit of Christ over the hearts and over the conduct of those vowed to religious obedience. In the fulfillment of this role, external trappings de-signed to enhance authority's position are of dubious value. One of the most gifted theoIogians in the Church today writes in connection with this point: In the life of the cloister there are still to be found age-old rituals governing the etiquette of superiors, involving demands of respect from subjects, secretiveness, ma ifestations of su-periority, appeals of superiors to a hi her wi ¯ 5°.? escens,o etc. All hould m' ,hs?lay . or w.Juter away. ~UDerlors s .,~a o ~ ~ permitted to me worm aroudd ,~.~ cast a long ~nd quiet lance at fluential, who re~e~'L~ff?c, . w~o ~re truly ]powerfu~ and in- ¯ ~ a ~reat ~ea/ ot unquestioning obedience pompous front. Superiors should oyu, inetflly i andsmeciut trhitayt ibne cheirntadi na Circumstances their subjecu know ~ore than ' matter at hand? ~ey do about displays of condescension "ro~w st o:- these ourel x , . y e 3ernal competence of the superi8or m proDort~on to ¯ . The truly l~r--- the ~n recognizes spontaneously the 7 ~ cat superior speaking, of all these trappings.i nInsi gthniisf ircea~nacred, ist pisir situuraelllyy salutary to read and meditate upon our Eord's r " . sh~p w~th H~s apostles. Nowhere in the ,ospelse~a~'°~e find our Lord making a fuss over SUch trivia, "You me Master and Lord, and you say well, fqr so call therefore, I the Lord and Master have wasOed yIo aumr f~e eIft,, you also ought to wash the feet of one a,nother. ~i~ ~u ]~ ~x~le, that as I hav~ done t~J ~ ~ ~noum oo (in 13:13-15). Regarding the matter of superiors' see~I i'ng coun~s e' l, some reflections are in order. Today, perha~ps more than at any time in the past, given 'the comolekit o tieth-cent . t Y f twen- . ury apostohc activity, it ~s'urgent ~hat superiors tsheeek i nadspviicrae.t iHonolsy o Mf oththee Hr tohle. ,C ch~ur:c_h:, .e v e ~ .s-e ~ns .i t~"ve to necessity in th~ ~-:-~'o- u s y r ~uVle-s- tw~,h picrohw sohees dd oto~tr tohvise ~ve ~rv 5nao-tt -t.hueg amd- vo¯rice es eorniol ubsu -ot uestions t-h.~ ~,k,u .~. .~ o tfLter n r~e" ulres y the consent of councId.ors asq well. Superiors should gladly reco~ize the Chu ~ch's w" -~d-~ta_g ~ersd taoi nojne gg aai~nde dw firlolimng sleye akvina~il ctohue-m~s :e1l~v,e_s7 o.~'-t~sff~ any reason w ,, the., .k_. ,. ,o . ,,o~,. l~or is there sistance and ehn~l i,g~hyt e~n-mouelnat ctoo nthnonsee t /o~eciria sl~l,a arpcpho fionrt eads-for this task. To put the matter very frankl ~: the Holy Spirit is perfectly capable of inspiring eact and every religious in a community with both a supern ttural view-point and useful practical suggestions re. arding the apostolic work entrusted to the communit, blu.n gtin the s " ' . , Far from + we!gh carefullyu tbhjee cstusp mernmaatut~ravl em, ethrieto s u- e~-'m--r sh,ou!d courage the religious to appropriate ~aoc otit oa n~ wtophoesnal ,p eon-s-sible, and in every case welcome the subject's interest and enthusiasm. It is false to suppose that ;vorthwhile l0 t0 K9~ar0l )R, aph,n 3e~r,4 S. .J . , " R e f l e c t i o n s o n O b c, dience," Crc Currents v. Authority VOLUM~ 22, 1963 Robert K~,r~u.~se,., REVIEW FOR REL)GIOUS ideas can emanate exclusively from those in authority. Such an attitude is an affront to the Holy Spirit. Related to the matter of seeking counsel is the matter of openness. Some superiors, regrettably, are excessively secretive even regarding insignificant daily directives. Many of their undertakings are shrouded with an aura.of mystery. The real mystery is what advantage they think derives from such a procedure. It is small wonder that subjects fail to display much enthusiasm for the su-perior's proposals when they are rarely invited to share in the superior's confidence. We would recommend to such superiors prayerful reflection on the words of our Lord spoken in the intimacy of the Last Supper. "No longer do I call you servants, because the servant does not know what his master does. But I have called you friends, because all things that I have heard from my Father I have made.known to you" On 15:15). What a contrast between the conduct of our Lord towards iHis apostles and the conduct of some superiors towards their religious. In this connection it is most helpful for supe-riors to cultivate within their communities a family spirit and that holy familiarity which the term "family" suggests. Nothing is to be gained by remaining aloof and distant. How can one who is aloof and distant touch and quicken the hearts of his subjects with the Spirit.of Christ? We might consider many other practical questions re-garding the Christlike exercise of authority. More im-portant, though, than coming to grips with parti(:ular problems is grasping the ideal which will serve as a guide for the resolution of every problem. That ideal is at once easy to understand and difficult to practice. What would our Lord do if He were in my place? How would He handle this problem? How would He win to Himself this person? To be a good superior demands intimate knowl-edge of our Lord and constant docility to the inspirations of His Spirit. Finally, some comments regarding authority and the mystery of the Redemption. The religious life, as all Christian life, is at the same time both incarnational and eschatological in character. It looks beyond the temporal order to the creation of new hea,~ens and a new earth. Indeed, the mystery of the Incarnation is itself the prin-ciple of this transformation. God makes Himself a sharer in our humanity only that we in turn might: share in His divinity. And ultimately our divinization will be accomplished solely by our personal sharing in the mys-tery of the Redemption. We must make our own the mys-tery of Christ's passover from death to life. With Christ, the great wayfarer, we journey each day through ter-restrial exile and affliction to our celestial dwelling and resurrection. "Wherefore we do not los! heart. On the contrary, even though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by d~y. For our pres-ent light affliction, which is for the moment, prepares for us an eternal weight of glory that is beyond all measure (2 Cor 4:16-17). Every Christian in the fulfillment of h, is vocation en-counters the cross of Christ. Justly does Saint Paul declare that we are ' always beanng about ~n our Ibody the dying of Jesus, so that the life also of Jesus maylbe made mani-fest in our bodily frame" (2 Cor 4:10). Certainly the re-hg~ ous superior ~s no exception to th~s rule. The exercise of authority is a cross. The superior shoul~l willingly em-brace that cross recognizing that only by Isharing in the mystery of the cross is self-love subject to passion and to death and the love of God to renewal and ~o resurrection. "This saying is true: If we have died withI him, we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall rilso reign with him" (2 Tim 2:11-12). To exercise authority with anxious care is the supe-riot's cross. It requires no small self-sacnfic,e. On the con-trary, thanks to the constant demands of all kinds made ¯ upon his time, his energies, and his interest, the superior is truly "poured out in sacrifice" (2 Tim 4:8). A continu-ing death to self-love attends the wgflant superior s com-mitment to his holy trust. In this context welmust address ourselves to one problem in particular--a problem which occasions the deepest suffering for the conscientious su-perior. Stated in the broadest possible term~s, that prob-lem is one simply of remaining faithful t~o the super-natural order m the face of the pressures wli~ch a purely natural wewpo~nt bnngs to bear on rehgmus hfe and the apostolate. How many superiors are d~str, essed by the disintegration of spiritual values with which they are periodically confronted? How are they to res~pond to this challenge? Doubtless, the question is a vexifi~.g one. In such cases what is clear is that the super!or must re-main faithful to supernatural values. Spec~ous as the temptation to compromise may be, such compromise un-dermines. the very structure of religious life. S~metimes it may appear that only by making concessions to man's innate self-indulgence can harmony be maintained. Are not such concessions a mistake? Has not our ILord Him-self declared: "Do not think that I have come to send peace upon the earth; I have come to bring alsword, not peace., and a man's enemies will be those of his own household" (Mr 10:34-36). Obviously we are not sug-gesung that the superior pounce upon every trifling de-parture from regular &sc~phne. Shortcomings of this kind are usually nothing more than manifestations of our common frailty in persons of genuine goo~,d will. To ÷ ÷ ÷ Authority VOLUME 22, 1963 533 ÷ Robert Krt~e, .S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 534 tax the subject's good will over every peccadillo is hardly a Christlike manner of exercising authority. The situ;t-tion we envisage is far different. We have in mind the case of the religious who deliberately and systematically by his actions and attitudes exhibits practical contempt for the religious life. Cost what it may the superior mtlst courageously resist such a betrayal of religious values. To permit flagrant disregard for the supernatural order to go unchecked is intolerable. It proves demoralizing for those religious honestly striving to fulfill their vows and scan-dalizing for the faithful who almost inevitably become acquainted with such a state of affairs. Certainly in all such cases those in authority must dis-play arl exquisite kindness and sympathy, tempering the rmness of their decisions with tangible benevolence, t,ut I firm tliey must be--for the sake of the religious life it-self. Let St. Paul's exercise of authority be their model: "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not make war according to the flesh; for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but powerful before God to the demolishing of strongholds, the destroying of reasonings--yes, of every lofty thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every mind into captivity to the .obedience of Christ" (2 Cor 10:3-6). Surely no cross burdens the zeal-ous superior with more anguish than the recalcitrant subject. It taxes both his prudence and his courage to the utmost. Only let him recognize in tiffs cross an instrument for his personal sanctification. For the realization of God's will let him sacrifice his own popularity. To act with firmness and decision seems temperamentally almost impossible for many superiors. Nevertheless, their voca-tion demands just such firmness. In their weakness let them surrender to the Spirit of Christ their Lord, the Spirit of fortitude, who has been poured forth in their hearts. By so doing they will purify their own souls and will contribute significantly to the sanctification of their subjects. For their course of action is self-crucifying and so redeeming. Regarding positive steps to be taken in such situations, it is extremely difficult to generalize. Two suggestions come to mind which may prove of some utility. First, when dealing with such cases it would seem particularly desirable for the superior to work in close harmony with his councilors. Such collaboration contributes signifi-cantly to an objective evaluation of the problem at hand, minimizing the danger of the superior's being prompted by merely human considerations in his analysis of the situation. In addition, one or another councilor may be in a much more advantageous position to cope with the problem than the superior himself. Second, it would seem a duty incumbent upon the superior to neutralize and even to turn to the spiritual advantage of the corn .any d!sedification or scandal ar;~;n~ t_AJ_ ,mun"l.ty ject's behavior Cann~, -~-- .o,,:~ ~,ul~ an unruly sun- ,,L L.c superior exploit this oppor- ~t~rn2~aYn~n~?Cf~lrC~etaer:nnce~hn:ne~ elli:k,gelo,u as s~ ;wttiteuldle sa osf tuon- encourage prayer and sacrifice 'both for dheir delino confrere and for their own . : ¯ v,--o~vc,ance ~n noeiity. This ~uh~ULnb7 odn°noe;~of_ co,urse: ,m. a spirit of h~mility. Passinl~ tiit-~rS snoulo. I~e SCFU U ' " violatioofn - - . e rChh ri.s.t.h. kpe sIpoiruit swlhyi cahv ~ohoiduled dan aimsa ate ! the entire community. Rather, a sense of cornorate re-sponsibility and an awareness of man's Inborn weakness should be developed. In some such anner as this can the superior offset the harm done y th problem reli-b ! gtous in his community. In this article we have attempted to relate the exercise of religious authorit,, to the fun-'- our faith¯ the Incar~nation a--~ -u~a-m- e,~n t-a tt m. ysteries ot ¯ .tt ttte l~eclemDtlon A from such a vision of .~-^-: . t : 2 part dn~,.~.~u ,.~.,. ,~.~. . -,,~:,~,tLty mere e, XlStS tlae real ,at purely natural attitudes will invade our minds and shape our thinking along lihes devoid supernatural dimensio¯ns Such in~r,,o:~-- l_ . - of dured. That is why, practically "s -n~e,a~k,-isn c,~an .nt.o_t _o e, en- ,- ~,,I t,e sole tr .bmee Cashurrt.set s0 ,of wthne eCxherirsctiisaen oe¯xf eirtc ~ioo^,~-- u^-t', -a.".u.[ni o, r¯ltv can onu.e devoted some attention to ¯ xoi tHIS reason we also ¯ authori"ty and ~th e ~¯m~¯ tation of Christ. In closing, we would recommend to all who seek more knowled,,e on the su~-:- - -- ,~ d- ivine Lord¯ For l~ove of Him iosj cbcotr nm oatf t~,~kenyo wstuleadyg oeu orf Him,. and out of love shall grow likeness. And ultimate that ~s all Christian authority needs: to be ~hristlike. ly + + ÷ Authority VOLUME 22~ 196~ BROTHER PHILIP HARRIS, O.S.F. The Parent's Role in Guidance 4. Brother Philip Harris, O.S.F., is the vice president of development of St. Francis College; Brooklyn, New York. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS One area of formal guidance1 in the schools today which has been most neglected but which holds the great-est promise for the future is parent guidance. Although extensive training is now provided for a profession or an occupation, little assistance is offered to the newly-mar-ried couple facing one of the most challenging human responsibilities--the rearing and education of children. The average parents want to do a good job of raising their offspring as useful citizens. But they need the~ as-sistance of educators who are willing to share the fruit of their own special knowledge and experience. Such a partnership with parents can be a.great aid to the over-burdened and under-staffed guidance department as it seeks to help a maximum number of youth in adjusting to a confusing and complex twentieth-century world. By right, and in fact, the parent is the child's principal counselor. Jusot as parents have the primary duty to edu-cate their children, so they have the basic obligation of providing sound guidance to them. Any guidance en-deavors of the school should be based on this premise, for educators only supplement the counsel given to students by their parents. The influence of parents on a child's life decisions is formidable. It is the task of the school also to aid the parent so that the young person makes the correct decisions and attains optimum personal development. It is understandable that in this age of rapid techno-logical changes, vocational opportunity, and personal challenge parents would look to the guidance specialist to help them discover, develop, and direct all of the God-given potentialities of the child. The theme of this con-ference is "The Adjustment of Young People to a World in Accelerated Technical and Economic Evolution." Par-ents possess the opportunity to assist today's youth to be- 1 This is the text of a paper delivered to the International Con-ference on School and Vocational Guidance, Paris, July 16-22, 1962. come tomorrow's successful adults. Ho!ever, the faculty in general and the guidance worker in[particular must help parents to understand the child of tl~ television and the space age, to project themselves into the future so as to determine educational and vocational possibilities for their children in the decades ahead, to appreciate the school and the guidance department's objectives and practices, to utilize good principles of met tal hygiene and right living in their families. Such a plan for cooperative and compiementary child formation by parents and educators must be~in with the pre-school youngster and continue throul~h ~aigher stud-ies. How to accomplish this will be the Isubject of this paper. Before examining the methods for peiping parents to fulfill their natural role as guides, it is ~seful to realize the advantages of such emphasis through t ae student per. sonnel services of the school. Values o[ Parent Guidance A parental guidance program strengthms a schooI's guidance efforts in the following ways: l) Teachers are limited in the amoun~ of time and energy they can devote to helping pupils so~ve their prob-lems and meet life's challenges. Trained counselors, even on the high school level, are few in nurhber and can guide only a fraction of the student bod~. Any sound guidance practices, therefore, that parents can utilize with their offspring will lessen the educator's load and permit school counselors to do more effectiv~ worL 2) Prevention of more serious problems ~hould be the aim of .any. paren.tal gu¯idance effort. If p~rents can be alerted to signs ot emotional disturbances, .to the effects of broken homes or rejection, to their children,s needs especially psychological), to the acceptance Iof their chil- ~tgi~srd.less ,of speci.a.1 talent or limitation~, then many 3) Througinh stchheoiro cl ownitlalc bt ew riethd upcaerden otsr ,a evdouicdaetdo.rs may gain insight into the family background ofttheir pupils and are better able to understand each child! 4) Parents gain a greater appreciation of]the school's program and the teacher's efforts. As a resuh, they may give increased support to school activities, fcr they truly appreciate every endeavor made for their chil ~l's improve-ment. Some of the means for translating these calues into realities through the school's guidance effor follow: Parent Clubs Teachers are familiar with various home-sc/~ ol groups, such as the Parent Teacher Association and Fathers' or Mothers' Guild approach. Such or~anization~. o ]. however, ÷ ÷ ~Pmarde Gntusidance VOLUME 22, 1963 4" 4" 4" Phili~ HaOr.Sr.iFs,. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS should have a two-way effect. The parents may raise funds for special school projects and assist in other ways; the school should provide, in turn, programs that help the members do a better job in their role as parents. Par-ents with exceptional training and skills may be willilxg to aid pupils and other parents with special knowledge and experience. For example, speakers for a career day can be recruited from a parents' guild; or parents who are doctors, nurses, or psychologists, can be called upon to address the parent group. Volunteer workers of all types from among the pupils' parents may offer free service to the school. A well-functioning parent club can be a deterrent to juvenile delinquency and offer good leisure time activ-ities for both parents and children. It not only will bring the school and home into closer cooperation but also may promote greater harmony and understanding between parent and child. Parent Forums Any aspect of child development or improvement serves as a good topic for a parent forum. It is best ithat parents be invited together who represent children of distinct grade or age levels, such as the upper, middle, or primary grades, or the pre-adolescent or adolescent pe-riod. Thus, there will be some common meeting ground for discussion. The student's intellectual, vocational, so-cial, or moral development can serve as the basis for a number of group conferences. This type of affair can be conducted in various ways. One is to have a guest or faculty speaker whose address is followed by questions from the floor. Another procedure brings in a specialist whose talk is discussed by a panel of parents with a faculty member as moderator. Parents of the graduating or senior class often profit from an educational forum to which representatives of high schools (or colleges) which the graduates will likely attend are invited for individual questioning or group discussion. These general meetings of parents are most effective when they do not take more than two hours for the total program. They may be preceded by some type of audio-visual aid while the assembly hall is slowly filling up. Sometimes films on adolescence or family mental hygiene may be projected and then followed by a discussion led by one of the faculty. Usually parent forums are held in the evening, but a week end or holiday afternoon may prove appropriate. Refreshments served after such events help teachers to meet the parents in a relaxed, social atmosphere. Parent Group Conferences These conferences are small group me~etings of parents and a teacher. If a guidance counselor or~ school l~sychol-ogist is available, these conferences may be arranged with him. These group interviews run'from ~fteen to twenty ~tin.utes and ,gi.ve the parents an. opport,~nity to present ae~r parental ~mpressions and experiences and to hear the educator's evaluation of their child. ~uch interviews have great potential for "preventive" ~ ¯ cational, vocational, or social areas. Tclo{uen tseechhn~n iinq ueed uis, most effecti.ve when these conferences a~e arranged parents a common problem, rot ex!mple, ents of students failing the sam~ two school subjects or the parents of pupils who are truant or.l.the parents of students who are withdrawn and antisocial or the parents of "exceptional" children--such natural groupings will permit the process of multiple counselin~ to take place. The teache~-counselor must prepare for ~he conferences by studying the family background anbdeI t¯horoughly fwahmosilei apra rwenitths mthaek ec uump tuhlea tgirvoeu pre. cords of the studbnts ,u. oSno motm tet~ i.sn p.terorecsetidnugr ree sbeya rPcrho hfaess sboeresn Sreapwo r~tnedd Mona ah vlearr iaa-t Chico State College in the United States. Their gr0ut~ counseling approach included botfi parents and student~. It centered a~0und underachieving pupils and involved a series of eight sessions where freedom of e~xpression was uppermost. First, students were asked to sit in a circle of six with a counselor, while the parents Isat off to the side as observers. Then, after personal introductions stu-dents were asked to express their feelings a~s to why ,they were ,u.nderach.ieving. The sessions were structured aproos.tut~.moan sK weye rteo ps,w cist cohre qdu, ewstiitohn tsh. eA pfaterre nthtsir itn3 ~th mei ncuirtcesle the and the youth as observers. Prior to such meetings~, it is helpful if both parents and students fill out an inventory of their attitudes toward each other and sc[ ool. Gradually, parent and offspring will gain insight into their own personal relationships and uriders~ anding as to why the child is not obtaining better grade.,. A plan for improvement can be developed, and a gap of time be-tween the fifth and the last two sessions will )ermit them to try out these ideas in practice. Then, th~ final guid-ance periods can be devoted to reports of success or fail-ure as well as a realistic review with implications for the future. The initial results of this technique i adicate that such family counseling can become a useful part of the school guidance program. Parents and Guidance + + ÷ Philip Harris, O .S.F. REVIEW FOR REL]G|OUS 540 Individual Parent Guidance Teachers and administrators have long met with par-ents on an individual basis to discuss their mutual con.- cern--the student. Frequently, such meetings were con-cerned with an analysis of the pupil's problems, abilitiet~, potential, and plans. However, this old technique can be made more effective by the use of some modern ap-proaches. For example, with the student's permission, his autobiography, anecdotal records, test results and ventories may be interpreted and discussed with parents. Another useful procedure is role-playing--the teacher switching to the role of the parent or the child and pos-sibly the parent switching to the role of the student. Or, the youth may be invited to attend the session to explain his feelings or position, or to "role-play" his parents. Parent Bulletins and Reports In addition to the written reports commonly given to parents by schools, bulletins which interpret standard-ized test results may be prepared to help parents gain greater insight into their child's abilities, aptitudes, and interests. A newsletter can be issued by the guidance de-partment, principal, or parent organization on: com-munity guidance and psychological resources; suggested means of helping a child with specific physical, psycho-logical, or social problems; a bibliography of free or in-expensive publications useful in the guidance of youth, of use to parents; scholarship or student aid opportuni-ties; entrance requirements of local institutions of higher education; projects for family group recreation; adoles-cent needs and conflicts; and principles of good human relations in the home. In working with modern parents, it is wise to consider the changes that have taken place in parental attitudes toward education and their goals as parents. The Chang-ing American Parent by Daniel R. Miller and Guy E. Swanson (New York: Wiley, 1959) is but one example of published reports that provide much light on the sub-ject. Many guidance books for teachers contain a chapter or two on working with parents. A recent volume, for example, Guidance in the Elementary Classroom by Gerald and Norma Kowitz (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959) devotes the last chapter to "Counseling with Par-ents." Another recommended work is Adlerian Family Counseling edited by Dreikurs-Corsini-Lowe-Sonstegard (University of Oregon Press). The school's attempt to aid the parents to fulfill their God-given responsibilities as guides to their own children will undoubtedly prove fruitful in the good accomplished attaining the objectives of the school guidance service, in saving on teacher time and energy, and in the, good public relations thus promoted. SISTER TERESA MARY, C.S.CI Religious 0 ce and Critical Thinking It is often said that we are living in a critical t.he people of the present tim . L . a.ge,. T, hat mose of the ,~, o,~L- _, ~- ,~-,: naor,e critical t~aa consc.musne~s s. .o.f. t~h,e,, ~co, mat pteIeaxstl tmy opfa rtth, efr uon~i tvheerisre g. eMateenr recognize that they must constantly adapt [their thinking to manifold new discoveries being made.~ While it is not necessary to doubt the existence of absolutes as some of I our contemporaries do, the need. to recq~ze relative aspects of man's being and knowledge o~ the world is much more apparent today than ever b~fore A new manifestation of the evolutionary ~rocess in th ha,s . ~coe ab?y~ largely because ot t~he ~e~t ro e world ~twy esncthioetlhar cs einnt uthreiesse Mpeoriroedosv eisr, bethe ~ i"nng o cw o¯~m ~em,~ u g -ne i c a a a.te c~ea~ath m content and method to large masses of or " ~eople. The spread of scientifi- -~ . ,-- , dreary the development of the crit~ic ~a-lu supginrti tn eacmespsnargil ym menea. nIss this critical spirit a good or an evil for them? than e a s g ~re Although the wordc .n.t~.osm,, often e a to break down some existing structurec ownintohtoeus ta desire apprec~atmn of facts~ ~t need not have th:~ 1 . ~rop~r meamng As a genuine intellectual effort, ~,t~s ure-sfuolrttsu nmaatye more often be presupposed as good and ~onstructive. Criticism is usually offered out o~ a sincere ~ntent'on to better the existing structure, not to destroy i~, and~is the m~ural product o~ a creative mind. Without seein~ the ~ ly as the values which he holds have been critically examined, Sister Teresa ra~"mnally acceet~d,.an~ then u~e Mary, 5 as general guides to behavior is in-ra~ her than as ng~d mvmlable principles can the perso~ be character- structor in theolo~ ~zed ~ liberally educated." Paul L. Dressel, "'The Role of Critical at St. Mary's Col-Thinking in Acquiring Enduring Attitudes and lege; Notre Dame, w~th Revolutionary Chan~es ~ . Know'ledge to Deal Indiana. National Con er~ . ~. ?~.u, a paper presente~ to a. 19 .~ f . u n~gner Education in Ch'cz£. ~ ~' v0~v~ ~, ÷ + ÷ Sister Teresa Mary, C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS deficiencies in the current state of our existence, individ-ually and within a group, we cannot even maintain our present good, much less acquire all the good that is po:~- sible for us.2 The tendency of the modern age to be critical can, if rightly exercised, open up wider oppo:r-tunities for full human existence. Having recognized the value of the critical process in human activity, we come to the problem of this article, to consider the relationship of criticism to the virtue o[ obedience in the religious life. While attachment to per-sonal judgment has always been the crucial issue in the question of obedience, this matter takes on added dimen-sions in an age which emphasizes the value of a good, free, critical personal judgment. When a subject has been educated to think for himself, there is bound to be a se-vere adjustment for his personality if he is obliged to give this up in the interest of religious obedience. Part of our problem will be to determine whether the subject of obe-dience is obliged to give up personal judgment in any way and, if not, how he is to coordinate a conflicting judgment with the will of the superior. The following examples from current articles should suffice to show that there are a variety of answers to the problem of obedience. These answers have seldom been compared so that some sharp differences among them could be properly noted. It will be well to look at them first before trying to answer whether religious obedience and critical thinking are compatible. All authors, of course, agree on two points: the supe-rior's will is to be obeyed in all commands which are not sinful, and this obedience must be more than a mere external execution of the command; as a genuine human act it must flow from self-determination to the goodness of the act of obedience. The religious subject recognizes in the light of faith that the superior has been invested with authority in a congregation estab

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

Issue 53.5 of the Review for Religious, September/October 1994. ; Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048 ¯ Fax: 314-535-0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ° St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ P.O. Box 29260 ¯ V~rashington, DC 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ° P.O. Box 6070 ° Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©1994 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library, clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. MI copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Joann Wolski Conn PhD Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ David Werthmann CSSR Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1994 ¯ VOLUME53 ¯ NUMBER5 contents living gospel values 646 Inculturation 658 Timothy Radcliffe OP faces us with the challenge of inculturating the gospel not only in countries aod cultures not our own hut also in our local home situation. Second-Stage Inculturation: Six Principles of the American Mind J.J. Mueller SJ presents the tensions caused for Americans formed by principles embedded in their culture and the ways of thinking and acting which are a part of the Vatican culture. leadership and authority 675 The Challenge of Priestly Leadership J. Peter Sartain reflects on the ministry of leadership entrusted to priests which is at the heart of their call to holiness. 694 Election: A Call to Service Catherine M. Harmer MMS considers the ele'ments involved in an election process in religious congregations for selecting leadership. 703 Authority: An Imitative Charisln A. Paul Dominic SJ examines the authority exercised by Jesus in order to understand the kind of authority we in the church should imitate. continuing formation 711 A Tale of Two Synods: Laity and Clergy Formation Robert L Kinast examines the formation of laity and clergy proposed in recent synods and suggests ways of furthering the relational process between them. 724 Religious Formation and Ecumenical Formation Ernest R. Falardeau SSS reports on the National Ecumenical Consultation for men and women religious which met in April 1994 at Narragansett, Rhode Island. 642 Review for Religious 728 744 751 prayer and growth Contemplative Prayer among Apostolic Religious Women Jeanne Knoerle SP assesses the contemplative attitude in the tradition of apostolic religious women. Shame, Mystical Writers, and a Spirituality of Self James J. Magee DSW clarifies the restorative influence that the Christian mystical tradition can provide for shame-bound religious. The Ought of the Ignatian Quest John P. Mossi SJ examines.the life experience of Ignatius Loyola as a paradigm for searching out God's will for our individual lives. 761 768 774 faith experience Reflection on the Solitary Life Theresa Mancuso explores the richness of the solitary life as living in the hollow of God's hand. My Faith Journey M. Gemma Victorino PI)DM recalls a most important moment of a parent's death for the deepening of a vocational commitment. A Rock to Build On Vincent Hovley SJ challenges us to enter more dynamically into a Eucharistic way of living. departments 644 Prisms 781 Canonical Counsel: The Contemplative Dimension of Religious Life 787 Book Reviews Septentber-October 1994 643 prisms One of my favorite sayings is that the church is as healthy as religious life is healthy. I believe that is true. Of course, we may also say that the church is as healthy as the laity are healthy, or as healthy as the bish-ops, priests, and deacons are healthy. St. Paul was the first to reflect about the church in terms of a healthy body. "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I do not need you,' any more than the head can say to the feet, 'I do not need you'" (1 Cor 12:21). He says directly, "If one member suf-fers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is hon-ored, all the members share its joy" (1 Cor 12:26). Although Vatican Council II took a major step for-ward in our theological understanding of ourselves as church in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen gentium), it seems that we now stand poised for further theological development. Perhaps the synod on consecrated life will provide an occasion to explore more adequately the interrelationships of the hierarchical and charismatic elements integral to the church. The synod may at least be a stimulus for raising questions about the centrality of holiness and the role of a significant group of members, identified by a form of Christian life called con-secrated, in the healthy life of the church. Such church members, commonly grouped under the term religious life, are identified as keepers of the spiritual heritages of the Body of Christ. Holiness is God's gift to all members of Christ's Body, but in God's providence it is meant to shine through the Body more brightly because of God's action in calling forth religious life. Religious life is not created or manufactured by human ingenuity; it is not modeled on a guru tradition of pre-Christian reli- 644 Review for Religious gions. It is not legislated into existence by a bishop's decree. Just as God in Jesus and in the Spirit bestows upon the church various hierarchic and charismatic gifts, so the same Lord gifts the church with certain members, both women and men, called and con-firmed in their following of Jesus through evangelical counsels. As with any gift, the church can only receive gratefully--and then care for and make use of--God's graciousness. The synod serves as an example of members of the hierarchy exercising their proper care and reverence for God's gift present in other members. For its part, then, religious life does bear a heightened respon-sibility for the healthiness of the church--not in terms of mis-sionary activity, not in terms of educational or social services, not in terms of leadership, but primarily and expressly in terms of spirituality, a life of holiness. Although "I want to be holy" sounds too simple to explain the myriad forms of the religious follow-ing of Christ through the ages, it is the grounding of the response to the gospel imperative "go, sell, come, follow." Evangelical counsels can too quickly come to be defined by a threefold identity of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The monas-tic beginnings of religious life clearly indicate that the imitation of Christ by evangelical counsels is far broader and deeper. The Spirit continues to raise up religious groups marked by the total dedication of evangelical counsels. But such a consecration takes shape, as it did in the first monastic groups, through various expressions consonant with a specific gospel inspiration, but dif-ferent from the venerable though limited way of the three vows of medieval spirituality. Healthy holiness in our day may find the church recognizing many forms of religious life not by the three traditional vows, but still by ~h.e norm of evangelical counsels in imitation of Jesus. Religious life has often been described as a troublesome or meddlesome element in the church. Yes, the head or hand of the Body might wonder whether life would be easier without this member. But one cannot dictate the kind of gift one receives; one cannot control the Giver. If the holiness of God in Christ today seeks to shine thoughout the Body in ever new prismatic ways through the gift of women .and men religious, people should respond not by complaint, but by asking in gratitude for more of such a gift. For we as a church strive to be healthy by becoming ever more God's holy people. David L. Fleming SJ September-October 1994 645 TIMOTHY RADCLIFFE Inculturation living gospel values It is a great pleasure for me to have been here these last few days, listening to this debate on Inculturation in Religious Life and Formation. I want to share a few very si~nple reflections on the throne but with great hesitation, since I am becoming one of the least inculturated people I know. I move so rapidly from one country to another that I have to look out of the window when I get up to remember where I am: "There are coconut trees, and so it cannot be London." In fact when I was in Chicago, one person thought from my accent that I was Irish and another that I was Australian. Here one of my own broth-ers has the idea that I am American. I am starting to get worried! Secondly, I have no expertise in this area. At the General Chapter of Mexico we talked much about incul-turation and acculturation and deculturation and inter-culturation. At the end I swore to myself that I would never again say anything about such matters. But the first lesson I have learned as Master of the Order is that of obedience, and so here goes. The last time that I was in England I had lunch with an aunt, and she asked me what I thought of Hans Kfing. Timothy Radcliffe OP serves as Master General of the Order of Preachers. He delivered this address to the Second Joint Conference of Dominican major superiors and formators at Nagpur, India, on 21 October 1993. It was published in Dominican Ashram 12, no. 4 (December 1993): 149-159. Father Radcliffe may be addressed at Convento Santa Sabina; Piazza Pietro d'Illiria, Aventino; 00153 Rome, Italy. 646 Review for Religious So I started to explain what I thought were his strengths and weaknesses. After five minutes she stopped me and said: "My dear, all I want to know is this: Is he good or is he ba'd?" And let's face it, in most theological debate that is what people wish to know! And if my aunt were here today, I would say to her: Yes, incul-turation is a good thing. In fact, there can be no good theology which is not inculturated. One problem in the church is that peo-ple often think that whereas one might find inculturated theology in India or Africa, where they live, whether it is Rome or Munich, no such contextualization is necessary. But I would like to add three points: 1. The Gospel should both embrace and transform any cul-ture in which it is planted. 2. No culture is pure and static. Every culture is in a con-stant process of evolution, creating new meaning; other-wise it is dead. The Gospel should meet a culture where it is most creative and fresh, like a bee seeking out the nectar of the flower. 3. Inculturation is always painful, like any process of com-ing to birth. And we can only engage in it if we are pre-pared to experiment and sometimes fail. This requires great mutual trust. There are many other things that I would like to add, such as the need for prayer and for study if inculturation is to have depth, but those comments will have to wait for another time. The Gospel Both Embraces and Criticizes Any Culture It Encounters As Father Thomas Aykara CMI said, the fundamental event of inculturation is the Incarnation. God, the source of all, becomes a squealing, crying, Jewish baby who needed to have his nappies changed and who had to learn to walk and speak like any other child. Often people fear that inculturation might fragment the universal church and divide us from each other, and yet the one in whom we are united, the one who overthrows the boundaries of division, is this first-century Jewish man. You cannot get more inculturated than that. At the same time one must say that Jesus was one who threatened Jewish identity, who challenged the Law and who welcomed the Samaritan'. He was utterly Jewish, and yet he was perceived as a threat to Sep~mber-O~ober1994 647 Radcliffe ¯ Inculturation A culture is not only defined by whom it excludes, but by what it shuts out, by its perceptions of reality, its underlying philosophy. Jewish identity. And this must surely always be so in .every moment of incuituration. Every culture builds a home in which the Gospel may be welcomed. But every home excludes a stranger who must be welcomed and whose presence is perceived as threatening. Every culture has its Harijans [outcasts]. A culture is not only defined by whom it excludes, but by what it shuts out, by its perceptions of reality, its underlying phi-losophy. These too are challenged by the Gospel. We can see the same process at work when Christianity embraces the Roman world. We adopt the language of the Romans and speak Latin; we still build our church on the basis of their halls, even here at Nagpur; the priest wears a distant descendant of Roman clothes; we accepted much of the vision of Roman law. And yet Christianity reached out beyond the boundaries of the Empire to e~nbrace the stranger, for example, the Irish! The foreigner is made at home. Every culture is both wel-comed and transformed. The Spirit is dike yeast which transforms what it meets. In France grapes become wine; in England hops become the loveliest beer; in Scotland grain becomes whiskey; in Japan rice beco~nes saki. And this reflects that founding act of Christ who performed that utterly Jewish act of celebrating the Passover, the feast of the home, and yet used it to found a com-munity in which everyone had a place: the betrayer like Judas, the denier like Peter, and all the disciples who would run away and leave their savior alone. It is the home in which anyone can belong. During my travels around the Order this first year I have seen how in every continent, inculturation poses this same question: Who is the stranger whom we must welcome? In Africa, for exam-ple, where tribal identity is strong, and where the Order is per-ceived as a tribe, the challenge is to make at home the members of another tribe, to be a tribe beyond tribalism. I went to Rwanda which has been deeply divided by conflicts between two tribes. 648 Review for Religious Here our Vicariate of Rwanda and Burundi is a sign of the Gospel, for members of both tribes live together as brothers. This is an incarnation of the Gospel, in which our identity as human beings is prized, open, stretched and transformed. When I went to Zaire in February it was in a state of near civil war between tribal groups. You could see how the church was trying to enter the extraordinary richness of that culture and be truly Zairean. The liturgy was wonderfully African, alive and beautiful. But we also had to challenge the tribal identities and invite people to find themselves in Christ. In Guatemala, the strangers are perhaps above all the indige-nous people living in the mountains. Here we have a wonderful experiment of inculturation in which the Dominican sisters and the brothers are cooperating. At Coban in the mountains of Alta Vera Paz, the sisters are accepting many indigenous vocations and seeking to evolve a way of being a Dominican that respects their customs, their lovely songs, their ways of dressing and being human. The brethren have built a study center nearby, which is in contact with the brethren working in the indigenous villages, collecting information about their rituals and customs, so that we can find a way of evolving an indigenous way of being Dominican for both the men and the women. The stranger is made welcome. But what is the challenge that we must put to them? A priest who worked with the Masai in Kenya wished to have a truly inculturated Eucharist, and so he tried to make it as African as possible. When he turned up to preside he found that gath-ered around the table were only the men. The women were not to be seen. So he asked: "Where are the women?" And the men replied: "It is not our custom to eat with the women." Is that inculturation or a betrayal of the Gospel? No prizes for the cor-rect answer! In the discussion group in which I have participated at this conference we found similar questions posed in the context of Asia. On the one hand, we saw that there was' much to learn from the Indian understanding of the gztrlt, the master. We were reminded that becoming a master demanded real asceticism, real renunciation, a real poverty and simplicity of life. [I was not, I might say, taking all of this personally.] Do we, who are regarded as gurus, really make that deep apprenticeship of silence and asceti-cism? Do the religious of Hinduism and Buddhism put us to shame? VVhere might one find Dominic in India if he walked the Septe~ttber-O~ober 1994 649 Radcliffe * Inculturation roads today? Would we meet him walking the roads with a beg-ging bowl, like a Jain holy man? Does not this culture challenge us to rediscover our own ascetic and mendicant tradition? Yet at the same time we foun'd that we wished to challenge some aspects of the Asian understanding of the guru. We do not expect the dis-ciple to submit to the master in blind obedience. As the provin-cial of the Philippines said: "The master must teach the disciple to learn to learn, to learn creativity, originality. If he stands on the master's shoulders it is to see farther." I think that Western culture poses particular problems with regard to.inculturation. You do not find theologians demanding that we be inculturated and adopt the norms of our society; yet that is often what is happening. I think that this is partially because it has become not just one culture among the cultures of the world. Since the fall of communism, it has become the one global culture which threatens to suck in and absorb all others in its vast stomach. Western consumerist capitalism is the culture which simultaneously embraces nearly everyone and excludes the vast majority. It touches most of humanity and shuts it out from its promised land. It sells everyone a TV so that they may see par-adise and then forbids them to enter. For me a symbol of this was a visit to Soweto a couple of years ago. I wandered about this sad and exuberant place, this great township of some two million African people, which was not until recently even marked on South African maps. I came across a school and ambled in. The children ran to me shouting what I thought was some obscure African word, "ninja." It turned out to refer to some strange turtles that are the heroes of the then latest TV series in the United States. They had cups and T shirts and even shoes covered with pictures of these ninja turtles. These children were offered the culture of American TV and told they could never belong. I think also of the endless queues of people waiting in Moscow to buy a McDonald's hamburger, a week's wages for this "holy wafer" of Western culture. Do'we Dominicans wish to be radically inculturated into this culture? Will this add new riches to our religious life? This is a culture of wealth, not just of wealthy people but of the glory of money. Perhaps more radically than in any other society, the poor cannot properly belong, since they are by definition those who have failed. Their fate is invisibility. Of course, I do not for one moment deny the wonderful things that this culture has produced 650 Review for Religious and its real inventiveness, its tolerance for human difference, its love of human rights, and so on. But I would still suggest that we religious must resist inculturation here and be with those who do not belong. But do we? This is a question I put to the superiors of the Dominican Leadership Conference in the United States last week. Even the language we use suggests we are sucked into an alien view of the world. The Prior Provincial becomes part of "the Administration," a sort of chief executive; the brethren become personnel, and instead of a love of poverty we have end-less discussions of budgets. Maybe the vows of our religious life are in such radical contradiction with the values of the consumerist West that we can thrive as religious only if we opt out, become out-culturated! Chastity seems puerile, poverty absurd, and obe-dience infantile. I also think that it is interesting that this matter of poverty illustrates the ambiguity of the relationship of the Gospel and culture. In India there is precisely a religiou~ tradition which respects poverty and which invites us to embrace it; in the West there is a culture of wealth which we are invited to refuse. Inculturation is then both an embrace and a challenge. And it must be so for the identity to which we are called as Christians is beyond our naming. Who we are is a mystery hidden in God. For, as St. John says: "My children, we know that we are God's children now, but we do not know what we are to be. We know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him" (1 Jn 3:2). Inculturation and Creativity I was fascinated by the argument between professors Pawar and Mataji the first evening. As a good Dominican, I love an argu-ment. It was wonderful to hear someone challenge our assumption that inculturation was a good thing. We seemed to be faced with a dilemma: to inculturate and risk assimilation or to stick to our own traditions and culture and go on being foreigners. Do you do what the Buddhists do or follow the Roman rubrics? What a sticky spot to be in! It is my own view that this is a false dilemma, for it only faces us if we make the mistake of thinking of culture as something frozen, stuck, immobile, like a pure white ice cream in a cultural deep freeze. Here you have some set and eternal thing which is Indian culture, whose practices you either adopt or remain a foreigner. Septentber-October 1994 651 Radcliffe ¯ Inculturation Perhaps the magic of Indian culture for me is precisely its complexity and fluidity, forever old and new. This is symbolized by what I have heard from the window of my room. In the evening I heard the sound of the music of some Hindu festivals; maybe it was for the festival of the goddess. Mixed with the beat of the drums was the rhythm of one of those endless trains on that net-work of railway lines holding the subcontinent together. In the early hours I have heard another train, whose hooter strangely resonated with the early morning call to prayer of the mosque, perhaps played on a tape recorder. Every culture is alive in a con-stant state of transformation, of meeting other cultures and absorbing or rejecting them, of remembering old ways and invent-ing new ones. Any culture which is worthy of the name is complex and fertile. Think of Jewish culture. The whole history of that culture is one of interaction, of the absorption and rejection and transfor-mation of ideas from Egypt, Canaan, Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome. There never was a pure Jewish culture which you could pop into the deep freeze, any more than there is a pure English or Indian or Japanese culture. If there were, they would be brain dead. They bubble away like Irish stews, constantly evolving. How does the incarnation, that epitome of inculturation, take place? It is through the most acutely creative moment of human life, in the conception of a child. God pitches his tent among us by meeting us in our most deeply creative moment. God becomes one of us at the moment that we make something new, present in the fertility of a woman. And it is always so in any true moment of inculturation, for a culture is most alive, most itself, where it is most creative, just as a tree is most alive at the tips of its branches. The challenge of inculturation is to be there, sharing in its inventiveness, sharing its exploration. The choice is not to adopt a given Buddhist or Hindu ceremony or carry on with a Roman one: "Do we say the rosary or sing a mantra?" We enter it as it makes things new, for then something may be born which is utterly Indian and utterly Christian. The most wonderful example of that was given to us in the Indian dance of the life of Jesus that we saw the other night. I think that this was more than a synthesis of the Indian and the Christian. It was mating which brought to birth a child which was completely of both its parents. What it meant to be Indian was extended and deepened in that dance, and what it meant to be 652 Review for Relig4ous Christian was expanded. Such moments make us more Catholic. When I saw those wonderful finger movements I understand what it might mean to celebrate that the "finger of God is upon us." Never have l seen the mystery of the resurrection so beautifully evoked. Afterwards I asked myself why. Why was I so touched? I think that it is because for us the resurrection is the resur-rection of the body, and so it is most radiantly evoked in the dance of the bodies, expressed in the stretching of our bodiliness. The dancers said that their dance is prayer. One might say that our bodiliness is made prayerful. V~rhat better way to evoke the Resurrection in which the Body of Christ is utterly transformed into per-fect praise? Let me give you another example. Everywhere I went in Central America earlier this year I was struck by the thriving popular culture. Our Dominican students wrote poems, painted, composed music. When I asked the pre-novices in E1 Salvador to tell me about their society, they spontaneously composed five little plays, including one about the visitation of a contemplative monastery of Dominican nuns by the Mother General, Mother Timotea. Here one could imagine an incultur-ation of the Gospel, because here there was the fertility of doing something new. The example 1 loved most was that of a Haitian cross, painted by a peasant in our parish in the central moun-tains. It made the cross into a via crucis, along which walked a peasant, walking the way that all Haitian peasants must go, a path of suffering. But at the center of this cross was a flowering palm tree; the dead wood bore fruit. And behind the hills one could see the glimmerings of a new dawn. Here was a symbol so old and so new, the glorious and beautiful cross, pointing one back to the flowering crosses of the Middle Ages and earlier, and yet so Think of Jewish culture. The whole history of that culture is one of interaction, of the absorption and rejection and transformation of ideas from Egypt, Canaan, Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome. September-October 1994 653 Radcliffe ¯ In~dturation new and so of just-this-moment-and-culture. Yesterday we saw the flowering cross in the philosophy house of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate. In theology one could think of Thomas Aquinas grasping and transforming Aristotle and giving us a the-ology which is utterly Aristotelian and utterly Christian. Surely it belongs to our Dominican way to love what is simul-taneously so traditional and so fresh, this beauty "so ancient and so new--the ever fertile tradition. As Matagi said, quoting a Chinese proverb: "Find your roots and then fly." The Enlightenment, because it rejected tradition, drove a wedge between our feet and our wings. So the challenge of inculturation is surely to be there where the action is, there where there is intellectual and artistic cre-ativity, so that we may make something which is both utterly our own and which belongs to the culture. In any culture we must seek out the thinkers, the artists, the explorers and sit at their feet so that they can help us to make something new. It does not even matter whether they are believers are not. And this involves courage and trust. We must let people exper-iment, try things out and sometimes fail. We have the liberty to make mistakes. ~re must not fear failure. One famous theologian, I forget whom, said that one cannot contribute a single theolog-ical insight unless you make a hundred mistakes. There can be no creativity if you are afraid to play a bit--homo h~dens, playful humanity. And you cfinnot play around if you are afraid of falling on your face. You cannot dance if you are always afraid of stand-ing on another's feet. An interesting question to ask is this: Do we dare to accept young men and women who might wish to venture a bit into the unknown? What do we look for in vocations? Do we wish them to be nice and safe, people who will not rock the boat? Do we dare accept the rather difficult ones, who will certainly be a prob-lem but who might, just might, be saints? It is good to imagine how we might have reacted if some of our great predecessors had applied to join our province. What would we have written about them after their novitiates. St. Thomas Aquinas: "Eats and thinks too much. ~Refuses to join in communal sport and play basket-ball." Jordan of Saxony: "Always writing to a Sister Diana; he will have problems with chastity." Catherine of Siena: "Too fond of the brethren and thinks she hears voices. Bad start." Fr~ Angelico: "We cannot afford the paint." Savonarola: "We cannot afford the 654 Review for Religious books; he keeps burning them." Las Casas: "He stirs things up too much." Martin de Porres: "His obsession with people at the door upsets community life. No sense of obedience and said that it was less important than charity. Troublemaker." And what would we have said of Dominic? Would we have let him in? Would we? You might think that we Dominicans who so care for the truth should above all fear error. On the contrary, it is because we believe that the Holy Spirit is poured upon the people of God that we can dare to risk getting it wrong, for the church will tell us when we do. History suggests that sometimes it may say that we are wrong when we are not. That is the pain of bringing about the new. The point is that we can play with confidence. I can play with ideas and search and experiment because it does not all depend upon me. It seems to me that the adventure of inculturation is inseparable from that strong sense of our wider belonging in the Order and the church. It is because we belong that we dare to be free. If we are neurotic about making mistakes, as religious often are, then it suggests we do not believe in Pentecost. Look at St. Peter, our rock. He hardly ever got it right, and the church did not collapse. The challenge of inculturation is surely to be there where the action is, there where there is intellectual and artistic creativity, so that we may make something which is both utterly our own and which belongs to the culture. Let Us Talk to One Another The sort of process that I am envisaging, of being creative and imaginative, of experiment and taking risks, will, of course, be painful and disturbing. It will create moments of conflict and uncertainty. One person's inculturation is another person's betrayal. Just think of sexual ethics. Do the official sexual ethics of the church represent a refusal to enter the modern world, as Septonber-October 1994 655 Radcliffe ¯ Inculturation most of my young friends seem to think, or a prophetic stance against a degradation of the body? Should we inculturate and have lots more sex and make many of the young feel more at home or be a counter-culture which might exclude the young for whom this is incomprehensible, but be a witness to the Gospel? Another example: when I was a Dominican student in Paris twenty years ago, the brave and prophetic thing to do seemed to be to give up the habit, live in an ordinary, fiat and get a job. Today it looks rather boringly conformist. Any experimentation, any creativity, will involve painful dis-agreements, dissension, mutual puzzlement. "This is not the Order I joined, some may say. And so it has always been, ever since the beginning, ever since Peter confronted Jesus when he began to walk on the way to Jerusalem; ever since Paul confronted Peter at Antioch for refusing to eat with the Gentiles. There is nothing new in such conflicts. ~,~hat matters is whether they are fertile, fruitful. Do they lead us to truth? I. believe that we should never embark on such a course of experimentation, of incultura-tion, if we do not dare to talk to one another. And do we, do we dare to talk and listen? One of things that has most struck me during this last year of wandering about the world is just how much our church is marked by silence. It is not the meditative rich silence that Matagi can teach us. It is not the silence of our contemplative nuns but the silence that comes of fear. I believe that what most afflicts us is a fear of debate. It is not that people do not make statements; there are statements about dissident theologians and statements by dis-sident theologians. The papers are full of denunciations and counter accusations, but this does not add up to much of a con-versation. Surely we should be among those who, as at a dreadful tea party, try to get the dialogue going! We are one of the largest and most diverse religious families in the church. Where else could one find such a diversity of peo-ple, brethren and sisters and nuns and laity, contemplatives and actives, academics and pastoral people, progressives and conser-vatives? If we cannot take the risk of talking, then who will? And yet sometimes at the heart even of our own communities, where three or four are gathered together in Dominic's name, there may be silence in the midst of them. As I endlessly repeat as I wander around the world: we do have a tradition of dialogue, of disputa-tion. And, as you can see in St. Thomas, this is not founded on 656 Review for Religious ham~nering your opponent into the ground, but arguing with hi~n so as to learn frmn him or her. Central to our tradition is the belief that you might argue with someone precisely because you dare to hope that he or she may teach you something. Who was that holy man who grabbed his opponent and said: "I will not let you go until you teach me something"? We should wrestle with the other as Jacob wrestled with the angel, so that we may demand a blessing. We must dare to raise the question of truth. It is our motto. In much of modern Western culture, this is a word which one may hardly breathe. To question the truth of another's utterance, is to put them into question, is to question their value, their right to be. If someone tells you that he/she is really a Martian who has come from outer space, then you must merely reply: "Honey, if you are comfortable with that idea, then it's fine by me." But we Dominicans ought to dare to raise the question of truth not because we know it all, but because we hope that together we may discover it, and so we respect the other enough to say some-times: "I believe you to be wrong." It is not worth saying to any-one: "I think that you are wrong," unless you believe that it matters what they think. It is too easy to say in ecumenical discussions that we all believe the same thing deep down. There would be no point in dialogue if it were so obviously true. The first stage of friendship is discovering how ~nuch you are alike. The second is daring to see how much you differ. The third may be the revelation that in the hidden heart of the unspeakable God, we are indeed one. And so, to conclude, I would suggest, indeed I would argue, that if inculturation is not just selecting items off some cultural supermarket shelf--"1 will have a Hindi bhaja,1, one item of Buddhist meditation and a Christian Eucharist, please"--if it is a thoroughly creative business, then it asks of us a twofold courage: the. courage to experiment, to play, to risk failure and mistakes. But there is also the equally deep courage of talking to one another, in the pursuit of truth that transcends us all. Do we dare? September-October 1994 657 J.J. MUELLER Second-Stage Inculturation: Six Principles of the American Mind Anew day has dawned in the understanding of the rela-tionship between the gospel message and culture. Vatican II officially used the word culture for the first time as a theolog-ical category in the process of evangelization.' Soon after the council, the word mculturation became widely accepted to describe bringing the gospel into a culture. Simply said, culture described the human fashioning, working, and making of an environment wherein and whereby people survived, lived, and developed val-ues and meaning in their lives. Languages, symbols, institutions, and rituals were integral components of every, culture. The church recognized that people could hear the Good News only in the light of their own cultural ambient. As a result, culture tended to be dealt with as the world out there, synonymous with an observable society, and could be examined empirically. This was the first stage of our thinking about inculturation. A new day has dawned and shines its light upon a second stage. Two features characterize this second stage. First, we are now moving from a world "out there" to a world "in here," that is, we understand culture to impact the nonobservable world where our thoughts, feelings, presuppositions, and assumptions about life take shape. Secondly, we are not talking about the gospel J.J. Mueller SJ, associate professor of theology, at Saint Louis University., is the author of Practical Discipleship: A United States Christology (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1992). His address is Department of Theological Studies; Saint Louis University; 3634 Lindell Blvd; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. 658 Review for Religious coming to a pagan land, but about believers talking to believers across cultures. Regarding the world "in here," the first great missionary Paul expressed it well when he said that the gospel penetrates like "a two-edged sword that cuts between bone and marrow." ~re can add to Paul's words that the gospel cuts between our spirit and the culture through which we must express ourselves. Not only can no human being enter this world without simultaneously being born into a culture, but also the mind of every person can understand, judge, and decide only through a culture. The formative culture of the mind, then, is a domain where the gospel must enter. The new stage of inculturation is not talking about the gospel encoun-tering a non-Christian culture, but about Christian believers speaking to each other out of their respective cultures. One unasked-for consequence can be misunderstanding, with tension as its sign. Because we use the same words, communication is not necessarily clear, and different meanings are given and received. As an African proverb says, "We see with the same eyes but not with the same mind." While it is apparent that cultures differ, we seem to have operated as if minds were the same. They are not. The principles, assumptions, and expectations set up by the incul-turated mind differ from culture to culture, and it is here that the source of many tensions exist in theo Catholic church today. This article will present the culture of the mind I know best: the American mind. By using American I am referring to a person of the United States, knowing full well that it also refers to peo-ple of two continents. I am doing so simply because no other ade-quate adjective of United States people exists. Although the American mind is my example, I hope to make clear that the method used in this article is not limited to only one culture but is applicable to any other culture. The American mind, as with any mind, is principally formed by the society in which it lives. The word society is often used interchangeably with culture because a society is the largest and clearest designation of the common particularities that bind peo-ple together in a common identity. We do not say we are "Western" culture but "American" culture. Within the American culture exist dynamics of binding and formative influence. The principles of democracy as lived in the United States form the basic social culture of the American mind. This type of democracy is not identical to democracy anywhere else in the world, because September-October 1994 659 The word democracy has had a stormy ecclesial history due to differing contexts about what it means. it has a particular history and experience unlike any other. Nevertheless the principles that undergird this democracy are clear and found in the Constitution oft& United States and the first ten amendments to the constitution, the Bill of Rights. Six prin-ciples clearly operate in the American mind which, although not exhaustive, present adequately the tensions of intellectual incul-turation with which the American church is faced. I will present each one in turn by providing an explanation of what the prin-ciple means and then follow it by the events which have given rise to the spe-cific tensions within the American church, thereby forming a kind of profile of the American mind by the end of this study. Each of the six sections will proceed in two parts. The first part is an explana-tion of the principles, expectations, and assumptions that operate in the American mind. The second part begins with a ten-sion between the Catholic American mind and with decisions made by the Vatican. The tension with the Vatican mind is obvi-ously an important relationship to examine because it brings to the surface a series of misunderstandings that are deeper than a lack of knowledge, whose source lies at the cultural difference forming and filtering each mindset. It therefore focuses the dis-cussion so that people of other cultures can understand what is happening. In addition, the examples are international in char-acter and clearly represent cross-cultural exchanges that offer the clearest test cases for examining the workings of the American mind. The process, however, could be done also through exam-pies from other cultures, for example, American and Asian minds, or from dioceses and parishes located on East Coast and West Coast, or women and men's religious orders, in the case of an international group like Jesuits and how they actually interpret their religious life in different cultures. Most probably, the reader will see other applications. This article is not about championing American culture. That would be to impose one culture on another. My concern is much deeper, because if we are to find out how to be authentic and 660 Review for Religious responsible disciples of Jesus Christ we must come to grips with those unconscious yet dynamically present principles by which we filter all information, even religious. Therefore, in order to become more modest about our cultural limits--not to foist them upon others and to avoid any reverse American "cultural imperi-alism"-- we must shine the spotlight upon the culture of the American mind. Democracy The principle of democracy is central to the American mind and gathers the other principles together to make a distinctive unity. The American people express their principles of demo-cratic governance in the Constitution of the United States; today we are the longest-lasting and oldest democratic country still run by its original constitution. This longevity points to perduring cur-rents that are continually renewing themselves and that run deep in the American mentality. So too is it with Catholics, who came mostly as Europeans, thinking as Europeans; they gradually yielded this identity to a new American one. So goes the process of culture. The demo-cratic way of governance thereby became commonly accepted to the point of being taken for granted and, even more, growingly appreciated for its way of ordering the commonweal. As early as 1784, the first bishop of the United States, John Carroll, saw this process happening and made the prophetic statement that the religious revolution in America was "more extraordinary" than the political.2 Bishop Carroll argued with Rome for the indepen-dence of the fledgling church, but he was unsuccessful; the American church had only "mission" status under the Roman congregation Propaganda Fide until 1908. Democracy was not won or shaped easily in its two-hundred-year history. The cost was often war and bloodshed, with Catholics fighting and dying for democracy 'in every war. Mistakes were made, but Americans really do not disagree about the freedoms that democracy offers. Hence, the emotions of American people run deep on this subject. It is a form of governance and a princi-ple in which the Christian message can flourish. Tension: The word democracy has had a stormy ecclesial his-tory due to differing contexts about what it means. The main rea-son is that the European (and one must includ~ the Vatican) mind Septentber-October 1994 661 has interpreted democracy through the tragic and chaotic events surrounding the French Revolution, beginning in 1789 where the church suffered grievously; even the pope was imprisoned by Napoleon. The French Revolution became an example of the bankruptcy of the principles undergirding the "Modern World." In 1794 at the Synod of Pistoia Pius VI condemned this rage for "furious democracy" (Auctorem fidei). A century later, the Vatican warned against the so-called "Americanist heresy," again finding democracy an unacceptable way of operating. The twist this time was that the Vatican thought that democracy was inappropriate for ecclesial governance. The filter for the Vatican was again European democracy, especially as it was being proposed in France. It must be remembered that even such an extraordinary person as Pius IX, who dominated and determined the papacy in the 19th century, never left the papal states in his lifetime! In fact, the "Americanist heresy" was started in France, not in the United States, with the French mis-interpretation of Isaac Hecker. The bishops in America were con-fused by the 1899 papal letter Testem benevolentiae, and some objected that such a "description" did not find its place in the United States. Of far greater consequence, however, is the present turn to democracy by many countries in the world. The forms of democ-racy are not necessarily in the American vein, but are their own specialized types that belong to the same trunk of the tree. Nevertheless, the 19th-century lesson needs to be laid to rest. With the end ,of the Cold War, while a wave of "democracy" is going around the world, the Vatican continues to warn people in an antiquated way that "the church is not a democracy," a fre-quent but confusing ecclesial response given to Americans and others who raise concerns about undecided and open-ended issues, especially as they particularize themselves in each culture. This can hardly be called a "cultural imperialism" but a holding to Vatican II's clarion call to evangelize each culture. What, Americans ask, is the alternative procedure? A monarchical form of government, historically embedded in the European tradition? The question is not one of winners and losers, but one of where is God and the kingdom of God in all this. While Americans understand and even agree with the Vatican's underlying objection that religious truth is not up for a vote, nev-ertheless Americans are confused because many of the roles of 662 Review for Religious governance could be participatory. After all, is it not true that the Catholic Church has found fertile ground here, unlike anywhere else in the modern world, through the protection of democracy? "Why," the American asks, "would people want to keep and con-tinue with ways of governance that created problems like reli-gious wars, intolerance, and harsh judgments that lead to oppressing one religious group at the expense of another?" Americans founded a type of governance where these European traits were left behind. Something new and in contrast to Europe was established on these shores. Our experience of democracy raises serious questions that the uni-versal church has to address; it is not simply an American phenomenon nor an American triumphalism, but a search to value difference in what might be a non-Eurocentric model. The marvelous success story of the American church and its vitality, is related to democracy where rights, freedoms, and opportunities offer peo-ple the chance to participate in their own destiny as believers. Hence, fianericans have a graced expe-rience that says the principles of democracy are not antithetical to ecclesial governance. The outstanding German theologian Karl Rahner wrote years ago that, granted the church was not a democ-racy, nevertheless ecclesial decisions and ways of proceeding could be done democratically. It is a legitimate way of proceeding within the church. Most important for our consideration, one must remember that there is no other way for Americans to think than the way they have learned through their culture. What is the case in America is also the case elsewhere; a tension results when cul-turally foreign and intellectually alien forms of governance are imposed upon a people. The answer is complex and not one that I wish to address here, but it comes down to this: To remain truly Catholic is to be "universal" and thereby to grant to others the legitimate and welcomed influence of culture upon my/our faith. My point, however, is to examine the unexamined starting point Americans have a graced experience that says the principles of democracy are not antithetical to ecclesial governance. September-October 1994 663 of our mental culture: If the gospel is to be truly inculturated, the question of democracy as the beginning point of under-standing the gospel message must be taken on clearly and with respect. 664 Due Process If everyone is to be treated as an equal who has rights before law and society, then Americans expect that the manner of pro-ceeding is honest and fair to all concerned. This means attention must be given to the various forms of due process. The Asnerican Revolution of 1776 was ignited because of British abuse of power which taxed the colonists without representation. In response to a painful lesson learned from. being oppressed, the U.S. Constitution included principles in determined opposition to any authoritarian and totalitarian governance and in so doing accepted the principle of due process. Hence fairness for everyone was guaranteed by law, including the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty, to be tried by a' jury of one's peers, to know one's accuser, and to be represented by counsel in a court of law. Above all, fairness included the right to information, freedom of speech, and the power both to elect judicious officials who would uphold these rights and to remove any official who violated them. Whether a president or a pauper, every citizen is equal before the law. These protections are human acts of a culture that seeks to guarantee as far as possible that truth prevails. Above all, it is fair to everyone, and no one can claim a hidden truth or secret agenda of a special process. Because the process is common and follows the same rules, the innocent and powerless are protected while the powerful and privileged are not allowed unfair advantage or tyran-nical sway over citizens. Tension: Because Americans operated on the non-European principle that peopl~ are innocent until proved guilty, Americans regard ecclesiastical censuring as a serious judgment that requires due process to be observed. If due process is violated, then the act is considered authoritarian in the most arbitrary sense of the word. Americans recognize that people of goodwill have differences of judgment and actions, but, if the truth will prevail, every person has the right to explain and defend his or her actions. All per-sons deserve this basic dignity, and so does the community from Reviezv for Religion,s which they spring. It is too easy to bash Banerica for individual-ism and not see the heroic, countercultural struggle of kanerican Catholics to form communities. And certainly, when it comes to something as important as faith, Americans assume that any eccle-siastical censure would be at least as respectful of persons as their culture is. Americans, painfully and confusedly, have found decisions from Rome violating due process. A few examples that have angered Americans are these: the censuring of Archbishop Hunthausen of Seattle; the silencing of creation-centered the-ologian Matthew Fox; the removal of Charles Curran from his teaching position even though the allegations date over a twenty-five year period (the formal investigation began in July 1979) and he had not taught in the area of sexual ethics for fifteen years; and the requiring of a "mandate" for teachers of theology, which puts the entire Catholic university in jeopardy. (Ironically an act the enemies of Catholicism could not do for over two centuries might become a reality through the imposition of European Vatican principles on the American context.) In these cases, accusers remained anonymous, secret letter campaigns to the Vatican held disproportional power, actions and judgments fol-lowed in secret, and unilateral silencing for a year was imposed on theologians as a test and act of obedience; and quite beyond the demands of faith an additional test of loyalty such as an oath was required of theologians as if the sacrament of baptism were not enough for faith. An~ericans find such actions heavy-handed, clash-ing with the deepest rights to which peoples are entitled. "Fairness" is multifaceted and certainly indicative of the gospel message. American Catholics feel their own integrity is violated when a basic human right and clearly a gospel requirement, a spiritual and human boundary deep in the inculturated psyche, has been disregarded. Certainly a gospel-oriented church is not looking to squelch such rights, yet the outrage is there. Attention to the culture of the mind is the place where any movement for-ward can be made. In front of the American public and on front pages of news-papers, the church unfortunately seems to be cast in a role where it is more guilty of human-rights abuses than secular society. American Catholics feel compromised in their witness to the gospel because of such action. My purpose is not to put blame anywhere or defend one side or the other but to point out the September-October 1994 665 tension and the culture of the mind that has to be dealt with if we are to enter into a deeper encounter with Christ. A new dawn requires the examination of how the gospel is received, judged, and preached in a culture. Equal Rights ~qlile everyone is not created equal in talents and opportu-nity., everyone shares in equality, of personal rights before the law. For example, that people are born into a social class (lower, mid-dle, upper class) should neither reward nor condemn them. Persons can seek their own pursuits of life, liberty, and happi-ness. As a result, Americans ensure opportunities such as manda-tory education to level the mountain of privilege and fill in the pit of poverty, to create a playing field of possibility based on merit. Hence, openness to the future, new possibilities, and change are characteristically strong Mnerican attributes. American children are raised with encouraging dreams such as "X~rork hard and you will be a success; . Make something of yourself; . Be all that you can be;" "You too can grow up to be president of the United States." Still, we are not naive about these dreams. We have learned that within our country upward possibilities have down-side problems, even unsurmountable for some, and that in our foreign policies we have failed to grasp the different cultural struc-tures of meanings and values. The principle, nevertheless, remains that people are equal and that the future can be shaped by our human decisions. The question remains: Who will decide? Aanericans do not want it done by the tyrannical few. Americans have faithfully championed this position and insisted on it for two centuries. American Catholics helped shape this ideal. A long-standing and troubling conflict about equality has been the gender issue. I do not think it is possible to understand the gender issue in the United States without understanding some-thing of the racial issues which are part of the same cloth. With respect to the race issue, the bloody and soul-searing Civil War (1861-1865) resolved the legal question of slavery in favor of emancipation. The painful legal struggles afterward led the Supreme Court in 1896 to the divisive "separate but equal" clause that allowed over a half century of civil racism. It was finally reversed by the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Americans "know this history and are being 666 Review for Religious increasingly sensitized to the racism at work deep in the fabric of society. The gender issue has become a connected issue where the lack of equality has been a reality that cannot be ignored. The equality of women is a world revolution that, in America, predates the founding of the United States. In the 17th century, New England's Anne Hutchinson explained religious experience through a woman's experience and was forced to flee. Two cen-turies of women's advocacy has culminated in recognition of women's equal rights. Today, equal-rights legislation dominates business, education, government, and every facet of personal rela-tionships, including new laws against sexual harassment in the workplace. Notwithstanding the many personal sexual prefer-ences that the law must deal with, the legal principle in the gen-der issue is clear: Gender is not to be a barrier in freedoms and the opportunities to exercise one's talents. Now even little girls can be all that they can be and dream of becoming president. Tension: In the search for basic equality, Americans find priv-ilege based on race or gender an inequitable, unjust principle upon which to make distinctions. Catholic life, unfortunately, not only reflected but supporte'd many of these unjust positions. The list includes the discouragement of indigenous vocations to priest-hood and religious life, and "separate but equal" racial policies where congregations were racially segregated, even by pews. These historical realities are not just a bligh't on the history of the American mentality; they make us more sensitive to our sin-ful past. The feminist movement is another case in point. Why women could not be altar servers, and crossbearers, have their fe(t washed at Holy Thursday liturgy, preach, or enter into ordained min-istries of diaconate and priesthood, bishop or pope, simply because of their gender, is not clear to Americans who want to under-stand. American Catholics, while perhaps agreeing with the con-clusion, find arguments based on gender not only unconvincing but sexist, and not gospel. This point of tension is awkward and difficult for everyone, as we all know. For the American mind, it is not, therefore, a way of proceeding to declare topics' on women "nondiscussable." Truth demands, Americans think, that such top-ics should be discussable to proceed forward and arrive at an understanding of the truth. Equality implies that women's expe-rience, like racial experience, be listened to as they encounter the living, loving God, even if it is awkward and uncomfortable for Septentber-October 1994 667 women or men. Otherwise, Americans cannot help but see the ecclesial policies as acts of unilateral power and authority, to con-trol others, not principles of service and truth to free people to encounter the risen Lord. In the church we cannot trivialize the difficulties of equal rights, whether racial or gender, or unas-sumingly accept any solution where there are racial or gender winners and losers. Then everyone loses and the gospel is lost. We have to find another way out while holding on to equality of the rights of believers in the community of believers. The Right to Choose Americans value the right to choose as an important exercise of their maturity and responsibility. The right of self-determina-tion is not necessarily individualistic or selfish; one can commit one's self to community, the common good, relationships, and religion. It even respects the right to .make decisions and be wrong. The first experience of American Catholics was their choice of religion. Catholics fought for their right to belong to their religion, form organizations, and associate with whomever . they wished. The right to choose is a most powerful belief in the goodness and willingness of a citizen to contribute to the common good. Tension: Here is one of the truly difficult tensions for con-temporary American Catholics. Take the example of birth con-trol. On the one hand, the Vatican that told people that they were spiritually mature enough to form and follow their consciences has, on the other hand, seemingly reversed itself by telling peo-ple what their conclusion and decision should be. I am not speak-ing about the arguments about birth control, or making any judgment about it; my aim is to shed light on why there is a ten-sion for Americans. People cannot be given the right to choose and then told they have no right to choose. Their reaction, pre-dictably, is confusion over the double messages being given. Americans are no strangers to disagreement, but they expect open discussion of the problems and the marshaling of all the data (his-torical, anthropological, theological, and so forth). When differ-ent choices are possible, people have the freedom to make them to the best of thei.r consciences. One other example which is not in the ethical sphere is the selection of bishops for dioceses and priests for parishes. Without 668 Review for Religious local participation by the people, the choices often seem capri-cious, whimsical, punitive, or mysteriously rewarding. Giving rea-sons for the selection, even asking for consultation in the process where it concerns a parish or diocese, seems proper. If people are not consulted in their own affairs, then their conclusion is that someone has something to hide or that such decisions are simply autocratic and arbitrary, something to be disregarded as irrelevant because the decisions speak for only few decision makers. This is not a request for democracy, say American Catholics. If, as the Catholic Church teaches, the Holy Spirit resides in all believers, then why act as if it belonged only to a few? The challenge is how to give voice to people open to the Holy Spirit. Americans desire to con-tribute their.understanding of the Spirit to the entire church and to listen to other cultures' under-standing and contribution. At the same time Americans recognize legitimate authority in the pope and bishops to make decisions with necessary knowledge and perspec-tive. It would seem some cooperation of the two ways of pro-ceeding might be a way to go forward with mutual dignity and trust. It would be, moreover, a beacon of trustworthy light to our dialogue with other' Christian and non-Christian ecumenical groups. In the church we cannot trivialize the difficulties of equal rights, whether racial or gender, or unassumingly accept any solution where there are racial or gender winners and losers. Voluntary Participation Americans reject forced participation and prefer the freedom to participate in the types and varieties of work that they choose. Voluntary participation by i;avitation has always been part of the American Catholic church and is one of its most distinctive but unheralded trademarks. In his first pastoral letter (1792) Bishop John Carroll wrote that voluntary support had to be asked of the faithful because there was no tradition of civil support, an unusual Sept~nber-Octobcr 1994 669 circumstance but a reality continuing to this day. The reasons for a voluntary church are easy to understand. Nations like France, Spain, and Portugal were responsible for the support and evan-gelization of their new mission territories. Rome had little say, and policies were actually up to the nations to enforce. The result was financial support that made evangelization dependent upon the secular nations. No such relation ~xisted in the "Protestant" colonies in America controlled by the Church of England. The Catholic church was not allowed to operate openly, and people had to take oaths to uphold the monarch as the sovereign head of the church. It was an easy way to keep pesty Catholics out of the colonies, especially "papist" priests. As a result, finances were held in the name of lay people who paid for the support of both the church and clergy. This situation, incidentally, spawned the first great crisis in the American church, the problem of lay trusteeism where laity held the property and appointed pastors. The bishops broke this system in the 1830s, and the trend to centralized power in the episcopacy began) The virtue ofvoluntarism, nevertheless, gave rise to unparalleled accomplishments with hospitals, orphanages, soup kitchens, educational institutions, and charitable organiza-tions of every kind. Most often, religious orders provided the people to start and maintain these institutions. Initially most of these religious came from Europe, with American-born religious gradually taking their place. This story is one of the greatest con-tributions to American Catholicism. Tension: American Catholics know from their cultural condi-tioning that money is power, given in support of those appeals, needs, and cases that one deems desirable. Americans feel, how-ever, that the church operates with a double standard, namely that it is only too ready to accept their money but not their expe-rience. A growing tension occurs, then, if people feel their finan-cial support is either mismanaged or used against them. For example, the recent international financial scandals Of the Vatican by Bishop Marcinkus hit Americans doubly hard. First, Americans saw that this trusted Vatican official seemed to use church money more like a Wall Street broker than a churchman. How could this be allowed? Some call the lure of holding the purse strings the curse of the "Judas touch." Secondly, Mnericans were out.raged ¯ that it was an American bishop who was in charge. Whereas Americans have trusted the papacy, bishops, and pastors with the 670 Review for Religious disposal of money, such scandals only reinforce the idea that the clergy, as financial overseers, are naive, even irresponsible, about money. Unfortunately, too many examples abound to support their judgment. Because Americans consider their voluntary finan-cial support as an important act that demands fiscal responsibil-ity, they demand fiscal expertise, management, disclosure, accountability, and even consultation about its use. That means sharing power. Is the Vatican ready to do this with the laity? How are we to configure such cooperation? At the same time, if Americans feel the money is used against them, then they will refuse to give. For example, women have a seldom-mentioned illustrious and even heroic history of voluntary generosity in this country. If women feel sexist policies against them, they will likely refuse to give not only their time but also their money to support such a situation. Americans, unlike a state that supports a church, give voluntarily and expect to be treated with respect in every phase of their lives, not just in the financial area. If there is only a financial regard, as many American lay people in the parish have concluded, then Americans bristle because it is only their money that church governance wants. To an American this message would be one of utter disrespect and manipulation, totally against the gospel, whose message the peo-ple asking for money are supposed to be upholding. Thus, in the voluntary American system, the littlest person giving and not the bulging pocketbook has to be respected. If the dignity of the vol-untary gift and the person giving are to be upheld across cultures, then the two cultures of the mind, kanerican and Vatican, need to address the implications and meanings involved from both sides. Tolerance and Plurality United States Americans live in a pluralistic culture that accepts the principle of tolerance, not as an end in itself but as a precondition for moving forward and presenting the truth. Catholics of Maryland and New York were instrumental in shap-ing the original type of toleration that was later adopted in the U.S. Constitution. It meant a separation of church and state, but it accentuated the belief that people could converse with one another and at the same time live their lives according to their own beliefs without fear. This principle of toleration, while born and bred in/Mnerica, achieved universal church recognition only September-October 1994 671 after one hundred years of continual restatement, when it was finally accepted in the Vatican II document "Declaration on Religious Liberty." But even here John Courtney Murray, the architect of the document, cautioned believers that the document applied to people outside the church, not inside it (emphasis mine). This article argues for the beginnings of the discussion inside the church, especially from the view of the particular American cul-ture from which this society works. This principle of toleration recognizes that there is a cultural diversity within th~ United States which still remains the most ambitious experiment in diversity by any nation in the world. If it works, itis because the principle of toleration and the gover-nance by democracy has allowed it to work. Tension: Americans know that, despite the best of intentions, relationships fall apart. The question is whether to look back-wards to the past and try to assign blame, or to look to the future in building the kingdom for the future. The factors are compli-cated and complex, and judgments that punish people for trying to find solutions are not acceptable. For people trying their best, tolerance of their decisions before God may be the most Christian response possible. Americans clearly want lifelong commitments, not shallow, expedient ones; but if they do not work out, then people are encouraged to pick up the pieces and do their best. Roman canon law, which is certainly not kanerican law, holds to principles of the unbreakable relationship in marriage and priest-hood. This is good and one side of the human hope. But rela-tionships change and do not always last forever. In annulment cases many Americans find it a violation of their integrity to have to adnfit that a first marriage did not exist. It did exist and they did their best; it did not work, despite their desires that it would be forever. People can live in the past or the present. Americans fol-low Christ by picking up our lives and by trying to be the best lov-ing people we can be, now and in the future. Too often many Americans decide not even to go through an annulment pro-ceeding; others simply stop practicing because they feel judged and condemned in trying to uphold Catholic principles, kanericans ask the question: Could there not be other ways of dealing with these good ends from both sides? With regard to priesthood, a priest who asks to be laicized and who has faithfially served the people of God for twenty-five years must admit that he really did not have a vocation. For many 672 Review for Religious priests who have left, even to sign such a statement is at the cost of personal integrity. It is not true that they did not have a voca-tion to serve as a priest those many years. IA~hen married men become deacons, they do not renounce their married vocation. Cannot, Americans say, vocations be not eternal but changeable calls from God to be and go in other directions? If not, where would Abraham be? Francis of Assisi? Ignatius of Loyola? Mother Teresa? In a related issue of confusion, Americans ask why mar-ried Anglican priests who are trained and lived years in another tradition can become married Roman Catholic priests, while faith-ful Roman Catholic priests who live and love the Catholic tradi-tion want to marry but cannot? Is it necessary because of law to pursue and establish blame such that one person is a "winner" at the expense of another as a "loser"? Americans recognize that vocations can be forever, and people desire this; but life and rela-tionships change. When they do, the conflict for the Vatican becomes maintaining a principle of life commitment, while the conflict for Americans is to recognize change that they might not understand and yet not judge but encourage the person to find God in these changed circumstances. When faithful people's integrity is violated, there might be other ways to understand and deal with these issues. To understand where God is may require learning the culture of the mind. Conclusion These six principles are not meant to exhaust the profile of the American mind. They are, however, six principles that operate within the culture and are formative in how Americans think, live the gospel message, and act in the public domain. A new day has dawned as the second stage of inculturation is taking shape. It is a stage that focuses upon the inner world of culture which forms and filters our understanding. There is no other way for Americans to live. To be in a culture is to be fundamentally influ-enced by it, and Americans are trying to be faithful to the total demands of the gospel message. The way people think, therefore, is not the end point but a starting point. It is only by examining our mental culture that we can truly understand the gospel mes-sage and neither impose one culture upon another nor assume that we are all the same. We will be able to hear the voice of Jesus calling in its many inculturated expressions. Septonber-October 1994 673 Mueller . Se~ Nevertheless, tensions will continue. In this second stage of inculturation, two areas of concern will figure prominently, and I will use the American mind as the example. First, American cul-ture has an identity separate from Europe, just as other coun-tries, even with democracies, differ from America. Thus principles, assumptions, and presuppositions are bound to be different. If this is the case with cultures united in the larger Western main-stream, then how much more challenging will it be for cultures in Africa, India, Asia, and China? Secondly, and this follows from the 'first, the church may find itself in a double bind: The Vatican governs by one set of principles and the culture by another; this often results in strong tension or even opposition. The one goal for everyone is to be the best disciple that one can be. The church is now in a second stage of inculturation, begun at Vatican II, where it must listen to the Holy Spirit through inculturated believers and find ways to bring forth God's work in new cultural wineskins. While we do not have a crystal ball to see into the future, we do see that the future depends upon a cross-cultural contribution that respects the differences in the culturally conditioned mind. We must struggle to be sure that, in Africa, India, ~s'ia, Europe, and America, though we do not look the same exteriorly or express ourselves in identical terms interiorly, we share the same discipleship in the Holy Spirit. In order to find this necessary unity of the church, then, we must make the turn to the interior culture: the inculturated mind. Notes ~ Certainly, it raises questions about the inculturation going on within the Vatican mind. See the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et spes), The Documents of Vatican H, ed. Walter Abbott SJ (New York: America Press, 1966), chapter 2, paragraphs 53- 62, pp. 259-270. 2 James Hennesey SJ, ~'Catholicism in an American Environment: The Early Years," Theological Studies 50 (1989): 664. 3 James Hennesey SJ, "American Catholics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. 93-100. 674. Review for Religious J. PETER SARTAIN The Challenge of Priestly Leadership I went through the seminary when it was not yet con-sidered necessary to teach administration and manage-ment skills to future priests. It was not that such skills were considered unimportant, for in fact some of the sem-inary faculty were excellent mentors in administration. There was simply no formal course in the administrative aspects of priestly ministry; I suppose it was assumed that we would eventually learn what we needed to know by observation and imitation--perhaps by osmosis! Even now, while I am a strong proponent of formal training in administrative skills for seminarians, I do not expect that such training will completely prepare them for the task; facility in management will come only with experience in managing. Moreover, I have come to realize that the fun-damental issue to be addressed in seminary formation is not administration or management, but leadership. When I was first assigned to a primarily administrative position some years ago, I was often frightened and bewil-dered with certain sensitive tasks. I am diplomatic by nature, but that was not enough. In a directed retreat one year I sensed God calling me to develop my own style of leadership, one that was both consistent with my person-ality and integral to my priestly vocation. The retreat experience confirmed my belief that there should be some-thing unique about the way a priest goes about being a leader. J. Peter Sartain is pastor of Saint Louis parish in Memphis and serves as vicar general of the diocese. His address is Saint Louis Church; 203 S. V~rhite Station Road; Memphis, Tennessee 38117. leadership and authority September-October 1994 675 Sartain ¯ The Challenge of Priestly Leadership During the years I ministered primarily in administrative positions I was often asked, "Do you think you will ever get back into pastoral work?" This article is a reflection on the ministry of leadership entrusted to priests, since their leadership role is at the heart of their call to holiness. Excellent resources are available to improve administrative skills--just treatment of church employees, man-agement principles, techniques for conflict resolution, and the like. I know the value and importance of such resources, and I assume that insofar as a priest is called to administrative leader-ship he will make proper use of them. Some insights into priestly leadership I have gained through the years have challenged me to grow in holiness. I will add a few practical exhortations gleaned from experience. Seminarians would benefit best-from the study of parish administration were it considered in the broader context of leader-ship. Whatever the particular ministry a priest is called to exer-cise, he is a leader. At times his leadership will occur in a parish setting, with its concomitant administrative responsibilities; at other times he might be appointed to a primarily administrative position. No matter what the job, the priest's leadership should always be rooted in prayer and sacramental ministry, especially the Eucharist. The question always struck me as misguided. Perhaps the questioner intended to ask, "Do you think you will ever get back into parish work?" But even then the unspoken implication was that only parish work is truly "pastoral" or, more fundamentally, "priestly." As pastor I have discovered a clear continuity with my years as a church administrator; there are not two priesthoods, two leaderships, but one. First I am a priest. I am a man called to accept the grace of holiness, to pray and preach and celebrate the sacraments with devotion and a clean heart. I am also called to be a manager of people and departments, a strategic planner, a creator of budgetsi' and a convener of meetings. This type of work has provided a 676 Review for Religious unique setting for nay growth as a priest, my ongoing conversion of life, and my love for the vocation I have accepted. That is not to downplay the tedium and frustration that are part of every vocation; but I see clearly that the task before me each day is to approach my work with a priestly heart. Although I will make frequent mention of challenges and problems, I do not wish to give the impression that they are the constant lot of the church leader. Most colleagues work as part of a team, striving to put their faith into practice. Most are sup-portive, enthusiastic, and competent. At the same time, problem areas exist, and they bear the potential of trying the morale of the priest whose responsibility it is to address them. Challenges to the Aspiring Leader Church leadership today presents a number of unique chal-lenges, one of which is the rampant confusion between power/ authority and leadership. Christian leadership is not defined in terms of power, yet many people view it only that way. The con-fusion is most evident in some discussions about the nature of ordained ministry, but it is also present in the daily business of the church. I was caught off guard when a brother priest once asked me, "Do you realize how much power you have?" He was refer-ring to the decisions placed in my hands. What caught my atten-tion was not his suggestion that what I did affected other people's lives, but his implication that perhaps I had not yet come to that realization myself. Insofar as what I do affects the lives of oth-ers, one could say that I have "power"; in that case I pray it is the power of wisdom, prudence, and compassion. If I have "authority," I hope it is like the authority of Jesus, in whom there was no contradiction betw.een word and deed. I am profoundly aware that what I do affects peoples' lives; as a consequence I must rely first and foremost on the grace of God to guide ~ne in exercising the church leadership with which he has invested me. It is more difficult to exercise genuine leadership than to wield power; but it is, liberating for the priest to realize that the grace of ordination involves the promise of God's continued guidance. Thus the priest will not lead unless he prays, unless he is steeped in the Word of God, unless he is one with the Eucharistic Christ, unless he is striving for ongoing conversion of life. He will not lead until his heart is centered on serving God's people in the September-October 1994 677 Sartain ¯ The Challenge of Priestly Leadership person of Christ. The priest does not lead by giving directions, by pointing this way or that; he can point only in the direction he himself is going. He leads by following Christ, and he follows Christ by leading God's people. Priestly ministry is often defined in terms of "function" (what do you do all day?); the priest then becomes the coordinator of other functions in the church, analogous to the conductor of an orchestra. Such an analogy is flawed from the outset, for the priest is someone grounded interiorly, finding his vocation and his peace not in power or in function, but in a Person, the Lord Jesus, in whose priesthood he has been invited to share. In an egalitarian society which highly values equality, some people become suspicious of peers who accept positions of lead-ership. They are assumed to have sold out to power and status and to have forgotten the daily lot of the common person. Several years ago I scheduled a luncheon meeting with a psychologist who had been working with one of our priests; as Vicar for Clergy it is my responsibility to act as liaison with the bishop in such cases. Although we had spoken by telephone several times, the psychologist and I had not met until the luncheon. Toward the end of our time together he told me that he had "checked me out" with some Catholic friends. They reported that I was friendly and caring, a nice guy; several added that for that very reason they were puzzled about why I had my job! I was amused both by his need to check me out and by the comments he received. I learned once again that some people simply do not expect "nice guys" to be in positions of authority, even in the church. Moreover, some are hesitant to accept church leadership posi-tions or to support leaders precisely because of misconceptions about authority figures. My own hesitation early in the priest-hood continues to remind me that as a priest I am to be a com-passionate, just, and humble leader. At times, others will conveniently appeal to our authority in search of the legitimation of a decision they have made. When coworkers lack confidence in their own leadership or authority, they appeal to mine. When they are uncomfortable accepting responsibility for a decision, they will add, "and Fr. Sartain agrees with it." Such posturing once annoyed me; now it reminds me that when I delegate a decision I promise to claim it as my own. Most challenging are the controversies that permeate the atmosphere for many who choose to minister in the church: the- 678 Rbview for Religious ological conflict, feelings of oppression, disenchantment, burnout, and anger. The causes of these sore spots are legion, and those who would reduce them to a single cause miss the mark in under-standing human nature. It is a dangerous temptation to believe that they exist only in the church; they are present in every orga-nization and workplace. They are particularly challenging when pow-erfully present but unspoken or unconscious. Unconscious anger is frequently directed toward the nearest leader, identified as the "authority figure." The leader must learn to deal with both the angry person and the issue at hand. The person demands more energy than the issue, and the temp-tation to frustratedly dismiss both person and issue is great. It is eas-ier to deal with someone who is angry with me, rather than with someone who is just "angry." Once when I made a decision unpopular with a religious sister, she subse-quently felt the need to arrange a meeting to tell me she was angry, "but not with you--with the church." The truth was that she was indeed angry with me, but her anger had its roots in dealings with other priests and prior situ-ations unrelated to me; nonetheless it affected our working rela-tionship. I had to be aware of that fact, whether or not she was. Am I prepared to deal with the unresolved anger that seems to grip many in the church, today? Am I willing to accept the fact that the anger will often be directed toward me as an ordained minister of the church? Will I make the effort to address issues even when the attendant anger is unreflective and misdirected? In a five-part work entitled On Consideration, a major portion of which is devoted to advice on sound administration, St. Bernard of Clairvaux writes to Pope Eugene III, a fellow monk who had been elected pope. At one point, while referring to the type of circumstances I have ou.tlined, he writes, "it is not the face of the scorpion that you should fear, he stings with his tail!" (On Consideration, 4.4.9.). The priest does not lead by giving directions, by pointing this way or that; he can point only in the direction he himself is going. Septentber-October 1994 679 Sartain ¯ The Challenge of Priestly Leadership The church leader must make fair decisions based on facts. However, our sensitivity to people makes us keenly aware that the network of staff members has its own version of whatever issue is currently on the table. They may be influenced by the behind-the-scenes subterfuge of colleagues, including fellow priests or religious. Because of the nature of the discussion we may not be free to offer a public rebuttal. When we discover such duplicity, will we let anger sour our disposition and provoke us to biased decisions? Will we be able to face the possibility that oth-ers have made judgments about us and our motivations? Will we begin to pin labels on certain segments of'the church? Will we ask to be removed prematurely from a job simply because it is not worth today's hassle? Will we lead? A final word about today's pervasive anger. As a healthy step toward growth many people have trained in techniques for assertiveness. That can be a good thing. However, :all too many settle for being assertive; rather than entering forthright conver-sation and working toward resolution of a conflict, they merely assert themselves, leaving in their wake the debris of their hostility. Unless assertiveness is marked by openness, desire for reconcili-ation and a willingness to forgive, it is just another way of push-ing people around. We are called to go beyond assertiveness to achieve understanding and forgiveness. When. I uncover assertive-ness within myself, I must pose this question: do I consciously or unconsciously abuse or manipulate people? The era of political correctness has witnessed the creation of a unique body of church jargon; it appears in mission statements, correspondence, minutes of meetings, and hallway conversation. There is nothing bad about that in itself; every profession devel, ops its own jargon. I find, however, that some church profes-sionals use "correct" words they do not fully understand. Collaboration and justice stand out in particular. Nothing is more healthful, respectful of persons, and theo-logically valid than striving for collaboration. It builds morale, insures ownership of a common mission, and promotes vitality in the. church. The gifts of the Spirit are for the common good, and the Spirit intends that we work together. However, there are kinds and times of confidential decision making which require a unilateral decision on the part of the leader or leadership group. Even in a system characterized as collaborative in usual circum-stances, some decisions must be made by leaders alone. In the 680 Review for Religious face of allegations of "lack of collaboration," the leader must nonetheless continue to lead. That a certain decision was of neces-sity made behind closed doors does not indicate that it was not made for the common good. Another popular charge is injustice. True injustice in church settings is deplorable, and leaders have a responsibility, to act justly. In the best of circumstances the exercise of justice is a formidable task. However, I have often heard the word unjust applied to sit-uations when it would have been more honest for the protester to have said, "I didn't agree with so-and-so's decision." The priest leader will recognize that at times he cannot win; sometimes the leader stands alone. He must have the resolute-ness not to rescind a good decision when faced with charges of lack of collaboration, poor communication, bad judgment, and stubbornness. He must also have the humility to be flexible when he realizes he has made a mistake. The Challenge to Generosity To be a leader in the church today is a daunting challenge, due in part to the characterizations I have listed above. Each dio-cese, parish, institution, or school is stamped with its own per-sonality and its own distinctive staff and clientele. It is an exciting time to be a leader in the church, with singular opportunities for growth in holiness. I begin this section with a series of questions every seminarian and priest could pose to himself. 1. Will I kiss the altar every day? Each day every priest bows to the altar at which he is to offer Mass, as an act of reverence for Christ, who is symbolized by the altar. The altar is a sacred symbol, whetheroit be made of stone or wood, or whether it stands in a magnificent cathedral or on a bloody battlefield. Its sacred meaning is so powerful that none of us should ever pass an altar without bowing to Christ present there. But the priest also kisses the altar. This is a very public gesture, made in the presence of those gathered for the Eucharist; it is at the same time an intensely private gesture, an act of affection, an act of submission, an act of love and trust. Even more to the point, the priest's kiss of the altar is an act of identification. He is pro-claiming to Christ, to himself, and to those assembled that it is Christ the Priest who makes him who he is. He kisses the altar which symbolizes the Lord himself, the sacrifice of Calvary, and September-October 1994 681 Sartain ¯ The Challenge of Priestly Leadership the table of the Last Supper. Everything he does flows from the altar and back to it. The kiss symbolizes his daily embrace of the sacrifice of Christ as his way of life, for on the day of his ordina-tion he was totally and irrevocably joined in character to Christ. Some days it is quite easy to kiss the altar. At his first Mass, the new priest knows the sheer joy of experiencing the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the hands of the bishop, the wonder at God's goodness in calling him to the priesthood. Who would not joy-fully kiss the sacred altar in gratitude for such undeserved blessing? Again and again the priest kisses the altar in celebration of the Sunday parish Mass, of weddings and anniversaries, of others' ordinations and gatherings of the church. He stands behind the altar, not because he i~ better than others but because he bears the identity of Christ, the only true Priest, who came not to be served but to serve. In reality, standing behind the altar is an act of humil-ity, a stance of service. There are also sad occasions at which the priest kisses the altar, when he leads God's people in prayer with Christ the con-soler, the one who knows our pain and the grief of death, the one who announced "Peace!" when he found his apostles gathered in fear after his resurrection from the dead. Av those times the priest stands with Christ, the giver of hope, who in times of difficulty trusted wholeheartedly in the providence of his Father. Sometimes when the priest kisses the altar only he himself knows the nature of the cross he bears. Perhaps he is keenly pained by the weight of his sinfulness, so his kiss symbolizes his need for Christ's mercy. Perhaps at other times his kiss is an act of the will and a prayer that Christ will help him understand the challenges he faces as a priest. Perhaps it is at times a simple act of love: "I love you, Christ, my Lord." At any time, and in any circumstance, the priest kisses the altar as a dramatic reminder of who he is and who he is called to imitate. Will I kiss the altar every day? 2. Am I willing to be led? The first and primary commitment of the priest is to pray. Whether we consider ourselves seasoned pray-ers is not the point. Help is available in the form of good reading material and spiri-tual direction, and it is never too late to begin. Any priest who dares to take on a responsibility in the name of God and the church without a simultaneous commitment to daily prayer will soon find that he is an empty well. If I am a steward, how can I 682 Review for Religious give what I do not take the tittle to receive? If I am a preacher of the word of God, how can I speak of what I do not take the time to hear? If I want to lead in the ways of God, how can I do so without assuring I am first being led? Concern for a particular style of prayer likewise sidesteps the point; God works with me as I am. But I must begin (again?), and if I have not yet begun, I should begin today. Karl Rahner once told seminarians at the University of Innsbruck that if we wait until we feel like praying, we will rarely pray. As Bernard writes to Eugene about his duties as pope, he is very aware of the hazards of his friend's busy office. Eugene has been taken from his monastic milieu and placed at the head of the church's administration. His temptation is to give himself so completely to his new duties that he has no time for himself and no time for God. He is new enough at the job to still feel uncomfortable with the hectic pace of his life; Bernard's fear is that Eugene will settle into his heavy schedule and become so calloused and habituated to an unreflective life that he will no longer realize that his acceptance of relentless busyness is not a sign of inner peace, but of hardness of heart. "It is not the virtue of patience to permit yourself to be enslaved when you can be free . Are you less a slave because you serve not one but all. ? [1.4.5.] I praise your devotion to humanity, but only if it be complete. Now, how can it be complete when you have excluded yourself?. You too are human . You also should drink from the waters of your well . If you are a stranger to yourself, to whom are you not?" [On Consideration, 1.5.6]~ In prayer we discover who we are. In prayer God nourishes us with food of real substance and changes us in ways hidden even to ourselves. In prayer we return over and again to the source of our vocation and gradually begin to take on the likeness of Christ who is our true self. We will ask for guidance in specific circum-stances; but true discernment takes place not when I demand of God, "Tell me what to do!" but when in openness of heart and generosity of spirit I simply allow myself to be led by the Holy Spirit, with no expectation or goal other than to become his instrument in all things. 3. Am I willing to be a leader? This question is more complex than it first sounds, for it goes beyond one's willingness to take on a job, to be in charge, or one's capacity to accept or claim responsibility. More fundamentally, September-October 1994 683 Sartain * The Challenge of Priestly Leadership it means "am I willing to give of myself to this endeavor, this parish, this school--knowing that I am also accepting a great bur-den-- because I believe in its mission, value its growth, and love its people? .Am I willing to be a leader when it is fun and when it is painful? .Am I willing to take time and effort to communi-cate, to care, to consult, to weigh tough choices, and to decide?" "Am I willing to take a firm stand when necessary, knowing that the opposition may be fierce? . Am I willing to abide the mistrust and misunderstanding of authority prevalent in our society, and in the church? . Am I willing to admit my mistakes? . Am I willing to admit that as a leader I am a public person and thus a frequent topic of discussion?" When a newly ordained priest begins to realize that he is regarded as a leader, he notices that people relate to him in a new way, particularly if he is the final word on a decision. He is star-tled that some people, are suspicious of him, even coworkers and friends with whom he has previously worked. His protestations to the contrary, some will insist that he has changed simply because he has been ordained to the priesthood. Often p~ople project upon leaders whatever unpleasant experiences they have had with authority figures. The leader becomes the embodiment of all that made them angry or distrustful in the past; I become the cranky pastor, the mean nun from grade school, the unfair principal from high school, or the uncaring coach. Such projection is blatantly unfair and unmerited, and in reaction we strive to alleviate the suspicion of authority by our efforts at good Christian leader-ship. Unfortunately, we must accept the fact that such efforts will not always work. %then we assume a position of leadership, some will relate to us in a strained, unsettling way. Are we willing to live with such change, or will we constantly frustrate ourselves by try-ing to change others' attitudes,~over which ultimately we have no control? Experience tells me that most people are supportive day-to-day. However, some tend to forget that leaders are people, too. We have feelings, anxieties, needs, just like everyone else; but angry parents or anonymous letter writers ignore our feelings and are unconcerned about our preoccupations. They have something to say, and they want us to listen, period. The father of a sixth grader can enter my office, deposit his anger and complaints at my feet, and leave. If the meeting has not resolved all of his con-cerns, he has the satisfaction of knowing that he has lobbed the 684 Review for Religious bomb in the appropriate direction! But what about me? After I close the rectory door, I am left to myself in the midst of his rub-ble. Such experiences give me pause to consider my motivation for accepting the leadership role: Was it the prestige of the job? Was it to be well thought of?. Was it to be congratulated on hav-ing attained an exalted position? If so, the first onslaught of criticism will be devastating. Did I assume this position only because my bishop appointed me to it? At some point I must claim it as mine or I am doomed to misery and resentment. Priests are public property. We are delighted when parishioners remem-ber our birthdays and anniversaries, but we are chagrined to learn that they also know the license plate number of our cars, the name of the restaurant where we dined two weeks ago (as well as the names of our companions), and the gist of the disagreement we are rumored to have had with the sacristan last month. Our whereabouts on Friday evenings and during vaca-tions are the topics of conversation at coffee klatches; most of the time the conversations are harmless, but sometimes they are malicious. Thus one of the major adjustments facing the newly ordained priest is the experience of our fishbowl lifestyle. Priestly leadership is not anonymous but public, and we cannot expect to disappear into the woodwork once ordained. The challenge is to create the balance of privacy which rejuvenates us for the public nature of our ministry. It should not surprise us that people talk about us, nor should it surprise us when we occasionally discover those who are preoccupied with us. 4. Am I willing to see this work as constitutive of my call to holiness? Am I willing to view my particular ministry not just as what God wants me to do (the assignment God has given me!), but as the very means he will use to make me holy? When I begin to see my work as the very context in which Godwill make me holy, whatever challenges and frustrations I experience along the way take on a new meaning. They are no longer obstacles to happiness "Am I willing to admit that as a leader I am a public person and thus a frequent topic of discussion ?" September-October 1994 685 Sartain ¯ The Challenge of Priestly Leadership but means to growth; they are no longer occasions for exposure of my dark side but God's hopeful call to conversion. There is a flip side to this series of questions: For whom am I doing this work? For myself? For others? Or for God? My answer to that question will in large measure determine my suc-cess and sense of well-being in carrying out the work. If I am doing it for any reason other than the love of God and his peo-ple, I will never know joy in the work, and the work will never be a means of growth in holiness for me. Until I embrace the truth that God has called me to this leadership role, I will not enjoy the fullness of his grace and the love that he shows me through the work. Our motives are rarely pure; we are a mix of motivations and hidden agenda. We need not be surprised at our duplicity, for from the midst of our mixed motives God calls us to contin-ually refocus our attention on his love and his people. St. Augustine begins his Sermon on Pastors with the follow-ing words: I must distinguish "carefully between two aspects of the role the Lord has given me, a role that demands a rigorous accountability, a role based on the Lord's greatness rather than on my own merit. The first aspect is that I am a Christian; the second, that I am a leader. I am a Christian for my own sake, whereas I am a leader for your sake; the fact that I am a Christian is to nay own advantage, but I am a leader for your advantage. Many persons come to God as Christians but not as leaders. Perhaps they travel by an easier road and are less hindered since they bear a lighter burden. In addition to the fact that I am a Christian and must give God an account of my life, I as a leader must give him an account of my stewardship as well (Sermon 46, 1-2). ". I am a leader for your sake." God uses priests as his instrument in dealing with others in particular circumstances. That is a cause for humility, not pride, for the role is based on the Lord's greatness rather than on our merit. Priestly leadership is a function of stewardship, the stewardship of a disciple, a servant. I have something to give--but what I have to contribute is itself God's gift to 'me. As Paul wrote, "Name something you have that you did not receive" (1 Cor 4,7). Moreover, as Rabbi Abraham Heschel observed, "What we own, we owe."" I am a steward. Vocations are often viewed in terms of "giving up." One "gives up" this or that in light of a higher good. There is a danger in dwelling on that perspective, for if I focus on what I am giving up, 686 Review for Religious I will eventually succumb to anger and resentment. If I were preparing to be married and announced to my fiancee, "I'm giv-ing up a lot for you, but you're worth it," she would be justified in saying, "then. keep it!" If a priest says the same to God, God would be justified to reply, "Come back when you've forgotten about giving up and are ready to give." My response to God's call is my willingness to give completely of myself, in response to his goodness to me. Is that not what Jesus did? Did he not recognize that he too was a steward of the Father's gifts, of the Father's will? Every Christian vocation is a reflection of the gratuitous self-giving of God; only a commit-ment that is consciously made, sure and focused, can be a limpid mirror, an image of the Invisible. It is precisely here that the church Fathers saw the true mean-ing of martyrdom and sacrifice. A sacrifice is some treasure which I remove irrevocably from my use and offer to God as a sign of my inner gift of self. In burning the first fruits or the choicest animals, I give them away with no strings attached. This is conscious and voluntary giving and not giving up; the sacrifice of Jesus was his conscious and voluntary gift of himself to the Father for our sake. It is difficult to give without expecting anything in return, but it is that giving to which we are called. Another gauge of my vocation is the following question: 7b vabom am I giving myself completely? Until I have a firm grasp on the answer to that question, I will remain a bag of mixed motives, and I will measure my successes by the wrong yardstick. I will add a postscript to this section. While we must be care-ful not to focus on what we have given up in accepting our cur-rent role in the church, we should be cognizant of any giving up that our lay coworkers have done in accepting the tasks of min-istry; we recognize their sacrifice and thank both them and God for it. God is grateful for our gifts, and we are stewards of his gratitude as well. 5. ~lm I ~villing to work through my inevitable disenchantment? Our vocation is lived in the real world, where Christian val-ues and the gospel itself are often compromised, or at least imper-fectly incarnated in people like [~s. Life is not perfect, and I must come to terms with imperfection--that of the church, of my supe-riors and co-workers, and my own. Most of us who work with the church go through experiences of disenchantment. We have high ideals and lofty goals; we love our September-October 1994 687 Sartain ¯ The Challenge of Priestly Leadership work. We are enchanted by the mystery and beauty of the mission we have accepted. What happens when I see the clay feet of the church, when I confront the difficulty of living out God's call? Disenchantment can occasion some unsettlingoquestions. Why should I try at all? No one else seems to be trying. V~as my ide-alism childish illusion? Those who are asking me to do a job are making it difficult for me to accomplish the task! I may be dis-tressed by the behavior of my superiors or coworkers or by my own behavior. At such times I am called to recommit myself to the ideals of the gospel and to practice mercy, one of the more diffi-cult virtues. Anger is often justified, and disillusionment under-standable, but of what value are they if not used for go~d? Disenchantment can be transformed into renewed commit-ment, a deepened self-giving. It is a tangible way to enter into the sacrifice God made in taking on human form, for in our own disenchantment we touch the embarrassing humility~of God, who was willing to embody his perfect love in our imperfect nature, The "self-emptying" of the Son of God of which Paul wrote to the Philippians, is the voluntary "disenchantment of God," who took on our nature conscious of what fragile and misshapen vessels we are., In our disenchantment we are reminded of the profound humility of God and our absolute dependence on his grace. There but for God's grace go we--for we may be the cause of another's disenchantment. Are our hearts big enough, to embrace the humility of God? Some Practical Exl~ortations i. Always rentain consciously and practically rooted in the founda-tions of the priesthood: the Word of God and the Eucharist. Recent years have witnessed the evolution of specializations in almost every field of endeavor. On the one hand, such a phenomenon is the positive by-product of explosive developments in science and medicine; on the other hand, when seen in the priesthood it can become a tempting trap. The priest who is preoccupied with seek-ing his "niche" in the church--his specialization--may very well forget who he is. The priest is ontologically and irrevocably linked to Christ and the church; thus he is the one who prays, serves, sacrifices, cel-ebrates the Eucharist, absolves, heals--lives!--in the person of Christ. That is "who he is." His ministry may take a very partic- 688 Review for Religious ular direction--one that may last a lifetime or one that may change frequently; but any job he undertakes, any niche he dis-covers, is secondary to who he is in Christ. A pastor may wish to develop new and innovative programs for his parish, programs that fill in the gaps and address newly-discovered needs. But if he does not at the same time consciously identify himself with the Eucharistic Christ, he loses the depth and richness of his min-istry; and his people are deprived of the church's fundamental gifts. The priest is consecrated for his specialty, his niche, at ordi-nation; his speciality is his Christ-identity. 2. Remember that sloppy management and procrastination hurt people. Every morning more mail arrives to be piled on the stack already on my desk; there is yet another form to fill out, another phone call to return, statistical research to undertake for the chancery (the sins of nay past have returned to haunt me!). For many priests, such tasks are repulsive because they seem to bear no relation to ministry. They are unrelated to the real-life situa-tions of flesh-and-blood parishioners. At times I have been careless in responding to these tasks, only to discover that ultimately my laxity hurt someone. Perhaps the form I was remiss in completing was a job reference; or the phone call I procrastinated in returning was related to a com-plaint unfairly registere'd about a coworker, and my tardiness meant that his or her reputation needlessly suffered. Perhaps the research requested of me was crucial to a grant proposal for a new ministry in the diocese. At some point I began to attach human faces to the tedium, which reminded me that such tasks would ultimately help persons (in most cases, at least!). Now my motivation is stronger to com-plete tasks at the proper time. 3. Don't give someone a difficult job but make it difficult to com-plete. I have purposely posed a positive principle in a negative fash-ion in order to emphasize a point. When I delegate a difficult task---for example, I ask the principal to develop a balanced school budget--I do not release myself of the responsibility to make it work. I have observed church administrators establish an adver-sarial relationship with those to whom they had delegated a diffi-cult job. When I delegate I am not abdicating responsibility; on the contrary, I am pledging cooperation and understanding, and I may be acknowledging that I do not possess the skills required to com-plete the task. We demoralize parishioners and coworkers when we ~eptember-October 1994 689 Sartain ¯ The Challenge of Priestly Leadership make requests of them and then place unreasonable restrictions on their performance. We also demoralize others when we assign them a task that is simply impossible to complete. 4. Don't give someone a job you know the person will shirk; then you get angry when the job isn't done. Chuang Tzu, a Taoist philoso-pher of the 3rd century B.C., understood this truth. One of the most famous of all Chuang Tzu's "principles" is that called "three in the morning," from the story of the monkeys whose keeper planned to give them three mea-sures of chestnuts in the morning and four in the evening but, when they complained, changed his plan and gave them four in the morning and three in the evening. What does the story mean? Simply that the monkeys were foolish and that the keeper cynically outsmarted them? Quite the contrary. The point is rather that the keeper had enough sense to recognize that the monkeys had irrational reasons of their own for wanting four measures of chesmuts in the morning, and did not stubbornly insist on his original arrangement. He was not totally indifferent, and yet he saw that an acci-dental difference did not affect the substance of his arrange-ment. Nor did he waste time demanding that the monkeys try to be "more reasonable" about it when monkeys are not expected to be reasonable in the first place. It is when we insist most firmly on everyone else being "reasonable" that we become, ourselves, unreasonable? It is unfair to ask someone to undertake a task for which the per-son is unsuited. A good leader matches task to talent. 5. Say "yes" when you mean "yes" and "no" when you mean "no." There is no substitute for clarity in communication with cowork-ers and parishioners. If I speak in circles out of reluctance to deal with conflict or my fear of taking a stand, it will o~nly serve to confuse others. Eventually they will be angry with me, and their anger is justified. I will have led them nowhere. 6. Don't harbor unrealistic expectations of superiors. Leaders have superiors, and priests deal with senior priests, pastors, deans, vicars, and bishops; we owe them the accommodation and open-mindedness we expect fi'om others. 7. Don't take it personally. Some things will inevitably go awry, but seldom are mishaps directed intentionally at us. Life simply does not always work out the way we wish it would. When we meet failure it is important to remember that there is no clan-destine plot to make us miserable. Moreover, we may frequently deal with people at their worst, 690 Review for Religious and from time to time may find ourselves walking into a mael-strom of anger. Anger directed at us is often displaced anxiety about what is happening at home, a sense of powerlessness over a difficult child, a troubled marriage, or a lost job. Don't take it personally! We may be the object of the anger, but we are prob-ably not its root cause. Such experiences can be channeled as a means of growth in compassion; a discerning ear and heart can help heal at the root. 8. Nurture in your heart a deliberate commitment to human respect. After God, people come first. Are you willing to learn to love? The highest value to a leader is the human person: the neighbor, the brother, the sister. Spend time with the people with whom you work. Take time to console a grieving friend. Slow down to listen to the one who needs to talk. Be big enough to forgive, let go of grudges. Be first to extend a hand in friendship and last to judge. Be attentive to the little things in others' lives. Be mindful of birth-days and anniversaries, family tragedy, illness and hardship. Learn compassion and foster reconciliation. When reading the newspaper, notice first the names of people, then the statistics. Joyfully embrace sacrifice, faith, family, friends, and the one in need. 9. Temper all things. Priests are called both to challenge oth-ers to a better way of life and to reflect God's mercy when they fail. If we make the challenge needlessly harsh, it will discour-age; if we confuse mercy with permissiveness, it will encourage stagnation. The Rule of St. Benedict offers wise counsel to abbots in this regard: Therefore, drawing on . . . examples of discretion, the mother of all virtues, he must so temper all things that the strong may have something to strive for, and the weak noth-ing to dismay them (RB 64,19). 10. Recognize that as a priest you are also a leader within the pres-byterate. No priest is a free agent; by virtue of ordination we form phrt of a presbyterate and share in the pastoral role of our bishop. This article has been primarily concerned with the priest's leadership role in day-to=day ministry; what has not yet been said Priests are called both to challenge others to a better way of life and to reflect God's mercy when they fail. September-October 1994 691 Sartain ¯ The Challenge of Priestly Leadership is that we undertake the tasks of ministry in union with the pres-byterate. That is not simply a theological truth;' it is also a practi-cal challenge to strive for unity with our bishop and brother priests. It is more important for me to live in union with the pres-byterium than to be alone and absorbed in my work.4 But there is something more to add to this reflection. It has been my assumption that every priest is a leader; it is equally important to remember that every priest is a leader within the presbyterate. Dioceses and religious communities have devised structures to address the pastoral ministry and care of priests; there are pres-byteral councils, personnel boards, vicars for clergy, mentors, and the like. However, it is a great mistake to assume that only those who hold elected or appointed positions are leaders within the presbyterate. The most important leadership within the pres-byterate is that which springs spontaneously from fraternal love, the care of priest for priest. Some Final Considerations St. Bernard's second book On Consideration was written for Pope Eugene after the failure of the second crusade, for which Bernard himself had preached at the pope's behest. Bernard is aware that people will blame them for this dis-aster. He says he did what he thought was right., and he is willing to take the blame rather than have people murmur against God (2.1-1-4). He says this from the standpoint of one who does not need to be successful at every turn. A career is not the end all and be all of life: Virtues are more important than honors or results (2.7.14)'. "Plant, water, be concerned, and you have done your part" (4.2.2)~s Our daily tasks are the invisible path to holiness; but in the end, they are all God's work. When I was named Chancellor/Moderator of the Curia of my diocese, a fellow priest presented me with an essay entitled "The Penalty of Leadership," which first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post 2 January 1915, as an advertisement for Cadillac Motor Car Company. It begins: 692 Review for Religious In eve~ field of human endeavor, he that is first must per-petually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy. are ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction. Its author, Theodore MacManus, explains that the leader coura-geously upholds an enduring standard against the outcry of those who cannot comprehend lasting value. That is part of the penalty of leadership. Every priest finds that he is faced with similar chal-lenges; but for him leadership is worth its penalty., for he sees his position as a vocation, and he knows how profoundly he relies on the grace of God. Genuine leadership is determined neither by market share, nor by publicity, nor by power, nor by Gallup poll, but by the quality. of the heart. It is understood only by those willing to learn the meaning of the word sacrifice. Jesus did not tell his disciples not to aspire to leadership; rather, he said, "if you aspire to be leaders, then learn to serve." Learn great skills, make great plans, strive to improve. Butat the same time, learn to serve, to sacrifice for some-thing greater than yourself, for someone other than yourself. In the final analysis there is no penalty in leadership for the one who loves God and neighbor. The one who loves knows that loving is its own reward. And the one who struggles to love as Jesus loved will find unimagined fulfillment. And the church will gather courage and hope and grace from that kind of priestly leadership. Notes ~ Hugh Feiss OSB, "The Spirituality. of St. Bernard for Managers," Cistercian Studies XXV, no. 4, 1990: 271. 2 Abraham Joshua Heschel, Who is Man? (Stanford University Press, 1965), p. 112. 3 Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu (New York: Ne~v Directions, 1969), p. 32. 4 Gisbert Greshake, The Meaning of Christian Priesthood (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1988), p. 167 [quotatiou from "Instead of an epilogue: Ten principles for a priest's life pattern," proposed by Prof. Dr. ~,~. Breuning and Bishop Dr. KI. Hemmerle]. s Feiss, p. 273. September-October 1994 693 CATHERINE M. HARMER Election: A Call to Service One of the elements of apostolic religious life which has :hanged since the renewal period following Vatican Council II is the selection of leadership. Prior to the council most positions of leadership were appointed, the exceptions being supe-riors general, their councillors, and chapter delegates. Even when provincial chapters elected provincial superiors it was, in many cases, more accurately a nomination to be confirmed by the gen-eral council. Regional superiors and local superiors were appointed, with little if any input from the membership. Today many leadership positions are filled through election by the members, even when a confirmation is needed at another level. This movement toward greater participation of the members in the choice of their leadership has had both positive and nega-tive aspects associated with it. Most of the dire predictions about the decline in quality of the leaders chosen have not come to pass. There are, however, some unpredicted difficulties which continue to cause problems. In this article I will look at some of the back-ground of those problems and suggest a helpful discernment model. Even a cursory analysis of constitutions and directories of congregations shows that many more positions of leadership are now elected, often directly by the members. Thus, local, area or regional leaders, provincials and their councillors, and in a few cases generals and their councillors are directly elected by the Catherine M. Harmer MMS has worked as a consultant and facilitator for various religious congregations' chapters. Her address is Medical Mission Sisters; 300 W. Wellens Street; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19120. 694 Review for Religious members. Where direct election is not the case, there are strong nominating processes which are considered seriously by chapters or other electoral bodies. What is more interesting than the number of positions open to direct election is the increased openness about elections. In the past many of those who were the formal electors in fact held discussions among themselves and with the members about the potential leaders. This was informal, and when done responsibly, a way for the electors to broaden their own knowledge of the potential candidates. When done with less responsibility it had some of the characteristics of the "smoke-filled rooms" of the old American political system. Now, it is generally the practice to have the members involved in the selection process by means of suggestion or nominating lists. In some cases these suggestions are connected to predetermined criteria or to rationales given for a nomination. While there are definite values in this openness, a fear of "campaigning" has arisen. Some members are reluctant to be named in a process that might require them to submit to ques-tioning or to present a personal position regarding the office. Another growing concern is the reality that many elections are held with the majority of those who were nominated removing their names from the list prior to the election. I would like to address several of these problem areas in more detail, then look in a new way at the nature of election in religious congregations, and finally make some suggestions concerning the whole nature and the processes involved in election by members. Areas of Concern One current problem also existed in the time of limited involvement of the members. It is the connection in the minds of some religious between being chosen or not chosen and their own self-image. Even today at the time of election of chapter del-egates there are those who suffer a sense of not being appreci-ated because they are not chosen. In the business world one often measures one's self worth by salary and position within the com-pany. To be passed over is often a sign that it is t

Issue 43.4 of the Review for Religious, July/August 1984. ; Pliz~hhihg :the N~Vitiate Process = °~i"~ !~ta~D o"es a Religious Institute Owe Its Members? :,~-~:: A Retreat for the Eighties Volume 43 Number 4 July/August, 1984 RE\'~w FOR Rl~.~(;~otJs ( ISSN 0034-639X). published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. I.ouis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis. MO 63108. Rt-:v~l-:w t:oR Rl~t.l~;~otJs is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus. St. Louis. MO. © 1984 by Rl~v~l~w ~:OR Rl~l.l~;~Ot~S, Composed. printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. I.ouis. MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A. $10.00 a year: $19.00 for two years. Other countries: add $2.00 per ycar (postage). For subscription orders or change of address, write Rl-:Vll.:W ~-oR R~.:t.t~;~otls: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806, Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor July/August, 1984 Volume 43 Number 4 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be senl to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's University; City Avenue at 54th St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW I-'OR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprinls are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Redemptionis Donum: An Expression of Love for Religious John Paul H In his letter of April 3, 1983, to the bishops of the United States inviting them "to render special pastoral service to the religious" of their dioceses and country, Pope John Paul wrote: ". as pastors of the Church, w~ must proclaim over and over again that the vocation to religious life God gives is linked to his personal love for each and every religious." Redemptionis'Donum is a solemn instance of his own efforts to do just that. As such, it forms a fitting cap to the series of articles REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS has been publishing in recent issu.es in support of.this episcopal ministry to religious. The text which follows is taken from Origins, April 12, 1984, vol. 13: no. 44. Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus: 1. The gift of the redemption, which this extraordinary Jubilee Year emphasizes, brings with it a particular call to conversion and reconciliation with God in Jesus Christ. While the outward reason for this extraordinary jubilee is of a historical nature--for what is being celebrated is the 1,950th Anniversary of the Crucifixion and Resurrection--at the same time it is the interior motive that is dominant, the motive that is connected with the very depth of the Mystery of the Redemption. The Church was born from that mystery, and it is by that mystery that she lives thrrughout her history. The period of the extraordinary jubilee has an .exceptional character. The call to conversion and reconciliation with God means that we must meditate more deeply on our life and our Christian vocationqn the light of the Mystery of the Redemption, in order to fix that lift and vocation ever more firmly in that mystery. While this call concerns everyone in the Church, in a special way it con-cerns you, men and women religious, who, in your consecration to God through the vows of the evangelical counsels, strive toward a particular fullness of Christian life. Your special Vocation, and the whole of your life in the 481 41~2 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 Church and the world, take their character and their spiritual power from the same depth of the Mystery of Redemption. By following Christ along the "narrow and., hard" way,~ you experience in an extraordinary manner how true it is that "with him is plenteous redemption" (copiosa apud eum redempti.o)? 2. Therefore, as this Holy Year moves toward its close, 1 wish to address myself in a particular way to all of you, men and women religious, who are entirely consecrated to contemplation or vowed to the various works of the apostolate. I have already done so in numerous places and on various occasions, confirming and extending the evangelical teaching contained in the whole of the Church's tradition, especially in the magisterium of the recent ecumenical council, from the dogmatic constitution ~Lumen Gentium to the decree Perfec-tae Caritatis, in the spirit of the indications of the apostolic exhortation Evan-gelica Testificatio of my predecessor Paul VI. The Code of Canon Law, which recently came into force and which can in a way be considered the final conciliar document, will be for all of you a valuable aid and a sure guide in concretely stating the means for faithfully and generously living your magnificent vocation in the Church. 1 greet you with the affection of the Bishop of Rome and Successor of St. Peter, with whom your communities are united in a characteristic way. From the same See of Rome there also reach you, with an unceasing echo, the words of St. Paul: "I betrothed you to Christ, to present you as a pure.bride to her one husband.'~ The Church, which receives, after the apostles, the treasure of marriage to the divine Spouse, looks with the greatest love toward all her sons and daugh-ters who, by the profession of the evangelical counsels and through her .own mediation, have made a special covenant with the Redeemer of the World. Accept this word of the Jubilee Year of the Redemption precisely as a word of love~ spoken by the Ch'urch for you. Accept it, wherever you may be: in the cloister, of the contemplative communities or in the commitment to the many different forms of apostolic service--in the missions, in pastoral work, in hospita!~s or other places where the suffering are served, in educational institu-tions: schools or Universities--in fact in every one of your houses where, "gathered in the name of Christ," you live in the knowledge that the Lord is "in your midst.TM May the Church's loxiing word, addressed to you in the Jubilee of the Redemption, be the reflection of that loving word that Christ himself said to each one of you when he spoke one day that mysterious "follow me"~ fxom which your vocation in the Church began. Vocation And Jesus, Looking Upon Him, Loved Him 3. "Jesus, looking upon him, loved himTM and said to him, "If you would Redemptionis Donum / 48:3 be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.'n Even though we know that those words addressed to the rich young man were not accepted by the one being called, their content deserves to b~ carefully reflected upon, for they present the interior structure of a vocation. "And 3esus,~looking upon him, loved him." This is the love of the Redeemer: a love that flows from all the human and divine depths of the redemption. This love reflects the eternal love of the Father who "so loved the World that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.TM ,~ The Son, invested with that love, accepted the mission from the Father .in the Holy Spirit, and became the Redeemer of the World. The Father's love was revealed in the Son as a redeeming love. It is precisely this love that constitutes the true price of the redemption of man and of the world. Christ:s apostles speak of the price of the redemption with profound emotion: "You were ransomed., not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot," writes St. Peter.9 And St. Paul states: "You were bought with a price."'° The call to the way of the evangelical counsels springs from the interior encounter with the love~ of Christ which is a redeeming love. Christ calls precisely through this love of his. In the structure of a vocation, the encounter with ,this love becomes ,something specifically personal. When Christ "looked upon you and loved you," calling each one of you, dear religious, that redeem-ing love of his was directed toward a particular person, and at the same time, it took on a spousal character: it became a love of choice. This love embraces the whole person, soul and body, whether man or woman, in that person's unique and unrepeatable, personal "1." The one who, given eternally to the Father, "gives" himself in the Mystery of the Redemp-tion, has now called a human person in order that he or she, in turn, should give himself or herself entirely to the work of the redemption through member-ship in a community of brothers or sisters, recognized and approved by the Church. Surely it is precisely to this call that St. Paul's words can be applied: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.? You are not your own; you were bought with a price."~ Y~es, Christ's love has reached each one of you, dear Brothers and Sisters, with that same "price" of the redemption. As a consequence of this, you have realized that you are not your own, but you ~belong to Christ. This ,new awareness was the fruit of Christ's "loving look" into the secret place of your heart. You replied to that look by choosing him who first chose each one of you, calling you with the measurelessness of his. redeeming love. Since he calls "by name," his call always appeals to human freedom. Christ says: "If you wish . "And the response to this call i§, therefore, a free choice. You have chosen Jesus of Nazareth, Redeemer of the World, by choosing the way that he has shown you. tll~4 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 If You Wish to .Be Perfect. 4. This way is also called the, way of perfection. Speaking to the young man, Christ says: "If you wish to be perfect . "Thus theidea of the "way of perfection" has its motivation in the very Gospel source itself. Moreover, do we not hear, in the Sermon on the Mount: "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect"?.~2 The calling of man to perfection was perceived in a certain way by the thinkers and moralists of the ancient world, and also afterward, at different periods of history. But the biblical call has a completely original nature. It is particularly demanding when it indicates to man perfection in the likeness of God °himself.~3 Precisely in this form; the call corresponds to the whole of the internal logic of revelation, according to which man was created in the image and likeness of God himself. He must therefore seek the perfection proper to him in the line of this image and likeness. As St. Paul will write in the Letter to the Ephesians: "Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself upfor us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."~4 Thus the call to perfection belongs to the very essence of the Christian vocation. It is on the basis of this call that we must also understand the words which Christ 'addressed to the young man in the Gospel. These words are in a particular way linked to the mystery of the redemp-tion of man in the world~ For this redemption gives back to God the work of creation which had been contaminated by sin--showing the perfection which the whole of creation, and in particular man, possesses in the thought and intention of God himself. Especially man must be given and restored to God if heis to be fully restored to himself. From this comes the eternal call: "Return to me, for I have redeemed you.''15 Christ's words, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor" clearly brings us into the sphere of the evangelical counsel of poverty--which belongs to the very essence of the religious vocation and profession. At the same time, these words can,be understoodin a wider and, in sense, an essential way. The Teacher from Nazareth invites the person he is address-ing to renounce a program of life in which the first place is seen to be occupied by the category of possessing, of "h'aving," and to accept in its place a program centered upon the value of the human person, upon personal "being"---with all the transcendence that is proper to it. Such an understanding of Christ's words constitutes, as it were, a wider setting for the ideal of evangelical poverty, especially that poverty which, as an evangelical counsel, belongs to the essential content of your mystical marriage with the divine Spouse in the Church. Reading Christ's words in the light of the superiority of "being" over "having," especially if the latter is understobd in a materialistic and utilitarian Redemptionis Donum / 485 sense, we, as it were, touch the very anthropologial bases of vocation in the Gospel. In .the framework of the development of contemporary civilization, this is a particularly relevant discovery. And for this reason, the very vocation to "the way of perfection" as laid down. by Christ becomes equally relevant. In today's civilization, especially in the context of the world of a well-being that is based on consumerism, man bitterly experi¢nces the essential incom-pleteness of personal "being" which affects his humanity because of the abund-antand various forms of "having." He then becomes more inclined to accept this truth about vocation which was expressed once and for all in the Gospel. Yes, the call which you, dear Brothers and Sisters, accepted when you set out on the way of religious profession touches upon the very roots of human-ity, the roots of man's destiny in the temporal world. The evangelical "state of perfection'~ does not cut you off from these roots. On the contrary, it enables you to anchor yourselves even more firmly ih the elements that make man man, permeating this humanity which, in various ways, is burdened by sin, with the divine and human leaven of the Mystery of Redemption. You Will Have Treasure in Heaven " Vocation carries with it th6 answer to the question: Why be a human person--and how? This answer adds a new dimension to the whole of life and establishes its definitive meaning. This meaning emerges against the back-grou'nd of the Gospel paradox of losing one's life in order to save it--and on the other hand, saving one's life by losing it "for Christ's sake and for the sake of the Gospel," as we read in Mark.t6 In the light of these words Christ's call becomes perfectly clear: "Go, sell what you possess ~nd give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.''t7 Between this "go" and the subsequent "come, follow me'; there is a close connection. It can be said that these latter words determine the very essence of a vocation. For a vocation is a matter of following the footsteps of Christ (sequi: to follow, hence sequela Christi). The terms "go. sell.' give" seem to lay down the precondition of a vocation. Nevertheless, this condition is not "external" to a vocation, but is already inside it. For a person, discovers the new sense of his or her humanity, not only in order "to follow" Christ, but to the extent that he or she actually does follow him. When a person does "sell what he possesses" and "gives it to the poor," he discovers that those possessions, and the comforts he enjoyed, were not the treasure to hold on to. That treasure is in his heart, which Christ makes him capable of"giving" to others b~y the giving of self. The rich person is not the one who possesses, but the one who "gives," the one who is capable of giving. At this point tile Gospel paradox becomes particularly expressive. It becomes a program of being. To be poor in the sense given to this "being" by 4116 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 the Teacher from Nazareth is to become a dispenser of good through one's own human condition. This also means to discover "the treasure." This treasure is indestructible. It passes, together with man, into the dimension of the eternal. It belongs to the divine eschatology of man. Through this treasure man has his definitive future in God. Christ says: "You will have treasuie in.heaven." This treasure is not so much a "reward" after death for the good works done following the example of the Divine Teacher, but rather the eschatological fulfillment of what was liidden in these good works here on earth, in the inner "treasure" of the heart. Christ himself, in fact, when he invited his hearers, in the Sermon on the Mount, ~s to store up treasure in heaven, added: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."~9 These words indicate the eschatological character of the Christian vocation. They indicate even more the eschatological nature of the vocation that is realized through spiritual marriage to Christ by the practice of the evangelical counsels. 6. The structure of this vocation, as seen from the Words addressed to the young man in the synoptic gospels,20 is traced little by little as one discovers the fundamental treasure of one's own humanity in the perspective of that "trea-sure" which man "has in heaven." In this perspective, the fundamental treasure of one's own humanity is connected to the fact of "being, by giving oneself." The direct point of reference in such a vocation is the living person of Jesus Christ. The call to ~the way of perfection takes shape from him, and through him in the Holy Spirit who continually "recalls" to new people, men~and women--at different times of their lives, but especially in their youth--all that Christ "has saidTM and especially what he "said" to the yo.ung man who asked him: "Teacher, what good deed must ! do to h~ve eternal life?"~2 Throughthe reply of Christ, who "looks upon" his questioner "with love," the strong leaven of the Mystery of the Redemption penetrates the consciousness~, heart and will of one who is searching with truth and sincerity. Thus the call to the way of the evangelical counsels always has its begin-ning in God: "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide."~3 The vocation in which a person discovers in depth.the evangelical law of giving, a law inscribed in human nature, is itself a gift. It is a gift overflowing with the deepest content of the Gospel, a gift which reflects the divine and human image of the Mystery of the Redemption. "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be thb expiation for our sins.TM A "Fuller Expression"of Baptismdi Consecration 7. Your vocation, dear Brothers and Sisters, has led you to religious pro-fession, whereby you have been consecrated to God through the ministry of Redemptionis Donum / 487 the Church, arid tiave been at the same time incorporated into your religious family. Hence the Church thinks of you, above all, as persons who are "conse-crated": consecrated to God in Jesus Christ as his exclusive possession. This consecration determines your place in the vast community of the Church, the People of God. And at the same time, this consecration introduces into the universal mission of this people a special source of spiritual and supernatural energy: a particular style of life, witness and apostolate, in fidelity to the mission of your institute and.to its identity and spiritual heritage. The universal mission of the People of God is rooted in the messianic mission of Christ himself--prophet, priest and king--a mission in which all share in different ways. The form of sharing proper to "consecrated" persons corresponds to your manner of being rooted in Christ. The depth and power of this being rooted in Christ is decided precisely by religious profession. Religious p~ofession creates a new bond between the person and the one and triune God in Jesus Christ. This bond develops on the foundation of the original bond that is contained in the sacrament of baptism. Religious profes-sion "is deeply rooted in baptisma.I consecration and is a fuller expression of it.'~ In this way religious profession, in its constitutive content, becomes a new consecration: the consecration and giving of the human person to God, loved above all else. The commitment undertaken by means of the vows to practice the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience, according to the determinations proper to each religious family as laid down in the constitutions, is the expression of a total consecration to God and, at the same time, the means that leads to its achievement. This is also the source of the manner proper to consecrated .persons of bearing witness and of exercising the aposto-late. And yet it is necessary :to seek the roots of that conscious and~free consecration and of the subsequent giving of self to God as his possession in baptism, the sacrament that leads us to the~paschal mystery as the apex and center of the redemption ac,~omplished by Christ. Therefore, in order to highlight fully the reality of religious professions, we must turn to the vibrant ~,ords of St. Paul in the Letter to the Romans: "Do you,no~t know. that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that like Christ. we too might walk into the newness of life";26 "our old self was crucifiedowith him so that., we might no longer be enslaved by sin";27 so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus?s Upon the sacramental basis of baptism in which it is rooted, religious profession is a new ~'burial in the death of Christ": new, because it is made with awareness and by choice; new, because of love and vocation; new, by reason of unceasing "conversion." This "burial in death" causes the person "buried together with Christ" to "walk like Christ in newness of life." In Christ crucified is to be found the ultimate foundati,~n both of baptismal consecration 41111 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 and of the profession of the evangelical counsels which--in tile words of the Second Vatican Council--"constitutes a special consecration." It is at one and the same time both death and liberation. St. Paul writes: "Consider yourselves dead to sin." At the same time he calls this death "freedom from the slavery of sin." Above all, though, religious consecration, through its sacramental foundation in holy baptism, constitutes a new life "for God in Jesus Christ." In this way, simultaneously with the' profession of the evangelical counsels, in a much more mature and conscious manner "the old nature is put off," and likewise "the new nature is put on, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness," to use once more the words of the Letter tothe l~phesians.29 A Covenant of Spousal Love 8. Thus, then, dear Brothers and Sisters--all of you who, throughout the Church, live the covenant of the evangelical counsels-~-renew in this Holy Year of the Redemption your awareness of your special sharing in the Redeemer's death on the cross--that sharing through which ~you have risen with him, and continually rise with him, to a new life. The Lord speaks to each of you, just as he once spoke through the prophet Isaiah: Fear not, for i have redeemed you: ' ~ I have called you by name, you are mine.a0 The evangelical call: "If you would be perfect., follow meTM guides us with the light of the words of the divine Teacher. From th~ depth of the redemption there comes Christ's call, and from that depth it teaches the human soul. By virtue of the grace of the redemption, this saving call assumes in the soul Of the person called the actual form of the professioh of the evangelical counsels. In this.form is contained your answer to the call .of redeeming love, and it is also an answer of love: a love of self-giving--which is the heart of consecration, of the consecration of the person. The words of Isaiah "I have redeemed you., you are mine"--seem toseal precisely this love, which is the love of a total and exclusive consecration to God. This is how the special covenant of spousal love is made, in which we seem to hear an unceasing echo of the words concerning Israel whom the Lord "has chosen as his own possession.'~2 For in every consecrated person the Israel of the New and Eternal Covenant is chosen. The whole messianic People, the entire Church, is chosen in every person whom the Lord selects from the midst of this people; in every person who is consecrated,for everyone, to God as his exclusive possession. While it is true that not even the greatest saint can repeat the words of Christ: "For their sake I consecrate myself"33 in the full redemptive force of these words, nevertheless, through self-giving love, through the offering of Redemptionis Donum / 489 oneself to God as his exclusive possession, each one can, through faith, stand within the radius of these words. Are we not reminded of this by the other words of the Apostle in the Letter to the Romans that we so often repeat and meditate upon: "I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship"?.34 These words are, as it were, a distant echo of the one who, when he comes into the world and becomes man, says to the Father: "You have prepared a body for me. ~. Lo, I have come to do your will, O God.'~5 In this particular context of the Jubilee Year of the Redemption, let us, then, go back again to the mystery of the body and soul of Christ as the complete subject of spousal and redemptive love--spousal because redemp-tive. For love he offered himself; for love he gave his body "for the sin of the world." By immersing yourselves in the paschal mystery of the Redeemer through the consecration of the religious vows, you desire, through the love of total giving, to fill your souls and your bodies with the spirit of sacrifice---even as St. Paul invites you to do in the words of the Letter to the Romans just quoted: "To offer your bodies as a sacrifice.'~6 In this way, the likeness of that love which, in the heart of Christ, is both redemptive and spousal, is imprinted on the religious profession. And such love should fill each of you, dear Brothers and Sisters, from the very source of thatparticularconsecration which--on the sacramental basis of holy baptism-- is the beginning of your new life in Christ and in the Church: it is the beginning of the new creation. Together with this love, may there grow deeper in each one of you the joy of belonging exclusively to God, of being a particular inheritance of the most Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now and then repeat with the psalmist the inspired words: Whom else have I in heaven? And when ! am with you, the earth delights me not. Though my flesh and my heart waste away, God is the'rock of my heart" and my portion foreverP7 Or 1 say to the Lord, My Lord are you. Apart from you I have no good. O Lord, my allotted portion and my cup, You it is who hold fast my lot,3s May the knowledge of belonging to God himself in Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the World and the Spouse of the Church, seal your hearts39 and all your thoughts, words, and deeds, with the sign of the biblical spouse: As you know, this intimate and profound knowledge of Christ is actuated 490 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 and grows deeper day by day through the life.of personal, community and liturgical prayer proper to each of your religious families. In this, too--and especially so--the men and women religious who are dedicated essentially to contemplation are a powerful aid and a stimulating support for their brothers and sisters devoted to the works of the apostolate. May this knowledge of belonging to Christ open your hearts, thoughts and deeds, with the key of the Mystery of the Redemption, to all the sufferings, needs and hopes of individuals and of the world--in the midst of which your evangelical consecration has been planted as a particular sign of the presence of God, for whom all live,40 embraced by the invisible dimension of this kingdom. The words "Follow me"--spoken by Christ when he "looked upon and loved" each one of you, dear Brothers and Sisters--also have this meaning: you take part, in the most complete and radical way possible, in the shaping of that new creation,4~ which must emerge from the redemption of the world, by means of the power of the Spirit of Truth operating from the abundance of the Paschal Mystery of Christ. Evangelical Counsels The Economy of Redemption 9. Through your profession the way of evangelical counsels opens up before each one of you. In the Gospel there are many exhortations that go beyond the measures of the commandment, indicating not only what is "neces-sary," but what is "better." Thus, for example, the exhortation not to judge,42 to lend "expecting nothing in return,'~3 to comply with all the requests and desires of our neighbor,44 to invite the poor to a meal?5 to pardon always,46 and many other invitations. If, in accordance with tradition, the profession of the evangelical counsels has concentrated on the three points of chastity, poverty and obedience, this usage seems to give clear enough emphasis to their importance as key ele-ments, and, as a kind of "summing up" of the entire economy of salvation. Everything in the Gospel that is a counsel enters indirectly into the pro-gram of that way to which Christ calls when he says: "Follow me." But chastity, poverty and obedience give to this way a particular Christocentric characteristic, and imprint upon it a specific sign of the Economy of Redemption. Essential to this "economy" is the transformation of the entire cosmos, through the heart of man, i'rom within: "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. and will be set free from its bondage to decay, and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.'~7 This transformation takes place in step with that love which Christ's call infused in the depths of the individual, in step with that love which constitutes the very substance of consecration: a man or woman's vowing of self to God in religious profession, on the foundation of the sacramental consecration of baptism. Redemptionis Donum / 49"1 We can discover the bases of the economy of redemption by reading the words of the First Letter of St. John: Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it: but he who does the will of God abides forever.'~ Religious profession places in the heart of each one of you, dear Brothers and Sisters, the love of the Father, that love which is in the heart of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the World. It is love which embraces the world and everything in it that comes from the Father, and which at the same time tends to overcome in the world everything that "does not come from the Father." It tends therefore to conquer the threefold lust. "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life" are hidden within man as the inheritance of original sin, as a result of which the relationship with the world, created by God and given to man to be ruled by him,49 was disfigured in the human heart in various ways: In the economy of redemption the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience constitute the most radical means for trans-forming in the human heart this relationship with "the world": with the exter-nal world and with one's personal "1," which in some way is the central part "of the world" in the biblical sense, if what "does not come from the Father" begins within it. Against the background .of the phrases taken from the First Letter of St. John, it is not difficult to see the fundamental importance of the three evangel-ical counsels in the whole economy of redemption. Evangelical chastity helps us to transform in our interior life everything that has it sources in the lust of the flesh; evangelical poverty, everything that finds its source in the lust of the eyes; and evangelical obedience enables us to transform in a radical way that which in the human heart arises from the pride of life. We are deliberately speaking here of an overcoming as a transformation, for the entire economy of the redemption is set in the framework of the words spoken in the priestly prayer to the Father: "1 do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to guard them from the evil one."~0 The evangelical counsels in their essential purpose aim at "the renewal of creation": "The world," thanks to them, is to be subjected to man and given to him in such a way that man himself may be perfectly given to God. Participation in the Self-Emptying of Christ 10. The internal purpose of the evangelical counsels leads to the discovery of yet other aspects that emphasize the close connection of the counsels with the economy of redemption. We know that the economy of redemption finds its culminating point in the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ, in whom there are joined self-emptying through death and birth to a new life through the Resur-rection. The practice of the evangelical counsels contains a deep reflection of this paschal duality;5~ the inevitable destruction of what in each of us is sin and 492 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 its inheritance; and the possibility of being reborn each day to a more pro-found good hidden in the human soul. This good is manifested under the action of grace, toward which the practice of chastity, poverty and obedience renders the human soul particularly sensitive. The entire economy of redemp-tion is realized precisely through this sensitivity to the mysterious action of the Ho!y Spirit, the direct author of all holiness. Along this path the profession of the evangelical counsels opens out in each one of you, dear Brothers and Sisters, a wide space for the "new creation"~z that emerges in your human 'T' precisely from the economy of the redemption and, through this human "I," also into the interpersonal and social dimensions. At the same time it emerges in humanity as part of the world created by God, that world that the Father loved "anew" in the eternal Son, the Redeemer of the World. Of this Son St. Paul says that "though he was in the form of God. he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men."53 The characteristic of self-emptying contained in the practice of the evangelical counsels is therefore a .completely Christocentric characteristic. And for this reason also the Teacher from Nazareth explicitly indicates the cross as the condition for following in his footsteps, He who once said to each one of you "Follow me" has also said: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (that is to say, walk in my footsteps).54 And he said this to all his listeners, not just to the disciples. The law of renunciation belongs therefore to the very essence of the Chris-tian vocation. But it belongs in a particular way to the essence of the vocation linked to the profession of the evangelical counsels. To those who walk the way of this vocation, even those difficult expressions that we read in the Letter to the Philippians speak in comprehensible language: For him "I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be-found in him.'~5 Renunciation therefore--the reflection of the mystery of Calvary--in order "to be" more fully in the crucified and risen Christ; renunciation in order to recognize fully in him the mystery of one's own human nature and to confirm this on the path of that wonderful process of which the same apostle writes in another place: "Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day.'~6 In this way the economy of the redemp-tion transfers the power of the paschal mystery to the level of humanity, docile to Christ's call to life in chastity, poverty and obedience, that is, to a. life according to the evangelical counsels. Chastity, Poverty, ,Obedience II. The paschal character of this call makes itself known from various points of view in connection with each individual .counsel. Chastity It is indeed according to the measure of the economy of the redemption Redemptionis Donum / 493 that one must also judge and practice that chastity which each of you has promised by vow, together with poverty and obedience. There is contained in this the response to Christ's words, which are at the same time an invitation: "There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it. Prior to this Christ has emphasized: "Not all men can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given."~s These last words clearly show that this invitation is a counsel. To this also the apostle Paul devoted a special reflection in the First Letter to the Corinthians.59 This counsel is addressed in a particular way to the love of the human heart. It places greater emphasis on the spousal character of this love, while poverty and still more obedience seem to emphasize primarily the aspect of redemptive love contained in religious consecration. As you know, it is a question here of chastity in the sense "of making themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven," a question, that is, of virginity or celibacy as an expression of spousal love for the Redeemer himself. In this sense the apostle teaches that they "do well" who choose matrimony, but they "do better who choose virginity.'~° "The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord,'~ and "the unmarried woman or girl is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit."62 There is contained neither in the words of Christ nor in those of Paul any lack of esteem for matrimony. The evangelical counsel of chastity is only an indication of that particular possibility which, for the human heart, whether of a man or of a woman, constitutes the spousal love of Christ himself, of Jesus the "Lord." "To make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" is not in fact merely a free renunciation of marriage and family life, but a charismatic choice of Christ as one's exclusive spouse. This choice not only specifically enables one to be "anxious about the affairs of the Lord;" but--when it is made "for the kingdom of heaven"---it brings this eschatologi-cal kingdom of God close to the life of all people in the conditions of temporal-ity and makes it in a certain way present in the midst of the world. In this way consecrated persons accomplish the interior purpose of the entire economy of the redemption. For this purpose expresses itself in bringing near the kingdom of God in its definitive, eschatoiogical dimension. Through the vow of chastity consecrated persons share in the economy of the redemp-tion through the free renunciation of the temporal joys of married and family life; on the other hand, precisely by their "having made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven," they bring into the midst of this passing world the announcement of the future resurrection63 and of eternal life: life in union with God himself through the beatific vision and the love which contains in itself and completely pervades, all the other loves of the human heart. Poverty 12. How very expressive, in the. matter of poverty, are the words of the 494 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 Second Letter to the Corinthians, which constitute a concise synthesis of all that we hear on this theme in the Gospel: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yete for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.TM According to these words, poverty actually enters into the interior structure of the redemptive grace of Jesus Christ. Without poverty, it is not possible to understand the mystery of the gift of divinity to man, a gift which is accomplished precisely in Jesus Christ. For this reason also it is found at the very center of the Gospel, at the beginning of the message of the eight Beatitudes: "Blessed are the poor in spirit."~5 Evangelical poverty reveals to the eyes of the human soul the perspec-tive of the whole mystery, "hidden for ages in God.'~6 Only those who are "poor" in this way are also interiorly capable of understanding the poverty of the One who is infinitely rich. The poverty of Christ conceals in itself this infinite richness of God; it is indeed an infallible expression of it. A richness, in fact, such as the divinity itself, could not have been adequately expressed in any created good. It can be expressed only in poverty. Therefore it can be properly understood only by the poor, the poor in spirit. Christ; the God-man, is the first of these: He who, "though he was rich became poor," is not only the teacher, but also the spokesman and guarantor of that salvific poverty which corresponds to the infinite richness of God and to the inexhaustible power of his grace. And thus is it also true--as the apostle writes--that "by this poverty we have become rich." It is the teacher and spokesman of poverty who makes us rich. For this very reason he says to the young man.of the synoptic gospels: "Sell what you possess and give . and you will have treasure in heaven.'~7 In these words there is a call to enrich others through one's own poverty. But in the depths of this call there is also hidden the testimony of the infinite richness of God which, transferred to the human soul in the mystery of grace, created in man himself, precisely through poverty, a source for enriching others that is not comparable with any other resource of material goods, a source for bestowing gifts on others in the manner of God himself. This giving is accomplished in the cohtext of the mystery of Christ who "has made us rich by his poverty." We see how this process of enrichment unfolds in the pages of the Gospel, finding its culmination in the paschal event: Christ, poorest in his death on the cross, is also the one who enriches us infinitely with the fullness of new life through his resurrection. Dear Brothers and Sisters, poor in spirit through your evangelical profes-sion, receive into the whole of your lives this salvific profile of the poverty of Christ. Day by day seek its ever greater development! Seek above all "the kingdom of God and his righteousness," and all other things "shall be yours as well.'~8 May there be accomplished in you and through you the evangelical blessedness that is reserved for the poor,69 the poor in spirit!70 Redemptionis Donum/ 495 Obedience 1 3. Christ, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And beingfound in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.7~ Here, in these words of the Letter of St. Paul to the Philippians, we touch the very essence of the redemption, In this reality is inscribed, in a primary and constitutive way, the obedience of Jesus Christ. Other words of the apostle, taken this time from the Letter to the Romans, confirm this: For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous.72 The evangelical counsel of obedience is the call which derives from this obedience of Christ "unto death." Those who accept this call, expressed by the words "Follow me," decided--as the council says--to follow Christ who "by an obedience which carried him even to death on the cross, redeemed human-ity and made it holy.''73 By living out the evangelical counsel of obedience, they reach the deepest essence of the entire Economy of the Redemption. By ful-filling this counsel, they desire to gain a special sharing in the obedience of that "One alone" by whose obedience all "will be made righteous." It can therefore be said that those who decide to live according to the counsel of obedience are placed in a unique way between the mystery of sin74 and the mystery of justification and salvific grace. They are in this "place" with all the sinful background of their own human nature, with all the inheritance "of the pride of life," with all the selfish tendencies to dominate rather than to serve; and precisely by means of the vow of obedience they decide to be transformed into the likeness of Christ, who "redeemed humanity and made it holy by his obedience." In the counsel of obedience they desire to find their own role in the redemption of Christ, and their own way of sanctification. This is the way which Christ marked out in the Gospel, speaking many times of fulfilling the will of God, of ceaselessly searching for it. "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his works."75 "Because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me."76 "He :who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for 1 always do what is pleasing to him.''77 "For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me."78 This constant fulfilling of the will of the Father also reminds us of that messianic confession of the psalmist in the Old Testament: "Behold I come; in the written scroll it is prescribed for me. To do 3/our will, O my God, is my delight, and your law is within my heart.''79 This obedience of the Son--full of joy--reaches its zenith in the face of the passion and cross: "Father, if it is your will, take this cup from me; yet not my will but yours be done."s0 From the prayer ~in Gethsemane onward, Christ's 1196 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 readiness to do the will of the Father is filled to the very brim of suffering, becoming that obedience "unto death, even death on a cross" spoken of by St. Paul. Through the vow of obedience consecrated persons decide to imitate with humility the obedience of the Redeemer in a special way. For although sub-mission to the will of God and obedience to his law are for every state a condition of Christian life, nevertheless in the "religious state," in the "state of perfection," the vow of obedience establishes in the heart of each of you, dear Brothers and Sisters, the duty of a particular reference to Christ "obedient unto death." And since this obedience of Christ constitutes the essential nucleus of the work of the redemption, as is seen from the words of the apostle quoted above, therefore also in the fulfilling of the evangelical counsel of obedience we must discern a particular moment in that "economy of the redemption" which pervades your whole vocation in the Church. From this derives that "total availability to the Holy Spirit" who is at work above all in the Church, as my predecessor Paul VI puts it in the apostolic exhortation Evangelica Testificatio,8i a'nd who is likewise manifested in the constitutions of your institutes. From this derives that religious submission which, in a spirit of faith, consecrated persons show to their legitimate superiors Who hold the place of God.82 In the Letter to the Hebrews we find on this theme a very significant indication: "Obey your leaders and submit to them; for they are keeping watch over your souls, as men who will have to give account." And the author of the letter adds: "Let them do this joyfully, and not sadly, for that would be of no advantage to you."~3 On the other hand, superiors will bear in mind that they. must exercise in a spirit of service the power conferred on them through the ministry of the Church, and they will show willingness to listen to their brothers or sisters in order to discern more clearly what the Lord asks of each one. At the same time they retain the authority proper to them to decide and order what they consider appropriatr. Hand in hand with submission-obedience thus conceived goes the attitude of service which informs your whole life after the example of the Son of Man who "came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."s4 And his mother, at the decisive moment of the annunciation-incarna-tion, entering from the very beginning into the whole salvific economy of the redemption, said: "Behold, 1 am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word."aS Remember also, dear Brothers and Sisters, that the obedience to which you committed yourselves by consecrating yourselves without reserve to God through the profession of the evangelical counsels is a particular expression of interior freedom, just as the definitive expression of Christ's freedom was his obedience "unto death": "1 lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one Redemptionis Donum / takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.'~6 Love for the Church Witness 14. In the Jubilee Year of the Redemption the entire Church wishes to renew her love for Christ, the redeemer of man and of the world, her Lord and also her divine Spouse. And so in this holy year the Church looks with special attentibn to you, dear Brothers and Sisters, who, as consecrated persons, occupy a special place, both in the universal community of the People of God, and in every local community. While the Church wishes also your love for Christ to be renewed through the grace of the extraordinary jubilee, at the same time, she is fully aware that this love constitutes a special possession of the whole People of God. The Church is aware that, in the love that Christ receives from consecrated persons, the love :of the entire Body is directed in a special and exceptional way toward the Spouse who, i~t the same time, is the Head of this Body. The Church expresses to you, dear Brothers and Sisters, her gratitude for your consecration, and for your profession of the evangelical counsels which are a special witness of love. She also expresses anew her great confidence in you who have chosen a state of life that is a special gift of God to the Church. She counts upon your complete and generous collaboration in order that, as faithful stewards of this precious gift, you may "think with the Church" and always act in union with her, in conformity with the teaching and directives of the magisterium of Peter and of the pastors in communion with him, fostering at the personal and community level a renewed ecclesial awareness. And at the same time, the Church prays for you, that your witness of love may never fail.87 She also asks you to accept in this spirit the present message of the Jubilee Year of the Redemption. Precisely in this way the Apostle Paul prayed in his Letter to the Philippians, that "your love may abound more and more., with all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruits of righteousness. "~ Through the work of Christ's redemption "God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.'~9 1 constantly ask the Holy Spirit to grant to each one of you, according to your own gift,9° to bear special witness to this love. May "the law of the Spirit that gives life in Christ Jesus" be victorious within you in a way worthy of your vocation, that law that has "set us free from the law of. death.TM Live, then, this new life in the measure of the different gifts of God, which corresponds to the vocation of your individual religious families. The profession of the evangelical counsels shows each of you how, with the help of the Spirit, you can put to death92 everything that is contrary to life and serves sin and death; everything that is opposed to true love of God and others. The world needs the authentic "contradiction" provided by religious conse- 4911 / Reviow for Religious, July-August, 1984 cration, as an unceasing stimulus of saivific renewal. "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.'~3 After the special period of experimentation and renewal provided for by the motu proprio Ecclesiae Sanctae, your institutes have recently received, or are preparing to receive, the Church's approval of your renewed constitutions. May this gift of the Church encourage you to know them, to love them, and, above all, to live them in generosity and fidelity, remembering that obedience is an unambiguous manifestation of love. It is precisely this witness of love that the world today and all humanity need. They need this witness to the redemption as this is imprinted upon the profession of the evangelical counsels. These counsels---each in its own way and all of them together in their intimate connection--"bear witness" to the redemption which, by the power of Christ's cross and resurrection, leads the world and humanity, in the Holy Spirit, toward that definitive fulfillment which man, and through man, the whole of creation finds in God and only in God. Your witness is therefore of inestimable value, You must constantly strive to make it fully transparent and fully fruitful in the world. A further aid to this will be the faithful observance of the Church's norms regarding also the outward manifestation of your consecration and of your commitment to poverty.94 Apostolate 15. From this witness of spousal love for Christ, through which the entire salvific truth of the Gospel becomes particularly visible, there also comes, dear Brothers and Sisters, as something proper to your vocation, a sharing in the Church's apostolate, in her universal mission--which is accomplished con-temporaneously in every nation in many different ways and through many different charisms. Your specific mission is in harmony with the mission of the apostles whom the Lord sent "to the whole world" to "teach all nations,'s5 and it is also linked to the mission of the hierarchial order. In the apostolate which consecrated persons exercise, their spousal love for Christ becomes, in an as it were organic way, love for the Church as the Body of Christ, for the Church as the People of God, fbr the Church which is at one and the same time Spouse and Mother. It is difficult to describe, or even to list, the many different ways in which consecrated persons fulfill through the apostolate their love for the Church. This apostolate is always born from that particular gift of your founders which, received from God and approved by the Church, has become a charism for the different needs of the Church and of the world at particular moments of history, and, in its turn, this apostolate is extended and strengthened in the life of religious communities as one of the enduring elements of the Church's own life and apostolate. In each of these elements, in each field--both of Redemptionis Donum / 499 contemplation so fruitful for the apostolate and of direct apostolic action--the Church's constant blessing accompanies you, as does at the same time her pastoral and maternal solicitude with regard to the spiritual identity of your life and the correctness of your activity in the midst of the great universal community of vocations and charisms of the whole People of God. Through each of the institutes separately, and through their organic integration into the whole of, the Church's mission, special emphasis is given to the Economy of Redemption, the profound sign of which each one of you, dear Brothers and Sisters, bears within himself or herself through the consecration and profession of the evangelical counsels. And thus, even though the many different apostolic works that you perform are extremely important, nevertheless the truly fundamental work of the aPostolate remains always what (and at the same time who) you are in the Church. Of each one of you can be repeated, with special appropriateness, these words of St. Paul: '~For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God."96 And at the same time this "being hidden with Christ in God" makes it possible to apply to you the words of the master himself: "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."97 For the sake of this light with which you must "shine before men," of great imPortance among you is the witness of your mutual love linked to the fraternal spirit of each community, for the Lord has said: "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."gg The fundamentally communitarian nature of your religious life--nourished by the teaching of the Gospel, by the sacred liturgy, and above all by the Eucharist--is a special way of accomplishing this interpersonal and social dimension. By caring for one another, by bearing one another's burdens, you show, by your unity, that Christ is living in your midst.99 Important for your apostolate in the Church is every kind of sensitivity to the needs and sufferings of the individual, which are seen so clearly and so movingly in today's world. For the Apostle Paul teaches: "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ,;~°° and he adds that "love is the fulfilling of the Law."1°1 Your mission must be seen! Deep, very deep must be the bond which links it to the Church!~°2 Through everything that you do, and especially through everything that you are, may the truth be proclaimed and reconfirmed that "Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her"~o3--the truth that is at the basis of the whole Economy of Redemption. From Christ, the Redeemer of the World, may the inexhaustible source of your love of the Church pour forth! Conclusion The Eyes Enlightening the Heart 16. This exhortation, which 1 address to you on the Solemnity of the Annunciation in the Jubilee Year of the Redemption, is meant to be an 5{11) / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 expression of that love which the Church has for men and womeri religious: You, dear Brothers and Sisters, are truly a special treasure of the Church. And this treasure becomes more understandable through °meditation on the reality of the redemption--for which the present Holy Year offers a continuous opportunity and a welcome encouragement. Recognize therefore, in this light, your identity and your dignity. May the Holy Spirit--through Christ's cross and resurrection--"having the eyes of your hearts enlightened," enable you "to know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints."~0~ These "eyes enlightening the heart" the Church unceasingly asks ]'or each ¯ one of you who have already taken the road of the profession of the evfingelical counsels. The Church, together with you, asks for the same "enlightened eyes" for many other Christians---especially for young men and women--that they, too, may discover this way, and not be afraid to enter upon it, that---even in the midst of the adverse circumstances of life today--they may hear Christ's "Follow Me."1°5 You, too, must strive for this through your prayer, and aiso through the witness of that love whereby "God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us."~o6 May this witness become present everywhere, and universally clear. May the people of our times, in their spiritual weariness, find in this witness both support and hope. Therefore serve your brethren with the joy that wells up from a heart in which Christ has his dwelling. "And may the world of our time., be enabled to receive the good news, not from evangelizers who are dejected and discouraged., but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervor, who have first received the joy of Christ."~07 The Church, in her love for you, does not cease "kneeling before the Father. and praying"t0g that he may effect in you "the strengthening of the inner nature,''~09 and, as in you, so also in many others of your baptized brothers and sisters---especially young people--so that they, too, may find the same way to holiness which, in the course of history, so many generations have traveled together with Christ the Redeemer of the World and Spouse of Souls, often~ leaving behind them the bright radiance of God's light against the dark and gray background of human existence. To all of you who travel this road in the present phase of the history of the Church and the world there is addressed this fervent hope of the Jubilee Year of the Redemption, that "you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have the power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."~0 Message of the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord On the Feast of the Annunciation in thi~ Holy Year of the Redemption, I place the present exhortation in the heart of the Immaculate Virgin. Among all Redemptionis Donum / 501 persons consecrated unreservedly to G6d, she is the first. She--the Virgin of Nazareth--is also the one most fully consecrated to God, consecrated in the most perfect way. Her spousal~love reached its height in the divine motherhood through the power of the Holy Spirit. She, who as mother carries Christ in her arms, at the same time fulfills in the most perfect way his call: "Follow me." And she follows him--she, the mother--as her teacher of chastity, poverty and obedience. How poor she was on Bethlehem night, and how poor on Calvary! How obedient she was at the moment .of the Annunciation, and then--at the foot of the Cross--obedient "unto death!" How dedicated she was in all her earthly life to the cause of the kingdom" of heaven through most chaste love. If the entire Church finds in Mary her first model, all the more reason do you find her so--you as consecrated individuals and communities within the Church! On the day that calls to mind the inauguration of the Jubilee of the Redemption, which took place last year, I address myself to you with this present message to invite you to renew your religious consecration according to the model of the consecration of the very Mother of God. Beloved Brothers and Sisters! "God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."lll Persevering in fidelity to him who is faithful, strive to find a very special support in Mary! For she was called by God to the most perfect communion with his Son. May she, the faithful Virgin, also be the Mother of your evangelical way. May she help yoti to experience and to show to the world how infinitely faithful is God himself! With these hopes 1 bless you with all my heart. From the Vatican, March 25, in the Jubilee Year of the Redemption, 1984, the sixth of my pontificate. NOTES ~See Mt 7:14. 2Ps 130(129):7. .JSee 2 Co 11:2. sSee Mt' 19:21; Mk 10:21; Lk' 18:22. 6Mk 10:21. 8Jn 3:16. 91 P 1:18-19. ml Co 6:20. ~2Mt 5:48. ~JSee Lv 19:2; 11:44. ~4Ep 5:1-2. ~6Mk 8:35; see Mt 10:39; Lk 9:24. ~TMt 19:21. ~gMt 6:21. ~°See Mt 19:21; Mk 10:21; Lk 18:22. 22Mt 19:16. ~JJn 15:16. 241 Jn 4:10. 4See Mt 18:20. 7Mt 19:21. ~1 Co 6:19-20. ~Sls 44:22. ~sSee Mt 6:19-20. 2~See Jn 14:26. ~See Second Vatican Council, decree Perfectae Caritatis, 5; see also document of the Congrega-tion for Religious and Secular Institutes "Essential Elements in the Church's Teaching on Religious Life as Applied to Institutes Dedicated to Works of the Apostolate" (May 3 I, 1983), nn. 5ff. ~6Rm 6:3-4. ~TRm 6:6. 2SRm 6:1 I. ~gSee Ep 4:22-24. 51)2 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 J°ls 43:1. 34Rm 12:1. asPs 16( 15):2,5. 42See Mt 7:1. ~6See Mt 6:14-15. ~°Jn 17:15. 5JPh 2:6-7: 57Mr 19:12.° 6~I Co 7:32. ~2 Co 8:9. ~Mt 19:21. 32Ps 135 (134):4. J3Jn 17:19. a~Heb 10:5,7. ~6Rm 12:1. aTPs 73(72):25-26. 39See Sg 8:6. ~See Lk 20:38. :4~2 Co 5:17. *JLk 6:35. '~See Mt 5:40-42. *~See Lk 14:13-14. *TRm 8:19-21. '~1 Jn 2:15-17. ~gSee Gn 1:28. ~See Perfectae Caritatis, 5. 522 Co 5:17. ~Mk 8:34: Mt 16:24. ssPh 3:8-9. 562 Co 4:16. 5SMt 19:11. 59See I Co 7:28-40: ~°See I Co 7:38. 621 Co 7:34. 6~See Lk 20:34-36; Mt 22:30: Mk 12:25. 65Mt 5:3. 66Ep 3:9. 67Mt 19:21; see Mk 10:21; Lk 18:22. 7°Mr 5:3. 7~Ph 2:6-8. 74Mysterium lniquitatis; see 2 Th 2:7. 77Jn 8:29. tSJn 6:38. ~OLk 22:42; see Mk 14:36; Mt 26:42. 82See Perfectae Caritatis, 14. 85Lk 1:38. 86Jn 10:17-18. 89Rm 5:5. 9°See I Co 7:7. 6SMk 6:33; eLk 6:20. 72Rm ~: 19. 7-~See Perfectae Caritatis, I. 75Jn 4:34. 76Jn 5:30. 79ps 40(39):8-9; see Heb 10:17. s~See Evangelica Testificatio, 6. S~Heb 13:17. ~4Mk 10:45. sTSee Lk 22:32. ssPh 1:9-1 I. 91Rm 8:2. 92See Rm 8:13. 9-~Rm 12:2. 9~See Code of Canon Law, canon 669. 9~See Mt 28:19. 9~Col 3:3. 97Mt 5:16. ~Jn 13:35. 99See Perfectae Caritatis, 15. t°°Ga 6:2. ~o~ Rm 13:10. ~°2The Code of Canon Law explicitly mentions this with regard to apostolic activity: see canon 675, sec. 3. ~O3Ep 5:25. , ~Ep 1:18. IO~Lk 5:27. ~°~1 Jn 4!12. ~°TPope Paul VI, apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, 80. ~°sSee Ep 3:14. ~°gSee Ep 3:16. n0Ep 3:17;19. ml Co 1:9. Encourage Vocations May I also ask you for something?You are well aware of the needs of the Church all over the world in relation to vocations to the priesthood and to the religious life. My request is that you do not fail to challenge the young to follow Christ in this way. Help them to discover the divine call. Support them by your prayer, your advice, and the example of your lives.--John Paul Ii, to the General Chapter of the Congregation of Christian Brothers. L'Osscrvatore Romano, 24 April, 1984, p. 9. Commitment: Dying and Rising to Self Anthony Wieczorek, O. Praem. This article is the fruit of the prayerful reflections of Bro~ Wieczorek as he approached the time of his solemn profession during the days of Holy Week. His last article. "Poverty. Time. Solitude: A Conte.xt for a Celibate Life-Style.~appeared in the issue of September/October. 1982. Bro. Wieczorek resides in St. Joseph Priory: 103 Grant Street: De Pere. WI 54115. Commitment is a life and death decision. This is especially true for such commitments as marriage, profession, arid even the taking 'on ~of certain jobs requiring a good degree of responsibility. Commitment is a decision to live a certain life, to embrace life and enter into it fully. At the same time, it is a death. It means letting go of other options and alternatives, of other equally good or better ways of living. For both these reasons, because commitment is an embracing of life and death, commitments are' often difficult to make, causes of not a little anxiety and fear. The fear is not simply because of the dying required; it is perhaps least of all due to that. Rather, the main cause for fear in commitment is precisely the living, the life that is chosen with all its unknown consequences. Life is just as much out of human control as death. Life is just as much a surrender as death. When a person truly abandons oneself to living, truly living--wak.efully, consciously, with senses open and alert to every and anything--the final result is just as mysterious and uncertain as death. At least that is what I am finding out as the day of my solemn profession nears. What is involved in making such a commitment? Where will such a life lead? What price will such a life demand? For make no mistake, living exacts a terrible price--terrible and beautiful. Truly, commitment is a dying and rising of self. The self I am and know given over to transformation by living a life the consequences and end of which 1 cannot envision. The frightening part of commitment, for many of us, as these reflections try to articulate, is not just the dying to other lives, it is the rising to new and different life and, perhaps, to 503 504/ Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 an equally new and different self. The Seed of An Uncertain Future I wonder, Lord, if you wonder where all the singleheartedness has gone. It is still there, thought now I am no longer so wholly consumed by it. All its life, the residue of its past as well as the fire of its dreams, is squeezed tightly into a single seed. The seed is all curled up about itself. It is afraid to die for when it does it will erupt into nbt only new life, that is not so bad, but into different life. The tree from which that scared seed grew is only one parent. The other is mystery, wild and elusive. It will be no new tree that stretches itself upward and downward but a different tree. And so I cling to the last shreds of my former life, feeling it nonetheless slipping, being pulled endlessly from my grasp. And when the last element is gone and I fall helplessly into the soil, half buried by the force of the fall, then I shall die/rise--for it is all the same--to not only live anew but differently. I die to arise as a self I do not know; the me I am assumed, eaten up as food, by the person 1 shall become. .The seed existing in me is devouringme to nourish itself. It is eating its way out of me, bite by bite. Soon I will be gone. Yet not gone, for a new and different self will begin to grow from where 1 stood, with its own life, its own dreams and future. As it is now part of me, so then ! shall be part of it, consumed as fuel until it is strong enough to move away and seek its own source of life, to wrap its lips around the mystery which gave it birth and suck into its being a vitality and energy I cannot imagine, let alone comprehend. And it will grow as the mystery it drinks saturates every cell of it. By that time l will have played my part. The husk that will be what remains of me will slowly crumble with a dry, crinkling sound. Discarded, will I be remembered by what has become of me? Will anything of me survive in that which survives me? When 1 too hang a lifeless husk from a tree, consumed wholly by what exists within me? Of Acorns and O~ks It's too bad acorns can't fly. Maybe it's just as well. I wonder, if they could, how many over the years would have changed their minds and returned in a flurry of little wings to the tree from which they fell? A person just can't be sure. In the fall, if you sit quietly amid the sounds of wind and rustling leaves you can occasionally hear the sudden and quite distinct plop of an acorn hitting the ground. And if you lean over it you can even hear the final little sigh the acorn makes just before, separated from the life of the tree, it dies. For me, the acorn is a symbol of faith. The whole and utter point of an acorn's life is to die. It dies so that the oak tree within it can sprout and grow and give birth to more acorns and so more oak trees. But what about the acorn? That surely isn't much of a life. I wonder if they're informed of the odds of success before they're sent on their suicide dive? For all the acorns that fall, how slim a percentage are able to accomplish their full mission? How many of Commitment: Dying and Rising to Self / 505 the well meaning little things end up in the bellies of squirrels? or get picked up by people like me who put them in a pocket, or sit them on a desk as a remembrance? All that wasted potential. That's why l say, it's too bad acorns can't fly. But acorns don't seem to mind the odds. Millions fall to pointless deaths each year. Each one, I suppose, acts in faith. And so do they die. Maybe I'm too romantic about this. Maybe acorns kick and scream over their fate. Maybe it's not that acorns voluntarily let go at all. Perhaps they hang on for dear life, literally, while the wind and tree try to shake them loose. And don't blame the tree; it is, after all, the wind that does the shaking. The wind jostles and bounces the branches and leaves until the acorns can no longer hang on, until .th,.ey fall, with a plop, onto the ground below. In my room is an 1con, Rublev's The Holy Trinity. On it are three figures, the three visitors greeted by Abraham. Each represents a different person of the Holy Trinity. They are, from left to right, Son, Father, and Spirit. They are seated at a table and on its center is a solitary cup. The symbolism speaks of the cup as the cup of commitment or decision or vow. The cup is the symbol of the incarnation. The Son in drinking it would vow to undergo the incarnation, the ministry and death. The Father looks sadly at the Son but makes no move to urge his drinking. The decision must be made freely and the Father respects that. The Spirit, though, is much less inhibited, much more impetuous. The Spirit motions toward the. cup, as if to push it closer to the Son, encouraging him to drink. In Greek and Hebrew, the word for spirit and wind is the same. I think that the word for Jesus and acorn should be the same also. The Spirit blew the cup across the table and thbn with a sudden gust blew the Son right out of heaven so that he fell, with a plop, upon the earth to live so briefly and then with a sigh die so that from his seed new life might sprout and grow. I wonder if the Son would rather have hung on to the Father? I Wonder if without the Spirit's insistence the Son would have continued to cling to heaven? Who can blame either of them? What were the Son's odds for.success? And the Spirit? The Spirit is the seed contained within the acorn--Son. Do not feel sorry for the acorn, nor for the Son. Rather, feel sorry for yourself; All of us are acorns. Each one is complete with a spirit-seed~ We cling to a cross and cling desperately, lest we too fall and we too germinate into a new and different creation. And yet, it is our purpose and fate to let go and drop down into the life we find ourselves forced by various kinds of necessity to live. I like to fancy myself a tree. Sad to say I am only the acorn. I am meant to fall, meant to die so that the. life within me might sprout and grow. For now, though, l~cling with all my strength to the tree, high above life, not at all anxious to.surrender my grasp and fall into it. I look down on the acorns already fallen with arms that ache and fingers that are numb. The wind will not let up. It is but a matter of time. Eventually I will fall and that will be that. There will be nowhere to go but into life, a life wholly foreign and different from my life as an acorn. Up to now I have not minded being an 506 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 acorn. But now I see a very serious shortcoming: acorns can't fly. The Waves and Tides of Life Yesterday I stood at the water's edge and watched the waves ebb and flow. The water Would rush ashore in a burst of extroversion and then, just as shyly, recede, as though it had scared and embarrassed itself with its own excitement. Today I think, how much life is like those waves. There is an ebb flow to my emotions. Today, though, 1 ebb, recede back into myself to be alone with my loneliness. And today, as I sit and recall the waves, they seem like hands groping, flaying out to grab hold of an3ithing or anyone~ They are like the hands of a ghost that can. neither hold nor ever be held. The waves that beat the sand and stones, are they ii'ying in fact to climb the shore? to step out and stand and walk out among the people who have from time to time plunged into their world only to emerge after a moment and walk away? Those people who enjoyed the waves for a moment, befriending them only to leave for the business of their own lives, leaving, too, the waves to lap longingly after life they can never know or share? I with them ebb further into my heart, receding back into the memories of those who have plunged for a moment into my llfe only to leave and leave me lapping after them. Like a lake .I sit alone, from time to time rising up with a rush only to slip back into myself, startled and embarrassed by my own need. Something within me is like a wave that slaps ashore but never stays, Something within me surges up only to be pulled back within by some internal gravity. I'm not sure if that something is just shy, testing the air and environ-ment then fleeing back inside, or if it is trapped, tryin~ to escape the,grasp of something else holding it bound. I don't even know what the something within me is, the wave-like thing that surges within me. I wonder if the waves feel the futility of their endless spending of energy? What do the waves accOmplish? At what do they succeed? Too pragmatic a question? I guess so. But the question comes because I, like them, ebb and flow over and over, so much motion without any progress onward or toward. Things within me, feelings, truths, continually well up and slide onto the shore of consciousness only to teasingly return to the depths, staying only long enough to be quickly felt, to be glanced, to pose a question but never long enough to give: an answer or even listen to my response. Maybe then 1 have it all wrong. Maybe the point of the waves is not for them to venture ashore. Maybe the waves are not groping but beckoning hands, calling me to enter it, urging and compelling me into its depths. The ebb and flow of feelings that roll up into consciousness, are they bait meant to lure me into my own depths? Endlessly they call, endlessly they reach .out to stroke and caress me into compliance, easing my fear with warm, soft strokes. Those waves that nowhere go gather me and draw me not nowhere but~down, deep down, then deeper still until memory of shore is gone and the memory of me upon the shore is equally gone, washed away by the waves. Commitment: Dying and Rising to Self ] 507 The Bondage of Busyness I'm sorry, Lord, so much these past few weeks l've had to do, to be busy about. How easy it is to put off being sensitive and aware by doing. It leaves no time to be, only time enough to do. Lately I've been going through life at light's speed. Stars blur into indistinguishable streaks of white light. And people too. And you, God; and you, too. You bead up on the surface of my life like water and roll away while 1 race on. It is for self-defense. Awareness requires sensitiv-ity and for that ability to feel. To feel. Can't I just ponder you slowly in my mind? Must I dare to feel you? To be pierced by experiences, allowing them to enter in, leave an impression, even draw blood7 There ,is something in me struggling to be free. Always the same words. And why not? It is the same reality. Bondage. When, Lord, when will I learn? When will 1 take the lessons to heart and emerge whole and authentic? It is being you require not sacrifice~ not doing. They are quite wrong, those who say "just being" is a passivity. It is work, painful work without respite: 1 know why people are wont to go mad. It is all so painfully obvious. Why do I go on living in such foreign realms where things done and not being alive is the currency? The True, the Real is here, so obvious, waiting. 1 wait too. I wait for death to free me from all my falsity and foolishness, from the hustle and bustle. And l blame you for the fire and brimstone I call upon myself. I hold my breath while ! pray for death, hoping ¯ all the while it will pass me by.,I am too afraid of living; of feeling life, to die. Doing is my excuse for not being, for not taking the time or oppo~unity to feel. After death, 1 imagine, there will be all eternity to be. But even now I can feel the fabric of the womb pressing against my face and hands. My fingers grope to tear it away. 1 strain to open my eyes against it and see beyond it, crying an angry moan through it and dissolve it with my tears. Being means living and I will not allow myself to be born. I want to die but fear birth, fear the living. If 1 do not die I cannot be born, cannot be. 1 am afraid of eternity, afraid that once I pass through this existence to life I will have nothing to keep me from being, from living truly. It is not physical death I fear. That is only the symbol. Physical death reminds me that someday I must make the 9assage: Physical death is a taunt that reminds me that this existence is illusion and all the busy things I do to keep me from being and feeling are illusory too. That's why I flee from death, for 1 am afraid to live, to be, to feel. The struggle is to be born. The bondage to be enwombed. Death is the door I refuse to open for life awaits me on the other side. When will I let go and let death take me? When, 1 know now, I can let go of my fear of feeling. Death is release but 1 do not want to be free. No, that is not true. I crave it, crave life even as I fear it. I die to the wrong thing. I die to life so that I may live in death instead of dying to death, the death in which I now, and yet, live. If I die to death 1 shall rise again to live life, to feel life. And so, to insulate myself, I lie buried beneath piles of mud while my spirit struggles to soar. I choose death 5011 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 for it is painless, effortless, feelingless. The mud is all the deedsI do, must do, ought to do, have to do, can do, should do. All these excuses, a facade of life to imagine the things 1 do, the death I live in, means I am really alive. I refuse the resurrection and choose the facade. The facade of life that I live, for I have not died. Death waits. I can be embraced any time, any time I choose to live. It is so simple:,to be free 1 must simply die to death and be willing to live. Two things block my way, fear and self-consciousness. Maybe there are three things, death is the third. They are, I'm sure, all interrelated., Fear of death of the selL.l have, after all, gone through quite a turnsince my graduate school day~ when self-fulfillment was the key. Maybe it still is a key, though not to any doors I find before me. The key now is death~ death to self. Maybe I'm morel a Buddhist than 1 thought. Fear stares me in the face every :step of the way. The face of fear fills my vision. It is only an illusion though. Fear has no more a face than does a mirror. Fear's face is my own reflection. So here it is Good Friday, a day of self-denial, a day of the celebration of the conquest of fear. Your faith, Lord, conquered your fear. And for me, I lack the faith for it will bid me to face fear and enter into death. And when 1 die I shall rise__to live, to feel. Feel what? The truth: uncertainty, sorrow, loneliness made more real by love, impotence, insignificance. Even your death, Lord, has changed so little. What then of mine? ~;ou see my self-consciousness is all that keeps me from consciousness. Make no mistake, I know the grace is there. I know that if I stand silently with outstretched hands you will fill them. For that reason my hands are tightly closed into fists, fists that grasp and cling to every shred of self-consciousness I can find. ~Get behind me, Satan, your ways are not God's but man's." There is so much power in those words. The object of that little outburst of yours was not Peter's remarks but the voice within you that Peter only echoed. Why after all die, to whom will it matter in the end, much less now? I have the same voice in me, it is my voice trying to shout down the voice Of the spirit-seed begging for birth. And so I cry out.with you, "get behind me, self-consciousness." An Allegory on Arising Somewhere an alarm is ringing but I can't seem to wake enough to turn it off. It pulls and tugs at me but I am too groggy to do much more than mutter with swollen tongue still drunk with sleep. I must wake, I tell myself, but my limbs refuse to acknowledge any signals from my duty-bound brain. Of the past Triduum, Good Friday was my best day, of the three the day of greatest wakefulness. It left me eager for the Vigil service--but there it ended, l lie in my tomb thrilling over resurrection but cannot muster the consciousness to rise. I close my eyes to resurrection so that I may return to the opium of my ¯ Commitment: Dying and Rising to Self / 509 dreams. I,know I am dreaming for I know that 1 am unawake. But my sleep-logged body lacks the bouyancy to rise. I sleep on while the alarm rings on. Good Friday and I became such good friends because we spoke the same language: death--only unlike Good Friday, I refused to move on to'Easter Sunday, Each day by my own decree is a Good Friday. For, having to choose between the tomb and wakefulness, I have chosen the tomb. Holy Thursday was too busy for me to find in it any portal to mystery, let alone your presence. But Good Friday loomed like a sudden door in the middle of the service and I entered in. It felt right, necessary. I need to die, to hand myself over to death. But I refuse to enter fully into Good Friday, for from where I stood j,ust inside the threshold I could see that it extended out into Holy Saturday--when the alarm begins to ring--and opened up into Easter Sunday. So there it is, a matrix of transformation, a labyrinth one wanders through to emerge as some new self the old one lost somewhere within. I don't even think I mind the death anymore. It is somehow inevitable and in a sense it has already begun. But in the foreground I can hear the alarm waking me to consciousness even before fully asleep. It is that that scares me. I try to ignore it: can't you tell I'm dead? What do you mean it's time to get up? Do the dead rise and shine? I found in Good Friday an escape from consciousness and feeling but found also the alarm that tries so persistently to raise these unwilling limbs to new life. It does not end on Good Friday. On the third day, it says, he rose again. It took Jesus three days to lose his tug-of-war with God. Obvously you simply weren't trying, l'm proof that the contest can go on much longer. We are told to give our lives over to God as though we were lumps of clay, as though it were an act done once and for all. That is simply not how it is. We are balls of yarn that God slowly pulis, unraveling us and knitting us into something new. The same yarn but a new being--and we don't even get to choose the pattern. And so I hang on as mightily as I can, trying to unravel what God has knitted and rewrap myself into a safely static ball of potential: After all; look at what God did with the "yarn" that was--and is--Jesus. His own friends couldn't recognize him when God got through. So God and I are engaged in a tug-of-war. It took you three days, Lord? Three days to let totally go and be remade? Would that I were as weak. Unfortunately, God does not seem to be as strong as we claim. He is losing, his new creation is losing its shape, slowly being undone. The alarm bids me to stir and awaken, to loosen my hold on myself and let what I am be used up, transformed and brought back as one more patch on a huge and colorful woven mosiac. But now I am talking about Easter. Now I am talking about wakefulness, consciousness, the empty tomb with its wrappings neatly folded and put aside, like sheets and blankets on a bed remade and forgotten during the daylight hours. But I am still wrapped warm within my bed. The tomb is not yet vacant. I cling to my self-consciousness, the self 1 think 1 know and do not want to lose. But despite the sleep, I cannot hold on to myself much longer, the sleep deepens and my grip upon myself loosens. 510 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 God. tugs once more and smiles, "Nothing but a little snag," and goes on knitting making who knows, what to one day soon be sewn into a patchwork of eternity and serve some purpose in a plan not my own. Each day for me is Good Friday and soon Holy Saturday when I will be remade an~ then reappear a stranger, washed ashore on the morning of some Easter Sunday. Reciprocal On top of hell a bluebird sits On an apple branch. A mocking bird's swelling song, Tiptop in a tall cedar, chants A confiteor to such irony. Cows graze in emerald pastures. The sun~ rising red, puts the moon to rest: And morning prayers are said. Below these placid pastures, Below fring.ed acres, --primed and waiting-- Are the missiles, restrained, yet ready To fly whistling seaward, to other Pastures, where other dwellers sit on Top of hell, listening to another Bluebird singing, on an apple branch, A mocking bird trilling, tiptop In a tall cedar. Martha Wickham 560 N. Walnut, Apt~ °1 o Taylorville, IL 62568 Ecclesial Relationships for Religious: Desires and Limits Alexa Suelzer, S.P. This article is the text of the second annual lecture and colloquium sponsored by Review for Religious in conjunction with the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University which took place at the university April 12-13. In the spring of 1983, Sister Alexa was appointed to the special committee of religious formed by Archbishop John Quinn to collaborate with the ponifical commission established to facilitate the pastoral ministry of bishops to religious in this country. Sister Alexa, whose background is in Scripture, has had extensive administrative experience within her own community. She may be addressed as St. Mary-of-the-Woods College; St. Mary-of-the-Woods, IN 47876. Almost a year has passed since John Paul 11 wrote to the bishops of the United States concerning the religious--both men and women--in their dio-ceses and.sent them a document titled Essential Elements in the Church's Teaching on Religious Nfe As Applied to Institutes Dedicated to Works of ApostolateJ a compendium drawn from pertinent decrees of Vatican H, papal writings, and documents of the Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes. Its authority derives from its sources and from the personal approval of John Paul? Perhaps there was a time when such imposing credentials would preclude criticism--but no more! Reaction from religious has covered the gamut from strong affirmation thro.ugh indifference to angry rejection. One religious' assertion that the teaching affirms her.waY of life is counterbalanced by another's depression at seeing her path questioned. Between these extremes lie varying degrees of agreement and disagreement. It seems safe to say that the enumeration of the indispensable elements (prayer, evangelical witness, and so forth) meets with general acceptance, but description of each of them finds the variety of reactions described. Sometimes the criticism is on peripheral issues: Why single out American religious? ~Why 511 512 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 were the LCWR and CMSM passed by? What is the hidden agenda? At times the criticism stems from misreading the text, e.g., presuming that the "ending of the special period of experimentation," condemns religious life henceforth to the s, tatus quo. At times the language and concepts are faulted as archaic and stereotypical, better suited to an earlier time. More serious are the theological challenges: the failure to realize adequately the evolution of religious life through the centuries, the use of consecration as a master category, the neglect of the prophetic element, and an unsatisfactory eccle-iology. From listening and speaking to religious, both individually, and in groups, I am led to believe that the last name---ecclesiology--is the source of the greatest difficulty. How one receives the document depends in great part upon the view of the Church--the ecclesiology--that is operative, consciously or uncon-sciously, in the reader:. Ecclesiology is assuredly an issue, for relatedness of religious life to the Church is one of the clearest affirmations in Essential Elements. In his letter accompanying the document John Paul refers to this fact in such phrases as "their ecclesial vocation,TM and "specific relation to tile' Church."~ Essential Elements repeats and elaborates these ideas: "Religious life belongs to the life and holiness of the Church. The Church authenticates the gift and mediates the consecration.6 And throughout there is a steady recurrence of phi'ases like "canonically erected by competent ecclesiastical authority";7 "according to constitutions wh'ich the Church, by her authority, accepts and approves";8 or "works of charity entrusted to the institute by the Church and performed in her name.''9 Relationship to the Church is in fact the seventh of the ten essentials named. Some parts of the section bear quoting: Religious life has its own place in relation to the divine and hierarchical structure of the Church. The founders and foundresses of religious institutes ask the hierarchial Church.publicly to authenticate the gift of God on which the existence of the institute depends. In their origins, religious institutes depend in a unique way on the hierarchy. As a particularly rich and important example of these manifold gifts, each religious institute depends for the authentic discernment of its founding charism on the God-given ministry of the hierarchy. This relationship obtains not only for the first recognition of the institute but also for its ongoing development. In short, the Church continues to mediate the conseCratory action of God in a specific way, recognizing and fostering this particular form of consecrated life.t0 Similarly in the section on evangelical witness it is noted that the saving work of Christ is shared by means of the concrete services mandated by the Church 'in the approval of the constitutions,tt The fact of this approval qualifies'the kind of service to be undertaken, since it must be faithful to the Gospel, the Church and the institute.12 ¯ .These statements are explicit to the poi'nt of overkill. They can be seen as a Ecclesial Relationships for Religious / $15 counterbalance (if not a reaction) to the exuberance of post-conciliar years in which the institutional dimension of the Church had been played down, if not denigrated. To understand how this state of affairs came about, it will be helpful to look at events in the field of ecclesiology both during and after the Council: In the first session of Vatican II the proposed schema on the Church offered by the Theological Commission was modeled, on the standard theological treatment of th~ manuals, a treatment laying heavy stress on the juridical and organizational aspects of the Church. Quite early in the debate the Council Fathers realized that the desired definition and description could not be simply in external, hierarchical terms, but the Church must be seen as mystery, that is, as described by Paul V1, a divine reality inserted into history, not fully to be captured by human thought and language. It is an indication of the development of the Church's understanding bf her nature and mission that the bishops turned to a fresh approach which would, be more historical, dynamic, and biblical. After a new draft and a series of revisions during the second and.third sessions, Lumen Gentium, The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,~3 was approved almost unanimously/and was immediately pro-mulgated, November 21, 1964. ~ The course of theology these past two decades has been charted largely by the insights'of Lumen Gentium. Its pastorial stance, its :use of fresh imagery, and its insistence on the universal c, all to holiness provided a new approach to the role of .the laity. Its presentation of the episcopate (a subject whose discussion had been necessarily cut short~ during the interrupted deliberations of Vatican I) introduced collegiality. And the discussion of the relation between the Church and other Christians led not only to rapprochement with other denominations but, through recognition of the Spirit's action in all men and women, led the Church to a clearer understanding of her own nature and mission. The decision of the Council Fathers to begin their reflection at the level of mystery, and only thereafter consider the visible, hierarchical elements of the Church was not fortuitous. The work of Vatican .II was built on an .ecclesiology which had been developing for the past half century. Nevertheless the Council, by reason of its stature and its pronouncements, gave a definite impetus to subsequent studies in ecclesiology= The topic is a leading one in the system of Karl Rahner. The major post-coriciliar work of Hans Kiing deals with the Church. Edward Schillebeeckx' recent works in Christology followed upon his treatment, over a period of years,of the Church in terms of sacramentality. On the popular level Avery Dulles' Models of the Church helped the non-specialist to appreciate the Church by means of many models, intellectual constructs, each giving a particular insight into the mystery of the Church, never fully to be apprehended by any of the models, or, indeed, by all of them~ Despite the advances of Vatican II and of subsequent ecclesiology, it 5"14 ] Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 should be recognized that the theology of Vatican I1 is transition theology. Lumen Gentium, for example, is filled with fresh insights, but these are seldom developed and their relation to older views--which the Council apparently still espoused--is not always evident. For example, although: Lumen Gentium treated the'x;isible, hierarchical dimension of:the Church only in second place, the institutional element still looms large, partially, of course, because it could be dealt, with in practical, coherent terms. (Probably the Church as institution is still the model in. possession~among the rank and file.) Again, the Council documents speak often of charismata (dona is the word used) but apart from insisting that these must be respected when shown to be genuine, little is said about the. relationship between "the gifts, both hierarchical ,and charismatic"~4 and their interplay. All in all, a kind of nervousness characterizes some postconciliar theology, especially in "official" statements~ a tendency to distrust the initial steps taken by the Council Fathers and to return to the safer paths of neoscholasticism.~5 l.believe Essential Elements shows such a tendency. At the.same time, by its consideration of the Church0primarily as mystery and its subordination of hierarchical to charismatic elements, Lumen Gentium itself supplied ammunition for the kinds of anti-institutional attacks we have witnessed in recent years. By a sort of semantic shift, "institutional, hierarchical Church" is sometimes referred to as.a separate entity over against---even in conflict with--the "charismatic Church?' When such polarization occurs it is easy to neglect or deny the interpenetration of the visible and invisible dimensions. An authentic theology, however, must develop from an under, standing of the Church as a single reality, both visible and invisible, having both hierarchical and charismatic elements. 16 One consequence of polarization can be seen in a renewed emptiasis upon institutional factors, possibly to balance what is, seen as a too enthusiastic espousal of a "spiritual" Church. Such stress is found in Essential Elements, which notes that the Church's hierarchic character proceeds from the headship of Christ,17 and calls deliberate attention to "the divine and hierarchical structure of the Church."~8 Posing the two dimensions one against the other can be avoided by the sacramental recognizing nature of the Church, an aspect Which is treated in a few, but crucial, sections of Lumen Gentium. Its opening paragraph names the Church."a kind of sacrament or;sign of intimate union with God, and of the unity of' all mankind." It insists that the visible assembly and the spiritual community"form one interlocked reality which is composed of a human and a divine element."~9 But here again the insight is not developed and we are not told how the Church is this sign.20 . .0 The-sacramental principle--a distinguishing mark Of Roman Catho-licism- affirms that God works in and through visible, material :reality. The" principle stems from the realization that, since men and women are finite and limited, the divine is available only sacramentally, that is, by mediation. This sacramental encounter is the point of intersection between God and hispeople, an encounter is the point of intersection between God and his people, an Ecclesial Relationships for Religious / 515 encounter through which the grace of Christ reaches individuals and communi-ties. As Thomas Aquinas teaches, Jesus Christ is the great sacrament of God's presence and salvific action. Similarly the Church is the sign of Christ and the Spirit's'~healing presence among us. This traditional teaching has been utilized by many contemporary theologians who see in sacramentality a key to understanding the Church and her mission. Essential Elements insists that religious life "in a special way participates in the sacramental nature of the People of God."~1 But even if one considers the Church primarily in sacramental terms, as the document~ purports to do,22 the visible, institutional aspects can be overpowering--and Essential Elements is here a parade example. It is quite possible to accept :fully the principle of mediation and at the same time object to its wholesale application. In the widest sense sacramentality or mediation applies to the realities through, which the transcendent is disclosed and communicated tb us--realities also through which .our responses to the transcendent are experienced. It is in this very broad sense that Essential Elements uses the principle. This extension of the concept of mediation to numerous aspects of religious life meets with strong criticism and resistance. The document is heavily weighted in terms of mediation through the visible Church and her hierarchy. For example, the profession of the counsels is mediated by the Church;23 it is the Church that authenticates and mediates consecration;24 and continues to mediate the consecratory action of God.2~ Further, the document is replete with phrases like "competent ecclesiastical authority".26 ".vows~which the Church receives",~7 and "authority conferred by the Church."~ Additional evidence of the role of mediation can be seen in the emphasis place upon consecration. Following its sources,~9 Essential Elements insists that "the baptismal gift is the. fundamental Christian consecration and is the root of all others.~° With the:same fidelity3~ it notes that religious life is "a partictilar form of consecration."~ Despite the rather frequent use of the word, however, thenotion of consecration is not central in the source documents, as is evident in specifying phrases such as "a certain special consecration."~a (It is noteworthy also that the Council' Fathers rejected De consecratis "Concern- Consecrated Persons"--as a title for the conciliar decree on religious life.) It is somewhat surprising, then; that Essential Elements has seized upon con-secration as the category unde~ which to organize what it has to say about religious life, ~tating explicitly: "Consecration is the basis of religious life,TM and then continuing to use consecration as a leitmotif in almost every subsequent section. This focus is not pleasing to everyone. True, consecration has been an honored concept in the tradition of the Church for long centuries, but it is not a popular focus today. Consecration (setting aside some one or some thing for divine worship and service) smacks of dualism, and introduces dichotomies alien to a contemporary holistic approach to reality. Rightly or wrongly, the term is seen by some as elitist, a perpetuation of the "state of perfection" 516 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 mentality. It can also be argued that a decree.addressed to members of institutes dedicated to works of the apostolate should accord a higher place to mission, even though the document is careful to note that consecration always leads to mission.35 Further, Essential Elements insists that consecration takes place through an ecclesiastical, hierarchical function; Lumen Gentium states that the liturgical setting of religious profession manifests that it is .a state consecrated to God.37' Thus the action of the Church looms large in comparison with the subjective dedication, that commitment is more decisive than its acceptance by the Church through the hierarchy, an acceptance which makes the commitment visibly and publicly ecclesial. In speaking of conse-cration through the profession of the counsels, Perfectae caritatis says that the perfection of the consecration depends on the~stability of the vows or other bonds.38. On the contrary, it should be emphasized that what consecrates is not the vows,o,but the commitment expressed through the vows," which are specification for a life of total dedication. As the documents themselves make clear, totality is the characteristic of religious life. For many .religious the category of discipleship is a far more meaningful biblical paradigm to use in talking about religious life. Critics have asked why such an attractive concept was not utilized more fully, especially in light of the earlier declaration that "since the fundamental norm of religious life is a following of Christ as proposed by the Gospel, such is to be.regarded by all communities as their supreme law."39 Discipleship is a popular theme today; its bibliography--both for religious and Christians in general--grows apace.~° Avery Dulles has revamped his models in favor of the Church as ~i community of disciples; certainly this schema does justice to the elements present in the other models.4~ Essential Elements, however, refers'only briefly~to discipleship: "Formation is the process of becoming more and more a disciple of Christ."42 Possibly the writers chose to stress consecration (even, as we have seen, expanding the comments of its sources) because discipleship is seen a~ a gift and challenge to all the people of God, and to describe religious life as a particular~ form of discipleship might not provide a sufficient distinction. Consecration, of course, implies discipleship. As already noted; the authen-ticity of the consecration depends upon the. genuine commitment of the subject, that is, upon the acceptance of the demands of a life of discipleship. Critics may be right in holding that the emphasis on consecratio.n--neces~arily external' and involving mediation--may obscure the element of personal decisions and dedication as well as invite unneeded supervison from without. Consecraton can become a mere rite--something that is done to me, Anrther aspect Essential Elements chose not to treat is the prophetic nature of religious life. Here the document imitates the reserve of its sources. Considering the prophetic role of the people of God Lumen Gentium notes only that . ¯ the holy People ofGod shares also in Christ's prophetic office. It spreads abroad a " living witness to him, especially by a life of faith and:charity and by offering tO God a Ecclesial Relationships for Religious / 517 sacrifice of praise, the tribute of lips which give honor to his name.43 Nowhere does it elaborate this theme. In the subsequent chapter on religious the many riches of their life are noted, but without specific mention of a prophetic function.'~ Essential" Elements does not go beyond its sources, although some paragraphs in the section on witness show a prophetic stance.45 Conciliar documents and subsequent pronouncements have made a studied effort to avoid defining too closely the essence of ~'eligious life. Despite the emphasis it places upon consecration Essential Elements calls tfiis the basis not the essence, of religious life. Public vows, consecration, life in community all these are described and discussed but with no affixing of strict labels. Given the evolution of religious life over the centuries (the shift from eremetical to cenobitical forms, the role of poverty, the concept of mediated obedience, the juridical nature of religious commitment)° it would be foolhardy to fasten upon any one of these important elements as everywhere and at all times essential to religious life. What the°history of religious life does make clear is that this way of life is created by a person's total dedication to God in an' exclusive relationship. Early monks were described (and later defined) as completely ded!cated to God and totally oriented to his service. To become a monk was identical with giving oneself over to God. Later St. Thomas insisted on the totallgift of one's life as the hallmark of religious life. Celibacy, renunciation, eventually mediate~d obedience all were expressions of the interior commitment to live entirely for God. The religious brings the commitment common to all Christians to the level of a lifestyle. As the core of such a life is the personal decision to respond, to the internally received vocation. Vatican II acknow-ledged this interpretation, affirming that the religious is "totally dedicated to God and is committed to the honor and service of God under a new and special title."46 Perfectae carita~is speaks of "self-surrender involving their entire lives,"47 and "a call to live for God alone."~8 Essential Elements picks up on the same note, speaking of a "profound and free self-surrender."49 The religious "dedicates the whole of life.to God's service."~0 In reflecting on the relative merits of consecration and discipleship as the better paradigm for clarifying religious life, it is ~vell to remember that all our descriptions and discussioris are part. of the history of a form of life which is still evolving. The definitive word on the Church has yet to be. spoken; how much more so for religious life! Surely there is room for more than one view. Given the conservative (preservative) nature of religious writing in general, the document of n~cessity shows a rootedness in .th+ past and a somewhat unwilling concession to the exigencies of the contempo~rary scene. But it has definitely advanced beyond positions of twenty years ago, evincing a greater understanding of different styles of community life, of the need for new forms of service, the mutuality of authority and obedience, and the nature and scope of format~.on. De.spite shortcomings, it is a document we can live and work with. 5111 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 But each of us comes to the reading of Essential Elements with particular baggage of our own baggage which may lead us to accept or reject the document out of hand. I would now like to consider some of the obstacles in the way of an honest approach to Essential Elements. Today we hear a great deal about tension: tension headaches and tensions between the super-powers; harmful tensions and creative tensions; interpersonal and intrapersonal tensions. It is the last-n~med--intrapersonal--that I want to speak aboui. All of. us necessarily operate with inner tensions which can be destructive or helpful depending on how successfully we achieve a creative balance. Most ofour specific tensions can be gro.uped under the master category of a tension between the world of desire and the world of limitsP~ A consideration of this topic may furnish some insights on our attitude to the Church in general and to Essential Elements in particular. It does noi require much reflection on the data of our experience to show that human thoughts and feelings oscillate between the poles of great expectations--for ourselves and our world and a depressed.recognition of the barriers imposed by our finiteness. Lumen Gentium says it well: ¯ . tl~e modern world shows itself at once powerful and weak. capable of the noblest deeds or the foulest . The truth is that the imbalances under which the.modern world labors are.linked with that more basic imbalance rooted in the heart of man. For ~n man 'himself many elements wrestle with each other. Thus. on the one hand? as a creature he experiences his limitations in a multitude of ways. On the other, he feels himself to be boundless in his desires and summoned to a higher life.52 The language of Lumen Gentium is abstract and non-specific, but practical examples from everyda3~ life are not lacking, The realm of desires is the realm of imagining, questioning, fantasizing--outside space and time where the human spirit meets no fixed limits. We can thirst to be theacme of beauty or charm, to attain all wealth or knowledge, to abolish in~hstice and brifig peace to the world. No sooner do we pe,rceive something to be good than we can desire it. But the moment we attempt to actualize our desire we meet limits, for every acl of choice is an act of self-limitation as well. Some of these limits are built in: our sex, race, nationality. Others are products of our environment, training and education. Our desire for knowledge is contained by our mental ability, educationai opportun!ties or financial status. We can be overwhelmed by these' limits and refuse to work at transcending them or we can unrealistically deny their existence and embark on a Faustian venture doomed to failure. We mu~t have a healthy ~respect for limitations, but not settle for them. Conversely, like Daniel we must bemen and women of desire, aspiring to'excellence, but aware of limits, l~esires and limits interact: they test, correct and sustain each other. in a particular situation, however, we may deny one or the other and fail to hold them in creative (ension. We haay objectify our boundaries, making a value of our very limitations. Or we may objectify our aspirations, setting them Ecclesial Relationships for Religious / 5"19 forth as values in themselves and refusing to acknowledge any restrictions upon them.53 Briefly, and perhaps simplistically, a religious with a strongly institutional view of the Church may hold such a position through a kind of mindless loyalty which relieves her or him of responsibility for life decisions. Likewise the one who places no curb upon personal autonomy and independence may dismiss outright directives coming from hierarchical sources. The refusal to transcend limits or the failure to acknowledge them results in a harmful imbalance leading to depression, anger and arrogance. Some examples will illustrate our subject at hand relatedness to the Church. In the first place, we come up against the need to find a balance between desires and limits as we reflect upon the respective demands of tradition and experience. T.S. Eliot has observed that the mature poet must possess the historical sense--a perception not only of the past as past but of its, abiding presence: the poet must write with all of Europe in his bones.54 This kind of interaction is hard to come by, the more so in contemporary society. Our age of pluralism and personalism stresses, and quite rightly, the role of experience in living responsibly. Pope John noted this in his opening address .to the Vatican Council: ¯. the spirit of the ~,hole world expects a step forward toward a doctrinal penetration and a formation of consciousness ~n faithful and perfe~:t conformity to the authentic doctrine, which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods ofo research and through the literary forms of modern thought. The substance of the ancient deposit of faith is one thing; the way in which it is presented is another.5~ Contemporary iheology¯in general works to correlate the classic formula-tions of faith with today's experience of salvation, a task involving past and present, tradition and experience in a process which is the pro.duct, not of caprice or whim. but of a.reflecting faith communityP6 In the particular theology of religious life we must bring our own experience to bear on the received teaching about that life. Ideally interaction should result, but realistically one or other element tradition or experience may be minimized or denied. A religious may place such restrictions on consulting the data of experience that he becomes frozen in the past. If the only thing necessary is to rec~ix~e a pat:adigm of religious life from others--whether the constitutions of my institute or hierarchical pronouncements--then personal experience is of small moment. Life then becomes a constant, perhaps defiant, reiteration of tradition. Personalism. pluralism, consultation of experience are all regarded as a betrayal of religious life. When a document like Essential Elements is received it is absorbed but held apart from the events in life which legitimately modify its content. On the other hand, a religious can objectify her own experience, making it the primary judge of reality, canonizing it to the point of neglect or denial Of the place of tradition in religious life, with a consequent dismissal of whatever does not accord with individual experience. But raw experience has little value. T.S. Eliot mourns,."We have had the experience but missed the meaning.'~7 Constitutions must do more than describe contemporary experience; they 590 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 must submit that experience to the light of the Gospel and traditional teaching concerning religious life. An oft-repeated criticism of Essential Elements is its failure adequately to acknowledge "the American e.~xperience," both the impact of democracy upon the experienc~e of religious life'in general, and the more specific American experience of the past two "decades of adaptation and renewal. Religious everywhere exist within the context of a particular culture which profoundly affects and shapes their lives. In the United States these past twenty years have witnessed the effort to articulate a form of religious life which is genuine and at the same time inculturated, that is, disengaged from the structures and customs of the past and brought into' line with contemporary American life. Inculturation is a desideratum, but so is "counterculturation," particularly for religious. Once again we .are in the world of desires and limits. The requirement~ of a culture often lead to a re-interpretation of the founder's charism. But not all elements of a culture are compatible with the Gospel; some are hostile. For authentic religious life there must be a continuing dialogue between the Gospel and its cultural expression. Let us look at another example. The Council calls us to be a pilgrim people, wayfaring Christians who have here no lasting ~ity. But the attitude proper to a pilgrim is threatened by the nester (who wants to move not at all) and by the rover (for whom change is the very stuff of life). The nester is all too willing to stay put. Religious 'who ' welcome the document's stre~s upon corporate mission, seeing in it the preservation of the founder's charism and an assurance of Church approval, need to reflect whether such l~oyalty does not stem from an exaggerated nesting instinct which makes thefia satisfied with limitations, freeing them from the risk of other works or from~the challenging forms of community and prayer which new tasks might demand. Nesters t~est comfortably in their limits, taking a passive stance and opting for the security provided by familiar structures. Nesters are often hard workers, but comfort and security, not challenge and growth, are their expectations of religious life. The kingdoffi °lSossesses for them no sense of urgency. Because such persons often do not think for themselves, they readily go along with the crowd and compromise values if this will help mairitain the status quo. To move frbm nester to pilgrim the situation must be acknowledged~ for what it is: a refusal to transcend limits and take responsibility for life. Such recognit.ion brings freedom to move beyond self, freedom to become a genuine pilgrim. Rovers too have difficulty balancing desires and limits, but of a different kind. Such religious entertain exaggerated notions of what (hey or their institute could accomplish if freed from hierarchical trammels. In warnings about scattering resources over too many works the rovers see only an encouragement of timid mediocrity and they are resentful of anyone who suggests parameters to their utopian schemes. Moving from project to project, they are voluble about what they are against--less clear about what they stand Ecclesial Relationships for Religious / 521 for. Destructive anger is often operative under the guise of zeal for the kingdom and service for the oppressed. A true pilgrim spirit cannot be attained without recognizing the poverty imposed by limitations. Johannes Metz observes: Through the transcendental expanse of his spirit, man lives in the open air. in the future of unlimited possibilities. His task is not to lose himself there, 15ut to make something of himself through them. He makes them his potentialities by his historically unique and irrevocable personal decision, through which he finds a foothold in the th~:ust of his existence. Doubtless we could multiply instances of such tensions within us. Let a final eXample serve as summary: the struggle between self-fulfillme~nt and self-transcendence. Thanks to developments in philo.sophy and the behavioral sciences our society has passed from institutionalism to personalism,,from an often static essentialism to existentialis.m. Religious life has reflected these changes. As novices many of us were "trained" (and the word is significant) in a traditional ethic Of self-denial and conformity; now we are confronted with healthful challenges to personal growth through responsible decision-making. Where once we awaited assignment at the discretion of the superior, now our gifts, our talents---even our preferences--are consulted and respected. The insights of psychology tell us that much of the discipline of the past--the asceticism, penitential practices, total-institution structures--was not the excellent means for personal development we once thought. Scores of institutes have mounted extensive programs: workshops in psychology, assertiveness training, human potential and the like--all dedicated to the self-actualization of the religious. This is to the good. Religious who were formerly content to let life happen to them, with limits imposed' by institutional structures and custom, have awakened to a sense:of freedom, responsibility and renewed vitality. They can now rejoice in new ways of acting unfettered by pessismism] legalism or guilt. But the journey°to self-fulfillment has pitfalls of its own. The goods of p~rsonal growth and independence can assume top rank in a hierarchy of objectified, individualistic values. The movement to actualize human potential can be trivialized tb the point of a petulant "doing my thing." Poised against the desire fore fulfillment is the Gospel call to conversion and self-transcendence. Behavioral scientists ask how the self of psychology and the self of the Gospel can be reconciled and some of them see no possibility of this. An easy appeal to the slogan, "The glory of God is man fully alive," would seem to suggest that the path of self-actualization is the only one we need to ~follow. But Jesus' directives about denying oneself, taking up the cross and even dying are still normative for the Christian. The dichotomy between self-fulfillment and the demands of Christian spirituality can be bridged only by a transcendence that reaches beyond both self-actualization and self-denial. Our deepest yearnings-- the desire for meaning, truth, value, love---can be satisfied only when we shift our primary focus from our personal needs and desires to the needs of others. It is to such transcendence that John Paul calls the whole Church, but 522 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1984 especially us religious, inviting us to live more intensely .the mystery of the redemption. It is a call to holiness and renewal, a call to penance and conversion.59 In practical terms the call requires objective and humble evaluation of our life. We can of course choose not to heed this particular appeal. ,We can receive the document as an unwelcome and unwarranted admonition, spend our timelooking for the hidden agenda, fault the document for its omissions and commissions. In such case we have'had the experience but missed the meaning. ~ Essential Elements is an authoritative document, but not a definitive one. Like Lumen Gentium it does not canonize the past nor consecrate tl~e present but prepa.res for the futui'e, not least of all by reason of the fruitful dialogue it can initiate. A healthy realism shows that we are all, hierarchy and religious alike, part of a sinful Church, semperformanda et reformanda. We manifest the mystery of the Lord "ina faithful though shadowed Way.'~0 Let us work to remove the shadows so that we may become those "blazing emblemsTM of the kingdom in a Church which is truly lumen gentium, the light of the world. NOTES ~Hereafter, Essential Elements or EE. The edition used is that of the Daughters of St. Paul, Boston, 1983. ~lts application must be made with due regard for the principles applicable to all magisterial pronouncements. These principles, however, are not always clear. Karl Rahner notes, ~Theology has shown relatively little interest in a more nuanced answer to the question of the proper and permissible relationship of, the average Catholic to the official teaching of the Ch,,urch." See Rahner and K-H. Weger; Our Christian Faith: Answer for the Future (New ~ork: Crossroad, 1981), p. 125. 3EE. 2. 4Lette~ of John Paul II in EE, 4. 51bid. 3. 6EE, 8. 71bid, 10:, 81bid, II. 91bid; 12. ~01bid, 38, 40, 41, 42. ~qbid, 24. ~21bid ~3Hereafter,'LG. The sohrce for this and other documents of Vatican !I is Walter M. Abbott, ed., The Documents of Vatican !! (New York: Herder and Herder, 1966)~ ~4LG, 4. ~sSee Karl Rahner,~Concernfor the Church, Theological Investigations, XX, tr. E. Quinn (New York: Crossroad. 1981), pp, 94--97, ~6"~he disjunctive use of these terms is unfortunate. Karl Rahner notes that "the official element in the Church has a ~zharismatic element. For it is evident that the gifts of the Spirit can only be regulated by a gift of the Spirit. In other words any attempt to regard the official and charisma

Issue 43.5 of the Review for Religious, September/October 1984. ; REvll!w I:OR RE~.lt;~Ot~S (ISSN 0034-639X). published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at .Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis, MO 63108. R~=.vlt.'.w FOR RE~.~t3~ot~s is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus. St. Louis, MO. @ 1984 by Rl~vll:.w FOR RE~.mlot;s. Composed. printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A. $10.00 a year: $19.00 for two'years. Other countries: add $2.00 per year (postage). For sub~ripfion orders or change of address, write Rt:v~t:w ~,oR Rt:l.w,~ot~s: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor Sept./Oct., 1984 Volume 43 Number 5 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW FOR R~-:tAGtOOS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's University; City Avenue at 54th St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from R~-:v~.:w ~'oR Rt-:t.t~;~oos; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. "Oul of print" issues and articles not published as reprints arc available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. "On the Strength of His Word": A Meditation on Priestly Spirituality Joseph Ratzinger Oh the occasion of the golden jubilee celebration of Joseph Cardinal H~Sffner, Archbishop of Cologne (October 30, 1982), Cardinal RatTJng~r offered this meditation on the priesthood which many have found helpful. The text is based on the translation which appeared in L'Osservatore Romano, 2 April, 1984, pp. 13ft. Cardinal Ratzinger is presently Prefect of the S. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where he may be addressed: 1 -- 00120 Vatican City The past twenty years have witnessed a great deal of reflection and much heated discussion about the priesthood. But in spite of everything, the priest-hood proves to be longer-lived thari anticipated by many of the premature arguments put forward by certain persons who would want to abandori it as a sacred misunderstanding, replacing it with an understanding based on the concept of a merely functional "temporary service." We are gradually°coming to comprehend the presuppositions which at one time allowed such arguments to appear almost incontrovertible. Overcoming these prejudices also enables "us to understand more profoundly the biblical witness in its inner unity--of Old and New Testament, of Bible and Church. We are thus no longer forced to rest content with stale water from cisterns that sometimes trickles away amid conflicting h3ipotheses and sometimes collects in brackish little pools. Instead, we have accessto the living fountains of the faith of the Church of all ages. As far as I can see, the future will have to face precisely this question: How are we supposed to read the Scriptures? During the years when the canon of the Scriptures was being formed--which were also the years when the Church and her catholicity were taking shape--it was primarily Irenaeus of Lyons who had to deal with this question, whose answer decided whether ecclesiasti-cal life was possible or not. In his day, Irenaeus saw clearly that to divide the 641 649 / Review for Religious~; Sept.-Oct., 1984 Bible in itself, and to separate Bible and Church from each other was the basic principle of a Christianity of conformism and rationalism, the so-called Gnosis, which threatened the very foundations of the Church at that time. This basic twofold division was preceded by an inner division of the Church itself into communities which created their own ad hoc legitimacy by a selec-tion of sources. The disintegration of the sources of faith calls forth the disintegration of fellowship or communio--and vice versa. Gnosis attempts to put forth such a division or separation as being the epitome of rationality--divide the two Testaments, separate Scripture from Tradition, distinguish between educated and uneducated Christians--but in truth, Gnosis is a sign of decay. On the contrary, the unity of the Church renders visible the unity of that whence she lives: the Church lives only when she draws upon the Whole, upon the multiform unity of Old and New Testa-ments, of scriptural tradition and the realization of the Word in faith. Once one has bowed to this other logic of disintegration, then nothing can really be put together properly any more.~ It would be inappropriate to the solemn joy of this day were we to enter more deeply into the scholarly disputation just h!nted at--though this dispute must be settled before one can discuss details of the biblical testimony, for instance on the subject of the priesthood. The very joy of this day is itself something of a locus theologicus. The fifty years of priesthood that we celebrate is a reality which speaks for itself, and which gives a concrete context to these reflections. On this occasion, then," ! thought it better not to attempt a scholarly lecture upon the priesthood, but instead to offer a spiritual reflection, one in which 1 should like to explain a few scriptural passages which have come to be important to me personally, and to do this in a meditative way, without any special system or claim to scholarship. The Priestly Image in Lk 5:1-11 and Jn 1:35-42 The first text I have chosen is Luke 5:!-11. This is the wonderful "voca-tion" account which tells how Peter and his friends, after a night of fruitless labor, on the strength of the Lord's word put out to sea once more. They catch a shoal of fish so great that the nets almost break, whereupon :Jesus utters his "call": ~'You shall become a fisher of men!" I have a very special affection for this passage because above it there shines the dawning light of a first love, of a beginning full of hope and readiness. Every time 1 recall these verses 1 remember the fresh brightness of my own beginnings, of that joy in the Lord of which we spoke in the phrase from the old psalter with which we began Mass: "I will go unto the altar of God, to the God who giveth joy to my youth" (Ps 42:4)--to the God in whose nearness the joy oI~ being young is constantly renewed because he is life itself, and hence the source of genuine youth. But let us return to our text which reports that the people pressed upon On the Strength of His Word / 643 Jesus because they wanted to hear the word of God. He is standing on the seashore, the fishermen are washing their nets, and Jesus gets into one of the two boats beached there--it was Peter's boat. Jesus asks him to put out a little from the land; he sits down and teaches the people from the boat. Simon's boat thus becomes the cathedra of Jesus Christ. Afterwards he says to Simon: "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." The fishermen have spent all night toiling in vain. To them it seems quite pointless to lower the nets again in the early morning hours. But for Peter, Jesus has already become so important, indeed so decisive, that he replies: On the strength of your word--"At your word I will let down the nets." The word of Jesus has already become more substantial than what is apparently real and empirically certain. That Galilean morning, whose fresh scent we can almost breathe in this account, becomes an image of the new dawn of the Gospel after the nights of fruitles~ness into which our own actions and: desires repeatedly lead us. And when Peter and his companions return with their heavy cargo-- which required the help of their partners because the abundance of the gift threatened to break their nets--Peter had completed not merely an outward journey, a work of merely human hands. For Peter, this had become an interior journey whose extent is framed by Luke in just two words. The Evangelist reports that before the great catch of fish, Peter addressed the Savior as Epistata, which means "teacher," "professor," or "master." Upon his return, however, Peter, falls on his knees before Jesus and no longer addresses him as Rabbi but as Kyrie--"Lord." In other words, Peter now addresses Jegus as God. Peter had. traveled the road from "Rabbi,' to "Lord," from "Teacher" to "Son." At the completion of this interior journey he is capable of receiving a vocation. At this point the parallels to the first "vocation" account in Jn 1:35-42, practically force themselves upon us.2 There we read that the first two disci-ples, Andrew and an unnamed companion, ~follow Jesus after hearing the Baptist exclaim, ".Behold, the Lamb of God !" They are struck on the one hand by the consciousness of their own sinfulness evoked by this exclamation, on the other hand by the hope which the Lamb of God represents for the sinner. One senses that both of them. are still uncertain; their discipleship is still hesitant.~ Without saying any more, they follow him discreetly, apparently not yet daring to address him directly. And so he turns to them and says, "What do you seek?" Although the reply sounds awkward, a bit shy and embar-rassed, still it comes directly to the. point: "Rabbi, where do you live?" Or, more acurately translated, "Where are you staying?"--where is your abode, your shelter, your real residence, that we too may arrive there?" Here, we must remind ourselves that the idea of "abiding" or "residing" is one of the key concepts of St. John's Gospel. The Savior's reply is normally translated "Come and see!" This corres-ponds with the conclusion of John's second "vocation" account involving 644 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 Nathanael, to whom Jesus says, "You shall see greater things than these!" (Jn 1:50). The meaning of this "coming," in other, words, is becoming perceptive; "coming" means to be seen by him--and to begin seeing with him. As a matter of fact, above his abode the heavens, the hidden sphere of God, are open (Jn 1:51); there man stands in God's own radiance. "Come, and you shall see!" also accords with the Church's "communion psalm": "O taste and see that the Lord is god!" (Ps 34:8). It is only the approach, the "coming," which leads to seeing. Tasting allows the eyes to be opened. Just as the tasting of the forbidden fruit in Paradise once "opened the eyes" in a fateful manner, so too it is true here in the opposite sense that tasting what is true also "opens the eyes," so that one realizes and "sees" God's goodness. Seeing takes place only in coming into Jesus' abode. There can be no vision without the hazard of approaching, of "coming." St. Johweven notes that "it was about the tenth hour" (1:39), in other words very lat~, a time at which one would think it no longer possible to make a beginning--and yet an hour at which urgent and decisive events do take place. According to some apocalyp-tic calculations, the tenth hour is considered the hour of the "last days."3 He who comes to Jesus enters the definitively final age; he makes contact with the already present reality of the Resurrection and of the kingdom of God. "Seeing," therefore, takes place when one '~approaches," and John the Evangelist makes this clear in the same fashion that we noted in St. Luke's account. When Jesus addressed them, the two responded by calling him "Rabbi." But when they return from staying with him, Andrew tells his brother Simon, "We have found the Messiah, the Christ" (Jn 1:14). In approaching Jesus ~and remaining with him, Andrew had traveled the path from "Rabbi" to "ChriSt," he had learned to see the Christ in the te~icher--and this is somethingwhich can only be learned in "abiding." Thus does the inner unity of the third and fourth Gospels become evident: both times the experi-ment of living "on'the strength of his Word" is undertaken, and both times the interior pilgrimage follows a course which permits vision, "seeing," to arise out of "coming." All of us began our joul-ney with the Church's full profession of faith in God's Son. But such an approach "~n the strength of his word," such an entering into his abode, is in our own case, too, the precondition for our vision or "seeing." And he alone is capable of calling others who is himself able to see cleai'ly, instead of merely believing at second hand. This coming or approach, this venturing out "on the strength of his Word" is, today and always, the indispensable prerequisite of the apostolate of priestly ministry. Again and again we shall find it necessary to ask him: "Where are you staying?" Over and over again it will be necessary to approach Jesus' abode from within. Again and again we shail have to let down the nets on the strength of his woi'd, even when it seems quite pointless. It is constantly necessary to regard his Word as more real than all that we otherwise would consider valid: statistics, technol-ogy, public opinion. Often it will seem as though the tenth hour had already On the Strength of His Word / 645 struck, and we shall have to postpone the hour of Jesus. But in precisely this way it can become the hour of his nearness. The two Gospel accounts have some other traits in common. St. John depicts the two disciples as being struck by the Baptist's proclamation of the Lamb. They obviously know from experience that they are sinners. For them this is not some sort of alien religious phraseology, but rather something that stirs them from within, something that is very real to them. Since they realize this about themselves, the Lamb becomes a sign of hope for them, and this is why they begin to follow him. Something quite unexpected occurs when Peter returns to shore with his great catch of fish. We might have expected him to embrace Jesus because of the successful fishing operation, but instead Peter falls on his knees. He does not hold fast to (he Savior in order to possess a future guarantee of success, but actually tries to drive him away because he fears the power of God: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man!" (Lk 5:8). Where man experiences God, there he recognizes his own sinfulness, and it is. only when he really knows that he is sinful--and has grasped the malice of sin--that he.also .comprehends the call to "repent,~ and believe the Gospel!" (Mk 1:15). Without conversion, it is not possible to press forward to Jesus and to the. Gospel. There is a paradox of Chesterton's which expresses this rela-tionship quite accurately: one can recognize a saint by the fact that he knows he is a sinner.4 The fact that our experience of God has grown pale is evident today in the disappearance of our experiential awareness of our sin; and vice versa: the disappearance of this knowledge alienates us all the more from God. Without falling into a false anxiety, we should once again learn the wisdom of the psalmist's word: lnitium sapientiae timor DorninL Wisdom, genuine under-standing, begins with the correct fear of the Lord. We must once more learn this fear in order to acquire true love and to grasp what it means to be able to love him--and to grasp as well .that he loves us. Hence this experience of Peter, of Andrew and of John is a basic prerequisite for the apostolate and thus also for the priesthood. Conversion--the very first word of Christian-ity-- can be preached only by one who has himself been touched by its neces-sity and therefore has grasped the greatness of grace. In these fundamental elements of the spiritual path of the apostolate which are becoming evident here, are the outlines of the basic sacramental structure of the Church, and indeed of the priestly ministry itself, also becoming clearer. If the sacraments of baptism and penance correspond to the experience of sin, then the mystery of the Eucharist corresponds to "coming" and "becoming perceptive," to entering into the abode of Jesus. Indeed, in a sense which we could previously not even imagine, the Eucharist is Jesus' abiding with us. "There you shall see"---the Eucharist is the place where the promise to Natha-nael applies, where we can see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending (Jn 1:51). Jesus dwells and "abides" in his sacrifice, in that act 646 / Review for Religious, Sept:-Oct., 1984 of love with which he conveys himself to the Father, and through his vicarious love he also gives us back to the Father. The communion psalm whi~:h speaks about tasting and seeing also says: "Come ye to him and be enlightened" ([Douay] Ps 33:6). Communion with Christ means communication with the true light that enlightens every man who comes into this world (see Jn l:9)P Let us consider another point common to both gospel accounts. The superabundant catch of fish begins to burst the nets. Peter and his crew cannot master the situation. Thus we read in Luke 5:7 that they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. "And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink." The call of Jesus is simultaneously a calling together, a call to syllabbsthai, as the Greek text puts it: "to take hold of together," to stick together and assist one another, to combine the efforts of both boats. St. John's Gospel expresses the same idea. Returning from his hour with Jesus, Andrew cannot remain silent about what he has found. He calls his brother Simon to Jesus, and the very same thing happens to Philip, who in his turn calls Nathanael (Jn 1:41-5). Vocation tends toward together-ness. Vocation makes disciples of us, and cries out to be passed on. Every vocation has a human element as well: the element of brotherliness, of being stimulated by another person. When we think back over our own lives, each of us knows that he was not struck by a thunderbolt direct from heaven, but that at some point he had to be spoken to by a person of faith, to be borne up or carried by.others. Of course a vocation cannot persevere if we believe only at second hand, "because So-and-So. says so." Perseverance is possible only if, led by our brethren, we ourselves find Jesus (see Jn 4:42). Both aspects necessarily belong together: being led, being spoken to, being ¯ carried, just as much as our own "coming and seeing." It therefore seems to me that we ghould once again develop much more courage to address one another, to speak to one another, and not ,to deprecate positive reactions to the testimony of others. As one of faith's components, "neighborliness" belongs to ihe humaneness of believing, and within this framework one's own encounter with Jesus must mature. Hence it is not only "taking along" and "leading toward" which are important, but release as well, abandonment to the distinctive aspects of a special call--even when these special aspects turn out to be different from what we had intended for the person concerned. In St. Luke's account, these insights are broadened out into a complete vision of the Church. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, are there called koinonoi of Simon, which here must be translated as "partners?' In other words, these three are described as a fishing partnership or cooperative, with Peter as head and principal owner.6 And it is first of all this group which Jesus calls, the koinonia (fellowship or communio), the partners in Peter's coopera-tive. In Simon's call, however, his profane vocation is reformed into an image of the new which is to come. The fishing partnership becomes the communio On the Strength of His Word or fellowship of Jesus, and Christians will form the eommunio of this new fishing boat, united by the call of Jesus and by the miracle of grace, which bestows the riches of the sea after long and hopeless nights. Just as they are united in the gift, they are also united in their joint mission. St. Jerome gives a beautiful interpretation of the title "fishers of men" which actually be~longs in the context of an inner transformation of Peter's profession into a vision of what is to come.7 Jerome says that to draw fish out of the water.means to tear them away from the n~tural element in which they live and thus to deliver them up to death. But to draw men out of the water of this world means to withdraw them from deadly surroundings and from a starless night, giving them instead air to breathe and the light of heaven. It means transferring men into the natural environment in which they can live and which is simultaneously light, enabling them to see the truth. Eight is life, because the natural element or environment from which man lives at the very deepest level is truth, which is simultaneously love. Of course, the man who swims in the waters of the world does not know this. Hence he resists being drawn up out of the water. It is as though he believes he were an ordinary fish which must die when pulled up out of the depths. And as a matter of fact. it ~s indeed a death sentence. But this death leads into the true life in which a man really arrives at being himself. To be a disciple means to let oneself be "caught" by Jesus, by the mysterious fish which descended into the water of this world, indeed, into the water of death; who himself,became a fish in order to allow himself first to be caught by us, so as to become the Bread of Eife for us. He allows himself to be caught so that we can be caught by him, and find the courage to let ourselves be pulled along with him out of the waters of our habits and comforts. Jesus became a fisher of men by taking the night of the sea upon himself, by himself descending into the Passion of its depths. One can only become a fisher of men when one applies oneself to the task the way Jesus did. And furthermore, one can only become a fisher of men when one trusts in the bark of Peter, when one has entered into fellowship or communio with,Peter. A vocation is not a private matter, merely taking up the cause of Jesus at one's own expense. The field of a vocation is the entire Church, which can exist only in f~llowship with Peter and thus with the apostles of Jesus Christ. Priestly Spirituality~ in Psalm 16 (15) Since I want to stress the unity of both Testaments in'Scripture, the second passage I wish to discuss is taken from the Old Testament, from Psalm 16 (or 15, according to the Greek enumeration). We older priests once used the fifth verse of this psalm almost like a motto for what we had undertaken when we were made clerics in the rite of tonsure. Every time this psalm recurs (it is now part of Compline on Thursdays) 1 am reminded how I tried at that time to comprehend the rite of tonsure itself by imderstanding this text, so that, once 6tll~ / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct. 1984 understood, I could carry out and live the rite. Thus, this verse became a precious beacon for me, and it remains today a symbol of what it means to be a priest, and of how priestly existence is realized. The Vulgate text reads: Dominus pars hereditatis meae et calicis rnei. ~ Tu es qui restitues hereditatern meam rnihi. The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup: It is thou that wilt restore my inheritance to me. This sentence makes Concrete what had been said earlier in verse 2: "I have no good beyond Thee!" and it do+s so in a very worldly turn Of phrase, in a pragmatic context that does not appear to be theological at all--in the lan-guage of the occupation and distribution of land in Israel as this is described in the book of Joshua and in the Pentateuch.s The priestly tribe of Levi was not a party to the distribution of the land among the tribes of Israel. The Levite ¯ received no land because "the Lord himself is his possession" (Dt 10:9; see also Jos 13:14) and "I [Yahweh] am thy portion and inheritance" (Nb 18:20). In this passage it is primarily the concrete matter of sustenance which is being dealt with: the Israelites live from the land which is assigned them. The land forms the physical basis of their existence. Through the possession of land, therefore, each individual has, so to speak, his very life apportioned to him. It is only the priests who receive their livelihood, not from tilling their own soil, but from Yahweh himself who is their sole source of life, even of physical life. To put it concretely, the priests live from their portion of the sacrificial victims.and the other cult offerings, in other words from that which has been given over'to God and in which they, as ritual ministers, are entitled to share. Thus two different types of physical livelihood are first of all expressed hire, but both of them neces~sarily lead to a deeper level when viewed from the standpoint of Israel's typical thinking in terms of totality. For the individual Israelite, the land is not merely a guarantee of support. It is his way of participating in the promise which God gave to Abraham and thus his inti-mate involvement in the God-given context in which the Chosen People live their lives. It thus simultaneously becomes the warrant of sharing in God's own vital power. The Levite, in contrast, possesses no land, and in that sense remains without security because he is excluded from earthly guarantees. He is directly and immediately "cast upon Yahweh" and upon him alone, as Psalm 22 says (verse 10). Although in the case of the occupation of the land the guarantee of life can somehow be disconnected from God--at least in the superficial sense of offering an independent type .of security, so to speak--this is impossible in the Levitical form of life: There, God alone is quite directly the warrant of life-- even one's earthly, physica! life depends upon him. If worship were to cease, the very basis of physical life would also disappear. And thus .the life of the Levite isat once p~-ivilege and hazard. Proximity to God in the sanctuary is the sole and direct source and focus of life. On the Strength of His Word / 649 At this point, I think a digression is in order. The terminology of verses five and six is plainly that of the occupation of the land and the different type of sustenance allotted to the tribe of Levi. This means that our psalm' is the song of a priest who expresses therein the physical and spiritual center of his life. The person praying here has not merely interpreted the legal stipula-tions- the external lack of properly, and the living from and for worship in the sense of a certain type of guaranteed livelihood--but has lived all of this in the direction of its real foundation. He has spiritualized the law, gone beyond it toward Christ, precisely by realizing its true content. For us, two things are important about this psalm. First of all, it is a priestly prayer, and secondly, we can here clearly observe how the" Old Testa-ment internally surpasses itself in the direction of Christ, how the Old Cove-nant approaches the New and thus renders visible the unity of salvation history~ To live, not from possessions but from the cult, means for this wor-shipper to live in God's presence, .to locate his existence in the interior approach to him. In this regard, Hans-Joachim Kraus quite rightly points out ¯ that in thiS text the Old Testament reveals the beginnings of a mystical com-munion with God which develops out of the special nature of the Levitical prerogatives? And so Yahweh himse]-f~aa~ becpme the "land" of the worshipper praying this psalm. The next verses clarify what this means in terms of concrete, everyday life. Verse 8 says: "I have set the Lord. always before me." Accord-ingly, the suppliant lives in God's presence; he keeps the Lord constantly before himself. The next phrase varies the same idea by saying: "For he is on my right hand." The core content of these Levitical prerogatives thus proves to be the bei.ng in God's company, the knowing that God is at one's side, asso-ciatirig with him, contemplating him and beipg contemplated by him. Thus God .actually becomes the "land" or the "landscape" of one's own life; thus we dwell and "abide" with him. And at this point the psalm makes contact with what we discovered earlier in .St. John's Gospel. Accordingly, to be a priest means to come to him, to his abode, and thus to learn how to see; to abide in his abode. The precise manner in which this occurs becomes more tangible in the verses which follow. Here, the priest praying the psalm praises the Lord for having "given him counsel," and he thanks the Lord because he has "inst_ructed him:in the night season." With this turn of phrase, both Septuagint and Vulgate texts are plainly thinking of the physical pain which "instructs" men. Education or "instruction" is conceived as a person "being bent into the proper shape" for a truly human existence, and this cannot take place without suffering, In this context, the term "instruction" is intended to be a compre-hensive expression .for leading man to salvation, for that series of transforma, tions ~by which we are changed from clay into the image of God, and thus become capable of eternal union with him. The external rod of the disciplinar-ian is here replaced by the sufferings of life in which God leads us and brings 650 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 us to dwell with him. All of this recalls that great psalm, of:God's Word, Ps. 119, which we now pray during the week in the hora media. It is actually constructed around the basic statement of the Levite'sexistence: "The Lord is my portion" (v. 57; see also v. 14). Thus we find in abundant variety the basic ideas in which Psalm 16 expounds this reality: "Thy testimor~ies., are my counselors" ( 119: v. 24); "it is good :forme that 1 was afflicted, that 1 might learn thy statutes" (.v. 71); "I know, O Lord, that thyjudgments are right, and that in faithfulness thou hast afflicted me" (v. 75). Only then can one grasp the profundity of that petition which recurs like a refrain throughout the psalm: "O teach me thy statutes!" (vv. 12, 26, 29, 33, 64). Wherever life is so truly centered upon God's Word, there it comes about that the Lord "counsels" us. The words of' Scripture are no longer some remote generalities,~but speak quite directly into my life. The Scriptur.es step out of the distance of history and become words addressed to me in person. "The Lord is my counselor"i my very life becomes a word of his. And thus Psalm 16:11 comes true: "Thou dost show me the path of life." Life ceases to bea dark m'ystery. We begin to grasp what it means "to live?' Life opens itself up, and in the midst of all the tribulation of "being instructed," it becomes a joy. "Thy Statutes are.my songs," says Psalm i 19:54, and here in Psalm 16 the situation is not different: "Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices" (v. 9); "In thy presence there is fullness of joy, in thy right hand are pleasures for evermore" (v. II). When we succeed in reading the Old Testament in the light of its central core, and accept God's Word as the landscape of life, then we touch upon him whom we believe to be God'siliving Word. To me it seems~no mere accident that in the ancient Church this psalm became the great prophecy of the Resurrection, a description of the new David and of the definitive priest Jesu~ Christ. To learn to li~,e does not mean to inaster some sort of technique, but rather it ineans to pass beyond death. The mystery of Jesus Christ, his death and his resurrection rise resplendent wherever the suffering of the word and its indestructible 61an vital are experienced. It is therefore unnecessary to make any more applications to our own spirituality. A fundamental component of priestly existence is something resembling the Levite's "apartness," his lack of land, his being ci~st exclusively upon God. The vocation account in St. Luke which we considered earlier closes with the pointed words: "They forsook fill and followed him" (Lk 5:! I). There is no priesthood without such an act of abandonment. Without this sign of uncompromising freedom, the call to imitation is impossible. l think that this point of view renders highly significant, Jindeed makes indispensable, celibacy as being the abandonmerit of an earthly land of future promise, of life in one's own family, so that the basic state of being delivered up to God alone remains intact and becomes quite concrete. This, of course, implies that celibacy m]akes demands on one's entire lifestyle. Celibacy cannot On (he Strength of His Word / 651 fulfill its purpose if, in all other areas, we simply follow the rules of possession and procedure customary in life today. And above all, celibacy cannot last if we do not positively make "settling down with God" to be the center of our lives. Both Psalm 16 and Psalm 119 strongly.emphasize the need for constant meditative association with the Word of God, which cannot become our "homestead" in any other way. The community aspect of liturgical piety which necessarily belongs here is suggested by the reference in Psalm 16 to the Lord as "my cup" (v. 5). In Old Testament diction, this surely refers either to the cup of wine which went r~und at cultic meals, or to the cup of fate, the cup of anger or, of salvation.J0 In this prayer, the priest of the New Testament can find a sp~ci,al reference to that chalice through which the Lord has become our "land" in the most profound sense: the eucharistic chalice in which he distributes himself as our life. Priestly life in God's presence is thus concretized as life in the eucharistic mystery. At bottom the Eucharist is the "land" which has become our portion and of which we may weffsay: "The lines have fallen for ine in pleasant places; yea I have a goodly heritage" (v. 6). And here, two remarks, of fundamental importance emerge. Two Basic Conclusions from th~ Scriptural Texts The Unity of the Two Testaments ~. In my view, aparticularly important aspect of this priestly prayer of the Old and the New Covenant is the fact that here the. inner unity of the two Testaments, the unity of biblical spirituality and its basic manifestations in life, become visible, indeed capable of being lived out in practice. This is so signifi-cant because one of the principal reasons for the exegetically and theologically motivated crisis of the priest's image in recent~times has been precisely the separation of the. Old Testament from the New: Their relationship was seen only in the dialectical tension of opposites, namely "Law" and "Gospel." It was generally agreed that the New Testament ministries had nothing at all to do with the offices in the Old Testament. The fact that one would[ portray the Catholic concept of priesthood as a reversion to the Old Testament was itself regarded as an ironclad refutation of the Catholic idea. It was claimed that Christology meant the definitive abolition of all kinds, of priesthood, the destruction of the boundaries between the Sacred and ~he Profane, and the renunciation of the significance of any history of religions and their ideas of priesthood. Wherever it was possible to point out links between the Church's concept ofothe priest and the OJd Testament, or ideas borrowed from the history of religions, this was done as a sign that Christianity had gone astray in.the ecclesiastical ai'ea; it was urged as proof against the Church's doctrine on the priesthood. But this in fact meant that we were cut off from an entire stream of sources, from biblical piety and indeed from human experience itself. It meant that we were banished into a worldliness whose rigid "Christo-monism" 659 / Review for ReligiousI Sept.-Oct., 1984 actually dissolved 'the biblical image of Christ. This .in .turn is related to the fact that the Old Testament itself had been falsely construed as ~etting forth an opposition between "Law" and "Prophets," whereby "Law" was identified with the cultic and the priestly, while the "Prophetic" element was equated with criticism of cult; and with a pure ethics of humanitarianism that finds God in one's neighbor, not in the Temple. On this basis it was of course possible to refer to thi~ cultic element as "legalism" in contrast to prophetic piety, which was characterized ~is "faith in grace." The result was that the New Testam+nt was relegated to the realm of the anti-cultic, of the purely'humanitarian. In view of this basic attitude, every approach to priesthood :ffas condemned to remain fruitless and unconvincing. The real discussion with this entire~ complex of ideas has not yet taken place. He who prays°the priestlyPsalm 16 along with the other related psalms, especially Psalm 119, will become quite aware of the factthat the supposed ,opposition in principle between priesthood and prophecy of Christology simply collapses upon itself~ This psalm is in fact both fi priestly and a pro-phetic prayer, in which the purest and most profound elements of prophetic piety come to the fore~-but as priestly piety. Since this is so, the psalm is a Christological text. Since this is so, Christianity has since its earliest days regarded this psalm as a prayer of Jesus Christ, which he dedicates anew to us so that we may be permitted to pray it anew with him(see Rv 2:25-29). In this psalm, the new priesthood of Jesus Christ expresses itself prophetically, and in this psalm we can see how in the New Covenant the priesthood, proceeding from Christ, continues to exist in the unity of all salvation history, and indeed must continue to exist~ On the basis of this psalm we can understand that the Lord does not abolish the Law but fulfills it and conveys it anew to the Church, truly "storing it away" in the Church as an expression of grace. The Old Testament belongs to Christ, and in Christ, to us. The faith can live only in the Unity of the Testaments. The Sacred' and th~ Profane And that brings me tO my secofid remark. Once we regain the Old Testament, we must also overcome the disparagement of the Sacred and the mys-tique of the Profane. Naturally Christianity is a l~aven, and the Sacred is not something closed and final but something dynamic. Every priest has been commissioned to "Go, the~refore, and make-disciples of all nations!" (Mt ¯ 28:19). But this dynamism of being sent out, this inner openness and breadth of the Gospel cannot be transposed into the slogan: "Go ye therefore and yourselves become part of the world! Go ye into the world and confirm it in its worldliness!" The contrhry is the.case. The~:e is a sacred mystery of God, the mustard seed of the Gospel, which is not identical with the world but is rather destined to penetrate the whole world. Hence we'must Once more find the courage to acknowledge the Sacred, the courage to distinguish what is Chris-tian-- and that, not in order to separate or to differentiate, but to transform, to On the Strength of His Word /653, be truly dynamic. In an interview given in 1975, Eugene lonescu, a founder of the "Theatre of the Absurd," expressed this with the total passion typical 6f the thirsty, seeking men of our day. 1 quote a few sentences: The Church does not want to lose her customers, she wants to gain new ones. That results in a type of secularization, which is really miserable . The~world is losing itself and the Church loses itself in the world, the parish priests ate stupid and mediocre, leftist petty bourgeois. I have heard a parish priest say in chu.rch, "Let's be happy, let's all shake hands . Jesus wishes each of you a very good day!" It will not be long until someone sets up a bar for communion of bread and wine, and servessandwiches-and Boujolais. To me, that seems unbelievable stupidity and com-pletely non-spiritual. Brotherliness is neither mediocrity nor fraternization. We need the Supra-Temporal, because what is religion or the Sacred? All that remains is nothing; nothing solid, everything is in motion. What we really need, though, is a rock;" In this connection I recall some of the stimulating sentences to be found in Peter Handke's new work, Over the Villages. For example: "Nobody wants us, and nobody ever wanted us. Our houses are trellises of despair standing in emptin~:ss . . . We are not on the wrong road, we are not on any road at all. How forsaken mankind is."~2 I believe that when one hears these voices--voices of men who quite consciously live in the world of today, living, suffering; singing--then it becomes clear that one cannot serve this world with banal officiousness. Such a world does not need corroboration, it needs transformation--the radicality~ of the Gospel. A Concluding Thought: Giving and Receiving (Mk 10:28-31) By way of conclusion, 1 would like to touch briefly upon one more text: Mk 10:28-31. There, Peter says to' Jesus, "Lo, we have left everything and followed you." St. Matthew makes explicit what was obviously the point of the question: "What then shall we have?" (19:27)~ We have already spoken about relinquishing or abandoning, which is an indispensable element of apostolic, priestly spirituality. Let us therefore turn at once to Jesus' astonishi'ng reply. He does not rejrct Peter's question out of hand, as one might expect~ He does not reproach Peter because he expects a reward, but rather admits that Peter is right: "Truly, 1 say to you, there is no one who has left house, or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the Gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life" (Mk 10:29-30). God is magnanimous, and if we look at our lives honestly, then we know that he has indeed repaid every abandonment a hundredfold. He will not allow us to surpass him in generosity. He does not wait for. the world to come in order to repay, but even now gives in return a hundred to one, though in spite of this the world remains the scene of persecutions, sufferings and tribu- 654 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 lations. St. Teresa of Avila expressed this statement of Jesus in the simple formula: "Even in this life, God repays a hundredfold,"~3 All we need is the courage to b~gin by giving our "one,"as Peter did when, on the strength of the Lord's word, he put out once again in the morning--he gave one, and received back a hundred. And so I think that in all our pusillanimity we should constantly beg our Lord for this same courage, and for the faith and confidence that lie therein. And we should thank him for those upon whom he has bestowed this courage, those whom he gives to us as signs of encouragemefit, in Order to invite us to make ouy own leap into the hands of his mercy. NOTES ~From the vast literature on "lrenaeus and Gnosis" see most recently H. J. J~schke, Irenaeus yon Lyon "Die ungeschminkte Wahrheit"(Roma, 1980). 2For the following remarks concerning John 1:35-42. 1 am indebted to the fundamental sugges-tions of C. M. Martini, "Damit ihr Frieden habt. Geistliches Leben nach dem Johannesevange-lium" (Freiburg 1982), pp. 204-9. 31bid, p. 207. 4Cited by ,,Cardinal Suenens "Renouveau et puissance des t~n~bres," Document de Marines 4 (1982), p. 60. On this subject see pp. 37-61 in Suenens" book as well as K. Hemmerle, ~Das Haus des barmherzigen Vaters" (Freiburg. 1982), pp. 17-25. 5The standard translation renders Ps 33:6 (34:5), in light of the Hebrew text, as "look tohim and be radiant," whereas the Lalin Vulgate, following the Septuagint, renders it "Come ye to him and be enlightened." It was precisely the phrase "ye shall be enlightened" which called forth a very strong echo in the philosophy and theology of the Church Fathers, and we are quite justified in regarding this verse in the Septuagint version as one of the key phrases of Christian liturgy and theology. We are of course confronted here with the question of the specific rank to be attributed to the Greek Old Testament. This problem must be reflected upon anew. Noteworthy in this regard is H. Gese, 'tZur biblischen Theologic" (MLinchen 1977), pp. 9-30, esp. 27 ft., and see also P. Benoit, "Exegese und Theol0gie" (Dfisseldorf 1965), pp. 15-22. ~On this see F. Hauck, Koinon~s Ktl.: TWNT 3(1938), pp. 798-810, here especially pp 799, 802, 804. 7JerOme, "In Ps 141," ad neophytos. CChr 78, p. 544. sOn what follows, see H. J. Kraus, "Psalmen I" (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1960), pp. 118-27. '~lbid. p. 123: ~°See H. Gross-H. Reinelt, "Das Buch der Psalmen I" (Diisseldorf 1978)~ pp. 88 ft. ~E. Ionescu, ~Gegengiffe~ (Miinchen, 1979), pp. 158,159. ~2P. Handke, "~lber die Drrfer (Frankfurt, 1981), p~. 94 ft. ~3"Libro de vida," 22/I~ and see U.M. Schiffers, ~Gott liebt beherzte Seelen," Pastoralblat! 34 (1982), p. 294. We Priests Are More Necessary Than Ever John Paul H In the month of February, Pope John Paul twice took up themes of priesthood. Frorfi Februa.ry 13-16, some four hundred priests attended a national convention addressed to the theme, "The Eucharist and the Problems of the Life of Priests Today," spofisored by the Italian Episcopal Conference's Commission for the Clergy, on the last day of which the Holy Father addressed the cqngregants. , ~ ~ Then, on February 23, 1984, to conclude a special Holy Year celebration with priests, the Holy Faiher ¢oncelebrated Mass in St. Peter's Basilica with more than four thousand priests and bishops from, all over the world. This Mass was also marked by a renewal of commitment on the part of all present. The texts of these addresses appeared originally in L'Osservatore Romano, 5 March, 1984. pp. 6 and 8. Beloved Priests: Among the satisfactions that I have been granted to experience during the course of this Jubilee Year, one of the greatest is to be able to meet with the members of the ;clergy, with my confreres.in the priesthood. Very gladly, therefore, in welcoming the request of the organizers of your convention, I am here among you to let you know in a tangible way that the pope is near you, follows you in your work, shares your joys, your anxieties, your fears, at such a significant time for the life of the Church. Your meeting in Rome has taken, place in the deeply spiritual climate of this year of grace that is now approaching its end, and I sincerely rejoice in knowing that you have been engaged during these days in reflection on a theme of such great common interest, "The Eucharist and the Problems of the Life of Priests Today," a theme intended to foster that ever greater commu- ,656/ Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct, 1984 nion of sentiments and works, that spreading of ideas, that ,exchange and comparison of experiences, which today especially are indispensable for adapting, the exercise of the priestly ministry to the needs, the aspirations, and the development of the ecclesial community. To you, therefore, my greeting, my encouragement and my blessing. But you ce~rtainly are expecting also a word about the specific Subject of your reflections in order to know, through the pope's voice what the Church expects of you today, that you might live ever more effectively and authenti-cally the gift of yourse.lves to the Lord and to souls. This I will very gladly do, expressing to you above all my appreciation for "the objective of your conventiori, which very opportunely coincides with the aim of the Jubilee Year, whose goal, namely, to profit in a more intense way from the benefits of ~he Redemption, is none other than a new, urgent appeal to conversion addressed to all the faithful, and in. particular to priests. If conversion for a priest means returning to the grace of his vocation it-self' in order continually to rediscover the dimensions of the priesthood and to acquire new thrust in his evangelical dynamism,, what greater theme for ~eflection can be offered than the one which makes us bet'ter understand the vital and pr~ofound relationship that unites the priesthood to the Eucharist and the Eucharist to the priesthood? The priest cannot be understood without the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the reaSon for our priesthood. We are born priests in" the eucharistic celebra~.t~on. Our principal ministry and power is oi'dered to the E~cha~:ist. The Eucharist could not exist without us; but without the Eucharist we do not exist, or we are r.educed to lifeless shadows. The priest therefore can never r.e~ach complete fulfillment if the Eucharist does not become the center and root of his .life, so that all his activity is nothing but an,irradiation of the Eucharist. It is important to recall these truths at a time when we hear insidious voices that tend to disregard the primacy of God and of spiritual values in the life and activity 6f the priest. And this happens in the name of adjusting to.the times--which instead is conforming to the spirit of the world, sowing doubts and uncertainties about the true nature of the priesthood, its primary func-tions, its right place, in society. ,Beloved brothers, never let yourselves be influenced'by these theories. Never believe that the yearning for intimate conversation with the eucharistic Je.sus, the hours spent on your knees before the tabernacle, will halt or slow down the dynamism of your ministry. The exact opposite is true.What is given to God is never lost for man. The profound demands of spirituality and the priestly ministry remain substantially unchanged throughout the centuries, and tomorrow, just as today, they will have their fulcrum and their reference point in the eucharistic mystery. It is the grace of ordination that gives the priest the sense Of spiritual fatherhood, through which he presents himself to souls as a father and leads Priests are Necessary / 657 them along the path to heaven. But it is eucharistic love that daily renews his fatherhood and makes it fruitful, transforming him ever more into Christ and like Christ, makes him become the bread of souls, their priest, yes, but also their victim, because for them he is gladly consumed in imitation of him who gave his life for the salvation of the world. In other words, a priest is as good as his eucharistic life, his Mass above all. A Mass without love, a sterile priest. A fervent Mass, a priest who wins souls. Eucharistic devotion neglected and estranged,a priesthood that is in danger and fading. But the centrality of the Eucharist in the life of the priest goes well beyond the sphbre of personal devotion. It constitutes the directing criterion, the permanent dimension of all his pastoral activity, the indispensable means for the authentic renewal of the Christian people. The Second Vatican Council wisely reminds us: "No Christian community can be built up unless it has its basis and center in the celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist. Here, there-fore, all education in the spirit ofcommunity must originate" (Decree Presby-terorum Ordinis, 6): Therefore, if we want Christian love to be a reality in life;,if we want Christians to be a community united in the apostolate and in,the common attitude of resistance to the powers of evil; if we want ecclesial communion to become .an authentic place of encounter, of hearing the Word of God, of .revision of life, of becoming aware of the problems of the Church, every effort must ,be made to give the eucharistic celebration its entire power to express, the event of the salvation of the community. This involves a pastoral program-mingthat will'incorporate the Eucharist into.the dynamics proper to human life, to .personal land communal living: A good catechesis would certainly render the ecclesial community a great service by shedding light on and exter-nalizing the lifestream that exists between the Mass celebrated in Church and the Mass lived out in one's daily commitments,. This is how the eucharistic celebration will be the expression of the living faith of a community that discovers and relives ithe experience of the disciples on the way to Emmaus who recognize their LoCd and master in the breaking of bread (Lk 24:3 I). This is the witness that the Church demands of you today; beloved priests. Always offer this witness readily and generously, in serenity and happiness. It is a beautiful thing.that this commitment is reaffirmed by -you here before the pope, in response to the common expectations of the Jubilee Year, so fruitful in graces. I encourage you to resume your work in the sacred ministry with a spirit of faith and sacrifice: I will pray for you to Mary most holy, Queen of Apostles, that she will help you to persevere in your holy .resolutions, and as she proclaimed the greatness of the Lord through the gift of the Savior and kept every word in her heart and served him with love and complete dedication, so may you also beable to express your joy in thanksgiving for the Eucharist you celebrate by ever.more deeply rooting your life andyour apostolate in it. With my apostolic Blessing. 658 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 II The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted; He has sent meto bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captivesr and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor (Is 61:1-2). Dear, brothers in the grace of the Sacrament of the Priesthood: A year ago I addressed to you the letter for Holy Thursday (1983), asking you to proclaim, together with myself and all the bishops of the Chu. rch, the Year of the R(demption: the extraordinary Jubilee, the Year of the Lord's Favor. Today I wish to thank you for what you have done in order to ensure that this Year, which recalls to us the 1950th anniversary of the Redemption should really be "the Year of the Lord's Favor," the Holy Year. At the same time, as I meet you.at this concelebration, the climax of your Jubilee pilgrim-age to Rome, 1 wish to renew.with you and make still more vivid the aware-ness of.the mystery of the Redemption. the livingand life-giving source of the sacramental priesthood in which each one of us shar~es. In you who have gathered here, no.t only from Italy but also from other countries and continents, I see all priests: the entire presbyterate of the univer, sal Church. And I address myself to all with the words of encouragementoand exhortation of the Letter to the Ephesians: Brothers, "I. beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called" (Ep 4:1): We too--who have been called to serve others in the spiritual renewal of the Year of the Redemption, need to be renewed, throfigh the grace of the Year, in our blessed vocation. I will sing of your steadfast love, 0 Lord, forever (89:1). This verse of the responsorial psalm of today's liturgy reminds us that we are in a special way "servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God" (1 Co 4:!), that we are men of the divine economy of salvation, that we are conscious "instruments" of grace, that is of the Holy Spirit's action in the power of Chri.st's Cross and Resurrection. : . What is this divine economy, what is the grace, of our Lord Jesus. Christ-- the grace which it was his wish to link sacramentally to our priestly life and to our priestly service, even though it is performed by men who are so poor, unworthy? Grace, as the psalm of today's liturgy proclaims, is a proof of the fidelity of God himself to that eternal Love with,which he has loved creation, and in particular man, in his eternal Son. The psalm says: "For your steadfast love was established forever, your faithfulness is firm as the heavens" (Ps 89:2). This faithfulness of his love--his merciful love--is also faithfulness to the Covenant that God made from the beginning with man, and which he renewed many times, even though man so many times was not faithful to it. Priests are Necessary / 659 Grace is thus a .pure gift .of,Love, which only in Love itself, and in nothing else, finds its reason and motivation. The psalm exalts the Covenant which God made with David, and at the same time, through its messianic content, it shows how that historical Cove-nant is only a stage and a foretelling of the perfect Covenant in Jesus Christ: "He shall Cry to me, 'You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation~'" (Ps 89:26). Grace, as a gift, is the foundation of the elevation of man to the dignity of an adopted child of God in Christ, the only-begotten Son. "My faithfulness and my steadfast love shall be with him and in my name shall his power be exalted" (Ps 89:24). Precisely this power that makes us become children of God, as is spoken of in the Prologue to Saint John's Gospel--the enti~:e salvific powder--is con-ferred upon humanity in Christ, in the Redemption, in the Cross and Resurrection. And we--Christ's servants--are its stewards. The priest: the man of the economy of salvation. The priest: the man formed by grace. The priest: the steward of grace! I will sing of your steadfaJt love, 0 Lord, forever. Our vocation is precisely this. In this consists the specific nature, the originality of the priestly vocation. It is in a special wayrooted in the mission of Christ himself, Christ the Messiah. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound., to comfort all who mourn~' (Is 61:!-2). In the very heart of this messianic mission of Christ the Priest is rooted in our vocation and mission too: the vocation and mission of.the priests of the New and Eternal Covenant, It is. the vocation and mission of the proclaimers of the Good News: - of those who must bind up the wounds of human hearts; - of those who must proclaim liberation in the midst of all the many afflictions, in the .rriidst of the evil that in so many ways "holds" man prisoner; , - of those who must console. This is our vocation and mission as servants. Our vocation, dear brothers, includes a great and fundamental service to be offered to every human being.t Nobody can take our place. With the Sacrament of the New and Eternal Covenant we must go to the very roots of human existence on earth. Day by day, we must bring into that existence the dimension of the Redemption and the Eucharist. We must strengthen awareness of divine filiation through grace. And what higher prospect, what finer destiny could there be for man than this? 661~ / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct,. 1984 Finally, we must administer the sacramental reality of reconciliation with God, and the sacramental reality of Holy Communion, in which the deepest longing of the "insatiable" human heart is met. Truly, our priestly anointing isdeeply rooted in the very messianic anoint-ing of Christ. Our priesthobd is ministerial. Yes, we must serve. And "to serve" means to bring man to the very foundations of his humanity, to the deepest essence of his dignity. It is precisely there .that--through our service--the song "of praise instead of a faint spirit" must ring out,'to use once more the~words of the text of Isaiah (61:3). We Act with the Power of Christ Dearly beloved brothers! Day after day, year after year, we discover the content and substance which are truly inexpressible of our priesthood in the depths of the mystery of the Redemption. And I hope that the present Year of the extraordinary Jubilee will serve this purpose in a special way! Let us open our eyes ever wider--the eyes of our soul--in order to under-stand better what it means to celebrate the Eucharist, the sacrifice of Christ himself, entrusted to our priestly lips and hands in the community of the Church. Let us open our eyes ever wider--the eyes of our soul--in order to under-stand better what it means to forgive sins and reconcile human consciences with the infinite Holy God, with the God of Truth and Love. Let us open our eyes,ever wider--the eye~ of our soul--in order'to under-stand better what it means to act in persona Christi in the name of Christ: to act with his powers-with the power which, in a word, is rooted in the salvific ground .of the Redemption. Let us open our eyes ever ~wider--the eyes of our soul--in order to under-stand better what the mystery of the Church is. We are men of the Church! "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the One hope that belongs to your call, one Lord,'one faith, one baptism,one 15od and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all" (Eph 4:4-6). Therefore: seek "to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph 4:3). Yes. Precisely this in a special way depends on you: "to maintain the unity of the Spirit." At a time of great tensions that affect.,the earthly body of humanity, the Church's most important service springs frbm the ':unity of the Spirit," so that not only she herself will not suffer division coming from outside but she will also reconcile and unite people in the midst of the adversities 'that increase around them andwithin themselves in today's world. My brothers! To each of us "grace was given. ~ according to the measure of Christ's gift., for building up the body of Christ'~ (Ep 4:7-12). May we be faithful to this grace! May we be heroically faithful to this Priests are NecessaO, / ~ grace! My brothers! It is a great gift that°God has given to us, to each of us! So great that every priest can discover in himself the signs of a divine predilection. Let each one of us basically preserve his gift in all the wealth of its expressions: including the magnificent gift of celibacy voluntarily consecrated to the Lord--and received from him~for our sanctification and for the build-ing up of the Church. Christ is More Necessary Than Ever! Jesus Christ is in our midst and he says to us: "1 am the good shepherd" (Jn I0:I 1-14). It is precisely he who has "made" shepherds oLus too. And it is he who goes about all the cities and villages (see Mt 9:35), wherever we are sent in order to perform our priestly and pastoral service. It is he, Jesus Christ, who teaches ~!. : preaches the' Gospel of the kingdom and heals every human disease and infirmit3~'(see ibid), wherever we are sent for the service of the Gospel and the admihistration of the sacraments. It is precisely he, Jesus Christ, who ,continually feels compassion for the crowds and for every tired ahd exhaiasted person, like "sheep without a shep-herd" (see Mt 9:36). Dear brothers! In this. !liturgical assembly of ours let us ask Christ for just one thing: that each of' us may learn to serve better, more clearly and more effectively, his presence as Shepherd in the midst of the people of today's world! This is also most importan~t., for ourselves, ,so that~we may not be ensnared by ttie temptation of "uselessness," that is to :s0y.the temptation to feel that we are not needed. Because it is not true. We,~are more necessary than ever because Christ is more necessary than ever! We have in our hands--precisely in our "empty hands"---the power of the means of action that the Lord has given to us. Think of the~word of God, sharper than a twg-edged sword (see Heb 4:12); think of liturgical prayer, especially the Prayer of the. Hours, in which Christ himself prays with us and for us;' and think of the sacraments, in particular the sacrament of penance, the true life buoy for so many cofisciences, the haven towards which so many people also of our own time are striving. Priests should once more give great importance to,this sacrament, for the sake of their own spiritua.l life and that of the faithful. There is no doubt about it, dear br6thers: with the good use of these "poor means" (~bu! divinely powerful ones) you will see blossoming along your path the wonders of the infinite Mercy. And also the gift of new vocations! With this awareness, in this shared prayer, let us listen once more to the words which the Master addressed to his disciples: "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest" (Mr 9!37,38)~ 669 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 How relevant these words are in our time, too! So let us pray! And let the whole Church :pray with us! And in this pra.yer may there be manifested awareness, renewed by the Jubilee, of the mystery of the Redemption. Renewal of Priestly Promises During the concelebrated Holy Year Mass for priests, after the Pope's homily, the Hol.v Father led the priests in the renewal_of their priestly promises. Following is the form that was used. Dearly beloved brothers: Through a most special gift of Christ, teacher, priest and shepherd, you have been called to the Order of Priesthood. Every day you must make yourselves more worthy of this vocation of yours and renew your commit-ment to the service of the People of God. May the Spirit of Holiness always assist you, that you may be able .to fulfill with his help what through his gift you have promised with joy . Therefore, during this Jubilee celebration of the Holy YeAr of the Redemption, do you, ministers of Christ and administrators of the mysteries of God, recalling the day of youro,priestly ordination, intend to renew the promises you made before the bishop and the People of God? Priests: 1 do. Do you intend to unite yourselves intimately to the Lord Jesus, model of our priesthood, denying yofirselves and strengtfiening the commitments which,, urged by the love of Christ, you have freely assumed toward his Church? Priests: I do. Do you intend,, in particular, to strengthen the holy commitment of celi-bacy, as a testimony of iovb for Christ with an undivided heart .and as a guarantee of interior freedom for a fuller ecclesial service, in joyful e~xpectation of the kingdom promised? Priests: ! do. Do you intend to be faithful dispensers of the mysteries of God ihrough the celebration of the Eucharist and the other liturgical actions, and to fulfill the ministry of the Word of Salvation after the example of Christ, head and shepherd, letting yourselves be guided not by human interests, but by love for your brothers and sisters? Priests: 1 do. Then addressing the deacons and seminarians, the Holy Father asked: And you deacons and seminarians, who have generously accepted Christ's call to follow him more closely in order to become ministers of the New and Priests are Necessary/663 Everlasting Covenant. do you intend to persevere, with his help along the path you have undertaken? Deacons and Seminarians: 1 do. And the Holy Father asked the faithful present: And do you, dear faithful, do you intend to pray always for your priests, that the Lord may shower upon them the abundance of his gifts, that they may be faithful ministers of Christ the High Priest and lead you to him, the only source of salvation? Faithful: 1 do. Then to the whole assembly, the Holy Father said." Do you also intend to pray for me that I may be faithful to the apostolic service entrusted to my lowly person, and become among you more everyday a living and authentic image of Christ the High Priest and lead you to him, the only source of salvation? All: 1 do. The Holy Father then concluded: May the Lord keep us in his love and lead all us, shepherds and flock, to eternal life. All solemnly sang: Amen! Amen! Amen! Psychosexual Maturity in Celibate Development by Philip D. Cristantielio Price: $.60 per copy, plus postage. Add ress: Review for Religious Room 428 6301 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Cruciform Obedience Boniface Ramsey, O.P. This is the third of Father Ramsey's articles on the vows of religious perceived through a Christocentric focus. These three articles will be brought together and offered as a single reprint, the details of which are given elsewhereSn this issue. ~ , Father Ramsey continues to reside in the Dominican House of Studies; 487 Michigan Avenue~ N.E.: Washington, DC 20017~ n two previous issues of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS I discussed the vows of poverty and celibacy from a Christocentric perspective.~ In this issue I would like to complete a trilogy by speaking of obedience from very much the same~ perspective. Of the three great vows, there is little doubt that obedience is the most difficult both to execute and to reflect upon. Probably it has caused more suffering than either poverty or celibacy. For whereas th6 Struggle attendant upon poverty and celibacy may be waged complet~!.y withiia the person of the religious who is fighting to subdue his or her passions, ob~lience is the vow that, so to speak, intrudes another person (the superior) in(o the life of the religious--a person who, at least in times pa~t~ was understood to have a quasi-universal control over one's life. How often this control was abused, and on what flimsy pretexts! Even.the superior:s own sanctity was no guarantee that he or she might not act in the most arbitrary fashion. And from this arbitrariness there was usually little recourse. Small wonder that a desire to escape out from under the excessive "demands of obedience and to regain a sense of one's own independence has been the primary cause for many choosing to leave religious life. This is the case, moreover, even where obedience, is not objectively abusive, or even p~rceived as such, for obedience can hardly be perceived as not touching upon human autonomy, a strong rei~lization of which is absolutely necessary to proper human behavior and to self-respect. 664 Cruciform Obedience / 665 Frequently it happens that, when no other means of expression seems possible, this independence or autonomy is asserted by the religious through acts contrary to poverty or celibacy, which are then mistakenly understood to be the person's problem area. This suggests that obedience is the most basic of the vows, and indeed maybe it is. It is a classical teaching, in any event, that poverty and celibacy in fact touch upon rather narrower aspects of the human personality than does obedience? Whether this remains true even when poverty and celibacy are construed as broadly as 1 have tried to construe them in my two previous articles is a moot point. What is certain is that poverty and celibacy deal with relatively easily recognizable specifics, whereas obedience is occupied with something far less tangible, or at least with an area of our nature with which we are much less familiar--or are much more hesitant to face. It must be said from the start that the reason why obedience is so difficult is that human life is so radically marked by disobedience. "1 find it to be a law," Paul writes in Romans (7:2 i-23), "that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members." In The Oty of God Augustine ~emarks that the original sin was one of disobedience impelled by pride. The result of this-original diSobedience, he goes on to say, is a terrible disharmony within the human person: In a word. what is the punishment for that sin of disobedience but disobedience? For what other human misery is there but the disobedience of a person to himself--so that, because he did not wish what he was able to do. now he wishes what he is unable to do? For in paradise, even if he was unable to doall things before the sin. y~t he did'not wish to do whatever he was unable to do: and therefore he was able to do everything that he wished to do. But now, as we recognize in his offspring~ and as Holy Scripture testifies, a human being is like vanity. For who can count how many things he wishes to do that he cannot do, since he is not obedient to himself--that is, since his very mind and his flesh (which is inferior to it) do not obey his will? For. despite himself, his mind is greatly afflicted, and his flesh suffers and grows old and dies. And we would not be suffering unwillingly whatever else we suffe.r if our nature completely and every respect obeyed our will.3 Whoever has not lived this conflict, to a greater or lesser degree, has not lived reflectively. Disobedience, then, is part of human nature. According to Augustine, the very illimitable desires that contribute to human transcendence and that set the human being apart from other earthly creatures~ are, on their shadow side, stumbling blocks and provocations to overweening demands that cannot be satisfied and that must qualify as the urgings of disobedience, of sin. Sad to say, as tragic as this disharmony is, we nevertheless learn to live with it. It is a disharmony that is, after all, part of us and familiar to us. We could hardly imagine living with those overweening demands, not stifled (which would render us inhuman), but under control--in that state of tense 666 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 and watchful virtue that the Greek Fathers referred to as apatheia. So radi-cated in our nature is this disharmony that we purposefully and self-right, eously pursue the wrong things as though they were good for us. So radicated is it that--the upshot is--to correct it is to act contrary to our nature, a process that causes intense pain. We are like a man whose broken leg has been set improperly. The man learns to walk with a limp and can, indeed, go about with relative ease, yet the limp in turn becomes responsible for 'a gradual deterioration in other areas of the body. For health to be restored, to the extent possible, the leg must be broken again and reset. Learning obedience is like breaking and setting a limb that has already been broken and set once before. This is surely the insight of the Desert Fathers, e~pecially as it is,implied in a narrative such as the following, which dates from the fourth or fifth century: It was said of the abba John the Dwarf that, having gone off to Scet~ to an old man of Thebes, he remained in the desert. His abba took a dry stick and planted it and told him: "Water this every day with a flask of water until it bears fruit." But the water was so far away that he would leave in the evening and return in the morning. After three years, though, it came to life and bore fruit. And the old man took the fruit, carried it to " the church'~ahd said to the brethren: "Take and cat the fruit of obedience."4 The story of the dry stick is a famous one, perhaps even a frightening one, for it seems to smack more than a little of the arbitrary exercise of authority that we mentioned earlier. The distinction betWeen the old/nan of Thebes and a neurotic novice-master or novice-mistress might be hard to discern from the outside, but presumably the motivation is different. Whatever goal the latter may be pursuing, the old man of Thebes was concerned with the painful restoration of human nature, the resetting of a once broken limb, and John was his willing disciple. The story of the 'dry stick compels us to confront the mysterious and unavoidable link there is between obedience and suffering. What we hear of John the Dwarf and his three years of toil imposed by his abba is no more than what we hear of Jesus himself, whose own suffering and death are so frequently ex'pressed in terms of obedience. Jesus' agony in Gethsemane is nothing other than the struggle to be obedient to his Father: "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt" (Mt 26:39). So it is also characterized in the great hymn of Philippians: "And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross" (Ph 2:8). It appears likewise in the Letter to the Hebrews: "Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered" (Heb 5:8). The difference, of course, between Jesus and John the Dwarf or any other human being is that Jesus' obedience was not therapeutic or restorative, since he was without sin and its tragic effects, whereas our obedience is precisely for the sake of our sinfulness. Yet even for Jesus to drink deeply of the cup of human nature, his obedience had to entail suffering, as ours does. Based upon the model of Jesus himself, we may say that to be obedient is Cruciform Obedience / 667 to submit to the cross, with all its mystery and suffering. We may also say that the cross is the thing outside of us, the thing which is representative of God's will and which intrudes disturbingly upon us. Inasmuch as it is identical with God's will it is an objective good, the objective good. It is, indeed, the great objectivity that we refuse because of our own self-centeredness. It is the great objectivity to which we must conform ourselves and which we must put within ourselves if we are ever to have peace, as expressed in the words of Dante: "In his will is our peace.'~ And it is the process of interiorizing what is presently exterior to us that does us violence and causes us pain. This means shoulder-ing the cross--not the cross of our own choosing (which, after all, would be the product of our subjectivity) but the ineluctable cross of God's choosing, for only in that cross is his will, and hence our peace, certain. In the case of John the Dwarf the cross was an adherence to the absurd demand of the old man of Thebes. In the case of Jesus it was a willingness to set his face to go to Jerusalem (see Lk 9:51), with what that implied of suffering and death, because this was the Father's destiny for him. Perhaps religious men :and women today, in contrast to religious men and women of twenty or more years ago, think of obedience for the most part as a vow that is rarely exercised. Itcomes up when a person is transferred from one assignment to another, and even that is usually done with consultation. Oth-erwise superiors make demands with relative infrequency, and they hardly dream of asking the very difficult, never mind the absurd or the impossible. Obedience is invoked almost exclusively as a functional necessity, and so it has come to be seen: it is required for the smooth operation of a religious house or an apostolate--entities that ordinarily run themselves'without the intervention of a "higher authority." But the view that religious obedience is an occasional or a functional thing is as erroneous as the view that poverty and celibacy are occasional or functional. Obedience, instead, like poverty and celibacy, is a constant disposition. In my previous articles 1 suggested that poverty and celibacy represented an attachment to Christ as human and as desirable respectively; consequently they are dispositions that have a quality of permanence and that are always operative. Obedience too is a constant and always operative disposition, spe-cifically with regard to the will of the Father, which in turn implies the cross. For, in Jesus' own experience, the cross was not merely at the end of his life but rather was the end to which his whole life was directed; it colored his life and, we might even say, gave it its meaning. If.we think of the Father's will as something constantly set before us to be accomplished---because therein consists the only restoration of our dishar- " mony and thus the only possibility of our happiness--we shall no longer conceive of oi~edience as a sporadic or occasional thing. Where do we discern this will? The traditional answer, of course, is that we discern it in the laws and customs of the Church, in Scripture as it is properly interpreted, in the constitutions and customs of one's particular religious con- 661~ / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 gregation, in the daily schedule or horarium, in the demands of one's assign7 ments, in the will of the superior as that is legitimately expressed, in the promptings of one's own conscience, in requests that are made of us and that it is possible for us to fulfill without difficulty. Similar things could be added along these lines. But these are by no means the only instances of the divine will, as though it were concerned only with some things and not others. The divine will is expressed in every aspect of reality, in every objective thing that occurs, that it behooves us to accept and somehow take into ourselves. Thus we must hearken to and obey the reality of other people's personalities, which are not our own and hence are often h~rd to appreciate; the outcome of elections and other such processes in which we may have taken positions opposed to the prevailing view; accidents that could not be avoided; the weaknesses that burden us as we get sick or grow old; the vagaries of the weather and of other natural phenomena. These things too are manifestations of God's will that are proper subjects of our obedience, that it profits us nothing to complain about or rail against. In them, indeed, there is a loving design for us. Although the "objectivities" mentioned are all unpleasant or at least diffi-cult, and one or two even tragic, we could as well say that God's will is also expressed in the many good things that befall us--in friendships and successes of various sorts, for example. Yet since these are so often things that we ourselves have had a hand in bringing about, or that we would gladly have brought about if we could, they do not have the same quality.of objectivity as do the others. Nor is there question of bending our will to them, and for that reason there is perhaps no question of obedience either. According to this way of thinking, then, we could characterize obedience in terms of "patient endurance." It is the vow by which the religious person promises to accept the reality that can be identified with the divine will, and that inevitably brings with it the cross. Moreover, the religious makes this promise in the firm conviction that in enduring or accepting this total reality, he or she will find the peace that the world cannot give (see John 14:27). All of reality, the whole of the universe, is in fact permeated with the mystery of the cross: This is a theme common in the earliest Church, and expressed strikingly by lrenaeus at the end of the second century when he writes: And because [Christ] is himself the Word of God almighty, who, in his invisible form, pervades us universally in the whole world, and encompasses both its length and breadth and height and depth--for by God's Word everything is disposed and adminis-tered- the Son of God was also crucified in these, imprinted in the form of a cross on the universe: for he had necessarily, in becoming visible~ to bring to light the universal-ity of his cross in order to show openly through his visible form that activity of his: that it is he who makes bright the height, that is, what is in heaven, and holds the deep, which is in the bowels of the earth, and stretches'forth and extends the length from east to west, navigating also the northern parts and the breadth of the south, and calling in all the dispersed from all sides to the knowledge of the Father.6 Cruciform Obedience / 669 Where Christ is, there is the cross: it cannot be avoided; it is wriften even across the face of our joys. Do we not acknowledge the dominance of the cross in our lives, do we not symbolically submit ourselves to it when we sign ourselves with it from forehead to breast and from shoulder to shoulder? The principal .objection to what has been said thus far must surely be that it appears to foster passivity--a kind of mindless, heedless acceptance of and submission to Whatever comes one's way. It must be added, then, that Jesus' own obedience to his destipy, which was the reality of the cross that constantly intruded into his life, was not mindless or fatalistic. We know from the gospels that Jesus was always aware of what he was doing and that he approached this painful destiny in complete freedom. He offered himself freely to the Father, although not without a struggle, as the episode in Gethsemane tells us, to conform his will to the Father's. The sovereignty of Jesus' obedience is wonderfully manifested in the most ancient depictions of the'crucifixion, dating from the fifth century, where he is shown on the cross as a figure in.complete possession of himself--not hanging in agony but erect, and with a noble and peaceful countenance. Yet it is important to realize, asthe gospels inform us, that Jesus endured suffering on the cross. The ancient artists only stressed, one aspect of the crucified one. Moreover, it was Jesus' custom to make his disciples conscious of the sufferings that lay before them, so that they too might be free to accept the cross or not. It is clear from his example, therefore, that Jesus did not consider obedience to be an abdication of self. That Christian obedience is not passivity is still more clearly illustrated from the fact that, in numerous instances, Jesus actually resisted what other-wise might have been construed as his "destiny." That is, he often spoke against those who opposed him rather than simply bear their provocations in silence. This resistance on Jesus' part introduces an element of complexity into the practice of obedience. It suggests that there are times when religious obedience may be modified by some sort of resistance. When this may legiti-mately occur is problematic; it is a classic instance of the conflict between conscience and authority, particularly inasmuch as the authority here con-cerns the subject of areligious vow. This is, nonetheless, in keeping with the doctrine of the divine permissive will, which teaches that God permits evil to occur and to run its course, evenif he does not countenance it. This pe.rmissive will, to the extent that we may call it a will at all, may in many circumstances be resisted--although if Matthew 5:39 is to be taken seriously, it ought not always to be resisted. One thing, however, is certain in this regard: one may not resist an author-ity merely because it imposes something that is difficult or painful upon the one who is expected to obey. Suffering in and of itself, unless it is qualified in some significant way (if it were seen to be unbearable, for example, or if it would somehow radiate out to others who ought not to be affected by it), is insufficient reason for opposing an authority. If one were to resist an authority 6711 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 merely on account of the foreseen suffering (assuming its bearability and so forth), one would in effect be seeking to empty obedience of its content, and one may no more seek to do this than to empty Christianity of the cross. In fact, Jesus' own resistance, his refusal to endure certain unjust situa-tions, hastened his destiny rather than delayed it, and Jesus himself seems to have known this~ What this suggests, while not condoning passivity, is that the authority has the benefit of the doubt vis-a-vis the person placed under obedience. The-presumption on the part of the one who obeys should be that the assignment imposed is to be carried out except under certain unusual circumstances. On the other hand, the person in authority ought not to misperceive the desire to talk about an, assignment, or about any other imposed obedience, as a sheer unwillingness to obey. For the superior is also obliged to obedience, and specifically to the obedience of ministry--which includes listening. In sum, we are left with this, that religious obedience partakes of the mystery of the cross--"mystery" at least in part because it is so often absurd and inexplicable. Although human insight may show us that there is in each of us a terrible disharmony that causes us suffering, nothing but faith can tell us that the divine plan which includes the cross is a plan for our good, and one that will :ultimately bring us peace and harmonY. Indeed, only faith tells us that the things to which we must submit are from God, since we ~would often just as soon avoid them by asserting that they have nothing to do with God at all--that they come from superiors who do not understand "us, or that ~they represent situations that ought to be~changed instead of endured. Only this kind of faith will make obedience work. For the truth is that we must be obedient anyway to objectivity and reality as these have been under-stood in .this essay. We cannot control other people's personalities, or the weather, or our own health and well-being. We cannot avoid the cross, which is omnipresent, unless we choose to retreat into an imaginary world of our own making; and even then it is doubtful that we would succeed in our escape! The wisest thing that we can do is to set our faces to go to Jerusalem, for the cross is best borne willingly. Conclusion Two themes have been common to these three essays on poverty, celibacy, and obedience. The first theme is that of the Christocentric ~nature of the vows of religion. The person of Christ is the specific ;reason for a Christian and a religious to choose to do even what he or she might otherwise have decided to do--since poverty, celibacy, and obedience can make sense quite apart from the Christocentric context. But they make sense only to the extent that any-thing without Christ makes sense to the Christian--they cry out for comple-tion, for Christ is Alpha and Omega. In the case of obedience, we may translate "Christocentric" as "staurocen-tric'-- a word we have coined from stauros, meaning cross. The distinction Cruciform Obedience / 671 between Christo- and stauro-centric is a very fine one. In fact, the cross, thus understood, cannot be conceived apart from Christ. It is true that Christocentric seems to emphasize the person of Christ in a way ~hat staurocentric does not. In poverty and celibacy as I have written of them, we seem to touch Christ directly as the object of our love and desire, whereas in obedience it is the will of God, symbolized by the cross, which is the goal of our actions. In commenting on this, three observations must be made. Firstly, in embracing the cross we do the same thing that Jesus did and love the same divine will that he loved. We imitate him. Secondly, before Jesus was crucified it was possible, indeed proper, to think of the cross solely as something horrible. But since his crucifixion he has stamped this instrument of suffering ineradicably with his own personality. Finally, the divine will is not something abstract or impersonal, as though we were obeying a computer. Rather it is identified with God himself, who is personal, and whose personality is love (see ! .In 4:8). For these reasons, then, we can say that obedience, like poverty and celibacy, has its focus in a person--whether the person is seen as Christ, or as God.This focus is absolutely necessary for the religious, for it gives a meaning to life that nothing else can. We live ultimately for persons. The second theme common to these three essays and to the three vows discussed in them is that of mystery. In large part we are speaking here, not of a good that is fully able to be grasped by the intellect alone, but of one that must be perceived and pursued by the emotions as well. But when we speak of the emotions, and of things susceptible to the emotions, we are immediately in the realm of "mystery," as 1 Sugge'sted at the conclusion of the essay on celibacy.7 Because the intellect cannot grasp fully the divine mystery, love must make up--to the extent that this is possible--for what the intellect cannot seize. This divine mystery, in turn, has for its subject, not a project or an ideal, but rather the divine personality--for only a person has the infinite depth and infinite capacity for change that defines the mysterious. Projects and ideals, on the other hand, are soon exhausted. If this depth and inexhaustibility are central to the human personality, as anybody who has ever been in love realizes, how much more central are they to the divine personality! This is the truth that the vows must affirm and mirror: in the end, we do not commit ourselves to Christ or God for any other reason than himself. And this reason is inexplicable to anyone who does not love, who has not seen the mystery, and has not been seized by it.8 672 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 NOTES ~See "The Center of Religious Poverty," in 42 (1983) 534--544, and "Christocentric Celibacy," in 43 (1984) pp. 217-224. 2See; e.g. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 2-'~, q. 186, a. 8. 3De cir. Dei 14.15. 4Apophthegmata Patrum. De abbate Joanne Colobo I (PG 65.203), 5One may also recall the motto of Pope John XXIlh "Obedience and peace." 6Proof of the Apostolic Preaching 34, trans~ by J. P. Smith, in Anciem Christian Writers 16 (Westminster, Md., 1952)pp. 69-70. 7See "Christocentric Celibacy," pp. 223-224. ~This essay, completed on the day of his ordination to the priesthood, is dedicated to Kevin Kraft, O.P, Christ the Center of Our Vowed Life by Boniface Ramsey, O.P. Father Ramsey's three articles on the vows of religion are available as a single reprint: i - The Center of Religious Poverty ii - Christocentric Celibacy iii - Cruciform Obedience Price: $1.75 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 The Renewal of Contemplative Orders Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O. Abbot Keating was formerly abbot of the Trappist monastery in Spencer, MA. His last article in our pages, "Cultivating the Centering Prayer" (January, 1978) was written while there. Presently he resides at St. Benedict's Monastery: Snowmass, CO 81654. Part I: Monastic World Views The monastic vocation is a personal intuition into the mystery of Christ's invitation to follow him along the radical lines proposed in the Gospel. One may not be able to articulate the reason why one wants to be a monk or nun and yet have a true call from Christ. Or again, two people may articulate entirely different motives for wanting to enter a monastery, and both may .have a true call from Christ. The reason for this,is the fact that monastic values can be articulatCd in more than one world view or conceptual frame of reference. Obviously, one's response to the monastic call has to be expressed in somoframe of reference, but it must always be kept in mind that no one set of structures fully expresses'the mystery of that call. It would be a mistake, therefore, to identify the mystery of the monastic vocation with any one particular set of symbols or structures. Many cloistered monks and nuns in monasteries of the contemplative lifestyle are unaware that a radical shift in Western thinking has taken place over the last fifty or sixty years. This shift is centered in the development of historical consciousness. In the words of David Tracy, "This phenomenon can be described as man's realization that individually he is responsible .for the life he leads, and collectively he is responsible for the world in which he leads it."~ A significant part of this change of perspective is due to the discoveries of modern science, the development of historical criticism, and the shift in philos-ophy and theology from a static world view to an evolutionary one. Paul Tillich has given the names heteronomic and autonomic to the two compre- 673 674 /~Reviewfor Religious; Sept.-Oct., 1984 hensive world views that are polarized in contemporarythinking. The tension arising from these opposing world views appears in the Church at large, but especially in religious and monastic life, where tensions within the Catholic world community tend to be emphasized. The conflict is not merely between liberal and conservative positions, but is much more profound. It arises from the unquestioned assumptions of two completely opposite ways of looking at the world and at oneself, each of which lays claim to one's deepest loyalties. The heteronomic world view, which was commonly held by the Catholic community until fifty or sixty years ago, is essentially a negative world view; or to be more exact, it is an other-worldly world view. It sees the sacred as opposed to the profane. Thus it seeks to reject the profane in order to find God, and as a consequence, emphasizes the value of renunciation. The present world is perceived as a sinful environment which has to be rejected. In a monastic milieu, this conviction translates into an attitude of determined separation from the world and the studied avoidance of any involvement in the society of one's time and in its problems. Since the primary focus of this world view is eternity, preparing for the life to come is conceived as the principal, or even the only, duty of a monk or nun. In either case, it follows that the legitimate pleasures of life must be renounced in order to find God. Thus, austerity of life and ascetical practices become the norm of spiritual progress and the touchstone of genuine dedication to God. This world view, developed and exemplified by the monks of the fourth century, had a significant influence on the spirituality of the Church as a whole. The formation of the liturgy; for instance, was influenced by this viewpoint. Catholic education was imparted and still, in large part, is imparted 'from this viewpoint. Most young people applying to monasteries today, however, are influ-. enced, at least in some degree, by the autonomic world view. The autonomic world view is the result of the gradual secularization of religious symbols, rituals, and institutions, together with the development of the historical con-sciousness. In this perspective, the profane is sacred. Renunciation of the good things of human .life is regarded as unrealistic or irrelevant. The positive aspects of the present world, rather than its evident evils, are emphasized. Time is the opportunity to change both ourselves and the society in which we live. Our personal decisions and actions make history and the future. Conse-quently, we have to assume personal responsibility for what happens to us and to the world. We are part of a process (evolution), and in order to reach true personal fulfillment, we have to take into account the well-being of the com-munity in which we live. Moreover, the community for which we are respon-sible is gradually extending itself, through mass communication and travel, to embrace the whole human family. The development and the shaping of the world community is, therefore, a profoundly religious and contemplative con-cern. Eternal life is not only in the future, but immanent in time. Moreover, there is a strong tendency to reject the patterns and lifestyles of the past as The Renewal of Contemplative Orders / 675 adequate paradigms for the future: Translated into a monastic milieu, this world view has a genuine attraction for the fundamental values of monastic life, but tends to distrust the tradi-tional structures in which they were enshrined. It rejects any kind of isolation, while esteeming the value of true solitude. Permanent commitment is a special problem for people~ with this perspective, because they feel a responsibility to adjust to the future as it becomes present. To commit oneself in advance to a single lifestyle or to one expression of monastic values seems to them a refusal to take,,responsibility for themselves and for what God might some day call them tO do. They want to be free to respond to the future in ways that may be new or even incompatible witha particular:monastic lifestyle that, in principle, can never be changed. Each of these world views has much to recommend it. Each sees the truth from a particular cultural perspective. Neither can claim to be a complete view of the mystery of the monastic vocation. Both have limitations which must be transcended in order to reach human integration and the fullness of the christian life. It is interesting to note that during his'monastic lifetime, Tho-mas Merton seems to have moved from a heteronomic to an autonomic world view, and then to have'transcended both. Such is the impression given by his. remarkable essay, "Final Integration," in Contemplation hi A World Of Action, Chapter 13. Elsewhere he writes, "Historical consciousness and con-templation are not incompatible, but. necessary." Father Raimundo Panikkar has discerned another world view in addition to the heteronomic and autonomic world views delineated by Tillich.2 He calls it the ontonomic world view or the contemplative dimension of life. It is a higher perspective, rather than a synthesis of the heteronomic and autonomic world views. It ~is a state of higher consciousness (faith) that integrates the sacred and profane by perceiving the presence of the sacred in ordinary events and .in the most secular of situations. It flows from the awareness of the universe as a unity. Its fundamental attitude is complete detachment--freedom from compulsions, prejudices, and preconceived ideas. The contemplative dimension is a vision of reality in which the "egoic" or false self is no more. The ultimate experience is non-duality. Panikkar characterizes it by the term "tempiternity,'.' which/he identifies as the experience of eternity-and-time in each passing momentand event. To find the eternal in time is the crux of the experience. ~ Translated into a monastic milieu, this experience of mature contemplation must lead to action, even if it is only to transform the local monastic environ-ment. The Contemplative monk seeks to discover what he is, not what he will become. He seeks to cultivate the core of his humanness, which is more than historical existence. Thus, the ontonomic world view is a form of transhistori-cal consciousness. It is outside and above political considerations and histori-cal concerns. At the same time, it does not take a merely negative posture toward institutionalized injustice or the whole evils of contemporary society, 676 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 but offers a positive alternative by establishing a lifestyle based on the con-templative dimension of, the Gospel. Thus, fuga mundi becomes, not flight from a world that is evil in itself, but flight from the "system" by refusing to be a part of a political or social establishment that supports institutionalized evil. Here is one example of how these world views operate in monastic com-munities. The contemporary monk, influenced consciously or unconsciously by the autonomic world view, feels that he cannot reach his own unique spiritual development without the well-being of the human community of which he is a part. F~or him, a strict, rule .of silence means isolation, not solitude. One of the older monks, having entered the monastery fifter a Catholic education that emphasized the heteronomic approach to life, may look upon him as one who has an exaggerated need for contact with others. For this older monk, picnics and community gatherings with. casual conversa-tion and banter are clearly mitigations of the rule of silence. He cannot wait to get back to his private room, to his books, or to his prayer, because his expectation is that he can attain union with God only through the renunciation of ordinary human society and its legitimate pleasures. The older monk believes in loving his brothers width his will. He may be embarrassed by feelings of affection, and even feel a du.ty to confess them as sins or imperfections. The new arrival, for his part, regards the older monk as simply incapable of relating. This polarization of attitudes becomes acute on the .occasion of commun-ity meetings. The older monks tend to make speeches while the younger, consumed with frustration, try in vain to engage them in genuine dialogue and interaction. These and similar situations can be poignant as well as just plain painful. Each monk, coming from his own respective world view, is completely sincere, motivated by loyalty to what he understands to be the structure enshrining the values that are to lead him to union with Christ. Consequently, the same community event or decision of the supe~rior will be interpreted positively or negatively according to one of these two basic monastic world views. Neither seems to beable to separate the religious symbol, ritual, or behavior pattern from the value wi~ich is being expressed in and through them. To be able to do so, of course, would require't,he kind of profound conversion that is presupposed by the ontonomic World view, or the contem-plative dimension of life. This perspective is able to express monastic values in different structures or with different symbols without being tipset. It recognizes intuitively that the value is what matters, not how it is expr~essed in particular circumstances. It can move ,from one symbol or set of symbols to another, and still express its total dedication to monastic values. Because it is not bound to ex.press these values in a particular way, it does not judge others or their observance critically. It can adjust to the signs of the time, recognizing with ease when iexceptions are called for, and acknowledging the primary impor-tance of flexibility in applying the common rule to individual circumstances, The Renewal of Contemplative Orders / 677 The contemplative dimension is the goal of monastic structures and obser-vances. Those who have espoused the heteronomic or autonomic world views in their early monastic experience may move beyond their own particular world view as life advances, and come finally to embrace, or at least tolerate, the other. Ultimately, those in the heteronomic or autonomic monastic world views are both calledto transcend the limitations of their respective world views and to reach the contemplative dimension. The contemplative dimension is to live not only in God's presence, but also out of that presence. In other words, the presence and movement of God become the source of one's moti-vation both in prayer and activity. The contemplative dimension can express itself inside of existing structures or create new structures when circumstances call for them. It is not so much the structures that are important, but the motivation which prompts them. In the Gospel~ motivation is everything. The contemplative dimension can infuse life into the most stagnant of structures. The question, however, may be asked whether this is always the best use of this incomparably creative energy. Perhaps enough has been said to see a fundamental root of the problem of mutual understanding and communion in communities of contemplative life today. It is not a question of persons in the community having a liberal or a conservative temperament, di.sposition, or set of convictions. That is to be expectedin every human grouping. It.is rather a question of two deeply held perspectives regarding the essential rfionastic values, based in large part on one's early religious training and cultural conditioning. It was possible in days gone by to enjoy the blessings of unity when everyone shared the heteronomic world view. It is impossible today to avoid or suppress the ideas and attitudes that are characteristic of the autonomic world view. 1 have seen monks enter the monastery with the heteronomic world view, pass a number of years living and articulating their monastic experience in that frame of reference, and then change radically, reacting against the heteronomic'world view with all the force that is characteristic of a profound conversion. Such change is all the more acute in those who have repressed their talents and legitimate feelings for the sake of the heteronomic world view. There is really no solution to this polarization as long as it remains on the level of conceptualization. The same events, directives of superiors, or deci-sions by the community will continue to be interpreted in two opposing wa~,s. The heteronomic world view sees as disaster what the autonomic world view perceives as a great step forward. Similarly, what the autonomic world view considers regression, is interpreted by the heteronomic mind-set as a retu,rn to fundamentals, or to "the good old days." Some might think that monks and nuns who are deeply committed to these world views should live in separate monasteries, at least as an experi-ment. Actually, though, if we could recognize our own conscious or uncons-cious commitment to one of these monastic world views, and accept the fact that the other is also legitimate, we could live together with a certain mutual 67~1 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1984 enrichment--provided, of course, that our objective was not to obliterate the other, but to transcend our own world view and attain to the higher perspective of the contemplative dimension of life. The superior in monasteries today has to be someone who has great sympathy for both the heteronon~ic and the autonomic world views and can see the values and the limitations of each. Unfortunately, the monks will judge the superior's decisions according to their own respective viewpoints, and thus everything the superior tries to do will be a source of dissatisfaction to one side or the other. There needs to be a massive re-education of the members of contemplative orders if they are to understand the dynamics that areat work in their communities today and which are really .outside anyone's control. These dynamics are what Pope John XXIII called the "signs of the time." The two opposing world views are not going to go away. We have either to adjust to them, separate, or tear each other apart. The formulation of new constitutions is not going to solve this problem. In fact, the efforts to stabilize constitutions could prudently be postponed until more fundamental issues are resolved. One. of these, of course, is how to train the young. If postulants and novices in contemplative orders are oriented toward the contemplative dimension from the beginning of their monastic lives, and can be persuaded that genuine monastic values can be incarnated in more than one way, it: will then be possil~ieto emphasize the right things in their formation and avoid diverting their energies with useless regulations or conceptual conflicts. There must be serious discipline. This consists primarily in perseverance in contemplative (non-conceptual) prayer. Neither liturgy nor any other practice can supply for this. Silence and solitude initiate the dynamic of self-knowledge and the purification of the psychological unconsciousness. This shotald be fully understood by those undertaking the contemplative way of life. Contemplative prayer will enable them to adjust to this dynamic, persevere in its difficulties, and benefit from its insiglits. Two hours of such prayer every day seems like a suitable norm for postulants and novices. In communities where the work is more demanding, the divine office--and not contemplative prayer--should be reduced. For contemplatives, liturgy can only be an effec-tive means of formation in dialogue with silence and prayer in secret. Part II: Principles Monastic formation is not an assembly line. ~Monks and nuns cannot be mass-produced. The monastic environment is a choice of means designed to facilitate growth in the contemplative dimension of the Gospel. It is aimed at self-transcendence and transformation in Christ. Each monk and nun in a particular monastery is in a different place in the spiritual journey. Only great sensitivity on the part of the community toward the spiritual and human growth of its members can adequately meet this situation. Newcomers to Renewal of Contemplative Orders / 679 monastic life, of course, must submit to the same rule for the first few years of their initiation. But to apply this principle to the whole of life, even into old age, is another matter. In contemplative orders right now, the big question is not new constitutions, but .whether the observances as we practice them lead the average monk and nun of our time to that level of spirituality which Father Merton called "final integration." Without a certain number of persons living on that level in a monastery, the Rule cannot be properly observed. Institutions have an uncanny ability to be blind to whatever challenges them to constructive change.: This tendency increases in proportion to one's close-ness to the center of administration. Survival is an instinct in every human institution, as it is in individual human beings. Only those who have expe-rienced deep purification are free of this compulsion. When the inspiration of a charismatic founder or group of founders is no longer present, the second generation tries to preserve their spirit and insight by means of rules and customs. These work well so long as the spiritual understanding of the observances perdures. But if this spiritual understanding peters out, observances begin to be practiced merely externally, and may come to be experienced as a straight jacket. In a lifestyle as severely restricted as a cloistered monastery, such an environment could even become neurosis-prone. This can occur when monks or nuns start keeping~the rule for the wrong reasons, or isolate themselves from the concerns of the local and world church and community. Monastic rules, including St. Benedict's, were composed without the knowledge we possess today of the psychological and sociological factors involved in human development and in the formation of community. Monastic founders had extraordinary insight into these matters, but they did not have at their disposal the experience and research of the last century in psychology and sociology. The renewal of the contemplative orders has to take these new insights into account., 0 The renewal also has to take seriously the work of historical criticism. To separate the essentials of monastic life from its cultural conditioning in the course of the centuries and to re-express these essentials today is no small task. Still, it has to be done if monastic life is to be a viable alternative for people in the twenty-first century. Moreover, these essential values have to be expressed not only in a con-temporary way, but in ways appropriate to different cultures. As new monas-teries spring up in. various parts of the world, great sensitivity must be shown to the culture in which they are inserted. Established monasteries also: need to develop a keen sensitivity to the particular cultu.res of which they are already a part because these are ev.olving at a constantly accelerating rate. Such sensitiv-ity requires a certain level of interior freedom and a capacity to evaluate the ¯ signs of the time. To ascertain where we stand in this regard, communities might ask them-selves such questions as these: 6~11~ / Review for Religibus, Sept.-Oct., 1984 i. Do we provide space for people to grow, to make mistakes, to relax, to get a different perspective, to relate normally with their peers, to grow in responsibility, and to respond to the needs of others? 2. Can damaged persons find healing and human growth in our community? 3. If in our community there is evident lack of healing and of human and ¯ spiritual growth, is there som~ething in our way of life that makes this happen? 4. Do we develop the human and spiritual gifts of the individual members of the community, and are they then used for the good of the community? 5. Does self-support require draining a certain number of people by over-work, excessive responsibility, or by leaving them in jobs which they expe-rience as drudgery without hope of relief?. 6. ls stability in the community an absolute ora relative value? Should there be more opportunity to serve in other houses or to,experience other forms ~of Christian service for a limited time? ~. 7. What do we perceive as the goal of our contemplative way of life? is it personal salvation, penance, intercession for others, contemplative prayer, eremiticism, strict observance, togetherness, or what? 8. Are the present structures of our order the right ones for our time, culture, and circumstances? In particular, does the liturgy as we do it truly express our prayer, or is it cast in a mold that is excessively dualistic and historically conditioned? ¯ 9. Why are there so few potential superiors in the average monastery of contemplative orders? More important than any answers we might come up with, is the level of honesty and openness to truth that would permit communities to raise such intimate and personal questions in the first place. James W. Fowler3 shows how the development of Christian faith corresponds to the various stages of human growth. Basing his reflections on the work of Piaget and Kohlberg, Fowler points out that the level of faith development in a particular commun-ity is normally dependent on the communal ideal which the majority have embraced. The community tends to raise its members to this level, but does not encourage them to grow beyond it. This is not a deliberate and explicit refusal, but a subtle coercion exercised on everyone to accept the approved level of development as the norm. This dynamic is evident in certain charismatic communities which tend to discourage their members from practicing con-templative prayer even. when the attraction of grace is clear. Fowler mentions that most of the Christian churches in the United States which he investigated were at the level of faith in which religious symbols were inseparable from their accepted meaning by the community. By'religious symbols, he means rituals, practices, and behavior patterns that give the group its identity and express its value system. In these communities, it is difficult for ~ individual members to separate religious symbols from the meaning give~n them by the group as the expression of their common values~ and to ri~-express these values in other forms. The Renewal of Contemplative Orders / ~1 It is easy to see how a monastic community, which has the responsibility of fostering the interior freedom of its members, would be greatly hindered by a hidden agenda which effectively prevented them from moving beyond the letter of the Rule or the common observances. The common good of a monastery is not the exercises of common life as such, but the growth of bach of the members toward self-transcendence and transformation in Christ. The martyrdom of conscience, which Anthony of Egypt identified with the monas-tic vocation, may require some monks and nhns to express common, values in other forms--for instance, as hermits, pilgrims, teachers of contemplative prayer. Monks and nuns in the Benedictine-Cistercian tradition often have hesita-tions about the principle of personal growth because of their conviction, based on their experience, that the complete surrender of oneself to the common life is a tremendous leap forward in the spiritual journey. This view of stability maintains that changes in attitudes and dispositions, considered as ascending levels of faith, will take place interiorly in the course of one's monastic lifetime, without having to make any significant modifications in one's external obser-vance or environment. The question may be asked, however, whether this is always true. ISertain external changes could facilitate interior growth during a period of crisis. If everyone in the community is really growing, periods of crisis for one or other member will not be exceptional, but of frequent occurrence. However, for appropriate modifications of observance on behalf of the particular needs of individuals to be fully accepted and supported by.the community, the superior ¯ has to be a person in. whose discernment the community has complete confi-dence. Alternatively, there must be a level of communication that is so well established and free-flowing that persons at different stages of growth can easily understand and accept each other. Whether a large community (more than twenty) can develop or maintain such a degree of communication is a question that should be studied by contemplative orders. Most s6ciologists would have serious doubts about it. As a. further consideration, it would.seem that leadership in monastic communities today has to be an "enabling" rather than a ,determining" kind of leadership. Members of the community have to be encouraged to function on their own initiative, taking responsibility for themselves and for the group: This level.~of regponsibility obviously requires effective communication. A superior should be one of the group as much as he can. He should be intelli-gent, but not someone who inspires either awe or dependency. He should be supportive, affirming, straightforward, and open to new ideas; not someone who prefers things to people, or good order to human needs. No one should exercise religious authority who has not first come to terms with °his own solitude and isolation, for only then can he understand and relate to the solitude and isolation that others may feel. The monastic milieu is not a place where people are to be changed, but where they can change themselves. 6112 / Review for Religious; Sept.-Oct., 1984 Two principles of renewal deserve special consideration in the formation of the young' in our time. These are: flexibility in regard to observances, and emphasis on the contemplative dimension of the Gospel. How the latter is to be carried out should be the subject of study and dialogue in each monastery becahse, without a plan and practice to foster this contemplative dimension, observances will be useless. There is a fairly widespread notion in monasteries that contemplative prayer and monastic observance~are somehow incompatible. Unless this mis-conception can be dispelled by adequate education and formation, the future of these communities is extremely uncertain. , Flexibility is the most practical means of approaching individual needs at different stages of the spiritual journey. By comparison, Fowler writes, the institutional approach to the good of individual members is a buckshot approach. It presumes thatthe same religious symbols are always going to be neci~ssary for ~everyone for the whole of each one's life. Experience, on the other hand, points to the fact that most persons need to,be detached from particular religious symbols at a certain point in their spiritual journey in order to make further progress. Opportunities for human growth should be provided in cloistered monas-tic life as a necessary foundation for spiritual growth. To begin with, the contemplativ.e dimension of the Gospel cannot develop normally without a certain spontaneity. It is necessary for the members of every community to get to know one another on the human level early in their monastic lives. If there are several no.vices or temporary professed, they should have the chance to discuss monastic;values among themselves, without the novice master or dean being present. For a limited :period of time they could benefit from a "gut-level" exchange of feelings about one another and the community, moderated by a qualified facilitator. The sense of belonging is indispensable for the health of every community. This is not easy in a large group. This is probably why Benedict, with his far-sighted wisdom, recommended deaneries (a community of communities) for expanding monasteries. Sub-group structures are not divisive if their pur-pose is well understood and accepted by the community. At the very least, the opportunity to speak with one's peers in small informal groups and one-to-one should be encouraged. Friendships, both within and outside the community, can be enriching, especially'when they are supportive of one's i;piritual journey. At the same time, periods of stricter silence, as during Advent and Lent, or for a week or two every few months, might be introduced to provide the experience of a deeper and°more extended silence. Intensive periods of silence and prayer open up new areas of insight and hasten the process of purification. The rules of enclosure could also benefit from greater flexibility. Work-shops can be stimulating and broadening for those who are interested in a particular subject or craft. With the introduction of cassette TV, programs of genuine value izould help to educate and bring the community together. Uni- 7he Renewal of Contemplative Orders versit'y life tends to be a special kind of environment, somewhat withdrawn from the real world, but the genuine need of training professors, completing a monk's education, or developing particular talents, justifies this experience. Besides educational motives for modifying the strict interpretation of the rules of enclosure, permission to go home for an annual family visit instead of having the. family come to the monastery could be beneficial for the monks and nuns--as well as easier on their families. To allow selected persons to live in the community as residents for a prolonged period of time is already being done in some monasteries with good results. Interaction with dedicated per-sons in other walks of life is stimulating as well as broadening. Retreats for both sexes and varying degrees of participation in the liturgy are presently common practices in a number of contemplative communities and should be encouraged. The need for physical exercise is obvious in our day when monasteries of men and women have had to replace manual work by machinery. Factory work and the sedentary employment that is forced upon a community by secretarial demands do not provide the kind of psychological space that used to be provided by labor in the fields or in the woods. Modern forms of earning a living are less simple and usually demand more in the way of mental concen-tration. New ways of providing for the balance of activities prescribed by the Rule of Benedict have to be found or invented. It may look strange for monks to be playing sports, running around in jogging shorts, or takirig'long hikes; but. if they do not get enough good exercise to replace the manual: work of the past, they are going to find themselves in a constant state of tension. Com-munity or small group picnics, celebrations, outings, and trips can also pro-vide useful relaxation and strengthen the bonds between the members of the group. A change of pace in the horarium would be helpful from time to time, like the opportunity for a day of solitude without any structure once or twice a month. The annual retreat c

Issue 41.3 of the Review for Religious, May/June 1982. ; REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis, MO 63108. REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1982 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A.: $9.00 a year; $17.00 ~'or two years. Other countries: $10.00 a year; $19.00 for two years. For subscription orders or change of address, write: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Daniel T. Costello, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor May/June, 1982 Volume 41 Number 3 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph ~. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's University; City Avenue at 54th St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from RE~:IEW FOR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Laborem Exercens: Themes and Theses Robert F. Morneau Bishop Morneau has commented in this s~me format on two earlier encyclicals: Redemptor Hominis (March, 1980) and Dives in Misericordia (September, 1981). Together with his service as Auxiliary Bishop of Green Bay, Bishop Morneau also serves through the Ministry to Priests Program where he may be addressed: 1016 N. Broadway: De Pere, Wl 54115. Several years ago Studs Terkel published a series of masterfully conducted interviews under the title of Working. People from various fields of life reflected candidly on the meaning or lack of meaning that work had in their lives. What fascinates the reader is the blatant honesty of'those interviewed; they told it the way they experienced it. With deep feeling and perceptive observation, the work-ing people revealed the movement~ of their mind and heart. On September 14, 1981, Pope John Paul II shared his third encyclical letter, Laborem Exercens, with the world. This papal document focuses on the topic of work, that human activity at once so universally experienced and yet so frequently devoid of meaning. What Terkel did on the experiential level, the Holy Father does on the reflective level. We do not find personal interviews with the rank and file but, from a scriptural and faith point of view, a description of the theological underpinning of our obligation to work. Within this perspective he discusses many questions: the nature and meaning of work; the relationship of work to the person, family and society; how work is influenced by various ideologies; the duty and rights of the worker; a spirituality of work. Rather than delineate detailed and specific policies, the encyclical is concerned with articulating certain principles and guidelines to govern the formation of policy for specific situations. When these principles are adequately and properly applied, work helps to build up the world community and becomes a means of safeguarding the humanity of all. These reflections of the Holy Father are extremely relevant. In an age when technology can so easily control the course of history we must hear over and over 322/ Review for Religious, May-June, 1982 again the principle that people have primacy ox)er things. In a period of history that takes for granted exploitation and manipulation as acceptable life-styles, we must have confirmation that persons are ends and not means. In our rapidly moving century that gives low priority to quiet and reflective times, it is healthy to have our attention drawn to an awareness of the importance of rest within the spirituality of work. Written on the ninetieth anniversary of Leo XlIl's Rerum Novarum, this present encyclical continues to remind us of the importance of these social questions and the function that the Church plays in their solution in public life. Theme 1: The Meaning and Dignity of Work Thesis: Work is an active process by which creative and productive persons gain dominion over the earth and achieve fullness as human beings. Understood as a process whereby man and the human race subdue the earth, work corres-ponds to this basic biblical concept only when throughout the process man manifests himself and confirms himself as the one who "dominates" (6). Work is a good thing for man--a good thing for his humanity--because throughout work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfillment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes ~more a human being" (9). Man must work, both because th~ Creator has commanded it and because of his humanity. which requires work in order to be maintained and developed. Man must work out of regard for others, especially his own family, but also for the society he belongs to. the country of which he is a member, since he is the heir to the work of generations and at the same time a sharer in building the future of those who will come after him in the succession of history (16). The farmer gazes out on newly acquired property and perceives the rocks, tree stumps and weeds; a year later that same farmer, after much labor, rejoices in an autumn harvest of grain. The artist sits before a small mound of clay: many hours later a finely crafted vessel receives the accolades of admiring friends. The steel worker feeds the furnace kno.wing that when the final product is completed, beams of steel will be available for buildings and bridges. The human person, taking the many resources of the world, fashions them into useful and beautiful objects in the meeting of human needs. This process, both creative and productive, brings order out of chaos. The newly won unity fills the human spirit with a sense of meaning, peace and joy. A radical call to all of us is the call to become human persons. Within that universal vocation work plays a necessary and significant part. Only when we thoughtfully expend the energy given to us do we develop our potential and actualize our gifts. Work and growth demand that we participate in this venture of becoming human. Gifts unemployed atrophy. Needs unmet cause suffering. Lack of human development means boredom and despair. Emerson knew the value of work and its effect on human growth: I hear, therefore, with joy whatever'is beginning to be said of dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade; for learned as well as for the Laborem Exercens: Themes and Theses / 323 unlearned hands.* This labor must be balanced and rational, respecting individuals and allowing for personal fulfillment. History provides evidence that when certain forms of work do not have these qualities human beings are dehumanized and even destroyed. In his perceptive' and challenging philosophical treatise, Leisure, the Basis of Culture, the neo-Thomist Josef Pieper describes "workism" as an attitude and ideology that disregards the essential natureof work. Pieper's argument is that work is meaningful only when the human person's dignity is fully appreciated and when the activity of work is complemented by a certain receptivity towards life which is called contemplation. The present encyclical also protects this balance and perspective. Theme 2: The Subjective and Objective Dimensions of Work Thesis: The subjective dimension of work (the dignity of the human person)always has priority over the objective dimension (productivity). The very process of "subduing the earth," that is to say work. is marked in the course of history, and especially in recent centuries; by an immense development of technological means. This is an advantageous and positive phenomenon, on condition that the objective dimension of work does not gain the upper hand over the subjective dimension, depriving man of his dignity and inalienable rights or reducing them (10). ¯. man's dominion over the earth is achieved in and by means of work. There thus emerges the meaning of work in an objective sense, which finds expression in the various epochs of culture and civilization. Man dominates the earth by the very fact of domesticating animals, rearing them and obtaining from them food and clothing he needs, arid by the fact of being able to extract various natural resources from the earth and the seas (5). As a person, man is therefore the subject of work. As a person he works, he performs various actions belonging to the work process: independently of their objective content, these actions must all serve to realize his humanity, to fulfill the calling to be a person that ig'his by reason of his very humanity (6). Work always involves a person, a process and a product. The language of the encyclical refers to the person as the subject of Work (the subjective dimension) while the product is the object of work (the objective dimension). This distinction is important: a product does not have interiority, nor is it a center of thought and love. On the other hand, the human person is spiritual, immortal and called to fullness of life in God. The process of work can take such a direction so as to make a person play the role of a mere tool (cog in the machine). The focus is on productivity. Such a procedure, used in the work world dehumanizes the person and negates the Christian meaning of work. Unfortunately, hi~tory records too many years of such abuse. The Holy Father's analysis of work contains an implicit anthropology, one ~'The American Scholar," in The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. ed. Brooks Atkinson (New York: The Modern Library, 1940), p. 55. ~124 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1982 that has the highest regard for the fullness of human life. Every person has both an inner and outer agenda. Meister Eckhart describes it this way: There are people who squander the strength of their souls in the ouiward man. These are the people, all of whose desires and thoughts turn on transient goods, since they are unaware of the inner person. Sometimes a good man robs his outward person of all the soul's agents, in o'rder to dispatch them on some higher enterprise; so. conversely animal people rob the inner person of the soul's agents and assign them to the outward man. A man may be ever so active outwardly and still leave the inner man unmoved and passive.-~ Both the outer and inner dimensions of work need protection and a sensitive balance. Each has its own unique value. If they are not integrated, a person either "sells his soul to the company store" or falls into a type of narcissism which destroys communal responsibility. Persons have dignity which must not be denied; the work process must be respected as part of God's plan; human life is impossible without those products which meet essential needs. Proper priority and balance in reference to the subjective and objective dimen-sions of work are maintained when reverence is present amongpeople. Only when we stand in awe of every person, only when we hold sacred the gifts of air, water and land, only when we carefully consider the inner dynamism and value of the creative process will we truly appreciate work. Goethe reminds us: "The shudder of ,awe is humanity's highest faculty." This papal docume.nt contains that "shudder of awe.'" Whenever we encounter the handiwork of God, human or otherwise, we bow before the Creator's reflection. The person, the imago Dei, the creative pro-cess and end product of our work demand appropriate respect. Theme 3: The Value Scale of Work Thesis: Work involves three spheres of values: 1)a personal value bringing dignity to the individual; 2) a family value forming the foundation of communal life; and 3) a societal value enriching the common good. It (workJ is not only good in the sense that it is useful or something to enjoy; it is also good as being someth!ng worthy, that is to say, something that corresponds to man's dignity, that expresses this dignity and increases it. If one wishes to define more clearly the ethical meaning of work. it is this truth that one must particularly keep in mind Work constitutes a foundation for the formation of family life. which is a natural right and something that man is called to . In a way, work is a condition for making it possible to found a family, since the family requires the means of subsistence which man normally gains through work. Work and industriousness also influence the whole process of education in the family, for the very reason that everyone "becomes a human being" through, among other things, work. and becoming a human being is precisely the main purpose of the whole process of education (10). ¯. it (society) is also a great historical and social incarnation of the work of all generations. All of this brings it about that man combines his deepest human identity with membership of a nation, and intends his work also to increase the common good developed together with his '-Meister Eckhart, trans. Raymond B. Blakncy (Ne~' York: Harper Torchbooks). p. 87. Laborem Exercens: Themes and Theses compatriots, thus realizing that in this way work serves to add to the heritage of the whole human family, of all the people living in the world (10). The valuing process determines life. Values lead to an internal judgment which in turn dictates actions. The degree of worth we assign to individuals and things has far-reaching consequences. Within the complex va.luing system, work plays a major role since it touches personal lives, family life, and even national and international communities. The value assigned to work in these three areas will affect, for good or ill, the course of history. Family life remains a pivotal force in society, That life is threatened by an increasing number of divorces, the current mobility and the impact of the mass media. Unemployment is another threat which can lead to "social disaster" (18). Further, inadequate wages deprive the family of essential goods; lack of proper benefits increase anxiety; dissatisfaction with one's job has an impact on spouse and children. Work has a wider circle than just family life--it influences all of society. When people are given proper.job opportunities the common good is served and society is healthy. When work fosters a sense of cooperation among employees and employers, a new spirit of solidarity is felt in the wide? society. When work is done so that future generations will be served and helped by conserving our resources and protecting our, environment, society ,is being given responsible models. We have reached a point where this type of social consciousness can no longer remain merely a hope; if it does not become a fact, our society may well be doomed. Few people can grow interiorly without a sense of achievement. When work is done well, confidence and a sense of self-worth increase. Further, in fulfilling the commandment of God that we do work, we contribute to God's plan. The brick we add has eternal significance; no one else can do the work assigned to us. A prayer attributed to Cardinal Newman conveys the importance and the enigma of each person's work: ~ God has created me to do him some definite service: he has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission--I may never know it in this life. but I shall be told it in the next. 1 am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do his work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place while not intending it--if I do but keep his commandments. Therefore 1 will trust him. Whatever. wherever I am. I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve him: in perplexity, my perplexity may serve him: if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what he is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may hide my future from me--still he knows what he is about. Theme 4: Work and the Mystery of Creation Thesis: Work is inextricably bound up with the mystery of God's creative activity: each person shares in the wonder of creation through work. The knowledge that by means of work man shares in the work of creation constitutes the 326 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1982 most profound motive for undertaking it in various sectors 125). In every phase of the development of his work man comes up against the leading role of the gift made by '*nature." that is. in the final analysis, by the Creator. At the beginning of man's work is the mystery of creation. This affirmation, already indicated as my starling point, is the guiding thread of this document (12). The word of God's revelation is profoundly marked by the fundamen~'al truth that man, created in the image of God, shares by his work in the activity of the Creator and that, within the limits of his own human capabilities, man in a sense continues to develop that activity, and perfects it as he advances further and further in the discovery of the resources and values contained in the whole of creation (25). Two qualities identify our humanness: depende~nce and creativity. All is gift and we have an absolut~ dependence on our Creator. Humble acceptance of these faith facts sets us free. Through the creative process order is extracted from chaos, unity is chiseled out of diversity, beauty is captured in stone, word or canvass. As Ge,rald Vann remarks: The so-called industrial revolution ran its course: and ende.d by depriving the mass of men of a fundamental right, of that without which the personality is doomed to sterility and despair: the, creativity which is the counterpart of creatureliness.3 Within these two qualities of our humanness are the duty and right of work. Cooperation can be a most thrilling human experience. God longs for us to work with him in the fulfillment of the plan of salvation. Our very activity is an essential ingredient in the building of the earth and of the kingdom! The dignity of such a mission is immeasurabli~. Yet that is precisely what our scriptural and theological understanding of work indicates: the people of God continue to share in the work of creation.i The Vatican I1 document Gaudium et Spes drives home the reality that we are a Church in the modern world, an "in" that means involve-ment. Any mentality that either despises history or refuses to invest time and energy in improvement of the world goes contrary to the Scriptures and the teaching of the Church. Participation in the mystery of creation is threatened in our time. The buildup of armaments, sufficient now to many times over destroy our planet, leads many to an attitude of pessimism if not despair. Such a consciousness causes paralysis and the mission of work goes unaccomplished. The land is not tilled, book,,are not written, songs are not sung, families are not raised, conflicts are not resolved, resources are exploited. Why not? Annihilation is not only possible but likely! Suspicion is abroad: our times are less creative because of an annihilation attitude. Perhaps we can learn a lesson from Anne Frank. With bombs dropping near her hideout and with death a constant threat, she continued to study her history lesson. Life goes on! Christian faith calls us to our creative work regardless of the dark clouds that surround us. And, of course, one of the most urgent creative 3Gerald Vann, St. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Benziger Bros., 1947), p. 27. Laborem Exercens: Themes and Theses works is peace. Our work must bring about a world in which war becomes impossible. Theme 5: A Spirituality of Work Thesis." Work is a means by which persons grow in union with God and participate in the paschal m.vster.v. She (the Church) sees it as her particular duty to form a spirit.uality of work which will help all people to come closer, through work. to God. the Creator and Redeemer, to participate in his salvific plan for man and the world and to deepen their friendship with Christ in their lives by accepting, through faith, a living participation in his threefold mission as Priest. Prophet and King. as the Second Vatican Council so eloquently teaches (24). This Christian spirituality should be a heritage shared by all. Especially in the modern age. the spirituality of work should show the maturity called for by the tensions and restlessness of mind and heart (25). Since work in its subjective aspect is always a personal action, an actus personae, it follows that the whole person, body and spirit, participates in it, whether it is manual or intellectual work. It is also to the whole person that the word of the living God is directed, the evangelical message of salvation, in which we find many points which concern human work and which throw particular light on it. These points need to be properly assimilated: an inner effort on the part of the human spirit, guided by faith, hope and charity, is needed in order that through these points, the work of the individual human tSeing may be given the meaning which it has in the eyes of God and by means of which work enters into the salvation process on a par with the other ordinary yet particularly important components of its texture (24). The farmer brings the seeds of the field to Eucharist for a special blessing on rural life day, thereby exercising an act of faith in God as creator of the seed and provider for its growth. The newspaper editor cries out against the injustices toward the elderly, thereby fulfilling his prophetic role of denouncing all that infringes upon human dignity and freedom. The president of a country, through policies that properly distribute funds, insures that the poor and needy have their due. The people of God are scattered throughout every profession and work situation and it is precisely in that context that they exercise their spirituality. Union with God is achieved not only through liturgical worship and the celebra-tion of the sacrament. Holiness is gained as well by finding Christ in our brothers and sisters, in the working of the land, in the artistic and intellectual achievements. All of life, permeated by God's presence and love, becomes a grace opportunity and can further the process of salvation. A spirituality of work demands three things: vision, grace and commitment. An abiding vision of the divine presence is a gift of faith. Work is not restricted to the narrow sensate culture (limiting work to the confines of time/space) nor to a humanistic betterment of the world, important as that is. Rather, faith vision situates our work as an integral part of God's salvific will. Grace, the free gift of God's self-giving which transforms our minds and hearts, is the heartbeat of a spirituality for work. Empowered by the Spirit, our work has a certain quality and tonality that makes everything different. There is a freshness, newness and sense of possibility in what is done. Eventually the work will incarnate that grace as 321~ / Review for Religious, May-June, 1982 another sign of God's favor. Further, commitment to the person of Christ by sharing in his life, death and resurrection undergirds all Christian spirituality. The paschal mystery draws us into the dying/rising process of Christian existence. Work constantly involves dying and rising; done in union wiih Christ it allows us to become the person God calls us to be. In Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis has one of the characters describe his experience, "I at last realized that eating was a spiritual function and that meat, bread and wine were the raw materials from which the mind is made.TM No longer is there a harsh dichotomy between the secular and the sacred, the flesh and the spirit, heaven and earth. A false dualism is rejected and the unity of existence maintained. Work and worship are not mutually exclusive; they are meant to complement and enrich one another. For some workers their highest moments of prayerful praise and thanksgiving are in the midst of their work experience. A mother caring for her child, the artist sharing the masterpiece, the nurse weeping with the terminally ill, the scientist discovering a new atomic particle, the scholar articulating an insight: nurturing, creating, caring, wondering, discovering, sharing --moments of work, grounded in sacrifice, discipline and great effort, and moments of grace. All of this contributes.to a spirituality of work because to live in God's presence with sensitivity, awareness and love is to live a spiritual life. Theme 6: Work and Questions of Justice Thesis: Work plays a significant function in the justice question: there can be no justice unless work~ is available to people in such a way that basic rights and duties are protected and promoted. In order to achieve social justice in the various parts of the world, in the various countries, and in the relationships betwyen them, there is need for ever new movements of solidarity of the workers and with the workers. This solidarity must be present whenever it is called for by the social degrading of the subject of work, by exploitation of the workers, and by the growing areas of poverty and hunger (8). It must be stressed that the constitutive element in this progress and also the most adequate way to verify it in a spirit of justice and peace, which the Church proclaims and for which she does not cease to pray to the Father of all individuals' and of all peoples, is the continual reappraisal of man's work, both in the aspect of its objective finality and in the aspect of the dignity of the subject of all work, that is to say, man. The progress in question must be made through man and for man and it must produce its fruit in man. A test of this progress will be the increasingly mature recognition of the purpose of wbrk and increasingly universal respect for the rights inherent in work in conformity with the dignity of man, the subject of work (18). While work, in all its ~any senses, is an obligation, that is to say a duty, it is also a source of rights on the part of the worker. These rights must be examined in the broad context of human rights as a whole, which are connatural with man, and many of which are proclaimed by various international organizations and increasingly guaranteed by the individual States for their citizens. Respect for this broad range of human rights constitutes the fundamental condition for peace in the modern world (16). 4Nikos Ka~,antzakis, Zorba the Greek (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952), p. 79. Laborem Exercens: Themes and Theses Whenever relationships are established, certain issues of justice automatically arise. By its very definition the work relationship between employer and employee presents a mutuality of duties and rights. The encyclical addresses itself primarily to threatened rights of the employee, giving little attention to the dutie.s of the employee toward the employer. Employees' rights are numerous: the right to a just wage, the right to social benefits that ensure life and health, the right to rest, the right to pension and insurance, the right to suitable working environments, the right to strike under certain circumstances, the right to form voluntary associa-tions, the right of the disabled to productive activity suited to them, the right to emigrate in search of work. The correlative list would include the duties that come to the employer or society because of these rights. This area of justice is specific and measurable; much honesty, dialogue and planning are necessary if the ideals is to be achieved. The linkage between justice and peace is dearly articulated: Commitment to justice must be closely linked with commitment to peace in the modern world (2). Respect for this broad range of human rights constitutes the fundamental condition for peace in the modern world (16). Whenever rights are denied or duties neglected,,a profound disturbance shakes the life of individuals and society at large. Theologically we call this sin, ethically we call it injustice, sociologically we call it alienation. Regardless of the language system, the experience and its consequences are clear: the order of God's plan is broken and until reconciliation comes about, until justice is done, the fragmenta-tion continues and peace is not found in the land. Mere absence of war or conflict is not peace; rather, it is an ontological state of being, experienced when relation-ships~ are properly ordered. If charity begins at home, all the more so justice. Thus the Church as an institution must constantly strive for justice and peace within her own immediate membership. The fact that the above rights reside in her own personnel imposes an obligation on the Church as employer. This "beginning at home" is significant since authenticity of teaching and preaching constantly seeks verification in prac-tice. When the Church both teaches justice and lives it, the world has a model which affirms that the realities of justice and peace are truly possible. Theme 7: Work and Various ideologies Thesis: Work demands a meaning and various interpretations are offered by Liberalism, Marxism and Christian theology. The Marxist program, based on the philosophy of Marx and Engels, sees in class struggle the only way to eliminate class injustices in society and to eliminate the classes themselves. Putting this program into practice presupposes the collectivization of the means of production so that, through the transfer of these means from private hands to the collectivity, human labor will be preserved from exploitation (11). This consistent image, in which the principle of the primacy of person over things is strictly preserved, was broken up in human thought, sometimes after a long period of incubation in practical living. The break occurred in such a way that labor was separated from capital and 33{~ Review for Religious, May-June, 1982 set m opposition to it, and capital was set in oppositioh to labor, as though they were two impersonal forces, two production factors juxtaposed in the same "economistic" perspective. This way of stating the issue contained a fundamental error, what we call the error of economism, that of considering human labor solely according to its economic purpose. This fundamental error of thought must be called an error Of materialism, in that economism directly or indirectly ~ncludes a conviction of the primary and superiority of the material, and directly or indirectly places the spiritual and the personal (man's activity, moral values and such matters) in a position of subordination to material reality (13). The only chance there seems to be for radically overcoming this error (primitive capitalism and liberalism) is through adequate changes both in theory and in practice, changes in line with the definite conviction of the primacy of the person over things, and of human labor over capital as a whole collection of means of production (13). Absolutizing is that radical instinct in thought and behavior that makes one idea or value the only idea or value. The label we attach to such a tendency is "isms": e.g., secularism holds that all reality is limited to this world--there is no transcendence; humanism measures all of life in the light of the human person-- God finds no home here; rationalism restricts valid knowledge to that gained by reason--faith vision is excluded; workism so prizes achievement and productivity that leisure (receptivity-contemplation) is meaningless if not downright evil. The encyclical deals with this proclivity to absolutize and firmly rejects certain specific "isms" that surround work. Anathema sit: Marxism that seeks a collectivism of means of production so as to infringe upon the right to private property; liberalism that fails to take into account the common good in its worship of primitive capitalism; economism that views human labor solely in terms of its economic purposes; materialism that subordinates the spiritual/personal aspects of life to material reality. Christian theology consistently seeks a balanced position that protects moral and personal and spiritual values. Thus private property is a basic' right, though the common good will severely limit this right or even exclude it under very restricted circumstances. Economic profit is necessary and justifiable but never at the expense of human dignity. Matter is part of God's creation but is subordinated to the value of the human person. The insights of Scripture and tradition are brought to bear upon the complex reality of the work world. Basic principles are articulated through careful theological reflection which provides a theory that will hopefully inform our action. The Church is not reluctant to speak out with a strong prophetic voice whenever there is encroachment upon the rights of people, be that encroachment by employer or employee. Jacob Bronowski states that "without astronomy it is really not possible to find your way over great distances, or even to have a theory about the shape of the earth and the land and sea oh it."~ Part of the Church's mission is to provide a theologicalastronomy by which the complex components of life can be assessed and prudently judged. The present papal document serves a timely purpose: it ~Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973), p. 190. Laborem Exercens: Themes and Theses articulates a theology and a spirituality from which to observe and practice the command of God that we work, thereby building up a more human community and furthering the growth of the kingdom. Such an astronomy is no luxury, it is an absolute necessity. Theme 8: Work and its Abuse Thesis: Work, which is meant to humanize and develop persons, can become destructive when means become ends. ¯. it {the anlinomy between labor and capital) originated in the whole of the economic and social practice of that time, the time of the birth and rapid development of industrialiTation, in which what was mainly seen was the possibility of vastly increasing material wealth, means while the end, that is to say, man, who should be served by the means, was ignored (13). The primary basis of the value of work is man himself, who is its subject. This leads imme-diately to a very important conclusion of an ethical nature: however true it may be that man is destined for work and called to it, in the first place work is "for man"and not man "for work" (6}. The very process of "subduing the earth." that is to say work. is marked in the course of history and especially in recent centuries, by an immense development of technological means. This is an advantageous and positive phenomenon, on condition that the objective dimension of work does not gain the upper hand over the subjective dimension, depriving man of his dignity and inalienable rights or reducing them (i0). A gospel question focuses our attention: is man made for the Sabbath or the Sabbath for man? Jesus had to deal with the means/end question and there is nothing unclear about his answer: the Sabbath is .made for man. Ambiguity characterizes some contemporary questions arising from the world of work: What is the relationship between technology and the human person? What status does the individual have in large multinational corporations? When transfers are made, what "considerations are given to the worker's family? If profits will be less but the work situation is more humanizing, what kinds of decisions are made? Is man made for work or work for man? Historically the document states that certain means have usurped the prerogatives of the end; technology (means) has become the master and the human person (end), the slave. At this juncture, justice and peace are no more. The whole order is overturned, human freedom is lost. Simone Weil, a strong prophetic voice for the ~,alue of work in the first half of this century, worked in factories so as to experientially learn the workers' situation. Her experience was not a happy one: workers were dehumanized because they were treated simply as cogs in a large, productive m~chine. Upon reading Homer's Iliad, she extracts a universal truth about evil that applies to our present discussion: Thus in this ancient and wonderful poem there already appeared the essential evil besetting humanity, the substitution of means for ends.6 ~The Simone Weil Reader. ed, George A. Panichas (New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1977), p. 138. 3~12 / Review for Religious, Ma.v-June, 1982 What is so horrendous is that often this process of evil is unconscious and unin-tended. The means we use for produiztivity are happily introduced. Suddenly we wake up one morning and come to realize, that we are controlled by the very process we devised. The underlying question is one of freedom, a freedom that protects our humanity and a freedom to use tools of production wisely. Such a freedom comes only from hard-won knowledge: we cannot make prudent choices when ignorant of facts and circumstances. Education is of greatest importance here. All people involved in the working community must maintain a high level of attentiveness to attitudes, means of production, societal tendencies, subtle shifts in values. The means/end dilemma must not be blurred. Melville, in his classic Moby Dick, comments that "ignorance is the parent of fear."7 Societal fears often arise because we are ignorant of the proper relationship between means and end. With increased knowledge we are hopeful that fear will be dissipated and our freedom regained. Theme 9: Work and the Common Good Thesis: Work, through the use of natural and personal resources, is an essential force to achieve the common good. ¯. society--even when it has not yet taken on the mature form of a nation--is not only the great ~educator" of every man, even though an indirect one (because each individual absorbs within the family the contents and values that go to make up the culture of a given nation): it is also a great historical and social incarnation of the work of all generations. All of this brings it about that man combines his deepest human identity with membership of a nation, and intends his work also to increase the cor~mon good developed together with his compatriots, thus realizing that in this way work serves to add to the heritage of the whole human family, of all the people living in the world (16). Rational planning and the proper organization of human labor in keeping with individual societies and States should also facilitate the discovery of the right proportions between the different kinds of employment: work on the land. in industry, in the various services, white-collar work and scientific or artistic work, in accordance with the capacities of individuals: and for the common good of each society and of the whole of mankind (18). Here we must return once more to the first principle of the whole ethical and social order. namely, the principle of the common use of goods. In every system, regardless of the funda-mental relationships within it between capital and labor, wages, that is to say remuneration for work, are still a practical means whereby the vast majority of people have access to those goods which are intended for common use: both the good of nature and manufactured goods (19). In the document Gaudium et Spes, the fathers of the Second Vatican Council described the common good in these terms: Now. the common good embraces the sum of those conditions of social life by which individuals, families and groups can achieve their own fulfillment in a relatively thorough and ready way (74). 7Herman Melville, Moby Dick (New York: The Literary Guild of America, Inc., 1949), p. 17. Laborem Exercens: Themes and Theses / 333 Although somewhat nebulous in the abstract, the common good is extremely concrete and pragmatic in experience. Yet certain cultural attitudes towards pri-vate goods and vested self-interest make it difficult for the relationship between work and the common good to be properly understood. One such attitude regards comm~on good items (parks, public buildings, and so forth) as areas of exploita-tion, with no sense of personal responsibility for their upkeep or cleanliness. A mentality of privatized ownership threatens the realization of the common good. Through work 1 will take as much as 1 can without any thought of.making my contribution to the commonweal. Various writers8 are beginning to articulate a public theology and notions of a church which help to provide a vision for the protection of the common good through responsible work and concern. Several years ago there was a global experience that had the potentiality to develop social consciousness for the common good. For the first time in history, through the technology of cameras, we saw ourselves, the planet earth, from the moon. Hurling through space, like people on a small raft, brought us a realization that we are all in this together. The activity of one affects the activity of all. Responsible Work and sharing enriches the human family; failure to do so dimin-ishes and deprives people of quality life. Perhaps the moon photograph has been blurred already and the strong sense of interdependence to which we are called has been obscured by innate avariciousness. Is work done primarily for profit and personal gain? Have we forgotten the common good or disregarded it as some utopian dream? Two types of people have been known throughout history as truly human and noble: people of compassion and people of hospitality. The former have a heart that is moved deeply by the joys and sufferings of others. A'basic affinity with human experience resides deep within the being of compassionate people. Hospi-tality, that gracious welcoming of the stranger-into personal space and time, creates an environment in which the common good is realized. Regardless of.one's employment, the work~ of compassion and hospitality are universal vocations and only when they are exercised, thus producing the common good, do individual goods have any value whatever. The paradox of the gospel grain of wheat is lived again. Theme I0: Work and Communily Thesis: Work builds community by uniting people into a powerful solidarity. In fact. the family is simultaneously a community made possible by work and the first school of work, within the home, for every person (10). The call to solidarity and common action addressed to the worker--especially to those engaged in narrowly specialized, monotonous and depersonalized work in industrial plants, when the machine tends to dominate man--was important and eloquent from the point of sSee Martin E. Marty's The Public Church (New York: Crossroad, 1981)and Parker J. Palmer's The Company o.f Strangers (New York: Crossroad. 198 I). 334 / Review for Religious, Ma.v-June, 1982 view of social ethics. It was the reaction against the degradation of man as the subject of work, and against the unheard-of accompanying exploitation in the fields of wages, working condi-tions and social security for the worker. This reaction united the working world in a commu-nity marked by great solidarity (8). It is characteristic of work that it first and foremost unites people. In this consists its social power: the power to build a community. In the final analysis, both those who work and those who manage the means of production or who own them must in some way be united in this community 120). Communities are formed when there is a common sense of identity, when there is a commitment to a specific value system, when lives are shared by mutual experience. Many work situations have these three qualities. A good schobl faculty know who they are, are committed to truth and its various expressions, and share lives professionally and, to some degree, socially. A professional sports team working together for several years establishes a strong communal bond. Work has the potential to unite people and form community, i.e., a style of work that is balanced and. person centered. What is intriguing is that often the bond of com-munity happens without conscious planning; it is a side effect of deep c6operation. Human life is complex. Like a spider's web, there are many intersecting lines in our relationships and in our multiple communities, e.g., The community to which I belong is, of course, not a static one. Sometimes it is the commu-nity of my wife and myself and my family: at other times that of my relations, of my friends, of my work colleagues, of my city or nation or international grouping. My task in each different community varies according to the particular community I am being consciously part of at any time. In some communities, I am a key figure: in others, of lesser or minimal importance. But in all of them I have a function, a duty and a responsibility and I believe I will be judged on my performance of these at the end of my time. Often I do not know exactly what that function is--but I know that basically it is to be a harmonizing influence, a peacemaker, a go-between, a catalyst, a bringer-out of good qualities in others for the sake of a group.'~ This vision of community and work depicts the range of groupings in one's life and the specific functions that we are to play. The notion of facilitator may accurately describe "the work" (the process of life itself) that will build any community. We facilitate relationships by bringing love and concern which, in turn, bring about peace and oneness. The Gospel of John states that God is always working. Jesus presents himself as the waiter, serving at table those who come for life-giving food. The thrust behind this work is community, to build and complete the Fi~ther's kingdom. Thus the dignity of the vocation of work becomes clear: as co-worker with the Lord we participate in the process of reconciliation, bringing all creation back to the Father. Whatever our task in life, however sublime or humble, we lovingly accept the charge given us and contribute to the realization of the Father's plan. Adveniat regnum ! ~On the Run: Spirituality for the Seventies, ed. by Michael F. McCauley (Chicago: The Thomas More Association. 1974). p. 138. Reflections on Leadership in the Spirit of Jesus Cecilia Murphy, R.S.M. Sister Cecilia Murphy is the President of the Sisters of Mercy of Pittsburgh. In the issue of January, 1976, Sister shared her reflections on the chapter experience of her community. In the present article, a talk given at their congregational meeting of March, 1982, she reflects on her experience of leadership in her community. Sister Cecilia resides at 3333 Fifth AveA Pittsburgh, PA 15213. Living leadership in the spirit of Jesus is a challenge to every Christian. Each follower of Jesus is called to "come after Jesus" and to show others the way. Those called to leadership in a religious congregation of Mercy bear a special responsibil-ity in this matter. How can anyone fulfill this task? My reflections on this topic are a result of trying to "bone it'--trying to dig into the essential and offer some thoughts on what is necessary for leadership in Jesus' spirit. We know Jesus through faith--faith in God's word and sacraments; faith in our personal experiences of Jesus. We know from Scripture that Jesus poured himself out for our sakes and that he taught us how to live. The commitment of our lives and our personal prayer have helped us know experientially who Jesus is, how he loves, what he asks of us: Faith, then, is the first essential for leadership. Things are not always clear and efisy, and the felt presence of the Lord is a special and temporary gift. So, the leader needs to pray for a strong faith-life, to make acts of faith, and to live in faith, believing in God's love and fidelity. Sorting out and probing the purpose of life, religious life, and its values are essential to leaders. These exercises focus leaders on "the one thing necessary." They help to keep clear the purpose of religious community and enable leaders to be conscious of the motives, fears, and choices that are operative in life. Jesus probed the meaning of life by withdrawing from others and praying to his Father in secret. Exposure to solitude and openness to God's ways are integral parts of searching. These opportunities enable leaders to be like the violinist who carefully 335 ~136 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1982 tunes the instrument before a symphony. Reflection enables the leader to "be in tune" with the divine pitch. Without confidence in God, religious leadership is impossible. The counsel that Catherine McAuley took to heart, to pray as if everything depended on God and act as if everything depended on us, was not only common sense, it was an inspired statement. As Jesus was ever conscious of his Father's power, so must a leader be! All works concerned with the human spirit are beyond human control. Leaders cannot change another pers6n; God reserves that to himself. Yet a leader is called to use all her human potential to create the best environment, and also to pray in confidence, knowing that God's work is ultimately carried out by God-- sometimes through her. Belief in the value of suffering is an essential for a religious leader. Jesus suffered and died. Our congregation was founded on Calvary; there are no easy roads to Mount Tabor. In each human life suffering is present, but Christians are challenged to "take up the cross." Leaders must attempt to follow the Master to Calvary. The particular kinds of suffering which best make an individual an image of Jesus are known only to the Lord. For the leader, however, many of these have something to do with various kinds of poverty. One form 6f poverty is that of spirit, "Why me, Lord?" the leader asks. "There are others holier, more insightful, more loving, more intelligent, more capable, Why me?" And'the Lord replies, "It was not because you are great but because I am great and want to use your nothingness. Don't question my choice--just cooperate." There is the poverty of unfulfilled expectations--those of the leader and those of other members. Unconsciously, leaders sometimes set expectations for them-selves which could not be fulfilled by five people, let alone one. Consider, then, the 335 members of our congregation, multiply by five, and you will have a sense of the number of expectations placed on a leader. The sense of poverty in facing all these unfulfilled expectations is a cause of great suffering. Dealing in realms beyond one's experience and capabilities creates a sense of poverty. Learning about finances, management, interacting with corporate leaders can cause a sense of being entirely out of one's element. Like Ruth, the leader must try to adapt to alien lands, to grow in new knowledge and allow the pinch of human limitations to be felt. There is the poverty of being in an "iceberg ministry." When 1 ask myself what 1 do, it is very hard to define. So much of a leader's ministry is confidential or invisible to others and sometimes to herself. Members of the congregation may wonder why all the paper communications keep filtering into a small community and exclaim, "Another paper from the Mount!" However, some leader may have worked hours trying to simplify and clarify ideas so that they could be shared with (he membership. Dialogue and interaction with members are an important part of leadership but they, too, are invisible parts of the iceberg. Leaders need. to laugh. Although the gospels do not record Jesus as laughing, we can be sure, since we are made in his image, that Jesus did enjoy life. He had Reflections on Leadership special friends, the disciples. He went off with them, shared special meals with them. Without doubt he must have often suppressed a laugh as he experienced their human condition. Leaders, too, need to relax, to have friends, to take time to unwind and be "at home" with family. Rest is a requirement for all human persons and so must leaders be renewed and refreshed. Refreshment help~ one maintain balance--an essential for leadership. Our "Government Synthesis Statement" makes explicit a tension that is inherent in leadership, the tension between internal and external concerns. How does one balance the call to broader church and civic leadership with the need to provide for the growth and development of the membership? There is no answer to that question, only the ongoing struggle to live authentically in that tension. As Jesus lived the tension of the Agony in the Garden, he prayed for the accomplishment of the Father's will. He prayed for courage to fulfill his mission. Leaders need courage, a courage which is strengthened by conviction; made more difficult by uncertainty. In relating to individuals and the total congregation, the leader needs courage to risk--risk to be wrong even when acting in good faith. Leaders can make mistakes and they need courage to face mistakes honestly. Tomorrow's leaders will also need courage to fulfill our "Government Synthe-sis Statement" which calls them to use our corporate power on behalf of the poor. This challenge will take courage and wisdom on the part of the leaders and generosity and willingness for conversion on the part of the membership. As Jesus listened to Nicodemus, so a leader must listen to God, the members, the Church, the world. Jesus was a sensitive listener when he attempted to deal with the needs of others. In Jesus the leader has the perfect model of attentive listening and response to others. Leadership in religious congregations requires a deep realization of the divine help that comes from the prayers of the sisters. Likewise it calls forth a daily prayer: "Glory to him whose power working in me can do infinitely more than 1 can ask or imagine!" Tedium and Burnout in Religious Life Mary Elizabeth Kenel Dr. K(nel, as well as maintaining a private practice in Washington, is a field supervisor in the pastoral counseling program of Loyola College in Baltimore. She may be addressed at 901 Perry Place, N.E.: Washington; DC 20017. In recent years mu~ch of the research in the area of social psychology has focused on the phenomena of tedium and burnout, primarily as these apply to the workers in the human services fields. These phenomena are by no means limited to members of these groups, however, and researchers are investigating burnout at various phases of the life cycle: the tedium experienced by college students, burn-out in marriage and parenting, and that demonstrated in the mid-life and mid-career crises. Everyone at some time or another is vulnerable to the stresses of tedium and burnout and religious are no exception. Indeed, the very qualities that are com-mon to those aspiring to religious life and a ministry of service tend to render religious as a group vulnerable to the burnout syndrome. The term "burnout" was first introduced by Herbert J. Freudenberger~ in his articles on staff burnout in the help-giving inst.itutions. Since that time a number of other authors have made use of the term and have given it various definitions. Edelwich2 defines burnout as a progressive loss of idealism, energy, and purpose experienced by people in the helping professions as a result of the conditions of their work. Pines and Aronson3 define tedium as the experience of physical, ~ Freudenberger, H. J. "Staff Burn-out," Journal of Social Issues, 1974, 30(I) pp. 159-165. 2Edelwich, J., Burn-Out, Stages of Disillusionment in the Helping Professions. Human Sciences Press, New York, 1980. p. 14. ~Pines, A. M. and Aronson, E., Burnout, From Tedium to Personal Growth, The Free Press, New York. 1981. p. 15. 338 Tedium and Burnout in Religious Life emotional and mental exhaustion characterized by emotional and physical deple-tion and by the negation of one's self, one's environment, one's work, and even one's life. They consider burnout to be identical to tedium in definition and symptoms but apply the term particularly to those who work with people in situations that are emotionally demanding. While both tedium and burnout are accompanied by a constellation of symp-toms that include fatigue, lack of enthusiasm, and feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, burnout may be thought of as a state of mind that afflicts those individuals whose work requires that they pour in much more than they get in return, be that return from clients, patients, students, superiors or peers. The dedicatory nature of the vows can set the stage for burnout. Take, for example, a motto instilled during a novitiate instruction: "Chastity loves without seeking a return." A literal interpretation and acceptance of such an ideal can readily lead to burnout as the religious' energies are depleted over time. One of the biggest difficulties with the concept of burnout, however, is that it has become fashionable, a new item in the evergrowing dictionary of psychobab-ble. Burnout as such has no formal psychiatric status and, indeed, many would see it as depression. The literature, however, tends more and more to distinguish between the two concepts and relates burnout to the environmental stresses under which a person works rather than to intrapsychic forces. The onset of tedium/burnout is rarely the result of a single traumatic or disillusioning event. More typically it is the result of a gradual erosion of strength and spirit. Edelwich,4 for example, recognizes a series.of stages that range from idealistic enthusiasm to apathy. The victims of burnout tend to be those who had once been amoiag the most idealistic and ardent, those who at one time were most enthusiastic and joyful. This is hardly surprising, for nearly every author in the field has noted that in order to burn out one must have been on fire at some point. It is the intent of the remainder of this article to examine the antecedents to burnout and tedium as well as to examine the stages of development that lead fr9m enthusiasm to apathy. To the extent that individual religious and communi-ties can recognize and anticipate burnout they will be better able to avoid the ineffectual, wishful remedies that are often practiced and seek more realistic coping mechanisms. A positive ~pproach to the problems of tedium and burnout, then, will not be based on the hope of total prevention which is almost impossible to achieve, but on the realization that it will happen, even repeatedly, and must be dealt with on an ongbing basis. As with any other life crisis, burnout can be turned to advantage in that it can energize a person to break out of a rut. Creative use of frustration can become a stimulus to the kind of enthusiasm it generally erodes. Antecedents to Burnout Research5 on the phenomenon of burnout as it applies to human service 4Edelwich, J. op. cir. pp. 28-29. 5Pines, A. M., and Aronson, E. op cir., pp. 48-54. 3tll~ / Review for Religious, May-June, 1982 workers has identified three common antecedents that would apply equally well to religious. 1. Work That Is Emotionally Demanding In the human serVice professions people work with others in situations that are emotionally draining over long periods of time, during which they are exposed to their clients' physical, social, and psychological problems and are expected to be both skillful and concerned. A similar expectation is placed on priests, brothers and sisters in virtue of their religious profession, in addition, members of religious groups are frequently actively engaged in human service occupations such as teaching, nursing, and counseling. Think, for example then, of the emotional toll of working with the terminally ill, with the mentally ill, with those who have lost loved ones--especially when one's religious profession means one is also expected to explain "God's Will" in these situations. 2. Characteristics of the Professionals Themselves Pines and Aronson6 note that in the human services the occupational task acts as a screening device that attracts people with particular types of personal attrib-utes. The same is true of religious life. Think of the adjectives used to describe priests and religious in terms of the concept of mirfistry. Words such as dedicated, service, and other-oriented are frequently mentioned. 3. Client-Centered Orientation As is the case for members of human services teams, religious focus on people receiving their service. The role of provider of help, understanding, and support is defined by the client's needs with relatively little attention paid to the needs of the professional or the religious. A strictly client-centered orientation does not permit a symmetrical relationship of mutual give and take. Instead a complementary relationship is set up in which the religious or human service worker is expected to give while the client receives. Common to both situations is a dedicatory ethic that elevates service motives and presents work not merely as a "job" but as a "voca-tion" or "calling" in which the reward is supposed to be inherent in the giving. The Prayer of Saint Francis captures this thought: "It is in giving that we receive . 4. Other Antecedents to Burnout In addition to those areas delineated by Pines and Aronson there are a number of other antecedents to burnout that need to be considered. One is that of a lack of criteria for measuring one's accomplishment. There is sufficient difficulty in attempting to define accomplishments in the therapeutic field. How much more so in th6 religious life. How does one define one's success as nPines, A. M. and Aronson. E. ibid., pp. 51-52. Tedium and Burnout in Religious Ltfe 311"1 a "religious"? Does one play the "numbers game"---how many converts, baptisms, hours of donated service? And if there are no hard-and-fast criteria for success, how then does one set standards for reviewing one's life and work? Another source of difficulty lies in the area of career advancement. Far too often the religious who has entered upon a particular form of active ministry because of a desire to work with people is "promoted" to an administrative posi-tion that. while enlarging his or her sphere of influence, many times results in loss of client contact and ultimately in loss of job satisfaction. Antecedents to Tedium While religious life itself is a form of other-oriented profession in which many members actually do work in the human services area, it also has a bureaucratic and hierarchical structure and as such shares many of the antecedents of tedium found in business or government organizations. The literature describes organizational structure as a major determinant of job performance, satisfaction, and tedium.7 Pines and Aronson8 identified three major antecedents of tedium. 1. Overload Overload is a key concept in studies of job stress and its effect on health and can be viewed as having objective/,su.bjective and quantitative/quali!ative dimen-sions. Objective overload refers to the actual volume of work to be processed per unit of time while subjective overload refers to the person's feeling that there is too much work to be done or that it is too hard. Quantitative overload implies that one actually has more real work than can be handled per unit time. Qualitative overload, on the other hand, indicates that the work load demands skills, knowl-edge or training exceeding that of the person assigned a given task. That objective, quantitative overlo.ad is part and parcel of the daily life of most religious hardly needs mentioning. Schedules tend to be full to overflowing and many a prayer has been offered for a few extra hours in the day as well as another pair of hands. Qualitative overload, however, may be even more stressful in the long run and more likely to induce tedium. In a situation of qualitative overload unrealistic ex, pectations are placed on an individual or group who must then deal not merely with the realities of the workload but with a sense of inadequacy and personal failure when it becomes impossible to live up to those "great expecta-. tions." Fortunately, in more recent years superiors and formation personnel have attempted to see to it that people are trained prior to placement in a specific position. With personnel shortages, however, it is tempting to appeal to the per- 7Armstrong. K. 1. "'How Can We Avoid Burnout. Child Abuse and Neglect: Issues in Innovation and Implementation." DHEW Publication #(OHDS) 78-30148. 2(1978). pp. 230-238. ~Pines. A. M. and Aronson. E. op cir. pp. 67-72. 3t12 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1982 son's "generosity and sense of mission" and propel him or her into a position for which he or she is unprepared and in which he or she expends tremendous energy simply to "stay afloat." 2: I~ek of Autonomy In any area of life, lack of control over one's environment is a highly stressful experience and frequently enough leads to the learned helplessness phenomenon observed by Seligman.9 In this depressed state the person tends !o attribute success to "luck" or "chance" or other forces outside his or her control while accepting full responsibility for failures. A perceived lack of autonomy and the frustration resulting from such a lack is a common cause of tedium in organizations of all types, .for job satisfaction declines as the individual is more burdened by unnecessary rules and red tape and lacks voice in decisions that affect the job and his or her life. Lack of autonomy can also be aggravated by a communication gap between superiors and those further down the organizational hierarchy. This gap may be due to the inherent inefficiencies of communication in large organizations or to differing perspectives among superiors and those actively engaged in a given work. It is necessary then to attempt to build organizational structures that will avoid, to some extent, these pitfalls. The problem of autonomy is a thorny one for religious. Balance must be achieved between a legitimate need for autonomy that is part and parcel of healthy adult functioning and the demand of religious obedience that is, perhaps, the very heart of the religious commitment. To some extent community structures have always made some provision for autonomy, for example, those having perpetual vows might vo~e for the superior, serve as councilors, or in other ways voice an ~pinion on community matters. The proverbial "planting cabbages upside down" type of blind obedience is also a.thing of the past. More recent changes in community life have attempted to address this need for autonomy. For example, the matter of annual assignments is now often handled on ~ consultative basis with the individual religiot~s I~a~'ing more input into the decision than was previously the case. Community meetings 6n the local, regional, and national/international levels also serve to keep the lines of communi-cation open and flowing upward, not merely downward. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the religious, by virtue of the vow of obedience, does surrender much personal autonomy. This surrender is often felt most keenly n.ot'in the early years but later as one must deal with one's own growth and developmeht as a ]'esponsi-ble adult. Much of the "mid-life crisis" seen in religious life centers around the issue of autonomy, the need for personal space and the integration of such concepts as 9Seligman. M. E. Helplessness: On De.pression Development and Death, San Francisco: Freeman Press. 1979. Tedium and Burnout in Religious Ltfe / 343 ob¢dience, choice, power, accountability, and responsibility. Perhaps one of the ways to resolve this conflict is to keep some progressive vision of what the com-munity (small group or larger organization) might accomplish and nurture the scope and consciousness of discretionary behavior. In most life situations things usually are more flexible than they might initially appear. Evaluating the possibili-ties for positive change and focusing one's energies in the realm of the possible enhance one's sense of legitimate power and control. The religious who can be attentive to authority, who can blend personal goals with community goals, and who recognizes both the extent and limit of his or her discretionary power is not as likely to suffer the lack of autonomy that leads to tedium. 3. Lack of Rewards It is indeed unfortunate that most organizations are inefficient in the distribution of rewards, appreciation and recognition, as this contributes to dis-couragement and demoralization among the members and can eventually lead to tedium. It is surprising that better use is not made of the power of positive reinforcement, for common sense would suggest, and research has confirmed, that people are far more able to tolerate considerable stress in situations in which they feel appreciated and their efforts recognized than in those in which they feel the rewards are not commensurate with their efforts. Religious are definitely not exempt from the need for rewards and recognition. Indeed, the absence of high levels of financial remuneration make it imperative that social rewards be given. It is all well and good to appeal to altruistic and spiritual motives, but positive feedback has tremendous reinforcement value that is far too often ignored. As a result, the religious who is.often enough already unpaid or underpaid is deprived of the satisfaction derived from well-earned recognition. Another aspect that frequently causes pain is the fact that the religious may be appreciated by those with whom he or she serves yet get little or no recognition from within the community. It remains true today "there is no respect for a ¯ prophet in his own country" Jn 4:44. While it is true that one should not rely solely on one's superiors for praise there is a need for ~ecognition by one's peers that is often lacking. It is frequently the presence or lack of support at the local level that can make the difference between a vital, contributing team member and a "burnt-out case." Stages of Disillusionment Edelwicht0 defines five stages in the process of disillusionment. Stage one, that of initial enthusiasm, is that period of high hopes, high energy and unrealistic expectaiions when one does not know what the job is all about. In religious life this would typically correspond to the novitiate and formation period as well as the early years of active ministry. 1 recall hearing a novice describe with great anima- I°Edelwich. J., op. cit. pp. 28-29. 344 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1982 tion the ceremony of initial profession of another sister. The formula of vows, written by the sister, concluded with the words "Surprise me, Jesus!" An older priest seated next to me turned to me, smiled ruefully, and said sotto voce "He will." The second stage is that of stagnation. It is at this point that one's ministry is no longer so satisfying as to substitute for everything else in life. "Is that all there is?" seems to sum up the feelings of this stage. There is a shift in emphasis at this point from meeting the needs of others to meeting one's own needs. For the religious formed in an other-oriented tradition this shift in emphasis can often be accompanied by feelings of guilt and loss of self-esteem as he or she senses that the fervor which marked the early days of religious life has diminished, Edelwich~ calls his third stage that of frustration. It is at this point that one tends to question not merely one's own effectiveness in the ministry but the value of religious life and ministry itself. Frequently emotional, physical and behavioral problems emerge at this stage. The fourth stage, that of apathy, sets in when a person is chronically frustrated. Apathy as such is a typical defense mechanism that occurs after repeated frustra-tion and is analogous to the learned-helplessness phenomenon mentioned earlier. At this point no new challenges are undertaken and one seems to "go through the motions," doing the minimum required to avoid censure. The stage of intervention is defined as whatever is done in response to or in anticipation of the four preceding stages. Intervention attempts to break the cyc!e. It may involve a restructuring of relationships to clients, family, friends and com-munity. It may mean seeking advanced training and new areas of apostolic work. It may, in some instances, mean leaving the ministry and religious life altogether. The Special Problems of Women Religious The antecedents of burnout and tedium mentioned here apply equally well to both male and female religious. The literature has noted, however, that profes-sional women bear a special burden not shared by men. For example, the conflict between career and home demands is more sharply delineated for a woman who, in the effort to balance both, may seek to become a "Superwoman." This sort of role conflict would also appear to be more keenly felt by women religious than by men. Communities of women seem to place more stress on creating a homelike atmosphere in which there is a fairly high level of mutual interaction and group activity. While such a structure has the potential for providing a great deal of warmth and support, the time needed to foster and maintain these community relationships may cause tension if community activities are seen as competing with the demands of one's ministry. Another major contribution to the burnout of women is sexism. As Edelwich~-' ~qbid. p. 29. Tedium and Burnout in Religious 13fe / ~4~3 notes, in the business and professional world large numbers of women are employed in positions of structured inferiority. Sexual stereotyping influences job assignments, allocation of responsibilities and standards of conduct. Sexual polar-ization commonly reinforces polarization by rank and status. This same pattern of sexual discrimination is found within the Church. The hierarchical structure is male dominated and its influence pervades the entire area of religious life and ministry. There is no need even to enter upon a discussion of ordination of women. Think at a more everyday level of the small put-downs, the questions regarding competence, the paternalism that is found all too frequently. How often does "the pastor" win his point by sheer weight of authority rather than by the merits of the case? How many male religious are comfortable dealing with attractive, educated women as peers? How often has a sister's name been reduced to a diminutive form ¯. in jest, of course? How does the treatment afforded male and female faculty members compare--or differ? Needless to say, the additional burden of dealing with one's femaleness takes its toll, for if a woman is sensitive, the professional struggles can be more frustrating. If she is empathic, the suffering she encounters is felt more sharply. If she knew herself as a caring person and a dedicated religious, recognition that she is no longer moved by the needs of others is more crushing. Coping Strategies Once aware of the potential for the development 6f tedium and burnout, what coping strategies can be introduced? This selection will attempt to present coping mechanisms at three levels:, the organizational, the interpersonal, and the intrapersonal. At the organizational level one can seek to reduce tedium and burnout by reducing the overload, making alternative forms of service available to the reli-gious, and by limiting the hours of stressful work. Community-based pre-retirement programs have already begun to make use of these concepts. By extending them to a broader range of personnel, severe forms of burnout may be prevented or at least reduced. Training, of course, is essential, not merely the initial formal education that would prepare the religious for his or her chosen field but continuing education where the !~eligious is given an opportunity to examine the pressures of the ministry, clarify goals and priorities, consider coping mechanisms and develop new skills. In the initial phases of formation training, the interventions appropriate to the stage of idealistic enthusiasm~3 should be taught. Novices or professed in temporary vows should be made aware of the discrepancy between expectations and reality and learn to moderate their enthusiasms before they become bogged down in the stage of stagnation. During this phase of formation the young religious should be taught to examine their motives for entering on ~21bid. p. 18. ~-~lbid. pp. 212-220. 3116/ Review for Religious, May-June, 1982 certain modes of ministry. The need to be needed is a powerful one as is the need to exert control, a motive that one tends to find if one scratches the surface of altruism. With awareness of their own motives religious can use their emotional investment in the ministry as the basis for insight rather than an acting out of their own needs at the expense of those they set out to serve. In an effort to avoid or at least reduce tedium and burnout, thought should also be given to providing positive work conditions that are suited to the needs of the individual and to assisting the religious to gain a sense of work significance. To achieve this end, as far as possible set clear organizationa| objectives, provide feedback and give the individual appreciation for his or her efforts and accomplishments. On the interpersonal level the development of social support systems is essen-tial. Although the conflicting or ambiguous demands of various systems can lead to burnout, on the whole the efficient and creative use of a social support system is one of ttie most effective ways of coping with the burnout syndrome. Social support systems may be defined as lasting interpersonal ties to groups of people who can be counted on to provide emotional sustenance, assistance, and resources in periods of need and stress, who provide feedback, both positive and negative, and who share standards and values. Ideally, one would belong to several supportive groups: community, family, work, recreational, and avocational. William Glasser~4 in his book, Reality Ther-apy, speaks of the dangers of the "small world." In such a situation, one group, for example, the community or work group, becomes the center of one's entire life and the source of all one's emotional and psychological support. Pines and Aronson~5 list six functions of a social support system, namely: listening, technical support, technical challenge, emotional support, emotional challenge, and the providing of social reality. Rather than expect that'one person or one set of people meet each of these needs, it is helpful to the religious to differentiate the support functions one can get from a given source and seek fulfillment of other needs from other groups. Not to do so places a tremendous burdbn on the sole source of support and leads to disappointment and anger when one's needs are not met. A number of coping strategies that would serve to reduce the likelihood of burnout are open to the individual religious. Among the variables that reduce the severity of burnout are learning, meaning and significance, success and achieve-ment, and variety.~6 Learning and understanding and a healthy curiosity are basic motivators. In the stage of stagnation new learning can open the door to new aspects of one's work and prevent the sort of burnout that accompanies one's perception of being at a dead end. Learning need not involve formal instruction; an attitude of open- V~Glasser, W., Reality Therapy. New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1975, p. 30. ~SPines. A. M., and Aronson, E., op. cir., p. 124." ~Pines, A. M., and Aronson. E., ibid., pp. 143-144. Tedium and Burnout in l~eligious Ltfe/ 347 n~ss to new experience can serve to keep one interested and alert. ~, Finding or creating meaning and significance in one's work and life is essential. Without these ingredients one becomes apathetic, alienated from oneself and others. Viktor Franklt7 recognized this and incorporated the struggle of the mature person to find, meaning in life into his work Man's Search For Meaning. "Nothing succeeds like success" goes the old maxim and nothing can eliminate burnout more effectively than the acknowledgment of one's achievements. Reli-gious, perhaps more than others, need to learn to acknowledge and enjoy their own successes before pushing on to new challenges. Certainly the drive for success can be self-destructive if one becomes obsessed with competing and pushes for "success" in the absence of other rewards. Nevertheless the religious needs to learn to define areas of accomplishment in which he/she can take justifiable pride. Monotonous activities lead to tedium whether they be found in a work or a non-work situation. A sense of variety and interest, on the other hand, originating largely with the person can susiain one in the ministerial field. Variety need not be a matter of outside stimulation, although that is certainly useful, but can be achieved by an openness to the uniqueness of the people with whom one works or whom one serves. Other ways of seeking variety include job changes within one's field or more total changes that involve seeking a new path. The career changes taking place more and more often at mid-life reflect this desire for variety. One coping mechanism mentioned by Pines and Aronson~8 was the develop-ment of an attitude of detached concern, which they defined as a stance in which the empathic professional (or religious) is sufficiently detached or objective in his attitudes toward the client to exercise sound judgment and keep his/her equanim-ity, yet also have enough concern for the client to give sensitive, understanding service. To attempt such a stance requires a delicate sense of balance. It is a process phenomenon, not a static entity that once achieved is dever lost. The religious needs to discern the level of emotional involvement proper for each person/situa-tion he or she encounters, avoiding a draining, ineffectual overinvolvement on the one hand and a clinical coldness that dehumanizes on the other. Compartmentalization~ is another way suggested by Pines and Aronson~9 to keep a balance between energy invested in the work sphere and the energy invested in life outside of work. This is one area that may prove problematic as there are still many community situations in 'which the religious both work and live together. Situations such as these tend to foster the creation of the "small world" mentioned earlier, and negative feelings generated in one sphere tend to carry over into the other. Newer community structures have attempted to alleviate these difficulties by establishing residences that are not identified with one particular ~TFrankl, V. Man's Search.for Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press. 1963. ~Pines. A. M. and Aronson, E., op. cir., pp. 54-55. ¯ ~91bid., p. 164. ~1411 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1982 form of ministry. The residents work at a variety of jobs and in'several differe~at locations and "come home" when their workday is ended. While no single living arrangement is perfect, one such as this does provide the individual religious with an opportunity to separate work demands from other aspects of his/her life. Perhaps the most important of the coping mechanisms open to the individual religious is that of "being good to oneself" or "doing to oneself as you have done to your client." Committed religious tend to burn out because they take on too much for too long and with too much intensity. To reduce the likelihood of burnout one needs an awareness of work stresses and a recognition of the danger signs. One also needs to acknowledge areas of vulnerability and put reasonable limits on one's work for there will always be more that could be done. in addition, one needs to set realistic goals, both long-term and short-term, and be willing to provide for one's own needs, treating oneself as a person with legitimate needs, taking time for prayer and pleasure and nourishing oneself so that there will be strength available to continue the service to which one is called, that with St. Paul one can state: ". my life is already being poured away as a libation . 1 have fought the good fight, 1 have run the race to the finish, I have kept the faith" (2 Tm 4:6-7). Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning Ps 30:5. Morning Cometh A Quotella Weeping that weeps me far away May bring the night and end the day. Endure: For the human heart is a finite flask, A bottle whose meager store of tears Night and pain may cause to flow. But even as the last tear falls Joy, as the light, lifts my heart and so, Cometh the dawn. In balance must all things lie. The source of nighttime tears allow Morning to come at last somehow. C. Dell Turney 4108 Little Fairfield Eureka, CA 95501 Prayer As an Act of Justice Mary Lou Theisen, 1. H. M. Since September, Sister Mary Lou has been involved in the Active Spirituality program, located in Seton Hall of Mount St. Joseph College, Mount St. Joseph, OH 45051. This is what Yahweh asks of you: only this, to act justly. to love tenderly. to walk humbly with your God (Mi 6:8). In this simple statement uttered through the mouth of the prophet Micah, God reveals to us for all times the essence of religion. Religion, in the purity of its meaning, is not an ethic nor a multiplication of actions, but a way of life--an integral act lived out in the intggrity of one's being. In this single act there is no dichotomy between acting justly, loving tenderly or walking humbly before God: one element flows from and feeds into the others, finding its true mehning only in conjunction with them. The purpose of this article is to show how true prayer (walking humbly with God), entered into in the integrity of our being, not only leads to actions of justice, but is in itself an act of justice. In his Dictionary of the Bible,~ John McKenzie points out that the Hebrew word sedek, which we translate as justice, is a very complex term embracing the concepts of judgment and righteousness. It is sometimes translated as integrity and implies a right balance born of fidelity to the truth of what something or someone is supposed to be. To be just or to act justly in the biblical sense, therefore, is first of all to be judged righteous or to be justified by God. To seek justice is to seek salvation or justification in truth. To seek justice is to seek God. To act justly is to tMcKenzie, John L., Dictionary of the Btble (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing CO. 1965). 349 351~ / Review for Religious, May-June, 1982 act out of the truth of who we and others are in the authenticity of our being. This truth is discovered ~nd entered into in times of solitude, in times of walking humbly with God, when we are unable to hide behind our actions, our words, or any of the multiple walls we so often build around our true self. It is in solitude that we are forced to come face to face with our sinfulness and inability to save ourself. In solitude we also experience God's willingness to forgive, his power and desire to save (justify) us and all people. Let us reflect for a while on Jesus, to see this reality present in his prayer/life. In Hebrews 5:7-9 we read: During his life on earth, he offered up prayer and entreaty, aloud and in silent tears to the one who alone had the power to save him from death, and he submitted so humbly that his prayer was heard. Although he ~vas son. he learned obedience through suffering: but having been made perfect, he became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation and was acclaimed by God with the title of high priest of the order of Melchizedek. St. Paul is here indicating that it was du.ring his time spent in intimate com-munion with his Father, in the solitude of the desert or on the hilltop, that Jesus came to realize and to accept who he was, to realize and to accept his call as the Messiah, the "Beloved Son," with all that this call meant for himself and for others. During these times of reflecting on what was happening in his own life in the light of the words of the prophets and psalms, Jesus came to the truth of his human condition as one destined for misunderstanding, betrayal, suffering, and a death from which he was unable to save himself: This is what I meant when I said, while 1 was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses. in the prophets and in the Psalms has to be fulfilled. He then opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and he said to them: So you see hoffit was written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead (Lk 24:44-47). More importantly, however, through his own reflections on Scripture, Jesus came to know and to trust in the truth of God's faithfulness which alone could and would justify him, and through him, all people: But now. thus says Yahweh: Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you: 1 have called you by your name. you are mine. Should you pass through the sea. 1 will be with you, or through rivers, they will not swallow you up. Should you walk through fire, you will not be scorched and the flames will not burn you. For 1 am Yahweh. your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior (Is 43: I-3). He said to me, You are my servant in whom I shall be glorified: while I was thinking, I have toiled in vain, I have exhausted myself for nothing: and all the while my cause was with Yahweh. my God was my strength. And now Yahweh has spoken, he who formed me to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him. to gather Israel to him (Is 49:3-5). This inner realization of who he was in truth and of the power of God's faithfulness working in and through him formed Jesus as an authentic person of justice, both in the biblical sense of one who receives his justification from God, and in practice. Being convinced in the core of his being that it was his Father's love and faithfulness which saved and justified him, Jesus could only act justly Prayer as an Act of Justice / 35"1 toward others for he knew that this gift of God's saving love was not meant for him alone: It is not enough for you to be my servant. 1 will make you the light of nations so my salvation may reach the ends of the earth (Is 50:6). I. Yahweh. have called you to serve the cause of right: I have taken you by the hand and formed you: I have appointed you as covenant of the people and light of the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to free captives from prison and those who walk in darkness from the dungeon (Is 42:6-7). As Donald Senior states so well in his insightful book Jesus--a Gospel Por-trait2 (p. 138): "From his intimate life of prayer with his Father and from a powerful searching of Scriptures, Jesus had forged the basic convictions that animated his life and ministry. Basic convictions about God as loving Father and about love as fundamental bond of human relationships were joined to an unshakable integrity that translated principle into action.~ The gospels tell us that this action at times took the form of speaking out against the social injustices of his day. He especially denounced the so-called religious leaders, not as much for their smugness and legalistic interpretation of religion as for their inability to recognize God as a God of love and their own lack of love and compassion: "But alas for you pharisees! You who pay your tithe of mint and rue and all sorts of garden herbs and overlook justice and the love of God" (Lk i 1:42). Jesus' conviction, born of his own reflection on Scripture and his own expe-rience, that God was a God of love whose love and salvation was gratuitously given to all--the just and the unjust, the clean and the unclean, the poor and the rich, the sinners and the outcasts as well as the good and self-righteous--led him not only to denounce the systemic injustices of his time, but more especially to live out of his conviction in his own daily encounters with others. He associated with the sinners, the outcasts, the sick, the poor, as well as with the rich and the righteous, showing by his very presence to them his acceptance and respect of them as individuals. By his gentleness, love and compassion for each one he offered them the experience of God's liberating and compassionate love for them, while always respecting their own integrity as persons and never forcing his vision on them (e.g., the rich you'ng man). It was precisely this attitude of Jesus toward others, his acceptance of sinner and righteous alike, which was the greatest affront to the religious leaders of his day for it contradicted their notion of religion: that one was saved by his own actions, by his minute observance of the law. Consequently, opposition toward Jesus and his teachings grew among the leaders. Jesus, well aware of this increas-ing hostility, was compelled to rely more and more on his Father's faithfulness to save him: Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say: Father. save me from this hour? But it was for this :Senior. Donald, C.P. Jesus, a Gospel Portrait (Dayton: Pflaum. 1975). 359 / Review for Religious, May-June 1982 very reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name (Jn 12:27-28)! Jesus' human struggle to accept his salvation from God and not from his own actions reached its peak in the garden when he pi'ayed in agony, "Father, if it is possible let this chalice pass. Nevertheless, let your will be done, not mine." This total surrender of his person to God's saving plan for him brought Jesus then to his ultimate moment of prayer--his death on the cross. At the moment of death, when, we are told, one's entire life passes before one's eyes and the dying person often speaks a.word which expresses not only what is being experienced at that moment, but which somehow summarizes an entire lifetime, it was not surprising that Jesus spoke from his heart the opening words of Psalm 22. This psalm, which must have been one on which Jesus meditated often during his life and especially at the end when he knew his death was imminent, truly summarizes his life and death experiences. Although spoken in a moment of extreme agony and intense feeling of being abandoned by God, the psalm is not one of despair, but one of ultimate trust in God's power and willingness to save him as his ancestors who had trusted in God had been saved: Yet. Holy One. you who make your home in the praises of Israel. in you our fathers put their trust. they trusted and you rescued them: they called to you for help and they were saved. they never trusted you in vaifi (3-5). It is a psalm of praise to the God who is already saving him in spite of all the evidence to the contrary: Do not stand aside, Yahweh. O my strength, come quickly to my help . Then I will proclaim your name to my brothers, praise you in the full assembly: you who fear Yahweh. praise him! Entire race of Jacob, glorify him! Entire race of Israel, revere him! For he has not despised or disdained the poor man in his poverty, has not hidden his face from him, but has answered him when he called ( 19, 22-24). In this moment of abandonment to the mercy of God who is already saving him in his faithfulness, Jesus is very aware that the meaning of his life and death is not only for his own justification but for that of all peoples: You are the theme of my praise in the Great Assembly. I perform my vows in the presence of those Who ~ar him. The poor will receive as much as they want to eat. Those who seek Yahweh will praise him. Long life to their hearts. The whole earth from end to end. will remember Prayer as an Act of Justice / 353 and come back to Yahweh: All the families of the nations will bow down before him. For Yahweh reigns, the ruler of nations! Before him all the prosperous of the earth will bow down, And my soul will live for him. my children will serve him: Men will proclaim the Lord to generations still to come, His righteousness (justice, salvation) to a people yet unborn. All this he has done (25-31)! Thus Jesus' greatest act of justice in the biblical, as well as the practical, sense occurred at the moment of his death. In that very act of surrender of all that he was to God's saving plan for him, he became justified himself and by that same act won justification for all peoples: Altho.ugh he was son, he learnt to obey through suffering, but having been made perfect, he became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation (Heb 5:8-9). ¯. in whom, through his blood, we gain our freedom, the forgiveness of our sins (Ep 1:7). What does this reflection on the prayer/life of Jesus have to say to us today as we strive to live an integrated life of prayer and justice? It means, first of all, that like Jesus we must learn to seek our own justification and that of others from God and not from our own actions, and to trust in his faithfulness to save us. Like Jesus, we must take time apart to reflect on our !ife in the light of Scripture and learn who we truly are and to what we have been called. In these times of quiet aloneness with God we will come to know ourselves in all of our weakness, sinfulness, and inability to save ourselves or anyone else. But, more importantly, we will also come to know who God is and in this light to know our true self as one already loved, forgiven, called and empowered by God through the blood of Jesus. As with Jesus, this inner conviction of who we are in truth and of the power of God's faithfulness working in and through us will form us as authentic persons of justici~ in the core of our being. Convinced of God's love and faithfulness which has already justified us by gratuitously forgiving our sinfulness in the blood of Jesus, we will be moved to act justly toward others. As with Jesus, this conviction will at times take the form of speaking out against the injustices of our day, of working to bring about a more just social order, and of supporting others who do this. In our daily life, it will affect ourattitude toward others, moving us to accept and affirm the integrity of each individual we encounter, for each has already been loved, forgiven and called to salvation by God. What greater act. of justice can we extend to another than to allow that person the space to discover and act out of his/her own authenticity as Jesus did with those he encountered', instead of forcing our vision on that person? Animated with the Spirit of Jesus we will, then, become."doers" of justice, of liberation in our world, each according to the call experienced in his/her honest encounter with God in prayer. However, like Jesus, in this very act of prayer itself, we will have .already entered into an act of justice. In coming before God in prayer we are acknowledg-ing our own inability~to save burselves and our need to be justified by God. In the 354 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1982 act of surrendering ourselves in openness to God's power to save us, we enter into the death of Jesus, crying out as he did from our own emptiness for God's saving opresence in our life, while at the same time gratefully accepting the justification we have already received through God's faithftilness to Jesus on the cross. Since through our baptism, as St. Paul tells us, we have been baptized into this death of Jesus, our prayers of surrender, of praise, of trust and gratitude, our prayers for mercy--entered into in the integrity of who we are and of who God is--are an integral part of the prayer of Jesus on the cross. Our prayers are the prayers of the Just One who came to bring justice and truth to all people, and who continues to do so in and through each person who accepts salvation from God. The greatest articulation of this prayer is, of course, the Eucharist. Here we actually participate, with gratitude (Eucharist--thanksgiving), in the eternal act of justification won by Jesus on the cross and reenacted each day "for the glory of God's name, for our own good and for the good of all the world." Moreover, because this death of Jesus into which we have been baptized was for the justification of all people for all time, every prayer of a baptized person affects the whole world for it can never be said in isolation. "A final thing that needs to be said about prayer is that it is always corporate. We often distinguish between private and public prayer, and to an extent this distinction is valid. But whether private or public, Christian prayer is always common, communal, corpo-rate. All Christian prayer is to our Father. in prayer we are united with our brothers and sisters, whether we are alone in our closet or together in our com-munity: we are united to the whole church. The prayer of the community is not a collection of individual prayers: it is common prayer out of our common plight to our common Lord in our common hope. We pray as part of the communion of saints, joining the whole people of God in all history and around the globe."3 Thus, as a person baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus, and who has experienced in one's own life the love and saving power of God, the Christian is able to come before God in Jesus' name to offer to God in his/her own person all of the love and gratitude, the care, concern and work toward the establishment ¯ of the kingdom which is being experienced and lived out, knowingly or unknow-ingly, by every person in the world. As a person who experiences in one's own being sinfulness, selfishness, anger, frustration, fear and oppression of others, the baptized person can come before God as Jesus did on the cross, in behalf of the sinfulness of the world and cry out for mercy and forgiveness of sin for all people. As a person who experiences, even in times of prayer itself, emptiness, a search for meaning, boredom, ignorance, a feeling of rejection, a lack of faith and trust, the Christian can unite his/her own emptiness and need with the sufferings, the hunger and search for love and meaning, which exist among all people and, with them, accept his/her human condition and beg for salvation from God as Jesus did on 3Jen"nings. Theodore W., Jr., "Prayer, The Call for God." The Christian CentuG'. April 15, 1981, pp. 410-414. Prayer as an Act of Justice / 355 the cross. A baptized person can pray in this way, for in Jesus' Spirit we are all one before God. A call to pray in this posture is a call to be truly present in solidarity with all of humanity and all of creation which "still retains the hope of being freed, like us, from its slavery to decadence, to enjoy the same freedom and glory as the children of God" (Rm 8:21). It is a call to become one with the joys, sorrows, struggles and sufferings of all people and to accept in faith the saving love of God, "our freedom, the forgiveness of our sins" (Ep 1:7), so as to constantly offer to God the thanksgiv-ing and praise due him in justice. A call to stand before God in this manner of prayer in the authenticity of one's being is then, in a very real sense, an act of justice on behalf of the whole world, for it is a sharing in the surrendering love of Jesus. who throughout his life and especially in his death accepted his justification and that of all people from God who alone can save us from death and bring us into the kingdom of truth and justice. An Apostolic Spirituality for the Ministry of Social Justice by Max Oliva, S.J. Price: $.50 per copy, plu~ postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 St. Ambrose's Theology of the Consecrated Virgin George E. Saint-Laurent Doctor Saint-Laurent, of the Department ~f Religious Studies at California State University (Fuller-ton). presented the content of this article as a paper to the American Academy of Religion. He may be addressed at the university. Fullerton. CA 92634. Occasionally we may observe that an individual was ahead of his or her time. More often we are scandalized that an earlier generation could have been so deaf to its prophets and so blind to its evils. The history of Christian thought discloses at least two persistent phenomena which have accompanied its dialectical development. First, when we human beings confront a dipolar aspect of the Christian mys-tery, we are almost irresistibly tempted to assume an either/or stance and opt for one extreme to the neglect of the other. We find it difficult to bear a truth which cannot be pressed into our neat categories but finds itself in a creative tension between two poles. And yet it is invariably in that delicate both/and position that Christian "catholicism" or "orthodoxy" has discovered its authentic home: both the divine and the human in both Christ and the Church, with full attention both to grace and to nature, both to faith and to reason, both to spirit and to matter. Second, since our very existence is historical, contextual, and societal, we human beings are predictably limited and conditioned by the foreshortened hori-zons of our own cultural world. As we attempt to interpret our experience in terms of Christ and make it intelligible, we find our perceptions to be prejudicial in their foci and linguistically determined in their expression. And yet the Christian believes that Christ, the subject of his or her faith, is uniquely and eternally one. We who come later can only sympathize with the giants of Christian antiquity, who, being human~ were incapable.of seeing every facet of the total Christian commitment in undistorted vision. Every Cho~stian (hinke,r risks the occupational St. Ambrose's Theology of the Virgin / 357 hazards of his enterprise: the unconscious bias, the unintentional obscurantism, the unnoticed dislocation of values, the quite innocent use of outrageously sexist, racist, or bigoted language, the accidental imbalance which is far more indebted to his or her concrete situation in this place at this time in the face of this crisis than it is to the actual data of Revelation. The purpose of this essay, is to investigate St. Ambrose's~ theglogy of the consecrated virgin, insofar as it emerges from his liturgical hymns and sermons. It is a view remarkably balanced and far less a victim of negative historical condition-ing than the portraits of his contemporaries 'in the Western Church. His was an era when Platonism, with its flight of the soul from the body, and Manichaeism, with its rejection of the human body and its sexuality as evil, were still significant intellectual currents, predisposing Christians to opt for spirit over (rather than with) matter. No less than a Jerome2 could exceed all bounds of good taste and propriety in his zealous promotion of virginity at the expense of female sexuality, marriage, and motherhood: No less than an Augustine3 could be so haunted by his own sexual confusion that he could grudgingly accept sex within marriage only if procreation were both physically possible and explicitly intended. Yet Ambrose, bishop of Mila'n, was able to nurture the highest esteem for consecrated virginity without denigrating the human body, disparaging females, or detracting from the goodness of Christian marriage.4 Unlike the vitriolic Jerome, torn as he was between a melancholic misogynism and an irrepressible delight in feminine companionship, Ambrose was able to insert into the Christian tradition a more humanistic appreciation of woman and her role. Unlike the self-alienated Augustine, torn as he was between an admira-tion for his mother Monica and a theological pessimism compounded by personal tragedy in his own sexual history, Ambrose was able to pass on a more integral and positive perspective. G. Tavard 'writes: "Ambrose was not only an enthusiastic promoter of the virginal life; he had also put forward what may well constitute the only profound theology of womanhood in the Latin world.~ ~For a life of St. Ambrose, see F. H. Dudden, The Ltfe and Times of St. Ambrose. 2 Vols. (Oxford: 1935): and A. Paredi, St. Ambrose: His L~fe and 7~mes. Tr. M. Costelloe (Notre Dame: 1964). 2On St. Jerome, see F: Murphy, Ed., A Monument to Saint Jerome (New York: 1952); and D. Wiesen, St. Jerome as a Satyrist (Ithaca: 1964). 3The literature on St. Augustine is vast. See, for instance, P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley: 1967); and G. Bonner, St. Augustine of Hippo: L~fe and Controversies (New York: 1963). 4This subject has been much studied in recent years. See, for example, R. Ruether, "Mothers of the Church: Ascetic Women in the Late Patristic Age," Women of Spirit: Female Leadership in the Jewish and Christian Traditions. Ed. R. Ruether and E. McLaughlin (New York: 1979) 72-98: and eadem, "Virginal Feminism in the Fathers of the Church." Religion and Sexism, Ed. R. Ruether (New York: 1974) pp. 150-183: M, Maxey, "Beyond Eve and Mary," Religion for a New Generation. 2d Ed., Ed. J. Needleman, et al. (New York: 1977) 264-277: D. Carmody, Women and Worm Religions (Nashville: 1979) 113-123: E. Clark and H. Richardson, Ed., Women and Religion: A Feminist Sourcebook of Christian Thought (New York: 1977), pp. 53-77. 5Tavard, Women in the Christian Tradition (Notre Dame: 1973), p. I00. 358 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1982 It is important to realize just how critical the fourth century was in Church history. It was a period of transition from the. status of a despised and proscribed minority to that of a state religion professed and promoted by the Emperor himself and by most of his s.ubjects. During the era of persecution, only persons of heroic courage, high moral aspirations, and deep faith had been willing to embrace Christianity with its concomitant risk to life and property. Now, however, it had become a distinct advantage socially, economically, and politically to convert, and masses of "average" human beings sought admission. The inevitable consequence was a cooling of fervor, with a compromised commitment to the full implications of the Gospel. ~ in order to forestall unworthy "conversions," the Church instituted a lengthy catechumenate for testing and training candidates before their baptism at the Easter Vigil. In order to preserve her credibility as "The Holy Church," the author-ities created an even more exhaustive and lengthy system of "canonical penance" for the rehabilitation of public sinners who repented. But there was also a more private and individual response in the extraordinary development of asceticism. Previously it had been the martyrs who had constituted the ideal of Christian perfection. Because of their bloody sacrifice, they had been idealized as the perfect disciples who had mystically died in the Lord and could therd'ore anticipate a glorious resurrection in the same Lord. Now it had become the ascetics who achieved a "white" or spiritual martyrdom by their lives of seclusion, self-discipline, and consecrated celibacy. Women as well as men pursued the new ideal. One could retreat into the wilderness (either literally or figu.ratively), and, far from the scandalous vanity and corruption of urban life, die to oneself daily through prayer, fasts, vigils, and the consecration of one's personhood in celibacy. There were the eremitical and semi-eremiticai structures of Anthony as well as the fully cenobitical communities of Pachomius, Eustathios, and Basil the Great.6 There was the growing pressure upon priests to live celibately.7 And there were the convents for women associated with the names of Paula, Eustochium, the Melanias, and Macrina.8 On the other hand, some cohsecrated virgins simply lived privately with their parents or in their own homes or even in the homes of clergymen, although the latter practice was continuously deplored and condemned by ecclesiastical authori-ties. 9 The celebrated sister of Ambrose, Marcellina, for instance, lived with her 6See D. Chitty, The Desert a Ot)' (Oxford: 1960): C. Frazee, "Anatolian Asceticism in the Fourth Century: Eustathios of Sebastea and Basil of Caesarea," The Catholic Historical Review66(1980), pp. 16-33; G. Saint-Laurent, "St. Basil of Caesarea and the Rule of St. Benedict," Diakonia 16 (1981), pp. 71-79. 7See C. Frazee, "The Origins of Clerical Celibacy in the Western Church. Church Histor.v 41 (1972). pp. 149-167. 8See, for example, Gregory of Nyssa, Life of St. Macrina, Ed. V. Callahan. Vol, 8 in W. Jaeger (Ed.), Works (Leiden: 1952). 9See D. Bailey, The Man-Woman Relation in Christian Thought (London: 1959), p. 33. St. Ambrose's Theology of the Virgin / 359 mother and a companion in Rome. Since no convents appear to have been available at Milan, the virgins in Ambrose's care must have resided with their parents. Ambrose himself implies that the native Milanese virgins were relatively few in number, whereas young women came to Milan from Piacenza, Bologna, i~nd Mauritania to celebrate the-rite of consecration. A maiden would solemnly vow her chastity as a bride of Christ in the church before a bishop, with a ritual closely paralleling that of earthly marriage. Accord-ing to Roman custom, a bride was to wear the stola (a long outer garment), receive a fiery-coloredflammeum (her bridal veil) from the priest, and vow her fidelity to h~r bridegroom in the presence of witnesses. A virgin enteri.ng into mystical espousal with Christ also wore a stola and received the flammeum Christi to betoken her new state of life, but both were of somber color. She also pronounced her vow before witnesses, who in her case were the whole community publicly assembled to voice their approving "Amen." We do not know the actual formula of consecration invoked within the Mila-nese liturgy, but we may suppose that it would closely resemble the long preface of consecration to be found in the Gelasian Sacramentary, whose provenance is from Rome about a century later.~° Drawing upon several incidental references in the writings of Ambrose and others, F. H. Dudden reconstructs the general shape of the ceremony thus:' The congregation, at which the bishop himself was the officiating minister, was solemnized with much pomp on one of the great festivals--in the case of Marcellina on the Feast of Epiphany: more usually, however, at Easter, when it was attended by the newly baptized wearing their white robes and carrying lighted tapers. The bishop delivered an address to the' virgin, and offered a solemn prayer. The girl then publicly pledged herself to a life of chastity. Next the bishop took the veil, which had been lying on the altar, and placed it over her head, with the words, q wish to present you as a chastg virgin to Christ.' A benediction was then recited, to which the congregation responded 'Amen." At some point in the service Psalm xlv was chan!ed, and possibly some hymns in praise of virginity were sung." By virtue of her consecration, the "bride of Christ" became a special responsi-bility of her bishop, who was required to visit her regularly, open the Scriptures to her, and impart instructions to her about her duties of state. Although she was separated from the other women in the asseinbly by a screen, she was still believed to,possess a place of honor. Women would sometimes draw near to the enclosure in order to request the kiss of peace from consecrated virgins. As bishop of Milan, Ambrose fulfilled many roles which proved decisive for the later history of the Western Church. Defender of Nicene orthodoxy, champion of the Church's freedom from imperial control, channel of eastern theology to the ~0See I. Mohlberg. Ed. Liber Sacramentorum Romanae Aeclesiae Ordinis Anni Circufi (Sacramenta-rium Gelasianum). Rerum Ecclesiasticarum Documenta Series Major. Fontes IV (Rome: 1960). pp. 124-128. On the consecration of virgins, see P. Camelot. "Virginity." New Catholic Encyclopedia 14 (1967). pp. 702-703. ~tDudden. op. cir. p. 151. ~0 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1982 Latin world,!2 creator and reformer of public worship,Is spiritual father of the great Augustine: Ambrose was all of these and much more as one of the Four Great Latin Fathers.14 But the special object of Ambrose's pastoral concern throughout his years of episcopal service was the consecrated life. Ambrose has been called "The Father of Latin Hymnody.''1S Of the nineteen liturgical hymns which may be ascribed to him with greater or less certitude, five are directly pertinent to our subject, while a sixth holds.indirect interest. Since it is primarily through the sacred liturgy that Catholic and Orthodox Christians have always appropriated their beliefs and values, we may very well be confronting here effectual channels of Ambrosian thought far more significant on the popular level than any discourse could ever have been. Our first three hymns extol Mary, the Mother of Jesus, as the perpetually virginal woman who was nonetheless made marvelously fruitful by the interven-tion of God. A fourth hymn glorifies a popular virgin martyr. A fifth hymn praises Christ, the Spouse of virgins. Finally, our sixth hymn expresses the fundamental spirituality of the consecrated women. Ambrose is remembered as an enthusiastic admirer of the Blessed' Virgin, and he holds a preeminent place in the development of Mariolggy. In lain surgit hora tertia,16 a hymn composed for the liturgical hour of Terce, our poet recalls how Christ entrusted his mother to the Apostle John. The strophes pertinent to our investigation, together with this writer's English translation, are as follows: celso triumphi uertice matri Ioquebatur suae: en f!lius, mater, tuus, apostole, en mater tua. praetenta nuptae foedera alto docens mysterio, ne uirginis partus sacer matris pudorem laederet. From lofty pillar of triumph ¯ He was speaking to his mother: Mother, behold thy son, Apostle. behold thy. mother. Covenants of marriage pretended Taught he with deep mystery, Lest the sacred bearing of a virgin Cast hurt upon a mother's honor. The hymn Intende, qui regis Israel17 was intended "for the Christmas liturgy, and it was an ideal opportunity for Ambrose to blend two of his favorite themes: the glories of the Word Incarnate and the wonders of Christ's virginal conception and birth through Mary. Jesus and Mary are praised together from the second stanza through the fifth. The text, together with this writer's translation, follows: ~2See Saint-Laurent, "St. Ambrose and the Eastern Fathers," Diakonia 15 (1980), pp. 23-31. t3See idem. "St. Ambrose as Channel of Eastern Liturgical Customs to the West," Diakonia 13 (1978), pp. 101-110. t4Together with Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great. tSFor example, see M. McGuire, "Ambrose. St.," New Catholic Encyclopedia I (1967). p. 375; R. Trench, Sacred Latin Poetry (London: 1874), pp. 87-88: F. Raby, A Histoo, of Christian Latin Poetry 2d. Ed. (Oxford: 1953). pp. 32-36. ~rFor a critical text, see W. Bulst, Ed., Hymni latiniantiquissimi." LXXV Psalmi II (Heidelberg: 1956), p. 41. ~TFor a ~ritical text, see ibid., p. 43. St. Ambrose's Theology of the Virgin / 361 uenL redemptor gentium. ostende partum uirginis, miretur omne saeculum, tails decet partus deo. non ex uirili semine, sed mystico spiramine uerbum dei faetum est earo fructusque uentris floruit. aluus tumescit uirginis, claustrum pudoris permanet, uexilla uirtutum micam, uersatur in templo deus, proeedat e thalamo suoo pudoris aula regia, geminae gigans substantiae, ¯ alacris oecurrat uiam. Come, redeemer of the nations, Demonstrate a virgin's bearing, Let all the world be moved with wonder, So great a bearing befits our God. Not from human instigation, But from mystic inspiration Word of God did flesh become And fruit of womb did flower. Swollen grows a virgin's womb, Door of chastity remains, Virtues' beacons glitter forth, Engaged is God within his temple. ¯ Springs forth he from nuptial chamber, Royal palace of chaste modesty Giant of twofold nature he, Speedily runs he his course. The claustrum pudoris permanet of the fourth strophe is strikingly similar to phrases in Ambrose's De institutione virginis,~8 and expresses a doctrinal concern important to him: the virginity of Mary before, during, and after the birth of Jesus. Ambrose refers to the womb of Mary as aula regali uteri virginalis in that same work,!9 and g~es on to state: "Aula regialis is the virgin, who is subject not to man but to God alone." The hymn Inluminans altissimus2° is a hymn written for the observance of Epiphany, with its threefold orientation towards Jesus' baptism in the Jordan, his manifestation to the Magi, and his first miracle at Cana. Our immediate interest is focused upon the third stanza, the text of which follows, together with the present writer's translation: seu stella partum uirginis caelo micans signauerit et hoc adoratum die praesepe magos duxerit, A star shining from heaven Will have shown a virgin's giving birth And on this day will have led The Magi to adore the crib. Christ, "the most high Enlightener," has beenborn of a virgin, and so a radiant star in turn becomes a sign, bathing the crib in its light for the Magi to see. From the preceding three passages it is evident that Ambrose d~lights in dwelling upon Mary's perpetual, yet fruitful, virginity. Mary is the womanly model of the consecrated virgin par excellence, and her miraculous conception of Jesus by the power of. the Holy Spirit constitutes a quasi-paradigmatic event. The consecrated virgin, may approach the regal dignity of Mary through her own state of life, and so become spiritually in her own body a royal palace for God. The divine maternity is a privilege unique to Mary, of course, yet her self-donation to ~Ambrose. De institutione virginis 8.52 (PL 16.320). ~91bid. 12.79 (PL 16.324). 20For a critical text. see Bulst. op. cit. p. 45. 362 / Review for Religious, May-June 1982 God is imitable. Ambrose suggests that the Word can mystically enter into union with the consecrated Virgin for spiritual fruitfulness in the service of others. Our fourth hymn, Agnes beatae uirginis,2t was composed especially for a litur-gical celebration of the Feast of St. Agnes (January 21). It is effectively a poetic paraphrase of a sermon of Ambrose wherein he recounts the martyrdom, of this famous young maiden, a homily which he actually preached for that feast and which is found in his De virginibus.2~ The bishop's basic theme is praise for the valor of a maiden who willingly died as a witness to her faith in Christ. In the first stanza, Ambrose announces that it is the feastday of Agnes, who consecrated her virginity through martyrdom. In the second stanza, our author marvels'that such a child, too young for marriage, should nonetheless be suffi-ciently mature to give her life in testimony--and that at a time when even adults were wavering in the" face of persecution. In succeeding stanzas, Ambrose narrates the story which his audience knew so well. Agnes deliberately sought out martyr-dom, and presented herself as a bride about to meet her Heavenly Bridegroom, her mystic dowry being her very blood. When commanded to offer idolatrous wor-ship, she condemned the altar-fire and promise, d to exiinguish it with her blood. In concluding stanzas, our poet dwells upon Agnes' dignity upon the deathblow, as she drew her garments about herself in chaste modesty. The entire hymn is significant for our purpose, and so all eight'strophes, together with this writer's translation, are here reproduced: Agnes beatae uirginis natalis est, quo spiritum caelo refudit deb#um pio sacrata sanguine. matura maro,rio fuit matura nondum nuptiis, nutabat in uiris fides, cedebat e.ffessus senes. metu parentes territi claustrum pudoris auxeram soluit fores custodiae .tides teneri nescia. prodire quis nuptum putet, sic laeta uultu ducitur, nouas uiro.ferens opes dotata censu sanguinis. aras ~fandi numinis adolere taedis cogitur, respond#: baud tales faces sumpsere Christi uirgines. hic ignis extinguit fidem, Of the blessed virgin Agnes It is the bi~'thday, on which she Poured back her spirit owed to heaven ' Consecrated b~ her faithful blood. Mature was she for martyrdom ' Though for marriage not yet mature, Faith was faltering among men, Conceding old men to be weak. Terrified by fear her parents Had provided a prison of shame Faith dissolved the gates of custody Not knowing how to be,restrained. One might think her advancing to wed So~,joyful in countenance is she led Bringing new wealth to her bridegroom With dowry of her blood endowed. Altars of a devilish god by Tortures she is pressed to worship, Answers she: Not such fires Have Christ's virgins chosen. This flame blots out the faith, For a critical text, see ibid., p. 46. -'~Ambrose, De virginibus 1.25-29 (PI. 16.-189-190). ~ St. Ambrose's Theology of the Virgin / 363 haec flamma lumen eripit. hic hic ferite, ut profluo eruore restinguam focos. percussa quam pompam tulit ham ueste se Iolam lege?ls curare pudoris praestitit, ne quis retectam cerneret. in morte uiuebat pudor uultumque texerat manu, terram genu flexo petit lapsu uerecundo cadens. This fire extinguishes the light. Here destroy me, here, that with Spilt blood I may quench the flames. Struck down what splendor she showed For covering her total person She displayed her care for modesty Lest anyone should see her unclothed. In her death, chastity was living As with hand she veiled her face, With bent knee she besought the earth Falling forward with modest movement. Ambrose was resolutely incarnational, not only in his doctrinal convictions, but also in his pastoral instincts. For him, the cult of the martyrs--like the cult of the virgin--was but an obvious implicate of any sound and balanced Christology. Grace could transfigure the material, the earthy, and the human into a sacramental epiphany of the spiritual, the. heavenly, and the divine. It was inevitable that Ambrose shot~ld exploit the

Issue 41.4 of the Review for Religious, July/August 1982. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1982 by REviEw FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in, U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A.: $9.00 a year; $17.00 for two years. Other countries: $10.00 a year; $19.00 for two years. For subscription orders or change of address, write: REVtEW FOR RELIGtOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Daniel T. Costello, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor July/August, 1982 Volume 41 Number 4 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIF:W FOR RV:HG~OUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's University; City Avenue at 54th St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from RF:VlF:W F'OR RF:IaG~OUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Familiaris Consortio: Themes and Theses Robert F. Morneau Bishop Morneau continues his commentaries on papal documents with this present article which, though not directly concerned with religious life, has much to say about being Christian. Bishop Morneau, Auxiliary Bishop of the Green Bay diocese, continues his work with the Ministry to Priests Program, and may be addressed at that office: 1016 N. Broadway; De Pere, WI 54115. On November 22, 1981, Pope John Paul I1 issued an apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio.~ This document on the family followed the Synod of Bishops n~eeting that dealt at length with issues of family life. A vast range of topics was discussed: I) the role of the family--its identity and mission. The centraliky of love was stressed with great clarity. 2) The meaning of human sexual-ity, meaning which can be found only when sexuality is perceived in relationship to the whole person and to the plan of God. 3) The call to the family to participate in the development of society. This challenge prevents a narrow parochialism and urges a social consciousness that is inclusive. 4) The character of rights for the family. Without justice there will be no peace in the home or among nations. 5) Concern for the hurting. Compassion demands that we reach out to the families that are broken and experiencing loss of any kind. Documents such as this exhortation serve a most important purpose in life, i.e., the sharing of a vision. Parker J. Palmer writes of the need for vision: Finally, we need to seek and find the grounds of Christian hope in the midst of our public crisis. Those grounds are to be found in God's promise of reconciliation and God's faithful-ness to that promise. We will touch that ground and root ourselves in it through prayer and ~'Apostolic Exhortati~, Familiaris Consortio, of His H~liness Pope John Paul II to the Episcopate, to the Clergy and the Faithful of the whole Catholic Church regarding the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World (Rome: Vatican Polyglot Press, Nov. 22, 1981, pp. 176). 481 till2 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 contemplation--not as an isolated individual act, but as directed and disciplined within the community of faith. Just as private and public life are halves of a larger whole, so private prayer and public worship are meant to be as one. In all these ways the Church can help renew that vision without which the people perish!2 In a society that is pluralistic, in a world ajar with great changes, in a Church undergoing rapid development, the vision of the family is bound to be obscured. Whatever can help clarify the basic elements of family life and its interdependence with the Church and society is invaluable in daily decision making. Familiaris Consortio provides a vision from which to evaluate and plan. Unfortunately, because of its length, this document may well find its way to the shelf unmarked and unread, suffering the same fate as Pacem in Terris, Laborem Exercens, and Redemptor Hominis. If this happens, th~ vision remains at a certain level of leadership but never gets into the minds and the hearts of the people. The problem is one of communication. This article attempts to give a general overview of the central themes of the document; its aim is to attract the reader to the primary source itself. Theme 1: Family T~esis: The Christian Family is a community of persons committed to self-giving and fidelity. The family, which is founded and given life by love, is a community of persons: of husband and wife, of parents and children, of relatives, Its first task is to live with fidelity the reality of communion in a constant effort to develop an authentic community of persons (18). The family is the first and fundamental school of social living: as a community of love, it finds in self-giving the law that guides it and makes it grow. The self-giving that inspires the love of husband and wife for each other is the model and norm for the self-giving that must be practiced in the relationships between brothers and sisters and the different generations living together in the family. And the communion and sharing that are part of everyday life in the home at times of joy and at times of difficulty are the most concrete and effective pedagogy for the active, responsible and fruitful inclusion of the children in the wider horizon of society (37). Loving the family means being able to appreciate its values and capabilities, fostering them always. Loving the family means identifying the dangers and the evils that menace it, in order to overcome them. Loving the family means endeavoring to create for it an environment favorable for its development (86). In his strong and sensitive novel A Death in the Family, James Agee writes of the delicate bonds of family life. Those bonds were ruptured when the father of the family was killed in a car accident. His son Rufus cries out to his mother: "Hide 'n Seek's just a game,just a game. God doesn't fool around playing games, does He, Mama! Does He! Does He!" The story paints the intersecting lines of relatives and friends offering sympathy and advice, raising questions and sharing consolation. A community of persons dealing with life and death, faith and doubt, joy and sorrow. A family at once imbued with love and yet wrenched with selfishness. 2Parker J. Palmer, The Company of Strangers iNew York: Crossroad, 1981), p. 33. Familiaris Consortio 483 Agee masterfully tells of people striving to sustain relationships in adverse orcum-stances, striving to comprehend life in the face of death. This finely tuned story provides an example of family life; the apostolic exhortation addresses itself to such a community and offers a faith perspective for dealing with life's questions. The backbone of family life is community. When a group of people lives out a common value system in which each individual is deeply loved and challenged, a oneness is formed which we call community. It ismore a process than a state of being. Its organic nature means that things never remain the same. This constant flux is not to be understood negatively. Rather, this positive change is called growth, the development which underlies every healthy family. The values are constant, their implementation and application continue to vary. Community happens when people truly care and share. The central act of the family and community is self-giving: the ability to be with and for others in a loving and compassionate way. This act is not without its risks. While it can and often does lead to acceptance, such sharing can also lead to rejection. Relationships demand trust, that invisible elixir, which creates an atmosphere in which dialogue and revelation can happen. Where do we find authentic family life? Where self-giving, trust, sharing and love abide! The prophets of the Hebrew scriptures confronted the people with the sin that destroyed the family of Israel: infidelit!! Hosea would say: "My people are dis-eased through their disloyalty" (Ho 11:7). The haunting motto semperfidelis must not be ignored. Family life and community depend upon depth commitment that is able to withstand the fierce testing of crises and weaknesses. Much grace is needed, especially in a culture that accepts infidelity as being "only human." Humorously, if sadly, we speak about a dog as being man's best friend--yet the fidelity of a dog does at times outrun human commitment. Often the apostolic document draws our attention to the power, necessity and beauty of fidelity. Theme 2: Sacrament of Marriage Thesis: The sacrament of marriage is God's special grace enlightening a couple to see their true vocation and empowering them to five it. The gift of the sacrament is at the same time a vocation and commandment for the Christian spouses, that they may remain faithful to each other forever, beyond every trial and difficulty, in generous obedience to the holy will of the Lord: "What therefore God has joined together. let not man put asunder" (20). A vivid and attentive awareness of the mission that they have received with the sacrament of marriage will help Christian parents to place themselves at the service of their children's education with great serenity and trustfulness, and also with a sense of responsibility before God, who calls them and gives them the mission of building up the Church in their children. Thus in the case of baptized people, the family, called together by word and .sacrament as the Church of the home. is both teacher and mother, the same as the worldwide Church (38). The social role that belongs to every family pertains by a new and original right to the Christian family, which is based on the sacrament of marriage. By taking up the human reality of the love between husband and wife in all its implications, the sacrament gives to Christian couples and parents a power and commitment to live their vocation as lay people and therefore to "seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them 4~ltl / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 according to the plan of God" (47). The sacrament of marriage is the specific source and original means of sanctification for Christian married couples and families. It takes up again and makes specific the sanctifying . grace of baptism (56). God is love! In divine self-giving we receive that love which we call grace. Faith allows us to experience the mystery that God has made his home in our hearts, that we are indeed temples of the Spirit. As blood flows through our systems providing life and energy, so grace flows through life affording participation in the Divine Reality. Freely given, it must be freely accepted and exercised. Such gifted-ness does impose serious demands on the individual and the community. Because of this there is a tendency to resist the reception of God's love and to opt for that "cheap grace" which seemingly makes no demands. Such a choice is fatal because it is a lie. Grace will always remain true to its essence: love calling out to love. Once received it must be shared lest one's very integrity be shattered. Grace comes to married life and love through the sacrament of marriage in a very special way. This visible sign of God's incomprehensible love brings about what it signifies: union and holiness. Such is the vocation for all people. God provides specific help to couples who have special demands in the nurturing and sustaining of unique relationships. The sacrament has two sides: invitation and imperative. By means of the invitation each couple builds up the Church and by fulfilling the imperative they participate in the work of salvation. In order that this be known and deeply sensed, the apostolic exhortation stresses the significance of adequate preparation. An understanding of the meaning of grace, as well as the invitation and imperative that underlie it, is crucial to successful married life. Proper disposition makes possible a full response. Here, as in most situations, ignorance is not bliss. Anwar eI-Sadat, in his autobiography In Search of Identity, reflects on a central question of life, one's vocation: Without a vocation, man's existence would be meaningless. We have been created to bear the responsibility God has entrusted us with. Though different, each man should .fulfill his specific vocation and shoulder his individual responsibility? Marriage is a vocation, one sanctified by a sacrament. God's calling is accompan-ied by the necessary help enabling an adequate response in the light of one's gifts and talents. A sense of identity enriches family life and interpersonal relationships. Without this self-awareness, the inner poverty of relationships results in destructive deprivation. Only a sense of one's vocation allows for the proper ordering of life's many demands. Marriage as a basic vocation claims centrality: work, play and social engagements all take a secondary role. A constant challenge in life is to get in touch with one's vocation and to maintain an abiding awareness of this mystery. Theme 3: Mission/Task of the Family Thesis: Christian families are called to receive and share the divine graces of life and love. Looking at it in such a way as to reach its very roots we must say that the essence and role of Familiaris Consortio / the family are in the final analysis specified by love. Hence the family has the mission to guard, reveal and communicate love, and this is a living reflection of and a real sharing in God's love for humanity and the love of Christ the Lord for the Church his bride (17). Thus. with love as its point of departure and making constant reference to it, the recent Synod emphasized four general tasks for the family: I) forming a community of persons: 2) serving life: 3) participating in the development of society; 4) sharing in the life and mission of the Church (17). Therefore love and life constitute the nucleus of the saving mission of the Christian family in the Church and for the Church (50). A movie, novel, or a walk through Disneyland often offer a moment of escape from the harsher realities of life. In the film Raiders of the Lost Ark impossible missions are pulled off one after another. Sheer enjoyment, totally unreal. After such moments we reenter the real world: the world of work, the world of interna-tional conflict, the world of the family. Missions here seem impossible as well: to bring about justice, to foster peace, to live love. Indeed, without grace and great personal effort, the task is overwhelming, if not impossible: with discipline and divine assistance the ideals of justice, peace and love become historical realities. Authors from various disciplines have constantly commented on the task and mission of the family: love and life. A father did not visit his son, nor the son his father. Charity was dead? I've always been intense about relationships. At times, my love overwhelms people. And it puzzles me. My business is to IoveP ¯. and Alyosha's heart could not endure uncertainty because his love was always of an active character. He was incapable of passive love. If he loved any one. he set to work at once to love him? Thus writes Barbara Tuchman in her excellent study A Distant Mirror; in The Belle of Amherst playwright William Luce puts words into the mouth of Emily Dickinson; Dostoevsky too ponders the movements and the mystery of love in his character Alyosha. There is a certain messiness in the mission. Oftentimes motives are mixed in trying to love. Grace faces blockage and detours at every turn. Infrequent success and daily failures can be discouraging. 'Yet the moments of concern, care, respect and love--the central vocation of the human heart--are breakthroughs of healing redemptive life. The exhortation strikes dead center in urging families to guard love from every danger, to reveal love in trust and openness, to communicate love through honest dialogue. The mission is realized by means of such activity. Four specific tasks are delineated for the family: 1) The mission of forming 3Anwar eI-Sadat, In Search of Identity (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1977), p. 82. aBarbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1978), p. 97. 5William l,uce, The Belle of A~nherst (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976), p. 30. ~'Fyodor Dostoevsky. The Brothers Karamazov (New York: International Collectors Library, 1941), p. 171. 111~6 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 interpersonal relationships, of building community. Such formation demands time and self-giving; it is endangered by loss of identity and ambiguity about central values. 2) The mission of serving life by protecting the procreative and unitive functions of married love. Education and ongoing training are also tasks of par-ents. 3) The mission of participating in societal and political changes of society. Reaching out to the larger community prevents a destructive individualism. 4) The mission of becoming church. Through love, Christ is made present in our homes and in our world. Theme 4: Love Thesis: The heartbeat and central principle of family life is love. God is love and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in his own image and continually keeping it in being, God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion. Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being ( I I ). The inner principle of that task (to develop an authentic community of persons), its perma-nent power and its final goal is love: without love the family is not a community of persons and, in the same way, without love the family cannot live. grow and perfect itself as a community of persons (I 8). It cannot be forgotten that the most basic element, so basic that it qualifies the educational role of parents, is parental love. which finds fulfillment in the task of education as it completes and perfects its service of life: as well as being a source, the parent's love is also the animating principle and therefore the norm inspiring and guiding all concrete educational activity, enriching it with the values of kindness, constancy, goodness, service, disinterestedness, and self-sacrifice that are the most precious fruits of love (36). Vocation is a mystery. Who can explain exactly how a call comes into our lives and what makes it possible to respond? Faith offers some reflections on this matter and the Second Vatican Council clearly states that all people are called to holiness. The present document says the same thing but in a different way: the intrinsic calling of every person is love. How this universal vocation is lived out is deter-mined by the specific path an individual chooses: single life, married life, religious life. In a sense there is both freedom and determination here. We are free to choose our unique path, we are not free not to be loving and still retain our humanity. Romano Guardini understood well the process involved in discerning one's vocation: A vocation is no label marked "chosen" which can be fixed to a hum~in existence once and forever. It is a living intention of God, efficacy of his love in the chosen one. Only through the action taken by that person can it become reality.7 The family is inextricably involved in the vocation question. The pragmatic "how" question arises in the search for love and community within the family circle. Many forces that tend to block love and concern must be dealt with. How 7Roma~ao Guardini, The Lord (Chica~o: Henry Regnery Company, 1954), p. 94. Familiaris Consortio / 4117 can we live simple and fruitful lives in a culture characterized by chaos and violence? The good news of the Gospel draws our attention to the person of Jesus in whom we find love incarnate. The basic command is not merely a verbal communication--it is a lived reality. Before preaching, Jesus so often heals, frees, forgives--only then does he explain in word what has taken place. Such self-giving is the model for the family, the domestic church. Jesus shares with that church his Spirit that enables its members to fulfill the perfect command to be loving, forgiv-ing people. And within all this is a paradox: "Jesus' authentic power is revealed in his frailty and importance.'~ The power of powerlessness lies at the heart of love, at the heart of the family. Roots determine fruits. Where authentic parental love exists as the source of family life, then the possibility of various virtues finding expression in the lives of its members is probable. The apostolic exhortation lists six: I) Kindness: that attitude and action that affirms and strengthens one another: 2) Constancy: that rich fidelity fostering trust; 3) Goodness: love incarnate in a small word, gracious deed; 4) Service: awareness of and response to the needs of others; 5) Disinterested-ness: that unique self-forgetfulness in being for and with others: 6) Self-sacrifice: that realism that all love involves a cross. The vocation to love and to be loved is fulfilled only in grace. Theme 5: Sexuality Thesis: Sexuality finds its full meaning only when seen in the context of the human person, God's plan and love. Consequently, sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves to one another through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses, is by no means something purely biological, but concerns the innermost being of the human person as such. It is realized in a truly human way only if it is an integral part of the love by which a man and a woman commit themselves totally to one another until death. The total physical self-giving would be a lie if it were not the sign and fruit of a total personal self-giving, in which the whole person, including the temporal dimension, is present: if the person were to withhold something or reserve the possibility of deciding otherwise in the future, by this very fact he or she would not be giving totally (I I). In the context of a culture which seriously distorts or entirely misinterprets the true meaning of human sexuality, because it separates it from its essential reference to the person, the Church more urgently feels how irreplaceable is her mission of presenting sexuality as a value and task of the whole person, created male and female in the image of God (32). Education in love as self-giving is also the indispensable premise for parents called to give their children a clear and delicate sex education. Faced with a culture that largely reduces human sexuality to the level of something commonplace, since it interprets and lives it in a reductive and impoverished way by linking it solely with the body and with selfish pleasure, the educational service of parents must aim firmly at a training in the area of sex that is truly and fully personal: for sexuality is an enrichment of the whole person--body, emotions and soul--and it manifests its inmost meaning in leading the person to the gift of self in love (37). ~Jon Sobrino, S.J. Christology at the Crossroads. trans, by John Drury (New York: Orbis Books. 1978), p. 281. 41111 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 When things are disconnected, they become distorted. The absolutizing ten-dency to identify a part for the whole is not uncommon. A recent movie/play, The Elephant Man, demonstrates what happens when a single moment of life excludes other factors. Most people were unable to move beyond the elephant man's deformity and penetrate to the rich, inner beauty of his person. Sexuality has suffered over the years from the absolutizing impulse that has fragmented this great and powerful gift. When sexuality is reduced to physicality, emotionality or pleasure, meaning is lost. Familiaris Consortio presents a different vision. Here sexuality is understood as an integral part of the personality. It has meaning only in reference to the person and authentic love. This integral vision provides mean-ing and allows for prudential decision on how the gift will be used. Vision and virtue help to order this radical power in our lives. Though complex, sexuality is not incomprehensible; though innately powerful, sexuality is not uncontrollable. Certain things in history are a matter of life and death. One of these is human sexuality. Abundant life flows when this gift of sexuality is used with proper regard for the individual and is an expression of authentic love. Physical, emotional and spiritual life are all enriched. However, when sexuality is misused and becomes a form of manipulation or exploitation, few things are as destructive. Death is the consistent effect of unprincipled use of human sexuality. Here truth is abandoned, a lie is lived. The fruits are well-known: deception, secretiveness, joylessness, angst, boredom--exit Mrs. Robinson. Thus the paradox: that which can be most life-giving is capable of causing infinite harm. Sex education is an urgent need today. This obligation is frustrated because of confusion in regard to sexual matters, breakdown in communication, sheer ne-glect. Much information regarding sexual matters is transmitted through the mass media and peer groups, often highly distorted and erroneous. Justice is at stake. The child has the right to know; the duty rests primarily on parents. Assistance is often needed and other bodies (church and schools) get involved. One point must be stressed: ¯. the Church is firmly opposed to an often widespread form of imparting sex information dissociated from moral principle (37). The key issue is clear: human sexuality must always be dealt with in context: the context of love, the human person and God's plan. Theme 6: Education Thesis: Education is a primary duty and right of parents; the full growth and development of children depend upon the exercise of this obligation, The task of giving education is rorted in the primary vocation of married couples to partici-pate in God's creative activity: by begetting in love and for love a new person who has within himself or herself the vocation to growth and development, parents by that very fact take on the task of helping that person effectively to live a fully human life (36). According to the plan of God, marriage is the foundation of the wider community of the family, since the very institution of marriage and conjugal love are ordained to the procreation and education of children, in whom they find their crowning (14). Familiaris Consonio / 489 The mission to educate demands that Christian parents should present to their children all the topics that are necessary for the gradual maturing of their personality from a Christian and ecclesial point of view. They will therefore follow the educational lines mentioned above. taking care to show their children the depths of significance to which the faith and love of Jesus Christ can lead (39). Full growth and development demand education. This process of learning is of special significance in the first decade of a person's life. Here the twig is bent, the fate of the tree deeply influenced. In the confines of the home a type of informal education is always at work. By osmosis children are assimilating the values, thoughts and life-style of their parents. There will be times of more formal educa-tion: planned discussion, structured dialogue, explicit exchange of facts and per-spectives. Whether formal or informal, the learning process nourishes the mind and heart as food does the body. Intellectual needs are as deep as bodily ones. If deprived of proper feeding, strange compensatory behavior sets in, causing serious disorder or relationships. If nourishment is well balanced, the result is a healthy home and society. Given the limitations of time, talent and skills, parents will necessarily reach out to others for help in the fulfillment of this primary obligation to educate their children. This appeal for help should not lead to abdication. Certain things can only be learned in the home: the art of sustaining relationships in close quarters, the ability to deal with moods over long periods of time, the gift of hospitality to strangers. In these and other areas, parents are always teaching, if not in word, certainly by their actions. To succeed in this duty parents must continue their own education. The formation of parents through information and transformation is necessary for the full dex~elopment of the family. In an age of rapid ~:hange and high activism, there is a special lesson that parents can teach their children, the lesson of silence: We have yet to accept and act upon the axiom that the cultivation of a habit of silence is an integral part of all true education; and that children, so far from looking upon a demand for silence as an unnatural and intolerable imposition, have an inborn aptitude for quietness.9 Such silence gives access to the voice of God and the deeper recesses of oneself. Contemplation then becomeg a possibility and this activity is essential to a full, human life. Constant activity and incessant noise destroy the conditions for true humanness: loving attention and presence to others. A quiet period in the day could well be one of the greatest blessings a child might learn from parents and the Theme 7: Society Thesis: The mutual relationship between family and society must be carefully Herman. Creative Prayer (Cincinnati. Ohio: Forward Movement Publications). p. 33. Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 nurtured and lovingly critiqued. The family has vital and organic links with society, since it is its foundation and nourishes it continually through its role of service to life: it is from the family that citizens come to birth and it is within the family that they find the first school of the social virtues that are the animating principle of the existence and development of society itself (42). The social role of families is called upon to find expression also in the form of political intervention: families should be the first to take steps to see that the laws and institutions of the State not only do not offend but support and positively defend the rights and duties of the family. Along these lines, families should grow in awareness of being "protagonists" of what is known as "family politics" and assume responsibility for transforming society: otherwise families will be the first victims of the evils that they have done no more than note with indifference. The Second Vatican Council's appeal to go beyond an individualistic ethic therefore also holds good for the family as such (44), The family and society have complementary functions in defending and fostering the good of each and every human being (45). The privatization of religion is a constant danger. This attitude compartmen-talizes one's relationship with God, separating it from economic, socio-political, cultural issues. Christians must be constantly challenged to assume their proper role in society by fostering a public outlook: A public outlook among Christians asks them to care for the good ordering of people who are not saved and may never be. It means having concern for arts and letters, the quality of life and its cultural dimensions, the institutions of education and the forms of politics--even if there is no direct payoff for the churches.~° This linkage to the larger social whole was a major concern at the Second Vatican Council: the Church is to participate in the amelioration of the world by being socially conscious and politically concerned. Again this vision is shared in Famil-iaris Consortio. Families are to participate in social happenings in dynamic and varied ways. Non-involvement will often threaten human dignity and justice since a vacuum will be created if people abdicate their duty of articulating and living Christian values. The notion of responsibility underlies the mutual relationships between family and society. This responsibility is grounded in power. The individual, the family, the society, the church and the state, all possess this ability to bring about or prevent change. When all these parties exercise responsible power in fostering the common good, then justice and peace result. The common good is served. Yet vested interest tends to direct energies and gifts meant for the growth of the community toward self-serving and self-preserving needs and wants. Injustice is effected and society and the family are greatly harmed. The exercise of power for the common good and the proper assumption of responsibility by each grouping are of vital importance to the Church and the modern world. Rugged individualism will continue to thwart the creation of a healthy society. Narrow parochialism, social myopia, crass apathy, indulgent consumerism, afro- *°Reflection of Martin E. Marty in Parker J. Palmer's The Company of Strangers, p. 13. Familiaris Consortio / 49"1 gant nationalism are cancer sores that mar and rend the human heart and human family. Society will never be rid of these illnesses but they can be minimized by fostering a social consciousness that truly sees others as one's brothers and sisters. This consciousness begins at home or it never begins at all. Parents enrich society by their involvement in societal and political issues and by encouraging their children to participate as fully as they can. Theme 8: Church Thesis: The family as the domestic church gets its true identity and sense of purpose from its ecclesial nature. Christian marriage and the Christian family build up the Church: for in the family the human person is not only brought into being and progressively introduced by means of education into the human community, but by means of the rebirth of baptism and education in the faith, the child is also introduced into God's family, which is the Church (15). Among the fundamental tasks of the Christian family is its ecclesial task: the family is placed at the service of the building up of the kingdom of God in history by participating in the life and mission of the Church (49). The Church, a prophetic, priestly and kingly people, is endowed with the mission of bringing all human beings to accept the word of God in faith, to celebrate and profess it in the sacraments and in prayer, and to give expression to it in the concrete realities of life in accordance with the girl and new commandment of love (63). There is a rich symbiotic relationship between the family and the Church. They need each other; they enrich each other. Through the family new life is raised up, potential members of God's family; through the Church, the grace of baptism gives entrance into the community of disciples. The family is as integral to the Church as cells are to the body. Both the community of the family and the Church are about the same task: acceptance and proclamation .of the Good News, worship in spirit and in truth, service to those in need out of love, the building up of the kingdom. In a special way the Church does this through sacramental, apostolic and educa-tional avenues; the family does it by living faith, hope and love in ordinary and concrete situations. Several times in this apostolic exhortation Pope John Paul 1! stresses the building of the kingdom of God in history. Our liturgy describes some aspects of that kingdom: a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.~ The Church and family intersect at this junction. Both strive to promote the realities of God's saving mysteries. Both are at the service of Jesus, the Lord of heaven and earth. Both find in him truth and life; in him the oneness with the Father; in him the love that makes justice and peace reality. Christ Jesus is the "Preface for the Feast of Christ the King. 4~)2 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 center of the Christian home and the Church. Romano Guardini refreshes our faltering memories: "Faith" in the sense of the New Testament means not only religious trust, reverence, self-surrender, but something specific: man's relationship to Christ and to the God who speaks through him which Christ demanded.~2 Two phenomena characterize the twentieth century: confusion about identity and the subsequent loss of meaning. Who are we? What are we to do? What is our destiny? The Church has a self-understanding that embraces mystery. Yet the task is clear: be a prophetic, kingly and priestly people! With such a vision the Christian family comes to its own self-understanding: the family also is to be a community of persons and the task and mission is the same as the Church's. No small grace here. Amid all the confusion and ambig6ity a sense of direction and purpose emerges. Energies can now be directed in meaningful ways. The Christian family is deeply enriched by seeing and living this relationship with the Church. Theme 9: Values Thesis: Family life is grounded in the knowledge and expression of basic gospel values. Christian families can do this (bear witness to the kingdom and the peace of Christ) through their educational activity--that is to say by presenting to their children a model of life based on the values of truth, freedom, justice and love--both through active and responsible involvement in the authentically human growth of society and its institutions, and by support-ing in various ways the associations specifically devoted to international issues (48). The Christian family also builds up the kingdom of God in history through the everyday realities that concern and distinguish its state of life. It is thus in the love between husband and wife and between the members of the family--a love lived out in all its extraordinary richness of values and demands: totality, oneness, fidelity and fruitfulness--that the Christian family's participation in the prophetic, priestly and kingly mission of Jesus Christ and of his Church finds expression and reali:,ation (50). Many negative phenomena which are today noted with regret in family life derive from the fact that. in the new situations, young people not only lose sight of the correct hierarchy of values but, since they no longer have certain criteria of behavior, they do not know how to face and deal with the new difficulties (66). Freedom, truth, justice, love, totality, oneness, fidelity, fruitfulness! These are the pillars (values) that support the community of persons we call the family, society and church. The importance of these values can readily be seen in contrast to their opposites: enslavement, falsity, injustice, hatred, non-commitment, divi-sion, infidelity, sterility. None of these categories are ultimately abstract; they. are not esoteric philosophical constructs. Rather, they provide the attitudinal base from which life is lived. Values shape decisions which in turn terminate in concrete action. Our actions have consequences that either humanize or destroy people. In evaluating our lives we move beyond specific, individual acts to the root system-- the values from whence they flow. These values truly characterize the essence of ~2Romano Guardini. p. 436. Familiaris Consortio / 493 our personality. Choices in life! To teach in the catechetical program or spend more time with the children; to build a new room onto the house or give more money to the poor: to take in a refugee child or prod the government to promote international justice. These choices are not necessarily exclusive but a theology of limitation restricts how much we can do. The formation of conscience is based not only on values but also the ordering of these values. What is helpful here is a guiding vision: To be an effective member of the Church. one needs a guiding vision. Such a vision should serve to interpret one's experience of life with fellow-believers, to suggest priorities and values, and to indicate ways in which the Church might make itself more effectively present in today's world.13 Value-free homes and societies are dissipated homes and societies, lacking direc-tion and purpose. Values provide a sense of meaning. The constant process of value clarification is urgently needed. The social scien-ces have methods to discern when values are truly authentic and when they are merely nominal. Internalized values have the markings of free choice, strong affective force and patterned activity. Clarifying our values helps to promote civil discourse, a discourse that is essential to keep our planet partially civilized. When values are confused and misunderstood, debate turns into a diatribe. Political, social and religious issues become muddied and constructive communication ceases. Value clarification is not the solution to world problems, but without some clarity there can be no progress. What is true of larger society is also true of the home. Clear values nourish healthy family life. Theme 10: Dangers and Difficulties Thesis: Inner and outer forces present major challenges to the delicate health of family life. On the other hand, however, signs are not lacking of a disturbing degradation of some fundamental values: a mistaken theoretical and practical crncept of the independence of the spouses in relation to each other: serious misconceptions regarding the relationship of author-ity between parents and children: the concrete difficulties that the family itself experiences in the transmission of values: the growing number of divorces: the scourge of abortion: the ever more frequent recourse to sterilization: the appearance of a truly contraceptive mentality (6). Consequently. faced with a society that is running the risk of becoming more and more depersonalized and standardized and therefore inhuman and dehumanizing, with the negative results of many forms of escapism--such as alcoholism, drugs and even terrorism--the family possesses and continues still to release formidable energies capable of taking man out of his anonymity, keeping him conscious of his personal dignity, enriching him with deep humanity and actively placing him, in his uniqueness and unrepcatability, within the fabric of society (43). Among the more troubling signs of this phenomenon (obscuring of certain fundamental values), the Synod Fathers stressed the following, in particular: the spread of divorce and of recourse to a new union, even on the part of the faithful" the acceptance of purely civil ~-~Avery Dulles, "Imaging the Church for the 1980"s." Thought. vo!. 56. no. 221 (June, 1981), p. 121. 4~4 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 marriage in contradiction to the vocation of the baptized to "be married in the Lord": the celebration of the marriage sacrament without living faith, but for other motives; the rejection of the moral norms that guide and promote the human and Christian exercise of sexuality in marriage (7). Teilhard de Chardin's work The Divine Milieu shows the deepest reverence for the environment, human-divine-natural, that surrounds and sustains us. When that environment is affected adversely, there is a breakdown in the rich interde-pendence of all life. Family life is no exception to this universal phenomenon. Certain negative attitudes are in the air and certain ways of relating are becoming accepted that are injurious and destructive of communities of persons: divorce that rends and tears the hearts and minds of parents and children; misunderstanding and subsequent misuse of the gift and beauty of sexuality: erroneous attitudes regarding freedom; a striving for a type of independence that makes relationships impossible. The litany is long and off-key: the pain and the hurt are even more far-reaching and dissonant. Realism demands that we share the full portrait. Healthy family life does survive and is the source of much hope and joy. There are homes where children rejoice in the love and care shown by their parents; there are homes in which youth are given a sense of dignity and respect; there are homes that are sites of caring education and gracious growth. God has promised his presence to the family and with that presence comes the grace to fulfill that unique and noble vocation of every home--the sharing of love. Familiaris Consortio offers a blueprint, charting the waterways of family life. The journey of Lewis and Clark was filled with many unnecessary delays and detours because of the lack of maps. Though they do not remove the struggle of the journey, maps do help in marking the way. The papal exhortation continues the apostolic mission: revealing the mystery of God's love and forgiveness which makes possible community, the building of the kingdom in which we hear and respond with love to the voice of the Lord. From Tablet to Heart: Internalizing New Constitutions--I Patricia Spillane, M.S.C. Sister Patricia, a psychotherapist, lectures on initial and on-going formation. She resides at the convent of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart; 428 St. James Place: Chicago, IL 60614. The second part of her presentation will appear in the next issue of REWF.W FOR REI.IGIOUS. During the past few years, we religious have witnessed a ferment of activity in our congregations centering on drafting, writing and debating new constitutions. The Lord's charge to Habakkuk: Write down the vision clearly upon the tablet so that we can read it readily (Hab 2:2) is being taken seriously. Constitutional committees, feedback designs, provincial chapters have been devoted to this task. Some of us are already breathing a sigh of relief before a completed task, some of us are still laboring to clarify the vision or inscribe the tablets. But there is a hidden illusion here, that once the tablet is inscribed, the work is over! The Lord who told Habakkuk to write on the tablet also told Jeremiah that he, himself, would plant his law deep within, "writing it on their hearts" (Jr 31:33) instead of on fragments of stone or clay. So it is today. Whoever finishes "tablet-work" is at a crossroads of a more intense and crucial nature. The real task, the "heart work," is just beginning and the challenge which lies before us is far greater than the challenge we may have already surmounted. A beautiful document will remain just that and nothing more, unless it also becomes an opportunity for personal conversion, for personal adherence to its sources of inspiration: the gospel, and the charism of the individual congregation. New constitutions are indeed "a word that goes forth from my mouth" (Is 55:! i) and so may be likened to the seed in the parable of the sower (Mt 13:1-23). There the seed-word was met by a whole spectrum of attitudes that rendered it 495 4~ / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 more or less efficacious: from the indifference and defensiveness of those of "coarse heart., dull ears., shut eyes., fear [of] being converted," to the limited disponib~lity of those who "have no roots [since] trials., persecutions., worries ¯. riches choke the word," even after an initial joyful reception. The unconditional acceptance of those who are "good soil" is not found as often as we would like to believe. Human nature has not changed since the time those attitudes were described. The "word," whether of the gospel or of a congregation, will be as effective as each of us can allow it to be, personally and corporately. Our new constitutions are indeed a "two-edged sword," but we can block its passage to our "secret emotions and thoughts"(Heb 4:12). It is indeed a seed, bursting with the potentiality of life, but the finest seed in the world needs a welcoming environment. With all of our good will, each of us may be specializing in certain obstacles that may prevent these constitutions from taking root and producing the fruits of inner conversion, may render subjectively ineffective the objective grace of the moment. These obstacles, rather than our good will, may be at the root of our attitudinal decisions before the constitutions. Whether we realize it or not, we are not just passive recipients of these new documents. Each of us makes active decisions concerning them, with or without our awareness, and often the decision may be made before we even see the document. Neither is this "decision" an isolated factor in our life; rather it springs from the same soil which has fostered every other decision we have made. What Attitudinal Decisions Do New Constitutions Evoke in Us? What are some of the myriad possibilities of responses to this word, of attitudi-nal decisions before our constitutions, that could arise? We must recognize that anything which is both new and demanding naturally represents a threat to our established way of looking at things, to our life-style, to our values. It calls for change, for letting go of the comfortable and familiar, for embarking on untried and risky roads--even if only in small and subtle ways. It is good for us to recognize and admit how easily the gospel, our charism, our documents can threaten us. Our challenge lies in how we handle the stress which this threat brings. On the one hand we can resist in an active, rebellious way, challenging the need for norms, for institutional guidelines, for adherence to the magisterium of the Church. Or we can resist in a more subtle, passive way--remaining indifferent, unaffected; quietly ignoring what rubs us the wrong way. We can comply, go along with what is outwardly expected of us, as long as the community is aware of it or because the consequences of not "going along" would be too unpleasant. Or, at another level, we can accept the constitutions because "that's what good religious do," or because the present community to which we belong values them, and so should we. While this identification does not stop when we are no longer actually being observed by members of the community, the satisfaction due to our relation-ship with others is more important to us than the value itself. Thus, this attitudinal choice still leaves something to be desired. Our motivation remains external to us. From Tablet to Heart / 497 Finally, Luke describes the last category of listeners to the word as: people with a noble and generous heart who have heard the word and take it to themselves and yield a harvest through their perseverance (Lk 8:15). This is an excellent biblical description of what is meant by internalization: a true taking-to-heart of the value for its own sake, whether it is popular or unpopu-lar, whether we are being observed by others or not observed, whether it is gratifying or painful. Internalization of his Father's will was the only way that Jesus remained faithful unto death to his redemptive mission: rewards and friends had all disappeared; there remained only faith that this was what the Father called him to do. Vulnerability of Our Attitudes So we see that the great accomplishment of approved constitutions can falter and come to nothing, unless we are disposed to respond by attitudinal decisions that lead to the increase of internalization and the decrease of either resistance or compliance. We see that our attitudinal choices are vulnerable, with the result that, unknowingly, we may be moving towards an ephemeral and passing satisfaction instead of towards the true life that Jesus intends for each of us through these documents (see Jn 10:10). But what makes our attitudinal choices so vulnerable? What can we do about it? Perhaps we can begin by attempting to understand the source of these vulner-abilities. After all, it is a very ancient problem. The Israelites d~]ring the exodus could be seen to manifest the same spectrum of attitudes towards the covenant. Moses, in the words of the writer of Deuteronomy, finally put it to them clearly: I set before you life or death, blessing or curse: choose life then. (Dr 31:19). Let us begin to look more deeply into how, from the time of the Israelites to the present day, our choices can be torn between life and death, can lead us to our highest happiness or our greatest betrayal. To that end, let us look first at the source of these decisions--our very selves--and then at various aspects of these decisions. A. The Person as Locus of Attitudinal Decisions Attitudinal choices of life or death do not spring from a vacuum. They origi-nate in and are consistent with" that complex of motivations, forces and behaviors which we call "the self." Concentrating on the self, however, is not meant to be an exercise in individu-alism. Vitz~ warns us how the exaltation of the self and concentration on self-fulfillment result in a parody of our true selves. Kernberg2 has devoted many years ~Paul C. Vitz, Psychology as Religion: the Cult of Self- Worship (.Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977). 2Otto Kernberg, Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism (NY: Jason-Aronson, 1975). __, "Why Some People Can't Love," Psychology Today (June, 1978), pp. 55-59. 1191t / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 to a study of the increasing manifestations of narcissism in American society that result in a pathology of the self. Hendin describes the culture of the Age of Sensation as: marked by a self-interest and ego-centrism that increasingly reduces all relations to the question: What am 1 getting out of it?~ Obviously such caricatures of the self are inimicable to the gospel which says "anyone who wants to save his life will lose it" (Mt 16:25). Nevertheless, it is precisely self-knowledge which can be the greatest aid to making it possible for us to lay down our lives. All the saints testify to this truth, but 1 will restrict myself throughout this article to two great woman saints: Catherine of Siena, the great laywoman and mystic of the fourteenth century, and Frances Xavier Cabrini, the zealous mission-ary of the twentieth century, who founded my own congregation, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. If you would come to perfect knowledge and enjoyment of me, eternal life, never leave the knowledge of yourself . oh, how delightful to the soul and pleasing to me is holy prayer made in the house of self-knowledge and knowledge of me! (Catherine of Siena, The Dia-logue, no. 4,66). And when we begin to know ourselves, it is a grace so great that we can never thank Jesus enough since it is an illumination from his divine heart. Let us gratefully run along this way. (Frances Cabrini, Letters, no. 96). We have already insisted on the capacity of the self to function as an active sub-ject-- not just to react as the passive object of environmental stimuli. Our behavior may stem in part from external influences, but these influences are internally organized into already existing psychic structures that we normally call motiva-tions. Hence the motivations are as important as the behavior, the inner structures as important as the process of emotionally experiencing the environment. Neither is the self simply an organization of the present moment. We reach back to the past (which we may have forgotten) and forward to goals we have not yet attained. The actual needs of the past and present must be balanced with the ideals of the future, a fact which psychologists are more and more integrating into their self-theory. Wylie4 considers the sub-components of the self as the actual-self and the ideal-self. Kohut, who has devoted himself to the analysis of the self,~ speaks of its developing optimally from the interaction of ambition (needs) and ideals. Rulla6 further subdivides our actual-self with its needs and ambitions into a social, behavioral and latent self, and our ideal-self into a personal self-ideal as well SHerbert Hendin, The Age of Sensation (NY: McGraw-Hill & Co. 1977), p. 13. *R. C. Wylie, "The Present Status of Self Theory" in Handbook of Personality Theory and Research, Borgatta & Lambert, ed. (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1968), pp. 734-752. ~Heinz Kohut, The Analysis of the Se/f(NY: International Universities Press, 1977). 6Luigi M. Rulla, S.J., Depth Psychology and I/ocation (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1971), pp. 35-37. The theoretical framework of this article is derived from the writings and teachings of Rulla. From Tablet to Heart / 499 as the ideals we believe others expect of us (institutional-ideal). Rulla further distinguishes between the subjective ideals we personally hold as important to us and the extent to which these are consonant with objective ideals---especially the revealed values of the gospei and the following of Christ. Needs and Values Within Our Conscious and Unconscious Selves However, we must admit that the self often remains a mystery to us. Paul laments "I do not understand my own behavior" (Rm 7:!5). Conscious factors interact with unconscious forces within us, unknowingly influencing our decisions and our attitudes despite our good will. Because they are unknown to us (and our defenses may be strong enough to resist coming to know them), this unconscious part of the self can greatly contribute to the vulnerability of our attitudinal deci-sions. Whether we are talking about the "Known/Unknown-to-self" of the Johari Window,7 Freud's unconscious, or Rulla's latent self, we cannot ignore the fact that we unconsciously put obstacles in the way of taking the word to heart. Grace builds on nature--but we may abuse our God-given freedom by hiding from unpleasant truths which may be interfering with the action of grace. It is this unconscious aspect of the self that touches so deeply two primary attributes of the self: our human needs which are innate, universal and strive naturally for psycho-biological or psycho-social satisfaction; and our values and ideals which are developed in the course of a lifetime. We all have needs, e.g., aggressive, dependent, sexual, and so forth, but backgrounds and previous situa-tions may have made these needs so unacceptable to us that we divorce them from ourselves by a defensive barrier that relegates them to our unconscious self. Because they are buried, however, does not mean they are inactive; in fact they may be all the more influential because of our lack of awareness. At the other end of the spectrum of self-attributes are our values which natu-rally begin by being subjective and personal, but which should mature so that the objectivb values of Christ come to coincide with our personal ideals and choices (which is what internalization is all about). However there is a "tension arc" stretched between these two poles which can often result in the weaker values succumbing to stronger unconscious needs. In this case, the values never are internalized because of contradictions in the self between the actual and the ideal. Rulla has introduced the term "inconsistencies" to describe these poorly-integrated tensions between needs and values. While certain human needs may be consistent with the following of Christ, e.g., the need to achieve, to care for others (nurtur-ance), to overcome difficulties (counteraction), certain others such as inferiority (abasement), avoidance of pain (harm-avoidance), or defensiveness interfere with the following of Christ and hence may represent significant inconsistencies in individuals where they predominate. Ideally, we should be able to acknowledge and accept the presence of these inconsistencies which we all have, integrate them 7joseph Lufl. Group Processed (Palo Alto: National Press, 1961). 500 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 in a manner appropriate to a vowed life, and thus be freer to be attracted by and assimilate the values of Christ. However, when the block of unconscious needs cannot be acknowledged, a vicious circle begins of denying what we most need to deal with, of distorting our image of ourselves to match our ideal-self instead of dealing with what is actually present. Self As Holistic, Structural, Purposive Thus far we have seen that our attitudinal choices originate in a self that is both reactive and becoming, both conscious and unconscious, both real and ideal in our efforts to integrate values and needs in a consistent way. Another theorist, Jane Loevinger,8 describes the necessary characteristics that must be incorporated into a healthy self, or into any adequate self-theory. Thus, among other elements, she maintains that the self must be understood as holistic, structural and purposive. When we interpret this in the light of religious life, several implications concerning the self emerge: The holistic self." Self as the locus of growth in Christ and for purposes of internali-zation must be seen as the integration of all its aspects: conscious and unconscious; active and passive; the psycho-biological, psycho-social, and psycho-spiritual: the cognitive, affective and volitional; the real and the ideal. The part that each element has to play in the final ordering of a mature consistent self is not just a result of haphazard whim or fancy. Rather, true integration moves from more primitive, ego-centered positions to more advanced levels that do not exclude the earlier but incorporate them into newer, more mature patterns. The structural self." A great many theorists today stress the self as being in process; problems are envisioned in terms of blocked emotional and experiential pro-cesses. 9 They emphasize those components of ourselves that are or should be in movement, in flux, in change. While this approach contains an undeniable truth, a holistic approach includes other aspects as well. We are not only emotion, flux, becoming. Our inner selves are also organized into stable structured patterns of needs, motivations and ideals; of behavioral tendencies and patterns of relation-ships that are remarkably stable, resistant to change and indeed form the source of our emotional reactions, our manner of experiencing the world and our behavioral tendencies. Thus while our structures or psychic patterns seem to epitomize Our stable and non-changing elements, in reality we can experience no real change unless these very structures are touched and altered. A structural view of the self is sound not only from a psychological point of view but also from a theological. The late Gustave Weigel in his considerations on Theology and Freedom looks first at the self which is capable of reaching freedom. He contrasts an experiencing self in flux as: 8Jane Loevinger, ~Theories of Ego Development" in ClinieabCognitive Psychology: Models and Inte-gration, L. Breger, ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N J: Prentice-Hall, 1969), pp. 87-99. 9E.g., most of the humanistic schools--Rogers, Maslow, et al. From Tablet to Heart / 51~1 isolated, unrelated consciousness, floating without orientation or direction on the mysterious sea of existence, itself selfless with the self as presumed by Catholic theology which begins with the supposition that the self is structured and its affirmations must be related to that structure.~0 ¯ Thus a view of the self without structure and only in process cannot help us either spiritually or humanly. If a religious has unknowingly reacted all his or her life so as to comply with the sacrifices invited, by chastity, poverty and obedience and has never really internalized them, he or she has unwittingly formed a pattern and a structure of compliance that will not change only by focusing on his or her emotions and experiences. The roots of our patterns must be dealt with before lasting, significant change can occur. The purposive self." Loevinger sees the self as inherently striving for meaning, purpose, goals--echoing the ideal-self of Wylie, Rulla, Kohut, et al. Frankl speaks of the "will to meaning" as opposed to "the will to pleasure." Indeed happiness, fulfillment, identity are all side effects of the successful search for meaning: It may now have become clear that a concept such as self-actualiTation, or self-realization, is not a sufficient ground for a motivational theory. This is mainly due to the fact that self-actualization, like power and pleasure, also belongs to the class of phenomena which can only be obtained as a side effect and are thwarted precisely to the degree to which they are made a matter of direct intention. Self-actualization is a good thing: however. I maintain that man can only actualize himself to the extent to which he fulfills meaning. Then self-actualization occurs spontaneously: it is contravened when it is made an end in itself.~ Indeed the capacity to commit ourselves marks our highest capacity, our ability to transcend ourselves, to go beyond gratification and pleasure to value and meaning. To the extent that the values and meanings for which we transcend ourselves are objective and true (consistent with our self-as-it-ought-to-be), happi-ness and self-fulfillment will gradually emerge as side effects. Thus, new constitutions ought to prick and challenge us--make us uncom-fortable- not be already within our grasp. Our tendency can be, however, to "cut down to size," reduce the demand quality of something which may annoy and anger us because it disturbs our comfort. We have to be willing to forego, unlike the rich young man (Mk 10:17-22), the gratification of"but I've already been doing all that," to push forward, stretch, go beyond where we are, to transcend our own comfort in the service of values which have originated beyond us. The Subjectivization of Values Both Frankl and Rulla have been very concerned with the relativization and individualization of values which we see so often in modern society. Values which ~0Gustave Weigel, S.J., "Theology and Freedom" in Foundations./'or "a Psychology of Grace (Glen Rock. N J: Paulist Press, 1966), p. 188. ~Victor Frankl, Psychotherapy and Existentialism (NY: Clarion Bks, 1967), p. 8. 502 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 should be objective and clear become subjectively evaluated (for discarding or adaptation); we tend to elevate ourselves and our needs as ends in themselves, thereby actually making ourselves into an object. We become the measure of the value instead of the value calling us forth. Here our ideal-self has become absorbed into our actual-self and has become its puppet, instead of being a liberating, independent force which urges our actual-self further along the road to maturity and freedom. An adaptation of one of Frankl's diagrams can help us envision this tendency more clearly:12 Strong human needs (1) especially unconscious ones that are dissonant with the following of Christ can cause the values (2) to be unconsciously "adjusted" (subjectified) so that the person (3) becomes the norm (objectified). This may lead to temporary self-fulfillment and gratification, but not to lasting happiness because it has diluted the values that encouraged us towards self-transcendence. Frankl calls for changing this situation through re-objectifying the values and re-subjectifying the person by means of a value-oriented theory and practice (4). To the extent that we can realize this, to that same extent can we find a true self-fulfillment in Christ that comes as a result of having transcended ourselves. Unless a grain of wheat fails on the ground and dies, it remains a single grain: but if it dies. it yields a rich harvest (Jri 12:24). Thus far we have considered the self with its intricate weaving of values and needs, structure and function, elements known-to-self and unknown-to-self as the source of our attitudes ranging from acceptance to refusal of God's design. Now let us turn to examine more closely the process and result of our decision-making, so '~Ibid., p. 66. From Tablet to Heart / 503 as to better understand the interactions of nature and grace within us. To do this, we shall look at attitudinal decisions from three aspects: spiritual philosophical and psychological. B. The Spiritual Dimension of Our Attitudinal Decision We can consider the spiritual dimension of decisions and attitudes since, in a holistic and purposive view of the self, over and above the fact that our capacities are God-given in themselves, we can and ought to reach out for transcendent goods. Thus our decisions may be considered spiritual on the basis of their object, i.e., what is being chosen, and on their mode, i.e., how the "what" is being chosen, under the influence of what--grace or inconsistent human needs. God calls, and awaits our human decision. He offers us his grace that makes possible but not obligatory our decision to respond to a transcendent good. Thus our decision may be the meeting ground between nature and grace--an encounter between two liberties. But, as we have already seen, this liberty to ,respond may be conditioned by various factors, notwithstanding our good will and sincere desire to serve God. This is our subjective holiness, the extent to which we actually do respond to grace in spite of our human limits and weaknesses. However, we also have to consider objective holiness--the extent to which we could respond to God if our liberty was less impaired, i.e., if there were less unknown inconsistencies with which we had to struggle.~3 We are responsible within the bounds of subjective holiness because there we know the weaknesses against wfiich we must consciously struggle. Obviously, we are not responsible for what we do not know--our hidden faults and failings--but we are responsible to do what is in our power to become aware of them. This is what the saints tried to do constantly--to become aware of what was formerly hidden from them through reflection, prayer, examen, and so forth. And because they were not defensive, they usually succeeded. Cabrini writes: We shouldn't be surprised at our defects, for such marveling comes from pride, but let us humble ourselves and reflect that they are like windows where the light enters so we can know ourselves better. Only humility is called the beginning of all perfection; why shouldn't our defects help to know ourselves better and become more humble? (Pensieri e PropositL p. 166-167.) Discernment When we consider the object and mode of our choices, we are reminded of St. Ignatius' rules for the discernment of spirits: whether the soul is choosing a real or an apparent good; whether this soul is being drawn by grace or by "evil spirits." How can we discern between these two goods, since nothing is chosen except under the aspect of good? Or, as Lonergan would have it, how can we discern whether we are being drawn by the goods of the "ego-centered self" or the "ego-transcending self"?. It is beyond the scope of this work to comment in detail on the ~-~Luigi M. Rulla, S.J., Joyce Ridick, S.S.C., Franco Imoda, S.J., Entering and Leaving Vocation (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1976), pp. 212-214. 504 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 parallels between Ignatian discernment and modern vocational depth-psychology: the reader is referred to the numerous articles that have appeared recently in this vein)4 Suffice it to say that the real goods of the kingdom are consistent with the revealed objective truths of the gospel and of Church teaching: that they are concerned with discovering and living God's will regardless of the cost, and not our plan for ourselves; and that such goods leave intact or intensify our intimacy with Christ, our acceptance of and living out of his word, even when that entails great sacrifice and hardship. In some cases it is fairly easy to discern the real from the apparent good: at other times we know what God wants even though we feel humanly repulsed by it. Many times, however, the case is not so clear; we can be convinced that God wants something when in reality it is our own inconsistent tendencies that want it. Sometimes we later see and understand our error: sometimes we never discover that truth. St. Ignatius tells us to look for "consolation without cause" following the choice of the real good--and desolation when this is not so. Unfortunately, our emotional weighing of a good to be chosen can be confused by unconscious inconsistencies rendering our emotions unreliable guides. Consolation and desolation do not necessarily identify with pleasure and pain., only when affeetivity is ordered can it in turn become the clue to the direction in which one should go within the myriad good options that surround one's life (Italics mine).~5 Grace or Gratification? We have considered "decision for what?" The issue of "how, under what influence?" is equally important. How do we discern if grace or gratification is what moves us? Certainly, grace moves us in the direction of the real good: our conversion to the will of God and the imitation of Christ. Grace enables us to go beyond our natural desires for natural goods and to take root in a transcendent love of Jesus Christ. Not only does grace make conversion possible (Lonergan's operative grace) but enables us to cooperate with it so as to effect the gradual movement towards a full and complete transformation of the whole of one's living and feeling¯ one's thoughts, words, deeds and omissions.~ But how can we tell if it is really grace at work, or our own needs? There are no litmus tests for the Spirit, no computer analysis which can pin him down. But holy men and women from the dawn of the Christian era have used their spiritual ~'~Luigi M. Rulla, S.J., "The Discernment of Spirits and Christian Anthropology," Gregorianum (Vol. 59, 3: 78), pp. 537-569. Laurence Murphy¯ S.J., "Psychological Problems ~f Christian Choice." The Way, 1~75, pp. 25-28. ¯'Psychological Development," Supplement to 7he Way, n.38 (Summer. 1980), pp. 30-40. Louis Gendron¯ S.J., "The Exercises and Vocational Therapy," Supplement to The Way, n.38 (Summer, 1980), pp. 53-67. ~Michael Buckley¯ S.J., "Rules for the Discernment of Spirits," Supplement to The Way, no.20 (1973), pp. 29-35. ~rBernard J. Lonergan¯ S.J.¯ Method in Theology. 2nd ed. (NY: Herder and Herder. 1973), p. 241. From Tablet to Heart / 505 intuition, the fruits of disponibility to grace, to discern. Rahner, using the most simple and commonplace of means, discerns that only grace can be at work in the following instances: Have we ever kept quiet, even though we wanted to defend ourselves when we had been unfairly treated? Have we ever forgiven someone even though we got no thanks for it and our silent forgiveness was taken for granted? Have we ever obeyed, not because we had to and because otherwise things would have become unpleasant for us, but simply on account of that mysterious, silent incomprehensible being we call God and will?. Have we ever tried to love God when we are no longer being borne on the crest of the wave of enthusiastic feeling, when it is no longer possible to mistake our self. and its vital urges, for God?. Have we ever been good to someone who did not show the slightest sign of gratitude or comprehension and when we also were not rewarded by the feeling of having been "selfless," decent, etc.?~7 It is interesting from a psychological point of view how clearly Rahner sees that an inordinate need for self-esteem can be an obstacle to our growth in grace and holiness: when it is more important for our self-esteem to be boosted up by others' good opinion of us, our own positive evaluation of ourselves, uplifting emotional experiences, and so forth; when it is more important for us to feel good about serving God than simply to serve God for his own sake. Self-esteem is essential; abasement (a helpless sense of inferiority) is a deterrent to growth in holiness. But our self-esteem should be secure enough to withstand at times the lack of external supports and proofs of how good we are. Rahner, in commenting on the latter occasions, goes on to say: If we find such experiences, then we have experienced the spirit., when we let ourselves go in this experience of the spirit, when the tangible and assignable, the relishable element disap-pears, when everything takes on the taste of death and destruction, or when everything disappears as if in an inexpressible white, colorless and intangible beatitude--then in actual fact it is not merely the spirit but the Holy Spirit who is at work in us. Then is the hour of grace . The chalice of the Holy Spirit is identical in this life with the chalice of Christ. This chalice is drunk only by tho~ who have slowly learned in little ways to taste the fullness in emptiness, the ascent in the fall, life in death, the finding in renunciation. Anyone who learns this, experiences the spirit--the pure spirit--and in this experience he is also given the experience of the Holy Spirit of grace.~ Thus we see that evaluating our attitudinal decisions in the light of the spirit has to focus on the object of our choice (real, ego-transcending goods; apparent, ego-centered goods or the whole spectrum inbetween) and on the mode of our choosing (under the influence of grace or of gratification). Our constitutions are a real good, calling for that transcendence which leads to greater assimilation of Christ and consistent living of the gospel. "It is now no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Ga 2:20). Such a transformation can only be possible with the aid of grace, but grace is "God;s action on the psychic structure of man,''~9 and those same psychic structures can also render grace ineffective. ~TKarl Rahner. S.J., "Reflections on the Experience of Grace" in Theological Investigations. Vol. Ill (NY: Seabury Press, 1974), p. 87. ~Slbid. p. 88. ~gRulla, 1971, pp. 167-8. 501~ / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 C. The Philosophical Dimension of Our Attitudinal Decisions The intellect, memory and will have traditionally been the principal faculties of man which have concerned the great philosophical theorists of the past. Modern thinkers have elaborated on the traditional criteria and begun to determine other intervening variables which must also be considered. Their contributions can be enlightening in our search for greater understanding of our attitudinal decisions. Lonergan20 analyzes the conscious operations of man to see how conscious decisions are reached, as summarized in this chart: Level of Faculty Operation Product Consciousness Senses Registration of empirical sense data Perception Empirical cs. Intellect Understanding (inquiry) Hypothesis Intelligent cs. Judgment (critical reflection) Validated insight Rational cs. Will Will: willing; willingness Decision Responsible cs. Decisions are built upon all the preceding conscious operations. Our intellect not only takes what has been perceived (level of experience) to inquire ("What is it?") and reach a hypothesis ("! think it's X!'), but also judges ("Was that fight?") to validate the original insight ("No, it was a Y!'). Only then do we, according to Lonergan, reach the level of responsibility where we can make a decision (therefore, I'll . . .). In reality, for example, a feeling of unrest (sense data) gets tentatively tagged ("Maybe I'm angry"), then validated ("As a matter of fact, I'm furious!'), before reaching a decision ("1'11 try to get hold of this, see what's causing it and not just attack the first person in sight!'). "An admirable decision!" we might say, but it is not one that occurs automatically. Lonergan's four steps are clear, but they do not explain why the resulting decisions could be so different from person to person. We can fail to come to a correct hypothesis of the same sense data ("They're all against me!"), fail to validate it properly ("As a matter of fact, they're figuring out how to get rid of me!"), and so come tb a completely different decision ("1"11 get even--I'll outsmart them all!'). In this example, it is obvious that emotion acted as intervening factor to distort the appropriateness of our final decision even if the four operations remained the same. To help us resolve this dilemma, Lonergan distinguishes at the level of respon-sibility between will, i.e., the bare capacity to make a decision, exercised or not; willing, i.e., the act of deciding; and willingness, i.e., a readiness to decide that does not need persuasion to bring it about.2~ Obviously, there are some objective goods -'°Lonergan, Method. pp. 6-16. __, Insight: A Study of Human Understandingo(I,ondon: I_ongmans Green, 1958), pp. 271- 278; 608-616. Ibid., pp. 622-23. From Tablet to Heart / 507 that we might be more reluctant to choose than others. This reluctance of ours is our lack of '~antecedent willingness." The whole issue of freedom is concerned here--not just essential freedom which is innately given to our nature, but even more important for our discussion, our effective freedom, i.e., "the broad or narrow., operation range" which this essential freedom can exercise.22 But, according to Lonergan, one of the requirements for effective freedom is precisely that antecedent willingness of which we have been speaking. Furthermore, Loner-gan sees grace as directly affecting this antecedent willingness,23 the grace of sincere effort even without guarantees of successful outcome. Finally, antecedent willing-ness is directly affected in conversion: To religious conversion. I would ascribe as a minimum two notes: First. it is a change in one's antecedent willingness: one becomes antecedently willing to do the good that previously one was unwilling to do . 24 And yet how do we become antecedently willing to do the good? What is there that prevents our passage into that state of mind and heart? What more must be considered? Rulla makes some useful comments when he considers the interrelationship of personal dispositions, affective and effective, on Lonergan's four conscious opera-tions. As in the previous!y quoted example, emotions originating from needs may influence our perception of X, our first hypothesis concerning X, and our judg-ment concerning our first impression. Emotions and human needs can befuddle us enough when they are conscious; the situation is even more serious when our needs and the subsequent emotions are unconscious and, therefore, even more influential on how we judge a situation. Hence, affective dispositions, whether conscious or unconscious, influence effective dispositions (and especially antecedent willingness) that lead to decision-making. With antecedent willingness thus limited, our effec-tive freedom is also limited, with the result that our emotions resulting from our needs (especially when unconscious) can form the single most effective barrier to God's gift of conversion. Our resistance to cooperative grace can render the gift ineffective. D. The Psychological Dimension of Our Attitudinal Decisions We have looked at the process of decision-making from the point of view of grace on the one hand, and our will on the other. What remains is to see in what way psychology can complement and round out what we have already seen. Magda Arnoldz5 has devoted her life to a phenomenological analysis of emo- "-'-Ibid., p. 619. 23Bernard J. Lonergan. S.J. Foundations of Theology: McShane. ed. (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan¯ 1971), p. 226. ~'~Lonergan, Method, p. 241. ~Magda Arnold¯ Feelings and F~notions (NY: Academic Press, 1970). ¯ Emotion and Personality. II Vol. (NY: Columbia, 1960). 501~ / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 tion, especially in its influence on choice, will, and action. Her work is both scientifically sound, value-oriented, and appreciative of our transcendent dimen-sion. Arnold maintains that all choice--even of the most transcendent goods-- usually involves an emotional component which normally is derived from a basic human need on the psycho-biological and/or psycho-social level. Actually, truly human decision-making is a secondary possibility that follows from a more primi-tive instinctual movement. In this earlier phase, something is perceived, and immediately appraised, in a spontaneous, involuntary manner, as "good or bad for me here and now," i.e., as appealing to a basic instinct or need. Usually a spon-taneous emotion of attraction or withdrawal is the result. Emotional Wanting Three additional factors enter into this intuitive appraisal or emotional warn-ing. The first is the physiological reaction which accompanies normal emotion, e.g., changes in cardiac and/or respiratory functions, changes in hormone and enzyme secretions, tensing/relaxing of voluntary and involuntary muscles (from which the whole gamut of psycho-physiological disease can emerge). Often, if we are insensitive to our emotional states, our bodily changes may be the first indica-tions we will have--although we may remain in the dark as to the source of our physical discomfort. The second element in intuitive appraisal has already been indirectly noted, i.e., that we may be unaware of the emotional reaction which is taking place. Two components may become involved here, either the object of the emotion (e.g., at whom I am angry) or the experience of the emotion itself (e.g., the fact that I am angry). In either case, my defenses have arisen so that part of what I am subjec-tively experiencing becomes lost to my awareness even though it continues to influence me. The further pity is that I can no longer do anything about it and will remain enslaved to an unknown factor. In this case, I can no longer exercise my capacity for conscious choice (e.g., what ! am going to do about my anger). The reason behind my lack of awareness (partial or total) of my emotional state may involve the third factor, "affective memory." Memory involves not only the who, what, when. and how of the past (modality-specific memory), but also the specific feelings which that event or person aroused in me, e.g., fear, attraction, hatred, inferiority (affective memory). It is quite possible for the modality-specific dimension to drop from awareness behind the defensive barricade while the affec-tive dimension is being aroused time and time again--explaining why, for exam-ple, I continually have the same angry reaction towards authority figures, since my affective memory is being stirred up in each case. Hence, this emotion-laden deposit may be a hidden factor which predetermines me towards/away from a particular decision/course of action. The connection between Arnold's affective memory and Lonergan's antecedent willingness should be apparent. Furthermore, when mention was made in the previous section of the affective dispositions which influence Lonergan's conscious operations, it was precisely this issue of emotional wanting and affective memory that was meant. From Tablet to Heart / 509 Rational Wanting Are we, then, to remain a slave to our emotional vagaries and to the needs from which they spring? No, for Arnold has determined that a second phase of the decisional process may follow the first. 1 say "may" because I can stop at the level of emotional wanting ("l want it/l don't want it") and mislake that for a real decision. Certainly, animals and small children have no further possibilities, but as we chronologically mature, our capacity for reflective appraisal or rational want-ing should mature also. Here, what is appraised and judged is the emotional reaction and its accompanying tendency: "OK, I feel that way! now what am 1 going to do about it?" Here, the possibility for a real decision, not just an emo-tional reaction, occurs. The emotion and its source is consciously and calmly accepted, but we remain in control to decide whether or not to follow the emo-tional tendency. Here we move beyond our spontaneous reactions to the possibil-ity of free choice: if human needs from our actual-self were the source of the initial emotional movement, we can contrast and weigh them against the values, ideals, and commitments of our ideal-self Here, Lonergan's true level of responsibility has been reached, because we can truly take hold of the movement of our lives and give it responsible shape. Either form of decisions can prevail in a given life, either the pseudo-decisions of emotional wanting, or the true decisions of reflective judgment and rational wanting. In the first case we have the child, the immature adult--the man of James' epistle who looks at himself "and then, after a quick look, goes off and immediately forgets." In the second case, we have the man who looks steadily at the perfect law of freedom and makes that his habit--not listening and then forgetting, but actively putting it into practice (Jm 1:25). This is a portrait of a consistent individual who knows and integrates both needs and values in an increasingly mature and transcendent life-style. Not only must we respond appropriately to our human affectivity, but we must also be open to feel increasingly attracted to transcendent goods as well--intimacy with Jesus and the desire to imitate him, which is the hallmark of the emotional integration and affective maturity of the saints. The understanding., is moved by affection [which] is love's hand. and this hand fills the memory with thoughts of me and of the blessings 1 have given . IT]he soul cannot live without love. She always wants to love something, because love is the stuff she is made of ICatherine of Siena, The Dialogue. 51). What Function Does This Value Have in My Life? Obviously we form habits of reaction or decision-making in both emotional wanting and rational wanting. Pervasive attitudes are being established which form a matrix of"readiness to respond" in the direction of our needs/emotions or of our values and their attractiveness. Hence the phrase "attitudinal decisions," since each decision that we make is based" on the foundation of our previous attitudes, emotional wantings and rational wantings, known and unknown. 5"10 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 Let us focus more closely on this all-important attitudinal factor. We have myriads of attitudes--beliefs about this or that person, the community, the super-ior, the ministry in which I am engaged, the responsibility which 1 might be asked to assume. The basic components which underlie this multitude are more limited since our attitude towards any particular object is shaped largely by our needs or by our values; hence we may speak of emotional attitudes or rational attitudes (with the obvious admixtures). Like emotions, we may be aware or unaware of a particular attitude--or at least of the source behind it. Katz26 has determined that not only is the content of an attitude important (e.g., "working for social justice is the only worthwhile apostolate for me"), but important also is why that attitude is held, i.e., the function, known or unknown, which it plays in my life. Hence Katz demonstrates that attitudes (and values as well) may fulfill, among others, the following functions: an ego-d~fensive.function: I need to work with the poor and down-trodden to lift up my own sense of inferiority and feel good about myself. a utilitarian.function: Social justice is the stated concern of our hierarchy, and identifying with that will help me get a particular appointment I desire. Obviously, few of us can be that direct and honest about our motivations (although, with help, we could come to conclusions concerning our real intentions, and then be in a position to do something about it). Sadly enough, research27 shows that the more needy and conflictual we are a) the more we will act according to one of these aforementioned functions, and b) the more we will unconsciously protect ourselves from that knowledge, leading to a vicious circle which is not easily broken. Finally, we may espouse an attitude because of its value-expressive function: in spite of the discomforts and difficulties involved, ! think Jesus Christ is calling me to work directly with the poor without self-seeking or self-righteousness. Obviously even when struggling to maintain "a pure intention," motives get mixed, The difficulty lies in the situation where we are unaware of the mixture and, therefore, unable to choose otherwise; where we are so convinced that only the value-expressive function moves us that we never honestly look at other possibilities. A Deeper Look Into Compliance, Identification, Internalization To tie up this discussion of attitudes with our earlier considerations of the self from which these attitudes proceed, we must remember that in a structured self these tendencies towards the predominance of emotional over rational wanting (or vice versa) or towards the prevalence of ego-defensive or utilitarian functions of attitudes/values all form stable structures, enduring inner patterns which lead to -'nDaniel Katz. "The Functional Approach to the Study of Attitudes" in Readings in Attitude Theory and Measurement. Fishbein. ed. (NY: Wiley, 1967), pp. 457-468. aTRulla, Ridick and Imoda. 1976, pp. 77-80. From Tablet to Heart / 511 persistent behaviors that may or may not enhance the vowed following of Christ. Another psychic structure to which we have previously referred was the tendency to adapt new attitudes]values through compliance, identification or internaliza-tion. 2s It would seem advantageous to examine these tendencies more deeply. Kelman theoretically distinguishes them as follows: compliance is the predom-inant mode when we adopt a new attitude]value leading consciously or uncon-sciously to a particular behavior in order to gain a reward or avoid punishment, i.e., a satisfying or disappointing social effect on a significant other or others. We do not behave in that way or proclaim that value unless others are there to witness it. We do not believe in the content of the value or behavior for its own sake. In identification, we do believe in the value/behavior, but only because it is relevant in the context of a satisfying relationship to a person or a group. I identify with my friend Fr. X who believes in]does Y: or, 1 am happy to be a member of Group A which believes in and practices B. "Being a friend of," or "belonging to" is my chief source of satisfaction and self-esteem, not the belief or practice in itself. When X is no longer my friend, or no longer cares about Y: when my role as member of A is no longer attractive, or when A tells me that B ispassb, then 1 have no reason to continue believing in and living that value, and it will quietly be extinguished from my life. Finally, in internalization, we accept and live the value for its own sake, apart from punishment or reward, apart from roles or relationship. We believe in it and manifest it, whether it is popular or unpopular, "welcome or unwelcome" (2 Tm 4:1). I will serve God with all the faithfulness of which I am capable--not for the reward promised nor for the sake of the threats against those who are unfaithful--but for the pure love of him (Frances Cabrini, Pensieri e Propositi, p. 170). How clearly Cabrini rejected any lesser motivation than internalization, acting only for the pure love of God! We are called to do the same. In Katz's terms, the attitude/value is lived in a value-expressive way, and not in a utilitarian or ego-defensive fashion, as would be the case for compliance and identification. Rulta has made some important distinctions and additions to Kelman's theo-retical foundation. First of all, identification is really an ambivalent force, since it may lead us in time to an appreciation of the value in itself, apart from the relationship or role. Most of us began religious life identifying with the group or a particular person: only in time can it be seen if our initial identification leads forward to internalization of values, or remains bound up in non-internalizing identification. Secondly, external social influences are not the only factors at work in these three processes. There are also internal personal factors, especially those hidden in our latent selves, which dispose us to react to the environment in certain structured ways. Thirdly, true internalization for Rulla is not just a matter of any -'SHerbert Kelman. "Processes of Opinion Change," Public Opinion Quarterly (.Vol. 25, 1961). pp. 57-78. 512 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 value, no matter how fervently espoused, but of values which are objective and true. To achieve this, therefore, there must be a double consistency, my actual-self with my ideal-self, and my personal values with the objective values of Christ and the Church. In other words, 1 must have come sufficiently to know and accept my real self, so that I can then be attracted to, and be converted in reality to the values of Christ. Thus does affective maturity in Christ become possible: "knowing and accepting one's objective and free self-ideal and living it."~9 So far, we have proposed a number of problems and pitfalls that can occur when subjective attitudinal decisions meet the objective truth of our new constitu-tions. What can be done about this? In what direction must our attitudes change to effect the true internalization that we all seek? As it can be suspected, whatever tentative answers do exist are neither altogether new, nor will they provide an easy panacea. However. in the second part of this article 1 will try to provide a frame-work that may be useful in clarifying such a task. -"~Rulla, 1971, p. 182. The" Activ e-Co nte m pl a tiv e' Problem in Religious Life by David M. Knight Price: $.75 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Poverty and Incarnation John J. O'Donnell, S.J. Father O'Donnell is a Lecturer in Christian Doctrine at Heythrop College: 11-13 Cavendish Square: London WIM 0AN. A Jesuit friend once confessed that he could honestly say that he wanted to be chaste and obedient, but he could not honestly desire to be poor. This attitude probably reflects the attitude of many Christians. After the Second Vatican Coun-cil with its affirmation of secular values and its admission that building this world contributes to the growth of God's kingdom, many Christians desired to turn away from an other-worldly spirituality, symbolized dramatically by external practices of asceticism and poverty. Interestingly enough, however, even the few intervening years since Vatican II have revealed that the gospel does not allow such an easy settlement with the issue of poverty. From the opening descriptions of Jesus' humble origins in a tiny, utterly insignificant corner of the Roman empire, to his final moments on the cross, abandoned by his people, his disciples and even the God whom he called Abba, Jesus is indeed poor. No doubt some elements of the gospel story, such as the stable at Bethlehem, have been sentimentalized. But even a non-believer such as Ernst Bloch acknowledges that we cannot demythologize the poverty of the historical Jesus. He writes, "The stable, the carpenter's son, the fanatic among the humble people, the.gallows at the end, all this is the stuff of history, not the gold of fable." Furthermore, if the life of Jesus manifests such a restlessness for the kingdom that he is the man who has nowhere to lay his head, his preaching as well points to the poor man as the one who is in the right situation to grasp the message of God's kingdom. At the heart of the New Testament is the beatitude whose original form according to Scripture scholars is closer to the Lucan version: "Blessed are you poor." It is the literal poor who are in a position to grasp what Jesus is about. The 513 5"1~1 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 woes of Jesus upon the rich are full of pathos. Tragically the wealthy are in the wrong life-situation to grasp the good news of Jesus. The only hope for such people is to sell all that they have and give it to the poor. As St. Luke puts it, "Sell your possessions and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Lk 12:33-34). In pointing to the heart, St. Luke touches upon the ultimate danger of riches. The man who piles up material things becomes a slave to the mentality of having so that he is no longer free to be himself. He so identifies himself with what he has that he is no longer free to be open to receive God's gift. God can only give his kingdom to the man who is poor enough to want to receive. Therefore, St. Luke's attitude to material things is to get rid of them as encumbrances to that openness necessary for accepting the good news. The gospel attitude to poverty operates on two levels. There is no escaping the fact that Jesus recommends real poverty but real poverty is for the sake of spiritual poverty. The latter is the ultimate goal but we deceive ourselves if we think we can achieve the one without the other. Bonhoeffer, in meditating upon the story of the rich young man in the gospels, suggests the kind of rationalization which we are all prone to make: "Jesus may have said: 'Sell thy goods', but he meant 'Do not let it be a matter of consequence to you that you have outward prosperity: rather keep your goods quietly, having them as if you had them not. Let not your heart be in your goods.'" Bonhoeffer rightly comments that such rationalizations prevent us from submitting to that single-mip, ded obedience to the word of the Lord which he demands. If Jesus demands both real and spiritual poverty from his followers, he has himself first embodied both these dimensions of poverty in his own life. The actual poverty of the man who began life in the stable and ended it on the gallows points to the spiritual poverty of the man for others, the one who loses his life to find it, who loves his own to the end. The actual poverty of Jesus thus points to the deeper poverty of his entire being. As Son of the Father he has nothing of his own. It is literally his nature to receive his entire being from his heavenly Father. And all that he receives he passes on in turn to his disciples. "All that 1 have heard from my Father I have made known to you" (Jn 15:15). The deepest poverty of Jesus then is the poverty which he has at the heart of the Trinity, a poverty which reveals itself in the incarnation. Grasping and possess-ing are so alien to his being that even his equality with God is not something to be clung to. Rather, as Paul says, Jesus emptied himself taking the form of a servant. He divests himself even of the form of his divinity. Paul sees that there is a logic which binds incarnation and poverty together. For what the incarnation means is precisely this: "He who was rich, for our sake became poor" (2 Co 8:9). And as the apostle further perceived, the sharing of our humanity contains already within it the risk of our rejection and the shadow of the cross. What then does this poverty of Christ mean for us, men and women of the Poverty and Incarnation / 515 twentieth century, who desire to be his disciples? Fundamentally it would seem that we are required, as Paul says, to put on the mind of Christ. The heart of his mentality is, as the incarnation attests, the self-emptying love of the servant of others. Matthew no doubt grasped this .point accurately when he modified the first beatitude to read: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." But poverty of spirit without actual poverty would be a rationalization and compromise of the gospel. For there is no way around the stumbling block that the God of Jesus is a God who is a partisan of the poor, the defender of the widow and the orphan, the champion of the oppressed, the seeker of the lost. God has identified himself with the outcast and those on the margins of respectability. The irrevocable event of this identification is the cross of the Jesus who died con-demned as a blasphemer and a rebel. In this event it becomes transparently clear that power-seeking is utterly alien to the being of God. This is the stumbling block which shatters the illusion that we can create an identity by grasping and self-assertion. The gospel proclaims that the weakness of God is stronger than men. If a man is truly grasped by this gospel, he cannot do otherwise than divest himself of possessions, not because he despises material things but because he is as restless as Jesus for the kingdom. And knowing who God is he wants to identify himself where God has identified himself, with the poor and the oppressed. It is not just a question of helping others. It is a question of identification. The man who believes the gospel of Jesus about the kingdom, who believes the gospel about the cross literally finds God hidden under His contrary in the ongoing suffering of the world. And here is perhaps the greatest challenge facing the contemporary disciple. There was a time when the gospel could be preached and understood in more individualistic categories. The neighbor with whom Christ identified was the man next door, the poor and needy of the village, other members of my family. But today it is impossible to identify with my neighbor unless I think in global terms. Our planet has become so small and the network of relationships so intertwined that one inevitably bears a responsibility for the suffering of men and women everywhere in the world. In 1980 the Brandt commission reported such statistics as the following: the northern hemisphere including Eastern Europe has a quarter of the world's population and four-fifths of its income: the southern hemisphere including China has three billion people, three quarters of the world's population but living on one-fifth of the world's income. Eight hundred million people are estimated to be destitute in the Third World today. It is estimated that hundreds of millions die from lack of food or will have their physical development impaired. The consumption of energy per head in industrialized countries compared to middle-income or low-income countries is in proportion of 100:10:1. Total military expenditures are approaching $450 billion a year, of which over half is spent by the Soviet Union and the United States, while annual spending on official develop-ment aid is only $20 billion. One could argue that such statistics reveal an injustice of tragic proportions according to the norms of any humanistic ethics. But for a Christian it is more 516 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 than a question of justice. It is the logic of God's love which impels him. If God's being is self-emptying love, if his preferential love is for the poor and powerless, then the disciple who accepts this transvaluation of all ~?alues cannot help but be in deep pain as he is assaulted by the suffering cries of the millions of the poor of the earth. He cannot help but want to identify with them and their plight, for he sees God's face in them. The more deeply one penetrates the mystery of the God of Christian faith, the more one sees the intrinsic connection of the incarnation and the cross. For incarnation is God's identification with creatureliness, finitude, powerlessness. And the ultimate consequence of this identification is the powerlessness of God in the cross of Jesus. To accept Jesus and his Father implies our taking this same powerlessness upon ourselves and our identification with the powerless of the earth. Paradoxically the more one loves this world, the more one is led in love to divest oneself of this world's goods in order to identify more completely with the dispossessed. In our own time it would seem that an authentic Christian spiritual-ity will call not for less poverty but for more. Meditating upon the massive proportions of human suffering, we cannot help but feel compelled to pray not only for the spiritual poverty of self-emptying love but for the grace to identify with the fate of the actually poor as well. The Contemporary Spirituality Of the Monastic Lectio .by Matthias Neurnan, O.S.B. Price: $.50 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Room 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Parables and Paradigms: Jesus' Journey and the Search for God Anthony Wieczorek, O.Praem. Brother Wieczorek, a seminarian, has taught courses on prayer and mysticism in the Continuing Education Department at Cardinal Stritch College (Milwaukee) and the Ministry and Life Center at his abbey: he lectures at St. Norbert College (De Pete). He resides in St. Norbert Abbey: De Pere. WI 54115. Scripture is the saga of a long and mutual search. God encourages and empow-ers all people to "seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us, for 'in him we live and move and have our being.'" (Ac 18:27-28: all Scripture verses are from the RSV). At the same time as we search for God, he searches for us. So much the searcher is God, so great is his longing for us, that "though he was in the form of God, he did not deem equality with God a thing to be grasped, rather he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant" (Ph 2:6). God gives us an example of how to find him and be found by him in the life of the God-man, Jesus. Nowhere is the search in all its varied hues of meaning, or the spiritual life in all its mysterious rhythms, more clearly seen than in the life of Jesus, the Proto- Searcher. The life of Jesus is itself a parable and paradigm which describes the ebb and flow of the search for God in true fullness and balance. Some insight into the movements of the spiritual life can be gleaned from the following section of Mark's gospel. In those days Jesu~ came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when hc came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opencd and the Spirit dcsccnding upon him like a dove: and a voice came from heaven: "'You are my beloved son: with you I am well pleased." The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days. tempted by Satan: and he was with the wild beasts: and the angels ministered to him. 517 5"11~ / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee. preaching the gospel of God. and saying: "'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent and believe in the gospel." That evening at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered together about the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons: and he would not allow the demons to speak, because they knew him. And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose and went out to ~ lonely place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him pursued him, and they found him and said to him: ~'E\'ery one is searching for you." And he said to them: "l,et us go on to the next town. that I may preach there also: for that is why I came out"(Mk 1:9-15, 32-38). At least three movements with regard to the spiritual life are visible from this text: the journey of the Father to the Son (Jesus' baptism): the journey of the Son to the Father (Jesus" flight into the wilderness): and the journey of the Father with the Son (Jesus' return to Galilee). The Journey of the Father to the Son In Jesus' baptism the Father reached out to touch his Son. It is always God who initiates the search. Our search is a response to a search on the part of God. We seek and find because we have first been sought and found. What drew Jesus on to the Jordan'? May it not be the same as what draws us on to search for God? For a few, the spiritual life begins with an overwhelming experience of God's presence, an experience powerful enough to sustain them for years of diligent and serious searching. St. Paul's experience of the Risen Christ may be one such example. Many of us, though, are like Augustine. We search out of a want, a need, a hunger for something we do not possess or perhaps even know. God oftentimes initiates the spiritual life with a gift of hunger and longing, with emptiness rather than fullness. We are led on by the reality of our own emptiness. We may not know what we want but we know what we don't have. God some-times initiates the search with an itch. There is a wisdom in this that is often overlooked. The emptiness in which we find ourselves contributes to a condition of desperateness. No one is more ripe or willing to attempt an unheard-of cure or course of action than one who is truly desperate. Only one who has been readied by emptiness, hunger, and longing can respond to the impossible call of following God. Sometimes that hunger can build for years. Or, it may suddenly poke into consciousness even in lives which, in the eyes of the world, should be quite content and satisfied. For example, more and more people feel drawn to religious life during their middle-years, or at least at an age later than had been the norm. Whether their decision to pursue a religious life was a sudden thing or the result of many years of discernment, their choice to abandon one way of life and follow another is a response to a summons that is as persistent as it is intangible. Perhaps it is no accident that Jesus was well into adulthood when he was Parables and Paradigms / 5"19 .baptized. Maybe Jesus had tried to put off his call? Maybe Jesus was drawn to the Jordan by a hunger he had always had but which the Scribes and Pharisees could not satisfy? Jesus' baptism was itself the result of a search: it was the culmination of a decision to believe. Jesus' baptism was a surrender to the Father which involved the acceptance of a call and the attempt at a response. Therefore, Jesus' baptism was the beginning of another search to understand what the Father wanted of him. For Jesus, as for us, the completion of one search--the decision to believe--led to the commencement of another: what form of response is our belief to take? The Journey of the Son into the Father How strongly it is put in Mark's gospel, "The Spirit immediately drove him into the wilderness." Yet, it is not hard to imagine being so overwhelmed by an experience. There have been times in each of our lives when we felt swept away by the devotion of a friend, by an act of love, by a singular twist of fate. Overwhelm-ing experiences often leave us puzzled or speechless as well as joyous and grateful. Afterwards, we feel the need to wander off for a bit, to be alone to consider what really happened and ponder the reasons and implications for our lives. Jesus was overwhelmed at his baptism. The Spirit that drove him into the wilderness was bestowed through the power of God's presence, a presence that possessed him and forced him to try to understand more fully what had happened. The flight of Jesus into the desert can be seen as his search to understand the experience of his baptism. Our response to any situation is mediated by our understanding of what took place. To understand something, though, is not primarily to know about it objec-tively. To understand means to enter into another reality. Understanding does not refer to the ability to master the secret of some mystery. Rather, to truly under-stand someone or something, it is necessary to surrender oneself to it. to pass into it, to participate in it from the inside. When Jesus went into the wilderness he sought the time and space to under-stand the reality of what had happened at the Jordan, to enter into it, to submit himself to it. By leaving his former life behind and going out into the wilderness, Jesus was saying "yes" (2 Co I: 19) to the possibility of entering into a new life. His quest for understanding involved his submission to faith, his entrance into faith, and his participation in the presence and activity .of the Father. The understanding Jesus attained was the understandiffg available only to those who know through loving. Through the bond of love people can know not only what others are thinking but also what is in their hearts. It is by loving that we enter into the life of another, that we can acquire "inside" understanding. Such understanding cannot be earned or purchased: it is the free gift of one person's self-revelation to another. The knowing that comes from loving comes from open-ing up and sharing the heart of another. At Jesus' baptism, the Father opened up his heart to the Son. Jesus' wilderness journey was a searching through the Father's heart. Such a journey can only be made if the giving and revealing are mutual. Therefore, Jesus had to open his heart to the Father. However, by doing 520 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 so he opened it to himself as well. We cannot know God and participate in his life if we remain strangers to ourselves. Understanding comes by loving, and loving is a mutual and freely given gift. If we want to know God and search through his heart we must be willing for the same thing to be done to us. But God will not enter where he is not welcomed. We must guide God through our own hearts, even though they are foreign and frightening. In making a commitment to know God, we make a commitment to know ourselves. The search for God will bring us face to face with reality, with the truth about ourselves. When he shows us himself, God also discloses the truth about ourselves. We cannot hide from one without hiding from the other. We cannot know the one without knowing the other. The wild beasts among whom Jesus lived (Mk 1:13) were not all external creatures. Jesus would have also lived with all the urgings and desires of himself. Luke's gospel brings out some of this in his temptation account (4: I- 13). Jesus had to accept even the beasts within him and we are called to do the same. To spend time alone with God means spending time alone with ourselves in the haunts and wilds of our own hearts. There can be no conversion if we do not first know the truth about ourselves, both our strengths and weaknesses. The Journey of the Father with the Son In the third movement of his spiritual life, the tide which drew Jesus into the wilderness now leads him back. It .is important to see Jesus' return to the people of Galilee not as a separate mission but as a continuation of the one search that led him into the wilderness. The spiritual life as lived by Jesus is not an individual venture, not merely a way of achieving personal self-fulfillment. It is, rather, a way of responsible involve-ment in the lives of others, a life of compassion and service. The temptation we face is to view the spiritual life as a "me and Jesus"enterprise which lifts us beyond the troubles of life. To live as Jesus lived, however, is to live in the service of the whole human family. We characterize the spiritual life as one of serene detachment, blissful tran-scendence from the everyday world. This is not Jesus" spirituality. He did not leave the wilderness to complete his search in even greater isolation. He returned to Galilee because only there could he fully live the search. Only by participating in the life of the world could he enter fully into the life of God. Jesus' search drew him into deeper participation in the love of the Father. God is not a God who remains untroubled by the plight of his people. He is not an indifferent God. Throughout the Old Testament, God continually acts within the realm of history to redeem Israel by empowering people to meet the challenges of the times. The God of Jesus is the God who raised up Moses to lead his people out of slavery. God took Moses out of the solitary life of shepherding and thrust him into the very heart of the social and political arena of his day--even though Moses claimed he Parables and Paradigms / 521 was not equal to the task. The same was true for the Judges who led the people out of the threat of military conquest. God also empowered the prophets to speak on his behalf, taking, in the case of Amos, a vine dresser and making of him a missioner who confronted the social and religious injustice of the northern kingdom. We misunderstand the spiritual life if we sit back and wait until our spiritual lives are all in order before we enter the world of human needs. God takes the weak and makes them strong (I Co 1:27). He begins our transformation in the crucible of solitude but, for most of us, completes it in the arena of apostolic involvement. It was after John had been arrested that Jesus returned to Galilee. To be sure, Jesus considered John a prophet. Did Jesus feel called to "take up the torch" carried by John'? The search of Jesus led him into the responsibility of loving, as the Father loves. The return of Jesus to Galilee was response of love, not only toward the Father, but to all those whom the Father loved. Notice that Jesus came to Galilee, to the home of the outcast and oppressed, to empower the little people, to assure them they had not been forgotten by the Father. Jesus preached with both word and deed. He spoke and acted out of the Father's love. He proclaimed the fullness of time, the passing of the old age, the coming of the kingdom. He taught the necessity of conversion, of turning our lives around to face God (Jr 7:24). He proclaimed a kingdom where faith replaces distrust, love replaces the equity of finance, and understanding replaces judgment. To follow in Jesus' way, we are meant to be heralds and healers, echoing the Word with the quality of our lives. The healing Jesus brought answered a need that went much deeper than bodily illness. The town that gathered about his door (Mk 1:33) sought someone to heal them of doubt; he gave them someone to believe in. They needed to be healed of confusion: he gave them understanding. They needed to be healed from prejudice: he gave them love. They needed to be healed of their aimlessness: he gave them a way to follow. He healed them and so made them ready to undertake his own search. He restored their sight that they might see the way. He gave strength to their limbs to ready them for the march. He expelled the demons which bound them in fear to an age out of which they were afraid to pass. It must have been quite a switch from the solitude of the wilderness for Jesus to have found himself surrounded by demanding people. Yet, despite that switch, Jesus' ministry was a continuation of his interior search to follow the Father. He had .journeyed far down the road of faith during that day of preaching and healing. It is no surprise that Mark describes Jesus going out to a lonely place and praying (Mk 1:35). He had come a long way in a short time: from carpenter to hermit to preacher and healer. What went on within his heart? Had Jesus left the wilderness expecting to be a local prophet like John'? Had the need of the crowd spoken to Jesus of a new sense of ministry? God acted upon Jesus no less in his ministry than in the solitude. The scene may have changed but the voice still called. But what did it say? How had the new 522 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1982 forum altered the message? One step leads to another but where does the path lead? Where does the journey end? What is the price we must pay for following a whisper? Did these questions plague Jesus as they do those who follow him? For whatever reason, Jesus sought out the wilderness to again comprehend what had happened. He needed time to pray and reflect and understand where the Spirit had taken him and where he was to go. Blazing a trail is a much different matter than simply following one. We too need to withdraw from time to time to ponder the advents of the Lord in our lives. How has he spoken? What did he say? The voice is rarely so clear as to leave us certain. God speaks through daily events, but what does he say? Moreover, the hectic pace of life can cloud our sense of vision and distort our perception of the call. Living leaves us tired and numb. So many other issues seem more pressing than our private prayer. Amid the myriad tragedies of life, the pointless suffering and rampant injustices, how can we continue to thank and praise God? Life points more to the absence of God than to his presence. All this points to the necessity of continuing the search in the solitude of our hearts. The spiritual life is a relationship and no relationship is maintenance free. We need time for prayer and reflection if our spiritual life is to continue growing. It is no secret what happens in a marriage when the lines of communication falter and break down. Yet the time for prayer and solitude with the Lord is not simply a time to be "recharged," as though the Spirit were but a battery which served as a power source for our personal ministry. Our time alone is more than a time to be recharged; it is a time to grow in relationship with God, to share with him person to person. We withdraw for solitude out of the longing of lover for beloved. Jesus' solitude was interrupted by Simon's statement: "Everyone is searching for you." This was a time of decision for Jesus. He could stay where he was and let the people flock to him. Yet, this was not enough, he could not wait for them to find him. "Let us go out into the next town, that I may preach there also: for that is why ! came out" (Mk 1:38). A moment of insight, perhaps, when Jesus understood why he had left the serenity of his solitude with the Father and undertaken to come out and serve the people? He had left the wilderness not only to be found but to seek out and find a people who had become lost and scattered. Jesus, the Searcher- God, saw his mission as a search for the very people who sought him. He would not remain in one place as though he were the end of the search--he was the Way, the proto-type of searching. Those who followed him would be led by his light and come into the truth. He would tell them the way to go and show them the way to follow. The Son would become the shepherd, leading the Father's flocks back into their own pasture